Volume 5 — FOOTPATHS

What though I dreamed of mountain heights, Of peaks, the barriers of the world, Around whose tops the Northern Lights And tempests are unfurled! Mine are the footpaths leading through Life’s lowly fields and woods,—with rifts, Above, of heaven’s Eden blue,—By which the violet lifts Its shy appeal; and, holding up Its chaliced gold, like some wild wine, Along the hillside, cup on cup, Blooms bright the celandine. Where soft upon each flowering stock The butterfly spreads damask wings; And under grassy loam and rock The cottage cricket sings. Where, overhead, eve blooms with fire, In which the new moon bends her bow, And, arrow-like, one white star by her Burns through the afterglow. I care not, so the sesame I find; the magic flower there, Whose touch unseals each mystery In water, earth and air. Which, in the oak-tree, lets me hear Its heart’s deep speech, its soul’s wise words; And to my mind makes crystal clear The melodies of birds. Why should I care, who live aloof, Beyond the din of life and dust, While dreams still share my humble roof, And love makes sweet my crust?

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

And fern and flower on top of the hill Are a fairy wood where the fairies camp; And there, to the pipe of the cricket shrill, And the owl’s bassoon or the whippoorwill, They whirl their wildest and trip their fill By the light of the glow-worm’s lamp.

And the mottled toad and the katydid Are the henchmen set to guard their dance; At whose cry they creep ’neath the dewy lid Of a violet’s eye, or close lie hid In a bluebell’s ear, if a mortal ’mid The moonlit woods should chance.

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

The unpretentious flowers of the woods, That rise in bright and banded brotherhoods, Waving us welcome, and with kisses sweet Laying their lives down underneath our feet, Lesson my soul more than the tomes of man, Packed with the lore of ages, ever can, In love and truth, hope and humility, And such unselfishness as to the bee, Lifting permissive petals dripping nard, Yields every sweet up, asking no reward. The many flowers of wood and field and stream, Filling our hearts with wonder and with dream, That know no ceremony, yet that are Attended of such reverence as that star— That punctual point of flame, which, to our eyes, Leads on the vast procession of the skies, Sidereal silver, glittering in the west— Compels, assertive of heaven’s loveliest. Where may one find suggestion simpler set Than in the radius of a violet? Or more authentic loveliness than glows In the small compass of a single rose? Or more of spiritual thought than perfumes from The absolute purity of a lily-bloom?

Deep in the hollow wood he found a way Winding unto a water, dim and gray, Grayer and dimmer than the break of day; By which a wildrose blossomed; flower on flower Leaning above its image hour on hour, Musing, it seemed, on its own loveliness, And longing with sweet longing to express Some thought to its reflection. Dropping now Bee-shaken pollen from the voluble bough, And now a petal, delicate as a blush, It seemed to sigh or whisper to the hush The dreams, the myths and marvels it had seen Tip-toeing dimly through the woodland green: Faint shapes of fragrance; forms like flowers, that go Footing the moss; or, shouldered with moonbeam glow, Through starlit waves oaring an arm of snow. He sat him down and gazed into the pool: And as he gazed, two petals, silken cool, Fell, soft as star beams fall that arrow through The fern-hung trembling of a drop of dew; And, pearly-placid, on the water lay, Two curves of languid ruby, where, green-gray, The shadow of a willow dimmed the stream. And suddenly he saw—or did he dream He saw?—the rose-leaves change to rosy lips, A laughing crimson. And, with silvery hips, And eyes of luminous emerald, full of sleep And all the stillness of the under deep, The shadow of the tree become a girl, A shadowy girl, who shook from many a curl Faint, tangled glimmerings of shell and pearl. A girl who called him, beckoned him to come, Waving a hand whiter than moonlit foam, And pointing, minnowy fingered, to her home— A bubble, rainbow-built, beneath the wave, Dim-domed, and murmurous as the deep-sea cave, Columned of coral and of grottoed foam, Where the pale mermaids never cease to comb Their weed-green hair with fingers crystal-cold, Sighing forever round the Sea King old Throned on his throne of shell and ribbéd gold. Laughing, she lured him, lipped like some wild-rose; Bidding him follow; come to her; repose Upon her bosom and forever dream Lulled by the wandering whisper of the stream. But him mortality weighed heavily on And earthly love: and, sorrowful and wan, He shook his head, motioning “I can not rise”; But still he felt the magic of her eyes Drawing him to her; felt her hands of foam Around his heart; her lips, that bade him come With smiling witchery, and with laughing looks Like those that lured us in the fairy books Our childhood dreamed on.... Then, as suddenly, A wind, it seemed, from nowhere he could see, Wrinkled the water; ruffled its smooth glass; And there again, behold! when it did pass The rose-leaves lay and shadow, dimly seen; The willow’s shadow, and no thing between.

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

Sometimes she seems a faint perfume, A fragrance that a flower exhaled And God gave form to; now, unveiled, A sunbeam making gold the gloom Of vines that roof some woodland room Of boughs; and now the silvery sound Of streams her presence doth assume— Music, from which, in dreaming drowned, A crystal shadow she seems to bloom.

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

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

Sometimes I think that she must be No part of earth, but merely this— The fair, elusive thing we miss In Nature, that we dream we see Yet never see: that goldenly Beckons; that, limbed with rose and pearl, The Greek made a divinity:— A nymph, a god, a glimmering girl, That haunts the forest’s mystery.

Roses, brier on brier, Like a hedge of fire, Walled it from the world and rolled Crimson round it; manifold Blossoms, ’mid which once of old Walked my Heart’s Desire. There the golden Hours Dwelt; and ’mid the bowers Beauty wandered like a maid; And the Dreams that never fade Sat within its haunted shade Gazing at the flowers. There the winds that vary Melody and marry Perfume unto perfume, went, Whispering to the buds, that bent, Messages whose wonderment Made them sweet to carry. There the waters hoary Murmured many a story To the leaves that leaned above, Listening to their tales of love, While the happiness thereof Flushed their green with glory. There the sunset’s shimmer ’Mid the bowers,—dimmer Than the woods where Fable dwells, And Romance her legends tells,— Wrought dim dreams and dimmer spells, Filled with golden glimmer. There at night the wonder Of the moon would sunder Foliage deeps with breast of pearl, Wandering like a glimmering girl, Fair of form and bright of curl, Through the trees and under. There the stars would follow, Over hill and hollow, Spirit shapes that danced the dew From frail cups of sparry hue; Firefly forms that fleeter flew Than the fleetest swallow. There my heart made merry; There, ’mid bloom and berry, Dreamed the dreams that are no more, In that garden lost of yore, Set in seas, without a shore, That no man may ferry. Where perhaps her lyre,— Wreathed with serest brier,— Sorrow strikes now; sad its gold Sighing where, ’mid roses old, Fair of face and dead and cold Lies my Heart’s Desire.

Clumped in the shadow of the beech,— In whose brown top the crows are loud,— Where, every side, great briers reach And cling like hands,—the beech drops crowd The mossy cirque with neutral tints Of gray; and deep, with berries bowed, The buckbush reddens ’mid the mints. O’erhead the forest scarcely stirs: The wind is laid: the sky is blue: Bush-clover, with its links of burrs, And some last blooms,—few, pink of hue,— Makes wild the way: and everywhere Slim, white-ribbed cones of fungi strew The grass that’s like a wildman’s hair. The jewel-weeds, whose pods bombard The hush with fairy batteries Of seeds, grow dense here; pattering hard Their sacs explode, persuade the eyes To search the heaven for show’rs:—One seems To walk where old Enchantment plies Her shuttle of lost days and dreams. And, lo! yon rock of fern and flower, That heaves its height from bramble deeps, All on a sudden seems the tower Wherein the Sleeping Beauty sleeps: And that red vine the fire-drake, The flaming dragon, is, that keeps The world from her no man may wake.

Amber and emerald, cairngorm and chrysoprase, Stream through the autumn woods, scatter the beech-wood ways: Ways where the wahoo-bush brightens with scarlet; And where the aster-stalk lifts its last starlet. Ways where the brier burns; poplars drop, one by one, Leaves that seem beaten gold, each like a splash of sun: Round which the beeches rise, tree upon golden tree, That, with each wind that blows, sound like a summer sea. Ways where the papaw leans, great-leaved and beryl-green, Like some grand forester one in Romance hath seen; And like some Indian queen, sung of in story, Flaming the gum-tree stands, crowned with its glory. Ways where the bittersweet, cleaving its pods of gold, Brightens the brake with flame, torches the dingle old: And where the dogwood, too, crimsons with ruby seeds; Spicewood and buckbush bend ruddy with rosy beads. These are the woods of gold; forests our childhood knew, Where the Enchanted dwelt, she with the eyes of blue; She of the raven locks, and of the lovely looks, She who oft gazed at us out of the Story Books. And with that Prince again, striding his snow-white steed, To her deliverance through the gold wood we speed; On through the wood of flame to the Dark Tower, Where like a light she gleams high in her bower.

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

And as I went Through golden forests in a golden land, Where Magic waved her wand And dimmed the air with dreams my boyhood knew, Enchantment met me; and again she bent Her face to mine, and smiled with eyes of blue, And kissed me on the mouth and bade me heed Old tales again from books no man may read.

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

And I perceived The voices were but one voice made of sighs, That sorrowed in this wise: “I am the child-soul that grew up and died, The child-soul of the world that once believed, Believed in me, but long ago denied; The Faery Faith it needs no more to-day, The folk-lore Beauty long since passed away.”

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

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

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

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

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

Too long in the city streets, The alleys of grime and sin, Have I heard the iron beats Of the heart of toil; whose din, And the throb of whose wild unrest Have stunned the song in my breast, Have marred its music and slain The bird that was once its guest, And my soul would find it again.

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

Dark, drear, and drizzly, with vapor grizzly, The day goes dully unto its close; Its wet robe smutches each thing it touches, Its fingers sully and wreck the rose. Around the railing and garden-paling The dripping lily hangs low its head: A brood-mare whinnies; and hens and guineas Droop, damp and chilly, beneath the shed. In splashing mire about the byre The cattle huddle, the farm-hand plods; While to some neighbor’s a wagon labors Through pool and puddle and clay that clods. The day, unsplendid, at last is ended, Is dead and buried, and night has come;— Night, blind and footless, and foul and fruitless, With weeping wearied, and sorrow-dumb. Ah, God! for thunder! for winds to sunder The clouds and o’er us smite rushing bars! And through wild masses of storm, that passes, Roll calm the chorus of moon and stars.

Great clouds of sullen seal and gold Bar bleak the tawny west, From which all day the thunder rolled, And storm streamed, crest on crest. Now silvery in its deeps of bronze The new moon fills its sphere; And point by point the darkness dons Its pale stars there and here. But still behind the moon and stars, The peace of heaven remains Suspicion of the wrath that wars, That Nature now restrains. As, lined ’neath tiger eyelids, glare The wild-beast eyes that sleep, So smoulders in its sunset lair The rage that rent the deep.

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

Save for the cricket in the grass, Or passing bird that twitters, The world is hushed. Like liquid glass The soundless river glitters Between the hills that hug and hold Its beauty like a hoop of gold.

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

There is no thing to wake unrest; No sight or sound to jangle The peace that evening in the breast Brings, smoothing out the tangle Of gnarls and knots of care and strife That snarl the colored cord of life.

The little tents the wildflowers raise Are tabernacles where Love prays And Beauty preaches all the days. I walk the woodland through and through, And everywhere I see their blue And gold where I may worship too. All hearts unto their inmost shrine Of fragrance they invite; and mine Enters and sees the All Divine. I hark; and with some inward ear Soft words of praise and prayer I hear, And bow my head and have no fear. For God is present as I see In them; and gazes out at me Kneeling to His divinity. Oh, holiness that Nature knows, That dwells within each thing that grows, Vestured with dreams, as is the rose With perfume! whereof all things preach— The birds, the brooks, the leaves that reach Our hearts and souls with loving speech; That makes a tabernacle of The flow’rs; whose priests are Truth and Love, Who help our souls to rise above The Earth and that which we name sin, Unto the knowledge, that is kin To Heaven, to which at last we win.

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

And I hear the song of the cat-bird wake I’ the boughs o’ the gnarled wild-crab, Or there where the snows of the dogwood shake, That the silvery sunbeams stab: And it seems to me that a magic lies In the crystal sweet of its notes, That a myriad blossoms open their eyes As its strain above them floats.

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

And this, meseems, does the cat-bird say, As the blossoms crowd i’ the sun:— “Up, up! and out! oh, out and away! Up, up! and out, each one! Sweethearts! sweethearts! oh, sweet, sweet, sweet! Come listen and hark to me! The Spring, the Spring, with her fragrant feet, Is passing this way!—Oh, hark to the beat Of her bee-like heart!—Oh, sweet, sweet, sweet! Come! open your eyes and see! See, see, see!”

Leaves fall and flowers fade, Days come and go: Now is sweet Summer laid Low in her leafy glade, Low like a fragrant maid, Low, low, ah, low. Tears fall and eyelids ache, Hearts overflow: Here for our dead love’s sake Let us our farewells make— Will he again awake? Ah, no, no, no. Winds sigh and skies are gray, Days come and go: Wild birds are flown away: Where are the blooms of May?— Dead, dead, this many a day, Under the snow. Lips sigh and cheeks are pale, Hearts overflow: Will not some song or tale, Kiss, or a flower frail, With our dead love avail?— Ah, no, no, no.

A sense of something that is sad and strange; Of something that is felt as death is felt,— As shadows, phantoms, in a haunted grange,— Around me seems to melt. It rises, so it seems, from the decay Of the dim woods; from withered leaves and weeds, And dead flowers hanging by the woodland way Sad, hoary heads of seeds. And from the cricket’s song,—so feeble now ’Tis like a sound heard in the heart, a call Dreamier than dreams;—and from the shaken bough, And acorns’ drowsy fall. From scents and sounds it rises, sadly slow, This presence, that hath neither face nor form; That in the woods sits like demented woe, Whispering of wreck and storm. A presence wrought of melancholy grief, And dreams that die; that, in the streaming night, I shall behold, like some fantastic leaf, Beat at my window’s light. That I shall hear, outside my storm-lashed door, Moan like the wind in some rain-tortured tree; Or round my roof and down my chimney roar All the wild night to me.

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

Where leaves hang tattered In forest tangles, And woodway angles Are acorn-scattered, Coughing and yawning The woodsman slouches, Or stands as silent as the hound that crouches Beside him, ghostly in the mist-drenched dawning.

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

Well, what of it then, if your heart be weighed with the yoke Of the world’s neglect? and the smoke Of doubt, blown into your eyes, makes night of your road? And the sting of the goad, The merciless goad of scorn, And the rise and fall Of the whip of necessity gall, Till your heart, forlorn, Indignant, in rage would rebel? And your bosom fill, And sobbingly swell, With bitterness, yea, against God and ’gainst Fate, Fate, and the world of men, What of it then?... Let it be as it will, If you labor and wait, You, too, will arrive, and the end for you, too, will be well. What of it then, say I! yea, what of it then!

Well, what of it then? if the hate of the world and of men Make wreck of your dreams again? What of it then If contumely and sneer, And ignorant jibe and jeer, Be heaped upon all that you do and dream: And the irresistible stream Of events overwhelm and submerge All effort—or so it may seem? Not all, not all shall be lost, Not all, in the merciless gurge And pitiless surge!— Though you see it tempestuously tossed, Though you see it sink down or sweep by, Not in vain did you strive, not in vain! The struggle, the longing and toil Of hand and of heart and of brain, Not in vain was it all, say I! For out of the wild turmoil And seething and soil Of Time, some part of the whole will arise, Arise and remain, In spite of the wrath of the skies And the hate of men.— What of it then, say I! yea, what of it then!

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

The springtime takes its moods From something in her made of smiles and tears, And flowery earth is flowerier than before, And happier, it appears, Adding new multitudes To flowers, like thoughts, that haunt us evermore.

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

When down the west the new moon slipped, A curved canoe that dipped and tipped, When from the rose the dewdrop dripped, As if it shed its heart’s blood slow; As softly silent as a star I climbed a lattice that I know, A window lattice, held ajar By one slim hand as white as snow: The hand of her who set me here, A rose, to bloom from year to year. I, who have heard the bird of June Sing all night long beneath the moon; I, who have heard the zephyr croon Soft music ’mid spring’s avenues, Heard then a sweeter sound than these, Among the shadows and the dews— A heart that beat like any bee’s, Sweet with a name—and I know whose: Her heart that, leaning, pressed on me, A rose, she never looked to see. O star and moon! O wind and bird! Ye harkened, too, but never heard The secret sweet, the whispered word I heard, when by her lips his name Was murmured.—Then she saw me there!— But that I heard was I to blame? Whom in the darkness of her hair She thrust since I had heard the same: Condemned within its deeps to lie, A rose, imprisoned till I die.

I, who went at nightfall, came again at dawn; On Love’s door again I knocked.—Love was gone. He who oft had bade me in, now would bid no more; Silence sat within his house; barred its door. When the slow door opened wide through it I could see How the emptiness within stared at me. Through the dreary chambers, long I sought and sighed, But no answering footstep came; naught replied. Then at last I entered, dim, a darkened room: There a taper glimmered gray in the gloom. And I saw one lying crowned with helichrys; Never saw I face as fair as was his. Like a wintry lily was his brow in hue; And his cheeks were each a rose, wintry, too. Then my soul remembered all that made us part, And what I had laughed at once—broke my heart.

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

How many things by the heart are forgotten! Sad or sweet, or little or great! And how one thing that could mean nothing Stays knocking still at the heart’s red gate! For many things has my heart forgotten, But this one thing can never forget— The face of a girl, a moment met, Who smiled in my eyes; whom I passed in pity; A flower-like face, with weeping wet, Flung to the streets of a mighty city.

Not here, O belovéd! not here let us part, in the city, but there! Out there where the storm can enfold us, on the hills, where its breast is made bare: Its breast, that is rainy and cool as the fern that drips by the fall In the luminous night of the woodland where winds to the waters call. Not here, O belovéd! not here! but there! out there in the storm! The rush and the reel of the heavens, the tempest, whose rapturous arm Shall seize us and sweep us together,—resistless as passions seize men,— Through the rocking world of the woodland, with its multitude music, and then, With the rain on our lips, belovéd! in the heart of the night’s wild hell, One last, long kiss forever, and forever and ever farewell.

I am sick of the madness of men; of the bootless struggle and strife: Of the pain and the patience of waiting; the scoff and the scorning of life: I am sick of the shapes and the shadows; the sins and the sorrows that crowd The gateways of heart and of brain; of the laughter, the shout that is loud In the mouth of Success—Success, that was never for me, ah me!— And all the wrong and neglect that are heaped beloved, on thee! I am sick of the whining of failure; the boast and the brag of Success; The vainness of effort and longing; the dreams and the days that oppress: I am sick of them all; but am sickest, am sickest in body and soul, Of the love that I bear thee, beloved! and only thy death can make whole.

Imperfect, imperfect God made us,—or the power that men call God.— And I think that a Power so perfect, that made us with merely a nod, Could have fashioned us beings less faulty; more able to wear and to bear; Less open to mar and to fracture; less filled with the stuff of despair: Less damned with the unavailing; less empty of all good things— The hopes and the dreams that mature not while the clay still to them clings: I am sick of it all, belovéd! of the world and the ways of God; The thorns that have pierced thy bosom; the shards of the paths we have trod: I am sick of going and coming; and of love I am sickest of all: The striving, the praying, the dreaming; and the things that never befall.— So there in the storm and the darkness,—O fair, and O fugitive!— Out there in the night, belovéd, must thou die so I may live!

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

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

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.

The gate, on ice-hoarse hinges, stiff with frost, Croaks open; and harsh wagon-wheels are heard Creaking through cold; the horses’ breath is furred Around their nostrils; and with snow deep-mossed The hut is barely seen, from which, uptossed, The wood-smoke pillars the icy air unstirred; And every sound, each axe-stroke and each word, Comes as through crystal, then again is lost. The sun strikes bitter on the frozen pane, And all around there is a tingling,—tense As is a wire stretched upon a disk Vibrating without sound:—It is the strain That Winter plays, to which each tree and fence, It seems, is strung, as ’twere of ringing bisque.

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

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

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

Bald, with old eyes a blood-shot blue, he comes Into the Boar’s Head Inn: the hot sweat streaks His fulvous face, and all his raiment reeks Of all the stews and all the Eastcheap slums. Upon the battered board again he drums And croaks for sack: then sits, his harsh-haired cheeks Sunk in his hands, rough with the grime of weeks, While round the tap one great bluebottle hums. All, all are gone, the old companions—they Who made his rogue’s world merry: of them all Not one is left. Old, toothless now, and gray, Alone he waits: the swagger of that day Gone from his bulk—departed even as Doll, And he, his Hal, who broke his heart, they say.

I stood upon a height and listened to The solemn psalmody of many pines, And with the sound I seemed to see long lines Of mountains rise, blue peak on cloudy blue, And hear the roar of torrents hurling through Riven ravines; or from the crags’ gaunt spines Pouring wild hair, where,—as an eyeball shines,— A mountain pool shone, clear and cold of hue. And then my soul remembered—felt, how once, In ages past, ’twas here that I, a Faun, Startled an Oread at her morning bath, Who stood revealed; her beauty, like the sun’s, Veiled in her hair, heavy with dews of dawn, Through which, like stars, burnt blue her eyes’ bright wrath.

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

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

We have worshipped two gods from our earliest youth, Soul of my soul and heart of me! Young forever and true as truth— The gods of Beauty and Poesy. Sweet to us are their tyrannies, Sweet their chains that have held us long, For God’s own self is a part of these, Part of our gods of Beauty and Song. What to us if the world revile! What to us if its heart rejects! It may scorn our gods, or curse with a smile, The gods we worship, that it neglects: Nothing to us is its blessing or curse; Less than nothing its hate and wrong: For Love smiles down through the universe Smiles on our gods of Beauty and Song. We go our ways: and the dreams we dream, People our path and cheer us on; And ever before is the golden gleam, The star we follow, the streak of dawn: Nothing to us is the word men say; For a wiser word still keeps us strong, God’s word, that makes fine fire of clay, That shaped our gods of Beauty and Song.