Dreams and Dust :: :: University of Virginia Library

SHADOWS

HAUNTED (THE GHOST SPEAKS)

A GHOST is the freak of a sick man's brain?
Then why do ye start and shiver so?
That's the sob and drip of a leaky drain?
But it sounds like another noise we know!
The heavy drops drummed red and slow,
The drops ran down as slow as fate—
Do ye hear them still?—it was long ago!—
But here in the shadows I wait, I wait!

Spirits there be that pass in peace;
Mine passed in a whorl of wrath and dole;
And the hour that your choking breath shall cease
I will get my grip on your naked soul—
Nor pity may stay nor prayer cajole—
I would drag ye whining from Hell's own gate:
To me, to me, ye must pay the toll!
And here in the shadows I wait, I wait!

The dead they are dead, they are out of the way?
And a ghost is the whim of an ailing mind?
Then why did ye whiten with fear to-day
When ye heard a voice in the calling wind?
Why did ye falter and look behind
At the creeping mists when the hour grew late?
Ye would see my face were ye stricken blind!
And here in the shadows I wait, I wait!

Drink and forget, make merry and boast,
But the boast rings false and the jest is thin—
In the hour that I meet ye ghost to ghost,
Stripped of the flesh that ye skulk within,
Stripped to the coward soul 'ware of its sin,
Ye shall learn, ye shall learn, whether dead men hate!
Ah, a weary time has the waiting been,
But here in the shadows I wait, I wait!

A NIGHTMARE

LEAGUES before me, leagues behind,
Clamor warring wastes of flood,
All the streams of all the worlds
Flung together, mad of mood;
Through the canon beats a sound,
Regular of interval,
Distant, drumming, muffled, dull,
Thunderously rhythmical;

Crafts slip by my startled soul—
Soul that cowers, a thing apart—
They are corpuscles of blood!
That's the throbbing of a heart!
God of terrors!—am I mad?—
Through my body, mine own soul,
Shrunken to an atom's size,
Voyages toward an unguessed goal!

THE MOTHER

THE mother by the gallows-tree,
The gallows-tree, the gallows-tree,
(While the twitching body mocked the sun)
Lifted to Heaven her broken heart
And called for sympathy.

Then Mother Mary bent to her,
Bent from her place by God's left side,
And whispered: "Peace—do I not know?—
My son was crucified!"

"O Mother Mary," answered she,
"You cannot, cannot enter in
To my soul's woe—you cannot know—
For your son wrought no sin!"

(And men whose work compelled them there,
Their hearts were stricken dead;

They heard the rope creak on the beam;
I thought I heard the frightened ghost
Whimpering overhead.)

The mother by the gallows-tree,
The gallows-tree, the gallows-tree,
Lifted to Christ her broken heart
And called in agony.

Then Lord Christ bent to her and said:
"Be comforted, be comforted;
I know your grief; the whole world's woe
I bore upon my head."

"But O Lord Christ, you cannot know,
No one can know," she said, "no one"—
(While the quivering corpse swayed in the wind)—
"Lord Christ, no one can understand
Who never had a son!"

IN THE BAYOU

LAZY and slow, through the snags and trees
Move the sluggish currents, half asleep;
Around and between the cypress knees,
Like black, slow snakes the dark tides creep—
How deep is the bayou beneath the trees?
"Knee-deep,
Knee-deep,
Knee-deep,
Knee-deep!"
Croaks the big bullfrog of Reelfoot Lake
From his hiding-place in the draggled brake.

What is the secret the slim reeds know
That makes them to shake and to shiver so,
And the scared flags quiver from plume to foot?—
The frogs pipe solemnly, deep and slow:
"Look under
the root!
Look under
the root!"

The hoarse frog croaks and the stark owl hoots
Of a mystery moored in the cypress roots.

Was it love turned hate? Was it friend turned foe?
Only the frogs and the gray owl know,
For the white moon shrouded her face in a mist
At the spurt of a pistol, red and bright—
At the sound of a shriek that stabbed the night—
And the little reeds were frightened and whist;
But always the eddies whimper and choke,
And the frogs would tell if they could, for they croak:
"Deep, deep!
Death-deep!
Deep, deep!
Death-deep!"
And the dark tide slides and glisters and glides
Snakelike over the secret it hides.

