The Helot
I.
Low the sun beat on the land,
Red on vine and plain and wood;
With the wine-cup in his hand,
Vast the Helot herdsman stood.
II.
Quench'd the fierce Achean gaze,
Dorian foemen paus'd before,
Where cold Sparta snatch'd her bays
At Achaea's stubborn door.
III.
Still with thews of iron bound,
Vastly the Achean rose,
Godward from the brazen ground,
High before his Spartan foes.
IV.
Still the strength his fathers knew
(Dauntless when the foe they fac'd)
Vein and muscle bounded through,
Tense his Helot sinews brac'd.
V.
Still the constant womb of Earth,
Blindly moulded all her part;
As, when to a lordly birth,
Achean freemen left her heart.
VI.
Still, insensate mother, bore
Goodly sons for Helot graves;
Iron necks that meekly wore
Sparta's yoke as Sparta's slaves.
VII.
Still, O God mock'd mother! she
Smil'd upon her sons of clay:
Nurs'd them on her breast and knee,
Shameless in the shameful day.
VIII.
Knew not old Achea's fires
Burnt no more in souls or veins--
Godlike hosts of high desires
Died to clank of Spartan chains.
IX.
Low the sun beat on the land,
Purple slope and olive wood;
With the wine cup in his hand,
Vast the Helot herdsman stood.
X.
As long, gnarl'd roots enclasp
Some red boulder, fierce entwine
His strong fingers, in their grasp
Bowl of bright Caecuban wine.
XI.
From far Marsh of Amyclae,
Sentried by lank poplars tall--
Thro' the red slant of the day,
Shrill pipes did lament and call.
XII.
Pierc'd the swaying air sharp pines,
Thyrsi-like, the gilded ground
Clasp'd black shadows of brown vines,
Swallows beat their mystic round.
XIII.
Day was at her high unrest;
Fever'd with the wine of light,
Loosing all her golden vest,
Reel'd she towards the coming night.
XIV.
Fierce and full her pulses beat;
Bacchic throbs the dry earth shook;
Stirr'd the hot air wild and sweet;
Madden'd ev'ry vine-dark brook.
XV.
Had a red grape never burst,
All its heart of fire out;
To the red vat all a thirst,
To the treader's song and shout:
XVI.
Had the red grape died a grape;
Nor, sleek daughter of the vine,
Found her unknown soul take shape
In the wild flow of the wine:
XVII.
Still had reel'd the yellow haze:
Still had puls'd the sun pierc'd sod
Still had throbb'd the vine clad days:
To the pulses of their God.
XVIII.
Fierce the dry lips of the earth
Quaff'd the subtle Bacchic soul:
Felt its rage and felt its mirth,
Wreath'd as for the banquet bowl.
XIX.
Sapphire-breasted Bacchic priest
Stood the sky above the lands;
Sun and Moon at East and West,
Brazen cymbals in his hands.
XX.
Temples, altars, smote no more,
Sharply white as brows of Gods:
From the long, sleek, yellow shore,
Oliv'd hill or dusky sod,
XXI.
Gaz'd the anger'd Gods, while he,
Bacchus, made their temples his;
Flushed their marble silently
With the red light of his kiss.
XXII.
Red the arches of his feet
Spann'd grape-gleaming vales; the earth
Reel'd from grove to marble street,
Mad with echoes of his mirth.
XXIII.
Nostrils widen'd to the air,
As above the wine brimm'd bowl:
Men and women everywhere
Breath'd the fierce, sweet Bacchic soul.
XXIV.
Flow'd the vat and roar'd the beam,
Laugh'd the must; while far and shrill,
Sweet as notes in Pan-born dream,
Loud pipes sang by vale and hill.
XXV.
Earth was full of mad unrest,
While red Bacchus held his state;
And her brown vine-girdl'd breast
Shook to his wild joy and hate.
XXVI.
Strife crouch'd red ey'd in the vine
In its tendrils Eros strayed;
Anger rode upon the wine;
Laughter on the cup-lip play'd.
XXVII.
Day was at her chief unrest--
Red the light on plain and wood
Slavish ey'd and still of breast,
Vast the Helot herdsman stood:
XXVIII.
Wide his hairy nostrils blew,
Maddning incense breathing up;
Oak to iron sinews grew,
Round the rich Caecuban cup.
XXIX.
'Drink, dull slave!' the Spartan said,
'Drink, until the Helot clod
'Feel within him subtly bred
'Kinship to the drunken God!
XXX.
'Drink, until the leaden blood
'Stirs and beats about thy brain:
'Till the hot Caecuban flood
'Drown the iron of thy chain.
XXXI.
'Drink, till even madness flies
'At the nimble wine's pursuit;
'Till the God within thee lies
'Trampled by the earth-born brute.
XXXII.
'Helot drink--nor spare the wine;
'Drain the deep, the madd'ning bowl,
'Flesh and sinews, slave, are mine,
'Now I claim thy Helot soul.
XXXIII.
'Gods! ye love our Sparta; ye
'Gave with vine that leaps and runs
'O'er her slopes, these slaves to be
'Mocks and warnings to her sons!
XXXIV.
'Thou, my Hermos, turn thy eyes,
'(God-touch'd still their frank, bold blue)
'On the Helot--mark the rise
'Of the Bacchic riot through
XXXV.
'Knotted vein, and surging breast:
'Mark the wild, insensate, mirth:
'God-ward boast--the driv'ling jest,
'Till he grovel to the earth.
XXXVI.
'Drink, dull slave,' the Spartan cried:
Meek the Helot touch'd the brim;
Scented all the purple tide:
Drew the Bacchic soul to him.
XXXVII.
Cold the thin lipp'd Spartan smiled:
Couch'd beneath the weighted vine,
Large-ey'd, gaz'd the Spartan child,
On the Helot and the wine.
XXXVIII.
Rose pale Doric shafts behind,
Stern and strong, and thro' and thro',
Weaving with the grape-breath'd wind,
Restless swallows call'd and flew.
XXXIX.
Dropp'd the rose-flush'd doves and hung,
On the fountains murmuring brims;
To the bronz'd vine Hermos clung--
Silver-like his naked limbs
XL.
Flash'd and flush'd: rich copper'd leaves,
Whiten'd by his ruddy hair;
Pallid as the marble eaves,
Aw'd he met the Helot's stare.
XLI.
Clang'd the brazen goblet down;
Marble-bred loud echoes stirr'd:
With fix'd fingers, knotted, brown,
Dumb, the Helot grasp'd his beard.
XLII.
Heard the far pipes mad and sweet.
All the ruddy hazes thrill:
Heard the loud beam crash and beat,
In the red vat on the hill.
XLIII.
Wide his nostrils as a stag's
Drew the hot wind's fiery bliss;
Red his lips as river flags,
From the strong, Caecuban kiss.
XLIV.
On his swarthy temples grew,
Purple veins like cluster'd grapes;
Past his rolling pupils blew,
Wine-born, fierce, lascivious shapes.
XLV.
Cold the haughty Spartan smiled--
His the power to knit that day,
Bacchic fires, insensate, wild,
To the grand Achean clay.
XLVI.
His the might--hence his the right!
Who should bid him pause? nor Fate
Warning pass'd before his sight,
Dark-robed and articulate.
XLVII.
No black omens on his eyes,
Sinistre--God-sent, darkly broke;
Nor from ruddy earth nor skies,
Portends to him mutely spoke.
XLVIII.
'Lo,' he said, 'he maddens now!
'Flames divine do scathe the clod;
'Round his reeling Helot brow
'Stings the garland of the God.'
XLIX.
'Mark, my Hermos--turn to steel
The soft tendons of thy soul!
Watch the God beneath the heel
Of the strong brute swooning roll!
L.
'Shame, my Hermos! honey-dew
Breeds not on the Spartan spear;
Steel thy mother-eyes of blue,
Blush to death that weakling tear.
LI.
'Nay, behold! breed Spartan scorn
Of the red lust of the wine;
Watch the God himself down-borne
By the brutish rush of swine!
LII.
'Lo, the magic of the drink!
At the nimble wine's pursuit,
See the man-half'd satyr sink
All the human in the brute!
LIII.
'Lo, the magic of the cup!
Watch the frothing Helot rave!
As great buildings labour up
From the corpse of slaughter'd slave,
LIV.
'Build the Spartan virtue high
From the Helot's wine-dead soul;
Scorn the wild, hot flames that fly
From the purple-hearted bowl!
LV.
'Helot clay! Gods! what its worth,
Balanc'd with proud Sparta's rock?
Ours--its force to till the earth;
Ours--its soul to gyve and mock!
LVI.
'Ours, its sullen might. Ye Gods!
Vastly build the Achean clay;
Iron-breast our slavish clods--
_Ours_ their Helot souls to slay!
LVII.
'Knit great thews--smite sinews vast
Into steel--build Helot bones
Iron-marrowed:--such will last
Ground by ruthless Sparta's stones.
LVIII.
'Crown the strong brute satyr wise!
Narrow-wall his Helot brain;
Dash the soul from breast and eyes,
Lash him toward the earth again.
LIX.
'Make a giant for our need,
Weak to feel and strong to toil;
Dully-wise to dig or bleed
On proud Sparta's alien soil!
LX.
'Gods! recall thy spark at birth,
Lit his soul with high desire;
Blend him, grind him with the earth,
Tread out old Achea's fire!
LXI.
'Lo, my Hermos! laugh and mark,
See the swift mock of the wine;
Faints the primal, God-born spark,
Trodden by the rush of swine!
LXII.
'Gods! ye love our Sparta--ye
Gave with vine that leaps and runs
O'er her slopes, these slaves to be
Mocks and warnings to her sons!'
LXIII.
Cold the haughty Spartan smil'd.
Madd'ning from the purple hills
Sang the far pipes, sweet and wild.
Red as sun-pierc'd daffodils
LXIV.
Neck-curv'd, serpent, silent, scaled
With lock'd rainbows, stole the sea;
On the sleek, long beaches; wail'd
Doves from column and from tree.
LXV.
Reel'd the mote swarm'd haze, and thick
Beat the hot pulse of the air;
In the Helot, fierce and quick,
All his soul sprang from its lair.
LXVI.
As the drowzing tiger, deep
In the dim cell, hears the shout
From the arena--from his sleep
Launches to its thunders out--
LXVII.
So to fierce calls of the wine
(Strong the red Caecuban bowl!)
From its slumber, deep, supine,
Panted up the Helot soul.
LXVIII.
At his blood-flush'd eye-balls rear'd,
(Mad and sweet came pipes and songs),
Rous'd at last the wild soul glar'd,
Spear-thrust with a million wrongs.
LXIX.
Past--the primal, senseless bliss;
Past--red laughter of the grapes;
Past--the wine's first honey'd kiss;
Past--the wine-born, wanton shapes!
LXX.
Still the Helot stands--his feet
Set like oak roots: in his gaze
Black clouds roll and lightnings meet--
Flames from old Achean days.
LXXI.
Who may quench the God-born fire,
Pulsing at the soul's deep root?
Tyrants! grind it in the mire,
Lo, it vivifies the brute!
LXXII.
Stings the chain-embruted clay,
Senseless to his yoke-bound shame;
Goads him on to rend and slay,
Knowing not the spurring flame.
LXXIII.
Tyrants, changeless stand the Gods!
Nor their calm might yielded ye!
Not beneath thy chains and rods
Dies man's God-gift, Liberty!
LXXIV.
Bruteward lash thy Helots--hold
Brain and soul and clay in gyves;
Coin their blood and sweat in gold,
Build thy cities on their lives.
LXXV.
Comes a day the spark divine
Answers to the Gods who gave;
Fierce the hot flames pant and shine
In the bruis'd breast of the slave!
LXXVI.
Changeless stand the Gods!--nor he
Knows he answers their behest;
Feels the might of their decree
In the blind rage of his breast.
LXXVII.
Tyrants! tremble when ye tread
Down the servile Helot clods;
Under despot heel is bred
The white anger of the Gods!
LXXVIII.
Thro' the shackle-canker'd dust,
Thro' the gyv'd soul, foul and dark
Force they, changeless Gods and just!
Up the bright eternal spark.
LXXIX.
Till, like lightnings vast and fierce,
On the land its terror smites;
Till its flames the tyrants pierce,
Till the dust the despot bites!
LXXX.
Day was at its chief unrest,
Stone from stone the Helot rose;
Fix'd his eyes--his naked breast
Iron-wall'd his inner throes.
LXXXI.
Rose-white in the dusky leaves,
Shone the frank-ey'd Spartan child;
Low the pale doves on the eaves,
Made their soft moan, sweet and wild.
LXXXII.
Wand'ring winds, fire-throated, stole,
Sybils whisp'ring from their books;
With the rush of wine from bowl,
Leap'd the tendril-darken'd brooks.
LXXXIII.
As the leathern cestus binds
Tense the boxer's knotted hands;
So the strong wine round him winds,
Binds his thews to iron bands.
LXXXIV.
Changeless are the Gods--and bred
All their wrath divine in him!
Bull-like fell his furious head,
Swell'd vast cords on breast and limb.
LXXXV.
As loud-flaming stones are hurl'd
From foul craters--thus the gods
Cast their just wrath on the world,
From the mire of Helot clods.
LXXXVI.
Still the furious Helot stood,
Staring thro' the shafted space;
Dry-lipp'd for the Spartan blood,
He of scourg'd Achea's race.
LXXXVII.
Sprang the Helot--roar'd the vine,
Rent from grey, long-wedded stones--
From pale shaft and dusky pine,
Beat the fury of his groans.
LXXXVIII.
Thunders inarticulate:
Wordless curses, deep and wild;
Reach'd the long pois'd sword of Fate,
To the Spartan thro' his child.
LXXXIX.
On his knotted hands, upflung
O'er his low'r'd front--all white,
Fair young Hermos quiv'ring hung;
As the discus flashes bright
XC.
In the player's hand--the boy,
Naked--blossom-pallid lay;
Rous'd to lust of bloody joy,
Throbb'd the slave's embruted clay.
XCI.
Loud he laugh'd--the father sprang
From the Spartan's iron mail!
Late--the bubbling death-cry rang
On the hot pulse of the gale!
XCII.
As the shining discus flies,
From the thrower's strong hand whirl'd;
Hermos cleft the air--his cries
Lance-like to the Spartan hurl'd.
XCIII.
As the discus smites the ground,
Smote his golden head the stone;
Of a tall shaft--burst a sound
And but one--his dying groan!
XCIV.
Lo! the tyrant's iron might!
Lo! the Helot's yokes and chains!
Slave-slain in the throbbing light
Lay the sole child of his veins.
XCV.
Laugh'd the Helot loud and full,
Gazing at his tyrant's face;
Low'r'd his front like captive bull,
Bellowing from the fields of Thrace.
XCVI.
Rose the pale shaft redly flush'd,
Red with Bacchic light and blood;
On its stone the Helot rush'd--
Stone the tyrant Spartan stood.
XCVII.
Lo! the magic of the wine
From far marsh of Amyclae!
Bier'd upon the ruddy vine,
Spartan dust and Helot lay!
XCVIII.
Spouse of Bacchus reel'd the day,
Red track'd on the throbbing sods;
Dead--but free--the Helot lay,
Just and changeless stand the Gods!
poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
Vive Anarchy
With the lifting of the curtain,
Distance, dim, but grimly certain,
Breaks my vision of a city, populous and great,
To my senses, sorrow-sated,
Senses sad and satiated, Faintly comes the thunder peal of treasured wrong and hate
Broken down,
Beaten down,
By awakened people and the iron arm of Fate.
Pallid forms, by famine shrunken,
Helots, harlots, ribald, drunken,
Wine and blood-wet, onward thro' the torchlit highways sweep,
Through a city disunited,
Through a city flame ignited,
To the sound of song and trumpet and the cannon's deep
Distant boom,
Through the gloom,
While the fire fiends madly leaps from tower to temple steep.
Reinforced from slum and alley,
By this wild and weird reveille,
Pours the army of the people where their banners drape,
In a city barricaded,
In a city fusilladed
By the deadly rifle and the Gatling and the grape,
Crashing down,
Smashing down
Lanes and alleys filthy, and the foul abode of rape.
Tyrants flee and cowards falter-,
For a lamp-post and a halter
Wait for every tyrant at the corner of the street,
In the hour of retribution,
In the night of revolution,
When on common ground the tyrant and the helot meet,
Endless wrongs,
Countless wrongs,
Burning in the helot's bosom - fanned to fever heat.
Let the tyrant beg no pity-
His the palace, his the city,
His the silken raiment and the costly food and wine;
Ours the forms emaciated,
Of the women violated,
Ours the endless torture in the workshop and the mine;
Hunted down,
Hounded down
To the level of the felon and the concubine.
By our women fever-stricken,
Where the foetid odours thicken
In the homes of hunger, where the children cry for bread;
By your soulless apathetic,
Scorning of our wrongs pathetic,
By the seas of blood and tears by generations shed,
Stealing down,
Streaming down-
Now we ask, with smoking rifle, "vengeance on your head."
Marching on with footsteps steady,
Shotted guns and bayonets ready,
Goes the army of the people, in the days to be,
Through a city barricaded,
Through a city fusilladed,
Where the discontented masses struggle to be free,
Breaking down,
Beating down
Wrongs of ages to the song of "Long Live Anarchy."
poem by Edwin James Brady
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Mother's Soul
When the moon was horned the mother died,
And the child pulled at her hand and knee,
And he rubbed her cheek and loudly cried:
'O mother, arise, give bread to me!'
But the pine tree bent its head,
And the wind at the door-post said:
'O child, thy mother is dead !'
The sun set his loom to weave the day;
The frost bit sharp like a silent cur;
The child by her pillow paused in his play:
'Mother, build up the sweet fire of fir !'
But the fir tree shook its cones,
And loud cried the pitiful stones:
'Wolf Death has thy mother's bones!'
They bore the mother out on her bier;
Their tears made warm her breast and shroud;
The smiling child at her head stood near;
And the long, white tapers shook and bowed,
And said with their tongues of gold,
To the ice lumps of the grave mold:
'How heavy are ye and cold!'
They buried the mother; to the feast
They flocked with the beaks of unclean crows.
The wind came up from the red-eyed east
And bore in its arms the chill, soft snows.
They said to each other: 'Sere
Are the hearts the mother held dear;
Forgotten, her babe plays here!'
The child with the tender snowflakes played,
And the wind on its fingers twined his hair;
And still by the tall, brown grave he stayed,
Alone in the churchyard lean and bare.
The sods on the high grave cried
To the mother's white breast inside:
'Lie still; in thy deep rest bide!'
Her breast lay still like a long-chilled stone,
Her soul was out on the bleak, grey day;
She saw her child by the grave alone,
With the sods and snow and wind at play.
Said the sharp lips of the rush,
'Red as thy roses,O bush,
With anger the dead can blush !'
A butterfly to the child's breast flew,*
Fluttered its wings on his sweet, round cheek,
Danced by his fingers, small, cold and blue.
The sun strode down past the mountain peak.
The butterfly whispered low
To the child: 'Babe, follow me; know,
Cold is the earth here below.'
The butterfly flew; followed the child,
Lured by the snowy torch of its wings;
The wind sighed after them soft and wild
Till the stars wedded night with golden rings
Till the frost upreared its head,
And the ground to it groaned and said:
'The feet of the child are lead!'
The child's head drooped to the brown, sere mold,
On the crackling cones his white breast lay;
The butterfly touched the locks of gold,
The soul of the child sprang from its clay.
The moon to the pine tree stole,
And silver-lipped, said to its bole:
'How strong is the mother's soul !'
The wings of the butterfly grew out
To the mother's arms, long, soft and white;
She folded them warm her babe about,
She kissed his lips into berries bright,
She warmed his soul on her breast;
And the east called out to the west:
'Now the mother's soul will rest!'
Under the roof where the burial feast
Was heavy with meat and red with wine,
Each crossed himself as out of the east
A strange wind swept over oak and pine.
The trees to the home-roof said:
' 'Tis but the airy rush and tread
Of angels greeting thy dead.'
poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Invocation
Ha, ha, gods and kings; fill high, one and all;
Drink, drink! shout and drink! mad respond to
the call!
Fill fast, and fill full; 'gainst the goblet ne'er
sin;
Quaff there, at high tide, to the uttermost
rim:--
Flood-tide, and soul-tide to the brim!
Who with wine in him fears? who thinks of his
cares?
Who sighs to be wise, when wine in him flares?
Water sinks down below, in currents full slow;
But wine mounts on high with its genial glow:--
Welling up, till the brain overflow!
As the spheres, with a roll, some fiery of soul,
Others golden, with music, revolve round the
pole;
So let our cups, radiant with many hued wines,
Round and round in groups circle, our Zodiac's
Signs:--
Round reeling, and ringing their chimes!
Then drink, gods and kings; wine merriment
brings;
It bounds through the veins; there, jubilant
sings.
Let it ebb, then, and flow; wine never grows
dim;
Drain down that bright tide at the foam beaded
rim:--
Fill up, every cup, to the brim!
poem by Herman Melville
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Gisli: The Chieftain
To the Goddess Lada prayed
Gisli, holding high his spear
Bound with buds of spring, and laughed
All his heart to Lada's ear.
Damp his yellow beard with mead,
Loud the harps clang'd thro the day;
With bruised breasts triumphant rode
Gisli's galleys in the bay.
Bards sang in the banquet hall,
Set in loud verse Gisli's fame,
On their lips the war gods laid
Fire to chaunt their warrior's name.
To the Love-queen Gisli pray'd,
Buds upon his tall spear's tip;
Laughter in his broad blue eyes,
Laughter on his bearded lip.
To the Spring-queen Gisli pray'd,
She, with mystic distaff slim,
Spun her hours of love and leaves,
Made the stony headlands dim--
Dim and green with tender grass,
Blew on ice-fields with red mouth;
Blew on lovers hearts; and lured
White swans from the blue-arched south.
To the Love-queen Gisli pray'd,
Groan'd far icebergs tall and blue
As to Lada's distaff slim,
All their ice-locked fires flew.
To the Love-queen Gisli prayed,
She, with red hands, caught and spun.
Yellow flames from crater lips,
flames from the waking sun.
To the Love-queen Gisli prayed,
She with loom and beam and spell,
All the subtle fires of earth
Wove, and wove them strong and well.
To the Spring-queen Gisli prayed,
Low the sun the pale sky trod;
Mute her ruddy hand she raised
Beckon'd back the parting God.
To the Love-queen Gisli prayed--
Weft and woof of flame she wove--
Lada, Goddess of the Spring!
Lada, Goddess strong of Love!
Sire of the strong chieftain's prayer,
Victory with his pulse of flame;
Mead its mother--loud he laughed,
Calling on great Lada's name.
'Goddess Lada--Queen of Love!
'Here stand I and quaff to thee--
'Deck for thee with buds my spear--
'Give a comely wife to me!
'Blow not to my arms a flake
'Of crisp snow in maiden guise;
'Mists of pallid hair and tips
'Of long ice-spears in her eyes!
'When my death-sail skims the foam--
'Strain my oars on Death's black sea--
'When my foot the 'Glass-Hill' seeks--
'Such a maid may do for me!
'Now, O Lada, mate the flesh!
'Mate the fire and flame of life,
'Tho' the soul go still unwed,
'Give the flesh its fitting wife!
'As the galley runs between,
'Skies with billows closely spun:
'Feeling but the wave that leaps
'Closest to it in the sun.'
'Throbs but to the present kiss
'Of the wild lips of the sea;
'Thus a man joys in his life--
'Nought of the Beyond knows he!
'Goddess! here I cast bright buds,
'Spicy pine boughs at thy feet;
'Give the flesh its fitting mate
'Life is strong and life is sweet!'
To the Love-queen Gisli pray'd--
Weft and woof of flame she wove:
Lada, Goddess of the Spring--
Lada, Goddess strong of Love!
* * * * *
PART II.
From harpings and sagas and mirth of the town,
Great Gisli, the chieftain strode merrily down.
His ruddy beard stretch'd in the loom of the wind,
His shade like a dusky God striding behind.
Gylfag, his true hound, to his heel glided near,
Sharp-fang'd, lank and red as a blood-rusted spear.
As crests of the green bergs flame white in the sky,
The town on its sharp hill shone brightly and high.
In fjords roared the ice below the dumb stroke
Of the Sun's red hammer rose blue mist like smoke.
