Black Panther

<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/cover.jpg" alt="Cover" /></div> <h1 class="wspace">THE BLACK PANTHER</h1> <hr /> <div class="newpage p4 center wspace vspace"> <p class="xxlarge"> <span class="bold">THE BLACK PANTHER</span><br/> <span class="xsmall">A BOOK OF POEMS</span></p> <p class="p4"> BY<br/> <span class="larger">JOHN HALL WHEELOCK</span></p> <p class="small">AUTHOR OF<br/> “THE HUMAN FANTASY”     <span class="in4">“THE BELOVÈD ADVENTURE”</span><br/> “LOVE AND LIBERATION”   <span class="in1">“DUST AND LIGHT,” ETC.</span></p> <p class="p4 larger"> NEW YORK<br/> CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS<br/> 1922</p> </div> <hr /> <p class="newpage p4 center small vspace"> <span class="smcap">Copyright, 1922, by</span><br/> CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS<br/> Printed in the United States of America</p> <hr /> <p class="newpage p4 narrow">The author thanks the editors of the following, for kind permission to reprint here various poems first published in their pages: <em>All’s Well</em>, <em>The American Magazine</em>, <em>The Art World</em>, <em>The Bellman</em>, <em>The Bookman</em>, <em>The Century Magazine</em>, <em>Contemporary Verse</em>, <em>The Dial</em>, <em>The Forum</em>, <em>The Freeman</em>, <em>Harper’s Monthly</em>, <em>The International</em>, <em>The Literary Review of The New York Evening Post</em>, <em>The Lyric</em>, <em>McClure’s Magazine</em>, <em>The Outlook</em>, <em>Poetry</em>, <em>The Poetry Journal</em>, <em>The Poetry Review</em>, <em>Reedy’s Mirror</em>, <em>Scribner’s Magazine</em>, <em>The Smart Set</em>, <em>The Yale Review</em>, <em>Youth</em>. Thanks are also due to Messrs. Harcourt, Brace and Company for permission to reprint “Sea-Horizons,” first published in the anthology, <em>Enchanted Years</em>.</p> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vii">vii</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2></div> <table id="toc" class="narrow" summary="Contents"> <tr class="small"> <td class="tdl"></td> <td class="tdr">PAGE</td> </tr> <tr class="sec"> <td class="tdl"><i>The Black Panther</i></td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_3">3</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr class="sec"> <td class="tdl"><i>I.      Dim Wisdoms</i></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">NIGHT HAS ITS FEAR</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_7">7</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">THE SORROWFUL MASQUERADE</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_12">12</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">OCTOBER MOONLIGHT</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_13">13</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">THE FLESH AND THE DREAM</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_15">15</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">VAUDEVILLE</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_16">16</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">1914</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_18">18</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">THE BELOVÈD</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_19">19</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">PROUD DOOM</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_21">21</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">THE SECRET ONE</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_22">22</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">THE UNDISSUADABLE AUSTERITY</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_25">25</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">BLIND PLAYERS</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_26">26</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">TRAVAIL</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_28">28</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">THE POET TELLS OF HIS LOVE</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_29">29</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">THE BURIED DREAM</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_31">31</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">HAUNTED EARTH</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_32">32</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">LONG AGO</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_34">34</SPAN><span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">viii</span></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">TCHAIKOVSKY: FIFTH SYMPHONY</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_35">35</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">MIRROR</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_36">36</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">PLAINT</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_38">38</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">ANDANTE</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_39">39</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">THE DEAR MYSTERY</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_42">42</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">IN THE DARK CITY</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_43">43</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr class="sec"> <td class="tdl"><i>II.    Space and Solitude</i></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">IMMENSITY</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_47">47</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">SEA-HORIZONS</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_48">48</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">OF DAY CAME NIGHT</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_51">51</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">PILGRIM</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_53">53</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">BY THE GRAY SEA</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_54">54</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">THE FISH-HAWK</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_55">55</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">DISDAINFUL BEAUTY</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_57">57</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">MY LONELY ONE</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_58">58</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr class="sec"> <td class="tdl"><i>III.  The Lost Traveller’s Dream</i></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">WILD THOUGHT</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_63">63</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">JOURNEY’S END</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_64">64</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">BELATED LOVE</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_65">65</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">A LEAVE-TAKING</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_66">66</SPAN><span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">ix</span></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">BUT LOVE—</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_72">72</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">ANNE</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_73">73</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">THE SILENCE</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_74">74</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">EXULTATION</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_75">75</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">SONG OF SONGS</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_77">77</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">SORROWFUL FREEDOM</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_78">78</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">STARLESS MORNING</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_79">79</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">PHANTOM</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_80">80</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="tdl">LEGEND</td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_81">81</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr class="sec"> <td class="tdl"><i>IV.    The Divine Fantasy</i></td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_85">85</SPAN></td> </tr> <tr class="sec"> <td class="tdl"><i>The Lion-House</i></td> <td class="tdr"><SPAN href="#Page_97">97</SPAN></td> </tr> </table> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">3</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_BLACK_PANTHER">THE BLACK PANTHER</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 drop-cap"><span class="firstword">There</span> is a panther caged within my breast;</div> <div class="verse indent4">But what his name, there is no breast shall know</div> <div class="verse indent4">Save mine, nor what it is that drives him so,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Backward and forward, in relentless quest—</div> <div class="verse indent0">That silent rage, baffled but unsuppressed,</div> <div class="verse indent4">The soft pad of those stealthy feet that go</div> <div class="verse indent4">Over my body’s prison to and fro,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Trying the walls forever without rest.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">All day I feed him with my living heart;</div> <div class="verse indent4">But when the night puts forth her dreams and stars,</div> <div class="verse indent8">The inexorable Frenzy reawakes:</div> <div class="verse indent4">His wrath is hurled upon the trembling bars,</div> <div class="verse indent0">The eternal passion stretches me apart,</div> <div class="verse indent8">And I lie silent—but my body shakes.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="wide" /> <h2 class="nobreak larger" id="I">I<br/> <span class="subhead">DIM WISDOMS</span></h2></div> <hr class="wide" /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">7</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="NIGHT_HAS_ITS_FEAR">NIGHT HAS ITS FEAR</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2 drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Night</span> has its fear:</div> <div class="verse indent0">As the slow dusk advances, and the day</div> <div class="verse indent0">Fades out in fire along the starry way,</div> <div class="verse indent2">The ancient doubt draws near.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">Vague shapes of <span class="locked">dread—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Soft owl, or moth, and timid, twittering <span class="locked">things—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Move through the growing dark; on furtive wings</div> <div class="verse indent2">The bat flits overhead.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">And in the house</div> <div class="verse indent0">The death-watch ticks, the dust of time is stirred</div> <div class="verse indent0">With timorous footfalls, in the night is heard</div> <div class="verse indent2">The gnawing of the mouse.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">Through the old room</div> <div class="verse indent0 padr4">What phantoms throng, what shapes that to and fro</div> <div class="verse indent0">Tremble, and lips that laughed here long <span class="locked">ago—</span></div> <div class="verse indent2">Gone back into the gloom!</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">8</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">A whip-poor-will</div> <div class="verse indent0">Bleakly across the baleful country cries</div> <div class="verse indent0">From a blurred mouth; and from the west replies</div> <div class="verse indent2">Echo—and all is still.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">Now from her shell,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Her body’s prison, with the ancient doubt</div> <div class="verse indent0">And terror stricken, the scared soul looks out,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Asking if all be well.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">Great kings have been,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Poets, and mighty prophets—shapes have cried</div> <div class="verse indent0">About the world, or moved in mournful pride;</div> <div class="verse indent2">And are no longer seen.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">From many lands</div> <div class="verse indent0">Their plaint was lifted; from how many a shore</div> <div class="verse indent0">Sorrows have wailed, that are not any more!</div> <div class="verse indent2">They sleep with folded hands.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">They have their day:</div> <div class="verse indent0">Their cry is loud about the earth, who come</div> <div class="verse indent0">To the one end; the singing lips grow dumb</div> <div class="verse indent2">Always in the one way.</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">9</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">Though they implore,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Brief is the plea, inflexible the fate!</div> <div class="verse indent0">Silence has the last word; and then—the great</div> <div class="verse indent2">Silence, forevermore.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">Pondering these,</div> <div class="verse indent0">The fretful spirit in bewilderment</div> <div class="verse indent0">Quickens with a vague doubt, and, not content,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Broods—and is ill at ease.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">Her being is</div> <div class="verse indent0">Throned on so frail a pulse; such fleeting breath</div> <div class="verse indent0">Bears up her dream across the gulf of death</div> <div class="verse indent2">And the obscure abyss.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">Always she hears</div> <div class="verse indent0">The hurtling chariots of the hurrying blood,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Her shuttling breath that in the solitude</div> <div class="verse indent2">Weaves the one self she wears.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">Now first the vast</div> <div class="verse indent0">Veil over heaven is rent, and bares the whole</div> <div class="verse indent0">Shining Reality; whereat the soul</div> <div class="verse indent2">Sickens, and is aghast!</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">10</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">Darkness reveals</div> <div class="verse indent0">The tragic truth; her will sinks hopeless wings</div> <div class="verse indent0">Before the inexorable Fact of things,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Humbling the dread she feels.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">With the old Awes</div> <div class="verse indent0">Confronted and the flaming Mystery,</div> <div class="verse indent0">She may not speak; but pondering, suddenly</div> <div class="verse indent2">Grows silent, and withdraws.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">She may not bear</div> <div class="verse indent0">That sight: the spangled heavens, from east to west,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Stretch out too wide the confines of the breast,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Straining in wonder there.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">Upon what Brow</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of awful eminence—O thought that <span class="locked">stuns!—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Is laid that chaplet of a million suns,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Upon what Forehead now?</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">Who was it wrought</div> <div class="verse indent0">This universal glory all around,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of glittering worlds forever without <span class="locked">bound?—</span></div> <div class="verse indent2">Great Poet, what a Thought!</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">11</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">It is a Word</div> <div class="verse indent0">Unutterable that is written there;</div> <div class="verse indent0">The spirit, gazing, is one voiceless prayer,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Careless if it be heard.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">Her thoughts ascend,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Star beyond star, height beyond aching height</div> <div class="verse indent0">Upward, in adoration infinite,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Forever, without end.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">So <em>shall</em> it be!</div> <div class="verse indent0">Till heaven yield her sceptre; till the throne</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of night be shaken, and the Face be known</div> <div class="verse indent2">Beyond eternity:</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">Till God divide</div> <div class="verse indent0">And rend asunder the embroidered hem</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of darkness; till the starry diadem</div> <div class="verse indent2">And crown be set aside!</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">12</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_SORROWFUL_MASQUERADE">THE SORROWFUL MASQUERADE</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Even</span> as to a music, stately and sad,</div> <div class="verse indent0">The young girl’s feet begin to move in a dance,</div> <div class="verse indent0">And curiously, for joy, shift and advance;</div> <div class="verse indent0">So to a mournful waltz, sombre and sweet,</div> <div class="verse indent0">All laughing things move with delighted <span class="locked">feet—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">So all things that draw light and laughing breath</div> <div class="verse indent0">Move to the mournful waltz of life and death:</div> <div class="verse indent0">Comedy is a girl dancing in time</div> <div class="verse indent0">To the tragic pipes, sorrowful and sublime;</div> <div class="verse indent0">And ever she laughs back, and as she skips</div> <div class="verse indent0">Mimics the mournful music with her lips;</div> <div class="verse indent0">Then, for sheer anger at her own pretense,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Sobs violently at her own vehemence;</div> <div class="verse indent0">And mocks her tears. But when the pipings sleep,</div> <div class="verse indent0">She needs must cover up her face and weep.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">13</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="OCTOBER_MOONLIGHT">OCTOBER MOONLIGHT</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 h drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Heaven</span> is like an empty room to-night;</div> <div class="verse indent2">From rim to chilly rim</div> <div class="verse indent0">Wells the clear radiance of the cold moonlight,</div> <div class="verse indent2">And the earth-ways are dim.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Who has departed from this perfect place!</div> <div class="verse indent2">What fiery one here set</div> <div class="verse indent0">His throne in splendor, whom, vanished now, the face</div> <div class="verse indent2">Of heaven remembers yet!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Emptiness—emptiness—the skies are bare,</div> <div class="verse indent2">And the stark earth no less</div> <div class="verse indent0">Grows vacant as a memory: everywhere</div> <div class="verse indent2">Sleeps the cold loveliness.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Old is the earth, too old; her voice is shrill</div> <div class="verse indent2">Against the end of <span class="locked">things—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">To the inevitable her bitter will</div> <div class="verse indent2">Grows humbler as she sings.</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">14</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Now from my breast the very soul takes flight,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Leaving her chambers bare</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of all save lonely memory and <span class="locked">moonlight—</span></div> <div class="verse indent2">And Song is silent there.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">15</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_FLESH_AND_THE_DREAM">THE FLESH AND THE DREAM</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 t drop-cap"><span class="firstword">The</span> baffled dreamer, the defeated Christ</div> <div class="verse indent2">That for your love upon the cross-tree <span class="locked">hung—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">O take Him to your bosom, give Him rest</div> <div class="verse indent0">Close at the wanton wonder of your breast,</div> <div class="verse indent2">O carnal World, forever well and young!</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">16</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="VAUDEVILLE">VAUDEVILLE</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 w drop-cap"><span class="firstword">When</span> to a cheap and tawdry tune the orchestra cried out,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Frantic, in violent syncopation, and began</div> <div class="verse indent0">Your holy, adorable body in mournful grace to move about</div> <div class="verse indent2">Through the old, devious motions, the device of <span class="locked">man—</span></div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">How suddenly then, silent magnificence, you put to shame</div> <div class="verse indent2">The crowded and garish theatre, the strangled cries</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of flute and trumpet! O mortal body, bearer of our flame</div> <div class="verse indent2">Through the drear lands of death, flower of the eternities!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Revered, reviled, wept and adored, beseeched, cried out upon</div> <div class="verse indent2">By ravening lips of the ages—the sacred source of things,</div> <div class="verse indent0">That glimmered in Thrace, that shone in Rome, that swayed in Babylon,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Here moves to the vile throb of castanets and strings.</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">17</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">O through what generations have you lured, what secret ways,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Man’s fainting heart to be reborn! What splendors move</div> <div class="verse indent0">Deep in his breast when, dolorous, your reluctant beauty sways</div> <div class="verse indent2">In the old weary rhythms of eternal love!</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">18</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="Y1914">1914</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 i drop-cap"><span class="firstword">I lift</span> my gaze beyond the night, and see,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Above the banners of Man’s hate unfurled,</div> <div class="verse indent0">The holy figure that on Calvary</div> <div class="verse indent2">Stretched arms out wide enough for all the world.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">19</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_BELOVED">THE BELOVÈD</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 l drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Life,</span> Belovèd, I lay my heart against Your heart,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Long, long I peer into the dark pool of Your eyes;</div> <div class="verse indent0">Never will I forsake You, O adorable One!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">I cannot comprehend You, but I love You.</div> <div class="verse indent0">In the shadow of Your locks I hide my eyes from the terrors;</div> <div class="verse indent0">But You are not greatly <span class="locked">concerned—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Closer and closer I draw toward the dear Face.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">See—I set my lips against Your lips,</div> <div class="verse indent0">But You do not answer:</div> <div class="verse indent0">Steadfast and grave beyond me Your eyes are burning,</div> <div class="verse indent0">As of one that dreams.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">I am clinging here at Your heart!</div> <div class="verse indent0">I am singing my love of You for sheer joy!</div> <div class="verse indent0">Mother, what is it that trembles on Your lashes so <span class="locked">soft—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">And Your lips are salt as the taste of the sea?</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Can it be for me Your eyes are brimming, Mother,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Even as they smile?</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">20</span> <div class="verse indent0">Can they be for me, these drops on Your lips so warm?</div> <div class="verse indent0">Dear One, do I understand at last!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">O holy draught, wine of the world, bewildering and bitter-sweet!</div> <div class="verse indent0">Sacred tears, from the depths of what wild love welling!</div> <div class="verse indent0">Deeper and deeper let me drink and <span class="locked">draw—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Nirvana, divine oblivion....</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Bitter is the taste of Your lips, Belovèd!</div> </div> <div class="tb">* * * * *</div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Though I lie in the darkness, yet often do I remember You—and <span class="locked">wonder—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">And the touch of Your lips, how strange, and how sad.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">21</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="PROUD_DOOM">PROUD DOOM</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 drop-cap"><span class="firstword">The</span> crucifixion of Beauty on the cross</div> <div class="verse indent2">Of mortal destiny—the eternal <span class="locked">law—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">The thorny crown of death about her brows</div> <div class="verse indent2">Fills me with anger—then with sudden awe:</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">So dear, so lovely her adorable sorrow</div> <div class="verse indent2">Shows in the darkness, ’mid the tragic doom,</div> <div class="verse indent0">The very heart in me leaps up with laughter,</div> <div class="verse indent2">And hastens, proud and secret, toward the tomb.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">22</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_SECRET_ONE">THE SECRET ONE</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 h drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Here,</span> by this frame and network of the flesh</div> <div class="verse indent2">And wires of her control</div> <div class="verse indent0">Surrounded, central in her subtle mesh</div> <div class="verse indent2">And secret, sits the soul,</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Urgent through all the body, while each part</div> <div class="verse indent2">Obeys, and all are <span class="locked">one—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">While in her dungeons labors the lone heart</div> <div class="verse indent2">To make her will be done.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">She reins the forces in their wild career</div> <div class="verse indent2">That bear her, as they go,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Over the dark abyss; and knows how sheer</div> <div class="verse indent2">Reaches the gulf below.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">How dubious her life and slenderly</div> <div class="verse indent2">Hangs, by a scarlet thread,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Between eternity and <span class="locked">eternity—</span></div> <div class="verse indent2">She guesses, wise in dread;</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">23</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">And ever watchful, ever wary, set</div> <div class="verse indent2">In the centre all alone,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Feels ’round her cautiously if any threat</div> <div class="verse indent2">Be made against the throne.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 padr2">Sometimes along her nerves the voice of pain</div> <div class="verse indent2">Bears tidings to her hate</div> <div class="verse indent0">And frantic wrath, that the old foe again</div> <div class="verse indent2">Is clamorous at the <span class="locked">gate—</span></div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">She rages up and down, and to and fro</div> <div class="verse indent2">In timid anger runs:</div> <div class="verse indent0">If the frontiers be menaced, it is known</div> <div class="verse indent2">All over, and at once.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">She hears her breast of sorrows night and day</div> <div class="verse indent2">At labor; ’round her brood</div> <div class="verse indent0">The old oblivions, where she sits at bay;</div> <div class="verse indent2">She hears the battling blood.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Echoes assail her from far worlds that lie</div> <div class="verse indent2">Beyond the bourne of <span class="locked">these—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Contact and color and the angry cry</div> <div class="verse indent2">Of the realities</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">24</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Beat on the brain forever; the high dream,</div> <div class="verse indent2">By stratagem of speech,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Enters her portals, where she sits supreme</div> <div class="verse indent2">And silent, pondering each:</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Weighing and challenging, for weal or woe,</div> <div class="verse indent2">All rumors, sending out</div> <div class="verse indent0">The emissaries of her will, that go</div> <div class="verse indent2">To the frontiers about.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">But most she loves the hour that beauty brings,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Of rapture and release</div> <div class="verse indent0">From the crude hunger and the cry of things,</div> <div class="verse indent2">The hour of her <span class="locked">peace—</span></div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">When, by the inner light that floods her cell,</div> <div class="verse indent2">The spirit, even as here,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Travails, in secrecy and joy, to tell</div> <div class="verse indent2">Her passion and her fear.