Days and Dreams Part 5

8.

I seem to hear her speak and see That blue-hung room. Her perfume comes From lavender folds vined dreamily-- A-blossom with brocaded blooms,-- A stuff of Orient looms.

Again I hear her speak and back, Where steals the showery sunlight, piles A whatnot dainty bric-a-brac Beside a tall clock; each glazed tile's Blue-patterned profile smiles.

I hear her say, "Ah, had we known, Could what has been have ever been?-- And now!"... How hurt the hard ache shone In eyes whose sadness seemed to lean On something far, unseen!

And as in sleep my own self seems Outside my suffering self: I flush In mists of undetermined dreams; Behold her musing in that hush Of lilac light and plush.

Smiling but tortured. Yes, I feel Despite that face, not seeming sad, In those calm temples thoughts like steel Remorseless bore. I had gone mad Had I once deemed her glad.

Unconsciously, with eyes that yearn To pierce beyond the present far, Searching some future hope, I turn;-- There in her garden one fierce star, Beyond the window's bar,--

Vermilion as a storm-sunk sun,-- A phyllocactus?--all the life Of torrid middays in but one Rich crimson bloom--flames red as strife; And near it, rankly rife--

Deep coreopsis?--heavy hues Of soft seal-bronze and satiny gold, Sway girandoles whose jets of dews Burn points of starlight diamond-cold, Warm-colored, manifold.

She dare not speak; I can not. Yet An intercourse 'twixt brain and brain Goes feverish on.--Crushed, smelling wet, Through silken curtains drift again Verbena-scents of rain.

I in the doorway turn and stay; Angry her cameo beauty mark Set in that smile--Oh! will she say No farewell? no regret? one spark Of hope to cheer the dark?

That sepia-sketch--conceive it so-- A roguish head with jaunty eyes Laughing beneath a rose-chapeau, Silk-masked, unmasking--it denies The full-faced flower surprise;

Hung o'er her davenport.... We read The true beneath the false; perceive The smile that hides the ache.--Indeed!

_Whose_ soul unmasks?... not mine!--I grieve Here, here, but laugh and leave....

9.

Beyond the knotty apple-trees That fade about the old brick-barn, Its tattered arms and tattered knees A scare-crow tosses to the breeze Among the shocks of corn.

All things grow gray in earth and sky; The cold wind sounding drearily Makes all the rusty branches fly; The rustling leaves a-rotting lie; The year is waning wearily.

At night I hear the far wild geese Honk in frost-bitten heavens, under Arcturus. Though I seem to cease Outside myself and sleep in peace, I drowse awake and wonder.

I know torn thistles by the creek Hang hairy with the frost; the tented Brown acres of the corn stretch bleak And ghostly in the moonlight, weak In hollows bitter-scented.

Dream back the ways we strolled at morn Through woods of summer ever singing; Moon-trysts beneath the crooked thorn, The ta.s.selled meads of cane and corn Their restless shadows swinging....

I stand and oar our boat among The dripping lilies of the river; I reach her hat the grape-vine long Struck in the stream; we sing a song, That song ... I wake and shiver.

And then my feverish mind reverts To our sad words and sadder parting In days long gone; and, oh! it hurts Within here, for the soul a.s.serts Mine the fool fault from starting.

And I must lie awake and think Of her with such regrets as gladly No unrebuking conscience shrink; And hear the wild-fowls' clangor sink Through plaintive starlight sadly.

When all are overflown and deep The stoic night is left forsaken, For company I well would weep, Since all my spirit fears to sleep, Sleep of such visions shaken.

Grave visions of dead deeds that flaw Our waking hours, ever haunting; Else were we, lacking love and law, Rude scare-crow things of sticks and straw Undaunted and undaunting.

10.

The sun a splintered splendor was In sober trees that broke and blurred, That afternoon we went together In droning hum and whirling buzz, Where hard the dinning locust whirred, Through fields of golden-rod a-feather.

So sweet it was to look and lean To your young face and feel the light Of eyes that fondled mine unsaddened!

The laugh that left lips more serene; The words that blossomed like the white Life-everlasting there and gladdened.

Maturing Summer, you were fraught With wiser beauties then than now Parades rich Autumn's red November; This stuns: there dreams no subtle thought As then on hinting bush and bough-- But now I am alone, remember.

11.

Through iron-weeds and roses And bronzing beech and oak, Old porches it discloses, Above the briars and roses Fall's feeble sunbeams soak.

Neglected walks that tangle The dodder-strangled gra.s.s; Its chimney shows one angle Heaped with dead leaves that spangle The paths that round it pa.s.s.

The early mists that bury And hide them in its rooms, From spider closets--very Dim with old webs--will hurry Out in the raining glooms.

They haunt each stair and bas.e.m.e.nt; They stand on hearth and porch; Lean from each paneless cas.e.m.e.nt, Or in the moonlight's lacement Fly with a phantom torch.

There is a sense of frost here; And gusts that sob away Of something that was lost here, Long, long ago was lost here, But what, they can not say.

There croons no owl to startle Despondency within; No raven o'er its portal To scare the daring mortal And guard its cellared sin.

The creaking road descries it This side the dusty toll; The farmer pa.s.sing eyes it; None stops t' philosophize it, This symbol of a soul.

12.

Though the dog-tooth violet come With the shower, And the wild-bee haunt and hum Every flower, We shall never wend as when Love laughed leading us from men Over violet vale and glen, Where the red-bird sang an hour, And we heard the partridge drum.

Here October shadows pray, Till one stills Joyance, where for buried May Sob the rills: So love's vision has arisen Of the long ago: I listen-- Memory, tears in eyes that glisten Points but Indiana hills Fading dark-blue far away.

PART IV.

1.

When in her cloudy chiton Spring freed the donjoned rills, And trumpeting, a Triton, Wind-war was on the hills; O'er ways, hope's buds bedizen, Long ways the glory lies on, Love spread us an horizon Of gold beyond life's ills.

When Summer came with sickle Stuck in a sheaf of gleams, And eves were honey-trickle From bee-hives of the beams; Scrolls of the days blue-blotted, Scrolls of the night star-dotted, To love and us allotted A world of woven dreams.

When Autumn waited tired-- A fair-faced heretic-- _Auto-de-fes_ Frost fired In Winter's Bishopric; Our loves, a song had started, Grew with the song sad-hearted, Sweet loves long-sworn were parted, Though life for love was sick.