rHEflAPPY Princes.^ 
 
 PS 3511 
 
 .115 H3 
 
 1907 
 
 ARTHUR 
 
 DAVISON 
 
 FICKE 
 
 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 0D000'^031D3 
 
Class (P^3 51L^ 
 
 Book __^J[: 151^^ 
 
 Copyii^htN", 
 
 mx 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
THE HAPPY PRINCESS 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
THE 
 
 HAPPY PRINCESS 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 By 
 ARTHUR DAVISON FICKE 
 
 Boston 
 
 Small, Maynard ^ Company 
 
 1907 
 
Copyright, I(pj 
 
 Smallf Maynard &' Company 
 
 Incorporated 
 
 UQRARY of CONGRESS 
 Two Copies Received 
 
 AfW 8 1907 
 
 1 Gopyrifirht Entry 
 CI ASS A XXCm N6. 
 
 
 Press of 
 
 Geo. H. Ellis Co, 
 
 Boston, U.S.A, 
 
^ TO EVELYN 
 
 i 
 
The author wishes to thank the Editor of Scrih- 
 ner's Magazine for courteous permission to re- 
 print the major portion of ^^To Fancy in the 
 Later Days" ; and also the Editor of Harper^ 8 
 Magazine for the same kindness as to ^^ Brahma '^ 
 and one of the songs from ^^The Happy Prin- 
 cess.'^ 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 The Happy Princess: 
 
 Book I. The Lyre 1 
 
 Book II. The Emerald Gate 9 
 
 Book III. The Roofs of the City 19 
 
 Book IV. The Eldest Princess 29 
 
 BookV. The Singer 42 
 
 Poems : 
 
 To Fancy in the Later Days 55 
 
 To Felicia 61 
 
 ToAldebaran 62 
 
 Mad Song 65 
 
 Italian Fantasy 67 
 
 The Return to Avon 77 
 
 To Sleep 80 
 
 Pilgrim Verses : 
 
 The Dreamers of Dzushi 83 
 
 The Beloved 89 
 
 The House of the Potter 90 
 
 Atlse 98 
 
 Muramadzu 101 
 
 The Poet Yoshi to his Songs 102 
 
 Kobo Daishi's Fire 103 
 
 Before the Buddha 105 
 
 Buddha at Nadika 106 
 
 The Old Call 109 
 
 On a Persian Tile 112 
 
 The Devil Dancers 114 
 
 The City of Amber 117 
 
 The Wild Duck 119 
 
 Brahma « 121 
 
THE HAPPY PRINCESS 
 
 A Romance 
 
Book I 
 
 THE LYEE 
 
 In this unquiet, greatly-forging day, 
 What heart shall have a musing hour to stay 
 The labor of its striving, or forget 
 A little while the goal on which is set 
 The Spirit's passion ? Will some listener bring 
 An ear subdued to harken while I sing 
 My unpretentious music of low tone, 
 When all his thought is throbbing with his own 
 TJnuttered songs of intimate hope or pain? 
 Nay, none will hear ; and I shall sing in vain. 
 Yet as the deathless bards so bright of old 
 Sang each his dream, weaving the secret gold 
 Of fancy in the woof, until its fire 
 Of beauty passeth all that men desire, — 
 So poets less imperial still shall dare 
 Lift up their voices on the crowded air ; 
 Knowing that though the melody be frail. 
 Yet such alone is way that can avail 
 Ever for bard. And though I be not he 
 Destined to make immortal minstrelsy. 
 Yet they who love the poets of dead years 
 Will give me grace to pour in some few ears 
 A tale I choose all other tales above 
 To wreathe about with memory and with love. 
 
THE HAPPY PRINCESS 
 
 'Tis of a Singer, singing long ago. 
 Beside what little inland river's flow 
 His quiet days were spent, or by what roar 
 Of waves upon what Grecian island shore 
 His ear was tuned to song, I cannot know ; 
 For all his life was very long ago. 
 
 Yet this much comes to me : — as youth's fair 
 days 
 Began to open to the myriad ways 
 Our life affords (some stained and some bright. 
 With gloomy dust or with celestial light). 
 Then to his eyes, that seemed the sweetest road 
 "Which leads to Fancy's gossamer abode ; 
 "Where, musing upon joys to earth unknown. 
 The dreaming singer walks. For there alone 
 Is silence deep with meaning. There no noise 
 Of common feet ; harsh turmoil which destroys 
 The thin and lovely gauze of poet's dream 
 Came never there ; but in a limpid stream 
 His spirit's music exquisitely played. 
 Till shy-foot fawns and dryads from their shade 
 Of hazel or of willow oft would peep. 
 Or naiads rise from dripping bowers of sleep 
 To listen. 
 
 And the singing in his soul 
 Welled up and flooded o'er the crystal bowl 
 
 2 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 Of spirit, and in moulded words came forth. 
 And in strange quiet corners of the earth 
 Men, little learned, sang his songs again 
 Beneath the sunset or the rising Wain 
 As they turned home. . . . 
 
 The years passed over him 
 Lightly ; and little weeping came to dim 
 His eyes ; and all of sorrow that he knew 
 Was rather guessed than deeply felt as true. 
 Yet many things his poet's heart divined, 
 And far-off death cast shadows on his mind. 
 And once, at time when rains began to fall. 
 He made this song, his heart' s ' ^ Confessional " : — 
 
 ^^ I am a singer ; and I set 
 My steps where dews of dawn are wet. 
 And wander where dusk shadows steal. 
 Or where the constellations wheel 
 Through heaven. And I cannot tell 
 Why I should love so passing well 
 Life's winds, and find the common ways 
 So trivial to my spirit's days. 
 This only know I, — that my heart 
 Thirsts for the places lone apart ; 
 Perfectly glad to do no thing 
 Save of their secret deeps to sing, 
 
 3 
 
THE HAPPY PRINCESS 
 
 ^^ Perhaps it is a bitter jest 
 Of life, — to lead me from the best 
 Our unreturning days afford ; 
 And tempting me with dream of Lord 
 Of Fancy, set a wall between 
 Mine eyes and all the happy green 
 Meadows of actual living. Still, 
 Though this be so, the lyric hill 
 Is all my home. For there I weave 
 Songs that I fondly would believe 
 May last a little, after sun 
 And moon have chanted orison 
 Peacefully over my low bed. 
 Rising and setting where are shed 
 The flowers that shall wave o' er me 
 When I shall sleep eternally. 
 
 ^^ So on the midnight's lamplit hour 
 I pour my spirit's trembling power. 
 In hope each winged phantasy 
 Out of the ardent mind may be 
 Embalmed in the amber gloom 
 Of poesy's immortal tomb. 
 Not such a grave as where we lay 
 The mortal embers cold away ; 
 But a warm shrine, where every beam 
 Of later sun shall pierce with gleam 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 That shall relume the rainbow fires 
 Pound the bright wings of old desires 
 And hopes that fluttered warm and fleet 
 Through meadows where once moved my feet, 
 Living and dreaming. And again 
 The sunlight's joy, the moonlight's pain 
 Shall weave around them, keen or pale, 
 That magic unsubstantial veil 
 That men call life. No more they fly 
 Like wisps of cloud on a summer sky ; 
 But frozen in their prison walls 
 No matter how the Springtide calls. 
 Immortal, yet forever cold ; 
 Young as at birth, yet ages old. 
 For life and death shall married be 
 In this, my immortality." 
 
 He sang, and ceased j but the soft music grown 
 Kept echoing the magic of its tone 
 On which as on a river flood he rode, 
 Drifted where' er the singing current flowed. 
 And now it swept him past his own brief years 
 To oceans of all mortal hopes and fears; 
 Till borne returning on the vagrant tide 
 His thoughts turned to the lyre at his side. 
 
 And then, as if awakened by his words, 
 A murmur stirred across the golden chords, 
 
 5 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 And quivering movements sweeping over it 
 Trembled its frame, — as when o'er waters flit 
 Passing of winds that ruffle with white feet 
 The placid surface. And a music sweet 
 Began to kindle, filled with some strange power, 
 Like that of poets in their mystic hour. 
 When a strong other presence seems to take 
 Command upon the soul. And then it spake, 
 Singing: — 
 
 ^^ . . . O brother who hast thrilled 
 My soul to life, that it is filled 
 With sense of far-off mysteries 
 And stirrings from the greater seasj — 
 When we are past the setting sun 
 Days shall seem precious, every one; — 
 How shall we look back wholly glad 
 If now we linger, rapt and sad ? 
 
 ^ ' Brother, I have been with thee when 
 We sang the pageantry of men 
 And battle and resounding deeds, — 
 Of love and all its loving needs, — 
 Of toil and mighty weariness : — 
 Each joy and struggle that could bless 
 The earth of men, the sea of ships. 
 Has been in song upon our lips. 
 
 6 
 
THE HAPPY PRINCESS 
 
 ^^ And yet, O brother-heart, meseems, 
 Beyond the covert of our dreams, 
 As if from life there might be wrung 
 Music more sweet than we have sung ; 
 Lovelier and more keenly dear 
 Than that which fills the spirit^ s ear; 
 With tones more deep, that well might be 
 The hoarded joy of memory. 
 
 ^^ Why may we not go forth, my brother, 
 Unto the great unlighted sky; 
 Thou and I, and no heart other. 
 To feel together before we die 
 That whole whose glimpses, singing, we 
 Have found so precious of desire. 
 Yea, this one thing I ask of thee, 
 Who am thy brother and thy lyre.'^ 
 
 And as it ceased, the Singer minded him 
 How all his days had passed beneath the dim 
 And haunted shades of fancy; — that delight 
 Of struggle, or attainment, or black night 
 Of failure were as things a dream has shown; - 
 Felt, understood, but never quite his own. 
 Long had he loved such maids as Helen fair, 
 And Eastern princesses with tawny hair. 
 And walked with ladies from a faery land: 
 
 7 
 
THE HAPPY PEIKCESS 
 
 But when yet had he touched a liviug haud ? 
 Then thinking upon this^ he stirred the strings 
 With loving touch, and to their whisperings 
 Cried: — 
 
 ^^ To the fields we will go forth 
 And prove the weakness or the worth 
 Of songs that we so long have sung, — 
 If they will comfort us among 
 Cold cities and unfavoring fields, 
 And take what cheer the singing yields. 
 Brother, together we shall rove. 
 And learn perchance of joy and love 
 Some little that we had not guessed, — 
 We who have leaned on Helen's breast 
 In fancy. Yea, the world is wide, 
 And earth is flushing with Springtide ! '^ . . 
 
Book H 
 
 THE EMEEALD GATE 
 
 There was a city of high golden walls ; 
 Men said its gates were chiselled emeralds ; 
 But some believed the green fires of the dawn 
 Kose from the slopes these towers were builded 
 
 on, 
 And, lit afresh each morn and evening, came 
 To guard the city with a door of flame 
 Like Springes pale splendors. And the night- 
 winds set 
 Their stars upon its walls. Its feet were wet 
 With quiet ripples of a sea whose marge 
 No man had touched. Within, a palace large 
 And of high splendor worthily was house 
 Unto a king upon whose silent brows 
 Was set the double crown of East and West. . . . 
 
 Thither the Singer came upon his quest 
 Of hours more beautiful and life more warm ; 
 And with his lyre at rest upon his arm. 
 Paused at the threshold of the Emerald Gate j 
 And then, with seeking and with youth elate, 
 Entered ; and, passing in the busy crowd. 
 Moving through courts where fountain -jets were 
 loud 
 
THE HAPPY PEIKCESS 
 
 In rounded basins of the cool- veined jade, 
 Went onward to the hall whose porches made 
 A shining marble- pillared colonnade. 
 Looking through spaces of the columns tall, 
 The outside world seemed lightened of its pall 
 Of dinginess ; and field and sun and tree 
 Were folded in some brilliant witchery, 
 That made the heart glad with the little bay. 
 And cleared the words the hill-winds tried to 
 
 say. 
 And gave each glimpse of sea or winding road 
 Personal consonance with man's abode. 
 
 He entered ; and because his dress was trim, 
 And youth's and music's brightness played o'er 
 
 him, 
 And since his singing was so passing sweet. 
 They gave to him a lofty golden seat 
 At the high table of the silent king. 
 Who gazed at him with pleasant wondering. 
 
 On either hand at that great table sate 
 Stern ministers, and ladies of high state, 
 And nobles of the blood. And tliere was one 
 About whose head the glow of summer sun 
 Seemed visible, — the princess. And a flame 
 Of the earth's glory flickered where she came. 
 
 10 
 
THE HAPPY PRINCESS 
 
 I know not in what subtle words to sing 
 That to the sight of others I may bring 
 This splendid princess with bright golden hair. 
 No man who saw might call this princess fair 
 If with that word he had named other maid 
 Of earth. Such beauty maketh each afraid 
 Lest looking he may shatter it like gleam 
 Of rainbow bubble on some dancing stream. 
 Each perfume drifted from the dreaming South 
 Seemed mingled in the smiling of her mouth. 
 Each beam of fire a star sheds as it dies 
 Was met to make the glory of her eyes. 
 And old men, watching where her figure moved, 
 Wept, hearing long- dead voices they had loved. 
 
 And the young Singer, seeing such a form 
 As hers, clothed round with rose-mists soft and 
 
 warm 
 Like those that dawn over the meadow weaves, 
 Was stricken silent ; — as one who long believes 
 In powers divine, yet when a miracle 
 At last appears, doubts what his senses tell. 
 Each song of beauties dead so long ago. 
 Each tale of dear loves underneath the snow, 
 Each melody that breathes of garden- closes. 
 Full of the trembling passion of the roses, — 
 All these, and every hoarded hope were crying ; 
 
 11 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 And each remembered lay of love undying 
 Dizzily came, like clouds at twilight flying, 
 TJpgathered in a single blinding gleam, 
 Showering with tenderness from every dream 
 That oft had wavered in his random singing. 
 And dumb he stood, knowing that life was 
 
 bringing 
 At last a form that on real earth did move 
 To deck with all the splendors of his love. 
 
