Days and Dreams: Poems

PART IV

1When in her cloudy chitonSpring freed the donjoned rills,And trumpeting, a Triton,Wind-war was on the hills;O'er ways, hope's buds bedizen,Long ways the glory lies on,Love spread us an horizonOf gold beyond life's ills.When Summer came with sickleStuck in a sheaf of gleams,And eves were honey-trickleFrom bee-hives of the beams;Scrolls of the days blue-blotted,Scrolls of the night star-dotted,To love and us allottedA world of woven dreams.When Autumn waited tired —A fair-faced heretic —Auto-de-fés Frost firedIn Winter's Bishopric;Our loves, a song had started,Grew with the song sad-hearted,Sweet loves long-sworn were parted,Though life for love was sick.Now is the Winter waited'Neath skies of frozen gold,Or raining heavens hatedOf winds that curse and scold. —Shall this be so: that neverShall sunlight snowlight sever?Forever and foreverThe heart wait winter-cold?2Soft music bring that seems to weepAll this dull sorrow of the soul;Vague music soft to utter sleep,Sleep and undying dole:Forgetting not – forgotten most —How love is well though lost.So weary, oh! and yet so fainIn silent service of the heart;Still feeling if it be in vainLove's spirit hath His part;And if in death God grant the restLife were but kind at best.3Last night I slept till midnightThen woke, and far awayA cock crowed; lonely and distantCame mournful a watch-dog's bay;But lonelier, slower the tediousOld clock ticked on towards day.And what a day! – rememberThe morns of a Summer and Spring,That bound two lives together?Each morn a wedding ringOf dew and dreams and sparkle,Of flowers and birds a-wing?Broad morns when I strolled the gardenAwaiting one the roseExpected, fresh in its blushes —The Giant of Battle that growsA head of radiance and fragrance,The champion of the close.Not in vain did I wait, departedSummer, this morning mocks;'Mid the powdery crystal and crimsonOf your hollow hollyhocks;Your fairy-bells and poppies,And the bee that in them rocks.Cool-clad 'mid the pendulous purpleOf the morning-glory vine,By the giant pearls pellucidOf the peonies a-line,The snapdragons' and the pansies'Deep-colored jewel mine.Shall I ever see my mealy,Drunk dusty-millers gay;My lady-slippers bashfulOf butterfly and ray;My gillyflowers as spicyEach as a day of May?Oh, dear when I think of the handfulsOf little gold coin a-mass,My bachelor's-buttons scatterOver the garden grass;Of the marigold that boasts itsOne bit of burning brass;More bitter I feel the winterTighten to spirit and heart;And dream of the days rememberedAs lost – of the past a part;Of the ways we went, all blotted,Tear-blotted on love's chart.And I see the mill and the diamondsOf foam tossed from its wheel;Red lilies tumbled together,The madcap wind at heel;And the timid veronicas' blossoms —Those prayers the woods conceal.The wild-cat gray of the meadowsThat the ox-eyed daisies dot,Fawn-eyed and a leopard-yellow,That tangle a tawny spot —As if some panther tiredLay dozing tame and hot.Ah! back again with the present,With winds that pinch and twistEach leaf in their peevish passion,And whirl wherever they list;With the morning hoary and nipping,Whose mausolean mistBuilds white a tomb for the daylight —A frosty, shaggy fog,That fits gray wigs on the cedars,And furs with wool each log;Carpets with satin the meadow,And velvets white the bog.Alone at morn – indifferent;Alone at eve – I sigh;And wait, like the wind complaining,Complain and know not why;But ailing and longing and hatingBecause I cannot die.How dull are the sunsets! drearyCold, hard and harsh and dead!Far richer were those of August,One stain of wine-dark red —The juice of