Blooms of the Berry

THE SPIRITS OF LIGHT AND DARKNESS

[VOICES SINGING.]FIRST CHORUSEre the birth of Death and of Time,Ere the birth of Hell and its torments,Ere the orbs of heat and of rimeAnd the winds to the heavens were as garments,Worm-like in the womb of Space,Worm-like from her monster womb,We sprung, a myriad raceOf thunder and tempest and gloom.SECOND CHORUSAs from the evil goodSprings like a fire,As bland beatitudeWells from the dire,So was the Chaos broodOf us the sire.FIRST CHORUSWe had lain for gaunt ages asleep'Neath her breast in a bulk of torpor,When down through the vasts of the deepClove a sound like the notes of a harper;Clove a sound, and the horrors grewTumultuous with turbulent night,With whirlwinds of blackness that blew,And storm that was godly in might.And the walls of our prison were shatteredLike the crust of a fire-wrecked world;Like torrents of clouds that are scatteredOn the face of the Night we are hurled.SECOND CHORUSUs, in unholy thoughtPatiently lying,Eons of violence wrought,Violence defying.When on a mighty wind, —Born of a godly mindLarge with a motive kind, —Girdled with wonder,Flame and a strength of songRushed in a voice along,Burst and, lo! we were strong —Strong as the thunder.FIRST CHORUSWe lurk in the upper spaces,Where the oceans of tempest are born,Where the scowls of our shadowy facesAre safe from the splendors of morn.Our homes are wrecked worlds and each planetWhose sun is a light that is sped;Bleak moons whose cold bodies of graniteAre hollow and flameless and dead.SECOND CHORUSWe in the living sunLive like a passion;Ere all his stars begunWe and the sun were one,As God did fashion.Lo! from our burning hands,Flung like inspired brands,Hurled we the stars, like sandsWhirled in the ocean;And all our breath was life,Life to those worlds and rifeWith ever-moving strife,Passion for motion.FIRST CHORUSOur beds are the tombs of the mortals;We feed on their crimes and the thoughtThat falters and halts at the portalsOf actions, intentions unwrought.We cover the face of to-morrow;We frown in the hours that be;We breathe in the presence of sorrow,And death and destruction are we.SECOND CHORUSWe are the hope and ease,Joy and the pleasure,Authors of love and peace,Love that shall never cease,Free as the azure.Birth of our eyes – the might,Power and strength of light,Victor o'er death and night,Flesh and its yearnings:And from our utt'rance streamsBeauty with burningsAfter completer dreams,Fuller discernings.Morning and birth are ours,Dew that is blownFrom our light lips like flowers;Clouds and the beating showers,Stars that are sown;Song and the bursting buds,Life of the many floods,Winds that are strown.Ye in your darkness areDark and infernal;Subject to death and mar!But in the spaces far,Like our effulgent star,We are eternal!

TO SORROW

IO tear-eyed goddess of the marble brow,Who showerest snows of tresses on the nightOf anguished temples! lonely watcher, thouWho bendest o'er the couch of life's dead light!Who in the hollow hours of night's noonRockest the cradle of the child,Whose fever-blooded eyeballs seek the moonTo cool their pulses wild.Thou who dost stoop to kiss a sister's cheek,Which rules the alabastar death with youth;Thou who art mad and strangely meek, —Empress of passions, couth, uncouth,We kneel to thee!IIO Sorrow, when the sapless world grows white,And singing gathers on her springtide robes,On some bleak steep which takes the ruby lightOf day, braid in thy locks the spirit globesOf cool, weak snowdrops dashed with frozen dew,And hasten to the leas belowWhere Spring may wandered be from the rich blueWhich rims yon clouds of snow.From the pied crocus and the violet's hues,Think then how thou didst rake the bosoming snow,To show some mother the soft bluesOf baby eyes, the sparkling glowOf dimple-dotted cheeks.IIIOn some hoar upland, hoar with clustered thorns,Hard by a river's wind-blown lisp of waves,Sit with young white-skinned Spring, whose dewy mornsLaugh in his pouting cheeks which Health enslaves.There feast thee on the brede of his long hair,Where half-grown roses royal blaze.And cool-eyed primroses wide-diskéd bare,Frail stars of moonish haze,Contented lie wound in his breathing arms: —'Tis meet that grief should mingle with the wan,That blue of calms and gloom of stormsReign on the burning throne of dawnTo glorify the world.IVOr in the peaceful calm of stormy evens,When the sick, bloodless West doth winding spreadA sheeted shroud of silver o'er the heavensAnd brooches it with one rich star's gold head,Low lay thee down beside a mountain lake,Which dimples at the twilight's sigh,Couched on plush mosses 'neath green bosks that shakeStorm fragrance from on high, —The cold, pure spice of rain-drenched forests deep, —And gorge thy grief upon the nightingale,Who with the hush a war doth keepThat bubbles down the starlit valeTo Silence's rapt ear.

