Myth and Romance | Page 6

dreams I hear the mermaid singing;?The mermaid music at its portal ringing;?The mermaid song, that hinged with gold its door,?And, whispering evermore,?Hushed the ponderous hurl and roar?And vast ?olian thunder?Of the chained tempests under?The frozen cataracts that were its floor.--?And, blinding beautiful, I still behold?The mermaid there, combing her locks of gold,?While, at her feet, green as the Northern Seas,?Gambol her flocks of seals and walruses;?While, like a drift, her dog--a Polar bear--?Lies by her, glowering through his shaggy hair.
VI
O wondrous house, built by supernal hands?In vague and ultimate lands!?Thy architects were behemoth wind and cloud,?That, laboring loud,?Mountained thy world foundations and uplifted?Thy skyey bastions drifted?Of piled eternities of ice and snow;?Where storms, like ploughmen, go,?Ploughing the deeps with awful hurricane;?Where, spouting icy rain,?The huge whale wallows; and through furious hail?Th' explorer's tattered sail?Drives like the wing of some terrific bird,?Where wreck and famine herd.--?Home of the red Auroras and the gods!?He who profanes thy perilous threshold,--where?The ancient centuries lair,?And, glacier-throned, thy monarch, Winter, nods,--?Let him beware!?Lest, coming on that hoary presence there,?Whose pitiless hand,?Above that hungry land,?An iceberg wields as sceptre, and whose crown?The North Star is, set in a band of frost,?He, too, shall feel the bitterness of that frown,?And, turned to stone, forevermore be lost.
Dionysia
The day is dead; and in the west?The slender crescent of the moon--?Diana's crystal-kindled crest--?Sinks hillward in a silvery swoon.?What is the murmur in the dell??The stealthy whisper and the drip?--?A Dryad with her leaf-light trip??Or Naiad o'er her fountain well?--?Who, with white fingers for her comb,?Sleeks her blue hair, and from its curls?Showers slim minnows and pale pearls,?And hollow music of the foam.?What is it in the vistaed ways?That leans and springs, and stoops and sways?--?The naked limbs of one who flees??An Oread who hesitates?Before the Satyr form that waits,?Crouching to leap, that there she sees??Or under boughs, reclining cool,?A Hamadryad, like a pool?Of moonlight, palely beautiful??Or Limnad, with her lilied face,?More lovely than the misty lace?That haunts a star and gives it grace??Or is it some Leimoniad,?In wildwood flowers dimly clad??Oblong blossoms white as froth;?Or mottled like the tiger-moth;?Or brindled as the brows of death;?Wild of hue and wild of breath.?Here ethereal flame and milk?Blent with velvet and with silk;?Here an iridescent glow?Mixed with satin and with snow:?Pansy, poppy and the pale?Serpolet and galingale;?Mandrake and anemone,?Honey-reservoirs o' the bee;?Cistus and the cyclamen,--?Cheeked like blushing Hebe this,?And the other white as is?Bubbled milk of Venus when?Cupid's baby mouth is pressed,?Rosy, to her rosy breast.?And, besides, all flowers that mate?With aroma, and in hue?Stars and rainbows duplicate?Here on earth for me and you.
Yea! at last mine eyes can see!?'Tis no shadow of the tree?Swaying softly there, but she!--?M?nad, Bassarid, Bacchant,?What you will, who doth enchant?Night with sensuous nudity.?Lo! again I hear her pant?Breasting through the dewy glooms--?Through the glow-worm gleams and glowers?Of the starlight;--wood-perfumes?Swoon around her and frail showers?Of the leaflet-tilted rain.?Lo, like love, she comes again,?Through the pale, voluptuous dusk,?Sweet of limb with breasts of musk.?With her lips, like blossoms, breathing?Honeyed pungence of her kiss,?And her auburn tresses wreathing?Like umbrageous helichrys,?There she stands, like fire and snow,?In the moon's ambrosial glow,?Both her shapely loins low-looped?With the balmy blossoms, drooped,?Of the deep amaracus.?Spiritual yet sensual,?Lo, she ever greets me thus?In my vision; white and tall,?Her delicious body there,--?Raimented with amorous air,--?To my mind expresses all?The allurements of the world.?And once more I seem to feel?On my soul, like frenzy, hurled?All the passionate past.--I reel,?Greek again in ancient Greece,?In the Pyrrhic revelries;?In the mad and M?nad dance?Onward dragged with violence;?Pan and old Silenus and?Faunus and a Bacchant band?Round me. Wild my wine-stained hand?O'er tumultuous hair is lifted;?While the flushed and Phallic orgies?Whirl around me; and the marges?Of the wood are torn and rifted?With lascivious laugh and shout.?And barbarian there again,--?Shameless with the shameless rout,?Bacchus lusting in each vein,--?With her pagan lips on mine,?Like a god made drunk with wine,?On I reel; and, in the revels,?Her loose hair, the dance dishevels,?Blows, and 'thwart my vision swims?All the splendor of her limbs....
So it seems. Yet woods are lonely.?And when I again awake,?I shall find their faces only?Moonbeams in the boughs that shake;?And their revels, but the rush?Of night-winds through bough and brush.?Yet my dreaming--is it more?Than mere dreaming? Is some door?Opened in my soul? a curtain?Raised? to let me see for certain?I have lived that life before?
_The Last?Song_
She sleeps; he sings to her. The day was long,?And, tired out with too much happiness,?She fain would have him sing of old Provence;?Quaint songs, that spoke of love in such soft tones,?Her restless soul was straight besieged of dreams,?And her wild heart beleagured of deep peace,?And heart and soul surrendered unto sleep.--?Like perfect sculpture in the moon she lies,?Its pallor on her through heraldic panes?Of one tall casement's gulèd quarterings.--?Beside her couch, an antique table, weighed?With gold and