Poems

Front matter

These two volumes comprise all of the Author's poems hitherto published in this country, with the exception of those referring to her residence in Ireland entitled "An Enchanted Castle and Other Poems." Many additional pieces, however, are also included.

J. J. P

Volume 1

S

BY

SARAH PIATT

VOL. I

LONDON

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.

AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST 36TH STREET

1894

[All rights reserved]

CONTENTS

T. AND A, CONSTABLE, PRINTERS TO HER MAJESTY.

Dedication

TO

MY NEAREST NEIGHBOUR.

Loved as myself—and more! This book is yours, not mine, to give or take. Your hand, not mine, has sent it from your door. My heart goes with it—only for your sake.

A Voyage to the Fortunate Isles

NARRATIVE PIECES.

Than the far Heaven "Does not Regret Walk with us, always, from the door That shuts behind us, though we leave Not much to make us grieve?"

"Why fret me longer, when you know Our hands with thorny toil are torn? Scant bread and bitter, heat and snow, Rude garments, souls too blind and worn To climb to Christ for comfort: these Are here. And there—the Seas.

"True, our great Lord will let us drink At some wild springs, and even take A few slight dew-flowers. But, I think, He cares not how our hearts may ache. He comes not to the peasant's hut To learn—the door is shut.

"Oh, He is an hard Master. Still In His rough fields, for piteous hire, To break dry clods is not my will. I thank Him that my arms can tire. Let thistles henceforth grow like grain, To mock His sun and rain.

"Others He lifts to high estate— Others, no peers of yours or mine. He folds them in a silken fate, Casts pearls before them—oh, the swine! Drugs them with wine, veils them with lace; And gives us this mean place."

"Well. May there not be butterflies That lift with weary wings the air; That loathe the foreign sun, which lies On all their colours like despair; That glitter, home-sick for the form And lost sleep of the worm?"

"Hush—see the ship. It comes at last," She whispered, through forlornest smiles: "How brave it is! It sails so fast. It takes us to the Fortunate Isles. Come." Then the heart's great silence drew Like Death around the Two.

Death-like it was—through pain and doubt, To leave their world at once and go, Pale, mute, and even unconscious, out Through dimness toward some distant Glow,

That might be but Illusion caught In the fine net of Thought.

As ghosts, led by a ghostly sleep— Followed by Life, a breathless dream— Out in eternal dusk, that keep Their way somewhere, these Two did seem, Till the sea-moon climbed to her place And looked in each still face.

"The worm," she waking said, "must long To put on beauty and to fly, But"—coming toward them sad and strong, There was a little double cry. "What hurts the children? They should rest, In such a floating nest."

"Oh, Mother, look—we all are gone. Our house is swimming in the sea. It will not stop. It keeps right on. How far away we all must be! The wind has blown it from the cliff. It rocks us like a skiff.

"We all will drown but Baby. He Is in his pretty grave so far.

He has to sleep till Judgment. We Must sink where all the sailors are, 'Who used to die, when storms would come, Away off from their home."

"Lie still, you foolish yellow heads. This is a ship. We're sailing." "Where?" "Go nestle in your little beds. Be quiet. We shall soon be there." "Where?" "Why, it is not many miles." "Where?" "To the Fortunate Isles."

"Home is the best. Oh, what a light! God must be looking in the sea. It is His glass. He makes it bright All over with His face. And He Is angry. He is talking loud Out of that broken cloud.

The men all hear Him, in the ropes: He's telling them the ship must go. They 'd better climb to Him." Pale Hopes Looked from each wretched breast, to know If somewhere, through the shattered night, One sail could be in sight.

And Two, who waited, dying slow, Said, clinging to their desperate calm: "We had not thought such wind could blow Out of the warm leaves of the palm. Strange, with the Fortunate Isles so nigh— Strange, cruel, thus to die."

"The Fortunate Isles?" one other cried; "You knew we were not sailing there? They lie far back across the tide. Their cliffs are grey and wet and bare; "And quiet people in their soil Are still content to toil.

"Toward shining snakes, toward fair dumb birds, Toward Fever hiding in the spice, We voyaged." But his tropic words Dropped icy upon hearts of ice. The lonesome gulf to which they passed Had shown the Truth at last.

