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

EARTH'S COMMONPLACES

THE WORLD OF FAERY

I

WHEN in the pansy-purpled stain Of sunset one far star is seen, Like some bright drop of rain, Out of the forest, deep and green,O'er me at Spirit seems to lean,The fairest of her train.

II

The Spirit, dowered with fadeless youth, Of Lay and Legend, young as when, Close to her side, in sooth,She led me from the marts of men,A child, into her world, which thenTo me was true as truth.

III

Her hair is like the silken huskThat holds the corn, and glints and glows;Her brow is white as tusk;Her body like a wilding rose,And through her gossamer raiment showsLike starlight closed in musk.

IV

She smiles at me; she nods at me;And by her looks I am beguiledInto the mysteryOf ways I knew when, as a child,She led me 'mid her blossoms wildOf faery fantasy.

V

The blossoms that, when night is here, Become sweet mouths that sigh soft tales; Or, each, a jewelled ear

Leaned to the elfin dance that trailsDown moonrayed cirques of haunted valesTo cricket song and cheer.

VI

The blossoms that, shut fast all day,— Primrose and poppy, —darkness opes, Slowly, to free a fay,Who, silken-soft, leaps forth and ropesWith rain each web that, starlit, slopesBetween each grassy spray.

VII

The blossoms from which elves are born,—Sweet wombs of mingled scent and snow,Whose deeps are cool as morn;Wherein I oft have heard them blowTheir pixy trumpets, silvery lowAs some bee's drowsy horn.

VIII

So was it when my childhood roamedThe woodland's dim enchanted ground,Where every mushroom domedIts disc for them to revel 'round;Each glow-worm forged its flame,—green drownedIn hollow snow that foamed

IX

Of lilies,—for their lantern light, To lamp their dance beneath the moon; Each insect of the night, — That rasped its thin, vibrating tune,— And owl that raised its sleepy croon, Made music for their flight.

X

So is it still when twilight fills My soul with childhood's memories

That haunt the far-off hills,And people with dim things the trees,— With faery forms that no man sees,And dreams that no man kills.

XI

Then all around me sway and swingThe Puck-lights of their firefly train,Their elfin revelling;And in the bursting pods, that rainTheir seeds around my steps, againI hear their footsteps ring;—

XII

Their faery feet that fall once more Within my way;—and then I see,—As oft I saw before,—Her Spirit rise, who shimmeringlyFills all my world with poetry,—The Loveliness of Yore.

THERE ARE FAIRIES

I

THERE are fairies, bright of eye,Who the wildflowers' warders are: Ouphes that chase the firefly;Elves that ride the shooting star; Fays who in a cobweb lie,Swinging on a moonbeam-bar,Or who harness bumblebees, Grumbling on the clover leas, To a blossom or a breeze,That's their fairy car.If you care, you too may seeThere are fairies—verilyThere are fairies.

II

There are fairies. I could swearI have seen them busy whereRose leaves loose their scented hair, In the moonlight weaving—weavingOut of starshine and the dew Glinting gown and shimmering shoe; Or within a glow-worm lairFrom the dark earth slowly heaving Mushrooms whiter than the moon, On whose tops they sit and croon, With their grig-like mandolins, To fair fairy ladykins,Leaning from the window-sill Of a rose or daffodil, Listening to their serenade All of cricket music made. Follow me, oh, follow me! Ho! away to faëry!

Where your eyes, like mine, may see There are fairies—verilyThere are fairies.

III

There are fairies: elves that swingIn a wild and rainbow ringThrough the air, or mount the wingOf a bat to courier newsTo the fairy queen and king;Fays who stretch the gossamersOn which twilight hangs the dews;Or who whisper in the earsOf the flowers words so sweetThat their hearts are turned to musk And to honey, things that beat In their veins of gold and blue;Ouphes that shepherd moths of dusk— Soft of wing and gray of hue— Forth to pasture on the dew.

There are fairies—verily,Verily;For the old owl in the tree,Hollow tree,— He who maketh melodyFor them tripping merrily,Told it me.There are fairies—verilyThere are fairies.

THE LITTLE PEOPLE

I

WHEN the lily nods in slumber,And the roses all are sleeping;When the night hangs deep and umber, And the stars their watch are keeping; When the clematis unclosesLike a hand of snowy fire,And the golden-lipped primroses,To the tiger-moths' desire,Each a mouth of musk unpuckers— Silken pouts of scented sweetness,That they sip with honey-suckers;—Shod with hush and winged with fleetness, You may see the Little People,'Round and 'round the drowsy steeple

Of a belfried hollyhock,— Clothed in phlox and four-o'clock,Gay of gown and pantaloon,— Dancing by the glimmering moon,Till the cock, the long-necked cock,Crows them they must vanish soon.

II

When the cobweb is a cradleFor the dreaming dew to sleep in;And each blossom is a ladleThat the perfumed rain lies deep in; When the gleaming fireflies scribble Darkness as with lines flame-tragic, And the night seems some dim sibyl Speaking gold, or wording magic Silent-syllabled and golden;—Capped with snapdragon and hooded With the sweet-pea, vague-beholden, You may see the Little People,

Underneath the sleepy steepleOf a towering mullen-stock,Trip it over moss and rockTo the owlet's elvish tuneAnd the tree-toad's gnome bassoon, Till the cock, the barnyard cock, Crows them they must vanish soon.

III

When the wind upon the waterSeems a boat of ray and ripple,That some fairy moonbeam daughter Steers with sails that drift and dripple; When the sound of grig and cricket, Ever singing, ever humming,Seems a goblin in the thicketOn his elfin viol strumming;When the toadstool, coned and milky, Heaves a roof for snails to clamber; Thistledown- and milkweed-silky,

With loose locks of jade and amber, You may see the Little People, Underneath the pixy steeple Of a doméd mushroom, flock, Quaint in wildflower vest and frock, Whirling by the waning moonTo the whippoorwill's weird tune, Till the cock, the far-off cock, Crows them they must vanish soon.

ON MIDSUMMER NIGHT

I

ALL the poppies in their beds Nodding crumpled crimson heads; And the larkspurs, in whose ears Twilight hangs, like twinkling tears, Sleepy jewels of the rain; All the violets, that strain Eyes of amethystine gleam;And the clover-blooms that dream With pink baby fists closed tight,— They can hear upon this night, Noiseless as the moon's white light,Footsteps and the glimmering flight, Shimmering flight,Of the Fairies

II

Every sturdy four-o'clock, In its variegated frock; Every slender sweet-pea, too, In its hood of pearly hue; Every primrose pale that dozes By the wall and slow uncloses A sweet mouth of dewy dawn In a little silken yawn,—On this night of silvery sheen, They can see the Fairy Queen, On her palfrey white, I ween,Tread dim cirques of haunted green, Moonlit green, With her Fairies.

III

Never a foxglove bell, you see,That's a cradle for a bee;Never a lily, that 's a house

Where the butterfly may drowse; Never a rosebud or a blossom, That unfolds its honeyed bosom To the moth, that nestles deep And there sucks itself to sleep,— But can hear and also see, On this night of witchery, All that world of Faëry,All that world where airily, Merrily,Dance the Fairies.

IV

It was last Midsummer Night,In the moon's uncertain light,That I stood among the flowers,And in language unlike oursHeard them speaking of the Pixies, Trolls and Gnomes and Water-Nixies; How in this flow'r's ear a Fay

Hung a gem of rainy ray;And 'round that flow'r's throat had set Dim a dewdrop carcanet; Then among the mignonetteStretched a cobweb-hammock wet, Dewy wet,For the Fairies.

