Works

I.

Let me forget her face!
So fresh, so lovely! the abiding place
Of tears and smiles that won my heart to her;
Of dreams and moods that moved my soul's dim deeps,
As strong winds stir...

Non numero horas nisi serenas

When Fall drowns morns in mist, it seems
In soul I am a part of it;
A portion of its humid beams,
A form of fog, I seem to flit
From dreams to dreams....
...

The gods, who could loose and bind
In the long ago,
The gods, who were stern and kind
To men below,
Where shall we seek and find,
Or, finding, know?

Where Greece, with king on king,...

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Haunter of green intricacies,
Where the sunlight's amber laces
Deeps of darkest violet;
Where the ugly Satyr chases
Shining Dryads, fair as Graces,
Whose lithe limbs with dew are wet;...

The wine-loud laughter of indulged Desire
Upon his lips, and, in his eyes, the fire
Of uncontrol, he takes in reckless hands, -
And interrupts with discords, - the sad lyre...

Here where the coves indent the shore and fall
And fill with ebb and flowing of the tides;
Whereon some barge rocks or some dory rides,
By which old orchards bloom, or, from the wall,...

I

What words of mine can tell the spell
Of garden ways I know so well? -
The path that takes me in the spring
Past quince-trees where the bluebirds sing,
And peonies are blossoming,...

So sick of dreams! the dreams, that stain
The aisle, along which life must pass,
With hues of mystic colored glass,
That fills the windows of the brain.

So sick of thoughts! the thoughts, that carve...

1

Her violets in thine eyes
The Springtide stained I know,
Two bits of mystic skies
On which the green turf lies,
Whereon the violets blow.


2

I know the Summer wrought...

Baroque, but beautiful, between the lunes,
The valves of nacre of a mussel-shell,
Behold, a pearl! shaped like the burnished bell
Of some strange blossom that long afternoons...

I am a part of all you see
In Nature; part of all you feel:
I am the impact of the bee
Upon the blossom; in the tree
I am the sap, - that shall reveal
The leaf, the bloom, - that flows and flutes...

Above his misered embers, gnarled and gray,
With toil-twitched limbs he bends; around his hut,
Want, like a hobbling hag, goes night and day,
Scolding at windows and at doors tight-shut.

What am I, and what is he
Who can cull and tear a heart,
As one might a rose for sport
In its royalty?

What am I, that he has made
All this love a bitter foam,
Blown about a life of loam...

O Hades! O false gods! false to yourselves!
O Hades, 'twas thy brother gave her thee
Without a mother's sanction or her knowledge!
He bare her to the horrid gulfs below,...

High on a throne of noisome ooze and heat,
'Mid rotting trees of bayou and lagoon,
Ghastly she sits beneath the skeleton moon,
A tawny horror coiling at her feet...

This was her home; one mossy gable thrust
Above the cedars and the locust trees:
This was her home, whose beauty now is dust,
A lonely memory for melodies
The wild birds sing, the wild birds and the bees....

This is the face of her
I've dreamed of long;
Here in my heart's despair,
This is the face of her
Pictured in song.

Look on the lily lids,
The eyes of dawn,
Deep as a Nereid's,...

The vat-like cups of the fungus, filled
With the rain that fell last night,
Are casks of wine that the elves distilled
For revels the moon did light.

The owlet there with her "Who-oh-who,"...

Upon the summit of his Century
He reared a Palace of enduring Art,
From whose wild windows never more depart
Beauty's pale light and starry fantasy:
Within is music, sobbing ceaselessly;...

Who hath beheld the goddess face to face,
Blind with her beauty, all his days shall go
Climbing lone mountains towards her temple place,
Weighed with song's sweet, inexorable woe.