Oberon and Puck.

Oberon and Puck

VERSES GRAVE AND GAY

BY
HELEN GRAY CONE

NEW YORK
CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited
739 & 741 BROADWAY

Copyright, 1885,
By O. M. Dunham.

PRESS OF HUNTER & BEACH,
NEW YORK.

CONTENTS.

OBERON.

OBERON.

Oberon, Elferon,

Pleasant Prince of Faery!

He should scarce be sung of me,—

Me, his humblest follower

Wheresoe’er a branch may stir

Signing, “This way hath he gone,

Oberon, Elferon,

Pleasant Prince of Faery!”

He should scarce be sung of me;

Yet, because, of his high grace,

I had glimpse once of his face,—

Moment sweet to think upon!—

I his celebrant will be.

Blood of Pan is in his veins,

And oft he goes in great Pan’s guise;

But not of Pan is all his mood,

Godlike-careless, dreamy-wise:

Conscious he of mortal pains!

He hath shadows in his eyes

Such as under hemlocks brood;

In his voice he hath a tone

Like unto the dark pine’s moan;

Northland bore him, not the South!

Yet rare laughters hath his mouth,

Birch-leaf laughters, rippling light.

Clear the sense of every sign

Is unto his perfect sight,

Sight as May-day morning young:

Sounds unto his hearing fine

Are as words of some known tongue.

Cuckoo-flower by Avon’s brim,

Muskrose rich, or eglantine,

Saith nor more nor less to him

Than arbutus softly saith

With its blush and with its breath.

Nightingale in Attic wood

Is no deeper understood

Than our bent-browed mocker gray,

With his bright eye cool and clear,

Sad and tender, wild and gay,

Dashing skeptic cavalier!

He hath not the virtue missed

In our violet’s amethyst,

All unscented as it grows:

Healings hid in jewel-tints

Of wing and petal well he knows!

Gems the shining black-bird shows

On his purple as he goes,

And the blue jay’s sapphire-glints,

And the burning, cordial gold

Of the oriole blithe and bold.

He can read the cipher-prints

On the vans of butterflies,

On the eggs of tiniest wren;

He can read the scarred rock’s hints

And the legends of the skies;

And he can read the hearts of men.

Ah, since thou hast smiled on me,

Though thy face no more I see,

Never win thy benison,

I must follow, follow thee,—

Oberon, Elferon,

Pleasant Prince of Poesy!

THE ACCOLADE.
A SONG FOR THE BEGINNING.

A Commencement Poem, read to the Graduating Class at Smith College, June 18th, 1884.

I.

Now filled was all the sum

Of serving years, and past, forever past,

All duties, all delights, of young esquires:

And to the altar and the hour at last,—

The hour, the altar, of his dear desires,—

Clear-shriven and whitely clad the youth was come.

II.

Full many a squire was in that household bred

To arms and honor and sweet courtesy,

Who wore that sojourn’s fragrant memory

As amulet in after-battles dread;

And meeting in kings’ houses joyously,

Or, wounded, in the sedge beside a lake,

Such men were bounden brothers, for the sake

Of the blade that knighted and the board that fed.

III.

To eastward builded was the oratory:

There all the warm spring night,—while in the wood

The buds were swelling in the brooding dark,

And dreaming of a lordlier dawn the lark,—

Paced to and fro the youth, and dreamed on glory,

And watched his arms. Great knights in mailéd hood

On steeds of stone sat ranged along the aisle,

And frowned upon the aspirant: “Who is he

Would claim the name and join the company

Of slayers of Soldans swart and Dragons grim,

Not ignorant of wanded wizards’ guile,

And deserts parched, and waters wide to swim?”

He halted at the challenge of the dead.

Anon, in twilight, fancy feigned a smile

To curve the carven lips, as though they said,

“Oh welcome, brother, of whom the world hath need!

Ere the recorded deed

We trembled, hoped, and doubted, even as thou.”

And therewithal he lifted up his brow,

Uplift from hesitance and humble fear,

And saw how with the splendor of the sun

The glimmering oriel blossomed rosy-clear;

And lo, the Vigil of the Arms was done!

IV.

Now, mass being said, before the priest he brought

That glittering prophecy, his untried sword.

In some mysterious forge the blade was wrought,

By shadowy arms of force that baffle thought

Wrought curiously in the dim under-world;

And all along the sheath processions poured,

Thronged shapes of earth’s weird morn

Ere yet the hammer of Thor was downward hurled:

Not less it had for hilt the Cross of Christ the Lord,

And must thereby in battle aye be borne.

