So pleased was I with what I"d seen him do, The test of skill superfluous seemed and so Was on the bare brink of announcement, when, Out of the evening heaven"s hardening red, Like a white warning loosed for augury, A word of G.o.d some fallen angel prized As his last all of heaven, penitent, h.e.l.l-freed, sent minister to save a soul, A wild dove clove the luminous winds and there, A wafted waif, pruned settled on a bough: Then I, "Thy weapon, Rudolph, pierce its head!"
Cried pointing, "And chief-forester art thou!"
Pale as a mist and wavering he turned; "I had a dream--" then faltered as he aimed, "A woman"s whim!" But starting from the press Screamed Ilsabe, "My dove!" to plead its life Came--cracked the rifle and untouched the dove Rose beating l.u.s.trous wings, but Ilsabe-- "G.o.d"s wrath! the sight!"--fell smitten, and the blood Sprang red from shattered brow and silent hair-- That bullet strangely thro" her brow and brain....
And what of Rudolf? ah! of him you ask?
That proud Franconian who would scoff at Fate And scorn all state; who cried black Satan friend Sooner than our white Christ;--why, he went mad O" the moment, and into the haunted Harz Fled, an unholy thing, and perished there The prey of demons of the Dummburg. But I one of few less superst.i.tious who Say, as the finale of a madman"s deed, He in the Bode, from that ragged rock, The Devil"s Dancing Place, did leap and die.
TO REVERY.
What ogive gates from gold of Ophir wrought, What walls of bastioned Parian, lucid rose, What marts of crystal, for the eyes of Thought Hast builded on what Islands of Repose!
Vague onyx columns ranked Corinthian, Or piled Ionic, colonnading heights That loom above long burst of mythic seas: Vast gynaeceums of carnelian; Micaceous temples, far marmorean flights, Where winds the arabesque and plastique frieze.
Where bulbous domes of coruscating ore Cloud--like convulsive sunsets--lands that dream, Myrrh-fragrant, over siren seas and h.o.a.r, Dashed with stiff, breezy foam of ocean"s stream.
Tempestuous architecture-revelries; Built melodies of marble or clear gla.s.s; Effulgent sculptures chiseled out of thought In misty att.i.tudes, whose majesties Feed full the pleasure as those beauties pa.s.s To pale extinctions which are beauty fraught.
On rebeck and on rose in plinths of spars, On glimmering solitudes of flower and stone, A twilight-glow swoons settled, burned with stars, Deep violet dusk developing nor done.
Where float fair nacreous shapes like deities,-- Existences of glory musical,-- "Round whose warm hair twist fillets" coiling gold, Their limbs Olympian lovely, and their eyes Dark oblique fervors; and most languorous tall In woven white with girdling gold threefold.
There darkling the consummate vintage sleeps,-- Lethe-nepenthes for Earth-agony,-- In sealed amphorae some Sybil keeps, World-old, forever cellared secretly.
A wine of Xeres or of Syracuse?
A fierce Falernian?--Ah! no vile Sabine!-- A stol"n ambrosia of what olden G.o.d?
Whose bubbled rubies maiden feet did bruise From crusted vats of vintage rich, I ween, Vivacious purple of some Samian sod.
Oh, for the cold conclusion of one draught!
Elysian ecstacy of cla.s.sic earth!-- Where heroes warred with G.o.ds and where G.o.ds laughed In eyes of mortal brown, a l.u.s.ty mirth Of deity delirious with desire: Where danced the sacrifice to horned shrines, And splashed the full libation blue as blood.-- Oh, to be drunk with dreaming! to inspire The very soul of beauty whence it shines Too lost for utterance yet understood!
In cogitation of what verdurous shades, Dull-droning quietudes where wild-bees lolled Suck, lulled in pulpy lilies of the glades, Barbaric-smothered with the kerneled gold: Teased by some torso of the golden age, Nude b.r.e.a.s.t.s of Cytherea, famous fair, Uncestus"d, yet suggestive of what loves Immortal! yearn enamoured; or to rage With sun-burnt Poesy whose throat breathes bare O"er leopard skins and flute among her groves.
LATE OCTOBER.
Ah, haughty hills, sardonic solitudes, What wizard touch hath, crowning you with gold, Cast Tyrian purple o"er broad-shouldered woods, And to your pride anointed empire sold For wan traditioned death, whose misty moods Shake each huge throne of quarried shadows cold?
Now where the agate-foliaged forests sleep, Bleak briars are ruby-berried, and the brush Flames--when the winds armsful of motion heap In wincing gusts upon it--amber blush; The beech an inner beryle breaks from deep Encrusting topaz of a sullen flush.
Dead gold, dead bronze, dull amethystine rose, Rose cameo, in day"s gray, somber spar Of smoky quartz--intaglioed beauty--glows Luxuriance of color. Trunks that are Vast organs antheming the winds" wild woes A faded sun and pale night"s paler star.
Bulged from its cup the dark-brown acorn falls, And by its gnarly saucer in the streams Swells plumped; and here the spikey spruce-gum b.a.l.l.s Rust maces of an ouphen host that dreams; Beneath the chestnut the split burry hulls Disgorge fat purses of sleek satin gleams.
