magic

The Master played the bishop’s pawn,
For jest, while Atherton looked on;
The master played this way and that,
And Atherton, amazed thereat,
Said “Now I have a thing in view
That will enlighten one or two,
And make a difference or so
In what it is they do not know.”

The morning stars together sang
And forth a mighty music rang—
Not heard by many, save as told
Again through magic manifold
By such a few as have to play
For others, in the Master’s way,
The music that the Master made

[One of the Bearers Soliloquizes:]

. . . Room in your heart for him, O Mother Earth,
Who loved each flower and leaf that made you fair,
And sang your praises in verses manifold
And delicate, with here and there a line
From end to end in blossom like a bough
The May breathes on, so rich it was. Some thought
The workmanship more costly than the thing
Moulded or carved, as in those ornaments
Found at Mycæne. And yet Nature's self
Works in this wise; upon a blade of grass,

COME here, rekindle the old fire,
This last night leave no lamp unlit!
In later days we twain shall sit,
Remembering the joys of it,--
The warmth and sweetness of desire.

Here, ere we part, again live o'er
The way we went,--the hour,--the kiss;
Let Love with magic hand of his
Rebuild the mirage of our bliss
In desert days that wend before.

Swart night of August! when we stood
Heart-locked beside the window-pane!
The thunder quickening again
The laggard pulses of the rain,

As is the globe embraced by ocean, so
Embraced is earthly life by dreams and fancies.
Night comes unsought, and at the shore's defences
The breakers strike blow after blow.

Their call is loud: they plead and onward urge us...
A magic boat waits in the harbour - we
Are by the tide borne off that round us surges
Into the seas' infinity.

From out the depths the sky stares, strange and boundless,
By blazing stars in all their glory lit,
And we sail on, the vastness all around us

WHEN the sap runs up the tree.
And the vine runs o’er the wall,
When the blossom draws the bee,
From the forest comes a call,
Wild, and clear, and sweet, and strange,
Many-tongued and murmuring
Like the river in the range—
’Tis the joyous voice of Spring!
On the boles of grey, old trees,
See the flying sunbeams play
Mystic, soundless melodies—
A fantastic march and gay;
But the young leaves hear them—hark
How they rustle, every one!—
And the sap beneath the bark

Blossom of the apple trees!
Mossy trunks all gnarled and hoary,
Grey boughs tipped with rose-veined glory,
Clustered petals soft as fleece
Garlanding old apple trees!

How you gleam at break of day!
When the coy sun, glancing rarely,
Pouts and sparkles in the pearly
Pendulous dewdrops, twinkling gay
On each dancing leaf and spray.

Through your latticed boughs on high,
Framed in rosy wreaths, one catches
Brief kaleidoscopic snatches
Of deep lapis-lazuli

And doth not a meeting like this make amends
For all the long years I've been wandering away --
To see thus around me my youth's early friends,
As smiling and kind as in that happy day?
Though haply o'er some of your brows, as o'er mine,
The snow -- fall of time may be stealing -- what then?
Like Alps in the sunset, thus lighted by wine,
We'll wear the gay tinge of youth's roses again.

What soften'd remembrances come o'er the heart,
In gazing on those we've been lost to so long!

“Is that the Three-and-Twentieth, Strabo mine,
Marching below, and we still gulping wine?”
From the sad magic of his fragrant cup
The red-faced old centurion started up,
Cursed, battered on the table. “No,” he said,
“Not that! The Three-and-Twentieth Legion’s dead,
Dead in the first year of this damned campaign—
The Legion’s dead, dead, and won’t rise again.
Pity? Rome pities her brave lads that die,
But we need pity also, you and I,
Whom Gallic spear and Belgian arrow miss,

I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny
blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny
they are small, and the fountain is in France
where you wrote me that last letter and
I answered and never heard from you again.
you used to write insane poems about
ANGELS AND GOD, all in upper case, and you
knew famous artists and most of them
were your lovers, and I wrote back, it’ all right,
go ahead, enter their lives, I’ not jealous
because we’ never met. we got close once in
New Orleans, one half block, but never met, never

You found my life, a poor lame bird
That had no heart to sing,
You would not speak the magic word
To give it voice and wing.

Yet sometimes, dreaming of that hour,
I think, if you had known
How much my life was in your power,
It might have sung and flown.