Class SX3<5i^ 
 CopyrightN"_/^Z^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 
 

 BY 
 KENNETH RAND 
 
 Author of "The Rainbow Chaser," 
 "The Dirge of the Sea-Children," etc. 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 SHERMAN, FRENCH Sp COMPANY 
 
 1915 
 
\ 
 
 
 copthight, 1915 
 Shermak, French ^ Company 
 
 DEC ! 7 1915 
 ©CU416935 
 
TO 
 THE DREAM MAIDEN 
 
 Because I may not find thee, though I seek i 
 
 West of the setting sun, east of the morn, \ 
 
 And trudge my weary pilgrimage forlorn I 
 
 From darkling valley-road to lonely peak, \ 
 
 I send my dream, — if so it he the flesh. 
 
 To spite my haunted journey, hold thee still; ■ 
 
 If so thou standest on a dawn-red hill, I 
 
 Haloed in wonder by thy tresses' mesh; 
 
 If so thou waitest by the cloud-run sea, 
 
 With gypsy ripples lapping at thy feet, ; 
 
 And echoes of my song may drift to thee, ' 
 
 And thou, perchance, may find my singing \ 
 
 sweet, — ■ 
 
 / send thee all my brain and soul and art, i 
 
 To stroke one chord responsive in thy heart! 
 
The author wishes to 
 thank the editors of The 
 Yale Review for permis- 
 sion to reprint " Credo," 
 which is included in this 
 volume of poems. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Prelude — The Dreamer 1 
 
 Credo ^ 
 
 From the Earth-oracle 5 
 
 A Song op Hy-Brasil 6 
 
 Cavalier ^ 
 
 Impenitence 1^ 
 
 To 18 
 
 Spring in the Semi-tropics 19 
 
 Eros Ephemeras ^^ 
 
 Ante Lucem ^^ 
 
 " I Stumbled from a Merry Inn " . . .24 
 
 The World-slave 26 
 
 To the Time-god 27 
 
 To All Ye Motherless 28 
 
 Dream-sonnets 29 
 
 The Vermeil Flower ^5 
 
 The Cliff of Tears .37 
 
 " Curtain " ^^ 
 
THE DREAMER 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
PRELUDE 
 THE DREAMER 
 
 Mistress, when all the world is plunged in 
 dream — 
 
 That magic hour of fading western fire 
 When the dull hosts of prosy Reason seem 
 
 Like infants wailing for a dumb desire — 
 Sudden my heart is freed, and flies afar 
 
 Over the barren rims of earth, and drops 
 Into the gay death-splendor of Thy war. 
 
 Where fearing stops. 
 
 For what is Dream but Reason shackle- free ? 
 
 Know ye the shifting bounds of Life and Death ? 
 The witch-work of Thy radiance on the sea. 
 
 The warm enchantment of Thy scented breath? 
 Lo, I have thought and seen and felt and heard 
 
 Dark vivid things my waking senses scorn. 
 Till I am troubled by Thy smothered word. 
 
 Stilled at the morn. 
 
 Up and away to seek it ! Sign or name 
 
 I may not lend the dreamland of my thought; 
 A sable island fronting seas of flame. 
 
 The staging of a drama vision-wrought — 
 How may I find ray spectre-kingdoms, won 
 
 By shadow-cohorts lost on shoreless seas ? 
 The star-illumined bivouacs of the Sun 
 
 Have harbored these. 
 
 [1] 
 
Over the waste of sea ! The crashing bows 
 
 Hammer the wander-measure through ray blood, 
 And, eager, raise the wizard-isles, and rouse 
 
 The shouting rapture of the battle-flood ! 
 Victory, fame and homage, love and wine. 
 
 Brimming the fairy flagons to the rim ! 
 On to the Triumph! — Wake . . . The fire divine 
 
 Flags and is dim. 
 
 m 
 
CREDO 
 
 Though flesh may hold with bonds of tempered 
 steel 
 (And this, O soul, we may but know too 
 well), 
 'Fore God, it cannot bid us not to feel 
 Passion of heaven and hell! 
 It may not turn the eye 
 Blind to the sky 
 That once with insight clear 
 Has pierced the muffling scarf of shadows 
 here; 
 
 It may not veil the wonder of the sea, 
 A-flame with sun and wind and azure mystery ; 
 It may not chill the warm heart of the spring 
 That touches with its blood the robin's 
 breast. 
 And stirs the magic of the swallow's wing ; 
 It may not dim the splendor of the west 
 When poets whisper, " Lo, the Titan dies," 
 And find a shambles in the sunset skies ; 
 
 Nor for a single hour 
 Crush with its fetters' weight the grace of one 
 small drooping flower. 
 
 I think the soul of Man is but the sense 
 
 That teaches us the magic of the world. 
 And but for aid of this high evidence 
 [3] 
 
There were no virtue in the shouting creeds, 
 Nor credence in the Truths the prophets 
 hurled, 
 Nor faith that follows where a hero leads. 
 Nor strength that bends the seeking oar and 
 spreads the sail unfurled. 
 
 There were no will to dare. 
 Did we not dream of heaven beyond the hill ; 
 
 There were no venturing on hidden roads. 
 Did we not see the fairy torches flare, 
 
 And turn our travelers' huts to kings' abodes, 
 And all our barren wastes of travail fill 
 With blossoms of our dream-Hesperides. 
 There were no daring of uncharted seas. 
 Did we not glimpse a land beyond the sun. 
 
 Beyond the moon and stars. 
 Drawing us joyous through uncounted wars 
 On a long restless journey never done! 
 
 And cry ye " Pagan ! " through the market- 
 place ? 
 Nay, brother, speak ye gently, — 'tis my 
 dream 
 That best on dawn-red hills I seek the Master's 
 face. 
 More nearly find Him by a sunlit stream. 
 
 [4] 
 
FROM THE EARTH-ORACLE 
 
 COWARD Faith that bows to cheerless gods, 
 Kissing thy scourge of craven hope and fear, 
 
 1 bid thee hark the gay wind in the trees. 
 
 And seek the laughing faces 
 Of half-seen fauns that haunt the sunlit woods ; 
 I bid thee dare the windy solitudes 
 
 Of barren, shipless seas ; 
 
 I bid thee bear the drear, 
 Cathedral loneliness of mountain spaces. 
 
 Star-haunted empty places 
 Stirred with the flutter of Time's ageless wings ; 
 I bid thee ban all puppet mysteries, 
 And, sounding Nature, find the Soul of Things. 
 O coward Faith that prays to hidden gods. 
 
 For thine own sake see clear ! 
 
