ï~~ ï~~2rnifortn with tbi# Valume LXXXVI LYRICS AND XII SONN ETS. 18mo, $i.oo. Nineteenth Edition. FRIAR JEROME'S BEAUTIFUL BOOK, etc. 18mo, $i.oo. Eleventh Edition. ï~~LATER LYRICS ï~~ ï~~T'., Bf ALDRICH ater Lyrics SIPLPCTID FROM MNERCEDES THE SISTERS' TRAGEDY WYNDHAM TOWERS AND UNGUARDED GATES BOSTON AND NEW YORK HtOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY abt,Za bri~t ï~~Copyright, 1895, BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH. All rights reserved. The Riverside Press, Cambridge: Electrotyped and Priiited by H. 0. Houghton & Co. ï~~I would be the Lyric Ever on the lip, Rather than the Epic Memory lets slip. I would be the diamond At my lady's ear, Rather than the 7une-rose Worn but once a year. ï~~ ï~~CONTENTS PAGE Sweetheart, sigh no more....... i Memory..............13 A Touch of Nature..........4 Alec Yeaton's Son......... Invita Minerva............' Insomnia.............20 Threnody............22 " Pillared Arch and Sculptured Tower ". 24 At Nijnii-Novgorod.........25 The Winter Robin.........27 Echo-Song............28 A Mood............30 Sargent's Portrait of Edwin Booth at "The Players "............31 Thorwaldsen...........33 Guilielmus Rex...........34 A Bridal Measure..............35 Imogen..............37 ï~~8 CONTENTS "Like Crusoe, walking by the lonely strand"........... 38 Batuschka........... 39 A Dedication.......... 41 Soldiers' Song.......... 42 Apparitions........... 44 Prescience........... 45 Tennyson........... 47 "When from the tense chords of that mighty lyre "......... 49 Outward Bound......... 51 Heredity............ 53 The Sailing of the Autocrat.......54 Pepita............. 56 Books and Seasons........ 60 Discipline.......... 62 The Letter........... 63 On Lynn Terrace......... 64 Andromeda........... 68 " I'll not confer with Sorrow".... 70 No Songs in Winter........ 71I Two Moods........... 72 Andalusian Cradle-Song...... 74 The Voice of the Sea....... 76 " I vex me not with brooding on the years" 77 ï~~CONTENTS 9 A Serenade...............79 A Refrain............Si " Great Captain, glorious in our wars ". 82 Reminiscence...........84 Broken Music...........85 Comedy.............88 Seeming Defeat..........89 A Petition............91 Quits..............92 ï~~ ï~~LATER LYRICS I SWEETHEART, SIGH NO MORE IT was with doubt and trembling I whispered in her ear. Go, take her answer, bird-on-bough, That all the world may hear - Sweetheart, sigk no more / Sing it, sing it, tawny throat, Upon the wayside tree, How fair she is, how true she is, How dear she is to me - Sweetheart, sigh no more! Sing it, sing it, tawny throat, And through the summer long II ï~~12 SWEE THEAR T, SIGH NO MORE The winds among the clover-tops, And brooks, for all their silvery stops, Shall envy you the song - Sweetheart, sigh no more / ï~~II MEMORY MY mind lets go a thousand things, Like dates of wars and deaths of kings, And yet recalls the very hour - 'T was noon by yonder village tower, And on the last blue noon in May - The wind came briskly up this way, Crisping the brook beside the road; Then, pausing here, set down its load Of pine-scents, and shook listlessly Two petals from that wild-rose tree. 13 ï~~III A TOUCH OF NATURE WHEN first the crocus thrusts its point of gold Up through the still snow-drifted gardenmould, And folded green things in dim woods unclose Their crinkled spears, a sudden tremor goes Into my veins and makes me kith and kin To every wild-born thing that thrills and blows. Sitting beside this crumbling sea-coal fire, Here in the city's ceaseless roar and din, Far from the brambly paths I used to know, Far from the rustling brooks that slip and shine '4 ï~~A TOUCH OF NA TURE 15 Where the Neponset alders take their glow, I share the tremulous sense of bud and briar And inarticulate ardors of the vine. ï~~IV ALEC YEATON'S SON GLOUCESTER, AUGUST, 1720 THE wind it wailed, the wind it moaned, And the white caps flecked the sea; "An' I would to God," the skipper groaned, "I had not my boy with me!" Snug in the stern-sheets, little John Laughed as the scud swept by; But the skipper's sunburnt cheek grew wan As he watched the wicked sky. "Would he were at his mother's side! " And the skipper's eyes were dim. " Good Lord in heaven, if ill betide, What would become of him! "For me - my muscles are as steel, For me let hap what may; 16 ï~~ALEC YEA TON'S SON 17 I might make shift upon the keel Until the break o' day. " But he, he is so weak and small, So young, scarce learned to stand - O pitying Father of us all, I trust him in Thy hand! "For Thou who markest