V.

Cool-sprinkled with the consecrated wave,

That blade was blessed, that it should strike to save;

And next, pure hands of youth in hands of age

Were held upon the page

Of the illuminate missal, full of prayers,—

Rich fields, wherethrough the river of souls has rushed

Long, long, to have its passion held and hushed

In the breast of that calm sea whereto it fares:

And steadfastly the aspirant vow did plight

To bear the sword, or break it, for the Right;

And living well his life, yet hold it light,—

Yea, for that sovereign sake a worthless thing.

VI.

Thereon a troop of maids began to bring,

With flutter as of many-colored doves,

The hauberk that right martially did ring,

And weight of linkéd gloves,

And helmet plumed, and spurs ablaze with gold.

Each gave in gracious wise her guiding word,

As bade or fresh caprice, or usance old:

As, Ride thou swift by golden Honor spurred

Or, Be thou faithful, fortunate, and bold.

But scarce for his own heart the aspirant heard.

VII.

And armed, all save the head,

He kneeled before his master gray and good.

Like some tall, noble, ancient ship he stood,

That once swept o’er the tide

With banners, and freight of heroes helmeted

For worthy war, and music breathing pride.

Now, the walled cities won,

And storms withstood, and all her story spun,

She towers in sand beside some sunny bay,

Whence in the silvery morn new barks go sailing gay.

So stately stood the Knight:

And with a mighty arm, and with a blade

Reconsecrate at fiery fonts of fight,

He on the bowed neck gave the accolade.

Yet kneeled the youth bewildered, for the stroke

Seemed severance sharp of kind companionships;

And the strange pain of parting in him woke;

And as at midnight when a branch down dips

By sudden-swaying tempest roughly stirred,

Some full-fledged nested bird,

Being shaken forth, though fain of late to fly,

Now flickers with weak wing and wistful cry,—

So flickered his desires

’Twixt knighthood, and delights and duties of esquires.

But even as with the morrow will uprise,

Assured by azure skies,

The bird, and dart, and swim in buoyant air,—

Uprose his soul, and found the future free and fair!

VIII.

And girded with Farewell and with Godspeed

He sprang upon his steed.

And forth he fared along the broad bright way;

And mild was the young sun, and wild the breeze,

That seemed to blow to lands no eye had seen;

And Pentecost had kindled all the trees

To tremulous thin whispering flames of green,

And given to each a sacred word to say;

And wind-fine voices of the wind-borne birds

Were ever woven in among their words.

Soft-brooding o’er the hamlet where it lay,

The circling hills stood stoled with holy white,

For orchards brake to blossom in the night;

And all the morning was one blown blue flower,

And all the world was at its perfect hour.

So fared he gladly, and his spirit yearned

To do some deed fit for the deep new day.

And on the broad bright way his armor burned,

And showed him still, a shifting, waning star,

To sight that followed far.

Till, last, the fluctuant wood the flash did whelm,

That flood-like rolled in light and shadow o’er his helm.

IX.

I know not more: nor if that helm did rust

In weed of some drear wilderness down-thrust,

Where in the watches lone

Heaven’s host beheld him lying overthrown,

While God yet judged him victor, God whose laws

Note not the event of battle, but the cause.

I know not more: nor if the nodding prize

Of lustrous laurels ere that helm did crown,

While God yet judged him vanquished, God whose eyes

Saw how his Demon smote his Angel down

In some forgotten field and left him low.

Only the perfect hour is mine to know.

X.

O you who forth along the highway ride,

Whose quest the whispering wood shall close around,

Be all adventure high that may betide,

And gentle all enchantments therein found!

I would my song were as a trumpet-sound

To nerve you and speed, and weld its notes with power

To the remembrance of your perfect hour;

To ring again and again, and to recall

With the might of music, all:

The prescience proud, the morning aspiration,

But most the unuttered vow, the inward consecration!

THE OLIVE BOUGH.
A SONG FOR THE END.

A Memorial Poem, read to the Associate Alumnae of the New York Normal College, June 30th, 1883.

I.

As when, pursued by some swift Wind and bold

Freed from the hollow dark Æolian hold,

A cloud across the face of heaven is blown,

And sunshine ceases from the fields, as mown

By that long shadow sweeping o’er the wold,

And the kind world turns cold—

So o’er our chosen day

Sails now a shadowing cloud that sweeps the sun away.

