The poems of Trumbull Stickney

Clouds thro' the heaven flit
Aprilward.
There 's the bud of a violet
On the sward.
Branch and breeze sympathize
Ere they play,—
I know that it 's Spring to-day
By your eyes.

How shall I hold you fast
Now you are here?
A tremor, and you have passed.
And this year
Only of all is ours
Only is mine!—
I see in your blue eyes shine
All the year's flowers.

Hereafter I'll call you Spring,
Little girl!
And christen each clustering
Delicate curl
Some lovely meadow's name
In the South,
Where they say that music and youth
Stay the same.

I held these tulips first, before
Bringing you them.
I passed the love I bear you o'er
Flower and stem.
And I would leave them at your door,—

If at your heart's door they might stand!
Keeping awhile
The world behind their petals and
Crimson smile,—
Like seas hid by a meadow-land.

A trill of leaves is in the wold;
I feel the wings of summer pass,
And sunlight in big drops of gold
Falls on the seedy feathered grass.

Some tiny cuckoo never seen
Blows his own echo mild as mist.
A deer there, stirring in the green!
A squirrel, where the branches kissed.

Far through, a sweep of aspen-boughs
And birches whitening tow'rd the crest
Reclines, like river-grass, and flows
Along the summer to the West,

Farther away, till last of all
In milky hazes lying furled
Is—nothing more. 'T is we recall
Infinity back to the world.

In the bow-window that looks out
Over the sunset-coloured bay
We sat one evening, wondering and in doubt.

The water plashing on the quay
Roused the warm air, and half-awake
One hill we knew was changing golden-gray.

We strained our sight upon the lake;
We dared not anything to say,
For fear your heart and mine might haply break.

Our tired eyes soon filled with tears,
And we said nothing. But your hand
Was like a heart that understands and hears.

[1896]

We missed the sunset, love, to-night—
The sunset on the sea that sings,
Folding about its heart of light
The large and melancholy wings.

A snowy gull may've moved along
The rose and gray and violet bands,
Serene as thought and pure as song,
Beyond our line of open sands;

A moonbeam on the fisher net,
A sail that lay upon the sea,
A rim of pebbles darkly wet:
It all was not for you and me.

A sunset lost, a life foregone!
Beauty that asked our heart and died!
What said we? did we match the Sun
With aught of Heart, my love?—My bride,

One look you gave was twice a sky.
I kissed your hand, you said a word

That greater is for melody
Than all the tides a coast-land heard.

One sunset lost, one look the more!—
The night is quieting the foam.
Hear you? “Come,” says the endless shore,
And all the waves in murmur, “Come.”

He rests upon her knee his tired head;
His eye, long worried, sleeps;
And she, whose perfect love has nothing said,
Her hand upon his forehead keeps.

Thro' darkening windows blows the ancient spring;
A planet trembles, kind.
Her large wet eyes are vastly wondering,
Her happy love resembles wind.

The breeze about her finger stirs his hair,
And her breath rises, falls.
So their unfolding presence thro' the air
In soft and low surprises calls.

He touches her in dream and follows her,
For nearness of her fails.
And the spring night of green and gossamer
Around beloved and lover pales.

II

I hear you singing in my breast,
I hear you chanting in my mind.
Is it the wind?

I feel your form upon my eyes,
I feel your fingers press my sight.
Is it the night?

I hear the little noise of feet
And footsteps come and come again.
Is it the rain?

And all alone with memory
My brain grows anxious for the day.
You 're long away.

“Will you look down once more, just once?
Down to the ground and keep your veil
Drawn o'er your half-guessed countenance
And smile—so frail?

“Thank you! For I have had a friend
Whose image came most vividly
Upon my soul, when with that bend
You looked from me.

“Gone? Yes! you cannot think how far,
Beyond the uttermost of thought.
She 's grown, as far things do, a star
In heaven's hand caught.

“But stars, you know, are very cold
And always white. They never bless
Just you, and in the night's great fold
Grow vague and less.

“And so it's sweet to feel sometimes
A colour, gesture, sound—a turn
That makes the heart grow dull with rhymes
And the soul's lips burn.

“Yes! sometimes fast about my heart
Something troubles me that I knew;
I find a stranger made me start,
As now did you.

