[Poems by Moody in] William Vaughn Moody : A Study by David Dodds Henry | ||
A CHORUS OF WAGNER
From sheer-walled sunless mountain-gorge so deepThat fierce-tongued torrents steal thence faint and sweet
As meek-maid's laugh across the spangled wheat,
Rambleth some shade-born monster up the steep,
Dragging its fold, a coiled and clammy heap,
Up, up the slant cliffs to the glory-seat
Where rings on rings of circling angels beat
From the clear air a rainbow's jewelled sweep.
A hush intense—a sudden storm of rays
Hurled clanging on the brute's sepulchral head—
Dim bestial yellings—and a shrivelled, dead,
Contorted horror clearing the abyss,
One wild eye glaring—and a hateful hiss
Plunging and splintering down the craggy ways.
LIFE AND DEATH
From the German
Saying: ‘I would have loved her had she stayed.’
‘So long to love, and this the end of all!’
‘Patience, sweet love, 'tis only for a while.’
THE PICTURE
The dewy lid with the sunlight snared
In the mesh, and the primal woodland glee
In the supple head-poise, firm and free,
And the gladsome curve where the bosom's bared!
People dowered a thousand ways—
Minds diverse as the shuttle-glow
Of the sea, where the coral breaks its flow—
Just the same—like a witch's gaze!
Him the deep-eyed seer of dreams,
Painter of gloried bits and gleams
Of the over-world—ah! she held him close,
And wound him round with her chains of rose
His eye would follow till sight grew dim
The silken shimmer of gown swept free
By her lithe round limb—and she let him be
And fed her heart on her hate for him.
With dewy dreams, flush fancyings,
Sly satyr-shapes in woodsy rings,
Wan breasts a-glimmer in seas of song,
To think of days had been dead so long?
In a heap of years—nor the thing so much;
To crush a gnat that has spoiled your bower
Of summer languor; it needs but a touch,
Then back to your book, or lute, or flower.
What you call a man: then 'twere time to doubt:
To be sure but a thing o' the fields, a clout,
Only worth in this, he could breathe, and see,
Even love, perhaps, between you and me.
Something stirs in a gloom apart,
Flings arms out just to let them sink,
Gropes and moans for the dry lips' drink,
Gasps, and clutches the bursting heart?
'Tis a bit of hell in a gilded frame.
What right had she—though her hate was flame,
Though it gnawed at her heart's mid-core, and versed
The whole round sky with her dead love's name
What right had she to step smiling, twine
Her sunny hair through the warp of his life?
Were simple death not a vengeance fine?
What right had she to forge Love for a knife?
With the shrivelled lip and the faded eye?
Could I tell how the song-burst under the sky
Broke and fluttered and sank to a moan?
Perhaps I might—were the face not I.
DANCE MUSIC
(The King's Dwarf speaks.)That you had to leave off dancing, you would follow where I led,
That's what comes of telling secrets which might cost your dainty head.
With its trills like dryad's laughter, and its notes like bacchanals
Having round a mossy hillock where the wind god laughs and lolls:
They have changed to hags of witches, with hooked heads and greedy eyes,
Singing spells about a cauldron whence the fumes of hell arise!
You may fare a pretty journey: on you go where fawn's eyes gleam
Slyly through the dark grape bunches, on where hamadryads scream.
With their feet thrust in the ocean and their arms flung drowsily
Over hills that scarcely breathe for fear the dozers start and sigh:
Blazing halls as full of candles as the sky is full of stars,
And for every light a reveller who wears a mask that bars
Beckons to you, so you follow where the lamps burn blue and dull;
Then she turns and takes her mask off, and you see a grinning skull.
Only hear that hautboy shouting, ‘What have we to do with care?’
‘Youth is ours and love and laughter: twine us roses for our hair!’
‘Than the eyes of eastern idols in their stony sockets hold.’
But the anxious viol whispers, ‘Dwells a dragon on the wold;
‘Lest the sea-green lustful eye-balls and the twisting claw appear
‘Through the tree stems where she lingers, and thy love go mad with fear.
‘Where the brazen gates lie open, lest she see the monster crawl
‘Through the courtyard to the portal of the very banquet hall.’
