Orchard

I SAW the first pear
as it fell--
the honey-seeking, golden-banded,
the yellow swarm
was not more fleet than I,
(spare us from loveliness)
and I fell prostrate
crying:

you have flayed us
with your blossoms,
spare us the beauty
of fruit-trees.

The honey-seeking
paused not,
the air thundered their song,
and I alone was prostrate.

O rough-hewn
god of the orchard,
I bring you an offering--
do you, alone unbeautiful,
son of the god,
spare us from loveliness:

these fallen hazel-nuts,
stripped late of their green sheaths,
grapes, red-purple,
their berries
dripping with wine,
pomegranates already broken,
and shrunken figs
and quinces untouched,
I bring you as offering.

H.D.

thanx FG

The Discoverer

I HAVE a little kinsman
Whose earthly summers are but three,
And yet a voyager is he
Greater than Drake or Frobisher,
Than all their peers together!
He is a brave discoverer,
And, far beyond the tether
Of them who seek the frozen Pole,
Has sailed where the noiseless surges roll.
Ay, he has travelled whither
A winged pilot steered his bark
Through the portals of the dark,
Past hoary Mimir's well and tree,
     Across the unknown sea.

Suddenly, in his fair young hour,
Came one who bore a flower,
And laid it in his dimpled hand
     With this command:
"Henceforth thou art a rover!
Thou must make a voyage far
Sail beneath the evening star,
And a wondrous land discover."
--With his sweet smile innocent
     Our little kinsman went.

Since that time no word
From the absent has been heard.
     Who can tell
How he fares, or answer well
What the little one has found
Since he left us, outward bound?
Would that he might return!
Then we should learn
By the pricking of his chart
How the skyey roadways part.
Hush! does not the baby this way bring,
To lay beside this severed curl,
     Some starry offering
Of chrysolite or pearl?

     Ah, no! not so!
We may follow on his track,
     But he comes not back.
     And yet I dare aver
He is a brave discoverer
Of climes his elders do not know.
He has more learning than appears
On the scroll of twice three thousand years,
More than in the groves is taught,
Or from furthest Indies brought;
He knows, perchance, how spirits fare,--
What shapes the angels wear,
What is their guise and speech
In those lands beyond our reach,--
     And his eyes behold
Things that shall never, never be to mortal hearers told.

The World Well Lost

THAT year? Yes, doubtless I remember still,--
Though why take count of every wind that blows!
'T was plain, men said, that Fortune used me ill
That year,--the self-same year I met with Rose.

Crops failed; wealth took a flight; house, treasure, land,
Slipped from my hold--thus plenty comes and goes.
One friend I had, but he too loosed his hand
(Or was it I?) the year I met with Rose.

There was a war, I think; some rumor, too,
Of famine, pestilence, fire, deluge, snows;
Things went awry. My rivals, straight in view,
Throve, spite of all; but I,--I met with Rose.

That year my white-faced Alma pined and died:
Some trouble vexed her quiet heart,--who knows?
Not I, who scarcely missed her from my side,
Or aught else gone, the year I met with Rose.

Was there no more? Yes, that year life began:
All life before a dream, false joys, light woes,--
All after-life compressed within the span
Of that one year,--the year I met with Rose!

Edmund Clarence Stedman

Salem
A. D. 1692

SOE, Mistress Anne, faire neighbour myne,
How rides a witche when nighte-winds blowe?
Folk saye that you are none too goode
To joyne the crewe in Salem woode,
When one you wot of gives the signe:
Righte well, methinks, the pathe you knowe.

In Meetinge-time I watched you well,
Whiles godly Master Parris prayed:
Your folded hands laye on your booke;
But Richard answered to a looke
That fain would tempt him unto hell,
Where, Mistress Anne, your place is made.

You looke into my Richard's eyes
With evill glances shamelesse growne;
I found about his wriste a hair,
And guesse what fingers tyed it there:
He shall not lightly be your prize--
Your Master firste shall take his owne.

'T is not in nature he should be
(Who loved me soe when Springe was greene)
A childe, to hange upon your gowne!
He loved me well in Salem Towne
Until this wanton witcherie
His hearte and myne crept dark betweene.

Last Sabbath nighte, the gossips saye,
Your goodman missed you from his side.
He had no strength to move, untill
Agen, as if in slumber still,
Beside him at the dawne you laye.
Tell, nowe, what meanwhile did betide.

Dame Anne, mye hate goe with you fleete
As driftes the Bay fogg overhead--
Or over yonder hill-topp, where
There is a tree ripe fruite shall bear
When, neighbour myne, your wicked feet
The stones of Gallowes Hill shall tread.

Edmund Clarence Stedman

Helen Keller

MUTE, sightless visitant,
From what uncharted world
Hast voyaged into Life's rude sea,
With guidance scant;
As if some bark mysteriously
Should hither glide, with spars aslant
And sails all furled!

In what perpetual dawn,
Child of the spotless brow,
Hast kept thy spirit far withdrawn--
Thy birthright undefiled?
What views to thy sealed eyes appear!
What voices mayst thou hear
Speak as we know not how!
Of grief and sin hast thou,
O radiant child,
Even thou, a share? Can mortal taint
Have power on thee unfearing
The woes our sight, our hearing,
Learn from Earth's crime and plaint?