Our chosen day, to Memory dedicate:

To Memory, goddess great,

A Proserpine that mid the dip and swell

Of her wide meadows dim with asphodel

Keeps aye one circle blest

Lit with purpureal light unlike the rest:

The field of our first youth, as luminous

Through soberer recollections, as the place

Where looked the Dardan on his father’s face

In the land nebulous.

The verdure of that valley is Spring’s own

Ampler the air—then, limits were not known

To us that breathed it; all that since has been

Has its free freshness to our spirits proved.

Oh circle blest indeed!

Dear, dear the faces that therein have moved,—

Sad, sad to know it changelessly decreed

We may no more behold them, save therein!

II.

It was men’s wont of old,

Ere spoken was the Vale, deep, three-fold,

From the full heart above the unanswering lip

Of the bronze urn, in water clear to dip

A branch, and sprinkle all with pure light spray:

Or broken bough of bay

Or olive called the happy, since it yields

Fruit in unnumbered fields:

For thus they deemed the influence done away

Of barren Death, that else a spell might lay

On the warm living, subtly to annul

Their powers, and strike their fortunes cold and dull.

And we, who seek the soul in each old sign,

Pleased if we may divine

Likeness in difference, Proteus in disguise,

And gazing backward with anointed eyes

Across deep ages and the gulfs of race

Know yet a brother’s face,—

We hail, in this the antique olive gray,

A meaning of to-day.

III.

For surely this pale bough, with hoary leaf,

Is symbol of one still thought that is ours

After the fire of grief:

Thought not unhappy, fruitful thought, that showers

A lustral rain of gentle tears and pure,

Breaking the spell of Death, that else were sure

To chain our living powers,

To lock Joy fettered in the frozen breast:

The one calm thought, the peaceful thought, They rest.

They rest: brief rest was theirs

Ere set of sun, and long and full of cares

The laboring day. ’Tis now as night, soft night,

Descending and enfolding, whereon bright

Old hours of toil are shining, sanctified

To stars that light and guide!

IV.

Ah, not with numbing of one noble hope

Turn we from facing Death inexorable,

But with strong souls and stable!

Deep heaven hath surely scope

To hold each earnest hour, a jewel new,

A star to light and guide:

And Toil, that shears all knotted puzzles through,

A stellar sword against the dark descried

Shall burn, like Perseus’ blade whereby the Gorgon died

Far, far the Colchian shores,

Weary the mid-sea laboring at the oars,

And hard to pass the rough Symplegades:

But, sail and storm-beat spars

And wave-worn rudder pictured all in stars,

Shines the ship Argo still above the Southern seas!

FLOWER FANCIES.

I.
A YELLOW PANSY.

To the wall of the old green garden

A butterfly quivering came;

His wings on the sombre lichens

Played like a yellow flame.

He looked at the gray geraniums,

And the sleepy four-o’-clocks;

He looked at the low lanes bordered

With the glossy-growing box.

He longed for the peace and the silence,

And the shadows that lengthened there,

And his wee wild heart was weary

Of skimming the endless air.

And now in the old green garden,—

I know not how it came,—

A single pansy is blooming,

Bright as a yellow flame.

And whenever a gay gust passes,

It quivers as if with pain,

For the butterfly-soul that is in it

Longs for the winds again!

II.
A HOUSE DIVIDED.

In some past sunny season

A shoot and stock were wed,—

Made one by gardener’s cunning,—

A white rose and a red.

And now the rosy brothers,

All wonder, wonder why

Their sister flowers are fragile,

And strangely pale, and shy.

Those flush and shake with laughter,

These blanch and thrill with fears,

And through the leaves come stealing,

Slow-shed, their dewy tears.

III.
A SONG OF FAILURE.

With green swords pointing to heaven,

When the dawn flushed, glad to see,

Like three gay knights in the garden

Were flaunting the Fleurs-de-lis.

And the plumes of two were purple,

The color of hope and pride,

And the last was snowy-crested,

As a maiden soul should ride.

But a wind from the west brought warning,

And at noontide, a sound of power,

We heard on the roofs loud-marching

The steady feet of the shower.

And the sharp green swords were broken,

When the dusk fell, sad to see,

And low, ah low, were lying

The plumes of the Fleurs-de-lis!

IV.
THE DANDELIONS.

Upon a showery night and still,

Without a sound of warning,

A trooper band surprised the hill,

And held it in the morning.

We were not waked by bugle-notes,

No cheer our dreams invaded,

And yet, at dawn, their yellow coats

On the green slopes paraded.

