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AMENOPHRA, AND OTHER POEMS 
 
AMENOPHRA 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER POEMS 
 
 ERNEST ARTHUR EDKINS 
 
 DETROIT 
 EDWIN B. HILL 
 
 1889 
 
.E 4- 
 
 3oo(o 
 
TO 
 
 E. B. H. 
 
 Virginite du cceur, helas si tot ravie ! 
 Songes riatits, projets de bonJieiir et d\imoiir, 
 Fraiches illusions du matin de la vie, 
 Pourquoi ne pas durer jusqii' a la fin diijou}'? 
 
 Theophile Gautier. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGI 
 
 In Limine, vii 
 
 Amenophra, I 
 
 A Vision, 5 
 
 The Suicide, 6 
 
 Requiem, 8 
 
 The CominCx of Spring, lo 
 
 Degrees, ii 
 
 Roundel, 12 
 
 On the Sea-Board, 13 
 
 Viareggio, 14 
 
 To , 16 
 
 Intaglios, 17 
 
 Quatrains, 18 
 
 Lines to a Young Girl, 19 
 
 Love, 20 
 
 Sorrow, 21 
 
 To my Mother, 22 
 
 April Nights, 23 
 
 Lines to M , 24 
 
 At Twenty, . . . . . . . . 26 
 
 Madelaine, 27 
 
 A Saddle Song, before Battle, .... 28 
 
 Medea, 30 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Correspondences, 
 The Pine, 
 
 In November, 34 
 
 Amour, 35 
 
 Chim.era, 36 
 
 Nostalgia, . . . . . . . . .38 
 
 Notes, 41 
 
IN LIMINE. 
 
 I drank of Avon, too, — a dangerous draught, 
 That roused within the feverish thirst of song. 
 
 Walter Savage Landor. 
 
 I HAVE suffered these few lyrical efforts to be 
 collected and republished, partly at the instance 
 of my friend, Mr. Hill, and partly because I deem 
 it a fitting acknowledgment to the critics, for the 
 uniform courtesy, — I may even say, clemency — 
 received at their hands. J\Iany of my earlier and 
 lighter poems have been very properly omitted from 
 this volume, and my altered conception of the 
 poetic function as well as of the poetic principle, 
 causes me to hope that they will meet with that 
 Eluthanasia which Oblivion generally accords to 
 the immature effusions of youth's third lustrum. 
 Whether the residue herein preserved merits a 
 similar fate, is a question, as Sir Thomas Browne 
 would say, 'not beyond all conjecture!' 
 
 E. A. E. 
 
AMENOPHRA.' 
 
 THERE are rare moments in this earthly Hfe,. — 
 In this terrestrial arc of being — rife 
 ( E'en as they fade away, we shrink aghast ! ) 
 With shrouded phantoms of an unknown past.^ 
 Unknown, I say, — yet to the eye they seem 
 Strangely familiar, while that fleeting dream 
 Holds us beneath its spell ; in such brief space 
 As marks the second-hand's erratic race 
 Once 'round the smaller dial, or twice, perchance, — 
 We sink, in breathless horror, 'neath the trance, 
 We faint, and yet the helpless body falls 
 ( It seems for hours ! ) between green chasmal walls 
 Of polished, gleaming rock, which ever flee 
 Upward, in glassy lines, so rapidly 
 We fall ! Erom sheer excess of horror, then 
 (Yet still within the trance) the mental ken 
 Becomes a blank, until a gentler phase 
 Of spirit- vision meets the seared gaze, — 
 Blue seas, fair skies, and slanting P^astern trees 
 That graceful bend beneath the aromatic breeze. 
 
2 AMENOPHRA, AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
 Passion of Dream -life! in thy vast domain, 
 Where there is much of pleasure, more of pain, 
 Where incorporeal Silence takes a Form, 
 And forests reel beneath a windless storm ; ^ 
 Where the weird chaos of a spedral world 
 Leaves the dazed mind on heaps of horror hurled ! — 
 Down thy enormous, sunless, silent isles 
 I late have fared. Sardonic, fearful smiles 
 Writhed on the stony lips of many a head 
 Of carven marble, — at my echoing tread 
 A mausoleum, towering in the gloom 
 Swung wide its ponderous gates, to give me room ! 
 But still I journeyed on, and did emerge 
 At last, upon this glorious, boundless verge. 
 Where, gazing through the blue infinite space, 
 My soul identified its earlier dwelling-place. 
 
