The Garden of Dreams

KU KLUX

We have sent him seeds of the melon's core,And nailed a warning upon his door;By the Ku Klux laws we can do no more.Down in the hollow, 'mid crib and stack,The roof of his low-porched house looms black;Not a line of light at the doorsill's crack.Yet arm and mount! and mask and ride!The hounds can sense though the fox may hide!And for a word too much men oft have died.The clouds blow heavy towards the moon.The edge of the storm will reach it soon.The killdee cries and the lonesome loon.The clouds shall flush with a wilder glareThan the lightning makes with its angled flare,When the Ku Klux verdict is given there.In the pause of the thunder rolling low,A rifle's answer – who shall knowFrom the wind's fierce burl and the rain's blackblow?Only the signature written grimAt the end of the message brought to him —A hempen rope and a twisted limb.So arm and mount! and mask and ride!The hounds can sense though the fox may hide!And for a word too much men oft have died.

REMBRANDTS

II shall not soon forget her and her eyes,The haunts of hate, where suffering seemed to writeIts own dark name, whose syllables are sighs,In strange and starless night.I shall not soon forget her and her face,So quiet, yet uneasy as a dream,That stands on tip-toe in a haunted placeAnd listens for a scream.She made me feel as one, alone, may feelIn some grand ghostly house of olden time,The presence of a treasure, walls conceal,The secret of a crime.IIWith lambent faces, mimicking the moon,The water lilies lie;Dotting the darkness of the long lagoonLike some black sky.A face, the whiteness of a water-flower,And pollen-golden hair,In shadow half, half in the moonbeams' glower,Lifts slowly there.A young girl's face, death makes cold marble of,Turned to the moon and me,Sad with the pathos of unspeakable love,Floating to sea.IIIOne listening bent, in dread of something coming,He can not see nor balk —A phantom footstep, in the ghostly gloaming,That haunts a terraced walk.Long has he given his whole heart's hard endeavorUnto the work begun,Still hoping love would watch it grow and everTurn kindly eyes thereon.Now in his life he feels there nears an hour,Inevitable, alas!When in the darkness he shall cringe and cower,And see his dead self pass.

THE LADY OF THE HILLS

Though red my blood hath left its trailFor five far miles, I shall not fail,As God in Heaven wills! —The way was long through that black land.With sword on hip and horn in hand,At last before thy walls I stand,O Lady of the Hills!No seneschal shall put to scornThe summons of my bugle-horn!No man-at-arms shall stay! —Yea! God hath helped my strength too farBy bandit-caverned wood and scarTo give it pause now, or to barMy all-avenging way.This hope still gives my body strength —To kiss her eyes and lips at lengthWhere all her kin can see;Then 'mid her towers of crime and gloom,Sin-haunted like the Halls of Doom,To smite her dead in that wild roomRed-lit with revelry.Madly I rode; nor once did slack.Before my face the world rolled, blackWith nightmare wind and rain.Witch-lights mocked at me on the fen;And through the forest followed thenGaunt eyes of wolves; and ghosts of menMoaned by me on the plain.Still on I rode. My way was clearFrom that wild time when, spear to spear,Deep in the wind-torn wood,I met him!.. Dead he lies beneathTheir trysting oak. I clenched my teethAnd rode. My wound scarce let me breathe,That filled my eyes with blood.And here I am. The blood may blindMy eyesight now … yet I shall findHer by some inner eye!For God – He hath this deed in care! —Yea! I shall kiss again her hair,And tell her of her leman there,Then smite her dead – and die.

REVEALMENT

At moonset when ghost speaks with ghost,And spirits meet where once they sinned,Between the bournes of found and lost,My soul met her soul on the wind,My late-lost Evalind.I kissed her mouth. Her face was wild.Two burning shadows were her eyes,Wherefrom the maiden love, that smiledA heartbreak smile of severed ties,Gazed with a wan surprise.Then suddenly I seemed to seeNo more her shape where beauty bloomed …My own sad self gazed up at me —My sorrow, that had so assumedThe form of her entombed.

HEART'S ENCOURAGEMENT

Nor time nor all his minionsOf sorrow or of pain,Shall dash with vulture pinionsThe cup she fills againWithin the dream-dominionsOf life where she doth reign.Clothed on with bright desireAnd hope that makes her strong,With limbs of frost and fire,She sits above all wrong,Her heart, a living lyre,Her love, its only song.And in the waking pausesOf weariness and care,And when the dark hour draws hisBlack weapon of despair,Above effects and causesWe hear its music there.The longings life hath near itOf love we yearn to see;The dreams it doth inheritOf immortality;Are callings of her spiritTo something yet to be.

