Identity

Oh, thou surpassing beauty! that dost live
Shrined in yon silent stream of glorious light!
Spirit of harmony! that through the vast
And cloud-embroidered canopy art spreading
Thy wings, that o'er our shadowy earth hang brooding,
Like a pale silver haze, betwixt the moon
And the world's darker orb: beautiful, hail!
Hail to thee! from her midnight throne of ether,
Night looks upon the slumbering universe.
There is no breeze on silver-crowned tree,
There is no breath on dew-bespangled flower,
There is no wind sighs on the sleepy wave,
There is no sound hangs in the solemn air.
All, all are silent, all are dreaming, all,
Save those eternal eyes, that now shine forth
Winking the slumberer's destinies.    The moon
Sails on the horizon's verge, a moving glory,
P...

    In Lola Schaefer's studio in the Tower,
    Tea being served to painters, poets, singers,
    Herr Ludwig Haibt, a none too welcome guest,
    Of vital body, brisk, too loud of voice,
    And Lilli Alm crossed swords.

    It came about
    When Ludwig Haibt said: "Have you read the papers
    About this Elenor Murray?" And then said:
    "I tried to train her voice - she was a failure."
    And Lilli Alm who taught the art of song
    Looked at him half contemptuous and said:
    "Why did she fail?" To which Herr Ludwig answered
    "She tried too hard. She made her throat too tense,
    And made its muscles stiff by too much thought,
    Anxiety for song, the vocal triumph."

    "O, yes, I understand," said Lilli Aim.
    Then stabbing him she...

Winter is past; the heart of Nature warms
Beneath the wrecks of unresisted storms;
Doubtful at first, suspected more than seen,
The southern slopes are fringed with tender green;
On sheltered banks, beneath the dripping eaves,
Spring's earliest nurslings spread their glowing leaves,
Bright with the hues from wider pictures won,
White, azure, golden, - drift, or sky, or sun, -
The snowdrop, bearing on her patient breast
The frozen trophy torn from Winter's crest;
The violet, gazing on the arch of blue
Till her own iris wears its deepened hue;
The spendthrift crocus, bursting through the mould
Naked and shivering with his cup of gold.
Swelled with new life, the darkening elm on high
Prints her thick buds against the spotted sky
On all her boughs the stately ches...

This life is all checkered with pleasures and woes,
    That chase one another like waves of the deep,--
Each brightly or darkly, as onward it flows,
    Reflecting our eyes, as they sparkle or weep.
So closely our whims on our miseries tread,
    That the laugh is awaked ere the tear can be dried;
And, as fast as the rain-drop of Pity is shed.
    The goose-plumage of Folly can turn it aside.
But pledge me the cup--if existence would cloy,
    With hearts ever happy, and heads ever wise,
Be ours the light Sorrow, half-sister to Joy,
    And the light, brilliant Folly that flashes and dies.
When Hylas was sent with his urn to the fount,
    Thro' fields full of light, and with heart full of play,
Light rambled the boy, over meadow and mount,
    And neglected his t...

My love lies underground
With her face upturned to mine,
And her mouth unclosed in a last long kiss
That ended her life and mine.

I dance at the Christmas party
Under the mistletoe
Along with a ripe, slack country lass
Jostling to and fro.

The big, soft country lass,
Like a loose sheaf of wheat
Slipped through my arms on the threshing floor
At my feet.

The warm, soft country lass,
Sweet as an armful of wheat
At threshing-time broken, was broken
For me, and ah, it was sweet!

Now I am going home
Fulfilled and alone,
I see the great Orion standing
Looking down.

He's the star of my first beloved
Love-making.
The witness of all that bitter-sweet
Heart-aching.

Now he sees this as well,
...

And they were stronger hands than mine
That digged the Ruby from the earth,
More cunning brains that made it worth
The large desire of a king,
And stouter hearts that through the brine
Went down the perfect Pearl to bring.

Lo, I have wrought in common clay
Rude figures of a rough-hewn race,
Since pearls strew not the market-place
In this my town of banishment,
Where with the shifting dust I play,
And eat the bread of discontent.

Yet is there life in that I make.
0 thou who knowest, turn and see,
As thou hast power over me
So have I power over these,
Because I wrought them for thy sake,
And breathed in them mine agonies.

Small mirth was in the making, now
I lift the cloth that cloaks the clay,
And, wearied, at thy feet I la...

Is it the world, or my eyes, that are sadder?
I see not the grace that I used to see
In the meadow-brook whose song was so glad, or
In the boughs of the willow tree.
The brook runs slower - its song seems lower
And not the song that it sang of old;
And the tree I admired looks weary and tired
Of the changeless story of heat and cold.

When the sun goes up, and the stars go under,
In that supreme hour of the breaking day,
Is it my eyes, or the dawn, I wonder,
That finds less of the gold, and more of the gray
I see not the splendour, the tints so tender,
The rose-hued glory I used to see;
And I often borrow a vague half-sorrow
That another morning has dawned for me.

When the royal smile of that welcome comer
Beams on the meadow and burns in the s...

A sense of sadness in the golden air;
A pensiveness, that has no part in care,
As if the Season, by some woodland pool,
Braiding the early blossoms in her hair,
Seeing her loveliness reflected there,
Had sighed to find herself so beautiful.

A breathlessness; a feeling as of fear;
Holy and dim, as of a mystery near,
As if the World, about us, whispering went
With lifted finger and hand-hollowed ear,
Hearkening a music, that we cannot hear,
Haunting the quickening earth and firmament.

A prescience of the soul that has no name;
Expectancy that is both wild and tame,
As if the Earth, from out its azure ring
Of heavens, looked to see, as white as flame, -
As Perseus once to chained Andromeda came, -
The swift, divine revealment of the Spring.

"Lose and love" is love's first art;
So it was with thee and me,
For I first beheld thy heart
On the night I last saw thee.
Pine-woods and mysteries!
Sea-sands and sorrows!
Hearts fluttered by a breeze
That bodes dark morrows, morrows,--
Bodes dark morrows!

Moonlight in sweet overflow
Poured upon the earth and sea!
Lovelight with intenser glow
In the deeps of thee and me!
Clasped hands and silences!
Hearts faint and throbbing!
The weak wind sighing in the trees!
The strong surf sobbing, sobbing,--
The strong surf sobbing!

    I sing no idle songs of dalliance days,
    No dreams Elysian inspire my rhyming;
    I have no Celia to enchant my lays,
    No pipes of Pan have set my heart to chiming.
    I am no wordsmith dripping gems divine
    Into the golden chalice of a sonnet;
    If love songs witch you, close this book of mine,
        Waste no time on it.

    Yet bring I to my work an eager joy,
    A lusty love of life and all things human;
    Still in me leaps the wonder of the boy,
    A pride in man, a deathless faith in woman.
    Still red blood calls, still rings the valiant fray;
    Adventure beacons through the summer gloaming:
    Oh long and long and long will be the day
        Ere I come homing!

    This earth is ours to love: lute...