Read Ebook: The Path of Dreams Poems by Giltner Leigh Gordon

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Ebook has 205 lines and 12583 words, and 5 pages

uth's fair-flowered fields with blighting blast-- Then to the gods our doubts and fears be cast! Enough of Sorrow! Joyance is our due. Gather the roses! Spurn th' envenomed rue. Fling to the waiting winds the pallid past. Steep thee in mellow moods and dear desires; Pluck Love's flame-hearted flower ere it dies; Cull nectared kisses sweet as morning's breath, Warm Chastity at Passion's purple fires; Nepenthe quaff--till drained the chalice lies. After ... the shrouded sleep, the dreamless dark of Death.

Euthumism

If in the spirit glows no spark divine; If soulless dust return to dust again; If, after life, but death and dark remain-- Then it were well to make the moment thine, Bacchante-steeping soul and sense in wine, In lotus-lulling languors, fond desires That heat the heart with fierce, unhallowed fires-- Till Pleasure, Circe-like, transform us into swine. But if some subtler spirit thrill our clay, Some God-like flame illume this fleeting dust-- Promethean fire snatched from the Olympian height-- Then must we choose the nobler, higher Way, Seeking the Beautiful, the Pure, the Just-- The ultimate crowned triumph of the Right!

Under the Leaves

The phalanxes of corn stand grim and serried, Dull gold the sodden sheaves, The violets that smiled with Spring are buried Under the leaves.

Along the land the Winter's doom is creeping All vainly Autumn grieves; And she who made my heart's sweet Spring is sleeping Under the leaves.

Carmen

Night in Seville, and the twinkle Of stars in the far azure set, The mandolin's torturing tinkle, The click of the castanet! Music and wine and low laughter, Love and a torment of tune-- Hate and a poignard thereafter, Under the yellow moon.

Here in the night I await her, Under the slumberous moon; Yearns my fierce spirit to mate her-- All my sick senses aswoon Beneath the wild sway of her dancing Passion and pride are at war;-- Thrall to her amorous glancing, Grandee and toreador.

Carmen Gitana, behold her! Bright passion-flower of the South; Soft Southern languors enfold her, Scarlet the bloom of her mouth; Passionate, sensuous, cruel, Raying warm laughter and light, A ruby--a scintillant jewel-- Set on the brow of the Night!

Ah, the wild rhythm of her dancing! Lithe with the jaguar's grace, Ah, the sweet fire of her glancing, The love-litten lure of her face! And ah, in my fierce arms to hold her This strange scarlet flower of the South. Close to my heart-beat to fold her Drinking the wine of her mouth!

Sweet, thou art weary with dancing, Sick of the music and light Praises and overbold glancing-- Steal with me into the night; Out of the riot of laughter, Out of the torment of tune-- Love and close kisses thereafter Under the sensuous moon!

Carmen, my fierce arms enfold thee, Bright passion-flower of the South, Close to my hot heart I hold thee, Crushing the flower of thy mouth. Love--for the loving that swayed me, Passion--for passion long past-- Hate--for the hate that betrayed me ... My dirk in your side at the last!

To R. D. MacLean

If words were wing?d arrows tipped with flame, Far-flying thro' the vast of time and space, If Erato should lend me some rare grace, Then might I dare to breathe in song your name. Ah, Player-king, unmoved by all renown, Acclaim and praise that wait upon your name, You pluck a laurel from the wreath of fame, Then, careless of the guerdon, cast it down.

Love and Death

Ever athwart Life's sunlit, upland ways Falleth the shadow of impending Death, And still Life's flowers beneath his blighting breath To ashes wither, and to dust, her bays. What were the worth of hard-won power or praise? Awaits us all the grave-cell dark and deep, The greedy grave-worm's maw, the awful sleep When Death his cold hand on our pulses lays. What then the end of action or of strife? The sphinx?d riddle of the Universe, Nature's unsolved enigma, who may prove? Life's Passion Play all blindly men rehearse.... But yet our recompense for birth, for life, For death itself, meseems, is deathless Love!

A Winter Landscape

A mystic world mantled in white simarre Arachne-spun with argent woof; her wede Starred with strange crystals wrought from frozen spar, Sprent with pearl frost-flowers; girt with diamond brede, Rubied with berries red as drops of blood, Befringed with gelid, many-irised gems; Broidered with lace weft of an elfin brood-- Hoar filagree to deck her garment hems.

Sheer slanting down the sky an opal light Pierces the snow-blur's veil of wannish gray, In iridescent sheen, tingeing the dazzling white With amethystine, gold or beryl ray. Along the West the transient sunset gleam-- An ardor brief! Crimson on crimson grows Till all the waning sky, incarnadine, Glows like blown petals of a shattered rose.

Roses and Rue

A swift thought flashed to my mind that day When I first saw you, regally tall 'Mid a throng of pigmies--a very Saul-- How some woman's heart must admit your sway, Some woman's soul to your soul be thrall;

Then--strange that our eyes for a moment should meet And hold each other a breathless space, That a light as of dawn should leap into your face, That the lips that were stern should an instant grow sweet-- Ere you turned, at a word, with a courtier's grace.

Then you stood at my side and one murmured your name, The proud old name that you worthily wore, And I drank the soul-chalice Fate's mandate upbore To my lips, as the fire of your glance leapt to flame; What need were of words? heart speaks heart evermore--

Do I idly dream, as the village maid, Who thinks, as she spins, of a princekin gay On a prancing steed, who shall come her way To woo her and win her and bear her away Thro' the vasty depths of the forest shade To a palace set in a sylvan glade,-- To love her for aye and a day?

Is it like that he with his princely pride-- The son of a proud old race, Shall stoop with Cophetua's kingly grace To lift me up to the vacant place, To reign like a queen at his side? Can the world afford him no worthier bride-- No bride with a queenlier grace?

Aye, a foolish dream for a sordid day When men seek power--and women, gold-- Gone is the chivalrous age of old When maids were loving and men were bold, And good King Arthur held knightly sway! Ah, love and knighthood were laid away With the cuirass and helm of old.

But a horseman rides to the wicket gate-- All my pulses proclaim it he, My knight who has parted the waves of the sea, Who has cleft the wide world in his searching for me.... Fond, foolish, dreaming!--for surely Fate Decrees him the winning a worthier mate Than a simple girl like me!

Why does he come to me, With his deep, impassioned eyes, Stealing my soul from me? Surely a high emprise For such an one as he To smile an hour on me-- To win a worthless prize, Would he might let me be! Proud am I--proud as he For my name as his is old-- What should he say to me? I have neither lands nor gold. Ah, a merry jest 'twill be To win my heart from me-- Would he might let me be!

Ah, silver and gold of the glad June morning-- Gold of the sunshine and silver of dew, Dew drop gems all the meads adorning-- Are love and the rose-time a theme for scorning? Roses, roses,--dream not of rue! Am I not loved by you?

Antiphonal to sweet sylvan singers, The brook with its maddening, gladdening rune! And my lover's kiss still thrills and lingers, Lingers and burns on my tremulous fingers! Ah, birds in a very riot of tune Pour out my joy to the heart of June!

He loves me--loves me! My heart is singing.-- Song on my lips from my soul upringing, A passion of bliss to the breezes flinging, Roses, roses--nor dream of rue! I am beloved by you.

To be his wife! Calm all my soul is filling, A calm too deep for smiles--or even tears; A perfect trust to slumber subtly stilling My whilom doubts and fears.

Each little common thing to me seems rarer, My life each day becomes more dear to me; Love, am I fair? Ah, fain would I be fairer-- And yet more fair for thee.

Like to a priestess some loved shrine adorning, I deck the charms but poorly prized, till late, The beauty once I held too slight for scorning-- To thee, now consecrate!

As if some god of old had stooped to love me-- Some star had pierced my darkness with its ray-- I worship thee--an idol throned above me-- Forgetting thou art clay.

Rejoicing in the gift that God has given, I may forget the Giver. Love, I fear Lest I shall e'en forget to sigh for Heaven-- When heaven for me is here!

Strange that a love supreme Should be swayed by a petty pride, As a straw might turn aside The swift onflowing tide Of a mighty seaward stream!

I know that the fault was mine, But I cannot, will not speak; How should I, suppliant, meek, His gracious pardon seek-- Tho' the fault were mine--all mine?

Aye, tho' my heart should break, Something--or pride or shame-- Forbids me that I should claim As mine the fault, the blame-- Aye, tho' my heart should break!

Fool! to have played with fire-- Had I not full often heard How when his wrath was stirred It burst all bounds and leapt Higher and ever higher Like flames by the storm-wind swept?

Yet--tho' his face was white With a passion that shook his soul-- Not once did he waive control, Tho' his heart to its depths was stirred-- He leashed his wrath that night Nor uttered one bitter word.

Pride held me stubbornly dumb, Stilling what words I would say, While I flung my heart's treasure away, While I tampered with fire--to my cost; Till I knew the ultimate end had come-- I had matched pride with love--and lost!

What poisoned pen has written The words that bar my breath; What hard, harsh hand has smitten My soul with death?

My heart refuses to understand The words that burn my brain; Palsied, stunned by a felling blow Struck by a cherished hand, I am all too numb for pain; Dead to a deathless woe, Helpless to understand, Shall I ever feel again?

Awake, alive to pain! The first steel gleam of morn Stabs deep the heart I thought had shrunk to dust, The love I prayed might die to loveless scorn Awakes and cries ... Ah, God, how is it just A fault so slight such meed of pain should pay, That one mad word in pride and anger spoken Should leave two lives forever crushed and broken, Should plait a scourge to lash my soul for aye?

How can a just God see men suffer thus?-- Unheedful of the cosmic cry of pain, Unmoved by all the pangs that torture us, Knowing our prayers and tears alike are vain-- Like to a wanton boy who feels no thrill Of pity for the weak his strength holds thrall, Who pins a helpless butterfly against a wall, Watching the bright wings flutter and grow still.

We are the sport of some malignant Power Who nails us to our crosses, hard and fast, Who sees us flutter for a little hour, Struggle and suffer ... and grow still at last; Who hears untouched the ceaseless, cosmic groan Wrung from his creatures' tortured lips alway; He will not hear or heed! What need to pray? There is no hand to help. We stand alone.

Father, forgive! I know not what I say, Frenzied, tortured, torn on the rack of pain; Teach these pain-writhen lips once more to pray-- Help me to trust again!

A year! How slight a space When winged with ecstasy! He has brought her home--God lend me grace! To-night in the throng I shall see his face-- He has long forgotten me. A year! I have learned to smile, I have taught my eyes to lie, I have lived and laughed and sung--the while I have only longed to die.

I have seen him once again, There in the throng with his wife Bitter in sooth has his portion been-- Chained to a clog for life! Strange that our eyes as of yore should meet And hold each other a breathless space, That the dawn-light of old should illumine his face, That the lips that were stern should an instant grow sweet, Touched with the old-time tender grace. But his eyes were haggard and old with pain They told me the struggle was vain--all vain! He loves me--loves me still.

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