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 Copyright N°. 
 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 The Library of Congress 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/andthencamesprinOOhans 
 
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 AND THEN CAME 
 SPRING 
 
 BY 
 
 JULIANE PAULSEN ^uA 
 
 >1<WUL^ > \uJU^*v*_ VsTA^Cfi-. 
 
 ARTIetVeRITAni 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 THE GORHAM PRESS 
 
 1914 
 
 m ^ 
 
Copyright 191+, by Richard G. Badger 
 All rights reserved 
 
 
 111^ 
 
 The Gotham Press, Boston, U.S. A. 
 
 NOV -7 1914 
 &Q.A3S7406 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 "And then, and then came Spring, — " 7 
 
 A Street 24 
 
 The Harvest 27 
 
 A Witch-love's Lament 29 
 
 Sea and Forest 32 
 
 The Juggler 40 
 
 Wing Weary 44 
 
 The Prairie 46 
 
 Poppy Fantasy 48 
 
 Mother Carey's Chickens 53 
 
 Sonnet 54 
 
 Sonnet 55 
 
 "The Romans — ■" etc 56 
 
 The Wide, Low Plain 58 
 
 At Night 60 
 
 Remember 62 
 
 To Dorothy Grace 63 
 
 Open ! Open ! 64 
 
 A Road 66 
 
 The Poet. 68 
 
 To a Mountain Buttercup 69 
 
 City of Idleness 72 
 
AND THEN, AND THEN CAME 
 SPRING,—" 
 
AND THEN AND THEN CAME 
 SPRING 
 
 A samite of arcana here is laid 
 
 And here a span of words 
 
 Is out of chaos dreamed; 
 
 And here a step is heard 
 That rings like sunbeams helmeted, — is made 
 
 A song as one would greet. 
 
 And oh, how fair the green 
 
 Upon the springing wheat! 
 
 The herald of a Coming speeds as some 
 
 Soft wheeling of white doves 
 
 Against the budding wood; 
 
 And in the middle groves 
 Thine eyes are still and deep as seas where 
 suns 
 
 Make troth with star and star. 
 
 And oh, how still the wood, 
 
 And dread the Coming far! 
 
 The House is rent; and mystery from out 
 
 Of mystery is there 
 
 Still-born. The sun is blood 
 
 Upon the eastern stair; 
 And dried is all the sap of youth about 
 
 The temple, root and vine. 
 
 And lo, here Love has stood 
 
 Before an empty shrine. 
 
"And then, and then came Spring — " and the 
 
 Spring's heart sang 
 With bud, and bloom, and sun and rain together, — 
 And all her fickle and enchanting weather. 
 Like a star, aloof, divine, that hangs 
 In clouds, She held me in a dream that rang 
 With fiery tears; and golden down the heather 
 She told with sorry-sweetness there a bitter 
 Love, and laughed and wept where crocus sprang. 
 
 Brightly, as in a forest pool aglow 
 
 The sunrise slants, the Spring went by in young 
 
 Regality; and in her train ran Youth 
 
 With glorious pride, and Love, and Hope, and 
 
 rose 
 In hand, they touched the face of Time, and hung 
 The sky with radiance, — the stars with truth. 
 
 Who has hurt thee, Mary? Thy deep voice 
 Like husky organ notes, does tell it clearly; 
 x\nd thy dark, flashing eyes declare thee nearly 
 On the brink of tears. Come then, rejoice! 
 Thy Hebrew fathers never left unpoised 
 Faint-heartedness thy heritage. Cheerily 
 Look, as thou wert wont. Thou lovest dearly? 
 So brave? so gay? And will not tell thy choice? 
 
 She loveth Caesar! Jewish! But she's bright 
 With poetry and courage. Large her heart 
 Is with her fellow's grief. So would she carry 
 All her sister's burdens, and delight 
 In serving. And no pettiness, nor art 
 Defiles her, and — I will not hurt thee, Mary. 
 
I saw thee once as thou wert passing by, — 
 But who am I to watch thee? Caesar, say 
 Thy bondmaid serveth well in languid days 
 Of spring, when Love's mute ministers of high 
 Desiring tread the spaces of the sky. 
 ''And then came Spring — " Tears with laughter? 
 
 Yea, 
 I love thee so, — thou with thy kindly ways, 
 And subtle laughter in thy sea-grey eyes. 
 
 Not Mary, lord? Not any? Now I pray 
 Thee not to jest. Thou lovest Martha, wise 
 To guide the young, able to command, strong, 
 Unscrupulous. Nay, king, I bid thee stay 
 The word of praise, — 'Thou likest well, — would 
 
 prize 
 The wayward Spring, — would laugh with me in 
 
 song?' 
 
 Lord, hear! When from thy haughty shoulders 
 
 falls 
 The imperial toga of Love's senate-room, — 
 When from the world thy forehead's hid, and 
 
 gloom 
 Of mutiny o'erwhelms, — when Cassius calls, 
 And thine own Brutus smites thee, and thy pall 
 Is ready, — know thou this : despite thy doom, 
 Thy bondmaid is thy bondmaid. Not too soon 
 Can she defend thee, nor thy death forestall. 
 
 Make me thy counsel, Caesar. Versed am I 
 In woman's ways, and ward for thy sweet safety 
 Fain would I confirm. So fearful, lord? 
 Make me thy courage. In Love's court a spy 
 I'll be, to tell their silly wiles and crafty, — 
 Convict them with a mock, and slay w T ith words. 
 
 9 
 
Within an arbor lit with blossoms oft 
 
 I see a dreamer sit enthralled; and though 
 
 Her gaze is absent, happiness there flows 
 
 With mystery; and lightly as her soft, 
 
 Slow breath she learns the whole of wisdom 
 
 sought, — 
 Delight, and sorrow, and a love that so 
 Is filled with terror that a captive knows 
 She for herself that in Love's war was bought. 
 
 I would that I might hold thee in that place, — 
 Thou, with my dreaming, who art all sorrow, 
 And all of love, and wisdom, and delight. 
 I would be thy one bondmaid for the days 
 And years to come, and pleasures of the morrow 
 Tell o'er with thee through flower-lit, wizard 
 nights. 
 
 A woman cast her dreams in eyeless streets 
 And let them lie; she made her laughter low 
 With tears, and loved the answering noisy beat 
 Of tongues. She brought in hordes where one 
 
 should go. 
 Her soul's still waters did she lend for needs 
 Not spoken, — tasted salt of sweat and blood 
 From seas inscrutable, and plucked their weeds 
 Of bitter helplessness. And once she stood 
 Where Death was laid with purple lids fast- 
 closed; 
 And guilt of Hoder's witless crime she knows 
 Within the circle of her days where hands 
 Of hours clasp each across a crimson sand. 
 And yet she did but listen to a song 
 Soft-toned, — but knelt at Caesar's feet too long. 
 
 10 
 
Let us lie in some old orchard where 
 
 The trees hang down their fruit; some fragrant 
 
 lane, 
 Where larks of the deep meadow or dry plain 
 Sing for the solace of the place. And there, 
 Like worshippers stripped of their human snare 
 Of grief, see rapture in the Unexplained; 
 And reverencing a god for his vast pain, 
 Put on the golden cloth of dreams he wears. 
 
 And then the time of hating seven-fold 
 
 Forgotten was; and there in ecstacy 
 
 Of passion, and eager-eyed, was Love. 
 
 And in the shelter of that orchard old 
 
 Was secret, stirring peace, and radiancy 
 
 Of thrushes' songs, and symphonies of doves. 
 
 Out here on level places runs the wind 
 
 Free over boundless acres of cool grass. 
 
 Unceasingly it flows along a path 
 
 Of wind-flowers, that dwell together in 
 
 A sweet communion of frail ferns, and dim, 
 
 Pale stars, reflecting skyey ones. And fast 
 
 It runs, unchecked and keen, as it had passed 
 
 Unchallenged bulwarks of the forests, rimmed 
 
 With hills. It is the wind of long desiring, — 
 
 Come away ! And of the never tiring 
 
 For your lips on mine. And keenly sweet 
 
 It is, as love that cannot die. Ah, greet 
 
 It brave! It sees no God, nor ever saw. 
 
 Like love, it is the Law before the laws. 
 
 The setting sun stretched back a living brand 
 And sealed the song of the last, merry lark 
 That sang on glancing reed. And night was dark 
 Upon the fields of wheat and fallow land. 
 11 
 
Another night ! The flushed moon rose, fanned 
 By waving branches of the thicket where 
 The fireflies streamed in drops of flame; and bare 
 The stubble lay beside the pallid sand. 
 
 ift my tongue is mute beneath the fire 
 Of this strange love: and sight is dark before 
 The wilderness of passion in my veins. 
 
 Another night ! Thine image i _:ier 
 
 Than the wakened moon: thy words no more 
 .Are beaded streams of unimpassioned flame. 
 
 Xot that my love is laggard do my words 
 Falter to thee. Xot that your voice has ceased 
 To vibrate in my heart, for still the 
 And music of your accents there are heard 
 With sudden beatings, as the wings of birds 
 Aroused from covert: nor that your thoughts 
 Xo longer flow to me as fully fraught 
 With eloquence of love on love averred. 
 
 But because at every glance of thine 
 
 My soul leaps up to question. "Wherefore art 
 
 Thou worthy?" And my heart whispers. "He 
 
 Is Caesar, thou art thou!" For this the time 
 
 Goes silently. But certain counterparts 
 
 I carry here of all dear words for thee. 
 
 This is a summer land not needing name. 
 
 S -till it lies. — so pure and fair. — afloat 
 
 With knee-high poppies, and with ripening oats. 
 
 And foaming in the sloughs, and through the 
 
 lanes. 
 
 U 
 
Long breakers of white clover; and the stain 
 Of crimson mallows on the hill. Like notes 
 Of drowsy song, the bees hang o'er remote, 
 Low blossoms, — swinging in their lucid flames. 
 