 I have long idled, here, a life away 
 Beneath vast marble porticoes, — each day. 
 Bathed in cool caverns of perfumed shade 
 And fanned by graceful Nubian slaves, arrayed 
 In grotesque garbs. Only at night and morn 
 Could I see the marine sun's rays adorn 
 The rolling sea with rich prismatic fires 
 And gild th' Eternal City's thousand spires, — 
 Save when I left the couch, the shade, the band 
 
AMENOPHRA. 3 
 
 Of slaves, to pace the ribbed and tawny sand. 
 
 Then all the blazoned colors of the sky 
 
 Were mirrored in my own refledive eye, 
 
 And so gave me, throughout the night and day 
 
 Strange dreams with which to while the time away. 
 
 The slaves, whose unique duty was to find 
 
 And exorcise the care that weighed my mind 
 
 With growing melancholy, danced in vain 
 
 Their graceful measures to assuage my pain, 
 
 Or, Seraph -like, evoked ' threttanelo' ^ 
 
 From trembling strings that only voiced my woe. 
 
 For an old sage in passing by had said, 
 
 In words that seared my soul like molten lead, 
 
 'Dream, Amenophra, dream on while the breath 
 
 Of Summer fans thy cheek, — full many a death 
 
 And resurredion wait thee, ere thy soul 
 
 Shall know the great peace of the final goal' 
 
 Still in the trance, I traced my tortuous way 
 Back through the spedral world of solemn gray ; 
 Still in the dream, I wandered 'neath the smiles 
 ( Frozen and joyless mirth ! ) that in those isles 
 Leered saturnine from out the Stygian gloom, 
 Or mocked me from the carvings on the tomb ! 
 But all the formless phantoms that of yore 
 
4 AMEXOPHRA, AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
 Had triumphed o"er me with their helhsh lore 
 I feared no longer : at the last hour of night 
 'T is seen, light grows invisible through light, — - 
 Dawn breaks, the brightest planet fades away 
 Before th' effulgence of the orb of day. 
 And so, by virtue of the deeper shade 
 I did not see the lesser ones which strayed 
 Within my ken ; but still I could not flee 
 The face of Amenophra by the sea, 
 (Who was my former self!) the ^^'hile he died 
 His glance sought mine, and almost me descried. 
 In proud impatience, as Death closed his eyes, 
 To pierce the veil, and Ihiis his second self surmise! 
 
A VISION. 
 
 BEHIND, a sheer, precipitous crag that frowned 
 Portentous, down upon the sullen sea, — 
 A leaning menace to the seething sea, — 
 Before, the shelving shingle's narrow bound. 
 High in the mid -air hell there circled 'round 
 Vast, misty, bird -like shapes, seeking to flee 
 The cursed coast, the sentient enmity 
 Of the gray sea's sardonic laugh ! A sound 
 More keen, more piercing, clove the foam-fill'd air, — 
 A human note of wild, unutterable woe, 
 And down that haunted shore, with streaming hair, 
 A form, methought I saw, pace to and fro, 
 Singing a dirge of deep, divine despair, — 
 I saw the form, I heard the voice, of Poe ! 
 
THE SUICIDE. 
 
 OWHAT is abroad in the night, in the night I 
 That I needs must awake from my dreams, 
 And seek the lone bridge, and the sight, and the sight 
 Of a sullen deep river that rolls in its might — 
 Of a horrible river that seems 
 Like the treacherous tide of my dreams? 
 
 II. 
 
 I lean o'er the rail in the toils of the trance 
 And the tide flees away from my face, 
 But on its broad breast I encounter the glance — 
 The wild ghastly glance of two eyes that advance 
 Not an inch in the current's swift race — 
 That stare blankly up at my face. 
 
 III. 
 Long shuddering swords of resilient light 
 From the furthermost sinuous shore. 
 Trail over the waters or burv their bright 
 
THE SUICIDE. 7 
 
 Keen blades in the tide — but they point to a sight 
 On the ghstening, watery floor* 
 That freezes my heart to its core. 
 
 IV. 
 
 For the eyes, the cahii, beautiful unseeing eyes 
 That hold me enthralled in their spell — 
 No longer are mortal — their swift vision flies 
 Up a moon -riven path through the wStygian skies, 
 And away from this earthly hell 
 Where the spirit disdained to dwell. 
 
