diadem
Of the immortal queen of night.
A world! From depths to heights as dark
It leaps anon into the dance
And whirls away—’t is but a spark
From the anvil of the God of Chance,
But Faith and Fancy often mar
The mystery of things divine;
For that which is a rolling star
Was fluttering neath a lonely pine.
And lo, another orb doth roll
Above the groves where once it trod;
And still another seeks its goal
In the infinities of God.
From where the eagle marks his flight,
Across the void that earth-bound seems,
They twinkle forth, a circle of light,
Around the Gloaming’s couch of dreams.
And thus they first themselves disguise
As glow worms in the gathering gloom,
And suddenly refulgent rise
O’er the abysmal tracks of doom.
For aeons thus, from hill to sea,
Athwart the grudging gulfs they glow;
And waning tell of the worlds that be
And the ghosts of worlds of long ago.
For aeons thus, their torches high,
The gods unseen—as when the light
Of day conceals the starry sky—
Illuminate the House of Night.
After Reading King Lear
Is ’t strange that in the cycle of his woes,
Which shakes his cloud-embosomed peak of years
And shatters the very fountain of his tears,
He seeks the friendly path of winds and snows?
When Villany forgiven more villanous grows,
And Treason in his robes herself attires,
And Love beneath Adultery’s sheet expires,
Is ’t strange that mating with the Storm he goes?
Father and King! in sooth, they know thee well—
The Whirlwind and the Forest and the Night;
But we who in the obscure shelters dwell
Know better of thy sorrow than thy might.
Father and King! thy heritage is vast;
Wherever children be, its seeds are cast.
The Wanderer
I wander among the hills of alien lands
Where Nature her prerogative resigns
To Man; where Comfort in her shack reclines
And all the arts and sciences commands.
But in my soul
The eastern billows roll—
I hear the voices of my native strands.
My lingering eyes, a lonely hemlock fills
With grace and splendor rising manifold;
Beneath her boughs the maples spread their gold
And at her feet, the silver of the rills.
But in my heart
A peasant void of art
Echoes the voices of my native hills.
On every height a studied art confines
All human joy in social pulchritude;
The boxwood frowns where beckoning birches stood,
And where the thrushes carolled Fashion dines.
But through the spreading cheer
The shepherd’s reed I hear
Beneath my Lebanon terebinths and pines.
And though no voices here are heard of toil,
Nor accents least of sorrow, nor the din
Of multitudes, nor even at the Inn
The City is permitted aught to spoil,
Yet in my breast,
A shack at best,
Laments the mother of my native soil.
Even where the sumptuous solitudes deny
A shelter to a bird or butterfly,
As in the humblest dwelling of the dale
A gracious welcome ’s shown the passer-by;
But evermore clear
Allwhere I hear
The calling of my native hut and sky.
Land of my birth! a handful of thy sod
Resuscitates the flower of my faith;
For whatsoever the seer of science sayth,
Thou art the cradle and the tomb of God;
And forever I behold
A vision old
Of Beauty weeping where He once hath trod.
O my Love, how long wilt thou continue
Fondly nursing every dreaming Hour!
Our Lebanus, O my Love, is calling,
Yea, and waiting in his ancient Tower.
In his ancient, cedar-shaded castle,
Night and day, Lebanus sits a-musing
Of the memories that bloom unnoticed
Every season at the feet of Sorrow;—
Musing of the radiant days of Tammuz
That went dancing with the bride of summer
Down the deep and pine-encircled Wadi;—
Musing of the time the Prophets kindled
Sacred fire in Man’s empurpled temples,
Blazing all the highways of the world;—
Musing of the days embattled monarchs
Laid their shields and lances at his feet,
Bowed before his throne invincible.
O my Love, the sad and lonely Cedar,
Ever rocking in her arid splendor,
Ever in penurious shades embosomed,
Reaches out for water in the meadows
And for sunlight in deserted vineyards;—
Rears her hope above the snow eternal
Crowning her Time-hallowed desolation.
O my Love, the crumbling Temple ’s dreaming
Of the star that wanders from its orbit,
Of the rose that blooms and dies forsaken,
Of the leaves that fall from sheltering branches
Only to become the sport of chance winds
Or the bed of some unsightly creeper;—
Dreaming of the Lebanon lily, drooping
In the dells beneath forbidding ridges;—
Dreaming of the corymbs of the elder
That forgot the touch of loving hands,
For the zephyr of the South, which passes
O’er their bloom of tender welcome, only
Fans into a flame the smoldering embers
Of the anguish of departed lovers.
O my Love, the furzes are in full bloom
Waiting on the terrace of Lebanus
For the ardent and enamored seeker—
Waiting, and the secret of their silence
Locked remains within their shells of amber
Till thou comest, till they hear thee whisper,
I am thine and thou art mine forever.
O my Love, how long wilt hither tarry,
Making toys of Time’s discarded hours?
Fair Lebanus, O my Love, is calling,
Yea, and waiting in his House of Flowers.
And around it wings of song unnumbered,
Amber-tinted, beryline, vermilion,
Pour their riches in the land of mourning,
Strew their silver in the olive grove,
Weave their magic through the almond blossoms,
Shake the incense from the terebinths,
Spread in vain their gladness o’er the pines.
Yea, a sea of Siren witchery,
Like the sundown inundates the heaven,
Rolling o’er a sea of boughs emblossomed,
Multi-hued, a-glow with burning rapture;—
Waves of song are on the scented breezes,
Rolling o’er the virgin snow of Sanneen,
O’er the trackless verdure of the lowland,
O’er the mottled mountains joined forever
In a wild embrace of stony silence;—
Rolling over Wadis fondly nursing
Cyclamens of unremembered seasons,
Oleanders of unfathered beauty,
Irises of mothered tenderness.
Yea, my Love, the robin in the olives
Thrills the very shadow of the branch;
In the pomegranate, thrush and skylark
Fill its crimson cups with flaming rapture;
In the fig tree and the laden vineyard,
Bulbuls chant the joy of harvest-time.
Yea, my Love, the birds of dawn are calling,
Whispering, chattering, warbling everywhere,
Dancing, flitting, waiting in the groves,
Lingering in the chinks of terraces,
Making
