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 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT: 
 
EMBERS 
 
EMBERS 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN MYERS O'HARA 
 
 SMITH & SALE 
 
 PORTLAND MAINE 
 
 MDCCCCXXI 
 

 <V 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1921 
 
 BY 
 
 SMITH & SALE 
 
 DEC 22 1921 
 ©CI.A653211 
 
 AvO I 
 
TO 
 THOMAS M. McKEE 
 
OF THIS EDITION TWO HUNDRED 
 COPIES HAVE BEEN PRINTED. 
 NO. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 EMBERS 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 THE BROODING DUSK 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 EPHEMERAE . 
 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 THE VISTA 
 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 AVOWAL 
 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 LOST GLORIES 
 
 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 LIGHTS 
 
 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 THE TRINITY 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 THE SYBARITE 
 
 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 MAD NIGHTS 
 
 
 
 
 
 IO 
 
 AS ONCE CALLIMACHUS 
 
 
 
 
 
 ii 
 
 THE HOLOCAUST 
 
 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 THE HEARTH 
 
 
 
 
 
 13 
 
 APRIL DUSK 
 
 
 
 
 
 14 
 
 DAWN AT LESBOS 
 
 
 
 
 
 IS 
 
 THE PAGAN . 
 
 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 THEOXENIA . 
 
 
 
 
 
 17 
 
 SECLUSION 
 
 
 
 
 
 18 
 
 DE SENECTUTE 
 
 
 
 
 
 19 
 
 RETROSPECT 
 
 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 RED CORONALS 
 
 
 
 
 
 21 
 
 Vll 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 II 
 
 THE CLOSING SONG 
 
 
 
 
 
 25 
 
 AN OLD BOUDOIR 
 
 
 
 
 
 26 
 
 THE TRYST . 
 
 
 
 
 
 27 
 
 DOMINANCE . 
 
 
 
 
 
 28 
 
 NEPENTHE 
 
 
 
 
 
 29 
 
 VESPER SADNESS . 
 
 
 
 
 
 30 
 
 THE QUEENS 
 
 
 
 
 
 31 
 
 THE METEOR 
 
 
 
 
 
 32 
 
 AT THE OLD FERRY 
 
 
 
 
 
 33 
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 
 
 
 
 34 
 
 FLEURS D'AMOUR . 
 
 
 
 
 
 35 
 
 ANOMALY 
 
 
 
 
 
 36 
 
 THE MIRROR 
 
 
 
 
 
 37 
 
 DISILLUSION 
 
 
 
 
 
 38 
 
 FOR SANDRO'S BRUSH 
 
 
 
 
 
 39 
 
 PRESCIENCE . 
 
 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 EPISODE 
 
 
 
 
 
 4i 
 
 REMINISCENCE 
 
 
 
 
 
 42 
 
 ASPHODELS . 
 
 
 
 
 
 43 
 
 DEAD LOVES 
 
 
 
 
 
 44 
 
 A GRECIAN GIRL . 
 
 
 
 
 
 45 
 
 IX 
 
EMBERS 
 
EMBERS 
 
 HE fitful flickers from the embers start, 
 The embers in the ashes of my heart; 
 Gray ashes of the flame that is no more, 
 What epic passions burned you to the core! 
 
 Ashes, I stir you softly in my breast, 
 
 Search the red coals and rake them from the rest; 
 
 I hoard them in a heap and try to blow 
 
 The sudden glimmer to a leaping glow. 
 
 The embers whiten and refuse the flame, 
 Red glory that I never may reclaim; 
 Oh, memory, I shiver in the night! 
 You, too, desert me with the lost delight. 
 
THE BROODING DUSK 
 
 LIKE cryptic figures on a shattered frieze, 
 Slowly my thoughts in broken sequence pass, 
 The pathos of rejected deities, 
 Torn from a temple's once harmonic mass; 
 
 Processional before me as I brood, 
 
 They move as shapes to some impending doom, 
 And cold as marble to my sombre mood, 
 
 They shroud my soul in unabating gloom. 
 
EPHEMERA 
 
 SO careless of the myriads that dream, 
 The little wraiths of dust that walk the earth, 
 Can any but a visionary deem 
 
 That Nature shaped them for immortal birth ? 
 
