By Sidney Lanier (1842 - 1881)

A Ballad of Trees and the Master

INTO the woods my Master went, Clean forspent, forspent. Into the woods my Master came, Forspent with love and shame. But the olives they were not blind to Him; The little gray leaves were kind to Him The thorn-tree had a mind to Him When into the woods He came.   Out of the woods my Master went, And He was well content. Out of the woods my Master came, Content with death and shame. When Death and Shame would woo Him last, From under the trees they drew Him last: ’T was on a tree they slew Him—last, When out of the woods He came.

Night and Day

THE INNOCENT, sweet Day is dead. Dark Night hath slain her in her bed. O’ Moors are as fierce to kill as to wed!   —Put out the light, said he.   A sweeter light than ever rayed From star of heaven or eye of maid Has vanished in the unknown Shade.   —She ’s dead, she ’s dead, said he.   Now, in a wild, sad after-mood The tawny Night sits still to brood Upon the dawn-time when he wooed.   —I would she lived, said he.   Star-memories of happier times, Of loving deeds and lovers’ rhymes, Throng forth in silvery pantomimes.   —Come back, O Day! said he.

Song for “The Jaquerie”

BETRAYAL THE SUN has kissed the violet sea,   And burned the violet to a rose. O Sea! wouldst thou not better be   Mere violet still? Who knows? Who knows?     Well hides the violet in the wood:     The dead leaf wrinkles her a hood,     And winter’s ill is violet ’s good;     But the bold glory of the rose,     It quickly comes and quickly goes,—     Red petals whirling in white snows,             Ah me!   The sun has burnt the rose-red sea:   The rose is turned to ashes gray. O Sea, O sea, mightst thou but be   The violet thou hast been to-day!     The sun is brave, the sun is bright,     The sun is lord of love and light,     But after him it cometh night.     Dim anguish of the lonesome dark!—     Once a girl’s body, stiff and stark,     Was laid in a tomb without a mark,             Ah me!   THE HOUND THE HOUND was cuffed, the hound was kicked, O’ the ears was cropped, o’ the tail was nicked,   (All.)  Oo-hoo-o, howled the hound. The hound into his kennel crept; He rarely wept, he never slept. His mouth he always open kept,         Licking his bitter wound,             The hound,   (All.)      U-lu-lo, howled the hound.   A star upon his kennel shone That showed the hound a meat-bare bone.   (All.)  O hungry was the hound! The hound had but a churlish wit: He seized the bone, he crunched, he bit. “An thou wert Master, I had slit         Thy throat with a huge wound,”             Quo’ hound.   (All.)      O, angry was the hound.   The star in castle-windows shone, The Master lay abed, alone.   (All.)  Oh ho, why not? quo’ hound. He leapt, he seized the throat, he tore The Master, head from neck, to floor, And rolled the head i’ the kennel door,         And fled and salved his wound,             Good hound!   (All.)      U-lu-lo, howled the hound.

Song of the Chattahoochee

OUT of the hills of Habersham,   Down the valleys of Hall, I hurry amain to reach the plain, Run the rapid and leap the fall, Split at the rock and together again, Accept my bed, or narrow or wide, And flee from folly on every side With a lover’s pain to attain the plain   Far from the hills of Habersham,   Far from the valleys of Hall.     All down the hills of Habersham,   All through the valleys of Hall, The rushes cried Abide, abide, The wilful waterweeds held me thrall, The laving laurel turned my tide, The ferns and the fondling grass said Stay, The dewberry dipped for to work delay, And the little reeds sighed Abide, abide,   Here in the hills of Habersham,   Here in the valleys of Hall.     High o’er the hills of Habersham,   Veiling the valleys of Hall, The hickory told me manifold Fair tales of shade, the poplar tall Wrought me her shadowy self to hold, The chestnut, the oak, the walnut, the pine, Overleaning, with flickering meaning and sign, Said, Pass not, so cold, these manifold   Deep shades of the hills of Habersham,   These glades in the valleys of Hall.     And oft in the hills of Habersham,   And oft in the valleys of Hall, The white quartz shone, and the smooth brook-stone Did bar me of passage with friendly brawl, And many a luminous jewel lone —Crystals clear or a-cloud with mist, Ruby, garnet, and amethyst— Made lures with the lights of streaming stone   In the clefts of the hills of Habersham,   In the beds of the valleys of Hall.     But oh, not the hills of Habersham,   And oh, not the valleys of Hall Avail: I am fain for to water the plain. Downward the voices of Duty call— Downward, to toil and be mixed with the main, The dry fields burn, and the mills are to turn, And a myriad flowers mortally yearn, And the lordly main from beyond the plain   Calls o’er the hills of Habersham,   Calls through the valleys of Hall.

