TO

IRMA

ALL THE WAY

Not all my treasure hath the bandit Time Locked in his glimmering caverns of the Past: Fair women dead and friendships of old rhyme, And noble dreams that had to end at last:— Ah! these indeed; and from youth's sacristy Full many a holy relic hath he torn, Vessels of mystic faith God filled for me, Holding them up to Him in life's young morn.

All these are mine no more—Time hath them all, Time and his adamantine gaoler Death: Despoilure vast—yet seemeth it but small, When unto thee I turn, thy bloom and breath Filling with light and incense the last shrine, Innermost, inaccessible,—yea, thine.

CONTENTS

THE LONELY DANCER

I

FLOS AEVORUM "ALL THE WORDS IN ALL THE WORLD" "I SAID—I CARE NOT" "ALL THE WIDE WORLD IS BUT THE THOUGHT OF YOU" "LIGHTNINGS MAY FLICKER ROUND MY HEAD" "THE AFTERNOON IS LONELY FOR YOUR FACE" "SORE IN NEED WAS I OF A FAITHFUL FRIEND" "I THOUGHT, BEFORE MY SUNLIT TWENTIETH YEAR"

II

TO A BIRD AT DAWN ALMA VENUS "AH! DID YOU EVER HEAR THE SPRING" APRIL MAY IS BUILDING HER HOUSE SHADOW JUNE GREEN SILENCE SUMMER SONGS TO A WILD BIRD "I CROSSED THE ORCHARD WALKING HOME" "I MEANT TO DO MY WORK TO-DAY" "HOW FAST THE YEAR IS GOING BY" AUGUST MOONLIGHT TO A ROSE INVITATION SUMMER GOING AUTUMN TREASURE WINTER THE MYSTIC FRIENDS THE COUNTRY GODS

III

TO ONE ON A JOURNEY HER PORTRAIT IMMORTAL SPRING'S PROMISES "APRIL IS IN THE WORLD AGAIN" "SINGING GO I" "WHO WAS IT SWEPT AGAINST MY DOOR" "FACE IN THE TOMB THAT LIES SO STILL" "I KNOW NOT IN WHAT PLACE" RESURRECTION "WHEN THE LONG DAY HAS FADED" "HER EYES ARE BLUEBELLS NOW" "THE DEAD AROSE" "THE BLOOM UPON THE GRAPE" THE FRIEND ADORATION "AT LAST I GOT A LETTER FROM THE DEAD"

IV

SONGS FOR FRAGOLETTA

V

A BALLAD OF WOMAN AN EASTER HYMN BALLAD OF THE SEVEN O'CLOCK WHISTLE MORALITY

VI

FOR THE BIRTHDAY OF EDGAR ALLAN POE TO RALPH WALDO EMERSON RICHARD WATSON GILDER IN A COPY OF FITZGERALD'S "OMAR"

VII

A BALLAD OF TOO MUCH BEAUTY SPRING IN THE PARIS CATACOMBS A FACE IN A BOOK TIME, BEAUTY'S FRIEND YOUNG LOVE LOVERS FOR A PICTURE BY ROSE CECIL O'NEIL LOVE IN SPAIN THE EYES THAT COME FROM IRELAND A BALLAD OF THE KIND LITTLE CREATURES BLUE FLOWER THE HEART UNSEEN THE SHIMMER OF THE SOUND A SONG OF SINGERS THE END

THE LONELY DANCER

I had no heart to join the dance, I danced it all so long ago— Ah! light-winged music out of France, Let other feet glide to and fro, Weaving new patterns of romance For bosoms of new-fallen snow.

But leave me thus where I may hear The leafy rustle of the waltz, The shell-like murmur in my ear, The silken whisper fairy-false Of unseen rainbows circling near, And the glad shuddering of the walls.

