Part 8

And, lo! a voice before me Kept calling constantly The hopes my heart accepted, My mind refused to see-- Of one I loved and loved not, Whose spirit spake to me.

This way the one would bid me; This way the other saith:-- Sweet is the voice behind me Of Life that followeth; And sweet the voice before me Of Life whose name is Death.

STORM

I looked into the night and saw God writing with tumultuous flame Upon the thunder’s front of awe,-- As on sonorous brass,--the Law, Terrific, of His judgment name.

Weary of all life’s best and worst, With hands of hate, I--who had pled, I, who had prayed for death at first And had not died--now stood and cursed God, yet He would not strike me dead.

TIME AND DEATH AND LOVE

Last night I watched for Death-- So sick of life was I!-- When, in the street beneath, I heard his watchman cry The hour, while passing by.

I called. And in the night I heard him stop below, His owlish lanthorn’s light Blurring the windy snow-- How long the time and slow!

I said, “Why dost thou cower There at my door and knock? Come in! It is the hour! Cease fumbling at the lock! Naught’s well! ’Tis no o’clock!”

Black through the door with him Swept in the Winter’s breath; His cloak was great and grim-- But he who smiled beneath Had the face of Love not Death.

A PHANTASY

I know not where I found you With your wild hair a-blow, Nor why the world around you Would never let me know: Perhaps ’twas Heaven relented; Perhaps ’twas Hell resented My hope, and grimly vented Its hate upon me so.

In Shadowland I met you Where all life’s shadows meet; Within my heart I set you, A woman bitter-sweet: No hope for me to win you, Though I with soul and sinew Strove on and on, when in you There was no heart or heat.

Still always, aye, and ever, Although I knew you lied, I followed on, but never Would your fair form abide: With loving arms stretched meward, As Sirens beckon seaward To some frail vessel leeward, Before me you would glide.

But like an evil fairy, That mocks one with a light, Now near, you led your airy, Now far, your fitful flight: With red-gold tresses blowing, And eyes of sapphire glowing, With raiment white and flowing, You lured me through the night.

To some unearthly revel Of mimes, a motley crew, ’Twixt Angel-land and Devil-, You lured me on, I knew, And lure me still! soft whiling The way with hopes beguiling, While dark Despair sits smiling Behind the eyes of you.

WHEREFORE

I would not see, yet must behold The lie they preach in church and hall; And question thus,--Is death then all, And life an idle tale that’s told?

The myriad wonders art hath wrought Men deem eternal as God’s love: No more than shadows these shall prove, And insubstantial, too, as thought.

And love and labor, who have gone, Hand in close hand, and civilized The wilderness, these shall be prized No more than if they had not done.

Then wherefore strive? Why strain and bend Beneath a burden so unjust-- Our works are builded of the dust, And dust our universal end.

TRISTRAM AND ISOLT

Night, and vast caverns of rock and of iron: Voices like water, and voices like wind: Horror, and tempests of hail that environ Shapes and the shadows of two who have sinned.

Wan on the whirlwind, in loathing uplifting Faces that loved once, forever they go, Tristram and Isolt, the lovers, go drifting, The simmer and laughter of Hell below.

NIGHT

Lo! where the champion, Day, down slopes of flame, In golden armor, quits the evening skies! And as his glowing steeds, with manes of fire, Rush from the world, a dust of glimmering gold From their fierce hoofs o’er heaven’s azure meads Rolls to one star that blossoms near the moon. With solemn tread and holy-stoled, star-bound, Night, like a votaress, a shadowy nun, Paces the lonely corridors of heaven, The vasty-arched and ebon halls of sky. How still! how beautiful! her raven locks Pale-filleted with stars that dance their sheen On her deep, vestal eyes, and woo the soul To wonder, and to dream of far-off things. How calm o’er this great river, in its flow Silent and dark, smoothes Earth’s cold sister sphere Her lunar chasteness, whiter than blown foam! As o’er a troubled brow a hand of love: As on a restless heart the balm of sleep, Caressing softening all care away.