 The very passion of love's peace is here 
 
 With thee. The pulse-beat in my throat I hear, 
 
 And, as a velvet-beating wing, thine too. 
 
 My hovering thought waits on thy words; while 
 
 faintly 
 Clover-bloom allures, and shy things quaintly 
 Pass, dallying, and flaunting summer hues. 
 
 The mountains loom, obscurely near, behind 
 The twilight haze; the canyons filled with keen, 
 Wild fragrance, wind in shade and dusty green 
 Into the hills; a faint allurement fines 
 The mesa's terraces of undefined, 
 Pale slopes, where just a pearl and opal gleam 
 Almost unites them. Dusk, and lights between 
 The dark, and me make little, friendly signs. 
 
 Silence, and night ! And thou art there. I fain 
 Would ask one boon, — to touch thy face and 
 
 yield, — 
 Thou who art named in every falling day. 
 Daily and nightly, Caesar, do I say, 
 "Now will I seek him — " yet a pride I shield, 
 And play the woman's ancient, furtive game. 
 
 The full moon shines without a stain all o'er 
 A valley that lies under storms whose glooms 
 x\re topped with domed pearl; and darkened doors 
 At moments open on a radiance too 
 Intense, — on other fiercer walls. And now 
 Again there shoots the lightning-flame of distant 
 13 
 
Brands, as if an angel with a brow 
 Of care looked down on us, and looking, listened. 
 And now there leaps a plumed pen I hat writes 
 Before the glamour of that tragic face, — 
 That Countenance that turns to me its light, 
 And then to thee, in a far, haloed place. 
 Caesar, does One write, with burning pen 
 Of silence, deeds I might have done for men? 
 
 Does God sit so, in stillness watching far 
 The doing of his worlds? That One who plays 
 The dizzy checks of suns and planets barred 
 With splendor, are his eyes as these fierce rays 
 That smite the earth? Whence this wind that 
 
 shakes 
 No leaf, nor lives, nor faints? This pantomime 
 Of letters in rose-lightnings, and shapes 
 That peer out every opened door of flame? 
 No breath of sound attends the sudden brands, — 
 Does so a Memory forever count 
 Inharmonies man makes in a First Plan, 
 That such cold fire flows ceaseless from the Fount? 
 The tempest falls. Caesar, shall I fear 
 A prophecy of clouds in later years? 
 
 Eternal stand the ranges of the peaks, 
 Unchanging and unchangeable, sublime 
 Above vicissitudes of storm and time. 
 And ever-fresh, the forests clothe the meek, 
 Low hills with constancy. Still ever sweet, 
 The dawn renews its beauty; and the fine, 
 Stained bells, and humble turf restore the lines 
 Of youth and loveliness in dale and creek. 
 
 14 
 
Oh, Doubter, look up to the peaks that shake 
 Their wings of opalescent light, and know 
 That Love spreads pinions like that fiery snow, 
 And folds us close with its eternal faith. 
 That long as the long, long time of earth shall flow 
 Will Love look on us with a tender face. 
 
 Sunrise on the Sangre de Cristo! Aye, 
 
 But watch the clouds roll slowly back, and see 
 
 How swiftly down their front the shadows flee. 
 
 And hush! Triumphant light comes darting high 
 
 From peak to peak, to the most distant sky. 
 
 And now the range is dyed like to a sea 
 
 Of tossing, evanescent hues, and seethes 
 
 Above the molten clouds. Why turn thine eyes 
 
 To the naked day to come? Nay, come nigher. 
 
 These are the heights of love, and clothed in fire 
 
 W T e dare ascend them. Let be forever 
 
 The transfiguration of the hour 
 
 When thou art glorified; nor let me ever 
 
 Know all my love for thee, — nor thou thy power. 
 
 The beauty of the mists enfolds us still. 
 From chasms and cliffs impassable it sweeps 
 O'er far, dark pines that fringe the snowdrift's 
 
 feet; 
 And azure haze from depths untold o'erfills 
 The glacier's brink where witchery wins the will. 
 The gulfs that gloom below the smoky wreaths 
 Are silent for foreshadowing the fleet, 
 Wild spirit glimmering among the hills. 
 
 What tenderness of line and hue! What tears 
 Of Spring upon the place where common winds 
 Keep troth! It touches me with mournful fear. 
 The morning breathes a soul not far — not near, — 
 15 
 
But cloaked. And all the winds are faint that 
 
 bring 
 The voice of Caesar, as from far-off years. 
 
 ''All Nature is a symbol," thou hast said. 
 "A sign whereby to read." Below us are 
 The stream of changing silver, flowing far 
 From out yon tracery of mountains spread 
 So daintily against the sky, and dead 
 Unending wastes of plundered forests, scarred 
 By human selfishness. Bereft, ill-starred, 
 The valley lies, — fit couch for Ruin's head. 
 
 Tell me the meaning. Desolation only 
 
 Is here. These blackened stumps, and fallen 
 
 trees, — 
 Are thej r the hopes once springing in the lush, 
 Green vale of Youth? So may one's life be lonely 
 With a wanton desecration? these 
 Lifeless trunks be days? Why art thou hushed? 
 
 Against encroaching emptiness, that never 
 
 Is by reassuring comfort here 
 
 Divided, flow the clamors thick and near 
 
 Of human hopes importunate; and ever 
 
 At imaginary gates, with tremor 
 
 Of their outstretched, poising wings, the w r eird, 
 
 Still figures of man's long desires hang clear, 
 
 And unashamed, and unresigned forever. 
 
 Let me not weep, despite the silence wrung 
 By fear. But let me still before the gates 
 Of Love's imagined citadel, where late 
 The glory of a royal presence hung, 
 Keep blameless watch; and unresigned, yet wait. 
 Believing, where a changeful Spring was sung. 
 16 
 
Once our two souls did speed across the days 
 And left a sunny, laughing wake in Time's 
 Deep ocean. Thou first, — cutting through the 
 
 brine 
 Of sad and happy tears a fearless way, — 
 And I, thy foolish shadow, half in play 
 Forever trailing thee. And 3 et those fine 
 And subtle threads of thought were never lines 
 To hold a shadow. I was thyself, more fey. 
 
 And therefore art thou mine. Though never 
 
 should 
 I see thee more, nor touch thy hand, nor claim 
 Thee outwardly, — for payment of my tears, 
 And love that was half told, and faith that stood 
 A mainstay for my love, still art thou named 
 And known for me, through days to deathless 
 
 years. 
 
 Not that the times affright me with their dearth, — 
 Nay, fullest knowledge cannot gainsay this: 
 Tli at I must love thee utterly. Nor kiss, 
 Nor word can take or add its little worth 
 In that one fact. Nor can a weary earth 
 Divide with stress of life, or the abyss 
 Of silent years, we two, — so close are twist 
 Our days of sorrow with elusive mirth. 
 
 But should thy life be squandered out in deeds 
 Too small, — then could I weep, and for my an- 
 guish 
 Drink the hemlock that is found in lean 
 And selfish living. Or thy fellows' need 
 Appeal, and thou be dumb, — then would there 
 
 vanish 
 Star, and Lodestar, and a world of dreams. 
 17 
 
A wilderness of emptiness whose rim 
 Is ridden over by the feet of clouds; 
 A desert clamoring, with forehead bowed 
 Before the onslaught of the bitter wind 
 That seeks its fellow in the darkest brim 
 Of heaven's bowl; and on the alien world 
 A strangeness from the outer space is hurled, 
 And newer desolation, vast and dim. 
 
 Futility of grief! And love cast down ! 
 There is no hopefulness in ravaged bloom, 
 Nor loveliness; no golden-grained crown 
 Of royal fields to grace the bridal noon 
 Of Loneliness. In vain the virgin dunes 
 Make lamentations for the tempest's wounds. 
 
 Up to Fortune's face I strain, and know 
 Her there, behind the shadows of her wheel. 
 Like wings of snowy doves that mount and reel 
 Against the sun, — fringed wide with silver glow, — 
 Her garments shine. Immutable, and slow, 
 The heavy -burdened wheel revolves. The weal 
 And woe of men is on her lips, — the seal 
 They gave, for which she cannot let them go. 
 
 Upward I reached, and saw thee there, 
 Leaning beside the cold, sweet, weary maid. 
 I named thee, through the turning bars as I 
 Went down, torn past. Oh, pitiful thine eyes 
 As hers that swam in tears. But where was laid 
 Thy hand, the once she cried, my heart is bare. 
 
 She weeps and smiles, — the girl with weary eyes, 
 And small, slight hands upon the wheel she turns 
 Through sun and cloud. And ceaselessly there 
 yearns 
 
 18 
 
To her the naked poor as they sweep by, — 
 
 A glory in their faces as they cry. 
 
 The overflowing wheel, where anguish burns, 
 
 Unhurried and not slow descends; and spurned. - 
 
 Shrivelled for her woe, men strain and die. 
 
 There went a faee so hopeless that I held 
 The immortal hands — such loss I heard 
 In that faint murmur. And she said: "Thy love 
 Must suffer on the endless round, — must move 
 Amid old days, remembering, — tell 
 Faint stars thy name, — make prayers of thy least 
 words." 
 
 And then I dreamed, — my life is all a dream 
 
 I think, — that your sw r eet eyes were w T atching 
 
 me; 
 Thine embrace soothed me in my agony 
 Of grief; and thy close-breathing voice did seem 
 To promise me there was no night supreme 
 Could separate our lives; and sesame 
 Thou gav'st to all your silences; and keys 
 That held the portals where love's radiance gleam- 
 ed. 
 
 Is there no w T ay across the world? No throbbing 
 
 Current of my love to strike a chord 
 
 Upon thy heart's long-silent strings? No Lord 
 
 To answer prayer? Is there no end to sobbing 
 
 In the dreadful night? No other dew 
 
 Than my own tears? No life but grief renewed? 
 
