Chapter II: The Young Man Charles Stuart Revieweth the Troops on Blackheath

(Private Constant-in-Tribulation Joyce, _May_, 1660)

We were still as a wood without wind; as 't were set by a spell
Stayed the gleam on the steel cap, the glint on the slant petronel.
He to left of me drew down his grim grizzled lip with his teeth,--
I remember his look; so we grew like dumb trees on the heath.

But the people,--the people were mad as with store of new wine;
Oh, they cheered him, they capped him, they roared as he rode
down the line:
He that fled us at Worcester, the boy, the green brier-shoot, the son
Of the Stuart on whom for his sin the great judgment was done!

Swam before us the field of our shame, and our souls walked afar;
Saw the glory, the blaze of the sun bursting over Dunbar;
Saw the faces of friends, in the morn riding jocund to fight;
Saw the stern pallid faces again, as we saw them at night!

"O ye blessed, who died in the Lord! would to God that we too
Had so passed, only sad that we ceased his high justice to do,
With the words of the psalm on our lips that from Israel's once came,
How the Lord is a strong man of war; yea, the Lord is his name!

"Not for us, not for us! who have served for his kingdom seven years,
Yea, and yet other seven have we served, sweating blood, bleeding
tears,
For the kingdom of God and the saints! Rachel's beauty made bold,
Yet we bear but a Leah at last to a hearth that is cold!"

Burned the fire while I mused, while I gloomed; in the end came a call;
Settled o'er me a calm like a cloud, spake a voice still and small:
"Take thou Leah to bride, take thou Failure to bed and to board!
Thou shalt rear up new strengths at her knees; she is given
of the Lord!

"If with weight of his right hand, with power, he denieth to deal,
And the smoke clouds, and thunders of guns, and the lightnings
of steel,
Shall the cool silent dews of his grace, in a season of peace,
Not descend on the land, as of old, for a sign, on the fleece?

"Hath he cleft not the rock, to the yield of a stream that is sweet?
Hath he set in the ribs of the lion no honey for meat?
Can he bring not delight to the desert, and buds to the rod?
He will shine, he will visit his vine; he hath sworn, he is God!"

Then I thought of the gate I rode through on the roan that's
long dead,--
I remember the dawn was but pale, and the stars overhead;
Of the babe that is grown to a maid, and of Martha, my wife,
And the spring on the wolds far away, and gave thanks for my life!

THE STORY OF THE "ORIENT"

'T was a pleasant Sunday morning while the spring was in its glory,
English spring of gentle glory; smoking by his cottage door,
Florid-faced, the man-o'-war's-man told his white-head boy the story,
Noble story of Aboukir, told a hundred times before.

"Here, the _Theseus_--here, the _Vanguard_;" as he spoke
each name sonorous,--
_Minotaur, Defence, Majestic_, stanch old comrades of the brine,
That against the ships of Brucys made their broadsides roar
in chorus,--
Ranging daisies on his doorstone, deft he mapped the battle-line.

Mapped the curve of tall three-deckers, deft as might
a man left-handed,
Who had given an arm to England later on at Trafalgar.
While he poured the praise of Nelson to the child with eyes expanded,
Bright athwart his honest forehead blushed the scarlet cutlass-scar.

For he served aboard the _Vanguard_, saw the Admiral blind and bleeding
Borne below by silent sailors, borne to die as then they deemed.
Every stout heart sick but stubborn, fought the sea-dogs on unheeding,
Guns were cleared and manned and cleared, the battle thundered,
flashed, and screamed.

Till a cry swelled loud and louder,--towered on fire the
_Orient_ stately,
Brucys' flag-ship, she that carried guns a hundred and a score;
Then came groping up the hatchway he they counted dead but lately,
Came the little one-armed Admiral to guide the fight once more.

"'Lower the boats!' was Nelson's order."--
But the listening boy beside him,
Who had followed all his motions with an eager wide blue eye,
Nursed upon the name of Nelson till he half had deified him,
Here, with childhood's crude consistence, broke the tale
to question "Why?"

