Chapter 6 C. Moulton.

* * *

A Tropical Morning at Sea.

Sky in its lucent splendor lifted

Higher than cloud can be;

Air with no breath of earth to stain it,

Pure on the perfect sea.

Crests that touch and tilt each other,

Jostling as they comb;

Delicate crash of tinkling water,

Broken in pearling foam.

Plashings-or is it the pinewood's whispers,

Babble of brooks unseen,

Laughter of winds when they find the blossoms,

Brushing aside the green?

Waves that dip, and dash, and sparkle;

Foam-wreaths slipping by,

Soft as a snow of broken roses

Afloat over mirrored sky.

Off to the east the steady sun-track

Golden meshes fill

Webs of fire, that lace and tangle,

Never a moment still.

Liquid palms but clap together,

Fountains, flower-like, grow-

Limpid bells on stems of silver-

Out of a slope of snow.

Sea-depths, blue as the blue of violets-

Blue as a summer sky,

When you blink at its arch sprung over

Where in the grass you lie.

Dimly an orange bit of rainbow

Burns where the low west clears,

Broken in air, like a passionate promise

Born of a moment's tears.

Thinned to amber, rimmed with silver,

Clouds in the distance dwell,

Clouds that are cool, for all their color,

Pure as a rose-lipped shell.

Fleets of wool in the upper heavens

Gossamer wings unfurl;

Sailing so high they seem but sleeping

Over yon bar of pearl.

What would the great world lose, I wonder-

Would it be missed or no-

If we stayed in the opal morning,

Floating forever so?

Swung to sleep by the swaying water,

Only to dream all day-

Blow, salt wind from the north upstarting,

Scatter such dreams away!

E.R. Sill.

* * *

Memory.

My mind lets go a thousand things,

Like dates of wars and deaths of kings,

And yet recalls the very hour-

'Twas noon by yonder village tower,

And on the last blue noon in May-

The wind came briskly up this way,

Crisping the brook beside the road;

Then, pausing here, set down its load

Of pine-scents, and shook listlessly

Two petals from that wild-rose tree.

T.B. Aldrich.

* * *

A Mood.

A blight, a gloom, I know not what, has crept upon my gladness-

Some vague, remote ancestral touch of sorrow, or of madness;

A fear that is not fear, a pain that has not pain's insistence;

A tense of longing, or of loss, in some foregone existence;

A subtle hurt that never pen has writ nor tongue has spoken-

Such hurt perchance as Nature feels when a blossomed bough is broken.

T.B. Aldrich.

* * *

The Way to Arcady.[12]

Oh, what's the way to Arcady,

To Arcady, to Arcady;

Oh, what's the way to Arcady,

Where all the leaves are merry?

Oh, what's the way to Arcady?

The spring is rustling in the tree-

The tree the wind is blowing through-

It sets the blossoms flickering white.

I knew not skies could burn so blue

Nor any breezes blow so light.

They blow an old-time way for me,

Across the world to Arcady.

Oh, what's the way to Arcady?

Sir Poet, with the rusty coat,

Quit mocking of the song-bird's note.

How have you heart for any tune,

You with the wayworn russet shoon?

Your scrip, a-swinging by your side,

Gapes with a gaunt mouth hungry-wide.

I'll brim it well with pieces red,

If you will tell the way to tread.

Oh, I am bound for Arcady,

And if you but keep pace with me

You tread the way to Arcady.

And where away lies Arcady,

And how long yet may the journey be?

Ah, that (quoth he) I do not know-

Across the clover and the snow-

Across the frost, across the flowers-

Through summer seconds and winter hours.

I've trod the way my whole life long,

And know not now where it may be;

My guide is but the stir to song.

That tells me I can not go wrong,

Or clear or dark the pathway be

Upon the road to Arcady.

But how shall I do who cannot sing?

I was wont to sing, once on a time-

There is never an echo now to ring

Remembrance back to the trick of rhyme.

