Some Verses

Helen Hay Whitney

Some Verses

To my Father

SONNETS

THE DAYS

A long grim corridor—a sullen barOf light athwart the darkness—where no fleetPale sunshine spreads for dark his winding sheetA light, not born of noon nor placid starGlows lurid thro' the gloom—while from afar,Beats marching of innumerable feet.Is this the place where tragic armies meet?The throb of terror that presages war?—I strain to see, then softly on my sightThere falls the vision, manifold they come—White listless Day chained to her brother Night—Their hands are shackled and their lips are dumb,And as they meet the air where each one dies,They turn and smile at me—with weary eyes.

THE EVERLASTING SNOWS

And shall it be that these undaunted snowsThat poise so lightly on the mountains' crest—A lily laid to cheer its lonely breast—Shall their chill smile still face the wind, that blowsAcross the field whereon no blossom grows,And light the land where no gay life may restSave glowing hasty fingers of the West,When our two hearts lie cold beneath the rose?These silver flakes of ancient hoary frost,Surviving all our joys' supremest powers,And though the petals of your lips be lostAnd gone the summer of your golden head,This pale eternal growth of winter's flowersShall still live on—though our sweet love be dead.

THRONE AND ALTAR

He had a vision of a golden throneFronting an altar; both alike were bare,But o'er the purple of the regal chairBlazed the device, "I wait for him aloneWho with the world has held his soul his own."He sadly turned, this height he could not dare.But—Stay—the text upon the altar there—"I wait for him who has not made a moanHowe'er his kind have used his heaven-sent dower.Fear not, and burn thine incense, lowly heart."And sudden brightness turns the averted face,To holy sense of majesty and power—And a voice:—"Master—this indeed thou art."Wondrous music trembles thro' the space.

EAST AND WEST

You have not ceased for me. Though stern-browed FateLaid our two paths apart; when in the WestShe gave you over to the seas, and greatWide winds of enterprise, and set your breastAgainst the suns and shadows of the earth;Then with a gilded largess, led my waysToward the time-worn East, who paints her dearthWith purple vain imaginings; the praiseOf all her languid incense and the prideOf ancient mysteries and hopeless creedsHold for my heart no spell when warm and wideI see across the blue of Isis' veilThe thunderous breakers of your ocean paleAnd glints of prairie sun through river reeds.

THE BATTLE

The pallid waves caress the paler sand,Falter and tremble, then reluctant wane,Fearing advance, yet venturing again.Grey deep sea waves that never knew the land,Tired with the tumult, stretch a crooked handTo win a precious sweet surcease from pain,But, glancing back upon the mighty main,Perforce return to swell the strong command.So fretful Life sees Death's cold sands and faintsTo fling thereon the wearing of her wave,Yet, turning ere she finds the gloomy shore,Seeing ahead the idle senseless grave,Behind—the Kings, the Patriots and the Saints,She sighing turns to face the fight once more.

WATER AND WINE

I asked for water and they brought me wine;Wine in a jewelled chalice, where the goldGleamed thro' the purple beads, as if unrolled—One saw the sun-rays of a life-time shine.So drinking, I forgot my dream divineOf crystal purity, for in my holdWere wealth and Fame and Passions manifoldWhich with the draught I fancied might be mine."Ah, Youth," I said, "Ah, Faith and Love!" I said;"These are but broken lances in the strife!What shall remain when all these things are sped?"Then crashed the dream. I clutched the hand of FateAmid the ruins of my shattered life,And found the Gods had cheated, all too late.

PITY ME NOT!

Cruel and fair! within thy hollowed handMy heart is lying as a little rose,So faint and faded, scarce could one supposeIt might look in thine eyes and understandThe song they sing unto a weary land,Making it radiant, yet because I dare,To love thee, being weak, lose not thine airOf passive distance, fateful and most grand.Pity me not, nor turn away awhileTill absence's cloud has caught my passion up.Ah, be not kind! for love's sake, be not kind!Grant me the tragic deepness of the cup,And when thine eyes have flashed and made me blind,Kill me beneath the shadow of thy smile.

A DREAM IN FEVER

A vast screen of unequal downward lines,An orange purple halo 'round the rain,Twists from a space whose very size is pain.Here in this vortex day with night combinesRuby and Emerald glint their blazing spines;Closing and smothering, wheels a brazen main,A shuddering sea of silence; in its trainA Thought—a cry, whose snake—fear trembling twinesAround—above—alive yet uttered not;But my heart hears—and shrieking dies of dread,Then soaring breaks its bands and o'er the rimWhite winged it rends the dark with jagged blot,Glimpsing the iris gateway barred ahead,And, gazing thro', the eyes of cherubim.

