One Day & Another Part 12

I arose; and in the darkness Wan beneath the haunted sky, I have seen it, cold to starkness,-- My dead love go weeping by.

5

_He arouses from his abstraction._

So long it seems since last I saw her face, So long ago it seems, Like some sad soul in unconjectured s.p.a.ce Still seeking happiness through perished grace And unrealities,--a little while Illusions lead me, ending in the smile Of Death triumphant in a th.o.r.n.y place Among Love's ruined roses and dead dreams.

Since she is gone, no more I see the light,-- Since she has left all dark,-- Cleave like a revelation through the night.

I wander blindly, filled with fear and fright, Among the fragments and the wrecks and stones Of life, where Hope, amid the skulls and bones, With weary face, disheartened, wild and white, Trims her pale lamp with its expiring spark.

Now she is dead, the Soul, naught can o'erawe,-- Now she has pa.s.sed from me,-- Questions G.o.d's justice that seems full of flaw As is His world, where misery is law, And men but fools too willing to be slaves.-- My House of Faith, built up on dust of graves, The wind of doubt sweeps down as made of straw, And all is night, and I no longer see.

6

_He looks from his window toward the sombre west._

Ridged and bleak the gray forsaken Twilight at the night has guessed; And no star of dusk has taken Flame unshaken in the west.

All day long the woodlands dying Moaned, and drippings as of grief Tossed from barren boughs with sighing Death of flying twig and leaf.

Ah, to live a life unbroken, Scornful of the worst of fate!

Like that tree ... with branches oaken....

Joy's unspoken intimate.--

Who can say that man has never Lived the life of plants and trees?

Not so wide the lines that sever Us forever here from these.

Colors, odors, that are cherished, Haply hint we once were flowers; Memory alone has perished In this garished world of ours.

Music,--that all things expresses, All for which we've loved or sinned,-- Haply in our treey tresses Once was guesses of the wind....

But I dream!--The dusk, upbraiding, Deepens without moon or star; Darkness and my sorrow aiding, We but fading phantoms are.

And within me doubt keeps saying-- "What is wrong? and what is right?

Hear the cursing! hear the praying!

All are straying on in night."

7

_He turns from the window, takes up a book and reads._

The Soul, like Earth, hath silences Which speak not, yet are heard-- The voices mute of memories Are louder than a word.

Theirs is a speech which is not speech; A language that is bound To soul-vibrations vague that reach Deeper than any sound.

No words are theirs. They speak through things, A visible utterance Of thoughts--like those some sunset brings Or withered rose perchance.

The heavens that once, in purple and flame, Spake to two hearts as one, In after years may speak the same To one sad heart alone.

Through it the vanished face and eyes Of her, the sweet and fair, Of her the lost, again shall rise To comfort his despair.

And so the love that led him long From golden scene to scene, Within the sunset is a tongue To tell him what has been.--

How loud it speaks of that dead day, The rose whose bloom is fled!

Of her who died; who, clasped in clay, Lies numbered with the dead.

The dead are dead; with them 'tis well Within their narrow room;-- No memories haunt their hearts who dwell Within the grave and tomb.

But what of those--the dead who live!

The living dead, whose lot Is still to love--ah, G.o.d forgive!-- To live and love, forgot!--

8

_The storm is heard sounding wildly with wind and hail._

The night is wild with rain and sleet.

Each loose-warped cas.e.m.e.nt claps and groans.

I hear the plangent forest beat The tempest with long blatant moans As of despair, defeat.

And sitting here beyond the storm, Alone within the lonely house, It seems that some mesmeric charm Hangs over all.--Why, even the mouse, That gnawed, has come to harm.

And in the silence, stolen o'er All things, I strangely seem to fear Myself--that, opening yon door, I'd find my dead self drawing near, With face that once I wore.

The stairway creaks with ghostly gusts.

The flue moans--'tis a gorgon throat Of wailing winds. Ancestral dusts,-- That yonder Indian war-gear coat With gray and spectral crusts,--

Are trembled down.--Or can it be, That he who wore it in the dance, Or battle, now fills shadowy Its wampumed skins? And shakes his lance And warrior plume at me?--

Mere fancy!--Yet those curtains toss Mysteriously as if some dark Hand moved them.--And I'd fear to cross The shadow there where lies that spark-- A glow-worm sunk in moss.

Outside 'twere better!--Yes, I yearn To walk the waste where sway and dip The dark December boughs--where burn Some late last leaves, that drip and drip No matter where you turn.

Where sodden soil, you scarce have trod, Fills oozy footprints--but the blind Night there, tho' like the frown of G.o.d, Presents no phantoms to the mind, Like these that have o'erawed.--

The months I count: how long it seems Since summer! summer, when with her, There on her porch, in rainy gleams We watched the flickering lightning stir In heavens gray as dreams.

When all the west, a sheet of gold, Flared,--like some t.i.tan's opened forge,-- With storm; revealing manifold Vast peaks of clouds with crag and gorge, Where thunder torrents rolled.

Then came the wind; again, again The lightning lit the world--and how The tempest roared with rushing rain!...

We could not read.--Where is it now, That tale of Charlemagne?

That old romance, ah me! that we Were reading? till we heard the plunge Of summer thunder sullenly, And left to watch the lightning lunge, And winds bend down each tree.--

That summer! how it built us there A world of love and necromance!

A spirit-world, where all was fair; An island, sleeping in a trance Of lilied light and air.