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But inside her, there is always velvet, velvet with its give and yield, the kind you find at a pet store, a bin full of long ears and noses busy snuffing up nerves among the cedar chips and their eyes opening wide as if rabbits couldn't know what softness brings, as if they'd never know the smell of something long stored away now brought into light, and now too her mother with a camera pointing at her, red child on the lap of the Easter rabbit, softness of the body hiding inside the costume, eyes glinting from the wide holes in the mask, not a single sobbing breath of wind down the trail of mesquite and broom foot-printing the hills of some rancher's land. The bird dog lifts his ears to the sound of velvet, the girl listens to the drawn cries of a crow, her father walks with the silence of the shotgun, waiting for the pointer to find scent, the rabbit at the end of it blinking, its wide eyes shrinking from the scuffle of their feet like velvet settling, laid over lines, drying across the ceiling of an uncle's garage where they talk inside the smell of salted skin. At least three dollars for each good pelt he says, and they scream like children when, sleeves rolled over his forearms, he brings the club down on their heads, saving their feet for cheap key chains, for luck that softness doesn't seem to have inside of cages, chicken wire, tubes of water, and sometimes boys who try kicking the cage around to see what happens to velvet tumbling. And, in the after quiet, she bites the hands reaching toward her, so they stone her, they open her belly and pull some things out, open the pink albino eye and groan at the fluid inside. Then they bury the carcass without thinking first of washing their sticky hands in the sink before eating dinner, before setting the table, in the still softness of her beige room, she sits on the carpet picking at the velveteen of Bunny's stuffed neck, the rabbit's eyes dull with scratches, eyes left behind on her bed at night when she stands in the hall, hearing her father breathe in his room in the darkness, on the futon, kicking off the sheets. Awake from a fluid dream of a woman's eyes staring from behind a gag, her white skin settling in fat pools around her, naked, bald. And a man's voice said,this is your rabbit, so she woke to this dream inside her, with his teeth wrapped in her hair, and his hands inside her thighs where he fingered her coldly. But it has always been like this—wild, insidious, and commanding because she gives to it, fascinated by it and caught by it, as velvet only listens and is quiet.

The missile to launch a missile was almost a secret. Two male Ph.D.’s were picked and primed to fill it and one hundred carefully counted insects, three almost new snakes, coiled in a cube, exactly fifty fish creatures in tanks, the necessary files, twenty bars of food, ten brief cures, special locks, fourteen white rats, fourteen black rats, a pouch of dirt, were all stuffed aboard before the thing blasted from the desert. And the missile that launched a missile launched out into a marvelous scientific balloon that rolled and bobbed about in the mists of Venus; suddenly sank like a sweet fat grape, oozing past gravity to snuggle down upon the triumphant shape of space. The two men signaled Earth, telling their Continent V ENUS IS G REEN . And parades assembled, the loud earth tellers spent all fifteen minutes on it, even shortened their weather forecast. But rival nations, angry and oily, fired up their best atom blast and the last Earth war was done. The place became crater on each side, sank down to its first skull, shedding forests, oceans, dried bones and neons, as it fell through time like a forgotten pitted stone. These two men walked hopefully out onto their hot empty planet with machines, rats, tanks, boxes, insects and the one odd set of three almost new snakes, to make the tests they were meant to do. But on the seventh month the cages grew small, too small to interview, too tight to bear. The rats were gray and heavy things where they ran against wire and the snakes built eggs on eggs and even the fish began to bump in water as they spawned on every side of each other’s swim. And the men grew listless; they opened the pouch of dirt, undid each locked bin and let every creature loose to live on Venus, or anyhow hide under rocks. Bees swarmed the air, letting a warm pollen slide from their wings and onto the grass. The fish flapped to a small pool and the rats untangled their hairs and humped over the vestibule of the cramped balloon. Trees sprang from lichen, the rock became a park, where, even at star-time, things brushed; even in the planet’s new dark crotch, that air snag where snakes coupled and rats rubbed in disrepair, it grew quick and noisy with a kind of wonder in the lonely air. Old and withered, two Ph.D.’s from Earth hobbled slowly back to their empty balloon, crying alone for sense, for the troubling lack of something they ought to do, while countless fish slapped and the waters grew, green came taller and the happy rats sped through integrated forests, barking like dogs at the top of the sky. But the two men, that last morning of death, before the first of light, watched the land of Venus, its sweetless shore, and thought, “This is the end. This is the last of a man like me.” Until they saw, over the mists of Venus, two fish creatures stop on spangled legs and crawl from the belly of the sea. And from the planet park they heard the new fruit drop.

