Poems (Spofford)/Sarah Hildreth Butler
SARAH HILDRETH BUTLER.
I.
Do you remember, O you wondrous woman,In those dim regions where you wander now,—You, who were always something more than human,With the large light upon your lofty brow,—Do you remember all the hours we spent,All the gay mornings when the tremulous hazesSwathed the two silver rivers, and the heightsOf pillared Arlington shone through their mazes?Do you remember the delightful nightsOn the proud hill-top, while the city laySparkling below us with her swarming lights,We like the spirits of some other day,—Do you remember, you so far away?
II.
What woods were those where, in the April weather,Dell under dell of darkness and of dew,Along the Rock Creek paths we rode together!Over us swept the eagles, swept the blue;Under us, in green gloom of ferns and foam,The brook glanced. Here the red-bud broke in blushes,And like a press of moonbeams far abroadThe dogwood lit the forest glades. The thrushesAnswered our songs unseen. The horses trodIn measure to our music, that glad noon,On beds of the wild heart's-ease velvet shod.Singing, we sped, and recked not in our tune.Of storm, eclipse, and the dark interlune!
III.
Whether the ford splash round me now, or slowlyI loiter up the great hill-side, to restWhere some old earthwork hides its melancholy In dew-meshed cobwebs quivering on its breast,As the rank grass shakes with the wings that skimFrom coverts in the blossoming embrasure,Your conscious presence follows. I am stirredTo see your shape upon the sunlit azure,To hear the ringing of the voice once heardIn stories of those battailous days when youStood with that Lion Heart, whose flaming wordThe shackle from the slave forever threw,While your pulse beat the strain his trumpets blew!
IV.
Again, I mark the mad scream of the breakersOff Hatteras, and on the slant wet deck,Amid the wild waste of the whitening acresOf awful waters leaping for the wreck,Calm as upon your summer galleryI see you stitching on the silken pennon;Firing the faint and waiting hearts of menThat in transfiguring flash and smoke of cannon Had sprung to fate's embraces. And again,In the far South, where rolls the turbid tideThrough the morass that plague has made its den,In veiling vapors creeping far and wide,I see the yellow death before you hide.
V.
Oh, fair these streets of palaces, with gloryOf columns in long flying lines of light,With their high fields of sunshine, and the hoaryVast wastes of the illimitable night,Mirrored beneath in all the marshy meres,Whose fusing emerald and sapphire renderAgain, where beautiful Potomac slides,The phantom of the city's marbled splendor,Or in a dusky wash of starry tides!Oh, fair these gardens we have haunted, too,Blown full of roses, where the air that ridesPast cedars and magnolias drenched with dewEnchants the dark it dreams and dallies through!
VI.
And fair, o'er all, that shrine where, once, adoring,We saw the moonlight sheet the shining walls,We saw the inner lamplight softly pouring,Till the whole pile seemed lucent, and its hallsTwin temples of our liberty; the while,You gazed,—where high the airier lustre shimmered,A cloud upon the clouds light lay the dome,A star among the stars the tholus glimmered,—Like some patrician lady of old Rome.Alas! how many women died with you!For, later, when you turned the page at home,Your face, your grace, your tears, Queen Constance drew,The serpent of old Nile your likeness grew!
VII.
To-night, within that home, while all are sleeping,I sit alone, and watch the midnight wear. Is it the wind that round the house comes creeping?Is it your footfall on the polished stair?Strange visions in the mirrors gleam and go:Your smiles, your grief, your youth-renewing raptureIn her whose beauty dazzled half a world,Here, where so late you lived and loved, I capture,Despite the dart that destiny has hurled.Oh, answer me: where are you, if not here?Break the appalling silence round you furled;Say if your great flame fell, or burns it clearTo-night in some sublimer atmosphere!
VIII.
Alas! With you the whole earth somewhat faded,Turned from its path of sunshine, where the wayWith shadow of great mysteries was shaded;Some bloom forsook the skies, some charm the day;Some secret lost the song I paused to hear. I seem to tread on graves since your swift goingThe trembling gates of loss wide open threw;All things were shaken in your overthrowing,And age its frosty breath upon me blew.And still, though life is dear, and dear shall beLove, and the fresh delights that are not few,My heart cries to you, wandering far and free,O great, sweet ghost, do you remember me?