Weeds by the Wall: Verses

FLORIDIAN

I

 
The cactus and the aloe bloom
Beneath the window of your room;
Your window where, at evenfall,
Beneath the twilight's first pale star,
You linger, tall and spiritual,
And hearken my guitar.
 
 
It is the hour
When every flower
Is wooed by moth or bee —
Would, would you were the flower, dear,
And I the moth to draw you near,
To draw you near to me,
My dear,
To draw you near to me.
 

II

 
The jasmine and bignonia spill
Their balm around your windowsill;
The sill where, when magnolia-white,
In foliage mists, the moon hangs far,
You lean with bright deep eyes of night
And hearken my guitar.
 
 
It is the hour
When from each flower
The wind woos fragrances —
Would, would you were the flower, love,
And I the wind to breathe above,
To breathe above and kiss,
My love,
To breathe above and kiss.
 

THE GOLDEN HOUR

I

 
She comes, – the dreamy daughter
Of day and night, – a girl,
Who o'er the western water
Lifts up her moon of pearl:
Like some Rebecca at the well,
Who fills her jar of crystal shell,
Down ways of dew, o'er dale and dell,
Dusk comes with dreams of you,
Of you,
Dusk comes with dreams of you.
 

II

 
She comes, the serious sister
Of all the stars that strew
The deeps of God, and glister
Bright on the darkling blue:
Like some loved Ruth, who heaps her arm
With golden gleanings of the farm,
Down fields of stars, where shadows swarm,
Dusk comes with thoughts of you,
Of you,
Dusk comes with thoughts of you.
 

III

 
She comes, and soft winds greet her,
And whispering odors woo;
She is the words and meter
They set their music to:
Like Israfel, a spirit fair,
Whose heart's a silvery dulcimer,
Down listening slopes of earth and air
Dusk comes with love of you,
Of you,
Dusk comes with love of you.
 

REED CALL FOR APRIL

I

 
When April comes, and pelts with buds
And apple-blooms each orchard space,
And takes the dog-wood-whitened woods
With rain and sunshine of her moods,
Like your fair face, like your fair face:
 
 
It's honey for the bloom and dew,
And honey for the heart!
And, oh, to be away with you
Beyond the town and mart.
 

II

 
When April comes, and tints the hills
With gold and beryl that rejoice,
And from her airy apron spills
The laughter of the winds and rills,
Like your young voice, like your young voice:
 
 
It's gladness for God's bending blue,
And gladness for the heart!
And, oh, to be away with you
Beyond the town and mart.
 

III

 
When April comes, and binds and girds
The world with warmth that breathes above,
And to the breeze flings all her birds,
Whose songs are welcome as the words
Of you I love, of you I love:
 
 
It's music for all things that woo,
And music for the heart!
And, oh, to be away with you
Beyond the town and mart.
 

"THE YEARS WHEREIN I NEVER KNEW."

 
The years, wherein I never knew
Such beauty as is yours, – so fraught
With truth and kindness looking through
Your loveliness, – I count them naught,
O girl, so like a lily wrought!
The years wherein I knew not you.
 
 
Ah, let me see you always so! —
A dream that haunts my memory's sight —
Your hair of moonlight, face of snow,
And eyes, blue stars of laughing light,
O girl, so like a lily white!
Through all the years that come and go.
 
 
True to you only, in my heart
I wear your spirit miniature,
Sincere in simpleness of art,
That makes my love to still endure,
O girl, so like a lily pure!
Through years that keep us still apart.
 

MIGNON

 
Oh, Mignon's mouth is like a rose,
A red, red rose, that half uncurls
Sweet petals o'er a crimson bee:
Or like a shell, that, opening, shows
Within its rosy curve white pearls,
White rows of pearls,
Is Mignon's mouth that smiles at me.
 
 
Oh, Mignon's eyes are like blue gems,
Two azure gems, that gleam and glow,
Soft sapphires set in ivory:
Or like twin violets, whose stems
Bloom blue beneath the covering snow,
The lidded snow,
Are Mignon's eyes that laugh at me.
 
 
O mouth of Mignon, Mignon's eyes!
O eyes of violet, mouth of fire! —
Within which lies all ecstasy
Of tears and kisses and of sighs: —
O mouth, O eyes, and O desire,
O love's desire,
Have mercy on the soul of me!
 

QUI DOCET, DISCIT

I

 
When all the world was white with flowers,
And Summer, in her sun-built towers,
Stood smiling 'mid her handmaid Hours,
Who robed her limbs for bridal;
Somewhere between the golden sands
And purple hills of Folly's lands,
Love, with a laugh, let go our hands,
And left our sides to idle.
 

