Shapes and Shadows
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The Evanescent Beautiful
Day after Day, young with eternal beauty,Pays flowery duty to the month and clime;Night after night erects a vasty portalOf stars immortal for the march of Time.But where are now the Glory and the Rapture,That once did capture me in cloud and stream?Where now the Joy that was both speech and silence?Where the beguilance that was fact and dream?I know that Earth and Heaven are as goldenAs they of olden made me feel and see;Not in themselves is lacking aught of powerThrough star and flower – something's lost in me.Return! Return! I cry, O Visions vanished,O Voices banished, to my Soul again!—The near Earth blossoms and the far Skies glisten,I look and listen, but, alas! in vain.August
IClad on with glowing beauty and the peace,Benign, of calm maturity, she standsAmong her meadows and her orchard-lands,And on her mellowing gardens and her trees,Out of the ripe abundance of her hands,Bestows increaseAnd fruitfulness, as, wrapped in sunny ease,Blue-eyed and blonde she goes,Upon her bosom Summer's richest rose.IIAnd he who follows where her footsteps lead,By hill and rock, by forest-side and stream,Shall glimpse the glory of her visible dream,In flower and fruit, in rounded nut and seed:She in whose path the very shadows gleam;Whose humblest weedSeems lovelier than June's loveliest flower, indeed,And sweeter to the smellThan April's self within a rainy dell.IIIHers is a sumptuous simplicityWithin the fair Republic of her flowers,Where you may see her standing hours on hours,Breast-deep in gold, soft-holding up a beeTo her hushed ear; or sitting under bowersOf greenery,A butterfly a-tilt upon her knee;Or, lounging on her hip,Dancing a cricket on her finger-tip.IVAye, let me breathe hot scents that tell of you:The hoary catnip and the meadow-mint,On which the honour of your touch doth printItself as odour. Let me drink the hueOf ironweed and mist-flow'r here that hint,With purple and blue,The rapture that your presence doth imbueTheir inmost essence with,Immortal though as transient as a myth.VYea, let me feed on sounds that still assureMe where you hide: the brooks', whose happy dinTells where, the deep retired woods within,Disrobed, you bathe; the birds', whose drowsy lureTells where you slumber, your warm-nestling chinSoft on the purePink cushion of your palm … What better cureFor care and memory's acheThan to behold you so and watch you wake!The Higher Brotherhood
To come in touch with mysteriesOf beauty idealizing Earth,Go seek the hills, grown old with trees,The old hills wise with death and birth.There you may hear the heart that beatsIn streams, where music has its source;And in wild rocks of green retreatsBehold the silent soul of force.Above the love that emanatesFrom human passion, and reflectsThe flesh, must be the love that waitsOn Nature, whose high call electsNone to her secrets save the fewWho hold that facts are far less realThan dreams, with which all facts indueThemselves approaching the Ideal.Gramarye
There are some things that entertain me moreThan men or books; and to my knowledge seemA key of Poetry, made of magic loreOf childhood, opening many a fabled doorOf superstition, mystery, and dreamEnchantment locked of yore.For, when through dusking woods my pathway lies,Often I feel old spells, as o'er me flitsThe bat, like some black thought that, troubled, fliesRound some dark purpose; or before me criesThe owl that, like an evil conscience, sitsA shadowy voice and eyes.Then, when down blue canals of cloudy snowThe white moon oars her boat, and woods vibrateWith crickets, lo, I hear the hautboys blowOf Elf-land; and when green the fireflies glow,See where the goblins hold a Fairy FêteWith lanthorn row on row.Strange growths, that ooze from long-dead logs and spreadA creamy fungus, where the snail, uncoiled,And fat slug feed at morn, are Pixy breadMade of the yeasted dew; the lichens red,Besides these grown, are meat the Brownies broiledAbove a glow-worm bed.The smears of silver on the webs that lineThe tree's crook'd roots, or stretch, white-wove, withinThe hollow stump, are stains of Faëry wineSpilled on the cloth where Elf-land sat to dine,When night beheld them drinking, chin to chin,O' the moon's fermented shine.What but their chairs the mushrooms on the lawn,Or toadstools hidden under flower and fern,Tagged with the dotting dew! – With knees updrawnFar as his eyes, have I not come uponPuck seated there? but scarcely 'round could turnEre, presto! he was gone.And so though Science from the woods hath trackedThe Elfin; and with prosy lights of dayUnhallowed all his haunts; and, dulling, blackedOur eyesight, still hath Beauty never lackedFor seers yet; who, in some wizard way,Prove Fancy real as Fact.Dreams
