COEflRIGinr DEPGSiT. THE YALE SERIES Horizons OF YOUNGER POETS ( ■^ J^ iH9 PUBLISHER'S NOTE. The Yale Series of Younger Poets is designed to afford a publishing medium for the work of young men and women who have not yet secured a wide public recognition. It will include only such verse as seems to give the fairest promise for the future of American poetry, — to the development of which it is hoped that the Series may prove a stimulus. Communications concerning manuscripts should be addressed to the Editor, Professor Charlton M. Lewis, 425 St. Ronan Street^ New Haven, Connecticut. VOLUMES ISSUED, OR PLANNED FOR EARLY PUBLICATION I. The Tempering. By Howard Buck. II. Forgotten Shrines. By John Chipman Farrar. III. Four Gardens. By David Osborne Hamilton. IV. Spires and Poplars. By Alfred Raymond Bellinger. V. The White God and Other Poems. By Thomas Gal- decot Chubb. VI. Where Lilith Dances. By Dart Macleod Boyle. VII. Wild Geese. By Theodore H. Banks, Jr. VIII. Horizons. By Viola C. White. Horizons VIOLA C. WHITE NEW HAVEN • YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON • HUMPHREY MILFORD • OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS MDCCCCXXI COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS MAV 16 1921 CU614492 r Tacknowledgments. 7" /"^ RATEFUL acknowledgment is made by the author to ^ Vjr The Atlantic Monthly, The Poetry Review, "The An- ^ thology of Magazine Verse for 1918" (William Stanley gBraithwaite), The Stratford Journal, The Survey, and The ^ World Tomorrow for permission to reprint in this volume certain poems which first appeared in their pages. TO MY MOTHER CONTENTS. Clouds To a Sea-gull Wind and Ocean . The Astronomer To a Friend . Summer Thoughts in Winter October The Witch of Althemair . Perneb Dandelion Full Moon on the Acropolis The Prehistoric Lake Past and Future Impressions of Hawaiian Music I. The Rising Moon II. The Curse . III. After Rain . The Children and the Inlet At the Scheidegg . Snowstorm Jungfrau Dutch Slumber Song Fairy Message Sunday Morning . In the Cow Pasture Three Hours at Owego September Walk The Sage's Boat Prisoners Nocturne The Search for the Will The Lake on My Lands Liberated Child of Adam Failures The Guardians The First Poppy . Ballad . To a Starfish Changing Runners . Free-thinkers Abelard The Undeterred The Antique Necklace Venice . Vagabond April Afternoon Nature Speaks The North Wind . Advice The Eagle's Flight Ali to Azrael Litany of the Comfortable Concerning Martyrdom Elan Vital . 61 62 63 64 65 66 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 10 CLOUDS. O CLOUDS that go to glory In afternoon's clear blue, From waterfronts of cities I rise and follow you ! From springs that feed the forest, From windy meadows' dew, From pools of desert places I rise and follow you ! From fallen rain, in fire Caught up to heaven anew, From living and from dying I rise and follow you I 11 TO A SEA-GULL. WINGED reconciler of the sea and sky, Piloting winds that howl above the sun, Riding the unenduring tides that run To vex the sand with mutability, Thou art the angel of ports never won By proudest mariners that sail the sea, Angel and sea-dog, winged with outland majesty! O'er indigo depths where the palmtree crest And tamarind from coral islands rise Thou wert a spirit making Paradise More beautiful for his divine unrest; And where Icelandic kings with hoary eyes And rudder colder than their ingot-chest Steered poleward, thou wert there, a reveller and guest. I watch thy domination of the air. The level-winged and flashing silences Through sunlit cloud and blue, ethereal ease; And, having seen thee excellently dare Lightning and hail, I wonder without cease That ocean's dark necessity could bear A freedom like to thine, valiant and poised and fair. And now the sun is sinking down the deep Thy wings are furled. Thy little fleet is spread To rise and fall on long waves' crimson tread, Outfloating Carthage. O'er earth's troubled sleep Keep thou cold nightly vigil, and ahead Of earth's incredible and awful sweep Through unplumbed ether, ride upon the darkness steep. 12 WIND AND OCEAN. Wind: How long before daybreak, O watchful brother*? Ocean: An hour or so. The sun shall rise And my waves hail him even as when at first The burning globe upon creation burst They hailed him, with an ever-new surprise. Wind: I hold, with all-pervading sleep, Earth's ward tonight. The snake hides under a rock-heap, The squirrel warms a hollow tree. Panther and lynx hunt silently. After a slow interval Needles of the pine-wood fall On rivers flowing out of sight. How is it with thee *? Ocean: Resigned in law, but not at rest. Of the kingdom I possessed Half rebels afar from me. From my lair with graves I see What has been moulding what shall be. Over shelving coasts I tell Creatures that change and do not hearken well Of fate and of futurity, — My memories their prophecy. Volcanic cliffs rose in the north At last night's sunset. I went forth. Now the dark green waters swell Over them, without a stir White foam breaks and fades away Amid the icebergs sluggishly. There one stronghold have I bound Against man, the voyager. 13 Wind: The troubler and the mystery ! His bones I pasture through the wildernesses, My dreadful sheep ! Ocean: In the unfathomed depth of my recesses His hostile ships a truce unwitting keep. Strangest of animals ! To gain the dowers That in gods' hands beneficently burn Of will and science, and their yielded powers Against himself, a flaming curse, to turn! Wind: King of the void, heir of the dark, to inherit From earth and sea Compulsion that he names the Holy Spirit, Like unto me ! ^ {A pause) How often, brother, we have held communion In tolerant marshes, where rank, cluttered nests Screamed round us, and in caverns myriad-eyed. Encountering in tempest openly And on the summit of emerging alps, Before the race of man had come to birth! Ocean: Yea, and in tolerant marshes where rank nests Scream round us, and in caverns myriad-eyed. Encountering in tempest openly And on the summit of emerging alps We shall hold speech together when the name And trace of man are vanished from the earth. H THE ASTRONOMER. WATCHING suns and planets veer Through the windless atmosphere All night vigilant, alone, He judged their going from a throne Higher than kings of earth sit on, — From the unbreathing midnight hour Till the cold and rainy dawn Struck the observatory tower And pines began to bend and lower On the mountain range below ; Herds dark-streaked by the shower Sought uplands green with melted snow ; The cataract in sheets of spray. Sullen through the forest blown, Through the forest drenched a way. Then the stars of heaven were gone. Fire-hearted steeds that run With a heavenly delight On the pampas of the night Lawful and untameable. All the stars from heaven were gone, In his mind come down to dwell From the pampas of the sky. If they rise up clear and high. If they set in blinding rain. Of their ranging he can tell. And they know their master nigh When he strokes each plunging mane. The celestial worlds inherit The dark pasture of his spirit. 