 He looked not ever at the pageantry ; 
 He heard no voice of all the minstrelsy. 
 For sight and sense in dreaming trance were 
 
 bound, 
 And winged thought moved its tumultuous 
 
 round 
 Of sudden love and exaltation's flame ; 
 As if, in some far garden, round one name 
 Spirits did hover, and continually 
 Make adoration of strange melody. 
 
 And many a day in shadow of those halls 
 He tarried, — like the Knight a spell enthralls 
 When, wandering lone the meads at evening, 
 He hears the calling faery- voices sing. 
 For voices of the air or of the earth 
 
 12 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 Were round him. Some, it seemed, he knew 
 
 from birth, 
 So grateful and familiar-toned were they ; 
 But others, drifting from the far-away 
 Bourne of the winds, fluttered before the eyes 
 Of fancy with the promise of surprise 
 Most wonderful and sweet. Each day they grew 
 Until it seemed they surely must beat through 
 The thinness of their veil and burst like flame.— 
 And on one day of days, at last they came. 
 
 He sat within the wildwood, and the air 
 That waved the princess's bright loosened hair 
 Was like a living breath ; and she, alive 
 With mystery of beauty that would drive 
 Now and again his blood in such a sway 
 That he must turn his wondering eyes away 
 To hide their look. At length, too much afraid 
 For silences, he took his harp and played : — 
 
 '^My love, the ripple dances 
 Along the lonely sand. 
 
 And on the water glances 
 Moonlight from faeryland. 
 
 ^' You seem the high-born maiden 
 And I the lover bold 
 13 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 Who from his heart love-laden 
 Sang madrigals of old. 
 
 '■ ^ You are the prisoned princess 
 Whose love- enraptured lips 
 
 Wrought songs that made great princes 
 Sail o'er the sea in ships. 
 
 ^^ You are the queen of revels 
 And I the lover poor. 
 
 We through the sunrise levels 
 Fled far across the moor. 
 
 ^' My love, the ripple dances 
 Along the quiet sand. 
 
 And where yon moonlight glances, 
 There is our faeryland.'' 
 
 When he had done, the princess said no word, 
 But looked at him as one who just had heard 
 Some pleasant song might look at any bard 
 And smile the sweetness of her soft reward. 
 Even such sweetness was too magical 
 With beauty not to bring in swift recall 
 The whole stored longing of a hundred Springs ; 
 And stir within his blood rememberings, 
 
 14 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 Vague and elusive, as if lie somewhere 
 
 Had died of old for love of the bright hair 
 
 Of a forgotten woman, whom new birth 
 
 Made real once more upon the Springtide earth. 
 
 And forces deeper than his single mind 
 
 Swept him like petals on the great South Wind, 
 
 Till his whole being whirled in a peopled mist. 
 
 And suddenly upon the brow he kissed 
 
 The princess, — folding to his reckless breast 
 
 Her young frail bosom j — clasped her hands and 
 
 pressed 
 Them to him ; — and sank back, benumbed and 
 
 blind. 
 Trembling like petals on the great South Wind 
 
 And such a silence on the woodland grew 
 As seemed to make a barrier round these two. 
 Shutting them in with viewless walls of glass 
 From every sound that through the world did 
 
 pass ; 
 From every thought or dream of what might 
 
 move 
 Beyond the stillness of the twilight grove. 
 
 Then o'er his head he heard the stirring air. 
 And felt the touch of fingers on his hair, — 
 A gentle touch that seemed to come and pass 
 
 15 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 Like his own breath trembling the tender grass. 
 And in his ear a whisper: — 
 
 '^Dear one, let 
 This hour go by forever, and forget. 
 Forget me if you will ; yea, that were meet 
 Since I have made this pathway for your feet. 
 Yet I were loath to have you quite lose thought 
 Of me and of the sweetness you have brought. 
 I too have loved, — not with such love as smites 
 Its fire upon the soul, — but with soft lights 
 Of tenderness. . . . Dear one, no more can be 
 Save only this ever for you and me.'^ 
 
 And he looked slowly in her eyes and said: — 
 ^^The light of my whole life is round your head, 
 So that with you my living hours must bide 
 Or else go wandering into eventide. 
 You only give the meaning to this dream 
 Of earthly days, where pallid mist-lights stream 
 In chaos save for you. Upon your form 
 The dizzying beams find goal; and lighted, 
 
 warm, 
 I see you in the whirlwind of their fire, — 
 You who give house to the soul's lost desire, — 
 You, the one lamp under whose glow unfold 
 Life's hidden pages writ in secret gold. 
 
 16 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 And if you go, dusk comes to blur the line 
 That had been portent of your life and mine.'^ 
 
 Pitifully looking in his eyes, she laid 
 Her hand on his, and quiveriDg answer made: — 
 ^' What am I, that unguessing I have stirred 
 This in your heart ? Never remorseful word 
 Shall make forgiveness for me. Oh, forget 
 All you have dreamed. For me, my path is set 
 Toward other life ; this is not mine to take. 
 Go ; for it is a dream whence you will wake j 
 Go, since the end has come ; no more can be 
 Save only this ever for you and me.'^ 
 
 Whereon he answered, low and tremblingly: — 
 *^ What other meaning has there been in Spring 
 That for so many years made whispering 
 On my deaf ears ? And now the meaning goes j 
 And in one hour blossoms and dies the rose.'' 
 
 And then it ended. With one strained embrace 
 He turned and fled out from the haunted place ; 
 And through the woodland's leafy flickering 
 
 shade 
 Sped on, as though his heart were too afraid 
 Of what dear wraiths were following on behind 
 To dare to turn again. The evening wind 
 17 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 Began to rise, and breathed its tender call 
 Over the forest, faintly musical. 
 The birds commenced to sing their twilight song ; 
 And in the fields the shadows laid their long 
 Quivering fingers on the folding bloom 
 Of lilies lulled to slumber by the boom 
 Of heavy- winged beetles as they passed; 
 And fireflies rose flickering from the grass. 
 And the last redness of the western gleam 
 Faded on the cool bosom of each stream. 
 
 18 
 
\\ 
 
 Book HI 
 
 THE EOOFS OF THE CITY 
 
 Know you that ancient battlemented town, 
 With roofs a-cmmble and walls turning brown 
 Beneath their ivy, on whose northern gate 
 The Lion with the Truncheon ramps in state 
 Upon his shield of dim heraldic gold ? 
 A mouldering town, grown now so very old 
 That it forgets its youth; and like a crone 
 Over her hearth-fire, mumbles dreams alone ;— 
 Not fair dreams, but the petty questionings 
 That burr and babble as the kettle sings. 
 
 To such a place the Singer drifted on 
 Through field and city, aimless and alone ; 
 And in the end, sore weary, found him house 
 In an old slanting attic whose dark brows 
 Frowned o'er the street. Yet when the day did 
 
 wane 
 With level sun, and through each leaded pane 
 Poured yellow light, then were he loath to change 
 His window on the roofs for the whole range 
 Of royal gardens. Over gables high 
 Sharp black against the fading western sky,— 
 Over old chimneys curling forth a haze 
 
 19 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 Of thin blue smoke, — he watched the ending 
 
 days 
 Sink to their low red line of deepening glow, 
 And in his heart would ever come and go 
 The changing pictures of those days that set 
 Visions before the eyes too often wet. 
 And in the twilight he would live anew 
 The love that silent in his spirit grew; 
 Feeding remembrance with each hour and 
 
 place, — 
 Each look that once had played upon her face, 
 Each glory that had lighted in her eyes. 
 And sometimes suddenly a flood would rise 
 Within his heart to bear him, pale and lost, 
 To such a sea of longing that no cost 
 Of life or death seemed anything to pay 
 For one word spoken in the old dear way. 
 
 But as the days wore on, and moon by moon 
 The summer passed, the immemorial boon 
 Of peace stole on him. — Not forgetfulness; 
 For more than all life held, he still would press 
 Unto his inmost heart that memory 
 Sweeter than ever aught again might be. 
 Let come thereafter whatsoever may. 
 Youth still is right in clinging to the day 
 Of its first love: by some dim sense it knows 
 
 20 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 That when this passes, then the dawn- light goes. 
 And though the noon be fair, who can put by 
 His tenderness for that first flushing skj^ ? 
 
 Songs came, but not so freshly as of old. 
 Sometimes, when loneliness crept on like cold, 
 He would go forth into the market-place 
 Amid the people; but no lifted face 
 Gave him that joy which he had known when 
 
 tears 
 Had touched his listeners^ eyes in former years. 
 None here had tears for others' songs to spare ; 
 And all his music froze in the blank air. 
 Therefore he ceased to sing, save to his own 
 Brave heart at twilight where he sat alone. 
 
 One eve in his lone attic far apart 
 He sang this song unto his dreaming heart: — 
 
 ^^ The Spring and the Eose have passed ; 
 
 And you, my love, have flown. 
 Like a breath too sweet to last 
 
 From the buds of the hawthorn blown. 
 
 '^ O love, in the clear Spring weather 
 Our hearts were like fair white flowers; 
 
 And the joy of our days together 
 Comes back through the silent hours. 
 
 21 
 
THE HAPPY PRINCESS 
 
 *^ But now that the love is over, 
 With all that the days might bring, 
 
 What joy to the lonely lover 
 
 In Spring and the Rose of Spring ? '^ 
 
 And as he ceased, he heard a little noise 
 Outside his window, and a shrinking voice 
 Said, '^ Sir, may I not listen 1 '^ 
 
 Next his own, 
 There hung a casement- balcony, alone 
 In all the street for being decked with bloom 
 Of flowers ever. Now, from his dim room. 
 He peered into the dusk, and saw a face 
 Pale and half- frighted, looking o'er the space 
 Between them. Such a ruddiness of mouth 
 Might have been brought to blossom in the South; 
 But the shy eyes, the whiteness of her brow, 
 Were such as no earth-magic could endow 
 Save windy northern lands, where Beauty broods 
 And flees from Madness through waste solitudes. 
 A woman's mouth; and eyes that scarcely knew 
 The wisdom of a woman, save that through 
 Their depths that light would swiftly come and go 
 Whereby the soul knows more than it can know. 
 
 ^^ Gladly shall you be listener to my lays," 
 The Singer said. 
 
 22 
 
THE HAPPY PRINCESS 
 
 ^^ Now for so many days," 
 She answered, ^ ^ have I heard you, and could bear 
 No longer like an eavesdropper to wear 
 A mask of silence. For your singing fills 
 My heart like summer light between the hills. 
 It is so strange, —so wonderful a thing; — 
 How have you learned such melodies to sing ? " 
 
 And he made kindly answer: — 
 
 ^^Why, meseems, 
 We weave our singing as a link of dreams 
 To pierce beyond our narrow loneliness 
 When mists of night and silence seem to press 
 Blindingly on the heart. And then our song 
 Is like a chain which stretches far along 
 Into the outer planetary air. 
 Touching perhaps some star, none knoweth 
 
 where. 
 I do not think that such things can be taught; 
 I know that never hoarded gold has bought. 
 With all the splendid pomp of Eastern seas, 
 The secret touchstone of these mysteries." 
 
 And she said slowly :—'' I have known too well 
 That loneliness; but I could never tell. 
 Though I had wished it, unto any one 
 How much the voiceless spirit, being alone, 
 
 23 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 Yearns for its chain to the peopled outer spaces 
 Of lighted sky and the great open places. 
 I felt it ever, though I had no words 
 Until the day I heard your chanted chords. 
 I felt it 'j — yea, not even you can know, — 
 You in whom songs and strength of singing 
 
 glow; — 
 You know not how our buried longings sing 
 Although our voices chant not anything. ' ^ . . . 
 
 And then, giving no pause for his reply, 
 She hurried on, eager, but tremblingly: — 
 
 ^^ There is so much to tell to you: one hour 
 Cannot contain it : yet the very power 
 Of what it is forces it into one. 
 Which must be rising-song and requiem. 
 Once only may I see you, — I who heard 
 Of your sweet singing every breathed word, — 
 That I may tell you what your songs have made 
 For one who moves in the world's silent shade ; — 
 What worship has been poured, what secret dew 
 Of love has fallen, though you never knew : 
 How all my soul has flowed in music sweet 
 And flung itself in passion at your feet. 
 — For ah, I know your heart so passing well! 
 Since I have hoarded every note that fell 
 
 24 
 
THE HAPPY PRINCESS 
 
 Fresli from your lips: — such lieart I did not 
 
 know 
 Amid earth^s darkened loneliness could grow. 
 — I tell it you, who are so far above 
 The dim entanglements of struggling love 
 That I may speak my soul's most secret word 
 Almost as if to him, the Blessed Lord. 
 You are the light each rising morn would seek, 
 And finds not in the world; so that, grown weak 
 And weary with its search, it sinks to rest 
 Beyond the mountains folding in the West. 
 You are the secret beauty too divine 
 Often amid earth's cruelties to shine ; 
 And I give thanks as to a shining god 
 Made manifest upon the darkling road— 
 A god whom I might love as it is given 
 To some few souls to love the lights of Heaven. 
 And in that love has melted all my pride, 
 And to have told you this, I would have died.'' 
 
 And then she fled; and the night lay still and 
 wide. 
 
 Not any day thereafter did he see 
 That slender form upon her balcony. 
 But often when the lyric passion stirred 
 His singing lips, he somehow knew she heard. 
 
 25 
 
THE HAPPY PRINCESS 
 
 And greatly did he marvel at it all, 
 Thinking: — 
 
 ^'1 know my song is musical 
 With sweetness that might well enthrall the sense 
 With its unguessed and shadowy eloquence; 
 But 'tis most strange her fancy should have set 
 My form upon a height which never yet 
 An actual man has won. Too well I know 
 That I am not a god, but here below 
 Struggle in dust of mortal frailties 
 And rarely look upon the sacred seas 
 Of fair Apollo. — What a mystery 
 Is love, that it can build its history 
 Upon an unreal dream, and thence uprear 
 Its shining turrets, till the sunlight clear 
 Gilds the high bastions with a crown of fire. 
 Strange love; strange weaving of a blind desire 
 In spider-web around a branch of pine 
 Until, transformed, the dingy bosses shine 
 With rainbow colors. '' 
 
 As a tempest stroke 
 Suddenly blasts a hollow shell of oak 
 That long has secretly been mouldering through 
 Though strong to outward look, — so smote a new 
 Eevealing light upon the Singer's mind. 
 And for a dizzy moment in the wind 
 
 26 
 
THE HAPPY PRINCESS 
 
 Swayed the fair tree that was his love of yore, 
 And then fell, gaping to its hollow core. 
 
 a I too,— yea, I too, reared me such a dream! 
 Around a woman's form I wove the gleam 
 Borrowed from sunrise, and the night's proclaim 
 I mingled with the music of her name. 
 I saw her eyes; and in the empty blue 
 I made each longing of the heart come true. 
 And I have loved not her, but that bright shade 
 Which out of dreams my tenderness has made! " 
 
 And half aghast, he saw the end draw nigh 
 To the illusion of his ecstasy. 
 Yet half in gladness ;— if the loving yoke 
 Were bubble magic, better it were broke 
 Swiftly than if it still should lead him on, 
 To fail at last when he was old and lone. . . . 
 
 Pondering these things, weary of the town, 
 He rose one morn; and out across the down 
 Once more he turned his footsteps, wayfaring 
 With the old feeling that new paths would bring 
 Perhaps some revelation. Many days 
 He held his course through unfrequented ways ; 
 With wondering thoughts for what his days had 
 taught ; 
 
 27 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 With pity for the love that he had brought 
 
 All unsuspecting to a lonely maid; 
 
 And on and on along the world he strayed. 
 
 The passing of swift time he did not heed. 
 
 Winter was gone; and then the greening mead 
 
 Ripened through Summer to September's old 
 
 Familiar warmth of hazy western gold. . . . 
 
 When late in Autumn, on the sunny hills 
 
 Of afternoon, a single cricket shrills 
 
 More loud for being alone ; when blue jays call 
 
 Their hoarse complaint; when whirling red leaves 
 
 fall, 
 And the busy squirrel among his granaries 
 Chatters at the intruder from the trees ; 
 When swallows fly above the fringed wood, — 
 Black sailing specks against the violet flood 
 Of light to westward, — till the rising mist 
 Deepens its shadows into amethyst 
 And golden flakes, and one long cloud goes by 
 Like a fiery feather on the dimming sky: — 
 Then would he muse and ponder; and the days 
 Stole by him silently ; and still the ways 
 Of life seemed opening to no final goal 
 Where, at the end, might rest the seeking soul. 
 
 28 
 
Booh IT 
 
 THE ELDEST PEmCESS 
 
 Changed many ways from what he was of old, 
 The Singer moved with memories manifold. 
 Sadness and pity had come over him, 
 And knowledge how the eager soul will dim 
 Its own clear sight with dreams it loves to cast 
 Upon reality. But Winter's blast 
 Will tear away the wrappings and leave bare 
 The cherished blossom for the winter air 
 To wither up. This knew he ; — much to know 
 For one whose fancy ever was aglow 
 With glories more than earthly. But he trod 
 Not the less lightly that the actual sod 
 Of earth no more was haunted in his eyes 
 With cloudy magic of uncertain skies. 
 Eather, some deeper meaning came to lay 
 Its touch upon the things of every day, — 
 Some warm significance that bound in one 
 Each heart that beat and toiled beneath the sun. 
 And this hour first since when his life began, 
 He looked forth clearly on the face of man. 
 
 Wandering amid the silence of the hills, 
 In the large peace which meditation fills 
 
 29 
 
THE HAPPY PRINCESS 
 
 With, mused interpretation of things seen, 
 With scrutiny of each too-fluttering dream, 
 He found within his heart new tenderness 
 For every living thing. Small need to dress 
 With light unreal the happenings of earth, 
 Since naught of common nor of trivial worth 
 Could he discover in the world that shed 
 Its sadness and its beauty round his head. 
 
 One day he came unto a mountain-town, 
 With hanging castles looking steeply down 
 Upon the meadow- valleys. And some whim 
 Led him to climb up through the forests dim 
 And rocks and streams to where the city sate 
 With tall, dark towers and massive armored 
 
 gate. 
 And in the palace of the ruling lord 
 Eight merrily unto the festal board 
 Was he with all rejoicing featly led ; 
 For fame of his sweet song had gone ahead 
 And wrought his welcome. And the lord did 
 
 pray 
 He tarry with them for a year and day. 
 
 In that great house were many noble forms 
 Of carven mail and blazoning of arms 
 And reliques of the glory of past years. 
 
 30 
 
THE HAPPY PRII^CESS 
 
 Amid these trophies moved, as later peers, 
 Full many a lord and lady of degree ; 
 And much of pageant and sweet minstrelsy. 
 But fairer than all other things was set 
 Upon the palace, like a coronet 
 Of pearls, the princesses, — a rounded seven. 
 And in the music of a song's sweet steven 
 Their voices were the clearest ; and no thing 
 Moved in those halls save for their pleasuring. 
 
 And of the seven starry princesses. 
 The ways and manners of their days were 
 
 these : — 
 The first smiled ever, and with glad surprise 
 Watched life unfold before her eager eyes. 
 The second was most sad j for she had seen 
 Life's wastes, and now forgot the meads between. 
 The third moved calmly through her life's es- 
 tate, 
 Never quite sad and never quite elate. 
 With face that men called often chill and old. 
 The fourth found happiness in splendid gold 
 Of sweeping gowns that on the carpet rolled 
 Their trains like peacocks proudly wandering. 
 The fifth, men said, was sure a wildwood thing 
 Strayed into human form. For she would start. 
 And with wild eyes turn shivering from her part 
 
 31 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 In ordered custom. And a dreamful stir 
 As of the forest quivered over her. 
 The sixth was plighted to a noble lord ; 
 And her whole life was ruled by sweet accord 
 With every breath of his. At dusk or dawn 
 Her love wove for him ceaseless orison. 
 The seventh, who was eldest, stood apart. 
 And no man knew the chambers of her heart, 
 Save only that she moved serene and proud, 
 Leading each revel of the palace-crowd ; 
 That never was her voice cast down or sad. 
 And none, from lord to little serving-lad, 
 A single quality of her might tell 
 Save calm and lovely and inscrutable. 
 
 Amid them all the Singer silent moved. 
 The youngest looked upon his face and loved 5 
 But he observed it not, so rapt was he 
 In some old wandering of phantasy. 
 But to the eldest three his steps oft led ; 
 And though the Wildwood Princess sometimes 
 
 fled, 
 And though the Plighted Princess oft would 
 
 stray 
 In other thoughts, yet came he every day 
 Unto their balcony, there to rehearse 
 Some ancient melody, or hold converse 
 
 32 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 With the eldest princess in high pleasant wise, 
 While ever smiles played in her cloudless eyes. 
 
 The eldest princess was a curious deep, — 
 Mist-girt, trailing as if from dreamful sleep 
 Some unimaginable lovely thing. 
 I know not if in flood-tide of her Spring 
 She could have been more beautiful than now 
 When Summer ripeness of each leaf and bough 
 Trembled toward Autumn. For a score and ten 
 Of years had she been loved by countless men; 
 Yea, even in her cradle did men know 
 In that far time, full thirty years ago, 
 That she was destined to be lovable. 
 And though all marvelled, yet no lips could tell 
 Why still aloof her pleasant life she led 
 And moved sweet, self- enfolded, and unwed. 
 
 Oft-times the Singer lovingly would note 
 The soft firm whiteness of her curving throat, — 
 The drooping of her lashes that would veil 
 Her thoughts from him, — the hands so firm and 
 
 pale, — 
 And the dark beauty of her bended head, 
 For all its strength a little wearied — 
 Perhaps with dumb recurrence of the days 
 And guarded pacing of the clear high ways; 
 
 33 
 

 THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 Or else, perhaps, feeling the weight of cold 
 Autumn, and knowing she must soon be old. 
 Oft-times in the rose-garden they would walk, 
 Some two or three together; but her talk 
 Seemed to him ever as a mist between 
 Him and the deeps his eyes would fain have seen. 
 
 It chanced that on a certain festal night 
 The lords and ladies, in glad raiment dight. 
 Were gathered gayly in the banquet hall 
 To listen to the singing musical 
 Of the seven princesses. Sweetly they sang 
 Together, that the arched vaulting rang 
 With melody; and these were the few words 
 Sung to the singer's softly fingered chords: — 
 
 ^^The Eose shall go away, 
 
 And the Nightingale be still. 
 And a silence shroud the hill 
 
 For the loves of yesterday. 
 
 ^^ But if his rapturous singing 
 Has trembled in her ears. 
 Shall not his smiles and tears 
 
 Still unto her go winging ? 
 
 ''■ And if her sweets have been 
 His solace and his pain, 
 
 34 
 
THE HAPPY PRINCESS 
 
 Shall not lier bloom again 
 Shine through his covert green ? 
 
 *■ '■ For the Rose shall go away 
 
 And the Nightingale shall cease. 
 But death gives not release 
 
 To the love of yesterday. '^ 
 
 And all the lords and ladies smiled and 
 said : — 
 ^^ 'Tis sweet, 'tis exquisite. That rose of red 
 The youngest princess wears is well designed 
 To grace her hair. And where may any find 
 Form lovelier than that of the Plighted Maid ? 
 The Wildwood Princess seemeth half afraid 
 Of her own beauty." Speaking thus, they went 
 Out of the hall with courteous argument 
 And laughing voices. And their fading tone 
 Left in the hall the Singer quite alone. 
 
 The palace was girt round with balconies, 
 Broad, hanging high above the garden trees 
 Where breathed low voices in each night of June. 
 But now in autumn dusk, the rounded moon 
 Rose over them like Silence's own form 
 With close-drawn robe and pallid bended arm 
 Moving austere along her rightful halls. . . . 
 Here came the Singer, with such thought as calls 
 
 35 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 For husli of silence and the night's wide space 
 To understand its own transfigured face. 
 
 And as he came, he saw against the sky 
 The eldest princess leaning wearily, 
 Close by a pillar. He drew near, and stood 
 Beside her, silent, save what beat his blood 
 Made in him. But she still was motionless, 
 And the night wind stirred gently in her dress, 
 And neither spake 
 
 Till from the golden strings 
 The Singer touched a sound of murmurings 
 Wonderfully sad and distant; drifting on 
 Into the low-breathed music of his song : — 
 
 *^The Princesses were singing 
 
 Before the belted Lords, — 
 Heads high, with sweet lips ringing. 
 
 And the Minstrel gave the words. 
 
 ^^But the Eldest Princess only 
 
 Lingered upon each note, 
 And a beauty strange and lonely 
 
 Was on her soft white throat, — 
 
 ^^ A beauty that half was sadness, 
 Or full-bloomed Summer's pain, 
 
 36 
 
THE HAPPY PRIKCESS 
 
 More deep than the Spring's swift gladness, 
 And touched with the Autumn rain. 
 
 ^^ And I think that the Princess trembled 
 With the dream of a far desire; 
 
 And the passion in pride dissembled 
 Glowed up to her lips like fire, 
 
 ^* As she sang the song of the Minstrel 
 Who gave her the tender words, 
 
 As he stood in the hidden shadow 
 Behind the smiling Lords. 
 
 ^^For he was a boy, the Minstrel, 
 
 And his ways lay far apart. 
 But all men's ways were his ways, 
 
 For he had the poet's heart. 
 
 ^^ And he saw the Eldest Princess 
 Like a flower on the heights above. 
 
 And he trembled below in silence 
 For her loneliness of love. 
 
 ^^But the Princesses still were singing 
 
 Before the smiling Lords, 
 Heads high, with sweet lips ringing, 
 
 And the Minstrel gave the words, 
 
 37 
 
THE HAPPY PRINCESS 
 
 ^^ 'Tis an old and well-worn story, 
 But I think that it once came true. 
 
 For I know the dream of the Princess, 
 And the Princess who dreamed was you." 
 
 He ceased, half trembling. Not a faintest stir 
 Showed him that life was still alive in her. 
 Motionless stood she, as she had not heard 
 Of his strange singing any single word. 
 And he was dumb. At last did she upraise 
 Her eyes, and looked at him with long slow gaze 
 Brimming with tears. 
 
 Such light was in her face 
 As chosen men see in a holy place 
 When gods come down to lead them to some goal 
 Beyond all vision of the mortal soul. . . . 
 
 ^^This you have told to me, — how could you 
 know? 
 No one has understood. So long ago 
 I shut up in a casket all desires 
 For love and joy, — all hope of starry fires 
 I once believed in. And you come again 
 To stir the old-time ecstasy of pain 
 And faith in dreams I thought were surely 
 dead.'' 
 
 38 
 
THE HAPPY PRINCESS 
 She paused a little, and tlien softly said, — 
 
 ''Yea, hearths dear friend, you only under- 
 stood 
 What none, perhaps, save one or two hearts 
 
 could, — 
 The emptiness where hope of love is gone, 
 And life in barren chaunels must flow on.'^ 
 
 And then the beauty of her leaned arm. 
 Her curving throat so palpitant and warm. 
 Filled him with mastery of the final flame 
 For which earth knows no holy enough name ; 
 So that he whispered, — ''Ah, can it not be?" . . . 
 And then at once he knew that foolishly 
 He had spoken. 
 
