UC-NRLF 
 
 ISfl 3D2 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Class 
 
 CASf 
 
THE 
 ROAD TO CASTALY 
 
 ALICE BROWN 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 COPELAND AND DAY 
 MDCCCXCVI 
 
 5^X 
 
 OF THE \ 
 
 f UNIVERSITY 1 
 
 OF / 
 
COPYRIGHT 1896 BY COPELAND AND DAY 
 
TO 
 
 LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY 
 
 169103 
 
THE ROAD TO CASTALY 
 
 \ 
 
 SOVEREIGNS of the sacred mount, 
 Circled round her silver fount, 
 Sires of life who song began, 
 Swiftest heralds, ye who ran 
 With winged sandals up the way 
 Where unled the Muses stray : 
 Hear us ! we who haste to ye, 
 Pensioners of poesy. 
 Native airs of song ye breathe ; 
 Deathless buds your foreheads wreathe ; 
 Yet not wholly are ye blest 
 Over us, who walk confest 
 Beggars of the charity 
 Shuttled twixt the earth and sky ; 
 Destined aye to keep the road 
 Far from that august abode ; 
 Fated ne er to taste the spring 
 Set for poet s quickening. 
 Only born to braid our lays 
 In the garlanding of praise ; 
 Born to praise the Muses Nine, 
 Praise the One unknown, divine, 
 
Who upon our bosoms set 
 His unfading amulet : 
 " Ever seek and never see ; 
 Die uncrowned yet votary." 
 Fain are we of beechen boughs ; 
 We are they the pine endows 
 With hot scent of pungent power, 
 Sealing so the noonday hour. 
 Bitter bread to us is sweet. 
 Highway brambles kiss our feet. 
 Dust yclad, our dreams we sing 
 Round about the roadside spring. 
 Nay, not all unblest are we 
 Wayfarers to Castaly ! 
 
Contents 
 
 THE ROAD TO CASTALY Page vii 
 
 WOOD-LONGING I 
 
 PAN 4 
 
 SUNRISE ON MANSFIELD MOUNTAIN 8 
 
 ESCAPE 10 
 
 CANDLEMAS I 2 
 
 MARINERS I 3 
 
 MORNING IN CAMP 15 
 
 RED MAGIC I 8 
 
 MIST 19 
 
 WHEN DAYS ARE LONG 19 
 
 REVELATION 1 9 
 
 THE HEART AND LOVE 2O 
 
 LIFE 22 
 
 PAGAN PRAYERS 22 
 
 YESTERDAY 22 
 
 NO ANSWER 23 
 
 AN INVOCATION 23 
 
 THE RETURN 24 
 
 FOREWARNED z6 
 
 A WEST-COUNTRY LOVER 2J 
 
 DESTINY 29 
 
 LOVE DENIED 29 
 
 ON PILGRIMAGE 31 
 
MAGDALEN ? a g e 3 2 
 
 A FAREWELL 3 2 
 
 TO CIRCE 3 3 
 
 RENEWAL 3 3 
 
 THE MESSAGE 34 
 
 FAMINE 3" 
 
 ON THE FIELD 3" 
 
 EDWIN BOOTH 37 
 
 HORA CHRISTI 4 
 
 IN EXTREMIS 4 2 
 
 KNIGHTHOOD ETERNAL 43 
 
 HEIMGEGANGEN 45 
 
 SLEEP 46 
 
 LETHE 47 
 
 THE SILENT WATCH 4^ 
 
 TRILBY 49 
 
 DREAMS 5 
 
 THE POET 5 2 
 
 THE SLANDERER 5 2 
 
 SEAWARD BOUND 53 
 
 TEWKESBURY ABBEY 55 
 
 CONTENT 5 5 
 
 THE HEART S TRUE CHOICE 5 6 
 
 THE SPIRIT S HOUR 5^ 
 
 MAN TO WOMAN 57 
 
 THE UNSEEN FELLOWSHIP 5 8 
 
 THE FLIGHT OF THE FAIRIES 60 
 

 
 THE ROAD TO CASTALY 
 
 WOOD-LONGING 
 
 O BOOKS, my books, ye give me naught for 
 all my asking ! 
 Vain is the spirit s tasking 
 To raise up honor from the printed line, 
 Or scent ripe clusters in the long-dried wine 
 Of antique banquets spilled upon the page. 
 O books are but the cage 
 Where echoes of the spirit sing, 
 Nor ever truly ring 
 
 The clarion cry, the tabor and the pipe, 
 Whereto, ere yet the year is ripe, 
 The happy rivers run, with rhythmic glancing, 
 And all the fauns and satyrs fall a-dancing ! 
 One medicine hath life for sick and sane ; 
 One crown of joy, one solacing for pain. 
 Who beauty seeks and truth, 
 Or springs of vanished youth, 
 With fitful joyance, or that full content 
 For gods and lilies meant, 
 
Wood- Swift be his passing to the field and wood, 
 Longing. rp o ce ^ j mmemor i a } p ass ion of the flood, 
 The amplitude of all the fertile plains, 
 Where mild abundance reigns ; 
 The seated majesty of crowned hills, 
 Whose mantling shadow fills 
 The well-loved valley softly laid below, 
 Fed from the rock, in royal overflow. 
 
 Spirit, what wilt thou dare 
 
 Just to be one with earth and air ? 
 
 To read the writing on the river bed, 
 
 And trace God s mystical mosaic overhead ? 
 
 O sweet familiar of the rustling leaf, 
 
 Dear idle mourner of the gathered sheaf, 
 
 Lover and guardian of the beech-tree s bole, 
 
 Wooer unwearied of her dryad soul, 
 
 Tippler on sacramental wine, 
 
 The great round world is thine ! 
 
 Thy rich inheritance to tread the earth 
 
 When all the ecstasy of myriad birth 
 
 Afflicts her with a rapturous shuddering ; 
 
 To feel the beating of the mighty wing 
 
 Wherewith the great wind winnows out her halls, 
 
 Where never footing falls 
 
 But it makes music, as the sweep of stars, 
 
 And not one jarring note the lyric heaven mars. 
 
 Thy happy destiny to lie 
 
 Within the thriftless grasses, opulently 
 
 Sifting thy jewels with an idle touch, 
 
 Still heedless of how little or how much 
 
The careless giving of the royal hour, Wood- 
 
 For all the morn is thine, and the great sun Longing. 
 
 thy dower. 
 
 O happy beggary ! 
 O greedy eye 
 And all unsated heart ! 
 Thou only hast a part 
 In treasures manifold 
 Of wealth that grows not old. 
 O incommunicable speech ! 
 For he who reads a book may preach 
 A hundred sermons from its foolish rote 
 And rhyme reiterant on one dull note. 
 But he who spends an hour within the wood 
 Hath fed on fairy food ; 
 And who hath eaten of the forest fruit 
 Is ever mute. 
 Nothing may he reveal. 
 Nature hath set her seal 
 Of honor on anointed lips ; 
 And one who daring dips 
 His cup within her potent brew 
 Hath drunk of silence too. 
 What doth the robin say, 
 And what the martial jay ? 
 Who 11 swear the bluebird s lilt is all of love, 
 Or who translate the desolation of the dove ? 
 For even in the common speech 
 Of feathered fellows, each to each, 
 Abideth still the primal mystery, 
 3 
 
Wood- The brooding past, the germ of life to be ; 
 Longing. ^ n( j one p Qor weec ^ upspringing to the sun, 
 
 Breeds all creation s wonder, new begun. 
 
 Come, then, who would be free, 
 
 Break bonds and run with me ! 
 
 Stay not your hasting till the mystic round 
 
 Of green, untrodden ground 
 
 Hath hid us from the eyes of men ; 
 
 There to be young again, 
 
 There to forget old passion s folly 
 
 And all dull learning s melancholy. 
 
 Come, for the forest calls ! 
 
 Come, ere the echo falls ! 
 
 H 
 
 PAN 
 
 :ARK ! you may hear him stirring, 
 More softly than the whirring 
 Of filmy, hair-veined wings, 
 Or thrill of echoing strings 
 When the sad pine, with weaving minstrelsy, 
 Mocks the imagined music of the sea. 
 The fall of ebon hoof! 
 Stand lightly by, aloof, 
 And you may see him pass, 
 Unwounding the lush grass, 
 Dropping diffusive balm 
 
 From honey breath and careless hollowed palm,- 
 Known of the hawk, unnoted now of man, 
 The great god Pan ! 
 
 4 
 
Where was he hiding 
 
 When men, deriding 
 
 The lisping lore of years when years were young, 
 
 And song held some sweet measures yet unsung, 
 
 Declared him dead, 
 
 His great dominion fled, 
 
 And nailed their rhymes above his mossy bier ? 
 
 Ah ! in the youth or age o the year, 
 
 In sunshine, or in midnight murk, 
 
 Still did the goat-god lurk 
 
 In the green forest glade, 
 
 Of naught afraid 
 
 But of the curious eye, 
 
 Of ominous crash, and echo-frighting cry : 
 
 "This way he ran ! 
 
 Surely the one called Pan ! " 
 
 In the deep wood ! 
 
 The wood so deep that one scarce enters there 
 With willing foot, but warm-left lair 
 Of timorous beast is found, 
 And o er the hollow ground 
 Faint, pattering paws of thrifty squirrels tread ; 
 The sanctuary where spent winds are fled, 
 And nuts lie stored 
 Richer than Rhine-washed hoard; 
 Where every hollow tree hath honey cells; 
 Here where the wild dove dwells, 
 And one secluded, choir-remembering thrush 
 Strikes silvernly across the solemn hush 
 Of the vast shadowy stillness, with his flute 
 5 
 
Pan. And cymbals, and is mute. 
 
 Where the shy partridge rounds her nest, 
 
 And by lone Silence blest, 
 
 Teaches her young the sweet wood-lessoning 
 
 Of hiding under leaf and flight on fluttering 
 wing. 
 
 There, on a day of all delight, 
 
 Dropping through purpling reaches down to shore 
 less night, 
 
 Day sprung from some far, Titan-bosomed source, 
 
 And leaving, in its course, 
 
 The hills enriched, the valleys drowned with joy 
 
 Day for a god s employ 
 
 I saw him, I, 
 
 Unworthily 
 
 Spying upon him, creeping in the deep 
 
 Removed courts, where Dian s self might sleep. 
 
 Over my crawling flesh swift prescience ran : 
 
 The living Pan ! 
 
