She gave me fruits to eat of That grew beside the sh.o.r.e, Of necromantic ripeness, With human flesh at core-- Their taste when I remember I know that life once more.
And then, behold! a serpent, That glides my face before, With eyes of tears and fire That glare me o"er and o"er-- I look into its eyeb.a.l.l.s, And know myself once more.
VI.
I have looked in the eyes of poesy, And sat in song"s high place; And the beautiful spirits of music Have spoken me face to face; Yet here in my soul there is sorrow They never can name nor trace.
I have walked with the glamour gladness, And dreamed with the shadow sleep; And the presences, love and knowledge, Have smiled in my heart"s red keep; Yet here in my soul there is sorrow For the depth of their gaze too deep.
The love and the hope G.o.d grants me, The beauty that lures me on, And the dreams of folly and wisdom That thoughts of the spirit don, Are but masks of an ancient sorrow Of a life long dead and gone.
Was it sin? or a crime forgotten?
Of a love that loved too well?
That sat on a throne of fire A thousand years in h.e.l.l?
That the soul with its nameless sorrow Remembers but can not tell?
TWO.
With her soft face half turned to me, Like an arrested moonbeam, she Stood in the cirque of that deep tree.
I took her by the hands; she raised Her face to mine; and, half amazed, Remembered; and we stood and gazed.
How good to kiss her throat and hair, And say no word!--Her throat was bare; As some moon-fungus white and fair.
Had G.o.d not giv"n us life for this?
The world-old, amorous happiness Of arms that clasp, and lips that kiss!
The eloquence of limbs and arms!
The rhetoric of b.r.e.a.s.t.s, whose charms Say to the sluggish blood what warms!
Had G.o.d or Fiend a.s.signed this hour That bloomed,--where love had all of power,-- The senses" aphrodisiac flower?
The dawn was far away. Nude night Hung savage stars of sultry white Around her bosom"s Ethiop light.
Night! night, who gave us each to each, Where heart with heart could hold sweet speech, With life"s best gift within our reach.
And here it was--between the goals Of flesh and spirit, s.e.x controls-- Took place the marriage of our souls.
TONES.
I.
A woman, fair to look upon, Where waters whiten with the moon; While down the glimmer of the lawn The white moths swoon.
A mouth of music; eyes of love; And hands of blended snow and scent, That touch the pearl-pale shadow of An instrument.
And low and sweet that song of sleep After the song of love is hushed; While all the longing, here, to weep, Is held and crushed.
Then leafy silence, that is musk With breath of the magnolia-tree, While dwindles, moon-white, through the dusk Her drapery.
Let me remember how a heart, Romantic, wrote upon that night!
My soul still helps me read each part Of it aright.
And like a dead leaf shut between A book"s dull chapters, stained and dark, That page, with immemorial green, Of life I mark.
II.
It is not well for me to hear That song"s appealing melody: The pain of loss comes all too near, Through it, to me.
The loss of her whose love looks through The mist death"s hand hath hung between: Within the shadow of the yew Her grave is green.
Ah, dream that vanished long ago!
Oh, anguish of remembered tears!
And shadow of unlifted woe Athwart the years!
That haunt the sad rooms of my days, As keepsakes of unperished love, Where pale the memory of her face Is framed above.
This olden song, she used to sing, Of love and sleep, is now a charm To open mystic doors and bring Her spirit form.
In music making visible One soul-a.s.sertive memory, That steals unto my side to tell My loss to me.
UNFULFILLED.
In my dream last night it seemed I stood With a boy"s glad heart in my boyhood"s wood.
The beryl green and the cairngorm brown Of the day through the deep leaves sifted down.
The rippling drip of a pa.s.sing shower Rinsed wild aroma from herb and flower.
The splash and urge of a waterfall Spread stairwayed rocks with a crystal caul.
And I waded the pool where the gravel gray, And the last year"s leaf, like a topaz lay.
And searched the strip of the creek"s dry bed For the colored keel and the arrow-head.