Blooms of the Berry Part 14

But I'll write him as a-glad Some few happy words and light, Touching on some past delight, That last year we had.

Not one line of broken vows, Sighs or hurtful tears unshed, Faithless lips far better dead, Nor a withered rose.

But a rose, this _Perle_ to wear,-- _Perle des Jardins_ delicate With faint fragrant life elate,-- When he weds her there.

So; 'tis finished! It is well!

Go, thou rose! I have no tear, Kiss, or word for thee to bear, And no woe to tell.

Only be thus full of life, Cold and calm, impa.s.sionate, Filled with neither love nor hate, When he calls her wife!

OSSIAN'S POEMS.

Here I have heard on hills the battle clash Roar to the windy sea that roared again: When, drunk with wrath, upon the clanking plain Barbaric kings did meet in war and dash Their mailed thousands down, heard onset crash Like crags contending 'gainst the battering main.

Torrents of helms, beaming like streams of rain, Blue-billowing 'neath the pale moon's fitful flash; Saw the scared moon hang over the black wood Like a pale wreath of foam; s.h.i.+elds, spears, and swords Shoot green as meteors thro' the steely flood, Or s.h.i.+ne like ripples 'round their heathen lords Standing like stubborn rocks, whence the wild wave Of war circled in steel and foamed out brave on brave.

II.--IN MYTHIC SEAS.

IN MYTHIC SEAS.

'Neath saffron stars and satin skies, dark-blue, Between dim sylvan isles, a happy two.

We sailed, and from the siren-haunted sh.o.r.e, All mystic in its mist, the soft gale bore The Siren's song, while on the ghostly steeps Strange foliage grew, deeps folding upon deeps, That hung and beamed with blossom and with bud, Thick-powdered, pallid, or like urns of blood Dripping, and blowing from wide mouths of blooms On our bare brows cool gales of sweet perfumes.

While from the yellow stars that splashed the skies O'er our light shallop dropped soft mysteries Of calm and sleep, until the yellower moon Rose full of fire above a dark lagoon; And as she rose the nightingales on sprays Of heavy, shadowy roses burst in praise Of her wild loveliness, with boisterous pain Wailing far off around a ruined fane.

And 'round our lazy keel that dipped to swing The spirits of the foam came whispering; And from dank Neptune's coral-columned caves Heard the Oceanids rise thro' the waves; Saw their smooth limbs cold-glimmering in the spray, Tumultuous bosoms panting with their play; Their oozy tresses, tossed unto the breeze, Flash sea-green brightness o'er the tumbled seas.

'Mid columned isles, glance vaguely thro' the trees, We watched the Satyrs chase the Dryades; Heard Pan's fierce trebles and the Triton's horn Sound from the rock-lashed foam when rose the Morn With chilly fingers dewing all the skies, That blushed for love and closed their starry eyes.

The Naiad saw sweet smiling, in white mist, Half hidden in a bay of amethyst Her polished limbs, and at her hollow ear A sh.e.l.l's pink labyrinth held up to hear Dim echoes of the Siren's haunting strains Emprisoned in its chords of crimson veins.

And stealing wily from a grove of pines The Oread in cincture of green vines, One twinkling foot half buried in the red Of a deep dimpled, crumpled poppy bed-- Like to the star of eve, when, lapsing low, Faint clouds that with the sunset colors glow Slip down in scarlet o'er its crystal white, It s.h.i.+ning, tear-like, partly veils its light.

Her wine-red lips half-parted in surprise, And expectation in her bright blue eyes, While slyly from a young oak coppice peers The wanton Faun with furry, pointed ears.

He leaps, she flies as flies the startled nymph When Pan pursues her from her wonted lymph, Diana sees, and on her wooded hills Stays her fair band, the stag hounds' clamor stills.

Already nearer glow the Oread's charms; To seize them Faunus strains his hairy arms-- A senseless statue of white, weeping stone Fills his embrace; the Oread is gone.

The stag-hounds bay, Dian resumes the chase, While the astonished Faun's bewildered face Paints all his wonderment, and, wondering, He bends above the sculpture of the spring.

We sailed; and many a morn of breathing balm, Purpureal, graced us in that season calm; And it was life to thee and me and love With the fair myths below, our G.o.d above, To sail in golden sunsets and emerge In golden morns upon a fretless surge.

But ah, alas! the stars that dot the blue s.h.i.+ne not alway; the clouds must gather too.

I knew not how it came, but in a while Myself I found cast on an arid isle Alone and barkless, soaked and wan with dread, The seas in wrath and thunder overhead, Deep down in coral caverns my pale love, No myths below, no G.o.d, it seemed, above.

