University of Virginia Library

YOUTHFUL POEMS.

1850–1860.

THE WILL AND THE WING.

“THE LAUGHING HOURS BEFORE HER FEET.”

EVE OF THE BRIDAL.

MY FATHER.

SONG.

SONG.

Ho! fetch me the winecup! fill up to the brim!
For my heart has grown cold, and my vision is dim,
And I fain would bring back for a moment the glow,
The swift passion that age has long chilled with its snow;
Ho! fetch me the winecup! the red liquor gleams,
With a promise to waken youth's rapture of dreams,
And I'll drain the bright draught for that promise divine,
Though Death, Death the spectre, should hand me the wine.
'Tis not life that I live, for the blood-currents glide
Through my wan shrunken veins in so sluggish a tide,
That my heart droops and withers; what! life call you this?
O! rather, consumed by one keen thrill of bliss,
Would I die with youth's glory revivified round me,
The deep eyes that blessed, and the white arms that bound me;
O! rather than brood in this dusk of desire,
Sink down, like yon marvellous sunset, all fire,
The soul clad with wings, and the brain steeped in light;
Then come, potent wizard! I call on thy might,
Breathe a magical mist o'er the ravage of Time,
Roll back the sad years to the flush of my prime,
And I'll drain thy bright draught for that vision divine,
Though Death, Death the Spectre, should hand me the wine!

BY THE GRAVE.

[Extract from an unfinished narrative poem.]

SONG OF THE NAIADS.

LETHE.

THE REALM OF REST.

THE ISLAND IN THE SOUTH.

The ship went down at noonday in a calm,
When not a zephyr broke the crystal sea.
We two escaped alone: we reached an isle
Whereon the water settled languidly
In a long swell of music; luminous skies
O'erarched the place, and lazy, broad lagoons
Swept inland, with the boughs of plantain trees
Trailing cool shadows through the dense repose;
All round about us floated gentle airs,
And odors that crept upward to the sense
Like delicate pressures of voluptuous thought.
I, with a long bound, leapt upon the shore
Shouting, but she, pavilioned in dark locks,
Sobbed out thanksgiving; 'twixt the world and us,
Distance that seemed Eternity outrolled
Its terrible barriers; on the waste a Fate
Stood up, and stretching its blank hands abroad
Muttered of desolation. Did we weep,
And groaning cast our foreheads in the dust?
So it had been, but in each other's eyes
Smiled a new world, dearer than that which rose
Beneath the lost stars of the faded West.
That very morn the white-stoled priest of God
Had blessed us with the church's choicest prayers,
And these did gird us like a sapphire wall
When the floods threatened, and the ghastly doom
Moaned itself impotent; free we were to love
To the full scope of passion; a few suns,
And in the deep recesses of the woods
We built ourselves a cabin; the dim spot
Was fortressed by the tropic's giant growths,
Luxuriant Titans of a hundred years;
And the vines, laced and interlaced between,
Drooped with a flowery largess many-hued.
It was a place of Faëry songs of birds
That glimmered in and out among the leaves,
Like magical dreams embodied, wooed the winds
To gentlest motion of benignant wings;
And the sun veiled his radiance, and the stars
Peered through the shadowy stillness with a light
So spiritual, the forest seemed to wane
In tremulous lines waved down the silvery aisles.
There lived, there loved we, as none else have lived
And loved, I think, since the primeval blight
Rained down its discords, and death clinched the curse.
No shallow mockeries of a worn-out age,
Effete and helpless, bound young passion round
With the cold fetters of detested forms:
Civilization was not there to set
Its specious seal of custom on our hearts,
Prisoning the bolder virtues; we might dare
To act, speak, think, as the true nature moved,
Untutored and majestic; our souls grew
To the stature of the spirit, that looks down
From the unpolluted regnancy of heavens
That hold no curses; the glad universe
Showered rare benedictions on our path;
Matter was merged in poesy: the winds
From the serene Pacific, the quick gales
From mountainous ridges in the uppermost air,
The eternal chorus of far seas serene,
The harmony of forests, the small voice
That trembles from the happy rivulet's breast,
All touched us with that sweet philosophy,
Which, if we woo the visible world aright,
Blesses experience with new gates of sense
Where through we gain Elysium.
So the years
Were winged and odorous with a thousand joys,
Of which the poor slave to the hollow law
We term society, hath had no dream;
Our love was comprehensive, full, divine,
Rounding the perfect orbit wherein life
Should gravitate to God, even as the spheres
Roll to the central fire; love mastered life
As maelstroms suck still waters, love the one
Electric current through act, reason, will,
Throbbing like inspiration; no vain touch
Of weak, fantastic passion, no thin glow
Of morbid longing, fluttering feebly up
From shallow brains, stirred to a dubious flame,
And tortured with false throes of sentiment—
(That bastard whimperer to the deity, Love—
As a changeling to the Titans)—no red heat
Of base desire, fusing the delicate thought
To chaos; but a steadfast, genial sun,
A luminous glory, gentle as intense,
Making our fate a heaven of warmth, light, rest,
Whose very clouds were halos, and whose storms
Were tempered into music. Thus time stole
On muffled wings through the still air of bliss,
Gathering our ripened hopes, and sowing seeds
Of joy to come. My innocent bud had flowered
To beauty—oh! such beauty as these lips,
Touched though they were with fire, might not profane
With shackles of mean utterance. Oh, God! God!
Why didst thou take her from me? why transform
The passionate presence in my shielding arms
To this poor phantom of a broken brain,
Mocking my woe with shadows? On a night
When the still sea was calmest, the bright stars
Most bright, and a warm breathing on the wind
Spoke of perpetual summer, a strange voice
I scarce could hear, said: “It is evening time,”
And a wan hand my eyes were blind to note
Beckoned her far away.
The awful grief
Closed round me like an ocean. I was mad,
And raved my memory from me. When again
The world dawned, as a dreary landscape dawns
Grotesquely through the sluggish mists of March,
I walked once more in a great capital's streets,
A savage 'midst the civilized, a man—
Shattered and wrecked, I grant you,—still a man
Amongst the puppets that usurp the name
And act the fraud so basely, that the Fiend
Wearies to death the echoes of his hell
In laughter at them. I am with you still,
Emasculate denizens of the stifling mart,
Where heaven's free winds are throttled in the fumes
Of furnaces, and the insulted sun
Glooms through the crowding vapors at midday,
Like a God, re-collecting to himself
His immortality; where nerveless limbs
Bear nerveless bodies to their separate dens
Of torture, and lean, wide-eyed revellers
Foster the hungering worm that never dies,
And fan the lurid fire unquenchable;
Where stealthy avarice lurks in wait to sack
The widow's house; and license of low minds,
Loaded with prurient knowledge, and no hearts
(Self-worship having killed them), make the world
A Pandemonium. I am with you still;
But the hours creep on to a more fortunate time;
A vessel swells her broad sails in the bay,
And the breeze bloweth seaward; I will seek
My island in the southern waves again;
A thousand memories urge me, tones that slept
Waken to invitation; I can feel
The Hesperian beauty of that realm of peace
Flushing my brain and fancy; but through all
The ruddy vision glides a tender shade,
And pauses with mute meaning by a grave.

ODE.

Delivered on the First Anniversary of the Carolina Art Association, Feb. 10, 1856.

QUEEN GALENA, OR THE SULTANA BETRAYED.

THE POET'S TRUST IN HIS SORROW.

THE BROOK.

NATURE THE CONSOLER.

THE SOUL-CONFLICT.

THE PRESENTIMENT.

THE TWO SUMMERS.

LINES.

SONG.

ON A PORTRAIT.

A widower muses over the likeness of his dead wife.

THE SHADOW.

THE WINTER WINDS MAY WILDLY RAVE.

UNDER SENTENCE.

Place—Scotland. Time—Thirteenth Century.

THE VILLAGE BEAUTY.

AFTER DEATH.

SONNETS.

OCTOBER.

The passionate summer's dead! the sky's aglow
With roseate flushes of matured desire,
The winds at eve are musical and low,
As sweeping chords of a lamenting lyre,
Far up among the pillared clouds of fire,
Whose pomp of strange procession upward rolls,
With gorgeous blazonry of pictured scrolls,
To celebrate the summer's past renown;
Ah, me! how regally the heavens look down,
O'ershadowing beautiful autumnal woods
And harvest fields with hoarded increase brown,
And deep-toned majesty of golden floods,
That raise their solemn dirges to the sky,
To swell the purple pomp that floateth by.

LIFE AND DEATH.

SHELLEY.

Because they thought his doctrines were not just,
Mankind assumed for him the chastening rod,
And tyrants reared in pride, and strong in lust,
Wounded the noblest of the sons of God;
The heart's most cherished benefactions riven,
Basely they strove to humble and malign
A soul whose charities were wide as heaven,
Whose deeds, if not his doctrines, were divine;
And in the name of Him, whose sunshine warms
The evil as the righteous, deemed it good
To wreak their bigotry's relentless storms
On one whose nature was not understood.
Ah, well! God's ways are wondrous; it may be
His seal hath not been set to man's decree.

POETS OF THE OLDEN TIME.

The brave old poets sing of nobler themes
Than those weak griefs which harass craven souls;
The torrent of their lusty music rolls
Not through dark valleys of distempered dreams,
But murmurous pastures lit by sunny streams;
Or, rushing from some mountain height of thought,
Swells to strange meaning that our minds have sought
Vainly to gather from the doubtful gleams
Of our more gross perceptions. Oh, their strains
Nerve and ennoble manhood! no shrill cry,
Set to a treble, tells of querulous woe;
Yet numbers deep-voiced as the mighty main's
Merge in the ringdove's plaining, or the sigh
Of lovers whispering where sweet rivulets flow.

“NOW, WHILE THE REAR-GUARD.”

Now, while the rear-guard of the flying year,
Rugged December on the season's verge
Marshals his pale days to the mournful dirge
Of muffled winds in far-off forests drear,
Good friend! turn with me to our in-door cheer;
Draw nigh; the huge flames roar upon the hearth,
And this sly sparkler is of subtlest birth,
And a rich vintage, poet souls hold dear;
Mark how the sweet rogue wooes us! Sit thee down,
And we will quaff, and quaff, and drink our fill,
Topping the spirits with a Bacchanal crown,
Till the funereal blast shall wail no more,
But silver-throated clarions seem to thrill,
And shouts of triumph peal along the shore.

“PENT IN THIS COMMON SPHERE.”

Pent in this common sphere of sensual shows,
I pine for beauty; beauty of fresh mien,
And gentle utterance, and the charm serene,
Wherewith the hue of mystic dream-land glows;
I pine for lulling music, the repose
Of low-voiced waters, in some realm between
The perfect Adenne, and this clouded scene
Of love's sad loss, and passion's mournful throes;
A pleasant country, girt with twilight calm,
In whose fair heaven a moon of shadowy round
Wades through a fading fall of sunset rain;
Where drooping lotos-flowers, distilling balm,
Gleam by the drowsy streamlets sleep hath crown'd,
While Care forgets to sigh, and Peace hath balsamed Pain.

“BETWEEN THE SUNKEN SUN AND THE NEW MOON.”

Between the sunken sun and the new moon,
I stood in fields through which a rivulet ran
With scarce perceptible motion, not a span
Of its smooth surface trembling to the tune
Of sunset breezes: “O delicious boon,”
I cried, “of quiet! wise is Nature's plan,
Who, in her realm, as in the soul of man,
Alternates storm with calm, and the loud noon
With dewy evening's soft and sacred lull:
Happy the heart that keeps its twilight hour,
And, in the depths of heavenly peace reclined,
Loves to commune with thoughts of tender power;
Thoughts that ascend, like angels beautiful,
A shining Jacob's ladder of the mind,”

ANCIENT MYTHS.

Ye pleasant myths of Eld, why have ye fled?
The earth has fallen from her blissful prime
Of summer years, the dews of that sweet time
Are withered on its garlands sere and dead.
No longer in the blue fields overhead
We list the rustling of immortal wings,
Or hail at eve the kindly visitings
Of gentle Genii to fair fortunes wed:
The seas have lost their Nereids, the sad streams
Their gold-haired habitants, the mountains lone
Those happy Oreads, and the blithesome tone
Of Pan's soft pipe melts only in our dreams;
Fitfully fall the old faith's broken gleams
On our dull hearts, cold as sepulchral stone.

O GOD! WHAT GLORIOUS SEASONS BLESS THY WORLD!

O God! what glorious seasons bless thy world!
See! the tranced winds are nestling on the deep,
The guardian heavens unclouded vigil keep
O'er the mute earth; the beach birds' wings are furled
Ghost-like and gray, where the dim billows curled
Lazily up the sea-strand, sink in sleep,
Save when the random fish with lightning leap
Flashes above them, the far sky's impearled
Inland, with lines of silvery smoke that gleam
Upward from quiet homesteads, thin and slow:
The sunset girds me like a gorgeous dream
Pregnant with splendors, by whose marvellous spell,
Senses and soul are flushed to one deep glow,
The golden mood of thoughts ineffable!

“ALONG THE PATH THY BLEEDING FEET.”

Along the path thy bleeding feet have trod,
O Christian Mother! do the martyr-years,
Crownèd with suffering through the mist of tears
Uplift their brows, thorn-circled, unto God;
Most bitterly our Father's chastening rod
Hath ruled within thy term of mortal days,
Yet in thy soul spring up the tones of praise,
Freely as flowers from out a burial-sod:
Nor hath a tireless faith essayed in vain
To win from sorrow that diviner rest,
Which, like a sunset, purpling through the rain
Of dying storms, maketh the darkness blest;
Grief is transfigured, and dethronèd Fears,
Pale in the glory beckoning from the West.

“TOO OFT THE POET IN ELABORATE VERSE.”

Too oft the poet in elaborate verse,
Flushed with quaint images and gorgeous tropes,
Casteth a doubtful light, which is not hope's,
On the dark spot where Death hath sealed his curse
In monumental silence. Nature starts
Indignant from the sacrilege of words
That ring so hollow, and forlornly girds
Her great woe round her; there's no trick of Art's,
But shows most ghastly by a new-made tomb.
I see no balm in Gilead; he is lost,
The beautiful soul that loved thee, thy life's bloom,
Is withered by the sudden blighting frost;
O Grief! how mighty; Creeds! how vain ye are:
Earth presses closely,—Heaven is cold and far.

MOUNTAIN SONNETS.

[Written on one of the Blue Ridge range of Mountains.]

COMPOSED IN AUTUMN.

With these dead leaves stripped from a withered tree,
And slowly fluttering round us, gentle friend,
Some faithless soul a sad presage might blend;
To me they bring a happier augury;
Lives that shall bloom in genial sunshine free,
Nursed by the spell Love's dews and breezes send,
And when a kindly Fate shall speak the end,
Down dropping in Time's autumn silently;
All hopes fulfilled, all passions duly blessed,
Life's cup of gladness drained, except the lees,
No more to fear or long for, but the rest
Which crowns existence with its dreamless ease;
Thus when our days are ripe, oh! let us fall
Into that perfect Peace which waits for all!

GREAT POETS AND SMALL.

Shall I not falter on melodious wing,
In that my notes are weak and may not rise
To those world-wide entrancing harmonies,
Which the great poets to the ages sing?
Shall my thought's humble heaven no longer ring
With pleasant lays, because the empyreal height
Stretches beyond it, lifting to the light
The anointed pinion of song's radiant king?
Ah! a false thought! the thrush her fitful flight
Ventures in vernal dawns; a happy note
Trills from the russet linnet's gentle throat,
Though far above the eagle soars in might,
And the glad skylark—an ethereal mote—
Sings in high realms that mock our straining sight.

MY STUDY.

This is my world! within these narrow walls,
I own a princely service; the hot care
And tumult of our frenzied life are here
But as a ghost, and echo; what befalls
In the far mart to me is less than naught;
I walk the fields of quiet Arcadies,
And wander by the brink of hoary seas,
Calmed to the tendance of untroubled thought:
Or if a livelier humor should enhance
The slow-timed pulse, 'tis not for present strife.
The sordid zeal with which our age is rife,
Its mammon conflicts crowned by fraud or chance,
But gleamings of the lost, heroic life,
Flashed through the gorgeous vistas of romance.

TO ------.

Belovèd! in this holy hush of night.
I know that thou art looking to the South,
Fair face and cordial brow bathed in the light
Of tender Heavens, and o'er thy delicate mouth
A dewy gladness from thy dark eyes shed;
O eloquent eyes! that on the evening spread
The glory of a radiant world of dreams
(The inner moonlight of the soul that dims
This moonlight of the sense), and o'er thy head,
Thrown back, as listening to a voice of hymns,
Perchance in thine own spirit, violet gleams
From modest flowers that deck the window-bars,
While the winds sigh, and sing the far-off streams,
And a faint bliss seems dropping from the stars.
O! pour thine inmost soul upon the air
And trust to heaven the secrets that recline
In the sweet nunnery of thy virgin breast;
Speak to the winds that wander everywhere,—
And sure must wander hither—the divine
Contentment, and the infinite, deep rest
That sway thy passionate being, and lift high
To the calm realm of Love's eternity,
The passive ocean of thy charmèd thought;
And tell the aerial element to bear
The burden of thy whispered heart to me,
By fairy alchemy of distance wrought
To something sacred as a saintly prayer,
A spell to set my nobler nature free.

TO W. H. H.

LINES.

“AN IDLE POET DREAMING.”

DRAMATIC SKETCHES.

ANTONIO MELIDORI.

SCENE I.

[A place not far from the summit of Mount Psiloriti, in the Isle of Candia. Philota discovered with a basket of grapes upon her head; she looks eagerly upward. Time, a little before sunset.]
PHILOTA.
Why comes he not? Here on this emerald sward,
Close to the cool shade of these ancient rocks,
We have met, and fondly lingered in the sunset,
Eve after eve, since first he said, “I love thee!”
Never, Antonio, hast thou been ere now
A loiterer! wherefore should my heart beat fast,
And my breath thicken, and the dew of fear
Stand chill upon my forehead? Is't an omen?

[At this moment Antonio is seen bounding quickly down the mountain; he reaches Philota and embraces her.]
ANTONIO.
Thou hast waited long, Philota, hast thou not?

PHILOTA.
'Tis true, Antonio! but thou know'st an hour,
Nay, a bare minute, drags the weariest length
When thou art from me!

ANTONIO.
Thanks, dearest, and, forgive me,
I did but dream upon the hill-top yonder
And, dreaming thus, forgot thee.

PHILOTA.
Forgot me!

