Dome of Many-Coloured Glass | Page 9

over the distant trees,?Petals are shaken down by the breeze,?They fall on the terrace tiles like snow;?The sighing of waves sounds, far below.?A humming-bird kisses the lips of a rose?Then laden with honey and love he goes.?The minstrel woos with his silver strings,?And climbing up to the lady, sings: --
Down the road to Avignon,?The long, long road to Avignon,?Across the bridge to Avignon,?One morning in the spring.
Step by step, and he comes to her,?Fearful lest she suddenly stir.?Sunshine and silence, and each to each,?The lute and his singing their only speech;?He leans above her, her eyes unclose,?The humming-bird enters another rose.?The minstrel hushes his silver strings.?Hark! The beating of humming-birds' wings!
Down the road to Avignon,?The long, long road to Avignon,?Across the bridge to Avignon,?One morning in the spring.
New York at Night
A near horizon whose sharp jags?Cut brutally into a sky?Of leaden heaviness, and crags?Of houses lift their masonry?Ugly and foul, and chimneys lie?And snort, outlined against the gray?Of lowhung cloud. I hear the sigh?The goaded city gives, not day?Nor night can ease her heart, her anguished labours stay.
Below, straight streets, monotonous,?From north and south, from east and west,?Stretch glittering; and luminous?Above, one tower tops the rest?And holds aloft man's constant quest:?Time! Joyless emblem of the greed?Of millions, robber of the best?Which earth can give, the vulgar creed?Has seared upon the night its flaming ruthless screed.
O Night! Whose soothing presence brings?The quiet shining of the stars.?O Night! Whose cloak of darkness clings?So intimately close that scars?Are hid from our own eyes. Beggars?By day, our wealth is having night?To burn our souls before altars?Dim and tree-shadowed, where the light?Is shed from a young moon, mysteriously bright.
Where art thou hiding, where thy peace??This is the hour, but thou art not.?Will waking tumult never cease??Hast thou thy votary forgot??Nature forsakes this man-begot?And festering wilderness, and now?The long still hours are here, no jot?Of dear communing do I know;?Instead the glaring, man-filled city groans below!
A Fairy Tale
On winter nights beside the nursery fire?We read the fairy tale, while glowing coals?Builded its pictures. There before our eyes?We saw the vaulted hall of traceried stone?Uprear itself, the distant ceiling hung?With pendent stalactites like frozen vines;?And all along the walls at intervals,?Curled upwards into pillars, roses climbed,?And ramped and were confined, and clustered leaves?Divided where there peered a laughing face.?The foliage seemed to rustle in the wind,?A silent murmur, carved in still, gray stone.?High pointed windows pierced the southern wall?Whence proud escutcheons flung prismatic fires?To stain the tessellated marble floor?With pools of red, and quivering green, and blue;?And in the shade beyond the further door,?Its sober squares of black and white were hid?Beneath a restless, shuffling, wide-eyed mob?Of lackeys and retainers come to view?The Christening.?A sudden blare of trumpets, and the throng?About the entrance parted as the guests?Filed singly in with rare and precious gifts.?Our eager fancies noted all they brought,?The glorious, unattainable delights!?But always there was one unbidden guest?Who cursed the child and left it bitterness.
The fire falls asunder, all is changed,?I am no more a child, and what I see?Is not a fairy tale, but life, my life.?The gifts are there, the many pleasant things:?Health, wealth, long-settled friendships, with a name?Which honors all who bear it, and the power?Of making words obedient. This is much;?But overshadowing all is still the curse,?That never shall I be fulfilled by love!?Along the parching highroad of the world?No other soul shall bear mine company.?Always shall I be teased with semblances,?With cruel impostures, which I trust awhile?Then dash to pieces, as a careless boy?Flings a kaleidoscope, which shattering?Strews all the ground about with coloured sherds.?So I behold my visions on the ground?No longer radiant, an ignoble heap?Of broken, dusty glass. And so, unlit,?Even by hope or faith, my dragging steps?Force me forever through the passing days.
Crowned
You came to me bearing bright roses,?Red like the wine of your heart;?You twisted them into a garland?To set me aside from the mart.?Red roses to crown me your lover,?And I walked aureoled and apart.
Enslaved and encircled, I bore it,?Proud token of my gift to you.?The petals waned paler, and shriveled,?And dropped; and the thorns started through.?Bitter thorns to proclaim me your lover,?A diadem woven with rue.
To Elizabeth Ward Perkins
Dear Bessie, would my tired rhyme?Had force to rise from apathy,?And shaking off its lethargy?Ring word-tones like a Christmas chime.
But in my soul's high belfry, chill?The bitter wind of doubt has blown,?The summer swallows all have flown,?The bells are frost-bound, mute and still.
Upon the crumbling boards the snow?Has drifted deep, the clappers hang?Prismed with icicles, their clang?Unheard since ages long ago.
The rope I pull is stiff and cold,?My straining ears detect no sound?Except a sigh, as round and round?The wind rocks through the timbers old.
Below, I know the church is bright?With haloed tapers, warm with prayer;?But here I only feel the air?Of icy centuries of night.
Beneath my