Poems by Alan Seeger Part 6

For through that frame the ivied arches make, Wide tracts of sunny midland charm the eye, Frequent with hamlet, grove, and lucent lake Where the blue hills' inverted contours lie; Far to the east where billowy mountains break In surf of snow against a sapphire sky, Huge thunderheads loom up behind the ranges, Changing from gold to pink as deepening sunset changes;

And over plain and far sierra spread The fulgent rays of fading afternoon, Showing each utmost peak and watershed All clarified, each ta.s.sel and festoon Of floating cloud embroidered overhead, Like lotus-leaves on bluest waters strewn, Flus.h.i.+ng with rose, while all breathes fresh and free In peace and amplitude and bland tranquillity.

Dear were such evenings to this gentle pair; Love's tide that launched on with a blast too strong Sweeps toward the foaming reef, the hidden snare, Baffling with fond illusion's siren-song, Too faint, on idle shoals, to linger there Far from Youth's glowing dream, bore them along, With purple sail and steered by seraph hands To isles resplendent in the sunset of romance.

And out of this old house a flowery fane, A bridal bower, a pearly pleasure-dome, They built, and furnished it with gold and grain, And bade all spirits of beauty hither come, And winged Love to enter with his train And bless their pillow, and in this his home Make them his priests as Hero was of yore In her sweet girlhood by the blue Dardanian sh.o.r.e.

Tree-ferns, therefore, and potted palms they brought, Tripods and urns in rare and curious taste, Polychrome chests and cabinets inwrought With pearl and ivory etched and interlaced; Pendant brocades with ma.s.sive braid were caught, And chain-slung, oriental lamps so placed To light the lounger on some low divan, Sunken in swelling down and silks from Hindustan.

And there was spread, upon the ample floors, Work of the Levantine's laborious loom, Such as by Euxine or Ionian sh.o.r.es Carpets the dim seraglio's scented gloom.

Each morn renewed, the garden's flowery stores Blushed in fair vases, ochre and peach-bloom, And little birds through wicker doors left wide Flew in to trill a s.p.a.ce from the green world outside.

And there was many a dainty att.i.tude, Bronze and eburnean. All but disarrayed, Here in eternal doubt sweet Psyche stood Fain of the bath's delight, yet still afraid Lest aught in that palatial solitude Lurked of most menace to a helpless maid.

Therefore forever faltering she stands, Nor yet the last loose fold slips rippling from her hands.

Close by upon a beryl column, clad In the fresh flower of adolescent grace, They set the dear Bithynian shepherd lad, The nude Antinous. That gentle face, Forever beautiful, forever sad, Shows but one aspect, moon-like, to our gaze, Yet Fancy pictures how those lips could smile At revelries in Rome, and banquets on the Nile.

And there were shapes of Beauty myriads more, Cl.u.s.tering their rosy bridal bed around, Whose scented breadth a silken fabric wore Broidered with peac.o.c.k hues on creamiest ground, Fit to have graced the barge that Cydnus bore Or Venus' bed in her enchanted mound, While pillows swelled in stuffs of Orient dyes, All broidered with strange fruits and birds of Paradise.

'Twas such a bower as Youth has visions of, Thither with one fair spirit to retire, Lie upon rose-leaves, sleep and wake with Love And feast on kisses to the heart's desire; Where by a cas.e.m.e.nt opening on a grove, Wide to the wood-winds and the sweet birds' choir, A girl might stand and gaze into green boughs, Like Credhe at the window of her golden house.

Or most like Vivien, the enchanting fay, Where with her friend, in the strange tower they planned, She lies and dreams eternity away, Above the treetops in Broceliande, Sometimes at twilight when the woods are gray And wolf-packs howl far out across the lande, Waking to love, while up behind the trees The large midsummer moon lifts--even so loved these.

For here, their pleasure was to come and sit Oft when the sun sloped midway to the west, Watching with sweet enjoyment interknit The long light slant across the green earth's breast, And clouds upon the ranges opposite, Rolled up into a gleaming thundercrest, Topple and break and fall in purple rain, And mist of summer showers trail out across the plain.

Whereon the shafts of ardent light, far-flung Across the luminous azure overhead, Ofttimes in arcs of transient beauty hung The fragmentary rainbow's green and red.

Joy it was here to love and to be young, To watch the sun sink to his western bed, And streaming back out of their flaming core The vesperal aurora's glorious banners soar.

Tinging each alt.i.tude of heaven in turn, Those fiery rays would sweep. The c.u.muli That peeped above the mountain-tops would burn Carmine a s.p.a.ce; the cirrus-whorls on high, More delicate than sprays of maiden fern, Streak with pale rose the peac.o.c.k-breasted sky, Then blanch. As water-lilies fold at night, Sank back into themselves those plumes of fervid light.

And they would watch the first faint stars appear, The blue East blend with the blue hills below, As lovers when their shuddering bliss draws near Into one pulse of fluid rapture grow.

New fragrance on the freshening atmosphere Would steal with evening, and the sunset glow Draw deeper down into the wondrous west Round vales of Proserpine and islands of the blest.

