Identity

    I

    Flat as a drum-head stretch the haggard snows;
    The mighty skies are palisades of light;
    The stars are blurred; the silence grows and grows;
    Vaster and vaster vaults the icy night.
    Here in my sleeping-bag I cower and pray:
    "Silence and night, have pity! stoop and slay."

    I have not slept for many, many days.
    I close my eyes with weariness - that's all.
    I still have strength to feed the drift-wood blaze,
    That flickers weirdly on the icy wall.
    I still have strength to pray: "God rest her soul,
    Here in the awful shadow of the Pole."

    There in the cabin's alcove low she lies,
    Still candles gleaming at her head and feet;
    All snow-drop white, ash-cold, with closed eyes,
    Lips smiling...

In this old garden, fair, I walk to-day
Heart-charmed with all the beauty of the scene:
The rich, luxuriant grasses' cooling green,
The wall's environ, ivy-decked and gray,
The waving branches with the wind at play,
The slight and tremulous blooms that show between,
Sweet all: and yet my yearning heart doth lean
Toward Love's Egyptian fleshpots far away.

Beside the wall, the slim Laburnum grows
And flings its golden flow'rs to every breeze.
But e'en among such soothing sights as these,
I pant and nurse my soul-devouring woes.
Of all the longings that our hearts wot of,
There is no hunger like the want of love!

I.

Beneath an old beech-tree
They sat together,
Fair as a flower was she
Of summer weather.
They spoke of life and love,
While, through the boughs above,
The sunlight, like a dove,
Dropped many a feather.

II.

And there the violet,
The bluet near it,
Made blurs of azure wet
As if some spirit,
Or woodland dream, had gone
Sprinkling the earth with dawn,
When only Fay and Faun
Could see or hear it.

III.

She with her young, sweet face
And eyes gray-beaming,
Made of that forest place
A spot for dreaming:
A spot for Oreads
To smooth their nut-brown braids,
For Dryads of the glades
To dance in, gleaming.

IV.

So dim the place, so blest,
One had not wondered
H...

The rain had fallen, the Poet arose,
    He passed through the doorway into the street,
A strong wind lifted his hat from his head,
    And he uttered some words that were far from sweet.
And then he started to follow the chase,
    And put on a spurt that was wild and fleet,
It made the people pause in a crowd,
    And lay odds as to which would beat.

The street cad scoffed as he hunted the hat,
    The errand-boy shouted hooray!
The scavenger stood with his broom in his hand,
    And smiled in a very rude way;
And the clergyman thought, 'I have heard many words,
    But never, until to-day,
Did I hear any words that were quite so bad
    As I heard that young man say.'

The dream of those days when first I sung thee is o'er,
Thy triumph hath stained the charm thy sorrows then wore;
And even of the light which Hope once shed o'er thy chains,
Alas, not a gleam to grace thy freedom remains.

Say, is it that slavery sunk so deep in thy heart,
That still the dark brand is there, though chainless thou art;
And Freedom's sweet fruit, for which thy spirit long burned,
Now, reaching at last thy lip, to ashes hath turned?

Up Liberty's steep by Truth and Eloquence led,
With eyes on her temple fixt, how proud was thy tread!
Ah, better thou ne'er hadst lived that summit to gain
Or died in the porch than thus dishonor the fane.

[1]

Were I a pet of fair Calliope,
I would devote the gifts conferr'd on me
To dress in verse old Aesop's lies divine;
For verse, and they, and truth, do well combine;
But, not a favourite on the Muses' hill,
I dare not arrogate the magic skill,
To ornament these charming stories.
A bard might brighten up their glories,
No doubt. I try, - what one more wise must do.
Thus much I have accomplish'd hitherto: -
By help of my translation,
The beasts hold conversation,
In French, as ne'er they did before.
Indeed, to claim a little more,
The plants and trees,[2] with smiling features,
Are turn'd by me to talking creatures.
Who says, that this is not enchanting?
'Ah,' says the critics, 'hear what vaunting!
From one whose work...

