The Garden of Dreams

A FLOWER OF THE FIELDS

Bee-bitten in the orchard hungThe peach; or, fallen in the weeds,Lay rotting: where still sucked and sungThe gray bee, boring to its seed'sPink pulp and honey blackly stung.The orchard path, which led aroundThe garden, – with its heat one twingeOf dinning locusts, – picket-bound,And ragged, brought me where one hingeHeld up the gate that scraped the ground.All seemed the same: the martin-box —Sun-warped with pigmy balconies —Still stood with all its twittering flocks,Perched on its pole above the peasAnd silvery-seeded onion-stocks.The clove-pink and the rose; the clumpOf coppery sunflowers, with the heatSick to the heart: the garden stump,Red with geranium-pots and sweetWith moss and ferns, this side the pump.I rested, with one hesitant handUpon the gate. The lonesome day,Droning with insects, made the landOne dry stagnation; soaked with hayAnd scents of weeds, the hot wind fanned.I breathed the sultry scents, my eyesParched as my lips. And yet I feltMy limbs were ice. As one who fliesTo some strange woe. How sleepy smeltThe hay-sweet heat that soaked the skies!Noon nodded; dreamier, lonesomer,For one long, plaintive, forestsideBird-quaver. – And I knew me nearSome heartbreak anguish … She had died.I felt it, and no need to hear!I passed the quince and peartree; whereAll up the porch a grape-vine trails —How strange that fruit, whatever airOr earth it grows in, never failsTo find its native flavor there!And she was as a flower, too,That grows its proper bloom and scentNo matter what the soil: she, who,Born better than her place, still lentGrace to the lowliness she knew…They met me at the porch, and wereSad-eyed with weeping. Then the roomShut out the country's heat and purr,And left light stricken into gloom —So love and I might look on her.

THE WHITE VIGIL

Last night I dreamed I saw you lying dead,And by your sheeted form stood all alone:Frail as a flow'r you lay upon your bed,And on your still face, through the casement, shoneThe moon, as lingering to kiss you thereFall'n asleep, white violets in your hair.Oh, sick to weeping was my soul, and sadTo breaking was my heart that would not break;And for my soul's great grief no tear I had,No lamentation for my heart's deep ache;Yet all I bore seemed more than I could bearBeside you dead, white violets in your hair.A white rose, blooming at your window-bar,And glimmering in it, like a fire-fly caughtUpon the thorns, the light of one white star,Looked on with me; as if they felt and thoughtAs did my heart, – "How beautiful and fairAnd young she lies, white violets in her hair!"And so we watched beside you, sad and still,The star, the rose, and I. The moon had past,Like a pale traveler, behind the hillWith all her echoed radiance. At lastThe darkness came to hide my tears and shareMy watch by you, white violets in your hair.

TOO LATE

I looked upon a dead girl's face and heardWhat seemed the voice of Love call unto meOut of her heart; whereon the characteryOf her lost dreams I read there word for word: —How on her soul no soul had touched, or stirredHer Life's sad depths to rippling melody,Or made the imaged longing, there, to beThe realization of a hope deferred.So in her life had Love behaved to her.Between the lonely chapters of her yearsAnd her young eyes making no golden blurWith god-bright face and hair; who led me toHer side at last, and bade me, through my tears,With Death's dumb face, too late, to see and know.

