Читать книгу: «Blooms of the Berry», страница 4

FROST

 
White artist he, who, breezeless nights,
From tingling stars jocosely whirls,
A harlequin in spangled tights,
His wand a pot of pounded pearls.
 
 
The field a hasty pallet; for,
In thin or thick, with daub and streak,
It stretches from the barn-gate's bar
To the bleached ribbon of the creek.
 
 
A great geometer is he;
For, on the creek's diaphanous silk,
Sphere, cone, and star exquisitely
He's drawn in crystal lines of milk.
 
 
Most delicate, his talent keen
On casement panes he lavishes,
In many a Lilliputian scene
Of vague white hives and milky bees,
 
 
That sparkling in still swarms delight,
Or bow the jeweled bells of flowers; —
Of dim, deep landscapes of the night,
Hanging down limpid domes quaint showers
 
 
Of feathery stars and meteors
Above an upland's glimmering ways,
Where gambol 'neath the feverish stars
The erl-king and the fleecy fays.
 
 
Or last, one arabesque of ferns,
Chrysanthemums and mistletoe,
And death-pale roses bunched in urns
That with an innate glory glow.
 
 
In leafless woodlands saturnine,
Where reckless winds, like goblins mad,
Screech swinging in each barren vine,
His wagship shapes a lesson sad:
 
 
When slyly touched by his white hand
Of Midas-magic, forests old
Dariuses of pomp then stand
Barbaric-crowned with living gold…
 
 
Patrician state, plebeian blood
Soon foster sybarites, and they,
Squand'ring their riches, wood by wood,
Die palsied wrecks debauched and gray.
 

INVOCATION

I

 
O Life! O Death! O God!
Have I not striven?
Have I not known thee, God,
As thy stars know Heaven?
Have I not held thee true,
True as thy deepest,
Sweet and immaculate blue,
Of nights that feel thy dew?
Have I not known thee true,
O God that keepest?
 

II

 
O God, my father, God!
Didst give me fire
To rise above the clod,
And soar, aspire!
What tho' I strive and strive,
And all my life says live,
The sneerful scorn of men
But beats it down again;
And, O! sun-centered high,
O God! grand poet!
Beneath thy tender sky
Each day new Keatses die,
And thou dost know it!
 

III

 
They know thee beautiful!
They know thee bitter!
And all their eyes are full,
O God! most beautiful!
Of tears that glitter.
Thou art above their tears;
Thou art beyond their years;
Thou sittest, God of Hosts,
Among thy glorious ghosts,
So high and holy;
And canst thou know the tears,
The strivings and the fears,
O God of godly peers!
Of such so lowly?
 

IV

 
They who were fondly fain
To tell what mother pain
Of Nature makes the rain;
 
 
They who were glad to know
The sorrow of her snow,
Of her wild winds the woe;
 
 
The magic of her light,
The passion of her night,
And of her death the might;
 
 
They who had tears and sighs
For every bud that dies
While the dew on it lies;
 
 
They who had utterance for
Each warm, rose-hearted star
That stammers from afar;
 
 
The demon of vast seas,
The lips of lyric trees,
Lays of sonorous bees;
 
 
The fragrance-fays that dower
Each wildwood bosk and bower
With its faint musk of flower;
 
 
Of Time the feverish flight;
Earth, man, and, last, man's right
To thee, O Infinite!
 

FAIRIES

 
On the tremulous coppice,
From her plenteous hair,
Large golden-rayed poppies
Of moon-litten air
The Night hath flung there.
 
 
In the fern-favored hollow
The fire-flies fleet
Uncertainly follow
Pale phantoms of heat,
Druid shadows that meet.
 
 
Hidden flowers are fragrant;
The night hazes furl
O'er the solitudes vagrant
In purple and pearl,
Sway-swinging and curl.
 
 
From moss-cushioned valley
Where the red sunlight fails,
Rocks where musically
The hollow spring wails,
And the limber fern trails,
 
 
With a ripple and twinkle
Of luminous arms,
Of voices that tinkle,
And feet that are storms
Of chaste, naked charms,
 
 
Like echoes that revel
On hills, where the brier
Vaults roofs of dishevel
And green, greedy fire,
They come as a choir.
 
 
At the root of the mountain
Where the dim forest lies,
By the spar-spouting fountain
Where the low lily dies,
With their star-stinging eyes.
 