That wavering glare the drowning see, With phantoms of their life therein, Flashed on them both. Yet mostly she Felt all her sorrow, all her sin,

And learned, most bitterly, how dear Their crags and valleys were.

Their home, whose dim wet windows stared Through drops of brine, like eyes through tears; The blue ground-blossoms that had cared To creep about their feet for years; And their one grave so deep, so small— Sinking, they saw them all!

To leave the Fortunate Isles, away On the other side of the world, and sail Still further from them, day by day, Dreaming to find them; and to fail In knowing, till the very last, They held one's own sweet Past:

Such lot was theirs. Such lot will be, Ah, much I fear me, yours and mine. Because our air is cold, and we See Summer in some mirage shine, We leave the Fortunate Isles behind, The Fortunate Isles to find.

"Folded Hands"

Ah, strange, sad world, where Albert Dürer takes The hands that Albert Dürer's friend has folded, And with their helpless help such triumph makes!— Strange, since both men of kindred dust were moulded.

The Longest Death-Watch

Philip the Beautiful—whose eyes Might win a woman's heart, I fear, Even from his grave! "He will arise," The monks had murmured by his bier, "And reign once more among us here."

She heard their whisper, and forgot Castile and Aragon, and all Save Philip, who had loved her not; The cruel darkness of his pall Seemed on an empty world to fall.

She took the dead man—to her sight A prince in death's disguise, as fair As when his wayward smile could light The throne he wedded her to share— And followed, hardly knowing where.

Almost as dumb as he, she fled, Pallid and wasted, toward the place Where he, the priestly promise said, Must wait the hour when God's sweet grace Should breathe into his breathless face.

Once, when the night was weird with rain, She sought a convent's shelter. When The tapers showed a veiléd train Of nuns, instead of cowléd men, She stole into the night again:

"These women, sainted though they be," She moaned through all her jealous mind, "Are women still, and shall not see Philip the Fair—though he is blind! Favour with him I yet shall find."

Then, with her piteous yearning wild: "Unclose his coffin quick, I pray." Fiercely the sudden lightning smiled— When they had laid the lid away— Like scorn, upon the regal clay.

She kissed the dead of many days, As though he were an hour asleep. Dark men with swords to guard her way Wept for her—but she did not weep; She had her vigil still to keep.

They reached the appointed cloister. While The heart of Philip withering lay, She, without moan, or tear, or smile, Watched from her window, legends say— Watched seven-and-forty years away!

Winds blew the blossoms to and fro, Into the world and out again: "He will come back to me, I know"— Poor whisper of a wandering brain To peerless patience, peerless pain!

… Ah, longest, loneliest, saddest tryst Was ever kept on earth! And yet Had he arisen would he have kissed The grey wan woman he had met, Or—taught her how the dead forget?

Could she have won, discrowned and old, The love she could not win, in sooth, When queenly purple, fold on fold, And all the subtle grace of youth, Helped her to hide a hapless truth?

Did she not fancy—should she see That coffin, watched so long, unclose— The royal tenant there would be Still young, still fair, when he arose, Beside her withered leaves and snows?

He would have laughed to breathe the tale Of this crazed stranger's love, I fear, To moon and rose and nightingale, With courtly jewels glimmering near, Into some lovely lady's ear.

Two Veils

"Sister," laughed the girl with girlish laughter, "Sister, do you envy me my veil?" 'You may come to ask for mine hereafter," Answered very piteous lips and pale.

"No, for your black cross is heavy bearing; Tiresome counting these stone beads must be. Oh, but there are jewels worth the wearing Waiting in the sunny world for me!

… "Sister, have a care—you are forgetting. Do not broider thorns among my flowers— Only buds and leaves: your tears are wetting All my bridal lace." They fell in showers.

After years and years, beside the grating, (Oh, that saddest sight, young hair grown grey!) With dry boughs and empty winds awaiting At the cloister door, came one to pray.

"Sister, see my bride-veil? there was never Thorn so sharp as those within its lace. Sister, give me yours to wear for ever; Give me yours, and let me hide my face."

