Under an oak-tree in a woodland, where
The dreaming Spring had dropped it from her hair,
I found a flower, through which I seemed to gaze
Beyond the world and see what no man dare
Behold and live the myths of bygone days
Diana and Endymion, and the bare
Slim beauty of the boy whom Echo wooed;
And Hyacinthus whom Apollo dewed
With love and death: and Daphne, ever fair;
And that reed-slender girl whom Pan pursued.

I stood and gazed and through it seemed to see
The Dryad dancing by the forest tree,
Her hair wild blown: the Faun with listening ear,
Deep in the boscage, kneeling on one knee,
Watching the wandered Oread draw near,
Her wild heart beating like a honey-bee
Within a rose. All, all the myths of old,
All, all the bright shapes of the Age of Gol...

1.
Ye who intelligent the Third Heaven move,
Hear the discourse which is within my heart,
Which cannot be declared, it seems so new.
The Heaven whose course follows your power and art,
Oh, gentle creatures that ye are! me drew,
And therefore may I dare to speak to you,
Even of the life which now I live - and yet
I pray that ye will hear me when I cry,
And tell of mine own heart this novelty;
How the lamenting Spirit moans in it,
And how a voice there murmurs against her
Who came on the refulgence of your sphere.

2.
A sweet Thought, which was once the life within
This heavy heart, man a time and oft
Went up before our Father's feet, and there
It saw a glorious Lady throned aloft;
And its sweet talk of her my soul did win,
So that I said, 'T...

We will have beds imbued with mildest scent,
And couches, deep as tombs, in which to lie,
Flowers around us, strange and opulent,
Blooming on shelves under the finest skies.

Approaching equally their final light,
Our twin hearts will be two great flaming brands
That will be double in each other's sight
Our souls the mirrors where the image stands.

One evening made of rose and mystic blue
We will flare out, in an epiphany
Like a long sob, charged with our last adieus.

And later, opening the doors, will be
An Angel, who will joyfully reglaze
The tarnished mirrors, and relight the blaze.

Their eyes met; flashed an instant like swift swords
That leapt unparring to each other's heart,
Jarring convulsion through the inmost chords;
Then fell, for they had fully done their part.

She, in the manner of her folk unveiled,
Might have been veiled for all he saw of her;
Those sudden eyes, from which he reeled and quailed;
The old life dead, no new life yet astir.

His good steed bore him onward slow and proud:
And through the open lattice still she leant;
Pale, still, though whirled in a black rushing cloud,
As if on her fair flowers and dreams intent.

Days passed, and he passed timid, furtive, slow:
Nights came, and he came motionless and mute,
A steadfast sentinel till morning-glow,
Though blank her window, dumb her voice and lute.

Snowdrift of the mountains,
Spindrift of the sea,
We who down the border
Rove from gloom to glee,--

Snowdrift of the mountains,
Spindrift of the sea,
There be no such gypsies
Over earth as we.

Snowdrift of the mountains,
Spindrift of the sea,
Let us part the treasure
Of the world in three.

Snowdrift of the mountains,
Spindrift of the sea,
You shall keep your kingdoms;
Joscelyn for me!

And they heard the tent-poles clatter,
And the fly in twain was torn,
'Tis the soiled rag of a tatter
Of the tent where I was born.
And what matters it, I wonder?
Brick or stone or calico?,
Or a bush you were born under,
When it happened long ago?

And my beds were camp beds and tramp beds and damp beds,
And my beds were dry beds on drought-stricken ground,
Hard beds and soft beds, and wide beds and narrow,
For my beds were strange beds the wide world round.

And the old hag seemed to ponder
('Twas my mother told me so),
And she said that I would wander
Where but few would think to go.
"He will fly the haunts of tailors,
He will cross the ocean wide,
For his fathers, they were sailors
All on his good father's side."

Behind m...

I


When I go forth to greet the glad-faced Spring,
Just at the time of opening apple-buds,
When brooks are laughing, winds are whispering,
On babbling hillsides or in warbling woods,
There is an unseen presence that eludes:--
Perhaps a Dryad, in whose tresses cling
The loamy odors of old solitudes,
Who, from her beechen doorway, calls; and leads
My soul to follow; now with dimpling words
Of leaves; and now with syllables of birds;
While here and there--is it her limbs that swing?
Or restless sunlight on the moss and weeds?


II


Or, haply, 't is a Naiad now who slips,
Like some white lily, from her fountain's glass,
While from her dripping hair and breasts and hips,
The moisture rains cool music on the grass.
Her have ...

"Come now," I said, "put off these webs of death,
Distract this leaden yearning of thine eyes
From lichened banks of peace, sad mysteries
Of dust fallen-in where passed the flitting breath:
Turn thy sick thoughts from him that slumbereth
In mouldered linen to the living skies,
The sun's bright-clouded principalities,
The salt deliciousness the sea-breeze hath!

"Lay thy warm hand on earth's cold clods and think
What exquisite greenness sprouts from these to grace
The moving fields of summer; on the brink
Of archèd waves the sea-horizon trace,
Whence wheels night's galaxy; and in silence sink
The pride in rapture of life's dwelling-place!"

I

TEMPEST


Wrapped round of the night, as a monster is wrapped of the ocean,
Down, down through vast storeys of darkness, behold, in the tower
Of the heaven, the thunder! on stairways of cloudy commotion,
Colossal of tread, like a giant, from echoing hour to hour
Goes striding in rattling armor ...
The Nymph, at her billow-roofed dormer
Of foam; and the Sylvan--green-housed--at her window of leaves appears;
--As a listening woman, who hears
The approach of her lover, who comes to her arms in the night;
And, loosening the loops of her locks,
With eyes full of love and delight,
From the couch of her rest in ardor and haste arises.--
The Nymph, as if breathed of the tempest, like fire surprises
The riotous bands of the rocks,
That face with a roa...

He lives his lonely life, and when he dies
A thousand hearts maybe will utter sighs;
Because they liked his songs, and now their bird
Sleeps with his head beneath his wing, unheard.

But what kind hand will tend his grave, and bring
Those blossoms there, of which he used to sing?
Who'll kiss his mound, and wish the time would come
To lie with him inside that silent tomb?

And who'll forget the dreamer's skill, and shed
A tear because a loving heart is dead?
Heigh ho for gossip then, and common sighs,
And let his death bring tears in no one's eyes.

    Their spirits beat upon mine
    Like the wings of a thousand butterflies.
    I closed my eyes and felt their spirits vibrating.
    I closed my eyes, yet I knew when their lashes
    Fringed their cheeks from downcast eyes,
    And when they turned their heads;
    And when their garments clung to them,
    Or fell from them, in exquisite draperies.
    Their spirits watched my ecstasy
    With wide looks of starry unconcern.
    Their spirits looked upon my torture;
    They drank it as it were the water of life;
    With reddened cheeks, brightened eyes,
    The rising flame of my soul made their spirits gilt,
    Like the wings of a butterfly drifting suddenly into sunlight.
    And they cried to me for life, life, life.
    But in taking life for mys...

There are some things I call riddles,
No one can explain or tell:
What's the sound that comes from fiddles,
Or the noise made by a bell?

What is silence? what is thunder?
And why do we laugh and weep?
But the strangest thing I wonder
Where we go when we go to-sleep?

What are words? What makes our voices?
What's the reason we're not dumb?
What is music? What are noises?
I have thought about them some.

I have often asked my father;
He just laughed and said, "You're deep!"
But what's given me most bother
'S where we go when we go to-sleep.

There's the wind; no one can see it;
Yet it's stronger than a man:
Where's the boy that would n't be it?
Making all the noise it can.

What is it that makes it hover?
And wh...

A fog has destroyed the world so gently.
Bloodless trees dissolve in smoke.
And shadows hover where shrieks are heard.
Burning beasts evaporate like breath.

Captured flies are the gas lanterns.
And each flickers, still attempting to escape.
But to one side, high in the distance, the poisonous moon,
The fat fog-spider, lies in wait, smoldering.

We, however, loathsome, suited for death,
Trample along, crunching this desert splendor.
And silently stab the white eyes of misery
Like spears into the swollen night.

(FOURTEENTH CENTURY)

    "Time mocks thy opening music with a close;
    What now he gives long since he gave away.
    Thou deemst thy sun hath risen, but ere it rose
    It was eclipsed, and dusk shall be thy day."

    Yet has the Dawn gone up: in loveliest light
    She walks high heaven beyond the shadow there:
    Whom I too veiled from all men's envious sight
    With inward eyes adore and silent prayer.

I.

Often, when I wake at night,
I can hear the strangest sounds,
Stealthy noises, left and right,
As of some one going his rounds:
On the stairs there comes a crack
As if some one mounted there;
Then the door creaks; and the back
Settles of the rocking-chair,
As if some one had sat down.
Then I get up in my gown;
Run to mother; hide my head;
Snuggle down by her in bed.
And she says to me, "My dear,
There is nothing here to fear:
All the noises that you hear
Are the old house and the weather,
Dry old weather,
Having a little talk together.
You just heard the old house stretching,
Waking up to have a chat:
Seems to me that it is catching.
Don't wake up again for that."

II.

And again I wake at night,
...

Mark thou! a shadow crowned with fire of hell.
Man holds her in his heart as night doth hold
The moonlight memories of day's dead gold;
Or as a winter-withered asphodel
In its dead loveliness holds scents of old.
And looking on her, lo, he thinks 'tis well.

Who would not follow her whose glory sits,
Imperishably lovely on the air?
Who, from the arms of Earth's desire, flits
With eyes defiant and rebellions hair? -
Hers is the beauty that no man shall share.

He who hath seen, what shall it profit him?
He who doth love, what shall his passion gain?
When disappointment at her cup's bright brim
Poisons the pleasure with the hemlock pain?
Hers is the passion that no man shall drain.

How long, how long since Life hath touched her eyes,
Making ...

Squaw-Berry, bramble, Solomon's-seal,
And rattlesnake-weed make wild the place:
You seem to feel that a Faun will steal
Or leap before your face. . . .
Is that the reel of a Satyr's heel,
Or the brook in its headlong race?
Yellow puccoon and the blue-eyed grass,
And briars a riot of bloom:
And now from the mass of that sassafras
What is it shakes perfume?
A Nymph, who has for her looking-glass
That pool in the mossy gloom?
Mile on mile of the trees and vines,
And rock and fern and root:
What is it pines where the wild-grape twines?
A dove? or Pan's own flute?
And there! what shines into rosy lines?
A flower? or Dryad's foot?
White-plantain, bluet, and, golden-clear,
The crowfoot's earth-bound star:
Now what draws near to the spirit ear?

Dark the halls, and cold the feast,
Gone the bridemaids, gone the priest.
All is over, all is done,
Twain of yesterday are one!
Blooming girl and manhood gray,
Autumn in the arms of May!

Hushed within and hushed without,
Dancing feet and wrestlers' shout;
Dies the bonfire on the hill;
All is dark and all is still,
Save the starlight, save the breeze
Moaning through the graveyard trees,
And the great sea-waves below,
Pulse of the midnight beating slow.

From the brief dream of a bride
She hath wakened, at his side.
With half-uttered shriek and start,
Feels she not his beating heart?
And the pressure of his arm,
And his breathing near and warm?

Lightly from the bridal bed
Springs that fair dishevelled head,
And a fe...