Part 3

Chapter 33,716 wordsPublic domain

From the purple tangled trees, Like the white, full heart of night, Solemn with majestic peace, Swam the big moon veined with light, Like some gorgeous golden fleece.

You were there with me, and you, In the magic of the hour, Almost swore that you could view Beading on each blade and flower Moony blisters of the dew.

And each Fairy of our home-- Fire-fly--its torch then lit In the honey-scented gloam, Dashing down the dusk with it, Like an instant flaming foam.

And we heard the calling, calling, Of the wild owl in the brake Where the trumpet-vine hung crawling; Down the ledge into the lake Heard the sighing streamlet falling.

Then we wandered to the creek, Where the water-lilies growing, Like fair maidens white and weak,-- Naked in the brooklet's flowing,-- Stooped to bathe a bashful cheek.

And the moonbeams rippling golden Fell in saint-sweet aureoles On chaste bosoms half beholden, Till, meseemed, the dainty souls Of pale moon-fays, there enfolden

In such beauty, dimly fainted Baby-cribbed within each bud, Till a night wind piney-tainted, Swooning over field and flood, Rocked them to a slumber sainted.

Then a low, melodious bell Of some sleeping heifer tinkled In some berry-briered dell, As her satin dewlap wrinkled With the cud that made it swell.

And returning home we heard In a beech tree at the gate Some brown, dream-behaunted bird Singing of its absent mate, Of the mate that never heard.

And you see, now I am gray, Why within the old, old place, With such memories I stay, Fancy out your absent face Long since passed away.

You were mine--yes, still are mine: And this frosty memory Reels about you as with wine Warmed into wild eyes which see All of you that is divine.

Yes, I love it, and have grown Melancholy in that love And that memory alone Of perfection such, whereof You could sanctify a stone.

And where'er your poppies swing-- There we walk,--as if a bee Fanned them with his puny wing,-- Down your garden shadowy In the hush the evenings bring.

FIVE FANCIES.

THE GLADIOLAS.

As tall as the lily, as tall as the rose, And almost as tall as the hollyhocks, Ranked breast to breast in sentinel rows Stand the gladiola stocks.

And some are red as the humming-bird's blood And some are pied as the butterfly race, And each is shaped like a velvet hood Gold-lined with delicate lace.

For you know the goblins that come like musk To tumble and romp in the flowers' laps, When you see big fire-fly eyes in the dusk, Hang there their goblin caps.

THE MORNING-GLORIES.

They bloom up the fresh, green trellis In airy, vigorous ease, And their fragrant, sensuous honey Is best beloved of the bees.

Oh! the rose knows the dainty secret How the morning-glory blows, For the rose told me the secret, And the jessamine told the rose.

And the jessamine said at midnight, Ere the red cock woke and crew, That the fays of queen Titania Came there to bathe in the dew.

And the merry moonlight glistened On wet, long, yellow hair, And their feet on the flowers drowsy Trod softer than any air.

And their petticoats, gay as bubbles, They hung up every one On the morning-glories' tendrils Till their moonlight bath were done.

But the red cock crew too early, And the fays left hurriedly, And this is why in the morning Their petticoats there you see.

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THE TIGER-LILY.

A sultan proud and tawny At elegant ease he stands, With his bare throat brown and scrawny, And his indolent, leaf-like hands.

And the eunuch tulips that listen In their gaudy turbans so, With their scimetar leaves that glisten, Are guards of his seraglio;

Where sultana roses musky, Voluptuous in houri charms, With their bold breasts deep and dusky, Impatiently wait his arms.

Tall, beautiful, sad, and slender, His Greek-girl dancing slaves, For the white-limbed lilies tender His royal hand he waves.

While he watches them, softly smiling, His favorite rose that hour With a butterfly gallant is wiling In her attar-scented bower.

VENGEANCE.

Let it sink, let it sink On the pungent-petaled pink By those poppy puffs; Fairy-fashioned downiness, Light, weak moth in furry dress Of white fluffy stuffs.

Where the thin light slipping sweet Dimples prints of Fairy feet On the white-rose blooms, One dim blossom delicate Droops a face all pale with hate, Dead with sick perfumes.

