LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. Chap. Copyright No. Shelf_l__J>Ji . UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. ^ OF COAr Q jun e im ' SONGS OF DESTINY AND OTHERS BY / JULIA P. DABNEY Author of "Poor Chola," "Little Daughter of the Sun," etc. NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 1898 {Jf JUN IVED- Copyright E. P. DUTTON & CO. Ube 'fcnfcfcerbocfeer press, "Hew Korft CONTENTS. Some of Destiny. PAGE I. — Earth-Touch i II. — Fire-Baptism 17 III. — Star-Mist 20 IV.— Destiny 30 Miscellaneous poems. Miracle 36 Of My Star 39 Appassionato 40 To the Statue of an Arcadian Shepherd Boy 41 Thalatta 43 My Thrush 47 Oh, Happy Brooks 48 ^Eolus 50 A Dance of the Dryads .... 52 Bacchanal 55 Shadowland 56 Aspiration 58 The Cattle Coming Home ... 59 iii iv Contents. PAGH Tmolus 61 Mariners of the World .... 67 II Beato 68 Like the Lark 77 Autumn 78 Wind on the Sea 82 Madrigals 84 O Pale Cold Moon 87 The Will-o'-the- Wisps .... 88 Thor the Thunderer 91 The Valkyrier 93 Siegfried's Sword 97 Tithonus 99 Waking 102 Question 103 Take Her, Kind Death . . . .104 Sonnet — With a Bunch of Arbutus . . 105 Summer Midnight 106 Among the Mountains .... 107 An Idyl of June no My Love is Like the Dawn of Day . 113 Circumstance 114 The Fulness of Time . . . .115 Danube Boat-Song 115 Undine's Farewell to Huldebrand . 116 The Parcje 118 A Symphony of the Hills . . .122 Go Not, Long Summer Day . . . 130 To a Rose Cast Upon a Stream . . 131 Monadnock Crowned . . . .131 Contents. V PAGE Jetsam 133 Evensong 133 Progression 135 Vespers of the Hermits . I36 Sattva 139 Fly, My Song 140 I40 Upon a Romanza of Schumann 141 142 Never to Know .... 143 To-morrow and To-morrow and To morrow 145 Like a Lute Touched by Facile Fingers 145 Transmutation I46 Swallows at Sunset I46 Going out with the Tide I48 Allegro Giojoso .... ISO A Song of Blossom .... 152 A Wind Rushed out of the Sea . 153 The Lost Pleiad .... 155 Hymn to the Night 161 At Sunset 163 A Toast for the Year . . 165 Orpheus Sings . 168 Rhapsody . 176 Qowqs of Destiny " Give me truths, For I am weary of the surfaces." R. W. EMERSON. I. EARTH-TOUCH. \17E are but chaff, but chaff ' * Swept on the wind — Mocking storm-gusts that laugh, Whirling behind! Poise have we none our own, Axis and centre none, Motes in a void alone, Gaugeless and blind ! We are but leaves, but leaves Wrenched from the tree, Scattering fugitives No more to be; Knowing not where we go, Shrivelled and lying low, Blotted by shroud of snow Impotently! 9 io Some of Besting We are but breath, but breath Breathed from a sigh, Naught but a shibboleth Swift to pass by; Form is a shifting dream, Substance too frail to seem Aught but a transient gleam ; — Life all a lie ! Thus we disintegrate, Crushed by the law ? Sport of a ruthless fate, Cast on a shore Strewn of all wreckages, Chaos of that and this, Where there no purpose is < — This — and no more ? Into the fecund earth Falleth the seed, Prescient of coming birth Meet for its need. Folded in darkling coil, Warmed of the throbbing soil, Steadfast thro' night's despoil Till day succeed; J6artb=Goucb. Quick at its soul-sun's call Upward to thrust Soft shoot through moldy pall; Cleaving the crust, Drinking the sunshine there, Basking in fervid air, Building a being rare Out of the dust. Thus of its vital need, Thus it achieves; Breaking from rotting seed Burgeons to leaves ; Careth not what its power, Whether of tree or flower, Knows only 't is its hour And that it lives! Casts by the outworn shell Now, nothing loth, And by swift parallel Springs to new growth; Changing the outward sign, Guarding in secret shrine Alway the germ divine, Life of them both. Songs of testing. Once in each musky copse Dwelt there a god, Spirits on mountain tops, Souls in the clod. Winds brought the whispered word, And if a leaf but stirred It was a god, half-heard, Mystery-shod. Ah, in those ages old, Called pantheist, Backward perspectives rolled Into the mist, Simple men were of skill And all untutored, still Something they grasped at will Which we have missed. Poised in Nature's arms, Made of her part, Drained they life-yielding charms, Felt pulses start, — Far-centred overflow, Upsurging throe by throe, Through all their vitals go, Warm from her heart. jeartbs=Goucb. 13 Child-like, she held them true Sons of her ken, And the world's childhood knew Surelier then How faith the world unlocks. Here was no paradox; Live were the rivers — rocks ? Aye ! so were men ! We of a later age, Sated, grown wise, Come to our heritage Shorn of surprise. Science the wonder shames; Oar artificial aims Choke down the spirit-flames, Blot out the skies. Blind in our vain conceit, May we command One universe heart-beat ? Wake with our hand Star-glory, sunset flush ? Lay on the rose one blush ? Or yet as lark or thrush Praise understand ? 14 Sottas of 2>e5ttnE. Lo ! every side a truth Plain to man's sight, Spells of immortal youth Read but aright. Everywhere miracle, Nature's alembics full Of new life wonderful — Secrets of light! Still in thy bosom warm, Glad Mother Earth, Keep' st thou the secret charm Of death and birth. Winds bear the whispered word, Breathes it through beast and bird, And thy heart guards, deep-stirred, All we hold worth. Stripped of our cumbrous wants, Thee will we woo, Into thy sacred haunts Stealing anew, Thy simpler ways to heed: We are the seeking seed Laid of our vital need On thy heart true. Battb^Goucb. 15 We of thine element All are made one; Fashioned to like intent, Bared to same sun. Swinging to natural law, Equipoised more and more, Soul-breaths with thee we draw In unison. He who hath ears to hear Heed let him give, He who hath soul for seer Let him perceive Through thy sweet motherhood One universal good, One law, scarce understood, By which we live. Pulses that come from thee, (Rock-throes or flowers,) Bear all the mystery, Stir all the powers. Out of the husk-born strife Breaketh the god-head rife, — Life, universal life! — Thy God and ours ! 16 Songs of Besting. O sick and weary-wise, Once more return ! Underneath open skies Child-like grace learn; Here waits the mystic shrine, Lights unimpeded shine, And in the grove divine Your altars burn. II. FIRE-BAPTISM. pvARE! Thou shalt be as a god, *-^ And the worlds be given thee; At thy beck shall mountains nod, Thou shalt put a yoke on the sea; Unto thee be given — So thou prove worth — The keys of heaven As well as earth. The keys of the masterful occult powers That hold all cosmic force in fee, That leash the days and fetter the hours, The talisman of supremacy; If thou only fearless be, If thou do but dare ! Art thou not more than the bird of the air ? The beast of the field, the worm in his root ? Fear is the meed of the brute, 17 18 Songs ot Destiny The grosser reason that hath no hold Of higher elements manifold, So meets his cosmos mute. But thou — thou art master. And out of thy freedom greater And out of thy tenure vaster — Thine aspirations higher — Thou shalt be judge and creator, And thy thought shall purge as fire. When pale fear rise — The fleshly chill — Thou shalt kill! Thou shalt pierce through its sophistries Till a shell it lies. For thou must slay or be slain of it ! And Knowledge, the sanctifier, And Courage, with torch star-lit, Poised at the poles of life shall sit — On the heights of understanding — Arming the purpose that faints at naught, The flame of endeavor heavenward caught, And, ever expanding, expanding, The circles dynamic of thought. If I call to the deaf shall they hear ? If I sign to the blind shall they know ? 3Fire=3Bapti6m. 19 Yet we are both blind and deaf in our fear, Wrecking ourselves in the surface woe; Knowing not whither we go, Knowing not why we are here. Yet we should know. If we trace the steps below We must surely see those above; See the march of being move — The higher out of the lower, Each fulfilling its kind — From the germ to the opened flower, From the brute to the master-mind. And beyond all the forces we know There is force more imponderable, More sublimated, more vital, more fine, That shall breed a being more grand and full, With never a severed line; With never a break 'Twixt the far and near. For the touch electric reaches us here Straight from the astral sphere; And all shall be ours to take. Oh choose, and cease from the clod! Oh spirit of man, awake, Dare, and be as a god! III. STAR-MIST. I DREAMED I was a beggar at the gate, The beautiful gate wherethrough the busy throng Poured morning, noon, and eve — flux and reflux — Like some vast, surging sea; — some mighty- tide Now ebb and ebbing till with slimy tongues The parched weeds lick the palpitating rocks, Then flood and flooding with swift, briny breaths Drawn from mid-ocean deeps, and sun- shot sparkles Cleaving the emerald, as the shooting lights 20 Star^jfllbigt. 21 Cleave and transfuse a gem; and ever- more, With sonorous, majestic mastery, Rushing to fold the land in foaming arms! From the still, dewy dawns, when roseately The sun stole up and drowsed the morn- ing stars, Into the silver night sweeping the spheres With the trailed glimmer of her dusky robes, The great sea poured its never-ceasing flood, But always left me stranded — and alone. For I was one untoward fate had sealed With vicious brand; — a vile, distorted thing, Congenitally crippled; swept aside From that far-surging sea whereon my soul Would fain have sailed — a god-like ar- gosy— From port to port of fancy. Mine it was To lie amid the loathing of my rags And snuffle forth a cry for niggard alms; And, if some passer-by more prodigal Than others flung a ringing handful, fawn In gratitude o'er-feigned; — I who starved, 22 Songs of Besting. Starved for a food of higher elements! I watched the evening star climb up and up— A lambent beacon to the eyes of faith, A symbol meaningless to me — then drew My poor rags closer, crouched in grimmer mood To lift my dumb reproaches till the dawn. Alas! for days that pass and leave no sign, Rolled in a calendar of vapors, swept Like evanescent mists into the sea! Dim dreams — half dreamed, chaotic, neb- ulous, Tinged with a fringing light which never dawned — Would vaguely stir me with an unnamed pang To deeper wretchedness; — imaginings Of some diviner world to be embodied In harmony of form or tint or sound. Thoughts crowded on me as a flock of swallows Circle and vanish down a sunset sky. I might have been a master artisan, Fashioning dreams into fair stone, endued Star^dlMst. 23 With very gift of being; or, perchance, Evoked from out the dull, unsensing wood Rare visions, tinctured by th' enamelled wax To exquisite conception ; or, more free, I might have measured all the empyrean On the exalted wings of song. In me, Dim and disordered, stirred the vital germ — The central fire — which makes such visions live; Only the gross flesh held me in its leash: Only the flesh — the sordid, prisoning flesh- Held me in leash! Know'st thou the wounded eagle, A proud, strong thing, born to invade the heavens, Dragged helpless by its malady to earth ? Its very impotence a ruthless goad, It beats the traitrous air with frantic wings, And chafes, and strains, and trembles back again Broken and foiled. Oh, never, never yet Have I put forth the power that in me lies! 24 Sottas ot Destiny Slain by its outward hurt, my spirit's wings Battle with nothingness in passionate strife, Only to break in dust and lie more prone. And in a burning mist my dream went on. Once, on a languid noon when the whole land Lay in a semi-swoon of summer drouth, And the hot beams crawled down the parching walls, Pushing the narrowing shadow where, in- ert, Lay man and beast in a dull mid-day drowse, There came a mighty surge of trampling feet, And babel tongues of clamoring multi- tudes; And — as a sudden wind wakes answering voices Through silent tree-tops, passing stir to stir — There throbbed throughout the throng a murmurous cry, " Jesus of Nazareth! " And others asked, " Jesus of Nazareth who heals the sick ? " 5tar=flMst. 25 A sudden lull — as when a gusty pause Palsies the breeze — held the vast horde in check. I heard hoarse questionings and over all One vibrant tone soared like a silver flute. Less had a whirlwind moved me! Some wild power Lifted my crippled frame; I clutched and tore A bleeding passage 'mid the trampling feet — Deaf to the cursing, blinded to the pain — Until — withdrawn into a little space, Hemmed and encircled by the stertorous crowd — I looked upon him — him they called the Christ. Not like a conqueror came he, armed and crowned ; Not in a hero's guise; but meanly robed In bodily insignificance; yet still About his brow there dreamed an astral mist, As if he walked with angels and not men. Serene he stood, a starry presence. Then Nearer I crept, and with my wasted hands 26 Songe of Destiny Fingered his garments. Lightning-like he turned: " What would'st thou ? " and he dazed me with his glance. " What would'st thou, friend ? " " Lord, that I might be whole." ' ' Art thou not whole ? The soul is always whole. Behold! " Then leaning closelier he flamed In mine the revelation of his eyes. Strange, dusk-hued eyes wherein my spirit plunged And lost itself, while the mad, cavilling world — The sordid jostle and the empty noise — Slipt from me like shed flakes. I seemed adrift On some vast, inward, spirit-circled sea, Unstirred by mutable wind or mortal tide, Stretching from sight in fair beatitude — A mystical transparency. Everywhere There was a brooding glory like the day, But more transcendent ; yet I saw no sun, 5tar=dIM$t. 27 I only knew its presence; and strange lights — Dazzling prismatic tongues — transpierced the waters To untold depths. Illimitable space Throbbed with a luminous pulse, a corus- cation Of mingled flame and fluid ; — now suffusion Of myriad electric hues, now swept Into a paling glamor, lustrously Circling to wide affinities, outblotting All time, all gauge, all concept of con- dition ! And every tiniest atom seemed alive — One candent drop from some exhaustless fountain ! As in irradiate dawns fair lotus cups, Folded and dewy, feel the breath of day, And faintly, faintly, with a crucial throe, Tremble to waking 'neath the summoning beam; So with divinest tremors my soul woke ; And like a floating flower-cup I lay Draining wide draughts of sempiternal truth. And then meseemed this iridescent sea 28 Songs of ©eating. Was the life-tide of spiritual perception. The world which I had known was swept away; I stepped within the vaster world of knowl- edge. Creation is a myriad-fibred pulse Drawing its flame-beats from one central fire, One with it and indissoluble; so In all things is the vital touch innate — Worm or archangel; 't is the conscious sense Of the immutable glory which makes life ; And soul is recognition. Everywhere The lower doth ascend from law to law, In growths that brook no hindrance and no haste, Vast-organized, unstaying. We who hold Some glimmer of the Eternal, hold the keys Of grander or of meaner, with our thought Uplifting or debasing ; — mind being winged, And high thought spiritual presence realized. Nor flesh sets bounds to sublimated flight; These mortal manumissions men call death Star^/IBist 29 Being but doors which ope to wider ranges. Consists not life in spendthrift law of doing, But the supremer one of being; rests In the expanded orbits of the soul Whose axis is the central solar core — Is God himself ! One meteoric moment stood I thus, For truth is flashed by single signal fires When the initiate is ready; then — Dissolving like the pageant of a dream — The crowding, trampling human surge swept on, Leaving but hollow echoings in ears Held and attuned to finer cadences. And was I healed ? I never paused to ask. No more I feel the temporary dress. For me time is not, and those grosser webs — Self-spun — which sometime seem to clog the sense Are also melted like a sun-smit fog. He who is made alive in heart is whole, And hath nor claim nor question nor denial, But rests — a god — in the eternal law, Knowing his destiny. IV. DESTINY. '"THERE is no death, no death! The * veil is lifting, The veil is lifting from the mortal sight ! Dull fogs into Cimmerian deeps are drift- ing, Through premonitions of immortal light. There is no death, no death! The great stars beckon Like fiery guide-marks through the dark to day; We have our chart, the upward course we reckon, We cannot turn aside nor miss the way. 30 Seating. 