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Now to the listening soul in you who read</div> <div class="verse indent2">These lines, she tells it <span class="locked">all—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">How dear her day, how dark shall be, indeed,</div> <div class="verse indent2">The hour when night must fall.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">25</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_UNDISSUADABLE_AUSTERITY">THE UNDISSUADABLE AUSTERITY</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 l drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Less</span> than it is we would the Truth should seem:</div> <div class="verse indent2 padr6">Holy and marvellous the Actual <span class="locked">is—</span></div> <div class="verse indent2">But stern her lips, and bitter is her kiss</div> <div class="verse indent0">Upon the brows of dream.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">26</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="BLIND_PLAYERS">BLIND PLAYERS</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 h drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Day</span> breaks, and the old drama</div> <div class="verse indent2">Repeats itself anew:</div> <div class="verse indent0">The hind wakes to be hunted,</div> <div class="verse indent2">The huntsman to <span class="locked">pursue—</span></div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">The lover and the belovèd,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Each one doomed to his part;</div> <div class="verse indent0">The victor and the vanquished,</div> <div class="verse indent2">The hushed and the hurrying <span class="locked">heart—</span></div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">In terror and in triumph</div> <div class="verse indent2">They play it through again,</div> <div class="verse indent0">The old, unchanging drama</div> <div class="verse indent2">Of passion and of pain,</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">As the great Will has willed it,</div> <div class="verse indent2">That, in all forms being cast,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Wars on Itself forever.</div> <div class="verse indent2">O may they at the <span class="locked">last—</span></div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">The falcon, and the fledgling</div> <div class="verse indent2">He stoops to from the sky;</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">27</span> <div class="verse indent0">The lips that are so eager,</div> <div class="verse indent2">The lips that would <span class="locked">deny—</span></div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">When the old war is ended,</div> <div class="verse indent2">When the stern Will is done,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Meet in eternal pity</div> <div class="verse indent2">And know themselves as one!</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">28</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="TRAVAIL">TRAVAIL</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Before</span> the sacred beauty of the morn</div> <div class="verse indent2">How fade the wrangling wisdoms of the earth!</div> <div class="verse indent0">Wisdom is beauty in the womb, unborn;</div> <div class="verse indent2">Wisdom is beauty laboring for birth.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Wisdom, the ghost of Beauty, in the wide</div> <div class="verse indent2">Womb of the world lies clamoring for life,</div> <div class="verse indent0">While the white Beauty, the immortal Bride,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Sits throned upon the summits void of strife.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">So the bright flower, bending from the soil,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Sums up and scorns the wisdom of the sage;</div> <div class="verse indent0">And Helen’s beauty, soaring beyond toil,</div> <div class="verse indent2">The laboring beauty of the poet’s page.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">So, when the veils of mystery are furled,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Earth’s wisdom blooms in heaven’s beauty above ...</div> <div class="verse indent0">Beauty is all the wisdom of the world</div> <div class="verse indent2">Uttered by the seraphic lips of love!</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">29</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_POET_TELLS_OF_HIS_LOVE">THE POET TELLS OF HIS LOVE</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 h drop-cap"><span class="firstword">How</span> shall I sing of Her that is</div> <div class="verse indent2">My life’s long rapture and <span class="locked">despair—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Sorrow eternal—Loveliness,</div> <div class="verse indent2">To whom each heart-beat is a prayer!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Utterly, endlessly, alone</div> <div class="verse indent2">Possessing me, yet <span class="locked">unpossessed—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">The dark, the drear belovèd One</div> <div class="verse indent2">That takes the tribute of this breast:</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Dæmon disconsolate, in vain,</div> <div class="verse indent2">In vain petitioned and <span class="locked">implored—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">How many a midnight of disdain</div> <div class="verse indent2">Darkly and dreadfully adored!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Beauty, the virgin, evermore</div> <div class="verse indent2">Out of these arms with laughter <span class="locked">fled—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Vanished—a voice by slope and shore</div> <div class="verse indent2">Haunting the world—Illusion <span class="locked">dread—</span></div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">30</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Most secret Siren, on whose coast,</div> <div class="verse indent2">’Mid spray of perishing song, are hurled</div> <div class="verse indent0">All desolate lovers, all the lost</div> <div class="verse indent2">Souls, and half-poets of the world:</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Through sleepless nights and lonely days</div> <div class="verse indent2">In tears and terror served and <span class="locked">sought—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Light beyond light—the supreme Face</div> <div class="verse indent2">That blinds the adoring eyes of thought!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">How shall I sing of Her? Nay all,</div> <div class="verse indent2">All song, all sorrow, all silence of</div> <div class="verse indent0">This desperate heart that is Her thrall,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Trembles and tries to tell my love!</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">31</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_BURIED_DREAM">THE BURIED DREAM</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 i drop-cap"><span class="firstword">I hid</span> a dream amid the sands of Time,</div> <div class="verse indent2">And said, “Now will I go upon my <span class="locked">way—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">I shall be free henceforward from this time,</div> <div class="verse indent2">And full of laughter all the livelong day.”</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">But it came following like the midnight voice</div> <div class="verse indent2">Of my true love behind her <span class="locked">lattice-bars—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">And it came following like the silver voice</div> <div class="verse indent2">Of my lost childhood strayed beyond the stars:</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Like my dead self, so laughable, so sad,</div> <div class="verse indent2">So foolish and so lovable it <span class="locked">rang—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">That, for sheer laughter, I was very sad,</div> <div class="verse indent2">And took it back into my heart, and sang.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">32</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="HAUNTED_EARTH">HAUNTED EARTH</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2 drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Heaven</span> at last</div> <div class="verse indent0">Is bared, and the whole world one radiant <span class="locked">room—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0 padr6">Black are the shadows, in great pools of gloom</div> <div class="verse indent2">By copse and thicket cast.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">The cattle browse</div> <div class="verse indent0">With sound of gentle breathing, and their breath</div> <div class="verse indent0">Is mild in glimmering meadows, or beneath</div> <div class="verse indent2">Drooped branches, where they drowse;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">While ’mongst the chill</div> <div class="verse indent0">Shadows, and cold, clear moonlight all about,</div> <div class="verse indent0">A single bat goes dipping in and out</div> <div class="verse indent2">Softly; and all is still.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">Silence <span class="locked">around—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Save for a cricket! Lapped in slumb’rous peace</div> <div class="verse indent0">Lie hill and meadowland, the shining seas</div> <div class="verse indent2">Lap on them without sound.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">It is earth’s cry</div> <div class="verse indent0">Lifted in adoration: the old dream,</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">33</span> <div class="verse indent0">Beauty, is with her, and her hour supreme</div> <div class="verse indent2">That goes so swiftly by.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">Too well she knows</div> <div class="verse indent0">The sweet Illusion, from no earthly shore</div> <div class="verse indent0">Visitant, the bright word that evermore</div> <div class="verse indent2">Troubles her dark repose.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">Her heart lies <span class="locked">bare—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Drunken, drunken, she lifts a dreamy breast;</div> <div class="verse indent0">Hour by hour, in rapture and unrest</div> <div class="verse indent2">Flows the unending prayer.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">The path of night</div> <div class="verse indent0">Reaches, from rim to rim, a radiant road</div> <div class="verse indent0">Whereon the exalted Beauty walks abroad</div> <div class="verse indent2">In wonder and wild light.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent2">Upon what eyes,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Lifted in homesickness, now falls again</div> <div class="verse indent0 padr8">The loveliness that haunts the world with <span class="locked">pain—</span></div> <div class="verse indent2">Light out of Paradise!</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">34</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="LONG_AGO">LONG AGO</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 a w drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Ah,</span> once your quiet eyes were calm and deep</div> <div class="verse indent2">And wistful with much dreaming; long ago</div> <div class="verse indent2">Your solemn lips, so innocent of woe</div> <div class="verse indent0">And delicately parted, seemed to keep</div> <div class="verse indent2">A secret still unsaid, and murmured low:</div> <div class="verse indent2">But that was long ago.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">And I, who saw and loved you from afar,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Prayed a hushed prayer, the first I ever prayed,</div> <div class="verse indent2">That God might keep you safe; and unafraid</div> <div class="verse indent0">I looked up through the night at my one star,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Moving mysteriously and bright-arrayed.</div> <div class="verse indent2">And silently I prayed.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">While you passed singing tenderly and low,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Wandering through life’s meadows with slow tread,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Death laid his kiss on your belovèd head:</div> <div class="verse indent0">But that was long ago.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">35</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="TCHAIKOVSKY_FIFTH_SYMPHONY">TCHAIKOVSKY: FIFTH SYMPHONY</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 w drop-cap"><span class="firstword">My</span> heart cried out in wonder: Can it be,</div> <div class="verse indent0">The form, from which this thrilling passion flows</div> <div class="verse indent0">On tides of beauty and eternal tone</div> <div class="verse indent0">Audibly now before the very sense</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of thronging thousands, somewhere in the clay</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of Russia lies, with folded hands—relapsed</div> <div class="verse indent0">Into the Formless?</div> <div class="verse indent22">And my mind replied:</div> <div class="verse indent0">The longing that so labors for release</div> <div class="verse indent0">Not wholly in that transient form was trapped</div> <div class="verse indent0">Wherein we perish miserably <span class="locked">here—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">But has escaped into the form supreme,</div> <div class="verse indent0">A deathless body; and now walks abroad</div> <div class="verse indent0">Among the generations of mankind,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Trailing the robes of the immortal woe.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">And still that music poured. O sacred heart</div> <div class="verse indent0">And secret, well-head of those streams of <span class="locked">song—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Are you content! How is it with you now,</div> <div class="verse indent0">O breast whose sorrows overflowed the world!</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">36</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="MIRROR">MIRROR</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 h drop-cap"><span class="firstword">On</span> the wide sea of sleep</div> <div class="verse indent2">I launch my gliding boat:</div> <div class="verse indent0">Over the rhythmic Deep</div> <div class="verse indent2">On flowing tides I float.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">The curving shore around</div> <div class="verse indent2">Fades in the pale <span class="locked">starlight—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">A slumbering, sleepy sound</div> <div class="verse indent2">Goes drifting through the night.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">It is the music of dreams</div> <div class="verse indent2">Along the horizon blown,</div> <div class="verse indent0">It stirs the glimmering streams</div> <div class="verse indent2">Where the pale stars lie strown.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">The stars shine in the Deep,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Reflected from afar;</div> <div class="verse indent0">My eyes tremble with sleep,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Reflecting sea and star.