So dusk would come and mingle lake and sh.o.r.e, The snow-peaks fade to frosty opaline, To pearl the domed clouds the mountains bore, Where late the sun's effulgent fire had been -- Showing as darkness deepened more and more The incandescent lightnings flare within, And Night that furls the lily in the glen And twines impatient arms would fall, and then--and then . . .

Sometimes the peasant, coming late from town With empty panniers on his little drove Past the old lookout when the Northern Crown Glittered with Cygnus through the scented grove, Would hear soft noise of lute-strings wafted down And voices singing through the leaves above Those songs that well from the warm heart that woos At balconies in Merida or Vera Cruz.

And he would pause under the garden wall, Caught in the spell of that voluptuous strain, With all the sultry South in it, and all Its importunity of love and pain; And he would wait till the last pa.s.sionate fall Died on the night, and all was still again, -- Then to his upland village wander home, Marvelling whence that flood of elfin song might come.

O lyre that Love's white holy hands caress, Youth, from thy bosom welled their pa.s.sionate lays -- Sweet opportunity for happiness So brief, so pa.s.sing beautiful--O days, When to the heart's divine indulgences All earth in smiling ministration pays -- Thine was the source whose plenitude, past over, What prize shall rest to pluck, what secret to discover!

The wake of color that follows her when May Walks on the hills loose-haired and daisy-crowned, The deep horizons of a summer's day, Fair cities, and the pleasures that abound Where music calls, and crowds in bright array Gather by night to find and to be found; What were these worth or all delightful things Without thine eyes to read their true interpretings!

For thee the mountains open glorious gates, To thee white arms put out from orient skies, Earth, like a jewelled bride for one she waits, Decks but to be delicious in thine eyes, Thou guest of honor for one day, whose fetes Eternity has travailed to devise; Ah, grace them well in the brief hour they last!

Another's turn prepares, another follows fast.

Yet not without one fond memorial Let my sun set who found the world so fair!

Frail verse, when Time the singer's coronal Has rent, and stripped the rose-leaves from his hair, Be thou my tablet on the temple wall!

Among the pious testimonials there, Witness how sweetly on my heart as well The miracles of dawn and starry evening fell!

Speak of one then who had the l.u.s.t to feel, And, from the hues that far horizons take, And cloud and sunset, drank the wild appeal, Too deep to live for aught but life's sweet sake, Whose only motive was the will to kneel Where Beauty's purest benediction spake, Who only coveted what grove and field And suns.h.i.+ne and green Earth and tender arms could yield --

A nympholept, through pleasant days and drear Seeking his faultless adolescent dream, A pilgrim down the paths that disappear In mist and rainbows on the world's extreme, A helpless voyager who all too near The mouth of Life's fair flower-bordered stream, Clutched at Love's single respite in his need More than the drowning swimmer clutches at a reed --

That coming one whose feet in other days Shall bleed like mine for ever having, more Than any purpose, felt the need to praise And seek the angelic image to adore, In love with Love, its wonderful, sweet ways Counting what most makes life worth living for, That so some relic may be his to see How I loved these things too and they were dear to me.

I sometimes think a conscious happiness Mantles through all the rose's sentient vine When summer winds with myriad calyces Of bloom its clambering height incarnadine; I sometimes think that cleaving lips, no less, And limbs that crowned desires at length entwine Are nerves through which that being drinks delight, Whose frame is the green Earth robed round with day and night.

And such were theirs: the traveller without, Pausing at night under the orchard trees, Wondered and crossed himself in holy doubt, For through their song and in the murmuring breeze It seemed angelic choirs were all about Mingling in universal harmonies, As though, responsive to the chords they woke, All Nature into sweet epithalamium broke.

And still they think a spirit haunts the place: 'Tis said, when Night has drawn her jewelled pall And through the branches twinkling fireflies trace Their mimic constellations, if it fall That one should see the moon rise through the lace Of blossomy boughs above the garden wall, That surely would he take great ill thereof And famish in a fit of unexpressive love.

But this I know not, for what time the wain Was loosened and the lily's petal furled, Then I would rise, climb the old wall again, And pausing look forth on the sundown world, Scan the wide reaches of the wondrous plain, The hamlet sites where settling smoke lay curled, The poplar-bordered roads, and far away Fair snowpeaks colored with the sun's last ray.

Waves of faint sound would pulsate from afar -- Faint song and preludes of the summer night; Deep in the cloudless west the evening star Hung 'twixt the orange and the emerald light; From the dark vale where shades crepuscular Dimmed the old grove-girt belfry glimmering white, Throbbing, as gentlest breezes rose or fell, Came the sweet invocation of the evening bell.

The Torture of Cuauhtemoc

Their strength had fed on this when Death's white arms Came sleeved in vapors and miasmal dew, Curling across the jungle's ferny floor, Becking each fevered brain. On bleak divides, Where Sleep grew n.i.g.g.ardly for nipping cold That twinged blue lips into a mouthed curse, Not back to Seville and its sunny plains Winged their brief-biding dreams, but once again, Lords of a palace in Tenocht.i.tlan, They guarded Montezuma's treasure-h.o.a.rd.

Gold, like some finny harvest of the sea, Poured out knee deep around the rifted floors, s.h.i.+ny and sparkling,--arms and crowns and rings: Gold, sweet to toy with as beloved hair, -- To plunge the l.u.s.tful, crawling fingers down, Arms elbow deep, and draw them out again, And watch the glinting metal trickle off, Even as at night some fisherman, home bound With speckled cargo in his hollow keel Caught off Campeche or the Isle of Pines, Dips in his paddle, lifts it forth again, And laughs to see the luminous white drops Fall back in flakes of fire. . . . Gold was the dream That cheered that desperate enterprise. And now? . . .

Victory waited on the arms of Spain, Fallen was the lovely city by the lake, The sunny Venice of the western world; There many corpses, rotting in the wind, Poked up stiff limbs, but in the leprous rags No jewel caught the sun, no tawny chain Gleamed, as the prying halberds raked them o'er.

Pillage that ran red-handed through the streets Came railing home at evening empty-palmed; And they, on that sad night a twelvemonth gone, Who, ounce by ounce, dear as their own life's blood Retreating, cast the c.u.mbrous load away: They, when brown foemen lopped the bridges down, Who tipped thonged chests into the stream below And over wealth that might have ransomed kings Pa.s.sed on to safety;--cheated, guerdonless -- Found (through their fingers the bright booty slipped) A city naked, of that golden dream Shorn in one moment like a sunset sky.

Deep in a chamber that no cheerful ray Purged of damp air, where in unbroken night Black scorpions nested in the sooty beams, Helpless and manacled they led him down -- Cuauhtemotzin--and other lords beside -- All chieftains of the people, heroes all -- And stripped their feathered robes and bound them there On short stone settles sloping to the head, But where the feet projected, underneath Heaped the red coals. Their swarthy fronts illumed, The bearded Spaniards, helmed and haubergeoned, Paced up and down beneath the lurid vault.

Some kneeling fanned the glowing braziers; some Stood at the sufferers' heads and all the while Hissed in their ears: "The gold . . . the gold . . . the gold.

Where have ye hidden it--the chested gold?

Speak--and the torments cease!"

They answered not.

Past those proud lips whose key their sovereign claimed No accent fell to chide or to betray, Only it chanced that bound beside the king Lay one whom Nature, more than other men Framing for delicate and perfumed ease, Not yet, along the happy ways of Youth, Had weaned from gentle usages so far To teach that fort.i.tude that warriors feel And glory in the proof. He answered not, But writhing with intolerable pain, Convulsed in every limb, and all his face Wrought to distortion with the agony, Turned on his lord a look of wild appeal, The secret half atremble on his lips, Livid and quivering, that waited yet For leave--for leave to utter it--one sign -- One word--one little word--to ease his pain.

As one reclining in the banquet hall, Propped on an elbow, garlanded with flowers, Saw l.u.s.t and greed and boisterous revelry Surge round him on the tides of wine, but he, Staunch in the ethic of an antique school -- Stoic or Cynic or of Pyrrho's mind -- With steady eyes surveyed the unbridled scene, Himself impa.s.sive, silent, self-contained: So sat the Indian prince, with brow unblanched, Amid the tortured and the torturers.

He who had seen his hopes made desolate, His realm despoiled, his early crown deprived him, And watched while Pestilence and Famine piled His stricken people in their reeking doors, Whence gla.s.sy eyes looked out and lean brown arms Stretched up to greet him in one last farewell As back and forth he paced along the streets With words of hopeless comfort--what was this That one should weaken now? He weakened not.

Whate'er was in his heart, he neither dealt In pity nor in scorn, but, turning round, Met that racked visage with his own unmoved, Bent on the sufferer his mild calm eyes, And while the pangs smote sharper, in a voice, As who would speak not all in gentleness Nor all disdain, said: "Yes! And am -I- then Upon a bed of roses?"

Stung with shame -- Shame bitterer than his anguish--to betray Such cowardice before the man he loved, And merit such rebuke, the boy grew calm; And stilled his struggling limbs and moaning cries, And shook away his tears, and strove to smile, And turned his face against the wall--and died.

The Nympholept

There was a boy--not above childish fears -- With steps that faltered now and straining ears, Timid, irresolute, yet dauntless still, Who one bright dawn, when each remotest hill Stood sharp and clear in Heaven's unclouded blue And all Earth s.h.i.+mmered with fresh-beaded dew, Risen in the first beams of the gladdening sun, Walked up into the mountains. One by one Each towering trunk beneath his st.u.r.dy stride Fell back, and ever wider and more wide The boundless prospect opened. Long he strayed, From dawn till the last trace of slanting shade Had vanished from the canyons, and, dismayed At that far length to which his path had led, He paused--at such a height where overhead The clouds hung close, the air came thin and chill, And all was hushed and calm and very still, Save, from abysmal gorges, where the sound Of tumbling waters rose, and all around The pines, by those keen upper currents blown, Muttered in mult.i.tudinous monotone.