31 There is no death, no death! Through unknown places We voyage with a true, unswerving helm; We sweep infinitudes of stellar spaces, Still aiming for some higher, vaster realm. We know the measure of our aspiration Is founded in the measure of the law, That cannot stay its own ordained crea- tion, But must advance, advance forever- more, — A seamless web ; with ending and beginning Fixed beyond the plenitudes of time, And which the soul of man is ever spin- ning Into a comprehension more sublime. We know the circles of increasing vision Shall probe in regions evermore su- preme, And shed the finite guises of transition As sleepers shed the vapors of a dream. 32 Songs of Besting. We know that change is but in man's per- ception Which metes all semblance by one little day, Still faintly schooled into that fine concep- tion Of life which cannot ever pass away. We know these fires of our inward yearning Which rend us with their purport, faint and dim, Are sacred flames upon God's altars burn- ing; The quickening links which bind us unto Him, — The immanent and all-pervading Presence, The one vast, throbbing pulse which moves the sphere, The indestructible and vital Essence By which alone we are, both now and here. Hast thou not seen the summer midnight dreaming testing. 33 On northern shores betwixt two mys- teries, From hemisphere to hemisphere still seem- ing Reflected currents of opposing skies, Whose flame-tongued surges, luminously- blending, The shadowy confines of all things im- merse, Like a full, orbic tide — far-rolled — unend- ing— To sweep the reaches of the universe ? Touched with a symboled aureole eternal, The great world lies in calm, trans- figured might, Surrendered to its syncope nocturnal, Surrendered to its miracle of light! The west still tinctured with a lingering glamor, The waiting east suffused with kindling charms, Till swiftly, with a rapt, celestial tremor, The morning takes the evening in its arms! 34 Songs of Besting Softly the gloaming melts, serene and tender, God-like the dawn-ray leaps, with flam- ing breath That swells and floods into majestic splen- dor — Into the day! There is no death, no death ! Miscellaneous poems. 35 MIRACLE. IT is day! Over the mountain tips The delicate stream Of a color-dream Wavers and flushes and slips; The pinnacles all are agleam As if they were swept by phantom lips. Every somnolent hollow, void With veils of night, hath decoyed Some amber shaft of day; Lurk as it may, The darkness is ravished away! The great crags laugh, and the little streams leap Heedless and headlong adown the steep, While the mist-wreaths upward and upward creep, To melt evanished — sifted and shaken — Life-overtaken. 36 dlMracle. 37 The face of the dappled meadow Folded in drowsy shadow Still lieth, but oh! the finger of love Shall over it move; Its beauty with new grace invest, And bid it awaken, Awaken and joy with the rest! Sunbeams acreep in the grass, Sunbeams aflame in the sky, Where great white cloud-pageants surging by Snatch rose-tints as they pass! The Earth is singing a song! Long, long She spins the winsome tune, Like a mother's cradle-croon To her infant ruddy and strong. To her love the budding year She sings in numbers clear, And where no live things were There passeth a stir; The slumb'rous ones hear it and under- stand ; At the word of loving command They haste to answer her. 38 /HMracle. For lyrics of Spring and Birth Singeth our Earth. Not a hillside so held in its wintry swoon, Not a naked forest so sere and brown But must feel a thrill of its power; Not a calyx so folded down But shall know its hour. 'T is as if a wizard's wand Had circled on every hand, Some chill enchantment had overthrown, And liberated the land. She is clothed anew, Our sweet Earth-Mother, All fresh things vying with one another Each to don a daintier hue! One could scarce tell whether The half-heard drift of the breeze Harping alone through the trees, Or those cloud-flakes so airily dressed, Or the flash of color but half expressed In yonder tall grass-feather, Be the tenderest; — All are so perfect together! ©f mg Star. 39 OF MY STAR. "THERE 'S a star that shines for me * In the brooding firmament, Past, present, and to be The goal of my heart's content. Mine evening star in the dark, My morning star with the day, She sheds through the heavenly arc Her soul's serenest ray. And so high she burns, and true, — Where the lights celestial are, — That she lifts me upward too With her love : — my star — my star ! goal of my heart, my star ! What matter if earth be cold, And error attempt to mar Love's miracles manifold ? 1 shall neither fail nor faint, I doff the burden of care, For she shields me from life's attaint, She fends from the world's despair. And aye through the firmament, As the holy gates unbar, I shall enter in and be blent With her love : — my star — my star ! 40 Bppassfonato. APPASSIONATO. PAOLO TO FRANCESCA. /^VH! I will love thee with a love so ^-^ strong That it shall breast the surge and bar the tide; My spirit on its passion swept along Must cleave to thine though worlds on worlds divide. I know no rest where thou dost not abide, Thine only touch my torn heart may re- store ; Divinely perishing, unsatisfied, As life doth fleet forever more and more Still will I love thee ! Oh ! I will love thee with a love so vast That it shall bridge o'er life and van- quish death; The storm, the strain, the anguish over- past, The darkness of this night which openeth To day, be as a flickered candle's breath. an BrcaDian SbepberD JBog. 41 The stars may fade, the universe past be, Yet, borne on pinions of a tireless faith, Across the threshold of eternity Still will I love thee! TO THE STATUE OF AN ARCADIAN SHEPHERD BOY. T^HOU blowest thy pipe on the lea, *■ And thy tame sheep answer thy call; The wind with its ungauged minstrelsy Wafteth thine echoes o'er many a sea; But the sweetest of all Is the song thou art breathing to me. The song of a world ever young, Unpoisoned of greed or of heat, An infant purity — long unsung, A faultless grace from the fair earth wrung, Wind-wings for the feet, And a paean on every tongue. In the jostling street's discord With its fetid atmospheres, The strongest arm must aye be lord. 42 Bn arcafcfan Sbepberfc JBog. Though the sky be high and the earth be broad, 'T is his fellows' tears He heaps with his impotent hoard. Away from the brutal stress — The false-dipping scale of the mart! There is no gold in the flower's dress, We may take of her treasure and leave none the less; To the unspoiled heart The lowliest things will bless. The forests no bargainings know, They spring not by custom or rule. Would'st thou rise to thy man-god stature ? — then go — Trust the Oreads — they will feed thee enow, In their worshipful school Where the soul-wings have room to grow. Lo! a presence peeped from yon wood, A star-smile flashed from the stream; The voices call us from forest and flood; In flutter of garments marvellous-hued, Cbalatta* 43 They start from a dream, And people the solitude. Lives there no touch to read The hieroglyph of this lore ? Shall life's pageant pass and never take heed ? Must our world lie fallow and barren indeed For centuries more, With its fruitless and slumbering seed ? Alas, for a grace long flown ! Alas, for the silent flute! I call to thee, but the echo's tone Mocks me, — the accents are all mine own; And thou ? — thou art mute, Thou shepherd boy carved in stone! THALATTA. CLOW, slow, ^ Over the sea, Low, low, And mysteriously, 44 dbalatta. Eddied, purling, Crisping, curling, Over the shallows and seaweedy beach, Down the dunes and the long sand- reach ; Sing thou a song to me! A languorous dream Of emerald deeps, Where the wan sunbeam Flickers and sleeps. Grottoes gemmed Amid phosphor seas, Fringed and hemmed With anemones. Many a column With nakre set; High dome solemn, Where waters fret. A palace beautiful Fit for a sea-king's rule; With portals dusky-wet, Weed-festooned and cool, For a sea-king's vestibule. Cbalatta 45 Sing me a song of the restless main, Great waves heaving and whelmed and crossed; The shrilling scream of the hurricane Over the drift of white foam tossed. A song of courage that could not fail, Ploughing the wastes of a pathless track; Of stout sails trimmed to the treacherous gale, Of ships that have sailed and never come back. Picture me too The valorous crew That the swirl of the waves down-drew. The ruthless effort, the pitiless strain Of arms that battle the surge in vain; Of flagging hands in their vice-like grip, Dank with the salt and the death-sweat drip; Of voices that call and are never heard; Of hearts through the death-pang torn and stirred Only to send back one word! Flow, flow, Over them flow! 46 Gbalatta* What do they know Of the opaline caves below ? Warm, warm Broods the summer calm. Far and near The sun burns clear Through a lucent atmosphere. Never a sigh Of strife gone by- Comes re-echoing here. Only an indolent sea-bird's cry, A sea-bird's cry and a charmed breeze Hushing the deeps with its lullaby: — These, only these. But white waves waking, Creeping, breaking Each over each, Pointing the beach With feathery spume, Dimpled and soft Like an outworn plume By sea-maid doffed; Ever come speaking The tale of a day, Of a ship that sailed away. — Ah me ! — was it yesterday ? /HbS Gbrusb. 47 MY THRUSH. A GAINST the burnished tint **■ Of saffron dreaming into opaline Through western skies, with half a hint Of evanescent green Above them in a shimmering overglow; Poised upon a long and leafless bough, Seeming between heaven and earth to hang, He swayed and sang. He swayed and sang as if his tiny throat Too fragile were to bear the ecstasy Of such divine heart-flood, Which through the solitude, With every leaping note, And every rhythmic trill, The measure of the silence seemed to fill. Ah ! not for him The creeping shadow and the cloistral gloom. His spirit hath no room For spectre dim, For pain, or darkness, or despondency, Or those strange pangs that lie 48 ©b, IbappE JBroohs I . Deeper than tears, which to the voiceless come. Far above all, He, like a prophet pure and passional, Fronting the illimitable flight Of day amid trails of light, Its promise seals, and through the em- pyrean Breathes his high paean: — A psalm of aspiration and delight! OH, HAPPY BROOKS! f^H, happy brooks that croon amid the ^-^ wood, Or lightly loiter by some leafy dell, Your voices are the songs of solitude, With limpid joy in every syllable, And tender tremors in your quirls and crooks. — Oh, happy brooks! The frail fern woos you, trailing through the wet, And fronds of crimson drink your over- flow, ©b, Ibappg aBtoofts ! 49 And star-eyed blossoms amid mosses set; While flights of sunbeams flicker as you go To sleepy pools some gnarled tree o'er- looks. — Oh, happy brooks! Dim dreams still greet us through the foli- age. Balsamic whispers, lingering lone and late, Tell of a sweeter and a simpler age — Revealed alone to the initiate — Which all our artificial day rebukes. — Oh, happy brooks ! Perchance within some far-withdrawn re- treat, Where dimpling ripple over green sedge slips, The wild-wood nymphs have viewed their image sweet, Or shyly kissed you with immortal lips, Then, startled, fled away to deeper nooks. — Oh, happy brooks! 50 Beolus. Oh, happy brooks that in your bosoms bear The soul of Arcady, forever young! You bring us all her joyance unaware; There is a living lyric on your tongue— A wordless essence of unwritten books. — Oh, happy brooks! JEOLVS. TJ EARD ye my sigh * * Wakened mysteriously Out of eternal space ? — From the midnight's bosom deep, From the arms of sleep, Wafted it knoweth nor whence nor why; Gift with the grace Of celestial space; Soft as unuttered note That low in the fledgling's throat Hovereth, hovereth; Faint as a breath Of roses as they die. — Heard ye my sigh ? Beolus. 