 
They gather sweet singing
In voices that seem
Faint ringing and clinging
In dreams that we dream,
In visions that gleam.
 
 
Sweet lisping of kisses,
Dry rustle of hair;
A footfall that hisses
Like a leaf in the air
When the brown boughs are bare.
 
 
The music that scatters
From love-litten eyes;
The music that flatters
In words and low sighs,
In laughter that dies:
 
 
"Come hither, come hither,
In the million-eyed night,
Ere the moon-flowers wither
And the harvester white,
Morning reaps them with light.
 
 
"Come hither, where singing
Is pleasant as tears,
Or dead kisses, clinging
To the murdering years,
In memory's ears.
 
 
"Come hither where kisses
Are waiting for you,
For lips and long tresses,
As for wild flowers blue
The moon-heated dew.
 
 
"Come hither from coppice
And violet dale,
The mountain whose top is
In vapors that sail
With pearly hail pale.
 
 
"Why tarry? come hither
While the molten moon beams,
Ere the golden spark wither
Of the glow-worm that gleams
Like a star in still streams!"
 

THE TRYST

 
Had fallen a fragrant shower;
The leaves were dripping yet;
Each fern and rain-weighed flower
Around were gleaming wet;
On ev'ry bosky bower
A million gems were set.
 
 
The dust's moist odors sifted
Cool with the summer rain,
Mixed with the musk that drifted
From orchard and from plain; —
Her garden's fence white lifted
Its length along the lane.
 
 
The moon the clouds had shattered
In curdled peaks of pearl;
The honeysuckle scattered
Warm odors from each curl,
Where the white moonlight, flattered,
Hung molten 'round a girl.
 
 
Then grew the night completer
With light and cloud and air;
Aromas sweet blew sweeter,
Sweet flowers fair, more fair;
Fleet feet and fast grew fleeter
Thro' that fair sorceress there.
 

AN ANTIQUE

 
Mildewed and gray the marble stairs
Rise from their balustraded urns
To where a chiseled satyr glares
From a luxuriant bed of ferns;
 
 
A pebbled walk that labyrinths
'Twixt parallels of verdant box
To where, broad-based on grotesque plinths,
'Mid cushions of moss-padded rocks,
 
 
Rises a ruined pleasure-house,
Of shattered column, broken dome,
Where, reveling in thick carouse,
The buoyant ivy makes its home.
 
 
And here from bank, and there from bed,
Down the mad rillet's jubilant lymph,
The lavish violet's odors shed
In breathings of a fountain nymph.
 
 
And where, in lichened hoariness,
The broken marble dial-plate
Basks in the Summer's sultriness,
Rich houri roses palpitate.
 
 
Voluptuous, languid with perfumes,
As were the beauties that of old,
In damask satins, jeweled plumes,
With powdered gallants here that strolled.
 
 
When slender rapiers, proud with gems,
Sneered at the sun their haughty hues,
And Touchstone wit and apothegms
Laughed down the long, cool avenues.
 
 
Two pleated bowers of woodbine pave,
'Neath all their heaviness of musk,
Two fountains of pellucid wave,
With sunlight-tessellated dusk.
 
 
Beholding these, I seem to feel
An exodus of earthly sight,
An influx of ecstatic weal
Poured thro' my eyes in jets of light.
 
 
And so I see the fountains twain
Of hate and love in Arden there;
The time of regal Charlemagne,
Of Roland and of Oliver.
 
 
Rinaldo of Montalban's towers
Sleeps by the spring of hate; above
Bows, spilling all his face with flowers,
Angelica, who quaffed of love.
 

A GUINEVERE

 
Sullen gold down all the sky,
In the roses sultry musk;
Nightingales hid in the dusk
Yonder sob and sigh.
 
 
You are here; and I could weep,
Weep for joy and suffering.
"Where is he?" He'd have me sing; —
There he sits asleep.
 
 
Think not of him! he is dead
For the moment to us twain;
He were dead but for this pain
Drumming in my head.
 
 
"Am I happy?" Ask the fire
When it bursts its bounds and thrills
Some mad hours as it wills
If those hours tire.
 
 
He had gold. As for the rest —
Well you know how they were set,
Saying that I must forget,
And 'twas for the best.
 
 
I forget! but let it go! —
Kiss me as you did of old.
There! your kisses are not cold!
Can you love me so,
 
 
Knowing what I am to him
Sitting in his gouty chair
On the breezy terrace where
Amber fire-flies swim?
 
 
"Yes?" – Your cheek a tear-drop wets,
But your kisses on my lip
Fall as warm as bees that sip
Sweets from violets.
 
 
See! the moon has risen white
As this bursten lily here
Rocking on the dusky mere
Like a silent light.
 
 
Let us walk. We soon must part —
All too soon! but he may miss!
Give me but another kiss;
It will heat my heart
 
 
And the bitter winter there.
So; we part, my Launcelot,
My true knight! and am I not
Your true Guinevere?
 
 
Oft they parted thus they tell
In that mystical romance.
Were they placed, think you, perchance,
For such love in hell?
 
 
No! it can not, can not be!
Love is God and God is love,
And they live and love above,
Guinevere and he!
 
 
I must go now. See! there fell,
Molten into purple light,
One wild star. Kiss me good-night;
And, once more, farewell!
 

CLOUDS

 
All through the tepid Summer night
The starless sky had poured a cool
Monotony of pleasant rain
In music beautiful.
 
 
And for an hour I'd sat to watch
Clouds moving on majestic feet,
Had heard down avenues of night
Their hearts of thunder beat;
 
 
Saw ponderous limbs far-veined with gold
Pulse fiery life o'er wood and plain,
While scattered, fell from monstrous palms
The largess of the rain;
 
 
Beholding at each lightning's flash
The generous silver on the sod,
In meek devotion bowed, I thanked
These almoners of God.
 

NO MORE

I

 
The slanted storm tossed at their feet
The frost-nipped Autumn leaves;
The park's high pines were caked with sleet
And ice-spears armed the eaves.
They strolled adown the pillared pines
To part where wet and twisted vines
About the gate-posts flapped and beat.
She watched him dimming in the rain
Along the river's misty shore,
And laughed with lips that sneered disdain
"To meet no more!"
 

II

 
'Mong heavy roses weighed with dew
The chirping crickets hid;
Down the honeysuckle avenue
Creaked the green katydid.
The scattered stars smiled thro' the pines;
Thro' stately windows draped with vines
The rising moonlight's silver blew.
He stared at lips proud, white, and dead,
A chiseled calm that wore;
Despair moaned on the lips that said
"To meet no more."
 

DESERTED

 
A broken rainbow on the skies of May
Touching the sodden roses and low clouds,
And in wet clouds like scattered jewels lost:
Upon the heaven of a soul the ghost
Of a great love, perfect in its pure ray,
Touching the roses moist of memory
To die within the Present's grief of clouds —
A broken rainbow on the skies of May.
 
 
A flashing humming-bird amid strange flowers,
Or red or white; its darting length of tongue
Sucking and drinking all the cell-stored sweet,
And now the surfeit and the hurried fleet:
A love that put into expanding bowers
Of one's large heart a tongue's persuasive powers
To cream with joy, and riffled, so was gone —
A flashing humming-bird amid strange flowers.
 
 
A foamy moon which thro' a night of fleece
Moves amber girt into a bulk of dark,
And, lost to eye, rims all the black with froth:
A love of smiles, that, tinctured like a moth,
Moved thro' a soul's night-dun and made a peace —
More bland than Melancholy's white – to cease
In blanks of Time zoned with pale Memory's spark —
A foamy moon that brinks a storm with fleece.
 
 
A blaze of living thunder – not a leap —
Momental spouting balds the piléd storm,
The ghastly mountains and the livid ocean,
The pine-roared crag, then blots the sight's commotion:
A love that swiftly pouring bared the deep,
Which cleaves white Life from Death, Death from white Sleep,
And, ceasing, gave a brain one blur of storm —
Blank blast of midnight, love for Death and Sleep.
 

THE DREAM OF CHRIST

 
I saw her twins of eyelids listless swoon
Mesmeric eyes,
Like the mild lapsing of a lulling tune
On wide surprise,
While slow the graceful presence of a moon
Mellowed the purple skies.
 
 
And had she dreamed or had in fancy gone
As one who sought
To hail the influx of a godly dawn
Of heavenly thought,
Trod trembling o'er old sainted hill and lawn
With intense angels fraught?
 
 
Sailed thro' majestic domes of the deep night
By isles of stars,
Wand'ring like some pure blessing warm with light
From worldly jars
To the high halls of morning, pearly white,
And heaped with golden bars.
 
 
Past temples vast, deluged with sandy seas,
Whose ruins stand
Like bleaching bones of dead monstrosities
Crashed to the land,
Stupendous homes of cursed idolatries
Fallen to dust and sand.
 
 
Ugly and bestial gods caked thick with gold —
Their hideousness
Blaspheming Christ – 'mid shattered altars rolled
To rottenness,
Their slaves abolished and their priests of old
Trodden to nothingness.
 
 
Thro' Syrian plains curtained with curling mist
The grass she trailed,
Where the shy floweret; by the dew-drop kissed,
Sweet blushing quailed;
And drowned in purple vales of amethyst
The moon-mad bulbuls wailed.
 
 
On glimmering wolds had seemed to hear the bleat
Of folded flocks;
Seen broad-browed sages pass with sandaled feet
And hoary locks,
While swimming in a bath of molten heat
A great star glorious rocks.
 
 
In fancy o'er a beaming baby bent —
Cradled amiss
In a rude manger – on its brow to print
One holy kiss,
While down the slant winds faint aromas went
And anthems deep of bliss…
 
 
And then she woke. The winter moon above
Burst on her sight;
And with strange sweetness all her dream was wove
In its far flight,
For jubilant bells rocked booming "peace and love"
Down all the aisles of night.
 

TO AUTUMN

 
I oft have net thee, Autumn, wandering
Beside a misty stream, thy locks flung wild;
Thy cheeks a hectic flush more fair than Spring,
As if on thee the scarlet copse had smiled.
Or thee I've seen a twisted oak beneath,
Thy gentle eyes with foolish weeping dim,
Beneath a faded oak from whose tinged leaves
Thou woundedst drowsy wreaths, while the soft breath
Of Morn did kiss thy locks and make them swim
Far out behind, brown as the rustling sheaves.
 
 
Oft have I thee upon a hillock seen,
Dream-visaged, all agaze at glimpses faint
Of glimmering woods that glanced the hills between
With Indian faces from thy airy paint.
Or I have met thee 'twixt two dappled hills
Within a dingled valley nigh a fall,
Clasped in thy tinted hand a ruddy flower,
And lowly stooping where the leaf-dammed rills
Went babbling low thro' wildwood's arrased hall,
Where burned the beech and maples glared their power.
 
 
Oft have I seen thee in a ruined mill,
Where basked the crimson creeper serpentine;
Where fallen leaves did stir and rustle chill,
And saw thee rest beneath a wild grape-vine.
While Echo, sad amid his deep-voiced mountains —
More sad than erst – did raise a dreamy speech
And call thee to his youthful, amorous arms,
Where splashed the murmuring forest's limpid fountains;
And tho' his words thy pink-shell ears did reach,
Thou wouldst not heed or guile him with thy charms.
 
 
Once saw thee in a hollow girt with trees,
A-dream amid the harvest's tawny grain;
Thy plushy cheek faint flushing in the breeze,
In thy deep eyes a drowsy sky's blue stain.
And where within the woodland's twilight path
The cloud-winged skies did peep all speechless down,
And stirred the gaudy leaves with fragrant breath,
I've seen thee walk, nor fear the Winter's wrath;
There drop asleep clad in thy gipsy gown,
While Echo bending o'er dropp'd tears upon thy wreath.
 

AN ADDRESS TO NIGHT

 
Like some sad spirit from an unknown shore
Thou comest with two children in thine arms:
Flushed, poppied Sleep, whom mortals aye adore,
Her flowing raiment sculptured to her charms.
Soft on thy bosom in pure baby rest
Clasped as a fair white rose in musky nest;
But on thy other, like a thought of woe,
Her brother, lean, cold Death doth thin recline,
To thee as dear as she, thy maid divine,
Whose frowsy hair his hectic breathings blow
In poppied ringlets billowing all her marble brow.
 
 
Oft have I taken Sleep from thy vague arms
And fondled her faint head, with poppies wreath'd,
Within my bosom's depths, until its storms
With her were hushed and I but mildly breath'd.
And then this child, O Night! with frolic art
Arose from rest, and on my panting heart
Blew bubbles of dreams where elfin worlds were lost,
Until my airy soul smiled light on me
From some far land too dim for day to see,
And wandered in a shape of limpid frost
Within a dusky dale where soundless streams did flee.
 
