Children of the Night | Page 4

sea-fiend's prey:?The pitiless reef in his hard clutch caught her,?And hurled her down where the dead men stay.?A torturing silence of wan dismay --?Shrieks and curses of mad souls dying --?Then down they sank to slumber and sway?Where the bones of the brave in the wave are lying.
ENVOY
Prince, do you sleep to the sound alway?Of the mournful surge and the sea-birds' crying? --?Or does love still shudder and steel still slay,?Where the bones of the brave in the wave are lying?
Ballade by the Fire
Slowly I smoke and hug my knee,?The while a witless masquerade?Of things that only children see?Floats in a mist of light and shade:?They pass, a flimsy cavalcade,?And with a weak, remindful glow,?The falling embers break and fade,?As one by one the phantoms go.
Then, with a melancholy glee?To think where once my fancy strayed,?I muse on what the years may be?Whose coming tales are all unsaid,?Till tongs and shovel, snugly laid?Within their shadowed niches, grow?By grim degrees to pick and spade,?As one by one the phantoms go.
But then, what though the mystic Three?Around me ply their merry trade? --?And Charon soon may carry me?Across the gloomy Stygian glade? --?Be up, my soul! nor be afraid?Of what some unborn year may show;?But mind your human debts are paid,?As one by one the phantoms go.
ENVOY
Life is the game that must be played:?This truth at least, good friend, we know;?So live and laugh, nor be dismayed?As one by one the phantoms go.
Ballade of Broken Flutes
(To A. T. Schumann.)
In dreams I crossed a barren land,?A land of ruin, far away;?Around me hung on every hand?A deathful stillness of decay;?And silent, as in bleak dismay?That song should thus forsaken be,?On that forgotten ground there lay?The broken flutes of Arcady.
The forest that was all so grand?When pipes and tabors had their sway?Stood leafless now, a ghostly band?Of skeletons in cold array.?A lonely surge of ancient spray?Told of an unforgetful sea,?But iron blows had hushed for aye?The broken flutes of Arcady.
No more by summer breezes fanned,?The place was desolate and gray;?But still my dream was to command?New life into that shrunken clay.?I tried it. Yes, you scan to-day,?With uncommiserating glee,?The songs of one who strove to play?The broken flutes of Arcady.
ENVOY
So, Rock, I join the common fray,?To fight where Mammon may decree;?And leave, to crumble as they may,?The broken flutes of Arcady.
Ballade of Dead Friends
As we the withered ferns?By the roadway lying,?Time, the jester, spurns?All our prayers and prying --?All our tears and sighing,?Sorrow, change, and woe --?All our where-and-whying?For friends that come and go.
Life awakes and burns,?Age and death defying,?Till at last it learns?All but Love is dying;?Love's the trade we're plying,?God has willed it so;?Shrouds are what we're buying?For friends that come and go.
Man forever yearns?For the thing that's flying.?Everywhere he turns,?Men to dust are drying, --?Dust that wanders, eying?(With eyes that hardly glow)?New faces, dimly spying?For friends that come and go.
ENVOY
And thus we all are nighing?The truth we fear to know:?Death will end our crying?For friends that come and go.
Her Eyes
Up from the street and the crowds that went,?Morning and midnight, to and fro,?Still was the room where his days he spent,?And the stars were bleak, and the nights were slow.
Year after year, with his dream shut fast,?He suffered and strove till his eyes were dim,?For the love that his brushes had earned at last, --?And the whole world rang with the praise of him.
But he cloaked his triumph, and searched, instead,?Till his cheeks were sere and his hairs were gray.?"There are women enough, God knows," he said. . . .?"There are stars enough -- when the sun's away."
Then he went back to the same still room?That had held his dream in the long ago,?When he buried his days in a nameless tomb,?And the stars were bleak, and the nights were slow.
And a passionate humor seized him there --?Seized him and held him until there grew?Like life on his canvas, glowing and fair,?A perilous face -- and an angel's, too.
Angel and maiden, and all in one, --?All but the eyes. -- They were there, but yet?They seemed somehow like a soul half done.?What was the matter? Did God forget? . . .
But he wrought them at last with a skill so sure?That her eyes were the eyes of a deathless woman, --?With a gleam of heaven to make them pure,?And a glimmer of hell to make them human.
God never forgets. -- And he worships her?There in that same still room of his,?For his wife, and his constant arbiter?Of the world that was and the world that is.
And he wonders yet what her love could be?To punish him after that strife so grim;?But the longer he lives with her eyes to see,?The plainer it all comes back to him.
Two Men
There be two men of all mankind?That I should like to know about;?But search