V

Long I watched; but never a one, Ariel, Puck, or Oberon,Mab or Queen Titania—Fairest of them all they say—Clad in morning-glory hues,Did I glimpse among the dews.Only once I thought the torchOf that elfin-rogue and arch,Robin Goodfellow, afarFlashed along a woodland bar—

Bright, a jack-o'-lantern star,A green lamp of firefly spar, Glow-worm spar, Loved of Fairies.

THE WILLOW WATER

DEEP in the hollow wood he found a way Winding unto a water, dim and gray,Grayer and dimmer than the break of day;By which a wildrose blossomed; flower on flower Leaning above its image hour on hour,Musing, it seemed, on its own loveliness,And longing with sweet longing to express Some thought to its reflection.

Dropping now Bee-shaken pollen from th' o'erburdened bough, And now a petal, delicate as a blush,It seemed to sigh or whisper to the hushThe dreams, the myths and marvels it had seen Tip-toeing dimly through the woodland green:

Faint shapes of fragrance; forms like flowers, that goFooting the moss; or, shouldered with moonbeam glow,Through starlit waves oaring an arm of snow.

He sat him down and gazed into the pool:And as he gazed, two petals, silken cool,Fell, soft as starbeams fall that arrow through The fern-hung trembling of a drop of dew; And, pearly-placid, on the water lay,Two curves of languid ruby, where, rose-gray, The shadow of a willow dimmed the stream. And suddenly he saw—or did he dreamHe saw?—the rose-leaves change to rosy lips, A laughing crimson. And, with silvery hips, And eyes of luminous emerald, full of sleep And all the stillness of the under deep,The shadow of the tree become a girl,A shadowy girl, who shook from many a curl

Faint, tangled glimmerings of shell and pearl. A girl who called him, beckoned him to come, Waving a hand whiter than moonlit foam,And pointing, minnowy fingered, to her home— A bubble, rainbow-built, beneath the wave, Dim-domed, and murmurous as the deep-sea cave,Columned of coral and of grottoed foam, Where the pale mermaids never cease to comb Their weed-green hair with fingers crystal-cold, Sighing forever 'round the Sea King old Throned. on his throne of shell and ribbéd gold.

Laughing, she lured him, lipped like some wild rose;Bidding him follow; come to her; reposeUpon her bosom and forever dreamLulled by the wandering whisper of the stream. But him mortality weighed heavily onAnd earthly love: and, sorrowful and wan,

He shook his head, motioning, "I cannot rise "; But still he felt the magic of her eyesDrawing him to her; felt her hands of foam Around his heart; her lips, that bade him come With smiling witchery, and with laughing looks Like those that lured us in the fairy booksOur childhood dreamed on.…Then, as suddenly, A wind, it seemed, from no where he could see, Wrinkled the water; ruffled its smooth glass; And there again, behold! when it did pass The rose-leaves lay and shadow, dimly seen; The willow's shadow, and no thing between.

ELUSION

I

MY soul goes out to her who says, "Come follow me and cast off care!" Then tosses back her sunbright hair, And like a flower before me sways Between the green leaves and my gaze: This creature like a girl, who smiles Into my eyes and softly laysHer hand in mine and leads me miles, Long miles of haunted forest ways.

II

Sometimes she seems a faint perfume, A fragrance that a flower exhaledAnd God gave form to; now, unveiled, A sunbeam making gold the gloom

Of vines that roof some woodland room Of boughs; and now the silvery soundOf streams her presence doth assume— Music, from which, in dreaming drowned, A crystal shadow she seems to bloom.

III

Sometimes she seems the light that lies On foam of waters where the fern Shimmers and drips; now, at some turn Of woodland, bright against the skies,She seems the rainbowed mist that flies; And now the mossy fire that breaks Beneath the feet in azure eyesOf flowers; and now the wind that shakes Pale petals from the bough that sighs.

IV

Sometimes she lures me with a song;Sometimes she guides me with a laugh;

Her white hand is a magic staff,Her look a spell to lead me long:Though she be weak and I be strong,She needs but shake her happy hair,But glance her eyes, and, right or wrong,My soul must follow—anywhereShe wills—far from the world's loud throng.

V

Sometimes I think that she must beNo part of earth, but merely this—The fair, elusive thing we missIn Nature, that we dream we seeYet never see: that goldenlyBeckons: that, limbed with rose and pearl, The Greek made a divinity:—A nymph, a god, a glimmering girl,That haunts the forest's mystery.

THE LOST GARDEN

ROSES, brier on brier,Like a hedge of fire,Walled it from the world and rolledCrimson 'round it; manifoldBlossoms, 'mid which once of oldWalked my Heart's Desire.

There the golden HoursDwelt; and 'mid the bowersBeauty wandered like a maid;And the Dreams that never fadeSat within its haunted shadeGazing at the flowers.

There the winds that varyMelody and marry

Perfume unto perfume, went,Whispering to the buds, that bent,Messages whose wondermentMade them sweet to carry.

There the waters hoaryMurmured many a storyTo the leaves that leaned above,Listening to their tales of love,While the happiness thereofFlushed their green with glory.

There the sunset's shimmer'Mid the bowers,—dimmerThan the woods where Fable dwells,And Romance her legends tells,—Wrought dim dreams and dimmer spells,Filled with golden glimmer.

There at night the wonderOf the moon would sunder

Foliage deeps with breast of pearl, Wandering like a glimmering girl, Fair of form and bright of curl, Through the trees and under.

There the stars would follow,Over hill and hollow, Spirit shapes that danced the dew From frail cups of sparry hue; Firefly forms that fleeter flew Than the fleetest swallow.

There my heart made merry;There, 'mid bloom and berry, Dreamed the dreams that are no more, In that garden lost of yore,Set in seas, without a shore,That no man may ferry.

Where perhaps her lyre,— Wreathed with serest brier,—

Sorrow strikes now; sad its goldSighing where, 'mid roses old,Fair of face and dead and coldLies my Heart's Desire.

GLAMOUR

WITH fall on fall, from wood to wood,The brook pours mossy music down— Or is it, in the solitude,The murmur of a Faery town?

A town of Elfland filled with bellsAnd holiday of hurrying feet:Or traffic now, whose small sound swells,Now sinks from busy street to street.

Whose Folk I often recognizeIn wingéd things that hover 'round, Who to men's eyes assume disguiseWhen on some elfin errand bound.

The bee, that haunts the touchmenot,— Big-bodied, making braggart din—Is fairy brother to that sot,Jack Falstaff of the Boar's Head Inn.

The dragonfly, whose wings of blackAre mantle for his garb of green,Is Ancient to this other Jack,—Another Pistol, long and lean.

The butterfly, in royal tints,Is Hal, mad Hal, in cloth of gold,Who passes these, as once that PrincePassed his companions boon of old.

LATE OCTOBER WOODS

CLUMPED in the shadow of the beech,— In whose brown top the crows are loud,—Where, every side, great briers reachAnd cling like hands,—the beechdrops crowd The mossy cirque with neutral tints Of gray; and deep, with berries bowed,The buckbush reddens 'mid the mints.

O'erhead the forest scarcely stirs: The wind is laid: the sky is blue:Bush-clover, with its links of burs, And some last blooms,—few, pink of hue,— Makes wild the way- and everywhereSlim, white-ribbed cones of fungi strewThe grass that's like a wildman's hair.

