Kitabı oku: «The Sisters' Tragedy, with Other Poems, Lyrical and Dramatic», sayfa 4

A MOOD

 
  A blight, a gloom, I know not what, has crept upon my gladness—
  Some vague, remote ancestral touch of sorrow, or of madness;
  A fear that is not fear, a pain that has not pain's insistence;
  A sense of longing, or of loss, in some foregone existence;
  A subtle hurt that never pen has writ nor tongue has spoken—
  Such hurt perchance as Nature feels when a blossomed bough is broken.
 

GUILIELMUS REX

 
  The folk who lived in Shakespeare's day
  And saw that gentle figure pass
  By London Bridge, his frequent way—
  They little knew what man he was.
 
 
  The pointed beard, the courteous mien,
  The equal port to high and low,
  All this they saw or might have seen—
  But not the light behind the brow!
 
 
  The doublet's modest gray or brown,
  The slender sword-hilt's plain device,
  What sign had these for prince or clown?
  Few turned, or none, to scan him twice.
 
 
  Yet 'twas the king of England's kings!
  The rest with all their pomps and trains
  Are mouldered, half-remembered things—
  'Tis he alone that lives and reigns!
 

"PILLARED ARCH AND SCULPTURED TOWER"

 
  Pillared arch and sculptured tower
  Of Ilium have had their hour;
  The dust of many a king is blown
  On the winds from zone to zone;
  Many a warrior sleeps unknown.
  Time and Death hold each in thrall,
  Yet is Love the lord of all;
  Still does Helen's beauty stir
  Because a poet sang of her!
 

THRENODY

I

 
  Upon your hearse this flower I lay.
  Brief be your sleep! You shall be known
  When lesser men have had their day:
  Fame blossoms where true seed is sown,
  Or soon or late, let Time wrong what it may.
 

II

 
  Unvext by any dream of fame,
  You smiled, and bade the world pass by:
  But I—I turned, and saw a name
  Shaping itself against the sky—
  White star that rose amid the battle's flame!
 

III

 
  Brief be your sleep, for I would see
  Your laurels—ah, how trivial now
  To him must earthly laurel be
  Who wears the amaranth on his brow!
  How vain the voices of mortality!
 

SESTET

SENT TO A FRIEND WITH A VOLUME OF TENNYSON

 
  Wouldst know the clash of knightly steel on steel?
  Or list the throstle singing loud and clear?
  Or walk at twilight by some haunted mere
  In Surrey; or in throbbing London feel
  Life's pulse at highest—hark, the minster's peal! . . .
  Turn but the page, that various world is here!
 

A TOUCH OF NATURE

 
  When first the crocus thrusts its point of gold
  Up through the still snow-drifted garden mould,
  And folded green things in dim woods unclose
  Their crinkled spears, a sudden tremor goes
  Into my veins and makes me kith and kin
  To every wild-born thing that thrills and blows.
  Sitting beside this crumbling sea-coal fire,
  Here in the city's ceaseless roar and din,
  Far from the brambly paths I used to know,
  Far from the rustling brooks that slip and shine
  Where the Neponset alders take their glow,
  I share the tremulous sense of bud and briar
  And inarticulate ardors of the vine.
 

MEMORY

 
  My mind lets go a thousand things,
  Like dates of wars and deaths of kings,
  And yet recalls the very hour—
  'Twas noon by yonder village tower,
  And on the last blue noon in May—
  The wind came briskly up this way,
  Crisping the brook beside the road;
  Then, pausing here, set down its load
  Of pine-scents, and shook listlessly
  Two petals from that wild-rose tree.
 

"I'LL NOT CONFER WITH SORROW"

 
  I'll not confer with Sorrow
     Till to-morrow;
  But Joy shall have her way
     This very day.
 
 
  Ho, eglantine and cresses
     For her tresses!—
  Let Care, the beggar, wait
     Outside the gate.
 
 
  Tears if you will—but after
     Mirth and laughter;
  Then, folded hands on breast
     And endless rest.
 

A DEDICATION

 
  Take these rhymes into thy grace,
     Since they are of thy begetting,
  Lady, that dost make each place
     Where thou art a jewel's setting.
 
 
  Some such glamour lend this Book:
     Let it be thy poet's wages
  That henceforth thy gracious look
     Lies reflected on its pages.
 

NO SONGS IN WINTER

 
  The sky is gray as gray may be,
  There is no bird upon the bough,
  There is no leaf on vine or tree.
 
 
  In the Neponset marshes now
  Willow-stems, rosy in the wind,
  Shiver with hidden sense of snow.
 
 
  So too 'tis winter in my mind,
  No light-winged fancy comes and stays:
  A season churlish and unkind.
 
 
  Slow creep the hours, slow creep the days,
  The black ink crusts upon the pen—
  Just wait till bluebirds, wrens, and jays
  And golden orioles come again!
 