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">My eyes look up at me</div> <div class="verse indent2">Out of the mirrored eyes,</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">37</span> <div class="verse indent0">And in their depths I see</div> <div class="verse indent2">Mirrored the stars and skies.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Around—around—around</div> <div class="verse indent2">My boat whirls with the stream;</div> <div class="verse indent0">I feel a dizzy sound</div> <div class="verse indent2">Around me, like a dream.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Where may I moor my bark?</div> <div class="verse indent2">How may I lift my head?</div> <div class="verse indent0">What is that silence? <span class="locked">Hark—</span></div> <div class="verse indent2">The sound of dreams is fled!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">The breath of slumber lies,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Like perfume, on the Deep:</div> <div class="verse indent0">Night with a thousand eyes</div> <div class="verse indent2">Stares at herself in sleep.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">38</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="PLAINT">PLAINT</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 b drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Brief</span> is Man’s travail here, and transitory</div> <div class="verse indent4">His wrath that soon is <span class="locked">spent—</span></div> <div class="verse indent2">Brief his lament,</div> <div class="verse indent4">Lifted in vain against the harsh decrees</div> <div class="verse indent4">Of the high Destinies</div> <div class="verse indent2">That move not for the murmur of his woe:</div> <div class="verse indent2">Even as snow</div> <div class="verse indent0">On sunny meadows, as a lover’s story</div> <div class="verse indent2">Told in an April twilight long ago,</div> <div class="verse indent4">Brief is he even as <span class="locked">these—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">His little hour of tumult or of <span class="locked">glory—</span></div> <div class="verse indent4">And to what end devised we may not guess,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Considering, as we go</div> <div class="verse indent0">Toward the same shadows, bearing the same spark,</div> <div class="verse indent4">His vanity and utter nothingness.</div> <div class="verse indent0">Yet in the mighty Dark</div> <div class="verse indent2">Dear is the spirit; grievously we know</div> <div class="verse indent4">Earth has one burden more, one soul the less.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">39</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="ANDANTE">ANDANTE</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 drop-cap"><span class="firstword">The</span> evening steals like an ocean around your playing,</div> <div class="verse indent4">Whose perfect tones move on the sombre Deep</div> <div class="verse indent2">With a grave gesture, and sigh into a sleep,</div> <div class="verse indent0">George, where your hands, along the piano straying,</div> <div class="verse indent2">An intricate rhythm keep.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">And all the room is starry with your dreaming,</div> <div class="verse indent2">And limitless and vague. O the white square</div> <div class="verse indent2">Of the window-pane shimmers behind you there,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Framing the street, where the first lights are gleaming,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Transfigured now and fair!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Now, while the heaven of night grows vast above her,</div> <div class="verse indent2">The soul from her lone dream has sure release;</div> <div class="verse indent2">The tumult and the ancient struggles <span class="locked">cease—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">The wars that Beauty wages on her lover</div> <div class="verse indent2">Dwindle into a peace,</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">When Schumann speaks so firmly and so sadly,</div> <div class="verse indent2">And all the twilight rustles, wave on wave.</div> <div class="verse indent2">O, at that smile his wondering spirit gave,</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">40</span> <div class="verse indent0">What new smile in all things shines back so gladly,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Grown dignified and grave!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">The curtains by the window rise and flutter,</div> <div class="verse indent2">The ornaments on the mantel, row on row,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Seem touched with a melancholy of long <span class="locked">ago—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">What is it the music dreams, but cannot utter?</div> <div class="verse indent2">Schumann—we know, we know.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Ah George, what shall be said to you who feel <span class="locked">it—</span></div> <div class="verse indent2">All the half-hope and passion unexpressed</div> <div class="verse indent2">When twilight heaves more gently in the breast!</div> <div class="verse indent0">Ah George, but you, when words would fain reveal it,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Smile—and divine the rest.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">O wrap me in Beethoven’s storm and thunder!</div> <div class="verse indent2">My baffled spirit, with abated breath,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Flutters upon the verge of life and <span class="locked">death—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">And all my being, whirled along in wonder,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Dies between breath and breath.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Let me endure, within a single pulsing</div> <div class="verse indent2">Of the quick heart, in a storm of showering rain</div> <div class="verse indent2">Of sound, all joy, all grief—each breath again</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">41</span> <div class="verse indent0">Live through a life complete, in one convulsing</div> <div class="verse indent2">Moment of rapturous pain!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 padr2">Silence—the lamplight, through the window streaming,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Falls on the listless keyboard, smooth and <span class="locked">white—</span></div> <div class="verse indent2">Remembered music dreams in the dull light;</div> <div class="verse indent0">And you, too, George, sit silently and dreaming,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Alone, into the night.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">42</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_DEAR_MYSTERY">THE DEAR MYSTERY</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 j drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Joy,</span> and the triumph and the doom of gladness</div> <div class="verse indent0 padr2">Make in my breast a music sweet as sadness;</div> <div class="verse indent0">Shall I not sing for sorrow, and again</div> <div class="verse indent0">Cry out, for the sheer joyousness of pain!</div> <div class="verse indent0">For all life’s moods go murmuring like strings</div> <div class="verse indent0">In a low chord, and all things sound all things,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Through alternations of the grave and glad:</div> <div class="verse indent0">Yet, in the end, all things are grave and sad.</div> <div class="verse indent0">I feel all things, but cannot comprehend;</div> <div class="verse indent0">And run, laughing and weeping, to the end</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of the dear mystery, the fated <span class="locked">race—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">And the deep darkness covers up my face.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">43</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="IN_THE_DARK_CITY">IN THE DARK CITY</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 drop-cap"><span class="firstword">There</span> is a harper plays</div> <div class="verse indent0">Through the long watches of the lonely night</div> <div class="verse indent0">When, like a cemetery,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Sleeps the dark city, with her millions, laid each in his tomb.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">I feel it in my dream, but when I <span class="locked">wake—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Suddenly, like some secret thing not to be overheard,</div> <div class="verse indent0">It <span class="locked">ceases—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">And the gray night grows dumb</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent40">Only in memory</div> <div class="verse indent0">Linger those veiled adagios, fading, fading ...</div> <div class="verse indent0">Till, with the morning, they are lost.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">What door was opened then?</div> <div class="verse indent0">What worlds, undreamed of, lie around us in our sleep,</div> <div class="verse indent0">That yet we may not know?</div> <div class="verse indent0">Where is it one sat playing</div> <div class="verse indent0">Over and over, with such high and dreadful peace,</div> <div class="verse indent0">The passion and sorrow of the eternal doom?</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="wide" /> <h2 class="nobreak larger" id="II">II<br/> <span class="subhead">SPACE AND SOLITUDE</span></h2></div> <hr class="wide" /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">47</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="IMMENSITY">IMMENSITY</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 a w drop-cap"><span class="firstword">At</span> noon I watched</div> <div class="verse indent0">In the large hollow of eternal heaven</div> <div class="verse indent0">A soaring hawk climb slowly toward the sun</div> <div class="verse indent0">Through gyres of adoration without end.</div> <div class="verse indent0">His flight was a great prayer....</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">48</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="SEA-HORIZONS">SEA-HORIZONS</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 drop-cap"><span class="firstword">The</span> sorrowful expanse from heaven to heaven,</div> <div class="verse indent2">From zone to zone, from deep to height above,</div> <div class="verse indent0">The mute arch of the everlasting heaven</div> <div class="verse indent2">Bends over me with Your unwearied love.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Immeasurable, unutterable, and <span class="locked">soundless—</span></div> <div class="verse indent2">Wide as the east from the west Your love is wide;</div> <div class="verse indent0">The unfathomable distances are boundless</div> <div class="verse indent2">Infinite tenderness on every side.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Against the dark strength of Your huge endurance</div> <div class="verse indent2">My little being beats her baffled wings,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Lifts her shrill voice, and wounds the calm assurance</div> <div class="verse indent2">And tenderness of Your large evenings.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">In the vast robes of Your serene compassion</div> <div class="verse indent2">She hides her soiled and burning face of <span class="locked">shame—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Your solemn and inexorable passion</div> <div class="verse indent2">Lifts her blurred eyes to meet Your glance of flame.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">As bread that for my daily fare is broken,</div> <div class="verse indent2">The eternal loveliness before me <span class="locked">spread—</span></div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">49</span> <div class="verse indent0">Unutterable gesture—word unspoken,</div> <div class="verse indent2">In the proud silences forever said!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">The sun puts forth his strength, the reaches shimmer</div> <div class="verse indent2">With inarticulate rapture, and the proud</div> <div class="verse indent0">Waters are thrilled; the fields of ocean glimmer</div> <div class="verse indent2">With shifting light and overshadowing cloud.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Noon upon noon in heaven takes up his station,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Day follows night, and night succeeds to day:</div> <div class="verse indent0">Your infinite and lonely meditation</div> <div class="verse indent2">Sinks with the sunset down the starry way.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Veiled is the Vast: the heaven of evening burning.</div> <div class="verse indent2">Reveals on the large waters of the sea</div> <div class="verse indent0">Hopelessness—hopelessness—the patient yearning</div> <div class="verse indent2">And dumb caress of the Immensity.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">What message have You left for me, what token</div> <div class="verse indent2">Of Your lone love, whose laboring Will has wrought</div> <div class="verse indent0">The firmament over my head, and spoken</div> <div class="verse indent2">Unto my nothingness Your starry Thought!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Sorrowful is the mighty Heart that reaches</div> <div class="verse indent2">Around this brief and scornful heart of <span class="locked">mine—</span></div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">50</span> <div class="verse indent0">The dim curve of the melancholy beaches,</div> <div class="verse indent2">And vacancies along the lone sea-line.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">In the huge longing of the far sea-spaces,</div> <div class="verse indent2">The tremulous rim about the waters curled,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Waits the eternal Gentleness, and traces</div> <div class="verse indent2">His sad horizons ’round the fading world.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Cloud beyond cloud, the arch of heaven goes <span class="locked">over—</span></div> <div class="verse indent2">Steep beyond steep, the patient skies descend:</div> <div class="verse indent0">The illimitable wastes and waves discover</div> <div class="verse indent2">Loneliness—loneliness—without an end.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Inexorable Compassion, may I never</div> <div class="verse indent2">Reach the last verge and limits of Your love!</div> <div class="verse indent0">Beyond me, still beyond me melt forever</div> <div class="verse indent2">The eternal margins, fading as I move.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">51</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="OF_DAY_CAME_NIGHT">OF DAY CAME NIGHT</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 w drop-cap"><span class="firstword">We</span> lay by the sea, and knew</div> <div class="verse indent2">Darkness must make us one:</div> <div class="verse indent0">Heaven was thrilled clean through</div> <div class="verse indent2">By the trumpets of the sun,</div> <div class="verse indent0">The sea burned gold and blue.