Part 25

THE old grey Alp has caught the cloud, And the torrent river sings aloud; The glacier-green Rosanna sings An organ song of its upper springs. Foaming under the tiers of pine, I see it dash down the dark ravine, And it tumbles the rocks in boisterous play, With an earnest will to find its way. Sharp it throws out an emerald shoulder, And, thundering ever of the mountain, Slaps in sport some giant boulder, And tops it in a silver fountain. A chain of foam from end to end, And a solitude so deep, my friend, You may forget that man abides Beyond the great mute mountain-sides. Yet to me, in this high-walled solitude Of river and rock and forest rude, The roaring voice through the long white chain Is the voice of the world of bubble and brain.

PHANTASY

WITHIN a Temple of the Toes, Where twirled the passionate Wili, I saw full many a market rose, And sighed for my village lily.

With cynical Adrian then I took flight To that old dead city whose carol Bursts out like a reveller’s loud in the night, As he sits astride his barrel.

III

We two were bound the Alps to scale, Up the rock-reflecting river; Old times blew thro’ me like a gale, And kept my thoughts in a quiver.

Hawking ruin, wood-slope, and vine Reeled silver-laced under my vision, And into me passed, with the green-eyed wine Knocking hard at my head for admission.

I held the village lily cheap, And the dream around her idle: Lo, quietly as I lay to sleep, The bells led me off to a bridal.

My bride wore the hood of a Béguine, And mine was the foot to falter; Three cowled monks, rat-eyed, were seen; The Cross was of bones o’er the altar.

VII

The Cross was of bones; the priest that read, A spectacled necromancer: But at the fourth word, the bride I led Changed to an Opera dancer.

VIII

A young ballet-beauty, who perked in her place, A darling of pink and spangles; One fair foot level with her face, And the hearts of men at her ankles.

She whirled, she twirled, the mock-priest grinned, And quickly his mask unriddled; ’Twas Adrian! loud his old laughter dinned; Then he seized a fiddle, and fiddled.

He fiddled, he glowed with the bottomless fire, Like Sathanas in feature: All through me he fiddled a wolfish desire To dance with that bright creature.

And gathering courage I said to my soul, Throttle the thing that hinders! When the three cowled monks, from black as coal, Waxed hot as furnace-cinders.

XII

They caught her up, twirling: they leapt between-whiles: The fiddler flickered with laughter: Profanely they flew down the awful aisles, Where I went sliding after.

XIII

Down the awful aisles, by the fretted walls, Beneath the Gothic arches:— King Skull in the black confessionals Sat rub-a-dub-dubbing his marches.

XIV

Then the silent cold stone warriors frowned, The pictured saints strode forward: A whirlwind swept them from holy ground; A tempest puffed them nor’ward.

They shot through the great cathedral door; Like mallards they traversed ocean: And gazing below, on its boiling floor, I marked a horrid commotion.

XVI

Down a forest’s long alleys they spun like tops: It seemed that for ages and ages, Thro’ the Book of Life bereft of stops, They waltzed continuous pages.

XVII

And ages after, scarce awake, And my blood with the fever fretting, I stood alone by a forest-lake, Whose shadows the moon were netting.

XVIII