a mulberry vintage —To the new moon overhead.But now I sit with the sighingDead wests of a dying year!Like the fallen leaves and the acornsAm worthless and feel as sear;For the soul and the body sicken,And the heart's one scalding tear.And I stare from my window! The darkness,Like a bravo, his cloak throws on;The moon, like a hidden lanthorn,Glitters – or dagger drawn;All my heart cries out beseeching:"Strike here! strike and be gone!"4When friends are sighingRound one and oneNearer is lying,Nearer the sun,When one is dyingAnd all is done;I may remember,You may forgetWords, each an ember,Burning here yet —In dead DecemberOne will regret.Love we have given,Over and o'er,All, who has drivenUs from his door,Is he forgivenWhen he is poor?What if you wept once,What though he knew!What if he slept once!Still he was true,If he but kept onceSomething of you.Never forgetful,Love may forget;Froward and fretful,Child, he will fret;Ever regretful,He will regret.Love would be sweeterIf we but knew;Lives be completerTo themselves true;Hearts more in metre,Truth looking through.Flesh never near it,Being impure,Mind must endear itMaking it sure —Love in the spirit,That will endure.So when to-morrowCeases and weQuit this we borrow,Mortality,Such chastens sorrowSo it may see.There will be weeping,Weary and deep, —God's be the keepingOf those that weep! —When our loved, sleeping,Sleep their long sleep;Then they are dearerThan we're aware;Character clearer,Being more fair;Then they are nearer,Nearer by prayer.5They will not say I can not live beyond the weary night,But then I know that I shall die before comes morning's light.How frail is flesh! – but you 'll forgive me now I tell you howI loved you, love you; and the pain it gives to leave you now?This could not be on earth; the flesh, that clothes the soul of me —Ordained at birth a sacrifice to this heredity —Denied, forbade. – Ah, you have seen the bright spots in my cheeksGrow hectic, as before comes night blood dyes the sunset's streaks?Consumption. "But I promised you my love" – 't is left forlornOf life God summons unto him, and is it then forsworn?Oh, I was glad in love of you; but think: if I had diedEre babe of mine had come to be a solace at your side?Had it been little then, your grief, when Heaven had made us oneIn everything that's good on earth and then the good undone?No! no! – and had I lived to raise a boy we saw each dayBud into beauty, with that blight born in him that must slay!Just when we cherish him the most, and youthful, sunny prideSits on his curly front, he pines and dies ere I have died.Whose fault? – not mine! but hers or his, that ancestor who gaveEscutcheon to our humble house – a death's-head and a grave.Beneath the pomp of those grim arms we live and may not move;Nor faith, nor fame, nor wealth avail to hurl them down, nor love.How could I tell you this? – not then! when all the world was spunOf morning colors for our love to walk and dance upon.I could not tell you how disease hid here a viper germ,Precedence slowly claiming and so slowly fixing firm.And when I broke our plighted troth and would not tell you why,I loved you, thinking "time enough when I have come to die."Draw off my rings and let my hands rest so … the wretched coughWill interrupt my feeble speech and will not be put off…Ah, anyhow, my anodyne is this – to feel that youAre near me, that your healthy hand soothes mine's unhealthy dew.And that your heart excuses all, and that you will not fretBecause you understand me now and never will forget. —Now bring me roses pale and pure and tell me death's a lie,– Late was it hard for me to live, now it is hard to die.