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">The sand in the pale heat</div> <div class="verse indent2">Was parched as desert <span class="locked">sand—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Your wrist where the veins meet,</div> <div class="verse indent2">The cool veins of your hand,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Made thirst seem bitter-sweet.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Never a word was said</div> <div class="verse indent2">Of what must be so soon;</div> <div class="verse indent0">In longing and in dread</div> <div class="verse indent2">The golden afternoon</div> <div class="verse indent0">Burned down, till dusk was shed.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">It was not hope, nor fear,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Yet something of them both,</div> <div class="verse indent0">That held us trembling here,</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">52</span> <div class="verse indent2">Half eager and half loath</div> <div class="verse indent0">For darkness, dread but dear.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Few were the words were spoken,</div> <div class="verse indent2">But in each other’s eyes</div> <div class="verse indent0">We read the certain token</div> <div class="verse indent2">That sealed our <span class="locked">destinies—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Our wings of pride were broken.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">So, while the waters paled</div> <div class="verse indent2">Around us, and the west</div> <div class="verse indent0">Fainted, our hearts that failed,</div> <div class="verse indent2">In silence were confessed.</div> <div class="verse indent0">Silence at last prevailed.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">And now up her clear stair</div> <div class="verse indent2">The evening-star began</div> <div class="verse indent0">To climb, where heaven was bare</div> <div class="verse indent2">A homing fish-hawk ran</div> <div class="verse indent0">Down avenues of air.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Night swallowed up the sun,</div> <div class="verse indent2">And darkness, like a hood,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Sank—and the sea breathed on;</div> <div class="verse indent2">In silence and solitude</div> <div class="verse indent0">The eternal will was done.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">53</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="PILGRIM">PILGRIM</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 drop-cap"><span class="firstword">The</span> cold wind cries across the rolling dunes,</div> <div class="verse indent2">The gray sails fleck the margins of the world:</div> <div class="verse indent0">I watch the rolling dunes along the barren sky,</div> <div class="verse indent2">And wan, white waters by the swift wind hurled.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">O where are Queen Faustina, and Babylon, and Tyre,</div> <div class="verse indent2">And pale Troy, lost in a silver mist of <span class="locked">tears—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">And I, O earth, your child, more old than all these others,</div> <div class="verse indent2">What have you done to me these many thousand years!</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">54</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="BY_THE_GRAY_SEA">BY THE GRAY SEA</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 w drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Where</span> the gray sea lay sad and vast</div> <div class="verse indent2">You turned your head away,</div> <div class="verse indent0">And we sat silently at <span class="locked">last—</span></div> <div class="verse indent2">There was no word to say:</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent4"><em>By the thunder,</em></div> <div class="verse indent4"><em>By the iron thunder of the sea.</em></div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 padr2">We could not speak, for the lost hope</div> <div class="verse indent2">Of the glad days before;</div> <div class="verse indent0">We sat beside the long sea-slope,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Watching the endless <span class="locked">shore—</span></div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent4"><em>By the thunder,</em></div> <div class="verse indent4"><em>By the iron thunder of the sea.</em></div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">So that, as in the old despair,</div> <div class="verse indent2">I reached you pleading hands;</div> <div class="verse indent0">But you sat pale and helpless there,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Beside the barren sands:</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent4"><em>By the thunder,</em></div> <div class="verse indent4 padr4"><em>By the iron thunder of the sea!</em></div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">55</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_FISH-HAWK">THE FISH-HAWK</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 h drop-cap"><span class="firstword">On</span> the large highway of the awful air that flows</div> <div class="verse indent2">Unbounded between sea and heaven, while twilight screened</div> <div class="verse indent0">The sorrowful distances, he moved and had repose;</div> <div class="verse indent2">On the huge wind of the Immensity he leaned</div> <div class="verse indent0">His steady body in long lapse of flight—and rose</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Gradual, through broad gyres of ever-climbing rest,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Up the clear stair of the eternal sky, and stood</div> <div class="verse indent0">Throned on the summit! Slowly, with his widening breast,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Widened around him the enormous Solitude,</div> <div class="verse indent0">From the gray rim of ocean to the glowing west.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Headlands and capes forlorn of the far coast, the land</div> <div class="verse indent2">Rolling her barrens toward the south, he, from his throne</div> <div class="verse indent0">Upon the gigantic wind, beheld: he hung—he fanned</div> <div class="verse indent2">The abyss for mighty joy, to feel beneath him strown</div> <div class="verse indent0">Pale pastures of the sea, with heaven on either <span class="locked">hand—</span></div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">The world with all her winds and waters, earth and air,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Fields, folds, and moving clouds. The awful and adored</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">56</span> <div class="verse indent0">Arches and endless aisles of vacancy, the fair</div> <div class="verse indent2">Void of sheer heights and hollows hailed him as her lord</div> <div class="verse indent0">And lover in the highest, to whom all heaven lay bare!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Till from that tower of ecstasy, that baffled height,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Stooping, he sank; and slowly on the world’s wide way</div> <div class="verse indent0">Walked, with great wing on wing, the merciless, proud Might,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Hunting the huddled and lone reaches for his prey</div> <div class="verse indent0">Down the dim shore—and faded in the crumbling light.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Slowly the dusk covered the land. Like a great hymn</div> <div class="verse indent2">The sound of moving winds and waters was; the sea</div> <div class="verse indent0">Whispered a benediction, and the west grew dim</div> <div class="verse indent2">Where evening lifted her clear candles quietly ...</div> <div class="verse indent0">Heaven, crowded with stars, trembled from rim to rim.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">57</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="DISDAINFUL_BEAUTY">DISDAINFUL BEAUTY</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 drop-cap"><span class="firstword">On</span> the wide waste the web of twilight, trembling</div> <div class="verse indent2">Hangs low with stars and night;</div> <div class="verse indent0">The dying day in the worn west, dissembling,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Crowns his defeat with light.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 padr2">Here by the grave, gray sea my soul sinks crying,</div> <div class="verse indent2">By beauty stabbed to <span class="locked">death—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">“O, in the dusk of the world, let me, too, dying,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Mix with all these my breath!”</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">There is no answer. In the cold heavens shining,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Star trembles unto star:</div> <div class="verse indent0">The virgin moon in the clear west declining</div> <div class="verse indent2">Hangs, like a scimitar.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">58</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="MY_LONELY_ONE">MY LONELY ONE</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Even</span> as a hawk’s in the large heaven’s hollow</div> <div class="verse indent2">Are the great ways and gracious of your love:</div> <div class="verse indent0">No lesser flight or wearier wing may follow</div> <div class="verse indent2">In those broad gyres where you rest and move.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Most merciless, most high, most proud, most <span class="locked">lonely—</span></div> <div class="verse indent2">In the clear space between the sky and sea</div> <div class="verse indent0">Wheel her huge orbits, where the sea-winds only</div> <div class="verse indent2">Wander the sun-roads of Immensity.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Yet have I known your heart and of what fashion</div> <div class="verse indent2">Your love, how great, how hardly to be <span class="locked">borne—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Your tenderness, too perfect for compassion,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Your divine strength, too pure and proud for scorn.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">You are most beautiful, but it is given</div> <div class="verse indent2">But few to find you, fewer still to keep</div> <div class="verse indent0">Your high path through the solitude of heaven,</div> <div class="verse indent2">My lonely one, your watch upon the Deep.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Now toward the gold glow of the sunset’s splendor</div> <div class="verse indent2">Veer your great vans. What haven in the west</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">59</span> <div class="verse indent0">Now draws you—while the mellowing light makes tender</div> <div class="verse indent2">Your dripping plumes—what islands of the blest?</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Lift me, O lift me up to you forever,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Beautiful Terror! Let your sacred might</div> <div class="verse indent0">Stoop to me here, and save—O let me never</div> <div class="verse indent2">Sink from you now, to share a lesser flight!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Even as I pray, my wings of longing fail me,</div> <div class="verse indent2">And my heart flags. In solitude you move</div> <div class="verse indent0">Down the night’s shore: not praying shall avail me,</div> <div class="verse indent2">To lift me, fallen from your faultless love.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="wide" /> <h2 class="nobreak larger" id="III">III<br/> <span class="subhead">THE LOST TRAVELLER’S DREAM</span></h2></div> <hr class="wide" /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">63</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="WILD_THOUGHT">WILD THOUGHT</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 s drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Surf</span> of song upon my heart</div> <div class="verse indent0">Breaks forever, where thou art;</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">The dark ocean in my breast,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of wild love, may never rest:</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Still one thought upon her shore</div> <div class="verse indent0">Breaks in dream forevermore!</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">64</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="JOURNEYS_END">JOURNEY’S END</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 s drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Forgive</span> me, dear, if I have lost my way,</div> <div class="verse indent2">In coming home to you</div> <div class="verse indent4">Through storm and shadow of the gathering night;</div> <div class="verse indent0">If I did stray,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Still I was seeking, and I never knew</div> <div class="verse indent4">How near me burned the dear and friendly light.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Now at your door, ere the great Dark begin,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Alone I stand, and knock:</div> <div class="verse indent4">Say not it is too late that I have <span class="locked">come—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">O take me in,</div> <div class="verse indent2">For I am yours! Darling, unlock, <span class="locked">unlock—</span></div> <div class="verse indent4">All Time to this was but a journey home!</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">65</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="BELATED_LOVE">BELATED LOVE</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Come</span> home to me, are you come home to me,</div> <div class="verse indent2">O heart of mine—but in what dolorous guise!</div> <div class="verse indent2">And the great hour, O ’twas otherwise</div> <div class="verse indent0">Love had imagined it in days to be!</div> <div class="verse indent0">These pleading hands—these lips—How dreadfully,</div> <div class="verse indent2">At what strange lips and in what alien eyes</div> <div class="verse indent2">Have you sought mine? Beneath what darkening skies</div> <div class="verse indent0">Come home to me at last, come home to me?</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">I would not know the reason: here upon</div> <div class="verse indent2">This breast of sorrows loose your aching breast;</div> <div class="verse indent4">Tell me again and yet again, and say</div> <div class="verse indent0">Still the eternal word, still babble on</div> <div class="verse indent2">Your voiceless tale of some unhappy <span class="locked">quest—</span></div> <div class="verse indent4">How in the night and storm you lost your way.