15 TO A FRIEND. NIGHT shall end my night, Yet I trust Thou art a thing too bright To fall on dust. The angel of the Lord Shall lift thy sword, Servant of the just! Night shall end my night, Yet I pray Heaven spare thy light, Lest lambs stray. Thou remembering me. Mine immortality Lasteth all the day. 16 SUMMER THOUGHTS IN WINTER. I GAIN the fireside from the whetted edge Of January's moon, and icy ruts That gleam the more to every whistling sledge ; And by the fireside, though wind yet cuts Canyons without, my dreaming memory Tells my numbed senses of green summer sedge, While these, entranced, hear half believingly, Even as if some hoar Neanderthal Told cave-born children of the tropic mirth His youth remembered, in the interval Before the glaciers came down over earth. Half dreaming I recall in mid-July Motionless in a notch against the blue A peak of dawn-red cloud, that, riding high. When noon had stripped the spider webs of dew, In shapes of white light manifold and deep Had spread abroad and taken all the sky. Crickets, — the voice of fields that talk in sleep, — Were chirping, and the shadows of cloud sent A changeful gloom across the fields. Afar Out in the bay the sun that came and went Flashed on one oar beyond the harbor-bar. There was a highroad where through heaviest trees The burning of the summer sun would dart When they waved dusty leaves within the breeze. Wheels passed ; a laughing dog rode on a cart. I struck out from the highroad, tangled soon On paths that died in piney fastnesses, — And there a bird sang all the afternoon. Striving to reach the bird in hide-and-seek I lost the bird, and in a hollow found A pool, upon the brink a turtle sleek That dived and blackly vanished without sound. 17 Can I believe that bees will yet grow bold In the white buckwheat fields through August days? That butterflies their yellow wings will hold Rapt over sun-caked mud ? That scrubby ways Will turn for miles the air to ripening wine Of berries, and the pods of milkweed fold, As cast from heaven too soon, their armoured shine? Alas, the time for summer dreams is past ! Alas for me that I must rise and go. The world's death in my bones, against the blast, Through the inertia of the fallen snow ! 18 OCTOBER. WITHIN the moving forest, where a shade More brilliant than noon-light Threw strangeness over friends, and fierce delight, As through the lowering weather They tramped together. Upon the height Of ledge on ledge up-piled, where bronze oaks cast Their gusty moaning on the outland blast. The winding-sheet of earth was being made ; And under the moist earth, made rich with meed Of wind-swung falling nuts and leaves and cased seed, The dark mole burrowed and I found him not. O'er multitudinous hills, with rapid tread Muffled by heaped leaves dead, I journeyed where No mortal dwelling rose in cold gray air Save an old smithy. One great wheel forgot Leaned on the abandoned door. The windy hours Led me by oozy flat and sudden gentian flowers. Led me by hemlock path and by dim pools where rain Fell in sparse circles all the long twilight. In purple mountain-cleft a cider mill Uprose. The last wood gods came trooping for their fill With "Here's to you before the red sun drops" Swilling the amber juice. From ram horns fell adown The pale witch-hazel woven for a crown With frost-cracked bittersweet on tossing locks. Then they all turned and up the height did flee ; Stoning black butternuts from the grim gallows-tree, Cramming their crops With winter apples pecked by birds' departing flocks, With tumult they were vanished in still rocks. They left no trace. Only the lumbering bear Left his track there. He that was gone so deep For hoUow-caverned sleep. 19 Upon the farmland frosty morning broke. Blue forest smoke Mile after mile was visible. The wains, Loaded with hay, put wayfarers to pains To give them all the road. The fields with buckwheat stubble reddened wide. The pumpkins stranded by a mellow tide Lay amid sheaves of corn that, deeply bowing, owed Some charmed obeisance not to be denied. The air was blue, gray the horizon-range, The sound of labor came distinct and strange, And all the day I was unsatisfied. Remembering vanished races. Restless I wandered at the day's decline By glassy river, and by vivid lake Peopled alone by mounds the large ants make. Till at the last Through silent streets bordered with elm I passed That since the Revolution have not stirred Save at the flying bird. Save at the fall of elm and maple leaves. Like flickering memories. At the horizon-line The sun through gathered cloud sent smouldering shine Athwart the yellow, nest-revealing trees. The grass yet green beneath, and glorious hill on hill. All through the night ■ I heard the floods and lightnings wreak their will On earth. With an unbridled wind I sped O'er half the world, and heard his av/ful pride Broken in cemeteries, where he cried, "I came not here to strive against the dead !" With rain I sank. Blackening forest roots, down cold springs, dank With drowned leaves ; down many a mountain-side Widened in streams, tossing old tree trunks wide Apart, and whirling them together, till The streams plunged headlong in a river, fair 20 Advancing, flanked with palisades, to sea, And prows of vessels pushed the massed leaves easily Aside, while they steamed to the river mouth ; And on the banks, sudden from north, from south, Fires leaped up as for a victory. 21 THE WITCH OF ALTHEMAIR. WHEN windless rain falls in the forest, making The green leaves move Slightly, the drear lake's magic mirror breaking, I stir and rise, remembering my love. I see her grey eyes, threatening and fair, I ride with her the stormy clouds above, I sink in midnight flooding of her hair, — The witch of Althemair. I know it is a dream ; yet wildly hoping At some far sound, I leave my poor hut, and on mountains groping I seek her whom the age-long charm has bound Within the hollow tree-trunk by her hair About the tree-trunk wound and interwound. Her dark hair where the rains are falling there, — The witch of Althemair. I keep on earth my travail for a token When the rains fall. That with an ecstasy no time has broken I rode the height of heaven at her call. While mountaineers draw round their pine-knots' flare I seek the stormy forest and the pall Of night by night that darkens with her hair, — The witch of Althemair. 22 PERNEB. [Perneb's tomb has been set up in the New York Metropolitan Art Museum.