We careless folk the deed forgot;

Till one day, idly walking,

We marked upon the self-same spot

A crowd of veterans talking.

They shook their trembling heads and gray

With pride and noiseless laughter;

When, well-a-day! they blew away,

And ne’er were heard of after!

V.
A FAIRY TALE.

There stands by the wood-path shaded

A meek little beggar maid;

Close under her mantle faded

She is hidden like one afraid.

Yet if you but lifted lightly

That mantle of russet brown,

She would spring up slender and sightly,

In a smoke-blue silken gown.

For she is a princess, fated

Disguised in the wood to dwell,

And all her life long has awaited

The touch that should break the spell;

And the Oak, that has cast around her

His root like a wrinkled arm,

Is the wild old wizard that bound her.

Fast with his cruel charm.

Is the princess worth your knowing?

Then haste, for the spring is brief,

And find the Hepatica growing,

Hid under a last year’s leaf!

LEPAGE’S JOAN OF ARC.

Once, it may be, the soft gray skies were dear,

The clouds above in crowds, like sheep below,

The bending of each kindly wrinkled tree;

Or blossoms at the birth-time of the year,

Or lambs unweaned, or water in still flow,

In whose brown glass a girl her face might see.

Such days are gone, and strange things come instead;

For she has looked on other faces white,

Pale bloom of fear, before war’s whirlwind blown;

Has stooped, ah Heaven! in some low sheltering shed

To tend dark wounds, the leaping arrow’s bite,

While the cold death that hovered seemed her own.

And in her hurt heart, o’er some grizzled head,

The mother that shall never be has yearned;

And love’s fine voice, she else shall never hear,

Came to her as the call of saints long dead;

And straightway all the passion in her burned,

One altar-flame that hourly waxes clear.

Hence goes she ever in a glimmering dream,

And very oft will sudden stand at gaze,

With blue, dim eyes that still not seem to see:

For now the well-known ways with visions teem;

Unfelt is toil, and summer one green daze,

Till that the king be crowned, and France be free!

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.

I.

The dusky star-set blue of Southern night;

Music and song approaching and receding;

Sweet sudden laughter-showers of masquers leading

Across the moon-white square a merry flight,

With breeze-blown torch and tossing cresset bright;

Gay Love and glad impetuous Youth unheeding,

That float away to the lute’s lovely pleading

Down flowing hours smooth-silvered with delight.

And last, a figure of a race despised

Shadow in light, groan echoing to the laugh;

Bent haggard Age, with uplift shaken staff,

At night’s noon knocking, knocking at the door

Of a gray, silent house, of that he prized

Empty forever and forever more.

II.

Lo, how the lips that Portia pressed but late

Against the opened casket, blessing lead

With the gold beauty of her bended head,

In proud abandonment to that dear fate

It gave her forth, the casket fortunate,—

Lo, how these lips forego their wreathéd red

Above the scroll that speaks his danger dread

Who holds her lover in sad heart and great!

Now in her spacious soul doth Sorrow meet

Warm Joy, that, generous, gives the pale one place,

And in the tremulous lines of her fair face

An exquisite and soft remorse appears

That Love, of right, must take the sovereign seat,

And Friendship lower pass, for all his years.

III.

“I stand for law.” It is the hour: behold

The stem storm-buffeted, a spear grown strong

For sternest deed in wanton winds of wrong.

See Shylock from his sombre garment’s fold

The scales of Justice draw. No lavish gold

Shall weigh with vengeance now; he hears loud song

And triumphing of timbrels from the long

Dim ranks of Israel’s branded dead untold.

Oh, not alone this crooked blade unsheathes,

Empowered at last, one wan and patient Jew:

Just Judah stands for law. A spirit new

Gives answer gracious as from heaven it rained.

A powerful angel through a woman breathes:

“The quality of mercy is not strained.”

A NOCTURNE OF RUBINSTEIN.

I.

What now remains, what now remains but night?

Night hopeless, since the moon is in her grave!

Late came a glorious light

In one wide flood on spire and field and wave.

It found a flowing way

To secret places where the dead leaves lay;

It won the half-hid stream

To shy remembrance of her morning gleam;

Then on the sky’s sharp shore

Rolled back, a fading tide, and was no more.

No more on spire and ivied window bright!

No more on field and wave!

What now remains, what now remains but night?

Night hopeless, since the moon is in her grave!

II.

Dumb waits the dim, broad land,

Like one who hears, yet cannot understand,

Tidings of grief to come.

