The Home Book of Verse Volume Iv Part 49

Mortimer Collins [1827-1876]

NEPHELIDIA After Swinburne

From the depth of the dreamy decline of the dawn through a notable nimbus of nebulous noonshine, Pallid and pink as the palm of the flag-flower that flickers with fear of the flies as they float, Are the looks of our lovers that l.u.s.trously lean from a marvel of mystic, miraculous moonshine, These that we feel in the blood of our blushes that thicken and threaten with throbs through the throat?

Thicken and thrill as a theatre thronged at appeal of an actor's appalled agitation, Fainter with fear of the fires of the future than pale with the promise of pride in the past; Flushed with the famishing fulness of fever that reddens with radiance of rathe recreation, Gaunt as the ghastliest of glimpses that gleam through the gloom of the gloaming when ghosts go aghast?

Nay, for the nick of the tick of the time is a tremulous touch on the temples of terror, Strained as the sinews yet strenuous with strife of the dead who is dumb as the dust-heaps of death; Surely no soul is it, sweet as the spasm of erotic, emotional, exquisite error, Bathed in the balms of beatified bliss, beatific itself by beat.i.tude's breath.

Surely no spirit or sense of a soul that was soft to the spirit and soul of our senses Sweetens the stress of suspiring suspicion that sobs in the semblance and sound of a sigh; Only this oracle opens Olympian in mystical moods and triangular tenses,-- "Life is the l.u.s.t of a lamp for the light that is dark till the dawn of the day when we die."

Mild is the mirk and monotonous music of memory, melodiously mute as it may be, While the hope in the heart of a hero is bruised by the breach of men's rapiers, resigned to the rod; Made meek as a mother whose bosom-beats bound with the bliss-bringing bulk of a balm-breathing baby, As they grope through the graveyard of creeds under skies growing green at a groan for the grimness of G.o.d.

Blank is the book of his bounty beholden of old, and its binding is blacker than bluer: Out of blue into black is the scheme of the skies, and their dews are the wine of the blood-shed of things; Till the darkling desire of delight shall be free as a fawn that is freed from the fangs that pursue her, Till the heart-beats of h.e.l.l shall be hushed by a hymn from the hunt that has harried the kennel of kings.

Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909]

COMMONPLACES After Heine

Rain on the face of the sea, Rain on the sodden land, And the window-pane is blurred with rain As I watch it, pen in hand.

Mist on the face of the sea, Mist on the sodden land, Filling the vales as daylight fails, And blotting the desolate sand.

Voices from out of the mist, Calling to one another: "Hath love an end, thou more than friend, Thou dearer than ever brother?"

Voices from out of the mist, Calling and pa.s.sing away; But I cannot speak, for my voice is weak, And.... this is the end of my lay.

Rudyard Kipling [1865-1936]

THE PROMISSORY NOTE After Poe

In the lonesome latter years (Fatal years!) To the dropping of my tears Danced the mad and mystic spheres In a rounded, reeling rune, 'Neath the moon, To the dripping and the dropping of my tears.

Ah, my soul is swathed in gloom, (Ulalume!) In a dim t.i.tanic tomb, For my gaunt and gloomy soul Ponders o'er the penal scroll, O'er the parchment (not a rhyme), Out of place,--out of time,-- I am shredded, shorn, unshifty, (Oh, the fifty!) And the days have pa.s.sed, the three, Over me!

And the debit and the credit are as one to him and me!

'Twas the random runes I wrote At the bottom of the note, (Wrote and freely Gave to Greeley) In the middle of the night, In the mellow, moonless night, When the stars were out of sight, When my pulses, like a knell, (Israfel!) Danced with dim and dying fays, O'er the ruins of my days, O'er the dimeless, timeless days, When the fifty, drawn at thirty, Seeming thrifty, yet the dirty Lucre of the market, was the most that I could raise!

Fiends controlled it, (Let him hold it!) Devils held me for the inkstand and the pen; Now the days of grace are o'er, (Ah, Lenore!) I am but as other men; What is time, time, time, To my rare and runic rhyme, To my random, reeling rhyme, By the sands along the sh.o.r.e, Where the tempest whispers, "Pay him!" and I answer, "Nevermore!"

Bayard Taylor [1825-1878]

MRS. JUDGE JENKINS Being The Only Genuine Sequel To "Maud Muller"

After Whittier

Maud Muller all that summer day Raked the meadow sweet with hay;

Yet, looking down the distant lane, She hoped the Judge would come again.

But when he came, with smile and bow, Maud only blushed, and stammered, "Ha-ow?"

And spoke of her "pa," and wondered whether He'd give consent they should wed together.

Old Muller burst in tears, and then Begged that the Judge would lend him "ten";

For trade was dull and wages low, And the "c.r.a.ps," this year, were somewhat slow.

And ere the languid summer died, Sweet Maud became the Judge's bride.

But on the day that they were mated, Maud's brother Bob was intoxicated;

And Maud's relations, twelve in all, Were very drunk at the Judge's hall;

And when the summer came again, The young bride bore him babies twain;

And the Judge was blest, but thought it strange That bearing children made such a change.

For Maud grew broad, and red, and stout, And the waist that his arm once clasped about

Was more than he now could span; and he Sighed as he pondered, ruefully,

How that which in Maud was native grace In Mrs. Jenkins was out of place;

And thought of the twins, and wished that they Looked less like the men who raked the hay

On Muller's farm, and dreamed with pain Of the day he wandered down the lane.

And, looking down that dreary track, He half regretted that he came back.

For, had he waited, he might have wed Some maiden fair and thoroughbred;

For there be women as fair as she, Whose verbs and nouns do more agree.

Alas for maiden! alas for judge!

And the sentimental,--that's one-half "fudge";

For Maud soon thought the Judge a bore, With all his learning and all his lore;

And the Judge would have bartered Maud's fair face For more refinement and social grace.