CHAMBERS, Robert W.


Cassilda’s Song

Along the shore the cloud waves break,

The twin suns sink behind the lake,

The shadows lengthen
In Carcosa.

Strange is the night where black stars rise,

And strange moons circle through the skies,

But stranger still is
Lost Carcosa.

Songs that the Hyades shall sing,

Where flap the tatters of the King,

Must die unheard in
Dim Carcosa.

Song of my soul, my voice is dead,

Die thou, unsung, as tears unshed

Shall dry and die in
Lost Carcosa.

Where the slanting forest eaves,

Where the slanting forest eaves,

Shingled tight with greenest leaves,

Sweep the scented meadow-sedge,

Let us snoop along the edge;

Let us pry in hidden nooks,

Laden with our nature books,

Scaring birds with happy cries,

Chloroforming butterflies,

Rooting up each woodland plant,

Pinning beetle, fly, and ant,

So we may identify,

What we’ve ruined, by-and-by.

Envoi III

Let thrushes wing their way and sing

Where cresses freshen pebbled nooks;

By silent rills and singing brooks

I pass my way alone, alas!

With your dear name the woodlands ring—

Your name is murmured by the grass,

By earth, by air, all-where I pass.

The Messenger

Little gray messenger,

Robed like painted Death,

Your robe is dust.

Whom do you seek

Among lilies and closed buds

At dusk?

Among lilies and closed buds

At dusk,

Whom do you seek,

Little gray messenger,

Robed in the awful panoply

Of painted Death?

The Grave of the Misanthrope

I sat upon the hermit's grave ;

'Twas on a smiling summer's day,

When all around the gloomy spot

Was brightened by the skies of May.

In undistinguished lowliness

I found the little mound of earth,

And bitter weeds o'ergrew the place,

As if his heart had given them birth,

And they from thence their nurture drew,—

In such rank luxury they grew.

For he, the latest of his race,

Had left no friend behind, to trace

Such frail memorial o'er his breast.

But near his head a sapling waved

The honours of its slender form,

And in its loneliness had braved

The autumn blast, the winter storm.

Some friendly hand the tribute gave,

To mark the undistinguished grave,

That, drooping o'er that sod, it might

Repay a world's neglectful scorn,

And, catching sorrow from the night,

There weep a thousand tears at morn.

It was an emblem of himself,

A mateless, solitary thing,

To which no circling season might

An hour of greener gladness bring ;

A churchyard desert was its doom,

Its parent soil a darkling tomb ;

Such was the Solitary's fate,

So joyless and so desolate ;

For, blasted soon as it was given,

His was the life that knew no hope,

His was the heart that knew no heaven :—

Then, stranger, by one pitying drop,

Forgive, forgive the Misanthrope !