October

THE passionate Summer's dead! the sky's a-glow,

  With roseate flushes of matured desire,

The winds at eve are musical and low,

  As sweeping chords of a lamenting lyre,

  Far up among the pillared clouds of fire,

Whose pomp of strange procession upward rolls,

With gorgeous blazonry of pictured folds,

  To celebrate the Summer's past renown;

  Ah, me! how regally the Heavens look down,

O'ershadowing beautiful autumnal woods,

  And harvest fields with hoarded increase brown,

And deep-toned majesty of golden floods,

  That raise their solemn dirges to the sky,

  To swell the purple pomp that floateth by.

Paul Hamilton Hayne

On the Occurrence of a Spell of Arctic Weather in May, 1858

WE thought that Winter with his hungry pack

Of hounding Winds had closed his dreary chase,--

For virgin Spring, with arch, triumphant face,

Lightly descending, had strewed o'er his track

Gay flowers that hid the stormy season's wrack.

Vain thought! for, wheeling on his northward path,

And girt by all his hungry Blasts, in wrath

The shrill-voiced Huntsman hurries swiftly back,--

The frightened vernal Zephyrs shrink and die

Through the chilled forest,--the rare blooms expire,--

And Spring herself, too terror-stricken to fly,

Seized by the ravening Winds with fury dire,

Dies 'mid the scarlet flowers that round her lie,

Like waning flames of some rich funeral fire!

Paul Hamilton Hayne

Earth Odors--After Rain

LIFE-YIELDING fragrance of our mother earth!

Benignant breath exhaled from summer showers!--

All Nature dimples into smiles of flowers,

From unclosed woodland, to trim garden girth;--

These perfumes softening the harsh soul of dearth,

Are older than old Shinar's arrogant towers,--

And touched with visions of rain-freshened hours,

On Syrian hill-slopes 'ere the patriarch's birth!

Nay! the charmed fancy plays a subtler part!--

Lo! banished Adam, his large, wondering eyes

Fixed on the trouble of the first dark cloud!

Lo! tremulous Eve,--a pace behind, how bowed,--

Not dreaming, 'midst her painful pants of heart,

What balm shall fall from yonder ominous cloud!

Paul Hamilton Hayne

Fate, or God?

BEYOND the record of all eldest things,

Beyond the rule and regions of past time,

From out Antiquity's hoary-headed rime,

Looms the dread phantom of a King of kings:

Round His vast brows the glittering circlet clings

Of a thrice royal crown; behind Him climb,

O'er Atlantean limbs and breast sublime

The sombre splendors of mysterious wings;

Deep calms of measureless power, in awful state,

Gird and uphold Him; a miraculous rod,

To heal or smite, arms His infallible hands:

Known in all ages, worshipped in all lands,

Doubt names this half-embodied mystery--Fate,

While Faith, with lowliest reverence, whispers--God!

Paul Hamilton Hayne

Aspects of the Pines

TALL, sombre, grim, against the morning sky

They rise, scarce touched by melancholy airs,

Which stir the fadeless foliage dreamfully,

As if from realms of mystical despairs.

Tall, sombre, grim, they stand with dusky gleams

Brightening to gold within the woodland's core,

Beneath the gracious noontide's tranquil beams--

But the weird winds of morning sigh no more.

A stillness, strange, divine, ineffable,

Broods round and o'er them in the wind's surcease,

And on each tinted copse and shimmering dell

Rests the mute rapture of deep-hearted peace.

Last, sunset comes--the solemn joy and might

Borne from the West when cloudless day declines--

Low, flutelike breezes sweep the waves of light,

And lifting dark green tresses of the pines,

Till every lock is luminous--gently float,

Fraught with hale odors up the heavens afar

To faint when twilight on her virginal throat

Wears for a gem the tremulous vesper star.

Paul Hamilton Hayne

Sweetheart, Good-Bye!

A Song

SWEETHEART, good-bye! Our varied day

Is closing into twilight gray,

And up from bare, bleak wastes of sea

The north-wind rises mournfully;

A solemn prescience, strangely drear,

Doth haunt the shuddering twilight air;

It fills the earth, it chills the sky--

Sweetheart, good-bye!

