THE MOUNTAINS

Still, and blanched, and cold, and lone,
  The icy hills far off from me
With frosty ulys overgrown
  Stand in their sculptured secrecy.

No path of theirs the chamois fleet
  Treads, with a nostril to the wind;
O’er their ice-marbled glaciers beat
  No wings of eagles in my mind—­

Yea, in my mind these mountains rise,
  Their perils dyed with evening’s rose;
And still my ghost sits at my eyes
  And thirsts for their untroubled snows.

QUEEN DJENIRA

When Queen Djenira slumbers through
  The sultry noon’s repose,
From out her dreams, as soft she lies,
  A faint thin music flows.

Her lovely hands lie narrow and pale
  With gilded nails, her head
Couched in its handed nets of gold
  Lies pillowed on her bed.

The little Nubian boys who fan
  Her cheeks and tresses clear,
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful voices
  Seem afar to hear.

They slide their eyes, and nodding, say,
  “Queen Djenira walks to-day
The courts of the lord Pthamasar
  Where the sweet birds of Psuthys are.”

And those of earth about her porch
  Of shadow cool and grey
Their sidelong beaks in silence lean,
  And silent flit away.

NEVER-TO-BE

Down by the waters of the sea
Reigns the King of Never-to-be. 
His palace walls are black with night;
His torches star and moon’s light,
And for his timepiece deep and grave
Beats on the green unhastening wave.

Windswept are his high corridors;
His pleasance the sea-mantled shores;
For sentinel a shadow stands
With hair in heaven, and cloudy hands;
And round his bed, king’s guards to be,
Watch pines in iron solemnity.

His hound is mute; his steed at will
Roams pastures deep with asphodel;
His queen is to her slumber gone;
His courtiers mute lie, hewn in stone;
He hath forgot where he did hide
His sceptre in the mountain-side.

Grey-capped and muttering, mad is he—­
The childless King of Never-to-be;
For all his people in the deep
Keep, everlasting, fast asleep;
And all his realm is foam and rain,
Whispering of what comes not again.

THE DARK CHATEAU

In dreams a dark chateau
  Stands ever open to me,
In far ravines dream-waters flow,
  Descending soundlessly;
Above its peaks the eagle floats,
  Lone in a sunless sky;
Mute are the golden woodland throats
  Of the birds flitting by.

No voice is audible.  The wind
  Sleeps in its peace. 
No flower of the light can find
  Refuge beneath its trees;
Only the darkening ivy climbs
  Mingled with wilding rose,
And cypress, morn and evening, time’s
  Black shadow throws.