Swags up! and yet I turn upon the way.
The yellow hill against a dapple sky,
With tufts and clumps of thorn, the bush whereby
All through the wonder-pregnant night I lay
Until the silver stars were merged in grey
Our fragrant camp, demand a parting sigh:
New tracks, new camps, and hearts for ever high,
Yet brief regret with every welcome day.
Dear dreamy earth, receding flickering lamp,
Dear dust wherein I found this night a home,
Still for a memory’s sake I turn and cling,
Then take the road for many a distant camp,
Among what hills, by what pale whispering foam,
With eager faith for ever wandering.

    Woe, woe is me! for whither can I fly?
    Where hide me from Mathesis' fearful eye?
    Where'er I turn the Goddess haunts my path,
    Like grim Megoera in revengeful wrath:
    In accents wild, that would awake the dead,
    Bids me perplexing problems to unthread;
    Bids me the laws of x and y to unfold,
    And with "dry eyes" dread mysteries behold.
    Not thus, when blood maternal he had shed,
    The Furies' fangs Orestes wildly fled;
    Not thus Ixion fears the falling stone,
    Tisiphone's red lash, or dark Cocytus' moan.
    Spare me, Mathesis, though thy foe I be,
    Though at thy altar ne'er I bend the knee,
    Though o'er thy "Asses' Bridge" I never pass,
    And ne'er in this respect will prove an ass;
    Still let mild...

At moonset when ghost speaks with ghost,
And spirits meet where once they sinned,
Between the bournes of found and lost,
My soul met her soul on the wind,
My late-lost Evalind.

I kissed her mouth. Her face was wild.
Two burning shadows were her eyes,
Wherefrom the maiden love, that smiled
A heartbreak smile of severed ties,
Gazed with a wan surprise.

Then suddenly I seemed to see
No more her shape where beauty bloomed ...
My own sad self gazed up at me
My sorrow, that had so assumed
The form of her entombed.

I.

Ah me! those old familiar bounds!
That classic house, those classic grounds
My pensive thought recalls!
What tender urchins now confine,
What little captives now repine,
Within yon irksome walls?


II.

Ay, that's the very house! I know
Its ugly windows, ten a-row!
Its chimneys in the rear!
And there's the iron rod so high,
That drew the thunder from the sky
And turn'd our table-beer!


III.

There I was birch'd! there I was bred!
There like a little Adam fed
From Learning's woeful tree!
The weary tasks I used to con! -
The hopeless leaves I wept upon! -
Most fruitless leaves to me! -


IV.

The summon'd class! - the awful bow! -
I wonder who is master now
And wholeso...

Beside us in our seeking after pleasures,
    Through all our restless striving after fame,
Through all our search for worldly gains and treasures,
    There walketh one whom no man likes to name.
Silent he follows, veiled of form and feature,
    Indifferent if we sorrow or rejoice,
Yet that day comes when every living creature
    Must look upon his face and hear his voice.

When that day comes to you, and Death, unmasking,
    Shall bar your path, and say, "Behold the end,"
What are the questions that he will be asking
    About your past?    Have you considered, friend?
I think he will not chide you for your sinning,
    Nor for your creeds or dogmas will he care;
He will but ask, "From your life's first beginning
    How many burdens have you helped to be...

How many of those youths who consecrate
Their lives to art, and worship at her shrine,
And sacrifice their early hours and late
In serving her exacting whims divine
Have gathered in old Chelsea's shaded peace,
Whose faint, elusive charm, and gentle airs,
Bring inspiration fresh, and sweet release
From Trouble's haunting shapes and goblin cares?

O! tree-embowered hamlet, whose demesne
Sleeps in the arms of London quietly,
Whose sparrow-haunted roads, and squares serene,
From all the stress of life seem ever free -
O! are you more than just a passing dream
Beside the city's slim and lovely stream?

Luxeuil-les-Bains, 1917.

Podas Okus
Am I waking? Was I sleeping?
Dearest, are you watching yet?
Traces on your cheeks of weeping
Glitter, 'tis in vain you fret;
Drifting ever! drifting onward!
In the glass the bright sand runs
Steadily and slowly downward;
Hushed are all the Myrmidons.


Has Automedon been banish'd
From his post beside my bed?
Where has Agamemnon vanished?
Where is warlike Diomed?
Where is Nestor? where Ulysses?
Menelaus, where is he?
Call them not, more dear your kisses
Than their prosings are to me.

Daylight fades and night must follow,
Low, where sea and sky combine,
Droops the orb of great Apollo,
Hostile god to me and mine.
Through the tent's wide entrance streaming,
In a flood of glory rare,
Glides the golden su...

Tell me, ye Zephyrs! that unfold,
While fluttering o'er this gay Recess,
Pinions that fanned the teeming mould
Of Eden's blissful wilderness,
Did only softly-stealing hours
There close the peaceful lives of flowers?

Say, when the 'moving' creatures saw
All kinds commingled without fear,
Prevailed a like indulgent law
For the still growths that prosper here?
Did wanton fawn and kid forbear
The half-blown rose, the lily spare?

Or peeped they often from their beds
And prematurely disappeared,
Devoured like pleasure ere it spreads
A bosom to the sun endeared?
If such their harsh untimely doom,
It falls not 'here' on bud or bloom.

All summer long the happy Eve
Of this fair Spot her flowers may bind,
Nor e'er, with ruffled fancy...

When I was a King and a Mason, a Master proven and skilled,
I cleared me ground for a Palace such as a King should build.
I decreed and dug down to my levels. Presently, under the silt,
I came on the wreck of a Palace such as a King had built.

There was no worth in the fashion, there was no wit in the plan,
Hither and thither, aimless, the ruined footings ran,
Masonry, brute, mishandled, but carven on every stone:
"After me cometh a Builder. Tell him, I too have known."

Swift to my use in my trenches, where my well-planned ground-works grew,
I tumbled his quoins and his ashlars, and cut and reset them anew.
Lime I milled of his marbles; burned it, slacked it, and spread;
Taking and leaving at pleasure the gifts of the humble dead.

Yet I despised not nor gloried;...

At purple eyes beside the grain,
Our loves on altars we had burned,
And mixed our tribute with the dew,
Our tears, when rosy dawn returned.

Our voices we had joined with song
Of bird ecstatic, light, and free;
Our laughter rollicked with the brook
Running through darkness merrily.

At purple eyes beside the rim
Of frozen lakes our loves we burned,
And slid away when stillness reigned:
Deep the vast woods our bodies urned.

In starlit night along the shade
Of our dusk tombs our spirits glide;
We hear the echoing of the wind,
We breathe the sighs we living sighed.

When by the wall the tiger-flower swings
A head of sultry slumber and aroma;
And by the path, whereon the blown rose flings
Its obsolete beauty, the long lilies foam a
White place of perfume, like a beautiful breast
Between the pansy fire of the west,
And poppy mist of moonrise in the east,
This heartache will have ceased.
The witchcraft of soft music and sweet sleep
Let it beguile the burthen from my spirit,
And white dreams reap me as strong reapers reap
The ripened grain and full blown blossom near it;
Let me behold how gladness gives the whole
The transformed countenance of my own soul
Between the sunset and the risen moon
Let sorrow vanish soon.
And these things then shall keep me company:
The elfins of the dew; the spirit of laughter
Who haunts...

As vain to raise a voice as a sigh
In the tumult of free leaves on high.
What are you in the shadow of trees
Engaged up there with the light and breeze?

Less than the coral-root you know
That is content with the daylight low,
And has no leaves at all of its own;
Whose spotted flowers hang meanly down.

You grasp the bark by a rugged pleat,
And look up small from the forest's feet.
The only leaf it drops goes wide,
Your name not written on either side.

You linger your little hour and are gone,
And still the wood sweep leafily on,
Not even missing the coral-root flower
You took as a trophy of the hour.