from on high A sparrow's fall - each one!Surely, O Lord, thou 'lt have an eye On Alec Yeaton's son!" Then, helm hard-port; right straight he sailed Towards the headland light: The wind it moaned, the wind it wailed, And black, black fell the night. Then burst a storm to make one quail, Though housed from winds and waves - They who could tell about that gale Must rise from watery graves! Sudden it came, as sudden went; Ere half the night was sped, ï~~18 ALEC YEA TON'S SON The winds were hushed, the waves were spent, And the stars shone overhead. Now, as the morning mist grew thin, The folk on Gloucester shore Saw a little figure floating in Secure, on a broken oar! Up rose the cry, "A wreck! a wreck! Pull, mates, and waste no breath!"They knew it, though 't was but a speck Upon the edge of death! Long did they marvel in the town At God his strange decree, That let the stalwart skipper drown And the little child go free! ï~~V INVITA MINERVA NOT of Desire alone is music born, Not till the Muse wills is our passion crowned; Unsought she comes; if sought but seldom found, Repaying thus our longing with her scorn. Hence is it poets often are forlorn, In super-subtle chains of silence bound, And mid the crowds that compass them around Still dwell in isolation night and morn, With knitted brow and cheek all passion-pale Showing the baffled purpose of the mind. Hence is it I, that find no prayers avail To move my Lyric Mistress to be kind, Have stolen away into this leafy dale, Drawn by the flutings of the silvery wind. 19 ï~~VI INSOMNIA SLUMBER, hasten down this way, And, ere midnight dies, Silence lay upon my lips, Darkness on my eyes. Send me a fantastic dream; Fashion me afresh; Into some celestial thing Change this mortal flesh. Well I know one may not choose; One is helpless still In the purple realm of Sleep: Use me as you will. Let me be a frozen pine In dead glacier lands; Let me pant, a leopard stretched On the Libyan sands. 20 ï~~INS O MNIA 2 1 Silver fin or scarlet wing Grant me, either one; Sink me deep in emerald glooms, Lift me to the sun. Or of me a gargoyle make, Face of ape or gnome, Such as frights the tavern-boor Reeling drunken home. Work on me your own caprice, Give me any shape; Only, Slumber, from myself Let myself escape! ï~~VII THRENODY I UPON your hearse this flower I lay. Brief be your sleep! You shall be known When lesser men have had their day: Fame blossoms where true seed is sown, Or soon or late, let Time wrong what it may. II Unvext by any dream of fame, You smiled, and bade the world pass by: But I - I turned, and saw a name Shaping itself against the sky - White star that rose amid the battle's flame! 22 ï~~THRENOD Y 23 III Brief be your sleep, for I would see Your laurels - ah, how trivial now To him must earthly laurel be Who wears the amaranth on his brow! How vain the voices of mortality! ï~~VIII "PILLARED ARCH AND SCULPTURED TOWER" PILLARED arch and sculptured tower Of Ilium have had their hour; The dust of many a king is blown On the winds from zone to zone; Many a warrior sleeps unknown. Time and Death hold each in thrall, Yet is Love the lord of all; Still does Helen's beauty stir Because a poet sang of her! 24 ï~~Ix AT NIJNII-NOVGOROD "A CRAFTY Persian set this stone; A dusk Sultana wore it; And from her slender finger, sir, A ruthless Arab tore it. "A ruby, like a drop of blood - That deep-in tint that lingers And seems to melt, perchance was caught From those poor mangled fingers! "A spendthrift got it from the knave, And tost it, like a blossom, That night into a dancing-girl's Accurst and balmy bosom. "And so it went. One day a Jew At Cairo chanced to spy it 25 ï~~26 AT NI7NII-NO VGOROD Amid a one-eyed peddler's pack, And did not care to buy it - "Yet bought it all the same. You see, The Jew he knew a jewel. He bought it cheap to sell it dear: The ways of trade are cruel. "But I- be Allah's all the praise! - Such avarice, I scoff it! If I buy cheap, why, I sell cheap, Content with modest profit. "This ring - such chasing! look, milord, What workmanship! By Heaven, The price I name you makes the thing As if the thing were given! "A stone without a flaw! A queen Might not disdain to wear it. Three hundred roubles buys the stone; No kopeck less, I swear it! " Thus Hassan, holding up the ring To me, no eager buyer. - A hundred roubles was not much To pay so sweet a liar! ï~~x THE WINTER ROBIN Sursum corda Now is that sad time of year When no flower or leaf is here; When in misty Southern ways Oriole and jay have flown, And of all sweet birds, alone The robin stays. So give thanks at Christmas-tide: Hopes of spring-time yet abide! See, in spite of darksome days, Wind and rain and bitter chill, Snow and sleet-hung branches, still The robin stays! 