Myth and Romance: Being a Book of Verses

Dionysia

 
The day is dead; and in the west
The slender crescent of the moon—
Diana's crystal-kindled crest—
Sinks hillward in a silvery swoon.
What is the murmur in the dell?
The stealthy whisper and the drip?—
A Dryad with her leaf-light trip?
Or Naiad o'er her fountain well?—
Who, with white fingers for her comb,
Sleeks her blue hair, and from its curls
Showers slim minnows and pale pearls,
And hollow music of the foam.
What is it in the vistaed ways
That leans and springs, and stoops and sways?—
The naked limbs of one who flees?
An Oread who hesitates
Before the Satyr form that waits,
Crouching to leap, that there she sees?
Or under boughs, reclining cool,
A Hamadryad, like a pool
Of moonlight, palely beautiful?
Or Limnad, with her lilied face,
More lovely than the misty lace
That haunts a star and gives it grace?
Or is it some Leimoniad,
In wildwood flowers dimly clad?
Oblong blossoms white as froth;
Or mottled like the tiger-moth;
Or brindled as the brows of death;
Wild of hue and wild of breath.
Here ethereal flame and milk
Blent with velvet and with silk;
Here an iridescent glow
Mixed with satin and with snow:
Pansy, poppy and the pale
Serpolet and galingale;
Mandrake and anemone,
Honey-reservoirs o' the bee;
Cistus and the cyclamen,—
Cheeked like blushing Hebe this,
And the other white as is
Bubbled milk of Venus when
Cupid's baby mouth is pressed,
Rosy, to her rosy breast.
And, besides, all flowers that mate
With aroma, and in hue
Stars and rainbows duplicate
Here on earth for me and you.
 
 
Yea! at last mine eyes can see!
'Tis no shadow of the tree
Swaying softly there, but she!—
Mænad, Bassarid, Bacchant,
What you will, who doth enchant
Night with sensuous nudity.
Lo! again I hear her pant
Breasting through the dewy glooms—
Through the glow-worm gleams and glowers
Of the starlight;—wood-perfumes
Swoon around her and frail showers
Of the leaflet-tilted rain.
Lo, like love, she comes again,
Through the pale, voluptuous dusk,
Sweet of limb with breasts of musk.
With her lips, like blossoms, breathing
Honeyed pungence of her kiss,
And her auburn tresses wreathing
Like umbrageous helichrys,
There she stands, like fire and snow,
In the moon's ambrosial glow,
Both her shapely loins low-looped
With the balmy blossoms, drooped,
Of the deep amaracus.
Spiritual yet sensual,
Lo, she ever greets me thus
In my vision; white and tall,
Her delicious body there,—
Raimented with amorous air,—
To my mind expresses all
The allurements of the world.
And once more I seem to feel
On my soul, like frenzy, hurled
All the passionate past.—I reel,
Greek again in ancient Greece,
In the Pyrrhic revelries;
In the mad and Mænad dance
Onward dragged with violence;
Pan and old Silenus and
Faunus and a Bacchant band
Round me. Wild my wine-stained hand
O'er tumultuous hair is lifted;
While the flushed and Phallic orgies
Whirl around me; and the marges
Of the wood are torn and rifted
With lascivious laugh and shout.
And barbarian there again,—
Shameless with the shameless rout,
Bacchus lusting in each vein,—
With her pagan lips on mine,
Like a god made drunk with wine,
On I reel; and, in the revels,
Her loose hair, the dance dishevels,
Blows, and 'thwart my vision swims
All the splendor of her limbs....
 
 
So it seems. Yet woods are lonely.
And when I again awake,
I shall find their faces only
Moonbeams in the boughs that shake;
And their revels, but the rush
Of night-winds through bough and brush.
Yet my dreaming—is it more
Than mere dreaming? Is some door
Opened in my soul? a curtain
Raised? to let me see for certain
I have lived that life before?
 

The Last Song

 
She sleeps; he sings to her. The day was long,
And, tired out with too much happiness,
She fain would have him sing of old Provence;
Quaint songs, that spoke of love in such soft tones,
Her restless soul was straight besieged of dreams,
And her wild heart beleagured of deep peace,
And heart and soul surrendered unto sleep.—
Like perfect sculpture in the moon she lies,
Its pallor on her through heraldic panes
Of one tall casement's gulèd quarterings.—
Beside her couch, an antique table, weighed
With gold and crystal; here, a carven chair,
Whereon her raiment,—that suggests sweet curves
Of shapely beauty,—bearing her limbs' impress,
Is richly laid: and, near the chair, a glass,
An oval mirror framed in ebony:
And, dim and deep,—investing all the room
With ghostly life of woven women and men,
And strange fantastic gloom, where shadows live,—
Dark tapestry,—which in the gusts—that twinge
A grotesque cresset's slender star of light—
Seems moved of cautious hands, assassin-like,
That wait the hour.
She alone, deep-haired
As rosy dawn, and whiter than a rose,
Divinely breasted as the Queen of Love,
Lies robeless in the glimmer of the moon,
Like Danaë within the golden shower.
Seated beside her aromatic rest,
In rapture musing on her loveliness,
Her knight and troubadour. A lute, aslope
The curious baldric of his tunic, glints
With pearl-reflections of the moon, that seem
The silent ghosts of long-dead melodies.
In purple and sable, slashed with solemn gold,
Like stately twilight o'er the snow-heaped hills,
He bends above her.—
Have his hands forgot
Their craft, that they pause, idle on the strings?
His lips, their art, that they cease, speechless there?—
His eyes are set.... What is it stills to stone
His hands, his lips? and mails him, head and heel,
In terrible marble, motionless and cold?—
Behind the arras, can it be he feels,
Black-browed and grim, with eyes of sombre fire,
Death towers above him with uplifted sword?
 

Romaunt of the Oak

 
"I rode to death, for I fought for shame—
The Lady Maurine of noble name,
 
 
"The fair and faithless!—Though life be long
Is love the wiser?—Love made song
 
 
"Of all my life; and the soul that crept
Before, arose like a star and leapt:
 
 
"Still leaps with the love that it found untrue,
That it found unworthy.—Now run me through!
 
 
"Yea, run me through! for meet and well,
And a jest for laughter of fiends in hell,
 
 
"It is that I, who have done no wrong,
Should die by the hand of Hugh the Strong,
 
 
"Of Hugh her leman!—What else could be
When the devil was judge twixt thee and me?
 
 
"He splintered my lance, and my blade he broke—
Now finish me thou 'neath the trysting oak!" …
 
 
The crest of his foeman,—a heart of white
In a bath of fire,—stooped i' the night;
 
 
Stooped and laughed as his sword he swung,
Then galloped away with a laugh on his tongue....
 
 
But who is she in the gray, wet dawn,
'Mid the autumn shades like a shadow wan?
 
 
Who kneels, one hand on her straining breast,
One hand on the dead man's bosom pressed?
 
 
Her face is dim as the dead's; as cold
As his tarnished harness of steel and gold.
 
 
O Lady Maurine! O Lady Maurine!
What boots it now that regret is keen?
 
 
That his hair you smooth, that you kiss his brow
What boots it now? what boots it now?…
 
 
She has haled him under the trysting oak,
The huge old oak that the creepers cloak.
 
 
She has stood him, gaunt in his battered arms,
In its haunted hollow.—"Be safe from storms,"
 
 
She laughed as his cloven casque she placed
On his brow, and his riven shield she braced.
 
 
Then sat and talked to the forest flowers
Through the lonely term of the day's pale hours.
 
 
And stared and whispered and smiled and wept,
While nearer and nearer the evening crept.
 
 
And, lo, when the moon, like a great gold bloom
Above the sorrowful trees did loom,
 
 
She rose up sobbing, "O moon, come see
My bridegroom here in the old oak-tree!
 
 
"I have talked to the flowers all day, all day,
For never a word had he to say.
 
 
"He would not listen, he would not hear,
Though I wailed my longing into his ear.
 
 
"O moon, steal in where he stands so grim,
And tell him I love him, and plead with him.
 
 
"Soften his face that is cold and stern
And brighten his eyes and make them burn,
 
 
"O moon, O moon, so my soul can see
That his heart still glows with love for me!" …
 
 
When the moon was set, and the woods were dark,
The wild deer came and stood as stark,
 
 
As phantoms with eyes of fire; or fled
Like a ghostly hunt of the herded dead.
 
 
And the hoot-owl called; and the were-wolf snarled;
And a voice, in the boughs of the oak-tree gnarled,—
 
 
Like the whining rush of the hags that ride
To the witches' sabboth,—crooned and cried.
 
 
And wrapped in his mantle of wind and cloud
The storm-fiend stalked through the forest loud.
 
 
When she heard the dead man rattle and groan
As the oak was bent and its leaves were blown,
 
 
And the lightning vanished and shimmered his mail,
Through the swirling sweep of the rain and hail,
 
 
She seemed to hear him, who seemed to call,—
"Come hither, Maurine, the wild leaves fall!
 
 
"The wild leaves rustle, the wild leaves flee;
Come hither, Maurine, to the hollow tree!
 
 
"To the trysting tree, to the tree once green;
Come hither, Maurine! come hither, Maurine!" …
 
 
They found her closed in his armored arms—
Had he claimed his bride on that night of storms?
 

Morgan le Fay

 
In dim samite was she bedight,
And on her hair a hoop of gold,
Like fox-fire in the tawn moonlight,
Was glimmering cold.
 
 
With soft gray eyes she gloomed and glowered;
With soft red lips she sang a song:
What knight might gaze upon her face,
Nor fare along?
 
 
For all her looks were full of spells,
And all her words of sorcery;
And in some way they seemed to say
      "Oh, come with me!
 
 
"Oh, come with me! oh, come with me!
Oh, come with me, my love, Sir Kay!"—
How should he know the witch, I trow,
Morgan le Fay?
 
 
How should he know the wily witch,
With sweet white face and raven hair?
Who by her art bewitched his heart
And held him there.
 