‘Did you kiss her warm as ever, and she never moved or smiled?
‘Dare you turn and face the horror, fold on scaly fold up-piled?’
And you think it strange such music should seem anything but gay;
‘How the swift notes rush and sparkle, like a mountain brook,’ you say;
‘Breaks them to a mist of silver that has hardly weight to fall,
‘To the tarn that sleeps far under, rimmed with cedars like a wall.’
Why did those slow ripples widen through the basin brown and cool?
I heard whispers when that drowned face stirred the surface of the pool
‘Joys escape such?’—nay, I answer, had God made me fair like you
I could never dance to music as these dunces choose to do.
With its starved hands clutched convulsive in its tangled mass of hair,
Does it stand and wonder at them? I could vow I saw it there!
Measures blithe as those your fan beats, never knew the lips of God
Blew them warning in the flute notes—till they sank beneath the sod.
As the dancers circle past them. See that faintest one who stands
By the wall and weeps her heart out that no dancer understands!
A SICK-ROOM FANCY
The choking tomb;
Out of the storm and strife,
The glare and gloom—
(Sad heart, 'tis meant for thee,
Take thou the prophecy)
Beauty and bloom.
All subtle threads that bind
Body and soul and mind?
What thought may stand and say
‘Thus flies the shade away?’
What knowledge may scan
The unimagined plan,
Saying ‘Cannot’ and ‘Can’?
The little wilding flower,
In the glass beside the bed.
See, he no longer sleeps
But turns his weary head
And gazes at the flower;
Sunburst of glad surprise
Brimming the sunken eyes.
Her gentle soul, who knows?
Which, bound by Death's dread law,
Yet could not quite forego
Love's presence, haply saw
The flower-form, used it so.
Her gentle soul, who knows?
Waiting the time to rest
Upon the pallid breast
Of him, the loved and best:
(Placed there by one who knew
Their secret, and was true)
So, hand in hand, lip on lip,
All circling bonds to slip;
So leave the twilight room,
One breath of vague perfume;
Out to immensity.
Starlight and sky and sea,
Wandering, while on while,
Nearer that argent isle
Which from the dawn of time,
Wrapped in a cloudless clime,
Bird-song, bee-humming,
Ever through soft sky-shine
Bided their coming.
If they can see
Through chest of dying
Life's verity.
Truth weareth strange guide;
Follow thy fancy!
Ere they must close
Comfort the dying eye,
Thus, little rose.
THE ANSWER
Hung in a hill-maid's hair
To pleasure him in the lacing light
Of red and blue on her brow's moon-white
While she danced before him half the night?
Of eastern afternoons
One clad therein might walk through halls
Where not one lamp-ray lights the walls
As through streets flush with festivals?
And one was plucked at morn—
This bud with petals pure as snow
Save where a timid eager glow
Of blush pink stains the midmost row.
Was plucked the self-same noon;
Seeing the closed leaves who would guess
The flame it feeds and cherishes,
Deep down, see, where my fingers press?
This blown rose, burning red,
Where every petal flaunts to view
The very precious inmost hue
And secret soul of the other two.
To hang your jewels on;
Have I not roses for my hair?
I know your silks are strange and rare,
But—O, the robe God lets me wear!
ANGELLE
I
(Count Bertram speaks.)One blaze of banners, flags, and flowers,
The stone bridge to my charger's feet
Made soft with woven stuffs, white showers
Of roses from the crowded roofs
Left him no spot to plant his hoofs
Plucked by our burgher-girls to crown
Me, who dared bid the old proud town,
Bowed low so long in wrath and gloom,
Rise up and shake her neck and feel
Fall off the riven ring of steel.
Our town was free; Duke Leon dead;
In five days I should go to wed
His daughter, and so wipe quite out
The old stain, banish every trace
Of the old hatred and disgrace.
My glance to one low balustrade,
The whole rich city seemed to fade
Before a mere girl's face, that drew
All meaning from the earth and skies
And held it in her lips and eyes?
The gnarled magnolia's rose pink dome
Above the wall, cared not to roam
The musky under-glooms of blue,
When once it found and kissed to flame
The hair that held her face in frame.