Tradition of Conquest

I think she longed to have him blame, And soothe him with imperious tears:— As if her beauty were the same, He praised her through his courteous years.

But, when the soldier's arm was dust, Among the dead man's treasures, where He laid it as from moth and rust, They found his wayward wife's sweet hair.

The Black Princess

Not of the Lamp, not of the Ring, The helpless, powerful Slave was she, But of a subtler, fiercer Thing: She was the Slave of Slavery.

Court-lace nor jewels had she seen: She wore a precious smile, so rare That at her side the whitest queen Were dark—her darkness was so fair.

Nothing of loveliest loveliness This strange, sad Princess seemed to lack; Majestic with her calm distress She was, and beautiful though black:

Black, but enchanted black, and shut In some vague Giant's tower of air, Built higher than her hope was. But The True Knight came and found her there.

The Knight of the Pale Horse, he laid His shadowy lance against the spell That hid her Self: as if afraid, The cruel blackness shrank and fell.

Then, lifting slow her pleasant sleep, He took her with him through the night, And swam a River cold and deep, And vanished up an awful Height.

And, in her Father's House beyond, They gave her beauty robe and crown: On me, I think, far, faint, and fond, Her eyes to-day look, yearning, down.

Aunt Annie

I sat there as a guest, I said— Holding the loveliest boy on earth, With his fair, sleepy, yellow head Close to the pleasant shining hearth.

He laughed out in his sleep, and I Laughed too, and kissed him—when I heard A wise and very cautious sigh; And once again the dimples stirred.

Aunt Annie looked at him awhile; Then shook her head at her own fears, With more of sorrow in her smile Than I could ever put in tears.

"He is a pretty boy I know— The prettiest in the world? Ah, me! One other, fifty years ago, Was quite as pretty, dear, as he.

"Now I am eighty. Twenty-five Are gone since last we heard from James. I sometimes think he is alive." She hushed, and looked into the flames.

"He used to tell me, when a child, Of far, strange countries, where they say The flowers bloom all the year"—she smiled— "I can't believe it, to this day!

"And still I think he may have crossed The sea—and stayed the other side. His letters may have all been lost— 'Who knows? Who knows? The world is wide.

"I often think, if you could know How much he makes me think of him, You 'd guess why I love Victor so." Again the troubled eyes were dim.

"If your child, such a night, were out Lost in this dark and snow and sleet, You would go wild, I do not doubt." I almost heard her own heart beat.

"Yet long, on stormier nights than this, Mine has been out—why should I care How many a winter now it is? Mine has been out—and He knows where."

Life or Love

All day, like the dead king's shadow, she keeps Her place at the dead king's feet."

"Your beauty is worth all other things, The insolent gods have seen. It should not fade—for a thousand kings. You shall be for ever the queen."

And closer the Master held the charm: "It is Life, O queen, that I bring." She reached the cup with a wandering arm: "Is it Life—for my lord, the king?"

"Nay, the king will not drink wine to-day. There is one drop here—for you. Oh, listen, and keep your beauty, I pray, While the sweet world keeps the dew.

"For you, new lovers shall always rise;" And the lords and the princes near, With the sunrise-light in their Persian eyes, Stood, jewelled and still, to hear.

"Oh, what were Life to the lonely—what? It is Love I would have you bring, And Love in this widowed world is not. Let me go to my lord, the king."

Two Blush-Roses

But she looked at the rose in the summer, And said, with a tremulous tear, "The love that now beats in my bosom Will bloom in a blush-rose next year."

A blush-rose lay in the summer; There were golden lights in the sky, And a woman saw the blossom, As she stood with her lover nigh.

The band in the flowering distance Played the dreamy Italian air, Like a memory changed to music, And it drifted everywhere.

"I love you," he tenderly whispered; "I love you," she timidly said: And the music grew sadder and sadder, And the blush-rose before them dropped dead.

Then he knew that the music remembered, And knew the love that had beat Last year in her beautiful bosom Lay dead in the rose at his feet.

The Gift of Empty Hands

One with the dragon fought, to gain The enchanted fruit, and fought in vain; The other breathed the garden's air, And gathered precious apples there.