II

 
Now all the world is red with doom,
And Autumn, in her frost-carved room,
Bends darkly o'er the gipsy loom
Of memories she weaves there;
Who knocks at night upon the door,
All travel-worn and pale and poor? —
Open! and let him in once more,
The Love that stands and grieves there.
 

TRANSUBSTANTIATION

I

 
A sunbeam and a drop of dew
Lay on a red rose in the South:
God took the three and made her mouth,
Her sweet, sweet mouth,
So red of hue, —
The burning baptism of His kiss
Still fills my heart with heavenly bliss.
 

II

 
A dream of truth and love come true
Slept on a star in daybreak skies:
God mingled these and made her eyes,
Her dear, dear eyes,
So gray of hue, —
The high communion of His gaze
Still fills my soul with deep amaze.
 

HELEN

 
Heaped in raven loops and masses
Over temples smooth and fair,
Have you marked it, as she passes,
Gleam and shadow mingled there, —
Braided strands of midnight air, —
Helen's hair?
 
 
Deep with dreams and starry mazes
Of the thought that in them lies,
Have you seen them, as she raises
Them in gladness or surprise, —
Two gray gleams of daybreak skies, —
Helen's eyes?
 
 
Moist with dew and honied wafters
Of a music sweet that slips,
Have you marked them, brimmed with laughter's
Song and sunshine to their tips,
Rose-buds whence the fragrance drips, —
Helen's lips?
 
 
He who sees her needs must love her:
But, beware! avoid love's dart!
He who loves her must discover
Nature overlooked one part,
In this masterpiece of art —
Helen's heart.
 

A CAMEO

 
Why speak of Giamschid rubies
Whence rosy starlight drips?
I know a richer crimson, —
The ruby of her lips.
 
 
Why speak of pearls of Oman
That shells of ocean sheathe?
I know a purer nacre, —
The white pearls of her teeth.
 
 
Why tell me of the sapphires
That Kings and Khalifs prize?
I know a lovelier azure, —
The sapphires of her eyes.
 
 
Go search the far Earth over,
Go search the farthest sea,
You will not find a cameo
Like her God carved for me.
 

LA JEUNESSE ET LA MORT

I

 
Unto her fragrant face and hair, —
As some wild bee unto a rose,
That blooms in splendid beauty there
Within the South, – my longing goes:
My longing, that is over fain
To call her mine, but all in vain;
Since jealous Death, as each one knows,
Is guardian of La belle Heléne;
Of her whose face is very fair —
To my despair,
Sweet belle Heléne.
 

II

 
The sweetness of her face suggests
The sensuous scented Jacqueminots;
Magnolia blooms her throat and breasts;
Her hands long lilies in repose:
Fair flowers all without a stain,
That grow for Death to pluck again,
Within that garden's radiant close,
The body of La belle Heléne;
The garden glad that she suggests, —
That Death invests.
Sweet belle Heléne.
 

III

 
God had been kinder to me, – when
He dipped His hands in fires and snows
And made you like a flow'r to ken,
A flow'r that in Earth's garden grows, —
Had He, for pleasure or for pain,
Instead of Death in that demesne,
Made Love the gardener to that rose,
Your loveliness, O belle Heléne;
God had been kinder to me then —
And to all men,
Sweet belle Heléne.
 

LOVE AND LOSS

 
Loss molds our lives in many ways,
And fills our souls with guesses;
Upon our hearts sad hands it lays
Like some grave priest that blesses.
 
 
Far better than the love we win,
That earthly passions leaven,
Is love we lose, that knows no sin,
That points the path to Heaven.
 
 
Love, whose soft shadow brightens Earth,
Through whom our dreams are nearest;
And loss, through whom we see the worth
Of all that we held dearest.
 
 
Not joy it is, but misery
That chastens us, and sorrow; —
Perhaps to make us all that we
Expect beyond To-morrow.
 
 
Within that life where time and fate
Are not; that knows no seeming:
That world to which death keeps the gate
Where love and loss sit dreaming.
 

SUNSET CLOUDS

 
Low clouds, the lightning veins and cleaves,
Torn from the forest of the storm,
Sweep westward like enormous leaves
O'er field and farm.
 
 
And in the west, on burning skies,
Their wrath is quenched, their hate is hushed,
And deep their drifted thunder lies
With splendor flushed.
 
 
The black turns gray, the gray turns gold;
And, seaed in deeps of radiant rose,
Summits of fire, manifold
They now repose.
 