NIGHTFALL

O day, so sicklied o'er with night!O dreadful fruit of fallen dusk! —A Circe orange, golden-bright,With horror 'neath its husk.And I, who gave the promise heedThat made life's tempting surface fair,Have I not eaten to the seedIts ashes of despair!O silence of the drifted grass!And immemorial eloquenceOf stars and winds and waves that pass!And God's indifference!Leave me alone with sleep that knowsNot any thing that life may keep —Not e'en the pulse that comes and goesIn germs that climb and creep.Or if an aspiration paleMust quicken there – oh, let the spotGrow weeds! that dost may so prevail,Where spirit once could not!

PAUSE

So sick of dreams! the dreams, that stainThe aisle, along which life must pass,With hues of mystic colored glass,That fills the windows of the brain.So sick of thoughts! the thoughts, that carveThe house of days with arabesquesAnd gargoyles, where the mind grotesquesIn masks of hope and faith who starve.Here lay thy over weary headUpon my bosom! Do not weep! —"He giveth His beloved sleep." —Heart of my heart, be comforted.

ABOVE THE VALES

We went by ways of bygone days,Up mountain heights of story,Where lost in vague, historic haze,Tradition, crowned with battle-bays,Sat 'mid her ruins hoary.Where wing to wing the eagles clingAnd torrents have their sources,War rose with bugle voice to singOf wild spear thrust, and broadsword swing,And rush of men and horses.Then deep below, where orchards showA home here, here a steeple,We heard a simple shepherd go,Singing, beneath the afterglow,A love-song of the people.As in the trees the song did cease,With matron eyes and holyPeace, from the cornlands of increase.And rose-beds of love's victories,Spake, smiling, of the lowly.

A SUNSET FANCY

Wide in the west, a lakeOf flame that seems to shakeAs if the Midgard snakeDeep down did breathe:An isle of purple glow,Where rosy rivers flowDown peaks of cloudy snowWith fire beneath.And there the Tower-of-Night,With windows all a-light,Frowns on a burning height;Wherein she sleeps, —Young through the years of doom, —Veiled with her hair's gold gloom,The pale Valkyrie whomEnchantment keeps.

THE FEN-FIRE

The misty rain makes dim my face,The night's black cloak is o'er me;I tread the dripping cypress-place,A flickering light before me.Out of the death of leaves that rotAnd ooze and weedy water,My form was breathed to haunt this spot,Death's immaterial daughter.The owl that whoops upon the yew,The snake that lairs within it,Have seen my wild face flashing blueFor one fantastic minute.But should you follow where my eyesLike some pale lamp decoy you,Beware! lest suddenly I riseWith love that shall destroy you.

TO ONE READING THE MORTE D'ARTHURE

O daughter of our Southern sun,Sweet sister of each flower,Dost dream in terraced AvalonA shadow-haunted hour?Or stand with Guinevere uponSome ivied Camelot tower?Or in the wind dost breathe the muskThat blows Tintagel's sea on?Or 'mid the lists by castled UskHear some wild tourney's pæon?Or 'neath the Merlin moons of duskDost muse in old Cærleon?Or now of Launcelot, and thenOf Arthur, 'mid the roses,Dost speak with wily Vivien?Or where the shade reposes,Dost walk with stately armored menIn marble-fountained closes?So speak the dreams within thy gaze.The dreams thy spirit cages,Would that Romance – which on thee laysThe spell of bygone ages —Held me! a memory of those days,A portion of its pages!

STROLLERS

IWe have no castles,We have no vassals,We have no riches, no gems and no gold;Nothing to ponder,Nothing to squander —Let us go wanderAs minstrels of old.IIYou with your lute, love,I with my flute, love,Let us make music by mountain and sea;You with your glances,I with my dances,Singing romancesOf old chivalry.III"Derry down derry!Good folk, be merry!Hither, and hearken where happiness is! —Never go borrowCare of to-morrow,Never go sorrowWhile life hath a kiss."IVLet the day gladdenOr the night sadden,We will be merry in sunshine or snow;You with your rhyme, love,I with my chime, love,We will make time, love,Dance as we go.VNothing is ours,Only the flowers,Meadows, and stars, and the heavens above;Nothing to lie for,Nothing to sigh for,Nothing to die forWhile still we have love.VI"Derry down derry!Good folk, be merry!Hither, and hearken a word that is sooth: —Care ye not any,If ye have manyOr not a penny,If still ye have youth!"