The towels rot and disgust me on this damp peninsula where they invented mist and drug abuse and taught the light to fade, where my top-quality and rock-bottom heart cried because I'll never get to kiss your famous knees again in a room made vague by throwing a scarf over a lamp. Things get pretty radical in the dark: the sailboats on the inlet sail away; the provinces of actuality crawl on the sea; the dusk now tenderly ministers to the fallen parking lots— the sunset instananeous on the fenders, memory and peace . . . the grip of chaos . . .

(White River Junction, Vermont) Bringing “only what is needed—essential toilet articles” in a paper bag, dressed as for dying, one sees the dying plainly. These are the homecomings of Agamemnon, the odysseys to the underside of the web that weaves and unweaves while the suitors gorge upon plenty and the languishing sons at home unwish their warring fathers with strong electric fingers. The fathers are failing. In the Hospital Exchange, one sees the dying plainly: color televisions, beach towels, automatic razors— the hardware of the affluent society marked down to cost, to match the negative afflatus of the ailing, the bandages and badges of their status. Under the sandbags, rubber hoses, pipettes, bed-clamps, tax-exempt, amenable as rabbits, the unenlisted men are bleeding through their noses in a perimeter of ramps and apparatus. In that prosthetic world, the Solarium lights up a junk-pile of used parts: the hip that caught a ricochet of shrapnel; tattoos in curing meats; scars like fizzled fuses; canceled postage stamps; automated claws in candy; the Laser’s edge; and barium. The nurses pass like mowers, dressing and undressing in the razor-sharp incisions and the flowering phosphorescence. The smell of rubbing alcohol rises on desertions and deprivals and divorces. It is incorruptible. A wheelchair aims its hospital pajamas like a gun-emplacement. The amputee is swinging in his aviary. His fingers walk the bird-bars. There is singing from the ward room—a buzzing of transistors like blueflies in a urinal. War over war, the expendables of Metz and Chateau-Thierry, the guerillas of Bien Hoa and Korea, the draftees, the Reserves, the re-enlisters, open a common wavelength. The catatonic sons are revving up their combos in the era of the angry adolescent. Their cry is electronic. Their thumbs are armed with picks. The acid-rock guitarist in metal studs and chevrons, bombed with magnesium, mourns like a country yokel, and the innocents are slaughtered. On the terrace, there are juices and bananas. The convalescent listens to his heartbeat. The chaplain and his non-combative daughter smile by the clubbed plants on the portico. “They shall overcome.”

the woman whose face has just finished breaking with a joy so infinite and heavy that it might be grief has won a car on a giveaway show, for her family, for an expanse of souls that washes from a million picture tubes onto the blank reaches of the air. meanwhile, the screams are packing the air to a hardness: in the studio the audience will no longer move, will be caught slowly, like ancient, staring mammals, figuring out the double-cross within the terrible progress of a glacier. here, i am suddenly towering with loneliness, repeating to this woman's only face,this time, again, i have not won.

Since Persia fell at Marathon, The yellow years have gathered fast: Long centuries have come and gone. And yet (they say) the place will don A phantom fury of the past, Since Persia fell at Marathon; And as of old, when Helicon Trembled and swayed with rapture vast (Long centuries have come and gone), This ancient plain, when night comes on, Shakes to a ghostly battle-blast, Since Persia fell at Marathon. But into soundless Acheron The glory of Greek shame was cast: Long centuries have come and gone, The suns of Hellas have all shone, The first has fallen to the last:— Since Persia fell at Marathon, Long centuries have come and gone.

1. The contours of the girl blur. She is both becoming and fact. A rancor defines the split. Rip into. Flatten the depth of voice. That urgent flex peels off the steady layers. A girl, I say. Girl. Gu-erl. Quell. He. He—unbuttons before emergence. As in yard rake pressed to roof of mouth. A fragrant rod. Suh—sssuh—ssuck. Insistence. Lips go lisp. Our brutish boy. Having not ever been whole. Or simple. Or young. Just split and open. Not of it. For it. Born a cog of hard wheel at five, six, seven . . . What to know of what has never been? 2. No common place would do: bar stool, front porch, sea rock. Such a room should crawl into the soul. Stretch it. Contort it. Could be the straddle of this stranger at the neck.Iam this. She does not waver. She is twenty-five. The bed is wet. As many as had done this thing before. The wound is rupture. Blood-faced. Between sailing and anchor. No, between shipwreck and burial. What does the mouth do? It does not mean no, saying no. It does not mean yes. It gurgles. It swells. It is comfort. A quick kick. Mighty, mighty.

One of us is a faucet reconciling to the temperature of indifference. This is the world: the drawer assembled by you pinches a finger before yielding. There are so many foreigners here, I said, when I first stepped onto a beach in Virginia. I had an idea of the ocean, and of who I was. I am in water now, attempting to see the ocean. We lick our wounds with the same tongue. Long accustomed to carrying a gauze for shield, the heart wraps bruises like dumplings. I see the sun through my neighbour's window, whelked in lace. Is this what we mean when we use the word "virtual"? Tulips grow even after they're cut. The ones I loved, having died without returning, crowd the heart's waiting room. To start all over again is to imagine the world is, as it is. I give up; I thought this was a poem about nation, the one she began at nineteen. The one she waits to return to: her eyes never adjusting to the colors of exile. This antechamber; this long incision called hope. Last night I crossed to the other side, unwelcome territory. I might have been sad. My broke heart. I'd been observing then, the sun's influence, subjugated by streetlights imitating moonlight. Even the sun softens, (I had thought to myself) to bring every image in view as a memory of some other place, some other text. Last night, I slept in a borrowed bed for guests I anticipated, as host to self's solitary marriage. I examined the world, thus altered. Later, standing at the precipice, I awoke. Even sleep did not take me back. And the signal—being green—I walked.

Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright, The bridal of the earth and sky; The dew shall weep thy fall to-night, For thou must die. Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye; Thy root is ever in its grave, And thou must die. Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses, A box where sweets compacted lie; My music shows ye have your closes, And all must die. Only a sweet and virtuous soul, Like season'd timber, never gives; But though the whole world turn to coal, Then chiefly lives.

P ART I I In a far country, and a distant age, Ere sprites and fays had bade farewell to earth, A boy was born of humble parentage; The stars that shone upon his lonely birth Did seem to promise sovereignty and fame— Yet no tradition hath preserved his name. II ’T is said that on the night when he was born, A beauteous shape swept slowly through the room; Its eyes broke on the infant like a morn, And his cheek brightened like a rose in bloom; But as it passed away there followed after A sigh of pain, and sounds of elvish laughter. III And so his parents deemed him to be blest Beyond the lot of mortals; they were poor As the most timid bird that stored its nest With the stray gleanings at their cottage-door: Yet they contrived to rear their little dove, And he repaid them with the tenderest love. IV The child was very beautiful in sooth, And as he waxed in years grew lovelier still; On his fair brow the aureole of truth Beamed, and the purest maidens, with a thrill, Looked in his eyes, and from their heaven of blue Saw thoughts like sinless Angels peering through. V Need there was none of censure or of praise To mould him to the kind parental hand; Yet there was ever something in his ways, Which those about him could not understand; A self-withdrawn and independent bliss, Beside the father’s love, the mother’s kiss. VI For oft, when he believed himself alone, They caught brief snatches of mysterious rhymes, Which he would murmur in an undertone, Like a pleased bee’s in summer; and at times A strange far look would come into his eyes, As if he saw a vision in the skies. VII And he upon a simple leaf would pore As if its very texture unto him Had some deep meaning; sometimes by the door, From noon until a summer-day grew dim, He lay and watched the clouds; and to his thought Night with her stars but fitful slumbers brought. VIII In the long hours of twilight, when the breeze Talked in low tones along the woodland rills, Or the loud North its stormy minstrelsies Blent with wild noises from the distant hills, The boy—his rosy hand against his ear Curved like a sea-shell—hushed as some rapt seer, IX Followed the sounds, and ever and again, As the wind came, and went, in storm or play, He seemed to hearken as to some far strain Of mingled voices calling him away; And they who watched him held their breath to trace The still and fixed attention in his face. X Once, on a cold and loud-voiced winter night, The three were seated by their cottage-fire— The mother watching by its flickering light The wakeful urchin, and the dozing sire; There was a brief, quick motion like a bird’s, And the boy’s thought thus rippled into words: XI “O mother! thou hast taught me many things, But none I think more beautiful than speech— A nobler power than even those broad wings I used to pray for, when I longed to reach That distant peak which on our vale looks down, And wears the star of evening for a crown. XII “But, mother, while our human words are rife To us with meaning, other sounds there be Which seem, and are, the language of a life Around, yet unlike ours: winds talk; the sea Murmurs articulately, and the sky Listens, and answers, though inaudibly. XIII “By stream and spring, in glades and woodlands lone, Beside our very cot, I’ve gathered flowers Inscribed with signs and characters unknown; But the frail scrolls still baffle all my powers: What is this language and where is the key That opes its weird and wondrous mystery? XIV “The forests know it, and the mountains know, And it is written in the sunset’s dyes; A revelation to the world below Is daily going on before our eyes; And, but for sinful thoughts, I do not doubt That we could spell the thrilling secret out. XV “O mother! somewhere on this lovely earth I lived, and understood that mystic tongue, But, for some reason, to my second birth Only the dullest memories have clung, Like that fair tree that even while blossoming Keeps the dead berries of a former spring. XVI “Who shall put life in these?—my nightly dreams Some teacher of supernal powers foretell; A fair and stately shape appears, which seems Bright with all truth; and once, in a dark dell Within the forest, unto me there came A voice that must be hers, which called my name.” XVII Puzzled and frightened, wondering more and more, The mother heard, but did not comprehend; “So early dallying with forbidden lore! Oh, what will chance, and wherein will it end? My child! my child!” she caught him to her breast, “Oh, let me kiss these wildering thoughts to rest! XVIII “They cannot come from God, who freely gives All that we need to have, or ought to know; Beware, my son! some evil influence strives To grieve thy parents, and to work thee woe; Alas! the vision I misunderstood! It could not be an angel fair and good.” XIX And then, in low and tremulous tones, she told The story of his birth-night; the boy’s eyes, As the wild tale went on, were bright and bold, With a weird look that did not seem surprise: “Perhaps,” he said, “this lady and her elves Will one day come, and take me to themselves.” XX “And would’st thou leave us?” “Dearest mother, no! Hush! I will check these thoughts that give thee pain; Or, if they flow, as they perchance must flow, At least I will not utter them again; Hark! didst thou hear a voice like many streams? Mother! it is the spirit of my dreams!” XXI Thenceforth, whatever impulse stirred below, In the deep heart beneath that childish breast, Those lips were sealed, and though the eye would glow, Yet the brow wore an air of perfect rest; Cheerful, content, with calm though strong control, He shut the temple-portals of his soul. XXII And when too restlessly the mighty throng Of fancies woke within his teeming mind, All silently they formed in glorious song, And floated off unheard, and undivined, Perchance not lost—with many a voiceless prayer They reached the sky, and found some record there. XXIII Softly and swiftly sped the quiet days; The thoughtful boy has blossomed into youth, And still no maiden would have feared his gaze, And still his brow was noble with the truth: Yet though he masks the pain with pious art There burns a restless fever in his heart. XXIV A childish dream is now a deathless need Which drives him to far hills and distant wilds; The solemn faith and fervor of his creed Bold as a martyr’s, simple as a child’s; The eagle knew him as she knew the blast, And the deer did not flee him as he passed. XXV But gentle even in his wildest mood, Always, and most, he loved the bluest weather, And in some soft and sunny solitude Couched like a milder sunshine on the heather, He communed with the winds, and with the birds, As if they might have answered him in words. XXVI Deep buried in the forest was a nook, Remote and quiet as its quiet skies; He knew it, sought it, loved it as a book Full of his own sweet thoughts and memories; Dark oaks and fluted chestnuts gathering round, Pillared and greenly domed a sloping mound, XXVII Whereof—white, purple, azure, golden, red, Confused like hues of sunset—the wild flowers Wove a rich dais; through crosslights overhead Glanced the clear sunshine, fell the fruitful showers, And here the shyest bird would fold her wings; Here fled the fairest and the gentlest things. XXVIII Thither, one night of mist and moonlight, came The youth, with nothing deeper in his thoughts Than to behold beneath the silver flame New aspects of his fair and favorite spot; A single ray attained the ground, and shed Just light enough to guide the wanderer’s tread. XXIX And high and hushed arose the stately trees, Yet shut within themselves, like dungeons, where Lay fettered all the secrets of the breeze; Silent, but not as slumbering, all things there Wore to the youth’s aroused imagination An air of deep and solemn expectation. XXX “Hath Heaven,” the youth exclaimed, “a sweeter spot, Or Earth another like it?—yet even here The old mystery dwells! and though I read it not, Here most I hope—it is, or seems so near; So many hints come to me, but, alas! I cannot grasp the shadows as they pass. XXXI “Here, from the very turf beneath me, I Catch, but just catch, I know not what faint sound, And darkly guess that from yon silent sky Float starry emanations to the ground; These ears are deaf, these human eyes are blind, I want a purer heart, a subtler mind. XXXII “Sometimes—could it be fancy?—I have felt The presence of a spirit who might speak; As down in lowly reverence I knelt, Its very breath has kissed my burning cheek; But I in vain have hushed my own to hear A wing or whisper stir the silent air!” XXXIII Is not the breeze articulate? Hark! Oh, hark! A distant murmur, like a voice of floods; And onward sweeping slowly through the dark, Bursts like a call the night-wind from the woods! Low bow the flowers, the trees fling loose their dreams, And through the waving roof a fresher moonlight streams. XXXIV “Mortal!”—the word crept slowly round the place As if that wind had breathed it! From no star Streams that soft lustre on the dreamer’s face. Again a hushing calm! while faint and far The breeze goes calling onward through the night. Dear God! what vision chains that wide-strained sight? XXXV Over the grass and flowers, and up the slope Glides a white cloud of mist, self-moved and slow, That, pausing at the hillock’s moonlit cope, Swayed like a flame of silver; from below The breathless youth with beating heart beholds A mystic motion in its argent folds. XXXVI Yet his young soul is bold, and hope grows warm, As flashing through that cloud of shadowy crape, With sweep of robes, and then a gleaming arm, Slowly developing, at last took shape A face and form unutterably bright, That cast a golden glamour on the night. XXXVII But for the glory round it it would seem Almost a mortal maiden; and the boy, Unto whom love was yet an innocent dream, Shivered and crimsoned with an unknown joy; As to the young Spring bounds the passionate South, He could have clasped and kissed her mouth to mouth. XXXVIII Yet something checked, that was and was not dread, Till in a low sweet voice the maiden spake; She was the Fairy of his dreams, she said, And loved him simply for his human sake; And that in heaven, wherefrom she took her birth, They called her Poesy, the angel of the earth. XXXIX “And ever since that immemorial hour, When the glad morning-stars together sung, My task hath been, beneath a mightier Power, To keep the world forever fresh and young; I give it not its fruitage and its green, But clothe it with a glory all unseen. XL “I sow the germ which buds in human art, And, with my sister, Science, I explore With light the dark recesses of the heart, And nerve the will, and teach the wish to soar; I touch with grace the body’s meanest clay, While noble souls are nobler for my sway. XLI “Before my power the kings of earth have bowed; I am the voice of Freedom, and the sword Leaps from its scabbard when I call aloud; Wherever life in sacrifice is poured, Wherever martyrs die or patriots bleed, I weave the chaplet and award the meed. XLII “Where Passion stoops, or strays, is cold, or dead, I lift from error, or to action thrill! Or if it rage too madly in its bed, The tempest hushes at my ‘peace! be still!’ I know how far its tides should sink or swell, And they obey my sceptre and my spell. XLIII “All lovely things, and gentle—the sweet laugh Of children, Girlhood’s kiss, and Friendship’s clasp, The boy that sporteth with the old man’s staff, The baby, and the breast its fingers grasp— All that exalts the grounds of happiness, All griefs that hallow, and all joys that bless, XLIV “To me are sacred; at my holy shrine Love breathes its latest dreams, its earliest hints; I turn life’s tasteless waters into wine, And flush them through and through with purple tints. Wherever Earth is fair, and Heaven looks down, I rear my altars, and I wear my crown. XLV “I am the unseen spirit thou hast sought, I woke those shadowy questionings that vex Thy young mind, lost in its own cloud of thought, And rouse the soul they trouble and perplex; I filled thy days with visions, and thy nights Blessed with all sweetest sounds and fairy sights. XLVI “Not here, not in this world, may I disclose The mysteries in which this life is hearsed; Some doubts there be that, with some earthly woes, By Death alone shall wholly be dispersed; Yet on those very doubts from this low sod Thy soul shall pass beyond the stars to God. XLVII “And so to knowledge, climbing grade by grade, Thou shalt attain whatever mortals can, And what thou may’st discover by my aid Thou shalt translate unto thy brother man; And men shall bless the power that flings a ray Into their night from thy diviner day. XLVIII “For from thy lofty height, thy words shall fall Upon their spirits, like bright cataracts That front a sunrise; thou shalt hear them call Amid their endless waste of arid facts, As wearily they plod their way along, Upon the rhythmic zephyrs of thy song. XLIX “All this is in thy reach, but much depends Upon thyself—thy future I await; I give the genius, point the proper ends, But the true bard is his own only Fate; Into thy soul my soul have I infused; Take care thy lofty powers be wisely used. L “The Poet owes a high and holy debt, Which, if he feel, he craves not to be heard For the poor boon of praise, or place, nor yet Does the mere joy of song, as with the bird Of many voices, prompt the choral lay That cheers that gentle pilgrim on his way. LI “Nor may he always sweep the passionate lyre, Which is his heart, only for such relief As an impatient spirit may desire, Lest, from the grave which hides a private grief, The spells of song call up some pallid wraith To blast or ban a mortal hope or faith. LII “Yet over his deep soul, with all its crowd Of varying hopes and fears, he still must brood; As from its azure height a tranquil cloud Watches its own bright changes in the flood; Self-reading, not self-loving—they are twain— And sounding, while he mourns, the depths of pain. LIII “Thus shall his songs attain the common breast, Dyed in his own life’s blood, the sign and seal, Even as the thorns which are the martyr’s crest, That do attest his office, and appeal Unto the universal human heart In sanction of his mission and his art. LIV “Much yet remains unsaid—pure must he be; Oh, blessed are the pure! for they shall hear Where others hear not, see where others see With a dazed vision: who have drawn most near My shrine, have ever brought a spirit cased And mailed in a body clean and chaste. LV “The Poet to the whole wide world belongs, Even as the teacher is the child’s—I said No selfish aim should ever mar his songs, But self wears many guises; men may wed Self in another, and the soul may be Self to its centre, all unconsciously. LVI “And therefore must the Poet watch, lest he, In the dark struggle of this life, should take Stains which he might not notice; he must flee Falsehood, however winsome, and forsake All for the Truth, assured that Truth alone Is Beauty, and can make him all my own. LVII “And he must be as armed warrior strong, And he must be as gentle as a girl, And he must front, and sometimes suffer wrong, With brow unbent, and lip untaught to curl; For wrath, and scorn, and pride, however just, Fill the clear spirit’s eyes with earthly dust.” * The story came to me—it recks not whence— In fragments. Oh! if I could tell it all, If human speech indeed could tell it all, ’T were not a whit less wondrous, than if I Should find, untouched in leaf and stem, and bright As when it bloomed three thousand years ago On some Idalian slope, a perfect rose. Alas! a leaf or two, and they perchance Scarce worth the hiving, one or two dead leaves Are the sole harvest of a summer’s toil. There was a moment, ne’er to be recalled, When to the Poet’s hope within my heart, They wore a tint like life’s, but in my hand, I know not why, they withered. I have heard Somewhere, of some dead monarch, from the tomb Where he had slept a century and more, Brought forth, that when the coffin was laid bare, Albeit the body in its mouldering robes Was fleshless, yet one feature still remained Perfect, or perfect seemed at least; the eyes Gleamed for a second on the startled crowd, And then went out in ashes. Even thus The story, when I drew it from the grave Where it had lain so long, did seem, I thought, Not wholly lifeless; but even while I gazed To fix its features on my heart, and called The world to wonder with me, lo! it proved I looked upon a corpse! What further fell In that lone forest nook, how much was taught, How much was only hinted, what the youth Promised, if promise were required, to do Or strive for, what the gifts he bore away— Or added powers or blessings—how at last, The vision ended and he sought his home, How lived there, and how long, and when he passed Into the busy world to seek his fate, I know not, and if any ever knew, The tale hath perished from the earth; for here The slender thread on which my song is strung Breaks off, and many after-years of life Are lost to sight, the life to reappear Only toward its close—as of a dream We catch the end, and opening, but forget That which had joined them in the dreaming brain; Or as a mountain with a belt of mist That shows his base, and far above, a peak With a blue plume of pines. But turn the page And read the only hints that yet remain. P ART II I It is not winter yet, but that sweet time In autumn when the first cool days are past; A week ago, the leaves were hoar with rime, And some have dropped before the North wind’s blast; But the mild hours are back, and at mid-noon, The day hath all the genial warmth of June. II What slender form lies stretched along the mound? Can it be his, the Wanderer’s, with that brow Gray in its prime, those eyes that wander round Listlessly, with a jaded glance that now Seems to see nothing where it rests, and then Pores on each trivial object in its ken? III See how a gentle maid’s wan fingers clasp The last fond love-notes of some faithless hand; Thus with a transient interest, his weak grasp Holds a few leaves as when of old he scanned The meaning in their gold and crimson streaks, But the sweet dream has vanished! hush! he speaks! IV “Once more, once more, after long pain and toil, And yet not long, if I should count by years, I breathe my native air, and tread the soil I trod in childhood; if I shed no tears, No happy tears, ’t is that their fount is dry, And joy that cannot weep must sigh, must sigh. V “These leaves, my boyish books in days of yore, When, as the weeks sped by, I seemed to stand Ever upon the brink of some wild lore, These leaves shall make my bed, and—for the hand Of God is on me, chilling brain and breath— I shall not ask a softer couch in death. VI “Here was it that I saw, or dreamed I saw, I know not which, that shape of love and light. Spirit of Song! have I not owned thy law? Have I not taught, or striven to teach the right, And kept my heart as clean, my life as sweet, As mortals may, when mortals mortals meet? VII “Thou know’st how I went forth, my youthful breast On fire with thee, amid the paths of men; Once in my wanderings, my lone footsteps pressed A mountain forest; in a sombre glen, Down which its thunderous boom a cataract flung, A little bird, unheeded, built and sung. VIII “So fell my voice amid the whirl and rush Of human passions; if unto my art Sorrow hath sometimes owed a gentler gush, I know it not; if any Poet-heart Hath kindled at my songs its light divine, I know it not; no ray came back to mine. IX “Alone in crowds, once more I sought to make Of senseless things my friends; the clouds that burn Above the sunset, and the flowers that shake Their odors in the wind—these would not turn Their faces from me; far from cities, I Forgot the scornful world that passed me by. X “Yet even the world’s cold slights I might have borne, Nor fled, though sorrowing; but I shrank at last When one sweet face, too sweet, I thought, for scorn, Looked scornfully upon me; then I passed From all that youth had dreamed or manhood planned, Into the self that none would understand. XI “She was—I never wronged her womanhood By crowning it with praises not her own— She was all earth’s, and earth’s, too, in that mood When she brings forth her fairest; I