The Triumph of Music, and Other Lyrics

Time that grows gray: —
Grammercy! time's but sorrow
And – well away!

2

Since time hales but to sadness
And to decay,
Men needs wax fools for madness,
Laugh, curse, and pray;
Death grapples with their badness —
The Devil's to pay.

UNUTTERABLE

There is a sorrow in the wind to-night
That haunteth me; she, like a penitent,
Heaps on rent hairs the snow's thin ashes white
And moans and moans, her swaying body bent.

And Superstition gliding softly shakes
With wasted hands, that vainly grope and seek,
The rustling curtains; of each cranny makes
Cold, ghostly lips that wailing fain would speak.

MIDSUMMER

The red blood clings in her cheeks and stings
Through their tan with a fever that lightens,
And the clearness of heaven-born mountain springs
In her dark eyes dusks and brightens.
And her limbs are the limbs of an Atalanta who swings
With the youths in the sinewy games,
When the hot air sings thro' the hair it flings,
And the circus roars hoarse with their names,
As they fly to the goal that flames.

A voice as deep as wan waters that sweep
Thro' the musical reeds of a river;
A song of red reapers that bind and reap,
With the ring of curved scythes that quiver.
The note-like lisp of the pippins that leap,
Ripe-mellowed to gold, to the ground;
The murmurous sleep that the cool leaves keep
On close lips that trickle with sound.

And sweet is the beat of her glowing feet,
And her smiles as wide heavens are gracious;
And the creating might of her hands of heat
As a god's or a goddess's spacious.
The elastic veins thro' her heart that beat
Are rich with a perishless fire,
And her bosoms most sweet are the ardent seat
Of a mother that never will tire.

Wherever she fares her soft voice bears
High powers of being that thicken
In fruits, as the winds made Thessalian mares
Of old mysteriously quicken;
The apricots' juice and the juice of the pears,
The wine great grape-clusters hold,
These, these are her cares, and her wealth she declares
In her corn's vast billows of gold.

All hail to her lips, and her fruitful hips,
And her motherly thickness of tresses;
All hail to the sweetness that slips and drips
From her breasts which the light caresses.
A toiler, whose fair arm heaps and whips
Great chariots that heavily creak;
A worker, who sweats on the groaning ships.
And never grows weary or weak.

A FAIRY CAVALIER

By a mushroom in the moon,
White as bud from budded berry,
Silver buckles on my shoon, —
Ho! the moon shines merry.

Here I sit and drink my grog, —
Stocks and tunic ouphen yellow,
Skinned from belly of a frog, —
Quite a fine, fierce fellow.

My good cloak a bat's wing gave,
And a beetle's wings my bonnet,
And a moth's head grew the brave,
Gallant feather on it.

Faith! I have rich jewels rare,
Rings and carcanets all studded
Thick with spiders' eyes, that glare
Like great rubies blooded.

And I swear, sirs, by my blade,
"Sirrah, a good stabbing hanger!" —
From a hornet's stinger made, —
When I am in anger.