Part 30

O weary heart and hand, Go bravely to the strife-- No victory is half so grand As that which conquers life! One day shall yet be thine-- The day that waits for all Whose prayerful eyes are things divine When evening shadows fall.

YLLADMAR

Her hair was, oh, so dense a blur Of darkness, midnight envied her; And stars grew dimmer in the skies To see the glory of her eyes; And all the summer rain of light That showered from the moon at night Fell o'er her features as the gloom Of twilight o'er a lily-bloom.

The crimson fruitage of her lips Was ripe and lush with sweeter wine Than burgundy or muscadine Or vintage that the burgher sips In some old garden on the Rhine: And I to taste of it could well Believe my heart a crucible Of molten love--and I could feel The drunken soul within me reel And rock and stagger till it fell.

And do you wonder that I bowed Before her splendor as a cloud Of storm the golden-sandaled sun Had set his conquering foot upon? And did she will it, I could lie In writhing rapture down and die A death so full of precious pain I'd waken up to die again.

A FANTASY

A fantasy that came to me As wild and wantonly designed As ever any dream might be Unraveled from a madman's mind,-- A tangle-work of tissue, wrought By cunning of the spider-brain, And woven, in an hour of pain, To trap the giddy flies of thought.

I stood beneath a summer moon All swollen to uncanny girth, And hanging, like the sun at noon, Above the center of the earth; But with a sad and sallow light, As it had sickened of the night And fallen in a pallid swoon. Around me I could hear the rush Of sullen winds, and feel the whir Of unseen wings apast me brush Like phantoms round a sepulcher; And, like a carpeting of plush,0 A lawn unrolled beneath my feet, Bespangled o'er with flowers as sweet To look upon as those that nod Within the garden-fields of God, But odorless as those that blow In ashes in the shades below.

And on my hearing fell a storm Of gusty music, sadder yet Than every whimper of regret That sobbing utterance could form, And patched with scraps of sound that seemed Torn out of tunes that demons dreamed, And pitched to such a piercing key, It stabbed the ear with agony; And when at last it lulled and died, I stood aghast and terrified. I shuddered and I shut my eyes, And still could see, and feel aware Some mystic presence waited there; And staring, with a dazed surprise, I saw a creature so divine That never subtle thought of mine May reproduce to inner sight So fair a vision of delight.

A syllable of dew that drips From out a lily's laughing lips Could not be sweeter than the word I listened to, yet never heard.-- For, oh, the woman hiding there Within the shadows of her hair, Spake to me in an undertone So delicate, my soul alone But understood it as a moan Of some weak melody of wind A heavenward breeze had left behind.

A tracery of trees, grotesque Against the sky, behind her seen, Like shapeless shapes of arabesque Wrought in an Oriental screen; And tall, austere and statuesque She loomed before it--e'en as though The spirit-hand of Angelo Had chiseled her to life complete, With chips of moonshine round her feet. And I grew jealous of the dusk, To see it softly touch her face, As lover-like, with fond embrace, It folded round her like a husk: But when the glitter of her hand, Like wasted glory, beckoned me, My eyes grew blurred and dull and dim-- My vision failed--I could not see-- I could not stir--I could but stand, Till, quivering in every limb, I flung me prone, as though to swim The tide of grass whose waves of green Went rolling ocean-wide between My helpless shipwrecked heart and her Who claimed me for a worshiper.

And writhing thus in my despair, I heard a weird, unearthly sound, That seemed to lift me from the ground And hold me floating in the air. I looked, and lo! I saw her bow Above a harp within her hands; A crown of blossoms bound her brow, And on her harp were twisted strands Of silken starlight, rippling o'er With music never heard before By mortal ears; and, at the strain, I felt my Spirit snap its chain And break away,--and I could see It as it turned and fled from me To greet its mistress, where she smiled To see the phantom dancing wild And wizard-like before the spell Her mystic fingers knew so well.

A DREAM

I dreamed I was a spider; A big, fat, hungry spider; A lusty, rusty spider With a dozen palsied limbs; With a dozen limbs that dangled Where three wretched flies were tangled And their buzzing wings were strangled In the middle of their hymns.

And I mocked them like a demon-- A demoniacal demon Who delights to be a demon For the sake of sin alone; And with fondly false embraces Did I weave my mystic laces Round their horror-stricken faces Till I muffled every groan.

And I smiled to see them weeping, For to see an insect weeping, Sadly, sorrowfully weeping, Fattens every spider's mirth; And to note a fly's heart quaking, And with anguish ever aching Till you see it slowly breaking Is the sweetest thing on earth.

I experienced a pleasure, Such a highly-flavored pleasure, Such intoxicating pleasure, That I drank of it like wine; And my mortal soul engages That no spider on the pages Of the history of ages Felt a rapture more divine.

I careened around and capered-- Madly, mystically capered-- For three days and nights I capered Round my web in wild delight; Till with fierce ambition burning, And an inward thirst and yearning I hastened my returning With a fiendish appetite.

And I found my victims dying, "Ha!" they whispered, "we are dying!" Faintly whispered, "we are dying, And our earthly course is run." And the scene was so impressing That I breathed a special blessing, As I killed them with caressing And devoured them one by one.

DREAMER, SAY

Dreamer, say, will you dream for me A wild sweet dream of a foreign land, Whose border sips of a foaming sea With lips of coral and silver sand; Where warm winds loll on the shady deeps, Or lave themselves in the tearful mist The great wild wave of the breaker weeps O'er crags of opal and amethyst?

Dreamer, say, will you dream a dream Of tropic shades in the lands of shine, Where the lily leans o'er an amber stream That flows like a rill of wasted wine,-- Where the palm-trees, lifting their shields of green, Parry the shafts of the Indian sun Whose splintering vengeance falls between The reeds below where the waters run?

Dreamer, say, will you dream of love That lives in a land of sweet perfume, Where the stars drip down from the skies above In molten spatters of bud and bloom? Where never the weary eyes are wet, And never a sob in the balmy air, And only the laugh of the paroquet Breaks the sleep of the silence there?

BRYANT

The harp has fallen from the master's hand; Mute is the music, voiceless are the strings, Save such faint discord as the wild wind flings In sad aeolian murmurs through the land. The tide of melody, whose billows grand Flowed o'er the world in clearest utterings, Now, in receding current, sobs and sings That song we never wholly understand. * * O, eyes where glorious prophecies belong, And gracious reverence to humbly bow, And kingly spirit, proud, and pure, and strong; O, pallid minstrel with the laureled brow, And lips so long attuned to sacred song, How sweet must be the Heavenly anthem now!

BABYHOOD

Heigh-ho! Babyhood! Tell me where you linger! Let's toddle home again, for we have gone astray; Take this eager hand of mine and lead me by the finger Back to the lotus-lands of the far-away!

Turn back the leaves of life.--Don't read the story.-- Let's find the pictures, and fancy all the rest; We can fill the written pages with a brighter glory Than old Time, the story-teller, at his very best.