HAUNTED

When grave the twilight settles o'er my roof,And from the haggard oaks unto my doorThe rain comes, wild as one who rides beforeHis enemies that follow, hoof to hoof;And in each window's gusty curtain-woofThe rain-wind sighs, like one who mutters o'erSome tale of love and crime; and, on the floor,The sunset spreads red stains as bloody proof;From hall to hall and stealthy stair to stair,Through all the house, a dread that drags me towardThe ancient dusk of that avoided room,Wherein she sits with ghostly golden hair,And eyes that gaze beyond her soul's sad doom,Bending above an unreal harpsichord.

PRÆTERITA

Low belts of rushes ragged with the blast;Lagoons of marish reddening with the west;And o'er the marsh the water-fowl's unrestWhile daylight dwindles and the dusk falls fast.Set in sad walls, all mossy with the past,An old stone gateway with a crumbling crest;A garden where death drowses manifest;And in gaunt yews the shadowy house at last.Here, like some unseen spirit, silence talksWith echo and the wind in each gray roomWhere melancholy slumbers with the rain:Or, like some gentle ghost, the moonlight walksIn the dim garden, which her smile makes bloomWith all the old-time loveliness again.

THE SWASHBUCKLER

Squat-nosed and broad, of big and pompous port;A tavern visage, apoplexy haunts,All pimple-puffed; the Falstaff-like resortOf fat debauchery, whose veined cheek flauntsA flabby purple: rusty-spurred he standsIn rakehell boots and belt, and hanger thatClaps when, with greasy gauntlets on his hands,He swaggers past in cloak and slouch-plumed hat.Aggression marches armies in his words;And in his oaths great deeds ride cap-a-pie;His looks, his gestures breathe the breath of swords;And in his carriage camp all wars to be:With him of battles there shall be no lackWhile buxom wenches are and stoops of sack.

THE WITCH

She gropes and hobbies, where the dropsied rocksAre hairy with the lichens and the twistOf knotted wolf's-bane, mumbling in the mist,Hawk-nosed and wrinkle-eyed with scrawny locks.At her bent back the sick-faced moonlight mocks,Like some lewd evil whom the Fiend hath kissed;Thrice at her feet the slipping serpent hissed,And thrice the owl called to the forest fox. —What sabboth brew dost now intend? What rootDost seek for, seal for what satanic spellOf incantations and demoniac fire?From thy rude hut, hill-huddled in the brier,What dark familiar points thy sure pursuit,With burning eyes, gaunt with the glow of Hell?

THE SOMNAMBULIST

Oaks and a water. By the water – eyes,Ice-green and steadfast as cold stars; and hairYellow as eyes deep in a she-wolf's lair;And limbs, like darkness that the lightning dyes.The humped oaks stand black under iron skies;The dry wind whirls the dead leaves everywhere;Wild on the water falls a vulture glareOf moon, and wild the circling raven flies.Again the power of this thing hath laidIllusion on him: and he seems to hearA sweet voice calling him beyond his gatesTo longed-for love; he comes; each forest gladeSeems reaching out white arms to draw him near —Nearer and nearer to the death that waits.

OPIUM

On reading De Quincey's "Confessions of an Opium Eater."I seemed to stand before a temple walledFrom shadows and night's unrealities;Filled with dark music of dead memories,And voices, lost in darkness, aye that called.I entered. And, beneath the dome's high-halledImmensity, one forced me to my kneesBefore a blackness – throned 'mid semblancesAnd spectres – crowned with flames of emerald.Then, lo! two shapes that thundered at mine earsThe names of Horror and Oblivion,Priests of this god, – and bade me die and dream.Then, in the heart of hell, a thousand yearsMeseemed I lay – dead; while the iron streamOf Time beat out the seconds, one by one.

MUSIC AND SLEEP

These have a life that hath no part in death;These circumscribe the soul and make it strong;Between the breathing of a dream and song,Building a world of beauty in a breath.Unto the heart the voice of this one saithIdeals, its emotions live among;Unto the mind the other speaks a tongueOf visions, where the guess, we christen faith,May face the fact of immortality —As may a rose its unembodied scent,Or star its own reflected radiance.We do not know these save unconsciously.To whose mysterious shadows God hath lentNo certain shape, no certain countenance.

AMBITION

Now to my lips lift then some opiateOf black forgetfulness! while in thy gazeStill lures the loveless beauty that betrays,And in thy mouth the music that is hate.No promise more hast thou to make me wait;No smile to cozen my sick heart with praise!Far, far behind thee stretch laborious days,And far before thee, labors soon and late.Thine is the fen-fire that we deem a star,Flying before us, ever fugitive,Thy mocking policy still holds afar:And thine the voice, to which our longings giveHope's siren face, that speaks us sweet and fair,Only to lead us captives to Despair.

