Blooms of the Berry Part 2

The sun set late; but hardly had he gone When o'er the moon's gold-litten crescent there, Clean Phosphor, polished as a precious stone, Pulsed in fair deeps of air.

As from faint stars the glory waned and waned, The fussy insects made the garden shrill; Beyond the luminous pasture lands complained One lonely whippoorwill.

FRAGMENTS.

I.

STARS.

The fields of s.p.a.ce gleam bright, as if some ancient giant, old As the moon and her extinguished mountains, Had dipped his fingers huge into the twilight's sea of gold And sprinkled all the heavens from these fountains.

II.

GHOSTS.

In soft sad nights, when all the still lagoon Lolls in a wealth of golden radiance, I sit like one enchanted in a trance, And see them 'twixt the haunted mist and moon.

Lascivious eyes 'neath snow-pale sensual brows, Flas.h.i.+ng hot, killing l.u.s.t, and tresses light, Lose, satin streaming, purple as the night, Night when the storm sings and the forest bows.

And then, meseems, along the wild, fierce hills A whisper and a rustle of fleet feet, As if tempestuous troops of Maenads meet To drain deep bowls and shout and have their wills.

And once I see large, l.u.s.trous limbs revealed, Moth-white and lawny, 'twixt sonorous trees; And then a song, faint as of fairy seas, Lulls all my senses till my eyes are sealed.

III.

MOONRISE AT SEA.

With lips that were hoa.r.s.e with a fury Of foam and of winds that are strewn, Of storm and of turbulent hurry, The ocean roared, heralding soon A birth of miraculous glory, Of madness, affection--the moon.

And soon from her waist with a slipping And shudder and clinging of light, With a loos'ning and pus.h.i.+ng and ripping Of the raven-laced bodice of Night, With a silence of feet and a dripping The G.o.ddess came, virginal white.

And the air was alive with the twinkle And tumult of silver-shod feet, The hurling of stars, and the sprinkle Of loose, lawny limbs and a sweet Murmur and whisper and tinkle Of beam-weaponed moon spirits fleet.

THE RAIN.

We stood where the fields were tawny, Where the redolent woodland was warm, And the summer above us, now lawny, Was alive with the pulse winds of storm.

And we watched weak wheat waves lighten, And wince and hiss at each gust, And the turbulent maples whiten, And the lane grow gray with dust.

White flakes from the blossoming cherry, Pink snows of the peaches were blown, And star-fair blooms of the berry And the dogwood's flowers were strewn.

And the luminous hillocks grew sullied, And shadowed and thrilled with alarm, When the body of the blackness was gullied With the rapid, keen flame of the storm.

And the birds to dry coverts had hurried, And the musical rillet ran slow, And the buccaneer bee was worried, And the red lilies swung to and fro.

Till the elf-cuira.s.siers of the showers Came, bright with slant lances of rain, And charged the bare heads of the flowers, And trampled the gra.s.s of the plain.

And the armies of the leaves were shattered, Their standards drenched, heavy and lank; And the iron weed's purple was spattered, And the lily lay broke on the bank.

But high in the storm was the swallow, And the rain-strong voice of the fall In the bough-grottoed dingle sang hollow To the sky-blue flags on its wall.

But the storm and its clouds pa.s.sed over, And left but one cloud in the West, Wet wafts that were fragrant with clover, And the sun low sunken to rest;

Soft spices of rain-studded poppies, Of honey unfilched of a bee, And balm of the mead and the coppice, And musk of the rain-breathing tree.

Then the cloud in the West was riven, And bubbled and bursten with gold, Blown out through deep gorges of heaven, And spilled on the wood and the wold.

TO S. McK.

I.

Shall we forget how, in our day, The Sabine fields about us lay In amaranth and asphodel, And bubbling, cold Bandusian well, Fair Pyrrhas haunting every way?

In dells of forest faun and fay, Moss-lounged within the fountain's spray, How drained we wines too rare to tell, Shall we forget?

The fine Falernian or the ray Of fiery Caecuban, while gay We heard Bacchantes shout and yell, Filled full of Bacchus, and so fell To dreaming of some Lydia; Shall we forget?

II.

If we forget in after years, My comrade, all the hopes and fears That hovered all our walks around When ent'ring on that mystic ground Of ghostly legends, where one hears By bandit towers the chase that nears Thro' cracking woods, the oaths and cheers Of demon huntsman, horn and hound; If we forget.

Lenora's lover and her tears, Fierce Wallenstein, satanic sneers Of the red devil Goethe bound,-- Why then, forsooth, they soon are found In burly stoops of German beers, If we forget!

MORNING AND NIGHT.

FROM "THE TRIUMPH OF MUSIC."

... Fresh from bathing in orient fountains, In wells of rock water and snow, Comes the Dawn with her pearl-br.i.m.m.i.n.g fingers O'er the thyme and the pines of yon mountain; Where she steps young blossoms fresh blow....

And sweet as the star-beams in fountains, And soft as the fall of the dew, Wet as the hues of the rain-arch, To me was the Dawn when on mountains Pearl-capped o'er the hyaline blue, Saint-fair and pure thro' the blue, Her spirit in dimples comes dancing, In dimples of light and of fire, Planting her footprints in roses On the floss of the snow-drifts, while glancing Large on her brow is her tire, Gemmed with the morning-star's fire.