It clung to the black pines, and clung to the bay--
The galleys of Gisli grew ghosts of the day.
It followed the sharp wings of swans, as they rose--
It fell to the wide jaws of swift riven floes.
It tam'd the wild shriek of the eagle--grew dull
The cries, in its foldings, of osprey and gull.
'Arouse thee, bold wind,' shouted Gisli 'and drive
'Floe and Berg out to sea as bees from a hive.
'Chase this woman-lipped haze at top of thy speed,
'It cloys to the soul as the tongue cloys with mead!
'Come, buckle thy sharp spear again to thy breast!
'Thy galley hurl forth from the seas of the West.
'With thy long, hissing oars, beat loud the north sea.
'The sharp gaze of day give the eagles and me.
'No cunning mists shrouding the sea and the sky,
'Or the brows of the great Gods, bold wind, love I!
'As Gylfag, my hound, lays his fangs in the flank
'Of a grey wolf, shadowy, leather-thew'd, lank.
'Bold wind, chase the blue mist, thy prow in its hair,
'Sun, speed thy keen shafts thro' the breast of the air!
* * * * *
PART III.
The shouting of Gisli, the chieftain,
Rock'd the blue hazes, and cloven
In twain by sharp prow of the west wind,
To north and to south fled the thick mist.
As in burnish'd walls of Valhalla,
In cleft of the mist stood the chieftain,
And up to the blue shield of Heaven,
Flung the load shaft of his laughter.
Smote the mist, with shrill spear the swift wind.
Grey shapes fled like ghosts on the Hell way;
Bay'd after their long locks hoarse Gylfag,
Stared at them, triumphant, the eagles.
To mate and to eaglets, the eagle
Shriek'd, 'Gone is my foe of the deep mist,
'Rent by the vast hands of the kind Gods,
'Who knows the knife-pangs of our hunger!'
Shrill whistled the winds as his dun wings
Strove with it feather by feather;
Loud grated the rock as his talons
Its breast spurned slowly his red eyes.
Like fires seemed to flame in the swift wind,
At his sides the darts of his hunger--
At his ears the shriek of his eaglets--
In his breast the love of the quarry.
Unfurl'd to the northward and southward
His wings broke the air, and to eastward
His breast gave its iron; and God-ward
Pierc'd the shrill voice of his hunger.
Bared were his great sides as he laboured
Up the first steep blue of the broad sky;
His gaze on the fields of his freedom,
To the God's spoke the prayers of his gyres.
Bared were his vast sides as he glided
Black in the sharp blue of the north sky:
Black over the white of the tall cliffs,
Black over the arrow of Gisli.
* * * * *
THE SONG OF THE ARROW.
What know I,
As I bite the blue veins of the throbbing sky;
To the quarry's breast
Hot from the sides of the sleek smooth nest?
What know I
Of the will of the tense bow from which I fly?
What the need or jest,
That feathers my flight to its bloody rest.
What know I
Of the will of the bow that speeds me on high?
What doth the shrill bow
Of the hand on its singing soul-string know?
Flame-swift speed I--
And the dove and the eagle shriek out and die;
Whence comes my sharp zest
For the heart of the quarry? the Gods know best.
Deep pierc'd the red gaze of the eagle--
The breast of a cygnet below him;
Beneath his dun wing from the eastward
Shrill-chaunted the long shaft of Gisli!
Beneath his dun wing from the westward
Shook a shaft that laugh'd in its biting--
Met in the fierce breast of the eagle
The arrows of Gisli and Brynhild!
* * * * *
PART IV:
A ghost along the Hell-way sped,
The Hell-shoes shod his misty tread;
A phantom hound beside him sped.
Beneath the spandrils of the Way,
World's roll'd to-night--from night to day;
In space's ocean Suns were spray.
Group'd world's, eternal eagles, flew;
Swift comets fell like noiseless dew,
Young earths slow budded in the blue.
The waves of space inscrutable,
With awful pulses rose and fell--
Silent and godly--terrible.
Electric souls of strong Suns laid,
Strong hands along the awful shade
That God about His God-work made.
Ever from all ripe worlds did break,
Men's voices, as when children speak,
Eager and querulous and weak.
And pierc'd to the All-worker thro'
His will that veil'd Him from the view
'What hast thou done? What dost thou do?'
And ever from His heart did flow
Majestical, the answer low--
The benison 'Ye shall not know!'
The wan ghost on the Hell-way sped,
Nor yet Valhalla's lights were shed
Upon the white brow of the Dead.
Nor sang within his ears the roll
Of trumpets calling to his soul;
Nor shone wide portals of the goal.
His spear grew heavy on his breast,
Dropp'd, like a star his golden crest;
Far, far the vast Halls of the Blest!
His heart grown faint, his feet grown weak,
He scal'd the knit mists of a peak,
That ever parted grey and bleak.
And, as by unseen talons nipp'd,
To deep Abysses slowly slipp'd;
Then, swift as thick smoke strongly ripp'd.
By whirling winds from ashy ring,
Of dank weeds blackly smoldering,
The peak sprang upward a quivering
And perdurable, set its face
Against the pulsing breast of space
But for a moment to its base.
Refluent roll'd the crest new sprung,
In clouds with ghastly lightnings stung,--
Faint thunders to their black feet clung.
His faithful hound ran at his heel--
His thighs and breast were bright with steel--
He saw the awful Hellway reel.
But far along its bleak peaks rang
A distant trump--its airy clang
Like light through deathly shadows sprang.
He knew the blast--the voice of love!
Cleft lay the throbbing peak above
Sail'd light, wing'd like a silver dove.
On strove the toiling ghost, his soul
Stirr'd like strong mead in wassail bowl,
That quivers to the shout of 'Skoal!'
Strode from the mist close-curv'd and cold
As is a writhing dragon's fold;
A warrior with shield of gold.
A sharp blade glitter'd at his hip,
Flamed like a star his lance's tip;
His bugle sang at bearded lip.
Beneath his golden sandels flew
Stars from the mist as grass flings dew;
Or red fruit falls from the dark yew.
As under shelt'ring wreaths of snow
The dark blue north flowers richly blow--
Beneath long locks of silver glow.
Clear eyes, that burning on a host
Would win a field at sunset lost,
Ere stars from Odin's hand were toss'd.
He stretch'd his hand, he bowed his head:
The wan ghost to his bosom sped--
Dead kiss'd the bearded lips of Dead!
'What dost thou here, my youngest born?
'Thou--scarce yet fronted with life's storm--
'Why art thou from the dark earth torn?
'When high Valhalla puls'd and rang
'With harps that shook as grey bards sang--
''Mid the loud joy I heard the clang.
'Of Death's dark doors--to me alone
'Smote in thy awful dying groan--
'My soul recall'd its blood and bone.
'Viewless the cord which draws from far
'To the round sun some mighty star;
'Viewless the strong-knit soul-cords are!
'I felt thy dying gasp--thy soul
'Towards mine a kindred wave in roll,
'I left the harps--I left the bowl.
'I sought the Hellway--I--the blest;
'That thou, new death-born son should rest
'Upon the strong rock of my breast.
'What dost thou here, young, fair and bold?
'Sleek with youth's gloss thy locks of gold;
'Thy years by flow'rs might yet be told!
'What dost thou at the ghostly goal,
'While yet thy years were to thy soul,
'As mead yet shallow in the bowl?'
His arm about the pale ghost cast,
The warrior blew a clear, loud blast;
Like frighten'd wolves the mists fled past.
Grew firm the way; worlds flame to light
The awful peak that thrusts its height,
With swift throbs upward, like a flight.
Of arrows from a host close set
Long meteors pierc'd its breast of jet--
Again the trump his strong lips met--
And at its blast blew all the day,
In broad winds on the awful Way;
Sun smote at Sun across the grey;
As reindeer smite the high-pil'd snow
To find the green moss far below--
They struck the mists thro' which did glow
Bright vales--and on a sea afar,
Lay at a sunlit harbour bar,
A galley gold-sail'd like a star!
Spake the pale ghost as onward sped
Heart-press'd to heart the valiant dead;
Soft the green paths beneath their tread.
'I lov'd, this is my tale, and died--
The fierce chief hunger'd for my bride--
The spear of Gisli pierc'd my side!
'And she--her love fill'd all my need--
Her vows were sweet and strong as mead;
Look, father--doth my heart still bleed?
'I built her round with shaft and spear,
I kept her mine for one brief year--
She laugh'd above my blood stain'd bier!
'Upon a far and ice-peak'd coast
My galleys by long winds were toss'd--
There Gisli feasted with his host.
'Of warriors triumphant--he
Strode out from harps and revelry;
And sped his shaft above the sea!
'Look, father, doth my heart bleed yet?
His arrow Brynhild's arrow met--
My gallies anchor'd in their rest.
'Again their arrows meet--swift lies
That pierc'd me from their smiling eyes;
How fiercely hard a man's heart dies!
'She false--he false! There came a day
Pierc'd by the fierce chief's spear I lay--
My ghost rose shrieking from its clay.
'I saw on Brynhild's golden vest
The shining locks of Gisli rest;
I sought the Hell-way to the Blest.
'Father, put forth thy hand and tear
Their twin shafts from my heart, all bare
To thee--they rankle death--like there!
* * * * *
Said the voice of Evil to the ear of Good,
'Clasp thou my strong, right hand,
'Nor shall our clasp be known or understood
'By any in the land.'
'I, the dark giant, rule strongly on the earth,
'Yet thou, bright one, and I
'Sprang from the one great mystery--at one birth
'We looked upon the sky!
'I labour at my bleak, my stern toil accurs'd
Of all mankind--nor stay,
To rest, to murmur 'I hunger' or 'I thirst!'
Nor for my joy delay.
'My strength pleads strongly with thee; doth any beat
With hammer and with stone
Past tools to use them to his deep defeat--
To turn them on his throne?
'Then I of God the mystery--toil thou with me
Brother; but in the sight
Of men who know not, I, the stern son shall be
Of Darkness--Thou of Light!'
poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
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The Ghosts Of The Trees
The silver fangs of the mighty axe,
Bit to the blood of our giant boles;
It smote our breasts and smote our backs,
Thunder'd the front-cleared leaves--
As sped in fire,
The whirl and flame of scarlet leaves
With strong desire
Leaped to the air our captive souls.
While down our corpses thunder'd,
The air at our strong souls gazed and wondered
And cried to us, 'Ye
Are full of all mystery to me!
I saw but thy plumes of leaves,
Thy strong, brown greaves;
The sinewy roots and lusty branches,
And fond and anxious,
I laid my ear and my restless breast
By each pride-high crest;
And softly stole
And listen'd by limb and listen'd by bole,
Nor ever the stir of a soul,
Heard I in ye--
Great is the mystery!'
The strong, brown eagle plung'd from his peak,
From the hollow iron of his beak;
The wood pigeon fell; its breast of blue
Cold with sharp death all thro' and thro',
To our ghosts he cried.
'With talons of steel,
I hold the storm;
Where the high peaks reel,
My young lie warm.
In the wind-rock'd spaces of air I bide;
My wings too wide--
Too angry-strong for the emerald gyves,
Of woodland cell where the meek dove thrives.
And when at the bar,
Of morn I smote with my breast its star,
And under--
My wings grew purple, the jealous thunder,
With the flame of the skies
Hot in my breast, and red in my eyes;
From peak to peak of sunrise pil'd
That set space glowing,
With flames from air-based crater's blowing--
I downward swept, beguiled
By the close-set forest gilded and spread
A sea for the lordly tread,
Of a God's wardship--
I broke its leafy turf with my breast;
My iron lip
I dipp'd in the cool of each whispering crest;
From thy leafy steeps,
I saw in my deeps,
Red coral the flame necked oriole--
But never the stir of a soul
Heard I in ye--
Great is the mystery!'
From its ferny coasts,
The river gazed at our strong, free ghosts,
And with rocky fingers shed
Apart the silver curls of its head;
Laid its murmuring hands,
On the reedy bands;
And at gaze
Stood in the half-moon's of brown, still bays;
Like gloss'd eyes of stags
Its round pools gaz'd from the rusty flags,
At our ghostly crests
At the bark-shields strong on our phantom breasts;
And its tide
Took lip and tongue and cried.
'I have push'd apart
The mountain's heart;
I have trod the valley down;
With strong hands curled,
Have caught and hurled,
To the earth the high hill's crown!
My brow I thrust,
Through sultry dust,
That the lean wolf howl'd upon;
I drove my tides,
Between the sides,
Of the bellowing canon.
From chrystal shoulders,
I hurled my boulders,
On the bridge's iron span.
When I rear'd my head
From its old time bed,
Shook the pale cities of man!
I have run a course
With the swift, wild horse;
I have thunder'd pace for pace,
With the rushing herds--
I have caught the beards
Of the swift stars in the race!
Neither moon nor sun
Could me out-run;
Deep cag'd in my silver bars,
I hurried with me,
To the shouting sea,
Their light and the light of the stars!
The reeling earth
In furious mirth
With sledges of ice I smote.
I whirled my sword
Where the pale berg roar'd,
I took the ship by the throat!
With stagnant breath
I called chill Death
My guest to the hot bayou.
I built men's graves,
With strong thew'd waves
That thing that my strength might do.
I did right well--
Men cried 'From Hell
The might of Thy hand is given!'
By loose rocks stoned
The stout quays groaned,
Sleek sands by my spear were riven.
O'er shining slides,
On my gloss'd tides,
The brown cribs close woven roll'd;
The stout logs sprung,
Their height among
My loud whirls of white and gold!
The great raft prest,
My calm, broad breast--
A dream thro' my shady trance,
The light canoe--
A spirit flew--
The pulse of my blue expanse.
Wing'd swift the ships.
My foaming lips
Made rich with dewy kisses,
All night and morn,
Field's red with corn,
And where the mill-wheel hisses.
And shivers and sobs,
With lab'ring throbs,
With its whirls my strong palms play'd.
I parted my flags,
For thirsty stags,
On the necks of arches laid.
To the dry-vined town
My tide roll'd down--
Dry lips and throats a-quiver,
Rent sky and sod
With shouts 'From God
The strength of the mighty river!'
I, list'ning, heard
The soft-song'd bird;
The beetle about thy boles.
The calling breeze,
In thy crests, O Trees--
Never the voices of souls!'
* * * * *
We, freed souls, of the Trees look'd down
On the river's shining eyes of brown;
And upward smiled
At the tender air and its warrior child,
The iron eagle strong and wild.
* * * * *
'No will of ours,
The captive souls of our barky tow'rs;
'His the deed
Who laid in the secret earth the seed;
And with strong hand
Knitted each woody fetter and band.
Never, ye
Ask of the tree,
The 'Wherefore' or 'Why' the tall trees stand,
Built in their places on the land
Their souls unknit;
With any wisdom or any wit,
The subtle 'Why,'
Ask ye not of earth or sky--
But one command it.
poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
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The Roman Rose-Seller
Not from Paestum come my roses; Patrons, see
My flowers are Roman-blown; their nectaries
Drop honey amber, and their petals throw
Rich crimsons on the lucent marble of the shrine
Where snowy Dian lifts her pallid brow,
As crimson lips of Love may seek to warm
A sister glow in hearts as pulseless hewn.
Caesar from Afric wars returns to-day;
Patricians, buy my royal roses; strew
His way knee-deep, as though old Tiber roll'd
A tide of musky roses from his bed to do
A wonder, wond'rous homage. Marcus Lucius, thou
To-day dost wed; buy roses, roses, roses,
To mingle with the nuptial myrtle; look,
I strip the polish'd thorns from the stems,
The nuptial rose should be a stingless flower;
Lucania, pass not by my roses. Virginia,
Here is a rose that has a canker in't, and yet
It is most glorious-dyed and sweeter smells
Than those death hath not touched. To-day they bear
The shield of Claudius with his spear upon it,
Close upon Caesar's chariot--heap, heap it up
With roses such as these; 'tis true he's dead
And there's the canker! but, Romans, he
Died glorious, there's the perfume! and his virtues
Are these bright petals; so buy my roses, Widow.
No Greek-born roses mine. Priestess, priestess!
Thy ivory chariot stay; here's a rose and not
A white one, though thy chaste hands attend
On Vesta's flame. Love's of a colour--be it that
Which ladders Heaven and lives amongst the Gods;
Or like the Daffodil blows all about the earth;
Or, Hesperus like, is one sole star upon
The solemn sky which bridges same sad life,
So here's a crimson rose: Be, thou as pure
As Dian's tears iced on her silver cheek,
And know no quality of love, thou art
A sorrow to the Gods! Oh mighty Love!
I would my roses could but chorus Thee.
No roses of Persepolis are mine. Helot, here--
I give thee this last blossom: A bee as red
As Hybla's golden toilers sucked its sweets;
A butterfly, wing'd like to Eros nipp'd
Its new-pinked leaves; the sun, bright despot, stole
The dew night gives to all. Poor slave, methinks
A bough of cypress were as gay a gift, and yet
It hath some beauty left! a little scarlet--for
The Gods love all; a little perfume, for there is no life,
Poor slave, but hath its sweetness. Thus I make
My roses Oracles. O hark! the cymbals beat
In god-like silver bursts of sound; I go
To see great Caesar leading Glory home,
From Campus Martius to the Capitol!
poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
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In The Cup
There is grief in the cup!
I saw a proud mother set wine on the board;
The eyes of her son sparkled bright as she poured
The ruddy stream into the glass in his hand.
The cup was of silver; the lady was grand
In her satins and laces; her proud heart was glad
In the love of her fair, noble son; but, oh! sad,
Oh! so sad ere a year had passed by,
And the soft light had gone from her beautiful eye.
For the boy that she loved, with a love strong as death,
In the chill hours of morn with a drunkard's foul breath
And a drunkard's fierce oath, reeled and staggered his way
To his home, a dark blot on the face of the day.
There is shame in the cup!
The tempter said, 'Drink,' and a fair maiden quaffed
Till her cheeks glowed the hue of the dangerous draught.
The voice of the tempter spoke low in her ear
Words that once would have started the quick, angry tear,
But wine blunts the conscience, and wine dulls the brain,
She listened and smiled, and he whispered again.
He lifted the goblet: 'Once more,' he said, 'drink,'
And the soul of the maiden was lost in the brink.
There is death in the cup!
A man in God's image, strong, noble, and grand,
With talents that crowned him a prince of the land,
Sipped the ruddy red wine!-sipped it lightly at first,
Until from its chains broke the demon of thirst.
And thirst became master, and man became slave,
And he ended his life in the drunkard's poor grave.
Wealth, fame, talents, beauty, and life swallowed up,
Grief, shame, death, destruction, are all in the cup.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Lux In Tenebris
When first the Gods, whose Empire is eternal,
In Time’s deep chalice poured Life’s sacred wine,
Flashed all the crystal cup with fire supernal;
Then said they: “Shall the mortal be divine?
Shall man usurp the ways the Gods have trod?
Who quaffs this cup, himself should be a God!”
So tempered they the measure of their giving,
And mingled germs of evil with the good;
So mixed they death with the fierce fire of living,
And anguish with the joy of motherhood;
And with the balm of peace a weird unrest,
And an unformed desire in every breast.
So set they discord in the sweetest singing,
And a sharp thorn about the fairest rose;
And doubt around the cross where faith was clinging,
And fear to haunt the regions of repose;
And dimmed men’s eyes, so that they should not see,
Like Gods, the vistas of futurity.
They coloured failure with hope’s rainbow splendour,
And tinged the hour of triumph with regret;
Made strength subservient to the weak and tender,
And wisdom, folly-caught in beauty’s net;
Till unto man life’s wine was bitter-sweet—
Betwixt the perfect and the incomplete.
Then said the Gods—the Gods who live for ever—
“Let us shower gifts upon the soul of man,
That he may catch a glimpse of our endeavour,
And yet not solve the Universal Plan.
For, though Life’s deepest truths be near to find,
Man shall behold and see not, being blind!”
Thus, to the blessing of the Gods descending,
The universal curse and shadow clung;
The mystic evil with the glory blending
That mars the aeons since the world was young.
For upon all whom the High Gods had blest
There fell the quenchless fever of unrest.
Then rose a ferment and an exaltation,
And all men’s souls were thrilled and stirred within.
There came a prophet unto every nation
To teach new doctrines of the source of sin;
And men arose as Gods, and creeds began
To preach th’ Eternal Godhead one with man.
And ever, thro’ all lands, with waves sonorous,
Rolled on from age to age the stream of song
Which made low valleys sweet with rhythmic chorus,
And shook the rock-bound hills with music strong,
And flushed and fired men’s souls like fumes of wine—
Yet was but human! . . . not a song divine!
For, lo! thro’ all that seemeth inspiration
Enters the curse that blurs created things;
Beyond the barriers of our limitation
Not ever yet a soul has spread its wings!
Nor has been yet, nor ever shall there be,
A perfect song—a perfect harmony!
O music of the wind and of the ocean!—
O Power that sways the glory of the spheres!
O aching hearts that vibrate with emotion!
O mystery of Life! O human tears!
What light shall lead us thro’ the wilderness
From out the Egypt of our bitterness?
O Poets, round whose souls, since the beginning,
Strange echoes tremble and wild visions throng,
Ye all have heard the sweetness of the singing,
But no man knows the meaning of the song
That lifts our frail souls heavenwards with its strain—
Then flings us bleeding to the earth again!
Brothers, my soul has quickened with your gladness.
I, too, have sorrowed over human woe.
I, too, have felt the terror and the madness
That all who seek for truth and light must know.
My faint heart falters in the bitter strife—
The labyrinths of the mysteries of Life.
What hope—what comfort—in our desolation?
What ray to pierce the blackness of our night?
To weary hearts, what balm of consolation
That earth is finite, heaven is infinite?
What tho’ the hand of Faith still points the way—
The voice of Reason ever brings delay.
Nay! tho’ Life’s secret be beyond our dreaming,
And all the creeds that sway the world untrue,
A radiance creeps aslant the shadows gleaming
Whose golden arrows pierce the darkness thro’.
If all our errors hold one germ of right,
The paths that lead to truth are infinite!
Throughout all nature and throughout creation
A Power Supreme its manual sign has writ.
In pain and stress, thro’ aeons of gradation,
Shall the weak soul of man decipher it;
For, since the spirit is above the clay,
Man shall not know th’ Eternal in a day.
Yet, tho’ we know not their immortal places,
And tho’ their footsteps are not heard of man,
And tho’ with mystery they veil their faces
And bid us search the Universal Plan,
And tho’ to all there cometh with Life’s breath
Suffering, and doubt, and weariness, and death—
I sing Eternal Hope and Strong Endeavour,
Truth shining down a myriad aisles of thought;
I sing the deathless souls of men, for ever
By strange, wild paths to one vast triumph brought.
The God in Man—the hunger of the soul—
One with the Wisdom that inspires the Whole!
poem by George Essex Evans
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Ode To Wine
Day-colored wine,
night-colored wine,
wine with purple feet
or wine with topaz blood,
wine,
starry child
of earth,
wine, smooth
as a golden sword,
soft
as lascivious velvet,
wine, spiral-seashelled
and full of wonder,
amorous,
marine;
never has one goblet contained you,
one song, one man,
you are choral, gregarious,
at the least, you must be shared.
At times
you feed on mortal
memories;
your wave carries us
from tomb to tomb,
stonecutter of icy sepulchers,
and we weep
transitory tears;
your
glorious
spring dress
is different,
blood rises through the shoots,
wind incites the day,
nothing is left
of your immutable soul.
Wine
stirs the spring, happiness
bursts through the earth like a plant,
walls crumble,
and rocky cliffs,
chasms close,
as song is born.
A jug of wine, and thou beside me
in the wilderness,
sang the ancient poet.
Let the wine pitcher
add to the kiss of love its own.
My darling, suddenly
the line of your hip
becomes the brimming curve
of the wine goblet,
your breast is the grape cluster,
your nipples are the grapes,
the gleam of spirits lights your hair,
and your navel is a chaste seal
stamped on the vessel of your belly,
your love an inexhaustible
cascade of wine,
light that illuminates my senses,
the earthly splendor of life.
But you are more than love,
the fiery kiss,
the heat of fire,
more than the wine of life;
you are
the community of man,
translucency,
chorus of discipline,
abundance of flowers.
I like on the table,
when we're speaking,
the light of a bottle
of intelligent wine.
Drink it,
and remember in every
drop of gold,
in every topaz glass,
in every purple ladle,
that autumn labored
to fill the vessel with wine;
and in the ritual of his office,
let the simple man remember
to think of the soil and of his duty,
to propagate the canticle of the wine.
poem by Pablo Neruda
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Late Loved--Well Loved
He stood beside her in the dawn
(And she his Dawn and she his Spring),
From her bright palm she fed her fawn,
Her swift eyes chased the swallow's wing:
Her restless lips, smile-haunted, cast
Shrill silver calls to hound and dove:
Her young locks wove them with the blast.
To the flush'd, azure shrine above,
The light boughs o'er her golden head
Toss'd em'rald arm and blossom palm.
The perfume of their prayer was spread
On the sweet wind in breath of balm.
'Dawn of my heart,' he said, 'O child,
Knit thy pure eyes a space with mine:
O chrystal, child eyes, undefiled,
Let fair love leap from mine to thine!'
'The Dawn is young,' she smiled and said,
'Too young for Love's dear joy and woe;
Too young to crown her careless head
With his ripe roses. Let me go--
Unquestion'd for a longer space,
Perchance, when day is at the flood,
In thy true palm I'll gladly place
Love's flower in its rounding bud.
But now the day is all too young,
The Dawn and I are playmates still.'
She slipped the blossomed boughs among,
He strode beyond the violet hill.
Again they stand (Imperial noon
Lays her red sceptre on the earth),
Where golden hangings make a gloom,
And far off lutes sing dreamy mirth.
The peacocks cry to lily cloud,
From the white gloss of balustrade:
Tall urns of gold the gloom make proud,
Tall statues whitely strike the shade,
And pulse in the dim quivering light
Until, most Galatea-wise--
Each looks from base of malachite
With mystic life in limbs and eyes.
Her robe, (a golden wave that rose,
And burst, and clung as water clings
To her long curves) about her flows.
Each jewel on her white breast sings
Its silent song of sun and fire.
No wheeling swallows smite the skies
And upward draw the faint desire,
Weaving its myst'ry in her eyes.
In the white kisses of the tips
Of her long fingers lies a rose,
Snow-pale beside her curving lips,
Red by her snowy breast it glows.
'Noon of my soul,' he says, 'behold!
The day is ripe, the rose full blown,
Love stands in panoply of gold,
To Jovian height and strength now grown,
No infant he, a king he stands,
And pleads with thee for love again.'
'Ah, yes!' she says, 'in known lands,
He kings it--lord of subtlest pain;
The moon is full, the rose is fair--
Too fair! 'tis neither white nor red:
'I know the rose that love should wear,
Must redden as the heart had bled!
The moon is mellow bright, and I
Am happy in its perfect glow.
The slanting sun the rose may dye--
But for the sweet noon--let me go.'
She parted--shimm'ring thro' the shade,
Bent the fair splendour of her head:
'Would the rich noon were past,' he said,
Would the pale rose were flush'd to red!'
Again. The noon is past and night
Binds on his brow the blood red Mars--
Down dusky vineyards dies the fight,
And blazing hamlets slay the stars.
Shriek the shrill shells: the heated throats
Of thunderous cannon burst--and high
Scales the fierce joy of bugle notes:
The flame-dimm'd splendours of the sky.
He, dying, lies beside his blade:
Clear smiling as a warrior blest
With victory smiles, thro' sinister shade
Gleams the White Cross upon her breast.
'Soul of my soul, or is it night
Or is it dawn or is it day?
I see no more nor dark nor light,
I hear no more the distant fray.'
''Tis Dawn,' she whispers: 'Dawn at last!
Bright flush'd with love's immortal glow
For me as thee, all earth is past!
Late loved--well loved, now let us go!'
poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
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A Song Of Other days
As o'er the glacier's frozen sheet
Breathes soft the Alpine rose,
So through life's desert springing sweet
The flower of friendship grows;
And as where'er the roses grow
Some rain or dew descends,
'T is nature's law that wine should flow
To wet the lips of friends.
Then once again, before we part,
My empty glass shall ring;
And he that has the warmest heart
Shall loudest laugh and sing.
They say we were not born to eat;
But gray-haired sages think
It means, Be moderate in your meat,
And partly live to drink.
For baser tribes the rivers flow
That know not wine or song;
Man wants but little drink below,
But wants that little strong.
Then once again, etc.
If one bright drop is like the gem
That decks a monarch's crown,
One goblet holds a diadem
Of rubies melted down!
A fig for Caesar's blazing brow,
But, like the Egyptian queen,
Bid each dissolving jewel glow
My thirsty lips between.
Then once again, etc.
The Grecian's mound, the Roman's urn,
Are silent when we call,
Yet still the purple grapes return
To cluster on the wall;
It was a bright Immortal's head
They circled with the vine,
And o'er their best and bravest dead
They poured the dark-red wine.
Then once again, etc.
Methinks o'er every sparkling glass
Young Eros waves his wings,
And echoes o'er its dimples pass
From dead Anacreon's strings;
And, tossing round its beaded brim
Their locks of floating gold,
With bacchant dance and choral hymn
Return the nymphs of old.
Then once again, etc.
A welcome then to joy and mirth,
From hearts as fresh as ours,
To scatter o'er the dust of earth
Their sweetly mingled flowers;
'T is Wisdom's self the cup that fills
In spite of Folly's frown,
And Nature, from her vine-clad hills,
That rains her life-blood down!
Then once again, before we part,
My empty glass shall ring;
And he that has the warmest heart
Shall loudest laugh and sing.
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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The Dark Stag
1 A startled stag, the blue-grey Night,
2 Leaps down beyond black pines.
3 Behind--a length of yellow light--
4 The hunter's arrow shines:
5 His moccasins are stained with red,
6 He bends upon his knee,
7 From covering peaks his shafts are sped,
8 The blue mists plume his mighty head,--
9 Well may the swift Night flee!
10 The pale, pale Moon, a snow-white doe,
11 Bounds by his dappled flank:
12 They beat the stars down as they go,
13 Like wood-bells growing rank.
14 The winds lift dewlaps from the ground,
15 Leap from the quaking reeds;
16 Their hoarse bays shake the forests round,
17 With keen cries on the track they bound,--
18 Swift, swift the dark stag speeds!
19 Away! his white doe, far behind,
20 Lies wounded on the plain;
21 Yells at his flank the nimblest wind,
22 His large tears fall in rain;
23 Like lily-pads, small clouds grow white
24 About his darkling way;
25 From his bald nest upon the height
26 The red-eyed eagle sees his flight;
27 He falters, turns, the antlered Night,--
28 The dark stag stands at bay!
29 His feet are in the waves of space;
30 His antlers broad and dun
31 He lowers; he turns his velvet face
32 To front the hunter, Sun;
33 He stamps the lilied clouds, and high
34 His branches fill the west.
35 The lean stork sails across the sky,
36 The shy loon shrieks to see him die,
37 The winds leap at his breast.
38 Roar the rent lakes as thro' the wave
39 Their silver warriors plunge,
40 As vaults from core of crystal cave
41 The strong, fierce muskallunge;
42 Red torches of the sumach glare,
43 Fall's council-fires are lit;
44 The bittern, squaw-like, scolds the air;
45 The wild duck splashes loudly where
46 The rustling rice-spears knit.
47 Shaft after shaft the red Sun speeds:
48 Rent the stag's dappled side,
49 His breast, fanged by the shrill winds, bleeds,
50 He staggers on the tide;
51 He feels the hungry waves of space
52 Rush at him high and blue;
53 Their white spray smites his dusky face,
54 Swifter the Sun's fierce arrows race
55 And pierce his stout heart thro'.
56 His antlers fall; once more he spurns
57 The hoarse hounds of the day;
58 His blood upon the crisp blue burns,
59 Reddens the mounting spray;
60 His branches smite the wave--with cries
61 The loud winds pause and flag--
62 He sinks in space--red glow the skies,
63 The brown earth crimsons as he dies,
64 The strong and dusky stag.
poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
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The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point
I.
I stand on the mark beside the shore
Of the first white pilgrim's bended knee,
Where exile turned to ancestor,
And God was thanked for liberty.
I have run through the night, my skin is as dark,
I bend my knee down on this mark . . .
I look on the sky and the sea.
II.
O pilgrim-souls, I speak to you!
I see you come out proud and slow
From the land of the spirits pale as dew. . .
And round me and round me ye go!
O pilgrims, I have gasped and run
All night long from the whips of one
Who in your names works sin and woe.
III.
And thus I thought that I would come
And kneel here where I knelt before,
And feel your souls around me hum
In undertone to the ocean's roar;
And lift my black face, my black hand,
Here, in your names, to curse this land
Ye blessed in freedom's evermore.
IV.
I am black, I am black;
And yet God made me, they say.
But if He did so, smiling back
He must have cast His work away
Under the feet of His white creatures,
With a look of scorn,--that the dusky features
Might be trodden again to clay.
V.
And yet He has made dark things
To be glad and merry as light.
There's a little dark bird sits and sings;
There's a dark stream ripples out of sight;
And the dark frogs chant in the safe morass,
And the sweetest stars are made to pass
O'er the face of the darkest night.
VI.
But we who are dark, we are dark!
Ah, God, we have no stars!
About our souls in care and cark
Our blackness shuts like prison bars:
The poor souls crouch so far behind,
That never a comfort can they find
By reaching through the prison-bars.
VII.
Indeed, we live beneath the sky, . . .
That great smooth Hand of God, stretched out
On all His children fatherly,
To bless them from the fear and doubt,
Which would be, if, from this low place,
All opened straight up to His face
Into the grand eternity.
VIII.
And still God's sunshine and His frost,
They make us hot, they make us cold,
As if we were not black and lost:
And the beasts and birds, in wood and fold,
Do fear and take us for very men!
Could the weep-poor-will or the cat of the glen
Look into my eyes and be bold?
IX.
I am black, I am black!--
But, once, I laughed in girlish glee;
For one of my colour stood in the track
Where the drivers drove, and looked at me--
And tender and full was the look he gave:
Could a slave look so at another slave?--
I look at the sky and the sea.
X.
And from that hour our spirits grew
As free as if unsold, unbought:
Oh, strong enough, since we were two
To conquer the world, we thought!
The drivers drove us day by day;
We did not mind, we went one way,
And no better a liberty sought.
XI.
In the sunny ground between the canes,
He said 'I love you' as he passed:
When the shingle-roof rang sharp with the rains,
I heard how he vowed it fast:
While others shook, he smiled in the hut
As he carved me a bowl of the cocoa-nut,
Through the roar of the hurricanes.
XII.
I sang his name instead of a song;
Over and over I sang his name--
Upward and downward I drew it along
My various notes; the same, the same!
I sang it low, that the slave-girls near
Might never guess from aught they could hear,
It was only a name.
XIII.
I look on the sky and the sea--
We were two to love, and two to pray,--
Yes, two, O God, who cried to Thee,
Though nothing didst Thou say.
Coldly Thou sat'st behind the sun!
And now I cry who am but one,
How wilt Thou speak to-day?--
XIV.
We were black, we were black!
We had no claim to love and bliss:
What marvel, if each turned to lack?
They wrung my cold hands out of his,--
They dragged him . . . where ? . . . I crawled to touch
His blood's mark in the dust! . . . not much,
Ye pilgrim-souls, . . . though plain as this!
XV.
Wrong, followed by a deeper wrong!
Mere grief's too good for such as I.
So the white men brought the shame ere long
To strangle the sob of my agony.
They would not leave me for my dull
Wet eyes!--it was too merciful
To let me weep pure tears and die.
XVI.
I am black, I am black!--
I wore a child upon my breast
An amulet that hung too slack,
And, in my unrest, could not rest:
Thus we went moaning, child and mother,
One to another, one to another,
Until all ended for the best:
XVII.
For hark ! I will tell you low . . . Iow . . .
I am black, you see,--
And the babe who lay on my bosom so,
Was far too white . . . too white for me;
As white as the ladies who scorned to pray
Beside me at church but yesterday;
Though my tears had washed a place for my knee.
XVIII.
My own, own child! I could not bear
To look in his face, it was so white.
I covered him up with a kerchief there;
I covered his face in close and tight:
And he moaned and struggled, as well might be,
For the white child wanted his liberty--
Ha, ha! he wanted his master right.
XIX.
He moaned and beat with his head and feet,
His little feet that never grew--
He struck them out, as it was meet,
Against my heart to break it through.
I might have sung and made him mild--
But I dared not sing to the white-faced child
The only song I knew.
XX.
I pulled the kerchief very close:
He could not see the sun, I swear,
More, then, alive, than now he does
From between the roots of the mango . . . where
. . . I know where. Close! a child and mother
Do wrong to look at one another,
When one is black and one is fair.
XXI.
Why, in that single glance I had
Of my child's face, . . . I tell you all,
I saw a look that made me mad . . .
The master's look, that used to fall
On my soul like his lash . . . or worse!
And so, to save it from my curse,
I twisted it round in my shawl.
XXII.
And he moaned and trembled from foot to head,
He shivered from head to foot;
Till, after a time, he lay instead
Too suddenly still and mute.
I felt, beside, a stiffening cold, . . .
I dared to lift up just a fold . . .
As in lifting a leaf of the mango-fruit.
XXIII.
But my fruit . . . ha, ha!--there, had been
(I laugh to think on't at this hour! . . .)
Your fine white angels, who have seen
Nearest the secret of God's power, . . .
And plucked my fruit to make them wine,
And sucked the soul of that child of mine,
As the humming-bird sucks the soul of the flower.
XXIV.
Ha, ha, for the trick of the angels white!
They freed the white child's spirit so.
I said not a word, but, day and night,
I carried the body to and fro;
And it lay on my heart like a stone . . . as chill.
--The sun may shine out as much as he will:
I am cold, though it happened a month ago.
XXV.
From the white man's house, and the black man's hut,
I carried the little body on,
The forest's arms did round us shut,
And silence through the trees did run:
They asked no question as I went,--
They stood too high for astonishment,--
They could see God sit on His throne.
XXVI.
My little body, kerchiefed fast,
I bore it on through the forest . . . on:
And when I felt it was tired at last,
I scooped a hole beneath the moon.
Through the forest-tops the angels far,
With a white sharp finger from every star,
Did point and mock at what was done.
XXVII.
Yet when it was all done aright, . . .
Earth, 'twixt me and my baby, strewed,
All, changed to black earth, . . . nothing white, . . .
A dark child in the dark,--ensued
Some comfort, and my heart grew young:
I sate down smiling there and sung
The song I learnt in my maidenhood.
XXVIII.
And thus we two were reconciled,
The white child and black mother, thus:
For, as I sang it, soft and wild
The same song, more melodious,
Rose from the grave whereon I sate!
It was the dead child singing that,
To join the souls of both of us.
XXIX.
I look on the sea and the sky!
Where the pilgrims' ships first anchored lay,
The free sun rideth gloriously;
But the pilgrim-ghosts have slid away
Through the earliest streaks of the morn.
My face is black, but it glares with a scorn
Which they dare not meet by day.
XXX.
Ah!--in their 'stead, their hunter sons!
Ah, ah! they are on me--they hunt in a ring--
Keep off! I brave you all at once--
I throw off your eyes like snakes that sting!
You have killed the black eagle at nest, I think:
Did you never stand still in your triumph, and shrink
From the stroke of her wounded wing?
XXXI.
(Man, drop that stone you dared to lift!--)
I wish you, who stand there five a-breast,
Each, for his own wife's joy and gift,
A little corpse as safely at rest
As mine in the mangos!--Yes, but she
May keep live babies on her knee,
And sing the song she liketh best.
XXXll.
I am not mad: I am black.
I see you staring in my face--
I know you, staring, shrinking back--
Ye are born of the Washington-race:
And this land is the free America:
And this mark on my wrist . . . (I prove what I say)
Ropes tied me up here to the flogging-place.
XXXIII.
You think I shrieked then? Not a sound!
I hung, as a gourd hangs in the sun.
I only cursed them all around,
As softly as I might have done
My very own child!--From these sands
Up to the mountains, lift your hands,
O slaves, and end what I begun!
XXXIV.
Whips, curses; these must answer those!
For in this UNION, you have set
Two kinds of men in adverse rows,
Each loathing each: and all forget
The seven wounds in Christ's body fair;
While HE sees gaping everywhere
Our countless wounds that pay no debt.
XXXV.
Our wounds are different. Your white men
Are, after all, not gods indeed,
Nor able to make Christs again
Do good with bleeding. We who bleed . . .
(Stand off!) we help not in our loss!
We are too heavy for our cross,
And fall and crush you and your seed.
XXXVI.
I fall, I swoon! I look at the sky:
The clouds are breaking on my brain;
I am floated along, as if I should die
Of liberty's exquisite pain--
In the name of the white child, waiting for me
In the death-dark where we may kiss and agree,
White men, I leave you all curse-free
In my broken heart's disdain!
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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Thorgerda
LO, what a golden day it is!
The glad sun rives the sapphire deeps
Down to the dim pearl-floor’d abyss
Where, cold in death, my lover sleeps;
Crowns with soft fire his sea-drench’d hair,
Kisses with gold his lips death-pale,
Lets down from heaven a golden stair,
Whose steps methinks his soul doth scale.
This is my treasure. White and sweet,
He lies beneath my ardent eyne,
With heart that nevermore shall beat,
Nor lips press softly against mine.
How like a dream it seems to me,
The time when hand in hand we went
By hill and valley, I and he,
Lost in a trance of ravishment!
I and my lover here that lies
And sleeps the everlasting sleep,
We walk’d whilere in Paradise;
(Can it be true?) Our souls drank deep
Together of Love’s wonder-wine:
We saw the golden days go by,
Unheeding, for we were divine;
Love had advanced us to the sky.
And of that time no traces bin,
Save the still shape that once did hold
My lover’s soul, that shone therein,
As wine laughs in a vase of gold.
Cold, cold he lies, and answers not
Unto my speech; his mouth is cold
Whose kiss to mine was sweet and hot
As sunshine to a marigold.
And yet his pallid lips I press;
I fold his neck in my embrace;
I rain down kisses none the less
Upon his unresponsive face:
I call on him with all the fair
Flower-names that blossom out of love;
I knit sea-jewels in his hair;
I weave fair coronals above
The cold, sweet silver of his brow:
For this is all of him I have;
Nor any Future more than now
Shall give me back what Love once gave.
For from Death’s gate our lives divide;
His was the Galilean’s faith:
With those that serve the Crucified,
He shar’d the chance of Life and Death.
And so my eyes shall never light
Upon his star-soft eyes again;
Nor ever in the day or night,
By hill or valley, wood or plain,
Our hands shall meet afresh. His voice
Shall never with its silver tone
The sadness of my soul rejoice,
Nor his breast throb against my own.
His sight shall never unto me
Return whilst heaven and earth remain:
Though Time blend with Eternity,
Our lives shall never meet again,—
Never by gray or purple sea,
Never again in heavens of blue,
Never in this old earth—ah me!
Never, ah never! in the new.
For me, he treads the windless ways
Among the thick star-diamonds,
Where in the middle æther blaze
The Golden City’s pearl gate-fronds;
Sitteth, palm-crown’d and silver-shod,
Where in strange dwellings of the skies
The Christians to their Woman-God
Cease nevermore from psalmodies.
And I, I wait, with haggard eyes
And face grown awful for desire,
The coming of that fierce day’s rise
When from the cities of the fire
The Wolf shall come with blazing crest,
And many a giant arm’d for war;
When from the sanguine-streaming West,
Hell-flaming, speedeth Naglfar.
poem by John Howard Payne
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Christmas Antiphones
I -- In Church
Thou whose birth on earth
Angels sang to men,
While thy stars made mirth,
Saviour, at thy birth,
This day born again;
As this night was bright
With thy cradle-ray,
Very light of light,
Turn the wild world's night
To thy perfect day.
God whose feet made sweet
Those wild ways they trod,
From thy fragrant feet
Staining field and street
With the blood of God;
God whose breast is rest
In the time of strife,
In thy secret breast
Sheltering souls opprest
From the heat of life;
God whose eyes are skies
Love-lit as with spheres
By the lights that rise
To thy watching eyes,
Orbed lights of tears;
God whose heart hath part
In all grief that is,
Was not man's the dart
That went through thine heart,
And the wound not his?
Where the pale souls wail,
Held in bonds of death,
Where all spirits quail,
Came thy Godhead pale
Still from human breath -
Pale from life and strife,
Wan with manhood, came
Forth of mortal life,
Pierced as with a knife,
Scarred as with a flame.
Thou the Word and Lord
In all time and space
Heard, beheld, adored,
With all ages poured
Forth before thy face,
Lord, what worth in earth
Drew thee down to die?
What therein was worth,
Lord, thy death and birth?
What beneath thy sky?
Light above all love
By thy love was lit,
And brought down the Dove
Feathered from above
With the wings of it.
From the height of night,
Was not thine the star
That led forth with might
By no worldly light
Wise men from afar?
Yet the wise men's eyes
Saw thee not more clear
Than they saw thee rise
Who in shepherd's guise
Drew as poor men near.
Yet thy poor endure,
And are with us yet;
Be thy name a sure
Refuge for thy poor
Whom men's eyes forget.
Thou whose ways we praised,
Clear alike and dark,
Keep our works and ways
This and all thy days
Safe inside thine ark.
Who shall keep thy sheep,
Lord, and lose not one?
Who save one shall keep,
Lest the shepherds sleep?
Who beside the Son?
From the grave-deep wave,
From the sword and flame,
Thou, even thou, shalt save
Souls of king and slave
Only by thy Name.
Light not born with morn
Or her fires above,
Jesus virgin-born,
Held of men in scorn,
Turn their scorn to love.
Thou whose face gives grace
As the sun's doth heat,
Let thy sunbright face
Lighten time and space
Here beneath thy feet.
Bid our peace increase,
Thou that madest morn;
Bid oppressions cease;
Bid the night be peace;
Bid the day be born.
II--OUTSIDE CHURCH
We whose days and ways
All the night makes dark,
What day shall we praise
Of these weary days
That our life-drops mark?
We whose mind is blind,
Fed with hope of nought;
Wastes of worn mankind,
Without heart or mind,
Without meat or thought;
We with strife of life
Worn till all life cease,
Want, a whetted knife,
Sharpening strife on strife,
How should we love peace?
Ye whose meat is sweet
And your wine-cup red,
Us beneath your feet
Hunger grinds as wheat,
Grinds to make you bread.
Ye whose night is bright
With soft rest and heat,
Clothed like day with light,
Us the naked night
Slays from street to street.
Hath your God no rod,
That ye tread so light?
Man on us as God,
God as man hath trod,
Trod us down with might.
We that one by one
Bleed from either's rod.
What for us hath done
Man beneath the sun,
What for us hath God?
We whose blood is food
Given your wealth to feed,
From the Christless rood
Red with no God's blood,
But with man's indeed;
How shall we that see
Nightlong overhead
Life, the flowerless tree,
Nailed whereon as we
Were our fathers dead -
We whose ear can hear,
Not whose tongue can name,
Famine, ignorance, fear,
Bleeding tear by tear
Year by year of shame,
Till the dry life die
Out of bloodless breast,
Out of beamless eye,
Out of mouths that cry
Till death feed with rest -
How shall we as ye,
Though ye bid us, pray?
Though ye call, can we
Hear you call, or see,
Though ye show us day?
We whose name is shame,
We whose souls walk bare,
Shall we call the same
God as ye by name,
Teach our lips your prayer?
God, forgive and give,
For His sake who died?
Nay, for ours who live,
How shall we forgive
Thee, then, on our side?
We whose right to light
Heaven's high noon denies,
Whom the blind beams smite
That for you shine bright,
And but burn our eyes,
With what dreams of beams
Shall we build up day,
At what sourceless streams
Seek to drink in dreams
Ere they pass away?
In what street shall meet,
At what market-place,
Your feet and our feet,
With one goal to greet,
Having run one race?
What one hope shall ope
For us all as one
One same horoscope,
Where the soul sees hope
That outburns the sun?
At what shrine what wine,
At what board what bread,
Salt as blood or brine,
Shall we share in sign
How we poor were fed?
In what hour what power
Shall we pray for morn,
If your perfect hour,
When all day bears flower,
Not for us is born?
III--BEYOND CHURCH
Ye that weep in sleep,
Souls and bodies bound,
Ye that all night keep
Watch for change, and weep
That no change is found;
Ye that cry and die,
And the world goes on
Without ear or eye,
And the days go by
Till all days are gone;
Man shall do for you,
Men the sons of man,
What no God would do
That they sought unto
While the blind years ran.
Brotherhood of good,
Equal laws and rights,
Freedom, whose sweet food
Feeds the multitude
All their days and nights
With the bread full-fed
Of her body blest
And the soul's wine shed
From her table spread
Where the world is guest,
Mingling me and thee,
When like light of eyes
Flashed through thee and me
Truth shall make us free,
Liberty make wise;
These are they whom day
Follows and gives light
Whence they see to slay
Night, and burn away
All the seed of night.
What of thine and mine,
What of want and wealth,
When one faith is wine
For my heart and thine
And one draught is health?
For no sect elect
Is the soul's wine poured
And her table decked;
Whom should man reject
From man's common board?
Gods refuse and choose,
Grudge and sell and spare;
None shall man refuse,
None of all men lose,
None leave out of care.
No man's might of sight
Knows that hour before;
No man's hand hath might
To put back that light
For one hour the more.
Not though all men call,
Kneeling with void hands,
Shall they see light fall
Till it come for all
Tribes of men and lands.
No desire brings fire
Down from heaven by prayer,
Though man's vain desire
Hang faith's wind-struck lyre
Out in tuneless air.
One hath breath and saith
What the tune shall be -
Time, who puts his breath
Into life and death,
Into earth and sea.
To and fro years flow,
Fill their tides and ebb,
As his fingers go
Weaving to and fro
One unfinished web.
All the range of change
Hath its bounds therein,
All the lives that range
All the byways strange
Named of death or sin.
Star from far to star
Speaks, and white moons wake,
Watchful from afar
What the night's ways are
For the morning's sake.
Many names and flames
Pass and flash and fall,
Night-begotten names,
And the night reclaims,
As she bare them, all.
But the sun is one,
And the sun's name Right;
And when light is none
Saving of the sun,
All men shall have light.
All shall see and be
Parcel of the morn;
Ay, though blind were we,
None shall choose but see
When that day is born.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Robert Buchanan
’T WAS the body of Judas Iscariot
Lay in the Field of Blood;
’T was the soul of Judas Iscariot
Beside the body stood.
Black was the earth by night
And black was the sky;
Black, black were the broken clouds,
Tho’ the red Moon went by.
’T was the body of Judas Iscariot
Strangled and dead lay there;
’T was the soul of Judas Iscariot
Look’d on it in despair.
The breath of the World came and went
Like a sick man’s in rest;
Drop by drop on the World’s eyes
The dews fell cool and blest.
Then the soul of Judas Iscariot
Did make a gentle moan—
“I will bury underneath the ground
My flesh and blood and bone.
“I will bury deep beneath the soil,
Lest mortals look thereon,
And when the wolf and raven come
The body will be gone!
“The stones of the field are sharp as steel,
And hard and bold, God wot;
And I must bear my body hence
Until I find a spot!”
’T was the soul of Judas Iscariot
So grim, and gaunt, and gray,
Rais’d the body of Judas Iscariot,
And carried it away.
And as he bare it from the field
Its touch was cold as ice,
And the ivory teeth within the jaw
Rattled aloud, like dice.
As the soul of Judas Iscariot
Carried its load with pain,
The Eye of Heaven, like a lanthorn’s eye,
Open’d and shut again.
Half he walk’d, and half he seem’d
Lifted on the cold wind;
He did not turn, for chilly hands
Were pushing from behind.
The first place that he came unto
It was the open wold,
And underneath were prickly whins,
And a wind that blew so cold.
The next place that he came unto
It was a stagnant pool,
And when he threw the body in
It floated light as wool.
He drew the body on his back,
And it was dripping chill,
And the next place that he came unto
Was a Cross upon a hill.
A Cross upon the windy hill,
And a Cross on either side,
Three skeletons that swing thereon,
Who had been crucified.
And on the middle crossbar sat
A white Dove slumbering;
Dim it sat in the dim light,
With its head beneath its wing.
And underneath the middle Cross
A grave yawn’d wide and vast,
But the soul of Judas Iscariot
Shiver’d, and glided past.
The fourth place that he came unto
It was the Brig of Dread,
And the great torrents rushing down
Were deep, and swift, and red.
He dar’d not fling the body in
For fear of faces dim,
And arms were wav’d in the wild water
To thrust it back to him.
’T was the soul of Judas Iscariot
Turn’d from the Brig of Dread,
And the dreadful foam of the wild water
Had splash’d the body red.
For days and nights he wander’d on
Upon an open plain,
And the days went by like blinding mist,
And the nights like rushing rain.
For days and nights he wander’d on,
All thro’ the Wood of Woe;
And the nights went by like moaning wind,
And the days like drifting snow.
’T was the soul of Judas Iscariot
Came with a weary face—
Alone, alone, and all alone,
Alone in a lonely place!
He wander’d east, he wander’d west,
And heard no human sound;
For months and years, in grief and tears,
He wander’d round and round.
For months and years, in grief and tears,
He walk’d the silent night;
Then the soul of Judas Iscariot
Perceiv’d a far-off light.
A far-off light across the waste,
As dim as dim might be,
That came and went like a lighthouse gleam
On a black night at sea.
’T was the soul of Judas Iscariot
Crawl’d to the distant gleam;
And the rain came down, and the rain was blown
Against him with a scream.
For days and nights he wander’d on,
Push’d on by hands behind;
And the days went by like black, black rain,
And the nights like rushing wind.
’T was the soul of Judas Iscariot,
Strange, and sad, and tall,
Stood all alone at dead of night
Before a lighted hall.
And the wold was white with snow,
And his footmarks black and damp,
And the ghost of the silver Moon arose,
Holding her yellow lamp.
And the icicles were on the eaves,
And the walls were deep with white,
And the shadows of the guests within
Pass’d on the window light.
The shadows of the wedding guests
Did strangely come and go,
And the body of Judas Iscariot
Lay stretch’d along the snow.
The body of Judas Iscariot
Lay stretch’d along the snow;
’T was the soul of Judas Iscariot
Ran swiftly to and fro.
To and fro, and up and down,
He ran so swiftly there,
As round and round the frozen Pole
Glideth the lean white bear.
’T was the Bridegroom sat at the tablehead,
And the lights burn’d bright and clear—
“Oh, who is that,” the Bridegroom said,
“Whose weary feet I hear?”
’T was one look’d from the lighted hall,
And answer’d soft and slow,
“It is a wolf runs up and down
With a black track in the snow.”
The Bridegroom in his robe of white
Sat at the tablehead—
“Oh, who is that who moans without?”
The blessed Bridegroom said.
’T was one look’d from the lighted hall,
And answer’d fierce and low,
“’T is the soul of Judas Iscariot
Gliding to and fro.”
’T was the soul of Judas Iscariot
Did hush itself and stand,
And saw the Bridegroom at the door
With a light in his hand.
The Bridegroom stood in the open door,
And he was clad in white,
And far within the Lord’s Supper
Was spread so long and bright.
The Bridegroom shaded his eyes and look’d,
And his face was bright to see—
“What dost thou here at the Lord’s Supper
With thy body’s sins?” said he.
’T was the soul of Judas Iscariot
Stood black, and sad, and bare—
“I have wander’d many nights and days;
There is no light elsewhere.”
’T was the wedding guests cried out within,
And their eyes were fierce and bright—
“Scourge the soul of Judas Iscariot
Away into the night!”
The Bridegroom stood in the open door,
And he wav’d hands still and slow,
And the third time that he wav’d his hands
The air was thick with snow.
And of every flake of falling snow,
Before it touch’d the ground,
There came a dove, and a thousand doves
Made sweet sound.
’T was the body of Judas Iscariot
Floated away full fleet,
And the wings of the doves that bare it off
Were like its winding-sheet.
’T was the Bridegroom stood at the open door,
And beckon’d, smiling sweet;
’T was the soul of Judas Iscariot
Stole in, and fell at his feet.
“The Holy Supper is spread within,
And the many candles shine,
And I have waited long for thee
Before I pour’d the wine!”
The supper wine is pour’d at last,
The lights burn bright and fair,
Iscariot washes the Bridegroom’s feet,
And dries them with his hair.
poem by William Cosmo Monkhouse
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Sword
THE FORGING OF THE SWORD.
At the forging of the Sword--
The mountain roots were stirr'd,
Like the heart-beats of a bird;
Like flax the tall trees wav'd,
So fiercely struck the Forgers of the Sword.
At the forging of the Sword--
So loud the hammers fell,
The thrice seal'd gates of Hell,
Burst wide their glowing jaws;
Deep roaring, at the forging of the Sword.
At the forging of the Sword--
Kind mother Earth was rent,
Like an Arab's dusky tent,
And monster-like she fed--
On her children; at the forging of the Sword.
At the forging of the Sword--
So loud the blows they gave,
Up sprang the panting wave;
And blind and furious slew,
Shrill-shouting to the Forgers of the Sword.
At the forging of the Sword--
The startled air swift whirl'd
The red flames round the world,
From the Anvil where was smitten,
The steel, the Forgers wrought into the Sword.
At the forging of the Sword--
The Maid and Matron fled,
And hid them with the dead;
Fierce prophets sang their doom,
More deadly, than the wounding of the Sword.
At the forging of the Sword--
Swift leap'd the quiet hearts,
In the meadows and the marts;
The tides of men were drawn,
By the gleaming sickle-planet of the Sword!
* * * * *
Thus wert thou forged, O lissome sword;
On such dusk anvil wert thou wrought;
In such red flames thy metal fused!
From such deep hells that metal brought;
O sword, dread lord, thou speak'st no word,
But dumbly rul'st, king and lord!
Less than the Gods by some small span,
Slim sword, how great thy lieges be!
Glint but in _one_ wild camp-fire's light,
Thy God-like vassals rush to thee.
O sword, dread lord, thou speak'st no word,
But dumbly rul'st, king and lord!
Sharp, God, how vast thy altars be!
Green vallies, sacrificial cups,
Flow with the purple lees of blood;
Its smoke is round the mountain tops.
O sword, dread lord, thou speak'st no word,
But dumbly rul'st, king and lord!
O amorous God, fierce lover thou!
Bright sultan of a million brides,
Thou know'st no rival to _thy_ kiss,
Thy loves are _thine_ whate're betides,
O sword, dread lord, thou speak'st no word,
But dumbly rul'st, king and lord.
Unflesh thee, sword! No more, no more,
Thy steel no more shall sting and shine,
Pass thro' the fusing fires again;
And learn to prune the laughing vine.
Fall sword, dread lord, with one accord,
The plough and hook we'll own as lord!
poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
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Malcolm's Katie: A Love Story - Part IV.
From his far wigwam sprang the strong North Wind
And rush'd with war-cry down the steep ravines,
And wrestl'd with the giants of the woods;
And with his ice-club beat the swelling crests.
Of the deep watercourses into death,
And with his chill foot froze the whirling leaves
Of dun and gold and fire in icy banks;
And smote the tall reeds to the harden'd earth;
And sent his whistling arrows o'er the plains,
Scatt'ring the ling'ring herds--and sudden paus'd
When he had frozen all the running streams,
And hunted with his war-cry all the things
That breath'd about the woods, or roam'd the bleak
Bare prairies swelling to the mournful sky.
'White squaw,' he shouted, troubl'd in his soul,
'I slew the dead, wrestl'd with naked chiefs
'Unplum'd before, scalped of their leafy plumes;
'I bound sick rivers in cold thongs of death,
'And shot my arrows over swooning plains,
'Bright with the Paint of death--and lean and bare.
'And all the braves of my loud tribe will mock
'And point at me--when our great chief, the Sun,
'Relights his Council fire in the moon
'Of Budding Leaves.' 'Ugh, ugh! he is a brave!
'He fights with squaws and takes the scalps of babes!
'And the least wind will blow his calumet--
'Fill'd with the breath of smallest flow'rs--across
'The warpaint on my face, and pointing with
'His small, bright pipe, that never moved a spear
'Of bearded rice, cry, 'Ugh! he slays the dead!'
'O, my white squaw, come from thy wigwam grey,
'Spread thy white blanket on the twice-slain dead;
'And hide them, ere the waking of the Sun!'
* * * * *
High grew the snow beneath the low-hung sky,
And all was silent in the Wilderness;
In trance of stillness Nature heard her God
Rebuilding her spent fires, and veil'd her face
While the Great Worker brooded o'er His work.
* * * * *
'Bite deep and wide, O Axe, the tree,
What doth thy bold voice promise me?'
* * * * *
'I promise thee all joyous things,
That furnish forth the lives of kings!
* * * * *
'For ev'ry silver ringing blow,
Cities and palaces shall grow!'
* * * * *
'Bite deep and wide, O Axe, the tree,
Tell wider prophecies to me.'
* * * * *
'When rust hath gnaw'd me deep and red;
A nation strong shall lift his head!
* * * * *
'His crown the very Heav'ns shall smite,
Aeons shall build him in his might!'
* * * * *
'Bite deep and wide, O Axe, the tree;
Bright Seer, help on thy prophecy!'
* * * * *
Max smote the snow-weigh'd tree and lightly laugh'd.
'See, friend,' he cried to one that look'd and smil'd,
'My axe and I--we do immortal tasks--
We build up nations--this my axe and I!'
'O,' said the other with a cold, short smile,
'Nations are not immortal! is there now
'One nation thron'd upon the sphere of earth,
'That walk'd with the first Gods, and saw
'The budding world unfold its slow-leav'd flow'r?
'Nay; it is hardly theirs to leave behind
'Ruins so eloquent, that the hoary sage
'Can lay his hand upon their stones, and say:
''These once were thrones!' The lean, lank lion peals
'His midnight thunders over lone, red plains,
'Long-ridg'd and crested on their dusty waves,
'With fires from moons red-hearted as the sun;
'And deep re-thunders all the earth to him.
'For, far beneath the flame-fleck'd, shifting sands,
'Below the roots of palms, and under stones
'Of younger ruins, thrones, tow'rs and cities
'Honeycomb the earth. The high, solemn walls
'Of hoary ruins--their foundings all unknown
'(But to the round-ey'd worlds that walk
'In the blank paths of Space and blanker Chance).
'At whose stones young mountains wonder, and the seas'
'New-silv'ring, deep-set valleys pause and gaze;
'Are rear'd upon old shrines, whose very Gods
'Were dreams to the shrine-builders, of a time
'They caught in far-off flashes--as the child
'Half thinks he can remember how one came
'And took him in her hand and shew'd him that
'He thinks, she call'd the sun. Proud ships rear high
'On ancient billows that have torn the roots
'Of cliffs, and bitten at the golden lips
'Of firm, sleek beaches, till they conquer'd all,
'And sow'd the reeling earth with salted waves.
'Wrecks plunge, prow foremost, down still, solemn slopes,
'And bring their dead crews to as dead a quay;
'Some city built before that ocean grew,
'By silver drops from many a floating cloud,
'By icebergs bellowing in their throes of death,
'By lesser seas toss'd from their rocking cups,
'And leaping each to each; by dew-drops flung
'From painted sprays, whose weird leaves and flow'rs
'Are moulded for new dwellers on the earth,
'Printed in hearts of mountains and of mines.
'Nations immortal? where the well-trimm'd lamps
'Of long-past ages, when Time seem'd to pause
'On smooth, dust-blotted graves that, like the tombs
'Of monarchs, held dead bones and sparkling gems?
'She saw no glimmer on the hideous ring
'Of the black clouds; no stream of sharp, clear light
'From those great torches, pass'd into the black
'Of deep oblivion. She seem'd to watch, but she
'Forgot her long-dead nations. When she stirr'd
'Her vast limbs in the dawn that forc'd its fire
'Up the black East, and saw the imperious red
'Burst over virgin dews and budding flow'rs,
'She still forgot her molder'd thrones and kings,
'Her sages and their torches, and their Gods,
'And said, 'This is my birth--my primal day!'
'She dream'd new Gods, and rear'd them other shrines,
'Planted young nations, smote a feeble flame
'From sunless flint, re-lit the torch of mind;
'Again she hung her cities on the hills,
'Built her rich towers, crown'd her kings again,
'And with the sunlight on her awful wings
'Swept round the flow'ry cestus of the earth,
'And said, 'I build for Immortality!'
'Her vast hand rear'd her tow'rs, her shrines, her thrones;
'The ceaseless sweep of her tremendous wings
'Still beat them down and swept their dust abroad;
'Her iron finger wrote on mountain sides
'Her deeds and prowess--and her own soft plume
'Wore down the hills! Again drew darkly on
'A night of deep forgetfulness; once more
'Time seem'd to pause upon forgotten graves--
'Once more a young dawn stole into her eyes--
'Again her broad wings stirr'd, and fresh clear airs,
'Blew the great clouds apart;--again Time said,
''This is my birth--my deeds and handiwork
''Shall be immortal.' Thus and so dream on
'Fool'd nations, and thus dream their dullard sons.
'Naught is immortal save immortal--Death!'
Max paus'd and smil'd: 'O, preach such gospel, friend,
'To all but lovers who most truly love;
'For _them_, their gold-wrought scripture glibly reads
'All else is mortal but immortal--Love!'
'Fools! fools!' his friend said, 'most immortal fools!--
'But pardon, pardon, for, perchance, you love?'
'Yes,' said Max, proudly smiling, 'thus do I
'Possess the world and feel eternity!'
Dark laughter blacken'd in the other's eyes:
'Eternity! why, did such Iris arch
'Ent'ring our worm-bored planet, never liv'd
'One woman true enough such tryst to keep!'
'I'd swear by Kate,' said Max; 'and then, I had
'A mother, and my father swore by her.'
'By Kate? Ah, that were lusty oath, indeed!
'Some other man will look into her eyes,
'And swear me roundly, 'By true Catherine!'
'And Troilus swore by Cressed--so they say.'
'You never knew my Kate,' said Max, and pois'd
His axe again on high, 'But let it pass--
'You are too subtle for me; argument
'Have I none to oppose yours with--but this,
'Get you a Kate, and let her sunny eyes
'Dispel the doubting darkness in your soul.'
'And have not I a Kate? pause, friend, and see.
'She gave me this faint shadow of herself
'The day I slipp'd the watch-star of our loves--
'A ring--upon her hand--she loves me, too;
'Yet tho' her eyes be suns, no Gods are they
'To give me worlds, or make me feel a tide
'Of strong Eternity set towards my soul;
'And tho' she loves me, yet am I content
'To know she loves me by the hour--the year--
'Perchance the second--as all women love.'
The bright axe falter'd in the air, and ripp'd
Down the rough bark, and bit the drifted snow,
For Max's arm fell, wither'd in its strength,
'Long by his side. 'Your Kate,' he said; 'your Kate!'
'Yes, mine, while holds her mind that way, my Kate;
'I sav'd her life, and had her love for thanks;
'Her father is Malcolm Graem--Max, my friend,
'You pale! what sickness seizes on your soul?'
Max laugh'd, and swung his bright axe high again:
'Stand back a pace--a too far reaching blow
'Might level your false head with yon prone trunk--
'Stand back and listen while I say, 'You lie!
'That is my Katie's face upon your breast,
'But 'tis my Katie's love lives in my breast--
'Stand back, I say! my axe is heavy, and
'Might chance to cleave a liar's brittle skull.
'Your Kate! your Kate! your Kate!--hark, how the woods
'Mock at your lie with all their woody tongues,
'O, silence, ye false echoes! not his Kate
'But mine--I'm certain I will have your life!'
All the blue heav'n was dead in Max's eyes;
Doubt-wounded lay Kate's image in his heart,
And could not rise to pluck the sharp spear out.
'Well, strike, mad fool,' said Alfred, somewhat pale;
'I have no weapon but these naked hands.'
'Aye, but,' said Max, 'you smote my naked heart!
'O shall I slay him?--Satan, answer me--
'I cannot call on God for answer here.
'O Kate--!'
A voice from God came thro' the silent woods
And answer'd him--for suddenly a wind
Caught the great tree-tops, coned with high-pil'd snow,
And smote them to and fro, while all the air
Was sudden fill'd with busy drifts, and high
White pillars whirl'd amid the naked trunks,
And harsh, loud groans, and smiting, sapless boughs
Made hellish clamour in the quiet place.
With a shrill shriek of tearing fibres, rock'd
The half-hewn tree above his fated head;
And, tott'ring, asked the sudden blast, 'Which way?'
And, answ'ring its windy arms, crash'd and broke
Thro' other lacing boughs, with one loud roar
Of woody thunder; all its pointed boughs
Pierc'd the deep snow--its round and mighty corpse,
Bark-flay'd and shudd'ring, quiver'd into death.
And Max--as some frail, wither'd reed, the sharp
And piercing branches caught at him,
As hands in a death-throe, and beat him to the earth--
And the dead tree upon its slayer lay.
'Yet hear we much of Gods;--if such there be,
'They play at games of chance with thunderbolts,'
Said Alfred, 'else on me this doom had come.
'This seals my faith in deep and dark unfaith!
'Now Katie, are you mine, for Max is dead--
'Or will be soon, imprison'd by those boughs,
'Wounded and torn, sooth'd by the deadly palms
'Of the white, trait'rous frost; and buried then
'Under the snows that fill those vast, grey clouds,
'Low-sweeping on the fretted forest roof.
'And Katie shall believe you false--not dead;
'False, false!--And I? O, she shall find me true--
'True as a fabl'd devil to the soul
'He longs for with the heat of all hell's fires.
'These myths serve well for simile, I see.
'And yet--Down, Pity! knock not at my breast,
'Nor grope about for that dull stone my heart;
'I'll stone thee with it, Pity! Get thee hence,
'Pity, I'll strangle thee with naked hands;
'For thou dost bear upon thy downy breast
'Remorse, shap'd like a serpent, and her fangs
'Might dart at me and pierce my marrow thro'.
'Hence, beggar, hence--and keep with fools, I say!
'He bleeds and groans! Well, Max, thy God or mine
'Blind Chance, here play'd the butcher--'twas not I.
'Down, hands! ye shall not lift his fall'n head;
'What cords tug at ye? What? Ye'd pluck him up
'And staunch his wounds? There rises in my breast
'A strange, strong giant, throwing wide his arms
'And bursting all the granite of my heart!
'How like to quiv'ring flesh a stone may feel!
'Why, it has pangs! I'll none of them. I know
'Life is too short for anguish and for hearts--
'So I wrestle with thee, giant! and my will
'Turns the thumb, and thou shalt take the knife.
'Well done! I'll turn thee on the arena dust,
'And look on thee--What? thou wert Pity's self,
'Stol'n in my breast; and I have slaughter'd thee--
'But hist--where hast thou hidden thy fell snake,
'Fire-fang'd Remorse? Not in my breast, I know,
'For all again is chill and empty there,
'And hard and cold--the granite knitted up.
'So lie there, Max--poor fond and simple Max,
''Tis well thou diest: earth's children should not call
'Such as thee father--let them ever be
'Father'd by rogues and villains, fit to cope
'With the foul dragon Chance, and the black knaves
'Who swarm'd in loathsome masses in the dust.
'True Max, lie there, and slumber into death.'
* * * * *
poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
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A Season of Wine and Roses
Remember when the wine was red,
and the rose was red, as well ~
and how the two were wed as one,
when the sunlight softly fell.
The pinkened kiss, the gentle blush,
beneath a soft, green canopy ~
and wine flowed there beside the rose,
'til sunlight set on autumn's eve.
And there within the autumn's breath,
came an orange and golden kiss ~
that found the wine and lovely rose,
beguiled by summer's bliss...
remembering when the wine was sweet,
and the rose was a budding bloom ~
and velvet was the reddened wine,
when the red rose danced in June.
Thinly brown, with winter's death,
the vine and thorn entwine ~
and wait impatiently for spring,
when, once more, a life they'll find.
And now upon the chilling wind,
there's a whisper that gently fell ~
'Remember when the wine was red,
and the rose was red, as well'...
poem by Hazelmarie Elliott
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This Bread I Break
This bread I break was once the oat,
This wine upon a foreign tree
Plunged in its fruit;
Man in the day or wine at night
Laid the crops low, broke the grape's joy.
Once in this time wine the summer blood
Knocked in the flesh that decked the vine,
Once in this bread
The oat was merry in the wind;
Man broke the sun, pulled the wind down.
This flesh you break, this blood you let
Make desolation in the vein,
Were oat and grape
Born of the sensual root and sap;
My wine you drink, my bread you snap.
poem by Dylan Thomas
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