Accolon of Gaul, with Other Poems

CARMEN

LA Gitanilla! tall dragoonsIn Andalusian afternoons,With ogling eye and complimentSmiled on you, as along you wentSome sleepy street of old Seville;Twirled with a military skillMoustaches; buttoned uniformsOf Spanish yellow bowed your charms.Proud, wicked head and hair blue-black!Whence your mantilla, half thrown back,Discovered shoulders and bold breastBohemian brown: and you were dressed —In some short skirt of gipsy redOf smuggled stuff; thence stockings deadWhite silk exposed with many a holeThro' which your plump legs roguish stoleA fleshly look; and tiny toesIn red morocco shoes with bowsOf scarlet ribbons. DaintilyYou walked by me and I did seeYour oblique eyes, your sensuous lip,That gnawed the rose you once did flipAt bashful Jose's nose while loudLaughed the guant guards among the crowd.And, in your brazen chemise thrust,Heaved with the swelling of your bust,That bunch of white acacia bloomsWhiffed past my nostrils hot perfumes.As in a cool neveriaI ate an ice with Mérimée,Dark Carmencita, you passed gay,All holiday bedizenéd,A new mantilla on your head;A crimson dress bespangled fierce;And crescent gold, hung in your ears,Shone wrought Morisco; and each shoeCordovan leather, spangled blue,Glanced merriment; and from large armsTo well-turned ancles all your charmsBlew flutterings and glitteringsOf satin bands and beaded strings;And 'round each arm's fair thigh one fold,And graceful wrists, a twisted goldCoiled serpents, tails fixed in the head,Convulsive-jeweled glossy red.In flowers and trimmings to the jarOf mandolin and low guitarYou in the grated patioDanced; the curled coxcombs' flirting rowRang pleased applause. I saw you dance,With wily motion and glad glanceVoluptuous, the wild romalis,Where every movement was a kissOf elegance delicious, woundIn your Basque tambourine's dull sound.Or as the ebon castanetsClucked out dry time in unctuous jets,Saw angry Jose thro' the grateGlare on us a pale face of hate,When some indecent colonel therePresumed too lewdly for his ear.Some still night in Seville; the street,Candilejo; two shadows meet —Flash sabres; crossed within the moon, —Clash rapidly – a dead dragoon.

DISENCHANTMENT OF DEATH

HUSH! She is dead! Tread gently as the lightFoots dim the weary room. Thou shalt behold.Look: – In death's ermine pomp of awful white,Pale passion of pulseless slumber virgin cold:Bold, beautiful youth proud as heroic Might —Death! and how death hath made it vastly old.Old earth she is now: energy of birthGlad wings hath fledged and tried them suddenly;The eyes that held have freed their narrow mirth;Their sparks of spirit, which made this to be,Shine fixed in rarer jewels not of earth,Far Fairylands beyond some silent sea.A sod is this whence what were once those eyesWill grow blue wild-flowers in what happy air;Some weed with flossy blossoms will surprise,Haply, what summer with her affluent hair;Blush roses bask those cheeks; and the wise skiesWill know her dryad to what young oak fair.The chastity of death hath touched her so,No dreams of life can reach her in such rest; —No dreams the mind exhausted here below,Sleep built within the romance of her breast.How she will sleep! like musick quickening slowDark the dead germs, to golden life caressed.Low musick, thin as winds that lyre the grass,Smiting thro' red roots harpings; and the soundOf elfin revels when the wild dews glassGlobes of concentric beauty on the ground;For showery clouds o'er tepid nights that passThe prayer in harebells and faint foxgloves crowned.So, if she's dead, thou know'st she is not dead.Disturb her not; she lies so lost in sleep:The too-contracted soul its shell hath fled:Her presence drifts about us and the deepIs yet unvoyaged and she smiles o'erhead: —Weep not nor sigh – thou wouldst not have her weep?To principles of passion and of pride,To trophied circumstance and specious law,Stale saws of life, with scorn now flung aside,From Mercy's throne and Justice would'st thou drawHer, Hope in Hope, and Chastity's pale bride,In holiest love of holy, without flaw?The anguish of the living merciless, —Mad, bitter cruelty unto the grave, —Wrings the dear dead with tenfold heart's distress,Earth chaining love, bound by the lips that rave.If thou hast sorrow let thy sorrow blessThat power of death, of death our selfless slave."Unjust?" – He is not! for hast thou not all,All that thou ever hadst when this dull claySo heartless, blasted now, flushed spiritual,A restless vassal of Earth's night and day?This hath been thine and is; the cosmic callHath disenchanted that which might not stay.Thou unjust! – bar not from its high estate, —Won with what toil thro' devastating cares:What bootless battling with the violent Fate;What mailed endeavor with resistless years; —That soul: – whole-hearted granted once thy mate,Heaven only loaned, return it not with tears!