See, where the roses, at the wood’s dark edge, In many a languid bloom, bow to the moon And the dim river’s lisp; sleep weighs their eyes With damask lashes of deep petals fringed, That the rude, frolic bee,--rough paramour,-- So often kissed beneath the noonday sun. How cool the breezes touch the tired head! As if with unseen fingers, soft and slow, Smoothing away the weariness of day. And on the breeze, hark! to that melody, Borne from that thorn-tree, white with fragrant bloom, The dreaming nocturne of a mocking-bird,-- _Ave Maria_, nun-like, slumbering sung,-- There on its couch of clustered snow and scent.

See, where the violet mound nods many a flower! Dreamily sad as Sorrow’s own sad eyes, And lost in thought, and great with dewy grief, As are her eyes when haltingly she bends O’er Lethe’s waves, and, stooping down to drink, Delays to drink, and faltering remains. The Night with feet of moon-tinged mist and wind Swept o’er them now, but as she passed she bent, Meseemed, and kissed each modest bloom and left A brilliant on its brow, that bashful hung, Freighted with love: then, groping up her train Of star-stained crape, that billowed breeze-like by, I seemed to hear her whisper as she passed: “Sleep, sleep, my children! Lo, I bring to you God’s best gift, sleep! the soft, the misty eyed; The strange, the wonderful! the cure for care!”

And all things slept, the trees, the rocks, the soil, Sleep’s soft ablution in them washing out The fever and the frenzy of the day: But I, I slept not with them, though the world And all its peoples slept, I could not sleep, My heart being brimmed with love, with joy and love, With thoughts and dreams of love’s first happiness; Until the Night turned from the slumbering world, From her dim vigil turned,--as, from her child, A loving mother turns, who, all night long, Hath bent above its cradle, and with songs And kisses soothed to rest:--and in the east The first faint streaks of dawn made gray the heaven, And the rathe cock, like some clear clarion, crew.

DAWN

I

Mist on the mountain height Silverly creeping: Incarnate beads of light Bloom-cradled sleeping, Dripped from the brow of Night.

II

Shadows and winds that rise Over the mountain: Stars in the spar that lies Lost in the fountain, Cold as the waking skies.

III

Sheep in the fenced-in folds Dreamily bleating, Dim on the thistled wolds, Where, glad with meeting, Twilight the Night enfolds.

IV

Sleep on the restless sea Hushing its trouble: Rest on the dreams that be Hued in Life’s bubble: Calm on the heart of me.

V

Mist from the mountain height Hurriedly fleeting: Star in the locks of Night Throbbing and beating, Thrilled with the coming light.

VI

Flocks on the musky strips; Pearl on the fountain: Winds from the heavens’ lips; And, on the mountain, Dawn with her rose that drips.

THE OCKLAWAHA

River, winding from the west, Winding from the River May, Often hath the Indian pressed Through your black-gums and your mosses, Where the alligator crosses Still some lily-paven bay, Basking there in lazy rest.

Still the spider-lily loops Sprawling flowers, peels of pearl, Where the green magnolia stoops Buds to yellow-lily bonnets; Where, the morning dew upon its Golden funnels, curl on curl, The festooning jasmine droops.

Who may paint the beauty of Orchids blooming late in June, Bristling on the boughs above! Cypress trees where vine and flower, Long, liana’d blossoms shower On the deer that come at noon To the inlets that they love.

Lilied inlets,--where the teal Dabble ’mid the water-grasses,-- That some treasure seem to seal With white blooms that star the river: Bays, the swift kingfishers shiver Into circles as each passes O’er their mirrors that reveal.

Bends, reflecting root and moss, Where the tall palmettos throng ’Mid the live-oaks; tower and toss Panther necks whose heads are heavy: Hamaks, where the perfumes levy Tribute from the birds in song, From the mocking-birds that cross.

Logs, the turtles haunt; and deeps Of lagoons the searching crane Wades; and where the heron sleeps; Where the screaming limpkins listen, And the leaping mullet glisten; Where the bream and bass show plain, And the dark didapper sweeps.

Coäcoochee! Coäcoochee! Still your loved magnolias bloom, Still the tangled Cherokee; Still the blazing-star spreads splendor Through the forest, and the tender Discs of the hibiscus loom, Rosy, where you once roamed free.