A WOMAN'S PRIDE

I will not look for him—I will not hearMy heart's loud beating, as I strain to seeAcross the rain forlorn and hopelessly,Nor starting, think 'tis he that draws so near.I will forget how tenderly and dearHe might in coming hold his arms to me,For I will prove what woman's pride can beWhen faint love lingers in the darkness drear.I will not—Ah, but should he come to-nightI think my life might break thro' very bliss,This little will should so be torn apartThat all my soul might fail in golden lightAnd let me die—So do I long for this.Ah, love, thine eyes!—Nay, love—Thy heart, thy heart!

AGE

I have a dream, that somewhere in the days,Since when a myriad suns have burned and died,There was a time my soul was not for prideOf spendthrift youth, the pensioner who paysDole for the pain of searching thro' the hazeWhere joy lies hidden. As the puff balls ride,The wandering wind across the Summer's sideSo winged my spirit in a golden blazeOf pure and careless Present—Future naughtBut a sad dotard's wail—and I was young,Who now am old. Now years like flashes seem,Lambent or grey on the great wall of Thought—This is a song a poet may have sung—No proof remains, I have but dreamed a dream.

IN THE MIST

Ah love, my love, upon this alien shoreI lean and watch the pale uneasy shipsSlip thro' the waving mist in strange eclipse,Like spirits of some time and land of yore.I did not think my heart could love thee more,And yet, when lightlier than a swallow dips,The wind lays ghostly kisses on my lipsI seem to know of love the eternal core.Here is no throbbing of impassioned breathTo beat upon my cheek, no pulsing heartWhich might be silenced by the touch of Death,No smile which other smile has softly kissedOr doting gaze which Time must draw apart,But spirit's spirit in the trailing mist.

ON THE MOUNTAIN'S SLOPE

High on the mountain's slope I pause and turn—Over my head, by the rough crag-points high,Seems rent and torn the tender hovering sky,Till almost—thro'—I see a Heaven-spark burn;Then downward to the sleeping world I yearnWhose eyes so heavy droop they may not tryTo catch the higher gleam—and live thereby—Youth passes graveward—and they never learn.Then faint with brooding o'er a careless earthI turn to Nature and her broad warm breast,Strive for a friendship with her sun-burnt mirth,Teach my sad soul to catch her cadence deep,Dream that in her absorbed my heart must rest;But Nature smiles, and turns once more in sleep.

TO THE BELOVED

Beloved, when the tides of life run lowAs sobbing echoes of a dead refrain,And I may sit and watch the silent rainAnd muse upon the fulness of my woe,Then is my burden lighter, for I knowThe roses of my heart shall bloom againThe fairer for this plenitude of pain,And Summer shall forget the chilly snow.But when life calls me to its revels gayAnd I must face the world's wide-gazing eyesNor find sweet rest by night or peace by day,E'en seems your love, where I would turn for aid,As distant as the blue in sunny skies;Then am I very lonely and afraid.

MY BROOK

Earth holds no sweeter secret anywhereThan this my brook, that lisps along the greenOf mossy channels, where slim birch trees leanLike tall pale ladies whose delicious hairLures and invites the kiss of wanton air.The smooth soft grasses, delicate betweenThe rougher stalks, by waifs alone are seen,Shy things that live in sweet seclusion there.And is it still the same, and do these eyesOf every silver ripple meet the treesThat bend above like guarding emerald skies?I turn—who read the city's beggared bookAnd hear across the moan of many seasThe whisper and the laughter of my brook.

BENEATH THE MOON

Give me thy hand, Beloved! Here where stillThe night wind hovers 'neath the pallid moonGive me this fleeting moment; all too soonThe listless day will break upon the hill;This last sweet night is mine. The tremulous thrillUpon thy lips is all the precious boonI begged of Heaven, the garish sun of noonIs theirs—the rest—mine is this moment's will.Our love could never be the love of day.I have not claimed the welcome of thy lips;No touch save fluttering hand, and for the payI gave my minstrelsy of sea and sky.Once more thine eyes! Now sun-stained finger tips,Send through the hush of dawn a glad good-bye.

THE RUBY

Ah—she was fair, this daughter of a queen!Jewels upon her breast's soft fall of snow,Jewels—in golden hair—and fierce aglow,The gem of pride upon her brow serene!Sleeping soft moonstone, emerald's baleful green,A single sapphire, singing soft and lowOf wars for beauty's sake in years ago,And flaming opal—wed with tourmaline.Yet was there one great stone she might not wear,And so her eyes were weary, and her mouthCurved in the listless line of vain desire.No diamond pure was hers the right to bear,But—crimson poison petal of the South—The ruby shone in deep unholy fire.