 The little toiling clutchers of a day, 
 
 The human swarms that grope upon the sphere, 
 Can any have the insolence to say 
 
 That such to any deity are dear? 
 
 Could God imagine these and not despise? 
 
 Like bubbles on the sea they rise and fall; 
 Oh, is it any wonder that the wise 
 
 See nothing but oblivion for all? 
 
THE VISTA 
 
 THE vista of the hills, where one by one, 
 Along the sky, with misty heads, they go, 
 Belated pilgrims marching toward the sun, 
 Touched by its fading glow; 
 
 It is the lordly way of perished dreams, 
 
 Where classic pomps, that once enthralled my soul, 
 Returning lure me with their phantom gleams 
 To seek some regal goal. 
 
AVOWAL 
 
 I WILL not drink of life from any beaker, 
 Except the brimming one that I adore; 
 I will not share the worship of the weaker, 
 Confiding in the faith that is no more. 
 
 I will not barter for celestial glory 
 
 The nearer blessing of the mortal best; 
 
 I will not listen to the futile story 
 Of any heaven but eternal rest. 
 
 I will not deem earth's splendid ways unholy, 
 When truth and abnegation are at odds; 
 
 I will not be a beggar craving solely 
 
 The crumbs beneath the table of the gods. 
 
LOST GLORIES 
 
 STILL must the glamor of the city's night 
 Lure with the dear enchantment of their eyes; 
 Under the spell, indissolubly bright, 
 
 Lost glories, through long memory, arise; 
 
 Glories that gather back their faded crowns, 
 In amaranthine freshness for my gaze; 
 
 Such for the parts, the princes and the clowns, 
 That my dead life, recalled, returns and plays. 
 
LIGHTS 
 
 INSUPERABLE lights, you are my life, 
 Braving the shadow to the final goal! 
 Supreme illusion, over human strife 
 You shed a glamor sateless to my soul. 
 
 Your fever, in my veins, is like dread wine, 
 The banquet cup with poison in the lees; 
 
 And yet no fear can make it less divine, 
 Nor rob it of its high felicities. 
 
 You weave a magic to enchant the nights, 
 Forever true, you bring me fair romance; 
 
 My opiate you are, poetic lights, 
 
 I drink your splendor in a mighty glance! 
 
THE TRINITY 
 
 YOUTH, love, and art, 
 The trinity, 
 These, in the heart, 
 Will live for me; 
 
 Youth, for the hope, 
 Love, for the thrill, 
 
 Art, for the scope 
 Of vision still. 
 
 Dreamers who raise 
 Altars to these, 
 
 Make of their days 
 Eternities. 
 
THE SYBARITE 
 
 A THREAD of smoke, sheathing a tongue of flame, 
 That curling through the massive pillars came; 
 Then rushing slaves who flung the kindling brands, 
 And spread the fire with torches in their hands; 
 And through the palace, from the sloping throne, 
 Swept a great cry of terror; while, alone, 
 Impassive in the tumult and the fright, 
 Serenely sat the splendid Sybarite. 
 
 I know not why its horror haunts me thus, 
 
 The smoking pyre of Sardanapalus, 
 
 Here, in this calm, where mountains lift their heights 
 
 Against the most superbly starred of nights; 
 
 Nor why the hateful vision should intrude, 
 
 And mar for me the heart's exalted mood, 
 
 In this absolving hour when I have cast 
 
 Out of my soul the dregs of all the past. 
 
MAD NIGHTS 
 
 MAD nights tossed deathward in the haggard dawn, 
 Kingdoms we squandered swift in beauty's quest, 
 Hours envied of the gods, forever gone, 
 Ye leave an urn of ashes in my breast! 
 
 Mad nights, redreamed, ye throng to memory fast, 
 Shake me with love and laughter, wit and wine; 
 Pleasures that were imperial in the past, 
 And nevermore may sway this heart of mine! 
 
 10 
 
AS ONCE CALLIMACHUS 
 
 AS those two friends, in old lands far away, 
 Long centuries ago, the grave and wise, 
 Who strolled together at the close of day, 
 
 And talked the Pagan sun adown the skies; 
 
 So we two chat together, but we sit 
 
 With art around us and the softened lights, 
 
 Instead of twilight that the Pharos lit, 
 Under the splendor of Egyptian nights. 
 
 What words were yours, Callimachus, none know, 
 Nor what the discourse of your Carian friend, 
 
 But though our vagrant thoughts like gipsies go, 
 Art is the goal where all our gossips end. 
 
 Picture and statue, while we laugh and joke, 
 And with our fragrant coffee linger yet, 
 
 Assume a halo as you blow the smoke 
 In lazy spirals from your cigarette. 
 
 We talk the stars across eternal space, 
 
 Beauty and art the still recurring themes; — 
 
 Ah, should one miss the other in his place, 
 
 Then that shall be the night of saddest dreams. 
 
 If mine the fate, recall me ever thus, 
 The genial comrade of those royal years, 
 
 And if you go, as once Callimachus, 
 
 I leave this song to tell you of my tears. 
 
 11 
 
THE HOLOCAUST 
 
 AT Delia's house, in Rome, the poet stood, 
 Pensive among the guests, that festal night; 
 A hand stole into his as one that would 
 Caress him back to laughter and delight. 
 
 And Delia, jesting, thus: "When thou art dead, 
 Hast chosen what thy epitaph shall be?" 
 
 Tibullus mused a moment, then he said: 
 
 "O Song, what hearts he sacrificed to thee!" 
 
 12 
 
THE HEARTH 
 
 IN cynical seclusion from the world, 
 The storm has made me hermit for the night, 
 While the mad gust against the pane is hurled, 
 And all the ways are lost in blinding white. 
 
 I snatch a fair communing hour from life, 
 A gracious respite from the venal plan, 
 
 And shielded by the elemental strife, 
 I live a little space the finer man. 
 
 I prod the coals and rake the ashes thin, 
 Adjust me snugly in my easy chair, 
 
 And breathe a sigh of vast contentment when 
 I take the cherished book and banish care. 
 
 Ah, not with sparing zeal the Roman fought 
 For hearth and altar in the ancient days; 
 
 I feel the dual comfort that he caught 
 Beside the bright religion of the blaze. 
 
 And what benigner comrade could I claim, 
 With rarer wisdom for the sheltered glow, 
 
 Than he who pondered by the crackling flame, 
 While round his Sabine villa fell the snow. 
 
 13 
 
APRIL DUSK 
 
 NIGHT, one star, the mystic hush of the mountains, 
 Far below, the curve of the shining river, 
 Under slopes that blend in the dusk of April, 
 Kissed by the warm wind; 
 
 Earthy fragrance, after the rain, and silence, 
 In the hills, and over the purple valley; 
 Then, again, the nearer note of the plaintive 
 Whip-poor-will calling. 
 
 14 
 
DAWN AT LESBOS 
 
 UNDER lifting wings of the sullen darkness, 
 Ere the East was red with the blush of Eos, 
 Lesbos rose, an isle in a sea of opal, 
 Out of the shadow; 
 
 Dimly rose, and out of the dreaming distance, 
 Out of waves that woke with a sighing ripple, 
 Seemed a lyre for gods that the bending heaven 
 Guarded in silence; 
 
 But the ruthless lances of light assailed it, 
 Sudden light that, striking from hill to valley, 
 Made the olives shine on the crest and shimmer 
 Green to the water; 
 
 Green as waves that leaped in the sun to sapphire, 
 Waves that laughed and kissed with a foaming whisper, 
 While the wheeling legions of dawn were sweeping 
 Night from the summit; 
 
 Then our eyes, entranced with the ancient wonder, 
 Saw upflame the slope in a snow of blossoms, 
 Mitylene, trailing her bright iEgean 
 Vesture of azure; 
 
 Crowned again with pride of an olden April, 
 Pride of deathless song and of templed glory, 
 Seeming now, as once from a Roman galley, 
 Music to vision; 
 
 Yet we knew a strain to the ear diviner, 
 Not of dawn, the nightingale in the orchard, 
 Sappho's own, with grief in the note ecstatic, 
 Mourning her ever. 
 
