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Read Ebook: The Child at Home: The Principles of Filial Duty Familiarly Illustrated by Abbott John S C John Stevens Cabot
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Ebook has 457 lines and 46672 words, and 10 pages
Silence. Still faint on the porch Brake the flames of the stars. In gloom groped a hope-wearied hand Over keys, bolts, and bars.
A face peered. All the grey night In chaos of vacancy shone; Nought but vast Sorrow was there-- The sweet cheat gone.
THE STRANGER
In the woods as I did walk, Dappled with the moon's beam, I did with a Stranger talk, And his name was Dream.
Spurred his heel, dark his cloak, Shady-wide his bonnet's brim; His horse beneath a silvery oak Grazed as I talked with him.
Softly his breast-brooch burned and shone; Hill and deep were in his eyes; One of his hands held mine, and one The fruit that makes men wise.
Wonderly strange was earth to see, Flowers white as milk did gleam; Spread to Heaven the Assyrian Tree, Over my head with Dream.
Dews were still betwixt us twain; Stars a trembling beauty shed; Yet--not a whisper comes again Of the words he said.
BETRAYAL
She will not die, they say, She will but put her beauty by And hie away.
Oh, but her beauty gone, how lonely Then will seem all reverie, How black to me!
All things will sad be made And every hope a memory, All gladness dead.
Ghosts of the past will know My weakest hour, and whisper to me, And coldly go.
And hers in deep of sleep, Clothed in its mortal beauty I shall see, And, waking, weep.
Naught will my mind then find In man's false Heaven my peace to be: All blind, and blind.
THE CAGE
Why did you flutter in vain hope, poor bird, Hard-pressed in your small cage of clay? 'Twas but a sweet, false echo that you heard, Caught only a feint of day.
Fret now no more; be still. Those steadfast eyes, Those folded hands, they cannot set you free; Only with beauty wake wild memories-- Sorrow for where you are, for where you would be.
THE REVENANT
O all ye fair ladies with your colours and your graces, And your eyes clear in flame of candle and hearth, To'rd the dark of this old window lift not up your smiling faces, Where a Shade stands forlorn from the cold of the earth.
God knows I could not rest for one I still was thinking of; Like a rose sheathed in beauty her spirit was to me; Now out of unforgottenness a bitter draught I'm drinking of, 'Tis sad of such beauty unremembered to be.
Men all are shades, O Women.--Winds wist not of the way they blow. Apart from your kindness, life's at best but a snare. Though a tongue now past praise this bitter thing doth say, I know What solitude means, and how, homeless, I fare.
Strange, strange, are ye all--except in beauty shared with her-- Since I seek one I loved, yet was faithless to in death. Not life enough I heaped, so thus my heart must fare with her, Now wrapt in the gross clay, bereft of life's breath.
MUSIC
When music sounds, gone is the earth I know, And all her lovely things even lovelier grow; Her flowers in vision flame, her forest trees, Lift burdened branches, stilled with ecstasies.
When music sounds, out of the water rise Naiads whose beauty dims my waking eyes, Rapt in strange dream burns each enchanted face, With solemn echoing stirs their dwelling-place.
When music sounds, all that I was I am Ere to this haunt of brooding dust I came; While from Time's woods break into distant song The swift-winged hours, as I hasten along.
THE REMONSTRANCE
I was at peace until you came And set a careless mind aflame. I lived in quiet; cold, content; All longing in safe banishment, Until your ghostly lips and eyes Made wisdom unwise.
Naught was in me to tempt your feet To seek a lodging. Quite forgot Lay the sweet solitude we two In childhood used to wander through; Time's cold had closed my heart about; And shut you out.
Well, and what then? ... O vision grave, Take all the little all I have! Strip me of what in voiceless thought Life's kept of life, unhoped, unsought!-- Reverie and dream that memory must Hide deep in dust!
This only I say,--Though cold and bare The haunted house you have chosen to share, Still 'neath its walls the moonbeam goes And trembles on the untended rose; Still o'er its broken roof-tree rise The starry arches of the skies; And 'neath your lightest word shall be The thunder of an ebbing sea.
NOCTURNE
'Tis not my voice now speaks; but as a bird In darkling forest hollows a sweet throat-- Pleads on till distant echo too hath heard And doubles every note: So love that shrouded dwells in mystery Would cry and waken thee.
Thou Solitary, stir in thy still sleep; All the night waits thee, yet thou still dream'st on. Furtive the shadows that about thee creep, And cheat the shining footsteps of the moon: Unseal thine eyes, it is my heart that sings, And beats in vain its wings.
Lost in heaven's vague, the stars burn softly thro' The world's dark latticings, we prisoned stray Within its lovely labyrinth, and know Mute seraphs guard the way Even from silence unto speech, from love To that self's self it still is dreaming of.
I am that Adam who, with Snake for guest, Hid anguished eyes upon Eve's piteous breast. I am that Adam who, with broken wings, Fled from the Seraph's brazen trumpetings. Betrayed and fugitive, I still must roam A world where sin--and beauty--whisper of Home.
Oh, from wide circuit, shall at length I see Pure daybreak lighten again on Eden's tree? Loosed from remorse and hope and love's distress, Enrobe me again in my lost nakedness? No more with wordless grief a loved one grieve, But to heaven's nothingness re-welcome Eve?
THE UNCHANGING
After the songless rose of evening, Night quiet, dark, still, In nodding cavalcade advancing Starred the deep hill: You, in the valley standing, In your quiet wonder took All that glamour, peace, and mystery In one grave look. Beauty hid your naked body, Time dreamed in your bright hair, In your eyes the constellations Burned far and fair.
NIGHTFALL
The last light fails--that shallow pool of day! The coursers of the dark stamp down to drink, Arch their wild necks, lift their wild heads and neigh; Their drivers, gathering at the water-brink, With eyes ashine from out their clustering hair, Utter their hollow speech, or gaze afar, Rapt in irradiant reverie, to where Languishes, lost in light, the evening star.
Come the wood-nymphs to dance within the glooms, Calling these charioteers with timbrels' din; Ashen with twilight the dark forest looms O'er the nocturnal beasts that prowl within Thorn-roofed thicket, where sweet waters gush. Resounding roar wild torrent, hungry throat; While in the dew-drowsed branches' ebon hush, Pouring lament of joy, the night birds float. 'O glory of beauty which the world makes fair!' Pant they their serenading on the air.
Sound the loud hooves, and all abroad the sky The lusty charioteers their stations take; Planet to planet do the sweet Loves fly, And in the zenith silver music wake. Cities of men, in blindness hidden low, Fume their faint flames to that arched firmament, But all the dwellers in the lonely know The unearthly are abroad, and weary and spent, With rush extinguished, to their dreaming go. And world and night and star-enclustered space The glory of beauty are in one enravished face.
INVOCATION
The burning fire shakes in the night, On high her silver candles gleam, With far-flung arms enflamed with light, The trees are lost in dream.
Come in thy beauty! 'tis my love, Lost in far-wandering desire, Hath in the darkling deep above Set stars and kindled fire.
EYES
O strange devices that alone divide The se?r from the seen-- The very highway of earth's pomp and pride That lies between The traveller and the cheating, sweet delight Of where he longs to be, But which, bound hand and foot, he, close on night, Can only see.
LIFE
Hearken, O dear, now strikes the hour we die; We, who in one strange kiss Have proved a dream the world's realities, Turned each from other's darkness with a sigh, Need heed no more of life, waste no more breath On any other journey, but of death.
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