Betrayal

Maiden May sat in her bower,
In her blush rose bower in flower,
Sweet of scent;
Sat and dreamed away an hour,
Half content, half uncontent.

"Why should rose blossoms be born,
Tender blossoms, on a thorn
Though so sweet?
Never a thorn besets the corn
Scentless in its strength complete.

"Why are roses all so frail,
At the mercy of the gale,
Of a breath?
Yet so sweet and perfect pale,
Still so sweet in life and death."

Maiden May sat in her bower,
In her blush rose bower in flower,
Where a linnet
Made one bristling branch the tower
For her nest and young ones in it.

"Gay and clear the linnet trills;
Yet the skylark only, thrills
Heaven and earth
When he breasts the height, and fills
Height and depth ...

I.

A plague upon the people fell,
A famine after laid them low;
Then thorpe and byre arose in fire,
For on them brake the sudden foe;
So thick they died the people cried,
‘The Gods are moved against the land.’
The Priest in horror about his altar
To Thor and Odin lifted a hand:
‘Help us from famine
And plague and strife!
What would you have of us?
Human life?
Were it our nearest,
Were it our dearest,–
Answer, O answer!–
We give you his life.’


II.

But still the foeman spoil’d and burn’d,
And cattle died, and deer in wood,
And bird in air, and fishes turn’d
And whiten’d all the rolling flood;
And dead men lay all over the way,
Or down in a furrow scathed with flame;
And ever and aye the Priesthood m...

Wot’s that you’re readin’? a novel? A novel! well, darn my skin!
You a man grown and bearded and histin’ such stuff ez that in
Stuff about gals and their sweethearts! No wonder you’re thin ez a knife.
Look at me clar two hundred and never read one in my life!

That’s my opinion o’ novels. And ez to their lyin’ round here,
They belong to the Jedge’s daughter the Jedge who came up last year
On account of his lungs and the mountains and the balsam o’ pine and fir;
And his daughter well, she read novels, and that’s what’s the matter with her.

Yet she was sweet on the Jedge, and stuck by him day and night,
Alone in the cabin up ‘yer till she grew like a ghost, all white.
She wus only a slip of a thing, ez light and ez up and away
Ez rifle smoke blown through the woods, but she w...

O God, I am ashamed to die,
But not the least afraid;
Tho' death's dark shadow draweth nigh,
Atonement has been made

For every member of our race,
And I on it rely,
And hope immortal blooms thro' grace;
I'm not afraid to die.

But Thou hast done great things for me,
And I have nothing done.
To set my sin-bound spirit free,
Was sacrificed Thy Son;

And every day by Thy kind hand
Rich blessings are bestowed;
Oh, how can I before Thee stand,
Or rest in Thine abode

With self-respect, or feel at home
With no returns to show,
My whole life like the worthless foam
On time's incessant flow.

Oh, that in life's great harvest field,
I may some reaping do;
Early and late the sickle wield,
And prove a reaper tr...

By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named night,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule,
From a wild clime that lieth, sublime,
Out of space, out of time.

Bottomless vales and boundless floods,
And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,
With forms that no man can discover
For the tears that drip all over;
Mountains toppling evermore
Into seas without a shore;
Seas that restlessly aspire,
Surging, unto skies of fire;
Lakes that endlessly outspread
Their lone waters, lone and dead,
Their still waters, still and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily.

By the lakes that thus outspread
Their lone waters, lone and dead,
Their ...

I.

Dead and gone, the days we had together,
Shadow-stricken all the lights that shone
Round them, flown as flies the blown foam's feather,
Dead and gone.

Where we went, we twain, in time foregone,
Forth by land and sea, and cared not whether,
If I go again, I go alone.

Bound am I with time as with a tether;
Thee perchance death leads enfranchised on,
Far from deathlike life and changeful weather,
Dead and gone.

II.

Above the sea and sea-washed town we dwelt,
We twain together, two brief summers, free
From heed of hours as light as clouds that melt
Above the sea.

Free from all heed of aught at all were we,
Save chance of change that clouds or sunbeams dealt
And gleam of heaven to windward or to lee.

...

Beyond the night, down o'er the labouring East,
I see light's harbinger of dawn released:
Upon the false gleam of the ante-dawn,
Lo, the fair heaven of day-pursuing morn!

Beyond the lampless sleep and perishing death
That hold my heart, I feel my new life's breath,
I see the face my spirit-shape shall have
When this frail clay and dust have fled the grave.

Beyond the night, the death of doubt, defeat,
Rise dawn and morn, and life with light doth meet,
For the great Cause, too, - sure as the sun yon ray
Shoots up to strike the threatening clouds and say;
"I come, and with me comes the victorious Day!"

                            * * * * *

When I was young, the muse I wors...

WANDERER.

Young woman, may God bless thee,
Thee, and the sucking infant
Upon thy breast!
Let me, 'gainst this rocky wall,
Neath the elm-tree's shadow,
Lay aside my burden,
Near thee take my rest.

WOMAN.

What vocation leads thee,
While the day is burning,
Up this dusty path?
Bring'st thou goods from out the town
Round the country?
Smil'st thou, stranger,
At my question?

WANDERER.

From the town no goods I bring.
Cool is now the evening;
Show to me the fountain
'Whence thou drinkest,
Woman young and kind!

WOMAN.

Up the rocky pathway mount;
Go thou first! Across the thicket
Leads the pathway tow'rd the cottage
That I live in,
To the fountain
Whence I drink.
<...

When the sad word, "Adieu," from my lip is nigh falling,
    And with it, Hope passes away,
Ere the tongue hath half breathed it, my fond heart recalling
    That fatal farewell, bids me stay,
For oh! 'tis a penance so weary
    One hour from thy presence to be,
That death to this soul were less dreary,
    Less dark than long absence from thee.

Thy beauty, like Day, o'er the dull world breaking.
    Brings life to the heart it shines o'er,
And, in mine, a new feeling of happiness waking,
    Made light what was darkness before.
But mute is the Day's sunny glory,
While thine hath a voice, on whose breath,
    More sweet than the Syren's sweet story,
My hopes hang, through life and through death!

    How dense the glooms of Death, impervious
    To aught of old memorial light! How strait
    The sunless road, suspended, separate,
    That leads to later birth! Untremulous
    With any secret morn of stars, to us
    The Past is closed as with division great
    Of planet-girdling seas - unknown its gate,
    Beyond the mouths of shadows cavernous.

    Oh! may it be that Death in kindness strips
    The soul of memory's raiment, rendering blind
        Our vision, lest surmounted deeps appal,
    As when on mountain peaks a glance behind
    Betrays with knowledge, and the climber slips
        Down gulfs of fear to some enormous fall?

I have not forgotten our little white retreat
Where we were neighbors to the town of busy streets;
Our plaster Venus and Pomona barely could
Conceal their nakedness within our meagre wood.
Evenings, the sun would stream superbly, and would splash
Prismatic colors through the simple window glass;
He seemed a curious eye in overarching space
Who watched us as we dined in silence, without haste,
And spread throughout the room a mellow candle-glow
On frugal drapes of serge, the tablecloth below.

JOHN courts Perrette; but all in vain;
Love's sweetest oaths, and tears, and sighs
All potent spells her heart to gain
The ardent lover vainly tries:
Fruitless his arts to make her waver,
She will not grant the smallest favour:
A ruse our youth resolved to try
The cruel air to mollify: -
Holding his fingers ten outspread
To Perrette's gaze, and with no dread
"So often," said he, "can I prove,
"My sweet Perrette, how warm my love."
When lover's last avowals fail
To melt the maiden's coy suspicions
A lover's sign will oft prevail
To win the way to soft concessions:
Half won she takes the tempting bait;
Smiles on him, draws her lover nearer,
With heart no longer obdurate
She teaches him no more to fear her -
A pinch, - a kiss, - a kindling eye...

    Such wast thou: now in earth below,
    Dust and a skeleton thou art.
    Above thy bones and clay,
    Here vainly placed by loving hands,
    Sole guardian of memory and woe,
    The image of departed beauty stands.
    Mute, motionless, it seems with pensive gaze
    To watch the flight of the departing days.
    That gentle look, that, wheresoe'er it fell,
    As now it seems to fall,
    Held fast the gazer with its magic spell;
    That lip, from which as from some copious urn,
    Redundant pleasure seems to overflow;
    That neck, on which love once so fondly hung;
    That loving hand, whose tender pressure still
    The hand it clasped, with trembling joy would thrill;
    That bosom, whose transparent loveliness
    The color from t...

What dost thou here far from thy native place?
What piercing influences of heaven have stirred
Thy heart's last mansion all-corruptible to wake,
To move, and in the sweets of wine and fire
Sit tempting madness with unholy eyes?
Begone, thou shuddering, pale anomaly!
The dark presses without on yew and thorn;
Stoops now the owl upon her lonely quest;
The pomp runs high here, and our beauteous women
Seek no cold witness - O, let murder cry,
Too shrill for human ear, only to God.
Come not in power to wreak so wild a vengeance!
Thou knowest not now the limit of man's heart;
He is beyond thy knowledge. Gaze not then,
Horror enthroned lit with insanest light!

By a void and soundless river
On the outer edge of space,
Where the body comes not ever,
But the absent dream hath place,
Stands a city, tall and quiet,
And its air is sweet and dim;
Never sound of grief or riot
Makes it mad, or makes it grim.

And the tender skies thereover
Neither sun, nor star, behold -
Only dusk it hath for cover, -
But a glamour soft with gold,
Through a mist of dreamier essence
Than the dew of twilight, smiles
On strange shafts and domes and crescents,
Lifting into eerie piles.

In its courts and hallowed places
Dreams of distant worlds arise,
Shadows of transfigured faces,
Glimpses of immortal eyes,
Echoes of serenest pleasure,
Notes of perfect speech that fall,
Through an air of endless leisure,<...

The rose to the wind has yielded: all its leaves
Lie strewn on the graveyard grass, and all their light
And colour and fragrance leave our sense and sight
Bereft as a man whom bitter time bereaves
Of blossom at once and hope of garnered sheaves,
Of April at once and August. Day to night
Calls wailing, and life to death, and depth to height,
And soul upon soul of man that hears and grieves.
Who knows, though he see the snow-cold blossom shed,
If haply the heart that burned within the rose,
The spirit in sense, the life of life be dead?
If haply the wind that slays with storming snows
Be one with the wind that quickens? Bow thine head,
O Sorrow, and commune with thine heart: who knows?

I.

Gone, O gentle heart and true,
Friend of hopes foregone,
Hopes and hopeful days with you
Gone?

Days of old that shone
Saw what none shall see anew,
When we gazed thereon.

Soul as clear as sunlit dew,
Why so soon pass on,
Forth from all we loved and knew
Gone?

II.

Friend of many a season fled,
What may sorrow send
Toward thee now from lips that said
'Friend'?

Sighs and songs to blend
Praise with pain uncomforted
Though the praise ascend?

Darkness hides no dearer head:
Why should darkness end
Day so soon, O dear and dead
Friend?

III.

Dear in death, thou hast thy part
Yet in life, to cheer
Hearts that held thy gentle heart
Dear.

Time and...

Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table
Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step,
She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage
To meet him in the doorway with the news
And put him on his guard. "Silas is back."
She pushed him outward with her through the door
And shut it after her. "Be kind," she said.
She took the market things from Warren's arms
And set them on the porch, then drew him down
To sit beside her on the wooden steps.

"When was I ever anything but kind to him?
But I'll not have the fellow back," he said.
"I told him so last haying, didn't I?
'If he left then,' I said, 'that ended it.'
What good is he? Who else will harbour him
At his age for the little he can do?
What help he is there's no depending on.
Off he goes always when...