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ONE DAY AND ANOTHER
PART I
1He waits musingHerein the dearness of her is:The thirty perfect days of JuneMade one, in beauty and in blissWere not more white to have to kiss,To love not more in tune.And oft I think she is too true,Too innocent for our day;For in her eyes her soul looks new —Two crowfoot-blossoms watchet-blueAre not more soft than they.So good, so kind is she to me,In darling ways and happy words,Sometimes my heart fears she may beToo much with God and secretlySweet sister to the birds.2Becoming impatientThe owls are quavering, two, now three,And all the green is graying;The owls our trysting dials be —There is no time for staying.I wait you where this buckeye throwsIts tumbled shadow overWood-violet and the bramble-rose,Long lady-fern and clover.Spice-seeded sassafras weighs deepRough rail and broken paling,Where all day long the lizards sleepLike lichen on the railing.Behind you you will feel the moon'sGold stealing like young laughter;And mists – gray ghosts of picaroons —Its phantom treasure after.And here together, youth and youth,Love will be doubly able;Each be to each as true as truth,And dear as fairy fable.The owls are calling and the maizeWith fallen dew is dripping —Ah, girlhood, through the dewy hazeCome like a moonbeam slipping.3He humsThere is a fading inward of the day,And all the pansy sunset hugs one star;To eastward dwindling all the land is gray,While barley meadows westward smoulder far.Now to your glass will you passFor the last time?Pass,Humming that ballad we know? —Here while I wait it is lateAnd is past time —Late,And love's hours they go, they go.There is a drawing downward of the night;The wedded Heaven wends married to the Moon;Above, the heights hang golden in her light,Below, the woods bathe dewy in the June.There through the dew is it youComing lawny?You,Or a moth in the vines?You! – at your throat I may noteTwinkling tawny,Note,A glow-worm, your brooch that shines.4She speaksHow many smiles in the asking? —Herein I can not deceive you;My "yes" in a "no" was a-masking,Nor thought, dear, once to grieve you.I hid. The humming-bird happiness hereDanced up i' the blood … but what are wordsWhen the speech of two souls all truth affords?Affirmative, negative what in love's ear? —I wished to say "yes" and somehow said "no";The woman within me knew you would know,For it held you six times dear.He speaksSo many hopes in a wooing! —Therein you could not deceive me;The heart was here and the hope pursuing,Knew that you loved, believe me. —Bunched bells o' the blush pomegranate – to fixAt your throat; three drops of fire they are;And the maiden moon and the maiden starSink silvery over yon meadow ricks.Will you look? – till I hug your head back, so —For I know it is "yes" though you whisper "no," —And my kisses, sweet, are six.5She speaksCould I recall every joy that befell meThere in the past with its anguish and bliss,Here in my heart it has whispered to tell me,These were no joys to this.Were it not well if our love could forget them,Veiling the was with the dawn of the is?Dead with the past we should never regret them,These were no joys to this.When they were gone and the present stood speechful,Ardent with word and with look and with kiss,What though we know that their eyes are beseechful,These were no joys to this.Is it not well to have more of the spirit,Living high futures this earthly must miss?Less of the flesh with the past pining near it? —Such is the joy of this.6She singsWe will leave reason,Dear, for a season;Reason were treasonSince yonder netherFoot-hills are clad nowIn nothing sad now;We will be glad now,Glad as this weather.Heart and heart! in the Maytime, Maytime,Youth and Love take playtime, playtime …I in the dairy; you are the airyMajesty passing; Love is the fairyBringing us two together.He singsStarlight in massesOf mist that passes,Stars in the grasses;Star-bud and flowerLaughingly know us;Secretly show usEarth is below usAnd for the hourSoul has soul. In the Maytime, Maytime,Youth and Love take playtime, playtime …You are a song; a singer I hear itWhispered in star and in flower; the spirit,Love, is the power.7He speaksAnd say we can not wed us now,Since roses and the June are here,Meseems, beneath the beechen bough'T is just as sweet, my doubly dear,To swear anew each old love vow,And love another year.When breathe green woodlands through and throughWild scents of heliotrope and rain,Where deep the moss mounds cool with dew,Beyond the barley-blowing lane,More wise than wedding, is to woo —So we will woo again.All night I lie awake and markThe hours by no clanging clock,But in the dim and dewy darkFar crowing of some punctual cock;Until the lyric of the larkMounts and Morn's gates unlock.And would you be a nun and missAll this delightful ache of love?Not have the moon for what she is?Love's honey-horn God holds above —No world, for worlds are in a kissIf worlds are good enough.So say we can not wed us now,Since roses and the June are hereWe 'll stroll beneath the doddered bough,Heaven's mated songsters singing near,To swear anew each old love vow,And love another year.8He opens his heartAnd had we lived in the daysOf the Khalif Haroun er Reshid,We had loved, as the story says,Did the Sultan's favorite oneAnd the Persian Emperor's sonAli ben Bekkar, heOf the Kisra dynasty.Do you know the story wellOf the Khalif Haroun's sultana? —When night on the palace fell,A slave through a secret door,Low-arched on the Tigris' shore,By a hidden winding stairBen Bekkar brought to his fair?Then there was laughter and mirth,And feasting and singing together,In a chamber of marvellous worth;In a chamber vaulted highOn columns of ivory;Its dome, like the irised skies,Mooned over with peacock eyes;And the curtains and furniture,Damask and juniper.Ten slave-girls – so many blooms —Stand sconcing tamarisk torches,Silk-clad from the Irak looms;Ten handmaidens serve the feast,Each like to a star in the East;Ten singers, their lutes a-tune,Each like to a bosomed moon.For her in the stuff of MervBlue-clad, unveiled, and jewelled,No metaphor made may serve;Scarved deep with her own dark hair,The jewels like fire-flies there —Blossom and moon and star,The Lady Shemsennehar.The zone embracing her waist, —The ransom of forty princes, —But her form more priceless is placed;Carbuncles of IstakharIn her coronet burning are —Though gems of the Jamshid race,Far rarer the gem of her face.Tall-shaped like the letter I,With a face like an Orient morning;Eyes of the bronze-black sky;Lips, of the pomegranate split,With the light of her language lit;Cheeks, which the young blood daresMake blood-red anemone lairs.Kohled with voluptuous look,From opaline casting-bottles,Handmaidens over them shookRose-water, and strewed with bloomMosaics old of the room;Torch-rays on the walls made bars,Or minted down golden dinars.Roses of Rocknabad,Hyacinths of Bokhara; —Not a spray of cypress sad; —Narcissus and jessamine o'erCarved pillar and cedarn door;Pomegranates and bells of clearTulips of far Kashmeer.And the chamber glows like a flowerOf the Tuba, or vale of El Liwa;And the bronzen censers glower;And scents of ambergris pourWith myrrh brought out of Lahore,And musk of Khoten, and goodAloes and sandal-wood.Rubies, a tragacanth-red,Angered in armlet and ankletDragon-like eyes that bled:Bangles and necklaces dangledDiamonds, whose prisms were angled,Over veil and from coiffure, eachOr apricot-colored or peach.And Ghoram now smites her lute,Sings loves of Mejnoon and Leila,Or amorous ghazals may suit: —And the flambeaux snap and waveBarbaric on free and slave,Rich fabrics and bezels of gems,And roses in anadems.Sherbets in ewers of gold,Fruits in salvers carnelian;Flagons of grotesque mold,Made of a sapphire glass,Stained with wine of Shirâz;Shaddock and melon and grapeOn plate of an antique shape:Vases of frost and of rose,An alabaster graven,Filled with the mountain snows;Goblets of mother-of-pearl,One filigree silver-swirl;Vessels of gold foamed upWith spray of spar on the cup. —When a slave bursts in with the cry:"The eunuchs! the Khalif's eunuchs!With scimitars bared draw nigh!Wesif and Afif and he,Chief of the hideous three,Mesrour! the Sultan 's seen'Mid a hundred weapons' sheen!"…We, never had parted, no!As parted those lovers fearful;But kissing you so and so,When they came they had found us deadOn the flowers our blood dyed red;Our lips together andThe dagger in my hand.9She speaks, musingO cities built by music! lyres of loveStrung to a songful sea! did I but ownOne harp chord of one broken barbitonWhat had I budded for our life thereof?In docile shadows under bluebell skiesA home upon the poppied edge of eve,Beneath lone peaks the splendors never leave,In lemon orchards whence the egret flies.Where pitying gray the pitiless eyes of DeathBlight no slight bud unfostered, I have thought;Deep, lily-deep, pearl-pale daturas, fraughtWith dewy fragrance like an angel's breath.Sleep in the days; the twilights tuned and tameThrough mockbirds throating to attentive stars;Each morn outrivalling each in opal bars;Eves preaching beauty with rose-tongues of flame.O country by the undiscovered sea!The dream infolds thee and the way is dim —With head not high, what if I follow him,Love – with the madness and the melody?10He, after a pause, lightlyAn elf there is who stables the hotRed wasp that stings o' the apricot;An elf who rowels his spiteful bay,Like a mote on a ray, away, away;An elf who saddles the hornet leanTo din i' the ear o' the swinging bean;Who hunts with a hat cocked half awryThe bottle-blue o' the dragon-fly: —O ho, O hi! Oh, well know I.An elf there is where the clover tipsA horn whence the summer leaks and drips,Where lanthorns of mustard-flowers bloom,In the dusk awaits the bee's dull boom;Gay gold brocade from head to knee,Who robs the caravan bumble-bee;Big bags of honey bee-merchants payTo the bandit elf of the Fairy way, —O ho, O hey! I have heard them say.Another ouphen the butterflies know,Who paints their wings like the buds that blow;Flowers, staining the dew-drops through,Seals their colors in tubes of dew;Colors to dazzle the butterflies' wing —The evening moth is another thing:The butterfly's glory he got at dawn,The moon-moth's got when the moon was wan;He it is, that the hollyhocks hear,Who dangles a brilliant i' each one's ear;Teases at noon the pane's green fly,And lights at night the glow-worm's eye: —O ho, O hi! Oh, well know I.But the dearest elf, so the poets say,Is the elf who hides in an eye of gray;Who curls in a dimple and slips alongThe strings of a lute or a lover's song;Shines in a scent, or wings a rhyme,And laughs in the bells of a wedding chime;Hides unhidden, where none may know,In her bosom's blossom or throat's blue bow —O ho, O ho! – a friend or foe?11She, seriouslyWho the loser, who the winner,If the Fancy fail as preacher? —None who loved was yet beginnerThough another's love-beseecher;Love's revealment 's of the innerLife and deity, the teacher.Who may falsify the feelingTo the lover who is loser?Has she felt: – the mere revealingOf the passion 's his accuser;She conceals it; the concealingIs her own love's self-abuser.One hath said, no flower knowethOf the fragrance it revealeth;Song, its soul that overfloweth,Never nightingale's heart feeleth —Such the love the spirit groweth,Love unconscious if it healeth.12HeHandsels of anemonesThe surrendered hoursPour about the sweet Spring's knees —Crowding babies of the breeze,Her unstudied flowers.When 't is dawn, bestowing DayStrews with coins of goldenEvery furlong of his way —Like a Sultan gone to prayAt a Kaaba olden.Warlock Night, when dips the dark,Opens, tire on tire,Windows of an heavenly ark,Whence the stars swarm, spark on spark,Butterflies of fire.With the night, the day, the spring, —Godly chords of beauty, —We the instrument will stringOf our lives and love shall singSongs of truth and duty.13SheHow it was I can not tell,For I know not where nor why,And the beautiful befellIn a land that does not lieEast or West where mortals dwell —But beneath a vaguer sky.Was it in the golden ages,Or the iron, that I heard,In prophetic speech of sages,How had come a snowy bird'Neath whose wing lay written pagesOf an unknown lover's word?I forget; you may rememberHow the earthquake shook our ships;How our city, one huge ember,Blazed within the thick eclipse;When you found me – deep DecemberSealed on icy eyes and lips.I forget. No one may sayPre-existences are true:Here 's a flower dies to-day,Resurrected blooms anew:Death is dumb and Life is gray —Who shall doubt what God can do!14HeAs to this, nothing to tell,You being all my belief;Doubt may not enter or dwellHere where your image is chief,Royal, to quicken or quell,Swaying no sceptre of grief.Wise with the wisdom of Spring —Dew-drops, a world in each prism,Gems from the universe ring: —Free of all creed and all schism,Buds that are speechless but bringGod-uttered God aphorism.See how the synod is metThere of the planets to preach us —Freed from the frost's oubliette,Here how the flowers beseech us —Were it not well to forgetWinter and night as they teach us?Dew-drop, a bud, and a star,These – each a separate thoughtOver man's logic how far! —God to a unit hath wrought —Love, making these what they are,For without love they were naught.Millions of stars; and they rollOver your path that is white,Here where we end the long stroll. —Seen of the innermost sight,All of the love of my soulKisses your spirit. Good-night.PART II
1She delays, meditatingSad skies and a foggy rainDripping from streaming eaves;Over and over againDead drop of the trickling leaves;And the woodward winding lane,And the hill with its shocks of sheaves,One scarce perceives.Must I go in such sad weatherBy the lane or over the hill?Where the splitting milk-weed's featherDim, diamond-like rain-drops fill?Or where, ten stars together,Buff ox-eyes rank the rillBy the old corn-mill?The creek by this is swollen,And its foaming cascades sound;And the lilies, smeared with pollen,In the race look dull and drowned; —'T is the path we oft have stolenTo the bridge, that rambles roundWith willows crowned.Through a bottom wild with berryOr packed with the iron-weeds,With their blue combs washed and veryPurple; the sorghum meadsGlint green near a wilding cherry;Where the high wild-lettuce seedsThe fenced path leads.A bird in the rain beseeches;And the balsams' budding ballsSmell drenched by the way which reachesThe wood where the water falls;Where the warty water-beechesHang leaves one blister of galls,The mill-wheel drawls.My shawl instead of a bonnet!..Though the wood be soaking yetThrough the wet to the rock I 'll run it —How sweet to meet in the wet! —Our rock with the vine upon it,Each flower a fiery jet – …He won't forget!2He speaks, rowingDeep are the lilies here that layLush, lambent leaves along our way,Or pollen-dusty bob and floatWhite nenuphars about our boatThis side the woodland we have reached;Two rapid strokes our