My thoughts have borne me far awayTo Beauties of an older day,Where, crowned with roses, stands the Dawn,Striking her seven-stringed barbitonOf flame, whose chords give being toThe seven colours, hue for hue;The music of the colour-dreamShe builds the day from, beam by beam.My thoughts have borne me far awayTo Myths of a diviner day,Where, sitting on the mountain, NoonSings to the pines a sun-soaked tuneOf rest and shade and clouds and skies,Wherein her calm dreams idealizeLight as a presence, heavenly fair,Sleeping with all her beauty bare.My thoughts have borne me far awayTo Visions of a wiser day,Where, stealing through the wilderness,Night walks, a sad-eyed votaress,And prays with mystic words she hearsBehind the thunder of the spheres,The starry utterance that's hers,With which she fills the Universe.The Old House
Quaint and forgotten, by an unused road,An old house stands: around its doors the denseBlue iron-weeds grow high;The chipmunks make a highway of its fence;And on its sunken flagstones slug and toadSilent as lichens lie.The timid snake upon its hearth's cool sandSleeps undisturbed; the squirrel haunts its roof;And in the clapboard sidesOf closets, dim with many a spider woof,Like the uncertain tapping of a hand,The beetle-borer hides.Above its lintel, under mossy eaves,The mud-wasps build their cells; and in the floorOf its neglected porchThe black bees nest. Through each deserted door,Vague as a phantom's footsteps, steal the leaves,And dropped cones of the larch.But come with me when sunset's magic oldTransforms the ruin of that ancient house;When windows, one by one, —Like age's eyes, that youth's love-dreams arouse, —Grow lairs of fire; and glad mouths of goldIts wide doors, in the sun.Or let us wait until each rain-stained roomIs carpeted with moonlight, pattened oftWith the deep boughs o'erhead;And through the house the wind goes rustling soft,As might the ghost – a whisper of perfume —Of some sweet girl long dead.The Rock
Here, at its base, in dingled deepsOf spice-bush, where the ivy creeps,The cold spring scoops its hollow;And there three mossy stepping-stonesMake ripple murmurs; undertonesOf foam that blend and followWith voices of the wood that drones.The quail pipes here when noons are hot;And here, in coolness sunlight-shotBeneath a roof of briers,The red-fox skulks at close of day;And here at night, the shadows grayStand like Franciscan friars,With moonbeam beads whereon they pray.Here yawns the ground-hog's dark-dug hole;And there the tunnel of the moleHeaves under weed and flower;A sandy pit-fall here and thereThe ant-lion digs and lies a-lair;And here, for sun and shower,The spider weaves a silvery snare.The poison-oak's rank tendrils twineThe rock's south side; the trumpet-vine,With crimson bugles sprinkled,Makes green its eastern side; the westIs rough with lichens; and, gray-pressedInto an angle wrinkled,The hornets hang an oblong nest.The north is hid from sun and star,And here, – like an InquisitorOf Faëry Inquisition,That roots out Elf-land heresy, —Deep in the rock, with mysteryCowled for his grave commission,The Owl sits magisterially.Rain
Around, the stillness deepened; then the grainWent wild with wind; and every briery laneWas swept with dust; and then, tempestuous black,Hillward the tempest heaved a monster back,That on the thunder leaned as on a cane;And on huge shoulders bore a cloudy pack,That gullied gold from many a lightning-crack:One great drop splashed and wrinkled down the pane,And then field, hill, and wood were lost in rain.At last, through clouds, – as from a cavern hewnInto night's heart, – the sun burst, angry roon;And every cedar, with its weight of wet,Against the sunset's fiery splendour set,Frightened to beauty, seemed with rubies strewn;Then in drenched gardens, like sweet phantoms met,Dim odours rose of pink and mignonette;And in the East a confidence, that soonGrew to the calm assurance of the Moon.Standing-Stone Creek
