Kitobni o'qish: «Poems», sahifa 8

ARGONAUTS

 
  With argosies of dawn he sails,
    And triremes of the dusk,
  The Seas of Song, whereon the gales
    Are myths that trail wild musk.
 
 
  He hears the hail of Siren bands
    From headlands sunset-kissed;
  The Lotus-eaters wave pale hands
    Within a land of mist.
 
 
  For many a league he hears the roar
    Of the Symplegades;
  And through the far foam of its shore
    The Isle of Sappho sees.
 
 
  All day he looks, with hazy lids,
    At gods who cleave the deep;
  All night he hears the Nereïds
    Sing their wild hearts asleep.
 
 
  When heaven thunders overhead,
    And hell upheaves the Vast,
  Dim faces of the ocean's dead
    Gaze at him from each mast.
 
 
  He but repeats the oracle
    That bade him first set sail;
  And cheers his soul with, "All is well!
    Go on! I will not fail."
 
 
  Behold! he sails no earthly bark
    And on no earthly sea,
  Who down the years into the dark,—
    Divine of destiny,—
 
 
  Holds to his purpose,—ships of Greece,—
    Ideal-steered afar,
  For whom awaits the Golden Fleece,
    The fame that is his star.
 

"THE MORN THAT BREAKS ITS HEART OF GOLD"

  From an ode "In Commemoration of the Founding of the

    Massachusetts Bay Colony."

 
  The morn that breaks its heart of gold
  Above the purple hills;
  The eve, that spills
  Its nautilus splendor where the sea is rolled;
  The night, that leads the vast procession in
  Of stars and dreams,—
  The beauty that shall never die or pass:—
  The winds, that spin
  Of rain the misty mantles of the grass,
  And thunder raiment of the mountain-streams;
  The sunbeams, penciling with gold the dusk
  Green cowls of ancient woods;
  The shadows, thridding, veiled with musk,
  The moon-pathed solitudes,
  Call to my Fancy, saying, "Follow! follow!"
  Till, following, I see,—
  Fair as a cascade in a rainbowed hollow,—
  A dream, a shape, take form,
  Clad on with every charm,—
 
 
  The vision of that Ideality,
  Which lured the pioneer in wood and hill,
  And beckoned him from earth and sky;
  The dream that cannot die,
  Their children's children did fulfill,
  In stone and iron and wood,
  Out of the solitude,
  And by a stalwart act
  Create a mighty fact—
  A Nation, now that stands
  Clad on with hope and beauty, strength and song,
  Eternal, young and strong,
  Planting her heel on wrong,
  Her starry banner in triumphant hands….
 
 
  Within her face the rose
  Of Alleghany dawns;
  Limbed with Alaskan snows,
  Floridian starlight in her eyes,—
  Eyes stern as steel yet tender as a fawn's,—
  And in her hair
  The rapture of her rivers; and the dare,
  As perishless as truth,
  That o'er the crags of her Sierras flies,
  Urging the eagle ardor through her veins,
  Behold her where,
  Around her radiant youth,
 
 
  The spirits of the cataracts and plains,
  The genii of the floods and forests, meet,
  In rainbow mists circling her brow and feet:
  The forces vast that sit
  In session round her; powers paraclete,
  That guard her presence; awful forms and fair,
  Making secure her place;
  Guiding her surely as the worlds through space
  Do laws sidereal; edicts, thunder-lit,
  Of skyed eternity, in splendor borne
  On planetary wings of night and morn.
* * * * *
  From her high place she sees
  Her long procession of accomplished acts,
  Cloud-winged refulgences
  Of thoughts in steel and stone, of marble dreams,
  Lift up tremendous battlements,
  Sun-blinding, built of facts;
  While in her soul she seems,
  Listening, to hear, as from innumerable tents,
  Æonian thunder, wonder, and applause
  Of all the heroic ages that are gone;
  Feeling secure
  That, as her Past, her Future shall endure,
  As did her Cause
  When redly broke the dawn
  Of fierce rebellion, and, beneath its star,
  The firmaments of war
  Poured down infernal rain,
  And North and South lay bleeding mid their slain.
  And now, no less, shall her great Cause prevail,
  More so in peace than war,
  Through the thrilled wire and electric rail,
  Carrying her message far:
  Shaping her dream
  Within the brain of steam,
  That, with a myriad hands,
  Labors unceasingly, and knits her lands
  In firmer union; joining plain and stream
  With steel; and binding shore to shore
  With bands of iron;—nerves and arteries,
  Along whose adamant forever pour
  Her concrete thoughts, her tireless energies.
 

