Haste to the mighty ocean, List to the lapsing waves;
With what a strange commotion They seek their coral caves.
From heat and turmoil let us oft return,
The ocean's solemn majesty to learn.
The murmurings of earth are quieted; The woods are still, the streamlets voiceless glide; A mist lies languid on the mountain side,
Where all the hot and fainting clouds have fled From heaven's infinitude. The lily's head Droops 'neath the ardent gaze of summertide, And in the cooling shadows seek to hide The sleepy flowers of the garden bed. The air is tranced, and Nature lies a-dreaming: Even the ripples on the lake, that move At scarce a breath, now are becalmed. Above, Around, beneath, is but the drowsy seeming Of smoky skies, and dim red sunlight streaming. All is at rest. Why sleepless thou, O Love ?
The laughing flights of song are still That charmed the springtide air;
Down rivulet and grassy rill No wayward perfumes fare;
Upon her throne Queen August lies
With languor in her dreamful eyes.
The idle clouds that stray the blue Their mission now forget;
A blended note the wood-doves coo Of passion and regret;
The sparrows flute a faded tune;
The year hath reached its afternoon.
The cricket clears his dusty throat To sing an eerie strain;
And as he pipes with rusty note Of beauty soon to wane,
The red rose trembles on the tree
With prescience of the fate to be.
The sun was gone, and the moon was coming
Over the blue Connecticut hills;
The west was rosy, the east was flushed,
And over my head the swallows rushed
This way and that, with changeful wills.
I heard them twitter and watched them dart
Now together and now apart
Like dark petals blown from a tree;
The maples stamped against the west
Were black and stately and full of rest,
And the hazy orange moon grew up
And slowly changed to yellow gold
While the hills were darkened, fold on fold
To a deeper blue than a flower could hold.
Down the hill I went, and then
I forgot the ways of men,
For night-scents, heady, and damp and cool
Wakened ecstasy in me
On the brink of a shining pool.
O Beauty, out of many a cup
You have made me drunk and wild
Ever since I was a child,
But when have I been sure as now
That no bitterness can bend
And no sorrow wholly bow
One who loves you to the end?
And though I must give my breath
And my laughter all to death,
And my eyes through which joy came,
And my heart, a wavering flame;
If all must leave me and go back
Along a blind and fearful track
So that you can make anew,
Fusing with intenser fire,
Something nearer your desire;
If my soul must go alone
Through a cold infinity,
Or even if it vanish, too,
Beauty, I have worshipped you.
Let this single hour atone
For the theft of all of me.
~~ Sara Teasdale (1884-1933) from Flame and Shadow, 1920
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]
Look! the round-cheeked moon floats high,
In the glowing August sky,
Quenching all her neighbor stars,
Save the steady flame of Mars.
White as silver shines the sea,
Far-off sails like phantoms be,
Gliding o'er that lake of light,
Vanishing in nether night.
Heavy hangs the tasseled corn,
Sighing for the cordial morn;
But the marshy-meadows bare,
Love this spectral-lighted air,
Drink the dews and lift their song,
Chirp of crickets all night long;
Earth and sea enchanted lie
'Neath that moon-usurped sky.
To the faces of our friends
Unfamiliar traits she lends —
Quaint, white witch, who looketh down
With a glamour all her own.
Hushed are laughter, jest, and speech,
Mute and heedless each of each,
In the glory wan we sit,
Visions vague before us flit;
Side by side, yet worlds apart,
Heart becometh strange to heart.
Slowly in a moved voice, then,
Ralph, the artist spake again —
"Does not that weird orb unroll
Scenes phantasmal to your soul?
As I gaze thereon, I swear,
Peopled grows the vacant air,
Fables, myths alone are real,
White-clad sylph-like figures steal
'Twixt the bushes, o'er the lawn,
Goddess, nymph, undine, and faun.
Yonder, see the Willis dance,
Faces pale with stony glance;
They are maids who died unwed,
And they quit their gloomy bed,
Hungry still for human pleasure,
Here to trip a moonlit measure.
Near the shore the mermaids play,
Floating on the cool, white spray,
Leaping from the glittering surf
To the dark and fragrant turf,
Where the frolic trolls, and elves
Daintily disport themselves.
All the shapes by poet's brain,
Fashioned, live for me again,
In this spiritual light,
Less than day, yet more than night.
