Textarchiv - Clinton Scollard

In the Time of the Rose

mrbot — Fri, 29 Jun 2018 21:10:02 +0000

Now that the crimson rose is queen once more,
There stirs within my heart the keen desire
To see the morning touch with golden fire
The slender minarets by the Pharpar shore;
To tread the byways that I trod of yore
Amid the chaffering merchants come from Tyre,
Beyrout and Bagdad, and to hear the choir
Of passionate bulbuls at the night's dim door.

Thus doth the rose impel me, being kin
To blooms I plucked in gardens Damascene
In bygone days when all the earth seemed fair;
And through the dreams that I am tangled in
Glides one with her bewitching orient mien,
The rose of love red-woven in her hair!

Clinton Scollard

1902

At the Tomb of Abel

mrbot — Wed, 27 Jun 2018 21:10:04 +0000

In the fair bloom-burst of the Syrian spring,
As Allah's buckler, the irradiant sun,
Behind the crest of Anti-Lebanon
In majesty was slowly westering,
Through oleanders and through tangled thyme
By a sharp slope we set our feet to climb
To where, so runs the ancient Arab tale,
Cumbered with centuries of dust and grime,
Hangs Abel's tomb above the mountain vale.

We waded poppy shallows; saw the breeze
Make sanguine waves of the anemones;
And in the faint green orchard aisles below
Beheld the almonds spraying into snow;
And ever, as we rose, descried afar
Peaks, hued with violet and cinnabar
And purple, — dyes imperial for dower;
Now did the lovely lupin lure, and then
Were we enraptured by the cyclamen
That from some cranny thrust its fragile flower.

So up and up we clambered, and the air
Grew amethystine, like the wondrous wine
Crushed from Zantean grapes in vineyards where
They blush above the blue Aegean brine.
Forgot was every hyssop-saffroned shrine, —
The riot of the roses of Fayûm,
The revel of the Jordan's pleachèd greens,
The glamoured gardens of the Damascenes,
Amid this lavish opulence of bloom.
And still went with us from the tuneful throat
Of Barada the ear-enthralling note
The olden Greeks called golden; while the groves
About it flung along our tortuous trail
The heavenly voice that through the gloaming roves,—
The seraph song-speech of the nightingale.

At last we won to steps deep-hewn in stone,
Eaten by lichens, and by moss o'ergrown;
And, having scaled the topmost, saw a small
Dome-fragment pendant from a topling wall
Draped with fantastic relics,—cloths whose stain
Was bleached by burning suns and dimmed by rain.
Beneath the wall a melancholy mass
Of ruin lay, sparse-sown with wilding grass
Wherethrough the lizards rustled, changing hue
With every shift of shape; now steely blue;
Now ashen as an ancient olive bole;
Now, in the sun-flame, glowing like a coal.

Anigh the tomb in silence we reclined,
While from the west a wafture of soft wind
Caressed us soothingly: afar, below;
In gathering gloaming spread the green plateau
Wherefrom we had ascended. Though our mood
Had been elation, soon the solitude,—
The thought of the first tragedy of earth,—
Banished our buoyance. Then a note of mirth
Rose as a bird-song rises when the dawn
Bursts into blossom, and the night is gone.
And 'neath us o'er the flower-besprinkled space
A youth strode, lilting with alluring grace
An Arab ditty such as wooers breathe
When Love's clear planet, at the shut of eve,
Across the wastes of desert flings its spell,
And maidens gather round about the well.

He seemed a part of the year's bourgeoning;
Human, yet having all that makes the spring
Take hold on the affections;—blithesomeness,
Beauty of form that through his shepherd's dress
Shone, and a vigor in his step and swing
Faun-like and passional. His cloak hung free;
One bare arm timed a ditty's dips and stops,
Waving a crook wherewith, half dreamily,
He swinged the grasses and the blossom-tops.
And so we watched him through the closing shade,
Along the pathway dipping toward the glade
Pass whitherward his grazing flock had strayed,
E'en as did Abel long aforetime, fain
Of all life's rapture, ere the stroke of Cain.

Cain!—on our minds again, despite the song,
There fell the shadow of the world's first wrong;
And lo, the while we marked the perfect poise
Of that elastic figure,—very joy's
Embodiment and portraiture,— our gaze
Was horror-smitten, deadened to a daze,
For we beheld a dark form, leopard-like,
(Grim murder, lurking in a copse's maze,)
Behind the shepherd crouch, and spring and strike!
The song that soared ecstatic to the sky
Turned, on the instant, to a strangled cry.
The braided bough-crests at the valley's verge
Gaped, and then mingled in a crashing surge
Of shuddering leafage, while the copse again
Shut from our sight the treacherous son of Cain.

Then sudden dipped the sun, and, clutched by gloom,
Downward we plunged from Abel's crumbling tomb.

Clinton Scollard

1902

A Summer Day

mrbot — Sat, 23 Jun 2018 21:10:07 +0000

Again across the calm of morn
The sharp cicada shrills;
Again the pee-wee, lone and lorn,
Pipes from the wooded hills;.
And meadow-ward athwart the plain
Slow moves the harvest wain.

Again the fever of the noon
Touches the toiler's brow;
Again in haze the grain-fields swoon,
And lifeless hangs the bough;
Again the rill, its course along,
Hushes its under-song.

Again the pensive eve draws on,
And earth's fast-closing eyes
A space are raised to dwell upon
The wonder of the skies;
Again untroubled, boundless, deep,
Broods the vast sea of sleep.

Clinton Scollard

1904

The Stirring of Young Desire

mrbot — Sat, 02 Jun 2018 21:10:07 +0000

It's o for the stirring of young desire,
And I know where I would be
When the kindling touch of the sun sets fire
To the red anemone!

There's a glade where the orchards reach
The rugged hills between,—
Where a warm flush mantles the cheek of the peach,
And the ruddy nectarine.

And there, with a wilding grace,
One goes with a water-jar,
With never a veil to hide her face,
And eyes like the evening-star.

She speeds to an ancient well
Where the green leaves weave a mist,
Where the vows low-whispered none may tell,
Or the lifted lips that are kissed.

And so when the sun's bright fire
The red anemone thrills,
It's O for the stirring of young desire,
And that glade in the Syrian hills!

Clinton Scollard

1902

Oriental Serenades

mrbot — Thu, 31 May 2018 21:10:07 +0000

The flush has faded from the mountain brow;
Hearken, Zuleika, to my true-love vow!

The evening's violet vesture folds the vale;
Hearken, Zuleika, to my true-love tale!

There burns the lover's passionate star above;
Hearken, Zuleika, hearken unto love!

Rose of the fair rose-garden, O my Rose,
Answer, I pray thee, for my heart's repose!
Dies on the air the last muezzin call,
And khan-ward now the weary pilgrim goes.

The fountain murmurs; soft the south wind blows;
It is Love's hour, as every lover knows;
I cry to thee; cry thou antiphonal,
Rose of the fair rose-garden, O my Rose!

Clinton Scollard

1902

A Summer Pastoral

mrbot — Wed, 16 May 2018 22:03:51 +0000

I know a little glade wherein to dwell,
When poppy-garlands crown the drowsing year,
Were honeyed happiness, —for I might hear
The hermit-thrush at twilight from his cell
Salute the love-star, and might feel the spell
That Hylas yielded to, for subtile-clear
The pool there limns the deep eyes of the deer,
And winds bear draughts of dreamy hydromel.

And closer might I win to Arcady,
For reeds there are to pluck and notch and tune,
As in the simpler, happier days of man;
And if I blew, and Echo answered me,
Sooth, I might fancy, underneath the moon,
Slim maidens dancing to the pipes of Pan!

Clinton Scollard

1904

In Philistia

mrbot — Fri, 11 May 2018 21:42:19 +0000

The leaves of the olives waver and whiten
In the breeze that inland blows from the sea,
While the umber sand-dunes burn and brighten
Under a sky that is shadow-free.

Roving specks on the wide waste places
The few flocks seem 'mid the lupined grass;
Only the sons of the desert races
Over the ancient pathways pass.

While Ashdod dreams 'mid its cactus-hedges,
And Gaza dozes among its palms,
Ascalon looks from its lean shore-ledges
Without a beggar to whine for alms.

Gath, stone toppled from stone, is crumbled,
Scourged as though by avenging rods;
Ekron, pride of the plain, is humbled, —
Little more than her ruined gods!

Glory!—can it have here had dwelling —
(Love and hatred and sorrow and mirth!)
Where to-day are sweeping and swelling
The lonelinesses of primal earth?

Was it here that Samson the pillars parted?
Here did David a triumph win?
And did royal Richard, the lion-hearted,
Battle with Saracen Saladin?

Aye, but how in the vast of distance
No note is made of the great or small!
Merciless Time, with his still insistence,
Weaveth an amaranth shroud for all.

Sky and sun over blown green grasses,
The dirging sea and the heaping sand,
And the slouching Bedouin who passes, —
Such is the lone Philistine land!

Clinton Scollard

1902

A Sunset Breeze

mrbot — Thu, 10 May 2018 21:37:51 +0000

All of the livelong day there was scarcely a rustle of leaves,
The writhing river burned like a molten serpent of fire;
The reaper dropped his scythe, and the binder fled from his sheaves,
And a breeze on the throbbing brow was the world's supreme desire.

When the disk of the sun dipped down there sprang from out of the west
A sudden wafture of wind that crinkled the unmown grain;
The kine were glad in the field, and the bird was glad on the nest,
And the heart of the mother leaped that her prayer was not in vain.

For the sunset breeze stole in with healing up,on its breath,
Winnowed the fevered air with a single sweetening sweep;
Out of the back-swung door slipped the pallid angel of death,
And lo, as the mother knelt, the baby smiled in its sleep!

Clinton Scollard

1904

Guiraut, the Troubadour

mrbot — Sun, 06 May 2018 21:16:14 +0000

Unto the walls of Carcassonne
(Ah. how the sun that morning shone
Upon the walls of Carcassonne!)
In russet raimentry he came
Within whose heart love like a flame
Burned ever passionate and pure,
The while he breathed one flower-sweet name,
Guiraut, the gallant troubadour.

Unto the gate of Carcassonne
(Ah, how his blithe lips smiled upon
The warded gate of Carcassonne!)
As light of foot as Love he strode;
The budding flowers along the road
Bloomed sudden, with his song for lure;
And softlier the river flowed
Before Guiraut, the troubadour.

Along the streets of Carcassonne
(Ah, what a harmony fell on
The climbing streets of Carcassonne!)
He swiftly took his singing way;
The little children ceased their play;
Woe seemed more easy to endure;
Gay grew the sad, and young the gray,
To hear Guiraut, the troubadour.

Unto a keep in Carcassonne
(No sweeter voice e'er drifted on
That frowning keep in Carcassonne!)
Anon the singer drew anigh,
Whereout there floated melody, —
Song that is biting sorrow's cure;—
Then something godlike lit the eye
Of brave Guiraut, the troubadour.

Into a hall in Carcassonne
(Forsooth, hall never brighter shone
Than that in all of Carcassonne!)
He made him bold to enter; there
Were men and maidens debonair,
And one so peerless and so pure
She flowered more fair than all the fair
To glad Guiraut, the troubadour.

Before that maid in Carcassonne
(Ah, never, never lovelier shone
A maiden's eyes in Carcassonne!)
He bared his head, and bowed him low;
"Lady, the wilding winds that blow
Brought me this wondrous word for lure,—
To-day, to-day, they bade me know
You choose your heart's own troubadour."

Then rose a song in Carcassonne
(Now rose-flushed and now snowy-wan
The loveliest cheek in Carcassonne!)
Most marvellous, most magical;
It caught her breathless in its thrall;
And ah, how empty and how poor
All others seemed,— lord's, prince's, all,—
Save his, Guiraut, the troubadour!

Two lovers bide in Carcassonne
(Ah, happy sun, to shine upon
Such happiness in Carcassonne!)
And while they dream through life along,
No woe they know, nor any wrong,
The maid so peerless and so pure,
And he who won her love through song,
Guiraut; the gallant troubadour.

Clinton Scollard

1902

Song of the Nargileh

mrbot — Sat, 05 May 2018 21:12:04 +0000

Night with all its virgin stars—
Hosts of radiant light—has come;
From the byways and bazaars
Low has died the jar and hum;
Softly do the zithers weave
Little rhapsodies of eve;
Faintly doth the tympanny,
In the poplar groves, set free
Broken bits of melody.
Sound doth lull the sense, but I,
More than e'en the nightingale,
When the south winds whisper by,
Can avail!

By the banks of Barada
Roses in a riot run,
Fair as ever saw the Shah
In the Gardens of the Sun!
On the midnight they exhale
Wafts that trance before they fail;
And the citron sweetens all,
With its breath ambrosial,
As its snowy petals fall;
Odors soothe the sense, but I,
With a sorcery subtle-sure,
More than scents of Araby
Can allure!

Set thy lips, then, unto mine,
While, like beads the Faithful tell,
The star-litten hours decline
Toward the dawn's rose-miracle!
Latakia wreaths divine
Round thy brows shall drift and twine;
Peace shall hover like a dove;
Thou shalt know the glamour of
Paradisal tales of love!
Kin unto the vine am I;
Spells that evil genii know
I, with my white magicry,
Can o'erthrow!

Bubble! bubble! bubble! bubble!
I allay the sting of trouble!

Clinton Scollard

1902