Their throats, my name on high to raise?
It all seemed cheap beside the praise
Her calm brow gave me, while a band
Of white-robed boys placed in my hand
The broidered banner of our land.
The spell had strength to hold me: then
I rose up. I was lord of men
Who freed my city from distress;
Round me my grateful people bowed—
And she was one face in the crowd.
And I almost a stranger, so
I plucked Count Armon's sleeve to know
Her name and state. He screened his eye
With one broad gauntlet from the sun:
‘Angelle, the sole uncloistered nun
As marble martyr in her niche:
'Twas she who worked your banner's rich,
Soft blazoning. A shame, I hold,
Such eyes should dim their violet fire
On paltry needle-work, for hire!”
Was not for hire: each burning thread
Which caught the sun above my head
Was stained her very heart's core red.
Each stitch, I knew, had been a prayer,
Each pin thrust a thanksgiving, there.
About me birds and brooks and bees,
Above me milk-white orchard trees,
And in my heart a tune so gay
The quail's low drum, the throstle's throat,
Were discord to its meanest note.
Against her idle wheel tonight?
What deems she of earth's bale and blight,
Of all earth's bitter blight and bale?
Three days, and then I ride away—
Why has my bread turned stone, I say?
II
(It is the evening of the second day after. Angelle speaks.)To stop one's weeping: only see,
Three blood-red blooms on my cactus tree
Tonight of all the nights!
To bloom, for an end it had in mind;
My heart, deep hid in its lifeless rind,
It had its purpose, too.
Only a broken stem remain
Of the bright like blood and the dim like rain
Wrapped up in the lucent ball:
The daylong pride of its diadem;
I shall not forget that I wore a gem
Two nights on my worthless brow.
Is not that much? I ask no more.
My heart would burst did a third night pour
Its chrismal flame and musk.
As the glass-green stem of my cactus-tree;
Last night on a sudden one, two, three
Buds burst out warm and red.
Only a broken stem remain
Of the bright like blood and the dim like rain
Wrapped up in the lucent ball:
The daylong pride of its diadem;
I shall not forget that I wore a gem
Two nights on my worthless brow.
III
(Obelin, a vagabond minstrel, continueth his tale before the Abbess.)I'd paint, not tell you, the story's close;
The grace and pomp of the tourney shows!
Of the great lists shaped like a scallop shell,
Where they fought three days for the silver bell.
He hung a silver bell by the side
Of the throne where she sat languid-eyed,
And he challenged every knight who came
To tilt for the prize in his lady's name.
With blue shield moon-shape, star bedight,
So all clapped hands at the gracious sight.
Such eyes as shine from a wild beast's lair,
The queen leaned forward from her chair.
Some jest to his bride with the brows askance:
He never dreamed of the deed's mischance.
Dust cleared: our count lay on the ground,
Pierced through the breast with a mortal wound:
Dead Leon's son, our foe. ‘God's rood!’
He cried, ‘here wash I out in blood
To his: behold how I erase
The stain and cancel the disgrace!’
The bride came down, her wild hair blown
About her, all her pale face grown
To bind the bonds that her kinsman burst,
And keep her faith—come best or worst:
About the wounded knight, who fling
His wife one side, and sink and cling
But just that maid we townsfolk styled
Angelle, the saintly and undefiled?
As her faced yearned out of its hair's soft rim,
Too gold for a lover's breath to dim:
For aught but the brow of the saint who stands
With the young Christ clinging to both her hands.
And lo! she lay on the earth like a clod,
A common thing, to be spurned and trod!
The great bridge gate, the people knew
Who walked behind, brow-bound with rue,
And the women moralled, knitting their lace,
Of her deadly sin and its swift disgrace.
IV
The abbess sat in the purple gloom.
Then turned in question of the tale.
Is free from fleshly sin and strife!
What had you meted the maid Angelle?’
On the wan white Christ in the shadowed wall.
To show my hate of her deadly sin
And held her hand through the crowded street.’
THE AMBER-WITCH
Through pine woods purply glimmering,
I heard, not half a league before,
The glad sea sing.
