A Fragment
The creeping stars shone in the blue still night
With lustrous opulence of beam, while clouds,
Fitful and fleecy fled like full-sailed ships
Thro' seas of air; the languid moon rose up
In silver shoals of light; and I reclined
Pensive and weighted down by earthly woes,
Lost in the shadows of a dreamy oak,
Striving to weave fair tapestries of hope
In threads of silken thought within my mind,
Battling 'gainst spleens and seeking to evade
The sombre twilights of my sorrowing brain.
I heard sweet songs, sung by a cloud of birds,
To dying sunset in the drowsy east;
And I, like them, felt anxious in my gloom,
To win by music the pale love of stars.
Like tears upon the face of night new stars
Came out and twinkled; while I saw the moon
Stranded upon a copse of ghastly pines.
I sought to dissipate my pains in song,
And hushed with melody the birds whose notes
Were not as soft and liquid as mine own.
A song of love I sang, my soul afire
Was dying with fierce famine of great love.
The naked moon, pale, silver-veined, stood still,
And listened with its white bland face of calm.
Sudden when singing forth my soul in strains
Of mystic harmonies, and loveful tones,
A figure of a laughing girl emerged
From oaken solitudes and came to me,
As when a cloud of light propelled by suns
Bursts on the sky all blushing with surprise,
She came to me, nude, trailing-haired and fair,
A flush of Indian sun upon her face,
With tremulous poesy in her downcast eyes,
With queenly treadings of a queenly foot
And coyly toying with the rich green fern,
She drew sweet blossoms from her twisted hair.
The unprolific seeds of hate, and all
My stubborn scorn for man that thrived and grew,
And pasture found within my callous heart,
Vanished like mist before a stroke of sun.
Great wild desire sprang up in flames of thought,
Beading with damp my love untutored brow.
I cleft my mind from poetry's vague shores
Where it was harboring, and thought no more
Of barren beaches in untraveled worlds,
The bleak stern bergs of boreal solitude,
And all the mysteries of melodious dreams
That haunted me with sorrow till she came,
But rose and tottered toward her, while great hope,
Like to a meteor falling thro' the gloom
Flasht o'er my soul with light that dazzled me.
The night-seas moan their cold loves to the stars,
Bold billows, amorous, dash and splash upon
The beach they love with kisses hot of loam,
And e'er retire uncomforted and sad,
To beg again, to be again refused —
Why should I not, with poetry and youth,
Approach this star of flesh, this living dream,
Try to deceive the unlashed eye of fate,
And cheat with arrogance its now sleepy power
And kiss those rose-cheeks pearled of fleuride lys?
Why should my love shrink back and be afraid,
When all that love is tangled in her smile,
And fired by arrowy glances from her eyes
That court my kissings? So mused I, and rash,
Called her by signs of longing languorous love.
For hours the music of my low appeals.
Rose of the moon-eyed creature of my wish,
My white-fleshed Leman, with great wondering eyes,
Clad in the golden armor of her hair,
And that alone — nude, beautiful and white.
Tempests of sobs and damp, dark storms of tears
I lavished in my supplicating trance.
Soul is a fire; love is its strongest flame,
Both did I offer, aye but once to know
The caudent pressure of her young, strong arms,
And lip her kisses backward to her mouth.
I sung and sung the same old song of love,
The same song sung in Aidens' purple nights,
The song beloved of moons before our time.
Old songs that trembled like enamored stars,
I sang with lips more passionful than eyes,
With hot and crimson stammerings of love.
The reeling gold of her loose tresses flung
Over the star-light of her gazing eyes
Was dashed aside; and to my lips she prest
The living coral of her lips all hot
With pains and pleasures of my softest song.
I looked up wildly in the flashing night
Of her great eyes, and drank the flavorous flood,
The subtle nightshade of her lingering kiss,
While o'er us in the mellow blue, the moon,
Celestial lighthouse of storm-driven clouds,
Smiled all its gold upon our golden lives.
Long sunful days, loud with a thousand songs,
Long moonful nights, calm with a thousand flowers,
Visions and vistas of seraphic halls
Passed by in thought, as on her lips I reeled,
Throwing my life away like lees of wine!
With lustrous opulence of beam, while clouds,
Fitful and fleecy fled like full-sailed ships
Thro' seas of air; the languid moon rose up
In silver shoals of light; and I reclined
Pensive and weighted down by earthly woes,
Lost in the shadows of a dreamy oak,
Striving to weave fair tapestries of hope
In threads of silken thought within my mind,
Battling 'gainst spleens and seeking to evade
The sombre twilights of my sorrowing brain.
I heard sweet songs, sung by a cloud of birds,
To dying sunset in the drowsy east;
And I, like them, felt anxious in my gloom,
To win by music the pale love of stars.
Like tears upon the face of night new stars
Came out and twinkled; while I saw the moon
Stranded upon a copse of ghastly pines.
I sought to dissipate my pains in song,
And hushed with melody the birds whose notes
Were not as soft and liquid as mine own.
A song of love I sang, my soul afire
Was dying with fierce famine of great love.
The naked moon, pale, silver-veined, stood still,
And listened with its white bland face of calm.
Sudden when singing forth my soul in strains
Of mystic harmonies, and loveful tones,
A figure of a laughing girl emerged
From oaken solitudes and came to me,
As when a cloud of light propelled by suns
Bursts on the sky all blushing with surprise,
She came to me, nude, trailing-haired and fair,
A flush of Indian sun upon her face,
With tremulous poesy in her downcast eyes,
With queenly treadings of a queenly foot
And coyly toying with the rich green fern,
She drew sweet blossoms from her twisted hair.
The unprolific seeds of hate, and all
My stubborn scorn for man that thrived and grew,
And pasture found within my callous heart,
Vanished like mist before a stroke of sun.
Great wild desire sprang up in flames of thought,
Beading with damp my love untutored brow.
I cleft my mind from poetry's vague shores
Where it was harboring, and thought no more
Of barren beaches in untraveled worlds,
The bleak stern bergs of boreal solitude,
And all the mysteries of melodious dreams
That haunted me with sorrow till she came,
But rose and tottered toward her, while great hope,
Like to a meteor falling thro' the gloom
Flasht o'er my soul with light that dazzled me.
The night-seas moan their cold loves to the stars,
Bold billows, amorous, dash and splash upon
The beach they love with kisses hot of loam,
And e'er retire uncomforted and sad,
To beg again, to be again refused —
Why should I not, with poetry and youth,
Approach this star of flesh, this living dream,
Try to deceive the unlashed eye of fate,
And cheat with arrogance its now sleepy power
And kiss those rose-cheeks pearled of fleuride lys?
Why should my love shrink back and be afraid,
When all that love is tangled in her smile,
And fired by arrowy glances from her eyes
That court my kissings? So mused I, and rash,
Called her by signs of longing languorous love.
For hours the music of my low appeals.
Rose of the moon-eyed creature of my wish,
My white-fleshed Leman, with great wondering eyes,
Clad in the golden armor of her hair,
And that alone — nude, beautiful and white.
Tempests of sobs and damp, dark storms of tears
I lavished in my supplicating trance.
Soul is a fire; love is its strongest flame,
Both did I offer, aye but once to know
The caudent pressure of her young, strong arms,
And lip her kisses backward to her mouth.
I sung and sung the same old song of love,
The same song sung in Aidens' purple nights,
The song beloved of moons before our time.
Old songs that trembled like enamored stars,
I sang with lips more passionful than eyes,
With hot and crimson stammerings of love.
The reeling gold of her loose tresses flung
Over the star-light of her gazing eyes
Was dashed aside; and to my lips she prest
The living coral of her lips all hot
With pains and pleasures of my softest song.
I looked up wildly in the flashing night
Of her great eyes, and drank the flavorous flood,
The subtle nightshade of her lingering kiss,
While o'er us in the mellow blue, the moon,
Celestial lighthouse of storm-driven clouds,
Smiled all its gold upon our golden lives.
Long sunful days, loud with a thousand songs,
Long moonful nights, calm with a thousand flowers,
Visions and vistas of seraphic halls
Passed by in thought, as on her lips I reeled,
Throwing my life away like lees of wine!
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