Freedom

My green aquarium of phantom fish,
Goggling in on me through the misty panes;
My rotting leaves and fields spongy with rains;
My few clear quiet autumn days--I wish

I could leave all, clearness and mistiness;
Sodden or goldenly crystal, all too still.
Yes, and I too rot with the leaves that fill
The hollows in the woods; I am grown less

Than human, listless, aimless as the green
Idiot fishes of my aquarium,
Who loiter down their dim tunnels and come
And look at me and drift away, nought seen

Or understood, but only glazedly
Reflected. Upwards, upwards through the shadows,
Through the lush sponginess of deep-sea meadows
Where hare-lipped monsters batten, let me ply

Winged fins, bursting this matrix dark to find
Jewels and movement, ...

When day is ended, and grey twilight flies
On silent wings across the tired land,
The slumber angel cometh from the skies -
The slumber angel of the peaceful eyes,
And with the scarlet poppies in his hand.

His robes are dappled like the moonlit seas,
His hair in waves of silver floats afar;
He weareth lotus-bloom and sweet heartsease,
With tassels of the rustling green fir trees,
As down the dusk he steps from star to star.

Above the world he swings his curfew bell,
And sleep falls soft on golden heads and white;
The daisies curl their leaves beneath his spell,
The prisoner who wearies in his cell
Forgets awhile, and dreams throughout the night.

*    *    *    *    *

Even so, in peace, comes that great Lord of rest
Who crowneth men...

"There are no ghosts in America."


There are no ghosts, you say,
    To haunt her blaze of light;
No shadows in her day,
    No phantoms in her night.
Columbus' tattered sail
Has passed beyond our hail.

What? On that magic coast,
    Where Raleigh fought with fate,
Or where that Devon ghost
    Unbarred the Golden Gate,
No dark, strange, ear-ringed men
Beat in from sea again?

No ghosts in Salem town
    With silver buckled shoon?
No lovely witch to drown
    Or burn beneath the moon?
Not even a whiff of tea,
On Boston's glimmering quay.

O, ghostly Spanish walls,
    Where brown Franciscans glide,
Is there no voice that calls
    Across the Great Divide,
To pilgrims on their way
Along t...

    On the road to nowhere
    What wild oats did you sow
    When you left your father's house
    With your cheeks aglow?
    Eyes so strained and eager
    To see what you might see?
    Were you thief or were you fool
    Or most nobly free?

    Were the tramp-days knightly,
    True sowing of wild seed?
    Did you dare to make the songs
    Vanquished workmen need?
    Did you waste much money
    To deck a leper's feast?
    Love the truth, defy the crowd
    Scandalize the priest?
    On the road to nowhere
    What wild oats did you sow?
    Stupids find the nowhere-road
    Dusty, grim and slow.

    Ere their sowing's ended
    They turn them on their track,
    Look at the caitiff craven wights
    Repe...

The fervent, pale-faced Mother ere she sleep,
Looks out upon the zigzag-lighted square,
The beautiful bare trees, the blue night-air,
The revelation of the star-strewn deep,
World above world, and heaven over heaven.
Between the tree-tops and the skies, her sight
Rests on a steadfast, ruddy-shining light,
High in the tower, an earthly star of even.
Hers is the faith in saints' and angels' power,
And mediating love - she breathes a prayer
For yon tired watcher in the gray old tower.
He the shrewd, skeptic poet unaware
Feels comforted and stilled, and knows not whence
Falls this unwonted peace on heart and sense.

One with the ruined sunset,
The strange forsaken sands,
What is it waits and wanders
And signs with desperate hands?

What is it calls in the twilight,
Calls as its chance were vain?
The cry of a gull sent seaward
Or the voice of an ancient pain?

The red ghost of the sunset,
It walks them as its own,
These dreary and desolate reaches . . .
But O that it walked alone!

Perchè la vita è breve.

IN PRAISE OF LAURA'S EYES: THE DIFFICULTY OF HIS THEME.