And low I answered, stooping blind
Through brake and bough, till every tree
Lay dark behind.
With vacant laughter, like a fool,
The sea had scooped with his two hands
A green, green pool.
Where circling water-snakes burned rich,
Sat waiting, eager-eyed and lone,
The amber-witch.
About my body everywhere
The bright snakes burned, and over me
Drooped her wild hair.
Her lips were writhen as with pain,
Her eyes swam dim while she did croon
A dim, dim strain.
I startled at the moon-bright moor,
I heard, not half a league behind,
The mad sea roar.
And nought I answered, lest the moon
Should let her amber hair float free,
And stoop, and croon.
THE LADY OF THE FOUNTAIN
At Christmas feast, and one by one, the knights
Had told them each his tale of wonder-deed
Or wonder-vision, till the circle came
Unto Owain, the silent dreamer he,
Though like a storm in battle. All had turned
For wonder at his silence, for he sat
With eyes wide-fixed and staring, as he saw
Beyond the flame of jewels, flash of silk,
And blaze of burnished metal of the room,
Something the others saw not. As they sat
A gate clanged; on the stone-paved outer court
Quick hoof-beats rang; the door burst open wide;
There rode a lady, clad in clinging silk
Flame-colored, and her horse like summer cloud
Piled in the west at noon-day, save the mane
Pale saffron, and the nostrils poppy-red.
Nor spake she any word, but by Owain
Halted, and drew off the ring she wore,
Then loud enough so all within the room
Could hear the words, hissed, ‘Beardless! traitor! fool!
Shame of all knighthood! shame of all mankind!’
Then turned her steed and vanished.
Nor dared to look upon Owain, for fear
To see the change such speech had wrought in him,
The choice-culled flower of gentlest chivalry,
Thus trodden in the dust and spit upon.
Saddest of all was Arthur, for he loved
The high-browed youth who came but yesterday
To prove him worthy of the Table Round,
And his heart yearned unto him, and he said:
‘Tell us, I pray thee, thou our newest friend,
The meaning of the sight that we have seen.
Frankly we ask it, for we know right well
The meaning is not such a one as seems.’
Then lifted up Owain his sunken head
And spake unto them:
Now recounteth Owain how that in his wanderings he did come one day at noon upon a marble basin, in the centre of a fair valley; whereof when he would have drunk, a knight arose from the reed-flags to give him battle concerning it. Then did Owain slay that knight, being moved thereto by his great thirst and longing for the cool water. When now he had gazed long upon the dead, was he seized of a strange fancy, that he did off his helm and corslet and put on the armor of the other, together with a fair ring that was upon his finger. Which done, he looked into the pool and saw that his face had suffered change, being no more his own, but so like unto the dead knight's face that it was a marvel to him. Thereupon he spied a horse tethered near by in the wood, and when he had mounted, it bare him of his own will through that valley into a gated town, even unto the portals of a great palace. Continueth the story after this wise:
And as I walked along the lofty hall,Such magic lay within the mail I wore,
All was familiar to me, yet all strange.
A greyhound licked my hand, I stroked his head
And called him by his name; a lazy page
Teasing a falcon gained his sharp reproof;
The very faces of the tapestry,
The twisting dragons of the panelled walls,
Met me with a most wondrous wontedness,
Forget not, thou'rt Owain!’ So as I walked,
Pondering the strangeness of the things that fell,
There came a sense of voices near at hand.
Beneath me, in the flower-filled central court,
I saw a maid beside a tiny lake
Feeding the swans; upon the balustrade
Above her leaned an ape-faced swarthy dwarf,
His green eyes large with some discovery,
Mighty of portent. Straight I hid me there,
And listened while he told with cunning glee
How he had stolen to their lady's room,
All in the sleepy heat of afternoon,
And heard her murmur secrets as she slept,
About the wondrous fountain in the dell,
And call upon the nixie of the spring,
Naming her mother, and a hundred names
Of soft endearment, so the dwarf was like
To burst with laughter at the thought of it,
Their pretty lady with the haughty brows
Born of a nixie, of a water-fay!
