Like symphonies born of the thought of a musical master.—
O music of Earth! O God, who the music inspired!
Let me breathe of the life of thy breath!
And so be fulfilled and attired
In resurrection, triumphant o'er time and o'er death!
DISCOVERY
What is it now that I shall seek
Where woods dip downward, in the hills?—
A mossy nook, a ferny creek,
And May among the daffodils.
Or in the valley's vistaed glow,
Past rocks of terraced trumpet vines,
Shall I behold her coming slow,
Sweet May, among the columbines?
With redbud cheeks and bluet eyes,
Big eyes, the homes of happiness,
To meet me with the old surprise,
Her wild-rose hair all bonnetless.
Who waits for me, where, note for note,
The birds make glad the forest trees?—
A dogwood blossom at her throat,
My May among th' anemones.
As sweetheart breezes kiss the blooms,
And dews caress the moon's pale beams,
My soul shall drink her lips' perfumes,
And know the magic of her dreams.
O MAYTIME WOODS!
O Maytime woods! O Maytime lanes and hours!
And stars, that knew how often there at night
Beside the path, where woodbine odors blew
Between the drowsy eyelids of the dusk,—
When, like a great, white, pearly moth, the moon
Hung silvering long windows of your room,—
I stood among the shrubs! The dark house slept.
I watched and waited for—I know not what!—
Some tremor of your gown: a velvet leaf's
Unfolding to caresses of the Spring:
The rustle of your footsteps: or the dew
Syllabling avowal on a tulip's lips
Of odorous scarlet: or the whispered word
Of something lovelier than new leaf or rose—
The word young lips half murmur in a dream:
Serene with sleep, light visions weigh her eyes:
And underneath her window blooms a quince.
The night is a sultana who doth rise
In slippered caution, to admit a prince,
Love, who her eunuchs and her lord defies.
Are these her dreams? or is it that the breeze
Pelts me with petals of the quince, and lifts
The Balm-o'-Gilead buds? and seems to squeeze
Aroma on aroma through sweet rifts
Of Eden, dripping through the rainy trees.
Along the path the buckeye trees begin
To heap their hills of blossoms.—Oh, that they
Were Romeo ladders, whereby I might win
Her chamber's sanctity!—where dreams must pray
About her soul!—That I might enter in!—
A dream,—and see the balsam scent erase
Its dim intrusion; and the starry night
Conclude majestic pomp; the virgin grace
Of every bud abashed before the white,
Pure passion-flower of her sleeping face.
THE REDBIRD
Among the white haw-blossoms, where the creek
Droned under drifts of dogwood and of haw,
The redbird, like a crimson blossom blown
Against the snow-white bosom of the Spring,
The chaste confusion of her lawny breast,
Sang on, prophetic of serener days,
As confident as June's completer hours.
And I stood listening like a hind, who hears
A wood nymph breathing in a forest flute
Among the beech-boles of myth-haunted ways:
And when it ceased, the memory of the air
Blew like a syrinx in my brain: I made
A lyric of the notes that men might know:
He flies with flirt and fluting—
As flies a crimson star
From flaming star-beds shooting—
From where the roses are.
Wings past and sings; and seven
Notes, wild as fragrance is,—
That turn to flame in heaven,—
Float round him full of bliss.
He sings; each burning feather
Thrills, throbbing at his throat;
A song of firefly weather,
And of a glowworm boat:
Of Elfland and a princess
Who, born of a perfume,
His music rocks,—where winces
That rosebud's cradled bloom.
No bird sings half so airy,
No bird of dusk or dawn,
Thou masking King of Faery!
Thou red-crowned Oberon!
A NIËLLO
It is not early spring and yet
Of bloodroot blooms along the stream,
And blotted banks of violet,
My heart will dream.
Is it because the windflower apes
The beauty that was once her brow,
That the white memory of it shapes
The April now?
Because