Were she plain Night, I"d clothe her with my stars.
My spirit, Poesy, would be her slave, "Twould rifle for her ocean"s secret h.o.a.rds, And make her rough with pearls. If Death"s pale realms Contained a gem out-l.u.s.t"ring all the world, I would adventure there, and bring it her.
My inmost being dwells upon her words, "Wilt trim a verse for me by this night week?
Make it as jubilant as marriage bells; Or, if it please you, make it doleful sad As bells that knoll a maiden to her grave, When the spring earth is sweet in violets, And it will fit _one_ heart, yea, as the cry Of the lone plover fits a dismal heath."
I"ll write a tale through which my pa.s.sion runs, Like honeysuckle through a hedge of June.
A silent isle on which the love-sick sea Dies with faint kisses and a murmured joy, In the clear blue the lark hangs like a speck, And empties his full heart of music-rain O"er sunny slopes, where tender lambkins bleat, And new-born rills go laughing to the sea, O"er woods that smooth down to the southern sh.o.r.e, Waving in green, as the young breezes blow O"er the sea sphere all sweet and summer smells.
Not of these years, but by-gone minstrel times, Of shepherd-days in the young world"s sunrise, Was this warm clime, this quiet land of health, By gentle pagans filled, whose red blood ran Healthy and cool as milk,--pure, simple men: Ah, how unlike the swelterers in towns!
Who ne"er can glad their eyes upon the green Sunshine-swathed earth; nor hear the singing rills, Nor feel the breezes in their lifted hair.
A lovely youth, in manhood"s very edge, Lived "mong these shepherds and their quiet downs; Tall and blue-eyed, and bright in golden hair, With half-shut dreamy eyes, sweet earnest eyes, That seemed unoccupied with outward things, Feeding on something richer! Strangely, oft, A wildered smile lay on his n.o.ble lips.
The sunburnt shepherds stared with awful eyes As he went past; and timid girls upstole, With wond"ring looks, to gaze upon his face, And on his cataract of golden curls, Then lonely grew, and went into the woods To think sweet thoughts, and marvel why they shook With heart-beat and with tremor when he came, And in the night he filled their dreams with joy.
But there was one among that soft-voiced band Who pined away for love of his sweet eyes, And died among the roses of the spring.
When Eve sat in the dew with closed lids, Came gentle maidens bearing forest flowers To strew upon her green and quiet grave.
They soothed the dead with love-songs low and sweet; Songs sung of old beneath the purple night, Songs heard on earth with heart-beat and a blush, Songs heard in heaven by the breathless stars.
Thought-wrapt, he wandered in the breezy woods In which the Summer, like a hermit, dwelt.
He laid him down by the old haunted springs, Up-bubbling "mid a world of greenery, Shut-eyed, and dreaming of the fairest shapes That roam the woods; and when the autumn nights Were dark and moonless, to the level sands He would betake him, there to hear, o"er-awed, The old Sea moaning like a monster pained.
One day he lay within the pleasant woods On bed of flowers edging a fountain"s brim, And gazed into its heart as if to count The veined and lucid pebbles one by one, Up-shining richly through the crystal clear.
Thus lay he many hours, when, lo! he heard A maiden singing in the woods alone A sad and tender island melody, Which made a golden conquest of his soul, Bringing a sadness sweeter than delight.
As nightingale, embowered in vernal leaves, Pants out her gladness the luxurious night, The moon and stars all hanging on her song, She poured her soul in music. When she ceased, The charmed woods and breezes silent stood, As if all ear to catch her voice again.
Uprose the dreamer from his couch of flowers, With awful expectation in his look, And happy tears upon his pallid face, With eager steps, as if toward a heaven, He onward went, and, lo! he saw her stand, Fairer than Dian, in the forest glade.
His footsteps startled her, and quick she turned Her face,--looks met like swords. He clasped his hands, And fell upon his knees; the while there broke A sudden splendour o"er his yearning face; "Twas a pale prayer in its very self.
"I know thee, lovely maiden!" then he cried; "I know thee, and of thee I have been told: Been told by all the roses of the vale, By hermit streams, by pale sea-setting stars, And by the roaring of the storm-tost pines; And I have sought for thee upon the hills, In dim sweet dreams, on the complacent sea, When breathless midnight, with her thousand hearts, Beats to the same love-tune as my own heart.
I"ve waited for thee many seasons through, Seen many autumns shed their yellow leaves O"er the oak-roots, heard many winters moan Through the leafless forests drearily.
Now am I joyful, as storm-battered dove That finds a perch in the Hesperides, For thou art found. Thou, whom I long have sought, My other self! Our blood, our hearts, our souls, Shall henceforth mingle in one being, like The married colours in the bow of heaven.
My soul is like a wide and empty fane, Sit thou in "t like a G.o.d, O maid divine!
With worship and religion "twill be filled.
My soul is empty, lorn, and hungry s.p.a.ce; Leap thou into it like a new-born star, And "twill o"erflow with splendour and with bliss.
More music! music! music! maid divine!
My hungry senses, like a finch"s brood, Are all a-gape. O feed them, maid divine!
Feed, feed my hungry soul with melodies!"
Thus, like a worshipper before a shrine, He earnest syllabled, and, rising up, He led that lovely stranger tenderly Through the green forest toward the burning west.
He never, by the maidens of the isle Nor by the shepherds, was thereafter seen "Mong sunrise splendours on the misty hills, Or stretched at noon by the old haunted wells, Or by the level sands on autumn nights.
I"ve heard that maidens have been won by song.
O Poesy, fine sprite! I"d bless thee more If thou would"st bring that lady"s love to me, Than immortality in twenty worlds.
I"d rather win her than G.o.d"s youngest star, With singing continents and seas of bliss.---- Thou day beyond to-morrow, haste thee on!
SCENE IV.
_The Banks of a River._--WALTER _and the_ LADY.
LADY.
The stream of sunsets?
WALTER.
"Tis that loveliest stream.
I"ve learned by heart its sweet and devious course By frequent tracing, as a lover learns The features of his best-beloved"s face.
In memory it runs, a shining thread, With sunsets strung upon it thick, like pearls.
From yonder trees I"ve seen the western sky All washed with fire, while, in the midst, the sun Beat like a pulse, welling at ev"ry beat A spreading wave of light. Where yonder church Stands up to heaven, as if to intercede For sinful hamlets scattered at its feet, I saw the dreariest sight. The sun was down, And all the west was paved with sullen fire.
I cried, "Behold! the barren beach of h.e.l.l At ebb of tide." The ghost of one bright hour Comes from its grave and stands before me now.
"Twas at the close of a long summer day, As we were sitting on yon gra.s.sy slope, The sunset hung before us like a dream That shakes a demon in his fiery lair; The clouds were standing round the setting sun Like gaping caves, fantastic pinnacles, Citadels throbbing in their own fierce light, Tall spires that came and went like spires of flame, Cliffs quivering with fire-snow, and peaks Of piled gorgeousness, and rocks of fire A-tilt and poised, bare beaches, crimson seas, All these were huddled in that dreadful west, All shook and trembled in unsteadfast light, And from the centre blazed the angry sun, Stern as the unlashed eye of G.o.d a-glare O"er evening city with its boom of sin.
I do remember, as we journeyed home, (That dreadful sunset burnt into our brains), With what a soothing came the naked moon.
She, like a swimmer who has found his ground, Came rippling up a silver strand of cloud, And plunged from the other side into the night.
I and that friend, the feeder of my soul, Did wander up and down these banks for years, Talking of blessed hopes and holy faiths, How sin and weeping all should pa.s.s away In the calm sunshine of the earth"s old age.
Breezes are blowing in old Chaucer"s verse, "Twas here we drank them. Here for hours we hung O"er the fine pants and trembles of a line.
Oft, standing on a hill"s green head, we felt Breezes of love, and joy, and melody, Blow through us, as the winds blow through the sky.
Oft with our souls in our eyes all day we fed On summer landscapes, silver-veined with streams, O"er which the air hung silent in its joy-- With a great city lying in its smoke, A monster sleeping in its own thick breath; And surgy plains of wheat, and ancient woods, In the calm evenings cawed by clouds of rooks, Acres of moss, and long black strips of firs, And sweet cots dropt in green, where children played To us unheard, till, gradual, all was lost In distance-haze to a blue rim of hills, Upon whose heads came down the closing sky.
Beneath the crescent moon on autumn nights We paced its banks with overflowing hearts, Discoursing long of great thought-wealthy souls, And with what spendthrift hands they scatter wide Their spirit-wealth, making mankind their debtors: Affluent spirits, dropt from the teeming stars, Who come before their time, are starved, and die, Like swallows that arrive before the summer.
Or haply talked of dearer personal themes, Blind guesses at each other"s after fate; Feeling our leaping hearts, we marvelled oft How they should be unleashed, and have free course To stretch and strain far down the coming time-- But in our guesses never was the _grave_.
LADY.
The tale! the tale! the tale! As empty halls Gape for a coming pageant, my fond ears To take its music are all eager-wide.
WALTER.
Within yon grove of beeches is a well, I"ve made a vow to read it only there.
LADY.
As I suppose, by way of recompense, For quenching thirst on some hot summer day.
WALTER.
Memories grow around it thick as flow That well is loved and haunted by a star.
The live-long day her clear and patient eye Is open on the soft and bending blue, Just where she lost her lover in the morn.
But with the night the star creeps o"er the trees And smiles upon her, and some happy hours She holds his image in her crystal heart.
Beside that well I read the mighty Bard Who clad himself with beauty, genius, wealth, Then flung himself on his own pa.s.sion-pyre And was consumed. Beside that lucid well The whitest lilies grow for many miles.
"Tis said that, "mong the flowers of perished years, A prince woo"d here a lady of the land, And when with faltering lips he told his love, Into her proud face leapt her prouder blood; She struck him blind with scorn, then with an air As if she wore the crowns of all the world, She swept right on and left him in the dew.
Again he sat at even with his love, He sent a song into her haughty ears To plead for him;--she listened, still he sang.
Tears, drawn by music, were upon her face, Till on its trembling close, to which she clung Like dying wretch to life, with a low cry She flung her arms around him, told her love, And how she long had loved him, but had kept It in her heart, like one who has a gem And h.o.a.rds it up in some most secret place, While he who owns it seeks it and with tears.
Won by the sweet omnipotence of song!
He gave her lands! she paid him with herself.
Brow-bound with gold she sat, the fairest thing Within his sea-washed sh.o.r.es.
LADY.
Most fit reward!
A poet"s love should ever thus be paid.
WALTER.
Ha! Dost thou think so?