High-kirtled for the chase, and what was | Flicker and fade away to dull eclipse As down to mine she deigns her longed for lips; shown, Of maiden rondure, like the rose halfblown. If dream, turn real! If a vision, stay! Take mortal shape, my philtre's spell obey! If hags compel thee from thy secret sky With gruesome incantations, why not I, Whose only magic is that I distil A potion, blent of passion, thought, and will, Deeper in reach, in force of fate more rich, Than e'er was juice wrung by Thessalian witch From moon-enchanted herbs, a potion brewed Of my best life in each diviner mood? Myself the elixir am, myself the bowl Seething and mantling with my soul of soul. Taste and be humanized: what though the cup, With thy lips frenzied, shatter? Drink it up! If but these arms may clasp, o'erquited so, My world, thy heaven, all life means I shall know. And as her neck my happy arms enfold, Flooded and lustred with her loosened gold, She whispers words each sweeter than a kiss: Then, wakened with the shock of sudden bliss, My arms are empty, my awakener fled, And, silent in the silent sky o'erhead, But coldly as on ice-plated snow, she gleams, Herself the mother and the child of dreams. How would the victim to the flamen | That what I prayed for I would fain re leap, And life for life's redemption paid hold cheap! But what resource when she herself descends From her blue throne, and o'er her vassal bends That shape thrice-deified by love, those eyes Wherein the Lethe of all others lies? When my white queen of heaven's remoteness tires, Herself against her other self conspires, Takes woman's nature, walks in mortal ways, And finds in my remorse her beauty's praise? Yet all would I renounce to dream again The dream in dreams fulfilled that made my pain, My noble pain that heightened all my years ceive. My moon is set; my vision set with her; No more can worship vain my pulses stir. Goddess Triform, I own thy triple spell, My heaven's queen, queen, too, of my earth and hell! THE BLACK PREACHER. A BRETON LEGEND. AT Carnac in Brittany, close on the bay, They show you a church, or rather the gray Ribs of a dead one, left there to bleach With the wreck lying near on the crest of the beach, Roofless and splintered with thunderstone, 'Mid lichen - blurred gravestones all alone; With crowns to win and prowess-breed-'T is the kind of ruin strange sights to That see may have their teaching for you and me. Something like this, then, my guide had to tell, Perched on a saint cracked across when he fell; But since I might chance give his meaning a wrench, He talking his putois and I EnglishFrench, I'll put what he told me, preserving the tone, In a rhymed prose that makes it half his, half my own. An abbey-church stood here, once on a time, Built as a death-bed atonement for crime : 'T was for somebody's sins, I know not whose; But sinners are plenty, and you can choose. Though a cloister now of the duskwinged bat, 'T was rich enough once, and the brothers grew fat, Looser in girdle and purpler in jowl, Singing good rest to the founder's lost soul. But one day came Northmen, and lithe | That do with thy whole might, or thou tongues of fire Lapped up the chapter-house, licked off the spire, And left all a rubbish-heap, black and dreary, Where only the wind sings miserere. No priest has kneeled since at the altar's foot, Whose crannies are searched by the nightshade's root, Nor sound of service is ever heard, Except from throat of the unclean bird, Hooting to unassoiled shapes as they pass In midnights unholy his witches' mass, Or shouting "Ho! ho!" from the belfry high As the Devil's sabbath-train whirls by. But once a year, on the eve of All-Souls, Through these arches dishallowed the organ rolls, Fingers long fleshless the bell-ropes work, The chimes peal muffled with sea-mists mirk, The skeleton windows are traced anew On the baleful flicker of corpse-lights blue, And the ghosts must come, so the legend saith, To a preaching of Reverend Doctor Death. Abbots, monks, barons, and ladies fair Hear the dull summons and gather there : No rustle of silk now, no clink of mail, Nor ever a one greets his church-mate pale; No knight whispers love in the châtelaine's ear, His next-door neighbor this five hundred year; No monk has a sleek benedicite For the great lord shadowy now as he He chooses his text in the Book Divine, Tenth verse of the Preacher in chapter nine: 'Whatsoever thy hand shall find thee to do, For shalt rue; no man is wealthy, or wise, or brave, In that quencher of might-be's and would-be's, the grave.' Bid by the Bridegroom, To-morrow," ye said, And To-morrow was digging a trench for your bed; Ye said, 'God can wait; let us finish our wine;' Ye had wearied Him, fools, and that last knock was mine!" To hear Doctor Death, whose words | For even our honeymoons must wane, smart with the brine Of the Preacher, the tenth verse of chapter nine. ARCADIA REDIVIVA. I, WALKING the familiar street, While a crammed horse-car jingled through it, Was lifted from my prosy feet And in Arcadia ere I knew it. Fresh sward for gravel soothed my tread, And shepherd's pipes my ear delighted; The riddle may be lightly read: I met two lovers newly plighted. They murmured by in happy care, Astarte, known nigh threescore years, Queen, from of old, of thaumaturges. The railings put forth bud and bloom, The house-fronts all with myrtles twine them, And light-winged Loves in every room Make nests, and then with kisses line them. sweetness of untasted life! O dream, its own supreme fulfilment ! O hours with all illusion rife, As ere the heart divined what ill meant! "Et ego," sighed I to myself, And strove some vain regrets to bridle, "Though now laid dusty on the shelf, Was hero once of such an idyl! "An idyl ever newly sweet, Although since Adam's day recited, Whose measures time them to Love's feet, Whose sense is every ill requited." Maiden, if I may counsel, drain Each drop of this enchanted season, Convicted of green cheese by Reason. And none will seem so safe from change, The glass unfilled all tastes can fit, As round its brim Conjecture dances; For not Mephisto's self hath wit To draw such vintages as Fancy's. When our pulse beats its minor key, When play-time halves and school time doubles, Age fills the cup with serious tea, Which once Dame Clicquot starred with bubbles. "Fie, Mr. Graybeard! Is this wise? Is privileged once more to sow it? "Pray, why, if in Arcadia once, Need one so soon forget the way there? Or why, once there, be such a dunce As not contentedly to stay there?" Dear child, 't was but a sorry jest, And from my heart I hate the cynic Who makes the Book of Life a nest For comments staler than rabbinic. If Love his simple spell but keep, One Darby is to me well known, Who, as the hearth between them blazes, Sees the old moonlight shine on Joan, And float her youthward in its hazes. He rubs his spectacles, he stares, 'T is the same face that witched him early! He gropes for his remaining hairs, Is this a fleece that feels so curly? "Good heavens! but now 't was winter | And, when the Autumn comes, to flee High o'er the loud and dusty road Of downy breasts and throbbing wings, O'er which the friendly elm-tree heaves An emerald roof with sculptured eaves. Below, the noisy World drags by In the old way, because it must, Oh, happy life, to soar and sway Master, not slave of daily bread, Wherever sunshine beckons thee! |