Carolina Chansons: Legends of the Low Country — Edgar Allan Poe; Alchemy; Osceola

EDGAR ALLAN POE[8]

Once in the starlight When the tides were low, And the surf fell sobbing To the undertow, I trod the windless dunes Alone with Edgar Poe.

Dim and far behind us, Like a fabled bloom On the myrtle thickets, In the swaying gloom Hung the clustered windows Of the barrack-room.

Faint on the evening Tenuous and far As the beauty shaken From a vagrant star, Throbbed the ache and passion Of an old guitar.

Life closed behind us Like a swinging gate, Leaving us unfettered And emancipate;

Confidants of Destiny, Intimates of Fate.

I could only cower, Silent, while the night, Seething with its planets, Parted to our sight, Showing us infinity In its breadth and height.

But my chosen comrade, Tossing back his hair With the old loved gesture, Raised his face, and there Shone the agony that those Loved of God must bear.

Oh, we heard the many things Silence has to say;

He and I together As alone we lay Waiting for the slow, sweet Miracle of day.

When the bugle's silver Spiralled up the dawn, Dew-dear, night-cool, And the stars were gone, I arose exultant, Like a man new born.

But my friend and master, Heavy-limbed and spent, Turned, as one must turn at last From the sacrament;

And his eyes were deep with God's Burning discontent.

D. H.

[8] See the note on Poe.

ALCHEMY[9]

Some souls are strangers in this bourne;

Beauty is born from such men's discontent;

Earth's grass and stones, Her seas, her forests, and her air Are seas and forests till they mirror on some pool Unusually reflecting in an exile's mind, Who tarries here protesting and alone;

And then they get strange shapes from memories of other stars The banished knew, or spheres he dreams will be.

Thus is the fivefold vision of the earth recast By ghostly alchemy.

But there are favored spots Where all earth's moods conspire to make a show Of things to be transmuted into beauty By alchemic minds.

Such is this island beach where Poe once walked, And heard the melic throbbing of the sea, With muffled sound of harbor bells-- Bells--he loved bells!

And here are drifting ghosts of city chimes Come over water through the evening mist, Like knells from death-ships off the coasts of spectral lands.

I think some dusk their metal voices Yet will call him back To walk upon this magic beach again, While Grief holds carnival upon the harbor bar.

Heralded by ravens from another air, The master will pass, pacing here, Wrapped in a cape dark as the unborn moon.

There will be lightning underneath a star;

And he will speak to me Of archipelagoes forgot, Atolls in sailless seas, where dreams have married thought.

H.

A.

[9] See the note on Poe.

OSCEOLA[10]

AN EPITAPH

The feathers of the eagle-bonnets ride upon the north wind;

The sachems and their totems have perished in the fire;

Through the valleys and the rivers and the mountains that you fought for Beats the quick desire.

In the happy hunting ground of proven warriors, You have passed the pipe of peace at council fire With the pale-face and the Zulus' mighty chieftains-- Rest with dead desire.

H.

A.

[10] The Indian Chief, Osceola, lies buried at Fort Moultrie.

MAGNOLIA GARDENS