Part 3

One yet unfound, receding depth, From which the wood-thrush sings, Still luring in to darker shades, In--in to colder springs.

There is no wind abroad to-day. But hark!--the pine-tops' roar, That sleep and in their dreams repeat The music of the shore.

What wisdom in their needles stirs? What song is that they sing? Those airs that search the forest's heart, What rumor do they bring?

A hushed excitement fills the gloom, And, in the stillness, clear The vireo's tell-tale warning rings: "'Tis near--'tis near--'tis near!"

As, in the fairy-tale, more loud The ghostly music plays When, toward the enchanted bower, the prince Draws closer through the maze.

Nay--nay. I track a fleeter game, A wilder than ye know, To lairs beyond the inmost haunt Of thrush or vireo.

This way it passed: the scent lies fresh; The ferns still lightly shake. Ever I follow hard upon, But never overtake.

To other woods the trail leads on, To other worlds and new, Where they who keep the secret here Will keep the promise too.

TO IMOGEN AT THE HARP

_Die Geisterwelt ist nicht verschlossen: Dein Sinn ist zu--dein Herz ist todt. Auf, bade, Schueler, unrerdrossen Die ird'sche Brust im Morgenroth!_ FAUST.

Hast thou seen ghosts? Hast thou at midnight heard In the wind's talking an articulate word? Or art thou in the secret of the sea, And have the twilight woods confessed to thee? So wild thy song, thy smile so faint, so far Thine absent eyes from earthly vision are. Thy song is done: why art thou listening? Spent is the last vibration of the string Along the waves of sound. Oh, doth thine ear Pursue the ebbing chord in some fine sphere, Where wraiths of vanished echoes live and roam, And where thy thoughts, here strangered, find a home? Teach me the path to that uncharted land; Discovery's keel hath never notched its strand, No passport may unbar its sealed frontier,-- Too far for utmost sight, for touch too near. Subtler than light, yet all opaque, the screen Which shuts us from that world, outspread between The shows of sense; like as an ether thin Fills the vast microscopic space wherein The molecules of matter lie enisled. A world whose sound our silence is; too wild Its elfin music beats, too shrill, too rare, To stir the slow pulse of our thicker air.

A world whose light our darkness is; that lies With its sharp edges turned toward mortal eyes, Like figures painted on a folded fan-- The broken colors of some hidden plan. The few who but an instant's look have had At the spread pattern broadwise have gone mad. As in a high-walled oriental street A sudden door flies open, and a fleet Departing dream the thirsty traveler sees Of fountains leaping in the shade of trees, So they who once have caught the glimpse divine: They have but wet their lips with goblins' wine, And, plagued with thirst immortal, must endure The visions of the heavenly calenture,-- Of springs and dewy evening meadows rave, While hotly round them shines the tropic wave, And the false islands of mirage appear, Uplifted from some transcendental sphere Far down below the blue horizon line. And thirst like theirs is nursed by songs like thine. For thou, in some crepscular dim hour, When the weak umber moon had hardly power To cast a shadow, and a wind, half-spent, Creeping among the way-side bushes went, Hast seen a cobweb spun across the moon, A faint eclipse, penumbral, gone full soon, Yet marking on the planet's smoky ring A silhouette as of a living thing. Or on the beach making thy lonely range, Close upon sunset, when the light was strange And the low wind had meanings, thou hast known A presence nigh, betrayed by shadows thrown On the red sand from bodies out of sight; Even as, by the shell of curving light Pared from the dark moon's edge, the eye can tell Where her full circle rounds invisible.

Teach me the path into that silent land. Take once again the haunted wires in hand, And pour the strain which, waking, thou hast heard Whistled when night was deep by some lone bird Hid in the dark and dewy sycamore,-- When thou hast risen and unbarred the door And walked the garden paths till night was flown, Listening the message sent to thee alone. Ah! once again thy harp, thy voice once more, Fling back the refluent tide upon the shore. All nature grows unearthly; all things seem To break and waver off in shapes of dream, And through the chinks of matter steals the dawn Of skies beyond the solar road withdrawn. Oh, flood my soul with that pure morning-red! It is the sense that's shut, the heart that's dead: All open still the world of spirits lies Would we but bathe us in its red sunrise.

THE IDEAS OF THE PURE REASON

I saw in dreams a constellation strange, Thwarting the night; its big stars seemed to range Northward across the zenith, and to keep Calm footing along heaven's ridge-pole high, While round the pole the sullen Bear did creep And dizzily the wheeling spheres went by. They from their watch-towers in the topmost sky Looked down upon the rest, Nor eastward swerved nor west, Though Procyon's candle dipped below the verge, And the great twins of Leda 'gan decline Toward the horizon line, And prone Orion, sprawling headlong, urge His flight into the far Pacific surge.

I heard a voice which said: "Those wonders bright Are hung not on the hinges of the night; But set to vaster harmonies, they run Straight on, and turn not with the turning sphere, Nor make an orbit about any sun. No glass can track the courses that they steer, By what dark paths they vanish and appear. The starry flocks that still Are climbing heaven's hill Will pasture westward down its sloping lawn; But yon wild herd of planets,--who can say Through what far fields they stray, Around what focus their ellipse is drawn, Whose shining makes their transcendental dawn?"

I told my vision to a learned man, Who said: "On no celestial globe or plan Can those unset, unrisen stars be found. How might such uncomputed motions be Among the ordered spheres? Heaven's clock is wound To keep one time. Idle our dreams, and we, Blown by the wind, as the light family Of leaves." But still I dream, And still those planets seem Through heaven their high, unbending course to take; And a voice cries: "Freedom and Truth are we, And Immortality: God is our sun." And though the morning break, Across my soul still plays their shimmering wake.

ON GUARD

_O churl! drunk all, and left no friendly drop_ _To help me after.--Romeo and Juliet._

He has chosen the death that is easy And left me the life that is hard. He has emptied the cup to the lees, he Has left me alone to keep guard.

Remains not a drop in the beaker Of the bitter-sweet cordial he quaffed: The strong has forsaken his weaker And stolen his anodyne draught.

The cause that he taught me to cherish, The weapons he trained me to wield, He has given it over to perish And thrown down the sword and the shield.

O how shall the coward persever When the hero slinks out of the fight; Or weakness keep up the endeavor Abandoned by desperate might?

The hour of stern trial has found me: The sentinel fires are burnt low, And I hear in the shadows around me The stealthy approach of the foe.

Be it so then, my master, my leader: These helpless ones, dear to you, these Will I fend while I may, though I bleed, or Am beaten with blows to my knees.

Lo here, where your body lies fallen, I draw from its scabbard the sword And raise it--how feebly!--and call on Your spirit, my captain, my lord.

The watch-fire is sunken to embers, With signals the darkness is starred. Let them come! There is one who remembers-- There is one who will stand upon guard.

SURSUM CORDA

Take courage, heart. Why dost thou faint and falter? Why is thy light turned darkness ere the noon? The wind blows west, no clouds the heaven alter, Night comes not yet; with night, too, comes the moon.

"Alas, alas! the dewy morwing weather, The tender light that on the meadows lay, When Youth and Hope and I set out together,-- Light Youth, false Hope, that left me on the way!"

Take courage yet; thou are not unattended: See Love and Peace keep step on either hand. How green the vales! The sky how blue! How splendid The strong white sunshine sleeps across the land!

"Alas the thrushes' song hath long had ending I heard at dawn among the pine woods cool. The brook is still, whose rocky stair descending, I drank at sunrise from each rosy pool."

The noon is still; the songs of dawn are over; Yet turn not back to prove thy memories vain. The mist upon the hills canst thou recover, Or bring to eastern skies the bloom again?

But courage still! Without return or swerving, Across the globe's huge shadow keep the track, Till, unperceived, the slow meridian's curving, That leads thee onward, yet shall lead thee back,

To stand again with daybreak on the mountains, And, where the paths of night and morning meet, To drink once more of youth's forgotten fountains, When thou hast put the world between thy feet.

LOVE, DEATH AND LIFE

The warm wind comes in rushes, The night is thick and sweet: I cannot see the bushes-- The tall syringa bushes Above the gate that meet, Whose fallen blooms she crushes Under her heedless feet; But their heavy, rich perfume Is round us in the gloom Which lends its friendly cover To bashful maid and lover: Which cheats me of her blushes But makes her kiss complete. 'Way down the village street A lantern swings and dances In front of the old church porch, And throws its telltale glances On the puddles and the plashes, And flares in the wind like a torch, And scatters sudden flashes On the elm leaves overhead. But you need have no dread Of that harmless, far-off spark; For the night is thick and dark, O the dark is thick and sweet! So, closer: let the beat Of your heart encounter mine. (How you tremble--like a leaf!) O you do not need to fear Any shame or any grief While my arms around you twine And the night wind pours its wine. Come nearer, still more near; Press closer, closer yet. Your cheeks are warm and wet, Like this wind from out the south, And warm and wet your mouth; And yon lantern won't discover The maiden and her lover. 'Tis only the sexton, nothing more-- There was a funeral to-day-- The sexton locking the church door, Locking it up and going away. Why should it fall on a day like this? What has death to do in a world of bliss? O passionate black night! O rush of the southern breeze, Laden with blossoms and rain, Asserter of life and its right, Cherisher, breeder of things, Swelling the sap in the trees, Swelling the blood in the vein, Filling the rivers and springs: Whisper the girl at my side, Quicken her pulse with thy breath, Teach her the way of a bride, Teach her to take and to give. What hast thou to do with us, Death? By God, we live!

THE DYING PANTHEIST TO THE PRIEST

Take your ivory Christ away: No dying god shall have my knee, While live gods breathe in this wild wind And shout from yonder dashing sea.

When March brings back the Adonis flower No more the white processions meet, With incense to the risen lord, About the pillared temple's feet.

From tusk of boar, from thrust of spear The dead rise not. At Eastertide The same sun dances on their graves-- Love's darling and the Crucified.

Yet still the year's returning tide Flows greenly round each ruined plinth, Breaking on fallen shafts in foam Of crocus and of hyacinth:

Tossing a spray of swallows high, To flutter lightly on the breeze And fleck with tiny spots of shade The sunshine on the broken frieze.

I know the gray-green asphodels Still sheet the dim Elysian mead, And ever by dark Lethe's wells The poppy sheds her ghostly seed.

And once--O once!--when sunset lay Blood red across the winter sea, Where on the sands we drained our flasks And danced and cried our _Evoe_!

Among the tossing cakes of ice And spouting of the frozen spray, We saw their white limbs twist and whirl-- The ancient sea-gods at their play.

The gold-brown liquor burned my heart, The icy tempest stung my brow: The twanging of Apollo's lyre-- I heard it as I hear it now.

O no, the old gods are not dead: I think that they will never die; But, I, who lie upon this bed In mortal anguish--what am I?

A wave that rises with a breath Above the infinite watery plain, To foam and sparkle in the sun A moment ere it sink again.

The eternal undulation runs: A man, I die: perchance to be, Next life, a white-throat on the wind, A daffodil on Tempe's lea.

They lied who said that Pan was dead: Life was, life is, and life shall be. So take away your crucifix-- The everliving gods for me!

THE UPLAND

We often go a-driving across the pleasant land, In summer through the pine woods dark, or by the ocean strand; But when the orchards blossom, and when the apples fall, We seek the high hill country that props the mountain wall.

Old farms with mossed stone fences, old grassy roads that wind Forever on and upward to higher fields behind, By ancient bush-grown pastures, bestrewn with boulders gray, And lonely meadow slopes that bear thin crops of upland hay.

As, terrace over terrace, we climb the mountain stair, More solitary grow the ways, more wild the farms and rare, And slenderer in their rocky beds the singing brooks that go Down-slipping to the valley stream a thousand feet below.

Above us and above us still the grim escarpments rise, Till homeward we must turn at last, or ere the daylight dies, And leave unscaled the summit height, the even ridge o'erhead, Where smolder through the cedar screen the sunset embers red.

What should we see, if once we won on that top step to stand? A wondrous valley world beyond? A far-stretched tableland? Almost it seems as though there lay the threshold of the sky, And that the foot which crossed that sill would enter Heaven thereby.

And when, dear heart, the years have left us once again alone, And from our empty nest the broods have scattered forth and flown, Shall we not have the old horse round and take the well-known track Into the high hill country, and never more come back?

THE REMAINDER

Now faith is dead and hope is deadly sick, And joy--dear joy--she died so long ago I have forgot her face; but these are quick, Black care, and stinging shame, and bitter woe.

Then what is left in my Pandora's chest? Courage is left, but mated with despair, Who should have wed with hope. Yet be ye blest-- Rise up and take your blessing, happy pair!

I lay in thine, sad bride, this princely hand-- In all the world there is no nobler name-- And thou, brave groom--though 'tis not what we planned-- Take her, she will be true: be thou the same.

Courage and sorrow: might these two give birth? O thought too bold, O dream too sweet, too wild? Though joy--dear joy--be dead and cold in earth, Her ghost is peace, and love is sorrow's child.

THE PASTURE BARS

The hunted stag, now nearly spent, Turns homeward to his lair: The wounded Bedouin seeks his tent And finds safe shelter there.

So life returns upon its track: We toil, we fight, we roam, Till the long shadows point us back, And evening brings us home.

To-night beside the pasture bars I heard the whippoorwill, While, one by one, the early stars Came out above the hill.

I heard the tinkle of the spring, I heard the cattle pass Slow through the dusk, and lingering To crop the wayside grass.

O weary world of fret and strife, O noisy years and vain, What have you paid me for my life Since last, along this lane,

A barefoot boy, I drove the cows In summer twilights still, And paused beneath the orchard boughs To list the whippoorwill?

Come, peace of God, that passeth all Our understanding's sight: Fall on me with the dews that fall, And with the falling night.

Among these native hills and plains, By these baptismal streams, Wash off the city's fever stains, Bring back my boyhood's dreams.

Beside the doors where life began Here let it find its close; And be its brief, remaining span All given to repose.

THE RISING OF THE CURTAIN

We sit before the curtain, and we heed the pleasant bustle: The ushers hastening up the aisles, the fans' and programmes' rustle; The boy that cries librettos, and the soft, incessant sound Of talking and low laughter that buzzes all around.

How very old the drop-scene looks! A thousand times before I've seen that blue paint dashing on that red distemper shore; The castle and the guazzo sky, the very ilex-tree,-- They have been there a thousand years,--a thousand more shall be.

All our lives we have been waiting for that weary daub to rise; We have peeped behind its edges, "as if we were God's spies;" We have listened for the signal; yet still, as in our youth, The colored screen of matter hangs between us and the truth.

When in my careless childhood I dwelt beside a wood, I tired of the clearing where my father's cabin stood; And of the wild young forest paths that coaxed me to explore, Then dwindled down, or led me back to where I stood before.

But through the woods before our door a wagon track went by, Above whose utmost western edge there hung an open sky; And there it seemed to make a plunge, or break off suddenly, As though beneath that open sky it met the open sea.

Oh, often have I fancied, in the sunset's dreamy glow, That mine eyes had caught the welter of the ocean waves below; And the wind among the pine-tops, with its low and ceaseless roar, Was but an echo from the surf on that imagined shore.

Alas! as I grew older, I found that road led down To no more fair horizon than the squalid factory town: So all life's purple distances, when nearer them I came, Have played me still the same old cheat,--the same, the same, the same!

And when, O King, the heaven departeth as a scroll, Wilt thou once more the promise break thou madest to my soul? Shall I see thy feasting presence thronged with baron, knight, and page? Or will the curtain rise upon a dark and empty stage?

For lo, quick undulations across the canvas run; The foot-lights brighten suddenly, the orchestra has done; And through the expectant silence rings loud the prompter's bell; The curtain shakes,--it rises. Farewell, dull world, farewell!