Vale of tempe : poems / by Madison J. Cawein [electronic text]

THE VALE OF TEMPE

THE HYLAS

I

I HEARD the hylas in the bottomlandsPiping a reed-note in the praise of Spring: The South-wind brought the music on its wing,As 't were a hundred strandsOf guttural gold smitten of elfin hands;Or of sonorous silver, struck by bands,Anviled within the earth,Of laboring gnomes shaping some gem of worth. Sounds that seemed to bid The wildflowers wake;

Unclose each dewy lid, And starrily shake Sleep from their airy eyes Beneath the loam, And, robed in dædal dyes, Frail as the fluttering foam, In countless myriads rise. And in my city home I, too, who heard Their reedy word, Awoke, and, with my soul, went forth to roam.

II

And under glimpses of the cloud-white sky My soul and I Beheld her seated, Spring among the woods With bright attendants, Two radiant maidens, The Wind and Sun: one robed in cadence, And one in white resplendence,

Working wild wonders with the solitudes.And thus it was, So it seemed to me,Where she sat apartFondling a bee,By some strange art, As in a glass,Down in her heartMy eyes could seeWhat would come to pass:—How in each tree,Each blade of grass,—Dead though it seemed,—Still lived and dreamed Life and perfume, Color and bloom, Housed from the North Like golden mirth,That she with jubilation would bring forth,Astonishing Earth.

III

And thus it was I knewThat though the trees were barren of all buds,And all the woods Of blossoms now, still, still their hoodsAnd heads of blue and gold,And pink and pearl lay hidden in the mould; And in a day or two,When Spring's fair feet came twinkling through The trees, their gold and blue,And pearl and pink in countless bands would rise,Invading all these waysWith loveliness; and to the skies,In radiant rapture raiseThe fragile sweetness of a thousand eyes.When every foot of soil would boastAn ambuscadeOf blossoms; each green rood paradeIts flowery host;

And every acre of the woods,With little bird-like beaks of leaves and buds, Brag of its beauty; making bankrupts ofOur hearts of praise, and beggar us of love.

IV

Here, when the snow was flying,And barren boughs were sighing,In icy January, I stood, like some gray tree, lonely and solitary. Now every spine and splinterOf wood, washed clean of winter,By hill and canyonMakes of itself an intimate companion, A confidant, who whispers me the dreamsThat haunt its heart, and clothe it as with gleams. And lonely now no more I walk the mossy floorOf woodlands where each bourgeoning leaf is matched,

Mated with music; triumphed o'er Of building love and nestling song just hatched.

V

Washed of the early rains, And rosed with ruddy stains, The boughs and branches now make ready for Their raiment green of leaves and musk and myrrh.—As if to greet her pomp,The heralds of her state,As 't were with many a silvery trump, The birds are singing, singing, And all the world's elate,As o'er the hills, as 't were from Heaven's gate, With garments, dewy-clinging,Comes Spring, around whose way the budded woods are ringingWith redbird and with bluebird and with thrush; While, overhead, on happy wings is swinging

The swallow through the heaven's azure hush: And wren and sparrow, vireo and crow Are busy with their nests, or high or low, In every tree, it seems, and every bush.The loamy odor of the turfy heat,Breathed warm from every field and wood retreat,Is as if spirits passed on flowery feet That indescribable Aroma of the woods one knows so well, Reminding one of sylvan presences, Clad on with lichen and with moss, That haunt and trail acrossThe woods' dim dales and dells; their airy essences Of racy nard and musk Rapping at gummy husk And honeyed sheath of every leaf and flower, That open to their knock, each at the appointed hour:—

And, lo! Where'er they go Behold a miracleToo beautiful to tell! — Where late the woods were bareThe red-bud shakes its hairOf flowering flame; the dogwood and the hawDazzle with pearl the shaw; And the broad maple crimsons, sunset-red, Through firmaments of forest overhead:And of its boughs the wild-crab makes a lair, A rosy cloud of blossoms, for the bees,Bewildered there,To revel in; lulling itself with these. And in the whispering woods The wildflower multitudesRise, star, and bell, and bugle, all amortTo everything save their own lovelinessAnd the soft wind's caress, — The wind that tip-toes through them: —liverwort,

Spring-beauty, windflower and the bleedingheart, And bloodroot, holding low Its cups of stainless snow;Sorrel and trillturn and the twin-leaf, too,Twinkling, like stars, through dew:And patches, as it were, of saffron skies, Ranunculus; and golden eyes Of adder's-tongue; and mines,It seems, of grottoed gold, the poppy-celandines; And, sapphire-spilled, Bluets and violets,Dark pansy-violets and columbines, With rainy radiance filled;And many more whose names my mind forgets,But not my heart:The Nations of the Flowers, making gay In every place and part, With pomp and pageantry Of absolute Beauty, all the worlds of woods, In congregated multitudes,

Assembled whereUnearthly colors all the oaks put on, Velvet and silk and vair, Vermeil and mauve and fawn,Dim and auroral as the hues of dawn.

WIND AND CLOUD

A March Voluntary

I

WINDS that cavern heaven and the cloudsAnd canyon with cerulean blue,— Great rifts down which the stormy sunlight crowdsLike some bright seraph, who,Mailed in intensity of silver mail,Flashes his splendor over hill and vale,—Now tramp, tremendous, the loud forest through: Or now, like mighty runners in a race,That swing, long pace to pace,Sweep 'round the hills, fresh as, at dawn's first start,

They swept, dew-dripping, fromThe crystal-crimson ruby of her heart,Shouting the dim world dumb.And with their passage the gray and greenOf the earth 's washed clean;And the cleansing breath of their might is wingsAnd warm aroma, we know as Spring's,And sap and strength to her bourgeonings.

II

My brow I bareTo the cool, clean air,That blows from the crests of the clouds that roll,Pearl-piled and berged as floes of Northern Seas, Banked gray and thunder-low Big in the heaven's peace;Clouds, borne from nowhere that we know, With nowhere for their goal;With here and there a silvery glow

Of sunlight chasming deeps of sombre snow, Great gulfs that overflow With sky, a sapphire-blue, Or opal, sapphire-kissed,Wide-welled and deep and swiftly rifting through Stratas of streaming mist;—Each opening like a pool,Serene, cerule,Set 'round with crag-like clouds 'mid which its eye gleams cool.

III

What blue is bluer than the bluebird's blue!—'T is as if heaven itself sat on its wings;As if the sky in miniature it boreThe fields and forests through, Bringing the very heaven to our door; The daybreak of its back soft-wedded to The sunset-auburn of its throat that sings.—The dithyrambics of the wind and rain

Strive to, but cannot, drown its strain:Again, and yet againI hear it where the maples tassel red,And blossoms of the crab round out o'erhead, And catkins make the willow-brake A gossamer blur around the lakeThat lately was a stream,A little stream locked in its icy dream.

IV

Invisible crystals of aërial ring,Against the wind I hear the bluebird flingIts notes; and where the oak's mauve leaves uncurl I catch the skyey glitter of its wing;Its wing that lures me, like some magic charm, Far in the woodsAnd shadowy solitudes:And where the purple hills stretch under purple and pearl

Of clouds that sweep and swirl,Its music seems to take material form;A form that beckons with cerulean arm And bids me see and follow, Where, in the violet hollow, There at the wood's far turn, On starry moss and fern,She shimmers, glimmering like a rainbowed shower, The Spirit of Spring, Diaphanous-limbed, who stands With honeysuckle hands Sowing the earth with many a firstling flower, Footed with fragrance of their blossoming, And clad in heaven as is the bluebird's wing.