 "And then came Spring — " Desolate the song 
 That once so gaily fearless swxpt these strings 
 Of color, and as honeyed bells that swdng 
 In silent chimes upon a sunny lawn, 
 19 
 
Thrilled with the breath of youth and c< 
 stn a _ 
 
 But ere their trembli: _ led came Love on 
 
 wings — 
 Smote, with touch full-arrogant, the strings 
 To new and holy sound, — chords loud and long. 
 
 "And then came Spriit , — " And here amid the 
 
 dead. 
 Gray wastes is >ilence, and the scourging 
 
 Almost have I prayed to hate thee. — thou 
 Unhurt by love. Thy gentle words are now 
 Become more cruel than public jibes that sear 
 The thought, — thy memory more darkly fled. 
 
 One spoke thy name in careless ss lay 
 
 Amid a throng, and the one word came out 
 
 To me. thrilling as some great organ-shout 
 
 That overwhelms. .And through the noisy way 
 
 Of words the fires of love leaped up. and played 
 
 Above the seeming-lifeless ash about 
 
 Thy memory. Again wert king, and doubt 
 
 Forsworn. I saw thee god in human clay. 
 
 I must awake. *Ti- I. not doubt, that is 
 Forsworn. With lighter words, and careless scorn, 
 I must persuade my comrades I am whole 
 Of any hurt. In solitude my soul 
 May listen to a faultless master-tone. 
 Remember almost that my love was his. 
 
 Memory doth like a star with slender 
 Tongues of rippling light wake o'er the stream 
 Of Lethe where I stand, and shadows seem 
 To weep, with softened tears, and knowledge 
 tender. 
 
 20 
 
Now he who did with love both help and hinder 
 Must be forgot. Let me drink sleep, and dream 
 I never lived, — ne'er saw a spring-flower gleam, — 
 Nor laughed, — nor wept the hour of love's sur- 
 render 
 
 But just now, as I stooped, thy soul did part 
 The impenetrable veil, and spake, with eyes 
 O'erclouded, and a sigh. Ah, let me but 
 Remember in the wilderness thy heart 
 Was great and wistful in that look and cry, — 
 Thou would'st have loved me ere the veil was 
 shut. 
 
 To keep a tenderness for those who hate, 
 
 Confused in grime and smoke. Or for the glory 
 
 Of a song to be beloved. Or story 
 
 Of a fire divine that kindled late. 
 
 To come to men as comes unquestioned faith; 
 
 A soul to swear by in the night of hoary 
 
 iVge; a well of strength in transitory 
 
 Days of good and ill, — a match to Fate. 
 
 Oh, weary day! If I may only turn 
 
 The mirrors of my love to saving night 
 
 That none but thee may lie therein. And then 
 
 Will passion wane? The earth bloom dull as when 
 
 The seasons fade in drouth? No new, deep light 
 
 Open with each Spring that laughs and burns? 
 
 21 
 
EPILOGUE 
 
 Comes he not swift beside the river tossed 
 
 Continuously in wan 
 
 Tumult? But now he comes, — 
 
 And now he stands upon 
 Thy withered throne of shadows built across 
 
 The Waste where souls must come. 
 
 (Oh, love, I hear the tears 
 
 Fall from the dying sun!) 
 
 I pray thee, goddess, give thine eyes to one 
 Who claims my soul, and bow 
 Thy forehead calm, and mark 
 His tenderness of brow. 
 
 (The thin, lit shadows part and meet upon 
 The languid grass; and dim 
 They speak, unfolding hands 
 In deep-welled signs to him!) 
 
 For me he could not love. Nor could I kneel 
 
 To him adored. But lay 
 
 Him on thy breast as soft 
 
 As Love in heart o' May. 
 (The spent souls fall from off the crowded wheel 
 
 Of Life, and each is dark 
 
 For breath, — and oh, how long 
 
 He leans upon thy heart!) 
 
And with thy hands on his this love of mine 
 Unfold to him, — this long, 
 Tired love that cannot end 
 Its circling web of song. 
 
 (Close-curled has fallen the white rose of thine 
 Upon his brow, — so I 
 Would lean to him, — lie hushed 
 For that still look and sigh.) 
 
 And put your lips upon his languishing 
 That I have dared not meet. 
 And with your listless roses 
 Plucked in weary streets 
 
 With pale triumph crown him, vanquishing 
 My love. (I have heard 
 Flow fierce throughout the world 
 The whisper of his word!) 
 
 A\\ thy cold, sweet body, Proserpine, 
 
 Give him. And w T ith his brow 
 Beneath thy throat the lilies 
 Of thy bosom now 
 
 Give over, Proserpine. Oh, Proserpine! 
 (With bound looks, — entwined, — 
 Oh, Lost to me, take this 
 Love-wondered for mine!) 
 
 23 
 
A STREET 
 
 I know a lane where pale clematis creeps 
 Along the hedges row; where the fragrant 
 Festoons are turned by winds as lingering slow- 
 As distant voices that are heard in sleep. 
 And through the vines there Hows the sound of 
 
 vagrant 
 Seekers of the starry bloom; and low 
 The leaves stir listlessly, as if a weak. 
 But fiery hand cast down their scarlet fragments 
 In the dust. Sad relics of June's rose, 
 Sere and laggardly they fall; 
 Leaves of dear remembering, — 
 Flaming soft and late they keep 
 Faith with one along a street 
 AVhere clematis clambering 
 Decks the hedges and the walls. 
 
 So sunny are the stones and warm! They are 
 The chiselled stones of history in bringing 
 Back a memory. Among the brown, 
 Uneven flags, and shadow-deepened scars 
 There lie the steps of yesterday, and stinging 
 Fresh, the print of Launcelot going down 
 To Camelot. But neither near nor far 
 Is there a shallop, where a maid for singing 
 'Tirra-lee' may wind a lily crown 
 
 Wan and languidly, and die, 
 Floating through the silent place. 
 "He has a tender face," 
 She said, flaming soft to keep 
 Faith with one along a street 
 Where the maples hide the sky. 
 
 24 
 
The orchard fences lift a careless screen 
 Beside the corner crossing; far back lie 
 Deep verandas shielding generous door; 
 And beetle-browed behind the poplar green 
 The attic windows glimpse the passers-by. 
 We loiter in the shade of noon before 
 The picket gate, and smiling-eyed, we lean 
 In happy tolerance, to greet, and sigh, 
 And nod; and farther, where the maples o'er 
 Road and alley drop their splendor, 
 And the shadows faintly gloom 
 Gold and azure in the noon, 
 Shy and happily they greet, 
 Keeping faith along a street, — 
 Young, and fair, and tender. 
 
 The afternoon goes by upon the wings 
 Of drowsy airs, that fan the rustling leaves 
 With Autumn indolence. From far beyond 
 The spires, where high the sunset gilding clings, 
 The slender shadows come with cool, wet feet 
 Beside the hedges; and beneath the awns 
 Of starred clematis, soft they couch, — a fringe 
 Of frail, dark shapes. They are the dusk that 
 
 weaves 
 From humming wires, and wildbird notes, the song, 
 Love-desiring that I know. 
 Faint, and clear, and holy-sweet, 
 Faith it keeps along the street, 
 Like a voice that's ne'er forgot, 
 And stirs the heart for what is not, 
 And whispers in the afterglow. 
 
 25 
 
The little moon hangs straight above the high, 
 Blaek mountain heads, as though a rider, on 
 His mystic quest behind the bend of heaven 
 With scimiter alone would light the sky, 
 And twilit earth that slips beneath, beyond 
 The pool of night. So still, — so wan, — from 
 
 driven 
 Clouds and hidden stars, a wind comes by, — 
 A darkling phantasy of air. 'Tis gone, 
 And from the secrecy of night is given 
 Sudden arc-lights aureoles, 
 Banishing the shadow souls 
 Gathered in the rustling groves, 
 Walking there for grief and love, 
 Half-articulate and sweet 
 Keeping faith along a street. 
 
 26 
 
THE HARVEST 
 
 So vast the stores of grain the prairies yield 
 At harvest that their level distances 
 Are more the floors of heaven overspread 
 With golden tapestry, and thick with sheaves 
 Of pale, bronze plumes embroidered, than the 
 
 fields 
 Of earth. And o'er the shocks the silence is 
 Of someone young and infinite, who treads 
 With buoyant step the plains; and from cloud- 
 sleeves 
 Not quite reveals majestic arms and hands 
 Of Destinies, that bend benign above 
 The stubble, and with eyes of summer love 
 Give graciously the harvest of the land. 
 
 The loaded wagons move from shock to shock; 
 And seeming-slow, the reapers lift the sheaves 
 Of heavy-drooping, bearded grain on forks 
 That flash the glistering sunlight from their tines 
 In fiery needles, — through the wheaten stalks 
 They glint like tiny flames. The men with sleeves 
 Rolled back upon sweat-beaded arms, and marks 
 Of earthy toil on brows and throats deep-grimed, 
 Have given their bodies to the wintry rain 
 Of April, and the scourging July sun. 
 Along the endless floor of stubble-run 
 They move, like tardy shadows on the plain. 
 
 One-time men went about a lesser plan 
 Of fields, enclosed by aging trees, or hedged 
 By thick-entangled branches, — stony, loth 
 To yield. And with them went a slower band 
 Of weary, stooping gleaners, who, with hands 
 Of toil, picked meager sheaves along the edge, 
 27 
 
Of precious grain; and bound it, careful both 
 
 Of stalk and ear, lest in the teeming land 
 
 There should be want at home. With damp 
 
 scarves girt 
 About their sweating brows, where strings of hair 
 Hung close, they sunk their hearts in bleak de- 
 spair, 
 And broke their courage in the callous earth. 
 
 Then grudging did the soil yield up its grain 
 To frugal peasant, tilling with quaint plow, 
 And oxen yoked, the too-unwilling ground; 
 And frowning did it seem to take the seed 
 From the patient sower's arm, who fain 
 Would rest among the furrows. To the bowed 
 And deadened harvester, who early bound 
 And shocked his narrow field, there never reed, 
 Nor rustling stem of wheat, disclosed the glory 
 That went elusively before his scythe, 
 Evading, e'en as now T it goes, and blithe 
 Declaring half the passion of its story. 
 