^ PERNEB built himself a tomb. Round the wall go slaves a-row, Slaves with sidelong red feet slow, Staring frontward with their eyes, Bringing Perneb through the gloom Of his solemn, spicy room Thousand loaves and joints of meat, Thousand live gazelles or so, Thousand trays of figs and wheat. Following them in a line Slaves bear out of dim recesses Perneb's change of thousand dresses. Perneb has no dearth of wine. Through the high and breathless air Red and yellow jars shine bare. The blue lotus flowers twine Accurately, in design. At the centre, large and wise, Painted Perneb doth arise. Reviewing his processional, Counting cattle on the wall Opposite, each flank appraising. Perneb with a swelling chest, Perneb with a chastened waist, A gold collar interlaced With the scarab, and a wig, Holds a folded linen cloth, — Sole concession to mutations, — To flap winged insects off. Sons and wives and poor relations Kneel before him, under size. Unless all that's left us lies, Perneb was a chamberlain Administering for a king 23 Who appreciated him. He arrayed his Memphian king; He inspected cattle, too,— Had a priest's job on the side. When he wore the leopard skin. Shudderingly thought has tried To contemplate that land's descent Down the abyss, when Perneb went. Where's the eye that made the slaves Cower in arrested waves ? Where's the hand that flapped at flies, And kept relations under size? Where's the will that laid on stone Shape for twice two thousand years By commandment of its own. That so and not otherwise The decorous chambers glow For no reason man can know Save that Perneb willed it so ? Sands of dusty years have strown Abu Roash and the south, Sakkara and Dahsur's drouth. Twice two thousand years are blown Harmlessly as yesterday O'er the walls of Perneb's sway. In the chamber toward the west Lies a skull like any skull Neutral, indisputable, — Perneb's,— so it may be guessed. Desert thieves dispersed the rest From^ the dwelling clear and fit. Time's a tactless thing at best. * Perneb got the worst of it. 24 DANDELION. DOWN the road I spied the weed, And the head was gone to seed. I ran to blow it into air. Suddenly from out the heart Sighed a ghost, complaining there : — "I am bound in a world that is old and round And cannot die, Though it wave perpetually, — Hoary-headed world and round That debars me from the sky. In a solid ball imbound Captive evermore I cry." Then I pulled the stem and blew. Out upon the wind he flew. 25 FULL MOON ON THE ACROPOLIS. HERE is the immortality of night. Time, tranced to marble quietude, forgets Futurity. The wind has dropped stone-cold To sleep on level vineyard, Attic plain And gulfs smooth and moon-cloven. Flocks and herds Move fitfully along the darkling slopes. A soldier's ballad, sudden, rough and free. The crowing of a single cock, beguiled With infinite effulgence of false dawn, Ephemerally have surprised the night Like shooting stars that fade upon its heart. Borne to reality of solemn arch And radiant architrave and pillars reared. Blinding with old day, from the earth to heaven, Have I outwatched the track of hollow ship And track of chariot, where sea and plain Stretch naked to the consummated moon. The lights of Athens, proud and myriad. That seem as just about to move along Processionally, and that yet remain. Are tongues of fire round the city's sleep Syllabled by the dead that speak in light Instantly clear. For yet a little while. Evading despot reason's sentience Called time and space, I have come back again. Seaweed apparent in the early gulf. Mysterious with distance, comes my hope, My grave-deep fantasy. Miraculous, Arcana-arched city, nevermore Of Theseus nor of Hadrian, and thou Acropolis appointed desolate As God Himself o'er the loquacious earth. Where is the dawn of old*? For I recall It raced in gold upon a racing sea. In burning gold upon the wine-red sea. An ardent charioteer, from unshored deeps 26 To Phaleron's blue coast, and far within The haunt of wind-vexed reeds. Day broke so clear On the religious town that the frail mists Shone rose-red, beyond light; immaculate And Cytherean, from her airy ocean, The Parthenon emerged from rose-red mists. I stood where yet the Propylaean gate Was not swung open to receive a throng Brave in the sunlight. Priest and lutanist, Elder and warrior, those bearing trays One after one ; advancing in a file Those bearing water vessels ; cavalry Wind-footed and compelling as the wind, And arrow-thoughted youth, for government Trained in assembly neath judicial stars. Awaited. Maidens, moulded for the clasp Of starry gods that set memorial Of beauty constellated in the sky. Were leading deep-browed heifers with the tread Of sandal-fastening Nike. Yet amid The holiday, premonitory fear Was on me, for I felt my forehead cold With Proserpine's unearthly asphodel, Blasted by too much moonlight. I remained Half dreaming. As one bodes from swallow flight The fall of empire I blamed the gift Of votive offering forgotten for This swift eclipse of day, and homeward turned To lift from scented wood the honey-bread. The Cretan wine, the kneaded cake, prepared Of blossoms from whose pollen bees fed not, So early were they plucked. Even as I turned One warned to hasten, and I mocked at him, "The citadel will be as Ilion Doubtless, when I return," — whereat a shout From myriad throats like a young eagle rose Aloft the height, to swayless forests of Vast-shapen gods in august conference. Borne on the wings of that victorious shout 27 I passed along the highway where urned death Upraises shapes of bright life's commonplace* To lands where death was prototype of life, Where generations kept with scourge and sword Memorial of the god that harrowed hell For healing of the nations that yet groan. It is unfitting that a mortal thought Should outlive deity. I would my thought, Hid in deep-rivered hills, had shared the life Of mines as yet unquarried to the sun. Pale centuries are dead. I have returned, Haloed and blinded with the selfsame dream. Past all that mortal men have reared in prayer,— (Gigantic guesses through the wilderness), — Argos-eyed hope, superincumbent fear Devoted as its prey, to Attica Possessing in the hollow of her hills A brilliant slumber, rapt ineffably. Around it pepper-trees like fountains wake Selene's silver silent light to sound. Hymettos hath forgot his heavy bees, Pentelic slopes are stretched like perfect limbs Of some forwandered giant night o'ertook. And fane-crowned Lykabette, arising, strikes His mitred head amid the glancing stars. Orestes, Christ and Mahomet passed here. A little stone remains ; the ether shines As when a thunderbolt, departing, leaves Memorial night, with all its silences. Olives coeval with philosophy. My thought turns marble-cold ! I question not, Nor ponder overmuch how these gray leaves Have waved the sage asleep. Long grass that runs Oblivious of wrong o'er living word And lost word, wrought alike by dead men's hands, I question not nor supplicate again ! Acropolis that change has left divine *Dipylon. 