Old Snake-Doctor

Once I found an ant-lion's hole
And an ant-lion in it: nippers
Like a pair of rusty clippers.
And I saw a red ant roll
In its pit, and, quick as Ned,
This old ant-lion fanged its head,
Held it till the ant was dead.

II.

And I told my father: he
Smiled and said, 'He beats the dickens,
With his pinchers; even chickens
Have n't his voracity.
Think now what he would have done
Had you been an ant, my son,
Fallen in that pit like one.

III.

'Daniel in the lion's den!
Guess you'd come home good and gory.
But now here's another story:
You should see these ant-lions when
They have wings; and, blue and green,
Ponds and pools they fly between:
Prettiest things I've ever seen.

IV.

'Look just like the dragonflies;
And perhaps they are snake-feeders;
Name you'll never find in Readers
Read at school: but, I surmise,
Dragonflies are not the same
As these old snake-doctors; name
For which I am not to blame.

V.

'Who's to blame then? If it's not
I or, say, the dictionary,
Since we two seem so contráry,
Must be that old ant-lion what
Can't content itself, that's plain,
With its bug-estate; remain
Just a bug in sun and rain.

VI.

'Has to get himself new clothes!
Gauzy wings that shine and glitter;
Something that he thinks is fitter
His profession, I suppose,
Doctoring things, like water-snakes;
Finery that often takes
Eyes of hungry ducks and drakes:

VII.

'And of fishes, too, the fool.
Who his coat so bright and brassy,
Mirrored in the waters glassy,
Leap for, drag into the pool.
Old snake-doctor, flaunt your fill!
Feed the snakes or cure or kill
In the end you pay the bill.'

OH, for some cup of consummating might,
Filled with life's kind conclusion, lost in night!
A wine of darkness, that with death shall cure
This sickness called existence! —Oh to find
Surcease of sorrow! quiet for the mind,
An end of thought in something dark and sure!
Mandrake and hellebore, or poison pure! —
Some drug of death, wherein there are no dreams! —
No more, no more, with patience, to endure
The wrongs of life, the hate of men, it seems;
Or wealth's authority, tyranny of time,
And lamentations and the boasts of man!
To hear no more the wild complaints of toil,
And struggling merit, that, unknown, must starve:
To see no more life's disregard for Art!
Oh God! to know no longer anything!
Nor good, nor evil, or what either means!
Nor hear the changing tides of customs roll
On the dark shores of Time! No more to hear
The stream of Life that furies on the shoals
Of hard necessity! No more to see
The unavailing battle waged of Need
Against adversity! — Merely to lie, at last,
Pulseless and still, at peace beneath the sod!
To think and dream no more! no more to hope!
At rest at last! at last at peace and rest,
Clasped by some kind tree's gnarled arm of root
Bearing me upward in its large embrace
To gentler things and fairer — clouds and winds,
And stars and sun and moon! To undergo
The change the great trees know when Spring comes in
With shoutings and rejoicings of the rain,
To swiftly rise an atom in a host,
The myriad army of the leaves; and stand
A handsbreadth nearer Heaven and what is God!
To pulse in sap that beats unfevered in
The life we call inanimate — the heart
Of some great tree. And so, unconsciously,
As sleeps a child, clasped in its mother's arm,
Be taken back, in amplitudes of grace,
To Nature's heart, and so be lost in her.

THE moon, a circle of gold,
O'er the crowded housetops rolled,
And peeped in an attic, where,
'Mid sordid things and bare,
A sick child lay and gazed
At a road to the far-away,
A road he followed, mazed,
That grew from a moonbeam-ray,
A road of light that led
From the foot of his garret-bed
Out of that room of hate,
Where Poverty slept by his mate,
Sickness —out of the street,
Into a wonderland,
Where a voice called, far and sweet,
'Come, follow our Fairy band!'
A purple shadow, sprinkled
With golden star-dust, twinkled
Suddenly into the room
Out of the winter gloom:
And it wore a face to him
Of a dream he'd dreamed: a form
Of Joy, whose face was dim,
Yet bright with a magic charm.
And the shadow seemed to trail,
Sounds that were green and frail:
Dew-dripples; notes that fell
Like drops in a ferny dell;
A whispered lisp and stir,
Like winds among the leaves,
Blent with a cricket-chirr,
And coo of a dove that grieves.
And the Elfin bore on its back
A little faery pack
Of forest scents: of loam
And mossy sounds of foam;
And of its contents breathed
As might a clod of ground
Feeling a bud unsheathed
There in its womb profound.
And the shadow smiled and gazed
At the child; then softly raised
Its arms and seemed to grow
To a tree in the attic low:
And from its glimmering hands
Shook emerald seeds of dreams,
From which grew fairy bands,
Like firefly motes and gleams.
The child had seen them before
In his dreams of Fairy lore:
The Elves, each with a light
To guide his feet a-right,
Out of this world to a world
Where Magic built him towers,
And Fable old, unfurled,
Flags like wonderful flowers.
And the child, who knew this, smiled,
And rose, a different child:
No more he knew of pain,
Or fear of heart and brain. —
At Poverty there that slept
He never even glanced,
But into the moon-road stept,
And out of the garret danced.
Out of the earthly gloom,
Out of the sordid room,
Out, on a moonbeam ray! —
Now at last to play
There with comrades found!
Children of the moon,
There on faery ground,
Where none would find him soon!

The Troubadour, Pons De Capdeuil

The gray dawn finds me thinking still
Of thee who hadst my thoughts all night;
Of thee, who art my lute's sweet skill,
And of my soul the only light;
My star of song to whom I turn
My face and for whose love I yearn.

Thou dost not know thy troubadour
Lies sick to death; no longer sings:
That this alone may work his cure
To feel thy white hand, weighed with rings,
Smoothed softly through his heavy hair,
Or resting with the old love there.

To feel thy warm cheek laid to his;
Thy bosom fluttering with love;
Then on his eyes and lips thy kiss
Thy kiss alone were all enough
To heal his heart, to cure his soul,
And make his mind and body whole.

The drought, these three months past, hath slain
All green things in this weary land,
As in my life thy high disdain
Hath killed ambition: yea, my hand
Forgets its cunning; and my heart,
Sick to stagnation, all its art.

Once to my castle there at Puy,
In honor of thy beauty, came
The Angevin nobility,
To hear me sing of thee, whose fame
Was high as Helen's. Azalis,
Hast thou forgot? Forget'st thou this?

And in the lists how often there
I broke a spear for thee? and placed
The crown of beauty on thy hair,
While thou sat'st, like the fair moon faced,
Amid the human firmament
Of faces that toward thee bent.

I take my hawk, my peregrine
No falconer or page beside
And ride from morn till eve begin;
I ride forgetting that I ride,
And all save this: that thou no more
Dost ride beside me as of yore.

A heron sweeps above me: I
Remember then how oft were cast
Thy hawk and mine at such: and sigh
Thinking of thee and days long past,
When through the Anjou fields and bowers
We used to hawk and hunt for hours.

And when, unhappy, I return,
And take my lute and seek again
The terrace where, beside some urn,
The castle gathers, while the stain
Of sunset crimsons all the sea,
And sing old songs once loved of thee:

The soul within me overflows
With longing; and I seem to hear
Thy voice through fountains and the rose
Calling afar, while, wildly near,
The rossignol makes mute my tongue
With memories of things long sung.

Here in Provence I pine for thee;
And there in Anjou dost forget!
All beauty here is less to me
Than is the ribbon lightly set
At thy white throat; or, on thy foot,
The shoe that I have loved to lute.

Thy foot, that I have loved to kiss;
To kiss and sing of! Song hath died
In me since then, my Azalis;
Since to my soul e'en that 's denied:
Thy kiss, that now alone could cure
The sick heart of thy Troubadour.

Bertrand De Born

The burden of the sometime years,
That once my soul did overweigh,
Falls from me, with its griefs and fears,
When gazing in thine eyes of gray;
Wherein, behold, like some bright ray
Of dawn, thy heart's fond love appears,
To cheer my life upon its way.

Thine eyes! the daybreak of my heart!
That give me strength to do and dare;
Whose beauty is a radiant part
Of all my songs; the music there;
The morning, that makes dim each care,
And glorifies my mind's dull mart,
And helps my soul to do and dare.

God, when He made thy fresh fair face,
And thy young body, took the morn
And made thee like a rose, whose race
Is not of Earth; without a thorn,
And dewed thee with the joy that's born
Of love, wherein hope hath its place
Like to the star that heralds morn.

