Behind the Arras | Page 4

forest wide,
Whither
down the ways of dread
Went my starry-eyed?"
"Mortal, mortal, is there found
Any fruitage half so fair
In the dim
world underground
As there grows in air?"
"Wilding cornel, you can guess
Nothing of eternal pain,
Growing
there in quietness
In the sun and rain."
"Mortal, where your heart would be
Not a wanderer may go,
But he
shares the dark with me
Underneath the snow."
And the scarlet berries scattered
With the coming on of fall;
Not to
one of them it mattered
Anything at all.
[Illustration]
_The Moondial_
Iron and granite and rust,
In a crumbling garden old,
Where the
roses are paler than dust
And the lilies are green with gold,
Under the racing moon,
Inconscious of war or crime,
In a strange
and ghostly noon,
It marks the oblivion of time.
The shadow steals through its arc,
Still as a frosted breath,
Fitful,
gleaming, and dark
As the cold frustration of death.
But where the shadow may fall,
Whether to hurry or stay,
It matters
little at all
To those who come that way.
For this is the dial of them
That have forgotten the world,
No more
through the mad day-dream
Of striving and reason hurled.

Their heart as a little child
Only remembers the worth
Of beauty
and love and the wild
Dark peace of the elder earth.
It registers the morrows
Of lovers and winds and streams,
And the
face of a thousand sorrows
At the postern gate of dreams.
When the first low laughter smote
Through Lilith, the mother of joy,

And died and revived from the throat
Of Helen, the harpstring of
Troy,
And wandering on through the years,
From the sobbing rain and the
sea,
Caught sound of the world's gray tears
Or sense of the sun's
gold glee,
Whenever the wild control
Burned out to a mortal kiss,
And the
shuddering storm-swept soul
Climbed to its acme of bliss,
The green-gold light of the dead
Stood still in purple space,
And a
record blind and dread
Was graved on the dial's face.
And once in a thousand years
Some youth who loved so well
The
gods had loosed him from fears
In a vision of blameless hell,
Has gone to the dial to read
Those signs in the outland tongue,

Written beyond the need
Of the simple and the young.
For immortal life, they say,
Were his who, loving so,
Could explain
the writing away
As a legend written in snow.
But always his innocent eyes
Were frozen into the stone.
From that
awful first surprise
His soul must return alone.
In the morning there he lay
Dead in the sun's warm gold.
And no
man knows to this day
What the dim moondial told.
[Illustration]

_The Face in the Stream_
The sunburnt face in the willow shade
To the face in the water-mirror
said,
"O deep mysterious face in the stream,
Art thou myself or am I thy
dream?"
And the face deep down in the water's side
To the face in the upper
air replied,
"I am thy dream, them poor worn face,
And this is thy heart's abiding
place.
"Too much in the world, come back and be
Once more my
dream-fellow with me,
"In the far-off untarnished years
Before thy furrows were washed
with tears,
"Or ever thy serious creature eyes
Were aged with a mist of
memories.
"Hast thou forgotten the long ago
In the garden where I used to flow,
"Among the hills, with the maple tree
And the roses blowing over
me?--
"I who am now but a wraith of this river,
Forsaken of thee forever
and ever,
"Who then was thine image fair, forecast
In the heart of the water
rimpling past.
"Out in the wide of the summer zone
I lulled and allured thee apart
and alone,

"The azure gleam and the golden croon
And the grass with the flaky
roses strewn.
"There you would lie and lean above me,
The more you lingered the
more to love me,
"Till I became, as the year grew old,
Thy fairest day-dream's fashion
and mould,
"Deep in the water twilight there,
Smiling, elusive, wonderful, fair,
"The beautiful visage of thy clear soul
Set in eternity's limpid shoal,
"Thy spirit's countenance, the trace
Of dawning God in the human
face.
"And when yellow leaves came down
Through the silent mornings
one by one
"To the frosty meadow, as they fell
Thy pondering heart said, 'All is
well;
"'Aye, all is best, for I stake my life
Beyond the boundaries of strife,'
"And then thy feet returned no more,--
While years went over the
garden floor,
"With frost and maple, with rose and dew,
In the world thy river
wandered through;--
"Came never again to revive and recall
Thy youth from its water
burial.
"But now thy face is battle-dark;
The strife of the world has graven a
mark
"About the lips that are no more mine,
Too sweet to forget, too strong

to repine.
"With the ends of the earth for thy garden now,
What solace and what
reward hast thou?"
Then he of the earth's sun-traversed side
To him of the under-world
replied,
"O glad mysterious face in the stream,
My lost illusion, my summer
dream,
"Thou fairer self of a fonder time,
A far imperishable clime,
"For thy dear sake I have fared