Then, with one lean hand by his pursed mouth,
And leaning low across the balustrade,
With sly-arched brows, he said the best was yet:
'Twas not for love the wedding-bells should ring
Next morning when their lady wed her lord,
But he was strong in fight, and he alone
Could guard the fountain where the nixie dwelt
From every comer. I could hear no more,
But I had heard so much as filled my veins
With longing and with laughter, and I went
Along the lofty sounding corridors,
Past massy columns twined with silver snakes,
Through gloomy doors where red-gold lions crouched,
Their heads upon their paws, until I came
Unto a dim-lit chamber, where were maids
Twenty and one, more fair than Guinevere
When Guinevere was fairest, Easter day.
They sat beneath the yellow light of reeds
Working some wondrous piece of needlecraft,
And in their midst sat one so beautiful
It stopped the heart's beat but to look on her.
Against the dark green woof her dainty head
Drooped goldenly; her slim hands clasped her knee,
All heedless how the busy maidens wrought,
In threads of silk upon a tapestry,
Christ's passion and the raising of the Host.
Long time I stood in utter wonderment,
For love of that sweet face and queenly hair
Against the green woof drooping goldenly;
Unto the portals. And three pages came,
And led my charger through the moonlit streets
Unto a mighty castle on a hill.
Here recounteth Owain how that at morning servants came to put on him raiment for his marriage; and he suffered them to do their will. But the shirt of mail would he not put off, for fear to lose the spell which made like unto that other. Then fared he in a great company to the church, and was married to the lady he had seen, being too full of lust and fleshly evil to know that deed for a wrong. And ever after wore he the magic shirt, save in secret, and each day went he to guard the fountain, as he had been no other than he who did aforetime that service. But after a tide waxed he weary of his life, for the secret troubled him, and he began to hate his bride, thinking her not a human creature, but one born of a sprite. So one day he went not to the fountain, but wandered all day in the forest, right heavy of heart. Nathless at night did he return, and lay down beside that fair lady that he had taken to wife. Continueth the story after this wise:
At midnight I awoke: the mellow moonLay everywhere; within the tangled vine
Outside the painted pane a nightingale
Poured out his passionate heart; and as I lay
A change came over me. I was as one
Who feels a leprous sickness ooze away
Out of his limbs and eyeballs at Christ's touch.
Again I saw my fair bride's dainty head
Against the woof of green droop goldenly,
All halo-rimmed with utter loveliness.
Again I walked beside her where old saints
Yearned from dim-blazoned windows, while the choir
Chanted aloft the bridal symphony;
And in her eyes, upturned to meet mine own,
There was a startled splendor, as she felt
Love bursting rose-like where hate's thorns had been;
For through the borrowed semblance that I wore
Her spirit subtly felt the soul of me,
And rose to meet it like a very bride.
So as I lay and thought such thoughts of her,
Within my heart arose a hungering
To clasp her in my arms and with great love
Wipe out her bitter wrong: and with a cry
I turned unto her. Lo! the moonlight fell
Bright on the pillow where her head had lain,
But she was gone. I gazed about the room,
But all was silent. Only the glad bird
Outside the window panted out his song,
Until its gladness grew a ghostly thing
More sad than sorrow. Full of choking fear
I stole along the dim-lit corridors,
Peered into niches, listened long at doors,
And seek her by the fountain in the dell.
Through the bright streets and misting country lanes,
Like to a guilty spirit I stole on,
Fearing to find what I most longed to see.
But when I drew anigh unto the slope
That leadeth to the well, a bright, sharp laugh
Made my veins ache with horror: crouching down,
I looked between the thronging slant-stemmed trees,
Into a little marshy bed of reeds,
Made by the o'erflowing well. There lay my bride,
Her white and naked body green with slime,
Her gold hair bound with pale-blue water snakes,
Which, knotted in the centre, on her brow
Let fall for pendant gem a wide-mouthed frog.
About her limbs and waist, huge fold on fold,
A striped snake reached as far as to her breast,
And ended in a wrinkled human head,
Glaring and witch-like, with eyes pale as flame
Under the dripping crown of water weeds.
