SIREN SANDS
I
The rhododendrons bloom and shake
Their petals wide and gleam and sway
Among palmettoes, by the lake,
Beyond the bay.
Shores where we watched the eve reveal
Her cloudy sanctuaries, while
The bay lay lavaed into steel
For mile on mile.
We watched the purple coast confuse
Soft outlines with the graying light;
And towards the gulf a vessel lose
Itself in night.
We saw the sea-gulls dip and soar;
The wild-fowl gather past the pier;
And from rich skies, as from God's door,
Gold far and near.
Two foreign seamen passed and we
Heard mellow Spanish; like twin stars,
Where they lounged smoking, we could see
Their faint cigars.
Night; and the heavens stained and strewn
With stars the waters idealized,
Until their light the rising moon
Epitomized.
Morn; and the pine-wood balms awake;
Winds roll the dew-drop from the rose;
The wide lake burns; and, on the lake,
The ripple glows.
Far coasts detach deep purple from
The blue horizon, and the day
Beholds the sunburnt sailor come
And sail away.
The bird that slept at dusk, at dawn
Awakes again within the thorn.—
Sweet was the night to it, now gone;
And sweet is morn.
II
Through halls of columned scarlet,
Like some dark queen, the Dusk
Trails skirts of myrrh and musk,
Hung in each ear, a starlet
Gleams,—gems the clouds' gaunt Jinn
Guard; and, beneath her chin,
The moon, an opal tusk.
There lies a ghostly glory
Upon the sea and sand;
A gleam, as of a hand,
Stretched from the realms of story,
Of rosy golden ray;
Pointing the world the way
To some far Fairyland.
As fades the west's vermilion
Above the distant coasts,
The stars come out in hosts;
Within the night's pavilion,
As flower speaks to flower,
Dim hour calls to hour,
Pale with the past's sweet ghosts.
III
Music that melts through moonlight,
Faint on the summer breeze;
Fireflies, moonlight, and foaming
Susurrus of the seas.
Music that drifts like perfume,
And touches like a hand;
Dreams and stars and the ocean,
And we alone on the sand.
Glimmers and vague reflections,
And the white swirl of the foam;
Pale on the purple a vessel,
And a light that beckons home.
And I seem to see the music,
On a moonbeam bar that floats,
For the music is moonlight magic,
And the flies are its golden notes.
And I seem to hear one singing
Of a brown old coast and sea,
Of lives that were filled with passion,
And old-world tragedy.
And I hear the harsh reef's calling
For a noble ship at sea,
And the winds of the ocean singing
A dirge for the dead to be.
Till it seems that I am the pilot,
And you are the mermaidén,
Who lures him on to the wrecking
And into her arms again.
Song
Over the hills where the winds are waking
All is lone as the soul of me;
Over the hills where the stars are shaking,
Breton hills by the sea.
These were with me to tell me often
How she pined in her Croisic home,
Winds that sing and the stars that soften
Over the miles of foam.
Fishers' nets and the sailor faces;
Sad salt marshes and granite piers;
Brown, loud coast where the long foam races—
And a parting full of tears.
A gray sail's ghost where the autumn lies on
Wraiths of the mist and the squall-blown rain;
Her dark girl eyes that search the horizon,
Grave with a haunting pain.
Stars may burn and the wild winds whistle
Over the rocks where the sea-gulls rave—
My heart is bleak as the wind-worn thistle
Dead on her seaside grave.
IV
Sad as sad eyes that ache with tears
The stars of night shine through the leaves;
And shadowy as the Fates' dim shears
The weft that twilight weaves.
The summer sunset marched long hosts
Of gold adown one golden peak,
That flamed and fell; and now gray ghosts
Of mist the far west streak.
They seem the shades of things that weep,
Wan things the heavens would conceal;
Blood-stained; that bear within them, deep,
Red wounds that will not heal.
Night comes, and with it storm, that slips
Wild angles of the jagged light:—
I feel the wild rain on my lips,—
A wild girl is the Night.
A moaning tremor sweeps the trees;
And all the stars are packed with death:—
She holds me by the neck and knees,
I feel her wild, wet breath.
Hell and its hags drive on the rain:—
Night holds me by the hair and pleads;
Her kisses fall like blows again;
My brow is dewed with beads.
The thunder plants wild beacons on
Each volleying height.—My soul seems blown
Far out to sea. The world is gone,
And night and I alone.
Tampa, Florida, February, 1893.