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">66</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="A_LEAVE-TAKING">A LEAVE-TAKING</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 w drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Well</span> I remember it, that night in May,</div> <div class="verse indent0">That last, sweet night in the Old World long ago,</div> <div class="verse indent0">The last ere my departure—the dark room</div> <div class="verse indent0">That brooded ’round us, and the drowsy breath,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Out of the courtyard, of the linden-trees,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Pungent and sad. Only your hand I felt,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Reached to me in the darkness; and the beat</div> <div class="verse indent0">All through its fingers of the unconscious blood,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Your life at battle, in the silence told</div> <div class="verse indent0">Immortally to mine its plaintive tale</div> <div class="verse indent0">And doom eternal—only your hand I felt,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Reached to me in the darkness—yet it seemed</div> <div class="verse indent0">In your hand’s touch I touched your very self,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Your very presence, changeable, careless, <span class="locked">wild—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">But O how poignant—sharp with all delight,</div> <div class="verse indent0">And gracious with dear bounties to bestow,</div> <div class="verse indent0">How greatly granted! Drowsily then at last,</div> <div class="verse indent0">In the old way, you begged me for some legend</div> <div class="verse indent0">Out of my boyhood’s record, some romance</div> <div class="verse indent0">From the far world that bore me; and my voice,</div> <div class="verse indent0">In the sweet, alien tongue, your mother-tongue,</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">67</span> <div class="verse indent0">Moved through the darkness with a peace <span class="locked">unfeigned—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">For a grave peace was on us, and the fear</div> <div class="verse indent0">That thrilled the midnight, fell away. The street</div> <div class="verse indent0">Slumbered, save where, departing, like a ghost’s,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Faint footfalls down the farthest distance sighed;</div> <div class="verse indent0">And dwindled out forever.... So you slept.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Well I remember it, that night in <span class="locked">May—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">The sleep, the hushed awakenings, full of dread,</div> <div class="verse indent0">From haunted meres of horror and disdain,</div> <div class="verse indent0">From dreams of terror—and the mad return</div> <div class="verse indent0">Into the bounteous pity of two arms,</div> <div class="verse indent0">The comfort and the kindness. O the return</div> <div class="verse indent0">Forever and forever, wild and sad,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Seraphic with all weariness and pain,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Insatiate with all love—as if to slake</div> <div class="verse indent0">In one abandon all the desperate drought</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of the years to come! Upon my own I felt</div> <div class="verse indent0">The wet, salt quivering of your lips, and all</div> <div class="verse indent0">Your being fold me in, urgent to save,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Urgent to hide the approaching loneliness,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Our bitter portion; prismed in tears, the dusk</div> <div class="verse indent0">Swam ’round with dizzy color: the nightingales,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Beauty’s disdain above the war of things,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Beauty’s high pity from her virgin heights,</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">68</span> <div class="verse indent0">Our meeting hearts pierced with a single <span class="locked">pang—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Like a bright sword of sorrow through the breast</div> <div class="verse indent0">Driven, and like a bruising sword withdrawn.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent34">The sun <span class="locked">arose—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Fled were the nightingales, the love, the <span class="locked">joy—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">And with him rose at last the relentless fear,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Like a harsh face never to be pushed back,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Between your face and mine; till all the terror,</div> <div class="verse indent0">The loneliness, the irrevocable fate,</div> <div class="verse indent0">In the dim twilight hugged me, and a cry,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Up from <em>my</em> self to <em>your</em> self, would have rent</div> <div class="verse indent0">My hesitant lips, in the great need, to you</div> <div class="verse indent0">Turned for the last compassion.... But you slept.</div> <div class="verse indent0">At peace you lay. Over you in the dawn</div> <div class="verse indent0">I leaned, and knew you truly what you were.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent18">Then a great love</div> <div class="verse indent0">Triumphing over sorrow, like the light</div> <div class="verse indent0">Clearing the west when sunset’s wrath has waned</div> <div class="verse indent0">Before the risen stars—a mystery—welled</div> <div class="verse indent0">Up through me radiant, helpless where you lay</div> <div class="verse indent0">In the calm pose of sleep: and above Time,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Our little passion, and the circumstance</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of temporal tumult, self to self we met;</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">69</span> <div class="verse indent0">And sundered reverent.... Faintest breath of flowers</div> <div class="verse indent0">Stirred in the twilight fragrantly, and there</div> <div class="verse indent0">The pathos of our days together filled me</div> <div class="verse indent0">With a new wonder—flooding on me came</div> <div class="verse indent0">A host of memories, as to one long dead,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Lifted beyond his living; till all seemed</div> <div class="verse indent0">Marvellous and immortal and benign.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent34">And now</div> <div class="verse indent0">The hour was come. Beside your quiet breast</div> <div class="verse indent0">I begged forgiveness for my many sins</div> <div class="verse indent0">Done to you, though unwitting—all the <span class="locked">hurt—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">In a swift prayer, and even for this <span class="locked">last—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">To wake you to your sorrow. And your lips</div> <div class="verse indent0">Forgave me—yes, in the silence. So I touched</div> <div class="verse indent0">Your lids with kisses. And you woke, and wept.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">But brave to the end with a heart-breaking <span class="locked">bravery—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Gallant and gracious, dear with sacred eyes,</div> <div class="verse indent0">You let me go. With a half-kiss we parted.</div> </div> <h3>II</h3> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent22">Along the city-ways</div> <div class="verse indent0">Already day’s vehement tumult had begun:</div> <div class="verse indent0">Through street and justled alley, court and square,</div> <div class="verse indent0">The tireless and eternal Heart poured forth</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">70</span> <div class="verse indent0">Its myriad human faces, grave or glad,</div> <div class="verse indent0">On the old course of toil (a choral hymn</div> <div class="verse indent0">From the lips of Life) each face a testimony</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of some prefiguring love. O the delight,</div> <div class="verse indent0">The incredible bounty and sustaining will</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of passionate longing, peopling all the <span class="locked">earth—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">And the joy of man and woman! The laughing boys!</div> <div class="verse indent0">The milkman clanking along in his cart, and there</div> <div class="verse indent0">Two bonneted old women, and there a thief,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Perhaps, with a night’s booty sneaking home!</div> <div class="verse indent0">Yet solemn all and sacred, with new eyes</div> <div class="verse indent0">I saw them then, and in each face I seemed</div> <div class="verse indent0">With a new soul to read the soul beneath;</div> <div class="verse indent0">Through love and pain and sorrow having passed</div> <div class="verse indent0">Into the breast of all <span class="locked">humanity—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Through love and sorrow. Yes, and for your sake,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Being human, all things human touched to love</div> <div class="verse indent0">This heart of mine, made holy; and the thought</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of the million other hearts beyond the <span class="locked">dawn—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">The gladness, and the sadness, and the <span class="locked">pain—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Came back upon me like a lifting music,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Beautiful, and most sorrowful, and divine.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent24">Till a vast compassion</div> <div class="verse indent0">Up through the springs of all my being welled</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">71</span> <div class="verse indent0">Intolerably! Ah, even as to myself,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Unfaithful, the exuberant Bounty stooped</div> <div class="verse indent0">With arms of pity; so I longed to <span class="locked">do—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">To lose myself at last in the Great Self</div> <div class="verse indent0">That beams upon the just and the unjust,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Carelessly shedding radiant light around:</div> <div class="verse indent0">Compassing finite hate with infinite love,</div> <div class="verse indent0">With beauty, ugliness, and death with life!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">So through that street of pouring souls I passed,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Torn between grief and ecstasy. But none</div> <div class="verse indent0">Guessed the immortal secret that I bore</div> <div class="verse indent0">Close at the fluttering heart—the fear—the <span class="locked">joy—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">The very beat and memory in my blood,</div> <div class="verse indent0">The exquisite sense and lingering pain of you.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">72</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="BUT_LOVE">BUT LOVE—</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Flowing</span> in the sunlight here,</div> <div class="verse indent2">The river shines like a glass,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Even as it did last year;</div> <div class="verse indent2">On the hillside the grass</div> <div class="verse indent2">Bows, as the breezes <span class="locked">pass—</span></div> <div class="verse indent4">But my love is gone, my love is gone.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Where is she—where, and how?</div> <div class="verse indent2">Has she forgotten me yet?</div> <div class="verse indent0">Ah, she has forgotten me now!</div> <div class="verse indent2">She is too lovely for regret:</div> <div class="verse indent2">Would that I ever could forget,</div> <div class="verse indent4">My love is gone, my love is gone!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">It is so still—so still ...</div> <div class="verse indent2">The sound of a rumbling train</div> <div class="verse indent0">Rushes into the hill.</div> <div class="verse indent2">Autumn comes again</div> <div class="verse indent2">With the old wonder and <span class="locked">pain—</span></div> <div class="verse indent2">But love comes never again</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">73</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="ANNE">ANNE</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 b drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Belovèd—O</span> adorable and <span class="locked">false—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Whom have you taken now in the dear toils?</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">By what pale margins do your footsteps stray,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Or what enchanted wood? What valleys hold</div> <div class="verse indent0">The lily of your loveliness? What hills</div> <div class="verse indent0">Have known your weight upon them, what far shores?</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Twilight comes tenderly, while evening lifts</div> <div class="verse indent0">Along the pallid rim her lonely <span class="locked">star—</span></div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">O happy heart on which your heart is laid!</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">74</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_SILENCE">THE SILENCE</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 j drop-cap"><span class="firstword">In</span> the evening, in the quiet Park, we walked together</div> <div class="verse indent2">After so many and after so many <span class="locked">years—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">We walked again in the evening, in the warm May weather,</div> <div class="verse indent2">After the partings and tears.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">And under the splendor, under the starry skies,</div> <div class="verse indent2">We walked, without sound or sigh, in a calm unbroken;</div> <div class="verse indent0">As the dead walk together in a long-lost <span class="locked">Paradise—</span></div> <div class="verse indent2">Silent, with no word spoken.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">75</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="EXULTATION">EXULTATION</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 b drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Before</span> the dawn the very thought of you,</div> <div class="verse indent0">That wakes me, as the morning wakes the night,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Floods all my heart with most exultant joy.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">The thought of you that rises with the stars,</div> <div class="verse indent0">When evening wheels all glittering through the dark,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Floods all my heart with most exultant joy.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">O life and joy and breath and death of me,</div> <div class="verse indent0">With every breath I draw you in like air!</div> <div class="verse indent0">O I shall die of you, of you, of you!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Though now you banish me forevermore,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Never to look upon your face <span class="locked">again—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Think you that I shall sorrow for my love?</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Though I shall lie upon my bed of death</div> <div class="verse indent0">And know you have forgotten me <span class="locked">forever—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Think you that I shall sorrow for my love?