Another dance the dancers spin, A shadow-dance of mystic pain, And other partners enter in And dance within my lonely brain— The swaying woodland shod in green, The ghostly dancers of the rain;

The lonely dancers of the sea, Foam-footed on the sandy bar, The wizard dance of wind and tree, The eddying dance of stream and star; Yea, all these dancers tread for me A measure mournful and bizarre:

An echo-dance where ear is eye, And sound evokes the shapes of things, Where out of silence and a sigh The sad world like a picture springs, As, when some secret bird sweeps by, We see it in the sound of wings.

Those human feet upon the floor, That eager pulse of rhythmic breath,— How sadly to an unknown shore Each silver footfall hurryeth; A dance of autumn leaves, no more, On the fantastic wind of death.

Fire clasped to elemental fire, 'Tis thus the solar atom whirls; The butterfly in aery gyre, On autumn mornings, swarms and swirls, In dance of delicate desire, No other than these boys and girls.

The same strange music everywhere, The woven paces just the same, Dancing from out the viewless air Into the void from whence they came; Ah! but they make a gallant flare Against the dark, each little flame!

And what if all the meaning lies Just in the music, not in those Who dance thus with transfigured eyes, Holding in vain each other close; Only the music never dies, The dance goes on,—the dancer goes.

A woman dancing, or a world Poised on one crystal foot afar, In shining gulfs of silence whirled, Like notes of the strange music are; Small shape against another curled, Or dancing dust that makes a star.

To him who plays the violin All one it is who joins the reel, Drops from the dance, or enters in; So that the never-ending wheel Cease not its mystic course to spin, For weal or woe, for woe or weal.

I

FLOS AEVORUM

You must mean more than just this hour, You perfect thing so subtly fair, Simple and complex as a flower, Wrought with such planetary care; How patient the eternal power That wove the marvel of your hair.

How long the sunlight and the sea Wove and re-wove this rippling gold To rhythms of eternity; And many a flashing thing grew old, Waiting this miracle to be; And painted marvels manifold,

Still with his work unsatisfied, Eager each new effect to try, The solemn artist cast aside, Rainbow and shell and butterfly, As some stern blacksmith scatters wide The sparks that from his anvil fly.

How many shells, whorl within whorl, Litter the marges of the sphere With wrack of unregarded pearl, To shape that little thing your ear: Creation, just to make one girl, Hath travailed with exceeding fear.

The moonlight of forgotten seas Dwells in your eyes, and on your tongue The honey of a million bees, And all the sorrows of all song: You are the ending of all these, The world grew old to make you young.

All time hath traveled to this rose; To the strange making of this face Came agonies of fires and snows; And Death and April, nights and days Unnumbered, unimagined throes, Find in this flower their meeting place.

Strange artist, to my aching thought Give answer: all the patient power That to this perfect ending wrought, Shall it mean nothing but an hour? Say not that it is all for nought Time brings Eternity a flower.

All the words in all the world Cannot tell you how I love you, All the little stars that shine To make a silver crown above you;

"ALL THE WORDS IN ALL THE WORLD"

All the flowers cannot weave A garland worthy of your hair, Not a bird in the four winds Can sing of you that is so fair.

Only the spheres can sing of you; Some planet in celestial space, Hallowed and lonely in the dawn, Shall sing the poem of your face.

"I SAID—I CARE NOT"

I said—I care not if I can But look into her eyes again, But lay my hand within her hand Just once again.

Though all the world be filled with snow And fire and cataclysmal storm, I'll cross it just to lay my head Upon her bosom warm.

Ah! bosom made of April flowers, Might I but bring this aching brain, This foolish head, and lay it down On April once again!

"ALL THE WIDE WORLD IS BUT THE THOUGHT OF YOU"

All the wide world is but the thought of you: Who made you out of wonder and of dew? Was it some god with tears in his deep eyes, Who loved a woman white and over-wise, That strangely put all violets in your hair— And put into your face all distance too?

"LIGHTNINGS MAY FLICKER ROUND MY HEAD"

Lightnings may flicker round my head, And all the world seem doom, If you, like a wild rose, will walk Strangely into the room.

