Isabella Valancy Crawford: Verses about Love

In the first dawn she lifted from her bed
The holy silver of her noble head,
And listened, listened, listened for his tread.
'Too soon, too soon !' she murmured, 'Yet I'll keep
My vigil longer­ thou, O tender Sleep,
Art but the joy of those who wake and weep!

'Joy's self hath keen, wide eyes. O flesh of mine,
And mine own blood and bone, the very wine
Of my aged heart, I see thy dear eyes shine!

'I hear thy tread; thy light, loved footsteps run
Along the way, eager for that 'Well done !'
We'll weep and kiss to thee, my soldier son!

'Blest mother I­ he lives! Yet had he died
Blest were I still, ­ I sent him on the tide
Of my full heart to save his nation's pride!'

'O God, if that I tremble so to-day,
Bowed with such blessings that I cannot pray
By speech­ a mother prays, dear Lord, alway

'In some far fibre of her trembling mind!
I'll up­ I thought I heard a bugle bind
Its silver with the silver of the wind. '

Sylvia's lattices were dark­
Roses made them narrow.
In the dawn there came a Spark,
Armèd with an arrow:
Blithe he burst by dewy spray,
Winged by bud and blossom,
All undaunted urged his way
Straight to Sylvia's bosom.
'Sylvia! Sylvia! Sylvia!' he
Like a bee kept humming,
'Wake, my sweeting; waken thee,
For thy Soldier's coming!'
Sylvia sleeping in the dawn,
Dreams that Cupid's trill is
Roses singing on the lawn,
Courting crested lilies.
Sylvia smiles and Sylvia sleeps,
Sylvia weeps and slumbers;
Cupid to her pink ear creeps,
Pipes his pretty numbers.
Sylvia dreams that bugles play,
Hears a martial drumming;
Sylvia springs to meet the day
With her Soldier coming.

Happy Sylvia, on thee wait
All the gracious graces!
Venus mild her cestus plait
Round thy lawns and laces!
Flora fling a flower most fair,
Hope a rainbow lend thee!
All the nymphs to Cupid dear
On this day befriend thee!
'Sylvia! Sylvia! Sylvia!' hear
How he keeps a-humming,
Laughing in her jewelled ear,
'Sweet, thy Soldier's coming!'

ONE time he dreamed beside a sea
That laid a mane of mimic stars
In fondling quiet on the knee
Of one tall, pearlèd cliff; the bars
Of golden beaches upward swept;
Pine-scented shadows seaward crept.

The full moon swung her ripened sphere
As from a vine; and clouds, as small
As vine leaves in the opening year,
Kissed the large circle of her ball.
The stars gleamed thro' them as one sees
Thor' vine leaves drift the golden bees.

He dreamed beside this purple sea;
Low sang its trancéd voice, and he-
He knew not if the wordless strain
Made prophecy of joy or pain;
He only knew far stretched that sea,
He knew its name-Eternity.

A shallop with a rainbow sail
On the bright pulses of the tide
Throbbed airily; a fluting gale
Kissed the rich gilding of its side;
By chain of rose and myrtle fast
A light sail touched the slender mast.

'A flower-bright rainbow thing,' he said
To one beside him, 'far too frail
To brave dark storms that lurk ahead,
To dare sharp talons of the gale.
Beloved, thou wouldst not forth with me
In such a bark on such a sea?'

'First tell me of its name.' She bent
Her eyes divine and innocent
On his. He raised his hand above
Its prow and answering swore, ''Tis Love!'
'Now tell,' she asked, 'how is it build-
Of gold, or worthless timber gilt?'

'Of gold,' he said. 'Whence named?' asked she,
The roses of her lips apart;
She paused-a lily by the sea.
Came his swift answer, 'From my heart!'
She laid her light palm in his hand:
'Let loose the shallop from the strand!'

I stand within the stony, arid town,
I gaze for ever on the narrow street;
I hear for ever passing up and down,
The ceaseless tramp of feet.

I know no brotherhood with far-lock'd woods,
Where branches bourgeon from a kindred sap;
Where o'er moss'd roots, in cool, green solitudes,
Small silver brooklets lap.

No em'rald vines creep wistfully to me,
And lay their tender fingers on my bark;
High may I toss my boughs, yet never see
Dawn's first most glorious spark.

When to and fro my branches wave and sway,
Answ'ring the feeble wind that faintly calls,
They kiss no kindred boughs but touch alway
The stones of climbing walls.

My heart is never pierc'd with song of bird;
My leaves know nothing of that glad unrest,
Which makes a flutter in the still woods heard,
When wild birds build a nest.

There never glance the eyes of violets up,
Blue into the deep splendour of my green:
Nor falls the sunlight to the primrose cup,
My quivering leaves between.

Not mine, not mine to turn from soft delight
Of wood-bine breathings, honey sweet, and warm;
With kin embattl'd rear my glorious height
To greet the coming storm!

Not mine to watch across the free, broad plains
The whirl of stormy cohorts sweeping fast;
The level, silver lances of great rains,
Blown onward by the blast.

Not mine the clamouring tempest to defy,
Tossing the proud crest of my dusky leaves:
Defender of small flowers that trembling lie
Against my barky greaves.

Not mine to watch the wild swan drift above,
Balanced on wings that could not choose between
The wooing sky, blue as the eye of love,
And my own tender green.

And yet my branches spread, a kingly sight,
In the close prison of the drooping air:
When sun-vex'd noons are at their fiery height,
My shade is broad, and there

Come city toilers, who their hour of ease
Weave out to precious seconds as they lie
Pillow'd on horny hands, to hear the breeze
Through my great branches die.

I see no flowers, but as the children race
With noise and clamour through the dusty street,
I see the bud of many an angel face--
I hear their merry feet.

No violets look up, but shy and grave,
The children pause and lift their chrystal eyes
To where my emerald branches call and wave--
As to the mystic skies.

Day floated down the sky; a perfect day,
Leaving a footprint of pale primrose gold
Along the west, that when her lover, Night,
Fled with his starry lances in pursuit,
Across the sky, the way she went might shew.
From the faint ting'd ridges of the sea, the Moon
Sprang up like Aphrodite from the wave,
Which as she climb'd the sky still held
Her golden tresses to its swelling breast,
Where wide dispread their quiv'ring glories lay,
(Or as the shield of night, full disk'd and red,
As flowers that look forever towards the Sun),
A terrace with a fountain and an oak
Look'd out upon the sea: The fountain danced
Beside the huge old tree as some slim nymph,
Rob'd in light silver might her frolics shew
Before some hoary king, while high above,
He shook his wild, long locks upon the breeze--
And sigh'd deep sighs of 'All is vanity!'
Behind, a wall of Norman William's time
Rose mellow, hung with ivy, here and there
Torn wide apart to let a casement peer
Upon the terrace. On a carv'd sill I leant
(A fleur-de-lis bound with an English rose)
And look'd above me into two such eyes
As would have dazzl'd from that ancient page
That new old cry that hearts so often write
In their own ashes, 'All is vanity!'
'Know'st thou--' she said, with tender eyes far-fix'd,
On the wide arch that domes our little earth,
'That when a star hurls on with shining wings,
'On some swift message from his throne of light,
'The ready heart may wish, and the ripe fruit--
'Fulfilment--drop into the eager palm?'
'Then let us watch for such a star,' quoth I.
'Nay, love,' she said, ''Tis but an idle tale.'
But some swift feeling smote upon her brow
A rosy shadow. I turn'd and watch'd the sky--
Calmly the cohorts of the night swept on,
Led by the wide-wing'd vesper; and against the moon
Where low her globe trembl'd upon the edge
Of the wide amethyst that clearly paved
The dreamy sapphire of the night, there lay
The jetty spars of some tall ship, that look'd
The night's device upon his ripe-red shield.
And suddenly down towards the moon there ran--
From some high space deep-veil'd in solemn blue,
A little star, a point of trembling gold,
Gone swift as seen. 'My wishing-star,' quoth I,
'Shall tell my wish? Did'st note that little star?
'Its brightness died not, it but disappeared,
'To whirl undim'd thro' space. I wish'd our love
'Might blot the 'All is vanity' from this brief life,
'Burning brightly as that star and winging on
'Thro' unseen space of veil'd Eternity,
'Brightened by Immortality--not lost.'
'Awful and sweet the wish!' she said, and so--
We rested in the silence of content.

'O soft, small cloud, the dim, sweet dawn adorning,
Swan-like a-sailing on its tender grey;
Why dost thou, dost thou float,
So high, the wing'd, wild note
Of silver lamentation from my dark and pulsing throat
May never reach thee,
Tho' every note beseech thee
To bend thy white wings downward thro' the smiling of the morning,
And by the black wires of my prison lightly stray?

'O dear, small cloud, when all blue morn is ringing
With sweet notes piped from other throats than mine;
If those glad singers please
The tall and nodding trees--
If to them dance the pennants of the swaying columbine,
If to their songs are set
The dance of daffodil and trembling violet--
Will they pursue thee
With tireless wings as free and bold as thine?
Will they woo thee
With love throbs in the music of their singing?
Ah, nay! fair Cloud, ah, nay!
Their hearts and wings will stay
With yellow bud of primrose and soft blush of the May;
Their songs will thrill and die,
Tranc'd in the perfume of the rose's breast.
While I must see thee fly
With white, broad, lonely pinions down the sky.

