The poet, the fool and the faeries

A Lyrical Eclogue
Scene: A woodland among hills.
Time: The Present.
Poet
Well! well! as I'm a poet, here's a fool!
What does he here?

Fool
What, sir, but keep him cool,
And pass the time of day with such as you.

Poet
Why, that's my fool now! One that Shakespeare knew!—
Are we in Arden, then?

Fool
That's telling tales.

Poet
Aye! it is Arden.

Fool
So we're far as that!—
Show me now where Audrey and Touchstone sat.

Poet
Take it from me, upon this mossy mat;
—There! I'll swear it by your bauble's bat,
Or—my last poem.

Fool
Ah! then Poetry ails,
Since you will swear, by her, to what is lies?

Poet
Not only does she ail, good Fool, but dies;
Such is the verdict of the worldly wise.—
But when I saw her last she looked not ill;
There was a happy light in her clear eyes.—
That she was dying is impossible.

Fool
But nothing is impossible.—You're here!
A poet in these woods!—Your poet,—well—
Keeps to the town where there is atmosphere.

Poet
Then diagnose me what a poet is,
Or should be, Fool.

Fool.

Now, by the cap I wear!
Since Kings command, here's my analysis—
No poet he of mart or thoroughfare.

He measures facts by a gleam o' the moon,
And calendars days by dreams;
He values less than a wild bird's tune
The world of mortal schemes:
He dons the pack of the Work-and-Wait,
On the trail of the Never-Sure,
And whistles a song as he faces Fate
To follow the far-off lure.

He says a word to the butterfly,
And its mottled dream is his;
He whispers the bee, and it makes reply
With a thought like a honeyed kiss:
He speaks the bird, and he speaks the snake,
And the ant in its house of sand,
And their guarded wisdom is his to take,
And their secrets to understand.

He shares his soul with the wayside rose,
His heart with the woodland weed,
And he knows the two as himself he knows,
And the thoughts with which they plead:
To him they speak in confidence,
And he answers them with love,
And hand in hand with their innocence
Strikes out for the trail above.

Sworn comrade he of the rocks and trees,
Companion boon of the brooks;
Through whose hoary tribes he hears and sees
The things that are not in books:
He goes his way of do and dare,
Led on by firefly gleams,
And lays him down with never a care
By the campfire of his dreams.

Poet
That's what I call a goodly bit of news.
How comes it that a fool such things can feel,
And say them too?—'T is strange.

Fool
'T was but a ruse
To get you into argument.

Poet
I see.
But I, good Fool, with all you said agree.
Your knowledge now of what a bard should be
Makes to my heart a very strong appeal.
Where did you learn this thing?

Fool
In Arcady.
I have a fair acquaintance with the Muse.

Poet
Indeed?

Fool
You see I only need to choose
Of all these things that lie right at my hand,—
That anyone with sense may understand,—
Select my meter and arrange my rhyme,
And there you are!—my discourse moves to time.

Poet
Behold the fool turned poet! Come, sir, come!
Song must be heard. Too long has she been dumb.
All genius is half fool.—What say you now
To a good bout at rhyming?

Fool
Steel to steel,
With “Ho” and “Ha” and “Curse you anyhow”?—
Why I'm your onion! cut or thrust or play—
'T is easier, sir, than running down at heel.
I'll foin you—well, an hour or a day
And never falter foot.

Poet
Have at you!—Pray,
But have a care, my gentle Fool! You know,
Apollo once brought Marsyas to woe.

Fool
But you are not Apollo.

Poet
Even so.
And well for you, my Fool: THAT saves your skin.

Fool

I'm willing to be flayed; so let's begin.

All around,
In the forest, is enchanted ground:—
Where the sunlight throws
Airy-minted gold
To the lily and rose,
Stretching flowers, like hands, to seize and hold:
Where the brooks unfold
Scrolls of music, crystal melody,
For the hills to hear,
Leaning low an ear,
Many a leafy ear,
Emerald-veined, on many a listening tree;
Where the winds work at their necromance,
Rustling-robed, with hands that glint and glance,
Weaving, dim a-trance,
Lights and shadows into tapestry,
Glimmering with many a wildflower dance:—
Quaker-Ladies in a saraband,
Twinkling hand in hand;
And, demurely met,
Orchids in a stately minuet,
Flirting eyelids at the amorous bee,

Bird and bee, in lyric ecstasy:—
There, where none may hear,
Magic, Mystery,
Parents of Romance,
Ever near,
Work dim wonders with the rain and sun,
Mist and dew:
There the two
Plot enchantments, old yet always new—
Never hurried; never done
Dreaming, weaving,
All perceiving,
Dreams man's soul is heir unto:
Waving, beckoning him to follow
Down the world, through holt and hollow;
Bidding see with the spirit's eyes,
Heed and hear with the soul's deep heart,
Till the Mind, by the two made wise,
Come to a shadowy world apart,
And, hand in hand with its ecstasies,
Enter the gateway of Surprise,
And find its dreams realities.

Poet
Well rhymed, my Fool. If all men had your sense
The world would be the wiser.

Fool
That's recompense.
Critics might scorn it; magazines reject.
Howbeit, Poet, thanks for your respect.

Poet

You've made me somewhat thoughtful with your theme;
And since't is Spring I cannot help but dream.

Where the orchid's faery flowers
Lamp the forest ways with pearl,
And the sibyl woodland hours
Gossip with the thrush and merl:
Where the hill-born waters run,
Bluebell-aproned in the sun,
Each one madcap as a girl
Dancing with wild hair awhirl:

Where the bluet blossoms wink,
Constellating heavens of moss;
And around the wood pool's brink
Iris flowers their bonnets toss:
Where the bird's-foot violet
And the windflower thickly set
Magic snares for hearts that cross,
Wildwood-wandered, at a loss:

There the rough bee, busily,
In the haw tree's house of bloom,
Plies his honeyed industry,
Weaving murmur and perfume,
Spinning cirques of sorcerous sound,
Where old Time is drowsy-bound,
Like to Merlin, fallen on doom,
Captive in a gleaming gloom.