 O delicate form down there in the dark, 
 O pitiful sight that I see — 
 Thy golden hair cruelly caught in the bark 
 Of a half sunken tree, and thy body a mark 
 That the world of to-morrow, by thee, 
 May its own inhumanity see ! 
 
REQUIEM. 
 
 SING me a song in a minor chord, a song in 
 a tender strain, 
 Soft and low as the warm wet wind that comes 
 
 in the wake of rain, 
 Sad with the burden of vanished joys, and their 
 heritage of pain. 
 
 Sing me a song of the younger time — of the golden 
 
 long ago, 
 (How like the fire-light on the wall dim memories 
 
 come and go!) 
 Sing me a song of pleasure and pain, for my heart 
 
 doth overflow. 
 
 Softly the prelude, and tremblingly sad, as evoked 
 
 by the organ keys, — 
 There have been doubts as keen and as bitter and 
 
 sadly uncertain as these. 
 Voiced in the moated music -bar that lingers adown 
 
 the breeze. 
 
REQUIEM. 9 
 
 Grandly the prelude, and thunderingly deep, as it 
 
 * merges into the theme, 
 
 Losing itself as a rill is lost in the greater tide 
 
 of the stream, — 
 So the old hopes and aims grew bravely out of 
 
 a troubled dream. 
 
 Hark ! the divine clear voice is thrilled with the 
 
 passionate music's woe, 
 And the eyes are heavy with unshed tears, and the 
 
 night doth darker grow — 
 That those who planted the germ, the fruit thereof 
 
 may not know. 
 
 Where are the leaders of that dear time, with a pur- 
 pose strong and deep ? 
 
 Shoulder to shoulder they fought like gods, and now 
 in an iron sleep 
 
 Like gods they rest, while I o'er their deeds a lonely 
 vigil keep. 
 
THE COMING OF SPRING. 
 
 I HEAR the lulling lisp of lotus leaves 
 Whisper her name unto the passing wind, 
 That faintly flings behind 
 I'he echo, ere it onward grieves 
 
 Through yon gaunt hill -top pine tree, sharp 
 defined 
 Against th' cerulean sky its sword point cleaves. 
 
 The tangled grasses bow in reverence, 
 
 pjiamored swallows, swift of wing and strong, 
 Follow her path along 
 
 That waste where Nature, dumb and tense 
 
 Under some ban uncouth, some hideous wrong, 
 
 Broke, at the call, from Winter's prison residence. 
 
w 
 
 DEGREES. 
 
 I. 
 HERP^ the gray sea deftly moulded the lines 
 of the curled and carven shore, 
 And labored with infinite hands at ranging the shells 
 
 and pebbles in rows, 
 I loitered my lazy way, nor recked the work it would 
 
 cost to restore 
 The havoc 1 made or the ruin I wrought on the 
 route my fancy chose. 
 
 II. 
 
 Ah, (jod ! And this young, glorious life that I 
 
 held and exalted above 
 All others, and sought with a tender touch to guide 
 
 to planes still higher. 
 Is left in ruins after a tempest of passion that had 
 
 no love. 
 Is crushed by the passing foot of a wretch in pursuit 
 
 of his one desire ! 
 
ROUNDEL. 
 
 OUT of the deep there came a sound, as of 
 anguish stricken dumb 
 In the midst of its cry — the heavy air seemed 
 all too sad to weep, 
 Save a raindrop, blood -like, splashed on my hand 
 as a herald of wrath to come, 
 Out of the deep. 
 
 Breathless, I stood and listened, hearing naught 
 
 but the sudden hum 
 Of wings invisible, 'round my head, of bats 
 
 aroused from sleep. 
 Silent, I crouched and strained my eyes, seeing 
 
 naught of the chasm deep. 
 
 Then — crash! Creation reels "neath the final war 
 
 begun, 
 The searching swords of the storm from their 
 
 cloudy scabbards leap, 
 
 After this awful chaos can there rise to-morrow 
 
 a sun 
 
 Out of the deep ? 
 
OiN THE SEA-BOARD. 
 