THE THREE URGANDAS

CAST on sleep there came to meThree Urgandas; and the seaIn lost lands of BriogneSounded moaning, moaning:Cloudy clad in awful white;And each face a lucid lightRayed and blossomed out of night, —And a wind was groaning.In my sleep I saw them rest,Each a long hand at her breast,A soft flame that lulls the West; —And the sea was moaning, moaning; —Hair like hoarded ingots rolledDown white shoulders glossy gold,Streaks of molten moonlight cold, —And a wind was groaning.Rosy 'round each high brow bentFour-fold starry gold that sentBarbs of fire redolent; —And the sea was moaning, moaning; —'Neath their burning crowns their eyesBurned like southern stars the skiesRock in shattered storm that flies, —And a wind was groaning.Wisdom's eyes of lurid dark;And each red mouth like a sparkFlashed and laughed off care and cark, —And the sea was moaning, moaning; —Mouths for song and lips to kiss;Lips for hate and mouths to hiss;Lips that fashioned hell or bliss, —And the wind was groaning.Tall as stately virgins dead,Tapers lit at feet and head,'Round whom Latin prayers are said, —And the sea was moaning, moaning; —Or as vampire women, who,Buried beauties, rise and wooYouths whose blood they suck like dew, —And a wind was groaning.Then the west one said to me:"Thou hast slept thus holilyWhile seven sands ran secretly." —And the sea was moaning, moaning; —"Earth hath served thee like a slave,Serving us who found thee brave,Fearless of or life or grave." —And a wind was groaning."Know!" – she smote my brow; a pain,Riddling arrows, rent my brain,Ceased and earth fell, some vast strain; —And the sea was moaning, moaning; —Then I understood all thought;What was life the spirit fraught;Love and hate; how worlds were wrought: —And a wind was groaning.Then the east one said to me:"Thou hast wandered wearilyBy what mist-enveloped sea!" —And the sea was moaning, moaning; —"Know the things thou hast not seen;Life and law, and love and teen;Things that be and have not been." —And the wind was groaning."See!" her voice sung like a lyreThrobs of thunderous desire;Then the iron sight like fire —And the sea was moaning, moaning; —Burst; the inner eyelids, whichHusked clairvoyance, with a twitchRose – and I with light was rich; —And a wind was groaning.Then I saw the eyes of Sleep;Nerves of Life and veins that leap;Laws of entity; the deep: —And the sea was moaning, moaning; —Orbs and eons; springs of Power;Circumstance – blown like a flower; —Time – the second of an hour: —And the wind was groaning.To the central third one's fullBalanced being beautifulHeart, to hearken, made a lull, —And the sea was moaning, moaning; —As she sternly stooped to me:"Thou dost know and thou canst see;What thou art arise and be!" —And the wind was groaning.To my mouth hot lips she pressed;And my famished soul, thrice blessed,Quaffed her radiance and caressed: —And vague seas were moaning, moaning: —Mounted; star-vibrating fled;Soared to love, with her who said:"Thou dost live and thou art dead." —Far off winds were groaning.

