M. 
 
 ''■^>.,.vS^* 
 
 is.^^ 
 
Class ^5"^ 5^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSfl^ 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 Within the Hedge 
 
 The Cathedral 
 
 Russian Lyrics and Cossack Songs 
 
 NOVELS: 
 
 A Modern Prometheus 
 
 The Cuckoo's Nest 
 
 A Cossack Lover 
 The Sin of Angels 
 
GABRIELLE 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
GABRIELLE 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 BY 
 MARTHA GILBERT DICKINSON BIANCHI 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DUFFIELD & COMPANY 
 
 1913 
 

 Copyright, 1913, by 
 DUFFIELD & COMPANY 
 
 ©C1.A346487 
 
ffOv fiot fiaivofiivo) [xaiveo^ ahv ath^povt <T<ot^p6vti\ 
 
 I LIFT THIS VINTAGE OF MY HEART 
 
 TO ONE 
 
 WHO BLITHELY DRINKS WITH ME, 
 EACH JOYOUS TOAST SIMONIDES 
 FLUNG LYRIC REVELLERS SUCH AS WE ! 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Gabrielle 3 
 
 A Wanderer's Song I3 
 
 "Autre Fois" I5 
 
 Gypsying i6 
 
 The Wind 17 
 
 "Zauber-Duft" 18 
 
 A Song of Summer 20 
 
 A Summer Letter 2.2 
 
 Midsummer Noon 24 
 
 Midsummer Waves 26 
 
 The Spider's Web 28 
 
 The Return 29 
 
 To a Mountain Lake 31 
 
 Waiting for the Stage 32 
 
 At Summer's End 35 
 
 In Autumn Rain 37 
 
 The Dead Hunter 39 
 
 November Dusk 41 
 
 In January 42 
 
 Revolt 44 
 
 To-night 48 
 
 Child of Earth 49 
 
 In Farewell 50 
 
 His Appeal 51 
 
 At Last 52 
 
 Our Secret 53 
 
 Mignonette 54 
 
 The Song of a Slave to Her Master 55 
 
 One Day 56 
 
 A Last Favor 57 
 
 A Song of Afterward 58 
 
 The Convicts 59 
 
 An Incident 60 
 
 An Allegory 61 
 
 Any Man to Any Woman 62 
 
 Any Woman to Any Man 63 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 TKGE. 
 
 Through the Ivory Gate 64 
 
 I In A Moon-Coloured Garden 65 
 
 II A Dream of First Appearing 66 
 
 III Whispered Between Dreams 67 
 
 IV Chansonette d'un Reve 68 
 
 V Opium 69 
 
 VI Rosemary 70 
 
 VII Attained 71 
 
 VIII A Farewell 72 
 
 IX A Lover's Song 73 
 
 X To Sleep 74 
 
 Hidden 76 
 
 A Curse 77 
 
 After-glow 78 
 
 Afterward 79 
 
 From a Ghost to Her Lover 80 
 
 For a Fly-Leaf of Dante 82 
 
 The Interpreter 83 
 
 L'Envoi 84 
 
 To a Ghost 85 
 
 The Lover's Answer 87 
 
 Allegro Con Grazia — After Tschaikowsky .... 88 
 
 The Old Musician go 
 
 The Last Echo 91 
 
 To THE Cello 93 
 
 A Street Organ Melody 94 
 
 Unto the God of Pleasure 95 
 
 A Club Man's Requiem 97 
 
 Decoration Day 98 
 
 Where God Is 99 
 
 In a Hillside Grave-yard 100 
 
 The Crypt loi 
 
 The Midsummer of a Nun 102 
 
 A Tale of Tuscany 114 
 
 Twilight at Florence 118 
 
 A Legend 120 
 
 Riviera Rain 121 
 
 In the Protestant Cemetery at Rome 123 
 
 The Barberini Bees 124 
 
 Brother Renuncio 125 
 
 The Song of a Slave to Her Idol 127 
 
 A Song of Mariners 128 
 
 The Suppliant 130 
 
 Cassandra on Leaving Troy 131 
 
GABRIELLE 
 
GABRIELLE 
 
 " In this chamber Gabrielle de Latour died of joy. Here cer- 
 tainly she had watched at these windows, during ten whole 
 years far the return of her beloved husband from' a disastrous 
 battle in the East, until against all expectation she beheld him 
 crossing the court at last." 
 
 From Gaston- de Latour. 
 
 IN Summers withered long ago, 
 Ere Ronsard to his Mistress sung — 
 Mid level corn-fields of la Beauce 
 
 Fair Gabrielle was young; 
 High in her turret chamber lone 
 
 Within the old chateau d' Amour, 
 Waiting her absent Lover-Lord, 
 The valiant de Latour. 
 
 The faded centuries roll back, 
 
 Disclose her at her casement there. 
 The sunlight on her listless hands 
 
 And on her burnished hair; 
 Close on her lips she holds the past, 
 
 Her eyes lit by a vanished face — 
 Red trees in flower 'neath crimson skies 
 
 Hot as their last embrace! 
 
 Before her tear-spent vision rides 
 Her Love — a stern crusader grim 
 3 
 
GABRIELLE 
 
 Wrapt in a mist of cruel steel, 
 
 Her soul set forth with him ; 
 How can she heed the cushat cry 
 
 Or mournful plover voice the rain — 
 While on her heart departing hoofs 
 
 Renew their curt refrain? 
 
 Her eyes see not the spires of Chartres 
 
 Across the peach bloom of the plain, 
 To her, through endless leagues of corn 
 
 The sickles flash in vain ! 
 Her ears hear neither chime nor dirge, 
 
 Nor up the white road's quivering heat 
 All through her life's long afternoon 
 
 Or Knight or Pilgrim feet. 
 
 This turret chamber was Love's own, 
 
 Here the white rose of Love flared wide, 
 Here the white Mass of parting said 
 
 In silence, side by side — 
 A thousand secrets fond she knows 
 
 To bring her absent Lover near, 
 A thousand magics t© beguile 
 
 Incarnate presence here. 
 
 No intimacy of the Faith, 
 
 No mystic symbol eloquent. 
 But broods within this perfumed place 
 
 His fervid sentiment; 
 4 
 
GABRIELLE 
 
 Her heart's perpetual commune 
 Suffuses colour, sound and sight, 
 
 Illumes each portal of the sense 
 With Love's reflected light. 
 
 Above the Christ of her prie-dieu 
 
 Her Lover's face shines through her prayer, 
 O'er milk-white blossoms of the thorn 
 
 She loves to garland there. 
 O dearest sin! O sweet abuse! 
 
 One worship with another blent 
 In rapt idolatry too tense 
 
 For Love's relinquishment! 
 
 Mid dainty breviaries rare, 
 
 Dim tapestries of cloudy bloom. 
 The songless lute, the silken couch. 
 
 Through countless midnight's gloom 
 She watches day from yesterday, 
 
 In pale to-morrow's fruitless lure, 
 While none beneath the high White stars 
 
 Behold her vigils pure. 
 
 Religious are her kindred all, 
 
 Blazoned their deed's fidelity 
 In pride sepulchral on their stones, 
 
 Devout likewise is she ; 
 By white resurgent Easter morns, 
 
 The scarlet pomps of Whitsuntide, 
 5 
 
GABRIELLE 
 
 The August fetes, the purple fasts 
 Her soul is sanctified. 
 
 But when she bows her at High Mass, 
 
 Entranced adores the lifted Host, 
 'Mid crested tombs of de Latour — 
 
 He is her Holier Ghost. 
 Unconscious blasphemy of Love ! 
 
 The anguish of recovered bliss 
 Transcends the priestly monotone, 
 
 Enshrines her soul in His. 
 
 His touch lights torches in her blood, 
 
 This groping prayer of sense is His — 
 This clutch of passion on her throat — 
 
 This suffocating kiss — 
 And dazed she sees the kneeling throng 
 
 And on her stifled breast the one 
 Bright blood drop, ravished bold from some 
 
 Rose window by the sun. 
 
 For celebrations thus profaned. 
 
 No luxury of chastisement 
 She spares her soft, enamoured flesh, 
 
 On grace of heaven intent — 
 By solemn industries of soul, 
 
 By patient ministries of hand. 
 She plays her role of chateleine 
 
 Most courteous, most bland. 
 6 
 
GABRIELLE 
 
 Though Knight and Noble find her fair 
 
 None can her Lover's liege beguile, 
 Nor is there harper's string more sweet 
 
 Than accent of her smile, 
 Dispensing, as her rank befits. 
 
 Her Seigneur's largess in his stead, 
 She welcomes all unto his board, 
 
 Her heart a guestless bed. 
 
 Ah, well their homage sweeps her by, 
 
 Light as a May-bloom careless lain 
 On the slow-flowing river Eure 
 
 That washes her domain; 
 Within the cloister of her soul 
 
 None breaks the reign of revery, 
 Each drowsy hour a chaplet for 
 
 Her ceaseless litany. 
 
 The vassalage of Love is hers. 
 
 The lowly love of Love afar. 
 The love of rose for nightingale. 
 
 The love of star for star — 
 And yet despite her heart's duress, 
 
 So blest she wears her Seigneur's chain 
 All Love's requited lovers seem 
 
 But meet for her disdain. 
 
 Her mouth for wasted pleasure wan. 
 And famished for her Lover's vow, 
 7 
 
GABRIELLE 
 
 Her senses to his passion sworn, 
 
 His seal upon her brow, 
 She stretches hands that never reach, 
 
 She sees her fires to ashes creep. 
 The snowflakes wind their pall o*er one 
 
 Who sows but may not reap. 
 
 The poor come daily for her dole, 
 
 And lavish dole she never spares, 
 But Jesus, merciful, perceives 
 
 Her need more sore than theirs 
 Who speak her thanks with ready tongue, 
 
 But judge her heart unpitying — 
 While on their breasts their babes lie close 
 
 As vintage tendrils cling. 
 
 Within her incense-laden room 
 
 Of sacred intimacies fond, 
 Amid the relics of themselves, 
 
 Of parting and of bond — 
 Sorrow and Love in her are wed ; 
 
 Long soothing nights of moonlight dim 
 Far in the East — or coming near. 
 
 She wakes and waits for Him. 
 
 Her thoughts are sombre as the rooks 
 That hover dark o'er tower and sward, 
 
 As morning red salutes her cheek. 
 Sole greeting from her Lord, 
 § 
 
GABRIELLE 
 
 And though returning harvest fills 
 The fragrant bins with yellow store, 
 
 Still up the glaring, faithless road 
 Her Joy returns no more! 
 
 When Yuletide blazes on the hearth 
 
 And minstrds wake the echoes dumb, 
 From court, from cloister and crusade 
 
 Her kinsmen hither come, 
 The festal flambeaux gaily flare 
 
 Upon their Lady's gentle face. 
 To shudder from the wraith they light 
 
 Of spectral shadow grace. 
 
 Ten years of pallid Winter days 
 
 While nests lie empty neath the eaves, 
 Ten years of nights of loveless sleep, 
 
 Ten years of other's sheaves. 
 From out her turret casement pent 
 
 She sees life ebb and never flow. 
 Ere Ronsard to his Mistress sung — 
 
 Slow centuries ago! 
 
 The mystic lilies in the close 
 
 Than Gabrielle are not more pale. 
 
 Nor fainting moths of early dusk 
 Than Gabrielle more frail. 
 
 When silver nightingales awake 
 To lyric madness of the Spring, 
 
 9 
 
GABRIELLE 
 
 For sad as bud of barren flower 
 Her hope's false bourgeoning. 
 
 The trembling poplars touch the stars 
 
 Beyond the crenellated wall, 
 All night their leaves lie whispering 
 
 To vex her in their thrall ; 
 No serenade invites her sleep, 
 
 No dawn-song warns of breaking day, 
 Despair the only troubadour 
 
 To guard her postern grey. 
 
 The plain beneath its azure dome 
 
 Laughs up to heaven, laughs up and sings 
 But veiled are her romance-steeped eyes 
 
 To blithe external things; 
 To fecund earth turned by the plough — 
 
 The eager jonquil's glad brocade — 
 And floating odours that arise 
 
 From dappled orchard shade. 
 
 For while relaxing South winds sigh, 
 
 To sobbing April won anew — 
 Dreams are her waking, — she but dreams 
 
 Her days vague visions through; 
 Fleet as the gentle Nicolette 
 
 Speeding to Aucassin amain, 
 Her fancies coursing down th^ night 
 
 On white feet of the rain. 
 10 
 
GABRIELLE 
 
 She sees Him slain, — a hero proud, 
 
 His shield encasing soul of flame, 
 His lance the curse of Saracens, 
 
 Upon His lips her name — 
 Or yet she dreams Him false to her, 
 
 To wake distracted for her fears 
 Lest Paradise should lack for Him 
 
 Throughout eternal years. 
 
 On some soft breast she dreams his head. 
 
 His honour pawned to sultry charms, 
 His oath foresworn, his love betrayed 
 
 In slender circling arms; 
 For eyes of night h,is foe forgot. 
 
 Drunk in the glories of dark hair 
 Unlike gold cornfields of la Beauce — 
 
 Ah, Gabrielle was fair! 
 
 Or does Sleep ope with glamoured touch 
 
 Her fragile caskets of the past, 
 And bid the bridegroom to the bride 
 
 To break Love's bitter fast. 
 Not once dead rapture turns to truth 
 
 When bugles call the hunt away. 
 Nor once with her he crosses dawn 
 
 To mock the tyrant day. 
 
 But sudden piercing through her swoon. 
 Across the courtyard rings again 
 II 
 
GABRIELLE 
 
 That mailed footfall, save in sleep 
 
 She harkens for in vain. 
 Her joy, arch rival of Doleur, 
 
 Confronting her with daring- eyes. 
 Sends her blood surging in her ears 
 
 As harps of Paradise. 
 
 Love, Joy and Death combat for her — 
 
 Ere her Seigneur can claim his own, 
 Her soul's bright star breaks down the sky, 
 
 Escapes its orbit lone; 
 With one high note of ecstasy 
 
 The jealous angel Azriel 
 Sweeps upward, — bearing on his breast 
 
 Immortal Gabrielle! 
 
 L'Envio 
 
 Prince, if my ballad of dead love 
 
 Fall o'er you cold as sifting snow 
 Ere Ronsard to his Mistress sung — 
 
 Slow centuries ago. 
 My own heart kindles envious, 
 
 Howe'er the amorous flesh rebel — 
 To clasp in death Love's endless dream 
 
 As Golden Gabrielle. 
 