 Unveiled, it pauses in the heat of noon. 
 Not willing yet to grant acquaintance dear, 
 It walks in living gold of sound and sun 
 Abroad upon the harvesting. Its skirts 
 Are fragrant with the ripened clover-bloom; 
 And warm, its yellow hair is spread out here 
 In fields of summer heat. Here lightly run 
 The minstrel winds, with flying cloaks ungirt, 
 And with vibrating throats they tuneful cry: 
 "Oh, Soul Divine of fruitfulness and long 
 Enduring life! Oh, Spirit of the strong, 
 Oft-bearing Motherhood of earth and sky!" 
 
A WITCH-LOVES LAMENT 
 
 Sun-born of a jasmine land, 
 Fire-crowned from a southern sand, 
 Came one with a crocus wand 
 And whispered a name. 
 
 Through ways of rush and bracken, 
 In ferns and mosses shaken, 
 Where wet fowls speak and waken, 
 Sped I in the dark. 
 
 I fled from a snare of song, 
 And wanton sweet flowerets flung 
 In perfumes remote and long, — 
 I fled from a star. 
 
 Then there rose from words soft-beating 
 Mad glories of visions fleeting, — 
 As echoes float, and meeting 
 Re-echo again. 
 
 Strange captor of bonded maid 
 Wert thou in the morning shade. 
 Unswerving and unafraid 
 In lilies of rose. 
 
 In lilies to red rose breaking 
 While kindled eyes were taking 
 The draught of love, unmaking 
 The witching of night. 
 
 So close was a hand on mine, 
 And closer a whisper blind, 
 And silenced the heart of time. 
 So late did we know 
 29 
 
The dawn like an ocean streaming 
 Over yielding floors of dreaming, 
 Where figures start, and gleaming 
 Go out in a sigh. 
 
 My soul, like a dark night-flower, 
 Sprang from the passioned hour, 
 And swung in a sheltered bower 
 With singing of day. 
 
 (Oh, dreadful day of sorrow!) 
 Long marvel of the morrow, 
 And crocus wand that borrowed 
 The glamour of love. 
 
 And evening's straight path shone 
 On sea, and on marshes lone, 
 And on waves that w T ere wildly blown ; 
 And hurrying hosts 
 
 That ran with a haggard straining, 
 Crowding the red-gold Flaming, — 
 Seeking the shadows staining 
 The wings of the sea. 
 
 We heeded the vanguard swift, 
 And heeded the motley shift 
 Of phantoms like bubble-drift 
 On breakers of light. 
 
 And words were light as flying 
 Along the purple lying 
 Athwart the restless sighing 
 Of waning of day. 
 
Thy flight was as the going 
 Of ruddy twilight flowing 
 From heav'n's marge, and sowing 
 The way with its blood. 
 
 And thick in your steps there ran 
 Wan rivers of living sand, 
 And faintness of jasmine land, 
 And flowers of crocus. 
 
 Oh, Shade of Even, weeping 
 The Shade of Midnight, keeping 
 The glory of day, and weeping 
 The sorrow of night. 
 
 And up from the clouding night, 
 As were love and fear unite, 
 Come pale witch-fires alight, 
 And mother crews 
 
 Who race in long, pale foaming 
 Across the lost sea's gloaming, 
 And answer low my moaning, 
 And whisper a name. 
 
 31 
 
SEA AND FOREST 
 
 Across the void there glanced 
 Amid the cosmic throng a solar lance 
 Plume-tipped with fire, — the earth, divinely 
 winged. 
 
 Through ages numberless the quaint device, 
 
 With saffron, floating sails outfurling thrice 
 The length of Time, went swinging to and fro. 
 Oh, shining space, where bannered suns did go 
 "Wheeling and wheeling on the Undertow! 
 
 Then like slow turning in the darkened sleep 
 
 Of unborn life, was stirring in the deep 
 
 Of earth; and while the pulsing silence leaped 
 
 Beneath the yearning of the Unexplained, 
 
 The land's long shadow, and the sea's green plain 
 
 Was made the place of breathing, and of pain. 
 
 A shadowy dawn, and far, when vaguely in 
 
 Earth's bosom, as the vapors in a wind, 
 
 "Was rocked the Life from winch all life begins. 
 
 Immeasurably the planet-cradle swung, 
 A girdled sea in ropes of twilight hung, 
 And waning sails on either side out-flung, — 
 Sun-stricken harps boomed there inaudibly. 
 
 Not like to sunrise flaunting gaudily 
 On walls of fire and rose, — triumphantly 
 Life wakened. Nor where seething waters ran 
 Through dancing highways measureless to span, 
 And monstrous spoutings of Saharic sand; 
 But softly, on a dark and dreamless ocean, 
 Tossed and swayed with many a languid motion 
 Of tepid tides, that in a meek devotion 
 32 
 
Reshaped the clouds that leaned against the sky, 
 There rose the struggle of a velvet sigh; 
 And as the opening of an infant's eye 
 That seeks for darkness in the troubled day, 
 Was stirring in the ooze of that bright clay, 
 And blind, weak groping for the open way 
 Out of the embrace of the mother-wave. 
 
 Out of the sea! the sea! and shell-hued caves 
 That always with a sapphire light were bathed. 
 Out of the brooding sea that held its slime 
 By time inviolate, and crusted rime 
 On marges yielded laggardly, in brine 
 Slow-heaved. Out of the sea where stained bells 
 Still choral liquidly the passing knells, 
 (Tongued moonbeams were those ruddy shells!) 
 Of lives that wandered on the leaning bars 
 Of shoaling sand. 
 
 Out of the sea whose far 
 Forgot Conception is the holy star 
 Immaculate, — whose passion of the beach 
 Is love omnific, — whose purple reach 
 Is flowing music, and transcendent speech. 
 
 Out of the sea immutable, — whose source 
 Enduring beauty is; whose deathless force 
 Renews itself from life destroyed; whose course 
 Is on the aging earth, there came no race 
 But like a seashell in a lonely place 
 Feels fa : ntly verberant a wild embrace, 
 And knows at intervals the tempest-born 
 Delight of grey salt waters crashing on 
 A sounding shore. 
 
 33 
 
And urgent in the dawn 
 Of life created of the first sea-folk, — 
 Who crept and loitered where the waters broke 
 Upon the warm translucent sand, — there spoke 
 The voice of hunger, and of new desire, 
 Bred of the empty living, and the fire 
 Of ancient yearning of the waves first heat, 
 And luring of the restless air that beat 
 Like lift of spreading w r ings and soaring fleet. 
 
 From gardens stretched in sinuous lines across 
 The pristine sea of motherhood, — from moss 
 That clung in shallows, by the stones embossed, 
 There w T andered opal-armored life. From bleak 
 Sea-ledges, muffled in the fertile Deep, 
 And colder grottoes of the shore, all streaked 
 With blood-red dulse, — as though some helpless 
 
 thing 
 Had died by violence there, and lacy w r ings 
 Eknbalmed the tragedy, — from vines like strings 
 OF sirens' tangled hair, and giant kelp, 
 And low-tide wrack along the rocky shelf, 
 Crept the dwellers of the primal sea. 
 From violet-sunbeamed groves of leaves 
 That follow in the rocking waves, and weave 
 Their plumey fronds and antlered stems, they 
 
 came, — 
 The swift, dark rovers of the ocean plain, 
 And regal conches with their throats aflame. 
 
 Upon the shores that waves had chiselled deep, 
 In bayous hidden, where the rivers meet 
 And melt into the sea, and on the sw 7 eet 
 Salt marshes spreading far, they came, and slow, 
 In morbid famine of the ebb and flow 
 Of early travail. And from beaches strow r n 
 34 
 
With silver armor, and with topaz shields, 
 They crept, as creeping goes the snail in fields 
 Of moss. 
 
 And where the rugged headlands kneeled 
 In moonlit marbles, came they twos, and threes, 
 On noiseless stealing upward of the sea. 
 Through golden weeds about the mountain's 
 
 knees; 
 And on, to pale grey capes of rock, all bathed 
 In light, up to the Forest Soul, arrayed 
 In copper leafage, where the churning waves 
 No more left skeins of yellow foam. 
 
 Oh, long 
 The living sea-shells heard the forest's song 
 Through ages modeling, with spirit strong 
 Their shells as sculptors clay. 
 
 Up from the blue, 
 Majestic desolation, and the hue 
 Of silence vast, into a silence new, 
 Where sunlight never fell; where long moss hung 
 Festooned from branches, and the Shadow rung 
 With fear, into the Forest Passion young, 
 That wrought, recasting, tempering the shells. 
 As fine bell-bronze it cast them over, — swelled 
 Their passions in the coverts and the dells; 
 And in the brood of giants, reared where sun 
 And moisture worked unhindered — there it strung 
 And tuned them delicately. As a cloud 
 Reflecting wonders of the sea, in proud 
 Free tones it painted them. And in the bowed 
 Green thicket's edge, where every lofty leaf 
 Was as a vibrant shield, returning brief 
 The sunset, there it lit them from a sheaf 
 Of arrow-shafts of light. 
 35 
 
On every cell 
 Was the forest written for the shells 
 That quit the sea. Forgotten was the well 
 Of waters, — of the fathomless salt wash ; 
 Forgotten the infinite time of clash 
 Of wave on wave; the endless years of crash 
 Of forest leaves to those who stooped and looked 
 With forest eyes and fear, from under crooked, 
 Sun shading hands. For still the Passion shook 
 The waving sea of green; and still the strange, 
 New forest tether held, with fringed chains 
 Of trailing branches; and the forest grains 
 Of living sufficed them. And forest ponds, — 
 That in the leafy wilderness of sounds 
 Like rain fast-driven, marked with tangled fronds 
 The lesser margins of dark-mirrored skies, 
 In solitude gave drink to satisfy. 
 And in leaf-bottomed pools, where forest sighs 
 Dropped down like falling needles, was their old 
 Shell-patterned sea. 
 
 Half-clad in steely mold, 
 Upon the forest's rim, and half-controlled 
 By fear, there gazed primordial Man, and stern, 
 Bold foreheads of the mountains saw blood-tinged 
 With sunset clearings. 
 
 There in mantles fringed 
 With bark of trees they paused within the edge. 
 And one with them, at plain and tasseled sedge 
 The Forest Passion looked from covert ledge 
 And sheltered pool; from aisles of splashed sun- 
 light, 
 Where creepers grew, and wild bloom shook the 
 
 night 
 Of dusk with cardinal fire, — and specters like 
 36 
 
To Terror slunk in labyrinths, — for one 
 That ancient Passion was with Dread. 
 
 Master and Guest 
 It was, Indwelling IN laker, that no quest 
 Could quite approach, — adorable, supreme; 
 Who, in the forest folk it shaped, put green, 
 Tough faith in many twisted dreams, 
 And judgments powerful, and instincts sure, 
 That from the forest were they born, — a lure 
 That lay in beds of knee-high ferns and pure, 
 Wild mosses. 
 
 Children of the forest they 
 Had come to be, and of the secret ways 
 Of wildernesses. To the Guest they prayed 
 With sacrifice of blood and fire; and deaths 
 Of enemies in war; and children's breaths 
 Expiring. From savage, sincere depths 
 They worshipped at the Forest Passion's shrine. 
 
 First dawn of faith that made the Tree divine ! 
 
 That saw the 'Maker in the shift and shine 
 
 Of dew-hung leaves. That held the facile Greek 
 
 Close-gathered to the plane-tree; and the meek 
 
 And fearful glancing Oriental, streaked 
 
 W T ith sacrificial wounds, to Buddha's tree. 
 
 Oh, adoration of the trees, agreed 
 Upon in that first dawn of memory! 
 Oh, song of forest adoration held 
 Through final days of the Immortal, knelled 
 By wanton deities of brake and dell, 
 Who left light traces of their going swift, 
 Beguiling laughter where they hid, and drift 
 Of sudden speech in faint or vanished shift 
 Of flying. 
 
 37 
 
And through the time of later faith 
 
 When man no more saw gods, but in their place 
 
 The trees, with hark close-shut like secret gates, 
 
 Endeared by many stories old, of woods 
 
 That their own race had known; and in the blood 
 
 Of man recovered there the early blood 
 
 Of forest princes; and in the restless, frail. 
 
 White aspens saw a woman's grace. 
 
 The tale 
 Of human life runs long in forest dale 
 And pinery. But yesterday, — but now, 
 The Passion still demands its own, and low, 
 Reclaims with beckoning leaves and trailing 
 
 boughs 
 Its children venturing to cross the line 
 That, half -obliterate divides the fine 
 Spun memory of yesterday, — entwined 
 With customs garlanded, and fruitage plump, — 
 From life in places open to the brunt 
 Of day. 
 
 And still Man skirts the sheltered front, 
 And peers from planted trees before his door; 
 And builds his temples by the ancient lore 
 Of forest memory and trees adored. 
 And worshipping with evergreen, and moss 
 Of yellow tinsel, and starry candle-hosts, 
 And painted masks of sacrifice, the lost 
 Immortal of his infancy, — the first 
 Creator of the earth, — nor durst 
 To sever all the sacred bonds; yet thirsts 
 For freedom from his heritage. 
 
 38 
 
From depths 
 Of woodlands over-running life, and death, 
 And home, and birth, and prayer, and lovers' 
 
 breath 
 Of cruel mastery, — from twisted root, 
 And drooping leaf, and virgins' emblem fruit, 
 And all-day summer heat of sun, the truth 
 Of mystery he cannot separate. 
 Still he lingers, and is captivate. 
 
 From leaf-ensheltered home he contemplates 
 With forest eyes the plain's mirage and wild, 
 Sky-rimmed expanse. He cannot go, — the child 
 Of fear and shadows, — cannot dare the mild, 
 And open land untrammeled; not the still 
 And barren plain where scarves of heat from hills 
 Of thinnest air go wavering, and gild 
 The western dunes. But tethered to the groves 
 Of oak and laurel, and the dark woodroads, 
 He waits, and almost man, he looks, and clings 
 With backward-gripping hand, and forward flings 
 A timid gaze for haunts familiar. 
 
 39 
 
THE JUGGLER 
 
 The square sleeps; walls turn back the waxing 
 noon; 
 
 And where have been the clamor and the cries 
 Of shrilling venders is a golden shade; 
 
 The world unshunnablc in torpor lies. 
 
 Awake! Before the grimed doors there comes 
 A brooding spirit in the nerveless street, — 
 
 A soul of strange confusions with shut eyes, — 
 A tattered juggler with uncovered feet. 
 
 Alike for him the pits of fierce delay; 
 
 The desert where no echo falls; alike 
 The silence, or the wail of Rama's weeping. 
 
 From supreme cold morns, and hoar and haunt- 
 ed nights, 
 
 And less'ning skies, and icy, vigil stars 
 
 His craft was learned. He moves his stones, 
 and lo! 
 A troubled wind of footfalls runs along 
 
 The square, — a cloud of men hangs black and 
 low. 
 
 Up from dust's emptiness the juggler builds 
 His mystery. And hand to hand, and will 
 
 Set hard, the watchers mark his handicraft. 
 And lo! the wind, uncovering and still. 
 
 On ruined capitols where man had wasted 
 Rose his polished stones of slow-conceived 
 
 Thought. And wan in a divine worksickness 
 He set up temples out of dying leaves. 
 
 40 
 
The achieved beauty died. And from the crew 
 Three leaped, and spat; and one, a critic, cried: 
 
 "Saw ye he lacks in workmanship?" and, "Laws! 
 He has been taught no laws ! " his brother sighed. 
 
 And hot the third man said: "This striving with 
 The Inconceivable!" and thrust his lip 
 
 As one who knew vast thoughts. And gusty 
 laughter 
 Came, and late, a harsher word was clipped. 
 
 And he, the young, the stern Idolator, 
 With yearning that to him is like a bugle 
 
 In the glare, — that paints his blemished stones 
 To dull the glory of the furnace sun, — 
 
 Hears dimness fall, and fountains break. Ah, 
 green 
 The pastured lands, and fair the cloudy screen 
 Where still a temple built with dressed stones 
 Stands columned white. And over all the 
 sky — 
 
 The singing sky of invitation, holy, 
 
 Solitary. And now the juggler dipped 
 
 His hands in clouds that burn like cloister-flames, 
 And through the square a wilderness there 
 slipped. 
 
 As one far-off he said: "So have I seen 
 A mother build in anguish, — a man 
 
 Sit closed in darkness drawing lines that flowed 
 In light." And then there streamed from out 
 his hands 
 
 41 
 
Such mystery as when day goes, and spirits 
 Soar the hills expiring momently. 
 
 And like to them a woman came with steps 
 
 Slow-paced, — with love's sad and patient lips. 
 
 And one within whose eyes unveiled grace 
 
 Did lie, — and one, a little maid, flower-faced, — 
 
 Who dipped their vessels in the well that flowed 
 With pain, — and one swooned in the wide, blue 
 waste. 
 
 Then from the wan into the golden hour 
 
 The square was wrought, as tender moonlight 
 pours 
 
 To dawn, and he who had time-often heard 
 The dynasties of silence call, was mute. 
 
 The dust he marked with rolling of his hopeless 
 
 Pottery, and moulded in the noon 
 His gaudy clay, 'til swift the leaden stones 
 
 Were seen to shine, — a spinning miracle, — 
 
 And one by one in living words fall down, 
 
 Many-faceted and beautiful. 
 And each a little peace did give, — a flashing 
 
 Secret, as of quickened snow, or sounds 
 
 Of forests waking. Then the loosed sighs made 
 A mighty breath. And one: "I saw a round, 
 
 Dark room where rites were sung, — a fire 
 That burned in blood on sacrificial ground!" 
 
 Another cried: "The sky flowed like a stream 
 Dropping over chasms in noon dreams, 
 
 And there four laughing women changed to four 
 Tall men who like to mortals were not born! 
 
 42 
 
Their fiery thoughts were jeweled on their brows; 
 
 Astride their leaping steeds that ran on air 
 They struck the red horizon, and as vast, 
 
 Immortal things, into the sun they bowed!" 
 
 And then that critic said, — that one who knew 
 The last alembic of great art, — "I vow 
 
 I hold the potter dull, but here I saw 
 
 A blown, white furnace whence a spirit flew. 
 
 In cloudy smoke I saw this fellow stand 
 
 And toss up on the topmost wave his brands, 
 
 Hurtling, monstrous. Yet he held here too 
 The fair and homely life within his hands. 
 
 And yet, — and yet, — " he mused, "there was a 
 ring 
 Of bodies there, — flung arms, and muttered 
 things. 
 I all forgot my melancholy age 
 
 In solving what this sorry fellow brings. " 
 
 43 
 
WING WEARY 
 
 It was no more than a white dove. — 
 A dove with wings of omen 
 Pot old-time, watching Roman, — 
 That fluttered down the mountain sid< - 
 The never-ending, never-yielding 
 Walls of granite. But its slender 
 Strength could not support the tender. 
 Fragile feet that hung unshielded. 
 Bleeding on the rocks; and wide 
 Its wings spread aimlessly, and drooped 
 Against the cloud that here had stooped 
 To earth, as it would almost love 
 The stones that pierced the swooning dove,- 
 The dove with wings of omen. 
 
 Xo thread of verdure was there here 
 
 Upon, along the rocks; 
 
 Xo living flowerstalk. 
 Xor thorn, nor bramble blossomed fair 
 To stay its weariness. Its breath 
 Cut cruelly its parching throat. 
 That once had voiced a liquid note; 
 Its closing eyes could not detect 
 The cactus-spears uplifted where 
 It fell; and fading sense could never 
 Spurn the lance that sharply severed 
 Its slight thread of life, — nor hear 
 The bubble of the waters near. — 
 
 Oh. dove, forspent, wing-wean - ! 
 
 44 
 
It lay, a little vanquished dove. 
 
 (Oh, dove, with wings of omen 
 For me, or old-time Roman!) 
 Its small, still breast was bloody-stained 
 With dauntless battling of the wind; 
 And broken were the plumes and torn 
 That lined the strengthless wings, and worn, 
 Sweet body. A little dove with thin, 
 Pink, battered legs, — with life-blood drained,- 
 For daring in the upper air 
 To pit its strength on mountains bare, 
 To win across the lofty crags 
 Where even eagle wings might flag, — 
 Oh, little wings of omen! 
 
 45 
 
THE PRAIRIE 
 
 M Bran 
 
 Alone, dew-drenched, the {Jains at earlv dawn. 
 A flush upon the forehead of the hi 
 A line of light beside the willows still.— 
 Pale patterns on the earth-mosaic drawn; 
 And triumph of a moment's twilit calm 
 Where ever lightly flow the crests, until 
 The waving grasslands touch the heaven's sill, 
 And Day slips lingermgly its dusky bonds. 
 
 Now from the cool, wet earth a whisper swetts; 
 
 The first faint stirring of a homely sound 
 
 That lifts up fittingly among the dells, 
 
 And calls insistently above the ground 
 
 In timid creatures' halting, tender speech. — 
 
 Tlr p:.ur;t* = - ..-. -:-:.. ;l; - :; -- -.-.-. 
 
 N ox 
 
 A waving fine along the plains at noon 
 
 Where wings go shifting through the flame-ring's 
 
 Azz-i f :-:--h_ills i_;-"r V -Liz.i :. r_ -r :.-::::._. 
 And rise, and hover like a hymn in runes. 
 
 N : s:::.: I~s: *Jl ::—::: :jlt : : 
 
 Nor reedy covert of the bayou's wetting; 
 But out, to borders of age-long forgetting, 
 A i^r.y- .ur-r _::-- irJ~.zz.z .:-.:- ir. i -_•:.. — 
 A z rairie sighing in the solitude 
 For long endearment of the sun and sky: 
 And soon and late forever does it woo, 
 With legends of a love to satisfy, — 
 
 V.";-'_ - ; ^. ;. ;:' ; '.:-; :;„-.-: .:; ; ; ;;- v -; — 
 
 The brooding silence of the prairie's voice. 
 
 46* 
 
Night 
 
 Grasslands obscure in earth's deep-bosomed 
 
 might — 
 Plains of dead sameness from the hills' faint 
 
 tracing, — 
 Dim, fertile prairies of no bournes nor placing, — 
 Youth Immortal wrapt in purple light! 
 Close-muffled as the secrets of the night, 
 And breathless in the sky's wide-winged embrac- 
 ing, 
 An endless prairie of no home nor gracing, — 
 Earth's barren pastures of no death nor life. 
 
 But with the slow night -wing there goes, impelled 
 From farther and more lonely star-sown wastes, 
 A sighing, and an unvoiced word that tells 
 The underthrob that beats in midnight haze, — 
 The prairie's silences of dark adoring, — 
 The prairie's lifeless life of long imploring. 
 
 47 
 
POPPY FANTASY 
 
 (A Fragment) 
 
 Soft, as in the heat of day I slept, — 
 
 For I was drunk with poppies' Bummer breath, 
 
 And the blossoms, red, and white, and yellow, 
 Leaned in rapture each to each its fellow, — 
 There fairly was builded the house of man 
 In happy meadows where the sunlight ran 
 Down to vales of tender corn. Dark-green 
 Was the prairie, and the noonday sheen 
 Plundered the valleys with its golden shouts 
 "Where silent morn and eve slip in and out. 
 And floating in the middle blue there lay 
 The castle builded o'er the poppy way. 
 
 Its domes were high and shadowless as noon; 
 Its portals were wide as slumbering dunes, 
 And with a flower-dew encryst ailed, they 
 Did dance and quiver in a flash and play, — 
 Like water-shadows on a torrent tossed, — 
 Or frantic bubbles in a whirlpool lost. 
 
 And lighter than a wind that stirs the dust 
 On pollened stems, and brighter than the thrust 
 Of saber-lance athwart the sun, there came 
 A smiling damsel, like a dainty flame, 
 Where hourly out across the doorstones flowed 
 The motley blossoms in a pleasure-road. 
 (And oh, that maid, insistently and dear 
 Still lingers in her singing sweet and clear. 
 That like a dulcet lute in measures poured 
 Through poppy casements and through crystal 
 
 doors, 
 In minor music to my soul and me, — 
 Sweet motley blossoms in an ecstacy! 
 •48 
 
Then to my tranced soul that waited there 
 
 She cried, — to me she called, — "Come near! 
 
 Come near!" 
 Her throat of melody, — a singing lyre, — 
 Was breath of poppies steeped in hungry fire. 
 Her eyes were dark for maidens' holy shame, 
 And drifting o'er the poppied stones she came 
 And plucked my hand with glances shining, 
 
 mute, — 
 Exquisite maid, with breasts like summer fruit! 
 
 Tardy went my soul beside the border 
 
 Of blossoms pied, and with the shining warder 
 
 Stood within the lintels of the room 
 
 So spaciously enfashioned 'mid the bloom. 
 
 Oh, graciously she led my soul within 
 
 Where ever and forever went a wind 
 
 In zephyred streams of poppies coursing sweet 
 
 About the place, and waves of poppy heat 
 
 About us there. 
 
 It was a wind that bore 
 Strange gleaming damsels in a floating choir 
 Up and down an endless winding stair, — 
 A columned stair, whose opal railings there 
 But half concealed the damsels floating feet; 
 And passed their dewy figures frail and sweet, 
 That swayed like budding poppy-stalks, and 
 
 leaned 
 To whisper in a mad enchanting stream. 
 
 And oh, a madness were the tender maids 
 That midway up the opal balustrades 
 Called o'er to me ! And oh, their faces fair 
 Were bright for poppies' rosy shame, and bare 
 
 49 
 
Their bosoms to the drowsy wind. To me 
 They stooped and cried: "Thy love shall die, — 
 
 and thee!" 
 11 But, ah, take care ! Take care to pluck the leaves 
 Of golden saffron on his mantle sleeves, — 
 'Twill slay thee in the jubilee!" ' And long 
 Re-echoed faintly on the walls the song 
 "Take care! Take care!" So all the flowers 
 
 belled, 
 In nooning's lazy hour when petals fell. 
 And strangely shook my soul amid the shouting 
 And drooped its eyes before the lovely routing. 
 
 Then gloriously came love in radiant flight, 
 And in his flashing eyes a beam as bright, 
 As tenderly it shone as evening star 
 That drops its veiled beauty meek and far 
 Above a peak in mists encircling. 
 Before him swept his dreams. Their wings 
 Made silver tumult in the sunny halls, — 
 Made glancing ripples on the castle walls. 
 
 Then cried my soul in demon-prophecy, 
 
 "His touch is flame, — his kiss is agony, — 
 
 And death is in his slumber-breathing voice!" 
 
 (Endlessly the singing domes rejoiced.) 
 
 His pinions beat with suffocating roar, 
 
 His sandals touched the poppy-petaled floor, — 
 
 He stooped, and all the rocking castle rang 
 
 "With sudden music; and the damsels sang 
 
 In gleeful shouting for the kiss of fire 
 
 That touched my lips; and swept the waiting choir 
 
 Of silver-winged dreams in madder flight 
 
 Along the stairway and the walls of light. 
 
 50 
 
Their gay and tender fantasy so wooed me 
 'Neath sunny-throated towers, and roomy. 
 On poppies stainless white and wanton red 
 With dark-eyed Love a languid way to tread. 
 And fey went all the flowers in the wind 
 With looking and with longing; and within 
 For touching of Love's slender finger-tips, 
 And for the mingling of Love's holy lips 
 With mine, down bent the damsels on the stair- 
 -, way, 
 
 Spread their snowy arms and raiment airy, 
 Cried a-mocking to my soul and me: "Beware 
 The yellow sleeves, — the sleeves! nor dare 
 To let them jealously enfold thee! Oh, 
 Beware!" And like to mating birds that row 
 Of swaying damsels in their white and yellow, 
 Leaned and whispered each to each her fellow; 
 And shot their glistening arms to stay the dreams 
 That hung above them in the glassy beams 
 On wings translucent. 
 
 The drowsy noon 
 Came closer, and the Love's dark eyes did swoon 
 Upon me in the throbbing, silent vale, 
 Where stood the blossoms, motionless and pale. 
 There was no fragrance o'er the poppy fields, 
 Beneath the burning noon. And neither pealed 
 The singing of the damsels and the dreams. 
 And waned the domes against the sky; and 
 
 gleamed 
 The crystal dully on the fading walls. 
 Only Love, the heavy-eyed and tall 
 Young lonely god drooped o'er me till I knew 
 The saffron sleeves were stony-gemmed with dew 
 Of maidens' weeping. 
 
 51 
 
Love smiled as fleeting 
 As the urate o! windswept flowers meeting, 
 And as he sought some Loved dainty face 
 Looked out along the wanly shimmering place. 
 
 Oh, came the damsel like a virgin flame. 
 And murmuring like mourning mother-dove, 
 
 With smoothing hand- above the eyes of Love, — 
 "The heart!" she wept, " of saffron leaves!' 1 and 
 
 both 
 The maid and god smiled then, as quaintly loth 
 And sad for some old sorrow. 
 
 Up the steps 
 That seemed with parching poppy buds, — that 
 
 wet 
 June mornings never reach, — to wither, were 
 The figures paler than the face of her 
 Who wept. And faintly vibrant did the sun 
 Of noon reverberate within the domes; 
 And shook the wall, and poppy buds, as shake 
 The whistling sedges in a frozen brake. 
 
 52 
 
MOTHER CAREY'S CHICKENS 
 
 Slender birds of tempest, beating low 
 On tireless wings and dancing feet above 
 The water-wedge and spindrift that they love. 
 Grey-winged petrels flying in the snow, 
 And keeping faith that where they care to go 
 Is joy in strife; and that the sea they love 
 Must yield them living from the creamy shove 
 Of breakers, — courage from the storm opposed. 
 
 So flock the newsboys in the stormy streets, — 
 Tireless petrels on the changing sea 
 Of circumstance; and meanly clothed they dare 
 To snatch their daily food and drink from care; 
 Find bravest pleasure in the storm and stress, — 
 Keep faith along the brink, — be danger's guest. 
 
 53 
 
SONNET 
 
 Still on the earth I go, and am content 
 With pleasant waterways and hidden rills; 
 And with the wide and windswept places filled 
 With honest daylight, and wild-flower scents. 
 Nor would I leave the meadows deep, where spenl 
 Days linger; nor the over-hanging bills 
 That rise a breastwork, mingling with the sills 
 Of clouds, — supporting luminous sky-tents. 
 
 A froth I am and to the earth bound fa^t. 
 A moment's bubble of the ferment waging 
 To and fro in empty-vaunted might 
 That, rooted in the little clod that past 
 The sun wheels helplessly, in puny staging 
 Declare themselves like God, — sons of light. 
 
 54 
 
SONNET 
 
 A wrinkled age and sere sits all day long 
 Upon the earth. The friendly darting shades 
 Of early dawn have vanished in the braids 
 Of burnished desert noon; and lean and strong, 
 A Greediness, with parched throat and tongue, 
 And eager eyes waits in the copper glades, 
 And in a holy selfishness arrayed 
 Repeats the burden of an outworn song. 
 And Damon? He is dead. And with him, He 
 Who was so wont to go in morning's raiment. 
 The Poor despair for sorrow, and the soul 
 Decays for weariness in them. Grown old 
 We know no more of love, nor gentle payment 
 Of love's debt, — no more of Thee in Me. 
 
 65 
 
The Romans believed that every man had his 
 Genius, and every woman her Juno; that is, o spirit 
 who had given them being {from Gayley) 
 
 I know thou dost belong to me, — a whole 
 
 That is the half of me, inseparable, 
 
 Oft-ruling. And part, or all, 
 
 I cannot tell how first we met, nor call 
 
 Thee by a name. But art that culpable, 
 
 Mad Me, that shows the loaf, and me the mould. 
 
 Poet-lover art thou in the night, 
 Translating with wild signs my slipping dreams; 
 Wheel in wheel Thou spellest, painting on 
 The dark. But, woman in the signal dawn, 
 Thou slayest with Herod-sword, and though Thou 
 
 seem 
 Not me, I know Thee for myself aright. 
 
 Thou art the crimson sign that marks for me 
 And for my innocents untimely death; 
 And from the ruin of their sweet-pulsing lives 
 Turn'st reckoning, and with a stroke deprive 
 Me of my soul, and then my love, and saith: 
 "Behold the poet, woman, lover, — ME!" 
 
 So treacherous, — so subtle, — and yet me? 
 Awake to know me not, and baffled now 
 To bid me sing among the tents of Shem? 
 But leaning to some Canaanite, whose hem 
 Is criminal, I see me there, and Thou ! 
 Must I be an old love divorced from Thee? 
 
 5d 
 
Thou art that One that makes me strange among 
 
 A brotherhood; that hot, self -pitying tears 
 
 Can dry; my brow keep smooth; and hold the 
 
 glass 
 For me, my soul, and Thee 'til we three laugh. 
 That, tiger-leaping, takes from me the years 
 That should be mad, and gay, and hopeless sung. 
 
 And Thou art still that Glory shent 
 
 Of evil; that Defiance to set odds 
 
 Of trembling love to fearful truths; Thou art 
 
 The tragic step, the timid look, the heart's 
 
 Last blazing misery that hates its God. 
 
 Thou art the world, my soul, and me, forspent. 
 
 57 
 
THE AYIDE LOW PLAIX 
 
 Dawn on the wide, low plain, and the moon in 
 the distance fading; 
 
 And out from the lonely bayou a crested heron 
 soaring, 
 
 Like the soul of a dying shadow absolved by the 
 tender light. 
 
 Deep, in quaint, shy notes, comes the murmur of 
 life awaking 
 
 Here where the trembling mist strains at a gossa- 
 mer mooring; 
 
 And far, from the gloomy arroyo, the coyotes wail 
 of the night. 
 
 Noon on the wide, low plain, and the sun on the 
 
 foothills burning; 
 And mirage, like weird magicians, waving its 
 
 slender fingers; 
 And the stillness of woven spells over all the 
 
 quivering plain. 
 Out of the cool Northwest comes the wayward 
 
 Zephyrus, turning 
 The plumes of the drooping Gilead, where balm 
 
 of Mecca lingers, 
 And the hush of enchanted silence moves'Jnto 
 
 silence again. 
 
 Dusk on the w 7 ide, low plain, and a shade o'er 
 
 the prairie creeping; 
 And here on the idle hillside the amber sunlight 
 
 stealing 
 From the jasper stems of the thicket to the pinons' 
 
 green minaret. 
 Dusk on the waiting earth, and the gloom of the 
 
 valley sweeping 
 
 58 
 
Over the somber foothills, and a wildwood carol 
 
 pealing 
 From the throat of a darkling thrush in the alders' 
 
 dim silhouette. 
 
 Life on the wide, low plain, and the breath of 
 life in the living; 
 
 And far as the eye can reach, or the soul in deepest 
 yearning, 
 
 A measureless space about you like the ways of 
 a world untrod. 
 
 Freedom, and wide-winged hope are the gifts of 
 the plain's fair giving; 
 
 And symphonies far outsoaring the flight of loft- 
 iest dreaming, — 
 
 And paintings in transcendent tones enlimned 
 for the vision of gods. 
 
 59 
 
AT NIGHT 
 
 Why do the fields in the night allure me, lying 
 Wet in the dark? and the hum of insect- 
 Stir in my throat such a quick resp< So fair 
 
 Floats a star on the river's brim where I lean. 
 Crouching, to listen; for greetings I hear where 
 Timorous things in their shy retreats come near. — 
 Near to me. speaking. And where was learned 
 
 this fear 
 Holding me fast in the moonrise' ruddy beam? 
 
 Music of wind through the rain, and spindrift 
 
 flying 
 Over the marshes; and plovers wanly crying 
 Down in the meadows. What calls me in the 
 
 rain. 
 Yearning and clear as the notes of wood-doves 
 
 lost? 
 Why do the clouds, and the breakers' foam-white 
 
 manes 
 Tease me with longings for flight? .And here 
 
 where brush 
 Drips in the dark, why the sick desire for m s 
 Tree-trunks, and odor of leaves, and woods' damp 
 
 hush? 
 
 Far in the night of the forest rings the yelping 
 Of beasts of prey; and the whine of creatures 
 
 whelping 
 Startles the dusk. Through the stillness of branch 
 
 and leaf 
 Whispers the patter of slinking feet; and doe . — 
 Close in the twilight, the traitor crouch and leap. 
 Who was it struggled and died, in gaping throes, 
 
 00 
 
There in the dawn, alone in the close-hung wood? 
 Who was it fought there, and won, in solitude? 
 
 Where have I known it before, — the snarl, and 
 
 scowling 
 Eye of my foe? And where was the conflict 
 
 howling 
 That makes me alert? And the sleek, sly grace 
 
 of limb, — 
 Why should it stir in my soul desire and dread? 
 Sure runs a memory back, of telling wind 
 Tainted with death; and yet will my human flesh 
 Shudder and stiffen, — ready for what? and fresh 
 Odor of earth arouse me like blood new-shed. 
 
 61 
 
REMEMBER 
 
 Look in my eyes and remember 
 
 The pallor of past sunrises, — the Bounds 
 
 Of an ocean timbre. Rememl^er 
 A dream that still lives. — in waiting is found: 
 In sighing that comes from the wandered 
 And desolate places, — in rivers i> drowned. 
 
 Must meanings be born out of weepiii- I 
 You slept, but I heard in a breathing-space 
 A sob in the arches go leaping, 
 And run through the crowded perfecti< 
 
 place 
 And time. Oh. remember the sleeping 
 And waking. — the rainy dawn on a im 
 
 Remember! Know if I am I, 
 
 You are more. Look here in mv heart at the 
 
 hosts — 
 The phantasm world that goes by. 
 Look where I look at the darkening ghoe - 
 Of ourselves that are peering on high, — 
 That are passing, and peering at us. 
 
 Rerueruber the touch of the past. — 
 
 The trembling, the imminent past. In my 
 
 heart's 
 Deepest hollows.. Oh. love, hast 
 Thou builded, and building, forgotten the 
 
 parts. 
 Conceive then more lovely and vast 
 The place where thy naked soul slumbers 
 
 apart. 
 
 G-2 
 
TO DOROTHY GRACE 
 
 Is thine the faith that goes without a name? 
 The something inner, vague, that sees the world 
 But as a sign, thai now thy hands are furled 
 So meekly? Or is thy thought the same 
 That witnesses an endless shift of scenes 
 And understandeth not the meaning there? 
 But not a half-tuned string that snaps, and rare, 
 Potential melodies discords, does seem 
 Thy sudden laughter; but so dear, that I 
 Am half in love with life. "It ends soon, 
 And never more can be," Who lives that knows? 
 Thy lips are sad and tender as when skies 
 Are cast with clouds, — thou carol of all noons. 
 Death o'ertakes us? The hour goes? 
 