I go my way through town and thorp:
In court and hall and castle bower
I tune my lute and strike my harp:
And often from some twilight tower
A lady drops to me a flower,
That bids me scale the moat's steep scarp,
And climb to love within her bower.

I heed them not, but go my ways:
What is their passion unto me!
My songs are only in thy praise;
Thy face alone it is I see,
That fills my heart with melody
My sweet aubade! that makes my days
All music, singing here in me!

One time a foul knight in his towers
Sneered thus: 'God's blood! why weary us
With this one woman all our hours!
Sing of our wenches! amorous
Yolande and Ysoarde here! Not thus
Shalt sing, but of our paramours!

What is thy Lady unto us!'
And then I flung my lute aside;
And from its baldric flew my sword;
And down the hall 't was but a stride;
And in his brute face and its word
My gauntlet; and around the board
The battle, till all wild-beast-eyed
He lay and at his throat my sword.

Thou dost remember in Provence
The vile thing that I slew; and how
With my good jongleurs and my lance
Kept back his horde! The memory now
Makes fierce my blood and hot my brow
With rage. Ah, what a madman dance
We led them, and escaped somehow!

Oft times, when, in the tournament,
I see thee sitting yet uncrowned;
And bugles blow and spears are bent,
And shields and falchions clash around,
And steeds go crashing to the ground;
And thou dost smile on me, 'though spent
With war, again my soul is crowned:

And I am fire to strike and slay;
Before my face there comes a mist
Of blood; and like a flame I play
Through the loud lists; all who resist
Go down like corn; until thy wrist,
Kneeling, I kiss; the wreath they lay
Of beauty on thy head's gold mist.

And then I seize my lute and sing
Some chanson or some wild aubade
Full of thy beauty and the swing
Of swords and love which I have had
Of thee, until, with music mad,
The lists reel with thy name and ring
The echoed words of my aubade.

I am thy knight and troubadour,
Bertrand de Born, whom naught shall part
From thee: who art my life's high lure,
And wild bird of my wilder heart
And all its music: yea, who art
My soul's sweet sickness and its cure,
From which, God grant! it ne 'er shall part.

The Land Of Candy

There was once a little boy —
So my father told me — who
Never cared for any toy,
But just sweet things, as boys do,
Cakes and comfits, cream and ice,
All the things that boys think nice,
That they like, but ought not to;
Doctors say so, more or less,
And their parents, too, I guess:
But they don't know everything. —
Boys know something, too, by jing.


II
Well, this little boy he cried
Day and night for sweet things; ate
Cake and candy soon and late —
That is, if they did n't hide
All such things in some good place
Where he could n't find them. So,
One day, when they did n't know,
In the park he met a man, —
Funniest man you ever saw, —
In a suit of red and tan,
Thin, and straighter than a straw,
Like a stick of candy; and
This old man just took his hand,
Led him off to Candyland.


III
First place that they came to, why,
Was a wood that reached the sky;
Forest of Stick Candy. My!
How the little boy made it fly!
Why, the tree trunks were as great,
Big around as, at our gate,
Are the sycamores; the whole
Stripéd like a barber's pole:
And the ground was strewn and strown
With the pieces winds had blown
From the branches: and as fast
As one fell another grew
In its place; and, through and through,
Each was better than the last.


IV
After this they came into
A great grove of Sugar-Plums,
And an orchard, such as few
Ever saw, of Creams and Gums,
Marshmallow and Chocolate,
Where the boy just ate and ate
Till he was brimful and felt
As, I guess, a turkey feels
On Thanksgiving; to its belt
Stuffed with chestnuts. And the seals
At the circus, that I saw,
Looked just like that boy, I know,
When he'd eaten bushels —pshaw!
Loads of all that candy. Oh!
He just lay down there and sighed
When he couldn't eat no more,
Though he'd eaten more than four
Boys could eat, yes, twenty-four,
And he just lay there and cried,
Cried to eat more. And the man,
The Stick-Candy Man, he said
Never a word; just smiled instead
Sweet as any candy can.


V
When they'd rested there awhile,
That old man with his sweet smile
Took him by the hand and said,
'Don't you think it's time for bed?'
But the boy he shook his head:
'I want cakes and ice cream now;
Then I'll go and not before.' —
Wish that I could show you how
Sweet that old man smiled then! Sweet? —
It was just like honeyed heat
Trickling down from head to feet,
Or just like a candy store
Flung right at you. But the boy,
At that smile, felt no great joy,
But as if he'd eaten more
Than he ought to. 'I feel ill,'
Said he. 'If I had a drink
I'd feel better. — Say, I think
I smell water. What's that hill?
Is it snow?' — The old man smiled,
Smiled that smile again, and, quick, —
For it made him feel so sick, —
From him turned the boy; and, — 'Child,'
Like some melting sugar-stick,
Drooled the old man, 'I'll be bent,
Or be eaten, it's not snow:
But to me it's evident,
If you really want to know,
That hill's ice-cream. Feel the chill
On my neck now….If you will
We will go there.' — And they went:
Found a stranger country still,
Filled with greater wonderment.

VI
The very ground was sugar there;
And all around them, everywhere,
Great cakes grew up like mushrooms; some
No bigger than a baby's thumb,
And others huge as hats they wear
In picture books of pirate kings:
And some were jelly-cakes; great rings
Of reddest jelly; macaroons
And sponge-cakes like enormous moons:
And every kind of cake there is
Just overrun the premises.
And in the middle of the land
A mountain, they had seen afar,
Of Ice-Cream towered white and grand;
Such mountains as there only are
In Candyland. And from it fell
Two fountains: one of Lemonade,
The other Sodawater. — Well,
The little boy just took a spade
And dug into that mountainside
And ate and ate, and cried and cried,
Because he could n't eat it all,
Nor all the cakes that grew around,
Like mushrooms, from the sugary ground;
Nor drink up every waterfall
Of Soda and of Lemonade. —
(I wish that I'd been there to aid!
Don't you? I know I'd done my best. —
And father said he knew, or guessed,
That that old man felt sorry, too,
Because the boy just had to rest.
And I felt sorry. Would n't you?)


VII
And that big hill would never melt:
Just stayed the same. No sooner than
One took a spoonful it began
To grow back in its place. One dealt
It out in shovelfuls still
There was no less in that huge hill.
And fast — yes, faster than one knew,
The mushroom-cakes around you grew;
Wherever one was taken, why,
Up came another, better by
A long ways: and it were no use
To try to drink the fountains dry:
They ran the more; a perfect sluice,
My father said, that played the deuce
With any little boy that'd try.


VIII
So in that land a long, long time,
At least a month, he stayed. Each day
Was like the other. — (Sometime I'm
A-going to Candyland and stay
A year, or longer; yes, you bet!
No matter what my parents say.) —
What happened next? — why, I forget.
But one day in the Orchard where
Cream Candies grew —or was it in
The Woods of Candystick? or there
Where brown the Sugarlands begin
Of Mushroom-cakes? — the old man found
The boy flat, lying on the ground,
The sugar-earth kicked up around,
And cakes and cream knocked all about
And broken into bits, and he
Just crying fit to kill; all out,
And sick of everything, you see.
And when the old man smiled and smiled
That smile again, the boy went wild,
And shook his fist right in his face
And shrieked out at him, 'You Disgrace!
Get out! You make me sick!' — A stone
(You see rock-candy strewed the place
Just like the stones that strew our own)
He picked and aimed and would have thrown
And knocked the old man's head right off,
Had he not stopped him, with a cough,
Saying, 'My boy! why, this won't do!
What ails you, eh?' — The boy said, 'You! —
Don't smile at me! — I'll break your head!
You sugar-coated pill! with this! —
I'm sick of sweets and you,' he said,
'Your face so like a candy-kiss? —
What ails me? — Eggs! and bacon! bread!
And milk and toast and chicken-wings,
One never has here! things they fed
Me on at home! those are the things! —
Take me back home where I can eat
The things I never wanted once —
But now I want them! bread and meat! —
Oh, was n't I an awful dunce! —
Now, you old sinner, take me back! ' —
And with those words the old man's face
Fell in a frown that seemed to crack
It all to pieces. All grew black
About the little boy a space;
But when it lightened up once more
Why, there! he was n't any place
But right in front of their big door —
His home. —I say! my! he was glad;
And hurried in, a different lad
From him who had gone out. — And he,
From that time on, took toast and tea,
And milk and eggs, and never teased,
As once he used to tease, for cakes
And candy and such things! — My sakes!
But were n't both his parents pleased!