I.
Sleep while I sing to thee, Dulcinea,--
How like a shower of moonlight-crusted beams
Of textile form compact, whose veins run stars,--
Discovered goddess of what naked loves!--
Maiden of dreams and aromatic sleep,
Thou liest. Thy long instrument against
Thy god-voluptuous sensuousness of hip
Pure iridescent pearl of ocean slopes:
Tempestuous silent color-melodies
Pulse glimmering from it beaten by the moon,--
Soft songs the white hands of white shadows touch.--
Magnetic star set slumberous over night,
Watch with me this superior star of Earth
Good Heaven was kind to grant me: Trembler,
Like some soft bird, dream, while I sing to thee--
Dream, languid ardor, my Dulcinea, dream.
II.
Floats a wild chant of morning from the hills;
Bursts a broad song of sunlight on the sea;
High Heaven throbs strung with rays of chords and thrills,
Life's resonant pæans to Earth's minstrelsy.
Bind thou swift sandals on of youth,
My love, and harp to me of truth
In lands of joy or ruth.
Now sheer o'er solitudes of noon the strife
Of chariot fierce by chariot scintillant
Flames, and the blade-bare charioteers for life,
O'er-bent, close-curled, goad their hot yokes that pant.
Haste not, my love, but from the beam
Beside this olive-frosty stream
Sing while I rest and dream.
What swart Penthesilea, Amazon,
Hath, smitten, hurled her shield, that crescent there;
To wrench the barbéd arrow leaned,--voiced one
Defiant shout, breathed her red life in air.--
Tho' life be close to sunset, lo,
Into the sunset let us go
Still lyring joy not woe.
How swims the Night thro' the deep-oceaned sky!
How at pale lips blown stars like bubbles break,
Burn, streamed from showery locks she tosses high!--
A stronger swimmer, Death, glares in her wake.--
Cast, love, ah cast thy harp away!
Aweary am I of thy lay--
Kneel down by me and pray.
III.
When love delays, when love delays and Joy
Steals a strange shadow o'er the happy hills,
And Hope smiles from To-morrow, nor fulfills
One promise of To-day, thy sight would cloy
This soul with loved despair
By seeing thee so fair.
When love delays, when love delays and song
Aches at wild lips regretful, as the sound
Of a whole sea strives in the shell-mouth bound,
Tho' Hope smiles still to-morrowed, all this wrong
Would, at one little word,
Leap forth for thee a sword.
When love delays, when love delays and sleep
Nests in dark eyeballs, like a song of home
Heard 'mid familiar flowers o'er the foam,
Tho' Hope smiles still to-morrowed, thou wouldst steep
This hurt heart overmuch
In balm with one true touch.
When love delays, when love delays and Sorrow
Drinks her own tears that fever her soul's thirst,
And song, and sleep, and memory seem accurst,
For Hope smiles still to-morrowed, I would borrow
One smile from thee to cheer
The weary, weary year.
When love delays, when love delays and Death
Hath sealed dim lips and mocked young eyes with night,
To love or hate locked calm, indifferent quite,--
Hope's star-eyed acolyte,--what kisses' breath,
What joys can slay regret
Or teach thee to forget!
IV.
Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou shouldst,
O narrow heart, that could not grasp so wide!
And tho' thy oaths seemed oaths yet they have lied,
And thy caresses, kisses were--denied--
Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou couldst.
Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou shouldst;
O shallow eyes, that could not image deep!--
Enough! what boots it tho' ye weep and weep?
Her sleep is deep, too deep! so let her sleep--
Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou couldst.
Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou shouldst;
For hadst thou, that confluent night and day
Had in oblivion currents borne away
Not one alone--but coward! thou didst stay--
Thou hast not loved her, hast not as thou couldst!
V.
O Life, thou hast no power left to strive,
Life, who, upon wild mountains of Surprise,
Behold'st Love's citadelled, tall towers rise,--
Shafts of clear, Paphian waters poured that live.
O Hope, who sought'st fulfillment of deep dreams
Beyond those Caucasus of Faith and Truth,--
Twixt silver realms of eld and golden youth
Rolled,--cloudward clustered; whose sonorous streams,
Urned in the palms of Death, gush to his feet:
Unlovely beauty of sad, stirless sight
Mixed in them with eternity of night;--
O Hope, how sad the journey once so sweet!
Dreams crowned with thorns have passed thee on the way;
And Beauties with bare limbs red-bruised and torn;
Tall, holy Hours their eyes dull, wan and worn,
Slaves manacled whom lashed the brutal Day.
And Sorrow sat beside a sea so wide,
That shoreless Heaven unto one little star
Upon the brink of night seems not so far,
And on her feet the frail foams tossing sighed.
She, her rent hair, dressed like a siren's, full
Of weedy waifs and strays of moaning shells,
Streaked with the glimmering sands and foamy bells,
Loomed a pale utterance most beautiful.
"And thou shall love me, Sorrow!" I; but she
Turned her vast eyes upon me and no more;
Their melancholy language clove the core
Of my fast heart; and in mine ears the sea
Along gaunt crags yearned iron-husky grief;
Groaned the hard headlands with the wings of Storm,
Huge thunder shook the foot-hills and Alarm
Gnashed her thin fangs from hissing reef to reef.
So to the hills aweary I did turn.--
Beyond, a reach of sunlight and slim flowers;
Where Hope, an amaranth, and tearless Hours,
Long lilies, lived, whose hearts stiff gold did burn.
And there curled Joy clinked their chaste chalices;
Distilled at dusk, poured bubbling dewy wine,
Divine elixir! off his lips divine
Tossed the fleet rapture to the golden lees,
And so lolled dazed with pleasure. And I said,
"Yield me the lily thou hast drained that I
This hollow thirst may kill and so not die?"
To me he laughed, "I yield it!"--but 'twas dead.
And each blown reach and eminence of blooms
Flushed long, low, gurgling murmurs like a sea,
And laughed bright lips that flashed white teeth of glee
In pearly flower on flower; pure perfumes
Gasped the rolled fields; and o'er the eminence
I journeyed joyless thro' a blossom-fire
That, budding kisses curled with blown desire,
Clasped me and claimed me tho' I spurned it hence.
Then came unto a land of thorns and weeds,
And dust and thirst o'er which a songless sky,
Hoarse with lean vultures, scowled a scoffing lie,
Where cold snakes hissed among dead, rattling reeds.
And there I saw the bony brow of Hate;
Vile, vicious sneers, the eyes of shriveled Scorn
Among the writhing briers; each a thorn
Of cavernous hunger barbed with burning fate.
They, thro' her face-drawn locks of raveled dark,
Stung a stark horror; and I felt my heart
Freeze, wedged with ice, to dullness part by part,
And knew Hate coiled toward me yet stood stark--
Fell; seeing on the happy, happy hills,
Above that den of dust and thorny thirst,
The bastioned walls of Love in glory burst,
Built by sweet glades of Poesy and rills.
O Life, I had not life enough to strive!
O Hope, I had not hope enough to dream!
Death drew me to him and to sigh did seem,
"Love? Love?--thou canst not reach her and yet live!
"For sorrow, joy, and hate, and scorn are bound
About thee, girdling so, thy lips are dumb;
And Fame, ah Fame! her towers are but a tomb--
Star-set on dwindling heights of starry ground.
"And thou art done and being done must die,
Endeavor being dead and energy
Slain, a wild bird that beat bars to be free,
Despairing perished, finding life a lie."
VI.
If thou wouldst know the Beautiful that breathes
Consanguined with young Earth, go seek!--but seek
No sighing Shadows with dead hemlock-wreaths,
No sleepy Sorrows whose wan eyes are weak
With vanished vigils, Melancholy made,
Forlorn, in lands of sin and saddening shade;
No tearful Angers torn of truthless Love,
Who stab their own hearts to dull daggers' hilts
For vengeance sweet; no miser Moods that fade
In owlet towers. Such it springs above,
And buds on morning meads no flower that wilts.
If thou dost seek the Beautiful, beware!
Lest thou discover her, nor know 'tis she;
And she enslave thee evermore, and there
Reward thee with but kingliest beggary:
Make thine the robust red her cheek that stings;
The kiss-sweet odor, thine, her wild breath brings;
Make thine the broad bloom of her crownéd brow;
The hearts of light that ardor her proud eyes;
That melody,--which is herself,--that sings
The poem of her presence and the vow,
That stars exalts and mortals deifies.
Lone art thou then, lone as the lone first star
Kindling pale beauty o'er the mournful wave;
Lost to all happiness save searching far
Thro' lands of Life where Death hath delved no grave:
Lost,--even as I,--a devotee to her,
Poor in world-blessedness her bliss to share,
But rich in passion.--For her hermitage
Hope no Hydaspes' splendor, for it lies
Mossy by woody waters hidden, where
She, priestess pure, wise o'er all Wisdom sage,
Shrines artists' hearts for godliest sacrifice.
VII.
1
Then up the orient heights to the zenith that balanced a crescent,--
Up and far up and over,--a warm erubescence liquescent
Rioted roses and rubies; eruptions of opaline gems,
Flung and wide sown, blushed crushed, and crumbled from diadems
Wealth of the kings of the Sylphs; whence, old alchemist, Earth--
Dewed down--by chemistry occult fashions petrified waters of
worth.--
Then out of the stain and rash furor, the passionate pulver of
stone,
The trembling suffusion that dazzled and awfully shone,
Chamelion-convulsion of color, hilarious ranges of glare--
Like a god who for vengeance ires, nodding battle from every hair,
Fares forth with majesty girdled and clangs with hot heroes for
life,
Till the brazen gates boom bursten hells and the walls roar
bristling strife,--
Athwart with a stab of glittering fire, in-plunged like a knife,
Cut billowing gold, in bullion rolled, and an army driven,
Routed, the stars fled shriveled; and the white moon riven,
Puffed,--like a foam-feather forth of a Triton's conch when
sounded,--
Clung, vague as a web, on heaven; then weak as a face that is
wounded
Died on the withering clouds and sorrowed with them and mingled.