If only my sad heart may hear Your voice of faery laughter— What matters though the heavens fall, And hell come thundering after.

"THE AFTERNOON IS LONELY FOR YOUR FACE"

The afternoon is lonely for your face, The pampered morning mocks the day's decline— I was so rich at noon, the sun was mine, Mine the sad sea that in that rocky place Girded us round with blue betrothal ring. Because your heart was mine, your heart, that precious thing.

The night will be a desert till the dawn, Unless you take some ferry-boat of dreams, And glide to me, a glory of silver beams, Under my eyelids, like sad curtains drawn; So, by good hap, my heart can find its way Where all your sweetness lies in fragrant disarray.

Ah! but with morn the world begins anew, Again the sea shall sing up to your feet, And earth and all the heavens call you sweet, You all alone with me, I all alone with you, And all the business of the laurelled hours Shyly to gaze on that betrothal ring of ours.

"SORE IN NEED WAS I OF A FAITHFUL FRIEND"

Sore in need was I of a faithful friend, And it seemed to me that life Had come to its much desired end— Just then God gave me a wife.

I had seen the beauty of fairy things, And seen the women walk; I had heard the voice of the seven sins And all the wonderful talk.

Ah, the promising earth that seems so kind, And the comrades with outstretched hand— But did you ever stand alone In a black, forsaken land? Then the wonderful things that God can do One comes to understand:

How He turns the desert dust to a dream, And the lonely wind to a friend, And makes a bright beginning Of what had seemed the end: 'Twas in such an hour God placed in mine The moonbeam hand of a friend.

"I THOUGHT, BEFORE MY SUNLIT TWENTIETH YEAR"

I thought, before my sunlit twentieth year, That I knew Love, and Death that goes with it; And my young broken heart in little songs, Dew-like, I poured, and waited for my end Wildly—and waited—being then nineteen. I walked a little longer on my way, Alive, 'gainst expectation and desire, And, being then past twenty, I beheld The face of all the faces of the world Dewily opening on its stem for me. Ah! so it seemed, and, each succeeding year, Thus hath some woman blossom of the divine Flowered in my path, and made a frail delay In my true journey—to my home in thee.

October 27, 1911.

II

TO A BIRD AT DAWN

O bird that somewhere yonder sings, In the dim hour 'twixt dreams and dawn, Lone in the hush of sleeping things, In some sky sanctuary withdrawn; Your perfect song is too like pain, And will not let me sleep again.

I think you must be more than bird, A little creature of soft wings, Not yours this deep and thrilling word— Some morning planet 'tis that sings; Surely from no small feathered throat Wells that august, eternal note.

As some old language of the dead, In one resounding syllable, Says Rome and Greece and all is said— A simple word a child may spell; So in your liquid note impearled Sings the long epic of the world.

Unfathomed sweetness of your song, With ancient anguish at its core, What womb of elemental wrong, With shudder unimagined, bore Peace so divine—what hell hath trod This voice that softly talks with God!

All silence in one silver flower Of speech that speaks not, save as speaks The moon in heaven, yet hath power To tell the soul the thing it seeks. And pack, as by some wizard's art, The whole within the finite part.

To you, sweet bird, one well might feign— With such authority you sing So clear, yet so profound, a strain Into the simple ear of spring— Some secret understanding given Of the hid purposes of Heaven.

And all my life until this day, And all my life until I die, All joy and sorrow of the way, Seem calling yonder in the sky; And there is something the song saith That makes me unafraid of death.

Now the slow light fills all the trees, The world, before so still and strange, With day's familiar presences, Back to its common self must change, And little gossip shapes of song The porches of the morning throng.

Not yours with such as these to vie That of the day's small business sing, Voice of man's heart and of God's sky— But O you make so deep a thing Of joy, I dare not think of pain Until I hear you sing again.

