PART THREE: INTERLUDES

I

WHO can say where Echo dwells?

   In some mountain-cave, methinks,

   Where the white owl sits and blinks;

Or in deep sequestered dells,

Where foxglove hangs its bells,

Echo dwells.

      Echo!

            Echo!

II

Phantom of the crystal Air,

   Daughter of sweet Mystery!

   Here is one has need of thee;

Lead him to thy secret lair,

Myrtle brings he for thy hair--

Hear his prayer,

      Echo!

            Echo!

III

Echo lift thy drowsy head,

   And repeat each charmëd word

   Thou must needs have overheard

Yestere'en ere, rosy-red,

Daphne down the valley fled--

Words unsaid,

      Echo!

            Echo!

IV

Breathe the vows she since denies!

   She hath broken every vow;

   What she would she would not now--

Thou didst hear her perjuries.

Whisper, whilst I shut my eyes,

Those sweet lies,

      Echo!

            Echo!

A MOOD

A BLIGHT, a gloom, I know not what, has crept upon my gladness--

Some vague, remote ancestral touch of sorrow, or of madness;

A fear that is not fear, a pain that has not pain's insistence;

A sense of longing, or of loss, in some foregone exsistence;

A subtle hurt that never pen has writ nor tongue has spoken--

Such hurt perchance as Nature feels wen a blossomed bough is broken.

GUILIELMUS REX

THE folk who lived in Shakespeare's day

And saw that gentle figure pass

By London Bridge, his frequent way--

They little knew what man he was.

The pointed beard, the courteous mien,

The equal port to high and low,

All this they saw or might have seen--

But not the light behind the brow!

The doublet's modest gray or brown,

The slender sword-hilt's plain device,

What sign had these for prince or clown?

Few turned, or none, to scan him twice.

Yet 't was the King of England's kings!

The rest with all their pomps and trains

Are mouldered, half-remembered things--

'T is he alone that lives and reigns!

"PILLARED ARCH AND SCULPTURED TOWER"

PILLARED arch and sculptured tower

Of Ilium have had their hour;

The dust of many a king is blown

On the winds from zone to zone;

Many a warrior sleeps unknown.

Time and Death each hold in thrall,

Yet is Love the lord of all;

Still does Helen's beauty stir

Because a poet sang of her!

THRENODY

I

UPON your hearse this flower I lay

Brief be your sleep! You shall be known

When lesser men have had their day:

Fame blossoms where true seed is sown,

Or soon or late, let Time wound what it may.

II

Unvext by any dream of fame,

You smiled, and bade the world pass by:

But I--I turned, and saw a name

Shaping itself against the sky--

White star that rose amid the battle's flame!

III

Brief be your sleep, for I would see

Your laurels--ah, how trivial now

To him must earthly laurel be

Who wears the amaranth on his brow!

How vain the voices of mortality

SESTET

SENT TO A FRIEND WITH A VOLUME OF TENNYSON

WOULDST thou know the knightly clash of steel on steel?

Or list the throstle singing loud and clear?

Or walk at twilight by some haunted mere

In Surrey; or in throbbing London feel

Life's pulse at highest--hark, the minster's peal! . . .

Turn but the page, that various world is here!

A TOUCH OF NATURE

WHEN first the crocus thrusts its point of gold

Up through the still snow-drifted garden mould,

And folded green things in dim woods unclose

Their crinkled spears, a sudden tremor goes

Into my veins and makes me kith and kin

To every wild-born thing that thrills and blows.

Sitting beside this crumbling sea-coal fire,

Here in the city's ceaseless roar and din,

Far from the brambly paths I used to know,

Far from the rustling brooks that slip and shine

Where the Neponset alders take their glow,

I share the tremulous sense of bud and briar

And inarticulate ardors of the vine.

MEMORY

MY mind lets go a thousand things

Like dates of wars and deaths of kings,

And yet recalls the very hour--

'T was noon by yonder village tower,

And on the last blue noon in May--

The wind came briskly up this way,

Crisping the brook beside the road;

Then, pausing here, set down its load

Of pine-scents, and shook listlessly

Two petals from that wild-rose tree.

"I'LL NOT CONFER WITH SORROW"

I'LL not confer with Sorrow

Till to-morrow;

But Joy shall have her way

This very day.

Ho, eglantine and cresses

For her tresses!--

Let Care, the beggar, wait

Outside the gate.

Tears if you will--but after

Mirth and laughter;

Then, folded hands on breast

And endless rest.

A DEDICATION

TAKE these rhymes into thy grace,

Since they are of thy begetting,

Lady, that dost make each place

Where thou art a jewel's setting.

Some such glamour lend this Book;

Let it be thy poet's wages

That henceforth thy gracious look

Lies reflected on its pages.

NO SONGS IN WINTER

THE sky is gray as gray may be,

There is no bird upon the bough,

There is no leaf on vine or tree.

In the Neponset marshes now

Willow-stems, rosy in the wind,

Shiver with hidden sense of snow.

So too 't is winter in my mind,

No light-winged fancy comes and stays:

A season churlish and unkind.

Slow creep the hours, slow creep the days,

The black ink crusts upon the pen--

Just wait till bluebirds, wrens, and jays

And golden orioles come again!

"LIKE CRUSOE, WALKING BY THE LONELY STRAND"

LIKE Crusoe, walking by the lonely strand

And seeing a human footprint on the sand,

Have I this day been startled, finding here,

Set in brown mould, and delicately clear,

Spring's footprint--the first crocus of the year!

O sweet invasion! Farewell solitude!

Soon shall wild creatures of the field and wood

Flock from all sides with much ado and stir,

And make of me most willing prisoner!

THE LETTER

EDWARD ROWLAND SILL, DIED FEBRUARY 27, 1887

I HELD his letter in my hand,

And even while I read

The lightning flashed across the land

The word that he was dead.

How strange it seemed! His living voice

Was speaking from the page

Those courteous phrases, tersely choice,

Light-hearted, witty, sage.

I wondered what it was that died!

The man himself was here,

His modesty, his scholar's pride,

His soul serene and clear.

These neither death nor time shall dim,

Still this sad thing must be--

Henceforth I may not speak to him,

Though he can speak to me!

SARGENT'S PORTRAIT OF EDWIN BOOTH AT "THE PLAYERS"

THAT face which no man ever saw

And from his memory banished quite,

With eyes in which are Hamlet's awe

And Cardinal Richelieu's subtle light,

Looks from this frame. A master's hand

Has set the master player here,

In the fair temple that he planned

Not for himself. To us most dear

This image of him! "It was thus

He looked; such pallor touched his cheek;

With that same grace he greeted us--

Nay, 't is the man, could it but speak!"

Sad words that shall be said some day--

Far fall the day! O cruel Time,

Whose breath sweeps mortal things away,

Spare long this image of his prime,

That others standing in the place

Where, save as ghosts, we come no more,

May know what sweet majestic face

The gentle Prince of Players wore!