From Earth’s voices. Transcripts from nature, Sospitra, and other poems.

XXIV. The Hymn of Autumn.

I love the purple moors and northern hills

Where the deer leap and whirling curlews cry;

I love the breath of the west wind that thrills

The mountain-pines until mellifluously

They send a wild strain through the listening sky:

I love to watch the azure shadows creep 

Across the windless surface of the deep.

But more my joy is in the fields of grain,

In orchards fill’d with fruit, — the ruddy pear,

Peaches that through September suns have lain

And breathed the sweetness of the mellow air,

Vines heavy with the purple weight they bear,

October woodlands where the brown nuts fall

And where the redbreasts still their sweet cries call.

But most I love th’ autumnal peace that broods

When ere the equinox come windless days:

When spreads a golden glory o’er the woods,

An amber-tinted crimson-deepening blaze:

Ah! then I love to dream of Summer’s ways,

And have no fear of Winter stern and dumb,

Because I know sweet Spring again will come.

pp. 37-38

Several stanzas from Sospitra.

VII.

Within her brain each thought that passed

Within the minds of men was held;

Her gaze on each new dream was cast.

To her the mists were all dispelled;

She saw in flawless nakedness

Each truth that man would curse or bless.

***

X.

The nightingales that sang anear

Flew to her call; lithe serpents twined

Before her path; and knew no fear 

The grey-green lizards she would find

On broken marble pedestals.

Or clinging to the ruin’d walls.

XI.

She had strange dreams, she felt the throb

Of the great world-heart pulse and swing;

She heard the low continuous sob

Which universal death did wring,

Amidst the loud and jubilant strife

For ever echoing from life.

XII.

Her days were calm and sweet and still;

Her soul, knowing all things, was at peace:

O’er her no breath of mortal ill

Might blow, nor Time for her increase

The burden of his years: alone.

Death some far day might claim his own.

XIII.

Death, and that other power — Love:

But death would never come to her,

From earth around or world above.

If she ne’er turned idolater

Before the face of him whose eyes

Give man his dreams of paradise.

XIV.

And ever when she thought of this

Sospitra smiled: she saw too clear

The mockery of his transient bliss

To dread though Love should draw anear:

She saw his myriad worshippers

Tread o’er his countless sepulchres.

XV.

To her all passions were as things

Of little heed, like leaves that fall.

And which the wind takes up and flings

Aside: o’er her they had no thrall —

She knew their heights and depths, but wise,

She looked through each with cold calm eyes.

XVI.

But most she loved the mystery

Of night, when o’er the desert plain

The twilight shadows stealthily

Grew into darkness, and like rain

The soft dews cooled the ground and made

A new life thrill through each grass-blade.

XVII.

Oft then she wandered from her home,

And sought the lonely silent sands;

Beneath the stars she loved to roam

And call to her the wandering bands 

Of fleet gazelles, or by her side,

Feel the fierce tawny lion glide.

XVIII.

Or midst the ruins she would sit

And watch the solemn moonrise fill

The ancient halls, where the bats flit

Hither and thither, whistling shrill:

And dream that once again Baal’s priests

Held here their sacrificial feasts.

XIX.

These when she wished alone for peace:

But when the life-blood overbold

Thrilled in her veins and would not cease

To stir strange thoughts she scarce controll’d,

She sat within her home — and then

She looked into the souls of men:

XX.

The inmost secret of each soul

To her was bare; the hearts of all

She read as she might read a scroll:

She saw Death sweep above them all

And ever and again stoop low

And out some flickering life-flame blow.

***

XXIII.

She saw the miner in the womb

Of the dark earth: the diver slim

Deep down in the strange world of gloom

Above the cluster’d pearl-shells swim:

And ever as she heard and saw.

Her soul was fill’d with some strange awe.

***

LXIV.

And then Sospitra left, and through

The silence of the dusk she went;

She saw the same stars in the blue

Dark vault, she felt the same sweet scent

Blown from the wide free plains, saw race

The swift deer fleeing from place to place —

LXV.

The same, and yet to her how strange 

They were: they did not seem her own

Familiar sphere, or else some change

Had over them a dim veil thrown,

As evening mists rise up and steal

And make the landscape seem unreal.

LXVI.

