May pour for thee this golden wine, brimhigh, Till round the glass thy fingers glow like gold. We'll drown all hours: thy song, while hours are toll'd, Shall leap, as fountains veil the changing sky. Now kiss, and think that there are really those, My own high-bosomed beauty, who in crease Vain gold, vain lore, and yet might choose our way! Through many years they toil; then on a day They die not, for their life was death, - but cease; And round their narrow lips the mould falls close. LXXII. THE CHOICE — II WATCH thou and fear; tomorrow thou shalt die. O art thou sure thou shalt have time for death? Is not the day which God's word promiseth To come man knows not when? In yonder sky, Now while we speak, the sun speeds forth: can I Or thou assure him of his goal? God's breath Even at this moment haply quickeneth The air to a flame; till spirits, always nigh Though screened and hid, shall walk the daylight here. And dost thou prate of all that man shall do? Canst thou, who hast but plagues, presume to be Glad in his gladness that comes after thee? Will his strength slay thy worm in Hell? Go to: Cover thy countenance, and watch, and fear. LXXIII. THE CHOICE - III THINK thou and act; to-morrow thou shalt die. Outstretched in the sun's warmth upon the shore, Thou say'st: "Man's measured path is all gone o'er Up all his years, steeply, with strain and sigh, Man clomb until he touched the truth; and I, Even I, am he whom it was destined for." WHAT place so strange, though unrevealed snow With unimaginable fires arise At the earth's end, what passion of surprise Like frost-bound fire-girt scenes of long ago? Lo! this is none but I this hour; and lo! This is the very place which to mine eyes Those mortal hours in vain immortalize, 'Mid hurrying crowds, with what alone I know. City, of thine a single simple door, By some new Power reduplicate, must be Even yet my life-porch in eternity, Even with one presence filled, as once of yore: Or mocking winds whirl round a chaffstrown floor Thee and thy years and these my words and me. LXXXVI. LOST DAYS THE lost days of my life until to-day, What were they, could I see them on the street Lie as they fell? Would they be ears of wheat Sown once for food but trodden into clay? Or golden coins squandered and still to pay? Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet? Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat The undying throats of Hell, athirst alway? I do not see them here; but after death God knows I know the faces I shall see, Each one a murdered self, with low last breath. Yea, even as chariot-dust upon the air, It shall be sought and not found anywhere. Get thee behind me, Satan. Oft unfurled, Thy perilous wings can beat and break like lath Much mightiness of men to win thee praise. Leave these weak feet to tread in narrow ways. Thou still, upon the broad vine-sheltered path, Mayst wait the turning of the phials of wrath For certain years, for certain months and days. XCII. THE SUN'S SHAME BEHOLDING youth and hope in mockery caught From life; and mocking pulses that remain When the soul's death of bodily death is fain; Honor unknown, and honor known unsought; And penury's thought sedulous self-torturing On gold, whose master therewith buys his bane; And longed-for woman longing all in vain For lonely man traught; with love's desire dis And wealth, and strength, and power, and pleasantness, Given unto bodies of whose souls men say, None poor and weak, slavish and foul, as they : Beholding these things, I behold no less The blushing morn and blushing eve confess The shame that loads the intolerable day. XCVII A SUPERSCRIPTION Look in my face; my name is Might-havebeen; I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell; Unto thine shell ear I hold the dead-sea Cast up thy Life's foam-fretted feet between; THREE SHADOWS I LOOKED and saw your eyes In the shadow of the wood; I looked and saw your heart In the shadow of the stream; Should win the immortal prize, Whose want must make life cold And Heaven a hollow dream?" [Composed 1881. - Published 1881.] THIN are the night-skirts left behind My soul this hour has drawn your soul Our lives, most dear, are never near, And with desire and with regret Is there a home where heavy earth Melts to bright air that breathes no pain, May there at length its hope beget. THE CLOUD CONFINES [Composed 1871. Published 1872.] THE day is dark and the night To him that would search their heart; To him wild shadows are shown, And height above unknown height. "Strange to think by the way, That shall we know one day." The Past is over and fled; Named new, we name it the old; Thereof some tale hath been told, But no word comes from the dead; Whether at all they be, Or whether as bond or free, Or by what spell they have sped. "Strange to think by the way, Whatever there is to know, That shall we know one day." What of the heart of hate That beats in thy breast, O Time?