Not as we see
Earth, sky, insensate forms, ourselves,
Thou seest,--but vision-free
Thy fancy soars and delves,
Albeit no sounds to us relate
The wondrous things
Thy brave imaginings
Within their starry night create.

Pity thy unconfined
Clear spirit, whose enfranchised eyes
Use not their grosser sense?
Ah, no! thy bright intelligence
Hath its own Paradise,
A realm wherein to hear and see
Things hidden from our kind.
Not thou, not thou--'t is we
Are deaf, are dumb, are blind!

Edmund Clarence Stedman

Si Jeunesse Savait!

WHEN the veil from the eyes is lifted
The seer's head is gray;
When the sailor to shore has drifted
The sirens are far away.
Why must the clearer vision,
The wisdom of Life's late hour,
Come, as in Fate's derision,
When the hand has lost its power?
Is there a rarer being,
Is there a fairer sphere
Where the strong are not unseeing,
And the harvests are not sere:
Where, ere the seasons dwindle,
They yield their due return;
Where the lamps of knowledge kindle
While the flames of youth still burn?
O, for the young man's chances!
O, for the old man's will!
Those flee while this advances,
And the strong years cheat us still.

Edmund Clarence Stedman

Mors Benefica

GIVE me to die unwitting of the day,
And stricken in Life's brave heat, with senses clear:
Not swathed and couched until the lines appear
Of Death's wan mask upon this withering clay,
But as that old man eloquent made way
From Earth, a nation's conclave hushed anear;
Or as the chief whose fates, that he may hear
The victory, one glorious moment stay.
Or, if not thus, then with no cry in vain,
No ministrant beside to ward and weep,
Hand upon helm I would my quittance gain
In some wild turmoil of the waters deep,
And sink content into a dreamless sleep
(Spared grave and shroud) below the ancient main.

Edmund Clarence Stedman

Invocation

THOU,--whose endearing hand once laid in sooth
Upon thy follower, no want thenceforth,
Nor toil, nor joy nor pain, nor waste of years
Filled with all cares that deaden and subdue,
Can make thee less to him--can make thee less
Than sovereign queen, his first liege, and his last
Remembered to the unconscious dying hour,--
Return and be thou kind, bright Spirit of song,
Thou whom I yet loved most, loved most of all
Even when I left thee--I, now so long strayed
From thy beholding! And renew, renew
Thy gift to me fain clinging to thy robe!
Still be thou kind, for still thou wast most dear.

Edmund Clarence Stedman

Pan in Wall Street

JUST where the Treasury's marble front
Looks over Wall Street's mingled nations;
Where Jews and Gentiles most are wont
To throng for trade and last quotations;
Where, hour by hour, the rates of gold
Outrival, in the ears of people,
The quarter-chimes, serenely tolled
From Trinity's undaunted steeple,--

Even there I heard a strange, wild strain
Sound high above the modern clamor,
Above the cries of greed and gain,
The curbstone war, the auction's hammer;
And swift, on Music's misty ways,
It led, from all this strife for millions,
To ancient, sweet-do-nothing days
Among the kirtle-robed Sicilians.

And as it stilled the multitude,
And yet more joyous rose, and shriller,
I saw the minstrel, where he stood
At ease, against a Doric pillar:
One hand a droning organ played,
The other held a Pan's-pipe (fashioned
Like those of old) to lips that made
The reeds give out that strain impassioned.

'T was Pan himself had wandered here
A-strolling through this sordid city,
And piping to the civic ear
The prelude of some pastoral ditty!
The demigod had crossed the seas,--
From haunts of shepherd, nymph, and satyr,
And Syracusan times,--to these
Far shores and twenty centuries later.

A ragged cap was on his head;
But--hidden thus--there was no doubting
That, all with crispy locks o'erspread,
His gnarled horns were somewhere sprouting;
His club-feet, cased in rusty shoes,
Were crossed, as on some frieze you see them,
And trousers, patched of divers hues,
Concealed his crooked shanks beneath them.

He filled the quivering reeds with sound,
And o'er his mouth their changes shifted,
And with his goat's-eyes looked around
Where'er the passing current drifted;
And soon, as on Trinacrian hills
&nbps;The nymphs and herdsmen ran to hear him,
Even now the tradesmen from their tills,
With clerks and porters, crowded near him.

The bulls and bears together drew
From Jauncey Court and New Street Alley,
As erst, if pastorals be true,
Came beasts from every wooded valley;
The random passers stayed to list,--
A boxer Aegon, rough and merry,
A Broadway Daphnis, on his tryst
With Nais at the Brooklyn Ferry.

A one-eyed Cyclops halted long
In tattered cloak of army pattern,
And Galatea joined the throng,--
A blowsy, apple-vending slattern;
While old Silenus staggered out
From some new-fangled lunch-house handy,
And bade the piper, with a shout,
To strike up "Yankee Doodle Dandy!"

A newsboy and a peanut-girl
Like little Fauns began to caper:
His hair was all in tangled curl,
Her tawny legs were bare and taper;
And still the gathering larger grew,
And gave its pence and crowded nigher,
While aye the shepherd-minstrel blew
His pipe, and struck the gamut higher.

O heart of Nature, beating still
With throbs her vernal passion taught her,--
Even here, as on the vine-clad hill,
Or by the Arethusan water!
New forms may fold the speech, new lands
Arise within these ocean-portals,
But Music waves eternal wands,--
Enchantress of the souls of mortals!

So thought I,--but among us trod
A man in blue, with legal baton,
And scoffed the vagrant demigod,
And pushed him from the step I sat on.
Doubting I mused upon the cry,
"Great Pan is dead!"--and all the people
Went on their ways:--and clear and high
The quarter sounded from the steeple.

Edmund Clarence Stedman

Pastiche.
I.
LOVE, oh, Love's a dainty sweeting,
Wooing now, and now retreating;
Brightest joy and blackest care,
Swift as light, and light as air.
II.
Would you seize and fix and capture
All his evanescent rapture?
Bind him fast with golden curls,
Fetter with a chain of pearls?

III.
Would you catch him in a net,
Like a white moth prankt with jet?
Clutch him, and his bloomy wing
Turns a dead, discoloured thing!

IV.
Pluck him like a rosebud red,
And he leaves a thorn instead;
Let him go without a care,
And he follows unaware.

V.
Love, oh Love's a dainty sweeting,
Wooing now, and now retreating;
Lightly come, and lightly gone,
Lost when most securely won!

Marriage.

LOVE springs as lightly from the human heart
    As springs the lovely rose upon the brier,
    Which turns the common hedge to floral fire,
As Love wings Time with rosy-feathered dart.
But marriage is the subtlest work of art
    Of all the arts which lift the spirit higher;
    The incarnation of the heart's desire--
Which masters Time--set on Man's will apart.

The Many try, but oh! how few are they
    To whom that finest of the arts is given
Which shall teach Love, the rosy runaway,
    To bide from bridal Morn to brooding Even.
Yet this--this only--is the narrow way
    By which, while yet on earth, we enter heaven.

Once We Played.

ONCE we played at love together--
    Played it smartly, if you please;
Lightly, as a windblown feather,
    Did we stake a heart apiece.

Oh, it was delicious fooling!
    In the hottest of the game,
Without thought of future cooling,
    All too quickly burned Life's flame.


In this give-and-take of glances,
    Kisses sweet as honey dews,
When we played with equal chances,
    Did you win, or did I lose?


Was your heart then hurt to bleeding,
    In the ardour of the throw?
Was it then I lost, unheeding,
    Lost my heart so long ago?


Who shall say? The game is over.
    Of us two who loved in fun,
One lies low beneath the clover,
    One lies lonely in the sun.

Affinities.
I.
I will take your thoughts to my heart;
    I will keep and garner them there
Locked in a casket apart.
    Far above rubies or rare
Pearls from the prodigal deep,
    Which men stake their lives on to find,
And women their beauty to keep,
    I will treasure the pearls of your mind.


How long has it taken the earth
    To crystallize gems in a mine?
How long was the sea giving birth
    To her pearls, washed in bitterest brine?
What sorrows, what struggles, what fierce
    Endeavour of lives in the past,
Hearts tempered by fire and tears,
    To fashion your manhood at last!

II.

TAKE me to thy heart, and let me
    Rest my head a little while;
Rest my heart from griefs that fret me
    In the mercy of thy smile.


In a twilight pause of feeling,
    Time to say a moment's grace,
Put thy hands, whose touch is healing,
    Put them gently on my face.


Found too late in Life's wild welter,
    All I ask, for weal and woe,
Friend, a moment's friendly shelter,
    And thy blessing ere I go.

III.

FULL many loves and friendships dear
    Have blossomed brightly in my path;
    And some were like the primrose rathe,
And withered with the vernal year.


And some were like the joyous rose,
    Most prodigal with scent and hue,
    That glows while yet the sky is blue,
And falls with every wind that blows--


Mere guests and annuals of the heart;
    But you are that perennial bay,
    Greenest when greener leaves decay,
Whom only death shall bid depart.

To a Friend.
      
With a Volume of Verses.

TO you who dwell withdrawn, above
    The world's tumultuous strife,
And, in an atmosphere of love,
    Have triumphed over life;


To you whose heart has kept so young
    Beneath the weight of years,
I give these passion flowers of song,
    Still wet with undried tears.


You too have trod that stony path
    Which steeply winds afar,
And seen, through nights of storm and wrath,
    The bright and Morning Star;


Where, shining o'er the Alps of time
    On valleys full of mist,
It beckons us to peaks sublime,
    Oh, brave Idealist.

As Many Stars.

AS many stars as are aglow
    Deep in the hollows of the night
As many as the flowers that blow
    Beneath the kindling light;

As many as the birds that fly
    Unpiloted across the deep;
As many as the clouds on high,
    And all the drops they weep;


As many as the leaves that fall
    In autumn, on the withering lea,
When wind to thundering wind doth call,
    And sea calls unto sea;


As many as the multitude
    Of quiet graves, where mutely bide
The wicked people and the good,
    Laid softly side by side;--


So many thoughts, so many tears,
    Such hosts of prayers, are sent on high,
Seeking, through all Man's perished years,
    A love that will not die.

Love's Vision.