PART V

1Vased in her bedroom window, whiteAs her glad girlhood, never lost,I smelt the roses; and the nightOutside was fog and frost.What though I claimed her dying there!God nor one angel understoodNor cared, who from loved feet to hairHad changed to mist her blood.Love, love had claimed us long, and longOur hearts sang harp-strung, late and soon;But God! – God jangles thus the songAnd makes discord of tune.What lily lilier than her face!More virgin than her lips I kissed!When morn like God, with gold and graceBroke massed in mist! broke massed in mist!2Love, to your face farewell now,Pillowed a flower on flowers;Eyes, white-weighed with a spell now;Lips, with nothing to tell now,That bade adieu to ours.Dear, is your soul so daggeredThere by a world that hates?Love – is he ever laggard?Hope – is her face so haggard?You, who are one with the Fates?Never to wait to-morrowUnder such worldly skies!Never to sleep with sorrow!Hour by hour to borrowJoy that has only sighs!Sweet, farewell forever;And a burning tear or two —Will they reach your knowledge ever,And touch through the dreams that severMy life from the life of you?O Life, in my flesh so fearfulMedicine me this pain!Thy eyes with a science cheerful,But mine, with a mystery tearful,Tearful and slumber-fain.Love, to your lips farewell now —Your spirit through them I kiss;Lips – so sealed with a spell now!Lips, with nothing to tell nowBut this! but this! but this!..3So long it seems since last I saw her face,So long ago it seems,Like some sad soul, in unconjectured space,Lost in the happiness of some dead graceRemembered – I. And, oh! a little whileThe sorrow stabs and Death conceals no smileFrom Love bowed weeping in a thorny place —So long ago, our love is what are dreams!Since she is gone no more I feel the light,Since she is gone beyond,Burst like a revelation out of night, —Golden convictions of far futures bright, —Whiles clouds around the west take marble tones;For Hope sits sighing in a place of stones,Dark locks dishevelled and face very white, —Since she is gone and life's an iron bond.Now she is dead the doubt Love dulled with awe,Now she is dead to me,Questions the wisdom of diviner law.Self-solved of self I search to find a flaw —O egotism of Earth's fools and slaves! —For Faith leans thoughtful in a place of graves,On that unseen from this seen known to draw,Now she is dead and it is hard to see.4Ridged and bleak the gray forsakenTwilight at the night has guessed,Where no star of dusk has takenFlame unshaken in the west.All the day the woodlands dyingMoaned, and drippings as of griefTossed from barren boughs with sighingDeath of flying twig and leaf.Ah, to be a dream unbroken,Past the ironies of Fate!Born a tree; with branches oakenDear unspoken intimate.Who may say that man has neverLived the mighty hearts of trees?Graduating Godward ever,The Forever finds through these?Colors, we have lived, are cherished;Odors, we have been, are ours;Entity alone has perished;Beauty-nourished souls were flowers.Music, when the fancy guesses,Lifts us loftier thoughts among;Spirit that the flesh distresses,But expresses self with song…Heaven in darkness bends upbraidingWithout moonlight, without star;Darkness and the reason aiding,All but fading phantoms are.Still philosophy is saying:"Now that hope with life seems gone,Some are cursing, some are praying,God smiles raying in the dawn!"5Wild weather; the whip of the sleetOn the shuttered casement tapping;A shadow from face to feet,Like a shroud, my spirit wrapping,Wild weather; and how is sheNow the sting of the storm beats serried,Over the stone and the treeOf the grave where she is buried?Wild weather; I cannot weep —But the skies weep on and worry;So I sleep, and dream in my sleepHow I hear dim garments hurry…Star weather and footsteps of stars;And I see white raiment glisten,Like the glow on the face of MarsWhen the stars to the angels listen.And with me I see how she standsWith lips high thought has weighted;With testifying hands,And eyes with purity mated.Have I spoken and have I kneeledTo the prayer I worship, I wonder? —What waits on her lips that are sealed?God-sealed and who shall sunder!I sob, "Oh your stay was long!You are come, but your feet were laggard,With mansuetude and songFor a heart your death has daggered."And I lift wet eyes to herUnutterable with weeping,And beg for the loves that were,Now passed into Heaven's keeping…I wake and a clock tolls three —And the night and the storm lie serriedOn the testament that's she,Closed, clasped, and forever buried.6The night is shrewd with storm and sleet;Each loose-warped casement raps or groans;I hear the wailing woodland beatThe tempest with long blatant moans,Like one who fears defeat.And sitting here beyond the storm,Alone within the lonely house,It seems of Sleep the Fairy charmWeaves incantations; even the mouseThat scratched has come to harm.And in this grave light, stolen o'erFamiliar objects, grown severe,I 'm strange – as, opening a door,One finds one's dead self standing near,One knew not dead before.The old stair rings with growling gusts;Each hearth's flue gasps a gorgon throatThat snores and sleeps; the spectral dusts,Which yonder Shawnee war-gear coat,Whose quiver hangs and rusts,Are shaken; till I feel that he,Who wore it in the wild war-dance,And died in it, fills shadowyIts wampumed skins; its plume, perchance,Shakes, scowling eyes at me.And so the Swedenborge I tossAside, contented with the darkThat takes me. O'er the fire-light cross;Pass where the andirons spit and spark,And ponder o'er her loss.Or from the flaw-splashed window yearnOut toward the waste, where sway and dipDank, dark December boughs, where burnSome late last leaves, that icy dripNo matter where you turn.Where sodden soil, you scarce have trod,Fills oozy footprints; and the nightSo ugly that it mocks at God,Creating monsters which the sightFancies, unseen, abroad.The months I count: how long it seemsSince that bland summer when with her,There on her porch, in rainy gleamsWe watched the mellow lightning stirIn rain-clouds gray as dreams!When all the west a torn gold sheet —Swift openings of some Titan's forge —Laid bald with storm; in quivering heatPitched precipice and nightmare gorge,Where thunder torrents beat.And strong the wind was as againStorm lit the instant earth; and howThe wood sprang out one virent stain;We read no more – lost is it now! —In Romance of a Reign;A tale of nowhere; then that weWere reading till we heard the plungeOf distant thunder sullenly,And left to mark long lightnings lungeConvulsions fiery.What worlds love wrought us, dreaming there,Of sorcery and necromance!With spirits lustrous of the air,A land like one great pearl, a tranceOf floods and forests fair.Where white-faced flowers sang and thought;Where fragrant birds flew, brilliant-blown,In winging odors; feather-fraughtWith light, where breathing colors shone,On throbbing music brought.Or built us some snug country homeAmong the hills; with terracesVine-hung and orchared o'er the foamOf the Ohio, far one seesWind crimson in the gloam.And this! and this! – alone! alone!To hear the sweep of winter rain,The missiled sleet's sharp arrows blown;Dark shadow on the freezing pane,And on my heart a moan!

DAYS AND DREAMS

He dreamed of hills so deep with woodsStorm-barriers on the summer skyAre not more dark, where plunged loud floodsDown rocks of sullen dye.Flat ways were his where sparsely grewGnarled, iron-colored oaks, with rifts,Between dead boughs, of Eden-blue:Ways where the speedwell liftsIts shy appeal, and spreading far —The gold, the fallen gold of dawnStaining each blossom's balanced star —Hollows of cowslips wan.Where 'round the feet the lady-smockAnd pearl-pale lady-slipper creep;White butterflies upon them rockOr seal-brown suck and sleep.At eve the west shoots crooked fireAthwart a half-moon leaning low;While one white, arrowy star throbs higherIn curdled honey-glow.Was it some elfin euphrasyThat purged his spirit so that thereBlue harebells, by those ways that be,Seemed summoning to prayer?For all the death within him prays;Not he – his higher self, whose loveFire-filled the flesh. Its light still staysTouched by the soul above.They found him dead his songs beside,Six stairs above the din and dustOf life: and that for which he diedDenied him even a crust.

DEITY

No personal; a God divinely crownedWith gold and raised upon a golden throneDeep in a golden glory, whence he nodsMan this or that – and little more than man!And shalt thou see Him individual?Not till the freed intelligence hath soughtTen hundred hundred years to rise and love,Piercing the singing cycles under God, —Their iridescent evolutions orbedIn wild prismatic splendors, – shall it see —Through God-propinquity become a god —See, lightening out of spheric harmonies,Resplendencies of empyrean light,Prisms and facets of ten million beamsStarring a crystal of berainbowed rays,And in this – eyes of burning sapphire, eyesDeep as the music of the beautiful;And o'er the eyes, limpid hierarchal brows,As they were lilies of seraphic fire;Lips underneath, of trembling ruby – lipsWhose tongue's a chord, and every sound a song:Cherubic faces of intensityIn multiplying myriads to a wordForming the unit – God; SupremityCreative and ubiquitous.From thisThy intellect, detached, expelled and breathedExaltant into flesh endowed with soul,One sparkle of the Essence clothed with clay. —O high development! devolvings upFrom matter to unmattered potencies,Up to the source and fountain of all mind,Beauty and truth, inviolable Love,And so resumed and reabsorbed in God,One more expression of eternity!

SELF

A Sufi debauchee of dreamsSpake this: – From Sodomite to PeriEarth tablets us; we live and areMan's own long commentary.Is one begat in Bassora,One lies in Damietta dying —The plausibilities of GodAll possibles o'erlying.But burns the lust within the flesh? —Hell's but a homily to Heaven, —Put then the individual first,And of thyself be shriven.Neither in adamant nor brassThe scrutinizing eye records it;The arm is rooted in the heart,The heart that rules and lords it.Be that it is and thou art all;And what thou art so thou hast writtenThee of the lutanists of Love,Or of the torture-smitten.

SELF AND SOUL

It came to me in my sleep,And I rose from my sleep and wentOut in the night to weep,Over the bristling bent.With my soul, it seemed, I stoodAlone in a moaning wood.And my soul said, gazing at me,"Shall I show you another landThan other this flesh can see?"And took into hers my hand. —We passed from the wood to a heathAs starved as the ribs of Death.Three skeleton trees we pass,Bare bones on an iron moor,Where every leaf and the grassWas a thorn and a thistle hoar.And my soul said, looking on me,"The past of your life you see."And a swine-herd passed with his swine,Deformed; and I heard him growl;Two eyes of a sottish shineLeered under two brows as foul.And my soul said, "This is the lustThat soils my limbs with the dust."And a goose wife hobbled byOn a crutch, with the devil's geese;A-mumbling how life is a lie,And cursing my soul without cease.And my soul said, "This is desire;The meaning of life is higher."And we came to a garden, closeTo a hollow of graves and tombs;A garden as red as a roseHung over of obscene glooms;The heart of each rose was a sparkThat smouldered or splintered the dark.And I was aware of a girlWith a wild-rose face, who cameWith a mouth like a shell's split pearl,Rose-clad in a robe of flame;And she plucked the roses and gave,And my flesh was her veriest slave.She vanished. My lips would have kissedThe flowers she gave me with sighs,But they writhed in my hands and hissed,In their hearts were a serpent's eyes.And my soul said, "Pleasure is she;The joys of the flesh you see."And I bowed with a heart too weary,That longed for rest, for sleep;And my eyes were heavy and teary,And yearned for a way to weep.And my soul smiled, "This may be!Will you know me and follow me?"

THE DREAM OF DREAD

I have lain for an hour or twainAwake, and the tempest is beatingOn the roof, and the sleet on the pane,And the winds are three enemies meeting;And I listen and hear it again,My name, in the silence, repeating.Then dumbness of death that must slay,Till the midnight is burst like a bubble;And out of the darkness a ray —'T is she! the all beautiful double;With a face like the breaking of day,Eyes dark with the magic of trouble.I move not; she lies with her lipsAt mine; and I feel she is drawingMy life from my heart to their tips,My heart where the horror is gnawing;My life in a thousand slow sips,My flesh with her sorcery awing.She binds me with merciless eyes;She drinks of my blood, and I hear itDrain up with a shudder and riseTo the lips, like the serpent's, that steer itAnd she lies and she laughs as she lies,Saying, "Lo, thy affinitized spirit!"Then I hear – as if torturing swordsHad shivered and torments had gratedHoarse iron deep under; and wordsAs of sins that howled out and awaitedA fiend who lashed into their hords,And a demon who lacerated.And I shriek and lie clammy and stark,As the curse of a devil mounts higher,Up – out of damnation and dark,Up – a hobble of hoofs that is dire;I feel that his mouth is a spark,His features, of filth and of fire."To thy body's corruption, thy grave!Thy hell! from which thou hast stolen!"And a blackness rolls down like a waveWith a clamor of tongues that are swollen —And I feel that my flesh is the slaveOf a – vampire, diakka, eidolon?

DEATH IN LIFE

Within my veins it beatsAnd burns within my brain;For when the year is sad and searI dream the dream again.Ah! over young am IGod knows! yet in this sleepMore pain and woe than women knowI know, and doubly deep!..Seven towers of shaggy rockRise red to ragged skies,Built in a marsh that, black and harsh,To dead horizons lies.Eternal sunset pours,Around its warlock towers,A glowing urn where garnets burnWith fire-dripping flowers.O'er bat-like turrets high,Stretched in a scarlet line,The crimson cranes through rosy rainsDrop like a ruby wine.Once in the banquet-hallThese scarlet storks are heard: —I sit at board with men o' th' swordAnd knights of noble word;Cased all in silver mail;But he, I love and fear,In glittering gold beside me boldSits like a lover near.Wild music echoes inThe hollow towers there;Behind bright bars o' his visor, starsBeam in his eyes and glare.Wild music oozes fromArched ceilings, caked with whiteGroined pearl; and floors like mythic shoresThat sing to seas of light.Wild music and a feast,And one's belovèd nearIn burning mail – why am I pale,So pale with grief and fear?Red heavens and slaughter-redThe marsh to west and east;Seven slits of sky, seven casements high,Flare on the blood-red feast.Our torches tall are these,Our revel torches seven,That spill from gold soft splendors old —The hour of night – eleven.No word. The sparkle achesIn cups of diamond-spar,That prism the light of ruddy whiteIn royal wines of war.No word. Rich plate that rays,Splashes of splitting fires,Off beryl brims; while sobs and swimsEnchantment of lost lyres.I lean to him I love,And in the silence say:"Would thy dear grace reveal thy face,If love should crave and pray?"Grave Silence, like a king,At that strange feast is set;Grave Silence still as the soul's will,That rules the reason yet.But when I speak, behold!The charm is snapped, for lowSpeaks out the mask o' his golden casque,"At midnight be it so!"And Silence waits severe,Till one sonorous tower,Owl-swarmed, that looms in glaring glooms,Sounds slow the midnight hour.Three strokes; the knights arise,The palsy from them flung,To meward mock like some hoarse rockWhen wrecking waves give tongue.Six strokes; and wailing outThe music hoots away;The fiery glimmer of eve dies dimmer,The red grows ghostly gray.Nine strokes; and dropping mouldThe crumbling hall is lead;The plate is rust, the feast is dust,The banqueters are dead.Twelve strokes pound out and roll;The huge walls writhe and shakeO'er hissing things with taloned wings —Christ Jesus, let me wake!Then rattling in the nightHis iron visor slips —In rotting mail a death's-head paleKisses my loathing lips.Two hell-fierce lusts its eyes,Sharp-pointed like a knife,That flaming seem to say, "No dream!No dream! the truth of Life!"

THE EVE OF ALL-SAINTS

1This is the tale they tell,Of an Hallowe'en;This is the thing that befellMe and the village Belle,Beautiful Aimee Dean.2Did I love her? – God and she,They know and I!And love was the life of me —Whatever else may be,Would God that I could die!3That All-Saints' eve was dim;The frost lay whiteUnder strange stars and a slimMoon in the graveyard grim,An Autumn ghost of light.4They told her: "Go alone,With never a word,To the burial plot's unknownGrave with the grayest stone,When the clock on twelve is heard;5"Three times around it pass,With never a sound;Each time a wisp of grassAnd myrtle pluck, and passOut of the ghostly ground;6"And the bridegroom that's to beAt smiling wait,With a face like mist to see,With graceful gallantryWill bow you to the gate."7She laughed at this, and soBespoke us howTo the burial place she'd go: —And I was glad to know,For I'd be there to bow.8An acre from the farmThe homestead gravesLay walled from sun and storm;Old cedars of priestly formAround like sentinel slaves.9I loved, but never could saySuch words to her,And waited from day to day,Nursing the hope that layUnder the doubts that were. —10She passed 'neath the iron archOf the legended ground,And the moon like a twisted torchBurned over one lonesome larch;She passed with never a sound.11Three times had the circle traced,Three times had bentTo the grave that the myrtle graced;Three times, then softly facedHomeward, and slowly went.12Had the moonlight changed me so?Or fear undoneHer stepping strange and slow?Did she see and did not know?Or loved she another one?13Who knows? – She turned to fleeWith a face so whiteThat it haunts and will haunt me;The wind blew gustily,The graveyard gate clanged tight.14Did she think it me or – what,Clutching her dress?Her face so pinched that notA star in a stormy spotShows half as much distress.15Did I speak? did she answer aught?O God! had I said"Aimee, 't is I!" but naught! —And the mist and the moon distraughtStared with me on her – dead…16This is the tale they tellOf the Hallowe'en;This is the thing that befellMe and the village Belle,Beautiful Aimee Dean.