Wheresoe'er the feet may stray
Earth with mystery is tense;
Every tree trunk hides a fay,
Every fern is pixy dense:
Elfland lays an ambuscade
In each wonder-guarded glade,
Taking prisoner the sense
With compelling indolence.

Till the spirit vision clears,
And before the eyes, behold!
Beauty's very self appears,
As the Greeks believed of old:
In the rapture of her gaze
Glows the joy of other days;
In her tresses all the gold
Of the faery tales long told.

Still she keeps her body fair
For the soul that knows not art;
Innocent and free of care
Low she whispers to the heart,
As in childhood, when you knew,
And in dreams she came to you,
In a place remote, apart,
Elfdom, that is on no chart.

Still within her bower she waits
For the moment, long removed;
Till, delivered of the Fates,
Wakes again the soul that loved:

And to it shall be revealed
Secrets that she kept concealed;
And the dream, which long behooved,—
Real as earth,—again be proved.

Fool

You're not so far wrong as it may appear
When't comes to faeries.—Hark now! in your ear:
I have a secret I have longed to tell
To some good friend; and it concerns this dell.

Where the path leads through this dell
All the way is under spell:
There, beneath the old oak tree,
Where the light lies dim at noon,
Elfland held its revelry,
Danced and left its yellow shoon:—
You may call them, if you choose,
Whippoorwill-shoes.

There between a stalk and stem,
Where the crowfoot hangs its gem,
Golden in the fern's green hair,
Swings a hammock, dips a bed,
Faeryland has woven there
Out of mist and moonbeam thread:—
Never web was spider spun
Like this one.

Yonder fungus, pink and brown,
Which the slim snail silvers down
Cautiously, as if afraid
Of intrusive visitors,
Is a table ouphens laid
For their feast beneath the stars:—
Never mushroom, you may wis,
Was like this.

To this tree now lay your ear:
In its heart you too may hear
Whispered wonders, as have I:
How, in frog-skin pantaloon,
Moth-wing gown and butterfly,
Pixies tripped here by the moon:—
Never breeze, or sap, I know,
Murmurs so.

Now and then, whence none can tell,
Sudden fragrance sweeps the dell,
And your eyelids flutter to:—
'T is some glamour, elfin—wise,
Passing very near to you,
Putting glimmer in your eyes:—
Never wild-rose scent, or sun,
So could run.

Thus it is I look around
When I tread this faery ground:—
There is witchcraft in the place;
There is magic; there is spell;

You can feel it like a face,
Gazing, yet invisible:
I have felt it; you may feel:—
None reveal.

Poet

I prize your revelation, and believe,
Without a reservation, all you say.
Now, mark you; yonder—do your eyes perceive,
Among the leaves and flowers, what's a-play?
What fancies,—faeries?—call them by that name—
The two that always must remain the same.

Like Rapunzel within her tower,
Divinely pale, in sweet distress,
The Mayapple, of fragile flower,
Gives glimpses of its loveliness:
And there, like her the witch detained,
And walled with sleep and many a briar,
The wild rose glimmers, rosy veined,
As if its blushes it restrained,
Soft-dreaming of its heart's desire.

All is at peace: the woods around
Stand silent as authorities
In contemplation. Not a sound
Disturbs their dream of centuries.
Out of their long experience

In green and gold they tell their thought;
And to the soul's divining sense
Deliver all the evidence
Of that for which man's mind has sought.

Retired as happiness that holds
The memory of a grief that's gone,
The humid orchis here unfolds
Its pearl and purple to the dawn.
Around, the bluets, near and far,
Prompt as the skies they imitate,
In multitudes that know no bar,
Reveal their beauty, star on star,
And nothing of their joy abate.

How one frail flower like this can make
Immortal to the memory
A place, a moment, with the ache
Of something more than eyes can see!
And how the soul will cling to it,—
And in its thought immortalize
The happiness whereon it hit
In that one moment exquisite
When Beauty took it by surprise.

Fool

Now I'll be open with you, Poet.—See,
Now you're my friend since you believe like me.

Why, I have seen things—faeries! Yes, right here!
I'll tell you of them. Listen. Lend your ear.

I sat with woodland dreams one night,
Before the moon rose round and white,
And saw the moth-like minions dim,
Who guard the wild rose when asleep,
Come forth: The spirits, small and slim
(Gold-Pollen, Prickle, Rain-Bright, Trim),
Who hang around each wildflower's rim
Its carcanet of dew, and keep
Its fair face clean of things that creep.

I saw them, busily as ants,
Hang with pale gold the woodland plants:
On bindweed tendrils, one by one,
I saw them loop long rows of bells,
That swung in crystal unison;
Then up the silken primrose run
(Moth-Feather, Tripsy, Light-Foot, Fun),
And to the stars unclasp its shells,
That filled with sweetness all the dells.

I saw the shapes that house in trees,
That guard the nests of birds and bees:
Like sudden starlight gleamed their hands
And leaf-like bodies, glimmering green,
When through the woods they moved in bands
(Wisp, Foxfire, Burr, Jock-o'-the-Brands),
And dotted night with firefly wands;

Peering with pin-point eyes between
The fernleaves for some harm unseen.

I saw the fancies wild, for whom
The crickets violin the gloom,
Lead in a pageant long of dreams;
To see which even the sleepy snail
Thrust out its horns; and from the streams
(Spraytop- and Ripple-chased it seems),
The trout leapt silvery, showering gleams
Of beryl'thwart the pearly pale
Low moon that raised her faery sail.

