Shapes and Shadows

At Dawn

 
Far off I heard dark waters rush;
The sky was cold; the dawn broke green;
And wrapped in twilight and strange hush
The gray wind moaned between.
 
 
A voice rang through the House of Sleep,
And through its halls there went a tread;
Mysterious raiment seemed to sweep
Around the pallid dead.
 
 
And then I knew that I had died,
I, who had suffered so and sinned —
And 't was myself I stood beside
In the wild dawn and wind.
 

Storm

 
I looked into the night and saw
God writing with tumultuous flame
Upon the thunder's front of awe, —
As on sonorous brass, – the Law,
Terrific, of His judgement name.
 
 
Weary of all life's best and worst,
With hands of hate, I – who had pled,
I, who had prayed for death at first
And had not died – now stood and cursed
God, yet he would not strike me dead.
 

Memories

 
Here where Love lies perishèd,
Look not in upon the dead;
Lest the shadowy curtains, shaken
In my Heart's dark chamber, waken
Ghosts, beneath whose garb of sorrow
Whilom gladness bows his head:
When you come at morn to-morrow,
Look not in upon the dead,
Here where Love lies perishèd.
 
 
Here where Love lies cold interred,
Let no syllable be heard;
Lest the hollow echoes, housing
In my Soul's deep tomb, arousing
Wake a voice of woe, once laughter
Claimed and clothed in joy's own word:
When you come at dusk or after,
Let no syllable be heard,
Here where Love lies cold interred.
 

Which?

 
The wind was on the forest,
And silence on the wold;
And darkness on the waters,
And heaven was starry cold;
When Sleep, with mystic magic,
Bade me this thing behold:
 
 
This side, an iron woodland;
That side, an iron waste;
And heaven, a tower of iron,
Wherein the wan moon paced,
Still as a phantom woman,
Ice-eyed and icy-faced.
 
 
And through the haunted tower
Of silence and of night,
My Soul and I went only,
My Soul, whose face was white,
Whose one hand signed me listen,
One bore a taper-light.
 
 
For, lo! a voice behind me
Kept sighing in my ear
The dreams my flesh accepted,
My mind refused to hear —
Of one I loved and loved not,
Whose spirit now spake near.
 
 
And, lo! a voice before me
Kept calling constantly
The hopes my mind accepted,
My flesh refused to see —
Of one I loved and loved not,
Whose spirit spake to me.
This way the one would bid me;
 
 
This way the other saith: —
Sweet is the voice behind me
Of Life that followeth;
And sweet the voice before me
Of Life whose name is Death.
 

Sunset in Autumn

 
Blood-coloured oaks, that stand against a sky of gold and brass;
Gaunt slopes, on which the bleak leaves glow of brier and sassafras,
And broom-sedge strips of smoky pink and pearl-gray clumps of grass,
In which, beneath the ragged sky, the rain-pools gleam like glass.
 
 
From West to East, from wood to wood, along the forest-side,
The winds, – the sowers of the Lord, – with thunderous footsteps stride;
Their stormy hands rain acorns down; and mad leaves, wildly dyed,
Like tatters of their rushing cloaks, stream round them far and wide.
 
 
The frail leaf-cricket in the weeds rings a faint fairy bell;
And like a torch of phantom ray the milkweed's windy shell
Glimmers; while wrapped in withered dreams, the wet autumnal smell
Of loam and leaf, like some sad ghost, steals over field and dell.
 
 
The oaks against a copper sky – o'er which, like some black lake
Of Dis, dark clouds, like surges fringed with sullen fire, break —
Loom sombre as Doom's citadel above the vales, that make
A pathway to a land of mist the moon's pale feet shall take.
 
 
Now, dyed with burning carbuncle, a Limbo-litten pane,
Within its wall of storm, the West opens to hill and plain,
On which the wild geese ink themselves, a far triangled train;
And then the shuttering clouds close down – and night is here again.
 

The Legend of the Stone

 
The year was dying, and the day
Was almost dead;
The West, beneath a sombre gray,
Was sombre red.
The gravestones in the ghostly light,
'Mid trees half bare,
Seemed phantoms, clothed in glimmering white,
That haunted there.
 
 
I stood beside the grave of one,
Who, here in life,
Had wronged my home; who had undone
My child and wife.
I stood beside his grave until
The moon came up —
As if the dark, unhallowed hill
Lifted a cup.
 
 
No stone was there to mark his grave,
No flower to grace —
'T was meet that weeds alone should wave
In such a place.
I stood beside his grave until
The stars swam high,
And all the night was iron still
From sky to sky.
 
 
What cared I if strange eyes seemed bright
Within the gloom!
If, evil blue, a wandering light
Burnt by each tomb!
Or that each crookèd thorn-tree seemed
A witch-hag cloaked!
Or that the owl above me screamed,
The raven croaked!
 
 
For I had cursed him when the day
Was sullen red;
Had cursed him when the West was gray,
And day was dead;
And now when night made dark the pole,
Both soon and late
I cursed his body, yea, and soul,
With the hate of hate.
 
 
Once in my soul I seemed to hear
A low voice say, —
'T were better to forgive, – and fear
Thy God, – and pray.
I laughed; and from pale lips of stone
On sculptured tombs
A mocking laugh replied alone
Deep in the glooms.
 
 
And then I felt, I felt – as if
Some force should seize
The body; and its limbs stretch stiff,
And, fastening, freeze
Down, downward deeper than the knees
Into the earth —
While still among the twisted trees
That voice made mirth.
 
 
And in my Soul was fear, despair, —
Like lost ones feel,
When knotted in their pitch-stiff hair,
They feel the steel
Of devils' forks lift up, through sleet
Of hell's slant fire,
Then plunge, – as white from head to feet
I grew entire.
 
 
A voice without me, yet within,
As still as frost,
Intoned: Thy sin is thrice a sin,
Thrice art thou lost.
Behold, how God would punish thee!
For this thy crime —
Thy crime of hate and blasphemy —
Through endless time!
 
 
O'er him, whom thou wouldst not forgive,
Record what good
He did on earth! and let him live
Loved, understood!
Be memory thine of all the worst
He did thine own!
There at the head of him I cursed
I stood – a stone.
 

Time and Death and Love

 
Last night I watched for Death —
So sick of life was I! —
When in the street beneath
I heard his watchman cry
The hour, while passing by.
 
 
I called. And in the night
I heard him stop below,
His owlish lanthorn's light
Blurring the windy snow —
How long the time and slow!
 
 
I said, Why dost thou cower
There at my door and knock?
Come in! It is the hour!
Cease fumbling at the lock!
Naught's well! 'Tis no o'clock!
 
 
Black through the door with him
Swept in the Winter's breath;
His cloak was great and grim —
But he, who smiled beneath,
Had the face of Love not Death.