ALMA VENUS

Only a breath—hardly a breath! The shore Is still a huddled alabaster floor Of shelving ice and shattered slabs of cold, Stern wreckage of the fiercely frozen wave, Gleaming in mailed wastes of white and gold; As though the sea, in an enchanted grave, Of fearful crystal locked, no more shall stir Softly, all lover, to the April moon: Hardly a breath! yet was I now aware Of a most delicate balm upon the air, Almost a voice that almost whispered "soon"!

Not of the earth it was—no living thing Moves in the iron landscape far or near, Saving, in raucous flight, the winter crow, Staining the whiteness with its ebon wing, Or silver-sailing gull, or 'mid the drear Rock cedars, like a summer soul astray, A lone red squirrel makes believe to play, Nibbling the frozen snow.

Not of the earth, that hath not scent nor song, Nor hope of aught, nor memory, nor dream, Nor any speech upon its sullen tongue, Nor any liberty of running stream; Not of the earth, that hath forgot to smile; But, strangely wafted o'er the frozen sea, As from some hidden Cytherean isle, Veil within veil, the sweetness came to me.

Beyond the heaving glitter of the floe, The free blue water sparkles to the sky, Losing itself in brightness; to and fro Long bands of mists trail luminously by, And, as behind a screen, on the sea's rim Hid softnesses of sunshine come and go, And shadowy coasts in sudden glory swim— O land made out of distance and desire!— With ports of mystic pearl and crests of fire.

Thence, somewhere in the spaces of the sea, Travelled this halcyon breath presaging Spring; Over the water even now secretly She maketh ready in her hands to bring Blossom and blade and wing; And soon the wave shall ripple with her feet, And her wild hair be blown about the skies,

And with her bosom all the world grow sweet, And blue with the sea-blue of her deep eyes The meadow, like another sea, shall flower, And all the earth be song and singing shower; While watching, in some hollow of the grass By the sea's edge, I may behold her stand, With rosy feet, upon the yellow sand, Pause in a dream, and to the woodland pass.

"AH! DID YOU EVER HEAR THE SPRING"

Ah! did you ever hear the Spring Calling you through the snow, Or hear the little blackbird sing Inside its egg—or go To that green land where grass begins, Each tiny seed, to grow?

O have you heard what none has heard, Or seen what none has seen; O have you been to that strange land Where no one else has been!

APRIL

April, half-clad in flowers and showers, Walks, like a blossom, o'er the land; She smiles at May, and laughing takes The rain and sunshine hand in hand.

So gay the dancing of her feet, So like a garden her soft breath, So sweet the smile upon her face, She charms the very heart of death.

The young moon in a trance she holds Captive in clouds of orchard bloom, She snaps her fingers at the grave, And laughs into the face of doom.

Yet in her gladness lurks a fear, In all her mirth there breathes a sigh, So soon her pretty flowers are gone— And ah! she is too young to die!

MAY IS BUILDING HER HOUSE

May is building her house. With apple blooms She is roofing over the glimmering rooms; Of the oak and the beech hath she builded its beams, And, spinning all day at her secret looms, With arras of leaves each wind-swayed wall She pictureth over, and peopleth it all With echoes and dreams, And singing of streams.

May is building her house of petal and blade; Of the roots of the oak is the flooring made, With a carpet of mosses and lichen and clover, Each small miracle over and over, And tender, travelling green things strayed.

Her windows the morning and evening star, And her rustling doorways, ever ajar With the coming and going Of fair things blowing, The thresholds of the four winds are.

May is building her house. From the dust of things She is making the songs and the flowers and the wings; From October's tossed and trodden gold She is making the young year out of the old; Yea! out of winter's flying sleet She is making all the summer sweet, And the brown leaves spurned of November's feet She is changing back again to spring's.

SHADOW

When leaf and flower are newly made, And bird and butterfly and bee Are at their summer posts again; When all is ready, lo! 'tis she, Suddenly there after soft rain— The deep-lashed dryad of the shade.

Shadow! the fairest gift of June, Gone like the rose the winter through, Save in the ribbed anatomy Of ebon line the moonlight drew, Stark on the snow, of tower or tree, Like letters of a dead man's rune.

