BY GEORGE 110 University of California Berkeley J < / ^ IN UNKNOWN SEAS IN UNKNOWN SEAS A POEM WRITTEN BY GEORGE HORTON CAMBRIDGE THE UNIVERSITY PRESS MDCCCXCV COPYRIGHT 1895 BY GEORGE HORTON TO H. W. SEYMOUR OF CHICAGO UNWORTHY OF THY HEART, MY FRIEND, ARE THESE POOR LINES THAT I HAVE PENNED; AND SO I DEDICATE TO THEE THE NOBLER SONG I FELT IN ME. 43535 IN UNKNOWN SEAS And all about us clanks the toiler's chain ; But in those regions life itself is dreaming, And prudent thoughts are held in high disdain. And we shall know when we at length are drifted Into the glory of those golden seas, For subtle peace is there from heaven sifted, And balm is shaken from each wing-like breeze, And clouds are by a sweeter azure rifted Than any blue that broods in skies like these. TF we shall come by day, the long, faint traces, * Crescent or straight, will grow from out the sky, Of island mountains, at whose sylvan bases The pleasant valleys of that country lie ; And all about us saucy mermaid faces In mirrored waves will image, faint, and die. A ND if by night, we shall go gently gliding ** A-down the moon-trail, never laid on land, Until we hear the waters' measured sliding Upon the whiteness of the sloping strand, And laugh of lovers in green arbors hiding, While grinds our prow upon the shelly sand. 10 THE MOON-TRAIL. 'T*HE moon-trail shineth across the sea, -* And stretcheth off to a far countree In the realms of the old romantic moon, Where evening is morning, and midnight noon ! Then lovers away on the bright moon- trail, Each happy two with a tiny sail, In a silver waste with stars above, And nothing to do but love and love. ^j The great kind moon like a sphere of light Swings down to the rim of the sea each night, Finding ever some bark with a happy crew, Bringing all the world though it brings but two. Then lovers away on the bright moon- trail ; Soft breezes are sighing to fill your sail ; There are stars beneath and stars above, And nothing to do but love and love. ^f The moon-trail lighteth the sea of life For lover and maiden, lover and wife, And it 's joy to sail down its shimmery way. Just two together, forever and aye. II Then lovers away on the bright moon- trail, Each happy twain with a tiny sail, For there *s naught so sweet in heaven above Or the earth beneath as to love and love. me it pleases most to come a-creeping Up the round world from darkness left behind, Into a region where the Dawn is sweeping O'er rippling waves, in rosy shell reclined, While snouted dolphins leap for love of leaping, And sea-gulls rock and tumble in the wind. ^J Ah, long ago it was, at early morning, That El Dorado stretched her arms to me ; The level sun, the Golden Gate adorning, Turned gray old rocks to piles of porphyry, And outward swarmed, as though in hostile warning, The white-plumed Phrygian helmets of the sea. CALIFORNIA. T71NE land and pine land afar by the West, * Wine land and shine land by all blessings blest, Benign land, divine land, that God loveth best ! 12 [[ France it is dreams on thy slopes where she lies, Italy beams from thy languorous skies, Gleams there and streams on the world's Paradise ! ^J Land which the grand old Sierras o'erfrown, Stern and eterne as a Titan-built town, Marred and Jove-scarred and yet not battered down. []" Giants they seem of the old fabled races, Wearing the dream of the Sphinx on their faces, Lifting its theme from all thought that debases. ^" Foams o'er thy homes in a deluge the rose ; Red in thy meadows the wild poppy grows ; Balm from the calm of thy summer sea blows. ^| Oh, now to dwell where the oranges bloom ; Oh, now to smell their enchanting perfume ; Under its spell to look back on this gloom ! *[[ Oh, there to go where the oranges shine, Seen through the green of the trees all a-line, Gold that is rolled around honey and wine. ^f Land of lives drunken on sea- wind and sun, Passions unshrunken by chill skies and dun, Love seldom sunken that gold may be won ! ^[ Hum till I come to you, wild honey bees ! Bide till I hide in you, bloom-billowed seas ! Save but a cave for me, Hesperides ! E morn in fervid youth I came a-sailing Unto a heaven habited by man ; Oh, I remember how, ere night was failing, Unto the vessel's pointed prow