TRANSPORTED out of self by Youth's sweet madness,
    Emulous of love, to Love's empyrean height,
    Where I beheld you aureoled in light,
My soul upsprang on wings of angel-gladness.
Far, far below, the earth and all earth's badness--
    A speck of dust--slipped darkling into night,
    As suns of fairer planets flamed in sight,
Pure orbs or bliss unstained by gloom or sadness.

Lo, as I soared etherially on high,
    You vanished, from my swimming eyes aloof,
Alone, alone, within the empty sky,
I reached out giddily, and reeling fell
From starriest heaven, to plunge in lowest hell,
    My proud heart broken on Earth's humblest roof.

A Parable.

BETWEEN the sandhills and the sea
    A narrow strip of silver sand,
    Whereon a little maid doth stand,
Who picks up shells continually
Between the sandhills and the sea.

Far as her wondering eyes can reach
    A Vastness, heaving grey in grey
    To the frayed edges where the day
Furls his red standard on the breach,
Between the skyline and the beach.


The waters of the flowing tide
    Cast up the seapink shells and weed;
    She toys with shells, and doth not heed
The ocean, which on every side
Is closing round her vast and wide.


It creeps her way as if in play,
    Pink shells at her pink feet to cast;
    But now the wild waves hold her fast,
And bear her off and melt away
A Vastness heaving gray in gray.

Between Sleep and Waking.

SOFTLY in a dream I heard,
    Ere the day was breaking,
Softly call a cuckoo bird
    Between sleep and waking.

Calling through the rippling rain
    And red orchard blossom;
Calling up old love again,
    Buried in my bosom;


Calling till he brought you too
    From some magic region;
And the whole spring followed you,
    Birds on birds in legion.


Youth was in your beaming glance,
    Love a rainbow round you;
Blushing trees began to dance,
    Wreaths of roses crowned you.


And I called your name, and woke
    To the cuckoo's calling;
And you waned in waning smoke,
    As the rain was falling.


Had the cuckoo called "Adieu,"
    Ere the day was breaking?
All the old wounds bled anew
    Between sleep and waking.

Rest.

WE are so tired, my heart and I.
Of all things here beneath the sky
One only thing would please us best--
Endless, unfathomable rest.

We are so tired; we ask no more
Than just to slip out by Life's door;
And leave behind the noisy rout
And everlasting turn about.


Once it seemed well to run on too
With her importunate, fevered crew,
And snatch amid the frantic strife
Some morsel from the board of life.


But we are tired. At Life's crude hands
We ask no gift she understands;
But kneel to him she hates to crave
The absolution of the grave.

Mystery of Mysteries.

BEFORE the abyss of the unanswering grave
    Each mortal stands at last aloof, alone,
    With his beloved one turned as deaf as stone,
However rebel love may storm and rave.
No will, however strong, avails to save
    The wrecked identity knit to our own;
    We may not hoard one treasured look or tone,
Dissolved in foam on Death's dissolving wave.

Is this the End? This handful of brown earth
    For all releasing elements to take
And free for ever from the bonds of birth?
    Or will true life from Life's disguises break,
Called to that vast confederacy of minds
Which casts all flesh as chaff to all the winds?

Hymn of the Nativity, Sung By the Shepherds
Chorus.
COME we shepherds who have seen
Day's king deposed by Night's queen.
Come lift we up our lofty song,
To wake the Sun that sleeps too long.

He in this our general joy,
Slept, and dreamt of no such thing
While we found out the fair-ey'd boy,
And kissed the cradle of our king;
Tell him he rises now too late,
To show us aught worth looking at.

Tell him we now can show him more
Than he e'er show'd to mortal sight,
Than he himself e'er saw before,
Which to be seen needs not his light:
Tell him Tityrus where th' hast been,
Tell him Thyrsis what th' hast seen.

Tityrus.
Gloomy night embrac'd the place
Where the noble infant lay:
The babe looked up, and show'd his face,
In spite of darkness it was day.
It was thy day, Sweet, and did rise,
Not from the east, but from thy eyes.

Thyrsis.
Winter chid the world, and sent
The angry North to wage his wars:
The North forgot his fierce intent,
And left perfumes, instead of scars:
By those sweet eyes' persuasive powers,
Where he meant frosts, he scattered flowers.

Both.
We saw thee in thy balmy nest,
Bright dawn of our eternal day;
We saw thine eyes break from the east,
And chase the trembling shades away:
We saw thee (and we blest the sight)
We saw thee by thine own sweet light.

Tityrus.
I saw the curl'd drops, soft and slow
Come hovering o'er the place's head,
Offring their whitest sheets of snow,
To furnish the fair infant's bed.
Forbear (said I) be not too bold,
Your fleect is white, but 'tis too cold.

Thyrsis.
I saw th'officious angels bring,
The down that their soft breasts did strow,
For well they now can spare their wings,
When Heaven itself lies here below.
Fair youth (said I) be not too rough,
Thy down though soft's not soft enough.

Tityrus.
The babe no sooner 'gan to seek
Where to lay his lovely head,
But straight his eyes advis'd his cheek,
'Twixt mother's breasts to go to bed.
Sweet choice (said I) no way but so,
Not to lie cold, yet sleep in snow.

Chorus.
Welcome to our wond'ring sight
Eternity shut in a span!
Summer in winter! Day in night!
Heaven in Earth! and God in Man!
Great little one, whose glorious birth,
Lifts Earth to Heaven, stoops heaven to earth.

Welcome, though not to gold, nor silk,
To more than Cæsar's birthright is,
Two sister-seas of virgin's milk,
WIth many a rarely-temper'd kiss,
That breathes at once both maid and mother,
Warms in the one, cools in the other.

She sings thy tears asleep, and dips
Her kisses in thy weeping eye,
She spreads the red leaves of thy lips,
That in their buds yet blushing lie.
She 'gainst those mother diamonds tries
The points of her young eagle's eyes.

Welcome, (though not to those gay flies
Guilded i'th' beams of earthly kings
Slippery souls in smiling eyes)
But to poor Shepherds, simple things,
That use no varnish, no oil'd arts,
But lift clean hands full of clear hearts.

Yet when young April's husband showers
Shall bless the fruitful Maia's bed,
We'll bring the first-born of her flowers,
To kiss thy feet, and crown thy head.
To thee (dread lamb) whose love must keep
The shepherds, while they feed their sheep.

To seek Majesty, soft king
Of simple graces, and sweet loves,
Each of us his lamb will bring,
Each his pair of silver doves.
At last, in fire of thy fair eyes,
We'll burn, our own best sacrifice.

Richard Crashaw

On Marriage

I WOULD be married, but I'd have no wife,
I would be married to a single life.

Richard Crashaw

The Flaming Heart Upon the Book and Picture of Saint Teresa
(As she is usually expressed with a Seraphim beside her.)


WELL meaning readers! you that come as friends
And catch the precious name this piece pretends;
Make not too much haste to admire
That fair-cheeked fallacy of fire.
That is a Seraphim, they say
And this the great Teresia.
Readers, be rul'd by me; and make
Here a well-plac'd and wise mistake
You must transpose the picture quite,
And spell it wrong to read it right;
Read him for her, and her for him;
And call the saint the Seraphim.

Painter, what did'st thou understand
To put her dart into his hand!
See, even the years and size of him
Shows this the mother Seraphim.
This is the mistress flame; and duteous he
Her happy fireworks, here comes down to see.
O most poor-spirited of men!
Had thy cold pencil kist her pen
Thou couldst not so unkindly err
To show us this faint shade for her.
Why man, this speaks pure mortal frame;
And mocks with female frost love's manly flame.
One would suspect, thou meant'st to paint
Some weak, inferior, woman saint.
But had thy pale-fac'd purple took
Fire from the burning cheeks of that bright book
Thou wouldst on her have leapt up all
That could be found seraphical;
Whate'er this youth of fire wears fair,
Rosy fingers, radiant hair,
Glowing cheek, and glistering wings,
All those fair and flagrant things,
But before all, that fiery dart
Had fill'd the hand of this great heart.

Do then as equal right requires,
Since his the blushes be, and hers the fires,
Resume and rectify thy rude design;
Undress thy Seraphim into mine.
Redeem this injury of thy art;
Give him the veil, give her the dart.

Give him the veil; that he may cover
The red cheeks of a rivall'd lover.
Asham'd that our world, now, can show
Nests of new Seraphims here below.

Give her the dart for it is she
(Fair youth) shoots both thy shaft and thee.
Say, all ye wise and well-pierc'd hearts
That live and die amidst her darts,
What is't your tasteful spirits do prove
In that rare life of her, and love?
Say and bear witness. Sends she not
A Seraphim at every shot?
What magazines of immortal arms there shine!
Heav'n's great artillery in each love-spun line.
Give then the dart to her who gives the flame;
Give him the veil, who kindly takes the shame.

But if it be the frequent fate
Of worst faults to be fortunate;
If all's prescription; and proud wrong
Hearkens not to an humble song;
For all the gallantry of him,
Give me the suff'ring Seraphim.
His be the bravery of all those bright things,
The glowing cheeks, the glistering wings;
The rosy hand, the radiant dart;
Leave her alone, the Flaming Heart.

Leave her that; and thou shalt leave her
Not one loose shaft but love's whole quiver.
For in love's field was never found
A nobler weapon than a wound.
Love's passives are his activ'st part.
The wounded is the wounding heart.
O heart! the equal poise of love's both parts
Big alike with wound and darts.
Live in these conquering leaves; live all the same;
And walk through all tongues one triumphant flame.
Live here, great heart; and love and die and kill;
And bleed and wound; and yield and conquer still.
Let this immortal life where'er it comes
Walk in a crowd of loves and martyrdoms.
Let mystic deaths wait on't; and wise souls be
The love-slain witnesses of this life of thee.
O sweet incendiary! show here thy art,
Upon this carcass of a hard, cold heart,
Let all thy scatter'd shafts of light, that play
Among the leaves of thy large books of day,
Combined against this breast at once break in
And take away from me my self and sin,
This gracious robbery shall thy bounty be;
And my best fortunes such fair spoils of me.
O thou undaunted daughter of desires!
By all thy dow'r of lights and fires;
By all the eagle in thee, all the dove;
By all thy lives and deaths of love;
By thy large draughts of intellectual day,
And by thy thirsts of love more large than they;
By all thy brim-fill'd bowls of fierce desire
By the last morning's draught of liquid fire;
By the full kingdom of that final kiss
That seiz'd thy parting soul, and seal'd thee his;
By all the heav'ns thou hast in him
(Fair sister of the Seraphim!)
By all of him we have in thee;
Leave nothing of my self in me.
Let me so read thy life, that I
Unto all life of mine may die.

Richard Crashaw

Wishes, To His (Supposed) Mistress

WHOE'ER she be,
That not impossible she
That shall command my heart and me;

Where'er she lie,
Lock'd up from mortal Eye,
In shady leaves of Destiny:

Till that ripe Birth
Of studied fate stand forth,
And teach her fair steps to our Earth;

Till that divine
Idea, take a shrine
Of crystal flesh, through which to shine:

Meet you her my wishes,
Bespeak her to my blisses,
And be ye call'd my absent kisses.

I wish her beauty,
That owes not all his duty
To gaudy tire, or glist'ring shoe-tie.

Something more than
Taffeta or tissue can,
Or rampant feather, or rich fan.

More than the spoil
Of shop, or silkworm's toil
Or a bought blush, or a set smile.

A face that's best
By its own beauty drest,
And can alone commend the rest.

A face made up
Out of no other shop,
Than what nature's white hand sets ope.

A cheek where youth,
And blood, with pen of truth
Write, what the reader sweetly ru'th.

A cheek where grows
More than a morning rose:
Which no box his being owes.

Lips, where all day
A lover's kiss may play,
Yet carry nothing thence away.

Looks that oppress
Their richest tires but dress
And clothe their simplest nakedness.

Eyes, that displaces
The neighbour diamond, and outfaces
That sunshine by ther own sweet graces.

Tresses, that wear
Jewels, but to declare
How much themselves more precious are.

Whose native ray,
Can tame the wanton day
Of gems, that in their bright shades play.

Each ruby there,
Or pearl that dare appear,
Be its own blush, be its own tear.

A well tam'd heart,
For whose more noble smart,
Love may be long choosing a dart.

Eyes, that bestow
Full quivers on love's bow;
Yet pay less arrows than they owe.

Smiles, that can warm
The blood, yet teach a charm,
That chastity shall take no harm.

Blushes, that bin
The burnish of no sin,
Nor flames of aught too hot within.

Joys, that confess,
Virtue their mistress,
And have no other head to dress.

Fears, fond and flight,
As the coy bride's, when night
First does the longing lover right.

Tears, quickly fled,
And vain, as those are shed
For a dying maidenhead.

Days, that need borrow,
No part of their good morrow,
From a forespent night of sorrow.

Days, that in spite
Of darkness, by the light
Of a clear mind are day all night.

Nights, sweet as they,
Made short by lovers' play,
Yet long by th' absence of the day.

Life, that dares send
A challenge to his end,
And when it comes say Welcome friend.

Sidneyan showers
Of sweet discourse, whose powers
Can crown old winter's head with flowers,

Soft silken hours,
Open suns; shady bowers,
'Bove all: Nothing within that lowers.

Whate'er delight
Can make day's forehead bright;
Or give down to the wings of night.

In her whole frame,
Have nature all the name,
Art and ornament the shame.

Her flattery,
Picture and poesy,
Her counsel her own virtue be.

I wish, her store
Of worth, may leave her poor
Of wishes; And I wish -- no more.

Now if time knows
That her whose radiant brows,
Weave them a garland of my vows;

Her whose just bays,
My future hopes can raise,
A trophy to her present praise;

Her that dares be,
What thse lines wish to see:
I seek no further, it is she.

'Tis she, and here
Lo I unclothe and clear,
My wishes' cloudy character.

May she enjoy it,
Whose merit dare apply it,
But modesty dares still deny it.

Such worth as this is,
Shall fix my flying wishes,
And determine them to kisses.

Let her full glory,
My fancies, fly before ye,
Be ye my fictions; but her story.

Richard Crashaw

Music's Duel

NOW Westward Sol had spent the richest Beams
Of Noon's high Glory, when hard by the streams
Of Tiber, on the scene of a green plat,
Under protection an an Oak, there sat
A sweet Lute's-master, in whose gentle aires
He lost the Day's heat, and his own hot cares.
Close in the covert of the leaves there stood
A Nightingale, come from the neighboring wood:
(The sweet inhabitant of each glad Tree,
Their Muse, their Syren, harmless Syren she)
There stood she list'ning, and did entertain
The Music's soft report, and mold the same
In her own murmurs, that what ever mood
His curious fingers lent, her voice made good;
The man preceiv'd his Rival, and her Art,
Dispos'd to give the light-foot Lady sport
Awakes his Lute, and 'gainst the fight to come
Informs it, in a sweet Praeludium
Of closer strains, and ere the war begin,
He lightly skirmishes on every string
Char'd with a flying touch; and staightway she
Carves out her dainty voice as readily,
Into a thousand sweet distinguish'd Tones,
And reckons up in soft divisions,
Quick volumes of wild Notes, to let him know
By that shrill taste, she could do something, too.
His nimble hands instinct then taught each string
A cap'ring cheerfulness, and made them sing
Toi their own dance; now negligently rash
He throws his Arm, and with a long-drawn dash
Blends all together; then distinctly trips
>From this to that; then quick returning skips
And snatches this again, and pauses there.
She measures every measure, every where
Meets art with art; sometimes as if in doubt
Not perfect yet, and fearing to be out
Trails her plain Ditty in one long-spun note,
Through the sleek passage of her open throat;
A clear unwrinckled song, then doth she point it
With tender accents, and severely joint it
By short diminutives, that being rear'd
In controverting warbles evenly shar'd,
With her sweet self she wrangles; He amaz'd
That from so small a channel should be rais'd
The torrent of a voice, whose melody
Could melt into such sweet variety
Strains higher yet; that tickled with rare art
The tatling strings (each breathing in his part)
Most kindly do fall out; the grumbling Base
In surly groans disdains the Treble's Grace.
The high-perch'd Treble chirps at this, and chides,
Until his finger (Moderator) hides
And closes the sweet quarrel, rousing all
Hoarse, shrill, at once; as when the Trumpets call
Hot Mars to th'Harvest of Death's Field, and woo
Men's hearts into their hands; this lesson too
She gives him back; her supple Breast thrills out
Sharp Aires, and staggers in a warbling doubt
Of dallying sweetness, hovers o"er her skillk,
And folds in wav'd notes with a trembling bill,
The pliant Series of her slippery song.
Then starts she suddenly into a Throng
Of short thick sobs, whose thund'ring volleys float,
And roll themselves over her lubrick throat.
In panting murmurs, 'still'd out of her Breast
That ever-bubbling spring; the sugar'd Nest
Of her delicious soul, that there does lie
Bathing in streams of liquid Melody;
Music's best seed-plot, whenced in ripen'd Aires
A Golden-headed Harvest fairly rears
His Honey-dripping tops, plow'd by her breath
Which there reciprocally laboreth
In that sweet soil. It seems a holy choir
Founded to th' Name of great Apollo's lyre.
Whose silver-roof rings with the sprightly notes
Of sweet-lipp'd Angel-Imps, that swill their throats
In cream of Morning Helicon, and then
Prefer soft Anthems to the Ears of men,
To woo them from their Beds, still murmuring
That men can sleep while they their Matins sing:
(Most divine service) whose so early lay
Prevents the Eye-lids of the blushing Day.
There might you hear her kindle her soft voice,
In the close murmur of a sparkling noise.
And lay the ground-work of her hopeful song,
Still keeping in the forward stream, so long
Till a sweet whirl-wind (striving to get out)
Heaves her soft Bosom, wanders round about,
And makes a pretty Earthquake in her Breast,
Till the fledg'd Notes at length forsake their Nest;
Fluttering in wanton shoals, and to the Sky
Wing'd with their own wild Echo's prattling fly.
She opes the floodgate, and lets loose a Tide
Of streaming sweetness, which in state doth ride
On the wav'd back of every swelling strain,
Rising and falling in a pompous train.
And while she thus discharges a shrill peal
Of flashing Aires, she qualifies their zeal
With the cool Epode of a graver Note,
Thus high, thus low, as if her silver throat
Would reach the brazen voice of War's hoarse Bird;
Her little soul is ravisht, and so pour'd
Into loose ecstasies, that she is plac't
Above her self, Music's Enthusiast.
Shame now and anger mixt a double stain
In the Musician's face: "Yet once again
(Mistress) I come; now reach a strain my Lute
Above her mock, or be for ever mute.
Or tune a song of victory to me,
Or to thy self, sing thine own Obsequy."
So said, his hands sprightly as fire he flings,
And with a quavering coyness tastes the strings.
The sweet-lipp'd sisters musically frighted,
Singing their fears are fearfully delighted.
Trembling as when Apollo's golden hairs
Are fann'd and frizzled, in the wanton aires
Of his own breath, which married to his Lyre
Doth tune the Spheres, and make Heav'n's self look higher.
>From this to that, from that to this he flies
Feels Music's pulse in all her Arteries,
Caught in a net which there Apollo spreads,
His fingers struggle with the vocal threads,
Following those little rills, he sinks into
A Sea of Helicon; his hand does go
Those parts of sweetness which with Nectar drop,
Softer than that which pants in Hebe's cup.
The humourous strings expound his learned touch,
By various Glosses; now they seem to grutch,
And murmur in a buzzing din, then jingle
In shrill-tongu'd accents, striving to be single.
Every smooth turn, every delicious stroke
Gives life to some new Grace; thus doth h'invoke
Sweetness by all her Names; thus, bravely thus
(Fraught with a fury so harmonious)
The Lute's light Genius now does proudly rise,
Heav'd on the surges of swoll'n Rhapsodies.
Whose flourish (Meteor-like) doth curl the air
With flash of high-borne fancies; here and there
Dancing in lofty measures, and anon
Creeps on the soft touch of a tender tone,
Who trembling murmurs melting in wild aires
Runs to and fro, complaining his sweet cares
Because those precious mysteries that dwell,
In Music's ravish't soul he dare not tell,
But whisper to the world; thus do they vary
Each string his Note, as if they meant to carry
Their Master's blest soul (snatcht out at his Ears
By a strong Ecstacy) through all the spheres
Of Music's heaven; and seat it there on high
In th'Empyraeum of pure Harmony.
At length (after so long, so loud a strife
Of all the strings, still breathing the best life
Of blest variety attending on
His fingers' fairest revolution
In many a sweet rise, many as sweet a fall)
A full-mouth Diapason swallows all.
This done, he list what she would say to this,
And she, although her Breath's late exercise
Had dealt too roughly with her tender throat,
Yet summons all her sweet powers for a Note
Alas! in vain! for while (sweet soul) she tries
To measure all those wild diversities
Of chatt'ring strings, by the small size of one
Poor simple voice, rais'd in a Natural Tone,
She fails, and failing grieves, and grieving dies.
She dies, and leaves her life the Victor's prize,
Falling upon his Lute; O fit to have
(That liv'd so sweetly) dead, so sweet a Grave!

Richard Crashaw

Post Mortem

I LAY in my coffin under the sod;
But the rooks they caw'd, and the sheep they trod
And munch'd and bleated, and made such a noise--
What with the feet of the charity boys
Trampling over the old grave-stones--
That it loosen'd my inarticulate bones,
And chased my sleep away.

So I turn'd (for the coffin is not so full
As it was, you know) my aching skull;
And said to my wife--and it's not my fault
If she does lie next to me in the vault--
Said to her kindly, "My love, my dear,
How do you like these sounds we hear
Over our heads to-day?"

My wife had always a good strong voice;
But I'm not so sure that I did rejoice
When I found it as strong as it used to be,
And so unexpectedly close to me:
I thought, if her temper should set in,
Why, the boards between us are very thin,
And whenever the bearers come one by one
To deposit the corpse of my eldest son,
Who is spending the earnings of his papa
With such sumptuous ease and such great eclat,
They may think it more pleasant, perhaps, than I did,
To find that in death we were not divided.
However, I trusted to time and the worms;
And I kept myself to the mildest terms
Of a conjugal "How d'ye do."

"John," said my wife, "you're a Body, like me;
At least if you ain't, why you ought to be;
And I really don't think, when I reflect,
That I ought to pay as much respect
To a rattling prattling skeleton
As I did to a man of sixteen stone.
However" (says she), "I shall just remark
That this here place is so cool and dark,
I'm certain sure, if you hadn't have spoke,
My slumber'd never have thus been broke;
So I wish you'd keep your--voice in your head;
For I don't see the good of being dead,
If one mayn't be quiet too."

She spoke so clear and she spoke so loud,
I thank'd my stars that a linen shroud
And a pair of boards (though they were but thin)
Kept out some part of that well-known din:
And, talking of shrouds, the very next word
That my empty echoing orbits heard
Was, "Gracious me, I can tell by the feel
That I'm all over rags from head to heel!
Here's jobs for needle and thread without ending,
For there's ever-so-many holes wants mending!"
"My love," I ventured to say, "I fear
It's not much use, your mending 'em here;
For, as fast as you do, there's worse than moth,
And worse than mice, or rats, or both,
Will eat up the work of your cotton ball
And leave you never a shroud at all--
No more than they have to me."

Now, whether it was that she took it ill
My seeking to question her feminine skill,
Or whether 'twas simply that we were wedded--
The very thing happen'd that I most dreaded:
For, by way of reply, on the coffin-side,
Just where the planks had started wide,
There came a blow so straight and true
That it shook my vertebral column in two;
And what more might have follow'd I cannot tell,
But that very minute ('twas just as well)
The flagstone was lifted overhead,
And the red-nosed buriers of the dead
Let down a load on my coffin-plate
That stunned me quite with the shock of its weight.
'Twas the corpse, of course, of my eldest son,
Who had injured his brain (a little one)
By many a spirituous brain-dissolver,
And finish'd it off with a Colt's revolver.
Well--when they had gone and the noise had ceased,
I look'd for one other attack, at least:
But, would you believe it? The place was quiet,
And the worms resumed their usual diet!
Nay, everything else was silent too;
The rooks they neither caw'd nor flew,
And the sheep slept sound by footstone and head,
And the charity boys had been whipp'd to bed.
So I turn'd again, and I said to myself--
"Now, as sure as I'm laid on this sordid shelf
Away from the living that smile or weep,
I'll sleep if I can, and let her too sleep:
And I will not once, for pleasure or pain,
Unhinge my jaws to speak again,
No, not if she speaks to me."

Arthur Munby

Any Husband to Many a Wife

I SCARCELY know my worthless picture,
As seen in those soft eyes and clear;
But oh, dear heart, I know the stricture
You pass on it when none are near.

Deep eyes that smiling give denial
To tears that you have shed in vain;
Fond heart that summoned on my trial,
Upbraids the witness of thy pain.

Eyes, tender eyes, betray me never!
Still hold the flattered image fast
Whereby I shape the fond endeavour
To justify your faith at last.

Emily Pfeiffer

The Wedded Lover

I READ in our old journals of the days
When our first love was April-sweet and new,
How fair it blossomed and deep-rooted grew
Despite the adverse time; and our amaze
At moon and stars and beauty beyond praise
That burgeoned all about us: gold and blue
The heaven arched us in, and all we knew
Was gentleness. We walked on happy ways.

They said by now the path would be more steep,
the sunsets paler and less mild the air;
Rightly we heeded not; it was not true.
We will not tell the secret--let it keep.
I know not how I thought those days so fair
These being so much fairer, spent with you.

Christopher Morley