 His brow was crowned that day, 
 
 Not with the myrtle and the bay, 
 
 Or flower ambrosial sprung from storied fields, 
 
 But all the woodland yields 
 
 Of blessed homely leaf 
 
 Garnered in Summer s sheaf 
 
 Of joys. The wilding clematis 
 
 Roved o er his regnant front with rioting kiss; 
 
 The royal goldenrod 
 
 There learned to nod, 
 
 Entreating she might touch his tangled hair, 
 
 And so transmute herself to fairest fair ; 
 6 
 
Great lilies lustred o er the living crown ; Pan. 
 
 And trailing down 
 
 His mighty sides, the dull hop-vine 
 
 Did with her dreaming mates entwine. 
 
 Upon one shaggy knee 
 
 He handled tenderly 
 
 A youngling fox, whose mother stood thereby, 
 
 Watching with worshipful and drowsy eye 
 
 The laughing god and laughing little one, 
 
 Both children of the sun, 
 
 Loved of the wind, 
 
 And understood by all four-footed kind. 
 
 Ah ! who but one reed-piping in the wood might 
 
 now 
 
 Sing of the god himself, his music-haunted brow, 
 His cheeks, like autumn hillocks, overspread 
 With bloom of russet red 
 
 Richer than wine spilled o er young maple tips ? 
 His glowing lips 
 For generous laughter curved ; the all-compelling 
 
 eye 
 Where buried sunlit sands discovered lie 
 
 But hush ! ah, hush ! lay listening ear 
 To earth ! Dost thou not hear 
 His rhythmic tread ? The gladdened air 
 Drips with the wood-scent from his tossing hair ; 
 The very cloud 
 
 Trails lower; and the oriole s loud 
 Bright plaint is piercing, unsubdued, 
 The lattice of her leaf-wrought solitude ; 
 7 
 
 
Pan. The robin blither sings, 
 
 The blindworm dreams of wings. 
 
 Lower ! bow low ! abase thy trivial state, O man ! 
 
 He comes, the earth-god, Pan ! 
 
 SUNRISE ON MANSFIELD MOUNTAIN 
 
 O SWIFT forerunners, rosy with the race ! 
 Spirits of dawn, divinely manifest 
 Behind your blushing banners in the sky, 
 Daring invaders of Night s tenting-ground, 
 How do ye strain on forward-bending foot, 
 Each to be first in heralding of joy ! 
 
 With silence sandalled, so they weave their way, 
 And so they stand, with silence panoplied, 
 Chanting, through mystic symbollings of flame, 
 Their solemn invocation to the light. 
 
 O changeless guardians ! O ye wizard firs ! 
 What strenuous philter feeds your potency, 
 That thus ye rest, in sweet wood-hardiness, 
 Ready to learn of all and utter naught ? 
 What breath may move ye, or what breeze invite 
 To odorous hot lendings of the heart ? 
 What wind but all the winds are yet afar, 
 And e en the little tricksy zephyr sprites, 
 That fleet before them, like their elfin locks, 
 8 
 
Have lagged in sleep, nor stir nor waken yet Sunrise 
 To pluck the robe of patient majesty. Mansjield 
 
 Mountain. 
 
 Too still for dreaming, too divine for sleep, 
 So range the firs, the constant, fearless ones. 
 Warders of mountain secrets, there they wait, 
 Each with his cloak about him, breathless, calm, 
 And yet expectant, as who knows the dawn, 
 And all night thrills with memory and desire, 
 Searching in what has been for what shall be : 
 The marvel of the ne er familiar day, 
 Sacred investiture of life renewed, 
 The chrism of dew, the coronal of flame. 
 Low in the valley lies the conquered rout 
 Of man s poor, trivial turmoil, lost and drowned 
 Under the mist, in gleaming rivers rolled, 
 Where oozy marsh contends with frothing main. 
 And rounding all, springs one full, ambient arch, 
 One great good limpid world so still, so still ! 
 For no sound echoes from its crystal curve 
 Save four clear notes, the song of that lone bird 
 Who, brave but trembling, tries his morning hymn, 
 And has no heart to finish, for the awe 
 And wonder of this pearling globe of dawn. 
 
 Light, light eternal ! veiling-place of stars ! 
 Light, the revealer of dread beauty s face ! 
 Weaving whereof the hills are lambent clad ! 
 Mighty libation to the Unknown God ! 
 Cup whereat pine-trees slake their giant thirst 
 And little leaves drink sweet delirium ! 
 9 
 
Sunrise Being and breath and potion ! living soul 
 
 ? f , , And all-informing heart of all that lives ! 
 Mansfield TT b . r , . r , 
 
 Mountain. -How can we magnify thine awful name 
 
 Save by its chanting : Light ! and light ! and light ! 
 An exhalation from far sky retreats, 
 It grows in silence, as t were self-create, 
 Suffusing all the dusky web of night. 
 But one lone corner it invades not yet, 
 Where low above a black and rimy crag 
 Hangs the old moon, thin as a battered shield, 
 The holy, useless shield of long-past wars, 
 Dinted and frosty, on the crystal dark. 
 
 But lo ! the east, let none forget the east, 
 
 Pathway ordained of old where He should tread. 
 
 Through some sweet magic common in the skies, 
 
 The rosy banners are with saffron tinct ; 
 
 The saffron grows to gold, the gold is fire, 
 
 And led by silence more majestical 
 
 Than clash of conquering arms, He comes ! He 
 
 comes ! 
 
 He holds his spear benignant, sceptrewise, 
 And strikes out flame from the adoring hills. 
 
 o 
 
 ESCAPE 
 
 MY people, my own Little People, come 
 
 back 
 
 From your home in the house of dreams ! 
 Build of your magic a shining track ; 
 Set silver sails on the hurrying streams 
 10 
 
That run from the rifts of the past ! Escape. 
 
 Tie Jack-with-his-lantern on every mast, 
 
 To sing, " Good cheer, 
 
 Little mariner ! 
 
 Here s a tricksy defiance to every gale, 
 
 And a health to the billows whereon we sail!" 
 
 Pour from the flowers and out of the flood ; 
 
 From the hollows of moss in the heart of the 
 
 wood ! 
 
 Flitting and skipping, oh, leap and dance ! 
 Warily trip it where fireflies glance ! 
 O, hurry, I pray ye, nor waste ye 
 One moment, but hitherward haste ye ! 
 Come, blink at this market of groans and sighs, 
 With elfin grimaces and wondering eyes ; 
 And drown all our chaffer of hatred and dole 
 With sweet limpid laughter that tickles the soul ! 
 For the courage of manhood is dying, 
 And hearts are made only for sighing. 
 We re sick for the sight of ye, 
 Starved for the sound of ye, 
 Faint for the lack of ye ! 
 Sick for the sight of a coat of green, 
 A-shimmer like leaves in their morning sheen ; 
 Starved for the sound of a patter and play 
 Like iris drops on an April day ! 
 For, O Little People ! our souls live alone, 
 Together, yet lone, in dwellings of stone. 
 And the corners are square, and the stone in 
 
 blocks, 
 
 And there s never the look of the lichened rocks ; 
 1 1 
 
Escape. And we sit on benches of carven wood. 
 
 Now you know, Little People, it s never good 
 
 For a poor, poor soul to be pent in a place 
 
 Where the sky s a window and not a space ; 
 
 Nor to strive to be keeping its pinions free 
 
 When it never can nest in a living tree. 
 
 So come, little brothers, and laugh and sing; 
 
 Draw on the pavement a fairy ring ! 
 
 Pull us into it, every one, 
 
 And set us dancing till day is done ! 
 
 Then draw us dancing out of the town 
 
 Into the land where the sun goes down 
 
 Under the pennons that flame and fly 
 
 In a golden dream on a golden sky ! 
 
 And there but what happens is past all guess 
 ing, 
 
 Past all thinking and all expressing. 
 Enough for the earth- worn soul to be 
 In a world where a man and a fay are free. 
 
 CANDLEMAS 
 
 o 
 
 HEARKEN, all ye little weeds 
 That lie beneath the snow, 
 (So low, dear hearts, in poverty so low !) 
 The sun hath risen for royal deeds, 
 A valiant wind the vanguard leads ; 
 Now quicken ye, lest unborn seeds 
 Before ye rise and blow. 
 
 12 
 
O furry living things, adream Candle- 
 
 On winter s drowsy breast, 
 (How rest ye there, how softly, safely rest !) 
 
 Arise and follow where a gleam 
 
 Of wizard gold unbinds the stream, 
 
 And all the woodland windings seem 
 With sweet expectance blest. 
 
 My birds, come back! the hollow sky 
 
 Is weary for your note. 
 
 (Sweet- throat, come back ! O liquid, mellow 
 throat !) 
 
 Ere May s soft minions hereward fly, 
 Shame on ye, laggards, to deny 
 The brooding breast, the sun-bright eye, 
 The tawny, shining coat ! 
 
 MARINERS 
 
 WE are the warders of the middle world, 
 Where ripples breathe with blossomy edges 
 curled, 
 
 Like frostwork over lambent emeralds set, 
 Or changeful light from beauty s coronet. 
 Fall-sailed, high-hearted, o er the glassy brink 
 Of watery ways we slip and glide amain, 
 Into smooth hollows, rising link on link, 
 O er toppling crests, down-dropping to the plain; 
 While our uncertain foothold still doth range 
 Through sweet and mystic fantasies of change. 
 13 
 
Mariners. O beauty s lover ! hither run, and roam 
 
 From ridge to ridge of unconstrained flight, 
 
 Where break the liquid shards about our keel, 
 
 Only to close again in serried light : 
 
 As passionate sunbeams rise and turn and wheel 
 
 And fix in keen array their javelins bright. 
 
 Here is assuaging of that ancient thirst 
 
 Begot by feeding on remembered days : 
 
 An image fair for hunger s empty gaze. 
 
 Lucent lagoons lie here berimmed with foam ; 
 
 And inland eyes that loved a river first 
 
 Through the salt plash see threading silver gleam, 
 
 And touch the tress of Arethusa s stream. 
 
 Here when the mist her flimsy portal locks, 
 
 The unwearied vision wakes, to build a dream 
 
 Of trembling ferns and hoary-bearded rocks, 
 
 Of idling bushes by the runnel s bound, 
 
 And reaching trees in some fair orchard ground. 
 
 Through the green darkness of this watery life, 
 The hollow caverns of the under-sea, 
 Gigantic branches twine in waving strife, 
 And uncouth monsters wallow formlessly. 
 They know not us, nor guess the way we go. 
 Fill full the sail, O master wind, and blow ! 
 Draw thou our homesick eyes, the while we flee, 
 To some sky solitude where dwells a star, 
 And points us where our heavenly fortunes are. 
 