Dew-breathing shade! all summer lies In the cool hollow of thy breast, Thou moth-winged creature darkly fair; The very sun steals down to rest Within thy swaying tendrilled hair, And forest-flicker of thine eyes.

Made of all shapes that flit and sway, And mass, and scatter in the breeze, And meet and part, open and close; Thou sister of the clouds and trees, Thou daintier phantom of the rose, Thou nun of the hot and honeyed day.

Misdeemed art thou of those who hold Darkness thy soul, thy dwelling place Night and its stars; nay! all of light Wert though begot, all flowers thy face, And, hushed in thee, all colours bright Hide from the noon their blue and gold.

Thy voice the song of hidden rills, The sigh deep-bosomed silence heaves From the full heart of happy things,— The lap of water-lily leaves, The noiseless language of the wings Of evening making strange the hills.

JUNE

We thought that winter, love, would never end, That the dark year had slain the innocent May, Nor hoped that your soft hand, this summer day, Would lie, as now, in mine, beloved friend; And, like some magic spring, your dream-deep eyes Hold all the summer skies.

But lo! the world again is mad with flowers, The long white silence spake, small bird by bird, Blade after blade, amid the song of showers, The grass stole back once more, and there was heard The ancient music of the vernal spheres, Half laughter and half tears.

Ah! love, and now too swiftly, like some groom, Raining hot kisses on his bride's young mouth, The mad young year, delirious with the South, Squanders his fairy treasure, bloom on bloom; Too soon the wild rose hastens to be sweet, Too swift, O June, thy feet.

Tarry a little, summer, crowd not so All glory and gladness in so brief a day, Teach all thy dancing flowers a step more slow, And bid thy wild musicians softlier play, O hast thou thought, that like a madman spends, The longest summer ends.

GREEN SILENCE

Silence, whose drowsy eyelids are soft leaves, And whose half-sleeping eyes are the blue flowers, On whose still breast the water-lily heaves, For all her speech the whisper of the showers.

Made of all things that in the water sway, The quiet reed kissing the arrowhead, The willows murmuring, all a summer day, "Silence"—sweet word, and ne'er so softly said

As here along this path of brooding peace, Where all things dream, and nothing else is done But all such gentle businesses as these Of leaves and rippling wind, and setting sun

Turning the stream to a long lane of gold, Where the young moon shall walk with feet of pearl, And, framed in sleeping lilies, fold on fold, Gaze at herself, like any mortal girl.

SUMMER SONGS

I

How thick the grass, How green the shade— All for love And lovers made.

Wood-lilies white As hidden lace— Open your bodice, That's their place.

See how the sun-god Overpowers The summer lying Deep in flowers;

With burning kisses Of bright gold Fills her young womb With joy untold;

And all the world Is lad and lass, A blue sky And a couch of grass.

Summer is here— let us drain It all! it may Not come again.

II

How the leaves thicken On the boughs, And the birds make Their lyric vows.

O the beating, breaking Heart of things, The pulse and passion— How it sings.

How it burns and flames And showers, Lusts and laughs, flowers And deflowers.

III

Summer came, Rose on rose; Leaf on leaf, Summer goes.

Summer came, Song on song; O summer had A golden tongue.

Summer goes, Sigh on sigh; Not a rose Sees him die.

TO A WILD BIRD

Wild bird, I stole you from your nest, And cannot find your nest again; To hear you chirp a little while I wrung your mother's heart with pain.

And here you sit and droop and die, Nor any love that I can bring Wins me forgiveness for the wrong, Nor any kindness makes you sing.

"I CROSSED THE ORCHARD WALKING HOME"

I crossed the orchard, walking home, The rising moon was at my back, The apples and the moonlight fell Together on the railroad track.

Then, speeding through the evening dews, A dozen lighted windows glide— The East-bound flyer for New York, Soft as a magic-lantern slide.