THE PASSING OF THE BEAUTIFUL

On southern winds shot through with amber light,Breeding soft balm, and clothed in cloudy white,The lily-fingered Spring came o'er the hillsWaking the crocus and the daffodils.O'er the cold earth she breathed a tender sigh, —The maples sang and flung their banners high,Their crimson-tasseled pennons, and the elmBound his dark brows with a green-crested helm.Beneath the musky rot of Autumn's leaves,Under the forest's myriad naked eaves,Life woke and rose in gold and green and blue,Robed in the star-light of the twinkling dew.With timid tread adown the barren woodSpring held her way, when, lo! before her stoodWhite-mantled Winter wagging his white head,Stormy his brow, and stormily he said: —"Sole lord of terror, and the fiend of storm,Crowned king of despots, my envermeiled armSlew these vast woodlands crimsoning all their bowers!Thou, Spirit of Beauty, with thy bursting flowers,Swollen with pride, wouldst thou usurp my throne,Long planted here deep in the waste's wild moan?Sworn foe of beauty, with a band of iceI'll strangle thee tho' thou be welcomer thrice!"So round her throat a band of blasting frost,Her sainted throat of snow, he coiled and crossed,And cast her on the dark, unfeeling mold;Her tender blossoms, blighted in the foldOf her warm bosoms, trembling bowed their browsIn holy meekness, or in scattered rowsHuddled about her white and silent feet,Or on pale lips laid fond last kisses sweet,And died: lilacs all musky for the May,And bluer violets, and snow drops laySilent and dead, but yet divinely fair,Like ice gems glist'ning in Spring's lovely hair.The Beautiful, so innocent, sweet, and pure,Why must thou perish, and the evil still endure?Too soon must pass the Beautiful away!Too long doth Terror hold anarchal sway!Alas! sad heart, bow not beneath the pain,Time changeth all, the Beautiful wakes again!We can not question such; a higher powerKnows best what bud is ripest in its flower;Silently plucks it at the fittest hour.

A NOVEMBER SKETCH

The hoar-frost hisses 'neath the feet,And the worm-fence's straggling length,Smote by the morning's slanted strength,Sparkles one rib of virgin sleet.To withered fields the crisp breeze talks,And silently and sadly liftsThe bronz'd leaves from the beech and driftsThem wadded down the woodland walks.Reluctantly and one by oneThe worthless leaves sift slowly down,And thro' the mournful vistas blownDrop rustling, and their rest is won.Where stands the brook beneath its fall,Thin-scaled with ice the pool is bound,And on the pebbles scattered 'roundThe ooze is frozen; one and allWhite as rare crystals shining fair.There stirs no life: the faded woodMourns sighing, and the solitudeSeems shaken with a mighty care.Decay and silence sadly drapeThe vigorous limbs of oldest trees,The rotting leaves and rocks whose kneesAre shagged with moss, with misty crape.To sullenness the surly crowAll his derisive feeling yields,And o'er the barren stubble-fieldsFlaps cawless, wrapped in hungry woe.The eve comes on: the teasel stoopsIts spike-crowned head before the blast;The tattered leaves drive whirling pastLike skeletons in whistling troops.The pithy elder copses sigh;Their broad blue combs with berries weighed,Like heavy pendulums are swayedWith ev'ry gust that hurries by.Thro' matted walls of tangled brierThat hedge the lane, the sumachs thrustTheir scarlet torches red as rust,Burning with flames of stolid fire.The evening's here – cold, hard, and drear;The lavish West with bullion brightOf molten silver walls the nightFar as one star's thin rays appear.Wedged toward the West's cold luridnessThe wild geese fly 'neath roseless domes;The wild cry of the leader comesDistant and harsh with loneliness.The pale West dies, and in its cupBubble on bubble pours the night:The East glows with a mystic light;The stars are keen; the moon is up.