“So pray don't think me rude. That face—
For the mere memory I would die.
You 've warmed my life with your—her grace.
Good-night, good-bye.”

[1896]

If you should lightly, as I 've known you, come
And find me of an evening crying here

At open windows of a changing home,
While beyond garden, houses, tree, and dome
Fades out the day and year;

If you should gently touch my shoulder, and
Turning I'd see as with a sweet surprise
You there, above me and about me, stand,
While the warm sunset passed a lucid hand
Over your face and eyes;

If then you softly, as I 've heard you, said
That all was well, I know not what or why,
But just for words' sake told me; while your head
Moved round, you passed away; and in your stead
An autumn night came by:

Still would the happiness of having stood
With one so nearly you tho' gone so soon,
Bring to my solitude a little good,—
As one who 's gladdened in a midnight wood
For having seen the moon.

Sometimes you seem so far away,
The very noise of thinking lulls,
And, on my vision, colour dulls
To vapour with sick wings of gray.

I wander out of Time and Mind.
The sense of my own life is lost.
One thought goes touching like a ghost
That found yet knows not where to find.

And all I know is just the jar
Of chime that trembles in my ear;
And all I ask is if the year
Is never tired as others are.

You charm a window in the South,
Your brow seen by the golden star;
And through warm dreams the gentle war
Of thought lures laughter to your mouth.

The wind lulls in the olive grove
And all becomes a vaporous sigh—
Low preludes to your ecstasy
Who love too much to think of love.—

October is in midnight swound
With just a vague gray blot for moon,
And like a scum the rotting brown
Of dead leaves drifts along the ground;

While I sit waiting for a time
I know not how, and marvel forth

Upon the vastness of the North,
Till marvel mellows into rhyme.

I heard a dead leaf run. It crossed
My way. For dark I could not see.
It rattled crisp and thin with frost
Out to the lea.
My steps I hast'ned, I was lost
For all the grief that came to me.
For now and ever thro' the host
Of sounds that blow from shrub and tree,—
A little echo sharply tossed,—
The footsteps chills me of her ghost;
And knowing naught I weep most drearily.

III

There 's just a bit of twilight yet,
A glossy gray that floats the sea
From yonder, where the daylight set,
To me.

All else is violet growing dark.
Southward, a sorrow breaks the sky.
The tide in languor of its mark
Is high.

And old night thickens on the strand.
There is no motion but the wave's,
Along the leagues of listening sand
That raves.

And nothing now. The lighthouse lit.
If ships there be, they 're far from coast.
All 's safe. But something infinite
Is lost.

One spot where every day declines
In a last red ray
From the circle poised on a hill of pines;

One knoll, where an elm's twist-branches play
With the air, elate;
And below, our bench of a battered gray:

In summer, 't was bright—when the sun sets late,
Too late for regret!
And the winds lie down somewhere to wait

While daylight goes and gray streaks fret
The heaven's blues
And round the mid-sky night's arms are met.

But we went to-day and the long sinews
Of our elm were lame
With wind that ran in the day's lost clues.

Early the sun set, vague and tame.
Thro' gathering mists
The rain fell chiding us why we came.

A drizzle fills the autumn day.
The sun will never here come back,
And weeds and foliage in decay
Lie draggled in the cart-wheel's track.

From blackened woods along the plain
A vapour passes out, a sound
Of boughs grown weak thro' nights of rain,
That sink and shatter on the ground.

The meadow turf is all a swamp,
There 's nothing left of summer. Come.

The air turns dark and deadly damp.
Come, for it 's very far to home.

The year for you and me
Is nearly done.
The leaves there, two or three,
Are brown.
Not a bird sings.
It is time to think of other things.

Your secret was my hope,
Your deeper name;
And you perhaps did ope
The same.—
Only the word
For being spoke yet was not heard.

And as a leaf that knows
It cannot meet
Another leaf that grows
So sweet,
Hearing it call,
Springs in the autumn wind, to fall:

So did I hoping doubt,
Till thro' the dark
Falling away, went out
The spark,—

Ever to be
A star gone down below the sea.

Not that, if you had known at all,
You would have done what now you do.
God knows, no blame shall ever fall
Of mine on you.
I only marvel that it all be true.

