The Fountain Of Love

The source of laughter lies so near to tears,
And pain to rapture, that one fountain flows
From forth the two Love's; in whose deeps appears
The image of the Heaven each man knows.

Within the world of every man's desire
Two things have power to lift the soul above:
The first is Work, who dons a mean attire;
The other, Love, whose raiment is of fire.
Their child is Hope, and we the heirs thereof.

Love And The Sea

Love one day, in childish anger,
Tired of his divinity,
Sick of rapture, sick of languor,
Threw his arrows in the sea.
Since then Ocean, like a woman,
Variable of nature seems:
Smiling; cruel; kind; inhuman;
Gloomed with grief and drowned in dreams.

The Desire Of The Moth

Woman's a star, a rose;
Man but a moth, a bee:
High now as heaven she glows,
Low now as earth and sea:
Star of the world and rose,
Clothed on with mystery.
Ever a goal, a lure,
Man, for his joy and woe,
Strives to attain to her,
Beating wild wings below,
Dying to make him sure
If she be flame or snow.

Within the world of every man's desire
Three things have power to lift his soul above,
Through dreams, religion, and ecstatic fire,
The star-like shapes of Beauty, Truth, and Love.

I never hoped that, this side far-off Heaven,
These three,-whom all exalted souls pursue,
I e'er should see; until to me 't was given,
Lady, to meet the three, made one, in you.

This is the lesson I have learned of Beauty:
Who gathers flowers finds that flowers fade:
Who sets love in his heart above his duty
Misses the part for which that love was made.
Than passion, haply, there is nothing madder:
Who plucks its red rose plucks with it a thorn:
More than soul's pain what hurt can make us sadder?
And yet of this immortal things are born.

High in the place of outraged liberty,
He ruled the world, an emperor and god
His iron armies swept the land and sea,
And conquered nations trembled at his nod.

By him the love that fills man's soul with light,
And makes a Heaven of Earth, was crucified;
Lust-crowned he lived, yea, lived in God's despite,
And old in infamies, a king he died.

Justice begins now. Many centuries
In some vile body must his soul atone
As slave, as beggar, loathsome with disease,
Less than the dog at which we fling a stone.

Why Should I Pine?

Why should I pine? when there in Spain
Are eyes to woo, and not in vain;
Dark eyes, and dreamily divine:
And lips, as red as sunlit wine;

Sweet lips, that never know disdain:
And hearts, for passion over fain;
Fond, trusting hearts that know no stain
Of scorn for hearts that love like mine.-
Why should I pine?

Because all dreams I entertain
Of beauty wear thy form, Elain;
And e'en their lips and eyes are thine:
So though I gladly would resign
All love, I love, and still complain,
'Why should I pine?'

Love And The Wind

All were in league to capture Love
The rock, the stream, the tree;
The very Month was leader of
The whole conspiracy.

It led Love where wild waters met,
And tree hugged close to tree;
And where the dew and sunbeam let
Their lips meet rapturously.

And then it shouted, 'Here he is,
O wild Wind in the tree!.
Come, clasp him now, and kiss and kiss!
And call the flowers to see!'

And there, on every side, the wood
Rushed out in flower and tree.
And that is how, I've understood,
The Springtime came to be.

O voice of ecstasy and lyric pain,
Divinely throated and divinely heard
Among old England's songsters! Sprite or bird,
Haunting the woods of song with raptured strain!
In whose wild music Love is born and slain.
And young Desire cries ever a battle word,
And Passion goes, ready with kiss or sword,
To make us captive or set free again.
Above the flowery meads of English song,
Enchantment-sweet, her golden numbers pour,
Commanding and compelling, like Desire!
O nightingale and lark, how o'er the throng
Of all thy sister singers thou dost soar,
Filled with seraphic love and Sapphic fire!