 WHAT magical spell abides in the keen salt 
 wind and the stinging spray, 
 That thrills and uplifts my heart from its narrow 
 
 life,— 
 And its hopeless strife, 
 Till I scourge from my presence all sorrow, and 
 on ly rem ember to - d ay ? 
 
 Could not a man lie here forever with the breakers 
 booming under. 
 And the blue of the sky above and the cliffs 
 
 around 
 That echo the sound 
 Of the circling bittern's scream and the angry ocean's 
 thunder? 
 
 Drinking, a soul disembodied, in the days and the 
 nights that pass, 
 In the blaze of burning planets at night, and 
 
 the dead moon's rays. 
 Or through long davs 
 List to yon musical cricket in the brine -encrusted 
 ffrass ! 
 
VIAREGGIO. 
 
 OPWTEFUL coast, O lone, deserted shore ! 
 Under the spell of that low moon's ^veird 
 gleam 
 Comes back to me, like some forgotten dream, 
 A memory that will haunt me evermore. 
 "T was there, 'mid those submerged, accursed weeds. 
 Where the strong tide is quenched without a sound, 
 A body with wide- staring eyes was found 
 Wedged in between the wreckage and the reeds. 
 And the waves looked upon it, and fled back,' 
 Affrighted at their work. The sea-birds wheeled 
 Yet lighted not ; the shrouded moon revealed 
 Its face, a moment, through the storm-cloud's jack, — 
 Beheld, and then withdrew its sickly light 
 Away from that uplifted, ghastly face. 
 Locked in the final pitiless embrace 
 Of Death, and guarded by the jealous night. 
 Such was the scene ; and now it comes again, — 
 The haggard moon, the sands, the drifting tide, 
 The ranks of crusted weeds, the corse denied 
 
VIAREGGIO. 
 
 A grave, and floating out upon the main : 
 t see the sight, in fancy, o'er and o'er ; 
 Then, as the P^ast proclaims another day, 
 I take my staff and slowly turn away, 
 A fugitive from thought forever more. 
 
A FTER 
 
 TO 
 
 thy songs in praise of the others are 
 
 sung, — 
 Rounded and brought to an end with a passionate 
 
 thrill, 
 How shall we think of the theme, remembering 
 
 the tongue 
 Whose last low liquid notes are lingering still ? 
 
 II. 
 
 After thy sad -glad life, like an Autumn day. 
 Smiles through the twilight bravely, and dies in 
 
 the gloom, 
 How shall we grudge thee the laurel wreath and 
 
 the bay, 
 Knowino: that voice forever stilled at fhv tomb ? 
 
INTAGLIOS. 
 
 I. 
 
 HAIR of gold against a sky of blue, 
 Never colors were more richly blended, 
 How the South -wind, like a cunning Jew, 
 Caught her hair and all its wealth distended 
 Where glints o' the warm Sun sifted through and 
 through. 
 
 II. 
 Face of ivory in a frame of gold, 
 Half averted from my eager gaze, 
 Oh Grecian face, thy beauty I behold 
 In rapturous, unutterable amaze, — 
 A radiant angel's face, self-aureoled ! 
 
QUATRAINS. 
 
 DEATH, 
 
 AITRED, sleepy child, that shuts his e3'es 
 And lays him down for slumber to bequeath 
 Its dear repose at night, and doth arise 
 
 In the Sun's orlorious mornino- • this is Death. 
 
 SUNRISE. 
 
 All of a sudden the sea -damp drifted up, 
 
 And the great bowl of the Sun* came out of 
 the Sea, 
 Daylight had filled and lifted its drinking cup. 
 And sweet was the promise of joy it pledged 
 to me. 
 
 WOE. 
 
 Over a moonless, bare, deserted sea 
 
 Of shifting sand and palms disconsolate, 
 
 There came an awfu^, lonely cry to me, — 
 A lion mourning for its captured mate. 
 
LINES TO A YOUNG GIRL. 
 
 WFFH lingering step we paced the wal 
 Beneath those stately trees, 
 How light and careless was our talk, 
 Our hearts how ill at ease ! 
 
 The wind caressed your tawny hair 
 And kissed your starry eyes, — 
 Twin orbs of Heaven ! none half so fair 
 Are left within the skies ! 
 
 The river softly wandered by. 
 
 The moon was veiled"^ above, — 
 
 My heart had learned once more to sigh, 
 
 And yours, poor child, to love ! 
 
LOVE. 
 
 •Liles the world,' she sang, and tripped 
 along 
 
 The meadow path, near where the brooklet purled 
 se its voice to swell t 
 Love rules the world. 
 
 ^ T OVE rulee 
 L al( 
 
 And seemed to raise its voice to swell the song 
 
 just where the stream its tiny vortex whirled 
 
 Around the stepping-stones, could it be wrong 
 That I should pray Love's arrow to be hurled ? 
 
 Together on Life's way we stroll along 
 
 And oft remember where the brook once swirled 
 Its mimic maelstrom, and joined in our song 
 'Love rules the world.' 
 
SORROW. 
 
 THRICE welcome, Sorrow, though thy hand be 
 hard, 
 'T is but the grip of friendship, and I see 
 In thy stern eyes cold light the chastity 
 That marks a soul from pleasure self- debarred. 
 Men tell me that thy comradeship has marred 
 The lives of countless beings, but to me 
 There seems a higher destiny for thee 
 Than that so often sung by mournful bard, 
 
 For in the pain and anguish, in the smart 
 Of injury, in the helpless sense of wrong 
 There lies a chastening power, which doth make 
 
 Us more of men, if there is in the heart 
 
 Aught of true manliness, and we grow strong 
 
 And live, and work and learn for Sorrow's sake. 
 
SONNET TO MY MOTHER, 
 
 ON HER RECOVERY FROM A DANGEROUS ILLNESS. 
 
 M' 
 
 OTHER ! I breathe the dear name soft and 
 
 low, 
 
 Afraid lest I disturb thee in thy sleep, — 
 "T is well that thou shouldst slumber while I 
 
 weep 
 And inly shudder, knowing all I know ; 
 For thou didst lately leave me here, to go 
 Wide-eyed yet all unseeing, down the steep 
 Of that dim, silent Vale, whose shadows deep 
 Blot out Life's feeble sunset after -glow. 
 But looking back, perchance, with curious gaze 
 (Not longingly, for life was pain to thee). 
 Thou didst behold me, mute and sorrow - slain : 
 Then thy stilled heart with Mother -love did blaze 
 Into quick life, — the solving alchemy 
 Of Death was stayed, — and thou didst live again! 
 
APRIL NIGHTS. 
 
 I. 
 
 WHEN the moon is a blur in the sky 
 Faint, and affrighted, and far, — 
 When the breeze of the night is a sigh 
 For the Hght of the morning star ; 
 When Earth turns, troubled, in sleep. 
 And the East shows a sullen stain, 
 My watchful vigil I keep 
 
 Love! at thy window-pane. 
 
 II. 
 
 1 come not with lute or with song, — 
 'T were a petty art to employ, 
 
 For mine is a passion too strong. 
 For mine is a tongueless joy, — 
 When the silence is solemn and deep 
 And the night shadows Westward flee,. 
 I watch o'er thy dreamless sleep, 
 Else there is no peace in me. 
 
LINES TO M . 
 
 O VIOLIN, O violin, 
 Thou ever faithful friend of mine 
 O violin, dear violin 
 That cheers me with thy voice divine ; 
 Break this oppressive solitude, — 
 Interpret thou my varying- mood. 
 
 There was a time, there was a time 
 So dear, alas, so long ago. 
 When, in Italia's sunny clime 
 This tremulous, caressing bow 
 Wooed from the strings a melody 
 Like to the love 1 offered thee. 
 Ah me ! the fires at the shrine 
 Of my lost love are waxing cold ; 
 The skillful touch that once was mine 
 Has gone, nor can I as of old 
 Hope for that which may never be 
 And speak through this violin, to thee. 
 
LINES TO M . 25 
 
 Oh. perished love, oh dead intent ; 
 
 Sad rehcs of the buried past ! 
 
 I gently touch my instrument 
 
 And memories crowding thick and fast 
 
 Come with the sobbing, low refrain 
 
 And bear me back to youth again. 
 
AT TWENTY. 
 
 THERE "S something noble in a shattered hope 
 That bends its remnant still against the blast, 
 There 's pathos in the blindness that doth grope 
 
 Where light lay, last, 
 In level lines across Life's rugged Western slope. 
 
 And he who battled nobly in the strife 
 
 Is loved, and he who bravely fell is mourned. 
 But one, ah God ! I know, whose empty life 
 
 Is justly scorned 
 E'en by himself, with myriad sad reflections rife. 
 
