One Day & Another: A Lyrical Eclogue

TO

G. F. M

THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED IN MEMORY

OF MANY DAYS

 
What though I dreamed of mountain heights,
Of peaks, the barriers of the world,
Around whose tops the Northern Lights
And tempests are unfurled.
 
 
Mine are the footpaths leading through
Life's lowly fields and woods, – with rifts,
Above, of heaven's Eden blue, —
By which the violet lifts
 
 
Its shy appeal; and holding up
Its chaliced gold, like some wild wine,
Along the hillside, cup on cup,
Blooms bright the celandine.
 
 
Where soft upon each flowering stock
The butterfly spreads damask wings;
And under grassy loam and rock
The cottage cricket sings.
 
 
Where overhead eve blooms with fire,
In which the new moon bends her bow,
And, arrow-like, one white star by her
Burns through the afterglow.
 
 
I care not, so the sesame
I find; the magic flower there,
Whose touch unseals each mystery
In water, earth and air.
 
 
That in the oak tree lets me hear
Its heart's deep speech, its soul's wise words;
And to my mind makes crystal clear
The melodies of birds.
 
 
Why should I care, who live aloof
Beyond the din of life and dust,
While dreams still share my humble roof,
And love makes sweet my crust?
 

PART I
LATE SPRING

 
The mottled moth at eventide
Beats glimmering wings against the pane;
The slow, sweet lily opens wide,
White in the dusk like some dim stain;
The garden dreams on every side
And breathes faint scents of rain.
Among the flowering stocks they stand:
A crimson rose is in his hand.
 

1

Outside her garden. He waits musing

 
Herein the dearness of her is;
The thirty perfect days of June
Made one, in maiden loveliness
Were not more sweet to clasp and kiss,
With love not more in tune.
 
 
Ah me! I think she is too true,
Too spiritual for life's rough way;
For in her eyes her soul looks new —
Two bluet blossoms, watchet-blue,
Are not so pure as they.
 
 
So good, so beautiful is she,
So soft and white, so fond and fair,
Sometimes my heart fears she may be
Not long for me, and secretly
A sister of the air.
 

2

Dusk deepens. A whippoorwill calls

 
The whippoorwills are calling where
The golden west is graying;
"'Tis time," they say, "to meet him there —
Why are you still delaying?
 
 
"He waits you where the old beech throws
Its gnarly shadow over
Wood-violet and the bramble rose,
Frail maiden-fern and clover.
 
 
"Where elder and the sumach creep
Above your garden's paling,
Whereon at noon the lizards sleep
Like lichens on the railing.
 
 
"Come! ere the early rising moon's
Gold floods the violet valleys;
Where mists, like phantom picaroons
Anchor their stealthy galleys.
 
 
"Come! while the deepening amethyst
Of dusk above is falling —
'Tis time to tryst! 'tis time to tryst!"
The whippoorwills are calling.
 
 
They call you to these twilight ways
With dewy odor dripping —
Ah, girlhood, through the rosy haze
Come like a moonbeam slipping.
 

3

He enters her garden, speaking dreamily:

 
There is a fading inward of the day,
And all the pansy heaven clasps one star;
The dwindling acres eastward glimmer gray,
While all the world to westward smoulders far.
 
 
Now to your glass will you pass for the last time?
Pass! humming some ballad, I know, —
Here where I wait it is late and is past time —
Late! and the moments are slow, are slow.
 
 
There is a drawing downward of the night;
The bridegroom Heaven bends down to kiss the moon;
Above, the heights hang silver in her light;
Below, the woods stretch purple, deep in June.
 
 
There in the dew is it you hiding lawny?
You, or a moth in the vines? —
You! – by your hand, where the band twinkles tawny!
You! – by your ring, like a glowworm, that shines!
 

4

She approaches, laughing. She speaks, —

 
You'd given up hope?
 

HE

 
Believe me.
 

SHE

 
Why, is your love so poor?
 

HE

 
I knew you'd not deceive me.
 

SHE

 
As many a girl before, —
Ah, dear, you will forgive me?
 

HE

 
Say no more, sweet, say no more!
 