For by children facts go streaming in a throng that never pauses,
Noted not, till, of a sudden, thought, a sunbeam, gilds the motes,
All at once the known words quicken, and the child would deal
with causes.
Since to kill the French was righteous, why bade Nelson lower
the boats?

Quick the man put by the question. "But the _Orient_, none
could save her;
We could see the ships, the ensigns, clear as daylight by the flare;
And a many leaped and left her; but, God rest 'em! some were braver;
Some held by her, firing steady till she blew to God knows where."

At the shock, he said, the _Vanguard_ shook through all
her timbers oaken;
It was like the shock of Doomsday,--not a tar but shuddered hard.
All was hushed for one strange moment; then that awful calm was broken
By the heavy plash that answered the descent of mast and yard.

So, her cannon still defying, and her colors flaming, flying,
In her pit her wounded helpless, on her deck her Admiral dead,
Soared the _Orient_ into darkness with her living and her dying:
"Yet our lads made shift to rescue three-score souls," the seaman said.

Long the boy with knit brows wondered o'er that friending
of the foeman;
Long the man with shut lips pondered; powerless he to tell the cause
Why the brother in his bosom that desired the death of no man,
In the crash of battle wakened, snapped the bonds of hate like straws.

While he mused, his toddling maiden drew the daisies to a posy;
Mild the bells of Sunday morning rang across the church-yard sod;
And, helped on by tender hands, with sturdy feet all bare and rosy,
Climbed his babe to mother's breast, as climbs the slow world
up to God.

A RESURRECTION

_Neither would they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead_.

I was quick in the flesh, was warm, and the live heart shook my breast;
In the market I bought and sold, in the temple I bowed my head.
I had swathed me in shows and forms, and was honored above the rest
For the sake of the life I lived; nor did any esteem me dead.

But at last, when the hour was ripe--was it sudden-remembered word?
Was it sight of a bird that mounted, or sound of a strain that
stole?
I was 'ware of a spell that snapped, of an inward strength that
stirred,
Of a Presence that filled that place; and it shone, and I knew
my Soul.

And the dream I had called my life was a garment about my feet,
For the web of the years was rent with the throe of a
yearning strong.
With a sweep as of winds in heaven, with a rush as of flames that meet,
The Flesh and the Spirit clasped; and I cried, "Was I dead so long?"

I had glimpse of the Secret, flashed through the symbol obscure
and mean,
And I felt as a fire what erst I repeated with lips of clay;
And I knew for the things eternal the things eye hath not seen;
Yea, the heavens and the earth shall pass; but they never
shall pass away.

And the miracle on me wrought, in the streets I would straight
make known:
"When this marvel of mine is heard, without cavil shall men receive
Any legend of haloed saint, staring up through the sealèd stone!"
So I spake in the trodden ways; but behold, there would none believe!

THE GLORIOUS COMPANY

"Faces, faces, faces of the streaming marching surge,
Streaming on the weary road, toward the awful steep,
Whence your glow and glory, as ye set to that sharp verge,
Faces lit as sunlit stars, shining as ye sweep?

"Whence this wondrous radiance that ye somehow catch and cast,
Faces rapt, that one discerns 'mid the dusky press
Herding in dull wonder, gathering fearful to the Vast?
Surely all is dark before, night of nothingness!"

_Lo, the Light!_ (they answer) _O the pure,
the pulsing Light,
Beating like a heart of life, like a heart of love,
Soaring, searching, filling all the breadth and depth and height,
Welling, whelming with its peace worlds below, above!_

"O my soul, how art thou to that living Splendor blind,
Sick with thy desire to see even as these men see!--
Yet to look upon them is to know that God hath shined:
Faces lit as sunlit stars, be all my light to me!"

THE TRUMPETER

Two ships, alone in sky and sea,
Hang clinched, with crash and roar;
There is but one--whiche'er it be--
Will ever come to shore.

And will it be the grim black bulk,
That towers so evil now?
Or will it be The Grace of God,
With the angel at her prow?