Osceola! Osceola! Phantoms of your vanquished race Seem around me: overawe All my soul here. Mossy regions Swarm with Seminoles: lost legions Rise, the war-paint on each face-- Dead, long dead for Florida!

THE MINORCAN

I

The mocking-bird may sing Loud welcomes in the Spring; The farewell of our nightingales Prevails, prevails! No thing may hush their song: In sleep they sing the clearer-- It’s “home, home, home,” the whole night long-- What wonder that we feel our wrong The nearer!

II

Hibiscus blooms surprise The swamp with rosy eyes; The Balearic girl but knows Our rose, our rose! No slavery may undo Her dream it makes the purer, With “love, love, love,” the long night through,-- That makes the day’s long heartbreak too The surer.

III

The wind from out the west Would teach our souls unrest; We will not hear until hath ceased The East, the East! Within its whispering sweep The olive sounds and rushes; It’s “rest, rest, rest,” while night doth keep The weight of memory asleep That crushes.

IV

Deep ocean brings us shells, Like dead but fond farewells, And calls to us with all its tongues of foam, “From home! from home!” And then the stars on high Look down and say, “Come, cherish Hope, hope, sweet hope,” our hearts deny Us while we toil all day and sigh, And perish.

THE SPRING IN FLORIDA

I

Crab-apples make the western belt Of hamak one gay holiday of pink; And through palmetto deeps, on winds like felt, The jasmine odors sink.

The wind blows blurs of peach and pearl Around the villa by the river’s side; The guava blossoms and the orange-trees whirl Aroma far and wide.

“He courts her!” sings the mocking-bird; “He courts her, and she misses This word, or that, she might have heard, Had he not crushed a sweeter word On her sweet mouth with kisses. He courts her.”

II

Chameleons haunt the sunlight there, Where lemons firmament with blooms the way: The white rose gives its soul up and the air Ensnares it in a ray.

Great lilies open mouths of musk And stun the wind with scent; the loaded light Swoons with japonicas; and, tusk on tusk, Magnolias bud in sight.

The red-bird sings, “Oh, haste, haste, haste! Sweetheart! no longer tarry! Go, clasp her sweetly by the waist! And ask her, like a poppy faced, Sweetheart! if she will marry. Oh, haste, haste, haste!”

III

There the verandah, spilled and spun With deep bignonia, foaming all its frame With fiery blooms, seems pouring for the sun A cataract of flame.

The oleander hedges soak The dusk with fragrance: and the gray moss sweeps Its streamers from the cypress and live-oak Where blue the ocean sleeps.

“Oh, love, love, love!” the wood-dove coos; “Oh, love, love, love, for ever! They who the crimson rose refuse, All other flowers, too, may lose-- So choose thou now or never! Oh, love, love, love!”

LONG AGO

When the winter wind comes sighing Like a ghost, and softly trying Door and window, and the dying Light upon the hearth burns low; How his heart, that’s old, remembers Love that faded as the embers Into ashes, or December’s Vanished snow.

And he seems to see her sitting With the tranquil firelight flitting On her face and fitful knitting, While her chair goes to and fro; As she sat once in the hours That are gone; that, like the flowers, Died, with all that youth embowers, Long ago.

Then he seems to hear her speaking, And her rocker faintly creaking, And his hand goes dimly seeking Hers that is not there, ah, no! Hers, whose memory keeps reaching From the past fond arms, beseeching Heart and soul till, past all preaching, Both o’erflow.

Oh, caresses lost that take him In his dreams and wildly wake him! Tears that blind and sighs that shake him, Is there any cure for woe?-- Answer, love, whose eyes once merried! Joy, whose cheeks and lips were cherried! You, whom long ago he buried, Long ago.

SELF

A Sufi said to me in dreams: Behold! from Sodomite to Peri Earth tablets us: man lives and is Man’s own long commentary.

Is one begat at Bassora, One lies at Damietta dying-- The plausibilities of God All possibles o’erlying.

But when lust burns within the flesh-- Hell’s but a homily on Heaven-- Put then the individual first, And of thyself be shriven.

Neither in adamant nor brass The scrutinizing eye records it: The arm is rooted in the heart, The heart that rules and lords it.

Be that it is and thou art all: And what thou art so hast thou written Thee of the lutanists of Love, Or of the torture-smitten.