 
What dreams they bring! what thoughts reveal!
That have their source in loveliness,
Through which the doubts I often feel
Grow less and less.
 
 
Through which I see that other night,
That cloud called Death, transformed of Love
To flame, and pointing with its light
To life above.
 

MASKED

 
Lying alone I dreamed a dream last night:
Methought that Joy had come to comfort me
For all the past, its suffering and slight,
Yet in my heart I felt this could not be.
 
 
All that he said unreal seemed and strange,
Too beautiful to last beyond to-morrow;
Then suddenly his features seemed to change, —
The mask of joy dropped from the face of Sorrow.
 

OUT OF THE DEPTHS

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
Dark waters where the starlight glimmering sleeps. —
In every lineament the mind can trace,
Let me forget her face!
 

II

 
Let me forget her form!
Soft and seductive, that contained each charm,
Each grace the sweet word maidenhood implies;
And all the sensuous youth of line and curve,
That makes men's eyes
Bondsmen of beauty eager still to serve. —
In every part that memory can warm,
Let me forget her form!
 

III

 
Let me forget her, God!
Her who made honeyed love a bitter rod
To scourge my heart with, barren with despair;
To tear my soul with, sick with vain desire! —
Oh, hear my prayer!
Out of the hell of love's unquenchable fire
I cry to thee, with face against the sod,
Let me forget her, God!
 

RICHES

 
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,
The ore that makes men fools and slaves;
What is it to the gold, cloud-curled,
That rivers through the sunset's caves!
 
 
Search Earth for riches all who will,
The gold that soils, that turns to dust —
Be mine the wealth no thief can steal,
The gold of God that can not rust.
 

BEAUTY AND ART

 
The gods are dead; but still for me
Lives on in wildwood brook and tree
Each myth, each old divinity.
 
 
For me still laughs among her rocks
The Naiad; and the Dryad's locks
Drop perfume on the wild-flower flocks.
 
 
The Satyr hoof still prints the loam;
And, whiter than the wind-blown foam,
The Oread haunts her mountain home.
 
 
To him, whose mind is fain to dwell
With loveliness no time can quell,
All things are real, imperishable.
 
 
To him – whatever facts may say —
Who sees the soul beneath the clay,
Is proof of a diviner day.
 
 
The very stars and flowers preach
A gospel old as God, and teach
Philosophy a child may reach;
 
 
That can not die, that shall not cease,
That lives through idealities
Of beauty, ev'n as Rome and Greece;
 
 
That lift the soul above the clod,
And, working out some period
Of art, are part and proof of God.
 

THE AGE OF GOLD

 
The clouds, that tower in storm, that beat
Arterial thunder in their veins;
The wildflowers lifting, shyly sweet,
Their perfect faces from the plains, —
All high, all lowly things of Earth
For no vague end have had their birth.
 
 
Low strips of mist, that mesh the moon
Above the foaming waterfall;
And mountains that God's hand hath hewn,
And forests where the great winds call, —
Within the grasp of such as see
Are parts of a conspiracy;
 
 
To seize the soul with beauty; hold
The heart with love, and so fulfill
Within ourselves the Age of Gold,
That never died, and never will, —
So long as one true nature feels
The wonders that the world reveals.
 

THE LOVE OF LOVES

 
I have not seen her face, and yet
She is more sweet than any thing
Of Earth – than rose or violet
That Mayday winds and sunbeams bring.
Of all we know, past or to come,
That beauty holds within its net,
She is the high compendium:
And yet —
 
 
I have not touched her robe, and still
She is more dear than lyric words
And music; or than strains that fill
The throbbing throats of forest birds.
Of all we mean by poetry,
That rules the soul and charms the will,
She is the deep epitome:
And still —
 
 
She is my world; ah, pity me!
A dream that flies whom I pursue;
Whom all pursue, whoe'er they be,
Who toil for art and dare and do.
The shadow-love for whom they sigh,
The far ideal affinity,
For whom they live and gladly die —
Ah, me!
 

THREE THINGS

 
There are three things of Earth
That help us more
Than those of heavenly birth
That all implore —
Than Love or Faith or Hope,
For which we strive and grope.
 
 
The first one is Desire, —
Who takes our hand
And fills our hearts with fire
None may withstand; —
Through whom we're lifted far
Above both moon and star.
 
 
The second one is Dream, —
Who leads our feet
By an immortal gleam
To visions sweet; —
Through whom our forms put on
Dim attributes of dawn.
 
 
The last of these is Toil, —
Who maketh true,
Within the world's turmoil
The other two; —
Through whom we may behold
Ourselves with kings enrolled.