 12 
 
o 
 
 A WANDERER'S SONG 
 
 NCE more to see familiar stars 
 Look down through friendly trees — 
 Once more to feel the heart of youth 
 
 With May across the seas! 
 Once more to see the hyacinth 
 
 Press upward through the grass, 
 To hear the plough-boy's tuneless song 
 Above the furrow pass. 
 -In dreams the willows silver along the rising 
 
 streams, 
 In dreams the shining valley puts on her Spring- 
 tide gleams ! — 
 
 Once more to breathe the lilac plumes 
 
 In gusts of April rain — 
 To linger with the violets 
 
 In a forgotten lane; 
 Once more to reach the low green stile 
 
 Upon whose gentle sod, 
 Those earlier travellers said farewell — 
 And fared them forth to God. 
 - In dreams the May-white trances the nights across 
 
 the sea, 
 In dreams the voice of Springtime is calling, call- 
 ing me ! — 
 
 13 
 
A WANDERER'S SONG 
 
 Vd give the dawns of almond bloom, 
 
 The orange and the rose — 
 The misty olive terraces 
 Of shadowy repose — 
 I'd give the nightingale and palm 
 And wander-joys like these — 
 Just to go back to Spring's old throb 
 And old infinities. 
 -In dreams my heart is straying with May across 
 
 the seas, 
 In dreams my heart and May are one in vagrant 
 ecstacies ! — 
 
 14 
 
AUTRE FOIS 
 
 ^npIS not this April day one sees, 
 
 Beguiled the way of orchard trees 
 'Neath snows of bloom and starting green 
 Oh, not alone this Spring I ween! 
 Nor this Spring's birds the Lover hears — 
 But all the birds of other years. 
 
 Dimly the senses apprehend — 
 The amber sunset's fragrant blend 
 Of buried loves and dear unrest, 
 That linger in the blossomed West — 
 As ecstasy of Mays long flown 
 To lyric heavens of their own. 
 
 Yet, heart of Nature's mystery! 
 Within each budding prophecy. 
 Each songful miracle of dawn — 
 Faint Springs for ever passed and gone 
 Look back at us with April eyes. 
 From memory's green paradise. 
 
 IS 
 
GIPSYING 
 
 "^T'OUR spirit makes a wanderer of mine! 
 
 I cannot choose but leave my hearth and go 
 I care not where nor how — 
 If but on hill or sky you shine, 
 At pleasure of the gipsy wind 
 
 Like to the whirling leaves I blow! 
 I cannot choose but catch your hand and go. 
 
 The tenderness of yesterday from me 
 Is gone, — the poppy drugs of passion go, 
 And duties that were dear; 
 I feel a tidal ecstasy, 
 The savage in me calls — I hear 
 
 My mate where e'er deep waters flow — 
 I cannot choose but listen till I go. 
 
 In green gold glamours of the early Spring 
 The daffodils are dancing, — I must go ! 
 In madrigals of flight 
 The sea gull in me now takes wing, 
 The morning madness blurs my sight. 
 And when your pagan pipe you blow — 
 I lock my life awhile, escape and go! 
 
 i6 
 
THE WIND 
 
 TIT E sought me by the river bank and on the moun- 
 tainside, 
 From tallest pines he swept the miles of frozen 
 country wide; 
 He would not whirl with merry storms or rock in 
 empty nests, 
 Or hide in drowsy woods till dawn — his troth to 
 human quests. 
 
 He spurned the city's narrow streets and climbed a 
 sunless wall 
 To lay his heart of solitude against my window 
 small. 
 
 rugged comrade bleak and true! — no blandish- 
 
 ment is thine, 
 Yet to far heights of distant blue thy spirit sum- 
 mons mine. 
 
 1 hear thy finger at the pane, thy voice entreating 
 
 me — 
 A snow-thatched village 'neath the stars my eyes 
 
 bewildered see; 
 My heart is answer to thy call — now let us blow and 
 
 roam 
 Above the city, down the world and up the hills 
 
 of home! 
 
 17 
 
ZAUBER-DUFT 
 
 XXZHAT heart but fears a fragrance? 
 ^^ Alien they 
 
 Who breathe in the white lilac only May; 
 For there be other spirits unto whom 
 Fate's kiss lies dreaming in each stray perfume! 
 
 Who mock at ghosts of odour — poor they be ! 
 Bereft the scented balms of memory, 
 For unto one in April's rain-blest earth 
 There starts for aye the sharp, glad cry of birth; 
 And Love will find in rooms unbarred for years 
 Familiar sweetness loosing sudden tears, 
 Clasping the will in mastering embrace 
 As in the presence of a phantom grace. 
 
 Then there be odours pungent — fires in Fall 
 The gipsying of boyhood to recall ; 
 And there be perfumes holy — nay, but one 
 Whose pang is like none other 'neath the sun 
 To drown the sinking senses in a joy 
 Beyond all time to weaken or destroy! 
 Odours there be that swoon, entreat, caress — 
 Elusive thrall, to doom or stab or bless ; 
 Each vagrant scent that holds the breath in fee 
 Doth wed the heart in Life's eternity. 
 
 i8 
 
ZAUBER-DUFT 
 
 Who fear no wraiths of fragrance — sorry they 
 Who breathe in lilac odours only May ; 
 For there be other mortals unto whom 
 White magic wanders in each stray perfume. 
 
 19 
 
A SONG OF SUMMER 
 
 r^OME Amaryllis, Phyllis fair — 
 
 Chloe and Daphnis fine, 
 Come Strephon and come Corydon — 
 
 Let a smooth reed be thine! 
 Come nymphs and fauns and satyrs shy. 
 
 And revel high with me — 
 For Summer's at her carnival 
 
 And bids us forth to see! 
 
 Along the filmy woodland ways 
 
 Pan did so recent pass, 
 He left the forest trembling yet, 
 
 Laid glamours on the grass. 
 There's wild magic in the measure 
 
 The tricksy shadows dance, 
 There's a lure in every dingle — 
 
 A hint of dalliance. 
 
 Come shepherds, leave your bleating charge 
 
 And follow at our call. 
 Out-fleet the stream's soft winding course 
 
 In liege to Summer's thrall; 
 With madrigal and triolet. 
 
 With reed and pipe and song — 
 With rigaudon and phantasy 
 
 Dance on in happy throng! 
 20 
 
A SONG OF SUMMER 
 
 Come deck your bodice shepherdess 
 
 With aretheusa pale, 
 And wind your locks with eglantine — 
 
 Let ecstasy prevail ! 
 With jonquil and with violet, 
 
 Narcissus, fleur de lis — 
 Be garlanded each reveller 
 
 Who follows Pan with me! 
 
 Come, crush the fern with careless feet 
 
 And wide all durance fling, 
 Youth fleeter is than hoofs of Pan, 
 
 And Summer's on the wing; 
 Love, mirth and joyance claim the hour 
 
 In fragrant roundelay — 
 For Summer holds high carnival 
 
 And Pan has passed this way! 
 
 Zl 
 
A SUMMER LETTER 
 
 ■pVEAR Absent Wanderer, think of me 
 
 As one well lost; content to be 
 Lost down a Summer afternoon, 
 Beyond the call of swift or soon! 
 
 Deep down a heavy dream of song — 
 Haunting the hush in cadence strong, 
 With heart-heard voices of the Spring, 
 Along the silence echoing. 
 
 Deep down a sultry glamoured glade, 
 Where musky chestnut trees pervade 
 With far, forgetful sorcery — 
 From out their white veil's mystery. 
 
 Lost down a Summer afternoon 
 Beyond the call of swift or soon, 
 With Hollyhocks to point the way — 
 Dear Absent, look for me to-day! 
 
 Tranced in a daze of shadow green. 
 Whose dusk desires embrace and lean 
 With hiastening step, each hour increased, 
 Forever homeward to the east. 
 
 22 
 
A SUMMER LETTER 
 
 One with the breathless beauty-gloom, 
 Or the light pleasure of the breeze, 
 One with the sloth of sated bees, 
 Faint in the hot decay of bloom. 
 
 Through all the listless leisure sought 
 By no stray crier save thy thought — 
 Beyond the call of swift or soon, 
 Lost down a Summer afternoon! 
 
 23 
 
MIDSUMMER NOON 
 
 •\TIDSUMMER noon! 
 
 For one brief hour Pan sleeps — 
 And Nature marvelling at the god's release 
 Stands breathless o'er her shaggy deity, 
 Lest aught dispel the beauty of his dream. 
 Pan sleeps — 
 
 Let shadows veil the fervent sun 
 And butterflies on honeyed bosoms swoon; 
 Let bees in nectars deep their voices drown, 
 Nor cry of colour break upon the hush ; 
 The fiercer blooms shall calm their fevered blood, 
 Nor falling petal stir the dusky wood, 
 And birds drop songless on the grassy shade — 
 That only lulling cadences prevail. 
 Pan sleeps — 
 
 In splendid stupors burns the noon; 
 The fountain to her lilies murmurs on — 
 Finger on lip doth Nature boding lean 
 Unto the leafy covert, where at ease 
 Lies lapped in silence the immortal faun. 
 Let every tender avocation cease! 
 
 Save running water that shall mystic ward 
 From evil potencies; — pause laughing breeze, 
 
 24 
 
MIDSUMMER NOON 
 
 Nor tease the forest heart at your caprice — 
 Nor set the harebells ringing as you pass, 
 Till Pan awakes — 
 
 Lifts from the crumpled fern 
 His tangled locks and pipes the sylvan strain 
 That calls the shepherd to his errant flocks, 
 The wilful goatherd from his mistress' arms, 
 And bids each pastoral energy resume 
 Its August ripening, its chaunt of growth. 
 Upon repose no longer waits the noon ! 
 
 Resume ye forest winds ! Ye hasting streams, 
 Ye fleec}' flocks and birds and scented blooms ! 
 
 Fountains and mortals. — All, — your songs resume ! 
 Pan wakes — 
 
 Again through glade and everglade, 
 Through sacred grove and open pasturage, 
 His fluting reed pipes winsome to his own 
 Till echo barkens for his wandering tune. 
 
 25 
 
MIDSUMMER WAVES 
 
 XT7 E are turned back to the shore in blue legions — 
 Here to sing canticles sparkling and praiseful. 
 Here to exult and exalt for a season. 
 Sea leagues on sea leagues, — from caves of the 
 
 coral — 
 Turning from vastness and bearing strange monsters, 
 Our shambling caravans come with their burdens — 
 Pebbles and shells dear to infantile mortals. 
 
 Here we sing canticles joyous and mirthful — 
 Voices grown hoarse 'mid the pitiless surges. 
 Spirits bowed down to your sands by sore labours ; 
 Ridden by hurricanes rending asunder, 
 Hurling us on to their dooms of destruction, 
 Winding their wrecks in reverberant breakers. 
 Dwelling in space where the stars rock above us, 
 We have held dawn on our undulent bosom ; 
 Ours are the deep things, — the sea graves un- 
 numbered. 
 We are turned back to the shore for a season, 
 Haunting your ears with the dirge of mid-ocean, 
 We are the myriad vassals of danger. 
 We are the derelict's pilot and lover; 
 Desperate mariners sigh in our choirs — 
 Mariners swept from the shrouds down our spirals; 
 We have seen ships steer our course and go under — 
 
 26 
 
MIDSUMMER WAVES 
 
 Ours are the songs of the ocean's pale sirens. 
 
 We are turned back to the shore for a season, 
 
 Here to allure by our sinuous splendour. 
 
 We chant the groves drowned deep 'neath our azure ; 
 
 Gardens of wonder un-trod of the living, 
 
 Passionless Edens eternally flowing — 
 
 Cold scentless blossoms that live in our being; 
 
 Neither the sun nor the moon e'er descending 
 
 Green fathoms down where our sea-beauties tremble, 
 
 Veiled in rare seaweeds and lit of the sea-gleam, — 
 
 Vertical sea-gleam across moving waters. 
 
 We are turned back in the languors of August, 
 Cheering the weak by our chorals courageous. 
 Cut into foam where the jealous crags stay us, 
 We are the homeless, the desolate wand'rers, 
 We who lift Midsummer canticles thunderous — 
 Restless and wind-worn, possessed of vague demons. 
 Peace is for us now and ever receding. 
 Hid in the hollow of His hand that poured us 
 Forth from tumultuous whirlwind and chaos ; 
 Jubilant witness of mighty Jehovah! 
 
 27 
 
THE SPIDER'S WEB 
 
 "D ETWEEN the harebell and the grass 
 ■*-^ At Summer dawn it hung, 
 The dew lay like a spangled kiss, 
 
 So palpitant it swung: 
 A film of glamour frosted o'er, 
 
 Rainbowed by passing cloud — 
 As breath of God upon the morn, 
 
 But destined for a shroud. 
 
 His fairy canopy out-spread. 
 
 The artisan withdrew; 
 Although a priest of beauty's cult 
 
 He spun a lure, he knew. 
 The spider loves his loomless web 
 
 As poet loves his art, 
 He wove that shining thing for death, 
 
 A murderer at heart! 
 
 Between the harebell and the grass 
 
 At Summer eve it swung, 
 A diagram of fatal charm 
 
 With gauzy victims hung! 
 
 28 
 
THE RETURN 
 
 "D ACK to the farm! 
 
 -^ Where the Bob White still is calling 
 
 As in remembered dawnings when youth and I were 
 boys, 
 
 Driving the cattle where the meadow brook is brawl- 
 ing 
 Her immemorial wandering fears and joys! 
 
 Home to the farm for the deep green calms of 
 Summer, 
 Life of the open furrow — Hfe of the waving 
 grain — 
 Leaving the painted world of masquerade and mum- 
 mer 
 Just for the sense of earth and ripening again! 
 
 Down in the hayfield where scythes glint through 
 the clover; 
 Lusty blood a-throbbing in the splendour of the 
 noon — 
 Lying mid the haycocks as castling clouds pass over, 
 Hearing insect lovers a-piping out of tune. 
 
 Caught in the spell of old kitchen garden savours — 
 In luscious lines retreating to slopes of musky corn 
 29 
 
THE RETURN 
 
 And clambouring grapes that spill their clustering 
 flavours, — 
 Each in fragrant season filling plenty's golden horn. 
 
 Off to the wood lot where briar bloom runs riot 
 And wary forest creature no hunter's snare de- 
 ceives, 
 Where virgin growth beguiles the solemn-hearted 
 quiet 
 With songs of Winter fires a-ripple through the 
 leaves. 
 
 Up to the bars in the twilight's soft reaction — 
 Winding through the ferny lanes to barns of stoop- 
 ing eaves 
 Welcoming at nightfall to simple satisfaction, 
 When the reeling swallow her dusky pattern 
 weaves. 
 
 Out in the dews with the spider at his shuttle — 
 In that half dreaming hour that awakes the whip- 
 poorwill 
 
 And sets the night hawk darting sinister and subtle, 
 E'er the full moon complacent loiters o'er the hill. 
 
 Back to the farm! 
 
 With the friendly brute for neighbour, 
 Where youth and Nature beckon, the tryst who would 
 not keep? 
 Back to the luxury of rest that follows labour. 
 Back to the primal joys of hunger and of sleep I 
 
 30 
 
TO A MOUNTAIN LAKE 
 
 r\ LAKE within thy clasping hills, 
 
 ^^^ E'en so a woman shadows forth her Love! 
 
 Fond to reflect each ecstasy that fills 
 The hours of gold ; or bows that arch above 
 The waning tempest, to the calm that stills. 
 
 Oft hast thou trembled, swift o'er swept 
 By gusts of passion whirling over thee; 
 
 Into thy heart regretful rains have swept; 
 Thy leaden greyness or thy phantasy 
 Thy sky-born impress of thy Lover keptl 
 
 And most I love thee, when at rest. 
 All through the starry vigils of the night 
 
 Thou bearest the young moon upon thy breast, 
 Cradled in broken ripples of delight. 
 
