Evanescence

WHAT'S the brightness of a brow?

  What's a mouth of pearls and corals?

Beauty vanishes like a vapor,

  Preach the men of musty morals!

Should the crowd then, ages since,

  Have shut their ears to singing Homer,

Because the music fled as soon

  As fleets the violets' aroma?

Ah, for me, I thrill to see

  The bloom a velvet cheek discloses,

Made of dust--I well believe it!

  So are lilies, so are roses!

Harriet Prescott Spofford

The Hunt

WILD stream the clouds, and the fresh wind is singing,

Red is the dawn, and the world white with rime,--

Music, O music! The hunter's horn ringing!

Over the hilltop the mounted men climb.

Flashing of scarlet, and glitter, and jingle,

The deep bay, the rhythm of hoof and of cry,--

Echo, O echo! The winds rush and mingle!

Halloo, view halloo! And the Hunt has swept by.

Stay! All the morning is hushed and is sober,

Bare is the hilltop and sad as its wont,--

Out of the ghost of a long-dead October

Blown as the dust blows the ghost of the Hunt!

Harriet Prescott Spofford

A Sigh

IT was nothing but a rose I gave her,--

  Nothing but a rose

Any wind might rob of half its savor,

  Any wind that blows.

When she took it from my trembling fingers

  With a hand as chill,--

Ah, the flying touch upon them lingers,

  Stays, and thrills them still!

Withered, faded, pressed between the pages,

  Crumpled fold upon fold,--

Once it lay upon her breast, and ages

  Cannot make it old!

Harriet Prescott Spofford

The Pines

COULDST thou, Great Fairy, give to me

The instant's wish, that I might see

Of all the earth's that one dear sight

Known only in a dream's delight,

I would, beneath some island steep,

In some remote and sun-bright deep,

See high in heaven above me now

A palm-tree wave its rhythmic bough!

And yet this old pine's haughty crown,

Shaking its clouds of silver down,

Whispers me snatches of strange tunes

And murmur of those awful runes

Which tell by subtle spell, and power

Of secret sympathies, the hour

When far in the dark North the snow

Among great bergs begins to blow.

Nay, thou sweet South of heats and balms,

Keep all thy proud and plumy palms,

Keep all thy fragrant flowery ease,

Thy purple skies, thy purple seas!

These boughs of blessing shall not fail,

These voices ringing in the gale,

The vigor of these mighty lines:

I will content me with my pines!

Harriet Prescott Spofford

Music in the Night

WHEN stars pursue their solemn flight,

Oft in the middle of the night,

A strain of music visits me,

Hushed in a moment silverly,--

Such rich and rapturous strains as make

The very soul of silence ache

With longing for the melody;

Or lovers in the distant dusk

Of summer gardens, sweet as musk,

Pouring the blissful burden out,

The breaking joy, the dying doubt;

Or revellers, all flown with wine,

And in a madness half divine,

Beating the broken tune about;

Or else the rude and rolling notes

That leave some strolling sailors' throats,

Hoarse with the salt sprays, it may be,

Of many a mile of rushing sea;

Or some high-minded dreamer strays

Late through the solitary ways,

Nor heeds the listening night, nor me.

Or how or whence those tones be heard,

Hearing, the slumbering soul is stirred,

As when a swiftly passing light

Startles the shadows into flight;

While one remembrance suddenly

Thrills through the melting melody,--

A strain of music in the night.

Out of the darkness burst the song,

Into the darkness moves along:

Only a chord of memory jars,

Only an old wound burns its scars,

As the wild sweetness of the strain

Smites the heart with passionate pain,

And vanishes among the stars.

Harriet Prescott Spofford

Phantoms All

COME, all you sailors of the southern waters,

  You apparitions of the Spanish main,

Who dyed the jewelled depths blood-red with slaughters,

  You things of crime and gain!

Come, caravel and pinnace, on whose daring

  Rose the low purple of a new world's shore;

Come from your dreams of desperate sea-faring

  And sun your sails once more.

Build up again your stately height, storm-harried

  Santa Maria, crusted with salt stains;

Come quick, you black and treacherous craft that carried

  Columbus home in chains!

And out of all your angry flames and flashes,

  Proud with a pride that only homeward yearned,

Swim darkly up and gather from your ashes,

  You ships that Cortes burned!

Come, prows, whence climbing into light deific

  Undazzled Balboa planted o'er the plain,

The lonely plain of the unguessed Pacific,

  The standard of great Spain.

In Carribean coves, dark vanished vessels,

  Lurking and hiding thrice a hundred years,

Figure again your mad and merry wrestles,

  Beaks of the buccaneers!

Come, you that bore through boughs of dripping blossom,

  Ogeron with his headsman and his priest,

Where Limousin with treasure in his bosom

  Dreamed, and in dreaming ceased.

Barks at whose name to-day the nursling shivers,

  Come, with the bubble-rafts where men swept down

Along the foam and fall of mighty rivers

  To sack the isthmian town!

Through dusky bayous known in old romances

  In one great furtive squadron move, you host

That took to death and drowning those free-lances,

  The Brethren of the Coast!

Come, Drake, come, Hawkins, to your sad employer,

  Come, L'Olonnois and Davila, again,

Come, you great ships of Montbar the Destroyer,

  Of Morgan and his men!

Dipping and slipping under shadowy highlands,

  Dashing in haste the swifter fate to meet,

Come from your wrecks on haunted keys and islands,

  Cervera's valiant fleet!

Galleons, and merchantmen, and sloops of story,

  O silent escort, follow in full train

This passing phantom of an ancient glory,

  The Navy of Old Spain!

Harriet Prescott Spofford