DISCOVERY (continued 2)

Where, in the hazy morning, runs The stony branch that pools and drips, The red-haws and the wild-rose hips Are strewn like pebbles; and the sun's Own gold seems captured by the weeds; To see, through scintillating seeds, The hunters steal with glimmering guns!

Oh, joy, to go the path which lies Through woodlands where the trees are tall! Beneath the misty moon of fall, Whose ghostly girdle prophesies A morn wind-swept and gray with rain; When, o'er the lonely, leaf-blown lane, The night-hawk like a dead leaf flies!

To stand within the dewy ring Where pale death smites the boneset blooms, And everlasting's flowers, and plumes Of mint, with aromatic wing! And hear the creek,—whose sobbing seems A wild-man murmuring in his dreams,— And insect violins that sing.

Or where the dim persimmon tree Rains on the path its frosty fruit, And in the oak the owl doth hoot, Beneath the moon and mist, to see The outcast Year go,—Hagar-wise,— With far-off, melancholy eyes, And lips that sigh for sympathy.

VI

Towards evening, where the sweet-gum flung Its thorny balls among the weeds, And where the milkweed's sleepy seeds,— A faery Feast of Lanterns,—swung; The cricket tuned a plaintive lyre, And o'er the hills the sunset hung A purple parchment scrawled with fire.

From silver-blue to amethyst The shadows deepened in the vale; And belt by belt the pearly-pale Aladdin fabric of the mist Built up its exhalation far; A jewel on an Afrit's wrist, One star gemmed sunset's cinnabar.

Then night drew near, as when, alone, The heart and soul grow intimate; And on the hills the twilight sate With shadows, whose wild robes were sown With dreams and whispers;—dreams, that led The heart once with love's monotone, And memories of the living-dead.

VII

All night the rain-gusts shook the leaves Around my window; and the blast Rumbled the flickering flue, and fast The storm streamed from the dripping eaves. As if—'neath skies gone mad with fear— The witches' Sabboth galloped past, The forests leapt like startled deer.

All night I heard the sweeping sleet; And when the morning came, as slow As wan affliction, with the woe Of all the world dragged at her feet, No spear of purple shattered through The dark gray of the east; no bow Of gold shot arrows swift and blue.

But rain, that whipped the windows; filled The spouts with rushings; and around The garden stamped, and sowed the ground With limbs and leaves; the wood-pool filled With overgurgling.—Bleak and cold The fields looked, where the footpath wound Through teasel and bur-marigold.

Yet there's a kindness in such days Of gloom, that doth console regret With sympathy of tears, which wet Old eyes that watch the back-log blaze.— A kindness, alien to the deep Glad blue of sunny days that let No thought in of the lives that weep.

VIII

This dawn, through which the Autumn glowers,— As might a face within our sleep, With stone-gray eyes that weep and weep, And wet brows bound with sodden flowers,— Is sunset to some sister land; A land of ruins and of palms; Rich sunset, crimson with long calms,— Whose burning belt low mountains bar,— That sees some brown Rebecca stand Beside a well the camel-band Winds down to 'neath the evening star.

O sunset, sister to this dawn! O dawn, whose face is turned away! Who gazest not upon this day, But back upon the day that's gone! Enamored so of loveliness, The retrospect of what thou wast, Oh, to thyself the present trust! And as thy past be beautiful With hues, that never can grow less! Waiting thy pleasure to express New beauty lest the world grow dull.

IX

Down in the woods a sorcerer, Out of rank rain and death, distills,— Through chill alembics of the air,— Aromas that brood everywhere Among the whisper-haunted hills: The bitter myrrh of dead leaves fills Wet valleys (where the gaunt weeds bleach) With rainy scents of wood-decay;— As if a spirit all the day Sat breathing softly 'neath the beech.

With other eyes I see her flit, The wood-witch of the wild perfumes, Among her elfin owls,—that sit, A drowsy white, in crescent-lit Dim glens of opalescent glooms:— Where, for her magic, buds and blooms Mysterious perfumes, while she stands, A thornlike shadow, summoning The sleepy odors, that take wing Like bubbles from her dewy hands.

X

Among the woods they call to me— The lights that haunt the wood and stream; Voices of such white ecstasy As moves with hushed lips through a dream: They stand in auraed radiances, Or flash with nimbused limbs across Their golden shadows on the moss, Or slip in silver through the trees.

What love can give the heart in me More hope and exaltation than The hand of light that tips the tree And beckons far from marts of man? That reaches foamy fingers through The broken ripple, and replies With sparkling speech of lips and eyes To souls who seek and still pursue.

XI

Give me the streams, that counterfeit The twilight of autumnal skies; The shadowy, silent waters, lit With fire like a woman's eyes! Slow waters that, in autumn, glass The scarlet-strewn and golden grass, And drink the sunset's tawny dyes.

Give me the pools, that lie among The centuried forests! give me those, Deep, dim, and sad as darkness hung Beneath the sunset's somber rose: Still pools, in whose vague mirrors look— Like ragged gypsies round a book Of magic—trees in wild repose.

No quiet thing, or innocent, Of water, earth, or air shall please My soul now: but the violent Between the sunset and the trees: The fierce, the splendid, and intense, That love matures in innocence, Like mighty music, give me these!

XII

When thorn-tree copses still were bare And black along the turbid brook; When catkined willows blurred and shook Great tawny tangles in the air; In bottomlands, the first thaw makes An oozy bog, beneath the trees, Prophetic of the spring that wakes, Sang the sonorous hylodes.

Now that wild winds have stripped the thorn, And clogged with leaves the forest-creek; Now that the woods look blown and bleak, And webs are frosty white at morn; At night beneath the spectral sky, A far foreboding cry I hear— The wild fowl calling as they fly? Or wild voice of the dying Year?

XIII

And still my soul holds phantom tryst, When chestnuts hiss among the coals, Upon the Evening of All Souls, When all the night is moon and mist, And all the world is mystery; I kiss dear lips that death hath kissed, And gaze in eyes no man may see, Filled with a love long lost to me.

I hear the night-wind's ghostly glove Flutter the window: then the knob Of some dark door turn, with a sob As when love comes to gaze on love Who lies pale-coffined in a room: And then the iron gallop of The storm, who rides outside; his plume Sweeping the night with dread and gloom.

So fancy takes the mind, and paints The darkness with eidolon light, And writes the dead's romance in night On the dim Evening of All Saints: Unheard the hissing nuts; the clink And fall of coals, whose shadow faints Around the hearts that sit and think, Borne far beyond the actual's brink.

XIV

I heard the wind, before the morn Stretched gaunt, gray fingers 'thwart my pane, Drive clouds down, a dark dragon-train; Its iron visor closed, a horn Of steel from out the north it wound.— No morn like yesterday's! whose mouth, A cool carnation, from the south Breathed through a golden reed the sound Of days that drop clear gold upon Cerulean silver floors of dawn.

And all of yesterday is lost And swallowed in to-day's wild light— The birth deformed of day and night, The illegitimate, who cost Its mother secret tears and sighs; Unlovely since unloved; and chilled With sorrows and the shame that filled Its parents' love; which was not wise In passion as the day and night That married yestermorn with light.

XV

Down through the dark, indignant trees, On indistinguishable wings Of storm, the wind of evening swings; Before its insane anger flees Distracted leaf and shattered bough: There is a rushing as when seas Of thunder beat an iron prow On reefs of wrath and roaring wreck: 'Mid stormy leaves, a hurrying speck Of flickering blackness, driven by, A mad bat whirls along the sky.

Like some sad shadow, in the eve's Deep melancholy—visible As by some strange and twilight spell— A gaunt girl stands among the leaves, The night-wind in her dolorous dress: Symbolic of the life that grieves, Of toil that patience makes not less, Her load of fagots fallen there.— A wilder shadow sweeps the air, And she is gone…. Was it the dumb Eidolon of the month to come?

XVI

The song birds—are they flown away? The song birds of the summer time, That sang their souls into the day, And set the laughing hours to rhyme. No catbird scatters through the bush The sparkling crystals of its song; Within the woods no hermit-thrush Thridding with vocal gold the hush.

All day the crows fly cawing past: The acorns drop: the forests scowl: At night I hear the bitter blast Hoot with the hooting of the owl. The wild creeks freeze: the ways are strewn With leaves that clog: beneath the tree The bird, that set its toil to tune, And made a home for melody, Lies dead beneath the snow-white moon.

OCTOBER

Far off a wind blew, and I heard Wild echoes of the woods reply— The herald of some royal word, With bannered trumpet, blown on high, Meseemed then passed me by:

Who summoned marvels there to meet, With pomp, upon a cloth of gold; Where berries of the bittersweet, That, splitting, showed the coals they hold, Sowed garnets through the wold:

Where, under tents of maples, seeds Of smooth carnelian, oval red, The spice-bush spangled: where, like beads, The dogwood's rounded rubies—fed With fire—blazed and bled.

And there I saw amid the rout Of months, in richness cavalier, A minnesinger—lips apout; A gypsy face; straight as a spear; A rose stuck in his ear:

Eyes, sparkling like old German wine, All mirth and moonlight; naught to spare Of slender beard, that lent a line To his short lip; October there, With chestnut curling hair.

His brown baretta swept its plume Red through the leaves; his purple hose, Puffed at the thighs, made gleam of gloom; His tawny doublet, slashed with rose, And laced with crimson bows,

Outshone the wahoo's scarlet pride, The haw, in rich vermilion dressed: A dagger dangling at his side, A slim lute, banded to his breast, Whereon his hands were pressed.

I saw him come…. And, lo, to hear The lilt of his approaching lute, No wonder that the regnant Year Bent down her beauty, blushing mute, Her heart beneath his foot.

FRIENDS

Down through the woods, along the way That fords the stream; by rock and tree, Where in the bramble-bell the bee Swings; and through twilights green and gray The redbird flashes suddenly, My thoughts went wandering to-day.

I found the fields where, row on row, The blackberries hang dark with fruit; Where, nesting at the elder's root, The partridge whistles soft and low; The fields, that billow to the foot Of those old hills we used to know.

There lay the pond, all willow-bound, On whose bright face, when noons were hot, We marked the bubbles rise; some plot To lure us in; while all around Our heads,—like faery fancies,—shot The dragonflies without a sound.

The pond, above which evening bent To gaze upon her gypsy face; Wherein the twinkling night would trace A vague, inverted firmament; In which the green frogs tuned their bass, And firefly sparkles came and went.

The oldtime place we often ranged, When we were playmates, you and I; The oldtime fields, with boyhood's sky Still blue above them!—Naught was changed: Nothing.—Alas! then, tell me why Should we be? whom the years estranged.

COMRADERY

With eyes hand-arched he looks into The morning's face; then turns away With truant feet, all wet with dew, Out for a holiday.

The hill brook sings; incessant stars, Foam-fashioned, on its restless breast; And where he wades its water-bars Its song is happiest.

A comrade of the chinquapin, He looks into its knotty eyes And sees its heart; and, deep within, Its soul that makes him wise.

The wood-thrush knows and follows him, Who whistles up the birds and bees; And round him all the perfumes swim Of woodland loam and trees.

Where'er he pass the silvery springs' Foam-people sing the flowers awake; And sappy lips of bark-clad things Laugh ripe each berried brake.

His touch is a companionship; His word an old authority: He comes, a lyric on his lip, The woodboy—Poesy.

BARE BOUGHS

O heart,—that beat the bird's blithe blood, The blithe bird's strain, and understood The song it sang to leaf and bud,— What dost thou in the wood?

O soul,—that kept the brook's glad flow, The glad brook's word to sun and moon,— What dost thou here where song lies low, And dead the dreams of June?

Where once was heard a voice of song, The hautboys of the mad winds sing; Where once a music flowed along, The rain's wild bugle's ring.

The weedy water frets and ails, And moans in many a sunless fall; And, o'er the melancholy, trails The black crow's eldritch call.

Unhappy brook! O withered wood! O days, whom Death makes comrades of! Where are the birds that thrilled the blood When Life struck hands with Love?

A song, one soared against the blue; A song, one silvered in the leaves; A song, one blew where orchards grew Gold-appled to the eaves.

The birds are flown; the flowers, dead; And sky and earth are bleak and gray: Where Joy once went, all light of tread, Grief haunts the leaf-wild way.

DAYS AND DAYS

The days that clothed white limbs with heat, And rocked the red rose on their breast, Have passed with amber-sandaled feet Into the ruby-gated west.

These were the days that filled the heart With overflowing riches of Life, in whose soul no dream shall start But hath its origin in love.

Now come the days gray-huddled in The haze; whose foggy footsteps drip; Who pin beneath a gypsy chin The frosty marigold and hip.

The days, whose forms fall shadowy Athwart the heart: whose misty breath Shapes saddest sweets of memory Out of the bitterness of death.

AUTUMN SORROW

Ah me! too soon the autumn comes Among these purple-plaintive hills! Too soon among the forest gums Premonitory flame she spills, Bleak, melancholy flame that kills.

Her white fogs veil the morn, that rims With wet the moonflower's elfin moons; And, like exhausted starlight, dims The last slim lily-disk; and swoons With scents of hazy afternoons.

Her gray mists haunt the sunset skies, And build the west's cadaverous fires, Where Sorrow sits with lonely eyes, And hands that wake an ancient lyre, Beside the ghost of dead Desire.

THE TREE-TOAD

I

Secluded, solitary on some underbough, Or cradled in a leaf, 'mid glimmering light, Like Puck thou crouchest: Haply watching how The slow toadstool comes bulging, moony white, Through loosening loam; or how, against the night, The glowworm gathers silver to endow The darkness with; or how the dew conspires To hang, at dusk, with lamps of chilly fires Each blade that shrivels now.

II

O vague confederate of the whippoorwill, Of owl and cricket and the katydid! Thou gatherest up the silence in one shrill Vibrating note and send'st it where, half hid In cedars, twilight sleeps—each azure lid Drooping a line of golden eyeball still.— Afar, yet near, I hear thy dewy voice Within the Garden of the Hours apoise On dusk's deep daffodil.

III

Minstrel of moisture! silent when high noon Shows her tanned face among the thirsting clover And parching meadows, thy tenebrious tune Wakes with the dew or when the rain is over. Thou troubadour of wetness and damp lover Of all cool things! admitted comrade boon Of twilight's hush, and little intimate Of eve's first fluttering star and delicate Round rim of rainy moon!

IV

Art trumpeter of Dwarfland? does thy horn Inform the gnomes and goblins of the hour When they may gambol under haw and thorn, Straddling each winking web and twinkling flower? Or bell-ringer of Elfland? whose tall tower The liriodendron is? from whence is borne The elfin music of thy bell's deep bass, To summon Faeries to their starlit maze, To summon them or warn.

THE CHIPMUNK

I

He makes a roadway of the crumbling fence, Or on the fallen tree,—brown as a leaf Fall stripes with russet,—gambols down the dense Green twilight of the woods. We see not whence He comes, nor whither (in a time so brief) He vanishes—swift carrier of some Fay, Some pixy steed that haunts our child-belief— A goblin glimpse upon some wildwood way.

II

What harlequin mood of nature qualified Him so with happiness? and limbed him with Such young activity as winds, that ride The ripples, have, dancing on every side? As sunbeams know, that urge the sap and pith Through hearts of trees? yet made him to delight, Gnome-like, in darkness,—like a moonlight myth,— Lairing in labyrinths of the under night.

III

Here, by a rock, beneath the moss, a hole Leads to his home, the den wherein he sleeps; Lulled by near noises of the laboring mole Tunneling its mine—like some ungainly Troll— Or by the tireless cricket there that keeps Picking its rusty and monotonous lute; Or slower sounds of grass that creeps and creeps, And trees unrolling mighty root on root.

IV

Such is the music of his sleeping hours. Day hath another—'tis a melody He trips to, made by the assembled flowers, And light and fragrance laughing 'mid the bowers, And ripeness busy with the acorn-tree. Such strains, perhaps, as filled with mute amaze (The silent music of Earth's ecstasy) The Satyr's soul, the Faun of classic days.

THE WILD IRIS

That day we wandered 'mid the hills,—so lone Clouds are not lonelier, the forest lay In emerald darkness round us. Many a stone And gnarly root, gray-mossed, made wild our way: And many a bird the glimmering light along Showered the golden bubbles of its song.

Then in the valley, where the brook went by, Silvering the ledges that it rippled from,— An isolated slip of fallen sky, Epitomizing heaven in its sum,— An iris bloomed—blue, as if, flower-disguised, The gaze of Spring had there materialized.

I have forgotten many things since then— Much beauty and much happiness and grief; And toiled and dreamed among my fellow-men, Rejoicing in the knowledge life is brief. "'Tis winter now," so says each barren bough; And face and hair proclaim 'tis winter now.

I would forget the gladness of that spring! I would forget that day when she and I, Between the bird-song and the blossoming, Went hand in hand beneath the soft May sky!— Much is forgotten, yea—and yet, and yet, The things we would we never can forget.

Nor I how May then minted treasuries Of crowfoot gold; and molded out of light The sorrel's cups, whose elfin chalices Of limpid spar were streaked with rosy white: Nor all the stars of twinkling spiderwort, And mandrake moons with which her brows were girt.

But most of all, yea, it were well for me, Me and my heart, that I forget that flower, The blue wild iris, azure fleur-de-lis, That she and I together found that hour. Its recollection can but emphasize The pain of loss, remindful of her eyes.

DROUTH

I

The hot sunflowers by the glaring pike Lift shields of sultry brass; the teasel tops, Pink-thorned, advance with bristling spike on spike Against the furious sunlight. Field and copse Are sick with summer: now, with breathless stops, The locusts cymbal; now grasshoppers beat Their castanets: and rolled in dust, a team,— Like some mean life wrapped in its sorry dream,— An empty wagon rattles through the heat.

II

Where now the blue wild iris? flowers whose mouths Are moist and musky? Where the sweet-breathed mint, That made the brook-bank herby? Where the South's Wild morning-glories, rich in hues, that hint At coming showers that the rainbows tint? Where all the blossoms that the wildwood knows? The frail oxalis hidden in its leaves; The Indian-pipe, pale as a soul that grieves; The freckled touch-me-not and forest rose.

III

Dead! dead! all dead beside the drouth-burnt brook, Shrouded in moss or in the shriveled grass. Where waved their bells, from which the wild-bee shook The dewdrop once,—gaunt, in a nightmare mass, The rank weeds crowd; through which the cattle pass, Thirsty and lean, seeking some meager spring, Closed in with thorns, on which stray bits of wool The panting sheep have left, that sought the cool, From morn till evening wearily wandering.

IV

No bird is heard; no throat to whistle awake The sleepy hush; to let its music leak Fresh, bubble-like, through bloom-roofs of the brake: Only the green-gray heron, famine-weak,— Searching the stale pools of the minnowless creek,— Utters its call; and then the rain-crow, too, False prophet now, croaks to the stagnant air; While overhead,—still as if painted there,— A buzzard hangs, black on the burning blue.

RAIN

Around, the stillness deepened; then the grain Went wild with wind; and every briery lane Was swept with dust; and then, tempestuous black, Hillward the tempest heaved a monster back, That on the thunder leaned as on a cane; And on huge shoulders bore a cloudy pack, That gullied gold from many a lightning-crack: One big drop splashed and wrinkled down the pane, And then field, hill, and wood were lost in rain.

At last, through clouds,—as from a cavern hewn. Into night's heart,—the sun burst angry roon; And every cedar, with its weight of wet, Against the sunset's fiery splendor set, Frightened to beauty, seemed with rubies strewn: Then in drenched gardens, like sweet phantoms met, Dim odors rose of pink and mignonette; And in the east a confidence, that soon Grew to the calm assurance of the moon.

AT SUNSET

Into the sunset's turquoise marge The moon dips, like a pearly barge Enchantment sails through magic seas To faeryland Hesperides, Over the hills and away.

Into the fields, in ghost-gray gown, The young-eyed Dusk comes slowly down; Her apron filled with stars she stands, And one or two slip from her hands Over the hills and away.

Above the wood's black caldron bends The witch-faced Night and, muttering, blends The dew and heat, whose bubbles make The mist and musk that haunt the brake Over the hills and away.

Oh, come with me, and let us go Beyond the sunset lying low; Beyond the twilight and the night, Into Love's kingdom of long light, Over the hills and away.

THE LEAF-CRICKET

I

Small twilight singer Of dew and mist: thou ghost-gray, gossamer winger Of dusk's dim glimmer, How chill thy note sounds; how thy wings of shimmer Vibrate, soft-sighing, Meseems, for Summer that is dead or dying. I stand and listen, And at thy song the garden-beds, that glisten With rose and lily, Seem touched with sadness; and the tuberose chilly, Breathing around its cold and colorless breath, Fills the pale evening with wan hints of death.

II

I see thee quaintly Beneath the leaf; thy shell-shaped winglets faintly— (As thin as spangle Of cobwebbed rain)—held up at airy angle; I hear thy tinkle With faery notes the silvery stillness sprinkle;

Investing wholly The moonlight with divinest melancholy: Until, in seeming, I see the Spirit of Summer sadly dreaming Amid her ripened orchards, russet-strewn, Her great, grave eyes fixed on the harvest-moon.

III

As dewdrops beady; As mist minute, thy notes ring low and reedy: The vaguest vapor Of melody, now near; now, like some taper Of sound, far-fading— Thou will-o'-wisp of music aye evading. Among the bowers, The fog-washed stalks of Autumn's weeds and flowers, By hill and hollow, I hear thy murmur and in vain I follow— Thou jack-o'-lantern voice, thou pixy cry, Thou dirge, that tellest Beauty she must die.

IV

And when the frantic Wild winds of Autumn with the dead leaves antic; And walnuts scatter The mire of lanes; and dropping acorns patter In grove and forest, Like some frail grief with the rude blast thou warrest, Sending thy slender Far cry against the gale, that, rough, untender, Untouched of sorrow, Sweeps thee aside, where, haply, I to-morrow Shall find thee lying—tiny, cold and crushed, Thy weak wings folded and thy music hushed.

THE WIND OF WINTER

The Winter Wind, the wind of death, Who knocked upon my door, Now through the keyhole entereth, Invisible and hoar: He breathes around his icy breath And treads the flickering floor.

I heard him, wandering in the night, Tap at my windowpane; With ghostly fingers, snowy white, I heard him tug in vain, Until the shuddering candlelight Did cringe with fear and strain.

The fire, awakened by his voice, Leapt up with frantic arms, Like some wild babe that greets with noise Its father home who storms, With rosy gestures that rejoice, And crimson kiss that warms.

Now in the hearth he sits and, drowned Among the ashes, blows; Or through the room goes stealing round On cautious-creeping toes, Deep-mantled in the drowsy sound Of night that sleets and snows.

And oft, like some thin faery-thing, The stormy hush amid, I hear his captive trebles sing Beneath the kettle's lid; Or now a harp of elfland string In some dark cranny hid.

Again I hear him, implike, whine, Cramped in the gusty flue; Or knotted in the resinous pine Raise goblin cry and hue, While through the smoke his eyeballs shine, A sooty red and blue.

At last I hear him, nearing dawn, Take up his roaring broom, And sweep wild leaves from wood and lawn, And from the heavens the gloom, To show the gaunt world lying wan, And morn's cold rose a-bloom.

THE OWLET

I

When dusk is drowned in drowsy dreams, And slow the hues of sunset die; When firefly and moth go by, And in still streams the new moon seems Another moon and sky: Then from the hills there comes a cry, The owlet's cry: A shivering voice that sobs and screams, With terror screams:—

"Who is it, who is it, who-o-o? Who rides through the dusk and dew, With a pair of horns, As thin as thorns, And face a bubble-blue?— Who, who, who! Who is it, who is it, who-o-o?"

II

When night has dulled the lily's white, And opened wide the moonflower's eyes; When pale mists rise and veil the skies, And round the height in whispering flight The night-wind sounds and sighs: Then in the wood again it cries, The owlet cries: A shivering voice that calls in fright, In maundering fright:—

"Who is it, who is it, who-o-o? Who walks with a shuffling shoe 'Mid the gusty trees, With a face none sees, And a form as ghostly, too?— Who, who, who! Who is it, who is it, who-o-o?"

III

When midnight leans a listening ear And tinkles on her insect lutes; When 'mid the roots the cricket flutes, And marsh and mere, now far, now near, A jack-o'-lantern foots: Then o'er the pool again it hoots, The owlet hoots: A voice that shivers as with fear, That cries with fear:—

"Who is it, who is it, who-o-o? Who creeps with his glowworm crew Above the mire With a corpse-light fire, As only dead men do?— Who, who, who! Who is it, who is it, who-o-o?"

EVENING ON THE FARM

From out the hills where twilight stands, Above the shadowy pasture lands, With strained and strident cry, Beneath pale skies that sunset bands, The bull-bats fly.

A cloud hangs over, strange of shape, And, colored like the half-ripe grape, Seems some uneven stain On heaven's azure; thin as crape, And blue as rain.

By ways, that sunset's sardonyx O'erflares, and gates the farm-boy clicks, Through which the cattle came, The mullein-stalks seem giant wicks Of downy flame.

From woods no glimmer enters in, Above the streams that, wandering, win To where the wood pool bids, Those haunters of the dusk begin,— The katydids.

Adown the dark the firefly marks Its flight in gold and emerald sparks; And, loosened from his chain, The shaggy mastiff bounds and barks, And barks again.

Each breeze brings scents of hill-heaped hay; And now an owlet, far away, Cries twice or thrice, "T-o-o-w-h-o-o"; And cool dim moths of mottled gray Flit through the dew.

The silence sounds its frog-bassoon, Where, on the woodland creek's lagoon,— Pale as a ghostly girl Lost 'mid the trees,—looks down the moon With face of pearl.

Within the shed where logs, late hewed, Smell forest-sweet, and chips of wood Make blurs of white and brown, The brood-hen cuddles her warm brood Of teetering down.

The clattering guineas in the tree Din for a time; and quietly The henhouse, near the fence, Sleeps, save for some brief rivalry Of cocks and hens.

A cowbell tinkles by the rails, Where, streaming white in foaming pails, Milk makes an uddery sound; While overhead the black bat trails Around and round.

The night is still. The slow cows chew A drowsy cud. The bird that flew And sang is in its nest. It is the time of falling dew, Of dreams and rest.

The beehives sleep; and round the walk, The garden path, from stalk to stalk The bungling beetle booms, Where two soft shadows stand and talk Among the blooms.

The stars are thick: the light is dead That dyed the west: and Drowsyhead, Tuning his cricket-pipe, Nods, and some apple, round and red, Drops over-ripe.

Now down the road, that shambles by, A window, shining like an eye Through climbing rose and gourd, Shows Age and young Rusticity Seated at board.

THE LOCUST

Thou pulse of hotness, who, with reedlike breast, Makest meridian music, long and loud, Accentuating summer!—Dost thy best To make the sunbeams fiercer, and to crowd With lonesomeness the long, close afternoon— When Labor leans, swart-faced and beady-browed, Upon his sultry scythe—thou tangible tune Of heat, whose waves incessantly arise Quivering and clear beneath the cloudless skies.

Thou singest, and upon his haggard hills Drouth yawns and rubs his heavy eyes and wakes; Brushes the hot hair from his face; and fills The land with death as sullenly he takes Downward his dusty way. 'Midst woods and fields At every pool his burning thirst he slakes: No grove so deep, no bank so high it shields A spring from him; no creek evades his eye: He needs but look and they are withered dry.

Thou singest, and thy song is as a spell Of somnolence to charm the land with sleep; A thorn of sound that pierces dale and dell, Diffusing slumber over vale and steep. Sleepy the forest, nodding sleepy boughs; Sleepy the pastures with their sleepy sheep: Sleepy the creek where sleepily the cows Stand knee-deep; and the very heaven seems Sleepy and lost in undetermined dreams.

Art thou a rattle that Monotony, Summer's dull nurse, old sister of slow Time, Shakes for Day's peevish pleasure, who in glee Takes its discordant music for sweet rhyme? Or oboe that the Summer Noontide plays, Sitting with Ripeness 'neath the orchard tree, Trying repeatedly the same shrill phrase, Until the musky peach with weariness Drops, and the hum of murmuring bees grows less?

THE DEAD DAY

The west builds high a sepulcher Of cloudy granite and of gold, Where twilight's priestly hours inter The Day like some great king of old.

A censer, rimmed with silver fire, The new moon swings above his tomb; While, organ-stops of God's own choir, Star after star throbs in the gloom.

And Night draws near, the sadly sweet— A nun whose face is calm and fair— And kneeling at the dead Day's feet Her soul goes up in mists like prayer.

In prayer, we feel through dewy gleam And flowery fragrance, and—above All earth—the ecstasy and dream That haunt the mystic heart of love.

THE OLD WATER MILL

Wild ridge on ridge the wooded hills arise, Between whose breezy vistas gulfs of skies Pilot great clouds like towering argosies, And hawk and buzzard breast the azure breeze. With many a foaming fall and glimmering reach Of placid murmur, under elm and beech, The creek goes twinkling through long gleams and glooms Of woodland quiet, summered with perfumes: The creek, in whose clear shallows minnow-schools Glitter or dart; and by whose deeper pools The blue kingfishers and the herons haunt; That, often startled from the freckled flaunt Of blackberry-lilies—where they feed or hide— Trail a lank flight along the forestside With eery clangor. Here a sycamore Smooth, wave-uprooted, builds from shore to shore A headlong bridge; and there, a storm-hurled oak Lays a long dam, where sand and gravel choke The water's lazy way. Here mistflower blurs Its bit of heaven; there the ox-eye stirs Its gloaming hues of pearl and gold; and here, A gray, cool stain, like dawn's own atmosphere, The dim wild carrot lifts its crumpled crest: And over all, at slender flight or rest, The dragonflies, like coruscating rays Of lapis-lazuli and chrysoprase, Drowsily sparkle through the summer days: And, dewlap-deep, here from the noontide heat The bell-hung cattle find a cool retreat; And through the willows girdling the hill, Now far, now near, borne as the soft winds will, Comes the low rushing of the water-mill.

Ah, lovely to me from a little child, How changed the place! wherein once, undefiled, The glad communion of the sky and stream Went with me like a presence and a dream. Where once the brambled meads and orchardlands, Poured ripe abundance down with mellow hands Of summer; and the birds of field and wood Called to me in a tongue I understood; And in the tangles of the old rail-fence Even the insect tumult had some sense, And every sound a happy eloquence: And more to me than wisest books can teach The wind and water said; whose words did reach My soul, addressing their magnificent speech,— Raucous and rushing,—from the old mill-wheel, That made the rolling mill-cogs snore and reel, Like some old ogre in a faerytale Nodding above his meat and mug of ale.

How memory takes me back the ways that lead— As when a boy—through woodland and through mead! To orchards fruited; or to fields in bloom; Or briery fallows, like a mighty room, Through which the winds swing censers of perfume, And where deep blackberries spread miles of fruit;— A wildwood feast, that stayed the plowboy's foot When to the tasseling acres of the corn He drove his team, fresh in the primrose morn; And from the liberal banquet, nature lent, Plucked dewy handfuls as he whistling went.—

A boy once more, I stand with sunburnt feet And watch the harvester sweep down the wheat; Or laze with warm limbs in the unstacked straw Near by the thresher, whose insatiate maw Devours the sheaves, hot-drawling out its hum— Like some great sleepy bee, above a bloom, Made drunk with honey—while, grown big with grain, The bulging sacks receive the golden rain. Again I tread the valley, sweet with hay, And hear the bobwhite calling far away, Or wood-dove cooing in the elder-brake; Or see the sassafras bushes madly shake As swift, a rufous instant, in the glen The red fox leaps and gallops to his den: Or, standing in the violet-colored gloam, Hear roadways sound with holiday riding home From church or fair, or country barbecue, Which half the county to some village drew.

How spilled with berries were its summer hills, And strewn with walnuts all its autumn rills!— And chestnuts too! burred from the spring's long flowers; June's, when their tree-tops streamed delirious showers Of blossoming silver, cool, crepuscular, And like a nebulous radiance shone afar.— And maples! how their sappy hearts would pour Rude troughs of syrup, when the winter hoar Steamed with the sugar-kettle, day and night, And, red, the snow was streaked with firelight. Then it was glorious! the mill-dam's edge One slope of frosty crystal, laid a ledge Of pearl across; above which, sleeted trees Tossed arms of ice, that, clashing in the breeze, Tinkled the ringing creek with icicles, Thin as the peal of far-off elfin bells: A sound that in my city dreams I hear, That brings before me, under skies that clear, The old mill in its winter garb of snow, Its frozen wheel like a hoar beard below, And its west windows, two deep eyes aglow.

Ah, ancient mill, still do I picture o'er Thy cobwebbed stairs and loft and grain-strewn floor; Thy door,—like some brown, honest hand of toil, And honorable with service of the soil,— Forever open; to which, on his back The prosperous farmer bears his bursting sack, And while the miller measures out his toll, Again I hear, above the cogs' loud roll,— That makes stout joist and rafter groan and sway,— The harmless gossip of the passing day: Good country talk, that says how so-and-so Lived, died, or wedded: how curculio And codling-moth play havoc with the fruit, Smut ruins the corn and blight the grapes to boot: Or what is news from town: next county fair: How well the crops are looking everywhere:— Now this, now that, on which their interests fix, Prospects for rain or frost, and politics. While, all around, the sweet smell of the meal Filters, warm-pouring from the rolling wheel Into the bin; beside which, mealy white, The miller looms, dim in the dusty light.

Again I see the miller's home between The crinkling creek and hills of beechen green: Again the miller greets me, gaunt and brown, Who oft o'erawed my boyhood with his frown And gray-browed mien: again he tries to reach My youthful soul with fervid scriptural speech.— For he, of all the countryside confessed, The most religious was and goodliest; A Methodist, who at all meetings led; Prayed with his family ere they went to bed. No books except the Bible had he read— At least so seemed it to my younger head.— All things of Heaven and Earth he'd prove by this, Be it a fact or mere hypothesis: For to his simple wisdom, reverent, "The Bible says" was all of argument.— God keep his soul! his bones were long since laid Among the sunken gravestones in the shade Of those dark-lichened rocks, that wall around The family burying-ground with cedars crowned: Where bristling teasel and the brier combine With clambering wood-rose and the wildgrape-vine To hide the stone whereon his name and dates Neglect, with mossy hand, obliterates.

ARGONAUTS

With argosies of dawn he sails, And triremes of the dusk, The Seas of Song, whereon the gales Are myths that trail wild musk.

He hears the hail of Siren bands From headlands sunset-kissed; The Lotus-eaters wave pale hands Within a land of mist.

For many a league he hears the roar Of the Symplegades; And through the far foam of its shore The Isle of Sappho sees.

All day he looks, with hazy lids, At gods who cleave the deep; All night he hears the Nereïds Sing their wild hearts asleep.

When heaven thunders overhead, And hell upheaves the Vast, Dim faces of the ocean's dead Gaze at him from each mast.

He but repeats the oracle That bade him first set sail; And cheers his soul with, "All is well! Go on! I will not fail."

Behold! he sails no earthly bark And on no earthly sea, Who down the years into the dark,— Divine of destiny,—

Holds to his purpose,—ships of Greece,— Ideal-steered afar, For whom awaits the Golden Fleece, The fame that is his star.

"THE MORN THAT BREAKS ITS HEART OF GOLD"

From an ode "In Commemoration of the Founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony."

The morn that breaks its heart of gold Above the purple hills; The eve, that spills Its nautilus splendor where the sea is rolled; The night, that leads the vast procession in Of stars and dreams,— The beauty that shall never die or pass:— The winds, that spin Of rain the misty mantles of the grass, And thunder raiment of the mountain-streams; The sunbeams, penciling with gold the dusk Green cowls of ancient woods; The shadows, thridding, veiled with musk, The moon-pathed solitudes, Call to my Fancy, saying, "Follow! follow!" Till, following, I see,— Fair as a cascade in a rainbowed hollow,— A dream, a shape, take form, Clad on with every charm,—

The vision of that Ideality, Which lured the pioneer in wood and hill, And beckoned him from earth and sky; The dream that cannot die, Their children's children did fulfill, In stone and iron and wood, Out of the solitude, And by a stalwart act Create a mighty fact— A Nation, now that stands Clad on with hope and beauty, strength and song, Eternal, young and strong, Planting her heel on wrong, Her starry banner in triumphant hands….

Within her face the rose Of Alleghany dawns; Limbed with Alaskan snows, Floridian starlight in her eyes,— Eyes stern as steel yet tender as a fawn's,— And in her hair The rapture of her rivers; and the dare, As perishless as truth, That o'er the crags of her Sierras flies, Urging the eagle ardor through her veins, Behold her where, Around her radiant youth,

The spirits of the cataracts and plains, The genii of the floods and forests, meet, In rainbow mists circling her brow and feet: The forces vast that sit In session round her; powers paraclete, That guard her presence; awful forms and fair, Making secure her place; Guiding her surely as the worlds through space Do laws sidereal; edicts, thunder-lit, Of skyed eternity, in splendor borne On planetary wings of night and morn.

* * * * *

From her high place she sees Her long procession of accomplished acts, Cloud-winged refulgences Of thoughts in steel and stone, of marble dreams, Lift up tremendous battlements, Sun-blinding, built of facts; While in her soul she seems, Listening, to hear, as from innumerable tents, Æonian thunder, wonder, and applause Of all the heroic ages that are gone; Feeling secure That, as her Past, her Future shall endure, As did her Cause When redly broke the dawn Of fierce rebellion, and, beneath its star, The firmaments of war Poured down infernal rain, And North and South lay bleeding mid their slain. And now, no less, shall her great Cause prevail, More so in peace than war, Through the thrilled wire and electric rail, Carrying her message far: Shaping her dream Within the brain of steam, That, with a myriad hands, Labors unceasingly, and knits her lands In firmer union; joining plain and stream With steel; and binding shore to shore With bands of iron;—nerves and arteries, Along whose adamant forever pour Her concrete thoughts, her tireless energies.

A VOICE ON THE WIND

I

She walks with the wind on the windy height When the rocks are loud and the waves are white, And all night long she calls through the night, "O my children, come home!" Her bleak gown, torn as a tattered cloud, Tosses around her like a shroud, While over the deep her voice rings loud,— "O my children, come home, come home! O my children, come home!"

II

Who is she who wanders alone, When the wind drives sheer and the rain is blown? Who walks all night and makes her moan, "O my children, come home!" Whose face is raised to the blinding gale; Whose hair blows black and whose eyes are pale, While over the world goes by her wail,— "O my children, come home, come home! O my children, come home!"

III

She walks with the wind in the windy wood; The dark rain drips from her hair and hood, And her cry sobs by, like a ghost pursued, "O my children, come home!" Where the trees loom gaunt and the rocks stretch drear, The owl and the fox crouch back with fear, As wild through the wood her voice they hear,— "O my children, come home, come home! O my children, come home!"

IV

Who is she who shudders by When the boughs blow bare and the dead leaves fly? Who walks all night with her wailing cry, "O my children, come home!" Who, strange of look, and wild of tongue, With wan feet wounded and hands wild-wrung, Sweeps on and on with her cry, far-flung,— "O my children, come home, come home! O my children, come home!"

V

'Tis the Spirit of Autumn, no man sees, The mother of Death and of Mysteries, Who cries on the wind all night to these, "O my children, come home!" The Spirit of Autumn, pierced with pain, Calling her children home again, Death and Dreams, through ruin and rain,— "O my children, come home, come home! O my children, come home!"

REQUIEM

I

No more for him, where hills look down, Shall Morning crown Her rainy brow with blossom bands!— The Morning Hours, whose rosy hands Drop wildflowers of the breaking skies Upon the sod 'neath which he lies.— No more for him! No more! No more!

II

No more for him, where waters sleep, Shall Evening heap The long gold of the perfect days! The Eventide, whose warm hand lays Great poppies of the afterglow Upon the turf he rests below.— No more for him! No more! no more!

Ill

No more for him, where woodlands loom, Shall Midnight bloom The star-flowered acres of the blue! The Midnight Hours, whose dim hands strew Dead leaves of darkness, hushed and deep, Upon the grave where he doth sleep.— No more for him! No more! No more!

IV

The hills, that Morning's footsteps wake: The waves that take A brightness from the Eve; the woods And solitudes, o'er which Night broods, Their Spirits have, whose parts are one With him, whose mortal part is done. Whose part is done.

LYNCHERS

At the moon's down-going let it be On the quarry hill with its one gnarled tree.

The red-rock road of the underbrush, Where the woman came through the summer hush.

The sumac high and the elder thick, Where we found the stone and the ragged stick.

The trampled road of the thicket, full Of footprints down to the quarry pool.

The rocks that ooze with the hue of lead, Where we found her lying stark and dead.

The scraggy wood; the negro hut, With its doors and windows locked and shut.

A secret signal; a foot's rough tramp; A knock at the door; a lifted lamp.

An oath; a scuffle; a ring of masks; A voice that answers a voice that asks.

A group of shadows; the moon's red fleck; A running noose and a man's bared neck.

A word, a curse, and a shape that swings; The lonely night and a bat's black wings.

At the moon's down-going let it be On the quarry hill with its one gnarled tree.

THE PARTING

She passed the thorn-trees, whose gaunt branches tossed Their spider-shadows round her; and the breeze, Beneath the ashen moon, was full of frost, And mouthed and mumbled to the sickly trees, Like some starved hag who sees her children freeze.

Dry-eyed she waited by the sycamore. Some stars made misty blotches in the sky. And all the wretched willows on the shore Looked faded as a jaundiced cheek or eye. She felt their pity and could only sigh.

And then his skiff ground on the river rocks. Whistling he came into the shadow made By that dead tree. He kissed her dark brown locks; And round her form his eager arms were laid. Passive she stood, her secret unbetrayed.

And then she spoke, while still his greeting kiss Ached in her hair. She did not dare to lift Her eyes to his—her anguished eyes to his, While tears smote crystal in her throat. One rift Of weakness humored might set all adrift.

Fields over which a path, overwhelmed with burrs And ragweeds, noisy with the grasshoppers, Leads,—lost, irresolute as paths the cows Wear through the woods,—unto a woodshed; then, With wrecks of windows, to a huddled house, Where men have murdered men.

A house, whose tottering chimney, clay and rock, Is seamed and crannied; whose lame door and lock Are bullet-bored; around which, there and here, Are sinister stains.—One dreads to look around.— The place seems thinking of that time of fear And dares not breathe a sound.

Within is emptiness: The sunlight falls On faded journals papering the walls; On advertisement chromos, torn with time, Around a hearth where wasps and spiders build.— The house is dead: meseems that night of crime It, too, was shot and killed.

KU KLUX

We have sent him seeds of the melon's core, And nailed a warning upon his door: By the Ku Klux laws we can do no more.

Down in the hollow, 'mid crib and stack, The roof of his low-porched house looms black; Not a line of light at the door-sill's crack.

Yet arm and mount! and mask and ride! The hounds can sense though the fox may hide! And for a word too much men oft have died.

The clouds blow heavy toward the moon. The edge of the storm will reach it soon. The kildee cries and the lonesome loon.

The clouds shall flush with a wilder glare Than the lightning makes with its angled flare, When the Ku Klux verdict is given there.

In the pause of the thunder rolling low, A rifle's answer—who shall know From the wind's fierce hurl and the rain's black blow?

Only the signature, written grim At the end of the message brought to him— A hempen rope and a twisted limb.

So arm and mount! and mask and ride! The hounds can sense though the fox may hide!— For a word too much men oft have died.

EIDOLONS

The white moth-mullein brushed its slim Cool, faery flowers against his knee; In places where the way lay dim The branches, arching suddenly, Made tomblike mystery for him.

The wild-rose and the elder, drenched With rain, made pale a misty place,— From which, as from a ghost, he blenched; He walking with averted face, And lips in desolation clenched.

For far within the forest,—where Weird shadows stood like phantom men, And where the ground-hog dug its lair, The she-fox whelped and had her den,— The thing kept calling, buried there.

One dead trunk, like a ruined tower, Dark-green with toppling trailers, shoved Its wild wreck o'er the bush; one bower Looked like a dead man, capped and gloved, The one who haunted him each hour.

Now at his side he heard it: thin As echoes of a thought that speaks To conscience. Listening with his chin Upon his palm, against his cheeks He felt the moon's white finger win.

And now the voice was still: and lo, With eyes that stared on naught but night, He saw?—what none on earth shall know!— Was it the face that far from sight Had lain here, buried long ago?

But men who found him,—thither led By the wild fox,—within that place Read in his stony eyes, 'tis said, The thing he saw there, face to face, The thing that left him staring dead.

THE MAN HUNT

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

They have brought the bloodhounds up again To 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 fear In the heart of the wood that the man must hear.

The man who crouches among the trees From 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; 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 lays Him 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 sun And the moon and the stars to gaze upon.

MY ROMANCE

If it so befalls that the midnight hovers In mist no moonlight breaks, The leagues of the years my spirit covers, And my self myself forsakes.

And I live in a land of stars and flowers, White cliffs by a silvery sea; And the pearly points of her opal towers From the mountains beckon me.

And I think that I know that I hear her calling From a casement bathed with light— Through music of waters in waters falling Mid palms from a mountain height.

And I feel that I think my love's awaited By the romance of her charms; That her feet are early and mine belated In a world that chains my arms.

But I break my chains and the rest is easy— In the shadow of the rose, Snow-white, that blooms in her garden breezy, We meet and no one knows.

And we dream sweet dreams and kiss sweet kisses; The world—it may live or die! The world that forgets; that never misses The life that has long gone by.

We speak old vows that have long been spoken; And weep a long-gone woe: For you must know our hearts were broken Hundreds of years ago.

A MAID WHO DIED OLD

Frail, shrunken face, so pinched and worn, That life has carved with care and doubt! So weary waiting, night and morn, For that which never came about! Pale lamp, so utterly forlorn, In which God's light at last is out.

Gray hair, that lies so thin and prim On either side the sunken brows! And soldered eyes, so deep and dim, No word of man could now arouse! And hollow hands, so virgin slim, Forever clasped in silent vows!

Poor breasts! that God designed for love, For baby lips to kiss and press; That never felt, yet dreamed thereof, The human touch, the child caress— That lie like shriveled blooms above The heart's long-perished happiness.

O withered body, Nature gave For purposes of death and birth, That never knew, and could but crave Those things perhaps that make life worth,— Rest now, alas! within the grave, Sad shell that served no end of Earth.

BALLAD OF 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 gypsy 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, Laughing, "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 frown Sighed, "While still 'tis pleasant weather, I 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-Jorum Weeping 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: we'll 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, Only you, sweet Low-lie-down."

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

ROMANCE

Thus have I pictured her:—In Arden old A white-browed maiden with a falcon eye, Rose-flushed of face, with locks of wind-blown gold, Teaching her hawks to fly.

Or, 'mid her boar-hounds, panting with the heat, In huntsman green, sounding the hunt's wild prize, Plumed, dagger-belted, while beneath her feet The spear-pierced monster dies.

Or in Brécéliand, on some high tower, Clad white in samite, last of her lost race, My soul beholds her, lovelier than a flower, Gazing with pensive face.

Or, robed in raiment of romantic lore, Like Oriana, dark of eye and hair, Riding through realms of legend evermore, And ever young and fair.

Or now like Bradamant, as brave as just, In complete steel, her pure face lit with scorn, At giant castles, dens of demon lust, Winding her bugle-horn.

Another Una; and in chastity A second Britomart; in beauty far O'er her who led King Charles's chivalry And Paynim lands to war….

Now she, from Avalon's deep-dingled bowers,— 'Mid which white stars and never-waning moons Make marriage; and dim lips of musk-mouthed flowers Sigh faint and fragrant tunes,—

Implores me follow; and, in shadowy shapes Of sunset, shows me,—mile on misty mile Of purple precipice,—all the haunted capes Of her enchanted isle.

Where, bowered in bosks and overgrown with vine, Upon a headland breasting violet seas, Her castle towers, like a dream divine, With stairs and galleries.

And at her casement, Circe-beautiful, Above the surgeless reaches of the deep, She sits, while, in her gardens, fountains lull The perfumed wind asleep.

Or, round her brow a diadem of spars, She leans and hearkens, from her raven height, The nightingales that, choiring to the stars, Take with wild song the night.

Or, where the moon is mirrored in the waves, To mark, deep down, the Sea King's city rolled, Wrought of huge shells and labyrinthine caves, Ribbed pale with pearl and gold.

There doth she wait forever; and the kings Of all the world have wooed her: but she cares For none but him, the Love, that dreams and sings, That sings and dreams and dares.

AMADIS AND ORIANA

From "Beltenebros at Miraflores"

O sunset, from the springs of stars Draw down thy cataracts of gold; And belt their streams with burning bars Of ruby on which flame is rolled: Drench dingles with laburnum light; Drown every vale in violet blaze: Rain rose-light down; and, poppy-bright, Die downward o'er the hills of haze, And bring at last the stars of night!

The stars and moon! that silver world, Which, like a spirit, faces west, Her foam-white feet with light empearled, Bearing white flame within her breast: Earth's sister sphere of fire and snow, Who shows to Earth her heart's pale heat, And bids her mark its pulses glow, And hear their crystal currents beat With beauty, lighting all below.

O cricket, with thy elfin pipe, That tinkles in the grass and grain; And dove-pale buds, that, dropping, stripe The glen's blue night, and smell of rain; O nightingale, that so dost wail On yonder blossoming branch of snow, Thrill, fill the wild deer-haunted dale, Where Oriana, walking slow, Comes, thro' the moonlight, dreamy pale.

She comes to meet me!—Earth and air Grow radiant with another light. In her dark eyes and her dark hair Are all the stars and all the night: She comes! I clasp her!—and it is As if no grief had ever been.— In all the world for us who kiss There are no other women or men But Oriana and Amadis.

THE ROSICRUCIAN

I

The tripod flared with a purple spark, And the mist hung emerald in the dark: Now he stooped to the lilac flame Over the glare of the amber embers, Thrice to utter no earthly name; Thrice, like a mind that half remembers; Bathing his face in the magic mist Where the brilliance burned like an amethyst.

II

"Sylph, whose soul was born of mine, Born of the love that made me thine, Once more flash on my eyes! Again Be the loved caresses taken! Lip to lip let our forms remain!— Here in the circle sense, awaken! Ere spirit meet spirit, the flesh laid by, Let me touch thee, and let me die."

III

Sunset heavens may burn, but never Know such splendor! There bloomed an ever Opaline orb, where the sylphid rose A shape of luminous white; diviner White than the essence of light that sows The moons and suns through space; and finer Than radiance born of a shooting-star, Or the wild Aurora that streams afar.

IV

"Look on the face of the soul to whom Thou givest thy soul like added perfume! Thou, who heard'st me, who long had prayed, Waiting alone at morning's portal!— Thus on thy lips let my lips be laid, Love, who hast made me all immortal! Give me thine arms now! Come and rest Weariness out on my beaming breast!"

V

Was it her soul? or the sapphire fire That sang like the note of a seraph's lyre? Out of her mouth there fell no word— She spake with her soul, as a flower speaketh.

Fragrant messages none hath heard, Which the sense divines when the spirit seeketh…. And he seemed alone in a place so dim That the spirit's face, who was gazing at him, For its burning eyes he could not see: Then he knew he had died; that she and he Were one; and he saw that this was she.

THE AGE OF GOLD

The clouds that tower in storm, that beat Arterial thunder in their veins; The wildflowers lifting, shyly sweet, Their perfect faces from the plains,— All high, all lowly things of Earth For no vague end have had their birth.

Low strips of mist that mesh the moon Above the foaming waterfall; And mountains, that God's hand hath hewn, And forests, where the great winds call,— Within the grasp of such as see Are parts of a conspiracy;

To seize the soul with beauty; hold The heart with love: and thus fulfill Within ourselves the Age of Gold, That never died, and never will,— As long as one true nature feels The wonders that the world reveals.

BEAUTY AND ART

The gods are dead; but still for me Lives on in wildwood brook and tree Each myth, each old divinity.

For me still laughs among the rocks The Naiad; and the Dryad's locks Drop perfume on the wildflower flocks.

The Satyr's hoof still prints the loam; And, whiter than the wind-blown foam, The Oread haunts her mountain home.

To him, whose mind is fain to dwell With loveliness no time can quell, All things are real, imperishable.

To him—whatever facts may say— Who sees the soul beneath the clay, Is proof of a diviner day.

The very stars and flowers preach A gospel old as God, and teach Philosophy a child may reach;

That cannot die; that shall not cease; That lives through idealities Of Beauty, ev'n as Rome and Greece.

That lifts the soul above the clod, And, working out some period Of art, is part and proof of God.

THE SEA SPIRIT

Ah me! I shall not waken soon From dreams of such divinity! A spirit singing 'neath the moon To me.

Wild sea-spray driven of the storm Is not so wildly white as she, Who beckoned with a foam-white arm To me.

With eyes dark green, and golden-green Long locks that rippled drippingly, Out of the green wave she did lean To me.

And sang; till Earth and Heaven seemed A far, forgotten memory, And more than Heaven in her who gleamed On me.

Sleep, sweeter than love's face or home; And death's immutability; And music of the plangent foam, For me!

Sweep over her! with all thy ships, With all thy stormy tides, O sea!— The memory of immortal lips For me!

GARGAPHIE

"Succinctae sacra Dianae".—OVID

There the ragged sunlight lay Tawny on thick ferns and gray On dark waters: dimmer, Lone and deep, the cypress grove Bowered mystery and wove Braided lights, like those that love On the pearl plumes of a dove Faint to gleam and glimmer.

II

There centennial pine and oak Into stormy cadence broke: Hollow rocks gloomed, slanting, Echoing in dim arcade, Looming with long moss, that made Twilight streaks in tatters laid: Where the wild hart, hunt-affrayed, Plunged the water, panting.

III

Poppies of a sleepy gold Mooned the gray-green darkness rolled Down its vistas, making Wisp-like blurs of flame. And pale Stole the dim deer down the vale: And the haunting nightingale Throbbed unseen—the olden tale All its wild heart breaking.

IV

There the hazy serpolet, Dewy cistus, blooming wet, Blushed on bank and bowlder; There the cyclamen, as wan As first footsteps of the dawn, Carpeted the spotted lawn: Where the nude nymph, dripping drawn, Basked a wildflower shoulder.

V

In the citrine shadows there What tall presences and fair, Godlike, stood!—or, gracious As the rock-rose there that grew, Delicate and dim as dew, Stepped from boles of oaks, and drew Faunlike forms to follow, who Filled the forest spacious!—

VI

Guarding that Boeotian Valley so no foot of man Soiled its silence holy With profaning tread—save one, The Hyantian: Actæon, Who beheld, and might not shun Pale Diana's wrath; undone By his own mad folly.

VII

Lost it lies—that valley: sleeps In serene enchantment; keeps Beautiful its banished Bowers that no man may see; Fountains that her deity Haunts, and every rock and tree Where her hunt goes swinging free As in ages vanished.

THE DEAD OREAD

Her heart is still and leaps no more With holy passion when the breeze, Her whilom playmate, as before, Comes with the language of the bees, Sad songs her mountain cedars sing, And water-music murmuring.

Her calm white feet,—erst fleet and fast As Daphne's when a god pursued,— No more will dance like sunlight past The gold-green vistas of the wood, Where every quailing floweret Smiled into life where they were set.

Hers were the limbs of living light, And breasts of snow; as virginal As mountain drifts; and throat as white As foam of mountain waterfall; And hyacinthine curls, that streamed Like crag-born mists, and gloomed and gleamed.

Her presence breathed such scents as haunt Moist, mountain dells and solitudes; Aromas wild as some wild plant That fills with sweetness all the woods: And comradeships of stars and skies Shone in the azure of her eyes.

Her grave be by a mossy rock Upon the top of some wild hill, Removed, remote from men who mock The myths and dreams of life they kill: Where all of beauty, naught of lust May guard her solitary dust.

THE FAUN

The joys that touched thee once, be mine! The sympathies of sky and sea, The friendships of each rock and pine, That made thy lonely life, ah me! In Tempe or in Gargaphie.

Such joy as thou didst feel when first, On some wild crag, thou stood'st alone To watch the mountain tempest burst, With streaming thunder, lightning-sown, On Latmos or on Pelion.

Thy awe! when, crowned with vastness, Night And Silence ruled the deep's abyss; And through dark leaves thou saw'st the white Breasts of the starry maids who kiss Pale feet of moony Artemis.

Thy dreams! when, breasting matted weeds Of Arethusa, thou didst hear The music of the wind-swept reeds; And down dim forest-ways drew near Shy herds of slim Arcadian deer.

Thy wisdom! that knew naught but love And beauty, with which love is fraught; The wisdom of the heart—whereof All noblest passions spring—that thought As Nature thinks, "All else is naught."

Thy hope! wherein To-morrow set No shadow; hope, that, lacking care And retrospect, held no regret, But bloomed in rainbows everywhere, Filling with gladness all the air.

These were thine all: in all life's moods Embracing all of happiness: And when within thy long-loved woods Didst lay thee down to die—no less Thy happiness stood by to bless.

THE PAPHIAN VENUS

With anxious eyes and dry, expectant lips, Within the sculptured stoa by the sea, All day she waited while, like ghostly ships, Long clouds rolled over Paphos: the wild bee Hung in the sultry poppy, half asleep, Beside the shepherd and his drowsy sheep.

White-robed she waited day by day; alone With the white temple's shrined concupiscence, The Paphian goddess on her obscene throne, Binding all chastity to violence, All innocence to lust that feels no shame— Venus Mylitta born of filth and flame.

So must they haunt her marble portico, The devotees of Paphos, passion-pale As moonlight streaming through the stormy snow; Dark eyes desirous of the stranger sail, The gods shall bring across the Cyprian Sea, With him elected to their mastery.

A priestess of the temple came, when eve Blazed, like a satrap's triumph, in the west;

And watched her listening to the ocean's heave, Dusk's golden glory on her face and breast, And in her hair the rosy wind's caress,— Pitying her dedicated tenderness.

When out of darkness night persuades the stars, A dream shall bend above her saying, "Soon A barque shall come with purple sails and spars, Sailing from Tarsus 'neath a low white moon; And thou shalt see one in a robe of Tyre Facing toward thee like the god Desire.

"Rise then! as, clad in starlight, riseth Night— Thy nakedness clad on with loveliness! So shalt thou see him, like the god Delight, Breast through the foam and climb the cliff to press Hot lips to thine and lead thee in before Love's awful presence where ye shall adore."

Thus at her heart the vision entered in, With lips of lust the lips of song had kissed, And eyes of passion laughing with sweet sin, A shimmering splendor robed in amethyst,— Seen like that star set in the glittering gloam,— Venus Mylitta born of fire and foam.

So shall she dream until, near middle night,— When on the blackness of the ocean's rim The moon, like some war-galleon all alight With blazing battle, from the sea shall swim,— A shadow, with inviolate lips and eyes, Shall rise before her speaking in this wise:

"So hast thou heard the promises of one,— Of her, with whom the God of gods is wroth,— For whom was prophesied at Babylon The second death—Chaldaean Mylidoth! Whose feet take hold on darkness and despair, Hissing destruction in her heart and hair.

"Wouldst thou behold the vessel she would bring?— A wreck! ten hundred years have smeared with slime: A hulk! where all abominations cling, The spawn and vermin of the seas of time: Wild waves have rotted it; fierce suns have scorched; Mad winds have tossed and stormy stars have torched.

"Can lust give birth to love? The vile and foul Be mother to beauty? Lo! can this thing be?— A monster like a man shall rise and howl Upon the wreck across the crawling sea, Then plunge; and swim unto thee; like an ape, A beast all belly.—Thou canst not escape!"

Gone was the shadow with the suffering brow; And in the temple's porch she lay and wept, Alone with night, the ocean, and her vow.— Then up the east the moon's full splendor swept, And dark between it—wreck or argosy?— A sudden vessel far away at sea.

ORIENTAL ROMANCE

I

Beyond lost seas of summer she Dwelt on an island of the sea, Last scion of that dynasty, Queen of a race forgotten long.— With eyes of light and lips of song, From seaward groves of blowing lemon, She called me in her native tongue, Low-leaned on some rich robe of Yemen.

II

I was a king. Three moons we drove Across green gulfs, the crimson clove And cassia spiced, to claim her love. Packed was my barque with gums and gold; Rich fabrics; sandalwood, grown old With odor; gems; and pearls of Oman,— Than her white breasts less white and cold;— And myrrh, less fragrant than this woman.

III

From Bassora I came. We saw Her eagle castle on a claw Of soaring precipice, o'erawe The surge and thunder of the spray. Like some great opal, far away It shone, with battlement and spire, Wherefrom, with wild aroma, day Blew splintered lights of sapphirine fire.

IV

Lamenting caverns dark, that keep Sonorous echoes of the deep, Led upward to her castle steep…. Fair as the moon, whose light is shed In Ramadan, was she, who led My love unto her island bowers, To find her…. lying young and dead Among her maidens and her flowers.

THE MAMELUKE

I

She was a queen. 'Midst mutes and slaves, A mameluke, he loved her.——Waves Dashed not more hopelessly the paves Of her high marble palace-stair Than lashed his love his heart's despair.— As souls in Hell dream Paradise, He suffered yet forgot it there Beneath Rommaneh's houri eyes.

II

With passion eating at his heart He served her beauty, but dared dart No amorous glance, nor word impart.— Taïfi leather's perfumed tan Beneath her, on a low divan She lay 'mid cushions stuffed with down: A slave-girl with an ostrich fan Sat by her in a golden gown.

III

She bade him sing. Fair lutanist, She loved his voice. With one white wrist, Hooped with a blaze of amethyst, She raised her ruby-crusted lute: Gold-welted stuff, like some rich fruit, Her raiment, diamond-showered, rolled Folds pigeon-purple, whence one foot Drooped in an anklet-twist of gold.

IV

He stood and sang with all the fire That boiled within his blood's desire, That made him all her slave yet higher: And at the end his passion durst Quench with one burning kiss its thirst.— O eunuchs, did her face show scorn When through his heart your daggers burst? And dare ye say he died forlorn?

THE SLAVE

He waited till within her tower Her taper signalled him the hour.

He was a prince both fair and brave.— What hope that he would love her slave!

He of the Persian dynasty; And she a Queen of Araby!—

No Peri singing to a star Upon the sea were lovelier….

I helped her drop the silken rope. He clomb, aflame with love and hope.

I drew the dagger from my gown And cut the ladder, leaning down.

Oh, wild his face, and wild the fall: Her cry was wilder than them all.

I heard her cry; I heard him moan; And stood as merciless as stone.

The eunuchs came: fierce scimitars Stirred in the torch-lit corridors.

She spoke like one who speaks in sleep, And bade me strike or she would leap.

I bade her leap: the time was short: And kept the dagger for my heart.

She leapt…. I put their blades aside, And smiling in their faces—died.

THE PORTRAIT

In some quaint Nurnberg maler-atelier Uprummaged. When and where was never clear Nor yet how he obtained it. When, by whom 'Twas painted—who shall say? itself a gloom Resisting inquisition. I opine It is a Dürer. Mark that touch, this line; Are they deniable?—Distinguished grace Of the pure oval of the noble face Tarnished in color badly. Half in light Extend it so. Incline. The exquisite Expression leaps abruptly: piercing scorn; Imperial beauty; each, an icy thorn Of light, disdainful eyes and … well! no use! Effaced and but beheld! a sad abuse Of patience.—Often, vaguely visible, The portrait fills each feature, making swell The heart with hope: avoiding face and hair Start out in living hues; astonished, "There!— The picture lives!" your soul exults, when, lo! You hold a blur; an undetermined glow Dislimns a daub.—"Restore?"—Ah, I have tried Our best restorers, and it has defied.

Storied, mysterious, say, perhaps a ghost Lives in the canvas; hers, some artist lost; A duchess', haply. Her he worshiped; dared Not tell he worshiped. From his window stared Of Nuremberg one sunny morn when she Passed paged to court. Her cold nobility Loved, lived for like a purpose. Seized and plied A feverish brush—her face!—Despaired and died.

The narrow Judengasse: gables frown Around a humpbacked usurer's, where brown, Neglected in a corner, long it lay, Heaped in a pile of riff-raff, such as—say, Retables done in tempera and old Panels by Wohlgemuth; stiff paintings cold Of martyrs and apostles,—names forgot,— Holbeins and Dürers, say; a haloed lot Of praying saints, madonnas: these, perchance, 'Mid wine-stained purples, mothed; an old romance; A crucifix and rosary; inlaid Arms, Saracen-elaborate; a strayed Niello of Byzantium; rich work, In bronze, of Florence: here a murderous dirk, There holy patens. So.—My ancestor, The first De Herancour, esteemed by far This piece most precious, most desirable;

Purchased and brought to Paris. It looked well In the dark paneling above the old Hearth of the room. The head's religious gold, The soft severity of the nun face, Made of the room an apostolic place Revered and feared.— Like some lived scene I see That Gothic room: its Flemish tapestry; Embossed within the marble hearth a shield, Carved 'round with thistles; in its argent field Three sable mallets—arms of Herancour— Topped with the crest, a helm and hands that bore, Outstretched, two mallets. On a lectern laid,— Between two casements, lozenge-paned, embayed,— A vellum volume of black-lettered text. Near by a taper, winking as if vexed With silken gusts a nervous curtain sends, Behind which, haply, daggered Murder bends.

And then I seem to see again the hall; The stairway leading to that room.—Then all The terror of that night of blood and crime Passes before me.— It is Catherine's time: The house De Herancour's. On floors, splashed red, Torchlight of Medicean wrath is shed. Down carven corridors and rooms,—where couch And chairs lie shattered and black shadows crouch Torch-pierced with fear,—a sound of swords draws near— The stir of searching steel. What find they here, Torch-bearer, swordsman, and fierce halberdier, On St. Bartholomew's?—A Huguenot! Dead in his chair! Eyes, violently shot With horror, glaring at the portrait there: Coiling his neck a blood line, like a hair Of finest fire. The portrait, like a fiend,— Looking exalted visitation,—leaned From its black panel; in its eyes a hate Satanic; hair—a glowing auburn; late A dull, enduring golden. "Just one thread Of the fierce hair around his throat," they said, "Twisting a burning ray; he—staring dead."

THE BLACK KNIGHT

I had not found the road too short, As once I had in days of youth, In that old forest of long ruth, Where my young knighthood broke its heart, Ere love and it had come to part, And lies made mockery of truth. I had not found the road too short.

A blind man, by the nightmare way, Had set me right when I was wrong.— I had been blind my whole life long— What wonder then that on this day The blind should show me how astray My strength had gone, my heart once strong. A blind man pointed me the way.

The road had been a heartbreak one, Of roots and rocks and tortured trees, And pools, above my horse's knees, And wandering paths, where spiders spun 'Twixt boughs that never saw the sun, And silence of lost centuries. The road had been a heartbreak one.

It seemed long years since that black hour When she had fled, and I took horse To follow, and without remorse To slay her and her paramour In that old keep, that ruined tower, From whence was borne her father's corse. It seemed long years since that black hour.

And now my horse was starved and spent, My gallant destrier, old and spare; The vile road's mire in mane and hair, I felt him totter as he went:— Such hungry woods were never meant For pasture: hate had reaped them bare. Aye, my poor beast was old and spent.

I too had naught to stay me with; And like my horse was starved and lean; My armor gone; my raiment mean; Bare-haired I rode; uneasy sith The way I'd lost, and some dark myth Far in the woods had laughed obscene. I had had naught to stay me with.

Then I dismounted. Better so. And found that blind man at my rein. And there the path stretched straight and plain. I saw at once the way to go. The forest road I used to know In days when life had less of pain. Then I dismounted. Better so.

I had but little time to spare, Since evening now was drawing near; And then I thought I saw a sneer Enter into that blind man's stare: And suddenly a thought leapt bare,— What if the Fiend had set him here!— I still might smite him or might spare.

I braced my sword: then turned to look: For I had heard an evil laugh: The blind man, leaning on his staff, Still stood there where my leave I took: What! did he mock me? Would I brook A blind fool's scorn?—My sword was half Out of its sheath. I turned to look:

And he was gone. And to my side My horse came nickering as afraid. Did he too fear to be betrayed?— What use for him? I might not ride. So to a great bough there I tied, And left him in the forest glade: My spear and shield I left beside.

My sword was all I needed there. It would suffice to right my wrongs; To cut the knot of all those thongs With which she'd bound me to despair, That woman with her midnight hair, Her Circe snares and Siren songs. My sword was all I needed there.

And then that laugh again I heard, Evil as Hell and darkness are. It shook my heart behind its bar Of purpose, like some ghastly word. But then it may have been a bird, An owlet in the forest far, A raven, croaking, that I heard.

I loosed my sword within its sheath; My sword, disuse and dews of night Had fouled with rust and iron-blight. I seemed to hear the forest breathe A menace at me through its teeth Of thorns 'mid which the way lay white. I loosed my sword within its sheath.

I had not noticed until now The sun was gone, and gray the moon Hung staring; pale as marble hewn;— Like some old malice, bleak of brow, It glared at me through leaf and bough, With which the tattered way was strewn. I had not noticed until now.

And then, all unexpected, vast Above the tops of ragged pines I saw a ruin, dark with vines, Against the blood-red sunset massed: My perilous tower of the past, Round which the woods thrust giant spines. I never knew it was so vast.

Long while I stood considering.— This was the place and this the night. The blind man then had set me right. Here she had come for sheltering. That ruin held her: that dark wing Which flashed a momentary light. Some time I stood considering.

Deep darkness fell. The somber glare Of sunset, that made cavernous eyes Of those gaunt casements 'gainst the skies, Had burnt to ashes everywhere. Before my feet there rose a stair Of oozy stone, of giant size, On which the gray moon flung its glare.

Then I went forward, sword in hand, Until the slimy causeway loomed, And huge beyond it yawned and gloomed The gateway where one seemed to stand, In armor, like a burning brand, Sword-drawn; his visor barred and plumed. And I went toward him, sword in hand.

He should not stay revenge from me. Whatever lord or knight he were, He should not keep me long from her, That woman dyed in infamy. No matter. God or devil he, His sword should prove no barrier.— Fool! who would keep revenge from me!

And then I heard, harsh over all, That demon laughter, filled with scorn: It woke the echoes, wild, forlorn, Dark in the ivy of that wall, As when, within a mighty hall, One blows a giant battle-horn. Loud, loud that laugh rang over all.

And then I struck him where he towered: I struck him, struck with all my hate: Black-plumed he loomed before the gate: I struck, and found his sword that showered Fierce flame on mine while black he glowered Behind his visor's wolfish grate. I struck; and taller still he towered.

A year meseemed we battled there: A year; ten years; a century: My blade was snapped; his lay in three: His mail was hewn; and everywhere Was blood; it streaked my face and hair; And still he towered over me. A year meseemed we battled there.

"Unmask!" I cried. "Yea, doff thy casque! Put up thy visor! fight me fair! I have no mail; my head is bare! Take off thy helm, is all I ask! Why dost thou hide thy face?—Unmask!"— My eyes were blind with blood and hair, And still I cried, "Take off thy casque!"

And then once more that laugh rang out Like madness in the caves of Hell: It hooted like some monster well, The haunt of owls, or some mad rout Of witches. And with battle shout Once more upon that knight I fell, While wild again that laugh rang out.

Like Death's own eyes his glared in mine, As with the fragment of my blade I smote him helmwise; huge he swayed, Then crashed, like some cadaverous pine, Uncasqued, his face in full moonshine: And I—I saw; and shrank afraid. For, lo! behold! the face was mine.

What devil's work was here!—What jest For fiends to laugh at, demons hiss!— To slay myself? and so to miss My hate's reward?—revenge confessed!— Was this knight I?—My brain I pressed.— Then who was he who gazed on this?— What devil's work was here!——What jest!

It was myself on whom I gazed— My darker self!—With fear I rose.— I was right weak from those great blows.— I stood bewildered, stunned and dazed, And looked around with eyes amazed.— I could not slay her now, God knows!— Around me there a while I gazed.

Then turned and fled into the night, While overhead once more I heard That laughter, like some demon bird Wailing in darkness.—Then a light Made clear a woman by that knight. I saw 'twas she, but said no word, And silent fled into the night.

IN ARCADY

I remember, when a child, How within the April wild Once I walked with Mystery In the groves of Arcady…. Through the boughs, before, behind, Swept the mantle of the wind, Thunderous and unconfined.

Overhead the curving moon Pierced the twilight: a cocoon, Golden, big with unborn wings— Beauty, shaping spiritual things, Vague, impatient of the night, Eager for its heavenward flight Out of darkness into light.

Here and there the oaks assumed Satyr aspects; shadows gloomed, Hiding, of a dryad look; And the naiad-frantic brook, Crying, fled the solitude, Filled with terror of the wood, Or some faun-thing that pursued.

In the dead leaves on the ground Crept a movement; rose a sound: Everywhere the silence ticked As with hands of things that picked At the loam, or in the dew,— Elvish sounds that crept or flew,— Beak-like, pushing surely through.

Down the forest, overhead, Stammering a dead leaf fled, Filled with elemental fear Of some dark destruction near— One, whose glowworm eyes I saw Hag with flame the crooked haw, Which the moon clutched like a claw.

Gradually beneath the tree Grew a shape; a nudity: Lithe and slender; silent as Growth of tree or blade of grass; Brown and silken as the bloom Of the trillium in the gloom, Visible as strange perfume.

For an instant there it stood, Smiling on me in the wood: And I saw its hair was green As the leaf-sheath, gold of sheen: And its eyes an azure wet, From within which seemed to jet Sapphire lights and violet.

Swiftly by I saw it glide; And the dark was deified: Wild before it everywhere Gleamed the greenness of its hair; And around it danced a light, Soft, the sapphire of its sight, Making witchcraft of the night.

On the branch above, the bird Trilled to it a dreamy word: In its bud the wild bee droned Honeyed greeting, drowsy-toned: And the brook forgot the gloom, Hushed its heart, and, wrapped in bloom, Breathed a welcome of perfume.

To its beauty bush and tree Stretched sweet arms of ecstasy; And the soul within the rock Lichen-treasures did unlock As upon it fell its eye; And the earth, that felt it nigh, Into wildflowers seemed to sigh….

Was it dryad? was it faun? Wandered from the times long gone. Was it sylvan? was it fay?— Dim survivor of the day When Religion peopled streams, Woods and rocks with shapes like gleams,— That invaded then my dreams?

Was it shadow? was it shape? Or but fancy's wild escape?— Of my own child's world the charm That assumed material form?— Of my soul the mystery, That the spring revealed to me, There in long-lost Arcady?

PROTOTYPES

Whether it be that we in letters trace The pure exactness of a wood bird's strain, And name it song; or with the brush attain The high perfection of a wildflower's face; Or mold in difficult marble all the grace We know as man; or from the wind and rain Catch elemental rapture of refrain And mark in music to due time and place: The aim of Art is Nature; to unfold Her truth and beauty to the souls of men In close suggestions; in whose forms is cast Nothing so new but 'tis long eons old; Nothing so old but 'tis as young as when The mind conceived it in the ages past.

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.

DUSK

Corn-colored clouds upon a sky of gold, And 'mid their sheaves,—where, like a daisy-bloom Left by the reapers to the gathering gloom, The star of twilight glows,—as Ruth, 'tis told, Dreamed homesick 'mid the harvest fields of old, The Dusk goes gleaning color and perfume From Bible slopes of heaven, that illume Her pensive beauty deep in shadows stoled. Hushed is the forest; and blue vale and hill Are still, save for the brooklet, sleepily Stumbling the stone with one foam-fluttering foot: Save for the note of one far whippoorwill, And in my heart her name,—like some sweet bee Within a rose,—blowing a faery flute.

THE WINDS

Those hewers of the clouds, the Winds,—that lair At the four compass-points,—are out to-night; I hear their sandals trample on the height, I hear their voices trumpet through the air: Builders of storm, God's workmen, now they bear, Up the steep stair of sky, on backs of might, Huge tempest bulks, while,—sweat that blinds heir sight,— The rain is shaken from tumultuous hair: Now, sweepers of the firmament, they broom, Like gathered dust, the rolling mists along Heaven's floors of sapphire; all the beautiful blue Of skyey corridor and celestial room Preparing, with large laughter and loud song, For the white moon and stars to wander through.

LIGHT AND WIND

Where, through the myriad leaves of forest trees, The daylight falls, beryl and chrysoprase, The glamour and the glimmer of its rays Seem visible music, tangible melodies: Light that is music; music that one sees— Wagnerian music—where forever sways The spirit of romance, and gods and fays Take form, clad on with dreams and mysteries. And now the wind's transmuting necromance Touches the light and makes it fall and rise, Vocal, a harp of multitudinous waves That speaks as ocean speaks—an utterance Of far-off whispers, mermaid-murmuring sighs— Pelagian, vast, deep down in coral caves.

ENCHANTMENT

The deep seclusion of this forest path,— O'er which the green boughs weave a canopy; Along which bluet and anemone Spread dim a carpet; where the Twilight hath Her cool abode; and, sweet as aftermath, Wood-fragrance roams,—has so enchanted me, That yonder blossoming bramble seems to be A Sylvan resting, rosy from her bath: Has so enspelled me with tradition's dreams, That every foam-white stream that, twinkling, flows, And every bird that flutters wings of tan, Or warbles hidden, to my fancy seems A Naiad dancing to a Faun who blows Wild woodland music on the pipes of Pan.

ABANDONED

The hornets build in plaster-dropping rooms, And on its mossy porch the lizard lies; Around its chimneys slow the swallow flies, And on its roof the locusts snow their blooms. Like some sad thought that broods here, old perfumes Haunt its dim stairs; the cautious zephyr tries Each gusty door, like some dead hand, then sighs With ghostly lips among the attic glooms. And now a heron, now a kingfisher, Flits in the willows where the riffle seems At each faint fall to hesitate to leap, Fluttering the silence with a little stir. Here Summer seems a placid face asleep, And the near world a figment of her dreams.

AFTER LONG GRIEF

There is a place hung o'er of summer boughs And dreamy skies wherein the gray hawk sleeps; Where water flows, within whose lazy deeps, Like silvery prisms where the sunbeams drowse, The minnows twinkle; where the bells of cows Tinkle the stillness; and the bobwhite keeps Calling from meadows where the reaper reaps, And children's laughter haunts an oldtime house: A place where life wears ever an honest smell Of hay and honey, sun and elder-bloom,— Like some sweet, simple girl,—within her hair; Where, with our love for comrade, we may dwell Far from the city's strife, whose cares consume.— Oh, take my hand and let me lead you there.

MENDICANTS

Bleak, in dark rags of clouds, the day begins, That passed so splendidly but yesterday, Wrapped in magnificence of gold and gray, And poppy and rose. Now, burdened as with sins, Their wildness clad in fogs, like coats of skins, Tattered and streaked with rain; gaunt, clogged with clay, The mendicant Hours take their somber way Westward o'er Earth, to which no sunray wins. Their splashing sandals ooze; their foosteps drip, Puddle and brim with moisture; their sad hair Is tagged with haggard drops, that with their eyes' Slow streams are blent; each sullen fingertip Rivers; while round them, in the grief-drenched air Wearies the wind of their perpetual sighs.

THE END OF SUMMER

Pods the poppies, and slim spires of pods The hollyhocks; the balsam's pearly bredes Of rose-stained snow are little sacs of seeds Collapsing at a touch: the lote, that sods The pond with green, has changed its flowers to rods And discs of vesicles; and all the weeds, Around the sleepy water and its reeds, Are one white smoke of seeded silk that nods. Summer is dead, ay me! sweet Summer's dead! The sunset clouds have built her funeral pyre, Through which, e'en now, runs subterranean fire: While from the east, as from a garden bed, Mist-vined, the Dusk lifts her broad moon—like some Great golden melon—saying, "Fall has come."