Sunrise

IN my sleep I was fain of their fellowship, fain   Of the live-oak, the marsh, and the main. The little green leaves would not let me alone in my sleep; Up-breathed from the marshes, a message of range and of sweep, Interwoven with waftures of wild sea-liberties, drifting,     Came through the lapped leaves sifting, sifting,         Came to the gates of sleep. Then my thoughts, in the dark of the dungeon-keep Of the Castle of Captives hid in the City of Sleep, Upstarted, by twos and by threes assembling;     The gates of sleep fell a-trembling Like as the lips of a lady that forth falter yes,         Shaken with happiness:       The gates of sleep stood wide.   I have waked, I have come, my beloved! I might not abide: I have come ere the dawn, O beloved, my live-oaks, to hide     In your gospelling glooms,—to be As a lover in heaven, the marsh my marsh and the sea my sea.   Tell me, sweet burly-barked, man-embodied Tree That mine arms in the dark are embracing, dost know From what fount are these tears at thy feet which flow? They rise not from reason, but deeper inconsequent deeps.         Reason’s not one that weeps.       What logic of greeting lies Betwixt dear over-beautiful trees and the rain of the eyes?   O cunning green leaves, little masters! like as ye gloss All the dull-tissued dark with your luminous darks that emboss The vague blackness of night into pattern and plan,               So,   (But would I could know, but would I could know,) With your question embroidering the dark of the question of man,— So, with your silences purfling this silence of man While his cry to the dead for some knowledge is under the ban,               Under the ban,—         So, ye have wrought me Designs on the night of our knowledge,—yea, ye have taught me,               So, That haply we know somewhat more than we know.       Ye lispers, whisperers, singers in storms,     Ye consciences murmuring faiths under forms,     Ye ministers meet for each passion that grieves,     Friendly, sisterly, sweetheart leaves, Oh, rain me down from your darks that contain me Wisdoms ye winnow from winds that pain me,— Sift down tremors of sweet-within-sweet That advise me of more than they bring,—repeat Me the woods-smell that swiftly but now brought breath From the heaven-side bank of the river of death,—     Teach me the terms of silence,—preach me     The passion of patience,—sift me,—impeach me,—               And there, oh there As ye hang with your myriad palms upturned in the air,               Pray me a myriad prayer.       My gossip, the owl,—is it thou That out of the leaves of the low-hanging bough,     As I pass to the beach, art stirred?     Dumb woods, have ye uttered a bird?   Reverend Marsh, low-couched along the sea,   Old chemist, rapt in alchemy,     Distilling silence,—lo, That which our father-age had died to know—     The menstruum that dissolves all matter—thou Hast found it; for this silence, filling now The globëd charity of receiving space, This solves us all: man, matter, doubt, disgrace, Death, love, sin, sanity, Must in yon silence, clear solution lie,— Too clear! That crystal nothing who ’ll peruse? The blackest night could bring us brighter news. Yet precious qualities of silence haunt Round these vast margins, ministrant. Oh, if thy soul’s at latter gasp for space, With trying to breathe no bigger than thy race Just to be fellowed, when that thou hast found No man with room, or grace enough of bound, To entertain that New thou tellst, thou art,— ’T is here, ’t is here, thou canst unhand thy heart And breathe it free, and breathe it free, By rangy marsh, in lone sea-liberty.   The tide ’s at full; the marsh with flooded streams Glimmers, a limpid labyrinth of dreams. Each winding creek in grave entrancement lies A rhapsody of morning-stars. The skies Shine scant with one forked galaxy,— The marsh brags ten: looped on his breast they lie.   Oh, what if a sound should be made! Oh, what if a bound should be laid To this bow-and-string tension of beauty and silence a-spring,— To the bend of beauty the bow, or the hold of silence the string! I fear me, I fear me you dome of diaphanous gleam Will break as a bubble o’er-blown in a dream,— You dome of too-tenuous tissues of space and of night, Over-weighted with stars, over-freighted with light, Over-sated with beauty and silence, will seem   But a bubble that broke in a dream, If a bound of degree to this grace be laid,   Or a sound or a motion made.   But no: it is made: list! somewhere,—mystery, where?   