And with the moon came presences
Of gnome-like things that toil mid trees;
That build the ghost-flower in a night;
And set their grotesque shoulders to
The toadstool's root and heave it white
(Troll, Nixen, Kobold, Glowwormlight),
Into the star dusk; and pull tight
The webs that frost themselves with dew
Adown each woodland avenue.

I saw them rouse the moth and ride
The spider forth; and rein and guide
The grumbling beetle on its way;
And prick the slow slug so it'd see
The fungus ruff of red and gray
(Lob, Fly-by-Night, and Lanthornray),
Where it could gorge itself all day;

The agaric, which, tirelessly,
They'd wrung from out the old dead tree.

These things I saw: Then shapes of musk
In herby raiment swarmed the dusk;
They rose from moss and rotted wood,
From loam and leaf and weed and flower:
Midge-winged they swept the solitude
(Rosehip and Fernseed, Lily-Snood),
A vague, ephemeral sisterhood,
That stole the sweetness from each bower,
To give it back within the hour.

Then slighter forms of film and foam
Rose from the streams and sat, a comb
Of moon-pearl in their hands: the fays,
Who herd the minnows; keep from harm
The dragonfly that sleeps or sways
(Foam-Flutter, Starstep, Ripple-Rays),
Like some bright jewel, on the Day's
White breast, when, starred, a golden charm,
The water-lily opens warm.

And then I saw them cloud the air,—
Elf shapes, that came with flying hair,
Winding their gnat-like bugles: sprites,
That help the spider when it weaves
Its web; or, lamped with glowworm lights
(Prank, Heavyhead, Bob-up-o'-Nights),
Guide bats and owlets in their flights,

Or toads to where the mushroom heaves
Its rosy round through loam and leaves.

These are the dreams I sat with when
The owlet hooted in the glen;
These are the dreams that came before
My eyelids in this forest gray—
Children of Fancy, Faery Lore,—
Puck, Ariel, and many more,—
Wearing the face that erst they wore
For Shakespeare; and, in some strange way,
As real now as in his day.

Poet

Since you have spoken, Sir, I'll tell you what
Occurred to me upon this selfsame spot,
When soul-sick of the world I sought this wood,
Knowing my heartache would be understood.

I took the old wood at its word,
And flung me on its lap of moss;
Its shimmering arms above me stirred,
And green its bosom heaved across.
I felt its cool breath on my cheek,
As low it leaned to see my face,
Whispering, “What is it, son, you seek?
What is it that you would replace?
What have you lost? what would you find?—
Is it your heart? or peace of mind?”

I heard its question, not with ears,
But with an inward sense of grief:
Words would not come, but only tears,
Slow tears, that brought me no relief.
Again the whisper: “Is it love?
Or aspirations you have prized?
Or loss of faith in God above?
Or some far dream unrealized?”—
“I know not how,” my soul replied,
“But Poetry, meseems, has died.”

Then for a space the wood was still.—
A teardrop fell;—or was it rain
I felt upon my face; the chill
Glad tears of Nature?—Then again,
Was it her joy?—or just the storm
She gathered to her breast awhile?
Then, quickly, was it sunlight warm?
Or on her face a quiet smile?
As low I heard her answer thrill—
“Here in my arms Song slumbers still.”

And, oh, I wakened as from dreams,
And saw her there,—Song, dim as moss:
And heard her voice, which is the streams,
Rill from her pure throat leaned across:
And all around me, flower on flower,
I saw her wild thoughts gleam and glow;
And through them, by some subtle power,
Beheld my soul's dreams come and go.

Long mourned as dead, no more to part,
I took her sobbing to my heart.

Fool

Why, you are Nature's favored son, I see.
But hark you now: She too has let me know
Soul-intimacy: Once with eyes of glee
She made the Wind's self visible to me—
The elfin Wind!—You were not favored so.

I saw her there among the leaves,
A slender spirit none perceives,
The Wind, who still her magic weaves,
Romancing:
I heard her feet, as soft as thieves';
And then the silken swish of sleeves,
Steal 'round the forest's fluttered eaves,
A-dancing.

She leaned and whispered in the ear
Of every wildflower something dear,—
How to protect their hearts from fear
Of dying:
Then took the thistle's feathery sphere
And glimmered it across the mere,
Or on a cobweb, trailing near,
Went flying.

The butterfly, that comes and goes,
She tosses on the wilding rose;
Then teases

The blossomed bee that whines; and blows
Into each bud till wide it grows;
When swift its musk that overflows
She seizes.

Then fine and fair away she trips,
Wood perfume on her wildwood lips,
To where, with twinkling fingertips,
Day's daughter,
The Gloaming, waits; and Silence drips:
There from her gown of light she slips,
And with the star of twilight dips
The water.

Poet

Surely you have good eyes, Sir.—Long ago
The ancient wisdom of the world, that Snake
Of God's own Eden, in such shapes did show
Himself to mortals, making their senses ache
With longings for a loveliness that drew
The mind of man beyond the things he knew.

The Snake, that once in Eden spake,
The ancient Snake, that wrought our woe,
Still lies with bright green eyes awake
By every wildwood path we go:
We may not see him; may not know:
But still he waits eternal there
Watching whatever way we fare.

We feel his presence in the leaves,
That murmur of forgotten things:
Of longings, and of love that grieves
For whilom joys and happenings:
Of vanished lights and broken wings,
And all the perished host, it seems,
That once made fair the hills and streams.

We hear him whispering in the trees,
And in the waters of the rocks,
Of wildwood dreams and mysteries,
That 'tend the visionary flocks
Of Beauty who, eluding, mocks
All efforts of the human mind
To seize her and forever bind.

We see his eyes at sunset flame
And pierce the centuried forest through,
Looking the things that have no name,
To which our longings are a clue;—
And memories of lives we knew
Flow back from outer nothingness
Upon our souls to curse or bless.

Amorphous, dim, he folds us round
In darkness, like another night:
His rustling body wreathes the ground,
His eyeballs burn with emerald light:
We hear and see and feel his might,—
That made religions once of old,—
With worship of dead myths take hold.

He is a part of what we see
Yet do not see; of what we hear
Yet never hear: within each tree
And rock and stream he watches near,
Addressing now the spirit ear
With thoughts; and now the spirit eye
With dreams that pass but never die.

Fool

That takes me back to times when men wore skins;
When Earth teemed dragons; tons, that soared, with wings;
Or isled the ocean with enormous fins:
Primordial guesses at approaching things.
Why, while you spoke, in mind I seemed to go
Back to creation; to the very day
God wrought a mate for man. Meseems I know,
Yes, am quite sure, He made her in this way.

I saw Him first set up a bone,
And breathe on it until it shone
And grew a heart, to curse or bless,
And filled with love and wantonness,
All Hell's delight, all Heaven's distress.

Then to Himself God smiling said,
“The heart's the least; far more the head.”
He shaped the head; then molded fair
The bright destruction of her hair,
And therein made for man a snare.

In front He painted fresh her face,
All innocent, divine of grace;
But underneath the angel mien
He hid a devil, dark, unclean,
A monster thing whose gaze was green.

Into the face He set the eyes,
Full of beguilement and surmise,
Of prayer and passion, make-believe,
And tears and laughter, to deceive
The heart of man God meant to grieve.

The nose and mouth He fashioned next:
The nose precise; the mouth perplexed
With virtue and the quenchless thirst
For fruit forbidden, blest and curst
With longings for life's best and worst.

Then loud God laughed and spake again:
“Without the body all were vain!”—
And underneath the head he set
The throat and breasts, like roses met,
And arms; all portions of the net.

The torso then and limbs of snow
He made and fixed them fair below:
And in her feet and in her breast
He breathed the spirit of unrest
And vanity of soul distressed.

“Behold!” God said, “my masterpiece!
Through whom the world shall know increase.—
And man will give me thanks, I know,
And laud My work, and, heart aglow,
Accept My gift and all his woe.”

Poet

No woman'd thank you for that, understand!
What an arraignment of the sex!—You went
A little far there, friend. And, out of hand,
You are a fool who has grown insolent;
That's what fair Eve would say.—Look where yon cloud
Takes on strange shape, with pearl and azure browed:
Perhaps it beckons us,—what do you say?—
To fairer dreams of the lost Far Away.

Far away, oh, far away,
Where the clouds grow up and the shadows gray;
Where twilight dreams and the rain-wind sleeps,
And the cloud-born waterfall, singing, leaps.
Oh, there, whatever the soul may say,—
Far away, aye, far away,—
Is the happy Land of Yesterday.

Loveliness walks on its hills, and sighs;
And friendship smiles from its oldtime skies;
Love, like a maid who walks in dreams,
Flutters with white its vales and streams:

And over it all a gladness lies,—
As soft as eyes, as love's own eyes,—
And heart's ease, breathing slumberous sighs.

Never near, oh, never near,
That Land where dreams of the heart appear;
Where Revery lays her spirit bare,
And Mystery lures with golden hair:
Oh, there, whatever the heart may hear,—
Never near, yes, never near,—
Is the Land of Ghosts that our hearts hold dear.

Witchery waits by its lonely ways
With mild-eyed dreams of other days;
And down old paths, where young feet went,
Faith, with her open testament,
Walks with Hope through the golds and grays
Of oldtime ways, remembered ways,
The look in her face of long-past Mays.

Never near and far away
Are the lone, lost Lands of Yesterday
And dim To-morrow, where dream and ghost
Wander and whisper and beckon us most.
Open your gates in the Cloudland gray,
Never near and far away,
And let us in where our longings stray.

Fool

Well, you and I can always journey there:
We have the receipt of fernseed. But beware!

How you step yonder, by that tree.—Meseems
I saw a Faery hide there.—How absurd!—
It's but a burnished beetle. How it gleams!
It could tell tales now, if it would!—my word!

Last night beneath this ancient tree,
Dim in the moonlight and the ferns,
The elfin folk held revelry,
I know by what my soul discerns
Mysteriously.

For, look you, where yon circle runs
Of bluets, winking very wise,
The rapture of those tricksy ones
Has put confusion in their eyes,
That meet the sun's.

And, mark you, how the toadstool there
Protrudes its bulk in Falstaff state;
It too has seen, I well will swear,
An elf, and learned to imitate
His pompous air.

And where that lichen lays a streak
Of rose, fair as a flowering stock,
The place but recollects her cheek,
The fay's, who danced upon this rock
Above the creek.

And, hark! between this rock and root,
Where, shrill, the cricket pipes away,

A faery dropped a magic flute,
That never stops, but still must play
For faery foot.

And that same beetle, glittering by,
Has mailed itself, as it has seen
Titania's guard, in royal dye
Of bronz and green, when round their queen
They caught its eye.

The toad that squats, observing naught,
By yonder mushrooms' bench and bar,
Has donned the Puck-wise look he caught
From Oberon's chief councilor
In judgment sought.

The bees that murmur drowsy here,
The gnats and wood-flies, but repeat
The music which a sleepy ear
Caught when all Elfland rose to greet
Queen Mab with cheer.

Oh, there is more than eye may see,
That to the moon is visible!—
If it could speak, this ancient tree,
What would it say? what would it tell
Of Faërie?

But it—it keeps its council close,
As do the crickets and the flowers:—
Ah, could it speak and tell of those!

What tales we'd hear, of elfin powers!
What things none knows!

Poet

Spring's taken full possession of your brain,
And I can feel it working here in mine;
Why, there she stands with all her radiant train,
The Spring herself, beneath a wildgrape-vine.

