Identity

I

The evening comes, the fields are still.
The tinkle of the thirsty rill,
Unheard all day, ascends again;
Deserted is the half-mown plain,
Silent the swaths! the ringing wain,
The mower's cry, the dog's alarms,
All housed within the sleeping farms!
The business of the day is done,
The last-left haymaker is gone.
And from the thyme upon the height,
And from the elder-blossom white
And pale dog-roses in the hedge,
And from the mint-plant in the sedge,
In puffs of balm the night-air blows
The perfume which the day forgoes.
And on the pure horizon far,
See, pulsing with the first-born star,
The liquid sky above the hill!
The evening comes, the fields are still.

Loitering and leaping,
With saunter, with bounds,
Flickering ...

From gold to gray
Our mild sweet day
Of Indian Summer fades too soon;
But tenderly
Above the sea
Hangs, white and calm, the hunter's moon.
In its pale fire,
The village spire
Shows like the zodiac's spectral lance;
The painted walls
Whereon it falls
Transfigured stand in marble trance!
O'er fallen leaves
The west-wind grieves,
Yet comes a seed-time round again;
And morn shall see
The State sown free
With baleful tares or healthful grain.
Along the street
The shadows meet
Of Destiny, whose hands conceal
The moulds of fate
That shape the State,
And make or mar the common weal.
Around I see
The powers that be;
I stand by Empire's primal springs;
And princes meet,
In every street,
And hear the tread ...

'Tis true, in midst of all, there may arise
For man's society a sudden thirst,
A sense of hopeless vacancy which dries
The spirit with a loneliness accurst,
A longing irresistible to burst
The branchy brake with other birds to sing,
Or, as, from where in solemn shades immerst,
The beetle comes to wanton on the wing
Around my lamplight flame - alas! poor, foolish thing.

But here thou may'st associate, though alone,
With worthiest men, the best of every age,
Through whom the universe of thought has grown
To what it is - the noble, good, and sage.
How vain the fret, how frivolous the rage
For social rank, when thus e'en monarchs deign
In close communion gladly to engage!
Nay, more than monarchs - Still the Mantuan swain
His fadeless laurel wears - What...

Methought last night I saw thee lowly laid,
    Thy pallid cheek yet paler, on the bier;
And scattered round thee many a lovely braid
    Of flowers, the brightest of the closing year;
Whilst on thy lips the placid smile that played,
    Proved thy soul's exit to a happier sphere,
In silent eloquence reproaching those
Who watched in agony thy last repose.

A pensive, wandering, melancholy light
    The moon's pale radiance on thy features cast,
Which, through the awful stillness of the night,
    Gleamed like some lovely vision of the past,
Recalling hopes once beautiful and bright,
    Now, like that struggling beam, receding fast,
Which o'er the scene a softening glory shed,
And kissed the brow of the unconscious dead.

Yes--it was thou!--and we we...

    Vague, vague 'neath darkling waves,
    With emerald-curving caves
        For the arched skies,
    Red-walled with dark dull gold
    The Nixes' city old
        Deep-glimmering lies.
And thro' the long green nights the spangling spars
    Twinkle like milky stars.

    Where the wind-ripple plays
    On tufts of dipping sprays
        Sparkling we rock;
    With blooming fingers bare
    Comb down our golden hair
        In many a lock;
While, poured o'er naked ease of cool, moist limbs,
    An amber glamour swims.

    Or in the middle night
    When cold damp fire-flies light
        Pale flitting brands
    Down all the woodland aisles,
    With swift mysterious smiles
        Link we white hands,
And where the...

Life and I are lovers, straying
    Arm in arm along:
Often like two children Maying,
    Full of mirth and song,

Life plucks all the blooming hours
    Growing by the way;
Binds them on my brow like flowers,
    Calls me Queen of May.

Then again, in rainy weather,
    We sit vis-a-vis,
Planning work we'll do together
    In the years to be.