28 And inarticulate as will of gods Half-shaped from hollow cliff or haunted run Or water, I nor question overmuch Nor supplicate, for all my thought is turned. Through vigil and the moon's plenipotence, More multiform than marble, and more cold. 29 THE PREHISTORIC LAKE. WHEN the hamlet and the dogs are sleeping The green caverns of the mountain quake ; Rows of old men come at midnight, weeping, Weeping for the legendary lake. To and fro they interlace the moonlight, To and fro with stately rhythm glide. All together to a mournful measure Piling old runes in a massy treasure Round the oak roots of the mountain-side. Then before the morning's eyes View that tranced sacrifice They have vanished to the caverns where the water courses rise. Swift the chattering and bright Little hamlet shakes the night From its heels when larks awake, — Not a peasant in it caring As he whistles on his faring If, beyond a granddam's knowing, Where sunburnt feet and scythes are going The transparent waves were flowing Of a legendary lake ; If leaning palaces and trees With grey moss clinging at their knees Gazed in those blue deeps, forsooth. At dawn, remembering their youth, Or kings in robes like chrysolite Shining through the summer night Their blameless covenant did write. Jacques, a-bowing neath his rake That combs the brown leaf from the grass Beside the road folk take from mass Shakes his scraggling beard in ruth At the legendary lake. And the Evil One's deceiving For a pomp that never was. Is it matter for believing That, where the Father's dwelling be 30 And every night the Father pours his tea Shining monsters, fixed of eye, Swam passing one another by*? And the iridescent glass Boys dug rumbling out of the ground, — Bowls and baubles to a rumbling sound, — Were the Evil One's deceiving For a pomp that never was. Not a coney skin he'd stake. Not a yellow straw, in truth. On the ruined forest hoary Or the cross-unhallowed glory Of the legendary lake. 31 PAST AND FUTURE. Future speaks: Seldom I honor the dark wife Appointed me for bale or bliss. No bounds are set upon our strife ; The present is our fleeting kiss. Her passionate will has made me halt. Her triumph is my lost desire. On stairs of marble and basalt She holds me down a burning fire. We two shall walk the earth at noon And when the sun is lying dead. Our way beneath the sun and moon Inevitably lies ahead. Our way with outcast gods is seen, August, but by calamity. Her head is bowed for what has been. And mine for what will never be. 32 IMPRESSIONS OF HAWAIIAN MUSIC. I. The Rising Moon. A Malayan runs his canoe over the lagoon, Over unfathomed waters black and calm, Kept by the alligator and the loon. He slides ashore, and climbing arm over arm. Goes climbing to the top of the highest palm, For the topmost leaf to work his enemy harm. Gathered at midnight, brewed in the witch doctor's charm. What is it there, The yellow glare Swinging out of the sultry air ? Is it the lynx that hunts by night. His fixed eye watching there so bright For the brown body descending soon? The feathery top of the tallest palm Sways in alarm. Violently the palm top sways to the rising moon. II. The Curse. At dawn when dew shook heavily And islands laughed within the sea. My neighbor claimed my banyan tree. Through sun and shade till spacious noon I cursed him softly to a tune Of wild, compelling melody. I watched through the still afternoon My neighbor's tongue becoming thick. My neighbor growing very sick. And dying most unquietly; Then, when the sun sank in the bay Upon the bright and cloudless day. Myself, my wife, my children three Had salad from the banyan tree. 33 III. After Rain. The light is set on the hill, The stream runs fierce and free. I am cold with the tears of forests chill As I come to thee. The light is lost in the night, The stream is lost in the sea. Through forests weeping in bright moonlight I come to thee. 34 THE CHILDREN AND THE INLET. WE must be starting to explore. Our boat will leave the lake, and quite Vanish out of people's sight. The border willows twist and curve Around one half of the lake shore, Making no deeper bend nor swerve Where the stream comes rushing in From the dark and watchful wood Than in many a shallow more. Unless you knew you never could Find the place. Here we begin, Pushing the willow boughs aside That hide the mouth, now we have pried Oars out for paddles, for the space Narrows. We grind our teeth and brace Our feet and paddle hard and quick. Blaming each other when we stick, Inch after inch upstream. A tree Stands in the water. With a clank Our boat chain lassoes it, lest we Go slipping backward in the chase. Inch after inch we push along The current, obstinate and strong. Splashing and shoving manfully. Look how it winds and winds about! But we have come to track it out. The asters crowd down to the bank And monkey-face looks in to see. The woods close round us large and black. It is about time we went back. Now let her go, — and all we do Is take life easy, sit and steer While grandly we go sliding through The landscape back and backward, — when We shoot out in the lake again ! We did not know it was so near. We come out blinking into it. And there the fishermen still sit 35 Just as we left them, in the sun, And the golden ripples run On the lake floor fast and clear. Things do not seem so different From what they did before we went. 36 AT THE SCHEIDEGG. COME up, come up, come high enough and free To match your strong heart with the eagle's wing. And come a-chasing after spring, White and green, a lovely thing. Or did you think that spring was fled Like a dryad in a tree In July's maturity? Or did you think that spring lay dead To the locusts' litany *? O, follow where the spirit led. When a silver-dripping morn. Sudden witch, around you spread The lake-leaning alders red. When on your devoted head. Dreaming of outriding ships From the sea's apocalypse, The last wind of winter sent Star-dust snow, and wonderment. Come up, for airs are breathing glad and fine. The rocks climb sunward all in burning gold ! Come up ! Upon the edge of the snow-line That marks the pale lands' uttermost decline And green's contested splendor of ascent A bird goes dropping as he flies divine Reveille bold. Evanishing aloud In an inspired cloud ; And very far below the valleys keep The sultry calm of their midsummer sleep. And far above the blue-caved glaciers go. Here bloom the flowers of a haunting bride, The buds half-seen before the rainbow died That scattered here her skiey laughters low. Where the streaked snow drips earthward in pure light Are wide-eyed crocus, lavender and white, — The excellent awakening of snow, — 37 And violets pulled from the Alpine glow, And furred hepatica, whose color vies With the cupped glory of the hyaline When, kneeling at sunrise, An angel lifts within his hands its shine Against the slanting sun, a tremulous grail and sign Here mystical and still Across the resurrected summit chill Is borne the cry unutterably hurled From walled ice-caverns of another world, The secret three times purified in dew. The ranging presence, virginal and new, Of glory uncreated. Even as Truth Arises out of windy Memory, Spring and first youth Come over the abyss triumphally. 38 SNOWSTORM. THERE lives above in a lonely place A maiden, free as the winds are free. Snow-white are her arms, snow-white her face. She tosses her white thoughts carelessly ; — Falling showers of snow. Purely and perfectly free, Lightly and airily blowing For mortals to see. She tosses her perfect thoughts Carelessly, carelessly. 39 JUNGFRAU. JUNGFRAU is a resting cloud, Or a Lorelei of snow. Over her the moon has bowed With a lake-like murmur low. Troops of the night hours wing O'er the maiden and the fay, Rapt and spiritual thing ! All the night her summit white Glimmers in an endless day. Round her dazzling winds cry loud, And she is more glad than they. 40 DUTCH SLUMBER SONG. THE little fields are very green, And kine the little fields do keep. Through many channels laid between Waters creep. A stork goes stepping unto nest, Goes stepping solemn like a king; And red the west, and in the west White gulls wing. Boats are floating all the night Down the level waters black. Boats that left by candle-light Have all come back. They have cut the hay and bound it. Poled along, the barge lags by. Lazy duckweed winds around it Lingeringly. Fishers squatting in a row Now have told their latest tale, Now the flapping mills swing slow, And words fail. Goodnight, little fields so green, Kine that little fields do keep. Little country, brave and clean. Half asleep. 41 FAIRY MESSAGE. You still might harken on the hills To roundelay Of elf song gay And figures flying on the wind when moonlight nights are clear, Heighho for fairy laughter, if you had ears to hear ! And in the dewdrop you might trace Our rainbow wings, And chance on rings For woodland dance, moss-couched, and each alight with fire- flies three, Heighho for fairy laughter, if you had eyes to see ! Then weep no more in mournful melody A vanished race Whose dwelling place Shines at your feet, and evermore remains a happy land, Heighho for fairy laughter, if you could understand ! 42 SUNDAY MORNING. THROUGH deep heaven's intense blue, Over grain fields bowed with dew The bell in the white church-tower tolls Summons to accustomed souls. Folk go by in twos and threes Under the full-leafed trees Of the central village street, In their best, stiff and complete. With hushed stir. Their words are slow. They are past. Now swiftly grow. Moss in hollow pear-tree croft. Cricket song in hid hayloft ! An old spider floats out free. Borne along invisibly. In and out the hollyhocks Bees go moving the tall stalks. Pollen-dusted out they creep With hum that lulls silence asleep. The old-fashioned garden glows As though jewels of the mine. Sighing souls out for repose Of waving air and garden-close. Hither came all hot to shine. Poppies purple, white and red. Swift and fragile flame have spread. Zinnia and marigold Spring's blithe hardihood unfold. Here are the blue sailors, and Indigo of Samarcand, Coreopsis' fiery stars Made to flash on scimitars, Gold laburnum, brilliant phlox Some pied elfin shepherd leads Teasingly through haunts of weeds ; Portulaca's sun-cupped wine Like the draught of youth divine ; Columbine, lorn for bare rocks 43 And solitary water-spring ; Four-o'clock, unwakening ; Basil of old tragic story, Mignonette, and morning-glory Thin-misted with the breath of dawn. A yellow rambler-rose swings on The gnarled trunk of an aged pine, High and higher up to twine. Till on branches buds are seen Laughing with the evergreen Like a mystic's glad and free Dream of immortality. Past the garden is a shed. All around it junk is spread, — Tools that ought to spade or hew Or cut, yet never did, nor do, — Things hacked out ere rise of sun And mercifully left half done. Rank and lush the weeds abound Over the outlawed ground. Ragweed, pigweed, burdock show Higher than a man can grow. The few vagrant garden seeds That spring up are choked by weeds. The wild grape and the red lily. Watchers on abandoned farms. Sleep here in each other's arms. Jewel-weed shakes gleaming, chilly Dewdrops to the wind. Bee-balms, Thistle and day primrose thrive Over a forgotten scythe. Ho! I thought that all the people Were in church beneath the steeple. There's another loiterer. An old man sits at his door Bowed and motionless and hoar. Full of years he seems to be 44 As I am of heresy. Year by year he strove with stones, Weather, weeds, and insect-blight, Rising up by candle-light. Swinging scythe at sultry noon, Sometimes under the cold moon. Now he feels it in his bones. Mild blue eyes he has, and vast Beard. The village life goes past Where he sits before his door Bowed and motionless and hoar. I know not what things he sees Over the unmoving trees. 45 IN THE COW PASTURE. THE mortal hurry drops from me. I am a brown beast, kind and slow. Along uneven paths I go And nip a young thorn-apple tree. I do not care to move at all When sudden thunder-showers fall, Pasturing ruminatively. 46 THREE HOURS AT OWEGO. THE planks upon the bridge are old, And clatter when a team goes by. Between them here and there a bold New plank rears up and takes the eye. Midway a pedagogic man, Leaning over, stoops to scan Streaming water weeds that spread Green in Susquehanna's bed. Passing by I come to town. Where in the mid-morning hush Houses steadily look down On dewy lawns and dim smoke-bush. Here storekeepers say you nay In a suave and stately way. Here notes sweet and wavering Fall from some child's practising. Could I but linger year by year, — And even now the train is due, — I would build a castle drear, I would build a homestead too. And the masking ivy leaves Should cover battlements and eaves Till none but nesting birds might see Their dissimilarity. 47 SEPTEMBER WALK. A LEVEL Stretch lies on ahead. Shivering we quit the forest shade Where puddles stay undried and brown mushrooms are made. For bushes flowering in hot sun And the bees working over them. Goldenrod with sweet-fern grows Upon the right; the oat fields spread, And buckwheat. A few apple trees Stand in grain up to their knees, Dropping round them gnarly fruits. Beyond the fields a river flows Calm amid the mountains' pride. I might be looking on the right, But on the left a dirt bank goes Straight up to blue sky, and I see Water dripping from the roots Of shrubs atop it, — such a sight As if the ground cracked suddenly By commandment of a jinn And I saw what the woodchuck sees, Without the toil of digging in. 48 THE SAGE'S BOAT. I TAKE my boat out in the cloudy morning to ponder on truth. Over the lake stirred by faintest undulations I row silently Among stumps topped with coarse grass And logs lengthwise in the water Rotting, covered with moss. I pass over red and yellow reflections Of trees, red and yellow, that come down to the lake edge. Willows and cattail rushes Stand out in the water to meet my boat. I float shoreward over lily pads. The cattail rushes close about the boat, Waving over my head. A wind stirs their tops. Leaving the willow leaves motionless. I see the cattails reflected, clear and mysterious, in the water, And the image of the white sun of heaven. I ponder on truth ultimate and imageless, But I cannot grasp it. I think in the images about me, — The cattails reflected in the water And the image of the white sun of heaven. 49 PRISONERS. WE rise not up to wonder of winged mirth, We bow not down to the ground's abysmal prayer, O birds like resurrection over the air, O meek and lowly dead, possessing the earth ! 50 NOCTURNE. WE have given our hearts to the Beast, for the Beast to share, The stealthy-footed patrol of the city street. Custom his name, and tame all his ways and sweet. Though blood yet drips on the chartered pavement fair. Not as the conquered, flinging to ancient air Hearts more free than their fiery winding-sheet. We have given our hearts to the Beast, for the Beast to share, The stealthy-footed patrol of the city street. Long his hunger as an avenging prayer. While we, crying out where the midnights meet, Mark the pacing of those majestic feet With the recurrence of never-evaded care. We have given our hearts to the Beast, for the Beast to share. 51 THE SEARCH FOR THE WILL. A LADY exquisite and old Lies beneath the shadowy gold Canopy, about her head The cold patience of the dead ; And the lady's maid beside Watches, breathless and wide-eyed At each far-off murmuring, Like some hunted forest thing Without a friend or a pretence, Whose dumbness is its one defence. The physician now has gone And the rector soft withdrawn, Nothing left to say or do. What are these come stealing through The tranced house, from room to room Peering, troubling the rich gloom, Till by different doors they reach The silent chamber, without speech Confronting one another, eyes Averted, with a pale surprise*? Sudden explanations break From all. With dignity all make It evident they could not rest When their relative's request Had called them hither, — they had come. The lady's maid sits frozen dumb. Each one, shrugging doubtfully. Starts upon a specialty. With incredulous, veiled looks. One proceeds to search the books. Turning leaves and scattering White light through the chamber dim. One bends with assured air Above the old and carven chair Of the watcher by the bed. Whispering.- She shakes her head. One, aghast and tremulous. Vexed with himself he should be thus 52 When the rest have equal claim To a supernatural blame, Holds his wife's effects, while she Flings the jewels restlessly From their dark Etruscan. case, Strews the gowns of dewy lace And sunset cloud about the floor, Fumbles for a secret door Behind the portrait frame, that, stirred, Groans almost a spoken word. And the lady keeps her state. High, and yet inviolate, Like a halo round her head The cold patience of the dead. 53 THE LAKE ON MY LANDS. MASTER of rolling plains, to sow and reap, Master of timbered mountains, that rise up One after other till they only cease At the command of time and space, to which, Master of many lands, I bow as they, I have no lordship of my mountain lake. It is not even measurable to me. Asking upon the brink, "O, what am I*?" I lean above the surface. The clear lake Gives, with the calm directness of a child, My image, in abundant green of trees And quiet blue commingled, and the flash Of winged dragon fly. All these it holds Upon the surface, and the depths move not, Remote and imageless and ocean-deep. Should the lake ask of me, "O, what am I?" I could not answer ; for I hollowed not The cleft that goes down far as the mountain towers, In which the stainless water lies asleep. What titan agony or young despair Of earthquake shock, or what descending glacier Passed, with enduring imprint, I know not; Nor how long since, what far and savage night When herded wolves froze under a bright moon, The water, pouring in, possessed its home. The lake was never thought nor formed by me. It lies, the confidant of heaven's delight. Swallow and wind upon the surface pass, And water beetles take their crooked way. And lilies slow and radiant unfold. To each what each desires, but to me Wondering about the depth, it gives no sign. I might sink in it, yet I could not plumb The waters. Below accident they wait Certain and imageless and infinite. I thought the sun would send a final path Of light into my lake. The sun looked down, And looked upon the lake most gloriously, 54 But, blind in his essential burning, gazed But little distance in. The depths remain Secret and imageless and infinite. And in the lake the moon from a steep throne Viewed her own solitude with awe, and passed Upon her winged throne. The depths remain Patient and imageless and infinite. ss LIBERATED. ''TT T'hy dost thou watch the lotus-bloom all day, VV Thou who hast come so short a road, yet weary? Why, when the hills with whirling snows are dreary, Dost thou go leaping like a stag at play'?" "Sources of streams rolled underground, mysterious As mighty-armed and waning kingdoms' care. Sources of braggart dynasties, imperious Over the jackal and the empty air, "Long have I traced. I soared above and under The wheel of things that breaks whatever is, Ahasuerus-like ; and wilt thou wonder I love the lotus more than maiden's kiss? "I that have watched Mnemosyne a-sleeping And angel Lucifer hurled down the height, Where is the wonder that I go a-leaping With lonely stags, against the winter light?" 56 CHILD OF ADAM. I WAS the rock Warm or cold as sun came or went, I was the oak And boughs grew out of me, I was the lake, reflecting early light, Ages ago. The event came between, — Dark, estranging, mighty, ineffable, — Between me and my brothers so innocent and sure. No sign of it dwells in the caverns of ocean. No mark of it on hills unscalably divine. What was it that could isolate a race, That, all the source grown mythic, yet can drive Me through rejoicing May, a bowed and contrite man*? 