 For would the weakest fear to die 
 If what thou callest Death were but to blend 
 With all the breathing world of sun and sky 
 
 And friendly stars ? — 
 With all eternity to wander in. 
 So high above all Piety and Sin 
 
 They seem the petty wars 
 Of ants that battle on the garden path, 
 A brief hour, ere the Gardener, in His wrath, 
 Make of them kin to seons without end ! 
 
 [5] 
 
A SONG OF HY-BRASIL 
 
 West away beyond the world, there my king- 
 dom lies — 
 
 Where the sunset-kindled clouds flame across 
 the skies. 
 
 You could know my kingdom, too, had you eyes 
 to see 
 
 Where my bannered cities blaze in their maj- 
 esty! 
 
 Just beyond the western hills, ere the shadows 
 run. 
 
 You could glimpse my castles in my Province 
 of the Sun. 
 
 West away beyond the world, there the dream- 
 ers fled 
 AVhen their fairy poppies failed, withered sere 
 
 and dead; 
 When they found the dreams they lived scarcely 
 
 worth the dreaming, 
 And the gold of all the world naught for their 
 
 redeeming. 
 Oh, 'twas drab the weary, till they won beyond 
 
 the hill. 
 And walked as knights of Fairyland and lords 
 
 of Hy-Brasil! 
 
 West away beyond the world, there's the place 
 to find ! 
 
 [6] 
 
Oh, the road is plain to go if you be not blind. 
 
 Seek you where your dream has blown — ask 
 the wind the sea ; 
 
 Once a maiden's weary eyes sought the way of 
 me, 
 
 (And times I think she found the road, and 
 seem to see her there 
 
 With the love-tears on her lashes and the sun- 
 light on her hair.) 
 
 West away beyond the world, I am fain to 
 follow 
 
 (Red the fairy hilltop flares o'er the purple 
 hollow !) 
 
 For the road is plain to find, where it stretches 
 white 
 
 Like a pallid ribbon in the ebon locks of Night. 
 
 And oh, my heart is over-fain to chase the sun- 
 set-gleam 
 
 Till west away beyond the world I win again my 
 dream ! 
 
 [7] 
 
CAVALIER 
 
 I SENT my heart to the barren rims of the world, 
 And bade it seek, seek, seek for the fairy bloom 
 That I dreamed I plucked in the fields of the 
 
 Joyous Doom — 
 When the laughing Death that thrills as the 
 
 touch of Love 
 Dropped, with her bright wings furled, 
 From the heavens above 
 And brushed my lips with the cool red rose of 
 
 her mouth. 
 
 And my heart flew south. 
 
 Through the sun-racked zones to the torch of 
 the polar flare. 
 
 And answered, " It was not there. 
 
 The sorcerer's blossom of life from the fields of 
 Death. 
 
 But hark ! There are wondrous flowers 
 
 In the haunted woods 
 
 Of a lonely isle that I found in a lonely sea, 
 
 And an old god saith. 
 
 An old stone god in the sentinel solitudes. 
 
 That * Better ye plunder the wealth of the 
 kindly bowers 
 
 Of the mothering World 
 
 Than harry with passion the thickets of mys- 
 tery: " 
 
 [8] 
 
And my heart with its wings close-furled 
 Dropped as a stone in my breast. 
 
 But I flung it west, 
 
 Where the sunset roared like the lowermost 
 
 gates of hell, 
 And I bade it seek, seek on for the fairy bloom 
 Whose beauty was more than the singers of 
 
 dreams could tell — 
 The bright red blossom of life from the meadows 
 
 of doom, 
 That I plucked as the laughing Death, on her 
 
 dove-soft wings. 
 Stooped overhead, and kissed me awake from 
 
 my dream. 
 — Yet I flung her the flower as a rose that a 
 
 lover flings 
 Through the shadowed square 
 Of an opened casement black in the moonlight's 
 
 blaze, 
 Ere I woke with the gleam 
 Of the sun in my eyes, like a rose-lit lamp 
 
 through the haze. 
 
 So my heart flew far 
 
 Till it dwindled and vanished to naught in the 
 
 pallid rays 
 Of the evening star ; 
 Yet answered, " It was not there — 
 
 [9] 
 
The sorcerer's blossom of life that grows in the 
 fields 
 
 Of the pale asphodels, 
 
 Where its red is as gay as the spatter of blood 
 on snow. 
 
 But, see, what the fair west yields — 
 
 Gold, and gold, and gold. 
 
 Warm as the sun, and all 
 
 That your arms can hold 1 
 
 And an old god tells — 
 
 An old stone god, all worn by the seasons' 
 flow — 
 
 That * Better it is to live as the senses' thrall 
 
 And plunder the wealth of the kindly bosom of 
 Earth 
 
 Than bow to the Moloch of Thought, 
 
 In shadowy longing that drives to the Mys- 
 tery.' " 
 
 And my tired heart fought 
 
 With a weariness deep as the sea, 
 
 And fawned and drooped in its need, but I flung 
 it forth 
 
 To the barren north. 
 
 I prayed to the laughing Death that the goal 
 
 be won — 
 That the quest be done ; 
 But most, that I glory again in the touch of her 
 
 lips. 
 So cool and sweet, 
 
 [10] 
 
And bury my torturing soul in the drowning 
 
 bliss 
 Of her half meant kiss, 
 While the perfume drips 
 From the sorcerer's flower that hangs in the net 
 
 of her hair, 
 While the pulses beat 
 With the joy that is only for Life when it lies 
 
 in the arms 
 Of the laughing Death ! 
 — But my heart flew back on the chill o' the 
 
 north-wind's breath. 
 And answered, " It was not there. 
 The blossom you sought; but, look you, what 
 
 northern charms 
 I fling on the ground — 
 Lichen that grows like a scab 
 On the glacier's lip. 
 Draggled and dun and drab ; 
 But, wonder! I found 
 This — wee flower of the ice, where the wet 
 
 snows slip 
 And the slanting sun-rays cross. 
 Little Queen Star-Eye, crouched in the moss ! 
 And an old god droned, 
 An old stone god all scratched by the claws of 
 
 the years, 
 A rune that saith, 
 * It is better to learn with Life 
 Of the worth of strife, 
 
 [11] 
 
And mock, in thy fear, at Death, 
 
 Than to water thy steed Unrest at the tropic 
 
 pools of thy tears/ " 
 And my sick heart moaned 
 Like a stricken beast. 
 
 But I spurred it east, 
 
 To seek, seek, seek for the fairy bloom that I 
 
 knew 
 Death wore in her hair ; 
 And I swore there was none so fair 
 As my Death, with her dove-soft wings and her 
 
 luring eyes 
 That mocked me, and yet shone true 
 When she stooped overhead where I kneeled 
 With the flower in my hand, 
 And hallowed my lips with the grace of her 
 
 petal-mouth, 
 Till my soul's long drouth 
 Stirred like a spring-touched field 
 At her half-command. 
 