skiff is beached.There is no path. Heaped foxgrapes chokeHuge trunks they wrap. This giant oakFloods from the Alleghanies boreTo wedge here by this sycamore;Its wounded bulk, heart-rotted white,Lights ghostly foxfire in the night.Now oar we through this willow fringeThe bulging shore that bosks, – a tingeOf green mists down the marge; – where old,Scarred cottonwoods build walls of shadeWith breezy balsam pungent; bowledAround vined trunks the floods have madeConcentric hollows. On we pass.As we pass, we pass, we pass,In daisy jungles deep as grass,A bubbling sparrow flirts aboveIn wood-words with its woodland love:A white-streaked woodpecker afarKnocks: slant the sun dashed, each a star,Three glittering jays flash over: slimThe piping sand-snipes skip and skimBefore us: and a finch or thrush —Who may discover where such sing? —The silence rinses with a gushOf mellow music gurgling.On we pass, and onward oarTo yon long lip of ragged shore,Where from yon rock spouts, babbling froreA ferny spring; where dodging byRests sulphur-disced that butterfly;Mallows, rank crowded in for room,'Mid wild bean and wild mustard bloom;Where fishers 'neath those cottonwoodsLast Spring encamped those ashes sayAnd charcoal boughs. – 'T is long till buds! —Here who in August misses May?3He speaks, restingHere the shores are irised; grassesClump the water gray that glassesBroken wood and deepened distance:Far the musical persistenceOf a field-lark lingers lowIn the west where tulips blow.White before us flames one pointedStar; and Day hath Night anointedKing; from out her azure ewerPouring starry fire, truerThan true gold. Star-crowned he standsWith the starlight in his hands.Will the moon bleach through the raggedTree-tops ere we reach yon jaggedRock, that rises gradually?Pharos of our homeward valley.Down the dusk burns golden-red;Embers are the stars o'erhead.At my soul some Protean elf is:You 're Simaetha, I am Delphis;You are Sappho and her Phaon —I. We love. There lies a ray onAll the dark Æolian seas'Round the violet Lesbian leas.On we drift. He loves you. NearerLooms our island. Rosier, clearerThe Leucadian cliff we follow,Where the temple of ApolloLifts a pale and pillared fire —Strike, oh, strike the Lydian lyre;Out of Hellas blows the breezeSinging to the Sapphic seas.4He singsNight, Night, 't is night. The moon before to love us,And all the moonlight tangled in the stream:Love, love, my love, and all the stars above us,The stars above and every star a dream.In odorous purple, where the falling warbleOf water cascades and the plunged foam glows,A columned ruin heaps its sculptured marbleCurled with the chiselled rebeck and the rose.She singsSleep, Sleep, sweet Sleep sleeps at the drifting tiller,And in our sail the Spirit of the Rain —Love, love, my love, ah bid thy heart be stiller,And, hark! the music of the harping main.What flowers are those that blow their balm unto us?Bow white their brows' aromas each a flame?Ah, child, too kind the love we know, that knew us,That kissed our eyes that we might see the same.HeNight! night! good night! no dream it is to vanish,The temple and the nightingale are there;The thornless roses bruising none to banish,The moon and one wild poppy in thy hair.SheNight! night! good night! and love's own star before thee,And love's star-image in the starry sea;Yes, yes, ah yes! a presence to watch o'er thee —Night! night! good night and good the gods to thee!5Homeward through flowers: she speaksO simple offerings of the common hills;Love's lowly names, that make you trebly sweet!One Johnny-jump-up, but an apron-fullOf starry crowfoot, making mossy dellsDim with heaven's morning blue; dew-dripping plumesOf waxen "dog-mouths"; red the tippling cupsOf gypsy-lilies all along the creek,Where dull the freckled silence sleeps, and darkThe water runs when, at high noon, the cowsWade knee-deep and the heat hums drowsy withThe drone of dizzy flies; – one Samson-flowerBlue-streaked and crystal as a summer's cloud;White violets, milk-weed, scarlet Indian-pinks,All fragile-scented and familiar asPink baby faces and blue infant eyes.O fair suggestions of a life more fair!Love's fragrant whispers of an untaught faith,High habitations 'neath a godlier blueBeyond the sin of Earth, in heavens prepared —What is it? – halcyon to utter calm,Faith? such as wrinkled wisdom, doubting, hasYearned for and sought in miser'd lore of worlds,And vainly? – Love? – Oh, have I learned to live?6He speaksWould you have known it seeing it?Could you have seen it being it?Waving me out of the budding landSunbeam-jewelled a bloom-white hand,Wafting me life and hope and love,Life with the hope of the love thereof,Love.– "What is the value of knowing it?" —Only the worth of owing it;Need of the bud contents the light;Dew at dawn and nard at night,Beauty, aroma, honey at heart,Which is debtor, part for part,Heart?Thoughts, when the heart is heedable,Then to the heart are readable;I in the texts of your eyes have readDeep as the depth of the living dead,Measures of truth in unsaid songLearned from the soul to haunt me long,Song.Love perpends each laudableThought of the soul made audible,Said in gardens of bliss or pain:Moonlight rays in drops of rain,Feels the faith in its sleep awake,Wish of the silent words that shakeSleep.7She hums and musesIf love I have had of thee thou hadst of me,No loss was in giving it over;Could I give aught but that I had of thee,Being no more than thy lover?And let it cease. When what befalls befalls,You cannot love me less,Loving me much now. Neither weeks nor walls,With bitterest distress,Shall all avail. Despair will find reprieve,Though dark the soul be tossed,In past possession of that love you grieve,The love which you have lost.Ponder the morning, or the midnight moon,The wilding of the wold,The morning slitting from night's brown cocoonWide wings of flaxen gold:The moon that, had not darkness been before,Had never shone to lead;And think that, though you are, you are not poor,Since you have loved indeed.From flower to star read upward; you shall seeThe purposes of loss,Deep hierograms of gracious deity,And comfort in your cross.8She speaksSunday shall we ride together?Not the root-rough, rambling wayThrough the woods we went that day,In the sultry summer weather,Past the Methodist Camp-Meeting,Where religion helped the hymnGather volume, and a slimMinister with textful greetingWelcomed us and still expounded.From the service on the hillWe had rode three hills and stillFar away the singing sounded.Nor that road through weed and berryDrowsy days led me and youTo the old-time barbecue,Where the country-side made merry.Dusty vehicles together;Darkies with the horses by'Neath the soft Kentucky sky,And a smell of bark and leather;When you smiled, "Our modern tourney:Gallantry and politicsDinner, dance and intermix."As we went the homeward journey'Twixt hot chaparrals and thickets,Heard brisk fiddles, scraping still,Drone and thump the quaint quadrille,Like a worried band of crickets. —Neither road. The shady quietOf that way by beech and birch,Winding to the ruined churchOn the Fork that sparkles by it.Where the silent Sundays listenFor the preacher whom we bring,In our hearts to preach and singWeek-day shade to Sabbath glisten.9He, at partingYes, to-morrow; when the morn,Pentecost of flame, unclosesPortals that the stars adorn,Whence a golden presence throws hisFiery swords and burning rosesAt the wide wood's world of wall,Spears of sparkle at each fall;Then together let us rideDown deep-wood cathedral places,Where the pilgrim wild-flowers hide,Praying Sabbath in their faces;Where in truest untaught phrases,Worship in each rhythmic word,Sings no migratory bird…Pearl on pearl the high stars dightJewels of divine devices'Round the Afric throat of Night;Where yon misty glimmer risesSoon the white moon crystallizesOut of darkness, like a spell. —Late, 't is late. Till dawn, farewell.PART III
1Now rests the season in forgetfulness,Careless in beauty of maturity;The ripened roses 'round brown temples, sheFulfils completion in a dreamy guess:Now Time grants night the more and day the less;The gray decides; and brownDim golds and reds in dulling greens expressThemselves and broaden as the year goes down.Sadder the croft where, thrusting gray and highTheir balls of seeds, the hoary onions die,Where, Falstaff-like, buff-bellied pumpkins lie:Deeper each wilderness;Sadder the blue of hills that lounge alongThe lonesome west; sadder the songOf the wild red-bird in the leafage yellow,Deeper and dreamier, aye!Than woods or waters, leans the languid skyAbove lone orchards where the cider-pressDrips and the russets mellow.Nature grows liberal; under woodland leavesThe beech-nuts' burs their little pockets poke,Plump with the copper of the nuts that choke;Above our bristling way the spider weavesA glittering web for which the Dawn designsThrice twenty rows of sparkles. By the oak,That rolls old roots in many gnarly lines,The acorn thimble, smoothly broke,Shines by its saucer. On sonorous pinesThe far wind organs; but the forest hereTo no weak breeze hath woke;Far off the wind, but crumbling near and near, —Each tingling twig expectant, and the graySurmise of heaven pilots it the way,Rippling the leafy spines,Until the wildwood, one exultant sway,Booms, and the sunlight, arrowing through it, shinesVisible applause you hear.How glows the garden! though the white mists keepThe vagabond in flowers reminded ofDecay that comes to slay in open love,When the full moon hangs cold and night is deep,Unheeding such their cardinal colors leapGay in the crescent of the blade of death;Spaced innocents in swaths he weeps to reap,Waiting his scythe a breath,To gravely lay them dead with one last sweep. —Long, long admireTheir splendors manifold: —The scarlet salvia showered with spurts of fire;Cascading lattices, dark vines that creep,Nightshade and cypress; there the marigoldBurning – a shred of orange sunset caughtAnd elfed in petals that eve's goblins broughtFrom elfland; there, predominant red,The dahlia lifts its headBy the white balsams' red-bruised horns of honey,In humming spaces sunny.The crickets singing dirges noon and nightFor morn-born flowers, at dusk already dead,For dusk-dead flowers weep;While tired Summer white,Where yonder aster whispering odor rocks, —The withered poppies knotted in her locks, —Sighs, 'mong her sleepy hollyhocks asleep.2The hips were reddening on the rose,The haws hung slips of fire;We went the woodland way that goesUp hills of branch and briar.The hooked thorn held her gown and seemedImploring her be stayingThe sunlight of herself that beamedBeside it gently swaying.Low bent the golden saxifrage;Its yellow bells like banglesThe foxglove fluttered. Like a page —From out the rail-fence angles —With crimson plume the sumach, hosedIn Lincoln green, attendedMy lady of the elder, posedIn blue-black jewels splendid.And as we mounted up the hillThe rocky path that stumbledSpread smooth; and all the day was stillAnd odorous with umbledTops of wild-carrots drying gray;And there, soft-sunned before us,An orchard dwindling awayWith dappled boughs bent o'er us.An orchard where the pippin fellWorm-bitten, bruised, and dusty;And hornet-stung, each like a bell,The Bartlett ripened rusty;The smell of tawny peach and plum,That offered luscious yellow;Of wasp and bee the hidden hum,Made all the warm air mellow.And on we went where many-huedHung wild the morning-glory,Their blue balloons in shadows, dewedWith frost-white dew-drops hoary;In bush and burgrass far awayBeneath us stretched the valley,Cleft by one creek that laughed with dayAnd babbled musically.The brown, the bronze, the gray, the redOf weed and briar ran riotFlush to dark woodland walls that ledTo nooks of whispering quiet.Long, feathering bursts of golden-rodRan golden woolly patches —Bloom-sunsets of the withered sodThe dying summer catches.Then o'er the hills, loose-tumbling rolled —O'erleaping expectation —The sunset, flaming marigold,A system's conflagration:And homeward turning, she and IWent as one self in being —God met us in the earth and skyAnd Love had purged our seeing.3Say, my dear, O my dear,These are the eves for speaking;There is no wight will work us spiteBeneath the sunset's streaking.Yes, my dear, O my dear,These are the eves for telling;To walk together in starry weatherEre springs o' the moon are welling.O my dear, yes, my dear,These are the dusks for staying;When twilight dreams of night who seemsAmong long-purples praying."No, my dear!" – "Yes, my dear!"These are the nights to kiss itTimes twice-a-twenty: they grow a-plentyOn lips that will not miss it.4To dream where silence sleepsA sorrow's sleep that sighs;Where all heaven's azure peepsBlue from one wildflower's eyesWhere, in reflecting deeps, —Of cloudier woods and skies, —Another gray world lies.Divining God from thingsHumble as weeds and bees;From songs the free bird singsLearn all are vain but these;In light-delighted springs,Wise, star-familiar trees,Seek love's philosophies.5Here where the days are dimmest,Each old, big-hearted treeGives bounteous sympathy;Here where dead nights sit grimmestIn druid company;Here where the days are dimmest.Leaves of my lone communion,Leaves; and the listening sighOf silence wanders by;While on my soul the unionIs – of the wood and sky —Leaves of my lone communion.And eyes with tears are aching,While life waits wistfullyFor love that may not be:In visions vain of wakingLives all it can not see. —And eyes with tears are aching,And eyes with tears are aching.6And here alone I sit and see it so.A vale of willows swelling into knobs,A bulwark eastward. Sloping lowWestward the scooping waters flowUnder a rocky culvert's arch that throbsWith clanging wheels of transient trains that goScreaming to north and south.Here all the weary waters, stagnant stayed,Sleep at the culvert's mouth;The current's hungry hiccup still afraid,Haply, that I should never knowThe secret 'neath the striate scum o' the streamThe devil and the dream,I, dropping gravels so the echo sobMocking and thin as music of a shadeIn shades that wring from rocks a hollow woe,Complaining phantoms of faint whispers rob.There, up the valley where the lank grass leapsBlades each a crooked kris,The currents strike or missDream melodies: No wide-belled mallow sleepsMonandrous flowers oval as a kiss;No mandrake curling convolutions upLoops heavy blossoms, each a conical cupThat swoons moon-nectar and a serpent's hiss;No tiger-lily, where the crayfish play,Mirrors a savage face, a copper hueStreaked with a crimson dew;No dragon-fly in endless error keepsSewing the pale-gold gown of dayWith tangled stitches of a burning blue, —Whose brilliant body but a needle is,An azurn and incarnate ray: —But here, where haunted with the shade,The dull stream stales and dies,Are beauties none or few,Such sinister and new;And one at widest noon-gaze shrinks afraidBeneath the timid skies;So, if you ask me why I answer this: —You know not; only where the kildees wadeThere in the foamy scum,There where the wet rocks ail, —Low rocks to which the water-reptiles come,Basking pied bodies in the brindled shade, —Dim as a bubble's prism on the grailBelow, an angled sparkle rayed,While lights and shadows aidFrom breeze-blown clouds that lounge at sunny loss,Deep down, a sense of wavy features quailThe heart; with lips that writhe and fadeAnd clench; tough, rooty limbs that twist and cross,And flabby hair of smoky moss.A brimstone sunset. And at nightThe twinkling flies in will-o'-the-wisp dance wheelThrough copse and open, all a gnomish green.I hear the water, and the wave is whiteThere where the boulder plants a keel,And each taunt ripple 's sheen. —Where instant insects dotThe dark with spurts of sulphur – bright,Beneath the hazy height,No bitter-almond trees make wan the night,Building bloom ridges of a ghostly lustre,But white-tops tossing cluster over cluster:Huge-seen within that twilight spot —As if a hill-born giant, half asleep,Had dropped his night-cap while he drove his sheepFoldward through fallow brownsAnd foxy grays, – a something crownsThe knoll – is it the odorous peakOf one June-savory timothy stack?Now, one dead ash behind,A weak moon shows a withered cheekOf Quaker quiet, wasted o'er the vines'Appentice ruins roofing pillared pines:Beyond these, back and back,An oak-wood stretches black —And here the whining were-wolves of the windSnuff snarling: but their eyes are blind,Although their fangs are fierce;And though they never pierceBeyond the bad, bedevilled woodland streak,I hear them, yes, I hearA padding o' footsteps near,A prowling pant in earAnd can not fly! – yes! – no! —What horror holds me? – That uncoiling slow,Sure, mastering chimera there,Hooping firm unseen feelers 'round my neckA binding, bruising coil …The waters burn and boil;The fire-flies the dappled darkness fleckWith impish dabs of blazing wizard's oil …Deep, deep into the black eye of the beckI stare, magnetic fixed, and little reckIf all the writhing shadow slips,Dripping around me, to the eyes and hips,Where grinning murder leers with lupine lips.7What can it mean for me? what have I done to her?I in our freedom of love as a sun to her;She to our liberty goddess and slumberlessMoon of the stars shining silver and numberless:Who on my life, that was thorny and showery,Came – and made dewyness; smiled – and made flowery;Mine! the affinitized one of humanity:Mine! the elected of soul over vanity —What have I done to her, what have I done!What can it mean for me? what have I said to her?I, who have idolized, worshipped, and pled to her;Sung for her, laughed for her, sorrowed and sighed for her,Lived for her, hated and gladly had died for her!See; she has written me thus! she has written me —Sooner would dagger or serpent had smitten me!Would they had shrivelled or ever they'd read of it!Eyes, that are wide to the bitterest dread of it —What have I said to her, what have I said!What shall I make of it, I, who am tremblingFearful of loss? – Oh, enamored, dissemblingFlame! – of the candle that burning, but guttering,Flatters the moth that comes circling and flutteringOut of the summer night; trusting, importunate,Quitting cool flowers for this – O unfortunate! —Such has she been to me making me such to her,Slaying me, saying I never was much to her —What shall I make of it, what can I make!Love, in thy everglades, moaning and motionlessLook, I have fallen; the evil is potionless:I, with no thought but the heavens that lock us in,Set naked feet 'mid the cottonmouth, moccasinUnder wild-roses, the Cherokee, eying me: —In the sweet blue with the egrets that, flying me,Loosened like blooms from magnolias, rose slenderlyWhite and pale pink; where the mocking-bird tenderlySang, making vistas of mosses melodious,Wandered unheeding my steps in the odiousSlime that was venom; I followed the fieryViolet curve of thy star falling wiry —So was I lost in night, thus am undone!..Have I not told to her – living alone for her —Purposed unfoldments of love I had sown for herHere in the soil of my soul? their varietyEndless; and ever she answered with piety. —See! it has come to this … all the tale's suavityAt the ninth chapter grows stupid with gravity;Duller than death all our beautiful history —Close it! – the finis is more than a mystery. —Yes, I will tell her this; yes, I will tell.8I seem to hear her speak and seeThat blue-hung room. Her perfume comesFrom lavender folds vined dreamily —A-blossom with brocaded blooms, —A stuff of Orient looms.Again I hear her speak and back,Where steals the showery sunlight, pilesA whatnot dainty bric-a-bracBeside a tall clock; each glazed tile'sBlue-patterned profile smiles.I hear her say, "Ah, had we known,Could what has been have ever been? —And now!"