 31 
 
WAITING FOR THE STAGE 
 
 'T' HE evening wind is waking in the Elms, 
 
 Unto the whippoorwill the thrush gives o'er, 
 The hooded roads from twilight long withdrawn 
 Back to their dim communing turn once more. 
 
 Players at quoits forsake the dusty road 
 And drift to haven at the village store, 
 
 On whose worn steps an idler carves his name 
 'Mid interlaced initials cut of yore. 
 
 Nor flock nor kine bespeak an evening care, 
 
 The labourer may let his vigils fall 
 And take his ease mid gallant sparks a while — 
 
 So well the hour makes consorts of them all. 
 
 Here, while the farmer talks of future crops. 
 Predicts a drought or drones of early blight,— 
 
 Some country bumpkin airs his prowess bold, 
 Or some pugnacious bully offers fight; 
 
 The schoolmaster oft cracks his fabled joke, 
 On vying with the local wit intent, — 
 
 And flitting past as moths, — the village maids, 
 Bashful by nature and admonishment. 
 32 
 
WAITING FOR THE STAGE 
 
 Oft doth a hillside neighbour, drawing rein 
 
 For trifling barter, glib a wager lay 
 Twixt yon grey Dobbin and his " Three-year-old " ; 
 
 A hurried child forgets his jug to stay. 
 
 Nor venerable sage nor swain new-wed, 
 However may his rustic ardour burn, — 
 
 However fond besought to hasten home, 
 Once lingering, effect a swift return. 
 
 Both church and state an ample rostrum find, 
 
 No party ever lacks for advocate, 
 Nor gentle gossip loses savour rare, 
 
 Exchanged by weary cronies as they wait. 
 
 Ah! theirs a ripe though rude philosophy — 
 Nor fear nor avarice mar their content, 
 
 Who seeking nothing, find the joy they crave. 
 Impartial waiting on the near event. 
 
 How jovial the hour that tops their day! 
 
 What jests are made, what memories restored. 
 What hot discussions waged, what tales retold, 
 
 What shrewd surmise and mysteries explored! 
 
 Now from the cottage eaves a fainting beam 
 Sends forth a final sleep-inviting sign, 
 
 As from the belfry of the meeting house, 
 Tolls ominous the warning hour of nine. 
 33 
 
WAITING FOR THE STAGE 
 
 Soon, with a jolting swagger o'er the stones, 
 The distant sound of wheels their charm repeat, 
 
 And o'er the hilltop looms the stage at last ! 
 To rattle reckless down the silent street — 
 
 Draw up a flourish in the square of light 
 
 Framed by the open door, — the whip lash curled 
 
 Once more across the leader's reeking flanks, 
 To herald wide this envoy from the World ! 
 
 Since boyhood days I've seen the liners brave 
 Plough up the Bay at home, — across the sands 
 
 Spent caravans wind in at close of day ; 
 Received strange convoys oft in lonely lands ; 
 
 Yet never have I felt the World draw near, 
 Its great uncertainties my fate engage, 
 
 As when there lumbered sudden through the dusk 
 That peradventure of the evening stage! 
 
 34 
 
AT SUMMER'S END 
 
 /^ F old the Summer crept on noiseless wing, 
 ^^^ As if by stealth toward Autumn turned her face, 
 This year she makes no secret of her haste — 
 Speeds her successive pageantry apace. 
 
 Glad years when at October's fruitful stile 
 Your feet to meet my own were turning true, 
 
 How bloom and tedious vintage held me back 
 From days of golden reaping, love and you ! 
 
 But now — when parting only waits us there, 
 Both hasting bird and changeful flower conspire 
 
 To speed us to the jocund harvest moon 
 Of old out-lived but not out-loved desire. 
 
 Too swift the briar rose gave o'er, — too soon, 
 Too soon the ripening grape upon the vine ! 
 
 Scarce did the lily star the sultry pool 
 When roadsides purpled with the aster's sign. 
 
 Turn back, repent your steps of radiant bloom, 
 
 Your green assemblage turn ! Give back those slow 
 
 Interminable days of Summers past. 
 
 When hope, remote but sure, had far to go ! 
 35 
 
AT SUMMER'S END 
 
 Too brief across the sun dial leans the sun, 
 The lisping birds are prescient of their flight 
 
 Ere scarce, it seems, they tumbled from the nest ; 
 And bolder dares the cricket taunt the night. 
 
 Each laggard of old Summers spurs us on — 
 Too early creeps the dusk, the shortening days 
 
 Wane paler toward the fateful hour, for hearts 
 Whose beat is doomed at parting of the ways. 
 
 36 
 
IN AUTUMN RAIN 
 
 TXT'HAT spirit is it calling in the Autumn rain, 
 
 That bids me cast my needle by, set wide the 
 door? 
 The day is troubled with its voice and on the path 
 The footfall of the dead that come no more. 
 
 To reminiscent languors now the gardens yield. 
 
 In Spring they ardent press — in Fall resigned they 
 know 
 They have fulfilled the fate of Summer — now to sleep 
 
 Beneath the lullaby of winds that strow 
 The drifting yellow leaves from unresisting trees, 
 
 To weave in mellow strands along the lane and street 
 Vague Moorish patterns of forgotten suns and rains, 
 
 A golden tapestry for Autumn's feet. 
 
 Well hath the Spring a throbbing fever of her own, 
 
 Waking and breaking from reluctant thralls in vain, 
 Since all her prophecy at last is lulled to peace 
 
 In Nature's sure narcotic, Autumn rain. 
 O guest beloved of my heart and wailing wind, 
 
 For you I light the hearth, entreat your will its way, 
 Pile high the cones and hesitate — perchance 
 
 That haunting spirit o'er my sill should stray ! 
 
 Z7 
 
IN AUTUMN RAIN 
 
 Let us elude to-night the intervening drear, 
 
 While in the leaping flame hope's drooping pinions 
 thrill, 
 
 Until as Southing birds we cry, " 'Tis but a sleep, 
 Ere April call us by the daffodil ! " 
 
 38 
 
THE DEAD HUNTER 
 
 A LL through the Summer days I tranquil lay, 
 '^ Filled to the lips with utter peace and rest — 
 
 The warm, sweet, slumberous breezes did not stir 
 
 The stark hands folded weary on my breast ; 
 All through the Summer nights I loved to dream. 
 
 While moonlight wove a ghost-lore on my grass, 
 Nor longed for dawn nor any restless change — 
 
 Nor that this trance of Summer death should pass. 
 
 But now the Autumn stands with lifted horn 
 
 To call the hunter and the wild things all, 
 My satin ceiling cramps me, — I would forth I 
 
 Were there a door set in my narrow wall. 
 O Nature, free this prisoned child of thine! 
 
 Rest irksome grows and heaven from earth too far — 
 Bid me come back to wander in the rain. 
 
 Or shine at nightfall in the first faint star ! 
 
 Call me to mingle with the valley mists 
 
 That cling about the hills when harvest wanes, 
 
 Or lie in sunshine 'neath old cottage eaves. 
 Or shine in cresting cornfields on the plains; 
 
 Let me sing seaward in the rising streams. 
 Fumble my wonted latch in wistful wind — 
 
 39 
 
THE DEAD HUNTER 
 
 Let me arise in colour's leaping flame, 
 Or brief renewal in the gentian find ! 
 
 Help me elude this guarding monument 
 That prates my peace in eulogistic strain, 
 
 When Autumn sounds her scarlet reveille 
 The hunter's heart harks back to life again ! 
 
 40 
 
NOVEMBER DUSK 
 
 T T PON a ridge of distant pasture height 
 
 Merged in the symphony of coming night, 
 
 'Mid chords and multichords of muffling haze, 
 
 Through furze and gorse the darkness deeper wades 
 O'er dim receding glades and everglades. 
 
 Whose outlines faint elude the wistful gaze. 
 
 In sylvan dreams the forest Lovers lie, 
 Only a wraith of smoke against the sky 
 
 Hints of the valley's humble cottage cheer, 
 
 A baying hound — a child's voice sweet and shrill ; 
 As tides of ocean flooding up the hill 
 
 The wines of sleep and purple stupors near. 
 
 Cut off from day's realities — the past 
 Blurred by soft opiates of dusk — at last 
 
 Intimate darkness fills our empty palms! 
 
 Those groping hands that seek and dare not claim. 
 Nirvana's peace prevails ; the mounting flame 
 
 Of Self bowed 'neath the Angelus of calms. 
 
 Till sudden o'er us breaks a cry of flight — 
 The train ! The train ! 
 
 And passioning cities within reach to-night! 
 
 41 
 
IN JANUARY 
 
 A CROSS the night, sifting through gaunt pine 
 branches, 
 Peering for lovers, youth, old Junes, o'er soon — 
 Down icy paths, past rose-beds deep in snowdrift 
 Over the sleeping garden strays the moon. 
 
 The lilies do not heed the silver signal, 
 
 Nor do the roses breathe back bliss for bliss, 
 
 And yet no mourner at a sweetheart's graveside, 
 Nor lover at a lady's casement this. 
 
 The silence deepens ; to its chosen altars 
 The light in wonder as a spell descends, 
 
 No husky fountain lifts a sweet rejoinder — 
 Nor bloom nor fragrance on this step attends. 
 
 Faint buds of Spring lie 'neath their dazzling hillocks, 
 Deep dreaming of young April's crescent frail; 
 
 Nor moth nor firefly ply their amorous traffic 
 Nought wakes within this frozen vigil pale. 
 
 Aye there is one, — that soft her prey is stalking, 
 Stealthy as Zero's kiss upon the pane — 
 
 Through her set teeth the hungry wind is sighing, 
 Nor doth she follow on the moon in vain. 
 42 
 
IN JANUARY 
 
 'Tis the white Were-wolf shambles through the 
 shadow, 
 
 Follows the moon with ^tna in her eyes ; 
 Now " in the wolf's month " down the night deserted, 
 
 Only brute and planet share the earth and skies. 
 
 43 
 
REVOLT 
 
 C HE turned from her hearth and its fires forsaking 
 
 Fled wild to Nature — a mortal escaping! 
 To lose human passion, her hot heart freeing — 
 With Wind and River to merge her being. 
 
 O Wind I am come ! O circling Water ! 
 A loveless Pagan, behold your daughter ! 
 My lips are weary of languorous kisses. 
 
 My shoulders are burdened by arms that cling, 
 The fetters of Love are irksome blisses — 
 I weep and tremble when I would sing ! 
 
 Let me race high with your gusty huntsmen 
 
 Coursing tall tree-tops the long night through; 
 Let me dance glad with the clamorous torrent, 
 
 Veiled in the mists of her rainbow dew ! 
 My outstretched arms, — you will never bind them ! 
 
 My wandering feet you will never snare! 
 My heart you will never freight with sorrow — 
 
 My eyes you will never dim with care. 
 
 O Wind I am come ! O circling Water ! 
 O Pagan Mother, receive your daughter! 
 My eyes are holden by mortal weeping. 
 And my heart rebels at its own desire; 
 
 My dreams are thrall to a Lover's keeping — 
 My life consumes in a wasting fire ! 
 44 
 
REVOLT 
 
 But the Winds blew Northward and did not heed her, 
 Hallooing hard on the track of the leader — 
 
 The Torrent sped on to its flooding river, 
 Mocking aloud through shine and shiver — 
 
 " Turn back ! Turn back from this shrineless portal ! 
 Nature is fair but Love is immortal ! 
 
 The sky has its stars and gods above you, 
 The blossom must bloom and the bird must 
 fly- 
 You may not venture with Wind and Water, 
 Turn home sad mortal, with Love to lie ! " 
 
 The Poet's Interlude 
 
 Nature is sibylline, timeless and heartless, 
 Her hand lies hard as a primal law. 
 Though immemorial beings entreat her, 
 Her suns appear and her moons withdraw. 
 
 The prescience of Autumn, the April's trouble, 
 Vanishing fragrance, wings that hover — 
 What are they more than illumined transcription. 
 Varying mood of a mortal Lover ? 
 
 45 
 
REVOLT 
 
 Love is the longing of purple shadow, 
 Love is the glamour of golden grain, 
 
 Love is the might of the trampling tempest, 
 Love is the call of the wander-rain! 
 
 Though you fain rebel and elude with Nature, 
 In vain her sorceries 'reft of this. 
 Her luring wild and her wantoning joyance 
 Fade at the brink of a mortal kiss. 
 
 Crimson of coppice and russet of dingle 
 Falter or flame by Love's furtive grace, 
 Dreamless the stile in the silvering moonbeam 
 Till Love's light crossing to Love's embrace. 
 
 Love is the instinct of brooding nightfall, 
 Love is where Westering wood-paths lead, 
 Love is the star on the flushed horizon 
 Thrilling the sense with a mystic need ! 
 
 Nature is magical, wayward, elusive — 
 Her goals set far beyond man's scant hour. 
 But the human touch to the wistful human 
 Transcends the mark of her fateful power. 
 
 What beauty lurks in her smile to challenge 
 The curving lips for Love's wine out-thrust? 
 Drink and forget in the cup of your Lover — 
 Human to human as dust to dust ! 
 
 46 
 
REVOLT 
 
 Then the Wind shouted high, " I ride forever ! " 
 The Stream repHed, " I run to my river ! " 
 " Impotent arms you will open — to stay us — 
 Our rapture shall never tarry or bide, 
 
 Sleep if you will in our loveless chambers — 
 Of sweet-mouthed mortals your dreams 
 betide ! " 
 
 She fled the forest — her deft feet escaping 
 Turned to her hearthstone, her folly forsaking; 
 To claim the immortal, her passion freeing — 
 In the cup of her Lover to lose her being ; 
 Her lips turned faint for his languorous kisses, 
 Her slight arms fain for his arms that cling, 
 Her hands outstretched to claim her fetters — 
 To weep and tremble nor care to sing. 
 
 47 
 
TO-NIGHT 
 
 ^^COMETIME — but not to-night — sometime," 
 ^ My heart as roses bowed by rain 
 At cadence of that slow refrain, 
 That tremulous, impassioned rhyme, 
 " Sometime — dear Love, sometime." 
 
 To-night, dear doubt of Love, to-night! 
 Aye, garnered roses fade, I know — 
 Yet those ungarnered bloom and go 
 Pale and forgotten from thy sight, 
 To-night — dear doubt of Love, to-night ! 
 
 " Sometime — dear joy of Love — sometime " 
 Thine eyes that kiss my soul to-night 
 With spirit kisses, hot and white, 
 
 Will close to love, be blind to rhyme — 
 "Sometime — dear joy of Love, sometime." 
 
 To-night — O Love we have to-night! 
 Make sure the lock of heaven's gate 
 
 Within thine arms, ere 'tis too late ! 
 
 Love may a rover be at light — 
 
 To-night, dear dream of Love, to-night I 
 
 48 
 
M 
 
 CHILD OF EARTH 
 
 Y father was an Anchorite 
 His soul to me he gave; 
 My mother was a Zingara, 
 Light as the dancing wave. 
 The mystic vision starward turned — my father's 
 
 legacy ; 
 The scarlet passion's vagrant lure — my mother calling 
 free. 
 
 Within my cell I hear her song ; 
 
 Within my lover's arms 
 I hear the prayers my father said 
 To ward from evil charms. 
 My father's voice cuts through the dark and lights a 
 
 pathway home; 
 My mother's laugh rings down the world, and hearing, 
 — I must roam. 
 
 Poor haunted mortal, thus to be 
 Possessed of natures twain — 
 A gipsy heart, a monkish soul, 
 In conflict hot and vain! 
 My father's lineage was proud; stern Duty was his 
 
 name. 
 My mother men called Pleasure; — none cared from 
 whom she came! 
 
 49 
 
IN FAREWELL 
 
 V\7'HITE is my colour, 
 
 Think of me 
 'Mid snows of Winter; unto thee 
 The faint white lilacs breathe me yet, 
 The white rose and white violet 
 Forbid thy senses to forget! 
 
 White is my colour, 
 
 May it be 
 A pledge of nearness unto thee ! 
 When the white falcon seeks thy wrist, 
 When thy white charger wins the list ; 
 Aye, and when on thy bended knee 
 The sacrament hath shriven thee, 
 Say one white, silent prayer for me! 
 
 50 
 
HIS APPEAL 
 
 /^IVE me your weariest hours 
 
 When the tides of life ebb low, 
 Give me the hopeless moments 
 When the light seems near to go. 
 
 Come to me in temptation — 
 
 Ah, never I bid you. Sweet, 
 When life is glad or glorious 
 
 And the roses kiss your feet! 
 
 Others may drink of your triumphs 
 And garner your laurels green. 
 
 Mine be the love enfolding 
 In weakness and pain unseen. 
 
 Why should you feign to spare me 
 With your smile that cheats the years 
 
 When my heart finds all its heaven 
 In the shadow of your tears ? 
 
 51 
 
AT LAST 
 
 1^ ISS down my eyes — 
 
 lest they should wake 
 Upon the vine shade of my village wall ; 
 Lest as in parted dawns the slow day break, 
 And heartless pleasures, weary duties call ! 
 
 Kiss down my eyes — 
 
 lest far from thee 
 Along some luring, unsuspected way, 
 A new delight or glory-flash I see, 
 This one impassioned blindness to betray. 
 
 Then cease to kiss — 
 
 that I my eyes 
 May raise to thine and know the past is past ; 
 Beyond the tyranny of waking lies 
 Our love's far dreamland-kingdom — won at last ! 
 
 52 
 
OUR SECRET 
 
 'VTOUR voice, to me is like the fountain fall 
 In some sequestered courtyard, overhid 
 With flowers of pomegranates burning red — 
 Where rhythmic waters ceaseless calm and call. 
 
 Your glance, to me is like a restless star — 
 The instant ere it stakes its light on space, 
 
 To reel as some wild centaur from its place, 
 Past steadfast orbs enchained to heaven's car. 
 
 To me, your touch — ah, no, to all save me 
 Let that remain beneath pomegranates red — 
 
 In that dim courtyard with the fountain hid, 
 A listless languor of the memory! 
 
 53 
 
MIGNONETTE 
 
 VyHEN I am dead — 
 
 My heart turned back to dust, 
 All that was dear to you in me will rise 
 
 Forever in the mignonette we loved; 
 When I am dead — beyond the Spring's surprise. 
 
 When wistful suns 
 
 Ravish this fragrant bloom 
 With one gold throe of sensuous ecstasy, 
 
 As light that shivers deep 'neath moving waves 
 Something in you will stir, for sake of me, — 
 
 And though my heart be dust, my soul will smile, 
 And you will sigh for Paradise the while. 
 Would I were dead ! 
 
 54 
 
THE SONG OF A SLAVE TO HER MASTER 
 
 V^ZITHIN the courtyard, Master mine, 
 
 Give me one little fountain glad, 
 To be for Joy when I repine — 
 The sister that I never had; 
 
 To play with me when you are far — 
 To chatter in my native tongue — 
 
 Yours is a high and distant star, 
 Dear Master, I am young! 
 
 One little fountain ever gay. 
 
 To sing the song of vanished birds, 
 
 To break the silence of the day 
 
 When you forget to love in words. 
 
 55 
 
ONE DAY 
 
 ILT E taught her a whole world of needs 
 
 In one short day ; 
 As one man to one woman may — 
 A need of daring and of deeds, 
 A need of crowns to lay beneath 
 
 His hero feet. 
 A need of tender fragrance sweet, 
 And fame to offer as a wreath ; 
 Of joy all overpowering, — 
 
 Of pain, to prove 
 Enduring masteries of love. 
 A need of higher notes to sing, 
 A need of heaven and of truth; 
 
 Strong hands to guide. 
 And braver footsteps by her side 
 Across the day — aye and forsooth 
 A need of covert for her weary wings — 
 
 The need one man unto one woman brings. 
 
 56 
 
A LAST FAVOUR 
 
 C PEAK lower — do not wake 
 ^ This hurrying heart of mine 
 That ailed the livelong day, 
 
 And listening tense for thine, 
 Remembered scarce to beat ! 
 
 Step ghostlier — do not stir 
 Forgotten miseries 
 
 Come thou no nearer her. 
 
 Still, and appeased at last, 
 
 By every sign she sleeps — 
 Forsaken of desire. 
 
 Alas, the slumbering deeps 
 Will tremble 'neath thy voice — 
 
 Thy faintest whispering break 
 Her calm's frail barrier. 
 
 Ah, go ! she shall not wake ! 
 
 57 
 
A SONG OF AFTERWARD 
 
 T SLEW her heart with kisses 
 And tossed her soul away — 
 I balmed her sleep in blisses, 
 
 Lest dreams from love betray ; 
 I wound her in a shroud of song 
 
 Lest pain her path forget — 
 And all the empty hours along, 
 
 With snares of fragrance set. 
 
 Her ghost rose Queen of kisses 
 
 To haunt my life away — 
 Throughout all newer blisses 
 
 Her phantom doth betray ; 
 And now I make her dirge in deeds 
 
 Of other women's wrong, 
 Nor angels heed what anguish bleeds 
 
 In the blasphemer's song ! 
 
 58 
 
THE CONVICTS 
 
 npHUS spake an artist, riding idly where 
 
 A chain gang breaking stones upon the road, 
 Compelled his heart from comrades brave and fair 
 To closer study of the penal code: 
 " Your brow is sullen and your life a curse, 
 From sin ye came and innate evil bear, — 
 But, brother, I who ride and laugh, do worse 
 Than you who toil in open sentence there ! 
 I drag a chain self-forged; nay, 'tis no jest, 
 Yonder she waits, — the wife, whose silken pace 
 Dwarfs my man's stride to crawl at her behest, 
 While mated weaklings pass me in the race." 
 
 59 
 
AN INCIDENT 
 
 A S twilight lay upon the sea, 
 
 A sombre priest once strayed 
 Where idle groups of worldlings throng 
 In vanity's parade. 
 
 And when his habit faint across 
 
 My lady's velvet swept, 
 A flash of longing for the world 
 
 Across his conscience crept. 
 
 My lady's glance fell on his face. 
 Bent prayerful o'er his book — 
 
 A flash of envy for his peace 
 Her inmost being shook. 
 
 Both went their way all unaware 
 
 Of what had each befell — 
 Within his soul a stray desire, 
 
 Within her heart a cell ! 
 
 60 
 
AN ALLEGORY 
 
 A BOVE — the Eiger rose in clouds of snow, 
 The death gorge of the ice crevasse below; 
 Aware of crumbling terror 'neath his feet, 
 He staggered back, — miraculous retreat — 
 Safe, on the rugged rocks of certainty! 
 Then in a swift reactive bravery. 
 He faltered near — one flower allured so fair 
 That clung beneath the ledge in dizzy air. 
 One crimson flower blooming amid the frost — 
 And seeing her, he tottered, and was lost. 
 
 Unmoved, the Eiger pointed to the sky. 
 Below the silent glacier gave no sigh; 
 The sweet and evil flower bloomed on; afar 
 Hell burned the brighter for a fallen star ! 
 
 6i 
 
ANY MAN TO ANY WOMAN 
 
 WT HAT will you make of me ? 
 
 A lawless Lover. 
 True to the blood that runs in errant veins? 
 Another Antony betraying kingdoms? 
 An Abelard, whose crimson passion stains 
 A sacred vow ? Or yet the flawless hero, 
 As Parsifal eluding Venus' arms — 
 Visioned beyond men's lower satisfactions? 
 Some Petrarch singing whitely of your charms? 
 
 We are a little lower than the angels, 
 
 But hid within us all the gods abide. 
 
 For you the sword is drawn, for you dishonoured. 
 
 Faithful or faithless you at last decide. 
 
 You are the Circe of our every power, 
 
 You are the fire alike to blood and brain, 
 
 Call us, Oh, Heart of Woman ! Call your bond-men ! 
 
 When have your signals flashed to us in vain ? 
 
 62 
 
ANY WOMAN TO ANY MAN 
 
 ^1X7" HAT will you make of me? 
 
 A shining Helen 
 Lit by Troy's blazing towers? Some pale Camille 
 Dead of vain love ? Or does the phantom Laura 
 Unto your lyric phantasy appeal? 
 Would you but seek me for a pretty pastime, 
 To dance the hours away in pleasure's lead? 
 Or does a nobler vision claim your worship — 
 Mother of Men thrill your diviner need? 
 
 Faint lies our star beneath the far horizon, 
 Until you curse or bless it into flame, 
 Empress or Angel, Magdalen, Madonna 
 Await your christening voice of pride or shame. 
 Call us to kingdoms, martyrdom or passion, 
 We are the answer to your inmost prayer — 
 There are no depths for you we have not fallen, 
 There are no heavens too high for us to share ! 
 
 63 
 
THROUGH THE IVORY GATE 
 
 ^^np HERE are two gates of dream — the Ivory 
 Gate is that through which unrealized visions 
 pass." 
 
 64 
 
I 
 
 IN A MOON-COLOURED GARDEN 
 
 XX7HY do you stand where the Virgin lilies 
 ^^ Lift their souls upon midnight space? 
 What is the spell of their moon-lit silence? 
 A face — only a face. 
 
 Why do you shiver where crimson roses 
 Yield their hearts in the noontide glow? 
 
 Theirs is the sign betwixt love and slumber 
 On lips I used to know. 
 
 Why do you wait in the bronze-green twilight 
 When restless- footed dancers pair? 
 
 I wait for my dream with the dark returning - 
 A heaven of dusky hair. 
 
 65 
 
11 
 
 A DREAM OF FIRST APPEARING 
 
 A LL night I wandered down a way 
 
 Familiar to old dreams, — yet vague estranged 
 Through dread of where that sloping path might lead. 
 The trees arched friendly, waters sang unchanged 
 Till currents widened and my trouble grew — 
 The light seemed spent, the shadow closer fell, 
 There was no bridge to span the rising flood, 
 No hand outstretched to break the pallid spell : 
 And then, — for I had passed that way before 
 In dreams, my fate I guessed; but not till You 
 Stood with averted face and did not speak, 
 Perceived the shallow horror was not true! 
 
 ^ 
 
Ill 
 
 WHISPERED BETWEEN DREAMS 
 
 IV/f Y little Love — should you slip from my side 
 ^^^ and die, 
 Your soul I know would rise to bless the Summer 
 night, 
 A timid star, — too far from me ! Too high ! 
 And I, through unkissed hours should scan the heav- 
 ens bright 
 Until I found you by your shivering light, 
 Aware my passion even from your sky. 
 Remote and comfortless that far gold spirit sign — 
 Dream close, lest God allure you from these arms of 
 mine! 
 
 67 
 
IV 
 
 CHANSONETTE D'UN REVE 
 
 V\7AKEFUL our love-haunted garden sweet, 
 
 (What have you done to my dreams, Petite?) 
 Wistful the breath of the mignonette, 
 (Dreams that remember when days forget?) 
 
 The silence grows and the night is sweet, 
 
 (What have you breathed through my dreams, Petite?) 
 
 The amorous moonlight slumbers deep, 
 
 (O the wild bird calling through my sleep!) 
 
 The dew lies glad on our garden sweet, 
 (What have you dared in my dreams. Petite?) 
 The moth is come to the heliotrope, 
 (So might a kiss through the darkness grope!) 
 
 68 
 
V 
 
 OPIUM 
 
 T AM that one in whom worn hearts forget 
 
 Their wasteful wage of sin-earned misery; 
 Dear Circe of the sinful, I am she 
 
 Whose face with tears of rueful men is wet ! 
 
 My voice is slow with murmur of the sea, 
 
 My breast like green seduction of her graves 
 
 I bear the fevered heart, as on her waves, 
 Until they drown beneath all memory. 
 
 I have no creed of life or loyalty, 
 I have no joy of daring, or disdain 
 
 Of perfidy ; mine are the weary slain ; 
 The fallen, as to love, turn back to me. 
 
 In my betrayal certain madness lies, 
 Of my desertion Emperors have died ; 
 
 My soft embrace no bliss may safe deride. 
 For I am she no man may dare despise. 
 
 My hair is stupor; languor-shaded deep 
 
 My eyes, and dark with unsearched mystery ; 
 
 Men find Nirvana's prophecy in me, 
 I am the timeless courtesan of Sleep ! 
 
 69 
 
VI 
 
 ROSEMARY 
 
 A DREAMING of past lovers 
 '^^ For half the night she lay, 
 Some dead since many Summers, 
 
 Some half the world away. 
 Grey eyes and brown once fervent 
 
 Sank deep into her own, 
 For tears and futile longing 
 
 So dim and wistful grown. 
 
 Young lips smiled old caresses 
 
 As youth came back again, 
 Unto their lure she yielded — 
 
 Incredulous and fain ; 
 Yet none did chide the faithless 
 
 For lips and eyes astray 
 From troth so weary guarded 
 
 Throughout the faithful day. 
 
 No jealous law withheld them. 
 
 When nearness snatched their breath 
 To merge their listless being 
 
 In waking — or in death; 
 But one faint face eluded. 
 
 The old mad, vanished way — 
 And weeping for remembrance 
 
 For half the night she lay ! ' 
 
 70 
 
T 
 
 VII 
 ATTAINED! 
 
 HIS is no dream ! 
 
 For when in dreaming 
 Love counterfeits the raptured sense, 
 The sacrament of Spirit fails me 
 In premonitions of suspense. 
 
 This is no dream ! 
 
 Or from such dreaming, 
 The sun would wake me, or the rain 
 Upon my heart — as tears faint falling — 
 Re-bind the daybreak's silver chain. 
 
 This is no dream! 
 
 Nor dream of dreaming. 
 This mystic flight of soul with soul — 
 Starward, yet passionately mortal, 
 Unquenched desire our flaming goal! 
 
 71 
 
VIII 
 
 A FAREWELL 
 
 npELL one bead of the rosary at morn for me, 
 
 And go your way — 
 No envy shall I know of hearts you win, regret, 
 
 betray — 
 Remember me, white Spirit, when you pray. 
 And from afar, as star to star might lean — 
 Disdained the brief triumphant heard and seen ! 
 
 In sleep's clairvoyant reverie dream back to me, 
 
 Across the night — 
 Let your voice calling from the inmost realms of 
 
 Dream-land bright — 
 Renew elusive echoes of delight! 
 Pity alone were mine, if granted this, 
 For those who touch your hand or breathe your kiss. 
 
 72 
 
IX 
 
 A LOVER'S SONG 
 
 T LIKE a May night best to lie a'waking — 
 
 And Summer moons to dream of hasting bliss, 
 The Autumn darks for love's supreme surrender, 
 
 Winter for sleep, please God, forgetting this ! 
 