 Do ye call Death grim? 
 
 Then ye know her not. She is kind. 
 
 She is mild as an August wind. 
 
 And her lips are soft and sweet as an August 
 
 rose, 
 And her eyes are dim 
 With the pathos, the sorrows and pities, of time 
 
 out of mind; 
 
 [12] 
 
Yet she laughs, as one laughs through tears 
 
 At a gallant jest 
 
 Or a gallant pose 
 
 When the devil sits on the laboring breast 
 
 With a scourge of the wasted years. 
 
 Yet I love Death best 
 
 When she mocks, like a dear coquette, 
 
 And tosses her silken ringlets back from her 
 
 brow 
 And laughs in your face, " Ahy beloved, not 
 
 yet — 
 Not now — " 
 And then comes the beat of a shadowy wing, 
 
 and the touch of a hand. 
 And tresses that brush on your cheek — just a 
 
 wandering strand 
 Of raven-hued silk. — O ye minions of Danger 
 
 and Chance, 
 Do ye half understand.? 
 'Tis RomaTiee! 
 
 Back from the east 
 
 Came my heart like a wounded beast. 
 
 And answered, " It was not there. 
 
 The sorcerer's bloom, the rose that you dreamed 
 
 so fair. 
 But lo ! I have brought 
 Spoil that will buy you a monarch as soon as a 
 
 knave — 
 
 [13] 
 
Body and soul and bones, 
 
 For a cringing slave ! 
 
 Baubles so wrought 
 
 With devil-gift skill, they are lechers to ravish 
 
 the eyes; 
 Glittering stones 
 New-dropped out of Paradise; 
 Maidens to love you, the daughters of Beauty 
 
 by Sin — 
 Lilith's own kin I 
 And visions of dawnings like doom breaking 
 
 over the world, 
 And sunsets like Lucifer's banners in battle un- 
 furled. 
 And memories haunting as crimes — 
 And a tale that an old god told, 
 An old stone god, all worn by his worshippers' 
 
 lips. 
 * Better to live as the flowering creeper that 
 
 climbs 
 Like a snake in the sttn. 
 Or the -fly where the spUt honey drips 
 In its amber and gold. 
 Than run like a madman a race that can never be 
 
 won 
 And the ending of which is the same for the 
 
 creeper and fly 
 As for thee! ' " 
 So my heart won free, 
 And crept in my breast to die. 
 [14] 
 
Yet I looked to the sky, 
 
 For I knew that my heart was wrong, 
 
 And I prayed to my Death to stoop while I still 
 
 was strong — 
 Ere the flavor had gone from the cup, or the Hit 
 
 from the song, 
 Or the zest from the kiss ; 
 While I still, with her arm on my shoulders, 
 
 could mock at the Dark — 
 Laughing and gallant and stark. 
 With a treasure to hazard, and lose, as a gen- 
 tleman should. . . . 
 And at this 
 Came a voice like a call from the heart ot an 
 
 ancient wood — 
 Pagan as Pan's love-cry 
 'Neath a Grecian sky ; 
 And I knew that my fair Death heard. 
 For I felt of a sudden the brush of her hair 
 
 wind-stirred. 
 And the touch of her lips, and the Rose 
 I had sought all the wide world over, 
 For which I had braved 
 All the sins and the sorrows of living, was mme. 
 
 at the close 
 Of the play. . . . And I knew I was saved. 
 Who was Death's own lover. 
 
 [15] 
 
IMPENITENCE 
 
 They were not long, the dear, enraptured revels 
 Flung in a motley on the toneless years ; 
 
 Now must we dare alone the long grey levels, 
 And stoop to tears. 
 
 Not ours, in craven hope, to pray for pardon ; 
 (That which we did, O Love, we knew too 
 well!) 
 Now must we teach our hearts and souls to 
 harden. 
 And bear our hell. 
 
 Yet — can I see thy fair face marred with weep- 
 ing- 
 Feel thy hot anguish and thy needless 
 shame — 
 Knowing no hot, rebellious madness leaping 
 In a wild eager flame 
 
 To smite all earth and heaven with dumb resist- 
 ance ? 
 Gods, how I hate all slaves and Pharisees ! 
 Prating of " sin," yet keeping their wary dis- 
 tance 
 Safe from its mysteries ! 
 
 [16] 
 
They were not long, the days of love and glad- 
 ness, 
 
 Yet did we sin, whatever path we trod — 
 For at the end we dared (and this was madness) 
 
 Dream of a saner God! 
 
 [17] 
 
TO 
 
 If the Parian lyric in stone is a labor of love 
 That the sculptor has wrought from the pain 
 of his passion's eclipse, 
 I wonder what epic of grief was the Master's 
 above, 
 Who fashioned the curve and the rose-petal 
 bloom of jour lips ! 
 
 Oh, barren the triumph, and weary the struggles 
 of men, 
 And idle the plague of the pulse and the fal- 
 tering breath ; 
 Yet I need but your beauty for proof I shall 
 barken again 
 To the lilt of your heartening laugh at the 
 gateway of death. 
 
 [18] 
 
SPRING IN THE SEMI-TROPICS 
 
 The tossing tops of the palms are loud with a 
 wind from the Spanish Main 
 
 That strums the harp of the sunlit beach to a 
 sounding old refrain ; 
 Oh, clear and blue as a maiden's eyes the clean 
 
 sea-spaces lie, 
 Till my heart is off with the wheeling gulls 
 that jest with the lonely sky — 
 
 Off to the rim of the ocean-world, to my lost sea- 
 love again. 
 
 Whose hair is spun of the windy scud and whose 
 robe is the summer rain. 
 
 Over the rim of the world of men I know that my 
 
 love is true — 
 Who is naught of flesh, who is naught of blood, 
 but born of the windy blue ; 
 Her name we stammer with halting tongues 
 
 — we hearts that have heard her call 
 Through the din of an hundred smoky towns, 
 and found her the best of all ! 
 Oh, we name her Spring, or Daxtm-on-the-Sea, 
 
 or Rapture-that-once-we-knew, 
 But the grey gull knows that the names are one 
 when it comes to the tribute due. 
 So ifs offy my heart, to the rim of the world, 
 
 to your lost sea-love again. 
 Whose hair is spun of the windy scud and 
 whose robe is the summer rain! 
 [19] 
 
EROS EPHEMEROS 
 
 Red is the flower of thy mouth 
 
 As the wine that the flagon spatters, 
 And the heart of the windy south 
 
 Is meshed in thy hair to-day. 
 There is little of strength or worth 
 
 To tell of our love — what matters ? 
 Let us talk with the warm old earth 
 
 And argue our sins away. 
 
