To forms of time and apprehensive tune, So, as I lay, full soon Interpretation throve: the bee's fanfare, Through sequent films of discourse vague as air, The bee o'erhung a rich, unrifled bloom : 66 "O Earth, fair lordly Blossom, soft a-shine Upon the star-pranked universal vine, To thee Come I, a poet, hereward haply blown, -Worldflower, if thou refuse me- Upon the universal Jessamine, Prithee, abuse me not, Prithee, refuse me not, Yield, yield the heartsome honey love to me Hid in thy nectary!” And as I sank into a dimmer dream The pleading bee's song-burthen sole did seem : In thy huge nectary?" TAMPA, FLORIDA, 1877. THE HARLEQUIN OF DREAMS. SWIFT, through some trap mine eyes have never found, Dim-panelled in the painted scene of Sleep, Thou, giant Harlequin of Dreams, dost leap Upon my spirit's stage. Then Sight and Sound, Then Space and Time, then Language, Mete and Bound, And all familiar Forms that firmly keep Man's reason in the road, change faces, peep Yet thou canst more than mock: sometimes my tears BALTIMORE, 1878. STREET-CRIES. OFT seems the Time a market-town Their needs, as wares; one thus, one so: I. REMONSTRANCE. "OPINION, let me alone: I am not thine. Prim Creed, with categoric point, forbear To feature me my Lord by rule and line. Thou canst not measure Mistress Nature's hair, Not one sweet inch: nay, if thy sight is sharp, Would'st count the strings upon an angel's harp? Forbear, forbear. "Oh let me love my Lord more fathom deep Than there is line to sound with: let me love My fellow not as men that mandates keep: Yea, all that's lovable, below, above, That let me love by heart, by heart, because "The tears I weep by day and bitter night, Opinion! for thy sole salt vintage fall. -As morn by morn I rise with fresh delight, "So fare I forth to feast: I sit beside Some brother bright: but, ere good-morrow's passed, Burly Opinion wedging in hath cried 'Thou shalt not sit by us, to break thy fast, Save to our Rubric thou subscribe and swear- "Then, hard a-hungered for my brother's grace Till well-nigh fain to swear his folly 's true, In sad dissent I turn my longing face To him that sits on the left: Brother, with you?' —‘Nay, not with me, save thou subscribe and swear Religion hath black eyes and raven hair : Nought else is true.' "Debarred of banquets that my heart could make With every man on every day of life, I homeward turn, my fires of pain to slake In deep endearments of a worshipped wife. 'I love thee well, dear Love,' quoth she, and yet Would that thy creed with mine completely met, As one, not two.' "Assassin! Thief! Opinion, 'tis thy work. By Church, by throne, by hearth, by every good That's in the Town of Time, I see thee lurk, And e'er some shadow stays where thou hast stood. Thou hand'st sweet Socrates his hemlock sour; "Deliverer Christ; thou rack'st the souls of men ; Thou tossest girls to lions and boys to flames; Indifferent cruel, thou dost blow the blaze "Thou base-born Accident of time and place— Bigot Pretender unto Judgment's throne— Bastard, that claimest with a cunning face "I would thou left'st me free, to live with love, And faith, that through the love of love doth find My Lord's dear presence in the stars above, The clods below, the flesh without, the mind Within, the bread, the tear, the smile. Opinion, damned Intriguer, gray with guile, Let me alone." BALTIMORE, 1878-9. |