 15 
 
THE PAGAN 
 
 IF I am still the Pagan in my pride, 
 And dream the life that destiny denied, 
 If through triumphant avenues my soul 
 Would climb in pomp to some exalted goal; 
 
 If I can see no joy beyond my dream, 
 
 And pass contemptuous of the common scheme, 
 
 If ardor for the beauty that I crave 
 
 Would make me both the monarch and the slave; 
 
 Esteem me for a fault not wholly mine, 
 But vital by the will of the divine; 
 The God, who gave to one his crown of thorns, 
 Ordained for me the faun's symbolic horns. 
 
 16 
 
THEOXENIA 
 
 THE banquets of the gods when they resented 
 The first flush of the dawn's invading fire, 
 Such feasts alone could make us discontented, 
 When the pale torches of the stars expire; 
 
 We dream of them tonight, with glasses lifted, 
 And pledge the revels that Olympus knew; 
 
 It seems, with ours, a clinking downward drifted, 
 An echo of ambrosial laughter, too; 
 
 And presently, a sound of goblets broken, 
 Lest other lips should desecrating drink; 
 
 We toss our glasses hearthward at the token, 
 A valediction from the heaven's brink. 
 
 17 
 
SECLUSION 
 
 NOT the bright world, the triumph for the truth, 
 The clashing steel of combat and the crown, 
 Not the thronged highways of impetuous youth, 
 But the past's dreaming in the sleepy town; 
 
 Not the high ardor of the heart's hot flame, 
 The sweep of eager vision from the crest, 
 Not the proud chaplet of undying fame, 
 But the supreme beatitude of rest. 
 
 18 
 
DE SENECTUTE 
 
 SHALL senile blight be mine, the trembling hand, 
 The twisted back, the slow and halting pace? 
 Shall I, with eyes that fail me, helpless stand, 
 And shade the wrinkled parchment of my face? 
 
 Rather for me the swift releasing draught, 
 
 The stroke that brings oblivion to the brain, 
 
 For I, who worshipped youth, and loved and laughed, 
 
 Could not endure decay's ignoble stain. 
 
 Better to drain the cup as Socrates, 
 Or, Caesar-like, to fall upon the sword; 
 Rather an epic end, sublime as these, 
 Than linger out the life that I adored. 
 
 19 
 
A 
 
 RETROSPECT 
 
 S with reverting gaze, 
 
 I live the vanished days, 
 O life, you seem to me 
 A mockery. 
 
 For disenchantment gleams 
 On all the futile dreams, 
 
 The useless hopes and fears 
 
 Of ashen years. 
 
 The joy that once was mine, 
 A glamor half divine, 
 
 Has left the dregs of pain 
 
 I shrink to drain. 
 
 And now to meet my mood 
 Of cynic lassitude, 
 
 O life, you dare confess 
 
 Your emptiness; 
 
 And like a master cheat 
 Reveal your long deceit, 
 
 And jeer, as well you may, 
 
 At what I say. 
 
 20 
 
RED CORONALS 
 
 WHY wreathe me yet 
 Red coronals of the relinquished past, 
 I, who must soon forget 
 All pomp of things, at last? 
 
 The agonist, 
 
 The battler and the dreamer blended one, 
 
 Why grieve what I have missed 
 
 Of mighty deeds long done? 
 
 Why brooding cling 
 
 To phantom conquests of a regal power, 
 
 I, who may never bring 
 
 The splendor back of that imperial hour? 
 
 Ah, vain to yield 
 
 The futile dream with like serenity 
 The wiser Greek revealed, 
 Through all, for what must be! 
 
 Devoid of care 
 
 For crimson wreaths my hands have cast away, 
 
 May I, the dreamer, wear 
 
 The laurel of a day. 
 
 21 
 
II 
 
THE CLOSING SONG 
 
 LOVE, from my heart 
 The final flame, 
 The last incense 
 At the surrendered shrine. 
 
 Love, from my heart 
 
 The ultimate sigh, 
 
 The closing song 
 
 Ere the long darkness falls. 
 
 25 
 
AN OLD BOUDOIR 
 
 "Je suis un vieux boudoir plein de roses fames." 
 
 I AM an old boudoir that faded roses fill, 
 I dream in pallid sunlight of the past; 
 The vases strew the floor with petals falling still, 
 A listless snow on woven Cupids cast. 
 
 I hold the cherished heaps that tapers overburn, 
 In cassolets that breathe of long ago; 
 
 Rare roses of romance that make the heart return, 
 A ghost to seek their unforgotten glow. 
 
 26 
 
THE TRYST 
 
 THE purple shadow deepens on the river, 
 From the crimson west the homing swallows dart, 
 The trysting lights upon the distance quiver, 
 When you sail up the Cydnus of my heart. 
 
 My veins are burning with a restless fever, 
 
 And the sound of silver laughter makes me start; 
 
 Will love abide, the friend or the deceiver, 
 When you sail up the Cydnus of my heart? 
 
 Oh, if the fates decree that we must sever, 
 
 At the Tarsus of the dream, if we should part, 
 
 It is farewell, the night will fall forever, 
 When you sail up the Cydnus of my heart. 
 
 27 
 
DOMINANCE 
 
 OLD tyrannies of passion haunt your eyes, 
 With sullen flame beneath their glance serene; 
 Wraiths of the lost entelechies that rise, 
 The slaves, and you, the queen! 
 
 You hold the selves that mould you in the chains 
 
 Whose grip their constant fury has defied; 
 Over their imminent rebellion reigns, 
 Imperial, your pride. 
 
 28 
 
NEPENTHE 
 
 AS shadows deepen toward the goal, 
 I tire of all, of virtue, sin; 
 Through every doorway of my soul, 
 Aversion enters in. 
 
 Can no strong draught, no potent thing, 
 Green freshness to the boughs restore? 
 
 Must the returning fire of Spring 
 Be mine, alas, no more? 
 
 Your lips reprove me, moist and red, 
 
 So fresh with youth, so April sweet; 
 Well, cling and let our mouths be wed, 
 Bright flame and ashes meet. 
 
 29 
 
VESPER SADNESS 
 
 SADLY I see the earthward-stealing night, 
 Bearing the steady flambeau of a star, 
 Approach the dim horizon where our white 
 Elusive dreamlands are; 
 
 Sadly I know your grieving thought, my own, 
 
 Of one far twilight that will surely come, 
 Whose wistful beauty will be yours alone, 
 When my fond lips are dumb. 
 
 30 
 
THE QUEENS 
 
 ALL with one diadem, 
 Beauty alone, 
 Pass as I dream of them, 
 
 Queens you dethrone; 
 
 All with the phantom grace 
 
 Poets pursue, 
 Fade and I see your face, 
 
 Regnant anew. 
 
 Helen and Egypt go 
 
 Back to the night, 
 
 Out of the rhythmic glow, 
 Once a delight. 
 
 Gone is the poet's spell, 
 Vanished the fair, 
 
 In the dark land they dwell, 
 Ghosts of despair; 
 
 All of their high renown, 
 
 Peerless so long, 
 Dimmed by your double crown, 
 
 Beauty and Song. 
 
 31 
 
THE METEOR 
 
 A FALLING star that trails a glowing track 
 Down the soft moonless night, 
 And disappears forever in the black 
 Abysses quite; 
 
 So I have curved the flaming light of me 
 
 Over your dreaming heart, 
 And now from out its dusk eternally 
 
 I must depart. 
 
 32 
 
AT THE OLD FERRY 
 
 LOVELY as once in life's dead dream, 
 Down ways of underworld they came; 
 He saw their forms as ivory gleam, 
 (While swung the spirit-boat astream) 
 Where one dim torch shed flame. 
 
 Like timid fawns they ventured near; 
 
 (Slowly the boat forsook the shore) 
 He saw them pause with sudden fear, 
 As if, for mortal breath was dear, 
 
 In anguish to implore. 
 
 Yet from their lips no vain appeal, 
 
 No sob nor cry despairing fell; 
 They seemed, a frozen group, to feel 
 No more than carven nymphs that kneel 
 
 To peer in Dian's well. 
 
 Then from that throng he loved of old, 
 
 Whose grace his burning song had hymned, 
 (Fair throng with dread now statue-cold) 
 Flew one with hair of floating gold, 
 And eyes by doubt undimmed; 
 
 And swift to dare the deeper gloom 
 
 Along the ghostly river's marge, 
 In all her beauty's nubile bloom, 
 Flung her white body full at doom, 
 
 And clung to Charon's barge. 
 
 33 
 
THE MESSAGE 
 
 ALL dreams that from my dreaming heart take flight 
 Are doves that carry you my fond delight, 
 White couriers of love's unending quest, 
 Bearing my adoration to your breast. 
 
 All dreams that from my dreaming heart take wing 
 Are nightingales that never cease to sing, 
 Ecstatic minstrels pouring in your ear 
 The passion that they waken you to hear. 
 
 34 
 
FLEURS D' AMOUR 
 
 C'LEURS d' Amour! Ineffable perfume, 
 
 That, in the haunting April of this room, 
 Awakens my contrition, while the gust 
 Sways the wet lilacs inward. So I must 
 Live the dead passion over, at the same 
 Window alone, as in the dusk that came 
 With storm and stars to crown us. It is your 
 Scent that compels remembrance, Fleurs d' Amour! 
 
 Fleurs d' Amour! Your fragrance chills my heart 
 With breath of burial blooms. We cannot part 
 While memory holds the vintage of the past 
 To my remorseful lips. I drain and cast 
 The frail glass from me, hearing, like a knell, 
 The shattered music pierce me with farewell; 
 But you, her unforgiving ghost, endure 
 To grant me no oblivion, Fleurs d' Amour! 
 
 35 
 
ANOMALY 
 
 WHY is it that, with all your sin 
 Around you like a robe of red, 
 I see a chapel you are in, 
 An aureole above your head ? 
 
 Why is it that, tonight, with all 
 
 Your charms that stir the senses so, 
 
 I see you on the painted wall, 
 A virgin of Angelico ? 
 
 36 
 
THE MIRROR 
 
 MIRROR of old Versailles, 
 Clear as the dew, 
 Exquisite phantoms lie 
 Hidden in you. 
 
 Dreaming of days long gone, 
 Yours, once, in France, 
 
 Beauties, that languidly yawn, 
 Out of you glance; 
 
 Eyes of the Pompadour, 
 
 Or Parabere, 
 After the grand amour, 
 
 Wearily stare. 
 
 Mirror, your oval wave, 
 
 Circled with gold, 
 Never again may lave 
 
 Sirens of old. 
 
 For, in another land, 
 
 Distant, alas, 
 Others within you stand 
 
 Smiling and pass; 
 
 Ghosts of a gay caprice, 
 
 Queens of a night, 
 Mocking at love's surcease, 
 
 Vanish from sight. 
 
 37 
 
DISILLUSION 
 
 AND so you stand between me and my dream, 
 With what you are to mock at what you seem; 
 You shatter with the challenge of your eyes 
 The thoughts that haunt you to idealize. 
 
 I dream you in idyllic myths that make 
 You fair as any vision that you take, 
 And every fond illusion you dispel 
 With the ironic smile you wear so well. 
 
 38 
 
FOR SANDRO'S BRUSH 
 
 WAS Simonetta's hair 
 That golden red 
 Of yours? And was she fair 
 As you? And what was said 
 In that far Spring? 
 
 Or were all words too weak for uttering, 
 When Botticelli saw her beauty blush 
 Immortal for his brush? 
 
 But vain that I should see, 
 
 Without his gift, 
 
 From your white shoulder free, 
 
 The last veil downward drift; 
 
 For never yet 
 
 Had art so rare a vision to regret, 
 
 And never were such unabandoned charms 
 
 Lost to a lover's arms. 
 
 39 
 
PRESCIENCE 
 
 I PONDER how 
 One like you, with your lore, 
 A thousand years from now, 
 Shall dream, by some far shore, 
 Dreams that you dream no more. 
 
 Oh, unknown girl, 
 
 How strange if I should still, 
 
 Dust that the winds upwhirl, 
 On some green Lesbian hill, 
 With song, make your heart thrill! 
 
 40 
 
EPISODE 
 
 THE dancers throng the circle while they sit, 
 Intent to parry irony with wit; 
 The sensuous music's soporific beat 
 Burns with a supplication for their feet; 
 He has no secret that she may surprise, 
 She veils the anger in her brooding eyes. 
 
 The languor of the drowsy strain enchants, 
 They breathe the passing perfume of the dance, 
 And yet, across the table, each resists, 
 Still fencing like two wary duelists; 
 She lights a cigarette, her last delay, 
 Then, baffled, casts her reticence away. 
 