What a world! a waking dream,
All things other than they seem,
Borrowing a finer grace,
From yon golden globe in space;
Touched with wild, romantic glory,
Foliage fresh and billows hoary,
Hollows bathed in yellow haze,
Hills distinct and fields of maize,
Ancient legends come to mind.
Who would marvel should he find,
In the copse or nigh the spring,
Summer fairies gamboling
Where the honey-bees do suck,
Mab and Ariel and Puck?
Ah! no modern mortal sees
Creatures delicate as these.
All the simple faith has gone
Which their world was builded on.
Now the moonbeams coldly glance
On no gardens of romance;
To prosaic senses dull,
Baldur's dead, the Beautiful,
Hark, the cry rings overhead,
'Universal Pan is dead!'"
"Requiescant!" Claude's grave tone
Thrilled us strangely. "I am one
Who would not restore that Past,
Beauty will immortal last,
Though the beautiful must die —
This the ages verify.
And had Pan deserved the name
Which his votaries misclaim,
He were living with us yet.
I behold, without regret,
Beauty in new forms recast,
Truth emerging from the vast,
Bright and orbed, like yonder sphere,
Making the obscure air clear.
He shall be of bards the king,
Who, in worthy verse, shall sing
All the conquests of the hour,
Stealing no fictitious power
From the classic types outworn,
But his rhythmic line adorn
With the marvels of the real.
He the baseless feud shall heal
That estrangeth wide apart
Science from her sister Art.
Hold! look through this glass for me?
Artist, tell me what you see?"
"I!" cried Ralph. "I see in place
Of Astarte's silver face,
Or veiled Isis' radiant robe,
Nothing but a rugged globe
Seamed with awful rents and scars.
And below no longer Mars,
Fierce, flame-crested god of war,
But a lurid, flickering star,
Fashioned like our mother earth,
Vexed, belike, with death and birth."
Rapt in dreamy thought the while,
With a sphinx-like shadowy smile,
Poet Florio sat, but now
Spake in deep-voiced accents slow,
More as one who probes his mind,
Than for us — "Who seeks, shall find —
Widening knowledge surely brings
Vaster themes to him who sings.
Was veiled Isis more sublime
Than yon frozen fruit of Time,
Hanging in the naked sky?
Death's domain — for worlds too die.
Lo! the heavens like a scroll
Stand revealed before my soul;
And the hieroglyphs are suns —
Changeless change the law that runs
Through the flame-inscribed page,
World on world and age on age,
Balls of ice and orbs of fire,
What abides when these expire?
Through slow cycles they revolve,
Yet at last like clouds dissolve.
Jove, Osiris, Brahma pass,
Races wither like the grass.
Must not mortals be as gods
To embrace such periods?
Yet at Nature's heart remains
One who waxes not nor wanes.
And our crowning glory still
Is to have conceived his will."
~~ Emma Lazarus (1849-1887) from Poems, 1888 [Poem is in the public domain worldwide]
It is a night too silver-sweet for sleep,
The stars shine softly bright, and delicate airs
Play through my open window languidly,
With summer perfume on their gentle wings,
Robbed from deep-bosomed roses. Yonder streak
Of paly gold marks where the sun went down
In burning glory; and now the rising moon
Half hides her blood-red orb behind those elms
That whisper to each other. Silent it is.
Most silent, save when from the meadow deep
The corncrake calls her mate, or far away
A watch-dog bays; so silent that you seem
To hear the growth of all things, as the dew
Sinks down refreshfuUy, and seem to feel
The throb of Nature's pulses, and the wings
Of Time stealthily waved with downy beat.
The starlight silence draws me: I must roam —
Past my still garden; past the pastures low
Breathing of meadow-sweet; up this dim lane;
Into the dewy woods, led by the light
Of the new-risen moon. A sudden joy —
A shudder of deep deHght — thrills to my heart,
To be alone, hid in the nightly haunt
Of that fair Spirit whose permeant essence fills
Each tiniest leaf with living beauty. Here,
Where the wood-smells are sweetest, where the dew
Lies pearliest on the balmy eglantine,
And each clear drop a soul of fragrance takes
From curvy trumpets of the woodbine trails
Wreathing dark-glossed hollies ; where the flowers
Of maiden-pure wild roses strew the grass
With dehcate petals — might one suddenly come
On some quaint scene of elfin revelry.
~~ John Todhunter (1839-1916) from Laurella, and other poems, 1876
Loud pulses of the fields are heard to leap
Now all night long; all day the birds are mute.
The month hangs heavy, like a perfect fruit
That holds the opiate seeds of winter sleep.
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