 The cup of thy parted lips 
 
 Is a calyx of crimson petals 
 A god in his fancy strips 
 
 From a stalk that the Graces tend. 
 I would rather thy beauty's sight 
 
 Than a mountain of precious metals — 
 Yet they say that our love is light, 
 
 And that shame is our passion's end! 
 
 Warm is the pulse of thy breast. 
 
 And the wraith that I served is vanished — 
 The love that I dreamed the best 
 
 Ere I found thee, dear, in the sun. 
 'Twas a vision of ceaseless tears 
 
 And a heart that was true, though banished 
 To a twilight of lonely years 
 
 On a quest that could ne'er be won — 
 
 [20] 
 
And I dreamed o'er-sad, till the kiss 
 
 Of the tips of thy petal-fingers 
 Woke me at last to the bliss 
 
 Thou keepest this day for me. 
 Oh, the morrow of pain and dole 
 
 Is naught while the sunlight lingers, 
 And to-day I would risk my soul 
 
 For that flower-red mouth of thee ! 
 
 [21] 
 
ANTE LUCEM 
 
 Over the hill, the sea, 
 
 And the dusk of a setting star, 
 And the intimate mystery 
 
 Of the wise and voiceless night; 
 A sea-wind drones afar 
 
 On the harp of a stormy height, 
 And the Things-that-were run free 
 To mock at the Dreams-that-are. 
 
 Hark ye their ancient tale: 
 
 " When the curtain of time is torn, 
 Ye may see how the visions fail 
 Till only remains despair. 
 God is a creed outworn, 
 
 Ill-wrought from a mirage fair. 
 And life is an image pale 
 
 That faces a sunless mom." 
 
 Beyond the world, the dark. 
 
 And the marching stars overhead 
 Treading their changing arc 
 
 Like the dial-hands of time. 
 Oh, joy is a fancy sped 
 
 And love is a jeering mime! 
 The sea lies dumb and stark. 
 
 And the dreams of the world are dead. 
 
 [22] 
 
Was it a hope, the spark 
 
 There in the east that gleamed? 
 ''Fool,'' comes the whisper; " Hark! 
 
 Even so we have dreamed! '* 
 
 [23] 
 
" I STUMBLED FROM A MERRY INN " 
 
 I STUMBLED from a merry inn and met my love 
 
 in Naishapur 
 (In Naishapur, in Naishapur, I flung my youth 
 
 away !) — 
 And ruddy fell the moonlight as the ruby from 
 
 a flagon-rim. 
 Dripping o'er the housetop where the purple 
 
 shadows play; 
 Purple shadows beckoning across the scented 
 
 garden-close. 
 Where her white hand led me through the red 
 
 moon's ray — 
 Ay, and was it Ramazan? Pious love is pale 
 
 and wan — 
 So with Sin in Naishapur we flung our youth 
 
 away 1 
 
 The moon was high above us and its pallid light 
 
 was silver-clear; 
 (Crimson for the birth of love, and silver for 
 
 its fall!) 
 Ere I kissed her parted lips, so petal-soft and 
 
 velvety, 
 Eblis oped before me mid the vine-leaves on 
 
 the wall. 
 " Dare ye love in Ramazan? " (O love and 
 
 wine in Ramazan!) 
 
 [24] 
 
Yet I laughed the sin away 'neath the shad- 
 ow's palL 
 " Think ye He will let it pass, dancers on the 
 moonlit grass? 
 
 Nay, for He avengeth, though the troubled 
 planets fall! " 
 
 Oh, yet I dream Mahomet sees, as looking from 
 eternity 
 (He gazes from eternity, O hakim? May I 
 know?) 
 He whispers to the Lord of Life, *' 'Tis Omar in 
 his wilderment. 
 His wilderment of wine and love he may not 
 yet forego. 
 Purple shadows — purple shadows — love and 
 wine and garden-scents ; 
 Lord, I think Thou knowest how Thy sinful 
 children sow; 
 Look, I pardon Omar! Wilt Thou speak for 
 him, O Merciful?" 
 " Ay, and am I one to sell my dreaming chil- 
 dren down to hell? 
 Mahomet, Prince of Dreamers, surely thou, of 
 all, shouldst hmow! " 
 
 [25] 
 
THE WORLD-SLAVE 
 
 Gods, give me but the courage of my dream, 
 To face the world, and know my dreaming 
 
 true — 
 Courage to dare the blame that is my due, 
 And snatch my guerdon from the dawning- 
 beam ! 
 Give me but strength, if only strength in sin ; 
 Give me but passion, though it stoop to 
 
 shame ; 
 Let me leap naked through life's testing 
 
 flame. 
 And bear to lose, and yet endure to win : 
 
 So might I reach thee, Love, in thy unworth, 
 (Thus doth the blind world dub thy long de- 
 spair!) 
 Raising thee in my arms above the earth, 
 
 Till I should find thee all an angel there — 
 Thou poppy-blossom flung in a busy street. 
 Trampled and tattered, spurned by the heed- 
 less feet ! 
 
 [26] 
 
TO THE TIME-GOD 
 SONNET 
 
 I THINK we are what Time may make us — 
 lords 
 Of wealth and land, or wagemen held at hire ; 
 Turning the years, we gain our toil's desire, 
 Or lose, inopportune, its high rewards. 
 Mark ye the pompous merchant's golden 
 hoards ? 
 Ha! 'Twas a chapman's scrip and drab 
 
 attire ! 
 While lo, this sad-eyed sot o' the gutter's 
 mire 
 Might have worn well a martyr's galling cords. 
 
 Barons and beggars, masks on the stage of 
 Time, 
 I cry ye, curb your shame or proud unrest — 
 Ye are but actors moved at Time's behest. 
 
 And king or slave as shifts the pantomime. 
 
 A cycle's turn — the dreamer leaves his rhyme 
 And with the old Olaf dares the goblin West ! 
 
 [87] 
 
TO ALL YE MOTHERLESS 
 
 O CHILDREN who havc never known the clasp 
 Of those dear arms that fend away the world, 
 Surely the kindly gods will know the why 
 Of a fair portion of our restless sins ! 
 Surely the kindly gods will pardon us, 
 Poor foster-children of the careless Earth 
 Whose brood is all too great for tenderness ! 
 We may find loves and friends in womankind, 
 White arms that cling and cool white hands that 
 
 soothe, 
 But we can never know the first and best. 
 Perchance we may but find her in our dreams, 
 Perchance we may not even find her there, 
 Perchance our memories may not limn her 
 
 face — 
 Yet shall we sense a lack when most we need. 
 In hopeless moments when the strongest knows 
 That he is but an infant in the dark. 
 Therefore I think the gods will pardon us 
 Of a fair portion of our restless sins. 
 Lone children who have never known the clasp 
 Of those dear arms that fend away the world. 
 
