A Summer Longing

I must away to the wooded hills and vales,
Where broad, slow streams flow cool and silently
And idle barges flap their listless sails.
For me the summer sunset glows and pales,
And green fields wait for me.

I long for shadowy founts, where the birds
Twitter and chirp at noon from every tree;
I long for blossomed leaves and lowing herds;
And Nature’s voices say in mystic words,
‘The green fields wait for thee.’

I dream of uplands, where the primrose shines
And waves her yellow lamps above the lea;
Of tangled copses, swung with trailing vines;
Of open vistas, skirted with tall pines,
Where green fields wait for me.

I think of long, sweet afternoons, when I
May lie and listen to the distant sea,
Or hear the breezes in the reeds that sigh,
Or insect voices chirping shrill and dry,
In fields that wait for me.

These dreams of summer come to bid me find
The forest’s shade, the wild bird’s melody,
While summer’s rosy wreaths for me are twined,
While summer’s fragrance lingers on the wind,
And green fields wait for me.

by George Arnold

All for Love

ABOUT the pool the pansies blow,
Fair they bloom in the summer sun,
With violets on the bank below
And tangled vines that at random run;
The water is dark, and cool, and green,
Its surface touched by misty rays
That slant the willow boughs between
On sunny, summer days.
Across the pool the winged seeds
Hither and thither lightly flaunt,
Blown from the shore of bristling reeds
That gauzy dragon-flies love to haunt;
The shallows all are thickly set
With lily-leaves and blossoms white,
Their fragrant petals glistening wet
With dewdrops, diamond-bright.
A silence reigns upon the air,
Upon the pansies by the shore,
Upon the violets, pale and fair,
Upon the willow, bending o’er;
The reeds and lilies silent grow,
The dark green waters silent sleep,
Save when the summer breezes blow,
Or silvery minnows leap.
Adown the path, that hidden lies
Under the chestnuts on the hill,
Came pretty May with the hazel eyes,
Whose father kept the neighboring mill.
Wild she muttered and long she gazed,
Loosely floated her fair, brown hair:
Like one by a heavy sorrow crazed
She laughed and whispered there.
Alas! her story was just the same
That poets have told since poets have sung, –
Beginning in love, to end in shame,
When hope grows old while life is young!
So, sighing wearily, down she strayed,
While the sunshine slept on the silent pool,
To the flowery bank, and the willow’s shade,
And the water, deep and cool.
About the pool the pansies blow,
Fair in the summer sun they bloom,
But the water is dark that lies below,Dark and silent as is the tomb:
And I seem to see, wherever I tread
The reedy shore where the willow stands,
The sorrowing wraith of one long dead,
Wringing her ghostly hands.
The mill and miller have long been gone,
The father sleeps by his daughter’s side,
And many a summer’s sun has shone
Since hazel-eyed May lived, loved, and died;
Yet still in passing, the neighbors pause,
And say, as they glance from the hill above,
“Let us forgive the child, because
Her sorrow was born of love!”

by George Arnold

Alone by the Hearth

Here, in my snug little fire-lit chamber,
Sit I alone:
And, as I gaze in the coals, I remember
Days long agone.
Saddening it is when the night has descended,
Thus to sit here,
Pensively musing on episodes ended
Many a year.

Still in my visions a golden-haired glory
Flits to and fro;
She whom I loved – but ’tis just the old story:
Dead, long ago.
‘Tis but a wraith of love; yet I linger
(Thus passion errs),
Foolishly kissing the ring on my finger –
Once it was hers.

Nothing has changed since her spirit departed,
Here, in this room
Save I, who, weary, and half broken-hearted,
Sit in the gloom.
Loud ‘gainst the window the winter rain dashes,
Dreary and cold;
Over the floor the red fire-light flashes
Just as of old.

Just as of old – but the embers are scattered,
Whose ruddy blaze
Flashed o’er the floor where the fairy feet pattered
In other days!
Then, her dear voice, like a silver chime ringing,
Melted away;
Often these walls have re-echoed her singing,
Now hushed for aye!

Why should love bring naught but sorrow, I wonder?
Everything dies!
Time and death, sooner or later, must sunder
Holiest ties.
Years have rolled by; I am wiser and older –
Wiser, but yet
Not till my heart and its feelings grow colder,
Can I forget.

So, in my snug little fire-lit chamber,
Sit I alone;
And, as I gaze in the coals, I remember
Days long agone!

by George Arnold

Art and Nature

I.

N the dusk of summer even, when the roses
slowly swayed
To and fro, in gentle breezes that around the
trellis played,
And the rising moon wrought wonders of fantastic light and shade,
I walked up and down with Florence, underneath the linden-trees,
Listening to the ocean murmurs, rising, falling,
with the breeze…
Murmurs faint but fraught with music, hints of
dreams and prophecies.

II.

Far below us, where the beetling cliff its dizzy
depth sheered down,
We could hear the song and laughter of the
merry-making town, –
That the murmurs of the ocean and the wind
were vain to drown;
And above the rocks there flaunted, now and
then, a lurid light,
As the harshly hissing rocket climbed along its
fiery height,
Piercing, with its savage splendor, the soft’
beauty of the night.

III.

Noise of drums and trumpets mingled with the
cadence of the seas;
Bursts of wine-begotten laughter soiled the freshness of the breeze;
And the heavy tramp of soldiers shook the lofty
linden-trees.
There, upon a rustic sofa, where the moonlight
whitely slept,
And a rustic roof gave shelter from the dew
that heaven wept,
We sat down to break the silence that till then
we both had kept.

IV.

Florence said: “How grates this feasting, this
wild noise of blatant mirth,
On the holy peace that hovers o’er the ocean
and the earth!
Why should man’s best sense of pleasure to
such sights and sounds give birth?
Why not seek a calm expression for fulfilment
of desire?
Must our triumphs and successes all be writ in
words of fire, —
Words that leave but bitter ashes when their
fitful sparks expire?

V.

“Thus it is with men… they trample on the
dignity of man…
With our purest joys have mingled, ever since
the world began,
Brazen blasts, and blazing rockets, and the deafening rataplan!
Yet the moon in silent grandeur rises from the
flashing sea,
And the stars burn on forever, and the winds
blow ever free,
Calm, yet joyous, with an inner sense of holy
ecstasy.”

VI.

“Yes,” I said, “‘t is in our nature we are
somehow coarsely made;
And we think that our emotions, to be real,
must be displayed;
That our feelings must be measured by our
folly and parade.
Yet, perhaps, we err not greatly; man needs
symbols, and we find
In this fire and smoke and clamor that seethe
upward on the wind
Some external type of triumph gained by sword
or gained by mind.

VII.

“Thus, the deepest-thinking student, when his
daily task is done
And his cloister is illumined by the last rays
of the sun,
Lays his ponderous ancient volumes in their
alcove, one by one,
And goes forth to seek companions in the cellar
or the hall,
Where the clinking of the goblets, and the dancing-leader’s call,
And the hum of pleasant music on his weary
ear may fall.”

VIII.

Florence took the word up quickly: “Ay, your
parallel is true;
And that all you men thus trifle is the greater
shame for you!
Are no deities more worthy than the mad Bacchante crew?
O you men! the wise and simple to the selfsame tenets cling;
To the search for sensuous pleasures you your
highest talents bring,
And your peals of shallow laughter through the
holiest chambers ring!

IX.

You.. confess it, now!.. are longing to be
yonder, down below,
Where through thick, black clouds of smoke demoniac bonfires redly glow,
Like the old, fiend-lighted beacons on the Brocken
long ago!
You too love the brazen clamor, rattling drum,
and trumpet’s strain,
And the gaudy rocket cutting this fair, moonlit
sky in twain,
More than grand old ocean’s music and the
calm of Hesper’s reign!”
“No,” I said, “you judge us harshly; wine and
laughter are not ends,
They are means to that enjoyment whereto
every spirit tends;
And’t is wise that man his labor with his pleasure sometimes blends.
Would you have us all ascetics, scorning what
our natures crave,
Toiling on, and noting nothing of the outer
fabric, save
It might be a gilded sunset, or the moonlight
on the wave?”

XI.

As I spoke, a filmy vapor, edged with pearl and
silver gray,
Passed across the moon’s broad circle, as it
floated on its way,
And a glittering path of diamonds far athwart
the ocean lay:
All the heavenly vault seemed opened where
the moon in ether rode,
And like Cleopatra’s jewels on the dusk the
planets glowed,
While, below, the smoky bonfires made a vulgar
palinode.

XII.

“There!” said Florence, then outstretching her
white hand toward the sea,
“Dian thus asserts her greatness, – her fair right
of royalty;
Keep you all your baleful beacons,- leave the
moon and stars to me!”
Then she drew her robe about her, for the air
was growing chill,
And we homeward strolled together, by the path
around the hill,
Silently, and gazing seaward, where the moonpath glittered still.

by George Arnold

At the Circus

Across the stage, with its blaze of lights,
From fly to fly in the heated air
A slack rope hung, and in spangled tights
Sat ” Signor” somebody swinging there.
Now he swung by a single arm;
Now by a single leg swung he;
A fall had done him a grievous harm,
He balanced and turned so recklessly.
I watched awhile. “It is well,” I said,
” If people want reckless feats, it is well.
The tickets are bought, the money is paid,
And’twere more of a show if he but fell.”
I turned away: he was swinging yet:
And I glanced on the crowded house around, –
Boxes, circle, and wide parquette
Breathlessly watching, without a sound.
In a graceful pose, on a cushioned seat,
I saw Her sitting, to gaze at the man.
You could almost have heard my poor heart beat,
With the riotous blood that through it ran.
There she sat, with her splendid eyes
Fixed on the fellow so earnestly,
With more of the interest I should prize
Than ever she gave in a glance to me.
Every time that he balanced and turned,
O, but her eyes grew large and shone,
Her bosom heaved and her fair cheek burned:
To me she had been like a block of stone.
This poor, pitiful circus man,
Swinging each night for his daily bread,
Had moved her more, since his act began,
Than I could, stretched on my dying-bed.
Hollow, hollow, and false as hell!
Love is a cheat, and life is a wreck!
What cared I if he swung or fell?
What cared I if he broke his neck?

by George Arnold