A VOICE ON THE WIND

I

 
  She walks with the wind on the windy height
  When the rocks are loud and the waves are white,
  And all night long she calls through the night,
    "O my children, come home!"
  Her bleak gown, torn as a tattered cloud,
  Tosses around her like a shroud,
  While over the deep her voice rings loud,—
    "O my children, come home, come home!
     O my children, come home!"
 

II

 
  Who is she who wanders alone,
  When the wind drives sheer and the rain is blown?
  Who walks all night and makes her moan,
    "O my children, come home!"
  Whose face is raised to the blinding gale;
  Whose hair blows black and whose eyes are pale,
  While over the world goes by her wail,—
    "O my children, come home, come home!
     O my children, come home!"
 

III

 
  She walks with the wind in the windy wood;
  The dark rain drips from her hair and hood,
  And her cry sobs by, like a ghost pursued,
    "O my children, come home!"
  Where the trees loom gaunt and the rocks stretch drear,
  The owl and the fox crouch back with fear,
  As wild through the wood her voice they hear,—
    "O my children, come home, come home!
     O my children, come home!"
 

IV

 
  Who is she who shudders by
  When the boughs blow bare and the dead leaves fly?
  Who walks all night with her wailing cry,
    "O my children, come home!"
  Who, strange of look, and wild of tongue,
  With wan feet wounded and hands wild-wrung,
  Sweeps on and on with her cry, far-flung,—
    "O my children, come home, come home!
     O my children, come home!"
 

V

 
  'Tis the Spirit of Autumn, no man sees,
  The mother of Death and of Mysteries,
  Who cries on the wind all night to these,
    "O my children, come home!"
  The Spirit of Autumn, pierced with pain,
  Calling her children home again,
  Death and Dreams, through ruin and rain,—
    "O my children, come home, come home!
     O my children, come home!"
 

REQUIEM

I

 
  No more for him, where hills look down,
    Shall Morning crown
  Her rainy brow with blossom bands!—
  The Morning Hours, whose rosy hands
  Drop wildflowers of the breaking skies
  Upon the sod 'neath which he lies.—
  No more for him! No more! No more!
 

II

 
  No more for him, where waters sleep,
    Shall Evening heap
  The long gold of the perfect days!
  The Eventide, whose warm hand lays
  Great poppies of the afterglow
  Upon the turf he rests below.—
  No more for him! No more! no more!
Ill
  No more for him, where woodlands loom,
    Shall Midnight bloom
  The star-flowered acres of the blue!
  The Midnight Hours, whose dim hands strew
  Dead leaves of darkness, hushed and deep,
  Upon the grave where he doth sleep.—
  No more for him! No more! No more!
 

IV

 
  The hills, that Morning's footsteps wake:
    The waves that take
  A brightness from the Eve; the woods
  And solitudes, o'er which Night broods,
  Their Spirits have, whose parts are one
  With him, whose mortal part is done.
    Whose part is done.
 

LYNCHERS

 
  At the moon's down-going let it be
  On the quarry hill with its one gnarled tree.
 
 
  The red-rock road of the underbrush,
  Where the woman came through the summer hush.
 
 
  The sumac high and the elder thick,
  Where we found the stone and the ragged stick.
 
 
  The trampled road of the thicket, full
  Of footprints down to the quarry pool.
 
 
  The rocks that ooze with the hue of lead,
  Where we found her lying stark and dead.
 
 
  The scraggy wood; the negro hut,
  With its doors and windows locked and shut.
 
 
  A secret signal; a foot's rough tramp;
  A knock at the door; a lifted lamp.
 
 
  An oath; a scuffle; a ring of masks;
  A voice that answers a voice that asks.
 
 
  A group of shadows; the moon's red fleck;
  A running noose and a man's bared neck.
 
 
  A word, a curse, and a shape that swings;
  The lonely night and a bat's black wings.
 
 
  At the moon's down-going let it be
  On the quarry hill with its one gnarled tree.
 

THE PARTING

 
  She passed the thorn-trees, whose gaunt branches tossed
  Their spider-shadows round her; and the breeze,
  Beneath the ashen moon, was full of frost,
  And mouthed and mumbled to the sickly trees,
  Like some starved hag who sees her children freeze.
 
 
  Dry-eyed she waited by the sycamore.
  Some stars made misty blotches in the sky.
  And all the wretched willows on the shore
  Looked faded as a jaundiced cheek or eye.
  She felt their pity and could only sigh.
 
 
  And then his skiff ground on the river rocks.
  Whistling he came into the shadow made
  By that dead tree. He kissed her dark brown locks;
  And round her form his eager arms were laid.
  Passive she stood, her secret unbetrayed.
 
 
  And then she spoke, while still his greeting kiss
  Ached in her hair. She did not dare to lift
  Her eyes to his—her anguished eyes to his,
  While tears smote crystal in her throat. One rift
  Of weakness humored might set all adrift.
 
 
  Fields over which a path, overwhelmed with burrs
  And ragweeds, noisy with the grasshoppers,
  Leads,—lost, irresolute as paths the cows
    Wear through the woods,—unto a woodshed; then,
  With wrecks of windows, to a huddled house,
    Where men have murdered men.
 
 
  A house, whose tottering chimney, clay and rock,
  Is seamed and crannied; whose lame door and lock
  Are bullet-bored; around which, there and here,
    Are sinister stains.—One dreads to look around.—
  The place seems thinking of that time of fear
    And dares not breathe a sound.
 
 
  Within is emptiness: The sunlight falls
  On faded journals papering the walls;
  On advertisement chromos, torn with time,
    Around a hearth where wasps and spiders build.—
  The house is dead: meseems that night of crime
    It, too, was shot and killed.
 

KU KLUX

 
  We have sent him seeds of the melon's core,
  And nailed a warning upon his door:
  By the Ku Klux laws we can do no more.
 
 
  Down in the hollow, 'mid crib and stack,
  The roof of his low-porched house looms black;
  Not a line of light at the door-sill's crack.
 
 
  Yet arm and mount! and mask and ride!
  The hounds can sense though the fox may hide!
  And for a word too much men oft have died.
 
 
  The clouds blow heavy toward the moon.
  The edge of the storm will reach it soon.
  The kildee cries and the lonesome loon.
 
 
  The clouds shall flush with a wilder glare
  Than the lightning makes with its angled flare,
  When the Ku Klux verdict is given there.
 
 
  In the pause of the thunder rolling low,
  A rifle's answer—who shall know
  From the wind's fierce hurl and the rain's black blow?
 
 
  Only the signature, written grim
  At the end of the message brought to him—
  A hempen rope and a twisted limb.
 
 
  So arm and mount! and mask and ride!
  The hounds can sense though the fox may hide!—
  For a word too much men oft have died.
 

EIDOLONS

 
  The white moth-mullein brushed its slim
    Cool, faery flowers against his knee;
  In places where the way lay dim
    The branches, arching suddenly,
  Made tomblike mystery for him.
 
 
  The wild-rose and the elder, drenched
    With rain, made pale a misty place,—
  From which, as from a ghost, he blenched;
    He walking with averted face,
  And lips in desolation clenched.
 
 
  For far within the forest,—where
    Weird shadows stood like phantom men,
  And where the ground-hog dug its lair,
    The she-fox whelped and had her den,—
  The thing kept calling, buried there.
 
 
  One dead trunk, like a ruined tower,
    Dark-green with toppling trailers, shoved
  Its wild wreck o'er the bush; one bower
    Looked like a dead man, capped and gloved,
  The one who haunted him each hour.
 
 
  Now at his side he heard it: thin
    As echoes of a thought that speaks
  To conscience. Listening with his chin
    Upon his palm, against his cheeks
  He felt the moon's white finger win.
 
 
  And now the voice was still: and lo,
    With eyes that stared on naught but night,
  He saw?—what none on earth shall know!—
    Was it the face that far from sight
  Had lain here, buried long ago?
 
 
  But men who found him,—thither led
    By the wild fox,—within that place
  Read in his stony eyes, 'tis said,
    The thing he saw there, face to face,
  The thing that left him staring dead.
 

THE MAN HUNT

 
  The woods stretch deep to the mountain side,
  And the brush is wild where a man may hide.
 
 
  They have brought the bloodhounds up again
  To the roadside rock where they found the slain.
 
 
  They have brought the bloodhounds up, and they
  Have taken the trail to the mountain way.
 
 
  Three times they circled the trail and crossed;
  And thrice they found it and thrice they lost.
 
 
  Now straight through the trees and the underbrush
  They follow the scent through the forest's hush.
 
