The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 07, No. 43, May, 1861 · Chapter 7Pomegranate-Flowers
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The street was narrow, close, and dark, And flanked with antique masonry, The shelving eaves left for an ark But one long strip of summer sky. But one long line to bless the eye— The thin white cloud lay not so high, Only some brown bird, skimming nigh, From wings whence all the dew was dry Shook down a dream of forest scents, Of odorous blooms and sweet contents, Upon the weary passers-by.
Ah, few but haggard brows had part Below that street's uneven crown, And there the murmurs of the mart Swarmed faint as hums of drowsy noon. With voices chiming in quaint tune From sun-soaked hulls long wharves adown, The singing sailors rough and brown Won far melodious renown, Here, listening children ceasing play, And mothers sad their well-a-way, In this old breezy sea-board town.
Ablaze on distant banks she knew, Spreading their bowls to catch the sun, Magnificent Dutch tulips grew With pompous color overrun. By light and snow from heaven won Their misty web azaleas spun; Low lilies pale as any nun, Their pensile bells rang one by one; And spicing all the summer air Gold honeysuckles everywhere Their trumpets blew in unison.
Than where blood-cored carnations stood She fancied richer hues might be, Scents rarer than the purple hood Curled over in the fleur-de-lis. Small skill in learned names had she, Yet whatso wealth of land or sea Had ever stored her memory, She decked its varied imagery Where, in the highest of the row Upon a sill more white than snow, She nourished a pomegranate-tree.
Some lover from a foreign clime, Some roving gallant of the main, Had brought it on a gay spring-time, And told her of the nacar stain The thing would wear when bloomed again. Therefore all garden growths in vain Their glowing ranks swept through her brain, The plant was knit by subtile chain To all the balm of Southern zones, The incenses of Eastern thrones, The tinkling hem of Aaron's train.
The almond shaking in the sun On some high place ere day begin, Where winds of myrrh and cinnamon Between the tossing plumes have been, It called before her, and its kin The fragrant savage balaustine Grown from the ruined ravelin That tawny leopards couch them in; But this, if rolling in from seas It only caught the salt-fumed breeze, Would have a grace they might not win.
And for the fruit that it should bring, One globe she pictured, bright and near, Crimson, and throughly perfuming All airs that brush its shining sphere. In its translucent atmosphere Afrite and Princess reappear,— Through painted panes the scattered spear Of sunrise scarce so warm and clear,— And pulped with such a golden juice, Ambrosial, that one cannot choose But find the thought most sumptuous cheer.
Of all fair women she was queen, And all her beauty, late and soon, O'ercame you like the mellow sheen Of some serene autumnal noon. Her presence like a sweetest tune Accorded all your thoughts in one. Than last year's alder-tufts in June Browner, yet lustrous as a moon Her eyes glowed on you, and her hair With such an air as princes wear She trimmed black-braided in a crown.
A perfect peace prepared her days, Few were her wants and small her care, No weary thoughts perplexed her ways, She hardly knew if she were fair.
Bent lightly at her needle there In that small room stair over stair, All fancies blithe and debonair She deftly wrought on fabrics rare, All clustered moss, all drifting snow, All trailing vines, all flowers that blow, Her daedal fingers laid them bare.
Still at the slowly spreading leaves She glanced up ever and anon, If yet the shadow of the eaves Had paled the dark gloss they put on. But while her smile like sunlight shone, The life danced to such blossom blown That all the roses ever known, Blanche of Provence, Noisette, or Yonne, Wore no such tint as this pale streak That damasked half the rounding cheek Of each bud great to bursting grown.
And when the perfect flower lay free, Like some great moth whose gorgeous wings Fan o'er the husk unconsciously, Silken, in airy balancings,— She saw all gay dishevellings Of fairy flags, whose revellings Illumine night's enchanted rings. So royal red no blood of kings She thought, and Summer in the room Sealed her escutcheon on their bloom, In the glad girl's imaginings.
Now, said she, in the heart of the woods The sweet south-winds assert their power, And blow apart the snowy snoods Of trilliums in their thrice-green bower. Now all the swamps are flushed with dower Of viscid pink, where, hour by hour, The bees swim amorous, and a shower Reddens the stream where cardinals tower. Far lost in fern of fragrant stir Her fancies roam, for unto her All Nature came in this one flower.
Sometimes she set it on the ledge That it might not be quite forlorn Of wind and sky, where o'er the edge, Some gaudy petal, slowly borne, Fluttered to earth in careless scorn, Caught, for a fallen piece of morn From kindling vapors loosely shorn, By urchins ragged and wayworn, Who saw, high on the stone embossed, A laughing face, a hand that tossed A prodigal spray just freshly torn.
What wizard hints across them fleet,— These heirs of all the town's thick sin, Swift gypsies of the tortuous street, With childhood yet on cheek and chin! What voices dropping through the din An airy murmuring begin,— These floating flakes, so fine and thin, Were they and rock-laid earth akin? Some woman of the gods was she, The generous maiden in her glee? And did whole forests grow within?
A tissue rare as the hoar-frost, White as the mists spring dawns condemn, The shadowy wrinkles round her lost, She wrought with branch and anadem, Through the fine meshes netting them, Pomegranate-flower and leaf and stem. Dropping it o'er her diadem To float below her gold-stitched hem, Some duchess through the court should sail Hazed in the cloud of this white veil, As when a rain-drop mists a gem.
Her tresses once when this was done, —Vanished the skein, the needle bare,— She dressed with wreaths vermilion Bright as a trumpet's dazzling blare. Nor knew that in Queen Dido's hair, Loading the Carthaginian air, Ancestral blossoms flamed as fair As any ever hanging there. While o'er her cheek their scarlet gleam Shot down a vivid varying beam, Like sunshine on a brown-bronzed pear.
And then the veil thrown over her, The vapor of the snowy lace Fell downward, as the gossamer Tossed from the autumn winds' wild race Falls round some garden-statue's grace. Beneath, the blushes on her face Fled with the Naiad's shifting chase When flashing through a watery space. And in the dusky mirror glanced A splendid phantom, where there danced All brilliances in paler trace.
A spicery of sweet perfume, As if from regions rankly green And these rich hoards of bud and bloom, Lay every waft of air between. Out of some heaven's unfancied screen The gorgeous vision seemed to lean. The Oriental kings have seen Less beauty in their daïs-queen, And any limner's pencil then Had drawn the eternal love of men, But twice Chance will not intervene.
For soon with scarce a loving sigh She lifts it off half unaware, While through the clinging folds held high, Arachnean in a silver snare Her rosy fingers nimbly fare, Till gathered square with dainty care. But still she leaves the flowery flare —Such as Dame Venus' self might wear— Where first she placed them, since they blow More bounteous color hanging so, And seem more native to the air.
Anon the mellow twilight came With breath of quiet gently freed From sunset's felt but unseen flame. Then by her casement wheeled in speed Strange films, and half the wings indeed That steam in rainbows o'er the mead, Now magnified in mystery, lead Great revolutions to her heed. And leaning out, the night o'erhead, Wind-tossed in many a shining thread, Hung one long scarf of glittering brede.
Then as it drew its streamers there, And furled its sails to fill and flaunt Along fresh firmaments of air When ancient morn renewed his chant,— She sighed in thinking on the plant Drooping so languidly aslant; Fancied some fierce noon's forest-haunt Where wild red things loll forth and pant, Their golden antlers wave, and still Sigh for a shower that shall distil The largess gracious nights do grant.
The oleanders in the South Drape gray hills with their rose, she thought, The yellow-tasselled broom through drouth Bathing in half a heaven is caught. Jasmine and myrtle flowers are sought By winds that leave them fragrance-fraught. To them the wild bee's path is taught, The crystal spheres of rain are brought, Beside them on some silent spray The nightingales sing night away, The darkness wooes them in such sort.
But this, close shut beneath a roof, Knows not the night, the tranquil spell, The stillness of the wildwood ouphe, The magic dropped on moor and fell. No cool dew soothes its fiery shell, Nor any star, a red sardel, Swings painted there as in a well. Dyed like a stream of muscadel No white-skinned snake coils in its cup To drink its soul of sweetness up, A honeyed hermit in his cell.
No humming-bird in emerald coat, Shedding the light, and bearing fain His ebon spear, while at his throat The ruby corselet sparkles plain, On wings of misty speed astain With amber lustres, hangs amain, And tireless hums his happy strain; Emperor of some primeval reign, Over the ages sails to spill The luscious juice of this, and thrill Its very heart with blissful pain.
As if the flowers had taken flight Or as the crusted gems should shoot From hidden hollows, or as the light Had blossomed into prisms to flute Its secret that before was mute, Atoms where fire and tint dispute, No humming-birds here hunt their fruit. No burly bee with banded suit Here dusts him, no full ray by stealth Sifts through it stained with warmer wealth Where fair fierce butterflies salute.
Nor night nor day brings to my tree, She thought, the free air's choice extremes, But yet it grows as joyfully And floods my chamber with its beams, So that some tropic land it seems Where oranges with ruddy gleams, And aloes, whose weird flowers the creams Of long rich centuries one deems, Wave through the softness of the gloom,— And these may blush a deeper bloom Because they gladden so my dreams.
The sudden street-lights in moresque Broke through her tender murmuring, And on her ceiling shades grotesque Reeled in a bacchanalian swing. Then all things swam, and like a ring Of bubbles welling from a spring Breaking in deepest coloring Flower-spirits paid her minist'ring. Sleep, fusing all her senses, soon Fanned over her in drowsy rune All night long a pomegranate wing.
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