The man that breathes the battle's breath
May live at last to know;
But the trumpeter lies sick to death
In the stifling dark below.

He hears the fight above him rave;
He fears his mates must yield;
He lies as in a narrow grave
Beneath a battle-field.

His fate will fall before the ship's,
Whate'er the ship betide;
He lifts the trumpet to his lips
As though he kissed a bride.

"Now blow thy best, blow thy last,
My trumpet, for the Right!"--
He has sent his soul in one strong blast,
To hearten them that fight.

COMRADES

"Oh, whither, whither, rider toward the west?"
"And whither, whither, rider toward the east?"
"I rode we ride upon the same high quest,
Whereon who enters may not be released;

"To seek the Cup whose form none ever saw,--
A nobler form than e'er was shapen yet,
Though million million cups without a flaw,
Afire with gems, on princes' boards are set;

"To seek the Wine whereof none ever had
One draught, though many a generous wine flows free,--
The spiritual blood that shall make glad
The hearts of mighty men that are to be."

"But shall one find it, brother? Where I ride,
Men mock and stare, who never had the dream,
Yet hope within my breast has never died."
"Nor ever died in mine that trembling gleam."

"Eastward, I deem: the sun and all good things
Are born to bless us of the Orient old."
"Westward, I deem: an untried ocean sings
Against that coast, 'New shores await the bold.'"

"God speed or thee or me, so coming men
But have the Cup!" "God speed!"--Not once before
Their eyes had met, nor ever met again,
Yet were they loving comrades evermore.

THE HOUSE OF HATE

Mine enemy builded well, with the soft blue hills in sight;
But betwixt his house and the hills I builded a house for spite:
And the name thereof I set in the stone-work over the gate,
With a carving of bats and apes; and I called it the House of Hate.

And the front was alive with masks of malice and of despair;
Horned demons that leered in stone, and women with serpent hair;
That whenever his glance would rest on the soft hills far and blue,
It must fall on mine evil work, and my hatred should pierce
him through.

And I said, "I will dwell herein, for beholding my heart's desire
On my foe;" and I knelt, and fain had brightened the hearth with fire;
But the brands they would hiss and die, as with curses a strangled man,
And the hearth was cold from the day that the House of Hate began.

And I called at the open door, "Make ye merry, all friends of mine,
In the hall of my House of Hate, where is plentiful store and wine.
We will drink unhealth together unto him I have foiled and fooled!"
And they stared and they passed me by; but I scorned to be thereby
schooled.

And I ordered my board for feast; and I drank, in the topmost seat,
Choice grape from a curious cup; and the first it was wonder-sweet;
But the second was bitter indeed, and the third was bitter and black,
And the gloom of the grave came on me, and I cast the cup to wrack.

Alone, I was stark alone, and the shadows were each a fear;
And thinly I laughed, but once, for the echoes were strange to hear;
And the wind in the hallways howled as a green-eyed wolf might cry,
And I heard my heart: I must look on the face of a man, or die!

So I crept to my mirrored face, and I looked, and I saw it grown
(By the light in my shaking hand) to the like of the masks of stone;
And with horror I shrieked aloud as I flung my torch and fled,
And a fire-snake writhed where it fell; and at midnight
the sky was red.

And at morn, when the House of Hate was a ruin, despoiled of flame,
I fell at mine enemy's feet, and besought him to slay my shame;
But he looked in mine eyes and smiled, and his eyes were
calm and great:
"You rave, or have dreamed," he said; "I saw not your House of Hate."

THE ARROWMAKER

Day in, day out, or sun or rain,
Or sallow leaf, or summer grain,
Beneath a wintry morning moon
Or through red smouldering afternoon,
With simple joy, with careful pride,
He plies the craft he long has plied:
To shape the stave, to set the sting,
To fit the shaft with irised wing;
And farers by may hear him sing,
For still his door is wide:
"Laugh and sigh, live and die,--
The world swings round; I know not, I,
If north or south mine arrows fly!"