 
  And their deep-mouthed bay is a pulse of fear
  In the heart of the wood that the man must hear.
 
 
  The man who crouches among the trees
  From the stern-faced men who follow these.
 
 
  A huddle of rocks that the ooze has mossed,
  And the trail of the hunted again is lost.
 
 
  An upturned pebble; a bit of ground
  A heel has trampled—the trail is found.
 
 
  And the woods re-echo the bloodhounds' bay
  As again they take to the mountain way.
 
 
  A rock; a ribbon of road; a ledge,
  With a pine tree clutching its crumbling edge.
 
 
  A pine, that the lightning long since clave,
  Whose huge roots hollow a ragged cave.
 
 
  A shout; a curse; and a face aghast;
  The human quarry is laired at last.
 
 
  The human quarry with clay-clogged hair
  And eyes of terror who waits them there.
 
 
  That glares and crouches and rising then
  Hurls clods and curses at dogs and men.
 
 
  Until the blow of a gun-butt lays
  Him stunned and bleeding upon his face.
 
 
  A rope; a prayer; and an oak-tree near,
  And a score of hands to swing him clear.
 
 
  A grim, black thing for the setting sun
  And the moon and the stars to gaze upon.
 

MY ROMANCE

 
  If it so befalls that the midnight hovers
    In mist no moonlight breaks,
  The leagues of the years my spirit covers,
    And my self myself forsakes.
 
 
  And I live in a land of stars and flowers,
    White cliffs by a silvery sea;
  And the pearly points of her opal towers
    From the mountains beckon me.
 
 
  And I think that I know that I hear her calling
    From a casement bathed with light—
  Through music of waters in waters falling
    Mid palms from a mountain height.
 
 
  And I feel that I think my love's awaited
    By the romance of her charms;
  That her feet are early and mine belated
    In a world that chains my arms.
 
 
  But I break my chains and the rest is easy—
    In the shadow of the rose,
  Snow-white, that blooms in her garden breezy,
    We meet and no one knows.
 
 
  And we dream sweet dreams and kiss sweet kisses;
    The world—it may live or die!
  The world that forgets; that never misses
    The life that has long gone by.
 
 
  We speak old vows that have long been spoken;
    And weep a long-gone woe:
  For you must know our hearts were broken
    Hundreds of years ago.
 

A MAID WHO DIED OLD

 
  Frail, shrunken face, so pinched and worn,
    That life has carved with care and doubt!
  So weary waiting, night and morn,
    For that which never came about!
  Pale lamp, so utterly forlorn,
    In which God's light at last is out.
 
 
  Gray hair, that lies so thin and prim
    On either side the sunken brows!
  And soldered eyes, so deep and dim,
    No word of man could now arouse!
  And hollow hands, so virgin slim,
    Forever clasped in silent vows!
 
 
  Poor breasts! that God designed for love,
    For baby lips to kiss and press;
  That never felt, yet dreamed thereof,
    The human touch, the child caress—
  That lie like shriveled blooms above
    The heart's long-perished happiness.
 
 
  O withered body, Nature gave
    For purposes of death and birth,
  That never knew, and could but crave
    Those things perhaps that make life worth,—
  Rest now, alas! within the grave,
    Sad shell that served no end of Earth.
 

BALLAD OF LOW-LIE-DOWN

 
  John-A-Dreams and Harum-Scarum
    Came a-riding into town:
  At the Sign o' the Jug-and-Jorum
    There they met with Low-lie-down.
 
 
  Brave in shoes of Romany leather,
    Bodice blue and gypsy gown,
  And a cap of fur and feather,
    In the inn sat Low-lie-down.
 
 
  Harum-Scarum kissed her lightly;
    Smiled into her eyes of brown:
  Clasped her waist and held her tightly,
    Laughing, "Love me, Low-lie-down!"
 
 
  Then with many an oath and swagger,
    As a man of great renown,
  On the board he clapped his dagger,
    Called for sack and sat him down.
 
 
  So a while they laughed together;
    Then he rose and with a frown
  Sighed, "While still 'tis pleasant weather,
    I must leave thee, Low-lie-down."
 
 
  So away rode Harum-Scarum;
    With a song rode out of town;
  At the Sign o' the Jug-and-Jorum
    Weeping tarried Low-lie-down.
 
 
  Then this John-a-dreams, in tatters,
    In his pocket ne'er a crown,
  Touched her, saying, "Wench, what matters!
    Dry your eyes and, come, sit down.
 
 
  "Here's my hand: we'll roam together,
    Far away from thorp and town.
  Here's my heart,—for any weather,—
    And my dreams, too, Low-lie-down.
 
 
  "Some men call me dreamer, poet:
    Some men call me fool and clown—
  What I am but you shall know it,
    Only you, sweet Low-lie-down."
 
 
  For a little while she pondered:
    Smiled: then said, "Let care go drown!"
  Up and kissed him…. Forth they wandered,
    John-a-dreams and Low-lie-down.
 

ROMANCE

 
  Thus have I pictured her:—In Arden old
    A white-browed maiden with a falcon eye,
  Rose-flushed of face, with locks of wind-blown gold,
    Teaching her hawks to fly.
 
 
  Or, 'mid her boar-hounds, panting with the heat,
    In huntsman green, sounding the hunt's wild prize,
  Plumed, dagger-belted, while beneath her feet
    The spear-pierced monster dies.
 
 
  Or in Brécéliand, on some high tower,
    Clad white in samite, last of her lost race,
  My soul beholds her, lovelier than a flower,
    Gazing with pensive face.
 
 
  Or, robed in raiment of romantic lore,
    Like Oriana, dark of eye and hair,
  Riding through realms of legend evermore,
    And ever young and fair.
 
 
  Or now like Bradamant, as brave as just,
    In complete steel, her pure face lit with scorn,
  At giant castles, dens of demon lust,
    Winding her bugle-horn.
 
 
  Another Una; and in chastity
    A second Britomart; in beauty far
  O'er her who led King Charles's chivalry
    And Paynim lands to war….
 
 
  Now she, from Avalon's deep-dingled bowers,—
    'Mid which white stars and never-waning moons
  Make marriage; and dim lips of musk-mouthed flowers
    Sigh faint and fragrant tunes,—
 
 
  Implores me follow; and, in shadowy shapes
    Of sunset, shows me,—mile on misty mile
  Of purple precipice,—all the haunted capes
    Of her enchanted isle.
 
 
  Where, bowered in bosks and overgrown with vine,
    Upon a headland breasting violet seas,
  Her castle towers, like a dream divine,
    With stairs and galleries.
 
 
  And at her casement, Circe-beautiful,
    Above the surgeless reaches of the deep,
  She sits, while, in her gardens, fountains lull
    The perfumed wind asleep.
 
 
  Or, round her brow a diadem of spars,
    She leans and hearkens, from her raven height,
  The nightingales that, choiring to the stars,
    Take with wild song the night.
 
 
  Or, where the moon is mirrored in the waves,
    To mark, deep down, the Sea King's city rolled,
  Wrought of huge shells and labyrinthine caves,
    Ribbed pale with pearl and gold.
 
 
  There doth she wait forever; and the kings
    Of all the world have wooed her: but she cares
  For none but him, the Love, that dreams and sings,
    That sings and dreams and dares.
 

AMADIS AND ORIANA

From "Beltenebros at Miraflores"

 
  O sunset, from the springs of stars
    Draw down thy cataracts of gold;
  And belt their streams with burning bars
    Of ruby on which flame is rolled:
  Drench dingles with laburnum light;
    Drown every vale in violet blaze:
  Rain rose-light down; and, poppy-bright,
    Die downward o'er the hills of haze,
  And bring at last the stars of night!
 
 
  The stars and moon! that silver world,
    Which, like a spirit, faces west,
  Her foam-white feet with light empearled,
    Bearing white flame within her breast:
  Earth's sister sphere of fire and snow,
    Who shows to Earth her heart's pale heat,
  And bids her mark its pulses glow,
    And hear their crystal currents beat
  With beauty, lighting all below.
 
 
  O cricket, with thy elfin pipe,
    That tinkles in the grass and grain;
  And dove-pale buds, that, dropping, stripe
    The glen's blue night, and smell of rain;
  O nightingale, that so dost wail
    On yonder blossoming branch of snow,
  Thrill, fill the wild deer-haunted dale,
    Where Oriana, walking slow,
  Comes, thro' the moonlight, dreamy pale.
 
 
  She comes to meet me!—Earth and air
    Grow radiant with another light.
  In her dark eyes and her dark hair
    Are all the stars and all the night:
  She comes! I clasp her!—and it is
    As if no grief had ever been.—
  In all the world for us who kiss
    There are no other women or men
  But Oriana and Amadis.