Sometimes Life denies me blisses,
    And I frown or pout;
But we make it up with kisses
    Ere the day is out.

Woman-like, I sometimes grieve him,
    Try his trust and faith,
Saying I shall one day leave him
    For his rival, Death.

Then he always grows more zealous,
    Tender, and more true;
Loves the more for being jealous,
    As all lovers do.
<...

Among the men and women, the multitude,
I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs,
Acknowledging none else--not parent, wife, husband, brother, child, any nearer than I am;
Some are baffled--But that one is not--that one knows me.

Ah, lover and perfect equal!
I meant that you should discover me so, by my faint indirections;
And I, when I meet you, mean to discover you by the like in you.

The elder folks shook hands at last,
Down seat by seat the signal passed.
To simple ways like ours unused,
Half solemnized and half amused,
With long-drawn breath and shrug, my guest
His sense of glad relief expressed.
Outside, the hills lay warm in sun;
The cattle in the meadow-run
Stood half-leg deep; a single bird
The green repose above us stirred.
"What part or lot have you," he said,
"In these dull rites of drowsy-head?
Is silence worship? Seek it where
It soothes with dreams the summer air,
Not in this close and rude-benched hall,
But where soft lights and shadows fall,
And all the slow, sleep-walking hours
Glide soundless over grass and flowers!
From time and place and form apart,
Its holy ground the human heart,
Nor ritual-bound nor...

    I left behind the ways of care,
        The crowded hurrying hours,
    I breathed again the woodland air,
        I plucked the woodland flowers:

    Bluebells as yet but half awake,
        Primroses pale and cool,
    Anemones like stars that shake
        In a green twilight pool--

    On these still lay the enchanted shade,
        The magic April sun;
    With my own child a child I strayed
        And thought the years were one.

    As through the copse she went and came
        My senses lost their truth;
    I called her by the dear dead name
        That sweetened all my youth.

It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning
When the light drips through the shutters like the dew,
I arise, I face the sunrise,
And do the things my fathers learned to do.
Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops
Pale in a saffron mist and seem to die,
And I myself on a swiftly tilting planet
Stand before a glass and tie my tie.

Vine leaves tap my window,
Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,
The robin chips in the chinaberry tree
Repeating three clear tones.

It is morning. I stand by the mirror
And tie my tie once more.
While waves far off in a pale rose twilight
Crash on a white sand shore.
I stand by a mirror and comb my hair:
How small and white my face!
The green earth tilts through a sphere of air
And bathes in a flame of...

I

Beneath the vine-clad eaves,
Whose shadows fall before
Thy lowly cottage door,
Under the lilac's tremulous leaves,
Within thy snowy clasped hand
The purple flowers it bore.
Last eve in dreams, I saw thee stand,
Like queenly nymph from Fairy-land,
Enchantress of the flowery wand,
Most beauteous Isadore!


II

And when I bade the dream
Upon thy spirit flee,
Thy violet eyes to me
Upturned, did overflowing seem
With the deep, untold delight
Of Love's serenity;
Thy classic brow, like lilies white
And pale as the Imperial Night
Upon her throne, with stars bedight,
Enthralled my soul to thee!


III

Ah! ever I behold
Thy dreamy, passionate eyes,
Blue as the languid skies
Hung with...

        Now would I be in that removèd place
        Where the dim sunlight hardly comes at all
        And branches of the young trees interlace
        And long swathes of the brambles twine and fall;
        A space between the hedgerow and a road
        Not trod by foot of any known to me,
        Where now and then a cart with scented load
    Goes sleepy down the lane with creaking axle-tree.

        And there I'd lie upon the tumbled leaves,
        Watching a square of the all else hidden sky,
        And made such songs a drowsy mind believes
        To be most perfect music.    So would I
    Keep my face heavenwards and bless eternity,
        Wherein my heart could be as glad as this
        And lazily I'd bid all men come hither
        And in m...

1.
Swiftly walk o'er the western wave,
Spirit of Night!
Out of the misty eastern cave,
Where, all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,
'Which make thee terrible and dear, -
Swift be thy flight!

2.
Wrap thy form in a mantle gray,
Star-inwrought!
Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day;
Kiss her until she be wearied out,
Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land,
Touching all with thine opiate wand -
Come, long-sought!

3.
When I arose and saw the dawn,
I sighed for thee;
When light rode high, and the dew was gone,
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,
And the weary Day turned to his rest,
Lingering like an unloved guest, I sighed for thee.

4.
Thy brother Death came, and cried,

    As a boy, Theodore, you sat for long hours
    On the shore of the turbid Spoon
    With deep-set eye staring at the door of the crawfish's burrow,
    Waiting for him to appear, pushing ahead,
    First his waving antennae, like straws of hay,
    And soon his body, colored like soap-stone,
    Gemmed with eyes of jet.
    And you wondered in a trance of thought
    What he knew, what he desired, and why he lived at all.
    But later your vision watched for men and women
    Hiding in burrows of fate amid great cities,
    Looking for the souls of them to come out,
    So that you could see
    How they lived, and for what,
    And why they kept crawling so busily
    Along the sandy way where water fails
    As the summer wanes.

I

The hills are full of prophecies
And ancient voices of the dead;
Of hidden shapes that no man sees,
Pale, visionary presences,
That speak the things no tongue hath said,
No mind hath thought, no eye hath read.

The streams are full of oracles,
And momentary whisperings;
An immaterial beauty swells
Its breezy silver o'er the shells
With wordless speech that sings and sings
The message of diviner things.

No indeterminable thought is theirs,
The stars', the sunsets' and the flowers';
Whose inexpressible speech declares
Th' immortal Beautiful, who shares
This mortal riddle which is ours,
Beyond the forward-flying hours.

II

It holds and beckons in the streams;
It lures and touches us in all
The flowers of...

Up to the sky the birdman flew
And looped some loops that were bold and new.
The people marvelled at nerve so great
And gasped or cheered as he tempted fate,
More daring each day than the day before,
Till the birdman fell and arose no more.

The bandit bragged of his daylight crimes
And said: "I'm the wonder of modern times."
Bolder and bolder his thefts became,
And the people shook when they heard his name.
He boasted: "I'm one that they'll never get."
But he jollied himself into Joliet.

Well, son, I suppose you would be admired
For the valorous habit that you've acquired
Of rushing at each little girl you meet
And hugging her tight in the public street.
But the day will come, I have not a doubt,
When you'll stagger home with an eye scratched ...

A maiden blush o'er every feature straying,
The Muse her gentle harp now lays down here,
And stands before thee, for thy judgment praying,
She waits with reverence, but not with fear;
Her last farewell for his kind smile delaying.
Whom splendor dazzles not who holds truth dear.
The hand of him alone whose soaring spirit
Worships the beautiful, can crown her merit.

These simple lays are only heard resounding,
While feeling hearts are gladdened by their tone,
With brighter phantasies their path surrounding,
To nobler aims their footsteps guiding on.
Yet coming ages ne'er will hear them sounding,
They live but for the present hour alone;
The passing moment called them into being,
And, as the hours dance on, they, too, are fleeing.

The spring returns, ...

We sat at twilight nigh the sea,
    The fog hung gray and weird.
Through the thick film uncannily
    The broken moon appeared.


We heard the billows crack and plunge,
    We saw nor waves nor ships.
Earth sucked the vapors like a sponge,
    The salt spray wet our lips.


Closer the woof of white mist drew,
    Before, behind, beside.
How could that phantom moon break through,
    Above that shrouded tide?


The roaring waters filled the ear,
    A white blank foiled the sight.
Close-gathering shadows near, more near,
    Brought the blind, awful night.


O friends who passed unseen, unknown!
    O dashing, troubled sea!
Still stand we on a rock alone,
Walled round by mystery.