The Lord of Misrule, and Other Poems Part 13

(_An Experiment in Initial Rhymes_)

White-armed Astrid,--ah, but she was beautiful!-- Nightly wandered weeping thro' the ferns in the moon, Slowly, weaving her strange garland in the forest, Crowned with white violets, Gowned in green.

Holy was that glen where she glided, Making her wild garland as Merlin had bidden her, Breaking off the milk-white horns of the honey-suckle, Sweetly dripped the dew upon her small white Feet.

White-throated Astrid,--ah, but she was beautiful!-- Nightly sought the answer to that riddle in the moon.

She must weave her garland, ere she save her soul.

Three long years she has wandered there in vain.

Always, always, the blossom that would finish it Falls to her feet, and the garland breaks and vanishes, Breaks like a dream in the dawn when the dreamer Wakes.

White-bosomed Astrid,--ah, but she was beautiful!-- Nightly tastes the sorrow of the world in the moon.

Will it be this little white miracle, she wonders.

How shall she know it, the star that will save her?

Still, ah still, in the moonlight she crouches Bowing her head, for the garland has crumbled!

All the wild petals for the thousand and second time Fall.

White-footed Astrid,--ah, but she is beautiful!-- Nightly seeks the secret of the world in the moon.

She will find the secret. She will find the golden Key to the riddle, on the night when she has numbered them, Marshalled all her wild flowers, ordered them as music, Star by star, note by note, changing them and ranging them, Suddenly, as at a kiss, all will flash together, Flooding like the dawn thro' the arches of the woodland, Fern and thyme and violet, maiden-hair and primrose Turn to the Rose of the World, and He shall fold her, Kiss her on the mouth, saying, all the world is one now, This is the secret of the music that the soul hears,-- This.

THE INIMITABLE LOVERS

They tell this proud tale of the Queen--Cleopatra, Subtlest of women that the world has ever seen, How that, on the night when she parted with her lover Anthony, tearless, dry-throated, and sick-hearted, A strange thing befell them in the darkness where they stood.

Bitter as blood was that darkness.

And they stood in a deep window, looking to the west.

Her white breast was brighter than the moon upon the sea, And it moved in her agony (because it was the end!) Like a deep sea, where many had been drowned.

Proud s.h.i.+ps that were crowned with an Emperor's eagles Were sunken there forgotten, with their emeralds and gold.

They had drunken of that glory, and their tale was told, utterly, Told.

There, as they parted, heart from heart, mouth from mouth, They stared upon each other. They listened.

For the South-wind Brought them a rumour from afar; and she said, Lifting her head, too beautiful for anguish, Too proud for pity,-- _It is the G.o.ds that leave the City! O, Anthony, Anthony, the G.o.ds have forsaken us; Because it is the end! They leave us to our doom.

Hear it!_ And unshaken in the darkness, Dull as dropping earth upon a tomb in the distance, They heard, as when across a wood a low wind comes, A muttering of drums, drawing nearer, Then louder and clearer, as when a trumpet sings To battle, it came rus.h.i.+ng on the wings of the wind, A sound of sacked cities, a sound of lamentation, A cry of desolation, as when a conquered nation Is weeping in the darkness, because its tale is told; And then--a sound of chariots that rolled thro' that sorrow Trampled like a storm of wild stallions, tossing nearer, Trampled louder, clearer, triumphantly as music, Till lo! in that great darkness, along that vacant street, A red light beat like a furnace on the walls, Then--like the blast when the North-wind calls to battle, Blaring thro' the blood-red tumult and the flame, Shaking the proud City as they came, an hundred elephants, Cream-white and bronze, and splashed with bitter crimson, Trumpeting for battle as they trod, an hundred elephants, Bronze and cream-white, and trapped with gold and purple, Towered like tusked castles, every thunder-laden footfall Dreadful as the shattering of a City. Yet they trod, Rocking like an earthquake, to a great triumphant music, And, swinging like the stars, black planets, white moons, Thro' the stream of the torches, they brought the red chariot, The chariot of the battle-G.o.d--Mars.