51 Heard ye my song Whispered the stars among ? I touched with my finger-tips On the airy drifts of cloud Till they laughed aloud And swept my tender flutings along; As a young thing sips With eager lips And joyance of heart and limb, The goblet filled to the brim; — The cup o'erfoamed and rife With life, life, life, With young life, sweet and strong! Heard ye my song ? Heard ye my call ? — My herald of festival ? I swept off the early dew From lilies in pooled nook; Drowsed buds I shook; I leaped with the rainbowed water- fall; And I loitered to woo Where great fern-tufts grew; I ruffled the silent lake, And I bade the forests awake, — 52 B Dance of tbe 2>rgaos. Awake and follow, follow! From holt to hollow, Lo! I will gather them all! Heard ye my call ? A DANCE OF THE DRYADS. CHANT ROYAL. rAUSK on the terrace towers the dream- **"' ing pine, The chestnut slumbers up the craggy steeps, The budding broom low-droops in drowsy line, The myrtle in the shadowy hollow sleeps. The strong air, whence all life doth ema- nate Forever, in quiescent mood doth wait, And leaves the land wrapped in ethereal trance ; — Not one untuneful note nor dissonance To steal a glamour from the perfect night, B Bance of tbe Dr^aDs. 53 While down the mossy coverts we ad- vance. — 'T is good to taste the measure of de- light! Bind garlands; dill with violet combine, Woven with cassia and wind-flower that weeps. Around our brows wreathe the lush, trail- ing vine, Through whose dark folds the ripening cluster peeps. Across the greensward fair nymphs, hasting late, Shall scatter buds and blossoms delicate, So that, amid the glittering expanse, Wherever foot shall fleet or vision glance The fragrant flood the spirit shall invite, And the sense feast on rich luxuriance. — 'T is good to taste the measure of de- light! Hold the hands fast, — the fond clasp inter- twine, As up the seven-voiced pipe the music creeps; 54 a Dance of tbe ©rgaos. And, when the winged lyre shall give the sign, Let loose the fetters of young blood that leaps! Lithe forms shall twirl and tremble, mate to mate, And young lips make the silence passionate With the glad life that springs for utter- ance. No laggard step, no fret nor dalliance To stay the rapture of the midnight's flight, Love leadeth and immortal is the dance. — 'T is good to taste the measure of de- light! O Golden Artemis, upon us shine The livelong hours! Where thy pure radiance sweeps, The world is made mysteriously divine, And living wonder lurks in hidden deeps. Dionysos crown we in his regal state With vine and fruit, and hail him king, elate; ffiaccbanal. 55 And purple-stained Pan, whose haunts we chance. Above them all thy glorious countenance Reigneth supreme — a universe alight: Make thy supernal kiss our heritance. — 'T is good to taste the measure of de- light! BACCHANAL. OAISE on high the cup, -^ Pour the fiery wine, Ruby, frothed, and fine; Fill it up! Lo! how dance the sparkles in the light, Shot with kisses from the burning sun; Lo! how bubbles foam and break from sight, O'er the beaker's brink, And adown the flagon over-run. Drink the perfect wine! Drink the gift divine! Drink! Drain the draught again; Fire unconfine; 56 SbaDowlanD. Mark with burning sign Heart and brain! Through the sources floods the flaming throe, Every thew and sinew waxing strong; And the winged spirit 'neath the glow All forgets to think, Leaping upward in spontaneous song. Drink the perfect wine! Drink the gift divine! Drink! SHADOWLAND. BACKWARD and forward the shadows go Over this veil which we call life, Shifting and drifting to and fro, Spun in a vague and vanishing show; — Shadow and shimmer rife. Greeting, they pass in the fluctuant drift; Drifting, they meet and greet and are gone, Some with the seeming touch of a gift, Some undefined, as the low mists sift, Some like a sigh forlorn. SbaDowlanD. 57 What are they seeking and what do they bring ? What do they do with that thing called life? Lift they it up for an offering ? Sink it in slough as an animal thing ? Crush it with low-born strife ? One swift turn of the whirring wheel, One short turn of the wheel of Time; Out the figures familiar reel, New shapes into the pageant steal ; — Puppets in pantomime! What doth it matter if tear or smile Paint the hour that fleets away ? We too — we — in a little while Out of the vapors shall silent file Into the yesterday. What hast thou found in that shadowland — Knowledge-mongering egotist ? Hast thou a grasp of a spectral hand ? Hast thou a foothold on which to stand — Thou shadow out of a mist ? 58 B6pfratton. ASPIRATION. "CADE world, and leave me free! * Fade sense! So that the meanings of Omnipotence Burn clear in me. Like infants' murmurings Pass strife! Thou dost not touch the central core of life, But fleeting things. O'er circumstance and time Sweep soul! And know them vapors which have no control Of things sublime Why, like a homeless waif Forlorn, Should I against each gross, low-lying thorn My spirit chafe ? Why, like a driven leaf, Wind-thrust, Cbe Cattle Coming Dome, 59 Toss aimless with each momentary gust,— My clasp as brief ? Pavilioned over all, Star-fed, The Heaven of eternal thought is spread. Therein, withal, My hungered soul may fare, And draw The life-elixir of that higher law, And blossom there. THE CATTLE COMING HOME. ALL Ipswich marshes lie ashine, Held in the flame-trance of the sun That burns the west to panoplies Of gold and crimson, pearl and dun. Wan vapors wreathe the misty line Of hills that link the land cross-wise; While through the nearer marshlands run The tidal rillets, serpentine And sluggish, with half-opened eyes; And all the emblazonment of skies In them reflected lies. 60 abe Cattle Coming 1bome. All living nature seemeth dumb, The land enwrapt in endless still, And bird and insect silent, till A tender wind begins to blow From the remotest hill. And fitfully the echoes grow Of footfalls faint that nearer come; And, now and then, breathes soft the low Of the cattle coming home. Footfalls that greaten and grow clear Across the twilit meadows far, Till through the dusk the horns — spread wide — Of Black Bess come, and then the star Of Silverhead, and they are here ! In laggard ranks, half side by side, Half trailed in lines dissimilar That break and join and interfere, Of bovine dullness occupied, They push where marsh and creek divide, And tramp the painted tide. They stamp amid the gleaming loam, And break my pictures beautiful; And up the wet stalks, dark and cool, Gmolus. 61 They scatter glories through the grass From each prismatic pool. But now the sweet lights fade and pass, To leave the land in monochrome; — I only catch the moving mass Of the cattle coming home. TMOLUS. /^VUT came he from his forest fastnesses, ^^ From mossy grottoes where naiads bathe and drink; For the hidden haunt of the timid stag is his, And the lair of the bear and the skulk- ing wolf and mink. Up through the palpitant air his tawny mountains Cleave like a frozen billow, wave on wave, Wet with the ceaseless tears of an hundred fountains, Torn with inward throes into chasm and cave. 62 amolus. Now were the naked crests flushed saffron and pink, Touched by the finger-tips of the god- dess Aurora, As, up and down, to the very precipice brink, The fearless feet of her airy chargers bore her. Still down the valley's flanks the forest slumbered, Purples and shimmering grays and melt- ing blues, Where — hoary shafts erect, a host unnum- bered — The great trees ranged in endless avenues. And ever back and forth hung the moun- tain mist, Webbed through the leaves, a pale, diaphanous thread, Till caught in the rosy arms of the dawn and kissed, And who shall say where it turned and vanished ? Hmolus. 63 Stumbling out of his deeps came the great god Tmolus, Rugged and stern and shorn of tender- ness; For the dawn's enticements he cared not a flat obolus, And he shaded his shaggy brows from the wind's caress. He blew out the cups of the flowers that dance and glisten, He swept the forests aside with a turn of his shoulder, He folded his hirsute arms and paused to listen On the barren crest of a tempest-ravened boulder. Over against, on a crag, sat the great god Pan, To his mouth his belt of reeds, close- bound and hollow; And near, on a rose-tipped cloud, in the image of man, With his stringed shell in his hand, lay Phoebus Apollo. 64 Gmolus. The matted locks of the great Pan did eclipse The little horns that above his temples grew, As he raised the syrinx up to his eager lips, And a challenge smiled to the world as he softly blew. Out of the seven-voiced pipe came Earth's sweet stress; The wood-dove's amorous plaint, and the tender coil Of blossoms shyly oped to the sun's caress, The very throe of the seed in the germi- nant soil. Over the lands went the wood-wild sum- mons voicing; Little brooks laughed and a smile swept over the seas, And the hill-tops echoed the strain with swift rejoicing, For never were heard such ravishing sounds as these! ftmolus, 65 Then the other attuned his lyre, and, pre- luding With fitful cadence and dissevered chord, Touched idle fingers over the vibrant string; Then into a lofty rapture swept and soared. Fraught with ecstasy, thrilling with pas- sionate pain, Life and Love incarnate seemed to spring, As up and up swelled the strong, compell- ing strain, And set the heart of the universe an- swering. Great gnarled forest trees rocked, line on line, Delicate flowers sprang up from the emerald sod, And ferns reached forth, each on its quiver- ing spine, As all of them turned their heads and faced the god. 66 Gmolus, Wild creatures, one by one, each from his lair, The summons breathed in the searching theme obeyed; The little fawn came down with the savage bear, And the wood-squirrel with the serpent, unafraid ; While out from the forest glooms and the broken rocks, With many a twitter and chirp and twirl and twire. All feathered things swept down in rushing flocks, And hung like a cloud above the god and his lyre ! Then, with a thunderous cry from his high retreat, Down did the mighty Tmolus madly spring, And flung his ponderous bulk at Apollo's feet ; — " Lo! thou hast borne me a soul; art thou not king ? " Mariners of tbe TD&orlo. 67 MARINERS OF THE WORLD. I\/l ARINERS of the world, * * * Whither, whither steer you ? Your sails so swift unfurled By fitful winds are whirled, The treacherous shoals are near you. Nor gauge nor guide the great main hath, The void no almanac, How plough the wastes without a path ? How know the shifting track ? How shall the distant port be won — The harbor of the sun ? Mariners of the world, Whither, whither speed you ? With surges tossed and curled Some soaring beacon need you. Stout of limb, What may force avail you ? Skies grow dim, * Oar and silk sail fail you. Trust not your souls to the bending spars; Steer by the stars, Mariners of the World ! 68 1TI ffieato. IL BEATO. A meditation of the painter, Benozzo Gozzoli, upon the death of his master, Fra Giovanni Angelico da Fiesole. T T E is gone — the master — him I have * * served so long, My star from the shining firmament hath set! No more through the matins I hear celes- tial song, For earth unto earth hath repaid her mortal debt, Freeing the soul to blossom to endless light; It is I alone who am left in the void and night. II Beato, men called him — the blessed — but which of them knew The whole intent of his holy and high desire ? For the purified vision is given only a few To see through the veiling flesh to the altar fire 1TI JBeato. 6 9 Streaming upward and upward in flame divine, Making the human heart as a temple shrine. God wot he might portray Heaven ! Nearer to him Was the atmosphere of that high society Than the cloisters he dwelt amongst, and the cherubim Swept him alway with their wings and kept him free From the sordid touch of the world's con- tinual jar, Till his sanctified spirit greatened into a star. He could rest tranquil where lesser men importune, He never strove for his vision ; prayer- ful and dumb, He waited the word of his Lord in rapt commune, Knowing surely the summoning call would come. 70 1TI JSeato. Then he would rise and toil, and his love was such The very colors glowed deeper beneath his touch. Impotent mortar waxed to a sentient grace, And tenderest life awoke from the sense- less panel, The praise in his heart shining out of each saintly face As if of itself, — his hand the uncon- scious channel Of that tide of inspiration which might flow Through all men's veins if all were but pure enow. Instinct with passion, fresco and triptich grew warm, Like a glittering weapon drawn from the shrouding sheath; But those who only see the color and form Miss the finer truth of the meaning underneath; A truth immeasurably mystic, sweet and choice — Too elusive for speech, which only music might voice. 1H JBeato. 71 For color and form be but the elements, The cosmic forces, that pass through the crucible Of the poet's fiery thought, to issue thence Transmuted into a power of finer spell Than merely the lineaments of beauty and youth, To breathe through the ages immortal love and truth. I sometimes think that he never saw the world At all, but dwelt serene on the mountain tops. For him over noisome fens drifted vapors pearled, And only light filled the dark, ensan- guined copse, While the sunset held alway a vision of angels' wings To his rarefied sight, so lifted in highest things. The world in its feverish strife — athirst, adust — Hath need of a few winged souls from its weary level 72 1FI JSSeato. To rise and sow broadcast the seeds of a trust Too crowded with grace to harbor a cleft for devil. Though they walk 'midst their fellow-men unsceptred, unseen, The ground is holy wherever such souls have been. So dwelt the master — of us, yet not of us; * A lamp in the portal, a star in the in- finite arc, Shining in fixed faith unswervingly — thus — Whether men paused to see or passed in the dark. The few who gathered around him to pen- cil and paint Caught, as he touched us, the aureole of the saint. The many beheld in him only a dreamer of dreams; A unit — apart — in a self-colored world all ideal; But which of us all can swear that the thing as it seems 1TI JBeato, 73 Through the shifting report of the rec- usant sense is the real ? The impact external — self-centred, self- serving, confined — Or the outpouring shaft of light from the luminous mind That knoweth existence can only be such as we seek Or make with the thought of its govern- ance ? 'T will be the brute, If the mind look for brutishness only; let the soul speak, And, under the rule of love made abso- lute, Life would spread out like a deep, trans- lucent pool Mirroring Heaven, awesome and beautiful. Ah, methinks that the strain of spirit for- ever high-fixed Must sharpen away the links of this bodily chain To slenderest threads; for we live two worlds betwixt, And though the higher must still of the less be fain 74 W JBeato. A lingering while, the veil is so thin — so thin — The hallowed thought might lift it and glance within. God is a spirit; they who would worship Him Must come in the spirit's wedding gar- ment drest; Purified, purged of the personal rags that dim Hearing and sight from the union mani- fest: — Uttermost self-surrender, passionless, still, Volition absorbed in the one Supernal Will ! At one — at one! — one with the causal whole ; The circle perfect, rounded on every side! Then indeed through the open gates of the soul The gaugeless truth would rush in a rapturous tide; And God revealed be with never a bar, Life of lowliest atom or loftiest star! f I JSeato, 75 Their very essence and being — all that is: The outward semblance being the en- velope, The beautiful vesture of God, in genesis: — Sun-vapors over the Hills of Eternal Hope Drifting to law of sequence transitory Till vision grow strong enough for the un- veiled glory. God is a spirit; we of His handicraft, Gendered of Him, are we not spirit too ? And where in immortal should ever the mortal shaft Of passion or pain find a weakness to welter through Save in the thought of wrong ? If the thought be light, The beacon is up and the way is clear through the night. And the Reaper grim, what should he claim of us Save the robe we want no more and would lay aside 76 f 1 3Beato. For other covering — larger, more lumi- nous — Lest the shell the spirit's expanding grandeur hide ? Grudge him not shadows: starveling he is at last, For we pass not away, but only seem to have passed. Oh, rest not foiled in the sense of a pigmy stature, Lost in atmospheres of mutable earth ! Rather rise to the grasp of our puissant nature, — Children of Light that we be — and know our worth; Know we might be as Gods so we dared to be, And over evil and death hold the mastery. Joy, for the hope immortal, now and here ! Joy, for quickening power, never stayed! Though prisoned still with the gyves of self and fear, Though the seal of my liberty be long delayed, 3Lifce tbe ILarfe* 77 I have lifted a tithe of the veil for a daz- zled glance, And I know the Truth that is neither dream nor chance. Did I say he had died — my master ? Ah no, no death On growth so perfect could lay its finite part, And he who hath alway breathed the heav- enly breath Could only rise more high for the flame in the heart; If I seem to have lost him 't is only that sight is too dim, Too fearful, too stultified still to follow him. LIKE THE LARK. T IKE the lark, like the lark *-* Cleaving the heavenly arc, On quivering wings rejoicing, A vision of sunrise voicing, And flinging his message o'er open and cloud Till the very winds sing aloud, 78 autumn. In the spell of his rapture caught : — So uprises my thought. The song of the lark must end And the singer descend. Weary at last in his flight, The paean hushed and the sweet throat dumb, Sorrowful, shorn of delight, He must sink — sink — sink and alight; Back to earth he must come. But my thought, but my thought Abideth, returning not. For oh ! through the aether rare It hath soared and trembled and drifted, — Drifted all unaware Through the shining gates uplifted, And hath found its harbor there: — For my thought is a prayer. AUTUMN. 1VTOW come the days when life awhile * ^ stands still, And, wrapped in temperate contemplation, views Butumn. 79 All that shall be and was ; with opened eyes Reads presage in what seemed but dark- ened text Writ cross-grained on the pages of the past, And, mirrored in the future, dimly sees The promise perfected ; — so dares to pause And let the calm peace fill and be fulfilled. Thus Nature pauses too and lets the year — Her finite guise — put on ephemeral hues, And pander sense to sense, and pass away, The semblance of its brief day being o'er, Robed in the fitting splendors of decay. Past is the travail of birth and tender growth, The pang of blossoms waste by early storms, Of fruitful buds made cripple and distort By unsought frosts. Past is the summer's glut Of rounded branch and perfect foliage. The fierce noon-heat hath bred the tem- pest-gust And the destroying whirlwind, which have torn 8o autumn. Filament from filament, scorched with searching fires The springs of being. Only all these throes Are overpast, forgotten, swallowed up Beneath that healing touch of joy which links Finite with infinite ; and so to-day Nature doth lend to sense her inward grace. Lo ! up the steeps of trending hillsides, wrapped In sombre mantle of the conifers, Now here, now there, like flocks of flame burst forth The conflagrations of the maples, each Flaunting to each a more o'erwhelming glow. Over the gray, hoar rocks the mercury Rushes in scarlet fires, and leans to wreathe The white and purple asters, and to mix Its gleams amid the many-feathered weeds. By every lonely pool the gentian lifts Her modest head in eloquent loveliness ; While here and there some long-spared goldenrod autumn. 81 Still nods and strives to glean an after- math Of sunshine. Russet stand the seeded ferns, And brown and burnt the nut-trees; every hour Opens a little more the shrouding burr Until some wind in idle sport shall pass To shake the laughing harvest to the ground. And, last of all the maskers lingering At this prolonged feast, the solemn oaks Wait in their bronze and purple draperies, Whose tints through pearled distances do melt In a chromatic scale of color, — wait To see the year a little older; then By one and one, by leaf and twig and branch, They doff and gently rustle to their feet The useless garments they shall need no more. Why should we shrink where Nature never shrinks ? Why should we not take heart of her whose heart 82 TOno on tbe Sea. Enfolds the germ of all things ? — dare to stand With spirits bared before the ineffable light, As she against the glory of the dawn Lifts naked arms, all-welcoming the day ? And then, with her, lie down in quiet trust A sweet, brief space, beneath the coverlet Of the warm purifying snows, and sleep The peace of these waste senses' parting dream, A wondrous sleep that doth awake in spring. WIND ON THE SEA. \\ 7 HIP me my chargers — my chargers * * that wait in the bay ! For sluggard are they With the heats of the day. They are lying nose-deep in the cooling brine, Snuffing the saltness up like wine, Held of the drowsy drink supine. Never a shake of the shaggy mane, Never a toss of the tail again, THainD on tbe Sea, 83 Never a white hoof lifted plain, Never a ripple of spray; Only a low, slow, indolent side Heaving at ease on the mid-summer tide, While the Nereids wait to ride. Whip me my chargers ! Deal them a mid- sea blow, Scourge them, and lo! A flicker of snow, Of opal, of amber, of aquamarine, The amethyst's flush and the emerald's green, With deep, dark indigoes blended between. For never was gem of such irised glow As my chargers' lifted breasts When they heave their shoulders and shake their crests, And turn at the winds' behests. Curbless, riderless, wild, and free As the tempest-mothers whose foals they be, Like heralds of equinox, They rear themselves from the undulant sea, Break and unite in a reckless dance 84 flftafcriaate. Each over each, with their manes askance, Combing the blue in their swift advance; And where harbor with land inlocks, Fierce with the pulse of the savage north, Nostrils hissing, inflamed and wroth, White flanks laved of the churned froth, They leap foam-mouthed on the rocks! MADRIGALS. DEAR her my love, sweet flowers, — my ■*— ' very love Of loves! For, through life's noon-day toil and heat, My steadfast heart hath lain beneath her feet Unnoticed. And perchance thy worth may prove My heart's prayer, with her image inter- wove. Bear her these kisses that I press on thee; She will not know I kissed thee, so maybe Against her own dear cheek thou mayst be pressed; dRaortgals. 85 And call those tremulous dews upon thy breast Mine unshed tears for her long cruelty. II. Oh! the sweet glamor of her presence! glance, And touch, and tones of voice, and whim- sied arts Too numberless for speech, that snare all hearts Forever! I seem living in a trance That hears her voice in every breeze, and plants Her image on all objects, pure and sweet. Ah! were I lying low, my race complete, And over where I slumbered she should pass, Methinks that as her footsteps crushed the grass My very dust must rise and kiss her feet! III. Dear, though I do not hear thy loving speech, Nor see thy heart within those fond eyes shine, 86 d&aDrtgals, Deeper than time or separation reach I feel thy love inevitably mine. My compline and my matin prayer are thine, — Thine image veiling every servile thing; Thou livest in my heart as in a shrine Where my most secret thought comes wor- shipping. IV. To know love is bringeth the full content. Those outward things — contact and sight and speech — Though they be rapture's self, can scarcely teach A deeper meaning unto love's consent; They are to knowledge but the complement. O Sweet, we hold those outward symbols less Than that deep consciousness of inward stress, And love asks little of the perfect love. So silence falling doth in essence prove The soul's profoundest union, — fathom- less! © Ipale ColD dfcoon. 87 O PALE COLD MOON. f~\ PALE cold Moon, ^^ With shadowy, ever half-averted face; Chill at the core where fires should be bright; Sweeping inanimate through soundless space, Thou seemest but a spectre of the night — An astral vision of long-fled delight — A passion spent too soon ! Tell me, against thy silent heart doth beat No lingering note from out the melody Of that celestial tune Thou once went singing in thy round com- plete ? Some echo from the spheral choirs to cheat Time of its vast stagnation ? Or hast thou, Hast thou too tasted of that numbing air Which rives all joy of power to quicken, saps Cinereous sense of sympathy, and snaps The live, tense, thrilling cords; so leaving thee, Hardened and dimmed, a burned-out en- tity, 88 Gbe 1KHlU*© , =tbe=11CUsp0, Down through the empty spaces of despair Emptily whirling ? O Moon, the mantle of thy silver zone Wraps all a glamored world with phantom charm Of frosty glory which can never warm One single germ to being; no, not one. On me, too, lies a superficial light, The paled reflection of diviner things, But underneath the ash with cinder clings, A colophon of blight. Moon, in thy hollow pageant thou art not alone ! THE WILL-O'-THE-WISPS. TRIP, trip, * Slip, slip, Like a spark Where the dark Beds of ooze Lines confuse With their gases! Forms surprising, Swift uprising, Zbe mill*®'*tbe*mi6V6. 89 Rend the vapors With their capers. Open pinions! — We are minions Of morasses. Flitter, flutter; Nothing utter; Dumb, dumb; Turn and twist With the mist, Through the masses Of dank grasses. — Lo! we come, we come! Through the ditches and the fosses, If a soul our pathway crosses, Woe to him, woe to him! Nerves shall falter, eyes grow dim, And the vigor from its sources Shall depart each limb. In confusion, in delusion Nothing seeing, nothing heeding He must follow all our leading. Now surround him, Swift confound him, Daze him, craze him, sore amaze him, All his senses chain ! Then advancing, dancing, glancing, Turning, shooting, convoluting, Leap again — again! So bewilder and deceive him; Then we '11 leave him, then we '11 leave him To his vain imaginings. Thus we treat unwary mortals That dare venture through our portals: — We are tricksy things! Now to cover! Sport is over, Over is our holiday. No remaining, Night is waning, So, complaining, We must hurry, Worry, flurry, Swift to hide our play. Scour the ledges! Sweep the sedges — Marsh and meadow ; — Into shadow Hie away! Gbor tbe Gbunoerer. 91 Flutter, flicker Quicker, quicker! Day is waking, Dawn is breaking, Overtaking Every star. Faint, far, Fade from sight; Quite, quite Into night. Out light! — Vanished we are! THOR THE THUNDERER. OUT of the North thou comest, Thor the Thunderer! Robed in thy cosmic majesty, Thor the Thunderer! The winds from unknown voids Shall fillet thy brow; The polar hurricane Whirl in thy hair; And, gemming the belt of thy power, As a zone of jewels resplendent, 92 Gboc tbe GbunDerer. The fulminant clouds encincture thee. The heavens furnish thy throne, The mountains thy footstool be; As thou comest, insolent, haughty, To claim thine own. Thou shalt sport with the spheral Earth, The labor of cycles shake; — Toss the Earth as an infant's toy, And she shall tremble before thee. In her darkest caverns The griping throe of fear shall pass, The moan of travail be heard. The deeps shall shudder and heave, Shall shrink with a prescient dread At thy touch, O Master of Terrors! As when from lairs remote In the thorny wildernesses, The monarch of beasts, The mighty lion, arousing, Leaps superb from his covert; And shaking the mat of his shaggy mane, And lifting his tawny muzzle on high, Flings over river and forest His resonant, menacing challenge; Every stricken creature that hears, Turning from sleep or carousal, TaalfcErter. 93 Dripping the fear-born sweat from its flanks, Mouthing delirious foam, — Fleeth, fleeth In panic it knoweth not whither; So tremble the aeons before thee, So cowers the Earth at thy feet, Thor the Thunderer! THE VALKYRIER. TJEAREST thou not the maidens rush- * * ing — rushing — Swift through the shadowy night, The rythmic tread of their plunging chargers crushing The clouds in headlong flight ? Fair are they, of a passing fairness seem- ing, With starry eyes that blind; The loosened bands of their shining tresses streaming In the wind which whirls behind. 94 tDalkgrjer. Strong are they, large-limbed and lithe and supple, With coursers fierce and tense; The twain of them a grand and terrible couple Hurled through the elements. Daughters of Asgard, bathed in immortal fire, Forms of power and grace, Immortally they ride with a god-like ire Aflame in each upturned face. Oh! they must ride and ride and naught disturb them; Nor starry deeps profound, Nor wastes of space nor the whirlwind's onslaught curb them As they haste to the fatal ground. Theirs the task 'mid the savage stress of battle, When the valorous arm shall fail; When the trusty broadsword snaps and the mace-blows rattle On shivering links of mail; Walfegrter. 95 Through hideous labyrinths, with death- blood reeking Of perished man and horse, To pass with unscathed footsteps, seeking — seeking The hero's stiffening corse. All silent they uplift, the prone form placing On the chafing charger's back; Then away, away! — again to their furious racing Up the heaven's pathless track. For aye, within the portals of Valhalla, He who is nobly slain, Fallen as brave men fall in deeds of valor, In glory lives again. Odin's own shall he be, his favors tasting, Fruits of fire and sword, And shall sit in well-earned leisure grandly feasting At the Gods' exhaustless board. And the maidens serve. From many a regal flagon, In cups of dazzling ore, 96 IDalkgder. All weirdly wrought with scroll and rune and dragon, The foaming mead they pour. So evermore with sound of mighty wassail The lofty roof-trees ring, Where the great Gods sit with every hero vassal, Supremely banqueting. When through the northern skies the bur- nished arrows Of boreal archers shoot In a scintillant arc that swells and dips and narrows, With streamers revolute; And there falls a strange, unearthly throb and crackle Through crisping air and frore, An echo of fiery steeds and the hurtling tackle Of men at deadly war; Know 't is the Valkyr maidens swift ad- vancing Again up their ancient track, SiegtzicVe Sworfc. 97 And the weapons of heroes, glorified, and glancing O'er a charmed zodiac. SIEGFRIED'S SWORD. /\ A ASTERFUL gods have made decree * * * Whoso striveth invincibly Semi-god with themselves shall be; Whoso stands through the nether strife Forging himself in the darkness rife Graspeth the talisman of life! Fierce I forge through the night and dark, Lurid leap of the anvil'd spark Lifting the cavern's tenebrous arc. Out of the gloom and grime and smutch Springeth the glory that steads so much, Clod transmute at a master-touch. Blows but smite to unite the whole; There, a breath of the living coal, Here, the rivets which bind the soul. 98 QicQitieVs SworD. Men may pass in a world outside, Light lips scoffing unsatisfied, Here by the fiery forge I bide Wrestling, sole, where no others know; Stern, invincible, blow by blow Forging the brute world's overthrow. Every clang of the weltering steel, Every stroke on the blade I deal Marks a throe of the inward weal. This for the high thought held apart; This for a nature that beggars art ; This for the sign of a stainless heart; This for courage that knows no flinch; This for endurance, inch by inch; This for calm at the final clinch. Out of my solitude, gloom, and grime Forge I the tool of a dream sublime, Forge I the sword that shall vanquish Time. Poignant, flexible, flame-endued, See it flash from its sheathing rude — Flash in the hand that knows it good — Gftbonus. 99 Hot from the spirit's armories; Fruit of my heart, of my handcraft, this Greater than Thor with his hammer is ! Systems shall fall — a universe rock; This shall cleave through the cyclic shock Bringing to all things their Ragnerok. Spelled am I in immutable youth, Girt with the weapon of god-like sooth: — Lo! the sword I have forged is Truth! TITHONUS. AN AUTUMN ODE. A LAS, Tithonus! **■ What dost thou here where all the world is dead, And all the summer paeans have passed away, And through the clouding day The singers upon south-bound wings have fled:— What dost thou here ? Lo ! all the earth is naked, bald and sere. ioo Gttbonu0. In covert damps that bear the wood-beasts print The star-weed withers with the fragrant mint; And on the gusty breeze Pale, downy seed-wings scud to farther leas. One single reedy head Stands like a rattling phantom at the gate Of summer, where the sweet days lingered late. A frosty vapor veils the shining hills, And all the solitary lowland chills. From far away there steals a shivering breath, A single note of sorrow unforgot, A still , pervasive, brooding hint of death : — But thou — thou heedest not. Thou heedest not, Tithonus ! All too soon The frore spear pierceth through thy sum- mer sheath; Upon the faded sward thou liest prone. And who shall count the wealth that thou hast known Of glutted golden hours, so full, so full Uttbonus, ioi Of the rich shows of life — fleet, beautiful ? So full of idle sport and idler song, So crowded with delights the whole day- long Thou couldst not dream of ending, no, nor think Life kept a hemlock draught for thee to drink ; Nor yet divine — this frozen midnight o'er — Earth should awake once more. And we, Tithonus, What have we, vagrants, more than thou to show For all the plenitude of summer's glow ? What have we garnered from our golden prime Of that potential promise which low-lies Beneath the song and dance and all which dies, — That flowering of the spirit, sweet and wise ? Have we not lived, like thee, a transient hour Creatures of chance and ignorant of our dower, 102 TKHafefng. So that when Autumn turns her sombre page We have no guerdon but the pains of age ? Ah me, Tithonus! Are we not also Prodigals of Time ? WAKING. IT is as if my soul had slumbering lain * A senseless cumbrance; as, wrapped in strange calm, In ancient crypts those little seeds of grain For aeons have slept in duskiness and balm. Yet when men feed them to the fecund soil They burst at once in leaf and bud and coil. None dream the years they lay quiescent there ; Kingdoms have crumbled since they fell asleep, Awaiting for the single breath of air, The single fervid touch of sun, to leap From death-trance in a long-forgotten tomb Into a living joy of leaf and bloom. Question. 103 And I have wakened. Oh! I cannot know Whether my soul shall bear or bud or flower; I only feel the surging life-blood flow, I only live my joy from hour to hour. It is enough the sun hath breathed to rive My slumb'rous death, and that I am alive! QUESTION. T T OW does my soul know God ? How, * * 'neath the roof O'er wintry waters cast, Do torpid creatures that wait in the frozen cloof Know that the sun hath passed Unseen its vernal line ? And suddenly River and silent pool Are overflowing, like whirled sands in the sea, With new life wonderful. How does my soul know God ? How does the moth Feel a tremble of power, 104 Gafce Der, IrtnD 2>eatb. Folded close in its dusky cocoon cloth; Know its appointed hour, And somehow — somehow — wrestling film by film, — Loosing them every one, Break ecstatic into the daylight's realm, — Into the fostering sun ? TAKE HER, KIND DEATH. HTAKE her, kind Death, take all the * mortal part, Consume the clogging robes that round her cling, Unlock the fleshly gyves, so wearying, And lift the suffocation from her heart! We, who have watched the chill of anguish start, Have had no vital balm, no offering So healing as thy subtle touch could bring; Most merciful of all her friends thou art. Ah woe ! that such unfit, mis-serving shell Could cage that crystal, winged thing — her soul, Sonnet. 105 Beating its prison bars rebelliously; Yet joy! for Death's unfailing miracle — Kind Death, whose other name is Love-in- dole — And that she is alive and soareth free! SONNET. WITH A BUNCH OF ARBUTUS. F^vEAR Heart, these flowers that I offer *-^ you Shall stand for emblems of you; shy and sweet, Modest and tender-hearted, fresh and true, They come, the harbingers of life, to greet The spring. Securely in their low retreat They bloom, beneath the dead leaves and the dew, To tell us winter's rule is obsolete, And the glad year in hope is born anew. So into life's drear, wintry days, oppressed With sordid cares, and worn with hidden pain, You come like the arbutus flowers, dressed 106 Summer /nMonigbt. In spring's dear tones, to bid us hope again. You touch your full, fresh nature to all cares, And who beneath your smile shall think of tears ? SUMMER MIDNIGHT. SILENT the slumb'rous field and forest lie; Silent the hamlet with its human freight ; Only the cricket's chirrup, that so late Doth keep at his midsummer revelry. Silent and scintillating far on high, Ciphers of love that beggareth scale or date, The countless stars sit panoplied in state Against the dusk, illimitable sky. Peace, solitude and dark, — and I alone, Alone in all the glory worshipping! I hear upon the stillness, one by one, The midnight hours musically ring. A day is born, a day is dead and done; — Darkness and death whereout the dawn shall spring. among tbe .fl&ountains. 107 AMONG THE MOUNTAINS. HTHOU 'RT like the mountains, love; * these haughty heights That sentinel our valley, as a guard Of star-eyed Titans, whose strong footstep frights The hidden deeps as it drops earthen- ward, Yet whose great brows do seem to lift the sky; Who nurture in their bosoms tenderly — Warm with a mother's touch — the mystic hum Of winged things, the fountain's throe of birth, The wedded fragrances that overcome The sense, and all life-essence of the earth. O most mysterious mountains! How full oft I watch them, staunch yet swept by change on change! How loves my brooding soul to search aloft 108 Bmong tbe fountains. And find them always same yet always strange ! Lo ! how their wooded limbs a little while Do seem to stretch themselves and drink the smile Of the warm sunshine poured in every hid Recess and shade; they have no secrets now, But, like a waking infant, lie amid The strenuous warmth of their own living glow. How frown they now, when the stern storm down-broods Darkling with savage and unutterable thought, And all the purple steeps and solitudes Sweeps into sullen blackness, over- wrought Of coming woe! Through many a forest gap Strange voices moan and moan ; now tossed boughs snap, And great trunks writhe and shudder, as the hush Is broken by the tempest's furious rout; among tbe dfcountafns. 109 The engulfing, wind-driven cloud, the roar, the rush O f whirlwinds ; — and the hills are blotted out! But I have known them in a tenderer guise When filmy, rose-tipped mists engirdle them, And on their peaceful breast the long day- dies, With twilight zephyrs whispering re- quiem. There is a lucent shimmer through the air That scarce is light, yet ever seems to wear Semblance of light, from the far, rock- crowned crest That the departing sunbeam last hath kissed, To where the valley nestles into rest Through a still dream of pearl and ame- thyst. Now soft the dusky-robed Night down- slips, And all the land with mystery she drapes. no Bn flogl of 3une. Within the solemn, shadowy eclipse, The mountains wait — vast, elemental shapes — Expectant, underneath the heavenly dome That overspans in measureless mono- chrome, Where, one and one, on altars all unseen, Strange lights do glimmer forth; till, bit by bit, The void is diademed with starry sheen ; — And in the temple all the lamps are lit! AN IDYL OF JUNE. IE here with me amid the grass, *— ' Up-gazing through the trees, And watch the clouds in solemn mass Like a processional pass and pass With snowy draperies. And we will breathe the waftings pure Exhaled from locust bloom and clover, And tinier, grass-enfolded flowers, — Steal out their souls and make them ours; And in their forfeiture Of self, new self discover. The bees shall lull us, Bn l&fil of 5une, rn As here and there they drone With drowsy undertone From sweet to sweet, shall dull us Into harmonious tune of perfect hours. The lordly wind shall sweep our faces As if he only grudging kissed A human lip ere to wild spaces He fled to keep immortal tryst. Not so fast, sweet wind, hie thee not, The sprites of the air will spy thee not, Nor the elves in the thickets harry; Thy dryad will sure deny thee not, If a half, half moment thou tarry With the snows of thy pinions to fan us, Where, high and high, in the sky, over- span us The arches of locust trees. The sun shall brood down as it please, Till the delicate foliage glisters In golds and bronzes, mate to mate, — Till the whole wide arch is irradiate With tremulous, fairy vistas! And the little leaves dance, And the little leaves glance With their heads askance, i ia Bn 1T&BI of 3une. In a soft sun-dance; And quiver and gleam and droop and shimmer Against the radiant skies, As if ripe June had quaffed him a brim- mer, And let the sun-fire through his eyes Leap out, to rule all the world June-wise! In the god-commune, When the gods made June, They undertook To utter the perfect thought. When they made the trees and shook The dawn through the bloom, they wrought Better than man conceives; For they left their spirit caught In the heart of the locust leaves. And they laid a spell on the solitude That never a black world-taint Should fall, and the mind should paint Only the infinite rest and the infinite good. Not a breath of the world outside — Its folly and shame, its strife and pride, Its soul-flights mocked and its love de- nied — /I&E Xove is Xffce tbe 2>awn ot Bag. 113 Not a breath of the world outside Was breathed in our nook; It is always high-summer noon. One could almost count, through the dreamy heat, In the pulse of the languid land, Each soft heart-beat; — It needs but a touch of the hand, — We shall understand. In our hearts and our charmed nook It shall always reign June! MY LOVE IS LIKE THE DAWN OF DAY. MY love is like the dawn of day, One tender flush athwart the gray, A hint of promise far away. My love is like the nestling bird Who flies not though its wings are stirred. Soft tunes its throat yet speaks no word. My love is like the budding rose; Beneath the petals, folded close, The hidden heart divinely grows. ii4 Circumstance. The flower will bloom, the bird will sing; At noon comes glorious harvesting, — And I can wait the summer of spring! CIRCUMSTANCE. CHE should have answered "No"; ^ but, low-inclined, The shady branches rustled overhead; They saw, atween the trunks, the river wind, And near, the unmowed meadows whis- pered. The yellow sky and shimmering clouds seemed wed; The sensuous summer wind with soft caress Swept by and kissed her cheek and left it red; So — sudden moved — she turned and an- swered " Yes." 2>anube JBoat*Song» 115 THE FULNESS OF TIME. "\ \7 HEN the seeds were ready, one by * * one, Through the earth they broke; When the bud was ready, lo ! the sun Touched it, and it woke. When the heart was ready, half a breath Rent the veil it wore; When the soul was ready, loving Death Oped a wider door. DANUBE BOAT-SONG. W E row and row, And as we go Our choral song deliver; In state and pride Our barge we guide Adown the Danube River. Behold arise Through western skies Great lights to charm forever, n6 'dn&ine's ^farewell to IbuloebranD. The sunset's beam Doth paint the stream Adown the Danube River. The wind blows chill O'er marsh and hill, The sweet lights fade and shiver; They fade and shift, And still we drift Adown the Danube River. UNDINE'S FAREWELL TO HUL- DEBRAND. f~\ LOVE, mine own, farewell — it is ^-^ mine hour; The bird within the hedge hath ceased to sing, The violet hath bloomed and shed her flower, The summer hastes to sweep away the spring. Yet is the fragrance on the breeze not dead, Yet is the echo of the song not fled, THnDine'5 ffarewell to IbulDebranO. 117 For nothing wholly pure can pass away ; The violet's breath is on the asphodel, And in the autumn flames the spring's display. — O my beloved one, farewell, farewell! Of life love is controller and bestower, Of death love is the answer and the king! I leave with thee my love in deathless dower; The fateful rounds of time shall ever bring The perfume of the flower to thee unshed, The glory of the dawn untarnished ; — For thou art ever mine ! Though I obey The outward touch, my soul doth with thee stay, For love is life-in-iove inseparable, And not the fervid dream which lasts a day. — O my beloved one, farewell, farewell! n8 Zbc iparcse. THE PARC^E. " I hear the Parcee reel The threads of man at their humming wheel, The threads of life and power and pain." — Emerson. QPIN, Sisters, spin! From blossom to ^ decay; From dawn to night, in perfect counter- part; Through passion and denial, peace, affray; Through love, and pain its twin; Through conquering weakness ; through destroying strength; And every pulse that rules the human heart Mete out to each his pre-ordained length. — Spin, Sisters, spin! Spin and then cleave. Why should our touch relax A faintest jot for any seeming jars Of lower spheres, whose frail convulsions wax To wane as naught had been ? Gbe iparcee* 119 For we, the embodying measure of the law, Standing impassive on the eternal stars, Behold the perfect sequence evermore. Spin, Sisters, spin! Why should we pause ? Mote in an uni- verse, Man dreams to shape the ages as they move To his own ends, — create — subdue — dis- perse, — And, like a harlequin Of Time, gaze inchwise through the myotic murk; And set a cipher here or there to prove Immutable law his puerile handiwork. Spin, Sisters, spin! O self-befooled! Withholden are his ears From the high thunders that attune his earth Unto the choiring of rolling spheres In vast, supernal din. Law shapeth him — compelling — passing by; His very essence law; — or seeming birth, 120 nbe jparcse. Or seeming death, alike of mystery. Spin, Sisters, spin! He is and is not. Wind-swept vapor-drift Across the bosom of a mountain chain — Wherethrough great peaks their frowning fronts uplift, — That, shivering out and in, Melts and is gone. And fountains down- ward lave, And, o'er the crags that unsubdued re- main, Frail flowers spring, and mighty forests wave. Spin, Sisters, spin! In shifting semblances and changeful form The Eternal fashioneth; naught may endure Save the Eternal. Worlds on worlds of storm Sweep not a breath within, Where the life leapeth in a flame divine, Enfolded in its protean garniture, Till Thought arise to penetrate the shrine. Spin, Sisters, spin! XLbc iparcse. 121 There is no new nor old. 'T is Thought unlocks The chambered labyrinth ; with slow success Reading the oracle in paradox; Learns where all things begin They find completion too; the circling Light Evoking Entity from Nothingness To move — and change — in order infinite. Spin, Sisters, spin! There is no new nor old; and Time clasps hands With Time across the lapsed centuries. Thought evermore with kindred Thought commands, Fits end to origin; And aeons rolled o'er dead that is not dead Sift but the ashes — let the Phcenix rise! Then spin — and cleave — the temporary thread! — Spin, Sisters, spin! 122 a SEmpbonE of tbe Dills* A SYMPHONY OF THE HILLS. '"THE radiant midsummer days with all * their wealth are here! There is a virtue in the time, a spell upon the year. The sun on charmed orbit his appointed period Doth run, his largesse flinging like a charioted God. There is a glory in the dawn no other season knows, A grace upon the eventide, a largeness of repose, A fulness in the ardent toil that brings the night too soon, A zest that makes the sinew strong and keeps the heart in tune! As one upon the margin of some seques- tered pool, Within its watery mirror — placid and won- derful — In idle mood a stone should cast and watch the eddies break With ever-widening circles, each swift to overtake & SEmpbong of tbe IbUte. 123 The ripple of remoter ones till lost beyond the gaze; So, from near, over-towering heights to where the mellow haze With tints of evanescence the pearled dis- tance fills, Lie, heaped in glad confusion, the multi- tude of hills. They lie in smiling company, and hold within their arms A world of nestling villages and breezy upland farms. Here, miles of sombre forest in blue-black shadow sleep, And, yonder, wastes of pasturage the broken hillsides sweep. How fair, in genial sunshine steeped, lies every furrowed row Of harvest-laden tillage land ! And, lazily, below Outspread the dappled meadows, where- through with shining trail The brawling mountain rivulets wind down the intervale. 124 B SgmpbonE ot tbe Ibills. Across a waste of azure, in many a shim- mering rift Flushed by the warm, midsummer suns, the idle vapors drift And drift in spumy masses that merge and redivide, Like flecks of foam upcast from some re- mote and refluent tide. How from the far horizon the shifty, sen- suous breeze Stirs with its pattering whisper the leafage of the trees, And toys with myriad sunbeams that flick- ering downward fling A maze of golden broidery on the green- sward carpeting! The meadow-lark, rejoicing, springs from his hidden sedge, While the sparrow's cheerful greeting wakes every wayside hedge. What chorus in the orchard! — hear how the measure trolls From vireo and bluebird and golden orioles! B S^mpbong ot tbe Dills. 125 The robin in his arrogant and anxious fatherhood, Chirps noisily from branch to branch to lure his callow brood; And through the shadowy forest amid the twilight's hush, Breathe, like a last thanksgiving, the flut- ings of the thrush. The cattle grazing on the slopes beneath the searching sun Draw down into the bosky dells and hol- lows, one by one; And where, with purling undertones through many a ferny nook And web of flag and flower-de-luce, low sings a little brook, They, drinking, tramp the muddy marge, then midway in the stream Stand fetlock deep with drowsy eyes and ruminating dream; Until athwart the umbrage the farm-boy's call is heard, When they wind adown the grass-grown lane, a placid homeward herd. 126 B SgmpbonE of tbe f)tlts. The unctuous soil a treasury reveals of coming crops; Already high the nodding grain the tender grass o'ertops; Here vetch low-droops, full-fruited, folded in shining sheath; There clambering beans festoon their poles with wild, luxuriant wreath. And lo ! where lines of lusty corn — a ban- nered army — stand, While lush and trailing esculents lie rathe along the land. All lustful for possession, ill weeds against them grow, But there 's Nemesis upon them, with swift-avenging hoe! acres of wind-shotted and undulating grass, Your sentence is upon you, — I see the mowers pass; While up from every meadow where the bobolink sang blithe, 1 hear the swish of following swaths, the music of the scythe. % Sgntpbong of tbe 1)tlt0» 127 The cocks are raked or shaken sheer with dext'rous overplay, And all the air comes laden with the scent of new-mown hay; Till through the lengthening shadows, drawn by the stolid ox, The wain, high-piled with harvest, sedately creaks and rocks Adown the sinuous highway: and home at last is here, A cottage nest betwixt the hills, a harbor of good cheer. The ample barn is fragrant with the breath of champing kine, As the milker with his pail and stool wends up and down the line. Outside the generous door-yard spreads, — a wealth of velvet green Crowned by the over-arching elm that six- score years hath seen, Where the farm-folk from the amplitude and well-filled tasks of day Shall gather in the gloaming to watch the children play. 128 % SEtnpbonE of tbe Dills. O dwellers in the fetid towns, cramped by your sordid need, The breath of wood and pasture land shall make you live indeed! A pavement is no resting-place for worn and weary feet, They need the fresh, elastic sward, the touch of blossoms sweet. Arise and claim your freedom, shake off the servile dust, And take your place in Nature's arms, compelling and august. What though the labor still seem long — the guerdon hardly won ? No man is really poor who owns the fresh air and the sun. She shall not give you unearned gifts nor hoards of useless gold, But every day the miracle of budding things unfold; And every day in stintless light, in rushing winds confest, And deep, inevitable growths, her God make manifest. % SempbonE of tbe Ibills. 129 Your franchise shall be space to breathe and motive to expand In body and in spirit, till both shall under- stand Her open book, where all may read in singleness of heart Of beauty and of love and life without a slur of art. Betwixt the verdure-robed earth and man, her child, a bond There is — a fine affinity, which unto things beyond Material ends of toil attains, and links him fast and sure Through the semblances that pass away to the meanings that endure. He hears the deep evangel that underlies all toil, The word that breathes alike from wind- driv'n cloud or procreant soil; The dawn bestows a promise that the dewy night fulfils, And life grows sweet beneath the benedic- tion of the hills. i3o (5o not, 3Lon0 Summer Bag. GO NOT, LONG SUMMER DAY. GO not, long summer day, oh, go not yet! Spread out your wings for me a moment more! The sedges with the flooding tide are wet, The sunset links the river shore to shore. Across the uplands birds are twittering still, Home-coming kine are lowing far away ; Their destiny and mine thou must fulfil Ere thou depart, — oh, linger still, sweet day! Faintly I hear the far, far village bells, Scarce note the passing shadows on the shore ; With me nothing against the silence tells Except the quiet dipping of the oar. A look — a clasp of hands — a rushing thought That needs no words to read it as I may, And oh! my heart the sunset hues has caught! — Then linger by me yet, beloved day! d&onafcnock Crowneo. 131 TO A ROSE CAST UPON A STREAM. r^RIFT by, sweet flower, drift by, fair *^ flower, Borne purposeless upon the tide; Because I clasped thee for an hour Against my heart and felt thy power, Shall but thy thorn abide ? Thy perfume, vague and dream-beset, Could not remain unshed a day; In thee the thorn and bloom were met; The love and pain, both, I forget; — Lie there and drift away. MONADNOCK CROWNED. SAVAGE supreme and lone, he reared his head — A darkling shape — through the thin upper air; His drapery the conifers, but bare The great brow gloomed, stern and rock- filleted. 132 /flbcmaOnocfc GrowneO. Clustered around the lesser hills lay spread, Dwarfed by his greatness, and, all un- aware, Seeming to shrink aside and leave him there, A regnant presence — beautiful and dread. Like some immense disfeatured tapestry, Shorn of its splendors, neutral-hued and dull, The great cloud-weftage hung against the sky In moveless mass, sombre and sorrowful; As, shivering with the late wind's unre- pose, The waning day sped hasting to its close. Then up the vacuous dusk went gently stealing A tender premonition, life-endued, Purfling the veil with rifts all glory-hued, Wherethrough the hidden sun, in broad shafts wheeling, The fountains of his being swift unsealing, Brake like a god; and poured his molten flood Jetsam, 133 Over the shaggy shape that, waiting, stood Transfigured 'neath the radiant revealing. Down every ridge and hollow fiery mist Fled with transmuting touches; here to fold A mantling film of sun-shot amethyst, There, leave a frowning precipice aureol'd, And all- where grace ineffable disclose, As the glad day stole lingering to its close. JETSAM. A FTER the tempest, chill and wan and *"* gray, Awearily came dawn. Still, dusky- dense, The gathered vapors like a pall immense Blotted against the hid horizon lay, Where with a moan the spent winds sank away. Huge weltering surges, sated with a sense Of outworn rage, in turbid refluence Heaved heavily, with fitful gusts of spray; 134 Evensong Or flung foam-wreaths along the crinkled sands, Where — past all storm or lull or vital needs — Lay, face upturned, and stark, close- clinched hands, A human form amid the ooze and weeds. While, as with shy, mute requiem for the dead, A single gull swept softly overhead. EVENSONG. /^LASP hands, Love; wherefore should ^-^ we fear To travel down the twilight way ? We who through many an arduous year Have jointly borne the heats of day ? There comes a peace at eventide — A calm which floods the waiting soul With images so vast, so wide, It cannot yet perceive the whole. A calm which deeper insight brings, And where the heart no longer strives, progression. 135 For, through the passing of all things, We know, we know that love survives. Clasp hands ! — our goal is manifest. The sweet lights fade across the lea, The wind sleeps on the evening's breast, The ebbing tide slips to the sea; — So we — so we! PROGRESSION. AIT" HEN my time comes, may I so gently " * pass I shall not stir this life-round wonderful ; Like flicker of soft wind o'er summer grass, Or dip of pebble dropped in some deep pool. May the white clouds, high-piled, drift slowly o'er, Pregnant with inspiration, and so take My winnowed spirit to some farther shore, Nor leave behind a silence nor an ache. Lament me not, beloved, shed no tear Because of cession of the finite powers; 136 Deepen of tbe Ibermits, Lay only happy thoughts upon my bier, And hope and love, which are immortal flowers ; Knowing I have departed not, but thus Do but assume a finer medium To make a little space more luminous For thy dear feet to tread when thou dost come. VESPERS OF THE HERMITS. AT evening, through the twilight's soli- tude, With the environing hills all worship- ping, Within the border of a little wood I heard the thrushes sing. A lonely place it was, scarce ever trod Save as some shy four-footed creature stirs ; A solemn temple, consecrate to God By His own ministers. Into the bosom of a wind-swept glen The hillside dropped, precipitously sure; Wespers of tbe Ibermfts. 137 Therein might timorous creatures have their den And wild things hide secure. Below, beyond, receding crest on crest, Like frozen billows of some upheaved sea, Each farthest one o'ertopping all the rest, In savage majesty The panorama of the mountains swept To the horizon; forest-clad and dark, Save where some naked crag might inter- cept * The line with inverse mark; A wild, untutored waste, through whose still air There swept enfolding, uncontaminate spells, With ceaseless incense rising unaware From Nature's thuribles. Long lingered I in errant musings wrapped, Dusk as the shadows and as profitless; Scarce a wind-whisper passed or dry twig snapped In all the wilderness. 138 Despers of tbe Ibermfts. From far away the mountain torrent's voice, Subdued by distances all foliage grown, Its hoarse bass softened to harmonious noise, Rose like an organ tone. The sombre hemlocks all around outspread Their aromatic arms in benison, While from the netted branches overhead The thrushes, one by one, Broke through the waiting silence with their notes, — Long, liquid, perceant, — fluting call to call Mysteriously, from shadow - shrouded throats; In sweet antiphonal Chanting the long day's sacramental hymn. And as the unearthly cadence rose and fell, All outward consciousness appeared to swim In some dissolving spell Sattva. 139 Where form and semblance seemed to de- part In a still prescience of Omnipotence; An answering vibrance stirred within the heart, A deep responsive sense Of the supreme antiphony, — dimly showed: — And through my being sudden rapture clove, Effused in aspiration, overflowed Of wondrous peace and love. SATTVA. THE PRAYER OF SILENCE. I AM a sleeper in a dreamless sleep, * A leaf afloat upon a starlit sea, A lotus-blossom folded silently, A drop of dew slipping from deep to deep Of bliss that is repose superlative, With neither birth nor death nor day nor night But only life in order exquisite. O God, my Sea, in thee I merge — and live! 140 Ifttabt piece* FLY, MY SONG. jRLY, my song, * Swallow-winged that thou art! On thy pinions strong Compass the land and the sea, Searching unfalteringly, And, wherever she bide or be, Find me the twin of my heart. No world so wide — Wherever she bide or be — Mine own can hide. Were it measure of mountains massed, Or oceans between us cast, She must be mine at last, She must rise and answer me! NIGHT PIECE. INTO the night I cast my song; * Stars in the firmament glistened, Great winds tossed it, swept it along, Not even the dull earth listened. Tllpon a 1Romaii3a of Scbumann. 141 Over the cadence a tremor of pain Dragged with a discord's jar, And my heart it broke in that low re- frain ; — For how could a song reach a star ? UPON A ROMANZA OF SCHUMANN. pvREAMS! Dreams! What panoply of *-* dreams Sweep with their shifting sceneries over me! As if one heard the purl of mountain streams Mixed with the diapason of the sea, The while the theme moves tenderly and seems In deeper peace with every harmony. Upon emotion's winged thought I fare — As eagles sweep the mountain crags and scars — Which, like a fairy vision, unaware The portals of the unutterable unbars. My spirit floats into the upper air And hears the Gloria of the morning stars ! 142 B Song tor November. A SONG FOR NOVEMBER. /"^ONE are the summer days! ^-* Above the wintry hill The north wind mutters chill; Cowslip and daffodil Have gone their ways. The sun's engendering shaft Seemeth to peak and pine, Wasting without a sign, Like some immortal wine All spent — all quaffed. Bleak through the pastures bare The shrivelled seed-wings scud, There is nor leaf nor bud; Life holds in desuetude The senile year. And 'mid the forest lone Great trees lift branches high Naked against the sky, And rattle, moan, and sigh In undertone. Alas for wind-born words, Swift interchanging thought B Song foe November. 143 And heart-beat which hath caught The summer's glow unsought; — Fled with the birds! For what fond will should stay The wasting of the flowers, The waning of the hours, Or chain with human powers Dead yesterday ? Soon, soon from regions frore The northern blast shall leap, With icy besom sweep, And cover chill and deep The shrunk earth o'er With its enfolding pall ; And Nature's frozen night Fall like a spirit-blight, Outspreading pinions white Silent o'er all. NEVER TO KNOW. 1VTEVER to know * ™ Whether he perished by forest or floe ; Whether he sank 'neath his gathering stress 144 Iftever to flmow. And slowly — slowly the pulse grew less, Yielding its agony throe by throe, Or whether one short, sharp, merciful blow Swift set him free while the birds still sang: — Ah, there 's the pang — Ah, there 's the pang of it! — never to know! Never to know Whether he thought of one then at the end! Called for his friend, Longed for a word or a cooling touch That could lift so much, Or a presence only — a vital sense Of companionship into those shadows dense, To steady him through them; — this he might crave From a heart that could break for him — break but not save. Ah, dear God! — never to know! B Xute Goucbefc bg afactle fffnsers. 145 TO-MORROW AND TO-MORROW AND TO-MORROW. AT night I said, "To-morrow he will **• come," So through the night I held my sorrow dumb. And when at last burst forth the mocking light I whispered inly, ' ' He will come to-night. ' ' But day and night have passed, and still — and still — Only the heart-break and the mortal chill. LIKE A LUTE TOUCHED BY FACILE FINGERS. IKE a lute touched by facile fingers, ■*— ' Through some dim vista of a van- ished past, To melody ethereal that lingers Immortally, and will not be out-cast; 146 Swallows at Sunset So, through the chill and cloistered cham- bers Of thought, within my being swept along, Quick with the longing which fore'er re- members, Thine image lingers in a deathless song. TRANSMUTATION. "Arise! Thou shalt mourn no more," said Life; " I will still thy deep heart-cries, I will lay my hand on thy strife. " Not long Till the tempest beat to the calm ; Make thy great love into a song, Lift thy sorrow into a psalm." SWALLOWS AT SUNSET. Y\ T1TK gleaming bosoms lifted high, * ™ And poised on strong exultant wings, They circle down the sunset sky To happy twitterings. Swallows at Sunset 147 With every facile turn and wheel The rose-gleams paint their amber throats, And flash a hundred glints of steel Back from their burnished coats. Now, in a span that balks the sight, They sweep o'er hill and marsh and main, Then, with their swift and joyous flight, Lo! they are here again! Or low or high it little recks, Or far or near it is the same, Their rapid undulation flecks The world with hints of flame. fair and tireless ones, my thought Doth chafe within its fleshly bond; 1 too would rise, impeded not, To the serene beyond. I too would breathe the finer breath That fills those realms of upper air, Uplifted by a winged faith Which sheds the sordid care. 148 Going ©ut wftb tbe Sloe. Oh touch me, change me, lift me high Into thy regions of delight; And let me sweep the sunset sky Up to the Infinite! GOING OUT WITH THE TIDE. I WOULD slip out to the violet sea ■ In the arms of the ebbing tide; I should rest silent and satisfied Wherever it carried me. For the streams low-run, There 's a westering sun, And the day is done. Over the marshes' sweep With their billowy ranks of reeds, Masking the runlets deep And a wealth of amber weeds, The tide seems half asleep ; — Seems holding the heart like a mirrored star, Where the visions of day reversed are, And the faint ideal That trembled afar <3olng ©ut witb tbe Zibe. 149 Groweth the real. Heats of the noon abate, And the senses wait In a trance co-ordinate; For the tidal pulse is calm at the ebb. And oh! through the marshes' web, And oh! through the sea-fed rill The waters sink and sift As they out to the open drift Serene and still. Never an eddy, never a whirl, Only a soft, white, dimpled curl Wreathing the weeds with a carcanet, Leaving them gem-bestrewn and wet — Leaving a pearl. Hushed on that mighty breast — The breast of the violet sea — Never a care could follow me. I should lie at rest, Even to know There were wreckage below — Record of tumult and woe, For above There is record of love. A Heaven o'er-arches the place; 150 allegro (Bfojoso. In its boundless grace Springs the measureless span of space. It is azure o'erhead, Then flushed to a rosy red That pales with a protean glow Till 't is opal transfigured — Till 't is amethyst. And is it the sky or the sea ? Is it wave or mist ? Far away there 's a mystery. Oh, farther than sight may go, There 's a mystery! — The gracious bow Of the skies bends low And blends with the violet seal ALLEGRO GIOJOSO. /~\H! the young heart in the young year, ^-^ And the thrill of blossoms breaking, The white cloud over the azure clear, And the glad new earth awaking! Burst, little bud, from your shrouding hood! A fair pale garment spin you; allegro <3tojoso. 151 I am brother of wild and wood, I am blossoming in you! Sing, dear bird, in prodigal youth Your broadcast raptures flinging! I am one with your vernal truth, For my heart is singing — singing! And, oh ! white sun on your radiant round, Send legioned sunbeams glancing In aery circles over the ground To set my light feet dancing! Blow, winds, blow! from east to west Through the wildernesses humming; There 's a joy in my heart all unconfest, For my love, my love is coming! glad round world, O fair spring world, With your wealth of gracious giving, 1 *ve an inward miracle unfurled Beyond your sweet conceiving. 'T is an opening bud — a pure white flame — A song tossed over and over; For flower and song be all the same To the beating heart of the lover. 152 B Sons ot ^Blossom, Oh ! the young heart in the young year, And the thrill of blossoms breaking, And the young love that hath no fear With the glad new earth awaking! A SONG OF BLOSSOM. ""THROUGH the orchard roaming, * Where the buds invite, See my dear one coming Haloed with the light! Apple blossoms o'er her Weave an arbor sweet, While they spread before her Carpets for her feet. Faintly rippled laughter Of the errant breeze Dainty perfumes waft her Through the perfumed trees; And 'mid branches netted Stolen sunbeams fall, All with rose-tints fretted, Fair and virginal. B TKHino IRusbeD out of tbe Sea, 153 Rosy blooms above her Showering o'er her head, All a world to love her — Flushing rosy red. Through a land enchanted, Fanned with charmed air, Of divine loves haunted, Walks she unaware. A WIND RUSHED OUT OF THE SEA. A WIND rushed out of the sea! It leapt the dunes on the sandy spit, And over the surge of waters grey, Troubled and tossed in the land-locked bay, It measured its savage minstrelsy Till the low shores answered it. " Waste, waste, And care misplaced, Expectation and toil ungraced, A snatch at guerdons ephemeral, And the cry of the spirit under it all ! 154 B tlGUno IRusbeo out of tbe Sea. But the world lies free Unto me, unto me! " Sang the wind that rushed from the sea. With fugitive gusty stirs It traversed the wild wide marshes o'er — Marshes pied with russet and gold, Under the spell of the starlight cold — And swept to the hearths of the house- holders, To break at their very door. And their dreams grew black With ravin and wrack Of fleets long-sped but never come back; Ventures flushed with auroral light, Void in the vapors before the night. For strange dreams be In the potency Of winds that rush from the sea! O thoughts in the heart of man — Mingled glory and impotence, — Ye are the lordly galleons of state, Laden low with your precious freight, Sailing a sea of measureless span, Wafted ye know not whence; Gbe Xost flMefao, 155 Whirlwind-caught O'er tracks untaught, Where will ye harbor, where find port ? I stand on the mystic shores alone, Question and yearn to the Vast Unknown, And grasp for the key Of infinity From a wind rushing out of the sea! THE LOST PLEIAD. CALL to her once again, call her, — Sister!— Lest the solemn deeps appall her, The fathomless abysses Of the stellar wildernesses; — Sister, sister! Ah, wherefore should ill befall her, — Her, our dearest, Gone when the night burned clearest ? Not Eos' self is more fair, When, dewy and dim, Up through the late night air — The purple twilight of night — She pierces the earth's far rim; 156 Gbe %oet fUefad. Then, rising — rising — Standeth revealed; from the crown, Close-wreathed with curling light, And the lips in a bended bow, To the delicate foot, half-arched for flight; The filmy garments scarce disguising The curve of each shapely limb. She makes the grim worlds new-born seem, Surprising All space with her roseate dream! Not Eos' self was more fair! And still it would seem We might reach her — reach her somewhere. Is she not there — There, where remote star-clusters fail ? Or yonder, where nebulae glister ? Or some meteor, slipped from its socket, Like a fine, celestial rocket Sinks in the comet's trail ? — Sister, sister, Hail! Hast thou seen the astral dance ? — The whirling circles of light That break through the doors of night As the starry shapes advance ? Gbe Xost Pleiad 157 Lo ! we were all assembled — All the seven. We swept with our candent spark Over the limitless arc And lighted the lamps of heaven. The aethers wavered and trembled; Planet, moon, asteroid, The very core of the void, Took on new meaning — grew bright At the trail of our garments white. The universe all was alive — alight, Tranced with ineffable glory! Soft airs predatory Swept our faces with bliss, Stealing a kiss, And out of chambered immensity Awoke all sweet sounds that be. Mystical, weird night-noises, Echoes of far-off voices — The million-throated voices of space, Like silvery horn-tones answering, calling, Down through the palpitant ether falling — Broke in a rhythmic torrent of sound; — Whispering, rippling, surging, growing, Upward, downward, over, around; Till — scarcely heeding or knowing — 158 Gbe Xost ipieiaD. We could not choose but dance! We lifted fair arms to the firmament, Mingling and swaying in joyous guise; While from hand to hand stretched a liga- ment, A twisted riband of fiery thread, And over each head, Flinging its glow in our eyes, In the band a light was bent — A single lamp of a star, Like a fire-opal flashing red Or the heart of molten spar. But oh! for the flame in the heart! The fiery pulse of emotion, The smile which is rhythm, yet mute ; — Seeming to start From the aureoled head to the lifted foot In music translated to motion. And oh! for the flaming countenance And out-swept garments curling, As we circled the midnight's vast expanse, Whirling, whirling, whirling! Suddenly, As if to a signal clapped, The shining ligament quivered — and snapped! Gbe Host flMetafc. 159 One scintillant lamp unbent, And, spirting fiery flakes as it went, Down the endless slopes of night Vanished from sight. Over our sister a shadow forlorn Swept with a swift dilation, As the hot flame drops to the ash; We caught a flash Of startle and consternation, And then — she was gone! Weep, Pleione, weep! — Rent heart and dust-bowed head — Such tears as only mothers shed Over their dead. Sacrifice with us keep, For thy loveliest one is fled. And thou, sweet Artemis! She who hath drunk thy kiss And followed thy silver feet With steps more fleet Than the hunted stag in his heat, Shall never follow thee more The breezy hill-crests o'er. She is swallowed — lost — in the dread abyss ! He too loved her — he of the crusted zone, 160 Zbe Xost ipldafc. He of the belted stars; Though he sweep the heavenly heights alone, His eyes cleave swifter than scimitars. Was it his fond pursuit, His passion following resolute That snapped the fiery thread of her be- ing- Like a string o'erstrung on a lute — And drove her, neither heeding nor seeing, Into the darkness mute ? Cold, cold, cold Are the awful caverns of space, And cold, cold, cold Is the vanished face; But colder still, at life's lone gate, The darkened hearts that wait, No hope — no spark — discerning. For neither the tender morning light, Nor the sweet enfolding arms of night, About the spirit yearning, Can lift the burden of blight. And time is not measured by hours — Following one by one, — Not measured by orbit of planet or sun, tbEtrm to tbe BiQbt. 161 But by every beat of the anguished heart, The deadly drip of the wounded part Which the inward pang devours — Burning — burning ! And oh! there is no returning From that darkness inexorable; It mocks at us, inky — sable; And our cry through immensity tossed Goes pitiless echoing, "Lost! lost! lost! " And yet — once again — Oh, call to her yet once again! Sister, sister! Vain — ah, vain! HYMN TO THE NIGHT. r\ HOLY NIGHT, serenest Night, ^^ Star-filleted and dusky-eyed, The day aweary of its blight Sinks on thy bosom satisfied. And sordid cares and petty aims Fade, self-slain, in that peace of thine, While newly-kindled altar flames Leap in the spirit's secret shrine. 162 Dfimn to tbe WgbU Beneath thy calm immensity How narrow seems our daily scope! Yet how superlative might be The circling ranges of our hope! The earth about our garments clings, We sell ourselves for that and this, And so beneath life's little things Its deep, eternal meaning miss. With outer vision veiled and sealed Into a higher sphere we rise, And catch that vaster life revealed By glimpses to the inward eyes. O World, O Time, the placid Night Blots out your fetters with her dark, And limitations sink from sight As of a passing finger-mark. No more our baffled souls contend, The starlight through our darkness gleams, We dimly feel our final end And see the glory in our dreams. Bt Sunset 163 So near, so near, that glory glows We know nor loss nor jar nor fret, But drink this largesse of repose, And wait the day which dawns not yet. AT SUNSET. T 00 K out, dear heart, and watch the ^ kindling sky Where great lights flame and vanish one by one; The western port whence immemorially The sun hath beckoned love forever on. A hundred evanescent pageants melt Each over each — wan blues to chryso- prase That drops in turn to crocus — with a belt Of purple hills against the burning haze. While far across the calm, untroubled bay Long-streaming answers trail in ebbing sheen 164 m Sunset. Of lesser splendors — orange swept to grey, And lilac paling into opaline. A world of glory which the deeps enhance ! A world held breathless of the after- gleam ; With soft tides slipping seaward in a trance, And little ships adream midway the stream. There is no room for shadow or regret, No place for passion in this panoply, But sombre thoughts float from us with their debt Like cloudy bits of flotsam to the sea. The tranquil spirit opes its portals wide, And visions that too sweet for language seem Outspread themselves — like this enchanted tide— With shining thoughts adream midway the stream. B Goast for tbe l^ear, 165 A TOAST FOR THE YEAR. PLEDGE me a cup, October, Ruddy October! A goblet rounded and brimming With sun-shotted wine, Electric and fine, The breath of the West o'er it swimming Like a far-world anodyne. Lo! The ardent glow Of maples — scarlet, saffron, and gold ; The mingled tints untold That mantle the marshes, scrub and sedge, — Russet heart with a flaming edge; Sumacs incarnadine; Oaks in their draperies old — Purple and bronze austere; All things brave and compelling Shall burn in this luminous wine, This vintage of all the year. For thou like a prober From Earth's secret store The deepest and purest dost draw For thy sweet distilling. Come pledge me a cup, October! 166 % Goast for tbe lear. In the season's brooding lull, With long low shadows streaming, The haunted woods are full, The covert nooks are teeming With mystery wonderful. Motes that rise Through the circling light Materialize, Take form, grow bright. I catch the beat, The rhythmic swing Of myriad feet, Of gossamer garments flickering Like the flash of a dragon-fly's wing. Film-attired Naiad, Oread, Dryad, Divinities Of the rivers and rocks and trees, Down the far, o'erarching vistas, Through filtered lights advancing, They come — the airy sisters — Serenely dancing — dancing. Twinkling feet to the sunset west, Fret of the flesh they banish ; Dancing the burden out of the day, Dancing the fear of a fear away, B Goast for tbe j^ear. 167 Dancing the year to its rest. Now there, now here, Through the soft empurpled atmosphere, They flit — they burn — they vanish! Too glad for a world grown sober. Ah! pledge me a cup, October! Full in the effluence mellow Self will I steep; Storing the crimson and yellow, The wealth of prism-swept haze, The trance of the loitering days, Deep, down deep; Where I keep — Their virtues hid to surrender — The essence of all things tender. Glories that flame Shall be the same, yet not same. The prodigal shafts of the sun, In inward crucible caught, Be transmuted from color to thought, To promise — promise of pause and re- newal, The gloaming into the dawn over-run, Existence not dual But one. Lo! how, their message delivered, 168 ©rpbeus Sings. The dear leaves have shrunken and shiv- ered, Have answered the sign! At thy call They tremble, and scatter, and fall, Thou masterful world-disrober! Thine are they all; Thine — and mine! Then pledge me a cup, October! ORPHEUS SINGS. THRENOS. T^vUSK lie the forest and the cold ravine, *-J The shadows crawl adown the friendly slope, There is no longer light where light hath been, The iron crag flings back to me my hope. And the chill night-wind with its sombre moan, Which from remotest sorrow seems to start, Down the dark avenues and alleys lone Finds answering echo through my shad- owed heart. ©rpbeus Sings. 169 It is as if one lifted to his ear The twisted shape of some sea-hearted shell, And through its convolutions seemed to hear The torrent of a life immeasurable ; — A passionate rush, a solemn, ceaseless roar ; — And felt the hurrying surges leap and press; Yet is not any ocean there, nor shore, Only a curled mollusk's emptiness. The world is changed; the world is old, yet stays ; But like an autumn leaf which hath no goal I drift adown the melancholy ways With frosts of bitter blight upon my soul. O Love, I call thee and thou answerest not, The void is blank — I know not where thou art; 170 ©rpbeus Sings. I only know thine image unforgot Burns like a sacrifice against my heart — Its consecrated altar, where no more The living flame shall light the ad- vancing years, While ever at the altar's foot I pour The prodigal libation of my tears. Oh! for a draught of lethe from the springs That breed oblivion and a drowsy peace, A numbness of the knowledge of all things, A deadly calm wherein I too might cease ! Bring me hemp philters! so that I may dream, My best beloved, that I am with thee, Roaming once more the hill above the stream Which threads th' enchanted valley to the sea; Glad in the moment ; as a glad wild thing Basks in the sunshine, drinks the sun- brewed haze, ©rpbeus Sings, 171 And wanders without care disquieting In happy vagrancy of summer days. Or else withdrawn into some thicket's shade, Fragrant with herbs and sweet earth- harmonies, Watching the swallows circle overhead, Hearing the fitful rhythm of the breeze. No need for signal or for uttered word To seal the spell of union eloquent; Like lifted petals were our heart-beats stirred, With presence only were we well con- tent. Almost methinks that I might clasp thy hand, And subtly thrill to eyes that feed on mine, As aye related spirits understand The quickening thought without an out- ward sign. Ah no! it is a dream — thou art not there! 'T is but a fatuous memory which doth cling i72 ©tpbeus Sings. About a phantom fading into air, — A breath — a sigh — in space evanishing! This world hath been too niggard for thy need, Thou tender one! or even to shelter thee Save a brief while ; too full of sordid greed, Too narrow for a rounded liberty. My spirit beats its unavailing wings Like a caged bird that pants to be set free, For I in flight would quell all questionings, Searching the universe, O Love, for thee. Not earthly bond should hold me. I would dive Into the nethermost deeps and fast- nesses, Probing their darkling ways, — lest thou survive Through caverned labyrinth or dim recess. ©rpbeus Sims. 173 Or, heavenward-flung, would seek thy dwelling-place; On lifted pinions cleaving far and far, To compass vast illimitable space Bearing my passionate quest from star to star. O mortal strain for an immortal sight! Material semblances not thee contain, Thou art not in the depth nor in the height; They mock my hope; — in vain — in vain — in vain! Yet naught may perish. In the abiding march Through changeful cycles of eternal law — Like veiling vapors o'er the heavenly arch — The thou and / endure forevermore. Arouse thee, my beloved, answer me! For love is not a gift, it is a debt — An unpaid claim — at deadliest usury, Which fast and faster fetters doth beget. 174 ©rpbeus Sings. The thought may slip its chains like bird uncaged, But in the nest there writhes a brood of care — Of unfed pangs — that will not be assuaged Save only love return to nestle there. And dark the heart lies, — an unsensing thing,— A waiting potency without a name, — A force whereout the throes of life do spring,— Till mighty love shall touch it into flame. Till mighty love shall touch it into flame, Till mighty love unloose the fiery stream Which none may counterstand and none may tame, Which sweeps all being in a burning dream. Oh ! then alone we live ! Oh ! then alone Man stands — a god — upon the mountain crest Drinking the orbic glory of the sun, A greater glory answering in his breast. ©rpbeus Sings. 175 Wilt thou not wake, mine own ? and art thou then In lethargy too pitiless to know The fervid transport of my song again, Or start to life within its overflow ? Art thou too cold to feel the vital breath Of love's enkindling spirit breathed on thee With magic inspiration ? — and shall Death Forever hold thee in his mastery ? Art thou too cold — too cold ? Still my despair Lends life to love which heeds nor ban nor bar ; If vainly through the living realms I fare, Still shall I find thee where the shadows are. Wherever more thou passest — shade or day — I too will pass. I faint, I fail, I die! Freed of its clod, the soul must find the way: — Receive me once again, Eurydice! 176 IRbapsofcg, RHAPSODY. BEING WORDS TO A PIANO IMPROVISATION. DLAY to me, Sweet! * As the wan twilight lingers, Loth yet entirely to fall With its pervasive neutral over all, Making the near remote, the palpable strange, Will thou a change; And, like a wizard, with thy puissant fingers Awaken visions pure and pastoral. Thy pulse along the senseless wood shall beat, And while material shades obliterate The outward world, more fleet Thou, godlike, shalt create; And then swift-winged thought — Swift-winged thought that knows nor curb nor stay, Leaping the meagre measure of the day — People the void with beauty, caught From inward realms where the world troubleth not. IRbapso&B, 177 We shall behold Vast primal solitudes All unprofaned by man, serene and full Of splintered half-lights and low-lying shades: And wonders manifold Of murky coverts cool, And unexpected glades Fragrant enow for hamadryad's bower Where, if a wind but stirs A leaf, a grass-blade or a fragile flower, One dreams the step is hers: Of many a drowsy, amber-colored pool Where idle sunbeams dream away the hour And a rapt loneliness broods: Of winding alleys betwixt colonnades Of aromatic mighty-limbed firs: — And all the mystery of the cloistered woods. Ah! well meseems the little oozy drip Of nascent fountain which doth slip Beneath the o'erlying ledge — Half loitering to toy betwixt the tip Of clinging ferns and leave them pearled and wet, Half bold with privilege, Over the moss and humid polished stones 178 IRbapsoDE. To gather to a tiny rivulet That with crooned undertones Leaps forth it knows not where So but it find the sunlight and the air, — Hath caught some impulse that it wots not of, Some echo whence long branches, over- met, Make music far above. Long, long, in-linked branches, myriad- strung With Nature's living wires Which her warm touch inspires And which the fitful winds do harp among In melancholy passion, vague, remote; — As 't were far-pulsed note Of some vast ocean with reverberant roar Against an alien shore Hurling itself, to break and fail and fall In foam ephemeral. Or else perchance the roll Of those profounder cadences which lie Near to Infinity; The shocks Of spiritual tides against material rocks, In ceaseless effort to be free — and whole! IRbapsofcg. 179 Is then the ivory dowered with a soul ? — A vital touch to lift the spirit torn Into a nobler eon ? Lo ! in a moment am I borne Above this troubled trance Of place and circumstance; In joy unknown before I mount, I soar, And cleave the empyrean! Above the empyric wind, Cloud-wrapped and mist-defined, Upward, through circumambient airs; Where, from their fiery lairs Swift-darting meteors Break without pause — Break in coruscant splendor! — Upward, still upward, in divine surrender ! Celestial space is full, Boundless, unfathomable. Star-clusters burn In ever-widening glories ; planets stream With majesty supernal; And on ecstatic orbits, vast, supreme, Rolling from cognizance still to return, Measurers yet annihilants of time, Coeval with the Eternal, 180 IRbapsoDg. Remote worlds gleam: — Worlds upon worlds, stupendous and sub- lime! Nor strifes nor questionings nor fervid stress Shall mar the measure of my blessedness. As some still vap'rous weft, Some sunset exhalation Trailed o'er a luminous sky, Doth dream and drift; So, on the bosom of Immensity, Serene, fulfilled I lie — A breath of Aspiration ! THE END.