— Red strife from the furthest prime, And anguish of fierce debate; War that shatters her slain, And peace that grinds them as grain, And eyes fixed ever in vain On the pitiless eyes of Fate. Still we say as we go, "Strange to think by the way, Whatever there is to know, That shall we know one day." What of the heart of love That bleeds in thy breast, O Man?- That shall we know one day." Our past is clean forgot. "Strange to think by the way, NOTE. Tradition says that Catherine Douglas, in honor of her heroic act when she barred the door with her arm against the murderers of James the First of Scots, received popularly the name of "Barlass." The name remains to her descendants, the Barlas family, in Scotland, who bear for their crest a broken arm. She married Alexander Lovell of Bolunnie. A few stanzas from King James's lovely poem, known as The King's Quhair, are quoted in the course of this ballad. The writer must express regret for the necessity which has compelled him to shorten the ten-syllabled lines to eight syllables, in order that they might harmonize with the ballad metre. I CATHERINE am a Douglas born, And Kate Barlass they've called me now This old arm's withered now. 'T was once In hall adown the close-linked dance It has shone most white and fair; It has been the rest for a true lord's head, And many a sweet babe's nursing-bed, And the bar to a King's chambère. Through all the days of his gallant youth For the elder Prince, the kingdom's heir, Was slain; and the father quaked for the child With the royal mortal blood. I' the Bass Rock fort, by his father's care, His youth for long years immured. Yet in all things meet for a kingly man Himself did he approve; And the nightingale through his prisonwall Taught him both lore and love. For once, when the bird's song drew him close To the opened window-pane, In her bowers beneath a lady stood, And for her sake, to the sweet bird's note, More sweet than ever a poet's heart She was a lady of royal blood; And when, past sorrow and teen, He stood where still through his crownless years His Scottish realm had been, At Scone were the happy lovers crowned, A heart-wed King and Queen. But the bird may fall from the bough of youth, And song be turned to moan, And Love's storm-cloud be the shadow of Hate, When the tempest-waves of a troubled State Are beating against a throne. Yet well they loved; and the god of Love, Whom well the King had sung, Might find on the earth no truer hearts His lowliest swains among. From the days when first she rode abroad I Catherine Douglas won the trust And oft she sighed, "To be born a King!" When she saw the homely lovers pass "And it may be here or it may be there, In the camp or the court," she said: "But for my sake come to your people's arms And guard your royal head." Quoth he, ""T is the fifteenth day of the siege, And the castle 's nigh to yield." "O face your foes on your throne," she cried, "And show the power you wield; And under your Scottish people's love You shall sit as under your shield." At the fair Queen's side I stood that day But when he summoned his Parliament, For he had tamed the nobles' lust And curbed their power and pride, And reached out an arm to right the poor Through Scotland far and wide; And many a lordly wrong-doer By the headsman's axe had died. 'T was then upspoke Sir Robert Græme, The bold o'ermastering man: "O King, in the name of your Three Es tates I set you under their ban! "For, as your lords made oath to you Of service and fealty, Even in like wise you pledged your oath "Yet all we here that are nobly sprung With that he laid his hands on his King:"Is this not so, my lords?" But of all who had sworn to league with him Not one spake back to his words. Quoth the King: "Thou speak'st but for one Estate, Let my liege lords hale this traitor hence !" But soon from the dungeon where he lay And forth he fled with a price on his head To the country of the Wild Scots. And word there came from Sir Robert Græme To the King at Edinbro': "No Liege of mine thou art; but I see From this day forth alone in thee God's creature, my mortal foe. "Through thee are my wife and children lost, My heritage and lands; And when my God shall show me a way, Thyself my mortal foe will I slay With these my proper hands." Against the coming of Christmastide I' the Black Friars' Charterhouse of Perth And we of his household rode with him In a close-ranked company: But not till the sun had sunk from his throne Did we reach the Scottish Sea. That eve was clenched for a boding storm, And where there was a line of the sky, And on a rock of the black beach-side As the King drew nigh to it. And was it only the tossing furze Or brake of the waste sea-wold? Or was it an eagle bent to the blast? When near we came, we knew it at last For a woman tattered and old. But it seemed as though by a fire within Her writhen limbs were wrung; And as soon as the King was close to her, She stood up gaunt and strong. 'T was then the moon sailed clear of the rack On high in her hollow dome; And still as aloft with hoary crest Each clamorous wave rang home, Like fire in snow the moonlight blazed Amid the champing foam. And the woman held his eyes with her |