27 ï~~XI ECHO-SONG I WHO can say where Echo dwells? In some mountain-cave, methinks, Where the white owl sits and blinks; Or in deep sequestered dells, Where the foxglove hangs its bells, Echo dwells. Echo! Echo! II Phantom of the crystal air, Daughter of sweet Mystery! Here is one has need of thee; Lead him to thy secret lair, Myrtle brings he for thy hair - Hear his prayer, Echo! Echo! 28 ï~~ECHO-SONG 29 III Echo, lift thy drowsy head, And repeat each charmed word Thou must needs have overheard Yestere'en ere, rosy-red, Daphne down the valley fled - Words unsaid, Echo! Echo! IV Breathe the vows she since denies! She hath broken every vow; What she would she would not nowThou didst hear her perjuries. Whisper, whilst I shut my eyes, Those sweet lies, Echo! Echo! ï~~XII A MOOD A BLIGHT, a gloom, I know not what, has crept upon my gladness - Some vague, remote ancestral touch of sorrow, or of madness; A fear that is not fear, a pain that has not pain's insistence; A sense of longing, or of loss, in some foregone existence; A subtle hurt that never pen has writ nor tongue has spoken - Such hurt perchance as Nature feels when a blossomed bough is broken. 30 ï~~XIII SARGENT'S PORTRAIT OF EDWIN BOOTH AT "THE PLAYERS" THAT face which no man ever saw And from his memory banished quite, With eyes in which are Hamlet's awe And Cardinal Richelieu's subtle light, Looks from this frame. A master's hand Has set the master-player here, In the fair temple that he planned Not for himself. To us most dear This image of him! " It was thus He looked; such pallor touched his cheek; With that same grace he greeted us - Nay, 't is the man, could it but speak!" Sad words that shall be said some dayFar fall the day! O cruel Time, Whose breath sweeps mortal things away, 31 ï~~32 PORTRAIT OF EDWIN BOOTH Spare long this image of his prime, That others standing in the place Where, save as ghosts, we come no more, May know what sweet majestic face The gentle Prince of Players wore! ï~~XIV THORWALDSEN NOT in the fabled influence of some star, Benign or evil, do our fortunes lie: We are the arbiters of destiny, Lords of the life we either make or mar. We are our own impediment and bar To noble issues. With averted eye We let the golden moment pass us by, Time's foolish spendthrifts, searching wide and far For what lies close at hand. To serve our turn We ask fair wind and favorable tide. From the dead Danish sculptor let us learn To make Occasion, not to be denied: Against the sheer precipitous mountainside Thorwaldsen carved his Lion at Lucerne. 33 ï~~xv GUILIELMUS REX THE folk who lived in Shakespeare's day And saw that gentle figure pass By London Bridge, his frequent way - They little knew what man he was. The pointed beard, the courteous mien, The equal port to high and low, All this they saw or might have seen - But not the light behind the brow! The doublet's modest gray or brown, The slender sword-hilt's plain device, What sign had these for prince or clown? Few turned, or none, to scan him twice. Yet 't was the king of England's kings! The rest with all their pomps and trains Are mouldered, half-remembered things'T is he alone that lives and reigns! 34 ï~~XVI A BRIDAL MEASURE FOR S. F. Gifts they sent her manifold, Diamonds and fearls and gold. One there was among the throng Had not Midas' touch at need: He against a sylvan reed Set his lis and breathed a song. Bid bright Flora, as she comes, Snatch a spray of orange blooms For a maiden's hair. Let the Hours their aprons fill With mignonette and daffodil, And all that's fair. For her bosom fetch the rose That is rarest - Not that either these or those 35 ï~~36 A BRIDAL MEASURE Could by any happening be Ornaments to such as she; They 'll but show, when she is dressed, She is fairer than the fairest And out-betters what is best! ï~~XVII IMOGEN LEONATUS POSTHUMUS steakS: SORROW, make a verse for me That shall breathe all human grieving; Let it be love's exequy, And the knell of all believing! Let it such sweet pathos have As a violet on a grave, Or a dove's moan when his mate Leaves the new nest desolate. Sorrow, Sorrow, by this token, Braid a wreath for Beauty's head... Valley-lilies, one or two, Should be woven with the rue. Sorrow, Sorrow, all is spoken - She is dead! 37 ï~~XVIII "LIKE CRUSOE, WALKING BY THE LONELY STRAND" LIKE Crusoe, walking by the lonely strand And seeing a human footprint on the sand, Have I this day been startled, finding here, Set in brown mould and delicately clear, Spring's footprint - the first crocus of the year! O sweet invasion! Farewell solitude! Soon shall wild creatures of the field and wood Flock from all sides with much ado and stir, And make of me most willing prisoner! 