The jewel-weeds, whose pods bombardThe hush with fairy batteriesOf seeds, grow dense here; pattering hardTheir sacs explode, persuade the eyesTo search the heaven for show 'rs.—One seemsTo walk where old Enchantment pliesHer shuttle of lost days and dreams.

And, lo! yon rock of fern and flower,That heaves its height from bramble deeps, All on a sudden seems the towerWherein the Sleeping Beauty sleeps:And that red vine, the fire-drake,The flaming dragon, seems, that keepsThe world from her no man may wake.

IN THE BEECH WOODS

AMBER and emerald, cairngorm and chrysoprase, Stream through the autumn woods, scatter the beech-wood ways:Ways where the wahoo-bush brightens with scarlet;And where the aster-stalk lifts its last starlet.

Ways where the brier burns; poplars drop, one by one,Leaves that seem beaten gold, each like a splash of sun:'Round which the beeches rise, tree upon golden tree,That, with each wind that blows, sound like a summer sea.

Ways where the papaw leans, great-leaved and beryl-green,Like some grand forester one in Romance hath seen;And like some Indian queen, sung of in story, Flaming the gum-tree stands, crowned with its glory.

Ways where the bittersweet, cleaving its pods of gold,Brightens the brake with flame, torches the dingle old:And where the dogwood too crimsons with ruby seeds;Spicewood and buckbush bend ruddy with rosy beads.

These are the woods of gold; forests our childhood knew,Where the Enchanted dwelt, she with the eyes of blue;

She of the raven locks, and of the lovely looks, She who oft gazed at us out of the Story Books.

And with that Prince again, striding his snowwhite steed, To her deliverance through the gold wood we speed;On through the wood of flame to the Dark Tower,Where like a light she gleams high in her bower.

THE WORD IN THE WOOD

I

THE acorn-oak Sullens to sombre crimson all its leaves;And where it hugely heaves A giant head dark as congested blood,The gum-tree towers, against the sky a stroke Of purpling gold; and every blur of woodIs color on the pallet that she drops,The Autumn, dreaming on the hazed hilltops.

II

And as I wentThrough golden forests in a golden land,Where Magic waved her wandAnd dimmed the air with dreams my boyhood knew,

Enchantment met me; and again she bentHer face to mine, and smiled with eyes of blue,And kissed me on the mouth and bade me heedOld tales again from books no man may read.

III

And at her wordThe wood became transfigured; and, behold!With hair of wavy goldA presence walked there; and its beauty was The beauty not of Earth: and then I heard Within my heart vague voices, murmurous And multitudinous as leaves that sowThe firmament when winds of autumn blow.

IV

And I perceived The voices were but one voice made of sighs, That sorrowed in this wise:"I am the child-soul that grew up and died,

The child-soul of the world that once believed, Believed in me, but long ago denied;The Faery Faith it needs no more to-day,The folk-lore Beauty long since passed away."

THE WOOD WATER

AN evil, stealthy water, dark as hate,Sunk from the light of day,'Thwart which is hung a ruined water-gate,Creeps on its stagnant way.

Moss and the spawny duckweed, dim as air,And green as copperas, Choke its dull current; and, like hideous hair,Tangles of twisted grass.

Above it sinister trees,—as crouched and gauntAs huddled Terror,—lean;Guarding some secret in that nightmare haunt,Some horror they have seen.

Something the sunset points at from afar, Spearing the sullen woodAnd hag-gray water with a single barOf flame as red as blood.

Something the stars, conspiring with the moon, Shall look on, and remain Frozen with fear; staring as in a swoon,Striving to flee in vain.

Something the wisp that, wandering in the night,Above the ghastly stream,Haply shall find; and, filled with frantic fright,Light with its ghostly gleam.

Something that lies there, under weed and ooze,With wide and awful eyesAnd matted hair, and limbs the waters bruise,That strives, yet can not rise.

THE EGRET HUNTER

THROUGH woods the Spanish moss makes gray,With deeps the daylight never reaches,The water sluices slow its way,And chokes with weeds its beaches.

'T was here, lost in this lone bayou,Where poison brims each blossom's throat, Last night I followed a firefly glow,And oared a leaky boat.

The way was dark; and overheadThe wailing limpkin moaned and cried; The moss, like cerements of the dead, Waved wildly on each side.

The way was black, albeit the treesLet here and there the moonlight through,

The shadows, 'mid the cypress-knees, Seemed ominous of hue.

And then behold! a boat that oozed Slow slime and trailed rank water-weeds, Loomed on me: in which, interfused, Great glow-worms glowed like beads.

And in its rotting hulk, upright,His eyeless eyes fixed far before,A dead man sat, and stared at night, Grasping a rotting oar.

Slowly it passed; and fearfullyThe moccasin slid in its wake;The owl shrunk shrieking in its tree;And in its hole the snake.

But I, who met it face to face, I could not shrink or turn aside:

Within that dark and demon placeThere was no place to hide.

Slowly it passed; for me too slow!The grim Death, in the moon's faint shine, Whose story, haply, none may knowSave th' owl that haunts the pine.

THE NIGHT-WIND

I

I HAVE heard the wind on a winter's night,When the snow-cold moon looked icily through My window's flickering firelight,Where the frost his witchery drew:I have heard the wind on a winter's night, Wandering ways that were frozen white, Wail in my chimney-flue:And its voice was the voice,—so it seemed to me,—The voice of the world's vast misery.

II

I have heard the wind on a night of spring,When the leaves unclasped their girdles of gold,

And the bird on the bough sang slumbering,In the lilac's fragrant fold:I have heard the wind on a night of spring, Shaking the musk from its dewy wing,Sigh in my garden old:And it seemed that it said, as it sighed above, "I am the voice of the Earth's great love."

III

I have heard the wind on a night of fall,When a devil's-dance was the rain's down pour,And the wild woods reeled to its demon call,And the carpet fluttered the floor:I have heard the wind on a night of fall, Heaping the leaves by the garden wall,Weep at my close-shut door:And its voice, so it seemed, as it sorrowed there, Was the old, old voice of the world's despair.

IV

I have heard the wind on a summer night,When the myriad stars stormed heaven with fire,And the moon-moth glimmered in phantom flight,And the crickets creaked in choir:I have heard the wind on a summer night, Rocking the red rose and the white,Murmur in bloom and brier:And its voice was the voice,—so it seemed to me,— Of Earth's primordial mystery.

GOD'S GREEN BOOK

I

OUT, out in the open fields,Where the great, green book of God,— The book that its wisdom yieldsTo each soul that is not a clod, Lies wide for the world to read,I would go; and in flower and weed, That letter the lines of the grass, Would read of a better creedThan that which the town-world has.

II

Too long in the city streets,The alleys of grime and sin,

Have I heard the iron beatsOf the heart of toil; whose dinAnd the throb of whose wild unrest Have stunned the song in my breast, Have marred its music and slain The bird that was once its guest, And my soul would find it again.

III

Out there where the great, green book,Whose leaves are the grass and trees, Lies open; where each may look,May muse and read as he please;The book, that is gilt with gleams, Whose pages are ribboned with streams; That says what our souls would say Of beauty that 's wrought of dreams And buds and blossoms of May.

A WET DAY

DARK, drear, and drizzly, with vapor grizzly,The day goes dully unto its close;Its wet robe smutches each thing it touches,Its fingers sully and wreck the rose.

Around the railing and garden-palingThe dripping lily hangs low its head:A brood-mare whinnies; and hens and guineasDroop, damp and chilly, beneath the shed.

In splashing mire about the byreThe cattle huddle, the farmhand plods;While to some neighbor's a wagon laborsThrough pool and puddle and clay that clods.