 41 
 
REMINISCENCE 
 
 AH, once for beauty like your own, 
 Men fought at Troy; 
 You waft a breath, from Hellas blown, 
 That is my joy. 
 
 Enchantress of iEgean nights, 
 
 The memory, 
 Across the magic curve of lights, 
 
 Entrances me; 
 
 And one, who shook the world, a queen, 
 
 As beauty's due, 
 A fancy of the philhellene, 
 
 Relives in you. 
 
 42 
 
ASPHODELS 
 
 HOW strange that she, 
 In mythic shadow of the dense dead pine, 
 Should pluck for me, 
 Then dreaming of the old Hadean spells 
 By some strange fancy mine, 
 These asphodels! 
 
 The fingers that once touched you, fadeless flowers, 
 
 I miss, in sombre hours, 
 
 Their tenderness that left you in my hand; 
 
 In no idyllic land 
 
 Shall I reclasp them, yielding me the rose 
 
 That Paphos knows. 
 
 Oh, lead me where she fled, 
 
 When I may roam the meadows of the dead; 
 
 Beyond the ghostly stream, 
 
 Lead me, some Pagan poet of my dream, 
 
 And show me where, in what diviner dells, 
 
 She gathers asphodels! 
 
 43 
 
DEAD LOVES 
 
 BY memory's pale light, as they slowly pass, 
 At the last evocation, heedless all 
 Of my sad scrutiny, I know, alas, 
 
 The night too soon to fall; 
 
 Wherein, without the great pain of regret, 
 
 Leaving the singing ways that they had known, 
 I shall reclaim the shadow and forget 
 Aught that I may atone. 
 
 Dead loves, sad spectres from the sombre land, 
 
 Returning now, the last time, nevermore, 
 Each with the flameless flambeau in the hand, 
 To seek the mortal shore; 
 
 A final valediction, ere you go 
 
 Back to eternal darkness and the goal 
 Of old oblivion, where the effacing flow 
 Of Lethe waits my soul. 
 
 44 
 
A GRECIAN GIRL 
 
 IN that divine half circle of the sun, 
 That day of splendor and imperial dreams, 
 When mountain after mountain rose beyond 
 The spacious valley over which our eyes 
 Swept far for visions — do you still recall, 
 As I, its spell? Oh, never had there been 
 So exquisite a sadness for the heart, 
 So thronged a day with ghosts of old farewell, 
 As that, our last, together! Antony, 
 Mad loser of the world for love, not he 
 Held once so fair a head upon his breast, 
 Nor had the flaming sunset from the Nile 
 A redder gold than glistened in your hair. 
 You make great memories, slowly from the past, 
 Float shining to my soul! Time's fairest come, 
 And, through your eyes that sadden, look away 
 To hills that are not Hellas; but their sighs 
 Still linger, like a perfume, on your lips. 
 Who else could bring me back those Grecian days, 
 Regive to me the magic of the mood, 
 Ah, who, but you alone, as now I dream ? 
 You turn the profile of your face to me, 
 And time swings backward like an open door; — 
 The apple blossoms, drifting down the slope, 
 Drift farther toward the blue Saronic wave; 
 A marble temple rises on the height, 
 Whose frieze is golden with the touch of time, 
 And marching on it to eternity, 
 The maidens and the heroes and the gods; 
 And one, that has your profile, marches, too; 
 O sculptured Grecian girl of long ago, 
 Were you beloved so? Did he bring you, thus, 
 Such rapture of the heart? No answer, none! 
 Only the heavy shadow of the years, 
 
 45 
 
Only the vaster silence; such the space 
 Between us then and now; but still your eyes 
 Retain the violet of the evening mist 
 On the iEgean; still your lips repeat 
 The passion of the past. Oh, here, my queen, 
 I crown you in my heart! Farewell, farewell! 
 The darkness deepens on the hills, the night 
 Falls on the river; soon the ultimate night 
 Shall fall on us again. O Grecian girl, 
 Will you forget, while I remember still? 
 
HERE ENDS EMBERS WRITTEN 
 BY JOHN MYERS O'HARA AND 
 PRINTED BY SMITH & SALE 
 PORTLAND MAINE IN THE 
 MONTH OF MARCH MDCCCCXXI 
 
J 
 
 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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 018 393 060 6 
 
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