Nirvana Days Part 5

I'm Wanda born Of the mirthful morn So I heard the red-buds whisper To the forest beech, Tho I know that each Is but a gossipy lisper.

I taunt the brook With his hair outshook O'er the weir so cool and mossy, And mock the crow As he peers below With a caw that's vain and saucy.

Where the wahoo reds And the sumac spreads Tall plumes o'er the purple privet, I beg a kiss Of the wind, tho I wis Right well he never will give it.

I hide in the nook And sunbeams look For me everywhere, like fairies.

Then out I glide By the gray deer's side-- Ha, ha, but he never tarries!

Then I fright the hare From his turfy lair And after him send a volley Of song that stops Him under the copse In wonderment at my folly.

And Autumn cries "Be sad!" or sighs Thro her nun lips palely pouting.

But then I leap To the woods and keep It wild with gleeing and shouting.

And when the sun Has almost spun A path to his far Golconda, I climb the hill And listen, still, While he calls me--"Wanda! Wanda!"

And then I go To the valley--Oh, My dreams are sweeter than dreaming!

All night I play Over lands of Fay, In delight that seems not seeming.

IN A STORM

(_To a Petrel_)

All day long in the spindrift swinging, Bird of the sea! bird of the sea!

How I would that I had thy winging-- How I envy thee!

How I would that I had thy spirit, So to careen, joyous to cry, Over the storm and never fear it!

Into the night that hovers near it!

Calm on a reeling sky!

All day long, and the night, unresting!

Ah! I believe thy every breath Means that Life's Best comes ever breasting Peril and pain and death!

ANTAGONISTS

I

Life flung to Art this voice, of mercy bare.

"Fool, to my human earth come you, so free, To wreathe with phantom immortality Whoever climbs with pa.s.sionate lone care That shifting, feverous and shadow stair To Beauty--which is vainer than the sea On furious thirst, or than a mote to Me Who fill yon infinite great Everywhere?

Let them alone--my children! they are born To mart and soil and saving commerce o'er Wind, wave and many-fruited continents.

And you can feed them but of crumbs and scorn, And futile glory when they are no more.

Within my hand alone is recompense!"

II

But Art made fierce reply, "Anathema, On you who fill flesh but the spirit scorn.

Who give it to the unrequiting law Of your brute soullessness and heart unborn To aught than barter in your low bazaar-- Though Beauty die for it from star to star.

You are the G.o.d of Judas and those who Betrayed Him unto nail and thorn and sword!

Of that relentless worm-bit Florence horde Who drove lone Dante from them till he grew So great in death they begged his bones to strew Their pride and wealth and useless praise upon.

Anathema! I cry; and will, till none Of all earth's children still shall worship you."

SEEDS

A thousand years In a mummy's hand A seed may lie.

Then, planted, spring Into life again Under sun and sky.

A thousand days In a soul's dark ways A word may wait.

But a touch at length May arouse its strength And the word proves--Fate.

WORLD-SORROW

(_The Cry of the Modern_)

World-sorrow have I known, like unto G.o.d.

Nothing there is of pain but echoes down My breast with wan reverberance and pang, And peaceless pa.s.ses thro it evermore.

The struck bird's cry wounds my all-feeling blood To pity that will not be solaced, Sounds on me like far pleas of the unborn Against predestined days. A withering bud Brews barrenness thro all the verdancy Of Spring. And in a tear--tho anguish shape it On the warm lid of joy--earth's Tragedy, Whose curtain falls not for it has no end, Comes mirrored to me as infinite Ill.

How shall I 'scape it! How, O how escape The trooping of prayers lost upon the void, Of hopes misborn and fading not to rest!

How shall I burn not with all vain-lit loves That alway billow thro me their slow fire Fed by the agony of new-broke hearts!

How loose me from too long commisery For those whom unrequiting Time has given To the altar of the aching world's unrest!

A grief immitigable to the Hand Whose mystery of returning sun can heal Winter away, seems here; a grief but calm Of immortality can make forgiven!

For even as all the gleaming girth of stars That wreathe the Illimitable beauteously Quench not the vast of night, so do all joys Life strews along her pa.s.sing to the grave Prevail not o'er the shadow of sure death.

And O Humanity, long-suffering Harp Of pa.s.sion-strings unnumbered, shall His skill Flung thus forever o'er thy fragile rest Build but these harmonies that seem sometimes Unworth the misery of the trampled worm?

Would, would I were not vibrant with all strains He strikes from thee, or else more perfect tuned!

World-sorrow have I known, like unto G.o.d.

THE SOUL'S RETURN