No thoughts were hers, but many sighs:

One prayerful voice alone she heard

‘Midst all the universe; her eyes

Saw one who gazed, whose sudden word

Had lit a fire within her veins

And thrilled her with ecstatic pains.

LXVII.

Long while she wandered to and fro

In this dream-mood, then slowly turned

And sought the room where he lay low

Whom she had saved: a soft flame burned

Therein, and by its crimson light

She saw he slumbered still, death -white.

LXVIII.

And as she watched, sleep came on her;

She in a dreamless slumber lay

As if entranced; no sounds there were

In that still place, though far away

The hoarse hyenas on the plain

Howled in their savage hunger-pain.

LXIX.

And while she slept, he woke: strange awe

Filled him at first — he dimly thought

This was a goddess whom he saw

Beside him, whose pure face he sought

With questioning eyes and heart that thrilled,

But ever with a fear that chilled.

LXX.

But as the strange magnetic gaze

Of human sight can ev’n control

The mind of one whom fevers daze

And waken the sense-clouded soul.

So in her sleep Sospitra stirred,

And muttered dreamily one word –

LXXI.

The one word Love, and through her eyes

Two single tears came forth, and low

From parted lips breath’d sudden sighs:

But he who watched, with heart aglow

With sudden exultation cried,

‘No goddess she who here beside

LXXII.

‘Me dreams, no prophetess austere!

No goddess ever yet did keep

A mind a mortal swayed, no tear

A goddess ev’n in secret sleep

E’er knew, no sad sighs ever moaned

Nor even in dreams Love’s lordship owned!’

LXXIII.

And with his low exulting cry

Sospitra woke, his last words still

Like dream-sounds echoing mockingly —

Love’s lordship — how the words did fill

Her heart with a delirious bliss 

And all her old calm strength dismiss!

LXXIV.

Then as a rain-cloud comes on swift

Aërial wings across the vault

Of heav’n, and the grey rain-mists drift

Till the lost wayfarer, at fault,

Succumbs and drops — so fever drew

A mist across his mind and blew

LXXV.

Phantasmal visions o’er his sight,

Until his struggling soul sank far

In darkness, as when clouds at night

Hide the keen pulse of fieriest star:

For days he lay thus, till at last

One eve the fever ceased and passed.

LXXVI.

The ebb of strength returned and flowed

Till the new life felt sweet and strange:

While day by day Sospitra glowed

With lovelier beauty: some swift change

Had turned the seer into a woman,

Made the divine calm heart grow human.

LXXXVIII.

‘I also am of those who live

A brief swift span, who pass away

With all life’s passions fugitive;

But ah, in that miraculous day

When all Life’s complex mysteries

Were clear unto my steadfast eyes,

LXXXIX.

‘I saw, as I might read a scroll,

That death was but a change, a birth,

A rest, and that th’ enfranchised soul

Reached to a higher life on earth —

That ever upward, upward, went

The soul in its divine ascent:

XC.

‘Therefore I fear no more at all;

Therefore I do not cry again

For the old glory I let fall

From out my life: through joy, through pain

I shall reach onward, till once more

My life is as my dream of yore.’

XCI.

Slowly the long dull hours went by:

No more Sospitra far and wide

Roved o’er the plains, but listlessly

She watched the days to evenings glide.

The moon succeed the sun, the stars the moon,

Each slow dawn lead to fiery noon.

XCII.

Death came to her one lonely eve

And looked upon her pale sad face:

‘Though Love doth pass, I shall not leave

Thee ever in my silent place,’

He whispered gently through her sleep, —

Then breathed o’er her his slumber deep.

XCIII.

The wind blows there with hollow sound;

The circling seasons bring no change:

When sweet Spring’s breath along the ground

Wakens the flow’rs, no footsteps range

The fragrant ways, no song is heard

Save the shrill music of some bird.

XCIV.

The ruined columns, stone by stone,

Stand silent ‘midst the desert vast:

There the hyena howls alone,

Or swells the fierce sirocco-blast

Or the dull roar of lions, like sea

Calling to sea monotonously.

pp. 46 – 68

From Transcripts from Nature, second series.

XII. The Evening Star. (At Sea)

Aflame with silver fires that glow

With ruby-change and amethyst,

Pants, pulses thro’ this sundown mist

The even-star, and to and fro

O’er the sea-depths and weedy caves

It dances in a myriad waves,

Though still it thrills and throbs on high,

The sole flame in the purpling sky.

p. 194

XVL. A Crystal Forest.

The air is blue and keen and cold,

With snow the roads and fields are white;

But here the forest’s clothed with light

And in a shining sheath enrolled.

Each branch, each twig, each blade of grass,

Seems clad miraculously with glass:

Above the ice-bound streamlet bends

Each frozen fern with crystal ends.

p. 196

~ Sharp, William, Earth’s voices. Transcripts from nature, Sospitra, and other poems, published in 1884.

From The collected poems of Wilfred Campbell.

Ode to the Laurentian Hills.

Blue hills, elusive, far and dim,
You lift so high beyond our care;
Where earth's horizon seems to swim,
You dream in loftier air.

Here where our world wends day by day
Its sad, material round,
We know not of that purer ray
By which your heights are bound.

Ignoble thoughts, ignoble aims
Shut us from that high heaven;
Those dawning dreams, those sunset flames,
With which your peaks are riven.

You seem so lone and bleak, so vast
Beneath your dome of sky,
So patient to the heat or blast
That smites or hurtles by;

So vague, withdrawn in mists, remote,
Shut out in glories wide;
The very fleecy clouds that float,
Your dreamings seem to hide.

We in our plots of circumstance
Are prisoners of a grim despair;
While your far shining shoulders glance
From heights where all things dare.

Could we from out this cloak of glooms
That prisons and oppresses,
But reach those large, sky-bounded rooms
Of your divine recesses;

Then might we find that godlike calm,
That peace that holdeth you,
That soars like wordless prayer or psalm
To heaven with your blue.

Then might we know that silent power,
That patience, that supreme
Indifference to day and hour
Of your eternal dream.

Then might we lose, in fire and dew
Of your pellucid airs,
This diffidence to dare and do,
That grovels and despairs.

And dream once more that high desire,
That greatness dead and gone,
When earth's winged eagles eyed the fire
Your sunrise peaks upon.

That power serene, life's vasts to scan,
Beyond earth's futile tears;
Her hopes, her curse, the bliss, the ban
Of all her anguished years.

p. 49

Nature.

Nature, the dream that wraps us round.

     One comforting and saving whole;

And as the clothes to the body of man,

     The mantle of the soul.

Nature, the door that opens wide

     From this close, fetid house of ill;

That lifts from curse of street to vast

     Receding hill on hill,

Nature, the mood, now sweet of night,

     Now grand and splendid, large of day;

From vast skyline and cloudy towers,

     To stars in heaven that stray.

Nature, the hope, the truth, the gleam. 

     Beyond this bitter cark and dole;

Whose walls the infinite weft of dream.

     Whose gift is to console.

p. 93

A Wood Lyric.

Into the stilly woods I go,

Where the shades are deep and the wind-flowers blow,

And the hours are dreamy and lone and long,

And the power of silence is greater than song.

Into the stilly woods I go,

Where the leaves are cool and the wind-flowers blow.

When I go into the stilly woods,

And know all the flowers in their sweet, shy hoods,

The tender leaves in their shimmer and sheen

Of darkling shadow, diaphanous green,

In those haunted halls where my footstep falls,

Like one who enters cathedral walls,

A spirit of beauty floods over me,

As over a swimmer the waves of the sea,

That strengthens and glories, refreshens and fills,

Till all mine inner heart wakens and thrills

With a new and a glad and a sweet delight,

And a sense of the infinite out of sight,

Of the great unknown that we may not know,

But only feel with an inward glow

When into the great, glad woods we go.

O life-worn brothers, come with me

Into the wood's hushed sanctity,

Where the great, cool branches are heavy with June,

And the voices of summer are strung in tune;

Come with me, O heart out-worn,

Or spirit whom life's brute-struggles have torn,

Come, tired and broken and wounded feet,

Where the walls are greening, the floors are sweet,

The roofs are breathing and heaven's airs meet.

pp. 116-117

Walls of Green.

Walls of green where the wind and the sunlight stir,

Rippling windows of light where the sun looks through,

And spaces of day that widen and blur beyond,

Out to the haze-rimmed, purpled edge of the world.

Aisles whose pavements are etched with ghosts of moving

Leaves and phantom branches raftered above;

Wind-swayed arches rocking under the blue,

Breathing under the dim, stirred peace of the world.

