Poems, first period | Page 5

to sleep, from me.
Ah, he perhaps shall, round another sighing?(Forgot the serpents stinging at my breast),?Gayly, when I in the dumb grave am lying,?Pour the warm wish or speed the wanton jest,?Or play, perchance, with his new maiden's tresses,?Answer the kiss her lip enamored brings,?When the dread block the head he cradled presses,?And high the blood his kiss once fevered springs.
Thee, Francis, Francis [4], league on league, shall follow The death-dirge of the Lucy once so dear;?From yonder steeple dismal, dull, and hollow,?Shall knell the warning horror on thy ear.?On thy fresh leman's lips when love is dawning,?And the lisped music glides from that sweet well--?Lo, in that breast a red wound shall be yawning,?And, in the midst of rapture, warn of hell!
Betrayer, what! thy soul relentless closing?To grief--the woman-shame no art can heal--?To that small life beneath my heart reposing!?Man, man, the wild beast for its young can feel!?Proud flew the sails--receding from the land,?I watched them waning from the wistful eye,?Round the gay maids on Seine's voluptuous strand,?Breathes the false incense of his fatal sigh.
And there the babe! there, on the mother's bosom,?Lulled in its sweet and golden rest it lay,?Fresh in life's morning as a rosy blossom,?It smiled, poor harmless one, my tears away.?Deathlike yet lovely, every feature speaking?In such dear calm and beauty to my sadness,?And cradled still the mother's heart, in breaking,?The softening love and the despairing madness.
"Woman, where is my father?" freezing through me,?Lisped the mute innocence with thunder-sound;?"Woman, where is thy husband?"--called unto me,?In every look, word, whisper, busying round!?Alas, for thee, there is no father's kiss;--?He fondleth other children on his knee.?How thou wilt curse our momentary bliss,?When bastard on thy name shall branded be!
Thy mother--oh, a hell her heart concealeth,?Lone-sitting, lone in social nature's all!?Thirsting for that glad fount thy love revealeth,?While still thy look the glad fount turns to gall.?In every infant cry my soul is hearkening,?The haunting happiness forever o'er,?And all the bitterness of death is darkening?The heavenly looks that smiled mine eyes before.
Hell, if my sight those looks a moment misses--?Hell, when my sight upon those looks is turned--?The avenging furies madden in thy kisses,?That slept in his what time my lips they burned.?Out from their graves his oaths spoke back in thunder! The perjury stalked like murder in the sun--?Forever--God!--sense, reason, soul, sunk under--?The deed was done!
Francis, O Francis! league on league shall chase thee?The shadows hurrying grimly on thy flight--?Still with their icy arms they shall embrace thee,?And mutter thunder in thy dream's delight!
Down from the soft stars, in their tranquil glory,?Shall look thy dead child with a ghastly stare;?That shape shall haunt thee in its cerements gory,?And scourge thee back from heaven--its home is there!
Lifeless--how lifeless!--see, oh see, before me?It lies cold--stiff--O God!--and with that blood?I feel, as swoops the dizzy darkness o'er me?Mine own life mingled--ebbing in the flood--
Hark, at the door they knock--more loud within me--?More awful still--its sound the dread heart gave!?Gladly I welcome the cold arms that win me--?Fire, quench thy tortures in the icy grave!
Francis--a God that pardons dwells in heaven--?Francis, the sinner--yes--she pardons thee--?So let my wrongs unto the earth be given?Flame seize the wood!--it burns--it kindles--see!?There--there his letters cast--behold are ashes--?His vows--the conquering fire consumes them here?His kisses--see--see--all are only ashes--?All, all--the all that once on earth were dear!
Trust not the roses which your youth enjoyeth,?Sisters, to man's faith, changeful as the moon!?Beauty to me brought guilt--its bloom destroyeth?Lo, in the judgment court I curse the boon?Tears in the headsman's gaze--what tears?--'tis spoken! Quick, bind mine eyes--all soon shall be forgot--?Doomsman--the lily hast thou never broken??Pale Doomsman--tremble not!
THE GREATNESS OF THE WORLD.
Through the world which the Spirit creative and kind?First formed out of chaos, I fly like the wind,
Until on the strand
Of its billows I land,
My anchor cast forth where the breeze blows no more,?And Creation's last boundary stands on the shore.?I saw infant stars into being arise,?For thousands of years to roll on through the skies;
I saw them in play
Seek their goal far away,--
For a moment my fugitive gaze wandered on,--?I looked round me, and lo!--all those bright stars had flown!
Madly yearning to reach the dark kingdom of night.?I boldly steer on with the speed of the light;
All misty and drear
The dim heavens appear,
While embryo systems and