WHEN descends on the Atlantic
The gigantic
Storm-wind of the equinox,
Landward in his wrath he scourges
The toiling surges,
Laden with sea-weed from the rocks :
From Bermuda's reefs; from edges
Of sunken ledges,
In some far-off, bright Azore;
From Bahama, and the dashing,
Silver-flashing
Surges of San Salvador;
From the tumbling surf, that buries
The Orkneyan skerries,
Answering the hoarse Hebrides;
And from wrecks of ships, and drifting
Spars, uplifting
On the desolate, rainy seas;—
Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting
Currents of the restless main ;
Till in sheltered coves, and reaches
Of sandy beaches,
All have found repose again.
So when storms of wild emotion
Strike the ocean
Of the poet's soul, ere long
From each cave and rocky fastness,
In its vastness,
Floats some fragment of a song :
From the far-off isles enchanted,
Heaven has planted
With the golden fruit of Truth;
From the flashing surf, whose vision
Gleams Elysian
In the tropic clime of Youth;
From the strong Will and the Endeavour
That for ever
Wrestle with the tides of Fate;
From the wreck of Hopes far scattered,
Tempest-shattered,
Floating waste and desolate ;-
Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting
Currents of the restless heart;
Till at length in books recorded,
They, like hoarded
Household words, no more depart.
INSCRIPTION FOR AN ANTIQUE PITCHER
COME, old friend! sit down and listen!
From the pitcher placed between us,
How the waters laugh and glisten
In the head of old Silenus !
Old Silenus, bloated, drunken,
Led by his inebriate Satyrs;
On his breast his head is sunken,
Vacantly he leers and chatters.
Fauns with youthful Bacchus follow ;
Ivy crowns that brow supernal
As the forehead of Apollo,
And possessing youth eternal.
Round about him, fair Bacchantes,
Bearing cymbals, flutes, and thyrses,
Wild from Naxian groves, or Zante's
Vineyards, sing delirious verses.
Thus he won, through all the nations,
Bloodless victories, and the farmer
Bore, as trophies and oblations,
Vines for banners, ploughs for armour.
Judged by no o'er-zealous rigour,
Much this mystic throng expresses :
Bacchus was the type of vigour,
And Silenus of excesses.
These are ancient ethnic revels,
Of a faith long since forsaken;
Now the Satyrs, changed to devils,
Frighten mortals wine-o'ertaken.
Now to rivulets from the mountains
Point the rods of fortune-tellers;
Youth perpetual dwells in fountains,-
Not in flasks, and casks and cellars.
Claudius, though he sang of flagons
And huge tankards filled with Rhenish,
From that fiery blood of dragons
Never would his own replenish.
Even Redi, though he chanted
Bacchus in the Tuscan valleys,
Never drank the wine he vaunted
In his dithyrambic sallies.
Then with water fill the pitcher
Wreathed about with classic fables;
Ne'er Falernian threw a richer
Light upon Lucullus' tables.
THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS 101
Come, old friend, sit down and listen!
As it passes thus between us,
How its wavelets laugh and glisten
In the head of old Silenus!
THE OLD CLOCK ON THE STAIRS
[L'éternité est une pendule, dont le balancier dit et redit sans cesse ces deux mots seulement, dans le silence des tombeaux: "Toujours! jamais! Jamais! toujours !"— JACQUES BRIDAINE.]
SOMEWHAT back from the village street
Stands the old-fashioned country-seat;
Across its antique portico
Tall poplar trees their shadows throw,
And from its station in the hall
An ancient timepiece says to all,
"For ever-never!
Never-for ever!"
Halfway up the stairs it stands,
And points and beckons with its hands
From its case of massive oak,
Like a monk, who, under his cloak,
Crosses himself, and sighs, alas!
With sorrowful voice to all who pass,—
'For ever-never!
By day its voice is low and light;
But in the silent dead of night,
Distinct as a passing footstep's fall,
It echoes along the vacant hall,
Along the ceiling, along the floor,
And seems to say at each chamber-door,—
"For ever-never!
Through days of sorrow and of mirth,
Through days of death and days of birth,
Through every swift vicissitude
Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood,
And as if, like God, it all things saw,
It calmly repeats those words of awe,—
"For ever-never!
Never-for ever!"
In that mansion used to be
Free-hearted Hospitality;
His great fires up the chimney roared ;
The stranger feasted at his board;
But, like the skeleton at the feast,
That warning timepiece never ceased,-
"For ever-never!
Never-for ever!"
There groups of merry children played,
There youths and maidens dreaming strayed;
O precious hours! O golden prime,
And affluence of love and time!
Even as a miser counts his gold,
Those hours the ancient timepiece told,-
"For ever-never!
From that chamber, clothed in white,
The bride came forth on her wedding night:
There, in that silent room below,
The dead lay in his shroud of snow;
And in the hush that followed the prayer,
Was heard the old clock on the stair,-
"For ever-never!
Never-for ever!"
All are scattered now and fled,
Some are married, some are dead;
And when I ask, with throbs of pain,
"Ah! when shall they all meet again?"
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