 [28] 
 
DREAM-SONNETS 
 
 There is a wind that drones around the world 
 And sifts the snow against the window-panes; 
 The winter-monotones of evening fade 
 Into the drab of starless night; the frost 
 Fastens its chilly fingers on the throat 
 Of Nature till the breath of life is stilled, 
 And there is naught but dream to light the 
 world. 
 
 O golden myths of sun and azure sea, 
 
 May I still find your glory through the 
 night ? 
 
 May I still know the rapture and delight 
 Of tropic dawns of lure and mystery ? 
 Glint of the morn on streams of Castaly, 
 
 Caught through the cloud-veil of a mist- 
 hung height ; 
 
 Islands of wonder, beautiful and bright ; 
 And liigh Parnassian peaks of fantasy — 
 
 These are but glimpses of the sunlit land 
 
 I think I knew once, ere my vision dimmed ; 
 When, like a gay child on a sea-worn strand, 
 I felt naught but the spendor of the days. 
 And deemed the stars that pricked the sun- 
 set-haze 
 Aladdin-lamps by fairy fingers trimmed. 
 [29] 
 
II 
 
 the world, that fade and break and 
 blend 
 Into new shapes of wonder and romance! 
 Whirling like autumn leaves in a windy dance, 
 They spin their crimson textures without end. 
 Ravel and weave and twist and tear and mend — 
 All on the clumsy loom of Circumstance — 
 Till the poor homely webs of Fate and Chance 
 Are scrolled with runes the Sun-God might have 
 penned. 
 
 O joy that spurs in turmoil through the veins, 
 Surely we owe thy rapture to the dream 
 
 That splits the wind's wail into love-refrains 
 And finds a godhead in the dawning-beam — 
 
 That risks a horde of pallid truths, and gains 
 
 One dear, shy naiad from a woodland stream ! 
 
 [30] 
 
Ill 
 
 The world of fact is like my firelit room, 
 
 My dream-world like the shouting night out- 
 side — 
 
 Hazard and love and war and seas untried, 
 And highways winding on through sun and 
 
 gloom ! 
 O'er far horizons fairy mountains loom, 
 
 And towered cities flaunt in bannered pride ; 
 
 Mine is the risk to dare, the joust to ride, 
 And mine the tryst amid the garden's bloom. 
 
 Visions of wonder ! See, the firelight fades — 
 For truth is turned to dream, and dream to 
 truth. 
 The leaping flames are bright, elf-smithied 
 blades 
 Hilted with rubies, in an armourer's booth ; 
 While down a steep hill-street I glimpse the sea. 
 And quaint-rigged ships from Ind and Araby. 
 
 [SI] 
 
IV 
 
 I met Love at the crosswajs of a street 
 
 (Far in a cloud-cuckoo-town of my thought), 
 And lo, I dreamed that 'twas for her I sought 
 
 Over my vision-world with weary feet. 
 
 It seemed that Love alone made living sweet, 
 That for a life her kiss were cheaply bought. 
 Till all the prosy creeds the sages taught 
 
 Fell light as winds that stir the summer wheat. 
 
 Oh, though I found her where the way was loud 
 With half-hid lust of rake and Pharisee, 
 
 I dreamed her sudden truth a world more proud 
 Than any praised, untested chastity ; 
 
 Yet waked to grudge my meed of cleansing fire 
 
 Because her sandals showed a touch of mire. 
 
 [32] 
 
Love, I have led thee into devious ways 
 
 Till thy dear feet are stained with blood and 
 
 dust, 
 Thy bright hair tousled by each wantoning 
 gust 
 Till none may note the pathos in thy gaze. 
 Have I been spendthrift of thine altar-blaze? 
 Have I been base, that men miscall thee Lust? 
 Have I been, then, so faithless to my trust? 
 The dead years drone, ** And for thy fault Love 
 pays:' 
 
 O Time, and didst thou once bring golden hours 
 When I discerned her temples on the height, 
 And did I choose instead the wild delight 
 That beckoned red-lipped from the valley-bow- 
 ers? 
 Gods ! Do I not pay, too, when through the 
 night 
 Love still comes groping, wreathed with with- 
 ered flowers? 
 
 [33] 
 
VI 
 
 Just for a bright and fleeting hour to hold 
 
 The glories of the ages in thy brain ! 
 
 Is it not worth the barren days of pain 
 When fades the dream and dims the fairy gold? 
 Think, thou hast read the scroll of Time un- 
 rolled ; 
 
 Think, thou hast trod the soil of heaven's 
 plain. 
 
 Conquered the stars, yet stooped to feel again 
 White arms of Love that comfort and enfold ! 
 
 For we are all that man may will to be — 
 There are no fetters that we may not break, 
 There are no highways that we may not take. 
 
 Nor for our restless keels a shoreless sea: 
 
 Till at the dawning, when we dreamers wake, 
 
 The blind World thanks us for — reality! 
 
 O dream-desires that wane unsatisfied. 
 Ye are as 'plaintive as the soft snow-lips 
 That kiss so lightly on the window-glass. 
 Yet hark! The iron wind splits tlie rim of 
 night. 
 Breaking a gateway to the hopeful stars! 
 An orient dream of jewelled blue, — and then 
 The red moon spills her wine across the snow. 
 
 [34] 
 
THE VERMEIL FLOWER 
 
 Fair maid, fair maid, dreaming in your May- 
 time, 
 Fair maid, fair maid, shall ye wake to June? 
 Dawn may promise glory for the sunny day- 
 time — 
 Hear ye but the story of the dusty noon ! 
 Keep ye still the blossom hidden in your bosom, 
 Lest ye wake too soon ! 
 
 Red lips, red lips, wherefore are ye smiling. 
 Red lips, red lips, when the world is grey? 
 Find ye, then, a morrow for your heart's be- 
 guiling. 
 Though the morning borrow but grief from 
 the day? 
 Hold ye to your sleeping lest ye wake to weep- 
 ing- 
 Dream the years away ! 
 
 Dark eyes, dark eyes, ope ye, then, to vision? 
 
 Dark eyes, dark eyes, are ye glad to see? 
 Dare ye bear the scourges of the world's de- 
 rision, 
 Mockery that urges, " Death will set ye free. 
 Sirce ye sinned by living, Death will bring for- 
 gimng — 
 Aye, but never we '*? 
 
 [35] 
 
Red bloom, red bloom Youth is fain to cherish, 
 Red bloom, red bloom, solace if ye can ! 
 