A weed-grown slope, whereon the rainHas washed the brown rocks bare,Leads tangled from a lonely laneDown to a creek's broad stairOf stone, that, through the solitude,Winds onward to a quiet wood.An intermittent roof of shadeThe beech above it throws;Along its steps a balustradeOf beauty builds the rose;In which, a stately lamp of greenAt intervals the cedar's seen.The water, carpeting each ledgeOf rock that runs across,Glints 'twixt a flow'r-embroidered edgeOf ferns and grass and moss;And in its deeps the wood and skySeem patterns of the softest dye.Long corridors of pleasant duskWithin the house of leavesIt reaches; where, on looms of musk,The ceaseless locust weavesA web of summer; and perfumeTrails a sweet gown from room to room.Green windows of the boughs, that swing,It passes, where the notesOf birds are glad thoughts entering,And butterflies are motes;And now a vista where the dayOpens a door of wind and ray.It is a stairway for all soundsThat haunt the woodland sides;On which, boy-like, the southwind bounds,Girl-like, the sunbeam glides;And, like fond parents, following these,The oldtime dreams of rest and peace.The Moonmen
I stood in the forest on Huron HillWhen the night was old and the world was still.The Wind was a wizard who muttering strodeIn a raven cloak on a haunted road.The Sound of Water, a witch who croonedHer spells to the rocks the rain had runed.And the Gleam of the Dew on the fern's green tipWas a sylvan passing with robe a-drip.The Light of the Stars was a glimmering maidWho stole, an elfin, from glade to glade.The Scent of the Woods in the delicate air,A wildflower shape with chilly hair.And Silence, a spirit who sat aloneWith a lifted finger and eyes of stone.And it seemed to me these six were metTo greet a greater who came not yet.And the speech they spoke, that I listened to,Was the archetype of the speech I knew.For the Wind clasped hands with the Water's rush,And I heard them whisper, Hush, oh, hush!The Light of the Stars and the Dew's cool gleamTouched lips and murmured, Dream, oh dream!The Scent of the Woods and the Silence deepSighed, bosom to bosom, Sleep, oh, sleep!And so for a moment the six were dumb,Then exulted together, They come, they come!And I stood expectant and seemed to hearA visible music drawing near.And the first who came was the Captain MoonBearing a shield in God's House hewn.Then an Army of glamour, a glittering Host,Beleaguered the night from coast to coast.And the world was filled with spheric fireFrom the palpitant chords of many a lyre,As out of the East the Moonmen cameSmiting their harps of silver and flame.More beauty and grace did their forms expressThan the Queen of Love's white nakedness.More chastity too their faces heldThan the snowy breasts of Diana swelled.Translucent-limbed, I saw the beatIn their hearts of pearl of the golden heat.And the hair they tossed was a crystal light,And the eyes beneath it were burning white.Their hands that lifted, their feet that fell,Made the darkness blossom to asphodel.And the heavens, the hills, and the streams they trodShone pale with th' communicated God.A placid frenzy, a waking trance,A soft oracular radiance,Wrapped forms that moved as melodies move,Laurelled with god-head and halo'd with love.So there in the forest on Huron HillThe Moonmen camped when the world was still…What wonder that they who have looked on theseAre lost to the earth's realities!That they sit aside with a far-off lookDreaming the dreams that are writ in no book!That they walk alone till the day they die,Even as I, yea, even as I!The Old Man Dreams
The blackened walnut in its spicy hullRots where it fell;And, in the orchard, where the trees stand full,The pear's ripe bellDrops; and the log-house in the bramble lane,From whose low doorStretch yellowing acres of the corn and cane,He sees once more.The cat-bird sings upon its porch of pine;And o'er its gate,All slender-podded, twists the trumpet-vine,A leafy weight;And in the woodland, by the spring, mayhap,With eyes of joyAgain he bends to set a rabbit-trap,A brown-faced boy.Then, whistling, through the underbrush he goes,Out of the wood,Where, with young cheeks, red as an Autumn rose,Beneath her hood,His sweetheart waits, her school-books on her arm;And now it seemsBeside his chair he sees his wife's fair form —The old man dreams.Since Then