atone Now, in this fading brow and failing frame, That such a soul such soul as mine could tame. XII “Clay to its kindred clay! I loved in sooth Too deeply and too purely to be blest; With something more of lust and less of truth She would have sunk all blushes on my breast, And—but I must not blame her—in my ear Death whispers! and the end, thank God! draws near!” XIII Hist! on the perfect silence of the place Comes and dies off a sound like far-off rain With voices mingled; on the Poet’s face A shadow, where no shadow should have lain, Falls the next moment: nothing meets his sight, Yet something moves betwixt him and the light. XIV And a voice murmurs, “Wonder not, but hear! Me to behold again thou need’st not seek; Yet by the dim-felt influence on the air, And by the mystic shadow on thy cheek, Know, though thou may’st not touch with fleshly hands, The genius of thy life beside thee stands! XV “Unto no fault, O weary-hearted one! Unto no fault of man’s thou ow’st thy fate; All human hearts that beat this earth upon, All human thoughts and human passions wait Upon the genuine bard, to him belong, And help in their own way the Poet’s song. XVI “How blame the world? for the world hast thou wrought? Or wast thou but as one who aims to fling The weight of some unutterable thought Down like a burden? what from questioning Too subtly thy own spirit, and to speech But half subduing themes beyond the reach XVII “Of mortal reason; what from living much In that dark world of shadows, where the soul Wanders bewildered, striving still to clutch, Yet never clutching once, a shadowy goal, Which always flies, and while it flies seems near, Thy songs were riddles hard to mortal ear. XVIII “This was the hidden selfishness that marred Thy teachings ever; this the false key-note That on such souls as might have loved thee jarred Like an unearthly language; thou did’st float On a strange water; those who stood on land Gazed, but they could not leave their beaten strand. XIX “Your elements were different, and apart— The world’s and thine—and even in those intense And watchful broodings o’er thy inmost heart, It was thy own peculiar difference That thou did’st seek; nor did’st thou care to find Aught that would bring thee nearer to thy kind. XX “Not thus the Poet, who in blood and brain Would represent his race and speak for all, Weaves the bright woof of that impassioned strain Which drapes, as if for some high festival Of pure delights—whence few of human birth May rightly be shut out—the common earth. XXI “As the same law that moulds a planet, rounds A drop of dew, so the great Poet spheres Worlds in himself; no selfish limit bounds A sympathy that folds all characters, All ranks, all passions, and all life almost In its wide circle. Like some noble host, XXII “He spreads the riches of his soul, and bids Partake who will. Age has its saws of truth, And love is for the maiden’s drooping lids, And words of passion for the earnest youth; Wisdom for all; and when it seeks relief, Tears, and their solace for the heart of grief. XXIII “Nor less on him than thee, the mysteries Within him and about him ever weigh— The meanings in the stars, and in the breeze, All the weird wonders of the common day, Truths that the merest point removes from reach, And thoughts that pause upon the brink of speech; XXIV “But on the surface of his song, these lie As shadows, not as darkness; and alway, Even though it breathe the secrets of the sky, There is a human purpose in the lay; As some tall fir that whispers to the stars Shields at its base a cotter’s lattice-bars. XXV “Even such my Poet! for thou still art mine! Thou might’st have been, and now have calmly died, A priest, and not a victim at the shrine; Alas! yet was it all thy fault? I chide, Perchance, myself within thee, and the fate To which thy power was solely consecrate. XXVI “Thy life hath not been wholly without use, Albeit that use is partly hidden now; In thy unmingled scorn of any truce With this world’s specious falsehoods, often thou Hast uttered, through some all unworldly song, Truths that for man might else have slumbered long. XXVII “And these not always vainly on the crowd Have fallen; some are cherished now, and some, In mystic phrases wrapped as in a shroud, Wait the diviner, who as yet is dumb Upon the breast of God—the gate of birth Closed on a dreamless ignorance of earth. XXVIII “And therefore, though thy name shall pass away, Even as a cloud that hath wept all its showers, Yet as that cloud shall live again one day In the glad grass, and in the happy flowers, So in thy thoughts, though clothed in sweeter rhymes, Thy life shall bear its flowers in future times.”