 In the region of the heart where some 
 Dwell all alone with faith and coward fear, 
 As thou hast pla3 r ed in sun and shadow here, 
 The toy of any wind, Oh, pretty one! 
 Is there built the temple of a "may be" 
 Victory gained upon a lonely chance? 
 It may bel Then shall I couch a lance? 
 With thy tenderness enhelmet me? 
 Before my loveless heart thy ringlet gold 
 Set warrior- wise, — defy myself with thee? 
 So be, thou dear, fair flower, and on rare days, 
 When summer odors flock, thou shalt unfold 
 Thy dimpled hands on hills and sandy leas; 
 Secure in love thou shalt be radiant gay. 
 
 63 
 
OPEN! OPEN! 
 
 Open! Open the tall doors of your heart 
 To the worn-out winds that are blowing; 
 
 To the dusty ways, and the endless march 
 Of the world that is coming and going. 
 
 Set wide, Oh, set wide the dear portals 
 To the needy, and the imaccl aimed; 
 
 And call in the weary, poor mortals 
 In your pity and love unashamed. 
 
 Make ready, make fair the rooms that are 
 wide, — 
 That are high with your learning and pa- 
 tience; 
 And bring in the tired from the place where 
 they die, 
 And tell them the law of the nations. 
 
 And the weak that are craven and fallen, 
 
 In the dust of battle afraid, — 
 Tell them the courage of honor, 
 
 And the strength of a man and a maid. 
 
 Open ! Open the tall doors of your heart ! 
 
 They are waiting, the craven, afraid, 
 In the time-weary strife, and the empty life 
 
 .Where the stones of their dreaming are laid. 
 
 Set wide the dear portals, — set wide; 
 
 And make ready the rooms of your learning; 
 For they come from love that has died, — has 
 died 
 
 In the night of an infinite yearning. 
 
 64 
 
Make holy, make sweet the place that it sang; 
 
 And wear you the flowers of its giving. 
 Free-born of the tempest and sun it sprang, 
 
 And died in its passion of living. 
 
 Open ye swift the tall doors of your heart, 
 To the fainting and sore ashamed. 
 
 For I bring ye here, from the barren years, 
 The love that ye would not claim. 
 
 65 
 
A ROAD 
 
 So many years, and years. 
 
 Since last I saw this mountain, banked 
 
 Flat and blue against 
 
 The eastern sky, — since last I saw 
 
 Yon gorge below the knoll 
 
 Of sunned, green pines. So many years 
 
 Have passed me since this road 
 
 Swam full of quiet lightings of 
 
 The mystic, coming night. 
 
 Darker once was this cool dell 
 
 For beauty, where I turned 
 
 To mark a southern star, and gain 
 
 A pause in sudden love's 
 
 Tumult uousness. And there I heard 
 
 Amid the silent asps, 
 
 A laughter, wondrous, luminous; 
 
 And there my heart was taught 
 
 The nearness of the chiselled peaks 
 
 Of far, far ranges built 
 
 In boundless sympathy. Oh, years! 
 
 Oh, road where I have prayed 
 
 For faith and memory, — I 
 
 \Yho never have forgot. 
 
 The youngest shoots of pines lift up 
 
 Among the stript, and dead, — 
 
 life with Death. And alder trees 
 
 Of white Hope meeting, as of pain 
 
 And pleasure, after years. 
 
 Oh, road, expectant, sad, 
 
 Between the slender trees. Deep, deep 
 
 The slow and toneless chords 
 
 Arise, and in their waves desire 
 
 66 
 
Mingles, and faints, — a deathless 
 
 Thing, — but in whose exiled life 
 
 Must glorious wanderings 
 
 Make, and often, to this lane 
 
 Among the pines, such ache 
 
 Of loneliness there is to see 
 
 Again, to kneel, to pray 
 
 Release from iron thought, — from hills 
 
 That call divine and far 
 
 Their wordless summons; from skies 
 
 That bend in dreams; from drifted 
 
 Sand that rolls beneath a step 
 
 As though 'twere water flowed 
 
 In yellow fire. Oh, road of leaves 
 
 That beckon, and languid 
 
 Winds that sigh! So many years 
 
 To not forget, — forget. 
 
 Roses are on the high-walled range, — 
 Roses of fire and snow! 
 Oh, near, near the faltering night, — 
 The gleaming grass, — the road 
 Without a name, — without a star! 
 
 67 
 
THE POET 
 
 The falseness of the dream awakes; 
 
 The trailing glory fl 
 From round: and yet the wings that shake 
 
 The wistful dawn, — the blown 
 Sea-raptures, — and the foam that biv 
 
 Are faces that he knows. 
 
 The heaped hills he knows; and those 
 
 Young souls that quiver like 
 A runner girt, — that sparkling Those 
 
 Whose fire-winged feet spurn dikes 
 Of earth; and that Destroyer knows 
 
 Who., passion-hungered, strikes. 
 
 And he has trembled for the k 
 That burns, and brands his grief 
 
 "Where callous souls may see, and hiss 
 His nakediic — . He keeps 
 
 His field of parched pain and bliss; 
 And fatal-dewed, he sleeps. 
 
 68 
 
TO A MOUNTAIN BUTTERCUP 
 
 Sweet, that has been torn from a warm mother, 
 And winds that love, — Oh, gay and gallant bloom! 
 Oh, core of dauntlessness in spirit noons! 
 Death descends upon thee now, my brother. 
 Flower of mountains, furl thy waxy petals; 
 An hour in folding leaves thy soul may live; 
 An hour thy fragrancy of sun may'st give 
 With fading hues, Oh, thou of bonny mettle. 
 Thou tender thing in polished, golden shields, — 
 Wilt droop, discarded, to forgetfulness? 
 Not so. Behold, thou shalt forever be. 
 Even while thy blameless life thou yieldest 
 Thou shalt be written in regretfulness, — 
 Thou slain for mortal, — more divine than he. 
 
 Sweet buttercup, give me my words in gold 
 Like thine, to make thy loss a treasure-cup 
 Of glossy memory, where gathered up 
 Are happy braveries, and summer's soul 
 In burning armor. From this faint waft 
 Of thee let me braid lines that may be chanted 
 'Mid thy brotherhood that nod in meadows plant- 
 ed 
 
 By the careless winds. And where have laughed 
 Wild hearts of children, and all day long no ill 
 Can come, thou shalt be garlanded, and proud, 
 Sweet-voiced maids shall sing thee, golden flower. 
 Death descends upon thee. Spend thou still 
 Thy lavish spirit, that the singers loud 
 May tell the briefness of a lovely hour. 
 
 
Flower of the stormy crag, hold yet awhile 
 
 The mountain fastness in thee, — thou uptorn 
 
 From all thy wildwood banqueting, — thou born 
 
 To be sport of butterflies, and guile 
 
 Of painted dragons. All overthrown 
 
 Thou liest here, the Waster's spoil, and breath 
 
 By breath, learnest, I think, the way of death, — 
 
 A body whence the soul is lately flown 
 
 In fragrance. Sweet, wert thou once deeply 
 
 touched 
 With wonder of the light? And didst thou darken 
 Day with bootless visions too? Oh, flower, 
 Fast-fading to the mastering first dust, 
 Thou hast but cried to emptiness, and hearkened 
 To pale anguish in thy little hour. 
 
 Flower on whose hillsides all the winds commune, 
 Surprising thee with dolours of the vales, — ■ 
 From loosened boughs with banished goblin tales 
 Delighting; and with solitary tunes 
 Pipe to thee of the wrecked hours by the thicket, 
 Oh, hear, sweet flower, — and e'en as thou didst 
 
 perish 
 'Neath the feet of Jove, when he that cherished 
 Darling wooed behind a prison-wicket, 
 Distilling fragrant showers of gold, so do 
 Thou wreak thy vengeance in soft odors. Be 
 Here a secret love, and these fine strings 
 Of jewelled stamens shall be strange, and true, 
 And perfect-toned harps in ecstacy, 
 And timbrel voices for the heaven's King. 
 
 70 
 
Thou genius of the sun-warmed solitudes, 
 How kept these petals five their debonair 
 And glowing purity? And flower, oh, where 
 Was got this tenderness of look? Have woods 
 With priestly sacraments accepted thee? 
 And dews baptized thy innocence each morn, 
 Praying holily that thou wast born, 
 That thou canst live in careless death and me? 
 What sigh of immortality is here 
 In exhalations of a bonny flower? 
 Thou fadest, but a Presence half remains, — 
 A thought of June's sweet hardihood, and clear 
 Enchanted songs, — a lyric of bright hours, — 
 A laugh, — and gladness in the hearts of men. 
 
 71 
 
CITY OF IDLENESS 
 
 Stands a sun-bright city of blowing highways 
 In the tiger-lilies of dawn. Oh, wherefore 
 Slumbers my love, heavily dreaming? Wherefore, 
 Oh, thou most lovely? 
 
 By the incense-fires at the southern gateways 
 Laughs a mad love-priestess for soft desiring; 
 Cries, thou art loving another than me, — 
 Thou, my beloved. 
 
 On the broidered banks she will leave thee weeping. 
 She will mock thy call in the city portals. 
 Buckler then thy heart for the lightness dreadful, 
 Ere thou forsake me. 
 
 Yea, and gird thy love with the warrior's new lust; 
 Arm thee fierce like light for the smoking altars; 
 For in wide, rosed streets she will see thee falter, 
 Oh, thou most lovely ! 
 
 Dust of earth's dust — Ah, for tomorrow! Love, 
 
 I 
 Pray thee veil thine eyes in my breast, — yea, kiss 
 
 me 
 Ere thou forsake me, — ere me thou forgettest — 
 "Me thou forgettest." 
 
 Stands the high-roofed city of sunny highways 
 In the tiger-lilies of dawn. Oh, wherefore 
 Lingers my love, heavily weeping? Wherefore, 
 Oh thou most lovely? 
 
 72 
 
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