THE BRUSH SPARROW

IERE wild haws, looming in the glooms,Build bolted drifts of breezy blooms;And in the whistling hollow thereThe red-bud bends as brown and bareAs buxom Roxy's up-stripped arm;From some slick hickory or larch,Sighed o'er the sodden meads of March,The sad heart thrills and reddens warmTo hear thee braving the rough storm,Frail courier of green-gathering powers, —Rebelling sap in trunks and flowers;Love's minister come heralding;O sweet saint-voice among bleak bowers! —Thou brown-red pursuivant of Spring!II"Moan" sob the woodland cascades stillDown bloomless ledges of the hill;And gray, gaunt clouds like harpies hangIn harpy heavens, and swoop and clangSharp beaks and talons of the wind:Black scowl the forests, and unkindThe far fields as the near; while songSeems murdered and all passion, wrong.One wild frog only in the thawOf spawny pools wakes cold and raw,Expires a melancholy bassAnd stops as if bewildered; thenAlong the frowning wood again,Flung in the thin wind's fangy face,Thou, in red, woolly tassels proudOf bannered maples, flutest loud:"Her Grace! her Grace! her Grace!"III"Her Grace! her Grace! her Grace!"Climbs beautiful and sunny-browedUp, up the kindling hills and wakesBlue berries in the berry brakes;With fragrant flakes, that blow and bleach,Deep powders smothered quince and peach;Eyes dogwoods with a thousand eyes;Teaches each sod how to be wiseWith twenty wild-flowers for one weed;And kisses germs that they may seed.In purest purple and sweet whiteTreads up the happier hills of light;Bloom, cloudy-borne, song in her hair,Long dew-drops her pale fingers fair:Big wind-retainers, and the rainsHer yeomen strong that flash the plains;While scarlet mists at dawn, – and goldAt eve, – her panoply enfold. —Her herald tabarded behold! —Awake to greet! prepare to sing!She comes, the darling Duchess, Spring!"