INTIMATIONS

IIs it uneasy moonlight,On the restless field, that stirs?Or wild white meadow-blossomsThe night-wind bends and blurs?Is it the dolorous water,That sobs in the wood and sighs?Or heart of an ancient oak-tree,That breaks and, sighing, dies?The wind is vague with the shadowsThat wander in No-Man's Land;The water is dark with the voicesThat weep on the Unknown's strand.O ghosts of the winds who call me!O ghosts of the whispering waves!As sad as forgotten flowers,That die upon nameless graves!What is this thing you tell meIn tongues of a twilight race,Of death, with the vanished features,Mantled, of my own face?IIThe old enigmas of the deathless dawns,And riddles of the all immortal eves, —That still o'er Delphic lawnsSpeak as the gods spoke through oracular leaves —I read with new-born eyes,Remembering how, a slave,I lay with breast bared for the sacrifice,Once on a temple's pave.Or, crowned with hyacinth and helichrys,How, towards the altar in the marble gloom, —Hearing the magadisDirge through the pale amaracine perfume, —'Mid chanting priests I trod,With never a sigh or pause,To give my life to pacify a god,And save my country's cause.Again: Cyrenian roses on wild hair,And oil and purple smeared on breasts and cheeks,How with mad torches there —Reddening the cedars of Cithæron's peaks —With gesture and fierce glance,Lascivious Mænad bandsOnce drew and slew me in the Pyrrhic dance,With Bacchanalian hands.IIIThe music now that laysDim lips against my ears,Some wild sad thing it says,Unto my soul, of yearsLong passed into the hazeOf tears.Meseems, before me areThe dark eyes of a queen,A queen of Istakhar:I seem to see her leanMore lovely than a starOf mien.A slave, I stand beforeHer jeweled throne; I kneel,And, in a song, once moreMy love for her reveal;How once I did adoreI feel.Again her dark eyes gleam;Again her red lips smile;And in her face the beamOf love that knows no guile;And so she seems to dreamA while.Out of her deep hair thenA rose she takes – and IAm made a god o'er men!Her rose, that here did lieWhen I, in th' wild-beasts' den,Did die.IVOld paintings on its wainscots,And, in its oaken hall,Old arras; and the twilightOf slumber over all.Old grandeur on its stairways;And, in its haunted rooms,Old souvenirs of greatness,And ghosts of dead perfumes.The winds are phantom voicesAround its carven doors;The moonbeams, specter footstepsUpon its polished floors.Old cedars build around itA solitude of sighs;And the old hours pass through itWith immemorial eyes.But more than this I know not;Nor where the house may be;Nor what its ancient secretAnd ancient grief to me.All that my soul remembersIs that, – forgot almost, —Once, in a former lifetime,'Twas here I loved and lost.VIn eöns of the senses,My spirit knew of yore,I found the Isle of Circe,And felt her magic lore;And still the soul remembersWhat flesh would be once more.She gave me flowers to smell ofThat wizard branches bore,Of weird and sorcerous beauty,Whose stems dripped human gore —Their scent when I rememberI know that world once more.She gave me fruits to eat ofThat grew beside the shore,Of necromantic ripeness,With human flesh at core —Their taste when I rememberI know that life once more.And then, behold! a serpent,That glides my face before,With eyes of tears and fireThat glare me o'er and o'er —I look into its eyeballs,And know myself once more.VII have looked in the eyes of poesy,And sat in song's high place;And the beautiful spirits of musicHave spoken me face to face;Yet here in my soul there is sorrowThey never can name nor trace.I have walked with the glamour gladness,And dreamed with the shadow sleep;And the presences, love and knowledge,Have smiled in my heart's red keep;Yet here in my soul there is sorrowFor the depth of their gaze too deep.The love and the hope God grants me,The beauty that lures me on,And the dreams of folly and wisdomThat thoughts of the spirit don,Are but masks of an ancient sorrowOf a life long dead and gone.Was it sin? or a crime forgotten?Of a love that loved too well?That sat on a throne of fireA thousand years in hell?That the soul with its nameless sorrowRemembers but can not tell?