Burst silver white, nods an exploded husk Of snowy, woolly smoke the milk-weed"s puff Along the orchard"s fence, where in the dusk And ashen weeds,--as some grim Satyr"s rough Red, breezy cheeks burn thro" his beard,--the brusque Crab apples laugh, wind-tumbled from above.
Runs thro" the wasted leaves the crickets" click, Which saddest coignes of Melancholy cheers; One bird unto the sumach flits to pick Red, sour seeds; and thro" the woods one hears The drop of gummy walnuts; the railed rick Looms tawny in the field where low the steers.
Some slim bud-bound Leimoniad hath flocked, The birds to Echo"s sh.o.r.es, where flossy foams Boom low long cream-white cliffs.--Where once buzzed Unmillioned bees within unmillioned blooms, One hairy hummer cramps one bloom, frost mocked,--rocked A miser whose rich hives squeeze oozing combs.
Twist some lithe maple and right suddenly A leafy storm of stars about you breaks-- Some Hamadryad"s tears: Unto her knee Wading the Naiad clears her brook that streaks Thro" wadded waifs: Hark! Pan for Helike Flutes melancholy by the minty creeks.
AN ANEMONE.
"Teach me the wisdom of thy beauty, pray, That, being thus wise, I may aspire to see What beauty is, whence, why, and in what way Immortal, yet how mortal utterly: For, shrinking loveliness, thy brow of day Pleads plaintive as a prayer, anemone.
"Teach me wood-wisdom, I am petulant: Thou hast the wildness of a Dryad"s eyes, The shyness of an Oread"s, wild plant:-- Behold the bashful G.o.ddess where she lies Distinctly delicate!--inhabitant Ambrosial-earthed, star-cousin of the skies.
"Teach me thy wisdom, for, thro" knowing, yet, When I have drunk dull Lethe till each vein Thuds full oblivion, I shall not forget;-- For beauty known is beauty; to sustain Glad memories with life, while mad regret And sorrow perish, being Lethe slain."
"Teach thee my beauty being beautiful And beauty wise?--My slight perfections, whole As world, as man, in their creation full As old a Power"s cogitation roll.
Teach thee?--Presumption! thought is young and dull-- Question thy G.o.d what G.o.d is, soul what soul."
THE RAIN-CROW.
Thee freckled August, dozing hot and blonde Oft "neath a wheat-stack in the white-topped mead-- In her full hair brown ox-eyed daisies wound-- O water-gurgler, lends a sleepy heed: Half-lidded eyes a purple iron-weed Blows slimly o"er; beyond, a path-found pond Basks flint-bright, hedged with pink-plumed pepper-gra.s.ses, A coigne for vainest dragonflies, which gla.s.ses Their blue in diamond.
Oft from some dusty locust, that thick weaves With crescent pulse-pods its thin foliage gray, Thou,--o"er the shambling lane, which past the sheaves Of sun-tanned oats winds, red with rutty clay, One league of rude rail-fence,--some panting day, When each parched meadow quivering vapor grieves, Nature"s Astrologist, dost promise rain, In seeping language of the thirsty plain, Cool from the burning leaves.
And, in good faith, aye! best of faith, art true; And welcome that rune-chuckled forecasting, When up the faded fierceness of scorched blue Strong water-carrier winds big buckets bring, Black with stored freshness: how their dippers ring And flash and rattle! lavishing large dew On tall, good-humored corn that, streaming wet, Laughs long; while woods and leas, shut in a net Of mist, dream vague in view.
And thou, safe-housed in some pawpaw bower Of close, broad, gold-green leaves, contented art In thy prediction, fall"n within the hour; While fuss the brown bees hiveward from the heart Of honey-filtering bloom; beneath the cart Droop pompous barnyard c.o.c.ks damped by the shower: And deep-eyed August, bonnetless, a beech Hugs in disheveled beauty, safe from reach On starry moss and flower.
LOVELINESS.
I.
When I fare forth to kiss the eyes of Spring, On ways, which arch gold sunbeams and pearl buds Embraced, two whispers we search--wandering By goblin forests and by girlish floods Deep in the hermit-holy solitudes-- For stalwart Dryads romping in a ring; Firm limbs an oak-bark-brown, and hair--wild woods Have perfumed--loops of radiance; and they, Most coyly pleasant, as we linger by, Pout dimpled cheeks, more rose than rosiest sky, Honeyed; and us good-hearted laughter fling Like far-out reefs that flute melodious spray.
II.
Then we surprise each Naiad ere she slips-- Nude at her toilette--in her fountain"s gla.s.s, With damp locks dewy, and large G.o.dlike hips Cool-glittering; but discovered, when--alas!
From green, indented moss and plushy gra.s.s,-- Her great eyes" pansy-black reproaching,--dips She white the cloven waters ere we pa.s.s: And a broad, orbing ripple makes to hide From our desirous gaze provoked what path She gleaming took; what haunt she bashful hath In minnowy freshness, where her murmurous lips Bubbling make merry "neath the rocky tide.
III.