There her beauty dons a gown
White of dogwood blooms,
And goes dreaming up and down
Through the wood's dim rooms;
Waters, falling, make a sound
Like her heart's full beat;
And the silence all around
Rustles with her feet.

There the iris, timidly,
From its hood of dew,
To the wind that wanders by
Lifts an eye of blue:
Here the cautious violet,
As if it could hear
Music none has dreamed of yet,
Lays to earth an ear.

There the winds on tiptoe tread,
Lullabying low
To the bee whose blossom-bed
Rocks now fast, now slow.

Here the sunlight, like a charm,
Lays a touch of gold,
As if summoning some form,
Gnome-like, from the mold.

Here the Mayapple, that seems
In a wax-white trance,
With suggestions of its dreams
Clouds its countenance.
On the hush no sound intrudes,
Save a redbird's song,
And the wood-brook's interludes
Singing low along.

Presences of wind and light,
Myths, the Spring gives form,
Glow upon the spirit-sight,
With compelling charm;
Blushing into bloom and breeze,
Making sweet the house,
Where the white Spring takes her ease
Under blossoming boughs.

Grant me, Heaven, eyes to see,
Evident of grace,
Her divine virginity,
Naked, face to face!
All her goddess loveliness,
So I may adore,
Like Tiresias of old,
Blind forevermore.

Fool

Now you have said it!—Things seem all agog
For something that has happened or will hap:
Why, look you there, even this moldering log
Has clothed itself in moss, and spreads its lap
For some wild sylvan's seat; or for the Queen
Of all the Wood Sprites to survey the scene.

The flag-flower flies an azure streak;
The dogtooth violet bugles out:
What festival, beside this creek,
Is Faeryland about?

The bluebell in the wind swings peals
Of azure, and the poppies chime
A golden call, whose sound reveals
How Elfland trips to time.

Such ecstasy as that which sings,
Compelling, in each root and seed,
And in the egg wakes wilding wings
That flutter to be freed.

Soul music, ear has never heard,
That breathes o'er earth its living breath,
And flings Life's last triumphant word
Full in the face of Death.

Poet

Death? death?—There is no death!—I know!—And why?—
I've been to Avalon, the shadowy Isle,
And know the Beautiful can never die,
That God permitted for a little while
To walk the Earth and cheer us with its smile.

For I have been in Avalon,
And walked its glimmering groves among,
And talked with Beauty, dead and gone,
And Love that lives in ancient song.
Yes, I have been in Avalon:
Therefore, you see, my brow is wan.

Remembering still the look of those
Sore-wounded ones, who loved in vain,
Whose lives are wrapped now in repose,
Freed from the vassalage of pain,
An inner peace my spirit wears
Regardful of that look of theirs.

Pale violet were the belting seas,
And violet too both hill and dale;
And, unremembering, over these
The heaven like a violet pale;
And cliff and mountain from the steep
Let down dim streams as if asleep.

And here and there the ancient woods
Spread mighty and majestic robes,

Wherein were woven attitudes
Of beauty, marble-pale: dim globes
And towers of loveliness, it seemed
The Island into being dreamed.

No sun I saw; I saw no moon:
But twilight dreamed forever there,
With shadowy starlight all a-swoon,
Above the blue and quiet air:
While all around, from east to west,
The consecration lay of rest.

There saw I queens of old romance,
And glimmering kings of legend pass;
And on their brows and in their glance
I read their dreams as in a glass:
And, of my soul remembered yet,
The dreams have taught me to forget.

But in their hearts my heart could read
No memory of what had been;
No old regret for thought or deed,
Or that they once were king and queen.
They had forgotten all thereof—
The hate of earth as well as love.

Long time I spake them, dim, apart;
Long time I talked with queen and king,
While through the heaven of my heart
Oblivion trailed a twilight wing;
And on my spirit's lifted brow
Was poured the peace that haunts it now.

Yes, I have been in Avalon,
The faery Isle in faery seas;
Therefore it is my face is wan,
My heart at peace remembering these.
It may not be, and yet—I seem
Forever waking from a dream.

Fool

That's where I came from. I'm a prisoner, too,
In this mad world. Why, I was Dagonet,
King Arthur's fool. 'Twas there I met with you:
And you were Tristram.—I cannot forget
How well you sang once of the fair Isolt;
You dare not tell me that you have forgot?—
These airs of Spring help memory a lot.—
The world is changed since then, or I'm a dolt.

Is that the acid sorrel
And honey-scented clover?—
Or can it be a quarrel
Of wood nymphs in the cover?
Who in their leafy wrangle
Shake fragrance from the tangle
Of boughs that wildflowers spangle.

Oh, witchcraft of the sorrel!
Oh, glamour of the clover!—
Do you not glimpse the coral-
Tipped breasts of each wood-lover?

Each dryad, slow unsheathing
Dim limbs from bark enwreathing
Her bosom, blossom-breathing?

Oh, sorcery of sorrel!
Oh, magic of the clover!—
What glimmers through the laurel?
What wings its white way over?—
What myth, that haunts these bowers,
Child of the winds and flowers,
Touches this world of ours?

The rosy tips of sorrel,
And purple cups of clover,
Bewitch my soul, and star all
The ways with dreams that hover:—
Dreams, shadowy as Isis,
Who somehow there arises,
Born of my soul's surmises.

Poet

Dreams! dreams! enough of dreams! of myths and dreams!
Here now's reality: a faery flower.
That's substance for you. How its beauty seems
T' invest the moment with immortal dower!

Flower of the wet wild woodland, lonely flower,
Trembling in elfin beauty by the brink

Of this wild stream, which murmurs of the shower,
That brimmed its breast with joy for quite an hour,—
Would I could read the faery thoughts you think,
And hear of ouphen marvels, all awink,
That met your eyes last night in this dark bower!