CHORDS

ISLEEP while I sing to thee, Dulcinea, —How like a shower of moonlight-crusted beamsOf textile form compact, whose veins run stars, —Discovered goddess of what naked loves! —Maiden of dreams and aromatic sleep,Thou liest. Thy long instrument againstThy god-voluptuous sensuousness of hipPure iridescent pearl of ocean slopes:Tempestuous silent color-melodiesPulse glimmering from it beaten by the moon, —Soft songs the white hands of white shadows touch. —Magnetic star set slumberous over night,Watch with me this superior star of EarthGood Heaven was kind to grant me: Trembler,Like some soft bird, dream, while I sing to thee —Dream, languid ardor, my Dulcinea, dream.IIFLOATS a wild chant of morning from the hills;Bursts a broad song of sunlight on the sea;High Heaven throbs strung with rays of chords and thrills,Life's resonant pæans to Earth's minstrelsy.Bind thou swift sandals on of youth,My love, and harp to me of truthIn lands of joy or ruth.Now sheer o'er solitudes of noon the strifeOf chariot fierce by chariot scintillantFlames, and the blade-bare charioteers for life,O'er-bent, close-curled, goad their hot yokes that pant.Haste not, my love, but from the beamBeside this olive-frosty streamSing while I rest and dream.What swart Penthesilea, Amazon,Hath, smitten, hurled her shield, that crescent there;To wrench the barbéd arrow leaned, – voiced oneDefiant shout, breathed her red life in air. —Tho' life be close to sunset, lo,Into the sunset let us goStill lyring joy not woe.How swims the Night thro' the deep-oceaned sky!How at pale lips blown stars like bubbles break,Burn, streamed from showery locks she tosses high! —A stronger swimmer, Death, glares in her wake. —Cast, love, ah cast thy harp away!Aweary am I of thy lay —Kneel down by me and pray.IIIWHEN love delays, when love delays and JoySteals a strange shadow o'er the happy hills,And Hope smiles from To-morrow, nor fulfillsOne promise of To-day, thy sight would cloyThis soul with loved despairBy seeing thee so fair.When love delays, when love delays and songAches at wild lips regretful, as the soundOf a whole sea strives in the shell-mouth bound,Tho' Hope smiles still to-morrowed, all this wrongWould, at one little word,Leap forth for thee a sword.When love delays, when love delays and sleepNests in dark eyeballs, like a song of homeHeard 'mid familiar flowers o'er the foam,Tho' Hope smiles still to-morrowed, thou wouldst steepThis hurt heart overmuchIn balm with one true touch.When love delays, when love delays and SorrowDrinks her own tears that fever her soul's thirst,And song, and sleep, and memory seem accurst,For Hope smiles still to-morrowed, I would borrowOne smile from thee to cheerThe weary, weary year.When love delays, when love delays and DeathHath sealed dim lips and mocked young eyes with night,To love or hate locked calm, indifferent quite, —Hope's star-eyed acolyte, – what kisses' breath,What joys can slay regretOr teach thee to forget!IVTHOU hast not loved her, hast not as thou shouldst,O narrow heart, that could not grasp so wide!And tho' thy oaths seemed oaths yet they have lied,And thy caresses, kisses were – denied —Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou couldst.Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou shouldst;O shallow eyes, that could not image deep! —Enough! what boots it tho' ye weep and weep?Her sleep is deep, too deep! so let her sleep —Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou couldst.Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou shouldst;For hadst thou, that confluent night and dayHad in oblivion currents borne awayNot one alone – but coward! thou didst stay —Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou couldst!VOH Life, thou hast no power left to strive,Life, who, upon wild mountains of Surprise,Behold'st Love's citadelled, tall towers rise, —Shafts of clear, Paphian waters poured that live.O Hope, who sought'st fulfillment of deep dreamsBeyond those Caucasus of Faith and Truth, —Twixt silver realms of eld and golden youthRolled, – cloudward clustered; whose sonorous streams,Urned in the palms of Death, gush to his feet:Unlovely beauty of sad, stirless sightMixed in them with eternity of night; —O Hope, how sad the journey once so sweet!Dreams crowned with thorns have passed thee on the way;And Beauties with bare limbs red-bruised and torn;Tall, holy Hours their eyes dull, wan and worn,Slaves manacled whom lashed the brutal Day.And Sorrow sat beside a sea so wide,That shoreless Heaven unto one little starUpon the brink of night seems not so far,And on her feet the frail foams tossing sighed.She, her rent hair, dressed like a siren's, fullOf weedy waifs and strays of moaning shells,Streaked with the glimmering sands and foamy bells,Loomed a pale utterance most beautiful."And thou shall love me, Sorrow!" I; but sheTurned her vast eyes upon me and no more;Their melancholy language clove the