University of Virginia Library

Many are called, Aurelia replied,
But few are crowned. I knew a Poet once;
One of the world's most marvellous Might-have-beens;
A strange wild harper upon human heart-strings.
Life's morning-splendour round him prophesied
That he should win his garland in the game.
But he was lost for lack of that sweet thing,
A Wife, to live his love's dear dream of beauty,
And wandered darkling in his dazzling dream.
Life's waters—troubled till that Angel comes—
Never grew calm above the jewel he sought,
Till in Death's harbour all their surges slept.
He was betrothed to Beauty ere his birth—
That silent Spirit of the universe,
Which seeks interpreters of her dumb shows,
'Mong human lovers whom she may not wed.
This Spirit arose from many things, as soars
The soul of Harmony from many sounds.
Out of the by-way of his lonely life,
She beckoned him for her Evangelist,
And straightway he arose and followed her,
And in the shadow of her loveliness,
Or in her wake of glory, walked our world.
That shining Shape, in her sweet mystery, seemed
Some beauteous miracle of eternal love.
Through smiles, and tears, he saw his visioned Bride,
With gorgeous grace, and twinkling limbs of light,
Aye dancing on in her delightsomeness.
His love-dream glided silent through his life,
Like rosy-handed Day 'twixt Earth and Night,
And came betwixt his mind and all its glooms;
Her sandals wet and fragrant with Heaven's dew.
She set the barren thorns in jewelled glow,
And sowed the furrows of his life with flowers.
He followed with wild looks and heart a-fire,
And that rich mist of feeling in the eyes,
Whose alchemy half-creates the thing we see.
She rose at dawn in sparkling clouds of dew,
And kept the Morning's ruddy-golden gates;
Stood high in sunrise on the mountain-top;
Or in her bower of the ambient air
Sat, shedding her rich beauty on the sea,
Which of her likeness took some trembly tints;
Voyaged like Venus in her car of cloud
About the sapphire heaven's lake of love,
Or danced on sunset streams to harp of gold:
Then twilight mists would robe more dainty-rare
Her dim, delicious, dreamy loveliness.
The buds that startle at the voice of May
And open merry eyes, had been with her;
Their subtle smile said what they could reveal.
She nestled glancing at him from the flower
He plucked, and only caught her passing breath;
Even as he grasped her vesture she was gone.
Among the boughs that burgeon into bloom;
The coloured clouds that kindle and richly rise
From out the bosom of Earth's emerald sea;
Hedge-roses set in dewy radiance green;
The lush Laburnums, all a rain of gold;
She seemed to have fled and left her robe afloat.
An Ariel now, she murmured in the Pines;
He heard, but had no magic word or wand.
A wavy Naiad, she rippled the cool brooks
That round her dallied, babbling in their dreams.
The fragrant feeling of the languorous air
Was as the soft endearment of her arms,
That wound him in a tremulous caress.
Not by appointment do we meet Delight
And Joy; they heed not our expectancy;
But round some corner in the streets of life,
They, on a sudden, clasp us with a smile.
So on him rose his visitant divine,
From many a magic mirror of the mind;
With elfin evanescence came and went.
When, thronged with life, the Year in beauty burst,
Lifted her lids, and blossomed from the trees,
She glanced from all the gateways of the spring.
In burnished bark swam down the summer-tide
That floods the valleys, breaks o'er all the hills,
In sparkling spray of flowers, and leafy life.
She roofed the Autumn forests with the wealth
Of melted rainbows, caught from summer heaven.
And winter trees stretched fingers weird to win
The perfect pearl of her white purity.
Where'er she went Earth looked up and was glad.
Through Music's maze she glode at hide-and-seek;
Played with the Storm, then in her Iris-shape
Laughed from the purple skirts of Heaven, as laughs
Some radiant Child from Mother's hiding robe.
Adown dim forest-windings he would peer;
Surprise his Beautiful at her woodland bath,
And in a solemn hush of heart stand still
Like fixèd flame! for lo, how softly glowed
Her dainty limbs in depths of dissolved pearl!
Then swift as runs a wind-wave over grass,
He saw her garments gleam in leafy light.
Were those love-whisperings among the leaves,
Or elvish laughters twitting through the trees?
Sometimes the boughs let in her haunting face;
But the old Forest kept the secret still,
And hushed it round with grave unconscious look.
In vernal nights so tender, calm, and cool,
When eerie Darkness lays its shadowy hands
On Earth, and reads her sins with searching eyes,
Like a Confessor o'er a kneeling Nun;
He stood in God's wide whispering-gallery,
And breathed his worship: down from visible heaven
Her influence fell, and thrilled in music through
The silences of space, and soothed his soul,
Till life was folded up brimful of beauty,
As the flower clasps its pearl and droops to dream.
At times, from out the curtains of the dark,
Her face would meet him through the glowing gloom.
Sometimes she passed; her rippling raiment touched
His sense, and sphered him with diviner air,
Like honeysuckles brushed at dewy dusk.
The fragrance of her breath made old earth young.
From mystery to mystery, like a Bride,
The dainty-waisted darling led him on,
And dropped love-tokens in his pilgrim path.
The red Rose peering from its cool green leaves
Like warm Love lifting half its hiding veil,
Symbolled her soft red mouth held up to him.
A virgin whiteness in a dream of bloom,
Gave to her tender cheeks their taking tint.
Her eyes were orbs of thought that on him burned
Fervent as Hesper in the brow of night.
He walked as in a clime of golden eves.
The vineyard of his life reeled lusty-ripe;
He ached to press the wine upon her lips,
But aye she melted from his love's embrace,
To float him far away in faëry lands.
The wooing wind would murmur of her fairness,
And round him breathe in many whispers sweet;
Bring dews of healing as from Hermon hill;
Creep to his burning heart with drink of life,
And cool him with her kisses. Oft he hushed,
As one who pauses on a midnight heath,
To catch the footfall felt by Fancy's ear.
When he awoke in Dreamland, 'twas to find
He had been floated through some starry dark
Far from earth's shore, on an enchanted sea:
And he lay pillowed 'twixt her white warm breasts,
In glowing arms of glorifying love:
A light of love-dreams on her features shone,
And she had laid her daylight mask aside;
All the sweet soul of things bare to him, as lies
The mirrored moon in silver sleeping seas.
A shimmering splendour from the By-gone broke,
As the Ship leaves a luminous wake behind;
And, looking back, his Childhood's world she ringed
With rich auroral hues of summer dawns.
When weird, dark shapes of sorrow hunted nigh
With their slow solemn eyes, and silent aim,
She dropped the gold cloud of her tresses round him.
When o'er him hung the night of adverse fate,
She was a light along his perilous path,
And through the darkness of his soul there broke
A heaven of worlds all tenderness and peace.
At times he walked with glad and dauntless step,
As inner wings to heroic music moved;
And men who read his lighted look might deem
His life a summer story told in flowers.
But often he would falter weeping-weak,
With claspèd hands, and very lowly heart.
Then she rose radiant in a finer light,
Seen through the altar-smoke and mist of tears.
So his life grew to beauty silently,
And shaped his soul into an orb of song.
He sang of Her his beautiful Unknown!
And to his music she would coyly come;
He ceased—to look on her—and she was gone.
He sang of Her his beautiful Unknown,
Heart-wild, as some glad bird that tells of spring,
He would have made the world her worshipper,
And all Earth's voices ring a rich refrain.
One day our passionate pilgrim sat him down
By the wayside of life, and thus he prayed—