Dim as the web the spider slenderly
Hammocks at dusk for Dawn to rope with dew;
Pale in the moonbeam, at their revelry,
You have beheld the Elves around this tree
Wild-whirling. And could we but learn of you,
Then might we find of Faeryland the clue,
The shibboleth, the open sesame.

That world our childhood entered, manhood lost:
Invisible except unto the heart:
A world whose far dominions none has crossed:
That to the soul shows its immortal coast
But once in life; and, intimated part
Of all our dreams, strives ever through high art
To make them real to the uttermost.

Ah, flower of the whirlwind and the rain!
Frail forest flower, on whose lip of spar
Spring leaves her chilly kiss, a rosy stain,
What profits all this dreaming, since again,

The clue escapes us? hope, that leads us far,
Teasing the soul beyond its mortal bar,
Only to find, alas! all dreams are vain.

Fool

There spoke no botanist, upon my word!
But a true poet, Sir. Why, even a fool
Can see through that. All dreaming is absurd
To sordid souls, who come not here to school.—
Look! there are wild peas, bless them!—and they dream
Of other things, I think, than that they seem.

Here's the tavern of the bees:
Here the butterflies, that swing
Velvet cloaks, and to the breeze
Whisper soft conspiracies,
Pledge their Lord, the Faery King:
Here the hotspur hornets bring
Fiery word, and drink away
Heat and hurry of the day.

Here the merchant bee, his gold
On his thigh, falls fast asleep;
And the armored beetle bold,
Like an errant-knight of old,
Feasts and tipples pottles-deep:
While the friar crickets keep
Creaking low a drinking-song,
Like an Ave, all day long.

Here the baron bumblebee,
Grumbling in his drowsy cup,
Half forgets his knavery:
Dragonflies sip swaggeringly,
Cavaliers who stop to sup:
To whose brag come whining up
Gnats, the thieves, that tap the tuns
Of the honeyed musk that runs.

Here the jewelled wasp, that goes
On his swift highwayman way,
Seeks a moment of repose,
Drains his cup of wine-of-rose,
Sheathes his dagger for the day:
And the moth, in downy gray,
Like some lady of the gloom,
Slips into a perfumed room.

When the darkness cometh on,
Round the tavern, golden green,
Fireflies flit with torches wan,
Looking if the guests be gone,
Linkboys of the Faery Queen:
Lighting her who rides, unseen,
To her elfin sweetpea bower,
Where she rests a scented hour.

Poet

Yes; there is witchcraft in these woods.—Right there,
Beyond those vales, are hills where I have been

And talked with visions. If I did but dare,
I too might tell you of the things I've seen.

Old hills, that break the far horizon's fall,
Within my heart again I hear you call,
Bidding me come and talk with mysteries
Of woodlands where, pale-pooled, the waters lie,
In whose enchanted glass the forest sees
Its form reflected and the dreams go by
Of silence and of solitude, who keep
Watch round their mirrors, gazing long and deep.

My hills! gray-peopled with the wraiths of rain—
Mist-ghosts, that gather and dissolve again:
Pale exhalations that, in dim retreats
Of foam and fern, above the slim cascade
Fling wild a rainbow; or, in slender sheets
Of foggy stealth, phantom the dripping glade,
Where Witchcraft cabins with her wildflower spells,
Filling the wood with magic of their bells.

Hills, that the moon's white feet, how oft! have kissed:
Where wan Endymion and his dreams keep tryst:
Where the pale soul of Beauty doth abide,
Whispering her legends, to the cradled flowers,

Of filmy things, moth-gowned and glowworm-eyed,
Who lace the ways and gossamer the bowers
With webs for dews to tiptoe and bewitch
With pearl and crystal till each weed is rich.

Hills, from whose breasts, in drowsy fancy, rise
The perfume-thoughts of flowers; fragrant sighs;
And dim damp dreams of fungi: imagings
Of Haunters of the ferns who, through the night,
Speed thin the tumult of invisible wings,
That take the heart with terror and delight,
Dreaming it hears the nymph who fled from Pan,
And all the immortal myths that with her ran.

Old hills! beyond you, in my soul I know,
Still lies the Wonderland of Long Ago,
High-mountained and deep-valleyed; elfed with streams,
Where old Enchantment builds her bower of bloom,
And Magic rears his City of Lost Dreams,
Templed with glory that no time shall doom:
The shadow of whose marvels, as of old,
Still lures me in the sunset's towers of gold.

Fool

From following that lure you got that look.
The mystery is solved why you are here,
And I can see now why your eye's so clear.—
I, too, have walked with spirits; by this brook;
The lonely spirits of the changing year.

One haunts the woods that Spring makes wet,
Trailing faint skirts of violet:
She sits between the shade and shine
And turns to heaven a trillium-face,
Plaiting her locks of celandine
That ripple to her throat's green lace
Of ferns, whereat, ethereal blue,
The iris sparkles, gemmed with dew.

And I have met the one who goes,
With hands of berry-stain and rose,
With Summer. Or divined her near
By some warm wind's dim evidence
Of lily scent or lavender,
Or plum, red-ripening by some fence,
Near which she sat with head a-nod,
Rich-robed in broom and goldenrod.

But in the rotting woods of Fall
She turns a witch and with wild call
Walks arm in arm with Death, and shakes
A head of moldy moss and grass;
Her weedy cloak among the brakes

Hangs torn; and wheresoe'er she pass
The woods grow conscious of decay,
And pulpy toadstools mark her way.

In Winter I have found her dead,
The berried thorn about her head;
Her face, an icy fragment, cold,
Rimmed with white locks of frost and snow;
Her tattered shroud, the tarnished gold
Of leaves that on the old beech blow;
And in her withered hand the last
Wild thistle, twisted by the blast.

Poet

Yes, you have met them. I, too, let me tell,
Have looked on spirits in this forest dell.
Mark you,—this very moment, while you spoke,
Something befell me that enthrals: It seems
I saw as sees this tree, this ancient oak,
The Presences of beauty Nature dreams.