 Waking or sleeping, loving, aye or dreaming — 
 Life speed the joy that doth all pain beget ! 
 
 What had the year of lure or hope or terror — 
 Robbed of the kiss whose shadow is regret ? 
 
 73 
 
X 
 
 TO SLEEP 
 " Perchance to dream." 
 
 /^ SLEEP, come not as you have come 
 
 Through all the feverish years, 
 Rouse not those phantoms of desire 
 That waken us in tears ! 
 When that long night of endless dark fit us for 
 
 Paradise, 
 Forbid Life play her drama o'er beneath our passive 
 eyes! 
 
 First childhood, dreaming deep of toys 
 
 The daybreak steals away. 
 The Lover hidden with his bliss — 
 Turned wistful back to day ; 
 The parted Passionate that meet to almost win em- 
 brace, 
 Before the waking treachery dissolves in pensive grace. 
 
 Then sadder dreams, — where those long lost 
 Faint through our slumbers roam — 
 
 In silent marvel at our joy 
 In seeing them turned home; 
 74 
 
TO SLEEP 
 
 So real, one follows after sleep their presence to recall ; 
 So false, that all day long their shadows cast a mystic 
 pall. 
 
 In those first visions of the night. 
 
 Whose dreams were augury 
 To Sibyl and to Seer of old, 
 What strange revealings be! 
 What retributions wait us there! Was it our natal 
 
 star 
 That cursed our rest with haggard fears and limned 
 us as we are? 
 
 O Sleep, come not as you have come, 
 
 With dreams so mocking sweet. 
 Or so distraught that madness lies 
 The way your paths entreat — 
 To ours who 'neath the grasses lie, let no vain visions 
 
 creep, 
 To our Beloved may it be. He giveth dreamless sleep ! 
 
 75 
 
HIDDEN 
 
 "D ENEATH the careless jest and easy laughter 
 
 Sad little ghosts of passion hide, 
 Like anguish from old stifled dreaming 
 Nestling in silence at our side. 
 
 Mocking and pale — within the haunted shadow 
 Of found too late and lost too soon — 
 
 Across our hearts they flit impassive 
 As silver seeking of the moon. 
 
 Always they kiss — their fond arms laced and cling- 
 ing— 
 
 The while we chatter far removed, 
 Dusk little wraiths of banished sweetness 
 
 Deriding us for love unloved. 
 
 y6 
 
o 
 
 A CURSE 
 
 UT of the East nor West 
 No tender-eyed shall come 
 To love thee first nor best, 
 
 Or strike old echoes dumb. 
 Out of the North nor South, 
 
 Passion nor pain nor joy 
 Shall lay to thy lips the waking mouth 
 
 That made thee man from boy. 
 Body and spirit first-love bereft, 
 
 Whole thou shalt never be ; 
 And Heaven itself shall take what I left 
 
 Branded with love of me ! 
 
 n 
 
AFTER GLOW 
 
 111 ER dawn rose opal from a Summer sea, 
 
 Song was her birthright and her viol strings 
 Tuned to the voices of all raptured things. 
 Too soon Love heard her singing — even He 
 Who is all song, all joy, all agony. 
 The fire of Winters and the sun of Springs, 
 And with her trod the early blossomings 
 A little hour, — then was a memory! 
 Now Day goes in with Pindar to the feast 
 Of Gods, and happy trains pursue delight; 
 Across brown fields She turns unto the East, 
 Where her sun rose, not where he lies to-night, 
 Nor has that dew-lit presence ever ceased 
 To blur all later magic on her sight. 
 
 78 
 
AFTERWARD 
 
 THOU most remaining of retreating things, 
 I die of beauty felt afar from thee ! 
 Each moon become a ghost of dreams to me, 
 Each purple shadow, twilight of thy wings. 
 There is no chord the husky cello sings 
 But sets a ravening entreaty free 
 Once more to mate our human harmony, — 
 Each sense a prey to beauty-passionings. 
 
 Bereft of thee, Edens are stranger grown 
 Than that first nightfall on the exiled Eve ; 
 Thou art become delight's pale enemy, 
 Thou lingering elusive undertone — 
 Desert and darkness less despairing leave 
 The heart, than Beauty's cup unshared by thee ! 
 
 79 
 
FROM A GHOST TO HER LOVER 
 
 C HE who was I — long done with April sobbing, 
 Lies with her face turned Eastward, rapt in the 
 slow embrace 
 Of reminiscent blisses, embalmed in lilac odours, 
 While passing seasons trace, re-trace, their webs of 
 vanished grace. 
 
 What drew your careless footsteps here to wake her? 
 She was so passionless, so tranquil dead — 
 Why did you pipe your human lilt above her, 
 Sweeter than all the jealous angels said? 
 
 Why should your coming rouse her passion's music, 
 Till her own heart-beat drowns the ebbing stream 
 Lulling the rhythm of her lyric slumber? 
 Waking, you rob her of the endless dream. 
 
 What hint betrayed a troubled pulse within her? 
 How did you feel the old desire but slept? 
 Drawing her by your echo of the Springtide, 
 Till mortal longing through her senses crept? 
 
 Cruel, O Cruel ! Forcing her to listen — 
 To your lost voice of Pleasure's light recall, 
 She is a Ghost — I swear it ! Dead and buried — 
 She dare not hear, you cannot break the thrall. 
 
 80 
 
FROM A GHOST TO HER LOVER 
 
 Go! For her wistful spirit may not wander 
 Forth to you o'er the April hills again, 
 Though you may breathe her intimate in shadow — 
 Though you may hear her in the fragrant rain. 
 
 She who was I — long done with blossomed twilights, 
 With her fixed smile vowed rigid unto a further dawn. 
 The plighted one of Gabriel and deep of death 
 
 enamoured — 
 Shivering hears you pass, — re-pass, — and prays you 
 
 to be gone. 
 
 8i 
 
FOR A FLY-LEAF OF DANTE 
 
 PASSIONLESS Dante! Hades' warning pain 
 
 Lost power when you left pale Francesca there 
 Within her lover's arms. What wan despair, 
 What exile haunts those hearts whom Love hath 
 
 slain — 
 In death condemned to love that dreads no wane 
 Since he is Paolo — and she most fair? 
 Sensuous-souled and mystic-sensed to share 
 Their dream, nor deem it Paradise in vain I 
 
 The sadder shades in wistful torment gaze 
 As their young forms curved with the yielding grace 
 Of flame beneath desire's swift breath embrace — 
 While each, the other's wonder doth amaze. 
 For sake of arms that cling and souls that kiss 
 Perdition found together were but bliss ! 
 
 82 
 
THE INTERPRETER 
 
 ALAS ! the Poet sings of love in vain 
 To those who nothing of love's torment know ; 
 Who cannot listen sighing " Even so 
 I burned for Philomel " — " Thus was I fain 
 To grant the pleasure of my shepherd swain," 
 " His eyes were thus," — " Her mouth was sweet and 
 
 slow,"— 
 Each heart rekindled to a former glow 
 That through reflected passion flames again. 
 But Love, how came Rossetti to rehearse 
 Diviner intimacies all our own? 
 These tears he weeps are tears long shed for you, 
 The languor ours his shadow lines intone, 
 And our despair that makes the heart beat through 
 Each word, — till ours not his the haunting verse! 
 
 83 
 
L'ENVOI 
 
 T WEAR no rue for the days that were, 
 
 Days of delusion as keen as pain — 
 Full of folly and passion and song, 
 Theirs was not rapture spent in vain. 
 
 What should I dream in the days that are, 
 Days of awaking to lonely truth — 
 
 If the days that were had never been, 
 Steeped in their yellow wine of youth? 
 
 What were the vows that we left unsworn. 
 In our Fool's paradise, Love and I? 
 
 What random sweet under moon or sun 
 Did our lips hesitate to try? 
 
 Twixt the joy of then and the calm of now, 
 Strange seas of fathomless being flow, — 
 
 I wear no rue for the days that were, 
 In the leisurely afterglow ! 
 
 84 
 
TO A GHOST 
 
 COUL of passion, mirth and tears, 
 
 Spirit of the vanished Spring, 
 In your marble stateliness 
 Do you hear me as I sing? 
 
 Doe3 my heart-beat reach your dream? 
 
 Do the Hlacs tinge for you? 
 Are they vanity at last. 
 
 All the sweet things that we knew ? 
 
 Kisses on your lips of dust. 
 
 Even mine, — would naught avail, 
 
 Since between us, Loved and Lost, 
 Death has dropped the arras pale. 
 
 If I left the world to-night, 
 What my welcome out in space? 
 
 Should I find you, know you there 
 By the tears upon your face ? 
 
 Ghost of Summers vanished long. 
 Folded hands no more caress — 
 
 Should we make of sorrow, song? 
 Poesy of weariness ? 
 
 8s 
 
TO A GHOST 
 
 Do you hear me while I call ? 
 
 Drink with me the spirit wine? 
 Once you swore your soul the slave 
 
 Of this flaming soul of mine ! 
 
 What your fond vocation now ? 
 
 Wraiths of women wan and fair, 
 Do they waft you, — earth forgot — 
 
 Though eternal wastes of air? 
 
 Did your vows and longing cease? 
 
 Is your spirit bond or free? 
 Crueller than Death this peace — 
 
 Creeping betwixt you and me! 
 
 86 
 
THE LOVER'S ANSWER 
 
 THE Poets whisper " Love is swift to ashes " — 
 "The roses fall — our hearts to time must 
 bow " — 
 We kissed, and mocked them, as our passion deepened, 
 Must we accept their pallid verdict now? 
 
 Was it for us to follow lone and sighing 
 
 Where husky voices from their graves deride? 
 
 Accept the burden sore of lover's yearning — 
 Dolours and tears and wasteful dreams, untried? 
 
 Nay, if we knew of their lost Springs one dawning, 
 If Love one little moon has turned her face 
 
 Un-veiled, — ours be their sentence sad and final, 
 But ours their legacy of golden grace ! 
 
 For us the flower ! We caught the raptured cadence ! 
 
 We twined with Love the garland way of youth ! 
 Ours to interpret by that lyric moment 
 
 The beauty and the pity of their truth ! 
 
 87 
 
ALLEGRO CON GRAZIA 
 (The Symphony Pathetique of Tschaikowsky) 
 
 AT the silvering rim of darkest dawn 
 Still my wistful Lover lingering sate, 
 Moon and stars and rapture gone — 
 By my grave dispassionate ; 
 
 Sifting through his fingers warm 
 Ashes of my heart and hair, 
 Ghosts of sense set free at last 
 Wantoning upon the air. 
 
 (Patise) 
 Envious Morpheus binds no jealous dream 
 Closer than those amorous mortal hands. 
 — Can it be remembered tears 
 Cloud the seraph sarabands? — 
 
 Lips that kissed but yester-year 
 Muted now in smiling frost, 
 Sighing through the cypress trees 
 For the taste of pleasure lost. 
 
 (Sound of dry leaves falling) 
 Ye, who shimmering flaunt in life's bright zone — 
 Beds inviolate now await your mirth, 
 Ye shall wed as I am wed 
 With the sullen arms of earth ; 
 And your Lovers vainly seek 
 88 
 
ALLEGRO CON GRAZIA 
 
 In some fickle paraphrase, 
 
 Groping futile to forget, 
 
 Haunted by a vague malaise. 
 
 (Sound of wind in bare branches) 
 Death — the unfaltering sower casts his seed, 
 
 Time — the unhindered turns his dripping glass, 
 And the sands that run between 
 Hearts of women 'neath the grass. 
 
 Unto them be Paradise! 
 
 Unto me, my Lover there — 
 
 Sifting through his empty hands 
 
 Ashes of my heart and hair ! 
 
 89 
 
THE OLD MUSICIAN 
 
 llJE dreams of youth, 
 
 He dreams of love, 
 And while his fingers touch the strings, 
 
 The fitful sighs of passions past 
 Flit o'er his soul on gusty wings. 
 
 A random sob, 
 
 A sudden tear — 
 May find their echo in his chord, 
 
 Yet while he plays — the world is young! 
 You scant his joy who swift applaud. 
 
 Ah, wake him not ! 
 
 The world is old — 
 The world is cruel, — while he plays 
 
 Happy he is and well beloved — 
 The gallant of his golden days ! 
 
 90 
 
THE LAST ECHO 
 
 \T7HAT cadence of the world's delight will linger 
 on, 
 
 When all my errant wanderings be dust and done? 
 Haply the benediction soft intoned at Rome, 
 Losing its way in cloudy incense 'neath the dome ; 
 Or when from slender towers escape the cloistered 
 
 sighs 
 Of vesper bells to ring down oleander skies ; 
 
 Or thud of running Cossack horse on morning grass, 
 Chilling the startled blood beyond the bugler's brass. 
 
 Perchance the nightingales of Greece as passion 
 
 swayed 
 They sang the deathless sting of love from out the 
 
 shade ; 
 Or baleful cuckoo's troubling voice, forboding ill 
 When shadows crossed the sun at noon, from glade 
 
 to hill 
 Of those enchanted deeps of leafy Fontainebleau, 
 Where romance lends a nest to wandering dreams, — 
 
 ah, no ! 
 Nor doth the sea repeat it as her flood subsides, 
 Drawn from her moonward longing by her jealous 
 
 tides. 
 
 91 
 
THE LAST ECHO 
 
 Nay, none of these within my soul will linger on 
 When the last ravishment of sense be dull and done ! 
 
 Rather a human love word, fainting on its start 
 
 Across the distance from thy lips unto my heart ; 
 Nor yet the wistful word that swooned upon the 
 wing, 
 
 But echo of our raptured silence following. 
 
 92 
 
TO THE CELLO 
 
 THOU who hast sought as we — and never 
 found — 
 And seeking still doth haunt the Shades of sound, 
 We hear thy footfall thread the darks of pain, 
 Through crypts of Being wander forth again. 
 The sea reverberates within thy chorded strings, 
 Her swimming ectasies and fair dead drowned 
 things ; 
 The wind doth sigh with thee from off far Pisgah 
 heights, 
 Fraught with the trembling mystery of forest 
 nights, 
 Ranging through starry passions unassuaged and wise. 
 
 The Poet's soul thou art, — his hell and paradise. 
 Throughout our buried life a wanderer divine. 
 Bliss cannot bar thee out or agony confine; 
 Thine adorations lift a daring breath 
 Across the barricades of love and death ; 
 Thou art to us what thou canst never know — 
 The lifted veil of beauty here below. 
 
 93 
 
TO A STREET ORGAN MELODY 
 
 TJ^ LUNG out upon the air through mists of snow, 
 •'■ Straight to the heart it rises from below, 
 That song so late Love's own! 
 
 A year ago 
 The world went mad beneath its subtle sweet ; 
 Nothing so sad save one girl's face I know — 
 
 Wherein remembered beauty lingers, though 
 No longer queen of courtly revels now, 
 
 Grown sordid, half-desired, she as thou 
 Has wandered from Love's halls upon the street ! 
 
 94 
 
N 
 
 UNTO THE GOD OF PLEASURE 
 
 'OT all the Roman revelries forgot 
 
 Of mad Caligula, who did his world out-dare, 
 Enamoured to the lips of favourites and hot 
 
 With lusty wine and tyranny, compare 
 With him my lute would sing,— the God of Pleasure. 
 Sing my lute ! Wake to some frenzied measure I 
 Feasters jaded, 
 Roses faded. 
 
 Crystal philtres — what comes after 
 Fillets twined with love and laughter? 
 
 Diana's temples on the far Mgean, 
 
 Nor Dionysus' bacchanals in green array — 
 
 Have raised their Gods a more delirious paean. 
 Than we who reel at Pleasure's call to-day. 
 
 Hail the immortal tyrant, mortal Pleasure ! 
 Sing my lute ! Ring out a pagan measure ! 
 
 Passioned glances, 
 Siren dances, 
 
 Harp and viol — what comes after 
 Kisses wet with love and laughter? 
 
 Cruel the despot is,— though outwardly 
 
 His sceptre marks the beat of every man's de- 
 sire — 
 
 95 
 
UNTO THE GOD OF PLEASURE 
 
 His empire to the grave discerns no boundary, 
 
 His smile is bright as purgatory fire. 
 Sing my lute the chariot wheels of Pleasure ! 
 Sing my lute ! Ring out a brazen measure ! 
 Neighing courser, 
 Bravos hoarser, 
 Red arenas — what comes after 
 Gilded death and love and laughter ? 
 
 Loved as no monarch e'er was loved, — in vain ! 
 
 From crown to lowly cot his tribute he pursues, 
 From every careless heart that follows in his train 
 
 He wrings the payment of his poisoned dues. 
 Wail my lute! Deplore in doleful measure 
 
 The ravages of our mad tyrant Pleasure! 
 Wail the crushed grape and fevered brow — 
 Wail the spent will and broken vow — 
 Wail the swift youth of squandered treasure 
 
 Bowed in the vassalage of passing Pleasure ! 
 
 96 
 
A CLUB-MAN'S REQUIEM 
 
 \T7 ARREN has gone ; and we who loved him best 
 Can't think of him as 
 
 " entered into rest." 
 But he has gone ; has left the morning street, 
 The clubs no longer echo to his feet, 
 Nor shall we see him lift his yellow wine 
 To pledge the random host — the purple vine. 
 
 At doors of other men his horses wait. 
 His whining dogs scent false their master's fate ; 
 His chafing yacht at harbour mooring lies ; 
 " Owner ashore " her idle pennant flies. 
 Warren has gone — 
 
 Forsook the jovial ways 
 Of Winter nights — turned from his well-loved plays, 
 The dreams and schemes and deeds of busy brain, 
 And pensive habitations built in Spain, 
 Gone, with his ruddy hopes ! And we who knew him 
 
 best 
 Can't think of him as " entered into rest." 
 
 So when the talk dies out or lights burn dim 
 We often ponder what is keeping him — 
 What destiny that all-subduing will, 
 That golden wit, that love of life, fulfil ? 
 For we who silent smoke, who loved him best, 
 Can't fancy Warren " entered into rest." 
 
 97 
 
DECORATION DAY 
 
 P^LAGS and the band and marching — 
 
 Of faithful veteran feet, 
 Fathers, young men, and children 
 With voices shrill and sweet ; 
 And Lincoln's spirit marching in every shining line, 
 And Lincoln's peace and freedom lit with the smile 
 Divine ! 
 Flags and the band and marching — 
 
 Banners that proudly wave, 
 May, green upon the meadows 
 And on the soldier's grave ; 
 The boys in blue are ashes 'neath the lilacs on their sod, 
 But their souls are free forever with Lincoln and with 
 God! 
 Flags and the band and marching — 
 And the drum-beat's steady throb. 
 Pipe on above, O Robin, 
 To drown a sudden sob ! 
 The laurel wreath for heroes dead ! And a cheer for 
 all the brave 
 Who march with Lincoln's soul to-day to liberate and 
 save I 
 
 98 
 
WHERE GOD IS 
 
 ^^OT only in the meetinghouse 
 
 -'^^ That tops a windy hill, 
 
 Where droning psalm and discourse long 
 
 Warn of His awful will ; 
 Nor in the hushed cathedral gloom 
 
 Replete with mystic sign, 
 'Mid kneeling worshippers devout, 
 
 We hear the heart divine. 
 
 But when the twilight sets a star 
 
 On heaven's amber rim, 
 When oceans rave or tempests roar 
 
 Their first creation's hymn ; 
 In some undreamed-of providence, 
 
 Or mortal contact dear, 
 In some lone last extremity — 
 
 We find his presence near ! 
 
 99 
 
IN A HILLSIDE GRAVEYARD 
 
 ACROSS their graves impartial shines the sun, 
 In that community of buried life 
 Where each, when he his best had done, laid down 
 His passing triumph, weariness and strife. 
 
 Neighbours they lived, who still as neighbours sleep, 
 And oft opposed for church and state they strove - 
 
 While each some measure won of that which man. 
 In his brief vision, calls renown and love. 
 
 Across their graves impassive smiles the moon, 
 Whose paler light harmonious balms their fame 
 
 And writes strange shadow legends on their stones. 
 To cheer the waning portent of a name. 
 
 The ends to which each gave his years, survive ; 
 
 A few remembering hearts remember yet — 
 Beyond this common mortal elegy 
 
 Nature must justify, when men forget. 
 
 Across their graves impartial shines the sun. 
 The moonbeam lies on snowdrift as on sward ; 
 
 May God's eye pierce this lowly neutral sod 
 And souls like theirs distingfuish and reward ! 
 
 lOO 
 
THE CRYPT 
 
 T>ENEATH the edifice that men call Me — 
 ^ Whose minarets attract the setting sun, 
 Whose portals to the passer-by are free, 
 Abides another one. 
 
 The heartbeat of the organ throbs not there, 
 To jar the heavy silence of the soul ; 
 
 Nor low amen of alcolytes at prayer. 
 Nor bells that ring, or toll. 
 
 Unsought, undreamed save by a solemn few, 
 Who with a lantern lit of love descend — 
 
 To find the buried arches grim and true. 
 On which the walls depend ! 
 
 lOI 
 
THE MIDSUMMER OF A NUN 
 
 I — July 20th — The Virgin's Eve 
 II — July 22nd — St. Mary Magdalen 
 
 III — July 23rd — St. Liborio the Bishop 
 
 IV — July 24th — St. Christine the Virgin 
 V — July 25th — St. James the Apostle 
 
 VI — July 28th — The Feast of the Martyrs 
 VII 
 
 102 
 
I 
 
 THE VIRGIN'S EVE 
 
 AT Vespers yesterday, I swore to say 
 A rosary each time my heart forgot 
 Its vows and thought love's wayward thought again. 
 The stained glass Saints in vivid choirs looked down, 
 Bathed me in fixed and abnegating smiles; 
 Saint Stephen in his myrtle robes approved 
 That love was guile, each time my eyes obeyed 
 The inviting arms of that great crucifix 
 That hangs between his window, and the one 
 Of fair young Abel stripped for sacrifice. 
 As bird escaped the snare of worldly ill, 
 My soul unfettered soared on holy wing. 
 In rapt communion with the Purified. 
 Alas ! The Priest's last intonation fell — 
 And just from habit, still upon my knees, 
 I sinned. 
 
 I prayed, not as a Sister prays 
 For sinners lost outside the cloister peace — 
 But that old scarlet prayer of joy for him ! 
 
 103 
 
II 
 
 SAINT MARY MAGDALEN 
 
 "ITZHAT penance is there done for love's dear sake, 
 
 So sore as putting love away, with lone 
 Committals of forgetfulness? I said 
 '* Hail Mary ! " o'er a hundred times last night, 
 Found consolation in Our Lady's name ; 
 Her seven sorrows entering into mine 
 Drove the forbidden thought from out my cell. 
 I watched it furtive through the grating slim 
 Waft upward to the far oblivious moon; 
 Wondering if Saint or God shone in that vague 
 Benignant face I worshipped as a child. 
 If God is love, how strange he should condemn 
 Our love as mortal sin ! He might create 
 Us as the Virgin lilies chaste and pale, 
 Performing rites of light and holiness 
 And fragrant incense white, — yet we are formed 
 To yearn for human touch, prayer of the sense, 
 A liturgy whose " amen " is a kiss — 
 Be deaf O Heaven ! Forgive ! 
 
 Sad women Saints, 
 Of ye alone henceforth I supplicate, 
 Till washed and blotted out this secret fault. 
 By all your passions past, your martyrdoms, 
 Grant me to hate as God would have me hate ! 
 Nor spare the last bright vestige of a dream! 
 
 104 
 
Ill 
 
 SAINT LIBORIO THE BISHOP 
 
 T> ETWEEN the holy offices all day 
 
 I never left the altar, where before 
 That crucifix by some dead master-hand, 
 In silent hope of mute deliverance 
 I knelt. On shadow avocations wont 
 The black-robed Sisters often went and came — 
 I dared not leave the shelter blindly sought 
 Beneath the greater agony of One 
 Who loved and suffered, just to spare the Lost 
 Their dread eternities. Before His wounds 
 Of thorn and spear my woman's hurt allayed; 
 Though His wide love for all a sinning world 
 Is not the same as one sharp dagger cut 
 That knows its way familiar to the heart, — 
 The love one woman suffers for one man 
 A little better or a little worse 
 Than all the rest, — as may be, which to her 
 Is nothing, as the world's ingratitude 
 Was nothing to its Victim slain to save. 
 O face upon the cross, you could forgive! 
 And he I loved could not. You talked serene 
 With that light woman by the wayside well, 
 You sent unscathed the idle Magdalen — 
 
 105 
 
SAINT LIBORIO THE BISHOP 
 
 Yet such divine compassion leaves me cold ; 
 The soul's high Bridegroom offering in vain 
 Ethereal espousals to efface 
 Indulgence from my passion-clouded heart. 
 
 Again my vow foresworn? Perdition's thought 
 Would violate the sanctuary's peace? 
 
 tortured face above, no added frown 
 Upon that bleeding brow for such a nun? 
 Those pinioned arms spurn not the haunted faith 
 Of her who seeks some compromise twixt love 
 And heaven? The gaze is still of pity? Then, 
 Let me be wicked, lost, but hear the truth — 
 
 1 love him best ! 
 
 Now smite me to the dust. 
 
 io6 
 
IV 
 SAINT CHRISTINE THE VIRGIN 
 
 AT matins in humility abased, 
 As turned to stone by knees insensate pressed, 
 Before the empty hospice of my heart 
 The long years seemed as endless highways stretched ; 
 Whereon as pious pilgrim faring forth, 
 At each poor wayside Calvary I paused, 
 In sacred fancy sought their shriving blest. 
 From all consuming, unangelic loves. 
 Till Satan, envious of sweet innocence. 
 With his insidious subtleties drew near — 
 And moved the sad Madonna in her niche 
 Above, to utter weary blasphemies. 
 As one distraught I heard her prayer — 
 ** Pity me, God ! the woman lonely within the shrine ! 
 Sick with the lavished incense, worshipped as one 
 
 divine ; 
 Canonised, blest, forgotten — on prayer eternal fed, 
 Sated with supplication, starving for daily bread! 
 These hands nor clasp, nor conquer, uplifted to my 
 
 throne ; 
 Nor lips of little children shall ever warm my own. 
 Pity me, God! the woman, Mother of Sorrows and 
 
 pain! 
 Loose me from adorations, make me a woman again I " 
 
 107 
 
SAINT CHRISTINE THE VIRGIN 
 
 Oh, white-coifed Sisters, was your calm so bought? 
 
 Beneath your folded hands are craters hid? 
 
 Oh, Convent Mother, scourge me, let me serve 
 
 The lowest ! Be the least ! So I dispel 
 
 The curse of pliant Eve upon me laid, 
 
 The eternal woman, quick at thought of him ! 
 
 io8 
 
V 
 SAINT JAMES THE APOSTLE 
 
 AT Benediction suddenly they came 
 And bade me take my place within the choir. 
 Sister Beata being stricken hoarse, 
 And my voice of all others most like hers. 
 I had not sung since — sole my Lover knows 
 What place, what hour. 
 
 Ah well, I had no choice. 
 Obedience is the heart-beat of a nun. 
 But when the organ's brave Magnificat 
 Accosted space, — swept up on wings of glory 
 I heard my own voice music to the stars — 
 Angels or demons caught me, as I swung 
 Above high heaven, above these human bonds 
 That wound me for Christ's sake. My psalteries 
 Inflamed, lit torches that set all the dome 
 With love's immortal pageantries ablaze. 
 
 The consecrated canticles I sang, 
 Yet vibrant with the love a woman spills 
 As sacred ointment o'er the feet she laves ; 
 Faithful though men deceive, changeless in change, 
 Through words that phrased divine fidelity 
 
 109 
 
SAINT JAMES THE APOSTLE 
 
 Unto a world where all beside must fade, 
 With shameless rapture of the Seraphim, 
 I sang the love that never was, — sang out 
 The love of which we evermore must dream 
 And wake dissatisfied. 
 
 The measure broke — 
 To fevered lips o'erflowing cups I held; 
 The youth in us that will not die, I hymned, 
 The purple passions and the simple sweets, 
 The dawns no day can follow or fulfil, 
 A languid face faint 'neath love's ministries — 
 Eternal fragrance and eternal pain, 
 Eternal April and eternal love, 
 Seen through symbolic rainbows of glad tears! 
 Then whispers, — moving us to wonderment 
 If past the power of sense or self exists 
 A good no passion and no love conceive? 
 Till voices faltered — grew hysterical — 
 The candles flickered — dropped into the dark- 
 
 Thus was I silenced by supreme decree, 
 Bade evermore beneath a raven robe 
 To strangle that untoward nightingale 
 Transfiguring their dun beatitude 
 To vivid accents of apostasy. 
 Kyrie Eleison ! God's will be done ! 
 
 IIO 
 
VI 
 
 THE FEAST OF THE MARTYRS 
 
 /^ ONFESSED, admonished, absolution given, 
 The exacted penance to the utmost done — 
 Nay more, — indulgence won in grim excess ; 
 Ravished by self-inflicted punishment — 
 Fasting and praying till by force they strove 
 To gently draw me from my orisons — 
 My spirit broken, spent but pacified 
 Partook the celebration of the Mass. 
 The festal hues of vestments blent confused; 
 A myriad of sacred candles streamed 
 O'er undulating ministrants who served 
 Devout, the radiant altar's mystic feast. 
 The cadence rose and fell ; mute acolytes, 
 Symbolic genuflection, postured prayer 
 Proceeded rhythmic each from each, then hush - 
 Discordant jangling of a startled bell 
 Proclaiming elevation of the Host. 
 
 Beneath my downcast eyes a light mist swayed ; 
 Within, gold-haloed faint the bitter cup! 
 Renunciation's cup that may not pass 
 Undrained — a blue flame circling at the brim, 
 Extended by unseen, supernal hands. 
 And for the first time, nun at heart, I wept. 
 
 Ill 
 
VII 
 
 "DUT afterward! What dreams unsanctified 
 
 Suffused that vision of Gethsemane! 
 How may a soul o'er Powers of Dark prevail, 
 If after strict observance of the Rule, 
 Night opens paradise renewed in sin? 
 Wide-ranging passion and the steady vow 
 Alike betrayed to venial carnivals, 
 By Foe in flame 'neath iris-hued disguise! 
 
 No Vestal I, save that my spirit fires 
 Incessant burn, — not unto heaven, but those 
 Forsaken altars of the starving sense, 
 Where beauty's various wonderments entreat. 
 No " Pax Vobiscum " shields unconsciousness, 
 In vain the " Tantum Ergo " warns between 
 Our phantom adorations each of each, 
 The " In Excelsis ! " echoing supreme 
 To Love's mad miracle that turns to wine 
 Fit for a marriage feast, the mournful tides 
 Of cloister sleep. I was not cloister-born, 
 Nor Bride of Heaven to keep celestial watch 
 Beneath Midsummer's silver-vigiled stars, — 
 And, rid the fear of Purgatory's wage, 
 
 112 
 
I trod the golden meadows of the Gods, 
 The nun's diurnal Virginals transformed 
 To lawless bacchanals of dream. 
 
 The bells 
 Recalled me to my pallet bed, at dawn, 
 My arms outstretched in semblance of a cross 
 In my left hand the rosary close clasped. 
 
 113 
 
A TALE OF TUSCANY 
 
 P RAISE to the eternal Maker of all men! 
 
 Praise Holy Mary and the Trinity! 
 Praise our Lorenzo the Magnificent, 
 And praise to ye, gay masking Florentines, 
 Ye youths and maidens who make revel here, 
 To hail the Spring's return o'er Tuscany ! 
 
 Attend unto my tale — 'tis simply sung, 
 The plaintive folly of a youthful monk, 
 Too soft of heart and young of sense, become 
 Enamoured of the listless Lady Moon. 
 With litanies long strove he to distract 
 This mystic passion from his soul away — 
 But how his torment fell, it is my tale 
 
 Pacing one eve, in pious fervour wrapt. 
 His eyes above his breviary strayed — 
 And he in consequence did soft perceive 
 Fair Mona Luna bathing in the stream ; 
 The Arno's murmuring courses glorified 
 Thereby. He was a youthful monk, unproved 
 By such device as tried Saint Anthony, 
 Nor guessed to lend unto a bathing nymph 
 His vision vowed to God, was deadly sin. 
 And as he watched, his passion mastered him,- 
 Trembling as tiny ripples on the shore — 
 
 114 
 
A TALE OF TUSCANY 
 
 But deepening as the silences mid-stream, 
 Till when far out she seemed to slip beneath 
 The shallow surfaces, her soul asleep — 
 In agony of fear lest she should drown, 
 His saffron frock he doffed to follow her, 
 Just as an aged Father, late turned home 
 From some last office read a dying saint 
 No doubt, — laid warning hands on him. 
 
 Ah, he 
 A youthful brother, — guessing not his sin, 
 And penitent, — may our Lord pardon such! 
 Yet who shall say if his knees served aright 
 Indulgence for his craving eyes to win? 
 For oh, the Donna Luna was unsworn 
 To chastity, obedience or pain ! 
 No mortal vow kept she, but fair and white 
 And amorous at heart, perhaps she cried 
 " Alas Madonna mia ! Exiles we — 
 Will no man wed with thee or me ? Alas ! 
 For us twain supernatural, removed 
 From mortal mating ; loveless and unloved ! " 
 I say perhaps she cried, — for none may dream 
 The secret faith of woman, sinner, saint 
 Or moon. 
 
 But he — through nights of rain he prayed — 
 And rose a proven monk. With orison 
 And rosary he wore his days away ; 
 Vespers and aves shrove him, till at last 
 One Summer midnight from the chapel dim 
 Unto his narrow cell he passed, — to find 
 
A TALE OF TUSCANY 
 
 Her lying on his pallet bed — her smile 
 The calm white smile of passion after death; 
 So silvery and soft she came to him ! 
 Ah, Mona Luna knew it was a sin — 
 The open casement lured, — she entered there 
 And with her came the breath of Summer night, 
 Firenze's flower-scented bride. Tube-rose 
 And jasmine perfume swift o'erturned his sense. 
 He swooned upon his wayward Mistress' breast — 
 A gentle victim of her ghostly wile. 
 Then came a life of madness ; day 'gainst night. 
 " Too sore he fasts ! " the holy brothers cried ; 
 " Too long his vigils ! Now o'er ripe for heaven 
 The fires celestial hover round his head ! " 
 Paler he grew ; within his eyes there seemed 
 To strive a light of hell and paradise. 
 Hectic his flush — his rosary heavier through 
 His trembling fingers daily slipped its weight — 
 And every bead petition was for night ! 
 Midsummer passed, — 'twas on Saint Martin's eve 
 The end befell ; as usual he crept 
 From shadow of the altar to his cell. 
 His Mistress waiting with her phantom guile 
 To take his shaven head upon her breast; 
 But stay — a golden jewelled chalice out 
 The sacristy he bore, and with it knelt; 
 While on the ruby's blood and opal fire 
 She laid her kisses, till they overflowed 
 With beaming ecstasies the sacred cup. 
 " So will I drink thee. Sorceress ! " he swore, 
 
 ii6 
 
A TALE OF TUSCANY 
 
 " Drink all thy smile and my distraught desire ! " 
 And wildly drank he — then with closed eyes 
 Insensate fell upon the flagging cold. 
 
 They found him so when matins failed his due; 
 Dead, unconfessed, unshriven and unblessed, 
 A heart of Tuscany beneath his frock. 
 Now of his legend there remains unsung 
 Only that on the tombstone of a monk, 
 Within a cloister yard Dominican, 
 The moon doth constant lay her pale embrace — 
 Doth love to dwell upon the name of one 
 Long canonised a visioned Saint. 
 
 To him, 
 A youthful brother, guessing not his sin. 
 And penitent, may our Lord pardon much ! 
 
 117 
 
TWILIGHT AT FLORENCE 
 
 AGAIN the fiery fingers of the scarlet creepers 
 write 
 Their brief Autumnal message on the wall of 
 Eremite, 
 Of villa and of vintage, and again the orchard sees 
 A low white moon entangled in her mesh of olive 
 trees. 
 Down the slopes of Bellosguardo the grape leaves hold 
 the sun, 
 While through the inner cloisters wan the purple 
 shadows run ; 
 And wide-horned oxen, homeward turned, stride 
 rhythmic, cheek to cheek. 
 Fit for the sacrificial pyre of beauty-loving Greek. 
 Somewhere a sudden bursting of pomegranate 
 
 hearted song 
 Such as to sultry lover throats of Italy belong! 
 E'er over dome and palace night wraps her silken 
 husk, 
 Fiesole's enchanted lights come twinkling up the 
 dusk ; 
 The Arno yields another day to dreams of afterglow, 
 And by the open Roman gate the Westering hours 
 go. 
 Climb, climb my lusty lion on the grim Bargello vane, 
 
TWILIGHT AT FLORENCE 
 
 You will not reach the sky in time, be you however 
 fain! 
 Already die the distant fires behind the cypress 
 trees — 
 The vesper bells fall silent as the sleeping centuries ; 
 While empires sink to ashes in the ragged sunset bars, 
 Over Galileo's tower swing Galileo's stars. 
 
 119 
 
A LEGEND 
 
 '"' I ""IS said that they who once have heard 
 _ -*• The bells in Life's high minster ring, 
 Heed not the chimes that cry the word 
 Of Avignon's young happening. 
 
 The bell of death — the bell of birth — 
 
 Reverberate within the soul, 
 While gaily swing the chimes of mirth 
 
 Or soft the vesper summons toll. 
 
 From angelus to angelus 
 
 'Tis said their hearts are Inward bowed; 
 Though outward seeming lifts no truce 
 
 Amid the gay or toiling crowd. 
 
 Hushed may the pealing fall — or fling 
 Glad hail unto the breaking day; 
 
 Clear on the startled soul they ring — 
 The bells of Life's old minster grey! 
 
 1 20 
 
RIVIERA RAIN 
 
 THE April rain slants southward 
 Across a silver sea, 
 The burden of its murmur 
 A tropic threnody. 
 
 It dallies in the vineyards, 
 
 The orange scents pursue; 
 It wanders 'mid the olives 
 
 Where hyacinths are blue, 
 It lingers in the almond trees 
 
 To flush them hues of dawn, 
 The jasmine dreams her lover 
 
 Has errant come — and gone. 
 
 It nestles with the violets — 
 
 In every footfall free 
 A vague beloved presentiment 
 
 Of immortality ; 
 Where'er it lists to wander, 
 
 Forever in my heart 
 It falls upon a far sweet grave 
 
 To bid the flowers start. 
 
 Summon the light anemone, 
 Thy fragile beauties all, 
 
 121 
 
RIVIERA RAIN 
 
 Those pale attendants of the dusk 
 That wait upon thy call ! 
 
 Bid them come forth in victory, 
 Their ghostly fragrance fling 
 
 To cheer the mortal dust beneath - 
 Thou Gabriel of Spring! 
 
 Go, April rain, sing seaward — 
 Beyond the barren wave 
 
 Thy gentler destination, 
 A far sweet hillside grave. 
 
 122 
 
IN THE PROTESTANT CEMETERY AT ROME 
 
 '^TT^IS here, where inland tides through cypress trees 
 
 -*• Flow from dream isles of soft Sicilian name, 
 In wave-taught accents sighing whence they came, 
 
 Weaving green songs and pagan sorceries, 
 That Shelley's restless heart finds dear repose 
 
 Near Keats' young dust strewn o'er with purple 
 bloom. 
 No loveless rigours mortalise their tomb, 
 
 Nor Wintry winding sheet of Northern snows; 
 Abiding favourites of the fickle year, 
 
 Oft may the signs of vernal solstice change. 
 Spring and her violets will never range 
 
 Faithless to Love's enamouring atmosphere, 
 Where stoicism wastes its chilling breath 
 
 On these who 'neath the ivy leaves are laid, 
 And all who wander questing in their shade. 
 
 Within these lyric haunts of Summer death. 
 
 123 
 
TO THE BARBERINI BEES 
 
 TJ^ MBLAZONED high upon the canopies 
 ■*-^ Above Saint Peter's sanctified repose, 
 Hiving 'mid papal tombs in crested shows, 
 Swarming on pillar and on haughty frieze. 
 Cluster the proud old Barberini bees; 
 Who live on incense and forget the rose, 
 As they forget their brotherhood with those 
 Dear humble buzzy fellows, overseas. 
 Oh, tell me, little toilers, do ye faint 
 Never for lowly beds of mignonette. 
 Or mountain paths with gipsy flowers set? 
 What honey lurks in porphyry and paint. 
 Or what content in Summer days like these 
 For vain immortal Barberini bees ! 
 
 124 
 
BROTHER RENUNCIO 
 
 A LL day a monk in saffron frock 
 •^"^ Unlocks the cloister door, 
 Nor lifts his dark ascetic eyes 
 Above the chapel floor; 
 - Ah, Spring from veins of Italy can never distant be, 
 While fair the dim Campagna green slopes down- 
 ward to the sea ! — 
 
 All day he takes the pilgrims' dole 
 
 For sight of tomb or shrine. 
 Nor heeds the cypress tall unto 
 
 The lilac soft incline ; 
 
 - Ah, love 'neath sky of Italy is never far astray, 
 And sweet the cloister-lilac's breath at Angelas will 
 
 pray ! — 
 
 At even-song his beads he tells 
 
 Before a faded saint; 
 The impulse of his pallid dream 
 
 A Magdalen in paint; 
 
 - Ah, night more lovely than the day embraces Italy, 
 The nightingale's enamoured song completes her 
 
 witchery ! — 
 
 125 
 
BROTHER REN UNCI 
 
 He does not see the promised land 
 
 That to his feet descends, 
 Amid the Winter violets 
 Begins and never ends; 
 -Ah, Italy and Paradise are near for such as he, 
 And in this blind immortal's hand lies now the pos- 
 tern key ! — 
 
 My brother, failing heaven here, 
 Should you miss heaven there, 
 How sad through purgatory's fear 
 To miss life everywhere ! 
 -Ah, life in hearts of Italy, makes mock of bended 
 
 knee, 
 And o'er the monastery wall her birds are nesting 
 free ! — 
 
 126 
 
THE SONG OF A SLAVE TO HER IDOL 
 
 A TEMPLE girl of Love's blind worship, I! 
 , "^^ No wakeful muezzin calls me to my prayer, 
 For in a million trivial servitudes, 
 
 Wherever Love is, I — the slave, am there ! 
 
 No golden bangles mark my postures light or ankle 
 
 bells the alien eye discerns, 
 Yet 'neath a fragile minaret unseen, my own heart in 
 
 the rising incense burns. 
 
 Let Azzan barter in the gay bazar and slip her veil 
 
 from her enticing face, 
 Or in some dim seraglio's musky dream the favourite 
 
 yield her slender body's grace — 
 
 Where brown-armed water boys will surely pass, 
 Fatma and Lalal lie within the shade — 
 
 Sweeter than yasmin breath the temple's spell upon 
 the bending slave of Love is laid ! 
 
 I serve the Idol more than stars serve heaven, 
 Since dawns betray the passion of the sky — 
 
 Within Love's mosque I feed the quenchless fire. 
 By day, by night, a temple girl am I ! 
 
 127 
 
A SONG OF MARINERS 
 
 ^tV\^HAT wind shall bear us to the shade? 
 
 Our eyes go blind 
 With struggle of the sea and wearisome mirage ; 
 
 No port we find, 
 And we are faint to guide our craft by any star. 
 
 O Fate be kind ! 
 No more of siren songs we dream — 
 
 Or Circe's breast, 
 Or golden apples of remote Hesperides, 
 
 Or guerdon blest, 
 We only cry for silence and eternal shade 
 
 Whose heart is rest. 
 Where lie those isles of afternoon, 
 
 Whose shadows lean 
 To heal us from these glaring glamours of the 
 sea? 
 
 Whose glooms of green 
 Shall fill a sense nor love nor beauty filled before 
 
 By heard or seen?" 
 
 Thus sang a mariner who held his forward watch un- 
 til he died, 
 And thus the vague pursuing voices of the waves 
 replied — 
 
 128 
 
A SONG OF MARINERS 
 
 " Turn back, turn back ye Mariners ! 
 
 Your compass learn! 
 False lies your course ! The lands ye seek, the 
 shoals of youth 
 
 Your taffrails spurn 
 For ocean's idle leagues, and wilful wandering, 
 
 Drift far astern ! 
 For visions of white fleeting sails 
 
 Ye steered aside 
 From pensive isles of far forgotten shade; 
 
 For roaming wide 
 And hungry sea birds lonely following, — the 
 sport 
 
 Of witless tide. 
 Endless and futile is your quest! 
 
 'Neath moons that wane, 
 And burning noons, across this desert of the 
 sea 
 
 Ye voyage in vain. 
 For forward ye shall never find the golden isles 
 
 Of youth again ! " 
 
 129 
 
THE SUPPLIANT 
 
 pOET, thy mouth full of flame-curving kisses, 
 
 Parian mouth, breathing sweeter than lute 
 strings — 
 Lures my heart far from my amber-eyed shepherd, 
 Seeking thy threshold ! 
 
 Sadder than burden of song-weary Sibyl 
 Weighed down my eyelids by love-laden vision, 
 Victimised I by implacable Cypris, 
 Mad but divinely. 
 
 Dancing my dance of ineffable pleading, 
 All my white body a prayer of the senses, 
 Lift me up ! Bend to thy suppliant kneeling, 
 Breast on breast cleaving! 
 
 Pity me tranced in immutable posture, — 
 Hush beyond wonder, impassioned beseeching — 
 Let the Gods answer, or smite me forever 
 Dead at thine altar ! 
 
 130 
 
CASSANDRA ON LEAVING TROY 
 
 T AUGH on, laugh on, ye faithless Trojans, laugh! 
 
 The while your city's bitter doom fulfilled 
 Sees rampired wall and palace chamber razed, 
 The shattered peristyles in ashes laid, 
 As she ye mocked for witless prophesied ! 
 
 God Apollo, did it not suffice 
 
 To curse the maiden of your golden choice. 
 But she from overthrow must fail preserve 
 Her country's weal ? 
 
 Mad? Yes, and justly so; 
 As I behold my augured fears blazed forth 
 By light of burning Trojan citadels. 
 Would I were mad and so escaped disgrace 
 Of free-born woman, falsifier named ! 
 
 1 knew ye felt no boding, when dismayed 
 I bade ye tremble at the first faint sound 
 
 Of Helen's name that troubled Argos heard — 
 Whose magic, warriors turned not with their spears, 
 Nor could avert with blazoned shields of wise 
 Device, and cunning wrought. I warned ye smite 
 That name of Helen, — at which women paled 
 In dread to find their beauty less than hers. 
 That name men whispered bodeless of its power 
 Or sins unsinned unto her Grecian grace — 
 
 131 
 
CASSANDRA ON LEAVING TROY 
 
 Imagined beauty, myth of Ilium, 
 
 Than all their loveliest loves more fair ! Laugh, Troy ! 
 
 Laugh on ! Now is Cassandra mad indeed ! 
 
 What tears so mad as laughter like to yours? 
 
 Till now untold my fate, save to deaf ears 
 Of Gods at sacrificial altars red ; 
 Hear me, and may avenging Deity 
 And mindful Fury hear! For ne'er my guide 
 Was Mercury, the patron of deceit. 
 The fairest of all Priam's daughters I, 
 Cassandra, wide and triple famed for dire > 
 Misfortune, beauty and divining power. 
 Nor arms most lustrous, horses panoplied 
 For war, seas with their gleaming galleys sown, 
 The spangled night, the sacred ilex groves 
 More beautiful, — her suitors swore, — than She, 
 The maiden Priestess of Fatality ! 
 Apollo's Priestess of the cool green shrine — 
 Minerva's suppliant, by whose desire 
 Corcebus was compelled, — a warrior called 
 To Priam's aid in 'leaguered Troy's relief, 
 Who laid his arms and prowess at her feet. 
 His suit dismissed by death to those low halls 
 Of sunless shades, next Prince Othryoneus, 
 An ally hither come from Thrace, — besought 
 Her for her beauty, asked no other dower ; 
 But he by Idomeneus fatal struck, 
 To Pluto's house of tears was forced retire. 
 Beauty accursed, with evil Helen shared ! 
 
 132 
 
CASSANDRA ON LEAVING TROY 
 
 Apollo looking on his Priestess found 
 Her fair, and offered her whatever prize 
 She coveted for favour of her love. 
 
 For gift of prophecy I did consent 
 
 With Loxias — which once conferred, I swift 
 
 Withdrew and mocked the Tempter, who had sought 
 
 Of his most holy altar's ministrant 
 
 Ignoble use. And then, since it was held 
 
 Too all unworthy of a God, re-take 
 
 What he had given, on hid revenge intent 
 
 He did constrain a kiss exchanged. O kiss 
 
 Of doom, I dared not from a God refuse ! 
 
 By whose excess of poisoned favour sweet 
 
 Confused, my lips shall never cease to mourn! 
 
 Incursive Deity, impassioning 
 
 Each in-drawn breath of men until they deem 
 
 Themselves the Lords of women evermore — 
 
 Spirit of wanton Capture — woe to thee ! 
 
 For since the Gods avenge their lov^ denied, 
 
 The altars are o'erturned, the Vestals wronged, 
 
 Both Gods and mortals to delirium brought 
 
 By mingling things of heaven with things of earth. 
 
 Woe for the kiss of Fate, that baneful kiss ! 
 
 Woe to Cassandra, knowing all too late 
 
 Giving, he took. O tragedy of Love! 
 
 In that ill-reasoned kiss of God to maid, 
 
 The gift of riddles dark read plain was hers, 
 
 But faith of all men stolen from her truth. 
 
 133 
 
CASSANDRA ON LEAVING TROY 
 
 Aid me, ye Muses ! Tune despairing lyres, 
 
 And chaunt the direful song of Loxias' kiss ! 
 
 Nor cease until his golden arrow-tips 
 
 Have pierced the coldest, most reluctant heart! 
 
 Sing how the Sun God all the sky suffused 
 
 With swooning stupors, ere he bodeful pressed 
 
 His melting passion through her scorched lips, 
 
 As were the glory of Immortals blurred 
 
 Within, yet at that fiery contact made, 
 
 As mortal with a mortal one, — - then left 
 
 Her frantic, raving on discredited ! 
 
 Almighty Jove ! O is it God-like thus 
 
 Vengeance to wreak on hapless maids who shun 
 
 Those pleasures interdicted by thy laws — 
 
 Unfitting twixt a mortal and a God ? 
 
 Such vengeful lust the wild boar well be-seems, 
 
 Whose prey slow-gliding him by stealth eludes 
 
 Along some sedgy river iris-fringed. 
 
 Because I would not turn from altar fires 
 
 To grant the madness of a mortal flame, 
 
 Apollo raged! The kiss he ruthless set 
 
 As price of his prophetic gift divine. 
 
 How was a virtuous Vestal to withhold? 
 
 When the Gods sue, resistance nought avails. 
 
 She served her Gods, he urged, — then why not serve 
 
 Her God for his delight? These lithe limbs bent 
 
 In sacrificial grace, — these amorous lips. 
 
 These Venus-haunted breasts, — why should she waste 
 
 In barren service of a common shrine? 
 
 134 
 
CASSANDRA ON LEAVING TROY 
 
 Apollo mocked such infamy — and kissed — 
 Then ere his radiant way pursued, he spake — 
 
 " And so, frail urn of mortal beauties,— glad 
 Thou would'st proclaim the hidden future? Warn 
 Of hateful war and fatal lightning flash, 
 Of seas tumultuous engulfing ship 
 And mariner to death? These portents dread 
 Prefer with insight ominous to divulge. 
 Rather than life of undistracted love 
 In present nuptials with a craving God? 
 Rather than him thine arms would clasp embraced 
 His laurelled altars chill, serve him afar — 
 Nor feel within thee stir those fires that break 
 The fecund Spring to blessing? Forces loosed 
 That wing the sandals of the languid streams 
 As hasted messengers to rise and run? 
 Through fruitless vintage cause the life blood flow, 
 That fond libations may be purple poured. 
 And swell the store of blossoms for the bee, 
 Lest pure white honey fail, to appease the shrmes? 
 Such powers as from Olympus' throne the Gods 
 Descending, deign on mortals loved bestow? 
 O Wayward One ! Be it as thou hast willed ! 
 Most melancholy madness shall be thine. 
 And hostile presage lie upon that breast, ^ ^ 
 
 Where might have lain young gods with all their Sire s 
 Immortal attributes. Thine eyes, close veiled 
 To splendours of his devastating flame. 
 Be glazed by burning cities, reek of gore, 
 
 135 
 
CASSANDRA ON LEAVING TROY 
 
 Disaster murk, — nor shall thy madness serve 
 To save one city from the appointed doom, 
 One armed host from ruin's shame; though men 
 Shall surely weep — too late — the augured ill 
 Thy tongue deplores ! " 
 
 Alas for truth inspired! 
 As no blind beggar by the city gate 
 Would spurn the aid of open eyes, the world 
 Refusing sight of me, I am by wile 
 Of Loxias thus deprived to avert from Troy 
 The dread catastrophe ; for what shall be 
 Already is. Futile the bellowing bulls 
 Of sacrifice, and foresight that but serves 
 To illumine hope deceived and labour lost! 
 Pleasure and peace are gone in ill foreknown. 
 No agony of mine can right the wrong, 
 Nor saving sight procure immunity 
 For them, most holy in my love. A sad 
 And wretched Priestess, I — of altars lone, 
 A vestal blameless, — save that I was fair; 
 No frenzied watcher of the chariot race. 
 Hot-flushed inciter of the flying steeds — 
 No Nymph enticing Satyrs to the dance 
 When Pan pipes up the vernal lure of Spring, 
 No Coryphee of Aphrodite's train, 
 Nor dew-drenched worshipper upon the hills 
 In Dionysus' fawn-skinned bacchanal, 
 But solemn-browed, uplifting unto Fate 
 A consecrated gaze oft veiled in tears. 
 Inspired sole by grim Eumenides 
 
 136 
 
CASSANDRA ON LEAVING TROY 
 
 I am declared, brain-sick and sore distraught, 
 
 When overtaken by prophetic throes 
 
 Inflicted by the God; like to that bird 
 
 For Itys, Itys ! wailing unassuaged, 
 
 Incarnate Sorrow, she, to whose lament 
 
 The Gods gave wings and voice to plain men's griefs 
 
 Forever ! 
 
 From lips of divination 
 111 only comes, no boon, the mockers cry — 
 As were the sacred Prophetess in league 
 With Hades' rulers sworn. In vain I warned ! 
 The bridal woe of Paris, senseless cause 
 For siege prolonged and fateful destiny 
 Of war, foretold with eyes to heaven raised, 
 My hands weighed by your chains. In vain I raved ! 
 Mad was I called, the oracles ignored — 
 But their fulfillment when did Time refute? 
 The siege once brought to pass, I refuge took 
 In great Minerva's temple, — but for nought, 
 Since impious Ajax, ravisher abhorred ! 
 Seduced by rumour of my beauty cursed — 
 Did violate the laws of all the Gods 
 And robbed the shrines to drag me forth; which 
 
 straight 
 The irate Goddess terrible avenged, 
 From Jupiter demanding thunderbolts 
 And 'mid the ensuing floods the Locrian hosts 
 Destroying to the last. She still requires 
 Them bring each year as tribute, maidens twain 
 To serve her temple by most menial rites, 
 
 137 
 
CASSANDRA ON LEAVING TROY 
 
 In tattered rags attired, their hair close shorn ; 
 
 But even griefs Hke those Cassandra bore 
 
 Could not preserve her from the Argive King. 
 
 Victorious Agamemnon had sought out 
 
 The vanquished Priam's child for one more shame; 
 
 Drawn by no indiscriminate lot, as were 
 
 The lesser Phrygian maids, by chance conferred, 
 
 But for the love her stricken beauty moved, 
 
 Torn from the unprotecting shrines and given 
 
 As slave and paramour to Hellas' Lord — 
 
 Hapless, prophetic, beautiful, — Alas 
 
 For love unconquerable that enslaves 
 
 The Conqueror ev'n as his meanest thrall ! 
 
 Whom neither the Immortals may evade, 
 
 Nor man, their changing suppliant of a day. 
 
 Wail for your daughter Hecuba ! Wail forth 
 
 The curse of beauty drawing curse of love ! 
 
 While yet she lives, shrill lamentations raise 
 
 And beat your breast with woe funereal ; 
 
 Since over her no mournful dirge shall sound 
 
 Whose limbs on alien shores shall ne'er be wrapped 
 
 In decent garments by maternal hands. 
 
 Her pallid corpse a feast for ravening dogs. 
 
 By Phrygian unbelief the sacred shrines 
 
 Are now despoiled, their images profaned — 
 
 My ov/n undoing swiftly verified 
 
 At pleasure of the Argive Potentate. 
 
 For nothing pray ! Spare now your chorused hymn, 
 
 Your impotent libations cease to pour! 
 
 138 
 
CASSANDRA ON LEAVING TROY 
 
 Too late the festive dance and heifer slain, 
 For nought reviled the injustice of male love 
 And face of Helen, Sorceress malign ! 
 
 Yet there is retribution with the Gods, 
 
 For Jupiter and Loxias are both 
 
 To mortal matters lending high concern ; 
 
 Now dizzy anguish mounts within my breast, 
 
 Prophetic rage o'erwhelms, and I perceive 
 
 Dardania commemorative rear 
 
 A votive temple, sacred to all maids 
 
 Who serve the Gods, nor 'neath the yoke of men 
 
 Are willed to live ; revolting from their lust, 
 
 And consecrate to utmost chastity. 
 
 A babbler I, for this? Lie-monger called? 
 
 Let me be silent led to my captivity — 
 
 Calamity predestined by the Gods ! 
 
 O Woe, O Earth, O God Apollo ! May 
 
 My spirit soon hear echoes of that stream — 
 
 Scamander river dear to infancy. 
 
 On whose green shores my few bright hours were 
 
 nursed ! 
 O agony of vision vainly borne ! 
 Though none believe the oracles poured forth, 
 Troy and her slain by me shall be avenged. 
 Triumphant to these nuptials sinister 
 Departing Lord of Hellas, now I come — 
 More fatal bride than ever Helen proved, 
 No Priestess but a herald stern of Death, 
 Seeing my dusty bed in darkness made, 
 
 139 
 
CASSANDRA ON LEAVING TROY 
 
 This peerless head crowned by one act supreme. 
 I come my Dead! Thrice shining Erebus, 
 For me illumined by familiar Shades ! 
 My garland and my gold-embroidered robe, 
 My wand and myrtle wreath are cast aside, 
 Renounced the last insignia of the Gods, 
 Ere I, the sainted of Apollo, come 
 All unappalled to accost the gates of Night. 
 For, Mistress of divining power, I know 
 The end for Agamemnon now prepared. 
 Let Hades and all those beneath the earth 
 Be conscious of my words, for he shall fall, 
 If he return, by his supplanter's hand; 
 The house of Atreus be in ruins laid. 
 I see it plainer than their galley sails 
 That nodding summon from my native shore. 
 Mad, mad ! ye call me, to the last defy 
 My solemn prophecy, — yet ye shall see 
 This proud despoiler in his crimson bath 
 Lie weltering beneath Aegisthus' blade, 
 While his abominable she-wolf slakes 
 Her thirst for gore with mine, and this despised 
 Cassandra, once for all, dismisses mute; 
 A bloody-taloned bird with clashing wings 
 That idly beat the wide ill-omened air. 
 Farewell, O ashen city of disdain! 
 Until the infuriate Erinnyes 
 Shall right my wrongs, on Troy I look my last ! 
 Almighty Jove, o'er all supreme, behold 
 How tides of blood my oracles confirm ! 
 
 140 
 
CASSANDRA ON' LEAVING TROY 
 
 Minerva, patroness of cities, heed ! 
 Bereaved of freedom and of home I go, 
 My torch put out ! 
 
 But throughout Time avenged, 
 Cassandra's curse shall evermore descend; 
 Hers be the fate of wisdom and of all 
 Who share the burden of the visioned Seer ! 
 By men the truth shall be forever spurned, 
 The base-born tongue of flattery preferred, 
 And unbelief envenom all the world ! 
 
 141 
 
MAY 6 1913