Kitabı oku: «Myth and Romance: Being a Book of Verses», sayfa 5

Spirit of Dreams

I

 
Where hast thou folded thy pinions,
Spirit of Dreams?
Hidden elusive garments
Woven of gleams?
In what divine dominions,
Brighter than day,
Far from the world's dark torments,
Dost thou stay, dost thou stay?—
When shall my yearnings reach thee
Again?
Not in vain let my soul beseech thee!
Not in vain! not in vain!
 

II

 
I have longed for thee as a lover
For her, the one;
As a brother for a sister
Long dead and gone.
I have called thee over and over
Names sweet to hear;
With words than music trister,
And thrice as dear.
How long must my sad heart woo thee,
Yet fail?
How long must my soul pursue thee,
Nor avail, nor avail?
 

III

 
All night hath thy loving mother,
Beautiful Sleep,
Lying beside me, listened
And heard me weep.
But ever thou soughtest another
Who sought thee not;
For him thy soft smile glistened—
I was forgot.
When shall my soul behold thee
As before?
When shall my heart infold thee?—
Nevermore? nevermore?
 

LINES AND LYRICS

To a Wind-Flower

I

 
Teach me the secret of thy loveliness,
That, being made wise, I may aspire to be
As beautiful in thought, and so express
Immortal truths to earth's mortality;
Though to my soul ability be less
Than 't is to thee, O sweet anemone.
 

II

 
Teach me the secret of thy innocence,
That in simplicity I may grow wise;
Asking from Art no other recompense
Than the approval of her own just eyes;
So may I rise to some fair eminence,
Though less than thine, O cousin of the skies.
 

III

 
Teach me these things; through whose high knowledge, I,—
When Death hath poured oblivion through my veins,
And brought me home, as all are brought, to lie
In that vast house, common to serfs and Thanes,—
I shall not die, I shall not utterly die,
For beauty born of beauty—that remains.
 

Microcosm

 
The memory of what we've lost
Is with us more than what we've won;
Perhaps because we count the cost
By what we could, yet have not done.
 
 
'Twixt act and purpose fate hath drawn
Invisible threads we can not break,
And puppet-like these move us on
The stage of life, and break or make.
 
 
Less than the dust from which we're wrought,
We come and go, and still are hurled
From change to change, from naught to naught,
Heirs of oblivion and the world.
 

Fortune

 
Within the hollowed hand of God,
Blood-red they lie, the dice of fate,
That have no time nor period,
And know no early and no late.
 
 
Postpone you can not, nor advance
Success or failure that's to be;
All fortune, being born of chance,
Is bastard-child to destiny.
 
 
Bow down your head, or hold it high,
Consent, defy—no smallest part
Of this you change, although the die
Was fashioned from your living heart.
 

Death

 
Through some strange sense of sight or touch
I find what all have found before,
The presence I have feared so much,
The unknown's immaterial door.
 
 
I seek not and it comes to me:
I do not know the thing I find:
The fillet of fatality
Drops from my brows that made me blind.
 
 
Point forward now or backward, light!
The way I take I may not choose:
Out of the night into the night,
And in the night no certain clews.
 
 
But on the future, dim and vast,
And dark with dust and sacrifice,
Death's towering ruin from the past
Makes black the land that round me lies.
 

The Soul

 
An heritage of hopes and fears
And dreams and memory,
And vices of ten thousand years
God gives to thee.
 
 
A house of clay, the home of Fate,
Haunted of Love and Sin,
Where Death stands knocking at the gate
To let him in.
 

Conscience

 
Within the soul are throned two powers,
One, Love; one, Hate. Begot of these,
And veiled between, a presence towers,
The shadowy keeper of the keys.
 
 
With wild command or calm persuasion
This one may argue, that compel;
Vain are concealment and evasion—
For each he opens heaven and hell.
 

Youth

I

 
Morn's mystic rose is reddening on the hills,
Dawn's irised nautilus makes glad the sea;
There is a lyre of flame that throbs and fills
Far heaven and earth with hope's wild ecstasy.—
With lilied field and grove,
Haunts of the turtle-dove,
Here is the land of Love.
 

II

 
The chariot of the noon makes blind the blue
As towards the goal his burning axle glares;
There is a fiery trumpet thrilling through
Wide heaven and earth with deeds of one who dares.—
With peaks of splendid name,
Wrapped round with astral flame,
Here is the land of Fame.
 

III

 
The purple priesthood of the evening waits
With golden pomp within the templed skies;
There is a harp of worship at the gates
Of heaven and earth that bids the soul arise.—
With columned cliffs and long
Vales, music breathes among,
Here is the land of Song.
 

IV

 
Moon-crowned, the epic of the night unrolls
Its starry utterance o'er height and deep;
There is a voice of beauty at the souls
Of heaven and earth that lulls the heart asleep.—
With storied woods and streams,
Where marble glows and gleams,
Here is the land of Dreams.
 

Life's Seasons

I

 
When all the world was Mayday,
And all the skies were blue,
Young innocence made playday
Among the flowers and dew;
Then all of life was Mayday,
And clouds were none or few.
 

II

 
When all the world was Summer,
And morn shone overhead,
Love was the sweet newcomer
Who led youth forth to wed;
Then all of life was Summer,
And clouds were golden red.
 

III

 
When earth was all October,
And days were gray with mist,
On woodways, sad and sober,
Grave memory kept her tryst;
Then life was all October,
And clouds were twilight-kissed.
 

IV

 
Now all the world's December,
And night is all alarm,
Above the last dim ember
Grief bends to keep him warm;
Now all of life's December,
And clouds are driven storm.
 

Old Homes

 
Old homes among the hills! I love their gardens,
Their old rock-fences, that our day inherits;
Their doors, 'round which the great trees stand like wardens;
Their paths, down which the shadows march like spirits;
Broad doors and paths that reach bird-haunted gardens.
 
 
I see them gray among their ancient acres,
Severe of front, their gables lichen-sprinkled,—
Like gentle-hearted, solitary Quakers,
Grave and religious, with kind faces wrinkled,—
Serene among their memory-hallowed acres.
 
 
Their gardens, banked with roses and with lilies—
Those sweet aristocrats of all the flowers—
Where Springtime mints her gold in daffodillies,
And Autumn coins her marigolds in showers,
And all the hours are toilless as the lilies.
 
 
I love their orchards where the gay woodpecker
Flits, flashing o'er you, like a wingéd jewel;
Their woods, whose floors of moss the squirrels checker
With half-hulled nuts; and where, in cool renewal,
The wild brooks laugh, and raps the red woodpecker.
 
 
Old homes! old hearts! Upon my soul forever
Their peace and gladness lie like tears and laughter;
Like love they touch me, through the years that sever,
With simple faith; like friendship, draw me after
The dreamy patience that is theirs forever.
 

Field and Forest Call

 
There is a field, that leans upon two hills,
Foamed o'er with flowers and twinkling with clear rills;
That in its girdle of wild acres bears
The anodyne of rest that cures all cares;
Wherein soft wind and sun and sound are blent
And fragrance—as in some old instrument
Sweet chords—calm things, that nature's magic spell
Distils from heaven's azure crucible,
And pours on Earth to make the sick mind well.
There lies the path, they say—
Come, away! come, away!
 
 
There is a forest, lying 'twixt two streams,
Sung through of birds and haunted of dim dreams;
That in its league-long hand of trunk and leaf
Lifts a green wand that charms away all grief;
Wrought of quaint silence and the stealth of things,
Vague, whispering touches, gleams and twitterings,
Dews and cool shadows—that the mystic soul
Of nature permeates with suave control,
And waves o'er earth to make the sad heart whole.
There lies the road, they say—
Come, away! come, away!
 

Meeting in Summer

 
A tranquil bar
Of rosy twilight under dusk's first star.
 
 
A glimmering sound
Of whispering waters over grassy ground.
 
 
A sun-sweet smell
Of fresh-reaped hay from dewy field and dell.
 
 
A lazy breeze
Jostling the ripeness from the apple-trees.
 
 
A vibrant cry,
Passing, then gone, of bullbats in the sky.
 
 
And faintly now
The katydid upon the shadowy bough.
 
 
And far-off then
The little owl within the lonely glen.
 
 
And soon, full soon,
The silvery arrival of the moon.
 
 
And, to your door,
The path of roses I have trod before.
 
 
And, sweetheart, you!
Among the roses and the moonlit dew.
 

Swinging

 
Under the boughs of spring
She swung in the old rope-swing.
 
 
Her cheeks, with their happy blood,
Were pink as the apple-bud.
 
 
Her eyes, with their deep delight,
Were glad as the stars of night.
 
 
Her curls, with their romp and fun,
Were hoiden as wind and sun.
 
 
Her lips, with their laughter shrill,
Were wild as a woodland rill.
 
 
Under the boughs of spring
She swung in the old rope-swing.
 
 
And I,—who leaned on the fence,
Watching her innocence,
 
 
As, under the boughs that bent,
Now high, now low, she went,
 
 
In her soul the ecstasies
Of the stars, the brooks, the breeze,—
 
 
Had given the rest of my years,
With their blessings, and hopes, and fears,
 
 
To have been as she was then;
And, just for a moment, again,
 
 
A boy in the old rope-swing
Under the boughs of spring.
 

Rosemary

 
Above her, pearl and rose the heavens lay;
Around her, flowers scattered earth with gold,
Or down the path in insolence held sway—
Like cavaliers who ride the elves' highway—
Scarlet and blue, within a garden old.
 
 
Beyond the hills, faint-heard through belts of wood,
Bells, Sabbath-sweet, swooned from some far-off town;
Gamboge and gold, broad sunset colors strewed
The purple west as if, with God imbued,
Her mighty pallet Nature there laid down.
 
 
Amid such flowers, underneath such skies,
Embodying all life knows of sweet and fair,
She stood; love's dreams in girlhood's face and eyes,
White as a star that comes to emphasize
The mingled beauty of the earth and air.
 
 
Behind her, seen through vines and orchard trees,
Gray with its twinkling windows—like the face
Of calm old-age that sits and smiles at ease—
Porched with old roses, haunts of honey-bees,
The homestead loomed dim in a glimmering space.
 
 
Ah! whom she waited in the afterglow,
Soft-eyed and dreamy 'mid the lily and rose,
I do not know, I do not wish to know;—
It is enough I keep her picture so,
Hung up, like poetry, o'er my life's dull prose.
 
 
A fragrant picture, where I still may find
Her face untouched of sorrow or regret,
Unspoiled of contact, ever young and kind,
Glad spiritual sweetheart of my soul and mind,
She had not been, perhaps, if we had met.
 

Ghost Stories

 
When the hoot of the owl comes over the hill,
At twelve o'clock when the night is still,
And pale on the pools, where the creek-frogs croon,
Glimmering gray is the light o' the moon;
And under the willows, where waters lie,
The torch of the firefly wanders by;
They say that the miller walks here, walks here,
All covered with chaff, with his crooked staff,
And his horrible hobble and hideous laugh;
The old lame miller hung many a year:
When the hoot of the owl comes over the hill,
He walks alone by the rotting mill.
 
 
When the bark of the fox comes over the hill,
At twelve o'clock when the night is shrill,
And faint, on the ways where the crickets creep,
The starlight fails and the shadows sleep;
And under the willows, that toss and moan,
The glow-worm kindles its lanthorn lone;
They say that a woman floats dead, floats dead,
In a weedy space that the lilies lace,
A curse in her eyes and a smile on her face,
The miller's young wife with a gash in her head:
When the bark of the fox comes over the hill,
She floats alone by the rotting mill.
 
 
When the howl of the hound comes over the hill,
At twelve o'clock when the night is ill,
And the thunder mutters and forests sob,
And the fox-fire glows like the lamp of a Lob;
And under the willows, that gloom and glance,
The will-o'-the-wisps hold a devils' dance;
They say that that crime is re-acted again,
And each cranny and chink of the mill doth wink
With the light o' hell or the lightning's blink,
And a woman's shrieks come wild through the rain:
When the howl of the hound comes over the hill,
That murder returns to the rotting mill.