The poetical works of Bayard Taylor :: :: University of Virginia Library

When bleak winds through the Northern pines were sweeping,
Some hero-skald, reclining on the sand,
Attuned it first, the chords harmonious keeping
With murmuring forest and with moaning strand:
And when, at night, the horns of mead foamed over,
And torches flared around the wassail board,
It breathed no song of maid, nor sigh of lover,
It rang aloud the triumphs of the sword!
It mocked the thunders of the ice-ribbed ocean,
With clenched hands beating back the dragon's prow;
It gave Berserker arms their battle motion,
And swelled the red veins on the Viking's brow!

II

No myrtle, plucked in dalliance, ever sheathed it,
To melt the savage ardor of its flow;
The only gauds wherewith its lord enwreathed it,
The lusty fir and Druid mistletoe.
Thus bound, it kept the old, accustomed cadence,
Whether it pealed through slumberous ilex bowers
In stormy wooing of Byzantine maidens,
Or shook Trinacria's languid lap of flowers;
Whether Genseric's conquering march it chanted,
Till cloudy Atlas rang with Gothic staves,
Or where gray Calpè's pillared feet are planted,
Died grandly out upon the unknown waves!

III

Not unto Scania's bards alone belonging,
The craft that loosed its tongues of changing sound,
For Ossian played, and ghosts of heroes, thronging,
Leaned on their spears above the misty mound.
The Cambrian eagle, round his eyrie winging,
Heard the wild chant through mountain-passes rolled,
When bearded throats chimed in with mighty singing,
And monarchs listened, in their torques of gold:
Its dreary wail, blent with the seamews' clangor,
Surged round the lonely keep of Penmaen-Mawr;
It pealed aloud, in battle's glorious anger,
Behind the banner of the Blazing Star!

IV

The strings are silent; who shall dare to wake them,
Though later deeds demand their living powers?
Silent in other lands, what hand shall make them
Leap as of old, to shape the songs of ours?

Here, while the sapless bulk of Europe moulders,
Springs the rich blood to hero-veins unsealed,—
Source of that Will, that on its fearless shoulders
Would bear the world's fate lightly as a shield:
Here moves a larger life, to grander measures
Beneath our sky and through our forests rung;
Why sleeps the harp, forgetful of its treasures,—
Buried in songs that never yet were sung?

V

Great, solemn songs, that with majestic sounding
Should swell the Nation's heart from sea to sea;
Informed with power, with earnest hope abounding
And prophecies of triumph yet to be!
Songs, by the wild wind for a thousand ages
Hummed o'er our central prairies, vast and lone;
Glassed by the Northern lakes in crystal pages,
And carved by hills on pinnacles of stone;
Songs chanted now, where undiscovered fountains
Make in the wilderness their babbling home,
And through the deep-hewn cañons of the mountains
Plunge the cold rivers in perpetual foam!

VI

Sung but by these: our forests have no voices;
Rapt with no loftier strain our rivers roll;
Far in the sky, no song-crowned peak rejoices
In words that give the silent air a soul.
Wake, mighty Harp! and thrill the shores that hearken
For the first peal of thine immortal rhyme:
Call from the shadows that begin to darken
The beaming forms of our heroic time:
Sing us of deeds, that on thy strings outsoaring
The ancient soul they glorified so long,
Shall win the world to hear thy grand restoring,
And own thy latest thy sublimest song!

1850.

SERAPION

Come hither, Child! thou silent, shy
Young creature of the glorious eye!
Though never yet by ruder air
Than father's kiss or mother's prayer
Were stirred the tendrils of thy hair,
The sadness of a soul that stands
Withdrawn from Childhood's frolic bands,
A stranger in the land, I trace
Upon thy brow's cherubic grace
The tender pleadings of thy face,
Where other stars than Joy and Hope
Have cast thy being's horoscope.

For thee, the threshold of the world
Is yet with morning dews impearled;
The nameless radiance of Birth
Imbathes thy atmosphere of Earth,
And, like a finer sunshine, swims
Round every motion of thy limbs:
The sweet, sad wonder and surprise
Of waking glimmers in thine eyes,
And wiser instinct, purer sense,
And gleams of rare intelligence
Betray the converse held by thee
With the angelic family.

Come hither, Boy! For while I press
Thy lips' confiding tenderness,
Less broad and dark the spaces be
Which Life has set 'twixt thee and me.
Thy souls white feet shall soon depart
On paths I walked with eager heart;
God give thee, in His kindly grace,
A brighter road, a loftier place!
I see thy generous nature flow
In boundless trust to friend and foe,
And leap, despite of shocks and harms,

To clasp the world in loving arms.
I see that glorious circle shrink
Back to thy feet, at Manhood's brink,
Narrowed to one, one image fair,
And all its splendor gathered there.
The shackles of experience then
Sit lightly as on meaner men:
In flinty paths thy feet may bleed,
Thorns pierce thy flesh, thou shalt not heed,
Till when, all panting from the task,
Thine arms outspread their right shall ask,
Thine arms outspread that right shall fly,
The star shall burst, the splendor die!
Go, with thy happier brothers play,
As heedless and as wild as they;
Seek not so soon thy separate way,
Thou lamb in Childhood's field astray!

Whence camest thou? what angel bore
Thee past so many a fairer shore
Of guarding love, and guidance mild,
To drop thee on this barren wild?
Thy soul is lonely as a star,
When all its fellows muffled are,—
A single star, whose light appears
To glimmer through subduing tears.
The father who begat thee sees
In thee no deeper mysteries
Than load his heavy ledger's page,
And swell for him thy heritage.
A hard, cold man, of punctual face,
Renowned in Credit's holy-place,
Whose very wrinkles seem arrayed
In cunning hieroglyphs of trade,—
Whose gravest thought but just unlocks
The problems of uncertain stocks,—
Whose farthest flights of hope extend
From dividend to dividend.
Thy mother,—but a mother's name
Too sacred is, too sweet for blame.
No doubt she loves thee,—loves the shy,
Strange beauty of thy glorious eye;
Loves the soft mouth, whose drooping line
Is silent music; loves to twine
Thy silky hair in ringlets trim;
To watch thy lightsome play of limb;
But, God forgive me! I, who find
The soul within that beauty shrined,
I love thee more, I know thy worth
Better, than she who gave thee birth.

Are they thy keepers? They would thrust
The priceless jewel in the dust;
Would tarnish in their careless hold
The vessel of celestial gold.
Who gave them thee? What fortune lent
Their hands the delicate instrument,
Which finer hands might teach to hymn
The harmonies of Seraphim,
Which they shall make discordant soon,
The sweet bells jangled, out of tune?
Mine eyes are dim: I cannot see
The purposes of Destiny,
But than my love Heaven could not shine
More lovingly, if thou wert mine!
Rest then securely on my heart:
Give me thy trust: my child thou art,
And I shall lead thee through the years
To Hopes and Passions, Loves and Fears,
Till, following up Life's endless plan
A strong and self-dependent Man,
I see thee stand and strive with men:
Thy Father now, thy Brother then.

1851.

“MOAN, YE WILD WINDS!”

Moan, ye wild winds! around the pane,
And fall, thou drear December rain!
Fill with your gusts the sullen day,
Tear the last clinging leaves away!
Reckless as yonder naked tree,
No blast of yours can trouble me.

Give me your chill and stern embrace,
And pour your baptism on my face,
Sound in mine ears the airy moan
That sweeps in desolate monotone,
Where on the unsheltered hill-top beat
The marches of your homeless feet.

Moan on, ye winds! and pour, thou rain!
Your stormy sobs and tears are vain,
If shed for her whose fading eyes

Will open soon on Paradise:
The eye of Heaven shall blinded be,
Or ere ye cease, if shed for me.

1850.

TAURUS

I

The Scorpion's stars crawl down behind the sun,
And when he drops below the verge of day,
The glittering fangs, their fervid courses run,
Cling to his skirts and follow him away.
Then, ere the heels of flying Capricorn
Have touched the western mountain's darkening rim,
I mark, stern Taurus, through the twilight gray
The glinting of thy horn,
And sullen front, uprising large and dim,
Bent to the starry hunter's sword, at bay.

II

Thy hoofs, unwilling, climb the sphery vault;
Thy red eye trembles with an angry glare,
When the hounds follow, and in fierce assault
Bay through the fringes of the lion's hair.
The stars that once were mortal in their love,
And by their love are made immortal now,
Cluster like golden bees upon thy mane,
When thou, possessed with Jove,
Bore sweet Europa's garlands on thy brow,
And stole her from the green Sicilian plain.

III

Type of the stubborn force that will not bend
To loftier art,—soul of defiant breath
That blindly stands and battles to the end,
Nerving resistance with the throes of death,—
Majestic Taurus! when thy wrathful eye
Flamed brightest, and thy hoofs a moment stayed
Their march at Night's meridian, I was born:
But in the western sky,
Like sweet Europa, Love's fair star delayed,
To hang her garland on thy silver horn.

IV

Thou giv'st that temper of enduring mould,
That slights the wayward bent of Destiny,—
Such as sent forth the shaggy Jarls of old
To launch their dragons on the unknown sea:
Such as keep strong the sinews of the sword,
The proud, hot blood of battle,—welcome made
The headsman's axe, the rack, the martyr-fire,
The ignominious cord,
When but to yield, had pomps and honors laid
On heads that moulder in ignoble mire.

V

Night is the summer when the soul grows ripe
With Life's full harvest: of her myriad suns,
Thou dost not gild the quiet herdsman's pipe,
Nor royal state, that royal actions shuns.
But in the noontide of thy ruddy stars
Thrive strength, and daring, and the blood whence springs
The Heraclidean seed of heroes; then
Were sundered Gaza's bars;
Then, 'mid the smitten Hydra's loosened rings,
His slayer rested, in the Lernean fen.

VI

Thine is the subtle element that turns
To fearless act the impulse of the hour,—
The secret fire, whose flash electric burns
To every source of passion and of power.
Therefore I hail thee, on thy glittering track:
Therefore I watch thee, when the night grows dark,
Slow-rising, front Orion's sword along
The starry zodiac,
And from thy mystic beam demand a spark
To warm my soul with more heroic song.

California, 1849.

AUTUMNAL VESPERS

The clarion Wind, that blew so loud at morn,
Whirling a thousand leaves from every bough
Of the purple woods, has not a whisper now;
Hushed on the uplands is the huntsman's horn,
And huskers whistling round the tented corn:
The snug warm cricket lets his clock run down,
Scared by the chill, sad hour that makes forlorn
The Autumn's gold and brown.

The light is dying out on field and wold;
The life is dying in the leaves and grass.
The World's last breath no longer dims the glass
Of waning sunset, yellow, pale, and cold.
His genial pulse, which Summer made so bold,
Has ceased. Haste, Night, and spread thy decent pall!
The silent, stiffening Frost makes havoc: fold
The darkness over all!

The light is dying out o'er all the land,
And in my heart the light is dying. She,
My life's best life, is fading silently
From Earth, from me, and from the dreams we planned,
Since first Love led us with his beaming hand
From hope to hope, yet kept his crown in store.
The light is dying out o'er all the land:
To me it comes no more.

The blossom of my heart, she shrinks away,
Stricken with deadly blight: more wan and weak
Her love replies in blanching lip and cheek,
And gentler in her dear eyes, day by day.
God, in Thy mercy, bid the arm delay,
Which through her being smites to dust my own!
Thou gav'st the seed thy sun and showers; why slay
The blossoms yet unblown?

In vain,—in vain! God will not bid the Spring
Replace with sudden green the Autumn's gold;
And as the night-mists, gathering damp and cold,
Strike up the vales where watercourses sing,
Death's mists shall strike along her veins, and cling
Thenceforth forever round her glorious frame:
For all her radiant presence, May shall bring
A memory and a name.

What know the woods, that soon shall be so stark?
What know the barren fields, the songless air,
Locked in benumbing cold, of blooms more fair
In mornings ushered by the April lark?
Weak solace this, which grief will never hark;

Blind as a bud in stiff December's mail,
To lift her look beyond the frozen dark
No memory can avail.

I never knew the autumnal eves could wear,
With all their pomp, so drear a hue of Death;
I never knew their still and solemn breath
Could rob the breaking heart of strength to bear,
Feeding the blank submission of despair.
Yet, peace, sad soul! reproach and pity shine
Suffused through starry tears: bend thou in prayer,
Rebuked by Love divine.

Our life is scarce the twinkle of a star
In God's eternal day. Obscure and dim
With mortal clouds, it yet may beam for Him,
And darkened here, shine fair to spheres afar.
I will be patient, lest my sorrow bar
His grace and blessing, and I fall supine:
In my own hands my want and weakness are,—
My strength, O God! in Thine

1850.

ODE TO SHELLEY

I

Why art thou dead? Upon the hills once more
The golden mist of waning Autumn lies;
The slow-pulsed billows wash along the shore,
And phantom isles are floating in the skies.
They wait for thee: a spirit in the sand
Hushes, expectant for thy coming tread;
The light wind pants to lift thy trembling hair;
Inward, the silent land
Lies with its mournful woods;—why art thou dead,
When Earth demands that thou shalt call her fair?

II

Why art thou dead? I too demand thy song,
To speak the language yet denied to mine,
Twin-doomed with thee, to feel the scorn of Wrong,
To worship Beauty as a thing divine!
Thou art afar: wilt thou not soon return
To tell me that which thou hast never told?
To clasp my throbbing hand, and, by the shore
Or dewy mountain-fern,
Pour out thy heart as to a friend of old,
Touched with a twilight sadness? Nevermore.

III

I could have told thee all the sylvan joy
Of trackless woods; the meadows far apart,
Within whose fragrant grass, a lonely boy,
I thought of God; the trumpet at my heart,
When on bleak mountains roared the midnight storm,
And I was bathed in lightning, broad and grand:
Oh, more than all, with soft and reverent breath
And forehead flushing warm,
I would have led thee through the summer land
Of early Love, and past my dreams of Death!

IV

In thee, Immortal Brother! had I found
That Voice of Earth, that fails my feebler lines:
The awful speech of Rome's sepulchral ground;
The dusky hymn of Vallombrosa's pines!

From thee the noise of Ocean would have taken
A grand defiance round the moveless shores,
And vocal grown the Mountain's silent head:
Canst thou not yet awaken
Beneath the funeral cypress? Earth implores
Thy presence for her son;—why art thou dead?

V

I do but rave: for it is better thus.
Were once thy starry nature given to mine,
In the one life which would encircle us
My voice would melt, my soul be lost in thine.
Better to bear the far sublimer pain
Of Thought that has not ripened into speech,
To hear in silence Truth and Beauty sing
Divinely to the brain;
For thus the Poet at the last shall reach
His own soul's voice, nor crave a brother's string.

1848.

SICILIAN WINE

I've drunk Sicilia's crimson wine!
The blazing vintage pressed
From grapes on Etna's breast,
What time the mellowing autumn sun did shine:
I've drunk the wine!
I feel its blood divine
Poured on the sluggish tide of mine,
Till, kindling slow,
Its fountains glow
With the light that swims
On their trembling brims,
And a molten sunrise floods my limbs!
What do I here?
I 've drunk the wine,
And lo! the bright blue heaven is clear
Above the ocean's bluer sphere,
Seen through the long arcades of pine,
Inwoven and arched with vine!
The glades are green below;
The temple shines afar;
Above, old Etna's snow
Sparkles with many an icy star:
I see the mountain and its marble wall,
Where gleaming waters fall
And voices call,
Singing and calling
Like chorals falling
Through pearly doors of some Olympian hall,
Where Love holds bacchanal.

Sicilian wine! Sicilian wine!
Summer, and Music, and Song divine
Are thine,—all thine!
A sweet wind over the roses plays;
The wild bee hums at my languid ear;
The mute-winged moth serenely strays
On the downy atmosphere,
Like hovering Sleep, that overweighs
My lids with his shadow, yet comes not near.
Who 'll share with me this languor?
With me the juice of Etna sip?
Who press the goblet's lip,
Refusing mine the while with love's enchanting anger?
Would I were young Adonis now!
With what an ardor bold
Within my arms I'd fold
Fair Aphrodite of Idalian mould,
And let the locks that hide her gleaming brow
Fall o'er my shoulder as she lay
With the fair swell of her immortal breast
Upon my bosom pressed,
Giving Olympian thrills to its enamored clay!

Bacchus and Pan have fled:
No heavy Satyr crushes with his tread
The verdure of the meadow ground,
But in their stead
The Nymphs are leading a bewildering round,
Vivid and light, as o'er some flowering rise
A dance of butterflies,
Their tossing hair with slender lilies crowned,
And greener ivy than o'erran
The brows of Bacchus and the reed of Pan!

I faint, I die:
The flames expire,
That made my blood a lurid fire:
Steeped in delicious weariness I lie.
Oh lay me in some pearlèd shell,
Soft-balanced on the rippling sea,
Where sweet, cheek-kissing airs may wave
Their fresh wings over me;
Let me be wafted with the swell
Of Nereid voices: let no billow rave
To break the cool green crystal of the sea.
For I will wander free
Past the blue islands and the fading shores,
To Calpè and the far Azores,
And still beyond, and wide away,
Beneath the dazzling wings of tropic day,
Where, on unruffled seas,
Sleep the green isles of the Hesperides.

The Triton's trumpet calls:
I hear, I wake, I rise:
The sound peals up the skies
And mellowed Echo falls
In answer back from Heaven's cerulean walls.
Give me the lyre that Orpheus played upon,
Or bright Hyperion,—
Nay, rather come, thou of the mighty bow,
Come thou below,
Leaving thy steeds unharnessed go!
Sing as thou wilt, my voice shall dare to follow,
And I will sun me in thine awful glow,
Divine Apollo!
Then thou thy lute shalt twine
With Bacchic tendrils of the glorious vine
That gave Sicilian wine:
And henceforth when the breezes run
Over its clusters, ripening in the sun,
The leaves shall still be playing,
Unto thy lute its melody repaying,
And I, that quaff, shall evermore be free
To mount thy car and ride the heavens with thee!

1848.

STORM-LINES

When the rains of November are dark on the hills, and the pine-trees incessantly roar
To the sound of the wind-beaten crags, and the floods that in foam through their black channels pour:

When the breaker-lined coast stretches dimly afar through the desolate waste of the gale,
And the clang of the sea-gull at nightfall is heard from the deep, like a mariner's wail:

When the gray sky drops low, and the forest is bare, and the laborer is housed from the storm,
And the world is a blank, save the light of his home through the gust shining redly and warm:—

Go thou forth, if the brim of thy heart with its tropical fulness of life overflow,—
If the sun of thy bliss in the zenith is hung, nor a shadow reminds thee of woe!

Leave the home of thy love; leave thy labors of fame; in the rain and the darkness go forth,
When the cold winds unpausingly wail as they drive from the cheerless expanse of the North.

Thou shalt turn from the cup that was mantling before; thou shalt hear the eternal despair
Of the hearts that endured and were broken at last, from the hills and the sea and the air!

Thou shalt hear how the Earth, the maternal, laments for the children she nurtured with tears,—
How the forest but deepens its wail and the breakers their roar, with the march of the years!

Then the gleam of thy hearth-fire shall dwindle away, and the lips of thy loved ones be still;

And thy soul shall lament in the moan of the storm, sounding wide on the shelterless hill.

All the woes of existence shall stand at thy heart, and the sad eyes of myriads implore,
In the darkness and storm of their being, the ray, streaming out through thy radiant door.

Look again: how that star of thy Paradise dims, through the warm tears, unwittingly shed;—
Thou art man, and a sorrow so bitterly wrung never fell on the dust of the Dead!

Let the rain of the midnight beat cold on thy cheek, and the proud pulses chill in thy frame,
Till the love of thy bosom is grateful and sad, and thou turn'st from the mockery of Fame!

Take with humble acceptance the gifts of thy life; let thy joy touch the fountain of tears;
For the soul of the Earth, in endurance and pain, gathers promise of happier years!

1849.

THE TWO VISIONS

Through days of toil, through nightly fears,
A vision blessed my heart for years;
And so secure its features grew,
My heart believed the blessing true.

I saw her there, a household dove,
In consummated peace of love,
And sweeter joy and saintlier grace
Breathed o'er the beauty of her face:

The joy and grace of love at rest,
The fireside music of the breast,
When vain desires and restless schemes
Sleep, pillowed on our early dreams.

Nor her alone: beside her stood,
In gentler types, our love renewed;
Our separate beings one, in Birth,—
The darling miracles of Earth.

The mother's smile, the children's kiss,
And home's serene, abounding bliss;
The fruitage of a life that bore
But idle summer blooms before:

Such was the vision, far and sweet,
That, still beyond Time's lagging feet,
Lay glimmering in my heart for years,
Dim with the mist of happy tears.

That vision died, in drops of woe,
In blotting drops, dissolving slow:
Now, toiling day and sorrowing night,
Another vision fills my sight.

A cold mound in the winter snow;
A colder heart at rest below;
A life in utter loneness hurled,
And darkness over all the world.

1850.

STORM SONG

The clouds are scudding across the moon,
A misty light is on the sea;
The wind in the shrouds has a wintry tune,
And the foam is flying free.

Brothers, a night of terror and gloom
Speaks in the cloud and gathering roar;
Thank God, He has given us broad sea-room,
A thousand miles from shore.

Down with the hatches on those who sleep!
The wild and whistling deck have we;
Good watch, my brothers, to-night we 'll keep,
While the tempest is on the sea!

Though the rigging shriek in his terrible grip,
And the naked spars be snapped away,
Lashed to the helm, we 'll drive our ship
In the teeth of the whelming spray!

Hark! how the surges o'erleap the deck!
Hark! how the pitiless tempest raves!
Ah, daylight will look upon many a wreck
Drifting over the desert waves.

Yet, courage, brothers! we trust the wave,
With God above us, our guiding chart:
So, whether to harbor or ocean-grave,
Be it still with a cheery heart!

Gulf of Mexico, 1850.

SONG

I plucked for thee the wilding rose
And wore it on my breast,
And there, till daylight's dusky close,
Its silken cheek was pressed;
Its desert breath was sweeter far
Than palace-rose could be,
Sweeter than all Earth's blossoms are,
But that thou gav'st to me.

I kissed its leaves, in fond despite
Of lips that failed my own,
And Love recalled that sacred night
His blushing flower was blown.
I vowed, no rose should rival mine,
Though withered now, and pale,
Till those are plucked, whose white buds twine
Above thy bridal veil.

1849.

THE WAVES

I

Children are we
Of the restless sea,
Swelling in anger or sparkling in glee;
We follow our race,
In shifting chase,
Over the boundless ocean-space!
Who hath beheld where the race begun?
Who shall behold it run?
Who shall behold it run?