There where the whiteheart's blossom clings,
And columbine is frailly flushed,
Just where that cat-bird sings and swings,
And water wild is rushed,—
The old oak crooked its arm at me,
That branch, and said, “Come here and see!”—
And, with a hand of witchery,
A leaf my forehead brushed.

And, lo, a voice, like some old friend's,
Spoke softly,—“See what none has seen:—
Where myth begins and matter ends,
And all that lies between.”—
And, lo! the dream which haunts the rose
Took on faint form; and, at repose,
The thought, which in the tree's heart grows,
Revealed itself in green.

I saw the spirit, white and wild,
That dances with the waterfall;
And like the beauty of a child
Hangs laughing over all:
I saw the faery of the fern
Swing wet its web at every turn;
And in the dew the pixy burn
Who holds the grass in thrall.

I saw the sylphids of the light
Gleam into being—print the ground;
And with them, whispering into sight,
The wind with wildflowers crowned:
I saw the sylvan sit at ease
Behind the bark of covering trees;
And in the brambles, watching these,
The Faun whom none hath bound.

I saw the harmony around,—
Bee-murmur, wing-beat, burst of song,—
Evolve a silvery shape of sound,
That nymph-like moved along:

I saw the happiness that fills
The heart of things, that never stills,
Run with the rapture of the rills,
A goddess straight and strong.

A moment more and I had seen
The soul itself of Beauty bared,
And all that Nature's love may mean
To me had been declared:
Her dreams grotesque, or beautiful,
Her mysteries,—no years annul,
That keep the world from growing dull,—
By me had then been shared.

Between the unknown and the known,
Bewildered with the vision, I
Let go the bough, whose touch had shown
What hides from every eye:
The charm was snapped; the spell was o'er;
The forest lay there as before,
Mere lights and shadows, nothing more,
And winds that whispered by.

Fool
She's always dreaming—Nature. There she goes,
Putting it on her canvas in vast strokes
Of sunset: gold and cinnabar and rose,
That vision forth the glory, say, which glows
Around God's throne, transforming all those oaks.

Poet
Deep in the west
A tattered bulk of cloud,
A magic galleon, gold of hull and shroud,
Rolls,—ribbed with fire,—on some perilous quest:
Now, from deep rifts
Of darkening rose,
A dæmon castle, burning ruby, grows,—
An Afrit palace which enchantment lifts.

Fool
The hut on the hilltop,
The pool in the sand,
The rock by the wayside
Seem touched by a hand,
And answer a summons
To put off the old,
Discard their disguises,
And burn into gold.

Poet
Deep in the east
Th' anticipating sky
Silvers with light as of a presence nigh,
Divinity, shepherding clouds, pale, pearly fleeced;
Upon whose view,
From gradual deeps

Of glimmering dusk, huntress Diana leaps,
Her moonbeam-arrows spearing them through and through.

Fool

The heart of the clover,
The soul of the rose,
The spirits of water
And leaves in repose,
Dissolve their enchantment,
And tell to the dusk
The dreams that invest them
With music and musk.

Madmen or fools that maunder, men would say;
Who'd see no more there than mere golds and reds,
And name it simply “Sunset”; go their way,
Their minds upon their dinners and their beds.

Poet

We have our poetry and they have theirs:
Theirs takes a more material form than ours.—
How wild the woods smell now! how sweet the airs!
Look where the Twilight for her flight prepares;
And drops her brooch, the evening-star she wears,
At Night's dark feet, on Heaven's topmost towers.

When I am dead, my soul shall haunt these woods,
As bird or bee,
These dim, grave forests where no foot intrudes
Irreverently.

Where Spring proclaims herself in orchis pale
And moccasin-flower,
And many another bloom that tells its tale
To sun and shower.

Here shall my soul go singing all day long
With wren and thrush,
Or, with the bee, hum honey-sweet among
The hyssoped hush.

Or all night long, wild with the whippoorwill,
Wail to the moon;
Or with the moth slip glimmering, white and still,
Where flowers lie strewn.

Here I shall watch and see the ghosts go by
Of all the loves,
The forest lovers who have loved, as I,
Deep woods and groves.

And they will know me—not as bee or bird—
But for a soul
Through whom the forest speaks an ancient word
Of joy and dole.

And meditative moods of bliss and pain
Shall with me fare,
And thoughts, that haunt the shimmering sun and rain,
With irised hair.

And living visions too shall pass me by,
Or with me go
Singing of beauty, who with quiet eye
Shall bid me know.

And to my heart her message shall be clear
In ways unknown;
And dreams, that whispered at my mortal ear,
Shall there be shown.

And I shall speak then with the bird and bee,
And tree and flower,
And they shall know me part of all they see,
And bless the hour.

Fool

The dictionaries have a name for all
Who love the woods as you do. I shall call
My poet now,—that is, if he insist,—
No more mere Poet but Nemophilist.—
But dusk draws on, that is—the Elfins' dawn,
My little playmates'. Now their dance begins.
Look where their lanthorns flit, now bright, now wan.—
No fireflies they, but tripping Faerykins.

The Night puts on a strange disguise,
A mask and domino of flame,
Through which I see her stealthy eyes
Gaze with a look that has no name:
Before me seems to grow her dream,
Taking the form of gleam on gleam.

A million lights, a million stars
Of twinkling gold with emerald blent,
Between the woods and pasture bars,
Fashion another firmament,
Of faery fire and elfin flame,
That puts the heaven above to shame.

The cedar and the oak are hung
With will-o'-wisps that never cease,
And dark the twinkling fields among
They loom like monster Christmas trees,
Around which, glimmering, glide and glance
The torches of a goblin dance.

What faery fête is this she dreams,
Old Night? What revelry of damps
And dews? in which her darkness gleams
Pale-jewelled, hung with pixy lamps,
That work illusions, mysteries,
Fantastic, in the eye that sees.

Each moment flames a fiery sign
From blade to bush, from bush to tree;
A web of lights, a flickering line
Of stars that quiver constantly;

A pulse of gold that beats delight
Within the viewless veins of Night.

Oh, Puck-wild raptures of the dew,
Oh, Ariel transports of the dusk,
Now let my spirit join with you
And dance within Night's heart of musk,
Until, like you, it come to know
The ouphen wonders there that glow.

Poet

Join you the Masque of Night, but I must go.
I am not worthy of such confidence,
Ignorant, and skeptic often, as you know,
Of many things for which my mind's too dense.
My gentle Fool, to make the matter plain,
I fear I'd spoil your revel. You remain.
My heart stays with you by this forest pool,—
That better part of me men call the fool.

Now whirling flies, whose whine is like a sting,
Bred of the water, where at noon the snake
Rippled or wreathed, no longer rage and sing,
And by this wood-pool nothing is awake
Except the moth that, like a flower's ghost,
Searches the shadows for a dream long lost.

There in the dusk strange lights define themselves,
Glimmer on glimmer and green glow on glow,

Like some fantastic revel of the elves,
The fireflies flit their torches to and fro;
Twinkling in faery fête, a drowsy dance,
The pool repeats with starry necromance.

Hark!—to the pool is given a voice; a throat
Of raucous music, hoarsening the night;
Toad-tongued it jars the darkness with one note,
Making the silence guttural as with fright:
And now the oak with owlet speech replies,
The dark rock twitters into bat-winged cries.

And now the wood gives answer: fine and sharp,
Shrilling an insect syllable in each weed,
Protesting fiercely. On its cricket-harp
The darkness strums, while, like insistent seed,
The fireflies sow the night with flame on flame,
And the dark whippoorwill cries wild its name.

Now all the east's aglow: and, pale around,
Is pause. And now a rumor shakes the trees—
A wind that whispers of a beauty found,
Immortal, godlike, veiled in mysteries:
And now, upon the hilltop, look!—the moon,
Diana-like, breasting the woods that swoon.

Fool

Again the whippoorwill's dark keenings fall:
And in my heart they echo—sad, oh, sad!

In my fool heart, that cries for things it had,
When it was young; old things beyond recall.

An old house on a lonely hill;
An apple-tree before its door—
How oft I watched the Springtime spill
Pale petals on its old, worn sill!
And through faint boughs the May moon pour
Its light like some soft spirit!
And, oh, how wild the whippoorwill
Would call! how wildly weird and shrill,
By that gray house upon the hill,
And how I loved to hear it!

The tree is dead; the house is gone;
The old house by the apple-tree;
The whippoorwill that sang till dawn,
Where blossoms pelted lane and lawn,
Will sing no more for Spring and me,
Dim in the moonlight swinging:
But still, ah me! when Spring comes on,
Back to that place my soul is drawn,
Where, glimmering in the tree long gone,
That wild bird still is singing.

Poet

When fools wax sad their listeners must depart:
For Life demands of fools a merry heart.—
I too was young once, and have memories too.
But, ah, the little sister, whom I knew!

Little sister, faery sister, you whom often I have heard;
You, dim kin to all the wildflowers and to every wandering bird;
You, wild portion of all beauty, symbol of all greenwood lore,
Take me to your heart and hold me as you did in days of yore.

Little sister, elfin sister, let me feel your eyes again,
Where the April azure sparkled into dreams of sun and rain;
In whose deeps, as in high heaven, shot with shadow and with light,
Glowed the look of far Adventure and the lure and dare of Flight.

Little sister, shadow sister, let me hear your voice once more,
With the music of the genii opening an Aladdin door;
Where the call of every yearning, that the human heart has known,
Took me to its breast and held me, made my very soul its own.

Little sister, pixy sister, let me feel again your hands;
Let their touch again translate me to those far-off Wonderlands:

Lands of strange unknown allurements, old enchantments, once that held,
Drew my heart with faery fancies in the days when youth enspelled.

Little sister, forest sister, you, part bird and part a flower,
Lead me, as you often led me in my childhood, for an hour,
Past the ranges of the real, into lands where love allures,
Where the dreams of beauty wander with the magic that endures.

Little sister, wonder sister, ope again the gates that rose,
Built of mystery and marvel, in the walls of Let's-Suppose;
Of that city of old witchcraft, towered with Legend of all time,
Where we sat with Song and Story and with all the Sons of Rhyme.

Little sister, elfin sister, take me back into those fields,
Partly sunset, partly morning, where the warriors ride with shields;
Knightly Dreams of fame and glory, and the Daughters of Desire,
By their sides, on snow-white palfreys, wake in them the battle-fire.

Little sister, faery sister, tell me whither have you gone?
You, who whispered me in darkness and addressed me in the dawn:
You, who fostered me in childhood, told me dreams that should come true—
Little sister, little sister, ah, the dreams that went with you!

The Poet rises and departs. The Fool sits on the mossy trunk of a fallen tree, elbows on knees, and chin in palm. He appears to be listening to something sibilant in earth and air. Suddenly starting to his feet he gazes knowingly in a certain direction. Then smiling furtively to himself he steals cautiously forward, and, hollowing a hand to his mouth, talks mysteriously to the whispering woods.
So, so! my Little Sister, we will play.—
Come forth! come forth, O you my Poet lost!
I know the tree you hide in all the day.
Come forth, my Little Sister, and be tossed.—
Come! come! my Ladykin, no more delay!
Come forth! come forth! and bring along with you
Ariel and Puck, and all your playmates, pray,
And those lost dreams that our good poet knew.
Come forth, my Little Sister, come and play!

University of Virginia Library

THE POET, THE FOOL, AND THE FAERIES