The day, unsplendid, at last is ended,Is dead and buried, and night is come;— Night, blind and footless, and foul and fruitless,With weeping wearied and sorrow dumb.

Ah, God! for thunder! for winds to sunderThe clouds and o'er us smite rushing bars!And through wild masses of storm, that passes,Roll calm the chorus of moon and stars.

AFTER STORM

GREAT clouds of sullen seal and goldBar bleak the tawny west,From which all day the-thunder rolled,And storm streamed, crest on crest.

Now silvery in its deeps of bronzeThe new moon fills its sphere;And point by point the darkness donsIts pale stars there and here.

But still behind the moon and stars,The peace of heaven, remains Suspicion of the wrath that wars,That Nature now restrains.

As, lined 'neath tiger eyelids, glareThe wild-beast eyes that sleep,So smoulders in its sunset lairThe rage that rent the deep.

SUNSET ON THE RIVER

I

A SEA of onyx are the skies,Cloud-islanded with fire;Such nacre-colored flame as dyes A sea-shell's rosy spire;And at its edge one star sinks slow, Burning, into the overglow.

II

Save for the cricket in the grass,Or passing bird that twitters,The world is hushed. Like liquid glassThe soundless river glittersBetween the hills that hug and holdIts beauty like a hoop of gold.

III

The glory deepens; and, meseems,A vasty canvas, paintedWith revelations of God's dreamsAnd visions symbol-sainted,The west is, that each night-cowled hill Kneels down before in worship still.

IV

There is no thing to wake unrest;No sight or sound to jangleThe peace that evening in the breastBrings, smoothing out the tangleOf gnarls and knots of care and strifeThat snarl the colored cord of life.

THE RUE-ANEMONE

UNDER an oak-tree in a woodland, whereThe dreaming Spring had dropped it from her hair,I found a flower, through which I seemed to gaze Beyond the world and see what no man dare Behold and live—the myths of bygone days— Diana and Endymion, and the bareSlim beauty of the boy whom Echo wooed; And Hyacinthus whom Apollo dewedWith love and death: and Daphne, ever fair; And that reed-slender girl whom Pan pursued.

I stood and gazed and through it seemed to seeThe Dryad dancing by the forest tree, Her hair wild blown: the Faun with listening ear,

Deep in the boscage, kneeling on one knee, Watching the wandered Oread draw near, Her wild heart beating like a honey-bee Within a rose.—All, all the myths of old,All, all the bright shapes of the Age of Gold, Peopling the wonder-worlds of Poetry, Through it I seemed in fancy to behold.

What other flower, that, fashioned like a star,Draws its frail life from earth and braves the warOf all the heavens, can suggest the dreams That this suggests? in which no trace of mar Or soil exists: where stainless innocence seems Enshrined; and where, beyond our vision far, That inaccessible beauty, which the heart Worships as truth and holiness and art,Is symbolized; wherein embodied areThe things that make the soul's immortal part.

TABERNACLES

THE little tents the wildflowers raiseAre tabernacles where Love praysAnd Beauty preaches all the days.

I walk the woodland through and through,And everywhere I see their blueAnd gold where I may worship too.

All hearts unto their inmost shrine Of fragrance they invite; and mine Enters and sees the All Divine.

I hark; and with some inward earSoft words of praise and prayer I hear,And bow my head and have no fear.

For God is present as I see In them; and gazes out at me Kneeling to His divinity.

Oh, holiness that Nature knows, That dwells within each thing that grows, Vestured with dreams as is the rose

With perfume! whereof all things preach— The birds, the brooks, the leaves, that reach Our hearts and souls with loving speech;

That makes a tabernacle ofThe flowers; whose priests are Truth and Love,Who help our souls to rise above

The Earth and that which we name sinUnto the knowledge that is kinTo Heaven, to which at last we win.

REVEALMENT

A SENSE of sadness in the golden air,A pensiveness, that has no part in care,As if the Season, by some woodland pool, Braiding the early blossoms in her hair, Seeing her loveliness reflected there,Had sighed to find herself so beautiful.

A breathlessness, a feeling as of fear,Holy and dim as of a mystery near,As if the World about us listening went, With lifted finger, and hand-hollowed ear,Hearkening a music that we cannot hear, Haunting the quickening earth and firmament.

A prescience of the soul that has no name,Expectancy that is both wild and tame,

As if the Earth, from out its azure ringOf heavens, looked to see, as white as flame,— As Perseus once to chained Andromeda came, The swift, divine revealment of the Spring.

THE CAT-BIRD

I

THE tufted gold of the sassafras,And the gold of the spicewood-bush, Bewilder the ways of the forest pass,And brighten the underbrush:The white-starred drifts of the wild-plum tree,And the haw with its pearly plumes,And the redbud, misted rosily,Dazzle the woodland glooms.

II

And I hear the song of the cat-bird wakeI' the boughs o' the gnarled wild-crab,Or there where the snows of the dogwood shakeThat the silvery sunbeams stab:

And it seems to me that a magic liesIn the crystal sweet of its notes,That a myriad blossoms open their eyesAs its strain above them floats.

III

I see the bluebell's blue unclose,And the trillium's stainless white; The bird-foot violet's purple and rose,And the poppy, golden-bright!And I see the eyes of the bluet wink,And the heads of the white-hearts nod; And the baby mouths of the woodland pinkAnd the sorrel salute the sod.

IV

And this, meseems, does the cat-bird say,As the blossoms crowd i' the sun:— "Up, up! and out! oh, out and away!Up, up! and out, each one!

Sweethearts! sweethearts! oh, sweet, sweet, sweet!Come listen and hark to me!The Spring, the Spring, with her fragrant feet, Is passing this way!—Oh, hark to the beatOf her bee-like heart!—Oh, sweet, sweet, sweet!Come! open your eyes and see!See, see, see!"

VAGABONDS

I

IT 's ho, it 's ho! when hawtrees blow Among the hills that Springtime thrills; When huckleberries, row on row, Hang out their blossom-bells of snow Around the rills that music fills: When hawtrees blow Among the hills, It 's ho, it 's ho! oh, let us go, My love and I, where fancy wills.

II

It 's hey, it's hey! when daisies swayAmong the meads where Summer speeds;When ripeness bends each fruited spray,And harvest wafts adown the day

The feathered seeds of golden weeds: When daisies sway Among the meads, It 's hey, it 's hey! oh, let 's away, My heart and I, where longing leads.

III

It 's ay, it 's ay! when red leaves fly,And strew the ways where Autumn strays; When 'round the beech and chestnut lie The sturdy burs, and creeks run dry,And frosts and haze turn golds to grays: When red leaves fly And strew the ways, It 's ay, it 's ay! oh, let us hie,My love and I, where dreaming says.

IV

Wassail! wassail! when snow and hailMake white the lands where Winter stands;

When wild winds from the forests flail The last dead leaves, and, in the gale,The trees wring hands in ghostly bands: When snow and hail Make white the lands, Wassail, wassail! oh, let us trail,My heart and I, where love commands.

NOCTURNE

A DISC of violet blue,Rimmed with a thorn of fire,The new moon hangs in a sky of dew;And under the vines, where the sunset's hueIs blent with blossoms, first one, then two,Begins the cricket's choir.

Bright blurs of golden white,And points of silvery glimmer,The first stars wink in the web of night;And through the flowers the moths take flight,In the honeysuckle-colored light,Where the shadowy shrubs grow dimmer.

Soft through the dim and dying eve,Sweet through the dusk and dew,

Come, while the hours their witchcraft weave, Dim in the House of the Soul's-Sweet-Leave, Here in the pale and perfumed eve,Here where I wait for you.

A great, dark, radiant rose,Dripping with starry glower,Is the night, whose bosom overflowsWith the balsam musk of the breeze that blowsInto the heart, as each one knows, Of every nodding flower.

A voice that sighs and sighs,Then whispers like a spirit,Is the wind that kisses the drowsy eyesOf the primrose open, and, rocking, liesIn the lily's cradle, and soft untiesThe rosebud's crimson near it.

Sweet through the deep and dreaming night,Soft through the dark and dew,

Come, where the moments their magic write, Deep in the Book of the Heart's-Delight, Here in the hushed and haunted night,Here where I wait for you.

LUTE SONG

WHAT will you send her,What will you tell her, That shall unbend her,That shall compel her?

Love, that shall fold herSo naught can sever; Truth, that shall hold herEver and ever.

What will you do thenSo she 'll ne' er grieve you? Knowing you true thenNever will leave you?

I 'll lay before here,There in her bower, Aye to adore her,My heart like a flower.

DAYS COME AND GO

LEAVES fall and flowers fade,Days come and go: Now is sweet Summer laid Low in her leafy glade, Low like a fragrant maid,Low, low, ah, low.

Tears fall and eyelids ache,Hearts overflow:Here for our dead love's sake Let us our farewells make— Will he again awake?Ah, no, no, no.

Winds sigh and skies are gray,Days come and go:

Wild birds are flown away: Where are the blooms of May?— Dead, dead, this many a day,Under the snow.

Lips sigh and cheeks are pale,Hearts overflow:Will not some song or tale,Kiss, or a flower frail,With our dead love avail?—Ah, no, no, no.

THE WANING YEAR

A SENSE of something that is sad and strange; Of something that is felt as death is felt,— As shadows, phantoms, in a haunted grange,—Around me seems to melt.

It rises, so it seems, from the decayOf the dim woods; from withered leaves and weeds,And dead flowers hanging by the woodland waySad, hoary heads of seeds.

And from the cricket's song,—so feeble now'T is like a sound heard in the heart, a call Dreamier than dreams;—and from the shaken bough,From which the acorns fall.

From scents and sounds it rises, sadly slow,This presence, that hath neither face nor form; That in the woods sits like demented woe,Whispering of wreck and storm.

A presence wrought of melancholy grief,And dreams that die; that, in the streaming night,I shall behold, like some fantastic leaf,Beat at my window's light.

That I shall hear, outside my storm-lashed door,Moan like the wind in some rain-tortured tree; Or 'round my roof and down my chimney roarAll the wild night to me.

GRAY NOVEMBER

I

DULL, dimly gleaming, The dawn looks downward Where, flowing townward, The river, steaming With mist, is hidden: Each bush, that huddles Beside the road,—the rain has pooled with puddles,— Seems, in the fog, a hag or thing hag-ridden.

II

Where leaves hang tatteredIn forest tangles,And woodway angles

Are acorn-scattered, Coughing and yawning The woodsman slouches, Or stands as silent as the hound that crouchesBeside him, ghostly in the mist-drenched dawning.

III

Through roses, rotting Within the garden,—With blooms, that harden, Of marigolds, knotting, (Each one an ember Dull, dead and dripping,) Her brow, from which their faded wreath is slipping,Mantled in frost and fog, comes in November.

HALLOWMAS

ALL hushed of glee,The last chill beeClings wearilyTo the dying aster.The leaves drop faster:And all around, red as disaster,The forest crimsons with tree on tree.

A butterfly,The last to die,Wings heavily by,Weighed down with torpor.The air grows sharper;And the wind in the trees, like some sad harper,Sits and sorrows with sigh on sigh.

The far crows call;The acorns fall;And over allThe Autumn raisesDun mists and hazes,Through which her soul, it seemeth, gazes On ghosts and dreams in carnival.

The end is near;The dying YearLeans low to hearHer own heart breaking,And Beauty takingHer flight, and all my dreams forsakingMy soul, bowed down 'mid the sad and sere.

A SONG OF THE SNOW

I

ROARING winds that rocked the crow,High in his eyrie,All night long, and to and froSwung the cedar and drove the snowOut of the North, have ceased to blow,And dawn breaks fiery.

Sing, Ho, a song of the winter dawn,When the air is still and the clouds are gone, And the snow lies deep on hill and lawn,And the old clock ticks, 'Tis time! 't is time!And the household rises with many a yawn— Sing, Ho, a song of the winter dawn!Sing Ho!

II

Deep in the East a ruddy glowBroadens and brightens,Glints through the icicles, row on row, Flames on the panes of the farmhouse low, And over the miles of drifted snowSilently whitens.

Sing, Ho, a song of the winter sky, When the last star closes its icy eye, And deep in the road the snow-drifts lie,And the old clock ticks, ' T is late! 't is late! And the flame on the hearth leaps red, leaps high—Sing, Ho, a song of the winter sky!Sing Ho!

III

Into the heav'n the sun comes slow, All red and frowsy;

Out of the shed the muffled lowOf the cattle comes; and the rooster's crow Sounds strangely distant beneath the snowAnd dull and drowsy.

Sing, Ho, a song of the winter morn,When the snow makes ghostly the wayside thorn, And hills of pearl are the shocks of corn,And the old clock ticks, Tick-tock, tick-tock; And the goodman bustles about the barn— Sing, Ho, a song of the winter morn!Sing Ho!

IV

Now to their tasks the farmhands go,Cheerily, cheerily:The maid with her pail, her cheeks aglow;And, blowing his fist, the man with his hoeTo trample a path through the crunching snow,Merrily, merrily.

Sing, Ho, a song of the winter day,When ermine-capped are the stacks of hay, And the wood-smoke pillars the air with gray,And the old clock ticks, To work! lo work! And the goodwife sings as she churns away— Sing, Ho, a song of the winter day!Sing Ho!

WHAT OF IT THEN

I

WELL, what of it then, if your heart be weighed with the yokeOf the world's neglect? and the smokeOf doubt, blown into your eyes, make night of your road? And the sting of the goad, The merciless goad of scorn, And the rise and fallOf the whip of necessity gall, Till your heart, forlorn, Indignant, in rage would rebel? And your bosom fill, And sobbingly swell,With bitterness, yea, against God and 'gainst Fate,

Fate, and the world of men,What of it then?… Let it be as it will,If you labor and wait,You, too, will arrive, and the end for you, too, will be well.What of it then, say I! yea, what of it then!

II

Well, what of it then? if the hate of the world and of menMake wreck of your dreams again?What of it thenIf contumely and sneer,And ignorant jibe and jeer,Be heaped upon all that you do and dream: And the irresistible streamOf events overwhelm and submerge All effort—or so it may seem? Not all, not all shall be lost,

Not all, in the merciless gurgeAnd pitiless surge!— Though you see it tempestuously tost, Though you see it sink down or sweep by, Not in vain did you strive, not in vain!The struggle, the longing and toilOf hand and of heart and of brain,Not in vain was it all, say I!For out of the wild turmoilAnd seething and soilOf Time, some part of the whole will arise, Arise and remain,In spite of the wrath of the skiesAnd the hate of men.—What of it then, say I! yea, what of it then!

WOMANHOOD

I

THE summer takes its hueFrom something opulent as fair in her,And the bright heav'n is brighter than it was;Brighter and lovelier,Arching its beautiful blue,Serene and soft, as her sweet gaze, o'er us.