Backward to the imperial gate One took his fortune, one his fate; One showed sweet gifts from sweetest lands; The other torn and empty hands.

At bird, and rose, and gem, and fruit, The King was sad, the King was mute. At last he slowly said: "My son True treasure is not lightly won.

"Your brother's hands, wherein you see Only these scars, show more to me Than if a kingdom's price I found In place of each forgotten wound."

The Brother's Hand

Far off, by black-grey stone, in shattered heaps, The beautiful, familiar, sad home-grace, Like love itself made palpable, it keeps Through all the sorrowful forsaken place. Nor can you find the scented presence there, On the green ground or in the pensive air, Of any other of the blossoming race.

A very lovely woman loved to wear Its cluster of blushes once upon her breast. She brought it from the woods and set it where She always loved to be, herself, the best. The very flowers we think so frail outstay Our frailer selves—and she is gone away: Away—and, therefore, as we think, to rest.

On the seventh birthday of her fair twin-boys, She gave the two a boat, as they were one, (For until then each owned the other's toys); But when they saw it floating in the sun, With sails of stainéd silk so prettily blown, Each felt that he was now himself alone: The golden chain that bound them was undone.

"No, it is mine," each to the other said, And one raised up an angry arm and made A quick wide wound, that looked so strange and red Each of the other dimly felt afraid. Then a child-Cain in shadowy terror stood, And, crying from the ground, his brother's blood Rose from the pleasant shore where they had played.

That sharp, swift cut had cleft the two apart. And, under his light, lovely hair, one wore A strange-shaped scar. And in the other's heart, A heart that had been very sweet before, The snake-like passions started from their sleep And over it began to writhe and creep. And so the two were two for evermore,

As they grew older, he who wore the scar Saw it was like a hand—his brother's hand, It seemed, against him. Then he went afar With a kind kinsman to a colder land, After he heard the dust begin to fall On his young mother's coffin. She was all He had dear. And she was what the shadows are.

Blue-eyed and stately, with a bright, brave scorn Of wrong, he in a calmer climate grew. The other, tropic-nursed as tropic-born, Was fierce and swarthy, and imperious too, And restless as the wind that bloweth where It listeth: so he wandered here and there. And neither of the other clearly knew.

At last there came a heavy hail of lead Out of the Northern sky, that Southward fell. The fields were blasted and the men lay dead; The women moaned; and flying shapes of shell Their ways from roof to hearth-stone madly tore, And opened suddenly the deserted door, By the brier-roses guarded once so well

And Ruin glided up the weedy path, And crossed the mouldy threshold and went in, And sat there, with a sort of a sullen wrath, Gathering about her all that once had been Dear and familiar—save the rose, beside The crumbling porch, from which she vainly tried, Tearing her hands with thorns, the flowers to win.

And once, when a great ghastly Sight close by Was terrible in the stillness of the moon, A tall, slight soldier, with a smothered cry. Crept close and broke some buds and vanished soon; But, with an almost human joy-in-grief, The desolate rose-tree thrilled from root to leaf When he said wearily: "Yes—it is I."

A whole year more, when summer flushed again, Near to the same place, in the glitter of heat, (The earth was red, the sky was smoky then,) One lay in agony. Against his feet A gashed and gory flag from its shot staff Fluttered and fell. There was a cruel laugh From one he had not feared again to meet;

And a swift horse, deep-black, with foaming mouth And angry eyes full of wild wonder, sprung From its light rider—one who loved the South With his whole bitter soul. And, as he flung The reins away and stood in tears beside The dying creature, gentle, till it died, He showed that he was desperate, dark, and young,

There was a beautiful and dreadful charm About that youthful captain, as he stood Bare-headed, swordless, with his dead right arm Loose at his side, his left, whose strength was good, About his horse—forgetting his own wound, Forgetting all the horrible things around— Calling it all the tender names he could.

But when his horse was gone, he turned away And stamped the fallen flag and cursed, and shook The tall, slight soldier in whose blood it lay, Till he half-raised himself with a dim look, That made the other loose his hateful hold And tremble for an instant and grow cold, As if his thought some deadly trouble took.

Then he crept closer to the wounded youth And lifted, vaguely, his light lovely hair, And that strange scar—the brother's hand, in truth Against him—as in distant days was there. But now that brother looked at his distress With a remorse that changed to tenderness, And tried to raise him with a timid care.

And watched him many a moaning after-night, Through which the shine of spectral steel would go, Through which lost armies would rise up and fight Lost battles, in the air—then waver slow And haze-like down, and whiten toward the dust, Leaving behind a little blood and rust And glory. Glory? Why, I do not know.

At last the War's fierce music left the wind, And they who answered to its infinite cries With their whole breath were gone where God can find Them, when He searches land and sea and skies And Peace remained—a beautiful white veil, Wrought by hurt hands that dropped off thin and pale, To hide the tears in wan, wet, restless eyes.

And the twin-brothers—one just from his wound— Talked of their brier-rose that would blossom yet, Talked of the river with its far-back sound, Talked of their mother with a still regret, And of the fairy boat she gave them both: And then a sudden silence showed them loth To talk of—what they did not quite forget.

Just then it happened that a pretty flash Of small Spring-lightning made their window bright: They saw a fluttering dress, a bright-plaid sash, A wide straw-hat, and loose hair falling quite Half-way to eager feet. And so they guessed, Each in a shy half-dreaming way, the rest: They thought the girl was lovely? They were right.

Her face in glimpses came to haunt the two, Her voice was not what common voices are; And soon the twin-born rivals darkly knew The old feud was not dead. They saw the scar Out of its dreary quiet rise again: The brother's hand was terrible and plain Against the brother, as in years afar.

She loved them both. Which most? I think that she— At least not yet—nor any other knew. Sometimes she walked with Frederick by the sea, Sometimes she sung a tremulous song to Hugh, And in a while, no doubt, began to know That he was handsome, or she thought him so, And that his eyes, perhaps, were frankly blue.

Out with the darker brother once, a storm Broke sharply down the twilight. For a time She clung to him. But, dry again and warm, Among their lamps she sung a sobbing rhyme To her piano—and the gold-haired man— Whose desolate music ended and began With a far, subtle, creeping, sea-like chime.

Then hushed and went half-tearful to her room, Asking herself but this: "Which shall I choose Have I the saddest need of light or gloom? The fair one surely is too fair to lose: Without him half the world were empty, and Without his brotherif I understand, The dark one is too dark to quite refuse.

"And sometimes if I only glance at him, His richer, fiercer colour seems to me To make his stiller brother look as dim As a star looks by lightning. Let me be, My star, with the white constant light you shed; Fade out, my lightning, or else strike me dead. For star and lightning can but ill agree."

But something startled her brown window-bird, Nested below in perfume. As it flew She heard her own name spoken, and she heard, Out in the wind, one ask: "Which of us two? It is not well that both of us should stay. Let her decide." In a bewildered way, Not knowing what she did, she whispered, "Hugh."

They heard below, and Frederick seemed to laugh, And said: "My boy, our paths again divide. Your joy is great. If you could give me half, Enough were left. Good-bye. The world is wide, But all too narrow to hold you and me. Good-byeand shall we let the Future be% Upon my faith you have a charming bride."

Next morning he was gone. And then, somehow, Hugh chanced in his vexed dreamy way to throw The yellow hair from his unquiet brow, And started from a glass which seemed to show That fearful scar, looking more deadly-white, More like his brother's hand, too, since last night; Then scarlet suddenly it seemed to grow.

She saw it: "Ah, you have a scar," she said. "How strange it is—and how much like a hand." It is a hand," he answered. "See how red It threatens now. It cut the gentle band Between us while we yet were children." "Who ?" "We twins that called each other Fred and Hugh, And played beside a river in the sand."

A troubled paleness fell upon her face. She looked at him an instant. "If I may?" She said, and, bird-like, fluttered from her place, And flushed and doubted, and—I must not say She kissed the scar. But I can say it grew Yet deeper scarlet, and looked darker too, And seemed to move—motioning her away.