TWO

With her soft face half turned to me,Like an arrested moonbeam, sheStood in the cirque of that deep tree.I took her by the hands; she raisedHer face to mine; and, half amazed,Remembered; and we stood and gazed.How good to kiss her throat and hair,And say no word! – Her throat was bare;As some moon-fungus white and fair.Had God not giv'n us life for this?The world-old, amorous happinessOf arms that clasp, and lips that kiss!The eloquence of limbs and arms!The rhetoric of breasts, whose charmsSay to the sluggish blood what warms!Had God or Fiend assigned this hourThat bloomed, – where love had all of power, —The senses' aphrodisiac flower?The dawn was far away. Nude nightHung savage stars of sultry whiteAround her bosom's Ethiop light.Night! night, who gave us each to each,Where heart with heart could hold sweet speech,With life's best gift within our reach.And here it was – between the goalsOf flesh and spirit, sex controls —Took place the marriage of our souls.

TONES

IA woman, fair to look upon,Where waters whiten with the moon;While down the glimmer of the lawnThe white moths swoon.A mouth of music; eyes of love;And hands of blended snow and scent,That touch the pearl-pale shadow ofAn instrument.And low and sweet that song of sleepAfter the song of love is hushed;While all the longing, here, to weep,Is held and crushed.Then leafy silence, that is muskWith breath of the magnolia-tree,While dwindles, moon-white, through the duskHer drapery.Let me remember how a heart,Romantic, wrote upon that night!My soul still helps me read each partOf it aright.And like a dead leaf shut betweenA book's dull chapters, stained and dark,That page, with immemorial green,Of life I mark.IIIt is not well for me to hearThat song's appealing melody:The pain of loss comes all too near,Through it, to me.The loss of her whose love looks throughThe mist death's hand hath hung between:Within the shadow of the yewHer grave is green.Ah, dream that vanished long ago!Oh, anguish of remembered tears!And shadow of unlifted woeAthwart the years!That haunt the sad rooms of my days,As keepsakes of unperished love,Where pale the memory of her faceIs framed above.This olden song, she used to sing,Of love and sleep, is now a charmTo open mystic doors and bringHer spirit form.In music making visibleOne soul-assertive memory,That steals unto my side to tellMy loss to me.

UNFULFILLED

In my dream last night it seemed I stoodWith a boy's glad heart in my boyhood's wood.The beryl green and the cairngorm brownOf the day through the deep leaves sifted down.The rippling drip of a passing showerRinsed wild aroma from herb and flower.The splash and urge of a waterfallSpread stairwayed rocks with a crystal caul.And I waded the pool where the gravel gray,And the last year's leaf, like a topaz lay.And searched the strip of the creek's dry bedFor the colored keel and the arrow-head.And I found the cohosh coigne the same,Tossing with torches of pearly flame.The owlet dingle of vine and brier,That the butterfly-weed flecked fierce with fire.The elder edge with its warm perfume,And the sapphire stars of the bluet bloom;The moss, the fern, and the touch-me-notI breathed, and the mint-smell keen and hot.And I saw the bird, that sang its best,In the moted sunlight building its nest.And I saw the chipmunk's stealthy face,And the rabbit crouched in a grassy place.And I watched the crows, that cawed and cried,Hunting the hawk at the forest-side;The bees that sucked in the blossoms slim,And the wasps that built on the lichened limb.And felt the silence, the dusk, the dreadOf the spot where they buried the unknown dead.The water murmur, the insect hum,And a far bird calling, Come, oh, come!—What sweeter music can mortals makeTo ease the heart of its human ache! —And it seemed in my dream, that was all too true,That I met in the woods again with you.A sun-tanned face and brown bare knees,And a hand stained red with dewberries.And we stood a moment some thing to tell,And then in the woods we said farewell.But once I met you; yet, lo! it seemsAgain and again we meet in dreams.And I ask my soul what it all may mean;If this is the love that should have been.And oft and again I wonder, CanWhat God intends be changed by man?

HOME

Among the fields the camomileSeems blown steam in the lightning's glare.Unusual odors drench the air.Night speaks above; the angry smileOf storm within her stare.The way for me to-night? – To-night,Is through the wood whose branches fillThe road with dripping rain-drops. Till,Between the boughs, a star-like light —Our home upon the hill.The path for me to take? – It goesAround a trailer-tangled rock,'Mid puckered pink and hollyhock,Unto a latch-gate's unkempt rose,And door whereat I knock.Bright on the old-time flower-placeThe lamp streams through the foggy pane.The door is opened to the rain;And in the door – her happy face,And eager hands again.