I found myself among the treesWhat time the reapers ceased to reap;And in the berry blooms the beesHuddled wee heads and went to sleep,Rocked by the silence and the breeze.I saw the red fox leave his lair,A shaggy shadow, on the knoll;And, tunnelling his thoroughfareBeneath the loam, I watched the mole —Stealth's own self could not take more care.I heard the death-moth tick and stir,Slow-honeycombing through the bark;I heard the crickets' drowsy chirr,And one lone beetle burr the dark —The sleeping woodland seemed to purr.And then the moon rose; and a whiteLow bough of blossoms – grown almostWhere, ere you died, 'twas our delightTo tryst, – dear heart! – I thought your ghost…The wood is haunted since that night.Comrades
Down through the woods, along the wayThat fords the stream; by rock and tree,Where in the bramble-bell the beeSwings; and through twilights green and grayThe red-bird flashes suddenly,My thoughts went wandering to-day.I found the fields where, row on row,The blackberries hang black with fruit;Where, nesting at the elder's root,The partridge whistles soft and low;The fields, that billow to the footOf those old hills we used to know.There lay the pond, still willow-bound,On whose bright surface, when the hotNoon burnt above, we chased the knotOf water-spiders; while aroundOur heads, like bits of rainbow, shotThe dragonflies without a sound.The pond, above which evening bentTo gaze upon her rosy face;Wherein the twinkling night would placeA vague, inverted firmament,In which the green frogs tuned their bass,And firefly sparkles came and went.The oldtime woods we often ranged,When we were playmates, you and I;The oldtime fields, with boyhood's skyStill blue above them! – Naught was changed!Nothing! – Alas, then tell me whyShould we be? whom long years estranged.Waiting
Come to the hills, the woods are green —The heart is high whenLove is sweet—There is a brook that flows betweenTwo mossy trees where we can meet,Where we can meet and speak unseen.I hear you laughing in the lane —The heart is high whenLove is sweet—The clover smells of sun and rainAnd spreads a carpet for our feet,Where we can sit and dream again.Come to the woods, the dusk is here —The heart is high whenLove is sweet—A bird upon the branches nearSets music to our hearts' glad beat,Our hearts that beat with something dear.I hear your step; the lane is passed; —The heart is high whenLove is sweet—The little stars come bright and fast,Like happy eyes to see us greet,To see us greet and kiss at last.Contrasts
No eve of summer ever can attainThe gladness of that eve of late July,When 'mid the roses, filled with musk and rain,Against the wondrous topaz of the sky,I met you, leaning on the pasture bars, —While heaven and earth grew conscious of the stars.No night of blackest winter can repeatThe bitterness of that December night,When at your gate, gray-glittering with sleet,Within the glimmering square of window-light,We parted, – long you clung unto my arm, —While heaven and earth surrendered to the storm.In June
Deep in the West a berry-coloured barOf sunset gleams; against which one tall firIs outlined dark; above which – courierOf dew and dreams – burns dusk's appointed star.And flash on flash, as when the elves wage warIn Goblinland, the fireflies bombardThe stillness; and, like spirits, o'er the swardThe glimmering winds bring fragrance from afar.And now withdrawn into the hill-wood beltsA whippoorwill; while, with attendant statesOf purple and silver, slow the great moon meltsInto the night – to show me where she waits, —Like some slim moonbeam, – by the old beech-tree,Who keeps her lips, fresh as a flower, for me.After long Grief and Pain
There is a place hung o'er with summer boughsAnd drowsy skies wherein the gray hawk sleeps;Where waters flow, within whose lazy deeps,Like silvery prisms that the winds arouse,The minnows twinkle; where the bells of cowsTinkle the stillness, and the bob-white keepsCalling from meadows where the reaper reaps,And children's laughter haunts an old-time house;A place where life wears ever an honest smellOf hay and honey, sun and elder-bloom —Like some dear, modest girl – within her hair:Where, with our love for comrade, we may dwellFar from the city's strife whose cares consume —Oh, take my hand and let me lead you there.Can I Forget?