II

When the smooth airs keep
Their noontide sleep,
We dimple the cheek of the dreaming deep;
When the rough winds come,
From their cloudy home,
At the tap of the hurricane's thunder-drum,
Deep are the furrows of wrath we plough,
Ridging his darkened brow!
Ridging his darkened brow!

III

Over us born,
The unclouded Morn
Trumpets her joy with the Triton's horn,
And sun and star
By the thousand are
Orbed in our glittering, near and far:
And the splendor of Heaven, the pomp of Day,
Shine in our laughing spray!
Shine in our laughing spray!

IV

We murmur our spell
Over sand and shell;
We girdle the reef with a combing swell;
And bound in the vice,
Of the Arctic ice,
We build us a palace of grand device—
Walls of crystal and splintered spires,
Flashing with diamond fires!
Flashing with diamond fires!

V

In the endless round
Of our motion and sound,
The fairest dwelling of Beauty is found,
And with voice of strange
And solemn change,
The elements speak in our world-wide range,
Harping the terror, the might, the mirth,
Sorrows and hopes of Earth!
Sorrows and hopes of Earth!

1850.

SONG

From the bosom of ocean I seek thee,
Thou lamp of my spirit afar,
As the seaman, adrift in the darkness,
Looks up for the beam of his star;
And when on the moon-lighted water
The spirits of solitude sleep,
My soul, in the light of thy beauty,
Lies hushed as the waves of the deep.

As the shafts of the sunrise are broken
Far over the glittering sea,
Thou hast dawned on the waves of my dreaming,
And each thought has a sparkle of thee,
And though, with the white sail distended,
I speed from the vanishing shore,
Thou wilt give to the silence of ocean
The spell of thy beauty the more.

Gulf of Mexico, 1850.

SONNET

TO G. H. B.

You comfort me as one that, knowing Fate,
Would paint her visage kinder than you deem;
You say, my only bliss that is no dream
She clouds, but makes not wholly desolate.
Ah, Friend! your heart speaks words of little weight
To veil that sadder knowledge, learned in song,
And 'gainst your solace Grief has made me strong:
The Gods are jealous of our low estate;
They give not Fame to Love, nor Love to Fame;
Power cannot taste the joy the humbler share,
Nor holy Beauty breathe in Luxury's air,
And all in darkness Genius feeds his flame.
We build and build, poor fools! and all the while
Some Demon works unseen, and saps the pile.

1850.

THE WAYSIDE DREAM

The deep and lordly Danube
Goes winding far below;
I see the white-walled hamlets
Amid his vineyards glow,
And southward, through the ether, shine
The Styrian hills of snow.

O'er many a league of landscape
Sleeps the warm haze of noon;
The wooing winds come freighted
With messages of June,
And down among the corn and flowers
I hear the water's tune.

The meadow-lark is singing,
As if it still were morn;
Within the dark pine-forest
The hunter winds his horn,
And the cuckoo's shy, complaining note
Mocks the maidens in the corn.

I watch the cloud-armada
Go sailing up the sky,
Lulled by the murmuring mountain grass
Upon whose bed I lie,
And the faint sound of noonday chimes
That in the distance die.

A warm and drowsy sweetness
Is stealing o'er my brain;
I see no more the Danube
Sweep through his royal plain;
I hear no more the peasant girls
Singing amid the grain.

Soft, silvery wings, a moment
Have swept across my brow:
Again I hear the water,
But its voice is sweeter now,
And the mocking-bird and oriole
Are singing on the bough;

The elm and linden branches
Droop close and dark o'erhead,
And the foaming forest brooklet
Leaps down its rocky bed:
Be still, my heart! the seas are passed,
The paths of home I tread!

The showers of creamy blossoms
Are on the linden spray,
And down the clover meadow
They heap the scented hay,
And glad winds toss the forest leaves,
All the bright summer day.

Old playmates! bid me welcome
Amid your brother-band;
Give me the old affection,—
The glowing grasp of hand!
I seek no more the realms of old,—
Here is my Fatherland!

Come hither, gentle maiden,
Who weep'st in tender joy!
The rapture of thy presence
Repays the world's annoy,
And calms the wild and ardent heart
Which warms the wandering boy.

In many a mountain fastness,
By many a river's foam,
And through the gorgeous cities,
'T was loneliness to roam;
For the sweetest music in my heart
Was the olden songs of home.

Ah, glen and grove are vanished,
And friends have faded now!
The balmy Styrian breezes
Are blowing on my brow,
And sounds again the cuckoo's call
From the forest's inmost bough.

Fled is that happy vision,—
The gates of slumber fold;
I rise and journey onward
Through valleys green and old,
Where the far, white Alps announce the morn,
And keep the sunset's gold.

Upper Austria, 1845.

STEYERMARK

In Steyermark,—green Steyermark,
The fields are bright and the forests dark,—
Bright with the maids that bind the sheaves,
Dark with the arches of whispering leaves.
Voices and streams and sweet bells chime
Over the land, in the harvest-time,
And the blithest songs of the finch and lark
Are heard in the orchards of Steyermark.

In Steyermark,—old Steyermark,
The mountain summits are white and stark;
The rough winds furrow their trackless snow,
But the mirrors of crystal are smooth below;
The stormy Danube clasps the wave
That downward sweeps with the Drave and Save,
And the Euxine is whitened with many a bark,
Freighted with ores of Steyermark!

In Steyermark,—rough Steyermark,
The anvils ring from dawn till dark;
The molten streams of the furnace glare,
Blurring with crimson the midnight air;
The lusty voices of forgemen chord,
Chanting the ballad of Siegfried's Sword,
While the hammers swung by their arms so stark
Strike to the music of Steyermark!

In Steyermark,—dear Steyermark,
Each heart is light as the morning lark;
There men are framed in the manly mould
Of their stalwart sires, of the times of old,
And the sunny blue of the Styrian sky
Grows soft in the timid maiden's eye,
When love descends with the twilight dark,
In the beechen groves of Steyermark.

1848.

TO A BAVARIAN GIRL

Thou, Bavaria's brown-eyed daughter,
Art a shape of joy,

Standing by the Isar's water
With thy brother-boy;
In thy dream, with idle fingers
Threading through his curls,
On thy cheek the sun's kiss lingers,
Rosiest of girls!

Woods of glossy oak are ringing
With the echoes bland,
While thy generous voice is singing
Songs of Fatherland,—
Songs, that by the Danube's river
Sound on hills of vine,
And where waves in green light quiver,
Down the rushing Rhine.

Life, with all its hues and changes,
To thy heart doth lie
Like those dreamy Alpine ranges
In the southern sky;
Where in haze the clefts are hidden,
Which the foot should fear,
And the crags that fall unbidden
Startle not the ear.

Where the village maidens gather
At the fountain's brim,
Or in sunny harvest weather,
With the reapers trim;
Where the autumn fires are burning
On the vintage-hills;
Where the mossy wheels are turning
In the ancient mills;

Where from ruined robber-towers
Hangs the ivy's hair,
And the crimson foxbell flowers
On the crumbling stair:—
Everywhere, without thy presence,
Would the sunshine fail.
Fairest of the maiden peasants!
Flower of Isar's vale!

Munich, 1845.

IN ITALY

Dear Lillian, all I wished is won!
I sit beneath Italia's sun,
Where olive-orchards gleam and quiver
Along the banks of Arno's river.

Through laurel leaves, the dim green light
Falls on my forehead as I write,
And the sweet chimes of vesper, ringing,
Blend with the contadina's singing.

Rich is the soil with Fancy's gold;
The stirring memories of old
Rise thronging in my haunted vision,
And wake my spirit's young ambition.

But as the radiant sunsets close
Above Val d'Arno's bowers of rose,
My soul forgets the olden glory,
And deems our love a dearer story.

Thy words, in Memory's ear, outchime
The music of the Tuscan rhyme;
Thou standest here—the gentle-hearted—
Amid the shades of bards departed.

I see before thee fade away
Their garlands of immortal bay,
And turn from Petrarch's passion-glances
To my own dearer heart-romances.

Sad is the opal glow that fires
The midnight of the cypress spires,
And cold the scented wind that closes
The heart of bright Etruscan roses.

A single thought of thee effaced
The fair Italian dream I chased;
For the true clime of song and sun
Lies in the heart which mine hath won!

Florence, 1845.

A BACCHIC ODE

Wine,—bring wine!
Let the crystal beaker flame and shine,
Brimming o'er with the draught divine!

The crimson glow
Of the lifted cup on my forehead throw,
Like the sunset's flush on a field of snow.

I love to lave
My thirsty lip in the ruddy wave;
Freedom bringeth the wine so brave!

The world is cold:
Sorrow and pain have gloomy hold,
Chilling the bosom warm and bold.

Doubts and fears
Veil the shine of my morning years,—
My life's lone rainbow springs from tears.

But Eden-gleams
Visit my soul in immortal dreams,
When the wave of the goblet burns and beams.

Not from the Rhine,
Not from fields of Burgundian vine,
Bring me the bright Olympian wine!

Not with a ray
Born where the winds of Shiraz play,
Or the fiery blood of the bright Tokay.

Not where the glee
Of Falernian vintage echoes free,
Or the Chian gardens gem the sea.

But wine,—bring wine,
Royally flushed with its growth divine,
In the crystal depth of my soul to shine!

Whose glow was caught
From the warmth which Fancy's summer brought
To the vintage-fields in the Land of Thought.

Rich and free
To my thirsting soul will the goblet be,
Poured by the Hebe, Poesy.

1847.

A FUNERAL THOUGHT

I

When the stern Genius, to whose hollow tramp
Echo the startled chambers of the soul,
Waves his inverted torch o'er that pale camp
Where the archangel's final trumpets roll,
I would not meet him in the chamber dim,
Hushed, and pervaded with a nameless fear,
When the breath flutters and the senses swim,
And the dread hour is near.

II

Though Love's dear arms might clasp me fondly then
As if to keep the Summoner at bay,
And woman's woe and the calm grief of men
Hallow at last the chill, unbreathing clay—
These are Earth's fetters, and the soul would shrink,
Thus bound, from Darkness and the dread Unknown,
Stretching its arms from Death's eternal brink,
Which it must dare alone.

III

But in the awful silence of the sky,
Upon some mountain summit, yet untrod,
Through the blue ether would I climb, to die
Afar from mortals and alone with God!
To the pure keeping of the stainless air
Would I resign my faint and fluttering breath,
And with the rapture of an answered prayer
Receive the kiss of Death.

IV

Then to the elements my frame would turn;
No worms should riot on my coffined clay,
But the cold limbs, from that sepulchral urn,
In the slow storms of ages waste away.
Loud winds and thunder's diapason high
Should be my requiem through the coming time,
And the white summit, fading in the sky,
My monument sublime.

1847.

THE NORSEMAN'S RIDE

The frosty fires of Northern starlight
Gleamed on the glittering snow,
And through the forest's frozen branches
The shrieking winds did blow;
A floor of blue, translucent marble
Kept ocean's pulses still,
When, in the depth of dreary midnight,
Opened the burial hill.

Then while a low and creeping shudder
Thrilled upward through the ground,
The Norseman came, as armed for battle,
In silence from his mound:
He, who was mourned in solemn sorrow
By many a swordsman bold.
And harps that wailed along the ocean,
Struck by the Skalds of old.

Sudden, a swift and silver shadow
Rushed up from out the gloom,—
A horse that stamped with hoof impatient,
Yet noiseless, on the tomb.
“Ha, Surtur! let me hear thy tramping,
Thou noblest Northern steed,
Whose neigh along the stormy headlands
Bade the bold Viking heed!”

He mounted: like a north-light streaking
The sky with flaming bars,
They, on the winds so wildly shrieking,
Shot up before the stars,
“Is this thy mane, my fearless Surtur,
That streams against my breast?
Is this thy neck, that curve of moonlight,
Which Helva's hand caressed?

“No misty breathing strains thy nostril,
Thine eye shines blue and cold,
Yet, mounting up our airy pathway,
I see thy hoofs of gold!
Not lighter o'er the springing rainbow
Walhalla's gods repair,
Than we, in sweeping journey over
The bending bridge of air.

“Far, far around, star-gleams are sparkling
Amid the twilight space;
And Earth, that lay so cold and darkling,
Has veiled her dusky face.
Are those the Nornes that beckon onward
To seats at Odin's board,
Where nightly by the hands of heroes
The foaming mead is poured?

“'T is Skuld! her star-eye speaks the glory
That waits the warrior's soul,
When on its hinge of music opens
The gateway of the Pole,—
When Odin's warder leads the hero
To banquets never done,
And Freya's eyes outshine in summer
The ever-risen sun.

“On! on! the Northern lights are streaming
In brightness like the morn,
And pealing far amid the vastness,
I hear the Gjallarhorn:
The heart of starry space is throbbing
With songs of minstrels old,
And now, on high Walhalla's portal,
Gleam Surtur's hoofs of gold!”

1846.

THE CONTINENTS

I had a vision in that solemn hour,
Last of the year sublime,
Whose wave sweeps downward, with its dying power
Rippling the shores of Time.
On the bleak margin of that hoary sea
My spirit stood alone,
Watching the gleams of phantom History,
Which through the darkness shone.

Then, when the bell of midnight ghostly hands
Tolled for the dead year's doom,
I saw the spirits of Earth's ancient lands

Stand up amid the gloom!
The crownèd deities, whose reign began
In the forgotten Past,
When first the fresh world gave to sovereign Man
Her empires green and vast.

First queenly Asia, from the fallen thrones
Of twice three thousand years,
Came with the woe a grieving goddess owns,
Who longs for mortal tears.
The dust of ruin to her mantle clung
And dimmed her crown of gold,
While the majestic sorrows of her tongue
From Tyre to Indus rolled:

“Mourn with me, sisters, in my realm of woe,
Whose only glory streams
From its lost childhood, like the arctic glow
Which sunless Winter dreams!
In the red desert moulders Babylon,
And the wild serpent's hiss
Echoes in Petra's palaces of stone,
And waste Persepolis.

“Gone are the deities that ruled enshrined
In Elephanta's caves,
And Brahma's wailings fill the fragrant wind
That ripples Ganges' waves:
The ancient gods amid their temples fall,
And shapes of some near doom,
Trembling and waving on the Future's wall,
More fearful make my gloom!”

Then, from her seat, amid the palms embowered
That shade the lion-land,
Swart Africa in dusky aspect towered,
The fetters on her hand!
Backward she saw, from out her drear eclipse,
The mighty Theban years,
And the deep anguish of her mournful lips
Interpreted her tears.

“Woe for my children, whom your gyves have bound
Through centuries of toil;
The bitter wailings of whose bondage sound
From many an alien soil!
Leave me but free, though the eternal sand
Be all my kingdom now,—
Though the rude splendors of barbaric land
But mock my crownless brow!”

There was a sound, like sudden trumpets blown,
A ringing, as of arms,
When Europe rose, a stately amazon,
Stern in her mailèd charms.
She brooded long beneath the weary bars
That chafed her soul of flame,
And like a seer, who reads the awful stars,
Her words prophetic came:

“I hear new sounds along the ancient shore,
Whose dull old monotone
Of tides, that broke on many a system hoar,
Moaned through the ages lone:
I see a gleaming, like the crimson morn
Beneath a stormy sky,
And warning throes, which long my breast has borne,
Proclaim the struggle nigh.”

O radiant-browed, the latest born of Time!
How waned thy sisters old,
Before the splendors of thine eye sublime,
And mien erect and bold!
Free, as the winds of thine own forests are,
Thy brow beamed lofty cheer,
And Day's bright oriflamme, the Morning Star,
Flashed on thy lifted spear.

“I bear no weight”—rang thine exulting tones—
“Of memories weird and vast;
No crushing heritage of iron thrones,
Bequeathed by some dead Past;

But hopes, that give my children power to climb
Above the old-world fears—
Whose prophecies forerun the latest time,
And lead the crowning years!

“Like spectral lamps, that burn before a tomb,
The ancient lights expire;
I hold a torch, that floods the fading gloom
With everlasting fire:
Crowned with my constellated stars, I stand
Beside the foaming sea,
And from the Future, with a victor's hand,
Claim empire for the Free!”

1848.

L'ENVOI

I've passed the grim and threatening warders
That guard the vestibule of Song,
And traced the print of bolder footsteps
The lengthened corridors along;
Where every thought I strove to blazon
Beside the bannered lays of old,
Was dim below some bright escutcheon,
Or shaded by some grander fold.

I saw, in veiled and shadowy glimpses,
The solemn halls expand afar,
And through the twilight, half despairing,
Looked trembling up to find a star;
Till, in the rush of wings, awakened
My soul to utterance free and strong
And with impassioned exultation,
I revelled in the rage of Song!

Then, though the world beside, unheeding,
Heard other voices than my own,
Thou, thou didst mark the broken music,
And cheer its proud, aspiring tone:
Thou cam'st in many a lovely vision
To lead my ardent spirit on,
Thine eye my morning-star of promise,
The sweet anticipant of dawn.

And if I look to holier altars,
Thou still art near me, as of old,
And thou wilt give the living laurel,
When the shrined Presence I behold.
Take, then, these echoes of thy being,
My lips have weakly striven to frame;
For when I speak what thou inspirest,
I know my songs are nearest fame.

1848.

CALIFORNIA BALLADS AND POEMS

1848–1851

MANUELA

From the doorway, Manuela, in the sunny April morn,
Southward looks, along the valley, over leagues of gleaming corn;
Where the mountain's misty rampart like the wall of Eden towers,
And the isles of oak are sleeping on a painted sea of flowers.

All the air is full of music, for the winter rains are o'er,
And the noisy magpies chatter from the budding sycamore;
Blithely frisk unnumbered squirrels, over all the grassy slope;
Where the airy summits brighten, nimbly leaps the antelope.

Gentle eyes of Manuela! tell me wherefore do ye rest
On the oak's enchanted islands and the flowery ocean's breast?
Tell me wherefore, down the valley, ye have traced the highway's mark
Far beyond the belts of timber, to the mountain-shadows dark?

Ah, the fragrant bay may blossom and the sprouting verdure shine
With the tears of amber dropping from the tassels of the pine,

And the morning's breath of balsam lightly brush her sunny cheek,—
Little recketh Manuela of the tales of Spring they speak.

When the Summer's burning solstice on the mountain-harvests glowed,
She had watched a gallant horseman riding down the valley road;
Many times she saw him turning, looking back with parting thrills,
Till amid her tears she lost him, in the shadow of the hills.

Ere the cloudless moons were over, he had passed the Desert's sand,
Crossed the rushing Colorado and the wild Apachè Land,
And his laden mules were driven, when the time of rains began,
With the traders of Chihuahua, to the Fair of San Juan.

Therefore watches Manuela,—therefore lightly doth she start,
When the sound of distant footsteps seems the beating of her heart;
Not a wind the green oak rustles or the redwood branches stirs,
But she hears the silver jingle of his ringing bit and spurs.

Often, out the hazy distance, come the horsemen, day by day,
But they come not as Bernardo,—she can see it, far away;
Well she knows the airy gallop of his mettled alazàn,
Light as any antelope upon the Hills of Gavilàn.

She would know him 'mid a thousand, by his free and gallant air;
By the featly-knit sarápè, such as wealthy traders wear;
By his broidered calzoneros and his saddle, gayly spread,
With its cantle rimmed with silver, and its horn a lion's head.

None like him the light riáta on the maddened bull can throw;
None amid the mountain-cañons track like him the stealthy doe;
And at all the Mission festals, few indeed the revellers are
Who can dance with him the jota, touch with him the gay guitar.

He has said to Manuela, and the echoes linger still
In the cloisters of her bosom, with a secret, tender thrill,
When the bay again has blossomed, and the valley stands in corn,
Shall the bells of Santa Clara usher in the wedding morn.

He has pictured the procession, all in holiday attire,
And the laugh of bridal gladness, when they see the distant spire;
Then their love shall kindle newly, and the world be doubly fair
In the cool, delicious crystal of the summer morning air.

Tender eyes of Manuela! what has dimmed your lustrous beam?
'T is a tear that falls to glitter on the casket of her dream.
Ah, the eye of Love must brighten, if its watches would be true,
For the star is falsely mirrored in the rose's drop of dew!

But her eager eyes rekindle, and her breathless bosom thrills,
As she sees a horseman moving in the shadow of the hills:
Now in love and fond thanksgiving they may loose their pearly tides,—
'T is the alazàn that gallops, 't is Bernardo's self that rides!

Gulf of Mexico, 1850.

THE FIGHT OF PASO DEL MAR

Gusty and raw was the morning,
A fog hung over the seas,
And its gray skirts, rolling inland,
Were torn by the mountain trees;
No sound was heard but the dashing
Of waves on the sandy bar,
When Pablo of San Diego
Rode down to the Paso del Mar.

The pescadòr, out in his shallop,
Gathering his harvest so wide,

Sees the dim bulk of the headland
Loom over the waste of the tide;
He sees, like a white thread, the pathway
Wind round on the terrible wall,
Where the faint, moving speck of the rider
Seems hovering close to its fall.

Stout Pablo of San Diego
Rode down from the hills behind;
With the bells on his gray mule tinkling
He sang through the fog and wind.
Under his thick, misted eyebrows
Twinkled his eye like a star,
And fiercer he sang as the sea-winds
Drove cold on the Paso del Mar.

Now Bernal, the herdsman of Chino,
Had travelled the shore since dawn,
Leaving the ranches behind him—
Good reason had he to be gone!
The blood was still red on his dagger,
The fury was hot in his brain,
And the chill, driving scud of the breakers
Beat thick on his forehead in vain.

With his poncho wrapped gloomily round him,
He mounted the dizzying road,
And the chasms and steeps of the headland
Were slippery and wet, as he trod:
Wild swept the wind of the ocean,
Rolling the fog from afar,
When near him a mule-bell came tinkling,
Midway on the Paso del Mar.

“Back!” shouted Bernal, full fiercely,
And “Back!” shouted Pablo, in wrath,
Is his mule halted, startled and shrinking,
On the perilous line of the path.
The roar of devouring surges
Came up from the breakers' hoarse war;
And “Back, or you perish!” cried Bernal,
“I turn not on Paso del Mar!”

The gray mule stood firm as the headland:
He clutched at the jingling rein,
When Pablo rose up in his saddle
And smote till he dropped it again.
A wild oath of passion swore Bernal,
And brandished his dagger, still red,
While fiercely stout Pablo leaned forward,
And fought o'er his trusty mule's head.