SHE

 
Love trusts, and that's enough, my dear.
Trust wins to trust; whereof, my dear,
Love holds to love; and love, my dear,
Is – well, that's all my lore.
 

HE

 
Come, pay me or I'll scold you. —
Give me the kiss you owe. —
You fly when I'd enfold you?
 

SHE

 
No! no! I say! now, no!
How often have I told you,
You must not treat me so?
 

HE

 
More sweet the dusk for this is,
For lips that meet in kisses. —
Come! come! why run from blisses
As from a mortal foe?
 

5

She stands smiling at him. She speaks:

 
How many words in the asking!
How easily I can grieve you! —
My "no" in a "yes" was a-masking,
Nor thought, dear, to deceive you. —
A kiss? – the humming-bird happiness here
In my heart consents… But what are words,
When the thought of two souls in speech accords?
Affirmative, negative – what are they, dear?
I wished to say "yes," but somehow said "no."
The woman within me thought you would know
Thought that your heart would hear.
 

He speaks:

 
So many hopes in a wooing! —
Therein you could not deceive me;
Some things are sweeter for the pursuing —
I knew what you meant, believe me. —
Bunched bells of the blush pomegranate, to fix
At your throat … six drops of fire they are…
Will you look where the moon and its following star
Rise silvery over yon meadow ricks?
While I hold – while I lean your head back, so —
For I know it is "yes" though you whisper "no,"
And my kisses, sweet, are six.
 

6

Moths flutter around them. She speaks:

 
Look! – where the fiery
Glow-worm in briery
Banks of the moon-mellowed bowers
Sparkles – how hazily
Pinioned and arily
Delicate, warily,
Drowsily, lazily,
Flutter the moths to the flowers.
 
 
White as the dreamiest
Bud of the creamiest
Rose in the garden that dozes,
See how they cling to them!
Held in the heart of their
Hearts like a part of their
Perfume they swing to them
Wings that are soft as the roses.
 
 
Dim as the forming of
Dew in the warming of
Moonlight, they light on the petals;
All is revealed to them;
All – from the sunniest
Tips to the honiest
Heart, whence they yield to them
Spice through the darkness that settles.
 
 
So to our tremulous
Souls come the emulous
Spirits of love; through whose power
All that is best in us,
All that is beautiful,
All that is dutiful,
Is made confessed in us,
Even as the scent of a flower.
 

7

Taking her hand, he says:

 
What makes you beautiful?
Answer, now, answer! —
Is it that dutiful
Souls are all beautiful?
Is't that romance or
Beauty of spirit,
Which souls of merit
Of heaven inherit? —
Have you no answer?
 

She roguishly:

 
What makes you lovable?
Answer, dear, answer! —
Is it not provable
That man is lovable
Just because chance or
Nature makes woman
Love him? – Her human
Part's to illumine. —
Have you no answer?
 

8

Then, regarding him seriously, she continues:

 
Could I recall every joy that befell me
There in the past with its anguish and bliss,
Here in my heart it has whispered to tell me,
Those were no joys like this.
 
 
Were it not well if our love could forget them
Veiling the was with the dawn of the is?
Dead with the past we should never regret them,
Being no joys like this.
 
 
When they were gone and the Present stood speechful,
Ardent in word and in look and in kiss,
What though we know that their eyes are beseechful,
Those were no joys like this.
 
 
Is it not well to have more of the spirit,
Living for Futures where naught is amiss,
Less of the flesh with the Past pining near it?
Is there a joy like this?
 

9

Leaving the garden for the lane. He, with lightness of heart

 
We will leave reason,
Sweet, for a season;
Reason were treason
Now that the nether
Spaces are clad, oh,
In silvery shadow —
We will be glad, oh,
Glad as this weather!
 

She, responding to his mood:

 
Heart unto heart, where the moonlight is slanted,
Let us believe that our souls are enchanted: —
I in the castle-keep; you are the airy
Prince who comes seeking me; Love is the Fairy
Bringing our hearts together.
 

HE

 
Starlight in masses
Over us passes;
And in the grass is
Many a flower:
Now will you tell me
How'd you enspell me?
What once befell me
There in your bower?
 

