Identity

When the famed Argo now secure had passed
The crushing rocks,[1] and that terrific strait
That guards the wintry Pontic, the tall ship
Reached wild Bebrycia's shores; bearing like gods
Her god-descended chiefs. They, from her sides,
With scaling steps descend, and on the shore,
Savage, and sad, and beat by ocean winds,
Strewed their rough beds, and on the casual fire
The vessels place. The brothers, by themselves,
CASTOR and red-haired POLLUX, wander far
Into the forest solitudes. A wood
Immense and dark, shagging the mountain side,
Before them rose; a cold and sparkling fount
Welled with perpetual lapse, beneath its feet,
Of purest water clear; scattering below,
Streams as of silver and of crystal rose,
Bright from the bottom: Pines, of stateliest ...

There were four apples on the bough,
Half gold half red, that one might know
The blood was ripe inside the core;
The colour of the leaves was more
Like stems of yellow corn that grow
Through all the gold June meadow’s floor.

The warm smell of the fruit was good
To feed on, and the split green wood,
With all its bearded lips and stains
Of mosses in the cloven veins,
Most pleasant, if one lay or stood
In sunshine or in happy rains.

There were four apples on the tree,
Red stained through gold, that all might see
The sun went warm from core to rind;
The green leaves made the summer blind
In that soft place they kept for me
With golden apples shut behind.

The leaves caught gold across the sun,
And where the bluest air begun,
Th...

Give thou a gift to me
From thy treasure-house, O sea!

Said a red-lipped laughing girl
While the summer yet was young;

And the sea laughed back and flung
At her feet a priceless pearl.

Give thou a gift to me
From thy treasure-house, O sea!

Said the maiden once again
On a night of wind and rain.

Like a ghost the moon above her
Stared through winding-sheets of cloud.

On the sand in sea-weed shroud,
Lay the pale corpse of her lover.

Which is better, gain or loss?
Which is nobler, crown or cross?

We shall know these things, maybe,
When the dead rise from the sea.

Beside a stricken field I stood;
On the torn turf, on grass and wood,
Hung heavily the dew of blood.

Still in their fresh mounds lay the slain,
But all the air was quick with pain
And gusty sighs and tearful rain.

Two angels, each with drooping head
And folded wings and noiseless tread,
Watched by that valley of the dead.

The one, with forehead saintly bland
And lips of blessing, not command,
Leaned, weeping, on her olive wand.

The other’s brows were scarred and knit,
His restless eyes were watch-fires lit,
His hands for battle-gauntlets fit.

“How long!” I knew the voice of Peace,
“Is there no respite? no release?
When shall the hopeless quarrel cease?

“O Lord, how long!! One human soul
Is more than any parchm...

What beast of chase hath broken from the cover?
Stern Gemmi listens to as full a cry,
As multitudinous a harmony
Of sounds as rang the heights of Latmos over,
When, from the soft couch of her sleeping Lover,
Up-starting, Cynthia skimmed the mountain dew
In keen pursuit, and gave, where'er she flew,
Impetuous motion to the Stars above her.
A solitary Wolf-dog, ranging on
Through the bleak concave, wakes this wondrous chime
Of aery voices locked in unison,
Faint, far-off, near, deep, solemn and sublime!
So, from the body of one guilty deed,
A thousand ghostly fears, and haunting thoughts, proceed!

Behind us at our evening meal
The gray bird ate his fill,
Swung downward by a single claw,
And wiped his hooked bill.

He shook his wings and crimson tail,
And set his head aslant,
And, in his sharp, impatient way,
Asked, "What does Charlie want?"

"Fie, silly bird!" I answered, "tuck
Your head beneath your wing,
And go to sleep;" but o'er and o'er
He asked the self-same thing.

Then, smiling, to myself I said
How like are men and birds!
We all are saying what he says,
In action or in words.

The boy with whip and top and drum,
The girl with hoop and doll,
And men with lands and houses, ask
The question of Poor Poll.

However full, with something more
We fain the bag would cram;
We sigh above our crowded n...

    A sailor, "tatoo you,"
    the cigarette Players
    with tape-deck playing
    a jaundiced "Yellow Bird",
    Cerveza, Dos Equiis, the
    two horses, in red flame,
    across the label.

    Trolling in a deep sea-trench
    (spinners and chubb),
    the dark night
    a religious procession,
    acolyte stars in hymnal to the wind.

    Across the channel
    a Party Boat
    - the words almost demand capitals
    with actions so diminutive -
    creased laughter "to go" cross the waves
    flicker of lights, siren call
    then a lemon shark strikes the bait
    on anchor reel, Horse-Eyed Jack
    perhaps borrowing the name
    from the Outback -
    think pantomime, enter Wahoo
    and the aesthetic of fear...

Ah, shall I follow, on the hills,
The Spring, as wild wings follow?
Where wild-plum trees make wan the hills,
Crabapple trees the hollow,
Haunts of the bee and swallow?

In redbud brakes and flowery
Acclivities of berry;
In dogwood dingles, showery
With white, where wrens make merry?
Or drifts of swarming cherry?

In valleys of wild strawberries,
And of the clumped May-apple;
Or cloudlike trees of haw-berries,
With which the south winds grapple,
That brook and byway dapple?

With eyes of far forgetfulness,
Like some wild wood-thing's daughter,
Whose feet are beelike fretfulness,
To see her run like water
Through boughs that slipped or caught her.

O Spring, to seek, yet find you not!
To search, yet never win you!

Mountains of sorrow, I have heard your moans,
    And the moving of your pines; but we sit high
    On your green shoulders, nearer stoops the sky,
And pure airs visit us from all the zones.
    Sweet world beneath, too happy far to sigh,
Dost thou look thus beheld from heavenly thrones?
No; not for all the love that counts thy stones,
    While sleepy with great light the valleys lie.
Strange, rapturous peace! its sunshine doth enfold
    My heart; I have escaped to the days divine,
It seemeth as bygone ages back had rolled,
    And all the eldest past was now, was mine;
Nay, even as if Melchizedec of old
    Might here come forth to us with bread and wine.

    I tried to win the nomination
    For president of the County-board
    And I made speeches all over the County
    Denouncing Solomon Purple, my rival,
    As an enemy of the people,
    In league with the master-foes of man.
    Young idealists, broken warriors,
    Hobbling on one crutch of hope,
    Souls that stake their all on the truth,
    Losers of worlds at heaven's bidding,
    Flocked about me and followed my voice
    As the savior of the County.
    But Solomon won the nomination;
    And then I faced about,
    And rallied my followers to his standard,
    And made him victor, made him King
    Of the Golden Mountain with the door
    Which closed on my heels just as I entered,
    Flattered by Solomon's invitation,
    To be ...

I.

Once when it had rained all night
And all day, the next day, why,
In our yard, a lot of white,
Dumpy toadstools grew close by
Our old peach tree: some were high,
Peak'd, like half-shut parasols;
Others round and low, like balls,
Little hollow balls; and I
Called my father to the tree:
And he said, "I tell you what:
Fairies have been here, you see.
This is just the kind of spot
Fairies love to live in. Those
Are their houses, I suppose.

II.

"Yes, those surely are their huts!
Built of moon and mist and rain,
Such dim stuff as Elfland puts
In her buildings. Come again,
And, like castles built in Spain,
They are nowhere. But to-night,
Sliding down the moon's slim light,
Or snail-straddled, in a train
You...

Her breast is cold; her hands how faint and wan!
And the deep wonder of her starry eyes
Seemingly lost in cloudless Paradise,
And all earth's sorrow out of memory gone.
Yet sings her clear voice unrelenting on
Of loveliest impossibilities;
Though echo only answer her with sighs
Of effort wasted and delights foregone.

Spent, baffled, 'wildered, hated and despised,
Her straggling warriors hasten to defeat;
By wounds distracted, and by night surprised,
Fall where death's darkness and oblivion meet:
Yet, yet: O breast how cold! O hope how far!
Grant my son's ashes lie where these men's are!

Turn thine eyes from me, Angel of Heaven--
    Read not my soul, Angel of Heaven--
Sorrow is steeping my pale cheeks with weeping,
    Evermore keeping her wand on my heart,
    On my cold stony heart, while the tear-fountains start
To purge it from leaven too sinful for Heaven--
    Read not my soul, yet, Angel of Heaven!

Why hast thou ta'en her, Angel of Heaven?
    Ta'en her so soon, Angel of Heaven?
Yearning to gain her, hast thou thus slain her
    Ere sin could stain her--borne her away,
    Borne her far, far away, into eternal day,
    Left me alone to stay--left me to weep and pray?
Why hast thou ta'en her, Angel of Heaven?
    Ta'en her so soon, Angel of Heaven?

Shines the place brighter, Angel of Heaven?
    Brighter for her, Angel of He...

    Over my window in pencillings white,
Stealthily traced in the silence of night -
Traced with a pencil as viewless as air,
By an artist unseen, when the star-beams were fair,
Came wonderful pictures, so life-like and true
That I'm filled with amaze as the marvel I view.

    Like, and yet unlike the things I have seen, -
Feathery ferns in the forest-depths green,
Delicate mosses that hide from the light,
Snow-drops, and lilies, and hyacinths white,
Fringes, and feathers, and half-opened flowers,
Closely-twined branches of dim, cedar bowers -
Strange, that one hand should so deftly combine
Such numberless charms in so quaint a design!

    O wondrous creations of silence and night!
I watch as ye fade in the clear morning light, -
As ye melt into te...

Slow sinks the sun, a great carbuncle ball
Red in the cavern of a sombre cloud,
And in her garden, where the dense weeds crowd,
Among her dying asters stands the Fall,
Like some lone woman in a ruined hall,
Dreaming of desolation and the shroud;
Or through decaying woodlands goes, down-bowed,
Hugging the tatters of her gipsy shawl.
The gaunt wind rises, like an angry hand,
And sweeps the sprawling spider from its web,
Smites frantic music in the twilight's ear;
And all around, like melancholy sand,
Rains dead leaves down wild leaves, that mark the ebb,
In Earth's dark hour-glass, of another year.