38 ï~~XIX BATUSCHKA 1 FROM yonder gilded minaret Beside the steel-blue Neva set, I faintly catch, from time to time, The sweet, aerial midnight chime - "God save the Tsar! " Above the ravelins and the moats Of the white citadel it floats; And men in dungeons far beneath Listen, and pray, and gnash their teeth - " God save the Tsar!" The soft reiterations sweep Across the horror of their sleep, As if some daemon in his glee 1 " Little Father," or " Dear Little Father," a term of endearment applied to the Tsar in Russian folk-song. 39 ï~~40 BA TUSCHKA Were mocking at their misery - "God save the Tsar! " In his Red Palace over there, Wakeful, he needs must hear the prayer. How can it drown the broken cries Wrung from his children's agonies? - " God save the Tsar!" Father they called him from of old - Batuschka!... How his heart is cold! Wait till a million scourged men Rise in their awful might, and then - God save the Tsar! ï~~XX A DEDICATION TAKE these rhymes into thy grace, Since they are of thy begetting, Lady, that dost make each place Where thou art a jewel's setting. Some such glamour lend this Book: Let it be thy poet's wages That henceforth thy gracious look Lies reflected on its pages. 41 ï~~xxI SOLDIERS' SONG (FROM " MERCEDES ") THE camp is hushed; the fires burn low; Like ghosts the sentries come and go: Now seen, now lost, upon the height A keen drawn sabre glimmers white. Swiftly the midnight steals away - Refosez-vous, bons ckevaliers / Perchance into your dream shall come Visions of love or thoughts of home; The furtive night wind, hurrying by, Shall kiss away the half-breathed sigh, And softly whispering, seem to say, Rlefosez-vous, bons chevaliers / Through star-lit dusk and shimmering dew It is your lady comes to you! 42 ï~~SOLDIERS' SONG 43 Delphine, Lisette, Annette - who knows By what sweet wayward name she goes? Wrapped in white arms till break of day, Reposez-vous, bons chevaliers / ï~~XXII APPARITIONS AT noon of night, and at the night's pale end, Such things have chanced to me As one, by day, would scarcely tell a friend For fear of mockery. Shadows, you say, mirages of the brain! I know not, faith, not I. Is it more strange the dead should walk again Than that the quick should die? 44 ï~~XXIII PRESCIENCE THE new moon hung in the sky, The sun was low in the west, And my betrothed and I In the churchyard paused to rest - Happy maiden and lover, Dreaming the old dream over: The light winds wandered by, And robins chirped from the nest. And lo! in the meadow-sweet Was the grave of a little child, With a crumbling stone at the feet, And the ivy running wild - Tangled ivy and clover Folding it over and over: Close to my sweetheart's feet Was the little mound up-piled. 45 ï~~46 PRESCIENCE Stricken with nameless fears, She shrank and clung to me, And her eyes were filled with tears For a sorrow I did not see: Lightly the winds were blowing, Softly her tears were flowing - Tears for the unknown years And a sorrow that was to be! ï~~XXIV TENNYSON 1890 I SHAKESPEARE and Milton - what third blazoned name Shall lips of after ages link to these? His who, beside the wild encircling seas, Was England's voice, her voice with one acclaim, For threescore years; whose word of praise was fame, Whose scorn gave pause to man's iniquities. II What strain was his in that Crimean war? A bugle-call in battle; a low breath, Plaintive and sweet, above the fields of death! 47 ï~~48 TENNYSON So year by year the music rolled afar, From Euxine wastes to flowery Kandah ar, Bearing the laurel or the cypress wreath. III Others shall have their little space of time, Their proper niche and bust, then fade away Into the darkness, poets of a day; But thou, O builder of enduring rhyme, Thou shalt not pass! Thy fame in every clime On earth shall live where Saxon speech has sway. IV Waft me this verse across the winter sea, Through light and dark, through mist and blinding sleet, O winter winds, and lay it at his feet; Though the poor gift betray my poverty, At his feet lay it: it may chance that he Will find no gift, where reverence is, unmeet. ï~~xxv "WHEN FROM THE TENSE CHORDS OF THAT MIGHTY LYRE " _7anuary, 1892 I WHEN from the tense chords of that mighty lyre The Master's hand, relaxing, falls away, And those rich strings are silent for all time, Then shall Love pine, and Passion lack her fire, And Faith seem voiceless. Man to man shall say, "Dead is the last of England's lords of rhyme." 