Sonnets

I.

A Hamadryad Dies.

Low mourned the Oread round the Arcadian hills; The Naiad murmured and the Dryad moaned; The meadow-maiden left her daffodils To join the Hamadryades who groaned Over a sister newly fallen dead. That Life might perish out of Arcady From immemorial times was never said; Yet here one lay dead by her dead oak-tree. "Who made our Hamadryad cold and mute?" The others cried in sorrow and in wonder. "I," answered Death, close by in ashen suit; "Yet fear not me for this, nor start asunder; Arcadian life shall keep its ancient zest Though I be here. My name?--is it not Rest?"

II.

"Et in Arcadia ego ..."

"What traveller soever wander here In quest of peace and what is best of pleasure, Let not his hope be overcast and drear Because I, Death, am here to fix the measure Of life, even in blameless Arcady. Bay, laurel, myrtle, ivy never sere, And fields flower-decorated all the year, And streams that carry secrets to the sea, And hills that hold back something evermore Though wild their speech with clouds in thunder-roar,-- Yea, every sylvan sight and peaceful tone Are thine to give thy days their purer zest. Let not the legend grieve thee on this stone. I Death am here. What then? My name is Rest."

III.

Despairless! Hopeless! Quietly I wait On these unpeopled tracks the happy close Of Day, whose advent rang with noise elate, Whose later stage was quick with mirthful shows And clasping loves, with hate and hearty blows, And dreams of coming gifts withheld by Fate From morrow unto morrow, till her great Dread eyes 'gan tell of other gifts than those, And her advancing wings gloomed like a pall; Her speech foretelling joy became a dirge As piteous as pitiless; and all My company had passed beyond the verge And lost me ere Fate raised her blinding wings.... Hark! through the dusk a bird "at heaven's gate sings."

IV.

"Despairless? Hopeless? Join the cheerful hunt Whose hounds are Science, high Desires the steeds, And Misery the quarry. Use and Wont No help to human anguish bring, that bleeds For all two thousand years of Christian deeds. Let Use and Wont in styes still feed and grunt, Or, bovine, graze knee-deep in flowering meads. Mount! follow! Onward urge Life's dragon-hunt!" --So cries the sportsman brisk at break of day. "The sound of hound and horn is well for thee," Thus I reply, "but I have other prey; And friendly is my quest as you may see. Though slow my pace, full surely in the dark I'll chance on it at last, though none may mark."

V.

Hopeless! Despairless! like that Indian wise Free of desire, save no desire to know. To gain that sweet Nirvana each one tries, Thinks to assuage soul-wearing passion so. From the white rest, the ante-natal bliss, Not loth, the wondrous wondering soul awakes; Now drawn to that illusion, now to this, With gathering strength each devious pathway takes; Till at the noon of life his aims decline; Evermore earthward bend the tiring eyes, Evermore earthward, till with no surprise They see Nirvana from Earth's bosom shine. The still kind mother holds her child again In blank desirelessness without a stain.

VI.

He comes to me like air on parching grass; His eyes are wells where truth lives, found at last; Summer is fragrant should he this way pass; His calm love is a chain that binds me fast.... Yet often melancholy will forecast That time when I shall have grown old--when he-- Still rapturous in his struggle with life's blast-- Shall give a pitying side glance to me, Who skirt the fog-fringe of eternity, Straining mine eyes to catch what shadowy sign Of good or evil omen there may be, Yet no sure good nor evil can divine: Only some hints of doubtful sound and light, That lonelier leave the uncompanioned night.

VII.

She scanned the record of Beethoven's thought, And made the dumb chords speak both clear and low, And spread the dead man's voice till I was caught Away, and now seemed long and long ago. Methought in Tellus' bosom still I lay, While centuries like steeds tramped overhead, To the wild rhythms that, by night and day, From nature and man's passions still are made. The music of their motion as they pranced Lulled me to flawless ease as of a God; Never upon me pain or pleasure chanced; Unknown the dew of bliss, or fate's hard rod. Thus dreamed I ... But I know our mother Earth Waits to give back the peace she reft at birth.

VIII.

By mead and marsh and sandhill clad with bent, Soothed by the wistful musings of the wind That in scarce listening ears are mildly dinned, On plods the traveller till the day be spent, And day-dreams end in dreamless night at last. He hears, beyond the grey bent's silken waves, The foam-embroidered waters ever cast On sighing sands and into echoing caves. And from the west, where the last sunset glow Still lingers on the border hills afar, Come pastoral sounds, attenuate and low, Thence where the night shall bring, 'neath cloud and star, Silence to yearn o'er folk worn with day's strife, Lost in blank sleep to hope, regret, death, life.

[An alternative ending:

While from the West comes murmuring earthly noise, Sweet, slumberous, attenuate and afar; Sad sunglows in the border mountains poise, There where he knows to-night, mid cloud and star, Silence shall yearn o'er folk worn out with strife, Lost in blank sleep to hope, regret, death, life.]