 O twenty barren years, forever fled ! 
 
 O horror of inverted life, when age 
 Is felt in youth, and youth's desires are dead. 
 
 When the sweet mage 
 Of music vainlv seeks to thrill this heart of lead ! 
 
MADELAINE. 
 
 MYSTERIOUS child ! whose luminous eyes 
 Can calmly scan my trembling heart ; 
 Whither doth trend our destinies, — 
 What, in your life, shall be my part ? 
 
 I fear, each time I go away. 
 That you will fail to wait for me, — 
 That back to Heaven you will stray, 
 Lost in some strange, sweet reverie ! 
 
A SADDLE SONG, BEFORE BATTLE. 
 
 T 
 
 I. 
 *HE revel no longer holds sway, and the morn- 
 ing is dawning, 
 Impatient my charger doth chafe at his bit in the 
 
 stall, 
 The guests have all gone with the last dark hour 
 
 of morning. 
 And a rosier light than the cresset illumines the 
 wall. 
 
 II. 
 
 Afar stretch the curving gray shores, where my path 
 
 intermingles, 
 And loses itself in the sinuous belt of the sand, — 
 A vanishing, shimmering line which the sea ever 
 
 singles 
 To mould at its pleasure, — the terminal loop of 
 
 the land. 
 
A SADDLE SONG, BEFORE BATTLE. 2() 
 
 in. 
 
 To my love's lattice window I look, where per- 
 chance she is hiding 
 
 To watch me depart ; and a last long libation I 
 pour 
 
 To her lips and her eyes and her manner so sweet 
 and confiding, — 
 
 Then ho ! for whateer may befall me adown the 
 dim shore ! 
 
MEDEA. 
 
 EYES all ablaze with awful wrath and pain, 
 That sear the pulsing space through which 
 they gaze, 
 So fierce their light. The long, interminable days 
 Drag their length by unheeded, since her reign 
 Is ended. But that glorious bosom's swell, 
 (On which a king might die!) and in her hand 
 The jeweled dagger that usurps the wand, 
 And those knit, gloomy brows, the story tell. 
 
CORRESPONDENCES. 
 
 I. 
 
 ALL colors, odors and sounds are bound 
 Together, by a strange invisible chain, 
 Thus, some faint perfumes I have found 
 Soft, like a flute's low liquid sound, 
 Sad, like autumnal rain. 
 
 II. 
 
 Fresh, like the sweet, firm flesh of a child 
 Or the wind-blown golden hair of a girl, — 
 Some odors! — exuberant, keen and wild 
 Like long lush grasses, all beguiled 
 By the brook's seductive purl. 
 
 III. 
 And some are as fierce as a wanton's kiss- 
 Some have the expansion of infinite things 
 That madden the senses with sudden bliss, 
 Transporting to worlds remote from this 
 The spirit, on viewless wings ! 
 
THE PINE. 
 
 OTREE ! O tree ! I am sad and world 
 aweary, 
 Let me recline by thy resinous trunk, and share 
 
 For an hour th}' dear immunil}" from care, — - 
 What matters how dreary 
 
 This hill -side be, with its slopes all worn and 
 bare. 
 
 II. 
 
 O tree ! O tree ! Night hides in th}- dusky arms 
 Through the hot day, and wandereth forth again 
 When sinks the Day -God, baffled, beneath the 
 
 })lain, — 
 From Life's sudden alarms 
 Would 1 could flee to thee ever, O soother of pain ! 
 
THE PINE. ^^ 
 
 III. 
 
 There is a Spirit which broods in thy deeper shade, 
 There is a Voice in thy branches overhead, 
 And I Hsten as one who heareth a voice from 
 
 the dead, 
 Yet though I have stayed 
 Till moon -rise, know I the meaning of what it 
 
 hath said ! 
 
 L.QfC. 
 
IN NOVEMBER. 
 
 A LONELY, limpid, lustrous star, 
 Not high, but remote in the wild weird sky 
 Gleams red through the wintry dusk, afar, 
 To where, in a thicket maze, I lie. . 
 
 A chill wind thrills through the leafless thorn, — 
 Or was it Autumn went by in the gloom 
 So hurriedly? Even now she is gone, 
 Leaving a faint perfume. 
 