The Woman Speaks

Why have you come? to see me in my shame?
A thing to spit on, to despise and scorn?
And then to ask me! You, by whom was torn
And then cast by, like some vile rag, my name!
What shelter could you give me, now, that blame
And loathing would not share? that wolves of vice
Would not besiege with eyes of glaring ice?
Wherein Sin sat not with her face of flame?
'You love me'? God! If yours be love, for lust
Hell must invent another synonym!
If yours be love, then hatred is the way
To Heaven and God! and not with soul but dust
Must burn the faces of the Cherubim,
O lie of lies, if yours be love, I say!

The Death Of Love

So Love is dead, the Love we knew of old!
And in the sorrow of our hearts' hushed halls
A lute lies broken and a flower falls;
Love's house stands empty and his hearth lies cold.
Lone in dim places, where sweet vows were told,
In walks grown desolate, by ruined walls
Beauty decays; and on their pedestals
Dreams crumble and th' immortal gods are mold.
Music is slain or sleeps; one voice alone,
One voice awakes, and like a wandering ghost
Haunts all the echoing chambers of the Past-
The voice of Memory, that stills to stone
The soul that hears; the mind, that, utterly lost,
Before its beautiful presence stands aghast.

Love, The Interpreter

Thou art the music that I hear in sleep,
The poetry that lures me on in dreams;
The magic, thou, that holds my thought with themes
Of young romance in revery's mystic keep.
The lily's aura, and the damask deep
That clothes the rose; the whispering soul that seems
To haunt the wind; the rainbow light that streams,
Like some wild spirit, 'thwart the cataract's leap
Are glimmerings of thee and thy loveliness,
Pervading all my world; interpreting
The marvel and the wonder these disclose:
For, lacking thee, to me were meaningless
Life, love and hope, the joy of every thing,
And all the beauty that the wide world knows.

Can one resolve and hunt it from one's heart?
This love, this god and fiend, that makes a hell
Of many a life, in ways no tongue can tell,
No mind divine, nor any word impart.
Would not one think the slights that make hearts smart,
The ice of love's disdain, the wint'ry well
Of love's disfavor, love's own fire would quell?
Or school its nature, too, to its own art
Why will men cringe and cry forever here
For that which, once obtained, may prove a curse?
Why not remember that, however fair,
Decay is wed to Beauty? That each year
Takes somewhat from the riches of her purse,
Until at last her house of pride stands bare?

There are three things of Earth
That help us more
Than those of heavenly birth
That all implore
Than Love or Faith or Hope,
For which we strive and grope.

The first one is Desire,
Who takes our hand
And fills our hearts with fire
None may withstand;
Through whom we're lifted far
Above both moon and star.

The second one is Dream,
Who leads our feet
By an immortal gleam
To visions sweet;
Through whom our forms put on
Dim attributes of dawn.

The last of these is Toil,
Who maketh true,
Within the world's turmoil
The other two;
Through whom we may behold
Ourselves with kings enrolled.

Love, The Song Of Songs

Over the roar of cities,
Over the hush of the hills,
Mounts ever a song that never stops,
A voice that never stills.

Epic-loud as the sea is,
Lyric-low as the dew,
It sings and sings a soul into things
And builds the world anew.

Dauntless, deathless, stern but kind,
Bold and free and strong,
It sweeps with mastery man's mind,
And rolls the world along.

From soul to soul it wings its words,
And, lo, the darkness flies;
And all who heed that song of songs
View Earth with other eyes.

New eyes, new thoughts, that shall go on
Seeing as Beauty sings,
Until the light of the farthest dawn
Shall fold its rainbow wings.

Loss molds our lives in many ways,
And fills our souls with guesses;
Upon our hearts sad hands it lays
Like some grave priest that blesses.

Far better than the love we win,
That earthly passions leaven,
Is love we lose, that knows no sin,
That points the path to Heaven.

Love, whose soft shadow brightens Earth,
Through whom our dreams are nearest;
And loss, through whom we see the worth
Of all that we held dearest.

