Works

What mines the morning heavens unfold!
What far Alaskas of the skies!
That, veined with elemental gold,
Sierra on Sierra rise.

Heap up the gold of all the world,...

I.

Masks

Death rides black-masked to-night; and through the land
Madness beside him brandishes a torch.
The peaceful farmhouse with its vine-wreathed porch...

His Birthday, October the 7th, 1912

Riley, whose pen has made the world your debtor,
Whose Art has kept you young through sixty years,
Brimming our hearts with laughter and with tears,...

Master of human harmonies, where gong
And harp and violin and flute accord;
Each instrument confessing you its lord,
Within the deathless orchestra of Song.
Albeit at times your music may sound wrong...

Thus have I pictured her: - In Arden old
A white-browed maiden with a falcon eye,
Rose-flushed of face, with locks of wind-blown gold,
Teaching her hawks to fly.
...

"I rode to death, for I fought for shame--
The Lady Maurine of noble name,

"The fair and faithless!--Though life be long
Is love the wiser?--Love made song
...

Above the circus of the world she sat,
Beautiful and base, a harlot crowned with pride:
Fierce nations, upon whom she sneered and spat,
Shrieked at her feet and for her pastime died.

All the roses now are gone,
All their glories shed:
Here's a rose that grows not wan,
Rose of love to wear upon
Your fair breast instead.

Everywhere sere leaves are seen
Golden, red and grey:...

I had the strangest dream last night:
I dreamed the poppies, red and white,
That over-run the flower-bed,
Changed to wee women, white and red,
Who, jeweled with the twinkling wet,...

See how the rose leaves fall
The rose leaves fall and fade:
And by the wall, in dusk funereal,
How leaf on leaf is laid,
Withered and soiled and frayed.

How red the rose leaves fall...

Above her, pearl and rose the heavens lay;
Around her, flowers scattered earth with gold,
Or down the path in insolence held sway--
Like cavaliers who ride the elves' highway--...

When my mother is n't here,
And I just won't go to bed,
And it's cold outside and near
Christmas; and the kitchen-shed
'S covered thick with frost and snow;
Then my nurse she says, "Oh! oh!...

Miranda-like, above the world she waves
The wand of Prospero; and, beautiful,
Ariel the airy, Caliban the dull,
Lightning and steam, are her unwilling slaves.

I.

Oh, to see in the night in a May moon's light
A nymph from siren caves,
With a crown of pearl, sea-gems in each curl
Dance down white, star-stained waves!...

I.

I heard the forest's green heart beat
As if it heard the happy feet
Of one who came, like young Desire:
At whose fair coming birds and flowers
Sprang up, and Beauty, filled with fire,...

They lean their faces to me through
Green windows of the woods;
Their white throats sweet with honey-dew
Beneath low leafy hoods -
No dream they dream but hath been true
Here in the solitudes.
...

A Sufi debauchee of dreams
Spake this: From Sodomite to Peri
Earth tablets us; we live and are
Man's own long commentary.

Is one begat in Bassora,
One lies in Damietta dying...

It came to me in my sleep,
And I rose from my sleep and went
Out in the night to weep,
Over the bristling bent.
With my soul, it seemed, I stood
Alone in a moaning wood.
...

1

Hold up thy head and crush
Thy heart's despair;
From thy wan temples brush
The tear-wet hair.


2

Look on me thus as I
Gaze upon thee;
Nor question how nor why...

An agate-black, your roguish eyes
Claim no proud lineage of the skies,
No starry blue; but of good earth
The reckless witchery and mirth.

Looped in your raven hair's repose,...