ANTONIO.
Nay, nay, I mean not that! thy face, thy smiles,
Thy deep devotion, in my heart of hearts,
I keep them shrined forever, but my thoughts
Turned truant; who can hold his thoughts, Philota,
In a leash always? prithee reascend
The mountain with me, I would show the place
Which tempted my weak thoughts to wander thus.

[They reach the most elevated portion of the mountain, whence a wide circuit of land and sea becomes visible.]
PHILOTA.
How beautiful! how glorious! see, my love,
There's not a cloud, or shadow of cloud in heaven;
Even here, the winds breathe faintly, and afar
O'er the broad circuit of the watery calm,
Peace broods upon the ocean, rules the air,
And up the sunset's dazzling pathway walks
Like a saint entering Paradise.
'Twere sweet,
How sweet, Antonio, amid scenes like these,
To live and love forever!

ANTONIO
[absently].
Ay!—well—perhaps—

PHILOTA.
He heeds me not, his eye
Is cold and stern; what troubles thee, Antonio?

ANTONIO.
Trouble! I am not troubled.

PHILOTA.
But thou art,
I know thou art; would'st thou deceive Philota?

ANTONIO.
Now by the saints, not so; dismiss the fear
Which, like a tremulous shadow, breaks the calm
Of those soft eyes! [after a pause]

The matter, in brief, is this:
Tracking our mountain paths at early dawn,
Rousso—thou knowest him—hailed me from the rocks,
With words that sounded like the battle trumpets;
“It comes!” he cried; “the war-cloud rolls this way;
We too shall hear its thunders”—

PHILOTA.
Ay! and feel
Its bolts perchance,—there's lightning in such clouds!

ANTONIO.
What if there be! who would not brave them all,—
All, for a cause like ours? Believe me, Love,
We stand upon the brink of troublous times:
All shall be changed here: men,—brave Grecian men,—
The blood of heroes in them,—cannot pause,
Storing the honey, harvesting the olive,
Or humbly following the tame herdsman's trade,
Whilst Freedom calls to conflict.
Look, Philota!
Dost mark yon lurid flash across the bay?
Our soldiers test their cannon! hark, below,
The drums of Affendouli—how they ring!
Already thousands of bold mountaineers
Have formed beneath his banners; dost thou hear me?

PHILOTA.
And wouldst thou wish to join them? Ah! I see,
I see it all!—a trouble on thy brow,
Borne upward from the restless gloom within,
Hath clouded o'er thy peace. I,—a frail girl,
And gifted only with the wealth of love,
How can I satisfy the burning need
Of a strong man's ambition? Yes, tis so,
'Tis even so!—love is the woman's heaven,
Her hope, her god, her life-blood! yet to man,
What is it but a pastime?

ANTONIO.
Speak not thus
Oh, speak not thus, Philota! I have loved
Thee, only thee,—so help me, Virgin Mother!
But comrades from whose lips a taunt is bitter,
Have dared to hint—

PHILOTA.
What!

ANTONIO.
That I chose to stay,
Delving, like some base slave, our barren soil,
When not a Sphakiote that can carry arms
Has failed to seize them. Liars! pestilent liars,
I would have proved the falsehood were it not—

PHILOTA.
For me—Philota!—well! I love thee dearly,
Deeply,—God knows,—but I would have this love
To crown thee as a garland,—not as a chain
To bind and fetter—thou art free, Antonio!—

ANTONIO.
But hast thou thought of all which follows this?
Thou shalt be left alone, no bridal feast
Can cheer the olive harvest!

PHILOTA.
I have thought,
And am determined;—thou art free, Antonio!

ANTONIO.
Oh, thanks, thanks, thanks!—lift up thy hopes, Philota,
Up to the height of mine! our cause is just,
And a just Fate shall guard it; wheresoe'er
Free thought finds utterance, and the patriot-soul
Thrills at the deeds of heroes,—we may look
For a “God speed!” The prayers of noble men,
The tears of women,—the whole world's applause
Do wait upon us!
Methinks I see the end,
A free, grand Commonwealth of Grecian States,
Built upon chartered rights,—each sealed with blood!

PHILOTA.
Enough! enough! Antonio, thou shalt go!
Greece is thy mistress, now.

SCENE II.

[The cottage of Philota, at the foot of Mount Psiloriti. Philota discovered at the window, looking out upon the night, which is bleak and stormy.]
PHILOTA.
Hark! how those lusty trumpeters, the winds,
Urge on the black battalions of the clouds;
And see! the swollen rivulets rushing down
The sides of Psiloriti! Yesterday,
'Neath the clear calm of the serenest morn
Earth ever stole from Paradise, they swept,
Bright curves of laughing silver in the sunshine;
But now, an overmastering rush of floods,
They thunder to the heavens, that answer back
From the wild depths of gloom,—an awful tempest!

[Enter Antonio hastily.]
ANTONIO.
Where is the priest, Philota? where is Andreas?
Was he not here to-night?

PHILOTA.
Ay! but left some half hour since!

ANTONIO.
What say you?
Oh, the poor father!—then 'twas him I saw
Pent 'twixt the mountain torrents; he is lost!
The good old man!—and yet, not so, not so!
Give me yon oaken staff,—and, hold; a flask
Of the best vintage; I'll be back anon,
And the dear father with me:—

[Exit Antonio. Philota kneels before an image of the Virgin, and prays for the safety of her lover. After the lapse of some minutes, enter Rousso stealthily, wrapped in a cloak, which partly conceals his features.]
ROUSSO
[aside].
Faith! a pretty picture!
Now, were I what fools call poetical,
I'd worship her, whilst she adores the saint,—
A lovelier saint herself, and nearer truly
To the just standard of divinity
Than yonder painted image; there's the curve,
The old Greek curve, in the voluptuous swell
Of those full lips; the passion in her eyes
Is shadowed off to melancholy meaning,
Only to waken to meridian life,
When a like passion touches it to flame.

PHILOTA
[praying].
Oh, merciful Mother! save him,—save Antonio!

ROUSSO
[aside].
Oh, potent Devil! claim him,—claim Antonio!
What! shall this malapert boy dispute my love?

[Philota, rising, discovers Rousso, towards whom (mistaking him for Antonio), she rushes, as if about to cast herself into his arms, but discovering her error, she shrinks back.]
PHILOTA.
You here!

ROUSSO
[advancing].
I crave protection, shelter,—may I stay?

PHILOTA.
At a safe distance, Sir!

ROUSSO.
Why, what means this?
I looked for kindlier welcome!

PHILOTA.
Wherefore, Rousso?
What thou hast asked, I grant,—protection, shelter;
Durst thou claim more than these?

ROUSSO.
I' faith thy temper is most strange and wayward!
Because, some months agone, not quite myself,
I ventured at the harvest of the olive,
Upon one innocent liberty—

PHILOTA.
No liberty,
With me, at least, bold man! is rated thus!

ROUSSO.
I do repeat, that I was not myself;
Blame the hot wine of Cyprus; spare your slave! [Kneeling.]


PHILOTA.
A slave, indeed!—

ROUSSO.
But one who stoops to conquer, fair Philota;
If I have knelt, 'tis only that I may
Rise thus, and clasp thee! Hold, no foolish cries,
No weak, vain strugglings! Think'st thou that the storm
Pealing adown the mountain's rugged steeps
Can bear these feeble wailings to thy friends?
Come, come, Philota!—if thou could'st believe it,
I am the very worthiest of thy vassals;
List for an instant, while I paint the beauty
Of a far Eden waiting for the light,
The sundawn of thine eyes:—
Amid the waves
Of the Ægean, bosomed in the calm
Of ever-during summer, sleeps an isle
Whereon the ocean ripples into music;
Through whose luxuriant wilderness of blooms,
The soft winds sigh their breath away in dreams,
Where—(the deuce take me! I forget my part)—
Where—where—where—i' sooth, a place
To live, to love, to die in, and revisit
From the sad vale of shadows, with a touch
Of mortal fondness, overmastering death.
Wilt thou go thither with me? Nay, thou must!

[As Rousso attempts to carry Philota from the apartment, she recovers, and, by a sudden effort, releases herself from his arms.]
ROUSSO.
Pardon, Philota! 'tis my eager love
Which thus hath urged me on; thou tremblest! what?
I would not make thee fear me.

PHILOTA.
Fear! fear!
If my cheek pales, it is not cowardice
That plays the tyrant to the exiled blood;
If my frame trembles, there are other moods
Than that thou speak'st of, to unstring its firmness;
Thy presence brings no terrors; dost thou talk
Of fear to a Greek woman?

ROUSSO.
No! no! not fear, but love!

PHILOTA.
Man, man! I pray thee
Blaspheme not thus! what canst thou know of love?
'Tis true thou speak'st it boldly; from thy lips
The word falls with a rounded fullness off,
And yet, believe me, thou hast used a phrase,
(A sacred phrase, and wretchedly profaned),
Which, were thy years thrice lengthened out beyond
The general limit of our mortal lives,
And thou be made to pass through all extremes
Of multiform experience, it could never
Enter thy sordid soul to comprehend!

ROUSSO.
Bravely delivered! by my soul, I think
We both make good declaimers! Where did'st learn
That pretty speech, Philota?

PHILOTA.
Wilt thou leave me?

ROUSSO.
Pshaw! thou art less than courteous. Leave thee! no!
I will not leave thee! Hark ye, my proud damsel,
I am not one with whom 'tis safe to trifle,
Thou knowest, or shalt know this; so, mark my words,
Long have I wooed thee fairly, would have won thee,
Yea, and endowed thee with both wealth and station;
Twice hast thou heard my proffer, twice with loathing
Spurned it, and me; I shall not woo thee thrice
With honeyed words; no, 'tis the strong arm now.
I am prepared for all; come on!

[He seizes Philota a second time, but enter on the instant Antonio, with the Monk Andreas leaning upon him.]
PHILOTA
[faintly].
Saved! saved!

ANTONIO.
Ha, Rousso, I have heard it whispered oft
Amongst thy watchful brethren in this isle,
That underneath that smooth and flattering front
There lurked a mine of blackest villany!
Faith! I denied it once; what shall I say
When next the public voice decries you, sir?

ROUSSO.
A jest! I do assure you but a jest!
This cloak, which in your self-devoted flight
To rescue the dear father, Andreas
(How glad I am to see his saintship safe),
You dropped some furlongs from the mountain's base,
I cast, in sportive fashion, on my person,
And deeming that Philota would rejoice
To hear that thou had'st so far braved the force
O' th' treacherous elements, I called upon her;
She did me the vast honor to confound
Your humble servant with Antonio,
And 'ere I was aware, sprang to my arms,
With such a blinded ecstasy of rapture,
That I had wellnigh sunk into the earth,
From the mere stress of native modesty!
A jest, a jest, and nothing but a jest.

ANTONIO.
Such jesting may be dangerous,—beware!

SCENE III.

[A year is supposed to have elapsed. The town of Sphakia after nightfall. Enter confusedly a band of Sphakiote soldiers, with Rousso amongst them. The streets are crowded with women, many of whom are heard lamenting the death of Antonio Melidori.]
ROUSSO
[in a disguised voice].
Why will ye clamor thus, ye foolish jades?
Your handsome favorite, your renowned commander,
Is no more dead than I am!

A WOMAN.
Say'st thou so?
Where then is Melidori?

ROUSSO
[still disguising his voice].
Would'st thou learn?
Women of Sphakia, your immaculate captain,
He for whose welfare, upon bended knees,
Ye nightly pray to heaven, whose name your infants
Lisp in their very slumbers, hath betrayed us!
Hold! hear me out! I am no dubious witness;
Thrice, whilst the battle raged along our front,
Is saw the traitor creeping like a dog
Between the Turkish outposts!

[Antonio appears in the rear, with a child in his arms.]
ANTONIO.
It is false!
Here is your leader, Sphakiotes; what base slanderer
Dares to pronounce me traitor? I but paused
To save this weeping innocent, whose mother
Fell by some coward's sword!

ROUSSO.
Ha, Sphakiotes, see,
The noble Melidori waxes tender,
Soft as a woman! he must love the Moslem,
Who fosters thus their offspring! by the saints
A lusty brat! He'll thrive, good friends, believe me,
And grow betimes, to cut our infants' throats!

ANTONIO.
Let him who speaks stand forth; I would confront
My bold accuser. What! he clings to the dark!
Fit place for lies and liars!
Friends, I scorn
To parley with this viper; there's a way,
One only way, to deal with reptiles, crush them,
Thus, thus, and thus,
When they have crawled too near us;
[Stamping violently upon the earth.]
Till then, why let the ugly beasts hiss on,
And spit their harmless venom.
[Turning to the women.]
Mothers, wives,
Maidens of Sphakia, are there none amongst ye
Ready to take this poor unfortunate?
Just for my sake, fair countrywomen, list,
List to the blessèd word:—“The merciful
Shall obtain mercy!”

ROUSSO.
Heed him not, I say,
But seize the infidel whelp, and let him rock
On a steel bayonet! What! have we repelled
The invading foe, exterminated wholly
His forces and his empire, that we dare
Cherish his cubs among us?—and for what?
“Just for his sake, fair countrywomen,—his,
And mercy's!” Who showed mercy to our children,
When the Turk ravaged Scio? The young devil,—
Hear how he shrieks! ho! send him down to hell!
Down to his father! he's a grateful spirit,
And thankful for small favors!

[The crowd begin to murmur, and move threateningly towards ANTONIO.]
ANTONIO.
Shame upon you!
Though the poor boy were fifty times a Moslem,
I'll rear him as my own; he shall not perish;
Perchance, who knows, when I have died for you,
For you, and Grecian liberty, this babe,
Reared as a Greek, may yet avenge my death,
As none of you, false brethren, dare avenge it!
Once more I say,—Mothers, wives, maids of Sphakia,
Is there not one amongst ye to whose tendance
I may commit this trembling castaway?

PHILOTA
[veiled].
Give me the child,—I'll nurture him with love,
And gentlest usage.

ANTONIO
[starting].
Heavens! what voice is that?
You here, Philota? I had hoped you dwelt
Safely within the close heart of the mountains!

PHILOTA.
The mountains are not safe.

ANTONIO.
Why then did'st thou
Keep such strict silence? Answer me, Philota,
How hast thou lived. This peasant's dress—

PHILOTA.
Is fittest
For me, Antonio,—by my handiwork,
And daily labor, I now earn my bread,—
For was it meet an unknown peasant girl
Should claim, as her betrothed, great Melidori,
Captain of Sphakia?

ANTONIO.
O, thou generous heart!
But stay,—the rabble must not catch our words;
Take thou the babe,—under the citywalls
I'll meet thee in the gloaming,

SCENE IV.

[A place under the city walls,—time, an hour after sunset.]
ANTONIO,
[embracing PHILOTA constrainedly].
How kind thou art!

PHILOTA.
I but obeyed your mandate!

ANTONIO.
Nay, why so cold? my troth is thine, Philota,—
Dost thou remember?

PHILOTA.
Would'st thou have me do so?
Methought that dream was over,—by thy wish.

ANTONIO.
By heaven! I never said so!

PHILOTA.
Yet thy heart,
Thy heart, Antonio, spake the keen desire,
Although thy lips kept silence;—I have learned
To read thy spirit like an open book,
And cannot be deceived;—all's changed with us;
Never again, as in the time that's past,
Shall we, hand linked in hand, explore the vales,
Or walk the shining hill-tops; thou hast risen
Far, far above my level; a great man,
Among the greatest,—thou wert mad t' espouse
A humble girl like me; I ask it not;
My love but burdens thy aspiring hopes,
So, I beseech thee, dwell no more upon it:
Antonio, for thy welfare I would give
My soul's life; shall I then refuse to yield
A personal joy, that thou may'st win and wed
The immortal virgin—Glory? Dream it not!
Oh! dream it not!

ANTONIO.
Now, gracious God, forgive me!
It were presumption, should I kiss thy feet,
Thou pure, unselfish woman! yet thy words
Are true, too true, and I dare not gainsay them.
One thing believe, Philota, I am wretched,
Yes, far more so than thou art:
[After a pause.]
—Did'st thou know
The terrible life I lead in this dread warfare,
Through what an atmosphere of blood and carnage
It is my doom to move, as through the air
Of some plague-stricken city, thick with curses;
Did'st know the numberless dangers, that like demons
(Many unseen,—and therefore doubly fearful),
Which hover 'round the soldier, hour by hour
O'ershadowing life with the black gloom of death;
Did'st know the coarse companions, the rude manners
Of vile extortioners, bent alone on prey,
And personal profit, and the thousand evils
Gendered of strife, and strife's unhallowed passions,
O, thou would'st shrink from following such base courses,
Even as an angel from the brink of hell!

PHILOTA.
Thou wrong'st my love, and hast deceived thyself;
Where'er thou art, to me that place is heaven;
Antonio, God alone, God and my soul
Know what I might, and would have been to thee!
I would have shared thy fortunes, joined my fate
For weal or woe, for honor or disgrace,
For life or death to thine; have tracked thy steps,
(If need it were,) through seas of blood and carnage,
Strengthened thy weakness, buoyed thy sinking hopes,
Nor, at the worst, have shed one woman's tear
To shake thy manhood. Had heaven blessed thy cause,
I would have striven to make my spirit worthy
To mount with thee; so, when the orbèd glory
Shone like the fire of sunrise round thy brow,
No man dare say that with that lustre mingled
One blush of shame for Melidori's wife!
This might have been, and this shall never be.
[Wildly.]
I' th' name of mercy, by thy mother's soul,
And the dear past, I pray thee leave me now,
While still thou lov'st me (dost thou not?) a little.

ANTONIO.
And thou—and thou, Philota?—

PHILOTA.
I shall dwell
In peace; [aside]
ay! broken hearts are peaceful!

ANTONIO.
But where?—

PHILOTA.
What matter where, so that I live in peace?
Grieve not, Antonio. In my humble station
One thought shall bring content;—“he was not false,”
No mortal maiden stole Antonio's heart!

ANTONIO.
Blessèd words!
'Tis true I love but thee!

PHILOTA.
Then do not sorrow.
Love, I forgive thee; thou hast wronged me not.
And for the child—ah, I shall dream it thine;
Tend it as thine, and when the years have ripened
That infant soul, 'tis mine to lead to virtue,
I'll teach the boy how noble was the act
Whereby Antonio saved him; I'll be happy,
Oh, trust me, Love! so very, very happy!

ANTONIO.
Then be it so, Philota. I would bless thee,
But am not worthy; still, thou shalt be blessed.