Sweetheart, good-bye! Our joys are passed,

And night with silence comes at last;

All things must end, yea,--even love--

Nor know we, if reborn above,

The heart-blooms of our earthly prime

Shall flower beyond these bounds of time.

"Ah! death alone is sure!" we cry--

Sweetheart, good-bye!

Sweetheart, good-bye! Through mists and tears

Pass the pale phantoms of our years,

Once bright with spring, or subtly strong

When summer's noontide thrilled with song,

Now wan, wild-eyed, forlornly bowed,

Each rayless as an autumn cloud

Fading on dull September's sky--

Sweetheart, good-bye!

Sweetheart, good-bye! The vapors rolled

Athwart yon distant, darkening wold

Are types of what our world doth know

Of tenderest loves of long ago

And thus, when all is done and said,

Our life lived out, our passion dead,

What can their wavering record be

But tinted mists of memory?

Oh! clasp and kiss me ere we die--

Sweetheart, good-bye!

Paul Hamilton Hayne

After the Tornado

LAST eve the earth was calm, the heavens were clear;

A peaceful glory crowned the waning west,

And yonder distant mountain's hoary crest

The semblance of a silvery robe did wear,

Shot through with moon-wrought tissues; far and near

Wood, rivulet, field--all Nature's face--expressed

The haunting presence of enchanted rest.

One twilight star shone like a blissful tear,

Unshed. But now, what ravage in a night!

Yon mountain height fades in its cloud-girt pall;

The prostrate wood lies smirched with rain and mire;

Through the shorn fields the brook whirls, wild and white;

While o'er the turbulent waste and woodland fall,

Glares the red sunrise, blurred with mists of fire!

Paul Hamilton Hayne

Lyric of Action

'TIS the part of a coward to brood

O'er the past that is withered and dead:

What though the heart's roses are ashes and dust?

What though the heart's music be fled?

Still shine the grand heavens o'erhead,

Whence the voice of an angel thrills clear on the soul,

"Gird about thee thine armor, press on to the goal!"

If the faults or the crimes of thy youth

Are a burden too heavy to bear,

What hope can rebloom on the desolate waste

Of a jealous and craven despair?

Down, down with the fetters of fear!

In the strength of thy valor and manhood arise,

With the faith that illumes and the will that defies.

"Too late!" through God's infinite world,

From His throne to life's nethermost fires,

"Too late!" is a phantom that flies at the dawn

Of the soul that repents and aspires.

If pure thou hast made thy desires,

There's no height the strong wings of immortals may gain

Which in striving to reach thou shalt strive for in vain.

Then, up to the contest with fate,

Unbound by the past, which is dead!

What though the heart's roses are ashes and dust?

What though the heart's music be fled?

Still shine the fair heavens o'erhead,

And sublime as the seraph who rules in the sun

Beams the promise of joy when the conflict is won!

Paul Hamilton Hayne

The Shallow Heart!

"PITY her," say'st thou, "pity her!" Nay, not I!

Her heart is shallow as yon garrulous rill

That froths o'er pebbles: grief, true grief is still,

Deathfully solemn as eternity

Through whose dread realm its silent fancies fly

Seeking the lost and loved; sorrows that kill

Life's hope, are like those poisons which distill

Their noiseless dews beneath the midnight sky:--

Their venom works in secret! gnaws the heart,

And withers the worn spirit, albeit no sign

Shows the sad inward havoc, till some day,

(Pledging our calm friend o'er the purpling wine),

Sudden, he falls amongst us, and we start

At a low whisper, "He has passed away!"

Paul Hamilton Hayne

Windless Rain

THE rain, the desolate rain!

Ceaseless, and solemn, and chill!

How it drips on the misty pane,

How it drenches the darkened sill!

O scene of sorrow and dearth!

I would that the wind awaking

To a fierce and gusty birth,

Might vary this dull refrain

Of the rain, the desolate rain:

For the heart of heaven seems breaking

In tears o'er the fallen earth,

And again, again, again

We list to the sombre strain,

The faint, cold monotone--

Whose soul is a mystic moan--

Of the rain, the mournful rain,

The soft, despairing rain!

The rain, the murmurous rain!

Weary, passionless, slow,

'Tis the rhythm of settled sorrow,

'Tis the sobbing of cureless woe!

And all the tragic of life,

The pathos of Long-Ago,

Comes back on the sad refrain

Of the rain, the dreary rain,

Till the graves in my heart unclose,

And the dead that its depths enfold,

From a solemn and weird repose

Awake,--but with eyelids cold,

And voices that melt in pain

On the tide of the plaintive rain,

The yearning, hopeless rain,

The long, low, whispering rain!

Paul Hamilton Hayne

Cloud Fantasies

WILD, rapid, dark, like dreams of threatening doom,

Low cloud-racks scud before the level wind;

Beneath them, the bare moorlands, blank and blind,

Stretch, mournful, through pale lengths of glimmering gloom;

Afar, grand mimic of the sea waves' boom,

Hollow, yet sweet as if a Titan pined

O'er deathless woes, yon mighty wood, consigned

To autumn's blight, bemoans its perished bloom;

The dim air creeps with a shuddering thrill

Down from those monstrous mists the sea-gale brings,

Half formless, inland, poisoning earth and sky;

Most from yon black cloud, shaped like vampire wings

O'er a lost angel's visage, deathly-still,

Uplifted toward some dread eternity.

Paul Hamilton Hayne

Song of the Naiads

GAY is our crystal floor,

Beneath the wave,

With strange gems flaming o'er

The Genii gave;

Sweet is the purple light

That haunts our happy sight,

And low and sweet the lulling strains that sigh

While the tides pause, and the faint zephyrs die.

Come! come! and seek us here,

In these cool deeps,

Where all is calmly fair,

And sorrow sleeps:

Thy burning brow shall rest,

Couched on a tender breast!

And, charmed to bliss, thy soul shall catch the gleams

Of mystic glories in Elysian dreams.

Come! ere the earth grows drear,

The tempests rave,

And the fast-failing year

Is nigh its grave:

Thy summer, too, is past;

Wouldst thou have peace at last?

O! here she dwells serenely in still caves,

And waits to woo thee underneath the waves.

Paul Hamilton Hayne

"Now, while the rear-guard of the flying year"

NOW, while the rear-guard of the flying year,

Rugged December on the season's verge

Marshals his pale days to the mournful dirge

Of muffled winds in far-off forests drear,

Good friend! turn with me to our in-door cheer;

Draw nigh; the huge flames roar upon the hearth,

And this sly sparkler is of subtlest birth,

And a rich vintage, poet souls hold dear;

Mark how the sweet rogue woos us! Sit thee down,

And we will quaff, and quaff, and drink our fill,

Topping the spirits with a Bacchanal crown,

Till the funereal blast shall wail no more,

But silver-throated clarions seem to thrill,

And shouts of triumph peal along the shore.

Paul Hamilton Hayne

On the Decline of Faith

I

AS in some half-burned forest, one by one,

We catch far echoes on the doleful breeze,

Born of the downfall of its ruined trees;

While even through those which stand, slow shudderings run,

As if Fate's ruthless hand were laid thereon;

So, in a world sore-smitten by foul disease,

--That Pest, called Doubt--we mark by slow degrees

The fall of many a faith that wooed the sun:

Some, with low sigh of parting bough, or leaf,

Strain, quivering downward to the abhorred ground;

Some totter feebly, groaning toward their doom;

While some broad-centuried growths of old Belief,

Sapped as by fire, defeatured, charred, discrowned,

Fall with a loud crash, and long reverberant boom!

II

Thus, fated hour by hour, more gaunt and bare

Gloom the wan spaces, whence a power to bless

Up burgeoned once, in grace or stateliness,

Some creed divine, offspring of light and air;

What then? and must we yield to blank despair,

Beholding God Himself wax less and less,

Paled in the skeptical storm-cloud's whirl and stress,

Till all is lost--love, reverence, hope, and prayer?

O man! when faith succumbs, and reason reels,

Before some impious, bold iconoclast,

Turn to thy heart that reasons not, but feels;

Creeds change! shrines perish! Still (her instinct saith),

Still the soul lives, the soul must conquer Death.

Hold fast to God, and God will hold thee fast!

Paul Hamilton Hayne

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