While the tall spears of Sparta tossed clas.h.i.+ng in his train, And a host of ghostly warriors cried aloud _All hail!_ to those twain, and went rus.h.i.+ng to the darkness Like a pageantry of cloud, for their tale was told--utterly-- Told.

And following, in the fury of the vine, rus.h.i.+ng down Like a many-visaged torrent, with ivy-rod and thyrse, And many a wild and foaming crown of roses, Crowded the Baccha.n.a.ls, the brown-limbed shepherds, The red-tongued leopards, and the glory of the G.o.d!

_Iacchus! Iacchus!_ without dance, without song, They cried and swept along to the darkness.

Only for a breath when the tumult of their torches Crimsoned the deep window where that dark warrior stood With the blood upon his mail, and the Queen--Cleopatra, Frozen to white marble--the Maenads raised their timbrels, Tossed their white arms, with a clash--_All hail!_ Like wild swimmers, pale, in a sea of blood and wine, _All hail! All hail!_ Then they swept into the darkness And the darkness buried them. Their tale was told--utterly-- Told.

And following them, O softer than the moon upon the sea, Aphrodite, implacably, shone.

Like a furnace of white roses, Aphrodite and her train Lifted their white arms to those twain in the silence Once, and were gone into the darkness; Once, and away into the darkness they were swept Like a pageantry of cloud, without praise, without pity.

Then the dark City slept. And the Queen--Cleopatra-- Subtlest of women that this earth has ever seen, Turning to her lover in the darkness where he stood, With the blood upon his mail, Bowing her head upon that iron in the darkness, Wept.

THE CRAGS

(_In memory of Thomas Bailey Aldrich_)

Falernian, first! What other wine Should brim the cup or tint the line That would recall my days Among your creeks and bays;

Where, founded on a rock, your house Between the pines' unfading boughs Watches through sun and rain That lonelier coast of Maine;

And the Atlantic's mounded blue Breaks on your crags the summer through, A long pine's length below, In rainbow-tossing snow.

While on your railed verandah there As on a deck you sail through air, And sea and cloud and sky Go softly streaming by.

Like delicate oils at set of sun Smoothing the waves the colours run-- Around the enchanted hull, Anch.o.r.ed and beautiful,--

Restoring to that sun-dried star You brought from coral isles afar-- With sh.e.l.ls that mock the moon-- The tints of their lagoon;

Till, from within, your lamps declare Your harbours by the colours there, An Indian G.o.d, a fan Painted in Old j.a.pan.

But, best of all, I think at night, The moon that makes a road of light Across the whispering sea, A road--for memory.

When the blue dusk has filled the pane, And the great pine-logs burn again, And books are good to read.

--For his were books indeed.--

Their silken shadows, rustling, dim, May sing no more of Spain for him; No shadows of old France Renew their courtly dance.

He walks no more where shadows are But left their ivory gates ajar, That shadows might prolong The dance, the tale, the song.

His was no narrow test or rule.

He chose the best of every school,-- Stendhal and Keats and Donne, Balzac and Stevenson;

Wordsworth and Flaubert filled their place.

Dumas met Hawthorne face to face.

There were both new and old In his good realm of gold.

The t.i.tle-pages bore his name; And, nightly, by the dancing flame, Following him, I found That all was haunted ground;

Until a friendlier shadow fell Upon the leaves he loved so well, And I no longer read, But talked with him instead.

THE GHOST OF SHAKESPEARE

1914

Crimson was the twilight, under that crab-tree, Where--old tales tell us--all a midsummer's night, A mad young poacher, drunk with mead of elfin-land, Lodged with the fern-owl, and looked at the stars.

There, from the dusk where the dream of Piers Plowman Darkens on the sunset, to this dusk of our own, I read, in a history, the record of our world.