coreOf my fast heart; and in mine ears the seaAlong gaunt crags yearned iron-husky grief;Groaned the hard headlands with the wings of Storm,Huge thunder shook the foot-hills and AlarmGnashed her thin fangs from hissing reef to reef.So to the hills aweary I did turn. —Beyond, a reach of sunlight and slim flowers;Where Hope, an amaranth, and tearless Hours,Long lilies, lived, whose hearts stiff gold did burn.And there curled Joy clinked their chaste chalices;Distilled at dusk, poured bubbling dewy wine,Divine elixir! off his lips divineTossed the fleet rapture to the golden lees,And so lolled dazed with pleasure. And I said,"Yield me the lily thou hast drained that IThis hollow thirst may kill and so not die?"To me he laughed, "I yield it!" – but 'twas dead.And each blown reach and eminence of bloomsFlushed long, low, gurgling murmurs like a sea,And laughed bright lips that flashed white teeth of gleeIn pearly flower on flower; pure perfumesGasped the rolled fields; and o'er the eminenceI journeyed joyless thro' a blossom-fireThat, budding kisses curled with blown desire,Clasped me and claimed me tho' I spurned it hence.Then came unto a land of thorns and weeds,And dust and thirst o'er which a songless sky,Hoarse with lean vultures, scowled a scoffing lie,Where cold snakes hissed among dead, rattling reeds.And there I saw the bony brow of Hate;Vile, vicious sneers, the eyes of shriveled ScornAmong the writhing briers; each a thornOf cavernous hunger barbed with burning fate.They, thro' her face-drawn locks of raveled dark,Stung a stark horror; and I felt my heartFreeze, wedged with ice, to dullness part by part,And knew Hate coiled toward me yet stood stark —Fell; seeing on the happy, happy hills,Above that den of dust and thorny thirst,The bastioned walls of Love in glory burst,Built by sweet glades of Poesy and rills.O Life, I had not life enough to strive!O Hope, I had not hope enough to dream!Death drew me to him and to sigh did seem,"Love? Love? – thou canst not reach her and yet live!"For sorrow, joy, and hate, and scorn are boundAbout thee, girdling so, thy lips are dumb;And Fame, ah Fame! her towers are but a tomb —Star-set on dwindling heights of starry ground."And thou art done and being done must die,Endeavor being dead and energySlain, a wild bird that beat bars to be free,Despairing perished, finding life a lie."VIIF thou wouldst know the Beautiful that breathesConsanguined with young Earth, go seek! – but seekNo sighing Shadows with dead hemlock-wreaths,No sleepy Sorrows whose wan eyes are weakWith vanished vigils, Melancholy made,Forlorn, in lands of sin and saddening shade;No tearful Angers torn of truthless Love,Who stab their own hearts to dull daggers' hiltsFor vengeance sweet; no miser Moods that fadeIn owlet towers. Such it springs above,And buds on morning meads no flower that wilts.If thou dost seek the Beautiful, beware!Lest thou discover her, nor know 'tis she;And she enslave thee evermore, and thereReward thee with but kingliest beggary:Make thine the robust red her cheek that stings;The kiss-sweet odor, thine, her wild breath brings;Make thine the broad bloom of her crownéd brow;The hearts of light that ardor her proud eyes;That melody, – which is herself, – that singsThe poem of her presence and the vow,That stars exalts and mortals deifies.Lone art thou then, lone as the lone first starKindling pale beauty o'er the mournful wave;Lost to all happiness save searching farThro' lands of Life where Death hath delved no grave:Lost, – even as I, – a devotee to her,Poor in world-blessedness her bliss to share,But rich in passion. – For her hermitageHope no Hydaspes' splendor, for it liesMossy by woody waters hidden, whereShe, priestess pure, wise o'er all Wisdom sage,Shrines artists' hearts for godliest sacrifice.VII1THEN up the orient heights to the zenith that balanced a crescent, —Up and far up and over, – a warm erubescence liquescentRioted roses and rubies; eruptions of opaline gems,Flung and wide sown, blushed crushed, and crumbled from diademsWealth of the kings of the Sylphs; whence, old alchemist, Earth —Dewed down – by chemistry occult fashions petrified waters of worth. —Then out of the stain and rash furor, the passionate pulver of stone,The trembling suffusion that dazzled and awfully shone,Chamelion-convulsion of color, hilarious ranges of glare —Like a god who for vengeance ires, nodding battle from every hair,Fares forth with majesty girdled and clangs with hot heroes for life,Till the brazen gates boom bursten hells and the walls roar bristling strife, —Athwart with a stab of glittering fire, in-plunged like a knife,Cut billowing gold, in bullion rolled, and an army driven,Routed, the stars fled shriveled; and the white moon riven,Puffed, – like a foam-feather forth of a Triton's conch when sounded, —Clung, vague as a web, on heaven; then weak as a face that is woundedDied on the withering clouds and sorrowed with them and mingled.While up and up with a steadiness and triumph of sparkle that tingled,Wrestled the tempest of Dawn, that hurricaned heaven with spangle,And halcyon bloom like mercy, – a shatter, a scatter, a tangleOf labyrinthed glory. – O God! with manifold mirthThe hallelujah of Heaven, hosanna of Earth.2And I in my vision imprisoned was restless and wanWith a yearning for vigor to gird and be goneOut of false dreams to the true – realities noble of dawn.VIII1VANISHING visions, whose lineaments steal into slumbers,Loosened the lids of the sight the night that encumbers;Secretly, sweetly with fingers of fog that were slow,Slow as a song that mysteriousPassions the soul, till delirious,Wrapped in mad melody mastering the uttermost woe,Deep to the innermost deep it is shakenRuffled and rippled and tossed,Tantalized, terrorized, cursed with a thirst that, unslaken,Debauches with eyes that burn stolid, yet only shall wakenWith infinite scorn of the costIf no note of the rhapsody's lost.2Oh, for the music of moonbeams that master and sweepChords of the resonant deep!Smiting loud lyres of Night, sonorous as fire,Leap fluttering fingers of vanquishing flash and of flakeFain at each firmament-universe-instrument star-strung.Vibrating-vestured in garments of woven desire,Stoop to me, breathe on me, smile on me, waver, "Awake!From waking to sleeping, to silence from manifold clamor,To revelous regions of multiform glamour!"Murmur and whisper "Awake!"Oh, necromance banquets by fountains of fairy, the spar-sprung!Oh, sorcerous beauties and wonders of wizards! oh takeThe millions of morning-spun gleams,All glitters of galloping streams,The glimmer the gasp the clutch and the grasp,That colorless crystals and virtuous jewelsAs spasmodic fuelsCuddle and huddle and clasp:The wrinkle and crinkle of scintillant heat in white metals;The quiver of terrible gold and the pearlyLithe brilliance of soft, holy petals,Of slender, sad blossoms, tumultuous tossed crispy and curlyIn shadowy reaches of violet dark;The burn of the stars and the sparkFragile of foams that are fluted, to makeOne cordial of dreamsTo drink and to sinkDeep, deep into dreams nor awake.IX1AS to a Nymph in the ripple-ribbed body of ocean,Down, down thro' vast stories of water, a hiss and devourElectrify altitudes orbed, – pulses violent motionOf Thunder, who treads the brute neck of the seas in his power,Till their spine writhes lumped into waves, – the Nymph in her bower,Rubbing moist sleep from her eyes, arises, —Loosens the loops of her locks,Loosens, and suddenly darts on the storm and surprisesThe boisterous bands of the rocks,That hoot to the riddling arrows of rain and of seas,Mountainous these; —Swirling and whirling,She of the huge exultation beheld, with long tresses,Dotted with bells of the hollow, hard foam, flung streaming,Dives, bounds to the whirlwind embracing; then mockingly pressesHair to wild face and wild throat, drifts desolate dreaming;With scorn then laughing and screaming,Discovers full beauty of nakedness leaping and gleaming;And showering the rain from her hair,Pouts blown, curdled foam from her lips,And eddying slips,From the ravenous eyes of the Thunder that glare,Away, away,To the arms of her lover the Spray.So I, —At swift thoughts that were spoken, that cameAs if winds had fashioned a speech – was a flameThat dwindled, was kindled, then mounted and,Marvelling why, —Stemming all thought, a gleam out of gleamsWas born into dreams.2Beautiful-bosomed, O Night! with thy moon,Move in majesty slowly to majesty lightly!Silent as sleep, who is lulled by a delicate tune,O'er-stroke thou the air with a languor of moonlight brightly!Thin ice, in sockets of turquoise fastened, the starsGash golden the bosom of heaven with fiery scars.Swoon down, O shadowy hosts,O multitude ghosts,Of the moonlight and starlight begotten! – Then sweptWhispers that sighed to me, sorrows that stealthily hovered,Laughters with lips that were mist. And murmurings creptOn toward me feet that were glow; and faces uncovered,Radiant and crystalline clear,In tortuous, sinuous swirl of vapory pearl,Waned near and more near.Flashed faster a spiral of shapes and of shadows still faster,On in a whirl of unutterable beauties by music expired,That lived and desired, —Born births of the brain of a rhapsody-reveling master;And mine eyes, with their beauties infired,Smiled scorn on dark Death and Disaster.XAH! now the orchard's leaves are sear,Drip not with starlight-litten dew;Green-drowned no moon-bright fruit hangs here;Dead, dead your long, white lilies too —And you, Allita, where are you!"Then comes her dim touch, faintly warm;Cool hair sense on my feverish cheek;Dim eyes at mine deep with some charm, —So gray! so gray! and I am weakWeak with wild tears and can not speak.I am as one who walks with dreams:Sees as in youth his father's home;Hears from his native mountain-streamsFar music of continual foam.

DEAD AND GONE