Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“

TO CHARLOTTE CUSHMAN.

LOOK where a three-point star shall weave his beam
Into the slumb'rous tissue of some stream,
Till his bright self o'er his bright copy seem
Fulfillment dropping on a come-true dream;
So in this night of art thy soul doth show
Her excellent double in the steadfast flow

Of wishing love that through men's hearts doth go:
At once thou shin'st above and shin'st below.

E'en when thou strivest there within Art's sky (Each star must o'er a strenuous orbit fly), Full calm thine image in our love doth lie,

A Motion glassed in a Tranquillity.

So triple-rayed, thou mov'st, yet stay'st, serene— Art's artist, Love's dear woman, Fame's good queen!

BALTIMORE, 1875.

THE STIRRUP-CUP.

DEATH, thou 'rt a cordial old and rare :
Look how compounded, with what care!
Time got his wrinkles reaping thee
Sweet herbs from all antiquity.

David to thy distillage went,

Keats, and Gotama excellent,

Omar Khayyam, and Chaucer bright,
And Shakspere for a king-delight.

Then, Time, let not a drop be spilt:
Hand me the cup whene'er thou wilt;
'Tis thy rich stirrup-cup to me;
I'll drink it down right smilingly.

TAMPA, FLORIDA, 1877.

A SONG OF ETERNITY IN TIME.

ONCE, at night, in the manor wood
My Love and I long silent stood,
Amazed that any heavens could
Decree to part us, bitterly repining.

My Love, in aimless love and grief,
Reached forth and drew aside a leaf
That just above us played the thief
And stole our starlight that for us was shining.

A star that had remarked her pain
Shone straightway down that leafy lane,
And wrought his image, mirror-plain,
Within a tear that on her lash hung gleaming.
"Thus Time," I cried, "is but a tear
Some one hath wept 'twixt hope and fear,
Yet in his little lucent sphere

Our star of stars, Eternity, is beaming."

MACON, GEORGIA, 1867. Revised in 1879.

OWL AGAINST ROBIN.

FROWNING, the owl in the oak complained him

Sore, that the song of the robin restrained him

Wrongly of slumber, rudely of rest.

"From the north, from the east, from the south and the west, Woodland, wheat-field, corn-field, clover,

Over and over and over and over,

Five o'clock, ten o'clock, twelve, or seven,
Nothing but robin-songs heard under heaven :
How can we sleep?

Peep! you whistle, and cheep! cheep! cheep!
Oh, peep, if you will, and buy, if 'tis cheap,
And have done; for an owl must sleep.

Are ye singing for fame, and who shall be first?
Each day's the same, yet the last is worst,

And the summer is cursed with the silly outburst
Of idiot red-breasts peeping and cheeping

By day, when all honest birds ought to be sleeping.
Lord, what a din! And so out of all reason.
Have ye not heard that each thing hath its season?
Night is to work in, night is for play-time;

Good heavens, not day-time!

A vulgar flaunt is the flaring day,
The impudent, hot, unsparing day,

That leaves not a stain nor a secret untold,-
Day the reporter,—the gossip of old,—
Deformity's tease,-man's common scold-

Poh! Shut the eyes, let the sense go numb
When day down the eastern way has come.
'Tis clear as the moon (by the argument drawn
From Design) that the world should retire at dawn.
Day kills. The leaf and the laborer breathe
Death in the sun, the cities seethe,

The mortal black marshes bubble with heat
And puff up pestilence; nothing is sweet
Has to do with the sun: even virtue will taint
(Philosophers say) and manhood grow faint
In the lands where the villainous sun has sway
Through the livelong drag of the dreadful day.
What Eden but noon-light stares it tame,.
Shadowless, brazen, forsaken of shame?
For the sun tells lies on the landscape,-now
Reports me the what, unrelieved with the how,--
As messengers lie, with the facts alone,
Delivering the word and withholding the tone.

But oh, the sweetness, and oh, the light

Of the high-fastidious night!

Oh, to awake with the wise old stars-

The cultured, the careful, the Chesterfield stars,

That wink at the work-a-day fact of crime

And shine so rich through the ruins of time

That Baalbec is finer than London; oh,

To sit on the bough that zigzags low
By the woodland pool,

And loudly laugh at man, the fool'

That vows to the vulgar sun; oh, rare,

To wheel from the wood to the window where

A day-worn sleeper is dreaming of care,

And perch on the sill and straightly stare

Through his visions; rare, to sail

Aslant with the hill and a-curve with the vale,—

« AnkstesnisTęsti »