… The leaf-bloom of the Autumn lit the woods— (The next day was to be their wedding-day). A cruel rain whirled down in pitiless floods And fretted the poor leaves that tried to stay And wear their splendour for a little yet. The butterflies were faded out and wet, Or else the wind had blown them all away.

The crimson-curtained, pleasant parlour glowed 'With ferns and asters, and a sparkling fire; The next-day's bride before the mirror showed The trailing mistiness of a bride's attire. And Hugh looked at her, smiling from his dream: He was not happy, quite, nor did he seem; Yet such sweet vanity he must admire.

She turned to take a letter that came in, And read it, and looked at him as she read, And threw it at his feet. "And be your sin," She hoarsely whispered, upon your own head." "My sin?" "See there, and—say it is not true." "I will not. All I say is this: if you Believe it—let to-morrow not begin!"

Then there were angry words, and—"Let us part," She moaned, and reached to him her frightened hand, Thinking that he would hold it—to his heart— And kiss her pain away, as she had planned: For she forgave him—what he had not done. He answered: "As you please." And there was none To come between them, or to understand.

What then? The thistles blew across the rain, The grey, wet thorn-tree glimmered once and shook. She thought: "If one should never come again— Should never come—after a bitter look?" And—the dry asters from the mantel fell: She brought no fresh ones for the vases. Well! And silence settled in his favourite book.

She did not thin her beauty with her tears, But was she tearless? Doubtless she was not. But all the outward gladness of her years Was not because of one great grief forgot. Loose hair and laughter, singing quick and sweet, Followed about the green home-grass her feet, And quieted all wordless, kindly fears.

She had no mother. But her father said: "You are too hasty, little girl, I fear. Hugh is a manly fellow; as for Fred The villain! Hugh will come again, my dear, Before the fashion of your dress shall change, And we shall have our wedding." Was it strange? The dress grew quaint. And Hugh did not appear.

Once at the sea-side, in an evening dance. She felt—and, fluttering, tried to fly away— The bird-like terror of the snake-like glance. Poor, charméd little thing—and must it stay? "Frederick?" "Well—yes." "Where is your brother, Hugh?" "Am I my brother's keeper? Doubtless you Who wounded and deserted him, can say."

Hurt and bewildered, then she brokenly tried The secret of his letter to recall. His letter? With feigned anger he denied That he had written—anything at all! "What a mysterious piece of villainy! Hugh never could have thought so ill of me. He did not read it%" Then he heard her fall.

… It was the crowded room, and they must go Into the wide moonlighted air apart. Where was his brother, then? He said, to know He would give up the last throb of his heart; It was two years or more since he had heard Of Hugh one word, one single precious word: Then broke into a cry that made her start.

By dim degrees he made himself grow dear, By seeming everything his brother was. Whatever in the other had been clear, In him she saw—darkly as in a glass. At last, in some weird, subtle way, he grew The shadow, or the very self, of Hugh. And—well, the Summer withered from the grass.

What then? The asters in the vases glowed Again; the parlour held the shining fire Again; the mirror, three years older, showed The trailing mistiness of a bride's attire; And, this time, Frederick watched her from his dream. He was not happy, quite, nor did he seem, Yet such fair vanity he must admire.

Once more the thistles blew across the rain, The grey, wet thorn-tree glimmered once and shook; And then she thought: "If one should come again— Or should not come—after a bitter look!" And then—a sudden voice, familiar-low, And phantom-sweet, but heavily-bent and slow, Read out the silence of the favourite book.

No matter. In a wedded year or two, In a far Western land a cottage rose, With sand and sea and sea-shell shining through Its many windows—so the story goes. Frederick was happy there. But his late bride Had backward-yearning eyes, and sometimes sighed A little—as all women may? Who knows?

Once bitterly he asked: "What makes you sad?" She answered languidly: "Perhaps the sea. I sometimes think it surely has gone mad: It foams and mutters till it frightens me. Sometimes when it looks only golden, and All things look golden in this Golden Land, Blackly below it threatens things to be."

And, as her childish words failed at her lip, From silks and spices and a foreign sail, She saw a man drop from a landing ship As heavily as he had been a bale Of precious merchant-freight. With the great light Of the great evening smitten, he was bright— But all who looked at him were dull and pale.