And sometimes, while he works, he dreams,
And on his soul a vision gleams:
Some storied field fought long ago,
Where arrows fell as thick as snow.
His breath comes fast, his eyes grow bright,
To think upon that ancient fight.
Oh, leaping from the strained string
Against an armored Wrong to ring,
Brave the songs that arrows sing!
He weighs the finished flight:
"Live and die; by and by
The sun kills dark; I know not, I,
In what good fight mine arrows fly!"

Or at the gray hour, weary grown,
When curfew o'er the wold is blown,
He sees, as in a magic glass,
Some lost and lonely mountain-pass;
And lo! a sign of deathful rout
The mocking vine has wound about,--
An earth-fixed arrow by a spring,
All greenly mossed, a mouldered thing;
That stifled shaft no more shall sing!
He shakes his head in doubt.
"Laugh and sigh, live and die,--
The hand is blind: I know not, I,
In what lost pass mine arrows lie!
One to east, one to west,
Another for the eagle's breast,--
The archer and the wind know best!"
The stars are in the sky;
He lays his arrows by.

A NEST IN A LYRE

As sign before a playhouse serves
A giant Lyre, ornately gilded,
On whose convenient coignes and curves
The pert brown sparrows late have builded.
They flit, and flirt, and prune their wings,
Not awed at all by golden glitter,
And make among the silent strings
Their satisfied ephemeral twitter.

Ah, somewhat so we perch and flit,
And spy some crumb and dash to win it,
And with a witty chirping twit
Our sheltering Time--there's nothing in it!
In Life's large frame, a glorious Lyre's,
We nest, content, our season flighty,
Nor guess we brush the powerful wires
Might witch the stars with music mighty.

THISBE

The garden within was shaded,
And guarded about from sight;
The fragrance flowed to the south wind,
The fountain leaped to the light.

And the street without was narrow,
And dusty, and hot, and mean;
But the bush that bore white roses,
She leaned to the fence between:

And softly she sought a crevice
In that barrier blank and tall,
And shyly she thrust out through it
Her loveliest bud of all.

And tender to touch, and gracious,
And pure as the moon's pure shine,
The full rose paled and was perfect,--
For whose eyes, for whose lips, but mine!

THE SPRING BEAUTIES

The Puritan Spring Beauties stood freshly clad for church;
A Thrush, white-breasted, o'er them sat singing on his perch.
"Happy be! for fair are ye!" the gentle singer told them,
But presently a buff-coat Bee came booming up to scold them.
"Vanity, oh, vanity!
Young maids, beware of vanity!"
Grumbled out the buff-coat Bee,
Half parson-like, half soldierly.

The sweet-faced maidens trembled, with pretty, pinky blushes,
Convinced that it was wicked to listen to the Thrushes;
And when, that shady afternoon, I chanced that way to pass,
They hung their little bonnets down and looked into the grass,
All because the buff-coat Bee
Lectured them so solemnly:--
"Vanity, oh, vanity!
Young maids, beware of vanity!"

KINSHIP

A lily grew in the tangle,
In a flame red garment dressed,
And many a ruby spangle
Besprinkled her tawny breast.

And the silken moth sailed by her
With a swift and a snow-white sail;
Not a gilt-girt bee came nigh her,
Nor a fly in his gay green mail.

And the bronze-brown wings and the golden,
O'er the billowing meadows blown,
Were still as by magic holden
From the lily that flamed alone;

Till over the fragrant tangle
A wanderer winging went,
And with many a ruby spangle
Were his tawny vans besprent.
And he hovered one moment stilly
O'er the thicket, her mazy bower,
Then he sank to the heart of the lily,
And they seemed but a single flower.

COMPENSATION

The brook ran laughing from the shade,
And in the sunshine danced all day:
The starlight and the moonlight made
Its glimmering path a Milky Way.

The blue sky burned, with summer fired;
For parching fields, for pining flowers,
The spirits of the air desired
The brook's bright life to shed in showers.

It gave its all that thirst to slake;
Its dusty channel lifeless lay;
Now softest flowers, white-foaming, make
Its winding bed a Milky Way.

WHEN WILLOWS GREEN

When goldenly the willows green,
And, mirrored in the sunset pool,
Hang wavering, wild-rose clouds between:
When robins call in twilights cool:
What is it we await?
Who lingers and is late?
What strange unrest, what yearning stirs us all
When willows green, when robins call?

When fields of flowering grass respire
A sweet that seems the breath of Peace,
And liquid-voiced the thrushes choir,
Oh, whence the sense of glad release?
What is it life uplifts?
Who entered, bearing gifts?
What floods from heaven the being overpower
When thrushes choir, when grasses flower?

AT THE PARTING OF THE WAYS

(AD COMITEM JUNIOREM)

Comrade Youth! Sit down with me
Underneath the summer tree,
Cool green dome whose shade is sweet,
Where the sunny roadways meet,
See, the ancient finger-post,
Silver-bleached with rain and shine,
Warns us like a noon-day ghost:
That way's yours, and this way's mine!
I would hold you with delays
Here at parting of the ways.

Hold you! I as well might look
To detain the racing brook
With regrets and grievance tender,
As my comrade swift and slender,
Shy, capricious, all of spring!
Catch the wind with blossoms laden,
Catch the wild bird on the wing,
Catch the heart of boy or maiden!

Yet I'll hold your image fast,
As this hour I saw you last,--
As with staff in hand you sat,
Soft curls putting forth defiant
From the tilted Mercury's hat,
Wreathen with the wilding grace
Of the fresh-leaved vine and pliant,
Stealing down to see your face.
Eyes of pleasance, lips of laughter,
I shall hoard you long hereafter;
Very dear shall be the days
Ere the parting of the ways!

Shall you deem them dear, in truth,
Days when we, o'er hill and hollow,
Trudged together, Comrade Youth?
Ah, you dream of days to follow!
Hand in hand we jogged along;
I would fetch from out my scrip,
Crust or jest or antique song,--
Live and lovely, on your lip,
Such poor needments as I had
Were as yours; you made me glad.
--Lo, the dial! No prayer stays
Time, at parting of the ways!

This gold memory--rings it true?
Half for me and half for you.
Cleave and share it. Now, good sooth,
God be with you, Comrade Youth!

THE FAIR GRAY LADY

When the charm at last is fled
From the woodland stark and pale,
And like shades of glad hours dead
Whirl the leaves before the gale:

When against the western fire
Darkens many an empty nest,
Like a thwarted heart's desire
That in prime was hardly guessed:

Then the fair gray Lady leans,
Lingering, o'er the faded grass,
Still the soul of all the scenes
Once she graced, a golden lass.

O'er the Year's discrownèd sleep,
Dear as in her earlier day,
She her bending watch doth keep,
She the Goldenrod grown gray.

THE ENCOUNTER

There's a wood-way winding high,
Roofed far up with light-green flicker,
Save one midmost star of sky.
Underfoot 'tis all pale brown
With the dead leaves matted down
One on other, thick and thicker;
Soft, but springing to the tread.
There a youth late met a maid
Running lightly,--oh, so fleetly!
"Whence art thou?" the herd-boy said.
Either side her long hair swayed,
Half a tress and half a braid,
Colored like the soft dead leaf,
As she answered, laughing sweetly,
On she ran, as flies the swallow;
He could not choose but follow
Though it had been to his grief.

"I have come up from the valley,--
From the valley!" Once he caught her,
Swerving down a sidelong alley,
For a moment, by the hand.
"Tell me, tell me," he besought her,
"Sweetest, I would understand
Why so cold thy palm, that slips
From me like the shy cold minnow?
The wood is warm, and smells of fern,
And below the meadows burn.
Hard to catch and hard to win, oh!
Why are those brown finger tips
Crinkled as with lines of water?"