Can I forget how Love once led the waysOf our two lives together, joining them;How every hour was his anadem,And every day a tablet in his praise!Can I forget how, in his garden place,Among the purple roses, stem to stem,We heard the rumour of his robe's bright hem,And saw the aureate radiance of his face! —Though I behold my soul's high dreams down-hurled,And Falsehood sit where Truth once towered white,And in Love's place, usurping lust and shame…Though flowers be dead within the winter world,Are flowers not there? and starless though the night,Are stars not there, eternal and the same?The House of Fear
Vast are its halls, as vast the halls and loneWhere Death stalks listening to the wind and rain;And dark that house, where I shall meet againMy long-dead Sin in some dread way unknown;For I have dreamed of stairs of haunted stone,And spectre footsteps I have fled in vain;And windows glaring with a blood-red stain,And horrible eyes, that burn me to the bone,Within a face that looks as that black nightIt looked when deep I dug for it a grave, —The dagger wound above the brow, the thinBlood trickling down slantwise the ghastly white; —And I have dreamed not even God can saveMe and my soul from that risen Sin.At Dawn
Far off I heard dark waters rush;The sky was cold; the dawn broke green;And wrapped in twilight and strange hushThe gray wind moaned between.A voice rang through the House of Sleep,And through its halls there went a tread;Mysterious raiment seemed to sweepAround the pallid dead.And then I knew that I had died,I, who had suffered so and sinned —And 't was myself I stood besideIn the wild dawn and wind.Storm
I looked into the night and sawGod writing with tumultuous flameUpon the thunder's front of awe, —As on sonorous brass, – the Law,Terrific, of His judgement name.Weary of all life's best and worst,With hands of hate, I – who had pled,I, who had prayed for death at firstAnd had not died – now stood and cursedGod, yet he would not strike me dead.Memories
Here where Love lies perishèd,Look not in upon the dead;Lest the shadowy curtains, shakenIn my Heart's dark chamber, wakenGhosts, beneath whose garb of sorrowWhilom gladness bows his head:When you come at morn to-morrow,Look not in upon the dead,Here where Love lies perishèd.Here where Love lies cold interred,Let no syllable be heard;Lest the hollow echoes, housingIn my Soul's deep tomb, arousingWake a voice of woe, once laughterClaimed and clothed in joy's own word:When you come at dusk or after,Let no syllable be heard,Here where Love lies cold interred.Which?
The wind was on the forest,And silence on the wold;And darkness on the waters,And heaven was starry cold;When Sleep, with mystic magic,Bade me this thing behold:This side, an iron woodland;That side, an iron waste;And heaven, a tower of iron,Wherein the wan moon paced,Still as a phantom woman,Ice-eyed and icy-faced.And through the haunted towerOf silence and of night,My Soul and I went only,My Soul, whose face was white,Whose one hand signed me listen,One bore a taper-light.For, lo! a voice behind meKept sighing in my earThe dreams my flesh accepted,My mind refused to hear —Of one I loved and loved not,Whose spirit now spake near.And, lo! a voice before meKept calling constantlyThe hopes my mind accepted,My flesh refused to see —Of one I loved and loved not,Whose spirit spake to me.This way the one would bid me;This way the other saith: —Sweet is the voice behind meOf Life that followeth;And sweet the voice before meOf Life whose name is Death.Sunset in Autumn
Blood-coloured oaks, that stand against a sky of gold and brass;Gaunt slopes, on which the bleak leaves glow of brier and sassafras,And broom-sedge strips of smoky pink and pearl-gray clumps of grass,In which, beneath the ragged sky, the rain-pools gleam like glass.From West to East, from wood to wood, along the forest-side,The winds, – the sowers of the Lord, – with thunderous footsteps stride;Their stormy hands rain acorns down; and mad leaves, wildly dyed,Like tatters of their rushing cloaks, stream round them far and wide.The frail leaf-cricket in the weeds rings a faint fairy bell;And like a torch of phantom ray the milkweed's windy shellGlimmers; while wrapped in withered dreams, the wet autumnal smellOf loam and leaf, like some sad ghost, steals over field and dell.The oaks against a copper sky – o'er which, like some black lakeOf Dis, dark clouds, like surges fringed with sullen fire, break —Loom sombre as Doom's citadel above the vales, that makeA pathway to a land of mist the moon's pale feet shall take.Now, dyed with burning carbuncle, a Limbo-litten pane,Within its wall of storm, the West opens to hill and plain,On which the wild geese ink themselves, a far triangled train;And then the shuttering clouds close down – and night is here again.