The woods and waters, with the winds, are dumb.

But now a breeze has found

Sorrowful voice, and sobs along the ground:

“Oh the lost light, the last, the best lost light!

No more on field and wave!”

What now remains, what now remains but night?

Night hopeless, since the moon is in her grave!

III.

Hark, how the wind outswells!

Tempting the wood’s dark heart till he rebels,

And, shaking his black hair,

Lifts up a cry of passion and despair!

The groaning branches chafe

Till scarce the small, hushed singing-birds are safe,

Tossed rocking in the nest,

Like gentle memories in a stormy breast.

A shudder, as good angels passed in flight,

Thrills over field and wave!

What now remains, what now remains but night?

Night lawless, while the moon is in her grave!

IV.

There falls a mighty hush:

And forth from far recesses fern-scents rush,

Faint as a waft from years

Long past; they touch in heaven the springs of tears.

In great drops, slow and warm,

Breaks all at once the spirit of the storm.

What now remains, what now remains but night?

Night grieving, while the moon is in her grave!

V.

Behold! the rain is over: on the wave

A new, a flashing light!

Lo, she arises calm,

The pale, the patient moon, and pours like balm

Through the wet wood’s wrecked aisle

Her own unutterably tender smile!

There is no calm like that when storm is done;

There is no pleasure keen as pain’s release;

There is no joy that lies so deep as peace,

No peace so deep as that by struggle won.

Naught now remains, naught now remains but night—

Night peaceful, with the moon on field and wave!

AN EPITAPH WRITTEN IN THE SAND,
ON A BUTTERFLY DROWNED IN THE SEA.

Poor Psyche, to a Power supernal wed,

How strong a fate on this thy frailness fell!

What strange ironic word shall here be read?

Dead sign of immortality, farewell!

I sigh not that the summer fields have lost

One flying flower: who counts the butterflies?

I sigh not that thy sunny hour was crossed

The self-same Shadow surely waits mine eyes.

Thy piteous terror of the appointed end,

For this I sigh! The billow, poised above,

Fell on thee like the beast that leaps to rend;

Thou couldst not know thy bridegroom Death was Love!

How otherwise thy sister, yea the Soul

Bent brooding o’er these broken wings of thine!—

Through all her house of mystery once she stole

To the inmost room, and found a Face benign.

Now whirl her where ye must, ye waves of Law—

Aye, tear her vans, her painted hopes, apart!

She cannot fear, remembering what she saw:

Dark bridegroom Death, she knows thee Who thou art!

EMELIE.

O chaste goddesse of the wodes grene,

I am (thou wost) yet of thy compagnie,

A mayde, and love hunting and venerie,

And for to walke in the wodes wilde.

—Chaucer’s “Knightes Tale.”

She greets the lily on the stalk;

She shakes the soft hair from her brows;

She wavers down the garden walk

Beneath the bloomy boughs.

She is the slenderest of maids;

Her fair face strikes you like a star;

The great stone tower her pathway shades—

The prison where the Princes are.

Across the dewy pleasance falls,

All in the clear May morning light,

The shadow of those evil walls

That look so black by night.

She is so glad, so wild a thing,

Her heart sings like the lark all day;

The unhooded falcon on the wing

Is not more freely gay.

In sun and wind doth she rejoice,

And blithely drinks the airy blue,

Yet loves the solemn pines that voice

The grief she never knew.

In silence of the woods apart

Her sure swift step the Dryads know;

Full oft she speeds the bounding hart,

And draws the bending bow.

Fine gleams across her spirit dart,

And never living soul, saith she,

Could make her choose for aye to lose

Her own sweet company.

But sometimes, when the moon is bright,

So bright it almost drowns the stars,

She thinks how some have lost delight

Behind the prison bars.

It makes her sad a little space,

And casts a shadow on her look,

As branches in a woody place

Do flicker on a brook.

Last night she had a dream of men,

Dark faces strange with keen desire;

She heard the blaring trumpet then,

She saw the shields strike fire.

The pomp of plumes, the crack of spears,

Beyond her happy circle lie:

Thank Heaven! she has but eighteen years,

And loves the daisies and the sky.

And yet across her garden falls,

All in the clear May morning light,

The shadow of the prison walls

That look so black by night.

ELSINORE.

It is strange in Elsinore

Since the day King Hamlet died.

All the hearty sports of yore,

Sledge and skate, are laid aside;

Stilled the ancient mirth that rang,

Boisterous, down the fire-lit halls;

They forgot, at Yule, to hang

Berried holly on the walls.

Claudius lets the mead still flow

For the blue-eyed thanes that love it;

But they bend their brows above it,

And forever, to and fro,

’Round the board dull murmurs go:

“It is strange in Elsinore

Since the day King Hamlet died.”

And a swarm of courtiers flit,

New in slashed and satined trim,

With their freshly-fashioned wit

And their littleness of limb,—

Flit about the stairways wide,

Till the pale Prince Hamlet smiles,

As he walks, at twilight tide,

Through the galleries and the aisles.

For to him the castle seems—

This old castle, Elsinore—

Like a thing built up of dreams;

And the king’s a mask, no more;

And the courtiers seem but flights

Of the painted butterflies;

And the arras, wrought with fights,

Grows alive before his eyes.

Lo, its giant shapes of Danes,

As without a wind it waves,

Live more nobly than his thanes,

Sullen carpers, ale-fed slaves!

In the flickering of the fires,

Through his sleep at night there pass

Gay conceits and young desires—

Faces out of memory’s glass,

Fragments of the actor’s art,

Student’s pleasures, college broils,

Poesies that caught his heart,

Chances with the fencing foils;

Then he listens oftentimes

With his boyhood’s simple glee,

To dead Yorick’s quips and rhymes,

Leaning on his father’s knee.

To that mighty hand he clings,

Tender love that stern face charms;

All at once the casement rings

As with strength of angry arms.

From the couch he lifts his head,

With a shudder and a start;

All the fires are embers red,

And a weight is on his heart.

It is strange in Elsinore:

Sure some marvel cometh soon!

Underneath the icy moon

Footsteps pat the icy floor;

Voices haunt the midnights bleak,

When the wind goes singing keen;

And the hound, once kept so sleek,

Slinks and whimpers and grows lean

And the shivering sentinels,

Timorous, on their lonesome round,

Starting count the swinging bells,

Starting at the hollow sound;

And the pine-trees chafe and roar,

Though the snow would keep them still.

In the state there’s somewhat ill;

It is strange in Elsinore.

FIAMMETTA.

In dream I passed the Gate that bears in black,

“Here lies dead Hope.” The ineffable gold sky

I saw between the pillars, looking back,

And one young cloud, that slowly wandered by

As though it wondered. Downward, all was dark,

And through the dark I heard the sad souls cry.

Anon, although alone, I whispered, “Hark!

What lifeless laughter, crackling thorny-thin?”

Then grew to sight what first I failed to mark

When from the accustomed light I entered in,—

A group that pleasured by that barren wall

As Hell some delicate-blossomed close had been:

One, gesturing, spake; the rest attended all.

“Declare, ye circled shades, your home on earth!

Declare the names your kindred used to call!”

I cried, much marveling at their mirthless mirth.

A woman wavered to the space half lit

By that lost sky: “In Florence had we birth;

That company thou seest, who chose to sit

Ten sunny days, a fountain’s flight beside,

Scattering the rose, and weaving tales of wit,

What time by Arno many cursing died.

Yes, Fiammetta am I. Thou little flame

(Thus the grave Angel, to this Gate my guide),

With what vain flickering hast thou proved thy name!

Hast given to no chilled spirit aught of cheer;

Shalt now be fed and kept alight with shame,

And flicker evermore.”

Then did appear

Her set smile’s irony, and I discerned

Through those her long dark languid eyes, right clear

How far below her soul forever burned.

Her sleeves of scarlet hung in many a shred;

Her silver chains were all to tarnish turned,

And crisped were the laurels on her head.

“Alas! why camest thou to this place of pain,—

Why, Pampinea, Lauretta, why?” I said,

“Since many souls that bore the self-same stain

Tread the last ledge of Purgatory mount,

And trust, made pure, sweet Paradise to gain,

Where sings the grove, where flows the twofold fount.

Those, angels aid on fair green rustling wings;

Why then are these thus held to hard account?”

“Not such, O questioner, was the sin that brings

Us hither; but on earth so weak a part

We chose, that now no part in heavenly things

Is granted us, nor yet will Hell’s deep heart

Receive us, but in this dim borderland

We dwell, and follow here our hollow art

Of weaving tales, and are in semblance gay,

Moved by a might we never may withstand.

To our own dear delights we turned away;

Forgot the city full of tears, forgot

The tolling bells, abandoned even to pray;

But couched in some delectable safe spot

Saw breezy olives whiten like the sea,

And babbled, fools, of Love, and knew him not,

Who else had set us from the grim Gate free,

Being giant-strong to save the souls of men.