Laughing while she featly footed,
With the herd-boy hasting after,
Sprang she on a trunk uprooted,
Clung she by a roping vine;
Leaped behind a birch, and told,
Still eluding, through its fine,
Mocking, slender, leafy laughter,
Why her finger tips were cold:

"I went down to tease the brook,
With her fishes, there below;
She comes dancing, thou must know,
And the bushes arch above her;
But the seeking sunbeams look,
Dodging through the wind-blown cover,
Find and kiss her into stars.
Silvery veins entwine and crook
Where a stone her tripping bars;
There be smooth, clear sweeps, and swirls
Bubbling up crisp drops like pearls.
There I lie, along the rocks
Thick with greenest slippery moss,
And I have in hand a strip
Of gray, pliant, dappled bark;
And I comb her liquid locks
Till her tangling currents cross;
And I have delight to hark
To the chiding of her lip,
Taking on the talking stone
With each turn another tone.
Oh, to set her wavelets bickering!
Oh, to hear her laughter simple,
See her fret and flash and dimple!
Ha, ha, ha!" The woodland rang
With the rippling through the flickering.
At the birch the herd-boy sprang.

On a sudden something wound
Vine-like round his throbbing throat;
On a sudden something smote
Sharply on his longing lips,
Stung him as the birch bough whips:
Was it kiss or was it blow?
Never after could he know;
She was gone without a sound.

Never after could he see
In the wood or in the mead,
Or in any company
Of the rustic mortal maids,
Her with acorn-colored braids;
Never came she to his need.
Never more the lad was merry,
Strayed apart, and learned to dream,
Feeding on the tart wild berry;
Murmuring words none understood,--
Words with music of the wood,
And with music of the stream.

SUMMER HOURS

Hours aimless-drifting as the milkweed's down
In seeming, still a seed of joy ye bear
That steals into the soul when unaware,
And springs up Memory in the stony town.

LOVE UNSUNG

Seven jewelled rays has the Sun fast bound
In his arrow of blinding sheen;
But he quickens the breast of the fruitful ground
With a subtlest ray unseen.

And the rainbow moods of this love of ours
I may blend in the song I bring;
But the magic that makes life laugh with flowers
Is the love that I cannot sing.

THE WISH FOR A CHAPLET

Vineleaf and rose I would my chaplet make:
I would my word were wine for all men's sake.
Pure from the pressing of the stainless feet
Of unblamed Hours, and for an altar meet.

Vineleaf and rose: I would, had I the art,
Distil, to lasting sweet, Joy's rosy heart,
That no sere autumn should its fragrance wrong,
Closed in the crystal glass of slender song.

SONNETS

THE TORCH-RACE

Brave racer, who hast sped the living light
With throat outstretched and every nerve a-strain,
Now on thy left hand labors gray-faced Pain,
And Death hangs close behind thee on the right.
Soon flag the flying feet, soon fails the sight,
With every pulse the gaunt pursuers gain;
And all thy splendor of strong life must wane
And set into the mystery of night.

Yet fear not, though in falling, blindness hide
Whose hand shall snatch, before it scars the sod,
The light thy lessening grasp no more controls:
Truth's rescuer, Truth shall instantly provide:
This is the torch-race game, that noblest souls
Play on through time beneath the eyes of God.

TO SLEEP

All slumb'rous images that be, combined,
To this white couch and cool shall woo thee, Sleep!
First will I think on fields of grasses deep
In gray-green flower, o'er which the transient wind
Runs like a smile; and next will call to mind
How glistening poplar-tops, when breezes creep
Among their leaves, a tender motion keep,
Stroking the sky, like touch of lovers kind.

Ah, having felt thy calm kiss on mine eyes,
All night inspiring thy divine pure breath,
I shall awake as into godhood born,
And with a fresh, undaunted soul arise,
Clear as the blue convolvulus at morn.
--Dear bedfellow, deals thus thy brother, Death?

SISTER SNOW

Praised be our Lord (to echo the sweet phrase
Of saintly Francis) for our sister Snow:
Whose soft, soft coming never man may know
By any sound; whose down-light touch allays
All fevers of worn earth. She clothes the days
In garments without spot, and hence doth go
Her noiseless shuttle swiftly to and fro,
And very pure, and pleasant, are her ways.