    Since human life is frail,
And genius trembles at the lofty theme,
I little confidence in either place;
But let my tender wail
There, where it ought, deserved attention claim,
That wail which e'en in silence we may trace.
O beauteous eyes, where Love doth nestling stay!
To you I turn my insufficient lay,
Unapt to flow; but passion's goad I feel:
And he of you who sings
Such courteous habit by the strain is taught,
That, borne on amorous wings,
He soars above the reach of vulgar thought:
Exalted thus, I venture to reveal
What long my cautious heart has labour'd to conceal.

Yes, well do I perceive
To you how wrongful is my scanty praise;

The tyrant Dionys to seek,
Stern Moerus with his poniard crept;
The watchful guard upon him swept;
The grim king marked his changeless cheek:
"What wouldst thou with thy poniard? Speak!"
"The city from the tyrant free!"
"The death-cross shall thy guerdon be."

"I am prepared for death, nor pray,"
Replied that haughty man, "I to live;
Enough, if thou one grace wilt give
For three brief suns the death delay
To wed my sister leagues away;
I boast one friend whose life for mine,
If I should fail the cross, is thine."

The tyrant mused, and smiled, and said
With gloomy craft, "So let it be;
Three days I will vouchsafe to thee.
But mark if, when the time be sped,
Thou fail'st thy surety dies instead.
His life shall buy thine own release;

A village Chorus is supposed to be assembled, and about to commence its festive procession.


CHORUS.

THE festal day hail ye

With garlands of pleasure,

And dances' soft measure,
With rapture commingled
And sweet choral song.

DAMON.

Oh, how I yearn from out the crowd to flee!
What joy a secret glade would give to me!
Amid the throng, the turmoil here,
Confined the plain, the breezes e'en appear.

CHORUS.

Now order it truly,
That ev'ry one duly
May roam and may wander,
Now here, and now yonder,

The meadows along.

[The Chorus retreats gradually, and the song becomes fainter and fainter, till it dies away in the distance.]

DAMON.

In vain ye call, in vain would lure me on...

As I near my lonely cottage,
    At the close of weary day,
There's a little bit of gladness
    Comes to meet me on the way:
Dimpled, tanned, and petticoated,
    Innocent as angels are,
Like a smiling, straying sunbeam
    Is my Stella - like a star.

Soon a hand of tissue-softness
    Slips confidingly in mine,
And with tender look appealing
    Eyes of beauty sweetly shine;
Like a gentle shepherd guiding
    Some lost lamb unto the fold,
So she leads me homeward, prattling
    Till her stories are all told.

"Papa, I'm so glad to see you -
    Cousin Mabel came today -
And the gas-man brought a letter
    That he said you'd better pay -
Yes, and awful things is happened:
    My poor kitty's drowned to death -
...

I.

Between the rose's and the canna's crimson,
Beneath her window in the night I stand;
The jeweled dew hangs little stars, in rims, on
The white moonflowers each a spirit hand
That points the path to mystic shadowland.

Awaken, sweet and fair!
And add to night try grace!
Suffer its loveliness to share
The white moon of thy face,
The darkness of thy hair.
Awaken, sweet and fair!

II.

A moth, like down, swings on th' althæa's pistil,
Ghost of a tone that haunts its bell's deep dome;
And in the August-lily's cone of crystal
A firefly blurs, the lantern of a gnome,
Green as a gem that gleams through hollow foam.

Approach! the moment flies!
Thou sweetheart of the South!
Come! mingle with night's mysteries
The re...

Midways of a wallèd garden,
    In the happy poplar land,
    Did an ancient castle stand,
With an old knight for a warden.

Many scarlet bricks there were
    In its walls, and old grey stone;
    Over which red apples shone
At the right time of the year.

On the bricks the green moss grew.
    Yellow lichen on the stone,
    Over which red apples shone;
Little war that castle knew.

Deep green water fill'd the moat,
    Each side had a red-brick lip,
    Green and mossy with the drip
Of dew and rain; there was a boat

Of carven wood, with hangings green
    About the stern; it was great bliss
    For lovers to sit there and kiss
In the hot summer noons, not seen.

Across the moat the fresh west wind
    In ve...

        "Sleep, weary ones, while ye may --
            Sleep, oh, sleep!"
                    Eugene Field.


        Thro' May time blossoms, with whisper low,
        The soft wind sang to the dead below:
        "Think not with regret on the Springtime's song
        And the task ye left while your hands were strong.
        The song would have ceased when the Spring was past,
        And the task that was joyous be weary at last."

        To the winter sky when the nights were long
        The tree-tops tossed with a ceaseless song:
        "Do ye think with regret on the sunny days
        And the path ye left, with its untrod ways?
        The sun might sink in a storm cloud's frown
        And the path grow rough when the night came down."...

        Once an old hen led forth her brood
        To scratch and glean and peck for food;
        A chick, to give her wings a spell,
        Fluttered and tumbled in a well.
        The mother wept till day was done,
        When she met with a grown-up son,
        And thus addressed him: - "My dear boy,
        Your years and vigour give me joy:
        You thrash all cocks around, I'm told;
        'Tis right, cocks should be brave and bold:
        But never - fears I cannot quell -
        Never, my son, go near that well;
        A hateful, false, and wretched place,
        Which is most fatal to my race.
        Imprint that counsel on your breast,
        And trust to providence the rest."

        He thanked the dame's maternal care,
   ...

These are the days of elfs and fays:
Who says that with the dreams of myth,
These imps and elves disport themselves?
Ah no, along the paths of song
Do all the tiny folk belong.

Round all our homes,
Kobolds and gnomes do daily cling,
Then nightly fling their lanterns out.
And shout on shout, they join the rout,
And sing, and sing, within the sweet enchanted ring.

Where gleamed the guile of moonlight's smile,
Once paused I, listening for a while,
And heard the lay, unknown by day,--
The fairies' dancing roundelay.

Queen Mab was there, her shimmering hair
Each fairy prince's heart's despair.
She smiled to see their sparkling glee,
And once I ween, she smiled at me.

Since when, you may by night or day,
Dispute the sway of elf...

    I would not venture to dispraise or praise.
    Too well I know the indifference which bounds
    A poet in the narrow working-grounds
    Where he is blind and deaf in all his ways.

    He must work out alone his path to glory;
    A thousand breaths are fanning him along;
    A thousand tears end in one little song,
    A thousand conflicts in one little story;

    A thousand notes swell to a single chord.
    He cannot tell where his direction tends;
    He strives unguided towards indefinite ends;
    He is an ignorant though absolute lord.

        I.

Ai me! why stood I on the bent
When Summer wept o'er dying June!
I saw the Fairy Folk ride faint
    Aneath the moon.


        II.

The haw-trees hedged the russet lea
Where cuckoo-buds waxed rich with gold;
The wealthy corn rose yellowly
    Endlong the wold.


        III.

Betwixt the haw-trees and the mead
"The Fairy Rade" came glimmering on;
A creamy cavalcade did speed
    O'er the green lawn.


        IV.

The night was ringing with their reins;
Loud laughed they till the cricket hushed;
The whistles on their coursers' manes
    Shrill music gushed.


        V.

The whistles tagged their horses' manes
All crystal clear; on these a wind
Fore...

There is a flower that bees prefer,
And butterflies desire;
To gain the purple democrat
The humming-birds aspire.

And whatsoever insect pass,
A honey bears away
Proportioned to his several dearth
And her capacity.

Her face is rounder than the moon,
And ruddier than the gown
Of orchis in the pasture,
Or rhododendron worn.

She doth not wait for June;
Before the world is green
Her sturdy little countenance
Against the wind is seen,

Contending with the grass,
Near kinsman to herself,
For privilege of sod and sun,
Sweet litigants for life.

And when the hills are full,
And newer fashions blow,
Doth not retract a single spice
For pang of jealousy.

Her public is the noon,
Her providence t...