They fought till the black wall below them
Shone red through the misty blast;
Stout Pablo then struck, leaning farther,
The broad breast of Bernal at last.
And, frenzied with pain, the swart hersdman
Closed on him with terrible strength,
And jerked him, despite of his struggles,
Down from the saddle at length.

They grappled with desperate madness,
On the slippery edge of the wall;
They swayed on the brink, and together
Reeled out to the rush of the fall.
A cry of the wildest death-anguish
Rang faint through the mist afar,
And the riderless mule went homeward
From the fight of the Paso del Mar.

1848.

THE PINE FOREST OF MONTEREY

What point of Time, unchronicled, and dim
As yon gray mist that canopies your heads,
Took from the greedy wave and gave the sun
Your dwelling-place, ye gaunt and hoary Pines?
When, from the barren bosoms of the hills,
With scanty nurture, did ye slowly climb,
Of these remote and latest-fashioned shores
The first-born forest? Titans gnarled and rough,
Such as from out subsiding Chaos grew

To clothe the cold loins of the savage earth,
What fresh commixture of the elements,
What earliest thrill of life, the stubborn soil
Slow-mastering, engendered ye to give
The hills a mantle and the wind a voice?
Along the shore ye lift your rugged arms,
Blackened with many fires, and with hoarse chant,—
Unlike the fibrous lute your co-mates touch
In elder regions,—fill the awful stops
Between the crashing cataracts of the surf.
Have ye no tongue, in all your sea of sound,
To syllable the secret,—no still voice
To give your airy myths a shadowy form,
And make us of lost centuries of lore
The rich inheritors?

The sea-winds pluck
Your mossy beards, and gathering as they sweep,
Vex your high heads, and with your sinewy arms
Grapple and toil in vain. A deeper roar,
Sullen and cold, and rousing into spells
Of stormy volume, is your sole reply.
Anchored in firm-set rock, ye ride the blast,
And from the promontory's utmost verge
Make signal o'er the waters. So ye stood,
When, like a star, behind the lonely sea,
Far shone the white speck of Grijalva's sail;
And when, through driving fog, the breaker's sound
Frighted Otondo's men, your spicy breath
Played as in welcome round their rusty helms,
And backward from its staff shook out the folds
Of Spain's emblazoned banner.

Ancient Pines,
Ye bear no record of the years of man.
Spring is your sole historian,—Spring, that paints
These savage shores with hues of Paradise,
That decks your branches with a fresher green,
And through your lonely, far cañadas pours
Her floods of bloom, rivers of opal dye
That wander down to lakes and widening seas
Of blossom and of fragrance,—laughing Spring,
That with her wanton blood refills your veins,
And weds ye to your juicy youth again
With a new ring, the while your rifted bark
Drops odorous tears. Your knotty fibres yield
To the light touch of her unfailing pen,
As freely as the lupin's violet cup.
Ye keep, close-locked, the memories of her stay
As in their shells the avelonès keep
Morn's rosy flush and moonlight's pearly glow,
The wild northwest, that from Alaska sweeps,
To drown Point Lobos with the icy scud
And white sea-foam, may rend your boughs and leave
Their blasted antlers tossing in the gale;
Your steadfast hearts are mailed against the shock,
And on their annual tablets naught inscribe
Of such rude visitation. Ye are still
The simple children of a guiltless soil,
And in your natures show the sturdy grain
That passion cannot jar, nor force relax,
Nor aught but sweet and kindly airs compel
To gentler mood. No disappointed heart
Has sighed its bitterness beneath your shade;
No angry spirit ever came to make

Your silence its confessional; no voice,
Grown harsh in Crime's great market-place, the world,
Tainted with blasphemy your evening hush
And aromatic air. The deer alone,—
The ambushed hunter that brings down the deer,—
The fisher wandering on the misty shore
To watch sea-lions wallow in the flood,—
The shout, the sound of hoofs that chase and fly,
When swift vaqueros, dashing through the herds,
Ride down the angry bull,—perchance, the song
Some Indian heired of long-forgotten sires,—
Disturb your solemn chorus.

Stately Pines,
But few more years around the promontory
Your chant will meet the thunders of the sea.
No more, a barrier to the encroaching sand,
Against the surf ye 'll stretch defiant arm,
Though with its onset and besieging shock
Your firm knees tremble. Never more the wind
Shall pipe shrill music through your mossy beards,
Nor sunset's yellow blaze athwart your heads
Crown all the hills with gold. Your race is past:
The mystic cycle, whose unnoted birth
Coeval was with yours, has run its sands,
And other footsteps from these changing shores
Frighten its haunting Spirit. Men will come
To vex your quiet with the din of toil;
The smoky volumes of the forge will stain
This pure, sweet air; loud keels will ride the sea,
Dashing its glittering sapphire into foam;
Through all her green cañadas Spring will seek
Her lavish blooms in vain, and clasping ye,
O mournful Pines, within her glowing arms,
Will weep soft rains to find ye fallen low.
Fall, therefore, yielding to the fiat! Fall,
Ere the maturing soil, whose first dull life
Fed your belated germs, be rent and seamed!
Fall, like the chiefs ye sheltered, stern, unbent,
Your gray beards hiding memorable scars!
The winds will mourn ye, and the barren hills
Whose breast ye clothed; and when the pauses come
Between the crashing cataracts of the surf,
A funeral silence, terrible, profound,
Will make sad answer to the listening sea.

Monterey, 1849.

EL CANELO

I

Now saddle El Canelo!—the freshening wind of morn,
Down in the flowery vega, is stirring through the corn;
The thin smoke of the ranches grows red with coming day,
And the steed is fiercely stamping, in haste to be away.

II

My glossy-limbed Canelo, thy neck is curved in pride,
Thy slender ears pricked forward, thy nostril straining wide;
And as thy quick neigh greets me, and I catch thee by the mane,
I 'm off with the winds of morning,—the chieftain of the plain!

III

I feel the swift air whirring, and see along our track,
From the flinty-paved sierra, the sparks go streaming back;

And I clutch my rifle closer, as we sweep the dark defile,
Where the red guerillas ambush for many a lonely mile.

IV

They reach not El Canelo; with the swiftness of a dream
We 've passed the bleak Nevada, and San Fernando's stream;
But where, on sweeping gallop, my bullet backward sped,
The keen-eyed mountain vultures will wheel above the dead.

V

On! on, my brave Canelo! we 've dashed the sand and snow
From peaks upholding heaven, from deserts far below,—
We 've thundered through the forest, while the crackling branches rang,
And trooping elks, affrighted, from lair and covert sprang.

VI

We 've swum the swollen torrent,—we 've distanced in the race
The baying wolves of Pinos, that panted with the chase;
And still thy mane streams backward, at every thrilling bound,
And still thy measured hoof-stroke beats with its morning sound!

VII

The seaward winds are wailing through Santa Barbara's pines,
And like a sheathless sabre, the far Pacific shines;
Hold to thy speed, my arrow! at nightfall thou shalt lave
Thy hot and smoking haunches beneath his silver wave!

VIII

My head upon thy shoulder, along the sloping sand
We 'll sleep as trusty brothers, from out the mountain land;
The pines will sound in answer to the surges on the shore,
And in our dreams, Canelo, we 'll make the journey o'er.

1848.

THE SUMMER CAMP

Here slacken rein; here let the dusty mules
Unsaddled graze! The shadows of the oaks
Are on our brows, and through their knotted boles
We see the blue round of the boundless plain
Vanish in glimmering heat: these aged oaks,
The island speck that beckoned us afar
Over the burning level,—as we came,
Spreading to shore and cape, and bays that ran
To leafy headlands, balanced on the haze,
Faint and receding as a cloud in air.

The mules may roam unsaddled: we will lie
Beneath the mighty trees, whose shade like dew
Poured from the urns of Twilight, dries the sweat
Of sunburnt brows, and on the heavy lid
And heated eyeball sheds a balm, than sleep
Far sweeter. We have done with travel,—we
Are weary now, who never dreamed of Rest,
For until now did never Rest unbar
Her palace-doors, nor until now our ears
The silence drink, beyond all melodies
Of all imagined sound, that wraps her realm.
Here, where the desolating centuries
Have left no mark; where noises never came
From the far world of battle and of toil;
Where God looks down and sends no thunderbolt
To smite a human wrong, for all is good,
She finds a refuge. We will dwell with her.

No more of travel, where the flaming sword
Of the great sun divides the heavens; no more

Of climbing over jutty steeps that swim
In driving sea-mist, where the stunted tree
Slants inland, mimicking the stress of winds
When wind is none; of plain and steaming marsh
Where the dry bulrush crackles in the heat;
Of camps by starlight in the columned vault
Of sycamores, and the red, dancing fires
That build a leafy arch, efface and build,
And sink at last, to let the stars peep through;
Of cañons grown with pine and folded deep
In golden mountain-sides; of airy sweeps
Of mighty landscape, lying all alone
Like some deserted world. They tempt no more.
It is enough that such things were: too blest,
O comrades mine, to lie in Summer's arms,
Lodged in her Camp of Rest, we will not dream
That they may vex us more.

The sun goes down:
The dun mules wander idly: motionless
Beneath the stars, the heavy foliage lifts
Its rich, round masses, silent as a cloud
That sleeps at midday on a mountain peak.
All through the long, delicious night no stir
Is in the leaves; spangled with broken gleams,
Before the pining Moon,—that fain would drop
Into the lap of this deep quiet,—swerve
Eastward the shadows: Day comes on again,
Where is the life we led? Whither hath fled
The turbulent stream that brought us hither? How,
So full of sound, so lately dancing down
The mountains, turbid, fretted into foam,—
How has it slipped, with scarce a gurgling coil,
Into this calm transparence, noise or wind
Hath ruffled never? Ages past, perchance,
Such wild turmoil was ours, or did some Dream
Malign, that last night nestled in the oak,
Whisper our ears, when not a star could see?
Give o'er the fruitless doubt: we will not waste
One thought of rest, nor spill one radiant drop
From the full goblet of this summer balm.

Day after day the mellow sun slides o'er,
Night after night the mellow moon. The clouds
Are laid, enchanted: soft and bare, the heavens
Fold to their breast the dozing Earth that lies
In languor of deep bliss. At times a breath,
Remnant of gales far off, forgotten now,
Rustles the never-fading leaves, then drops
Affrighted into silence. Near a slough
Of dark, still water, in the early morn
The shy coyotas prowl, or trooping elk
From the close covert of the bulrush fields
Their dewy antlers toss: nor other sight,
Save when the falcon, poised on wheeling wings,
His bright eye on the burrowing coney, cuts
His arrowy plunge. Along the distant trail,
Dim with the heat, sometimes the miners go,
Bearded and rough, the swart Sonorians drive
Their laden asses, or vaqueros whirl

The lasso's coil and carol many a song,
Native to Spanish hills. As when we lie
On the soft brink of Sleep, not pillowed quite
To blest forgetfulness, some dim array
Of masking forms in long procession comes,
A sweet disturbance to the poppied sense,
That will not cease, but gently holds it back
From slumber's haven, so their figures pass,
With such disturbance cloud the blessèd calm,
And hold our beings, ready to slip forth
O'er unmolested seas, still rocking near
The coasts of Action.

Other dreams are ours,
Of shocks that were, or seemed; whereof our souls
Feel the subsiding lapse, as feels the sand
Of tropic island-shores the dying pulse
Of storms that racked the Northern sea. My Soul,
I do believe that thou hast toiled and striven,
And hoped and suffered wrong. I do believe
Great aims were thine, deep loves and fiery hates,
And though I may have lain a thousand years
Beneath these Oaks, the baffled trust of Youth,
Thy first keen sorrow, brings a gentle pang
To temper joy. Nor will the joy I drank
To wild intoxication, quit my heart:
It was no dream that still has power to droop
The soft-suffusing lid, and lift desire
Beyond this rapt repose. No dream, dear love!
For thou art with me in our Camp of Peace.

O Friend, whose history is writ in deeds
That make your life a marvel, come no gleams
Of past adventure, echoes of old storms,
And Battle's tingling hum of flying shot,
To touch your easy blood and tempt you o'er
The round of yon blue plain? Or have they lost,
Heroic days, the virtue which the heart
That did their best rejoicing, proved so high?
Back through the long, long cycles of our rest
Your memory travels: through this hush you hear
The Gila's dashing, feel the yawning jaws
Of black volcanic gorges close you in
On waste and awful tracts of wilderness,
Which other than the eagle's cry, or bleat
Of mountain-goat, hear not: the scorching sand
Eddies around the tracks your fainting mules
Leave in the desert: thorn and cactus pierce
Your bleeding limbs, and stiff with raging thirst
Your tongue forgets its office. Leave untried
That cruel trail, and leave the wintry hills
And leave the tossing sea! The Summer here
Builds us a tent of everlasting calm.

How shall we wholly sink our lives in thee,
Thrice-blessèd Deep? O many-natured Soul,
Chameleon-like, that, steeped in every phase
Of wide existence, tak'st the hue of each,
Here with the silent Oaks and azure Air
Incorporate grow! Here loosen one by one
Thy vexing memories, burdens of the Past,

Till all unrest be laid, and strong Desire
Sleeps on his nerveless arm. Content to find
In liberal Peace thy being's high result
And crown of aspiration, gather all
The dreams of sense, the reachings of the mind
For ampler issues and dominion vain,
To fold them on her bosom, happier there
Than in exultant action: as a child
Forgets his meadow butterflies and flowers,
Upon his mother's breast.

It may not be.
Not in this Camp, in these enchanted Trees,
But in ourselves, must lodge the calm we seek,
Ere we can fix it here. We cannot take
From outward nature power to snap the curse
Which clothed our birth; and though 't were easier
This hour to die than yield the blessèd cup
Wherefrom our hearts divinest comfort draw,
It clothes us yet, and yet shall drive us forth
To breast the world. Then come: we will not bide
To tempt a ruin to this paradise,
Fulfilling Destiny. A mighty wind
Would gather on the plain, a cloud arise
To blot the sky, with thunder in its heart,
And the black column of the whirlwind spin
Out of the cloud, straight downward to this grove,
Take by their heads the shuddering trees, and wrench
With fearful clamor, limb from limb, till Rest
Should flee forever. Rather set at once
Our faces towards the noisy world again,
And gird our loins for action. Let us go!

1851.

THE BISON TRACK

I

Strike the tent! the sun has risen; not a vapor streaks the dawn,
And the frosted prairie brightens to the westward, far and wan:
Prime afresh the trusty rifle,—sharpen well the hunting spear—
For the frozen sod is trembling, and a noise of hoofs I hear!

II

Fiercely stamp the tethered horses, as they snuff the morning's fire;
Their impatient heads are tossing, and they neigh with keen desire.
Strike the tent! the saddles wait us,—let the bridle-reins be slack,
For the prairie's distant thunder has betrayed the bison's track.

III

See! a dusky line approaches: hark, the onward-surging roar,
Like the din of wintry breakers on a sounding wall of shore!
Dust and sand behind them whirling, snort the foremost of the van,
And their stubborn horns are clashing through the crowded caravan.

IV

Now the storm is down upon us: let the maddened horses go!
We shall ride the living whirlwind, though a hundred leagues it blow!
Though the cloudy manes should thicken, and the red eyes' angry glare
Lighten round us as we gallop through the sand and rushing air!

V

Myriad hoofs will scar the prairie, in our wild, resistless race,
And a sound, like mighty waters, thunder down the desert space:
Yet the rein may not be tightened, nor the rider's eye look back—
Death to him whose speed should slacken, on the maddened bison's track!

VI

Now the trampling herds are threaded, and the chase is close and warm
For the giant bull that gallops in the edges of the storm:
Swiftly hurl the whizzing lasso,—swing your rifles as we run:
See! the dust is red behind him,—shout, my comrades, he is won!

VII

Look not on him as he staggers,—'t is the last shot he will need!
More shall fall, among his fellows, ere we run the mad stampede,—
Ere we stem the brinded breakers, while the wolves, a hungry pack,
Howl around each grim-eyed carcass, on the bloody Bison Track!

1848.

ROMANCES

1849–1851

MON-DA-MIN

OR, THE ROMANCE OF MAIZE

I

Long ere the shores of green America
Were touched by men of Norse and Saxon blood,
What time the Continent in silence lay,
A solemn realm of forest and of flood,
Where Nature wantoned wild in zones immense,
Unconscious of her own magnificence;

II

Then to the savage race, who knew no world
Beyond the hunter's lodge, the council-fire,
The clouds of grosser sense were sometimes furled,
And spirits came to answer their desire,—
The spirits of the race, grotesque and shy;
Exaggerated powers of earth and sky.

III

For Gods resemble whom they govern: they,
The fathers of the soil, may not outgrow
The children's vision. In that earlier day,
They stooped the race familiarly to know;
From Heaven's blue prairies they descended then,
And took the shapes and shared the lives of men.

IV

A chief there was, who in the frequent stress
Of want, yet in contentment, lived his days;
His lodge was built within the wilderness
Of Huron, clasping those transparent bays,
Those deeps of unimagined crystal, where
The bark canoe seems hung in middle air.

V

There, from the lake and from the uncertain chase
With patient heart his sustenance he drew;
And he was glad to see, in that wild place,
The sons and daughters that around him grew,
Although more scant they made his scanty store,
And in the winter moons his need was sore.

VI

The eldest was a boy, a silent lad,
Who wore a look of wisdom from his birth:

Such beauty, both of form and face, he had,
As until then was never known on earth:
And so he was (his soul so bright and far!)
Osséo named,—Son of the Evening Star.

VII

This boy by nature was companionless:
His soul drew nurture only when it sucked
The savage dugs of Fable; he could guess
The knowledge other minds but slowly plucked
From out the heart of things; to him, as well
As to his Gods, all things were possible.

VIII

The heroes of that shapeless faith of his
Took life from him: when gusts of powdery snow
Whirled round the lodge, he saw Paup-puckewiss
Floundering amid the drifts, and he would go
Climbing the hills, while sunset faded wan,
To seek tho feathers of the Rosy Swan.

IX

He knew the lord of serpent and of beast,
The crafty Incarnation of the North;
He knew, when airs grew warm and buds increased,
The sky was pierced, the Summer issued forth,
And when a cloud concealed some mountain's crest
The Bird of Thunder brooded on his nest.

X

Through Huron's mists he saw the enchanted boat
Of old Mishosha to his island go,
And oft he watched, if on the waves might float,
As once, the Fiery Plume of Wassamo;
And when the moonrise flooded coast and bay,
He climbed the headland, stretching far away;

XI

For there—so ran the legend—nightly came
The small Puck-wudjees, ignorant of harm:
The friends of Man, in many a sportive game
The nimble elves consoled them for the charm
Which kept them exiled from their homes afar,—
The silver lodges of a twilight star.

XII

So grew Osséo, as a lonely pine,
That knows the secret of the wandering breeze,
And ever sings its canticles divine,
Uncomprehended by the other trees:
And now the time drew nigh, when he began
The solemn fast whose issue proves the man.

XIII

His father built a lodge the wood within,
Where he the appointed space should duly bide,
Till such propitious time as he had been
By faith prepared, by fasting purified,
And in mysterious dreams allowed to see
What God the guardian of his life would be.

XIV

The anxious crisis of the Spring was past,
And warmth was master o'er the lingering cold.
The alder's catkins dropped; the maple cast
His crimson bloom, the willow's downy gold
Blew wide, and softer than a squirrel's car
The white oak's foxy leaves began appear.

XV

There was a motion in the soil. A sound
Lighter than falling seeds, shook out of flowers,
Exhaled where dead leaves, sodden on the ground,
Repressed the eager grass; and there for hours
Osséo lay, and vainly strove to bring
Into his mind the miracle of Spring.

XVI

The wood-birds knew it, and their voices rang
Around his lodge; with many a dart and whir
Of saucy joy, the shrewish catbird sang
Full-throated, and he heard the king-fisher,
Who from his God escaped with rumpled crest,
And the white medal hanging on his breast.

XVII

The aquilegia sprinkled on the rocks
A scarlet rain; the yellow violet
Sat in the chariot of its leaves; the phlox
Held spikes of purple flame in meadows wet,
And all the streams with vernal-scented reed
Were fringed, and streaky bells of miskodeed.

XVIII

The boy went musing: What are these, that burst
The sod and grow, without the aid of man?
What father brought them food? what mother nursed
Them in her earthy lodge, till Spring began?
They cannot speak; they move but with the air;
Yet souls of evil or of good they bear.

XIX

How are they made, that some with wholesome juice
Delight the tongue, and some are charged with death?
If spirits them inhabit, they can loose
Their shape sometimes, and talk with human breath:
Would that in dreams one such would come to me,
And thence my teacher and my guardian be!

XX

So, when more languid with his fast, the boy
Kept to his lodge, he pondered much thereon,
And other memories gave his mind employ;
Memories of winters when the moose were gone,—
When tales of Manabozo failed to melt
The hunger-pang his pining brothers felt.

XXI

He thought: The Mighty Spirit knows all things,
Is master over all. Could He not choose
Design his children food to ease the stings
Of hunger, when the lake and wood refuse?
If He will bless me with the knowledge, I
Will for my brothers fast until I die.

XXII

Four days were sped since he had tasted meat;
Too faint he was to wander any more,
When from the open sky, that, blue and sweet,
Looked in upon him through the lodge's door,
With quiet gladness he beheld a fair
Celestial Shape descending through the air.

XXIII

He fell serenely, as a wingèd seed
Detached in summer from the maple bough;
His glittering clothes unruffled by the speed,
The tufted plumes unshaken on his brow:

Bright, wonderful, he came without a sound,
And like a burst of sunshine struck the ground.

XXIV

So light he stood, so tall and straight of limb,
So fair the heavenly freshness of his face,
With beating heart Osséo looked at him,
For now a God had visited the place.
More brave a God his dreams had never seen:
The stranger's garments were a shining green.

XXV

Sheathing his limbs in many a stately fold,
That, parting on his breast, allowed the eye
To note beneath, his vest of scaly gold,
Whereon the drops of slaughter, scarcely dry,
Disclosed their blushing stain: his shoulders fair
Gave to the wind long tufts of silky hair.

XXVI

The plumy crest, that high and beautiful
Above his head its branching tassels hung,
Shook down a golden dust, while, fixing full
His eyes upon the boy, he loosed his tongue.
Deep in his soul Osséo did rejoice
To hear the reedy music of his voice:

XXVII

“By the Great Spirit I am hither sent,
He knows the wishes whereupon you feed,—
The soul, that, on your brothers' good intent,
Would sink ambition to relieve their need:
This thing is grateful to the Master's eye,
Nor will His wisdom what you seek deny.

XXVIII

“But blessings are not free; they do not fall
In listless hands; by toil the soul must prove
Its steadfast purpose master over all,
Before their wings in pomp of coming move:
Here, wrestling with me, must you overcome,
In me, the secret,—else, my lips are dumb.”

XXIX

No match for his, Osséo's limbs appeared,
Weak with the fast; and yet in soul he grew
Composed and resolute, by accents cheered,
That spake in light what he but darkly knew.
He rose, unto the issue nerved; he sent
Into his arms the hope of the event.

XXX

The shining stranger wrestled long and hard,
When, disengaging weary limbs, he said:
“It is enough; with no unkind regard
The Master's eye your toil hath visited.
He bids me cease; to-day let strife remain;
But on the morrow I will come again.”

XXXI

And on the morrow came he as before,
Dropping serenely down the deep-blue air:
More weak and languid was the boy, yet more
Courageous he, that crowning test to bear.
His soul so wrought in every fainting limb,
It seemed the cruel fast had strengthened him.

XXXII

Again they grappled, and their sinews wrung
In desperate emulation; and again

Came words of comfort from the stranger's tongue
When they had ceased. He scaled the heavenly plain,
His tall, bright stature lessening as he rose,
Till lost amid the infinite repose.

XXXIII

On the third day descending as before
His raiment's gleam surprised the silent sky;
And weaker still the poor boy felt, yet more
Courageous he, and resolute to die,
So he might first the promised good embrace,
And leave a blessing unto all his race.

XXXIV

This time with intertwining limbs they strove;
The God's green mantle shook in every fold,
And o'er Osséo's heated forehead drove
His silky hair, his tassel's dusty gold,
Till, spent and breathless, he at last forbore,
And sat to rest beside the lodge's door.

XXXV

“My friend,” he said, “the issue now is plain;
Who wrestles in his soul must victor be;
Who bids his life in payment shall attain
The end he seeks,—and you will vanquish me.
Then, these commands fulfilling, you shall win
What the Great Spirit gives in Monda-Min.

XXXVI

“When I am dead, strip off this green array,
And pluck the tassels from my shrivelled hair;
Then bury me where summer rains shall play
Above my breast, and sunshine linger there.
Remove the matted sod; for I would have
The earth lie lightly, softly on my grave.

XXXVII

“And tend the place, lest any noxious weed
Through the sweet soil should strike its bitter root;
Nor let the blossoms of the forest breed,
Nor the wild grass in green luxuriance shoot;
But when the earth is dry and blistered, fold
Thereon the fresh and dainty-smelling mould.

XXXVIII

“The clamoring crow, the blackbird swarms that make
The meadow trees their hive, must come not near:
Scare thence all hurtful things; nor quite forsake
Your careful watch until the woods appear
With crimson blotches deeply dashed and crossed,—
Sign of the fatal pestilence of Frost.

XXXIX

“This done, the secret, into knowledge grown,
Is yours forevermore.” With that, he took
The yielding air. Osséo, left alone,
Followed his flight with hope-enraptured look.
The pains of hunger fled; a happy flame
Danced in his heart until the trial came.

XL

It happened so, as Mon-da-Min foretold;
Osséo's soul, at every wreathing twist
Of palpitating muscle, grew more bold,
And from the limbs of his antagonist
Celestial vigor to his own he drew,
Till with one mighty heave he over threw.

XLI

Then from the body, beautiful and cold,
He stripped the shining clothes; but on his breast
He left the vest, engrained with blushing gold,
And covered him in decent burial-rest.
At sunset to his father's lodge he passed,
And soothed with meat the anguish of his fast.

XLII

Naught did he speak of all that he had done,
But day by day in secrecy he sought
An opening in the forest, where the sun
Warmed the new grave: so tenderly he wrought,
So lightly heaped the mould, so carefully
Kept all the place from choking herbage free,

XLIII

That in a little while a folded plume
Pushed timidly the covering soil aside,
And, fed by fattening rains, took broader room,
Until it grew a stalk, and rustled wide
Its leafy garments, lifting in the air
Its tasselled top, and knots of silky hair.

XLIV

Osséo marvelled to behold his friend
In this fair plant; the secret of the Spring
Was his at length; and till the Summer's end
He guarded him from every harmful thing.
He scared the cloud of blackbirds, wheeling low;
His arrow pierced the reconnoitring crow.

XLV

Now came the brilliant mornings, kindling all
The woody hills with pinnacles of fire;
The gum's ensanguined leaves began to fall,
The buckeye blazed in prodigal attire,
And frosty vapors left the lake at night
To string the prairie grass with spangles white.

XLVI

One day, from long and unsuccessful chase
The chief returned. Osséo through the wood
In silence led him to the guarded place,
Where now the plant in golden ripeness stood.
“Behold, my father!” he exclaimed, “our friend,
Whom the Great Spirit unto me did send,

XLVII

“Then, when I fasted, and my prayer He knew,
That He would save my brothers from their want;
For this, His messenger I overthrew,
And from his grave was born this glorious plant.
'T is Mon-da-Min: his sheathing husks enclose
Food for my brothers in the time of snows.

XLVIII

“I leave you now, my father! Here befits
Me longer not to dwell. My pathway lies
To where the West-wind on the mountain sits,
And the Red Swan beyond the sunset flies:
There may superior wisdom be in store.”
And so he went, and he returned no more.

XLIX

But Mon-da-Min remained, and still remains;
His children cover all the boundless land,
And the warm sun and frequent mellow rains
Shape the tall stalks and make the leaves expand.

A mighty army they have grown: he drills
Their green battalions on the summer hills.

L

And when the silky hair hangs crisp and dead,
Then leave their rustling ranks the tasselled peers,
In broad encampment pitch their tents instead,
And garner up the ripe autumnal ears:
The annual storehouse of a nation's need,
From whose abundance all the world may feed.

1851.

HYLAS

Storm-wearied Argo slept upon the water.
No cloud was seen; on blue and craggy Ida
The hot noon lay, and on the plain's enamel;
Cool, in his bed, alone, the swift Scamander.
“Why should I haste?” said young and rosy Hylas:
“The seas were rough, and long the way from Colchis.
Beneath the snow-white awning slumbers Jason,
Pillowed upon his tame Thessalian panther;
The shields are piled, the listless oars suspended
On the black thwarts, and all the hairy bondsmen
Doze on the benches. They may wait for water,
Till I have bathed in mountain-born Scamander.”

So said, unfilleting his purple chlamys,
And putting down his urn, he stood a moment,
Breathing the faint, warm odor of the blossoms
That spangled thick the lovely Dardan meadows.
Then, stooping lightly, loosened he his buskins,
And felt with shrinking feet the crispy verdure,
Naked, save one light robe that from his shoulder
Hung to his knee, the youthful flush revealing
Of warm, white limbs, half-nerved with coming manhood,
Yet fair and smooth with tenderness of beauty.
Now to the river's sandy marge advancing,
He dropped the robe, and raised his head exulting
In the clear sunshine, that with beam embracing
Held him against Apollo's glowing bosom.
For sacred to Latona's son is Beauty,
Sacred is Youth, the joy of youthful feeling.
A joy indeed, a living joy, was Hylas,
Whence Jove-begotten Hêraclês, the mighty,
To men though terrible, to him was gentle,
Smoothing his rugged nature into laughter
When the boy stole his club, or from his shoulders
Dragged the huge paws of the Nemæan lion.

The thick, brown locks, tossed backward from his forehead,
Fell soft about his temples; manhood's blossom
Not yet had sprouted on his chin, but freshly
Curved the fair cheek, and full the red lips, parting,
Like a loose bow, that just has launched its arrow.
His large blue eyes, with joy dilate and beamy,
Were clear as the unshadowed Grecian heaven;
Dewy and sleek his dimpled shoulders rounded
To the white arms and whiter breast between them.
Downward, the supple lines had less of softness:
His back was like a god's; his loins were moulded

As if some pulse of power began to waken;
The springy fulness of his thighs, outswerving,
Sloped to his knee, and, lightly dropping downward,
Drew the curved lines that breathe, in rest, of motion.

He saw his glorious limbs reversely mirrored
In the still wave, and stretched his foot to press it
On the smooth sole that answered at the surface:
Alas! the shape dissolved in glimmering fragments.
Then, timidly at first, he dipped, and catching
Quick breath, with tingling shudder, as the waters
Swirled round his thighs, and deeper, slowly deeper,
Till on his breast the River's cheek was pillowed,
And deeper still, till every shoreward ripple
Talked in his ear, and like a cygnet's bosom
His white, round shoulder shed the dripping crystal.
There, as he floated, with a rapturous motion,
The lucid coolness folding close around him,
The lily-cradling ripples murmured, “Hylas!”
He shook from off his ears the hyacinthine
Curls, that had lain unwet upon the water,
And still the ripples murmured, “Hylas! Hylas!”
He thought: “The voices are but earborn music.
Pan dwells not here, and Echo still is calling
From some high cliff that tops a Thracian valley:
So long mine ears, on tumbling Hellespontus,
Have heard the sea waves hammer Argo's forehead,
That I misdeem the fluting of this current
For some lost nymph—” Again the murmur, “Hylas!”
And with the sound a cold, smooth arm around him
Slid like a wave, and down the clear, green darkness
Glimmered on either side a shining bosom,—
Glimmered, uprising slow; and ever closer
Wound the cold arms, till, climbing to his shoulders,
Their cheeks lay nestled, while the purple tangles
Their loose hair made, in silken mesh enwound him.
Their eyes of clear, pale emerald then uplifting,
They kissed his neck with lips of humid coral,
And once again there came a murmur, “Hylas!
O, come with us! O, follow where we wander
Deep down beneath the green, translucent ceiling,—
Where on the sandy bed of old Scamander
With cool white buds we braid our purple tresses,
Lulled by the bubbling waves around us stealing!
Thou fair Greek boy, O, come with us! O, follow
Where thou no more shalt hear Propontis riot,
But by our arms be lapped in endless quiet,
Within the glimmering caves of Ocean hollow!
We have no love; alone, of all the Immortals,
We have no love. O, love us, we who press thee
With faithful arms, though cold,—whose lips caress thee,—
Who hold thy beauty prisoned! Love us, Hylas!”

The boy grew chill to feel their twining pressure
Lock round his limbs, and bear him, vainly striving,
Down from the noonday brightness “Leave me, Naiads!

Leave me!” he cried; “the day to me is dearer
Than all your caves deep-sphered in Ocean's quiet.
I am but mortal, seek but mortal pleasure:
I would not change this flexile, warm existence,
Though swept by storms, and shocked by Jove's dread thunder,
To be a king beneath the dark-green waters.”
Still moaned the humid lips, between their kisses,
“We have no love. O, love us, we who love thee!”
And came in answer, thus, the words of Hylas:
“My love is mortal. For the Argive maidens
I keep the kisses which your lips would ravish.
Unlock your cold white arms,—take from my shoulder
The tangled swell of your bewildering tresses.
Let me return: the wind comes down from Ida,
And soon the galley, stirring from her slumber,
Will fret to ride where Pelion's twilight shadow
Falls o'er the towers of Jason's sea-girt city.
I am not yours,—I cannot braid the lilies
In your wet hair, nor on your argent bosoms
Close my drowsed eyes to hear your rippling voices.
Hateful to me your sweet, cold, crystal being,—
Your world of watery quiet. Help, Apollo!
For I am thine: thy fire, thy beam, thy music,
Dance in my heart and flood my sense with rapture!
The joy, the warmth and passion now awaken,
Promised by thee, but erewhile calmly sleeping.
O, leave me, Naiads! loose your chill embraces,
Or I shall die, for mortal maidens pining.”
But still with unrelenting arms they bound him,
And still, accordant, flowed their watery voices:
“We have thee now,—we hold thy beauty prisoned;
O, come with us beneath the emerald waters!
We have no love: we have thee, rosy Hylas.
O, love us, who shall nevermore release thee:
Love us, whose milky arms will be thy cradle
Far down on the untroubled sands of ocean,
Where now we bear thee, clasped in our embraces.”
And slowly, slowly sank the amorous Naiads;
The boy's blue eyes, upturned, looked through the water,
Pleading for help; but Heaven's immortal Archer
Was swathed in cloud. The ripples hid his forehead,
And last, the thick, bright curls a moment floated,
So warm and silky that the stream upbore them,
Closing reluctant, as he sank forever.

The sunset died behind the crags of Imbros.
Argo was tugging at her chain; for freshly
Blew the swift breeze, and leaped the restless billows.
The voice of Jason roused the dozing sailors,
And up the mast was heaved the snowy canvas.
But mighty Hêraclês, the Jove-begotten,
Unmindful stood, beside the cool Scamander,
Leaning upon his club. A purple chlamys
Tossed o'er an urn was all that lay before him:
And when he called, expectant, “Hylas! Hylas!”
The empty echoes made him answer,—“Hylas!”

1850.

KUBLEH

A STORY OF THE ASSYRIAN DESERT

The black-eyed children of the Desert drove
Their flocks together at the set of sun.
The tents were pitched; the weary camels bent
Their suppliant necks, and knelt upon the sand;
The hunters quartered by the kindled fires
The wild boars of the Tigris they had slain,
And all the stir and sound of evening ran
Throughout the Shammar camp. The dewy air
Bore its full burden of confused delight
Across the flowery plain; and while, afar,
The snows of Koordish Mountains in the ray
Flashed roseate amber, Nimroud's ancient mound
Rose broad and black against the burning West.
The shadows deepened, and the stars came out,
Sparkling in violet ether; one by one
Glimmered the ruddy camp-fires on the plain,
And shapes of steed and horseman moved among
The dusky tents, with shout and jostling cry,
And neigh and restless prancing. Children ran
To hold the thongs, while every rider drove
His quivering spear in the earth, and by his door
Tethered the horse he loved. In midst of all
Stood Shammeriyah, whom they dared not touch,—
The foal of wondrous Kubleh, to the Shekh
A dearer wealth than all his Georgian girls.

But when their meal was o'er,—when the red fires
Blazed brighter, and the dogs no longer bayed,—
When Shammar hunters with the boys sat down
To cleanse their bloody knives, came Alimàr,
The poet of the tribe, whose songs of love
Are sweeter than Bassora's nightingales,—
Whose songs of war can fire the Arab blood
Like war itself: who knows not Alimàr?
Then asked the men, “O Poet, sing of Kubleh!”
And boys laid down the burnished knives and said,
“Tell us of Kubleh, whom we never saw,—
Of wondrous Kubleh!” Closer drew the group,
With eager eyes, about the flickering fire,
While Alimàr, beneath the Assyrian stars,
Sang to the listening Arabs:

“God is great!
O Arabs! never since Mohammed rode
The sands of Beder, and by Mecca's gate
That wingèd steed bestrode, whose mane of fire
Blazed up the zenith, when, by Allah called,
He bore the Prophet to the walls of Heaven,
Was like to Kubleh, Sofuk's wondrous mare:
Not all the milk-white barbs, whose hoofs dashed flame,
In Baghdad's stables, from the marble floor,—
Who, swathed in purple housings, pranced in state
The gay bazaars, by great Al-Raschid backed:
Not the wild charger of Mongolian breed
That went o'er half the world with Tamerlane:
Nor yet those flying coursers, long ago
From Ormuz brought by swarthy Indian grooms
To Persia's kings,—the foals of sacred mares,
Sired by the fiery stallions of the sea!

“Who ever told, in all the Desert Land,
The many deeds of Kubleh? Who can tell
Whence came she? whence her like shall come again?
O Arabs! sweet as tales of Scheherazade
Heard in the camp, when javelin shafts are tried
On the hot eve of battle, are the words
That tell the marvels of her history.

“Far in the Southern sands, the hunters say,
Did Sofuk find her, by a lonely palm.
The well had dried; her fierce, impatient eye
Glared red and sunken, and her slight young limbs
Were lean with thirst. He checked his camel's pace,
And, while it knelt, untied the water-skin,
And when the wild mare drank, she followed him.
Thence none but Sofuk might the saddle gird
Upon her back, or clasp the brazen gear
About her shining head, that brooked no curb
From even him; for she, alike, was royal.

“Her form was lighter, in its shifting grace,
Than some impassioned almeh's, when the dance
Unbinds her scarf, and golden anklets gleam,
Through floating drapery, on the buoyant air.
Her light, free head was ever held aloft;
Between her slender and transparent ears
The silken forelock tossed; her nostril's arch,
Thin-blown, in proud and pliant beauty spread
Snuffing the desert winds. Her glossy neck
Curved to the shoulder like an eagle's wing,
And all her matchless lines of flank and limb
Seemed fashioned from the flying shapes of air.
When sounds of warlike preparation rang
From tent to tent, her keen and restless eye
Shone blood-red as a ruby, and her neigh
Rang wild and sharp above the clash of spears.

“The tribes of Tigris and the Desert knew her:
Sofuk before the Shammar bands she bore
To meet the dread Jebours, who waited not
To bid her welcome; and the savage Koord,
Chased from his bold irruption on the plain,
Has seen her hoof-prints in his mountain snow.
Lithe as the dark-eyed Syrian gazelle,
O'er ledge, and chasm, and barren steep amid
The Sinjar-hills, she ran the wild ass down.
Through many a battle's thickest brunt she stormed,
Reeking with sweat and dust, and fetlock deep
In curdling gore. When hot and lurid haze
Stifled the crimson sun, she swept before
The whirling sand-spout, till her gusty mane
Flared in its vortex, while the camels lay
Groaning and helpless on the fiery waste.

“The tribes of Taurus and the Caspian knew her:
The Georgian chiefs have heard her trumpet neigh
Before the walls of Tiflis; pines that grow
On ancient Caucasus have harbored her,
Sleeping by Sofuk in their spicy gloom.

The surf of Trebizond has bathed her flanks,
When from the shore she saw the white-sailed bark
That brought him home from Stamboul. Never yet,
O Arabs! never yet was like to Kubleh!

“And Sofuk loved her. She was more to him
Than all his snowy-bosomed odalisques.
For many years she stood beside his tent,
The glory of the tribe.

“At last she died,—
Died, while the fire was yet in all her limbs,—
Died for the life of Sofuk, whom she loved.
The base Jebours,—on whom be Allah's curse!—
Came on his path, when far from any camp,
And would have slain him, but that Kubleh sprang
Against the javelin points, and bore them down,
And gained the open Desert. Wounded sore,
She urged her light limbs into maddening speed,
And made the wind a laggard. On and on
The red sand slid beneath her, and behind
Whirled in a swift and cloudy turbulence,
As when some star of Eblis, downward hurled
By Allah's bolt, sweeps with its burning hair
The waste of darkness. On and on the bleak,
Bare ridges rose before her, came, and passed,
And every flying leap with fresher blood
Her nostrils stained, till Sofuk's brow and breast
Were flecked with crimson foam. He would have turned
To save his treasure, though himself were lost,
But Kubleh fiercely snapped the brazen rein.
At last, when through her spent and quivering frame
The sharp throes ran, our clustering tents arose,
And with a neigh, whose shrill access of joy
O'ercame its agony, she stopped and fell.
The Shammar men came round her as she lay,
And Sofuk raised her head, and held it close
Against his breast. Her dull and glazing eye
Met his, and with a shuddering gasp she died.
Then like a child his bursting grief made way
In passionate tears, and with him all the tribe
Wept for the faithful mare.

“They dug her grave
Amid El-Hather's marbles, where she lies
Buried with ancient kings; and since that time
Was never seen, and will not be again.
O Arabs! though the world be doomed to live
As many moons as count the desert sands,
The like of glorious Kubleh. God is great!”

1849.

METEMPSYCHOSIS OF THE PINE

As when the haze of some wan moonlight makes
Familiar fields a land of mystery,
Where, chill and strange, a ghostly presence wakes
In flower, and bush, and tree,—

Another life, the life of Day o'erwhelms;
The Past from present consciousness takes hue,
And we remember vast and cloudy realms
Our feet have wandered through:

So, oft, some moonlight of the mind makes dumb
The stir of outer thought: wide open seems
The gate wherethrough strange sympathies have come,
The secret of our dreams;

The source of fine impressions, shooting deep
Below the failing plummet of the sense;
Which strike beyond all Time, and backward sweep
Through all intelligence.

We touch the lower life of beast and clod,
And the long process of the ages see
From blind old Chaos, ere the breath of God
Moved it to harmony.

All outward wisdom yields to that within,
Whereof nor creed nor canon holds the key;
We only feel that we have ever been,
And evermore shall be.

And thus I know, by memories unfurled
In rarer moods, and many a nameless sign,
That once in Time, and somewhere in the world,
I was a towering Pine,

Rooted upon a cape that overhung
The entrance to a mountain gorge whereon
The wintry shadow of a peak was flung,
Long after rise of sun.

Behind, the silent snows; and wide below,
The rounded hills made level, lessening down
To where a river washed with sluggish flow
A many-templed town.

There did I clutch the granite with firm feet,
There shake my boughs above the roaring gulf,
When mountain whirlwinds through the passes beat,
And howled the mountain wolf.

There did I louder sing than all the floods
Whirled in white foam above the precipice,
And the sharp sleet that stung the naked woods
Answer with sullen hiss:

But when the peaceful clouds rose white and high
On blandest airs that April skies could bring,
Through all my fibres thrilled the tender sigh.
The sweet unrest of Spring.

She, with warm fingers laced in mine, did melt
In fragrant balsam my reluctant blood;
And with a smart of keen delight I felt
The sap in every bud,

And tingled through my rough old bark, and fast
Pushed out the younger green, that smoothed my tones,
When last year's needles to the wind I cast,
And shed my scaly cones.

I held the eagle till the mountain mist
Rolled from the azure paths he came to soar,
And like a hunter, on my gnarled wrist
The dappled falcon bore.

Poised o'er the blue abyss, the morning lark
Sang, wheeling near in rapturous carouse;
And hart and hind, soft-pacing through the dark,
Slept underneath my boughs.

Down on the pasture-slopes the herdsman lay,
And for the flock his birchen trumpet blew;

There ruddy children tumbled in their play,
And lovers came to woo.

And once an army, crowned with triumph, came
Out of the hollow bosom of the gorge,
With mighty banners in the wind aflame,
Borne on a glittering surge

Of tossing spears, a flood that homeward rolled,
While cymbals timed their steps of victory,
And horn and clarion from their throats of gold
Sang with a savage glee.

I felt the mountain walls below me shake,
Vibrant with sound, and through my branches poured
The glorious gust: my song thereto did make
Magnificent accord.

Some blind harmonic instinct pierced the rind
Of that slow life which made me straight and high,
And I became a harp for every wind,
A voice for every sky;

When fierce autumnal gales began to blow,
Roaring all day in concert, hoarse and deep;
And then made silent with my weight of snow—
A spectre on the steep;

Filled with a whispering gush, like that which flows
Through organ-stops, when sank the sun's red disk
Beyond the city, and in blackness rose
Temple and obelisk;

Or breathing soft, as one who sighs in prayer,
Mysterious sounds of portent and of might,
What time I felt the wandering waves of air
Pulsating through the night.

And thus for centuries my rhythmic chant
Rolled down the gorge, or surged about the hill:
Gentle, or stern, or sad, or jubilant,
At every season's will.

No longer Memory whispers whence arose
The doom that tore me from my place of pride:
Whether the storms that load the peak with snows,
And start the mountain-slide,

Let fall a fiery bolt to smite my top,
Upwrenched my roots, and o'er the precipice
Hurled me, a dangling wreck, erelong to drop
Into the wild abyss;

Or whether hands of men, with scornful strength
And force from Nature's rugged armory lent,
Sawed through my heart and rolled my tumbling length
Sheer down the steep descent.

All sense departed, with the boughs I wore;
And though I moved with mighty gales at strife,
A mast upon the seas, I sang no more,
And music was my life.

Yet still that life awakens, brings again
Its airy anthems, resonant and long,
Till Earth and Sky, transfigured, fill my brain
With rhythmic sweeps of song.

Thence am I made a poet: thence are sprung
Those shadowy motions of the soul, that reach
Beyond all grasp of Art,—for which the tongue
Is ignorant of speech.

And if some wild, full-gathered harmony
Roll its unbroken music through my line,
There lives and murmurs, faintly though it be,
The Spirit of the Pine.

1851.

THE SOLDIER AND THE PARD

A second deluge! Well,—no matter: here,
At least, is better shelter than the lean,
Sharp-elbowed oaks,—a dismal company!
That stood around us in the mountain road
When that cursed axle broke: a roof of thatch,
A fire of withered boughs, and best of all,
This ruddy wine of Languedoc, that warms
One through and through, from heart to finger-ends.
No better quarters for a stormy night
A soldier, like myself, could ask; and since
The rough Cevennes refuse to let us forth,
Why, fellow-travellers, if so you will,
I'll tell the story cut so rudely short
When both fore-wheels broke from the diligence,
Stocked in the rut, and pitched us all together:
I said, we fought beside the Pyramids;
And somehow, from the glow of this good wine,
And from the gloomy rain, that shuts one in
With his own self,—a sorry mate sometimes!—
The scene comes back like life. As then, I feel
The sun, and breathe the hot Egyptian air,
Hear Kleber, see the sabre of Dessaix
Flash at the column's front, and in the midst
Napoleon, upon his Barbary horse,
Calm, swarthy-browed, and wiser than the Sphinx
Whose granite lips guard Egypt's mystery.
Ha! what a rout! our cannon bellowed round
The Pyramids: the Mamelukes closed in,
And hand to hand like devils did we fight,
Rolled towards Sakkara in the smoke and sand.

For days we followed up the Nile. We pitched
Our tents in Memphis, pitched them on the site
Of Antinoë, and beside the cliffs
Of Aboufayda. Then we came anon
On Kenneh, ere the sorely-frightened Bey
Had time to pack his harem: nay, we took
His camels, not his wives: and so, from day
To day, past wrecks of temples half submerged
In sandy inundation, till we saw
Old noseless Memnon sitting on the plain,
Both hands upon his knees, and in the east
Karnak's propylon and its pillared court.
The sphinxes wondered—such as had a face—
To see us stumbling down their avenues;
But we kept silent. One may whistle round
Your Roman temples here at Nismes, or dance
Upon the Pont du Gard;—but, take my word,
Egyptian ruins are a serious thing:
You would not dare let fly a joke beside
The maimed colossi, though your very feet
Might catch between some mummied Pharaoh's ribs.

Dessaix was bent on chasing Mamelukes,
And so we rummaged tomb and catacomb,
Clambered the hills and watched the Desert's rim

For sight of horse. One day my company
(I was but ensign then) found far within
The sands, a two-days' journey from the Nile,
A round oasis, like a jewel set.
It was a grove of date-trees, clustering close
About a tiny spring, whose overflow
Trickled beyond their shade a little space,
And the insatiate Desert licked it up.
The fiery ride, the glare of afternoon
Had burned our faces, so we stopped to feel
The coolness and the shadow, like a bath
Of pure ambrosial lymph, receive our limbs
And sweeten every sense. Drowsed by the soft,
Delicious greenness and repose, I crept
Into a balmy nest of yielding shrubs,
And floated off to slumber on a cloud
Of rapturous sensation.

When I woke,
So deep had been the oblivion of that sleep,
That Adam, when he woke in Paradise,
Was not more blank of knowledge; he had felt
As heedlessly, the silence and the shade;
As ignorantly had raised his eyes and seen—
As, for a moment, I—what then I saw
With terror, freezing limb and voice like death,
When the slow sense, supplying one lost link,
Ran with electric fleetness through the chain
And showed me what I was,—no miracle,
But lost and left alone amid the waste,
Fronting a deadly Pard, that kept great eyes
Fixed steadily on mine. I could not move:
My heart beat slow and hard: I sat and gazed,
Without a wink, upon those jasper orbs,
Noting the while, with horrible detail,
Whereto my fascinated sight was bound,
Their tawny brilliance, and the spotted fell
That wrinkled round them, smoothly sloping back
And curving to the short and tufted ears.
I felt—and with a sort of fearful joy—
The beauty of the creature: 't was a pard,
Not such as one of those they show you caged
In Paris,—lean and scurvy beasts enough!
No: but a desert pard, superb and proud,
That would have died behind the cruel bars.

I think the creature had not looked on man,
For, as my brain grew cooler, I could see
Small sign of fierceness in her eyes, but chief,
Surprise and wonder. More and more entranced,
Her savage beauty warmed away the chill
Of deathlike terror at my heart: I stared
With kindling admiration, and there came
A gradual softness o'er the flinty light
Within her eyes; a shadow crept around
Their yellow disks, and something like a dawn
Of recognition of superior will,
Of brute affection, sympathy enslaved
By higher nature, then informed her face.
Thrilling in every nerve, I stretched my hand,—
She silent, moveless,—touched her velvet head,
And with a warm, sweet shiver in my blood,
Stroked down the ruffled hairs. She did not start;

But, in a moment's lapse, drew up one paw
And moved a step,—another,—till her breath
Came hot upon my face. She stopped: she rolled
A deep-voiced note of pleasure and of love,
And gathering up her spotted length, lay down,
Her head upon my lap, and forward thrust
One heavy-moulded paw across my knees,
The glittering talons sheathing tenderly.
Thus we, in that oasis all alone,
Sat when the sun went down: the Pard and I,
Caressing and caressed: and more of love
And more of confidence between us came,
I grateful for my safety, she alive
With the dumb pleasure of companionship,
Which touched with instincts of humanity
Her brutish nature. When I slept, at last,
My arm was on her neck.

The morrow brought
No rupture of the bond between us twain.
The creature loved me; she would bounding come,
Cat-like, to rub her great, smooth, yellow head
Against my knee, or with rough tongue would lick
The hand that stroked the velvet of her hide.
How beautiful she was! how lithe and free
The undulating motions of her frame!
How shone, like isles of tawny gold, her spots,
Mapped on the creamy white! And when she walked,
No princess, with the crown about her brows,
Looked so superbly royal. Ah, my friends,
Smile as you may, but I would give this life
With its fantastic pleasures—aye, even that
One leads in Paris—to be back again
In the red Desert with my splendid Pard.

That grove of date-trees was our home, our world,
A star of verdure in a sky of sand.
Without the feathery fringes of its shade
The naked Desert ran, its burning round
Sharp as a sword: the naked sky above,
Awful in its immensity, not shone
There only, where the sun supremely flamed,
But all its deep-blue walls were penetrant
With dazzling light. God reigned in Heaven and Earth,
An Everlasting Presence, and his care
Fed us, alike his children. From the trees
That shook down pulpy dates, and from the spring,
The quiet author of that happy grove,
My wants were sated; and when midnight came,
Then would the Pard steal softly from my side,
Take the unmeasured sand with flying leaps
And vanish in the dusk, returning soon
With a gazelle's light carcass in her jaws.
So passed the days, and each the other taught
Our simple language. She would come at call
Of the pet name I gave her, bound and sport
When so I bade, and she could read my face
Through all its changing moods, with better skill
Than many a Christian comrade. Pard and beast,
Though you may say she was, she had a soul.

But Sin will find the way to Paradise.
Erelong the sense of isolation fed

My mind with restless fancies. I began
To miss the life of camp, the march, the fight,
The soldier's emulation: youthful blood
Ran in my veins: the silence lost its charm,
And when the morning sunrise lighted up
The threshold of the Desert, I would gaze
With looks of bitter longing o'er the sand.
At last, I filled my soldier's sash with dates,
Drank deeply of the spring, and while the Pard
Roamed in the starlight for her forage took
A westward course. The grove already lay
A dusky speck—no more—when through the night
Came the forsaken creature's eager cry.
Into a sandy pit I crept, and heard
Her bounding on my track until she rolled
Down from the brink upon me. Then with cries
Of joy and of distress, the touching proof
Of the poor beast's affection, did she strive
To lift me—Pardon, friends! these foolish eyes
Must have their will: and had you seen her then,
In her mad gambols, as we homeward went,
Your hearts had softened too.

But I, possessed
By some vile devil of mistrust, became
More jealous and impatient. In my heart
I cursed the grove, and with suspicions wronged
The noble Pard. She keeps me here, I thought,
Deceived with false caresses, as a cat
Toys with the trembling mouse she straight devours.
Will she so gently fawn about my feet,
When the gazelles are gone? Will she crunch dates,
And drink the spring, whose only drink is blood?
Am I to ruin flattered, and by whom?—
Not even a man, a wily beast of prey.
Thus did the Devil whisper in mine ear,
Till those black thoughts were rooted in my heart
And made me cruel. So it chanced one day,
That as I watched a flock of birds that wheeled,
And dipped, and circled in the air, the Pard,
Moved by a freak of fond solicitude
To win my notice, closed her careful fangs
About my knee. Scarce knowing what I did,
In the blind impulse of suspicious fear,
I plunged, full home, my dagger in her neck.
God! could I but recall that blow! She loosed
Her hold, as softly as a lover quits
His mistress' lips, and with a single groan,
Full of reproach and sorrow, sank and died.
What had I done! Sure never on this earth
Did sharper grief so base a deed requite.
Its murderous fury gone, my heart was racked
With pangs of wild contrition, spent itself
In cries and tears, the while I called on God
To curse me for my sin. There lay the Pard,
Her splendid eyes all film, her blazoned fell
Smirched with her blood; and I, her murderer,
Less than a beast, had thus repaid her love.

Ah, friends! with all this guilty memory
My heart is sore: and little now remains

To tell you, but that afterwards—how long,
I could not know—our soldiers picked me up,
Wandering about the Desert, wild with grief
And sobbing like a child. My nerves have grown
To steel, in many battles; I can step
Without a shudder through the heaps of slain;
But never, never, till the day I die,
Prevent a woman's weakness when I think
Upon my desert Pard: and if a man
Deny this truth she taught me, to his face
I say he lies: a beast may have a soul.

1851.

ARIEL IN THE CLOVEN PINE

Now the frosty stars are gone:
I have watched them one by one,
Fading on the shores of Dawn.
Round and full the glorious sun
Walks with level step the spray,
Through his vestibule of Day,
While the wolves that late did howl
Slink to dens and coverts foul,
Guarded by the demon owl,
Who, last night, with mocking croon,
Wheeled athwart the chilly moon,
And with eyes that blankly glared
On my direful torment stared.

The lark is flickering in the light;
Still the nightingale doth sing;—
All the isle, alive with Spring,
Lies, a jewel of delight,
On the blue sea's heaving breast:
Not a breath from out the West,
But some balmy smell doth bring
From the sprouting myrtle buds,
Or from meadowy vales that lie
Like a green inverted sky,
Which the yellow cowslip stars,
And the bloomy almond woods,
Cloud-like, cross with roseate bars.
All is life that I can spy,
To the farthest sea and sky,
And my own the only pain
Within this ring of Tyrrhene main.

In the gnarled and cloven Pine
Where that hell-born hag did chain me
All this orb of cloudless shine,
All this youth in Nature's veins
Tingling with the season's wine,
With a sharper torment pain me.
Pansies in soft April rains
Fill their stalks with honeyed sap
Drawn from Earth's prolific lap;
But the sluggish blood she brings
To the tough Pine's hundred rings
Closer locks their cruel hold,
Closer draws the scaly bark
Round the crevice, damp and cold,
Where my useless wings I fold,—
Sealing me in iron dark.
By this coarse and alien state
Is my dainty essence wronged;
Finer senses that belonged
To my freedom, chafe at Fate,
Till the happier elves I hate,
Who in moonlight dances turn
Underneath the palmy fern,
Or in light and twinkling bands
Follow on with linkèd hands
To the Ocean's yellow sands.

Primrose-eyes each morning ope
In their cool, deep beds of grass;
Violets make the airs that pass
Telltales of their fragrant slope.
I can see them where they spring
Never brushed by fairy wing.
All those corners I can spy
In the island's solitude,
Where the dew is never dry,
Nor the miser bees intrude.
Cups of rarest hue are there,
Full of perfumed wine undrained,—
Mushroom banquets, ne'er profaned,
Canopied by maiden-hair.
Pearls I see upon the sands,
Never touched by other hands,
And the rainbow bubbles shine
On the ridged and frothy brine,
Tenantless of voyager
Till they burst in vacant air.
Oh, the songs that sung might be,
And the mazy dances woven,
Had that witch ne'er crossed the sea
And the Pine been never cloven!

Many years my direst pain
Has made the wave-rocked isle complain.
Winds, that from the Cyclades

Came, to blow in wanton riot
Round its shore's enchanted quiet,
Bore my wailings on the seas:
Sorrowing birds in Autumn went
Through the world with my lament.
Still the bitter fate is mine,
All delight unshared to see,
Smarting in the cloven Pine,
While I wait the tardy axe
Which, perchance, shall set me free
From the damned Witch Sycorax.

1849.

POEMS OF THE ORIENT

1851–1854

Da der West war durchgekostet,
Hat er nun den Ost entmostet.
Rückert.

PROEM DEDICATORY

AN EPISTLE FROM MOUNT TMOLUS TO RICHARD HENRY STODDARD

I

O Friend, were you but couched on Tmolus' side,
In the warm myrtles, in the golden air
Of the declining day, which half lays bare,
Half drapes, the silent mountains and the wide
Embosomed vale, that wanders to the sea;
And the far sea, with doubtful specks of sail,
And farthest isles, that slumber tranquilly
Beneath the Ionian autumn's violet veil;—
Were you but with me, little were the need
Of this imperfect artifice of rhyme,
Where the strong Fancy peals a broken chime
And the ripe brain but sheds a abortive seed.
But I am solitary, and the curse,
Or blessing, which has clung to me from birth—
The torment and the ecstasy of verse—
Comes up to me from the illustrious earth
Of ancient Tmolus; and the very stones,
Reverberant, din the mellow air with tones
Which the sweet air remembers; and they blend
With fainter echoes, which the mountains fling
From far oracular caverns: so, my Friend,
I cannot choose but sing!

II

Unto mine eye, less plain the shepherds be,
Tending their browsing goats amid the broom,
Or the slow camels, travelling towards the sea,
Laden with bales from Baghdad's gaudy loom,
Or yon nomadic Turcomans, that go
Down from their summer pastures—than the twain
Immortals, who on Tmolus' thymy top
Sang, emulous, the rival strain!
Down the charmed air did light Apollo drop;
Great Pan ascended from the vales below.
I see them sitting in the silent glow;
I hear the alternating measures flow

From pipe and golden lyre;—the melody
Heard by the Gods between their nectar bowls,
Or when, from out the chambers of the sea,
Comes the triumphant Morning, and unrolls
A pathway for the sun; then, following swift,
The dædal harmonies of awful caves
Cleft in the hills, and forests that uplift
Their sea-like boom, in answer to the waves,
With many a lighter strain, that dances o'er
The wedded reeds, till Echo strives in vain
To follow:
Hark! once more,
How floats the God's exultant strain
In answer to Apollo!

“The wind in the reeds and the rushes,
The bees on the bells of thyme,
The birds on the myrtle bushes,
The cicàle above in the lime,
And the lizards below in the grass
Are as silent as ever old Tmolus was,
Listening to my sweet pipings.”

III

I cannot separate the minstrels' worth;
Each is alike transcendent and divine.
What were the Day, unless it lighted Earth?
And what were Earth, should Day forget to shine!
But were you here, my Friend, we twain would build
Two altars, on the mountain's sunward side:
There Pan should o'er my sacrifice preside,
And there Apollo your oblation gild.
He is your God, but mine is shaggy Pan;
Yet, as their music no discordance made,
So shall our offerings side by side be laid,
And the same wind the rival incense fan.

IV

You strain your ear to catch the harmonies
That in some finer region have their birth;
I turn, despairing, from the quest of these,
And seek to learn the native tongue of Earth.
In “Fancy's tropic clime” your castle stands,
A shining miracle of rarest art;
I pitch my tent upon the naked sands,
And the tall palm, that plumes the orient lands,
Can with its beauty satisfy my heart.
You, in your starry trances, breathe the air
Of lost Elysium, pluck the snowy bells
Of lotus and Olympian asphodels,
And bid us their diviner odors share.
I at the threshold of that world have lain,
Gazed on its glory, heard the grand acclaim
Wherewith its trumpets hail the sons of Fame,
And striven its speech to master—but in vain.

And now I turn, to find a late content
In Nature, making mine her myriad shows;
Better contented with one living rose
Than all the Gods' ambrosia; sternly bent
On wresting from her hand the cup, whence flow
The flavors of her ruddiest life—the change
Of climes and races—the unshackled range
Of all experience;—that my songs my show
The warm red blood that beats in hearts of men,
And those who read them in the festering den
Of cities, may behold the open sky,
And hear the rhythm of the winds that blow,
Instinct with Freedom. Blame me not, that I
Find in the forms of Earth a deeper joy
Than in the dreams which lured me as a boy,
And leave the Heavens, where you are wandering still
With bright Apollo, to converse with Pan;
For, though full soon our courses separate ran,
We, like the Gods, can meet on Tmolus' hill.

V

There is no jealous rivalry in Song:
I see your altar on the hill-top shine,
And mine is built in shadows of the Pine,
Yet the same worships unto each belong.
Different the Gods, yet one the sacred awe
Their presence brings us, one the reverent heart
Wherewith we honor the immortal law
Of that high inspiration, which is Art.
Take, therefore, Friend! these Voices of the Earth,
The rhythmic records of my life's career,
Humble, perhaps, yet wanting not the worth
Of Truth, and to the heart of Nature near.
Take them, and your acceptance, in the dearth
Of the world's tardy praise, shall make them dear.

A PÆAN TO THE DAWN

I

The dusky sky fades into blue,
And bluer waters bind us;
The stars are glimmering faint and few,
The night is left behind us!
Turn not where sinks the sullen dark
Before the signs of warning,
But crowd the canvas on our bark
And sail to meet the morning.
Rejoice! rejoice! the hues that fill
The orient, flush and lighten;
And over the blue Ionian hill
The Dawn begins to brighten!

II

We leave the Night, that weighed so long
Upon the soul's endeavor,
For Morning, on these hills of Song,
Has made her home forever.
Hark to the sound of trump and lyre,
In the olive-groves before us,
And the rhythmic beat, the pulse of fire
Throbs in the full-voice chorus!
More than Memnonian grandeur speaks
In the triumph of the pæan,
And all the glory of the Greeks
Breathes o'er the old Ægean.

III

Here shall the ancient Dawn return,
That lit the earliest poet,
Whose very ashes in his urn
Would radiate glory through it,—
The dawn of Life, when Life was Song,
And Song the life of Nature,
And the Singer stood amid the throng,—
A God in every feature!
When Love was free, and free as air
The utterance of Passion,
And the heart in every fold lay bare,
Nor shamed its true expression.

IV

Then perfect limb and perfect face
Surpassed our best ideal;
Unconscious Nature's law was grace,—
The Beautiful was real.
For men acknowledged true desires,
And light as garlands wore them;
They were begot by vigorous sires,
And noble mothers bore them.
Oh, when the shapes of Art they planned
Were living forms of passion,
Impulse and Deed went hand in hand,
And Life was more than Fashion!

V

The seeds of Song they scattered first
Flower in all later pages;
Their forms have woke the Artist's thirst
Through the succeeding ages:
But I will seek the fountain-head
Whence flowed their inspiration,
And lead the unshackled life they led,
Accordant with Creation.
The World's false life, that follows still,
Has ceased its chain to tighten,
And over the blue Ionian hill
I see the sunrise brighten?

1854.

THE POET IN THE EAST

The Poet came to the Land of the East,
When spring was in the air:
The Earth was dressed for a wedding feast,
So young she seemed, and fair;
And the Poet knew the Land of the East,—
His soul was native there.

All things to him were the visible forms
Of early and precious dreams,—
Familiar visions that mocked his quest
Beside the Western streams,
Or gleamed in the gold of the clouds, unrolled
In the sunset's dying beams.

He looked above in the cloudless calm,
And the Sun sat on his throne;
The breath of gardens, deep in balm,
Was all about him blown,
And a brother to him was the princely Palm,
For he cannot live alone.

His feet went forth on the myrtled hills,
And the flowers their welcome shed;
The meads of milk-white asphodel
They knew the Poet's tread,
And far and wide, in a scarlet tide,
The poppy's bonfire spread.

And, half in shade and half in sun,
The Rose sat in her bower,
With a passionate thrill in her crimson heart—
She had waited for the hour!
And, like a bride's, the Poet kissed
The lips of the glorious flower.

Then the Nightingale, who sat above
In the boughs of the citron-tree,
Sang: We are no rivals, brother mine,
Except in minstrelsy;
For the rose you kissed with the kiss of love,
She is faithful still to me.

And further sang the Nightingale:
Your bower not distant lies.
I heard the sound of a Persian lute
From the jasmined window rise,
And, twin-bright stars, through the lattice-bars,
I saw the Sultana's eyes.

The Poet said: I will here abide,
In the Sun's unclouded door;

Here are the wells of all delight
On the lost Arcadian shore:
Here is the light on sea and land,
And the dream deceives no more.

Cawnpore, 1853.

THE TEMPTATION OF HASSAN BEN KHALED

I

Hassan Ben Khaled, singing in the streets
Of Cairo, sang these verses at my door:
“Blessed is he, who God and Prophet greets
Each morn with prayer; but he is blest much more
Whose conduct is his prayer's interpreter
Sweeter than musk, and pleasanter than myrrh,
Richer than rubies, shall his portion be,
When God bids Azrael, ‘Bring him unto me!’
But woe to him whose life casts dirt upon
The Prophet's word! When all his days are done,
Him shall the Evil Angel trample down
Out of the sight of God.” Thus, with a frown
Of the severest virtue, Hassan sang
Unto the people, till the markets rang.

II

But two days after this, he came again
And sang, and I remarked an altered strain.
Before my shop he stood, with forehead bent
Like one whose sin hath made him penitent,—
In whom the pride, that like a stately reed
Lifted his head, is broken. “Blest indeed,”
(These were his words,) “is he who never fell,
But blest much more, who from the verge of Hell
Climbs up to Paradise: for Sin is sweet;
Strong is Temptation; willing are the feet
That follow Pleasure, manifold her snares,
And pitfalls lurk beneath our very prayers:
Yet God, the Clement, the Compassionate,
In pity of our weakness keeps the gate
Of Pardon open, scorning not to wait
Till the last moment, when His mercy flings
Splendor from the shade of Azrael's wings.”
“Wherefore, O Poet!” I to Hassan said,
“This altered measure? Wherefore hang your head,
O Hassan! whom the pride of virtue gives
The right to face the holiest man that lives?
Enter, I pray thee: this poor house will be
Honored henceforth, if it may shelter thee.”
Hassan Ben Khaled lifted up his eyes
To mine, a moment: then, in cheerful guise,
He passed my threshold with unslippered feet.

III

I led him from the noises of the street
To the cool inner chambers, where my slave
Poured out the pitcher's rosy-scented wave
Over his hands, and laid upon his knee
The napkin, silver-fringed: and when the pipe
Exhaled a grateful odor from the ripe
Latakian leaves, said Hassan unto me:
“Listen, O Man! no man can truly say
That he hath wisdom. What I sang to-day
Was not less truth than what I sang before,
But to Truth's house there is a single door,

Which is Experience. He teaches best,
Who feels the hearts of all men in his breast,
And knows their strength or weakness through his own.
The holy pride, that never was o'erthrown,
Was never tempted, and its words of blame
Reach but the dull ears of the multitude:
The admonitions, fruitful unto good,
Come from the voice of him who conquers shame.”

IV

“Give me, O Poet! (if thy friend may be
Worthy such confidence,)” I said, “the key
Unto thy words, that I may share with thee
Thine added wisdom.” Hassan's kindly eye
Before his lips unclosed, spake willingly,
And he began: “But two days since, I went
Singing what thou didst hear, with soul intent
On my own virtue, all the markets through;
And when about the time of prayer, I drew
Near the Gate of Victory, behold!
There came a man, whose turban fringed with gold
And golden cimeter, bespake his wealth:
‘May God prolong thy days, O Hassan! Health
And Fortune be thy wisdom's aids!’ he cried;
‘Come to my garden by the river's side,
Where other poets wait thee. Be my guest,
For even the Prophets had their times of rest,
And Rest, that strengthens unto virtuous deeds,
Is one with Prayer.’ Two royal-blooded steeds,
Held by his grooms, were waiting at the gate,
And though I shrank from such unwonted state
The master's words were manna to my pride,
And, mounting straightway, forth we twain did ride
Unto the garden by the river's side.

V

“Never till then had I beheld such bloom.
The west-wind sent its heralds of perfume
To bid us welcome, midway on the road.
Full in the sun the marble portal glowed
Like silver, but within the garden wall
No ray of sunshine found a place to fall,
So thick the crowning foliage of the trees,
Roofing the walks with twilight; and the air
Under their tops was greener than the seas,
And cool as they. The forms that wandered there
Resembled those who populate the floor
Of Ocean, and the royal lineage own
That gave a Princess unto Persia's throne.
All fruits the trees of this fair garden bore,
Whose balmy fragrance lured the tongue to taste
Their flavors: there bananas flung to waste
Their golden flagons with thick honey filled;
From splintered cups the ripe pomegranates spilled
A shower of rubies; oranges that glow
Like globes of fire, enclosed a heart of snow
Which thawed not in their flame; like balls of gold
The peaches seemed, that had in blood been rolled;
Pure saffron mixed with clearest amber stained
The apricots; bunches of amethyst
And sapphire seemed the grapes, so newly kissed
That still the mist of Beauty's breath remained;

And where the lotus slowly swung in air
Her snowy-bosomed chalice, rosy-veined,
The golden fruit swung softly-cradled there,
Even as a bell upon the bosom swings
Of some fair dancer,—happy bell, that sings
For joy, its golden tinkle keeping time
To the heart's beating and the cymbal's chime!
There dates of agate and of jasper lay,
Dropped from the bounty of the pregnant palm,
And all ambrosial trees, all fruits of balm,
All flowers of precious odors, made the day
Sweet as a morn of Paradise. My breath
Failed with the rapture, and with doubtful mind
I turned to where the garden's lord reclined,
And asked, ‘Was not that gate the Gate of Death?’

VI

“The guests were near a fountain. As I came
They rose in welcome, wedding to my name
Titles of honor, linked in choicest phrase,
For Poets' ears are ever quick to Praise,
The ‘Open Sesamè!’ whose magic art
Forces the guarded entrance of the heart.
Young men were they, whose manly beauty made
Their words the sweeter, and their speech displayed
Knowledge of men, and of the Prophet's laws.
Pleasant our converse was, where every pause
Gave to the fountain leave to sing its song,
Suggesting further speech; until, erelong,
There came a troop of swarthy slaves, who bore
Ewers and pitchers all of silver ore,
Wherein we washed our hands; then, tables placed,
And brought us meats of every sumptuous taste
That makes the blood rich,—pheasants stuffed with spice;
Young lambs, whose entrails were of cloves and rice;
Ducks bursting with pistachio nuts, and fish
That in a bed of parsley swam. Each dish,
Cooked with such art, seemed better than the last,
And our indulgence in the rich repast
Brought on the darkness ere we missed the day:
But lamps were lighted in the fountain's spray,
Or, pendent from the boughs, their colors told
What fruits unseen, of crimson or of gold,
Scented the gloom. Then took the generous host
A basket filled with roses. Every guest
Cried, ‘Give me roses!’ and he thus addressed
His words to all: ‘He who exalts them most
In song, he only shall the roses wear.’
Then sang a guest: ‘The rose's cheeks are fair;
It crowns the purple bowl, and no one knows
If the rose colors it, or it the rose.’
And sang another: ‘Crimson is its hue,
And on its breast the morning's crystal dew
Is changed to rubies.’ Then a third replied:
‘It blushes in the sun's enamored sight,
As a young virgin on her wedding night,
When from her face the bridegroom lifts the veil.’
When all had sung their songs, I, Hassan, tried.
‘The Rose,’ I sang, ‘is either red or pale,
Like maidens whom the flame of passion burns,
And Love or Jealousy controls, by turns.

Its buds are lips preparing for a kiss;
Its open flowers are like the blush of bliss
On lovers' cheeks; the thorns its armor are,
And in its centre shines a golden star,
As on a favorite's cheek a sequin glows—
And thus the garden's favorite is the Rose.’

VII

“The master from his open basket shook
The roses on my head. The others took
Their silver cups, and filling them with wine,
Cried, ‘Pledge our singing, Hassan, as we thine!’
But I exclaimed, ‘What is it I have heard?
Wine is forbidden by the Prophet's word:
Surely, O Friends! ye would not lightly break
The laws which bring ye blessing?’ Then they spake:
‘O Poet, learn thou that the law was made
For men, and not for poets. Turn thine eye
Within, and read the nature there displayed;
The gifts thou hast doth Allah's grace deny
To common men; they lift thee o'er the rules
The Prophet fixed for sinners and for fools.
The vine is Nature's poet: from his bloom
The air goes reeling, tipsy with perfume,
And when the sun is warm within his blood
It mounts and sparkles in a crimson flood;
Rich with dumb songs he speaks not, till they find
Interpretation in the Poet's mind.
If Wine be evil, Song is evil too;
Then cease thy singing, lest it bring thee sin;
But wouldst thou know the strains which Hafiz knew,
Drink as he drank, and thus the secret win.’
They clasped my glowing hands; they held the bowl
Up to my lips, till, losing all control
Of the fierce thirst, which at my scruples laughed,
I drained the goblet at a single draught.
It ran through every limb like fluid fire:
‘More, O my Friends!’ I cried, the new desire
Raging within me: ‘this is life indeed!
From blood like this is coined the nobler seed
Whence poets are begotten. Drink again,
And give us music of a tender strain,
Linking your inspiration unto mine,
For music hovers on the lips of Wine!’

VIII

“‘Music!’ they shouted, echoing my demand,
And answered with a beckon of his hand
The gracious host, whereat a maiden, fair
As the last star that leaves the morning air,
Came down the leafy paths. Her veil revealed
The beauty of her face, which, half concealed
Behind its thin blue folds, showed like the moon
Behind a cloud that will forsake it soon.
Her hair was braided darkness, but the glance
Of lightning eyes shot from her countenance,
And showed her neck, that like an ivory tower
Rose o'er the twin domes of her marble breast.
Were all the beauty of this age compressed
Into one form, she would transcend its power.
Her step was lighter than the young gazelle's,

And as she walked, her anklet's golden bells
Tinkled with pleasure, but were quickly mute
With jealousy, as from a case she drew
With snowy hands the pieces of her lute,
And took her seat before me. As it grew
To perfect shape, her lovely arms she bent
Around the neck of the sweet instrument,
Till from her soft caresses it awoke
To consciousness, and thus its rapture spoke:
‘I was a tree within an Indian vale,
When first I heard the love-sick nightingale
Declare his passion: every leaf was stirred
With the melodious sorrow of the bird,
And when he ceased, the song remained with me.
Men came anon, and felled the harmless tree,
But from the memory of the songs I heard,
The spoiler saved me from the destiny
Whereby my brethren perished. O'er the sea
I came, and from its loud, tumultuous moan
I caught a soft and solemn undertone;
And when I grew beneath the maker's hand
To what thou seest, he sang (the while he planned)
The mirthful measures of a careless heart,
And of my soul his songs became a part.
Now they have laid my head upon a breast
Whiter than marble, I am wholly blest.
The fair hands smite me, and my strings complain
With such melodious cries, they smite again,
Until, with passion and with sorrow swayed,
My torment moves the bosom of the maid,
Who hears it speak her own. I am the voice
Whereby the lovers languish or rejoice;
And they caress me, knowing that my strain
Alone can speak the language of their pain.’

IX

“Here ceased the fingers of the maid to stray
Over the strings; the sweet song died away
In mellow, drowsy murmurs, and the lute
Leaned on her fairest bosom, and was mute.
Better than wine that music was to me:
Not the lute only felt her hands, but she
Played on my heart-strings, till the sounds became
Incarnate in the pulses of my frame.
Speech left my tongue, and in my tears alone
Found utterance. With stretched arms I implored
Continuance, whereat her fingers poured
A tenderer music, answering the tone
Her parted lips released, the while her throat
Throbbed, as a heavenly bird were fluttering there,
And gave her voice the wonder of his note.
‘His brow,’ she sang, ‘is white beneath his hair;
The fertile beard is soft upon his chin,
Shading the mouth that nestles warm within,
As a rose nestles in its leaves; I see
His eyes, but cannot tell what hue they be,
For the sharp eyelash, like a sabre, speaks
The martial law of Passion; in his cheeks
The quick blood mounts, and then as quickly goes,
Leaving a tint like marble when a rose
Is held inside it:—bid him veil his eyes,
Lest all my soul should unto mine arise,

And he behold it!’ As she sang, her glance
Dwelt on my face; her beauty, like a lance,
Transfixed my heart. I melted into sighs,
Slain by the arrows of her beauteous eyes.
‘Why is her bosom made’ (I cried) ‘a snare?
Why does a single ringlet of her hair
Hold my heart captive?’ ‘Would you know?’ she said;
‘It is that you are mad with love, and chains
Were made for madmen.’ Then she raised her head
With answering love, that led to other strains,
Until the lute, which shared with her the smart,
Rocked as in storm upon her beating heart.
Thus to its wires she made impassioned cries:
‘I swear it by the brightness of his eyes,
I swear it by the darkness of his hair;
By the warm bloom his limbs and bosom wear;
By the fresh pearls his rosy lips enclose;
By the calm majesty of his repose;
By smiles I coveted, and frowns I feared,
And by the shooting myrtles of his beard,—
I swear it, that from him the morning drew
Its freshness, and the moon her silvery hue,
The sun his brightness, and the stars their fire,
And musk and camphor all their odorous breath:
And if he answer not my love's desire,
Day will be night to me, and Life be Death!’

X

“Scarce had she ceased, when, overcome, I fell
Upon her bosom, where the lute no more
That night was cradled; song was silenced well
With kisses, each one sweeter than before,
Until their fiery dew so long was quaffed,
I drank delirium in the infectious draught.
The guests departed, but the sounds they made
I heard not; in the fountain-haunted shade
The lamps burned out; the moon rode far above,
But the trees chased her from our nest of love.
Dizzy with passion, in mine ears the blood
Tingled and hummed in a tumultuous flood,
Until from deep to deep I seemed to fall,
Like him, who from El Sirat's hair-drawn wall
Plunges to endless gulfs. In broken gleams
Glimmered the things I saw, so mixed with dreams
The vain confusion blinded every sense,
And knowledge left me. Then a sleep intense
Fell on my brain, and held me as the dead,
Until a sudden tumult smote my head,
And a strong glare, as when a torch is hurled
Before a sleeper's eyes, brought back the world.

XI

“Most wonderful! The fountain and the trees
Had disappeared, and in the place of these
I saw the well-known Gate of Victory.
The sun was high; the people looked at me,
And marvelled that a sleeper should be there
On the hot pavement, for the second prayer
Was called from all the minarets. I passed
My hand across my eyes, and found at last

What man I was. Then straightway through my heart
There rang a double pang,—the bitter smart
Of evil knowledge, and the unhealthy lust
Of sinful pleasure; and I threw the dust
Upon my head, the burial of my pride,—
The ashen soil, wherein I plant the tree
Of Penitence. The people saw, and cried,
‘May God reward thee, Hassan! Truly, thou,
Whom men have honored, addest to thy brow
The crowning lustre of Humility:
As thou abasest, God exalteth thee!’
Which when I heard, I shed such tears of shame
As might erase the record of my blame,
And from that time I have not dared to curse
The unrighteous, since the man who seemeth worse
Than I, may purer be; for, when I fell
Temptation reached a loftier pinnacle.
Therefore, O Man! be Charity thy aim:
Praise cannot harm, but weigh thy words of blame.
Distrust the Virtue that itself exalts,
But turn to that which doth avow its faults,
And from Repentance plucks a wholesome fruit.
Pardon, not Wrath, is God's best attribute.”

XII

“The tale, O Poet! which thy lips have told,”
I said, “is words of rubies set in gold.
Precious the wisdom which from evil draws
Strength to fulfil the good, of Allah's laws.
But lift thy head, O Hassan! Thine own words
Shall best console thee, for my tongue affords
No phrase but thanks for what thou hast bestowed;
And yet I fain would have thee shake the load
Of shame from off thy shoulders, seeing still
That by this fall thou hast increased thy will
To do the work which makes thee truly blest.”
Hassan Ben Khaled wept and smote his breast:
“Hold! hold, O Man!” he cried: “why make me feel
A deeper shame? Why force me to reveal
That Sin is as the leprous taint no art
Can cleanse the blood from? In my secret heart
I do believe I hold at dearer cost
The vanished Pleasure, than the Virtue lost.”

So saying, he arose and went his way;
And Allah grant he go no more astray.

1854.

EL KHALIL

I am no chieftain, fit to lead
Where spears are hurled and warriors bleed;
No poet, in my chanted rhyme
To rouse the ghosts of ancient time;
No magian, with a subtle ken
To rule the thoughts of other men;
Yet far as sounds the Arab tongue
My name is known to old and young.

My form has lost its pliant grace,
There is no beauty in my face,
There is no cunning in my arm,
The Children of the Sun to charm;
Yet, where I go, my people's eyes
Are lighted with a glad surprise,
And in each tent a couch is free,
And by each fire a place, for me.

They watch me from the palms, and some
Proclaim my coming ere I come.
The children lift my hand to meet
The homage of their kisses sweet;
With manly warmth the men embrace,
The veilèd maidens seek my face,

And eyes, fresh kindled from the heart
Keep loving watch when I depart.

On God, the Merciful, I call,
To shed His blessing over all:
I praise His name, for He is Great,
And Loving, and Compassionate;
And for the gift of love I give—
The breath of life whereby I live—
He gives me back, in overflow,
His children's love, where'er I go.

Deep sunk in sin the man must be
That has no friendly word for me.
I pass through tribes whose trade is death,
And not a sabre quits the sheath;
For strong, and cruel as they prove,
The sons of men are weak to Love.
The humblest gifts to them I bring;
Yet in their hearts I rule, a king.

1853.

SONG

Daughter of Egypt, veil thine eyes!
I cannot bear their fire;
Nor will I touch with sacrifice
Those altars of Desire.
For they are flames that shun the day,
And their unholy light
Is fed from natures gone astray
In passion and in night.

The stars of Beauty and of Sin,
They burn amid the dark,
Like beacons that to ruin win
The fascinated bark.
Then veil their glow, lest I forswear
The hopes thou canst not crown,
And in the black waves of thy hair
My struggling manhood drown!

1853.

AMRAN'S WOOING

I

You ask, O Frank! how Love is born
Within these glowing climes of Morn,
Where envious veils conceal the charms
That tempt a Western lover's arms,
And how, without a voice or sound,
From heart to heart the path is found,
Since on the eye alone is flung
The burden of the silent tongue.
You hearken with a doubtful smile
Whene'er the wandering bards beguile
Our evening indolence with strains
Whose words gush molten through our veins,—
The songs of Love, but half confessed,
Where Passion sobs on Sorrow's breast,
And mighty longings, tender fears,
Steep the strong heart in fire and tears.
The source of each accordant strain
Lies deeper than the Poet's brain.
First from the people's heart must spring
The passions which he learns to sing;
They are the wind, the harp is he,
To voice their fitful melody,—
The language of their varying fate,
Their pride, grief, love, ambition, hate,—
The talisman which holds inwrought
The touchstone of the listener's thought;
That penetrates each vain disguise,
And brings his secret to his eyes.
For, like a solitary bird
That hides among the boughs unheard
Until some mate, whose carol breaks,
Its own betraying song awakes,
So, to its echo in those lays,
The ardent heart itself betrays.
Crowned with a prophet's honor, stands
The Poet, on Arabian sands;
A chief, whose subjects love his thrall,—
The sympathizing heart of all.

II

Vaunt not your Western maids to me,
Whose charms to every gaze are free:
My love is selfish, and would share
Scarce with the sun, or general air,
The sight of beauty which has shone
Once for mine eyes, and mine alone.
Love likes concealment; he can dress
With fancied grace the loveliness
That shrinks behind its virgin veil,
As hides the moon her forehead pale
Behind a cloud, yet leaves the air
Softer than if her orb were there.
And as the splendor of a star,
When sole in heaven, seems brighter far

So shines the eye, Love's star and sun,
The brighter, that it shines alone.
The light from out its darkness sent
Is Passion's life and element;
And when the heart is warm and young,
Let but that single ray be flung
Upon its surface, and the deep
Heaves from its unsuspecting sleep,
As heaves the ocean when its floor
Breaks over the volcano's core.
Who thinks if cheek or lip be fair?
Is not all beauty centred where
The soul looks out, the feelings move,
And Love his answer gives to love?
Look on the sun, and you will find
For other sights your eyes are blind.
Look—if the colder blood you share
Can give your heart the strength to dare—
In eyes of dark and tender fire:
What more can blinded love desire?

III

I was a stripling, quick and bold,
And rich in pride as poor in gold,
When God's good will my journey bent
One day to Shekh Abdallah's tent.
My only treasure was a steed
Of Araby's most precious breed;
And whether 't was in boastful whim
To show his mettled speed of limb,
Or that presumption, which, in sooth,
Becomes the careless brow of youth,—
Which takes the world as birds the air,
And moves in freedom everywhere,—
It matters not. But 'midst the tents
I rode in easy confidence,
Till to Abdallah's door I pressed
And made myself the old man's guest.
My “Peace be with you!” was returned
With the grave courtesy he learned
From age and long authority,
And in God's name he welcomed me.
The pipe replenished, with its stem
Of jasmine wood and amber gem,
Was at my lips, and while I drew
The rosy-sweet, soft vapor through
In ringlets of dissolving blue,
Waiting his speech with reverence meet,
A woman's garments brushed my feet,
And first through boyish senses ran
The pulse of love which made me man.
The handmaid of her father's cheer,
With timid grace she glided near,
And, lightly dropping on her knee,
Held out a silver zerf to me,
Within whose cup the fragrance sent
From Yemen's sunburnt berries blent
With odors of the Persian rose.
That picture still in memory glows
With the same heat as then,—the gush
Of fever, with its fiery flush
Startling my blood; and I can see—
As she this moment knelt to me—
The shrouded graces of her form;
The half-seen arm, so round and warm;
The little hand, whose tender veins
Branched through the henna's orange stains;
The head, in act of offering bent;
And through the parted veil, which lent
A charm for what it hid, the eye,
Gazelle-like, large, and dark, and shy
That with a soft, sweet tremble shone
Beneath the fervor of my own,
Yet could not, would not, turn away
The fascination of its ray,
But half in pleasure, half in fright,
Grew unto mine, and builded bright
From heart to heart a bridge of light.

IV

From the fond trouble of my look
The zerf within her fingers shook,
As with a start, like one who breaks
Some happy trance of thought, and wakes
Unto forgotten toil, she rose
And passed. I saw the curtains close
Behind her steps: the light was gone,
But in the dark my heart dreamed on.
Some random words—thanks ill expressed—
I to the stately Shekh addressed,
With the intelligence which he,
My host, could not demand of me;
How, wandering in the desert chase,
I spied from far his camping-place,
And Arab honor bade me halt
To break his bread and share his salt.
Thereto, fit reverence for his name,
The praise our speech is quick to frame,

Which, empty though it seem, was dear
To the old warrior's willing ear,
And led his thoughts, by many a track,
To deeds of ancient prowess back,
Until my love could safely hide
Beneath the covert of his pride.
And when his “Go with God!” was said,
Upon El-Azrek's back I sped
Into the desert, wide and far,
Beneath the silver evening-star,
And, fierce with passion, without heed
Urged o'er the sands my snorting steed
As if those afrites, feared of man,—
Who watch the lonely caravan,
And, if a loiterer lags behind,
Efface its tracks with sudden wind,
Then fill the air with cheating cries,
An I make false pictures to his eyes
Till the bewildered sufferer dies,—
Had breathed on me their demon breath
And spurred me to the hunt of Death.

V

Yet madness such as this was worth
All the cool wisdom of the earth,
And sweeter glowed its wild unrest
Than the old calm of brain and breast.
The image of that maiden beamed
Through all I saw, or thought, or dreamed,
Till she became, like Light or Air,
A part of life. And she shall share,
I vowed, my passion and my fate.
Or both shall fail me, soon or late,
In the vain effort to possess;
For Life lives only in success.
I could not, in her father's sight,
Purchase the hand which was his right,
And well I knew how quick denied
The prayer would be to empty pride;
But Heaven and Earth shall sooner move
Than bar the energy of Love.
The sinews of my life became
Obedient to that single aim,
And desperate deed and patient thought
Together in its service wrought.
Keen as a falcon, when his eye
In search of quarry reads the sky,
I stole unseen, at eventide,
Behind the well, upon whose side
The girls their jars of water leaned.
By one long, sandy hillock screened,
I watched the forms that went and came,
With eyes that sparkled with the flame
Up from my heart in flashes sent,
As one by one they came and went
Amid the sunset radiance cast
On the red sands: they came and passed,
And she,—thank God!—she came at last!

VI

Then, while her fair companion bound
The cord her pitcher's throat around,
And steadied with a careful hand
Its slow descent, upon the sand
At the Shekh's daughter's feet, I sped
A slender arrow, shaft and head
With breathing jasmine-flowers entwined,
And roses such as on the wind
Of evening with rich odors fan
The white kiosks of Ispahan.
A moment, fired with love and hope,
I stayed upon the yellow slope
El-Azrek's hoofs, to see her raise
Her startled eyes in sweet amaze,—
To see her make the unconscious sign
Which recognized the gift as mine,
And place, before she turned to part,
The flowery barb against her heart.

VII

Again the Shekh's divan I pressed:
The jasmine pipe was brought the guest,
And Mariam, lovelier than before,
Knelt with the steamy cup once more.
O bliss! within those eyes to see
A soul of love look out on me,—
A fount of passion, which is truth
In the wild dialect of Youth,—
Whose rich abundance is outpoured
Like worship at a shrine adored,
And on its rising deluge bears
The heart to raptures or despairs.
While from the cup the zerf contained
The foamy amber juice I drained,
A rose-bud in the zerf expressed
The sweet confession of her breast.
One glance of glad intelligence
And silently she glided thence.

“O Skekh!” I cried, as she withdrew,
(Short is the speech where hearts are true,)
“Thou hast a daughter; let me be
A shield to her, a sword to thee!”
Abdallah turned his steady eye
Full on my face, and made reply:
“It cannot be. The treasure sent
By God must not be idly spent.
Strong men there are, in service tried,
Who seek the maiden for a bride;
And shall I slight their worth and truth
To feed the passing flame of youth?”

VIII

“No passing flame!” my answer ran;
“But love which is the life of man,
Warmed with his blood, fed by his breath,
And, when it fails him, leaves but Death.
O Shekh, I hoped not thy consent;
But having tasted in thy tent
An Arab welcome, shared thy bread,
I come to warn thee I shall wed
Thy daughter, though her suitors be
As leaves upon the tamarind-tree.
Guard her as thou mayst guard, I swear
No other bed than mine shall wear
Her virgin honors, and thy race
Through me shall keep its ancient place.
Thou 'rt warned, and duty bids no more;
For, when I next approach thy door,
Her child shall intercessor be
To build up peace 'twixt thee and me.”
A little flushed my boyish brow;
But calmly then I spake, as now.
The Shekh, with dignity that flung
Rebuke on my impetuous tongue,
Replied: “The young man's hopes are fair;
The young man's blood would all things dare.
But age is wisdom, and can bring
Confusion on the soaring wing
Of reckless youth. Thy words are just,
But needless; for I still can trust
A father's jealousy to shield
From robber grasp the gem concealed
Within his tent, till he may yield
To fitting hands the precious store.
Go, then, in peace; but come no more.”

IX

My only sequin served to bribe
A cunning mother of the tribe
To Mariam's mind my plan to bring.
A feather of the wild dove's wing,
A lock of raven gloss and stain
Sheared from El-Azrek's flowing mane
And that pale flower whose fragrant cup
Is closed until the moon comes up,—
But then a tenderer beauty holds
Than any flower the sun unfolds,—
Declared my purpose. Her reply
Let loose the winds of ecstasy:
Two roses and the moonlight flower
Told the acceptance, and the hour,—
Two daily suns to waste their glow,
And then, at moonrise, bliss—or woe.

X

El-Azrek now, on whom alone
The burden of our fate was thrown,
Claimed from my hands a double meed
Of careful training for the deed.
I gave him of my choicest store—
No guest was ever honored more.
With flesh of kid, with whitest bread
And dates of Egypt was he fed;
The camel's heavy udders gave
Their frothy juice his thirst to lave:
A charger, groomed with better care,
The Sultan never rode to prayer.
My burning hope, my torturing fear,
I breathed in his sagacious ear;
Caressed him as a brother might,
Implored his utmost speed in flight,
Hung on his neck with many a vow,
And kissed the white star on his brow.
His large and lustrous eyeball sent
A look which made me confident,
As if in me some doubt he spied,
And met it with a human pride.
“Enough: I trust thee. 'T is the hour,
And I have need of all thy power.
Without a wing, God gives thee wings,
And Fortune to thy forelock clings.”

XI

The yellow moon was rising large
Above the Desert's dusky marge,
And save the jackal's whining moan,
Or distant camel's gurgling groan,
And the lamenting monotone

Of winds that breathe their vain desire
And on the lonely sands expire,
A silent charm, a breathless spell,
Waited with me beside the well.
She is not there,—not yet,—but soon
A white robe glimmers in the moon.
Her little footsteps make no sound
On the soft sand; and with a bound,
Where terror, doubt, and love unite
To blind her heart to all but flight,
Trembling, and panting, and oppressed,
She threw herself upon my breast.
By Allah! like a bath of flame
The seething blood tumultuous came
From life's hot centre as I drew
Her mouth to mine: our spirits grew
Together in one long, long kiss,—
One swooning, speechless pulse of bliss,
That, throbbing from the heart's core met
In the united lips. Oh, yet
The eternal sweetness of that draught
Renews the thirst with which I quaffed
Love's virgin vintage: starry fire
Leapt from the twilights of desire,
And in the golden dawn of dreams
The space grew warm with radiant beams,
Which from that kiss streamed o'er a sea
Of rapture, in whose bosom we
Sank down, and sank eternally.

XII

Now nerve thy limbs, El-Azrek! Fling
Thy head aloft, and like a wing
Spread on the wind thy cloudy mane!
The hunt is up: their stallions strain
The urgent shoulders close behind,
And the wide nostril drinks the wind.
But thou art, too, of Nedjid's breed,
My brother! and the falcon's speed
Slant down the storm's advancing line
Would laggard be if matched with thine.
Still leaping forward, whistling through
The moonlight-laden air, we flew;
And from the distance, threateningly,
Came the pursuer's eager cry,
Still forward, forward, stretched our flight
Through the long hours of middle night;
One after one the followers lagged,
And even my faithful Azrek flagged
Beneath his double burden, till
The streaks of dawn began to fill
The East, and freshening in the race,
Their goaded horses gained apace.
I drew my dagger, cut the girth,
Tumbled my saddle to the earth,
And clasped with desperate energies
My stallion's side with iron knees;
While Mariam, clinging to my breast,
The closer for that peril pressed.
They come! they come! Their shouts we hear,
Now faint and far, now fierce and near.
O brave El-Azrek! on the track
Let not one fainting sinew slack,
Or know thine agony of flight
Endured in vain! The purple light
Of breaking morn has come at last.
O joy! the thirty leagues are past;
And, gleaming in the sunrise, see,
The white tents of the Aneyzee!
The warriors of the waste, the foes
Of Shekh Abdallah's tribe, are those
Whose shelter and support I claim,
Which they bestow in Allah's name;
While, wheeling back, the baffled few
No longer venture to pursue.

XIII

And now, O Frank! if you would see
How soft the eyes that looked on me
Through Mariam's silky lashes, scan
Those of my little Solyman.
And should you marvel if the child
His stately grandsire reconciled
To that bold theft, when years had brought
The golden portion which he sought,
And what upon this theme befell,
The Shekh himself can better tell.

Off the Cape of Good Hope, 1853.

A PLEDGE TO HAFIZ

Brim the bowls with Shiraz wine!
Roses round your temples twine;
Brim the bowls with Shiraz wine,—
Hafiz pledge we, Bard divine!
With the summer warmth that glows
In the wine and on the rose,

Blushing, fervid, ruby-bright,
We shall pledge his name aright.

Hafiz, in whose measures move
Youth and Beauty, Song and Love,—
In his veins the nimble flood
Was of wine, and not of blood.
All the songs he sang or thought
In his brain were never wrought,
But like rose-leaves fell apart
From that bursting rose, his heart.

Youth is morning's transient ray;
Love consumes itself away;
Time destroys what Beauty gives;
But in Song the Poet lives.
While we pledge him—thus—and thus—
He is present here in us;
'Tis his voice that cries, not mine:
Brim the bowls with Shiraz wine!

1852.

THE GARDEN OF IREM

I

Have you seen the Garden of Irem?
No mortal knoweth the road thereto.
Find me a path in the mists that gather
When the sunbeams scatter the morning dew,
And I will lead you thither.
Give me a key to the halls of the sun
When he goes behind the purple sea,
Or a wand to open the vaults that run
Down to the afrite-guarded treasures,
And I will open its doors to thee.
Who hath tasted its countless pleasures?
Who hath breathed, in its winds of spice,
Raptures deeper than Paradise?
Who hath trodden its ivory floors,
Where the fount drops pearls from a golden shell,
And heard the hinges of diamond doors
Swing to the music of Israfel?
Its roses blossom, its palms arise,
By the phantom stream that flows so fair
Under the Desert's burning skies.
Can you reach that flood, can you drink its tide,
Can you swim its waves to the farther side,
Your feet may enter there.

II

I have seen the Garden of Irem.
I found it, but I sought it not:
Without a path, without a guide,
I found the enchanted spot:
Without a key its golden gate stood wide.
I was young, and strong, and bold, and free
As the milk-white foal of the Nedjidee,
And the blood in my veins was like sap of the vine,
That stirs, and mounts, and will not stop
Till the breathing blossoms that bring the wine
Have drained its balm to the last sweet drop.
Lance and barb were all I knew,
Till deep in the Desert the spot I found,
Where the marvellous gates of Irem threw
Their splendors over an unknown ground.
Mine were the pearl and ivory floors,
Mine the music of diamond doors,
Turning each on a newer glory:
Mine were the roses whose bloom outran
The spring-time beauty of Gulistan,
And the fabulous flowers of Persian story.
Mine were the palms of silver stems,
And blazing emerald for diadems;
The fretted arch and the gossamer wreath,
So light and frail you feared to breathe;
Yet o'er them rested the pendent spars
Of domes bespangled with silver stars,
And crusted gems of rare adorning:
And ever higher, like a shaft of fire,
The lessening links of the golden spire
Flamed in the myriad-colored morning!

Like one who lies on the marble lip
Of the blessed bath in a tranquil rest,
And stirs not even a finger's tip
Lest the beatific dream should slip,
So did I lie in Irem's breast.
Sweeter than Life and stronger than Death
Was every draught of that blissful breath;
Warmer than summer came its glow
To the youthful heart in a mighty flood,

And sent its bold and generous blood
To water the world in its onward flow.
There, where the Garden of Irem lies,
Are the roots of the Tree of Paradise,
And happy are they who sit below,
When into this world of Strife and Death
The blossoms are shaken by Allah's breath.

Granada, 1852.

THE WISDOM OF ALI

AN ARAB LEGEND

The Prophet once, sitting in calm debate,
Said: “I am Wisdom's fortress; but the gate
Thereof is Ali.” Wherefore, some who heard,
With unbelieving jealousy were stirred;
And, that they might on him confusion bring,
Ten of the boldest joined to prove the thing.
“Let us in turn to Ali go,” they said,
“And ask if Wisdom should be sought instead
Of earthly riches; then, if he reply
To each of us, in thought, accordantly,
And yet to none, in speech or phrase, the same,
His shall the honor be, and ours the shame.”

Now, when the first his bold demand did make,
These were the words which Ali straightway spake:—

“Wisdom is the inheritance of those
Whom Allah favors; riches, of his foes.”

Unto the second he said: “Thyself must be
Guard to thy wealth; but Wisdom guardeth thee.”

Unto the third: “By Wisdom wealth is won;
But riches purchased wisdom yet for none.”

Unto the fourth: “Thy goods the thief may take;
But into Wisdom's house he cannot break.”

Unto the fifth: “Thy goods decrease the more
Thou giv'st; but use enlarges Wisdom's store.”

Unto the sixth: “Wealth tempts to evil ways;
But the desire of Wisdom is God's praise.”

Unto the seventh: “Divide thy wealth, each part
Becomes a pittance. Give with open heart

“Thy wisdom, and each separate gift shall be
All that thou hast, yet not impoverish thee.”

Unto the eighth: “Wealth cannot keep itself;
But Wisdom is the steward even of pelf.”

Unto the ninth: “The camels slowly bring
Thy goods; but Wisdom has the swallow's wing.”

And lastly, when the tenth did question make,
These were the ready words which Ali spake:—
“Wealth is a darkness which the soul should fear;
But Wisdom is the lamp that makes it clear.”

Crimson with shame the questioners withdrew,
And they declared: “The Prophet's words were true;
The mouth of Ali is the golden door
Of Wisdom.”

When his friends to Ali bore
These words, he smiled and said:
“And should they ask
The same until my dying day, the task

Were easy; for the stream from Wisdom's well,
Which God supplies, is inexhaustible.”

1854.

AN ORIENTAL IDYL

A silver javelin which the hills
Have hurled upon the plain below,
The fleetest of the Pharpar's rills,
Beneath me shoots in flashing flow.

I hear the never-ending laugh
Of jostling waves that come and go,
And suck the bubbling pipe, and quaff
The sherbet cooled in mountain snow.

The flecks of sunshine gleam like stars
Beneath the canopy of shade;
And in the distant, dim bazaars
I scarcely hear the hum of trade.

No evil fear, no dream forlorn,
Darkens my heaven of perfect blue;
My blood is tempered to the morn,—
My very heart is steeped in dew.

What Evil is I cannot tell;
But half I guess what Joy may be;
And, as a pearl within its shell,
The happy spirit sleeps in me.

I feel no more the pulse's strife,—
The tides of Passion's ruddy sea,—
But live the sweet, unconscious life
That breathes from yonder jasmine tree.

Upon the glittering pageantries
Of gay Damascus' streets I look
As idly as a babe that sees
The painted pictures of a book.

Forgotten now are name and race;
The Past is blotted from my brain;
For Memory sleeps, and will not trace
The weary pages o'er again.

I only know the morning shines,
And sweet the dewy morning air;
But does it play with tendrilled vines?
Or does it lightly lift my hair?

Deep-sunken in the charmed repose,
This ignorance is bliss extreme:
And whether I be Man, or Rose,
Oh, pluck me not from out my dream!

1854.

BEDOUIN SONG

From the Desert I come to thee
On a stallion shod with fire;
And the winds are left-behind
In the speed of my desire.
Under thy window I stand,
And the midnight hears my cry:
I love thee, I love but thee,
With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!

Look from thy window and see
My passion and my pain;
I lie on the sands below,
And I faint in thy disdain.
Let the night-winds touch thy brow
With the heat of my burning sigh,
And melt thee to hear the vow
Of a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!

My steps are nightly driven,
By the fever in my breast,
To hear from thy lattice breathed
The word that shall give me rest.
Open the door of thy heart,
And open thy chamber door,
And my kisses shall teach thy lips
The love that shall fade no more
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!

Mozambique Channel, 1853.

DESERT HYMN TO THE SUN

I

Under the arches of the morning sky,
Save in one heart, there beats no life of Man;
The yellow sand-hills bleak and trackless lie,
And far behind them sleeps the caravan.
A silence, as before Creation, broods
Sublimely o'er the desert solitudes.

II

A silence as if God in Heaven were still,
And meditating some new wonder! Earth
And Air the solemn portent own, and thrill
With awful prescience of the coming birth.
And Night withdraws, and on their silver cars
Wheel to remotest space the trembling Stars.

III

See! an increasing brightness, broad and fleet,
Breaks on the morning in a rosy flood,
As if He smiled to see His work complete,
And rested from it, and pronounced it good.
The sands lie still, and every wind is furled:
The Sun comes up, and looks upon the world.

IV

Is there no burst of music to proclaim
The pomp and majesty of this new lord?—
A golden trumpet in each beam of flame,
Startling the universe with grand accord?
Must Earth be dumb beneath the splendors thrown
From his full orb to glorify her own?

V

No: with an answering splendor, more than sound
Instinct with gratulation, she adores.
With purple flame the porphyry hills are crowned,
And burn with gold the Desert's boundless floors;
And the lone Man compels his haughty knee,
And, prostrate at thy footstool, worships thee.

VI

Before the dreadful glory of thy face;
He veils his sight: he fears the fiery rod
Which thou dost wield amid the brightening space,
As if the sceptre of a visible god.
If not the shadow of God's lustre, thou
Art the one jewel flaming on His brow.

VII

Wrap me within the mantle of thy beams,
And feed my pulses with thy keenest fire!
Here, where thy full meridian deluge streams
Across the Desert, let my blood aspire
To ripen in the vigor of thy blaze,
And catch a warmth to shine through darker days!

VIII

I am alone before thee: Lord of Light!
Begetter of the life of things that live!
Beget in me thy calm, self-balanced might;
To me thine own immortal ardor give.
Yea, though, like her who gave to Jove her charms,
My being wither in thy fiery arms.

IX

Whence came thy splendors? Heaven is filled with thee;
The sky's blue walls are dazzling with thy train;
Thou sitt'st alone in the Immensity,
And in thy lap the World grows young again.

Bathed in such brightness, drunken with the Day,
He deems the Dark forever passed away.

X

But thou dost sheathe thy trenchant sword, and lean
With tempered grandeur towards the western gate;
Shedding thy glory with a brow serene,
And leaving heaven all golden with thy state:
Not as a king discrowned and overthrown,
But one who keeps, and shall reclaim his own.

Indian Ocean, 1853.

NILOTIC DRINKING SONG

I

You may water your bays, brother-poets, with lays
That brighten the cup from the stream you doat on.
By the Schuylkill's side, or Cochituate's tide,
Or the crystal lymph of the mountain Croton:
(We may pledge from these
In our summer ease,
Nor even Anacreon's shade revile us—)
But I, from the flood
Of his own brown blood,
Will drink to the glory of ancient Nilus!

II

Cloud never gave birth, nor cradle the Earth,
To river so grand and fair as this is:
Not the waves that roll us the gold of Pactolus,
Nor cool Cephissus, nor classic Ilissus.
The lily may dip
Her ivory lip
To kiss the ripples of clear Eurotas;
But the Nile brings balm
From the myrrh and palm,
And the ripe, voluptuous lips of the lotus.

III

The waves that ride on his mighty tide
Were poured from the urns of unvisited mountains;
And their sweets of the South mingle cool in the mouth
With the freshness and sparkle of Northern fountains.
Again and again
The goblet we drain.—
Diviner a stream never Nereid swam on:
For Isis and Orus
Have quaffed before us,
And Ganymede dipped it for Jupiter Ammon.

IV

Its blessing he pours o'er his thirsty shores,
And floods the regions of Sleep and Silence,
When he makes oases in desert places,
And the plain is a sea, the hills are islands.
And had I the brave
Anacreon's stave,
And lips like the honeyed lips of Hylas,
I 'd dip from his brink
My bacchanal drink,
And sing for the glory of ancient Nilus!

Nile, Ethiopia, 1852.

CAMADEVA

The sun, the moon, the mystic planets seven,
Shone with a purer and serener flame,
And there was joy on Earth and joy in Heaven
When Camadeva came.

The blossoms burst, like jewels of the air,
Putting the colors of the morn to shame;
Breathing their odorous secrets everywhere
When Camadeva came.

The birds, upon the tufted tamarind spray,
Sat side by side and cooed in amorous blame;
The lion sheathed his claws and left his prey
When Camadeva came.

The sea slept, pillowed on the happy shore;
The mountain-peaks were bathed in rosy flame;
The clouds went down the sky,—to mount no more
When Camadeva came.

The hearts of all men brightened like the morn;
The poet's harp then first deserved its fame,
For rapture sweeter than he sang was born
When Camadeva came.

All breathing life a newer spirit quaffed
A second life, a bliss beyond a name,
And Death, half-conquered, dropped his idle shaft
When Camadeva came.

India, 1853.

NUBIA

A land of Dreams and Sleep,—a poppied land!
With skies of endless calm above her head,
The drowsy warmth of summer noonday shed
Upon her hills, and silence stern and grand
Throughout her Desert's temple-burying sand.
Before her threshold, in their ancient place,
With closèd lips, and fixed, majestic face
Noteless of Time, her dumb colossi stand.
Oh, pass them not with light, irreverent tread;
Respect the dream that builds her fallen throne,
And soothes her to oblivion of her woes.
Hush! for she does but sleep; she is not dead:
Action and Toil have made the world their own,
But she hath built an altar to Repose.

1853.

KILIMANDJARO

I

Hail to thee, monarch of African mountains,
Remote, inaccessible, silent, and lone,—
Who, from the heart of the tropical fervors,
Liftest to heaven thine alien snows,
Feeding forever the fountains that make thee
Father of Nile and Creator of Egypt!

II

The years of the world are engraved on thy forehead;
Time's morning blushed red on thy first-fallen snows;
Yet, lost in the wilderness, nameless, unnoted,
Of Man unbeholden, thou wert not till now.
Knowledge alone is the being of Nature,
Giving a soul to her manifold features,
Lighting through paths of the primitive darkness
The footsteps of Truth and the vision of Song.
Knowledge has born thee anew to Creation,
And long-baffled Time at thy baptism rejoices.
Take, then, a name, and be filled with existence,
Yea, be exultant in sovereign glory,
While from the hand of the wandering poet
Drops the first garland of song at thy feet.

III

Floating alone, on the flood of thy making,
Through Africa's mystery, silence, and fire,

Lo! in my palm, like the Eastern enchanter,
I dip from the waters a magical mirror,
And thou art revealed to my purified vision.
I see thee, supreme in the midst of thy co-mates,
Standing alone 'twixt the Earth and the Heavens,
Heir of the Sunset and Herald of Morn.
Zone above zone, to thy shoulders of granite,
The climates of Earth are displayed, as an index,
Giving the scope of the Book of Creation.
There, in the gorges that widen, descending
From cloud and from cold into summer eternal,
Gather the threads of the ice-gendered fountains,—
Gather to riotous torrents of crystal,
And, giving each shelvy recess where they dally
The blooms of the North and its evergreen turfage,
Leap to the land of the lion and lotus!
There, in the wondering airs of the Tropics
Shivers the Aspen, still dreaming of cold:
There stretches the Oak, from the loftiest ledges,
His arms to the far-away lands of his brothers,
And the Pine-tree looks down on his rival, the Palm.

IV

Bathed in the tenderest purple of distance,
Tinted and shadowed by pencils of air,
Thy battlements hang o'er the slopes and the forests,
Seats of the Gods in the limitless ether,
Looming sublimely aloft and afar.
Above them, like folds of imperial ermine,
Sparkle the snow-fields that furrow thy forehead,—
Desolate realms, inaccessible, silent.
Chasms and caverns where Day is a stranger,
Garners where storeth his treasures the Thunder,
The Lightning his falchion, his arrows the Hail!

V

Sovereign Mountain, thy brothers give welcome:
They, the baptized and the crownèd of ages,
Watch-towers of Continents, altars of Earth,
Welcome thee now to their mighty assembly.
Mont Blanc, in the roar of his mad avalanches,
Hails thy accession; superb Orizaba,
Belted with beech and ensandalled with palm;
Chimborazo, the lord of the regions of noonday,—
Mingle their sounds in magnificent chorus
With greeting august from the Pillars of Heaven,
Who, in the urns of the Indian Ganges
Filter the snows of their sacred dominions,
Unmarked with a footprint, unseen but of God.

VI

Lo! unto each is the seal of his lordship,
Nor questioned the right that his majesty giveth:
Each in his lawful supremacy forces
Worship and reverence, wonder and joy.
Absolute all, yet in dignity varied,
None has a claim to the honors of story,
Or the superior splendors of song,
Greater than thou, in thy mystery mantled,—
Thou, the sole monarch of African mountains,
Father of Nile and Creator of Egypt!

White Nile, 1852.

THE BIRTH OF THE PROPHET

I

Thrice three moons had waxed in heaven, thrice three moons had waned away,

Since Abdullah, faint and thirsty, on the Desert's bosom lay
In the fiery lap of Summer, the meridian of the day;—

II

Since from out the sand upgushing, lo! a sudden fountain leapt;
Sweet as musk and clear as amber, to his parching lips it crept.
When he drank it straightway vanished, but his blood its virtue kept.

III

Ere the morn his forehead's lustre, signet of the Prophet's line,
To the beauty of Amina had transferred its flame divine;
Of the germ within her sleeping, such the consecrated sign.

IV

And with every moon that faded waxed the splendor more and more,
Till Amina's beauty lightened through the matron veil she wore,
And the tent was filled with glory, and of Heaven it seemed the door.

V

When her quickened womb its burden had matured, and Life began
Struggling in its living prison, through the wide Creation rang
Premonitions of the coming of a God-appointed man.

VI

For the oracles of Nature recognize a Prophet's birth,—
Blossom of the tardy ages, crowning type of human worth,—
And by miracles and wonders he is welcomed to the Earth.

VII

Then the stars in heaven grew brighter, stooping downward from their zones;
Wheeling round the towers of Mecca, sang the moon in silver tones,
And the Kaaba's grisly idols trembled on their granite thrones.

VIII

Mighty arcs of rainbow splendor, pillared shafts of purple fire,
Split the sky and spanned the darkness, and with many a golden spire,
Beacon-like, from all the mountains streamed the lambent meteors higher.

IX

But when first the breath of being to the sacred infant came,
Paled the pomp of airy lustre, and the stars grew dim with shame,
For the glory of his countenance outshone their feebler flame.

X

Over Nedjid's sands it lightened, unto Oman's coral deep,
Startling all the gorgeous regions of the Orient from sleep,
Till, a sun on night new-risen, it illumed the Indian steep.

XI

They who dwelt in Mecca's borders saw the distant realms appear
All around the vast horizon, shining marvellous and clear,
From the gardens of Damascus unto those of Bendemeer.

XII

From the colonnades of Tadmor to the hills of Hadramaut,
Ancient Araby was lighted, and her sands the splendor caught,
Till the magic sweep of vision overtook the track of Thought.

XIII

Such on Earth the wondrous glory, but beyond the sevenfold skies
God His mansions filled with gladness, and the seraphs saw arise
Palaces of pearl and ruby from the founts of Paradise.

XIV

As the surge of heavenly anthems shook the solemn midnight air,
From the shrines of false religions came a wailing of despair,
And the fires on Pagan altars were extinguished everywhere.

XV

'Mid the sounds of salutation, 'mid the splendor and the balm,
Knelt the sacred child, proclaiming, with a brow of heavenly calm:
“God is God; there is none other; I his chosen Prophet am!”

Indian Ocean, 1853.

TO THE NILE

Mysterious Flood,—that through the silent sands
Hast wandered, century on century,
Watering the length of great Egyptian lands,
Which were not, but for thee,—

Art thou the keeper of that eldest lore,
Written ere yet thy hieroglyphs began
When dawned upon thy fresh, untrampled shore
The earliest life of Man?

Thou guardest temple and vast pyramid
Where the gray Past records its ancient speech;
But in thine unrevealing breast lies hid
What they refuse to teach.

All other streams with human joys and fears
Run blended, o'er the plains of History:
Thou tak'st no note of Man; a thousand years
Are as a day to thee.

What were to thee the Osirian festivals?
Or Memnon's music on the Theban plain?
The carnage, when Cambyses made thy halls
Ruddy with royal slain?

Even then thou wast a God, and shrines were built
For worship of thine own majestic flood;
For thee the incense burned,—for thee was spilt
The sacrificial blood.

And past the bannered pylons that arose
Above thy palms, the pageantry and state,
Thy current flowed, calmly as now it flows,
Unchangeable as Fate.

Thou givest blessing as a God might give,
Whose being is his bounty: from the slime
Shaken from off thy skirts the nations live,
Through all the years of Time.

In thy solemnity, thine awful calm,
Thy grand indifference of Destiny,
My soul forgets its pain, and drinks the balm
Which thou dost proffer me.

Thy godship is unquestioned still: I bring
No doubtful worship to thy shrine supreme;
But thus my homage as a chaplet fling,
To float upon thy stream!

1854.

HASSAN TO HIS MARE

Come, my beauty! come, my desert darling!
On my shoulder lay thy glossy head!
Fear not, though the barley-sack be empty,
Here's the half of Hassan's scanty bread.

Thou shalt have thy share of dates, my beauty!
And thou know'st my water-skin is free:
Drink and welcome, for the wells are distant,
And my strength and safety lie in thee.

Bend thy forehead now, to take my kisses!
Lift in love thy dark and splendid eye:
Thou art glad when Hassan mounts the saddle,—
Thou art proud he owns thee: so am I.

Let the Sultan bring his boasted horses,
Prancing with their diamond-studded reins;
They, my darling, shall not match thy fleetness
When they course with thee the desert-plains!

Let the Sultan bring his famous horses,
Let him bring his golden swords to me,—
Bring his slaves, his eunuchs, and his harem;
He would offer them in vain for thee.

We have seen Damascus, O my beauty!
And the splendor of the Pashas there:
What 's their pomp and riches? Why, I would not
Take them for a handful of thy hair!

Khaled sings the praises of his mistress,
And, because I 've none, he pities me.
What care I if he should have a thousand,
Fairer than the morning? I have thee.

He will find his passion growing cooler,
Should her glance on other suitors fall;
Thou wilt ne'er, my mistress and my darling,
Fail to answer at thy master's call.

By and by some snow-white Nedjid stallion
Shall to thee his spring-time ardor bring:
And a foal, the fairest of the Desert,
To thy milky dugs shall crouch and cling.

Then, when Khaled shows to me his children,
I shall laugh, and bid him look at thine;
Thou wilt neigh, and lovingly caress me,
With thy glossy neck laid close to mine.

1854.

CHARMIAN

I

O Daughter of the Sun;
Who gave the keys of passion unto thee?
Who taught the powerful sorcery
Wherein my soul, too willing to be won,
Still feebly struggles to be free,
But more than half undone?
Within the mirror of thine eyes,
Full of the sleep of warm Egyptian skies,—
The sleep of lightning, bound in airy spell,
And deadlier, because invisible,—
I see the reflex of a feeling
Which was not, till I looked on thee:
A power, involved in mystery,
That shrinks, affrighted, from its own revealing.

II

Thou sitt'st in stately indolence,
Too calm to feel a breath of passion start
The listless fibres of thy sense,
The fiery slumber of thy heart.
Thine eyes are wells of darkness, by the veil
Of languid lids half-sealed: the pale
And bloodless olive of thy face,
And the full, silent lips that wear
A ripe serenity of grace,
Are dark beneath the shadow of thy hair.
Not from the brow of templed Athor beams
Such tropic warmth along the path of dreams;

Not from the lips of hornèd Isis flows
Such sweetness of repose!
For thou art Passion's self, a goddess too,
And aught but worship never knew;
And thus thy glances, calm and sure,
Look for accustomed homage, and betray
No effort to assert thy sway:
Thou deem'st my fealty secure.

III

O Sorceress! those looks unseal
The undisturbèd mysteries that press
Too deep in nature for the heart to feel
Their terror and their loveliness.
Thine eyes are torches that illume
On secret shrines their unforeboded fires,
And fill the vaults of silence and of gloom
With the unresting life of new desires.
I follow where their arrowy ray
Pierces the veil I would not tear away,
And with a dread, delicious awe behold
Another gate of life unfold,
Like the rapt neophyte who sees
Some march of grand Osirian mysteries.
The startled chambers I explore,
And every entrance open lies,
Forced by the magic thrill that runs before
Thy slowly-lifted eyes.
I tremble to the centre of my being
Thus to confess the spirit's poise o'erthrown,
And all its guiding virtues blown
Like leaves before the whirlwind's fury fleeing.

IV

But see! one memory rises in my soul,
And, beaming steadily and clear,
Scatters the lurid thunder-clouds that roll
Through Passion's sultry atmosphere.
An alchemy more potent borrow
For thy dark eyes, enticing Sorceress!
For on the casket of a sacred Sorrow
Their shafts fall powerless.
Nay, frown not, Athor, from thy mystic shrine:
Strong Goddess of Desire, I will not be
One of the myriad slaves thou callest thine,
To cast my manhood's crown of royalty
Before thy dangerous beauty: I am free!

East Indies, 1853.

SMYRNA

The “Ornament of Asia” and the “Crown
Of fair Ionia.” Yea; but Asia stands
No more an empress, and Ionia's hands
Have lost their sceptre. Thou, majestic town,
Art as a diamond on a faded robe:
The freshness of thy beauty scatters yet
The radiance of that sun of Empire set,
Whose disk sublime illumed the ancient globe.
Thou sitt'st between the mountains and the sea;
The sea and mountains flatter thine array,
And fill thy courts with Grandeur, not Decay;
And Power, not Death, proclaims thy cypress tree.
Through thee, the sovereign symbols Nature lent
Her rise, make Asia's fall magnificent.

1851.

TO A PERSIAN BOY

IN THE BAZAAR AT SMYRNA

The gorgeous blossoms of that magic tree
Beneath whose shade I sat a thousand nights,
Breathed from their opening petals all delights
Embalmed in spice of Orient Poesy,
When first, young Persian, I beheld thine eyes,
And felt the wonder of thy beauty grow
Within my brain, as some fair planet's glow

Deepens, and fills the summer evening skies.
From under thy dark lashes shone on me
The rich, voluptuous soul of Eastern land,
Impassioned, tender, calm, serenely sad,—
Such as immortal Hafiz felt when he
Sang by the fountain-streams of Rocnabad,
Or in the bowers of blissful Samarcand.

1851.

THE ARAB TO THE PALM

Next to thee, O fair gazelle,
O Beddowee girl, beloved so well;

Next to the fearless Nedjidee,
Whose fleetness shall bear me again to thee;

Next to ye both I love the Palm,
With his leaves of beauty, his fruit of balm;

Next to ye both I love the Tree
Whose fluttering shadow wraps us three
With love, and silence, and mystery!

Our tribe is many, our poets vie
With any under the Arab sky;
Yet none can sing of the Palm but I.

The marble minarets that begem
Cairo's citadel-diadem
Are not so light as his slender stem.

He lifts his leaves in the sunbeam's glance
As the Almehs lift their arms in dance,—

A slumberous motion, a passionate sign,
That works in the cells of the blood like wine.

Full of passion and sorrow is he,
Dreaming where the beloved may be.

And when the warm south-winds arise,
He breathes his longing in fervid sighs,—

Quickening odors, kisses of balm,
That drop in the lap of his chosen palm.

The sun may flame and the sands may stir,
But the breath of his passion reaches her.

O Tree of Love, by that love of thine,
Teach me how I shall soften mine!

Give me the secret of the sun,
Whereby the wooed is ever won!

If I were a King, O stately Tree,
A likeness, glorious as might be,
In the court of my palace I'd build for thee!

With a shaft of silver, burnished bright,
And leaves of beryl and malachite;

With spikes of golden bloom ablaze,
And fruits of topaz and chrysoprase:

And there the poets, in thy praise,
Should night and morning frame new lays,—

New measures sung to tunes divine,
But none, O Palm, should equal mine!

Off Japan, 1853.

AURUM POTABILE

I

Brother Bards of every region,—
Brother Bards, (your name is Legion!)
Were you with me while the twilight
Darkens up my pine-tree skylight,—
Were you gathered, representing
Every land beneath the sun,
O, what songs would be indited,
Ere the earliest star is lighted,
To the praise of vino d'oro,
On the Hills of Lebanon!

II

Yes; while all alone I quaff its
Lucid gold, and brightly laugh its
Topaz waves and amber bubbles,
Still the thought my pleasure troubles,
That I quaff it all alone.
O for Hafiz,—glorious Persian!
Keats, with buoyant, gay diversion
Mocking Schiller's grave immersion;
O for wreathed Anacreon!
Yet enough to have the living,—
They, the few, the rapture-giving!
(Blessèd more than in receiving,)
Fate, that frowns when laurels wreathe them,
Once the solace might bequeath them,
Once to taste of vino d'oro
On the Hills of Lebanon!

III

Lebanon, thou mount of story,
Well we know thy sturdy glory,
Since the days of Solomon;
Well we know the Five old Cedars,
Scarred by ages,—silent pleaders,
Preaching, in their gray sedateness,
Of thy forest's fallen greatness,
Of the vessels of the Tyrian,
And the palaces Assyrian,
And the temple on Moriah
To the High and Holy One!
Know the wealth of thy appointment,—
Myrrh and aloes, gum and ointment;
But we knew not, till we clomb thee,
Of the nectar dropping from thee,—
Of the pure, pellucid Ophir
In the cups of vino d'oro,
On the Hills of Lebanon!

IV

We have drunk, and we have eaten,
Where Egyptian sheaves are beaten;
Tasted Judah's milk and honey
On his mountains, bare and sunny;
Drained ambrosial bowls, that ask us
Never more to leave Damascus;
And have sung a vintage pæan
To the grapes of isles Ægean,
And the flasks of Orvieto,
Ripened in the Roman sun:
But the liquor here surpasses
All that beams in earthly glasses.
'Tis of this that Paracelsus
(His elixir vitæ) tells us,
That to happier shores can float us
Than Lethean stems of lotus,
And the vigor of the morning
Straight restores when day is done.
Then, before the sunset waneth,
While the rosy tide, that staineth
Earth, and sky, and sea, remaineth,
We will take the fortune proffered,—
Ne'er again to be re-offered,
We will drink of vino d'oro,
On the Hills of Lebanon!
Vino d'oro! vino d'oro!—
Golden blood of Lebanon!

1853.

ON THE SEA

The splendor of the sinking moon
Deserts the silent bay;
The mountain-isles loom large and faint,
Folded in shadows gray,
And the lights of land are setting stars
That soon will pass away.

O boatman, cease thy mellow song!
O minstrel, drop thy lyre!
Let us hear the voice of the midnight sea,
Let us speak as the waves inspire,
While the plashy dip of the languid oar
Is a furrow of silver fire.

Day cannot make thee half so fair,
Nor the stars of eve so dear:
The arms that clasp and the breast that keeps,
They tell me thou art near,
And the perfect beauty of thy face
In thy murmured words I hear.

The lights of land have dropped below
The vast and glimmering sea;
The world we leave is a tale that is told,—
A fable that cannot be.
There is no life in the sphery dark
But the love in thee and me!

Macao, 1853.

TYRE

I

The wild and windy morning is lit with lurid fire;
The thundering surf of ocean beats on the rocks of Tyre,—
Beats on the fallen columns and round the headland roars,
And hurls its foamy volume along the hollow shores,
And calls with hungry clamor, that speaks its long desire:
“Where are the ships of Tarshish, the mighty ships of Tyre?”

II

Within her cunning harbor, choked with invading sand,
No galleys bring their freightage, the spoils of every land,
And like a prostrate forest, when autumn gales have blown,
Her colonnades of granite lie shattered and o'erthrown;
And from the reef the pharos no longer flings its fire,
To beacon home from Tarshish the lordly ships of Tyre.

III

Where is thy rod of empire, once mighty on the waves,—
Thou that thyself exalted, till Kings bacame thy slaves?
Thou that didst speak to nations, and saw thy will obeyed,—
Whose favor made them joyful, whose anger sore afraid,—
Who laid'st thy deep foundations, and thought them strong and sure.
And boasted midst the waters, Shall I not aye endure?

IV

Where is the wealth of ages that heaped thy princely mart?
The pomp of purple trappings; the gems of Syrian art;
The silken goats of Kedar; Sabæa's spicy store;
The tributes of the islands thy squadrons homeward bore,
When in thy gates triumphant they entered from the sea
With sound of horn and sackbut, of harp and psaltery?

V

Howl, howl, ye ships of Tarshish! the glory is laid waste:
There is no habitation; the mansions are defaced.
No mariners of Sidon unfurl your mighty sails;
No workmen fell the fir-trees that grow in Shenir's vales
And Bashan's oaks that boasted a thousand years of sun,
Or hew the masts of cedar on frosty Lebanon.

VI

Rise, thou forgotten harlot! take up thy harp and sing:
Call the rebellious islands to own their ancient king:
Bare to the spray thy bosom, and with thy hair unbound,
Sit on the piles of ruin, thou throneless and discrowned!
There mix thy voice of wailing with the thunders of the sea,
And sing thy songs of sorrow, that thou remembered be!

VII

Though silent and forgotten, yet Nature still laments
The pomp and power departed, the lost magnificence:
The hills were proud to see thee, and they are sadder now;
The sea was proud to bear thee, and wears a troubled brow,
And evermore the surges chant forth their vain desire:
“Where are the ships of Tarshish, the mighty ships of Tyre?”

Indian Ocean, 1853.

AN ANSWER

You call me cold: you wonder why
The marble of a mien like mine
Gives fiery sparks of Poesy,
Or softens at Love's touch divine.

Go, look on Nature, you will find
It is the rock that feels the sun:
But you are blind,—and to the blind
The touch of ice and fire is one.

1852.

GULISTAN

AN ARABIC METRE

Where is Gulistan, the Land of Roses?
Not on hills where Northern winters
Break their spears in icy splinters,
And in shrouded snow the world reposes;
But amid the glow and splendor
Which the Orient summers lend her,
Blue the heaven above her beauty closes:
There is Gulistan, the Land of Roses.

Northward stand the Persian mountains;
Southward spring the silver fountains
Which to Hafiz taught his sweetest measures,
Clearly ringing to the singing
Which the nightingales delight in,
When the spring, from Oman winging
Unto Shiraz, showers her fragrant treasures
On the land, till valleys brighten,
Mountains lighten with returning
Fires of scarlet poppy burning,
And the stream meanders
Through its roseate oleanders,
And Love's golden gate, unfolden,
Opens on a universe of pleasures.

There the sunshine blazes over
Meadows gemmed with ruby clover;
There the rose's heart uncloses,
Prodigal with hoarded stores of sweetness,
And the lily's cup so still is
Where the river's waters quiver,
That no wandering air can spill his
Honeyed balm, or blight his beauty's fleetness.
Skies are fairest, days are rarest,—
Thou, O Earth! a glory wearest
From the ecstasy thou bearest,
Once to feel the Summer's full completeness.
Twilight glances, moonlit dances,
Song by starlight, there entrances
Youthful hearts with fervid fancies,
And the blushing rose of Love uncloses:
Love that, lapped in summer joyance,
Far from every rude annoyance,
Calmly on the answering love reposes;
And in song, in music only
Speaks the longing, vague and lonely,
Which to pain is there the nearest,
Yet of joys the sweetest, dearest,
As a cloud when skies are clearest
On its folds intenser light discloses:
This is Gulistan, the Land of Roses.

1853.

L'ENVOI

Unto the Desert and the Desert steed
Farewell! The journey is completed now:
Struck are the tents of Ishmael's wandering breed,
And I unwind the turban from my brow.

The sun has ceased to shine; the palms that bent,
Inebriate with light, have disappeared;
And naught is left me of the Orient
But the tanned bosom and the unshorn beard.

Yet from that life my blood a glow retains,
As the red sunshine in the ruby glows;
These songs are echoes of its fiercer strains,—
Dreams, that recall its passion and repose.

I found, among those Children of the Sun,
The cipher of my nature,—the release
Of baffled powers, which else had never won
That free fulfilment, whose reward is peace.

For not to any race or any clime
Is the completed sphere of life revealed;
He who would make his own that round sublime,
Must pitch his tent on many a distant field.

Upon his home a dawning lustre beams,
But through the world he walks to open day,
Gathering from every land the prismal gleams,
Which, when united, form the perfect ray.

Go, therefore, Songs!—which in the East were born
And drew your nurture—from your sire's control:
Haply to wander through the West forlorn,
Or find a shelter in some Orient soul.

And if the temper of our colder sky
Less warmth of passion and of speech demands,
They are the blossoms of my life,—and I
Have ripened in the suns of many lands.

1854.