ASHLY MERE

Come! look in the shadowy water here,The stagnant water of Ashly Mere:Where the stirless depths are dark but clear,What is the thing that lies there? —A lily-pod half sunk from sight?Or spawn of the toad all water-white?Or ashen blur of the moon's wan light?Or a woman's face and eyes there?Now lean to the water a listening ear,The haunted water of Ashly Mere:What is the sound that you seem to hearIn the ghostly hush of the deeps there? —A withered reed that the ripple lips?Or a night-bird's wing that the surface whips?Or the rain in a leaf that drips and drips?Or a woman's voice that weeps there?Now look and listen! but draw not nearThe lonely water of Ashly Mere! —For so it happens this time each yearAs you lean by the mere and listen:And the moaning voice I understand, —For oft I have watched it draw to land,And lift from the water a ghastly handAnd a face whose eyeballs glisten.And this is the reason why every yearTo the hideous water of Ashly MereI come when the woodland leaves are sear,And the autumn moon hangs hoary:For here by the mere was wrought a wrong …But the old, old story is over long —And woman is weak and man is strong …And the mere's and mine is the story.

BEFORE THE TOMB

The way went under cedared gloomTo moonlight, like a cactus bloom,Before the entrance of her tomb.I had an hour of night and thinSad starlight; and I set my chinAgainst the grating and looked in.A gleam, like moonlight, through a squareOf opening – I knew not where —Shone on her coffin resting there.And on its oval silver-plateI read her name and age and date,And smiled, soft-thinking on my hate.There was no insect sound to chirr;No wind to make a little stir.I stood and looked and thought on her.The gleam stole downward from her head,Till at her feet it rested redOn Gothic gold, that sadly said: —"God to her love lent a weak reedOf strength: and gave no light to lead:Pray for her soul; for it hath need."There was no night-bird's twitter near,No low vague water I might hearTo make a small sound in the ear.The gleam, that made a burning markOf each dim word, died to a spark;Then left the tomb and coffin dark.I had a little while to wait;And prayed with hands against the grate,And heart that yearned and knew too late.There was no light below, above,To point my soul the way thereof, —The way of hate that led to love.

REVISITED

It was beneath a waning moon when all the woods were sear,And winds made eddies of the leaves that whispered far and near,I met her on the old mill-bridge we parted at last year.At first I deemed it but a mist that faltered in that place,An autumn mist beneath the trees that sentineled the race;Until I neared and in the moon beheld her face to face.The waver of the summer-heat upon the drouth-dry leas;The shimmer of the thistle-drift a down the silences;The gliding of the fairy-fire between the swamp and trees;They qualified her presence as a sorrow may a dream —The vague suggestion of a self; the glimmer of a gleam;The actual unreal of the things that only seem.Where once she came with welcome and glad eyes all loving-wise,She passed and gave no greeting that my heart might recognize,With far-set face unseeing and sad unremembering eyes.It was beneath a waning moon when woods were bleak and sear,And winds made whispers of the leaves that eddied far and near,I met her ghost upon the bridge we parted at last year.

AT VESPERS

High up in the organ-storyA girl stands slim and fair;And touched with the casement's gloryGleams out her radiant hair.The young priest kneels at the altar,Then lifts the Host above;And the psalm intoned from the psalterIs pure with patient love.A sweet bell chimes; and a censerSwings gleaming in the gloom;The candles glimmer and denserRolls up the pale perfume.Then high in the organ choirA voice of crystal soars,Of patience and soul's desire,That suffers and adores.And out of the altar's dimnessAn answering voice doth swell,Of passion that cries from the grimnessAnd anguish of its own hell.High up in the organ-storyOne kneels with a girlish grace;And, touched with the vesper glory,Lifts her madonna face.One stands at the cloudy altar,A form bowed down and thin;The text of the psalm in the psalterHe reads, is sorrow and sin.