With low, glad cries my lady fondled it,
And on the livid mouth and one black fang
Pressed eager kisses.
But tearing off the magic coat of mail,
Which changed my semblance into him I slew,
I turned and fled into the mighty wood,
And fled and fled until my brain was gone,
So that I slept with wolves, while noisome things
Crept o'er me as I lay without the will
To brush them from my face. O gentle king!
The lady who burst in upon our feast
Was she I wed deceitfully: and now,
Seeing that I have sinned a bitter sin,
And am no longer worthy in men's sight
To sit beside you at the Table Round,
Grant me to go, and struggle, if I may,
To free from witchery and evil spells
The life I should have cherished to the end,
With all the potence of pure chivalry.
Went from the Christmas feast at Carleon.
APPLAUSE
Under the chandelier's blazeSee how they listen and gaze.
Listen, their eyes growing tender,
My music spreads in their skies
Flushes and sparkles and dies.
I, who have wrought them the wonder,
What do I care for their cries,
Plaudits, and loud-clapping thunder?
All that I care for is yonder:
A strip of brow in the dotted maze,
One loosened strand cutting through it, and under,
Blown by a rapture of gladness asunder,
Thrilling me through with an exquisite praise,
Her two eyes.
THE BRIAR ROSE
I
‘O low hills sad against the sun,
O starved trees where the moon hangs dead,
What plains are these, so vast and dun,
Ere my long way be over-won?
Clutch at my lute and bridle reign?
What dull bird cryeth as we pass?
Through what more lonely lands of pain
Dost lead me, O blind quest and vain?
The way grows brambled, roofed and wet;
The air tastes sweet upon my lips!’
And as he peered out, fear-beset,
The roses held him like a net.
II
Sprang domed and pillared from the swamps
The ancient tangle of the vine;
Through purple vistæd underdamps
The ripe-heart roses shone for lamps.
A slumbrous people suffered wrong,
Hoar kings brow-girt with ancient gems,
Dark breasts of warriors, scarred and strong,
And throats of boys laid bare for song.
With terror was his spirit wrung,
To hear within the darkling wood
The sweet low hissing of the tongue
Wherewith these grievous folk were stung.
As shawn unto the shawn-player;
The thronging thicket yearned apart,
The lamping flowers as torches were
To light him on his way to her.
Made festival along his veins,
‘Lo, many vassals, many kings,
Love curses utterly and banes,
But one, oh, at last attains!’
III
To pause, till from the richer glooms
His eye might some clear vision gain,
And saw within the rush-strewn rooms
The maids asleep beside their looms.
The stealthy briar boughs had crept,
And shed their red and yellow rains
Upon the floor, and overleapt
The warp-frames where the weavers slept.
The red moon through the vine lacings
Was sifted in a dreamy shower,
About a web's old picturings
Of slant horns and triumphant wings.
Where long ago, grown weary weak,
She drooped and let the shuttle fall,
Still drooped she, and her eyelids meek
Still darkened on his patient cheek.
The forms upon the arrased wall
Seemed to take note of him and stir;
King leaned to bearded seneschal,
And spectral wrath was on them all.
How they would pierce his spirit's core
With their importunate surmise;
And knew that death would be less sore
Than the still wonder that they wore.
A phantasy, a sick man's whim;
The overweening love that durst
Conceive such bliss would be for him
Smote him with shame in every limb.
With all its grey and graceless days,
When for a dole of bitter bread
He had been fain, in hollow lays,
To sing a mindless tyrant's praise.
Uncomforted of bud or leaf,
His boyhood's pride a poor hedge row
Of ragged thorn, and manhood's grief
A stony field without a sheaf.
Her garment's hem; but seeing how
His soul was drowsy overmuch,
And it seemed nigh as sweet to bow,
And sleep her sleep while time should flow,—
He let the lapping water close;
And as he sank from dream to dream
Through shuttled depths of green and rose,
Where peace like branching coral grows,
And say, ‘How changed is all the place!
My minstrel here for my poor sake
Has slept right long, and now, for grace,
I cannot recollect his face!’
[Poems by Moody in] William Vaughn Moody : A Study by David Dodds Henry | ||