 Till in spite of kisses all your petals perish, 
 And your fairy blisses find a mortal span ! 
 
 Till the jest is ended that we knew so splendid 
 Ere the sin began ! 
 
 [36] 
 
THE CLIFF OF TEARS 
 A LYRICAL DRAMA IN ONE ACT 
 
PERSONS 
 
 Atthis, whom grief has driven raad 
 Phaon, a mariner of Lesbos 
 Sappho, of Lesbos 
 
Time, an evening in the spring of the year. 
 The place is the headland of Leucate, on the 
 coast of the island of Leucadia. To the left 
 and rear, the cliff-edge; to the right, a side view 
 of the fa<^ade of a small Ionic temple. In the 
 centre, a weather-worn stone altar. Left-rear, 
 background of sea and sky; right-rear, beyond 
 the temple, a dark grove. The sun has already 
 set, but a slender moon combines with the after- 
 glow to flood the open space before the temple 
 with a soft, gradually dimming light. There is 
 a smouldering fire on the altar; the smoke goes 
 up in a straight, thin wisp. Atthis is discov- 
 ered, sitting on the short grass, near the cliff- 
 edge. 
 
 Atthis 
 
 [Singing] 
 
 Wealth of vision, charm of dream, 
 
 Gold of sun, and grey of shadow. 
 Wait ye where the rollers gleam 
 And the nereid-tresses stream 
 
 'Mid the joyous ocean-meadow. 
 Through the breakers' rimming thunder 
 
 From the outer sea, 
 Lo, we bring ye hints of wonder, 
 Till the trembling pebbles seem 
 
 Silver by our sorcery. 
 
 [39] 
 
Would ye rouse them — will ye dare — 
 
 All the dark forgotten ages, 
 All the spectres of despair 
 And the red, triumphal glare 
 
 Of our storied pilgrimages? 
 Seek ye where the ripples whiten 
 
 'Neath the windy skies. 
 Till ye mark the vision brighten 
 That shall flame at last as fair 
 
 As the dawn to sleepless eyes ! 
 
 \^As she is singing, Phaon enters, and 
 stands watching her. Though he is a 
 powerfully-huUt man, he seems travel- 
 worn and weary, and leans somewhat 
 heavily upon a stout staff ; he is deeply 
 bronzed by sun arid wind, and his beard 
 is ragged and unkempt. He wears a 
 heavy short-sword in a battered sheath, 
 and a knife hanging by a thong from his 
 neck; his clothes are rough and worn, 
 and the travelers' chlamys or cloak is 
 cast carelessly over one shoulder. At- 
 THis pays no attention to him, but con- 
 tinues her song.'] 
 
 Silver-girt, the haunted shore 
 
 Fringes white the Blessed Islands 
 Where the laughing rapids pour 
 And the breezes leap before, 
 [40] 
 
Droning o'er untrodden highlands ! 
 Own ye phantoms of romances 
 
 Cherished half-afraid? 
 Look ye, where the pennoned lances 
 That the slaves of Helen bore 
 
 Flash to greet ye down the glade ! 
 
 \_She pauses. Phaon steps toward her.'] 
 
 Phaon 
 
 O maiden, once I dreamed a happy dream, 
 A dream wherein I seemed to hear your voice. 
 Are you not Atthis ? 
 
 Atthis 
 
 [Looking up wildly] 
 
 I am a wraith. 
 
 [Startled] 
 
 Phaon 
 
 A wraith 
 Atthis 
 
 I am the ghost of one who died of love ; 
 I am the husk and wrappings of her soul; 
 I am the shade of her dead heart — 
 [She hesitates, and falls silent] 
 
 Phaon 
 
 And yet 
 You sing, though sorrowful? 
 [41] 
 
Atthis 
 
 I sing to drown 
 The clamor of her sph'it, and to drug 
 Her wraith with memories. 
 
 \_She goes to the altar, and throws incense 
 upon the fire. The smoke curls fantas- 
 tically upward^ 
 
 Look you, 'tis a charm ! 
 l^She sings again'\ 
 
 Backward reels the rolling year — 
 Lifts Aurora golden-breasted — 
 Till the long sea-shadows clear 
 And the climbing combers rear 
 
 Purple-robed and silver-crested ! 
 Seek ye where the barren reaches 
 
 Meet the windy blue, 
 Till ye raise the fairy beaches. 
 Till ye hark with dreaming ear 
 To the song Ulysses knew. . . . 
 
 Phaon 
 Gods ! Maiden, 'tis your voice that is the 
 
 charm. 
 Bidding me dream again ! A wraith am I, 
 Even as you, O Atthis ! 
 
 Atthis 
 
 All are wraiths, 
 Who haunt the graveyards of forgotten joys 
 And may not know the sun, but wander blind 
 [42] 
 
Down twilit passages that end in night. . . . 
 What seek you in my graveyard, wraith-man ? 
 
 Phaon 
 
 Love, 
 From one I loved once, and still love. 
 
 Atthis 
 
 Still love.? 
 Look you, wraiths may not love ! Alas, 'tis 
 
 plain 
 You are but lately dead — 
 
 Phaon 
 [Sadli/] 
 
 Nay, nay ! I died 
 A full year since. 
 
 Atthis 
 
 Alas, poor ghost! To love, 
 And yet be naught but fog before the wind ! 
 What maiden was it ? 
 
 Phaon 
 
 One who loved me well — 
 Sappho, the Nymph of Song ! 
 
 Atthis 
 
 'Twas Sappho? Sappho? 
 And you — were you, then — Phaon? 
 [43] 
 
Phaon 
 
 I was Phaon — ■ 
 And I am Phaon still, though from my breast 
 One-half my heart has vanished. 
 
 Atthis 
 
 Oh, accursed ! 
 Why walk you 'mid our groves of sorrow? Go ! 
 Go, ere the gods destroy you ! 
 
 Phaon 
 
 Nay ! I seek 
 Sappho, and I will find her ! 
 [Eagerhj] 
 
 Speak, O Atthis ! 
 Is Sappho in Leucadia? Rumour said 
 She dwelt on Leucate — hermit-like, forlorn, 
 Companionless ; saw dreams in altar-smoke. 
 And played the seeress for the shepherds' wives, 
 And was thought mad by simple countrymen, 
 But was beloved because she sang their hearts 
 Full of sweet tears ! 
 
 [He hows his head] 
 
 O Atthis, 'twas a ghost, 
 An evil ghost of love and jealousy 
 That parted us — yet might not bear the dawn 
 Of loneliness — 
 
 Atthis 
 [Wildhj] 
 
 You seek for Sappho ? Go ! 
 [44] 
 
There is no Sappho here — though I know a 
 
 wraith 
 I think was hers once. You may hear it wail, 
 Gliding betwixt the tree-trunks. — See! see, 
 Phaon ! 
 
 \_She points to a dark opening among the 
 trees, and goes toward it. Phaon starts, 
 wheels, and makes as if to follow her; 
 hut he can see nothing~\ 
 
 Phaon 
 
 Where, Atthis — where ? 'Tis naught but 
 blackness yonder! 
 
 Atthis 
 
 [From the shadow^ 
 She floats like dying music through the grove. 
 And strings the horned moon for her silver lyre ! 
 [Atthis vanishes. Phaon stands motion- 
 less, as if in doubt. As he is peering 
 through the deepenvng twilight, the 
 sound of singing comes from somewhere 
 on the shore below; it is the chant of 
 late-returning fishermen. Phaon starts, 
 as if he recognized the song, and goes 
 quickly to the cliff-edge to look over. 
 As he is standing with his back to the 
 grove, Sappho emerges from its shadow, 
 and stands regarding him J 
 [45] 
 
Voices 
 
 If so ye come from the breed that is born with a 
 
 strain of the salt in the blood of its veins, 
 
 Surely ye know how the sprites of the wind 
 
 with invisible magic entangle the heart, 
 
 Snaring the fancy with stories of roving and 
 
 roaming and loving and luring refrains 
 
 Snatched from the drone of the surf on the 
 
 sand when the dawn leaps to flame and 
 
 the dark splits apart. 
 
 Then have ye seen her, in dreams though it be, 
 
 when she loosened her hair for the sport 
 
 of the breeze — 
 Seen how it streamed in an ebon cascade like 
 
 a river of night on an isle of the dawn. 
 Laving the shoulders of sun-painted bronze with 
 
 its silken caress as she stooped to the 
 
 seas 
 Creaming in ripples to shapely mid-thigh, ere 
 
 she plunged from the reef and the vision 
 
 was gone? 
 
 Or have ye found her at sea, when the forefoot 
 is slashing in flame through the limitless 
 night. 
 Then have ye seen her asleep on the rollers, 
 her hair like a veil on the breast of the 
 wave ? — 
 
 [46] 
 
Glimpsed her a moment and dropped her behind 
 where the wake is a wavering welter of 
 light; 
 Looked for a moment, and then — for a life- 
 time have tried to forget her who held 
 you a slave? 
 
 Phaon 
 
 'Twas a sea-chorus Sappho wrought! I hear 
 
 her 
 Even now — how she sang it from the deck 
 Of that poor trireme that was wrecked off Athos 
 A long six months i' the past ! O gods, how 
 
 long! 
 I have grown old and died in heart and soul. 
 Known torment of mind and body, since the 
 
 night 
 Her white sails glimmered paling doAvn the sea 
 To fade in the dusk-veil! 
 
 [Turning, and recognizing Sappho] 
 
 Sappho ! Can it be Sappho ? 
 
 Sappho 
 Phaon — ah, Phaon ! Why — ? 
 
 Phaon 
 
 [Leaping toward her] 
 
 Sappho, is it you ? 
 [47] 
 
Sappho 
 
 [Shrinking from him] 
 
 Why have you followed me? Whence do you 
 come? This isle 
 
 I dreamed my underworld of sorrow — safe 
 
 From all but ghosts of joys, that turn to tor- 
 ments 
 
 With the slow-fading memory — 
 
 Phaon 
 
 Sappho, I come 
 To take you home — to Lesbos! Listen! 
 
 News ! 
 News that should make your pulses dance ! Al- 
 
 caeus, 
 He whose half-love was swift to turn to hate, 
 Is exiled, this month past, to Cyprus ; Pittakos 
 Can scarce maintain his throne with foreign 
 
 swords, 
 And gauges days of power by yellow coins 
 Doled from his treasury : while the people cry ^^ 
 For " Sappho! Sappho! Song and love! " 
 
 again. 
 And to placate them he commutes your exile, 
 And bids me seek you, bring you swift to Lesbos, 
 Though the home-harbor hailed me from the sea 
 A scant sun-cycle ere he yielded ! Lo, 
 I greet you, Sappho, fresh from shipwreck: 
 
 death 
 
 [48] 
 
In Chalcidice trod upon my heels. 
 But I am purged in soul of poisoned thoughts 
 By the dear gift of love that lives anew — 
 Love that I know at last has never died, 
 E'en though it seemed to sleep — 
 
 Sappho 
 
 But 'tis too late — 
 Too late ! 
 
 Phaon 
 [Eagerli/] 
 
 And how too late ? The tyrant yields ; 
 If you but say the words, the people rise. 
 Topple him from his pedestal — though his 
 
 guard 
 Were doubly, trebly bought — and cast him 
 
 forth 
 To find his dog's way back to Sparta ! I, 
 I also, Sappho ; I, who love you still — 
 Love you f orevermore - — I plead with you. 
 Think — think ; you loved me once — 
 
 Sappho 
 
 [Half to herself] 
 
 Too late ! Too late ! 
 It is too late. But ah ! the Lesbian hills — 
 Olive and cedar, cool dark green, and grey 
 That silvers with the zephyrs ; and the peaks — 
 Violet and ash-of -roses on the sky 
 [49] 
 
When the sun tops the Asian ranges, grim 
 
 As sentinels of Eos in the dawn ! 
 
 And the bright, sun-gay valleys, all a-dream, 
 
 With hum of bee and flaunt of painted wing 
 
 Making the noonday trance of summer 
 breathe. . . . 
 
 Gods ! Will the grapes still purple in the vine- 
 yards ? 
 
 The must be gay with sharpening perfume — 
 all 
 
 As ere I left? 
 
 Phaon 
 Nay, nay ! The vines will droop 
 With sorrow, and the wine will turn to tears, 
 Till you return ! The whole isle weeps for Sap- 
 pho ; 
 All Lesbos calls you — 
 
 Sappho 
 
 Ay, I fain would see 
 Once more the pharos-light blaze out to guide 
 The sea-worn galley home — to Lesbos ! 
 
 Phaon 
 
 Come ! 
 
 Look, Sappho! I, your Phaon, call you! 
 
 Come ! 
 Your home, and mine, is waiting ! 
 [50] 
 
Sappho 
 
 [D2dl2/] 
 
 'Tis too late. 
 The failing torch is dimming in the gloom, 
 The festival is over ! It is dark — 
 And jaded revelers should sleep at last, 
 Ere the far morn surprise them. 
 
 Phaon 
 
 Sappho, wake ! 
 You look as one who staggers through a dream, 
 Beset by weary horrors ! Wake ! 
 