V

The tumult and the booming of the trees,Shaken with shoutings of the winds of March—No mightier music have I heard than these,—

The rocking and the rushing of the trees,The organ-thunder of the forest's arch.And in the wind their columned trunks become,Each one, a mighty pendulum,Swayed to and fro as if in timeTo some vast song, some roaring rhyme,Wind-shouted from sonorous hill to hill The woods are never still: The dead leaves frenzy by, Innumerable and frantic as the danceThat whirled its madness once beneath the sky In ancient Greece,—like withered Corybants: And I am caught and carried with their rush,Their countless panic— borne away,A brother to the wind, through the deep gray Of the old beech-wood, where the wild Marchday Sits dreaming, filling all the boisterous hush With murmurous laughter and swift smiles of sun;

Conspiring in its heart and plotting how To load with leaves and blossoms every bough, And whispering to itself, "Now Spring's begun! And soon her flowers shall golden through these leaves!—Away, ye sightless things and sere! Make room for that which shall appear! The glory and the gladness of the year; The loveliness my eye alone perceives,—Still hidden there beneath the covering leaves,— My song shall waken!—flowers, that this floor Of whispering woodland soon shall carpet o'er For my sweet sisters' feet to tread upon, Months kinder than myself, the stern and strong,Tempestuous-loving one, Whose soul is full of wild, tumultuous song; And whose rough hand now thrusts itself among The dead leaves; groping for the flowers that lie Huddled beneath, each like a sleep-closed eye: Gold adder's-tongue and pink

Oxalis; snow-pale bloodroot blooms; May-apple hoods, that parasol the brink, Screening their moons, of the slim woodland stream:And the wild iris; trillium,—white as stars—And bluebells, dream on dream:With harsh hand groping in the glooms, I grasp their slenderness and shake Their lovely eyes awake, Dispelling from their souls the sleep that mars; With heart-disturbing jarsClasping their forms, and with rude finger-tips,Through the dark rain that dripsLifting them shrinking to my stormy lips,

VI

"Already spicewood and the sassafras, Like fragrant flames, beginTo tuft their boughs with topaz, ere they spin Their beryl canopies—a glimmering mass,

Mist-blurred, above the deepening grass. Already where the old beech stands Clutching the lean soil as it were with hands Taloned and twisted,— on its trunk a knot, A huge excrescence, a great fungous clot, Like some enormous and distorting wart,— My eyes can see how, blot on beautiful blot Of blue, the violets blur through.The musky and the loamy rotOf leaf-pierced leaves; and, heaven in their hue,The little bluets, crew on azure crew, Prepare their myriads for invasion too.

VII

"And in my soul I see how, soon, shall rise,—Still hidden to men's eyes,—Dim as the wind that 'round them treads,— Hosts of spring-beauties, streaked with rosy reds, And pale anemones, whose airy heads,

As to some fairy rhyme,All day shall nod in delicate time:And now, even now, white peal on pealOf pearly bells,—that in bare boughs conceal Themselves,—like snowy music, chime on chime,The huckleberries to my gaze reveal — Clusters, that soon shall toss Above this green-starred moss, That, like an emerald fire, gleams acrossThis forest-side, and from its moist deeps liftsSlim, wire-like stems of seed;Or, lichen-colored, glows with many a bead Of cup-like blossoms: carpets where, I read, When through the night's dark riftsThe moonlight's glimpsing splendor sifts,The immaterial formsWith moonbeam-beckoning arms,Of Fable and Romance, —Myths that are born of whispers of the wind

And foam of falling waters, music-twinned, — Shall lead the legendary dance;The dance that never stops,Of Earth's wild beauty on the green hill-tops."

VIII

The youth, the beauty and disdainOf birth, death does not know,Compel my heart with longing like to painWhen the spring breezes blow,The fragrance and the heatOf their soft breath, whose musk makes sweet Each woodland way, each wild retreat,Seem saying in my ear, "Hark, and behold!Before a week be goneThis barren woodside and this leafless wold A million flowers shall invadeWith argent and azure, pearl and gold,—Like rainbow fragments scattered of the dawn,—Here making bright, here wan

Each foot of earth, each glen and glimmering glade,Each rood of windy wood, Where late gaunt Winter stood, Shaggy with snow and howling at the sky; Where even now the Springtime seems afraid To whisper of the beauty she designs,The flowery campaign that she now outlines Within her soul; her heart's conspiracy To take the world with loveliness; defyAnd then o'erwhelm the Death —that Winter thronedAmid the trees,—with love that she hath owned Since God informed her of His very breath, Giving her right triumphant over Death. And, irresistible,Her heart's deep ecstasy shall swell, Taking the form of flower, leaf, and blade, Invading every dell,And sweeping, surge on surge,

Around the world, like some exultant raid, Even to the heaven's verge. Soon shall her legions stormDeath's ramparts, planting Life's fair standard there,The banner which her beauty hath in care,Beauty, that shall eventuateWith all the pomp and pageant and the state, That are apart of power, and that wait On majesty, to which it, too, is heir."

IX

Already purplish pink and greenThe bloodroot's buds and leaves are seen Clumped in dim cirques; one from the other Hardly distinguished in the shadowy smother Of last year's leaves blown brown between. And, piercing through the layers of dead leaves, The searching eye perceives The dog's-tooth violet, pointed needle-keen,

Lifting its beak of mottled green;While near it heavesThe May-apple its umbrous spike, a ball, —Like to a round, green bean,That folds its blossom, —topping its tight-closed parasol:The clustered bluebell nearHollows its azure ear,Low leaning to the earth as if to hearThe sound of its own growing and perfume Flowing into its bloom: And softly thereThe twin-leaf's stems prepare Pale tapers of transparent white, As if to lightThe Spirit of Beauty through the wood's green night.

X

Why does Nature love the number five?Five-whorled leaves and five-tipped flowers?—

Haply the bee that sucks i' the rose, Laboring aye to store its hive, And humming away the long noon hours, Haply it knows as it comes and goes: Or haply the butterfly, Or moth of pansy-dye, Flitting from bloom to bloom In the forest's violet gloom, It knows why: Or the irised fly; to whom Each bud, as it glitters near, Lends eager and ardent ear.— And also tell Why Nature loves so well To prank her flowers in gold and blue. Haply the dew,That lies so close to them the whole night through, Hugged to each honeyed heart,Perhaps the dew the secret could impart:

Or haply now the bluebird there that bears,Glad, unawares,God's sapphire on its wings, The lapis-lazuliO' the clean, clear sky,The heav'n of which he sings, Haply he, too, could tell me why:Or the maple there that swings, To the wind's soft sigh, Its winglets, crystal red, A rainy ruby twinkling overhead:Or haply now the wind, that breathes of rain Amid the rosy boughs, it could explain: And even now, in words of mystery,—That haunt the heart of me,—Low-whispered, dim and bland, Tells me, but tells in vain,And strives to make me see and understand, Delaying whereThe feldspar fire of the violet breaks,

And the starred myrtle achesWith heavenly blue; and the frail windflower shakesIts trembling tresses in the opal air.

IN SOLITARY PLACES

I

THE hurl and hurry of the winds of March, That tore the ash and bowed the pine and larch, Are past and done with:—winds, that trampled throughThe forests with enormous, scythe-like sweep, And from the darkening deep,The battlements of heaven, thunder-blue, Rumbled the arch,The rocking arch of all the booming oaks,With stormy chariot-spokes;Chariots from which wild bugle-blasts they blew,Their warrior challenge.… Now the wind flower sweetMisses the fury of their ruining feet,

The trumpet-thunder of resistless flight, Crashing and vast, obliterating light; Sweeping the skeleton cohorts down Of last year's leaves; and, overhead, Hurrying the giant foliage of night,Gaunt clouds that streamed with tempest.—Now each crownOf woods that stooped to clamor of their tread, The frenzy of their passage, stoops no more, Hearing no more their clarion-command, Their chariot-hurl and the wild whip in hand. No more, no more,The forests rock and roarAnd tumult with their shoutings.… Hushed and still Is the green-gleaming and the sunlit hill, Along whose sides,Flushing the dewy moss and rainy grass—Beneath the topaz-tinted sassafras,As aromatic as some orient wine—

The violet fire of the bluet glides, The amaranthine flame Glints of the bluebell; and the celandine,Line upon lovely line,Deliberate goldens into birth;And, ruby and rose, the moccasin-flower hides: Innumerable blooms, with which she writes her name,April, upon the page,The winter-withered parchment of old Earth, Her fragrant autograph that gives it worth And loveliness that takes away its age.

II

Here where the woods are wet, The blossoms of the dog's-tooth violet Seem meteors in a miniature firmament Of wildflowers, where, with rainy sound and scent Of breeze and blossom, soft the April went:

Their tongue-like leaves of umber-mottled green, So thickly seen,Seem dropping words of gold,The visible syllables of a magic old.Beside them, near the wahoo-bush and haw, Blooms the hepatica;Its slender flowers upon swaying stemsLifting pale, solitary blooms,Starry, and twilight-colored, —like frail gems, That star the diademsOf sylvan spirits, piercing pale the glooms;— Or like the wands, the torches of the fays, That light lone, woodland ways With slim, uncertain rays:—(The faery people, whom no eye may see,Busy, so legend says,With budding bough and leafing tree,The blossom's heart o' honey and honey-sack o' the bee,And all dim thoughts and dreams,

That take the form of flowers, as it seems, And haunt the banks of greenwood streams, Showing in every line and curve, Commensurate with our love, and intimacy, A smiling confidence or sweet reserve.)

There at that leafy turnOf trailered rocks, rise fronds of hart's-tongue fern:Fronds that my fancy namesUncoiling flamesOf feathering emerald and gold, That, kindled in the musky mould, Now, stealthily as the morn, unfold Their cool green fires that burn Uneagerly, and spread around An elfin light above the ground, Like that green glowA spirit, lamped with crystal, makes belowIn dripping caves of labyrinthine moss.

And in the underwoods, around them, toss The white-hearts with their penciled leaves, That 'mid the shifting gleams and glooms,The interchanging shine and shade,Seem some vague garment madeBy unseen hands that weave, that none perceives; Pale hands that work invisible looms, Now dropping shreds of light,Now shadow-shreds, that interbraid And form faint colors mixed with frail perfumes. Or, are they fragments left in flight,These flowers that scatter every gladeWith windy, beckoning white,And breezy blowing blue,Of her wild gown that shone upon my sight,A moment, in the woods I wandered through? April's, whom still I follow,Whom still my dreams pursue;Who leads me on by many a tangled clueOf loveliness, until, in some green hollow,

Born of her fragrance and her melody, But lovelier than herself and happier, too, Cradled in blossoms of the dogwood-tree, My soul shall see— White as a sunbeam in the heart of day— The infant, May.

III

Up, up, my Heart, and forth, where none perceives! 'T was this that that sweet lay meant You heard in dreams. — Come, let us take rich payment,For every care that grieves, From Nature's prodigal purse.'T was this that May meantBy sending forth that wind which 'round our eaves Whispered all night.—Or was 't the Spirit who weaves,

From gold and glaucous green of early leaves, Spring's radiant raiment?— Up, up, my Heart, and forth, where none perceives!

Come, let us forth, my Heart, where none divines!Into far woodland places,Where we may meet the fair, assembled races, Beneath the guardian pines, Of God's first flowers: —poppy-celandines,And wake-robins and bugled columbines,With which her hair, her heavenly hair she twines,And loops and laces.— Come let us forth, my Heart, where none divines!

Forth, forth, my Heart, and let us find our dreams,There where they haunt each hollow!

Dreams, luring us with Oread feet to follow, With flying feet of beams,Fleeter and lighter than the soaring swallow: Dreams, holding us with Dryad glooms and gleams;With Naiad looks, far stiller than still streams, That have beheld and still reflect, it seems, The God Apollo.—Forth, forth, my Heart, and let us find our dreams!

Out, out my Heart! the world is white with spring.Long have our dreams been pleaders:Now let them be our firm but gentle leaders. Come, let us forth and singAmong the amber-emerald-tufted cedars,And balm-o'-Gileads, cottonwoods,—a-swingLike giant censers, —that from leaf-cusps flingBalsams of gummy gold, bewildering

The winds their feeders.— Out, out, my Heart! the world is white with spring.

Up, up, my Heart, and all thy hope put on! Array thyself in splendor!Like some bright dragonfly, some May-fly slender, The irised lamels donOf thy new armor; and, where burns the centre, Refulgent, of the widening rose of dawn, Spread thy wild wings! and, ere the hour be gone, Bright as a blast from some bold clarion,Thy Dream-world enter!—Up, up, my heart, and all thy hope put on!

IV

And then I heard it singing,—The wind that kissed my hair,—A song of wild expression,

A song that called in sessionThe wildflowers there up-springing,The wildflowers lightly flingingTheir tresses to the air.

And first the bloodroot-blooms of MarchIn troops arose; each with its torch Of hollow snow, within which, bright, The calyx grottoed golden light.

Hepatica and bluet,And gold corydalis.Rose, swaying to the aria;While phlox and dim dentaria In rapture, ere they knew it, Oped, nodding lightly to it, Faint as a first star is.

And then a music,—to the ear Inaudible, —I seemed to hear;

A symphony that seemed to rise And speak in colors to the eyes.

I saw the Jacob's-LadderRing violet peal on pealOf perfume, azure-swinging; The bluebell slimly ringingIts purple chimes; and gladder,Green note on note, the madderBells of the Solomon's-seal.

Now far away; now near; now lost, I saw their fragrant music tossed, Mixed dimly with white interludes Of trilliums starring cool the woods.

Then choral, solitary,I saw the celandineSmite bright its golden cymbals; The starwort shake its timbrels; The whiteheart's horns of Faery,

With many a flourish airy, Strike silvery into line.

And straight my soul they seemed to draw, By chords of loveliness and awe, Into a Faery World afar, Where all man's dreams and longings are.

V

Then the face of a spirit looked down at me Out of the deeps of the opal morn: Its eyes were blue as a sunlit sea, And young with the joy of a star that has just been born:And I seemed to hear, with my soul, the rose of its cool mouth say: —

"Long I lay; long I lay,Low on the Hills of the Break-of-Day,Where ever the light is green and gray,

And the gleam of the moon is a silvery spray, And the stars are glimmering bubbles:Now from the Hills of the Break-of-Day.I come, I come, on a rainbow ray,To laugh and sparkle, to leap and play,And blow from the face of the world away,Like mists, its cares and troubles."

VI

And now that the dawn is everywhereLet us take this road through this wild green place,Where the rattlesnake-weed shows its yellow face, And the lichens cover the rocks with lace: Where tannin-touched is the wild free air, Let us take this path through the oaks where thinThe low leaves whisper, "The day is fair,"And waters murmur, "Come in, come in!

Where the wind of our foam can play with your hair And blow away care."

Berry blossoms that seem to flowAs the winds blow;Blackberry blossoms swing and sway To and fro Along our way,Like ocean spray on a breezy day,Over the green of the grass as foam on the green of a bayWhen the world is white and green with the white and the green of May.

And here the bluets bloomingMake little eyes at you;O'er which the bees go booming,Drunk with the honey-dew.— O slender Quaker-ladies,O star-bright Quaker-ladies,

With eyes of heavenly blue, With eyes of azure hue, — Who, where the mossy shade is, Hold quiet Quaker-meeting,— Are these your serenaders? Your gold-hipped serenaders, Who, humming love-songs true, And to your eyes repeating Soft ballads, stop to woo? Then change to ambuscaders, To gold galloonéd raiders, And rob the hearts of you, The golden hearts of you.

And here the bells of the huckleberries toss, so it seems, in time, Delicate, tenderly white, clumped by the wildwood way,Swinging, it seems, inaudible peals of a dew clustered rhyme,

Visible music, dropped from the virginal lips of the May,Crystally dropped, so it seems, blossoming bar upon bar,Pendent, pensively pale, star upon hollowed star.

VII

The dewberries are blooming now;The days are long, the nights are short:Each dogwood and each black-haw boughIs bleached with bloom, and seems a part, —Reflected palely on her brow, —Of dreams that haunt the Year's young heart.

But this will pass; and instantlyThe world forget the spring that was;And underneath the wild-plum tree,'Mid hornet hum and wild-bee's buzz,Summer, in dreamy reverie,Will sit, all warm and amorous.

Summer, with drowsy eyes and hair, Who walks the orchard aisles between; Whose hot touch tans the freckled pear, And crimsons peach and nectarine;And in the vineyard everywhereBubbles with blue the grape's ripe green.

Where now the briers blossoming areSoon will the berries darkly glow;Then summer pass: and, star on star, Where now the grass is strewn below With blossoms, soon, both near and far, Will lie th' obliterating snow.

The star-flower, now that discs with gold The woodland moss, the forest grass, Already in a day is old,Already doth its beauty pass;Soon, undistinguished, with the mould'T will mingle and will mix, alas!

The bluet, too, that spreads its skies,Diminutive heavens, at our feet;And crowfoot-bloom, that, with orbed eyesOf amber, now our eyes doth greet,Shall fade and pass, and none surmiseHow once they made the Maytime sweet.

VIII

But still the crowfoot trails its goldAlong the edges of the oak wood old;And still, where spreads the water, white are seen The lilies islanded betweenThe pads 'round archipelagoes of green;The jade-dark pads that paveThe water's wrinkled wave,In which the warbler and the sparrow lave Their fluttered breasts and wings;Preening their backs, with many twitterings, With necks the moisture streaks;Then dipping deep their beaks,

To which some bead of liquid coolness clings, As bending back their mellow throats They let the freshness trickle into notes. And now you hearThe red-capped woodpecker rap close and clear; And now that acrobat, The yellow-breasted chat, Chuckles his grotesque music from Some tree that he hath clomb. And now, and now, Upon a locust bough, Hark how the honey-throated thrush Scatters the forest's emerald hush With notes of golden harmony, Taking the woods with witchery— Or is 't some spirit none may see, Hid in the top of yonder tree,Who, in his house of leaves, of haunted green, Keeps trying, silver-sweet, his sunbeam flute serene?

IX

Again the spirit looked down at meOut of the sunset's ruin of gold;Its eyes were dark as a moonless sea,And grave with the grief of a star that with sorrow is old:And I seemed to hear, with my soul, the flame of its sad mouth sigh: —

"Now good-by! now good-by!Down to the Caves of the Night go I:Where a shadowy couch of the purple sky, That the moon- and the starlight curtain high, Is spread for my joy and sorrow:Down to the Caves of the Night go I,Where side by side in mysteryWith all the Yesterdays I'll lie;And where, from my body, before I die,Will be born the young To-morrow."

X

And now that the dusk draws down you see, Tipped by the weight of a passing bee, The milkwort's spike of blue, Of lavender hue, Nod like a goblin night-cap, slim, sedate, That night shall tassel with the dew, Beneath its canopy of flowering rue. And now, as twilight's purple state Deepens the oaks' dark vistas through, The owlet's cry of "Who, oh, who, Who walks so late?" Drifts like a challenge down to you.

Or there on the twig of the oak-tree tall, The gray-green egg in the gray-green gall, You, too, might hear if you, too, would try, Might hear it open; all tinily Split, and the little round worm and white,That grows to a gnat in a summer night,

Uncurl in its nest as it dreams of flight:In the heart of the weed that grows near by, The little gray worm that becomes a fly, A green wood-fly, a rainbowed fly,You, too, might hear if you, too, would try,As a leaf-bud pushes from forth a tree,Minute of movement, steadily,As it feels a yearning for wings begin, Under the milk of its larval skin The silent pressure of wings within.

The west grows ashen, the woods grow berylwan;The redbird lifts its plaintive vesper-song, Where faint a fox or rabbit steals along:And in some vine-roofed hollow, far withdrawn, The creek-frog sounds his deeply guttural gong, As dusk comes on:—The water's gnarléd dwarf or gnome,Seated upon his temple's oozy dome,

Calling the faithful unto prayer,Muezzin-like, the worshippers of the moon, The insect-folk of earth and airThat join him in his twilight tune.—

Along the path where the lizard hides, An instant shadow the spider glides, The hairy spider that haunts the way, Crouching black by its earth-bored hole, An insect-ogre, that lairs with the mole, Hungry, seeking its insect prey, Fast to follow and swift to slay.And over your hands and over your face The cobweb brushes its phantom lace:And now from many a stealthy place, Woolly-winged and gossamer-gray, The woodland moths come fluttering, Marked and mottled with lichen hues, Seal-soft umbers and downy blues, Dark as the bark to which they cling.

Now in the hollow of a hill,—Like a glow-worm held in a giant hand,— Under the sunset's last red band,And one star hued like a daffodil,The windowed lamp of a cabin glows,—The charcoal-burner's, whose hut is poor,But ever open; beside whose doorAn oak grows gnarled and a pine stands slim.Clean of heart and of feature grim,Here he houses where no one knows,His only neighbors the cawing crows That make a roost of the pine's top limb;His only friend the fiddle he bowsAs he sits at his door in the eve's repose,Making it chuckle and sing and speak,Lovingly pressed to his swarthy cheek.

And over many a root, through ferns and weeds, Past lonely places where the raccoon breeds,By many a rock and water lying dim,

Roofed with the brier and the bramble-rose, Under a star and the new-moon's rim, Downward the wood-way leads to him, Down where the lone lamp gleams and glows,A pencil slimOf marigold light'under leaf and limb.

XI

Ere that small sisterhood of misty-stars, The Pleiades, consents to grace the sky;While yet through sunset's tiger-tawny bars The evening-star shines downward like an eye, A torch, Enchantment, in her topaz towerOf twilight, kindles at the Day's last hour, Listen, and you may hear, now low, now high, A voice, a spirit, dreamier than a flower.

There is a fellowship so still and sweet, A brotherhood, that speaks, unwordable, In every tree, in every flower you meet,

The soul is fain to sit beneath its spell.—And heart-admitted to their presence there,Those intimacies of the earth and air,It shall hear words, too wonderful to tell,Too deep to interpret, of unspoken prayer.

And you may see the things no eyes have seen, And hear the things no ears have ever heard; The Murmur of the Woods, in gray and green, Will lean to you, its soul a whispered word;Or by your side, in hushed and solemn wise, The Silence sit; and, clothed in glimmering dyes Of pearl and purple, herding bee and bird, The Dusk steal by you with her shadowy eyes.

Then through the Ugliness that toils in night, Uncouth, obscure, that hates the glare of day, The things that pierce the earth and know no light,And hide themselves in clamminess and clay,—

The dumb, ungainly things, that make a home Of mud and mire they hill and honeycomb,— Through these, perhaps, in some mysterious way, Beauty may speak fairer than wind-blown foam.

Not as it speaks, an eagle message, drawnFrom starry vastness of night's labyrinths:Not uttering itself from out the dawnIn egret hues; nor from the cloud-built plinths Of sunset's splendor,—speaking burningly Unto the spirit;—nor all floweryFrom cygnet-colored cymes of hyacinths,—But from the things that type humility.

From things despised:—even from the crawfish there, Hollowing its house of ooze—a wet, vague sound Of sleepy slime; or from the mole, whose lair, Blind-tunnelled, corridores the earth around, Beauty may draw her truths, as draws its wings

The butterfly from the dull worm that clings, Cocoon and chrysalis; and from the ground Address the soul through even senseless things.

For oft my soul hath heard the trees' huge roots Fumble the darkness, clutching at the soil; Hath heard the green beaks of th' imprisoned shootsPeck at the boughs from which the leaves uncoil; Hath heard the buried germ soft split its pod, Groping its blind way up to light and God; The mushroom, laboring with gnome-like toil, Heave slow its white orb through the encircling sod.

The winds and waters, stars and streams and flowers,The earth and rocks, each moss-tuft and each fern,The very lichens speak.—This world of ours

Is eloquent with things that bid us learn To pierce appearances, and so to mark, Within the stone and underneath the bark, — Heard through some inward sense,—the dreams that turnOutward to light and beauty from the dark.

XII

I stood alone in a mountain place,And it came to pass, as I gazed on space,That I met with Mystery, face to face.

Within her eyes my wondering soul beheld The eons past, the eons yet to come,At cosmic labor; and the stars, —that swelled, Fiery or nebulous, from the darkness dumb, In each appointed place and period, — I saw were words, whose hieroglyphic sum Blazoned one word, the mystic name of God.

I walked alone 'mid the forest's maze, And it came to pass, as I went my ways,That I met with Beauty, face to face.

Within her eyes my worshipping spirit sawThe moments busy with the dreams whence spring Earth's loveliness: and all fair things that awe Man's soul with their perfection —everything That buds and bourgeons, blossoming above,— I saw were letters of enduring Law That bloomed one word, the beautiful name of Love.

WHIPPOORWILL TIME

LET down the bars; drive in the cows: The west is barred with burning rose. Unhitch the horses from the ploughs,And from the cart the ox that lows, And light the lamp within the house:The whippoorwill is calling,"Whippoorwill, whippoorwill," Where the locust blooms are fallingOn the hill; The sunset's rose is dying, And the whippoorwill is crying,"Whippoorwill, whippoorwill";Soft, now shrill, The whippoorwill is crying,"Whippoorwill."

Unloose the watch-dog from his chain:The first stars wink their drowsy eyes: A sheep-bell tinkles in the lane,And where the shadow deepest liesA lamp makes bright the window-pane: The whippoorwill is calling,"Whippoorwill, whippoorwill," Where the berry-blooms are fallingOn the rill;The first faint stars are springing,And the whippoorwill is singing,"Whippoorwill, whippoorwill ";Softly stillThe whippoorwill is singing,"Whippoorwill."

The cows are milked; the cattle fed;The last far streaks of evening fade: The farm-hand whistles in the shed, And in the house the table's laid;

Its lamp streams on the garden-bed:The whippoorwill is calling,"Whippoorwill, whippoorwill," Where the dogwood blooms are fallingOn the hill;The afterglow is waning And the whippoorwill's complaining,"Whippoorwill, whippoorwill "; Wild and shrill, The whippoorwill's complaining,"Whippoorwill."

The moon blooms out, a great white rose; The stars wheel onward toward the west: The barnyard-cock wakes once and crows;The farm is wrapped in peaceful rest;The cricket chirs; the firefly glows The whippoorwill is calling,"Whippoorwill, whippoorwill," Where the bramble-blooms are falling

On the rill;The moon her watch is keeping And the whippoorwill is weeping,"Whippoorwill, whippoorwill";Lonely still,The whippoorwill is weeping,"Whippoorwill."

MYSTERIES

SOFT and silken and silvery brown,In shoes of lichen and leafy gown,Little blue butterflies fluttering around her, Deep in the forest, afar from town,There where a stream came trickling down,I met with Silence, who wove a crownOf sleep whose mystery bound her.

I gazed in her eyes, that were mossy greenAs the rain that pools in a hollow betweenThe twisted roots of a tree that towers: And I saw the things that none has seen,— That mean far more than facts may mean,— The dreams, that are true, of an age that has been, That God has thought into flowers.

I gazed on her lips, that were dewy grayAs the mist that clings, at the close of day,To the wet hillside when the winds cease blowing;And I heard the things that none may say, — That are holier far than the prayers we pray, —The murmured music God breathes alwayThrough the hearts of all things growing.

Soft and subtle and vapory white,In shoes of shadow and gown of light,Crimson poppies asleep around her,Far in the forest, beneath a height,I came on Slumber, who wove from nightA wreath of silence, that, darkly bright,With its mystic beauty bound her.

I looked in her face that was pale and stillAs the moon that rises above the hillWhere the pines loom sombre as sorrow:

And the things that all have known and will, I knew for a moment:—the myths that fill And people the past of the soul and thrill Its hope with a far to-morrow.

I heard her voice, that was strange with painAs a wind that whispers of wreck and rainTo the leaves of the autumn rustling lonely: And I felt the things that are felt in vain By all—the longings that haunt the brain Of man, that come and depart againAnd are part of his dreamings only.

THE SOLITARY

UPON the mossed rock by the springShe sits, forgetful of her pail,Lost in remote remembering Of that which may no more avail.

Her thin, pale hair is dimly dressed Above a brow lined deep with care, The color of a leaf long pressed, A faded leaf that once was fair.

You may not know her from the stoneSo still she sits who does not stir, Thinking of this one thing alone—The love that never came to her.

A YELLOW ROSE

THE old gate clicks, and down the walk, Between clove-pink and hollyhock,Still young of face though gray of lock, Among her garden's flowers she goesAt evening's close,Deep in her hair a yellow rose.

The old house shows one gable-peak Above its trees; and sage and leekBlend with the rose their scents: the creek, Leaf-hidden, past the garden flows,That on it snowsPale petals of the yellow rose.

The crickets pipe in dewy damps;And everywhere the fireflies' lamps

Flame like the lights of Faery camps; While, overhead, the soft sky showsOne star that glows,As, in gray hair, a yellow rose.

There is one spot she seeks for, where The roses make a fragrant lair,A spot where once he kissed her hair, And told his love, as each one knows, Each flower that blows,And pledged it with a yellow rose.

The years have turned her dark hair gray Since that glad day: and still, they say, She keeps the tryst as on that day; And through the garden softly goes,At evening's close,Wearing for him that yellow rose.

THE OLD HOME

AN old lane, an old gate, an old house by a tree; A wild wood, a wild brook—they will not let me be:In boyhood I knew them, and still they call to me.

Down deep in my heart's core I hear them and my eyesThrough tear-mists behold them beneath the oldtime skies, 'Mid bee-boom and rose-bloom and orchardlands arise.

I hear them; and heartsick with longing is my soul,

To walk there, to dream there, beneath the sky's blue bowl;Around me, within me, the weary world made whole.

To talk with the wild brook of all the long-ago; To whisper the wood-wind of things we used to knowWhen we were old companions, before my heart knew woe.

To walk with the morning and watch its rose unfold; To drowse with the noontide lulled on its heart of gold;To lie with the night-time and dream the dreams of old.

To tell to the old trees, and to each listening leaf,

The longing, the yearning, as in my boyhood brief, The old hope, the old love, would ease me of my grief.

The old lane, the old gate, the old house by the tree,The wild wood, the wild brook—they will not let me be:In boyhood I knew them, and still they call to me.

THE OLD HERB-MAN

ON the barren hillside lone he sat; On his head he wore a tattered hat; In his hand he bore a crooked staff; Never heard I laughter like his laugh,On the barren hillside, thistle-hoar.

Cracked his laughter sounded, harsh as woe, As the croaking, thinned, of a crow: At his back hung, pinned, a wallet old,Bulged with roots and simples caked with mould:On the barren hillside in the wind.

Roots of twisted twin-leaf; sassafras;Bloodroot, tightly whipped 'round with grass;Adder's-tongue; and, tipped brown and black,

Yellowroot and snakeroot filled his pack,On the barren hillside, winter-stripped.

There is nothing sadder than old age; Nothing saddens more than that stage When, forlornly poor, bent with toil, One must starve or wring life from the soil,From the barren hillside, wild and hoar.

Down the barren hillside slow he went, Cursing at the cold, bowed and bent; With his bag of mould, herbs and roots,In his clay-stained garments, clay-caked boots,Down the barren hillside, poor and old.

THE MAN HUNT

THE woods stretch wild to the mountain-side,And the brush is deep where a man may hide.

They have brought the bloodhounds up againTo the roadside rock where they found the slain.

They have brought the bloodhounds up, and they Have taken the trail to the mountain way.

Three times they circled the trail and crossed, And thrice they found it and thrice they lost.

Now straight through the trees and the underbrush They follow the scent through the forest's hush.

And their deep-mouthed bay is a pulse of fearIn the heart of the wood that the man must hear.

The man who crouches among the treesFrom the stern-faced men who follow these.

A huddle of rocks that the ooze has mossed — And the trail of the hunted again is lost.

An upturned pebble; a bit of ground A heel has trampled—the trail is found.

And the woods re-echo the bloodhounds' bay As again they take to the mountain way.

A rock; a ribbon of road; a ledge,With a pine-tree clutching its crumbling edge.

A pine, that the lightning long since clave, Whose huge roots hollow a ragged cave.

A shout; a curse; and a face aghast,And the human quarry is laired at last.

The human quarry with clay-clogged hair And eyes of terror who waits them there.

That glares and crouches and rising then Hurls clods and curses at dogs and men.

Until the blow of a gun-butt laysHim stunned and bleeding upon his face.

A rope, a prayer, and an oak-tree near,And a score of hands to swing him clear.

A grim, black thing for the setting sunAnd the moon and the stars to look upon.

THE VALE OF TEMPE

ALL night I lay upon the rocks:And now the dawn comes up this way, One great star trembling in her locks Of rosy ray.

I can not tell the things I've seen;The things I've heard I dare not speak.— The dawn is breaking gold and green O'er vale and peak.

My soul hath kept its tryst againWith her as once in ages past,In that lost life, I know not when,Which was my last.

When she was Dryad, I was Faun,And lone we loved in Tempe's Vale,

Where once we saw EndymionPass passion-pale:

Where once we saw him clasp and meet Among the pines, with kiss on kiss, Moon-breasted and most heavenly sweet, White Artemis.

Where often, Bacchus-borne, we heard The Mænad shout, wild-revelling;And filled with witchraft, past all word, The Limnad sing.

Bloom-bodied 'mid the twilight treesWe saw the Oread, who shoneFair as a form PraxitelesCarved out of stone.

And oft, goat-footed, in a gladeWe marked the Satyrs dance: and great,

Man-muscled, like the oaks that shade Dodona's gate,

Fierce Centaurs hoof the torrent's bank With wind-swept manes, or leap the crag, While swift, the arrow in its flank, Swept by the stag.

And, minnow-white, the Naiad there We watched, foam-shouldered, in her stream Wringing the moisture from her hair Of emerald gleam.

We saw the oak unclose and, brown, Sap-scented, from its door of bark The Hamadryad's form step down:Or, crouching dark

Within the oak's deep heart, we feltHer eyes that pierced the fibrous gloom;

Her breath, that was the nard we smelt,The wild perfume.…

There is no flower, that opens glad Soft eyes of dawn and sunset hue, As fair as the LimoniadWe saw there too:

That flow'r-divinity, rose-born,Of sunlight and white dew, whose blood Is fragrance, and whose heart of morn A crimson bud.

There is no star, that rises whiteTo tip-toe down the deeps of dusk, Sweet as the moony Nymphs of Night With breasts of musk,

We met among the mysteryAnd hush of forests,—where, afar,

We watched their hearts beat glimmeringly, Each heart a star.—

There is no beam, that rays the marge Of mist that trails from cape to cape, From panther-haunted gorge to gorge, Bright as the shape

Of her, the one Auloniad, That, born of wind and grassy gleams, Silvered upon our sight, dim-clad In foam of streams.

All, all of these I saw again,Or dreamed I saw, as there, ah me!Upon the cliffs, above the plain,In Thessaly,

I lay, while Mount Olympus helmedIts brow with moon-effulgence deep,

And, far below, vague, overwhelmedWith reedy sleep,

Peneus flowed, and, murmuring, sighed, Meseemed, for its dead gods, whose ghosts Through its dark forests seemed to glide In shadowy hosts.

'Mid whose pale shapes again I spoke With her, my soul, as I divine,Dim 'neath some gnarled Olympian oak, Or Ossan pine,

Till down the slopes of heaven came Those daughters of the dawn, the Hours, Clothed on with raiment blue of flame, And crowned with flowers;

When she, with whom my soul once more Had trysted—limbed of light and air—

Whom to my breast, (as oft of yore In Tempe there,

When she was Dryad, I was Faun,)I clasped and held, and pressed and kissed,Within my arms, as broke the dawn,Became a mist.

MARIANA

"There, at the moated grange, resides this dejected Mariana."

—SHAKESPEARE.

THE sunset-crimson poppies are departed,Mariana!The dusky-centred, sultry-smelling poppies,The drowsy-hearted,That burnt like flames along the garden coppice:All heavy-headed,The ruby-cupped and opium-brimming poppies,That slumber wedded, Mariana!The sunset-crimson poppies are departed.Oh, heavy, heavy are the hours that fall,The lonesome hours of the lonely days! No poppy strews oblivion by the wall,Where lone the last pod sways, —

Oblivion that was hers of old that happier made her days.Oh, weary, weary is the sky o'er all,The days that creep, the hours that crawl, And weary all the ways —She leans her face against the old stone wall, The lichened wall, the mildewed wall,And dreams, the long, long days,Of one who will not come again whatever may befall.

. . . . . . . . .

All night it blew. The rain streamed downAnd drowned the world in misty wet.At morning, 'round the sunflower's crown A row of glimmering drops was set; The candytuft, heat shrivelled brown,And beds of drought-dried mignonette,Were beat to earth: but wearier, oh, The rain was than the sun's fierce glow That in the garth had wrought such woe:

That killed the moss-rose ere it bloomed,And scorched the double-hollyhocks;And bred great, poisonous weeds that doomedThe snapdragon and standing-phlox;'Mid which gaunt spiders wove and loomedTheir dusty webs 'twixt rows of box;And rotted into sleepy oozeThe lilied moat, that, lined with yews,Lay scummed with many sickly hues.

How oft she longed and prayed for rain!To blot the hateful landscape out!To hem her heart, so parched with pain,With sounds of coolth and broken drought; And cure with change her stagnant brain,And soothe to sleep all care and doubt.At last—when many days had past— And she had ceased to care—at last The longed-for rain came, falling fast.

At night, as late she lay awake, And thought of him who had not come, She heard the gray wind, moaning, shake Her lattice; then the steady drumOf storm upon the leads.…The ache Within her heart, so burdensome, Grew heavier with the moan of rain. The house was still, save, at her paneThe wind cried; hushed, then cried again.

All night she lay awake and wept: There was no other thing to do: At dawn she rose and, silent, crept Adown the stairs that led into The dripping garth, the storm had sweptWith ruin; where, of every hue,The flowers lay rotting, stained with mould; Where all was old, unkempt and old, And ragged as a marigold.

She sat her down, where oft she sat,Upon a bench of marble, where,In lines she oft would marvel at,A Love was carved.—She did not dare Look on it then, remembering thatHere in past time he kissed her hair, And murmured vows while, soft above, The full moon lit the forth thereof, The slowly crumbling form of Love.

She could but weep, remembering hoursLike these. Then in the drizzling rain., That weighed with wet the dying flowers,She sought the old stone dial again; The dial, among the moss-rose bowers,Where often she had read, in vain,Of time and change, and love and loss, Rude-lettered and o'ergrown with moss, That slow the gnomon moved across.

Remembering this she turned away,The rain and tears upon her face.There was no thing to do or say.—She stood a while, a little space,And watched the rain bead, round and gray, Upon the cobweb's tattered lace,And tag the toadstool's spongy brim With points of mist; and, orbing, dim With fog the sunflower's ruined rim.

With fog, through which the moon at nightWould glimmer like a spectre sail;Or, sullenly, a blur of light,Like some huge glow-worm dimly trail; 'Neath which she 'd hear, wrapped deep in white,The far sea moaning on its shale:While in the garden, pacing slow, And listening to its surge and flow, She'd seem to hear her own heart's woe.

Now as the fog crept in from sea, —A great, white darkness, like a pall, The yews and huddled shrubbery,That dripped along the weedy wall,Turned phantoms; and as shadowyShe too seemed, wandering 'mid it all —A phantom, pale and sad and strange, And hopeless; doomed for aye to range About the melancholy grange.

. . . . . . .

The pansies too are dead, the violet-varied, Mariana!The raven-dyed and fire-fretted pansies,To memory married;That from the grass, like forms in old romances,Raised fairy faces:All dead they lie, the violet-velvet pansies,In many places,Mariana!

The pansies too are dead, the violet-varied. Oh, hateful, hateful are the hours that pass, The lonely hours of the lonesome nights!No pansy scatters heartsease through the grass,That autumn sorrow blights,The heartsease that was hers of old that happier made her nights.Oh, barren, barren is her life, alas!Its youth and beauty, all it has,And barren all delights—She lays her face against the withered grass, The sodden grass, the autumn grass,And thinks, the long, long nights,Of one who will not come again whatever comes to pass.

THE FOREST OF SHADOWS

DEEP in the hush of a mighty woodI came to a place of dread and dream,And forms of shadows, whose shapes eludeThe searching swords of the sun's dim gleam, Builders of silence and solitude.And there where a glimmering water crept From rock to rock with a slumberous sound, Tired to tears, on the mossy ground,Under a tree I lay and slept.

Was it the heart of an olden oak?Was it the soul of a flower that died?Or was it the wildrose there that spoke,The wilding lily that palely sighed?—For all on a sudden it seemed I awoke:

And the leaves and the flowers were all intent On a visible something of light and bloom — A presence, felt as a wild perfume Or beautiful music, that came and went.

And all the grief, I had known, was gone;And all the anguish of heart and soul;And the burden of care that had made me wanLifted and left me strong and wholeAs once in the flush of my youth's dead dawn. And, lo! it was night. And the oval moon,A silvery silence, paced the wood:And there in its light like snow she stood, As starry still as a star aswoon.

At first I thought that I looked intoA shadowy water of violet,Where the faint reflection of one I knew,Long dead, gazed up from its mirror wet, Till she smiled in my face as the living do;

Till I felt her touch, and heard her say, In a voice as still as a rose unfolds,—"You have come at last; and now nothing holds;Give me your hand; let us wander away.

"Let us wander away through the Shadow Wood,Through the Shadow Wood to the Shadow Land,Where the trees have speech and the blossoms broodLike visible music; and hand in handThe winds and the waters go rainbow-hued: Where ever the voice of beauty sighs;And ever the dance of dreams goes on; Where nothing grows old; and the dead and gone,And the loved and lost, smile into your eyes.

"Let us wander away! let us wander away!—Do you hear them calling, 'Come here and live'? Do you hear what the trees and the flowers say,Wonderful, wild, and imperative, Hushed as the hues of the dawn of day?They say, 'Your life, that was rose and rueIn a world of shadows where all things die, Where beauty is dust and love, a lie,Is finished. —Come here! we are waiting for you!' "

And she took my hand: and the trees aroundSeemed whispering something I dared not hear: And the taciturn flowers, that strewed the ground,Seemed thinking something I felt with fear, A beautiful something that made no sound.And she led me on through the forest old,

Where the moon and the midnight stood on guard,—Sentinel spirits that shimmered the sward, Silver and sable and glimmering gold.

And then in an instant I knew. I knewWhat the trees had whispered, the winds had said;What the flowers had thought in their hearts of dew, And the stars had syllabled overhead,And she bent above me and smiled, " 'T is true!Heart of my heart, you have heard aright—. Look in my eyes and draw me near! Look in my eyes and have no fear!—Heart of my heart, you died to-night!"

THE AWAKENING

GOD made that night of pearl and ivory,Perfect and holy as a holy thoughtBorn of perfection, dreams, and ecstasy,In love and silence wrought.And she, who lay where, through the casement failing,The moonlight clasped with arms of vapory goldHer Danaë beauty, seemed to hear a callingDeep in the garden old.

And then it seemed, through some strange sense, she heardThe roses softly speaking in the night.— Or was it but the nocturne of a birdHaunting the white moonlight?

It seemed a fragrant whisper vaguely roaming From rose to rose, a language sweet that blushed,Saying, "Who comes? Who is this swiftly coming,With face so dim and hushed?

"And now, and now we hear a wild heart beating—Whose heart is this that beats among our blooms?Whose every pulse in rapture keeps repeatingWild words like wild perfumes."—And then it ceased: and then she heard a sigh,As if a lily syllabled sweet scent,—Or was it but the wind that silverlyTouched some stringed instrument?

And then again a rumor she detectedAmong the roses, words of musk and myrrh,

Saying, "He comes! the one she hath expected, Who long hath sought for her.The one whose coming made her soul awaken;Whose face is fragrance and whose feet are fire:The one by whom her being shall be shakenWith dreams and deep desire."

And then she rose; and to the casement hastened, And flung it wide and, leaning outward, gazed; Above, the night hung, moon and starlight chastened; Below, with shadows mazed, The garden bloomed. Around her and o'erheadAll seemed at pause—save one wild star that streamed, One rose that fell. And then she sighed and said,"I must have dreamed, have dreamed."

And then again she seemed to hear it speak,A moth that murmured of a star attained,—

Or was it but the fountain whispering weak, White where the moonbeams rained?And still it grew; and still the sound insisted, Louder and sweeter, burning into form,Until at last a presence, starlight-misted,It shone there rosy warm.

Crying, "Come down! long have I watched and waited! Come down! draw near! or, like some splendid flower,Let down thy hair! so I may climb as fatedInto thy heart's high tower. Lower! bend lower! so thy heart may hear me, Thy soul may clasp me!—Beautiful above All beautiful things, behold me, yea, draw near me!Behold! for I am Love."

MUSIC AND MOONLIGHT

WHITE roses, like a mist Upon a terraced height,And 'mid the roses, opal, moonbeam-kissed, A fountain falling white.

And as the full moon flows,Orbed fire, into a cloud, There is a fragrant sound as if a roseHad sighed its soul aloud.

There is a whisper pale,As if a rose awoke, And, having heard in sleep the nightingale, Still dreaming of it spoke.

Now, as from some vast shellA giant pearl rolls white,From the dividing cloud, that winds compel, The moon sweeps, big and bright.

Moon-mists and pale perfumes,Wind-wafted through the dusk:There is a sound as if unfolding blooms Voiced their sweet thoughts in musk.

A spirit is abroadOf music and of sleep:The moon and mists have made for it a road Adown the violet deep.

It breathes a tale to me,A tale of ancient day;And like a dream again I seem to seeThose towers old and gray.

That castle by the foam,Where once our hearts made moan:And through the night again you seem to come Down statued stairs of stone.

Again I feel your hair,Dark, fragrant, deep and cool:You lift your face up, pale with its despair,And wildly beautiful.

Again your form I strain;Again, unto my heart:Again your lips, again and yet again,I press—and then we part.

As centuries ago We did in Camelot;Where once we lived that life of bliss and woe, That you remember not.

When you were Guinevere,And I was Launcelot…I have remembered many and many a year,And you—you have forgot.

BERTRAND DE BORN

Knight and Troubadour, to his Lady the Beautiful Maenz of Martagnac

THE burden of the sometime years,That once my soul did overweigh,Falls from me, with its griefs and fears,When gazing in thine eyes of gray; Wherein, behold, like some bright rayOf dawn, thy heart's fond love appears,To cheer my life upon its way.

Thine eyes! the daybreak of my heart!That give me strength to do and dare; Whose beauty is a radiant partOf all my songs; the music there;The morning, that makes dim each care,

And glorifies my mind's dull mart,And helps my soul to do and dare.

God, when He made thy fresh fair face, And thy young body, took the mornAnd made thee like a rose, whose raceIs not of Earth; without a thorn,And dewed thee with the joy that's born Of love, wherein hope hath its placeLike to the star that heralds morn.

I go my way through town and thorp:In court and hall and castle bowerI tune my lute and strike my harp: And often from some twilight tower A lady drops to me a flower,That bids me scale the moat's steep scarp,And climb to love within her bower.

I heed them not, but go my ways: What is their passion unto me!

My songs are only in thy praise; Thy face alone it is I see, That fills my heart with melody— My sweet aubade! that makes my days All music, singing here in me!

One time a foul knight in his towersSneered thus: "God's blood! why weary us With this one woman all our hours! — Sing of our wenches! amorous Yolande and Ysoarde here! —Not thusShalt sing, but of our paramours! —What is thy Lady unto us!"

And then I flung my lute aside;And from its baldric flew my sword;And down the hall 't was but a stride; And in his brute face and its word My gauntlet; and around the board

The battle, till all wild-beast-eyedHe lay and at his throat my sword.

Thou dost remember in ProvenceThe vile thing that I slew; and how With my good jongleurs and my lanceKept back his horde!—The memory nowMakes fierce my blood and hot my brow With rage.—Ah, what a madman danceWe led them, and escaped somehow!

Oft times, when, in the tournament,I see thee sitting yet uncrowned;And bugles blow and spears are bent,And shields and falchions clash around,And steeds go crashing to the ground; And thou dost smile on me,— 'though spentWith war, again my soul is crowned:

And I am fire to strike and slay;Before my face there comes a mist

Of blood; and like a flame I play Through the loud lists; all who resist Go down like corn; until thy wrist,Kneeling, I kiss; the wreath they layOf beauty on thy head's gold mist.

And then I seize my lute and singSome chanson or some wild aubadeFull of thy beauty and the swingOf swords and love which I have hadOf thee, until, with music mad,The lists reel with thy name and ringThe echoed words of my aubade.

I am thy knight and troubadour,Bertrand de Born, whom naught shall partFrom thee: who art my life's high lure, And wild bird of my wilder heart And all its music: yea, who artMy soul's sweet sickness and its cure,From which, God grant! it ne 'er shall part.

THE TROUBADOUR, PONS DE CAPDEUIL

In Provence, to his Lady, Azalis de Mercœur in Anjou

THE gray dawn finds me thinking stillOf thee who hadst my thoughts all night;Of thee, who art my lute's sweet skill,And of my soul the only light;My star of song to whom I turnMy face and for whose love I yearn.

Thou dost not know thy troubadourLies sick to death; no longer sings:That this alone may work his cure—To feel thy white hand, weighed with rings, Smoothed softly through his heavy hair, Or resting with the old love there.

To feel thy warm cheek laid to his;Thy bosom fluttering with love;Then on his eyes and lips thy kiss—Thy kiss alone were all enoughTo heal his heart, to cure his soul,And make his mind and body whole.

The drought, these three months past, hath slainAll green things in this weary land,As in my life thy high disdainHath killed ambition: yea, my handForgets its cunning; and my heart,Sick to stagnation, all its art.

Once to my castle there at Puy,In honor of thy beauty, cameThe Angevin nobility,To hear me sing of thee, whose fameWas high as Helen's.—Azalis,Hast thou forgot? Forget'st thou this?

And in the lists how often there I broke a spear for thee? and placed The crown of beauty on thy hair,While thou sat'st, like the fair moon faced,Amid the human firmamentOf faces that toward thee bent.

I take my hawk, my peregrine—No falconer or page beside—And ride from morn till eve begin;I ride forgetting that I ride,And all save this: that thou no moreDost ride beside me as of yore.

A heron sweeps above me: IRemember then how oft were castThy hawk and mine at such: and sighThinking of thee and days long past, When through the Anjou fields and bowers We used to hawk and hunt for hours.

And when, unhappy, I return,And take my lute and seek againThe terrace where, beside some urn,The castle gathers,—while the stainOf sunset crimsons all the sea,— And sing old songs once loved of thee:

The soul within me overflowsWith longing; and I seem to hearThy voice through fountains and the roseCalling afar, while, wildly near,The rossignol makes mute my tongueWith memories of things long sung.

Here in Provence I pine for thee;And there in Anjou dost forget!—All beauty here is less to meThan is the ribbon lightly setAt thy white throat; or, on thy foot,The shoe that I have loved to lute.

Thy foot, that I have loved to kiss;To kiss and sing of!—Song hath died In me since then, my Azalis;Since to my soul e'en that 's denied: Thy kiss, that now alone could cure The sick heart of thy Troubadour.

THE BALLAD OF THE ROSE

BOOTED and spurred he rode toward the west, A rose, from the woman who loved him best, Lay warm with her kisses there in his breast,And the battle beacons were burning.

As over the draw he galloping went,She, from the gateway's battlement,With a wafted kiss and a warning bent— "Beware of the ford at the turning!"

An instant only he turned in his sell,And lightly fingered his petronel,Then settled his sword in its belt as well,And the horns to battle were sounding.

She watched till he reached the beacon there, And saw its gleam on his helm and hair,

Then turned and murmured, "God keep thee, Clare!From that wolf of the hills and his hounding."

And on he rode till he came to the hill, Where the road turned off by the ruined mill, Where the stream flowed shallow and broad and still,And the battle beacon was burning.

Into the river with little heed,Down from the hill he galloped his steed—The water whispered on rock and reed,"Death hides by the ford at the turning!"

And out of the night on the other side, Their helms and corselets dim descried, He saw ten bandit troopers ride, And the horns to battle were blaring.

Then he reined his steed in the middle ford, And glanced behind him and drew his sword, And laughed as he shouted his battle-word, "Clare! Clare! and my steel needs airing!"

Then down from the hills at his back there came Ten troopers more. With a face of flame Red Hugh of the Hills led on the same,In the glare of the beacon's burning.

Again the cavalier turned and gazed,Then quick to his lips the rose he raised,And kissed it, crying, "Now God be praised!And help her there when mourning!"

Then he rose in his stirrups and loosened rein, And shouting his cry spurred on amain Into the troopers to slay and be slain, While the horns to battle were blowing.

With ten behind him and ten before, And the battle beacon to light the shore, Small doubt of the end in his mind he bore,With her rose in his bosom glowing.

One trooper he slew with his petronel,And one with his sword when his good steed fell, And they haled him, fighting, from horse and sellIn the light of the beacon's burning.

Quoth Hugh of the Hills,—" To yonder tree Now hang him high where she may see; Then bear this rose and message from me—'The ravens feast at the turning.' "

LOW-LIE-DOWN

JOHN-A-DREAMS and Harum-Scarum Came a-riding into town:At the Sign o' the Jug-and-Jorum There they met with Low-lie-down.

Brave in shoes of Romany leather, Bodice blue and gipsy gown,And a cap of fur and feather,In the inn sat Low-lie-down.

Harum-Scarum kissed her lightly,Smiled into her eyes of brown,Clasped her waist and held her tightly,Saying, "Love me, Low-lie-down."

Then with many an oath and swagger, As a man of great renown,

On the board he clapped his dagger,Called for sack and sat him down.

So a while they laughed together:Then he rose and with a frownSighed, "While still 't is pleasant weatherI must leave thee, Low-lie-down."

So away rode Harum-Scarum,With a song rode out of town;At the sign o' the Jug-and-JorumWeeping tarried Low-lie-down.

Then this John-a-dreams, in tatters, In his pocket ne'er a crown,Touched her saying, "Wench, what matters! Dry your eyes and, come, sit down.

"Here's my hand: let's roam together,Far away from thorp and town.

Here's my heart for any weather,And my dreams, too, Low-lie-down.

"Some men call me dreamer, poet;Some men call me fool and clown—What I am but you shall know it!Come with me, sweet Low-lie-down.

For a little while she pondered.Smiled and said, "Let care go drown!"Rose and kissed him.—Forth they wandered,John-a-dreams and Low-lie-down.

ROSE LEAVES WHEN THE ROSE IS DEAD

SEE how the rose leaves fall—The rose leaves fall and fade:And by the wall, in dusk funereal, How leaf on leaf is laid, Withered and soiled and frayed.

How red the rose leaves fall—And in the ancient trees, That stretch their twisted arms about the hall, Burdened with mysteries, How sadly sighs the breeze.

How soft the rose leaves fall—The rose leaves drift and lie:And over them dull slugs and beetles crawl,

And, palely glimmering by,The glow-worm trails its eye.

How thick the rose leaves fall—And strew the garden way,For snails to slime and spotted toads to sprawl, And, plodding past each day, Coarse feet to tread in clay.

How fast they fall and fall—Where Beauty, carved in stone,With broken hands veils her dead eyes; and, tall, White in the moonlight lone, Looms like a marble moan.

How slow they drift and fall—And strew the fountained pool,That, in the nymph-carved basin by the wall, Reflects in darkness cool. Ruin made beautiful.

How red the rose leaves fall—Fall and like blood remainUpon the dial's disc, whose pedestal, Black-mossed and dark with stain, Crumbles in sun and rain.

How wan they seem to fallAround one where she standsDim in their midst, beyond the years' recall, Reaching pale, passionate hands Into the past's vague lands.

How still they fall and fallAround them where they meetAs oft of old: she in her gem-pinned shawl Of white; and he, complete In black from head to feet.

How faint the rose leaves fallAround them where, it seems,

He holds her clasped—parting from her and all His heart's young hopes and dreams There in the moon's thin beams.

Around them rose leaves fall—And in the stress and urge Of winds that strew them lightly over all, With deep, autumnal surge, There seems to rise a dirge:—

"See how the rose leaves fallUpon thy dead, O soul! The rose leaves of the love that once in thrall Held thee beyond control, Making thy heart's world whole.

"God help them still to fallAround thee, bowed aboveThe face within thy heart, beneath the pall! The perished face thereof, The beautiful face of Love."

THE LAMP AT THE WINDOW

LIKE some gaunt ghost the tempest wails Outside my door; its icy nails Beat on the pane: and Night and Storm Around the house, with furious flails Of wind, from which the slant sleet hails, Stalk up and down; or, arm in arm, Stand giant guard; the wild-beast lair Of their fierce bosoms black and bare.… My lamp is lit, I have no fear.Through night and storm my love draws near.

Now through the forest how they go, With whirlwind hoofs and manes of snow, The beasts of tempest, Winter herds! That lift huge heads of mist and low

Like oxen; beasts of air that blowIce from their nostrils; winged like birds, And bullock-breasted, onward hurled,That shake with tumult all the world.…My lamp is set where love can see,Who through the tempest comes to me.

I press my face against the pane,And seem to see, from wood and plain, In phantom thousands, stormy pale, The ghosts of forests, tempest-slain,Vast wraiths of woodlands, rise and strain And rock wild limbs against the gale; Or, borne in fragments overhead,Sow night with horror and with dread.… He comes! my light is as an arm To guide him onward through the storm.

I hear the tempest from the skyCry, eagle-like, its battle-cry;

I hear the night, upon the peaks, Send back its condor-like reply; And then again come booming byThe forest's challenge, hoarse as speaks Hate unto hate, or wrath to wrath, When each draws sword and sweeps the path.…But let them rage! through darkness farMy bright light leads him like a star.

The cliffs, with all their plumes of pines,Bow down high heads: the battle-linesOf all the hills, that iron seams,Shudder through all their rocky spines:And under shields of matted vinesThe vales crouch down: and all the streamsAre hushed and frozen as with fearAs from the deeps the winds draw near.… But let them come! my lamp is lit! Nor shall their fury flutter it.

Now 'round and 'round, with stride on stride, In Boreal armor, darkness-dyed,I hear the thunder of their strokes— The heavens are rocked on every side With all their clouds: and far and wide The earth roars back with all its oaks.… Still at the pane burns bright my light To guide him onward through the night;To lead love through the night and storm Where my young heart shall make him warm.

THE MIRACLE OF THE DAWN

WHAT it would mean for you and meIf dawn should come no more! Think of its gold along the sea,Its rose above the shore!That rose of awful mystery,Our souls bow down before.

What wonder that the Inca kneeled,The Aztec prayed and pledAnd sacrificed to it, and sealed,— With rights that long are dead,— The marvels that it once revealedTo them it comforted.

What wonder, yea! what awe, behold!What rapture and what tears

Were ours, if wild its rivered gold,—That now each day appears,—Burst on the world, in darkness rolled,Once every thousand years!

Think what it means to me and youTo see it even as GodEvolved it when the world was new!When Light rose, earthquake-shod,And slow its gradual splendor grewO'er deeps the whirlwind trod.

What shoutings then and cymballingsArose from depth and height!What worship-solemn trumpetings,And thunders, burning-white,Of winds and waves, and anthemingsOf Earth received the Light.

Think what it means to see the dawn! The dawn, that comes each day!—

What if the East should ne'er grow wan,Should nevermore grow gray!That line of rose no more be drawnAbove the ocean's spray!

PENETRALIA

I AM a part of all you seeIn Nature; part of all you feel:I am the impact of the beeUpon the blossom; in the treeI am the sap,—that shall revealThe leaf, the bloom,—that flows and flutesUp from the darkness through its roots.

I am the vermeil of the rose,The perfume breathing in its veins;The gold within the mist that glowsAlong the west and overflowsThe heaven with light; the dew that rains Its freshness down and strings with spheresOf wet the webs and oaten ears.

I am the egg that folds the bird, The song that beaks and breaks its shell; The laughter and the wandering word The water says; and, dimly heard, The music of the blossom's bell When soft winds swing it; and the sound Of grass slow-creeping o'er the ground.

I am the warmth, the honey-scentThat throats with spice each lily-bud That opens, white with wonderment, Beneath the moon; or, downward bent, Sleeps with a moth beneath its hood:I am the dream that haunts it too,That crystallizes into dew.

I am the seed within its pod;The worm within its closed cocoon: The wings within the circling clod,

The germ that gropes through soil and sodTo beauty, radiant in the noon:I am all these, behold! and more—I am the love at the world-heart's core.

THE HEAVEN-BORN

NOT into these dark cities,These sordid marts and streets, That the sun in his rising pities,And the moon with sorrow greets, Does she, with her dreams and flowers,For whom our hearts are dumb, Does she of the golden hours, Earth's heaven-born Beauty, come.

Afar 'mid the hills she tarries,Beyond the farthest streams,In a world where music marriesWith color that blooms and beams; Where shadow and light are wedded,Whose children people the Earth,

The fair, the fragrant-headed, The pure, the wild of birth.

Where Morn with rosy kissesWakes ever the eyes of Day;And, winds in her radiant tresses,Haunts every wildwood way:Where Eve, with her mouth's twin roses,Her kisses sweet with balm,The eyes of the glad Day closes, And, crowned with stars, sits calm.

There, lost in contemplationOf things no mortal sees,She dwells, the incarnationOf idealities;Of dreams, that long have firedMen's hearts with joy and pain,— The far, the dear-desired, Whom no man shall attain.