The Poems of Sidney Lanier Part 32

Nilsson.

A rose of perfect red, embossed With silver sheens of crystal frost, Yet warm, nor life nor fragrance lost.

High pa.s.sion throbbing in a sphere That Art hath wrought of diamond clear, -- A great heart beating in a tear.

The listening soul is full of dreams That shape the wondrous-varying themes As cries of men or plash of streams.

Or noise of summer rain-drops round That patter daintily a-ground With hints of heaven in the sound.

Or n.o.ble wind-tones chanting free Through morning-skies across the sea Wild hymns to some strange majesty.

O, if one trope, clear-cut and keen, May type the art of Song's best queen, White-hot of soul, white-chaste of mien,

On Music's heart doth Nilsson dwell As if a Swedish snow-flake fell Into a glowing flower-bell.

____ New York, 1871.

Night and Day.

The innocent, sweet Day is dead.

Dark Night hath slain her in her bed.

O, Moors are as fierce to kill as to wed!

-- Put out the light, said he.

A sweeter light than ever rayed From star of heaven or eye of maid Has vanished in the unknown Shade.

-- She's dead, she's dead, said he.

Now, in a wild, sad after-mood The tawny Night sits still to brood Upon the dawn-time when he wooed.

-- I would she lived, said he.

Star-memories of happier times, Of loving deeds and lovers' rhymes, Throng forth in silvery pantomimes.

-- Come back, O Day! said he.

____ Montgomery, Alabama, 1866.

A Birthday Song. To S. G.

For ever wave, for ever float and s.h.i.+ne Before my yearning eyes, oh! dream of mine Wherein I dreamed that time was like a vine,

A creeping rose, that clomb a height of dread Out of the sea of Birth, all filled with dead, Up to the brilliant cloud of Death o'erhead.

This vine bore many blossoms, which were years.

Their petals, red with joy, or bleached by tears, Waved to and fro i' the winds of hopes and fears.

Here all men clung, each hanging by his spray.

Anon, one dropped; his neighbor 'gan to pray; And so they clung and dropped and prayed, alway.

But I did mark one lately-opened bloom, Wherefrom arose a visible perfume That wrapped me in a cloud of dainty gloom.

And rose -- an odor by a spirit haunted -- And drew me upward with a speed enchanted, Swift floating, by wild sea or sky undaunted,

Straight through the cloud of death, where men are free.

I gained a height, and stayed and bent my knee.

Then glowed my cloud, and broke and unveiled thee.

"O flower-born and flower-souled!" I said, "Be the year-bloom that breathed thee ever red, Nor wither, yellow, down among the dead.

"May all that cling to sprays of time, like me, Be sweetly wafted over sky and sea By rose-breaths shrining maidens like to thee!"

Then while we sat upon the height afar Came twilight, like a lover late from war, With soft winds fluting to his evening star.

And the shy stars grew bold and scattered gold, And chanting voices ancient secrets told, And an acclaim of angels earthward rolled.

____ Montgomery, Alabama, October, 1866.

Resurrection.

Sometimes in morning sunlights by the river Where in the early fall long gra.s.ses wave, Light winds from over the moorland sink and s.h.i.+ver And sigh as if just blown across a grave.

And then I pause and listen to this sighing.

I look with strange eyes on the well-known stream.

I hear wild birth-cries uttered by the dying.

I know men waking who appear to dream.

Then from the water-lilies slow uprises The still vast face of all the life I know, Changed now, and full of wonders and surprises, With fire in eyes that once were glazed with snow.

Fair now the brows old Pain had erewhile wrinkled, And peace and strength about the calm mouth dwell.

Clean of the ashes that Repentance sprinkled, The meek head poises like a flower-bell.

All the old scars of wanton wars are vanished; And what blue bruises grappling Sense had left And sad remains of redder stains are banished, And the dim blotch of heart-committed theft.