I ran, And watched until the darkness fell, unveiling The lazy lusciousness of Yucatan j ^[ A land where spring is decked with summer roses, And ceaselessly sweet autumn's nectar drips ; Where blooms the orange, while each rift dis- closes The ripened globes all ready for the lips Of Indian girls who loll in languid poses, Voluptuous bosomed and with swelling hips. Some eve, perhaps, a little winged rover, Some land bird, fainting from too far a flight, May circle round our bark and flutter over, To perch upon the mast when wearied quite ; Then may we dream of fields of honeyed clover, Of lowing kine and orchards bloomy white. SUNRISE UPON THE OCEAN. OUNRISE upon the ocean! vision splendid, ^ Lifting the soul from dust and doubt and time! Who sees it once must feel his earth-hood ended; If soul he has, it then begins to climb, And from that moment all his life is blended With beauty's essence and with joy sublime. ^j" The stars grow brighter just ere night has fainted Among her revellers at dawn of day ; How oft, O queen, my soul with fear attainted, Have I besought thee, and thou wouldst not say, Who dipped his brush in nameless suns and painted Upon thy dreadful dome the milky way ! *[[ Then suddenly, at some celestial warning, Night gathers all her jewels up in fear, Save one rare brilliant, which impatient morn- ing, Who in the darkness standeth dimly near, Hangs at her throat, content with such adorning, So large it is, so liquid and so clear. ^[ The leaden world to silver slowly brightens ; The early breeze is blowing fresh and free ; Gayly our shallop skims the wave and frightens Bevies of flying fish, that, flashing, flee, A cloud of darting grasshoppers that whitens The shining meadows of the argent sea. [[ Behold the east, where morn has scattered roses And irises at the appointed hour, And, lo ! the god his sudden face exposes, Intolerable sign of life and power ; He comes, and in his warmth the world uncloses And opes its petals like a perfect flower ! WE REACH THE UNKNOWN SEAS, OO it is morn, and near us lifts uprightly ^ A walling cliff, severe with shadowy frown, While straight ahead a liquid lane leads brightly 'Twixt olive orchards sloping steeply down, And farther on a pleasant street shines whitely, And cuts in twain a little island town. For I love not the city with its rattle Of carriage wheels and roar of frequent van, Where life is madness, or a sordid battle, 16 That, won or lost, contracts the soul of man ; Give me the town, with hills of distant cattle, And grassy streets frequented oft by Pan. Ah me, the village maids whose bashful glances Thrilled me to madness ere my teens had fled ! Ah me, the careless days, the sweet romances, The fairy light on all the future shed, Ere I had seen the world, and found my fancies Dew that is vanished from a flower that 's dead ! WHERE NO OLD ABIDE. /~\H, I would have no old and hoary sages ^^ In any land where I must dwell for aye, Whose faces all are yellow parchment pages, Where grief and guile have wrought for many a day; But youth, glad youth, through all the buoyant ages, Youth followed not by spectre of decay. Youth is a mask, with features fair and florid, Worn during carnival, a careless week ; Soft tresses curl about the snowy forehead, Sweet dimples in the roses hide and seek. Age is the skull-face, hid in frolic horrid 'Neath reddest lip and most enticing cheek. LET US BE YOUNG. /""\H, heart of me, let us be young ^^ Another merry year ; For there are songs that must be sung, And maidens yet are dear. If old age hobbles down the way, All wrinkled, bent, and hoar, Let 's scoff at him, and cry him nay, And flout him from the door. For sure he is no genial wight, Whose presence pleasure brings ; He frowns on love and laughter light, And talks of sober things. Oh, heart of me, let us be young Another year so fleet ; For there are songs that must be sung, And dreaming still is sweet. 18 THERE ARE FOUND THE WORLD S IDEALS OF HUMAN BEAUTY: CO let us dream that every fair ideal, Incarnate once, has taken form again, To glad the hearts of beauty-lovers leal, Who own no other queen in sky or glen ; For all perfections have existence real, And cannot 'scape the searching souls of men. HELEN OF TROY, E witchery of Helen is undying ; Her charms e'en yet the longing soul enslave With the same spell that brought young Paris flying With sea-gull sails across the Grecian wave, The glory she of seven cities lying Together in the ruin of one grave. The world went mad for Helen ; strife and slaughter Were kindled by the lustre of her eyes. When she was rapt away, a nation sought her, Warring great epics under foreign skies ; Until from out the smoke of Troy they brought her, Swarming to sea with babel of hoarse cries. '9 O O rare a witch enthralled the sweet musician, ^ That king of Jewry, saint, and bard sublime. What then to him were saws and sacred mission, And righteousness, most fervent of his time ? He saw, and fondly seized the sweet perdition, Soiling his soul with treachery and crime. Uriah's wife ! how oft thy black eyes flash on The student priest from out the sacred lines. Then fades the page, while fancy strives to fashion A glorious picture 'mid Judean vines : A matron form, the ripe, rich fruit of passion, And olive cheeks wherein the red blood shines. ESTHER, A ND she, that other Jewess, softly slender, -^"^ Who in the cruel presence dared to stand With nothing save her beauty to defend her, No other aid in all the heathen land ; Yet when she raised her eyes, so shy and tender, A kingdom dropped into her little hand. ^[ Exquisite Esther ! why so humbly kneeling ? Why in the dust thy queenly head abase ? 20 Now by the sweet intoxication stealing From so much loveliness and matchless grace, Behold the lifted wand, thy sway revealing, One kiss is worth the ransom of a race. PHRYNE, OUCH power, too, had Phryne when sur- ^ rounded By graybeard judges, bigoted and chill ; At sudden gleaming of her flesh they bounded Youth-like erect, their shrivelled hearts athrill, " Not guilty ! " crying, with a voice that sounded So loud and full, we hear it echo still. ^[ Ah, Phidias ! thou couldst carve a goddess splendid In curves diviner than we moderns know, Whose shining spear the sacred hill defended, Or cheered the sailor, homeward toiling slow ; But there, alas ! the deft creation ended, Behold a fairer dream, with life aglow ! ROWENA, A ND let us not forget, where'er we wander, ** To seek for sweet Rowena, Henghist's child ; She was of larger mould than these, and blonder, 21 With sky-blue eyes, wherein deep summer smiled, And with a Northern heart, more true and fonder Than those which throb in tropic bosoms wild. O'er sturdy Vortigern she leans, and, blushing, She presses to his mouth her ruddy lips ; One moment like a child the chief is flushing, And trembling to his hairy finger-tips, Then feels a sudden madness through him rushing, While close and long the dewy bliss he sips. BEATRICE, A ND there was Beatrice, who so enchanted **' The sad, majestic, awful Florentine, That all his lonely life her vision haunted, Soothing the splendid demon of his spleen ; J T was she to Paradise his bay transplanted, She wooed him there with radiant smile serene. No faith have I in muse poetic dwelling In chilly skies amid the sacred nine ; The sweetest verse is that most fondly telling Of maiden charms too dear to be divine, Of reddened cheeks and bosoms softly swelling, Of honeyed vows and eyes that shyly shine. 22 LAURA, HIGHLAND MARY, p* ACH lover is a poet visionary **"-' If all were writ, what volumes there would be ! Laura was Petrarch's goddess ; highland Mary Will live in song while Afton seeks the sea, And Horace sings, howe'er his fortunes vary, The praise of sweetly laughing Lalage. LALAGE. ' I A HERE 'S a dimple appears when my * Lalage laughs, Just before the release of her lips', As if Cupid stood by and would naughtily try Her cheek with his fat finger-tips. ^j Then all of a sudden a rill of delight Ripples off in the light of her eyes, And her little teeth gleam like the shells in a stream That fair in the summer sun lies. ^[ You may take me afar to the desolate North, Or South where the hot deserts be, I will sing all the while of the beautiful smite And the voice of my fair Lalage ! 23 THERE ALSO ARE HEARD AGAIN VOICES THAT WE MISS; I KNOW not which we miss the most : the faces That made the world seem home, they were so dear, The earnest hand-shake and the mystic graces Of fellowship that brought two spirits near, Or voices once that filled the silent places Within our hearts with revelry and cheer. For there are echoes which can never wholly Fade into naught and perfect stillness keep, More sad than beckonings from shore, when slowly, With cautious stride, some great ship tries the deep, And fainter far than lullabies sung lowly To one who knows not if he wake or sleep. AND BEAUTIFUL VOICES THAT HAVE CHARMED ALL THE WORLD : A ND what of them, those tones delicious ^* granted In other days to ravished human ears ? Gone like the singing that the soul, enchanted 24 By Slumber's poppied sceptre, often hears, Rare fantasies by which all time is haunted, Imaginings that move almost to tears. + ^| Oh, some were softer than a maid's just plighted, Confessing love to one with passion mad ; Some, but to hear them, sweetest grief incited, Soul music than the poet's lyre more sad ; And others like a sudden joy delighted, Sunshine of sound, such genial spell they had. ^f Of all the lovely gifts to mortals given, None fade from earth like glorious voices do. Each is as brief as though a wild wind-driven Seabird should whistle to a vessel's crew, And then should drift deep into depths unriven Of seething seas and all-enfolding blue. TOM MOORE, SINGING HIS OWN SONGS, OH, play no more those Irish airs, though feater No touch than thine in Arcady is found ; No more to-night with warp of wailing metre And purest threads of gold and silver sound Weave witchery of song, for it is sweeter To dream of one who lies in Irish ground. 25 For while the echoes in my soul are sobbing Like dying waves upon a lonely shore, And while shy night the summer rose is robbing To waft its perfume through the open door, I seem to hear the harp of Erin throbbing, And some rare ballad lilted by Tom Moore. SAPPHO, npHEN further flies my fancy, whither A whist on The ^Egean sleep the evening breezes fair ; A small dark woman sings, with eyes that glisten More brightly than her garland-plaited hair, To other maids that, seated round her, listen To hymns of love, its triumph and despair. " For love is sweet," she sighs, her sad eyes raising, The while her fingers softly sweep the strings ; " Nay, love is bitter, for what grief amazing, What sleepless nights and doleful days it brings, Yea, bitter-sweet," -and with such perfect praising A matchless song down all the years she wings. 26 ^[ For this is she who in the twilight hushes Of lyric art made poesy her choice, And decked her brow with the Pierian blushes Of blooms wherein the deathless gods rejoice, And never any dawn the sea that flushes Shall lack the lonely beauty of her voice. ^[ Oh, lovely scene ! The lolling wings are sifting The air with perfume that the bees unlock ; The sea is near, and through each flowery rifting The twinkling waves innumerable flock, While far away, in shadow whitely drifting, A little sail seems painted on a rock. ^[ Majestic hills, whose lofty inspiration Broods o'er the soul until it upward springs; A languid clime, where passion's exaltation Like wine the blood to lyric frenzy stings ; And boundless seas that tempt imagination Afar from shore to try her petrel wings. ^f This is the Isle of Beauty : if Apollo Shake morning sea-dew from his shining hair, Or if at noon in grove or grassy hollow The sweet hours languish indolently fair, Or if at eve chameleon changes follow In waves more bright than those of other- where. 27 ^[ And oh, the nights ! with what a look of wonder Above the hills the moon reveals her face, Surprised to find, her own realm stretching under, The level seas' illimitable grace, Or seems to pause mid-sky to list the thunder Of waves against some headland's gloomy base. ^J This was the home of Sappho, the dawn- bringer Of lyric splendor brighter than its day ; Eos of passion poesy ; word- winger Of sighs that linger in the world for aye; Tenth Muse, and best of all, the woman singer Whose roses last while nations fade away. ^[ Somewhere, 'mid time's unsifted ashes hidden, The Lesbian's lines like deathless embers glow : Perchance some maid of Asia Minor, chidden By Christian priest, concealed them long ago ; Perhaps the Sphinx may give them up unbidden From tomb of Pharoah's daughter, lying low. ^[ Howe'er that be, there is an island sapphic, That ne'er was touched by human caravels, Whose seas, unwhitened by the sails of traffic, Bring lotus-eaters on their summer swells ; And there, full-famed of all her songs seraphic, Rose-loving, violet-weaving Sappho dwells. 28 ERYNNA. A ND you shall say if young Erynna pleases ^^ More while she plays the simple maiden's part, ^ Than when, inspired, the ancient lyre she seizes, And sweeps it o'er with most delicious art, What time her voice, like sigh of softest breezes, Makes music on the harpstrings of the heart. ' I *HE music of thy name shall vanish never, * Oh, dear girl poet, dead so long ago ; Erynna, lovely word, that lives forever, Gem-like, amid the ages' melting snow, The fairest sign of incomplete endeavor, Of songs unsung, more sweet than those we know. And there was he, the only modern Grecian Whose lines like rills of Hybla honey run ; Shall we not see, redeemed from death's dele- tion, The garlands that his manhood must have won, And e'en peruse, in all its high completion, The gloomy splendor of Hyperion ? 29 What wrought upon the earth its epoch golden Of beauty worship, longingly intense ? The skies of Greece, her seas each day beholden, Wooing the soul with ceaseless influence, . The mystic sigh of winds in forests olden, Her hillsides wrapped in violet indolence. , where are they, those matchless marble creatures That made a forest in the Parthenon ? Delicious shapes, whose fragments are the teachers Of all in art the soul may feed upon, Exquisite bodies, rapt, immortal features, Into what realm beyond us are they gone ? SCULPTURE HpHERE was a mighty city, long ago, That lived a thousand years of pride . and power. From marble gates its locust armies swarmed To pour on fertile countries far away, Or thence returned, with treasures rare and strange : Slaves for the fields, swart women for the chiefs, And golden gewgawry of unknown gods. 30 ^[ Its merchant vessels whitened every sea, And daring evermore the dim unknown Pushed wider out the world's encircling rim. ^| Its marble temples gleamed on many hills, Where stately priests on pillared porticos, Or safe enshrined from eye profane, rehearsed The sacred mysteries of their ancient cult. ^| And in that city lords and princes dwelt, Son following father in unbroken line In old ancestral piles that firmer seemed Than granite hills coeval with the world. ^[ There poets wrote, whose long renown be- came Symbolical of all that lives in man, And orators from forum or from rock With speech tempestuous blew the world afoam. ^[ And yet that city sank from sight as sinks A wounded ship into the secret sea ; Died even as a man, and found its grave Beneath the desolate and shifting sand, And over it the phantom ages stole In long procession, voiceless and unmarked. 31 Unknown that city's history ; its creeds, Its mighty deeds of war, its tales of love, Of high ambition and of finished craft, Are interfused among the shapeless years. But now from out the silence of its tomb Some witless peasant, rummaging, has dug A bit of carven immortality ; We look upon its matchless curves, and, lo ! The piles and temples of the past arise Like visions of mirage from desert sands. IMAGES BEYOND MORTAL SKILL SHALL TAKE SHAPE. A ND there are visions of the poet's dream- ** ing, Uncarven sculpture of the peopled brain, Whose rosy limbs, with health immortal gleaming, Have ne'er enwrapped in spotless marble lain ; Such glowing shapes, of such ambrosial seem- ing, The slow uncovering chisel seeks in vain. THE BIRTH OF LOVE. HOW sweet it is, at morning's opening hour, To lie upon an island slope's incline, Sweeping the level sea from out a bower Of olive-boughs or fragrant mountain-pine. At such a time did Aphrodite flower Dew-sparkling in the garden of the brine. Her flesh was white as ocean foam, and tinted With the same pink that flushes in a shell ; The beauty of her hair in flood unstinted Warmly about her sloping shoulders fell ; Her eyes with glory of the morning glinted, Her bosom like a billow rose and fell. ^J When first the blue with glowing form she rifted, She looked about with innocent surprise, And when upon her head the white doves drifted, Like flakes of snow from depths of summer skies, She fondled them, her lovely arms uplifted, Laughing the while with sea-blue sunny eyes. *f[ The lavish waters and the sky bestowing Their daintiest gifts had made her passing sweet, 33 And as the foam, from off her nudeness flow- ing, Dropped like a garment to her graceful feet, The world grew hush, as one who sees his glowing Young bride arise at morn from snowy sheet. ENDYMION. A ND sweet it is for maiden and for lover, r* 1 Moon worshipping, to walk alone at night, Watching the solemn mountain wall where hover Faint misty flushes of prophetic light, Eager to know which earlier shall discover A sudden thread of gold above the height. ^f Anon the stately Queen her walk has started In skyey meads with starry dew bestrown ; How easy then to fancy mystic-hearted Endymion tiptoe on a peak alone, Looking upon her face with lips half-parted, And hair about his pallid cheeks wind-blown. A LAS, alas ! the shapely youth is sleeping ^^ In lovely languor by the Latmian Hill ; 34 No fervid kiss, no fingers lightly creeping About his flesh can ever make him thrill ; And though a goddess for his love is weeping, Yet doth he softly breathe and lieth still. ^[ She creeps about him, bedding him in roses, Trailing cool tresses o'er him where he lies; Her rifting robe her snowy breast exposes, O'erhanging fruit too fair for sleeping eyes ; She holds him tight in long despairing closes, And all the wood is sweetened with her sighs. ARTEMIS AND THE SLEEPING EN- DYMION. mortal Love, divinely fair, *- I kiss thy mouth, thy neck, thy hair; With kisses that should thrill the dead, I woo thee on thy flowery bed, Endymion ! Endymion ! O honey of the budding lips, Whereon the bee mistaken sips ; O velvet neck, befitting place Wherein a goddess hides her face, Endymion ! Endymion ! 35 I feel thy bosom fall and rise In sleepy rhythm of slumbrous sighs, But never any soft caress Gives thee a heart-throb more or less, Endymion ! Endymion ! ^[ Oh, pink-white Love, if thou couldst hear The things I whisper in thine ear ! I whisper close, then search in vain Thy face for any tell-tale stain, Endymion ! Endymion ! ^[ Nor do thy lids one tremor show, When, in abandonment of woe, I shout to wake thee from this spell Thy name that chimeth like a bell, Endymion ! Endymion ! ^| Oh, would I were a shepherd maid Plied by my lover in the shade ! One June should hold the fulness of An immortality of love ! Endymion ! Endymion ! THE SEA. A H me ! and so at times we fall a-musing, ^* > Until our spirits steal away and flee To regions of their own untrammelled choos- ing, Where wildest hopes and strangest memories be ; Such mood have I most often when perusing The antique wrinkled parchment of the sea. I deem there is no quiet joy intenser Than being on a summer sea at night, When slides the moon from out the wave, dispenser Of mild refulgence, mystically bright ; Or when she swings on high a silver censer That fills the world with dim perfume of light. I oft go down at night to hear Queen Ocean Whisper sweet secrets to the gray old sphere, The while he slumbers, sure of her devotion, Feeling her white arms hold him very near; And if the winds among her robes make motion, Their silken rustle on the sand I hear. As soon as Night her vigil has forsaken, And flown into the wild, unstoried West, 37 I love to watch the radiant sea awaken, Breathing Ceylon and Araby the blest ; And when the Sun his first rude kiss has taken, Blushing and dimpling as becomes her best. TIME AND ETERNITY. home is on a pleasant bay, surrounded By circling hills, fantastical and hoar ; We know the little towns our fathers founded, We know each palm and olive on the shore. Beyond the strait the open gleams unbounded, Its waters croon and whistle evermore. When I no more have keenest joy in smelling The new-mown hay upon the level lea, When maids no longer set my heart a- welling, And rising moons a transport cease to be, Oh, let me feel beneath me strongly swelling The heaving bosom of the naked sea ! PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS IN CAMBRIDGE BY JOHN WILSON AND SON UNDER THE DIRECTION OF STONE AND KIMBALL OF CHICAGO MDCCCXCV UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 3 M A S