Kitabı oku: «One Day & Another: A Lyrical Eclogue»

TO

G. F. M

THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED IN MEMORY

OF MANY DAYS

 
What though I dreamed of mountain heights,
Of peaks, the barriers of the world,
Around whose tops the Northern Lights
And tempests are unfurled.
 
 
Mine are the footpaths leading through
Life's lowly fields and woods, – with rifts,
Above, of heaven's Eden blue, —
By which the violet lifts
 
 
Its shy appeal; and holding up
Its chaliced gold, like some wild wine,
Along the hillside, cup on cup,
Blooms bright the celandine.
 
 
Where soft upon each flowering stock
The butterfly spreads damask wings;
And under grassy loam and rock
The cottage cricket sings.
 
 
Where overhead eve blooms with fire,
In which the new moon bends her bow,
And, arrow-like, one white star by her
Burns through the afterglow.
 
 
I care not, so the sesame
I find; the magic flower there,
Whose touch unseals each mystery
In water, earth and air.
 
 
That in the oak tree lets me hear
Its heart's deep speech, its soul's wise words;
And to my mind makes crystal clear
The melodies of birds.
 
 
Why should I care, who live aloof
Beyond the din of life and dust,
While dreams still share my humble roof,
And love makes sweet my crust?
 

PART I
LATE SPRING

 
The mottled moth at eventide
Beats glimmering wings against the pane;
The slow, sweet lily opens wide,
White in the dusk like some dim stain;
The garden dreams on every side
And breathes faint scents of rain.
Among the flowering stocks they stand:
A crimson rose is in his hand.
 

1

Outside her garden. He waits musing

 
Herein the dearness of her is;
The thirty perfect days of June
Made one, in maiden loveliness
Were not more sweet to clasp and kiss,
With love not more in tune.
 
 
Ah me! I think she is too true,
Too spiritual for life's rough way;
For in her eyes her soul looks new —
Two bluet blossoms, watchet-blue,
Are not so pure as they.
 
 
So good, so beautiful is she,
So soft and white, so fond and fair,
Sometimes my heart fears she may be
Not long for me, and secretly
A sister of the air.
 

2

Dusk deepens. A whippoorwill calls

 
The whippoorwills are calling where
The golden west is graying;
"'Tis time," they say, "to meet him there —
Why are you still delaying?
 
 
"He waits you where the old beech throws
Its gnarly shadow over
Wood-violet and the bramble rose,
Frail maiden-fern and clover.
 
 
"Where elder and the sumach creep
Above your garden's paling,
Whereon at noon the lizards sleep
Like lichens on the railing.
 
 
"Come! ere the early rising moon's
Gold floods the violet valleys;
Where mists, like phantom picaroons
Anchor their stealthy galleys.
 
 
"Come! while the deepening amethyst
Of dusk above is falling —
'Tis time to tryst! 'tis time to tryst!"
The whippoorwills are calling.
 
 
They call you to these twilight ways
With dewy odor dripping —
Ah, girlhood, through the rosy haze
Come like a moonbeam slipping.
 

3

He enters her garden, speaking dreamily:

 
There is a fading inward of the day,
And all the pansy heaven clasps one star;
The dwindling acres eastward glimmer gray,
While all the world to westward smoulders far.
 
 
Now to your glass will you pass for the last time?
Pass! humming some ballad, I know, —
Here where I wait it is late and is past time —
Late! and the moments are slow, are slow.
 
 
There is a drawing downward of the night;
The bridegroom Heaven bends down to kiss the moon;
Above, the heights hang silver in her light;
Below, the woods stretch purple, deep in June.
 
 
There in the dew is it you hiding lawny?
You, or a moth in the vines? —
You! – by your hand, where the band twinkles tawny!
You! – by your ring, like a glowworm, that shines!
 

4

She approaches, laughing. She speaks, —

 
You'd given up hope?
 

HE

 
Believe me.
 

SHE

 
Why, is your love so poor?
 

HE

 
I knew you'd not deceive me.
 

SHE

 
As many a girl before, —
Ah, dear, you will forgive me?
 

HE

 
Say no more, sweet, say no more!
 

SHE

 
Love trusts, and that's enough, my dear.
Trust wins to trust; whereof, my dear,
Love holds to love; and love, my dear,
Is – well, that's all my lore.
 

HE

 
Come, pay me or I'll scold you. —
Give me the kiss you owe. —
You fly when I'd enfold you?
 

SHE

 
No! no! I say! now, no!
How often have I told you,
You must not treat me so?
 

HE

 
More sweet the dusk for this is,
For lips that meet in kisses. —
Come! come! why run from blisses
As from a mortal foe?
 

5

She stands smiling at him. She speaks:

 
How many words in the asking!
How easily I can grieve you! —
My "no" in a "yes" was a-masking,
Nor thought, dear, to deceive you. —
A kiss? – the humming-bird happiness here
In my heart consents… But what are words,
When the thought of two souls in speech accords?
Affirmative, negative – what are they, dear?
I wished to say "yes," but somehow said "no."
The woman within me thought you would know
Thought that your heart would hear.
 

He speaks:

 
So many hopes in a wooing! —
Therein you could not deceive me;
Some things are sweeter for the pursuing —
I knew what you meant, believe me. —
Bunched bells of the blush pomegranate, to fix
At your throat … six drops of fire they are…
Will you look where the moon and its following star
Rise silvery over yon meadow ricks?
While I hold – while I lean your head back, so —
For I know it is "yes" though you whisper "no,"
And my kisses, sweet, are six.
 

6

Moths flutter around them. She speaks:

 
Look! – where the fiery
Glow-worm in briery
Banks of the moon-mellowed bowers
Sparkles – how hazily
Pinioned and arily
Delicate, warily,
Drowsily, lazily,
Flutter the moths to the flowers.
 
 
White as the dreamiest
Bud of the creamiest
Rose in the garden that dozes,
See how they cling to them!
Held in the heart of their
Hearts like a part of their
Perfume they swing to them
Wings that are soft as the roses.
 
 
Dim as the forming of
Dew in the warming of
Moonlight, they light on the petals;
All is revealed to them;
All – from the sunniest
Tips to the honiest
Heart, whence they yield to them
Spice through the darkness that settles.
 
 
So to our tremulous
Souls come the emulous
Spirits of love; through whose power
All that is best in us,
All that is beautiful,
All that is dutiful,
Is made confessed in us,
Even as the scent of a flower.
 

7

Taking her hand, he says:

 
What makes you beautiful?
Answer, now, answer! —
Is it that dutiful
Souls are all beautiful?
Is't that romance or
Beauty of spirit,
Which souls of merit
Of heaven inherit? —
Have you no answer?
 

She roguishly:

 
What makes you lovable?
Answer, dear, answer! —
Is it not provable
That man is lovable
Just because chance or
Nature makes woman
Love him? – Her human
Part's to illumine. —
Have you no answer?
 

8

Then, regarding him seriously, she continues:

 
Could I recall every joy that befell me
There in the past with its anguish and bliss,
Here in my heart it has whispered to tell me,
Those were no joys like this.
 
 
Were it not well if our love could forget them
Veiling the was with the dawn of the is?
Dead with the past we should never regret them,
Being no joys like this.
 
 
When they were gone and the Present stood speechful,
Ardent in word and in look and in kiss,
What though we know that their eyes are beseechful,
Those were no joys like this.
 
 
Is it not well to have more of the spirit,
Living for Futures where naught is amiss,
Less of the flesh with the Past pining near it?
Is there a joy like this?
 

9

Leaving the garden for the lane. He, with lightness of heart

 
We will leave reason,
Sweet, for a season;
Reason were treason
Now that the nether
Spaces are clad, oh,
In silvery shadow —
We will be glad, oh,
Glad as this weather!
 

She, responding to his mood:

 
Heart unto heart, where the moonlight is slanted,
Let us believe that our souls are enchanted: —
I in the castle-keep; you are the airy
Prince who comes seeking me; Love is the Fairy
Bringing our hearts together.
 

HE

 
Starlight in masses
Over us passes;
And in the grass is
Many a flower:
Now will you tell me
How'd you enspell me?
What once befell me
There in your bower?
 

SHE

 
Soul unto soul – in the moon's wizard glory,
Let us believe we are parts in a story: —
I am a poem; a poet you hear it
Whispered in star and in flower; a Spirit,
Love, puts my soul in your power.
 

10

He, suddenly and very earnestly:

 
Perhaps we lived in the days
Of the Khalif Haroun er Reshid;
And loved, as the story says
Did the Sultan's favorite one
And the Persian Emperor's son,
Ali ben Bekkar, he
Of the Kisra dynasty.
 
 
Do you know the story? – Well,
You were Haroun's Sultana.
When night on the palace fell,
A slave through a secret door, —
Low-arched on the Tigris' shore, —
By a hidden winding stair
Brought me to your bower there.
 
 
Then there was laughter and mirth,
And feasting and singing together,
In a chamber of wonderful worth;
In a chamber vaulted high
On columns of ivory;
Its dome, like the irised skies,
Mooned over with peacock eyes;
Its curtains and furniture,
Damask and juniper.
 
 
Ten slave girls – like unto blooms —
Stand, holding tamarisk torches,
Silk-clad from the Irak looms;
Ten handmaidens serve the feast,
Each girl like a star in the east;
Ten lutanists, lutes a-tune,
Wait, each like the Ramadan moon.
 
 
For you in a stuff of Merv
Blue-clad, unveiled and jewelled,
No metaphor known may serve:
Scarved deep with your raven hair,
The jewels like fireflies there,
Blossom and moon and star,
The Lady Shemsennehar.
 
 
The zone that girdles your waist
Would ransom a Prince and Emeer;
In your coronet's gold enchased,
And your bracelet's twisted bar,
Burn rubies of Istakhar;
And pearls of the Jamshid race
Hang looped on your bosom's lace.
 
 
You stand like the letter I;
Dawn-faced, with eyes that sparkle
Black stars in a rosy sky;
Mouth like a cloven peach,
Sweet with your smiling speech;
Cheeks that the blood presumes
To make pomegranate blooms.
 
 
With roses of Rocknabad,
Hyacinths of Bokhara, —
Creamily cool and clad
In gauze, – girls scatter the floor
From pillar to cedarn door.
Then a poppy-bloom at each ear,
Come the dancing girls of Kashmeer.
 
 
Kohl in their eyes, down the room, —
That opaline casting-bottles
Have showered with rose perfume, —
They glitter and drift and swoon
To the dulcimer's languishing tune;
In the liquid light like stars,
And moons and nenuphars.
 
 
Carbuncles, tragacanth-red,
Smoulder in armlet and anklet;
Gleaming on breast and on head
Bangles of coins, that are angled,
Tinkle; and veils, that are spangled,
Flutter from coiffure and wrist
Like a star-bewildered mist.
 
 
Each dancing-girl is a flower
Of the Tuba from vales of El Liwa. —
How the bronzen censers glower!
And scents of ambergris pour
And myrrh brought of Lahore,
And musk of Khoten! how good
Is the scent of the sandal-wood!
 
 
A lutanist smites her lute;
Sings loves of Mejnoon and Leila —
Her voice is a houri flute; —
While the fragrant flambeaux wave
Barbaric o'er free and slave,
O'er fabrics and bezels of gems
And roses in anadems.
 
 
Sherbets in ewers of gold,
Fruits in salvers carnelian;
Flagons of grotesque mold,
Made of a sapphire glass,
Brimmed with wine of Shiraz;
Shaddock and melon and grape
On plate of an antique shape.
 
 
Vases of frosted rose,
Of limpid alabaster,
Filled with the mountain snows;
Goblets of mother-of-pearl,
One filigree silver-swirl;
Vessels of gold foamed up
With spray of spar on the cup.
 
 
Then a slave bursts in with a cry:
"The eunuchs! the Khalif's eunuchs! —
With scimitars bared draw nigh!
Wesif and Afif and he,
Chief of the hideous three,
Mesrour! – the Sultan's seen
'Mid a hundred weapons' sheen!"
 
 
Did we part when we heard this? No!
It seems that my soul remembers
How I clasped you and kissed you, so.
When they came they found us – dead
On the flowers our blood dyed red;
Our lips together, and
The dagger in my hand.
 

11

She, musingly:

 
How it was I cannot tell,
For I know not where nor why;
But perhaps we loved too well
In some world that does not lie
East or west of where we dwell,
And beneath no mortal sky.
 
 
Was it in the golden ages
Or the iron? – I had heard, —
In the prophecy of sages, —
Haply, how had come a bird,
Underneath whose wing were pages
Of an unknown lover's word.
 
 
I forget. You may remember
How the earthquake shook our ships;
How our city, one huge ember,
Blazed within the thick eclipse.
When you found me – deep December
Sealed my icy eyes and lips.
 
 
I forget. No one may say
That such things can not be true: —
Here a flower dies to-day,
And to-morrow blooms anew…
Death is silent. – Tell me, pray,
Why men doubt what God can do?
 

12

He, with conviction

 
As to that, nothing to tell,
You being all my belief;
Doubt may not enter or dwell
Here where your image is chief;
Here where your name is a spell,
Potent in joy and in grief.
 
 
Is it the glamor of spring
Working in us so we seem
Aye to have loved? that we cling
Even to some fancy or dream,
Rainbowing everything
Here in our souls with its gleam?
 
 
See! how the synod is met
There of the heavens to preach us —
Freed from the earth's oubliette,
See how the blossoms beseech us —
Were it not well to forget
Winter and night as they teach us?
 
 
Dew and a bud and a star,
These, – like a beautiful thought,
Over man's wisdom how far! —
God for some purpose has wrought;
And though they're that which they are,
What are the thoughts they have brought?
 
 
Stars and the moon; and they roll
Over our way that is white.
Here shall we end the long stroll?
Here shall I kiss you good-night?
Or, for a while, soul to soul,
Linger and dream of delight?
 

13

They enter the garden again… She, somewhat pensively

 
Myths tell of walls and cities that arose
To melody. But I would build with tone,
Had I that harp, a world for us alone,
A world of love, and joy, and deep repose.
 
 
A land of lavender light, of blue-bell skies;
Pale peaks that rise against the gold of eve;
And on one height, the splendors never leave,
Our castled home o'er which the wild swan flies.
 
 
There, pitiless, the ruined hand of death
Should never reach. No bud, no thing should fade;
All should be perfect, pure, and unafraid;
And life serener than an angel's breath.
 
 
The days should move to music; wildly tame
The nights should move to music and the stars;
And morn and evening in their opal cars,
Like heralds, banner God's eternal name.
 
 
O world! O life! desired and to be!
How shall we reach thee? – dark the way and dim.
– Give me your hand, love, let us follow him,
Love with the mystery and the melody.
 

14

He, observing the various flowers around them:

 
Violets and anemones
The surrendered hours
Pour, as handsels, round the knees
Of the Spring, who to the breeze
Flings her myriad flowers.
 
 
Like to coins the sumptuous day
Strews with blossoms golden
Every furlong of his way, —
Like a Sultan gone to pray
At a Kaaba olden.
 
 
And the night, with spark on spark,
Clad in dim attire,
Dots with Stars the haloed dark, —
As a priest around the Ark
Lights his lamps of fire.
 
 
These are but the cosmic strings
To the harp of Beauty,
To that instrument which sings
In our souls of love that brings
Peace and faith and duty.
 

15

She, seriously:

 
Duty? – Comfort of the sinner
And the saint! – when grief and trial
Weigh us, and within our inner
Selves, – responsive to love's viol, —
Hope's soft voice grows thin and thinner,
It is kin to self-denial.
 
 
Self-denial! – through whose feeling
We are gainer though we're loser;
All the finer force revealing
Of our natures. No accuser
Is the conscience then, but healing
Of the wound of which we're chooser.
 
 
Some one said no flower knoweth
Of the fragrance it revealeth;
Song, its soul that overfloweth,
Never nightingale's heart feeleth —
Such the love the spirit groweth,
Love unconscious if it healeth.
 

16

He, after a pause, lightly:

 
An elf there is who stables the hot
Red wasp that stings on the apricot;
An elf who rowels his spiteful bay
Like a mote on a ray, away, away;
An elf who saddles the hornet lean
To din i' the ear o' the swinging bean;
Who straddles, with cap cocked all awry,
The bottle-blue back o' the dragon-fly.
 
 
And this is the elf who sips and sips
From clover-horns whence the perfume drips;
And, drunk with dew, in the glimmering gloam
Awaits the wild-bee's coming home;
In ambush lies, where none may see,
And robs the caravan bumble-bee —
Gold bags of honey the bees must pay
To the bandit elf of the fairy way.
 
 
Another ouphen the butterflies know,
Who paints their wings with the hues that glow
On blossoms. – Squeezing from tubes of dew
Pansy colors of every hue
On his bloom's pied pallet, he paints the wings
Of the butterflies, moths, and other things.
This is the elf that the hollyhocks hear,
Who dangles a brilliant in each one's ear;
Teases at noon the pane's green fly,
And lights at night the glow-worm's eye.
 
 
But the dearest elf, so the poets say,
Is the elf who hides in an eye of gray;
Who curls in a dimple and slips along
The strings of a lute to a lover's song;
Who smiles in her smile, and frowns in her frown,
And dreams in the scent of her glove or gown;
Hides and beckons as all may note
In the bloom or the bow of a maiden's throat.
 

17

She, standing among the flowers:

 
Soft through the trees the night wind sighs,
And swoons and dies.
Above, the stars hang wanly white;
Here, through the dark,
A drizzled gold, the fireflies
Rain mimic stars in spark on spark. —
'Tis time to part, to say good-night.
Good-night.
 
 
From fern to flower the night-moths cross
At drowsy loss.
The moon drifts veiled through clouds of white;
And pearly pale,
A silver blur, through beds of moss,
Their tiny moons the glow-worms trail. —
'Tis time to part, to say good-night.
Good-night.
 

18

He, at parting, as they proceed down the garden:

 
You say you cannot wed me, now
That roses and the June are here?
To your decision I must bow. —
Ah, well! 'tis just as well, my dear:
We'll swear again each old love vow,
And wait another year.
 
 
Another year of love with you!
Of dreams and doubts, of sun and rain!
When field and forest bloom anew,
And locust clusters pelt the lane,
When all the song-birds wed and woo,
I'll not take "no" again.
 
 
Oft shall I lie awake and mark
The hours by no clanging clock,
But in the dim and distant dark
The crowing of some punctual cock;
Then up as early as the lark
To meet you by our rock.
 
 
The rock where first we met at tryst;
Where first I wooed and won your love —
Remember how the moon and mist
Made mystery of the heaven above
As now to-night? – How first I kissed
Your lips, you trembling like a dove?
 
 
So, then, you cannot wed me now
That roses and the June are here,
That warmth and fragrance weigh each bough?
And yet your reason is not clear.
Ah, well! We'll swear anew each vow,
And wait another year.
 

PART II
EARLY SUMMER

 
The cricket in the rose-bush hedge
Sings by the vine-entangled gate;
The slim moon slants a timid edge
Of pearl through one low cloud of slate;
Around dark door and window-ledge
Like dreams the shadows wait.
And through the summer dusk she goes,
On her white breast a crimson rose.
 

1

She delays, meditating. A rainy afternoon

 
Gray skies and the foggy rain
Dripping from sullen eaves;
Over and over again
Dull drop of the trickling leaves;
And the woodward-winding lane,
And the hill with its shocks of sheaves
One scarce perceives.
 
 
Shall I go in such wet weather
By the lane or over the hill? —
Where the blossoming milkweed's feather
The drops like diamonds fill;
Where, draggled and drenched together,
The ox-eyes rank the rill,
To the old corn-mill.
 
 
The creek by now is swollen,
And its foaming cascades sound;
And the lilies, smeared with pollen,
In the dam look dull and drowned.
'Tis a path I oft have stolen
To the bridge that rambles round
With willows bound.
 
 
Through a valley wild with berry,
Packed thick with the iron-weeds,
And elder, – washed and very
Fragrant, – the fenced path leads;
Past oak and wilding cherry
To a place of flags and reeds,
That the water bredes.
 
 
The sun through the sad sky bleaches —
Is that a thrush that calls?
That bird who so beseeches?
And see! on the balsam's balls,
And leaves of the water-beeches —
One blister of wart-like galls —
No raindrop falls.
 
 
My shawl instead of a bonnet!..
Though the woods be soaking yet,
Through the wet to the rock I'll run it, —
How sweet to meet i' the wet!
Our rock with the vine upon it, —
Each flower a fiery jet —
Where oft we've met!
 

2

They meet. He speaks

 
How fresh the purple clover
Smells in its veil of rain!
And where the leaves brim over
How fragrant is the lane!
See, how the sodden acres,
Forlorn of all their rakers,
Their hay and harvest makers,
Look green as spring again.
 
 
Drops from the trumpet flowers
Rain on us as we pass;
And every zephyr showers,
From tilted leaf or grass,
Clear beads of moisture, seeming
Pale, pointed emeralds gleaming;
Where, through the green boughs streaming,
The daylight strikes like glass.
 

She speaks

 
How dewy, clean and fragrant
Look now the green and gold! —
And breezes trailing vagrant
Spill all the spice they hold.
The west begins to glimmer;
And shadows, stretching slimmer,
Crouch on the ways; and dimmer
Grow field and forest old.
 
 
Beyond those rainy reaches
Of woodland, far and lone,
A whippoorwill beseeches;
And now an owl's vague moan
Strikes faint upon the hearing. —
These say the dusk is nearing.
And, see, the heavens clearing
Take on a tender tone.
 
 
How feebly chirps the cricket!
How thin the tree-toads cry!
Blurred in the wild-rose thicket
Gleams wet the firefly. —
This way toward home is nearest;
Of weeds and briars clearest…
We'll meet to-morrow, dearest;
Till then, dear heart, good-bye.
 

3

They meet again under the greenwood tree. He speaks:

 
Here at last! And do you know
That again you've kept me waiting?
Wondering, anticipating,
If your "yes" meant "no."
 
 
Now you're here we'll have our day…
Let us take this daisied hollow,
And beneath these beeches follow
This wild strip of way
 
 
Towards the stream; wherein are seen
Stealing gar and darting minnow;
Over which snake-feeders winnow
Wings of black and green.
 
 
Like a cactus flames the sun;
And the mighty weaver, Even,
Tenuous colored, there in heaven,
His rich weft's begun…
 
 
How I love you! from the time —
You remember, do you not? —
When, within your orchard-plot,
I was reading rhyme,
 
 
As I told you. And 'twas thus —
"By the blue Trinacrian sea,
Far in pastoral Sicily
With Theocritus" —
 
 
That I answered you who asked.
But the curious part was this: —
That the whole thing was amiss;
That the Greek but masked
 
 
Tales of old Boccaccio —
Tall Decameronian maids
Strolled among Italian glades,
Smiling, sweet and slow.
 
 
And when you approached, – my book
Dropped in wonder, – seemingly
To myself I said, "'Tis she!"
And arose to look
 
 
In Lauretta's eyes and – true!
Found them yours. – You shook your head,
Laughing at me, as you said,
"Did I frighten you?"
 
 
You had come for cherries; these
Dreamily I climbed for while
You still questioned with a smile,
And still tried to tease.
 
 
Ah, love, just two years have gone
Since then. I remember, you
Wore a dress of billowy blue
Muslin, or of lawn.
 
 
And that apron still I see, —
White, with cherry-juice red-stained, —
Which you held; wherein I rained
Ripeness from the tree.
 
 
And I asked you – for, you know,
To my eyes your serious eyes
Spoke such sweet philosophies, —
If you'd read Rousseau.
 
 
You remember how a chance,
Somewhat like to mine, one June
Happened him at castle Toune,
Over there in France?
 
 
And a cherry dropping fair
On your cheek I, envying it,
Said – remembering Rousseau's wit —
"Would my lips were there!"
 
 
How you laughed and blushed, I know. —
Here's the stream. The west has narrowed
To a streak of gold, deep arrowed. —
There's a skiff. Let's row.
 

4

Entering the skiff, she speaks:

 
Waters, flowing dark and bright
In the sunlight or the moon,
Seize my soul with such delight
As a visible music might;
As some slow, majestic tune
Made material to the sight.
 
 
Blossoms colored like the skies,
Sunset-hued and tame or wild,
Fill my soul with such surmise
As the mind might realize
If our thoughts, all undefiled,
Should take form before our eyes.
 
 
So to me do these appeal;
So they sway me every hour:
Letting all their beauty steal
On my soul to make it feel,
Through a rivulet or flower,
More than any words reveal.
 

5

He speaks, rowing

 
See, sweetheart, how the lilies lay
Their lambent leaves about our way;
Or, pollen-dusty, nod and float
Their moon-like flowers around our boat. —
The middle of the stream we've reached
Three strokes from where our boat was beached.
 
 
Look up. You scarce can see the sky,
Through trees that lean, dark, deep, and high;
And coiled with grape and trailing vine
Build a vast roof of shade and shine;
A house of leaves, where shadows walk,
And whispering winds and waters talk.
 
 
There is no path. The saplings choke
The trunks they spring from. There an oak
Lies rotting; and that sycamore,
Which lays its bulk from shore to shore, —
Uprooted by the floods, – perchance,
May be the bridge to some romance.
 
 
Now opening through a willow fringe
The waters creep, one tawny tinge
Of sunset; and on either marge
The cottonwoods make walls of shade;
And, near, the gradual hills loom large
Within its mirror. Herons wade,
Or fly, like Faery birds, from grass
That mats the shore by which we pass.
 

She speaks

 
On we pass; we rippling pass,
On sunset waters still as glass.
A vesper-sparrow flies above
Soft twittering to its woodland love.
A whippoorwill now calls afar;
And 'gainst the west, like some swift star,
A glittering jay flies screaming. Slim
The sand-snipes and king-fishers skim
Before us; and some evening thrush —
Who may discover where such sing? —
The silence rinses with a gush
Of mellow music bubbling.
 

He speaks

 
On we pass. – Now let us oar
To yonder strip of ragged shore,
Where, from a rock with lichens hoar,
A ferny spring wells. Gliding by
The sulphur-colored firefly
Lights its pale lamp where mallows gloom,
And wild-bean and wild-mustard bloom. —
Some hunter there within the woods
Last fall encamped those ashes say
And campfire boughs. – The solitudes
Grow dreamy with the death of day.
 

6

She sings

 
Over the fields of millet
A young bird tries its wings;
And sweet as a woodland rillet,
Its first wild music rings —
Soul of my soul, where the meadows roll
What is the song it sings?
 
 
"Love, and a glad good-morrow,
Heart where the rapture is!
Good-morrow, good-morrow!
Adieu to sorrow!
Here is the road to bliss:
Where all day long you may hearken my song,
And kiss, kiss, kiss!"
 
 
Over the fields of clover,
Where the wild bee drones and sways,
The wind, like a shepherd lover,
Flutes on the fragrant ways —
Heart of my heart, where the blossoms part,
What is the air he plays?
 
 
"Love, and a song to follow,
Soul with the face a-gleam!
Come follow, come follow,
O'er hill and o'er hollow,
To the land o' the bloom and beam;
Where under the flowers you may listen for hours,
And dream, dream, dream!"
 

7

He speaks, letting the boat drift

 
Here the shores are irised. Grasses
Clump the water dark that glasses
Broken wood and deepened distance.
Far the musical persistence
Of a field-lark lingers low
In the west where tulips blow.
 
 
White before us flames one pointed
Star; and Day hath Night anointed
King; from out her azure ewer
Pouring starry fire, truer
Than pure gold. Star-crowned he stands
With the star-light in his hands.
 
 
Will the moon bleach through the ragged
Tree-tops ere we reach yon jagged
Rock, that rises gradually,
Pharos of our homeward valley? —
All the west is smouldering red;
Embers are the stars o'erhead.
 
 
At my soul some Protean elf is;
You're Simaetha; I am Delphis.
You are Sappho and your Phaon,
I. – We love. – There lies a ray on
All the Dark Æolian seas
'Round the violet Lesbian leas.
 
 
On we drift. I love you. Nearer
Looms our island. Rosier, clearer,
The Leucadian cliff we follow,
Where the temple of Apollo
Shines – a pale and pillared fire…
Strike, oh, strike the Lydian lyre! —
While in Hellas still we seem,
Let us sing of that we dream.
 

8

Landing, he sings

 
Night, night, 'tis night. The moon drifts low above us,
And all its gold is tangled in the stream:
Love, love, my love, and all the stars, that love us,
The stars smile down and every star's a dream.
 
 
In odorous purple, where the falling warble
Of water cascades and the plunged foam glows,
A columned ruin lifts its sculptured marble
Friezed with the chiselled rebeck and the rose.
 

She sings

 
Sleep, Sleep, sweet Sleep sleeps at the drifting tiller,
And in our sail the Spirit of the Rain —
Love, love, my love, ah, bid thy heart be stiller,
And, hark! the music of the resonant main.
 
 
What flowers are those that blow their balm unto us
From mouths of wild aroma, each a flame? —
That breathe of love, of love we know that drew us,
That kissed our eyes, so we might see the same.
 

He speaks

 
Night, night, 'tis night! – no dream is this to banish;
The temple and the nightingale are there!
Our love has made them, nevermore to vanish,
Real as yon moon, this wild-rose in your hair.
 
 
Night, night, 'tis night! – and love's own star's before us,
Its bright reflection in the starry stream —
Yes, yes, ah, yes! its presence shall watch o'er us,
Night, night, to-night, and every night we dream.
 

9

Homeward through flowers; she speaks:

 
Behold the offerings of the common hills!
Whose lowly names have made them three times dear:
The evening-primrose and dim multitudes
Of violets that sky the mossy dells
With heaven's ambrosial blue; dew-dripping plumes
Of mauve lobelias; and the red-stained cups
Of blackberry-lilies all along the creek,
Where, lulled, the freckled silence sleeps, and vague
 
 
The water flows; where, at high noon, the cows
Wade knee-deep, and the heat is honied with
The drone of drowsy bees. The fleur-de-lis,
Blue, streaked with crystal like a summer day,
The monkey-flower and the touch-me-not,
All frailly scented and familiar as
Fair baby faces and soft infant eyes.
 
 
Simple suggestions of a life most fair!
You whisper me of love and untaught faith,
Whose habitation is within the soul,
Not of the Earth, yet for the Earth indeed…
What is it halcyons my heart? makes calm,
With calmness not of wisdom, all my soul
To-night? – Is't love? or faith? or both? —
The lore of all the world is less than these
Simple suggestions of a life most fair,
And love most sweet; that I have learned to know!
 

10

He speaks, musingly

 
Yes, I have known its being so;
Long ago was I seeing so —
Beckoning on to a fairer land,
Out of the flowers it waved its hand;
Bidding me on to life and love;
Life with the hope of the love thereof.
 
 
What is the value of knowing it,
If you are shy in showing it? —
Need of the earth unfolds the flower,
Dewy sweet at the proper hour;
And in the world of the human heart
Love is the flower's counterpart.
 
 
So when the soul is heedable,
Then is the heart made readable —
I in the book of your heart have read
Words that are truer than truth has said;
Measures of love, the spirit's song,
Writ of your soul to haunt me long.
 
 
Love can hear each laudable
Thought of the loved made audible,
Spoken in wonder, or bliss, or pain,
And re-echo it back again;
Ever responsive, ever awake,
Ever replying with ache for ache.
 

11

She speaks, dreamily

 
Earth gives its flowers to us
And heaven its stars. Indeed,
These are as lips that woo us,
Those are as lights that lead,
With love that doth pursue us,
With hope that still doth speed.
 
 
Yet shall the flowers lie riven,
And lips forget to kiss;
The stars fade out of heaven,
And lights lead us amiss —
As love for which we've striven;
As hope that promises.
 

12

He laughs, wishing to dispel her seriousness:

 
If love I have had of you, you had of me,
Then doubtless our loving were over;
One would be less than the other, you see;
Since what you returned to your lover
Were only his own; and —
 

13

She interrupts him, speaking impetuously:

 
But if I lose you, if you part with me,
I will not love you less
Loving so much now. If there is to be
A parting and distress, —
What will avail to comfort or reprieve
The soul that's anguished most? —
The knowledge that it once possessed, perceive,
The love that it has lost.
You must acknowledge, under sun and moon
All that we feel is old;
Let morning flutter from night's brown cocoon
Wide wings of flaxen gold;
The moon split through the darkness, soaring o'er,
Like some great moth and white,
These have been seen a myriad times before
And with the same delight. —
So 'tis with love – how old yet new it is! —
This only should we heed, —
To once have known, to once have felt love's bliss,
Is to be rich indeed. —
Whether we win or lose, we lose or win,
Within our gain or loss
Some purpose lies, some end unseen of sin,
Beyond our crown or cross.
 

14

Nearing home, he speaks

 
True, true! – Perhaps it would be best
To be that star within the west;
Above the earth, within the skies,
Yet shining in your own blue eyes.
 
 
Or, haply, better here to blow
A flower beneath your window low;
That, brief of life and frail and fair,
Finds yet a heaven in your hair.
 
 
Or well, perhaps, to be the breeze
That sighs its soul out to the trees;
A voice, a breath of rain or drouth,
That has its wild will with your mouth.
 
 
These thing I long to be. I long
To be the burthen of some song
You love to sing; a melody,
Sure of sweet immortality.
 

15

At the gate. She speaks

 
Sunday shall we ride together? —
Not the root-rough, rambling way
Through the wood we went that day,
In last summer's sultry weather.
 
 
Past the Methodist camp-meeting,
Where religion helped the hymn
Gather volume; and a slim
Minister, with textful greeting
 
 
Welcomed us and still expounded. —
From the service on the hill
We had gone three hills and still
Very near the singing sounded.
 
 
Nor that road through weed and berry
Drowsy days led me and you
To the old-time barbecue,
Where the country-side made merry.
 
 
Dusty vehicles together;
Darkies with the horses near
Tied to trees; the atmosphere
Redolent of bark and leather.
 
 
As we went the homeward journey
You exclaimed, – "They intermix
Pleasure there with politics.
It reminds me of a tourney."
 
 
And the fiddles! – through the thickets,
How the wind brought from the hill
Remnants of the old quadrille! —
It was like the drone of crickets…
 
 
Neither road. The shady quiet
Of that path by beech and birch,
Winding to the ruined church
Near the stream that sparkles by it.
 
 
Where the silent Sundays listen
For the preacher – Love – we bring
In our hearts to preach and sing
Week-day shade to Sabbath glisten.
 

16

He, at parting:

 
Yes, to-morrow. Early morn. —
When the House of Day uncloses
Portals that the stars adorn, —
Whence Light's golden presence throws his
Fiery lilies, burning roses
On the world, – how good to ride
With one's sweetheart at one's side!
 
 
So to-morrow we will ride
To the wood's cathedral places;
Where the prayer-like wildflowers hide,
Sweet religion in their faces;
Where, in truest, untaught phrases,
Worship in each rhythmic word,
God is praised by many a bird.
 
 
Look above you. – Pearly white,
Star on star now crystallizes
Out of darkness; and the night
Hangs them round her like devices
Of strange jewels. Vapour rises,
Glimmering, from each wood and dell —
Till to-morrow, then, farewell.
 

PART III
LATE SUMMER

 
Heat lightning flickers in one cloud,
As in a flow'r a firefly;
Some rain-drops, that the rose-bush bowed,
Jar through the leaves and dimly lie;
Among the trees, now low, now loud,
The whispering breezes sigh.
The place is lone; the night is hushed;
Upon the path a rose lies crushed.
 

1

Musing he strolls among the quiet lanes by farm and field

 
Now rests the season in forgetfulness,
Careless in beauty of maturity;
The ripened roses 'round brown temples, she
Fulfils completion in a dreamy guess.
Now Time grants night the more and day the less;
The gray decides; and brown
Dim golds and drabs in dulling green express
Themselves and redden as the year goes down.
Sadder the fields where, thrusting hoary high
Their tasseled heads, the Lear-like corn-stocks die,
And, Falstaff-like, buff-bellied pumpkins lie. —
Deeper to tenderness,
Sadder the blue of hills that lounge along
The lonesome west; sadder the song
Of the wild red-bird in the leafage yellow. —
Deeper and dreamier, ay!
Than woods or waters, leans the languid sky
Above lone orchards where the cider-press
Drips and the russets mellow.
 
 
Nature grows liberal: from the beechen leaves
The beech-nuts' burs their little pockets thrust,
Bulged with the copper of the nuts that rust;
Above the grass the spendthrift spider weaves
A web of silver for which Dawn designs
Thrice twenty rows of pearls; beneath the oak,
That rolls old roots in many gnarly lines, —
The polished acorns, from their saucers broke,
Strew wildwood agates. – On sonorous pines
The far wind organs, but the forest near
Is silent; and the blue-white smoke
Of burning brush, beyond that field of hay,
Hangs like a pillar in the atmosphere;
But now it shakes – it breaks; and all the vines
And tree-tops tremble; – see! the wind is here!
Billowing and boisterous; and the smiling day
Rejoices with its clamor. Earth and sky
Resound with glory of its majesty,
Impetuous splendor of its rushing by. —
But on those heights the forest yet is still,
Expectant of its coming. Far away
Each anxious tree upon each waiting hill
Tingles anticipation, as in gray
Surmise of rapture. Now the first gusts play,
Like little laughs, about their rippling spines;
And now the wildwood, one exultant sway,
Shouts – and the light at each tumultuous pause,
The light that glooms and shines,
Seems hands in wild applause.
 
 
How glows that garden! though the white mists keep
The vagabonding flowers reminded of
Decay that comes to slay in open love,
When the full moon hangs cold and night is deep;
Unheeding still, their happy colors leap
And laugh encircled of the scythe of death, —
Like lovely children he prepares to reap, —
Staying his blade a breath
To mark their beauty ere, with one last sweep,
He lays them dead and turns away to weep. —
Let me admire, —
Ere yet the sickle of the coming cold
Has mown them down, – their beauties manifold: —
How like to spurts of fire
That scarlet salvia lifts its blooms, which heap
Yon space of sunlight. And, as sparkles creep
Through charring parchment, up that window's screen
The cypress dots with crimson all its green,
The haunt of many bees.
And, showering down cascaded lattices,
That nightshade bleeds with berries; drops of blood,
In clusters hanging 'mid the blue monk's-hood.
 
 
There in the garden old
The bright-hued clumps of zinnias unfold
Their formal flowers; and the marigold
Lifts its pinched shred of orange sunset caught
And elfed in petals. The nasturtium,
All pungent leaved and bitter of perfume,
Hangs up its goblin bonnet, fairy bought
From Gnomeland. There, predominant, red,
And arrogant the dahlia lifts its head,
Beside the balsam's rosy horns of honey,
Within the murmuring, sunny
Dry wildness of the weedy flower bed;
Where crickets and the weed-bugs, noon and night,
Sing dirges for the flowers that soon will die,
For flowers already dead. —
I seem to hear the passing Summer sigh;
A voice, that seems to weep,
"Too soon, too soon the Beautiful passes by!" —
If I perchance might peep
Beneath those leaves of podded hollyhocks,
That the bland wind with odorous whispers rocks,
I might behold her, – white
And weary, – Summer, 'mid her flowers asleep,
Her drowsy flowers asleep,
The withered poppies knotted in her locks.
 

2

He is reminded of another day with her

 
The hips were reddening on this rose,
Those haws were hung with fire,
That day we went this way that goes
Up hills of bough and brier.
This hooked thorn caught her gown and seemed
Imploring her to linger;
Upon her hair a sun-ray streamed
Like some baptizing finger.
 
 
This false-foxglove, so golden now
With yellow blooms like bangles,
Was fading then. But yonder bough, —
The sumach's plume entangles, —
Was like an Indian's painted face;
And, like a squaw, attended
That bush, in vague vermilion grace
With beads of berries splendid.
 
 
And here we turned to mount that hill,
Down which the wild brook tumbles;
And, like to-day, that day was still,
And soft winds swayed the umbles
Of these wild carrots lawny gray;
And there, deep-dappled o'er us,
 
 
An orchard stretched; and in our way
Dropped ripened fruit before us.
A muffled thud the pippin fell,
And at our feet rolled dusty;
A hornet clinging to its bell,
The pear lay bruised and rusty.
The smell of pulpy peach and plum,
From which the juice oozed yellow,
Around which bees made sleepy hum,
Filled warm the air and mellow.
 
 
And then we came where, many hued,
The wet wild-morning-glory
Hung its balloons in shadows dewed
For dawning's offertory.
With bush and bramble, far away,
Beneath us stretched the valley,
Cleft of one creek, as clear as day,
That bickered musically.
 
 
The brown, the bronze, the green, the red
Of weed and brier ran riot
To walls of woods, whose vistas led
To shadowy nooks of quiet.
Long waves of feathering golden-rod
Ran through the gray in patches;
As in a cloud the gold of God
Burns, that the sunset catches.
 
 
And there, above the blue hills, rolled,
Like some vast conflagration,
The sunset, flaming rose and gold,
We watched in exultation.
Then turning homeward, she and I
Went in love's sweet derangement —
How different now seem earth and sky,
Since this undreamed estrangement!
 

3

He enters the woods. He sits down despondently

 
Here where the day is dimmest,
And silence company,
Some might find sympathy
For loss, or grief the grimmest,
In each great-hearted tree —
Here where the day is dimmest —
But, ah, there's none for me!
 
 
In leaves might find communion,
Returning sigh for sigh,
For love the heavens deny;
The love that yearns for union,
Yet parts and knows not why. —
In leaves might find communion —
But, ah, not I, not I!
 
 
My eyes with tears are aching. —
Why has she written me?
And will no longer see? —
My heart with grief is breaking,
With grief that this should be —
My eyes with tears are aching —
Why has she written me?
 

4

He proceeds in the direction of a stream

 
Better is death than sleep,
Better for tired eyes. —
Why do we weep and weep
When near us the solace lies?
There in that stream, that, deep, —
Reflecting woods and skies, —
Could comfort all our sighs.
 
 
The mystery of things,
Of dreams, philosophies,
'Round which the mortal clings,
That can unriddle these. —
What is't the water sings?
What is't it promises? —
End to all miseries!
 

5

He seats himself on a rock and gazes steadily into the stream

 
And here alone I sit and it is so! —
O vales and hills! O valley lands and knobs!
What cure have you for woe?
None that my heart may know! —
The wearying sameness! – yet this thing is so! —
This thing is so, and still the waters flow,
The leaves drop slowly down; the daylight throbs
With sun and wind, and yet this thing is so! —
Here, at this culvert's mouth,
The shadowy water, flowing towards the south,
Seems deepest, stagnant-stayed. —
What is there yonder that makes me afraid? —
Of my own self afraid? – what is't below?
What power draws me to the striate stream?
What evil or what dream? —
Me, dropping pebbles in the quiet wave,
That echoes, strange as music in a cave,
Hollow and thin; vibrating in the shade
Like sound of tears – the shadow of some woe,
An ailing phantom that will not be laid,
Since this is so, since this sad thing is so.
 
 
There, in the water, how the lank green grass
Mats its rank blades, each blade a crooked kris,
Making a marsh; 'mid which the currents miss
Their rock-born melodies.
But there, and there one sees
The wide-belled mallow, as within a glass,
Long-pistiled, leaning o'er
The root-contorted shore,
As if its own pink image it would kiss.
And there the tangled wild-potato vine
Lifts conical blossoms, each a cup of wine,
As pale as moonlight is.
And there tall gipsy lilies, all a-sway,
Their savage, coppery faces, fierce of hue,
Dull purple-streaked, bend in inverted view. —
And where the stream around those rushes creeps,
The dragon-fly, in endless error, keeps
Sewing the pale gold gown of day
With tangled stitches of a burning blue:
Its brilliant body seems a needle fine,
A thread of azure ray.
But here below me where my pensive shade
Looks up at me, the stale stream stagnant lies,
Deep, dark, but clear and silent; save the hiss
Of bursting bubbles in the spawny ooze. —
All flowers here refuse
To grow or blossom; beauties, too, are few,
That haunt its depths: no glittering minnows braid
Its languid crystal; and no gravels strew
With colored orbs its bottom. Half afraid
I shrink from my own eyes
There in its cairngorm skies —
I know not why, and yet it seems 'tis this: —
 
 
I know not what – but where the kildees wade
Slim in the foamy scum,
From that direction hither doth it come,
And makes my heart afraid.
Nearer it draws to where those low rocks ail,
Warm rocks on which some water-snake hath clomb
To bask its spotted body, coiling numb. —
At first it seemed a prism on the grail,
A bubble's prism yonder; then a trail,
An angled sparkle in a shadow, swayed
Frog-like through deeps, to crouch a flaccid, pale,
Squat bulk below… Reflected trees and skies,
And breeze-blown clouds that lounge at sunny loss,
Seem in its stolid eyes,
Deep down – the dim disguise
Of something ghoulish there, whose features fail,
Then come again in rhythmic waviness,
With arms like tentacles that seem to press
Up towards me. Limbs that writhe, and fade,
And clench – tough limbs, that twist and cross
Through flabby hair like smoky moss.
 
 
How horrible to see this thing at night!
Or when the sunset slants its brimstone light
Above the water! when, in phantom flight,
The will-o'-the-wisps, perhaps, above it reel.
Then haply would it rise, a rotting green,
Up, up, and gather me with arms of steel,
Soft steel, and drag me where the wave is white,
Beneath that boulder there, that plants a keel
Against the ripple there, a shoulder lean. —
No! no! I must away before 'tis night!
Before the fire-flies dot
The dusk with sulphur blurrings bright!
Before upon yon height
The white wild-carrots vanish from the sight;
And boneset blossoms, tossing there in clusters,
Fade to a ridge, a streak of ghostly lustres.
And in yon sunlit spot,
That cedar tree is not! —
But a huge cap instead, that, half-asleep,
Some giant dropped while driving home his sheep.
And 'mid those fallow browns
And russet grays, the fragrant peak
Of yonder timothy stack,
Is not a stack, but something hideous, black,
That threatens and, grotesquely demon, frowns.
 
 
I must away from here. —
Already dusk draws near.
The owlet's dolorous hoot
Sounds quavering as a gnome's wild flute;
The toad, within the wet,
Begins to tune its goblin flageolet.
The slow sun sinks behind
Those hills; and like a withered cheek,
Distorted there, the spectral moon's defined
Above those trees; above that mass of vines
That, like a wrecked appentice, roofs those pines. —
Oh, I am faint and weak. —
I must away, away,
Before the close of day! —
Already at my back
I feel the woods grow black;
And sense the evening wind,
Guttural and gaunt and blind,
Snarling behind me like a were-wolf pack. —
When will it cease to pierce,
This anguish dull and fierce,
At heart and soul? when will it let me go? —
 
 
At last, with footsteps slow,
With half averted cheek,
I've reached this woodland creek,
Far from that place of fear;
And still I seem to hear
A dripping footstep near;
A gurgling voice dim glimmering at my ear.
I try to fly! – I can not! – yes, and no! —
What horror holds me! – God! that obscene, slow,
Sure mastering chimera there
Has yet some horrible feeler round my neck,
Or in my scattered hair! —
Off! off! thou devil's coil! —
The waters, thrashing, boil —
Once more I'm free! once more I'm free!
Glad of that firefly fleck,
That, like a lamp of golden fairy oil,
Lights me the way I flee. —
No more I stare, magnetic-fixed; nor reck,
Nor little care to foil
The madness there! the murder there! that slips
Back to its lair of slime, that seeps and drips,
That sought in vain to fasten on my lips.