</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">O life and joy and breath and death of me,</div> <div class="verse indent0">I shall cry out exultant—and lie dead!</div> <div class="verse indent0">O I shall die of you, of you, of you!</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">76</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">O love, I love you better than you know!</div> <div class="verse indent0">I love you as the water loves the sea.</div> <div class="verse indent0">I love you as the twilight loves the dark.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">The trumpets of the morning, to my heart</div> <div class="verse indent0">From shining towers blow the thought of you;</div> <div class="verse indent0">The waves of evening flood my heart with you.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">O life and joy and breath and death of me,</div> <div class="verse indent0">With every breath I draw you in like air!</div> <div class="verse indent0">O I shall die of you, of you, of you!</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">77</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="SONG_OF_SONGS">SONG OF SONGS</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 w drop-cap"><span class="firstword">My</span> heart is like a shady grove</div> <div class="verse indent2">That harbors, for a June,</div> <div class="verse indent0">My thoughts, like song-birds mad with love</div> <div class="verse indent2">Under the moon.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">On all the windy boughs they sit</div> <div class="verse indent2">And in the blowing <span class="locked">grass—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">But one bird silently enters it,</div> <div class="verse indent2">And sings, alas!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Then all the rest grow sad and still</div> <div class="verse indent2">That made a happy noise:</div> <div class="verse indent0">There is no sound on all the hill</div> <div class="verse indent2">But that one voice,</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Faint with the memories in his <span class="locked">breast—</span></div> <div class="verse indent2">It is the thought of <span class="locked"><em>you</em>—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">And when it ceases, all the rest</div> <div class="verse indent2">Are silent, too.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">78</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="SORROWFUL_FREEDOM">SORROWFUL FREEDOM</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 l drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Long</span> days I begged of my heart to be</div> <div class="verse indent0">Released from a love that haunted <span class="locked">me—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">The memory of a last embrace,</div> <div class="verse indent0">A tyrannous and a lovely face.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">“Free me,” I said, “from an old love,</div> <div class="verse indent0">The memory and the might <span class="locked">thereof—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Free to follow and take my fill</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of beauty and laughter where I will.”</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Never a word my heart replied:</div> <div class="verse indent0">But on a day the old love died;</div> <div class="verse indent0">Vanished, never to come again,</div> <div class="verse indent0">All the passion and all the pain.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Come—we are free to take our fill</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of beauty and laughter where we <span class="locked">will—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">O heart, are we free forevermore</div> <div class="verse indent0">From the old sorrow we loved before!</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">79</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="STARLESS_MORNING">STARLESS MORNING</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Toward</span> starless morning, when deep night had bowed</div> <div class="verse indent2">On slumber’s pillow my unhappy head,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Through the dim room it drifted like a <span class="locked">cloud—</span></div> <div class="verse indent2">And swayed in silence by my lonely bed.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">What had they done to you, that dumbly so</div> <div class="verse indent2">You covered with your hands your quiet <span class="locked">face—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Dear, out of kindness, that I might not know</div> <div class="verse indent2">What horror there had wrought its dark disgrace!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">It was those hands, too passionately, too well</div> <div class="verse indent2">Loved, that betrayed you—O most piteous guest!</div> <div class="verse indent0">And to my heart, in the intolerable</div> <div class="verse indent2">Rage of despair, that shadow I had pressed,</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Mingling in a shrill cry our grief <span class="locked">supreme—</span></div> <div class="verse indent2">My sweet—my pretty! But, as I had drawn</div> <div class="verse indent0">That anguish to my arms, they clasped a dream;</div> <div class="verse indent2 padr4">And heaven glimmered with the approaching dawn.</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">80</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="PHANTOM">PHANTOM</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 a w drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Along</span> the edge of the great, moving <span class="locked">sea—</span></div> <div class="verse indent2">That moaned forever on her barren bars,</div> <div class="verse indent0">The old, sad love came back again to me,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Moving quietly under the quiet stars.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">O sad love, do not smile upon me so,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Nodding so gently with your little <span class="locked">head—</span></div> <div class="verse indent2">All the old wonder of your eyes is dead,</div> <div class="verse indent0 padr2">And the sea-winds have chilled you long ago!</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">81</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="LEGEND">LEGEND</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 w drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Where</span> are you hid from me, belovèd one</div> <div class="verse indent0">That I am seeking through the lonely <span class="locked">world—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">A wanderer, on my way home to you?</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Dark is the night and perilous the road:</div> <div class="verse indent0">At many a breast in longing have I leaned,</div> <div class="verse indent0">At many a wayside worshipped; and my heart</div> <div class="verse indent0">Is tired from long travelling.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent32">Perhaps</div> <div class="verse indent0">In centuries to come you wait for me,</div> <div class="verse indent0">And are as yet an iris by the stream</div> <div class="verse indent0">Lifting her single blossom, or the faint</div> <div class="verse indent0">Tremulous haze upon the hills—and we</div> <div class="verse indent0">Have missed each other.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent32">O if it be so,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Then may this song reach to the verge of <span class="locked">doom—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Ages unborn—to find you where you are,</div> <div class="verse indent0">My lonely one; and like a murmuring string,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Faint with one music, endlessly repeat</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">82</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">To you, not even knowing I was yours,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Her plaintive burden from the dolorous past:</div> <div class="verse indent0">Telling of one upon a hopeless <span class="locked">quest—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">How in the dark of Time he lost his way!</div> </div></div> </div> <hr class="wide" /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">85</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="IV">IV<br/> <span class="subhead">THE DIVINE FANTASY</span></h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 b drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Brother,</span> from what dim world of lonely light,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Trembling on heaven’s pinnacles to-night,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Is lifted your sad face of love while you</div> <div class="verse indent0">Stare upward toward me, staring upward, too,</div> <div class="verse indent0">At that faint flame which is your home, between</div> <div class="verse indent0">The leafy branches of these poplars <span class="locked">seen—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">So hushed, so far! Perhaps to-night you scan</div> <div class="verse indent0">Your starry heaven for the star of Man,</div> <div class="verse indent0">High in the trellis of eternity</div> <div class="verse indent0">And glittering arches hung; perhaps like me</div> <div class="verse indent0">You, too, look up and wonder. Is it fair,</div> <div class="verse indent0">That world of yours? Are there great cities there,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Populous millions, hearts that beat as these,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Clear meadows and far mountains, shoreless seas,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Shadows of moving armies, thrones that shake?</div> <div class="verse indent0">Does the heart thrill for love there, does it <span class="locked">break—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Tell me, are there hushed gardens, quiet tombs?</div> <div class="verse indent0">And mighty poets weaving at their looms</div> <div class="verse indent0">The old, dim wisdoms that outweary Time;</div> <div class="verse indent0">And saints, and lifted saviours, and sublime</div> <div class="verse indent0">Faiths and high fortitudes beyond belief?</div> <div class="verse indent0">—All blotted out by one small poplar leaf</div> <div class="verse indent0">In the light wind of languid summer stirred!</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">86</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Brother, what news out of the night, what word</div> <div class="verse indent0">From the frontiers of mind beyond our ken,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of mysteries unimagined yet of men,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Compassed by travail of your spirit? O</div> <div class="verse indent0">Could you but reach to us! Could we but know</div> <div class="verse indent0">Across the imperturbable old Dark</div> <div class="verse indent0">Some answering glimmer of the ancient Spark</div> <div class="verse indent0">Lifted—some token, tangible to sense,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of the indomitable Intelligence</div> <div class="verse indent0">That thrones on matter—language <span class="locked">visible—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Crying, “Eternity—and all is well!</div> <div class="verse indent0">Brother, be of good cheer; we, too, have known!</div> <div class="verse indent0">Not lonely moves, not utterly alone,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Your sad fraternity through the dark of God:</div> <div class="verse indent0">But the confederate legions are abroad,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Life’s flag advances on the starry way,</div> <div class="verse indent0">And Consciousness, still battling, still at bay,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Holds the bright forts against <span class="locked">Oblivion—”</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">What answering thrill would ’round the planet run!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">For we are one; all Consciousness is one,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Whatever form it wear, however dressed</div> <div class="verse indent0">In gray or glamour, in whatever breast</div> <div class="verse indent0">It lift its longing: glimmering it moves</div> <div class="verse indent0">Through the green wave; it stamps with startled hooves</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">87</span> <div class="verse indent0">The upland pastures of the world, and soars</div> <div class="verse indent0">In heaven with the eagle; on bright shores</div> <div class="verse indent0">It basks a sunny body, or in dread</div> <div class="verse indent0">Lifts from the undergrowth a snaky head</div> <div class="verse indent0">And darts a flickering tongue; it is most clear</div> <div class="verse indent0">In the lark’s throat; among the grasses here,</div> <div class="verse indent0">That couch the ant, it turns a tiny eye</div> <div class="verse indent0">Around the darkness; scampers and is shy</div> <div class="verse indent0">In the scared rabbit; through the murmuring air</div> <div class="verse indent0">Wheels with the beetle, and, where heaven is bare,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Southward with the wild crane at summer’s close,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Hungering, an eternal pilgrim goes</div> <div class="verse indent0">On quests implacable. And from the eyes</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of the poised panther gleam the cruelties</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of its stern need that roams the world, and rends</div> <div class="verse indent0">With tooth or talon; in the hawk descends</div> <div class="verse indent0">On the stunned squirrel; in the squirrel moans</div> <div class="verse indent0">As the hawk strikes; darkens the earth with bones</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of its own wreck and, hungering again,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Knows in its body the old spur. For when</div> <div class="verse indent0">Hunger, the shadow cast by death, draws near,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Life on her thousand thrones feels the one fear,</div> <div class="verse indent0">And in the lion’s roar at dusk is heard</div> <div class="verse indent0">The unassuagable, insistent word</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of urgent Being, clamorous to be.</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">88</span></div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Wreaking and wrought upon, eternally</div> <div class="verse indent0">Mingling and mixed; inextricably blent,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Victor and vanquished, in one <span class="locked">sacrament—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Body with body—of delight and death,</div> <div class="verse indent0">It moves in splendor; lifts the shuddering breath</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of the spent stag; and in the mind of Man</div> <div class="verse indent0">Rebels against the miserable <span class="locked">plan—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Flings its frail web of thought across the path</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of suns in heaven, and in holy wrath,</div> <div class="verse indent0">On blood of murdered brothers nourished, still</div> <div class="verse indent0">Thunders to all the world, <em>Thou shall not kill</em>!