THE WHITE EVENING

From gray, bleak hills 'neath steely skiesThro' beards of ice the forests roar;Along the river's humming shoreThe skimming skater bird-like flies.On windy meads where wave white breaks,Where fettered briers' glist'ning handsReach to the cold moon's ghastly lands,Hoots the lorn owl, and crouching quakes.With frowsy snow blanched is the world;Stiff sweeps the wind thro' murmuring pines,Then fiend-like deep-entangled whinesThro' the dead oak, that vagrant twirledPhantoms the cliff o'er the wild wold:Ghost-vested willows rim the stream,Low hang lank limbs where in a dreamThe houseless hare leaps o'er the coldOn snow-tressed crags that twinkling flash,Like champions mailed for clanking war,Glares down large Phosphor's quiv'ring star,Where teeth of foam the fierce seas gnash.Slim o'er the tree-tops weighed with whiteThe country church's spire doth swell,A scintillating icicle,While fitfully the village lightIn sallow stars stabs the gray dark;Homeward the creaking wagons strainThro' knee-deep drifts; the steeple's vaneA flitting ghost whirls in its sark.Down from the flaky North with clash,Swathed in his beard of flashing sleet,With steeds of winds that jangling beatLife from the world, and roaring dash, —Loud Winter! ruddy as a roseBlown by the June's mild, musky lips;The high moon dims her horn that dips,And fold on fold roll down the snows.

SUMMER

INow Lucifer ignites her taper brightTo greet the wild-flowered Dawn,Who leads the tasseled Summer draped with lightDown heaven's gilded lawn.Hark to the minstrels of the woods,Tuning glad harps in haunted solitudes!List to the rillet's music soft,The tree's hushed song:Flushed from her star aloftComes blue-eyed Summer stepping meek along.IIAnd as the lusty lover leads her in,Clad in soft blushes red,With breezy lips her love he tries to win,Doth many a tear-drop shed:While airy sighs, dyed in his heart,Like Cupid's arrows, flame-tipped o'er her dart,He bends his yellow head and cravesThe timid maidFor one sweet kiss, and lavesHer rose-crowned locks with tears until 'tis paid.IIICome to the forest or the musky meadowsBrown with their mellow grain;Come where the cascades shake green shadows,Where tawny orchards reign.Come where fall reapers ply the scythe,Where golden sheaves are heaped by damsels blithe:Come to the rock-rough mountain old,Tree-pierced and wild;Where freckled flowers paint the wold,Hail laughing Summer, sunny-haired, blonde child!IVCome where the dragon-flies in coats of blueFlit o'er the wildwood streams,And fright the wild bee from the honey-dewWhere if long-sipping dreams.Come where the touch-me-nots shy peepGold-horned and speckled from the cascades steep:Come where the daisies by the rustic bridgeDisplay their eyes,Or where the lilied sedgeFrom emerald forest-pools, lance-like, thick rise.VCome where the wild deer feed within the brakeAs red as oak and strong;Come where romantic echoes wildly wakeOld hills to mystic song.Come to the vine-hung woodlands hoary,Come to the realms of hunting song and story;But come when Summer decks the landWith garb of gold,With colors myriad as the sand —A birth-fair child, tho' thousand summers old.VICome where the trees extend their shining armsUnto the star-sown skies;Displaying wrinkled age in limb-gnarled charmsWhen Night, moon-eyed, brown liesUpon their bending lances seenWith fluttered pennons in the moon's broad sheen.

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