What, know you not, old man (quoth he)-
Your hair is white, your face is wise--
That Love must kiss that mortal's eyes
Who hopes to see fair Arcady?
No gold can buy you entrance there ;
But beggared love may go all bare—
No wisdom won with weariness ;
But Love goes in with Folly's dress-
No fame that wit could ever win ;
But only Love may lead Love in
To Arcady, to Arcady.
Ah, woe is me, through all my days
Wisdom and wealth I both have got,
And fame, and name, and great men's praise;
But Love, ah, Love! I have it not.
There was a time, when life was new-
But far away, and half forgot
I only know her eyes were blue;
But Love-I fear I knew it not.
We did not wed, for lack of gold,
And she is dead, and I am old.
All things have come since then to me
Save Love, ah, Love! and Arcady.
Ah, then I fear we part (quoth he),
My way's for Love and Arcady.
But you, you fare alone, like me;
The grey is likewise in your hair.
And love have you to lead you there,
To Arcady, to Arcady?
Ah, not lonely do I fare;
My true companion's Memory,
With Love he fills the Spring-time air;
With Love he clothes the Winter tree.
Oh, past this poor horizon's bound
My song goes straight to one who stands--Her face all gladdening at the sound
To lead me to the Spring-green lands,
To wander with enlacing hands.
The songs within my breast that stir
Are all of her, are all of her.
My maid is dead long years (quoth he),
She waits for me in Arcady.
Oh, yon's the way to Arcady,
To Arcady, to Arcady,
Oh yon's the way to Arcady,
Where all the leaves are merry.
Judge now betwixt this woman and me,
Haro!
She leaves me bond, who found me free.
Of love and hope she hath drained me dry-
Yea, barren as a drought-struck sky;
She hath not left me tears for weeping,
Nor will my eyelids close in sleeping,
I have gathered all my life's blood up—
She hath drunk and thrown aside the cup.
Shall she not give me back my days?
I made them perfect for her praise.
There was no flower in all the brake
I found not fairer for her sake;
There was no sweet thought I did not fashion
For aid and servant to my passion.
Labour and learning worthless were,
Save that I made them gifts for her.
Shall she not give me back my nights?
Give me sweet sleep for brief delights?
Lo, in the night's wan mid I lie,
And ghosts of hours that are dead go by:
Hours of a love that died unshriven;
Of a love in change for my manhood given:
She caressed and slew my soul's white truth,
Haro!
Shall she not give me back my youth?
Tell thou me not of a great judge,
Haro!
It is He who hath my sin in grudge.
Yea, from God I appeal to thee;
God hath not part or place for me.
Thou who hast sinned, judge thou my sinning,
I have staked my life for a woman's winning!
She hath stripped me of all save remembering,
Right thou me, right thou me, Harold the King!
JAMES BERRY BENSEL.
[Born at New York City, 2d August 1856. Died there, 3d February 1886. Author of In the King's Garden (1886, D. Lothrop, Boston), and a novel, King Cophetua's Wife, (published only as a serial in the Overland Monthly, 1883). The poem given is published with the kind permission of the D. Lothrop Company.]
He lay at my side on the eastern hill,
My brave, sweet lad with the golden hair;
And gazed at the vessel which seemed to fill
The rippling breadth of the harbour there;
The black-hulled vessel from over the sea,
The white-sailed vessel that came and went,
"I am going to sail away," said he,
"To sail some day to my heart's content!
"I shall see the waving of south land palms,
The dark, fierce fronts of the icebergs tall,
And gather the grapes, as a beggar alms,
From vines on some Spanish convent's wall."
Then he drew my hand from beneath his chin,
And trailed my fingers across his lips;
"Yes, we both will sail from this town of Lynn
In one of those staunch old black-prowed ships."
So one summer evening his ship set sail
And floated off in the twilight grim;
I heaped up the vessel with blossoms pale
And wept that I could not follow him.
And I cannot say that the palms are there,
Nor icy mountains he longed to see;
But I know he sailed into lands more fair
And stronger arms, when he went from me.
O, my brave, sweet lad! how his angel eyes
Will gaze out over the ocean dim
That reaches from earth into Paradise,
Till I set my sail and follow him.
WILLIAM PRESCOTT FOSTER.
[Born at Weld, Franklin County, Maine, 20th August 1856; graduated from Bates College, 1881. The poems quoted are from the Century Magazine.
THE WIND AND THE STARS AND THE SEA.
THE wind and the stars and the sea,
What song can be sung of these three,
With words that are written in lines?
Ah, God of the stars and the sea,
The voice of the song, it should be
The voice of the wind in the pines.
The voice of the song, it should be
The voice of the coast of the sea,
Stepmother and wrecker of ships;
As deep and as hoarse as the tune
Bleak Labrador sings to the moon,
With rocky and cavernous lips.
The wind and the stars and the sea,
The Arctic night knoweth the three;
No other sojourner it hath,
Save death and these three from of old,
To whose abode throned in the cold,
No living thing knoweth the path.
There nothing to grieve or rejoice
E'er lifts up the sound of its voice-
A world ere the birth of a soul;
A thousand long ages speed by,
Still glimmer the stars in the sky,
Still whistles the gale from the pole.
Amid the unharvested plains,
The blossomless land where death reigns,
The wind sings of doom and of graves;
It sings of the days when the world
Shall crumble to sand, and be whirled
Like dust in the teeth of the waves.
Where ice-mountains thunder and crash,
Where frozen waves gurgle and dash,
Where love never came with its tears,
Like a lost world's desolate cry,
Shrills sea-wind to sea and to sky,
And only the ear of God hears.
AROUND the rocky headlands, far and near,
The wakened ocean murmured with dull tongue,
Till all the coast's mysterious caverns rung
With the waves' voice, barbaric, hoarse and drear.
Within this distant valley, with rapt ear,
I listened, thrilled, as though a spirit sung,
Or some grey god, as when the world was young
Moaned to his fellow, mad with rage or fear.
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