… How hurt the hard ache shoneIn eyes whose sadness seemed to leanOn something far, unseen!And as in sleep my own self seemsOutside my suffering self: I flushIn mists of undetermined dreams;Behold her musing in that hushOf lilac light and plush.Smiling but tortured. Yes, I feelDespite that face, not seeming sad,In those calm temples thoughts like steelRemorseless bore. I had gone madHad I once deemed her glad.Unconsciously, with eyes that yearnTo pierce beyond the present far,Searching some future hope, I turn; —There in her garden one fierce star,Beyond the window's bar, —Vermilion as a storm-sunk sun, —A phyllocactus? – all the lifeOf torrid middays in but oneRich crimson bloom – flames red as strife;And near it, rankly rife —Deep coreopsis? – heavy huesOf soft seal-bronze and satiny gold,Sway girandoles whose jets of dewsBurn points of starlight diamond-cold,Warm-colored, manifold.She dare not speak; I can not. YetAn intercourse 'twixt brain and brainGoes feverish on. – Crushed, smelling wet,Through silken curtains drift againVerbena-scents of rain.I in the doorway turn and stay;Angry her cameo beauty markSet in that smile – Oh! will she sayNo farewell? no regret? one sparkOf hope to cheer the dark?That sepia-sketch – conceive it so —A roguish head with jaunty eyesLaughing beneath a rose-chapeau,Silk-masked, unmasking – it deniesThe full-faced flower surprise;Hung o'er her davenport… We readThe true beneath the false; perceiveThe smile that hides the ache. – Indeed!Whose soul unmasks?.. not mine! – I grieveHere, here, but laugh and leave…9Beyond the knotty apple-treesThat fade about the old brick-barn,Its tattered arms and tattered kneesA scare-crow tosses to the breezeAmong the shocks of corn.All things grow gray in earth and sky;The cold wind sounding drearilyMakes all the rusty branches fly;The rustling leaves a-rotting lie;The year is waning wearily.At night I hear the far wild geeseHonk in frost-bitten heavens, underArcturus. Though I seem to ceaseOutside myself and sleep in peace,I drowse awake and wonder.I know torn thistles by the creekHang hairy with the frost; the tentedBrown acres of the corn stretch bleakAnd ghostly in the moonlight, weakIn hollows bitter-scented.Dream back the ways we strolled at mornThrough woods of summer ever singing;Moon-trysts beneath the crooked thorn,The tasselled meads of cane and cornTheir restless shadows swinging…I stand and oar our boat amongThe dripping lilies of the river;I reach her hat the grape-vine longStruck in the stream; we sing a song,That song … I wake and shiver.And then my feverish mind revertsTo our sad words and sadder partingIn days long gone; and, oh! it hurtsWithin here, for the soul assertsMine the fool fault from starting.And I must lie awake and thinkOf her with such regrets as gladlyNo unrebuking conscience shrink;And hear the wild-fowls' clangor sinkThrough plaintive starlight sadly.When all are overflown and deepThe stoic night is left forsaken,For company I well would weep,Since all my spirit fears to sleep,Sleep of such visions shaken.Grave visions of dead deeds that flawOur waking hours, ever haunting;Else were we, lacking love and law,Rude scare-crow things of sticks and strawUndaunted and undaunting.10The sun a splintered splendor wasIn sober trees that broke and blurred,That afternoon we went togetherIn droning hum and whirling buzz,Where hard the dinning locust whirred,Through fields of golden-rod a-feather.So sweet it was to look and leanTo your young face and feel the lightOf eyes that fondled mine unsaddened!The laugh that left lips more serene;The words that blossomed like the whiteLife-everlasting there and gladdened.Maturing Summer, you were fraughtWith wiser beauties then than nowParades rich Autumn's red November;This stuns: there dreams no subtle thoughtAs then on hinting bush and bough —But now I am alone, remember.11Through iron-weeds and rosesAnd bronzing beech and oak,Old porches it discloses,Above the briars and rosesFall's feeble sunbeams soak.Neglected walks that tangleThe dodder-strangled grass;Its chimney shows one angleHeaped with dead leaves that spangleThe paths that round it pass.The early mists that buryAnd hide them in its rooms,From spider closets – veryDim with old webs – will hurryOut in the raining glooms.They haunt each stair and basement;They stand on hearth and porch;Lean from each paneless casement,Or in the moonlight's lacementFly with a phantom torch.There is a sense of frost here;And gusts that sob awayOf something that was lost here,Long, long ago was lost here,But what, they can not say.There croons no owl to startleDespondency within;No raven o'er its portalTo scare the daring mortalAnd guard its cellared sin.The creaking road descries itThis side the dusty toll;The farmer passing eyes it;None stops t' philosophize it,This symbol of a soul.12Though the dog-tooth violet comeWith the shower,And the wild-bee haunt and humEvery flower,We shall never wend as whenLove laughed leading us from menOver violet vale and glen,Where the red-bird sang an hour,And we heard the partridge drum.Here October shadows pray,Till one stillsJoyance, where for buried MaySob the rills:So love's vision has arisenOf the long ago: I listen —Memory, tears in eyes that glistenPoints but Indiana hillsFading dark-blue far away.