II

The springtime takes its moodsFrom something in her made of smiles and tears, And flowery earth is flowerier than before, And happier, it appears, Adding new multitudesTo flowers, like thoughts, that haunt us ever more.

III

Summer and spring are wedIn her—her nature; and the glamour ofTheir loveliness, their bounty, as it were,Of life, and joy, and love,Her being seems to shed,The magic aura of the heart of her.

THE BURDEN OF DESIRE

I

IN some glad way I know thereof:A garden glows down in my heart, Wherein I meet and often part With many an ancient tale of love—A Romeo garden, banked with bloom, And trellised with the eglantine;In which a rose climbs to a room,A balcony one mass of vine,Dim, haunted of perfume—A balcony, whereon she gleams, The soft Desire of all Dreams, And smiles and bends like Juliet,Year after year.While to her side, all dewy wet,

A rose stuck in his ear,Love climbs to draw her near.

II

And in another way I know:Down in my soul a graveyard lies, Wherein I meet, in ghostly wise, With many an ancient tale of woe— A graveyard of the Capulets,Deep-vaulted with ancestral gloom, Through whose dark yews the moonlight jetsOn many a wildly caryen tomb,That mossy mildew frets—A graveyard where the Soul's DesireSleeps, pale-entombed; and, kneeling by her, Love, like that hapless Montague,Year after year,Weary and worn and wild of hue, Within her sepulchre, Falls bleeding on her bier.

THE ROSE'S SECRET

WHEN down the west the new moon slipped, A curved canoe that dipped and tipped, When from the rose the dewdrop dripped,As if it shed its heart's blood slow;As softly silent as a starI climbed a lattice that I know,A window lattice, held ajarBy one slim hand as white as snow:The hand of her who set me here,A rose, to bloom from year to year.

I, who have heard the bird of JuneSing all night long beneath the moon;I, who have heard the zephyr croonSoft music 'mid spring's avenues,

Heard then a sweeter sound than these,Among the shadows and the dews—A heart that beat like any bee's,Sweet with a name—and I know whose: Her heart that, leaning, pressed on me, A rose, she never looked to see.

O star and moon! O wind and bird! Ye hearkened, too, but never heard The secret sweet, the whispered wordI heard, when by her lips his nameWas murmured.—Then she saw me there!—But that I heard was I to blame?Whom in the darkness of her hairShe thrust since I had heard the same: Condemned within its deeps to lie, A rose, imprisoned till I die.

WOMAN'S LOVE

SWEET lies! the sweetest ever heard,To her he said:Her heart remembers every word Now he is dead.I ask:—" If thus his lies can make Your young heart grieve for his false sake, Had he been true what had you doneFor true love's sake? "—"Upon his grave there in the sun, Avoided now of all—but one,I'd lay my heart with all its ache,And let it break, and let it break."

And falsehood! fairer ne'er was seenThan he put on:

Her heart recalls each look and mien Now he is gone.I ask:—" If thus his treacheryCan hold your heart with lie on lie,What had you done for manly love,Love without lie? "—"There in the grass that grows aboveHis grave, where all could know thereof, I'd lay me down without a sigh, And gladly die, and gladly die."

AUBADE

AWAKE! the Dawn is on the hills! Behold, at her cool throat a rose, Blue-eyed and beautiful she goes, Leaving her steps in daffodils.— Awake! arise! and let me seeThine eyes, whose deeps epitomize All dawns that were or are to be,O love, all Heaven in thine eyes!— Awake! arise! come down to me!

Behold! the Dawn is up: behold! How all the birds around her float, Wild rills of music, note on note, Spilling the air with mellow gold.— Arise! awake! and, drawing near,

Let me but hear thee and rejoice!Thou, who bear'st captive, sweet and clear,All song, O love, within thy voice!Arise! awake! and let me hear!

See, where she comes, with limbs of day, The Dawn! with wildrose hands and feet, Within whose veins the sunbeams beat, And laughters meet of wind and ray.— Arise! come down! and, heart to heart,Love, let me clasp in thee all these—The sunbeam, of which thou art part,And all the rapture of the breeze!—Arise! come down! loved that thou art.

THE HUSHED HOUSE

I, WHO went at nightfall, came again at dawn;On Love's door again I knocked.—Love was gone.

He who oft had bade me in, now would bid no more;Silence sat within his house; barred its door.

When the slow door opened wide through it I could seeHow the emptiness within stared at me.

Through the dreary chambers, long I sought and sighed,But no answering footstep came; naught replied.

Then at last I entered, dim, a darkened room: There a taper glimmered gray in the gloom.

And I saw one lying crowned with helichrys; Never saw I face as fair as was his.

Like a wintry lily was his brow in hue;And his cheeks were each a rose, wintry too.

Then my soul remembered all that made us part, And what I had laughed at once—broke my heart.

THE HEART'S DESIRE

GOD made her body out of foam and flowers,And for her hair the dawn and darkness blent; Then called two planets from their heavenly towers,And in her face, divinely eloquent,Gave them a firmament.

God made her heart of rosy ice and fire,Of snow and flame, that freezes while it burns; And of a starbeam and a moth's desireHe made her soul, to'ards which my longing turns,And all my being yearns.

So is my life a prisoner unto passion,Enslaved of her who gives nor sign nor word;

So in the cage her loveliness doth fashionIs love endungeoned, like a golden birdThat sings but is not heard.

Could it but once convince her with beseeching!But once compel her as the sun the South! Could it but once, fond arms around her reaching, Upon the red carnation of her mouthDew its eternal drouth!

Then might I rise victorious over sadness,O'er fate and change, and, with but little care, Torched by the glory of that moment's gladness,Breast the black mountain of my life's despair,And die—or do and dare.

ACHIEVEMENT

HE held himself splendidly forwardBoth early and late;The aim of his purpose was starward,To master his fate:So he wrought and he toiled and he waited, Till he rose o'er the hordes that he hated, And stood on the heights, as was fated,Made one of the great.

Then lo! on the top of the mountain,With walls that were wide,A city! from which, as a fountain,Rose voices that cried:—"He comes! Let us forth now to meet him!Both mummer and priest let us greet him!

In the city he built let us seat him On the throne of his pride!"

Then out of the city he builded,Of shadows it seems, From gates that his fancy had gildedWith thought's brightest gleams,Strange mimes and chimeras came trooping, With moping and mowing and stooping— And he saw, with a heart that was drooping,That these were his dreams.

He entered; and, lo! as he enteredThey murmured his name;And led him where, burningly centred,An altar of flameMade lurid a temple,—erectedOf self,—where a form he detected—The love that his life had rejected—And this was his fame.

AT MOONRISE

PALE faces looked up at me, up from the earth, like flowers;Pale hands reached down to me, out of the air, like stars,As over the hills, robed on with the twilight, the Hours,The Day's last Hours, departed, and Dusk put up her bars.

Pale fingers beckoned me on; pale fingers, like starlit mist;Dim voices called to me, dim as the wind's dim rune,As up from the night, like a nymph from the amethyst

Of her waters, as silver as foam, rose the round, white breast of the moon.

And I followed the pearly waving and beckon of hands,The luring glitter and dancing glimmer of feet, And the sibilant whisper of silence, that summoned to landsRemoter than legend or faëry, where Myth and Tradition meet.

And I came to a place where the shadow of ancient NightBrooded o'er ruins, far wilder than castles of dreams; Fantastic, a mansion of phantoms, where, wandering white,I met with a shadowy presence whose voice I had followed, it seems.

And the ivy waved in the wind, and the moonlight laid,Like a ghostly benediction, a finger wanOn the face of the one from whose eyes the darkness rayed—The face of the one I had known in the years long gone.

And she looked in my face, and kissed me on brow and on cheek,Murmured my name, and wistfully smiled in my eyes,And the tears welled up in my heart, that was wild and weak,And my bosom seemed bursting with yearning, and my soul with sighs.

And there 'mid the ruins we sat.…Oh, strange were the words that she said!—

Distant and dim and strange; and hollow the looks that she gave:And I knew her then for a joy, a joy that was dead,A hope, a beautiful hope, that my youth had laid in its grave.

UNFORGOTTEN

I

How many things, that we would remember,Sweet or sad, or great or small,Do our minds forget! and how one thing only,One little thing endures o'er all!For many things have I forgotten,But this one thing can never forget—The scent of a primrose, woodland-wet, Long years ago I found in a far land;A fragile flower that April set,Rainy pink, in her forehead's garland.

II

How many things by the heart are forgotten!Sad as sweet, or little or great!

And how one thing that could mean nothingStays knocking still at the heart's red gate! For many things has my heart forgotten, But this one thing can never forget— The face of a girl, a moment met,Who smiled in my eyes; whom I passed in pity;A flower-like face, with weeping wet,Flung to the streets of a mighty city.

UNSUCCESS

A modern Poet addresses his Muse, to whom he has devoted the best Years of his Life

I

Not here, O belovéd! not here let us part, in the city, but there!Out there where the storm can enfold us, on the hills, where its breast is made bare:Its breast, that is rainy and cool as the fern that drips by the fallIn the luminous night of' the woodland where winds to the waters call.Not here, O belovéd! not here! but there! out there in the storm!The rush and the reel of the heavens, the tem pest, whose rapturous arm

Shall seize us and sweep us together,—resistless as passions seize men,—Through the rocking world of the woodland, with its multitude music, and then, With the rain on our lips, belovéd! in the heart of the night's wild hell,One last, long kiss forever, and forever and ever farewell.

II

I am sick of the madness of men; of the boot less struggle and strife: Of the pain and the patience of waiting; the scoff and the scorning of life: I am sick of the shapes and the shadows; the sins and the sorrows that crowdThe gateways of heart and of brain; of the laughter, the shout that is loud In the mouth of Success—Success, that was never for me, ah me!—

And all the wrong and neglect that are heaped, belovéd, on thee!I am sick of the whining of failure; the boast and the brag of Success;The vainness of effort and longing; the dreams and the days that oppress:I am sick of them all; but am sickest, am sickest in body and soul, Of the love that I bear thee, belovéd! and only thy death can make whole.

III

Imperfect, imperfect God made us,—or the power that men call God.—And I think that a Power so perfect, that made us with merely a nod,Could have fashioned us beings less faulty; more able to wear and to bear;Less open to mar and to fracture; less filled with the stuff of despair:

Less damned with the unavailing; less empty of all good things—The hopes and the dreams that mature not while the clay still to them clings:I am sick of it all, belovéd! of the world and the ways of God;The thorns that have pierced thy bosom; the shards of the paths we have trod:I am sick of going and coming; and of love I am sickest of all:The striving, the praying, the dreaming; and the things that never befall.—So there in the night, belovéd!—O fair, and O fugitive!—Out there in the storm and the darkness, thou must die so I may live!

THE FIRST QUARTER

I
JANUARY

SHAGGY with skins of frost-furred gray and drab, Harsh, hoary hair framing a bitter face, He bends above the dead Year's fireplace Nursing the last few embers of its slab To sullen glow: from pinched lips, cold and crab, The starved flame shrinks; his breath, like a menáce, Shrieks in the flue, fluttering its sooty lace, Piercing the silence like an icy stab. From rheum-gnarled knees he rises, slow with cold, And to the frost-bound window, muttering, goes, With iron knuckles knocking on the pane; And, lo! outside, his minions manifold Answer the summons: wolf-like shapes of woes, Hunger and suffering, trooping to his train.

II
FEBRUARY

Gray-muffled to his eyes in rags of cloud, His whip of winds forever in his hand, Driving the herded storms along the land,— That shake the wild sleet from wild hair and crowd Heaven with tumultuous bulks,—he comes, lowbrowed And heavy-eyed; the hail, like stinging sand, Whirls white behind, swept backward by his band Of wild-hoofed gales that o'er the world ring loud. All day the tatters of his dark cloak stream Congealing moisture, till in solid ice The forests stand; and, clang on thunderous clang, All night is heard,— as in the moon's cold gleam Tightens his grip of frost, his iron vise,— The boom of bursting boughs that icicles fang.

III
MARCH

This is the tomboy month of all the year, March, who comes shouting o'er the winter hills, Waking the world with laughter, as she wills, Or wild halloos, a windflower in her ear. She stops a moment by the half-thawed mere And whistles to the wind, and straightway shrills The hyla's song, and hoods of daffodils Crowd golden 'round her, leaning their heads to hear. Then through the woods, that drip with all their eaves, Her mad hair blown about her, loud she goes Singing and calling to the naked trees, And straight the oilets of the little leaves Open their eyes in wonder, rows on rows, And the first bluebird bugles to the breeze.

LATE NOVEMBER

I
MORNING

DEEP in her broom-sedge, burs and iron-weeds, Her frost-slain asters and dead mallow-moons, Where gray the wilding clematis balloons The brake with puff-balls: where the slow stream leads Her sombre steps: decked with the scarlet beads Of hip and haw: through dolorous maroons And desolate golds, she goes: the wailing tunes Of all the winds about her like wild reeds. The red wrought-iron hues that flush the green Of blackberry briers, and the bronze that stains The oak's sere leaves, are in her cheeks: the gray Of forest pools, clocked thin with ice, is keen In her cold eyes: and in her hair the rain's Chill silver glimmers like a winter ray.

II
NOON

Lost in the sleepy grays and drowsy browns Of woodlands, smoky with the autumn haze, Where dull the last leafed maples, smouldering, blaze Like ghosts of wigwam fires, the Month uncrowns Her frosty hair, and where the forest drowns The road in shadows, in the rutted ways, Filled full of freezing rain, her robe she lays Of tattered gold, and seats herself and frowns. And at her frown each wood and bushy hill Darkens with prescience of approaching storm, Her soul's familiar fiend, who, with wild broom Of wind and rain, works her resistless will, Sweeping the world, and driving with mad arm The clouds, like leaves, through the tumultuous gloom.

III
EVENING

The shivering wind sits in the oaks, whose limbs, Twisted and tortured, nevermore are still; Grief and decay sit with it, they, whose chill Autumnal touch makes hectic red the rims Of all the oak leaves; desolating dims The ageratum's blue that banks the rill, And splits the milkweed's pod upon the hill, And shakes it free of the last seed that swims. Down goes the day despondent to its close: And now the sunset's hands of copper build A tower of brass, behind whose burning bars The day, in fierce, barbarian repose, Like some imprisoned Inca sits, hate-filled, Crowned with the gold corymbus of the stars.

IV
NIGHT

There is a booming in the forest boughs: Tremendous feet seem trampling through the trees: The storm is at his wildman revelries, And earth and heaven echo his carouse. Night reels with tumult. And from out her house Of cloud the moon looks, like a face one sees In nightmare, hurrying with pale eyes that freeze, Stooping above with white, malignant brows. The isolated oak upon the hill, That seemed, at sunset, in terrific lands A Titan head black in a sea of blood, Now seems a monster harp, whose wild strings thrill To the vast fingering of innumerable hands, The Spirits of Tempest and of Solitude.

ZERO

THE gate, on ice-hoarse hinges, stiff with frost,Croaks open; and harsh wagon-wheels are heardCreaking through cold; the horses' breath is furredAround their nostrils; and with snow deep mossedThe hut is barely seen, from which, uptossed,The wood-smoke pillars the icy air unstirred; And every sound, each axe-stroke and each word, Comes as through crystal, then again is lost. The sun strikes bitter on the frozen pane,And all around there is a tingling,—tenseAs is a wire stretched upon a discVibrating without sound:—It is the strainThat Winter plays, to which each tree and fence,It seems, is strung, as 't were of ringing bisque.

THE JONGLEUR

LAST night I lay awake and heard the wind, That madman jongleur of the world of air, Making wild music: now he seemed to fare With harp and lute, so intimately twinned They were as one; now on a drum he dinned,Now on a tabor; now, with blow and blare Of sackbut and recorder, everywhere Shattered the night; then on a sudden thinned To bagpipe wailings as of maniac griefThat whined itself to sleep. And then, meseemed,Out in the darkness, mediæval-dim,I saw him dancing, like an autumn leaf,In tattered tunic, while around him streamed His lute's wild ribbons 'thwart the moon's low rim.

ON THE HILLTOP

THERE is no inspiration in the view.From where this acorn drops its thimbles brown The landscape stretches like a shaggy frown; The wrinkled hills hang haggard and harsh of hue: Above them hollows the heaven's stony blue, Like a dull thought that haunts some sleepdazed clown Plodding his homeward way; and, whispering down, The dead leaves dance, a sere and shelterless crew.Let the sick day stagger unto its close,Morose and mumbling, like a hoary crone Beneath her fagots—huddled fogs that soon Shall flare the windy west with ashen glows,Like some deep, dying hearth; and let the lone Night come at last—night, and its withered moon.

AUTUMN STORM

THE wind is rising and the leaves are swept Wildly before it, hundreds on hundreds fall Huddling beneath the trees. With brag and brawlOf storm the day is grown a tavern, keptOf madness, where, with mantles torn and ripped Of flying leaves that beat above it all,The wild winds fight; and, like some half-spent ball,The acorn stings the rout; and, silver-stripped, The milkweed-pod winks an exhausted lamp:Now, in his coat of tatters dark that streams,The ragged rain sweeps stormily this way, With all his clamorous followers—clouds that campAround the hearthstone of the west where gleamsThe last chill flame of the expiring day.

OLD SIR JOHN

BALD, with old eyes a blood-shot blue, he comesInto the Boar's-Head Inn: the hot sweat streaksHis fulvous face, and all his raiment reeks Of all the stews and all the Eastcheap slums. Upon the battered board again he drumsAnd croaks for sack: then sits, his harsh haired cheeksSunk in his hands rough with the grime of weeks,While 'round the tap one great bluebottle hums. All, all are gone, the old companions—theyWho made his rogue's world merry: of them allNot one is left. Old, toothless now, and grayAlone he waits: the swagger of that day Gone from his bulk—departed even as Doll,And he, his Hal, who broke his heart, they say.

THE MISER

WITHERED and gray as winter; gnarled and old, With bony hands he crouches by the coals; His beggar's coat is patched and worn in holes; Rags are his shoes: clutched in his claw-like holdA chest he hugs wherein he hoards his gold. Far-heard a bell of midnight slowly tolls:The bleak blasts shake his hut like wailing souls,And door and window chatter with the cold. Nor sleet nor snow he heeds, nor storm nor night.Let the wind howl! and let the palsy twitch His rheum-racked limbs! here 's that will make them glowAnd warm his heart! here 's comfort joy and light!— How the gold glistens!—Rich he is; how rich —Only the death that knocks outside shall know.

IN AGES PAST

I STOOD upon a height and listened to The solemn psalmody of many pines,And with the sound I seemed to see long lines Of mountains rise, blue peak on cloudy blue, And hear the roar of torrents hurling throughRiven ravines; or from the crags' gaunt spines Pouring wild hair, where,—as an eyeball shines,—A mountain pool shone, clear and cold of hue.And then my soul remembered—felt, how once, In ages past, 't was here that I, a Faun, Startled an Oread at her morning bath,Who stood revealed; her beauty, like the sun's, Veiled in her hair, heavy with dews of dawn, Through which, like stars, burnt blue her eyes' bright wrath.

UNTO WHAT END

UNTO what end, I ask, unto what end Is all this effort, this unrest and toil?Work that avails not? strife and mad turmoil? Ambitions vain that rack our hearts and rend? Did labor but avail! did it defendThe soul from its despair, who would recoil From sweet endeavor then? work that were oil To still the storms that in the heart contend! But still to see all effort valueless!To toil in vain year after weary yearAt Song! beholding every other ArtConsidered more than Song's high holiness,— The difficult, the beautiful and dear! —Doth break my heart, ah God! doth break my heart!

ELFIN

I

WHEN wildflower blue and wildflower whiteThe wildflowers lay their heads together, And the moon-moth glimmers along the night, And the wandering firefly flares its light, And the full moon rises broad and bright,Then, then it is elfin weather.

II

And fern and flower on top of the hillAre a fairy wood where the fairies camp; And there, to the pipe of the cricket shrill, And the owl's bassoon or the whippoorwill, They whirl their wildest and trip their fillBy the light of the glowworm's lamp.

III

And the green tree-toad and the katydidAre the henchmen set to guard their dance; At whose cry they creep 'neath the dewy lid Of a violet's eye, or close lie hidIn a bluebell's ear, if a mortal 'midThe moonlit woods should chance.

IV

And the forest-fly with its gossamer wings,And filmy body of rainbow dye,Is the ouphen steed each elfin brings, Whereon by the light of the stars he swings, When the dance is done and the barn-cock sings,And the dim dawn streaks the sky.

AUTHORITIES

THE unpretentious flowers of the woods,That rise in bright and banded brotherhoods, Waving us welcome, and with kisses sweet Laying their lives down underneath our feet, Lesson my soul more than the tomes of man, Packed with the lore of ages, ever can,In love and truth, hope and humility,And such unselfishness as to the bee,Lifting permissive petals dripping nard,Yields every sweet up, asking no reward.The many flowers of wood and field and stream, Filling our hearts with wonder and with dream, That know no ceremony, yet that areAttended of such reverence as that star—That punctual point of flame, which, to our eyes,

Leads on the vast procession of the skies, Sidereal silver, glittering in the west— Compels, assertive of heaven's loveliest.Where may one find suggestion simpler set Than in the radius of a violet?Or more authentic loveliness than glowsIn the small compass of a single rose?Or more of spiritual thought than perfumes from The absolute purity of a lily-bloom?

EPILOGUE

We have worshipped two gods from our earliest youth,Soul of my soul and heart of me!Young forever and true as truth—The gods of Beauty and Poesy. Sweet to us are their tyrannies,Sweet their chains that have held us long,For God's own self is a part of these,Part of our gods of Beauty and Song.

What to us if the world revile! What to us if its heart rejects!It may scorn our gods, or curse with a smile,The gods we worship, that it neglects:

Nothing to us is its blessing or curse;Less than nothing its hate and wrong: For Love smiles down through the universe,Smiles on our gods of Beauty and Song.

We go our ways: and the dreams we dream People our path and cheer us on;And ever before is the golden gleam,The star we follow, the streak of dawn: Nothing to us is the word men say;For a wiser word still keeps us strong, God's word, that makes fine fire of clay,That shaped our gods of Beauty and Song.