DESPONDENCY

Not all the bravery that day puts onOf gold and azure, ardent or austere,Shall ease my soul of sorrow; grown more dearThan all the joy that heavenly hope may don.Far up the skies the rumor of the dawnMay run, and eve like some wild torch appear;These shall not change the darkness, gathered here,Of thought, that rusts like an old sword undrawn.Oh, for a place deep-sunken from the sun!A wildwood cave of primitive rocks and moss!Where Sleep and Silence – breast to married breast —Lie with their child, night-eyed Oblivion;Where, freed from all the trouble of my cross,I might forget, I might forget, and rest!

DESPAIR

Shut in with phantoms of life's hollow hopes,And shadows of old sins satiety slew,And the young ghosts of the dead dreams love knew,Out of the day into the night she gropes.Behind her, high the silvered summit slopesOf strength and faith, she will not turn to view;But towards the cave of weakness, harsh of hue,She goes, where all the dropsied horror ropes.There is a voice of waters in her ears,And on her brow a wind that never dies:One is the anguish of desired tears;One is the sorrow of unuttered sighs;And, burdened with the immemorial years,Downward she goes with never lifted eyes.

SIN

There is a legend of an old Hartz towerThat tells of one, a noble, who had soldHis soul unto the Fiend; who grew not oldOn this condition: That the demon's powerCease every midnight for a single hour,And in that hour his body should be cold,His limbs grow shriveled, and his face, behold!Become a death's-head in the taper's glower. —So unto Sin Life gives his best. Her artsMake all his outward seeming beautifulBefore the world; but in his heart of heartsAbides an hour when her strength is null;When he shall feel the death through all his partsStrike, and his countenance become a skull.

INSOMNIA

It seems that dawn will never climbThe eastern hills;And, clad in mist and flame and rime,Make flashing highways of the rills.The night is as an ancient wayThrough some dead land,Whereon the ghosts of MemoryAnd Sorrow wander hand in hand.By which man's works ignoble seem,Unbeautiful;And grandeur, but the ruined dreamOf some proud queen, crowned with a skull.A way past-peopled, dark and old,That stretches far —Its only real thing, the coldVague light of sleep's one fitful star.

ENCOURAGEMENT

To help our tired hope to toil,Lo! have we not the council hereOf trees, that to all hope appearAs sermons of the soil?To help our flagging faith to rise,Lo! have we not the high adviceOf stars, that for all faith sufficeAs gospels of the skies?Sustain us, Lord! and help us climb,With hope and faith made strong and great,The rock-rough pathway of our fate,The care-dark way of time!

QUATRAINS

PENURYAbove his misered embers, gnarled and gray,With toil-twitched limbs he bends; around his hut,Want, like a hobbling hag, goes night and day,Scolding at windows and at doors tight-shut.STRATEGYCraft's silent sister and the daughter deepOf Contemplation, she, who spreads belowA hostile tent soft comfort for her foe,With eyes of Jael watching till he sleep.TEMPESTWith helms of lightning, glittering in the skies,On steeds of thunder, cloudy form on form,Terrific beauty in their hair and eyes,Behold the wild Valkyries of the storm.THE LOCUST BLOSSOMThe spirit Spring, in rainy raiment, metThe spirit Summer for a moonlit hour:Sweet from their greeting kisses, warm and wet,Earth shaped the fragrant purity of this flower.MELANCHOLYWith shadowy immortelles of memoryAbout her brow, she sits with eyes that lookUpon the stream of Lethe wearily,In hesitant hands Death's partly-opened book.CONTENTAmong the meadows of Life's sad unease —In labor still renewing her soul's youth —With trust, for patience, and with love, for peace,Singing she goes with the calm face of Ruth.LIFE AND DEATHOf our own selves God makes a glass, whereinTwo shadows image them as might a breath:And one is Life, whose other name is Sin;And one is Love, whose other name is Death.SORROWDeath takes her hand and leads her through the wasteOf her own soul, wherein she hears the voiceOf lost Love's tears, and, famishing, can but tasteThe dead-sea fruit of Life's remembered joys.

A LAST WORD

Not for thyself, but for the sake of Song,Strive to succeed as others have, who gaveTheir lives unto her; shaping sure and strongHer lovely limbs that made them god and slave.Not for thyself, but for the sake of Art,Strive to advance beyond the others' best;Winning a deeper secret from her heartTo hang it moonlike 'mid the starry rest.