Blooms of the Berry Part 20

And like a dream I found a grotto 'mid the flowers, Cool 'mid the sunlight-sprinkled bowers, Angelica!

IV.

My casque I dofft to scoop the fount, Angelica!

With beaded pureness bubbling cool-- It clashed into the purling pool;-- Thy name lay chiseled in the rock, And underneath-- And then meseemed deep night did block My steel-chained heart in one huge mount Foreshadowing death!-- _Medoro_ deep in every rock!

The Moorish name my soul did mock, Angelica!

V.

No more wild war my veins ensteeps, Angelica!

No more gay lists flaunt all their guiles!-- White wastes before me miles on miles With one low, ruby sunset bound-- Thou fleest before, I follow on: a far off sound Of oceans gnawing at dark steeps Swells to a roar.-- 'Mid foam thou smil'st: I spurn the ground-- I sink, I swim, waves hiss around-- Oh, could I sink 'neath the profound, And think of thee no more!

THE HAUNTED ROOM.

Its cas.e.m.e.nts' diamond disks of gla.s.s Stare myriad on a terrace old, Where urns, unkempt with ragged gra.s.s, Foam o'er with frothy cold.

The snow rounds o'er each stair of stone; The frozen fount is hooped with pearl; Down desolate walks, like phantoms lone, Thin, powd'ry snow-wreaths whirl.

And to each rose-tree's stem that bends With silver snow-combs, glued with frost, It seems each summer rosebud sends Its airy, scentless ghost.

The stiff Elizabethan pile Chatters with cold thro' all its panes, And rumbling down each chimney file The mad wind shakes his reins.

Lone in the Northern angle, dim With immemorial dust, it lay, Where each gaunt cas.e.m.e.nt's stony rim Stared lidless to the day.

Drear in the Northern angle, hung With olden arras dusky, where Tall, shadowy Tristrams fought and sung For shadowy Isolds fair.

Lies by a dingy cabinet A tarnished lute upon the floor; A talon-footed chair is set Grotesquely by the door.

A carven, testered bedstead stands With rusty silks draped all about; And like a moon in murky lands A mirror glitters out.

Dark in the Northern angle, where In musty arras eats and clings The drowsy moth; and frightened there The wild wind sighs and sings Adown the roomy flue and takes And swings the ghostly mirror till It shrieks and creaks, then pulls and shakes The curtains with a will.

A starving mouse forever gnaws Behind a polished panel dark, And 'long the floor its shadow draws A poplar in the park.

I have been there when blades of light Stabbed each dull, stained, and dusty pane; I have been there at dead of night, But never will again....

She grew upon my vision as Heat sucked from the dry summer sod; In taffetas as green as gra.s.s Silent and faint she trod; And angry jewels winked and frowned In serpent coils on neck and wrist, And 'round her dainty waist was wound A zone of silver mist.

And icy fair as some bleak land Her pale, still face stormed o'er with night Of raven tresses, and her hand Was beautiful and white.

Before the ebon mirror old Full tearfully she made her moan, And then a c.o.c.k crew far and cold; I looked and she was gone.

As if had come a sullying breath And from the limpid mirror pa.s.sed, Her presence past, like some near death Leaving my blood aghast.

Tho' I've been there when blades of light Stabbed each dull, stained, and dusty pane; Tho' I've been there at dead of night, I never will again.

SERENADE.

By the burnished laurel line Glimmering flows the singing stream; Oily eddies crease and shine O'er white pebbles, white as cream.

Richest roses bud or die All about the splendid park; Fountains gla.s.s a wily eye Where the fawns browse in the dark.

Amber-belted through the night Floats the alabaster moon, Stooping o'er th' acacia white Where my mandolin I tune.

By the twinkling mere I sing Where lake lilies stretch pale eyes, And a bulbul there doth fling Music at the moon who flies.

With a broken syrinx there, From enameled beds of buds, Rises Pan in hoof and hair-- Moonlight his dim sculpture floods.

The pale jessamines have felt The large pa.s.sion of her gaze; See! they part--their glories melt Round her in a starry haze.

THE MIRROR.

An antique mirror this, I like it not at all, In this lonely room where the goblin gloom Scowls from the arrased wall.

A mystic mirror framed In ebon, wildly carved; And the prisoned air in the crevice there Moans like a man that's starved.

A truthful mirror where, In the broad, chaste light of day, From the window's arches, like fairy torches, Red roses swing and sway.

They blush and bow and gaze, Proud beauties desolate, In their tresses cold the sunlight's gold, In their hearts a jealous hate.

A small green worm that gnaws, For the nightingale that low Each eve doth rave, the pa.s.sionate slave Of the wild white rose below.

The night-bird wails below; The stars creep out above; And the roses soon in the sultry moon Shall palpitate with love.

The night-bird sobs below; The roses blow and bloom; Thro' the diamond panes the moonlight rains In the dim unholy room.

Ancestors grim that stare Stiff, starched, and haughty down From the oaken wall of the n.o.ble hall Put on a sterner frown.

The old, bleak castle clock Booms midnight overhead, And the rose is wan and the bird is gone When walk the shrouded dead.

And grim ancestors gaunt In smiles and tears faint flit; By the mirror there they stand and stare, And weep and sigh to it.

In rare, rich ermine earls With rapiers jeweled rare, With a powdered throng of courtiers long Pa.s.s with stiff and stately air.

With diamonds and perfumes In ruff and golden lace, Tall ladies pa.s.s by the looking-gla.s.s, Each sighing at her face.

An awful mirror this, I like it not at all, In this lonely room where the goblin gloom Scowls from the arrased wall.