 But most tenderly she said : — 
 "Nay, crowns of laurel must be on your head 
 In bloom of manhood when my hair is white 
 And from mine eyes has faded any light 
 That now may linger. You would love me still ; 
 But could I bear to see youth's pulses fill 
 Your being when my love-fire should be cold. 
 And know your tenderness to one grown old?" 
 
 And he made whispered answer : " My desire 
 Is lit, I think, from an unfading fire. 
 The long days cannot dim it, nor the nights 
 
 39 
 
THE HAPPY PRINCESS 
 
 Outshine its clearness with, their myriad lights 
 Yonder in heaven. — Yet I will not press 
 On you one breath of its great tenderness 
 If thus it stirs your pitiful sweet tears. ^' 
 
 And she cried low, ^^The years, the weary 
 
 years ! 
 Ah, I am mad to-night, that I can dream 
 Even a moment. — Nay, there flows a stream 
 Impassable between us ; for my fate 
 Calls me to life of rigid lofty state ; 
 And you must wander over the free world, 
 And in no harbor may your sail be furled 
 Save the dream-haven where all beauties come, 
 Desires and visions, turning gladly home. 
 You shall go from me j for we two have seen 
 Deeper in life than the elusive sheen 
 Of what each heart would dream, — yea, and 
 
 would give 
 All its own hope if but the dream might live. '\ . . 
 
 He would have spoken ; but all eloquence 
 Faded before her j and a sudden sense 
 Of deeper meaning came as silencer 
 Of the wild words he would have cried to her ; — 
 A sense of wisdom in those sad, calm eyes 
 That dared look clearly on fixed destinies. 
 
 40 
 
THE HAPPY PEIKCESS 
 
 Between them passed no single word of love. 
 Only siie said, with lips that trembled of 
 Their passionate calmness, — ^^Yea, I too have 
 
 seen 
 What marvel might have dawned if I had been 
 Born later, or your destiny's stern way 
 Had brought you to me on some yesterday 
 When I was young. ' ' . . . 
 
 And hand in hand they stood 
 Silent with thoughts. And in the shadowy wood 
 The moon sank ; and the autumn darkness 
 
 wove 
 Its lonely veil about them and their love. 
 
 41 
 
Booh T 
 
 THE SINGEE 
 
 ^''No song of loving have I ever sung you j 
 Yet in my heart yours is the holiest shrine. 
 O memory- haunting forms, not one among you 
 Is half so pale as this, or so divine 
 With stern revealing light that in few hearts 
 might shine. 
 
 ^'God knows what fire had been in you as 
 lover, 
 Had you but lessened from your high control 
 Of love and life. The close hours that discover 
 With tenderness' s cruel light the soul 
 And all its weakness, found you unswerving from 
 the Goal.'' 
 
 So singing, down the gray slopes of the hill 
 The Singer went, as dawn began to fill 
 With rosy wine the valley's brimming cup. 
 And often turning that he might look up 
 One last time more to the sunrise-gilded towers, 
 Winged round with light from memory's secret 
 
 hours. 
 Went onward. And with swinging firmness 
 
 strode 
 Along the fair white windings of the road. 
 
 42 
 
THE HAPPY PRINCESS 
 
 Long was the road, that skirting field or foam 
 Turned toward the fastness of his ancient home. 
 And as it went, it passed the drowsy town 
 With mouldering spires and gateways turning 
 
 brown; 
 And passed the City of the Emerald Gate; 
 And came at last, when twilight low and late 
 Burned on the fields, unto the silent place 
 Whence once, with sunrise glowing on his face. 
 The Singer came forth many a year ago. . . . 
 
 As he drew near to it, there seemed to grow 
 A stir and quiver in the golden strings 
 That had been comrade of his wanderings ; 
 And just as one time long ago they spoke, 
 So now the prisoned spirit thrilled and broke 
 Its silence, as if wakened by presage 
 That this was end of its long pilgrimage. 
 
 ^^ Brother heart, the day is done, 
 And the ending of the sun 
 Over meadow, over foam, 
 Bringeth us, so long a-roam, 
 To the quiet gates of home. 
 In our many pilgrim days. 
 In our strange and tortuous ways, 
 In our sorrow and delight, 
 
 43 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 In our noonday and our night, — 
 Tell me, now that all is done, 
 If thy seeking heart has won 
 From the things of little worth 
 That for which we wandered forth? '' 
 
 Hearing, the Singer bowed awhile his head 
 As musing, or a little wearied. 
 And then, with eyes glowing with some deep 
 
 fire. 
 Made answer to his brother and his lyre : — 
 
 ^^ Brother, it is no small thing 
 To have sung the songs we sing. 
 Better still is it to see 
 All was seen by thee and me. 
 Best of all when hearts a-roam 
 Turn in last fulfilment home. 
 
 '^ For me, I deem that life has paid 
 Its debt. Upon one brow is laid 
 Such light as would alone have given 
 Glimpse of the lamps that burn in heaven. 
 O happy princess, yours the gleam 
 And yours the unimagined dream 
 Which makes the hours both sad and deep 
 "With richer undertones that sleep 
 
 44 
 
THE HAPPY PRINCESS 
 
 Beneath the music of our days 
 And turn to gold the trodden ways. 
 Nay, more than dream; for the soul sees 
 These dreams are actualities, 
 Eooted in no desire apart, 
 But sprung from Beauty's truest heart. 
 And over all of these you stand, 
 Holding aloft with firm pale hand 
 The chariot reins of life's swift car. 
 Beneath the sun or midnight star 
 You guide it with that strong control 
 Which is the triumph of the soul. . . . 
 
 ^^ O princess, had I come to you 
 When life and love were still so new 
 As to be things in wonder veiled. 
 Who knows but that I might have failed 
 To see the immortal brightness set 
 Upon your lips and lashes wet. 
 Through paths of longing have I come, 
 Through lands where agony is dumb. 
 But now in peace and calm I go. 
 I have beheld the light, and know. 
 
 ^ ' I do not think that any Fall 
 Hereafter shall work miracle 
 Of sunset when the trees are bare, 
 
 45 
 
THE HAPPY PEIXCESS 
 
 Or fire tlie chill and living air, 
 
 But I shall feel, across all lands, 
 
 The outstretched yearning of your hands. 
 
 No autumn dawning-hour can shake 
 
 Its plumes of gold but shall awake 
 
 Tenderness in me ; and your name 
 
 Shall pass upon the winged flame. 
 
 ^^ And for you too has it not been 
 Enough that, living, each has seen 
 Another heart unveiled and clear, 
 And felt another soul draw near 
 Until they mingled in one breath 
 And touch of wings *? Which never death 
 Nor any change can take away; 
 Nor harshly wearing later day 
 Dispel the love ; nay, rather it 
 Shall like an aureole flame transmit 
 Soft brightness wheresoever we move 
 And fill the world with light of love. 
 
 ''But when all lights are overblown 
 And darkness hovers on alone, 
 Then shall the vanished spirit know 
 These things ? Shall sun or Springtide's glow 
 Eevive the life of long ago, 
 Through former dreams that still shall last 
 
 46 
 
 3 
 
THE HAPPY PRINCESS 
 
 When into dark the dreamer passed I 
 
 Some unbelief that we can die, 
 
 Some sense of immortality, 
 
 Not sure, but lingering piteously. 
 
 Brings strength to shape the hope ; but all 
 
 Our hopes and singing musical 
 
 Give no long comfort, though we cling 
 
 To faith, and rouse our hearts to sing 
 
 As if from heaven the soul might view 
 
 On earth its visions live anew; 
 
 Forgetting that it all is vain, 
 
 And death gives nothing back again. 
 
 ^^ Yet song is magical; it brings 
 Some unguessed glory on its wings, — 
 Some clinging memory that shall last 
 When into dark the bard has passed. 
 Therefore methinks I still shall feel 
 The old reviving rapture steal 
 Below to comfort me, when eyes 
 Of youths shall open with surprise 
 And revelation, as the fire 
 Of sudden wonder and desire 
 In my dear-bought, sweet, quivering words 
 Shall strike their beings' hidden chords. 
 If in a fountain- plashing room 
 Weavers round some Arabian loom 
 
 47 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 Unto each other shall repeat 
 My music, very low and sweet, 
 And in their colors^ rich design 
 Unknowing weave these dreams of mine, 
 Then certainly I shall awake 
 And bless the far world for their sake. 
 \Yhen maidens on a summer night 
 Whisper, with softly-breathed delight, 
 My songs in their beloved's ear, 
 Surely I shall not fail to hear, 
 However far my spirit bides, 
 However mingled in strange tides 
 Of other life or other death. 
 And mine shall be their trembling breath 
 By right of fancy which has wove 
 The kindling image of their love. 
 
 "And from some chamber of the West 
 Where I shall take my final rest, 
 I shall look back on life, inspired 
 With light on puzzles that once tired 
 My thought in labyrinths immense. — 
 The mysteries of soul and sense j 
 And what is good, and what is base ; 
 What hallows one beloved face ; 
 Why hopeless chasms must still be trod 
 By him who greatly dreams of God ; 
 
 48 
 
 I 
 
T^E HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 Why tears alone can wake tlie mute 
 Music that sleeps within the lute : — 
 All these I think that I shall know, 
 And many a tale of long ago. — 
 All things that living I have sung 
 With reverencing though feeble tongue 
 Shall there be stripped of cloaking form, 
 And actual, palpitant and warm. 
 As disembodied essences 
 In every dawn flood to mine eyes. 
 Living, I loved them for no sake 
 Save Beauty's ; dying, then I find 
 Of all the goods I leave behind. 
 The only treasure I can take. 
 
 ^^Eut now what care I if I know. 
 When I shall sleep, wrapped cold, below, 
 How my praises shall be sung, 
 How my altars may be hung. 
 With what pomp of nights and days 
 Men may give my singing praise. 
 But this thing I find most sweet : — 
 To have trod with living feet 
 Through the uplands, through the green, - 
 Living, that mine eyes have seen 
 What strength the mortal heart can hold, 
 On which such tenderness doth fold 
 
 49 
 
THE HAPPY PEi:isrCESS 
 
 As still may last when moon and sun 
 And stars have chanted orison 
 Peacefully over my low bed, 
 Rising and setting where are shed 
 The flowers that shall wave o'er me 
 When I shall sleep eternally." 
 
 And the old glory came upon his face 
 With such a softness as to half erase 
 The marks of time and each too-longing pang. 
 And lifting up his golden harp he sang : — 
 
 ^^Thou strangely quivering, lifeless thing, 
 How cruel to waken thee to sing ! — 
 To stir thy silent golden wires 
 With touch of memories and desires. 
 Could I not even let thee sleep 
 In that Lethean empty deep 
 Of lifelessness where never beam 
 Of sun should slant athwart thy dream I 
 
 ^^ And yet perhaps, in later years. 
 In worlds beyond our joys and tears. 
 Thou and I, Brother, free and glad. 
 Shall both look back, not wholly sad 
 At thought of what on earth has been, 
 And dear desires we two have seen 5 
 
 60 
 
THE HAPPY PKINCESS 
 
 At thought I woke you from the clay 
 To stir and hope your little day." 
 
 And then, touching no sweet responding chord 
 Tenderly over his harp his voice he jioured : — 
 
 ^ ' Dreams which the heart doth hold, 
 Shall the later years forget ? 
 Days of the drifted gold, 
 Can ye change and wane and set ? 
 Let the stars go out and the sun wax cold, 
 But stay ye a little yet. 
 
 *' Ye go ; but ye return 
 In secret fairer guise. 
 Lights that of old did burn 
 In but one woman's eyes 
 
 Now fold the world where the heart once yearned 
 For a far-off paradise. 
 
 ^^ But now the heart is still 
 With a foamless tide of peace. 
 Over the bourne and hill 
 The ancient questings cease. 
 And from the surge of its former will 
 The soul shall find release. 
 
 51 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 ^^IS'ot in the sky's far gold 
 Is the fairest beauty set. 
 Love which the world doth fold, 
 Love without wane or set 5 — 
 Let the stars go out and the sun wax cold, 
 But stay thou a little yet.'' 
 
 And then he ceased 5 and every note was still 
 Save thoughts that came the silences to fill. 
 As when in slope of autumn afternoon 
 Ere yet the sun is gone, a feather moon 
 More white than silver floats upon the sky 
 In crystal silence, while the dreaming eye 
 Of poet so is charmed that he knows 
 Not when or how the waning sunlight goes j 
 And one by one the stars come ; and among 
 Her handmaidens, the moon, with censers swung 
 Solemnly round her, takes her lofty place 
 As queen of sky, and on her weary face 
 Shines an immortal ecstasy of light 
 And she moves slow out through the trackless 
 night. 
 
 52 
 
POEMS 
 
•I 
 
TO FANCY IN THE LATER DAYS 
 
 Yea, thee I call on, even as did that other 
 Greater than I in fate though like in aim, 
 To whom thou wert as loved breast unto lover. 
 Return, O Fancy, kindle me with flame 
 Like his, like thine. Not for the hope of fame 
 Or glory among men I ask it thee ; 
 But that I may rise passionate and free. 
 And from the peaks of my soul's liberty 
 
 Justify thy name. 
 
 For wearied of the hearths of home 
 Wearier still of days a- roam. 
 Unto thee the heart must turn. 
 And when dawn or even burn 
 Their soft lights of gray or rose, 
 Then again my forehead knows 
 Cool winds of thy starry sphere, 
 And the days of gold are here. 
 
 Linger by me at each hour. 
 Come to touch the bluebell's flower, 
 By a secret lovely change 
 Making it a palace strange, 
 Where the airy slender feet 
 
 55 
 
THE HAPPY PP IX CESS 
 
 Of the faeries are more s^ee: 
 Than the perfmne drifts from it. 
 Down the veined halU we glide 
 Where they flit and coyly hide. 
 Bnt when they behold thee come 
 To their swinging drowsy home. 
 All their x)^rfames forth they bear. 
 All the dewdrops from their hair, 
 All their songs of silence rare. 
 And they lay them at thy feet, — 
 Bluebell gifts to one more sweet 
 Than the fainting breath of it. 
 
 O sweet Fancy, come with me 
 To the green depths of the sea. 
 Come with me npon this shore 
 Unto which the long waves roar. 
 We will watch the bright crests come, 
 Cnrling over into foam. 
 And the moment ere they fall 
 Dart into the clear green hall. 
 And there be shut within the cave 
 Of the glimmering hollow wave. 
 Through its galleries we go, 
 PiEBt the groves where salt trees grow, 
 Over the sea- weed's ebb and flow. 
 We will come Into the walls 
 
 56 
 
TO FAKCY IN THE LATER DAYS 
 
 Of those deep dim castle halls 
 Built of reinless emeralds, 
 Where dwell all things sweet and dead 
 That from the garish earth have fled. 
 There I know that we shall find 
 The lost voice of the night wind. 
 There will be the perfect note 
 Which has ever seemed to float 
 Just beyond the yearning reach 
 Of earthly music's trembling speech. 
 Ah, perhaps there will be there 
 Lights on long- dead sunny hair, 
 Loves that were for earth too fair ! 
 
 II 
 
 If, O Fancy, thou wouldst bring 
 All these joys, that I might sing 
 Of their beauty, could I ask 
 More of thee who let me bask 
 In the dawn- light of thy smiles 
 Eound about thy fairy isles ? 
 
 Yea, I ask thee for a greater 
 Harder boon, — a charm to bring 
 To a sadder world and later 
 All its youth's remembering ; 
 
 57 
 
THE HAPPY PEIN^CESS 
 
 To bring back to wiser faces 
 Fervor of their youth's desire, — 
 Hope to seek the Silent Places, 
 Strength to find the Holy Fire. 
 For I know that thou canst fill 
 With thy passion every mind, 
 Touch the eyes that now are blind, 
 Wake the soul that now is still, 
 Make the deadened spirit thrill 
 Like a branch in April wind. 
 
 Thou hast loved the poet' s dreaming 
 Haunted chamber, hushed and lone. 
 Now come forth where tides are streaming 
 Of stern life, where break and moan 
 In the streets these weary streams. 
 Leave the poet with his dreams. 
 He needs not thy loving beams 
 As do these, thy lost, thine own. 
 
 For they are sad and worn with too long 
 waiting 
 For the great word, the solving touch of life. 
 And all is sordid grown, — their rest, their strife. 
 Death and desire and the sweet bloom of mating 
 Are common things. And all their hope of life 
 Fades out into a pallor, and is gone. 
 
 58 
 
TO FAIn'CY IK THE LATER DAY 
 
 III 
 
 They have forgot. The fairest things 
 Pall ; and they seek their joys in strife, 
 Panting for what the morrow brings, 
 The fleeting morrow of worn life. 
 The silences of twilight hours, 
 The voices of each woody spot, 
 The very beauty of small flowers. 
 
 They have forgot. 
 
 The sunset burns for them in vain. 
 To them the sacramental dawn 
 Is but new lease of trivial pain 
 Which must be drowned in pressing on 
 To strange fierce joys. I^o milder balm 
 Brings any easing of their lot. 
 The soft, the beautiful, the calm, 
 
 They have forgot. 
 
 They pray to God with hope of heaven ; 
 Yet nightly have no heart to see 
 Orion and the shining Seven 
 Move through the dusk's infinity. 
 — What if to them the death-hour brings 
 Knowledge which life has given not, — 
 That heaven lies in the little things 
 
 They have forgot ? 
 
 59 
 
THE HAPPY PRINCESS 
 
 IV 
 
 Fancy, crowned in heaven of old, 
 Bring again thy sacred gold 
 That our days fade not in cold. 
 Cast thy light upon the flowers 
 Blooming round the weariest hours, 
 And in bosoms make thy home 
 Whence the visions all have gone. 
 Thou canst build that godlike state 
 Past the bitter blows of Fate ; 
 Thou canst make the heart stand free 
 Even from its own agony ; 
 And in the light thy coming brings 
 The soul looks up, Lo ! and has wings ! 
 
 60 
 
TO FELICIA 
 
 Eoses have I never brought 
 
 Passionately unto thee, 
 Nor in woodland valleys sought 
 
 Violet or anemone. 
 
 What were flowers for that breast 
 Where the whole Spring's melodies 
 
 Tremble softly out of rest? 
 I have brought thee none of these. 
 
 But from gardens never stirred 
 By the footsteps of the throng, 
 
 Silent save for one wild bird, — 
 Lo! I bring thee now a song. 
 
 61 
 
TO ALDEBAEAN 
 
 I 
 
 Thou that glowest in the sky 
 With thy sullen smouldering light, 
 
 Like a red and angry eye 
 Burning through the black of night, — 
 
 Unto thee I sing my song 
 
 As the night winds pass along 
 From the west, where sank the sunset, 
 
 To the stretches of the dawn. 
 
 II 
 
 O Aldebaran, the red. 
 Casting down thy bloody glow. 
 
 Burning from the mad Bull's head 
 On the earth so gray below 5 
 
 Wheeling slow above the west 
 
 When the world has gone to rest; 
 Brooding o' er the silent darkness 
 
 Where the low hills raise their crest, - 
 
 ni 
 
 Take me on thy wings of fire 
 To the deep of darkness dim ; 
 Let me quench my great desire 
 
 62 
 
TO aldebaea:n^ 
 
 Out upon the heavens' rim. 
 Plunge with me into the night 
 Hushed of sound and void of light 
 
 Where dead suns and wandering planets 
 Grapple in eternal fight. 
 
 IV 
 
 "Where thou goest would I go, 
 Wheeling through the trackless gloom, 
 
 Into paths I cannot know, 
 Darker, stiller than the tomb. 
 
 And when brooding night is flown 
 
 In the carolling of dawn. 
 Let me follow thee forever 
 
 Through the wastes that are thine own. 
 
 Let me follow thee to spaces 
 Whence the earth shall fade afar. 
 
 In the vast aerial places 
 Let me find some untrod star 
 
 Where the silence is so deep 
 
 That the soul itself must sleep. 
 While across the heavens' mountains 
 
 Thou thy burning watch dost keep. 
 
 63 
 
THE HAPPY PRII^CESS 
 VI 
 
 Then my night of ancient longing 
 Shall be swallowed in thy night. 
 
 In thy dusk, the shadows thronging 
 Through my dusk shall turn to light. 
 
 And perhaps in comets' flame 
 
 All my dreams shall make proclaim, 
 Fiery-borne along the darkness 
 
 To the darkness whence they came. 
 
 VII 
 
 And beyond all mortal things, 
 In the outlands of the sky, 
 
 Soaring on thy giant wings 
 I shall see the world pass by 
 
 Like a dream, — a pageant known 
 
 In the space one thought has flown. 
 And thereafter shall be silence 
 
 And the night that is mine own. 
 
 64 
 
MAD SOT^G 
 
 The cold tree-tops and the wind and the stars 
 
 Are tangled together to-night ; 
 
 The sailing moon is blurred and bright 
 Behind the branches^ bars. 
 
 The seven winds that dwell on the moon 
 
 To-night have all got free, 
 
 And they speed toward earth like a wraith on 
 the sea, 
 And their spell will reach us soon. 
 
 Is there any haven or holy hill 
 
 On earth or underground 
 
 Where I may hide from that dreadful sound 
 When their shrieks the air shall fill ? 
 
 Is there any darkness more close than night 
 
 Where I can steal away 
 
 That I may not see their ghost-light gray 
 Which turneth to stone the sight ? 
 
 And, oh, the touch of the seven moon- winds ! 
 
 And, oh, their fingers cold and wan! 
 
 To every morrow those eyes are blind 
 Where the seven moon- winds have gone. 
 
 65 
 
THE HAPPY PRINCESS 
 
 They come ! I see them speeding adown 
 
 The moonlight's frozen track. 
 
 And when they go, I shall follow them back 
 Unto their terrible town. 
 
 I shall follow their starved and wailing faces, 
 
 Those faces blank of eyes. 
 
 Those faces that fill the gloam with their cries 
 In desolate soundless places. 
 
 Out from the tree-tops and tangled stars 
 I am drawn, I am going to-night, 
 To where the moon sails blurred and bright 
 
 Beyond the branches^ bars. 
 
 66 
 
ITALIAN PHANTASY 
 
 As the dark hills yearn toward Spring,- 
 As the summer swallow's wing 
 Turns to spaces of the South, — 
 As the poppy's glowing mouth 
 Cries for kisses of the sun 
 When Autumn days are almost done, — 
 As the heart too long aroam 
 Hungers for the peace of home, — 
 As the sea-gull turns to the sea, — 
 So turn I toward Italy. 
 
 And the ancient peace that bides 
 Somewhere in her crystal tides 
 Of southern pumice-isles 5 or where 
 In the gold glow of Tuscan air 
 Florence slumbers ; or in the home 
 Of all dead splendid shadows, Eome, — 
 In one of these her peace doth wait. 
 And though the wanderer cometh late, 
 Cometh weary to her breast. 
 Her arms shall open, and give him rest. 
 
 67 
 
THE HAPPY PRINCESS 
 
 II 
 
 I dare not think of thee, my land 
 (Mine by the right of ancient love), 
 Where once the Master-Poet wove 
 His songs which the cold English strand 
 So long dared not approve. 
 It were enough that he has sung 
 Thy sunset-girdled hills among 
 That thou shouldst ever be 
 Sacred ; enough, that in thy deep 
 Silence he takes his dreamless sleep 
 Beside thine azure sea. 
 
 I dare not think of thee, who long 
 Hast held all singers captive there. 
 Bidding them weave each jewelled song 
 To star the glory of thine hair ; 
 Lest I should flee my destined hour 
 Beneath these cold gray northern skies, 
 And come to add my fragile flower 
 Unto thy splendid garlandries. 
 How holy seem thy garden -places 
 To me upon these northern plains ; 
 How full of dear undying faces 
 And shadows which my soul would greet, 
 Haunting thy evening rains ! 
 
 68 
 
ITALIAN FANTASY 
 
 One, chief amid the lyric choir, 
 
 When his short day was almost done, 
 
 Came to thee, that his sinking fire 
 
 At least might die beneath thy sun. 
 
 And through thy golden afternoons 
 
 The freshness of a thousand Junes 
 
 Has bloomed with lily and glowing rose 
 
 In Petrarch^ s quiet garden- close. 
 
 And through thy dusks one form has moved 
 
 Not ever after to be lost, 
 
 Who by the wind of Hell was tossed 
 
 To reach the haven of his love. 
 
 Ill 
 
 O land beloved, — when the flame 
 Of sunset on the Grecian coast 
 Shone like a dream not wholly lost. 
 From that most magic soil I came ; 
 From sea- winds and gray olive-trees ; 
 From cold clear heights and stony plains, 
 And what of ancient shrine remains 
 Yet more austere than these j — 
 From Daulis and the land of Thrace 
 And the broad ^ vales of Thessaly ; — 
 And turned with eager seeking face 
 
 Seaward, to thee, to thee. 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 As once in purple-winged bark 
 Across the waves some Tyrian came, 
 So come I ; with the sunset's flame 
 
 I steer into the dark. 
 Across the sea my galleys stream, 
 Into thy haven of sunny gold ; 
 Where the poplars quiver in the tender gleam 
 And the young is mingled with the old, — 
 The young pale Spring so beautiful 
 And the old land rich in its faded years, — 
 In its immortality of tears 
 And its fountains of dreams that are ever full. 
 Spring too has dreams ; but the tears not yet 
 Have made her lovely lashes wet. 
 And she looks half- wondering on thy head 
 Bowed with the memories of the dead. 
 The light of her eyes like the azure dawn 
 Across thy ruined graves is shed ; 
 And the cypress forgets its orison 
 
 For the mighty that have gone. . . . 
 The vineyard- vales are green with fire 
 Of thin and tremulous leaves. 
 And in the tree-tops as a lyre 
 The Spring her music weaves. 
 Plain and river and terraced hill 
 Stir in the magic of her will. 
 There moves amid the feathery pines 
 
 70 
 
ITALIAN FANTASY 
 
 A snow-breath from the Apennines. 
 
 The very towers which, mouldered brown, 
 
 From little citadels look down, 
 
 Forget the aging thousand years ; 
 
 And see again the gallant spears 
 
 That once they saw pass gayly by 
 
 In long -dead springtide pageantry. 
 
 IV 
 
 Then rises in the sunset west, 
 Shadowed beneath one mighty dome, 
 That city of dreams, that bourne of rest,- 
 Eome. 
 
 I come, where all have come sometime, - 
 All dreamers of the world's desire, 
 Whose eager color and glowing rhyme 
 Girdle the heart with fire. 
 St. Peter's hollow distances 
 Still echo with the countless feet ; 
 Again the chanting, solemn, sweet, 
 Floats with the incense- mysteries. 
 Through vaulted nave again is poured 
 The pageant of the sacrifice, 
 Lifting to alien peoples' eyes 
 The visible splendor of the Lord. 
 And on the heart with wonder shod 
 
 71 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 The outward pomp its spell doth weave, 
 Teaching the doubter to believe : — 
 How can such altar lack its God ? 
 
 As pilgrims came in earlier years 
 To lay before some shrine 
 The heavy burden of their tears, 
 
 Take thou, O city, mine. 
 Let each thin circumstance and hope 
 Of mine own destinies 
 Fade in the all-dissolving scope 
 Of thine immensities. 
 In thy dark streets the troubled sense 
 Of mu,rching myriads fills the breast. 
 The wayside fountains still attest 
 Some bygone Pope's magnificence. 
 On ruin is new ruin grown, 
 Builded above with later tower. 
 Scarce on the column roots the flower ; 
 For new life makes the wreck its own, 
 Lifting the present from the past, — 
 The dim cathedral from the heap 
 Where Csesar's dust was laid asleep. — 
 Through death's gray arches life whirls fast. 
 
 Yet perfect peace one spot alone 
 Enfolds, — one spot, thy holiest one, 
 
 72 
 
ITALIAN FANTASY 
 
 Where two high hearts at rest are laid, — 
 
 Where Shelley sleeps in cypress shade 
 
 And Keats beneath the sun. 
 
 The spring wind stirs the solemn trees, 
 
 But nevermore shall it awake 
 
 These eyes, nor linger for the sake 
 
 Of teaching them its melodies. 
 
 And the swift clamor sinks away 
 
 By this calm bed ; 
 And all my thought moves with the dead j - 
 
 (Living, to-day !) 
 Till through the long years, tempest-tossed, 
 Those forms are hovering ; and I seem 
 To know all earthly shapes a dream 
 Beside your spirits loved and lost. 
 
 Giotto uplifted once a dream 
 From out his soul, — a dream so fair 
 That sudden rapture of the air 
 Enfolded it, and moonlight's gleam 
 Froze it to marble, that it stands 
 Now as a tower not built by hands. 
 
 But reared of vision there. 
 
 And under it does Florence brood 
 On wonderful and secret things. 
 
 73 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 All night she dreams : and when dawn flings 
 Its fire, she leaves her solitude 
 And moves half- tranced through the day ; 
 And dusk returns to bring alway 
 Her old imaginings. 
 
 Yet here where Michael's Titan tomb 
 Strains with the sense of mastering doom j — 
 Here, where the magic Lord of Line 
 Leads Spring in dances more divine 
 Than eyes have looked on ; — here may come 
 A sudden silence, to strike dumb 
 The over-gladsome ravishment 
 Which beauty on the heart has sent. 
 And on the deeper soul may fall 
 A fear, an emptiness, a pall. — 
 What do we dreaming in these halls. 
 Far from the world's onrushing stream? — 
 They did not sit apart and dream. 
 The souls who wrought these miracles 
 Of woven color and moulded stone ; 
 But in the broad and noisy day 
 Brought forth, that it might last alway, 
 The vision each had seen alone. 
 Amid a harsh and living world 
 They sought no futile soft release j 
 But moved within that vision's peace 
 
 74 
 
ITALIAN FANTASY 
 
 Which through each poet-brain had whirled. 
 
 We lose our lives in maddened haste 
 
 Of labor for unworthy things ; 
 
 Or else, in dream- filled wanderings 
 
 Here on thy shore the fleet hours waste. 
 
 The sordid strain for store of gold ; 
 
 The poets move in worlds apart : 
 
 The days grow barren and sadly old ; 
 
 Pulseless the nation's heart. 
 
 Pulseless, except for common hope 
 
 And trivial clamor in the street. 
 
 The scholar keeps his hushed retreat ; 
 
 The men of toil in blindness grope. 
 
 Oh to awake the shining glory 
 
 Once fair beneath thy skies, — 
 
 To touch with light our modern story, 
 
 And bring that wisdom to our eyes 
 
 Which made the streets of Michael's Eome 
 
 Thrill with the breath of unseen things. 
 
 And threw on Florence like angel- wings 
 
 The mighty shadow of the Dome ! 
 
 Dante, where art thou ? Michael, where 1 
 
 Teach us, amid these ancient stones, 
 
 That vision which alone is fair, 
 
 That beauty which for life atones. 
 
 76 
 
THE HAPPY PRINCESS 
 
 Yl 
 
 Dream-girt and hushed, I turn from thee, 
 
 well-beloved Italy. 
 
 1 leave green Capri ; and the pall 
 Where Venice's waters musical 
 Wash round a spectre-peopled bier ; 
 And Yallombrosa's forests sere. 
 
 I leave those haunts most dear to me, 
 Where fair Sorrento fronts the sea ; 
 Or where the Peestum roses bloom j 
 Or where Ravenna, veiled in doom. 
 Broods on the past continually ; 
 Or Rimini, whence One there came 
 To light love's sempiternal flame. . . . 
 Across the gray and wintry foam 
 The winds are calling in my home. 
 I go to them, for they are dear ; 
 But when thou callest, I shall hear. 
 Yea, far or near, once having heard 
 Thy musical voice, that secret word 
 Borne far across the barren seas 
 Is light and loveliness and peace. 
 
 76 
 
THE EETUEN TO AVON 
 
 8hakespere speaks 
 
 The lute-strings crack a little, — is't not sot 
 Eare Ben is not so jovial as his wont, 
 And all the rest grow stiff. We mope and mowe 
 Our long hour on the stage, and tire our blood 
 For pleasuring the stalls. But the hour comes 
 When even blood would bear no needless freight 
 Upon its currents, — pleasures nor desires e'en, 
 Nor glittering dreams nor deeds. The end is 
 
 darkness 
 That scarce will cool the eye. Let it rest, then, 
 In the hours of afternoon, ere darkness come : — 
 Turn from the hurly-burly, not worn out, 
 But pausing from the bumpers. — 
 
 Ben will grow old. 
 Spite of his rage at th' telling. Marlowe's 
 
 gone ; — 
 This many a Christmastide has lacked his face 
 And flying word. . . . And still the pit will 
 
 gape 
 Stupidly on the empty boards where ghosts 
 Do walk to shame the living. Last night they 
 
 cheered 
 Me, — or was it the servant who spoke — ^^ Sir, 
 
 77 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 The lady waits without/' so bunglingly ? 
 What^ had they hissed us both to oblivion, — 
 What then?. . . 
 
 Old faces go j London is lonely 
 For thought of some I know. In the loud street, 
 Behind all noises, waits the deep silence 
 Of voices gone ; and the clamor does not pierce 
 In the expectant brain as does that stillness. 
 Yea, we have bruited too, and with the throng 
 Made loud assail upon the hush, — even tried 
 To crowd that emptiness with busy meanings. 
 — And then the buskined phantoms of the day 
 Slip off their robes : — and silence alone lasts. 
 
 The meaning ? Hush ! They asked j and they 
 
 are gone ; 
 And ' t troubles them no more. The player takes 
 Silence as school in the end. And all the fury 
 Dies in the empty house. Wherefore ? — Go ask 
 Great Marlowe's Helen, or himself, — they know, 
 Perchance. For me, each actor's played his part 
 Heartily round me, and I knew each one, — 
 Perceived the speeches, moves, half of the heart, — 
 Each player's lines, I loved them. But what the 
 
 thread. 
 The plot, and who was hero. ... — Ah, I'm dull, 
 It has escaped me. — Friend, drink up your glass, 
 
 78 
 
THE EETURN TO AVON 
 
 Grasp the warm hand and build the impassioned 
 
 play, 
 Love, fight ; but question not of the greater play 
 For plot: it has none. — Great! O God, its 
 
 greatness 
 Masters us ; but at close, no rounding off, — 
 Not tragedy nor laughter : — just an end 
 Of a tale unpurposed. There's the plotter still 
 Strutting the stage, — when lo ! the fury's over 
 
 and 
 No more, lady or king. . . . 
 
 At the end, flowers 
 Seem realer than the rest, and sweeter, maybe. 
 I would take ease now in a quiet garden 
 Not far from Avon, where the cowslips pearl 
 Grass in a shade of oaks. The labor's done. 
 Not well, but as I might, since no man may 
 Beyond crude measure do his work quite well. 
 The silence keeps by him, and makes his voices 
 Like raw cymbals. There' s something left unsaid, 
 And silence says it, since we may not. There, 
 Out in that garden, flowers that dwell in silence 
 Know not of its oppression. I would go wreathed 
 Like a child, at the end. . . . 
 
 79 
 
TO SLEEP 
 
 Thou timeless flood in which the leaves of 
 
 Time 
 Drop and are lost, — come thon to cool mine eyes 
 And let thine oblivious waves meet o'er my 
 
 head. 
 
 For I am weary with deep weariness. 
 And sorer than the thirst of starved lips 
 Is thirst in me for sleep, — for sleep and peace. 
 With a passion of yearning that is agony, — 
 With a clutching, a horror, a whole abandon- 
 ment, 
 I turn toward thee ; and every nerve and thought 
 Cries out for thee to come with thy cool flood 
 And quench the fearful embers of my soul. 
 
 There was a time I would have cried for 
 
 dreams. 
 Summoning the shapes of splendor and of doom 
 That haunt the crowded caverns of thy deep. 
 I am too weary even for these ; I cry 
 Only for thee and thy vast silences. 
 Thou timeless flood, — come thou to cool mine 
 
 eyes 
 And let thine oblivious waves meet o'er my 
 
 head. 
 
 80 
 
PILGRIM VERSES 
 
 " My face is set toivard the islands and the sea, — 
 To'ward dreams as old yet ne^w as the spring nvorld. 
 And all my ^weariness is fallen from me 
 And all my fair nvhite hope-sails are unfurled; — 
 Yea, I nvill sail forth eager, strong, and free 
 To Isles round ^hich the foam of dream lies pearled^ 
 
 The Poet Yoshi. 
 
 81 
 
I 
 
 THE DEEAMBES OF DZUSHI 
 
 The battered fishing-junks of Dzushi 
 Stand out each morn into the sea. 
 Each eve their lighted sails turn homeward 
 Slowly and wearily. 
 
 And from their dusky little doorsteps 
 
 The fishers watch where longest gleams 
 The sunset gold beyond white Fuji, 
 And dream long silent dreams. 
 
 A thousand sunny years have faded 
 
 Since that which brought the fateful day 
 When the ancient Dream of the Dreamers of 
 Dzushi 
 Eose on that quiet bay. 
 
 But the simple fishermen of Dzushi 
 
 Have never to this day forgot ; 
 Since for one among them, the doom of the 
 Dreamer 
 Waits, and he knows it not. . . . 
 
 Misty autumn lay cool on Dzushi 
 After the flood of the summer rains. 
 
 83 
 
THE HAPPY PKINCESS 
 
 The beetle boomed at night no longer 
 On the lighted paper panes. 
 
 Old men wept to see the moonlight 
 
 Falling lovely across the door, 
 
 Calling it fairest of all the hundred 
 
 Summers had died before. 
 
 Young men sat by the low sand-levels 
 
 Watching the foam-born moonlight flowers 5 
 And sleep of night wove on unbroken 
 The dreams of their waking hours. 
 
 One splendid morn as the sun rose crimson 
 
 Out of the silken blue of the waves, — 
 As the fishing boats stood out past the beaches 
 And foaming water-caves, — 
 
 A maid who watched the sails grow smaller 
 
 Under the blue dome of the sky 
 Hid her face in her robe in terror, — 
 Wailed, and she knew not why. . . . 
 
 That eve the fisher- wives of Dzushi 
 Warmed the rice and sak^ sweet 5 
 Laid in order the fish and meal-cakes 
 That none should come to eat. 
 
 84 
 
I 
 
 THE DREAMERS OF DZUSHI 
 
 Late at night the maids of Dzushi 
 
 Watched with fear by the silent foam 
 For those who unto the sands of Dzushi 
 Should never more come home. 
 
 The cold morn rose ; and one sail slowly 
 Drove toward the weary wailing place, 
 Bearing a man ; and the light of madness 
 Stood on his pallid face. 
 
 And he told to the awe-hushed wives and maidens 
 
 A tale as strange as the mad foam's bloom, 
 How those who had dreamed the Dream of Dzushi 
 Went to their unknown doom : — 
 
 ^^ We had sailed past the cliffs of Kdmakiira ; 
 
 Enoshima lay on the sea's clear rim j 
 When a purple cloud rose out the water, 
 Glowing with fire-flakes dim. 
 
 '^ And a pillar of light like silver moonshine 
 
 Moved on the bright face of the deep. 
 And a perfume spread as when sandal-forests 
 Stir in their dusky sleep. 
 
 ^^And the cloud and the light moved out to 
 westward. 
 I longed to follow where they should go, 
 
 85 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 For I thought they went to the Sea King's 
 garden, 
 I thought, but I did not know. 
 
 ' ' I only know that I longed to follow ; 
 
 And from the boats a great shout rose : — 
 ^ We have seen the dream that our hearts must 
 follow 
 To where the pearl-flower blows ; 
 
 >'<■ ^For it leads us beyond the great gray water, 
 
 Down to the jewelled coral throne 
 In the realm of the King and his foam- white 
 daughter, 
 Who will give us realms of our own ! ' 
 
 ^^ And the cloud and the light moved over the 
 ocean. 
 Behind them all the raised sails sped. 
 But I closed my eyes, and with hard-thrown 
 tiller 
 Turned from their path and fled. 
 
 ^^They are gone with the light and the cloud of 
 purple 
 Along a path that I dared not go. 
 
THE DEEAMERS OF DZUSHI 
 
 And I think that they came to the Sea King's 
 garden, 
 I think, but I do not know.^' 
 
 Still in the sea-born town of Dzushi 
 
 The story lingers, like some old rhyme 
 In which as a vial is distilled the perfume 
 And bloom of forgotten time. 
 
 And once, 'tis said, in each generation 
 
 A fisher must dream that dream again. 
 In some one heart it rises sudden 
 When the autumn flowers wane, 
 
 That he goes, without a word of parting. 
 
 To seek the land in the purple west 
 Beyond to ocean, where waits the Sea King 
 To give him flowers of rest. 
 
 And if you ask strong men in Dzushi, 
 
 They laugh and call it but a tale 
 Woven of wandering twilight shadows 
 That hour the west lights pale. 
 
 But if you ask of the youths or old men. 
 Or maids, whose eyes see more than ours, 
 
 87 
 
THE HAPPY PRINCESS 
 
 They tell you the long-lost Dreamers are dwell 
 ing 
 In peace ^mid the soft pearl-flowers. 
 
 And many a one of them looks to westward 
 
 And longs I know not how wistfully 
 That she were one of the Dreamers of Dzushi 
 In the garden beyond the sea. 
 