MORNING IN CAMP 
 
 VOUCHSAFE me now the holy cup of song, 
 Ye to whom sacred chalices belong, 
 Attendant ministers of day and night ! 
 The mystic golden cup, o erchased with light, 
 And fine from foot to curve of carven brim ; 
 For I would fill it to the circling rim 
 With those clear drops of heaven s ecstasy 
 Oozing like precious nard from beauty s tree : 
 Joy of the growing leaf, the bird, the wind, 
 Born to sink soundless into blood and mind, 
 To pierce the very heart of passion s core, 
 And so make one with being evermore. 
 Yea, niggard of the over-blossomed hour, 
 I would seal up its bliss-engendering power, 
 Caught in the miracle of rhythmic sound 
 As seeds are prisoned in their guardian ground, 
 And hold it for some day of dearth and pain, 
 That I might thus inherit wood and plain, 
 And of the weft of life make fantasy, 
 And revellings from out my poverty. 
 
 Awake at dawn ! yet still with sleep endued, 
 But conscious of my tent s white solitude ; 
 The strident cawing of the black-coat choir, 
 Dulcet in dissonance, untuned to lyre 
 As to the reed : a rasp of vibrant song 
 Wherein no note is well, but none falls wrong. 
 Keyed at wild will, but ever yet in tune, 
 Chimes the true chorus called by quiring June, 
 
Morning As though the unseen steeples of the air 
 
 in Camp. Shou i d rock with bliss> and that fine hidden stair 
 
 Whereby the heart climbs up to kiss her dream, 
 Bloom out resplendent in a rainbow gleam. 
 And faint, far notes like nestlings strive and spring, 
 Too little yet to trust their trembling wing. 
 These be the tiny feathered citizens 
 For whom the wood creates her airy glens, 
 And the great tolerant pine-tree waxeth high, 
 To give them covert from the love-bright sky. 
 These be our little brothers, O ye poor 
 Heart-weary toilers, come to this wide door 
 Of dear wood solitude, to wander free 
 And joyance take in their fair company. 
 Lo, where I lie here lapped in waters sweet 
 Of waveless indolence from head to feet, 
 How well I know the rapt ecstatic birth 
 Renewed without ! the mirrored sky and earth, 
 Married in beauty, consonant in speech, 
 And uttering bliss responsive each to each. 
 The daintier beauty grows here at my door 
 In weed and brier ; even through the floor 
 Springs, barbed on velvet, one bold raspberry, 
 Born for no fruitage, for no eye to see 
 But mine, in this my tented privacy. 
 How the ferns waver, wakened by no wind 
 Save the green flickering of their blossomy mind ! 
 And there beyond, the water laps the land, 
 Encircling her with charm of silver sand, 
 The ring through which her beauty may not pass, 
 No, not for mirroring in that still glass. 
 16 
 
Now while the body lies supine in sound Morning 
 
 And bathed by sovereign air from dewy ground, m ^ am P- 
 
 Or winds who sweep untired through the night 
 
 Conserving balm of blessedness in flight, 
 
 Out fleets the soul, and takes her softly forth 
 
 To meet the dawn ; and whether south or north 
 
 Or east or west, some altar, bright with fire, 
 
 Springs up bedecked before her one desire 
 
 To sing her matins ere the daunting day. 
 
 The ashy dust of night falls swift away 
 
 From her strong pinions, and she rideth free 
 
 Serene upon the morning s majesty. 
 
 Above spice-budded tops of fringing firs, 
 
 The shimmering birches, delicate ministers 
 
 To eye s delight, and o er the deepening rose 
 
 Of the still lake, a soundless shade she goes. 
 
 What shall withstand her ? Not the mountain wall 
 
 Where the first potencies of dawning fall, 
 
 Touching and moulding till awakes a flower, 
 
 A jewelled heart of light, a throne of power. 
 
 Not all the barriers of rock and stream ; 
 
 For who hath caught the swift, evanished gleam 
 
 Of Beauty s mantle hath the charmed eye 
 
 Fated to follow wheresoe er she fly. 
 
 O happy soul ! led only by the voice 
 
 That bids her turn to some more wondrous 
 
 choice ! 
 
 Upon the herby field she sets her foot ; 
 Staying, she listens there to creeping root ; 
 Blesses the opening bud, and smells the mould, 
 Sinks in a fern-bed where faint coils, unrolled, 
 17 
 
 
 VV3VB.A 
 
 OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
Morning Etch on the air a curving tracery 
 
 in Camp. jsj one b ut t jj e morn i n g s postulant may see. 
 
 She steals great gospels from a sphere of dew, 
 That little globe where ancient lore lies new ; 
 And while her tenderest fibres wake and stir, 
 The realm o er which she reigns reconquers her. 
 Prostrate she falls in worship high and lone ; 
 She swoons with rapture by the altar-stone. 
 God and the world, they are the dual Great, 
 And through her dust are they communicate. 
 
 I 
 
 RED MAGIC 
 
 SOLD myself to the fearsome things in the 
 
 wood ; 
 
 And now am I fled from their bitter cherishing. 
 I gave myself for a drop of the thickened blood 
 That dabbles and drips on the innocent emerald 
 
 ring 
 Round the rotting branch where the owl sits dim 
 
 in the dark 
 And hoots, for the winds to hark. 
 
 I thought the blood of the wood was the red of life, 
 And if one of the fearsome things should but make 
 
 it flow, 
 
 A touch would stir up my soul into fiery strife, 
 And rapture enwrap it, and I should speed me 
 
 and go 
 
 To sail in the feathery air, and dart and leap 
 Where pools in the shadow sleep. 
 18 
 
And now have I risen alone from that sullen hour, Red 
 And crawled forth into the sun where it used to fall ; Magic. 
 Darkened and dumb, I feel about for the flower 
 That yesterday bloomed alive. But I dare not call, 
 Lest the fearsome things should troop and gather 
 
 again, 
 To shriek at my mask of pain. 
 
 MIST 
 
 FLEETING across the flood 
 Of the glimmering lake to the wood, 
 Look how it wavers and gleams, 
 Diaphanous vesture of dreams ! 
 
 o 
 
 WHEN DAYS ARE LONG 
 
 IH, time is so short, so short ! 
 How would wise thrift employ it ? 
 Oh, the hoard of the hour is so small ! 
 How shall man and a maiden enjoy it? 
 Sweetheart, by flinging an arm 
 Round the neck of the summer weather ; 
 On the longest road under smilingest sky, 
 Footing it gayly together. 
 
 REVELATION 
 
 DOWN in the meadow, sprent with dew, 
 I saw the Very God 
 Look from a flower s limpid blue, 
 Child of a starveling sod. 
 
 9 
 
THE HEART AND LOVE 
 
 (An Echo.) 
 
 COME into my garden-ground, O thou sweet 
 of my soul, come in ! 
 In the glamour and dusk of the dawn, ere the long 
 
 bright hours begin, 
 While the flowers are still in their sleep, though 
 
 all their breath is astir 
 With fragrance far-reaching yet faint, like the 
 
 spirit of musk and of myrrh. 
 Come in, yea, and look thou alone on the dawn- 
 flowers blossoming. 
 Come, bathe thee in purpling mists, while the 
 
 rhythmical censers swing, 
 And listen, while songs more sweet than the heart 
 
 of man can devise 
 Ay, the very spirit of all the songs like an 
 
 angel choir shall rise. 
 Oh, what can I promise thee, love, in my garden 
 
 far and lone, 
 When the sounds of the night are still, and the 
 
 flower-sweet breeze hath flown ? 
 In my garden lone and far, curved over by fading 
 
 skies, 
 Till only the stars know well where the bower 
 
 of its beauty lies ! 
 For thee, for thee was it sown in the spring of 
 
 the heart s desire, 
 Sown in earth grown black and rich under touch of 
 
 the master fire ; 20 
 
For thee was its bosom stirred by a thousand seeds The 
 
 concealed, 
 Germinant growth of the under-world, the riotous Love. 
 
 weft and yield 
 Of a royal will and a fortunate day and the swing 
 
 of a lavish hand. 
 Oh, come and reign over it, lord of the rose which 
 
 is lord of my waiting land ! 
 Sown for thee, loveliest ! yet in the sowing was 
 
 never a thought of thee ; 
 For ever the lips of the gods are shut under mask 
 
 of their mystery, 
 And ever the reason of travailing birth and the 
 
 portent of days to be 
 Are hid in the leaves of the timeless book that 
 
 only the One may see, 
 The One unknown and yet knowing all, Who said 
 
 when the years were new : 
 " Let the bud of delight in a garden grow, and 
 
 be sprent with the mystical dew. 
 Let it take full joy of the wanderer wind, let it lie 
 
 under bountiful rain, 
 And respond to the touch of the ministrant sun, 
 
 in a passion of fervor and pain. 
 Let one only, the master of beauty, return, in 
 
 response to the challenging cry : 
 Come into my garden-ground, O love, for the 
 
 soul of the dust am I ! " 
 
 21 
 
LIFE 
 
 THE shadow on a sunlit leaf, 
 By other leaflets laid thereon : 
 O fickle shade, so fair, so brief! 
 For with the sun thou rt gone. 
 
 PAGAN PRAYERS 
 
 YOU that hold the world, 
 Uphold me. 
 You that light the sun, 
 Make me see. 
 Bear with me my sorrow ; 
 Help me meet the morrow, 
 Patiently. 
 
 O er road we may know not 
 To end we must fear not, 
 Guide us, O Mighty One ! 
 March with us, heroes ! 
 
 YESTERDAY 
 
 TO remember the tender foreknowledge of 
 morn, at the even, 
 
 To yearn for the treasures desired upon earth, 
 when in heaven, 
 
 22 
 
Were as easy as seeking to joy in love-bliss and Yester- 
 love-token <*<&- 
 
 When a ripple has passed and the face of the dream 
 has been broken. 
 
 NO ANSWER 
 
 WHAT does it mean when love grows cold ? 
 That morning dreams of youth were sold 
 For barter baser yet than gold ? 
 That God Himself is waxing old ? 
 Nay, ask me rather whence we draw our human 
 
 breath, 
 Or what is death. 
 
 AN INVOCATION 
 
 O MELODY! O Melody! 
 For whom the Muses sing and sigh, 
 And bind their loves in choric call, 
 Till all Olympus lies in thrall ; 
 Oh, hither fly, and wait thou nigh 
 While our dull discords vainly die ! 
 
 O siren old, in witching old, 
 Take up again thy harp of gold, 
 And strike the strings in moving strain 
 With echoing fall and soft refrain ; 
 Then loud and bold the measure hold 
 Till some new tale is nobly told. 
 23 
 
Anlnvo- Yet if thou fear these valleys drear, 
 canon. Q ur su }jj ec j springs and pastures sear, 
 Lend from above one lyric note 
 To pierce and rend our hollow rote ; 
 That we who hear with tuned ear, 
 May dream we wake and thou art near. 
 
