To the end of the trail / Richard Hovey [electronic text]

II

SHORT BEACH

OH, the salt wind in my nostrils! And the white sail in the creek! And the blue beyond the marshes! And the flag at the peak!

My soul lifts to the bugles Of a far cry on the breeze — The cry of my storm-kin calling Overseas, overseas!

Blow, horns of the old sea-rapture! When your call comes from afar. I would rise from the grave to reach you Where the sea-dooms are!

July, 1898.

THE GYPSY

I FOUND her in a gypsy camp Between the night and morning. I was a roving, loving scamp, She was a child of morning.

She had the wood-dew in her hair, The road-dust on her feet, The sting and thrill of mountain air Made all her motion sweet.

She moved with something like the grace Of migratory birds. The wander-longing in her face Was like forgotten words.

THE ORIENT

A FRAGMENT

* * * THE sleet of battle and the hurricane of drums Blight for a while the calm chrysanthemums, To clear the air For the new April that engenders there. But though her strenuous to-morrow Get from the West a heritage of sorrow, Shall not the spirit of Japan Transmute the urge, the bitterness, the moan, To some great bloom of beauty yet unknown To meet the vision of the coming man?

India, a Sabine bride, About the hearthstone of her ravisher Sets up her household gods; and at her side His children learn of her. And surely in her bosom, too, there lies A mystery unborn. Ay, surely, an apocalyptic morn, In Vishnu-land an avatar shall rise.

And the West is with child of the East and the travail is long, A travail of song. And the East is with child of the West and the travail is sore, A travail of war. * * *

May, 1896.

À STEPHANE MALLARMÉ

A FRAGMENT

ON battlemented Morningside The gold alembic days distil, The violet rocks remember yet The winter winds that moaned and sighed. The grasses and the leaves are still.

DISCOVERY

A FRAGMENT

ACT III

SCENE. — Mid-Ocean, on board the Santa Maria. COLUMBUS, NINO, ROLDAN, MATHEOS, near the man at the wheel. About the deck and in the forecastle Sailors, among them GIACOMO, the

boatswain, TALLARTE, SEBASTIAN and WILLIAM IRES.

COLUMBUS.

Steersman, hold straight into the west.

NINO.

The birds Fly southward, sir.

COLUMBUS.

They do.

NINO.

They seem land-birds, sir.

COLUMBUS.

And seek the land. I think it probable Some island lies there, Nino.

NINO.

Your pardon, sir, But why hold course to westward if the land Be in the south?

COLUMBUS.

The land is in the west. Haphazard islets in the middle sea May rise leagues from the mainland. Not for such Have we outsailed the Carthaginian dream And pierced the sea of glooms. Steersman, I say, Hold straight into the west.

Enter DE ARANA and some of the royal staff. COLUMBUS goes to meet them.

MATHEOS.

What say you, Roldan? Does he not carry it right hidalgo-like, Our paper grandee, Admiral of the clouds, And viceroy of the moon?

ROLDAN.

We whom he promised gold, this Genovese, We shall go back to beg for copper sous About the streets of Seville.

NINO.

Back, my masters! Now, by St. James, I would that day were here, For I am fearsome it will never dawn.

ROLDAN.

What mean you?

NINO.

Shall we evermore see Spain again? I have served twenty captains in my life, And but one madman. Have ye ne'er heard tales Of phantom ships that seek to make a port And fail forever?

MATHEOS.

We see Spain again; The order's ta'en for that.

ROLDAN.

Be still! The Joker!

NINO.

Sirs, what's afoot?

MATHEOS.

Which do you set the higher, Life and Castile or this Italian Boaster?

NINO.

I ne'er feared death in a fair fight, my mates, But who will pour his life out for a whim Or strive with the Devil knows what! Have you seen naught O' nights upon your watch, strange and unnatural?

MATHEOS.

What, you have seen it, too?

NINO.

And you have seen it?

ROLDAN.

The needle?

NINO.

Ay, it points no longer north —

MATHEOS.

Or else the Pole-star wavers from its place;

NINO.

But if the eternal sky is still secure

Then there's some hellish hocus-pocus here That makes the iron veer toward the west As if some magnet greater than the Pole Lay yonder where we steer; that Mount Magnetic That like the Kraken of the North devours The ocean leagues like grass, and which men say Sucks out the rivets of the stoutest ships Letting them melt into their elements Like frostwork in the sun.

ROLDAN.

Be still, I say; Here comes the Genovese!

MATHEOS.

More words with you.

(They draw apart; COLUMBUS and DE ARANA on the port side.)

COLUMBUS.

And still holds fair, you see.

DE ARANA.

True, sir, and yet Uneasily I shift my thought about With something, I confess, of awe, — well, fear, Fear, if you will!

COLUMBUS.

You say it, De Arana, Not I.

DE ARANA.

How far the loneliness recedes! The weight o' the stillness stifles!

COLUMBUS.

We are the first Except the angels who have looked upon The silence of this sea — and yet behold How beautiful it is! Ocean and sky Tremble with heat and color; each light vapour Encrimsons with the sun, and the clear deeps Let the light plunge down fathoms undersea, Where the strange embryo life of Ocean moves As on the first day when the spirit of God Was brooding on the waters. Oh, it is good To know the secrets of this world! And I Believe, Arana, nay I know, the day Nears when God's wisdom shall reveal to us What no man yet has seen or dreamed on earth, Scholar or seaman. I seem to feel already The far-off power of equatorial suns And dim foretokens of the austral sky.

(He retires, and seeks the lookout.)

DE ARANA.

He dreams, he dreams — even as he dreamed in Spain, While the court mocked and whispered. Now almost

I do believe him, who so mightily Believes himself. I am his kinsman— half — Through Beatrix! If I break faith with Pinzon, Who is but my countryman, and rip the mask From this revolt that threats to make this night An end of all his dreams! I have good will to it. Break faith with Pinzon? What's that but keep faith with the Genovese? Bah, I dream, too! The crews are as one man And will not venture farther. Who is he That can compel them? Though the receding West Held Edens for his Indies, Founts of youth And trees of life for gems and mines of gold, He stands alone. Well, well! When all is said, I shall be glad, for one, to be in Spain. Giacomo!

GIACOMO.

(Approaching.)

Ay, sir.

DE ARANA.

Yet no land?

GIACOMO.

Nor would be If we sailed on for ever.

DE ARANA.

Is 't to-night?

GIACOMO.

Ay, sir.

DE ARANA.

The signal?

GIACOMO.

The boatswain's whistle, sir. The Pinta and the Nina run along side at nightfall, as soon as the commander goes below for his devotion.

SANCHEZ.

(Who has drawn near from behind.)

Ay, his Angelus — or his Diabolus, for I am sure the devil is in this wind that blows always with his desires.

GIACOMO.

You say well, sir. We are all agreed there is sorcery in 't.

SANCHEZ.

Or else there blow no winds for Spain in these waters.

DE ARANA.

Well, well! — But when he is saying his prayers, be they to angel or devil, what then?

GIACOMO.

Why, sir, then I pipe all hands on deck, and before Windbags knows what's up, the Captains Pinzon and their crews have boarded us.

SANCHEZ.

It is near nightfall now.

GIACOMO.

Ay, sir, and the dark comes on here like the blowing out of a light in a cellar.

DE ARANA.

Or a tomb. The sun sets, and Night stalks over the sea in seven league boots.

GIACOMO.

We come too near her dwelling place.

WILLIAM IRES.

(In a group of sailors on the starboard side.)

Eh, mates, but I'm of another mind. Faith, I think there's land ahead, but we've passed it. Didn't the blessed St. Brandon sail into the west and discover a land so beautiful that he never came back again? And by the same token he was an Irishman.

TALLARTE.

He must have been. That is a very Irish story.

IRES.

That's your Saxon envy, Tallarte de Lajes. It takes more than a Spanish name to hide an English dunderhead.

TALLARTE.

If your old bog-trotting saint discovered something, why don't anybody know it?

IRES.

Faith he kept it to himself, and that's the chief pleasure of a discovery.

TALLARTE.

Then I suppose you're for going ahead.

IRES.

I am, with the ship turned around —

GIACOMO.

(Who has joined them.)

Who talks of going ahead?

TALLARTE.

William Ires.

IRES.

Who told you so? I said the old man was right in looking for land, for an Irishman and a saint found it before him, And that I will maintain. But I am in favour of going back, and listen you all, it is not because I am afraid — but because I am tired of sailing in one direction.

GIACOMO.

Corpo di Baccho, there may be land ahead worse than the sea — Listen, I have just overheard the mates saying that by a sure computation we should come in eight days more to a mountain made all of loadstone.

SEBASTIAN.

Mother of God!

GIACOMO.

And as soon as we come in sight of this mountain, the bolts will all fly out of their places and the ships sink into the sea.

SAILORS.

Oh, Oh!

SEBASTIAN.

And hark ye, Master Giacomo, I have been told by Moors, to whom the Devil has taught much forbidden knowledge, that in these parts dwelleth the great bird, Roc, whose wings darken the sky, and who grasps the largest frigate with his mighty talons as easily as an owl clutches a field-mouse. Then soaring up higher than the topmost clouds, tears it to atoms and drops them in the sea.

SAILORS.

Oh, oh!

GIACOMO.

Masters, this is a voyage of ill-fortune.

SAILORS.

Ay, that it is.

GIACOMO.

First, we set sail on a Friday.

A SAILOR.

No good ever came of beginning aught o' Friday.

GIACOMO.

Then there was the burning mountain.

SEBASTIAN.

Teneriffe!

GIACOMO.

Ay, Teneriffe, terrific, set in the sea To warn the impious back that dare to press Beyond the bounds of things! All night it flared, Blazoning on the clouds tremendous dooms, While from the dark we watched and trembled, Yet This portent braved, and the long cutting through The interminable net of magic herbs, That strove to wind us in a woven charm, Still lured by signs of land from league to league Which still proved lying, till the very stars Began to shift in heaven —

(Four bells.)

COLUMBUS.

Steersman, hold straight into the West! The Angelus.

(Silence, during which COLUMBUS disappears into the cabin. Here and there a sailor drops on his knees, crosses himself and prays. GIACOMO blows his whistle. Sailors silently come on deck from below — It darkens — The Pinta and Nina have come alongside.)
Enter over the taffrail, PINZON, and sailors.

PINZON.

Seamen.

* * * * * * * *

PÈRE AMBROISE

DID you see the joy and peace of God's great grace On her face! Did you hear the calm still sainthood in her speak Through her cheek? Then that light of holy knowledge, clear and wise, In her eyes? — Ere her face was hid forever, chaste and pale, By the veil, Ere the vision and the glory and the light Passed from sight, Loving, trusting, God's own work that God had blessed, Full of rest.

Yet she loved me in a fashion as I think. Just a chink In the lattice of her heart let through one day One faint ray Of the roselight of the morning of love's skies On my eyes, And the phantom of the roselight on her cheek Bade me speak. Had I spoken, had I fanned the spark aflame, Would the same Fate have fallen on us, think you, now we dree — I and she?

But I stopped, even while my heart leaped with the mirth Of love's birth, Stopped — I thought I heard God's messenger somewhere — In the air, Was it? — bid unbuskin lest my footprints wound Holy ground. Sweet wise novice, she was seeking truer bliss, Jesu's kiss. I, God's consecrated priest, should I step in, Thrust between Her white soul and endless love my poor love-dower Of an hour!

So I rushed away and left her standing there, Tall and fair As the angel when he stood by Mary's side, Awed, and cried "Ave, plena gratia!" seeing her fair sweet face, Full of grace. Holy Mother! may she never know the cause Made me pause So abruptly! Well, love's might-be in her breast Slept unguessed Save by me, and I — I left her, tall and fair, Standing there. Ah, the bitter tears I shed then, all alone, Falling prone

Where the crucifix within the shadow hangs -God's own pangs, God's death shown in symbol, His heartache divine Dwarfing mine — At the priedieu in the corner of the room In the gloom. And I sobbed myself to silence, let heart break For His sake, As His Sacred Heart long since at Calvary Broke for me.

I had taught her, I had poured into her ear All the dear Mystic wonder of the Love above all love,—Tried to prove To her pure faith, where no need of proof was, how Man should now Give the love back as completely as he can, Being but man, Pain for pain and blood for blood and strife for strife, — Life for life. How her face flushed — then grew paler than blown mist, Rapt and whist! No heat like the iron when it whitens!— so When she'd show That death-pallor in her cheek while eye-fires blazed, Unamazed

I had seen her brave the Devil, stood he where She must fare Past him in the sheer high pathway that she trod Leads to God, — She had plunged her hand with Mutius in the flame, Faced the shame And the suffering, the spitting and the spear, Without fear.

So I wakened in her heart the first desireFor the higher Life of utter selflessness and sacrifice, Saw arise A great innocent fearlessness that made me fear, Saw appear Golden first-fruits of devotion ripeningIn the spring Of the new Christ-year whose Easter bade her then Rise again; And I loved her in her life of love and prayer Unaware.

Unaware! —ah, but now the clouds withdrew And I knew! —Felt the might of love within me rend my heart, Great drops start From my body as I agonized, lying there, In despair!

And I called upon her, murmured her sweet name.Should God claim This of all things, more to me than all the gold World could hold, More than fame, power, victory in the dearest strife — More than life!

More than God, I had almost said. But that wild thought Stopped me — brought Fear upon me — a great horror. Then light broke Through the smoke Round about me and I seemed to see God's plan Chastening man. "I, the Lord thy God, a jealous God, demand Heart and hand First for Me to labor, first love Me, My sway First obey — Mine your firstlings, Mine your first fruits, Mine your best — Costliest!"

Was not she my dearest, best — fit sacrifice In God's eyes, Lest perchance her image leave nought in my heart For His part? Might it not be best for me to lose her here?She so near,

God so far away in heaven, how should I not Have forgot God, — seeing the wondrous beauty of her hair, And the fair Angel face — and then the deeps, the mysteries Of her eyes!

If I give her now to God, my pearl of price,Greater thrice In my eyes — ah, heaven! — than all else life has brought, Shall He not, In the yonder-world when I have burned away All the clay From my spirit and the gold alone remains, Bless my pains With this gift back from His hands that took to give? "Die to live," Was His word of old. Dead love may, like dead men, Rise again, —Not to earth-life here, but at the Day of Days In the place Of God's dwelling, where reflections of the Trine Union shine Through innumerable unions, caught and bound In one round

Up to Him and in Him by a mystery strange That shall change All the myrrh of sorrow offered at His shrine Into Wine. Shall God scorn a broken heart? Shall He despise Sacrifice?

Then I looked up at the crucifix above —God's great love Broke upon me like a torrent whirling down Tower and town In its pathway, — and the mystery grew more clear Symboled there. What was man's poor love in 's farthest weariest reach, — Loftiest niche Man could statue in his heart's cathedral,— height Of heart's flight, — To God's love before the ages had begun For His Son!

Holier than the holiest love that e'er the earth Brought to birth, Mary's for the Christ-child, burning brighter far Than the star Led the wise men — She our sea-star, beaconing, So to bring Us too with her to the Christ — she, who became Heaven's Dame! —

Holier still and higher and swifter Thine, Love Divine,Outsoars Mary's even, far as hers outsoursHeight of ours.

Yet God gave His Son — O mystery that sleeps In God's deeps! —Let His infinite Love be tortured — pierced and torn — Turned to scorn For our sake — ay, even for this poor half-divine Love of mine. Now He asks me, shall I shrink to give Him thence Recompense? How the mist about me at this break of day Cleared away And God's meaning slowly, like the morning, stole On my soul!

Yield you, bend your will to His will; who obeys, Gets God's grace. Though the Devil's pride within you still impel To rebel, Keeping back the day of God's fulfilment here, Do not fear, —Vanquished is victorious; freedom's self-defeat Being complete, Then the purpose of God's lesson is made known, Hell's o'erthrown,

And submission lifts to higher liberty —Love makes free.

If you yield you as the helpless knife obeys Him that slays —. As the senseless waters tumble down the hill, Will or nill, That's the Stoic, that benumbs you, makes you slave, As Christ gave Freedom, life for you, so give you with good will, Then you fill God's full cup of sacrifice to brim, and so Come to know God's way, act it, be it, so with God to be, As God, free, —Freedom, lost once, freely yielded at God's feet, Now more sweet, Found again at God's feet, past the ebb and flow, In Heaven's glow. See, God striving with me, I would not unclasp My heart's grasp Till He blessed me — then I rose and stole away.… The next day Made excuses — certain matters of import — Well, in short, That's the last I saw of her till twelve hours since. I did wince

In the church there. How heart's embers burst to flame! But I came Back for that, — that last look. Ite, missa est.… What a rest In the stars! The lazy wind in the close beneath Seems to breathe A great quiet. That's like our love, sister — ours, Peace embowers, Calm and tender. See the moonlight's elfish play On the bay.… What a heavy scent of honeysuckle! … So! Let us go.

1887

A LYRIC

SUNSHINE of yellow hair And still white trust, What doest thou in this lair Of death and dust? The halls where I abide Are dusk and dour, And fearsome lurkers hide By arch and door.

The ruins of my heart Are lone and grim; There strange companions start, Hollow and dim, In the deserted rooms With wan despair —What doest thou in these glooms, Bonny and fair?

Ghosts of dead loves at night Arise and walk; Fear sears me like a blight To hear them talk. I never shall get free Of their dead eyes. That look they turn on me Kills as it dies.

Inhabit not my soul, O dream of dawn! The dead have me in thrall, Will not be gone, Haunt me by ghostly stair And shuddering gloom! Leave me to seek them there From room to room.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, 1899.