THE CREEK

O cheerly, cheerly by the roadAnd merrily down the billet;And where the acre-field is sowedWith bristle-bearded millet.Then o'er a pebbled path that goes,Through vista and through dingle,Unto a farmstead's windowed rose,And roof of moss and shingle.O darkly, darkly through the bush,And dimly by the bowlder,Where cane and water-cress grow lush,And woodland wilds are older.Then o'er the cedared way that leads,Through burr and bramble-thickets,Unto a burial-ground of weedsFenced in with broken pickets.Then sadly, sadly down the vale,And wearily through the rushes,Where sunlight of the noon is pale,And e'en the zephyr hushes.For oft her young face smiled uponMy deeps here, willow-shaded;And oft with bare feet in the sunMy shallows there she waded.No more beneath the twinkling leavesShall stand the farmer's daughter! —Sing softly past the cottage eaves,O memory-haunted water!No more shall bend her laughing faceAbove me where the rose is! —Sigh softly past the burial-place,Where all her youth reposes!

ANSWERED

Do you remember how that night drew on?That night of sorrow, when the stars looked wanAs eyes that gaze reproachful in a dream,Loved eyes, long lost, and sadder than the grave?How through the heaven stole the moon's gray gleam,Like a nun's ghost down a cathedral nave? —Do you remember how that night drew on?Do you remember the hard words then said?Said to the living, – now denied the dead, —That left me dead, – long, long before I died, —In heart and spirit? – me, your words had slain,Telling how love to my poor life had lied,Armed with the dagger of a pale disdain. —Do you remember the hard words then said?Do you remember, now this night draws downThe threatening heavens, that the lightnings crownWith wrecks of thunder? when no moon doth giveThe clouds wild witchery? – as in a room,Behind the sorrowful arras, still may liveThe pallid secret of the haunted gloom. —Do you remember, now this night draws down?Do you remember, now it comes to passYour form is bowed as is the wind-swept grass?And death hath won from you that confidenceDenied to life? now your sick soul rebelsAgainst your pride with tragic eloquence,That self-crowned demon of the heart's fierce hells. —Do you remember, now it comes to pass?Do you remember? – Bid your soul be still.Here passion hath surrendered unto will,And flesh to spirit. Quiet your wild tongueAnd wilder heart. Your kiss is naught to me.The instrument love gave you lies unstrung,Silent, forsaken of all melody.Do you remember? – Bid your soul be still.

WOMAN'S PORTION

IThe leaves are shivering on the thorn,Drearily;And sighing wakes the lean-eyed morn,Wearily.I press my thin face to the pane,Drearily;But never will he come again.(Wearily.)The rain hath sicklied day with haze,Drearily;My tears run downward as I gaze,Wearily.The mist and morn spake unto me,Drearily:"What is this thing God gives to thee?"(Wearily.)I said unto the morn and mist,Drearily:"The babe unborn whom sin hath kissed."(Wearily.)The morn and mist spake unto me,Drearily:"What is this thing which thou dost see?"(Wearily.)I said unto the mist and morn,Drearily:"The shame of man and woman's scorn."(Wearily.)"He loved thee not," they made reply.Drearily.I said, "Would God had let me die!"(Wearily.)IIMy dreams are as a closed up book,(Drearily.)Upon whose clasp of love I look,Wearily.All night the rain raved overhead,Drearily;All night I wept awake in bed,Wearily.I heard the wind sweep wild and wide,Drearily;I turned upon my face and sighed,Wearily.The wind and rain spake unto me,Drearily:"What is this thing God takes from thee?"(Wearily.)I said unto the rain and wind,Drearily:"The love, for which my soul hath sinned."(Wearily.)The rain and wind spake unto me,Drearily:"What are these things thou still dost see?"(Wearily.)I said unto the wind and rain,Drearily:"Regret, and hope despair hath slain."(Wearily.)"Thou lov'st him still," they made reply,Drearily.I said, "That God would let me die!"(Wearily.)

FINALE

So let it be. Thou wilt not say 't was I!Here in life's temple, where thy soul may see,Look how the beauty of our love doth lie,Shattered in shards, a dead divinity!Approach: kneel down: yea, render up one sigh!This is the end. What need to tell it thee!So let it be.So let it be. Care, who hath stood with him,And sorrow, who sat by him deified,For whom his face made comfort, lo! how dimThey heap his altar which they can not hide,While memory's lamp swings o'er it, burning slim.This is the end. What shall be said beside?So let it be.So let it be. Did we not drain the wine,Red, of love's sacramental chalice, whenHe laid sweet sanction on thy lips and mine?Dash it aside! Lo, who will fill againNow it is empty of the god divine!This is the end. Yea, let us say Amen.So let it be.

THE CROSS

The cross I bear no man shall know —No man can ease the cross I bear! —Alas! the thorny path of woeUp the steep hill of care!There is no word to comfort me;No sign to help my bended head;Deep night lies over land and sea,And silence dark and dread.To strive, it seems, that I was born,For that which others shall obtain;The disappointment and the scornAlone for me remain.One half my life is overpast;The other half I contemplate —Meseems the past doth but forecastA darker future state.Sick to the heart of that which makesMe hope and struggle and desire,The aspiration here that achesWith ineffectual fire;While inwardly I know the lack,The insufficiency of power,Each past day's retrospect makes blackEach morrow's coming hour.Now in my youth would I could die! —As others love to live, – go downInto the grave without a sigh,Oblivious of renown!

THE FOREST OF DREAMS

IWhere was I last Friday night? —Within the forest of dark dreamsFollowing the blur of a goblin-light,That led me over ugly streams,Whereon the scum of the spawn was spread,And the blistered slime, in stagnant seams;Where the weed and the moss swam black and dead,Like a drowned girl's hair in the ropy ooze:And the jack-o'-lantern light that led,Flickered the fox-fire trees o'erhead,And the owl-like things at airy cruise.IIWhere was I last Friday night? —Within the forest of dark dreamsFollowing a form of shadowy whiteWith my own wild face it seems.Did a raven's wing just flap my hair?Or a web-winged bat brush by my face?Or the hand of – something I did not dareLook round to see in that obscene place?Where the boughs, with leaves a-devil's-dance,And the thorn-tree bush, where the wind made moan,Had more than a strange significanceOf life and of evil not their own.IIIWhere was I last Friday night? —Within the forest of dark dreamsSeeing the mists rise left and right,Like the leathery fog that heaves and steamsFrom the rolling horror of Hell's red streams.While the wind, that tossed in the tattered tree,And danced alone with the last mad leaf …Or was it the wind?.. kept whispering me —"Now bury it here with its own black grief,And its eyes of fire you can not brave!" —And in the darkness I seemed to seeMy own self digging my soul a grave.

LYNCHERS

At the moon's down-going, let it beOn the quarry bill with its one gnarled tree…The red-rock road of the underbrush,Where the woman came through the summer hush.The sumach high, and the elder thick,Where we found the stone and the ragged stick.The trampled road of the thicket, fullOf foot-prints down to the quarry pool.The rocks that ooze with the hue of lead,Where we found her lying stark and dead.The scraggy wood; the negro hut,With its doors and windows locked and shut.A secret signal; a foot's rough tramp;A knock at the door; a lifted lamp.An oath; a scuffle; a ring of masks;A voice that answers a voice that asks.A group of shadows; the moon's red fleck;A running noose and a man's bared neck.A word, a curse, and a shape that swings;The lonely night and a bat's black wings…At the moon's down-going, let it beOn the quarry hill with its one gnarled tree.