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And I read the riddle wove In this rose's course of love For the fickle pink:-- Thou the rose's phantom art Stealing to the pink's false heart Vampire-like to drink.

A DEAD LILY.

The South had saluted her mouth Till her mouth was sweet with the South.

And the North with his breathings low Made the blood in her veins like his snow.

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And the West with his smiles and his art Poured his honey of life in her heart.

And the East had in whisperings told His secrets more precious than gold.

So she grew to a beautiful thought Which a godhead of love had wrought.

As strange how the power begot it As why--but to kill it and rot it.

MY SUIT.

Faith! the Dandelion is To my mind too lowly; Then the winsome Violet Is, forsooth, too holy.

There's the Touch-me-not--go to! What! a face that's speckled Like a buxom milking-maid's Which the sun hath freckled!

And the Tiger-lily's wild, Flirts, is fierce and haughty; And the Sweet-Brier Rose, I swear, Pricks you and is naughty.

Columbine a fool's cap hath, Then she is too merry; Gossip, I would sooner woo Some plebeian Berry.

There's the shy Anemone,-- Well--her face shows sorrow; Pale, goodsooth! alive to-day, Dead and gone to-morrow.

And that big-eyed, fair-cheeked wench, The untoward Daisy, She's been wooed, aye! overmuch-- Then she is too lazy.

Pleasant persons are they all, And their virtues many; Faith, I know but good of all, And naught ill of any.

Marry! 'tis a May-apple, Fair-skinned as a Saxon, Whom I woo, a fragrant thing Delicate and waxen.

THE FAMILY BURYING-GROUND.

A wall of crumbling stones doth keep Watch o'er long barrows where they sleep, Old chronicled grave-stones of its dead, On which oblivious mosses creep And lichens gray as lead.

Warm days the lost cows as they pass Rest here and browse the juicy grass That springs about its sun-scorched stones; Afar one hears their bells' deep brass Waft melancholy tones.

Here the wild morning-glory goes A-rambling as the myrtle grows, Wild morning-glories pale as pain, With holy urns, that hint at woes, The night hath filled with rain.

Here are blackberries largest seen, Rich, winey dark, whereon the lean Black hornet sucks, noons sick with heat, That bend not to the shadowed green The heavy bearded wheat.

At dark, for its forgotten dead, A requiem, of no known wind said, Through ghostly cedars moans and throbs, While to thin starlight overhead The shivering screech-owl sobs.

THE WATER-MAID.

There she rose as white as death, Stars above and stars beneath; Where the ripples brake in splendor To a million, million starlets Twinkling on lake-lilies tender, Rocking to the ripple barlets. She, brow-belted with white lilies, Rose and oared a shining shoulder To a downward-purpling boulder: With slim fingers soft and milky, Haled her from the spray-sprent lilies To a ledge, and sitting silky Sang unto the list'ning lilies, Sang and sang beneath the heaven, Belted, wreathed with lilies seven; Falsely sang a wild, wild ditty To a wool-white moon; Till a child both frail and pretty Found her singing on the boulder,-- Dark locks on a milky shoulder,-- 'Neath the wool-white moon. And the creature singing there Strangled him in her long hair.

THE SEA-KING.

In green sea-caverns dim, Deep down, A monarch pale and slim, Whose soul's a frown, He ruleth cold and grim In foamy crown: In green sea-caverns dim, Deep down.

He hears the Mermaid sing So sad! Far off like some curs'd thing, That ne'er is glad, A vague, wild murmuring, That drives men mad: He hears the Mermaid sing So sad!

Strange monster bulks are there, That yawn Or roll huge eyes that glare And then are gone; Weird foliage passing fair Where clings the spawn: Strange monster bulks are there, That yawn.

What cares he for wrecked hulls These years! Red gold the water dulls! Grim, dead-men jeers On jaws of a thousand skulls Of mariners! What cares he for wrecked hulls These years!

Man's tears are loved of him, Deep down; Set in the foamy rim Of his frail crown To pearls the tear-drops dim Freeze at his frown: Man's tears are loved of him, Deep down.

Here be the halls of Sleep Full mute, Chill, shadowy, and deep, Where hangs no lute To make the still heart leap Of man or brute: Here be the halls of Sleep Full mute.

WHERE AND WHAT?

Her ivied towers tall Old forests belt and bar, And oh! the West's dim mountain crests That line the blue afar.

Her gardens face dark cliffs, That seeth against a sea As blue and deep as the eyes of Sleep With saddening mystery.

Red sands roll leagues on leagues Ribbed of the wind and wave; The near warm sky bends from on high The pale brow of a slave.

And when the morning's beams Lie crushed on crag and bay, A wail of flutes and soft-strung lutes O'er the lone land swoons away.

The woods are 'roused from rest, A scent of earth and brine, By brake and lake the wild things wake, And torrents leap and shine.

But she in one gray tower White-faced knows how he died, And a murderous scorn on her lips is born To curse his heart that lied.

She smiles and sorrows not: "Ah, death! to know," she moans, "The gluttonous grave of the bitter wave Laughs loud above his bones!"

She laughs and hating yearns Out toward the surf's far reach, Like one in sleep, who, wild to weep, Hath only moans for speech.

And when the sun had set, And crocus heavens had fed Their wan fire soon to a thorn-thin moon, The flocking stars that led,

A breeze set in from sea Most odorous with spice, And streamed among big stars that hung Thin mists as white as ice.

And then her eyes waxed large With one last hideous hope, And her throat she bent toward the firmament, Star-scattered scope on scope.

The haunted night, that felt The rapture so accursed, Shook, loosening one green star that spun Wild down the dusk and burst.

Fair was her face as Sin's; "Ah, wretch!" she wailed, "to know A wormy seat at Death's lean feet May not undo such woe!

"The devil-wrangling pit Much dearer than God's deeps Of serious skies, where thought ne'er dies And memory never sleeps!

"And dearer far than both, Than Heaven or Hell, the jest, The godless lot to rot and rot, And not be cursed or blessed!"

THE SPRING.

"_O Fons Bandusiæ!_"

Push back the brambles, berry-blue, The hollowed spring is full in view; Deep tangled with luxuriant fern Its rock-imbedded crystal urn.

Not for the loneliness that keeps The coigne wherein its silence sleeps; Not for wild butterflies that sway Their pansy pinions all the day Above its mirror; nor the bee, Nor dragon-fly which passing see Themselves reflected in its spar; Not for the one white, liquid star That twinkles in its firmament, Nor moon-shot clouds so slowly sent Athwart it when the kindly night Beads all its grasses with the light, Small jewels of the dimpled dew; Not for the day's reflected blue, Nor the quaint, dainty colored stones That dance within it where it moans; Not for all these I love to sit In silence and to gaze in it. But, know, a nymph with merry eyes Meets mine within its laughing skies; A graceful, naked nymph who plays All the long fragrant summer days With instant sight of bees and birds, And speaks with them in water-words. One for whose nakedness the air Weaves moony mists, and on whose hair, Unfilleted, the night will set That lone star as a coronet.

LILLITA.

Can I forget how, when you stood 'Mid orchards whence spring bloom had fled, Stars made the orchards seem a-bud, And weighed the sighing boughs o'erhead With shining ghosts of blossoms dead!

Or when you bowed, a lily tall, Above your August lilies slim, Transparent pale, that by the wall Like softest moonlight seemed to swim, Brimmed with faint fragrance to the brim.

And in the cloud that lingered low-- A silent pallor in the West-- There stirred and beat a golden glow Of some great heart that could not rest, A heart of gold within its breast.

Your heart, your life was in the wild, Your joy to hear the whip-poor-will Lament its love, when wafted mild The harvest drifted from the hill: The deep, deep wildwood where had trod The red deer o'er the fallen hush Of Fall's torn leaves, when the low tod Was frosty 'neath each berried bush.

At dusk the whip-will still complains Above your lolling lilies, where Their faces white the moonlight stains, The dreamy stream flows far and fair Whisp'ring of rest an easeful air ...

O music of the falling rain, At night unto her painless rest Sound sweet and sad, then is she fain To see the wild flowers on her breast Lift moist, pure faces up again To breathe to God their fragrance blest. Thick-pleated beeches long have crossed Old, mighty arms above her tomb Where oft I watch at night her ghost Bow to the wild-flower's full-blown bloom A mist of curls, where Summer lost Her tangled sunbeams and perfume.

ARTEMIS.

Oft of the hiding Oread wast thou seen At earliest morn, a tall imperial shape, High-buskined, dew-dripped, and on close, chaste curls, Long blackness of thick hair, the tipsy drops Caught from the dipping sprays of under bosks, Kissed of thy cheek and of thy shoulder brushed, Thy rosy cheek as haughty Hera's fair, Thy snow-soft shoulder luminous as light.

Oft did the shaggy hills and solitudes Of Arethusa shout and ring and reel, Reverberate and echo merrily With the mad chiding of thy merry hounds, Big mouthed and musical, that on the stag, Or bristling wild-boar furious grew in quest, And thou, as keen, fleet-footed and clean-limbed, Thou, thou, O goddess, with thy quivered crew, Most loveliest maids and fit to wed with gods, Rushed, swinging on the wind free limbs and lithe, Long as thy radiant locks flung free to blow And lighten in the wine-sharp air of morn.

Ai me! their throats, their lusty, dimpled throats, That made the hills sing and the wood-ways dance As if to Orphic strains, and gave them life! Ai me! their bosoms' deepness and the soft, Sweet, happy beauty of their delicate limbs, That stormed the forest vacancies with light, Swift daylight of their splendor and made blow, Within the glad sonorous solitudes, Old germs of flowerets a century cold.

The woodland Naiad whispered by her rock; The Hamadryad, limpid-eyed and wild, Expectant rustled by her usual oak, And laughed in wonder; and mad Pan himself Reeled piping fiercely down the dingled deeps With rollicking eye that rolled a brutish lust. And did the unwed maiden, musing where Her father's well, beyond the god-graced hills Bubbled and babbled, hear the full, high cry Of the chaste huntress, while her dripping jar Unheeded brimmed, vowed with her chastity, And shorn gold hair to veil her virgin feet.

But, ah! not when the saucy daylight swims, Filling the forests with a glamorous green, Let me behold thee, goddess! but, when dim The slow night settles on the haunted wild, And walks in sober sark, and heatful stars Shine out intensely and the echoy waste Far off, far off, in shudders palpitates Unto the Limnad's song unmerciful, Unmerciful and mad and bitter sweet! Then come in all thy godhead, beautiful! Thou beautiful and gentle, as thou cam'st To lorn Endymion, who, in Lemnos once, Lone in the wizard magic of the wild, Wandered a gentle boy, unfriended, sad. It grew far off adown the stirring trees, Thy silent beauty blossoming flowerlike, Between the tree trunks and the lacing limbs, Bright in the leaves that kissed for very joy And drunkenness of glory thus revealed. He saw it all, the naked brow and limbs, The polished silver of thy glossy breast, Alone, uncompanied of handmaidens; Like some full, splendid fruit Hesperian Not e'en for deities; thy sweet far voice Came tinkling on his wistful ear and lisped Like leaves that cling and slip to cling again. And on such perilous beauty that must kill, The poisonous favor of thy godliness, Feasting his every sense through eyes and ears, His soul exalted waxed and amorous,-- Like the high gods who quaff deep golden bowls Of rosy nectar,--with immortal love,-- And what remained, ah, what remained but death!

IN NOVEMBER.

No windy white of wind-blown clouds is thine, No windy white but low and sodden gray, That holds the melancholy skies and kills The wild song and the wild bird; yet, ai me! Thy melancholy skies and mournful woods, Brown, sighing forests dying that I love! Thy long thick leaves deep, deep about my feet, Slow, weary feet that halt or falter on; Thy long, sweet, reddened leaves that burn and die With silent fever of the sickened wold.

I love to hear in all thy windy coigns, Rain-wet and choked with bleached and rotting weeds, The baby-babble of the many leaves, That, fallen on barren ways, like fallen hopes Once held so high on all the Summer's heart Of strong majestic trees, now come to such, Would fainly gossip in hushed undertones,-- Sad weak yet sweet as natures that have known True tears and hot in bleak remorseless days,-- Of all their whilom glory vanished so.

A CHARACTER.

He lived beyond us and we stood As pygmies to his every mood, Mere pupils at his beck and nod, That spoke the influence of a god. And oft we wondered, when his thought Made our humanity seem naught, If he, like Uther's mystic son, Were not a birth for Avalon.

When wand'ring 'neath the sighing trees, His soul waxed genial with the breeze, That, voiceful, from the piney glades Companioned seemed of Oreads; A Dryad life lived in each oak, And with its many leaf-tongues spoke, Glorying the deity whose power Gave it its life in sun and shower. By every violet-hallowed brook, Where every bramble-matted nook Rippled and laughed with water-sounds, He walked as one on sainted grounds, Fearing intrusion on the spell That kept some fountain-spirit's well, Or woodland genius sitting where Brown racy berries kissed his hair.

And when the wind far o'er the hill Had fall'n and left the wildwood still As moonlight jets on quiet moss,-- Beneath the pied boughs arched across Long limpid vistas, brimmed with ripe Green-swimming sunbeams, heard the pipe Of some hid follower of Pan And worshiper, half brute half man; Who, hairy-haunched, a savage rhyme Puffed in his reed to rudest time; With swollen jowl and rolling eye Danced boisterous where the silver sky Smiled in the forest's broken roof; The strident branch beneath his hoof Snapped on the sod which, interfused Between black roots, was crushed and bruised.

And often when he wandered through Old forests at the fall of dew,-- A lone Endymion who sought A higher beauty yet uncaught,-- Some night, we thought, most surely he Were favored of her deity, And in the holy solitude Her sudden presence, long pursued, Unto his eyes would be confessed; The awful moonlight of her breast Come high with majesty and hold His heart's blood till his heart were cold, Unpulsed, unsinewed, all undone, And snatch his soul to Avalon.

A MOOD.

Bowed hearts that hold the saddest memories Are the most beautiful; and such make sweet Light happy moods of alien natures which Their sadness contacts, and so sanctifies.

And such to me is an old, gabled house, Deserted and neglected and unknown Within the dreamy hollow of its hills, Dark, cedared hills and fruitless orchards sear; With but its host of shrouded memories Haunting its low and desolate rooms and halls, Its roomy hearths and cob-webbed crevices.

Here in dim rainy noons I love to sit, And hear the running rain along the roof, The creak and crack of noises that are born Of unseen and mysterious agencies; The dripping footfalls of the wind adown Lone winding stairways massy-banistered; A clapping door and then a sudden hush That brings a pleasant terror stiffening through The tingling veins and staring from the eyes. Then comes the running rain along the roof's Rain-rotten gables and on rain-stained walls Invokes vague images and memories Of all its sometime lords and mistresses, Until the stale material will assume All that's clairvoyant, and the fine-strung ear In quaint far rooms or dusty corridors Hear wrinkled ladies all beruffled trail Long haughty silks "miraculously stiff."

A THOUGHT.

And I have thought of youth which strains Nearer its God to rise,-- What were ambition and its pains Were life a cowardice!

The grander souls that rose above Thought's noblest heights to tread, Found their endeavor in their love, And truth behind the dead.

A secret glory in the tomb, A night that dawns in light, An intense presence veiled with gloom, And not an endless night....

Nepenthe of this struggling world, Thou who dost stay mad Care When her fury's scourge above is curled And we see her writhing hair!

SONG.

Far over the summer sea, Ere the white-eyed stars wax pale, From the groves where a nightingale Wails a mystical melody, I turn my ghostly sail Away, away, To follow a face I see Far over the summer sea.

Far over the summer sea, Ere the cliff which highest soars From the foam re-echoing shores Reddens all rosily, Where the witch-white water roars, Far on, far on, Thro' the night I follow thee Far over the summer sea.

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