THE SAILOR'S WIFE SPEAKS

YE are dead, they say, but ye swore, ye swore,
Ye would come to me back from the sea!
From out of the sea and the night, ye cried,
Nor the crawling weed nor the dragging tide
Could hold ye fast from me:—
Come, ah, come to me!

Three spells I have laid on the rising sun
And three on the waning moon—
Are ye held in the bonds of the night or the day
Ye must loosen your bonds and away, away!
Ye must come where I wait ye, soon—
Ah, soon! soon! soon!

Three times I have cast my words to the wind,
And thrice to the climbing sea;
If ye drift or dream with the clouds or foam
Ye must drift again home, ye must drift again home—

Wraith, ye are free, ye are free;
Ghost, ye are free, ye are free!

Are the coasts of death so fair, so fair?
But I wait ye here on the shore!
It is I that ye hear in the calling wind—
I have stared through the dark till my soul is blind!
O lover of mine, ye swore,
Lover of mine, ye swore!

HUNTED

Oh, why do they hunt so hard, so hard, who have no need of food?
Do they hunt for sport, do they hunt for hate, do they hunt for the lust of blood?

. . . . . .
If I were a god I would get me a spear, I would get me horse and dog,
And merrily, merrily I would ride through covert and brake and bog,

With hound and horn and laughter loud, over the hills and away—
For there is no sport like that of a god with a man that stands at bay!

Ho! but the morning is fresh and fair, and oh! but the sun is bright,
And yonder the quarry breaks from the brush and heads for the hills in flight;

A minute's law for the harried thing—then follow him, follow him fast,
With the bellow of dogs and the beat of hoofs and the mellow bugle's blast.

. . . . . .
Hillo! Halloo! they have marked a man! there is sport in the world to-day—
And a clamor swells from the heart of the wood that tells of a soul at bay!

A DREAM CHILD

WHERE tides of tossed wistaria bloom
Foam up in purple turbulence,
Where twining boughs have built a room
And wing'd winds pause to garner scents
And scattered sunlight flecks the gloom,
She broods in pensive indolence.

What is the thought that holds her thrall,
That dims her sight with unshed tears?
What songs of sorrow droop and fall
In broken music for her ears?
What voices thrill her and recall
The poignant joy of happier years?

She dreams 'tis not the winds which pass
That whisper through the shaken vine;
Whose footstep stirs the rustling grass
None else that listened might divine;
She sees her child that never was
Look up with longing in his eyne.

Unkissed, his lifted forehead gains
A grace not earthly, but more rare—
For since her heart but only feigns,
Wherefore should love not feign him fair?
Put blood of roses in his veins,
Weave yellow sunshines for his hair?

All ghosts of little children dead
That wander wistful, uncaressed,
Their seeking lips by love unfed,
She fain would cradle on her breast
For his sweet sake whose lonely head
Has never known that tender rest.

And thus she sits, and thus she broods,
Where drifted blossoms freak the grass;
The winds that move across her moods
Pulse with low whispers as they pass,
And in their eerier interludes
She hears a voice that never was.

ACROSS THE NIGHT

MUCH listening through the silences,
Much staring through the night,
And lo! the dumb blind distances
Are bridged with speech and sight!

Magician Thought, informed of Love,
Hath fixed her on the air—
Oh, Love and I laughed down the fates
And clasped her, here as there!

Across the eerie silences
She came in headlong flight,
She stormed the serried distances,
She trampled space and night!

Oh, foolish scientists might give
This miracle a name—
But Love and I care but to know
That when we called she came.

And since I find the distances
Subservient to my thought,
And of the sentient silences
More vital speech have wrought,

Then she and I will mock Death's self,
For all his vaunted might—
There are no gulfs we dare not leap,
As she leapt through the night!

SEA CHANGES

MORNING

WE stood among the boats and nets;
We saw the swift clouds fall,
We watched the schooners scamper in
Before the sudden squall;—
The jolly squall strove lustily
To whelm the sheltered street—
The merry squall that piled the seas
About the patient headland's knees
And chased the fishing fleet.

She laughed; as if with wings her mirth
Arose and left the wingless earth
And all tame things behind;
Rose like a bird, wild with delight
Whose briny pinions flash in flight
Through storm and sun and wind.

Her laughter sought those skies because
Their mood and hers were one,
For she and I were drunk with love
And life and storm and sun!

And while she laughed, the Sun himself
Leapt laughing through the rain
And struck his harper hand along
The ringing coast; and that wind-song
Whose joy is mixed with pain
Forgot the undertone of grief
And joined the jocund strain,
And over every hidden reef
Whereon the waves broke merrily
Rose jets and sprays of melody
And leapt and laughed again.

MOONLIGHT

We stood among the boats and nets . . .
We marked the risen moon
Walk swaying o'er the trembling seas
As one sways in a swoon;

The little stars, the lonely stars,
Stole through the hollow sky,
And every sucking eddy where
The waves lapped wharf or rotten stair
Moaned like some stricken thing hid there
And strangled with its own despair
As the shuddering tide crept by.

I loved her, and I hated her—
Or did I hate myself because,
Bound by obscure, strong, silken laws,
I felt myself the worshiper
Of beauty never wholly mine?
With lures most apt to snare, entwine,
With bonds too subtle to define,
Her lighter nature mastered mine;
Herself half given, half withheld,
Her lesser spirit still compelled
Its tribute from my franker soul:
So—rebel, slave, and worshiper!—
I loved her and I hated her.

I gazed upon her, I, her thrall,
And musing, murmured, What if death

Were just the answer to it all?—
Suppose some dainty dagger quaffed
Her life in one deep eager draught?—
Suppose some amorous knife caressed
The lovely hollow of her breast?"—
She turned a mocking look to mine:
She read the thought within my eyne,
She held me with her look—and laughed!

Now who may tell what stirs, controls,
And shapes mad fancies into facts?
What trivial things may quicken souls
To irrevocable, swift acts?
Now who has known, who understood,
Wherefore some idle thing
May stab with deadlier sting
Than well-considered insult could?—
May spur the languor of a mood
And rouse a tiger in the blood?—

Ah, Christ!—had she not laughed just when
That fancy came! . . . for then . . . and then . . .
A sudden mist dropped from the sky,

A mist swept in across the sea . . .
A mist that hid her face from me . . .
A weeping mist all tinged with red,
A dripping mist that smelt like blood . . .
It choked my throat, it burnt my brain . . .
And through it peered one sallow star,
And through it rang one shriek of pain . . .
And when it passed my hands were red,
My soul was dabbled with her blood;
And when it passed my love was dead
And tossed upon the troubled flood.

MOONSET

But see! . . . the body does not sink;
It rides upon the tide
(A starbeam on the dagger's haft),
With staring eyes and wide . . .
And now, up from the darkling sea,
Down from the failing moon,
Are come strange shapes to mock at me . . .
All pallid from the star-pale sea,
White from the paling moon . . .

Or whirling fast or wheeling slow
Around, around the corpse they go,
All bloodless o'er the sickened sea
Beneath the ailing moon!

And are they only wisps of fog
That dance along the waves?
Only shapes of mist the wind
Drives along the waves?
Or are they spirits that the sea
Has cheated of their graves?
The ghosts of them that died at sea,
Of murdered men flung in the sea,
Whose bodies had no graves?—
Lost souls that haunt for evermore
The sobbing reef and hollowed shore
And always-murmuring caves?

Ah, surely something more than fog,
More than starlit mist!
For starlight never makes a sound
And fogs are ever whist—
But hearken, hearken, hearken, now,
For these sing as they dance!

As airily, as eerily,
They wheel about and whirl,
They jeer at me, they fleer at me,
They flout me as they swirl!
As whirling fast or swaying slow,
Reeling, wheeling, to and fro,
Around, around the corpse they go,
They chill me with their chants!
These be neither men nor mists—
Hearken to their chants:

Ever, ever, ever,
Drifting like a blossom
Seaward, with the starlight
Wan upon her bosom—
Ever when the quickened
Heart of night is throbbing,
Ever when the trembling
Tide sets seaward, sobbing,
Shall you see this burden
Borne upon its ebbing:
See her drifting seaward
Like a broken blossom,

Ever see the starlight
Kiss her bruised bosom.

Flight availeth nothing . . .
Still the subtle beaches
Draw you back where Horror
Walks their shingled reaches . . .
Ever shall your spirit
Hear the surf resounding,
Evermore the ocean
Thwarting you and bounding;
Vainly struggle inland!
Lashing you and hounding,
Still the vision hales you
From the upland reaches,
Goading you and gripping,
Binds you to the beaches!

Ever, ever, ever,
Ever shall her laughter,
Hunting you and haunting,
Mock and follow after;
Rising where the buoy-bell
Clangs across the shallows,

Leaping where the spindrift
Hurtles o'er the hollows,
Ringing where the moonlight
Gleams along the billows,
Ever, ever, ever,
Ever shall her laughter,
Hounding you and haunting,
Whip and follow after!

SUNSET

I stood among the boats
The sinking sun, the angry sun,
Across the sullen wave
Laid the sudden strength of his red wrath
Like to a shaken glaive:—
Or did the sun pause in the west
To lift a sword at me,
Or was it she, or was it she,
Rose for an instant on some crest
And plucked the red blade from her breast
And brandished it at me?

THE TAVERN OF DESPAIR

THE wraiths of murdered hopes and loves
Come whispering at the door,
Come creeping through the weeping mist
That drapes the barren moor;
But we within have turned the key 'Gainst Hope and Love and Care,
Where Wit keeps tryst with Folly, at
The Tavern of Despair.

And we have come by divers ways
To keep this merry tryst,
But few of us have kept within
The Narrow Way, I wist;
For we are those whose ampler wits
And hearts have proved our curse—
Foredoomed to ken the better things
And aye to do the worse!

Long since we learned to mock ourselves;
And from self-mockery fell

To heedless laughter in the face
Of Heaven, Earth, and Hell.
We quiver 'neath, and mock, God's rod;
We feel, and mock, His wrath;
We mock our own blood on the thorns
That rim the "Primrose Path."

We mock the eerie glimmering shapes
That range the outer wold,
We mock our own cold hearts because
They are so dead and cold;
We flout the things we might have been
Had self to self proved true,
We mock the roses flung away,
We mock the garnered rue;

The fates that gibe have lessoned us;
There sups to-night on earth
No madder crew of wastrels than
This fellowship of mirth. . . .
(Of mirth . . . drink, fools!—nor let it flag
Lest from the outer mist
Creep in that other company
Unbidden to the tryst.

We're grown so fond of paradox
Perverseness holds us thrall,
So what each jester loves the best
He mocks the most of all;
But as the jest and laugh go round,
Each in his neighbor's eyes
Reads, while he flouts his heart's desire,
The knowledge that he lies.

Not one of us but had some pearls
And flung them to the swine,
Not one of us but had some gift—
Some spark of fire divine—
Each might have been God's minister
In the temple of some art—
Each feels his gift perverted move
Wormlike through his dry heart.

If God called Azrael to Him now
And bade Death bend the bow
Against the saddest heart that beats
Here on this earth below,
Not any sobbing breast would gain
The guerdon of that barb—

The saddest ones are those that wear
The jester's motley garb.

Whose shout aye loudest rings, and whose
The maddest cranks and quips—
Who mints his soul to laughter's coin
And wastes it with his lips—
Has grown too sad for sighs and seeks
To cheat himself with mirth;
We fools self-doomed to motley are
The weariest wights on earth!

But yet, for us whose brains and hearts
Strove aye in paths perverse,
Doomed still to know the better things
And still to do the worse,—
What else is there remains for us
But make a jest of care
And set the rafters ringing, in
Our Tavern of Despair?