UC-NRLF 
 
 SB IflE 
 
BERKELEY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 

THE MOUNTAIN OF THE LOVERS ; 
 
 WITH 
 
 POEMS OF NATURE AND TRADITION. 
 
 BY 
 
 PAUL H.)HAYNE. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 E. J. HALE & SON, PUBLISHERS, 
 MUBBAY STBEET. 
 
 1875. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, 
 
 BY E. J. HALE & SON, 
 In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 KUSSKLL BROTHERS, 
 
 PRINTERS, ELECTBOTYPEBS AND STEBKOTYPEBS, 
 17. 19. 21 and 23 ROBO Street, New York. 
 
. TO 
 
 MARGARET J.PRESTON, 
 
 OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 Mine eyes have never gazed in thine, 
 Our hands are strangers ; yet divine 
 The deathless sympathy which binds 
 Our hearts and minds! 
 
 Thou singest along the mountain side; 
 Thy golden songs are justified 
 By the rich music of their flow; 
 I sing below, 
 
 Where the lone pine-land airs are stirred 
 By notes of thrush and mocking bird; 
 The heights befit thy lo'ftier strain ; 
 Mine courts the plain. 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 And now, with joyous sylvan things 
 All round me, 'raid the flash of wings, 
 The rivulet's lapse, the breeze's play, 
 On this bright day, 
 
 Flushed like a Dryad's tender face 
 With early spring-time's happiest grace, 
 This day of soft harmonious hours, 
 Made sweet with flowers, 
 
 My lowland Muse is blithe to send 
 Fair greeting to her mountain friend, 
 And yearning more for love than praise 
 These wild- wood lays I 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Dedication 3 
 
 The Mountain of the Lovers 7 
 
 The Vengeance of the Goddess Diana 34 
 
 The Voice in the Pines 55 
 
 The Solitary Lake 57 
 
 Visit of the Wrens 60 
 
 Aspects of the Pines 65 
 
 Forest Pictures 66 
 
 Golden Dell 68 
 
 Cloud Pictures 71 
 
 Midsummer in the South 74 
 
 In the Pine Barrens 78 
 
 The Woodland Phases 80 
 
 Sonnet 82 
 
 Sonnet 83 
 
 After the Tornado 84 
 
 By the Grave of Henry Timrod 85 
 
 Sonnet 90 
 
 Violets 91 
 
 Whence ? 93 
 
 Ariel 95 
 
 The Cloud Star 97 
 
 Sonnet 99 
 
 Sonnet 100 
 
 Sweetheart, Good-Bye 101 
 
6 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Sonnet 103 
 
 Frida and her Poet 104 
 
 In the Bower 110 
 
 Sonnet 112 
 
 Lucifer's Deputy 113 
 
 Preexistence 117 
 
 A Thousand Years from Now 119 
 
 Sonnet 122 
 
 When All has been Said and Done 123 
 
 On the Death of Canon Kingsley 126 
 
 Thunder at Midnight , 129 
 
 The Arctic Visitation 131 
 
 The Vision in the Valley 134 
 
 The Wind of Onset 135 
 
 The Visit of Mahmoud Ben Suleim to Paradise 137 
 
 My Daughter 147 
 
 Our " Humming Bird " 150 
 
 Sonnet '. 152 
 
 Sonnet . . .153 
 
Tie MoMMttaiM of tie Lovers. 
 
 [The most important feature in the landscape of this poem the old Chron- 
 icler persists in designating as a mountain of " steep " and " terrible" 
 ascent ; but that it could not have been a mountain, and, despite certain ob- 
 stacles which made it dangerous for men on horseback, it might not even 
 have been a very " terrible" hill, is shown by the fact, that among the 
 crowd who reached the summit soon after the catastrophe, were " old men," 
 whom the excitement of the time and scene would hardly have sufficed to 
 bear safely up were the Chronicler's expressions to be literally accepted. To 
 any man loaded as Oswald was, the ascent of a comparatively moderate 
 height would prove a fearful trial ; but in his case the atrocious cruelty of 
 the experiment, and the life and death issues involved, became so closely 
 associated in the spectators' minds with the material scene of the tragedy, 
 that the latter was not unnaturally beheld through the magnifying medium 
 of pity and terror. Thus the hill was elevated into a mountain ! The old 
 Chronicler celebrates it as such. We follow the old Chronicler to the 
 death!] 
 
 I. 
 
 Love scorns degrees ! the low he lifteth high, 
 The high he draweth down to that fair plain 
 Whereon, in his divine equality, 
 Two loving hearts may meet, nor meet in vain ; 
 'Gainst such sweet levelling Custom cries amain, 
 But o'er its harshest utterance one bland sigh, 
 Breathed passion-wise, doth mount victorious still, 
 For Love, earth's lord, must have his lordly will. 
 
8 POEMS OF PA UL H. HA YNE. 
 
 II. 
 
 But ah ! this sovereign will oft works at last 
 The deadliest bane, as happed erewhile to her, 
 Earl Godolf 's daughter, many a century past : 
 She loved her father's low born Forester, 
 About whose manful grace did breathe and stir 
 So clear a radiance by soul- virtues cast, 
 He moved untouched of social blight or ban 
 Nature's serene, true-hearted gentleman. 
 
 in. 
 
 Yet she alone of all the household saw 
 That lofty soul beneath his serf's attire ; 
 But of the ruthless Earl so great her awe, 
 Close, close she kept her spirit's veiled desire, 
 Nor outward shone one spark of hidden fire. 
 Too well she knew to what stern feudal law 
 She and her hapless Love perforce must yield, 
 If once this tender secret were revealed. 
 
 Yea ! even by Oswald's self her covert flame 
 Undreamed of burned ; proud stood she, coldly fair, 
 When, to report of woodcraft lore, he came 
 To the Earl's hall, and she was lingering there. 
 
THE MOUNTAIN OF THE LOVERS. 
 
 "Cold heart !" thought he 5 "who, 'midst her liege- 
 men, dare 
 
 Play as I played with death a desperate game 
 For her sweet sake ? and yet, alas ! and yet, 
 She scorns the service and disowns the debt." 
 
 V. 
 
 For sooth it was that one keen winter's night, 
 While slowly journeying homeward through a wood 
 Whose every deepest copse in moonshine bright 
 Glimmered from hoary trunk to frost-tipped bud, 
 On sire and child there burst a cry of blood, 
 Followed by hurrying feet, and the dread sight 
 Of scores of grey-skinned brutes a direful pack 
 Of wolves half starved that yelled along their track. 
 
 VI. 
 
 In vain his frantic team Earl Godolf smote, 
 With blended prayer and curse 5 nigh doom were 
 
 they, 
 
 Riders and steeds, for now each ravening throat 
 Yawned like a foul tomb. On the bounding sleigh 
 The fierce horde gained, when from the silvery-gray, 
 Cold-branched glades putrang a bugle note, 
 With next a bowstring's twang, an arrowy whirr, 
 As shaft on shaft the keen-eyed Forester 
 
10 POEMS OF PA UC H. HA TNE. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Launched on the foe, each hurtling shaft a fate. 
 Then Oswald, 'twixt pursuers and pursued 
 Leapt, sword in hand, his eyes of fiery hate 
 Fixed on the baffled horde, whose doubtful mood 
 Changed to quick fear, they scoured adown the wood, 
 Their long gaunt lines, in fiend-like, vanquished state, 
 Fading with flash of blood-red orbs from far, 
 Till the last vanished like a baleful star ! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Now, by the mass! abrupt and brief, I ween, 
 The rude Earl's thanks for rescued limbs and life ; 
 But not so graceless proved the fair Catrine, 
 As glancing backward to the field of strife 
 She flashed a smile with cordial meaning rife, 
 Which struck our sylvan hero (who did lean, 
 Pale, on his bow,) as 'twere the piercing gleam 
 Of some strange, sudden, half bewildering dream. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Alack ! the dream waxed not, but seemed to wane, 
 As if a cloudless sun but late arisen, 
 Back journeying, passed across the ethereal plain, 
 And the fresh dawn it brought, died out in heaven ; 
 
THE MOUNTAIN OF THE LOVERS. 11 
 
 For from that eve no subtlest signs were given 
 As erst we said that passion's blissful pain 
 Touched the maid's heart, or that her days were 
 
 caught 
 In those fine meshes woven by love for thought. 
 
 x. 
 
 In Britain dwelt Earl Godolf, nigh the bounds 
 
 Of the Welsh marches ; a wild rover he 
 
 In his hot youth , inured to strife and wounds 
 
 Through many a foray fierce by land and sea j 
 
 But, after years of bright tranquillity 
 
 Years linked to love through pleasure's peaceful 
 
 rounds 
 
 So gently lapsed, the unmailed warrior's hand 
 Forgot almost the use of spear or brand. 
 
 XI. 
 
 A bride erewhile won by his dauntless blade 
 In a great sea fight where his arm had slain 
 Some half score foemen wan and half afraid, 
 Homeward he brought, whose every delicate vein 
 Pulsed the rich blood and tropic warmth of Spain ; 
 But when pure wifehood crowned the noble maid, 
 Heart-fruits for him his beauteous lady bore, 
 Of whose strange sweets he had not dreamed before. 
 
12 POEMS OF PA UL H. HA YNE. 
 
 XII. 
 
 She strove his nature's ruggedness to smooth, 
 And in his bosom dropped a fruitful germ 
 Of those mild virtues given our lives to soothe, 
 And change their gusty solitude to warm 
 Beneficent calm, divinest after storm. 
 Within him flowered a pallid grace of ruth, 
 ]STor oft, as once, o'er bleeding breasts he trod 
 Straight to his purpose, blind to Law and God. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 And in fair fullness of the ripened time, 
 
 Still gentler grew his dark, war furrowed mien ; 
 
 He quaffed the sunshine of a fairy clime, 
 
 Love charmed, hope gladdened ; when, to crown the 
 
 scene 
 
 Of transient bliss, there smiled a new Catrine 
 The loveliest babe e'er lulled by mother's rhyme 
 Whose tiny fingers o'er her heart strings played, 
 Making ineffable music where they strayed. 
 
 XIY. 
 
 Woe worth the end ! for, though the infant thrived, 
 Slowly the hapless mother pined away $ 
 Love to the last in pleading eyes survived 
 Those fond, fond eyes doomed to the churchyard 
 clay, 
 
THE MO UNTAIX OF THE L VERS. 13 
 
 Coffined, and shut from all blithe sights of day 5 
 But Christ ! in thee her stainless spirit lived, 
 Whose memory a white star should evermore 
 O'er her Lord's paths have beamed to keep them 
 pure. 
 
 XY. 
 
 Pathless, some souls there are by cruel loss 
 Stung, as with scourge of scorpions, to despair ; 
 These will not seek the Christ, nor clasp His Cross, 
 But, groping vaguely through sulphureous air, 
 Strike hands with Satan, in the murky glare 
 Of furious hell, whose billows rage and toss 
 About their tortured being, urged to curse 
 That mystic WILL which rules the universe. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Yea, such the Earl's ; no cooling dew did fall 
 
 To heal his Avound; 'gainst heaven and earth he 
 
 turned, 
 
 Girt to his sense with one vast funeral pall 5 
 And the sore heart within him writhed and burned 
 With baffled hope, and pain that madly yearned, 
 Vainly and madly, for dear love's recall. 
 No light o'ershone griefs ocean drear and black, 
 The while old passions thronged tumultuous back. 
 
14 POEMS OF PA UL II. HA TNE. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 So, his last state was worse than e'en his first; 
 Murder and Rapine, pitiless Greed, and Ire 
 Raged wheresoe'er his Raven banner burst, 
 'Mid shrieks and wails, and hollow roar of fire, 
 Which lapped the household porch and crackling 
 
 byre ; 
 
 He seemed demoniac in his aims accurst, 
 Wrath in his soul, and on his brow the sign 
 Of hell a human scourge by power divine 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 For some mysterious end permitted still 
 As many an evil thing our God allows 
 To range the world, and work its dreadful will, 
 Whether in form of chiefs, with laureled brows, 
 Or spies and traitors in the good man's house ; 
 Or, it may be, some slow, infectious 111, 
 Untraced, and rising like a mist defiled 
 With poisonous odors on a lonely wild, 
 
 XIX. 
 
 Albeit no marsh is near, or steamy fen. 
 
 More monstrous year by year Earl Godolf s deeds 
 
 Flared in hell's livery on the eyes of men ; 
 
 All growths of transient goodness checked by weeds, 
 
THE MOUNTAIN OF THE LOVERS. 15 
 
 Sin-bred ; and, ah ! one angel's bosom bleeds 
 To know she may not meet her love again ; 
 And even the vales immortal seemed less sweet, 
 Because too pure for his crime-cumbered feet. 
 
 xx. 
 
 But, weal or woe, the world rolls blindly on, 
 While nature's charm, in child, and bird, and flower, 
 Works its rare marvels 'neath the noonday sun, 
 And the still stars in midnight's slumberous hour. 
 And so a human bad, through beam and shower, 
 Glad play, and easeful sleep the orphaned one, 
 The beauteous babe a sour old beldame's care, 
 Upflowered at length a matchless maid, and fair. 
 
 XXI, 
 
 Most fair to all but him to whom she owed 
 Her life and place in this bewildering world ; 
 For he, a changed man since that hour which showed 
 His wife's worn form in earthly cerements furled, 
 Cold scorn had launched, or captious passion hurled 
 At this sole offspring 'of his lone abode, 
 Till grown, alas ! too early grave and wise, 
 She viewed her sire, in turn, with loveless eyes. 
 
1C POEMS. OF PA UL H. HA 7NE. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Still in benignant arms did Nature fold 
 
 Her favored child, and on her richly showered 
 
 All gifts of beauty ; with long hair of gold 
 
 And lucid, languid eyes the maid she dowered, 
 
 And her enticing loveliness empowered 
 
 With charms to melt the wintriest temper's cold 
 
 Charms wrought of sunrise warmth, and twilight 
 
 balm, 
 Passion's deep glow, and Pity's saint-like calm. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Tall, lithe, and yielding as a young bay tree 
 Her perfect form ; but 'neath its lissom gra^e 
 There lurked a latent strength keen eyes could see, 
 Drawn from her father's undegenerate race ; 
 The dazzling fairness of her Saxon face, 
 Contrasted with the dark eyes' witchery, 
 Shone with such light as Northern noondays wake 
 Through the clear shadows of a mountain lake. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Her full blown flower of beauty lured 'ere long 
 Unnumbered suitors round her; these declare 
 Boldest report hath done the virgin wrong, 
 And past all power of words they deem her fair ; 
 
THE MO UNTAIN OF THE L VERS. 1 7 
 
 The kingdom's princeliest youth besiege her ear 
 And heart with ardent vows and amorous song ; 
 Love, rank and wealth their splendid beams combine, 
 She the rare orb about whose path they shine. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Still would she wed with none, till rudely pressed 
 
 To the last boundary of her patience sweet ; 
 
 No more she struggled in a yearning breast 
 
 To hide her passion, howsoever unmeet 
 
 For one high placed as she ; her fervent feet 
 
 Oft bore her now where woodland flowers caressed 
 
 The grand old oaks, beneath whose sheltering 
 
 boughs 
 The lovers mused, or, whispering, breathed their 
 
 vows. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 But ere to such sweet pass their fates had led, 
 
 Or ere her thought unbosomed utterly, 
 
 To the 'rapt youth, in tremulous tones, she said, 
 
 " 1 love iheef through full many a fine degree 
 
 Of feeling, touched by sad uncertainty, 
 
 That truth they neared, which, like a bird o'erhead, 
 
 Still faltering flew, till borne through shade and sun, 
 
 It nestled warm in two hearts made as one! 
 
18 POEMS OF PAUL H. HAYNE. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 The truth, the fond conviction that all earth 
 
 Was less than naught a mote, a vanishing gleam, 
 
 Matched with the glow of that transcendant birth 
 
 Of love which wrapped them in his happiest dream 
 
 Entranced thus, shut in by beam on beam 
 
 Of glory, is it strange but trivial worth 
 
 Their dazzled minds in transient doubts should see 
 
 Which sometimes crossed their keen felicity ? 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 Their love awhile, like some smooth rivulet borne 
 Through drooping umbrage of a lonely dell, 
 By clouds un visited, by storms untorn, 
 Passed, rippling music ; like a magic bell 
 Outrung by spirit-hands invisible, 
 Each tender hour of meeting, eve or morn, 
 Above them stole in rhythmic sweetness, blent 
 With rare fruition of supreme content. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 But in the sunset tide of one calm day, 
 When, all unconscious, at the place of tryst, 
 Beyond their wont they lingered 5 with dismay 
 They saw, begirt by gold and amethyst 
 
THE MOUNTAIN OF THE LOVERS. 19 
 
 Of that rich time, gigantic in the mist 
 
 Of shimmering splendor, which did flash and play 
 
 About his form, and o'er his visage dire, 
 
 The wrathful Earl, midmost the sunset fire. 
 
 xxx. 
 
 j$o word he uttered, but his falchion drew, 
 Red with the slain boar's blood, and pointed grim 
 Where 'gainst the eastern heavens' slow-deepening 
 
 blue 
 
 Uprose his castle turrets, tall and dim. 
 The maid's eyes close ; she feels each nerveless limb 
 Sink nigh to swooning ; but, heart-brave and true, 
 Clings to her Love, while from pale lips a sigh 
 Doth faintly fall, which means " with him I die /" 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 Gravely advancing, the Earl's stalwart hand 
 Rests on her shuddering shoulder 5 one quick glance, 
 Haughty and high, rife with severe command, 
 On the 'mazed Woodsman doth he dart askance, 
 Who doubtful bides, as one half roused from trance, 
 Striving to know on what new ground his stand 
 Thenceforth shall be ; or, if life's priceless ALL, 
 Put to the test just then, must rise or fall. 
 
20 POEMS OF PAUL H. HAYNE. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 Fate- wrought the issue! for as Oswald waits 
 Biding his time to smite, or else retreat, 
 With the maid's hand his own Earl Godolf mates, 
 And from the wood they pass with footsteps fleet ; 
 One tearful, backward look vouchsafed his sweet, 
 Just as the castle gates those iron gates, 
 Heavy and stern, like Death's were closed between 
 His burning vision and the lost Catrine. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 To heaven he raises wild, despairing eyes, 
 But heaven responds not ; then to earth returns 
 His baffled gaze from ranging the cold skies, 
 And earth but seems a place for burial urns ; 
 In sooth, the Avhole creation mutely spurns 
 His prayer for aid 5 alas ! what kind replies 
 Can woeful man from fair, dumb Xature draw 
 Locked in the grasp of adamantine Law ? 
 
 xxxiv. 
 
 Three morns thereafter, in the market place 
 Of the small town, from Godolf s castle wall 
 Distant, it might be, some twelve furlongs' space, 
 Came, grandly robed, our Lord's high seneschal ; 
 
THE MO UNTA IN OF THE L VERS. 21 
 
 To all the lieges, with shrill trumpet call. 
 In name of his serene puissant grace 
 Godolf, the Earl ; to all folk, bond or free, 
 With strident voice he read this foul decree: 
 
 xxxv. 
 
 " Whereas our virgin daughter, hight Catrine, 
 False to her noble race and lineage proud, 
 Hath owned her love for one of birth as mean 
 As any hind's who creeps among the crowd 
 Of common serfs, with cowering shoulders bowed 
 Oswald by name the whom ourselves have seen, 
 When least he deemed us nigh, his traitorous part 
 Press with hot wooing on the maiden's heart : 
 
 xxxvi. 
 
 lt Let all men know hereby our will it is, 
 To-morrow morn their trial morn must be 5 
 Either the serf shall win, and call her his, 
 Or both shall taste such bitter misery 
 As even in dreams the boldest soul would flee ; 
 If lips unlicensed thus will meet and kiss, 
 Reason it seems v that such unhallowed flame 
 Of love should end in agony and shame. 
 
22 POEMS OF PA UL H. II A TNE. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 " Therefore, the morrow morn shall view their doom 
 Accomplished ; 'mid the ferns of Boltou Down, 
 Where Bolton Height doth catch the purpling 
 
 bloom 
 
 Of early sunrise on his treeless crown. 
 We say to all knight, burgher, squire and clown 
 Just as the castle's morning bell shall boom 
 O'er the far hills, and brown moor's blossoming, 
 Come, and behold a yet undreamed-of thing. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 u For then and there must Oswald bear aloft, 
 By his sole strength, unaided and alone, 
 The blameful maid, whose nature, grown too soft, 
 Durst thus betray our honor and her own ; 
 Yet, if he gain the height, untamed, unthrown, 
 All hands applaud him, and all plumes be doffed ; 
 While for ourselves, we vow they both shall fare 
 Unharmed beyond our realm we reck not where." 
 
 xxxix. 
 
 So, as decreed, the next morn, calm and clear, 
 Witnessed, in many a diverse mode conveyed, 
 A mixed and mighty concourse gathering near 
 The appointed height, some in rough frieze arrayed, 
 
THE MOUNTAIN OF THE LOVERS. 23 
 
 And some in gold; there blushed the downcast maid, 
 Urged to this cruel test, a passionate tear 
 Misting her view, as surged the living sea. 
 Behind her, his arms folded haughtily, 
 
 XL. 
 
 His comely head thrown back, his eyes on fire 
 With hot contempt, fixed on an armed band 
 Which, stationed near him by the Earl's desire, 
 His every move o'erlooked, did Oswald stand, 
 Striving his roused anger to command, 
 And lift his clouded aspirations higher 
 Than thoughts revengeful. Hark ! a deepening hum 
 On the crowd's verge the trial hour has come ! 
 
 XLI. 
 
 Divided, then, betwixt his ire and scorn, 
 Outspake the Earl, in tones of savage glee : 
 " Woodsman ! essay thy task, for lo ! the morn 
 Grows old, and I this wretched mummery 
 Would fain see ended." 
 
 With mien gravely free, 
 
 Clad in light garb, o'erwrought by hound and horn, 
 Oswald stood forth, nor quelled by frail alarms, 
 About the maiden clasped his reverent arms ; 
 
24 POEMS OF PA UL H. HA TNE. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 And she, like some pure flower by May tide rain 
 
 Gracefully laden, turns her eyes apart 
 
 From the great throng, and, pierced by modest 
 
 pain, 
 
 Veils her sweet face upon her lover's heart ; 
 Whereat the youth is seen to thrill and start, 
 While o'er his own face, calm and pale but now, 
 Bush the deep crimson waves from chin to brow 5 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 Then do they ebb away, and leave him white 
 As the vexed foam on ocean's stormy swell, 
 Yet cool and constant in his manful might 
 As some staunch rock 'gainst which the tides rebel 
 In useless rage, with hollow, billowy knell 5 
 Meanwhile, advancing with sure steps and light, 
 He moves in measured wise to dare his fate 
 Beneath those looks of blended ruth and hate. 
 
 XLIY. 
 
 Stirred by his generous bravery, and the sight 
 Of such young lives their love, hope, joyance set 
 On the hard mastery of yon terrible height, 
 Whose rugged slopes and sheer descent are wet 
 
THE MOUNTAIN OF THE LOVERS. 25 
 
 And slippery with the dews of dawning yet, 
 Through the dense rout, which swayed now left, now 
 
 right, 
 
 Low, inarticulate murmurs faintly ran, 
 And one keen, quivering shock from man to man. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 The watchful matrons sob, the virgins weep 
 Pull tears, but all unheeded, as with slow, 
 Sure footfalls still he mounts the hostile steep 
 On to a point where two great columns show 
 Their rounded heads, crowned by the morning glow. 
 His task half done, a sigh, long, grateful, deep, 
 Breaks from his heaving heart ; secure he stands, 
 A sunbeam glimmering on his clasped hands, 
 
 XLYI. 
 
 And the glad lustre of his wind-swept locks 
 More radiant made thereby ; his tall form towers 
 'Gainst the dark background, piled with rocks on 
 
 rocks 
 
 Precipitous, whose grim, gaunt visage lowers, 
 As if in league they were like Titan powers 
 Victorious long o'er storms and earthquake shocks 
 To cast mute scorn on him whose doubtful path 
 Leads near the threatening shadows of their wrath. 
 
26 POEMS OF PA UL II. II A YNE. 
 
 XL VII. 
 
 From the charmed crowd then rose an easeful breath, 
 Lightening the dense air; but, 'midst doubt and 
 
 bale, 
 
 Eaves the wild Earl, reckless of life or death, 
 If so his tyrannous purpose could prevail ; 
 For, almost mad, he smites his gloves of mail, 
 Goading with frenzied heel the steed beneath 
 His barbarous rule; in reason's fierce eclipse, 
 A blood red foam burns on his writhing lips. 
 
 XLVIII. 
 
 Meanwhile, brief space for needful respite given, 
 With quickened j)ace, onward and upward still, 
 And fanned by freshening gales, as nearer heaven 
 He climbs o'er granite passways of the hill, 
 Oswald ascends, untamed of strength or will, 
 Striving, as ne'er before had mortal striven, 
 Boldly to win, and proudly wear as his, 
 The prize he bore of that bright, breathing Bliss. 
 
 XLIX. 
 
 Two thirds, two thirds and more, of that last half 
 Of his fell journey had he stoutly won; 
 And now lie pauses the cool breeze to quaff, 
 And feel the royal heartening of the sun 
 
THE MOUNTAIN OF TPIE LOVERS. 27 
 
 Nerving his soul for what must yet be done, 
 When with a gentle, quivering, flutelike laugh, 
 Holding a sob, the maiden rose and kissed 
 Her hero's lips, sought through a tremulous mist 
 
 L. 
 
 Of love and pride ! The on-lookers, ranged afar, 
 Saw, and more boldly blessed them 5 all are moved 
 To trust that theirs may prove the fortunate star 
 Fate brightly kindles for young lives beloved : 
 " His truth and valor hath he nobly proved ; 
 How brave, how constant both these lovers are ! 
 Sooth ! the sweet heavens seem with them." Thus, 
 
 full voiced, 
 Yet with some lingering doubts, the folk rejoiced. 
 
 LI. 
 
 Alas ! for false forecasting, and surmise ! 
 Though small the space betwixt him and his goal, 
 Oswald doth stagger now in feeblest wise, 
 And like some drunken carl, with heave and roll, 
 Blindly he staggers in his lost control 
 Of sense : or power ; and so, with anguished sighs, 
 Turned on his love the goal in easy reach 
 His yearning woe too deep for mortal speech. 
 
28 POEMS OF PA UL H. HA YNE. 
 
 LII. 
 
 Whereon the lady's arms are wildly raised, 
 Perchance in prayer, perchance with pitying aim 
 His strain to ease, when lo ! (dear Christ be praised !) 
 It seemed new strength, fresh courage o'er him came, 
 And through his spirit rushed a glorious flame, 
 At which the crowd stood moveless, dumb, amazed, 
 For, like a god, with swift, resistless tread, 
 He strides to clasp the near goal o'er his head. 
 
 LIII. 
 
 A savage cliff of beetling brow it was, 
 Midmost the summit of the lowering height, 
 Hooted amongst low shrubs and sun dried grass, 
 And reared in blackness, like a cloud of night, 
 On whose dull breast no beacon star is bright. 
 Thitherward, from cold terrors of the pass 
 Well nigh of death, the hero speeds amain, 
 Nor seems his matchless labor wrought in vain. 
 
 LIV. 
 
 Yea $ for a single rood's length oversped, 
 And victory crowns him ! God ! how still the crowd, 
 Once rife with voices ! silent as the dead 
 Lodged in their earthly crypt and mouldering 
 shroud 5 
 
THE MO UNTAIN OF THE L VERS. 29 
 
 But suddenly a great cry mounted loud 
 And shrill above them, as in ruthful dread, 
 They saw the lovers, linked in close embrace, 
 Fall headlong down by that wild try sting place. 
 
 LV. 
 
 Then comes a quick revulsion, when the pain 
 
 Of fear and choking sympathy gone by, 
 
 Hope reappears aye, joy and triumph reign 
 
 For though supine on yonder height they lie, 
 
 Still, brow to brow, turned from the deepening sky, 
 
 'Tis but the faintness of the mighty strain 
 
 Or so they dream on o'erworked nerve and will, 
 
 Which leaves them moveless on the conquered hill. 
 
 LYI. 
 
 Spurring his courser, in vexed doubt and haste, 
 The Earl charged on the dangerous height, as 
 
 though 
 
 Firm-trenched, defiant, 7 mid the rock-strewn waste, 
 Gh'ttered the spear points of his mortal foe ; 
 The horse's hoof struck fire, hurling below 
 Huge stones and turf his goaded limbs displaced, 
 Till checked midway, his reckless rider found 
 He needs must climb afoot the treacherous ground. 
 
30 POEMS OF PA UL H. HA YNE. 
 
 LVII. 
 
 And next the throng had caught, and past him swept, 
 Clothed as he was in armor 5 a young knight 
 Headed the rout, whose feverish fingers crept 
 Oft to his sword hilt j 011 the topmost height, 
 Pausing with veiled eyes, his gaze he kept 
 Fixed on the prostrate pair, o'er whom the light 
 Of broadening sunrise now was mixed with shade, 
 And still the knight's hand wandered round his 
 
 blade. 
 
 LYIII. 
 
 Impatient, spleenful, struggling with the tide 
 Of common folk, who seemed to heed no more 
 His sullen passion and revengeful pride, 
 Than if just then he were the veriest boor. 
 The Earl at length with bent brows strode before 
 The mongrel horde, and unto Oswald cried : 
 " Rise, traitor, rise ! by some foul, juggling sleight, 
 Through the fiend's help, thou hast attained the 
 
 height : 
 
 LIX. 
 
 Part them, I say !" To whom in measured tone, 
 Measured and strange, the young knight answering 
 said : 
 
THE MO UNTA IN OF TEE L VERS. 31 
 
 u Earl ! well I know tliou wear's t for heart a stone, 
 Yet dar'st thou part these twain whom Death has 
 
 wed, 
 
 No longer twain, but one ? Look ! overhead 
 The burning sun mounts to his noonday throne ; 
 But o'er the sun, as o'er this fateful sod, 
 Eules a great King, the King whose name is God ! 
 
 LX. 
 " Deem'st thou for this day's work His wrath shall 
 
 rest?" 
 
 Whereon, low murmuring like a hive of bees, 
 With stifled groans and tears, the people pressed 
 Bound the fair corpses women on their knees 
 Embraced them and old men but dusky lees 
 Of feeling left did touch them, and caressed 
 The maid's soft hair, the woodsman's noble face, 
 Praying, under breath, that Christ would grant them 
 
 grace. 
 
 That mournful day had waned ; by sunset rose 
 A wailing wind from out the dim northeast ; 
 Which, as the shadows waxed at twilight's close 
 O'er mote and wood, to a shrill storm increased ; 
 
32 POEMS OF PA UL H. HA YNE. 
 
 But in his castle hall, with song and feast, 
 Yaried full oft by ribald gibes and blows 
 Twixt ruffian guests in rage or maudlin play, 
 The wild night raved its awful hours away. 
 
 With not a pang at thought of her whose form 
 In pallid beauty lay unwatched and dead, 
 In a far turret chamber, where the storm, 
 Thundering each moment louder overhead, 
 Entered and shook the close-draped, sombre bed, 
 The barbarous sire with wine and wassail warm, 
 Lifting his cup 'mid brutal jest and jeer 
 Banned his pale daughter, slumbering on her bier. 
 
 Just as those impious words had taken flight, 
 
 In the red dusk beyond the torch's glare, 
 
 Stole a vague Shape that 'scaped the revellers' sight, 
 
 Slowly toward Earl Godolf, unaware 
 
 Even as the rest, what fateful foe drew near. 
 
 Muffled the Shape was, masked and black as night, 
 
 And now for one dread instant with raised sword 
 
 Stood hovering o'er the heedless banquet board. 
 
 And next with flashing motion fierce and fast, 
 Vengeance descended on that glittering blade ; 
 The amazed spectators started, dumb, aghast, 
 While at their feet the caitiff lord was laid, 
 
TEE MO UN TAIN OF THE L VERS. ' >3 
 
 His heart's blood trickling o'er the purple braid 
 (For thro' his heart the avenger's brand had passed), 
 And silver broidery of his gorgeous vest, 
 Drawn drop by drop from out his smitten breast. 
 
 The muffled Shape which as a cloud did rise 
 On the wild orgie, as a cloud departs ; 
 Wan hands are swept across bewildered eyes, 
 And awe stilled now the throbbing at their hearts, 
 When suddenly one death-pale reveller starts 
 Up from the board and in shrill accent cries, 
 " Curst is this roof-tree, curst this meat and wine, 
 Fly, comrades ; fly with me the wrath Divine !" 
 
 In haste, in horror, and great tumult, fled 
 
 The affrighted guests $ then on the vacant room 
 
 No maddening voice thenceforth disquieted, 
 
 Fell the stern presence of a ghastly gloom. 
 
 A place 'twas deemed of hopeless, baleful doom ; 
 
 Barred from all mortal view in darkness dread, 
 
 Only the spectral forms of woe and sin 
 
 Thro' the long years cold harborage found therein. 
 
34 POEMS OF PA UL II. HA YNE, 
 
 Tihe Vengeance of tie Gdidess Diana. 
 
 [Sixteen years ago, in a volume of comparatively youthful verses, the fol- 
 lowing poem appeared under the title of "Avolio ; A Legend of the Island of 
 Cos." The original narrative has now been carefully rewritten and amended, 
 and upwards of a hundred and fifty lines of entirely new matter have been 
 added thereto. So far as we know, the only poet who has celebrated this 
 significant and beautiful tradition, is William Morris, in the first section of 
 whose " Earthly Paradise " there is a story (called " The Lady of the Land ") 
 founded upon some of its more obvious and popular incidents. Since Morris's 
 wonderful tales were not published until 1368, we can, at least, assert the 
 humble claim of precedence in the poetical treatment of this legend.] 
 
 What time the Norman ruled in Sicily, 
 
 At that mild season when the vernal sea, 
 
 O'erflitted by the zephyr's frolic wing, 
 
 Dances and dimples in the smile of Spring, 
 
 A goodly ship set sail upon her way 
 
 From Ceos unto Smyrna ; through the play 
 
 Of wave and sunbeam touched with fragrant calm, 
 
 She passed by beauteous island shores of palm, 
 
 Until so sweet the tender wooing breeze, 
 
 So fraught the hours with balms of slumbrous ease, 
 
 That those who manned her, in the genial air 
 
 And dalliance of the time, forgot the care 
 
 Due to her courses ; in the bland sunshine 
 
 They lay enchanted, dreaming dreams divine, 
 
THE VENGEANCE OF TEE GODDESS DIANA. 35 
 
 While idly drifting on the Halcyon water, 
 The bark obeed whatever currents cauht her. 
 
 
 Borne onward thus for many a cloudless day, 
 They reach at length a wide and wooded bay 
 The haunt of birds whose purpling wings in flight 
 Make even the blushful morning seem more bright, 
 Flushed as with darting rainbows; through the tide, 
 By overripe pomegranate juices dyed, 
 And laving boughs of the wild fig and grape, 
 Great shoals of dazzling fishes madly ape 
 The play of silver lightnings in the deep 
 Translucent pools ; the crew awoke from sleep, 
 Or rather that strange trance that on them pressed 
 Gently as sleep ; yet still they loved to rest, 
 Fanned by voluptuous gales, by Morphean languors 
 
 blessed. 
 
 The shore sloped upward into foliaged hills, 
 Cleft by the channels of rock-fretted rills, 
 That flashed their wavelets, touched by iris lights, 
 O'er many a tiny cataract down the heights. 
 
 Green vales there were between, and pleasant lawns 
 Thick s6t with bloom, like sheen of tropic dawns, 
 Brightening the Orient ; further still the glades 
 
36 POEMS OF PAUL H. HAYNE. 
 
 Of whisperous forests, flecked with golden shades, 
 Stretched glimmering southward ; on the wood's far 
 
 rim, 
 
 Faintly discerned thro' veiling vapors, dim 
 As mists of Indian Summer, the broad view 
 Was clasped by mountains flickering in the blue 
 And hazy distance $ over all there hung 
 The morn's eternal beauty, calm and young. 
 Amid the throng, each with a marvelling face 
 Turned on that island Eden and its grace. 
 Was one AVOLIO a brave youth of Florence, 
 Self-exiled from his country, in abhorrence 
 Of the base, blood-stained tyrants dominant there. 
 
 A gentleman he was, of gracious air, 
 And liberal as the summer, skilled in lore 
 Of arms, and chivalry, and many more 
 Deep sciences which others left unlearned. 
 He loved ad venture j how his spirit burned 
 Within him, when, as now, a chance arose 
 To search untraveled forests, and strange foes 
 Vanquish by puissance of knightly blows, 
 Or rescue maidens from malignant spells, 
 Enforced by hordes of wizard sentinels. 
 So in the ardor of his martial glee, 
 
THE VENGEANCE OF THE GODDESS DIANA. 3< 
 
 He clapped his hands and shouted suddenly : 
 " Ho ! sirs, a challenge ! let us pierce these woods 
 Down to the core ; explore their solitudes, 
 And make the flowery empire all our own ; 
 Who knows but we may conquer us a throne? 
 At least, bold feats await us, grand emprize 
 To win us favor in our ladies 7 eyes ; 
 By Heaven ! he is a coward who delays." 
 
 So saying, all his countenance ablaze 
 
 With passionate zeal, the youth sprang lightly up, 
 
 And with right lusty motion, filled a cup 
 
 They brought him straightway to the glistening 
 
 brim 
 
 With Cyprus wine : " Now glory unto him, 
 The ardent knight, no mortal danger daunts, 
 Whose constant soul a fiery impulse haunts, 
 Which spurs him onward, onward, to the end ; 
 Pledge we the brave ! and may St. Ermo send 
 Success to crown our valiantest !" 
 
 this said, 
 
 AVOLIO shoreward leaped, and with him led 
 The whole ship's company. 
 
 A motley band 
 Were they who mustered round him 011 the strand, 
 
38 POEMS OF PAUL H. I1AYNE. 
 
 Mixed knights and traders ; the first fired for toil 
 Which promised glory $ the last keen for spoil ! 
 Thro' breezy paths and beds of blossoming thyme 
 Kept fresh by secret springs, the showery chime 
 Of whose clear foiling waters in the dells 
 Played like an airy peal of elfin bells 
 With eager minds, but aimless, idle feet, 
 (The scene about them was so lone and sweet 
 It spelled their steps,) 'raid labyrinths of flowers, 
 By mossy streams and in deep shadowed bowers, 
 They strayed from charm to charm thro' lengths of 
 
 languid hours. 
 
 In thickets of wild fern and rustling broom. 
 The humble bee buzzed past them with a boom 
 Of insect thunder ; and in glens afar 
 The golden firefly a small animate star 
 Shone from the twilight of the darkling leaves. 
 High noon it was, but dusk like mellow eve's 
 Reigned in the wood's deep places, whence it seemed 
 That flashing locks and quick arch glances gleamed 
 From eyes scarce human. Thus the fancy deemed 
 Of those most given to marvels ; the rest laughed 
 A merry, jeering laugh ; and many a shaft 
 Launched from the Norman cross bow, pierced the 
 
 nooks, 
 
THE VENGEANCE OF THE GODDESS DIANA. 39 
 
 Or cleft the shallow channels of the brooks, 
 Whence, as the credulous swore, an Oread shy, 
 Or a glad Nymph, had peeped out cunningly. 
 
 Thus wandering, they reached a sombre mound 
 Eising abruptly from the level ground, 
 And planted thick with dim funereal trees, 
 Whose foliage waved and murmured, tho' the breeze 
 Had sunk to midnight quiet, and the sky 
 Just o'er the place seemed locked in apathy, 
 Like a fair face wan with the sudden stroke 
 Of death, or heart-break. Not a word they spoke, 
 But paused with wide, bewildered, gleaming eyes, 
 Standing at gaze ; what spectral terrors rise 
 And coil about their hearts with serpent fold, 
 And oh ! AY hat loathly scene is this they hold, 
 Grasped with unwinking vision, as they creep,- 
 Urged by their very horror, up the steep, 
 And the whole preternatural landscape dawns 
 Freezingly on them ; a broad stretch of lawns, 
 Sown with rank poisonous grasses, where the dew 
 Of hovering exhalations flickered blue 
 And wavering on the dead -still atmosphere- 
 Dead-still it was, and yet the grasses sere 
 Stirred as with horrid life amidst the sickening 
 glare. 
 
40 POEMS OF PA UL II. II A YNE. 
 
 The affrighted crew, all save AVOLIO, fled 
 In wild disorder from this place of dread ; 
 In him, albeit his terror whispered "fly !" 
 The spell of some uncouth necessity 
 Baffled retreat, and ruthless, scourged him on 5 
 Meanwhile, the sun thro 7 darkening vapors shone, 
 Mgh to his setting, and a sudden blast 
 Sudden and chill woke shrilly up, and passed 
 With ghostly din and tumult 5 airy sounds 
 Of sylvan horns, and sweep of circling hounds 
 Nearing the quarry. Now the wizard chase 
 Swept faintly, faintly up the fields of space, 
 And now with backward rushing whirl roared by 
 Louder and fiercer, till a maddening cry 
 A bitter shriek of human agony- 
 Leaped up, and died amid the stifling yell 
 Of brutes athirst for blood ; a crowning swell 
 Of savage triumph followed, mixed with wails 
 Sad as the dying songs of nightingales, 
 Murmuring the name ACTION ! 
 
 Even as one, 
 
 A wrapt sleep-walker, through the shadows dun 
 Of half oblivious sense, with soulless gaze, 
 Goes idly journeying through uncertain ways, 
 Thus did AVOLIO, oore perplexed in mind 
 
THE VENGEANCE OF THE GODDESS DIANA. 41 
 
 (Excess of mystery made his spirit blind), 
 
 Grope through the gloom. Anon he reached a fount 
 
 Whose watery columns had long ceased to mount 
 
 Above its prostrate Tritons. Near at hand, 
 
 Dammed up in part by heaps of tawny sand, 
 
 All dull and lustreless, a streamlet wound 
 
 Of trickling banks, with dark, dank foliage crowned, 
 
 That gloomed 'twixt sullen tides and lowering sky ; 
 
 The melancholy waters seemed to sigh 
 
 In wailful murmurs of articulate woe, 
 
 Till at the last arose this strange dirge from below : 
 
 SONGr OF THE IMPRISONED NAIAD. 
 
 " Woe ! woe is me ! the centuries pass away, 
 
 The mortal seasons run their ceaseless rounds, 
 While here I wither for the sunbright clay, 
 Its genial sights and sounds. 
 
 Woe ! woe is me ! 
 
 " One summer night, in ages long agone, 
 I saw my Oread lover leave the brake ; 
 
 I heard him plaining on the peaceful lawn 
 A plaint t for my sweet sake.' 
 
 Woe ! woe is me ! 
 
42 POEMS OF PA UL JT. HA 7NE. 
 
 " My heart upsprang to answer that fond lay, 
 But suddenly the star girt planets paled, 
 
 And high into the welkin's glimmering gray 
 Majestic DIAN sailed ! 
 
 Woe ! woe is me ! 
 
 " She swept aloft, bold almost as the sun, 
 And wrathful red as fiery -crested Mars ; 
 
 Ah ! then I knew some fearful deed was done 
 On earth, or in the stars. 
 
 Woe ! woe is me ! 
 
 " With ghastly face upraised, and shuddering throat, 
 I watched the omen with a prescient pain $ 
 
 When, lightning-barbed, a beamy arrow smote, 
 Or seemed to smite, my brain. 
 
 Woe I woe is me ! 
 
 " Oblivion clasped me, till I woke forlorn, 
 Fettered and sorrowing on this lonely bed, 
 
 Shut from the mirthful kisses of the morn 
 Earth's glories overhead. 
 
 Woe ! woe is me ! 
 
 " The south wind stirs the sedges into song, 
 The blossoming myrtles scent the enamored air; 
 
THE VEXGEAXCE OF THE GODDESS DLAXA. 43 
 
 But still, sore moaning for another's wrong, 
 I pine in. sadness here. 
 
 Woe ! woe is ine ! 
 
 " Alas ! alas ! the weary centuries flee, 
 The waning seasons perish, dark or bright; 
 
 My grief alone, like some charmed poison-tree, 
 Knows not an autumn blight. 
 
 Woe ! woe is me !" 
 
 The mournful sounds swooned off, but Echo rose, 
 
 And bore them up divinely to a close 
 
 Of rare mysterious sweetness ; nevermore 
 
 Shall mortal winds to listening wood and shore 
 
 Waft such heart-melting music. " Where, oli ! 
 
 where," 
 
 AVOLIO murmured " to what haunted sphere- 
 Has Fate at length my errant footsteps brought f ' 
 
 Launched on a baffling sea of mystic thought, 
 His reason in a whirling chaos, lost 
 Compass and chart and headway, vaguely tossed 
 'Mid shifting shapes of winged phantasies. 
 
 Just then, uplifting his bewildered eyes, 
 He saw, half hid in shade, on either hand, 
 
44 POEMS OF PAUL If. IIAYNE. 
 
 Twin pillars of a massive gateway grand 
 With gold and carvings ; close behind it stood 
 A sombre mansion in a beech tree wood. 
 
 Long wreaths of ghostly ivy on its walls 
 Quivered like goblin tapestry, or palls, 
 Tattered and rusty, mildewed in the chill 
 Of dreadful vaults ; across each window sill 
 Curtains of weird device and fiery hue 
 Hung moveless only when the sun glanced through 
 The gathering gloom the hieroglyphs took form 
 And life and action, and the whole grew warm 
 With meanings baffling to AVOLIO'S sense ; 
 He stood expectant, trembling, with intense 
 Dread in his eyes, and yet a struggling faith, 
 Vital at heart. A sudden passing breath 
 Was it the wind ? thrilled by his tingling ear, 
 Waving the curtains inward, and his fear 
 Uprose victorious, for a serpent shape 
 Tall, supple, writhing, with malignant gape, 
 Wliich showed its cruel fangs hissed in the gleam 
 Its own fell eyeballs kindled ! Oh ! supreme 
 The horror of that vision ! As he gazed, 
 Irresolute, all wordless, and amazed, 
 The monster disappeared a moment sped ! 
 
THE VENGEANCE OF THE GODDESS DIANA. 45 
 
 The next it fawned before him on a bed 
 Of scarlet poppies. u Speak !" AVOLIO said ; 
 " What art thou ? Speak ! I charge thee in God's 
 name !" 
 
 A death cold shudder seized the serpent's frame, 
 Its huge throat writhed, whence bubbling with a 
 
 throe 
 
 Of hideous import, a voice thin and low 
 Broke like a muddied rill : " Bethink thee well, 
 " This isle is Cos, of which old legends tell 
 " Such marvels. Hast thou never heard of me, 
 " The island's fated queen f " Yea, verily," 
 AVOLIO cried, "thou art that thing of dread- 
 Sharply the serpent raised its glittering head 
 And front tempestuous : " Hold ! no tongue save 
 
 mine 
 
 " Must of these miseries tell thee ! Then incline 
 u Thine ear to the dark story of my grief, 
 " And with thine ear yield, yield me thy belief. 
 " Foul as I am, there was a time, O youth, 
 " When these fierce eyes were founts of love and 
 
 truth 5 
 
 u There was a time when woman's blooming grace 
 " Glowed through the flush of roses in my face; 
 
46 POEMS OF PAUL II. IIA YNE. 
 
 u When but I sinned a deep and damning sin, 
 
 " The fruit of lustful pride nurtured within 
 
 " By weird, forbidden knowledge I defied 
 
 " The night's immaculate goddess, purest eyed, 
 
 " And holiest of immortals ; I denied 
 
 ' : The eternal Power that looks so cold and calm ; 
 
 " Therefore, O stranger, am I what I am, 
 
 " A monster meet for Tartarus, a thing 
 
 " Whereon men gaze with awe and shuddering, 
 
 "And stress of inward terror 5 through all time, 
 
 " Down to the last age, my abhorred crime 
 
 " Must hold me prisoner in this vile abode, 
 
 " Unless some man, large-hearted as a God, 
 
 " Solder than Ajax, mercifully deign 
 
 " To kiss me on the mouth /" 
 
 She towered amain, 
 
 With sparkling crest, and universal thrill 
 Of frenzied eagerness, that seemed to fill 
 Her cavernous eyes with jets of lurid fire, 
 Pulsed from the burning core of unappeased desire. 
 
 Back stepped AVOLIO with a loathing fear, 
 Sick to the inmost soul ; then did he hear 
 The awful creature vent a tortured groan, 
 Her frantic neck and dragon's forehead thrown 
 
THE VENGEANCE OF THE GODDESS DIANA. 47 
 
 Madly to earth, whereon awhile she lay, 
 
 Her glances veiled, her dark crest turned away. 
 
 As thus she grovelled, quivering on the ground, 
 Stole through the brooding silence a faint sound 
 As 'twere of hopeless grief it seemed to be 
 A human voice weeping how piteously ! 
 Yet its deep passion striving to subdue. 
 Just then the serpent writhed her folds anew, 
 And while from earth her horrent crest she rears, 
 The loathly creature's face is bathed in tears ! 
 
 " Lady l n the knight said, " if in sooth thou art 
 
 " A maid and human, wherefore thus depart 
 
 " From truth's plain path to blind me ? well I know 
 
 " This DIAN, famed and worshipped long ago 
 
 " By heathen folk, was as the idle fume 
 
 " Formed into shifting shapes of vaporous bloom 
 
 " O'er her vain altars. Ah !" (he shuddered now, 
 
 Growing death pale from tremulous chin to brow) 
 
 " Ah, God ! I cannot kiss tliee ! Ne'ertheless, 
 
 " Fain am I in the true God's name to bless, 
 
 " And even to mark thee with His sacred cross !" 
 
 As one weighed down by anguish and the loss 
 Of one last hope, in faltering tones and sad 
 
48 POEMS OF PA UL H. HA TNE. 
 
 The serpent spake : " Deem'st tbou that DIAN had 
 
 " No life but that wherewith her votaries vain 
 
 " Invested a vague image of the brain ? 
 
 " Nay, she both was and was not, as on earth, 
 
 " Even to this day, full many a thing from birth 
 
 a To death lapses alike through bane and bliss ; 
 
 " Full many a thing, which is not and yet is, 
 
 " Save to man's purblind vision ; in the end 
 
 " Some clearer spirits may rise to comprehend 
 
 " This strange enigma ! but meanwhile, meanwhile 
 
 " The sure heavens change not, star and sunbeam 
 
 smile 
 
 " Fair as of yore; eternal nature keeps 
 " Her strength and beauty, though the mortal 
 
 weeps 
 
 " In desolation ! Oh ! wert tliou but true 
 " And brave enow this thing I ask to do, 
 " Then human, happy, beauteous would I be, 
 " Ye merciful Gods ! once more !' 7 
 
 Then suddenly 
 She writhed her vast neck round, her glittering 
 
 crest 
 
 Cast backward o'er the fierce, tumultuous breast, 
 Eed as a stormy sunset with a moan, 
 
THE VENGEANCE OF THE GODDESS DIANA. 49 
 
 " Pass on, weak soul P she said, " leave me alone f 
 
 Then, wildly, " Go ! I would not catch thine eye ; 
 
 " Go, and be safe ! for swiftly, furiously, 
 
 " Surges a cruel thought through all my blood, 
 
 " And the brute instincts turn to hardihood 
 
 " Of vengeful impulse all my gentler frame ; 
 
 " Go ! for I would not harm thee ; yet a flame 
 
 " Of blasting torments have I power to raise 
 
 " Through all thy being, and mine eyes could gaze, 
 
 " Gloating on pain. Is this not horrible P 
 
 And therewithal the wretched monster fell 
 
 To open weeping, with sad front, and bowed. 
 
 Something in such base cruelty avowed, 
 Blent with the softer will which disallowed 
 Its exercise, so on AVOLIO wrought, 
 That sore perplexed, revolving many a thought, 
 He lingered still, lost in a spiritual' mist ; 
 But when the mouth that waited to be kissed, 
 Fringed with a yellow foam, malignly rose 
 Before him, his first fear its terrible throes 
 Eenewed. " And how, O baleful shape !" said lie- 
 Striving to speak in passionless tones, and free 
 " How can I tell, what certain gage have I, 
 " That this strange kiss thine awful destiny 
 
50 POEMS OF PA UL II. HA YNE. 
 
 u Hath not ordained the least elaborate plan 
 
 u Whereby to snare and slay me *P u O man ! 
 
 man !" 
 
 The serpent answered, with a loftier mien 
 A voice grown clear, majestic and serene 
 " Shall MATTER always triumph ? the base mould 
 " Mask the immortal essence, uncontrolled 
 " Save by your grovelling fancies mean and cold ? 
 " O green and happy woods, breathing like sleep ! 
 " O quiet habitants of places deep 
 " In leafy shades, that draw your peaceful breaths, 
 " Passing fair lives to rest in tranquil deaths ! 
 " O earth ! O sea ! O heavens ! forever dumb 
 " To man, while ages go and ages come 
 " Mysterious, have the dark Fates willed it so 
 " That nevermore the sons of men shall know 
 " The secret of your silence ? the wide scope 
 " Granted your basking pleasures, and sweet hope, 
 " Revived in vernal warmth and springtide rains, 
 " Your long, long pleasures, and your fleeting 
 
 pains ? 
 
 " And must tbe lack of Avhat is brave and true, 
 " From other souls, callous or blind thereto, 
 a From what themselves beauteous and truthful are, 
 " Differ for aye as glow-worms from a star ? 
 
THE VENGEANCE OF THE GODDESS DIANA. 51 
 
 " Is such our life's decretal ? Shall the faith 
 
 " Which even, perchance, the clearest spirit hath 
 
 " In good within us, always prove less bold 
 
 u Than keen suspicions, nursed by craven doubt, 
 
 " Of treacherous ills, and evil from without ?" 
 
 Then, after pause, with passion : a O etern 
 
 u And bland Benignities, that breathe and burn 
 
 " Throughout creation, are we but the motes 
 
 " In some vague dream that idly sways and floats 
 
 " To nothingness I or are your glories pent 
 
 " Within ourselves, to rise omnipotent 
 
 " In bloom, and music, when Ave bend above, 
 
 " And wake them by the kisses of our love ? 
 
 " I yearn to be made beautiful. Alas ! 
 
 " Beauty itself looks on, prepared to pass, 
 
 " In hardened disbelief! one action kind 
 
 " Would free and save me why art thoti so blind, 
 
 " AVOLIO H" 
 
 While she spoke, a timorous hare, 
 Scared by a threatening falcon from its lair, 
 Kushed to the serpent's side. With fondling tongue 
 She soothed it as a mother soothes her young. 
 
 AVOLIO mused : " Can innocent things like this 
 " Take refuge by her ? then, perchance, some good, 
 
52 POEMS OF PAUL H. HAYNE. 
 
 " Some tenderness, if rightly understood, 
 " Lurks in her nature. I ivill do the deed I 
 " Christ and the Virgin save me at my need." 
 
 He signed the monster nearer, closed his eyes, 
 
 And with some natural shuddering, some deep sighs, 
 
 Gave up his pallid lips to the foul kiss ! 
 
 What followed then ? a traitorous serpent hiss, 
 
 Sharper for triumph ? Ah ! not so he felt 
 
 A warm, rich, yearning mouth approach and melt 
 
 In languid, loving sweetness on his own, 
 
 And two fond arms caressingly were thrown 
 
 About his neck, and on his bosom pressed 
 
 Twin lilies of a snow white virgin breast. 
 
 He raised his eyes, released from brief despair ; 
 They rested on a maiden tall and fair 
 Fair as the tropic morn, when morn is new 
 And her sweet glances smote him through and 
 
 through 
 
 With such keen thrilling rapture that he swore 
 His willing heart should evermore adore 
 Her loveliness, and woo her till he died. 
 
 " I am thine own," she whispered, " thy true bride, 
 " If thou wilt take me !" 
 
THE VENGEANCE OF THE GODDESS DIANA. 53 
 
 Hand iii liand they strayed 
 
 Adown the shadows through the woodland glade, 
 Whence every evil Influence shrank afraid, 
 And round them poured the golden eventide. 
 Swiftly the tidings of this strange event 
 Abroad on all the garrulous winds were sent, 
 Rousing an eager world to wonderment ! 
 
 Xow, 'raid the knightly companies that came 
 To visit Cos, was that brave chief, by fame 
 Exalted for bold deeds and faith divine, 
 So nobly shown ere while in Palestine 
 Tancred, Salerno's Prince he came in state, 
 With fourscore gorgeous barges, small and great, 
 With pomp and music, like an ocean Fate ; 
 His blazoned prows along the glimmering sea 
 Spread like an Eastern sunrise gloriously. 
 
 Him and his followers did AVOLIO feast 
 Eight royally, but when the mirth increased, 
 And joyous-winged jests began to pass 
 Above the sparkling cups of Hippocras, 
 Tancred arose, and in his courtly phrase 
 Invoked delight and length of prosperous days 
 To crown that magic union j one vague doubt 
 
54 POEMS OF PA UL H. HA YNE. 
 
 The Prince did move, and this he dared speak out, 
 But with serene and tempered courtesy : 
 " It could not be that their sweet hostess still 
 " Worshipped Diana and her heathen will P 
 
 " Ah sir ! not so !" AVOLIO flushing cried, 
 " But Christ the Lord !" 
 
 No single word replied 
 The beauteous lady, but with gentle pride 
 And a quick motion to AVOLIO'S side 
 She drew more closely by a little space, 
 Gazing with modest passion in his face, 
 As one who yearned to whisper tenderly : 
 lt 0, brave, Mnd heart! I worship only thee /" 
 
THE VOICE IN THE PINES. 55 
 
 flu Yoice In tie Pines. 
 
 The morn is softly beautiful and still, 
 
 Its light fair clouds iu pencilled gold and gray 
 Pause motionless above the pine-grown hill, 
 Where the pines, tranced as by a wizard's will, 
 Uprise, as mute and motionless as they ! 
 
 Yea ! mute and moveless ; not one flickering spray 
 Flashed into sunlight, nor a gaunt bough stirred ; 
 Yet, if wooed hence beneath those pines to stray, 
 We catch a faint, thin murmur far away, 
 A bodiless voice, by grosser ears unheard. 
 
 What voice is this ? what low and solemn tone, 
 Which, though all wings of all the winds seem 
 
 furled, 
 
 Nor even the zephyr's fairy flute is blown, 
 Makes thus forever its mysterious moan 
 From out the whispering pine- tops' shadowy world? 
 
 Ah ! can it be the antique tales are true ? 
 
 Doth some lone Dryad haunt the breezeless air, , 
 Fronting yon bright immitigable blue, 
 
56 POEMS OF PA UL H. HA YNK 
 
 And wildly breathing all her wild soul through 
 That strange, unearthly music of despair ? 
 
 Or can it be that ages since, storm-tossed, 
 
 And driven far inland from the roaring lea, 
 Some baffled ocean-spirit, worn and lost, 
 Here, through dry summer's dearth and winter's 
 
 frost, 
 Yearns for the sharp, sweet kisses of the sea ? 
 
 Whatever the spell, I hearken and am dumb, 
 
 Dream-touched, and musing in the tranquil morn ; 
 All woodland sounds the pheasant's gusty drum, 
 The mock bird's fugue, the droning insect's hum 
 Scarce heard for that strange, sorrowful voice for- 
 lorn ! 
 
 Beneath the drowsed sense, from deep to deep 
 
 Of spiritual life its mournful minor flows, 
 Streamlike, with pensive tide, whose currents keep 
 Low murmuring 'twixt the bounds of grief and sleep, 
 Yet locked for aye from sleep's divine repose. 
 
THE SOLITARY LAKE. 57 
 
 The Solitary Lake. 
 
 From garish light and life apart, 
 Shrined in the woodland's secret heart, 
 With delicate mists of morning furled 
 Fantastic o'er its shadowy world, 
 The lake, a vaporous vision, gleams 
 So vaguely bright, my fancy deems 
 'Tis but an airy lake of dreams. 
 
 Dreamlike, in curves of palest gold, 
 The wavering mist- wreaths manifold 
 Part in long rifts, through which I view 
 Gray islets throned in tides as blue 
 As if a piece of heaven withdrawn 
 Whence hints of sunrise touch the dawn 
 Had brought to earth its sapphire glow, 
 And smiled, a second heaven, below. 
 
 Dreamlike, in fitful, murmurous sighs, 
 I hear the distant west wind rise, 
 And, down the hollows wandering, break 
 In gurgling ripples on the lake, 
 
58 POEMS OF PA UL H. HA YXK 
 
 Bound which the vapors, still outspread, 
 
 Mount wanly widening overhead, 
 
 Till flushed by morning's primrose-red. 
 
 
 
 Dreamlike, each slow, soft-pulsing surge 
 
 Hath lapped the calm lake's emerald verge, 
 
 Sending, where'er its tremors pass 
 
 Low whisperings through the dew-wet grass ; 
 
 Faint thrills of fairy sound that creep 
 
 To fall in neighboring nooks asleep, 
 
 Or melt in rich, low warblings made 
 
 By some winged Ariel of the glade. 
 
 With brightening morn the mockbird's 
 Grows stronger, mellower ; far away 
 'Mid dusky reeds, which even the noon 
 Lights not, the lonely-hearted loon 
 Makes answer, her shrill music shorn 
 Of half its sadness ; day, full-born, 
 Doth rout all sounds and sights forlorn. 
 
 Ah ! still a something strange and rare 
 O'errules this tranquil earth and air, 
 Casting o'er both a glamour known 
 To their enchanted realm alone ; 
 
THE SOLITARY LAKE. 59 
 
 Whence shines, as 'twere a spirit's face, 
 
 The sweet, coy Genius of the place 
 
 Yon Lake, beheld as if in trance 
 
 The beauty of whose shy romance , 
 
 I feel whatever shores and skies 
 
 May charm henceforth my wondering eyes, 
 
 Shall rest, undimmed by taint or stain, 
 
 'Mid lonely byways of the brain, 
 
 There, with its haunting grace, to seem 
 
 Set in the landscape of a dream. 
 
60 POEMS OF PAUL H. HAYNE. 
 
 YMt of tie Wrens. 
 
 c: - Flying from out the gusty west, 
 
 To seek the place where last year's nest, 
 Bagged, and torn by many a rout 
 Of winter winds, still rocks about 
 The branches of the gnarled old tree 
 Which sweep my cottage library 
 Here on the genial southern side, 
 In a late gleam of sunset's pride, 
 Came back my tiny, springtide friends, 
 The self-same pair of chattering wrens 
 That with arch eyes and restless bill 
 Used to frequent yon window sill, 
 Winged sprites, in April's showery glow. 
 
 'Tis now twelve weary months ago 
 Since first I saw them ; here again 
 They drop outside the glittering pane, 
 Each bearing a dried twig or leaf, 
 To build with labor hard, yet brief, 
 This season's nest, where, blue and round, 
 Their fairy eggs will soon be found. 
 
VISIT OF THE WRENS. 61 
 
 But sky and breeze and blithesome sun, 
 
 Until that little home is done, 
 
 Shall wondering, maybe hear and see 
 
 Such chatter, bustle, industry, 
 
 As well may stir to emulous strife 
 
 Slow currents of a languid life, 
 
 Whether in bird or man they run ! 
 
 But when, in sooth, the nest complete 
 Swings gently in its green retreat, 
 And soft the mother birdling's breast 
 Doth in the cozy circlet rest, 
 How, back from jovial journeying, 
 Merry of heart, though worn of wing, 
 Her brown mate, proudly perched above 
 The limb that holds his brooding love, 
 His head upturned, his aspect sly, 
 Eegards her with a cunning eye, 
 As one who saith, " How well you bear 
 The dullness of these duties, dear ; 
 To dwell so long on nest or tree 
 Would be, I know, slow death to me 5 
 But, then, you women folk were made 
 For patient waiting, in the shade !" 
 
 So tame one little guest becomes 
 
 'Tis the male bird my scattered crumbs 
 
62 POEMS OF PAUL II. IIAYNE. 
 
 He takes from window sill and lawn 
 Each morning in the early dawn ; 
 And yesterday he dared to stand 
 Serenely on my outstretched hand, 
 While his wee wife, with puzzled glance, 
 Looked from her "breezy seat askance ! 
 
 My pretty pensioners ! ye have flown 
 
 Twice from your winter nook unknown, 
 
 To build your humble homestead here, 
 
 In the first flush of springtide cheer ; 
 
 But ah ! I wonder if again, 
 
 Flitting outside the window pane, 
 
 When next the shrewd March winds shall blow, 
 
 Or in mild April's showers glow, 
 
 New come from out the shimmering West, 
 
 You'll seek the place of this year's nest, 
 
 Eagged and torn by then, no doubt, 
 
 And swinging in worn shreds about 
 
 The branches of the ancient tree. 
 
 Nay, who may tell ? Yet, verily, 
 Methinks when, spring and summer passed, 
 Adown the long, low autumn blast, 
 In some dim gloaming, chill and drear, 
 
VISIT OF THE WRENS. 63 
 
 You, with your fledglings, disappear, 
 That ne'er by porch or tree or pane 
 Mine eyes shall greet your forms again ! 
 
 What then ? At least the good ye brought, 
 
 The delicate charms for eye and thought 
 
 Survives ; though death should be your doom 
 
 Before another spring flower's bloom, 
 
 Or fairer clime should tempt your wings 
 
 To bide 'mid fragrant blossomings 
 
 On some far Southland's golden lea, 
 
 Still may fresh spring morns light for me v 
 
 Your tiny nest, their breezes bear 
 
 Your chirping, household joyance near, 
 
 And all your quirks and tricksome ways 
 
 Bring back through many smiling days 
 
 Or future Aprils ; not the less 
 
 Your simple drama shall impress 
 
 Fancy and heart, thus acted o'er 
 
 Toward each small issue, as of yore, 
 
 With sun and wind and skies of blue 
 
 To witness, wondering, all you do, 
 
 Because your happy toil and mirth 
 
 May be of fine, ideal birth ; 
 
 Because each quick, impulsive note 
 
64 POEMS OF PA UL H. HA YNE. 
 
 May thrill a visionary throat, 
 
 Each flash of glancing wing and eye 
 
 Be gleams of vivid fantasy $ 
 
 Since whatsoe'er of form and tone 
 
 A past reality hath known, 
 
 Most charming unto soul and sense, 
 
 But wins that subtle effluence, 
 
 That spiritual air which softly clings 
 
 About all sweet and vanished things, 
 
 Causing a bygone joy to be 
 
 Vital as actuality, 
 
 Yet with each earthlier tint or trace 
 
 Lost in a pure, ethereal grace ! 
 
ASPECTS OF THE PINES. C5 
 
 Aspects of tie Hues. 
 
 Tall, sombre, grim, against the morning sky 
 They rise, scarce touched by melancholy airs, 
 
 Which stir the fadeless foliage dreamfully, 
 As if from realms of mystical despairs. 
 
 Tall, sombre, grim, they stand with dusky gleams 
 Brightening to gold within the woodland's core, 
 
 Beneath the gracious noontide's tranquil beams 
 But the weird winds of morning sigh no more. 
 
 A stillness, strange, divine, ineffable, 
 
 Broods round and o'er them in the wind's surcease, 
 And on each tinted copse and shimmering dell 
 
 Bests the mute rapture of deep hearted peace. 
 
 Last, sunset comes the solemn joy and might 
 Borne from the West when cloudless day declines 
 
 Low, flutelike breezes sweep the waves of light, 
 And lifting dark green tresses of the pines, 
 
 Till every lock is luminous gently float, 
 
 Fraught with hale odors up the heavens afar 
 
 To faint when Twilight on her virginal throat 
 Wears for a gem the tremulous vesper star. 
 
66 POEMS OF PAUL II. HAYNE. 
 
 Forest Pictiures. 
 
 MORNING. 
 
 O gracious breath of sunrise ! divine air ! 
 
 That brood'st serenely o'er the purpling hills ; 
 O blissful valleys ! nestling, cool and fair, 
 
 In the fond arms of yonder murmurous rills, 
 Breathing their grateful measures to the sun j 
 O dew-besprinkled paths, that circling run 
 Through sylvan shades and solemn silences, 
 Once more ye bring my fevered spirit peace ! 
 
 The fitful breezes, fraught with forest balm, 
 
 Faint, in rare wafts of perfume, on my brow ; 
 The woven lights and shadows, rife with calm, 
 
 Creep slantwise 'twixt the foliage, bough on bough 
 Uplifted heavenward, like a verdant cloud 
 Whose rain is music, soft as love, or loud 
 With jubilant hope for there, entranced, apart, 
 The mock-bird sings, close, close to Nature's heart. 
 
 Shy forms about the greenery, out and in, 
 
 Flit 'neath the broadening glories of the morn ; 
 
 The squirrel that quaint sylvan harlequin 
 
 Mounts the tall trunks j while swift as lightning, 
 born 
 
FOREST PICTURES. 67 
 
 Of summer mists, from tangled vine and tree 
 Dart the dove's pinions, pulsing vividly 
 Down the dense glades, till glimmering far and gray 
 The dusky vision softly melts away ! 
 
 In transient, pleased bewilderment, I mark 
 
 The last dim shimmer of those lessening wings, 
 When from lone copse and shadowy covert, hark ! 
 What mellow tongue through all the woodland 
 
 rings ! 
 
 The deer-hound's voice, sweet as the golden bell's, 
 Prolonged by flying echoes round the dells, 
 And up the loftiest summits wildly borne, 
 Blent with the blast of some keen huntsman's horn. 
 
 And now the checkered vale is left behind ; 
 
 I climb the slope, and reach the hilltop bright ; 
 Here, in bold freedom, swells a sovereign wind, 
 
 Whose gusty prowess sweeps the pine clad height ; 
 While the pines dreamy Titans roused from sleep- 
 Answer with mighty voices, deep on deep 
 Of wakened foliage surging like a sea ; 
 And o'er them smiles Heaven's calm infinity ! 
 
68 POEMS OF PA UL II. II A YNE. 
 
 Golden Bell. 
 
 Beyond our moss-grown pathway lies 
 A dell so fair, to genial eyes 
 It dawns an ever-fresh surprise ! 
 
 To touch its charms with gentler grace, 
 The softened heavens a loving face 
 Bend o'er that sweet, secluded place. 
 
 There first, despite the March wind's cold, 
 Above the pale-hued emerald mould 
 The earliest spring-tide buds unfold ; 
 
 There first the ardent mock-bird, long 
 Winter's dumb thrall, from winter's wrong 
 Breaks into gleeful floods of song ; 
 
 Till, from coy thrush to garrulous wren, 
 The humbler bards of copse and glen 
 Outpour their vernal notes again $ 
 
 While such harmonious rapture rings, 
 With stir .and flash of eager wiugs 
 Glimpsed fleetly, where the jasmine clings 
 
GOLDEN DELL. 69 
 
 To bosk and briar, we blithely say, 
 
 " Farewell ! bleak nights and mornings gray, 
 
 Earth opes her festal court to-day !" 
 
 There, first, from out some balmy nest, 
 By half-grown woodbine flowers caressed, 
 Steal zephyrs of the mild southwest ; 
 
 O'er purpling rows of wild- wood peas,* 
 So blandly borne, the droning bees 
 Still suck their honeyed cores at ease ; 
 
 Or, trembling through yon verdurous mass, 
 Dew-starred, and dimpling as they pass 
 The Avavelets of the billowy grass ! 
 
 But, fairest of fair things that dwell 
 
 'Mid sylvan nurslings of the dell, 
 
 Is that clear stream whose murmurs swell 
 
 To music's airiest issues wrought, 
 As if a Naiad's tongue were fraught 
 With secrets of its whispered thought. 
 
 Yes, fairest of fair things, it flows 
 'Twixt banks of violet and of rose, 
 Touched always by a quaint repose. 
 
 * In the Southern woods, often among sterile tracts of pine barren, n 
 species of wild pea is found, or a plant which in all externals resembles the 
 pea plant. 
 
70 POEMS OF PA UL H. HA YNE. 
 
 How golden bright its currents glide ! 
 While goldenly from side to side 
 Bird-shadows flit athwart the tide. 
 
 So Golden Dell we name the place, 
 And aye may Heaven's serenest face 
 Dream o'er it with a smile of grace ; 
 
 For next the moss-growth path it lies, 
 So pure, so fresh, to genial eyes 
 It glows with hints of Paradise 1 
 
) 
 CL UD-PICTURES. 
 
 Here, in these mellow grasses, the whole morn, 
 I love to rest ; yonder, the ripening corn 
 Bustles its greenery : and his blithesome horn 
 
 Wiudeth the frolic breeze o'er field and dell, 
 Now pealing a bold stave with lusty swell, 
 Now falling to low breaths ineffable 
 
 Of whispered joyance. At calm length I lie, 
 Fronting the broad blue spaces of the sky, 
 Covered with cloud-groups, softly journeying by : 
 
 An hundred shapes, fantastic, beauteous, strange, 
 Is theirs, as o'er yon airy waves they range 
 At the wind's will, from marvellous change to 
 change ; 
 
 Castles, with guarded roof, and turret tall, 
 Great sloping archway, and majestic wall, 
 Sapped by the breezes to their noiseless fall ! 
 
 Pagodas vague ! above whose towers outstream 
 Banners that wave with motions of a dream 
 Eising, or drooping in the noontide gleam ; 
 
72 POEMS OF PA UL H. HA TNE. 
 
 Gray lines of Orient pilgrims : a gaunt band 
 On famished camels, o'er the desert sand 
 Plodding towards their Prophet's Holy Land ; 
 
 'Mid-ocean, and a shoal of whales at play, 
 Lifting their monstrous frontlets to the day, 
 Thro' rainbow arches of sun-smitten spray j 
 
 Followed by splintered icebergs, vast and lone, 
 Set in swift currents of some arctic zone, 
 Like fragments of a Titan's world o'ert brown ; 
 
 Next, measureless breadths of barren, treeless moor, 
 Whose vaporous verge fades down a glimmering 
 
 shore, 
 Bound which the foam-capped billows toss and roar! 
 
 Calms of bright water like a fairy's wiles, 
 Wooing, with ripply cadence and soft smiles, 
 The golden shore-slopes of Hesperian Isles ; 
 
 Their inland plains rife with a rare increase 
 Of plumed grain ! and many a snowy fleece 
 Shining athwart the dew-lit hills of peace $ 
 
 Wrecks of gigantic cities to the tune 
 
 Of some wise air-God built ! o'er which the Xoon 
 
 Seems shuddering ; caverns, such as the wan Moon 
 
CL UD- PICTURES. 73 
 
 Shows in her desolate bosorn ; then, a crowd 
 Of awed and reverent faces, palely bowed 
 O'er a dead queen, laid in her ashy shroud 
 
 A queen of eld her pallid brow impearled 
 By gems barbaric ! her strange beauty furled 
 In mystic cerements of the antique world. 
 
 Weird pictures, fancy-gendered ! one by one, 
 'Twixt blended beams and shadows, gold and dun, 
 These transient visions vanish in the sun. 
 
74 POEMS OF PA UL II. IIA YNE. 
 
 Midsummer IB the South, 
 
 I love Queen August's stately sway. 
 
 And all her fragrant south winds say, 
 
 With vague, mysterious meanings fraught, 
 
 Of unimaginable thought 5 
 
 Those winds, 'mid change of gloom a-nd gleam, 
 
 Seem wandering thro' a golden dream 
 
 The rare midsummer dream that lies 
 
 In humid depths of Nature's eyes, 
 
 Weighing her languid forehead down 
 
 Beneath a fair but fiery crown : 
 
 Its witchery broods o'er earth and skies 
 
 Fills with divine amenities 
 
 The bland, blue spaces of the air, 
 
 And smiles with looks of drowsy cheer 
 
 'Mid hollows of the brown-hued hills ; 
 
 And oft, in tongues of tinkling rills, 
 
 A softer, homelier utterance finds 
 
 Than that which haunts the lingering winds ! 
 
 I love midsummer's azure deep, 
 Whereon the huge white clouds, asleep, 
 
MIDSUMMER IN THE SOUTH. 
 
 Scarce move through lengths of tranced hours ; 
 
 Some, raised in forms of giant towers 
 
 Dumb Babels, with ethereal stairs 
 
 Scaling the vast height unawares 
 
 What mocking spirit, aether born, 
 
 Hath built those transient spires in scorn, 
 
 And reared towards the topmost sky 
 
 Their unsubstantial fantasy ! 
 
 Some stretched in tenuous arcs of light 
 
 Athwart the airy infinite, 
 
 Far glittering up yon fervid dome, 
 
 And lapped by Cloudland's misty foam, 
 
 Whose wreaths of fine sun-smitten spray 
 
 Melt in a burning haze away : 
 
 Some throned in heaven's serenest smiles, 
 
 Pure-hued, and calm as fairy isles, 
 
 Girt by the tides of soundless seas 
 
 The heavens' benign Hesperides. 
 
 I love midsummer uplands, free 
 To the bold raids of breeze and bee, 
 Where, nested warm in yellowing grass, 
 I hear the swift- winged partridge pass, 
 With whirr and boom of gusty flight, 
 Across the broad heath's treeless height : 
 
76 POEMS OF PAUL II. HA YXK 
 
 Or, just where, elbow-poised, I lift 
 Above the wild flower's careless drift 
 My half-closed eyes, I see and hear 
 The blithe field-sparrow twittering clear 
 Quick ditties to his tiny love ; 
 While, from afar, the timid dove, 
 With faint, voluptuous murmur, wakes 
 The silence of the pastoral brakes. 
 
 I love midsummer sunsets, rolled 
 Down the rich west in waves of gold, 
 With blazing crests of billowy fire. 
 But when those crimson floods retire, 
 In noiseless ebb, slow-surging, grand, 
 By pensive twilight's flickering strand, 
 In gentler mood I love to mark 
 The slow gradations of the dark ; 
 Till, lo ! from Orient's mists withdrawn, 
 Hail ! to the Moon's resplendent dawn ; 
 On dusky vale and haunted plain 
 Her effluence falls like balmy rain ; 
 Gaunt gulfs of shadow own her might ; 
 She bathes the rescued world in light, 
 So that, albeit my Summer's Day 
 Erewhile did breathe its life away, 
 
MIDSUMMER IX THE SOUTH. 77 
 
 Methinks, whate'er its hours had won 
 Of beauty, born from shade and sun, 
 Hath not perchance so wholly died, 
 But o'er the moonlight's silvery tide 
 Comes back, sublimed and purified ! 
 
78 POEMS OF PA UL IL HA YNE. 
 
 In the Ptae Barrens. 
 
 SUNSET. 
 
 Hark ! to the mournful wind ; its burden drear 
 Borne over leagues of desert wild and dun, 
 
 Sinks to a weary cadence of despair, 
 Beyond the closing gateways of the Sun. 
 
 Yon clouds are big with flame, and not with rain, 
 Massed on the marvellous heaven in splendid 
 pyres, 
 
 Whereon ethereal genii, half in pain 
 
 And half in triumph, light their fervid fires ; 
 
 Kindled in funeral majesty to rise 
 
 Above the perished Day, whose latest breath 
 Exhaled, a roseate effluence to the skies, 
 
 Still lingers o'er the pageantry of death. 
 
 One stalwart hill his stern defiant crest 
 Boldly against the horizon line uprears, 
 
 His blasted Pines, smit by the fiery West, 
 Uptowering rank on rank, like Titan spears ; 
 
IN THE PINE EABKENS. 79 
 
 Fantastic, bodeful, o'er the rock-strewn ground 
 Casting grim shades beyond the hill slope riven, 
 
 Which ruock the loftier shafts, keen, lustre-crowned 
 And raised as if to storm the courts of Heaven ! 
 
 As sinks the wind, so wane those wondrous lights ; 
 
 Slowly they wane from hill and sky and cloud, 
 While round the woodland waste and glimmering 
 heights 
 
 The mist of gloaming trails its silvery shroud ! 
 
 Through which, uncertain, vague as shifting ghosts, 
 The forms of all things touched by mystery seem, 
 
 I walk, methinks, on pale Plutonian coasts, 
 And grope 'mid spectral shadows of a dream. 
 
80 POEMS OF PA UL H. HA YNE. 
 
 The Woodland Pliases. 
 
 Yon woodland, like a human mind, 
 Hath many a phase of dark and bright ; 
 
 Now dim with shadows, wandering blind, 
 Now radiant with fair shapes of light. 
 
 They softly come, they softly go, 
 Capricious as the vagrant wind 
 
 Nature's vague thoughts in gloom or glow, 
 That leave no airiest trace behind. 
 
 No trace, no trace ! yet wherefore thus 
 Do shade and beam our spirits stir I 
 
 Ah! Nature may be cold to us, 
 But we are strangely moved by her. 
 
 The wild bird's strain, the breezy spray- 
 Each hour with sure earth-changes rife 
 
 Hint more than all the sages say, 
 Or poets sing of death and life. 
 
 For, truths half drawn from Nature's breast, 
 Through subtlest types of form and tone,. 
 
THE WOODLAND PHASES. 81 
 
 Outweigh, what man, at most, hath guessed 
 While heeding his own heart alone. 
 
 And midway, betwixt heaven and us, 
 Stands Nature, in her fadeless grace, 
 
 Still pointing to our Father's house, 
 His glory on her mystic face. 
 
82 POEMS OF PAUL H. HAYNE. 
 
 Sonnet. 
 
 Sunset, the god-like artist paints on air 
 
 Pictures of loveliness and terror blent : 
 
 Lo ! yonder clouds, like mountains tempest-rent, 
 
 Through whose abysmal depths the lightning's glare 
 
 Darts from wild gulfs and caverns of despair : 
 
 O'er these a calm, majestic firmament, 
 
 Flushed with rich hues, with rainbow isles besprent, 
 
 Like homes of peace in oceans heavenly fair : 
 
 But still, beyond, one lone mysterious cloud, 
 Steeped in the solemn sunset's fiery mist, 
 Strange semblance takes of Him whose visage bowed, 
 Divinely sweet, o'er all things, dark or bright, 
 Yet draws the darkness ever toward His light 
 The tender eyes and awful brow of Christ! 
 
SONNET. 83 
 
 In the deep hollow of this sheltered dell 
 I hear the rude winds chant their giant staves 
 Far, far beyond me, where in darkening waves 
 The airy seas of cloud-land sink or swell. 
 
 No faint breeze stirs the wild flower's soundless bell, 
 Here in the quiet vale, whose rivulet laves 
 Banks silent almost as those desert graves, 
 Whereof the worn Zaharan wanderers tell. 
 
 Oh ! thus from out still depths of tranquil doom, 
 My soul beyond her views life's turmoil vast, 
 Hearkening the windy roar and rage of men, 
 
 Vain to her eyes as shades from cloud-land cast, 
 And to her ears like far-off winds that boom, 
 Heard, but scarce heard, in this Arcadian glen ! 
 
84 POEMS OF PA UL H. HA YNE. 
 
 After the Tornado. 
 
 Last eve the earth was calm, the heavens were clear; 
 
 A peaceful glory crowned the waning west, 
 
 And yonder distant mountain's hoary crest 
 
 The semblance of a silvery robe did wear, 
 
 Shot through with moon- wrought tissues; far and 
 
 near 
 
 Wood, rivulet, field all Nature's face expressed 
 The haunting presence of enchanted rest. 
 One twilight star shone like a blissful tear, 
 Unshed. But now, what ravage in a night ! 
 Yon mountain height fades in its cloud-girt pall ; 
 The prostrate wood lies smirched with rain and mire; 
 Through the shorn fields the brook whirls, wild and 
 
 white ; 
 
 While o'er the turbulent waste, and woodland fall, 
 Glares the red sunrise, blurred with mists of fire ! 
 
B7 THE GRAVE OF HENRY TIMROD. 85 
 
 By tie Grave of Hemry Timrod. 
 
 When last we parted thy frail hand in mine 
 
 Above us smiled September's passionless sky, 
 And touched by fragrant airs, the hill-side pine 
 
 Thrilled in the mellow sunshine tenderly; 
 So rich the robe on nature's slow decay, 
 We scarce could deem the Winter tide was near, 
 
 Or lurking death, masked in imperial grace ; 
 
 Alas! that Autumn day 
 Drew not more close to Winter's empire drear 
 
 Than thou, my heart ! to meet grief face to face ! 
 
 I clasped thy tremulous hand, nor marked how 
 
 weak 
 
 Its answering grasp ; and if thine eyes did swim 
 In unshed tears, and on thy fading cheek 
 Rested a nameless shadow, gaunt and dim, 
 My soul was blind ; fear had not touched her 
 
 sight 
 To awful vision ; so, I bade thee go, 
 
 Careless, and tranquil as that treacherous morn; 
 dreamed how soon the blight 
 
86 POEMS OF PA UL H. HA YXE. 
 
 Of long-implanted seeds of care would throw 
 Their nightshade flowers above the springing 
 corn. 
 
 Since then, full many a year hath risen and set, 
 With Spring-tide showers, and Autumn pomps 
 
 unfurled 
 
 O'er gorgeous woods, and mountain walls of jet 
 While love and loss, alternate, ruled the world ; 
 
 Till now once more we meet my friend and I 
 Once more, once more and thus, alas! we meet 
 Above, a ray less heaven ; beneath, a grave ; 
 
 Oh, Christ! and dost thou lie 
 Neglected here, in thy worn burial-sheet ? 
 
 Friend! were there none to shield thee, none to 
 save ? 
 
 Ask of the Winter winds scarce colder they 
 
 Than that strange land thy birth place and thy 
 
 tomb : 
 
 Ask of the sombre cloud-wracks trooping gray, 
 And grim as hooded ghosts at stroke of doom ; 
 At least, the winds, though chill, with gentler 
 
 sweep 
 Seem circling round and o'er thy place of rest, 
 
BY THE GRAVE OF HENRY TIMROD. 87 
 
 While the sad clouds, as clothed in tenderer 
 
 guise, 
 
 Do lowly bend, and weep 
 O'er the dead Poet, in whose living breast 
 Dumb nature found a voice, how sweet and wise! 
 
 Once more we meet, once more my friend and I 
 But ah ! his hand is dust, his eyes are dark ; 
 
 Thy merciless weight, thou dread mortality, 
 From out his heart hath crushed the latest spark 
 Of that warm life, benignly bright and strong ; 
 
 Yet no 5 we have not met my friend and I 
 Ashes to ashes in this earthly prison ! 
 Are these, O child of song, 
 
 Thy glorious self, heir of the stars and sky ? 
 
 Thou art not here, not here, for thou hast risen ! 
 
 Death gave thee wings, and lo! thou hast soared 
 
 above 
 
 All human utterance and all finite thought ; 
 Pain may not hound thee through that realm of 
 
 love, 
 Nor grief, wherewith thy mortal days were 
 
 fraught, 
 Load thee again nor vulture want, that fed 
 
88 POEMS OF PA UL H. II A 7NK 
 
 Even on thy heart's blood, wound thee; idle, then, 
 Our bitter sorrowing; what though bleak and 
 
 wild 
 
 Eests thine uncrowned head 1 
 Known art tliou now to angels and to men 
 Heaven's saint, and earth's brave singer un- 
 defiled. 
 
 Even as I spake in broken under-breath 
 
 The winds drooped lifeless; faintly struggling 
 
 through 
 The heaven-bound pall, which seemed a pall of 
 
 death, 
 One cordial sunbeam cleft the opening blue ; 
 
 Swiftly it glanced, and settling, softly shone 
 O'er the grave's head; in that same instant came 
 From the near copse a bird-song half divine ; 
 
 " Heart," said I, " Hush thy moan, 
 List the bird's singing, mark the heaven-born flame, 
 God-given are these an omen and a sign !" 
 
 In the bird's song an omen his must live ! 
 
 In the warm glittering of that golden beam, 
 A sign his soul's majestic hopes survive, 
 
 Raised to fruition o'er life's weary dream. 
 So now I leave him, low, yet restful here ; 
 
BY THE GRA VE OF HENRY TIMROD. 89 
 
 So now I leave him, high-exalted, far 
 Beyond all memory of earth's guilt or guile ; 
 Hark ! 'tis his voice of cheer, 
 
 Dropping, methinks, from some mysterious star ; 
 His face I see, and on his face a smile ! 
 
90 POEMS OF PA UL JZ HA YNE. 
 
 Somnet. 
 
 The glorious star of morning would we blame 
 Because it burns not on the front of night ? 
 Or the calm evening planet, that her light 
 
 Foretells not sunrise, with its herald-flame ? 
 
 All things that are should subtly own the same 
 Eternal law ! the stars shine on aright, 
 Each in its sphere 5 the souls of Love and Might 
 
 Their separate bounds of grace or grandeur claim ; 
 
 Not on the low or lofty, great or small, 
 
 Should justice fix for judgment j the true soul, 
 Which sways its own world in serene control, 
 
 Highest or humblest such the Master's call 
 
 Shall summon upward, with its deep " well done," 
 And the just Father crown his faithful son ! 
 
VIOLETS. 91 
 
 Ylolets. 
 
 " Rare wine of flowers." FLETCHER. 
 
 A gusty wind o'ers weeps the garden close, 
 
 And, where the jonquil, with the white-rod glows, 
 
 Riots like some rude hoyden uncontrolled. 
 But here, where sunshine and coy shadows meet, 
 Out gleam the tender eyes of violets sweet, 
 
 Touched by the vapory noontide's fleeting gold. 
 
 What subtlest perfume floats serenely up ! 
 Ethereal wine that brims each delicate cup, 
 
 Rifled by viewless Ariels of the air, 
 And lo ! methinks from out these fairy flowers 
 Eise the strange shades of half forgotten hours, 
 
 Pale, tearful, mute, and yet, O heaven, how fair! 
 
 Yea, fair and marvellous, gliding gently nigh. 
 Some with raised brows and eyes of constancy. 
 
 Fixed with fond meanings on a goal above. 
 And some faint shades of weary, drooping grace, 
 Each with a nameless pathos on its face, 
 
 Breathing of heart-break and sad death of love. 
 
92 POEMS OF PAUL H. IIAYNE. 
 
 Slowly they vanish ! while these odors steep 
 Spirit and sense, as if in waves of sleep, 
 
 Mysterious and Lethean $ languid streams 
 Flowing through realms of twilight thought apart, 
 Whereon the half- closed petals of the heart 
 
 Pulse flower-like o'er a whispering tide of 
 dreams : 
 
 Nor wakes the soul to outward sound or sight, 
 Till noonday beams declining, warm and light, 
 
 A wood-breeze fans the dreamer's forehead calm; 
 Who feels as one long wrapped from pain and 
 
 drouth, 
 By magic dreams dreamed in the fervid South, 
 
 Beneath the golden shadows of the palm. 
 
WHENCE? 93 
 
 Whence? 
 
 Eerily the wind doth blow 
 
 Through the woodland hollow ; 
 
 Eerily forlorn and low, 
 Tremulous echoes follow ! 
 
 Whence the low wind's tortured plaint! 
 
 Burden hopeless, dreary, 
 As the anguished tones that faint 
 
 Down the Miserere f 
 
 Whence ? From far-off seas its moan ! 
 
 Darksome waves and lonely, 
 Where the tempest, overblown, 
 
 Leaves a death-calm only. 
 
 Thence it caught the awful cry 
 
 Of some last pale swimmer, 
 O'er whose drowning brain and eye 
 
 Life grows dim and dimmer 
 
 Ere the billows claim their prey, 
 Settling stern and lonely. 
 
94 POEMS OF PA UL II. HA YNE. 
 
 Where the storm-clouds, rolled away, 
 Leave death-silence only ! 
 
 So with pain the wind -heart sighs; 
 
 Through its sad commotion 
 Weary sea-tides sob, and rise 
 
 Wailing hints of Ocean! 
 
 Hist ! oh hist ! as spreads the mist, 
 Wood and hill-slope doming, 
 
 By no grace of starlight kissed, 
 'Mid the shadowy gloaming, 
 
 Drearier grows the wind, more drear 
 Echoes shuddering follow, 
 
 Till a place of doom and fear 
 Seems that haunted hollow ! 
 
ARIEL. 95 
 
 Ariel. 
 
 " My dainty Ariel." TEMPEST. 
 
 A voice like the murmur of doves, 
 Soft lightning from eyes of blue, 
 
 On her cheek a flush like Love's 
 First delicate, rosebud hue ; 
 
 Bright torrents of hazel hair, 
 Which, glittering, flow and float 
 
 O'er the swell of her bosom fair, 
 
 And the snows of her matchless throat ; 
 
 Lithe limbs of a life so fine, 
 That their rhythmical motion seems 
 
 But a part of the grace divine 
 Of the music of haunted dreams ; 
 
 Low, gurgling laughter, as sweet 
 As the swallow's song i' the South, 
 
 And a ripple of dimples that, dancing, meet 
 By the curves of a perfect mouth ; 
 
96 POEMS OF PA UL II. IIA YNE. 
 
 O creature of light and of air ! 
 
 O fairy sylph o' th' sun ! 
 Hearts whelmed in the tidal gold of her hair 
 
 Eejoice to be so undone ! 
 
THE CLOUD-STAR. 97 
 
 Tlhe CloM-star. 
 
 (A FABLE.) 
 
 Far up within the tranquil sky, 
 
 Far up it shone; 
 Floating, how gently, silently, 
 
 Floating alone ! 
 
 A sunbeam touched its loftier side 
 
 With deepening light; 
 Then to its inmost soul did glide, 
 
 Divinely bright. 
 
 The Cloud, transfigured to a Star, 
 
 Thro' all its frame 
 Throbbed in the fervent heavens afar 
 
 One pulse of flame : 
 
 One pulse of flame, whicli inward turned, 
 
 And slowly fed 
 On its own heart, that burned, and burned, 
 
 'Till almost dead, 
 
POEMS OF PA UL H. II A YNE. 
 
 The cloud, still imaged as a star, 
 
 Waned up the sky j 
 Waned slowly, pallid, ghost-like, far, 
 
 Wholly to die ; 
 
 But die so grandly in the sun 
 The noonfire's breath 
 
 Methinks the glorious death it won, 
 Life ! life ! not death ! 
 
 Meanwhile a million insect things 
 
 Crawl on below, 
 And gaudy worms on fluttering wings 
 
 Flit to and fro ; 
 
 Blind to that cloud, which, grown a star, 
 
 Divinely bright, 
 Waned in the deepening heavens afar, 
 
 Till lost in light ! 
 
SONNET. 99 
 
 Sonnet, 
 
 As one who strays from out some shadowy glade, 
 Fronting a lur'.cl noontide, stern, yet bright, 
 O'er mart and tower, and castellated height, 
 Shrinks slowly backward, dazed and half afraid 
 So I, whose household gods their stand have made 
 Far from the populous city's life and light, 
 Its roar of traffic and its stormy might, 
 Shrink as I pass beyond my woodland shade. 
 
 The wordy conflict, the tempestuous din 
 
 Of these vast capitals, on ear and brain 
 
 Beat with the loud, reiterated swell 
 
 Of one fierce strain of passion and of sin, 
 
 Strange as in nightmare dreams the mad refrain 
 
 Of some wild chorus of the vaults of Hell. 
 
100 POEMS OF PA UL H. HA TNE. 
 
 Sonnet 
 
 Enough, this glimpse of splendor wed to shame ; 
 Enough, this gilded misery, this bright woe. 
 Pause, genial Wind ! that even here dost blow 
 Thy cheerful clarion j and from dust and flame 
 The noonday pest, the night-enshrouded blame, 
 Uplift and bear me where the wild flowers grow 
 By many a golden dell-side sweet and low, 
 Shrined in the sylvan Eden whence I came. 
 
 O woodland water ! O fair- whispering pine ! 
 Loved of the dryad none but I have viewed ! 
 O dew-lit glen, and lone glade, breathing balm, 
 Eeceive and bless me, till this tumult rude 
 Merged in your verdant solitudes divine, 
 My soul once more hath "found her ancient calm ! 
 
SWEETHEART, GOOD-BYE! 101 
 
 Sweetteffirt, Good-Bye! 
 
 A SONG. 
 
 Sweetheart, good-bye ! Our varied day 
 Is closing into twilight gray, ^^ 
 
 And up from bare, bleak wastes of sea 
 The north- wind rises mournfully ; 
 A solemn prescience, strangely drear, 
 Doth haunt the shuddering twilight air ; 
 It tills the earth, it chills the sky 
 Sweetheart, good-bye ! 
 
 Sweetheart, good-bye! Our joys are passed, 
 And night with silence comes at last ; 
 All things must end yea, even love 
 Xor know we, if reborn above, 
 The heart-blooms of our earthly prime 
 Shall flower beyond thesis bounds of time. 
 " Ah ! death alone is sure l n we cry 
 Sweetheart, good-bye! 
 
 Sweetheart, good-bye ! Through mist and 
 Pass the pale phantoms of our years, 
 
102 POEMS OF PA UL H. HA YXE. 
 
 Once bright with spring, or subtly strong 
 When summer's noontide thrilled with song ; 
 Now wan, wild-eyed, forlornly bowed, 
 Each rayless as an autumn cloud 
 Fading on dull September's sky 
 Sweetheart, good-bye ! 
 
 Sweetheart, good-bye ! The vapors rolled -< 
 Athwart yon distant, darkening wold, 
 Are types of what our world doth know 
 Of tenderest loves of long ago ; 
 And thus, when all is done and said, 
 Our life lived out, our passion dead, 
 What can their wavering record be 
 But tinted mists of memory ? 
 Oh ! clasp and kiss me ere we die 
 Sweetheart, good-bye ! 
 
SONNET. 103 
 
 COMPOSED ON A MARCH MORNING IN THE WOODS. 
 
 The winds are loud and trumpet-clear to-day; 
 They seem to sound an onset, half in ire, 
 Half in the wildness of a vague desire 
 
 To force Spring's fairy vanguard to delay ; 
 
 For here, methinks, worn winter stands at bay 
 Yet stands how vainly ! spring-time's subtlest fire 
 Melts his cold heart to nothingness, while nigher 
 
 Draw April hosts, and rearward powers of May 
 
 All maiden verdures, concords of sweet air, 
 Stealing as dawn steals gently on the world ; 
 Breezes, balm-laden, blown from distant seas, 
 With armies of blush-roses, dew-impearled 
 
 Till Earth reclaimed from Winter's grim despair 
 Blooms as once bloomed the fair Hesperides. 
 
104 POEMS OF PA UL II. HA TNE. 
 
 IWda and her Poet. 
 
 A brave young Poet, born in days of Eld, 
 Dwelt 'mid the frozen Northlands; he beheld, 
 And wondering, sung the marvels of the Ice, 
 The swirl of snow-flakes, and the quaint device 
 Wrought on the fir-trees by the glittering sleet ; 
 And loved on stormy heights, cloud -girt, to greet 
 The gray ger-falcon towering o'er the sea ; 
 To watch the waves, and mark the cloud-drifts flee. 
 Big with the wrath of tempests; yet, his heart, 
 Soft as the inner rose-leaves of the Spring, 
 
 Rich with young life, and love's sweet blossoming, 
 Too soon, alas ! from life and love did part : 
 Veiled was the fate that smote him ; unaware 
 What sudden, blasting doom had drawn so near, 
 A strange blight breathed upon him, and he died! 
 
 On earth to die, in heaven be glorified, 
 Such was .the Minstrel's portion ; still he went 
 Through all the heavenly courts in discontent 
 And sombre grief, the pathos of his woe 
 Rising at times to such wild overflow 
 
FRIDA AXD HER POET. 105 
 
 As forced its wailful utterance into song. 
 
 That passionate rush of music, the heart's wrong 
 
 Set to the sweetness of harmonious chords, 
 
 The All-Father, Odin, o'er the clash of swords, 
 
 And din of heroes feasting at the boards 
 
 Of loud Yalhalla, heard : thereon he sought 
 
 This lonely soul, in highest heaven o'erfraught 
 
 With mortal memories. " Wherefore lift'st thou 
 
 here," 
 
 The All-Father asked, " these measures of despair?" 
 " Because my mortal Love," the Poet said, 
 " With time grows gray and wrinkled ; on her head, 
 So golden bright in youth's benignant prime, 
 Chill frosts of age have left their hoary rime ; 
 Her eyes are dimmed, her soft cheeks' rosy red 
 Hath with the flowers of man}' a spring- tide fled ; 
 And so when Heaven shall claim her ah ! the 
 
 pain ! 
 I shall not know mine earthly love again !" 
 
 To whom the God, "But doth she love thee still!" 
 " Her love, like mine, nor years, nor change can 
 
 kill," 
 
 The Minstrel answered : " Faith, a ceaseless shower, 
 Keeps fair and bright our love's immaculate flower." 
 
106 POEMS OF PA UL H. HA YNE. 
 
 " I loose thy heavenly bonds, I bid thee go !" 
 The All-Father cried, " and seek thy Love below!" 
 To earth he came: drear waste and flowery lea 
 Beheld his search 'mid fettered folk and free ; 
 Yet all his toils but brought the direful stress 
 Of lone heart-yearning, grief, and weariness, 
 Till hope died out, and all his soul was dark. 
 
 At last, when aimless as an autumn leaf 
 Borne on November's idle winds afar, 
 He roamed a sea-beach wild, by moon or star 
 Unlighted, in his dreariest hour of grief 
 And desolate longing, on his eyes a spark 
 Of tiny radiance through the clouded night 
 Flashed from a cottage window on a height, 
 Next the dim billows of the moaning main. 
 
 There broke a sudden lightning on his brain 
 
 Of prescient expectation, then, before 
 
 Its glow could fade, he trod the cottage floor, 
 
 And saw in tattered raiment, wan and dead, 
 
 An ancient withered woman on a bed, 
 
 Of whom a crone, as shrunk almost as she, 
 
 Said, with drawn lips, and blinking wearily, 
 
 " Lo ! here thine old Love! Hast thou come so far 
 
 To find how cares may blight us, death may mar f ' 
 
FRIDA AND HER POET. 107 
 
 As ebbs a flood-tide, so his eager breath 
 
 Sank slowly. " Oh, the awful front of death P 
 
 He moaned. " Yet wherefore shudder? Thou, my 
 Love, 
 
 Art precious still; nor shalt thou move above, 
 
 An alien soul, albeit no longer fleet, 
 
 Nor fair, thou roam'st through Heaven with totter- 
 ing feet, 
 
 Bent, aged form, and face bedimmed by tears; 
 
 I only ask to 'know thee, while the years 
 
 Eternal roll!" 
 
 He bids a last farewell 
 To this world's life, again prepared to dwell 
 On heights celestial, in whose golden airs 
 The heart, at least, shall shed earth's wintry cares, 
 And blooming, breathe the vernal heats of Heaven. 
 
 Twice ransomed soul ! thou spirit that has striven 
 
 With countless ills, and conquered all thy foes, 
 
 Eise with the might of morning, the repose 
 
 Of moonlit night, and entering Heaven once more 
 
 Behold ! who first doth meet thee by the door, 
 
 With smiling brow, and gently parted lips, 
 
 And eyes wherein no vestige of eclipse 
 
108 POEMS OF PA UL II. HA YNE. 
 
 From pain, or death, or any evil thing, 
 Lies darkly, but whose passionate triumphing, 
 In peace attained, and true Jove crowned at last, 
 Hath such rare joy and sweetness round her cast, 
 She seems an Angel on the heights of bliss. 
 And yet a mortal maid 'twere heaven to kiss ! 
 
 To whom the Singer, in a voice that seems 
 Vague, and half-muffled in the mist of dreams : 
 " Art thou the little Frida that I knew 
 So long ah ! long ago ? Thine eyes are blue, 
 Deep blue like hers, and brimmed with tender dew, 
 Through which love's starlight smiles art thou, in 
 
 sooth, 
 The sweet, true-hearted Frida of my youth f ' 
 
 She drew more closely to the Poet's side, 
 
 And nestling her small hand in his, replied, 
 
 As half in tremulous wonder^ half delight : 
 
 " I am thy little Frida, in thy sight 
 
 Fair once, and well beloved Ah me ! ah me ! 
 
 Hast thou forgotten?" "Kay; but whose" (quoth 
 
 he,) 
 
 " Yon withered corse, on which I gazed below, 
 With pale shrunk limbs, and furrowed face of woe ? 
 
FRIDA AND HER POET. 109 
 
 Thy corse, thy face, they told me !" " Yea, but 
 
 know, 
 
 O Love! that earth, and things of earth, are passed: 
 That here, where, soul to soul, we meet at last, 
 The merciful Gods have made this wise decree : 
 Love, in Heaven's tongue^ means immortality 
 Of youth and joy ; then, wheresoever we go, 
 Loving and loved through these high courts divine, 
 Mine eyes eternal youth shall drink from thine ; 
 And thou fore verm ore shalt find in me 
 The tender maid who walked the world with thee, 
 Thy little Frida, loved so long ago \ n 
 
110 POEMS OF PAUL II. HAYNE. 
 
 In the Bower. 
 
 The gusty and passionate March hath died ; 
 And now in the golden April-tide 
 There sits in the shade of her jasmine bower 
 A maid more fair than an April flower. 
 
 The delicate curve of her perfect mouth, 
 Whose tints grow warm in the fervid South, 
 She stoops to press, as she murmurs low, 
 On a note upraised in her hand of snow. 
 
 What words are writ on the tiny scroll ? 
 What thoughts lie deep in the maiden's soul ! 
 Oh, is it with bliss of her love she sighs ? 
 Is the light but Love's in those shy brown eyes 
 
 So thinks the mock-bird trilling his lay 
 On the tremulous top of the lilac spray ; 
 He views the maid, on his perch apart, 
 And his song is meant for her secret heart. 
 
 So thinks the breeze, for its frolic free 
 
 With the rose's stem, and the wing o' the bee 
 
IN THE BOWER. Ill 
 
 It leaves, to sigh in the maiden's ear, 
 
 " He is coining, sweet ! he is almost here l n 
 
 So thinks the sun, for his ardent beams, 
 Grown mellow and soft as a virgin's dreams, 
 Through the vine-leaf shadows steal coyly down, 
 And she wears his light like a bridal crown. 
 
 Let the songster trill, and the breezes sigh, 
 And the sun weave crowns of his light i' the sky ; 
 She heeds them not, for a step is heard, 
 And her soul leaps up like a startled bird 
 
 Her soul leaps up, but it is not fear : 
 He is coming, sweet ! he is here ! is here ! 
 And she flies to his bosom, (ah ! panting dove,) 
 And is folded home on the heart of love ! 
 
112 POEMS OF PAUL H. I2AYXE. 
 
 TO 
 
 Fair Muse, beloved of all, tkou art no high 
 Imperious goddess of the mount or main, 
 But a sweet maiden of the pastoral plain, 
 To whom the hum of bees, the west wind's sigh, 
 The lapse of waters murmuring tranquilly, 
 Come, like soft music of a May-tide dream. 
 Yet, times there are when some imperial THEME, 
 Born of a stormy sunset's marvellous sky, 
 And heralded by thunder and fierce flame, 
 Sweeps o'er thy vision with a mien sublime, 
 And mighty voices, calling on thy name : 
 Then dost thou rise, exultant, thrilled, inspired, 
 Thy song a clarion lay that stirs our time, 
 Hot from the soul some secret God hath fired ! 
 
LUCIFER'S DEPUTY. 113 
 
 Lmcifert Bepmty. 
 
 A MEDIAEVAL LEGEND. 
 
 A Poet once, whose tuneful soul, perchance, 
 
 Too fondly leaned toward sin, and sin's romance, 
 
 On a long vanished eve, so calm and clear 
 
 Kone could have deemed an evil spirit near, 
 
 Brooding ill deeds, was summoned by a writ, 
 
 In the due form of Hades, to the Pit ; 
 
 A red-nosed, red-haired fiend the sunimoner, 
 
 About whose horrent head his locks did stir 
 
 Like half- waked serpents ! " Well," in wrath and 
 
 woe, 
 
 The Poet cried, " whom the De'il drives must go, 
 Whate'er the goal ! Yet much I wish that he 
 Had sent as guide some nobler fiend than thee, 
 Thou hideous varlet !" 
 
 " Come, keep cool, I say," 
 Counseled the other sagely, " while you may F 
 Whereon, as half in scorn and half in ire, 
 He haled the Poet to the realm of fire. 
 
114 POEMS OF PA UL II. HA YNE. 
 
 Arrived in bounds Hadean, a vast rout 
 Of fiends they met, who rushed tumultuous out, 
 Jo roam the earth and those doomed spirits snare 
 Who unsuspecting lived and acted there ; 
 Till in a few brief seconds the whole crew 
 Of crowding demons black, brown, green and blue- 
 All but their haughty chief, his form upreared 
 Through the red mist, had wildly disappeared. 
 Then said the dark archangel to the bard : 
 " Thine eye is bright, thou hast a shrewd regard 
 And, therefore, ere I likewise o'er the marge 
 Of Hades wing my way for some brief hours, 
 To thee I choose to delegate my powers 
 As chief and sovereign of this kingdom dread, 
 The which, if well thou guardest, by my head 
 Thy recompense, when I come back, shall be 
 A luscious tid-bit, garnished daintily 
 "No meaner entree than a roasted monk, 
 (Before he's cooked we'll make the rascal drunk, 
 To spice his juices /) ; or, if thou'dst prefer 
 Yon leaner and less succulent usurer, 
 Why, of our toil and time with trifling loss, 
 We'll serve Mm up, larded with golden sauce !" 
 
 But while the absent fiends their cunning tasked 
 
L UCIFEKS DEPUTY. 1 1 5 
 
 To trap unwary souls, thick cloaked and masked, 
 One entered Hades who did soon entice 
 Tli3 heedless bard to play a game at dice, 
 Staking the souls he held in charge thereon. 
 The stranger played superbly played, and won. 
 So, gathering round him the freed souls, with care 
 And kind despatch, safe to the outward air 
 He led them triumphing ; and all who now 
 Looked on his unmasked face and glorious brow 
 Knew that St. Peter stood amongst them there. 
 
 But when the devils, trooping homeward, found 
 Their kingdom void its conflagrations drowned 
 As 'twere by showers from Heaven such curses 
 
 rose 
 
 Like thunder bellowing through the strange repose 
 Which late had reigned the Poet's head whirled 
 
 round, 
 
 Stunned by the tumult. But ere long, with whirr 
 And furious whizz, his right hand Lucifer 
 Brought in such stinging contact with one cheek 
 And then the other, that our minstrel, weak 
 From pain and fear, sank trembling on the floor. 
 But sternly Satan pointed to the door, 
 Wherethrough his faithless guard, with many a kick 
 
116 POEMS OF PAUL II. HAYNE. 
 
 And echoing thump, and one swift merciless prick 
 Of a keen pitchfork, was thrust forth in shame 
 From out the empire of fierce grief and flame, 
 In even more woeful plight than when lie came ! 
 Then Lucifer upraised his arms and swore 
 A mighty oath that Hades' lurid door 
 No Poet's form should ever enter more ! 
 
 So, brother bards, whate'er ye write or do, 
 Be fearless. Hades holds no place for you : 
 Since if on earth men deem your worth but small, 
 Why there, 'tis plain, ye have no worth at all ! 
 
PREEX1STENCE. 11 \ 
 
 Freexistenee. 
 
 WMle sauntering through the crowded street, 
 Some half-reniembered face I meet, 
 
 Albeit upon no mortal shore 
 
 That face, methinks, hath smiled before. 
 
 Lost in a gay and festal throng, 
 I tremble at some tender song 
 
 Set to an air whose golden bars 
 I must have heard in other stars. 
 
 In sacred aisles I pause to share 
 The blessings of a priestly prayer 
 
 When the whole scene which greets mine eyes 
 In some strange mode I recognize 
 
 As one whose every mystic part 
 I feel prefigured in my heart. 
 
 At sunset, as I calmly stand, 
 A stranger on an alien strand 
 
118 POEMS OF PA UL U. II A YXK 
 
 Familiar as my childhood's home 
 
 Seems the long stretch of wave aiid foam. 
 
 One sails toward me o'er the bay, 
 And what he comes to do and say 
 
 I can foretell. A prescient lore 
 Springs from some life outlived of yore. 
 
 O swift, instinctive, startling gleams 
 Of deep soul-knowledge ! not as dreams 
 
 For aye ye vaguely dawn and die, 
 But oft with lightning certainty 
 
 Pierce through the dark, oblivious brain, 
 To make old thoughts and memories plain 
 
 Thoughts which perchance must travel back 
 Across the wild, bewildering track 
 
 Of countless 3ons ; memories far, 
 High-reaching as yon pallid star, 
 
 Unknown, scarce seen whose flickering grace 
 Faints on the outmost rings of space ! 
 
A THO USA ND YEA RS FR OM NO W. 119 
 
 A Tlonisaiad Years from low. 
 
 I sat within my tranquil room 5 
 
 The twilight shadows sank and rose 
 With slowly flickering motions, waved 
 
 Grotesquely through the dusk repose ; 
 There came a sudden thought to me, 
 
 Which thrilled the spirit, flushed the brow 
 A dream of what our world would be 
 
 A thousand years from now ! 
 
 If science on her heavenward search, 
 
 Rolling the stellar charts apart, 
 Or delving hour by hour to win 
 
 The secrets of earth's inmost heart 
 If that her future apes her past, 
 
 To what new marvels men must bow, 
 Marvels of land, and air, and sea, 
 
 A thousand years from now ! 
 
 If empires hold their wonted course, 
 And blind republics will not stay 
 
 To count the cost of laws which lead 
 Unerring to the State's decay 
 
120 POEMS OF PA UL H. II A YNE. 
 
 What changes vast of realm and rule, 
 The low upraised, the proud laid low, 
 
 Shall greet the unborn ages still, 
 A thousand years from now ! 
 
 Our creeds may change with mellowed times 
 
 Of nobler hope, and love increased, 
 And some new Advent flood the world 
 
 In glory from the haunted East 
 While souls on loftier heights of faith 
 
 May mark the mystic pathway grow 
 Clearer between their stand and heaven's, 
 
 A thousand years from now ! 
 
 These things may ~be I but what, perforce, 
 
 Must with the ruthless epochs pass ? 
 The millions 7 breath, the centuries 7 pomp, 
 
 Sure as the wane of flowers or grass ; 
 The earth so rich in tombs to-day, 
 
 There scarce seems space for death to sow, 
 Who, who shall count her churchyard wealth 
 
 A thousand years from now I 
 
 And we poor waifs ! whose life-term seems, 
 When matched with AFTER and BEFORE, 
 
 Brief as a summer wind's, or wave's 
 Breaking its frail heart upon the shore, 
 
A THO US AND YEA RS FR OM NOW. 121 
 
 We human toys that Fate sets up 
 
 To smite, or spare I marvel how 
 These souls shall fare, in what strange sphere, 
 
 A thousand years from now ? 
 
 Too vague, too faint for mortal ken 
 
 That far, phantasmal Future lies ; 
 But sweet ! one sacred truth I read, 
 
 Just kindling in your tear-dimmed eyes, 
 That States may rise, and States may set, 
 
 With age earth's tottering pillars bow, 
 But hearts like ours can ne'er forget, 
 
 And though we know not where, nor liow, 
 Our conscious love shall blossom yet, 
 
 A thousand years from now ! 
 
122 POEMS OF PA UL H. HA YNE. 
 
 I stood in twilight by the winter's sea $ 
 The spectral tides with hollow, hungry roar, 
 Broke massed and mighty on the shrinking shore. 
 The sea birds wailed ; the foam flew wild and free. 
 Ruthless as fate, upborne victoriously, 
 A fierce wind clove the billows urged afar 
 With vengeful rhythm toward the western star, 
 Just risen beyond a gaunt, grey cypress tree. 
 
 Then twilight waned in cloud-descending night, 
 The sole star died, as if some phantom hand 
 Wiped out its radiance ; in the void profound 
 The wind and waters (blended in one sound, 
 Awful, mysterious,) with invisible might 
 Thrilled the blank heavens, and smote the affrighted 
 strand ! 
 
WHEN ALL HAS BEEN SAID AND DO .YE. 1 23 
 
 Whena All tas toeein Said and Bone. 
 
 TO RICHARD HENRY STODDARD, 
 (In reply to his poem called "Wishing and Having.") 
 
 "Perhaps it will all come right at last; 
 
 It may be, when all is done, 
 We shall be together in some good world, 
 
 "Where to wish and to have are one." STODDARD. 
 
 O Friend ! be sure that a spirit came, 
 
 Tu the gloom of your saddened hour, 
 To plant that hope in your hopeless heart, 
 
 Like the seed of an Eden flower. 
 The seed may rest in your brooding- breast, 
 
 Half stifled in cold and night, 
 Or be only felt as a yearning dim 
 
 Toward comforting peace and light ; 
 But 'twill burst, some day, into perfect bloom, 
 
 And fruition be brightly won j 
 For the earth -life fades like a dream o' the dark 
 
 When all has been said and done ! 
 
 The earth-life fades in its sin and pain ; 
 But whatever of sweet and pure, 
 
124 POEMS OF PAUL H. HA YXE. 
 
 Breathed over its pallor and flashed its gloom, 
 
 Surviveth for evermore. 
 O, not as the ghost of a mortal joy, 
 
 But as Joy herself from the dead 
 Upraised to the clear, calm courts of Heaven, 
 
 With a halo around her head ; 
 7 Tis only the vile and the sad shall die 
 
 With the wane of an earthly sun, 
 And pass like a vision as man awakes 
 
 When all has been said and done ! 
 
 Do you think you have lost your days for aye 
 
 In the heart of the woods of spring, 
 By that seaside town that is glimpsed through mist, 
 
 Like the white of a petrel's wing ? 
 Do you think that the patter of tiny feet 
 
 Shall never come back again, 
 And that those whom the rage of Death had killed 
 
 Are in sooth forever slain ? 
 Look up ! look up ! as the Hope commands, 
 
 From the ruth of the angels won ; 
 The earth-woe fades like a dream o' the night, 
 
 When all has been said and done ! 
 
 O God, we wander in devious ways, 
 Till the end comes, stern and stark ; 
 
WHEN ALL HAS BEEN SAID AND DONE. 125 
 
 We lift our voices of useless wail 
 
 From the depths of the hollow Dark 5 
 Yet the Christ is there, though we see him not, 
 
 But only when sorrow lowers 
 Wildest, we feel through the hollow Dark 
 
 A strange, warm hand in ours ; 
 And a voice is heard in the music of Heaven, 
 
 Saying : " Courage and hope, O, son !" 
 The earth-woe fades like a dream o ? the night, 
 
 When all has been said and done ! 
 
120 POEMS OF PA UL II. II A YNE. 
 
 On the Death of Canon Ktagsley. 
 
 Mortals there are who seem, all over, flame, 
 Vitalized radiance, keen, intense, and high, 
 Whose souls, like planets in a dominant sky, 
 Burn with full forces of eternity : 
 
 Such was his soul, and such the light which came 
 From that pure heaven he lived in 5 holiest worth 
 Of will and work was his, to brighten earth, 
 Heal its foul wounds, and beautify its dearth. 
 
 He dwelt in clear white purity apart, 
 
 Yet walked the world 5 through many a sufferer's 
 
 door 
 
 He shone like morning 5 comfort streamed before 
 His footsteps ; on the feeble and the poor 
 
 He lavished the rich spikenard of his heart. 
 Christ's soldier ! to His trumpet-call he sprung, 
 Eager, elate ; valiant of pen and tongue, 
 Grand were the words he spake, the songs he sung. 
 
 Still, hero-priest ! born out of thy due time 
 Thou should'st have lived when on thine England's 
 sod 
 
ON THE DEATH OF CAXOX KINGSLEY. 127 
 
 Giants of faith and seers of freedom trod, 
 Daring all things to break the oppressor's rod. 
 
 Great in thine own age, thou had'st been sublime 
 In theirs that age of fervent, fruitful breath, 
 When, scorning treachery, and defying death, 
 Her true knights girt their loved Elizabeth, 
 
 Seeing on her the centuries 7 hopes were set ; 
 Then hadst thou ranged with Raleigh land and sea, 
 Bible and sword in hand, gone forth with Leigh, 
 The tyrant smote, the heathen folk made free ! 
 
 Yea! but to God and grace thou hast paid thy 
 
 debt, 
 
 In measure scarce less glorious and complete 
 Than theirs who bearded on his chosen seat 
 The bloody Antichrist ; or, fleet to fleet, 
 
 Thundered through storms of battle- wrack and fire 
 
 At Britain's Salanais ;* the heroic strain 
 
 Ean purpling all thy nature like a vein 
 
 Oped from God's heart to thine ; the loftiest plane 
 
 Of thought and action, purpose and desire 
 Thou trod'st on triumphing ; thy Viking's face 
 
 * Alluding to the defeat of the ''Invincible Armada. 1 ' 
 
128 POEMS OF PAUL II. HAYNE. 
 
 Showed granite-willed, yet softened into grace 
 
 By effluence of good deeds, the angelic race 
 
 Of prayers to prompt and aid them ! Fare thee 
 
 well, 
 
 Clear spirit and strong ! thy life-work nobly done, 
 Shines beautiful as some unsettmg sun 
 O'er Arctic summers ; chords of victory run 
 Even through the mournful boom of thy deep 
 
 funeral knell ! 
 
THUNDER A T MIDNIGHT. 129 
 
 Ttamte at Midnight. 
 
 At midnight wakening, through my startled brain 
 The sudden thunder crashed a chord of pain ; 
 
 I rose, and, awe-struck, hearkened ! overhead 
 In one long, loud, reverberant peal of dread, 
 
 Ceaseless it rolled, till as a sea of fire, 
 
 The climax gained, must wave by wave retire ; 
 
 So, half reluctant, up the heights of space 
 The refluent thunder softened into grace, 
 
 Its deep, harsh menace changed to murmurs low 
 As the lost south wind's, muffled in the snow ; 
 
 Waning through whisperous echoes less and less, 
 Till the last echo sleeps in gentleness. 
 
 Thus 'minded am I of that Law of Old 
 Which down the slopes of awful Sinai rolled, 
 
 Smote men with judgment terrors ; yet, at last, 
 The lightning flame and mystic tumult passed, 
 
130 POEMS OF PA UL II. II A YNE. 
 
 Lapsed down the ages, echoing less and less 
 Jehovah's wrath, till, changed to tenderness, 
 
 The vengeful Law, which once man's faith sufficed, 
 Melts into mercy on the heart of CHRIST ! 
 
THE ARCTIC VISITATION. 131 
 
 The Aretic YMtettoB. 
 
 Some air-born genius, with malignant mouth. 
 Breathed on the cold clouds of an Arctic zone 
 Which o'er long wastes of shore and ocean blown 
 Swept threatening, vast, toward the amazed South : 
 
 Over the land's fair form at first there stole 
 A van ward host of vapors, wild and white ; 
 Then loomed the main cloud cohorts, massed in 
 
 might, 
 Till earth lay corpse-like, reft of light and soul ; 
 
 Death- wan she lay, 'neath heavens as cold and pale; 
 All nature drooped toward darkness and despair ; 
 The dreary woodlands, and the ominous air 
 Were strangely haunted by a voice of wail. 
 
 The woeful sky slow passionless tears did weep, 
 Each shivering rain-drop frozen ere it fell ; 
 The woodman's axe rang like a muffled knell ; 
 Faintly the echoes answered, fraught with sleep. 
 
 The dawn seemed eve; noon, dawn eclipsed of 
 grace ; 
 
132 POEMS OF PAUL H. IIAYNE. 
 
 The evening, night ; and tender night became 
 A formless void, through which no starry flame 
 Touched the veiled splendor of her sorrowful face : 
 
 Like mourning nuns, sad-robed, funereal, bowed, 
 Day followed day ; the birds their quavering notes 
 Piped here and there from feeble, querulous throats. 
 Fierce cold beneath above, one riftless cloud 
 
 Wrapped the mute world for now all winds had 
 
 died 
 
 And, locked in ice, the fettered forests gave 
 No sign of life ; as silent as the grave 
 Gloomed the dim, desolate landscape far and wide. 
 
 Gazing on these, from out the mist one day 
 
 I saw, a shadow on the shadowy sky, 
 
 What seemed a phantom bird, that, faltering nigh, 
 
 Perched by the roof- tree on a withered spray; 
 
 With drooping breast he stood, and drooping head ; 
 This fateful time had wrought the minstrel wrong ; 
 Even as I gazed, our Southland lord of song 
 Dropped through the blasted branches, breathless, 
 dead! 
 
THE ARCTIC VISITATION. 133 
 
 Yet chillier grew the gray, world-haunting shade, 
 .Through which, inethought, quick, tremulous wings 
 
 were heard $ 
 
 Was it the ghost of that heartbroken bird 
 Bound for a land where sunlight cannot fade ? 
 
134 POEMS OF PAUL H. HAYXE. 
 
 The Vision in tie Valley, 
 
 Amid the loveliest of all lonely vales, 
 
 Couched in soft silences of mountain calm, 
 And broadly shadowed both by pine and palm, 
 
 O'er which a tremulous golden vapor sails 
 
 Forever, though unbreathed on by a breeze 
 Or any wind of heaven, serenely sleeps 
 A lucid fountain, from whose fathomless deeps 
 
 Come murmurs stranger than the twilight sea's. 
 
 That golden vapor, buoyed without a breath, 
 Tints to its own fair bloom the limpid tide, 
 
 Through which erewhile the solemn vision rose 
 Of a calm face, benignly glorified 
 
 By all -we dream or yearn for of pure rest 
 
 Profound, Lethean, passionless repose. 
 
 Still through the silence mystic murmurs sighed, 
 
 Fraught with far meanings, vague and unexpressed, 
 Till at the last, upbreathing, weird and near, 
 The voice of that pale phantom thrilled mine 
 ear 
 
 "Behold the face , the marvellous face, of DEATH !" 
 
THE WIXD OF OySET, 135 
 
 The Wiiad of Onset. 
 
 With potent north winds rushing swiftly down, 
 Blended in glorious chant, on yesternight 
 Old Winter came with locks and beard of white, 
 
 The hoarfrost glittering on his ancient crown : 
 
 He sent his icy breathings through the pane, 
 He raved and rattled at the close shut doors, 
 Then waned with hollow murmur down the moors, 
 
 To rise, revive and sweep the world again. 
 
 The chorus of great winds which gird him round 
 Hold many voices the deep trumpet's swell, 
 The air harp's mournful burden of farewell, 
 
 The fife's shrill tones, the clarion's silvery sound : 
 
 But o'er the roof-tree, 'round the gable rings 
 Loudest his WIND OF ONSET, hour by hour, 
 Till a new sense of almost rapturous power 
 
 Comes on the mighty waftage of his wings; 
 
 Sense of fresh hope and faith's rekindled glow, 
 The awakened aim, the brain drawn tense and 
 high, 
 
136 POEMS OF PA UL II. II A YNE. 
 
 To shoot its fierj^ thoughts against the sky, 
 
 Like arrows launched from some deft archer's 
 bow! 
 
 All latent forces of our being start 
 
 To marshalled order, ranged in battle line, 
 
 While the roused life-blood with a thrill divine 
 
 Buns tingling thro' the chambers of the heart. 
 
 \ 
 
 Summer is rich with dreams of languid tone ; 
 October sunsets feed the soul with light ; 
 But give me winter's Avar wind in his might, - 
 
 O'er the scourged lands and turbulent oceans 
 blown. 
 
VISIT OF MAHMOUD BEN SULEIM TO PARADISE. 137 
 
 The Ylslt of Maltimoiiid Bra Snlelm to 
 Paradise. 
 
 Beneath the shadow of a breezeless palm 
 Mahinoud Ben Suleim, in the evening calm, 
 Sat, with his gravely meditative eyes 
 Turned on the waning wonder of the skies ; 
 What time beside him paused a brother sage, 
 Whose flowing locks, like his, were white with age : 
 His gaze, a half- veiled fire, seemed sadly cast 
 Inward, to scan the records of his past 
 Perchance the Past of Man and thence to draw 
 From far experience, sanctified by awe 
 Of God's mysterious ways, some hint to tell 
 Who of the dead in Heaven and who in Hell 
 Dwelt now in endless bliss or endless bale. 
 
 Tims, while he mused, the old man's face grew pale 
 With stringent memories; on his laboring thought 
 Vague speculations, dim and doubtful wrought 
 From out the fragments of the vanished years. 
 At length he said: " Ben Suleim, lend thine ears 
 To that I faiii would ask thee. Thou art wise 
 
138 POEMS OF PA UL II. II A YNE. 
 
 In sacred lore, in pure philosophies ; 
 
 So tell me now thine inmost thought of Heaven 
 
 And Heaven's fair habitants." 
 
 a Whoe'er hath striven," 
 
 Ben Suleim answered, " to the extremes! verge 
 Of spiritual power, across death's dreary surge 
 Hatli passed, to find the fathomless peace of God !" 
 
 " Yea," quoth the other, smiting 011 the sod 
 His staff, impatiently. " I know ! I know ! 
 But who of all we have seen or loved below 
 Think'st thou in Aidenn ?" 
 
 Slowly from his lips, 
 
 Wrapped by the smoke- wreaths in a half-eclipse, 
 Ben Suleim's pipe was lowered : " My friend," said 
 
 he, 
 
 " Hark to this vision of eternity, 
 Which in the long-gone time of youth did seem 
 To rise "before me in a twilight dream. 
 Methought the life on earth had passed away, 
 That near me spread the new, immortal day 
 Of Paradise ; but yet mine eyes looked back 
 On this our clouded world, and marked the track 
 My waning life-course still left glimmering there. 
 Behold ! all dues of funeral dole arid prayer 
 
VISIT OF MAHMOUD BEN SULEIM TO PARADISE. 139 
 
 Mine lieirs had paid me ; through the cypress gloom 
 I saw the glitter of my new-made tomb, 
 Whereon so m^ny a blazoned virtue shone, 
 A blush seemed gathering o'er the hardened stone, 
 And I, albeit a spirit, flushed with shame. 
 Nathless, just then to Eden gates I came. 
 And, at the outmost wicket thundering loud, 
 Summoned full soon an angel from the cloud 
 Which girds those heavenly portals, blent with mist 
 Of shifting rainbow arcs of amethyst, 
 Who, somewhat harshly for an angel, said 
 I knocked as if an hundred thousand dead, 
 Kot one poor soul, besieged the heavenly door. 
 
 He raised his luminous hands, which hovered o'er 
 
 i 
 
 For a brief moment, like a flash of stars, 
 The sapphire brilliance of the circling bars, 
 Then one by one unclosed them. Entered in 
 The Realm celestial, safe from pain and sin, 
 I, stretched at ease, with shadows cool and dim 
 Floating about me, thus did question him : 
 ' Fair Seraph, speak. Is not this Land Divine, 
 Rife with pure souls, once faithful friends of mine F 
 t Xay ! be content if, wandering here and there, 
 Thou meet'st a few none in the loftiest sphere.' 
 < Where, then,' I cried, < is holy Ibii Becar ! 
 
140 POEMS OF PAUL H. HA YNE. 
 
 If not the highest he, surely not far 
 Beneath the highest that clear spirit beams T 
 'Ah ! thou art muffled still in earthly dreams/ 
 The angel answered. < If on him thou'dst call, 
 'Pass dowmvard, for he's not in Heaven at all!' 
 1 Dread Allah! can it be ? So just a man 
 Walked not, methought, the streets of Ispahan. 
 Morn after morn, year after year his feet, 
 Alike in summer's bloom and winter's sleet, 
 Bore him to worship in the sacred place. 
 What righteous zeal burned hotly in his face ! 
 And Avhen inspired his heavenly vows he made, 
 Or 'neath the innermost rnosque devoutly prayed, 
 Why, even the roaring Dervish, robed and cowled, 
 Shrunk from those pious lungs, which almost 
 
 howled 
 
 Creation deaf. A saint we deemed him one 
 Pure as the snow, yet ardent as the sun 
 Who, not content with turning toward the light 
 His own blest feet, must set on paths of right 
 All erring brethren !' i True,' the angel cried ; 
 < But Ibn Becar, down to the day he died, 
 Kept on his neighbor's ways so keen an eye 
 He lost at length his own straight course thereby ; 
 And, though the purblind World hath guessed it 
 
 not, 
 
VISIT 07 MAIIMOUD BEN' SULEDI TO PARADISE. 141 
 
 He bides in Eblis' Kingdom j fierce and hot 
 The waves of Hades roll above him now.' 
 Amazed, I bowed my head, just whispering low 
 An l Allah Kebur. 7 Next : ' How fares it, then,' 
 I asked, * with Hafiz, the wise scribe, whose pen 
 Signed many a deed of gift, and scored his name 
 High on the roll of charitable hearts T 
 Clear came the answer : l 'Mid thy public marts 
 No soul more sordid strove with Heaven to drive 
 Its wicked bargains. Largely would he give 
 To general charities ; but, sooth to say, 
 Whene'er he 'scaped the broad, bright gaze of Bay 
 He stamped with cruel heel the writhing poor, 
 Would turn the perishing beggar from his door, 
 And wring from friendless widows the last crust 
 Saved for their half-starved children. God is just 5 
 So Hafiz dwells not here.' 
 
 In faltering tone, 
 
 As dropped from one who deals with things un- 
 known, 
 
 I questioned next: 'Abdallah, he is saved f 
 i Nay ; for, albeit with seeming truth he braved 
 Temptation, and each wise and sacred saw, 
 Wrought from the precepts of our prophet's law, 
 Fell soft as Hybla's honey from his mouth, 
 
142 POEMS OF PA UL II. II A YNE. 
 
 Yet his whole nature withered in the drouth 
 Of drear hypocrisy. By stealth lie "bought 
 Strong waters of the Giaour, and nightly sought 
 Oblivion from sweet opiates of the South. 
 Sickness he feigned, to gain in these his cure ; 
 And once, that he might tipple more and more, 
 Motfed to a province rife with serpents dread, 
 Because, by such as knew his wiles, 'twas said 
 He drank the poison of each treacherous throat, 
 To seek in fiery wine an antidote. 
 Nathless, a serpent slew him and his home 
 Is far from ours. 7 
 
 My thoughts began to roam 
 Vaguely, in loose disorder. Yet again : 
 i What of Kalkarri, he whose songs of pain 
 And joy alike forever struck the key, 
 The under-note of golden purity, 
 Virtue his theme and heavenly love his muse T 
 c Thou fool and blind ! Kalkarri could not choose 
 But sing mellifluous verses ; yet in him 
 The light of truth was always blurred and dim. 
 A tireless trick of tinkling rhymes he had, 
 And nought he cared what spirit, good or bad, 
 Overruled his lay. The good, perchance, paid best ; 
 Therefore he sang of heavenly joy and rest, 
 
VISIT OF MAHMOUD BEN SULEIM TO PARADISE. 143 
 
 But sang of that whereof be shall not taste.' 
 1 Just Allah !' sighed I, i see what barren waste 
 Drinks up my hopes. Since none of all I named 
 Here for the sacred roll hath Allah claimed, 
 I pray thee tell me whom his will hath blessed. 7 
 'Dost thou remember Saadi?' 'What, that 
 
 wretch 
 
 Who shod the Bactrian camels who would fetch 
 Strange oaths from far to sow our wholesome air 
 With moral poison f * True, the man did swear, 7 
 Confessed the Bright One, sadly. l Yet so strong 
 His penitent sorrow o'er the hateful wrong 
 Done his own soul and Allah, and so rife 
 With tireless effort his whole earnest life 
 To smite the giant tempters in his soul 
 To kill them outright, or with firm control 
 Hold them in native darkness chained and cowed 
 At last he conquered, and our Lord allowed 
 His weary soul to quaff the founts of balm.' 
 
 Amazement held me dumb. Within the palni 
 Waving above, just then a whispering breeze 
 Eose, and passed up the long-ranked, radiant trees 
 Which lined the hills of Heaven. It seemed a sigh 
 Born of soft Mercy's immortality, 
 
144 POEMS OF PA UL II. If A YXK. 
 
 Wafted toward the throne ! Tho Bright One then, 
 
 Lifting his voice harmonious, spake again : 
 
 1 Ferdusi, the small merchant by the Quays, 
 
 Too poor to give, but with a heart as broad 
 
 As the broad sky, reverent of faith and God ; 
 
 Lslal-ed-Din, who, though IIG could not make 
 
 The commonest prayer, would yet exclaim Amen ! 
 
 To those who did, so warmly, for the sake 
 
 Of truth and fervent worship, all might see 
 
 His generous spirit's large sincerity 
 
 Both these are with us.' 
 
 < But, Wassaf,' said I, 
 
 The blameless 'teacher, who methinks came nigh 
 Virtue as pure as frail humanity 
 On earth may compass T i Yea j his soul is here, 
 But his soul wanders in the humblest sphere. 
 For, mark thee, though no damning sin did stain 
 This Wassaf 's record, still in blood and brain 
 So weak was he, his pale life-currents flowed 
 So like dull streamlets through a wan abode 
 Of windless deserts, that he lived and died 
 Ke'er by a sharp temptation terrified ; 
 And if his course the Prophet's law fulfilled, 
 And near his path all passionate gusts were 
 stilled, 
 
VISIT OF MAH2IOUD BEN SULEIM TO PARADISE. 145 
 
 What credit to him ! His to coldly live, 
 Act, fade a creature tamely negative. 
 But lo ! in naming contrast the hot stir 
 Of Agha's fate Agha, the llute player- 
 Glutton on earth, wine-bibber, and the rest, 
 He still is held in Heaven a nobler guest 
 Than all your Wassafs proper, crimeless, cool, 
 And soulless, almost, as a stagnant pool. 
 For Agha's blood a furious torrent ran; 
 Half brutal he, half tiger and half man, 
 In health and power, the body's lustful force, 
 Whose strength to fetter in its turbulent course 
 Had taxed an angel's will. His nature sore 
 Tormented him ; yet o'er and o'er and o'er 
 From some vast fall he lifted prayerful eyes, 
 And like a Titan strove to storm the skies, 
 Which, through unequalled strife and travails passed, 
 His hero-soul hath grandly won at last ! 
 
 No more ! no more !' the glorious Presence said. 
 < In light to come thy knowledge perfected 
 Shall bloom in flower and fruit ; but, Suleim, say, 
 Hast thou beheld the swift sky-rocket's ray 
 Burn up the heavens ? How beautiful at first 
 Its splendors gleamed, too soon, alas ! to burst 
 
14C POEMS OF PA UL II. II A TNE. 
 
 And die in outer darkness ! Thus it is 
 
 With many a soul, soaring, men dream, to bliss. 
 
 Awhile they mount, clear, dazzling, drunk with 
 
 light, 
 
 To sink in ruin and the desolate night. 
 Would'st know the true believer I He is one 
 Whose faith in deeds shines perfect as the sun. 
 His soul, a shaft feathered by works of grace, 
 Death, the grim archer, launches forth in space / 
 It cleaves the clouds, overshoots the vaporous wall 
 That waves Hwixt earth and heaven its mystic pall, 
 To ligJit, at last, unerring, strong and fleet, 
 In the deep calm which lies at Allah's feet V " 
 
MY DA UGHTER. 147 
 
 Thou liast thy mother's eyes, my child 
 Her deep dark eyes : the undefiled 
 Sweetness which breathes around her mouth, 
 A perfect rosebud of the south, 
 And the broad brow, as smooth to-day 
 As when in life's auspicious May 
 I clasped her to an ardent breast 
 With yearnings of divine unrest. 
 
 Thou hast thy mother's voice, as low 
 And soft as happy winds that blow 
 At springtime o'er the wild-bloom beds, 
 When the blue harebells lift their heads 
 To hearken to those strains of peace, 
 And through the lustrous day's decease 
 Drink in the sunset-beams that float 
 Downward from glittering airs remote. 
 
 Thou hast thy mother's heart, no less 
 Than all her body's loveliness 
 A heart as firmly brave and true, 
 O'er-brimining now with morning dew 
 
148 POEMS OF PAUL II. IIAYNE. 
 
 Of hopeful light as doth a flower ; 
 Yet strong to meet misfortune's hour, 
 And for the sake of loving ruth 
 Lie down and perish in its youth. 
 
 Child ! child ! so fair, so good thou art> 
 Sometimes an awful pang my heart 
 Pierces as thus I gaze on thee. 
 Too rare a thing thou seem'st to be 
 Long in this barren world to smile ; 
 Methinks, with many a heavenly wile, 
 Unseen, but felt, the angels stray 
 Near thee, to tempt thy soul away. 
 
 Oh ! heed them not. Why should they cull 
 My one sweet blossom ? Heaven is full 
 Of just such spirits. Leave her here, 
 Kind seraphs ! our poor joys to share, 
 Our griefs to brighten by her love ; 
 Pass on to your calm homes above, 
 And thus in mercy spare to earth 
 The angel of my heart and hearth. 
 
 'Tis strange, but yet so fresh and whole, 
 So radiant in my brain and soul 
 
M Y DA UGHTfiR. 
 
 Doth this enchanting image dwell, 
 
 This pure, unrivaled miracle 
 
 Of maidenhood and modest grace, 
 
 I vow that I behold her face, 
 
 Hear her low tones, and mark her mien, 
 
 So gentle, virginal, serene, 
 
 Clearly, as if her voice and brow, 
 
 In softest sooth, beguiled me now ; 
 
 As if, incarnate and benign, 
 
 She placed her little hand in mine, 
 
 And her long midnight tresses rare 
 
 Were mingling with my snow- touched hair. 
 
 And yet she only lives for me 
 
 In golden realms of fantasie, 
 
 A creature born of air and beam, 
 
 The delicate darling of a dream. 
 
150 POEMS OF PAUL II. IIAYXE. 
 
 (Our " Hmmfflta Bart. 
 
 Ah, well I know the reason why 
 They Galled her by that graceful name : 
 She seems a creature born with wings, 
 O'er which a rainbow spirit flings 
 Fair hues of softly shifting flame ; 
 Light is she as the changeful air, 
 Borne on gay humors everywhere, 
 
 Bewitchingly. 
 
 Her soul hath seldom breathed a sigh ; 
 No hint of care hath ever stirred 
 Her being ; sunshine and the breeze 
 Have been the fairy witnesses 
 Of all those joys our happy bird 
 Hath from the golden fountains drawn 
 Of youth unsullied as the dawn, 
 
 So lavishly. 
 
 Full many a flower, just hovering nigh, 
 In life's broad garden, rife with sweets, 
 She deftly drains of nectar dew ; 
 Then, sylph-like, sweeps o'er pathways new 
 
OUR "HUMMING BIRD:' 151 
 
 To taste some balmier bliss she meets ; 
 Now flashing fast through myrtle bowers, 
 Now clinging to red lips of flowers, 
 Capriciously. 
 
 Forbear, rash heart ! forbear to try 
 Our bird to capture with your wiles, 
 For, lo ! she glimmers like a beam 
 Of fancy, on from dream to dream ; 
 Vain are a lover's tears or smiles 
 To check her flight bewildering, 
 To tame her soul, or chain her wing 
 Submissively. 
 
 Nay ! let the dazzling fairy fly 
 From flower to flower, so gladly whirled ; 
 Cruel it were her matchless light 
 By one rude touch to dim or blight, 
 To see her luminous pinions furled 
 In grosser airs than those which stray 
 Hound the fresh rose-buds of the May, 
 Deliciously. 
 
152 POEMS OF PA UL If. HA YXE. 
 
 Sonnet. 
 
 Between the sunken sun and the fair moon 
 I stood, in fields through which a clear brook ran 
 With scarce perceptible motion ; not a span 
 Of its smooth surface trembling to the tune 
 Of sunset breezes ; " Ah ! delicious boon," 
 I sighed, " of quiet ; wise is Nature's plan, 
 Who in her realm, as in the soul of man, 
 Passes from storm to calm, from the loud noon 
 
 To dewy evening's soft and sacred lull : 
 Happy the heart that keeps its twilight hour, 
 And, in the depths of heavenly peace reclined, 
 Loves to commune with thoughts of tender power; 
 Thoughts that ascend like angels beautiful 
 A shining Jacob's ladder of the mind !" 
 
SONNET. 153 
 
 Sonnet 
 
 Along the path thy bleeding feet have trod, 
 O, Christian mother ! do the martyr- Years, 
 Patient in suffering, thro' the mist of tears 
 Uplift their brows thorn-circled unto God : 
 How bitterly onr Father's chastening rod 
 Hath ruled within thy term of mortal days ; 
 Yet in thy soul upspring the tones of praise 
 Freely as flowers from out a burial sod : 
 
 hath a tireless faith essayed in vain 
 To win from sorrow that diviner rest 
 Which, like a sunset purpling thro' the rain 
 Of dying storms, maketh the darkness blest; 
 Grief is transfigured, and dethroned Fears 
 Pale in the glory beckoning from the West. 
 
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