Poems (Spofford)/In Summer Nights
IN SUMMER NIGHTS.
I. MUSIC IN THE NIGHT.
When stars pursue their solemn flight,Oft in the middle of the night,A strain of music visits me,Hushed in a moment silverly,—Such rich and rapturous strains as makeThe very soul of silence acheWith longing for the melody.
Or lovers in the distant duskOf summer gardens, sweet as .musk,Pouring the blissful burden out,The breaking joy, the dying doubt;Or revelers, all flown with wine,And in a madness half divine,Beating the broken tune about.
Or else the rude and rolling notesThat leave some strolling sailors' throats, Hoarse with the salt sprays, it may be,Of many a mile of rushing sea;Or some high-minded dreamer straysLate through the solitary ways,Nor heeds the listening night, nor me.
Or how or whence those tones be heard,Hearing, the slumbering soul is stirred,As when a swiftly passing lightStartles the shadows into flight;While one remembrance suddenlyThrills through the melting melody,—A strain of music in the night.
Out of the darkness bursts the song,Into the darkness moves along:Only a chord of memory jars,Only an old wound burns its scars,As the wild sweetness of the strainSmites the heart with passionate pain,And vanishes among the stars.
II. BOAT SONG.
Oh, fair the flight, at dead of night,When, up the immeasurable height,The thin cloud wanders with the breezeThat shakes the lustre from the star,That stoops and crisps the darkling seas,And drives the daring keel afarWhere loneliness and silence are!To cleave the crested wave, and markDrowned in its depth the shattered spark;On airy swells to soar, and riseWhere nothing but the foam bell flies;O'er freest tracts of wild delight,Oh, fair the flight, at dead of night!
III. INTERMEZZO.
Sheer below us, as we stand to-night Leaning on the balustrade, the riverFlows in such still darkness that the stars, Painted on its bosom, scarcely quiver.
Far above us, through the violet depths, All those silent stars sweep in their places; What a solemn, shining flight they soar, From court to court of the eternal spaces!
Oh, how beautiful you are, my love! How your heart bounds with its tender yearning!How upon your lips, your cheeks, your eyes, The fragrant flame of your full life is burning!
Yet alas, alas, the flame shall fall, Love and lover shall be dust and ashes,While those stars move mercilessly on, And the tide still paints their awful flashes!
IV. WINDS FROM SEA.
Softly the winds come singing in from sea,Singing to nothing but the moon and me,— The moon, half risen, lingering and late;From lands long leagues away come singing free, From lands where summer holds her shining state.
Lately on snowy orange stems they slept,Among a palm-tree's billowy branches crept, And rustled in a red pomegranate bough;Then, rich with heavy spices, shoreward swept, And brought their balms to fan my eager brow.
O midnight winds, that through such splendor fly,—The hollow of a sapphire in the sky, The paved work of a sapphire on the sea,—How soon your warm deliciousness might die Could you but stay and swell one sail for me!
V. NIGHT IN TEXAS.
The lonely interspace of night! The lampless dome awaits the rain;No footfall stirs the unruffled calm Through San Antonio's weird domain.The summer city, breathing balm, Muffled in musky branch and bloom, Sleeps hushed within the haunted gloom.
The jasmines, in their deep dream life, Across the open window-placeRoll their luxurious air, and slow, Stealing along from space to space,Wafts of an arch enchantment blow Where the great white magnolias lift Their cups and let the sweetness drift.
Lonely, and mute, and masked, and sweet, When, hear! A sigh, a low reply,Another, and another still, A flute-note, then a rapturous cry,And all abroad in answering trill, As if boughs swung in breezy glee, The mocking-birds are whistling free.
Ah, what an ecstasy of tune Breaks the dead shadow of the night!Gush after gush its warble wells, Song over song it scales the height,Broad-breasted on the silvery swells; Then ceases in a sudden pride, With the full echo far and wide.
Hark! 'tis the blackbird's pipe begins; Nay, 'tis the plover's airy note:Ah, listen! 'tis an ancient strain Snatched from a wandering harper's throat;And now the jocund burst again. Oh, blest the day's intensest light, Crowned by this revelry of night!
VI. LOVERS.
Midnight and June!The yellow phantom of a moonFar out at sea,Dark branches arching overhead,The river flowing in the gloom,And heavy scents of leaf and bloom,Making it just a joy to be!
And in the dew,Beneath the branches bending too,Two faces bent,—Bent in a swift and daring dream,An ecstasy of trembling bliss,And sealed together in a kiss,—And the night waiting passion-spent.
For this the daySwooned from its fiery skies away;For this the nightBuilt up its stars and silences;For this the royal summer came,Wrapped in her robes of balmy flame,—This moment pausing on its flight!
Midnight and June!A dreaming bird repeats his tune,—The sea replies;Perfume and hush and shadow still,But nothing as it was before,Subtly and strangely all made o'erWith love's unsealing of the eyes!