49 ï~~5o THAT MIGHTY L YRE II Yet - stay! there 's one, a later laureled brow, With purple blood of poets in his veins; Him has the Muse claimed; him might Marlowe own; Greek Sappho's son! - men's praises seek him now. Happy the realm where one such voice remains! His the dropt wreath and the unenvied throne. III The wreath the world gives, not the mimic wreath That chance might make the gift of king or queen. O finder of undreamed-of harmonies! Since Shelley's lips were hushed by cruel death, What lyric voice so sweet as this has been Borne to us on the winds from over seas? ï~~XXVI OUTWARD BOUND I LEAVE behind me the elm-shadowed square And carven portals of the silent street, And wander on with listless, vagrant feet Through seaward-leading alleys, till the air Smells of the sea, and straightway then the care Slips from my heart, and life once more is sweet. At the lane's ending lie the white-winged fleet. O restless Fancy, whither wouldst thou fare? Here are brave pinions that shall take thee far - Gaunt hulks of Norway; ships of red Ceylon; 51 ï~~52 OUTWARD BOUND Slim-masted lovers of the blue Azores! 'T is but an instant hence to Zanzibar, Or to the regions of the Midnight Sun: Ionian isles are thine, and all the fairy shores! ï~~XXVII HEREDITY A SOLDIER of the Cromwell stamp, With sword and psalm-book by his side At home alike in church and camp: Austere he lived, and smileless died. But she, a creature soft and fine - From Spain, some say, some say from France: Within her veins leapt blood like wine - She led her Roundhead lord a dance! In Grantham church they lie asleep; Just where, the verger may not know. Strange that two hundred years should keep The old ancestral fires aglow! In me these two have met again; To each my nature owes a part: To one, the cool and reasoning brain; To one, the quick, unreasoning heart. 53 ï~~XXVIII THE SAILING OF THE AUTOCRAT ON BOARD THE S. S. CEPHALONIA, APRIL 26, 1i886 I O WIND and Wave, be kind to him! So, Wave and Wind, we give thee thanks! O Fog, that from Newfoundland Banks Makest the blue bright ocean dim, Delay him not! And ye who snare The wayworn shipman with your song, Go pipe your ditties otherwhere While this brave vessel plows along! If still to lure him be your thought, O phantoms of the watery zone, Be wary lest yourselves get caught With music sweeter than your own! 54 ï~~SAILING OF THE AUTOCRAT 55 II Yet, soft sea spirits, be not mute; Murmur about the prow, and make Melodious the west wind's lute. For him may radiant mornings break From out the bosom of the deep, And golden noons above him bend, And fortunate constellations keep Bright vigils to his journey's end! III Take him, green Erin, to thy breast! Keep him, gray London - for a while! In him we send thee of our best, Our wisest word, our blithest smile - Our epigram, alert and pat, That kills with joy the folly hit - Our Yankee Tsar, our Autocrat Of all the happy realms of wit! Take him and keep him - but forbear To keep him more than half a year... His presence will be sunshine there, His absence will be shadow here! ï~~XXIX PEPITA SCARCELY sixteen years old Is Pepita. (You understand, A breath of this sunny land Turns green fruit into gold: A maiden's conscious blood In the cheek of girlhood glows; A bud slips into a rose Before it is quite a bud.) And I in Seville - sedate, An American, with an eye For that strip of indigo sky Half-glimpsed through a Moorish gate - I see her, sitting up there, With tortoise-shell comb and fan; Red-lipped, but a trifle wan, Because of her coal-black hair; ï~~PEPITA 57 And the hair a trifle dull, Because of the eyes beneath, And the radiance of her teeth When her smile is at its full. Against the balcony rail She leans, and looks on the street; Her lashes, long and discreet, Shading her eyes like a veil. Held by a silver dart, The mantilla's delicate lace Falls each side of her face And crosswise over her heart. This is Pepita - this Her hour for taking her ease: A lover under the trees In the calle were not amiss! Well, I must needs pass by, With a furtive glance, be it said, At the dusk Murillo head And the Andalusian eye. In the Plaza I hear the sounds Of guitar and castanet; ï~~8 PEPITA Although it is early yet, The dancers are on their rounds. Softly the sunlight falls On the slim Giralda tower, That now peals forth the hour O'er broken ramparts and walls. Ah, what glory and gloom In this Arab-Spanish town! What masonry, golden-brown, And hung with tendril and bloom! Place of forgotten kings! - With fountains that never play, And gardens where day by day The lonely cicada sings. Traces are everywhere Of the dusky race that came, And passed, like a sudden flame, Leaving their sighs in the air! Taken with things like these, Pepita fades out of my mind: Pleasure enough I find In Moorish column and frieze. ï~~PEPITA 59 And yet I have my fears, If this had been long ago, I might... well, I do not know. Â~ She with her sixteen years! ï~~xxx BOOKS AND SEASONS BECAUSE the sky is blue; because blithe May Masks in the wren's note and the lilac's hue; Because - in fine, because the sky is blue I will read none but piteous tales to-day. Keep happy laughter till the skies be gray, And the sad season cypress wears, and rue; Then, when the wind is moaning in the flue, And ways are dark, bid Chaucer make us gay. But now a little sadness! All too sweet This springtide riot, this most poignant air, 60 ï~~BOOKS AND SEASONS 61 This sensuous sphere of color and perfume! So listen, love, while I the woes repeat Of Hamlet and Ophelia, and that pair Whose bridal bed was builded in a tomb. ï~~XXXI DISCIPLINE IN the crypt at the foot of the stairs They lay there, a score of the Dead: They could hear the priest at his prayers, And the litany overhead. They knew when the great crowd stirred As the Host was lifted on high; And they smiled in the dark when they heard Some light-footed nun trip by. Side by side on their shelves For years and years they lay; And those who misbehaved themselves Had their coffin-plates taken away. Thus is the legend told In black-letter monkish rhyme, Explaining those plaques of gold That vanished from time to time! 62 ï~~XXXII THE LETTER EDWARD ROWLAND SILL, DIED FEBRUARY 27, 1887 I HELD his letter in my hand, And even while I read The lightning flashed across the land The word that he was dead. How strange it seemed! His living voice Was speaking from the page Those courteous phrases, tersely choice, Light-hearted, witty, sage. I wondered what it was that died! The man himself was here, His modesty, his scholar's pride, His soul serene and clear. These neither death nor time shall dim, Still this sad thing must be - Henceforth I may not speak to him, Though he can speak to me! 63 ï~~XXXIII ON LYNN TERRACE ALL day to watch the blue wave curl and break, All night to hear it plunging on the shore - In this sea-dream such draughts of life I take, I cannot ask for more. Behind me lie the idle life and vain, The task unfinished, and the weary hours; That long wave softly bears me back to Spain And the Alhambra's towers. Once more I halt in Andalusian pass, To list the mule-bells jingling on the height; Below, against the dull esparto grass, The almonds glimmer white. 64 ï~~ON LYNN TERRACE 65 Huge gateways, wrinkled, with rich grays and browns, Invite my fancy, and I wander through The gable-shadowed, zigzag streets of towns The world's first sailors knew. Or, if I will, from out this thin seahaze Low-lying cliffs of lovely Calais rise; Or yonder, with the pomp of olden days, Venice salutes my eyes. Or some gaunt castle lures me up its stair; I see, far off, the red-tiled hamlets shine, And catch, through slits of windows here and there, Blue glimpses of the Rhine. Again I pass Norwegian fjord and fell, And through bleak wastes to where the sunset's fires Light up the white-walled Russian citadel, The Kremlin's domes and spires. ï~~66 ON LYNN TERRACE And now I linger in green English lanes, By garden - plots of rose and heliotrope; And now I face the sudden pelting rains On some lone Alpine slope. Now at Tangier, among the packed bazaars, I saunter, and the merchants at the doors Smile, and entice me: here are jewels like stars, And curved knives of the Moors; Cloths of Damascus, strings of amber dates; What would Howadji... silver, gold, or stone? Prone on the sun-scorched plain outside the gates The camels make their moan. All this is mine, as I lie dreaming here, High on the windy terrace, day by day; And mine the children's laughter, sweet and clear, Ringing across the bay. ï~~ON LYNN TERRA CE 67 For me the clouds; the ships sail by for me; For me the petulant sea-gull takes its flight; And mine the tender moonrise on the sea, And hollow caves of night. ï~~XXXIV ANDROMEDA THE smooth-worn coin and threadbare classic phrase Of Grecian myths that did beguile my youth, Beguile me not as in the olden days: I think more grief and beauty dwell with truth. Andromeda, in fetters by the sea, Star-pale with anguish till young Perseus came, Less moves me with her suffering than she, The slim girl figure fettered to dark shame, That nightly haunts the park, there, like a shade, Trailing her wretchedness from street to street. 68 ï~~ANDROMEDA 69 See where she passes - neither wife nor maid. How all mere fiction crumbles at her feet! Here is woe's self, and not the mask of woe: A legend's shadow shall not move you so! ï~~XXXV "I'LL NOT CONFER WITH SORROW" I 'LL not confer with Sorrow Till to-morrow; But Joy shall have her way This very day. Ho, eglantine and cresses For her tresses! - Let Care, the beggar, wait Outside the gate. Tears if you will - but after Mirth and laughter; Then, folded hands on breast And endless rest. 70 ï~~XXXVI NO SONGS IN WINTER THE sky is gray as gray may be, There is no bird upon the bough, There is no leaf on vine or tree. In the Neponset marshes now Willow-stems, rosy in the wind, Shiver with hidden sense of snow. So, too, 't is winter in my mind, No light-winged fancy comes and stays: A season churlish and unkind. Slow creep the hours, slow creep the days, The black ink crusts upon the pen - Wait till the bluebirds, wrens, and jays, And golden orioles come again! 71 ï~~XXXVII TWO MOODS I BETWEEN the budding and the falling leaf Stretch happy skies; With colors and sweet cries Of mating birds in uplands and in glades The world is rife. Then on a sudden all the music dies, The color fades. How fugitive and brief Is mortal life Between the budding and the falling leaf! O short-breathed music, dying on the tongue Ere half the mystic canticle be sung! O harp of life, so speedily unstrung! Who, if 't were his to choose, would know again The bitter sweetness of the lost refrain, Its rapture, and its pain? 72 ï~~TWO MOODS 73 II Though I be shut in darkness, and become Insentient dust blown idly here and there, I count oblivion a scant price to pay For having once had held against my lip Life's brimming cup of hydromel and rue - For having once known woman's holy love And a child's kiss, and for a little space Been boon companion to the Day and Night, Fed on the odors of the summer dawn, And folded in the beauty of the stars. Dear Lord, though I be changed to senseless clay, And serve the potter as he turns his wheel, I thank Thee for the gracious gift of tears! ï~~XXXVIII ANDALUSIAN CRADLE-SONG (FROM '" MERCEDES ") WHO is it opens her blue bright eye, Bright as the sea and blue as the sky? - Chiquita! Who has the smile that comes and goes Like sunshine over her mouth's red rose? - Muchackita! What is the softest laughter heard, Gurgle of brook or trill of bird, Chiquita? Nay, 't is thy laughter makes the rill Hush its voice and the bird be still, Muchachita / Ah, little flower-hand on my breast, How it soothes me and gives me rest! Chiquita! 74 ï~~ANDALUSIAN CRADLE-SONG 75 What is the sweetest sight I know? Three little white teeth in a row, Three little white teeth in a row, Muchackita! ï~~XXXIX THE VOICE OF THE SEA IN the hush of the autumn night I hear the voice of the sea, In the hush of the autumn night It seems to say to me - Mine are the winds above, Mine are the caves below, Mine are the dead of yesterday And the dead of long ago! And I think of the fleet that sailed From the lovely Gloucester shore, I think of the fleet that sailed And came back nevermore; My eyes are filled with tears, And my heart is numb with woe - It seems as if 't were yesterday, And it all was long ago! 76 ï~~XL "I VEX ME NOT WITH BROODING ON THE YEARS" I VEX me not with brooding on the years That were ere I drew breath: why should I then Distrust the darkness that may fall again When life is done? Perchance in other spheres - Dead planets - I once tasted mortal tears, And walked as now among a throng of men, Pondering things that lay beyond my ken, Questioning death, and solacing my fears. Ofttimes indeed strange sense have I of this, Vague memories that hold me with a spell, Touches of unseen lips upon my brow, 77 ï~~78 I VEX ME NOT Breathing some incommunicable bliss! In years foregone, 0 Soul, was all not well? Still lovelier life awaits thee. Fear not thou! ï~~XLI A SERENADE I IMP of Dreams, when she's asleep, To her snowy chamber creep, And straight whisper in her ear What, awake, she will not hear - Imp of Dreams, when she's asleep. II Tell her, so she may repent, That no rose withholds its scent, That no bird that has a song Hoards the music summer-long - Tell her, so she may repent. III Tell her there's naught else to do, If to-morrow's skies be blue, But to come, with civil speech, And walk with me to Hampton Beach - 79 ï~~80 A SERENADE Tell her there's naught else to do! Tell her, so she may repent - Imp of Dreams, when she's asleep! ï~~XLII A REFRAIN HIGH in a tower she sings, I, passing by beneath, Pause and listen, and catch These words of passionate breath"Asfhodel, flower of Life; amaranth, flower of Death! " Sweet voice, sweet unto tears 1 What is this that she saith? Poignant, mystical - hark! Again, with passionate breath - " Ashodel, flower of Life; amaranth, flower of Death!" 81 ï~~XLIII "GREAT CAPTAIN, GLORIOUS IN OUR WARS" GREAT Captain, glorious in our wars - No meed of praise we hold from him; About his brow we wreathe the stars The coming ages shall not dim. The cloud-sent man! Was it not he That from the hand of adverse fate Snatched the white flower of victory? He spoke no word, but saved the State. Yet History, as she brooding bends Above the tablet on her knee, The impartial stylus half suspends, And fain would blot the cold decree: "The iron hand and sleepless care That stayed disaster scarce availed To save him when he came to wear The civic laurel: there he failed." 82 ï~~GREAT CAPTAIN 83 Who runs may read; but nothing mars That nobler record, unforgot. Great Captain, glorious in our wars - All else the heart remembers not. ï~~XLIV REMINISCENCE THOUGH I am native to this frozen zone That half the twelvemonth torpid lies, or dead; Though the cold azure arching overhead And the Atlantic's never-ending moan Are mine by heritage, I must have known Life otherwhere in epochs long since fled; For in my veins some Orient blood is red, And through my thought are lotus blossoms blown. I do remember... it was just at dusk, Near a walled garden at the river's turn (A thousand summers seem but yesterday!) A Nubian girl, more sweet than Khoorja musk, Came to the water-tank to fill her urn, And, with the urn, she bore my heart away! 84 ï~~XLV BROKEN MUSIC A note All out of tune in this world's instrument. AMY LEVY. I KNOW not in what fashion she was made, Nor what her voice was, when she used to speak, Nor if the silken lashes threw a shade On wan or rosy cheek. I picture her with sorrowful vague eyes Illumed with such strange gleams of inner light As linger in the drift of London skies Ere twilight turns to night. I know not; I conjecture. 'T was a girl That with her own most gentle desperate hand ï~~86 BROKEN MUSIC From out God's mystic setting plucked life's pearl - 'T is hard to understand. So precious life is! Even to the old The hours are as a miser's coins, and she - Within her hands lay youth's unminted gold And all felicity. The winged impetuous spirit, the white flame That was her soul once, whither has it flown? Above her brow gray lichens blot her name Upon the carven stone. This is her Book of Verses - wren-like notes, Shy franknesses, blind gropings, haunting fears; At times across the chords abruptly floats A mist of passionate tears. ï~~BROKEN MUSIC 87 A fragile lyre too tensely keyed and strung, A broken music, weirdly incomplete: Here a proud mind, self-baffled and selfstung, Lies coiled in dark defeat. ï~~XLVI COMEDY THEY parted, with clasps of hand And kisses, and burning tears. They met, in a foreign land, After some twenty years: Met as acquaintances meet, Smilingly, tranquil-eyed - Not even the least little beat Of the heart, upon either side. They chatted of this and that, The nothings that make up life; She in a Gainsborough hat, And he in black for his wife. 88 ï~~XLVII SEEMING DEFEAT I THE woodland silence, one time stirred By the soft pathos of some passing bird, Is not the same it was before. The spot where once, unseen, a flower Has held its fragile chalice to the shower, Is different for evermore. Unheard, unseen A spell has been! II O thou that breathest year by year Music that falls unheeded on the ear, Take heart, fate has not baffled thee! Thou that with tints of earth and skies 89 ï~~90 SEEMING DEFEAT Fillest thy canvas for unseeing eyes, Thou hast not labored futilely. Unheard, unseen A spell has been! ï~~XLVIII A PETITION To spring belongs the violet, and the blown Spice of the roses let the summer own. Grant me this favor, Muse - all else withhold - That I may not write verse when I am old. And yet I pray you, Muse, delay the time! Be not too ready to deny me rhyme; And when the hour strikes, as it must, dear Muse, I beg you very gently break the news. 91 ï~~QUITS If my best wines mislike thy taste, And my best service win thy frown, Then tarry not, I bid thee haste; There's many another Inn in town. 92