While up and up with a steadiness and triumph of sparkle that
tingled,
Wrestled the tempest of Dawn, that hurricaned heaven with spangle,
And halcyon bloom like mercy,--a shatter, a scatter, a tangle
Of labyrinthed glory.--O God! with manifold mirth
The hallelujah of Heaven, hosanna of Earth.
2.
And I in my vision imprisoned was restless and wan
With a yearning for vigor to gird and be gone
Out of false dreams to the true--realities noble of dawn.
VIII.
1
Vanishing visions, whose lineaments steal into slumbers,
Loosened the lids of the sight the night that encumbers;
Secretly, sweetly with fingers of fog that were slow,
Slow as a song that mysterious
Passions the soul, till delirious,
Wrapped in mad melody mastering the uttermost woe,
Deep to the innermost deep it is shaken
Ruffled and rippled and tossed,
Tantalized, terrorized, cursed with a thirst that, unslaken,
Debauches with eyes that burn stolid, yet only shall waken
With infinite scorn of the cost
If no note of the rhapsody's lost.
2.
Oh, for the music of moonbeams that master and sweep
Chords of the resonant deep!
Smiting loud lyres of Night, sonorous as fire,
Leap fluttering fingers of vanquishing flash and of flake
Fain at each firmament-universe-instrument star-strung.
Vibrating-vestured in garments of woven desire,
Stoop to me, breathe on me, smile on me, waver, "_Awake!
From waking to sleeping, to silence from manifold clamor,
To revelous regions of multiform glamour!_"
Murmur and whisper "_Awake!_"
Oh, necromance banquets by fountains of fairy, the spar-sprung!
Oh, sorcerous beauties and wonders of wizards! oh take
The millions of morning-spun gleams,
All glitters of galloping streams,
The glimmer the gasp the clutch and the grasp,
That colorless crystals and virtuous jewels
As spasmodic fuels
Cuddle and huddle and clasp:
The wrinkle and crinkle of scintillant heat in white metals;
The quiver of terrible gold and the pearly
Lithe brilliance of soft, holy petals,
Of slender, sad blossoms, tumultuous tossed crispy and curly
In shadowy reaches of violet dark;
The burn of the stars and the spark
Fragile of foams that are fluted, to make
One cordial of dreams
To drink and to sink
Deep, deep into dreams nor awake.
IX
1
As to a Nymph in the ripple-ribbed body of ocean,
Down, down thro' vast stories of water, a hiss and devour
Electrify altitudes orbed,--pulses violent motion
Of Thunder, who treads the brute neck of the seas in his power,
Till their spine writhes lumped into waves,--the Nymph in her bower,
Rubbing moist sleep from her eyes, arises,--
Loosens the loops of her locks,
Loosens, and suddenly darts on the storm and surprises
The boisterous bands of the rocks,
That hoot to the riddling arrows of rain and of seas,
Mountainous these;--
Swirling and whirling,
She of the huge exultation beheld, with long tresses,
Dotted with bells of the hollow, hard foam, flung streaming,
Dives, bounds to the whirlwind embracing; then mockingly presses
Hair to wild face and wild throat, drifts desolate dreaming;
With scorn then laughing and screaming,
Discovers full beauty of nakedness leaping and gleaming;
And showering the rain from her hair,
Pouts blown, curdled foam from her lips,
And eddying slips,
From the ravenous eyes of the Thunder that glare,
Away, away,
To the arms of her lover the Spray.
So I,--
At swift thoughts that were spoken, that came
As if winds had fashioned a speech--was a flame
That dwindled, was kindled, then mounted and,
Marvelling why,--
Stemming all thought, a gleam out of gleams
Was born into dreams.
2.
Beautiful-bosomed, O Night! with thy moon,
Move in majesty slowly to majesty lightly!
Silent as sleep, who is lulled by a delicate tune,
O'er-stroke thou the air with a languor of moonlight brightly!
Thin ice, in sockets of turquoise fastened, the stars
Gash golden the bosom of heaven with fiery scars.
Swoon down, O shadowy hosts,
O multitude ghosts,
Of the moonlight and starlight begotten!--Then swept
Whispers that sighed to me, sorrows that stealthily hovered,
Laughters with lips that were mist. And murmurings crept
On toward me feet that were glow; and faces uncovered,
Radiant and crystalline clear,
In tortuous, sinuous swirl of vapory pearl,
Waned near and more near.
Flashed faster a spiral of shapes and of shadows still faster,
On in a whirl of unutterable beauties by music expired,
That lived and desired,--
Born births of the brain of a rhapsody-reveling master;
And mine eyes, with their beauties infired,
Smiled scorn on dark Death and Disaster.
X.
"Ah! now the orchard's leaves are sear,
Drip not with starlight-litten dew;
Green-drowned no moon-bright fruit hangs here;
Dead, dead your long, white lilies too--
And you, Allita, where are you!"
Then comes her dim touch, faintly warm;
Cool hair sense on my feverish cheek;
Dim eyes at mine deep with some charm,--
So gray! so gray! and I am weak
Weak with wild tears and can not speak.
I am as one who walks with dreams:
Sees as in youth his father's home;
Hears from his native mountain-streams
Far music of continual foam.
