University of Virginia Library

He turned his eyes on that sweet Maid,
Who smiling in his face essay'd
Quick eager speech of rippling words
More musical than any singer's.—
He guess'd the meaning of the words
By the warm pressure of the fingers!
Child-like she stood, with eyes of light
Full of the happy tropic night,
A white straw hat upon her head
With ferns and flowers bright garlanded,
Her dress one cool chemise of snow
Wherein her soft form slipt at ease,
Sleeveless, around the breasts cut low,
And fluttering to the supple knees;
Her limbs and arms all bare and warm,
Her bosom gently palpitating,—
Her face alive with Love, her form
Thrill'd through with fires of Love's creating!

Over that night now falls the veil!
Earth held her breath. The stars grew pale
Down-gazing. Heavenly balms were strewn
On those two forms who 'neath the Moon
Took Love's divine first kiss. The Night
Linger'd above them in delight,
Till softly and serenely blest,
Still as two love-birds in a nest,
They slept! . . .

O Alohà! (which means
‘I love you,’ mind) delightful Maiden!
Still in the daintiest of your teens,
Yet woman-soul'd and passion laden!
Through you, alas! I make this canto
More warmly-colour'd than I want to!
For I profess—let all men know it—
To be a Psychologic Poet!
Not that with solemn cogitations
I mean to tire the reader's patience,
Hair-splitting and refining ether
Like some bards (and no small ones neither)
Who show with philosophic hiccup
The metaphysics in a teacup,
And plummets deep as Death apply
To gauge the depths of apple-pie!
But aiming at the adumbration
Of Nature's chaos of sensation,
The more I of these Mysteries speak
The more I pause with blushing cheek!
Many will misconceive me; some
Will just be thunderstruck and dumb
That I should dream of spiritualising
A subject which—there's no disguising—
Is delicate extremely. Then
I dread the Critics, those small men
With those big voices! . . .

Furthermore
The days of passionate song are o'er,
And now no Poet wins the laurel
Who is not absolutely moral.
We've had our fill of impropriety,
Since Byron rose to shock Society,
And of all moods by bards affected
Anacreon's has been least neglected.
The favourite Muses, Greek or British,
Have ever been extremely skittish,
And modern bards have drunk too wildly
The warm Greek wine which Goethe mildly
Sipt at while sketching with soft shade his
Loose-laced, lax-moral'd German ladies;
Gretchen, Philina, all the crew,
Fleshly yet sentimental too,
Sad sensuous things of scant decorum,
Lost like the Magdalen before 'em,
Save Mignon, who, as story teaches,
Lack'd fat and so became the breeches.
Then we've had Byron, that lame Cupid
Of odalisques sublimely stupid,
Not to name here Chateaubriand,
Alfred de Musset, and George Sand,
All watering with artistic squirt
The flower of passion grown in dirt,
Till Gautier made the Immortals flutter
By rolling Venus in the gutter!
But patience! this strange tale I tell
Is high as Heaven, though deep as Hell,
And in the end shall please the mind
That's to analysis inclined;
Shall show you, ere the last sad line,
The great Eternal Feminine
(Das Ewigweibliche, to wit,
As amorous Wolfgang christen'd it),
And vindicate its flights immodest
Through scenes where Venus lies unbodiced,
By flying on with fearless pinions
To the clear air of God's dominions,

That night, within their bower of bloom
Flooded with moonlight and perfume,
The Captain and his new-found treasure
Drank deep of Love's o'erflowing measure,
Then down the Unconscious sinking deep
Floated on shimmering seas of Sleep.

Wonder and hush miraculous!
When, weary of her load of care,
This Earth, whose fond arms shelter us,
Feels softly on her brows and hair
The cool dark dews of twilight fall
Mysterious and celestial!
Lo! while her golden robe of day
Slips film by film and falls away,
Naked and warm she stands a space,
The sun-flush fading from her face:
Then, with bow'd head and soft hands prest
Upon her bare and billowing breast,
Takes, while the chill Moon steals in sight,
The cold ablution of the Night!
And then, as by the pools of rest
She lieth down subdued and blest,
As on her closèd eyes are shed
Dim influence from the heavens o'erhead,
We nestling in her bosom close
Our feverish eyelids and repose—
Our spirits husht, our voices dumb,
Our little lives a little still'd,
We sleep!—and round us softly come
Souls from whose fountains ours are fill'd!
Spirits as soft as moonbeams flit
Around our rest, not breaking it,
Brushing across our lips and eyes
Wings wet with dews of Paradise!
While at God's mercy and at theirs
We lie, they bless us unawares,—
Watch the Soul's pool that lies within
The branches dark of Flesh and Sin,
And stir it as with Aaron's rod
To gleams of Heaven and dreams of God!
Lifting the filmy tent of Sleep
With gentle fingers, on us peep
Those errant angels, soft and tender
With some strange starlight's dusky splendour;
With balm from Heaven they bedew us,
Bring flowers from Heaven and hold them to us,
Flash on our eyes the diamonds shaken
To fairy rainbows as we waken,
And jubilantly ere departing
Ring those wild echoes in our ears,
Which, flusht and from our pillows starting,
We hearken for with childish tears!

If Dreams were not, if we could fall
To slumber and not dream at all,—
If when the eyes were closed, the sense
Close shut, all seeing vanish'd thence,
Why, 'twere not difficult to fancy
This life no freak of necromancy,—
And Man a clock, contrived to go
(Bar breakage) seventy years or so,
Yet running down and pausing nightly,
Pendulum fluttering with no pain,
Till, as the daydawn glimmers brightly,
A Finger quickens it again!
But Dreams, though sages think them silly,
Attest us Spirits willy-nilly,
And prove that, when the Unconscious glides
Around us with its numbing tides,
Shapes past conceiving or control
Stir the dark cisterns of the Soul!
All day God veils Himself in Light,
But down the starry stairs each night
He steals with solemn soundless tread
And finds us—fast asleep, not dead!
Ah, then begins the conjuration,
The Mystery, the Incantation!
The Feet Divine with soft insistence
Plash through the Waters of Existence,
Send strange electric thrills each minute
Down to the very ooze within it,
While, startled by the shining Presence,
All Nature breaks to phosphorescence! . . .
Now came the golden tropic Morning!
Not like our dawns of chilly gloom:
One glow, one crimson flash of warning,
Then one great flood of blinding bloom—
The world awoke and leapt—the Sea
Flasht like a mirror radiantly—
The leaves and flowers were all alive—
A miracle of Light was done—
And glad as bees from out the hive
The people flock'd into the sun!

Happy, contented, and serene,
The Outcast left his nuptial bed,
While blushing like a happy queen,
His bride just kissed his lips and fled,—
But soon tript back on lightsome feet
With troops of maidens in her train,
Bringing her lord fresh fruits to eat
And cups of coca-milk to drain.
Then gay and glad he sought the strand
And stript, and plung'd into the tide,
And, striking strongly out from land
In pools of Dawn beatified,
He heard a rippling laugh, and turning
Saw her behind him, swimming too—
Her dusky face upon him yearning
Baptized with joy and morning dew!

That was the Dawn, the bright beginning
Of one long day of Love's delight!
Happy, unconscious she was sinning,
His slave by day, his bride by night,
She, with her people's acquiescence,
Said in Love's language, ‘I am thine,’
And happy in her constant presence
He lived and loved and felt divine!
And ah! what wonder he was glad,
That all his soul grew iridescent,
Forgot the past so dark and sad,
With such a Bride for ever present?
Soft almond eyes of starry splendour,
Lips poppy-red, teeth white as pearls,
A warm brown cheek sun-tan'd and tender,—
The nicest, nakedest of girls!
Her form from shoulder down to foot
Like Cupid's bow a splendid curve,
Her flesh as soft as ripen'd fruit
Yet quick with quivering pulse and nerve—
Her limbs, like those of some fair statue,
Perfectly rounded, strong yet slight,
Her childish glance, when smiling at you,
Alive with luxury of light!
O happy he whose head could rest
Upon that warm and bounteous breast,
And so ecstatically capture
Its tropic indolence of rapture!
How darkly, passionately fair
She seem'd when, resting by him there
Upon a couch of leaves sweet-scented,
She smiled without a single care,
And took no kiss that she repented,
And knew no thought he could not share.
And when he wearied with the light
Shed on his dazzled soul and sight,
Still as a bird within the nest
She saw his dark eyes close in rest;
And lay beside him fondly waiting,
Obedient as a happy child,
Watching his face, and palpitating
Till he awoke again and smiled!
For all her pleasure was to trace
The happiness upon his face,
To feel his breath flow warmly thro' her,
To kiss his hands and draw them to her,
And place them on her heart, that he
Might feel it leaping happily!
And ever springing from his side,
She brought him fruit and dainties sweet,
And knelt beside him, happy-eyed
To see her Lord and Master eat—
And if he frown'd her face grew very
Sad; if he laugh'd, her face grew merry;
So every shade of his emotion
Pass'd to her face and faithful eyes,
As shadows of the summer Ocean
Answer the changes of the Skies!

A Rose with Dawn's cool dew and savour
Renew'd at every kiss he gave her,
A Blush Rose passionately scented,
Serene, unconscious, and contented,
She felt soft airs of Heaven bedew her,
And drank their sweetness deep into her,
Kept Soul and Body, through light and glooming,
One Flower for ever freshly blooming!
O happy Life! O blissful Passion!
Far from Life's folly and Life's fashion!
Far from the tailor and the hatter!
Far from the clubs and criticasters!
Far from all metaphysic patter,
From all cold creeds of God and Matter,
From silly sheep and sillier pastors!
No Parliaments, to lying given—
No paupers, and no governing classes—
No books, or newspapers, thank Heaven!
And no god Jingo for the masses!
O happy Life, without a trouble!
Pure and prismatic as a bubble,
Fresh as a flower with dewdrops pearl'd,—
Ere naked Truth rose, with a wink,
Black from her Well (of printer's ink)
Or out of chaos woke the World!