Walls of green skirting the high-built heaven,

Dusky pines, poplars clapping their hands,

Arching elms holding the spaces aloft,

Under the wind-swept, argosied dome of sky.

Walls of green. Under their luminous glooms,

Dim and sweet, the fancies of summer lie,

Sylvan murmurs of sun and leafy shadow,

Music of bird and swaying of tenuous bough.

Under here the haunted heart of summer

Hides in its pensive veilings of tremulous green,

Where the sky peers through and the ruddy eye of the sun,

Letting the world, remote, and its roar go by.

Here is the realm of fancy, the poet's land,

This house of breathing leaves and summer and sun;

Where the eye is keen for beauty, the ear intuned,

And the hushed heart glad for silence and slumber and dreams.

And here, chance now and anon when the world is stilled,

And life is afar, and earth of her care swept clean,

Do the gods come back as of old in the gold of the world,

And the elfin creatures dance in their sunbeam dreams:

And the high thoughts wake, and the great ones tread as

of yore.

In olden majesty under these lofty aisles,

Where the woodshade glooms, or the gossamer sunlight smiles,

In the strength of the trees or the wide, blue lift of the sky.

Yea, here they come to the children of earth as of yore,

Bringing their god-gifts, vision and beauty and lore,

Brimming the world with the old-time effort and joy,

And Titan moods of the old world's golden desire.

pp. 122-123

The Elf-Lover.

It was a haunted youth; he spake

Beneath the beechen shade:

“An’ hast thou seen my love go past,

A sunny, winsome maid?

“An’ hast thou seen my love fare past,

Her face with life aflame?

The leaves astir her footsteps tell,

The soft winds blow her name.

“‘Twas when the autumn days were still, —

 It seemeth but an hour, —

I met her on the gold hillside

When elfin loves had power.

“Her voice was like the sound of brooks,

Her face like some wild bloom;

 And in the beauty of her look

I read mine ancient doom.

“And when the world in mist died out

Down toward some evening land,

Betwixt the glinting golden-rod

We two went hand in hand.

“And when the moon a golden disk

Above the night hills came,

Down in a world of midnight haze

I kissed her lips aflame.

“But when the moon was hidden low

Behind each spectre tree;

She loosed from my sad arms and bent

A startled look on me.

“(While wound from out some haunted dusk

A far-off elfin horn,) 

Like one on sudden woke from sleep,

And fled into the morn.

“I follow her, I follow her,

 But never more may see.

The crimson dawn, the stars of night

Know what she is to me.

“I ne'er can rest, I ne’er can stay,

But speed from place to place;

For all my heart is flamed with that

Wild glamor of her face.

“I know her soft arms in my dreams,

All wound about my sleep; 

I seem to hear her silvern voice

In all the winds that creep.

“O saw you not her come this way,

By boughs in waters glassed?

So slight her form, so soft her step.

You'd think a moon ray passed.

“O tell me did you see her wend?

And whence to hill or sea?

The ruddy dawn, the stars of night.

Know what she is to me.”

pp. 249-251

True Insight.

They never know who only know alone.

Who deeply knows must also deeply feel.

Life is a knife ground on a grinder's wheel,

A sea-worn crag, a river-polished stone.

Knowledge for suffering doth to love atone.

O who would not to grim experience kneel,

And feel the fiat of fate's averted heel,

To know in truth the great world's under-moan.

There in her dungeons where her weird mimes flit,

Behind the curtains of her phantom show,

With grim reality for aye to sit,

And watch those puppet-maskers come and go,

Who build the shadow-dreams that rise and fall,

Grotesque, distorted, on life's sombre wall.

p. 279

The House Divine.

Not in the caverned aisles of cloistered gloom,

Or chancelled splendors built in carven stone,

Where censer smoke goes up and choirs intone

Those sad dread litanies of human doom,

That lend an added horror to the tomb;

Nor where the modern dervish maketh moan,

And smites his forehead with impenitent groan,

Doth faith's rare flower of reverence wake and bloom:

But out in hallowed halls of dawn or night.

Where overhead the censer stars outswing,

Eternity and night in one vast ring,

Or hid impulses of inmoving light;

Behind him all the mystery of his race,

Doth man with Deity come close face to face.

p. 280

~ Campbell, Wilfred, The collected poems of Wilfred Campbell, published in 1905.