"LIKE CRUSOE, WALKING BY THE LONELY STRAND"

 
  Like Crusoe, walking by the lonely strand
  And seeing a human footprint on the sand,
  Have I this day been startled, finding here,
  Set in brown mould and delicately clear,
  Spring's footprint—the first crocus of the year!
  O sweet invasion! Farewell solitude!
  Soon shall wild creatures of the field and wood
  Flock from all sides with much ado and stir,
  And make of me most willing prisoner!
 

THE LETTER

EDWARD ROWLAND SILL, DIED FEBRUARY 27, 1887

 
  I held his letter in my hand,
     And even while I read
  The lightning flashed across the land
     The word that he was dead.
 
 
  How strange it seemed! His living voice
     Was speaking from the page
  Those courteous phrases, tersely choice,
     Light-hearted, witty, sage.
 
 
  I wondered what it was that died!
     The man himself was here,
  His modesty, his scholar's pride,
     His soul serene and clear.
 
 
  These neither death nor time shall dim,
     Still this sad thing must be—
  Henceforth I may not speak to him,
     Though he can speak to me!
 

SARGENT'S PORTRAIT OF EDWIN BOOTH AT "THE PLAYERS"

 
  That face which no man ever saw
  And from his memory banished quite,
  With eyes in which are Hamlet's awe
  And Cardinal Richelieu's subtle light,
  Looks from this frame. A master's hand
  Has set the master-player here,
  In the fair temple that he planned
  Not for himself. To us most dear
  This image of him! "It was thus
  He looked; such pallor touched his cheek;
  With that same grace he greeted us—
  Nay, 'tis the man, could it but speak!"
  Sad words that shall be said some day—
  Far fall the day! O cruel Time,
  Whose breath sweeps mortal things away,
  Spare long this image of his prime,
  That others standing in the place
  Where, save as ghosts, we come no more,
  May know what sweet majestic face
  The gentle Prince of Players wore!
 

PAULINE PAVLOVNA

SCENE: St. Petersburg. Period: the present time. A ballroom in the winter palace of the Prince—. The ladies in character costumes and masks. The gentlemen in official dress and unmasked, with the exception of six tall figures in scarlet kaftans, who are treated with marked distinction as they move here and there among the promenaders. Quadrille music throughout the dialogue. Count SERGIUS PAVLOVICH PANSHINE, who has just arrived, is standing anxiously in the doorway of an antechamber with his eyes fixed upon a lady in the costume of a maid of honor in the time of Catherine II. The lady presently disengages herself from the crowd, and passes near Count PANSHINE, who impulsively takes her by the hand and leads her across the threshold of the inner apartment, which is unoccupied.

HE.

 
Pauline!
 

SHE.

 
You knew me?
 

HE.

 
                      How could I have failed?
  A mask may hide your features, not your soul.
  There is an air about you like the air
  That folds a star. A blind man knows the night,
  And feels the constellations. No coarse sense
  Of eye or ear had made you plain to me.
  Through these I had not found you; for your eyes,
  As blue as violets of our Novgorod,
  Look black behind your mask there, and your voice—
  I had not known that either. My heart said,
  "Pauline Pavlovna."
 

SHE.

 
                       Ah! Your heart said that?
  You trust your heart, then! 'Tis a serious risk!—
  How is it you and others wear no mask?
 

HE.

 
The Emperor's orders.
 

SHE.

 
                        Is the Emperor here?
  I have not seen him.
 

HE.

 
                        He is one of the six
  In scarlet kaftans and all masked alike.
  Watch—you will note how every one bows down
  Before those figures, thinking each by chance
  May be the Tsar; yet none knows which is he.
  Even his counterparts are left in doubt.
  Unhappy Russia! No serf ever wore
  Such chains as gall our Emperor these sad days.
  He dare trust no man.
 

SHE.

 
All men are so false.
 

HE.

 
Spare one, Pauline Pavlovna.
 

SHE.

 
                                No; all, all!
  I think there is no truth left in the world,
  In man or woman. Once were noble souls.—
  Count Sergius, is Nastasia here to-night?
 

HE.

 
  Ah! then you know! I thought to tell you first.
  Not here, beneath these hundred curious eyes,
  In all this glare of light; but in some place
  Where I could throw me at your feet and weep.
  In what shape came the story to your ear?
  Decked in the teller's colors, I'll be sworn;
  The truth, but in the livery of a lie,
  And so must wrong me. Only this is true:
  The Tsar, because I risked my wretched life
  To shield a life as wretched as my own,
  Bestows upon me, as supreme reward—
  O irony!—the hand of this poor girl.
  Says, HERE, I HAVE THE PEARL OF PEARLS FOR YOU,
  SUCH AS WAS NEVER PLUCKED FROM OUT THE DEEP
  BY INDIAN DIVER, FOR A SULTAN'S CROWN.
  YOUR JOY'S DECREED, and stabs me with a smile.
 

SHE.

 
And she—she loves you?
 

HE.

 
                           I know not, indeed.
  Likes me, perhaps. What matters it?—HER love!
  The guardian, Sidor Yurievich, consents,
  And she consents. No love in it at all,
  A mere caprice, a young girl's spring-tide dream.
  Sick of her ear-rings, weary of her mare,
  She'll have a lover—something ready-made,
  Or improvised between two cups of tea—