The Ghosts Of The Trees
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.
The White Bull
Ev'ry dusk eye in Madrid,
Flash'd blue 'neath its lid;
As the cry and the clamour ran round,
'The king has been crown'd!
And the brow of his bride has been bound
With the crown of a queen!'
And between
Te Deum and salvo, the roar
Of the crowd in the square,
Shook tower and bastion and door,
And the marble of altar and floor;
And high in the air,
The wreaths of the incense were driven
To and fro, as are riven
The leaves of a lily, and cast
By the jubilant shout of the blast
To and fro, to and fro,
And they fell in the chancel and nave,
As the lily falls back on the wave,
And trembl'd and faded and died,
As the white petals tremble and shiver,
And fade in the tide
Of the jewel dark breast of the river.
'Ho, gossips, the wonderful news!
I have worn two holes in my shoes,
With the race I have run;
And, like an old grape in the sun,
I am shrivell'd with drought, for I ran
Like an antelope rather than man.
Our King is a king of Spaniards indeed,
And he loves to see the bold bull bleed;
And the Queen is a queen, by the saints right fit,
In half of the Spanish throne to sit;
Tho' blue her eyes and wanly fair,
Her cheek, and her neck, and her flaxen hair;
For free and full--
She can laugh as she watches the staggering bull;
And tap on the jewels of her fan,
While horse and man,
Reel on in a ruby rain of gore;
And pout her lip at the Toreador;
And fling a jest
If he leave the fight with unsullied vest,
No crack on his skin,
Where the bull's sharp horn has entered in.
Caramba, gossips, I would not be king,
And rule and reign
Over wine-shop, and palace, and all broad Spain,
If under my wing--
I had not a mate who could joy to the full,
In the gallant death of a man or a bull!'
'What is the news
That has worn two holes in my Saints'-day shoes,
And parch'd me so with heat and speed,
That a skin of wine down my throat must bleed?
Why this, there's a handsome Hidalgo at Court,
And half in sport,
He scour'd the country far and wide,
For a gift to pleasure the royal bride;
And on the broad plains of the Guadalquiver
He gave a pull--
To the jewell'd bridle and silken rein,
That made his stout horse rear and shiver;
For in the dusk reeds of the silver river--
Like the angry stars that redly fly
From the dark blue peaks of the midnight sky,
And smouldering lie,
Blood-red till they die
In the blistering ground--the eyes he saw
Of a bull without blemish, or speck, or flaw,
And a hide as white as a dead saint's soul--
With many a clinking of red pistole;
And draughts of sour wine from the herdsman's bowl,
He paid the full
Price in bright gold of the brave white bull.
'Comrades we all
From the pulpit tall
Have heard the fat friars say God has decreed
That the peasant shall sweat and the soldier shall bleed,
And Hidalgo and King
May righteously wring
Sweat and blood from us all, weak, strong, young and old,
And turn the tax into Treasury gold.
Well, the friar knows best,
Or why wear a cowl?
And a cord round his breast?
So why should we scowl?
The friar is learned and knows the mind,
From core to rind,
Of God, and the Virgin, and ev'ry saint
That a tongue can name or a brush can paint;
And I've heard him declare--
With a shout that shook all the birds in the air,
That two kinds of clay
Are used in God's Pottery every day.
The finest and best he puts in a mould
Of purest gold,
Stamped with the mark of His signet ring,
And He turns them out,
(While the angels shout)
The Pope and the priest, the Hidalgo and King!
And He gives them dominion full and just
O'er the creatures He kneads from the common dust,
And the clay, stamped with His proper sign,
Has right divine
To the sweat, and the blood and the bended knee
Of such, my gossips, as ye and me.
Who cares? Not I
Only let King and Hidalgo buy,
With the red pistoles
They wring from our sweltering bodies and souls,
Treasures as full
Of the worth of gold as the bold white bull!
'The Hidalgo rode back to the Court:
And to finish the sport,
When the King had been crowned,
And the flaxen hair of the bride had been bound,
With the crown of the Queen;
He took a huge necklace of plates of gold,
With rubies between;
And wound it threefold
Round the brute's broad neck, and with ruby ring
In its fire-puffed nostrils had it led
To the feet of the Queen as she sat by the King,
With the red crown set on her lily head;
And she said--
'Let the bull be led
To the floor
Of the arena: Proclaim,
In my name,
That the valliant and bold Toreador,
Who slays him shall pull
The rubies and gold from the gore
Of the bold white bull!'
'That is the news which I bear;
I heard it below in the square--
And to and fro,
I heard the voice blow
Of Pedro, the brawny young Toreador,
As he swore
By the tremulous light of the golden star
That quivers beneath the soft lid
Of Pilar,
Who sells tall lilies through fair Madrid;
He would wind six-fold
Round her neck, long, slender, round and full,
The rubies and gold
That three times rolled
Round the mighty breast of the bold white bull.
And loudly he sang,
While the wine cups rang,
'If I'm the bravest Toreador
In gallant, gay Madrid,
If thou hast got the brightest eye
That dances 'neath a lid;
If e'er of Andalusian wine
I drank a bottle full,
The gold, the rubies shall be thine
That deck the bold white bull.'
'Already a chorus rings out in the city,
A jubilant ditty,
And every guitar
Vibrates to the names of Pedro and Pilar;
And the strings and voices are soulless and dull
That sound not the name of the bold white bull!'