 88 
 
THE BELOVED 
 
 After the Japanese of Yoshi 
 
 Cold and silver and secret, she mounts from the 
 
 purple sea-floor. 
 Slender and pale she moves through the tender 
 
 rose of the West. 
 O Moon so long belov d, O trembling secret 
 
 maiden, 
 O bride who comest cold to the flush of thy 
 
 bridal doors ! 
 
 89 
 
THE HOUSE OP THE POTTER 
 
 I 
 
 I do not know how I can answer you. 
 It is quite simple, an you have the skill, 
 To mould the hammered copper to its shape. 
 The beating and the joining you have seen ; 
 But just the rest, — the perfect form itself, — 
 There are no words to make you understand. . . . 
 
 One comes to think so much upon the Form. 
 At night the darkness gathers into shapes 
 At which the senses clutch, to tear them forth 
 From boundless space which so envelops them. 
 You are a painter ? — Ah, that is less hard. 
 You seek the line, the color ; but I strain 
 After the mass, as one who slowly breaks 
 A statue free from its enfolding stone. 
 The curve of the new moon, the drooping bough, 
 The slanting wave, — you paint them as they are. 
 But me they lead into the boundless dark, 
 The twilight place of uncreated Form. 
 At times I almost fear. For I must work 
 In this strange land of night where all is still, 
 And murky shapes tower dimly through the 
 
 gloom 
 And one might think to meet his own wan face. 
 
 90 
 
THE HOUSE OF THE POTTER 
 
 Sometimes the Master comes to watch my work. 
 He himself makes, I think, not many shapes. 
 But once he praised a vase that I had wrought ; 
 And then with one sure change transformed its 
 
 mould 
 Into that dream which I had sought in vain. 
 And as he looked into my eyes, I knew 
 That he had seen the Form more clear than I, — 
 That he too knew the lonely twilight country. 
 
 n 
 
 Yea, I am he who makes chrysanthemums. 
 I think you watched me painting yesterday. 
 Ah, yes. To-day I work not, for my hand 
 Is not quite firm, nor do my eyes see clear : 
 And then the Master wills that none should 
 work. 
 
 Indeed, our little garden is so still 
 You would not guess the clatter of the street 
 Went on about it in the dusty sun. 
 That gold glow on the bamboos by the well, 
 How soft it is ! And here beside the pool's 
 Small islands and low faery promontories, 
 The light is such a russet as I long 
 To lay on that unfinished vase of mine. 
 
 91 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 I do not draw tlie outlines, nor yet bend 
 The slender tracery of gold and silver. 
 The Master gives the pattern ; and a boy 
 Snips out the tracery,— 'tis easy work, — 
 Amid his shining wires, piece by piece. 
 I lay the colors, — choose what grimy dust 
 Out of the little piles will fuse and melt 
 To pools of jewelled light around the vase. 
 That cloudy blue none makes as well as 1 5 
 And I have heard the Emperor has praised 
 A certain yellow — like the open west — 
 I laid upon a bowl that went to him. 
 But more than all, chrysanthemums are mine. 
 In rusty gold and smoky purple-gray 
 And faintest lilac and pale sleeping white 
 They range around my vases. None but I, 
 And he, the Master, thus can make them rise 
 Frail as at autumn's touch. 
 
 — It is most strange : — 
 The youngest and the happiest of our house 
 Love best to paint the fierce unearthly shapes, — 
 Great blue-gold dragons on a field of green. 
 Or serpents coiling round the ocean world. 
 But those less joyful turn to trees and flowers, 
 The cherry and the iris and the pine. 
 The commonest growths upon our summer hills. 
 
 92 
 
THE HOUSE OP THE POTTER 
 
 Once long ago in summer I too wrought 
 A dragon with an emerald in his mouth. 
 I thought that I should make such all my days. 
 But now I paint only chrysanthemums. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Ugh, what know I of what goes on within 
 The furnace at whose doors I have to sweat? 
 They only bring their pots for me to cook,— 
 To put into that fiery devil's mouth 
 And burn until the gritty sand runs smooth. 
 And meantime what a flood of sage advice 
 They pour upon me!— As if forty years 
 Had taught me nothing of my cursed art. 
 
 But how they fear me ! For they know I hold 
 The power to ruin all that work of theirs. 
 A log too much, a half a breath too long, 
 And it is flawed for them. And in my fire 
 Is tried, before a judge who never swerves, 
 The toilsome labor of their many days. 
 Where is the grain of dust, the faulty flux, 
 The uneven color that does not come forth 
 Out of my kiln increased a hundred-fold ? 
 And then the Master comes with searching eye. 
 And with stern iron hammer breaks to bits 
 93 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 What was rejected by the fiery trial. 
 But when the flux is right, the color pure, 
 And each line clear, then all the fire^s light 
 Seems frozen in them when they come from it. 
 See, — this is spoiled, — the fleck below the 
 
 flower : 
 But here's a vase that all will know as ours 
 Wherever you may take it in the world. 
 
 That green, — you see, — that green brings 
 back to me 
 A time of long ago, when night by night 
 The Master sat with me beside the kiln. 
 We fed the monster logs of pitchy pine 
 And watched the slow procession of the stars, 
 And for great fear spoke not a single word. 
 Then I grew ill, and still he watched alone ; 
 I do not know what dreams watched by his 
 
 side. 
 Until one dawn he came to where I lay, 
 Almost recovered of my fever spell. 
 And speaking nothing, held before my face 
 A little cup on which the cloudy green 
 Flowed like a spotless lake among the hills. 
 I cried aloud and almost wept for joy : 
 But he said nothing, though he looked at me 
 As if the sunlight shone behind his eyes. . . . 
 
 94 
 
THE HOUSE OF THE POTTER 
 
 It is a pretty color : oh, yes, yes. 
 I would not rank it higher than its worth. 
 — And here they come with more accursed pots 1 
 
 IV 
 
 You have not seen the Master? Ah, how 
 
 strange ! 
 You thought, then, he would stand within the 
 
 gate 
 To bargain with you on his latest vase ? . . . 
 — Nay, nay, forgive me. I am very old ; 
 And I have seen so many who have come 
 With chattering lips and prying sightless eyes 
 To look at him as at a juggler's show. . . . 
 
 He does not come among us often now. 
 Sometimes he enters to the working-room 
 And with a word, a look, a certain touch, 
 Rekindles those who toil for beauty there. 
 I, by the gate, do not look on him often. 
 But sometimes yonder, by the opened kiln, 
 I see him standing like a Deva King, 
 His stern just iron hammer in his hand. 
 
 Not twice a summer does he pass the gate. 
 Men praise him from the limits of the earth j 
 
 95 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 And yet he seldom leaves the little house 
 Hid by the bamboos yonder in the garden. 
 It is not work, I think ; for when he draws, 
 The colored pattern or the outlined shape 
 Grows with a swiftness unbelievable. 
 A dozen days, and he could have complete 
 The plans for all the sixty little jars 
 That are our yearly harvest. Nay, I think 
 He cannot work through all the lonely days. 
 
 He used to be among us more than now. 
 Those were the years wherein his brain devised 
 The colors and the crucibles and tools 
 By which our house now execute his will. 
 His eyes are dimmer than they were of old. 
 He moulds no more, nor blends the pigment- 
 dust, 
 But only weaves those mysteries of line 
 And harmonies of color you have seen. 
 Sometimes at night I meet him by the pool, 
 Looking in silence through the silver depths ; 
 Or walking slowly down the autumn paths, 
 Dreaming some dream of which we cannot know. 
 
 I sometimes think that in this quiet place 
 He makes all a little like himself. 
 We do not greatly care for the loud world, 
 
 96 
 
THE HOUSE OF THE POTTER 
 
 Nor praise of men. For what were all their 
 
 praise 
 To him who sees a color in his dreams 
 And spends his days to bring it down to earth f 
 No heart among us is without its vision, 
 And is not beauty then enough for life ? 
 But I have often trembled with dim fear 
 To think what blinding majesty of light, 
 What forms and colors of another world 
 He must have seen who walks so lonely now,— 
 What pathways must be open to the feet 
 That pace the narrow confines of the garden. 
 
 97 
 
AT ISE 
 
 When she was dead, and the votive tablets 
 Began to darken that bore her name, 
 
 He left the cheerless mountain village, 
 The hills that seemed no more the same, 
 
 And donned the faring pilgrim's garments ; 
 
 And turned his face toward the happy south 
 Where the Lord of Summer dwells forever 
 
 With a sunny smile on his poppy mouth. 
 
 But his was no glad path of summer. 
 
 No lighted meadow bloomed for him. 
 He trod strange lonely hills at noontide ; 
 
 At dusk, strange ways with shadows dim. 
 
 Men gave him rice or fruit or sake 
 
 Or fresh- caught fish, as each could spare. 
 
 The rains of eve fell coldly round him j 
 The dews of night were on his hair. 
 
 Along the great Tokaido roadway 
 As by some unseen tempest blown. 
 
 He drifted 'mid the stream of travellers, 
 Silent and weary and alone. 
 
 And in the end won slowly onward, 
 Less live than dead, less man than wraith, 
 
AT ISE 
 
 To where in Ise's valleys moulder 
 The strongholds of the Ancient Faith. 
 
 He passed the timeless groves of camphor ; 
 
 He passed the blessed Cleansing Stream ; 
 And saw amid the sacred cedars, 
 
 Beneath the torii's faded gleam, 
 
 That Shrine before all others holy, 
 Set in a wide sequestered glade. 
 
 And standing at the white veiled portal 
 He bowed his head and prayed : — 
 
 ^' God who art sun and earth and sky. 
 My mother's heart, my father's spirit, 
 
 Unto whose ear the priests lift cry. 
 Lord of all life our souls inherit, — 
 
 •^ Thou who art shadow over me 
 And shining light around my head, — 
 
 Give back one light to comfort me. 
 Bring back one living from the dead. 
 
 ^^ I fear the labyrinthine ways 
 
 Where in new shapes our souls are born, 
 Lest she and I may miss always. 
 
 Nor ever see the same white morn. 
 
 99 
 
 Lofa 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 ^'Thou who art judge of all the earth, 
 Who art the judged, who art the rod, — 
 
 Stay, of the countless, one rebirth ; 
 
 And praised be thou, the Unknown God.'' 
 
 A thousand pilgrims came and went. 
 
 A thousand prayers rose from the Shrine 
 To Him whose eye as one beholds 
 
 The dawning and the set of time. 
 
 The years went by ; yet day by day 
 
 Steadfast before the holy place 
 He waited, in whose heart grew fear, 
 
 Though trembling hope shone on his face. 
 
 The camphor-trees are mouldering now. 
 
 A newer greater temple stands 
 Where stood the old ; and^pilgrims come 
 
 To pray the prayers of many lands. 
 
 But as last night I walked the grove, 
 
 I heard before the temple stair 
 A voice that trembled on the dusk 
 
 With hopeless passion of faint prayer: — 
 
 ^^ Shadow and light around our heads, — 
 Thou who art judge, and judged, and rod. 
 
 Who are the living ? Who the dead ? 
 Who art thou, thou Unknown God? " 
 
 100 
 
MUEAMADZTJ 
 
 A mouldering Buddha sits as warden 
 Beside the ruined mossy gate. 
 He must be rash, or strong with fate, 
 
 Who mounts unbidden to this garden. 
 
 The pine and cypress intertwining 
 Cover the lotus-pool with shade. 
 But where the ancient graves are laid, 
 
 A dreamy veil of sun is shining. 
 
 I do not know what shapes are here, 
 Nor why the sun so strangely shines. . 
 It is a place of ruined shrines. . . . 
 
 The distant wind is all I hear. . . . 
 
 What secret makes this place beguiling 
 I know not ; nor what visions lost 
 Stir like a frail forgotten ghost 
 
 While Buddha's lips are faintly smiling. 
 
 101 
 
THE POET YOSHI 
 
 " To his Songs " 
 
 The many shall never know you. 
 
 But few shall hold you dear. 
 In the deserts of earth where I sow you 
 
 You shall fade with the fading year. 
 
 You shall feel dark skies above you 
 
 And learn the lonely lot, — 
 Till you come to a heart that shall love you j 
 
 And the rest shall be forgot. 
 
 1 
 
 102 
 
KOBO DAISHI'S FIEE 
 
 When Kobo Daishi lit that fire 
 Whose sacred flame is burning still 
 Where Miyajima, hill by hill, 
 
 Lifts from the waves to one gray spire, 
 
 He saw upon the sunset sky 
 
 A cloud-shaped dragon gray and gold 
 With scales along each monstrous fold 
 
 And eyes that glimmered balefuUy. 
 
 And as he looked, the moving air 
 Changed it and moulded in its place 
 A downcast pious trader's face 
 
 With lips that seemed to stir in prayer. 
 
 Then the Great Teacher turning spake : — 
 ^^ Full many times this shape shall come. 
 Stealthy or rampant, loud or dumb, 
 
 And many forms its soul shall take. 
 
 ^ ' Though as a trader mild it move, 
 Or as a power to make you free, 
 Or bring you strength of land and sea, 
 
 Ye shall not give it aught of love. 
 
 103 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 "Let no gate open to its wiles. 
 
 It feeds upon all sweet content j 
 
 Kor will it stay till it has rent 
 The ancient peace that makes your isles 
 
 "A place where each man can fulfill 
 His individual life with days 
 That lead through simple natural ways 
 
 Where deep unrestfulness is still. 
 
 "The dragon gives the vaunting boast, 
 The longing for un-precious things. 
 When you have grasped what gifts he brings, 
 
 Then shall you know what you have lost.'^ 
 
 Still burns, but low, the sacred fire. 
 Its shrine, though ruined, rises still 
 Where Miyajima, hill by hill. 
 
 Lifts from the waves to one gray spire. 
 
 But the Great Teacher might not wait 
 Whose words so warning were of yore. 
 The sunset burns along the shore. 
 
 The dragon hovers at the gate. 
 
 104 
 
BEFOEE THE BUDDHA 
 
 From the poet Toshi 
 Yea, Buddha, Teacher,— Buddha, Lord,- 
 
 Before thy calm and silent face 
 
 I also bow me in my place 
 And strive to hear the sacred Word. 
 
 Even as thou, in days agone. 
 
 Hast seen the pallor of all things, 
 So I have learned that seeking brings 
 
 No joy that may for life atone. 
 
 So I have seen the tangled plan 
 Of life and death which vain desire 
 Weaves with an all-pervading fire 
 
 Around the weary heart of man. . . , 
 
 Yea, having seen through all my days 
 No thing but changes and goes by, 
 I find none worth my agony ; 
 
 I turn unto thy silent ways ; 
 
 And deem that it enough shall be 
 Justly to live, nobly to dream, 
 Firmly to rule what soon shall stream 
 
 To thy unfathomable sea. 
 
 105 
 
BUDDHA AT NADIKA 
 
 And Buddha came to where the sea 
 Curled silver-white upon the land, 
 And murmurs of infinity 
 
 Breathed on the sand. 
 
 And there lay shells like rosy foam 
 
 Borne from the caverns of the deep, 
 Frail playthings drifted from the home 
 Of timeless tideless sleep. 
 
 And on the sand a Fisher stood. 
 
 Drying his nets that late had seen 
 The silent caverns of the flood 
 
 And all the wastes between. 
 
 The Fisher lingered in his place 
 
 With countenance of mild surprise, |fl 
 
 And looked upon the Buddha's face 
 
 With dumb uncomprehending eyes. 
 
 And Buddha spake : ^ * Thy nets are drawn, 
 
 Thy boat rocks idle on the sea, 
 Thy day turns westward, and is gone. . . . 
 Come thou with me.'^ 
 
 106 
 
BUDDHA AT NADIKA 
 
 The Fisher marvelled, — ^^I must toil 
 
 With nets and shells among the caves, 
 To win the sea's unwilling spoil 
 From the harsh waves.'' 
 
 And Buddha answered : ^^ Cast no more 
 
 Thy nets upon the troubled sea, 
 Nor gather shells along the shore. 
 Come thou with me. 
 
 ^^ Thou drawest shells and curious flowers 
 
 From out the blue untrodden caves. 
 Thou seest the passing of the hours. 
 
 Thou hearest the clamor of the waves. 
 
 '^Thou openest the shell where lies 
 
 The pearl more white than driven spray. 
 And trackless past thy vision flies 
 Each passing day. 
 
 ^' But I will teach thee not to stir 
 
 The shell nor flower in its sleep. 
 
 For thou shalt roam the sepulchre 
 
 That chasms all their native deep. 
 
 '^ And vain desire, like terror grown 
 Deep in the chambers of thy breast, 
 
 107 
 
I 
 
 THE HAPPY PEI:NCESS 
 
 Shall be from thee forever flown, 
 And thou shalt rest. 
 
 ^^ No search for pearls shall blind thy thought, 
 
 Nor waves, with clamorous harmonies. 
 But in the silence where is naught 
 
 Thou shalt behold the One that is. 
 
 ^^ And where thy days now speed like foam 
 
 Across thy vision, there shall be 
 For thee a vast eternal home, — 
 An Infinite Sea.^' 
 
 The Fisher looked on Buddha dumb, — 
 Looked deep into that tender gaze, — 
 Those eyes within whose depths had come 
 And gone the sorrows of all days. 
 
 He looked uncomprehendingly, 
 
 And wearily he shook his head j 
 And turned once more to drag the sea. 
 
 Knowing not what the Buddha said. 
 
 108 
 
THE OLD CALL 
 
 When our northern streets are dumb with 
 
 sullen cold 
 And the brightest hearthfire somehow fails to 
 
 cheer j 
 When you feel the tragic passing of the year, 
 And the world you know seems worn and sad 
 
 and old ; — 
 Then turn from where the spirit's youth is 
 
 dying?— 
 
 Breast the night, the stars, the wind, the break- 
 ers' roar ; 
 
 Follow questionless that word the heart is 
 crying 
 
 Till it brings you to the sun-hills of Johore. 
 
 Leave the city j turn you inland 
 Past the line of tree-fringed shore. 
 Where the snow-white herons ponder. 
 Blinking, poising at Johore. 
 And the white clouds pile to eastward 
 And the clean hot sunshine lies 
 Like a fire along the landscape, 
 Bringing glow to weary eyes. 
 Sun-floods make the blood beat fuller. 
 Pour their lightnings through your brain ; 
 
 109 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 Let you throb with wave and river, 
 
 Stir and sleep with palm and plane. 
 
 And the storms march up in columns 
 
 From the shining Indian Sea ; 
 
 And at night the heat-glare flashes 
 
 Instant bright on cloud and tree. 
 
 Deep the green, — oh, never deeper. 
 
 And the crimson flowers flame 
 
 Through their leaves like Nature's day-dreams. 
 
 And you dream, till whence you came, 
 
 Where you go, are severed from you 
 
 And your glad soul fain would soar 
 
 Where the white doves whirl and circle 
 
 Through the sunshine of Johore. . . . 
 
 Go you hence and lift your burden j 
 Tread the path that has been set. 
 Leave the sunshine, leave the sea- wind, 
 Leave the palm-trees, and forget. 
 — And forget ! — Except when June winds 
 Stir the pulses of the world, 
 And a longing thrills the tree-trunks. 
 Thrills the leaves but half uncurled ; 
 Comes and whispers at your window 
 When the morning dews are wet ; 
 Breathes upon your weary forehead 
 When the green-gold sun has set. 
 
 110 
 
THE OLD CALL 
 
 I 
 
 It will reach you in the northland, 
 
 It will touch you though you die, 
 
 It will draw your heart's unutterable core 
 
 Through the night, the stars, the breakers, 
 
 To the sun, the heron's cry, 
 
 With the calling, calling, calling of Johore. 
 
 Ill 
 
ON A PEESIAN TILE 
 
 Where would you ride, O knight so bold, 
 Decked in your youth's glad panoply? 
 
 In robe of rose with thread of gold, 
 As for some gallant holiday ? 
 
 Do you not know that long of old 
 Your Shah's great pageant moved away? 
 
 And still you ride your prancing steed, 
 And still your laughing eyes are bright. 
 
 Is it because you have small need 
 Of aught save of your own delight 
 
 That you remain while empires bleed 
 And turn to shadows down the night ? 
 
 I love you, and I know not why. 
 
 I have passed by the loftier face 
 Of a king stern in majesty, 
 
 And of a poet. To your place 
 I come. You only could not die. 
 
 But ride and ride with old-time grace. 
 
 And it avails not that I tell 
 
 To you how all your pomps are fled j 
 That lovely eyes you loved so well 
 
 112 
 
ON A PEKSIAN TILE 
 
 Long since have joined the weary dead 
 How all your lords and princes fell 
 And over them the flowers are shed. 
 
 laugher in the face of Time, 
 
 O you who linger down the years, 
 Eternal in your eager prime, 
 Lord of mortality's dim fears, — 
 
 1 wonder, does your heart not pine 
 Sometimes for boon of human tears ? 
 
 Would you not wish, if wish you could, 
 That there might sometime come a day 
 
 When you could doff your merry mood 
 And weep a little for the clay 
 
 To which has turned your princes' blood. 
 To which your ladies stole away ? 
 
 113 
 
THE DEVIL DANCEES 
 
 A Thibetan Folk-song 
 
 The shrilling Devil Dancers came 
 
 With shuffling feet. 
 They called upon you by the name 
 
 That was so sweet. 
 With great ghost- daggers in their hands 
 They wove a spell 
 
 Whereof they said, not Hell 
 Nor Heaven itself could loose the bands. 
 
 . . . And was it well ? 
 
 Like some great ghost who heaves and spills 
 
 The shaken ground, — 
 Like a thunder- demon of the hills 
 
 They would have bound 
 You who were wont beside my bed 
 To bring me peace 
 
 Which alone gave release 
 From terrors that, since you were dead, 
 
 Never could cease. 
 
 The grinning Devil Dancers came 
 
 With shuffling feet. 
 They said, — ^^It is a thing of shame 
 
 That now so sweet 
 
 114 
 
THE DEVIL DANCEES 
 
 Should seem a ghost that weaves you bands 
 Of some vile spell. ' ' 
 
 And they cursed by Heaven and Hell 
 With the great ghost- daggers in their hands . . . 
 
 It was not well ! 
 
 Since then I watch awake all night, 
 
 But no one comes. 
 The stars pass and there breaks the light. 
 
 The thundering drums 
 Of the Devil Dancers rise and fall 
 As the dawn grows ; 
 
 And on the wind that blows 
 Down from the heights comes the keen chill 
 call 
 
 Of the changeless snows. 
 
 And I have come at the far white call j 
 
 And now I stand 
 Here where the mountains' rocky wall 
 
 On either hand 
 Stretches away to west and east, 
 Snow-peak on peak, 
 
 Till the senses would grow weak, 
 Were it not that here I must stand as priest 
 
 With all to seek ! 
 
 116 
 
THE HAPPY PRINCESS 
 
 Here the Devil Dancers cannot come. 
 
 — I will seek, and find ! 
 On these breathless snows all things are dumb 
 
 Save the wind, — 
 The wind that came from this haunted height 
 Only to tell 
 
 That what not Heaven nor Hell 
 Could loose, I can loose, in the plunge to- 
 night. . . . 
 
 And it shall be well ! 
 
 116 
 
THE CITY OF AMB^E 
 
 Perhaps it was on such a day 
 That, ceasing in his loving thee, 
 
 Thy splendid Eajah went away 
 Amid his golden pageantry ; 
 
 And left thee for the rains to gray 
 With winds for all thy company. 
 
 Thy carven balconies are bare, 
 
 Nor princesses now lean from them. 
 And never more their garments' hem 
 Sweeps through thy halls. Ah, never there 
 Shall sunlight gleam upon the hair 
 That was thy loveliest diadem. 
 
 And on thy battlements the word 
 
 Of armed men is wholly dumb. 
 And dumb the sweet ring of the sword. 
 
 And for a guest who does not come 
 Thy gates stand open, — for the lord 
 
 Who long ago passed out therefrom. 
 
 The gray ape clambers in the sun 
 
 And laughs like madness on thy walls. 
 At dusk the proud blue peacock calls 
 
 117 
 
THE HAPPY PRINCESS 
 
 And plumes his feathers one by one. 
 And lizards timorously run 
 
 Through the pale moonlight of thy halls. 
 
 Thou knowest not. A dream is thine 
 Of that great day when in his state 
 Thy Rajah passed the valley -gate 
 With gold- decked elephants a-shine, 
 With all the life that warmed like wine 
 Thy courts and galleries of late ; 
 
 And down the crowded causeway bore 
 Thy blood, thy life, away with him. 
 
 — What was the look that then he wore 
 As passing o'er the valley's rim 
 
 He turned from thee to come no more, 
 And left thee to thy twilight dim ? 
 
 Amber, no man shall fathom thee. 
 
 Some mystery of ancient pain 
 
 Is on thee. Though thy splendors wane, 
 Thou seemest not ruined utterly, 
 But waiting till his pageantry 
 
 Return to make thee glad again. 
 
 118 
 
\^ 
 
 THE WILD DUCK 
 
 A Japanese Frieze 
 
 The heron rises and circles, 
 
 The wild duck steadily flies 
 Past the shadowy lake and marshes 
 
 Toward the yellow western skies. 
 
 The ripples murmur and travel 
 
 Outward in golden lines. 
 A wild duck flaps from the marshes 
 
 And rises over the pines. 
 
 Shadows sink on the woodland 
 
 Mistily deepening more. 
 A wild duck flies toward the sunset. 
 
 A wild duck lifts from the shore. 
 
 I am lone in this land of marshes ; 
 
 I wander its silent streams, 
 Where I hear but the wild duck calling 
 
 And see but the yellow gleams. 
 
 Dark comes on the quiet waters, 
 The pine-trees sink in haze. 
 
 119 
 
THE HAPPY PEINCESS 
 
 Only tlie west is lighted 
 With ruin of many days. 
 
 Only the rushes murmur 
 
 On the water's mirror breast, 
 
 As a wild duck hovers and turns him 
 Toward the open silent west. 
 
 120 
 
BEAHMA 
 
 Whoso desires, or joys, or weeps 
 For whatsoever things may be 
 
 In life between the gulfs of sleep, 
 Knows not the fashion of the Three. 
 
 Brahma am I, and Vishnu too, 
 And Siva ; — maker, savior, flame 
 
 Of ruin. — Can thy mind then view 
 Me who am Three and still the same 1 
 
 I shatter cities in their might 
 
 And shape soft flowers of their clay. 
 
 I break the hundred towers of night 
 To build therewith the dome of day. 
 
 Brahma am 1 5 I shape all things 
 Whereof the wisest mouth can tell 
 
 I fashion from the mould of kings 
 The butterfly. And it is well. 
 
 Vishnu am 1 5 it is my will 
 
 The stone should lie where once it fell, 
 The sun still shine to warm the hill. 
 
 The heart still hope. And it is well. 
 
 121 
 
THE HAPPY PEI:N"CESS 
 
 Siva am I. With scathing fire 
 
 I sweep the worlds like wind of Hell. 
 
 With all its web of vain desire 
 Creation falls. And it is well. 
 
 Think you I do these for my sport ? — 
 
 Each flower that blooms and buds and dies 
 
 Draws from the deep well of my heart 
 A flood of unguessed agonies. 
 
 But thus through courts of starry space 
 I who am all, who am the Three, 
 
 Cast on the dark of Time and Place 
 The light of mine Eternity. 
 
 122 
 
APfi 8 1907