SPRING AND AUTUMN

The painted World has laid her jewels down,Let fall the pinchbeck hair about her faceAnd croons a love song. In a far-off placeWhere she was strutting in her silken gownShe met the Youth. His face was young and brown."Good day to you," she cried, the frosty laceAbout her shoulders trembled. Ah—disgrace!He turned, and left her weeping in the town.She smiles not any more, her heart disdainsThe wind's rough courting, loud and indiscreet.Her tears dissolve the earth in ceaseless rainsAnd though her searching steps be light and fleetThrough frowning city or soft country lanes,Now never more may Spring and Autumn meet.

THE LOST MOMENT

This moment I so careless threw away,Tossed to the ages, with a spendthrift hand,Little I recked the labour that had plannedThis flash eternal of a Summer day;Æons of sequent toil had passed to payWealth to the freighted instant. Slow and grandWavers a solemn dirge across the land,One soul, in my lost moment, found a wayTo throw the mock to Time, and call him slave.And I—a pauper still—gaze wise at lastTo all the grey horizon line of nought.But from the heart I deemed an empty graveGleams forth like spark my precious gem of pastShrined in the setting of a deathless thought.

THE COMING OF LOVE

I dreamed that love came, as the oak trees grow,By the chance dropping of a tiny seed;And then from moon to moon with steady speed,Tho' torn by winds and chilled with heedless snow,The sap of pulsing life would upward flow,'Till in its might the heavens themselves could readPortents of power that they must learn to heed.This was my dream—the waking proved not so—For love came like a flower, and grew apace;I saw it blossom tenderly and frailTill the dear Spring had run its eager race,Then the rough wind tossed wide the petals red;The seeds fell far in soil beyond my pale.I know not, now, if love be lost, or dead.

EVENING AT WASHINGTON

The purple stretches of the evening skyLean to the fair white city waiting here,Flecking with gold the marble's lifted tier,Down the blue marsh where crows to Southward fly.Flanked by dim ramparts, where the tide dreams by,High from the city's heart, a lifted spear,In its straight splendour makes the heavens seem near,Symbol of man-made force that shall not die.To the tall crest we gaze in self-command,Assured the world's our own and we may dareTo raise our Babel thro' forbidden aislesAnd hold the skirt of knowledge in our hand,Great in our moment, spurn the world's despair;While Heaven looks down through calm unmeasured miles.

LOVE'S KISS

Kiss me but once—and in that space supremeMy whole dark life shall quiver to an end,Sweet Death shall see my heart and comprehendThat life is crowned—and in an endless gleamWill fix the colour of the dying streamThat Life and Death may meet as friend with friendAn endless immortality to blend;Kiss me but once, and so shall end my dream.And then Love heard me and bestowed his kiss,And straight I cried to Death: I will not die!Earth is so fair when one remembers this;Life is but just begun! Ah, come not yet!The very world smiles up to kiss the skyAnd in the grave one may forget—forget.

THE SCARLET THREAD

The sun rose dimly thro' the pallid rain,Dear Heart—and have we strength to face the day?The times and life alike are old and grey,All worn with long monotonies of pain.Lo—we are working out the curse of Cain,Who never felt the fire of passion's sway.Ah—show us crimson in some tragic wayThat we may live!—Fate laughed in her disdain.A thread of scarlet clashed upon mine eyesHung for a moment and was swept behind,And blankly I beheld the hopeless skiesFor day by contrast now is grimmest night—Remembering light as do the newly blindI pray for death to hide the bitter sight.

AUTUMN

The ruddy banners of the Autumn leavesToss out a challenge to the waiting snows,Where Winter stalks from o'er the mountain rows;This fiery blaze his onward march receives,A mock defence his coward heart believes,And turns him sulking to his moated close.Now Man the confidence of Nature knows,And feels the mighty heart that loves and grieves.Not as in rude young March or hoyden June,Hard in their beauty, laughing thro' their days;Their fine indifference is out of tune.In the dark paths we tread in hope and fearLook we to Autumn and her gracious ways,The great last swan-song of the dying year.

THE TIDE OF THE HEART

Love, when you leave me, as with moon-bent tideThe glad waves leave the beaches of my heart;Slowly and indolently they departRipple by ripple, till the light has diedAnd left the naked sands forlorn to bideThe sea's return. No might of human powerCan fill the empty waste, nor take one hourFrom that long durance in Earth's prison wide.But when you come again, and hold your handsDear hands, outstretched to take me, then, the waves,They turn, full flooded on the fainting sands,And all the dimpled hollows smile again,And brimmed with life, the deep mysterious cavesForget the distant night of lonely pain.