ASPIRATION

God knew he strove against pale lust and vice, Wound in the net of their voluptuous hair: God knew that to their kisses he was ice, Their arms around him there.

God knew against the front of fate he set A front as stern, with lips as sternly pressed; Raised clenched and ineffectual hands that met The iron of her breast.

God knew what motive his sad soul inspired: God knew the star for which he climbed and craved: God knew, and only God, the hell that fired His heart and in it raved.

And yet he failed! failed utterly!--No lie Of Hell, that writhes within its simmering pit, Sank deeper down than he, who, with the cry, “Now shall I rest from it!”

Died; was remembered, haply, for a day; Who hoped to rise rolled in the morning’s rose, The flame of fame, and still lies laid away Where no one cares or knows.

PEACE

I

When rose-leaves ’neath the rose-bush lie And lilies bloom and lilacs die, When days fall sadder than a sigh, Lay me asleep; Where breezes blow the rose-leaves by, Lay me asleep.

II

When to the dusty, dreary day No lonely cloud brings cooling gray, And languidly the tree-tops sway And flowers there, Come thou as silently and pray As flowers there.

III

Then pass as softly: shed no tear Nor flaw with sighs the peace that’s here; The pallid silence, far and near, So weary grown; Nor bring the world to jar the ear So weary grown.

SIN

There is a legend of an old Hartz tower That tells of one, a noble, who had sold His soul unto the Fiend; who grew not old On this condition: that the Demon’s power Cease every midnight for a single hour, And, in that hour, his body should lie cold With limbs up-shriveled, and with face, behold! Shrunk to a death’s-head in the taper’s glower.-- So unto Sin Life gives his best. Her arts Make all his outward seeming beautiful Before the world; but in his heart of hearts Abides an hour when her strength is null; When he shall feel the death through all his parts Strike, and his countenance become a skull.

THE HOUSE OF FEAR

Vast are its halls, as vast the halls and lone Where Death sits, listening to the wind and rain; And dark the house, where I shall meet again That long-dead Sin in some dread way unknown: For I have dreamed of stairs of haunted stone, And spectre footsteps I have fled in vain; And windows glaring with a blood-red stain, And hollow eyes, that burn me to the bone, Within a face that looks as that black night It looked when deep I dug for it a grave,-- The dagger wound above the brow, the thin Blood trickling slantwise down the cheek’s dead white;-- And I have dreamed not even God can save Me and my soul from that arisen Sin.

SATAN

Still shall I stand the everlasting hate Colossal Chaos builded ’neath thine eyes, The symbol of all evil, that defies Thy victory, and, vanquished, still can wait. Scar me again with such vast flame as late Hurled abrupt thunder and archangel cries, ’Mid fiery whirlwinds of the terrible skies, Down the deep’s roar against Hell’s monster gate! Thy wrath can not abolish or make less Me, an eternal wile opposed to wrath: Me, who to thwart thee evermore shall plan! Behold thy Eden’s vanished loveliness!-- Why hast thou set a sword within its path, And cursed and exiled thine own image, Man?

OSSIAN

Long have I heard the noise of battle clash Along the windy sea that roared again; Seen helmets rise, and on the clanking plain Barbaric chieftains meet and, howling, dash Their mailéd thousands down, with crash on crash, Like crags contending with the roaring main; Torrents of shields, like rivers of rolling rain, I have beheld within the moon’s pale flash; The moon, that, like a spirit, o’er the wood Hung white as steel, glimmering the spears and swords, That shone like ripples in the iron flood, The streams of war, that beat in heathen hordes About their rock-like kings, whence wave-like far, Circled the battle, warrior on warrior.

QUATRAINS

I

_The Love Chase_

On, towards the purlieus of impossible space, From Death, enamoured, Life, capricious, flies: Communicated sorrow of his face Freezing her ever backward burning eyes.

II

_The Garden of Days_

Man’s days are planted as a flower-bed With labor’s lily and the rose of folly: Beneath grief’s cypress, pale, uncomforted, The phantom fungus blooms of melancholy.

III

_Faith and Facts_

With starry gold Night still endorses what Man’s soul hath written, guessing at the skies: Day on Night’s scribble drops a fiery blot, And ’thwart the writing scrawls, “The lie of lies.”

IV

_Hell and Heaven_

And it may be that, seamed with iron scars, One in vast Hell oft lifts fierce eyes above, And one, inviolate as God’s high stars, Looks from far Heaven, sighing: “Alas, O love!”

V

_Alchemy_

Into her heart’s young crucible Life threw Affliction first, then Faith,--by which is meant Hope and Humility:--Love touched the two, And, lo! the golden blessing of Content.

VI

_Trial_

As oft as Hope weighed, coaxing, on this arm, On that Despair dashed heavily his fist: He knew no way out of Grief’s night and storm, Until a child, named Effort, came and kissed.

VII

_Nightmare_

Some obscene drug in her dull draught Sleep gave, For dead I lay, yet heard a man-faced beast Dig, dig with wolfish fingers in my grave, With horrible laughter to a horrible feast.

VIII

_Clairvoyance_

Some few may pierce the phantom fogs, that veil Life’s stormy seas, into futurity, And see the Flying Dutchman’s ominous sail, Portentous of dark things that are to be.

IX

_The Flying Dutchman_

Through hissing scud, mad mist, and roaring rain, On thundering seas, I see her drive and drive, Crowding wild canvas ’gainst the hurricane, Her demon ports with glow-worm lamps alive.

X

_Destiny_

Within the volume of the universe With worlds she writes irrevocable laws: From everlasting unto everlasting hers The evolutions of effect and cause.

XI

_Fame, the Mermaid_

A mirror, brilliant as a beautiful star, She lifts and sings to her own loveliness: Not till her light and song have lured him far Does man behold the lie he did not guess.

XII

_The Hours_

With stars and dew and sunlight in their hair, They come, the daughters of the Day, who saith: “The gifts my children bring are rest and care, Of which the last is Life, the first is Death.”

XIII

_Despair_

So sick at heart, so weary of the sun, In her sad halls the Soul sits desolate, Her Hope surrendered to Oblivion, Whose coal-black charger neighs outside the gate.

XIV

_The Misanthrope_

Shut in with its own selfishness his soul Sees,--as a screech-owl in a dead tree might, Blinking avoided daylight through one hole,-- The white world blackened by his own dull sight.

XV

_The Hun_

On splendid infamies--a thousand years Heaven tolerated--like a Word that trod Incarnate of the Law, vast wrath and tears In pagan eyes, behold the Scourge of God!

XVI

_Greece_

The godlike sister of all lands she stands Before the World, to whom she gave her heart, Still testifying with degenerate hands Her bygone glory in enduring art.

XVII

_Egypt_

With ages weighed as with the pyramids And Karnac wrecks, still--out of Sphinx-like eyes Beneath the apathetic lotus-lids-- With Memnon moan her granite heart defies.

XVIII

_Poe_

Wild wandering witch-lights and, dark-wing’d above, A raven; and, within a sculptured tomb, Beside the corpse of Beauty and of Love, Song’s everlasting-lamp that lights the gloom.

XIX

_Hawthorne_

Dim lands and dimmer walls, where Magic slips A couch of velvet sleep beneath Romance: Where Speculation, Prince-like, kneels; his lips Fearing to break the long-unbroken trance.

XX

_Emerson_

Our New-World Chrysostom, whose golden tongue Through Nature preached philosophy and truth: Old intimate of loveliness he sung, Wise and instructing with the lips of youth.

XXI

_Jaafer the Vizier_

Lutes, odorous torches, slaves and dancing girls In gardens by a moonlit waterside, And one whose wise lips scatter words like pearls-- Behold the true Haroun whom naught may hide!

THE PURITANS’ CHRISTMAS

Their only thought religion, What Christmas joys had they, The stern, staunch Pilgrim Fathers who Knew never a holiday?--

A log-church in the clearing ’Mid solitudes of snow, The wild-beast and the wilderness, And lurking Indian foe.

No time had they for pleasure, Whom God had put to school; A sermon was their Christmas cheer, A psalm their only Yule.

They deemed it joy sufficient,-- Nor would Christ take it ill,-- That service to himself and God Employed their spirits still.