 THE RETURN 
 
 THE night was clear, without a star, 
 For that the moon usurped the sky. 
 Dream-ridden surges moaned in sleep ; 
 The trees were still, nor sighed reply. 
 Without a sound I flitted forth ; 
 I knew my element, the air, 
 And all the swift intelligence 
 Create to flash and darkle there. 
 
 The faintest sun was not too far 
 
 To mark the track foreknowledge led. 
 
 My limbs were light as vapor blown ; 
 
 At last I lived in being dead. 
 
 Though star-dust sowed the vault of time, 
 
 Soul-dust was I, and not afraid ; 
 
 A thousand suns might wheel and flash, 
 
 But course like mine need not be stayed. 
 
 On, on, I fled o er windless wastes, 
 Heeding no longer day nor night. 
 I heard the singing of the spheres, 
 Their rhythmic roll attuned my flight. 
 24 
 
I hovered over sombre voids ; The 
 
 And when a star dropped into space, Return. 
 
 I fell with it, but yet more swift, 
 Rapt winner of a timeless race. 
 
 Through hail I flashed and smothering sleet, 
 
 To bathe me in a flaming sun, 
 
 As twere the milk of Paradise : 
 
 But all unspent, my bliss had done. 
 
 A thought, a breath ; I was recalled, 
 
 To speed unswerving to the door 
 
 Where joy was wont to stay my feet, 
 
 But where their tread would sound no more. 
 
 Alas ! the garden bloomed the same, 
 Though not one rose had ruth for me ; 
 Sorrow lay not on any bush, 
 Nor stirred the leaf of lightest tree. 
 The house lay wrapped in decent gloom, 
 An odorous darkness vainly sweet, 
 Where one sat watching by the bed, 
 Her tears fast falling o er my feet, 
 
 And one stood weeping by its head. 
 But one in silence sat apart. 
 She did not hear my joyous hail ; 
 I heard the beating of her heart. 
 " Love ! love ! " I cried, " rejoice with me ! " 
 But still her dry lips would not move. 
 I kissed her sudden on the mouth. 
 I knew no word but " Love ! " and " Love ! " 
 25 
 
The All night we watched together there ; 
 
 Return. Strange tryst we kept, my love and I ! 
 My hurrying heart was hot with words 
 To teach her what it is to die. 
 Yet, barred within her beauty s cell, 
 She might not hear, she might not see ; 
 I was alive, but not to her, 
 And all her soul lay dead to me. 
 
 Ah, but the end is yet to read ! 
 When the door opens at her plaint, 
 When she hath set one forward step, 
 With bliss foredone, with languor faint, 
 Closer than dreams of me have been, 
 More dear than her immortal breath, 
 My breast shall be her porch of heaven, 
 My face her visioning of death. 
 
 FOREWARNED 
 
 T)SYCHE hath found her Cupid out : 
 J7 And wilt thou find out me ? 
 Then keep high heart and courage stout, 
 For thou It not see me ringed about 
 With Cupid s bravery. 
 
 The god s true splendor, though unguessed, 
 Would well illume the night ; 
 But foolish Psyche might not rest 
 Till it should also bear the test 
 Of baser candle-light. 
 
 26 
 
Thou art not Psyche, dearest maid ? Fore- 
 
 Nor I the god of love. 
 
 Read, then, the riddle unafraid : 
 
 But let thy questing heart be stayed, 
 
 Nor seek her bliss to prove. 
 
 Give me the universe to roam, 
 
 The sky for breathing-space, 
 
 And though my will were thistle-foam, 
 
 No breeze but yet would blow me home 
 
 To thine adored embrace. 
 
 But if thou, loving, prove the spy, 
 Alas ! what wilt thou see ? 
 Flaws fitted to affright the eye 
 In one who still hath wings to fly, 
 Heart- wounded, and yet free ! 
 
 A WEST-COUNTRY LOVER 
 
 THEN, lady, at last thou art sick of my 
 sighing. 
 Good-bye ! 
 
 So long as I sue, thou wilt still be denying ? 
 Good-bye ! 
 
 Ah, well ! shall I vow then to serve thee forever, 
 And swear no unkindness our kinship can sever ? 
 Nay, nay, dear my lass! here s an end of 
 
 endeavor. 
 Good-bye ! 
 
 27 
 
A West- Yet let no sweet ruth for my misery grieve thee. 
 
 The man who has loved knows as well how to 
 
 leave thee. 
 Good-bye ! 
 The gorse is enkindled, there J s bloom on the 
 
 heather, 
 
 And love is my joy, but so too is fair weather ; 
 I still ride abroad, though we ride not together. 
 Good-bye ! 
 
 My horse is my mate ; let the wind be my 
 master. 
 
 Good-bye ! 
 
 Though Care may pursue, yet my hound follows 
 faster. 
 
 Good-bye ! 
 
 The red deer s a- tremble in coverts unbroken. 
 
 He hears the hoof-thunder ; he scents the death- 
 token. 
 
 Shall I mope at home, under vows never spoken ? 
 
 Good-bye ! 
 
 The brown earth *s my book, and I ride forth to 
 read it. 
 
 Good-bye ! 
 
 The stream runneth fast, but my will shall out- 
 speed it. 
 
 Good-bye ! 
 
 28 
 
I love thee, dear lass, but I hate the hag Sorrow. A West- 
 As sun follows rain, and to-night has its morrow, 
 So I 11 taste of joy, though I steal, beg, or 
 
 borrow ! 
 Good-bye ! 
 
 DESTINY 
 
 RICH in all beauties art thou, love, 
 Save those wherein high souls delight. 
 My slavish sense, my shuddering will, 
 Contend o er thee in scornful fight. 
 
 Ah, many a year I vainly sought 
 Love s nobler largess, joy or woe ! 
 Now, sick and shamed, I bear his dart : 
 Like Baldur, slain with mistletoe. 
 
 LOVE DENIED 
 
 DIAN looked down from hovering height, and 
 saw Endymion sleeping, 
 The viny shadows playing round, and o er his 
 
 forehead creeping : 
 
 Tendril displacing dewy curl, and curl succeed 
 ing leaf. 
 
 O lavishment of loveliness, that light should be so 
 brief! 
 
 29 
 
Love Creeping through sedge and thorny wild, her 
 Denied. darling to discover, 
 
 Almost afraid of her own shade, came the chaste 
 
 maiden-lover ; 
 And when, equipped with hunter s craft, her 
 
 jealous gaze had found him, 
 Within the charm of her white arm she fain had 
 dipt and bound him. 
 
 "Oh," sighed she, in the lonesome joy of that 
 
 subduing rapture, 
 " That I might seal the eyes of Night, and his 
 
 fair beauties capture ! 
 What were the wrong to smooth one curl his 
 
 radiant brow adorning ? 
 Nay, if I pressed his mouth to mine, were t meet 
 
 for Juno s scorning ? " 
 
 Ah ! at the word, her cheeks were dyed, a pretty 
 
 redness turning ; 
 She smote her brow, in sweet despite, to find it, 
 
 too, was burning. 
 And then, so cruelly and hard did her pure 
 
 thoughts deride her, 
 She blushed again, until it seemed the Morn 
 
 walked there beside her. 
 
 " Love-tokens pale," she murmured low, " when 
 
 love s not of the spirit ; 
 And who would snatch at body s joy, a base thing 
 
 doth inherit ! " 
 
 30 
 
With that, her passion cold at heart, she fled to Love 
 upper ether, Denied. 
 
 And left Endymion sleeping on, the Dark and he 
 together. 
 
 ON PILGRIMAGE 
 
 (A.D 1250.) 
 
 MY love hath turned her to another mate. 
 (O grief too strange for tears !) 
 So must I make the barren earth my home ; 
 So do I still on feeble questing roam, 
 An outcast from mine own unfriending gate, 
 Through the wan years. 
 
 i 
 
 My love hath rid her of my patient heart. 
 (Wake not, O frozen breast !) 
 Yet still there s one to pour her oil and wine, 
 And all life s banquet counteth most divine. 
 O Thou, Who also hadst in joy no part, 
 Give me Thy rest ! 
 
 What strength have I to cleanse Thy stolen tomb, 
 
 For Christendom s release? 
 
 Naked, at last, of hope and trust am I, 
 
 Too weak to sue for human charity. 
 
 A beggar to Thy holy shrine I come. 
 
 Grant me but peace ! 
 
 3 1 
 
MAGDALEN 
 
 MINE eyes are shut, their fringes hid 
 Beneath the night s black coverlid. 
 No fiery, swift proclaiming spark 
 Pursues thy flight across the dark. 
 
 Yet if their burning sear thee still, 
 T is God s high justice, not my will. 
 If He avenge my wrong and shame, 
 Am I to blame ? Am I to blame ? 
 
 A FAREWELL 
 
 THOU wilt not look on me ? 
 Ah, well ! the world is wide ; 
 The rivers still are rolling free, 
 Song and the sword abide ; 
 And who sets forth to sail the sea 
 Shall follow with the tide. 
 
 Thrall of my darkling day, 
 
 I vassalage fulfil : 
 
 Seeking the myrtle and the bay, 
 
 (They thrive when hearts are chill !) 
 
 The straitness of the narrowing way, 
 
 The house where all is still. 
 
TO CIRCE 
 
 NO, Lady, I 11 not sup with thee, 
 Lest bread should be denied. 
 I 11 sit down here beside my barren hearth, 
 And feed on pride. 
 
 Thy wine makes merry company ; 
 But freed from hilding fears, 
 I better love the honorable salt 
 Of mine own tears. 
 
 Yet the bright beaming of thy look 
 
 Might still my heart unbar, 
 
 If through this rifted thatch there had not gleamed 
 
 One cold, clear star. 
 
 RENEWAL 
 
 THOU, whose short path lay one with mine, 
 Did not our days fleet, velvet-shod ? 
 We proved the stars, and probed the deep ; 
 We wondered o er the One called God. 
 It seemed discourse could have no end, 
 So sweet it was to find a friend. 
 
 Now, lacking thee, I lack delight, 
 While hours go crawling, fretting by. 
 
 Thought cries in vain, and grieving, finds 
 No kindly voice to give reply. 
 33 
 
Renewal. To meet, touch hands, and part again, 
 Was joy s one drop in seas of pain. 
 
 Thou shallow Self, thy wailings set 
 
 In minor key to mournful tune ! 
 Roses still blossom, though they fade, 
 
 And every year renews her June. 
 On Nature s page is graven deep, 
 " To have and love is not to keep." 
 