PHILOTA.
And thou, too, if the Virgin hear my prayers;
And now that we are friends, but friends, though firm ones,
Beseech thee, list my tidings. There's a foe,
A deadly, treacherous foe in thine own camp,
And one who vows thy ruin; it is Rousso;
Thou knowest how first his envious, bitter temper
Was stung to hatred; since that time, thy will
Hath often clashed with his; besides, thy fame
In these fierce wars hath far o'ertopped his credit;
So he has sworn thy death; the voice was his,
That goaded on thy soldiers to rebellion;
And, as I threaded my uncertain pathway,
A short hour since, through the dark streets of Sphakia,
I heard thy name in whispers; two dim forms
(Men, as I knew by their hoarse tones,) conferred
With hurried, stealthy gestures, and one sentence
Startled me like a knell:—“His tomb is open,”
A deep voice said; “Antonio's tomb is open!”
Oh, then, beware. As lowly as thou deem'st me,
I'll watch above thy safety; the soft dove
May warn the eagle of the midnight spoiler!

ANTONIO.
And thy own life and safety—

PHILOTA.
I am here
To spend them both for thee. But hark! thy name
Is shouted by thy comrades in the valley.
The hour has come that parts us. Fare thee well!

[She gives him her hand.]
ANTONIO.
'Twas not our wont to part in this cold fashion;
Come, one more kiss, Philota! let me feel
We were indeed betrothed; one last, last kiss!

[They embrace and part.]

SCENE V.

[An apartment in the house of Affendouli, the Governor-General of Candia. Enter Antonio, and Affendouli, conversing.]
AFFENDOULI.
These private bickerings are the fruitful cause
Of all disgrace and failure; let us end them!

ANTONIO.
Most willingly! I have no feud with any,
Saving one quarrel, forced upon me, chief!

AFFENDOULI.
True, true! but even now a courier waits,
Charged with a special message of good will,
From Rousso, and his brother, Anagnosti;
They say, “We plead for peace! all personal hate
Henceforth be quelled between us; we would join
Our troop to Melidori's, and our banners
Wave side by side with his.” Accept their proffer!

ANTONIO.
I will!

AFFENDOULI.
To show thou art sincere, fail not to test
Their hospitality.

ANTONIO.
As how?

AFFENDOULI.
They give
A solemn feast of unity and friendship,
To which thou art invited. Go, I charge thee.

ANTONIO.
Trust me, I shall be there, what day's appointed
Whereon to hold this festival of love?

AFFENDOULI.
This very day; thou knowest the camp of Rousso?

ANTONIO.
Ay! I'll be there anon!

[Exit Antonio. Enter, after a brief interval, Philota, with a hurried and anxious mien.]
PHILOTA.
Oh, pardon, pardon!
Most gracious Governor! but I come to seek
Ant—Ant—, that is, the Captain Melidori,
With tidings of grave import.

AFFENDOULI.
Ha!
Thou luckless messenger! he has departed.
Gone—

PHILOTA
[wildly].
Where, where?

AFFENDOULI.
To feast with Rousso.

PHILOTA
[rushing out].
Then is he lost! O merciful God, protects us!

SCENE VI.

[An open space in a wood,—tables arranged for a banquet,—Rousso, Anagnosti, Antonio Melidori, and their followers, discovered feasting.]
ANAGNOSTI.
A soldier's life forever! free to pass
In feast or fray! how glorious this wild banquet
Compared to those dull, formal feasts of old,
Held at the olive harvest! Speak, Antonio,
Give us thy thought upon it: what! art silent?

ROUSSO.
Urge him no more; perchance Antonio pines
For the sweet quiet of that mountain life,
Which thou hast called so dull; its days of dream,
Its nights of warm voluptuous dalliance!

ANTONIO.
No, no, by heaven! those times are dead to me;
They had their pleasures, but not one to match
The keen delights of glory, the true honor
Which follows patriot service.

ROUSSO.
Gallant words,
Brave, and high-sounding; but for me and mine,
We do not fight for shadows!

ANTONIO
[coldly].
I'm at fault,
Not clearly comprehending, sir, your meaning.

ROUSSO.
Oh! thou dost well to speak of glory, honors,
We know what rich rewards await thee, chief,
When the war's ended; spoils, and wealth and beauty.
But yestermorn, I saw thy winsome lady.
The bride to be, old Affendouli's daughter.
Nay, shrink not, man, she is a lovely maid,
Fair as her father's generous; what an eye!
Half arch, half languishing; and what a breast!
That heaves as 'twould burst outward to the day,
And strike men mad with its white panting passion!
No lovelier woman lives, unless, unless—
It be that poor young thing who doted on thee,
Before the war,—what was her name? Philota?

ANTONIO.
Thy thoughts run on fair damsels; let us talk
Like soldiers, not like brain-sick boys in love.

ROUSSO.
With all my heart; only, one pledge to thee,
And Affendouli's daughter!

ANTONIO.
I have borne
This jesting with the patience of a saint,
But now 'tis stretched to license. Prithee, cease!

ROUSSO.
God, how he winces! if Philota—

ANTONIO.
Villain!
Utter that sacred name again—

ROUSSO
[rising suddenly and drawing his dagger].
Oh, ho!
Wilt fight, wilt fight! I'm ready for thee; come.

ANTONIO
[aside].
(He shall not trap me thus.) Thou art my host;
'Twere shame, yea, bitter shame, this brawl should end
In blows and bloodshed! when the time befits,
[To Rousso].
Doubt not that I shall call thee to account
For this day's work; meanwhile I leave a board
Where clownish insult poisons all your cups!

[As he is about to depart, Anagnosti approaches, with an air of conciliation.]
ANAGNOSTI.
Well spoken, noble captain, thou wert wronged;
But Rousso is so hasty! He repents;
Let not this solemn feast of unity
Break up in discord.

ROUSSO.
No, no, no, Antonio!
I do repent! Prithee embrace me, friend,
In sign of reconcilement.

[Rousso approaches Melidori with an unsteady step; while in the act of embracing, he stabs him in the side. Philota rushes upon the scene, with a cry of agony, and throws herself beside Antonio, whose head she supports.]
PHILOTA.
Too late! O God, too late! He faints, he dies!
Why stare ye thus upon us, cruel men?
Wine, wine, another cup, how slow ye move!
My scarf is drenched with blood,—ye pitiless fools!
Will not a creature loan me wherewithal
To bind his wretched wound up? There, 'tis stanched,
And he revives! Antonio, speak to me,
I am Philota!

ANTONIO
[his mind wandering].
Where hast thou been, my love, this weary time?
Am I not true? I charge thee, heed them not!
The girl is nothing to me; Rousso's tongue,
His sharp false tongue first joined our names together;
She loves another, and I love but thee;
Draw nearer, let me whisper. I have dreamed,
Oh, such a dream! the valleys flowed with blood,
And ruin compassed all our island round,
And every town was sacked, and, hark ye, nearer!
I saw a mother murdered by a knave,
A coward knave, because she would not yield
Her body to him; but I saved her child,
And here he is, a pretty, pretty boy!
Take him, Philota. Ah, my heart, my heart!
It pains me sorely; 'twas a terrible dream,
But now, thank Heaven, 'tis over! Thou art pale;
What makes thee pale? Bear up, my dearest love!
This morn we shall be wedded, and I think
We will not part again. I had a foe,
His name is Rousso; but we are so happy,
Let us forgive all foes; invite him thither,

PHILOTA
[weeping].
He breaks my heart—

ANTONIO.
How keen the wind is!
Keen, keen, and chill; it was not wont to blow
So coldly at this season: I am sick,
Yea, sick of very joy; but joy kills not;
My lids are heavy; I would sleep, Philota.
Wake me at early dawn; I told my mother,
That I would bring thee home, to-morrow morn.

[He dies.]

ALLAN HERBERT.

SCENE I.

[The hall of a country house in Westmoreland, surrounded with portraits of the M. ... family. Allan Herbert, and Jocelyn, an old domestic, are seen standing before the likeness of a lady, young, and wonderfully fair.]
HERBERT.
The canvas speaks!

JOCELYN.
Ay, sir, 'tis very like;
Was she not beautiful?

HERBERT.
Was; yes, and is;
She had not lost one bloom when late I saw her.

JOCELYN.
Sir, she is dead!

HERBERT.
Ay, so they say, old man;
And yet I see her nightly,—in my dreams;
I tell you that her cheek is round and fair
As summer's fulness, that her eyes are lustrous,
And she, a perfect presence clasped in light!
Thus will she look, on resurrection morning.

JOCELYN
[aside].
Alas, poor gentleman! how many loved her,
And loved her vainly! Pardon, sir, your name?

HERBERT.
My name is Allan Herbert.

JOCELYN.
Herbert, Herbert!
Where have I heard that dainty name before? (musing)

Oh, now I have it; my young mistress, sir,
She who is dead, was wont to read a book
A delicate gold-edged volume, that I'm sure
Bore some such name within it; she would sit
Beneath yon grape vine trellis toward the south
(This window, sir, commands it), and for hours,
Nay, days, bend o'er her favorite pages; once
She left the book behind her, and I saw
Its leaves were touched with tears.

HERBERT.
Where is it now?
That book your mistress loved? Let me behold it!

JOCELYN.
In sooth, sir, I have never seen it since,
Or, if I have [hesitating]
, it lies beyond our reach.

HERBERT.
What meanest thou?

JOCELYN.
I mean that while she lay
Decked for her burial, whilst I stood beside her,
Looking my last upon her tranquil features,
The robe of death was fluttered by the wind,
A low sad wailing wind, that swept aside
The drapery for a moment, and I marked
The glimmer of the gold-edged pages placed
Right on her bosom! Master, you are pale,
You tremble; I have rudely touched the spring
Of some deep-seated sorrow!

HERBERT.
Yes, old man;
A sorrow most unlike to common griefs,
That pass like clouds or shadows; mine is mingled
With the dark hues of treachery and remorse;
A rayless, blank eclipse, through which I wander,
Accursed and hopeless; sometimes in a vision
Comes the sweet face of her I foully wronged,
And stabs me with a smile!

JOCELYN.
Did'st wrong her, Sir?
Did'st wrong my lady?

HERBERT.
Lead me to the grave;
I know 'tis near at hand.

JOCELYN.
The grave! what grave?
Moreover,—if you wronged her—

HERBERT.
If I wronged her!
Why dost thou taunt me with it? thou on earth
With Mercy still beside thee,—I—in Hell?

JOCELYN.
Madman!

HERBERT.
I am not mad, my friend, but only wretched;
Once more, I pray thee, show me where she sleeps.

JOCELYN.
I must obey him; this way,—follow me.

SCENE II.

[A forest.—Deep in the shade a single monument appears, covered with wild-flowers and roses.]
HERBERT
[alone].
'Tis fit she should be buried in this place
So fragrant and so peaceful; O, my love!
Thou hast grown dull of hearing! I may call
'Till the lone echoes shiver with thy name,
Thou wilt not heed me; dust, dust, dust indeed!
And thou—more glorious than the morning star;
More tender than the love-light of the eve!
They tell me thou shalt rise again, Christ's bride,
Not mine, most beautiful, yet changed;
Perchance I shall not know thee, or perchance,
The human love which made thine eyes like heaven—
My heaven of hope and worship—shall be lost
In some diviner splendor! all is hushed,
No smallest whisper trembles gently up
From the deep grave to soothe me; 'tis in vain
I agonize in thought. Eternal Nature!
She whom I once called “mother,” wears an aspect
Callous and pitiless. I fain would solve
This terrible mystery that weighs down my soul
With nightmare fancies. Let me die in peace,
O God! and if I may not see her more
Through all the long eternities, nor hear
Her voice of tender pardon, let me rest
Next to some stream of Lethe, and repose
In everlasting slumbers!—

[Enter Jocelyn.]
JOCELYN.
Come, let us hence! the darkness creeps upon us;
See, Sir! there's not a spark of sunset left
In all the waning West.

HERBERT.
Well, what of that!
I live in darkness,—the light burns my spirit,
It mocks and tortures me! Begone, I say,
And leave me to the dismal shade thou fearest!

JOCELYN.
Good Sir, be counselled—stay not in the wood;
Thine eye is troubled, and thy visage weary;—
'Tis a rash venture!

HERBERT.
Sooth to say, I thank thee;
Thou could'st not serve long in the household blessed
By her most merciful presence, and not catch
Some tenderness of temper;—take my thanks!
Yet will I stay in this same dreary wood,
And watch until the night is overpast.

JOCELYN.
Thou'lt find it lonely.

HERBERT.
Oh, I have my thoughts,
A stirring company, that never slumber.

JOCELYN.
Why, worse and worse! I've heard, such restless thoughts
Engender a sore sickness—

HERBERT.
Of the mind;
Yet is my case already desperate,
Past healing, and past comfort. Go thy way.
Thou kind old man, thou canst not shake my purpose,
But when the last star wanes before the dawn,
Come back; my night will then be overpast,
And my watch ended; till that hour, farewell!

FROM THE CONSPIRATOR,

AN UNPUBLISHED TRAGEDY.

SCENE.
[A garden: Arnold De Malpas and Catharine discovered walking slowly towards a summerhouse in the distance].
CATHARINE.
Art thou prepared to risk all this, De Malpas?

DE MALPAS.
Ay! this, and more, if I but thought—

[Hesitating].
CATHARINE.
What, Arnold?

DE MALPAS.
If I but thought that when the strife was over,
The feeble prince hurled down, the throne secured,
She, for whose love I braved the people's hate,
Malice of rulers, and the headsman's axe,
Would deign to share with me that perilous height.

CATHARINE.
She! Oh, thou hast a lady-love!

DE MALPAS.
Cruel! Wouldst thou put by my passion thus,
With a feigned jest? Catharine, I stake my all,
Manhood's strong hopes and purpose, the heart's wealth,
And the mind's store of hard-bought lore, my peace
Of conscience, and my soul's immortal life,
To lift thee to the summit of thy wish;
(Oh! I have proved thee, and I know thy thoughts),
And yet, thou feignest ignorance!

CATHARINE.
Dear De Malpas,
Forgive me! let us both throw by the mask!
I hate the queen; even in our girlish days,
She was my rival; her mild-mannered arts
Stole suitors from me; the old priest, our teacher,
Though I eclipsed her ever in the school,
And shamed her dullness with keenwitted words
And quicker apprehension, shone on her
With sunny aspect, sleeked her golden hair,
Fondled and soothed and petted, whilst for me,
The apter scholar, he reserved harsh looks,
And harsher tones; (well, the old fool is dead!
In after time, some friend of holy church,
Some zealous friend, proved that his saintship taught
Schism and heresy, and so—he perished)!
But for this queen, this Eleanor! our souls
Nursed yearly a more fixed hostility;
We sat together at the knightly jousts,
And watched the conflict with high beating hearts,
Flushed cheeks, and fluttering pulses; she from fear,
I with the mounting heat of martial blood,
Thrilled with the music of the battle's roar,
The ring of mighty lances on steel helms,
Clangor of shields, and neighing of wild steeds:
One morn my knight was victor; as he placed
The crown of gems and laurel on my brow,
Methought that I was born to be a queen,
Not the brief ruler of a festal throng,
But 'stablished kingdoms, and a host of men
Bound to my sway forever!

DE MALPAS.
A true thought!
O, noble Catharine! thy aspiring spirit
Fires my purpose, and gives wings to action;
Thy rival hath sped past thee in the race,
But she shall fall midway; the blinded monarch
Walks on the brink of an abysmal deep,
And soon shall topple over; then, a victor,
(Not from the conflict with half-blunted spears,
In friendly tournament), but the tumult fierce
Of revolution, and the crash of states,
Shall set a weightier crown about thy brows,
And hail thee ruler,—not of festal throngs,
But 'stablished kingdoms, and a host of men
Bound to thy sway forever!

DE MALPAS.
Speak, Bolton! what say these, my faithful friends,
Touching my present life?

BOLTON.
Why, Master Arnold,
I' sooth they're much divided; some assert,
That thou art moonstruck; that some morbid fancy,
Whether of love or pride, hath seized upon thee;
Others, that thou hast simply lost thy trust
In man and in thyself; and others still,
That thou hast sunk to base, inglorious ease,
Urging the languid currents of the blood
With fiery spurs of sense; a few there are,
Few, but most faithful, who at dead of night
In secret conclave, with low-whispered words
And pallid faces glancing back aghast,
Speak of a monstrous wrong, which thou—

DE MALPAS.
[Starting up, and seizing Bolton.]
Unhappy wretch! therein thou speak'st thy doom!
That prying, curious spirit is thy fate.
[Stabs him suddenly.]
Did I not warn thee of it?

BOLTON.
Oh! I die!
Yet my soul swells and lightens; all the future
Flashes before me like a revelation.
Arnold De Malpas! thou shalt gain thine end!
The aged king shall fall, the throne be thine!
But, as thou goest to claim it, as thy foot
Presses the royal dais (mark my words)!
A bolt shall fall from heaven, sudden, swift,
Even as thy blow on me, thou'lt writhe i' the dust,
Down-trodden by the hostile heel of thousands,
Whilst she, for whom thou'st turned conspirator,
Smiling, shall gaze from out her palace doors,
And wave her broidered scarf, and join the music
Of her low witching laughter to the sneers
Of courtly parasites; “De Malpas bore
His honors bravely, did he not, my lords?
Now, by our lady, 'tis a grievous fall!”
“Yet pride, thou know'st, sweet Catharine,”—
“Ay, ay, ay!
“Prithee, Francisco, wilt thou dance tonight?”

DE MALPAS.
What, fool! wilt prate forever? Hence, I say,
And entertain the devil with thy dreamings!

[Stabs him again.]
DE MALPAS.
Thou hast been to court, Bernaldi, hast thou not?

BERNALDI.
Ay! all the forenoon!

DE MALPAS.
Didst thou see the lady,
Catharine of Savoy, whose miraculous beauty
Hath set all Spain aflame?

BERNALDI.
I did, my cousin,
But, I am bold to speak it, liked her not;
Her beauty is the beauty of the serpent,
Masking a poisonous spirit; there's no depth
Of womanly nature in her gleaming eyes,
Falsest when most they flatter; men have said
She owns the Borgia's blood; I know not that,
But, by St. Mark! she owns their temper, cousin!

EXPERIENCE IN POVERTY.

A.
How bitterly you speak!

B.
I have good warrant.

A.
Well, for my part, I hold your creed is false,
Uncharitable, monstrous! I have seen
The world, sir; studied men and manners in it;
And though no doubt some selfishness and craft
May evermore be found by those who seek them,
Peering too closely underneath the mask
Of multiform conventions, yet, by heaven,
The world's a fair, good, reasonable world
To all who follow reason! Your high fancies,
Whose goal is vague impossibility,
Of course must miss their mark! We live not, sir,
In Eden, or the golden age.

B.
Right! right!
You talk as is most natural in one
To whom all life hath been a gay parade,
A frolic pastime!—to whom subtle fortune
Hath never turned her dark and lowering front,
But round whose footsteps sowed with golden showers
Obsequious knaves and sweet-tongued servitors
Have fawned and lied and flattered, till your days
Borne bravely onward over perfumed tides
Passed like a steady bark 'twixt shores of flowers,
You know the world! its men and modes forsooth!
Wait, sir, until your purse grows lean as mine,
And fate within the compass of one evil
(A gaunt and loathsome poverty), includes
All ills that flesh is heir to! disrespect
From insolent curs that now you'd hardly stoop
To soil your lordly boot with! studied coldness
Of ancient friends whose easy faith declines
With your decreasing wine-butts! covert sneers,
Or open insult from the gaudy throng
Of parasites, who breathe alone in sunshine!
Grief without balm, and pain that knows not pity;
Dark days, and maddening midnights, and the pang
Of outraged feeling, and the soul's despair:
Ay! wait, I say, until from depths like these,
The lonely thunder growling overhead,
And misery like a cataract raging round
Your path of ruin, wild and desperate eyes
Are lifted to the summits of past hope,
Receding ever with their shows of joy,
Less real than the mirage, or the domes
Which sunset builds on clouds of phantasy!
Wait till the fiend that's born of famished hours
Shall grasp your hand in bony fellowship,
And lead you through the mist of ghastly dreams,
Helpless and tottering, to the brink of death!
Ha! ha! you shrink! the picture does not please
Your dainty fancy! Well, soft optimist,
Confess there's somewhat you have still to learn
Of this same fair, good, reasonable world!

THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY.

I'd have you use a wise philosophy,
In this, as in all matters, whereupon
Judgment may freely act; truth ever lies
Between extremes; avoid the spendthrift's folly
As you'd avoid the road of utter ruin;
For wealth, or at the least, fair competence,
Is honor, comfort, hope, and self-respect;
All, in a word, that makes our human life
Endurable, if not happy: scorn the cant
Of sentimental Dives, wrapped in purple,
Who over jewelled wine-cups and rich fare,
Affects to flout his gold, and prattles loosely
Of sweet content that's found in poverty:
As for the miser, he's a madman simply,
One who the means of all enjoyment holds,
Yet never dares enjoy: no, no, Anselmo,
Use with a prudent, but still liberal hand
That store the gods have given you; thus, my friend,
'Twixt the Charybdis of a churlish meanness,
And the swift Scylla of improvident waste,
You'll steer your bark o'er smooth, innocuous seas,
And reach at last a peaceful anchorage.

LOVE'S CAPRICES.

CREEDS.

Friend, 'mid the complex and unnumbered creeds
Which meet and jostle on this mortal scene,
And sometimes fight à l'outrance, I perceive
Some precious seed of truth ennobling all:
Encased, it may be, like the mummy's wheat,
Locked in dead forms, yet waiting but a breath
Of honest air, an inch of wholesome soil,
To bloom and flourish heavenward; therefore, friend,
Walk hand in hand with clear-eyed Charity,
And Faith sublime, though simple, like a child's,
Who feels through densest midnight, next his own,
The loving throb of a kind father's heart.

THE UNIVERSALITY OF GRIEF.

I grant you that our fate is terrible,
Bitter as gall. What then? Will lamentation,
Childish complaint, everlasting wailings,
Grief, groans, despair, help to amend our doom?
Glance o'er the world—the world is full of pain
Akin to ours. If some dark spirit touched
Our vision to miraculous clearness, sights
Would meet our eyes, at which the coldest heart
Might weep blood-tears; there's not a moment passes
Which doth not bear its load of agonies
Out to the dim Eternity beyond;
The primal curse of earth, with heavier weight,
Descends on special victims; yet, bethink you,
All sorrow hath its bounds, o'er which there stands
That friend of misery, gentle-hearted Death.
Balms of oblivion holds he, and the realm
Wherein he rules hath murmurous caves of sleep.

THE PENITENT.

Thou see'st yon woman with the grave pelisse
Lined with dark sables? Is she not devout?
Her soul is in the service, and her eyes
Are dim with weeping,—weeping for the follies
Of a misguided youth; thus saith the world,
But I, who know her ladyship, know this:
She weeps that youth itself, and the lost triumphs
Which followed in its train; the scores of lovers
Dead now, or married off; the rout, the joust,
The sweet flirtations, merry carnivals,
And—(oh! supremest memory of all!)—
The banded serenaders 'neath the lattice,
Lifting the voice of passion in the night:
And one among the minstrels loved her well.
But him she laughed to scorn, his heart was riven;
She trampled on the purest pearl of love,
And cast it to the dogs; well, God is just!
She scorned his sacred gift, and so must walk,
Henceforth a lonely woman on the earth!

DRAMATIC FRAGMENT.

We might have been! ah, yes! we might have been
Among the laurelled noblemen of thought,
Who lift their species with them as they climb
To deathless empire in the realm of gods;
But some dark power—we will not call it Fate—
We dare not call it Providence—hath seized
The helm of our strange destinies, and steered
Right onward to the breakers. All is lost!
Hope's siren song of promise faints in sighs,
And joy—(but she ne'er charmed us, save in days
Of dim-remembered childhood);—let it pass!
Our lot's the lot of millions; for on life
A blight is preying, and a mystic wrong
Hath set our heartstrings to the tune of grief!

REWARD OF FICKLENESS.

ALTON.
You see that man with the quick eyes and brow,
Too ponderous almost for his slender frame,
His dark locks tinged with gray; you'd hardly think it,
But he's a moral dandy, dilettante
(As your Italians say), whose fickle taste
Leads him, like some fastidious bee, from flower
To flower of social pastime! A fair girl,
Pretty and piquante, fills his heart today;
On airy wings of sentiment he hovers
Lovingly round her, feeds the beauteous creature
On honeyed nothings in a tone so sweet,
They seem the genuine fruit of a strong soul
Nurtured by passion, and true adoration;
Then on the morrow when he meets once more
“That Cynthia of the minute,” a cold crust
Of iciest form and etiquette o'erspreads
His words, look, bearing; the whole man is changed—
As if a Tropic landscape, bright with sunlight,
Had grown to frozen hardness in an hour:—
A demon, fickle, trifling, and capricious
O'errules his spirit always! with men likewise,
It is his pride to play the same vile game!
Why, sir, your patience would be taxed to count
His dupes within the year! he'll take a youth,
Bright-minded, trusting, whom perchance he meets
In casual fashion on the public square,
Caress, solicit, flatter him—at length
Bear the poor fool, elate and jubilant,
To banquet at his own well-ordered board,
Ply him with curious questions, draw him out
To make display of all his raciest wit,
And when, like a squeezed orange, all his sap's
Exhausted,—faith! Sir Dainty down the wind
Whistles his victim with a cool assurance,
Which is the calm sublime of impudence!
In fine, the man's a worn-out Epicurean,
A ceaseless hunter after new sensations,
To whom the world's a storehouse crammed with hearts
And minds for his amusement! as for hearts,
He'll toss 'em up, as jugglers toss their balls,
Proud of his sleight of hand, his impish cunning,
His matchless turns of quick dexterity!
And if the baubles break, he's sore amazed
That aught should be so brittle! yet thanks God
The earth is full of these same delicate toys;
And so he hurls the shattered plaything by,
To re-assume his honest, juggling tricks,
And charm his weary leisure-time with lies;
A silken, soft, fair-spoken, dangerous knave.

MARCUS.
Some day he'll find his match!

ALTON.
Ay! you may swear to that;
Some woman versed in every social art,
Some rare, majestic creature, whose rich beauty
Will set his amorous senses in a blaze;
Slowly around him she will draw the net
Of fascinations, multiform and strange;
Enchant his fancy with her regal wit,
His taste with every charm of female guile,
Inflame him with voluptuous blandishments,
By turns, sooth, flatter, madden, vow she loves
At one delicious moment, then the next
As warmly swear she loathes him! by a spell
Invisible, but potent as the sun,
She'll lead him, fawning, quivering to her feet,
And at the last, O! consummation just!
When on the very brink of blest fruition,
He hovers, arms outstretched, and soul aglow,
She'll freeze to sudden marble, wave him off
With such calm haughtiness of queenly scorn,
Imperious, crushing, fatal, that, by heaven,
I should not wonder if the terrible sting
Of disappointment and deceived desires,
Of battled passion, wounded self-conceit,
And hope so swiftly murdered by despair,
Struck to the core of being, and this man
Falser than hell to others, perished wholly,
By his own pestilent trickery done to death!

A CHARACTER.

A.
He is a man whose complex character
Few can decipher rightly; but for me
I have found the key at last!

B.
What make you of it?

A.

B.
What more?

A.
What more? Why, truly, sir, the tale is done.
'Twas a sharp close, I grant you, to a dream
Which rose so fairly; yet there's comfort in't!

B.
Comfort!

A.
Ay, ay! rare comfort in the thought
That tho' my years should reach the utmost verge
Of mortal life, I shall not dream again!
But pshaw! push on the bottle, 'tis the last
Of a full bin that constant friend of mine,
That loyal, noble, pure Samaritan,
Gave me, with vows of everduring love,
Three months ago at Christmas! Stay, a toast:
“Fair health, long life, immortal honor crown
The man who's constant only to—himself!”

MORALS OF DESPERATION.

The man who's wholly ruined, sir, fears nothing;
How can he when all's lost to him already?
There is a desperate gayety which comes
To buoy one up in such a strait as this;
Under whose spell, it is a sort of witchcraft,
Men lose all sense of wrong, or rather take
Wrong for their right, rejoicing even in crime.
Faith, now, I'd hardly answer for myself,
If in some garden solitude, like this, sir,
At the hour of midnight (hark! the deep church tower
Is tolling twelve), haply I chanced to meet
A pompous millionaire, a man who staggers
Under his golden burden, like a ship
Reeling 'neath too much canvass; I should ease
My laboring comrade, thus and thus, of all
His glittering superfluities; this ring
Is a brave diamond, and will serve me bravely;
And ha! by Pluto! what a massive chain
Meanders like a miniature Pactolus
Across your worship's vest; my lord, no wonder
You grow asthmatic with a weight like that
Pressed on your gasping lungs; I'll free you from it;
And blessed saints! but here's a fair-knit purse,
And fairly filled, too! Shame it were in sooth
To keep this gift of your sweet paramour,
Therefore, behold me! I pour out this coin;
O Jesu! what rich music! but the purse
Duly return you! haste, your worship, haste,
Or else these itching palms will find fresh work
About your silken doublet, and bright hose,
Or those trussed points you needs must clasp with jewels;
Ay, haste, and take you comfort in the text
Which the wise Messer Salvatore Duomo
Dins in our ears each sacred Sabbath morning,
That “blessed, three times blessed, are the poor!”

THE CONDEMNED.

ANTIPATHIES.

Love is no product of the obedient will,
It hath its root in those deep sympathies,
Mere ties of blood are powerless to control;
I love thee not because around thy heart
An Arctic nature hath built up the ice
Of thawless winter: vain it is to strive
Against the law of just antipathies:
The Tropic sunlight burns not at the Poles,
Nor blooms the lustrous foliage of the East
Among the rocky, storm-bound Hebrides;
To all my gods thou art antipodal,
Therefore, again, good sir! I love thee not.

MISCONSTRUCTION.

How man misjudges man! the outward seeming,
Gesture, or glance, or utterance that may jar
Against some petty, pampered, poor conceit,
Unworthy, undefined, is straightway made
To prove a vast obliquity of soul,
And shallow disputants, with ponderous show
Of judgment that provokes the wise to scorn,
Exhort the virtuous by the foul abuse
Which damns them to the level of their speech.

POEMS OF THE WAR. 1861–1865.

MY MOTHER-LAND.

ODE.

[In honor of the bravery and sacrifices of the soldiers of the South.]

CHARLESTON.

STUART.

BEYOND THE POTOMAC.

BEAUREGARD'S APPEAL.

THE SUBSTITUTE.

1. PART I.

[Place—A Federal Prison—A Confederate chained, and a Visitor, his Friend.]

2. PART II.

[Place—The same Prison. Persons—Confederate Prisoner, together with McNeil and the Jailer.]

BATTLE OF CHARLESTON HARBOR,

April 7, 1863.

CHARLESTON AT THE CLOSE OF 1863.

SCENE IN A COUNTRY HOSPITAL.

VICKSBURG.—A BALLAD.

THE LITTLE WHITE GLOVE.

STONEWALL JACKSON.

SONNETS.

I.
ON THE CHIVALRY OF THE PRESENT TIME.

Ah! foolish souls and false! who loudly cried
“True chivalry no longer breathes in time.”
Look round us now; how wondrous, how sublime
The heroic lives we witness; far and wide,
Stern vows by sterner deeds are justified;
Self abnegation, calmness, courage, power,
Sway with a rule august, our stormy hour,
Wherein the loftiest hearts have wrought and died—
Wrought grandly, and died smiling. Thus, oh God,
From tears, and blood, and anguish, thou hast brought
The ennobling act, the faith-sustaining thought—
'Till in the marvelous present, one may see
A mighty stage, by knight and patriots trod,
Who had not shunned earth's haughtiest chivalry.

II.
ELLIOTT IN FORT SUMTER.

And high amongst these chiefs of iron grain,
Large-statured natures, souls of Spartan mien,
Superbly brave, inflexibly serene,
Man of the stalwart hope, the sleepless brain,
Well dost thou guard our fortress by the main!
And what, though inch by inch old Sumter falls,
There's not a stone that forms those sacred walls,
But holds a tongue, which shall not speak in vain!
A tongue that tells of such heroic mood,
Such nerved endurance, such immaculate will,
That after times shall hearken and grow still,
With breathless admiration, and on thee
(Whose stern resolve our glorious cause made good).
Confer an antique immortality!

OUR MARTYRS.

FORGOTTEN.

LEGENDS AND LYRICS. 1865–1872.

DAPHLES.

AN ARGIVE STORY.

AËTHRA.

RENEWED.

KRISHNA AND HIS THREE HAND-MAIDENS.

UNDER THE PINE.

A DREAM OF THE SOUTH WINDS.

IN THE MIST.

A SUMMER MOOD.

MIDNIGHT.

THE BONNY BROWN HAND.

SONNETS.

THE COTTAGE ON THE HILL.

On a steep hillside, to all airs that blow,
Open, and open to the varying sky,
Our cottage homestead, smiling tranquilly,
Catches morn's earliest and eve's latest glow;
Here, far from worldly strife, and pompous show,
The peaceful seasons glide serenely by,
Fulfil their missions, and as calmly die,
As waves on quiet shores when winds are low.
Fields, lonely paths, the one small glimmering rill
That twinkles like a wood-fay's mirthful eye,
Under moist bay-leaves, clouds fantastical
That float and change at the light breeze's will,—
To me, thus lapped in sylvan luxury,
Are more than death of kings, or empires' fall.

NOVEMBER.

Within the deep-blue eyes of Heaven a haze
Of saddened passion dims their tender light,
For that her fair queen-child, the Summer bright,
Lies a wan corse amidst her mouldering bays:
The sullen Autumn lifts no voice of praise
To herald Winter's cold and cruel might,
But winds foreboding fill the desolate night,
And die at dawning down wild woodland ways:
The sovereign sun at noonday smileth cold,
As through a shroud he hath no power to part,
While huddled flocks crouch listless round their fold;
The mock-bird's dumb, no more with cheerful dart
Upsoars the lark through morning's quivering gold,
And dumb or dead, methinks, great Nature's heart!

SYLVAN MUSINGS.—IN MAY.

Couched in cool shadow, girt by billowy swells
Of foliage, rippling into buds and flowers,
Here I repose o'erfanned by breezy bowers,—
Lulled by a delicate stream whose music wells
Tender and low through those luxuriant dells,
Wherefrom a single broad-leaved chestnut towers;—
Still musing in the long, lush, languid hours,—
As in a dream I heard the tinkling bells
Of far-off kine, glimpsed through the verdurous sheen,
Blent with faint bleatings from the distant croft,—
The bee-throngs murmurous in the golden fern,
The wood-doves veiled by depths of flickering green,—
And near me, where the wild “queen fairies” burn,
The thrush's bridal passion, warm and soft!

POETS.

Some thunder on the heights of song, their race
Godlike in power, while others at their feet
Are breathing measures scarce less strong and sweet
Than those which peal from out that loftiest place;
Meantime, just midway on the mount, his face
Fairer than April heavens, when storms retreat,
And on their edges rain and sunshine meet,
Pipes the soft lyrist lays of tender grace;
But where the slopes of bright Parnassus sweep
Near to the common ground, a various throng
Chant lowlier measures,—yet each tuneful strain
(The silvery minor of earth's perfect song)
Blends with that music of the topmost steep,
O'er whose vast realm the master minstrels reign!

SONNET.

Behold! how weirdly, wonderfully grand
The shades and colors of yon sunset sky!
Rare isles of light in crimson oceans lie,
Whose airy waves seem rippling, bright and bland,
Up the soft slopes of many a mystic strand,—
While luminous capes, and mountains towering high
In golden pomp and proud regality,
O'erlook the frontier of that fairy land,
But now, in transformations swift and strange
The vision changes! Castles glittering fair,
And sapphire battlements of loftiest range
Commingle with vast spire and gorgeous dome,
Round which the sunset rolls its purpling foam,
Girding this transient Venice of the air.

THE PHANTOM BELLS.

Upveiled in yonder dim ethereal sea,
Its airy towers the work of phantom spells,
A viewless belfry tolls its wizard bells,
Pealed o'er this populous earth perpetually.
Some hear, some hear them not; but aye they be
Laden with one strange note that sinks or swells,
Now dread as doom, now gentle as farewells,
Time's dirge borne ever toward eternity.
Each hour its measured breath sobs out and dies,
While the bell tolls its requiem,—“Passing, past,”—
The sole sad burden of their long refrain.
Still, with those hours each pang, each pleasure flies,
Brief sweet, brief bitter,—all our days are vain,
Knolled into drear forgetfulness at last.

THE LIFE-FOREST.

In springtime of our youth, life's purpling shade,
Foliage and fruit, do hang so thickly round,
We seem glad tenants of enchanted ground,
O'er which for aye dream-whispering winds have played.
Then summer comes, her full-blown charm is laid
On all the forest aisles; from bound to bound
Floats woodland music, and the silvery sound
Of fountains babbling to the golden glade.
Next, a chill breath, the breath of Autumn's doom
Strips the fair sylvan branches, one by one,
Till the bare landscape broadens to our view;
Behind, black tree boles blot the twilight blue,
Before, unfoliaged, bald of light and bloom,
Our pathway darkens towards the darkening sun!

CLOUD FANTASIES.

Wild, rapid, dark, like dreams of threatening doom,
Low cloud-racks scud before the level wind;
Beneath them, the bare moorlands, blank and blind,
Stretch, mournful, through pale lengths of glimmering gloom;
Afar, grand mimic of the sea waves' boom,
Hollow, yet sweet as if a Titan pined
O'er deathless woes, yon mighty wood, consigned
To autumn's blight, bemoans its perished bloom;
The dim air creeps with a vague shuddering thrill
Down from those monstrous mists the sea-gale brings,
Half formless, inland, poisoning earth and sky;
Most from yon black cloud, shaped like vampire wings
O'er a lost angel's visage, deathly-still,
Uplifted toward some dread eternity.

SONNET.

I fear thee not, O Death! nay, oft I pine
To clasp thy passionless bosom to mine own,
And on thy heart sob out my latest moan,
Ere lapped and lost in thy strange sleep divine;
But much I fear lest that chill breath of thine
Should freeze all tender memories into stone,—
Lest ruthless and malign Oblivion
Quench the last spark that lingers on love's shrine:
O God! to moulder through dark, dateless years,
The while all loving ministries shall cease,
And time assuage the fondest mourner's tears!
Here lies the sting!—this, this it is to die!
And yet great nature rounds all strife with peace,
And life or death, each rests in mystery!

SONNET.

Of all the woodland flowers of earlier spring,
These golden jasmines, each an air-hung bower,
Meet for the Queen of Fairies' tiring hour,
Seem loveliest and most fair in blossoming;
How yonder mock-bird thrills his fervid wing
And long, lithe throat, where twinkling flower on flower
Rains the globed dewdrops down, a diamond shower,
O'er his brown head poised as in act to sing;
Lo! the swift sunshine floods the flowery urns,
Girding their delicate gold with matchless light,
Till the blent life of bough, leaf, blossom, burns;
Then, then outbursts the mock-bird clear and loud,
Half-drunk with perfume, veiled by radiance bright,
A star of music in a fiery cloud!

FIRE-PICTURES.

AN ANNIVERSARY.

FROM THE WOODS.

DOLCE FAR NIENTE.

CAMBYSES AND THE MACROBIAN BOW.

BY THE AUTUMN SEA.

THE WIFE OF BRITTANY.

[Suggested by the Frankeleine's Tale of Chaucer.]

PROEM.

THE STORY.

1. [PART I.]

2. PART II.

3. PART III.

My song, which now hath long flowed unperplexed
Through scenes so various, calm as heaven, or vexed
By gusty passion, reaches the lone shore,
Ghostlike and strange, of silence and old dreams;
Far-off its weird and wandering whisper seems
Like airs that faint o'er untracked oceans hoar
On haunted midnights, when the moon is low.
And now 'tis ended: long, yea, long ago,
Lost on the wings of all the winds that blow,
The dust of these dead loves hath passed away;
Still, still, methinks, a soft, ethereal ray
Illumes the tender record, and makes bright
Its heart-deep pathos with a marvellous light,
So that whate'er of frenzied grief and pain
Marred the pure currents of the crystal strain,
Transfigured shines through fancy's mellowing trance,
Touching with golden haze the quaint old-world romance.

[_]

Note.—Of “The Frankleines Tale,” the plot of which has been followed in “The Wife of Brittany,” Richard Henry Horne, the author of “Orion,” says: “It is a noble story, perfect in its moral purpose, and chivalrous self-devotion to a feeling of truth and honor; but it would have been more satisfactory in an intellectual sense had a distinction been made between a sincere pledge of faith and a ‘merry bond!’”

THE RIVER.

THE STORY OF GLAUCUS THE THESSALIAN.

TO ---

List to this legend, which an antique poet
Hath left among the musty tomes of eld,
Like a flushed rosebud pressed between the leaves
Of some worn, dark-hued volume. What a light
Of healthful bloom about it! What an air
Seems breathing round its delicate petals still!
Wilt thou not take it, lady,—thou, whose face
Is lovely as a lost Arcadian dream,—
And place it next thy heart, and keep it fresh
With balmy dews thy gentle spirit sends
Up to the deep founts of the tenderest eyes
That e'er have shone, I think, since in some dell
Of Argos and enchanted Thessaly,
The poet, from whose heart-lit brain it came,
Murmured this record unto her he loved?

THE STORY.

THE NEST.

NOT DEAD.

SONNET.

Hast thou beheld a landscape dull and bare,
On which, at times, a flying gleam was shed
From some shy sunbeam shifting overhead,
That made the scene for one brief moment fair?
Such is the light, so transient, flickering, rare,
Which, from fate's sullen heavens above me spread,
Hath flushed the path my weary footsteps tread,
And lent to darkness glimpses of sweet cheer.
Alas! alas! that I, whose soul doth burn
With such deep passion for a steadfast bliss,
Must bend forever o'er hope's burial urn,
And greet even love with a half-mournful kiss!
In sooth, what stern, malignant doom is this?
Joy! delicate Ariel! ah! return! return!

MARGUERITE.

APART.

THE LOTOS AND THE LILY.

THE LOTOS.

THE LILY.

WINDLESS RAIN.

“IN UTROQUE FIDELIS.”

NATURE, BETROTHED AND WEDDED.

Have you not noted how in early spring,
From out the forests, past the murmuring brooks,
O'er the hillsides, Nature, with airy grace,
Like some fair virgin, touched by lights and shades,
Glides timidly, a veil of golden mist
About her brows, and budding bosom draped
In maiden coyness? She's a bride betrothed
Unto that mystic god, who comes from far,
Rich Orient lands upon the winds of June,
That bear him like swift ardors, winged with fire;
And when, on some calm, lustrous morn, her lord
Uplifts the golden veil, and weds to hers
The quickening warmth of ripe, immortal lips,
How the broad earth leaps into raptured life,
And thrills with music!
Then a queenly spouse
Raised unto fruitful empire, through all hours
Of bounteous summer, she walks proudly on,
Shining with blissful eyes of matronhood,
Till, at the last, autumn, with reverent hand,
Doth crown her with such full, completed joy,
Such wealth of sovereign beauty, she once more
About her brows and sumptuous bosom folds
That golden veil,—not in the tremulous fear
Of maiden coyness now, but lest rash men,
Drawn by her awful loveliness, should dare
To gaze too closely on it, and thus fall,
Smitten and blind, at her imperial feet!

CHLORIS.

FORTUNIO.

A PARABLE FOR THE TIMES.

A FEUDAL PICTURE.

[Scene—The Corridor of a Palace. Persons—A young Knight and his Mentor. Time—The Fourteenth Century.]
With what a grace she passed us by just now!
Her delicate chin half raised, her cordial brow
A cloudless heaven of bland benignities!
What tempered lustre too in her dove's eyes,
Just touched to archness by the eyebrow's curve,
And those quick dimples which the mouth's reserve
Stir and break up, as sunlit ripples break
The cool, clear calmness of a mountain lake!
A woman in whom majesty and sweetness
Blend to such issues of serene completeness,
That to gaze on her were a prince's boon!
The calm of evening, the large pomp of noon,
Are hers; soft May morns melting into June,
Hold not such tender languishments as those
Which steep her in that dew-light of repose,
That floats a dreamy balm around the full-blown rose:—
And yet, 'tis not her beauty, though so bright
(Clear moon-fire mixed with sun-flame), nor the light,
Transparent charm we feel so exquisite,
Whereby she's compassed as a wizard star
By its own life-air! 'tis not one, nor all
Of these, whereby we're mastered, Sir, and fall
Slavelike before her: doubtless such things are
Potent as spells,—still there's a something fine,
Subtler than hoar-rime in the faint moonshine,
More potent yet!—an undefinèd art,
'Twere vain to question: your whole being, heart,
Brain, blood, seem lapsing from you, fired and fused
In hers,—a terrible power, and if abused—
But by St. Peter! 'tis not safe to talk
Of yon weird woman! turn now! watch her walk
'Twixt the tall tiger-lilies,—there's a free,
Brave grace in every step,—but still to me,
It hath—I know not what—of covertness,
Cunning, and cruel purpose! can you guess
The picture it brings up?—a lonely rock
From which a young Bedouin guards his flock,
In the swart desert:—there's a tawny band,
A curved and tangled pathway of loose sand,
Winding above him;—the tranced airs make dim
His slumberous senses!—his great brown eyes swim
In th' mist of dreams, when gliding with mute tread
Forth from the thorn-trees, o'er his nodding head,
Moves a lithe-bodied panther;—(God! how fair
The beast is, with her moony-spotted hair,
And her deft desert paces!)—one breath more!
And you'll behold the spouting of fresh gore,
Heart blood that's human!—can aught save him now?—
Hist! the sharp crackle of a blasted bough,
Whence flies a huge hill-eagle, rustling
O'er the boy's forehead his vast breadths of wing,
And sweeping as a half-seen shade, 'twould seem,
Betwixt his startled spirit, and its dream;
He's roused! espies his danger! at a bound
Leaps into safety where the low-set ground
Is buttressed 'neath two giant crags thereby
(Now hark ye! 'tis no pictured phantasy,
This scene, my Anslem! but all's true and clear
Before me, though full many a weary year
Has waxed and waned since then):
My meaning prithee? foolish youth, beware!
There's treachery lurking in the gay parterre,
As in the hoary desert's silentness,
And dreams with danger, death perchance behind,
May lull young sleepers in the perfumed wind,
Which hardly lifts the tiniest truant tress
It toys with coyly, of a woman's hair:
Our sternest fates have risen in forms as fair,
As—let us say for lack of similes,—
As, hers, who bends now with such gracious ease,
O'er her rich tulip-beds!
Were I the bird,
Wert thou the shepherd Anslem of my tale,
(And that thou hast not hearkened, boy, unstirred
Is clear, albeit thou need'st not wax so pale),
What would true wisdom whisper, now 'tis done,
My warning, and thy day-dream in the sun?
What! why, her mandate's plain: I hear her say,
‘Young Knight! to horse! leave the Queen's Court to-day!’”

THE WARNING.

DRIFTING.

SONNETS.

LEIGH HUNT.

Despite misfortune, poverty, the dearth
Of simplest justice to his heart and brain,
This gracious optimist lived not in vain;
Rather, he made a partial Heaven of Earth;
For whatsoe'er of pure and cordial birth
In body or soul dawned on him, he was fain
To bless and love, as an immortal gain
A thing divine, of fair immaculate worth:—
The clearest, cleanest nature given to man
In these, our latter days, methinks was his,
With instincts which alone did bring him bliss;
All life he viewed as one long, luminous plan
Wherein God's love and wisdom meet and kiss,—
His sole brave creed, the creed Samaritan!

SOUL-ADVANCES.

He, who with fervent toil and will austere,
His innate forces and high faculties
Develops ever, with firm aim, and wise,
He only keeps his spiritual vision clear;
To him earth's treacherous shadows shift and veer
Like idle mists o'ercowding windless skies,
Where through ofttimes to purged and prayerful eyes,
The steadfast heavens seem beckoning calm and near:
Still o'er life's rugged heights, with many a slip,
And painful pause he journeys, and sad fall,
Toward death's dark strand, washed by a mystic sea;
There her worn cable straining to be free,
He sees, and enters Faith's majestic ship,
To sail—where'er the voice of God may call!

CAROLINA.

That fair young land which gave me birth is dead!
Lost as a fallen star that quivering dies
Down the pale pathway of autumnal skies,
A vague faint radiance flickering where it fled;
All she hath wrought, all she hath planned or said,
Her golden eloquence, her high emprise
Wrecked, on the languid shore of Lethe lies,
While cold Oblivion veils her piteous head:
O mother! loved and loveliest! debonair
As some brave queen of antique chivalries.
Thy beauty's blasted like thy desolate coasts;—
Where now thy lustrous form, thy shining hair?
Where thy bright presence, thine imperial eyes?
Lost in dim shadows of the realm of Ghosts!

SONNET.

In yonder grim, funereal forest lies
A foul lagoon, o'erfilmed by dust and slime,
Hidden and ghastly, like a thought of crime
In some stern soul kept secret from men's eyes:
But if perchance a healthful breeze should rise,
And part those stifling boughs, sweet morning's prime,
And the fair flush of evening's cordial clime,
Reflect therein the calmly glorious skies:
Is't so with man? holds not the darkened breast,
Turbid, corrupt, o'ergrown by worldliness,
One little spot whereon love's smile may rest?
Lo! a pure impulse breathes, the sin-clouds part,
The grief-defilements melt in hopes that bless,
And pour God's quickening sunshine on the heart!

ODE TO SLEEP.

SONG.

HOPES AND MEMORIES.

Our hopes in youth are like those roseate shadows
Cast by the sunlight on the dewy grass
When first the fair morn opes her sapphire eyes;
They seem gigantic and yet graceful shades,
Touched with bright color. As our sun of life
Rises towards meridian, less and less
Grow the bright tremulous shadows, till at last,
In the hot dust and noontide of our day,
They glimmer to blank nothingness. Again,
That grand climacteric passed, the shadows gleam
Bright still, perchance (if our past deeds be pure),—
Bright still, but all reversed! Eastward they point,
Lengthening and lengthening ever toward the dawn;
For hopes have then grown memories, whose strange life
Deepens and deepens as the sunset dies.

WIDDERIN'S RACE.

AUSTRALIAN.

OCTOBER.

WILL.

HERE AND THERE.

WELCOME TO WINTER.

TO MY MOTHER.

SONNETS.

ILLEGITIMATE.

The maiden Spring came laughing down the dales,
Her fair brows arched, and on her rosebud mouth,
The balm and beauty of the lustrous South;
Through soft green fields, from hills to happy vales,
She tripped, her small feet twinkling in the sun,
Her delicate finger raised with girlish mirth,
Pointed at graybeard Winter, who, in dearth,
Toiled toward his couch, his long day labor done;
Ah no, not done! for hark! a sudden wind,
Death-laden, sweeps from realms of arctic sky,
And blurred with storm, the morn grows crazed and blind;
Then Winter, mocking, backward turns apace,
Where pallid Spring all vainly strives to fly,
And with brute buffet scars her shrinking face!

SONNET.

I cast this sorrow from me like a crown
Of bitter nettles, and unwholesome weeds,
Nursed by cold night-dews, from malignant seeds,
Ill Fortune sowed, when all the heaven did frown;
Its loathsome round I trample deeply down
In mire and dust, to burn my brain no more;
From off my brow I wipe the trickling gore,
While all about me, like keen clarions blown,
From breezy dells, and golden heights afar,
Their stern reveillé the wild March winds sound;
They wake an answering passion in my soul,
Whence, marshalled as brave warriors, taking ground
For noblest conflict, freed from doubt or dole,
Great thoughts uprising front Hope's morning star!

VERNAL PICTURES (WITHOUT AND WITHIN).

Amid fresh roses wandering, and the soft
And delicate wealth of apple-blossoms spread
In tender spirals of blent white and red,
Round the fair spaces of our blooming croft,
This morn I caught the gurgling note, so oft
Heard in the golden spring-tides that are dead,—
The swallow's note, murmuring of winter fled,
Dropped silverly from passionless calms aloft:
“O heart!” I said, “thy vernal depths unclose,
That mirror Nature's; warm airs, come and go
Of whispering ardors o'er thought's budded rose,
And half-hid flowers of sweet philosophy;
While now upglancing, now borne swift and low,
Song like the swallow darts through fancy's sky.”

THE MOUNTAIN OF THE LOVERS.

THE VENGEANCE OF THE GODDESS DIANA. .

THE SOLITARY LAKE.

THE VOICE IN THE PINES.

VISIT OF THE WRENS.

FOREST PICTURES.

MORNING.

GOLDEN DELL.

ASPECTS OF THE PINES.

MIDSUMMER IN THE SOUTH.

CLOUD-PICTURES.

SONNET.

IN THE PINE BARRENS.

SUNSET.

SONNET.

THE WOODLAND PHASES.

AFTER THE TORNADO.

Last eve the earth was calm, the heavens were clear;
A peaceful glory crowned the waning west,
And yonder distant mountain's hoary crest
The semblance of a silvery robe did wear,
Shot through with moon-wrought tissues; far and near
Wood, rivulet, field—all Nature's face—expressed
The haunting presence of enchanted rest.
One twilight star shone like a blissful tear,
Unshed. But now, what ravage in a night!
Yon mountain height fades in its cloud-girt pall;
The prostrate wood lies smirched with rain and mire;
Through the shorn fields the brook whirls, wild and white;
While o'er the turbulent waste and woodland fall,
Glares the red sunrise, blurred with mists of fire!

IN THE BOWER.

WHENCE?

SONNET.

Enough, this glimpse of splendor wed to shame;
Enough this gilded misery, this bright woe.
Pause, genial wind! that even here dost blow
Thy cheerful clarion; and from dust and flame
The noonday pest, the night-enshrouded blame,
Uplift and bear me where the wild flowers grow
By many a golden dell-side sweet and low,
Shrined in the sylvan Eden whence I came.
O woodland water! O fair-whispering pine!
Loved of the dryad none but I have viewed!
O dew-lit glen, and lone glade, breathing balm,
Receive and bless me, till this tumult rude
Merged in your verdant solitudes divine,
My soul once more hath found her ancient calm!

VIOLETS.

BY THE GRAVE OF HENRY TIMROD.

SONNET.

As one who strays from out some shadowy glade,
Fronting a lurid noontide, stern, yet bright,
O'er mart and tower, and castellated height,
Shrinks slowly backward, dazed and half afraid—
So I, whose household gods their stand have made
Far from the populous city's life and light,
Its roar of traffic and its stormy might,
Shrink as I pass beyond my woodland shade.
The wordy conflict, the tempestuous din
Of these vast capitals, on ear and brain
Beat with the loud, reiterated swell
Of one fierce strain of passion and of sin,
Strange as in nightmare dreams the mad refrain
Of some wild chorus of the vaults of Hell.

ARIEL.

SONNET.

The glorious star of morning would we blame
Because it burns not on the front of night?
Or the calm evening planet, that her light
Foretells not sunrise, with its herald-flame?
All things that are should subtly own the same,
Eternal law! the stars shine on aright,
Each in his sphere; the souls of Love and Might
Their separate bounds of grace or grandeur claim;
Not on the low or lofty, great or small,
Should justice fix for judgment; the true soul,
Which sways its own world in serene control,
Highest or humblest—such the Master's call
Shall summon upward, with its deep “well done,”
And the just Father crown his faithful son!

THE CLOUD-STAR.

A FABLE.

SWEETHEART, GOOD-BYE!

A SONG.

SONNET.

COMPOSED ON A MARCH MORNING IN THE WOODS.

The winds are loud and trumpet-clear to-day;
They seem to sound an onset, half in ire,
Half in the wildness of a vague desire
To force spring's fairy vanguard to delay;
For here, methinks, worn winter stands at bay,
Yet stands how vainly! spring-time's subtlest fire
Melts his cold heart to nothingness, while nigher
Draw April hosts, and rearward powers of May—
All maiden verdures, concords of sweet air,
Stealing as dawn steals gently on the world;
Breezes, balm-laden, blown from distant seas,
With armies of blush-roses, dew-impearled,
Till Earth reclaimed from winter's grim despair
Blooms as once bloomed the fair Hesperides.

FRIDA AND HER POET.

PREËXISTENCE.

SONNET.

Fair Muse, beloved of all, thou art no high
Imperious goddess of the mount or main,
But a sweet maiden of the pastoral plain,
To whom the hum of bees, the west wind's sigh,
The lapse of waters murmuring tranquilly,
Come, like soft music of a May-tide dream.
Yet, times there are when some imperial theme,
Born of a stormy sunset's marvellous sky,
And heralded, by thunder and fierce flame,
Sweeps o'er thy vision with a mien sublime,
And mighty voices, calling on thy name:
Then dost thou rise, exultant, thrilled, inspired,
Thy song a clarion lay that stirs our time,
Hot from the soul some secret god hath fired!

A THOUSAND YEARS FROM NOW.

SONNET.

I stood in twilight by the winter's sea;
The spectral tides with hollow, hungry roar,
Broke massed and mighty on the shrinking shore.
The sea-birds wailed; the foam flew wild and free.
Ruthless as fate, upborne victoriously,
A fierce wind clove the billows urged afar
With vengeful rhythm toward the western star,
Just risen beyond a gaunt gray cypress tree.
Then twilight waned in cloud-descending night,
The sole star died, as if some phantom hand
Wiped out its radiance; in the void profound
The wind and waters (blended in one sound,
Awful, mysterious), with invisible might
Thrilled the blank heavens, and smote the affrighted strand!

THUNDER AT MIDNIGHT.

ON THE DEATH OF CANON KINGSLEY.

WHEN ALL HAS BEEN SAID AND DONE.

TO RICHARD HENRY STODDARD.

(In reply to his poem called “Wishing and Having.”)

THE VISION IN THE VALLEY.

THE ARCTIC VISITATION.

THE WIND OF ONSET.

THE VISIT OF MAHMOUD BEN SULEIM TO PARADISE.

MY DAUGHTER.

OUR “HUMMING-BIRD.”

LATER POEMS OF IMAGINATION, SENTIMENT, AND DESCRIPTION.

UNVEILED.

MUSCADINES.

IN A SPRING GARDEN.

IN DEGREE.

THE SKELETON WITNESS.

STORM-FRAGMENTS.

ABOVE THE STORM.

UNDERGROUND—A FANTASY.

THE DRYAD OF THE PINE.

WELCOME TO FROST.

THE PINE'S MYSTERY.

TO A BEE.

THE FIRST MOCKING-BIRD IN SPRING.

THE RED AND THE WHITE ROSE.

BEFORE THE MIRROR.

Where in her chamber by the Southern sea,
Her taper's light shone soft and silvery,
Fair as a planet mirrored in the main,
Fresh as a blossom bathed by April rain,
A maiden robed for restful sleep aright,
Stood in her musing sweetness, pure and white
As some shy spirit in a haunted place:
Her dew-bright eyes and faintly flushing face
Viewed in the glass their delicate beauty beam,
Strange as a shadowy “dream within a dream”
With fingers hovering like a white dove's wings,
'Mid little, tender sighs and murmurings
(Joy's scarce articulate speech), her eager hands
Loosed the light coif, the ringlet's golden bands,
Till, by their luminous loveliness embraced,
From lily-head to lithe and lissome waist,
Poured the free tresses like a cascade's fall.
Her image answered from the shimmering wall,
Answered and deepened, while the gracious charms
Of brow and cheek, bared breast and dimpling arms,
To innocent worship stirred her happy heart:
Her lips—twin rosebud petals blown apart—
Quivered, half breathless; then, subdued but warm,
Around her perfect face, her pliant form
A subtler air seemed gathering, touched with fire
By many a fervid thought and swift desire,
With dreams of love, that, bee-like, came and went,
To feed the honeyed core of life's content!
Closer toward her mirrored self she pressed,
With large child-eyes, and gently panting breast,
Bowed as a flower when May-time breezes pass,
And kissed her own dear Image in the glass!

TWO EPOCHS.

Lovers by a dim sea strand
Looking wave-ward, hand in hand;
Silent, trembling with the bliss
Of their first betrothal kiss:
Lovers still, tho' wedded long!
(Time true love can never wrong!
Gazing—faithful hand in hand,
O'er a darker sea and strand:
Ah! one lover's face is wan
As a wave the moon shines on;
But those strange tides stretched afar
Know not sun, nor moon, nor star!

WIND FROM THE EAST.

PEACH BLOOMS.

THE AWAKENING.

LOVE'S AUTUMN.

THE SPIREA.

COQUETTE.

[Among the family portraits.]

SKATING.

THE WORLD WITHIN US.

A FANTASY.

FOREST QUIET.

[In the South.]

THE MOCKING-BIRD.

[At night.]

A golden pallor of voluptuous light
Filled the warm southern night:
The moon, clear orbed, above the sylvan scene
Moved like a stately queen,
So rife with conscious beauty all the while,
What could she do but smile
At her own perfect loveliness below,
Glassed in the tranquil flow
Of crystal fountains and unruffled streams?
Half lost in waking dreams,
As down the loneliest forest dell I strayed,
Lo! from a neighboring glade,
Flashed through the drifts of moonshine, swiftly came
A fairy shape of flame.
It rose in dazzling spirals overhead,
Whence to wild sweetness wed,
Poured marvellous melodies, silvery trill on trill;
The very leaves grew still
On the charmed trees to hearken; while for me,
Heart-trilled to ecstasy,
I followed—followed the bright shape that flew,
Still circling up the blue,
Till as a fountain that has reached its height,
Falls back in sprays of light
Slowly dissolved, so that enrapturing lay,
Divinely melts away
Through tremulous spaces to a music-mist,
Soon by the fitful breeze
How gently kissed
Into remote and tender silences.

A STORM IN THE DISTANCE.

[Among the Georgian Hills.]

THE VISION BY THE SEA.

THE VISIONARY FACE.

I am happy with her I love,
In a circle of charmed repose;
My soul leaps up to follow her feet
Wherever my darling goes;
Whether to roam through the garden walks,
Or pace the sands by the sea;—
There's never a shadow of doubt or fear
Brooding 'twixt her and me:—
But through memory's twilight mists,
Sometimes, I own, in sooth,
Falters the face of one I loved
In the fervent years of youth;—
The soft pathetic brow is there,
With its glimmer and glance of golden hair,
And scarcely shadowed by death's eclipse
The delicate curve of the faultless lips,
The tremulous, tender lips I kissed,
So coyly raised at the sunset tryst,
As we stood from the restless world apart,
'Mid the whispering foliage, heart to heart,
In the fair, far years of youth.
Yet, the vision is pure as heaven,
Untouched by a hint of strife
From the passion that moved itself to sleep,
On the morning strand of life;
And I know that my living Love would feel
The tremor of ruthful tears,
If I told of the sweetness and hope that drooped,
So soon in the vanished years:
She would not banish the phantom sad
Of a beauty discrowned and low;—
Can jealousy rest in the rose's breast
Of a lily under the snow?
Can the passion so warm and strong to-day
Envy a ghost from the cypress shades
For an hour astray?
Or, the love that wanted like a blighted May,
In the dead days, long ago,
Ah! long, how long ago!

THE ROSE AND THORN.

THE RED LILY.

LAKE WINNIPISEOGEE.

LAKE MISTS.

[Composed near Lake Winnipiseogee.]

THE INEVITABLE CALM.

THE DEAD LOOK.

JETSAM.

FAMELESS GRAVES.

WINTER ROSE.

God's benison upon each happy day
Dead now and gone!—its gentle ghost our feet
Doth follow, singing faintly; and how sweet—
Tenderly sweet, as through a luminous mist—
Its shadowy lips draw near us, to be kissed!
And though they melt upon the yearning mouth
Like fairy balm from some phantasmal south,
Their touch is magic; and we feel the start
As of an unsealed fountain, close at heart—
Till, warmed, restored, breathing a fine repose,
Our innermost nature, wakening, glows anew;
While, gemmed by sunset memory's radiant dew,
Lo! the heart blossoms, like a Winter Rose!

TRISTRAM OF THE WOOD.

HINTS OF SPRING.

[COMPOSED IN SICKNESS.]

THE HAWK.

OVER THE WATERS.

THE TRUE HEAVEN.

THE BREEZES OF JUNE.

A MOUNTAIN FANCY.

ABSENCE AND LOVE.

THE FALLEN PINE-CONE.

STERN TRUTHS TRANSFIGURED.

DISTANCE.

HORIZONS.

IN THE GRAY OF THE EVENING.

AUTUMN.

THE VISION AT TWILIGHT.

AN HOUR TOO LATE.

“TOO LOW AND YET TOO HIGH!”

THE LORDSHIP OF CORFU.

A LEGEND OF 1516.

TALLULAH FALLS.

DIVIDED.

THE MEADOW BROOK.

THE VALLEY OF ANOSTAN.

TWO SONGS.

FIRST SONG.

SONNETS.

ON VARIOUS THEMES.

I.
FRESHNESS OF POETIC PERCEPTION.

Day followed day; years perish; still mine eyes
Are opened on the self-same round of space;
Yon fadeless forests in their Titan grace,
And the large splendors of those opulent skies.
I watch, unwearied, the miraculous dyes
Of dawn or sunset; the soft boughs which lace
Round some coy dryad in a lonely place,
Thrilled with low whispering and strange sylvan sighs:
Weary? the poet's mind is fresh as dew,
And oft re-filled as fountains of the light.
His clear child's soul finds something sweet and new
Even in a weed's heart, the carved leaves of corn.
The spear-like grass, the silvery rim of morn,
A cloud rose-edged, and fleeting stars at night!

II.
LAOCOON.

A gnarled and massive oak log, shapeless, old,
Hewed down of late from yonder hillside gray,
Grotesquely curved, across our hearthstone lay;
About it, serpent-wise, the red flames rolled
In writhing convolutions; fold on fold
They crept and clung with slow portentous sway
Of deadly coils; or in malignant play,
Keen tongues outflashed, 'twixt vaporous gloom and gold.
Lo! as I gazed, from out that flaming gyre
There loomed a wild, weird image, all astrain
With strangled limbs, hot brow, and eyeballs dire,
Big with the anguish of the bursting brain:
Laocoon's form, Laocoon's fateful pain,
A frescoed dream on flickering walls of fire!

III.
AT LAST.

In youth, when blood was warm and fancy high,
I mocked at death. How many a quaint conceit
I wove about his veilèd head and feet.
Vaunting aloud. Why need we dread to die?
But now, enthralled by deep solemnity.
Death's pale phantasmal shade I darkly greet:
Ghostlike it haunts the hearth, it haunts the street,
Or drearier makes drear midnight's mystery.
Ah, soul-perplexing vision! oft I deem
That antique myth is true which pictured death
A masked and hideous form all shrank to see;
But at the last slow ebb of mortal breath,
Death, his mask melting like a nightmare dream,
Smiled,—heaven's high-priest of Immortality!

IV.
A PHANTOM IN THE CLOUDS.

All day the blast, with furious ramp and roar,
Sweeps the gaunt hill-tops, piles the vapors high,
Thro' infinite distance, up the tortured sky—
Till to one nurtured on the ocean-shore,
It seems—with eyes half-shut to hill and moor—
The anguished sea waves' multitudinous cry—
It changes! deepening .. Christ! what agony
Doth some doomed spirit on these wild winds outpour!
At last a lull! stirred by slow wafts of air!
When lo! o'er dismal wastes of stormy wreck,
Cloud-wrought, an awful form and face abhorred!
Thine, thine, Iscariot! smitten by mad despair,
With lurid eyeballs strained, and writhing neck,
Round which is coiled a blood-red phantom cord!

V.
JAPONICAS.

Beneath the sullen slope of shadowy skies,
Midmost this flowerless, wind-bewildered space
(Once a fair garden, now a desert-place)
Ah! what voluptuous hues are these that rise
In sudden lustre, on my startled eyes?
They glow like roses on an orient face,
Glimpsed in swift flashes of enchanting grace,
'Twixt the shy harem's gold-wrought tapestries!
Ye bright Japonicas! your glorious gleam
Tints with strange light the enamored waves of air,
And wafts of such coy fragrance round you float
Fancy transcends these boundaries blanched and bare,
For beauty lures her in a ravishing dream
Of roseate lips, dark locks, and swanwhite throat!

VI.
THE USURPER.

For weeks the languid southern wind had blown,
Fraught with Floridian balm; thro' winter skies
We seemed to catch the smile of April's eyes;
A queenly waif, from her far temperate zone
Wayfaring—half bewildered and alone,
Yet, by the delicate fervor of her grace,
And the arch beauty of her changeful face,
Making an alien empire all her own,
So day by day that sweet usurper's reign
Gladdened the world. One eve the south wind sighed
Her soft soul out; the north wind raved instead;
All night he raved; when morning dawned again,
Winter, rethroned, looked down with scornful pride
Where April, dying, bowed her golden head!

VII.
DECEMBER SONNET.

Round the December heights the clouds are gray—
Gray, and wind-driven toward the stormy west,
They fly, like phantoms of malign unrest,
To fade in sombre distances away.
A flickering brightness o'er the wreck of day,
Twilight, like some sad maiden, grief-oppressed,
Broods wanly on the farthest mountain crest;
All nature breathes of darkness and decay
Now from low meadow land and drowsy stream.
From deep recesses of the silent vale,
Night-wandering vapors rise formless and chill,
When, lo! o'er shrouded wood and shadowy hill,
I mark the eve's victorious planet beam,
Fair as an angel clad in silver mail!

VIII.
A COMPARISON.

I think, ofttimes, that lives of men may be
Likened to wandering winds that come and go,
Not knowing whence they rise, whither they blow
O'er the vast globe, voiceful of grief or glee.
Some lives are buoyant zephyrs sporting free
In tropic sunshine; some long winds of woe
That shun the day, wailing with murmurs low,
Through haunted twilights, by the unresting sea;
Others are ruthless, stormful, drunk with might,
Born of deep passion or malign desire:
They rave 'mid thunder-peals and clouds of fire.
Wild, reckless all, save that some power unknown
Guides each blind force till life be overblown,
Lost in vague hollows of the fathomless night.

IX.
FATE, OR GOD?

Beyond the record of all eldest things,
Beyond the rule and regions of past time,
From out Antiquity's hoary-headed rime,
Looms the dread phantom of a King of kings:
Round His vast brows the glittering circlet clings
Of a thrice royal crown; behind Him climb,
O'er Atlantean limbs and breast sublime
The sombre splendors of mysterious wings;
Deep calms of measureless power, in awful state,
Gird and uphold Him; a miraculous rod,
To heal or smite, arms His infallible hands:
Known in all ages, worshipped in all lands,
Doubt names this half-embodied mystery—Fate,
While Faith, with lowliest reverence, whispers—God!

X.
SONNET.

Written on a fly-leaf of “The Rubaiyat” of Omar Kháyyám, the astronomer-poet of Persia.

Who deems the soul to endless death is thrall,
That no life breathes beyond that moment dire,
When every sense seems lost as outblown fire;—
Must walk, clothed round with darkness like a pall,
Or on false gods of sensual rapture call;
Pluck the rich rose-leaves! lift the wine cup higher!
Wed delicate Instinct to malign Desire,
(Like some Greek girl clasped by a barbarous Gaul!)
Thus Omar preached, thus practised, centuries since;
Wine, beauty, idlesse, orgies crowned by lust;
All these he chanted in voluptuous song;
Yet who shall vow, deep Thinker! poet Prince!
Thy rhythmic creed the unnatural voice of wrong,
If man, dust-born, shall still return to dust?

XI.
EARTH ODORS—AFTER RAIN.

Life-yielding fragrance of our mother earth!
Benignant breath exhaled from summer showers!—
All Nature dimples into smiles of flowers,
From unclosed woodland, to trim garden girth;—
These perfumes softening the harsh soul of dearth,
Are older than old Shinar's arrogant towers,—
And touched with visions of rain-freshened hours,
On Syrian hill-slopes 'ere the patriarch's birth!
Nay! the charmed fancy plays a subtler part!—
Lo! banished Adam, his large, wondering eyes
Fixed on the trouble of the first dark cloud!
Lo! tremulous Eve,—a pace behind, how bowed,—
Not dreaming, 'midst her painful pants of heart,
What balm shall fall from yonder ominous cloud!

XII.
SONNET.

I lay in dusky solitude reclined,
The shadow of sleep just hovering o'er mine eyes,
When from the cloudland in the western skies
Rose the strange breathings of a tremulous wind.
As sound upborne o'er water, through some blind.
Mysterious forest, so this wind did rise.
Laden, methought, with half-articulate sighs.
Wafted like spirit-memories o'er the mind.
Then the night deepened; through my window-bars
I saw the gray clouds billowing fast and free.
Smit by the splendor of the solemn stars.
Then the night deepened; wind and cloud became
A blended tumult, crossed by spears of flame,
While the great pines moaned like a moaning sea.

XIII.
POVERTY.

Once I beheld thee, a lithe mountain maid,
Embrowned by wholesome toils in lusty air;
Whose clear blood, nurtured by strong, primitive cheer,
Through Amazonian veins, flowed unafraid.
Broad-breasted, pearly-teethed, thy pure breath strayed,
Sweet as deep-uddered kine's curled in the rare
Bright spaces of thy lofty atmosphere,
O'er some rude cottage in a fir-grown glade.
Now, of each brave ideal virtue stripped,
O Poverty! I behold thee as thou art,
A ruthless hag, the image of woeful dearth
Or brute despair, gnawing its own starved heart.
Thou ravening wretch! fierce-eyed and monster-lipped,
Why scourge forevermore God's beauteteous earth?

XIV.
WASTE.

How many a budding plant is born to fade!
How many a May bloom wilt with quick decay!
Ofttimes the ruddiest rose holds briefest sway,
While heart and sense are evermore betrayed
Alike in nature's shine and nature's shade.
Vainly earth-tendered seeds have sought the day,
And countless threads of rivulets wind astray,
For one that joins the vast main unembayed.
O prodigal nature, why this spendthrift waste
Of light, strength, beauty given to earth or man?
Thy richest realm may lie in trackless seas,
Thy tenderest loves, perchance, die unembraced;
While faith and reason watch thy 'wildering plan,
The baffled soul's cloud-compassed Hyades!

XV.
A MORNING AFTER STORM.

All night the north wind blew; the harsh north rain
Lashed like a spiteful whip at roof and sill.
Now the pale morning lowers, bewildered, chill,
Leaning her cheek against the misted pane,
Like some worn outcast, sick in heart and brain.
The wind that raved all night, though muttering still,
Moans fitfully, with faint, irresolute will,
Through dreary interludes, its low refrain.
In desolate mood I turn to rest once more,
Closing my senses to this hopeless morn,
This dismal wind. Still must the morning gloom,
Still the low sighing pass sleep's muffled door,
Till her veiled life is filled with dreams forlorn,
With hollow sounds and bodeful shapes of doom.

XVI.
DEAD LOVES.

Whene'er I think of old loves wan and dead,
Of passion's wine outpoured in senseless dust,
Of doomed affection's and long-buried trust,
Through all my soul an arctic gloom is shed;
And ah! I walk the world disquieted.
Thou, my own love! white lily of April! must
Thy beauty, perfume, radiance, all be thrust
Earthward, to crumble in a grass-grown bed?
Yea, sweet, 'tis even so! How long, how long
The dust of her who once was tender Ruth,
Hath mouldered dumbly! And how oft the clod,
Which binds, like hers, all perished love and truth,
Strives with pale weeds to veil death's hopeless wrong,
Or through chill lips of flowers appeals to God!

XVII.
NATURE AT EASE.

I feel the kisses of this lingering breeze,
Warm, close, and ardent as the lips of love,
I quaff the sunshine streaming from above,
Like mellow wine of antique vintages;
Now, serene nature, at luxurious ease,
Her deep toils perfected, and richly rife
With subtlest meanings—all her opulent life
Reveals in tremulous brakes and whispering seas.
If, then, the reverent soul doth lean aright,
Close to those voices of wood, wind, and wave,
What wondrous secrets bless the spiritual ear,
Born, as it were, of music winged with light,
Sweeter than those strange songs which Orpheus gave
To earth and heaven, while both grew dumb to hear!

XVIII.
THE CNYDIAN ORACLE.

“What though the Isthmus lacks an ocean-gate,
Delve not the soil! If Jove had willed it so,
His watchful power had opened long ago
The channelled pathways of a billowy strait.”
Thus spake the Cnydian Oracle but too late;
For men are blinder than blind winds that blow
Round midnight waves, yet idly dream they know
Some Hermes' trick to steal the goods of fate.
Fools! trench your Isthmus, delving fast and deep;
And as ye toil uplift your boastful breath
O'er swift inrushings of the turbulent sea—
Too swift, by heaven! for, lo! its treacherous sweep
O'erwhelms the graded dykes, the opposing lea,
While ye that mocked at fate, fate whirls to death!

XIX.
THE HYACINTH.

Here in this wrecked storm-wasted garden-close
The grave of infinite generations fled
Of flowers that now lay lustreless and dead,
As the gray dust of Eden's earliest rose.
What bloom is this, whose classical beauty glows
Radiantly chaste, with the mild splendor shed
Round a Greek virgin's poised and perfect head,
By Phidias wrought 'twixt rapture and repose?
Mark the sweet lines whose matchless ovals curl
Above the fragile stem's half shrinking grace,
And say if this pure hyacinth doth not seem
(Touched by enchantments of an antique dream)
A flower no more, but the low drooping face
Of some love-laden, fair Athenian girl?

XX.
THE WOOD FAR INLAND.

I close mine eyes in this lone inland place,
This wood, far inland, thronged with sombrous trees—
Our southland pines—in whose dark boughs the breeze
Mourns like a spirit shorn of joy and grace;
The same wild genius whose half-veilèd face
Dawns on the barren brink of wave-washed leas,
Fraught with the ancient mystery of the seas,
Whose hoary brow bears many a storm-bolt's trace;
I close mine eyes; but lo! a spiritual light
Steals round me: I behold through foam and mist
A dreary reach of wan, slow-shifting sand,
By transient glints of flickering starbeams kissed,
And hear upborne athwart the desolate strand
Voices of ghostly billows of the night.

[XXI. A moment since his breath dissolved in air]

A moment since his breath dissolved in air!
And now divorced from life's last hectic glow,
He joins the old ghostly years of long ago,
In some cloud-folded realm of vague despair;
Ah me! the unsceptred years that wander there!
With cold, wan hands, and faces white as snow,
And echoes of dead voices quavering low
The phantom-burden of long-perished care!
Perchance all unsubstantialized and gray,
Time's earliest year now greets his last, deceased;
Or he that dumbly gazed on Adam's fall,
Palely emerging from the shadowy east,
With flickering semblance of cold crown and pall,
Clothes the dim ghost of him just passed away!

XXII.
MAGNOLIA GARDENS.

Yes, found at last,—the earthly paradise!
Here by slow currents of the silvery stream
It smiles, a shining wonder, a fair dream,
A matchless miracle to mortal eyes:
What whorls of dazzling color flash and rise
From rich azalean flowers, whose petals teem
With such harmonious tints as brightly gleam
In sunset rainbows arched o'er perfect skies!
But see! beyond those blended blooms of fire,
Vast tier on tier the lordly foliage tower
Which crowns the centuried oaks' broad crested calm:
Thus on bold beauty falls the shade of power;
Yet beauty still unquelled, fulfils desire,
Unfolds her blossoms, and outbreathes her balm!

XXIII.
ENGLAND.

Cloud-girded land, brave land beyond the sea!
Land of my father's love! how oft I yearn
Toward thy famed ancestral shores to turn,
Roaming thy glorious realm in liberty;
All English growths would sacred seem to me,
From opulent oak to flickering wayside fern;
Much form her delicate daisies could I learn,
And all her home-bred flowers by lake or lea.
But most I dream of Shropshire's meadow grass,
Its grazing herds, and sweet hay-scented air;
An ancient hall near a slow rivulet's mouth;
A church vine-clad; a graveyard glooming south;
These are the scenes through which I fain would pass;
There lived my sires, whose sacred dust is there.

XXIV.
DISAPPOINTMENT.

Ah! phantom pale, why hast thou come with pace
Thus slow, and such sad deprecating eyes?
What! dost thou dream thy presence could surprise
One the born vassal of thy realm and race?
I looked in boyhood on thy clouded face;
In youth dissevered from all cordial ties,
Heard the deep echoes of thy murmured sighs
In many a shadowy, grief-enshrouded place;
Therefore, O sombre Genius, be not coy!
When have we dwelt so alien and apart
I could not faintly feel thy muffled heart?
Till even should hope's fruition softly shine,
I well might deem beneath the mask of joy
Lurked that sad brow, those twilight eyes of thine!

XXV.
THE LAST OF THE ROSES.

A royal rose! A rose how darkly red!
A proud, voluptuous, full blown flower, that sways
Her sceptre o'er the wind-swept garden-ways,
With mantling cheek and bold, imperious head!
Alone she lifts above yon desolate bed
A beauty past all terms of raptured praise,
The statelier that she rules in autumn days,
When every rival flower is dimmed or dead!
A haughty Cleopatra! there she smiles,
Unwitting that her sovereign love is lost—
Her Antony! a gorgeous sunflower bloom!
Ah! vain henceforth her beauty and sweet wiles!
Queen! art thou blind? Thy lord hath met his doom;
His Actium came with winter's vanguard—Frost!

XXVI.
THE AXE AND PINE.

All day, on bole and limb the axes ring,
And every stroke upon my startled brain
Falls with the power of sympathetic pain;
I shrink to view each glorious forest-king
Descend to earth, a wan, discrownèd thing.
Ah, Heaven! beside these foliaged giants slain.
How small the human dwarfs, whose lust for gain
Hath edged their brutal steel to smite and sting!
Hark! to those long-drawn murmurings, strange and drear!
The wail of Dryads in their last distress;
O'er ruined haunts and ravished loveliness
Still tower those brawny arms; tones coarsely loud
Rise still beyond the greenery's waning cloud,
While falls the insatiate steel, sharp, cold and sheer!

XXVII.
BETROTHAL NIGHT.

Through golden languors of low glimmering light,
Deep eyes, o'erbrimmed with passion's sacred wine,
Heart-perfumed tears—yearning towards me, shine
Like stars made lovelier by faint mists at night;
Her cheeks, sweet lilies change to roses bright,
Blown in love's realm, fed by his breath divine;
And even those virginal tremors seem the sign
Of perfect joy through love's unchallenged right:
O happy breast, that heavest soft and fair
Through silvery clouds of luminous silk and lace!
O, gracious hands, O flower-enwoven head,
O'er which hope's charm its delicate warmth has shed!
While smiles and blushes wreathe her dimpling face,
Set in the splendor of dark Orient hair!

XXVIII.
“THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA.”

Grievous, in sooth, was luckless Sindbad's plight,
Saddled with that foul monster of the sea;
But who of some soul-harrowing weight is free?
And though we veil our woe from public sight,
Full many a weary day and dismal night,
It chafes our spirits sorely! Yet, for thee,
Whate'er, O friend, thy special grief may be,
Range thou against it all thy manhood's might.
Thus, though thou may'st not smite on brow or breast
That irksome incubus, be sure some day
The load that blights shall droop and fall away,
And thou, because of torture borne so well,
Shall pass from out thy long, malign unrest
And walk thy future paths invincible!

XXIX.
TWO PICTURES.

She stood beneath the vine-leaves flushed and fair;
The dimpling smiles around her tender mouth,
Seemed born of mellow sunshine of the South;
A light breeze trembled in her unbound hair;
No young Greek goddess, in the violet air
Of vales immortal, shone with purer grace;
A delicate glory touched her form and face,
Whence the sweet soul looked on us, nobly bare,—
As Heaven itself, unclouded:—thus she stood,
But when I saw her next (O God! the woe!)
Love, mirth, and life had fled forever more;
Prostrate she lay, about her a dark wood,
And many a helpless mourner, wailing low;
The cruel waves which drowned her lapped the shore.

XXX.
THE MIGHT HAVE BEEN.

Once in the twilight hour there stole on me
A strange, sweet spirit! In her tender eyes
Shone a far beauty, like the morning skies,
And tranquil was she as a summer sea;
An air of large, divine benignity
Breathed, like a living garb of spiritual dyes
About her—with the gentle fall and rise
Of her heart pulses tuned to mystery—
But, as I gazed, a sadness deep as death
Crept o'er the beauty of her brow serene
And a faint tremor stirred her shadowy lips;
“Thou know'st me not, “she sighed, with mournful breath;
“How can'st thou know me? Lo, through Fate's eclipse,
Thou seest, too late, too late, thy Might Have Been!”

XXXI.
NIGHT-WINDS IN WINTER.

Winds! are they winds?—or myriad ghosts, that shriek?
Ghosts of poor mariners, drowned in Northern seas,
Beside the surf-tormented Hebrides,
Whose voices now of tide-born terror speak
In tones to blanch the boldest listener's cheek?
Hark! how they thunder down the far-off leas,
Sweep the scourged hills, and smite the woodland trees,
To die where towers yon glittering mountain-peak!
A moment's stillness! Then with lustier might
Of wing and voice, these marvellous wraiths of air
Fill with dread sound the ominous heights of night.
Athwart their stormful breath the star-throngs fade:
How dimmed is Cassiopæia's radiant chair,
While Perseus droops, touched by transfiguring shade!

XXXII.
TO THE QUERULOUS POETS.

Throw by the trappings of your tinsel rhyme!
Hush the crude voice, whose never-ending wail
Blights the sweet song of thrush, or nightingale,—
Set to the treble of our querulous time;
Is earth grown dim? Hath heaven her grace sublime,
Her pomp of clouds, and winds, and sunset showers
Merged in the twilight of funereal hours,
And Time's death-signal struck its iron chime?
O! false, frail dreamer! not one tiniest note
From yonder green-girt copse, but whispers “shame!”—
Love, beauty, rapture, swell the warbler's throat.—
The self-same joy, the passion blithe and young.
Thrilled by the force of whose immaculate flame,
The first glad stars, the stars of morning, sung!

XXXIII.
IN THE PORCH.

In this old porch, fast mouldering to decay,
But wreathed in vines and girt by shadowy trees,
All day I hear the dreamful hum of bees,
Soft-rustling foliage, and the fragrant sway
Of breezes borne from some far ocean bay;
And oft with half-closed eyelids, stretched at ease—
The pines above me voiced like distant seas—
I seem to mark a coy young Dryad stray
Out from the tangled greenery overhead,
Her brow leaf-crowned, her eyes of twilight fire
Deep with Arcadian mysteries softly shed;
And near her, wafted from the ambrosial South,
A white-limbed Nereid, round whose balmy mouth
Breathe the wave's freshness and the wind's desire.

XXXIV.
THE PHANTOM—SONG.

In museful hours, when thoughts of grace divine
Roll wave-like up the stormless strand of dreams;—
When that which is grows vague as that which seems,—
I mark, far-off, a radiant shade incline
From heaven to earth,—whose face of marvelous shine,
(Half veiled in mystic beauty), softly beams
With delicate lustres, and elusive gleams,
Caught from some viewless Eden—hyaline:—
Ethereal, as the wavering hues that start
From chorded rainbows;—lingering scarce so long
As the last sun-ray flashed in twilight's eye,
I hail this phantom of a perfect song;—
And I, some day, shall pass the phantom by,—
To feel the embodied music next my heart!

XXXV.
SMALL GRIEFS AND GREAT.

How oft by trivial griefs our spirits tossed
Drift vague and restless round this changeful world!
Yet when great sorrows on our lives are hurled,
And fate on us has wreaked his uttermost,
O'er wounded breasts our steadfast arms are crossed;
We front the blast, silent, with unbowed head
And stoic mien; for fear with hope is dead;
And calm the voice which whispers: “All is lost!”
Thence to the end, our being, stripped and bare
Of love, and peace, and gracious joys of of earth,
Like some storm-shattered tree, its withered might
May lift defiant, dauntless in its dearth,
Seeming Death's bolt, that final stroke, to dare,
A dreary watcher on a blasted height!

XXXVI.
THE SHALLOW HEART!

“Pity her,” say'st thou, “pity her!” nay, not I!
Her heart is shallow as yon garrulous rill
That froths o'er pebbles: grief, true grief is still,
Deathfully solemn as eternity
Thro' whose dread realm its silent fancies fly
Seeking the lost and loved; sorrows that kill
Life's hope, are like those poisons which distil
Their noiseless dews beneath the midnight sky:—
Their venom works in secret! gnaws the heart,
And withers the worn spirit, albeit no sign
Shows the sad inward havoc, till some day,
(Pledging our calm friend o'er the purpling wine),
Sudden, he falls amongst us, and we start
At a low whisper, “He has passed away!”

XXXVII.
THE STORMY NIGHT.

[Written on a stormy Christmas night (1873).]

How roars this wintry tempest, fierce and loud,
Borne from far passes of the ice-locked hills!
How raves this desolate rain, whose tumult fills
The whole dark heaven up-piled with cloud on cloud;
While yonder quivering pine-trees, drenched and bowed,
Blend their strange moaning with the noise of rills,
And one swift stream, whose angry clarion shrills,
Piercing the mists which o'er it cling and crowd!
Roar, mighty wind! rave on, thou merciless rain!
Uproot, and madly ravage—whilst ye may;
Your furious voices smite mine ears in vain,
For, housed and warmed by this bright fireside cheer,—
Safe as on some calm springtide's calmest day,
I mock your ire, nor heed your wild despair.

PERSONAL SONNETS.

I.
TO HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.

I think earth's noblest, most pathetic sight
Is some old poet, round whose laurel-crown
The long gray locks are streaming softly down;—
Whose evening, touched by prescient shades of night,
Grows tranquillized, in calm, ethereal light:—
Such, such art thou, O master! worthier grown
In the fair sunset of thy full renown,—
Poising, perchance, thy spiritual wings for flight!
Ah, heaven! why shouldst thou from thy place depart?
God's court is thronged with minstrels rich with song:
Even now, a new notes wells the immaculate choir,—
But thou, whose strains have filled our lives so long,
Still from the altar of thy reverent heart
Let golden dreams ascend, and thoughts of fire!

II.
TO GEORGE H. BOKER.

It hath been thine to prove what use and power,
What sweetness, and what glorious strength belong
To the brief compass of that slandered song
We term the Sonnet. Thine hath been the dower
Whereby its richly fruitful, fairy shower
Of poesy hath flooded o'er our hearts;
And thine the dominant magic which imparts
Life to its thrilling music. Hour by hour,
My soul from this small fountain, in whose deep
The sunshine of thy passionate genius plays,
Doth drink delight, till fancy melts in sleep,
Charmed by the witchery of thy perfect lays,—
Not dreamless, but flushed through with joys that keep
Some fervent gleam of youth's voluptuous days.

III.
TO ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

IV.
TO EDGAR FAWCETT.

Art thou some reckless poet, fiercely free,
Singing vague songs an errant brain inspires?
Mad with the ravening force of inward fires,
Whose floods o'erwhelm him like a masterless sea?
No! art and nature wisely blend in thee!
Thy soul has learned from lays of loftiest lyres
What laws should bind weird fancy's wild desires,
Rounded to rhythmic immortality!
Thus golden thoughts in golden harmonies meet:
Thy fairy conceptions reel not with false glow,
Through frenzied realms by metrical motley swayed;
But passion-curbed, with voices strong and sweet,
Born of regret or rapture, love or woe,
Pass from rich sunshine to dew-haunted shade!

V.
CARLYLE.

O granite nature; like a mountain height
Which pierces heaven! yet with foundations deep,
Rooted where earth's majestic forces sleep,
In quiet breathing on the breast of night:—
Proud thoughts were his that scaled the infinite
Of loftiest grasp, and calm Elysian sweep;
Fierce thoughts were his that burnt the donjon keep
Of ancient wrong, to flood its crypts with light:
Yet o'er his genius, firm as Ailsa's rock,
Large, Atlantean, with grim grandeur dowered,—
Love bloomed, and buds of tender beauty flowered:—
Yet down his rugged massiveness of will
Unscarred by alien passion's fiery shock,
Mercy flowed melting like an Alpine rill!

VI.
TO JEAN INGELOW.

Brave lyrist! like the sky-lark, heaven-possessed,
Thy glance is sunward; and thy soul grown wise,
Fronts the full splendor of Apollo's eyes,
While following still thy muse's high behest:
Strength, sweetness, subtlety, are all expressed
In thy clear lays,—whether they dare the skies,
O'ertopping radiant dawns, or rill-like rise,
To thread with rhythmic pulse earth's pastoral breast!
Proud inspiration, hand in hand with act
Hath made thy winged feet beautiful along
The haloed heights of thine eternal song:
So near our human love, though born afar,
Its mellow concord on the listener's heart
Melts with the softness of a falling star!

VII.
TO M. I. P.

Your gracious words steal o'er like the breeze
That blows from far-off southland isles benign,—
All steeped in perfume, sweet as fairy wine,
Yet touched with salt keen breathings of the seas!
What smiling thoughts of tender ministries
Passionless service, and strong faith divine,
Rest with this pictured sister's face of thine,
And sister's love:—(blent fire and balms of ease!)
O love! a two-faced shield of light thou art,
Whose golden-sided glamour long hath shone,
In wedded bliss and affluence on my life;
A sister's love—the fair shield's silvery zone,
Turns on me now!—thy deathless fervor, wife,
Blends with the sweetness of this new found heart!

MACDONALD'S RAID.—A. D. 1780.

AS NARRATED MANY YEARS AFTER BY A VETERAN OF “MARION'S BRIGADE.”

THE BATTLE OF KING'S MOUNTAIN.

THE HANGING OF BLACK CUDJO.

A DIALECT BALLAD.

(1780.)

CHARLESTON RETAKEN.

Dec. 14, 1782.

TO THE AUTHOR OF “THE VICTORIAN POETS.”

So keen, so clear thy genius, that no mist
Of subtlest phrase can baffle or delay
The lance-like, swift illuminating ray,
Wherewith, O art-enamored annalist,
Thy lightning logic cleaves the elusive gist
Of thoughts Protean; or, in lowlier play,
Smites tinselled weakness to a red dismay—
As swordsmen smite by one deft turn of wrist.
Yet oft that glittering and remorseless blade
Thy logic wields is dropped that thou may'st take
Some gracious lyre, and sing with liquid breath
By many a haunted dell and shadowy lake,
Where faun and naiad wander undismayed,
Lays of Arcadian love, or painless death.

HERA.

(IN THE HERAEUM.)

BELOW AND ABOVE.

THE WOODLAND GRAVE.

A CHARACTER.

LYRIC OF ACTION.

BY A GRAVE.

IN SPRING.

SEVERANCE.

TWO GRAVES.

THE WORLD.

QUATRAINS.

THE MAY SKY.

A LYRICAL PICTURE.

COMPOSED NEAR THE SEA-COAST.

LAMIA UNVEILED.

RACHEL.

INSCRIBED TO MRS. M. D., OF GEORGIA.

THE SNOW-MESSENGERS.

TO ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS.

THE ENCHANTED MIRROR.

FROM THE PERSIAN.

THE IMPRISONED SEA-WINDS.

BLANCHE AND NELL.

A BALLAD.

THE DARK.

A FANTASY.

IN THE STUDIO.

WASHINGTON!

Feb. 22, 1732.

IN AMBUSH.

SOUTH CAROLINA TO THE STATES OF THE NORTH.

ESPECIALLY TO THOSE THAT FORMED A PART OF THE ORIGINAL THIRTEEN.

THE STRICKEN SOUTH TO THE NORTH.

THE RETURN OF PEACE.

YORKTOWN CENTENNIAL LYRIC.

ON THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS IN RUSSIA.

ASSASSINATION.

ENGLAND.

TO LONGFELLOW.

(ON HEARING HE WAS ILL.)

“PHILIP MY KING.”

A PLEA FOR THE GRAY.

UNION OF BLUE AND GRAY.

THE KING OF THE PLOW.

IN MEMORIAM.

I.
LONGFELLOW DEAD.

II.
ON THE DEATH OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD.

III.
DEAN STANLEY.

IV.
HIRAM H. BENNER.

V.
W. GILMORE SIMMS.

A POEM

VI.
DICKENS.

VII.
TO BAYARD TAYLOR BEYOND US.

A VISION OF CHRISTMAS EVE, 1878.

VIII.
BAYARD TAYLOR (UPON DEATH).

“Oft have I fronted Death, nor feared his might!
To me immortal, this dim Finite seems
Like some waste low-land, crossed by wandering streams
Whose clouded waves scarce catch our yearning sight:
Clearer by far, the imperial Infinite!
Though its ethereal radiance only gleams
In exaltations of majestic dreams,
Such dreams portray God's heaven of heavens aright!”
Thou blissful Faith! that on death's imminent brink
Thus much of heaven's mysterious truth hast told!
Soul-life aspires, though all the stars should sink;
Not vain our loftiest instinct's upward stress,
Nor hath the immortal hope shone clear and bold,
To quench at death, his torch in nothingness!

IX.
RICHARD H. DANA, SEN.

X.
BRYANT DEAD!

XI.
THE POLE OF DEATH.

IN MEMORY OF SIDNEY LANIER.

XII.
THE DEATH OF HOOD.

MEDITATIVE AND RELIGIOUS.

I.
CHRIST ON EARTH.

II.
HARVEST-HOME.

III.
RECONCILIATION.

[From the South to the North. Written in view of the new year.]

IV.
A VERNAL HYMN.

V.
CHRISTIAN EXALTATION.

VI.
SOLITUDE; IN YOUTH AND AGE.

VII.
DENIAL.

VIII.
LESSON OF SUBMISSION.

Ben Youssuf, bound to Mecca, day by day
Toiled bravely o'er the desert's fiery way,
Till its hot sands and flint-sown courses sore
Pressed on the broidered sandals which he wore,
Scorching and cutting! at the last they fell
Loosely abroad;—he seemed to fare through hell,
So blistering now, the flame-hued rocks and dust:—
“O mighty Allah!” cried he, “art thou just,
To let thy faithful pilgrim, serving thee,
Pass onward, thus, in nameless agony?”
With bitter thoughts and half-rebellious mind
He left, at length, the desert sands behind,
And still in that dark temper—far from grace—
Went where his brethren midst the holy place
Kneeled, by the Caäba's sanctity enthralled;—
Lo! there he marked a smitten wretch who crawled
Nearer the shrine, on bleeding hands and knees,
Yet his deep eyes were stars of prayer and peace;—
And ah, how Youssuf's heart remorseful beat,
To find he lacked not only shoes, but—feet!

IX.
THE SUPREME HOUR.

X.
A CHRISTMAS LYRIC.

XI.
THE PILGRIM.

XII.
PENUEL.

XIII.
PATIENCE.

XIV.
THE LATTER PEACE.

XV.
GAUTAMA.

XVI.
CHRIST.

XVII.
A WINTER HYMN.

XVIII.
THE THREE URNS.

XIX.
ON THE DECLINE OF FAITH.

XX.
THE ULTIMATE TRUST.

XXI.
“A LITTLE WHILE I FAIN WOULD LINGER YET.”

XXII.
TWILIGHT MONOLOGUE.

XXIII.
THE SHADOW OF DEATH.

XXIV.
FINIS.

XXV.
THE SHADOWS ON THE WALL.

XXVI.
CONSUMMATUM EST.

XXVII.
THE BROKEN CHORDS.

XXVIII.
THE RIFT WITHIN THE LUTE.

A tiny rift within the lute
May sometimes make the music mute!
By slow degrees, the rift grows wide,
By slow degrees, the tender tide—
Harmonious once—of loving thought
Becomes with harsher measures fraught,
Until the heart's Arcadian breath
Lapses thro' discord into death!

XXIX.
IN HARBOR.

XXX.
FORECASTINGS.

XXXI.
APPEAL TO NATURE OF THE SOLITARY HEART.

FOUR POEMS FOR SPECIAL OCCASIONS.

I.
TO THE POET WHITTIER. ON HIS 70th BIRTHDAY.

II.
TO O. W. HOLMES, ON HIS BIRTHDAY.

III.
TO EMERSON.

ON HIS 77th BIRTHDAY.

IV.
TO HON. R. G. H.

UPON HIS 78th BIRTHDAY.

HUMOROUS POEMS.

VALERIE'S CONFESSION.

A MEETING OF THE BIRDS.

A BACHELOR-BOOKWORM'S COMPLAINT OF THE LATE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS.

[Written during the Hayes and Tilden Controversy].

COQUETTE AND HER LOVER.

A “PETITE COMEDIE” IN RHYME.

LOVER.
Coquette! coquette! now, is it fair
To weave for me your magic hair,
Binding me thus, all unaware?
Till, wholly meshed in every part,
From dazzled eyes to captured heart,
Scarce can I, thro' your radiant snare,
Inhale one waft of free-born air;
Answer, coquette! now, is it fair?

COQUETTE.
O, foolish querist! what if I,
Beholding your enamored face
And every well-attested trace
Of verdant, young idolatry,
Should, after my own fashion, choose
To play the subtly-amorous muse,
Your inexperienced heart-strings touch,
Wooing the warm chords overmuch!
Or tempt you, 'twixt a smile and sigh,
To enter beauty's luminous net?
Such snares must evermore be set
For blinded human flies like you!
Cease, therefore, this half-feigned ado,
You are a natural victim! I
Am by the same strange law's decree,
Your dear, predestined enemy!

LOVER.
Is such the only comfort, then,
You give to thrice-deluded men?
Suppose our life-plan quite upset,
Reversed in whole, or changed in part;
My sex your own, and feelings strong,
(Wiled by deep passion's syren song);
Yours the blind victim's tangled heart,
And mine to weave the tempter's net—
What then, O! honey-tongued coquette?

COQUETTE.
[ASIDE with a half-humorous, half-solemn air.

LOVER.
For full five seconds, it would seem
As if you really thought, coquette,
On something grave! Slowly about
Your flower-like lips' delicious pout,
Came tiny puckerings, lined with doubt;
Your large eyes widened deep and blue,
As May-skies glimpsed thro' morning dew;
And shadows vague as noon-tide trance
Stole o'er your vivid countenance:
Coquette! show pity!—after all,
Have you resolved to free from thrall
Your wretched serf? ... Close, close your eyes
For one brief, merciful minute; try
To turn your perfect mouth awry;
Let those arch smiles which magnetize
My inmost blood be changed to scorn;
Do all a winsome lady born
To loveliness and witchery, can,
To flout a love-tormented man!

COQUETTE.
You know as well as I
What balms have soothed your slavery;
Besides, I'm sure, whate'er you say,
There never yet has dawned the day
On which, in truth ('tis vain to frown),
You longed to lay your fetters down.
Surely but airy chains they are,
And tenuous as the farthest star.
But should you break the binding net,
You'd come ... (ah! graceless, thankless loon!)
'Ere the next wax or wane of moon,
To sign, or call on “sweet coquette!”

LOVER.
Too much! by heaven! you heartless chit!
I'll prove you underrate my wit,
And self-respect, for all that's passed!
I will—will break these bonds at last.
Yes! look! you false, hard-hearted girl!
I dash to earth the dazzling curl
You gave me once! ... your portrait too! ...
(O, yes! I stole it, ... what of that?
'Twill soon be shapeless, crushed and flat,
Beneath my stern, avenging heel!
Would it were flesh, and so could feel,
... Where is it! where?

[He searches frantically, but vainly for the likeness in one pocket after another.]
[Coquette—approaching with infinite sweetness, rests one hand upon his shoulder, while the forefinger of the other is archly shaken in his angry face, that changes with ludicrous quickness, from passion to bewilderment, and from bewilderment to rapture]:
... Why, Hal, for shame! you prayed just now,
With earnest mien and solemn brow,
That I would sting you with hot scorn;
“Do all a winsome lady born
To loveliness and witchery, can,
To flout a love-tormented man.”
And lo! because your bidding's done;
Half-way, and mildly; why, I've won
Such rude abuse! ... I shall not stir,
Till you have begged my pardon, sir!
... Hal! do you love me? ...

LOVER.
... Angel! saint!
Can this be true! ... my heart grows faint,
With happiness! ... so then, despite—

COQUETTE
(interrupting).
Yes, dear! of feigned contempt and slight,
—I have loved you always! who but you
Had failed thus long to read me true?
You dear, delightful, blundering boy.

LOVER.
... Cupid be blessed! Oh, love! Oh, joy!
... But where's that precious curl I threw
Rashly away? ... Already flown
On some light wind?

COQUETTE.
—Yes, yes, 'tis gone!
But then the whole bright, golden net
(shaking down her curls.)
You've gained with me! ... If still unfair
You deem this soft, imprisoning snare;
And self-respect, for all that's passed,
Demands you break your bonds at last,
Give me due warning—if you please—

LOVER
(embracing her).
Ah! thus a loving seal is set
On rosy lips to keep them dumb;
Some other eve beneath the trees
Of golden summer, 'mid the hum
Of forest brooks and hive-bound bees,
I'll hearken, madcap, while you tease.
But now, my heart the future years
Sees through a mist of blissful tears;
My eyes with gracious dew are wet;
I'm dreaming! ... No! ... here smiles coquette!

SENEX TO HIS FRIEND.

ABOUT THE PERIOD OF A NEW YEAR.

THE OBSERVANT “ELDEST” SPEAKS.

LUCIFER'S DEPUTY.

A MEDIÆVAL LEGEND.

POEMS FOR CHILDREN.

LITTLE NELLIE IN THE PRISON.

THE CHILDREN.

WILL AND I.

JAMIE AND HIS MOTHER—IN THE TROPICS.

JAMIE.
O mother, what country is that I see
Far over the stream and the boulders gray,
Where the wind-song pipes, and the curlews flee,
And the little brown squirrels dance and play
Through the boughs all day?

MOTHER.
Why, only a forest dark and wild,
A savage waste you must shum, my child!

JAMIE.
O mother, what shapes are those that sit
In the deep dun heart of the woodland gloom?
And what those creatures that dip and flit,
Each crowned with a golden and scarlet plume,
O'er the tamarind bloom?

MOTHER.
Why, only the monkeys crouched from sight,
And paroquets flashing in gay-hued flight!

JAMIE.

THE THREE COPECKS.

THE REASON WHY.

LATER.

Think—Mr. John's my friend again.
('Twas yesternight he made it plain),
For most of our big household gone
To Friday's lecture,—left alone,
But Bell and I; he came to tea,
(As now he's coming constantly,)
And spoke to me quite warmly—quite:
“Lizzie, you are not looking bright;
And since both Bell and I are here,
Take Nurse, and see the circus, dear;
I'll pay, my love! accept of this.”
(A wee gold dollar, and—a kiss!)
“Why don't you come with Bell?”asked I;
He smiled, but would not answer why.

LATER STILL.

Good news! good news! I'm almost mad,
I feel so pleased, so proud and glad.
To-morrow is the wedding-day;
Papa will give our Bell away,
And I'm a bridesmaid!—oh, my dress!
“Soft waves of white silk loveliness,”
Bell says, “with grace in every tuck!”
And isn't Brother John a duck?
(I call him Brother now, you see,)
He gave this dainty dress to me,
And said, his “little friend must look
Fair as a picture in a book.”
I answered gayly, “I shall try!”
What need to ask the reason why?

THE SILKEN SHOE.

THE BLACK DESTRIER.

A BALLAD OF THE THIRD CRUSADE.

THE ADVENTURES OF LITTLE BOB BONNYFACE.

KISS ME, KATIE!

CAGED.

LITTLE LOTTIE'S GRIEVANCE.

A NEW VERSION OF WHY THE ROBIN'S BREAST IS RED.

THE LITTLE SAINT.

A NEW PHILOSOPHY; OR, STAR SHOWERS EXPLAINED.

BABY'S FIRST WORD.

THE CHAMELEON.

FLYING FURZE.

THE NEW SISTER.

Phil.
Say, Pete, do you like her?

Pete.
Like! love her you mean!

Phil.
Ain't she jolly and red?

Pete.
And hurrah for her! just think of her head!

Phil.
As big as a pippin, and round as a bullet!

Pete.
And bald! oh! as bald as a newly-plucked pullet!

Phil.
Did you look at her eyes too?

Pete.
Of course; they are blue.

Phil.
Not a bit of it—black!

Pete.
Blue, I tell you—ask Jack!

Phil.
Jack! I've eyes of my own that see better than his!

Pete.
Brag on! but for once they have led you amiss.
Baby's eyes are blue—very!

Phil.
As black as a berry!

Pete.
Blue, you ninny! but s'pose we come down to her nose!
It's as funny and fat with an end like—

Phil.
Like a rose?

Pete.
No! a small dab of putty just tinted with pink!

Phil.
Now, stoo-pid! how can you! I'm sure that I think
Nothing nicer than roses so dumpy and smug—

Pete.
Pshaw! you mean it's a boo-ti-ful, boo-ti-ful pug!

Phil.
Well, you naughty old Pete! you can't laugh at her chin!

Pete.
Oh, no, it's the nattiest, sauciest, sweetest—

Phil.
The nicest, completest,
Of arch little chins, with a dimple put in,
That winks up like a sunbeam,

Pete.
And then her wee throat!

Phil.
Her throat like egg-foam, or a syllabub boat
On a lake of clear cream!

Pete.
And her arms; they are nice now; there's nothing can beat them!

Phil.
So plump, round, and soft! I'm most ready to eat them!

Pete.
Of course, Phil, you kissed her?

Phil.
Oh, didn't I!

Pete.
Well!

Phil.
Well, I put my mouth down; I had something to tell;
Ah! close whispered close in the shy little ear,
That seemed to turn up, Pete, half coyly to hear,
And again, as I kissed her—

Pete.
You blessed the good Lord for so jolly a sister!

Phil.
Yes, I did!

Pete.
So did I!

Phil.
And now, Pete, 'tis but right We should go in once more and bid “Baby” good night!

HOP, SKIP, AND JUMP: A QUEER TRIO PERSONIFIED.

DANCING.

MOTES.

THE GROUND SQUIRREL.

ARTIE'S “AMEN.”

THREE PORTRAITS OF BOYS.

BIRDS.

THE DEAD CHILD AND THE MOCKING-BIRD.

THE LITTLE GRAND DUCHESS.

ROLY POLY.

THE IMPRISONED INNOCENTS.

[Or the Complaint of a Philosopher of Family!]