57 FAILURES. THEIR rightful fate has turned them down. They will not have a substitute, — From driving wagons through the town Descend to grind horse-radish root. If they wear not the coronal They'll starve before they strive at all. The old professional allure, Decreasing friends, makes want secure, Until with pride of specialty They have attained to misery. And some, like rock beneath the sun Or weeds or earth or heavy rain. Are elementally begun. But never ended or made plain; Forever promising a spring They hint of resurrectioning. They have no thought of time, like trees. Not so far different from these The interrupted seers, bowed And sullen, from lightning of a cloud. The ardent spirits in the throng Of care-worn toilers, with a mind To roar while tracking down the wrong That is let slip by sleeker kind ; The folk whose phantasies give birth To wrong that never was on earth. Alike apportioning their blame Prophetically fare the same. As swift as in Jerusalem Their days of leanness follow them. Herein are the conservative Old votaries of seven sins ; Herein the lotterists who give Their venture to the man that wins ; And they whose lives are different J8 For the constraining past event That set the boundary for aye. The born spectators of the play Through half-closed eyes' insouciance Herein observe the puppet-dance. It is a disenchanting wine That these will drink unto the end, Who have nor human nor divine Approval where the hills descend. I know not of what Circe's cup The children of good fortune sup, What incantations therein flow That all alike those children grow. I pray God keep me from success, — My only answered prayer, I guess. 59 THE GUARDIANS. WHEN Step by step fate beats me farther back Until I stand upon the ultimate, It is not will nor instrument I lack To put myself beyond the spoils of fate ; Nor duty to a Maker that made ill, Nor judgment from the lips of living men, Nor end of what I only might fulfil. Nor pain of endless doom arrests me then. I hold my sword because, the chasm past, I fear the encounter with those mighty dead That made each bloody slope unto the last A pasture-land where climbing flocks are fed. I fear lest they come, vast and justified, With mute, appraising eyes, — and turn aside. 60 THE FIRST POPPY. O SHAKEN scarlet, vauntingly alone Under the sun, One love there is like thee, and only one Under the sun I 61 BALLAD. THERE on the sea sand Of the salt lagoon My true love passed me by Under the moon. She passed me by so close I could have touched her hand, I could have called her name, There on the sea sand. Sky blue her robe ; It brushed my cloak of gray. We said not a word, With all the words to say. There we passed groping Where the water nears. Her eyes were blind with judgment, And mine with tears. There on the sea sand Of the salt lagoon My true love passed me by Under the moon. 62 TO A STARFISH. WHY thou art here with "simple ignorance" We might have mused upon in other days, — If out of heaven to resounding ways Thou fleddest what the wrath of gods might chance, If deeply jewelled in five-pointed dance Outstayed sea-crowning of Calypso's praise, Or lost when Pleiads swam the ocean maze. Yet thanks to science' infinite romance We know exactly now why thou art here ; The oyster-bed preceding, like a bow Thou comest curved and ready, even so. With belly turned to suck the oysters near. Which great and small the varied reasons are Why thou art here, ethereal little star ! 63 CHANGING RUNNERS. TRAILING along the wet sea sand And through the valley it is borne, And in the woods the burning brand Seems now advancing, now withdrawn As the swift, flagging feet come on To one that waits half up the height With muscles tightening; the light Dips as it passes from hand to hand. And over the mountain the torch is gone ! 64 FREE-THINKERS. WE shake the night with onset, the gale is in our faces. On through night, through the night we ride. Earth cries out from hid and omened places, Secrets waken in cave, moraine and tide. On through night, through the night we ride. Back-blown flare of windy torch-light traces For Columbus the isles that he descried. Men of honor, leave the land's embraces, Gold and fountain leave for those who died ! On through night, through the night we ride. Down earth's end unfathomable spaces Wait. Experience, cowering, turns to hide. Hell yawns under the forward-beating paces. Crystal spheres* are shattered far and wide. On through night, through the night we ride. Rest we ask not, nor the good earth's graces. Earth whom we to thousand suns allied. Goal we know not. Deepest night encases Heaven the road, and hell the road denied. On through night, through the night we ride. *That is, the Ptolemaic theory of the spheres. 65 ABELARD. WITHOUT, — dull sky and howling sea, And the head of St. Gildas' savage abbey, Wrapped in thought as man can be. Pacing his cloister absently; Within, — the mutinous gray monks, met Where no taper ever raised The blackness of the oubliette. Whisper, raging and amazed. How the lethal dish, though set For Abelard, had missed its way. They could only watch and pray. He might yet be graveward sent With poison in the Sacrament. And Abelard, the golden tongue Of student Paris and Corbeil, Guide of the insurgent young, By Soissons Synod forced to lay His book on fire, for that they Smelt Sabellian heresy, — Abelard, who ever taught The fierce integrity of thought, Walks his cloister musingly. But he does not think on these. Nor on peerless Heloise Single-souled enough to win Triumph at love's wakeful throne. Halfway love made his love sin. Piety he madly cast Over the exhausted past, A cloak like parchment dry and thin. He is true to thought alone. So he paces, challenging the dead. Augustine spake sooth*? But St. Paul said Quite the opposite ; if Gregory Wrote by inspiration, then Jerome Wrote by something else ; they disagree. Athanasius here and Isidore There — a contradiction — Sic ei Non. 66 Heeding not love's scourge and doom's Behind, while cloudily before Excommunication looms, He walks his cloister musingly. 67 THE UNDETERRED. Child: I ride to meet the globed moon tonight A charger, swimming, through a snow-white rack, The amber ring and spiritual blue. Sister: Beautiful child, the fairy steeds run wide Upon their pasturage of broom, to seek Immeasurable pools that rise and fall. Child: I ride to meet the orange moon tonight A stallion, winged as I dare not tell. I think his mane streams like an angry sun. Sister: Beloved of music, Pegasus flies free And proud, with heroes ; far from our dim earth His hoofs are on the oriental hills. Child: And now the wind is carrying more high My thistledown-light words so chill and high. I ride tonight the pale horse they call Death. 