Part 15

The rooks aclamor when one enters here Startle the empty towers far overhead; Through gaping walls the summer fields appear, Green, tan, or, poppy-mingled, tinged with red. The courts where revel rang deep grass and moss Cover, and tangled vines have overgrown The gate where banners blazoned with a cross Rolled forth to toss round Tyre and Ascalon. Decay consumes it. The old causes fade. And fretting for the contest many a heart Waits their Tyrtaeus to chant on the new. Oh, pass him by who, in this haunted shade Musing enthralled, has only this much art, To love the things the birds and flowers love too.

Tezcotzinco

Though thou art now a ruin bare and cold, Thou wert sometime the garden of a king. The birds have sought a lovelier place to sing. The flowers are few. It was not so of old. It was not thus when hand in hand there strolled Through arbors perfumed with undying Spring Bare bodies beautiful, brown, glistening, Decked with green plumes and rings of yellow gold. Do you suppose the herdsman sometimes hears Vague echoes borne beneath the moon's pale ray From those old, old, far-off, forgotten years? Who knows? Here where his ancient kings held sway He stands. Their names are strangers to his ears. Even their memory has passed away.

The Old Lowe House, Staten Island

Another prospect pleased the builder's eye, And Fashion tenanted (where Fashion wanes) Here in the sorrowful suburban lanes When first these gables rose against the sky. Relic of a romantic taste gone by, This stately monument alone remains, Vacant, with lichened walls and window-panes Blank as the windows of a skull. But I, On evenings when autumnal winds have stirred In the porch-vines, to this gray oracle Have laid a wondering ear and oft-times heard, As from the hollow of a stranded shell, Old voices echoing (or my fancy erred) Things indistinct, but not insensible.

Oneata

A hilltop sought by every soothing breeze That loves the melody of murmuring boughs, Cool shades, green acreage, and antique house Fronting the ocean and the dawn; than these Old monks built never for the spirit's ease Cloisters more calm--not Cluny nor Clairvaux; Sweet are the noises from the bay below, And cuckoos calling in the tulip-trees. Here, a yet empty suitor in thy train, Beloved Poesy, great joy was mine To while a listless spell of summer days, Happier than hoarder in each evening's gain, When evenings found me richer by one line, One verse well turned, or serviceable phrase.

On the Cliffs, Newport

Tonight a shimmer of gold lies mantled o'er Smooth lovely Ocean. Through the lustrous gloom A savor steals from linden trees in bloom And gardens ranged at many a palace door. Proud walls rise here, and, where the moonbeams pour Their pale enchantment down the dim coast-line, Terrace and lawn, trim hedge and flowering vine, Crown with fair culture all the sounding shore. How sweet, to such a place, on such a night, From halls with beauty and festival a-glare, To come distract and, stretched on the cool turf, Yield to some fond, improbable delight, While the moon, reddening, sinks, and all the air Sighs with the muffled tumult of the surf!

To England at the Outbreak of the Balkan War

A cloud has lowered that shall not soon pass o'er. The world takes sides: whether for impious aims With Tyranny whose bloody toll enflames A generous people to heroic war; Whether with Freedom, stretched in her own gore, Whose pleading hands and suppliant distress Still offer hearts that thirst for Righteousness A glorious cause to strike or perish for. England, which side is thine? Thou hast had sons Would shrink not from the choice however grim, Were Justice trampled on and Courage downed; Which will they be--cravens or champions? Oh, if a doubt intrude, remember him Whose death made Missolonghi holy ground.

At the Tomb of Napoleon Before the Elections in America--November, 1912

I stood beside his sepulchre whose fame, Hurled over Europe once on bolt and blast, Now glows far off as storm-clouds overpast Glow in the sunset flushed with glorious flame. Has Nature marred his mould? Can Art acclaim No hero now, no man with whom men side As with their hearts' high needs personified? There are will say, One such our lips could name; Columbia gave him birth. Him Genius most Gifted to rule. Against the world's great man Lift their low calumny and sneering cries The Pharisaic multitude, the host Of piddling slanderers whose little eyes Know not what greatness is and never can.

The Rendezvous

He faints with hope and fear. It is the hour. Distant, across the thundering organ-swell, In sweet discord from the cathedral-tower, Fall the faint chimes and the thrice-sequent bell. Over the crowd his eye uneasy roves. He sees a plume, a fur; his heart dilates -- Soars . . . and then sinks again. It is not hers he loves. She will not come, the woman that he waits.

Braided with streams of silver incense rise The antique prayers and ponderous antiphones. 'Gloria Patri' echoes to the skies; 'Nunc et in saecula' the choir intones. He marks not the monotonous refrain, The priest that serves nor him that celebrates, But ever scans the aisle for his blonde head. . . . In vain! She will not come, the woman that he waits.

How like a flower seemed the perfumed place Where the sweet flesh lay loveliest to kiss; And her white hands in what delicious ways, With what unfeigned caresses, answered his! Each tender charm intolerable to lose, Each happy scene his fancy recreates. And he calls out her name and spreads his arms . . . No use! She will not come, the woman that he waits.

But the long vespers close. The priest on high Raises the thing that Christ's own flesh enforms; And down the Gothic nave the crowd flows by And through the portal's carven entry swarms. Maddened he peers upon each passing face Till the long drab procession terminates. No princess passes out with proud majestic pace. She has not come, the woman that he waits.

Back in the empty silent church alone He walks with aching heart. A white-robed boy Puts out the altar-candles one by one, Even as by inches darkens all his joy. He dreams of the sweet night their lips first met, And groans--and turns to leave--and hesitates . . . Poor stricken heart, he will, he can not fancy yet She will not come, the woman that he waits.

But in an arch where deepest shadows fall He sits and studies the old, storied panes, And the calm crucifix that from the wall Looks on a world that quavers and complains. Hopeless, abandoned, desolate, aghast, On modes of violent death he meditates. And the tower-clock tolls five, and he admits at last, She will not come, the woman that he waits.

Through the stained rose the winter daylight dies, And all the tide of anguish unrepressed Swells in his throat and gathers in his eyes; He kneels and bows his head upon his breast, And feigns a prayer to hide his burning tears, While the satanic voice reiterates 'Tonight, tomorrow, nay, nor all the impending years, She will not come,' the woman that he waits.

Fond, fervent heart of life's enamored spring, So true, so confident, so passing fair, That thought of Love as some sweet, tender thing, And not as war, red tooth and nail laid bare, How in that hour its innocence was slain, How from that hour our disillusion dates, When first we learned thy sense, ironical refrain, She will not come, the woman that he waits.

Do You Remember Once . . .

Do you remember once, in Paris of glad faces, The night we wandered off under the third moon's rays And, leaving far behind bright streets and busy places, Stood where the Seine flowed down between its quiet quais?

The city's voice was hushed; the placid, lustrous waters Mirrored the walls across where orange windows burned. Out of the starry south provoking rumors brought us Far promise of the spring already northward turned.

And breast drew near to breast, and round its soft desire My arm uncertain stole and clung there unrepelled. I thought that nevermore my heart would hover nigher To the last flower of bliss that Nature's garden held.

There, in your beauty's sweet abandonment to pleasure, The mute, half-open lips and tender, wondering eyes, I saw embodied first smile back on me the treasure Long sought across the seas and back of summer skies.

Dear face, when courted Death shall claim my limbs and find them Laid in some desert place, alone or where the tides Of war's tumultuous waves on the wet sands behind them Leave rifts of gasping life when their red flood subsides,