 
For soul and sense had waxed amort
To wold and weald, to slade and stream;
And all he heard was her soft word
As one adream.
 
 
And all he saw was her bright eyes,
And her fair face that held him still;
And wild and wan she led him on
O'er vale and hill.
 
 
Until at last a castle lay
Beneath the moon, among the trees;
Its Gothic towers old and gray
With mysteries.
 
 
Tall in its hall an hundred knights
In armor stood with glaive in hand;
The following of some great King,
Lord of that land.
 
 
Sir Bors, Sir Balin, and Gawain,
All Arthur's knights, and many mo;
But these in battle had been slain
Long years ago.
 
 
But when Morgan with lifted hand
Moved down the hall, they louted low;
For she was Queen of Shadowland,
That woman of snow.
 
 
Then from Sir Kay she drew away,
And mocking at him by her side,—
"Behold, Sir Knights, the knave who slew
Your King," she cried.
 
 
Then like one man those shadows raised
Their swords, whereon the moon glanced gray;
And clashing all strode from the wall
Against Sir Kay.
 
 
And on his body, bent and bowed,
The hundred blades like one blade fell;
While over all rang long and loud
The mirth of Hell.
 

The Dream of Roderick

 
Below, the tawny Tagus swept
Past royal gardens, breathing balm;
Upon his couch the monarch slept;
The world was still; the night was calm.
 
 
Gray, Gothic-gated, in the ray
Of moonrise, tower-and castle-crowned,
The city of Toledo lay
Beneath the terraced palace-ground.
 
 
Again, he dreamed, in kingly sport
He sought the tree-sequestered path,
And watched the ladies of his Court
Within the marble-basined bath.
 
 
Its porphyry stairs and fountained base
Shone, houried with voluptuous forms,
Where Andalusia vied in grace
With old Castile, in female charms.
 
 
And laughter, song, and water-splash
Rang round the place, with stone arcaded,
As here a breast or limb would flash
Where beauty swam or beauty waded.
 
 
And then, like Venus, from the wave
A maiden came, and stood below;
And by her side a woman slave
Bent down to dry her limbs of snow.
 
 
Then on the tesselated bank,
Robed on with fragrance and with fire,—
Like some exotic flower—she sank,
The type of all divine desire.
 
 
Then her dark curls, that sparkled wet,
She parted from her perfect brows,
And, lo, her eyes, like lamps of jet
Within an alabaster house.
 
 
And in his sleep the monarch sighed,
"Florinda!"—Dreaming still he moaned,
"Ah, would that I had died, had died!
I have atoned! I have atoned!" …
 
 
And then the vision changed: O'erhead
Tempest and darkness were unrolled,
Full of wild voices of the dead,
And lamentations manifold.
 
 
And wandering shapes of gaunt despair
Swept by, with faces pale as pain,
Whose eyes wept blood and seemed to glare
Fierce curses on him through the rain.
 
 
And then, it seemed, 'gainst blazing skies
A necromantic tower sate,
Crag-like on crags, of giant size;
Of adamant its walls and gate.
 
 
And from the storm a hand of might
Red-rolled in thunder, reached among
The gate's huge bolts—that burst; and night
Clanged ruin as its hinges swung.
 
 
Then far away a murmur trailed,—
As of sad seas on cavern'd shores,—
That grew into a voice that wailed,
"They come! they come! the Moors! the Moors!"
 
 
And with deep boom of atabals
And crash of cymbals and wild peal
Of battle-bugles, from its walls
An army rushed in glimmering steel.
 
 
And where it trod he saw the torch
Of conflagration stalk the skies,
And in the vanward of its march
The monster form of Havoc rise.
 
 
And Paynim war-cries rent the storm,
Athwart whose firmament of flame,
Destruction reared an earthquake form
On wreck and death without a name …
 
 
And then again the vision changed:
Where flows the Guadalete, see,
The warriors of the Cross are ranged
Against the Crescent's chivalry.
 
 
With roar of trumpets and of drums
They meet; and in the battle's van
He fights; and, towering towards him, comes
Florinda's father, Julian;
 
 
And one-eyed Taric, great in war:
And where these couch their burning spears,
The Christian phalanx, near and far,
Goes down like corn before the shears.
 
 
The Moslem wins: the Christian flies:
"Allah il Allah," hill and plain
Reverberate: the rocking skies,
"Allah il Allah," shout again.
 
 
And then he dreamed the swing of swords
And hurl of arrows were no more;
But, louder than the howling hordes,
Strange silence fell on field and shore.
 
 
And through the night, it seemed, he fled,
Upon a white steed like a star,
Across a field of endless dead,
Beneath a blood-red scimitar.
 
 
Of sunset: And he heard a moan,
Beneath, around, on every hand—
"Accurséd! Yea, what hast thou done
To bring this curse upon thy land?"
 
 
And then an awful sense of wings:
And, lo! the answer—"'Twas his lust
That was his crime. Behold! E'en kings
Must reckon with Me. All are dust."