POEMS

DOES THE PEARL KNOW?

Does the pearl know, that in its shade and sheenThe dreamy rose, and tender wavering green,Are hid the hearts of all the ranging seas—That Beauty weeps for gifts as fair as these?Does it desire aught else when its rare blushReflects Aurora in the morning's hush,Encircling all perfection can bestow—Does the pearl know?Does the bird know, when thro' the waking dawnHe soaring sees below the silvered lawn,And weary men who wait to watch the daySteal o'er the heights where he may wheel and stray?Can he conceive his fee divine to share,As a free joyous peer with sun and air,And pity the sad things that creep below—Does the bird know?Does the heart know, when filled to utter brim,The least quick throb, a sacrificial hymnTo a great god who scorns the frown of JoveThat here it finds the awful power of love?Think you the new-born babe in first wise sleepFathoms the gift the heavens have bade him keepYet if this be—if all these things are so—Does the heart know?

IN AUTUMN

The gold-red leaves have burnedTo their last great glow, and diedAnd underfootBy the strong oak's rootThey are seized by the angry wind and spurnedAnd into a common grave have turnedFor Summer—warm and wide.A year must a sapling wageIts life with the sun and rain,Then its tender youthWithout reck or ruthIs frozen and beaten to harsh old ageBy a stroke of Nature mother's rageAnd the sturdy fight seems vain.It wails to the oak o'erheadAs the coffin-cold wraps round"The end of lifeIs toil and strifeAnd the secret of being, I have foundIs a seed in the wind and a log on the ground.I hope I will soon be dead.""Peace little struggler—sleep"—And the great oak croons a song,"Death is but nightAnd a cradle whiteFor one dark space may the shadows creep,Then Spring will rise from her dungeon keepAnd life wake, wise and strong.

WAITING FOR DAY

Sweet Lady Night is paling white.Why lags her Lord and Master?She weeping, lays her jewels off—Ah—may he not come faster.But hush—the tender rosy blushHer beauty fair adorningHer love steps o'er the mountain's rim,They kiss—and here's the morning.

THE ANGEL OF INDIFFERENCE

A Man once loved a Woman, in the days of old,Our bond is the strongest in the world, they said—The Angels up aboveAre jealous of our love,Perhaps they are wishing we were dead, overhead.So they loved for a Time and the passing of a Time,And the Angel of Indifference, smiling down, saw their fire,And he covered for a spaceWith his sombre wings his face,That they twain might have of love all desire, without tire.But love's perfect joy within them burned at last to a flameTill they longed for a breeze that would gently cool the heart.For absence! cooling snowThey sighed apart and low,Tho' they murmured still their love, hand and heart loth to part.But at length they prayed together to the calm Angel—pale,Ah—we yearn, scorched and weary, for the peace of thy breast.For that land where love seemsBut the shadow of dreams,Where all sleep in the silver of the West, give us rest.And he heard, and he bore them to the cool grey heights,Where all men may drift and himself alone stands fast,And gave them for their tokenThe peace of dreams unbrokenWhere their souls, his faithful vassals, rest at last, from the past.

DEAR DEAD WOMEN

The winds have chilled the loving odorous South,All wan and grey she seeks a place to die,Her tossing hair, her pleading passionate mouth,Pity that things so fair in death must lie;But Winter holds and kills her with a sigh.One kiss he lays upon her lips so proud,Shuts the blue eyes and winds her sombre shroud.I walk between the narrow way of yew.The glowing amaranth droops upon its stalk,The shivering birds are timorous and few,And waifs of Summer strew th' untended walk;With vague sweet forms I seem to pass and talk.The ladies of those days in Summer's primeWhose smiles prevailed not for the frown of Time.Their little tripping feet reluctant turnedDown the dark paths they had not known before;Behind them all the glow of living burned,But they must enter thro' the gloomy door,And leave behind the loves that plead no more,The dear frivolity of wiles and waysThey neither need nor know in these grim days.Here in their garden's close I spend no tear,No smile—too rare the heights for such display.But on the frosted hedges' lifted spearAnd with my head a little bowed, I layA pale camelia, proud and cold as theyWho wait beneath their ashen pall of snow—Perhaps the fair dead dames will see and know.

THE GRAVE OF HOPE

There's a wild little gnome in the woodWho sings as he digs a graveOf Hope that soars and Hope that fliesAnd Hope that singes her wings, and liesIn peace where the willows wave.And he croons in the pauses of toil,A shivering song of Fears,The lean black shades of Hope so fairWho weave her nets with her golden hairAnd harry her down the years.And he knows she will perish at last,He has carved her name on the stoneWhile the trees draw near and forget to sleep,And the little leaves bend their heads and weep,For Hope that must die alone.

