Ah! to be able to sing,
To sorrow in melody;
To string with silver
Sorrow's dark harp!
Or, mount every thorn
Crowning life's brow
With lustrous stars--
Those tears of the sky.
Rolling down its face
When night's hand puts
Darkness's crown on its head
As twilight dies.
None of these, for my soul;
Only to weep is given to me,
To nourish my heart's crop
For the scythe of barrenness to reap.
The rosy mist stilly polishes the round mirror,
The moon;
Golden her face
Reflecting the cool sweet glory of a
Baby sun
When dangling
His short golden arms in the cradle of the sky
After night
Gave him birth,
And herself died as day dies to see the moon,
This golden
Rose-washed stone
That the unseen hand puts on the crown of night
Beside it puts
Bits of white--
The star-jewels like million fancies, worshipping
From her many-colored bow Nature
Has hurled her silver arrows of rain
And slain the hosts of Dark.
Jeweled with a single star, the Moon
Walks the garden of Night;
Higher and higher
Through the star-enflowered pathways of sapphire
She draws her train of silver.
Pale this twilight-face,
Shade-ridden the horizon-light;
The forest, a green-gold vision of grace
In its frame of lavender mist.
No rose-leaf washed in moonlight;
No vine on vermilion walls;
Pale sunlight fading into night,
Dark tunes, the music of the hour.
No death, nor life is ours, here;
But the vast vague sea of black
Sounded by star-mariners
Seeking the Infinite's track.
Thin silver cloud-veils hide the moon.
The star-steeds of the chariot of night
Course for the western hills;
The west-wind a ceaseless flute playing,
With its stops of falling autumn leaves.
The forest and the valley a map
Drawn by the explorers in the land of reverie:
They color it with tones of violet and lavender;
Or, make rainbow waves of leaf and light
With tones from the changing palette of the breeze.
At last, the thin clouds become thinner yet;
The moon now a moonstone in an opal dream;
The leaves cease dropping, and dead the wind;
Begins a new measure, a new flute playing,
As the star-steeds' golden hoofs touch the western hills.
Gone yesterday's rain;
Star-babies play in heaven;
The breeze that with clouds
Stole the moon, lies in chains
In the mountain's dark cavern.
The golden children of night
Raise their arms in joy,
As the moon-nurse opens
The nursery door of West,
And gives these the golden sun for toy.
The Milky Way,
That silver shadow,
Binds the heaven and earth
Like the chain of love.
The star-hosts, smiling guests of night,
Witness this meeting of love;
And my soul, in a silver stream
Like "the Way,"
Flows to meet them all
Across the ocean of night's silence,
Beyond the Universe's wall.
Steps of rose
On rosier steps;
Thus, evening
Builds her staircase
Between sunset
And the infinite roof of space.
So our fancies
May fold their wings,
And walk on gleams
Of unending purple and pink,
Up to the blue pool . . .
And drink from its starry rim.
What dream-peacock, this moon.
With voice of silence,
Bejeweled with the golden stars,
With its spread fan, the tree —
What dance, this?
What rain-cloud hath it seen
In the sky of night's intangibility?
The honey-colored moon,
Washed in silver;
The stars, luminous clusters of
Grapes, hung from invisible vines.
Ah, were I a daring mariner,
I would sail on the barge of the moon
To the far island of God's mirth,
Where they drink star-wine,
And dance to the music of the spheres.
I fell asleep,
Hearing melody
That fell from lip to lip.
The stars sang it
To the wind, that took it
To the rose, shivering in the cold of night.
The rose gave it
To the nightingale, who sang it
Back to the stars, the earth and the sea.
And I, to it listening,
Fell asleep dreaming.
The stars that open and shut
Fall on my shallow breast
Like stars on a pool.
The soft wind, blowing cool
Laps little crest after crest
Of ripples across my breast.
And dark grass under my feet
Seems to dabble in me
Like grass in a brook.
Oh, and it is sweet
To be all these things, not to be
Any more myself.
For look,
I am weary of myself!