The Garden of Dreams Part 15

Or the hand of--something I did not dare Look round to see in that obscene place?

Where the boughs, with leaves a-devil's-dance, And the thorn-tree bush, where the wind made moan, Had more than a strange significance Of life and of evil not their own.

III.

Where was I last Friday night?-- Within the forest of dark dreams Seeing the mists rise left and right, Like the leathery fog that heaves and steams From the rolling horror of h.e.l.l's red streams.

While the wind, that tossed in the tattered tree, And danced alone with the last mad leaf ...

Or was it the wind?... kept whispering me-- "Now bury it here with its own black grief, And its eyes of fire you can not brave!"-- And in the darkness I seemed to see My own self digging my soul a grave.

LYNCHERS.

At the moon's down-going, let it be On the quarry bill with its one gnarled tree....

The red-rock road of the underbrush, Where the woman came through the summer hush.

The sumach high, and the elder thick, Where we found the stone and the ragged stick.

The trampled road of the thicket, full Of foot-prints down to the quarry pool.

The rocks that ooze with the hue of lead, Where we found her lying stark and dead.

The scraggy wood; the negro hut, With its doors and windows locked and shut.

A secret signal; a foot's rough tramp; A knock at the door; a lifted lamp.

An oath; a scuffle; a ring of masks; A voice that answers a voice that asks.

A group of shadows; the moon's red fleck; A running noose and a man's bared neck.

A word, a curse, and a shape that swings; The lonely night and a bat's black wings....

At the moon's down-going, let it be On the quarry hill with its one gnarled tree.

KU KLUX.

We have sent him seeds of the melon's core, And nailed a warning upon his door; By the Ku Klux laws we can do no more.

Down in the hollow, 'mid crib and stack, The roof of his low-porched house looms black; Not a line of light at the doorsill's crack.

Yet arm and mount! and mask and ride!

The hounds can sense though the fox may hide!

And for a word too much men oft have died.

The clouds blow heavy towards the moon.

The edge of the storm will reach it soon.

The killdee cries and the lonesome loon.

The clouds shall flush with a wilder glare Than the lightning makes with its angled flare, When the Ku Klux verdict is given there.

In the pause of the thunder rolling low, A rifle's answer--who shall know From the wind's fierce burl and the rain's blackblow?

Only the signature written grim At the end of the message brought to him-- A hempen rope and a twisted limb.

So arm and mount! and mask and ride!

The hounds can sense though the fox may hide!

And for a word too much men oft have died.

REMBRANDTS.

I.

I shall not soon forget her and her eyes, The haunts of hate, where suffering seemed to write Its own dark name, whose syllables are sighs, In strange and starless night.

I shall not soon forget her and her face, So quiet, yet uneasy as a dream, That stands on tip-toe in a haunted place And listens for a scream.

She made me feel as one, alone, may feel In some grand ghostly house of olden time, The presence of a treasure, walls conceal, The secret of a crime.

II.

With lambent faces, mimicking the moon, The water lilies lie; Dotting the darkness of the long lagoon Like some black sky.

A face, the whiteness of a water-flower, And pollen-golden hair, In shadow half, half in the moonbeams' glower, Lifts slowly there.

A young girl's face, death makes cold marble of, Turned to the moon and me, Sad with the pathos of unspeakable love, Floating to sea.

III.

One listening bent, in dread of something coming, He can not see nor balk-- A phantom footstep, in the ghostly gloaming, That haunts a terraced walk.

Long has he given his whole heart's hard endeavor Unto the work begun, Still hoping love would watch it grow and ever Turn kindly eyes thereon.

Now in his life he feels there nears an hour, Inevitable, alas!

When in the darkness he shall cringe and cower, And see his dead self pa.s.s.