But yesterday, how loveless looked the skies!
How cold the sun's last glance, and unbenign,
Across the field forsaken, russet-leaved!
Now pearly peace on all the landscape lies.
--Wast thou not sent us, Sister, for a sign
Of that vast Mercy of God, else unconceived?

RETROSPECT

"Backward," he said, "dear heart I like to look
To those half-spring, half-winter days, when first
We drew together, ere the leaf-buds burst.
Sunbeams were silver yet, keen gusts yet shook
The boughs. Have you remembered that kind book,
That for our sake Galeotto's part rehearsed,
(The friend of lovers,--this time blessed, not cursed!)
And that best hour, when reading we forsook?"

She, listening, wore the smile a mother wears
At childish fancies needless to control;
Yet felt a fine, hid pain with pleasure blend.
Better it seemed to think that love of theirs,
Native as breath, eternal as the soul,
Knew no beginning, could not have an end.

THE CONTRAST

He loved her; having felt his love begin
With that first look,--as lover oft avers.
He made pale flowers his pleading ministers,
Impressed sweet music, drew the springtime in
To serve his suit; but when he could not win,
Forgot her face and those gray eyes of hers;
And at her name his pulse no longer stirs,
And life goes on as though she had not been.

She never loved him; but she loved Love so,
So reverenced Love, that all her being shook
At his demand whose entrance she denied.
Her thoughts of him such tender color took
As western skies that keep the afterglow.
The words he spoke were with her till she died.

A MYSTERY

That sunless day no living shadow swept
Across the hills, fleet shadow chasing light,
Twin of the sailing cloud: but, mists wool white,
Slow-stealing mists, on those heaved shoulders crept,
And wrought about the strong hills while they slept
In witches' wise, and rapt their forms from sight.
Dreams were they; less than dream, the noblest height
And farthest; and the chilly woodland wept.

A sunless day and sad: yet all the while
Within the grave green twilight of the wood,
inscrutable, immutable, apart,
Hearkening the brook, whose song she understood,
The secret birch-tree kept her silver smile,
Strange as the peace that gleams at sorrow's heart.

TRIUMPH

This windy sunlit morning after rain,
The wet bright laurel laughs with beckoning gleam
In the blown wood, whence breaks the wild white stream
Rushing and flashing, glorying in its gain;
Nor swerves nor parts, but with a swift disdain
O'erleaps the boulders lying in long dream,
Lapped in cold moss; and in its joy doth seem
A wood-born creature bursting from a chain.

And "Triumph, triumph, triumph!" is its hoarse
Fierce-whispered word. O fond, and dost not know
Thy triumph on another wise must be,--
To render all the tribute of thy force,
And lose thy little being in the flow
Of the unvaunting river toward the sea!

IN WINTER, WITH THE BOOK WE READ IN SPRING

The blackberry's bloom, when last we went this way,
Veiled all her bowsome rods with trembling white;
The robin's sunset breast gave forth delight
At sunset hour; the wind was warm with May.
Armored in ice the sere stems arch to-day,
Each tiny thorn encased and argent bright;
Where clung the birds that long have taken flight,
Dead songless leaves cling fluttering on the spray.

O hand in mine, that mak'st all paths the same,
Being paths of peace, where falls nor chill nor gloom,
Made sweet with ardors of an inward spring!
I hold thee--frozen skies to rosy flame
Are turned, and snows to living snows of bloom,
And once again the gold-brown thrushes sing.

SERE WISDOM

I had remembrance of a summer morn,
When all the glistening field was softly stirred
And like a child's in happy sleep I heard
The low and healthful breathing of the corn.
Late when the sumach's red was dulled and worn,
And fainter grew the trite and troublous word
Of tristful cricket, that replaced the bird,
I sought the slope, and found a waste forlorn.

Against that cold clear west, whence winter peers,
All spectral stood the bleached stalks thin-leaved,
Dry as papyrus kept a thousand years,
And hissing whispered to the wind that grieved,
_It was a dream--we have no goodly ears--
There was no summer-time--deceived! deceived!_

ISOLATION

White fog around, soft snow beneath the tread,
All sunless, windless, tranced, the morning lay;
All noiseless, trackless, new, the well-known way.
The silence weighed upon the sense; in dread,
"Alone, I am alone," I shuddering said,
"And wander in a region where no ray
Has ever shone, and as on earth's first day
Or last, my kind are not yet born or dead."

Yet not afar, meanwhile, there faltered feet
Like mine, through that wide mystery of the snow,
Nor could the old accustomed paths divine;
And even as mine, unheard spake voices low,
And hearts were near, that as my own heart beat,
Warm hands, and faces fashioned like to mine.

THE LOST DRYAD

(TO EDITH M. THOMAS)

Into what beech or silvern birch, O friend
Suspected ever of a dryad strain,
Hast crept at last, delighting to regain
Thy sylvan house? Now whither shall I wend,
Or by what wingèd post my greeting send,
Bird, butterfly, or bee? Shall three moons wane,
And yet not found?--Ah, surely it was pain
Of old, for mortal youth his heart to lend
To any hamadryad! In his hour
Of simple trust, wild impulse him bereaves:
She flees, she seeks her strait enmossèd bower
And while he, searching, softly calls, and grieves,
Oblivious, high above she laughs in leaves,
Or patters tripping talk to the quick shower.

A MEMORY

Though pent in stony streets, 'tis joy to know,
'Tis joy, although we breathe a fainter air,
The spirit of those places far and fair
That we have loved, abides; and fern-scents flow
Out of the wood's heart still, and shadows grow
Long on remembered roads as warm days wear;
And still the dark wild water, in its lair,
The narrow chasm, stirs blindly to and fro.

Delight is in the sea-gull's dancing wings,
And sunshine wakes to rose the ruddy hue
Of rocks; and from her tall wind-slanted stem
A soft bright plume the goldenrod outflings
Along the breeze, above a sea whose blue
Is like the light that kindles through a gem.

THE GIFTS OF THE OAK

(FOR THE SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY OF JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL)

'There needs no crown to mark the forest's king.'
Thus, long ago thou sang'st the sound-heart tree
Sacred to sovereign Jove, and dear to thee
Since first, a venturous youth with eyes of spring,--
Whose pilgrim-staff each side put forth a wing,--
Beneath the oak thou lingeredst lovingly
To crave, as largess of his majesty,
Firm-rooted strength, and grace of leaves that sing.

He gave; we thank him! Graciousness as grave,
And power as easeful as his own he gave;
Long broodings rich with sun, and laughters kind;
And singing leaves, whose later bronze is dear
As the first amber of the budding year,--
Whose voices answer the autumnnal wind.

THE STRAYED SINGER

(MATTHEW ARNOLD)

He wandered from us long, oh, long ago,
Rare singer, with the note unsatisfied;
Into what charmèd wood, what shade star-eyed
With the wind's April darlings, none may know.
We lost him. Songless, one with seed to sow,
Keen-smiling toiler, came in place, and plied
His strength in furrowed field till eventide,
And passed to slumber when the sun was low.

But now,--as though Death spoke some mystic word
Solving a spell,--present to thought appears
The morn's estray, not him we saw but late;
And on his lips the strain that once we heard,
And in his hand, cool as with Springtime's tears,
The melancholy wood-flowers delicate.

THE IMMORTAL WORD

One soiled and shamed and foiled in this world's fight,
Deserter from the host of God, that here
Still darkly struggles,--waked from death in fear,
And strove to screen his forehead from the white
And blinding glory of the awful Light,
The revelation and reproach austere.
Then with strong hand outstretched a Shape drew near,
Bright-browed, majestic, armored like a knight.

"Great Angel, servant of the Highest, why
Stoop'st thou to me?" although his lips were mute,
His eyes inquired. The Shining One replied:
"Thy Book, thy birth, life of thy life am I,
Son of thy soul, thy youth's forgotten fruit.
We two go up to judgment side by side."