the rocks emerge,
I strolled, and watched the baffled surge.
In sheltered channels at my feet,
The sleepy ripples crisping neat,
Slid in and out with sluicy beat.
The groaning sea, wind-smitten white—
The day, shot through with throbbing light,
Lay palpitating on my sight.
From bloody death of stricken day,
And ocean’s leprous agony,
My weary eyes I drew away,
To where the rocks the margin mar
Of waters where the shadows are—
And saw the smiling of a star.
Imbedded deep in mossy green,
A glinting gem with lustrous sheen,
Burnt wondrous with a flame serene,
My soul grew drunken with its ray—
Like liquid April filing May,
Its wing-light suffused the day.
And day became—with colors cold
New-drowned in beauties manifold—
An opal chalice brimming gold.
A silent music clove the air—
A spirit bent in worship there—
My wish had wrought itself a prayer.
“O, if thy beauty, radiant stone,
Be not rejected love alone,
By wooing skies upon thee thrown;
But rather a desire intense,
Appealing thus to human sense
With more than human eloquence;
If so thou strivest to impart
The aspirations at thy heart—
Pulsing a wish with every spark;
Give me to claim thy sacred ray,
I’ll bear thee from thy shades away,
And set thee in the perfect day.
I’ll niche thee in a shrine made fair
With wondrous woods and metals rare,
And dim with amber-tinted air.
And sculpted work of quaint device,
Gem-tinct with gleams of prismic ice—
And lamps antique of fabled price—
And droning troops of monkish bees,
With censers filled at spicy trees,
Shall minister on bended knees.”
Grey darkness fell upon the land,
With hasty clutch my eager hand
To snatch the gem from barren strand
Essayed. When, Lo! with stiffened hair—
And vision smit with baleful glare—
And hope sharp-freezing to despair,
With heart compressed as in a vice,
And forehead bound with sudden ice—
I grasped a hidden Cockatrice.
O, with Heart of Stone with eyes of light,
And ivory throat of pallid white,
And snaky folds concealed from sight—
With jeweled teeth, alas! and breath
Whose touch to passion ministreth—
Sweet-spiced with aromatic death!
No pen of poison, gall-immersed,
Of deadly sins can name thy worst;
Or fitly curse thy race accursed.
A Mystery
A thing to be thought with abated breath,
And named with tears.
There ever shall be as there ever have been,
Beyond our ken,
The weight of the Past with its burden of sin,
A shadow thrown from the Future within,
On the souls of men.
And the weight unfelt and the shadow unseen,
With the cry of the Present unheard between,
Is all of life.
And ’tis only through toil and the nameless pain
Of wishes forever unwished again,
By an aimless strife—
As who should do battle with weapon of steel
To the fleshless Dark which he cannot feel,
As it hedges him round—
That peace is found.
Thinkst thou that “to smile” is the same as “to live,”
That a life shall receive what it need not give,
That toil is toil;
That a fruitful future unmoistened by tears,
Brings harvest of ears,
And wine and oil?
O, Dreamer of Dreams, there forever shall be
A blossomless growth in the spirit of thee,
Still draping in gloom.
Each fairy façade of each castle so fair,
By thy fancy upreared in the roseate air,
As ivy a tomb.
’Tis rooted in life and its fruit is of death,
And the prisoned breath,
In its baleful shadow, still shudders and moans
In voiceless tones.
Wouldst thou know, O mortal, the secret of Pain?
’Tis the payment in blood for each wish we obtain.
Rosalie
Lithesome, blithesome daughter mine,
Lift to me those lips of thine;
Greet me with those eyes of blue,
Eyes which seem to look me through:
Flashing now with life and light;
Now in hush of sleep reposing,
Veiled by lashes dark as night—
Shadows over violets closing.
Come thou, o’er me softly bow,
Shower on me fond caresses;
O’er my cheek, and on my brow,
Fling thy wealth of sunbright tresses.
Every throbbing pulse of mine
Beats in time and tune to thine;
All my heart’s tide sets to thee,
Loving little Rosalie.
As the dewdrop doth the flower,
As the sunshine doth the hour,
So the music of thy voice
Makes my soul rejoice.
All the livelong day around
Babbles on thy childlike chatter;
Mingled with the pleasant sound
Comes thy little foot’s light patter.
Like the linnet’s on the thorn
Joyously thy carol floweth—
Sing, my bird, for thy young morn
No dark night of winter knoweth.
Blue-eyed romp, in ceaseless whirl,
Half the angel, half the girl,
All the child art thou to me,
Laughing little Rosalie.
Loved one mine, the sunny day
Passeth rapidly away;
All too soon the bright time goes—
All too fast life’s current flows.
Now its fairy waters glide
Where the sunbeams o’er it quiver;
Soon the salt waves meet its tide,
Soon the beck will be the river—
Thine is now the primrose spring,
Thine the bluebell in the meadows:
Mine the fading hours that fling
Autumn leaves and lengthening shadows;
Yet my day lights up awhile
’Neath the sunshine of thy smile—
Thou dost bring new life to me,
Lithesome, blithesome Rosalie.
To Thee, My Darling
The heliotrope’s fragrant breath—
The subtle sweet of jasmine on the evening air—
The flowery mead, all radiant
With sympathetic pleasure
From the glowing kiss with which
The God of Day salutes its lovely face—
The whispering, snowy surf, wherewith
Old Ocean in his kindliest mood
Murmurs soft secrets to the willing sands—
The mingled joy and anguish thrilling us
In the weird plaints of Schubert—
Great Rossini’s heaven-born strains—
All graceful, lovely things,
Lifting my soul to beatific state—
Mnemosyne with flowery fetters
Binds to thee, my darling.
Serenade
Listen, maiden, to my strain,
Listen, pray thee, do!
Darkness shrouds the gloomy plain,
And our moon is on the wane,
Yet this fog cools not my brain,
’Tis on fire anew.
List! and from thy couch arise,
Rise, dear, pray thee do!
Not to gaze on murky skies,
That were now nor well nor wise,
But because your lover tries
To catch sight of you!
Draw that dismal curtain back—
Draw it back, duck, do!
’Tis like these clouds, whose flimsy rack
Hides yon bright moon’s silvery track,
I’d rather see the window black,
And know it bright to you.
Let me see those love-lit eyes—
Let me, sweet; now, do-o-o!
Lit by them these misty skies
Ne’er would wish the moon to rise,
And the stars, like scared fire-flies,
Would hide deep in the blue.
Come, dear, dup that tiresome door—
Dup the door, duck, do-oo-o!
Let me love afar no more,
Singing in the