'O fair, small cloud, unheeding o'er me straying,
Jewell'd with topaz light of fading stars;
Thy downy edges red
As the great eagle of the Dawn sails high
And sets his fire-bright head
And wind-blown pinions towards thy snowy breast;
And thou canst blush while I
Must pierce myself with song and die
On the bald sod behind my prison bars;
Nor feel upon my crest
Thy soft, sunn'd touches delicately playing!

'O fair, small cloud, grown small as lily flow'r!
Even while I smite the bars to see thee fade;
The wind shall bring thee
The strain I sing thee--
I, in wired prison stay'd,
Worse than the breathless primrose glade.
That in my morn,
I shrilly sang to scorn;
I'll burst my heart up to thee in this hour!

'O fair, small cloud, float nearer yet and hear me!
A prison'd lark once lov'd a snowy cloud,
Nor did the Day
With sapphire lips, and kiss
Of summery bliss,
Draw all her soul away;
Vainly the fervent East
Deck'd her with roses for their bridal feast;
She would not rest
In his red arms, but slipp'd adown the air
And wan and fair,
Her light foot touch'd a purple mountain crest,
And touching, turn'd
Into swift rain, that like to jewels burn'd;
In the great, wondering azure of the sky;
And while a rainbow spread
Its mighty arms above, she, singing, fled
To the lone-feather'd slave,
In his sad weird grave,
Whose heart upon his silver song had sped
To her in days of old,
In dawns of gold,
And murmuring to him, said:
'O love, I come! O love, I come to cheer thee--
Love, to be near thee!''

Young Mary stole along the vale,
To keep her tryst with Ulnor's lord;
A warrior clad in coat of mail
Stood darkling by the brawling ford.

'O let me pass; O let me pass,
Dark falls the night on hill and lea;
Flies, flies the bright day swift and fast,
From lordly bower and greenwood tree.
The small birds twitter as they fly
To dewy bough and leaf-hid nest;
Dark fold the black clouds on the sky,
And maiden terrors throng my breast!'

'And thou shalt pass, thou bonnie maid,
If thou wilt only tell to me--
Why hiest thou forth in lonesome shade;
Where may thy wish'd-for bourne be?'
'O let me by, O let me by,
My granddam dwells by Ulnor's shore;
She strains for me her failing eye--
Beside her lowly ivied door.'

'I rode by Ulnor's shore at dawn,
I saw no ancient dame and cot;
I saw but startl'd doe and fawn--
Thy bourne thou yet hast told me not.'
'O let me pass--my father lies
Long-stretch'd in coffin and in shroud,--
Where Ulnor's turrets climb the skies,
Where Ulnor's battlements are proud!'

'I rode by Ulnor's walls at noon;
I heard no bell for passing sprite;
And saw no henchman straik'd for tomb;
Thou hast not told thy bourne aright.'
'O let me pass--a monk doth dwell
In lowly hut by Ulnor's shrine;
I seek the holy friar's cell,
That he may shrive this soul of mine.'

'I rode by Ulnor's shrine this day,
I saw no hut--no friar's cowl;
I heard no holy hermit pray--
I heard but hooting of the owl!'
'O let me pass--time flies apace--
And since thou wilt not let me be;
I tryst with chief of Ulnor's race,
Beneath the spreading hawthorn tree!'

'I rode beside the bonnie thorn,
When this day's sun was sinking low;
I saw a damsel like the morn,
I saw a knight with hound and bow;
The chief was chief of Ulnor's name,
The maid was of a high degree;
I saw him kiss the lovely dame,
I saw him bend the suitor's knee!

'I saw the fond glance of his eye
To her red cheek red roses bring;
Between them, as my steed flew by,
I saw them break a golden ring.'
'O wouldst thou know, thou curious knight,
Where Mary's bourne to-night will be?
Since thou has seen such traitor sight,
Beneath the blooming hawthorn tree.'

Fair shone the yellow of her locks,
Her cheek and bosom's drifted snow;
She leap'd adown the sharp grey rocks,
She sought the sullen pool below.
The knight his iron vizard rais'd,
He caught young Mary to his heart;
She lifted up her head and gaz'd--
She drew her yellow locks apart.

* * * * *

The roses touch'd her lovely face;
The lilies white did faint and flee;
The knight was chief of Ulnor's race,--
His only true love still was she!

My masters twain made me a bed
Of pine-boughs resinous, and cedar;
Of moss, a soft and gentle breeder
Of dreams of rest; and me they spread
With furry skins, and laughing said,
'Now she shall lay her polish'd sides,
As queens do rest, or dainty brides,
Our slender lady of the tides!'

My masters twain their camp-soul lit,
Streamed incense from the hissing cones,
Large, crimson flashes grew and whirl'd
Thin, golden nerves of sly light curl'd
Round the dun camp, and rose faint zones,
Half way about each grim bole knit,
Like a shy child that would bedeck
With its soft clasp a Brave's red neck;
Yet sees the rough shield on his breast,
The awful plumes shake on his crest,
And fearful drops his timid face,
Nor dares complete the sweet embrace.

Into the hollow hearts of brakes,
Yet warm from sides of does and stags,
Pass'd to the crisp dark river flags;
Sinuous, red as copper snakes,
Sharp-headed serpents, made of light,
Glided and hid themselves in night.

My masters twain, the slaughtered deer
Hung on fork'd boughs--with thongs of leather.
Bound were his stiff, slim feet together--
His eyes like dead stars cold and drear;
The wand'ring firelight drew near
And laid its wide palm, red and anxious,
On the sharp splendor of his branches;
On the white foam grown hard and sere
On flank and shoulder.
Death--hard as breast of granite boulder,
And under his lashes
Peer'd thro' his eyes at his life's grey ashes.

My masters twain sang songs that wove
(As they burnish'd hunting blade and rifle)
A golden thread with a cobweb trifle--
Loud of the chase, and low of love.

'O Love, art thou a silver fish?
Shy of the line and shy of gaffing,
Which we do follow, fierce, yet laughing,
Casting at thee the light-wing'd wish,
And at the last shall we bring thee up
From the crystal darkness under the cup
Of lily folden,
On broad leaves golden?

'O Love! art thou a silver deer,
Swift thy starr'd feet as wing of swallow,
While we with rushing arrows follow;
And at the last shall we draw near,
And over thy velvet neck cast thongs--
Woven of roses, of stars, of songs?
New chains all moulden
Of rare gems olden!'

They hung the slaughter'd fish like swords
On saplings slender--like scimitars
Bright, and ruddied from new-dead wars,
Blaz'd in the light--the scaly hordes.

They piled up boughs beneath the trees,
Of cedar-web and green fir tassel;
Low did the pointed pine tops rustle,
The camp fire blush'd to the tender breeze.

The hounds laid dew-laps on the ground,
With needles of pine sweet, soft and rusty--
Dream'd of the dead stag stout and lusty;
A bat by the red flames wove its round.

The darkness built its wigwam walls
Close round the camp, and at its curtain
Press'd shapes, thin woven and uncertain,
As white locks of tall waterfalls.

'Come with me,' said the Wind
To the ship within the dock
'Or dost thou fear the shock
Of the ocean-hidden rock,
When tempests strike thee full and leave thee blind;
And low the inky clouds,
Blackly tangle in thy shrouds;
And ev'ry strained cord
Finds a voice and shrills a word,
That word of doom so thunderously upflung
From the tongue
Of every forked wave,
Lamenting o'er a grave
Deep hidden at its base,
Where the dead whom it has slain
Lie in the strict embrace
Of secret weird tendrils; but the pain
Of the ocean's strong remorse
Doth fiercely force
The tale of murder from its bosom out
In a mighty tempest clangour, and its shout
In the threat'ning and lamenting of its swell
Is as the voice of Hell,
Yet all the word it saith
Is 'Death.''

'Come with me,' sang the Wind,
'Why art thou, love, unkind?
Thou are too fair, O ship,
To kiss the slimy lip
Of the cold and dismal shore; and, prithee, mark,
How chill and dark
Shew the vast and rusty linkings of the chain,
Hoarse grating as with pain,
Which moors thee
And secures thee
From the transports of the soft wind and the main.
Aye! strain thou and pull,
Thy sails are dull
And dim from long close furling on thy spars,
But come thou forth with me,
And full and free,
I'll kiss them, kiss them, kiss them, till they be
White as the Arctic stars,
Or as the salt-white pinions of the gulf!'

'Come with me,' sang the Wind,
'O ship belov'd, and find
How golden-gloss'd and blue
Is the sea.
How thrush-sweet is my voice; how dearly true
I'll keep my nuptial promises to thee.
O mine to guide thy sails
By the kisses of my mouth;
Soft as blow the gales,
On the roses in the south.
O mine to guide thee far
From ruddy coral bar,
From horizon to horizon thou shalt glimmer like a star;
Thou shalt lean upon my breast,
And I shall rest,
And murmur in thy sails,
Such fond tales,
That thy finest cords
Will, syren-like, chant back my mellow words
With such renew'd enchantment unto me
That I shall be,
By my own singing, closer bound to thee!'

