I SAUNTERING down the gully, near the meeting waters, What is it that holds me, sudden like a spell? Not the brooklet's singing, not the blue-wren's rapture, Not the grace of "blackwood," nor the whispering dell! Tired with my tramping by the gorge and creek-head, Fallen logs of gum-tree, rock, and tangling brake, What is it that stirs me as with horn of Elf-land?— Nerves with might my sword-arm, calls, "O heart, awake!" Not the wondrous glamour of the arching fern-grove, Not the gracious sunlight glinting through the trees, Not the boom of Ocean borne across the ranges Blending in the gum-tops with hum of flitting bees! No! A vision, certës, binds me tranced and gazing, Draws me mute a tiptoe, open eyes and lips, Sweeps me all a tremble with the joy of living, Floods the springs of being, soul to finger-tips. Not as when the "ferly" rose in Langland's "seeing," First of human poets fusing English speech With true tears of pity for the toil and travail— Man and Child and Woman, and the doom on each! "Ferly!"—Yes, blood-real, maiden not mere angel, Arm most winsome-rounded, lips all ripely red; Eve's enticing kinship flushed its soft allurement Through her supple outline, dainty foot and head. Damsel—sweet, untended,—asleep beside the river! Sleep all free and fearless; in her vermeil cheek Plays a sportive dimple; pride and coyness blending Show her kin to Adam, not too angel-meek. Book lies open near her: Keats, thy voice a tremble Hath drowsed her 'mid the poppies, with lute of Porphyro, "Azure-lidded slumber," Madeline's sweet dreaming, Sigh,—"For if thou diest, my Love, I know not where to go." Grassy bank beneath her, wattle bough above her, Wind of Spring a swaying her soft brown wavy hair: O, her ear so dainty takes in the brooklet's wooing. Sunlight slants a peeping upon a face so fair! Polypods a tiptoe look over to behold her, Quiver to their rootlets too near her little waist; Epacris a bending has touched her bud of bosom, And draws back blushing crimson, ashamed of amorous haste. I too would come a gazing and murmur praises round her, But, like robin lighting upon the peach in bloom, Another and another might follow, on my venture, And leave, 'mid crowds of rivals, my heart too little room! Yonder by the marsh-weed, for a furtive moment, Stalks the stately lyre-bird, miracle of grace; Hid again in wild-wood, soon his mimic laughter Mocks the bell-bird's joyance, mocks the brooklet's race: Mocks the magpie's cackle, kookooburra's slogan; Yet she sleeps unheeding, sung to from burn and brake: I too would sing in chorus, but then she'd never hear me, Nor ken I watched and loved her with all my heart awake. Had there slept such beauty of eld in Thracian valley, Pagan god had graspt her—gods unknowing shame!— Stained her face with weeping, torn her heart with pining, Placed her in their heavens then, a bright undying name. But, if maid of Erin, when the gold-gleam collar Decked the kingly manhood that made Erin free, She had walked in safety through the glen or forest, Princess unto all men, as she is to me: Zoned, because a maiden, in her simple beauty, Castled round with honour, all her path a song, Every youth her swordsman, every hind her vassal, Every knight her champion, none to do her wrong! Here, by Austral gully, she may sleep as calmly, Gentle air of Spring-time wooing on her face, Hand beneath her dainty cheek to bid it not be lonely, Lissom from the neck to heel, and clothed upon with grace. II I will go and woo her, venture deeds of daring That shall stir her wonder, rive her soul with fears, Work some scheme of pity,—O, 'twill thrill her bosom, Melt her into loving, and win her heart to tears! Science bids me question heredity and kinship, What her mother's breeding, what her father's name? Has she spendthrift brother, quaint neurotic sister, Phthisic aunt, or cousin that bears some taint of shame? Peace to all their jargon, formulae and scalpels! Down the ages Adam has somehow found his Eve,— By seashore or streamlet, dell or haunted fountain,— Where'er his arm might shield her, or wit her plight retrieve. Thanks, young father Adam!—took your Eve on trusting, Nature solved the problem, worked out clear the sum; Eve, the damsel, listened to just her own heart-singing, Sang her song out sweetly, while Science yet was dumb! Came the sin and sorrow, blinding tears and anguish, Flame-sword circling ruthless to bar the path behind, Thorns might fret the forehead, feet, far afield, grow weary On roads of trudge and travail, with moaning in the wind: But neither e'er repented the pure young primal rapture, Pant of soul and bosom as heart leapt out at lips; No load on bending shoulder could dull, or bring forgetting— Love's first godlike gladness from soul to finger-tips. III How long she might have slumbered?—I had never waked her, Never wearied watching from out my vantage-place; Dream of trustful beauty glad in Nature's keeping, Life's young joy reposing in pure unstudied grace! What enchantment drew us, my Queen and me, together, Tore the screen asunder, fetched her in her charm Trusting to my honour, crowning me with knighthood, Yielding me her kingdom, clinging to my arm? "The forests," sure, "had done it," muses subtle Browning, Sifting cause and con-cause: leaf and air and bud, Tender light on mountain, plash of tinkling water Nerve the will to action, stir the loitering blood! Ah, the forests truly, yet a force within them, Urgent, brute-kinetic, flung the screen aside, Routed shy conventions, swept away the bulwarks, Tost two souls together out on danger's tide. Hurtling up the gully, ramping through the dogwood Came the black bull's bellow crashing through her dream, Came his eyes a flaming: lo, my love had trespassed On his spouse's pasture, by her festal stream!— Not as when Europa, sporting 'mid her maidens, Won to traitor fondness Zeus the fierce and fleet, And his hooves of passion, 'neath her clinging beauty, Cleft the wavelets' laughter on to sea-born Crete. Dead are all your pagans—nymphs and gods and wantons! Here the bull was British, leal to kith and kin, Guarding his own valley, fierce to oust invader, Blind to human beauty writ on cheek and chin. Nay, the very beauty, waft of sash and raiment, Flash of red, but roused him to frenzied tauric rage; Stood he Briton truly,—lone, defiant, dauntless,— Recking not if thousands or one might fling the gage. Bull all Briton, certës, brusque, with shaggy frontlet, Broad and dour and steadfast, eye devoid of mirth, Eye of pride and scorning, set in lowering forehead, Feet most squarely planted on the solid Earth. Ask me not the story how I swung her deftly To the rock's escarpment buttressed round with thorn:— Was the fair Andromeda, leaguered by sea-monster, Set in direr peril, noon and eve and morn?— There the brute stood pawing, mad with baffled frenzy, Filling glen and forest with his rude alarm, While my maiden fearless held her post of vigil Sure that all Trafalgar was centred in my arm: How I lured his Brutehood down the bellowing valley, Past the cliff's entrenchment, to the river's turn! There his wives were browsing, there I lost and left him In a ferny hollow, by the rushing burn. IV How we went together by wood and whispering streamlet, Past the meeting waters, to her rose-rimmed gate, How she looked and listened, what we asked and answered— Not all racks of Stuarts could force me to relate! O, she deemed me hero, Achilles-like in valour, Perseus in strategic, Bayard without peer! O, her voice was music passing all the rapture Of birds' entrancing joyance and brooklets glad and clear! I will tell her never—not till babbling Dooms-day— How my heart went beating, a pit-a-pat with fear, In that bull-encounter, despite my visage martial, 'Spite of words of courage I whispered in her ear! Each Eve to each young Adam is doubtless maiden-angel, Proof 'gainst snake or apple, too pure for fleck or stain, Adam @3her@1 All-hero!—Ah, fields of thorn and travail, In @3you@1 we'll shed the motley,—and may, at last, attain! V O, that bull so British!—I will find his value, Buy him—bellowing brisket, chine and tail and horn— Place him, wives and yearlings, on a gullied mountain, Fed with lushest grasses, in winter too with corn! Butcher's knife shall never slit his throat so glossy, He shall die in Elf-land by the river-side, Moan of woods around him, song of birds above him, Who won to me the lover that shall be my bride! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...FIRELIGHT by KATHERINE MANSFIELD UNTITLED, 1968; FOR MARK ROTHKO by JAMES GALVIN SEPARATION by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON THE JOY OF THE HILLS by EDWIN MARKHAM SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: MAGRADY GRAHAM by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |