Weeds by the Wall Part 16

So we believed. And, undeceived, A little crew set sail; A little crew with hearts as stout As any yet that faced a doubt And tore away its veil.

And time went by; and sea and sky Had worn our masts and decks; When, lo! one morn with canvas torn, A phantom s.h.i.+p, we came forlorn Into the Sea of Wrecks.

There, day and night, the mist lay white, And pale stars shone at noon; The sea around was foam and fire, And overhead hung wan a wire, A will-o'-wisp of moon.

And through the mist, all white and whist, Gaunt s.h.i.+ps, with sea-weed wound, With rotting masts, upon whose spars The corposants lit spectre stars, Sailed by without a sound.

And all about,--now in, now out,-- Their ancient hulls was shed The worm-like glow of green decay, That writhed and glimmered in the gray Of canvas overhead.

And each that pa.s.sed, in hull and mast, Seemed that wild s.h.i.+p that flees Before the tempest--seamen tell-- Deep-cargoed with the curse of h.e.l.l, Through roaring night and seas.

Ay! many a craft we left abaft Upon that haunted sea; But never a hulk that clewed a sail, Or waved a hand, or answered hail, And never a man saw we.

At last we came where--pouring flame-- In darkness and in storm, A vast volcano westward reared An awful summit, lava-seared, Like some terrific arm.

And we could feel beneath our keel The ocean throb and swell, As if the Earthquake there uncoiled Its monster bulk, or t.i.tans toiled At the red heart of h.e.l.l.

Like madmen now we turned our prow North, towards an ocean weird Of Northern Lights and icy blasts; And for ten moons with reeling masts And leaking hold we steered.

Then black as blood through streaming scud Land loomed above our boom, A land of iron gulfs and crags And cataracts, like wind-tossed rags, And caverns lost in gloom.

And burning white on every height, And white in every cave, A naked spirit, with a flame, Now gleamed, now vanished; went and came Above the whining wave.

No mortal thing of foot or wing Made glad its steep and strand; But voices, voices seemingly-- Vague voices of the sky and sea-- Peopled the demon land.

Yea, everywhere, in earth and air, A lamentation wept; That, gathering strength above, below, Now like a mighty wind of woe, Around the island swept.

And in that sound, it seemed, was bound All life's despair of art; The bitterness of joy that died; The anguish of faith's crucified; And love that broke its heart.

The ghost it seemed of all we'd dreamed, Of all we had desired; That--turned a curse, an empty cry-- With wailing words went trailing by In hope's dead robes attired.

And could this be the land that we Had sought for soon and late?

Those Islands of the Blest, the fair, Where we had hoped to ease our care And end the fight with fate?

O lie that lured! O pain endured!

O years of toil and thirst!

Where we had looked for blessed ground The Islands of the d.a.m.ned we found, And in the end--were curst!

A. D. NINETEEN HUNDRED.

War and Disaster, Famine and Pestilence, Vaunt-couriers of the Century that comes, Behold them shaking their tremendous plumes Above the world! where all the air grows dense With rumors of destruction and a sense, Cadaverous, of corpses and of tombs Predestined; while,--like monsters in the glooms,-- Bristling with battle, shadowy and immense, The Nations rise in wild apocalypse.-- Where now the boast Earth makes of civilization?

Its brag of Christianity?--In vain We seek to see them in the dread eclipse Of h.e.l.l and horror, all the devastation Of Death triumphant on his hills of slain.

CAVERNS.

_Written of Colossal Cave, Kentucky._

Aisles and abysses; leagues no man explores, Of rock that labyrinths and night that drips; Where everlasting silence broods, with lips Of adamant, o'er earthquake-builded floors.

Where forms, such as the Demon-World adores, Laborious water carves; whence echo s.h.i.+ps Wild-tongued o'er pools where petrifaction strips Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s of crystal from which crystal pours.-- Here where primordial fear, the Gorgon, sits Staring all life to stone in ghastly mirth, I seem to tread, with awe no tongue can tell,-- Beneath vast domes, by torrent-tortured pits, 'Mid wrecks terrific of the ruined Earth,-- An ancient causeway of forgotten h.e.l.l.

OF THE SLUMS.

Red-faced as old carousal, and with eyes A hard, hot blue; her hair a frowsy flame, Bold, dowdy-bosomed, from her widow-frame She leans, her mouth all insult and all lies.

Or slattern-slippered and in s.l.u.ttish gown, With ribald mirth and words too vile to name, A new Doll Tearsheet, glorying in her shame, Armed with her Falstaff now she takes the town.

The flaring lights of alley-way saloons, The reek of hideous gutters and black oaths Of drunkenness from vice-infested dens, Are to her senses what the silvery moon's Chaste splendor is, and what the blossoming growths Of earth and bird-song are to innocence.

THE WINDS.

Those hewers of the clouds, the winds,--that lair At the four compa.s.s-points,--are out to-night; I hear their sandals trample on the height, I hear their voices trumpet through the air.

Builders of Storm, G.o.d's workmen, now they bear, Up the steep stair of sky, on backs of might, Huge tempest bulks, while,--sweat that blinds their sight,-- The rain is shaken from tumultuous hair: Now, sweepers of the firmament, they broom, Like gathered dust, the rolling mists along Heaven's floors of sapphire; all the beautiful blue Of skyey corridor and aery room Preparing, with large laughter and loud song, For the white moon and stars to wander through.

PROTOTYPES.

Whether it be that we in letters trace The pure exactness of a woodbird's strain, And name it song; or with the brush attain The high perfection of a wildflower's face; Or mold in difficult marble all the grace We know as man; or from the wind and rain Catch elemental rapture of refrain And mark in music to due time and place: The aim of art is nature; to unfold Her truth and beauty to the souls of men In close suggestions; in whose forms is cast Nothing so new but 'tis long eons old; Nothing so old but 'tis as young as when The mind conceived it in the ages past.

TOUCHES.

In heavens of rivered blue, that sunset dyes With glaucous flame, deep in the west the Day Stands Midas-like; or, wading on his way, Touches with splendor all the twilight skies.

Each cloud that, like a stepping-stone, he tries With rosy foot, transforms its sober gray To burning gold; while, ray on crystal ray, Within his wake the stars like bubbles rise.

So should the artist in his work accord All things with beauty, and communicate His soul's high magic and divinity To all he does; and, hoping no reward, Toil onward, making darkness aureate With light of worlds that are and worlds to be.