In Divers Tones | Page 7

foams the creamy violet wake behind us;
We but see the
creaking of the labored oar;
We have stopped our ears,--mad were we
not to blind us,
Lest our eyes behold our Ithaca no more.
See the purple splendor o'er the island streaming,
O'er the prostrate
sails and equal-sided ship!
Windless hangs the vine, and warm the
sands lie gleaming;
Droop the great grape-clusters melting for the lip.

Sweet the golden calm, the glowing light elysian.
Sweet were
red-mouthed plenty mindless grown of pain.
Sweeter yet behold--a
sore-bewildering vision!
Idly took we thought, and stopped our ears
in vain.
Idly took we thought, for still our eyes betray us.
Lo, the
white-limbed maids, with love-soft eyes aglow,
Gleaming bosoms
bare, loosed hair, sweet hands to slay us,
Warm lips wild with song,
and softer throats than snow!
See the King! he hearkens,--hears their song,--strains forward,-- As
some mountain snake attends the shepherd's reed.
Now with urgent
hand he bids us turn us shoreward,--
Bend the groaning oar now; give
the King no heed!
Mark the luring music by his eyes' wild yearning,
Eager lips, and
mighty straining at the cords!
Well we guess the song, the subtle
words and burning,
Sung to him, the subtle king of burning words.
"Much-enduring Wanderer, wondrous-tongued, come nigher!
Sage of
princes, bane of Ilion's lofty walls!
Whatsoe'er in all the populous
earth befalls
We will teach thee, to thine uttermost desire."
So, we rise up twain, and make his bonds securer.
Seethes the startled
sea now from the surging blade.
Leaps the dark ship forth, as we,
with hearts grown surer,
Eyes averse, and war-worn faces made
afraid,
O'er the waste warm reaches drive our prow, sea-cleaving,
Past the
luring death, into the folding night.
Home shall hold us yet, and cease
our wives from grieving,-- Safe from storm, and toil, and flame, and
clanging fight.
A BALLADE OF CALYPSO.
The loud black flight of the storm diverges
Over a spot in the

loud-mouthed main,
Where, crowned with summer and sun, emerges

An isle unbeaten of wind or rain.
And here, of its sweet queen
grown full fain,--
By whose kisses the whole broad earth seems
poor,--
Tarries the wave-worn prince, Troy's bane,
In the green
Ogygian Isle secure.
To her voice our sweetest songs are dirges.
She gives him all things,
counting it gain.
Ringed with the rocks and ancient surges,
How
could Fate dissever these twain?
But him no loves nor delights retain;

New knowledge, new lands, new loves allure;
Forgotten the perils,
and toils, and pain,
In the green Ogygian Isle secure.
So he spurns her kisses and gifts, and urges
His weak skiff over the
wind-vext plain,
Till the gray of the sky in the gray sea merges,

And nights reel round, and waver, and wane.
He sits once more in his
own domain.
No more the remote sea-walls immure.--
But ah, for
the love he shall clasp not again
In the green Ogygian Isle secure!
L'ENVOI.
Princes, and ye whose delights remain,
To the one good
gift of the gods hold sure,
Lest ye too mourn, in vain, in vain,
Your
green Ogygian Isle secure!
RAIN.
Sharp drives the rain, sharp drives the endless rain.
The rain-winds
wake and wander, lift and blow.
The slow smoke-wreaths of vapor to
and fro
Wave, and unweave, and gather and build again.
Over the
far gray reaches of the plain--
Gray miles on miles my passionate
thought must go,--
I strain my sight, grown dim with gazing so,

Pressing my face against the streaming pane.
How the rain beats! Ah God, if love had power
To voice its utmost
yearning, even tho'
Thro' time and bitter distance, not in vain,

Surely Her heart would hear me at this hour,
Look thro' the years, and
see! But would She know
The white face pressed against the

streaming pane?
MIST.
Its hand compassionate guards our restless sight
Against how many a
harshness, many an ill!
Tender as sleep, its shadowy palms distil

Weird vapors that ensnare our eyes with light.
Rash eyes, kept
ignorant in their own despite,
It lets not see the unsightliness they will,

But paints each scanty fairness fairer still,
And still deludes us to
our own delight.
It fades, regathers, never quite dissolves.
And ah that life, ah that the
heart and brain
Might keep their mist and glamour, not to know
So
soon the disenchantment and the pain!
But one by one our dear
illusions go,
Stript and cast forth as time's slow wheel revolves.
THE TANTRAMAR REVISITED.
Summers and summers have come, and gone with the flight of the
swallow; Sunshine and thunder have been, storm, and winter, and frost,
Many and many a sorrow has all but died from remembrance,
Many a
dream of joy fall'n in the shadow of pain.
Hands of chance and
change have marred, or moulded, or broken, Busy with spirit or flesh,
all I most have adored;
Even the bosom of Earth is strewn with
heavier shadows,--
Only in these green hills, aslant to the sea, no
change!
Here where the road that has climbed from the inland valleys
and woodlands, Dips from the hill-tops down, straight to the base of the
hills,-- Here, from my vantage-ground, I can see the scattering houses,
Stained