Isabella Valancy Crawford: Verses about Hair

SLOWLY the Moon her banderoles of light
Unfurls upon the sky; her fingers drip
Pale, silvery tides; her armoured warriors
Leave Day's bright tents of azure and of gold,
Wherein they hid them, and in silence flock
Upon the solemn battlefield of Night
To try great issues with the blind old king,
The Titan Darkness, who great Pharoah fought
With groping hands, and conquered for a span.

The starry hosts with silver lances prick
The scarlet fringes of the tents of Day,
And turn their crystal shields upon their breasts,
And point their radiant lances, and so wait
The stirring of the giant in his caves.

The solitary hills send long, sad sighs
As the blind Titan grasps their locks of pine
And trembling larch to drag him toward the sky,
That his wild-seeking hands may clutch the Moon
From her war-chariot, scythed and wheeled with light,
Crush bright-mailed stars, and so, a sightless king,
Reign in black desolation! Low-set vales
Weep under the black hollow of his foot,
While sobs the sea beneath his lashing hair
Of rolling mists, which, strong as iron cords,
Twine round tall masts and drag them to the reefs.

Swifter rolls up Astarte's light-scythed car;
Dense rise the jewelled lances, groves of light;
Red flouts Mars' banner in the voiceless war
(The mightiest combat is the tongueless one);
The silvery dartings of the lances prick
His fingers from the mountains, catch his locks
And toss them in black fragments to the winds,
Pierce the vast hollow of his misty foot,
Level their diamond tips against his breast,
And force him down to lair within his pit
And thro' its chinks thrust down his groping hands
To quicken Hell with horror-for the strength
That is not of the Heavens is of Hell.

The red chief Gheezis, chief of the golden wampum, lay
And watched the west-wind blow adrift the clouds,
With breath all flowery, that from his calumet
Curl'd like to smoke about the mountain tops.
Gheezis look'd from his wigwam, blue as little pools
Drained from the restless mother-wave, that lay
Dreaming in golden hollows of her sands;
And deck'd his yellow locks with feath'ry clouds,
And took his pointed arrows and so stoop'd
And leaning with his red hands on the hills,
Look'd with long glances all along the earth.
'Mudjekeewis, West-Wind, in amongst the forest,
'I see a maid, gold-hued as maize full ripe; her eyes
'Laugh under the dusk boughs like watercourses;
'Her moccasins are wrought with threads of light: her hands
'Are full of blue eggs of the robin, and of buds
'Of lilies, and green spears of rice: O Mudjekeewis,
'Who is the maid, gold-hued as maize full-ripen'd?'
'O sun, O Gheezis, that is Spring, is Segwun--woo her!'
'I cannot, for she hides behind the behmagut--
'The thick leav'd grape-vine, and there laughs upon me.'
'O Gheezis,' cried Segwun from behind the grape-vine.
'Thy arms are long but all too short to reach me,
'Thou art in heaven and I upon the earth!'
Gheezis, with long, golden fingers tore the grape-vine,
But Segwun laughed upon him from behind
A maple, shaking little leaves of gold fresh-budded.
'Gheezis, where are thy feet, O sun, O chief?'
'Follow,' sigh'd Mudjekeewis, 'Gheezis must wed
'With Spring, with Segwun, or all nature die.'
The red chief Gheezis swift ran down the hills,
And as he ran the pools and watercourses
Snatch'd at his yellow hair; the thickets caught
Its tendrils on their brambles; and the buds
That Segwun dropp'd, opened as they touched.
His moccasins were flame, his wampum gold;
His plumes were clouds white as the snow, and red
As Sumach in the moon of falling leaves.
He slipp'd beside the maple, Segwun laugh'd.
'O Gheezis, I am hid amid the lily-pads,
'And thou hast no canoe to seek me there; farewell!'
'I see thine eyes, O Segwun, laugh behind the buds;
'The Manitou is love, and gives me love, and love
'Gives all of power.' His moccasins wide laid
Red tracks upon the waves: When Segwun leap'd
Gold-red and laughing from the lily-pads,
To flit before him like a fire-fly, she found
The golden arms of Gheezis round her cast, the buds
Burst into flower in her hands, and all the earth
Laughing where Gheezis look'd; and Mudjekeewis,
Heart friend of Gheezis, laugh'd, 'Now life is come
'Since Segwun and red Gheezis wed and reign!'

When the moon was horned the mother died,
And the child pulled at her hand and knee,
And he rubbed her cheek and loudly cried:
'O mother, arise, give bread to me!'
But the pine tree bent its head,
And the wind at the door-post said:
'O child, thy mother is dead !'
The sun set his loom to weave the day;
The frost bit sharp like a silent cur;
The child by her pillow paused in his play:
'Mother, build up the sweet fire of fir !'
But the fir tree shook its cones,
And loud cried the pitiful stones:
'Wolf Death has thy mother's bones!'

They bore the mother out on her bier;
Their tears made warm her breast and shroud;
The smiling child at her head stood near;
And the long, white tapers shook and bowed,
And said with their tongues of gold,
To the ice lumps of the grave mold:
'How heavy are ye and cold!'

They buried the mother; to the feast
They flocked with the beaks of unclean crows.
The wind came up from the red-eyed east
And bore in its arms the chill, soft snows.
They said to each other: 'Sere
Are the hearts the mother held dear;
Forgotten, her babe plays here!'

The child with the tender snowflakes played,
And the wind on its fingers twined his hair;
And still by the tall, brown grave he stayed,
Alone in the churchyard lean and bare.
The sods on the high grave cried
To the mother's white breast inside:
'Lie still; in thy deep rest bide!'

Her breast lay still like a long-chilled stone,
Her soul was out on the bleak, grey day;
She saw her child by the grave alone,
With the sods and snow and wind at play.
Said the sharp lips of the rush,
'Red as thy roses,O bush,
With anger the dead can blush !'

A butterfly to the child's breast flew,*
Fluttered its wings on his sweet, round cheek,
Danced by his fingers, small, cold and blue.
The sun strode down past the mountain peak.
The butterfly whispered low
To the child: 'Babe, follow me; know,
Cold is the earth here below.'

The butterfly flew; followed the child,
Lured by the snowy torch of its wings;
The wind sighed after them soft and wild
Till the stars wedded night with golden rings
Till the frost upreared its head,
And the ground to it groaned and said:
'The feet of the child are lead!'

The child's head drooped to the brown, sere mold,
On the crackling cones his white breast lay;
The butterfly touched the locks of gold,
The soul of the child sprang from its clay.
The moon to the pine tree stole,
And silver-lipped, said to its bole:
'How strong is the mother's soul !'

The wings of the butterfly grew out
To the mother's arms, long, soft and white;
She folded them warm her babe about,
She kissed his lips into berries bright,
She warmed his soul on her breast;
And the east called out to the west:
'Now the mother's soul will rest!'

Under the roof where the burial feast
Was heavy with meat and red with wine,
Each crossed himself as out of the east
A strange wind swept over oak and pine.
The trees to the home-roof said:
' 'Tis but the airy rush and tread
Of angels greeting thy dead.'

Said the high hill, in the morning: 'Look on me--
'Behold, sweet earth, sweet sister sky, behold
'The red flames on my peaks, and how my pines
'Are cressets of pure gold; my quarried scars
'Of black crevase and shadow-fill'd canon,
'Are trac'd in silver mist. How on my breast
'Hang the soft purple fringes of the night;
'Close to my shoulder droops the weary moon,
'Dove-pale, into the crimson surf the sun
'Drives up before his prow; and blackly stands
'On my slim, loftiest peak, an eagle, with
'His angry eyes set sunward, while his cry
'Falls fiercely back from all my ruddy heights;
'And his bald eaglets, in their bare, broad nest,
'Shrill pipe their angry echoes: ''Sun, arise,
''And show me that pale dove, beside her nest,
''Which I shall strike with piercing beak and tear
''With iron talons for my hungry young.''
And that mild dove, secure for yet a space,
Half waken'd, turns her ring'd and glossy neck
To watch dawn's ruby pulsing on her breast,
And see the first bright golden motes slip down
The gnarl'd trunks about her leaf-deep nest,
Nor sees nor fears the eagle on the peak.

* * * * *

'Aye, lassie, sing--I'll smoke my pipe the while,
'And let it be a simple, bonnie song,
'Such as an old, plain man can gather in
'His dulling ear, and feel it slipping thro'
'The cold, dark, stony places of his heart.'
'Yes, sing, sweet Kate,' said Alfred in her ear;
'I often heard you singing in my dreams
'When I was far away the winter past.'
So Katie on the moonlit window lean'd,
And in the airy silver of her voice
Sang of the tender, blue 'Forget-me-not.'

Could every blossom find a voice,
And sing a strain to me;
I know where I would place my choice,
Which my delight should be.
I would not choose the lily tall,
The rose from musky grot;
But I would still my minstrel call
The blue 'Forget-me-not!'

And I on mossy bank would lie
Of brooklet, ripp'ling clear;
And she of the sweet azure eye,
Close at my list'ning ear,
Should sing into my soul a strain
Might never be forgot--
So rich with joy, so rich with pain
The blue 'Forget-me-not!'

Ah, ev'ry blossom hath a tale
With silent grace to tell,
From rose that reddens to the gale
To modest heather bell;
But O, the flow'r in ev'ry heart
That finds a sacred spot
To bloom, with azure leaves apart,
Is the 'Forget-me-not!'

Love plucks it from the mosses green
When parting hours are nigh,
And places it loves palms between,
With many an ardent sigh;
And bluely up from grassy graves
In some lov'd churchyard spot,
It glances tenderly and waves,
The dear 'Forget-me-not!'

And with the faint last cadence, stole a glance
At Malcolm's soften'd face--a bird-soft touch
Let flutter on the rugged silver snarls
Of his thick locks, and laid her tender lips
A second on the iron of his hand.
'And did you ever meet,' he sudden ask'd,
Of Alfred, sitting pallid in the shade,
'Out by yon unco place, a lad,--a lad
'Nam'd Maxwell Gordon; tall, and straight, and strong;
'About my size, I take it, when a lad?'
And Katie at the sound of Max's name,
First spoken for such space by Malcolm's lips,
Trembl'd and started, and let down her brow,
Hiding its sudden rose on Malcolm's arm.
'Max Gordon? Yes. Was he a friend of yours?'
'No friend of mine, but of the lassie's here--
'How comes he on? I wager he's a drone,
'And never will put honey in the hive.'
'No drone,' said Alfred, laughing; 'when I left
'He and his axe were quarr'ling with the woods
'And making forests reel--love steels a lover's arm.'
O, blush that stole from Katie's swelling heart,
And with its hot rose brought the happy dew
Into her hidden eyes. 'Aye, aye! is that the way?'
Said Malcolm smiling. 'Who may be his love?'
'In that he is a somewhat simple soul,
'Why, I suppose he loves--' he paused, and Kate
Look'd up with two 'forget-me-nots' for eyes,
With eager jewels in their centres set
Of happy, happy tears, and Alfred's heart
Became a closer marble than before.
'--Why I suppose he loves--his lawful wife.'
'His wife! his wife!' said Malcolm, in a maze,
And laid his heavy hand on Katie's head;
'Did you play me false, my little lass?
'Speak and I'll pardon! Katie, lassie, what?'
'He has a wife,' said Alfred, 'lithe and bronz'd,
'An Indian woman, comelier than her kind;
'And on her knee a child with yellow locks,
'And lake-like eyes of mystic Indian brown.
'And so you knew him? He is doing well.'
'False, false!' said Katie, lifting up her head.
'O, you know not the Max my father means!'
'He came from yonder farm-house on the slope.'
'Some other Max--we speak not of the same.'
'He has a red mark on his temple set.'
'It matters not--'tis not the Max we know.'
'He wears a turquoise ring slung round his neck.'
'And many wear them--they are common stones.'
'His mother's ring--her name was Helen Wynde.'
'And there be many Helens who have sons.'
'O Katie, credit me--it is the man.'
'O not the man! Why, you have never told
'Us of the true soul that the true Max has;
'The Max we know has such a soul, I know.'
'How know you that, my foolish little lass?'
Said Malcolm, a storm of anger bound
Within his heart, like Samson with green withs--
'Belike it is the false young cur we know!'
'No, no,' said Katie, simply, and low-voic'd;
'If he were traitor I must needs be false,
'For long ago love melted our two hearts.
'And time has moulded those two hearts in one,
'And he is true since I am faithful still.'
She rose and parted, trembling as she went,
Feeling the following steel of Alfred's eyes,
And with the icy hand of scorn'd mistrust
Searching about the pulses of her heart--
Feeling for Max's image in her breast.
'To-night she conquers Doubt; to-morrow's noon
'His following soldiers sap the golden wall,
'And I shall enter and possess the fort,'
Said Alfred, in his mind. 'O Katie, child,
'Wilt thou be Nemesis, with yellow hair,
'To rend my breast? for I do feel a pulse
'Stir when I look into thy pure-barb'd eyes--
'O, am I breeding that false thing, a heart?
'Making my breast all tender for the fangs
'Of sharp Remorse to plunge their hot fire in.
'I am a certain dullard! Let me feel
'But one faint goad, fine as a needle's point,
'And it shall be the spur in my soul's side
'To urge the madd'ning thing across the jags
'And cliffs of life, into the soft embrace
'Of that cold mistress, who is constant too,
'And never flings her lovers from her arms--
'Not Death, for she is still a fruitful wife,
'Her spouse the Dead, and their cold marriage yields
'A million children, born of mould'ring flesh--
'So Death and Flesh live on--immortal they!
'I mean the blank-ey'd queen whose wassail bowl
'Is brimm'd from Lethe, and whose porch is red
'With poppies, as it waits the panting soul--
'She, she alone is great! No scepter'd slave
'Bowing to blind creative giants, she;
'No forces seize her in their strong, mad hands,
'Nor say, ''Do this--be that!'' Were there a God,
'His only mocker, she, great Nothingness!
'And to her, close of kin, yet lover too,
'Flies this large nothing that we call the soul.'

* * * * *

'Doth true Love lonely grow?
Ah, no! ah, no!
Ah, were it only so--
That it alone might show
Its ruddy rose upon its sapful tree,
Then, then in dewy morn,
Joy might his brow adorn
With Love's young rose as fair and glad as he.'

* * * * *

But with Love's rose doth blow
Ah, woe! ah, woe!
Truth with its leaves of snow,
And Pain and Pity grow
With Love's sweet roses on its sapful tree!
Love's rose buds not alone,
But still, but still doth own
A thousand blossoms cypress-hued to see!

* * * * *

'Who curseth Sorrow knows her not at all.
Dark matrix she, from which the human soul
Has its last birth; whence, with its misty thews,
Close-knitted in her blackness, issues out;
Strong for immortal toil up such great heights,
As crown o'er crown rise through Eternity,
Without the loud, deep clamour of her wail,
The iron of her hands; the biting brine
Of her black tears; the Soul but lightly built
of indeterminate spirit, like a mist
Would lapse to Chaos in soft, gilded dreams,
As mists fade in the gazing of the sun.
Sorrow, dark mother of the soul, arise!
Be crown'd with spheres where thy bless'd children dwell,
Who, but for thee, were not. No lesser seat
Be thine, thou Helper of the Universe,
Than planet on planet pil'd!--thou instrument,
Close-clasp'd within the great Creative Hand!'

* * * * *

The Land had put his ruddy gauntlet on,
Of Harvest gold, to dash in Famine's face.
And like a vintage wain, deep dy'd with juice,
The great moon falter'd up the ripe, blue sky,
Drawn by silver stars--like oxen white
And horn'd with rays of light--Down the rich land
Malcolm's small valleys, fill'd with grain, lip-high,
Lay round a lonely hill that fac'd the moon,
And caught the wine-kiss of its ruddy light.
A cusp'd, dark wood caught in its black embrace
The valleys and the hill, and from its wilds,
Spic'd with dark cedars, cried the Whip-poor-will.
A crane, belated, sail'd across the moon;
On the bright, small, close link'd lakes green islets lay,
Dusk knots of tangl'd vines, or maple boughs,
Or tuft'd cedars, boss'd upon the waves.
The gay, enamell'd children of the swamp
Roll'd a low bass to treble, tinkling notes
Of little streamlets leaping from the woods.
Close to old Malcolm's mills, two wooden jaws
Bit up the water on a sloping floor;
And here, in season, rush'd the great logs down,
To seek the river winding on its way.
In a green sheen, smooth as a Naiad's locks,
The water roll'd between the shudd'ring jaws--
Then on the river level roar'd and reel'd--
In ivory-arm'd conflict with itself.
'Look down,' said Alfred, 'Katie, look and see
'How that but pictures my mad heart to you.
'It tears itself in fighting that mad love
'You swear is hopeless--hopeless--is it so?'
'Ah, yes!' said Katie, 'ask me not again.'
'But Katie, Max is false; no word has come,
'Nor any sign from him for many months,
'And--he is happy with his Indian wife.'
She lifted eyes fair as the fresh grey dawn
with all its dews and promises of sun.
'O, Alfred!--saver of my little life--
'Look in my eyes and read them honestly.'
He laugh'd till all the isles and forests laugh'd.
'O simple child! what may the forest flames
'See in the woodland ponds but their own fires?
'And have you, Katie, neither fears nor doubts?'
She, with the flow'r soft pinkness of her palm
Cover'd her sudden tears, then quickly said:
'Fears--never doubts, for true love never doubts.'
Then Alfred paus'd a space, as one who holds
A white doe by the throat and searches for
The blade to slay her. 'This your answer still--
'You doubt not--doubt not this far love of yours,
'Tho' sworn a false young recreant, Kate, by me?'
'He is as true as I am,' Katie said;
'And did I seek for stronger simile,
'I could not find such in the universe!'
'And were he dead? what, Katie, were he dead--
'A handful of brown dust, a flame blown out--
'What then would love be strongly, true to--Naught?'
'Still, true to love my love would be,' she said,
And faintly smiling, pointed to the stars.
'O fool!' said Alfred, stirr'd--as craters rock
'To their own throes--and over his pale lips
Roll'd flaming stone, his molten heart. 'Then, fool--
'Be true to what thou wilt--for he is dead.
'And there have grown this gilded summer past
'Grasses and buds from his unburied flesh.
'I saw him dead. I heard his last, loud cry:
''O Kate!' ring thro' the woods; in truth I did.'
She half-raised up a piteous, pleading hand,
Then fell along the mosses at his feet.
'Now will I show I love you, Kate,' he said,
'And give you gift of love; you shall not wake
'To feel the arrow, feather-deep, within
'Your constant heart. For me, I never meant
'To crawl an hour beyond what time I felt
'The strange, fang'd monster that they call Remorse
'Fold found my waken'd heart. The hour has come;
'And as Love grew, the welded folds of steel
'Slipp'd round in horrid zones. In Love's flaming eyes
'Stared its fell eyeballs, and with Hydra head
'It sank hot fangs in breast, and brow and thigh.
'Come, Kate! O Anguish is a simple knave
'Whom hucksters could outwit with small trade lies,
'When thus so easily his smarting thralls,
'May flee his knout! Come, come, my little Kate;
'The black porch with its fringe of poppies waits--
'A propylaleum hospitably wide.
'No lictors with their fasces at its jaws,
'Its floor as kindly to my fire-vein'd feet
'As to thy silver, lilied, sinless ones.
'O you shall slumber soundly, tho' the white,
'Wild waters pluck the crocus of your hair;
'And scaly spies stare with round, lightless eyes
'At your small face laid on my stony breast.
'Come, Kate! I must not have you wake, dear heart,
'To hear you cry, perchance, on your dead Max.'
He turn'd her still, face close upon his breast,
And with his lips upon her soft, ring'd hair,
Leap'd from the bank, low shelving o'er the knot
Of frantic waters at the long slide's foot.
And as the sever'd waters crash'd and smote
Together once again,--within the wave
Stunn'd chamber of his ear there peal'd a cry:
'O Kate! stay, madman; traitor, stay! O Kate!'

* * * * *

Max, gaunt as prairie wolves in famine time,
With long drawn sickness, reel'd upon the bank--
Katie, new-rescu'd, waking in his arms.
On the white riot of the waters gleam'd,
The face of Alfred, calm, with close-seal'd eyes,
And blood red on his temple where it smote
The mossy timbers of the groaning slide.
'O God!' said Max, as Katie's opening eyes
Looked up to his, slow budding to a smile
Of wonder and of bliss, 'My Kate, my Kate!'
She saw within his eyes a larger soul
Than that light spirit that before she knew,
And read the meaning of his glance and words.
'Do as you will, my Max. I would not keep
'You back with one light-falling finger-tip!'
And cast herself from his large arms upon
The mosses at his feet, and hid her face
That she might not behold what he would do;
Or lest the terror in her shining eyes
Might bind him to her, and prevent his soul
Work out its greatness; and her long, wet hair
Drew, mass'd, about her ears, to shut the sound
Of the vex'd waters from her anguish'd brain.
Max look'd upon her, turning as he look'd.
A moment came a voice in Katie's soul:
'Arise, be not dismay'd; arise and look;
'If he should perish, 'twill be as a God,
'For he would die to save his enemy.'
But answer'd her torn heart: 'I cannot look--
'I cannot look and see him sob and die;
'In those pale, angry arms. O, let me rest
'Blind, blind and deaf until the swift pac'd end.
'My Max! O God--was that his Katie's name?'
Like a pale dove, hawk-hunted, Katie ran,
Her fear's beak in her shoulder; and below,
Where the coil'd waters straighten'd to a stream,
Found Max all bruis'd and bleeding on they bank,
But smiling with man's triumph in his eyes,
When he has on fierce Danger's lion neck
Plac'd his right hand and pluck'd the prey away.
And at his feet lay Alfred, still and while,
A willow's shadow tremb'ling on his face,
'There lies the false, fair devil, O my Kate,
'Who would have parted us, but could not, Kate!'
'But could not, Max,' said Katie. 'Is he dead?'
But, swift perusing Max's strange, dear face,
Close clasp'd against his breast--forgot him straight
And ev'ry other evil thing upon
The broad green earth.

* * * * *
Malcolm's Katie: A Love Story - Part VII.
Again rang out the music of the axe,
And on the slope, as in his happy dreams,
The home of Max with wealth of drooping vines
On the rude walls, and in the trellis'd porch
Sat Katie, smiling o'er the rich, fresh fields;
And by her side sat Malcolm, hale and strong;
Upon his knee a little, smiling child,
Nam'd--Alfred, as the seal of pardon set
Upon the heart of one who sinn'd and woke
to sorrow for his sins--and whom they lov'd
With gracious joyousness--nor kept the dusk
Of his past deeds between their hearts and his.
Malcolm had follow'd with his flocks and herds
When Max and Katie, hand in hand, went out
From his old home; and now, with slow, grave smile
He said to Max, who twisted Katie's hair
About his naked arm, bare from his toil:
'It minds me of old times, this house of yours;
'It stirs my heart to hearken to the axe,
'And hear the windy crash of falling trees;
'Aye, these fresh forests make an old man young.'
'Oh, yes!' said Max, with laughter in his eyes;
'And I do truly think that Eden bloom'd
'Deep in the heart of tall, green maple groves,
'With sudden scents of pine from mountain sides
'And prairies with their breasts against the skies.
'And Eve was only little Katie's height.'
'Hoot, lad! you speak as ev'ry Adam speaks
'About his bonnie Eve; but what says Kate?'
'O Adam had not Max's soul,' she said;
'And these wild woods and plains are fairer far
'Than Eden's self. O bounteous mothers they!
'Beck'ning pale starvelings with their fresh, green hands,
'And with their ashes mellowing the earth,
'That she may yield her increase willingly.
'I would not change these wild and rocking woods,
'Dotted by little homes of unbark'd trees,
'Where dwell the fleers from the waves of want,--
'For the smooth sward of selfish Eden bowers,
'Nor--Max for Adam, if I knew my mind!'

The South Wind laid his moccasins aside,
Broke his gay calumet of flow'rs, and cast
His useless wampun, beaded with cool dews,
Far from him, northward; his long, ruddy spear
Flung sunward, whence it came, and his soft locks
Of warm, fine haze grew silver as the birch.
His wigwam of green leaves began to shake;
The crackling rice-beds scolded harsh like squaws:
The small ponds pouted up their silver lips;
The great lakes ey'd the mountains, whisper'd 'Ugh!'
'Are ye so tall, O chiefs? Not taller than
Our plumes can reach.' And rose a little way,
As panthers stretch to try their velvet limbs,
And then retreat to purr and bide their time.
At morn the sharp breath of the night arose
From the wide prairies, in deep struggling seas,
In rolling breakers, bursting to the sky;
In tumbling surfs, all yellow'd faintly thro'
With the low sun--in mad, conflicting crests,
Voic'd with low thunder from the hairy throats
Of the mist-buried herds; and for a man
To stand amid the cloudy roll and moil,
The phantom waters breaking overhead,
Shades of vex'd billows bursting on his breast,
Torn caves of mist wall'd with a sudden gold,
Reseal'd as swift as seen--broad, shaggy fronts,
Fire-ey'd and tossing on impatient horns
The wave impalpable--was but to think
A dream of phantoms held him as he stood.
The late, last thunders of the summer crash'd,
Where shrieked great eagles, lords of naked cliffs.
The pulseless forest, lock'd and interlock'd
So closely, bough with bough, and leaf with leaf,
So serf'd by its own wealth, that while from high
The moons of summer kiss'd its green-gloss'd locks;
And round its knees the merry West Wind danc'd;
And round its ring, compacted emerald;
The south wind crept on moccasins of flame;
And the fed fingers of th' impatient sun
Pluck'd at its outmost fringes--its dim veins
Beat with no life--its deep and dusky heart,
In a deep trance of shadow, felt no throb
To such soft wooing answer: thro' its dream
Brown rivers of deep waters sunless stole;
Small creeks sprang from its mosses, and amaz'd,
Like children in a wigwam curtain'd close
Above the great, dead, heart of some red chief,
Slipp'd on soft feet, swift stealing through the gloom,
Eager for light and for the frolic winds.
In this shrill moon the scouts of winter ran
From the ice-belted north, and whistling shafts
Struck maple and struck sumach--and a blaze
Ran swift from leaf to leaf, from bough to bough;
Till round the forest flash'd a belt of flame.
And inward lick'd its tongues of red and gold
To the deep, tranied inmost heart of all.
Rous'd the still heart--but all too late, too late.
Too late, the branches welded fast with leaves,
Toss'd, loosen'd, to the winds--too late the sun
Pour'd his last vigor to the deep, dark cells
Of the dim wood. The keen, two-bladed Moon
Of Falling Leaves roll'd up on crested mists
And where the lush, rank boughs had foiled the sun
In his red prime, her pale, sharp fingers crept
After the wind and felt about the moss,
And seem'd to pluck from shrinking twig and stem
The burning leaves--while groan'd the shudd'ring wood.
Who journey'd where the prairies made a pause,
Saw burnish'd ramparts flaming in the sun,
With beacon fires, tall on their rustling walls.
And when the vast, horn'd herds at sunset drew
Their sullen masses into one black cloud,
Rolling thund'rous o'er the quick pulsating plain,
They seem'd to sweep between two fierce red suns
Which, hunter-wise, shot at their glaring balls
Keen shafts, with scarlet feathers and gold barbs,
By round, small lakes with thinner, forests fring'd,
More jocund woods that sung about the feet
And crept along the shoulders of great cliffs;
The warrior stags, with does and tripping fawns,
Like shadows black upon the throbbing mist
Of Evening's rose, flash'd thro' the singing woods--
Nor tim'rous, sniff'd the spicy, cone-breath'd air;
For never had the patriarch of the herd
Seen limn'd against the farthest rim of light
Of the low-dipping sky, the plume or bow
Of the red hunter; nor when stoop'd to drink,
Had from the rustling rice-beds heard the shaft
Of the still hunter hidden in its spears;
His bark canoe close-knotted in its bronze,
His form as stirless as the brooding air,
His dusky eyes too, fix'd, unwinking, fires;
His bow-string tighten'd till it subtly sang
To the long throbs, and leaping pulse that roll'd
And beat within his knotted, naked breast.
There came a morn. The Moon of Falling Leaves,
With her twin silver blades had only hung
Above the low set cedars of the swamp
For one brief quarter, when the sun arose
Lusty with light and full of summer heat,
And pointing with his arrows at the blue,
Clos'd wigwam curtains of the sleeping moon,
Laugh'd with the noise of arching cataracts,
And with the dove-like cooing of the woods,
And with the shrill cry of the diving loon
And with the wash of saltless, rounded seas,
And mock'd the white moon of the Falling Leaves.
'Esa! esa! shame upon you, Pale Face!
'Shame upon you, moon of evil witches!
'Have you kill'd the happy, laughing Summer?
'Have you slain the mother of the Flowers
'With your icy spells of might and magic?
'Have you laid her dead within my arms?
'Wrapp'd her, mocking, in a rainbow blanket.
'Drown'd her in the frost mist of your anger?
'She is gone a little way before me;
'Gone an arrow's flight beyond my vision;
'She will turn again and come to meet me,
'With the ghosts of all the slain flowers,
'In a blue mist round her shining tresses;
'In a blue smoke in her naked forests--
'She will linger, kissing all the branches,
'She will linger, touching all the places,
'Bare and naked, with her golden fingers,
'Saying, 'Sleep, and dream of me, my children
''Dream of me, the mystic Indian Summer;
''I, who, slain by the cold Moon of Terror,
''Can return across the path of Spirits,
''Bearing still my heart of love and fire;
''Looking with my eyes of warmth and splendour;
''Whisp'ring lowly thro' your sleep of sunshine?
''I, the laughing Summer, am not turn'd
''Into dry dust, whirling on the prairies,--
''Into red clay, crush'd beneath the snowdrifts.
''I am still the mother of sweet flowers
''Growing but an arrow's flight beyond you--
''In the Happy Hunting Ground--the quiver
''Of great Manitou, where all the arrows
''He has shot from his great bow of Pow'r,
''With its clear, bright, singing cord of Wisdom,
''Are re-gather'd, plum'd again and brighten'd,
''And shot out, re-barb'd with Love and Wisdom;
''Always shot, and evermore returning.
''Sleep, my children, smiling in your heart-seeds
''At the spirit words of Indian Summer!''
'Thus, O Moon of Falling Leaves, I mock you!
'Have you slain my gold-ey'd squaw, the Summer?'
The mighty morn strode laughing up the land,
And Max, the labourer and the lover, stood
Within the forest's edge, beside a tree;
The mossy king of all the woody tribes,
Whose clatt'ring branches rattl'd, shuddering,
As the bright axe cleav'd moon-like thro' the air,
Waking strange thunders, rousing echoes link'd
From the full, lion-throated roar, to sighs
Stealing on dove-wings thro' the distant aisles.
Swift fell the axe, swift follow'd roar on roar,
Till the bare woodland bellow'd in its rage,
As the first-slain slow toppl'd to his fall.
'O King of Desolation, art thou dead?'
Thought Max, and laughing, heart and lips, leap'd on
The vast, prone trunk. 'And have I slain a King?
'Above his ashes will I build my house--
No slave beneath its pillars, but--a King!'
Max wrought alone, but for a half-breed lad,
With tough, lithe sinews and deep Indian eyes,
Lit with a Gallic sparkle. Max, the lover, found
The labourer's arms grow mightier day by day--
More iron-welded as he slew the trees;
And with the constant yearning of his heart
Towards little Kate, part of a world away,
His young soul grew and shew'd a virile front,
Full-muscl'd and large statur'd, like his flesh.
Soon the great heaps of brush were builded high,
And like a victor, Max made pause to clear
His battle-field, high strewn with tangl'd dead.
Then roar'd the crackling mountains, and their fires
Met in high heaven, clasping flame with flame.
The thin winds swept a cosmos of red sparks
Across the bleak, midnight sky; and the sun
Walk'd pale behind the resinous, black smoke.
And Max car'd little for the blotted sun,
And nothing for the startl'd, outshone stars;
For Love, once set within a lover's breast,
Has its own Sun--it's own peculiar sky,
All one great daffodil--on which do lie
The sun, the moon, the stars--all seen at once,
And never setting; but all shining straight
Into the faces of the trinity,--
The one belov'd, the lover, and sweet Love!
It was not all his own, the axe-stirr'd waste.
In these new days men spread about the earth,
With wings at heel--and now the settler hears,
While yet his axe rings on the primal woods,
The shrieks of engines rushing o'er the wastes;
Nor parts his kind to hew his fortunes out.
And as one drop glides down the unknown rock
And the bright-threaded stream leaps after it,
With welded billions, so the settler finds
His solitary footsteps beaten out,
With the quick rush of panting, human waves
Upheav'd by throbs of angry poverty;
And driven by keen blasts of hunger, from
Their native strands--so stern, so dark, so dear!
O, then, to see the troubl'd, groaning waves,
Throb down to peace in kindly, valley beds;
Their turbid bosoms clearing in the calm
Of sun-ey'd Plenty--till the stars and moon,
The blessed sun himself, has leave to shine
And laugh in their dark hearts! So shanties grew
Other than his amid the blacken'd stumps;
And children ran, with little twigs and leaves
And flung them, shouting, on the forest pyres,
Where burn'd the forest kings--and in the glow
Paus'd men and women when the day was done.
There the lean weaver ground anew his axe,
Nor backward look'd upon the vanish'd loom,
But forward to the ploughing of his fields;
And to the rose of Plenty in the cheeks.
Of wife and children--nor heeded much the pangs
Of the rous'd muscles tuning to new work.
The pallid clerk look'd on his blister'd palms
And sigh'd and smil'd, but girded up his loins
And found new vigour as he felt new hope.
The lab'rer with train'd muscles, grim and grave,
Look'd at the ground and wonder'd in his soul,
What joyous anguish stirr'd his darken'd heart,
At the mere look of the familiar soil,
And found his answer in the words--'_Mine own!_'
Then came smooth-coated men, with eager eyes,
And talk'd of steamers on the cliff-bound lakes;
And iron tracks across the prairie lands;
And mills to crush the quartz of wealthy hills;
And mills to saw the great, wide-arm'd trees;
And mills to grind the singing stream of grain;
And with such busy clamour mingled still
The throbbing music of the bold, bright Axe--
The steel tongue of the Present, and the wail
Of falling forests--voices of the Past.
Max, social-soul'd, and with his practised thews,
Was happy, boy-like, thinking much of Kate,
And speaking of her to the women-folk;
Who, mostly, happy in new honeymoons
Of hope themselves, were ready still to hear
The thrice told tale of Katie's sunny eyes
And Katie's yellow hair, and household ways:
And heard so often, 'There shall stand our home--
'On yonder slope, with vines about the door!'
That the good wives were almost made to see
The snowy walls, deep porches, and the gleam
Of Katie's garments flitting through the rooms;
And the black slope all bristling with burn'd stumps
Was known amongst them all as 'Max's House.'

* * * * *

O, Love builds on the azure sea,
And Love builds on the golden sand;
And Love builds on the rose-wing'd cloud,
And sometimes Love builds on the land.

* * * * *

O, if Love build on sparkling sea--
And if Love build on golden strand--
And if Love build on rosy cloud--
To Love these are the solid land.

* * * * *

O, Love will build his lily walls,
And Love his pearly roof, will rear,--
On cloud or land, or mist or sea--
Love's solid land is everywhere!

* * * * *

The great farm house of Malcolm Graem stood
Square shoulder'd and peak roof'd upon a hill,
With many windows looking everywhere;
So that no distant meadow might lie hid,
Nor corn-field hide its gold--nor lowing herd
Browse in far pastures, out of Malcolm's ken.
He lov'd to sit, grim, grey, and somewhat stern,
And thro' the smoke-clouds from his short clay pipe
Look out upon his riches; while his thoughts
Swung back and forth between the bleak, stern past,
And the near future, for his life had come
To that close balance, when, a pendulum,
The memory swings between me 'Then' and 'Now';
His seldom speech ran thus two diff'rent ways:
'When I was but a laddie, this I did';
Or, 'Katie, in the Fall I'll see to build
'Such fences or such sheds about the place;
'And next year, please the Lord, another barn.'
Katie's gay garden foam'd about the walls,
'Leagur'd the prim-cut modern sills, and rush'd
Up the stone walls--and broke on the peak'd roof.
And Katie's lawn was like a Poet's sward,
Velvet and sheer and di'monded with dew;
For such as win their wealth most aptly take
Smooth, urban ways and blend them with their own;
And Katie's dainty raiment was as fine
As the smooth, silken petals of the rose;
And her light feet, her nimble mind and voice,
In city schools had learn'd the city's ways,
And grafts upon the healthy, lonely vine
They shone, eternal blossoms 'mid the fruit.
For Katie had her sceptre in her hand
And wielded it right queenly there and here,
In dairy, store-room, kitchen--ev'ry spot
Where women's ways were needed on the place.
And Malcolm took her through his mighty fields,
And taught her lore about the change of crops;
And how to see a handsome furrow plough'd;
And how to choose the cattle for the mart;
And how to know a fair day's work when done;
And where to plant young orchards; for he said,
'God sent a lassie, but I need a son--
'Bethankit for His mercies all the same.'
And Katie, when he said it, thought of Max--
Who had been gone two winters and two springs,
And sigh'd, and thought, 'Would he not be your son?'
But all in silence, for she had too much
Of the firm will of Malcolm in her soul
To think of shaking that deep-rooted rock;
But hop'd the crystal current of his love
For his one child, increasing day by day,
Might fret with silver lip, until it wore
Such channels thro' the rock, that some slight stroke
Of circumstance might crumble down the stone.
The wooer, too, had come, Max prophesied;
Reputed wealthy; with the azure eyes
And Saxon-gilded locks--the fair, clear face,
And stalwart form that most women love.
And with the jewels of some virtues set
On his broad brow. With fires within his soul
He had the wizard skill to fetter down
To that mere pink, poetic, nameless glow,
That need not fright a flake of snow away--
But if unloos'd, could melt an adverse rock
Marrow'd with iron, frowning in his way.
And Malcolm balanc'd him by day and night;
And with his grey-ey'd shrewdness partly saw
He was not one for Kate; but let him come,
And in chance moments thought: 'Well, let it be--
'They make a bonnie pair--he knows the ways
'Of men and things: can hold the gear I give,
'And, if the lassie wills it, let it be.'
And then, upstarting from his midnight sleep,
With hair erect and sweat upon his brow,
Such as no labor e'er had beaded there;
Would cry aloud, wide-staring thro' the dark--
'Nay, nay; she shall not wed him--rest in peace.'
Then fully waking, grimly laugh and say:
'Why did I speak and answer when none spake?'
But still lie staring, wakeful, through the shades;
List'ning to the silence, and beating still
The ball of Alfred's merits to and fro--
Saying, between the silent arguments:
'But would the mother like it, could she know?
'I would there was a way to ring a lad
'Like silver coin, and so find out the true;
'But Kate shall say him 'Nay' or say him 'Yea'
'At her own will.' And Katie said him 'Nay,'
In all the maiden, speechless, gentle ways
A woman has. But Alfred only laugh'd
To his own soul, and said in his wall'd mind:
'O, Kate, were I a lover, I might feel
'Despair flap o'er my hopes with raven wings;
'Because thy love is giv'n to other love.
'And did I love--unless I gain'd thy love,
'I would disdain the golden hair, sweet lips,
'Air-blown form and true violet eyes;
'Nor crave the beauteous lamp without the flame;
'Which in itself would light a charnel house.
'Unlov'd and loving, I would find the cure
'Of Love's despair in nursing Love's disdain--
'Disdain of lesser treasure than the whole.
'One cares not much to place against the wheel
'A diamond lacking flame--nor loves to pluck
'A rose with all its perfume cast abroad
'To the bosom of the gale. Not I, in truth!
'If all man's days are three score years and ten,
'He needs must waste them not, but nimbly seize
'The bright consummate blossom that his will
'Calls for most loudly. Gone, long gone the days
'When Love within my soul for ever stretch'd
'Fierce hands of flame, and here and there I found
'A blossom fitted for him--all up-fill'd
'With love as with clear dew--they had their hour
'And burn'd to ashes with him, as he droop'd
'In his own ruby fires. No Phoenix he,
'To rise again because of Katie's eyes,
'On dewy wings, from ashes such as his!
'But now, another Passion bids me forth.
'To crown him with the fairest I can find,
'And makes me lover--not of Katie's face,
'But of her father's riches! O, high fool,
'Who feels the faintest pulsing of a wish
'And fails to feed it into lordly life!
'So that, when stumbling back to Mother Earth,
'His freezing lip may curl in cold disdain
'Of those poor, blighted fools who starward stare
'For that fruition, nipp'd and scanted here.
'And, while the clay, o'ermasters all his blood--
'And he can feel the dust knit with his flesh--
'He yet can say to them, 'Be ye content;
''I tasted perfect fruitage thro' my life,
''Lighted all lamps of passion, till the oil
''Fail'd from their wicks; and now, O now, I know
''There is no Immortality could give
''Such boon as this--to simply cease to be!
''_There_ lies your Heaven, O ye dreaming slaves,
''If ye would only live to make it so;
''Nor paint upon the blue skies lying shades
''Of--_what is not_. Wise, wise and strong the man
''who poisons that fond haunter of the mind,
''Craving for a hereafter with deep draughts
''Of wild delights--so fiery, fierce, and strong,
''That when their dregs are deeply, deeply drain'd,
''What once was blindly crav'd of purblind Chance,
''Life, life eternal--throbbing thro' all space
''Is strongly loath'd--and with his face in dust,
''Man loves his only Heav'n--six feet of Earth!'
'So, Katie, tho' your blue eyes say me 'Nay,'
'My pangs of love for gold must needs be fed,
'And shall be, Katie, if I know my mind.'
Events were winds close nest'ling in the sails
Of Alfred's bark, all blowing him direct
To his wish'd harbour. On a certain day,
All set about with roses and with fire;
One of three days of heat which frequent slip,
Like triple rubies, in between the sweet,
Mild, emerald days of summer, Katie went,
Drawn by a yearning for the ice-pale blooms,
Natant and shining--firing all the bay
With angel fires built up of snow and gold.
She found the bay close pack'd with groaning logs,
Prison'd between great arms of close hing'd wood.
All cut from Malcolm's forests in the west,
And floated hither to his noisy mills;
And all stamp'd with the potent 'G.' and 'M.,'
Which much he lov'd to see upon his goods,
The silent courtiers owning him their king.
Out clear beyond the rustling ricebeds sang,
And the cool lilies starr'd the shadow'd wave.
'This is a day for lily-love,' said Kate,
While she made bare the lilies of her feet;
And sang a lily song that Max had made,
That spoke of lilies--always meaning Kate.

* * * * *

'While Lady of the silver'd lakes,
Chaste Goddess of the sweet, still shrines.
The jocund river fitful makes,
By sudden, deep gloom'd brakes,
Close shelter'd by close weft and woof of vine,
Spilling a shadow gloomy-rich as wine,
Into the silver throne where thou dost sit,
Thy silken leaves all dusky round thee knit!

* * * * *

'Mild soul of the unsalted wave!
White bosom holding golden fire
Deep as some ocean-hidden cave
Are fix'd the roots of thy desire,
Thro' limpid currents stealing up,
And rounding to the pearly cup
Thou dost desire,
With all thy trembling heart of sinless fire,
But to be fill'd
With dew distill'd
From clear, fond skies, that in their gloom
Hold, floating high, thy sister moon,
Pale chalice of a sweet perfume,
Whiter-breasted than a dove--
To thee the dew is--love!'

* * * * *

Kate bared her little feet, and pois'd herself
On the first log close grating on the shore;
And with bright eyes of laughter, and wild hair--
A flying wind of gold--from log to log
Sped, laughing as they wallow'd in her track,
Like brown-scal'd monsters rolling, as her foot
Spurn'd each in turn with its rose-white sole.
A little island, out in middlewave,
With its green shoulder held the great drive brac'd
Between it and the mainland; here it was
The silver lilies drew her with white smiles;
And as she touch'd the last great log of all,
It reel'd, upstarting, like a column brac'd,
A second on the wave--and when it plung'd
Rolling upon the froth and sudden foam,
Katie had vanish'd, and with angry grind
The vast logs roll'd together,--nor a lock
Of drifting yellow hair--an upflung hand,
Told where the rich man's chiefest treasure sank
Under his wooden wealth. But Alfred, laid
With pipe and book upon the shady marge,
Of the cool isle, saw all, and seeing hurl'd
Himself, and hardly knew it, on the logs;
By happy chance a shallow lapp'd the isle
On this green bank; and when his iron arms
Dash'd the bark'd monsters, as frail stems of rice,
A little space apart, the soft, slow tide
But reach'd his chest, and in a flash he saw
Kate's yellow hair, and by it drew her up,
And lifting her aloft, cried out, 'O, Kate!'
And once again said, 'Katie! is she dead?'
For like the lilies broken by the rough
And sudden riot of the armor'd logs,
Kate lay upon his hands; and now the logs
Clos'd in upon him, nipping his great chest,
Nor could he move to push them off again
For Katie in his arms. 'And now,' he said,
'If none should come, and any wind arise
'To weld these woody monsters 'gainst the isle,
'I shall be crack'd like any broken twig;
'And as it is, I know not if I die,
'For I am hurt--aye, sorely, sorely hurt!'
Then look'd on Katie's lily face, and said,
'Dead, dead or living? Why, an even chance.
'O lovely bubble on a troubl'd sea,
'I would not thou shoulds't lose thyself again
'In the black ocean whence thy life emerg'd,
'But skyward steal on gales as soft as love,
'And hang in some bright rainbow overhead,
'If only such bright rainbow spann'd the earth.'
Then shouted loudly, till the silent air
Rous'd like a frighten'd bird, and on its wings
Caught up his cry and bore it to the farm.
There Malcolm, leaping from his noontide sleep,
Upstarted as at midnight, crying out,
'She shall not wed him--rest you, wife, in peace!'
They found him, Alfred, haggard-ey'd and faint,
But holding Katie ever towards the sun,
Unhurt, and waking in the fervent heat.
And now it came that Alfred being sick
Of his sharp hurts and tended by them both,
With what was like to love, being born of thanks,
Had choice of hours most politic to woo,
And used his deed as one might use the sun,
To ripen unmellow'd fruit; and from the core
Of Katie's gratitude hop'd yet to nurse
A flow'r all to his liking--Katie's love.
But Katie's mind was like the plain, broad shield
Of a table di'mond, nor had a score of sides;
And in its shield, so precious and so plain,
Was cut, thro' all its clear depths--Max's name!
And so she said him 'Nay' at last, in words
Of such true sounding silver, that he knew
He might not win her at the present hour,
But smil'd and thought--'I go, and come again!
'Then shall we see. Our three-score years and ten
'Are mines of treasure, if we hew them deep,
'Nor stop too long in choosing out our tools!'

* * * * *

To the Goddess Lada prayed
Gisli, holding high his spear
Bound with buds of spring, and laughed
All his heart to Lada's ear.

Damp his yellow beard with mead,
Loud the harps clang'd thro the day;
With bruised breasts triumphant rode
Gisli's galleys in the bay.

Bards sang in the banquet hall,
Set in loud verse Gisli's fame,
On their lips the war gods laid
Fire to chaunt their warrior's name.

To the Love-queen Gisli pray'd,
Buds upon his tall spear's tip;
Laughter in his broad blue eyes,
Laughter on his bearded lip.

To the Spring-queen Gisli pray'd,
She, with mystic distaff slim,
Spun her hours of love and leaves,
Made the stony headlands dim--

Dim and green with tender grass,
Blew on ice-fields with red mouth;
Blew on lovers hearts; and lured
White swans from the blue-arched south.

To the Love-queen Gisli pray'd,
Groan'd far icebergs tall and blue
As to Lada's distaff slim,
All their ice-locked fires flew.

To the Love-queen Gisli prayed,
She, with red hands, caught and spun.
Yellow flames from crater lips,
flames from the waking sun.

To the Love-queen Gisli prayed,
She with loom and beam and spell,
All the subtle fires of earth
Wove, and wove them strong and well.

To the Spring-queen Gisli prayed,
Low the sun the pale sky trod;
Mute her ruddy hand she raised
Beckon'd back the parting God.

To the Love-queen Gisli prayed--
Weft and woof of flame she wove--
Lada, Goddess of the Spring!
Lada, Goddess strong of Love!

Sire of the strong chieftain's prayer,
Victory with his pulse of flame;
Mead its mother--loud he laughed,
Calling on great Lada's name.

'Goddess Lada--Queen of Love!
'Here stand I and quaff to thee--
'Deck for thee with buds my spear--
'Give a comely wife to me!

'Blow not to my arms a flake
'Of crisp snow in maiden guise;
'Mists of pallid hair and tips
'Of long ice-spears in her eyes!

'When my death-sail skims the foam--
'Strain my oars on Death's black sea--
'When my foot the 'Glass-Hill' seeks--
'Such a maid may do for me!

'Now, O Lada, mate the flesh!
'Mate the fire and flame of life,
'Tho' the soul go still unwed,
'Give the flesh its fitting wife!

'As the galley runs between,
'Skies with billows closely spun:
'Feeling but the wave that leaps
'Closest to it in the sun.'

'Throbs but to the present kiss
'Of the wild lips of the sea;
'Thus a man joys in his life--
'Nought of the Beyond knows he!

'Goddess! here I cast bright buds,
'Spicy pine boughs at thy feet;
'Give the flesh its fitting mate
'Life is strong and life is sweet!'

To the Love-queen Gisli pray'd--
Weft and woof of flame she wove:
Lada, Goddess of the Spring--
Lada, Goddess strong of Love!

* * * * *


PART II.

From harpings and sagas and mirth of the town,
Great Gisli, the chieftain strode merrily down.

His ruddy beard stretch'd in the loom of the wind,
His shade like a dusky God striding behind.

Gylfag, his true hound, to his heel glided near,
Sharp-fang'd, lank and red as a blood-rusted spear.

As crests of the green bergs flame white in the sky,
The town on its sharp hill shone brightly and high.

In fjords roared the ice below the dumb stroke
Of the Sun's red hammer rose blue mist like smoke.

It clung to the black pines, and clung to the bay--
The galleys of Gisli grew ghosts of the day.

It followed the sharp wings of swans, as they rose--
It fell to the wide jaws of swift riven floes.

It tam'd the wild shriek of the eagle--grew dull
The cries, in its foldings, of osprey and gull.

'Arouse thee, bold wind,' shouted Gisli 'and drive
'Floe and Berg out to sea as bees from a hive.

'Chase this woman-lipped haze at top of thy speed,
'It cloys to the soul as the tongue cloys with mead!

'Come, buckle thy sharp spear again to thy breast!
'Thy galley hurl forth from the seas of the West.

'With thy long, hissing oars, beat loud the north sea.
'The sharp gaze of day give the eagles and me.

'No cunning mists shrouding the sea and the sky,
'Or the brows of the great Gods, bold wind, love I!

'As Gylfag, my hound, lays his fangs in the flank
'Of a grey wolf, shadowy, leather-thew'd, lank.

'Bold wind, chase the blue mist, thy prow in its hair,
'Sun, speed thy keen shafts thro' the breast of the air!

* * * * *


PART III.

The shouting of Gisli, the chieftain,
Rock'd the blue hazes, and cloven
In twain by sharp prow of the west wind,
To north and to south fled the thick mist.

As in burnish'd walls of Valhalla,
In cleft of the mist stood the chieftain,
And up to the blue shield of Heaven,
Flung the load shaft of his laughter.

Smote the mist, with shrill spear the swift wind.
Grey shapes fled like ghosts on the Hell way;
Bay'd after their long locks hoarse Gylfag,
Stared at them, triumphant, the eagles.

To mate and to eaglets, the eagle
Shriek'd, 'Gone is my foe of the deep mist,
'Rent by the vast hands of the kind Gods,
'Who knows the knife-pangs of our hunger!'

Shrill whistled the winds as his dun wings
Strove with it feather by feather;
Loud grated the rock as his talons
Its breast spurned slowly his red eyes.

Like fires seemed to flame in the swift wind,
At his sides the darts of his hunger--
At his ears the shriek of his eaglets--
In his breast the love of the quarry.

Unfurl'd to the northward and southward
His wings broke the air, and to eastward
His breast gave its iron; and God-ward
Pierc'd the shrill voice of his hunger.

Bared were his great sides as he laboured
Up the first steep blue of the broad sky;
His gaze on the fields of his freedom,
To the God's spoke the prayers of his gyres.

Bared were his vast sides as he glided
Black in the sharp blue of the north sky:
Black over the white of the tall cliffs,
Black over the arrow of Gisli.

* * * * *


THE SONG OF THE ARROW.

What know I,
As I bite the blue veins of the throbbing sky;
To the quarry's breast
Hot from the sides of the sleek smooth nest?

What know I
Of the will of the tense bow from which I fly?
What the need or jest,
That feathers my flight to its bloody rest.

What know I
Of the will of the bow that speeds me on high?
What doth the shrill bow
Of the hand on its singing soul-string know?

Flame-swift speed I--
And the dove and the eagle shriek out and die;
Whence comes my sharp zest
For the heart of the quarry? the Gods know best.

Deep pierc'd the red gaze of the eagle--
The breast of a cygnet below him;
Beneath his dun wing from the eastward
Shrill-chaunted the long shaft of Gisli!

Beneath his dun wing from the westward
Shook a shaft that laugh'd in its biting--
Met in the fierce breast of the eagle
The arrows of Gisli and Brynhild!

* * * * *


PART IV:

A ghost along the Hell-way sped,
The Hell-shoes shod his misty tread;
A phantom hound beside him sped.

Beneath the spandrils of the Way,
World's roll'd to-night--from night to day;
In space's ocean Suns were spray.

Group'd world's, eternal eagles, flew;
Swift comets fell like noiseless dew,
Young earths slow budded in the blue.

The waves of space inscrutable,
With awful pulses rose and fell--
Silent and godly--terrible.

Electric souls of strong Suns laid,
Strong hands along the awful shade
That God about His God-work made.

Ever from all ripe worlds did break,
Men's voices, as when children speak,
Eager and querulous and weak.

And pierc'd to the All-worker thro'
His will that veil'd Him from the view
'What hast thou done? What dost thou do?'

And ever from His heart did flow
Majestical, the answer low--
The benison 'Ye shall not know!'

The wan ghost on the Hell-way sped,
Nor yet Valhalla's lights were shed
Upon the white brow of the Dead.

Nor sang within his ears the roll
Of trumpets calling to his soul;
Nor shone wide portals of the goal.

His spear grew heavy on his breast,
Dropp'd, like a star his golden crest;
Far, far the vast Halls of the Blest!

His heart grown faint, his feet grown weak,
He scal'd the knit mists of a peak,
That ever parted grey and bleak.

And, as by unseen talons nipp'd,
To deep Abysses slowly slipp'd;
Then, swift as thick smoke strongly ripp'd.

By whirling winds from ashy ring,
Of dank weeds blackly smoldering,
The peak sprang upward a quivering

And perdurable, set its face
Against the pulsing breast of space
But for a moment to its base.

Refluent roll'd the crest new sprung,
In clouds with ghastly lightnings stung,--
Faint thunders to their black feet clung.

His faithful hound ran at his heel--
His thighs and breast were bright with steel--
He saw the awful Hellway reel.

But far along its bleak peaks rang
A distant trump--its airy clang
Like light through deathly shadows sprang.

He knew the blast--the voice of love!
Cleft lay the throbbing peak above
Sail'd light, wing'd like a silver dove.

On strove the toiling ghost, his soul
Stirr'd like strong mead in wassail bowl,
That quivers to the shout of 'Skoal!'

Strode from the mist close-curv'd and cold
As is a writhing dragon's fold;
A warrior with shield of gold.

A sharp blade glitter'd at his hip,
Flamed like a star his lance's tip;
His bugle sang at bearded lip.

Beneath his golden sandels flew
Stars from the mist as grass flings dew;
Or red fruit falls from the dark yew.

As under shelt'ring wreaths of snow
The dark blue north flowers richly blow--
Beneath long locks of silver glow.

Clear eyes, that burning on a host
Would win a field at sunset lost,
Ere stars from Odin's hand were toss'd.

He stretch'd his hand, he bowed his head:
The wan ghost to his bosom sped--
Dead kiss'd the bearded lips of Dead!

'What dost thou here, my youngest born?
'Thou--scarce yet fronted with life's storm--
'Why art thou from the dark earth torn?

'When high Valhalla puls'd and rang
'With harps that shook as grey bards sang--
''Mid the loud joy I heard the clang.

'Of Death's dark doors--to me alone
'Smote in thy awful dying groan--
'My soul recall'd its blood and bone.

'Viewless the cord which draws from far
'To the round sun some mighty star;
'Viewless the strong-knit soul-cords are!

'I felt thy dying gasp--thy soul
'Towards mine a kindred wave in roll,
'I left the harps--I left the bowl.

'I sought the Hellway--I--the blest;
'That thou, new death-born son should rest
'Upon the strong rock of my breast.

'What dost thou here, young, fair and bold?
'Sleek with youth's gloss thy locks of gold;
'Thy years by flow'rs might yet be told!

'What dost thou at the ghostly goal,
'While yet thy years were to thy soul,
'As mead yet shallow in the bowl?'

His arm about the pale ghost cast,
The warrior blew a clear, loud blast;
Like frighten'd wolves the mists fled past.

Grew firm the way; worlds flame to light
The awful peak that thrusts its height,
With swift throbs upward, like a flight.

Of arrows from a host close set
Long meteors pierc'd its breast of jet--
Again the trump his strong lips met--

And at its blast blew all the day,
In broad winds on the awful Way;
Sun smote at Sun across the grey;

As reindeer smite the high-pil'd snow
To find the green moss far below--
They struck the mists thro' which did glow

Bright vales--and on a sea afar,
Lay at a sunlit harbour bar,
A galley gold-sail'd like a star!

Spake the pale ghost as onward sped
Heart-press'd to heart the valiant dead;
Soft the green paths beneath their tread.

'I lov'd, this is my tale, and died--
The fierce chief hunger'd for my bride--
The spear of Gisli pierc'd my side!

'And she--her love fill'd all my need--
Her vows were sweet and strong as mead;
Look, father--doth my heart still bleed?

'I built her round with shaft and spear,
I kept her mine for one brief year--
She laugh'd above my blood stain'd bier!

'Upon a far and ice-peak'd coast
My galleys by long winds were toss'd--
There Gisli feasted with his host.

'Of warriors triumphant--he
Strode out from harps and revelry;
And sped his shaft above the sea!

'Look, father, doth my heart bleed yet?
His arrow Brynhild's arrow met--
My gallies anchor'd in their rest.

'Again their arrows meet--swift lies
That pierc'd me from their smiling eyes;
How fiercely hard a man's heart dies!

'She false--he false! There came a day
Pierc'd by the fierce chief's spear I lay--
My ghost rose shrieking from its clay.

'I saw on Brynhild's golden vest
The shining locks of Gisli rest;
I sought the Hell-way to the Blest.

'Father, put forth thy hand and tear
Their twin shafts from my heart, all bare
To thee--they rankle death--like there!

* * * * *

Said the voice of Evil to the ear of Good,
'Clasp thou my strong, right hand,
'Nor shall our clasp be known or understood
'By any in the land.'

'I, the dark giant, rule strongly on the earth,
'Yet thou, bright one, and I
'Sprang from the one great mystery--at one birth
'We looked upon the sky!

'I labour at my bleak, my stern toil accurs'd
Of all mankind--nor stay,
To rest, to murmur 'I hunger' or 'I thirst!'
Nor for my joy delay.

'My strength pleads strongly with thee; doth any beat
With hammer and with stone
Past tools to use them to his deep defeat--
To turn them on his throne?

'Then I of God the mystery--toil thou with me
Brother; but in the sight
Of men who know not, I, the stern son shall be
Of Darkness--Thou of Light!'