Not joy it is, but misery
That chastens us, and sorrow;
Perhaps to make us all that we
Expect beyond To-morrow.

Within that life where time and fate
Are not; that knows no seeming:
That world to which death keeps the gate
Where love and loss sit dreaming.

The Glory And The Dream

There in the past I see her as of old,
Blue-eyed and hazel-haired, within a room
Dim with a twilight of tenebrious gold;
Her white face sensuous as a delicate bloom
Night opens in the tropics. Fold on fold
Pale laces drape her; and a frail perfume,
As of a moonlit primrose brimmed with rain,
Breathes from her presence, drowsing heart and brain.

Her head is bent; some red carnations glow
Deep in her heavy hair; her large eyes gleam;
Bright sister stars of those twin worlds of snow,
Her breasts, through which the veined violets stream;
I hold her hand; her smile comes sweetly slow
As thoughts of love that haunt a poet's dream;
And at her feet once more I sit and hear
Wild words of passion-dead this many a year.

What though the heart be tired,
The heart, that long aspired,
And one high dream desired,
Beyond attainment's scope;
Beyond our grasp; above us;
The dream we would have love us,
That will know nothing of us,
But merely bids us hope.

Still it behooves us never
From love and work to sever,
To hold to one endeavor,
And make our dream our care:
For work, at dawn and even,
Shapes for the soul a heaven,
Wherein, as strong as seven,
Can enter no Despair.

Work, that blows high the fire
Of hope and heart's desire,
And sings and dreams of higher
Things than the world's regard:
Work, which to long endeavor,
And patient love, that never
Seems recompensed, forever
Gives, in its way, reward.

The Lust Of The World

SINCE Man first lifted up his eyes to hers
And saw her vampire beauty, which is lust,
All else is dust
Within the compass of the universe.
With heart of Jael and with face of Ruth
She sits upon the tomb of Time and quaffs
Heart's blood and laughs
At all Life calls most noble and the truth.
The fire of conquest and the wine of dreams
Are in her veins; and in her eyes the lure
Of things unsure,
Urging the world forever to extremes.
Without her, Life would stagnate in a while.—
Her touch it is puts pleasure even in pain.—
So Life attain
Her end, she cares not if the means be vile.
She knows no pity, mercy, or remorse.—
Hers is to build and then exterminate:
To slay, create,
And twixt the two maintain an equal course.

The Love Of Loves

I Have not seen her face, and yet
She is more sweet than any thing
Of Earth than rose or violet
That Mayday winds and sunbeams bring.

Of all we know, past or to come,
That beauty holds within its net,
She is the high compendium:
And yet

I have not touched her robe, and still
She is more dear than lyric words
And music; or than strains that fill
The throbbing throats of forest birds.

Of all we mean by poetry,
That rules the soul and charms the will,
She is the deep epitome:
And still

She is my world; ah, pity me!
A dream that flies whom I pursue;
Whom all pursue, whoe'er they be,
Who toil for art and dare and do.

The shadow-love for whom they sigh,
The far ideal affinity,
For whom they live and gladly die
Ah, me!

Sweet lies! the sweetest ever heard,
To her he said:
Her heart remembers every word
Now he is dead.

I ask:' If thus his lies can make
Your young heart grieve for his false sake,
Had he been true what had you done
For true love's sake?'

'Upon his grave there in the sun,
Avoided now of all but one,
I'd lay my heart with all its ache,
And let it break, and let it break.'

And falsehood! fairer ne'er was seen
Than he put on:
Her heart recalls each look and mien
Now he is gone.

I ask: 'If thus his treachery
Can hold your heart with lie on lie,
What had you done for manly love,
Love without lie?'

'There in the grass that grows above
His grave, where all could know thereof,
I'd lay me down without a sigh,
And gladly die, and gladly die.'

Why do I love you, who have never given
My heart encouragement or any cause?
Is it because, as earth is held of heaven,
Your soul holds mine by some mysterious laws?
Perhaps, unseen of me, within your eyes
The answer lies, the answer lies.


II


From your sweet lips no word hath ever fallen
To tell my heart its love is not in vain-
The bee that wooes the flow'r hath honey and pollen
To cheer him on and bring him back again:
But what have I, your other friends above,
To feed my love, to feed my love?


III


Still, still you are my dream and my desire;
Your love is an allurement and a dare
Set for attainment, like a shining spire,
Far, far above me in the starry air:
And gazing upward, 'gainst the hope of hope,
I breast the slope, I breast the slope.

In The Forest Of Love

What sighed the Forest to the nest?
'So young, so old,
Love,
Help me to mold
This life I hold.'
What said the bird,
That harked and heard?
'Below, above,
Love, love is best.
Take heed, my Life, and quit thy quest.
The meaning of Love is rest.'
So spake the bird.
What cried the Nightwind to the trees?
'Thou dream of Earth,
Love,
Make me of worth
In death and birth!'
What said the wood
Stark-still that stood?
'Below, above,
Give me increase.
Take heed, my Heart! thy sighings cease.
The meaning of Love is peace.'
So spake the Wood.
What sobbed the Earth in deep and height?
'O Song of Songs,
Love,
Unloose my thongs,
And right my wrongs!'
What said the Clod,
That dreamed of God?
'Below, above,
Prisoner of Night,
Spirit, lift high thy taper-light!
The meaning of Love is might.'
So spake the Clod.

Out Of The Depths

Let me forget her face!
So fresh, so lovely! the abiding place
Of tears and smiles that won my heart to her;
Of dreams and moods that moved my soul's dim deeps,
As strong winds stir
Dark waters where the starlight glimmering sleeps.
In every lineament the mind can trace,
Let me forget her face!

II.

Let me forget her form!
Soft and seductive, that contained each charm,
Each grace the sweet word maidenhood implies;
And all the sensuous youth of line and curve,
That makes men's eyes
Bondsmen of beauty eager still to serve.
In every part that memory can warm,
Let me forget her form!

III.

Let me forget her, God!
Her who made honeyed love a bitter rod
To scourge my heart with, barren with despair;
To tear my soul with, sick with vain desire!
Oh, hear my prayer!
Out of the hell of love's unquenchable fire
I cry to thee, with face against the sod,
Let me forget her, God!

LET us bid the world good-by,
Now while sun and cloud's above us,
While we've nothing to deny,
Nothing but our selves to love us:
Let us fancy, I and you,
All the dreams we dreamed came true.
We have gone but half the road,
Rugged road of root and bowlder;
Made the best of Life's dark load,
Cares, that helped us to grow older:
We, my dear, have done our best —
Let us stop awhile and rest.
Let us, by this halfway stile,
Put away the world's desire,
And sit down, a little while,
With our hearts, and light a fire:
Sing the songs that once we sung
In the days when we were young.
Haply they will bring again,
From the Lands of Song and Story,
To our sides the elfin train
Of the dreams we dreamed of glory,
That are one now with the crew
Of the deeds we did not do.
Here upon the road of Life
Let us rest us; take our pleasure:
Free from care and safe from strife,
Count again our only treasure —
Love, that helped us on our way,
Our companion night and day.

The Heart's Desire

God made her body out of foam and flowers,
And for her hair the dawn and darkness blent;
Then called two planets from their heavenly towers,
And in her face, divinely eloquent,
Gave them a firmament.

God made her heart of rosy ice and fire,
Of snow and flame, that freezes while it burns;
And of a starbeam and a moth's desire
He made her soul, to'ards which my longing turns,
And all my being yearns.

So is my life a prisoner unto passion,
Enslaved of her who gives nor sign nor word;
So in the cage her loveliness doth fashion
Is love endungeoned, like a golden bird
That sings but is not heard.

Could it but once convince her with beseeching!
But once compel her as the sun the South!
Could it but once, fond arms around her reaching,
Upon the red carnation of her mouth
Dew its eternal drouth!

Then might I rise victorious over sadness,
O'er fate and change, and, with but little care,
Torched by the glory of that moment's gladness,
Breast the black mountain of my life's despair,
And die or do and dare.

The Burden Of Desire

In some glad way I know thereof:
A garden glows down in my heart,
Wherein I meet and often part
With many an ancient tale of love
A Romeo garden, banked with bloom,
And trellised with the eglantine;
In which a rose climbs to a room,
A balcony one mass of vine,
Dim, haunted of perfume
A balcony, whereon she gleams,
The soft Desire of all Dreams,
And smiles and bends like Juliet,
Year after year.
While to her side, all dewy wet,
A rose stuck in his ear,
Love climbs to draw her near.

II.

And in another way I know:
Down in my soul a graveyard lies,
Wherein I meet, in ghostly wise,
With many an ancient tale of woe
A graveyard of the Capulets,
Deep-vaulted with ancestral gloom,
Through whose dark yews the moonlight jets
On many a wildly caryen tomb,
That mossy mildew frets
A graveyard where the Soul's Desire
Sleeps, pale-entombed; and, kneeling by her,
Love, like that hapless Montague,
Year after year,
Weary and worn and wild of hue,
Within her sepulchre,
Falls bleeding on her bier.

I heard the forest's green heart beat
As if it heard the happy feet
Of one who came, like young Desire:
At whose fair coming birds and flowers
Sprang up, and Beauty, filled with fire,
Touched lips with Song amid the bowers
And Love led on the dancing Hours.

II.

And then I heard a voice that rang,
And to the leaves and blossoms sang:
'My child is Life: I dwell with Truth:
I am the Spirit glad of Birth:
I bring to all things joy and youth:
I am the rapture of the Earth.
Come look on me and know my worth.'

III.

And then the woodland heaved a sigh,
As if it saw a shape go by
A shape of sorrow or of dread,
That seemed to move as moves a mist,
And left the leaves and flowers dead,
And with cold lips my forehead kissed,
While phantoms all around held tryst.

IV.

And then I heard a voice that spoke
Unto the fading beech and oak:
'I am the Spirit of Decay,
Whose child is Death, that means relief:
I breathe and all things pass away:
I am Earth's glory and its grief.
Come look on me: thy time is brief.'

First I asked the honeybee,
Busy in the balmy bowers;
Saying, 'Sweetheart, tell it me:
Have you seen her, honeybee?
She is cousin to the flowers
All the sweetness of the south
In her wild-rose face and mouth.'
But the bee passed silently.

II

Then I asked the forest bird,
Warbling by the woodland waters;
Saying, 'Dearest, have you heard?
Have you heard her, forest bird?
She is one of music's daughters
Never song so sweet by half
As the music of her laugh.'
But the bird said not a word.

III

Next I asked the evening sky,
Hanging out its lamps of fire;
Saying, 'Loved one, passed she by?
Tell me, tell me, evening sky!
She, the star of my desire
Sister whom the Pleiads lost,
And my soul's high pentecost.'
But the sky made no reply.

IV

Where is she? ah, where is she?
She to whom both love and duty
Bind me, yea, immortally.
Where is she? ah, where is she?
Symbol of the Earth-Soul's beauty.
I have lost her. Help my heart
Find her! her, who is a part
Of the pagan soul of me.

I

First I asked the honeybee,
Busy in the balmy bowers;
Saying, 'Sweetheart, tell it me:
Have you seen her, honeybee?
She is cousin to the flowers-
All the sweetness of the south
In her wild-rose face and mouth.'
But the bee passed silently.

II

Then I asked the forest bird,
Warbling by the woodland waters;
Saying, 'Dearest, have you heard?
Have you heard her, forest bird?
She is one of music's daughters-
Never song so sweet by half
As the music of her laugh.'
But the bird said not a word.

III

Next I asked the evening sky,
Hanging out its lamps of fire;
Saying, 'Loved one, passed she by?
Tell me, tell me, evening sky!
She, the star of my desire-
Sister whom the Pleiads lost,
And my soul's high pentecost.'
But the sky made no reply.

IV

Where is she? ah, where is she?
She to whom both love and duty
Bind me, yea, immortally.-
Where is she? ah, where is she?
Symbol of the Earth-Soul's beauty.
I have lost her. Help my heart
Find her! her, who is a part
Of the pagan soul of me.

Her heart is still and leaps no more
With holy passion when the breeze,
Her whilom playmate, as before,
Comes with the language of the bees,
Sad songs her mountain cedars sing,
And water-music murmuring.

Her calm white feet,-erst fleet and fast
As Daphne's when a god pursued,-
No more will dance like sunlight past
The gold-green vistas of the wood,
Where every quailing floweret
Smiled into life where they were set.

Hers were the limbs of living light,
And breasts of snow; as virginal
As mountain drifts; and throat as white
As foam of mountain waterfall;
And hyacinthine curls, that streamed
Like crag-born mists, and gloomed and gleamed.

Her presence breathed such scents as haunt
Moist, mountain dells and solitudes;
Aromas wild as some wild plant
That fills with sweetness all the woods:
And comradeships of stars and skies
Shone in the azure of her eyes.

Her grave be by a mossy rock
Upon the top of some wild hill,
Removed, remote from men who mock
The myths and dreams of life they kill:
Where all of beauty, naught of lust
May guard her solitary dust.

I

She was a queen. 'Midst mutes and slaves,
A mameluke, he loved her.--Waves
Dashed not more hopelessly the paves
Of her high marble palace-stair
Than lashed his love his heart's despair.-
As souls in Hell dream Paradise,
He suffered yet forgot it there
Beneath Rommaneh's houri eyes.

II

With passion eating at his heart
He served her beauty, but dared dart
No amorous glance, nor word impart.-
Taifi leather's perfumed tan
Beneath her, on a low divan
She lay 'mid cushions stuffed with down:
A slave-girl with an ostrich fan
Sat by her in a golden gown.

III

She bade him sing. Fair lutanist,
She loved his voice. With one white wrist,
Hooped with a blaze of amethyst,
She raised her ruby-crusted lute:
Gold-welted stuff, like some rich fruit,
Her raiment, diamond-showered, rolled
Folds pigeon-purple, whence one foot
Drooped in an anklet-twist of gold.

IV

He stood and sang with all the fire
That boiled within his blood's desire,
That made him all her slave yet higher:
And at the end his passion durst
Quench with one burning kiss its thirst.-
O eunuchs, did her face show scorn
When through his heart your daggers burst?
And dare ye say he died forlorn?

You, who are met to remember
Kentucky and give her praise;
Who have warmed your hearts at the ember
Of her love for many days!

Be faithful to your mother,
However your ways may run,
And, holding one to the other,
Prove worthy to be her sons.

Worthy of her who brought you;
Worthy in dream and deed:
Worthy her love that taught you,
And holds your work in heed:

Your work she weighs and watches,
Giving it praise and blame,
As to her heart she catches,
Or sets aside in shame.

One with her heart's devotion,
One with her soul's firm will,
She holds to the oldtime notion
Of what is good, what ill:

And still in unspoiled beauty,
With all her pioneer pride,
She keeps to the path of duty,
And never turns aside.

She dons no new attire
Of modern modes and tricks,
And stands for something higher
Than merely politics:

For much the world must think on,
For dreams as well as deeds;
For men, like Clay and Lincoln,
And words the whole world reads.

Not for her manners gracious,
Nor works, nor courage of
Convictions, proud, audacious,
Does she compel our love,

But for her heart's one passion,
Old as democracy,
That holds to the ancient fashion
Of hospitality.

Love In A Garden

Between the rose's and the canna's crimson,
Beneath her window in the night I stand;
The jeweled dew hangs little stars, in rims, on
The white moonflowers each a spirit hand
That points the path to mystic shadowland.

Awaken, sweet and fair!
And add to night try grace!
Suffer its loveliness to share
The white moon of thy face,
The darkness of thy hair.
Awaken, sweet and fair!

II.

A moth, like down, swings on th' althæa's pistil,
Ghost of a tone that haunts its bell's deep dome;
And in the August-lily's cone of crystal
A firefly blurs, the lantern of a gnome,
Green as a gem that gleams through hollow foam.

Approach! the moment flies!
Thou sweetheart of the South!
Come! mingle with night's mysteries
The red rose of thy mouth,
The starlight of thine eyes.
Approach! the moment flies!

III.

Dim through the dusk, like some unearthly presence,
Bubbles the Slumber-song of some wild bird;
And with it borne, faint on a breeze-sweet essence,
The rainy murmur of a fountain's heard
As if young lips had breathed a perfumed word.

How long, my love, my bliss!
How long must I await
With night, that all impatience is,
Thy greeting at the gate,
And at the gate thy kiss?
How long, my love, my bliss!

Haunters Of The Silence

There are haunters of the silence, ghosts that hold the heart and brain:
I have sat with them and hearkened; I have talked with them in vain:
I have shuddered from their coming, yet have run to meet them there,
And have cursed them and have blessed them and have loved them to despair.

At my door I see their shadows; in my walks I meet their ghosts;
Where I often hear them weeping or sweep by in withered hosts:
Perished dreams, gone like the roses, crumbling by like autumn leaves;
Phantoms of old joys departed, that the spirit eye perceives.

Oft at night they sit beside me, fix their eyes upon my face,
Demon eyes that burn and hold me, in whose deeps my heart can trace
All the past; and where a passion, as in Hell the ghosts go by,
Turns an anguished face toward me with a love that cannot die.

In the night-time, in the darkness, in the blackness of the storm,
Round my fireplace there they gather, flickering form on shadowy form:
In the daytime, in the noontide, in the golden sunset glow,
On the hilltops, in the forests, I have met them walking slow.

There are haunters of the silence, ghosts that hold the brain and heart:
In the mansion of my being they have placed a room apart:
There I hear their spectre raiment, see their shadows on the floor,
Where the raven, Sorrow, darkens Love's pale image o'er my door.

Beetle And Moth

There's a bug at night that goes
Drowsily down the garden ways;
Lumberingly above the rose,
And above the jasmine sprays;
Bumping, bungling, buzzing by,
Falling finally, to crawl
Underneath the rose and lie
Near its fairest bud. That's all.
And I ask my father why
This old bug goes by that way:
This is what he has to say:
'That's old Parson Beetle, sonny;
He's in love with some rich flower;
After her and all her honey
And he'll have them in an hour.
He is awkward, but, I say,
With the flowers he has a way;
And, I tell you, he's a power;
Never fails to get his flower:
He's a great old Beetle, sonny.'

II.

Then again, when it is wet,
And we sit around the lamp,
On the screen, near which it's set,
Comes a fluttering, dim and damp,
Of white, woolly wings; and I
Go to see what's there and find
Something like a butterfly,
Beating at the window-blind.
And I ask my father why
This strange creature does that way:
This is what he has to say:
'Lady Moth that; she's the fashion:
Fall's in love with all bright things:
She has a consuming passion
For this light: will singe her wings.
Once it was a star, you know,
That she loved. I told you so!
Take her up. What lovely rings
On her scorched and dainty wings!
It's a pity, but the fashion.'

Hilda Of The Hillside

Who is she, like the spring, who comes down
From the hills to the smoke-huddled town?
With her peach-petal face
And her wildflower grace,
Bringing sunshine and gladness to each sorry place?
Her cheeks are twin buds o' the brier,
Mixed fervors of snow and of fire;
Her lips are the red
Of a rose that is wed
To dew and aroma when dawn is o'erhead:
Her eyes are twin bits o' the skies,
Blue glimpses of Paradise;
The strands of her hair
Are sunlight and air
Herself is the argument that she is fair,
This girl with the dawn in her eyes.

II.

If Herrick had looked on her face
His lyrics had learned a new grace:
Her face is a book
Where each laugh and each look,
Each smile is a lyric, more sweet than a brook:
Her words they are birds that are heard
Singing low where the roses are stirred,
The buds of her lips,
Whence each of them slips
With music as soft as the fragrance that drips
From a dew-dreaming bloom;
With their sound and perfume
Making all my glad heart a love-haunted room.

III.

But she she knows nothing of love!
She she with the soul of a dove,
Who dwells on the hills,
Knowing naught of the ills
Of the vales, of the hearts that with passion she fills:
For whom all my soul
Is a harp from which roll
The songs that she hears not, the voice of my love,
This girl who goes singing above.

There is no joy of earth that thrills
My bosom like the far-off hills!
Th' unchanging hills, that, shadowy,
Beckon our mutability
To follow and to gaze upon
Foundations of the dusk and dawn.
Meseems the very heavens are massed
Upon their shoulders, vague and vast
With all the skyey burden of
The winds and clouds and stars above.
Lo, how they sit before us, seeing
The laws that give all Beauty being!
Behold! to them, when dawn is near,
The nomads of the air appear,
Unfolding crimson camps of day
In brilliant bands; then march away;
And under burning battlements
Of twilight plant their tinted tents.
The truth of olden myths, that brood
By haunted stream and haunted wood,
They see; and feel the happiness
Of old at which we only guess:
The dreams, the ancients loved and knew,
Still as their rocks and trees are true:
Not otherwise than presences
The tempest and the calm to these:
One, shouting on them all the night;
Black-limbed and veined with lambent light;
The other with the ministry
Of all soft things that company
With music an embodied form,
Giving to solitude the charm
Of leaves and waters and the peace
Of bird-begotten melodies
And who at night cloth still confer
With the mild moon, that telleth her
Pale tale of lonely love, until
Wan images of passion fill
The heights with shapes that glimmer by
Clad on with sleep and memory.

This was my dream:

It seemed the afternoon
Of some deep tropic day; and yet the moon
Stood round and bright with golden alchemy
High in a heaven bluer than the sea.
Long lawny lengths of perishable cloud
Hung in a west o'er rolling forests bowed;
Clouds raining colours, gold and violet,
That, opening, seemed from mystic worlds to let
Hints down of Parian beauty and lost charms
Of dim immortals, young, with floating forms.
And all about me fruited orchards grew,
Pear, quince and peach, and plums of dusty blue;
Rose-apricots and apples streaked with fire,
Kissed into ripeness by the sun's desire
And big with juice. And on far, fading hills,
Down which it seemed a hundred torrent rills
Flashed rushing silver, vines and vines and vines
Of purple vintage swollen with cool wines;
Pale pleasant wines and fragrant as late June,
Their delicate tang drawn from the wine-white moon
And from the clouds o'er this sweet world there dripped
An odorous music, strangely feverish-lipped,
That swung and swooned and panted in mad sighs;
Investing at each throb the air with eyes,
And forms of sensuous spirits, limpid white,
Clad on with raiment as of starry night;
Fair, faint embodiments of melody,
From out whose hearts of crystal one could see
The music stream like light through delicate hands
Hollowing a lamp. And as on sounding sands
The ocean murmur haunts the rosy shells,
Within whose convolutions beauty dwells,
My soul became a vibrant harp of love,
Re-echoing all the harmony above.