But Hate came to us, richly masked, and we

Esteemed him Love; and now among us ten

Sits very Hate. The life we prized is ours

For aye! Yet not so far, I deem, this den

From sound of suffering as our fields of flowers.”

With that weird smile, she turned as if to go.

Loud groaned the lurid City, the sullen fen

Of Styx, and all that grief that lies below.

“Farewell,” I sighed, “Fiammetta!” But she, “Not so!

What life is thine? Perchance we meet again!”

HAROUN AL RASCHID.

Golden pride and fragrant light

Are mine, and thereto was I born;

Thronéd pomp is mine of right,

Robes bestarred, or like the morn;

All words of pearl to me belong

Singers can string in shining song;

Jewels, as perfect song-notes rare,

Are mine own to waste or wear.

Not less hath this right hand power

Whereof such shows are but the flower,—

Power deep-rooted in the earth

That shakes to royal wrath or mirth.

Yet, on many a deep-blue night,

Clad and shod in coarsest wise,

All my splendors must I slight

For the smile of the common skies:

My feet, that inlaid courts forego,

Lanes of the dusty city know;

I jest among the bronzéd slaves,

And am well met with merry knaves,

And quaft poor drink, and feel it glow;

Steep me in simple weal and woe;

Yea, learn to swim in those dim waves

That, my palace flight before,

Fawning fall with plausive roar.

Hence rumors dear shall rise and rise

Of my descending and disguise;

Whereat the slave’s freed soul shall sing:

A Caliph looked into his eyes:

How is he, then, so mean a thing?

By torchlight of such memories

The Caliph in himself he sees.

Thus, being loved, shall live my name,

Glowing in the general flame

Of the people’s hearth and heart;

While men lie entombed apart

That were as glorious and as great,

Forgot, because they kept their state;

Crumbling with the crumbling Past

Into a dust unnamed at last,

Whence their gems procured shall be

By some wiser soul like me.

A RONDEL OF PARTING.

You leave it when spring blossoms fall,

The old house where the roses grew.

You gave them from the garden wall,

Your roses, faint of breath and hue,

Whose lovely like I never knew.

Can I my flock of memories call

To leave it when spring blossoms fall,

The old house where the roses grew?

No, no, they flit about the hall,

And beat their wings, and cry for you.

Be still: no more, no more at all,

She enters now: apart we two

Shall see in dreams, when late leaves fall,

The House of Youth, where roses grew!

A CHRISTMAS GREETING.

Speed, my Thought, oh speed, my Thought,

Over the miles of snow!

Never before, to bear to her door

Love, with his looks aglow,

Hadst thou so far to go!

Take for a chime bells of my rhyme

Over the miles of snow!

Stand, my Thought, oh stand, my Thought!

Fled are the miles of snow.

Call, O Love! to her window above,

In the voice her heart must know.

’Tis the time of mistletoe:

Sing in the night to her window alight,

In the night of stars and snow!

AT EASTER-TIDE.

At Easter-tide, when lilies blow

For font and altar, virgin things,

When spikes of maple scarlet show,

And thin clouds white as angels’ wings,

While some fresh voice the message flings

“The Lord is risen!”—from long ago

Rise purified the tombéd Springs,

At Easter-tide, when lilies blow.

Oh, when the hallowed hour not brings

Those gloried ghosts, whose brows we know,

Nor I o’er change and distance throw,

In midmost prayer, an arm that clings,

Ah then, the deep-toned bell that rings

I shall not hear, nor hear whatso

The clear young voice triumphant sings,

At Easter-tide, when lilies blow!

TO-DAY.

Voice, with what emulous fire thou singest free hearts of old fashion,

English scorners of Spain, sweeping the blue sea-way,

Sing me the daring of life for life, the magnanimous passion

Of man for man in the mean populous streets of To-day!

Hand, with what color and power thou couldst show, in the ring hot-sanded,

Brown Bestiarius holding the lean tawn tiger at bay,

Paint me the wrestle of Toil with the wild-beast Want, bare-handed;

Shadow me forth a soul steadily facing To-day!

A CONSERVATIVE.

“Your Spring,” he said, “I hate: now blast, now breeze;

All weathers mixt; sharp change, confusion dire.

An easy-chair, a vast December fire,

A fine old russet folio—give me these!

Birds’ twitterings at the dawn my ear displease,

My dreams disturb. What eye could ever tire

Of orderly white ways? could e’er desire

The foolish haze of May? Such wishes tease

No sober mind!”