In the leaves? in the air? In my heart? is a motion made: ’T is a motion of dawn, like a flicker of shade on shade. In the leaves ’t is palpable: low multitudinous stirring Upwinds through the woods; the little ones, softly conferring, Have settled my lord’s to be looked for; so, they are still; But the air and my heart and the earth are a-thrill,— And look where the wild duck sails round the bend of the river,—     And look where a passionate shiver     Expectant is bending the blades Of the marsh-grass in serial shimmers and shades,— And invisible wings, fast fleeting, fast fleeting,               Are beating The dark overhead as my heart beats,—and steady and free Is the ebb-tide flowing from marsh to sea—(Run home, little streams,     With your lapfuls of stars and dreams),— And a sailor unseen is hoisting a-peak, For list, down the inshore curve of the creek     How merrily flutters the sail,— And lo, in the East! Will the East unveil? The East is unveiled, the East hath confessed A flush: ’t is dead; ’t is alive: ’t is dead, ere the West Was aware of it: nay, ’t is abiding, ’t is unwithdrawn:   Have a care, sweet Heaven! ’T is Dawn.   Now a dream of a flame through that dream of a flush is uprolled:     To the zenith ascending, a dome of undazzling gold Is builded, in shape as a bee-hive, from out of the sea: The hive is of gold undazzling, but oh, the Bee,     The star-fed Bee, the build-fire Bee,     Of dazzling gold is the great Sun-Bee That shall flash from the hive-hole over the sea.       Yet now the dewdrop, now the morning gray,     Shall live their little lucid sober day     Ere with the sun their souls exhale away. Now in each pettiest personal sphere of dew The summed moon shines complete as in the blue Big dewdrop of all heaven: with these lit shrines O’ersilvered to the farthest sea-confines, The sacramental marsh one pious plain Of worship lies. Peace to the ante-reign Of Mary Morning, blissful mother mild, Minded of nought but peace, and of a child,   Not slower than Majesty moves, for a mean and measure Of motion,—not faster than dateless Olympian leisure Might pace with unblown ample garments from pleasure to pleasure,— The wave-serrate sea-rim sinks unjarring, unreeling,     Forever revealing, revealing, revealing, Edgewise, bladewise, halfwise, wholewise,—’t is done!             Good-morrow, Lord Sun! With several voice, with ascription one, The woods and the marsh and the sea and my soul Unto thee, whence the glittering stream of all morrows doth roll, Cry good and past good and most heavenly morrow, Lord Sun.   O Artisan born in the purple,—Workman Heat,— Parter of passionate atoms that travail to meet And be mixed in the death-cold oneness,—innermost Guest At the marriage of elements,—fellow of publicans,—blest King in the blouse of flame, that loiterest o’er The idle skies yet laborest past evermore,— Thou, in the fine forge-thunder, thou, in the beat Of the heart of a man, thou Motive,—Laborer Heat: Yea, Artist, thou, of whose art you sea’s all news, With his inshore greens and manifold mid-sea blues, Pearl-glint, shell-tint, ancientest, perfectest hues Ever shaming the maidens,—lily and rose Confess thee, and each mild flame that glows In the clarified virginal bosoms of stones that shine,             It is thine, it is thine:   Thou chemist of storms, whether driving the winds a-swirl Or a-flicker the subtiler essences polar that whirl In the magnet earth,—yea, thou with a storm for a heart, Rent with debate, many-spotted with question, part From part oft sundered, yet ever a globëd light, Yet ever the artist, ever more large and bright Than the eye of a man may avail of:—manifold One, I must pass from the face, I must pass from the face of the Sun: Old Want is awake and agog, every wrinkle a-frown; The worker must pass to his work in the terrible town: But I fear not, nay, and I fear not the thing to be done;     I am strong with the strength of my lord the Sun: How dark, how dark soever the race that must needs be run,             I am lit with the Sun.   Oh, never the mast-high run of the seas     Of traffic shall hide thee, Never the hell-colored smoke of the factories             Hide thee, Never the reek of the time’s fen-politics             Hide thee, And ever my heart through the night shall with knowledge abide thee, And ever by day shall my spirit, as one that bath tried thee, Labor, at leisure, in art,—till yonder beside thee     My soul shall float, friend Sun,         The day being done.

The Harlequin of Dreams

SWIFT, through some trap mine eyes have never found, Dim-panelled in the painted scene of Sleep, Thou, giant Harlequin of Dreams, dost leap Upon my spirit’s stage. Then Sight and Sound, Then Space and Time, then Language, Mete and Bound, And all familiar Forms that firmly keep Man’s reason in the road, change faces, peep Betwixt the legs and mock the daily round. Yet thou canst more than mock: sometimes my tears At midnight break through bounden lids—a sign Thou hast a heart; and oft thy little leaven Of dream-taught wisdom works me bettered years. In one night witch, saint, trickster, fool divine, I think thou ’rt Jester at the Court of Heaven!

The Marshes of Glynn

GLOOMS of the live-oaks, beautiful-braided and woven With intricate shades of the vines that myriad-cloven Clamber the forks of the multiform boughs,—         Emerald twilights,—         Virginal shy lights, Wrought of the leaves to allure to the whisper of vows, When lovers pace timidly down through the green colonnades Of the dim sweet woods, of the dear dark woods,   Of the heavenly woods and glades, That run to the radiant marginal sand-beach within     The wide sea-marshes of Glynn;—   Beautiful glooms, soft dusks in the noon day fire,— Wildwood privacies, closets of lone desire, Chamber from chamber parted with wavering arras of leaves,— Cells for the passionate pleasure of prayer to the soul that grieves, Pure with a sense of the passing of saints through the wood, Cool for the dutiful weighing of ill with good;—   O braided dusks of the oak and woven shades of the vine, While the riotous noonday sun of the June-day long did shine Ye held me fast in your heart and I held you fast in mine; But now when the noon is no more, and riot is rest, And the sun is a-wait at the ponderous gate of the West, And the slant yellow beam down the wood-aisle doth seem Like a lane into heaven that leads from a dream,— Ay, now, when my soul all day hath drunken the soul of the oak, And my heart is at ease from men, and the wearisome sound of the stroke   Of the scythe of time and the trowel of trade is low,   And belief overmasters doubt, and I know that I know,   And my spirit is grown to a lordly great compass within, That the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes of Glynn Will work me no fear like the fear they have wrought me of yore When length was fatigue, and when breadth was but bitterness sore, And when terror and shrinking and dreary unnamable pain Drew over me out of the merciless miles of the plain,—   Oh, now, unafraid, I am fain to face   The vast sweet visage of space. To the edge of the wood I am drawn, I am drawn, Where the gray beach glimmering runs, as a belt of the dawn,   For a mete and a mark   To the forest-dark:—             So: Affable live-oak, leaning low,— Thus—with your favor—soft, with a reverent hand, (Not lightly touching your person, Lord of the land!) Bending your beauty aside, with a step I stand On the firm-packed sand,             Free By a world of marsh that borders a world of sea.   Sinuous southward and sinuous northward the shimmering band   Of the sand-beach fastens the fringe of the marsh to the folds of the land. Inward and outward to northward and southward the beach-lines linger and curl As a silver-wrought garment that clings to and follows the firm sweet limbs of a girl. Vanishing, swerving, evermore curving again into sight, Softly the sand-beach wavers away to a dim gray looping of light. And what if behind me to westward the wall of the woods stands high? The world lies east: how ample, the marsh and the sea and the sky! A league and a league of marsh-grass, waist-high, broad in the blade, Green, and all of a height, and unflecked with a light or a shade, Stretch leisurely off, in a pleasant plain, To the terminal blue of the main.   Oh, what is abroad in the marsh and the terminal sea?   Somehow my soul seems suddenly free From the weighing of fate and the sad discussion of sin, By the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes of Glynn.   Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-withholding and free Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the sea! Tolerant plains, that suffer the sea and the rains and the sun, Ye spread and span like the catholic man who hath mightily won God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain.   As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod, Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God: I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies In the freedom that fills all the space ’twixt the marsh and the skies: By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends in the sod I will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of God: Oh, like to the greatness of God is the greatness within The range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of Glynn.   And the sea lends large, as the marsh: lo, out of his plenty the sea Pours fast: full soon the time of the flood-tide must be: Look how the grace of the sea doth go About and about through the intricate channels that flow         Here and there,             Everywhere, Till his waters have flooded the uttermost creeks and the low-lying lanes, And the marsh is meshed with a million veins, That like as with rosy and silvery essences flow   In the rose-and-silver evening glow.             Farewell, my lord Sun! The creeks overflow: a thousand rivulets run ’Twixt the roots of the sod; the blades of the marsh-grass stir; Passeth a hurrying sound of wings that westward whirr; Passeth, and all is still; and the currents cease to run; And the sea and the marsh are one.   How still the plains of the waters be! The tide is in his ecstasy; The tide is at his highest height;             And it is night.   And now from the Vast of the Lord will the waters of sleep Roll in on the souls of men, But who will reveal to our waking ken The forms that swim and the shapes that creep             Under the waters of sleep? And I would I could know what swimmeth below when the tide comes in On the length and the breadth of the marvellous marshes of Glynn.

The Mocking Bird

SUPERB and sole, upon a plumëd spray That o’er the general leafage boldly grew, He summ’d the woods in song; or typic drew The watch of hungry hawks, the lone dismay Of languid doves when long their lovers stray, And all birds’ passion-plays that sprinkle dew At morn in brake or bosky avenue. Whate’er birds did or dreamed, this bird could say. Then down he shot, bounced airily along The sward, twitched in a grasshopper, made song Midflight, perched, prinked, and to his art again. Sweet Science, this large riddle read me plain: How may the death of that dull insect be The life of you trim Shakespeare on the tree?

The Stirrup-Cup

DEATH, thou ’rt a cordial old and rare: Look how compounded, with what care Time got his wrinkles reaping thee Sweet herbs from all antiquity.   David to thy distillage went, Keats, and Gotama excellent, Omar Khayyám, and Chaucer bright, And Shakespeare for a king-delight.   Then, Time, let not a drop be spilt: Hand me the cup whene’er thou wilt; ’T is thy rich stirrup-cup to me; I ’ll drink it down right smilingly.

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