'Come with me,' sang the Wind,
'Thou knowest, love, my mind,
No more I'll try to woo thee,
Persuade thee or pursue thee,
For thou art mine;
Since first thy mast, a tall and stately pine
Beneath Norwegian skies,
Sang to my sighs.
Thou, thou wert built for me,
Strong lily of the sea!
Thou cans't not choose,
The calling of my low voice to refuse;
And if Death
Were the sole, sad, wailing burthen of my breath,
Thy timbers at my call,
Would shudder in their thrall,
Thy sails outburst to touch my stormy lip;
Like a giant quick in a grave,
Thy anchor heave,
And close upon my thunder-pulsing breast, O ship,
Thou would'st tremble, nor repine,
That being mine,
Thy spars,
Like long pale lights of falling stars,
Plunged in the Stygian blackness of the sea,
And to billowy ruin cast
Thy tall and taper mast,
Rushed shrieking headlong down to an abyss.
O ship! O love! if Death
Were such sure portion, thou could'st not refuse
But thou would'st choose
As mine to die, and call such choosing bliss;
For thou for me
Wert plann'd from all eternity!'

Beside the saffron of a curtain, lit
With broidered flowers, below a golden fringe
That on her silver shoulder made a glow,
Like the sun kissing lilies in the dawn;
She sat--my Irish love--slim, light and tall.
Between his mighty paws her stag-hound held,
(Love-jealous he) the foam of her pale robes,
Rare laces of her land, and his red eyes,
Half lov'd me, grown familiar at her side,
Half pierc'd me, doubting my soul's right to stand
His lady's wooer in the courts of Love.
Above her, knitted silver, fell a web
Of light from waxen tapers slipping down,
First to the wide-winged star of em'ralds set
On the black crown with its blue burnish'd points
Of raven light; thence, fonder, to the cheek
O'er which flew drifts of rose-leaves wild and rich,
With lilied pauses in the wine-red flight;
For when I whispered, like a wind in June,
My whisper toss'd the roses to and fro
In her dear face, and when I paus'd they lay
Still in her heart. Then lower fell the light.
A silver chisel cutting the round arm
Clear from the gloom; and dropped like dew
On the crisp lily, di'mond clasp'd, that lay
In happy kinship on her pure, proud breast,
And thence it sprang like Cupid, nimble-wing'd,
To the quaint love-ring on her finger bound
And set it blazing like a watch-fire, lit
To guard a treasure. Then up sprang the flame
Mad for her eyes, but those grey worlds were deep
In seas of native light: and when I spoke
They wander'd shining to the shining moon
That gaz'd at us between the parted folds
Of yellow, rich with gold and daffodils,
Dropping her silver cloak on Innisfail.
O worlds, those eyes! there Laughter lightly toss'd
His gleaming cymbals; Large and most divine
Pity stood in their crystal doors with hands
All generous outspread; in their pure depths
Mov'd Modesty, chaste goddess, snow-white of brow,
And shining, vestal limbs; rose-fronted stood
Blushing, yet strong; young Courage, knightly in
His virgin arms, and simple, russet Truth
Play'd like a child amongst her tender thoughts--
Thoughts white as daisies snow'd upon the lawn.

Unheeded, Dante on the cushion lay,
His golden clasps yet lock'd--no poet tells
The tale of Love with such a wizard tongue
That lovers slight dear Love himself to list.

Our wedding eve, and I had brought to her
The jewels of my house new set for her
(As I did set the immemorial pearl
Of our old honour in the virgin gold
Of her high soul) with grave and well pleased eyes,
And critic lips, and kissing finger tips,
She prais'd the bright tiara and its train
Of lesser splendours--nor blush'd nor smil'd:
They were but fitting pages to her state,
And had no tongues to speak between our souls.

But I would have her smile ripe for me then,
Swift treasure of a moment--so I laid
Between her palms a little simple thing,
A golden heart, grav'd with my name alone,
And round it, twining close, small shamrocks link'd
Of gold, mere gold: no jewels made it rich,
Until twin di'monds shatter'd from her eyes
And made the red gold rare. 'True Knight,' she said,
'Your English heart with Irish shamrocks bound!'
'A golden prophet of eternal truth,'
I said, and kissed the roses of her palms,
And then the shy, bright roses of her lips,
And all the jealous jewels shone forgot
In necklace and tiara, as I clasp'd
The gold heart and its shamrocks round her neck.
My fair, pure soul! My noble Irish love!

He stood beside her in the dawn
(And she his Dawn and she his Spring),
From her bright palm she fed her fawn,
Her swift eyes chased the swallow's wing:
Her restless lips, smile-haunted, cast
Shrill silver calls to hound and dove:
Her young locks wove them with the blast.
To the flush'd, azure shrine above,
The light boughs o'er her golden head
Toss'd em'rald arm and blossom palm.
The perfume of their prayer was spread
On the sweet wind in breath of balm.

'Dawn of my heart,' he said, 'O child,
Knit thy pure eyes a space with mine:
O chrystal, child eyes, undefiled,
Let fair love leap from mine to thine!'
'The Dawn is young,' she smiled and said,
'Too young for Love's dear joy and woe;
Too young to crown her careless head
With his ripe roses. Let me go--
Unquestion'd for a longer space,
Perchance, when day is at the flood,
In thy true palm I'll gladly place
Love's flower in its rounding bud.
But now the day is all too young,
The Dawn and I are playmates still.'
She slipped the blossomed boughs among,
He strode beyond the violet hill.

Again they stand (Imperial noon
Lays her red sceptre on the earth),
Where golden hangings make a gloom,
And far off lutes sing dreamy mirth.
The peacocks cry to lily cloud,
From the white gloss of balustrade:
Tall urns of gold the gloom make proud,
Tall statues whitely strike the shade,
And pulse in the dim quivering light
Until, most Galatea-wise--
Each looks from base of malachite
With mystic life in limbs and eyes.

Her robe, (a golden wave that rose,
And burst, and clung as water clings
To her long curves) about her flows.
Each jewel on her white breast sings
Its silent song of sun and fire.
No wheeling swallows smite the skies
And upward draw the faint desire,
Weaving its myst'ry in her eyes.
In the white kisses of the tips
Of her long fingers lies a rose,
Snow-pale beside her curving lips,
Red by her snowy breast it glows.

'Noon of my soul,' he says, 'behold!
The day is ripe, the rose full blown,
Love stands in panoply of gold,
To Jovian height and strength now grown,
No infant he, a king he stands,
And pleads with thee for love again.'
'Ah, yes!' she says, 'in known lands,
He kings it--lord of subtlest pain;
The moon is full, the rose is fair--
Too fair! 'tis neither white nor red:
'I know the rose that love should wear,
Must redden as the heart had bled!
The moon is mellow bright, and I
Am happy in its perfect glow.
The slanting sun the rose may dye--
But for the sweet noon--let me go.'
She parted--shimm'ring thro' the shade,
Bent the fair splendour of her head:
'Would the rich noon were past,' he said,
Would the pale rose were flush'd to red!'

Again. The noon is past and night
Binds on his brow the blood red Mars--
Down dusky vineyards dies the fight,
And blazing hamlets slay the stars.
Shriek the shrill shells: the heated throats
Of thunderous cannon burst--and high
Scales the fierce joy of bugle notes:
The flame-dimm'd splendours of the sky.
He, dying, lies beside his blade:
Clear smiling as a warrior blest
With victory smiles, thro' sinister shade
Gleams the White Cross upon her breast.

'Soul of my soul, or is it night
Or is it dawn or is it day?
I see no more nor dark nor light,
I hear no more the distant fray.'
''Tis Dawn,' she whispers: 'Dawn at last!
Bright flush'd with love's immortal glow
For me as thee, all earth is past!
Late loved--well loved, now let us go!'

'The storm is in the air,' she said, and held
Her soft palm to the breeze; and looking up,
Swift sunbeams brush'd the crystal of her eyes,
As swallows leave the skies to skim the brown,
Bright woodland lakes. 'The rain is in the air.
'O Prophet Wind, what hast thou told the rose,
'That suddenly she loosens her red heart,
'And sends long, perfum'd sighs about the place?
'O Prophet Wind, what hast thou told the Swift,
'That from the airy eave, she, shadow-grey,
'Smites the blue pond, and speeds her glancing wing
'Close to the daffodils? What hast thou told small bells,
'And tender buds, that--all unlike the rose--
'They draw green leaves close, close about their breasts
'And shrink to sudden slumber? The sycamores
'In ev'ry leaf are eloquent with thee;
'The poplars busy all their silver tongues
'With answ'ring thee, and the round chestnut stirs
'Vastly but softly, at thy prophecies.
'The vines grow dusky with a deeper green--
'And with their tendrils snatch thy passing harp,
'And keep it by brief seconds in their leaves.
'O Prophet Wind, thou tellest of the rain,
'While, jacinth blue, the broad sky folds calm palms,
'Unwitting of all storm, high o'er the land!
'The little grasses and the ruddy heath
'Know of the coming rain; but towards the sun
'The eagle lifts his eyes, and with his wings
'Beats on a sunlight that is never marr'd
'By cloud or mist, shrieks his fierce joy to air
'Ne'er stir'd by stormy pulse.'
'The eagle mine,' I said: 'O I would ride
'His wings like Ganymede, nor ever care
'To drop upon the stormy earth again,--
'But circle star-ward, narrowing my gyres,
'To some great planet of eternal peace.'.
'Nay,' said my wise, young love, 'the eagle falls
'Back to his cliff, swift as a thunder-bolt;
'For there his mate and naked eaglets dwell,
'And there he rends the dove, and joys in all
'The fierce delights of his tempestuous home.
'And tho' the stormy Earth throbs thro' her poles--
'With tempests rocks upon her circling path--
'And bleak, black clouds snatch at her purple hills--
'While mate and eaglets shriek upon the rock--
'The eagle leaves the hylas to its calm,
'Beats the wild storm apart that rings the earth,
'And seeks his eyrie on the wind-dash'd cliff.
'O Prophet Wind! close, close the storm and rain!'

Long sway'd the grasses like a rolling wave
Above an undertow--the mastiff cried;
Low swept the poplars, groaning in their hearts;
And iron-footed stood the gnarl'd oaks,
And brac'd their woody thews against the storm.
Lash'd from the pond, the iv'ry cygnets sought
The carven steps that plung'd into the pool;
The peacocks scream'd and dragg'd forgotten plumes.
On the sheer turf--all shadows subtly died,
In one large shadow sweeping o'er the land;
Bright windows in the ivy blush'd no more;
The ripe, red walls grew pale--the tall vane dim;
Like a swift off'ring to an angry God,
O'erweighted vines shook plum and apricot,
From trembling trellis, and the rose trees pour'd
A red libation of sweet, ripen'd leaves,
On the trim walks. To the high dove-cote set
A stream of silver wings and violet breasts,
The hawk-like storm swooping on their track.
'Go,' said my love, 'the storm would whirl me off
'As thistle-down. I'll shelter here--but you--
'You love no storms!' 'Where thou art,' I said,
'Is all the calm I know--wert thou enthron'd
'On the pivot of the winds--or in the maelstrom,
'Thou holdest in thy hand my palm of peace;
'And, like the eagle, I would break the belts
'Of shouting tempests to return to thee,
'Were I above the storm on broad wings.
'Yet no she-eagle thou! a small, white, lily girl
'I clasp and lift and carry from the rain,
'Across the windy lawn.'
With this I wove
Her floating lace about her floating hair,
And crush'd her snowy raiment to my breast,
And while she thought of frowns, but smil'd instead,
And wrote her heart in crimson on her cheeks,
I bounded with her up the breezy slopes,
The storm about us with such airy din,
As of a thousand bugles, that my heart
Took courage in the clamor, and I laid
My lips upon the flow'r of her pink ear,
And said: 'I love thee; give me love again!'
And here she pal'd, love has its dread, and then
She clasp'd its joy and redden'd in its light,
Till all the daffodils I trod were pale
Beside the small flow'r red upon my breast.
And ere the dial on the slope was pass'd,
Between the last loud bugle of the Wind
And the first silver coinage of the Rain,
Upon my flying hair, there came her kiss,
Gentle and pure upon my face--and thus
Were we betroth'd between the Wind and Rain.

The silver fangs of the mighty axe,
Bit to the blood of our giant boles;
It smote our breasts and smote our backs,
Thunder'd the front-cleared leaves--
As sped in fire,
The whirl and flame of scarlet leaves
With strong desire
Leaped to the air our captive souls.

While down our corpses thunder'd,
The air at our strong souls gazed and wondered
And cried to us, 'Ye
Are full of all mystery to me!
I saw but thy plumes of leaves,
Thy strong, brown greaves;
The sinewy roots and lusty branches,
And fond and anxious,
I laid my ear and my restless breast
By each pride-high crest;
And softly stole
And listen'd by limb and listen'd by bole,
Nor ever the stir of a soul,
Heard I in ye--
Great is the mystery!'

The strong, brown eagle plung'd from his peak,
From the hollow iron of his beak;
The wood pigeon fell; its breast of blue
Cold with sharp death all thro' and thro',
To our ghosts he cried.
'With talons of steel,
I hold the storm;
Where the high peaks reel,
My young lie warm.
In the wind-rock'd spaces of air I bide;
My wings too wide--
Too angry-strong for the emerald gyves,
Of woodland cell where the meek dove thrives.
And when at the bar,
Of morn I smote with my breast its star,
And under--
My wings grew purple, the jealous thunder,
With the flame of the skies
Hot in my breast, and red in my eyes;
From peak to peak of sunrise pil'd
That set space glowing,
With flames from air-based crater's blowing--
I downward swept, beguiled
By the close-set forest gilded and spread
A sea for the lordly tread,
Of a God's wardship--
I broke its leafy turf with my breast;
My iron lip
I dipp'd in the cool of each whispering crest;
From thy leafy steeps,
I saw in my deeps,
Red coral the flame necked oriole--
But never the stir of a soul
Heard I in ye--
Great is the mystery!'


From its ferny coasts,
The river gazed at our strong, free ghosts,
And with rocky fingers shed
Apart the silver curls of its head;
Laid its murmuring hands,
On the reedy bands;
And at gaze
Stood in the half-moon's of brown, still bays;
Like gloss'd eyes of stags
Its round pools gaz'd from the rusty flags,
At our ghostly crests
At the bark-shields strong on our phantom breasts;
And its tide
Took lip and tongue and cried.
'I have push'd apart
The mountain's heart;
I have trod the valley down;
With strong hands curled,
Have caught and hurled,
To the earth the high hill's crown!

My brow I thrust,
Through sultry dust,
That the lean wolf howl'd upon;
I drove my tides,
Between the sides,
Of the bellowing canon.

From chrystal shoulders,
I hurled my boulders,
On the bridge's iron span.
When I rear'd my head
From its old time bed,
Shook the pale cities of man!

I have run a course
With the swift, wild horse;
I have thunder'd pace for pace,
With the rushing herds--
I have caught the beards
Of the swift stars in the race!

Neither moon nor sun
Could me out-run;
Deep cag'd in my silver bars,
I hurried with me,
To the shouting sea,
Their light and the light of the stars!

The reeling earth
In furious mirth
With sledges of ice I smote.
I whirled my sword
Where the pale berg roar'd,
I took the ship by the throat!

With stagnant breath
I called chill Death
My guest to the hot bayou.
I built men's graves,
With strong thew'd waves
That thing that my strength might do.

I did right well--
Men cried 'From Hell
The might of Thy hand is given!'
By loose rocks stoned
The stout quays groaned,
Sleek sands by my spear were riven.

O'er shining slides,
On my gloss'd tides,
The brown cribs close woven roll'd;
The stout logs sprung,
Their height among
My loud whirls of white and gold!

The great raft prest,
My calm, broad breast--
A dream thro' my shady trance,
The light canoe--
A spirit flew--
The pulse of my blue expanse.

Wing'd swift the ships.
My foaming lips
Made rich with dewy kisses,
All night and morn,
Field's red with corn,
And where the mill-wheel hisses.

And shivers and sobs,
With lab'ring throbs,
With its whirls my strong palms play'd.
I parted my flags,
For thirsty stags,
On the necks of arches laid.

To the dry-vined town
My tide roll'd down--
Dry lips and throats a-quiver,
Rent sky and sod
With shouts 'From God
The strength of the mighty river!'

I, list'ning, heard
The soft-song'd bird;
The beetle about thy boles.
The calling breeze,
In thy crests, O Trees--
Never the voices of souls!'

* * * * *

We, freed souls, of the Trees look'd down
On the river's shining eyes of brown;
And upward smiled
At the tender air and its warrior child,
The iron eagle strong and wild.

* * * * *

'No will of ours,
The captive souls of our barky tow'rs;
'His the deed
Who laid in the secret earth the seed;
And with strong hand
Knitted each woody fetter and band.
Never, ye
Ask of the tree,
The 'Wherefore' or 'Why' the tall trees stand,
Built in their places on the land
Their souls unknit;
With any wisdom or any wit,
The subtle 'Why,'
Ask ye not of earth or sky--
But one command it.

How spake the Oracle, my Curtius, how?
Methought, while on the shadowed terraces
I walked and looked toward Rome, an echo came
Of legion wails, blent into one deep cry.
'O Jove!' I thought, 'the Oracles have said,
And, saying, touched some swiftly answering chord
General to every soul.' And then my heart
(I being here alone) beat strangely loud,
Responsive to the cry, and my still soul
Informed me thus: 'Not such a harmony
Could spring from aught within the souls of men,
But that which is most common to all souls.
Lo! that is sorrow!'

Nay, Curtius, I could smile
To tell thee, as I listened to the cry,
How on the silver flax which blew about
The ivory distaff in my languid hand
I found large tears; such big and rounded drops
And gather thro' dark nights on cypress boughs.
And I was sudden angered, for I thought:
'Why should a general wail come home to me
With such vibration in my trembling heart
That such great tears should rise and overflow?'
Then shook them on the marble where I paced,
Where instantly they vanished in the sun,
As diamonds fade in flames. 'Twas foolish, Curtius!

And then methought how strange and lone it seemed,
For till thou camest I seemed to be alone
On the vined terrace, prisoned in the gold
Of that still noontide hour. No widows stole
Up the snow-glimmering marble of the steps
To take my alms and bless the gods and me;
No orphans touched the fringes of my robe
With innocent babe fingers, nor dropped the gold
I laid in their soft palms, to laugh, and stroke
The jewels on my neck, or touch the rose
Thou sayest, Curtius, lives upon my cheek.
Perchance all lingered in the Roman streets
To catch first tidings from the Oracles.
The very peacocks drowsed in distant shades,
Nor sought my hand for honeyed cake; and high
A hawk sailed blackly in the clear blue sky
And kept my doves from cooing at my feet.

My lute lay there, bound with the small white buds
Which, laughing, this bright morn thou brought and
wreathed
Around it as I sang; but with that wail
Dying across the vines and purple slopes,
And breaking on its strings, I did not care
To waken music-nor in truth could force
My voice or fingers to it. So I strayed
Where hangs thy best loved armour on the wall,
And pleased myself by filling it with thee.
'Tis yet the goodliest armour in proud Rome,
Say all the armourers; all Rome and I
Know thee the lordliest bearer of a sword.
Yet, Curtius, stay, there is a rivet lost
From out the helmet, and a ruby gone
From the short sword-hilt-trifles both which can
Be righted by tomorrow's noon. Tomorrow's noon!-
Was there a change, my Curtius, in my voice
When spake I these three words, 'tomorrow's noon'?
Oh, I am full of dreams-methought there was.

Why, love, how darkly gaze thine eyes in mine!
If loved I dismal thoughts I well could deem
Thou sawest not the blue of my fond eyes,
But looked between the lips of that dread pit,-
O Jove! to name it seems to curse the air
With chills of death! We'll speak not of it, Curtius.

When I had dimmed thy shield with kissing it
I went between the olives to the stalls.
White Audax neighed out to me as I came,
As I had been Hippona to his eyes,
New dazzling from the one small mystic cloud
That, like a silver chariot, floated low
In ripe blue of noon, and seemed to pause,
Stayed by the hilly round of yon aged tree.
He stretched the ivory arch of his vast neck,
Smiting sharp thunders from the marble floor
With hoofs impatient of a peaceful earth;
Shook the long silver of his burnished mane
Until the sunbeams smote it into light
Such as a comet trails across the sky.

I love him, Curtius! Such magnanimous fires
Leap from his eyes! And I do truly think
That with thee seated on him, thy strong knees
Against his sides, the bridle in his jaws
In thy loved hand, to pleasure thee he'd spring
Sheer from the verge of Earth into the breast
Of Death and Chaos. Of Death and Chaos!-
What omens seem to strike my soul to-day!

What is there in this blossom-hour should knit
And omen in with every simple word?
Should make yon willows with their hanging locks
Dusk sybils, muttering sorrows to the air?
The roses, clamb'ring round yon marble Pan,
Wave like red banners floating o'er the dead?
The dead-there 'tis again! My Curtius, come,
And thou shalt tell me of the Oracles
And what sent hither that long cry of woe.
Yet wait, yet wait, I care not much to hear.

While on thy charger's throbbing neck I leaned,
Romeward there passed across the violet slopes
Five sacrificial bulls, with silver hides,
And horns as cusped and white as Dian's bow,
And lordly breasts which laid the honeyed thyme
Into long swarths, whence smoke of yellow bees
Rose up in puffs, dispersing as it rose.
For the great temple they. And as they passed
With quiet gait I heard their drivers say
The bulls were for the Altars, when should come
Word from the Oracles as to the Pit.
O Curtius, Curtius, in my soul I see
How black and fearful is its glutton throat!
I will not look!
O Soul, be blind and see not!

Then the men
Waved their long goads, still juicy from the vine
And plumed with bronzy leaves, and each to each
Showed the sleek beauty of the rounded sides,
The mighty curving of the lordly breasts,
The level lines of backs, the small, fine heads,
And laughed and said, 'The gods will have it thus,
The choicest of the earth for sacrifice,
Let it be man or maid, or lowing bull!'
Where lay the witchcraft in their clownish words
To shake my heart? I know not; but it thrilled
As Daphne's leaves thrill to a wind so soft
One might not feel it on the open palm.
I cannot choose but laugh, for what have I
To do with altars and with sacrifice?

Max plac'd a ring on little Katie's hand,
A silver ring that he had beaten out
From that same sacred coin--first well-priz'd wage
For boyish labour, kept thro' many years.
'See, Kate,' he said, 'I had no skill to shape
Two hearts fast bound together, so I grav'd
Just K. and M., for Katie and for Max.'
'But, look; you've run the lines in such a way,
That M. is part of K., and K. of M.,'
Said Katie, smiling. 'Did you mean it thus?
I like it better than the double hearts.'
'Well, well,' he said, 'but womankind is wise!
Yet tell me, dear, will such a prophecy
Not hurt you sometimes, when I am away?
Will you not seek, keen ey'd, for some small break
In those deep lines, to part the K. and M.
For you? Nay, Kate, look down amid the globes
Of those large lilies that our light canoe
Divides, and see within the polish'd pool
That small, rose face of yours,--so dear, so fair,--
A seed of love to cleave into a rock,
And bourgeon thence until the granite splits
Before its subtle strength. I being gone--
Poor soldier of the axe--to bloodless fields,
(Inglorious battles, whether lost or won).
That sixteen summer'd heart of yours may say:
''I but was budding, and I did not know
My core was crimson and my perfume sweet;
I did not know how choice a thing I am;
I had not seen the sun, and blind I sway'd
To a strong wind, and thought because I sway'd,
'Twas to the wooer of the perfect rose--
That strong, wild wind has swept beyond my ken--
The breeze I love sighs thro' my ruddy leaves.'
'O, words!' said Katie, blushing, 'only words!
You build them up that I may push them down;
If hearts are flow'rs, I know that flow'rs can root--
'Bud, blossom, die--all in the same lov'd soil;
They do so in my garden. I have made
Your heart my garden. If I am a bud
And only feel unfoldment--feebly stir
Within my leaves: wait patiently; some June,
I'll blush a full-blown rose, and queen it, dear,
In your lov'd garden. Tho' I be a bud,
My roots strike deep, and torn from that dear soil
Would shriek like mandrakes--those witch things I read
Of in your quaint old books. Are you content?'
'Yes--crescent-wise--but not to round, full moon.
Look at yon hill that rounds so gently up
From the wide lake; a lover king it looks,
In cloth of gold, gone from his bride and queen;
And yet delayed, because her silver locks
Catch in his gilded fringes; his shoulders sweep
Into blue distance, and his gracious crest,
Not held too high, is plum'd with maple groves;--
One of your father's farms. A mighty man,
Self-hewn from rock, remaining rock through all.'
'He loves me, Max,' said Katie: 'Yes, I know--
A rock is cup to many a crystal spring.
Well, he is rich; those misty, peak-roof'd barns--
Leviathans rising from red seas of grain--
Are full of ingots, shaped like grains of wheat.
His flocks have golden fleeces, and his herds
Have monarchs worshipful, as was the calf
Aaron call'd from the furnace; and his ploughs,
Like Genii chained, snort o'er his mighty fields.
He has a voice in Council and in Church--'
'He work'd for all,' said Katie, somewhat pain'd.
'Aye, so, dear love, he did; I heard him tell
How the first field upon his farm was ploughed.
He and his brother Reuben, stalwart lads,
Yok'd themselves, side by side, to the new plough;
Their weaker father, in the grey of life
(But rather the wan age of poverty
Than many winters), in large, gnarl'd hands
The plunging handles held; with mighty strains
They drew the ripping beak through knotted sod,
Thro' tortuous lanes of blacken'd, smoking stumps;
And past great flaming brush heaps, sending out
Fierce summers, beating on their swollen brows.
O, such a battle! had we heard of serfs
Driven to like hot conflict with the soil,
Armies had march'd and navies swiftly sail'd
To burst their gyves. But here's the little point--
The polish'd di'mond pivot on which spins
The wheel of Difference--they OWN'D the rugged soil,
And fought for love--dear love of wealth and pow'r,
And honest ease and fair esteem of men;
One's blood heats at it!' 'Yet you said such fields
Were all inglorious,' Katie, wondering, said.
'Inglorious? yes; they make no promises
Of Star or Garter, or the thundering guns
That tell the earth her warriors are dead.
Inglorious! aye, the battle done and won
Means not--a throne propp'd up with bleaching bones;
A country sav'd with smoking seas of blood;
A flag torn from the foe with wounds and death;
Or Commerce, with her housewife foot upon
Colossal bridge of slaughter'd savages,
The Cross laid on her brawny shoulder, and
In one sly, mighty hand her reeking sword;
And in the other all the woven cheats
From her dishonest looms. Nay, none of these.
It means--four walls, perhaps a lowly roof;
Kine in a peaceful posture; modest fields;
A man and woman standing hand in hand
In hale old age, who, looking o'er the land,
Say: 'Thank the Lord, it all is mine and thine!'
It means, to such thew'd warriors of the Axe
As your own father;--well, it means, sweet Kate,
Outspreading circles of increasing gold,
A name of weight; one little daughter heir.
Who must not wed the owner of an axe,
Who owns naught else but some dim, dusky woods
In a far land; two arms indifferent strong--'
'And Katie's heart,' said Katie, with a smile;
For yet she stood on that smooth, violet plain,
Where nothing shades the sun; nor quite believed
Those blue peaks closing in were aught but mist
Which the gay sun could scatter with a glance.
For Max, he late had touch'd their stones, but yet
He saw them seam'd with gold and precious ores,
Rich with hill flow'rs and musical with rills.
'Or that same bud that will be Katie's heart,
Against the time your deep, dim woods are clear'd,
And I have wrought my father to relent.'
'How will you move him, sweet? why, he will rage
And fume and anger, striding o'er his fields,
Until the last bought king of herds lets down
His lordly front, and rumbling thunder from
His polish'd chest, returns his chiding tones.
How will you move him, Katie, tell me how?'
'I'll kiss him and keep still--that way is sure,'
Said Katie, smiling. 'I have often tried.'
'God speed the kiss,' said Max, and Katie sigh'd,
With pray'rful palms close seal'd, 'God speed the axe!'

* * * * *

O, light canoe, where dost thou glide?
Below thee gleams no silver'd tide,
But concave heaven's chiefest pride.

* * * * *

Above thee burns Eve's rosy bar;
Below thee throbs her darling star;
Deep 'neath thy keel her round worlds are!

* * * * *

Above, below, O sweet surprise,
To gladden happy lover's eyes;
No earth, no wave--all jewell'd sides!

* * * * *

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!'

* * * * *

From his far wigwam sprang the strong North Wind
And rush'd with war-cry down the steep ravines,
And wrestl'd with the giants of the woods;
And with his ice-club beat the swelling crests.
Of the deep watercourses into death,
And with his chill foot froze the whirling leaves
Of dun and gold and fire in icy banks;
And smote the tall reeds to the harden'd earth;
And sent his whistling arrows o'er the plains,
Scatt'ring the ling'ring herds--and sudden paus'd
When he had frozen all the running streams,
And hunted with his war-cry all the things
That breath'd about the woods, or roam'd the bleak
Bare prairies swelling to the mournful sky.
'White squaw,' he shouted, troubl'd in his soul,
'I slew the dead, wrestl'd with naked chiefs
'Unplum'd before, scalped of their leafy plumes;
'I bound sick rivers in cold thongs of death,
'And shot my arrows over swooning plains,
'Bright with the Paint of death--and lean and bare.
'And all the braves of my loud tribe will mock
'And point at me--when our great chief, the Sun,
'Relights his Council fire in the moon
'Of Budding Leaves.' 'Ugh, ugh! he is a brave!
'He fights with squaws and takes the scalps of babes!
'And the least wind will blow his calumet--
'Fill'd with the breath of smallest flow'rs--across
'The warpaint on my face, and pointing with
'His small, bright pipe, that never moved a spear
'Of bearded rice, cry, 'Ugh! he slays the dead!'
'O, my white squaw, come from thy wigwam grey,
'Spread thy white blanket on the twice-slain dead;
'And hide them, ere the waking of the Sun!'

* * * * *

High grew the snow beneath the low-hung sky,
And all was silent in the Wilderness;
In trance of stillness Nature heard her God
Rebuilding her spent fires, and veil'd her face
While the Great Worker brooded o'er His work.

* * * * *

'Bite deep and wide, O Axe, the tree,
What doth thy bold voice promise me?'

* * * * *

'I promise thee all joyous things,
That furnish forth the lives of kings!

* * * * *

'For ev'ry silver ringing blow,
Cities and palaces shall grow!'

* * * * *

'Bite deep and wide, O Axe, the tree,
Tell wider prophecies to me.'

* * * * *

'When rust hath gnaw'd me deep and red;
A nation strong shall lift his head!

* * * * *

'His crown the very Heav'ns shall smite,
Aeons shall build him in his might!'

* * * * *

'Bite deep and wide, O Axe, the tree;
Bright Seer, help on thy prophecy!'

* * * * *

Max smote the snow-weigh'd tree and lightly laugh'd.
'See, friend,' he cried to one that look'd and smil'd,
'My axe and I--we do immortal tasks--
We build up nations--this my axe and I!'
'O,' said the other with a cold, short smile,
'Nations are not immortal! is there now
'One nation thron'd upon the sphere of earth,
'That walk'd with the first Gods, and saw
'The budding world unfold its slow-leav'd flow'r?
'Nay; it is hardly theirs to leave behind
'Ruins so eloquent, that the hoary sage
'Can lay his hand upon their stones, and say:
''These once were thrones!' The lean, lank lion peals
'His midnight thunders over lone, red plains,
'Long-ridg'd and crested on their dusty waves,
'With fires from moons red-hearted as the sun;
'And deep re-thunders all the earth to him.
'For, far beneath the flame-fleck'd, shifting sands,
'Below the roots of palms, and under stones
'Of younger ruins, thrones, tow'rs and cities
'Honeycomb the earth. The high, solemn walls
'Of hoary ruins--their foundings all unknown
'(But to the round-ey'd worlds that walk
'In the blank paths of Space and blanker Chance).
'At whose stones young mountains wonder, and the seas'
'New-silv'ring, deep-set valleys pause and gaze;
'Are rear'd upon old shrines, whose very Gods
'Were dreams to the shrine-builders, of a time
'They caught in far-off flashes--as the child
'Half thinks he can remember how one came
'And took him in her hand and shew'd him that
'He thinks, she call'd the sun. Proud ships rear high
'On ancient billows that have torn the roots
'Of cliffs, and bitten at the golden lips
'Of firm, sleek beaches, till they conquer'd all,
'And sow'd the reeling earth with salted waves.
'Wrecks plunge, prow foremost, down still, solemn slopes,
'And bring their dead crews to as dead a quay;
'Some city built before that ocean grew,
'By silver drops from many a floating cloud,
'By icebergs bellowing in their throes of death,
'By lesser seas toss'd from their rocking cups,
'And leaping each to each; by dew-drops flung
'From painted sprays, whose weird leaves and flow'rs
'Are moulded for new dwellers on the earth,
'Printed in hearts of mountains and of mines.
'Nations immortal? where the well-trimm'd lamps
'Of long-past ages, when Time seem'd to pause
'On smooth, dust-blotted graves that, like the tombs
'Of monarchs, held dead bones and sparkling gems?
'She saw no glimmer on the hideous ring
'Of the black clouds; no stream of sharp, clear light
'From those great torches, pass'd into the black
'Of deep oblivion. She seem'd to watch, but she
'Forgot her long-dead nations. When she stirr'd
'Her vast limbs in the dawn that forc'd its fire
'Up the black East, and saw the imperious red
'Burst over virgin dews and budding flow'rs,
'She still forgot her molder'd thrones and kings,
'Her sages and their torches, and their Gods,
'And said, 'This is my birth--my primal day!'
'She dream'd new Gods, and rear'd them other shrines,
'Planted young nations, smote a feeble flame
'From sunless flint, re-lit the torch of mind;
'Again she hung her cities on the hills,
'Built her rich towers, crown'd her kings again,
'And with the sunlight on her awful wings
'Swept round the flow'ry cestus of the earth,
'And said, 'I build for Immortality!'
'Her vast hand rear'd her tow'rs, her shrines, her thrones;
'The ceaseless sweep of her tremendous wings
'Still beat them down and swept their dust abroad;
'Her iron finger wrote on mountain sides
'Her deeds and prowess--and her own soft plume
'Wore down the hills! Again drew darkly on
'A night of deep forgetfulness; once more
'Time seem'd to pause upon forgotten graves--
'Once more a young dawn stole into her eyes--
'Again her broad wings stirr'd, and fresh clear airs,
'Blew the great clouds apart;--again Time said,
''This is my birth--my deeds and handiwork
''Shall be immortal.' Thus and so dream on
'Fool'd nations, and thus dream their dullard sons.
'Naught is immortal save immortal--Death!'
Max paus'd and smil'd: 'O, preach such gospel, friend,
'To all but lovers who most truly love;
'For _them_, their gold-wrought scripture glibly reads
'All else is mortal but immortal--Love!'
'Fools! fools!' his friend said, 'most immortal fools!--
'But pardon, pardon, for, perchance, you love?'
'Yes,' said Max, proudly smiling, 'thus do I
'Possess the world and feel eternity!'
Dark laughter blacken'd in the other's eyes:
'Eternity! why, did such Iris arch
'Ent'ring our worm-bored planet, never liv'd
'One woman true enough such tryst to keep!'
'I'd swear by Kate,' said Max; 'and then, I had
'A mother, and my father swore by her.'
'By Kate? Ah, that were lusty oath, indeed!
'Some other man will look into her eyes,
'And swear me roundly, 'By true Catherine!'
'And Troilus swore by Cressed--so they say.'
'You never knew my Kate,' said Max, and pois'd
His axe again on high, 'But let it pass--
'You are too subtle for me; argument
'Have I none to oppose yours with--but this,
'Get you a Kate, and let her sunny eyes
'Dispel the doubting darkness in your soul.'
'And have not I a Kate? pause, friend, and see.
'She gave me this faint shadow of herself
'The day I slipp'd the watch-star of our loves--
'A ring--upon her hand--she loves me, too;
'Yet tho' her eyes be suns, no Gods are they
'To give me worlds, or make me feel a tide
'Of strong Eternity set towards my soul;
'And tho' she loves me, yet am I content
'To know she loves me by the hour--the year--
'Perchance the second--as all women love.'
The bright axe falter'd in the air, and ripp'd
Down the rough bark, and bit the drifted snow,
For Max's arm fell, wither'd in its strength,
'Long by his side. 'Your Kate,' he said; 'your Kate!'
'Yes, mine, while holds her mind that way, my Kate;
'I sav'd her life, and had her love for thanks;
'Her father is Malcolm Graem--Max, my friend,
'You pale! what sickness seizes on your soul?'
Max laugh'd, and swung his bright axe high again:
'Stand back a pace--a too far reaching blow
'Might level your false head with yon prone trunk--
'Stand back and listen while I say, 'You lie!
'That is my Katie's face upon your breast,
'But 'tis my Katie's love lives in my breast--
'Stand back, I say! my axe is heavy, and
'Might chance to cleave a liar's brittle skull.
'Your Kate! your Kate! your Kate!--hark, how the woods
'Mock at your lie with all their woody tongues,
'O, silence, ye false echoes! not his Kate
'But mine--I'm certain I will have your life!'
All the blue heav'n was dead in Max's eyes;
Doubt-wounded lay Kate's image in his heart,
And could not rise to pluck the sharp spear out.
'Well, strike, mad fool,' said Alfred, somewhat pale;
'I have no weapon but these naked hands.'
'Aye, but,' said Max, 'you smote my naked heart!
'O shall I slay him?--Satan, answer me--
'I cannot call on God for answer here.
'O Kate--!'
A voice from God came thro' the silent woods
And answer'd him--for suddenly a wind
Caught the great tree-tops, coned with high-pil'd snow,
And smote them to and fro, while all the air
Was sudden fill'd with busy drifts, and high
White pillars whirl'd amid the naked trunks,
And harsh, loud groans, and smiting, sapless boughs
Made hellish clamour in the quiet place.
With a shrill shriek of tearing fibres, rock'd
The half-hewn tree above his fated head;
And, tott'ring, asked the sudden blast, 'Which way?'
And, answ'ring its windy arms, crash'd and broke
Thro' other lacing boughs, with one loud roar
Of woody thunder; all its pointed boughs
Pierc'd the deep snow--its round and mighty corpse,
Bark-flay'd and shudd'ring, quiver'd into death.
And Max--as some frail, wither'd reed, the sharp
And piercing branches caught at him,
As hands in a death-throe, and beat him to the earth--
And the dead tree upon its slayer lay.
'Yet hear we much of Gods;--if such there be,
'They play at games of chance with thunderbolts,'
Said Alfred, 'else on me this doom had come.
'This seals my faith in deep and dark unfaith!
'Now Katie, are you mine, for Max is dead--
'Or will be soon, imprison'd by those boughs,
'Wounded and torn, sooth'd by the deadly palms
'Of the white, trait'rous frost; and buried then
'Under the snows that fill those vast, grey clouds,
'Low-sweeping on the fretted forest roof.
'And Katie shall believe you false--not dead;
'False, false!--And I? O, she shall find me true--
'True as a fabl'd devil to the soul
'He longs for with the heat of all hell's fires.
'These myths serve well for simile, I see.
'And yet--Down, Pity! knock not at my breast,
'Nor grope about for that dull stone my heart;
'I'll stone thee with it, Pity! Get thee hence,
'Pity, I'll strangle thee with naked hands;
'For thou dost bear upon thy downy breast
'Remorse, shap'd like a serpent, and her fangs
'Might dart at me and pierce my marrow thro'.
'Hence, beggar, hence--and keep with fools, I say!
'He bleeds and groans! Well, Max, thy God or mine
'Blind Chance, here play'd the butcher--'twas not I.
'Down, hands! ye shall not lift his fall'n head;
'What cords tug at ye? What? Ye'd pluck him up
'And staunch his wounds? There rises in my breast
'A strange, strong giant, throwing wide his arms
'And bursting all the granite of my heart!
'How like to quiv'ring flesh a stone may feel!
'Why, it has pangs! I'll none of them. I know
'Life is too short for anguish and for hearts--
'So I wrestle with thee, giant! and my will
'Turns the thumb, and thou shalt take the knife.
'Well done! I'll turn thee on the arena dust,
'And look on thee--What? thou wert Pity's self,
'Stol'n in my breast; and I have slaughter'd thee--
'But hist--where hast thou hidden thy fell snake,
'Fire-fang'd Remorse? Not in my breast, I know,
'For all again is chill and empty there,
'And hard and cold--the granite knitted up.
'So lie there, Max--poor fond and simple Max,
''Tis well thou diest: earth's children should not call
'Such as thee father--let them ever be
'Father'd by rogues and villains, fit to cope
'With the foul dragon Chance, and the black knaves
'Who swarm'd in loathsome masses in the dust.
'True Max, lie there, and slumber into death.'

* * * * *

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!'

I.

Low the sun beat on the land,
Red on vine and plain and wood;
With the wine-cup in his hand,
Vast the Helot herdsman stood.


II.

Quench'd the fierce Achean gaze,
Dorian foemen paus'd before,
Where cold Sparta snatch'd her bays
At Achaea's stubborn door.


III.

Still with thews of iron bound,
Vastly the Achean rose,
Godward from the brazen ground,
High before his Spartan foes.


IV.

Still the strength his fathers knew
(Dauntless when the foe they fac'd)
Vein and muscle bounded through,
Tense his Helot sinews brac'd.


V.

Still the constant womb of Earth,
Blindly moulded all her part;
As, when to a lordly birth,
Achean freemen left her heart.


VI.

Still, insensate mother, bore
Goodly sons for Helot graves;
Iron necks that meekly wore
Sparta's yoke as Sparta's slaves.


VII.

Still, O God mock'd mother! she
Smil'd upon her sons of clay:
Nurs'd them on her breast and knee,
Shameless in the shameful day.


VIII.

Knew not old Achea's fires
Burnt no more in souls or veins--
Godlike hosts of high desires
Died to clank of Spartan chains.


IX.

Low the sun beat on the land,
Purple slope and olive wood;
With the wine cup in his hand,
Vast the Helot herdsman stood.


X.

As long, gnarl'd roots enclasp
Some red boulder, fierce entwine
His strong fingers, in their grasp
Bowl of bright Caecuban wine.


XI.

From far Marsh of Amyclae,
Sentried by lank poplars tall--
Thro' the red slant of the day,
Shrill pipes did lament and call.


XII.

Pierc'd the swaying air sharp pines,
Thyrsi-like, the gilded ground
Clasp'd black shadows of brown vines,
Swallows beat their mystic round.


XIII.

Day was at her high unrest;
Fever'd with the wine of light,
Loosing all her golden vest,
Reel'd she towards the coming night.


XIV.

Fierce and full her pulses beat;
Bacchic throbs the dry earth shook;
Stirr'd the hot air wild and sweet;
Madden'd ev'ry vine-dark brook.


XV.

Had a red grape never burst,
All its heart of fire out;
To the red vat all a thirst,
To the treader's song and shout:


XVI.

Had the red grape died a grape;
Nor, sleek daughter of the vine,
Found her unknown soul take shape
In the wild flow of the wine:


XVII.

Still had reel'd the yellow haze:
Still had puls'd the sun pierc'd sod
Still had throbb'd the vine clad days:
To the pulses of their God.


XVIII.

Fierce the dry lips of the earth
Quaff'd the subtle Bacchic soul:
Felt its rage and felt its mirth,
Wreath'd as for the banquet bowl.


XIX.

Sapphire-breasted Bacchic priest
Stood the sky above the lands;
Sun and Moon at East and West,
Brazen cymbals in his hands.

XX.

Temples, altars, smote no more,
Sharply white as brows of Gods:
From the long, sleek, yellow shore,
Oliv'd hill or dusky sod,


XXI.

Gaz'd the anger'd Gods, while he,
Bacchus, made their temples his;
Flushed their marble silently
With the red light of his kiss.


XXII.

Red the arches of his feet
Spann'd grape-gleaming vales; the earth
Reel'd from grove to marble street,
Mad with echoes of his mirth.


XXIII.

Nostrils widen'd to the air,
As above the wine brimm'd bowl:
Men and women everywhere
Breath'd the fierce, sweet Bacchic soul.


XXIV.

Flow'd the vat and roar'd the beam,
Laugh'd the must; while far and shrill,
Sweet as notes in Pan-born dream,
Loud pipes sang by vale and hill.


XXV.

Earth was full of mad unrest,
While red Bacchus held his state;
And her brown vine-girdl'd breast
Shook to his wild joy and hate.


XXVI.

Strife crouch'd red ey'd in the vine
In its tendrils Eros strayed;
Anger rode upon the wine;
Laughter on the cup-lip play'd.


XXVII.

Day was at her chief unrest--
Red the light on plain and wood
Slavish ey'd and still of breast,
Vast the Helot herdsman stood:


XXVIII.

Wide his hairy nostrils blew,
Maddning incense breathing up;
Oak to iron sinews grew,
Round the rich Caecuban cup.


XXIX.

'Drink, dull slave!' the Spartan said,
'Drink, until the Helot clod
'Feel within him subtly bred
'Kinship to the drunken God!


XXX.

'Drink, until the leaden blood
'Stirs and beats about thy brain:
'Till the hot Caecuban flood
'Drown the iron of thy chain.


XXXI.

'Drink, till even madness flies
'At the nimble wine's pursuit;
'Till the God within thee lies
'Trampled by the earth-born brute.


XXXII.

'Helot drink--nor spare the wine;
'Drain the deep, the madd'ning bowl,
'Flesh and sinews, slave, are mine,
'Now I claim thy Helot soul.


XXXIII.

'Gods! ye love our Sparta; ye
'Gave with vine that leaps and runs
'O'er her slopes, these slaves to be
'Mocks and warnings to her sons!


XXXIV.

'Thou, my Hermos, turn thy eyes,
'(God-touch'd still their frank, bold blue)
'On the Helot--mark the rise
'Of the Bacchic riot through


XXXV.

'Knotted vein, and surging breast:
'Mark the wild, insensate, mirth:
'God-ward boast--the driv'ling jest,
'Till he grovel to the earth.


XXXVI.

'Drink, dull slave,' the Spartan cried:
Meek the Helot touch'd the brim;
Scented all the purple tide:
Drew the Bacchic soul to him.


XXXVII.

Cold the thin lipp'd Spartan smiled:
Couch'd beneath the weighted vine,
Large-ey'd, gaz'd the Spartan child,
On the Helot and the wine.


XXXVIII.

Rose pale Doric shafts behind,
Stern and strong, and thro' and thro',
Weaving with the grape-breath'd wind,
Restless swallows call'd and flew.


XXXIX.

Dropp'd the rose-flush'd doves and hung,
On the fountains murmuring brims;
To the bronz'd vine Hermos clung--
Silver-like his naked limbs


XL.

Flash'd and flush'd: rich copper'd leaves,
Whiten'd by his ruddy hair;
Pallid as the marble eaves,
Aw'd he met the Helot's stare.


XLI.

Clang'd the brazen goblet down;
Marble-bred loud echoes stirr'd:
With fix'd fingers, knotted, brown,
Dumb, the Helot grasp'd his beard.


XLII.

Heard the far pipes mad and sweet.
All the ruddy hazes thrill:
Heard the loud beam crash and beat,
In the red vat on the hill.


XLIII.

Wide his nostrils as a stag's
Drew the hot wind's fiery bliss;
Red his lips as river flags,
From the strong, Caecuban kiss.


XLIV.

On his swarthy temples grew,
Purple veins like cluster'd grapes;
Past his rolling pupils blew,
Wine-born, fierce, lascivious shapes.


XLV.

Cold the haughty Spartan smiled--
His the power to knit that day,
Bacchic fires, insensate, wild,
To the grand Achean clay.


XLVI.

His the might--hence his the right!
Who should bid him pause? nor Fate
Warning pass'd before his sight,
Dark-robed and articulate.


XLVII.

No black omens on his eyes,
Sinistre--God-sent, darkly broke;
Nor from ruddy earth nor skies,
Portends to him mutely spoke.


XLVIII.

'Lo,' he said, 'he maddens now!
'Flames divine do scathe the clod;
'Round his reeling Helot brow
'Stings the garland of the God.'


XLIX.

'Mark, my Hermos--turn to steel
The soft tendons of thy soul!
Watch the God beneath the heel
Of the strong brute swooning roll!


L.

'Shame, my Hermos! honey-dew
Breeds not on the Spartan spear;
Steel thy mother-eyes of blue,
Blush to death that weakling tear.


LI.

'Nay, behold! breed Spartan scorn
Of the red lust of the wine;
Watch the God himself down-borne
By the brutish rush of swine!


LII.

'Lo, the magic of the drink!
At the nimble wine's pursuit,
See the man-half'd satyr sink
All the human in the brute!


LIII.

'Lo, the magic of the cup!
Watch the frothing Helot rave!
As great buildings labour up
From the corpse of slaughter'd slave,


LIV.

'Build the Spartan virtue high
From the Helot's wine-dead soul;
Scorn the wild, hot flames that fly
From the purple-hearted bowl!


LV.

'Helot clay! Gods! what its worth,
Balanc'd with proud Sparta's rock?
Ours--its force to till the earth;
Ours--its soul to gyve and mock!


LVI.

'Ours, its sullen might. Ye Gods!
Vastly build the Achean clay;
Iron-breast our slavish clods--
_Ours_ their Helot souls to slay!


LVII.

'Knit great thews--smite sinews vast
Into steel--build Helot bones
Iron-marrowed:--such will last
Ground by ruthless Sparta's stones.


LVIII.

'Crown the strong brute satyr wise!
Narrow-wall his Helot brain;
Dash the soul from breast and eyes,
Lash him toward the earth again.


LIX.

'Make a giant for our need,
Weak to feel and strong to toil;
Dully-wise to dig or bleed
On proud Sparta's alien soil!


LX.

'Gods! recall thy spark at birth,
Lit his soul with high desire;
Blend him, grind him with the earth,
Tread out old Achea's fire!


LXI.

'Lo, my Hermos! laugh and mark,
See the swift mock of the wine;
Faints the primal, God-born spark,
Trodden by the rush of swine!


LXII.

'Gods! ye love our Sparta--ye
Gave with vine that leaps and runs
O'er her slopes, these slaves to be
Mocks and warnings to her sons!'


LXIII.

Cold the haughty Spartan smil'd.
Madd'ning from the purple hills
Sang the far pipes, sweet and wild.
Red as sun-pierc'd daffodils


LXIV.

Neck-curv'd, serpent, silent, scaled
With lock'd rainbows, stole the sea;
On the sleek, long beaches; wail'd
Doves from column and from tree.


LXV.

Reel'd the mote swarm'd haze, and thick
Beat the hot pulse of the air;
In the Helot, fierce and quick,
All his soul sprang from its lair.


LXVI.

As the drowzing tiger, deep
In the dim cell, hears the shout
From the arena--from his sleep
Launches to its thunders out--


LXVII.

So to fierce calls of the wine
(Strong the red Caecuban bowl!)
From its slumber, deep, supine,
Panted up the Helot soul.


LXVIII.

At his blood-flush'd eye-balls rear'd,
(Mad and sweet came pipes and songs),
Rous'd at last the wild soul glar'd,
Spear-thrust with a million wrongs.


LXIX.

Past--the primal, senseless bliss;
Past--red laughter of the grapes;
Past--the wine's first honey'd kiss;
Past--the wine-born, wanton shapes!


LXX.

Still the Helot stands--his feet
Set like oak roots: in his gaze
Black clouds roll and lightnings meet--
Flames from old Achean days.


LXXI.

Who may quench the God-born fire,
Pulsing at the soul's deep root?
Tyrants! grind it in the mire,
Lo, it vivifies the brute!


LXXII.

Stings the chain-embruted clay,
Senseless to his yoke-bound shame;
Goads him on to rend and slay,
Knowing not the spurring flame.


LXXIII.

Tyrants, changeless stand the Gods!
Nor their calm might yielded ye!
Not beneath thy chains and rods
Dies man's God-gift, Liberty!


LXXIV.

Bruteward lash thy Helots--hold
Brain and soul and clay in gyves;
Coin their blood and sweat in gold,
Build thy cities on their lives.


LXXV.

Comes a day the spark divine
Answers to the Gods who gave;
Fierce the hot flames pant and shine
In the bruis'd breast of the slave!


LXXVI.

Changeless stand the Gods!--nor he
Knows he answers their behest;
Feels the might of their decree
In the blind rage of his breast.


LXXVII.

Tyrants! tremble when ye tread
Down the servile Helot clods;
Under despot heel is bred
The white anger of the Gods!


LXXVIII.

Thro' the shackle-canker'd dust,
Thro' the gyv'd soul, foul and dark
Force they, changeless Gods and just!
Up the bright eternal spark.


LXXIX.

Till, like lightnings vast and fierce,
On the land its terror smites;
Till its flames the tyrants pierce,
Till the dust the despot bites!


LXXX.

Day was at its chief unrest,
Stone from stone the Helot rose;
Fix'd his eyes--his naked breast
Iron-wall'd his inner throes.


LXXXI.

Rose-white in the dusky leaves,
Shone the frank-ey'd Spartan child;
Low the pale doves on the eaves,
Made their soft moan, sweet and wild.


LXXXII.

Wand'ring winds, fire-throated, stole,
Sybils whisp'ring from their books;
With the rush of wine from bowl,
Leap'd the tendril-darken'd brooks.


LXXXIII.

As the leathern cestus binds
Tense the boxer's knotted hands;
So the strong wine round him winds,
Binds his thews to iron bands.


LXXXIV.

Changeless are the Gods--and bred
All their wrath divine in him!
Bull-like fell his furious head,
Swell'd vast cords on breast and limb.


LXXXV.

As loud-flaming stones are hurl'd
From foul craters--thus the gods
Cast their just wrath on the world,
From the mire of Helot clods.


LXXXVI.

Still the furious Helot stood,
Staring thro' the shafted space;
Dry-lipp'd for the Spartan blood,
He of scourg'd Achea's race.


LXXXVII.

Sprang the Helot--roar'd the vine,
Rent from grey, long-wedded stones--
From pale shaft and dusky pine,
Beat the fury of his groans.


LXXXVIII.

Thunders inarticulate:
Wordless curses, deep and wild;
Reach'd the long pois'd sword of Fate,
To the Spartan thro' his child.


LXXXIX.

On his knotted hands, upflung
O'er his low'r'd front--all white,
Fair young Hermos quiv'ring hung;
As the discus flashes bright


XC.

In the player's hand--the boy,
Naked--blossom-pallid lay;
Rous'd to lust of bloody joy,
Throbb'd the slave's embruted clay.


XCI.

Loud he laugh'd--the father sprang
From the Spartan's iron mail!
Late--the bubbling death-cry rang
On the hot pulse of the gale!


XCII.

As the shining discus flies,
From the thrower's strong hand whirl'd;
Hermos cleft the air--his cries
Lance-like to the Spartan hurl'd.


XCIII.

As the discus smites the ground,
Smote his golden head the stone;
Of a tall shaft--burst a sound
And but one--his dying groan!


XCIV.

Lo! the tyrant's iron might!
Lo! the Helot's yokes and chains!
Slave-slain in the throbbing light
Lay the sole child of his veins.


XCV.

Laugh'd the Helot loud and full,
Gazing at his tyrant's face;
Low'r'd his front like captive bull,
Bellowing from the fields of Thrace.


XCVI.

Rose the pale shaft redly flush'd,
Red with Bacchic light and blood;
On its stone the Helot rush'd--
Stone the tyrant Spartan stood.


XCVII.

Lo! the magic of the wine
From far marsh of Amyclae!
Bier'd upon the ruddy vine,
Spartan dust and Helot lay!


XCVIII.

Spouse of Bacchus reel'd the day,
Red track'd on the throbbing sods;
Dead--but free--the Helot lay,
Just and changeless stand the Gods!