But none the less did break

Green from the glebe; the conéd chestnuts gave

Faint fragrance out; the robin’s breast would make

A flame a-field; the snow he could not save.

And Spring on Spring, as wave in strong wave’s wake,

Still rolls a bloomy billow o’er his grave.

A RADICAL.

He never feared to pry the stable stone

That loving lichens clad with silvery gray;

Torn ivies trembled as they slipped away,

Their empty arms now loose and listless blown.

Then turning, with that ardor all his own,

“Behold, my better building!” he would say.

“I rear as well as raze: nor by decay

Nor foe nor fire can this be overthrown!”

What was it? Had he keener sight than we?

We saw the ruin, more we could not see;

His blocks were jasper air, a dream his plan.

We called him, Stormer; ever he replied,

“Unbroken calm within my breast I hide.”

Now God be judge betwixt us and this man!

A RETROGRADE.

“What, you!” his comrades cried, “who led us long

Against the dense arrays of dullards’ thought,

You quit us on the march, so quickly caught

By such a strain, a simple peasant-song?

That breath of old brown earth is strangely strong,

To lure you to the fields where hinds untaught

Toil slavish, or by common coinage bought,

Or meanly fearful of the Master’s thong!”

“Yea, dear the song,—although I may not sing;

Yea, dear the soil,—although I delve it not!

I fall not back, but peaceful pass beyond.

For freedom’s sake your hearts are fiery-hot,

Yet through the tramp I hear your fetters ring!

Denial is the straitest kind of bond.”

THE RESOLVE.

Thou intimate, malign, benumbing power

I cannot name, since names that men have made

For shapes of evil shine beside thy shade,

Who from the seat of mine own soul dost lower,—

Darkness itself, that doth the light devour,—

I feel thine urgency upon me laid

To voice despair! Thou shalt not be obeyed;

Thou art my master only for thine hour!

As some sad-eyed, wan woman that is slave

To the swart Moor, being bid her lute to bring,

Since song of her strange land her lord doth crave,

With lip a-tremble dares the scourge’s sting,

Refusing,—thy brute might so far I brave:

I will not sing what thou wouldst have me sing!

THE NOONING.

Oh soft, soft, soft, thou slender-footed maid,

Cool-clad and fair, along the sultry street

At broad blue blinding noon! Light fall thy feet

As e’er the wood-nymphs’ fell while Pan was laid

At mid-day in some choice Arcadian shade

Where not an oak-leaf laughed, and if there beat

Loud the wild heart of any Dryad fleet,

Hearing, she girded her warm side afraid!

For where, against yon hourly-growing wall,

Dull-red, the ailantus-blossoms brighter show,

A little while his weariness forgot,

Outstretching in a chosen shadow small,

With hot wet forehead on his lax arm low,

Swart Labor sleeps, without whom thou wert not!

THE INHERITANCE.

I.

Conceive that Perfect Man, to whom we tend,

The great Inheritor, on some sheer cape

Between the morn and morn-bright main: a shape

Wherein dead racer and dead wrestler blend

In living speed and power. Dead sages send

Their wisdom’s wine, matured like juice of grape,

His heart to strengthen. Songs his lips escape

That silenced lips of long-dead singers lend.

Enough for such, such immortality!

Well-paid, the press of trampling cares! the pains

That bore the embodied joy! the home-stretch sobs!

The doers passed: their best of deed remains,

And still through many a mightier artery

To feed a larger life their life-blood throbs.

II.

But those, whose useless breath was mixed with groans?

Weak flesh, sick spirits, poor dumb dog-like eyes

That could not read the star-signs in the skies,

Now closed forever, sealed beneath their stones!

In this fair-colored scheme what line atones,—

Old hopes being calmly cancelled by the wise,—

To those that died as any dull brute dies,

And propped the Future but with bleaching bones?

O Man to be, if perfect thou indeed,

A horror thine inheritance appears,

A Titan torture-fire thy rising day!

For ancient ocean’s chant to thee must need

Be all one wail of creatures cast away,

And heaven’s own rainbow-smile a thing of tears!

LONG SUMMER DAYS.

Long summer days are my desire:

Red suns, that drop as globes of fire

Behind the sloped fields white with weed:

Warm winds, that waft the wandering seed

With silvery plume, now low, now higher:

Pale clematis that o’er the brier

Runs with frail feet that never tire

Beside rough roads: your gifts I need,