They say that love 's a mustard seed
Upon the acres of the heart;
It spreads from one part like a weed
To another part.
Yet Spring is single and the days depart.

I know not why, but so it is!
That pain is such a simple thing.
Here to your hand I bring my kiss,
And yet nothing
Can tell you nearly what it is I bring.

And why?—It 's hard to cipher Fates
And Distances, as yours from me.
Not science even separates
So fixedly;—
And then we tantalize our destiny!

Yes, marvel how the chances cross
And weave these spider-webs of wire.
Men live who say there's gain in loss!
And yet Desire
Revives like ferns on a November fire.

It comes to only a memory.
We have too many memories,
And somehow I believe we die
Of things like these,
Loving what was not, might not be, nor is.

[1896]

Like a pearl dropped in red dark wine,
Your pale face sank within my heart,
Not to be mine, yet always mine.

Your eyes, like flowers from apart
Their frail and shaded gates of dream,
Looked all a meadow's light astart

With sunrise, and your smile did seem
As when below a letting rain
The water-drops with sunset gleam.

I thought my vision was not vain;
I felt my cramped heart stir and move
Which now is pressed with little pain.

I dreamed the dream one wonders of,—
Your face of pearl, so pale and wise.
I saw, and murmured “Life is Love.”

The dust of folly filled my eyes.
I sang, and opened in your name
Crocuses yellow with moonrise.

I played with shadows at their game;
The meadow thought my song was wind.
I called the sunrise up: it came.

Sweet sun-warmed grasses did I bind
In fancies of your hair. My song
Was you, and you were all my mind.—

The charm, the splendour, and the wrong
Will drive you thro' the earth, to try
Of you and pleasure which is strong,—

While I remember. Cry on cry
My autumn 's gone. A horrid blast
Blows out my sunset from the sky.

Nothing is left and all is past;
Rain settles like a quiet air.
And as a pearl in red wine cast
Glows like a drop of moonlight there,
Your face possesses my despair.

Receive my love; I ask no more.
Receive, I have no more to give.
The heart and spirit of me bore
All of this little gift. Receive!

I fancied as in dream I passed
My arms afraid with care and strove
About you, to have gleaned at last
Some late and stilly wished-for love,—

No more the wild wide flames that leap
Out of a moment down our years,
To smoulder in endangering sleep,
To glitter under tender tears,—

But something dear and gradual
Within your slowly opening soul:
Your nearly love, your nearly all
Which comes with years to be the very whole.

You would give otherwise and more,
Give much more and forget you gave,—
As over-seas in summer pour
The wide blue swinging breadths of wave.

Yes, and your vision of desire
Is richer than the sunrise and
Profounder than the sea and higher
Than the last light these heavens command.

You suffer thirst, and waiting brood
Impatiently one day to strain
From out this life of mood and food
The stuffs of ecstasy and pain:—

Till squandering in royal waste
The passion of your youth upon
Some pitiable heart, you taste
The wines and fever of oblivion!

I know.—Your dream is mine, that was.
And quickly far within your eyes
All of my life began to pass
And wander out in seas and skies.

But you, whom all my life adored,
While I go following in your way,
Can not so much as speak the word;—
For there be lies no tongue can say.

How strange it is, the point we lack
Just to possess the spirit's own,
And failing this, to tremble back
Among unfinished things alone!

Pass by, dear heart,—and take from me
This charm for which a diver dove
Of old down the unruined sea,—
And taking mine, give to another thy love.

IV

No, no, 't is very much too late.
I thought it mockery that you said
You loved me; but a certain fate
Lowers your voice and bows your head.
I tell you, you desire to wake the dead.

'T is pitiful so to drag out
The sorry quarrel in our souls,
Till even the blood suspends in doubt
And each full impulse backward rolls.
Meantime the hour regardless passing tolls.

Yes! think how year on year is gone.
You went your way and hummed your dreams
Of passion and oblivion
In lands where terrible sunbeams
Shiver upon the leaping arch of streams.

Your heart was violent and you stretched
Tiptoe after the stars your hand!—
'T was but a willow-bough you fetched.
The argosies of your command
Returned, saying beyond there was no land.

You cursed the woman's life for lame.
To do! you cried, and labouring
Like men bring in the distant aim!—

What was this aim you needs must bring,
Your one, your altogether desired thing?

You knew not, doubting day by day.
Like yours how many lives are lived!
How seldom all is given away,
How little of every gift received!
How the heart most of all is least believed!

When at your going my grief was new
And the long future all to waste,
I said farewell to more than you:
I wandered up into the Past
And wandering have imagined peace at last.

Still, perhaps, under leaves that lie
You'd feel the roots of sorrow end
Here in my bosom dyingly:
Mere threads they are, too frail to tend!
I've done with my own living, O my friend!

For what were gained if I were yours?
Fever and frenzy of the blood,
The pleasure which no surfeit cures,
Endless desire, hunger, feud—
And, at the end of passion, solitude.—

You know how, born by a small hearth,
While out in the sad dark it snows

And 't is for months an unseen earth,
The soul as by remembrance goes
After the warm vineyard and burning rose,

To live long years by stream and hill
Within the southern light, with men
Who speak delicious language:—till
The pain of being alien
Urges one elsewhere yet not home again.

So are our lives. I love you more.
But other hearts by destiny
Must needs possess what they adore
And have it, to live with and to die,
To strangle or soothe with kisses. Not so I.

By silences within a dream
And bird-songs of a spring sunrise,
To the onward measure of a stream
Nearer the sea where quiet is,
I love you more, much more, but otherwise.

If I have wronged you in the days
Bygone but unforgotten now,
I make no pleading for your grace.
My tongue is bitter. Leave me, go.

You have no pity, none. You live
Impatient and unreconciled.
Nay, were you a mother, I believe
You never could well love your child.

You 've cracked the sense of life and death
With passions in you that despise
The thing you love and choke its breath,
Till unrecriminate it dies,—

It dies to you; and nothing then,
Nor art nor hope nor force nor spell
Can worry back the lost again,—
Lost, lost, and irrecoverable.

And then, God knows, some things there be
Where never pardon yet was known:
What words have leapt from you to me!
Enough, henceforward I'm my own.

Yes, men are selfish—Tell me, you
Who pluck my thoughts for flying fast,
Ask all the years to be, and rue
The unalterably separate past,

What is this that is generous?
Can just a word we used to know

In childhood, commonly, to us
Have grown a vulgar riddle so?

Sometimes I think we never met,
Such immense walls of iron and ice
Between us infinitely set
Spring blind into the spirit's skies.

Sometimes I think we never met,—
'T had surely better been, to spare
This nervous wringing of regret,
This hope that tightens to despair.

We have not understood, for all
We deeply lived and clearly said.
And without knowledge love must fall,—
Like this of ours, that lying dead

Clamours for burial. It is time,
It was time in much earlier days,
Before we soiled our lips with crime,
That you and I went our two ways.

V

Now in the palace gardens warm with age,
On lawn and flower-bed this afternoon
The thin November-coloured foliage
Just as last year unfastens lilting down,

And round the terrace in gray attitude
The very statues are becoming sere
With long presentiment of solitude.
Most of the life that I have lived is here,

Here by the path and autumn's earthy grass
And chestnuts standing down the breadths of sky:
Indeed I know not how it came to pass,
The life I lived here so unhappily.

Yet blessing over all! I do not care
What wormwood I have ate to cups of gall;
I care not what despairs are buried there
Under the ground, no, I care not at all.

Nay, if the heart have beaten, let it break!
I have not loved and lived but only this
Betwixt my birth and grave. Dear Spirit, take
The gratitude that pains, so deep it is.

When Spring shall be again, and at your door
You stand to feel the mellower evening wind,

Remember if you will my heart is pure,
Perfectly pure and altogether kind;

That not an aftercry of all our strife
Troubles the love I give you and the faith:
Say to yourself that at the ends of life
My arms are open to you, life and death.—

How much it aches to linger in these things!
I thought the perfect end of love was peace
Over the long-forgiven sufferings.
But something else, I know not what it is,

The words that came so nearly and then not,
The vanity, the error of the whole,
The strong cross-purpose, oh, I know not what
Cries dreadfully in the distracted soul.

The evening fills the garden, hardly red;
And autumn goes away, like one alone.
Would I were with the leaves that thread by thread
Soften to soil, I would that I were one.

University of Virginia Library

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