 Sappho 
 IRousing] 
 
 Dreams ? Dreams ? 
 Are they but dreams, then? Nay, but memo- 
 ries ! Phaon, 
 Lightly you loved me once, and lightly cast 
 My love away, when I had kneeled to you 
 In the dust of shame ! And now you come with 
 
 love — 
 True, honest love, to cloak you like a robe 
 In a tragic mimicry ! Gods ! Do I starve for 
 
 love. 
 That I should snatch the crumbs from another's 
 
 feast. 
 Grovel and fawn and clutch at empty shows 
 Of condescension mocking love.? 
 [51] 
 
Phaon 
 
 [^Earnestly^ stepping towards her] 
 
 I bring 
 My very soul in my hands, O Sappho — lay it 
 For your dear feet to trample. Should you 
 
 deign 
 To wear it in your bosom as a rose 
 But for a passing hour, then I would be 
 As favored by the high gods ! There is a fire 
 That rushes flaming through my veins, and none 
 But you can quench it ! Heart of my heart, be 
 
 kind! 
 Love me again as once you loved, and I 
 Will pay for each tear that your eyes have shed 
 With a thousand kisses, a thousand homages — 
 
 tribute 
 That I have owed unknowing from the first ! 
 
 [He attempts to take her in his arms] 
 
 Sappho 
 [Retreating] 
 Back — back ! Nay, touch me not ! 
 
 Phaon 
 
 [Passionately] 
 
 Can I check my love 
 When it leaps like a ship before the wind — 
 When I have starved for you for months, and 
 dreamed 
 
 [52] 
 
Of one more night of bliss on Leucate? 
 You were not wont to shun me ! 
 
 Sappho 
 
 Nay, nor you 
 To hold from others when your passion drove ! 
 Love, say you? Oh, you stain the sacred word, 
 Breathing it through such lips ! Back ! Touch 
 
 me not! 
 Gods, have I sinned so greatly that this last 
 Base punishment falls on me? 
 
 Kiss me, then ! 
 Kiss me, and stain us both so black with shame 
 All Lethe could not win us peace ! 
 [She turns to him^ 
 
 Phaon 
 
 [Taking her in his arms^ 
 
 Ah, Sappho, 
 Where is the shame when lovers kiss? 'Twere 
 
 shame 
 Did they not so ! O night and Leucate ! 
 My heart is like a lyre that Sappho's fingers 
 Pluck to melodious music ; all my soul 
 Springs to my lips to perish of a kiss ! 
 
 [He bends to hiss her, hut she suddenly 
 eludes him, laughing wildly^ 
 [53] 
 
Sappho 
 
 Then perish, poor soul, i' the dark ! And as for 
 
 shame — 
 Methinks there lived a girl in Lemnos once — 
 A slip of a girl — a trifle — 'twas Theonoe ; 
 Theodota — what called they her? 'Tis 
 
 naught ! 
 She was twice-happy, giving Phaon pleasure — 
 First, in the deed, and next in the pleasant sense 
 That she was least of burdens on his mind ! 
 Dead loves are like dead leaves — the autumn 
 
 breeze 
 Blows the June-revel's fantasies away. 
 Dead loves — are dead, O Phaon ! 
 
 Phaon 
 
 Ay — but lead 
 Perchance to love that never dies ! 
 
 Sappho 
 
 [Stepping slowly backward towards the 
 cliff -edge^ 
 
 Then kiss me! 
 Kiss me, O Phaon ! See, I am here, and wait 
 
 you! 
 Are my lips red? Then kiss them, Phaon, kiss 
 
 them! 
 Is my hair silken ? Stroke it, Phaon — wind 
 Your whole heart in its meshes ! Are my arms 
 £54] 
 
So soft and white? They clasp you, Phaon, 
 
 clasp you 
 Close to my bosom! See, they are eager! 
 
 Come! 
 This night I am yours, O Phaon! Come and 
 
 take me ! 
 I am the Sappho men call Nymph of Song, 
 And I will sing to you and love you ! Hark ! 
 
 Phaon 
 
 \^Following her^ 
 You are a witch o' the night— a nymph o' the 
 moon ! 
 
 Sappho 
 
 Nay, I am only Sappho, singing dirges 
 To a gay lilting love-tune ! 
 
 Sands of the sounding sea, 
 
 Let it be written here 
 All that a life may be, 
 
 All it may fear. 
 
 Life is — and may be — God, 
 Winning to heights supreme 
 
 Where e'en the heroes trod 
 Only in dream. 
 [55] 
 
Life is — and may be — Love ! 
 
 Ay ! — or a spent desire, 
 Mocking its heights above 
 
 Out of the mire ! 
 
 'Tis too sad? 
 A pest on songs ! Are songs a match for love? 
 Come, Phaon ! I am hungry for your arms ! 
 Come, Phaon ! Kiss me — kiss me ! 
 
 Phaon 
 
 lExultingli^'] 
 
 Sappho ! Sappho ! 
 
 [He lea/ps forward, hut she steps hack, 
 evading his arms, and halances on the 
 very hrvnk of the cliff. For a moment 
 she stands silhouetted against the 
 faintly -moonlit hackground of sea and 
 sky; her arms are outstretched. Phaon 
 clutches at her, hut he is too late'\ 
 
 Sappho 
 
 Ay, kiss me — farewell ! 
 
 [She wheels quickly, and springs into the 
 sea. A cloud covers the moon; the wa- 
 ters turn suddenly indigo-dark; through 
 the shadow, Phaon can harely he dis- 
 [56] 
 
tinguished, crouched on the cU^-rvm, 
 shouting frantically into the blackness 
 helow'] 
 
 Phaon 
 Sappho! Sappho! Sappho! 
 
 CURTAIN 
 
 [57] 
 
" CURTAIN " 
 
 CRITIC that waits in the shadow, methinks I have 
 
 loved too well 
 The bright little dreams that dance so light in 
 
 the Masque of our Age ; 
 Methinks I have bowed over-oft in the past to the 
 
 tinsel's spell, 
 Till my soul is as blank as the calcium-glare on 
 
 an empty stage. 
 
 1 have felt that the most of my tears were as false 
 
 as my jests; 
 
 Of the real that was mine for the living, I 
 wrought me a play — 
 Till the passions I knew were the passions I bor- 
 rowed from puppets' breasts, 
 
 And the flame of my love as the footlights' glow 
 to the blaze of the day. 
 
 And yet, at the height of my masking, I dream that 
 my heart has known 
 For an instant the wonder and thrill of a might- 
 ier drama than all — 
 And I pray such a moment of truth for my aid, 
 when I stammer alone 
 My last weak lines to an emptied pit ere the 
 curtain falls. 
 
 [58]