THE DEAD OREAD.

Her heart is still and leaps no more With holy pa.s.sion when the breeze, Her whilom playmate, as before, Comes with the language of the bees, Sad songs her mountain ashes sing And hidden fountains' whispering.

Her calm, white feet, erst fleet and fast As Daphne's when a Faun pursued, No more will dance like sunlight past The dim-green vistas of the wood, Where ev'ry quailing floweret Smiled into life where they were set.

Hers were the limbs of living light Most beautiful and virginal, G.o.d-graceful and as G.o.dly white, And wild as beautiful withal, And hyacinthine curls that broke In color when a wind awoke.

The wild aromas weird that haunt Moist bloomy dells and solitudes About her presence seemed to pant, The happy life of all her moods; Ambrosial smiles and amorous eyes Whose l.u.s.ter would a G.o.d surprise.

Her grave be by a dripping rock, A mossy dingle of the hill, Remote from Baccha.n.a.ls that mock, Wine-wild, the long, mad nights and still, Where no unhallowed Pan with l.u.s.t May mar her melancholy dust.

APHRODITE.

Apollo never smote a lovelier strain, When swan-necked Hebe paused her thirsty bowl A-sparkle with its wealth of nectar-draughts To lend a list'ners ear and smile on him, As that the Tritons blew on wreathed horns When Aphrodite, the cold ocean-foam Bursting its bubbles, from the hissing snow Whirled her nude form on Hyperion's gaze, Naked and fresh as Indian Ocean sh.e.l.l Dashed landward from its bed of sucking sponge And branching corals by the changed monsoon.

Wind-rocked she swung her white feet on the sea, And music raved down the slant western winds; With swollen jowls the Tritons puffed the conch, Where, breasting with cold bosoms the green waves, That laughed in ripples at Love's misty feet, Oceanids with dimple-dented palms Smote sidewise the pale bubbles of the foam, Which wove a silver iris 'round her form.

Where dolphins tumbling stained the garish arch Nereides sang, braiding their wet locks, Or flung them streaming on the broken foam, Till evetide showed her loveliest of stars-- Lost pa.s.sion-flower of the sinking sun-- In the cool sheen of shadowy waters deep, That moaned wild sea-songs at the Sirens' caves; Then in a hollow pearl, o'er moon-white waves, The creatures of the ocean danced their queen, Till Cytherea like a rosy mist Beneath the star rose blus.h.i.+ng from the deep.

On the pearled sands of a moon-gla.s.sing sea Beneath the moon, narcissus-like, they met, She naked as a star and crowned with stars, Child of the airy foam and queen of love.

PERSEPHONE.

O Hades! O false G.o.ds! false to yourselves!

O Hades, 'twas thy brother gave her thee Without a mother's sanction or her knowledge!

He bare her to the horrid gulfs below, And made her queen, a shadowy queen of shades, Queen of the fiery flood and mournful realms Of grating iron and the clank of chains.

On blossomed plains in far Trinacria A maiden, the dark cascade of whose hair Seemed gleaming rays of midnight 'mid the stars, Rays slowly bright'ning 'neath a mellow moon, She 'mid the flowers with the Oceanids Sought Echo's pa.s.sion, loved Narcissus pale, 'Ghast staring in the mirror of a lake, Whose smoothness brake his image, flickering seen, E'en with the fast tears of his dewy eyes.

A shape there rose with iron wain and steeds 'Mid sallow fume of sulphur and pale fires; Its countenance meager, and its eyes e'en such As the wild, ghastly sulphur. In its arms, Its sooty arms, where like to supple steel The muscles rigid lay, unto its breast, Such as its arms, it rushed her fragile form As bosomed bulks of tempest in their joy With arms of winds drag to their black embrace A fairy mist of white that flecks the summer With shadeless wings of gauze, and 'tis no more Heaved on the rapture of its thundering heart.

The snowy flowers shuddered and grew still With withered faces bowed, and on the stream-- Where all the day it was their wont to stand In silent sisterhood down-gazing at their charms-- Withered and limp and dead laid their fair brows.

Flames hissed aloft like fiery whips of snakes Blasting and killing all the fragrant sprites That make the dewy zephyrs their dim haunts.

O foam-fair daughters of Ocea.n.u.s!

In vain you seek your mate and chide the flowers For hiding her 'neath their broad, snowy palms; Nor is she hidden in that pearly sh.e.l.l, Which, like a pinky babe cast from the sea, Moans at your pallid feet washed with white spray.

But, sitting by the tumbling blue of waves, Mourn to your billows on the foamy sands The falseness of the G.o.d who grasps the storm!

DEMETER.