VII. UNDER THE WINDOW.
The hours that bear thy beauty prize Star after star sinks numbering;The laden wind at thy lattice sighs To find thee slumbering, slumbering!
Ah, wantonly why waste these hours That love would fain be borrowing?Soon youth and joy must fall like flowers, And leave thee sorrowing, sorrowing!
Ye fleeting hours, ye sacred skies, Free airs around her hovering,Oh, open me the envied eyes Your spells are covering, covering!
Or, only, while the dew's soft showers Shake slowly into glistening,Let her, O magic midnight hours, In dreams be listening, listening!
VIII. IN THE GARDEN.
Thy beauty, like a star, Whose life is light,Shines on me from afar And on the night.
Each midnight blossom bends With sweetest weight, And to thy casement sends Its fragrant freight.
Each air that faintly curls About thy nest,Its daring pinion furls Within thy breast.
The night is spread for thee, Far fields and wide;And the dark earth's mystery Is magnified.
For thee the garden waits, The hours delay;The fountains toss their jets Of shimmering spray.
Then, leave thy dim delight In dreams above;Come forth, and crown the night, With her I love!
IX. BALLAD.
In the summer even While yet the dew was hoar,I went plucking purple pansies, Till my love should come to shore:The fishing lights their dances Were keeping out at sea,And come, I sung, my true love! Come hasten home to me!
But the sea, it fell a-moaning, And the white gulls rocked thereon;And the young moon dropped from heaven, And the lights hid one by one.All silently their glances Slipped down the cruel sea,And wait! cried the night and wind and stormy— Wait, till I come to thee!
X. FANTASIA.
We 're all alone, we 're all alone!The moon and stars are dead and gone;The night's at deep, the wind asleep,And thou and I are all alone!
What care have we though life there be?Tumult and life are not for me!Silence and sleep about us creep;Tumult and life are not for thee!
How late it is since such as thisHad topped the height of breathing bliss!And now we keep an iron sleep,—In that grave thou, and I in this!
XI. SONG.
Through lonely summers, where the roses blow Unsought, and shed their tangled sweets,I sit and hark; or in the starry dark, Or when the night-rain on the hill-side beats.
Alone! But when the eternal summers flow And refluent drown in song all moan,Thy soul shall waste for its delight, and haste, Searching,—and I shall be no more alone!
XII. LISTENING.
Her white hand flashes on the strings, Sweeping a swift and silver chord,And wild and strong the great harp rings Its throng of throbbing tones abroad;Music and moonlight make a bloomThroughout the rich and sombre room.
Oh, sweet the long and shivering swells, And sweeter still the lingering flow,Delicious as remembered bells Dying in distance long ago,When evening winds from heaven were blown,And the heart yearned for things unknown!
Across the leafy window-place Peace seals the stainless sapphire deep; One sentry star on outer space His quenchless lamp lifts, half asleep;Peace broods where falling waters flow,Peace where the heavy roses blow.
And on the windless atmosphere Wait all the fragrances of June;The summer night is hushed to hear The passion of the ancient tune!Then why these sudden tears that start,And why this pierced and aching heart?
Ah, listen! We and all our pain Are mortal, and divine the song!Idly our topmost height we gain: It spurns that height, and far alongSeeks in the heavens its splendid mark,And we fall backward on the dark!
XIII. NOCTURNE.
In the soft, starless summer dark No murmur swims along the air;Wrapped in her dim and dusky veil, Earth seems to slumber everywhere.
All the still dews in hiding lie, With unrobbed richness droops the rose;Nor up nor down the garden walks A slight or stealthy zephyr blows.
Midnight and hush, profoundest peace; The falling leaf forgets to float;When with one deep and mighty throb Along the headland strikes the rote!—
Strikes with the awful undertone Of some great storm's tremendous blast,That far through white mid-seas plows on To scream around a broken mast!
But here the swell shall heave to shore A muffled music, till it seemThe trouble of the sea become Only the burden of a dream!
XIV. OVER AGAIN.
When the poplars patter, You can hear her talk; When the wild wind rises, And mighty shadows stalk,—The lovely ghostly lady That haunts the garden walk.
The chains that bind the poplars Swing and clank and twist;When the moon comes breaking Through that bank of mist,You will see the filmy fetter That chains the filmy wrist.
When that sudden moonshine, Weird and white, shall burst,The shrouding gloom will kindle With splendor interspersed.Ah, how fair the face is!— How fair and how accurst!
What eternal longing, What pitiful disdain,In the great eyes' glory Flashing back againThose swords of the archangels Crossed in eternal pain!
Around her all the roses Shake all their velvet leaves;The summer night's vast sweetness Bends down to her, and cleaves,To hide with veils of darkness The darker thing she grieves.
What is it such wan passion Forever whispereth?Why echoes all our laughter Such sobbing underbreath?Why trails across our pleasure That darker thing than death?
Come in, come in: the moon sets, And horror arms his hosts;Ah, what a storm comes heaving Far up these lonely coasts!Oh, hasten, love and lover, Lest ye, too, turn to ghosts!