'Tis strange you cannot sing (quoth he),

The folk all sing in Arcady.

But how may he find Arcady

Who hath not youth nor melody?

What, know you not, old man (quoth he)-

Your hair is white, your face is wise-

That Love must kiss that Mortal's eyes

Who hopes to see fair Arcady?

No gold can buy you entrance there;

But beggared Love may go all bare-

No wisdom won with weariness;

But Love goes in with Folly's dress-

No fame that wit could ever win;

But only Love may lead Love in

To Arcady, to Arcady.

Ah, woe is me, through all my days

Wisdom and wealth I both have got,

And fame and name, and great men's praise;

But Love, ah, Love! I have it not.

There was a time, when life was new-

But far away, and half forgot-

I only know her eyes were blue;

But Love-I fear I knew it not.

We did not wed, for lack of gold,

And she is dead, and I am old.

All things have come since then to me,

Save Love, ah, Love! and Arcady.

Ah, then I fear we part (quoth he),

My way's for Love and Arcady.

But you, you fare alone, like me;

The gray is likewise in your hair.

What love have you to lead you there,

To Arcady, to Arcady?

Ah, no, not lonely do I fare;

My true companion's Memory.

With Love he fills the Spring-time air;

With Love he clothes the Winter tree.

Oh, past this poor horizon's bound

My song goes straight to one who stands-

Her face all gladdening at the sound-

To lead me to the Spring-green lands,

To wander with enlacing hands.

The songs within my breast that stir

Are all of her, are all of her.

My maid is dead long years (quoth he),

She waits for me in Arcady.

Oh, yon's the way to Arcady,

To Arcady, to Arcady;

Oh, yon's the way to Arcady,

Where all the leaves are merry.

H.C. Bunner.

[12] From "The Poems of H.C. Bunner," copyright, 1884, 1892, 1896, by Charles Scribner's Sons.

* * *

Eve's Daughter.

I waited in the little sunny room:

The cool breeze waved the window-lace, at play,

The white rose on the porch was all in bloom,

And out upon the bay

I watched the wheeling sea-birds go and come.

"Such an old friend,-she would not make me stay

While she bound up her hair." I turned, and lo,

Dana? in her shower! and fit to slay

All a man's hoarded prudence at a blow:

Gold hair, that streamed away

As round some nymph a sunlit fountain's flow.

"She would not make me wait!"-but well I know

She took a good half-hour to loose and lay

Those locks in dazzling disarrangement so!

E.R. Sill.

* * *

On An Intaglio Head Of Minerva.

Beneath the warrior's helm, behold

The flowing tresses of the woman!

Minerva, Pallas, what you will-

A winsome creature, Greek or Roman.

Minerva? No! 'tis some sly minx

In cousin's helmet masquerading;

If not-then Wisdom was a dame

For sonnets and for serenading!

I thought the goddess cold, austere,

Not made for love's despairs and blisses:

Did Pallas wear her hair like that?

Was Wisdom's mouth so shaped for kisses?

The Nightingale should be her bird,

And not the Owl, big-eyed and solemn:

How very fresh she looks, and yet

She's older far than Trajan's Column!

The magic hand that carved this face,

And set this vine-work round it running,

Perhaps ere mighty Phidias wrought

Had lost its subtle skill and cunning.

Who was he? Was he glad or sad,

Who knew to carve in such a fashion?

Perchance he graved the dainty head

For some brown girl that scorned his passion.

Perchance, in some still garden-place,

Where neither fount nor tree to-day is,

He flung the jewel at the feet

Of Phryne, or perhaps 'twas La?s.

But he is dust; we may not know

His happy or unhappy story:

Nameless, and dead these centuries,

His work outlives him-there's his glory!

Both man and jewel lay in earth

Beneath a lava-buried city;

The countless summers came and went

With neither haste, nor hate, nor pity.

Years blotted out the man, but left

The jewel fresh as any blossom,

Till some Visconti dug it up-

To rise and fall on Mabel's bosom!

O nameless brother! see how Time

Your gracious handiwork has guarded:

See how your loving, patient art

Has come, at last, to be rewarded.

Who would not suffer slights of men,

And pangs of hopeless passion also,

To have his carven agate-stone

On such a bosom rise and fall so!

T.B. Aldrich.

* * *

Hunting-song.

Oh, who would stay indoor, indoor,

When the horn is on the hill? (Bugle: Tarantara!)

With the crisp air stinging, and the huntsmen singing,

And a ten-tined buck to kill!

Before the sun goes down, goes down,

We shall slay the buck of ten; (Bugle: Tarantara!)

And the priest shall say benison, and we shall ha'e venison,

When we come home again.

Let him that loves his ease, his ease,

Keep close and house him fair; (Bugle: Tarantara!)

He'll still be a stranger to the merry thrill of danger

And the joy of the open air.

But he that loves the hills, the hills,

Let him come out to-day! (Bugle: Tarantara!)

For the horses are neighing, and the hounds are baying,

And the hunt's up, and away!

R. Hovey.

* * *

Parting.

My life closed twice before its close;

It yet remains to see

If Immortality unveil

A third event to me,

So huge, so hopeless to conceive,

As these that twice befell.

Parting is all we know of heaven,

And all we need of hell.

E. Dickinson.

* * *

When the Sultan Goes to Ispahan.

When the Sultan Shah-Zaman

Goes to the city Ispahan,

Even before he gets so far

As the place where the clustered palm-trees are,

At the last of the thirty palace-gates,

The flower of the harem, Rose-in-Bloom,

Orders a feast in his favorite room-

Glittering squares of colored ice,

Sweetened with syrop, tinctured with spice,

Creams, and cordials, and sugared dates,

Syrian apples, Othmanee quinces,

Limes, and citrons, and apricots,

And wines that are known to Eastern princes;

And Nubian slaves, with smoking pots

Of spicèd meats and costliest fish

And all that the curious palate could wish,

Pass in and out of the cedarn doors;

Scattered over mosaic floors

Are anemones, myrtles, and violets,

And a musical fountain throws its jets

Of a hundred colors into the air.

The dusk Sultana loosens her hair,

And stains with the henna-plant the tips

Of her pointed nails, and bites her lips

Till they bloom again; but, alas, that rose

Not for the Sultan buds and blows!

Not for the Sultan Shah-Zaman

When he goes to the city Ispahan.

Then at a wave of her sunny hand

The dancing-girls of Samarcand

Glide in like shapes from fairy-land,

Making a sudden mist in air

Of fleecy veils and floating hair

And white arms lifted. Orient blood

Runs in their veins, shines in their eyes.

And there, in this Eastern Paradise,

Filled with the breath of sandal-wood,

And Khoten musk, and aloes and myrrh,

Sits Rose-in-Bloom on a silk divan,

Sipping the wines of Astrakhan;

And her Arab lover sits with her.

That's when the Sultan Shah-Zaman

Goes to the city Ispahan.

Now, when I see an extra light,

Flaming, flickering on the night

From my neighbor's casement opposite,

I know as well as I know to pray,

I know as well as a tongue can say,

That the innocent Sultan Shah-Zaman

Has gone to the city Isfahan.

T.B. Aldrich.

* * *

Night.

Chaos, of old, was God's dominion;

'Twas His belovèd child, His own first-born;

And He was agèd ere the thought of morn

Shook the sheer steeps of black Oblivion.

Then all the works of darkness being done

Through countless ?ons hopelessly forlorn,

Out to the very utmost verge and bourn,

God at the last, reluctant, made the sun.

He loved His darkness still, for it was old:

He grieved to see His eldest child take flight;

And when His Fiat lux the death-knell tolled,

As the doomed Darkness backward by Him rolled,

He snatched a remnant flying into light

And strewed it with the stars, and called it Night.