 But not to lose. O day, be swift, 
 When, wandering with joyous feet 
 
 Through worlds where dreams come warm to life, 
 In some fair garden we may meet ! 
 
 And " Thou ? " will one, all gladness, cry : 
 
 The other, well contented, "I ! " 
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 THROUGH the silence and midnight of 
 life 
 
 Thy soul to my soul I heard calling, 
 In bugle-notes, golden and long, 
 In pearl-drops of melody falling. 
 Then in joy I rose up from my rest ; 
 My heart stilled its beating to hear thee. 
 With swiftness I sandalled my feet 
 That quivered with haste to be near thee. 
 34 
 
Thy message cleft night like a star. The 
 
 "Seek thou," it sang, "desolate places. 
 
 Go whisper in hungering ears 
 
 And smile upon death-darkened faces. 
 
 I am thine, thou art mine," cried thy soul, 
 
 " Yet heed me, and pause not nor wonder 
 
 If God set our faces apart, 
 
 And hold us a lifetime asunder." 
 
 Then my heart rose in altar-flames high ; 
 It thrilled with the whiteness of burning. 
 My breath was the incense of prayer, 
 Heavy-sweet with pure passion and yearning. 
 "Thou art mine, I am thine," cried my soul, 
 " Then thus do I hold and I heed thee : 
 It is more to obey thy decree 
 Than lament lest I lack or I need thee." 
 
 The pathway appointed I tread, 
 Unheedful of pain or of pleasure ; 
 Yet still with thy step I keep time, 
 And God Himself marks us the measure. 
 Thy face fronts the dawn, mine the west ; 
 But farthest, we still are the nighest : 
 For souls are but married anew 
 When wedded alone to the Highest. 
 

 FAMINE 
 
 AT last she learns that love can die; 
 That ashes bank the grave of fire 
 Enkindled from the living sun, 
 To make her faith a funeral pyre. 
 
 White wonder clothes her stony glance ; 
 She shudders that Eternal Right 
 Could so betray a seed to birth, 
 And let it die for lack of light. 
 
 Like one avowed the bride of death, 
 Unmurmuring, she sits apart : 
 Veiling, with snow of patient looks, 
 The unfed hunger of the heart. 
 
 ON THE FIELD 
 
 YES, that last blow struck through 
 Corselet and chain and all ; 
 Where pain s hot lightning flew, 
 Now the red droppings fall. 
 
 You the cold heavens send 
 In the hour of my thirsty need 
 Help me, O soldier-friend, 
 To cover how I bleed ! 
 
 36 
 
EDWIN BOOTH 
 
 " Ay, every inch a king!" 
 
 NOW is the night, foreshadowed of our fears ; 
 The curtain falls, the lights fade, one by 
 
 one. 
 
 Darkness and silence from the widowed stage 
 Proclaim the great and final act is done. 
 Vain are the thundered plaudits of the house, 
 The laurel wreath, the players loud acclaim ; 
 Thou art grown dumb to clamoring for response, 
 Deaf to the ringing of thy jewelled name. 
 Thy crystal soul hath traversed back the pathway 
 whence it came. 
 
 They who the virtues of the mighty dead 
 Enwrap in majesty of broidered verse, 
 Call upon Nature, in her solitude, 
 His beauties and her sorrow to rehearse. 
 The forest and the field, the fitful wind 
 They challenge, and the ever-sounding wave, 
 To seek his spirit in the vast afar, 
 And drop their dews on his enriched grave, 
 Crowning the poet s lyric woe with some for- 
 lorner stave. 
 
 Greater than all the universe of space 
 The mimic world thou didst thyself create : 
 The subtile sphere, compact of passion s breath, 
 Where Nature bade thee hold imperial state ! 
 37 
 
Edwin There shall the mourning garments be outworn ; 
 
 Booth. There shall the desolate their dirges sing . 
 
 No princeling may ascend the vacant throne, 
 Laying new triumph s gall to sorrow s sting. 
 "The King is dead !" we cry, but nevermore, 
 " Long live the King ! " 
 
 Of all the stops of mortal harmony 
 Master thou art forever, though in death. 
 The melancholy of the Dane is thine, 
 The poisonous blighting of lago s breath. 
 Thou didst take on foul Richard s humpbacked 
 
 soul, 
 
 And clasp it close, yet do thine own no wrong : 
 As t were the mantle of Sir Caradoc, 
 Unerring witness sung in ancient song, 
 Destined to prove the pure of heart more pure, 
 
 the strong more strong. 
 
 Slave of self- conjured evil, Cawdor s thane! 
 The jester, bitter- hearted, striking home ! 
 The fox-robed cardinal, creating France, 
 And launching forth the curse of sovereign 
 
 Rome! 
 
 Gallant Don C^sar, lord of ragged lace ! 
 These wert thou in their turn, and sorrow-blind, 
 Alas ! thou wert the doited father, too, 
 Pelted by heaven, and stabbed by human kind : 
 Heartbreakingly confest, " I am not in my perfect 
 
 mind!" 
 
 38 
 
Such was thy Protean form, but what wert thou ? Edwin 
 A changing cloud, content to borrow hue Booth. 
 
 From lordly sun-rays that o errule it quite, 
 And thus with color and with form endue ? 
 Nay, rather let the time s remembrancing, 
 When it doth con anew thy mortal span, 
 Ignore thine art, if such despite may be, 
 But bow in awe before thy nature s plan, 
 Crying with trumpet tone, to alien ears, " This 
 
 was a man 
 
 I 
 
 Thine was the guilt of filching heavenly fire ; 
 Wherefore Jove s eagle fed upon thy heart. 
 Yet never word nor strangled cry betrayed 
 Responsive agony beneath the smart. 
 A thousand hovering spectres menaced thee . % 
 Bound, by eternal fiat, on the rock 
 Of mortal languishment : yet unappalled 
 As gallant bird beneath the tempest shock ; 
 For still thy soul soared free, thy silence met each 
 hideous mock. 
 
 And can such glory pass ? Nay, thus thou art, 
 Where er in world diviner thou dost walk, 
 Mated with love celestial, that doth spring, 
 Fragrant and fair, from life s divided stalk. 
 But we who knew thee may not cease to mourn 
 The moment s grief, the time s perpetual loss. 
 Not ours to pluck from thine engraved name 
 Oblivion s cold and memory-choking moss : 
 Blest are we for so noble sake to bear affliction s 
 cross. 39 
 
Edwin Henceforward nevermore may Denmark s Prince 
 
 Booth. p ace through his tragic hour in sabled pride 
 
 But thou, the sceptre s rightful heir, wilt walk, 
 Eclipsing all his grandeur, by his side. 
 And dally as we may with pageantry 
 Wherein some newer actor plays a part, 
 The scene will fade, while thine enshadowed 
 
 form 
 Doth from the slumbrous aisles of memory 
 
 start, 
 
 Again the lost but ever-reigning monarch of the 
 heart. 
 
 Farewell ! farewell indeed ! But take with thee 
 Our true allegiance to that orient land, 
 The laurels and the rosemary of life 
 Lying unnoted in thy nerveless hand. 
 Take with thee, too, our bond of gratitude, 
 That in a cynic and a tattling age 
 Thou didst consent to write, in missal script, 
 Thy name on the poor players slandered page, 
 And teach the lords of empty birth a king may 
 walk the stage. 
 
 HORA CHRISTI 
 
 SWEET is the time for joyous folk 
 Of gifts and minstrelsy ; 
 Yet I, O lowly-hearted One, 
 Crave but Thy company. 
 40 
 
On lonesome road, beset with dread, Hora 
 
 My questing lies afar. 
 I have no light, save in the east 
 
 The gleaming of Thy star. 
 
 In cloistered aisles they keep to-day 
 
 Thy feast, O living Lord ! 
 With pomp of banner, pride of song, 
 
 And stately sounding word. 
 Mute stand the kings of power and place, 
 
 While priests of holy mind 
 Dispense Thy blessed heritage 
 
 Of peace to all mankind. 
 
 I know a spot where budless twigs 
 
 Are bare above the snow, 
 And where sweet winter-loving birds 
 
 Flit softly to and fro ; 
 There with the sun for altar-fire, 
 
 The earth for kneeling-place, 
 The gentle air for chorister, 
 
 Will I adore Thy face. 
 
 Loud, underneath the great blue sky, 
 
 My heart shall psean sing, 
 The gold and myrrh of meekest love 
 
 Mine only offering. 
 Bliss of Thy birth shall quicken me ; 
 
 And for Thy pain and dole 
 Tears are but vain, so I will keep 
 
 The silence of the soul. 
 
 4* 
 
IN EXTREMIS 
 
 NOT from the pestilence and storm 
 Fate s creeping brood, the crouching form 
 Of dread disease, and image dire 
 Of wrack and loss, of flood and fire ; 
 Not from the poisoned fangs of hate, 
 Or death-worm born to be my mate, 
 But from the fear that such things be, 
 O Lord, deliver me ! 
 
 Fear dogs the shadow at my side ; 
 Fear doth my wingless soul bestride. 
 In the lone stillness of the night 
 His whisper doth mine ear affright ; 
 His formless shape mine eye appalls ; 
 Under his touch my body crawls. 
 Now, from his loathsome mastery, 
 O Lord, deliver me ! 
 
 I would not loose me, if I might, 
 From touch, or sound, or taste, or sight 
 Of all life s dread revealing. Nay, 
 Were I God s angel, I would stay 
 Here on this clod of crucial grief, 
 And learn my rede without relief; 
 But from this basest empery 
 
 And last, I would be free. 
 
 4 2 
 
My fiend hath poisoned even the cup In 
 
 Of faith and love. I may not sup Extremis, 
 
 But horror grins within the bowl, 
 And spectre guests affright my soul. 
 Yea, and the awful Sisters Three, 
 Spinning the web eternity, 
 Have lost their solemn state, and wear 
 The Furies snakebound hair. 
 
 Out of the jaws of hell and night, 
 Lead my sick soul, O Sovereign Light ! 
 Let me tread shivering through the cold, 
 Despised, forsaken, hunted, old, 
 Unloved, unwept, beneath the ban 
 Of sharpest anguish laid on man ; 
 But from the monster foul I flee, 
 O God, deliver me ! 
 
 KNIGHTHOOD ETERNAL 
 
 DELAY no more by altar-fires, nor stay for 
 prayer and vow ! 
 The battle-ground s beneath thy feet, the time for 
 
 steel is now. 
 What need hast thou of mortal lance, of sword or 
 
 saving shield ? 
 
 What need of armor burnished bright, by alien 
 hands annealed ? 
 
 43 
 
Knight- From helm to greave, thy mail shall be with thine 
 jjrff , own passion wrought ; 
 
 Tempered with heat of white desire, and forged by 
 
 clanging thought. 
 Thy sword shall be the naked truth, for scabbard 
 
 never made ; 
 
 Thy shield of holy chastity, twin foe of hacking 
 blade. 
 
 The bowers of peace are cool and fair, but not for 
 
 thee they bloom ; 
 What wouldst thou earn, O lingerer in rcse- 
 
 enshadowed gloom ? 
 One little hour of joyance vile, of base, self-tainted 
 
 breath ; 
 Apples with ashes at the core, the cup that tastes 
 
 of death. 
 
 The bugle cries for thee ! Arise, and face the 
 
 bannered field, 
 Vowed evermore to fight and die, but not to live 
 
 and yield; 
 Content to leave the day unwon, the lust of fame 
 
 forego, 
 So thou mayst march one step in time, or strike 
 
 one gallant blow. 
 
 44 
 
HEIMGEGANGEN 
 
 WHAT word, O my daughter, what word 
 from the damp and the dark ? 
 I put down mine ear to the grasses that brighten 
 
 thy roof- tree. 
 Speak thou, while I hark. 
 
 Good cheer, O my mother ! such quiet and com 
 forting cheer. 
 
 I sit here all day and I spin, in my little dark 
 corner. 
 
 My mother, dost hear ? 
 
 I hear, O my daughter ! but how can my heart 
 
 understand ? 
 You speak not of stars and of prophesied rapture 
 
 and glories, 
 Of new sky and land. 
 
 Nay, nay, O my mother ! how should I ? for I 
 
 am alone, 
 Spinning my thread in the dusk of this one little 
 
 corner, 
 Marked out for mine own. 
 
 I dream of the sky and the star-beams, of infinite 
 
 space ; 
 Then house me in peace yea, in peace! in 
 
 my little dark corner : 
 I have gone to my place. 
 
 45 
 
SLEEP 
 
 WITHDRAW thee, soul, from strife. 
 Enter thine unseen bark, 
 And sail across the dark, 
 The silent sea of life. 
 
 Leave Care and Grief, feared now no more, 
 To wave and beckon from the shore. 
 
 Thy tenement is bare. 
 
 Shut are the burning eyes, 
 Ears deaf against surprise, 
 Limbs in a posture fair. 
 The body sleeps, unheeding thee, 
 And thou, my sailing soul, art free. 
 
 Rouse not to choose thy way ; 
 To make it long or short, 
 Or seek some golden port 
 In haste, ere springs the day. 
 Desire is naught, and effort vain : 
 Here he who seeks shall ne er attain. 
 
 Dream-winged, thy boat may drift 
 Where lands lie warm in light ; 
 Or sail, with silent flight, 
 Oblivion cleaving swift. 
 Still, dusk or dawning, art thou blest, 
 O Fortune s darling, dowered with rest ! 
 
LETHE 
 
 YOU hope we shall remember, dear, 
 The happy days when we lived here ? 
 Ah, child, what shouldst thou know of fear, 
 Whose soul is like a rosy leaf 
 Floating adown the stream of grief, 
 The velvet edge incurved, a boat 
 Unwet with woe, and made to float 
 Forgetful of the flood beneath, 
 Whose oozy waters smell of death ! 
 Turn here thy gaze, and look on her, 
 Thy grandame, who wots not to stir 
 From her dull corner ; note her face 
 With wrinkles lined ; seek out the grace 
 That once adorned her heyday bloom, 
 Rusted and worthless in that tomb. 
 And think you she would greatly care, 
 If God should make her smooth and fair, 
 And round and rosy, eyes alight 
 With youthful pride and longing bright, 
 To keep that record of the years, 
 And trace those channels made by tears ? 
 Saying : " In this I wept my son ; 
 This came when old distrust begun ; 
 That line was cut, O cruel spite ! 
 When sweets of loving took their flight." 
 
 Nay, then, I think she J d find it good 
 To stand up in the lustihood 
 47 
 
Lethe. Of youthful grace and new-sprung pride, 
 
 And throw her worn-out flesh aside. 
 And so shall we, if in the day 
 When sins and ails are purged away, 
 The cunning record of the brain, 
 The hates and madness, grief and pain, 
 The murderous deed we did our friend, 
 The scoff for which there J s no amend 
 May die a natural death, and we 
 Again like little children be ; 
 And caring not to understand 
 Our birth into that other land, 
 Roam through its valleys, hand in hand. 
 
 THE SILENT WATCH 
 
 FULL armed I fought the Paynim foe ; 
 Now palm to palm I lie, 
 My bed of stone, my covering 
 The minster s vaulted sky. 
 
 Pilgrim and priest, move softly here, 
 
 On vain or holy quest. 
 Let me sleep on, and take the meed 
 
 Of my appointed rest. 
 
 Let me sleep on, until my soul 
 
 Hath made her strong again 
 To fight the fight of good with ill, 
 
 Of peace with mortal pain. 
 48 
 
For one day there shall come a voice The 
 
 Sounding from sky to sea : 
 "Arise, Sir Knight, before My face ! 
 
 Now have I need of thee." 
 
 TRILBY 
 
 O LIVING image of eternal Youth! 
 Wrought with such large simplicity of truth 
 That, now the pattern s made and on the shelf, 
 Each vows he might have cut it for himself; 
 Nor marvels that we sang of empty days, 
 Of rank-grown laurel and unpruned bays, 
 While yet, in all this lonely Crusoe land, 
 The Trilby footprint had not touched the sand. 
 Here s a new carelessness of Titan play. 
 Here s Ariel s witchery to lead the way 
 In such sweet artifice of dainty wit 
 That men shall die with imitating it. 
 Now every man s old grief turns in its bed, 
 And bleeds a drop or two, divinely red ; 
 Fair baby joys do rouse them, one by one, 
 Dancing a lightsome round, though love be done ; 
 And Memory takes off her frontlet dim 
 To bind a bit of tinsel round the rim. 
 Dreams come to life, and faint foreshadowings 
 Flutter anear us on reluctant wings. 
 But not one pang, nay, though t were gall of bliss, 
 And not one such awakening would we miss. 
 O comrades, here s true stuff! ours to adore, 
 And swear we 11 carve our cherry-stones no more. 
 49 
 
DREAMS: RUBINSTEIN S DANCE OF THE 
 BAYADERES 
 
 OH for the tinkle of castanets ! 
 The castanets ! 
 
 When the twinkle of myriad lanterns frets 
 The languorous air, and over the tents 
 The lantern stars are burningly bent. 
 Chink! Chink! Chinkachink ! 
 See every link 
 
 Of my burnished bangles beat and glance 
 Over my wrist where the pulses dance ! 
 
 So, whirling and whirling and evermore twirling, 
 Still tracing the track of the sand-shower in swirl 
 ing, 
 
 When the wind of the desert is minded to beat 
 The earth into rings under rhythmical feet, 
 All my hurrying soul sings in rhyme, 
 And the body s blood marks me the time. 
 
 And first the heads nod, 
 For a Sultan s a god; 
 And a Vizier, my word ! 
 He s a lord. 
 
 See the smoke of their dozing upcurl ! 
 See them watch the poor girl 
 Unwinding the smoke from its fold upon fold, 
 Silent they, and so cold ! 
 50 
 
But look ! now the twinkling and footing are faster, Dreams. 
 
 Oh, faster and faster ! 
 
 The body sways lower, it rests on the air. 
 
 (Ah, fair! but a maiden is fair!) 
 
 The air s made of feathers from down of the dove, 
 
 And the arms bent above 
 
 Are the arching of Allah s great dome on the sky, 
 
 Still calling the pulses to fly 
 
 Ever fast and more fast, 
 
 Ere the moment be past. 
 
 Then the Sultan gives over his solemn puff-puff; 
 
 And as to the Vizier, why, he s had enough 
 
 Of tobacco, and wine, and the solace of sweets. 
 
 And now, while the music advances, retreats, 
 
 Quite into the mystical ring they go, 
 
 And dance like dervishes to and fro. 
 
 And up and down, and round and about, 
 
 Like Father Time in the Devil s rout, 
 
 With beard, and hand, and foot and glance, 
 
 The Sultan and Vizier are one with the dance. 
 
 Ah, well, my maidens, we re something worth, 
 
 So, sceptreless, swaying a lord of the earth ! 
 
 Hush ! listen ! the music s falling, falling ! 
 
 What is t I hear calling, 
 
 Over the reaches of wind-blown plain, 
 
 The grave-sown plain ? 
 
 (O love from the desert, O dawn of my day, 
 
 Slow, slower, ride slower, I pray, 
 
 That the dream may go on 
 
 Till the terrible truth-telling dawn, 
 
 On and on !) 
 
 51 
 
Dreams. So comes he, with thunder of galloping feet, 
 And so am I fleet 
 
 To fly like a bird to his stirrup, his knee, 
 The cup of his welcome to be ! 
 
 God ! the east is blood-red, 
 And the Sultan is lifting his head. 
 Shall I smother his yawns with a scream, 
 And tell him my dream? 
 
 THE POET 
 
 BEAUTY en wrapt him like the cell 
 A flower-cup folds about the bee ; 
 And, leaning o er her honeyed well, 
 He drank Eternity. 
 
 Then ere his housing felt decay, 
 Untired, he sought the outer light : 
 Winging the soul s unfettered way 
 In fragrance-laden flight. 
 
 THE SLANDERER 
 
 T 
 
 HE angels of the living God, 
 Marked, from of old, with mystic name, 
 
 O erveil their vision, lest they see 
 One sinner prostrate in his shame. 
 52 
 
And God Himself, the only Great, The 
 
 Preserves in heaven one holy spot, Slanderer. 
 
 Where, swept by purifying flame, 
 Transgression is remembered not. 
 
 Yet thou, O banqueter on worms, 
 Who wilt not let corruption pass ! 
 
 Dost search out mildew, mould, and stain, 
 Beneath a magnifying-glass. 
 
 If one lies wounded, there art thou, 
 To prick him deeper where he bleeds ; 
 
 Thy brain, a palimpsest of crime, 
 Thy tongue, the trump of evil deeds. 
 
 SEAWARD BOUND 
 
 GIVE me, in this inconstant ebb and flow, 
 Some fixed spot 
 
 Where I may plant the soul s desire, and know 
 It withers not. 
 
 An argosy, swift under purple sail, 
 Down sweeps the dawn, 
 
 Unloading all her spices to the gale^ 
 And is withdrawn ; 
 
 53 
 
Seaward Yet no more sudden than the jewelled tower 
 Bound. And front of day 
 
 Falls noiseless, gem from gem, at twilight s hour a 
 And floats away. 
 
 Even that solemn star, the beacon blaze 
 
 On reefs of night, 
 Wanes to a close when most the shipwrecked gaze 
 
 Implores her light. 
 
 Love hath his funeral rites at Fancy s tomb ; 
 
 And Friendship s gate 
 Swings from within, to exiles making room 
 
 For newer state. 
 
 O Thou, the Author of this whirling world, 
 
 Create for me 
 Some sea of being where still sails are furled 
 
 Eternally ! 
 
 Or in that houseless mote, my drifting heart, 
 
 Raise Thou a throne : 
 Spread silence round Thee, and dwell there apart, 
 
 Awful, alone. 
 
 54 
 
TEWKESBURY ABBEY 
 
 A SORDID town, scarred with one ruthless 
 way, 
 
 Where thin-lipped houses mutter, each to each : 
 A squalid folk, delighting to betray 
 And jeer the pilgrim, though he speak their speech : 
 Dull, dusty stage, whereon the lust of power 
 Spread once a carpet spun from brothers blood, 
 And squandered there that little precious hour 
 God granted men to buy eternal good. 
 Ah, but in forest aisles there smileth peace, 
 Though the clouds crack above that cloistered calm ; 
 And neath this vaulting doth contention cease, 
 And Memory heal herself with Beauty s balm. 
 Now Margaret, the Lion-Heart, may trust 
 Her hunted Prince with Clarence, dust to dust. 
 
 CONTENT 
 
 OTIME, thou niggard, thievish almoner, 
 Doling thy scanty gold to snatch it straight ! 
 No longer may I stay to supplicate, 
 Though for the coin which buys me blissful myrrh 
 And frankincense of knowledge, fee to her, 
 The Sibyl Art, that even now so late 
 She might admit me at her mystic gate, 
 And unto me perfection minister. 
 Not all thy wealth might stead me ; yet I know 
 Now at the last where Light Eternal lies : 
 55 
 
Content. There on the green of forest architraves, 
 
 The deepening of the sun s forgotten glow, 
 The elusive spirit locked in Beauty s eyes, 
 The thunder of apocalyptic waves. 
 
 THE HEART S TRUE CHOICE 
 
 SHALL I condemn thee to the barren hills 
 And dreary vales of my life s heritage, 
 Saying, " Because I love thee, thou shalt wage 
 Perpetual feud with joy, nor shun those ills 
 That hover where my soul perforce fulfils 
 Her course of ancient doom, her pilgrimage 
 Of soiled intent, of weak, abandoned rage 
 For burnished deeds, of ever-clashing wills " ? 
 Nay, I would have thee led by fair device 
 To deep forgetfulness of grief and me. 
 Fain would I buy thee, at my sorrow s price, 
 Some happy isle, ringed round with smiling sea, 
 Where thou shouldst pluck pure flowers of Paradise, 
 And drink their fragrance everlastingly. 
 
 THE SPIRIT S HOUR 
 
 "T ET me be free from thee, beloved dead ! " 
 
 I ^So through the weary day aloud I cry, 
 Seeking, with strained and agonizing eye, 
 Thy shadow, trembling at my side ; thy tread 
 
 56 
 
With hungry ear ; thine olden touch on head The 
 Or lips, to give my devil, Doubt, the lie. Spirit s 
 
 " Life claims me ; so do thou, in grace, deny 
 Such dreams, until I make the earth my bed ! " 
 Thus do I mourn by day ; but when the night 
 Lights, with her dusk, the all of mystery, 
 My spirit quickens till thy spirit bright 
 Enfloods it. Short and sure the road to thee. 
 Earth to her heaven responds, and, vanquished 
 
 quite, 
 I pray the silence, " Let me not be free ! 
 
 MAN TO WOMAN 
 
 THOU art not mine nor shalt be ! This I 
 know 
 
 While the prize glimmers in my happy hold ; 
 For though Love live till Memory hath grown 
 
 old, 
 
 And lift his torch to light the way we go, 
 Though, equal-spanned, our thoughts together flow 
 Like wedded rivers winding, fold on fold, 
 Undried in sun nor stayed by winter cold, 
 Thou art not mine, howe er we vow it so. 
 Thy soul is but the glass wherein I see, 
 With blinded flash of rapt intelligence, 
 Riven ideals in new-born beauty laid 
 On the bright bosom of eternity ; 
 And learn, with prescience far outstripping sense, 
 The image mine, the mirror His Who made. 
 57 
 
THE UNSEEN FELLOWSHIP 
 
 OYE mysterious ministrants of night ! 
 Will ye be gone because the specious light 
 But seems to brighten o er my spirit s dole? 
 Ye who, untired, have tended my sick soul 
 With soft, slow touches, cooling as the stream 
 Delayed in strenuous course where rushes dream 
 Of frosty norlands or the tufted pine ; 
 Who, with warm whispers, airs incarnadine, 
 Suffused the pallor of this arid room 
 Till the rich husk of midnight s budded bloom 
 Broke in a marigold heaven of sunset grace, 
 And vaporous lightnings lovelily laid bare 
 Some all-divine, some long-desired face 
 (Moon-pale for shadowing of the aureoled hair) 
 Gleaming and bending o er the bars of pain, 
 Pure as May mist, or rainbow after rain. 
 
 Ye came not at the spirit s first sharp call ; 
 But when of dulling death she most was fain, 
 Then did your wings awake this iron wall 
 (Chamber of care, dark cell of brooding Dis) 
 Into one pulsing reredos of bliss. 
 And your still counsel was the litany 
 Of acquiescent joy in pangs to be. 
 
 For ye do know ! 
 
 Whether your feet, unled, our path have trod, 
 Or in illuminating whiteness go 
 Along the rapt, mysterious ways of God ; 
 58 
 
Whether, in learning all, ye suffered sore,- The 
 
 Or be of those who serve Him evermore f ellwo- 
 
 From some fine trance of new-dissolved sleep, ship. 
 
 Awaked by holy chrism, to sacrament 
 
 Of equal love and equal wisdom blent, 
 
 And forth, to do His bidding, joyous leap, 
 
 Still do ye break with us our stony bread, 
 
 And share our bitter wine, in vigils dread. 
 
 Heralds of sacred silence are ye all, 
 
 Who, knowing many things, may nothing tell ; 
 
 Who may not whisper : " This is ill " or " well," 
 
 But only o er the night s abysses call, 
 
 Plangent and clear, as though a new star shone, 
 
 " Soul, thou art not alone ! " 
 
 Go not, O faithful ! with the mounting sun 
 Mortality s tormenting hath not ceased ; 
 Nay, rather be her heavy toils increased, 
 For noon s sad, upland marge lies still unwon. 
 Walk with us, lest we pluck the flaunting flower 
 Of life s delight, to paint our garlands gay, 
 Forgetting gracious herbs, till that bleak hour 
 When day s great king hath reft his court away. 
 Walk with us ! or if still supremely blest, 
 The dawning waft ye home, to bathe your wings 
 With dews unspent, or sink in brooding rest 
 Where some bird-throated cherub softly sings, 
 Yet should the Night her holy fires inflame 
 To sear the soul anew, in one Great Name, 
 When we, in dross, upon that altar burn, 
 As He, your Lord, doth live, ye shall return. 
 59 
 
THE FLIGHT OF THE FAIRIES 
 
 WHAT serves the earth for sleep 
 Is but a dream-tower builded on a dream : 
 A brooding and a premonition deep 
 Of all that will be when the fresh -sprung stream 
 Of day s delight rolls outward from the sun, 
 Hailing a new world s wonder well begun. 
 Fuller of counsel than at glowing noon, 
 She lies full-bosomed to the sentient moon 
 (Unsatisfied allurer of the night) 
 And gives in beauty what she takes in light. 
 O constant, sweet quiescence of repose ! 
 As if a pollen-rich, musk-hearted rose 
 Should seal her petals, in recurrent rest, 
 So to shut all her sweetness in her breast, 
 And swing there, of her self-communing fain, 
 Secure in knowing, " I shall be a rose again. " 
 One night there was, now many a night gone by, 
 When Cynthia set her broad shield in the sky, 
 Symbol of peace and plenteous content, 
 And dropped herself to earth. Where er she 
 
 went 
 
 The dew was frosty underneath her tread, 
 And all the boughs grew silver overhead, 
 Touched by a glory ye may never guess 
 Who have not viewed her nearer loveliness. 
 She might not stir without it. As when watery 
 
 air 
 
 Cools into clouds a thousandfold more fair 
 60 
 
Than still blue ether, so her amorous leaping The 
 
 Bloomed in a charm ne er breathed from Cynthia rffjf* 
 
 sleeping. Fairies. 
 
 Her body s presence moved pure crystalline, 
 And even her radiant shadow seemed to shine. 
 
 In her forsaken hall, one iris cloud 
 
 Moved regnant in her place, with power en 
 dowed 
 
 To hew the underlying plain 
 
 In shape of hill and valley, and again 
 
 Loose his great fancy into piling waves 
 
 Of wind-stirred light; or blocking o er those 
 caves 
 
 Scooped out of blackness, where, in shadow drest, 
 
 Strange mammoth monsters lay in uncouth rest. 
 
 These beauties, wrought in Titan mood, 
 
 Were fit for sporting of some giant brood 
 
 Who take the earth for playmate, and in spite 
 
 At her dull gentleness, poor, patient wight ! 
 
 Force her to mask and mime for one short night. 
 
 But such gigantic pageantry of change, 
 
 Through which her moonlight fantasy did range, 
 
 Were less than loveliness to those still spots 
 
 Quite overhung with leaves, the hidden grots 
 
 Where, bowered in crowding green, 
 
 Bedecked with coral set in mossy sheen, 
 
 And glittered round by grassy lances keen, 
 
 Still lordly Oberon the great, 
 
 Purest of fairy blood, 
 
 Doth hold his whimsy mood, 
 61 
 
The And keep his elfin state. 
 
 offh* ^ n ^ s n *kt breathed a sigh 
 Fairies. From fringed canopy 
 
 And wilding forest of the maidenhair. 
 
 The sigh rose into song, 
 
 Chanted with changing measure, and erelong 
 
 The song a chorus grew and filled the air, 
 
 One ecstasy of limpid melody. 
 
 " Here in the ferny brake 
 
 The firefly starts awake. 
 
 The glowworm, bold night-lover, 
 
 Moon secrets doth discover. 
 
 O follower of the night, 
 
 Lend me thy light ! 
 
 Star of the oozy dark, 
 
 Give me thy spark ! 
 
 Old killjoy owl o the bough 
 
 On linden-tree, 
 
 Thy topaz eyes shall now 
 
 Our lanterns be ! 
 
 Nay, never blink and blink, 
 
 Nor blinded slink 
 
 Back into covert ! Nay, come out, 
 
 For the moon s about, 
 
 And we, the well-wishers, the lovers of all, 
 
 Hold thee and the forest in thrall. 
 
 Here all together 
 
 We 11 tweak the feather 
 
 That grows o er thy topaz eyes. 
 
 Thou canst not flee to thy sheltering tree, 
 
 For we too can rise, 
 
 62 
 
And our chariot flies, The 
 
 With a wish, to the height 
 
 Of thy craven flight. 
 
 Warders we of the wood, 
 
 Lovers we of the flood, 
 
 Gay little workmen, whose doing 
 
 Is ever pursuing 
 
 Of fleet-footed pleasure 
 
 And balmy-breathed leisure. 
 
 Gnat-Sting and Bat- Wing, 
 
 Bloom-Button, Pollen-Ring, 
 
 Light o the Hour, 
 
 Joyance in Flower, 
 
 Honey-Tub, Lily-Throat, 
 
 Bee-Belly, Robin s-Note ! 
 
 Here we come by the dozens, 
 
 Brothers, gossips, and cousins. 
 
 We are the elves, the only 
 
 Lovers of all the lonely 
 
 Sweet hidden faces 
 
 Of far forest places." 
 
 Ah ! then swept Cynthia forth from leafy cover, 
 And all the ground beneath her feet bloomed 
 
 over 
 
 With frosty flowers sprung from that pure vine 
 Whose root is moonbeam, and whose leaf doth 
 
 shine 
 Celestial white. The maid glanced down at all 
 
 this glory, 
 
 And stayed transfixed to read her footsteps story. 
 63 
 
The Forward she bent, as in a rapturous dream ; 
 
 Flight ^g o b owe d Narcissus once above the stream ; 
 
 Fairies. So beauty might her fairest charms discover 
 And wake to find herself her own best lover) 
 Then, like a nymph pursued, she straight looked 
 
 back, 
 
 And o er her shoulder gazed upon her track. 
 And ever where she looked was loveliness, 
 And ever did her light her beauty bless. 
 There as she paused, her limbs and radiant dress 
 Were painted on the leaves, celestial fair, 
 Whiter than silver clouds on crystal air. 
 Then sudden on she sped, as if the chase 
 Drew out her soul in one swift headlong race. 
 But not to kill the deer ! To conquer joy, 
 And chain the world into one night s employ. 
 They see her ! ay, they see ! the elfin band 
 Troop from the fern-grove, hand in dainty hand, 
 And in the shining of her mantle s shade, 
 Tread out their fairy ring ; then low obeisance paid 
 To her, the puissant ruler of the ample hour, 
 Break into song, the while her high-orbed power 
 Sinks into softness all were fain to see, 
 Lulled with emotion at their harmony. 
 Her look melts into love divinely tender ; 
 Lower she bows beneath her own surrender. 
 She stands pure maiden, stripped of high estate ; 
 They are so little, how should she stay great ? 
 
 So the fairies sing, and, singing, 
 Set the sylvan glade to ringing : 
 
" We know thee for the one enwrapt in splendor The 
 
 Who dost inhabit all the courts of night ; f* 
 
 We hail thee now, the guardian sweet and tender, fairies. 
 Whose fostering foot awakes the world to light. 
 
 " Ah ! we re sick of rhyme and reason, 
 
 Tired are we of time and season. 
 
 This is no verse we made for thee. 
 
 We stole it, queen, from a bird in a tree. 
 
 Now we re tired of dragging the linked chain 
 
 Of stiff-joint rhyme, by might and main. 
 
 Here s a cobweb ! trip it, Cynthia ! 
 
 Try it, dearest, best and fairest ! 
 
 Singing s but a heavy pleasure ; 
 
 Join us now, and tread a measure ! 
 
 Worship sits on addled eggs. 
 
 All our loving s in our legs." 
 
 And round and round they haled, the hoiden 
 
 crew, 
 While Dian laughed till all the vale thrilled 
 
 through ; 
 
 Then leaped she from their midst, and singing ran 
 Swifter than her own peace at foot of man. 
 Sweet baby hootings followed, while the elves 
 Rolled in the murky glade to still themselves ; 
 Tired of their tricking, sick of silly fun, 
 And half their nightly revels not begun. 
 But listen ! hark ! swift as the living spark 
 Launched from a torchlight through the dark, 
 One comes, the fairies messenger, 
 And all the leaves with listening gin to stir. 
 
 65 
 
The Softer than silence his tuned whispering, 
 
 F fz* Richer than waft of rhythmic-waving wing. 
 Fairies. " Hear me, O forest folk ! 
 
 Form ye in mystic ring, 
 
 For the word of your king. 
 
 Omen hath threatened us, 
 
 Woe s in the air ! 
 
 We of the fairy brood 
 
 Sicken in doleful mood. 
 
 Woe s in the air ! 
 
 The fairy honor s sold ; 
 
 Fairy hearts are cold ; 
 
 For Oberon the king, 
 
 Oberon grows old ! 
 
 Ambition hath won him. 
 
 Mortal doings have undone him. 
 
 He hath meddled, mixed, and mated, 
 
 Till his fairy days are fated 
 
 Still like mortal hours to run, 
 
 And fail with every waning sun. 
 
 Yea, he hath built with mortals, and hath striven, 
 
 He for an empty gain, they for their heaven ; 
 
 Fought for them with main and might, 
 
 Made their silly wrong come right. 
 
 With their false ambition fired, 
 
 He hath striven and aspired 
 
 Somewhat like a man to grow, 
 
 To love, to suffer, and to know. 
 
 He hath tried to lift it, the earth-burden, 
 
 And the earth-curse bears upon him wearily ; 
 
 No more wishing brings a joyous guerdon, 
 66 
 
But he travails drearily. 
 
 He hath caught the man-disease, the mortal pining, 
 
 He hath drunk the cup of human pain ; Fairies. 
 
 Henceforth all his happiness entwining 
 
 In the root that springs to mortal bane. 
 
 Woe hath laid hand on him, 
 
 Blighting and bold. 
 
 Now Oberon grows old ! " 
 
 Fear fell on the fairies. 
 
 With sibilant hushes, 
 
 The low wind came wailing 
 
 In gusts through the bushes. 
 
 Gray fate stalked upon them 
 
 Through deepening gloom ; 
 
 The lot of their leader 
 
 Foreshadowed their doom. 
 
 "Where now shall we wander?" 
 
 Sprite called unto sprite. 
 
 " The sting of despair 
 
 Lies in olden delight. 
 
 Who now shall redeem us, 
 
 If Oberon fail us ? 
 
 What might shall surround us, 
 
 If earth-doom assail us ? 
 
 Now, in delight s employ, 
 
 Who shall plant seeds of joy, 
 
 Living henceforth to bless 
 
 Flowers of idleness? 
 
 Wood-gods defend us ! 
 
 Dian befriend us ! " 
 
 67 
 
The Up with thee, fairies! 
 
 ff f Flit o er the bracken 
 
 of the _, . . . , . 
 
 Fairies. Ere the bright heaven 
 Her dial may blacken. 
 Seek within bloom and bud ; 
 Float on the under flood ; 
 Waken the sleeping leaf ; 
 Read ye the ancient rune, 
 Potent and brief! 
 For this moment of danger 
 Was aforetime foretold ; 
 And the wood-gods have left us 
 Their counsel of old. 
 Silence your wailing tune ! 
 Run for the fairy rune ! " 
 
 Stillness enwrapped the wood. The fairy tread, 
 Fainter than raindrops, beat the mosses bed. 
 One leaf another stirred, in counsel tender, 
 As when love turns to love, in sweet surrender. 
 A foredone petal fell, and kissed the earth, 
 So blessing her for fostering of birth, 
 And her long nourishing of bloom and breath. 
 Such stillness thrills with life, and knows not death : 
 The silence of a sleep entranced with dreams, 
 When still the topmost froth of joy but seems 
 To kiss the beaker of heart s full content. 
 So through the rapt wood mood the fairies went 
 Seeking, aye seeking out the hidden scroll 
 Create to save them from the plague of soul. 
 
 I know not, I, whether the quest attended 
 By such dumb fear with that one night was ended. 
 68 
 
Some say the magic word was swiftly found The 
 
 Deep in the bosom of that circling ground offke 
 
 Kept chaste and fair for elfin revelling. Fairies. 
 
 Some say his dainty majesty, the king, 
 Came on it, by good chance, that very hour, 
 Lurking unguessed in all its mystic power 
 Within the network of a living leaf. 
 Some say twas seen on Cynthia s garment hem, 
 Wrought all in curious cipher, gem on gem. 
 Some say the fairies, wishing, wished it straight 
 By dim dream-porches through the ivory gate ; 
 And there it bloomed before them rapturously, 
 A blossom they alone might touch and spy. 
 I know not ; yet one watching, overbold, 
 That broidered pageant hath the secret told : 
 How all the fairies rustled to and fro, 
 Like busy leaves, till their one moment s woe 
 Changed, on a sudden, to a mad delight. 
 And how they spent the remnant of the night 
 With brewing purest broth, in heat of moon, 
 After the spell of that strange, mystic rune. 
 And how they straightway cried, with urgent voice, 
 Upon their king, bidding his soul rejoice ; 
 For they had found the source of elves delight : 
 A fusion meant to make black hair from white, 
 And supple joint from out the creaking hinge, 
 And thrills of joyance from old age s twinge. 
 And how the king himself came riding swift 
 On a light-beam that seemed but a rift 
 Within the darkened air ; and how they drank 
 Of their rich brew together, till down sank 
 69 
 
The The morning star ; and then a shining way 
 
 ^ffh* Opened before them like the new-sprung day. 
 Fairies. Straight from the earth it ran and pierced the sky, 
 
 There where the dawn hath set her minstrelsy. 
 
 And all the fairies fled that radiant road 
 
 To some ethereal and far abode 
 
 Prepared for them ere earth had grown too rude 
 
 For harboring of her most delicate brood. 
 
 Some say t was Cynthia s hall they sought at last. 
 I know not ; yet I saw her shield hung fast, 
 Nailed to the throbbing dome of heaven, last night, 
 And never did it shine more purely bright : 
 As if the maiden set it there to tell 
 Where beauty liveth, there may fancy dwell ; 
 And no sweet dream within the heart hath root, 
 But lies a land wherein the dream bears fruit. 
 
 X?> 
 
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
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