 The red star flashes a ruby light 
 Down in the darkling woodlands tlrear, 
 We, and we only, mark the flight 
 Of the gracious Queen of the Year. 
 
AMOUR. 
 
 HERE, with the slumberous sea at our feet, that 
 murmurs again in his sleep, 
 And the low, blind muffled Western wind that 
 passes with pensive tread, 
 Over the fenceless fields of air to the refluent 
 wastes of the deep, — 
 I come as of old, love, to plead for the ghosts 
 rearisen of hopes long dead. 
 
 Low and large hangs the heavy, voluptuous moon 
 in the clouded sky, 
 Soon will a dull light broaden along the infi- 
 nite blue of the East ; 
 Tell me, belov'd, have you nothing for me but a 
 tear, a regret and a sigh, — 
 Love's Vale, the last tender message, of pity the 
 most and of passion the least? 
 
CUmJERA. 
 
 WHERE willows shiver, gaunt and stark, 
 Above the black, moon -mirroring waves, 
 There is a path whence one may mark 
 The Mohawk, as it onward raves. 
 And oft I linger there at night 
 When the mad March- winds overhead, — 
 Weird harpers! — sound in their dim flight 
 Strange music 'mid the branches dead. 
 The stars that light that lonely spot 
 Gleam redly down, meseems, 
 And a shadowy Past, remembered not, 
 Returns to me in dreams ! 
 O! is this chant the night-wind sings 
 But the shrill cadence of the breeze, — 
 Or do I hear the rushing wings 
 Of the swift Stymphalides.^ 
 And are those stars (so strangely bright!) 
 Stars only, — or do I again 
 Behold that glare of lurid light 
 Athwart the vast Pharsalian Plain.? 
 
CHOLERA. '^'] 
 
 Chimaeua's wings have fanned the air, 
 And I between her children stand, — 
 Lost in unending reverie, — where 
 They He, half- buried in the sand. 
 I see within their awful eyes 
 The mirrored mysteries of the Past, 
 So veil'd that I can but surmise, — 
 Yet, thus surmising, stand aghast ! 
 
 Old world visions and dreams antique 
 
 Of a dim, Pre-natal life are mine; 
 
 By the dying fire's columnar reek 
 
 I have waited in vain for the Two to speak, — 
 
 O Sphinxes ! dost make no sign .? 
 
NOSTALGIA. 
 
 THE low and listless wash of languid seas, 
 Lapping the level shores of tropic lands, — 
 The strange sweet perfume of a fluctuant breeze 
 Blowing at midnight o'er the damp sea-sands: 
 Visions of pyramids, and palms and pines, 
 The lotos -laden Nile, and dreamful nights 
 In amorous Venice, where one's soul divines 
 All the old pagan passions and delights, — 
 Why do ye haunt me ? 
 
 I can feel again 
 The touch of thrilling fingers, the caress 
 Of moist emollient lips — the joy, the pain. 
 And all the old Love's power to blast or bless ! 
 In a tense reverie, led by gray Regret, 
 I softly tread amid the wreck of years, 
 Finding, where I had prayed I might forget, 
 Mem'ries that blind my eyes with bitter tears I 
 
NOTES 
 
NOTES. 
 
 The idea of J //w/wj^/ira, — so far as there is any tangible 
 idea attached to such a mere fragment, — was suggested to me 
 by reading Charles Baudelaire's La Vie Antcrieure. 
 
 O soUecito dubbio e fredda tema 
 Che pensando I'accresci. — Tasso. 
 
 And wandering amid those awful hills, I beheld sombre and 
 moss - bearded pine - forests, the which were of vast size and 
 inconceivable age, . . tossing their arms wildly to the sky, and 
 crashing against each other, the while there was no breath of 
 7vind stirritig beneath that gloomy and evil vault. — Tritemius. 
 
 4- 
 This is the beautiful representative echo by which Aris- 
 tophanes expresses the sound of the Grecian phonninx, or 
 of some other instrument, which conje6lurally has been shown 
 most to resemble our modern European harp. — De Qukncey. 
 
42 NOTES. 
 
 See Racine's F/ia-dra, — ' Le flot qui I'apporta recule epovi- 
 vante.' 
 
 CORRECTION. 
 
 In line 27, page 2, and line 66, page 3, read 'aisles' for 'isles. 
 
SEP 18 1901