 
Welcome to Earth, O Night the saintly garbed!
Slip meek as love into the Day's flushed heart!
Drop in a dream from where the meteors orbed
Wander past systems scorning map or chart;
Or sit aloft, thy hands brimmed full of stars,
Or come in garb of storms 'mid thunder jars,
When lightning-frilled gleams wide thy cloud-frounced dress,
Then art thou grand! but, oh, when thy pure feet
Along the star-strewn floors of Heaven beat,
And thy cool breath the heated world doth bless,
Thou art God's angel of true love and gentleness!
 

THE HERON

EVENING

 
As slaughter red the long creek crawls
From solitary forest walls,
Out where the eve's wild glory falls.
One wiry leg drowned in his breast,
Neck-shrunk, flame-gilded with the West,
Stark-stately he the evening wears.
 

NIGHT

 
The whimp'ring creek breaks on the stone;
The new moon came, but now is gone;
White, tingling stars wink out alone.
Lank specter of wet, windy lands,
The melancholy heron stands;
Then, clamoring, dives into the stars.
 

A DIRGE

I

 
Life has fled; she is dead,
Sleeping in the flow'ry vale
Where the fleeting shades are shed
Ghost-like o'er her features pale.
Lay her 'neath the violets wild,
Lay her like a dreaming child
'Neath the waving grass
Where the shadows pass.
 

II

 
Gone she has to happy rest
With white flowers for her pillow;
Moons look sadly on her breast
Thro' an ever-weeping willow.
Fold her hands, frail flakes of snow,
Waxen as white roses blow
Like herself so fair,
Free from world and care.
 

III

 
Twine this wreath of lilies wan
'Round her sculptured brow so white;
Let her rest here, white as dawn,
Like a lily quenched in night.
Wreath this rosebud wild and pale,
Wreath it 'mid her fingers frail;
On her dreamless breast
Let it dreaming rest.
 

IV

 
Gently, gently lay her down,
Gently lay her form to sleep;
Gently let her soul be blown
Far away, while low we weep.
Hush! the earth no more can harm her
Now that choirs of angels charm her!
Dreams of life are brief;
Naught amendeth grief.
 

V

 
Speed away! speed away!
Angels called her here to sleep;
Let us leave her here to stay:
Speed away! and, speeding, weep.
Where the roses blow and die,
'Neath them she a rose doth lie
Wilted in the grass
Where the shadows pass.
 

THE HAUNTED HOUSE

I

 
The shadows sit and stand within its door
Like uninvited guests and poor,
And all the long, hot summer day
A dry green locust whirs its roundelay,
And the shadows halt at the door.
The sheeted iron upon the roof
Stretches its weary hide and cracks;
The spider weaves his windy woof
In dingy closet cracks,
And all a something lacks.
The freckled snake crawls o'er the floor,
Tongues at the shadows in the door,
And where the musty mosses run
Basks in the sun.
 

II

 
The children of the fathers sleep
Beneath the melancholy pines;
Earth-worms within grim skulls forever creep
And the glow-worm shines;
The orchards in the meadow deep
Lift up their stained, gnarled arms,
Mossed, lichened where limp lizards peep.
No youth swells up to make them leap
And cry against the storms;
No blossom lulls their age asleep,
Each wind brings sad alarms.
Big-bellied apples gold or bell-round pears
No maiden gathers now;
The moistures drip great reeking tears
From each old, crippled bough.
 

III

 
The orchards are yellow and solitary,
The winds beat down their hands;
The sunlight is sad and the moonlight is dreary,
The hum of the country is lonesome and weary,
And the bees go by in bands
To other happier lands.
The grasses are rotting in walk and in bower;
The orchards smell dank and rank
As a chamber where lay for a lonely hour
A corpse unclad in the taper's glower,
Chill, white, and lank.
So the bees go by in murmurous bands,
Drowsily wand'ring to happier lands
Where the lilies draggle the bank.
 

IV

 
In the desolate halls are lying,
Gold, blood-red, and browned,
Shriveled leaves of Autumn dying,
And the shadows o'er them flying
Turn them 'round and 'round,
Make a dreary sound
Thro' the echoing chambers crying
In the haunted house.
 

V

 
Gazing down in her white shroud
From the edging cloud
Comes at night the dimpled moon,
Comes, and like a ghost is gone
'Neath the flying cloud
O'er the haunted house.