</div> <div class="verse indent0">And the worm’s death is in the sparrow’s song.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">And I have seen it in the gnats that throng</div> <div class="verse indent0">Old shadowy forests, in tumultuous dance;</div> <div class="verse indent0">Or in the little measuring-worm advance,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Inch by slow inch, along the swaying stem</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of some exalted flower; or lift the hem</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of the frail butterfly’s embroidered cloak</div> <div class="verse indent0">In gentle breathings that the sun did stroke</div> <div class="verse indent0">Caressingly with fingers of his heat;</div> <div class="verse indent0">Or from the dog yearn upward, and entreat</div> <div class="verse indent0">With eyes of adoration or of fear</div> <div class="verse indent0">The great god, Man—“What message, master dear,</div> <div class="verse indent0">From the dim heights beyond me where you are?”</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">89</span> <div class="verse indent0">In the mare’s tremulous whinny, in the far</div> <div class="verse indent0">Lowing of cattle from the upland sward,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Or wail of whip-poor-wills, at twilight poured</div> <div class="verse indent0">On pools of silence plaintively, or cry</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of the lone wolf beneath the glittering sky</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of soundless winter, I have heard the same</div> <div class="verse indent0">Splendor speak forth, and utter the one name</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of Life, the dreadful, the magnificent.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">All afternoon the passion of heaven spent</div> <div class="verse indent0">On earth its fiery fury in blind, bright</div> <div class="verse indent0">Lightnings of dread and laughters of delight</div> <div class="verse indent0">Down shuddering deeps of shaken thunder, where</div> <div class="verse indent0">The delirious longing loosed its sorrowing hair</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of wind and shower and overshadowing cloud</div> <div class="verse indent0">Across the belovèd face, in darkness bowed</div> <div class="verse indent0">Or glimmering light revealed; and cried aloud</div> <div class="verse indent0">For anger of utter ecstasy; and shed</div> <div class="verse indent0">The wild love of the rushing rain that sped</div> <div class="verse indent0">To the thrilled heart, consenting, of the dim</div> <div class="verse indent0">And rapturous earth, that lifted up to him</div> <div class="verse indent0">Drowsed lips of thirsty flowers; and the cup</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of every flower for joy was lifted up,</div> <div class="verse indent0">And drank, and swayed! So, wearied out at length,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Flagged the bright pulses, and the ebbing strength,</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">90</span> <div class="verse indent0">With muttering of remembered thunders, passed</div> <div class="verse indent0">Down the large shores of evening: till at last</div> <div class="verse indent0">The exhausted heaven of twilight from afar</div> <div class="verse indent0">Shone washed of all her sorrows; and a star</div> <div class="verse indent0">Brooded above the fading storm, and saw</div> <div class="verse indent0">The winnowed reaches deepening into awe</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of gradual darkness, and the fields that lay</div> <div class="verse indent0">All drenched and wearied out at dusk of day</div> <div class="verse indent0">And the worn end of things; while far away</div> <div class="verse indent0">The receding fury moaned.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent22">And now they lie</div> <div class="verse indent0">In the same peace around me, and the sky</div> <div class="verse indent0">Holds up her stars; now in the rain-drenched wood</div> <div class="verse indent0">The tree-toad drinks the rain and finds it good,</div> <div class="verse indent0">And trills for joy—the sliding waters grieve</div> <div class="verse indent0">Quietly—now the bat begins to weave</div> <div class="verse indent0">With intricate motion on the cloudy loom,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of glamourous starlight mingled and gray gloom,</div> <div class="verse indent0">His dipping flight among the darkened boughs</div> <div class="verse indent0">And dreamy vistas; and the little mouse</div> <div class="verse indent0">Furtively hurries through the lane, his eye</div> <div class="verse indent0">Turned up in terror as the owl goes by:</div> <div class="verse indent0">On softest feathers of silence overhead</div> <div class="verse indent0">Flits the dim shadow of the ancient dread,</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">91</span> <div class="verse indent0">Hooded and vague, the cruelty of his beak</div> <div class="verse indent0">Bent on old lustful mysteries.—A <span class="locked">squeak—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">A scuffle—beating of wings—and in the lane</div> <div class="verse indent0">Silence—and the old wrong is done again,</div> <div class="verse indent0">That was ere Adam; the triumphant heart</div> <div class="verse indent0">And the defeated, each one doomed to his part,</div> <div class="verse indent0">They play it through, the old tragedy where one</div> <div class="verse indent0">Presence still wars and still is warred upon,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Slays and is slain: while fiercely all around</div> <div class="verse indent0">Shakes the eternal love-song in shrill sound,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of grasshopper and cricket—sleepless flow</div> <div class="verse indent0">The immortal tides of longing to and fro</div> <div class="verse indent0">On waves of music; endless is the prayer</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of life to the belovèd, everywhere</div> <div class="verse indent0">Lifted in adoration: on dark shores</div> <div class="verse indent0">Beats the insistent passion that implores</div> <div class="verse indent0">The one dear breast of pity or disdain,</div> <div class="verse indent0">To be reborn, to be reborn <span class="locked">again—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Nor perish wholly! The blind earth is thrilled</div> <div class="verse indent0">As with vague rites accomplished, dreams fulfilled,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Marriage and mystic union; all along</div> <div class="verse indent0">Her brimming meadows rings the bridal song</div> <div class="verse indent0">And chaunt ecstatic: that great heart of hers</div> <div class="verse indent0">Is touched now the eternal longing stirs</div> <div class="verse indent0">From hill to hollow and hollow to clear hill</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">92</span> <div class="verse indent0">In many voices mingled, or the still</div> <div class="verse indent0">Ecstasy of the firefly that trails</div> <div class="verse indent0">Among the shadows where the starlight fails,</div> <div class="verse indent0">His body’s burning love. Forever flows</div> <div class="verse indent0">The dreadful drama to its stately close</div> <div class="verse indent0">And endless ending—the fierce carnival</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of death and passion, wherein each and all</div> <div class="verse indent0">Mix, and are mingled, slaughter, blend, and pass</div> <div class="verse indent0">Each into other—the high poem that has</div> <div class="verse indent0">No end and no beginning, that the one</div> <div class="verse indent0">Self in all living forms beneath the sun,</div> <div class="verse indent0">And on all worlds around him and above,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Weaves on the strands of hunger, death, and love.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">I see it all, I hear it all, and lie</div> <div class="verse indent0">Under my swaying poplars, and the sky</div> <div class="verse indent0">Is fretted with frail leaves. The mortal dream</div> <div class="verse indent0">Is in my heart: I hear the night-hawk’s scream</div> <div class="verse indent0">Shatter the silver silences, I hear</div> <div class="verse indent0">The owl’s clear tremolo rise <span class="locked">over-clear—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">The mouse’s blood along his veins has made</div> <div class="verse indent0">His love-note lovelier and the night afraid</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of beauty’s dreadful secret—and I know</div> <div class="verse indent0">Soft shapes of stealth that in the darkness go,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of furry lusts and gnawing hungers, small</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">93</span> <div class="verse indent0">Twittering things obscene, that flit or crawl</div> <div class="verse indent0">In furtive secrecy, vague mouths and blurred</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of the night creature or nocturnal <span class="locked">bird—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Amorphous moth and bat-wing—and the earth,</div> <div class="verse indent0">With all her burrows, nooks and nests of birth</div> <div class="verse indent0">Crowded, and wreck of many a perished might,</div> <div class="verse indent0">By the ebbed waters of Life’s fierce delight</div> <div class="verse indent0">Washed up on shores of silence—spoiled and spurned</div> <div class="verse indent0">Altars where once the sacred fire <span class="locked">burned—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Forms flowing back into the Formlessness;</div> <div class="verse indent0">In a supreme embrace, a long caress,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Mixing their bodies with the mother <span class="locked">mould—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">And all the heaven of stars around me rolled,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Whose brooding eyes have stared so many an age</div> <div class="verse indent0">Upon this theatre of lust and rage,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of death and adoration. And a breeze</div> <div class="verse indent0">Rustles the branches of the poplar-trees.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">Dear Spark, that shinest in the solitude!</div> <div class="verse indent0">One Consciousness, that in the brotherhood</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of all earth’s living creatures movest on</div> <div class="verse indent0">The shaken ramparts of <span class="locked">Oblivion—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Whose starry cry, across the darkness hurled,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Makes music in the silence of the world!</div> <div class="verse indent0">Life, whose sole splendor in red slaughter spills</div> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">94</span> <div class="verse indent0">The blood of its own breast; in many wills</div> <div class="verse indent0">Wars on the one Will; and in wrath or dread</div> <div class="verse indent0">Feeds on itself and, on itself being fed,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Shines forth in song and color; gilds the dress</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of the green-fly; and pours its loveliness</div> <div class="verse indent0">In rapture on the earth; in theatres</div> <div class="verse indent0">Of crowded congregation sits—nor <span class="locked">stirs—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Watching itself, itself the spectacle;</div> <div class="verse indent0">And builds the swallow’s breast, and shapes the shell</div> <div class="verse indent0">And all these mansions of its thought that are</div> <div class="verse indent0">Between the morning and the evening-star,</div> <div class="verse indent0">On earth, in heaven, or in the glimmering caves</div> <div class="verse indent0">And grottoes of the world below the <span class="locked">waves—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Butchers the ox, and, gladdened by his meat,</div> <div class="verse indent0">In the young mother’s downward smile is sweet;</div> <div class="verse indent0">Or, sated on his body, walks abroad</div> <div class="verse indent0">In symphonies, and poems, and prayers to God;</div> <div class="verse indent0">Sins, and has conscience and, repenting, sins;</div> <div class="verse indent0">And in the lowly patient spider spins</div> <div class="verse indent0">Its fragile web; and in these words of mine</div> <div class="verse indent0">Flings out its groping utterance, line by line,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Across the intangible abyss of <span class="locked">thought—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">With infinite passion, infinite patience <span class="locked">wrought—</span></div> <div class="verse indent0">Dread Loveliness! Be strong in me, be strong,</div> <div class="verse indent0">To utter forth your meaning in my song!</div> </div></div> </div> <hr /> <p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">97</span></p> <h2 class="nobreak" id="THE_LION-HOUSE">THE LION-HOUSE</h2></div> <div class="poetry-container"> <div class="poetry"> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0 a w drop-cap"><span class="firstword">Always</span> the heavy air,</div> <div class="verse indent2">The dreadful cage, the low</div> <div class="verse indent0">Murmur of voices, where</div> <div class="verse indent2">Some Force goes to and fro</div> <div class="verse indent0">In an immense despair!</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">As through a haunted <span class="locked">brain—</span></div> <div class="verse indent2">With tireless footfalls</div> <div class="verse indent0">The Obsession moves again,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Trying the floor, the walls,</div> <div class="verse indent0">Forever, but in vain.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">In vain, proud Force! A might,</div> <div class="verse indent2">Shrewder than yours, did spin</div> <div class="verse indent0">Around your rage that bright</div> <div class="verse indent2">Prison of steel, wherein</div> <div class="verse indent0">You pace for my delight.</div> </div> <div class="stanza"> <div class="verse indent0">And O, my heart, what Doom,</div> <div class="verse indent2">What warier Will has wrought</div> <div class="verse indent0">The cage, within whose room</div> <div class="verse indent2">Paces your burning thought,</div> <div class="verse indent0">For the delight of Whom?</div> </div></div> </div> <div class="newpage p4 figcenter" id="dec" style="max-width: 6em;"> <ANTIMG src="images/dec.png" alt="publisher's logo" /></div> <div class="transnote"> <h2 class="nobreak p1">Transcriber’s Note:</h2> <p class="center">The first illustration is the cover; the last illustration is the publisher’s logo.</p> </div> </div> <SPAN name="endofbook"></SPAN> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />