Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 126.djvu/206

A QUARTETTE OF SONNETS.

I. — A WORD FOR THE WIND.

O gentle murmuring wind of this June night,
⁠I would, O wind! that thou shouldst bear from me
⁠Some message to my lady o'er the sea.
Take all sweet perfumes with thee for thy flight;
Sigh gently through the failing summer light;
⁠Nor, happy wind, would I begrudge to thee
⁠The right to kiss her face most tenderly;
The face so loved, so distant from my sight.
⁠If from the tides of memory, that roll
⁠In long sad waves, to-night, upon my soul,
Thou wilt bear up some echo of their speech
⁠Unto her ear, then shall she turn, and feel
⁠A tender sorrow through her spirit steal,
For one who toils, yet hath no goal to reach.

II. — A MONTH OF MEMORIES.

O month of many memories, good-bye!
⁠Ghosts throng your moon-bathed nights, and sultry days;
⁠They gather round me in some silent place.
Their breath is in the roses, and their cry
In songs of birds that dare the sunlit sky;
⁠They meet me in the twilight face to face.
⁠And when I walk through lone, night-cover'd ways.
In sadly murmuring winds I hear them sigh;
⁠Then am I as a man who sees in dreams
⁠Some dead, beloved face, and seeing, deems
The past a dream, the dream reality!
⁠But oh! the bitter waking, when, alas!
⁠He knows the mocking dream for what it was,
And gazes on a new day, hopelessly.

III. — PRISONED THOUGHTS.

O soul of song, hast thou forsaken me?
⁠Thoughts journey through my spirit night and day.
⁠And throng the gateways of my soul, and pray
That thou who boldest in thine hand the key,
Would'st let them forth, that they might wander free.
⁠Listen, O distant soul, to what they say:
⁠We wander up and down, yet find no way,
To lead us forth from our captivity.
⁠Lo, we have messages for those outside,
⁠And all day long we beat against the gate:
Come then, O song, my thoughts to liberate;
⁠Make thou in turn each one thy fruitful bride,
Or must through life they daily watch and wait.
⁠And in dark places of my soul abide?

IV. — EARLY VIOLETS.

Soft, subtle scent, which is to me more sweet
⁠Than perfumes that come after, when the rose
⁠In all the passion of her beauty blows;
Here, even in this busy London street,
Thou openest to my soul such sights as meet
⁠The eye, when quite forgetful of past snows,
⁠The earth beneath the sun's kiss throbs and glows.
And each thing feels the luxury of heat.
⁠Thou art his lady's voice to one who waits
⁠In summer twilights at her garden gates:
Her face not seen as yet; thou art the rare
⁠First note of Nature's prelude, that brings soon
⁠The spring, like a divine and varying tune,
Till summer music vibrates in the air.

Philip Bourke Marston⁠

⁠Good Words.

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TWO SONNETS.

I.

CLOUDS ON WHITEFACE.

So lovingly the clouds caress his head, —
The mountain monarch he, severe and hard.
With white face set as flint horizon-ward;
They weaving softest fleece of gold and red,
And gossamer of airiest silver-thread.
To wrap this form, wind-beaten, thunder-scarred.
They linger tenderly, and fain would stay.
Since he, earth-rooted, may not float away.
He upward looks, but moves not; wears their hues;
Draws them unto himself; their beauty shares;
And sometimes his own semblance seems to lose.
His grandeur and their grace so interfuse;
And when his angels leave him unawares,
A sullen rock, his brow to heaven he bares.

II.

CHOCORUA.

The pioneer of a great company
That wait behind him gazing toward the east, —
Mighty ones all, down to the nameless least.
Though after him none dares to press, where he
With bent head listens to the minstrelsy
Of far waves chanting to the moon, their priest.
What phantom rises up from winds deceased?
What whiteness of the unapproachable sea?
Hoary Chocorua guards his mystery well:
He pushes back his fellows lest they hear
The haunting secret he apart must tell
To his lone self, in the sky-silence clear.
A shadowy, cloud-cloaked wraith, with shoulders bowed,
He steals, conspicuous, from the mountain crowd.

⁠From "An Idyl of Work," by Lucy Larcom