Blooms of the Berry Part 5

We are the hope and ease, Joy and the pleasure, Authors of love and peace, Love that shall never cease, Free as the azure.

Birth of our eyes--the might, Power and strength of light, Victor o'er death and night, Flesh and its yearnings: And from our utt'rance streams Beauty with burnings After completer dreams, Fuller discernings.

Morning and birth are ours, Dew that is blown From our light lips like flowers; Clouds and the beating showers, Stars that are sown; Song and the bursting buds, Life of the many floods, Winds that are strown.

Ye in your darkness are Dark and infernal; Subject to death and mar!

But in the s.p.a.ces far, Like our effulgent star, We are eternal!

TO SORROW.

I.

O tear-eyed G.o.ddess of the marble brow, Who showerest snows of tresses on the night Of anguished temples! lonely watcher, thou Who bendest o'er the couch of life's dead light!

Who in the hollow hours of night's noon Rockest the cradle of the child, Whose fever-blooded eyeb.a.l.l.s seek the moon To cool their pulses wild.

Thou who dost stoop to kiss a sister's cheek, Which rules the alabastar death with youth; Thou who art mad and strangely meek,-- Empress of pa.s.sions, couth, uncouth, We kneel to thee!

II.

O Sorrow, when the sapless world grows white, And singing gathers on her springtide robes, On some bleak steep which takes the ruby light Of day, braid in thy locks the spirit globes Of cool, weak snowdrops dashed with frozen dew, And hasten to the leas below Where Spring may wandered be from the rich blue Which rims yon clouds of snow.

From the pied crocus and the violet's hues, Think then how thou didst rake the bosoming snow, To show some mother the soft blues Of baby eyes, the sparkling glow Of dimple-dotted cheeks.

III.

On some h.o.a.r upland, h.o.a.r with cl.u.s.tered thorns, Hard by a river's wind-blown lisp of waves, Sit with young white-skinned Spring, whose dewy morns Laugh in his pouting cheeks which Health enslaves.

There feast thee on the brede of his long hair, Where half-grown roses royal blaze.

And cool-eyed primroses wide-disked bare, Frail stars of moonish haze, Contented lie wound in his breathing arms:-- 'Tis meet that grief should mingle with the wan, That blue of calms and gloom of storms Reign on the burning throne of dawn To glorify the world.

IV.

Or in the peaceful calm of stormy evens, When the sick, bloodless West doth winding spread A sheeted shroud of silver o'er the heavens And brooches it with one rich star's gold head, Low lay thee down beside a mountain lake, Which dimples at the twilight's sigh, Couched on plush mosses 'neath green bosks that shake Storm fragrance from on high,-- The cold, pure spice of rain-drenched forests deep,-- And gorge thy grief upon the nightingale, Who with the hush a war doth keep That bubbles down the starlit vale To Silence's rapt ear.

THE Pa.s.sING OF THE BEAUTIFUL.

On southern winds shot through with amber light, Breeding soft balm, and clothed in cloudy white, The lily-fingered Spring came o'er the hills Waking the crocus and the daffodils.

O'er the cold earth she breathed a tender sigh,-- The maples sang and flung their banners high, Their crimson-ta.s.seled pennons, and the elm Bound his dark brows with a green-crested helm.

Beneath the musky rot of Autumn's leaves, Under the forest's myriad naked eaves, Life woke and rose in gold and green and blue, Robed in the star-light of the twinkling dew.

With timid tread adown the barren wood Spring held her way, when, lo! before her stood White-mantled Winter wagging his white head, Stormy his brow, and stormily he said:-- "Sole lord of terror, and the fiend of storm, Crowned king of despots, my envermeiled arm Slew these vast woodlands crimsoning all their bowers!

Thou, Spirit of Beauty, with thy bursting flowers, Swollen with pride, wouldst thou usurp my throne, Long planted here deep in the waste's wild moan?

Sworn foe of beauty, with a band of ice I'll strangle thee tho' thou be welcomer thrice!"

So round her throat a band of blasting frost, Her sainted throat of snow, he coiled and crossed, And cast her on the dark, unfeeling mold; Her tender blossoms, blighted in the fold Of her warm bosoms, trembling bowed their brows In holy meekness, or in scattered rows Huddled about her white and silent feet, Or on pale lips laid fond last kisses sweet, And died: lilacs all musky for the May, And bluer violets, and snow drops lay Silent and dead, but yet divinely fair, Like ice gems glist'ning in Spring's lovely hair.

The Beautiful, so innocent, sweet, and pure, Why must thou perish, and the evil still endure?

Too soon must pa.s.s the Beautiful away!

Too long doth Terror hold anarchal sway!

Alas! sad heart, bow not beneath the pain, Time changeth all, the Beautiful wakes again!

We can not question such; a higher power Knows best what bud is ripest in its flower; Silently plucks it at the fittest hour.

A NOVEMBER SKETCH.

The h.o.a.r-frost hisses 'neath the feet, And the worm-fence's straggling length, Smote by the morning's slanted strength, Sparkles one rib of virgin sleet.

To withered fields the crisp breeze talks, And silently and sadly lifts The bronz'd leaves from the beech and drifts Them wadded down the woodland walks.

Reluctantly and one by one The worthless leaves sift slowly down, And thro' the mournful vistas blown Drop rustling, and their rest is won.

Where stands the brook beneath its fall, Thin-scaled with ice the pool is bound, And on the pebbles scattered 'round The ooze is frozen; one and all

White as rare crystals s.h.i.+ning fair.

There stirs no life: the faded wood Mourns sighing, and the solitude Seems shaken with a mighty care.

Decay and silence sadly drape The vigorous limbs of oldest trees, The rotting leaves and rocks whose knees Are s.h.a.gged with moss, with misty c.r.a.pe.

To sullenness the surly crow All his derisive feeling yields, And o'er the barren stubble-fields Flaps cawless, wrapped in hungry woe.

The eve comes on: the teasel stoops Its spike-crowned head before the blast; The tattered leaves drive whirling past Like skeletons in whistling troops.

The pithy elder copses sigh; Their broad blue combs with berries weighed, Like heavy pendulums are swayed With ev'ry gust that hurries by.

Thro' matted walls of tangled brier That hedge the lane, the sumachs thrust Their scarlet torches red as rust, Burning with flames of stolid fire.

The evening's here--cold, hard, and drear; The lavish West with bullion bright Of molten silver walls the night Far as one star's thin rays appear.

Wedged toward the West's cold luridness The wild geese fly 'neath roseless domes; The wild cry of the leader comes Distant and harsh with loneliness.

The pale West dies, and in its cup Bubble on bubble pours the night: The East glows with a mystic light; The stars are keen; the moon is up.

THE WHITE EVENING.

From gray, bleak hills 'neath steely skies Thro' beards of ice the forests roar; Along the river's humming sh.o.r.e The skimming skater bird-like flies.

On windy meads where wave white breaks, Where fettered briers' glist'ning hands Reach to the cold moon's ghastly lands, Hoots the lorn owl, and crouching quakes.