Kitabı oku: «Poems», sayfa 5

IN THE WOOD

 
  The waterfall, deep in the wood,
  Talked drowsily with solitude,
  A soft, insistent sound of foam,
  That filled with sleep the forest's dome,
  Where, like some dream of dusk, she stood
  Accentuating solitude.
 
 
  The crickets' tinkling chips of sound
  Strewed dim the twilight-twinkling ground;
  A whippoorwill began to cry,
  And glimmering through the sober sky
  A bat went on its drunken round,
  Its shadow following on the ground.
 
 
  Then from a bush, an elder-copse,
  That spiced the dark with musky tops,
  What seemed, at first, a shadow came
  And took her hand and spoke her name,
  And kissed her where, in starry drops,
  The dew orbed on the elder-tops.
 
 
  The glaucous glow of fireflies
  Flickered the dusk; and foxlike eyes
  Peered from the shadows; and the hush
  Murmured a word of wind and rush
  Of fluttering waters, fragrant sighs,
  And dreams unseen of mortal eyes.
 
 
  The beetle flung its burr of sound
  Against the hush and clung there, wound
  In night's deep mane: then, in a tree,
  A grig began deliberately
  To file the stillness: all around
  A wire of shrillness seemed unwound.
 
 
  I looked for those two lovers there;
  His ardent eyes, her passionate hair.
  The moon looked down, slow-climbing wan
  Heaven's slope of azure: they were gone:
  But where they'd passed I heard the air
  Sigh, faint with sweetness of her hair.
 

SINCE THEN

 
  I found myself among the trees
  What time the reapers ceased to reap;
  And in the sunflower-blooms the bees
  Huddled brown heads and went to sleep,
  Rocked by the balsam-breathing breeze.
 
 
  I saw the red fox leave his lair,
  A shaggy shadow, on the knoll;
  And tunneling his thoroughfare
  Beneath the soil, I watched the mole—
  Stealth's own self could not take more care.
 
 
  I heard the death-moth tick and stir,
  Slow-honeycombing through the bark;
  I heard the cricket's drowsy chirr,
  And one lone beetle burr the dark—
  The sleeping woodland seemed to purr.
 
 
  And then the moon rose: and one white
  Low bough of blossoms—grown almost
  Where, ere you died, 'twas our delight
  To meet,—dear heart!—I thought your ghost….
  The wood is haunted since that night.
 

DUSK IN THE WOODS

 
  Three miles of trees it is: and I
  Came through the woods that waited, dumb,
  For the cool summer dusk to come;
  And lingered there to watch the sky
  Up which the gradual splendor clomb.
 
 
  A tree-toad quavered in a tree;
  And then a sudden whippoorwill
  Called overhead, so wildly shrill
  The sleeping wood, it seemed to me,
  Cried out and then again was still.
 
 
  Then through dark boughs its stealthy flight
  An owl took; and, at drowsy strife,
  The cricket tuned its faery fife;
  And like a ghost-flower, silent white,
  The wood-moth glimmered into life.
 
 
  And in the dead wood everywhere
  The insects ticked, or bored below
  The rotted bark; and, glow on glow,
  The lambent fireflies here and there
  Lit up their jack-o'-lantern show.
 
 
  I heard a vesper-sparrow sing,
  Withdrawn, it seemed, into the far
  Slow sunset's tranquil cinnabar;
  The crimson, softly smoldering
  Behind the trees, with its one star.
 
 
  A dog barked: and down ways that gleamed,
  Through dew and clover, faint the noise
  Of cowbells moved. And then a voice,
  That sang a-milking, so it seemed,
  Made glad my heart as some glad boy's.
 
 
  And then the lane: and, full in view,
  A farmhouse with its rose-grown gate,
  And honeysuckle paths, await
  For night, the moon, and love and you—
  These are the things that made me late.
 

PATHS

I

 
  What words of mine can tell the spell
  Of garden ways I know so well?—
  The path that takes me in the spring
  Past quince-trees where the bluebirds sing,
  And peonies are blossoming,
  Unto a porch, wistaria-hung,
  Around whose steps May-lilies blow,
  A fair girl reaches down among,
  Her arm more white than their sweet snow.
 

II

 
  What words of mine can tell the spell
  Of garden ways I know so well?—
  Another path that leads me, when
  The summer time is here again,
  Past hollyhocks that shame the west
  When the red sun has sunk to rest;
  To roses bowering a nest,
  A lattice, 'neath which mignonette
  And deep geraniums surge and sough,
  Where, in the twilight, starless yet,
  A fair girl's eyes are stars enough.
 

III

 
  What words of mine can tell the spell
  Of garden ways I know so well?—
  A path that takes me, when the days
  Of autumn wrap the hills in haze,
  Beneath the pippin-pelting tree,
  'Mid flitting butterfly and bee;
  Unto a door where, fiery,
  The creeper climbs; and, garnet-hued,
  The cock's-comb and the dahlia flare,
  And in the door, where shades intrude,
  Gleams bright a fair girl's sunbeam hair.
 

IV

 
  What words of mine can tell the spell
  Of garden ways I know so well?—
  A path that brings me through the frost
  Of winter, when the moon is tossed
  In clouds; beneath great cedars, weak
  With shaggy snow; past shrubs blown bleak
  With shivering leaves; to eaves that leak
  The tattered ice, whereunder is
  A fire-flickering window-space;
  And in the light, with lips to kiss,
  A fair girl's welcome-smiling face.
 

THE QUEST

I

 
  First I asked the honeybee,
    Busy in the balmy bowers;
  Saying, "Sweetheart, tell it me:
  Have you seen her, honeybee?
    She is cousin to the flowers—
  All the sweetness of the south
  In her wild-rose face and mouth."
    But the bee passed silently.
 

II

 
  Then I asked the forest bird,
    Warbling by the woodland waters;
  Saying, "Dearest, have you heard?
  Have you heard her, forest bird?
    She is one of music's daughters—
  Never song so sweet by half
  As the music of her laugh."
    But the bird said not a word.
 

III

 
  Next I asked the evening sky,
    Hanging out its lamps of fire;
  Saying, "Loved one, passed she by?
  Tell me, tell me, evening sky!
    She, the star of my desire—
  Sister whom the Pleiads lost,
  And my soul's high pentecost."
    But the sky made no reply.
 

IV

 
  Where is she? ah, where is she?
    She to whom both love and duty
  Bind me, yea, immortally.—
  Where is she? ah, where is she?
    Symbol of the Earth-Soul's beauty.
  I have lost her. Help my heart
  Find her! her, who is a part
    Of the pagan soul of me.
 

THE GARDEN OF DREAMS

 
  Not while I live may I forget
  That garden which my spirit trod!
  Where dreams were flowers, wild and wet,
  And beautiful as God.
 
 
  Not while I breathe, awake, adream,
  Shall live again for me those hours,
  When, in its mystery and gleam,
  I met her 'mid the flowers.
 
 
  Eyes, talismanic heliotrope,
  Beneath mesmeric lashes, where
  The sorceries of love and hope
  Had made a shining lair.
 
 
  And daydawn brows, whereover hung
  The twilight of dark locks: wild birds,
  Her lips, that spoke the rose's tongue
  Of fragrance-voweled words.
 
 
  I will not tell of cheeks and chin,
  That held me as sweet language holds;
  Nor of the eloquence within
  Her breasts' twin-moonéd molds.
 
 
  Nor of her body's languorous
  Wind-grace, that glanced like starlight through
  Her clinging robe's diaphanous
  Web of the mist and dew.
 
 
  There is no star so pure and high
  As was her look; no fragrance such
  As her soft presence; and no sigh
  Of music like her touch.
 
 
  Not while I live may I forget
  That garden of dim dreams, where I
  And Beauty born of Music met,
  Whose spirit passed me by.
 

THE PATH TO FAERY

I

 
  When dusk falls cool as a rained-on rose,
  And a tawny tower the twilight shows,
  With the crescent moon, the silver moon, the curved
      new moon in a space that glows,
  A turret window that grows alight;
  There is a path that my Fancy knows,
  A glimmering, shimmering path of night,
  That far as the Land of Faery goes.
 

II

 
  And I follow the path, as Fancy leads,
  Over the mountains, into the meads,
  Where the firefly cities, the glowworm cities, the faery
      cities are strung like beads,
  Each city a twinkling star:
  And I live a life of valorous deeds,
  And march with the Faery King to war,
  And ride with his knights on milk-white steeds.
 

III

 
  Or it's there in the whirl of their life I sit,
  Or dance in their houses with starlight lit,
  Their blossom houses, their flower houses, their elfin
     houses, of fern leaves knit,
  With fronded spires and domes:
  And there it is that my lost dreams flit,
  And the ghost of my childhood, smiling, roams
  With the faery children so dear to it.
 

IV

 
  And it's there I hear that they all come true,
  The faery stories, whatever they do—
  Elf and goblin, dear elf and goblin, loved elf and goblin,
      and all the crew
  Of witch and wizard and gnome and fay,
  And prince and princess, that wander through
  The storybooks we have put away,
  The faerytales that we loved and knew.
 

V

 
  The face of Adventure lures you there,
  And the eyes of Danger bid you dare,
  While ever the bugles, the silver bugles, the far-off
      bugles of Elfland blare,
  The faery trumpets to battle blow;
  And you feel their thrill in your heart and hair,
  And you fain would follow and mount and go
  And march with the Faeries anywhere.
 

VI

 
  And she—she rides at your side again,
  Your little sweetheart whose age is ten:
  She is the princess, the faery princess, the princess fair
      that you worshiped when
  You were a prince in a faerytale;
  And you do great deeds as you did them then,
  With your magic spear, and enchanted mail,
  Braving the dragon in his den.
 

VII

 
  And you ask again,—"Oh, where shall we ride,
  Now that the monster is slain, my bride?"—
  "Back to the cities, the firefly cities, the glowworm
      cities where we can hide,
  The beautiful cities of Faeryland.
  And the light of my eyes shall be your guide,
  The light of my eyes and my snow-white hand—
  And there forever we two will abide."
 

THERE ARE FAERIES

I

 
  There are faeries, bright of eye,
    Who the wildflowers' warders are:
  Ouphes, that chase the firefly;
    Elves, that ride the shooting-star:
  Fays, who in a cobweb lie,
    Swinging on a moonbeam bar;
  Or who harness bumblebees,
  Grumbling on the clover leas,
  To a blossom or a breeze—
    That's their faery car.
  If you care, you too may see
  There are faeries.—Verily,
    There are faeries.
 

II

 
  There are faeries. I could swear
  I have seen them busy, where
  Roses loose their scented hair,
    In the moonlight weaving, weaving,
 
 
  Out of starlight and the dew,
  Glinting gown and shimmering shoe;
  Or, within a glowworm lair,
    From the dark earth slowly heaving
  Mushrooms whiter than the moon,
  On whose tops they sit and croon,
  With their grig-like mandolins,
  To fair faery ladykins,
  Leaning from the windowsill
  Of a rose or daffodil,
  Listening to their serenade
  All of cricket-music made.
  Follow me, oh, follow me!
  Ho! away to Faërie!
  Where your eyes like mine may see
  There are faeries.—Verily,
    There are faeries.
 

III

 
  There are faeries. Elves that swing
  In a wild and rainbow ring
  Through the air; or mount the wing
  Of a bat to courier news
  To the faery King and Queen:
  Fays, who stretch the gossamers
  On which twilight hangs the dews;
 
 
  Who, within the moonlight sheen,
  Whisper dimly in the ears
  Of the flowers words so sweet
  That their hearts are turned to musk
  And to honey; things that beat
  In their veins of gold and blue:
  Ouphes, that shepherd moths of dusk—
  Soft of wing and gray of hue—
  Forth to pasture on the dew.
 

IV

 
  There are faeries; verily;
    Verily:
  For the old owl in the tree,
    Hollow tree,
  He who maketh melody
  For them tripping merrily,
    Told it me.
  There are faeries.—Verily,
    There are faeries.
 

THE SPIRIT OF THE FOREST SPRING

 
  Over the rocks she trails her locks,
  Her mossy locks that drip, drip, drip:
  Her sparkling eyes smile at the skies
  In friendship-wise and fellowship:
  While the gleam and glance of her countenance
  Lull into trance the woodland places,
  As over the rocks she trails her locks,
  Her dripping locks that the long fern graces.
 
 
  She pours clear ooze from her heart's cool cruse,
  Its crystal cruse that drips, drips, drips:
  And all the day its limpid spray
  Is heard to play from her finger tips:
  And the slight, soft sound makes haunted ground
  Of the woods around that the sunlight laces,
  As she pours clear ooze from her heart's cool cruse,
  Its dripping cruse that no man traces.
 
 
  She swims and swims with glimmering limbs,
  With lucid limbs that drip, drip, drip:
  Where beechen boughs build a leafy house,
  Where her eyes may drowse or her beauty trip:
  And the liquid beat of her rippling feet
  Makes three times sweet the forest mazes,
  As she swims and swims with glimmering limbs,
  With dripping limbs through the twilight hazes.
 
 
  Then wrapped in deeps of the wild she sleeps,
  She whispering sleeps and drips, drips, drips:
  Where moon and mist wreathe neck and wrist,
  And, starry-whist, through the dark she slips:
  While the heavenly dream of her soul makes gleam
  The falls that stream and the foam that races,
  As wrapped in the deeps of the wild she sleeps,
  She dripping sleeps or starward gazes.
 

IN A GARDEN

 
  The pink rose drops its petals on
  The moonlit lawn, the moonlit lawn;
  The moon, like some wide rose of white,
    Drops down the summer night.
      No rose there is
      As sweet as this—
  Thy mouth, that greets me with a kiss.
 
 
  The lattice of thy casement twines
  With jasmine vines, with jasmine vines;
  The stars, like jasmine blossoms, lie
    About the glimmering sky.
      No jasmine tress
      Can so caress
  Like thy white arms' soft loveliness.
 
 
  About thy door magnolia blooms
  Make sweet the glooms, make sweet the glooms;
  A moon-magnolia is the dusk
    Closed in a dewy husk.
      However much,
      No bloom gives such
  Soft fragrance as thy bosom's touch.
 
 
  The flowers blooming now will pass,
  And strew the grass, and strew the grass;
  The night, like some frail flower, dawn
    Will soon make gray and wan.
      Still, still above,
      The flower of
  True love shall live forever, Love.
 

IN THE LANE

 
  When the hornet hangs in the hollyhock,
    And the brown bee drones i' the rose;
  And the west is a red-streaked four-o'clock,
    And summer is near its close—
  It's oh, for the gate and the locust lane,
  And dusk and dew and home again!
 
 
  When the katydid sings and the cricket cries,
    And ghosts of the mists ascend;
  And the evening star is a lamp i' the skies,
    And summer is near its end—
  It's oh, for the fence and the leafy lane,
  And the twilight peace and the tryst again!
 
 
  When the owlet hoots in the dogwood tree,
    That leans to the rippling Run;
  And the wind is a wildwood melody,
    And summer is almost done—
  It's oh, for the bridge and the bramble lane,
  And the fragrant hush and her hands again!
 
 
  When fields smell sweet with the dewy hay,
    And woods are cool and wan,
  And a path for dreams is the Milky Way,
    And summer is nearly gone—
  It's oh, for the rock and the woodland lane,
  And the silence and stars and her lips again!
 
 
  When the weight of the apples breaks down the boughs,
    And muskmelons split with sweet;
  And the moon is a light in Heaven's house,
    And summer has spent its heat—
  It's oh, for the lane, the trysting lane,
  The deep-mooned night and her love again!
 

THE WINDOW ON THE HILL

 
  Among the fields the camomile
  Seems blown mist in the lightning's glare:
  Cool, rainy odors drench the air;
  Night speaks above; the angry smile
  Of storm within her stare.
 
 
  The way that I shall take to-night
  Is through the wood whose branches fill
  The road with double darkness, till,
  Between the boughs, a window's light
  Shines out upon the hill.
 
 
  The fence; and then the path that goes
  Around a trailer-tangled rock,
  Through puckered pink and hollyhock,
  Unto a latch-gate's unkempt rose,
  And door whereat I knock.
 
 
  Bright on the oldtime flower place
  The lamp streams through the foggy pane;
  The door is opened to the rain:
  And in the door—her happy face
  And outstretched arms again.
 

THE PICTURE

 
  Above her, pearl and rose the heavens lay:
  Around her, flowers flattered earth with gold,
  Or down the path in insolence held sway—
  Like cavaliers who ride the king's highway—
  Scarlet and buff, 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 palette 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,
  Fair 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 dreams at ease—
  Porched with old roses, haunts of honeybees,
  The homestead loomed within a lilied space.
 
 
  For whom she waited in the afterglow,
  Star-eyed and golden 'mid the poppy and rose,
  I do not know; I do not care to know,—
  It is enough I keep her picture so,
  Hung up, like poetry, in 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;
  The spiritual sweetheart of my soul and mind,
  She had not been, perhaps, if we had met.
 

MOLY

 
  When by the wall the tiger-flower swings
    A head of sultry slumber and aroma;
  And by the path, whereon the blown rose flings
    Its obsolete beauty, the long lilies foam a
  White place of perfume, like a beautiful breast—
  Between the pansy fire of the west,
  And poppy mist of moonrise in the east,
    This heartache will have ceased.
 
 
  The witchcraft of soft music and sweet sleep—
    Let it beguile the burthen from my spirit,
  And white dreams reap me as strong reapers reap
    The ripened grain and full blown blossom near it;
  Let me behold how gladness gives the whole
  The transformed countenance of my own soul—
  Between the sunset and the risen moon
    Let sorrow vanish soon.
 
 
  And these things then shall keep me company:
    The elfins of the dew; the spirit of laughter
  Who haunts the wind; the god of melody
    Who sings within the stream, that reaches after
 
 
  The flow'rs that rock themselves to his caress:
  These of themselves shall shape my happiness,
  Whose visible presence I shall lean upon,
    Feeling that care is gone.
 
 
  Forgetting how the cankered flower must die;
    The worm-pierced fruit fall, sicklied to its syrup;
  How joy, begotten 'twixt a sigh and sigh,
  Waits with one foot forever in the stirrup,—
  Remembering how within the hollow lute
  Soft music sleeps when music's voice is mute;
  And in the heart, when all seems black despair,
    Hope sits, awaiting there.
 

POPPY AND MANDRAGORA

 
    Let us go far from here!
  Here there is sadness in the early year:
  Here sorrow waits where joy went laughing late:
  The sicklied face of heaven hangs like hate
  Above the woodland and the meadowland;
  And Spring hath taken fire in her hand
  Of frost and made a dead bloom of her face,
  Which was a flower of marvel once and grace,
  And sweet serenity and stainless glow.
    Delay not. Let us go.
 
 
    Let us go far away
  Into the sunrise of a fairer May:
  Where all the nights resign them to the moon,
  And drug their souls with odor and soft tune,
  And tell their dreams in starlight: where the hours
  Teach immortality with fadeless flowers;
  And all the day the bee weights down the bloom,
  And all the night the moth shakes strange perfume,
  Like music, from the flower-bells' affluence.
    Let us go far from hence.
 
 
    Why should we sit and weep,
  And yearn with heavy eyelids still to sleep?
  Forever hiding from our hearts the hate,—
  Death within death,—life doth accumulate,
  Like winter snows along the barren leas
  And sterile hills, whereon no lover sees
  The crocus limn the beautiful in flame;
  Or hyacinth and jonquil write the name
  Of Love in fire, for each passer-by.
    Why should we sit and sigh?
 
 
    We will not stay and long,
  Here where our souls are wasting for a song;
  Where no bird sings; and, dim beneath the stars,
  No silvery water strikes melodious bars;
  And in the rocks and forest-covered hills
  No quick-tongued echo from her grotto fills
  With eery syllables the solitude—
  The vocal image of the voice that wooed—
  She, of wild sounds the airy looking-glass.
    Our souls are tired, alas!
 
 
    What should we say to her?—
  To Spring, who in our hearts makes no sweet stir:
  Who looks not on us nor gives thought unto:
  Too busy with the birth of flowers and dew,
  And vague gold wings within the chrysalis;
  Or Love, who will not miss us; had no kiss
  To give your soul or the sad soul of me,
  Who bound our hearts to her in poesy,
  Long since, and wear her badge of service still.—
    Have we not served our fill?
 
 
    We will go far away.
  Song will not care, who slays our souls each day
  With the dark daggers of denying eyes,
  And lips of silence! … Had she sighed us lies,
  Not passionate, yet falsely tremulous,
  And lent her mouth to ours in mockery; thus
  Smiled from calm eyes as if appreciative;
  Then, then our love had taught itself to live
  Feeding itself on hope, and recompense.
    But no!—So let us hence.
 
 
    So be the Bible shut
  Of all her Beauty, and her wisdom but
  A clasp for memory! We will not seek
  The light that came not when the soul was weak
  With longing, and the darkness gave no sign
  Of star-born comfort. Nay! why kneel and whine
  Sad psalms of patience and hosannas of
  Old hope and dreary canticles of love?—
  Let us depart, since, as we long supposed,
    For us God's book was closed.