SHE

 
Soul unto soul – in the moon's wizard glory,
Let us believe we are parts in a story: —
I am a poem; a poet you hear it
Whispered in star and in flower; a Spirit,
Love, puts my soul in your power.
 

10

He, suddenly and very earnestly:

 
Perhaps we lived in the days
Of the Khalif Haroun er Reshid;
And loved, as the story says
Did the Sultan's favorite one
And the Persian Emperor's son,
Ali ben Bekkar, he
Of the Kisra dynasty.
 
 
Do you know the story? – Well,
You were Haroun's Sultana.
When night on the palace fell,
A slave through a secret door, —
Low-arched on the Tigris' shore, —
By a hidden winding stair
Brought me to your bower there.
 
 
Then there was laughter and mirth,
And feasting and singing together,
In a chamber of wonderful worth;
In a chamber vaulted high
On columns of ivory;
Its dome, like the irised skies,
Mooned over with peacock eyes;
Its curtains and furniture,
Damask and juniper.
 
 
Ten slave girls – like unto blooms —
Stand, holding tamarisk torches,
Silk-clad from the Irak looms;
Ten handmaidens serve the feast,
Each girl like a star in the east;
Ten lutanists, lutes a-tune,
Wait, each like the Ramadan moon.
 
 
For you in a stuff of Merv
Blue-clad, unveiled and jewelled,
No metaphor known may serve:
Scarved deep with your raven hair,
The jewels like fireflies there,
Blossom and moon and star,
The Lady Shemsennehar.
 
 
The zone that girdles your waist
Would ransom a Prince and Emeer;
In your coronet's gold enchased,
And your bracelet's twisted bar,
Burn rubies of Istakhar;
And pearls of the Jamshid race
Hang looped on your bosom's lace.
 
 
You stand like the letter I;
Dawn-faced, with eyes that sparkle
Black stars in a rosy sky;
Mouth like a cloven peach,
Sweet with your smiling speech;
Cheeks that the blood presumes
To make pomegranate blooms.
 
 
With roses of Rocknabad,
Hyacinths of Bokhara, —
Creamily cool and clad
In gauze, – girls scatter the floor
From pillar to cedarn door.
Then a poppy-bloom at each ear,
Come the dancing girls of Kashmeer.
 
 
Kohl in their eyes, down the room, —
That opaline casting-bottles
Have showered with rose perfume, —
They glitter and drift and swoon
To the dulcimer's languishing tune;
In the liquid light like stars,
And moons and nenuphars.
 
 
Carbuncles, tragacanth-red,
Smoulder in armlet and anklet;
Gleaming on breast and on head
Bangles of coins, that are angled,
Tinkle; and veils, that are spangled,
Flutter from coiffure and wrist
Like a star-bewildered mist.
 
 
Each dancing-girl is a flower
Of the Tuba from vales of El Liwa. —
How the bronzen censers glower!
And scents of ambergris pour
And myrrh brought of Lahore,
And musk of Khoten! how good
Is the scent of the sandal-wood!
 
 
A lutanist smites her lute;
Sings loves of Mejnoon and Leila —
Her voice is a houri flute; —
While the fragrant flambeaux wave
Barbaric o'er free and slave,
O'er fabrics and bezels of gems
And roses in anadems.
 
 
Sherbets in ewers of gold,
Fruits in salvers carnelian;
Flagons of grotesque mold,
Made of a sapphire glass,
Brimmed with wine of Shiraz;
Shaddock and melon and grape
On plate of an antique shape.
 
 
Vases of frosted rose,
Of limpid alabaster,
Filled with the mountain snows;
Goblets of mother-of-pearl,
One filigree silver-swirl;
Vessels of gold foamed up
With spray of spar on the cup.
 
 
Then a slave bursts in with a cry:
"The eunuchs! the Khalif's eunuchs! —
With scimitars bared draw nigh!
Wesif and Afif and he,
Chief of the hideous three,
Mesrour! – the Sultan's seen
'Mid a hundred weapons' sheen!"
 
 
Did we part when we heard this? No!
It seems that my soul remembers
How I clasped you and kissed you, so.
When they came they found us – dead
On the flowers our blood dyed red;
Our lips together, and
The dagger in my hand.