TREES OF THE WILDERNESS

The great bleak trees stand up against the skyLifting their naked arms in ceaseless prayerTo the unpitying heavens, that they might die,Rather than drag their weary lives out there.Thro' starless nights the untold hours wear on,All awful phantom shapes affright the wood—And morning light but brings th' unwinking sun,To torture with its glare their solitude.In those grim wilds no sweet-voiced bird will sing,No flowers will bloom within those trackless lands,Nor is there trace of any living thing,Save those gaunt giants, holding up their hands.And when they fall, still round the unknown spotHowls the rough wind, till in the common groundThey end the life which is—and yet is not,—A riddle where no meaning shall be found.

THE LOVE OF THE ROSE

Trilled forth the NightingaleIn sweetest sleep of day—Unto his love, the rose,Ah golden heart, unclose!For love, my fairest rose, will last for aye.So, thro' the waning nightShe learned to wear her crown;Yielded her heart's sweet strifeAnd found that love was lifeSet to the time the dear bird lilted down.But when the morning cameThe red sun burned above;Hid are the night birds all,Flower petals fade and fall;The rose is dead—and what became of love!

IN THE GREEN YEW

The wind is howling in angry pain,Ah me, and I cannot rest;On such a night home is best,Why does she stand in the same old placeWith the smile of smiles on her cold white faceAnd call me thro' the rain?Ah—the Wind has died from the Fear of her smile—And I creep quite still—On over the hill,To where she stands 'mid the scented yewAnd where I now am standing too,And she sees me all the while.A little green snake curls thro' her hair—The scent of the yew is strong and sweet—Her eyes have drawn me to her feet,And I lie along on the drenching groundAnd worship—and watch the snake curl round,His tongue shoots thro' the air.Now—slowly she takes her eyes from me,And I dream and wait,Till in shades of hateMy love of her smile has faded quiteAnd I spring to kill her, there in the night—But only the yew I see.

THE DEAD NIGHT

The strong brave Night is dead. Its endless deepsOf patient tenderness, the moon-bright stillWhen every silver lake and purple hillHold wise unfathomed converse with the steepsOf starry heaven, are past. All nature weepsAnd draws the veiling grey of morning mistUpon the lips that Night's last clouds have kist—The Night that watched so well the world who sleeps.The Night is dead—Alas—and pallid Dayis but the corpse laid out in cold array,The white sad emblem of the heart we knew.Through half-closed lids the eyes shine palely blue;The gleaming grave clothes cover all the rest.So cruel still lies now the air's sweet breastAnd trees and hills fold down calm hands and eyes,That none may guess their secret mysteries.

SONG

Softly sighs the gracious wind—Dash of rose, in deeps of sky,Love is fair and love is kind,—Singing free—I passed him by.Shredded clouds are whirled in air,Winter stalks adown the galeTossing wide Love's golden hair—Cease the singing—Love grows pale.Howls the grey sky to the sea—Loose the storm-dogs from their bed.Turned I back—and woe is me—I must die—for Love is dead.

SIGH NOT FOR LOVE

Sigh not for love, the ways of love are dark!Sweet Child—hold up the hollow of your handAnd catch the sparks that flutter from the stars!See how the late sky spreads in flushing bars!They are dead roses from your own dear landTossed high by kindly breezes: lean, and hark,And you shall know how morning glads her lark!The timid Dawn, herself a little childCasts up shy eyes in loving worship—dear,Is it not yet enough? the Spring is hereAnd would you weep for Winter's tempest wildSigh not for love, the ways of love are dark!

AMBITION AND LOVE

Sweet, in the golden morning of my days,With young tempestuous joy I reared my headTo gaze adown the splendid sunlit waysWhere all the fires of fame burned glory red,I recked not where the sounding arches led,Save at the end I gain my august bays.But as of old, when through the patient night,Fair losing or fair gaining, till the morn,Great Israel strove to break the angel's might,Till spent and failing, in his heavenly scorn,Th' immortal wrestler touched the earthly born,Striking him powerless, winning thus the fight.So did false Fortune, when I strove and fought,Smiling 'neath half-closed eyelids, when seemed won,For a brief hour, the beckoning goal I sought—Then with frustrating touch dimmed all my sunBlotted the work and faith so brave begun;But what I gained was none too dearly bought.I have no wreath to lay before your feet;There shines no future, and the past is dead;But you have heard me, and I love you—Sweet.The low sun crowns with gold your gracious head,The heavy lilies nod upon their bed—I look at you, and find my life complete.