68 THE ANTIQUE NECKLACE. THE snake I clasp round my throat was chosen By one I love who had first loved me, The golden snake, with his red eyes frozen As gems upcast by a sanguine sea, The golden snake, with his magic olden As Thebes may be. For him full many a slave was stranger To sun and life in the far-hewn mine. And he has looked like a living danger On warlike Pharaohs laid in line. I tremble, knowing his scales resemble The dead spears' shine. At night, when all of the world reposes, I dream the darkness begins to gleam. And smoothly strangling, the reptile closes About my throat in a gliding stream That brightens fast as the necklace tightens, Within my dream. 69 VENICE. THE dews of a glittering midnight have lain on my hair, And the courts gape wide from their moony mirrors cold While I hold my breath for an echo upon the stair, Awaiting the clanged armour, the ring and the gold, Awaiting the preluding of an ancient air. Will they tell as they long ago told me that yet I am fair ^ For I dreamed in a slanderous dream of the woes of the old. And the dews of a glittering midnight have lain on my hair. 70 VAGABOND. A WILD rose, closed from night and rain, I kissed as I came over the plain. May she sleep and dream again How one who'll roam Till the clouds come home Kissed her, laughing, in the rain. 71 APRIL AFTERNOON. THE winged leaves are too transparent bright For shadow on the ground. The sun pours through Swamp maple's ghostly grayness to delight Of the moist earth, where hushed anemones And wakeful starflowers hoard their early dew, And woolly ferns uncurl at roots of trees. A brook finds out its journey cold and new Through leaf mould and deep mossy crevices. 72 NATURE SPEAKS. I CALL in wind and heavenly flame And in the sea For girls that never come again to me. All my children in the spring Have another wakening Save these, that never come again to me. These, that full of wildest glee Swayed in the tree-tops, ran against the blast, These that not ever time nor fear could tame Love tamed at last. 73 THE NORTH WIND. I HEAR the north wind plunging to a goal That he knows not, — The formless one, the nameless one, the unforgot, Beyond the arctic or antarctic pole. I hear him howling anger up the night Because a windowpane arrests his flight With form, and, manifest, the journey breaks. A stream, a cliff, a branchy wood he makes. Clanging his wings in anger at the sight. Detained from warfare with the infinite; In anger and in terror from the spot Flies to the formless one, flies to the nameless one, the unforgot, Lessening along the night To what is not. 74 ADVICE. HOLD thy life a winged seed Blowing o'er the good earth's mead. Toss it an thou list, nor rue it. Wilt thou not*? Then time will do it. Hold thy name a cockle boat That the seaward rivers float. Let the river waves leap through it. Wilt thou not *? Then time will do it. Hold thy love but as a light Flying through a windy night. Let the sporting winds pursue it. Wilt thou not^ Then time will do it. 75 THE EAGLE'S FLIGHT. WINGS go through the night, outspeeding earth toward dawn. After many hours the night is moved to speak: "What are you, solitary eagle*?" "The thought of man." • "Eagle, your wings are blackened with old flame." "From the temples of Hathor at Denderah I beheld Eltanin rise." "Where in illimitable space might be your eyrie *?" "The eyrie is illimitable space." 76 ALI TO AZRAEL. Out of the Wilderness. Angel that ever leanest at the portal .zV. Above the shell where lustral water lies Deeper than depth of the reflected eyes That are not mortal, I front my death. The liberating hour Is come. I sought and never found reply, — In tortured consciousness and baffled power Forgotten, die. A stranger that has offered to thy heaven Spare vintaging of earth grown wise too late, A watcher of the planets that are seven Turns to thy gate. I strove with beasts, expatriate and lonely. My fault was great, and great mine agony. I never called light darkness. For this only Pray unto thee. At length, before untried abysms cover Insentience, reconciling clod with clod, An instant come to me as to thy lover. Angel of God ! 77 LITANY OF THE COMFORTABLE. REMEMBERING Thy sacrificial throne, . We chosen guardians of revelation Establish on the earth the Word's foundation On men that groan. We praise and magnify Thee, that of seed Thy martyrs planted who in anguish died We are the fruit indeed. Consummate, justified. Against inquiry and ardour's heat Thy mercy we entreat; From consequence untoward and perilous Deliver us ; From rod and tribulation for Thy sake Deliver us ; From slander, ruin and from social break Deliver us ; From too-exceeding love and penitence ; From unproductive forms of violence Deliver us ; From needless pain and execrated sorrow ; From the fool's paradise, unplanned tomorrow; From hunger fell, with its fell partner thirst; From leprous blight of poverty accursed; From exile, revolution and the rest That Thou hast blest. Deliver us ; And at the last, we pray Thee, of Thy grace From sudden death Deliver us ; Lest it be truly as the prophet saith. That in unsheltered space We look upon Thy face. 78 CONCERNING MARTYRDOM. ONE man views uncreated light; The crowd descends to raging night. One man forgives ; the multitude Reeks of hate and fear and blood. Can a man be free indeed When his brothers are not freed, Or the Kingdom be possessed When the mob at madness' heat Changes to a preying beast*? Martyrdom is incomplete. It is but the link between What shall be and what has been. Men saw justice rude begun When evil was for evil done ; Then the martyr's sacrifice With good for evil made them wise, Being but the stepping-stone To the greater justice shown Of good exchanged for good alone. When the multitude become Nobly wise and calmly free There will be no martyrdom. Only reciprocity Of good interchanged for good And difference largely understood. Sacrifice leads into this. New law with ancient law to blend, And eternal justice is The beginning and the end. 79 ELAN VITAL. SOME days I tend with careful sun and showers, But hungry time demands their fruit of me, And I alone possess my wasted hours, Which are the children of infinity. I dare rejoice that I have offered gifts To many a deity of wood and clay, And many a house have built where sea sand drifts. And many a ship lost on the ocean-way. I dare rejoice at trespassing and tears And at the doomed Niagaras of the soul That, flowing faster as the chasm nears, Go down in thunder, knowing not their goal ; For by their depth of wastage I can tell How deep the source, how inexhaustible. 80 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA