CIHM
Microfiche
Series
(i\/lonographs)

ICI\AH

Collection de
microfiches
(monographies)

Canadian Inatituta for Historical Micraraproductiona / InatHut Canadian da microraproductiona liiatariquas

1995

Technical and Bibliographic Notes / Notes technique et bibliographiques

The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original
copy available (or filming. Features of this copy which
r.iay be bibllographically unique, which may alter any of
the images In the reproduction, or which may
significantly ch.-inge the usual method of filrtiing are
checked below.

D
D
D

n
n

Coloured covers /
Couverture de couleur

Covers damaged /
Couverture endommagte

Covers restored and/or laminated /
Couverture restaurie et/ou pellicula

Cover title missing / Le litre de couverture manque

Coloured maps / Cartes gSographiques en couleur

Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or black) /
encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire)

Coloured plates and/or 'liustrations /
Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur

Bound with other material /
BeU avec d'autres documents

Only editk>n available /
Seule edition disponible

Tight binding may cause shadows or distortion
along interior margin / La reliure serrie peut
causer de I'ombre ou de la distorsk>n le long de
la marge interieure.

Blank leaves added during restoiatkxis may appear
within the text. Whenever possible, these have
been omitted from filming / II se peut que certaines
pages blanches ajoutees lors d'une restauration
apparaissent dans le texte, mais, kMisque cela ^tait
possibie, ces pages n'ont pas ^ fflmees.

L'Institut a microfilm* le meilleur examplaire qu'il lui a
6te possible de se procurer. Les details de cet exem-
plaire qui sont peut-dtre uniques du point de vue bibli-
ographique, qui peuvent modifier une image reproduite,
ou qui peuvent exiger une modifications dans la m6th-
ode nomiale de filmage sont indiqu^s ci-dessous.

I I Cokiured pages / Pages de couleur

r~| Pages damaged / Pages endommagees

D
D
D

Pages restored and/or laminated /
Pages restaurtes et/ou pelleultes

Pages discoloured, stained or foxed /
Pages d^colortes, tachet^es ou piqutes

Pages detached / Pages dtoch^es

Showthrough / Transparence

Quality of print varies /
Quality Inigale de I'impressnn

Includes supplementary material /
Coniprend du materiel supplementaire

Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata
slips, tissues, etc., have been refilmed to
ensure the best possible image / Les pages
totalement ou partiellement obscurctes par un
feuillet d'errata, une pelure, etc., ont i\6 film4es
^ nouveau de fa(on a obtenir la mellleure
image possible.

Opposing pages with varying colouration or
discolourations are filmed twice to ensure the
best possible image / Les pages s'opposant
ayant des colorations variables ou des decol-
orations sont filmees deux fois afin d'obtenir la
meilleur image possible.

AddHkjnal comments /
CommentaiiBS suppKmentaiTes:

Thii inm 11 filmed at th* riduetian ratio chaekad balow/

Ct dociNnant t«1 filme au taux de rMuetion indiqiw ct^datsous.

lOX

^^^

18X

22X

26X

12X

1CX

20X

24X

7RX

^™^^

^' '

■^3*

Th* espy filmad h*r« has baan rapreduead thank*
to Iha ganaroaity of:

National Library of Canada

L'axamplaira film* fut raproduit grica 1 1*
gtntrotit* da:

Bibllothequa natlonale du Ceuiada

Tha imagaa appaaring hara ara tha bast quality
possibia considsring tha condition and isgibility
of tha original copy and in kaaping with tha
filming conuact spacif ications.

Las imsgas suivantas onl ttt raproduitas avac la
plus grand soin, compta tanu da la condition at
da la nattat* da l'axamplaira film*, at an
eonformiti avac las conditions du central da
filmaga.

Original capias in printad papar covara ara fllmad
baginning with tha front covar and anding on
tha last paga with a printad or lllustratad impraa-
sion. or tha back covar whan appropriata. All
othar original copiss ara filmad baginning on tha
first paga with a printad or lllustratad impras-
sien, and anding on tha last paga with a printad
or lllustratad impraaaion.

Tha laat racordad frama on aach microf ieha
shsll contain tha symbol — » (maaning "CON-
TINUED"), or tha symbol V (maaning "END"),
whichavar appliaa.

Mapa, platas. charts, ate, may ba filmad at
diffarant raduction ratios. Thosa loo larga to ba
antiraly includad in ana axposura ara filmad
baginning in tha uppar laft hand cornor, laft to
right and top to bottom, as many framas as
raquirad. Tha following diagrams illustrata tha
mathod:

Las azamplaira* originaux dont la couvartura an
papiar aat imprimOa sont filmis an commancani
par la pramiar plat at an tarminant soil par la
darniira paga qui eomporta una amprainta
d'Imprassion ou d'illustration, soil par la sacond
plat, salon la cas. Tous laa autras axamplairas
orlginaux sont lltrntt an eommonfant par la
pramMra paga qui eomporta una amprainta
d'Imprassion ou d'illustratien at an tarminant par
la darnitra paga qui eomporta una lalla
amprainta,

Un daa symbolas suivants ipparaitra sur la
darnitra imaga da chaqua microficha, salon la
cas: la symbols —^ signifia "A SUIVRE", la
symbols V signifia "FIN".

Las cartas, planchas, tsblaaux, ate, pauvant atra
filmto i das Uux da rMuction diffiranis.
Lorsqua la documant ast trop grand pour itra
raproduit an un saul clich*, il ast filma a partir
da I'angla suptriaur gaucha. da gaucha A droita,
at da haul an baa. an pranant la nombra
d'imagas n*cas>aira. Laa diagrammaa suivsnts
illustrant la mathoda.

1 2 3

4 5*^

"laOCOPY (ESOIUTION TBI CHAIT

(ANSI ond ISO TEST CHART No. 2)

^ /APPLIED IN/HGE In,

^^^ 1653 Eost Main Street

S%= ?f'?^*='«'' Ne* '^°rk 1*609 USA

r.^S (^'6) 482 - 0300 - Ptione

^= (716) 288 -5989 -Fa,

'iJ.i':r'rM> i'OKfvis

/V'.r N !.AV(:-:ij.;oTH ^.tCi'TS

COLLECTED VERSE

ITiis Edition limited to five hundred copies,
of which this is Ho.,^S.&i..'....

SELECTED POEMS

c;raven langstroth betts

A0THO« 0» "SOMOT noH BilAKOU,"
"TAUM OF A OAUISON lOWM,"

"TBI rioinu," lie.

NEW YORK

ASSOCUTED AUTL ,^ AND COMPILERS

1916

t227
Fill

I 30,

68760

CorYUOBT, 1916,
By Cmvxk Lamostioih Bins

AU ritkls rutrvd

^ ^^:u!^x

^i-\

TO THE NOBILITY OF ART
EVERr i ERE

For permission to reprint various poems, the author
acknowledges the courtesy of the Independent, The Out-
look, Harper's WeeMy, Puck and the New York Herald.

CONTENTS

FAGS

The Pehtume-Holdek

Major Pckus

Hymn to the Spirit of Beauty . . ,„

Astrophel ^J

Ode to Spring ....'.'.[ J*

" Autumn f ?

" Winter , ] S

Diana and Endymion lo

Deformed ~

The Ever-growing Truth .'.'.'.'. „

Eugenie on the Death of Her Son . . • • • ■ 77

Resurgam ''''««

In the Gloaming ... ™

Oinadian Thanksgiving Hymn .' '.'.'.'.'..[ Xj

Ine Hollyhocks .... SJ

California g

To the Poets .... *

The Slumber .... S'

One Kin Are We . . '°^

The Vision . . . . '°*

The Birthplace of Freedom ..'.■.■ ™

The Golden-rod ' ' ' ' tti

January ...

The Barren Fig-Tree '.'.'. JJJ

Questions of Life ... "♦

o the Bumble-Bee . . "5

The Poor Apple Woman .'.'.'. Ill

Childless . . • ■ . iiy

My Three Friends ..'.■.■ J??

Thanksgiving Hymn '.'.'' iZ

A Withered Rose ... l^

Betrayed .... '*

The Votive Rose ..'.'. JS

Society and Art ... . J^

Lines on a Picture :?2

"Just as High as My Heart". '.'.'. ,^

The Prisoner of Love ' ' ' tm

In Memoriam ... ;^

Robert Browning ....,[ \ \ ■■■■ IH

lo Sidney Lanier ! iS

vii

^" CONTENTS

Major PoRus—Cotilinued

Marlowe . »**■

Requiescat . " .' 141

rhreescore and Ten" . . '43

To Richard Henry Stoddard '.'.'.'..'• '^''
Songs and Lymcs

Hey, Ho, Robin! .

&Lea'd°^| ^':"''**'' National Anthem I l l [ J||

A Song of Summer , '37

Samt Christmas . . 160

S'4s'''soTg™'""'^""'''^''«'i^ve"; : : : ; jg

My Lassie with Your Eyes'of'filiie '^

Fair as Ceres Bearing fiuerdon ; JTO

A Song of the Dawn '72

Sea Song .... , 174

Invocation to Love '70

My Lady from the Sea ! '79

My Sonneteer '81

Song for the Empire State '. . '. !§|

A Song of Hope . "*

Cradle Song . 187

*'**'■*••••• 188
French Forms

French Forms . .

The Immortality of Song '5B

The Renascence of Spring '^J

ine Commg Age . . T '9°

The Advantage of Love '*

Under Marlboro' 202

Ballade of the Sea-Sei^eiit .' f?i

Ballade of the Tailor . ^

The Servant of the Muse . **

The Bogey of English Free Trade ^'°

Beranger's Songs 212

My Tricksy Muse . "*

A Rustic Scene . "S

A Perfect Friend "^

The Heart's Voyage . [ ^'7

O Sovereign Love . 218

The Vision of the Dis Debar .' '"

Triolets 222

Quatrains

The Quatrain . . .

The Universal Life . ^^

Standing-Room 227

227

CONTENTS ix

Qu*TKAi«s— Continued

The World-Maelstrom of the West '""

Knowledge and Wisdom '= ""' 227

Penuel ... 227

Evolution . .1 228

Love . . 228

O". Certain Academicians '. [ [ ^

Old and New Art 228

To Certain Critics .' 229

The Basic Force 229

The Conventional Parson *^

Midas and Company *29

Cave Canem ! . , 230

Pegasus at Pasture ] *30

Orthodox Liberalism 230

The Poets and Mammon .' *•'"

Sonnets and Sonneteers *3i

Hie Shakespearean Sonnet '3'

Poets and Poetasters . 231

On the Spiritual Barnum '3'

Truth 232

To Some New Critics 232

Fancy 232

Self-Knowledge 232

True and False Fanie 233

Beranger .... 233

The Rule of Rapacity '33

The Profligate of Kindness .' .' ^33

T>aits of Women . 234

The Invincible Sex . 234

The Curse of the Coquette *34

Artificial Refinement . 234

Woman's Heart . . 235

_. 23s

Double Quatrains
Life

TJe Iliad .'.'.'. 235

The Press . . 236

The Years of Life 236

Human Existence . 237

Truth 237

Shakespeare . . 238

The Humble-Bee ." .' 238

Hope and Despair . '. 239

Faith and Love 239

Pleasure and joy . 240

Ballads

Canada to England .

243

« CONTENTS

Ballads— CoHiiHued hgi

The Bonnet Blue 2^

Soldiers' Home ilg

Good Saint Valentine ....'. t?i

The Earl's Daughter " ' ' at?

The Old Sabre if*

Lamond ' ' ^i

On the Frontier ....'.'..'. Si

Devon and Drake ,,,

Mary Jane ^^

Blind Milton ^S

Defence of the Long Saut J^

Goring's Ride ' ' ' ' ^

Udy Maud .' .' .' ! ! 293

Sonnets

Foreword jng

Out of the Darkness (3 Sonnets) ..!'.!'' S7

Britain and Her Colonies "200

England and the Armada ! ' ' ' ' Son

Belgium ■ ■ ■ too

Japan [ ^00

Montenegro ' ' ' im

Switzerland tm

Holland ::■■■■ ?S

A Warning to the Kaiser .... ' ' im

The lighted Liberty ! ' ' " w

The Hidf-Century Reunion at Gettysburg . . 101

Evening at City Point, James River, i8go . . ' i(u

Charlotte Corday . . . ! 30!

Shakespeare xXJ

Lincoln ^

Alfred and Charlemagne .... iJi

Cromwell ...... ^

Abdul Hamid, the "Shadow of God" .'.''' iS

Garibaldi ' ' ' im

Salvini 3^

Othello ^

Irving .::::' X

Booth 100

On Reading the Autobiography of Benveiiuto Cellini .' vo

John Henry Boner ,„.

The House of Lords ^J?

Don Quixote -i.

To the Moon-Flower ,,,

The Condor \]l

Honor and Fame .... ,,,

Love and Truth ^J^

Wisdom and Knowledge ... ^Jj

CONTENTS jd

SotmEts—CottliHued noi

Peace ,,.

Fortitude il*

The Unseen World ... ,,2

Humanitas .... ,,g

Personality '■'■'.'.'.'.'.'. 316

Science . .' ." .'.'.'.".■.■ IIZ

The Tide of rime i\l

Death : 11

The Qosing Walls ^Jo

Life's Voyage \\^

The Ret«™ ...:... i! i''' ?^

Grand Manan ' ' wa

The Water Lily (2 Sonnets) . . . '. tij

Spring Morning ' ' " «a

Summer Night in the Country ' ' ' txi

The Bather iii

Summer Noon .'''''' ti\

To a Friend |23

Love :J2

The Conjunction of Love ..." ,«

The Security of Love .... Sf

The Fortitude of Love ... ^

The Favor of Love ....'. H?

The Quality of Love [ ?g

Devotion of Love ... fZi

Immortality of Love ....'. ?S

^g""^*^ '.:::. ^

To 329

The Ideal .::::; ^

The Ideal Found . . . . .' ^30

To Astrea (8 Sonnets) •■■■'.'.'.'.'.'. ^

A Garland of Sonnets

To Shakespeare .... ,,/:

Homer ........',[ 336

Chaucer . . ^^"^

Tasso : ; 337

Spenser ' r

Marlowe . ....*!,* ^^

Shakespeare . 339

Milton ... 339

Dryden 340

Pope ... 340

Bums ... 34'

Scott ... 341

Byron .... 342

342

«fi CONTENTS

A Ga«lakd of So smn—ConHnued mi

Keau

Shelley .... 343

Coleridge . . . ." *"

Wordtworth ... ?*♦

Hood 344

Schiller ... 345

Goethe 345

Biranger 346

Hugo .......;; 346

Tennyson ... 347

a™I!jh"* ■■■■■'■'■■'■■'■'.'■:: ^

Arnold ... ""S

Bayard Taylor ...'.' 34»

Emerson ... 349

Longfellow . 340

Lowell .... 350

Whittier 350

Whitman ....?'.'.'. 3Si

Morris .' 35'

Kipling ... 35*

Mistrj ...;;;;.■; 35*

L'Envoi ... 353

354

THE PERFUME-HOLDER
A Persian Love Poem

This poem is derived from a prose story, called "Selim,
the Unsociable," by Arthur Kennedy and originally pub-
lished in Temple Bar.

THE PERFUME-HOLDER

pROUD Naishapur, two hundred years ago,
A Inviolate from the galling Turkish foe,
Lite a warm opal dropped from Allah's hand,
Lay ghmmenne on the green Khorassan land.
Girdling the South, the desert's sandy coil
Strangled the verdure and oppressed the soil;
But East and North the languorous noon-day breeze
Lifted the leaves of lime and tamarind trees
Over the hills, within whose broken row
The gleaming city watched the river flow.
Along the camel track from Ispahan,
Came tinklings of the nearing caravan,
Trailing its parched, dust-cumbered passage down
Into the market of the wealthy town.
Piercing the vibrant ether, bold to view,
A hundred minarets burned athwart the blue;
The purple roofs of mosques, like sunset isles,
Blazed all their panoply of porcelain tiles,
While from the waUs the names of Allah shone
In many a scrolled and squared device of stone
Color and light loomed everywhere; their glow
Burnished the booths and houses, row on row ;
They flamed across the palace court-yard fla^
And blazoned even the cringing beggar's rags.
The darkling ponds and fountains steely-cold
The sun's keen alchemy changed to shimmering gold;
And marble cupolas and awnings white
Flashed forth all splendid with reflected light;
While green pomegranate leaf and pregnant vine

* THE PERFUME-HOLDER

All earth w» bathed in palpitating heat;

The .un-ray, marched enclcure. lane and .treet

wt garden, and the roofs of market .talk,
Spreading one g are of yellow radiance down
Oer h,ll and valley, de«rt, wood, and town

High noon in Na,,hipir l-the gay bazaar,,

Heaped w.th their ware, wrought under hilf the .tar.

One ant-hke huge, conglomerate market made '

5 t X Ca K '"•"I"'' ''■™'"""8 vein, of iade.
Yet the loud buzz of traffic even there

Sjnk, at the high ^uezzin', cdl to prayer

While so oppreMive grow, the blaze of day

A li .u7 * "^"r, ""■■'" »'"^k the way.
A little longer swirl, the bu,y bruit
About the coffee stall, and booth, of fruit-
A moment longer doe, the merchant stop,
Uap^to the slender shutter, of hi, ,hop.
Then .n h.s flapping ,lipper, homeward hie,
To prayer, to pipe, to Fatima', dark eye,

Hu.t'j ""r'^!'^ ""''y' •"'■eh' bazaar"
Hushed are the chaffering and the hammer's j..
And silence settling o'er earth', fevered face
Soothes for an hour the throbbing market-pkce.

One man, a poor artificer in brass,
btirs not as forth the hurrying vendors pass:
But soon as quiet breathes along the street,
bprmgs from his leathern cushion to his feet.
Lays by the lantern he had shaped that day
Uoks out along the cleared, deserted way.
Take, down the bowl of rurds and loaf of bread
That stand upon the slielf above his head,
Hoob up a curtain o'er hi, small retreat

THE PERFUME-HOLDER

Which opens full upon the buiy ttreet,
Cutt one more glance along the farther wall,
Then hides himself behind the portal-shawl.

One might have he-rd within that curtain 'oon

A tapping througl the hot and quiet noon:

A strange man this— mayhap for love of gain

He worb mid-day when all for rest are fain?

Such was his custom, and the passers by

Had ceased to scan him with a rurious eye.

The gossips had no tale of him to tell;

They named him Selim the Unsociable.

Too poor for note of even the idlest there

Was he, and why he spent the hour of prayer

Behind his curtain, save for rest and stiade,

None knew or cared; few were that sought his trade.

Twould seem such anxious privacy and heed

Had little use; the street was bare, indeed.

Save vagrant dogs that strewed the shining track,

Like pious Moslems sleeping in a pack.

Snarling in dream, because the heated bricb

In poignant fancy smote them like the kicks

Of Allah's Faithful — snapping jaws in pain,

Then stretching out their quivering legs again.

Who treads with silent pace the empty street.
Then halts and hearkens to that hammer's beat?
Well might you mark him by his furtive eye
A friend to Falsehood, grasping, shrewd and sly.

To Selim's booth he moves, — he makes a stand,

The curtain raises with a stealthy hand
And peers within ; the sudden shaft of light
Flashes a marvelous work upon his sight;
For lo, between the craftsman's bended knees,
Prouder than aught that Shah or Sultan sees,'
With lines of purest arabesque enscrolled,

* THE PERFUME-HOLDER

A r r/ume-holder. rich u burniJied gold,
Wrought .11 in l,r«.. cu, round withV d^ign.
With mottoe. graved between the flowing li„«.
Of Mtique mould the b«; .uperbly u' *
The iwelling bowl; ,nd like , lily ,„ .j,
TTie .ten, ro« curving; .nd it. feet were wrought
W.th cunning art from Indian carver, caught.
A miracle of rare and patient art
Informed by geniu. ripening from the heart.
Such „ m,ght lift the incen« at the .hrine
Of Allah or of Mahomet the Divine
One might forego all sen.e Mve that of sight.
The life-long master of that heart's delight!

You in the cloud-spanned, amethvstine West
Know not what ceremonious, prideful zest
Ihe Persian in hi. mistlew, azure air
Brings to his perfume even a. 'twere hi^ prayer.
The perfume-holder, no effeminate whim.
Holds ever first and honored place with him;
Drop on the powder but some glowing coal.,
Lo. from its bowl the spiralled perfume rolls;
Dear unto Allah as the mingled breath
Of lovers passing through the gates of death.

To lie awake in one bliss-haunted dream

Where leaves are rustling and coo] fountains gleam

Wuhin a v.ne-hung. lustrous colonnade

While near, some large-eyed, love-enchanted .aid

Leans, lily-crowned, against a marble jar.

Caressing languidly her light guitar

Her fingers glancing V„ the shimmering strings

l^ke play of moonbeams on deep bubbling springs.

Wooing the soul ot melody divine

From murmuring streams and groves of haunted pine.

Hei bosom lifting to the waves of sound

THE I'ERFUME-HOLDER

Th«t have in one delicious Unguor drowned
The outer ncnie, leiving the ipirit free
To revel in one iwoon-like eotuy—
And then to vatch the pungent vapor curl
With many a (lender and fantastic swirl
Swung through the vibrant music, till the air
Freighted with tinkling sounds and odors rare
Filters soul-deep within the fleshly mail,
Till, rapt, escaping from the body's jail.
The spirit issuing through its portal flies
To fairy realms of wonder and surmise-
Such were indeed a taste of Paradise!

Small thought of this had he, that sordid spy,
Who on the masterpiece cast curious eye.
He was a merchant, trained to every guile
Of trade,— to fawn, to browbeat, and to smile;
Careful to hold, in every scheme he tried
Of fraud or rapine, law upon his side.
His talon fingers in their craw'ing clutch
Pulled forth the shadowinp ciruin overmuch.
And Selim, of his presence made aware,
Looked up and met jhe intruder's searching stare,
And frowning, marked the sordid ruthless trace
Of avarice on the man's ill^)mened face.
Then spake the stranger with a smile compressed,-
Selim, has Allah made the time of rest
Too long, or given too brief a working day,
That thus you toil the noontide hour away ?"
As some proud courser that with action grand
losses aside a strange caressing hand.
So Selira threw his head back at the word.
For hateful to him was the voice he heard.
And answered: "Surely little rest doth lie
With him, O merchant, who with delving eye
Looks either in broad noon or yet at night

THE PERFUME-HOLDER

On that which others fain wouU t«.n *, • i.
Wherefore I work at mid-dav or I rest."

He set aside the wonder-work of art
And waited for the questioner to depart

XNor rested but to mark the vessel out

The other, Mowinfhis T«%i" >>' -<••
^I h!^ ,^"V''-"'ng, unbelieving ™ne-
Deier,-: r^'TT^ ^""^ '™- "^e North
FV^ V • "'""^ ''"''■ *'"' ^'"tures forth
Fron, Venice even to the farthest East;

ForlT K- ""'' °* """^ " lordly feast

£ SelL'n "^ '^ ''"• "°"'''''» 'hou b^t sell?"
But Sehm no persuasion might compel

He itkeTh"?""' '"• "^ '''"^ ^•''•'-^d.
Th-nT u '"'^'"" '" ^ '^e<'»f Chest,
1 hen to the merchant lifted, one by one
The simpler works of brass that he had done -
They v^ere but few,-till forth the chaffet lent
And left him with his solitude content.

The swart Egyptian boy who lounged before
wSed^^ira'ten^Srr^^^^

The wicked p;r;osei%reVaf;;:;e:"™'-

For every „„, every glance betra^d

The heart of greed whose hand would not be stayed.

THE PERFUME-HOLDER

A strident voice came, calling from afar
The hour of work; at once the clattering jar
Of hammers rose again athwart the air,
The seething throng poured back into the fair,
And through its alleys swirled the babbling flood.
Like buzzing bees a-swarm within a wood.
But Selim, through his resting hour intent
And keenly active, languid now, was bent
Above the brass-work, as though toil were grown
Distasteful to him since the noon had flown.
His hammer strokes, less eager, blow by blow.
Dropped on the brass, grew slower, still more slow,
And oft he clasped his brow and closed his eyes.
Bruised by the coarse discordant market cries';
Then with a start, as if in self-disdain.
Caught up the unfinished lantern once again.

It was a hot and glaring afternoon;
Through the bazaar the hum like a bassoon
Surged constant; presently a clamorous throng
Came, booming with the beat of drum and gong,
While, blaring fitfully, the snorting blast
Of trumpets on the scorching air was cast.
The gathering scuff of many slippered feet
Came now low-rustling down the dusty street.
The loiterers left the shadow of the walls.
Lured by the shouts and boisterous trumpet<alls.
The hammer-smiths and chafferers paused as dashed
The flaunting pageant forth and by them flashed.
The last Shah's eldest son, 'twas bruited wide,
Was riding to the mosque to pledge his bride;—
Next to the Shah, the first of Persian land.
And named The-Shadow-of-the-Sultans-Hand.
A royal graft on humble stock whose sword
Some daring day might make him Iran's lord.

THE PERFUME-HOLDER

Non?J^ L '^' *""'' "■« ">' e^^'P^ brought.
1 hey deemed h>s silence but a surly whim

BI,n^ ff 'f'* ^"" ""'"• ^''h bowed head,
Blind to all else, held survey in his mind

Ihe incompleted lantern he let lie-
1 he words of rumor as they floated by
Blent with his dream: "The flower of Iran's land
Is his beloved." He sighed, looked at his hand
Then from his finger, slowly and in pain '

Unwrapped a narrow^ linen. He was fain
To draw still further backward from the sting
O passing eyes. A tiny hammered thing ^
Of brass close-twisted to a biting ring,
Around his finger showed, whose tissue, red
Twmged to the pressure of the figured shred.
He wet the cloth, replaced it, while a chim;
Of thoughts went swinging backward to the time
When she, pale l,ly of his heart, had stept
Across the door.ay where his goods were kept
And in a playful, blithely-mocking vein "^ '
Had given him this circled pledge of pain.
Ay, he remembered, how upon that morn
He felt-all wonder, joy-his soul was born!
How he had gazed upon her laughing eyes
As at a Pen wafted from the skies
Fairer than houri to the bosom pressed
Ut Mahomet in the regions of the Blest
Except those eyes, each glittering like a star,

cltlt k""^*" "■" "'"^''- °f' by chance
Caught the obeisance and adoring glance
Of helim, sitting laboring in his booth;

THE PERFUME-HOLDER

And as she viewed the trembling rose of youth
Throw signal on his cheek, she smiled, again
Returned him salutation; now and then
Loitered some moments at his little stall.
And then with innocent art by letting fall
Some comer of her veil, in hide-and-seek.
Revealed the sweet curved vision of her cheek
Of ripening olive, like the moon in mist,
And rose-red lips half parting to be kissed.

One day — one of those few thrice happy days
That star perchance a lifetime — his amaze
Burning his face, and hope still hopeless all.
Rallying his heart to Love's unreasoning call —
She came to visit Selim and to buy
Some tii'.^kets of his patient industry.
Lingering s;;» stayed an hour; she bade him tell
The way he wrought the brass; with playful spell
Now drew from him the use of lead and pitch;
Then took the die and punch and bade him teach
Her hand to cut the ductile metal through;
One little die she held, 'twas, virgin new;
A tiny whorl the pattern was; she tried
To punch a strip of brass, while he, to hide
Her slender fingers from an errant bl'iw.
Shielded them with his ampler hand, and so
As once the stroke she missed and still again,
Still he rejoiced for her he suffered pain.
At length she gave him back the die; he swore
With words of fire, no one should use it more
Except himself, nor he but on some gift
For her; then she, her laughing eyes uplift
To Selim's face, and with a doubting air
Mocking his earnestness, yet told him where
A kinsman dwelt, whose hand would duly take
The present he might fashion for her sake.

" THE PERFUME-HOLDER

Then did her mood to childhke humor pass:
Again she took a tiny shred of brass
And twisting it with pincers in a ring
Round Selim's finger tightly, tried to bring
Mischievously, across the strong man's face
A twinge of pain, and smiling left the place.

And Selim, never from that hour at rest.
Had shrined her lovely image in his breast;
A few more times she passed his open door
heekmg the market, but she smiled no more
Upon him, though his eyes with hunger sued;
That one brief meeting never was renewed. .

Now his roused purpose to one issue ran:

Upon that day he straight for her began

A perfume-iiolder, lavishing his fond heart

Upon It; for it eased him of his smart

1 feel he wrought her service, and to see

Its beauty heightening— as some stately tree

bpreads in the desert-when with the patterned whorl

He would Its richly shining face impearl

With tiny insets glimmering to the view,

fashioned to let the writhing vapor through

One name for her he had and only one:

At each moon-end, his task more nearly done

He muttered as with care he placed apart '

The gift, '■ 'Tis for The Star-of-Selim's Heart;"

The star that touched the wan, the lonely sky

Of his rapt spirit, and then passed him by.

And now 'twas finished— every tiny scroll
Wrought perfect; but the work in Selim's soul
Was never finished, but incessant beat
Upon his heart, while through the mid-day heat

THE PERFUME-HOLDER

The hammers with their chnking, changeless chime,
Uinned out their symphonies to unresting Time.

j^ took the cunning tool, the ddicate die
That formed the whorl, and with a gloomy eye
fefaced its pattern with his file and cast
The steel, disfeatured, on the street, then passed
Une hand across his brow to smooth its pain,
And took the unfinished lantern up again.

Even as he worked a warm Elysian dream

Closed o'er him like a sunset, gleam on gleam.

Upon the wings of passion forth he flew

To clasp her where, unknown to her, in view

Of fancy he had held her;— next the note

Of vision changed; he saw her vestments float

W-w-hite through flower-strewn ways, and on her face

A pleading look, as one who asks for grace;

For she was now the seeker, and he— where?

He knew not, cared not, nor could seera to care-

But down the eddying current of his swound

A vei'cd form came that told him "I have found

My perfume-holder;" straightway he was made

The perfume-holder; smiling then she laid

Caressing hands upon it, and did speak

It fair, and pressed it to her velvet cheek, "

And, like to Allah's blessing, letting fall
Her silk of hair around in shining pall;

And over all— the night without a frown,

And the white moon and stars were shining down.
I hen for one moment, through the hammered brass

He felt his soul, the soul of Selim, pass

And trt able to the magic of her touch.

The moment sped; there fell low voices, such

As Allah sends to true believers, when

He whispers of the crooked ways of men.

THE PERFUME-HOLDER

That called, "O Selim! Where is Selim?" Soon
A sweet known voice made answer like a tune,

I will find Selim, for I know him by
The ache within his finger"; then the sky
Sank burdened with the sorrow and the pain
Of blighted souls that on sad earth remain;
So, forth went that fair form that held the voice
Among them, seeking, till she found her choice
Selim s all-constant pain: with that began
By the dream-power the building of a man
Like Selim, yet unlike; the half-things fell
And crumbled in the falling; but the spell
Kept on till, lo, the finish— head to feet!
Then for some moments Selim was complete,
Sitting in the bazaar, his right hand laid
Across his hammer, and the lantern stayed
Betwetn his knees; but nowhere now was seen
The Star-of-Selim's-Heart— naught but the sheen
Of brass-ware, and the crowd that thrcnged again
The market, babbling of the marriage-train.

"Twas but some moments moro— and the bazaar

vanished again — upon an ivory car

He sits, the enchanting lady by his side.

Lo, she is wreathed with roses like a bride!

Bright as Ayesha in the Court, of Day;

Pearled like a dewy lily in the ray

Of morning. Like the Shah's his kaftan white

Flames with a diamond, a deep fount of light,

A Sultan's ransom; forth in state they ride

Midst cheers that surge around them like a tide,

Drawn by a gold and-crimson-harnessed span

Of cream-white horses, (such .t Ispahan

Speeds the Shah prayer-ward on great days of state) ;-

So move they proudly to their blissful fate;

Flowers rain upon them and their coursers' feet

THE PERFUME-HOLDER ,3

Stamp cloth of gold, as down the echoing street

1 hey press unto their nuptials— till a band

With h.m, The Shadow-of-the-SultanVHand,

Fronts them with challenge; straight a conflict gtom^-

The pnnce hath claimed the bride-tumult and blows

Bnng blood a..d death :-now Selim wounded lies,

His bride and jewel both the prince's prize.

Again the vision changed; his memory fought

Against oblivion, for his mind was wrought

Still with his finger-ache! Then she again

Is with him on a wild storm-wasted plain.

A ponderous iron mace he grasps in hand;

Forth like the mighty Rustem doth he stand,

hheathed in full mail; to a tremendous round
Uf burnished brass his aching arm is bound;
A company of leprous devils shout
Against him ; and amidst that evil rout,
Two Sheltans, fierce and terrible to view
As the White Demon god-like Rustem slew.

But the sweet lady, she has naught of fear,—
She loves him; to his wounded hand draws near
And kisses it; then the Sheitans howl in scorn •
While he, alike with love and passion torn.
Rushes, deep cursing, at the hideous pair,'
And closing on them heaves his mace in air.

Then suddenly he woke— the finger's pain

Stung him awake— now in his stall again,

A poor brass-worker, his bright vision flown.

Unloved, ignoble, scorned, reviled, alone.

A laughing, jeering crowd around him kept,

For he had moved and muttered as he slept;

And lol amidst the laughter loud and long,

The slime-tongued merchant, foremost of the throng,

THE PERFUME-HOLDER

Faced him: "O Selim, your brave dreami must spin

From poppy-head, or some old potent bin

Of purple Shiraz! Those who hashish eat,

Like fakirs play thus to the crowded street

More strange adventures than were ever sung

By great Firdusi of the silver tonsue."

Then pausing, whife the brutal mirth ran high,

And Selim, too bewildered to reply—

"I, too, can dream, though scarce of lady's lips,

And battle, but of merchandise and ships ;

For, while in sleep I rested this mid-day,

I dreamed that Selim came and heard him say,

'Here, take thy perfume-holder— I would feast;

Bring forth thy bezants, be thy name increased';

Or sell to Marco, if so be thy will.

To profit thee and me ; I'll drink my fill

Of pleasure; let me flourish and be gay

And kiss the maid that I hr j won to-day.'

Here sits my Selim mooning in his bootn ,

Say, has my vision spoken aught but truth?"

Said Selim: "All I sell is in your view,

I have no perfume-holder here for you."

The knavish merchant made him this repeal,

With crafty leading, to the crowded streec.

Yet once more he began— "But dreams are sent

From Allah." "Some, not yours"— then Selim bent

His eye full on him, "I have these to sell,

If so that you would purchase it is well,

You shall have value just and good; I need

Money to-morrow ; be the price agreed.

Or if my wares you want not, pray you cease

And leave me, in the Name of Whom be Peace."

Then did the merchant buy of Selim's art

Some pieces, lothful with his coin to part;

And took his leave, while Selim, richer grown

By a few silver coins, did little own

THE PERFUME-HOLDER

For merchandise, save what discarded lay,
The unfinished lantern. Now he worked away
fiercely upon it, that his wearied thought
Might cease its whispering, and Time be brought
10 mend hu pace. So, till the market gate
Was ready to be closed, he lingered late
At labor; rising then with anxious care
He fastened tight the little shutters where
The treasured gift, his pride and solace stood;
Ihen paced the unfriendly street in restless mood.

That night ill-boding dreams without surcease

Assailed his spirit, crucified his peace.

That one short night seemed fraught with danger more

Anf? L """ored nights that went before

While he his treasure in the chest had kept

In that deserted market-place. He slept

Fitfully, brieHy, now that once he knew

A bad man lusted for it; then he threw

His clothes upon him; wandered up and down

The winding streets and alleys of the town.

Still ever passing where his treasure lay

Behind the palisades which barred the way

To the brass-worker's moonlit, still bazaar.

Up raced the savage watch-dogs barking war.

Leaped at the gate which held twixt them and him

As though they fain .lad torn him limb from limb

A watchman with his lantern, on his rounds,

Drew near, attracted by the clamoring hounds,

haw Selim, knew him, and passed otherwhere-

While he, with bodeful brow, kept gazing there

Between the bars, where one long shadow fell

Across his shop — a lonely sentinel.

Thus aimlessly until the dawn of day

He wore the weary hours of night away.

THE PERFUME-HOLDER

Sc«rce did the market open than hii door

He opened too; then hammered as before

At the half-finished lantern; next took down

The perfume-holder, wrapped it, that the town

Might iiot view what he carried; then returned

AH quickly home. With what the brass-ware earned

He clothed himself in festival array

As though it were for some high holiday;

Tied with deft hand the perfume-holder, too,

Within a broidered silk of creamy hue.

Wherein he placed a scented billet writ

In flowing verses when some rhyming fit

Had seized his spirit in the silent night;

This a caligrapher did fairly write.

With many a courteous phrase of love profound;

And various woven flowers the border bound.

Behold the eager Selim as he stands.

The perfume-holder lifted in his hands.

Apparelled fair, ready to play \,U part

Of service to the mistress of his heart.

The full fine head-cloth of white hand-wove stuff

Broidered with glimmering gold and threads of buff.

About a cone of yellow camlet winds;

Below, a snow-white linen skull-cap binds

With narrow line his temples, showing fair

Above his bronzed face and coal-black hair.

His head is straight, symmetric, small of size.

As of a steed alert, and his dark eyes

Are lustrous like a steed's; an eager grace

Plays in the outlines of his mobile face;

The lips are proudly set, the nostrils fine,

The features delicate and aquiline;

His tunic like the turban white, each fold

Of linen with its waving lines of gold;

A knife-case in the silken shawl is placed

THE PERFUME-HOLDER

Who«! BTKeful folds wind round hi. tlender wii.i;_
l-rom far Cuhmere to Shiraz shall you see
No statelier, no braver youth than he.

The messenger he gained for his emprise

Was an old woman, good, discreet, and wise;

But ask not of the look on Selim's face
As m her hands the love-gift he did place
Or while he watched her dragging steps depart

10 her, the sovereign of young Selim's heart I
He stood m trance while heart and visage burned,
Waitmg until the ancient dame returned.

Of';^^''.!!'°"i"'?'" "^ '^' »"l^Proud dream
Uf bliss dread ruler, passionate and extreme!
In thy closed hand are wealth, fame, life, and death-
Self at thy heart, self-sacrifice thy breath;
The clown thou makest king, the king a clown;
Thou turnest cowards brave, and with thy frown
rhe man of blood is quelled; yea, even the clutch
Ut avarice, groping for the overmuch.
Yields to thy smile and to tly promise sweet
Mrews its blood-sweated bezants at thy feet-
But when a heart like Selim's owns thy power
He IS all slave, all votary from that hour!

He stood and waited; years it seemed went by
I he glare of mid-day paled across the sky
The hum of distant traffic ebbed away.
And o'er the hills the flame-born god of day
Seemed to halt yearningly ere, passed from sight.
He left the lovely city to the night.
Sel.m stood, Vf aited ;— back she came at last;
I here was no need to question her, he cast
One look between her hands where she did lift
Trembling to meet his gaze the unopened gift

THE PERFUME-HOLDER

Saying, "The lady by the Shah'i command
Ii wed— The Shadow-of-the-Suhan't-Handl"

The words itruck Selim tpeechleit, he had known

One joy in life, a dream, hit, his alone,

And he had drank it with a royal art,

Like Jamshid, till the wakening stung his heart;

His head fell forward, for some breathless space

The blow was deathening; ghastly white in face

He tottered toward the door like one in years.

Borne down with grief that scorched the fount of tears.

Grasping convulsively the brazen jar.

He found himself again in the bazaar,

The while with quivering lips, distractedly,

He muttered texts of old philosophy.

Groping for consolation, but no heed

Could give them — ah, how often in our need.

When earth is black benea'K t^ <. blackened skies.

They fail, those deep proud sayings of the wise I

Yet through his agony was woven a tune
Of words that clogged his tongue — as 'twere some rune
Hammering its dreadful rhythm through his brain —
And mingled with his bitter draught of pain:

"Tkf Cup 0/ Life with wine or wormwood flows;
The Leaves of Life keep falling, and the Rose
Whether at Babylon or at NaishapUr,
Fades, and her garden mate unheeding blows."

These were the words of one in Selim's town,
Gone long before, a sage of wide renown.
Who learned the mystic law that moves the stars.
But yet whose soul, foiled at life's prison bars,
Testing the hollowness of earthly state,
Mocked sadly at irrevocable fate;

THE PERFUME-HOLDER

And, ipitc of fgim and power by learning won,
Re-wrote the olden tale o< Solomon,
Chanting the hopeleu burden o'er again,
" Til vain— the life we live, like death, ii vain I"

And Selim turned to wo;k, because he felt
Hit reaion totter a» he slowly spelt
The branding of the blow upon his soul ;
In work, unceasing work, he might control
The anguish of his heart, and so — vain, vain
The miserable days that must remain!
He had forgot or had not cared to change
His holiday vestments; down the sun-baked range
Of the bazaar the whole brass-working tribe
Broke forth upon him with loud laugh and gibe
That bit not like the fangs of anguish grim.
Yet like a swarm of gnats they worried him.
Yearning to be alone, his soul was wronged
As round his path the ojarse mechanics thronged
With mock obeisance, gestures rude, uncouth,
Jeering, as they pursued them to his booth—
For little love they bore him. "Taunt him well!
Is he not Selim the Unsociable,
Too proud to mingle with his equals?" There
They crowded close to see how he would stare—
For a dire chance had happened him: thus he.
Unto his small store staggered heavily.

His booth was plundered; all his wares were gone!
Far worse— his tools! He could not think upon
Their loss. Their value was not great, but dear
Almost as were his fingers; misery drear
Drifted across him; only now remained
The unfinished lantern, but deformed and stained.
As though the plunderer held its value light
And with his heel had crushed it out of spite.

aa THE PERFUME-HOLDER

A long time he sat, there in his little shop,
Still as an image of stone, his head a-prop
Upon his hands, a ruined man, bereft
Of all he owned most dear. To him was left,
When he a little cleared his mind to think,
(His cup filled full, with madness at the brink).
Only the gift returned which he still held.
The perfume-holder; now is he compelled
To purchase bread and tools; now must he go
And from the merchant buy a lease of woe.

Blindness and deafness fell on eye and ear,
Confounding all, nor grew his sense more clear
As he went stumbling to the merchant's stand.
The empty pledge of his false hope in hand.
The place of sale with merchandise was rich ;
Fine armor blazed from bracket, hook, and niche;
Sabres from Samarcand and costly shawls
From Indian looms were hanging on the walls ;
And Orient ivories, carvings from the Isles
Within their lacquered cabinets stood in files.
The shelves were heaped with stuffs of rich brocade;
Mirrors of steel with silver frames inlaid
With jewels, glittering daggers, hookahs fine,
And all the costly wares of Levantine
And Indian markets crowded all the space.
As Selim gazed in wonder round the place
Coarse faces covered him with leering scan.
Fit tools of service to the sordid man
Whose slaves they were, and downcast Selim felt
The transient courage he had groped for melt
Whole from his heart; his one despairing thought
Sowed desolation; things against him wrought
In foul conspiracy. The merchant now
Began with lowering and con jmptuous brow
To underprice, to scorn, to viliify.

THE PERFUME-HOLDER

J he, .,k ..g Sehm «hat his need might be,
He lold , „„ he would take for surety

Said qT".!?"" ''"'""^"'"•""'- '"dly then
&a,d Selim, "I need brass and tools again
To carry on my trade." The merchant's smile

S forth h" K "'l '"' -^'^"'"'^ •-'' °f ^"e
As forth he broLight a » ell-assorted p„ k

Then Tr/^t' ''" ^^'™ ■^'='"'='' back,

Looked all thmgs round him; darkness seemed to fall
And deathly coldness, blotting earth and sky '

Sudden^ I T'T "' ^'"'^ ^""^'^'i him by.
Suddenly loomed the n.erchant's hateful face
Uose oer his own, in horrible grimace;
Forth sprang two monstrous hands that straightway lay
Grasp on his brazen treasure and away ^

Bore It m triumph to a distant shelf;
Ihen rushed the hot fit on-he flung himself
in rage against the servants-wildly fuught-
Unl.1 his mind some little space was brought
To hear men s voices dwindling through the dim
From faces that he knew ; these said of him
Mich master work as this is, cannot be
Ihat foolish Selim's;" sure were these that he
Wrought nothing of the kind; they knew him well
And all his work; he yesterday did tell
He owned not such a thing; and as he strove
Struggling to right himself, they dragged and drove
Him forth, and nothing but a whirl was there
Ut dust and pressure, anger, and despair-
Blows rained upon him; one last cruel stroke
Brought blood-he fell-and then his spirit broke'

THE PERFUME-HOLDER

She who had been to one unhappy heart

The lode-star of its being, sat apart

In the zenana's curtained privacy,

A married captive, never to be free.

But o'er The Shadow-of-the-Sultan's-Hand

Some time she ruled ; the heart she could command

Of that fierce fighter in his pleasant mood :

A second wife in sovereign solitude,

All gave her homage, all her triumph graced.

Even she, the first wife, whom she had displaced.

The Shadow-of-the-Sultan's-Hand at first

Was courteous and devoted, but he nursed

Higher ambition than in flowers to bind

His mood to service of one girlish mind

However enchanting, for his heart was set

On deeds of violence; he could ne'er forget

The feud, the blood-lust that was his from birth.

He was a bold, intrepid son of earth,

A graceful tiger in a leash of silk.

As mild and pleasant as the coco's milk

Till call for action came; — a lion-hunt.

In which he scorned the danger, chose the brunt,

Or vision of booty and some vengeful raid

Into Afghanistan, more often swayed

The councils of his heart, than any charms

He found within the circle of her arms.

And she, poor lonely discontented dove.

Brooded on this, and dreamed had she through love

Been so far favored in her lot, to fall

Unto that heart where she was all in all

However lowly, howso'er distressed

By circumstance, by poverty oppressed —

Life had been happier even with such an one.

Than that now passed with this proud monarch's son.

She was unlike the frivolous, tranquil crew

THE PERFUME-HOLDER

Who chattered round about her; often grew

Intolerable to her vivacious mind

The still zenana— health and spirit pined.

But came distress far greater when, one day,

Returning from some distant, wide foray

Into Afghanistan, her husband brought

A captive home, who now held all his thought.

The superseded wife grew languid, pale;

Till, part by some new thought to countervail

Her long depression, part, that she consult

A famed astrologer, whose art occult

In all that region was most noted, they

Who lived about her counselled her one day

She should a few leagues' distant journey take.

The drear monotony of her life to break.

Beyond the turquoise hills and level land

That fringed the province with its shifting sand.

Poor lonely star of one lone heart! the love

Her soul still yearned for like that heaven above

The Prankish women sought — she had not dreamed

That it had crossed her; its pale radiance gleamed,

A heavenly vision through her falling tears.

Fairer as loomed the vista of the years!

Bravely again she took life's burden up.

Hope flowered once more ; she had not drained the cup

Of bitter vintage to its turbid lees.

She and her escort started as the breeze

Of early evening swept the fragrant glades

And waved the banners o'er long colonnades.

Ruffled the citron blooms and filled the air

With cool perfume and freshness everywhere;

Bathed with its dews the earth and purged the sky;

Soothed the hot valleys with its wandering sigh;

Fluttered the folds of shawls and turbans loose

And frolicked in the billowy white burnous;

THE PERFUME-HOLDER

I W

'■"le languid city fanned with healing breath-
Ay, even awoke the pulse benumbed of death.

Servants and slaves upon the camels laid
The tents and baggage ; others were arrayed
To take the journey, sitting on the packs
Lashed either s'de or on the mounded bacb;
And, as a guard, to rearward and before
Some twenty warriors on white camels bore
Lances or muskets, and each hump around
Bright shawls and broidered saddle-cloths were bound.

From out the gate the ordered camels passed;

They left the hills behind— then travelled fast

Across the waste, whose open length was soon

O'er-lanterned by the lemon-colored moon.

The guards from time to time their challenge sent

To plodding footmen on their passage bent

Unto the city; who when questioned said

"We are but home-bound miners;" some they stayed,

The last of these, some moments ; at demand

Why they were journeying in that lonely land.

These answered humbly, they had carried out

Into the distant desert thereabout

A corpse ; 'twas of a man who, raving mad,

Had died in prison; this of what it had

Of worth they'd stripped; lo, now but from their toil.

With their sad recompense of wretched spoil.

The captain forward turned his camel's head

And told his lady what these men had said.

Naught further marked their travel; all next day
They camped ; at evening took again their way ;
And when at length arose the second sun
They left the desert, their long journey done;

THE PERFUME-HOLDER

And to the village straight their lady brought
Where dwelt the famed astrologer she sought.

The gifts bestowed, with courtesies exchanged,

A visit for the lady was arranged

To the mysterious man. His house was small

And undistinguished ; but within the wall

Was a rich room where ht , eceived his guest ;

There hung a time-piece with quaint signs impressed;

An astrolabe with Chaldic figures stood

Which told of wandering stars each varying mood.

Wrought in Egyptian land; a conjurer's crook

Leaned on a table; in a crypt-like nook

Lay yellow parchments piled. The languid wife

Wistfully eyed the man of learned life ;

A sage sedate, a form of mark and note

In Iran, where the beggar's frowsy coat

Clothes often king-like men ; his tall black cap

And ample flowing robe of camlet nap

Were of the finest, and his brow and eye

Majestic; for through gazing on the sky

And pondering deeply o'er its mystic lore

He much of its sublime expression wore.

Full to the waist, wide down the massive chest,

His sable beard swept o'er his saffron vest.

Lending grave dignity and benignant grace,

Softening the em lines cf his thoughtful face

There stands a proverb long in Eastern ken.

That "no men should wear beards but Persian men."

The sad-faced lady come to seek his aid.
Took courag'i as his features she surveyed.
Calm, courteous, wise, he seemed ; she told him all
Was needful to the purpose; voiced the thrall
And endless hunger of her heart, and, too.
Briefly her history; for she saw he knew

I;!: a

tri

J; ■!(

a8 THE PERFUME-HOLDER

Much of the strivings of tried souls; yes, he

Was deeply schooled in the philosophy

And poetry of Iran and the East.

He soothed her famished spirit with a feast

Uf well-culled verses, wrought for counsel by

Mrong hearts to comfort life's extremity

Down from the words of Solomon the Wise

To the star-gazer poet, who now lies

In her own city in unchanging rest.

The clods and burial stones across his breast.

The words of counsel pas't, ere she her way

Took thenc;, he told her he, the following day,

The issue f , his searchings of the night

Wou d send her She, too, watched the twinkling light

Of sars, that through the heavens unswerving kept

Their doomful path. Beneath them mortals slept

As though no seeds of fate within them lay.

Keepers of how many secrets they

Of human lives, revealers of how few,

Though their eternal witness fronts our view!

Alas, they did not to her soul impart

That one had called her "Star-of-Selim's-Heart."

Next morn in scented silk the missive came-

To the Most High and Honorable Dame
Moon to the Shadow-of-the-Sultans-Hand
Fairest of all the fair of Persian land! '
Ij'name of Allah whom the faithful call
The Merciful, Victorious. Chief of All:
The Stars. O Lady, speak the truth, tho' man
Not always may their mystic answer scan ■
Thrxce have I read to-night the face of Heaven.
And thrtce to me this answer hath been given
These silent words of fate and mystery :

m f'

THE PERFUME-HOLDER

'A FLIGHT OF ravens!'

n T J ^"^ " '■"' "''* thee,

U Lady, to interpret them aright.
And may they throw upon thy da,kness light
nT/iri /<. Mj, heart; and may the peace
Uf Allah, who alone gives souls increase.
Byhownto Thee. This is the prayer devout
Of htm. theunworthtest of thy servants: doubt
iVo/ tie will send thee grace.

nt H , , . Written by the hand

Uf Hassan of the Astrolabe, to command."

She, bearing these words wfth her, now began
Her homeward journey, pondering; still ran

Unnn r^ "'""^.""'^ ''"^' ^^' '"'"<' "^^ bent
Lpon the answer of the stars, that went

Ever before her like a vision blest,

tiuiding her to her solace and her quest.

It was the chill and silent time of night
Before the rose-crowned, pearly-vestured Light
Loops joyance round the world; mysterious hour
When Azrael comes with all his awful power
To loose the souls of men and women old
l-rom their worn bodies, and in numbing fold
The fluttering spirit wraps and bears away
To realms of utter midnight or of day.

The camel-train paced slowly; rose the dust
As each broad foot into the sand was thrust.
And fell agam fu.i quickly, beaten down
By the damp air; a distant eastward frown
Agamst the sky betokened hills; the sun
Beyond the shade-land soon prepared to run
His course; the watchful guards from time to time
Turned in their saddles to behold him dimb

THE PERFUME-HOLDER

The hill-tops; o'er the desert's lonely gray
Paling for leagues beyond, the film of day
Pressed a faint outline; an uneven spur,
Dimly defined against the mist-like blur,
Breaking the outline, showed them Naishapur.

As the round sun flamed o'er the hills again.
Startled by that or by the camel-train,
A clamorous flight of birds upon one hand
Trailed from some object on the distant sand.
The lady, resting in uneasy sleep.
Awoke as o'er her swished the bustling sweep
Of wings, and from her litter watched them float,
Ominous and black, against the heaven remote.
New-lighted by the half-way risen sun.
Which o'er the pallid sky his splendor spun.
Flush to her mind, as from the written page.
There rushed the words of the star-gazing sage, —
"A flight of ravens;" straight she waved her hand
And gave the captain of the train command
She must at once be carried to the place
Whence rose the birds of omen ; with ill grace
He turned to do her will, for now would day
The naked desert scourge with burning ray.
The slow procession wheeled, the distance spanned,-
And lo, a skeleton bleaching on the sand!

: I

"O fairest lady," cried the chief in tones

Sore vext, "Let Allah hear me ; 'tis but bones

Of some wayfarer, slain or gone astray

Here in the desert; others for a prey

Than these same birds have found him; doth abide

With him no coin, nor weapon at his side."

"In name of Allah, Merciful and Just,

Some of }ou men dismount and straightway thrust

THE PERFUME-HOLDER

Arnund him; search each bit of cloth and bone
A.id see if aught about hiin may be known '

Unwillingly, and cursing the delay
Among themselves, they slowly did obey
They lifted with their spears each ragged clout,
And with their muskets shoved the bones about.

"Nothing, fair lady, nothing," cried the chief,

Climbmg across his saddle with relief;

Then set the train in motion, well content

To quit their tarrying. Soon thereafter went

Unto the litter one who lingered late.

No word he said, but with ^ ,mile sedate

Handed his lady a sere, tiny thing

Of white and yellow bone. Round it a ring

Or shred of brass, tight-twisted, bore along

Each edge, at intervals, impression strong,

Irregular, a little whorl, which she

Caught at as from the man of mystery.

She placed it in the hollow of her hand

And gazed and gazed, till in the slender band

Of brass she found the token— yes, the day

That she on Selim's finger in her play

Had twisted it! again the constant gaze

Which searched her footsteps through the market ways-

Again the dream, the hope, the flushed surprise

That starred with love those dark and thoughtful eyes.

To this, then, he had come! Ay, well, alas!

She knew the tiny pattern on the brass.
And all in tears she scanned it ; he had said,

She now remembered— in his little shed '

He, poor dead Selim, her lone worshipper,

The tool that made it, save on gift for her.
Should not be used ; yes, he whose bon<-s now lie

I I'

] X:
i ■•!■■

32 THE PERFUME-HOLDER

Strewing the jand, beneath the pitiless sky,
All save this one, this small ringed finger bone,
Kelic of sacred love, hers, hers alone!
The one cold token of the constant flame
That burned within his breast. O hour of shame!
Ihis dry white bone reproached her! Witness now
Poor dumb starved heart the fervor of her vow!
Witness her tears and kisses and her head
Bent o'er this voiceless pleader for the dead.
Laid now upon her soft grief-burdened breast.
There, while that heart should beat with life, to rest.

The lusty sun stared fiercely, free and high.

When they had reached the city. The blue sky

Shone dazzling clear, save where some fine-combed clouds

Straggled across; as they were souls in shrouds

Speeding to heaven ; or travellers single-file,

Moving apart, as tho in fear of guile.

Wrapping their parching bodies from the glare

And dusty highway. The zenana's air

Unto The Star-of-Selim'sHeart was v.ool

And comforting, as, fresh from out the pool

Of perfumed water on the rich divan

She lay, and over her waved an Indian fan

Held by a favorite maid. The silken door

Opened, two little girls between them bore

A shrouded present, which by high command.

Her lord's, The Shadow-of-the-Sultan's-Hand,

On her return be given her. Listlessly

She loosed the first silk wrappings— paused— for she

Saw surely 'twas some growth of royal art.

Even such a love-work as some loyal heart

Like Selim's might have pledged her. She unwound

The silk with wakened care, in thought profound.

Oh, miracle of genius proud and pure!

He promised her such a gift ; alas ! how poor

THE PERFUME-HOLDER

The man who loved her „a.; .he had not cared
For h.m or hi,-ah, heaven, had he been spared!
he .m , own sel thi, wonder might have wrought-
Sel>m, sweet self, had he not come to naught.
It wronged, insulted him; for daily need
Had bound that hand from such a lavish deed
*a.nt murmurings were thronging in her ears;
bhe watched ,t glimmering through her mist of tears-
Seen mrdst them, the entrancing, matchless thing
t/oomed mdistmct, gigantic, wavering.

As her tears fell she wiped them fast away-
Then seemg more clearly, something bade her lay
Orasp on the brazen vessel, while her gaze
Grew fixed, grew all excitement, all amaze;
Ihen gamst her breast she strained it with a sob;
And as her heart, rallying with mighty throb,
bhoolc deep her being all her loosened hair
Enshrined the perfume-holder like a prayer

F!!.r~"jfj~''!T'^"''"' "" P™"' °' matchless love!

Each scrolled and burnished strip of brass above

Upon each ornamental fillet's round,

The same fine-patterned tiny whorl was found"

The same with which his finger, once, she bruised

And fastened— from the die herself had used!

Yes, Selim's gift had come to her— his love
Had found her after death; ay, there above.
Even in the distant realms of bliss, new cheer
Must come to him; had she not grown more near
Unto h.s spirit though his outcast bones
Lay whitening on the desert's sands and stones-
All save this finger token? But there— look!
Graved on the brass his words, the open book
Of Selim's love— the words he never said
In life— his faithful message from the dead!

THE PERFUME-HOLDER

"Dot'f of my job/, thou uihilr and wondroui dove.
My Heaven ii with Ihee; nor did Allah's love
Ever send Peri unio suffering larlh
Fair as thou art, O lily of fra front birth!
Star of love's sty, rise pure and dwell apart
To sanctity the flouer-land of my heart.
Behold the first fruits of my pledge to thee;
Queen of my dreams, be merciful to me."

That evening, from the spot the camel-train
Had halted on when day' broke o'er the plain,
Saw the same sun, soft-barred with roseate streaks,
Dying away between the western peaks;
And as he sank from view the low sweet breath
Of twilight sighed above tile day-god's death;
But swelled at night and through the star-lit space
A requiem swayed across the desert's face;
And as it wailed its dreary, weird refrain
Along the hills and o'er the barren plain.
Cast heavy handfuls of soft sand where lay
A dead man's bones — and when the eye of day
Searched for them, lo, the desert held its trust,
Folded forever in its shroud of dust.

And in the night that breeze with plaintive sigh
Breathed through the lone'y latticed turret high
That pinnacled a palace; wandering there.
Entered a dim-lit chamber, strewing rare
Spiced odors forth along the midnight air
From a brass perfume-holder — such sweet breath
As rises scarcely at a monarch's death.

And in that silence a pale, tearful-eyed
Woman inhaled the perfume — watched it glide

THE PERFUME-HOLDER

Towird the deiert; on her heaving breait
One trembling hand she laid; beneath it presKd
A ulken case, which hid a little bone
And ihred of hammered brass .

No more it known.

MAJOR POEMS

Ir II!

HYMN TO THE SPIRIT OF BEAUTY

JYI AGNET of the exploring mind,
t .. Joy of nature unconfined,
Spirit of the Meal, rare
Artist working everywhere.
Posting on thy restless pinion
"er thy imperial dominion,
fainting all the turning year
An enswathed planetsphere ;
Lhild of Fancy and Delight,
Joyous, e'er enchanting sprite,-
Thou alone hast all completeness;

Er, M- i c" " ?'"«* """^ sweetness;

tI u"^ ^'""" '''1'' commission

Thou hadst heavenly manumission,

Ere grey wrinkled Time was young

Jove with music tipped thy tongue.

And so dowered thee with charms

That he thrilled with love's alarms;

All enamoured of thy face

Straightway clasped thee in embrace

And the keys of Heaven and Hell

rieided to thy potent spell.

Hebe was thy handmaid, she
Taught thee grace and favor free;

i,oId thee many a mystic story
Of Olympus' olden glory.
Ere the strife in Heaven began
Or ere Earth's first eons ran.
Lusty Bacchus owned thy sway;
39

40 HYMN TO THE SPIRIT OF BEAUTY

At thy feet his thyrsus lay;

Other loves he heeded not,

Ariadne was forgot,

Turned thy votary and for thee

Herded sheep in Arcady.

Brawling Mars would pine and sigh

For one glance of thy bright eye;

He would lay his helmet down

At thy slightest no J or frown;

He would bind his flowing locks

With the blue fond-lovers phlox.

But to lend some 'passing grace

To his harsh forbidding face.

He would call thee "dear" and "sweet,"

Sitting suppliant at thy feet.

Thou couldst thrill his heart with fear

For thy distaff claimdst his spear;

Made thy mirror of his shield,

Once the torment of the field.

And his blood-dewed laurel bough

Rested on thy mocking brow.

Thou has quaffed the mou. "ain lymphs

Oft amidst Diana's nymphs

W^en the rosy fingered Dawn

Hath the day bolts fairly drawn

For the safforn vestured East,

Ushering Nature's great high priest,

V'/hen he comes in golden state

Thru his azure arched gate.

Oft in some sequestered nook.

Gazing idly on a brook.

Thee the rustic Pan hath seen

Full length on a bank of green.

Thy blown robes and floating hair

Oft thru fields and uplands fair

He would glimpse as oa thy way

HYMN TO THE SPIRIT OF BEAUTY

Thou wouldst with the shadows play,
And his silent pipe would slip
From his curvet', half-smiling lip.
He would leave the charmed flocb
Clipping still their verdured rocks,
Follow thee thru forest Janes
Down which drifted sunshine strains
In a mist of filtered light
Thru the dense umbrageous night
To the shy nymph's bathing place, —
Where the caverned rocks embrace
One of Nature's hidden nooks;
Where the mild midsummer broob
Loiter, loth to leave, and hide
Neath the banb their purling tide.
And the curtaining waters fall
Foaming o'er the moss-hung wall.
Still his soul within him burned, —
When the leaves were backward turned
Of the poplars tall and fair,
Knew that t' iu weit passing there,
Caught the iairy fantasy
Of thy fluttering drapery;
And howe'er he still pursued.
And howe'er thy favor wooed.
Still thy laughter rippled back
All along thy shining track;
Still thy fairness lured him on
Till he some slight favor won;
Flower or love wreath from thy hair.
Or a kiss thrown on the air.
Or a glance of roguish guile.
Or a courtesy or a smile.

Lovely sprite, ethereal elf,
Thou art Concord's second self.

iIrL:

42 HYMN TO THE SPIRIT OF BEAUTY

Thou art Melody's mateless voice,
Thou art Nature's dateless choice,
Thou art Purity's inner glow,
Thou art Culture's outward show;
Thou appearest to the seer
Where no earth-born forms are near,
And thou breathest upon his thought
Till it glories, star-enwrought,
Thru the unmeasured fields of space
To the heavens high dwelling-place,
Till unnumbered Spheres it sees
Hung in crystal galaxies.

Thou, queen mother of the Loves,
In thy pearl car drawn by doves,
Rulest o'er the human heart
With an ever alluring art;
Never granting full fruition
To its ideal or ambition;
Still compelling it to turn
Toward a lovelier something, turn
On the axis of its thought.
Seeking that s'ill vainly sought,
Avatar of blissful life,
Uncontaminate of strife.

All unconscious of thy wile.
Careless youth, thou dost beguile;
Following up thy conquest won
Each new-born, diurnal sun.
Till thou flash on him surprise
Thru some sweet-faced maiden's eyes;
With intoxicating kisses
Luring him to a heaven of blisses.
To the Elysian Fields of love.
Where the skies are gold above;

HYMN TO THE SPIRIT OF BEAUTY

Where the flowerets never fade;
Where no upas casts its shade
'Gainst the sun-down tinted sky;
Where the dew is never dry
On the petals of the rose;
Where in chiming silver flows
The brook, unbound by wintry frost,
And by dog-star drouths uncrossed;
Where the perfume laden breeze
Wafted from the Hesperides
Blends its murmuring with the bees;—
There his nightly dreams are fair
As the soft blue-violet air.
Till with golden locks outspread
Titan lifts his morning head
And night's minions flee away
From the victor crowned Day.

But a fuller bliss hath grown

Than these earth-born forms have known ;

Thou hast still a nobler part,

Mistress of the poet's heart!

He shall limn thee as thou dost stand

Fresh and fair from God's own hand,
And the fadeless aureole spread
Of rapt sainthood round thy head;

He, thy champion, aye hath worn
Thy bright favors, proudly torn
Thru the hard won, fateful day,
Trophies from the field away.
He hath been thy high-priest, he
Hath adorned, enfranchised thee.
And hath offered up his heart
On the fire wave of his art;
He will still contented dwell
Thou sole inmate of the cell

44 HYMN TO THE SPIRIT OF BEAUTY

Of his dream life, and hath borne
Oft for thee the crow of scorn.
As I too have borne for thee
Scorn and bitter mockery;
As thou, too, hast dwelt apart
In the fastness of my heart.
And hast whispered to mine ear
Words which none beside may hear.
Mistress of my earliest choice
Of the sylphlike form and voice.
O'er me still thy, glamor throw, —
Spirit, all to thee I owel

i
ill

ASTROPHEL

(/» mtmorg of Bmjamin Lambord, ditd J%nt, lots)

¥ HAVE loved life— I have !oved life too well!
A For sorrow dies not, yearning will not cease;
I have loved life, the life of Astrophel,

Of Astrophel, who lieth now at peace;

Peace from world care and wasting ills increase;
Free nom Earth's galling ill requited toil;

One with the thousand stars of artist Greece ;
Reprieved from niggard Fortune's cumbering moil.
And chill despondent doubts that did his genius foil.

I scarce can sense he has renounced our life;—

Spring lingers with her trophies; birds and trees
And bourgeoning flowers are with earth-rapture rife,

Their sentient perfumes load the rhythmed breeze!

My heart should hold in tune with all of these;
It should with that warm ravishment accord;

Why drain this bitter potion to the lees
While he triumphant stands with spirits adored.
Elect of earth and Heaven who waiteth on the Lord ?

Philosophy, wise mentor, grant me balm!

Alas, I gain small comfort from your book;
I seem as life shows round me, careless, calm;

I would not aught should on my sorrow look.

Even by my dearest friends I am mistook;
Something has gone from day I know not where;

And yet the sunbeam flickers on the brook;
45

ir^

<* ASTROPHEL

Muiic and happy voices thrill the air,

And lummer dawns in pride and life blooms lush and fair.

Why here have chosen, Death? there are enough

Of passing souls to glut thy greedy hand;
Blood streams in torrents, rivers, and the stuff

Of carnage reeks to Heaven from every land;

On every side thy sable plumes are fanned;
The beautiful, the gifted, brave go down

Daily to that mysterious, shadowed strand
That lies beyond the country-side and town ;
That hides so much of love, dream, promise, hope, renown.

They all are thine— that press of stagnant souls

Alien to claim on Heaven; knaves, dolts and fools
Cumbermg the earth; blind, burrowing money moles;

Rakes hngering on their late repentance stools;

There fails no plethora of men whose rules
Of life outbrave the tiger and the pike;

Untamed by pity and untaught by schools
Of love or duty; each and all alike
Preying on weakened life and seeking where to strike.

Then to choose him— the purity of whose life

Was rainbowed, Ariel rescued from the pine;
Whose spirit soared above this world of strife

Even as a falcon loosened from its line;

Who quaffed all beauty as a youth drains wine;
Thirsted for knowledge as a saint for God;

Whose soul was keyed to harmonies divine.
Climbing those minstrel marches few have trod.
Plucking rare flowers of song from that Olympian sod.

I mourn for Astrophel— ah, none is left
To take his place, the Muse's darling son I

ASTROPHEL

Y« h 'h* « "u"f """- '"* """h' '»^' done-
Nor truckled to . era., material time;

lnZ.^J° '"'°""» j«"'«"'«l heieht, had won

In the glad workday of his youthful prime :-

Now naught remains except to grace hi. cor« with rhyme.

'^"cio,V°rf '»^'^,'""' ""Id with practiced pen

Clothe balanced thought in lucid shining phra^-
The mounts of song were captured in his ken

From Palestrina to these fuU-sounding day,;

While h.s own lyre was strung to magic lays
buch as lend wmgs to man; like him who smote

Sublime the storied Lied, his genius sways
The variant turns of the vibrating note,
Till thru the ethereal field those heaven-tuned echoes float.

And they are of the heritage of man's soul;

rtrt of the temple structure of that art
Which oer unnamed emotion takes control,
Ihe spirit sailing on without a chart-
He held no claim or dealing with the'mart
Ihat over lesser natures makes demand;

Love, Pathos, Aspiration, played their part;
Th(»e proud familiars came at his command.
Which he controlled with strenuous soul and plastic hand.

He lived for art— for more he lived to me
I scarce can think that he has passed beyond;

Ihe genia tone the voiced thought high and free,
ITie aeolian life of which all hearts were fond
The gentle presence, drew me with a bond'

lime cannot alter, circumstance replace;
That natural dignity his soul had donned

♦■ ASTROPHEL

Stood lightened by iti loveline« and r«ce.

With Moxart , winning mile and clean cut cuneo face.

^"w II°r '."f '"'"-''• «»"« """ 'he door
Th. r.K V'u '"'"'',"«> '»~k •""<«* hi. arm;
The hthe. light tread on the unthinking floor,

The room all brightened.-bre.thing forth hi, charm;

He Kerned a creature no ill thing could harm;
ao kind, so courteous, loving, debonaire;

I heard no threatening of that dire alarm
Ihat could dissolve sud, sweetnew into air;
No thought but Heaven to me would still that largesse spare.

And yet-and yet-who knows, ah me, who knowsl

Jt must be as the soldier falls to-day,
Striking for country, home,— whose life blood flows

Across the front of his unconscious day —

Spurning rich life that Freedom shall make way.-
S>o has he fought his fight and held his stand

On art, his art, which shall at last bear sway;
And that transcendent song that he had planned
hurv.ve, a torso priced, wrought by a master's hand.

If so, no traffic hold with vain regret;

Let us cheer Sorrow from our doors; stiU burn
The incense of our love, and proudly set

Remembrance high with chant and flowering urn;

He left his heart behind him, let us turn
To those brave melodies struck for after time,—

The deer has not more passion for the fern
Than that fine gallant soul for the sublime;
Now, now, perchance, enthralled by some celestial chime.

Seek him not then, O Kin-folk, in the gravel
That which you wept escaped, it is not there;

ASTROPHEL ^

^"*u-'il" ?"«• /' '• •"'• "•"««« '>'«ve.

In that hit immort.lity shinn fair;
Ihat i> h« aureole, 'ti, hi, heavenly crown;

D«,h ,1," 1' "^\*° 'y"" "^^'"^ Time .hdl ,p„e;
D^th threat, not that, howe'er on all he frown;
Abuhed before a claim hi, power may not put down.

**Th '*'."' '•'■'•.""•'.bound-but the end i. peace.

The cloud. di,per.e. the .hower, of grief are pa,t •
The tear,, the .igh.. the vain regret, .hall ceaJJ '

The trea.ured memorie, ,hine. we hold them fa,f

Doubt and despondency behind are cast; '

For Ajtrophel inhabiteth hi, ,tar.

The atar of immortality; at last
The beam breab o'er u, from that realm afar.
Whic^hjate nor Death may rfiock. nor Time .^r Cu.,om

ODE TO SPRING

TJ LITHE Flora, goddess of the opening year,
A-» Queen of the birth of love and warm desire
Youngest of sovereigns of this variant sphere,
Thou who had'st Pan for brother, Jove for sire
Fairest earth patron pi the heavenly choir.
Blest harbinger of plenty and increase.

Bright incense-bringer, vestal of the fire.
Priestess of life and joyance, beauty, peace.
Bearing within thy robes the balm for cares surcease;—

Thou, the adored of Earth, boon Nature's hope;

Joy of the winter prisoned and winter marred •'
Who settest all hearts aflame, giv'st prescience scope,

Wings to the venturous spirit, to the bard

His hippogriff of "Fancy; guide and guard
Of every live thing that exalts thy reign ;

Urging thy forest children, stripped and scarred, '
lo cloak their naked limbs with leaves again;
Coaxing Earth's timid flowers to smile o'er hill and plain ;-

Mother of all winged things, what time the brooks

Unloose themselves from Winter's hampering chain;
fathering in windy pines the clamorous roob.

And scattering balms and scents o'er hill and plain;

Who dost the budding emerald life sustain
To Its full flower in Summer's lordly pride,

And o'er their tender lives thy tents maintain
Of clouds and rains, and spreadest far and wide
Thy spangled web of dews across the country-side;—
SO

ODE TO SPRING j,

Thou who athwart the winter<onquered earth,
1 he ice-bound streams, the desolated land

hweepst on thy air-borne car, with kindly mirth
Ihy fragrant largesse scattering on each hand;
Blessmg the Earth's and Sun's new marriage band:

^S'"*^,.?' '^'"'^' "' W'"'" *° »h«> lairs;

Who, like the Virgin Mother still dost stand
Agent of Resurrection, Queen of Prayers-—
List him who greets thy reign and all thy 'bounty shares!

Hearken to him who lov?d thee while a boy,

Ay, with intensest passion, and who keeps
Thememories ever of that childhood joy

Thru manhood's cares, decline, and barren deeps;

Yea, even to-day his spirit sings and leaps
1 o view thy breath awakening the trees;

To hear thy forces mustering, as sweeps
TTiy airy chariot o'er the woods and leas.
With all the South in train and murmuring down the breeze.

Long has the Mother waited— deep, close down
Within her breast she hides her children frail-

Above their sentient germs she spreads her gown
Of leaves to fence them from the frost and gale
The patient Fosterer knows thou wilt not fail-

bhe wards with care her weaklings all from scath;
Let Winter do his worst, she will not quail

Although he lash her in his churlish wrath

And o'er her prostrate pride urge his unpitying path.

Oh, how her heart rejoices when thy horn

Is wound by boisterous March across the hills.

While wavering Winter, baffled and outworn.
Withdraws from his wide theatre of ills;
While all his ensigns, hanging from the sills,

i LS^

ODE TO SPRING

Are by thy breath blown forth in clouds and rain

To speed thy triumph, to feed full the rilb
Which, now enfranchised, leap down hill and plain
And shout their joyous news to river, lake, and main.

Within the star-pranked palace of the skies.

The young moon on thy arm, thou lov'st to rest,
While the warm South- Wind on thy mandate flies

Urging thy rule to North and East and West ;

While Winter's legions, smitten and sorely pressed.
Shriek through each mountain pass in forced retreat;

While from Earth's late mute, desolated breast
Rise sounds of life and joy and odors sweet.
Distilled by Heaven's own dew and borne by zephyrs' feet.

Sweet April, child of sunshine and of tears.

Attends thee with her violets; jocund May
C>mes ever smiling through the cycled years,

Her daisies and her hawthorn flowers to lay

Upon thine altar; regal June, alway
Garlands thy brow with roses till thy child,

Gay, wanton Summer, flaunts her sumptuous way
O'er hill and holt, o'er every field and wild.
And vainly would outcharm the hearts by thee beguiled.

il:

Fair, faithful harbinger of fruitful life,

What were this Earth deprived thee? What were noon
Without the dawning? Winter's toil and strife

How borne without the promise of thy boon?

Thy clouds, thy rains, thy blooms, the bubbling rune
Of broob, the diapason of the trees.

The hum of insect life, the varied tune
Of birds, the buzzing of the questing bees,
And all the pageantry of life thou lead'st across the leas.

ODE TO SPRING 53

And he whose soul was to thy flowers allied,

Sweet minstrel, with thy promise in his heart;
In his own Spring, in his rapt dream and pride

Of genius struclc by Death's untimely dart;

Lover of books and beauty and that art
To which he gave his best, »iow lieth low.

Even as thyself wilt lie— the tears that start
Are for no vulgar earth ; no pomp or show
Of kings might honor him whose worth I once did know.

'Twere fitting that his dream should close with thine,

Like Keats's, and the fevered heart which yearned
To sound the depths of thr.; emotioned sea

Of rhythm, that surging thru his spirit burned, —

Or when, like Orpheus, his fancy turned
To magic measures, charming old and young.

Giving in plenteous store the love he earned
Back- to those friends for whose delight he sung, —
Even now cut down when Fame had her first chaplet flung.

Let me, too, pass as he did, in thy time;

My own Spring long has withered, and that fame
Which comes of work well wrought, the wreath sublime

Of Poesy, has never crowned my name.

Yet would I pass like him, devoid of blame,
Of selfish, sordid passion. Goddess, hear —

Keep thou my heart like thine! let me still claim
The love and joyance of the opening year ;
Thy dauntless strife 'gainst Time, thy soul's unfailing cheer I

Yet, Goddess, what are passing lives to thee!

Mother and nurse of every living thing.
Thy endless chain of years, thy agency

Remains the same, tho all man's pride takes wing;

Ever thou buildest for the garnering;

ODE TO SPRING

Thy rains, thy dewc, thy beams impartial fal) ;

Ay, every year thy birds of promise sing
To usher in the Summer's carnival;
Love, Life, Hope, Liberty enswathing all.

ODE TO AUTUMN

DAUGHTER of Ceres, round whose wain-like car
^ Vme-wreathed nymphs and goat-hoofed satyrs d^e ■
men down th. twilight deeps the Evening St7r '

Casts her pale gl.mmer o'er thy realm's expanse-
Or when the Harvest Moon with mellow E
Is hung thy lantern in the fields of air ;

Or when the cohorts of the Morn advance
W<th brazen standard and with lances' flare.
Queen of the plenteous time, still is thy presence fair!

Thou art not crowned with blooms like siren Spring,

Bum .7k 1°'?'"°".' ^"""""'^ e'°ries dight; ^

I ^ L*" '•"■''' '*"*'" 'hj lowers sing

And thou hast days of lingering cool delight;

And thou w,th gracious and benignant might
Art ma ™n o'er earth's tilled and garnered ore;

Her fru.ts of gold, green, russet, purple, hite
Her heaped up treasures of the threshing floor '
The frothed October brew and wine-vate brimming o'er.

And thou too hast a glory all thine own,—

Ihe wampum of the woods, the violet skies;
Ihe barley rippl.ng as the wind is blown
Along the northland marches; the rich prize
Of yellow pumpkins, sprawling huge of size;
The tas«:led silken plumes of soldier maize;
Th^uu^ dark ruddy with their vintage dyes;
The blushmg peaches, and the pear which sways
Its brown-enameled gold o'er the close orchard ways.
55

ODE TO AUTUMN

Oh, Autumn, where is now thy regal worth ?

Sad palmer queen in Nature's amice gray,
'T;3 bleak November,— all thy pride of birth

Is folded mutely from the view of day I

Vainly the foliage thou wouldst overlay
With pigments of thy sundown painted skies;

For while the trees their liveried pomp display
Of gala tints and variegated dyes.
Winter to fragments rends their cloab with taunting cries.

Yes, Winter, thy fell rival, now will turn

Thy whispering verdure into howling waste,
And choke the pregnant flow of Plenty's urn,

And clog the streams with firm and shining paste;

Across the northern moors he maketh haste.
Behind his coursers, furious, fleet, and pale,

In ermine rob and hoary terrors graced.
With shrouded messengers of sleet and hail,
His javelined, ghostly scouts who guide the impending gale.

What if the impatient North winds round thee blow

Their hoarse-tongued trumpets as their King draws
near, —
Thou still wilt triumph, tho with manes of snow

The steeds of Boreas sweep in wild career;

Ay, when he hurls his stealthy icy spear
Far o'er the dun waste and the shivering wold.

Nature in dumb defiance, grim and sere.
Fenced by thy foresight from the invading cold.
Scorns his unkemped rage, ruthless and over bold.

But when beside the shining Christmas board
In blithe accord the household kindred meet.

When forth is spread the lush life-giving hoard
While round the doors the North-wind's coursers fleet,

ODE TO AUTUMN

Then when the Patriarch takes his honored seat
To ask Heaven's blessing on the plenteous fare,—

Then must thy heart rejoice! then most complete
Thy triumph— tho before the keen-lashed air
Thy chariot, rolling south, hath crossed the uplands bare.

Guardian of fruitful life! what thee we owe

We can with naught save gratitude repay;
All that we are, all that we feel and know.

Directly to thy bounty we must lay;

Far do thy thoughtful favors overvvcigh
Gay, wanton Summer's flushed and haughty grace;

Thou art our yearly hope, our daily stay.
For ere thou yield'st thy throne and dwelling plare,
Thou dost provide for man till thou renew'st thy race.

Autumn, God rules through thee! thy hand alone
Guides opulent Progress with potential care;

If thou but frown, dark spirits forth are flown,
Satan's fell angels from their dreadful lair,—
Hunger, Theft, Madness, Pestilence, Despair,

And Blasphemy ! Great sovereign of Increase,
Still kindly listen to thy suppliant's prayer!

Grant bread to life! ay, give without surcease!

And spread o'er thankful earth the Saturnian reign of
Peace!

i:l I!

'll||! Iv

fSi:

11 i§
■! lii:

ODE TO WINTER

VJ'ONARCH of polar realms, at whose hoar breath
^▼i Even the hearts' most passionate tides congeal;
King of frore winds and patron friend of Death,

Fortressed by icebergs as with towers of steel;

To whose stern march, man's haughtiest navies reel.
Or plunge sheer down throui^ ocean's champing waves;

Who on heaven-prideful mountains stamp'st thy seal;
Blighter of births and fructifier of graves;
Sovereign first crowned on earth, whose subjects all are
slaves; —

At whose fell frown sense fails and hope departs;

At whose hoarse voice weak mortals cower with dread;
Shriveling the poor, blocking the roads and marts.

Blasting where'er thy boreal flags are spread;

At sight of whose wild steeds, disheveled head.
Beasts, reptiles, insects wither and waste from day;

From whose grim gaze the choiring birds are fled ;
Thy one desire to ravage, wreck and slay;
What curse bears earth like thee— what prayer thy hand
can stay?

From thy pale wrath scarce Heaven itself escapes.

Thou stripp'st their brave, warm livery from the trees;
Nor even weak herbs avoid thy vengeance rapes.

Scathing the valley depths or upland leas;

Scouting round Spring with keen and barbed breeze.
Frequent thou dost her genial reahn surprise;

Her broidcred zone and wind-flower garland seize;
98

ODE TO WINTER ,9

Howling with rage through .11 her .huddering .kin;
Mmrring her emerald robe., dimming her mild blue eye,.

Not stand, even Summer from thy raid, exempt;

IJiou her rose-coronet tear'st with pelting hail;

Oft Autumn 8 wain and horn thou dost attempt,

Crippling her husba.. / with venomed gale;

1 he huddlmg clouds before thy coming quail ;

I he brawling brooks hush timorous to their chains;

1 he hardy wild-fowl Kour with bodeful wail
Before thy vanward sleet, and skirmish rains.
Whose annual trumpets shriek thine onset o'er the plains.

Round thy swift wheel throng blood-hounds-Famine glaw.

From the stra.ned-leash, impatient for his prey;
Consumption, gaunt and ghastly, round him stares,

Singling frail, hectic forms to rend and slay;

Scurfed, dull-toothed Rheums rush by with sullen bay
Worrying their victims who resourceless die-

Beneath their fangs Youth fades and Hope turns gray;
Through ear of thee men murder, thieve, aTd lie, '^'

And the ladled coward wolves grow bold beneath thine
eye

For sure thy sire was uncouth Chaos old.

Thy dam, decrepit, blind, primeval Night,
mo in their pact with Time bequeathed thee Cold,

Ere they resigned their thriftless, pristine right;

Who ere they winged their head-long hell-ward (light,
Schooled thee for war against the ordered world-

Leagued their vague terrors to thy breath of blight,
Cloud, tempest. darkness,-these thy mandate hurled,
Urged by the Gorgon. Want, with hissing hair uncurled.

Long as this world its path celestial vrears;
Long as the indenture of gray Time shall 'run,

to ODE TO WINTER

Thou wield'M thy sceptre— long u Heaven forbears
Thou warr'st unceasing with the imperial Sunj
How oft thy black battalions, one by one,

Crwh 'gainst hi* bright spears in the Northern sphere I
How flash thy forkM fire-boltsl then the dun,

Tremendous conflict ceases; far and near

The Sun's armed hosts advance, thine break, all rout and
fear.

Once thy high-turreted, mastless ships of war,

Like the Norse swarming, menaced every cout;
They breasted ocean's brqadth from shore to shore,

A deep-keeled, saillas, iridescent host ;

They were thy pride, O Winter, and thy boast;
Still annual dost thou launch them, towering free

Above the islands; oft a mountain ghost,
An icy castle, cools the sun-scorched lea
Of some careening bark, furrowing the trade-wind sea.

Thy standards curtained once the Torrid /^ne.

And vexed Enceladus cooled his throat with snow;
Across the Alps was reared thy crystal throne;

Once didst thou chain the Mississippi's flow;

From coast to coast thy vanguard, blow on blow,
Spread death through nether Afric's fervid realm;

Driving before thee bird, beast, man, thy slow,
Resistless glaciers deep did life o'erwhelm,
Till more than Timour's rule stretched round thy q>arry
helm.

Like to Armadas whelm'd in ocean surge,
Vast forests sank 'neath seas of leaguering ice;

Pushing down tropic vales the greening verge,
Thy snows frothed o'er earth's fruitage, corn and rice;
No common tribute could such lust suffice;

ODE TO WINTER

The rocb were ground to dust, the mountain fines

Were channelled peak to baie; one awful price
ftarth paid thee— an enormity of paint,
As crept thy torturing frost through her fire-nurtured veins.

How then lived man?-though fenced with frozen mail

I he soil refused him sustenance, yet his hand
Drew safety from the maelstrom of thy gale;

On Earth's last cooling round he took his stand;

He found in caves a refuge; armed with brand
Of wood or stone, he dauntless faced and slew

The earth-shaking mastodon; to his command
He trained the fleet-foot reindeer and o'erthrew
The huge cave-bear that even thy scourge could not subdue.

Thus age still rolled on age,— then through dun skies

The buckler'd Sun sprang armed in aureate might;
His flashing javelins gained the desperate prize;

Back to the Poles thy chariots wheeled in flight;

There, and upon the hoariest mountains' height,
Thine outposts o'er the world — eternal sway

Thou boldest with brawn hand and ancient right,
Paviboned vast with glaciers, icebergs gray.
Thronged round with winds thy best drives world-wide
day by day.

Ay, when the modem Csesar's fateH power

Rose black with portent twixt th. earth and sun,

Enshrouding continents, in his amplest hour
Thou met'st him, breath'dst against him, and undone
He fled, disarmed, dismayed; his empire won

Through blood and flame lay prostrate; ne'er again,
Answering thy voice, forth roared the Gallic gun;

Thy winds still boast those vaunting myriads slain,

Sepulchred 'neath thy snows from Moscow to the Seine.

ODE TO WINTER

t :

i ~Uk

ThiM thy revenge growi rooted, ttill mote hi^

Around the Poles thou re«r'« thy cryitil waU;
MiU, age on ige, repulud, compelled to «y,

Thy cohorts sweep to their wide cmiivil;

Sull, one by one, the warm, bright barrien fall;
renistent swge, insidious attack.

Spread slowly, surely thy perennial thrall,
Winnmg by piecemeal thy dominion back,
TiU Time treads out his torch, Death diet and all is wrack.

Ay when on cool, clear eves, athwart the dome
Flare white thy torchks, and the maiden moon

is hooped with silver, 'tis thy coming home
O Conqueror I weie our earthly ears in tune
Well might we hear thy minstrels' triumph rune

Filtering its cadence through the dusky sl^;
For be it gray December or green June,

Somewhere victorious thy dark standards «y,

Somewhere the Sun hath failed, somewhere hu subjects die.

I Yet, O proud Winter, despot though thou art,
I And unreprieving thy imperious will,
Thy sumptuous grace reveals a royal heart,
What time thou smil'st the earth is beauteous still;
Thou deck'st with pearl and ermine tree and hUl,
And rob'st with light-wreathed down the naked vales,
Bright pendants hang'st to archway, eave, and sill,
While blush fair cheeb beneath thy bussing gales
As at the Sun's first kiss are tinged the wind-filled sails.

And Nature, vanquished, triumphs, too, throu^ thee.

By thee is her progressive year made sure;
But for her harsh arrest, how many a tree
, And flowering shrub would bloom not nor endure;
^ Safe in their roots the thrifty saps procure

ODE TO WINTER

Uo^Th ./"" ^^""' '"'•'^ »" •«' rf«ininB lure.
,h. So t,"""'"'""' '"""^ •^'"« '•"^'"« trough

Thou, to. ,a UrH oi ,e -I^-jocund thou

For .hV '^''' '^r'*' ■" ^' •■'ou. ChriMnw. time;

For ,h, ,,«,,, h.lly ...,,., ,Hy rugged brow,

AnJ M,nh ,... ...„« ,.;.p round thy beard of rime.

1 l«n the .:,' ...nre clume-born. when in her prime

' WhTht .h't ? ' "™',".^ *"" *• "«" »' Night,
AndSolt ''--;'.^ '^P^J from mwy . «„«„er diS
And from Iro, .e, Autu.nn's horn, with cryttd bright
And lordly ..Iver crowned, Jiines in the hewth-fire light.

^"v "!5 *,? *'''"""• O ^*'"«'' joy* robuit, "
Varied, illuitnou.,— mirthful, too, thy sway;-
If earth yield, naught for thee, not thine the diut.
1 he taint defiling the mUd seaMn'a day
Thme it the sUvery trilling of the sleigh.
The steel-shod skater's zest, the daring slide,
I The schoolboys snowball battle, blithe«)me play)
Where er thou reign'st free flows the festal tide,
1 111 to one bhthe «ccord thou bind'st the harvest side.

E'en when thou comest in thunders and in glooms,

tl^ike Attila, bursting on corrupted Rome) •
Blustering above thy three fair rivals' tombs, '

Even then thou furtherest the pure joys of home;

Beneath peaked cottage roof, arched palace dome.
Hew glide m fireside cheer thy riotous hours I

The gniial game, the wise or witty tome.
Beguile the heart as in the month of flowers
Mahng new Edens bloom amongst thy snows and showers.

ODE TO WINTER

^ If

And she, my mother land, Queen of the North,
Heir to the Viking heart, the Briton fame;
I Midst the sea-bridlers youngest, yet the fourth.
Unfurling round three ocean shores her claim;
Binding about her brows the Maple flame;
Holding from thee the new North World in fee;

Unsullied by the blood-drenched Afric shame;
Resourceful as the circumambient sea ;
^ Firm as her granite hills, staunch as her bannered tree,—

She gains from thee the deep-blue of her skies;

She breeds by thee hen sons of stalwart mould ;
She breathes thru thee a faith that never dies;
I She draws her chasteness from thy storms and cold ;
I Along her future blessings manifold
\ Impend, if to herself she hold but true;
\ May she, like thee, still dwell unbribed and bold,
\ And bear her steps stiU upward, while the dew
Of Peace shall pearl her path and Honor's star lead true.

Nor comes the forceful brain, the tireless hand

From the enervate realms beneath the Line;
There, flower-enchained, the soul can ne'er expand.

Divorced from care, it sinb in sloth supine ;

The voice that fathers pregnant thought is thine;
The heroic virtues all are nursed by thee;

Thy tones to man are prophecy, like wine
Is thy keen, urgent spirit; like the sea
Thy winds upbear his soul, thy breath is Liberty!

Thy breath is Empire, — from fierce frost and storm
The lion-loined, the bane of Romans, came;

No power on earth could thwart them, swarm on swarm.
They purged the world with massacre and flame;
Before the blast of Thor's and Odin's name.

ODE TO WINTER

The sensual southern gods abhorred their shrines-
There C,v.l.zation grows, broad-basid. ol oZ'ei line,.

^Robtd o'i'Vh""''' •"«'"--'P'«- and time

All ««nin "■ '*'"**--^«ll """n's tireless brain,

S M " "^" «™"e-»™ed vassal train;

StJl surer mastery o'er them doth obtain;

UV.'Z'tr,^""^:. *°- "•^»"'0- powers,
Toil for h,m through life's waking, sleeping hours
And cro^wn T,me's centuried marc^ withUnt gi-ns, and

Y<s, to thy trackless wastes this marvellous man-

Even to thy citadels of ice and snow,l '

Followmg that spirit born of these, doth plan

Srfe'orf t"? ""'r' "">« ""'^"^ ^-""^ to go;

Thus,^^starved. benumbed, outworn, he foL;, Hope and

Yet there he ^enetrates-even to that place
Most private to thy rule his march hath gone-

Z!" t CT*"'"^ '""" °f 'hy face, '

Where Night her veil a hundred days has drawn -
Favored by fortune, yet of chance the pawn '

His daring foot is set upon thy throne;

Lo, there he stands, his face turned to the dawn-
To hunger, tod and cold unmoved as stone, '
So that h>s unmatched pride may claim thy realm hi, own.

ODE TO WINTER

Yet he, even he, were but for thee a chUd,
Passing in dreamless sloth Ufe's choicest year;

Driven by vague impulse, passions rude and wild,
He drew no benison from the purer sphere; —
He breathed no air of truth ; no limpid tear

Of feeling made the flowers of pity start;
Beheld no beauty; all untuned his ear

To music of the birds; his own crude heart

Was to itself a fear, yet conscience owned no smart.

His craft was that of beasts; — to hunt, waylay

His food and dig rou^h shelter from the storm; —
He praised no God; the body's lusts, the fray

Nursed the chief arts that could his mind inform;

He knew few social virtues; like a swarm
Of insects grew man's congregated dust,

Without coherence, amity, or form;
From brutish birth to brutal death a rust
Clave to his darkened soul, an all-corroding crust.

Thou didst arouse him. Father of the North !

Thou nerved'st his heart-strings in the great Ice Age;
Drew'st tense his listless sinews, goad'st him forth

At first, for naught but rapinr, war to wage

On palsied, blighted races; now the sage
Giuncils of Time have trained his hand to peace;

The victories he now writes on History's page
Yield grander Iliads; all the art of Greece
Revived, refined, and grasped the hundredth Golden Fleece.

Therefore, reign thou, most honored I for thy worth
Doth far thy surliest vassals' wraths outweigh;

For whilst thy white confusions blanch the earth
Thou lay'st foundations for an ampler day, —
Thou sowest to richer futures; still life's May

ODE TO WINTER

B1«WB with the foresights thou hat Uught to mar-
For by thy rigor forced to war for ,^y ""*"'

And bu.lds a deathle« fa«e in one brief Jrtd sp.nI

4 I

DIANA AND ENDYMION

ENDYMION had wandered all day long
Within the embrasured shadow of the woods,
Lured by a dream of loveliness and hope
And joyance, such as comes but once to spirits
Of earth, and seldom to, the gods above.
He hungered not, for the warm pulse of youth
Fluttered his eyelids, b^at about his brain
With visions blissful, rapt; for all his soul
Vibrated, pinioned by the breath of June,
Blown thru the cedarn alleys, and the burden
Of swaying pine-tops melted thru his mood,
Like incense midst a pure impassioned prayer.
Till the deep diapason of the boughs
Rhythmed the pulse of languorous delight
With wordless chords of song. He came at eve
Upon the woodland fringe, when camping Day
Had set his crimson standard in the West,
And driven his golden-maned steeds a-fteld
For pasture ere the morrow; o'er the heath
The opposing gradual shades of evening fell
In folds like wings of sleep, and the mild dews
Of Latraos, steeped in odors, filtered down
Thru the dim breathless air and touched his brow
With balm-anointing coolness;— o'er the vales
Faintly the low of home-returning kine
Rose with a hollow murmur, like the pipe
Of Pan himself, and swathed the pulseless eve
With a soft film of sound;— the purple shades
Deepened to bluish jet, and one by one

: , j

DIANA AND ENDYMION 6q

The sentinels of Heaven in glittering arms
Moved midst the tented night, to each his stand,
And panoplied with light the involved skies
And the still, breathing ejith; — nor yet the Mom
Had journeyed forth, but in her house of clouds
Lingered awhile, as loth to shame the stars
With her full aureate beam.

Endymion drew
His leopard skin around his graceful loins
And leaned against a tree whose blossoms pale
Broke foam-like o'er his head, and breathed their love
Into the silent night; — the languid eve
Pressed its nepenthe deep within his sou),
Soothing with cool caress; his eyelids fell
And his breast heaved with weariness; all cloyed
With drowsy sweets he sank upon the sward,
Arm-pillowed, dreamless in the pale starlight.
But soon the curved moon from her cloud sphere
Outbroke and turned her calm and tender gaze
Upon the limp form of the Arcadian youth,
Bathing with lucent glow his olive face
And russet burnished limbs; — her nether horn
Hung like an argent sickle, and from its tip
A silvery gleam fell o'er the dusk-bound earth.
Banding the height with lustre to the feet
Of slumber-wrapped Endymion; — down its coil
A radiant goddess slipped with arms outspread,
White as the drift of Heaven; on her arched brow
The moon had fixed her image, and her breast
Shone brighter than Orion's belt with gems,
That burned the dusk to splendor; at her back
A sheaf of silver arrows crossed a bo\' ,
The red hart's lordly tine; in her right hand
She bore an ash-tree javelin tipped with steel,
Wliich sooty Vulcan tempered diamond hard
On Lemnos long agone; her beach-brown hair

DIANA AND ENDYMION

Was coiled, save one long curl that 'gainst her throat.

Her throat of matchlen alabaster, swirled.

Clung, as she dawned on Earth and to the side

Of the still youth with printless tread she drew.

The splendor of her beauty waked the birds

And tuned the slender life amidst the grass

To tenfold chorus, as with buskined feet.

Brushing the harebell blossoms, her proud lips

Curved to a smile of wonder and delight,

She drank the charm of the transcendent youth.

She stooped, then paused, a goddess bashful grown;

She paused, then stooped; her face with blushes flamed

That turned the flomrs to rose; she beat lier down

And lightly touched his lips, then thra his hair

Of clustering hyacinth she amorous sawpt

The glory of her hand.

He waked not yet.
Although his heart was stirred with dreams ^vine,
With beatific visions, as the chrism
Of more than mortal love cnswathed his sool.
Then as the sleeper stirred she hovered there
Close to his face and breathed bis smothered si^
Of warmth-fed passion, as the youthful blood
Coursed nimbly thru the alleys of his brain
And fed voluptuously the uncharted mind
With rapt, aspiring dream. She smiled, she sighed;
Her breast with longing heaved, counting the cost, —
The commune of the gods, the praise of men,
Worship of virgins, her Ephesian rfirine.
And all the glories of her name and state.
Fate held the golden scales — a mortal love
Against a heavenly crown; a span of bliss
Against an immortality of cold
And splendid ponder ; then again she gazed
Upon the sleeping youth; till yearning swayed
Her pubing soul, fsr thrusting back her vow,

DIANA AND ENDYMION

Of h^™. ' " '"'T'''"' "'"' *« «""'"0" garb
Uf humin uses and the ways of men.

cl^lli^*' ^'"'■^' """'"« broke
^/tH^ "f "r ''" '""hes of the East;
And look.ng forth she marked a «arlet ,ha
Of sunx.se break upon the throned crest
Uf far Olympus, canopied with clouds,
1 he honH: of pre«:ience and power where dwell
The starry gods who guide the fates of men-
Then turned and still with backward-looki^ eyes
She floated forth across the Latmian height^^ '

And burned a r.val splendor 'gainst the dawn
Above the pathless and unstable sea

',>^'' ,

DEFORMED

LEAVE wide the window— let the new-born Spring
Enfold me ere I die with her warm breath I
Die, did I say? I but cast o£E this thing

Hate calk its body. |Claim thy tribute, Death!
Men have belied thy terrors; thou'rt to me
Deliverer; come, proud king, and make me (r«el

Yes, I thy lover, Death, have wooed thee fcng,
For Life hath crossed me with its foulest spite;

Life hath debased me, tricked me, turned me wrong;
Set me a mock in EarthS and Heaven's sight.

Life? I have never lived! In this brief span

I but have shared his agony wMi man.

Nwight else? Ah, yes, these flowere! Theit beauty fills
My soul with ravishment, whos^ hoiie is proof

Against this loathM flesh, these wasting ills;
God gave me love — it is my sole behoof:

I love the flowers! I love this sweet s^ng day,

And you, dear friend, you I will love for aye!

No coldness froze me in yow steadfast eye;

Your heart was always to compassion true;
You only did not curse me, pass me by;

Alone of all mankind I have but you;
I have been twice redeemed; nu once sufficed
For me, you are my nearer, second Christ!
72

DEFORMED

Yei, hell wai mine, an earthly hell of ihune;

The vilett outcasts drove me from their (ight;
Ihea scorn and hatred seared me like a flame;

Women and babes fled from me in aflfright;
Never since matter germed, since earth was green,
Was such a vile misshapen monster seen!

Yet I was born with human mind and heart;—
Ah, why should God have left this mark on me I

Yej I can wee|>— look how the tear-drops start
As limpid as from eyes of infancy!

The temple ways are foul, but its pure shrine

Is silver and holds consecrated wine.

"Tis said in His own image God made man,
But only sin's foul shape was shown in me;

some Wickedness, first bom when time began,
Resisting goodness and regeneracy.

Heaped high its growing horrors on my head,

And for God's beauty fiend-form gave instead.

I walked the earth an alien! even the birds
Twitted me with deformity— the broad sun
n^ « ""y plight— day stared at me— men's word*
Flicked at me serpent-like— their eyes to shun

Dwelt on me still detesting— God and man

And pitiless nature laid me under ban.

Yet have I read of pure and tender joys;

•A^ covertly, like Satan upon Eve,
■neged by all the yearning life annoys,

I gazed at beauty, still constrained to weave
Among sad thoughts the unavaUing tears
Of hopeless, honssfess, loveles, Wighttd yxars.

DEFORMED

Afiection, which hath fottered every life,

Spurned me and changed her iweet breut-mak to gaU:
The whole world', hate feU o'er me; all iu .trife,
„,W" now to break my ipirit. Sad u Saul
When Itrael'. heart turned from him, I began
To live, to grow, in soul, at least, a man.

A curse far heavier than the curse of Cain,

Or him, who cries "unclean!" fell on my'brow;
I heard the angels o'er my plight complain,
,„L™"""' ™ fiendish shapes did mop and mow;
While leering faces cast a 'ghostly spell
Across the path that lured mc down to hell.

They sold me like a chattel, hissed and jeered ;

They thrust me forth before the vulgar crowd;
Their laughter tortured me; my soul was seared'

By their low horror; and my spirit bowed
Almost to breaking 'neath that cross of scorn
To which my human heritage was born.

Even the frightful freafa I dwelt among,

Avoided contact, shuddered, turned away.
Or cursed me; hourly by their insults stung

I cursed myself and cursed the light of day.
And as the thing I called my head I bent,
I felt the fearful laughter thrill the tent.

And then the barker with a fiendish leer.
Stood up and poured the vitriol of his tongue

Around me, raising in their throats a jeer,
Which like the flame of Tartarus scorched and stung;

Till all the earth was torment, and I trod

The bitter wine-press of the wrath of God.

DEFORMED

Then in ■ maze I uw you mount the boards ;

I watched the anger quiver in your eye;
Like to the money-changers whipped with cords,

From your just rage I watched the barker gy;
Next with your Christ-like arm you cleared a space,
Among the throng, and with me left the place.

Then to my hideous grave of life there came
One ray of comfort, first of all my days;

One heavenly word of kindness in His Name,
Who taught us Love ; a word beyond ail praise ;

That word was brother^-your hand sought for mine.

You bathed my heart with sympathy divine.

I looked — but in your eyes I failed to see

Aversion, lurking like a coiled snake;
The balm of pitying cheer was there for me;

The angel, Hope, in your blessed accents spake;
These books, these pictures, flowers, are all from you,
Oh, rarer heart than woman's, kind and true!

Yes, you have earned the love I had bestowed
Upon some woman in life's happier state;

The love to unborn children I have owed.
The love that in all hearts outlasteth fate;

On every path of life a spring of God,

Waiting the stroke of Faith's divining rod.

Here in this chamber, dosed from eyes of men,
I have worn out the remnant of my years

In peace if not in happiness; and when

This lies in death, I will rise midst my peers,

The spirits gone before; I then must be

In the new body — oh, what ecstasy 1

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Sg (715) 286- 5989 -Fax

DEFORMED

Yes, Death and I are friends! I never knew
Lifes dread of him, and now my sole reeret

Is leavmg you, dear friend, for in that new
And better world there will not one be met

Except It be Christ's self, to whom this heart

Will yearn as then for yours-but here we parti

°«r n;"™ your hand! ah, friend, the love I bear,
Would that It might ennoble this vile form;

Ihen might you see my soul, its visage fair
Kambowed from out this passing cloud and storm.

Irradiating Life. Ah, Beauty, Love,

I shall behold you perfect there above!

The unclothed beauty of die soul that grows

bublimer as the effluence of that life
Which is the sun indeed! which ever flows

Across the warring clouds of human strife,
And gendermg -^i the glory of the years
Breaks mto starry splendor on the spheres.

The beauty, strength and symmetry here sighed

In vain for, as I sighed for that of flesh;
Ihe manhood purged by suffering, glorified

In the new larger life we live afresh-
The favor of God's smile, the love of Christ-
BROTHER-'twas His the word; dear friend-the TRysxl

THE EVER-GROWING TRUTH

(^ Parable)

A SEED of truth, now far renowned,
-^ *• A poet in his garden found ;
Yet whence it came or how it grew
Or what its worth he scarcely knew;
He planted it; with tender thought,
The germ was to unfolding brought.
He nourished it with deftest skill
And placed it on his window sill;
A world of patient care, in sooth.
He lavished on that new-born Truth.

Enamored of its thrifty grace,

He stood it in the market-place.

And hourly to the crowd would cry,

"My precious Truth, who'll buy! who'll buy!"

He sang its praises late and soon

In lyrics of all kinds of tune;

Yet tho it shot forth green and fair.

And spread its leaves to sun and air.

Burgher and matron, maid and youth,

Laughed at the poet and his Truth.

A scientist in cap and gown,
First marked it with a hostile frown;
A pedant, steeped in dreams of age,
Fogged in his mythologic page.
Declared it but a weed, he saw
77

14-

§.

78 THE EVERGROWING TRUTH

'Twas clear against time-honored law;
For plants of such a strange degree
He could not find authority;
He deemed it but a thing uncouth;
"It never, never could be Truth."

A pompous theologue drew near

And smiled, "Good sir, what have we here?

'Tis worthless, friend; you should devote

Your care to matters less remote.

Certainly God did not intend

This unknown weed, to work His end.

A thousand seedlings comelier far

I'll lend you from my dogma jar.

You surely cannot mean, forsooth.

To call this wretched wild thing. Truth."

A politician sidled up

And sneered, "You drain a bitter cup.

Who'll buy? Not all the fiends in Hell

Nor saints in Heaven; you'd better sell

Odes to the hero of the time;

He's useful, if much less sublime.

You swear you've grown it? Well, suppose

You have — will't bring you bread and clothes?

From Pilate down," he chuckled, "youth,

We're all at ^ci about the Truth."

One day a philosophic wight
Fingered it, gauged its spread and height;
He measured down and round about.
Yet what it was still held in doubt.
'Twas in bad way — 'twould soon be dead;
He snorted, squinted, shook his head:
"A dreamer's whim as one may see;
What, this thing bourgeon to a tree!

THE EVER-GROWING TRUTH

'Twill ne'er aUde Time's gnawing tooth;
It never, never can be Truth."

So all men on it gazed askance,

Or gave it scorn or passing glance;

They tossed their heads, they pursed their lips,

They would not take the proffered slips.

The owner shouted all day long,

"Who'll buy — 'tis surely worth a song!"

But the it wrung the poet's heart

To sue the mammon-greedy mart.

They would not give him heed nor ruth.

They would not buy his novel Truth.

Time passed — the world-wrecked poet died;

The plant his loving hand supplied

With tendanr-e slowly pined away.

Nor longer bloomed in fac r day;

Blossom and leafage, all for^jt.

Lay shrunk within the earthen pot.

Men marked its brown and cheerless hue:

"Look what the crazy poet grew!

Pity the fool outlived his youth.

He fondly called this changeling 'Truth.' ".

Ar-l now the plant which had beguiled

•vwt, passed unto a child,
i .eak-eyed offspring, who, purblind
When manhood came, forgot to mind
The precious flower, and anyone
Who cared might place it in the sun.
"I have so much, so much to do;
My father valued it? — most true."
He blinked, then gave a yawn uncouth;
"I have no time to air liis Truth."

80 THE EVER-GROWING TRUTH

At length a stranger hurrying by,
Chanced the neglected plant to spy.
He halted, gazed, then asked the price,
And straight he owned it in a trice.
He watered it with constant care.
He gave it wealth of sun and air.
When, lo, around its withered heart
New tender sprouts began to start;
They leaved, they wove a verdant booth, —
The poet's wonder-working Truth!

And now folk asked in stark surprise
Whence came this plant of giant size.
They wondered much to see it spread;
Then fell to praising it instead.
The theologue, with mouth agape,
All speechless, watched it taking shape;
The man of science wrote a book
Upon it; pedants stopped to look
With reverence, and the man of oooth,
The pbilosoph, adored the Truth.

The politician stared, and then
Took off his hat and cried, "Amen I
We've grown it; I foresaw it all,
'Tis plain as apples in the Fall:
The man was cannier than we knew;
I also had this long in view."
But all, unknowing whence it came.
Thronged to the owner for its name;
"What's this?" they cried, "is this forsooth
What that daft rhymer called the Truth?"

"You v/ould not take the poet's word,"
He answered, "tho 'twas daily heard;
Like mine, your prescience might have known

THE EVER-GROWING TRUTH

These bravely struggling leaves half-grown,

And owned, had you but eyes to see,

These blossoms for futurity.

The man you mocked heartbroken died;

The plant you scorned is now your pride ;

Supreme beyond neglect or ruth.

Behold the never-dying Truth!"

EUGENIE ON THE DEATH OF HER SON

WHAT, killed! O God! who said so? it is false!
I'll not believe it! 'tis an arrant lie
Forged by an enemy! Tears! then It's true,
True or I would not weep ! I shall go mad
Crushed by this load of woe! My son, my son!
Bless'd God, couldst thou not find a sacrifice
Some other than my lamb, my only one?
Were there not gallant hearts enow to bleed
That have no mothers ? — None but only him
On whom the hopes of millions lived and thrived?
Art thou all sternness, that couldst take his life,
So hopeful, fresh and loving, full of joy.
And leave me desolate? — Oh, it cannot be!
Men call thee merciful, and mercy loves
To guard young tender life, not to crush quite
The lonely longing heart, the yearning hope.
The hope of years, long, lon;i and painful years; —
Oh Heaven, I rave, I rave, stern judging Heaven!
I never, oh, I never more shall see
Him whom I once called Louis, never lay
My hand upon his brow and bid him live
The ceding glory, life and light of France.
Ah, woe is ine! for I have outlived hope,
Husband and throne and country, and my fSild!
Strike now, thou grinning Death, and join a^ain
Them thou hast parted! give me back my boy!
Or that this agonizing grief might bring
Madness upon my soul! but yet not so —
For then, perchance, I'd lose all memory
82

EUGENIE ON THE DEATH OF HER SON 83

Of my poor stricken love; — no, better live
And weep from day to day salt drops of sorrow
And drown my grief in tears, feeding their flow
Upon remembrances of my dear boy,
Nipped by the fierce frost in his morn of May.

my son, my son!

Had I been near to hear thy dying lips
Falter the name of Mother — to exchange
One parting look — to stanch thy piteous wounds —
To watch the flicker of thy fleeting breath ; —
How soft I would have pressed thee to my breast
Where once thou lay, my child, a smiling babe —
And soothed thy passing moments, and have wiped
The death-dew from thy brow — but thou art gone —
And I no more shall see thee, my lost boy!
My one, my Joseph! oh, my light, my all!

1 cannot think, my child, that thou art dead.
And that corruption and the grave shall mar
Thy delicate flesh — thou wert too young to die;
Youth bloomed, hope brightened in thy speaLing glance.
And how I loved to trace with mother's pride

The lineaments the partial hand of Time
Was graving on thy brow, kinglike and fair.
Ah, little thought I, child, when thou didst belt
England's bright sword of battle on thy side
And with thy radiant smile didst raise my hopes
With words of loving cheer, that I no more
Would hear the merry music of thy voice
Beguile my weary hours from vain regrets;
No more would feel thy warm breath on my cheek,
The light clasp of thine arm, as with flushed brow
And kindling eye, thou saidst, "Ma mere, adieu!
I go to make me worthy thee and France
And crown my brows with honor, that the world
May know thy son is equal to his name

84 EUGE.aE ON THE DEATH OF HER SON

And to hit former fortune* — happy if he

May thread with glory the dark web of fate.

His star shall lead thy Louis up to fame,

France, and an empire; never yet hath failed

The great hope of our race — good bye, good bye I

God keep thee!" and thou leftst me with that word.

Yes, then thou leftst me, leftst me here alone.

Alone! was I alone? No, while thou livedst

My spirit went forth with thee, as in dreams.

Watched o'er thee oft on shipboard or in camp.

Walked with thee up and down, joined in thy prayer,

Ay, poured out for thee litanies of love.

I'd muse away whole hours' upon a guess

Of how thou'dst be employed, ' and how thou'dst shine

Upon the field of battle, and would pray

The God of hosts to keep my boy from harm,

Till prayer begat assurance— Oh, fond fool!

To trust the promptings of a mother's heart

And hope to buy thy safety with her prayers.

Oh, thou wert winged for glory, Icarus,

But flew too near its sun! Now art thou gone.

And now am I alone! Oh, I am cold!

The nig^t-wind gives a moan that thou art dead,

The night-bird tells it to her lonely mate;

This eve the Sun, fainting within the west,

Cast on his bed of clouds a bloody stain.

Yet shall he rise and smile, freshed with new life —

But thou, my Light, my Sun, dyeing the fields

Of far-ofi Africa with thy young life

Let out by savage hands, — remorseless hearts

That held no pity for thy tender youth.

Thy life-blood streaming on their cruel spears —

No more shall come to greet me with thy smile.

I am alone, alone amidst a world

Of moving bodies, careless, mocking forms

That taunt me with their life thy bloody death.

EUGENIE ON THE DEATH OF HER SON 85

I have no more to live for and the grave
Yawnt wide it* dre — portal; — come, kind Death!
Snap the last cord that -Mi me to thii earth
That I may seek my lost one through the skies; —
I have no other hope — I am alone!

RESURGAM

"Old thinfs need not be therefore true
O brother men, nor yet the new;
Ah! still awhile the old thought retain.
And yet coniider it again!"

CO wrote the rhymer of a vanished day
•J And we, the Present's children in our ^lay
At circumstance, abiding calm and sane,
Should take this home— consider it again!

The passing hour— the horologe of Time
Rounds forth the cycle of a change sublime;
Old institutions tottering to their fall,
And a new writing on tradition's wall.
Progress plays life 'gainst death— the setting sun
Bnngs with new hopes and fears fresh tasb begun
New to last year or yesterday, and change.
Growth and decay thru all creation range.
And yet— and yet— the past is with us still;
Plan what we may the omnipresent will
Of past achievement lays its heavy hand
Upon our souls to warn, to check, command.
There is no dead past— the germ source, the earth
Gives to all sentient life its primal birth;
Ei.-h animal, plant, serviceable sod.
Lives in and on and of the senseless clod.
Unresting as earth's tides the social flow
Beats on Time's shores in waves of joy or woe.
Creatures of circumstance are we, and yet
This homely phrase we never should forget,
86

RESURGAM

Tho chance at times conspires to prove a lie,
"God is with him who keeps his powder dry."

All conscious effort tells, — the ameeba's span
Marks progress, even as the mind of man.
And all life's sublimations, all its ills
Spring from the varied tension of our wills.
This we may say— there dwells essential might
That makes for God, in other phrase, the Right;
In spite of foil and of recurrent flow
The tides of being swell and higher go.
As various as the leaves of forest trees.
As shapes of rock or cloud, s flight of bees
Or birds or butterflies, the ' man soul
Differs within the round of ..» control.
Humanity, that particolored veil
Of the Almighty whose pure beams assail
The universe, changes with every cloud
Of custom twixt the cradle and the shr ' 1.
And with this change comes strife; — Existence first
Claims tribute of our nature as of erst, —
To gain whate'er one can,— the primal law
That doth all life within its meshes draw.
And next the spirit of Beauty, struggling thru
The inert past, the chaos of the new.
Wearing upon its crest world maidenhood,
Unfolding in its utmost sense the Good.
And last, the chrism of Love, supreme control
Of life made perfect in the human soul,
Forsaking self and passing hand to hand
The torch of Happiness thru a darkened land.
Vet Love, as said the ancient world, is blind:
Tho true its instincts, none the less has Mind
Sentence and rule of every living thing.
And out of Mind Justice and Order spring.
And out of Order, Justice grows the State,

RESURGAM

Borrowing the curule chair and robes of Fate,

And high above the throne of State, the rood

Blood-drenched and scarred of Human Brotherhood.

Out of this concord currents flow of thought.

Muddy, clear welling, ill or wisely taught,

A reaching out for something unfulfilled,

By knowledge chastened, by doubt checked or chilled.

Philosophy, Religion, Science, Art,

These sway the soul in absolute or part,

The four main props of life, and built on these

The thousand tiers of life's utilities.

From savage up to seer, the Soul's unrest

Is constant, striving still to be expressed

In bome rude idol moulded, carved by hand.

Or thoughts that to the zenith star expand.

Like tides that sweep upon some rock-bound shore

These waves of soul-endeavor evermore

Beat on the shores of Time; their constant play

Sweep round the headlands of the stormed to-day.

The social systems, present, past, to come,
The monarch's trumpet, the republic's drum,
The poet's vision, the idealist's plan.
The Happy Valley, the millennial man.
And all the varied shibboleths proved in vain,
Voiced by the restless record of the brain.
Fast as the pictured films incessant flow.
While life moves on with never-ending show.

i '• *

Lo, Anarchy, an ideal, crudely wrought,
Unchartered by historic fact or thought,
Bearing within itself the seeds of death.
Denying force, yet force its living breath.
Cursing the nations and by them accursed.
Destruction of the state its last and first,

RESURGAM 89

Best advertised of economic pills,
The panacea for all social ills!

A stricter theory, a preciser scope,

Rule grown supreme, the Socialistic hope.

Antithesis of Anarchy, to bind

In law's straight shackles variant mankind;

At hearth and field and mart one pulseless plan

To free the aspiring, restless heart of man;

To lift the curse from poverty and play

Jove to the trivial habit of the day;

To shove each king and magnate from his throne

Yet place thereon an idol hard as stone,

And under guise of setting genius free

Fettering it thru combined utility;

Man's flowering thought, a formal potted theme; —

This forms the rainbow of an airy dream.

Ah, could such dream dawn true! if Heaven's white dove

Of peace could bind the peoples all in love.

With chains of flowers, or might man and man

Bridge heart to heart, nor Hell have power to ban,

The true Christ then were come, no god-head birth,

But a new human day-spring o'er the earth.

If such the consecration — if the mind

Of Heaven might clothe and expedite mankind.

Moulding the world one kinship, fit to climb

The laurelled heights of self-obscured time,

Not vain Love's martyrs braved the toil and shock.

Nor Sidney's blood flowed fruitless on the block.

Nor all the seers who wizard armor forge

From Socrates to Kant and Henry George

To fight the dragon. Error, would be found

Vain charging down the wind; nor would be drovirned

In the world discord of the new and last

The mighty poets, answering blast for blast.

90 RESURGAM

The trumpet tongues of the ages, who aye strove

To show that love was beauty, beauty love;

The symmetry and concord of the soul,

All life and light, with systems as they roll

In one harmonious diapason — sod,

Tree, flower, fish, reptile, bird, beast, man, to God!

■

ii ;

i :

■

■ll

IN THE GLOAMING

WE sat upon the rough sea shore,
My ph'ghted love and I ;
The heavens with clouds were tented o'er,
No star upheld the sky;
Yet was the ether strewn with light
And sweet the air and mild,
While the slow waters to the night
Crooned like a sleepy child

When lulled upon its mother's knee ;

And from the fragrant earth.

Around us on the shadowed lea,

A million trills had birth.

Which tinily did interfuse

And to the heavens upburn,

While downward Night her dusks and dews

Poured from her poppied urn.

Silent and still we sat ; her cheek
Pressed mine, — i' the other's arms
Each folded; rythmically did speak
The beached waves' low alarms;
91

9a IN THE GLOAMING

The refluent wave which aye assailed
The pebbles beneath our feet ; —
Oyer us, amethystine veiled,
Night bended down to greet

inl

"^he breathing earth with still embrace;
The brooding, thrilled delight,
The living lushness and the grace
Of warm midsummer night.
And so our souls fell 'into chime
With earth and sky and sea;
So did our sentient summertime
Melt in mute ecstasy.

And then she upoke,— her words came low
As the soft-lapping tide;
Fervent as Evening's pulsing glow,
My sweet-voiced, sea-born bride;
High words of love and light as pure
And kind as Heaven's own dew;
Words that shall comfort and endure
My last life journey thru.

And while we lingered paled the light,
Dusk's curtains were dravirn down ;
Passed o'er the placid wave the Night,
And o'er the dreaming down

IN THE GLOAMING

Her sables moved; but in that world,
Our hearts, the light still burned;
The petals of our souls unfurled.
And forth to Heaven upturned.

VII

And thru our bosoms throbbed the heart

Of breathing Nature's God;

One were we with the spheres, a part

Of star and wave and sod;

Comrade with eldest yearnings blown

Thru sentient pipes of Pan,

To nohlest dreams of earth full grown.

The Uod-ward tread of Man.

vni

Oh life, oh love, ye are the same

To souk born free and true!

Oh pure heart faith, words cannot frame

What the rapt eye may view!

Far from earth's dull material sounds

The still small voice is heard,

How oft the rude world's discord drowns

Heaven's sweet star-lighted word!

CANADIAN THANKSGIVING HYMN

lie
It

■rVOWN all the changes of the years,
■■-^ Across earth's mingled joys and tears,
The stars of endless progress shine;
The centuries, O L6rd, are Thine!

Thy hand the sovereign gifts of peace
Bestows with bounteous, rich increase;
The hearts of nations move to Thee
As towards the moon the midnight sea.

The star that rose o'er Morning Land
Doth now with clearer beam expand;
Old dreams come true — oh, wondrous spell
Thy word of love, Emanuel I

Now "aith, like Noah's wandering dove,
The drear wide waste of creeds above,
Bears back unto her refuge ark
Her token o'er the waters dark.

But chief of those Thy love hath blest
Are we, the English of the West;
With filled and overflowing hands
The Benjamin of Nations stands.

O, thanks supreme are due to Thee,
Who brought us forth across the sea.
And taught our souls to feel and know;
Where Truth could build and Freedom grow!
94

CANADIAN THANKSGIVING HYMN 95

Still runs the sturdy Standish' strain, —
Still glows the patriot heart of Vane
In us, — the old Cromwellian will
In us is warm and vital still.

What though the horoscope of fate
Points out fresh dangers to the state,
Thy mercies oft our path have crossed.
Our trust, like Gideon's, was not lost.

Great cause for many thanks have we,
A land at peace, a Nation free;
From North to South, from East to West,
Above all nations we are blest.

Blest in our heritage and increase, —
Blest both in faction and in peace, —
Blest more than Israel in her prime.
This new, this true Hesperian clime.

With no faint hope for our young land.
We lay our futures in Thy hand ;
For blessings past we worship Thee,
And for Thy bounties yet to be.

Though fate's dark frown should cloud Thy face.
Keep for us. Lord, Thy heart of grace;
Our lives are Thine; Thy Gospel's ray
Lights up our new Thanksgiving Day!

THE HOLLYHOCKS

SOME space beyond the prden close
I sauntered down the shadowed lawn ;
It was the hour when sluggards doze,

The cheerful, zephyr-breathing dawn.
The sun had not yet bathed his face,

Dark reddened from the night's carouse.
When lo, in festive gypsy grace

The hollyhocks stood nodding brows.

They shone full bold and debonair —

That fine, trim band of frolic blades;
Their ruffles, pinked and purfled fair,

Flamed with their riotous rainbow shades.
They whupered light each comrade's ears.

They flirted with the wooing breeze;
The grassy army's stanchest spears

Rose merely to their stalwart knees!

My heart flushed warm with welcome

They were so royal tall to see;
No high-placed rivals nerd they fear.

All flowers paid them fealty.
The haughtiest wild rose standing near

Their girdles hardly might attain;
They glowed, the courtiers of a year,

Blithe pages in the Summer's train!

Their radiance mocked the ruddy morn,
So jocund and so saucy free;

Gay vagrants. Flora's bravest born,
They brightened all the emerald lea.
96

cheer,

THE HOLLYHOCKS

I Mid : "Glad hearts, the crabbed frost
Will soon your sun-dyed glories blight;

No evil eye your pride has crossed,
You know not the designs of night.

"You have not thought that beauty fades;

It is in vain you bloom so free;
While you are flaunting in the glades

The gale may wreck your wanton glee."
They shook their silken frills in scorn,

And to ny warning seemed to say,
"Dull rhymester, lookl 'tis summer morn.

And round us is the court of Day!"

CALIFORNIA

BRIDE of the Sun, thou beautiful Queen of the limitless
West,
A tiara of glittering snowptaks o'er thy proud, imperial

crest;
With thy veil of vines and flowers, and eyes of eternal blue.
From the Occident greeting the Orient, heir of the Old
and New.

California crowned with summer, thou fairest of fair two-
score,

Great is thy name amid nations, bright marvel of mountain
and shore;

With gaze fixed full on the future or lifted to Hope's glad
skies.

The stars of a cloudless heaven reflected in thine eyes.

At thy feet the Ocean casteth his broad and burnished

shield,
For thou stretchest a scepter of iron over his wave-strewn

field;
And thy ichor of life takes fire from the glow of thy mighty

heart,
As from thy lips of passion the peans of triumph start.

On thy robes the perfume of roses lingers the live-long

And the dream-winds of the ocean make music in thine ear;

CALIFORNIA 99

Child-mother, of yeui moft fruitful, whow breut* o'erflow

with milk,
The Eut fhall lue for thy favor wiih ipicei and sem* and

Mlk.

Yet, O thou peerlem beauty, tho dowered with Heaven's
high grace.

Dream not of a cloudless future— the meed of a faultless

face;
For evil hath tainted thy blood, and the petulance of thy

hand
May turn a curse upon thee and blast thy bounteous land.

Rise, rise in strength majestic, young Titaness of the West,
And forge thyself a cuirass of the gold that adorns thy

breast;
Temper thy sword of justice in Freedom's sacred fire.
And slay with heart unflinching the dragon of thy desire.

Smite with the edge of thine ire that dragon of soulless

greed;
So shalt thou leave safeguarded the heritage of thy seed;
So shall plenty descend like dew and the fair and fruitful

earth
Requite with lavish largesse the life that gave thee birth.

Anoint thy soul with vigil, thou bright-haired matron-
knight ;

Win fairly thy crown of honor, bear bravely thy shield in
flight;

So Peace may o'er thy conquest her choicest blessing spread.

And wreathe with the orange blossoms the laurel round thy
head.

100

CALIFORNIA

Then will thy ittr rnpleiKient burn on the brow o< Morn ;

The Aurora of life new-waking, discarding her robes out-
worn;

In the virginal beauty of Truth, mid the nation* radiant
stand.

The charm of a brighter heaven — the joy of an ampler
land!

TO THE POETS

r\H,potu, brothers, though the world, unheeding
V-^ Grudges us all things save its care and pain;
Know our probation is the spring-time seeding—
Our tears the warm and fertilizing rain.

Make firm your choice I should we be slaves to Mammon,
10 take the flesh pots from his sweaty hand '

Better Heaven's manna in the land of famine I—
Better the desert thirst, the lonesome «andl

Should we forego our ill.paid love and hn ;ag
For Wealth's and Power's de' rium and feari?

'" "<^««n«. careless sloth should we be dropping
The soiled rosary of the silver years?

Ye faithful hearted, what is Pride's indenture
To those who Heaven and Nature's secrets share?

We have our Shakesperr— he will, peradventure.
Show us the heights whcr<- laurels grow most fair.

Let us not fail in word, in just ambition;

Nor solely use the prophet's voice to please;
Nor spend the golden thought in cheap attrition

Of trifling themes and turbid fantasies.

On, minstrels,— cheer the van,— march uncomplaining!

Ye are God's favorite children, for we feel
Perpetual spring within our spirits reigning,

Though frosts of age may on our locks congeal.

10 1

loa

TO THE POETS

Pale watchers for the Light — in the new reaping
Men shall adore each lambent, deathless nan- !

Ye patient ones — a wealth of smiles and weeping
The world shall pay in homage to your fame!

Yes, all the tissued dreams of Fancy's leading.

The gold-wrought threads of song our rapture wove,

Are raiment to man's naked human pleading.
Girded with sacrifice and clasped with love.

THE SLUMBER

SHE paled away like some bright flower,
In Autumn's chill,
Before the storm unchains its power.
At winter's will.

She sleeps— nor all life's fevered dream

Disturbs her rest,
As pulseless as the thin moonbeam,

That lights her breast.

103

ONE KIN ARE WE

WE all are sons of English land,
From Britain to New Zealand's strand ;
From isles of spice and far Cathay
To realms of occidental day.
From shore to shore, from sea to sea,
Throughout all earth one kin are we!
One kin, undoubted, faithful, free.
In our redoubted Liberty!

We own the wealth of half the world;
Our sails on every sea unfurled
Waft treasures priceless and untold;
Ours are the fabled shores of gold!
In every land, on every sea,
On foreign strands, one kin are we!
One kin, illustrious still to be
In our industrious Liberty!

How bright the stars of empire shine
Above palmetto, oak and pine!
How the full groves of orange trees
Are rustling in fair Freedom's breeze!
Our realms of oceaned industry
Show to the world one kin are we!
One kin of blended fame are we,
Born to one splendid Liberty!

The Slav, the Teuton, and the Gaul,
Our strength and splendor dwarfs them all;
104

ONE KIN ARE WE

They quarrel o'er their conquered lands-
Earth groans beneath their armed bands;
Aloof in calm supremacy
We bide, because one kin are we !
One kin of fearless, proud degree.
Guarding our peerless Liberty!

Freedom regains each lost estate

From out the grudging hold of Fate,

The peaceful triumphs of her rule.

Arts, science, law, the church, the school;

Our patron saint of husbandry

Is she, because nne kin are we!

One kin — one tov."ring, wide-spread tree,

With flowering boughs of Liberty!

Old England's glories bloom o'er earth;
They bourgeon forth in constant birth!
The stars that o'er Columbia shine.
The Pleiads o'er the Canadian pine.
The Austral cresset blazing free,
Now light the world; one kin are we I
One kin, far-famed, of proud degree,
Led by our star-flamed Liberty!

The earth's redemption draweth nigh !
Hark! as the dowerless nations sigh,
The rush of Freedom's firm set feet
Resounds down each insurgent street!

Her banner rolls out broad and free

We lead the van! One kin are we!
One kin — one valorous constancy —
Yes, one chivalrous Liberty!

105

THE VISION

I*-'*

: 1 V.

''X^WAS twilight hour; I sat in darkened mood;

■I. "Would that the world would yield me more of good,"
I sadly mused, when, close at my right hand
My guardian genius seemed to me to stand.

His face was calm, compassionate, and mild.

He gazed on me and all so sweetly smiled,

A paly radiance strayed across the room,

Like flickering moonbeams through a covert gloom.

He placed his hand upon my bended head;
"Look up, my child," in pure, low tones he said;
I looked, and wonderingly I gazed again.
The room seemed filled with a triumphal train.

Each figure in the dim light loomed and shaped,
Then crossed and vanished where the shades were draped;
And as they to my gazing passed away,
My sweet-faced genius low tc me did say:

"These are the phantoms of thy youthful hope.
They enter not within thy manhood's scope;
Fair cherished ideals of life's early day,
Lo, one by one, they slowly fade away.

"Look thou once morel" again I raised mine eyes;
There passed a figure clad in splendid guise;
He eyed me with a shrewd, cold gaze of stealth;
"Not thine," the genius said, "his name is Wealth."
io6

THE VISION

A stately presence next did cross me by ;
Proud was his mien and threatening was his eye;
One short, contemptuous glance he on me cast;
This one is Power, and lo, he too has passed!"

I looked again— a delicate perfume
Of rose and jasmine wandered through the room;
There came a maiden all bedeckt with flowers.
Sweeter than those e'er grown in Flora's bowers.

Her eyes were lustrous as the stars of night.
And graceful was her form as sylph of light;
She held me spell-bound in delicious charm;'
Sweetly she smiled and waved her lily arm.

Yet passed she on— bewildered and amazed
I earnestly within the darkness gazed ;
The genius touched me, "She too doth remove;
Not thine," he said, "men call this siren. Love."

I heaved a sigh— with rapt look and profound,
One slowly came, his head with bays was crowned;
And fair as is the opening rose of morn,
A changeful radiance from his form was 'borne.

Yet simple was his garb— a glance he turned
Upon my anxious eyes, that through me burned;
With eager hps and outstretched hand his name
I cried aloud, "take all, but leave me Fame!"

Yet even as I spake he passed away;
My head in anguish in my hands I lay;
When a low voice upon the other side
Said softly, "Grieve not, I with thee abide!"

107

•If

io8

THE VISION

I raised mine eyes which vanished hope had seared;
My calm-faced genius all transformed appeared ;
Celestial radiance all his visage veiled,
And scars showed where his hands had once been nailed.

"My child," he said, "the world for thee has nought;
Wealth, power, and fame are all too dearly bought;
Even love itself, unsanctified by me.
Would lure thy soul from higher destiny.

"Know thou thy good — what hallows mortal life
Is 'gainst ourselves to wage a conquering strife;
Learn thou of me thy frailties to subdue.
And be in all things to thy vision true."

He ceased, and all his form grew heavenly fair.
Then slowly faded through the still night air;
Humbled and awed my spirit inly bowed.
And as he passed the moon brake through a cloud.

THE BIRTHPLACE OF FREEDOM

WHERE'S Freedom's birthplace? it should be
Some spot of earth most fair to see !
What doth she name her natal home?
Some minster pile? some palace dome?
In what court, castle, tower or hall,
Did her first lisping accents fall?
Not within bannered walls of stone
Doth Freedom any birthright own!

No! she was not with life endowed
Among the mighty and the proud —
Neither midst king- nor conquerors found.
Nor lords nor prelates capped and gowned;
The haughty barons, earls, and peers,
Oppressed and starved her infant years:
She hath not there a heritage known, —
No birthright there may Freedom own!

Perchance her nascent strength grew then
Midst demagogues and lawless men?
Mayhap midst anarchy and crime
Was nurtured first her youth sublime?
In realms by selfish faction torn
Perhaps the radiant maid was bom?
Where such rash tyrants sway the throne
No heritage can Freedom own!

It may te, then, in ways of trade
Her earliest infant footsteps strayed,
109

no THE BIRTHPLACE OF FREEDOM

Where Commerce with her golden chain
Links shore to shore, jiins main to main?
No! she was poor. No costly bales
No argosies with swelling sails
Were hers — for humble, scorned, alone.
No birthright there could Freedom own!

No! her first smile she did bestow
Neither on wealth nor power, nor show;
But long ago her tender form
Was rescued from a night of storm.
From out her peril lifted then
High in the arms of lowly men,
A love child, sacred, though unknown,
Midst them might Freedom heritage own!

Lo, proud even of her humble bir'.
Are now the great ones of the earth ;
As eager now her court to fill
As erst their hatred wrought her ill.
But now, as then, her guardian stands
The son of toil with hardened hands;
As when in youth, now fairly grown.
To him her life doth Freedom own !

THE GOLDEN-ROD

ALONG the bronze-banked roadside as I stray
What is it braids the front of Autumn day ?
The fields are brown, the wild flowers shrunk in blight,
Save where this glory trails upon my sight;
O Golden-Rod I
'Tis you who greet me as I walk abroad I

As forth I saunter, sunk in moody dreams,
Around my path your way-fire pageant gleams;
While starring all my dusk of musing drear.
You hold me high your wealth of nodding cheer;
O Golden-Rod!
Moving my fancy as along I plod.

You love by common human paths to dwell;
Unlike the hermit shrunken to his cell.
You eye with interest human toil and strife
Undaunted by the dust of passing life;
O GcMen-Rod!
Blooming your brightest on the hardest sod.

Your free-willed, fearless presence showeth me

Worth bravely cheerful midst adversity.

How life may through the current of the day

Its bloom pf kindly service wear alway;

O Golden-Rod!

May manhood blossom like your rude birth<lod!

iia

THE GOLDEN-ROD

Fur yellow jewel, the last in Autumn'* crown I

No ielfith tongue should voice your pure renown,

For without wige you charm the public eye,

A poet of the thanklen, lombre licyl

O Golden-RodI

How many heedlen feet have patt you trod.

Dear wayside flower with waving, feathery plume,
Uncherished still, life's two-fold way illume I
Your graceful charm thru Autumn's waning date
Outranks the cultured garden's proud estate;
O Golden-Rod I
Lamp of the highway, lit b^ hand of God !

JANUARY

A WINTER'S day: the UniUcape veiled in white
Shimmers within the morning's lucent ray;
There is no cloud in all of heaven's height;

There is no leaf nor bird upon the spray;
The winds alone are wandering, while we
Warm sheltered sit in low-eaved privacy.

Gaily the flames leap up the chimney's throat;

The huge gnarled back-log crackles on the hearth;
Hark, how the wheel hums round its cheerful note!

It is the season of the New Year's birth.
All nature greets us smiling; ah, may Time
Spin out our threads to such a sweet-toned chime I

This life is all our portion; little we

Know of the strife and passion of the mart;

The dull round of our quiet cares, tl.e tree,
The corn and kine make up our peaceful part ;

The city's pride and longing pass as by; —

How white the world is and how blue the sky I

THE BARREN FIG-TREE

A BARREN fig-tree in the vineyard stood.
■*»■ The Lord in pauing saw its want of good
And said, to the vine-dresier turning round,
"Cm this tree down, why cumbereth it the ground?"

"Hehold have I not planted it with care?

Hath it not had the rain and sun and air,

Doth it not fare alike with all of these—
Why doth it not bring forth like other trees?"

Then the vine-dresser said with anxious mien,
"Thy care and keeping. Lord, are fully seen,

Spare it a little longer tho, I pray,
For it to Thee may bring forth fruit some day.

"Lo, now it hath a goodly branch and root;

It groweth yet too rank for any fruit;
Its spurious blossoms all are blasted quite;

I'll prune it, Lord, that it may bloom aright."

Then said the Lord, "Vine-dresser, great thy care
Hath been of all my trees, beyond compare;

I give the barren fig-tree to thy will;
The choicest fruit is of redemption still."

,I4

QUESTIONS OF LIFE

II^HAT •• Knowledge ? Tii the beholding
^" The blue through » cloudy «rife.
Whit i( WiMJom? The unfolding
Of the secret calyx of life.

What ii Life? The daily Postman's

Packet and tarnished sleeve.
What is Death? The churlish dustman

Who trundles his cart at eve.

What is Pleasure? The froth on the beaker

Of the sparkling vintage of joy.
What is Pain? A vengeance wreaker;

A servant the gods employ.

What is Honor? A kite that flieth

High as the gale expands.
What is Fame? A tongue that lieth

A foot-print upon the sands.

What is Happiness? Perfumed essence

Born of the dew and light.
What Despair? A shrouded presence

That sits by the hearth at night.

What is Chance? The heart of a lover,

A shuttle that weaves the air.
What is Fate? The coffin cover;

The Pope in his curule chair.
"5

ii6

QUESTIONS OF LIFE

What is Law? The planb and fitting

Of Noah's expedient Ark.
What is Faith? The white dove flitting

Over the waters dark.

What is Creed? A sea-shore cavern
Where sounding billows sweep.

What is Time? A wayside tavern
Where travellers greet and sleep.

What is Conscience? A Judge's warrant;

A vice-shaming polished shield.
What is Genius? A proud Knight-errant

Tilting against the field.

What is Friendship? Convenient barter;

A heart-fire guide at night.
What is Love ? Life's chart and charter ;

An Eagle's tireless flight.

What is History? The moon investing

A midnight forest march.
What is Truth ? The keystone resting

Upon the eternal arch.

TO THii BUMBLE-BEE

YOU little, busy, bustling fellow.
In doublet striped with brown and yellow,
I wonder if your fair employment
Is such fine, fanciful enjoyment;
Dost ever weary of your sweets
And long for other tasks and meats,
Like human creatures, who, God wot.
Are alway grumbling o'er their lot.
Even should their heavy hoarded money
Be heaped up higher than your honey;
"Hard food for Midas," you can beat it,
Your wealth is fragrant and you eat it.
You do not feed your idle ones
As rich folk oft do lazy sons;
For social needs you think it kinder
To probe them with a keen reminder.
In the republic of your hive
To live is but to work and thrive;
And though you're chivalrous to ladies
All idle drones must go to Hades.
You're very circumspect indeed, sir,
And lay up plenty for your need, sir ;
But are not stigmatized as niggard
As careful folk sometimes are figured.
Nor are to selfishness inclined
If rightly I can trace your mind;
But yet, my little buzzing elf,
You're much like us who live for pelf.
You have no conscience to be bought,
"7

^^m :

Hfl''

ii8 TO THE BUMBLE-BEE

But yet your honey's all your thought.
What then? you earn and keep your right
To live — small sensual delight!
Your life is temperate, proper, just,
The only thought you have is must.
And so I hold no right to blame;
You put me and my kind to shame.
And teach our selfish ones at ease
They're not so wise or good as bees.

THE POOR APPLE WOMAN

'T*HE busy throng and loaded wain
■1 Surged by the warehouse wall ;
Around her in the drizzling rain

She drew her tattered shawl ;
Unnoticed by a look or word,
She cowered o'er her scanty hoard.

Her eyes betrayed a heart that pined;

Her lips with cold were blue;
Her face was wan and haggard-lined

And wore privation's hue;
Whoe'er hath been of woman born
Mighty pity one so sad and lorn.

But Want upon her careworn brow

Had stamped his cruel seal ;
No hope of happy fortune now

Did those sad eyes reveal ; —
A leaf swept by the winds of fate,
Trampled at Pleasure's palace gate'l

119

CHILDLESS

MY little daughter Nellie
Would be eighteen to-day, —
Gone these ten years, I tell ye.

It's been a dreary way!
My little daughter Nellie,
As was so iweet and gay!

If you'd a-seen her, mister.

The light of these dim eyes!
They called her "The Little Sister"—

The plaguey tears will rise!
How often in dreams I've kissed her,

My deary, now in the skies!

Pretty? God never thought of
A thing more pure and fair!

It seemed like she was wrought of
The sunshine, dew and air.

Ah, now of her I've nought of
But memories everywhere!

Memories that haunt me ever
As round the place I go;

A heart so kind and clever,
A life so all aglow

With youth and joy, I never
From now to death will know.

CHILDLESS

Why, sir, the birds would listen

But for to hear her sing;
The wild-flowers seemed to glisten

As tho touched by an angel's wing
When she passed — earth's now a prison,-

No joy in anything!

The dear white-violets cover
In spring her churchyard bed,

And a wild-rose clambers over
The headstone at her head;

Each fair thing was her lover, —
To me and them she's dead!

Ah, well! I mustn't sadden

Your heart, so lightsome yet; —

At times I seemed to madden
At loss of my little pet;

Nothing my heart can gladden;
Old age cannot forget.

lai

MY THREE FRIENDS

(Lines on a Photograph of Three Dogs)

THREE friends are these — adherents of my flag;
Stanch followers, courtier, learned clerk, and wag;
Good friends, all three, asie'er did woman own,
As ever loved a woman or a bone;
Friends, thoro friends, thru every pulse and hreath,
Friends for all life; perchance — who knows? — past death!
Each to his service brings a fresh delight
And feels no virtue in his love's requite.
Mark you the right-hand comrade — what an air
Of high-bred grace! his head thrown up in air.
How like the love-locks of the Cavaliers
Falls soft the peruke of his silken ears!
And how the silver locket at his breast
Shines like the order on a silken vest!
He is a cavalier! Not Charles' court
Held one of braver or more constant sort;
Who, for a cause, would death more quickly face
Than Hark, my prince of chivalry and grace!
One night — the tale I will not dwell on — he
Saved me some inconvenience — ^robbery —
Or was it murder? Anyhow, I lay
My life and diamonds to his love, to-day.

The middle one, that's Dick, my learned clerk;
He's smaller than the others — what a perk
Of knowingness sits on his supple ears!
He is the brains of the three worthy peers;

MY THREE FRIENDS ,,3

Prim as a maiden, gentle, but so quick
To catch a hint or learn the mannered trick!
Uick knows a thing or two, mayhap, that you
Or I, my friend, scarce fathom— yet 'tis true
Dick has no speech beyond a hoarse "yep, yep!"
And language. Sir, articulate, is a step
Dogs will not take this many an son— still
Dick s on the road with a persistent will.

And now, my third— the one that's on the left;

No thoroughbred, you see! Nature's bereft

Brownie of dignity and manners— note

His blunter nose, his shagginess of coat,

His tongue a-loU and two big sprawling paws.

And no clean cut expression to the jaws.

Yet Brownie, none the less, shall have his due,

Prince of good fellows! Ay, and princely true!

Never a better, merrier heart was born;

With Brownie's love no life could be forlorn;

See, what an honest, jolly, sonsie face!

He's prime! the first Mark Tapley of his race!

So, you perceive, I'm rich in three good friends;

Friends? More than friends-they're lovers; my amends

To you, my brave Hark, Dick and Brownie! you

Keck not who else is to your mistress true,

Norwhat her fortunes are, and in her smile

You re happy, with no lurking thought of guile;

Youve a capacity for love, I say.

That has no limit — any popinjay

Can swear his love's eternal— you've no way

But to act out your love from day to day.

• • • • »

You envy them their task? the trade is free;
I love my dogs. You understand, I see. '

THANKSGIVING HYMN

A CHEERLESS, bleak November morn
Broke lowing o'er that band forlorn
Those grave, stern Pilgrims, robed in gray,
Who kept our first Thanksgiving Day.

Between lone shore and lonelier wood
What trials had their manhood stood!
Through sorrow, care and toil arose
The infant state girt round with foes.

But tho rough wood and barren strand
Close hemmed that sad faced, toiling band —
Tho in what hour no soul could tell
Might rise the Narraganset yell —

Sundered in that inclement time
From English kin and England's clime,
Yet still our fathers blest the sea
That fenced their dear bought liberty.

For even while foes and cares assailed,
Faith grew not dim nor courage failed;
Then rose the voices rapt and calm.
That raised our first Thanksgiving psalm.

'II

O wondrous change! how wide and fair
The inheritance their offspring share!
Yes, all is changed — save faith on high,
The freebom heart, the sea and sky.
134

THANKSGIVING HYMN

That sea and sky now greet a strand
Where Freedom still doth stedfast stand,
While by ' er side her sisters twain,
Peace, Plenty— smile o'er shore and main.

Fron. out that stern and narrow rule
Have grown the Pulpit, Press and School ;
Whose firm foundations stayed the shock
Of untoward fate on Plymouth Rock.

As in that twilight cold and gray.
As in war's fratricidal day.
Now in the hour of halcyon calm.
We raise the old Thanksgiving psalm!

A WITHERED ROSE

'T*HE rose that la.e in its passion slumbered
•1 Is dead,— and its bloom is withered to-day,
And hopes that a longing heart has numbered
Arp torn, like these faded leaves, away.

Ah me, for the dream that awakes to sorrow;

For the baseless trust that has bloomed to die;
The life of a love that is dead to-morrow;

For the outward smile and the inward sigh.

The tears that fall cannot bring back savor
To the petals once gay with the morning dew,

Not the prayers of an errant heart earn favor
Of joy to the soul to its memories true.

136

BETRAYED

VT'OU vowed to me your love wu like the sea,
•1 As wide, as free, as fathomless, as strong,
And in that trust I gave my all to thee,
A woman's heart, still unforeseeing wrong.

I blame you not, your nature stands revealed ;

My love was wasted, for you could not know
For what deep source my cup of joy was filled ;

What hidden springs now feed my bitter woe.

You could not — ah, had I but found it out
In time to flee from Love's unreasoning snare,

Regret had not then ta'en a pledge from Doubt
Nor innocent Hope submitted to Despair.

Alas, that the ignoble still must be
The scourge of generous hearts, and ever bind

The Christ of the Ideal to the tree.
Who comes to work redemption for mankind.

THE VOTIVE ROSE

SWEET Rose, thou gem of yestermorn,
All blushine from thy stem wast torn ;
Red as the love pulse of my heart,
And dewy at my tears that start.

My tears are not of grief but joy ;
Henceforth no fears shall me annoy;
He said, the love light in his eye,
"How sweet, dear Rose, for her to die."

"For her to die I" ah, happy she I
Dear Rose, thy brethren of the tree
Might envy thee thy parting breath,
Love's envoy glorified in death.

So long as life abides thy claim
Is cherished, symbol of love's Dame;
Thy withered form shall daily press
This leaf where I my love confess.

And when I die — thy faded bloom
Shall grace my passage to the tomb.
And he shall kiss thy leaves and say,
"Be with her till her waking day."

198

SOCIETY AND ART

FROM Mother earth the potter's crafty hand
Moulds into shape the vase's flowing line ;
Then art around the surface doth expand
In bosnage, color, tracery, and design.

The first is elemental — like the child.
Cast in the matrix of his age and race;

The second like the man — by dreams beguiled,
By action formed, with passion's warmth and grace.

And both are tried by fire — until are fixed
Indissolubly whilst one shard remains.

The colors art and social forms have mixed
In clays and bronzes, or in hearts and brains.

I>»

pi;

ill

■IB] I ill I

LINES qN A PICTURE

THE guests are gone — my lady there is sitting
Between the lions of her palace gate,
A frame for peerless beauty most befitting,
The power that heralds her ancestral state.

And from her hand the soul of sound has glided
In rhythmic tremors o'er the starred lagoon ;

Her spirit seems 'tween earth and heaven divided —
Ah, may her heart re-echo to love's time I

130

"JUST AS HIGH AS MY HEART"

T_TIGH as my heart my lovely lady stands—

D "" '''" ^'^ "''^ '^i" S'«" stars of even

Borrowmg their beauty from the depths of Heaven

i^ike tapermg coral are her milk-white hands;
Her lips like roses red that newly leaven.'

High as my heart my lovely lady stands!

High as my heart my lovely lady stands
Beneath a bower of clambering brier roses;
The fawning sunbeam on her form reposes'

And burnishes her braided chestnut bands
And like a golden shrine her grace encloses.

High as my heart my lovely lady stands!

High as my heart my lovely lady stands—
But, ah, her worth than mine how truer, higher!
For like as gold that hath been tried by fire
Hct steadfast heart meets all life's stern demands.

Yet this I say— nor make kind love a liar-
High as my heart my lovely lady stands!

I3>

THE PRISONER OF LOVE

THEY who in Love's strong meshes lie
May swear the bonds are sweet — not L
Now, Eros, turn thy shafts away.
My breast to them is proof to-day.

With youth thy influence, too, hath flown;
The fair to me is fair alone.
Thy Mother's self with all her art
Has now no power to move my heart.

Only one homage I avow.

The Attic maid with laurelled brow;

Thy yoke and tribute I refuse ;

I yield sole service to the Muse.

The Muse, ah, she's the maid for me I
Whose breath like summer winds is free.
Whose eyes are stars of Heaven, whose dress
Is of all lines of loveliness.

Who perfume brings of fields and hills;
Whose voice is of the mountain rills;
Whose smile is like the radiant beam
Of some light dancing, lucent stream.

The Muse is always constant? No I
Her woman's waywardness will show,
But when she greets me then I feel
She loves me aye through dearth and weal.
13a

THE PRISONER OF LOVE

Yet even while I her claim allow
I prove a recreant to my vow;
Despite of proud resolves, betrayed
By Eros thru an earthly maid.

The subtile King of hearts I he sent
His deadliest power of blandishment;
He roused the slumbering fires to life
That held my youth in bonds and strife.

A maiden sweet, a maiden fai-
With heaven-blue eyes and sunny hair.
In whose low voice and winning smile
I note the love-god's cunning wile.

My Muse, too, in the plot! again
Complacent to the dual reign;
If she now joins against me all
Is up, my shield and falchion fall.

Why, Eros, warfare dost thou wage
Against grey hairs and growing age?
Still thy relentless bow is strung
Gainst wise and simple, old and young!

It recks not to despise thy power;
None knoweth when may come his hour.
Now, tyrant, lay thine arrows by;
Once more thy helpless captive, I.

«33

IN MEMORIAM
On the Death of Alfred Tennyson

WHOM would ye choose? for, lo, the king is dead
Who latest swayed the realm of English hearts;
He whose revered and sjlver crowned head

Lies dreamless midst the thunder of your marts;
Your Alfred of the calm and lofty mien,
His fingers clasping Shakespere's Cymbeline.

Buried in the bowels of that ancient crypt,
Amidst the dust of your illustrious great.

He rests, the gracious-hearted, honey-lipped.
Peer of the grandest of your race or state ;

Yea, Prince of more than kingdoms, age or clime;

A Monarch whose dead sceptre conquers time!

For even when the trembling hand of age

Dwelt on the strings, no harsh, uncertain sound

Smote false your hearts; the venerable Mage,
The Master-minstrel all your being found;

Revived your souls to the rich bloom of youth,

And charmed with music the high paths to truth.

Efci,'

Ah, ye may dew with tears the burial stone.
And strew your tributes o'er his stainless hearse;

Voice the far echo of his godlike tone;

Embalm his memory in your fragrant verse;

All — all in vain — no Star of Song doth rise

Above the grave where your great Laureate lies.
IJ4

IN MEMORIAM

The laurel wreath of Spenser should not grace
A front less high than this majestic brow,

The stamp imperial graved upon the face,
Fervently lighted with the poet's vow ;

And with the outgrowth of a fertile heart

Blooming and fruiting in the close of art.

The hand that might have grasped yon silent lyre,
And struck its fateful strings with strenuous might,

Jomed yester-year the pure-toned English choir,
Who wear their amaranths in the halls of light;

Ruder the touch, yet from those fingers ran

Strams that could rouse or sink the heart of man.

But now, the Arthur of your poet realm.

Both Lancelot and Galahad of rhyme,
Whom will ye find to wear his winged helm

Or ride his charger down the lists of time?
The new Pendragon— where can such be found ?
Alas, not one of all your Table R und!

Let none the storied chords 6i that clear harp

Restrike in service dissonant and vain;
Ye will but cause the world to mock and carp;

Ye will but sound a void of grief and pain;
Hang up the shining wires above his head
And leave your laureate's crown upon the dead.

135

ROBERT BROWNING

KNIGHT in the vanguard of knowledge, peer of the king-
dom of thought,
Prophet, and priest, and bard, thou hast sung for futurity,

wrought
For the ampler after-time, for the kindlier soul's increase,
For the higher, humbler faith, for the purest, heavenliest
peace.

Thou hast hidden thy gold and rubies in thy quartz of

rough-veined verse;
Thou hast probed the secret soul with thy questions grave

and terse;
Thou tumed'st the lamp of thy mind on the palimpsest of

the heart;
Thou didst strain in the bonds of Time, now Eternity's

ward thou art.

Thy sheaf of years hung full of the green hope of thy

youth,
Nurtured by secret dews from the heaven of love and truth ;
No blast of malice can shake, nor Time's envious mace

Thy spacious structure of song, arched over earth's storied
vault.

Thou didst spurn the Egyptian's lure, thou didst cleave to

the race enslaved;
Thou didst dwell unknown to those for whose weal thou

badst tyrants braved;

136

ROBERT BROWNING 137

Thou heheldst the burning bush, thy feet the mount had
trod,

In the lair of the angry cloud thou stoodst face to face with
God I

The glory of song in thy heart lit thy face with auroral ray;
Ihou heldst our wisdom in trust, the chief of transition's
day;

Unbated by churlish age, thy lone, far-sighted stand
Was the Pisgah heights of song o'erlooking the Promised
Land.

Rest, crowned with the proud assurance thy verse was not

wrought in vain,
Though the century turn aside to its idols of pleasure and

gam;

Thou wilt be heard aright when the lutes and the lauriiter

have ceased
And the soul is alone with its stars, undazed by the glare

of the feast.

This leasehold thou hast exchanged for a wider and fadeless
life;

The swaddling bands of flesh thou hast cast to a world of
strife;

Thou hast traversed the waters of Death; thou hast found

thy chosen mate.
The sibyl of burning song, the revealer of words of fate.

Where the blue Venetian night falls a spangled, huge con-
cave,

Did thy venturous spirit wing forth like a prayer from a

dome<rowned nave;
Like Arcturus throned afar in a mist of twinkling shine
btarts thy star on the heaven of song, loved guest of the

trophied Nine!

TO SIDNEY LANIER

DEAR brother mmstrel, Heaven-crowned spirit friend,
Who saw unrolled the apocalypse of earth.
Whose soul was star-lit, music-charmed from birth.
Who didst through xther send
The unwearied gaze of half-requited eyes,
Longing for higher, holier mysteries —
O wheresoe'er art thou —
Within what starry sphere
Thy spirit bourgeons, hear!
Bend down through space and touch mine eyes and brow.

Kiss these dull eyes awake that they may view
Like thee all beauty, the involved charm
Of Nature, which thy spirit only knew.
Or knew with angels — O thou bright-souled seer
Who resteth on God's never-tiring arm.
And seeth this fair-world a sparkle shining clear
Amidst the constellations — Thou whose pen
Burnt golden characters for soul-blind men,
Furrowing thy page with light,
(Heaven all thy heart requite!)

Sweet spirit, that bear'st faint scar of sin, bend down thy
Heaven entranced ear!

This dull material round hath need of thee!
The foison greed of Wealth besets our life;
With earth-blind eyes we see
Not the bright quietude but the cloudy strife.
That heaven, which to the ancient world seemed near,
Is but a waste of doctrine, dry and drear;
138

TO SIDNEY LANIER

139

A world by dogma vext;

A world with doubts perplexed;

The dizzy heights we gain;

Our weary cyej we strain

And miss the glory shining in the plain ;

Some cloud is ever shutting from our eyes

The soul-enhancing visions vainly sought for in the skies I

We walk as in a trance ;

We gaze with eyes askance

Upon our fellows in the crowded street;

We crush life's flowers beneath our heedless feet,

And self, with its unending cares,

Enlists our faith, our hopes, our hearts, our prayers;

We struggle to be free.

But a sad fatality

Breaks in across our souls and hides the star

Of promise even from the good and wise;

The elemental war

Environs us and takes us for its prize.

Thou vanished in thy noon !

Nature is niggard of such souls as thine.

Fearing her mysteries would be told too soon ;

Thou youngest of the radiant Shelley line —

Hadst thou but lived to be

Full prophet in the new-time poesy.

What fair- found heights of knowledge had we gained!

We had not now remained.

Groping abroad with unconsidered sight.

Missing the clearer light

Of truth, to blindly fall on Hope's inconstancy.

But not all unfulfilled

Thy earthly mission or thy pledge of song.

Nor didst thou knock in vain upon our hearts;

TO SIDNEY LANIER

The houM thy hands hath built

For tired souk to rest in bideth strong

As adamant, and braves the shocks of fate

And winds of custom; at its open gate

Sweet Confidences meet hospitably

Wayfaring spirits and invite them in,

And light their loads of sin.

And tell them many rapturous noble things of thee.

Minstrel of earth and sky,

Mak'st thou no reply?

Say, is our mortal quest and longing vain?

Hast thou in happiness forgot the throng

Of work-day lives on this low-lying plain?

Nor wilt thou lend them of thy new-found song?

Perhaps 'tis better so;

Perchance we dare not know.

Nor thou disclose what meets thy finer ear —

Or how bliss tranced souls unfold and grow,

Or how the favored Isles of Heaven appear.

Yet, sweet ghost, hear I

Oh, send some largesse of thy wealth divine —

Some tempered draught of thy rapt spirit's wine

Into this earthly, wayward, dim-lit, heart of mine I

MARLOWE

WHAT a fine f reniy of poetic ini^t
Shows Marlowe, rising to his passion's height I
Throughout all space his song triumphant soars,
Fathoms all passion, all delight explores.
His muse culls all things delicate and rare
To adorn her vestments or to gem her hair ;
Plucks the bright bay leaf from its highest bough.
Wet with Castalian dews, to deck her brow.
With burning speed she scours the hill of fame
To win the laurel of a world's acclaim;
And would, so daring is her high emprise.
Reach at the stars to pluck them from the skies.
Leaving but half the wondrous story told
Of that fine fable of true love of old,
Marlowe flung down his mighty gift and life,
His proud heart cloven by a scullion's knife!

«4X

REQUIESCAT!
(On the Death of Oliver ft' en Jell Holmet.)

NAUGHT may be said
O'er the still presence of the illustrious dead
To forge one star-point to his fair renown,
Or weave one laurel in his fadeless crown,
To grace his time-worn, white and reverend head —
Compounded now with dust,

And with the grieving Autumn strewing it with leaves —
Who held our hearts in loving fetters bound,
A husbandman of many kinds of sheaves,
Now himself garnered to the greater store
Of sages gone before,

Out of the heartache, care and earthly lust;
Who like a true knight hath fulfilled his trust,
Singing himself to sleep.
And facing fearlessly the deep profound,
And smiling still upon our eyes that weep.
That now shall nevermore
Behold him face to face upon Time's echoing shore.

Yet fitly may a bard of younger race,
Trained to a newer habitude of rhyme.
Turn with his own thin laurel to the place
Where rests the veteran of the older time;
The man of stiff set lance and trenchant blade.
Naught venal, naught afraid,

With all the great heart of the Northern clime, —
"4»

REQUIESCAT!

Then, midit the worthier tributes retting there
(And on hit Upt * priyer),
Hang hit ihght chtplet on the cypreu bough,
In token of hit faith, hit reverence and vow.

For of the tons of tong the nurtured forth,

New England, mother of renowned men.

He mott combined the fiber of the North

With the South't flexile grace.

And from iti cloudiest, sun-bathed lurking place

Hit ardent fancy leaped upon the page

And ttamped iti impress there for every future age.

And he wat lait of that triumphant throng

Who voiced the earlier Geniut of their land.

And spake to souls in terms they understand.

Nor grudged impassioned song.

But felt the thrill of Nature through their veins;

Who smote venality, pretense and wrong.

Nor counted up their gains

By Custom's tally, but to the larger rule

Of the immortal bards, put their young art to ichooL

Therefore, no passing fame

Shines out from each deep-graved, illustrious name.

Carved in our tree of Liberty; for they

Were nurtured in no dilettante day.

But from the forge and flame

Of civil strife they wrought their strenuous claim.

And woke an echo that resounds alway.

Through every realm and clime.

Far down the lengthening avenues of Time.

Perchance they greet him now

With the new-twisted amaranth on his brow,

And welcome him to their high-placed retreat.

143

144

REQUIESCAT!

And to their rose-bowered seat

In the Elysium of the poet-band,

And take him by the hand,

Those comrades whom he knew and loved in life, —

The G>ncord seer,

And he who sang the wave bright Merrimac, —

Lowell the generous hearted, and that soul

Endeared to every fireside, and him austere,

Bryant, the first of ours who struck his harp notes clear.

But not alone the sons of song shall claim

The soul of him who charmed forth smiles or tears;

He owes not to their muse alone his fame

And all the coming honors of the years;

Her plainer sister claims an equal share

Of glory he doth wear;

And in her train he finds some loved compeers, —

The sweet souled Hawthorne, whose deep-reading eyes

Drew Magic from the skies.

And Irving, genial heart and kindly hand.

And Gwper, painter true of his loved mountain land.

Yet he his other self hath left behind, —

The priceless legacy of his hand and brain;

The wit that falls in showers like diamond rain.

The gayety that to all care is blind;

And his rare, pregnant wisdom. Iris sweet.

With all the children of his soul who still his fame repeat.

Then, ye who loved him from your days of youth,

Make no vain lamentation for the dead;

For he hath left the mantle of his truth

And he who wills may wear it in his stead;

But ne'er with such a grace, —

For ne'er again the old-time cavalier

Will flash his sword in rhyme and chant his rondel clear.

LINES

AT THE END OF A PROSE ESSAY ON OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
ON THE COMPLETION OF HIS EIGHTY-THIRD BIRTHDAY.

'T*mjS have I writ with fixed, impartial aim
■■■ To t^; e no undue tribute, o'erdue blame;
Grudging the bard no honest meed of praise.
And yet not spendthrift of my loyal bays;
Now may the Muse her smiling favor bring,
And strike the light-stringed measure which I sing.

Briefly I choose the close-linked formal line,
The honored mode of bards well named divine;
O'er it old Chaucer took his jocund road;
Along it Marvell's forceful measures flowed;
Dryden's tense genius swelled its tide of song;
Upon it Pope's terse reason swept along;
O'er its dark stream the torch of Byron burned;
Twice to its flow Keats' shallop fancy turned:
It bore along its rippling, limpid breast
Hunt's courtly theme and Morris' antique zest;
Thine, Holmes, its swift, its sunbright sparkling strain
That fairly limns the landscape of thy brain;
That picturesquely turns in play of thought.
In flowery bends of pleasant fancy caught.
Smooth in its current as its tide is dear,
And ever manly, cultured and sincere; —
The rhymed pentameter— that tireless hack
That's borne a horde of bardlings on its back,
MS

LINES

Drumming their dull, unvarying rataplan
On every theme from Cosmos to a fan,
Their thick octavos in oblivion sunk.
Gone to the flame, the ragman, and the trunk.

Last of a line — behold the veteran stand.

The lance of wit still quivering in his hand;

With locks all whitened now, yet holding still

A cheerful courage, an enduring will;

Last of a race of bards; — too proud to climb

Into the saddle of new-fashioned rhyme;

Too wise to value art o'er lucid sense;

Too brave to draw the curb on eloquence;

Not always deep, perchance, in flow of song.

But full-breathed, tuneful, fluent, limpid, strong;

A voice, gay, genial, grave — still true to guide

From erring paths hot youth's impatient stride;

A humor keen, yet with no rankling smart;

Its champagne sparkling, bubbling from the heart;

A wit perennial and a fancy free.

The bloom of Spring on life's long wintered tree;

A heart as tender as a lover's thought;

A falcon spirit, fearless, firmly wrought;

Quick to detect, yet tardy to condemn.

Well armed with pungent, pointed apothegm ;

Shrewd Yankee mind with graft of learning's fruit;

An ear fine-tuned as Blondel's joyous lute;

As sly and quaint as Shandy in his style.

With something of the Frenchman in his smile;

At fourscore still a bright-eyed, kindly man.

Pan courtier-cavalier, part Puritan;

Revered where'er the rose of culture grows.

From Astral summer to Alaskan snows;

A school-boy's eye beneath his doctor's hat.

Our love-crowned poet, laurelled Autocrat!

"THREESCORE AND TEN"

BY ItlCHAIlO HENRY STODDAKD

Who reach their threescore years and ten,

As I have mine, without a sigh.
Are either more or less than men —
Not such am I.

I am not of them; life to me

Has been a strange, bevcildered dream,
Wherein I knew not things that be
From things that seem.

I thought, I hoped, I knew one thing,

And had one gift, when I was young

The impulse and the power to sing.
And sc I sung.

To have a place in the high choir

Of poets, and deserve the same —
What more could mortal man desire
Than poet's fame?

I sought it long, but never found;

The choir so full was, and so strong
The jubilant voices there, they drowned
My simple song.

Men would not hear me then, and now

I care not, I accept my fate.
When white hairs thatch the furrowed brow,
Crowns come too late!

The best of life went long ago

From me; it was not much at best;
Only the love that young hearts know.
The dear unrest.

'47

148 TO RICHARD HENRY STODDARD

Back on my pait, through gathering teari,

Once more I can my eyes, and lee
Bright ahapei that in my better yeara
Surrounded met

They left me here, they left me there,

Went down dark pathway!, one by one,-
The niae, the great, the young, the fair;
But I went on I

And I go on! And, bad or good,
The old allotted ycart of men
I have endured, at best I could —
ThreeKore and ten I

TO RICHARD HENRY STODDARD
THREESCORE AND TEN

NOT so, you do your craftsmen wrong,
They love you, they, the earnest men ;
All hail, our ve . -ran chief of song.
Threescore and ten!

Though time has blanched and thinned your hair,
Shaken your strength and dimmed your gaze,

Greenly you yet the laurel wear,
As in old days.

And if the shallow, vain acclaim
Has passed you by for feebler men,

Know the tried corps of younger fame
Revere your pen.

TO RICHARD HENRY STODDARD 149

True fame is yours, abiding, strong;

This Time will mould in just relief,
When all the meretricious throng

Who wear the leaf

Will vanish from the thoughts of men.

Like those of Delia Cruscan time,
With all their fluttering pride of pen

And puny rhyme.

Our old man eloquent be thou!

Still with wise counsels light our ways,
Ungrudging still some worthy brow

Its budding bays.

Then grieve not o'er the passing time.

Friends gone, the brilliant, wise, and brave;

Our country's richer for your rhyme
From wave to wavel

Why not? Truth still breeds reverent hearts;

This land doth proud traditions nurse;
As long as blooms our rose of arts

Lives Stoddard's verse!

LIFE AND DEATH

REIGN beyond the boume of Fate and Time,
Through all the Present I echo of the Past,

All things but God are in my leash — I climb
From star to star and quench them all at last —

I blast the blooms of promise with a breath,"

Vaunts Death.

"I am the spirit in matter — the All-Searcher,
I am driven like surf by oni jeep-moving force,

Even in the grasp of Death my hope I nurture,
Enswathing Love is both my end and source,

Peace is my handmaid and my thrall is Strife,"

Chants Life.

t$»

■: 1

<i I!

HEY, HO, ROBIN I

(a madmoal)

HARK, d'ye hear the Robin's early greeting
O'er the clover blossoms gemmed with dew;
All the gladness of his heart repeating,

Heart that never care or sorrow knew.
Over upland, lawn and orchard

His clear pipe is heard: —
"Sweetheart! Sweetheart!"
Hey, ho, Robin ; hey, ho, happy bird I

In his russet coat and vest of scarlet.

With his jaunty crest and glittering eye,
Was there ever such a merry varlet?

Look upon him and forget to sigh.
Ah, but he's the blithesome rover!

His glad pipe is heard: —
"Sweetheart! Sweetheart!"

Hey, ho, Robin; hey, ho, happy bird!

How Sir Malpert loves to steal his dinner

From our cherry trees across the way;
He's as reckless as a hardened sinner;

He's a prodigal who's always gay.
Rocking on the topmost branches

Still his pipe is heard : —
"Sweetheart! Sweetheart!"

Hey, ho, Robin; hey, ho, happy bird!
»53

134

HEY, HO, ROBIN I

Ah, my blithe and brave fair weather fellow,

Soon again to milder haunti thou'lt wend;
When the leaves are turning brown and yellow

We will mill our early morning friend;
There thru fields of endless summer

Will thy pipe be heard : —
"Sweetheart I Sweetheart I"

Hey, ho, Robin ; hey, ho, happy bird I

How those fair and distant shores we'll envy

When rough Winter drives thee from our clime;
Hostage to the summer tho we send thee.

Thou wilt greet us in thy mating time.
Then unto thy loved one calling

Will thy pipe be heard: —
"Sweetheart! Sweetheart!"

Hey, ho, Robin ; hey, ho, happy bird !

WRITTEN FOR A CANADIAN NATIONAL
ANTHEM

THE banner with the blood-red field
Flew in the western main ;
It made the golden Lilies yield,

It curbed the pride of Spain ;
Till kindred blood ungrateful furled

That flag of broad renown; —
All save the North —
She held it fortli

For England's ancient crown;
Brave Canada, thou heldst it forth

For England's empire crown!

Since that dark day in many a fray,

The three cross banner near,
On native strand, in Transvaal land.

The seven-fold shield flew clear;
When the Nor'west, a hornets' nest,

Came buzzing round her form.
In royal ire she searched with fiire

That mongrel, stinging swarm.
With dreadful frown she stamped them down

And shook her sword of might,
With queenly frown
She stamped them down.

In Death's and Hell's despite.

The Trident Matron from her steep
Looks out acnns the wave,
I5S

:l i

J i

156 CANADIAN NATIONAL ANTHEM

And icct beyond the dittant deep

Thit heritage of the brave;
Two ocean ihoret
Ope wide their door*

To worlds both old and new;—
Thy princely hand
Pledge, Motherland,

A daughter tried and true I
No slave shall stand
Upon thy strand,

O daughter proud and true!

Of nations five who round the world

Patrol the Seven Seas,
Of scions four who guard the door

Of British destinies;
Daughters of pith who peerless front

The enemies of their race.
She stands the first— tho Gallic nursed,

She hath the English face.
Then here's a health,
True hearts and wealth.

Fair Canada, to thee I
A long deep health.
Leal hearts and wealth,

Brave Canada, to thee!

LOVF , f/UJirco

MY love ihe's trirpnig down tb ■ i:ii.-
Amid the dcw^ aini<i •■.<• ut,.„:
My love the'i steppinp; donn Jir ianc,
Fair through the sumet's goldo. rpir,
Down toward the field> «' m.Winn uran,
Amidst the evening dews.

The latticed beams between the boughs
Play o'er her hair, play o'er her hair;

The flattering beams between the boughs

Light up her snow white neck and brows;

She ne'er to me such bliss allows,
To play with her bri^t hair.

The jealous wild-flowers she doth pass
Are scant of cheer, are scant of cheer;

The flaunting field-flowers she doth pass

Now shrink their crowns amidst the grass;

They ne'er have seen so fair a lass;
They all are scant of cheer.

The timid violets nigh the path
Nod dainty heads, nod dainty heads;

The slim, coy violets nigji the path,

They hold for her no selfish wrath,

Each dear to her a kinship hath,
They nod their fragrant heads.

»58 LOVE LEADING

The blithe wild rose on thorny stem

Is sad in fear, is sad in fear;
The bold wild rose on bending stem
Flutters its pinL pearl diadem;
Twould fain her beauteous cheek condemn,

"Tis wondrously in fear.

The star of Eve that warms the skies
Doth watch my dear, doth watch my dear.

The Evening Star that studs the skies,

It knows it may not match her eyes;

"Tis standing tip-toe with surprise
Watching my dearest dear.

She carols to the perfumed breeze
So sweetly clear, so sweetly clear;

Her pure voice lulls the perfumed breeze;

She hushes all the whisperinf- riMS,

She sooihes to sleep the loitering bees.
With song so sweetly clear.

The listening linnet lifts his head
Behind the bough, behind the bough ;

The gray-backed linnet bobs his head

From forth his thatched and leafy bed,

"I cannot sing such songs," he said
Beside the green beech bough.

|i H-

Was ever youth so blest as I?

Love leads her nigh. Love leads her nigh;
There ne'er was youth so blest as I;
Her glance to mine makes sweet reply;
She's coy as fluttering butterfly,

For that Love leads her nigh.

LOVE LEADING

The tell-tale flow invades her cheek;

She stills her song, she stills her song,
The rich, red glow pervades her cheek;
Her eyes are playing hide and seek;
She cannot trust her lips to speak,

Although she's stilled her song.

Fair traitor, now you're mine at last!

No truce will I, no truce will I.
Soft hands, sweet face, you're ta'en at last I
Behind all doubts and fears I cast;
The time for vain delay has past.

No shamefaced truce will I!

159

A SONG OF SUMMER

AN oriole is singing
Her anthem clear and high ;
A blackbird blithe is ringing

Her jubilate nigh;
I watch the swallows winging, —
Shearing the azure sky.

The dragon-fly is glancing
Zigzag, a winged spear;

A woodpecker is lancing
An elm-tree bole anear;

How wondrous, how entrancing,
Are all I see and hear!

[i *!■

Around me is the humming
Of heavy-freighted bees;

Over the field is coming
The winsome morning breeze;

This is the time for summing
All soulful ecstasies!

In such a place and sea^n
All life its care forgets;

Come Fancy, loved of Reason,
Look at my tiny pets,

The crickets, black as treason.
Clicking their castanets!
i6o

A SONG OF SUMMER

Like a Walpurgis revel
TSe dream of life flows on;

Across the lawny level
A tender ha« is drawn ;

This fair scene even a devil
Would love to look upon!

From out the pale blue ether
Glows the untarnished sun;

To robe her heir and wreathe her
Hath Spring her glories spun,

And smiling did bequeath her
The flowerets every one!

'Tis buxom, regal Summer,
Her fragrant zone unbound;

With minstrel bird and hummer
Of many an infant round;

Of zest the rhythmic plumber,
A carnival of sound!

But yet there lacks one measure
Of joy on eye and ear, —

A smile of tender pleasure,
A voice of gentle cheer;

This were the lap of leisure.
Sweetheart, if thou wert here!

ite

SAINT CHRISTMAS

SAINT CHRISTMAS still is hale and stout,
His welcome grows not cold,
Still rings his royal greeting out
Each year to young and old.

With robe of fur and beard of snow,

And wreath of holly green.
And with a paunch like bended bow

Or lordly soup-tureen;

And with a round and rosy face

As any friar of yore,
Lit with a kindly, reverent grace

And cheer that runneth o'er.

And with a heart all sound and true.

And comfit-bag well lined —
Sure never one an old man knew

So gay, so pleasant, kind!

Not half so blithe and debonair.

Nor with so merry a voice;
He must be sure a child of care

Whom Christmas can't rejoice!

He must be lean and starved of soul

As any o'er-driven hack,
He must be sick or in sad dole

Whom Christmas lures not back

163

SAINT CHRISTMAS

To household cheer and kindly deed,
And simple mirth and jest,

To tender care for human need.
To generous faith and rest.

What time the merry bells ring out
And all the ways are white,

While rises glad the youthful shout
Beneath the holly bright.

Or when on hallowed Christmas-tide
The children, brimmed with glee.

Crowd round his saintship's special pride,
The glittering Christmas tree.

When all the family meet once more

Around the groaning board.
And Christmas knocks against the door

Of merchant, peasant, lord.

And entering in with lusty cheer

Doth o'er the feast preside.
And lights the eye and tunes the ear

And sets the tongue a-glide.

And hangs the feacherous mistletoe
Right down the path of girls.

That brings mishap to gallant bow
And dainty forehead curls.

Yes, sure he's ill and far from gay.

Ay, bilious-green and pale.
Who turns with sullen scorn aivay

From Christmas glad and hale.

«63

l64 SAINT CHRISTMAS

From Christmas hale and holly-crowned
And full three yards about,

In all our forty States around
Is none so jolly stout!

Is none so dear to childhood's heart;

And though folk dub him Nick,
Of all the saints who live in art

He i« the prince and pick.

He is the merries' saiat oi all
Who live in tale or song,

And they who on blithe Chriitmas call
Will not go far a-wrong.

Long may he bear his princely pack
Of joys both great and small ;

Long may his laugh ring joyous back
From hut or palace wall!

And long may we who joyful take
His Yuletide to our breasts.

Live kindly for the old chap's sake
And keep his plays and jests.

From all the saints of olden day,

Matthew to Margery,
Christmas doth bear the bell away —

Yes, he's the saint for me !

Ijii'j

"THE SPRINGTIME LINGERETH LONG
LOVE"

'T*HE springtime lingereth long, love,
-■■ No birds are in the bowers;
No early primrose after the snows
Nor violets born of showers.
But everything speaks of thee,' love;
The very air I breathe
Comes wafted to me
Over the lea

With messages dear from thee, love,
Messages dear from thee.

IJke a nun asleep is the earth, love.

Wimpled, sombre, and white;

Her snowy hands pressed ab^ve her breast

And with snowy robes bedight.

Tis winter over the wold, love,

No leaf on bush or tree;

Yet what if it be,

'Tis nothing to me

When I am thinking of thee, love,

1 am thinking of thee.

The sky is grey with clouds, love.
The sun puts on no crown;
His radiant hair is shorn of glare
And his bright face wears a frown.
But let him frown on as he lists, love,
165

i66 "SPRINGTIME LINGERETH LONG, LOVE"

He harms not thee nor me;
The light of our skies each other's eyes
When we together shall be, love,
We together shall be.

There's wisdom enough in the world, love,

To T! ;ght a soul for heaven;

Bo he wisdom sages have known for ages

I> ■i-ii free to mortals given;

Bi,L ours is free as the sunshine, love.

And rich as it is free;

Life's no sweet dole.

To the loveless soul,

As it is to thee and me, my love,

As it is to thee and me.

FAIRIES' SONG

ITERE we to the midnight green
* -1. Speed in service of our queen ;
From the ribbed salt-aea strand ;
From the lonely mountain land;
From where Ignis Fatuus strays
Through the marshy thicket's maze.

Here we o'er the moonlit green
Throng at bidding of our queen;
Guided by the firefly's lamp
Through the night-tide cold and damp;
Till the white stars' beams are shorn
And the cock crows shrill at morn.

Here we on the bosky green
Yield obeisance to our queen;
We the frisky sqmrrels teach
Nuts to hoard in hollow beech;
Teach the brindled bee to fly
Honey bag beneath her thigh.

Here we to the scented green
Bring the trippings of our queen;
Here's a cuevin of crystal globe!
Here's a psrple bat's wool robe !
Here's a throne of diamond spar,
AnJ t iBoth-drawn emeraU car!

'™"l

' ll,

IiI:l

168 FAIRIES' SONG

Here we on the bowered green
Hold the court of Fairy Queen;
Round the hamleti raiae our chant
Ere we hie to wild wood haunt,
Till the silver crexent dips
In the wave her hornid tips.

Here we on the tufted green
Dance around our Fairy Queen;
They we are who hold in charm
Gnomes and witches from their harm;
Creatures born of Luna's beams,
Send we kind hearts happy dreams.

Here we on the painted green
Sing around our Fairy Queen;
Elves we are who fill the boy
With his springtime wealth of joy;
Teach the tender maids to see
Beauty in each flower and tree.

Here we on the freaked green
Pledge the fortunes of our queen;
Drinking dew distilled of flowers
In these snail-shell cups of ours; —
Let the perfumed mead we drain
Cheei the heart and fire the brain.

Here we on the broidered green
Hold the revel of our queen;
All among the clover bloom —
All among the heather plume —
All around the haunted well
Where the Nixies love to dwell.

lH':|i iliiii

FAIRIES' SONG

Here we from the peirlM green
«a»te It mandate of our queen;
See the morn is breaking ip-ay
Over the hill-tops faraway!
Beniwn we leave with you,—
Mortal! all, aJieu/ adieu/

169

MICROCOPY MSOIUTION TIST CHAKT

(ANSI ond ISO TEST CHART No. 2)

^ APPLIED IIVHGE In c

^=>^ 1653 Eost Ualn Street

g'.S Rochester, New Yorh U609 uS*

■-^ (716) 482 - 0300 - Phone

^S C'e) 28B-5989-FOK

MY LASSIE WITH YOUR EYES OF BLUE

I WAS a good-for-nothing fellow,
'Twas little work that I would do;
Still fond of drink till I got mellow;
My dollars hardly earned and few;
'Til I met you —
My lassie with your eyes of blue.

You set my poor ^all brain to thinking;

You set my heart a-throbbing too;

I scarce could look at you for blinking,

You were so wondrous fair to view;

Bright, pure as dew —

My lassie with your eyes of blue.

Then all my foolish ways went packing,

And ever as I worthier grew,

I felt my merits more than lacking,

My fealty could humbly sue;

Thru thought of you, —

My lassie with your eyes of blue.

I now have buckled on my armor;
I've quit the weed and wine-cup, too;
I've turned a trusty, thrifty farmer;
I save my money like a Jew;
'Tis all for you, —
My lassie with your eyes of blue.
170

MY LASSIE WITH EYES OF BLUE 171

My heart's a bark that's ready laden

With store of service choice and new;

Then take it lovely, tender maiden,

It bears its cargo all to you,

Of pledges due, —

My lassie with your eyes of blue.

Then when my heart's full sail you've sighted,

And it has anchored close to you.

Let not its loving freight be sliglited;

The foolish heart, 'twas all it knew ;

Just love, be true —

My lassie with your eyes of blue.

FAIR AS CERES BEARING GUERDON

FAIR as Ceres bearing guerdon,
First I met her midst the corn ;
To our ears the merry burden
Of the reaping song was borne;
On that morn,
There beside the nodding corn.

There was none in all the county,
None like her so pure and fair;
With her princely father's bounty
In the land could none compare;
Stood she there,
With a white rose in her hair.

Oft beside yon gleaming river
Held we converse sweet and low;
Where the paly shafts do quiver
From the new moon's silver bow;
Where they glow.
And the pleasant waters flow.

There I loved her, there I wooed her,
And she plighted troth for mine;
(Though I was of lineage ruder,
And she came of lofty line) ; —
Lo, for sign

See, this faded eglantine!
17a

FAIR AS CERES BEARING GUERDON 173

Soon, alas, fate came between us
And our last adieus were sighed;
Love had naught on earth to screen us ;
She became a lordling's bride ; —
Then she died.
Like a flower cut down in pride!

Often now I sit and listen

To the river's monotone;

Still its waters lave and glisten,

Yet it answers me my moan.

All alone!

For my heart is turned to stone!

A SONG OF THE DAWN

"^TLToii-^r'''' """ "■" ""^^ ^-«- -

Til the green voluptuous land, new-waked, smiles brieht
m the face of Day,

And Night's bodeful dreams with the bats and owls to the
darkness hie away;

When the blooms of the clover fill the air with their count-
less famt perfumes,

While millions of pearl-strewed gossamer webs the gay
young Sun illumes: '

When the fingere of wizard winds play light with the leaves
ot the woodlands crown;

And the crispy rf.sp of the whetted scythe through the still-
ness filters down;

And the low of the mild, fuU-uddered cows goes forth to
their oQspring near.

While clapping his wings to the joyous morn, winds his
challenge the chanticleer:

174

A SONG OF THE DAWN

175

When the incense of early cottage fires curls soft through

the delicate blue,
And the caw conies down from the wooded heights of the

crows' freebooting crew;
And the clangorous wild-geese wing their flight o'er meadow

and moor and brake
To flash their wings and dabble their beaks in the breast

of the northern lake;

When the vigilant cricket wakes his friends asleep in the
feathery breres,

'Til the grasshopper leaps from his leaf-hung couch through
his forest of blades and spears;

'Til all over the fragrant breast of earth the lives of sum-
mer rejoice,

And the varied myriad insect tones blend one universal
voice;

When the face of every wilding flower is washed her lord
to greet;

When the robin whistles his blithest note and the black-
bird's song is sweet ; —

Then is the time for the spirit of man to unburden the
breast of care,

For thankless indeed must be the soul untouched by a scene
so fair I

SEA SONG

OUR ship is a stanch-built trader;
Like a duck she rides the sea ;
And a heartier crew or captain, lads,

Was never my hap to see;
She's loaded for Valparaiso

To the guards with Yankee stuff;
And never shall fail to carry her sail
Though the storm be growling gruff.

Then here's to the hardy sailor.

Whose home is the dark blue wave;

Who sleeps like a rock in the tempest's shock,
Or roars his rough sea-stave.

Leave the land-lubber clinging

To earth like a timid snail,
But here's to a rush with the crowding breeze.

The spread of the bellying sail!
To-day at Porto Rico,

To-morrow at Trinidad,
While our good ship brea:ts the combing crest

Like a race horse proud and glad.

(Then here's to the hardy sailor, etc.)

Then when the hurricane whistles
We'll reef and take in sail,
"76

SEA SONG

And batten each hatch and make all taut
In the teeth of the pounding gale;

While under our feet the timbers
Slant like a pent-house roof,

And the spray like hail drives over the rail
Witli the force of the devil's hoof.

(Then here's to the hardy sailor, etc.)

But when the halcyon summer

Settles across the sea,
And the clouds pack off to their mountain tops

And the round blue heaven is free,
Then deep in the ocean's bosom,

The stars shall make their bed.
And the moon hang bright her lantern white

In the dusky arch o'erhead.

(Then here's to the hardy sailor, etc.)

Then we, old Neptune's children.

Who guide trade's floating barns.
We'll puff our pipes and nuzzle our grog

A-spinning our tough sea-yarns;
A-spinning our long sea-stories,

A-thinking of Nan or Sue,
And how some day in Portland Bay

She'll welcome her seaman true.

(Then here's to the hardy sailor, etc.)

Curse then who will the ocean.

She's nurse to earnest men;
A deep sur-nise she teaches the soul

Of Eternity's endless ken;

177

»7« SEA SONG

She plays her pranb upon ui,

But, oh, her heart is free!
And as soft a sleep has the miBhty deep

As ■ babe on its mother's knee.

Then here's to the hardy sailor
Whose home is the dark blue wave;

Who sleeps like a rock in the tempest's shock,
Or roars his rough sea-stave!

INVOCATION TO LOVE

GOD, defied of lovely Eva.
Cupid, Eros, llamadeva,
Or by whatsoever name
Thou hast long been known to fame-
Child of Venus — Psyche's spouse —
Listen ti- thy poet's vows I
For his mistress, wanton she,
Harrieth him with treachery.

By thy bow of silver whiteness —
By thy quiver's golden brightness—
By thine eye of roguish blue
And thy crisp locks' sunny hue —
By thy shining, potent arrovs,
And thy Mother Venus' sparrows —
Hasten, god of elfin guile I
Aid me with thy choicest wile!

Through the targe of her white breast
Be thy keen sweet javelin pressed—
Whisper softly to the ear
Glamor maidens love to hear,
And let those low echoes be
Burdened with the name of me.
Love, the ancient and the young,
I thine honors oft have sung I
179

ito INVOCATION TO LOVE

I, in ionnet and in itory,
Oft have tuned thine infant glory: —
What though Time with churliih hand
Poureth fait my shining und,
And my kindly tummer time
Blighteth with his early rime,
Lnve, thou still hast been to me
An adored deity I

Lo, anew thy red fires start
On the altar of my heart!
Fast the breath of passion slips
Forth of the portal of my lips.
All her vagrant fancies guiding
Past the lures of youth's providing,
Lead her, conqueror of charms.
Captive to these longing arms I

Then will I thy praise renew ;
Thou shalt keep my homage true;
Crown me now thy child of fortune
And I thee no more importune 1
Come, thou hourl;' heaven-descending,
With the gift that hath no ending.
Though her melting spirit shine,
Make the radiant maiden mine I

It ' I

MY LADY FROM THE SEA

THE Lady from the Seal a name
To charm the listening air j
A title buoyant, winged for fame,

Mysterious, debonair;
It rings across the round of ' le

In music pulsing free ; —
A breath from far Romance's clime—
"The Lady from the Sea."

But now the phrase hath sweeter grown.

And haunts my ravished ear;
It takes a tenderer, richer tone

That none beside may hear;
The tocsin of an ampler hope

Where Faith shall bend the knee;
Within one fond heart's larger scope,

My Lady from the Sea!

My Lady from the Sea she stands,

And none may her gainsay;
With true love dowry in her hands

And in her eyes the play
Of forces that unfold their charra

Of light and power to me,
Yet work no living creature harm —

My Lady from the Sea.
i8i

I83

MY LADY FROM THE SEA

f!i

The rhythm of the ocean wind

Is pulsing through her heart;
The glint of waves that plastic bind

All lands across the chart,
With something of dawn's tender grace

In her clear eyes I see;
Or sunset's glamor lights her face—

My Lady from the Sea.

I watch the endless waters flow

Beneath the eternal sky;
I view the tall ships come and go

With new awakened eye;
She stands beside me and her voice

Doth with all moods agree;
She cries, "Rejoice, worn heart, rejoice I"

My Lady from the Sea.

Like her I come of Viking blood.

Yet bred in landward town,
I feared the mystery of the flood

And shunned the deep sea crown;
But now the breadth of wave and sky

Lies bare to port and lee; —
Ah, how the bannered clouds go by,

My Lady from the Sea!

MY SONNETEER

"yWAS in a common German "Haus"

■"• Where one may buy a beer,
(A "ham and" tind of place it was),

I met my sonneteer.
Among an unkempt, frowzy set,

Who wore a tipsy leer
And swaggered loud, 'twas first I met,

I met my sonneteer.

The scion of Euterpe sat

In solitary cheer,
A well-worn, weather-beaten hat

Adorned my sonneteer;
But yet he took his glass of "wet"

As though 'twere Rhenish dear;
Thus getting up his steam I met,

I met my sonneteer.

I knew him as the author of

That poem called De Vere;
'Twas mild as — well, a sucking dove,

Or as my sonneteer.
But now it's dead as "Capulet,"

A "book without a peer";
As dreary us his verse I met,

I met my sonneteer.

The Muse's livery on his back
All threadbare did appear,
183

i84 MY SONNETEER

Its shiny seams did fray and cracic

Upon my sonneteer.
'Twas with a feeling of regret,

And with a sort of fear
His lot might soon be mine, I met,

I met my sonneteer.

What use for him Fate had in store

Was not exceeding clear;
For poetasters groiy galore

Like to my sonneteer.
And Fortune sends her "Kind regret"

To many such a year;
I thought, "the world will soon forget,

Forget my sonneteer."

But ah, the Gods had care of him

Most gracious-wise I hear;
A wealthy widow took a whim

And wed my sonneteer.
He wrote the dame a canzonet

Upon her eye or ear;
A Muse of some account! I met,

I met my sonneteer.

Twas at the big Fitz-Boodle ball,

The grandest of the year.
While strolling through the supper hall

I met my sonneteer;
He looked as though a dun or debt

Ne'er once had come him near;
A-sipping Pommery Sec I met,

I met my sonneteer!

And as the fashion is, he now
His head will highly rear;

MY SONNETEER

To friends of old he'll slightly bow
My purse-proud sonneteer.

At bon-ton clubs he's quite a pet,
Is booked for a "career";

He's changed indeed, but he is yet.
Is yet — a sonneteer I

i8s

SONG FOR THE EMPIRE STATE

'T'HE migh iest of the sisters that form our native land,
-1. The bulwark of our promise by lake and ocean spanned,
Nine million sons of freemen, tried men of mart and field,
In one accord are voicing the triumph of her shield.

The golden grain is ours and ours the fruitful vine;

Above our vales and mountains the stars of empire
shine;
The product of the woodland, the harvest of the lea,

Pour down our roads and rivers to lake and town and

Flow forth, thou stately banner, upon the westering gale,
That flaunts her song of triumph o'er every hill and
vale;

From where one mighty city holds sovereign state to-day.
To mine and farm and forest, to hill and cape and bay!

Yet fairer than the pageant of mountain, dale and sea.
Is that free plighted tribute, O Lord of Hosts, to Thee I

Thine is the cause and promise, thine is the law and rule,
That shapes the church, and forum, that moulds the
home and school.

Thou gateway of the nation, the constant tribute pours
From lands beneath the dawning, to these enfranchised
shores;
Hold up the ancient emblem * to show to after time

How from the slender seedling has grown the tree
sublime!
* The arms of New York State.
186

A SONG OF HOPE

r\EAR heart, the clouds of even
^ Will fade away at morn,
And with the sun of heaven

New life and light be born;
Then do not now despair.

Nor live of hope forlorn;
The cloud that came with even
Will pass away at morn.

Let us be constant still

Through all life's care and cark.
Bearing a cheerful will

Though all around be dark;
The sun's behind the cloud

Though here his beams are shorn;
The cloud that came with even
Will pass away at morn.

Take Hope unto your bosoms.

All ye sad sons of care;
Her brow is wreathed with blossoms

That perfume lives of prayer;
Gather her to your hearts,

All ye of faith forlorn;
The cloud that came with even
Wdl pass away at morn.

187

CRADLE SONG

{Translated from the French of Madame Valmore)

IF baby sleep he'll see
The busy bumble bee
With the honey 'neath her thigh
Dancing 'tween the earth and sky.

If baby sleep in bed

An angel rosy red

(None else sees him without light)

Down will come and say "good-night."

The Virgin full of grace
Down to his sweet face,
If he'll quiet be, will bend
And long time in talk will spend.

"If my child love me,"

God to himself says he,

"I love that child who'll sleep

Make him golden dreams to keep.

"Eyes to close prepare !
When he's said his prayer.
He shall see my gardens grrw
With the brightest flowers Jiat blow.
188

CRADLE SONG

"Angel hands down press
And smooth his long night dress I
And let whitest down be shed
Where he rests his sleeping head!

"Brood ye wings above I
Like the turtle dove,
From his eyes my sun to keep
When he wakens from his sleep!

"While he travels far

In my cloudy car,

Let him, whensoe'er he deems,

Drink my milk that flows in streams!

"Open to his call

Pearl and amber hall!

He while sleeping shall partake

Of my precious diamond cake!

"Broider ye his sail,
Stars so bright and pale!
When he sets his little boat
On my azure lake afloat!

"Waves be clearer soon
Than the shining moon!
While my fish with silver flakes
In the changing deep he takes!

189

"But I would he sleep
And in slumber keep.
Like the birds in downy hush
In their houses built of rush !

'^ CRADLE SONG

"If, an hour gone by
Still they hear him cry,
Everywhere they'd lay abroad
That child's diaobeying God I"

"Echo down the street
Would the news repeat,
Saying, as the hour flies,
'Hark, I hear a cl»ild that cries I'

"And his mother dear

In the night severe,

Won't keep singing very long

To that naughty child her song I

"Should he cry and fret
For daybreak in pet.
From her lamb who won't obey
Maybe she will run away.

"Or then she may flee
Through the roof, maybe;
Angry at his cries, alack!
Off she'll go and won't come back!

"Wander where he may
None will say 'good-day I'
And I say that child unwise
Will not look on Paradise!

"Yes! but if he's stiU,

The Blessed Virgin will

To his sweet face downward bend.

And long time in talk will spend!"

FRENCH FORMS

FRENCH FORMS >

Thbsb blooms of song in minstrel time
Sprang from Provence's genial clime;
Fair as in Ronsard's lovers' lay
The rare exotics flower to-day,
Crowning de Banville's courtly prime.

As at the play the facile mime

Shows worth, love, chivalry, and crime,—

Change to all tints of fancy's play
These blooms of song.

Though here the stubborn English rhyme
Curbs the Chant Royal's tread sublime.

The Rondeau courts an English day;

The Ballade's tendrils bend and sway
'Neath northern oak as southern lime.
These blooms of song I

'tl

THE IMMORTALITY OF SONG i.'^
(Chant Royal)

A LL earthly state doth wither and decay;
1^ Nor Pride, Wealth. Splendor, Loveline5s, nor Might.
May in its course the str.ke of Ruin stay,

As dreams they fade and vanish out of sight
Perpetual change! the beggar and the king
Each turn to mould, and from their ashes spring

Conceptions for new life; o'er Xerxes' hall

Deep sands are drifting; lions nightly call
Actoss the waste where Babylon proud and strong

Towered to Heaven; yet safe from Ruin's thrall
1 hey shine alway— the saintly stars of Song!

What IS the conqueror's laurel? Where the sway

Of Csesars with their purple robes bedight?
Like to a breath they came— they passed away

Like torches flashed across the breast of night •
However so mighty. Time's remorseless wing
Sweeps them along— of them scarce anything

Is left or known;— the centuries downward haul

1 heir palaces— the ivy on the wall

"«f '" *"'' '"''^^ °* P""*"-' oblivion long

Wraps crown and sceptre, throne and sumptuous pall;
1 hey shine alway— the saintly stars of Song!
«93

194 THE IMMORTALITY OF SONG

Where are the lovely (orini of olden day-
Proud Cleopatra'i chanm, all duiky bright,

Helen's enrapturing beauty, Lai( gay?
Alail frail Beauty firat doth tuffcr blight.

The roae bloonu forth ; to-day our plaudits ring,

To-morrow, and the wanton world doth fling
It! withered joy aaidel In ruin fall
Firm arch, proud plinth, and itoried capital;

The eternal hills themselves shall sufler wrong:
Pure and inviolate from earth's changes all

They shine alway— the uit\tly stars of Song I

Youth with his garland takes his joyous way.
Pledging the future with a proud delight;

How veiled is soon the glory of his day—
The years speed on and Time asserts his right I

Changes no longer new enchantments bring;

All niggard now of cheer and welcoming,
The Seasons offer cups of rue and gall.
And weeds for favors ; round earth's rolling ball

Youth creeps to age; bound as by iron thong,
Blind fortune sweeps him onward past recall:

They shine slway — the saintly stars of SongI

Yes, song survives! except the inspired lay
Nothing of man's is stable; earth takes flight

Itself; in vain we would for respite pray;
Time soon or late our titles doth indict.

Awhile around the past our memories clip».

Awhile for loved ones lost we're sorrowing:,
Then Death our names doth in his tablet scrawl,
And we are past the heart-ache and the brawl.

Life's hopes and fears and Pain's envenomed prong;
The armor-bearer sinks beside the Saul; —

They sh'.m alway — the saintly sta/s of Song!

THE IMMORTALITY OF SONG

«9S

l'invoi

Friend, while to age and duty death we crawl,
Till Time layt by hit tcythe and iron maul,

Songi arr Heaven'i choicest gifu; above the thnnv
Abiding— o er the mighty and the unall—

They thine al way— the Mintly itar* of Song I

THE RENASCENCE OF SPRING

{Chtnt Royal)

THERE dawns new gladness over holt and dale,
A rich prelude of melody and light;
The mating birds upon their branches hail

The regal morn — all things to joy invite.
The velvet grass is freshening o'er the lea;
The bloom is frothing over bush and tree ;

The earth doth set her mourning weeds aside,

And flushes, joyous as a new-made bride.
Beneath the gaze of her glad lord and king.

The bridegroom sun, all warm and ardent-eyed ; —
Maternal Earth rejoices with the Spring!

No snow whirl drives before the billowy gale ;

Gone are the tokens of decay and blight ;
Upon slant wing the twittering swallows sail,

Flashing their pinions lined with flecked white;
Nature stands crowned in all her majesty;
The heavens glow pure as a pellucid sea;

The soul with an intenscr flame supplied,

Grows warmed, enlightened, and revivified.
Till all its heart doth to the season sing.

Partaking Nature's generative pride; —
Maternal Earth rejoices with the Spring!
196

THE RENASCENCE OF SPRING 197

The burnished beetle in his jointed mail,
Wheeling across the fields" in whirring flight,

Drums for the concert warblers of the vale
His overture to Summer's queenly might.

The blithe grasshopper from his bended knee

Vaults forth; the cricket chirrups loud in glee;
The dragonflies across the champaign glide,
Their filmy oars transparent stretching wide;

The cooing dove flushes his iris ring.

Wooing his mate who coyly steps aside; —

Maternal Earth rejoices with the Spring!

The ghostly beeches past the orchard pale
Are donning ruffled cloaks all emerald bright ;

The vine begins to clamber o'er the rail;
The timid violets now are not affright,

But to the season's genial gaiety

They venture forth and make :heir beauties free;
The hardy crocus to the north allied.
Stands bravely up in raiment purple-pied;

The daisy soon her shield will forward fling,
The vaunted champion of the Summer-tide ; —

Maternal Earth rejoices with the Spring!

This is Love's season — now he doth not fail

Of hearts; no mark escapes his cunning sleight;
Nothing can his keen arrows countervail.

When Spring hath wound her clarion on the height.
Nature's warm charms woo Youth voluptuously.
He may not from her flowery bondage flee;

For like a mistress true, companion tried.

Her -^ntle suasion may not be denied.
And with a thousand arts of welcoming

She lures him to her fragrant blooming side ; —
Maternal Earth rejoices with the Spring!

198

THE RENASCENCE OF SPRING

Nature, true teacher, still be thou my guide!
Never by me be thy rich charms decried;

Still to my heart thy choicest blessings bring!
Ride on supreme! in joyful triumph ride; —

Maternal Earth rejoices with the Spring!

THE COMING AGE

(Chant Royal)

A ROUND the wastes of Tvranny and War,
-t 1. Athwart the clouds of Ig-iorance and Blight,
There falls a splendor from t'<e heavenly shore,

A strong archangel standing in the light;
The angel's name is Peace — seraphic gleams
Adorn his robes and from his aureole streams

The gladness of the Morning; fair on fair

The lustres kindle up the pulsing air
And fling their radiance over every clime ; —

Lo, Love will come with laurels round his hair!
So flushed with promise dawns the Coming Time!

Gone is the bigot's wrath — the open door
Of Concord doth on golden hinge invite
All nations; on Thought's steep and boundless shore

What leagues of Prescience lengthen on the sight!

The glory poets outlined in their dreams

To-day on us in amplest beauty beams;

The triumphs Hope to think would hardly dare.
The Sciences unceasing hands prepare;

The pageant Hours in pomp of trophied prime

Upon their heads their wreaths of conquest wear;

So flushed with promise dawns the Coming Time!
199

oo THE COMING AGE

Now sovereign Plenty hath unlocked her store;

Forth I'nto Want she holds her harvest bright ;
Around her foaming vats and threshing-floor

Dance jocund fays in gay and festal flight;
With bounteous wealth the fair-hued future teems,
And unto joy the sons of grief redeems,

Bringing to Labor ease and balm for Care ;

While Love shall all the poor man's burdens share.
While Freedom marching up her paths sublime

Shall lead to wider vi«ws and clearer air; —
So flushed with promise dawns the Coming Time!

'i li

Fair Culture rules where Plenty held before.

With hyacinthine locks and brow of white ;
Even Pride himself shall yield to her devoir;

She stands the queen of Progress and of Might;
She calms and quells the discord of extremes;
Worth has her heart and virtue she esteems;

All hearts and minds are open to her prayer;

Her blooms most fragrant are, most costly rare;
She loves the lute, she loves the poet's rhyme;

No earthly beauty can with hers jompare; —
So flushed with promise dawns the Coming Time!

The Olden Ages all their treasures pour
Into the lap of Learning, at whose right

The bafiled fiends of Prejudice deplore,

V.Tiile Plenty, Culture, Freedom, with delight

Wax mightier, while the golden sunburst seems

To consecrate the page of Wisdom's themes,
To track the dark-faced passions to their lair.
Who soon in chains shall into bondage fare,

'Til Love shall take the cruel sword from Crime;
Can mind conceive or tongue such bliss declare!

So flushed with promise dawns the Coming Time!

THE COMING AGE

Take heart, ye doubting and despondent! there
Grows Truth where Love has birth ; — far up the stair

Of Progress shall enfranchised manhood climb ;
Yea, Faith shall wed with Reason everywhere; —

So flushed with promise dawns the Coming Time!

■

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THE ADVANTAGE OF LOVE

(Ballade)

TO Philosophy's heights he could soar,
Could decipher the stones of Copan ;
He was versed in Rabbinical lore
From Beersheba even to Dan;
Ten tongues he could jabber and scan ;
Like Noah's adventurous dove

He had travelled from Maine to Japan, —
But he lacked the advantage of Love.

He pondered Zoology o'er;

He collected the pot and the pan ;
Over fossils he'd study and pore

And could tell when the fusion began ;

From a star to an Indian fan
He had learning all others above;

His mind took a world in its span, —
He lacked the advantage of Love.

His soul could like Kepler's explore

The deeps of creation, he ran
The gauntlet of pedant and bore

And the straight-forehead orthodox clan;

On a pulpit he beat rataplan
With a hand that was soft as a glove;

He could pray and palaver, and plan, —
He lacked the advantage of Love.

THE ADVANTAGE OF LOVE

303

L'sffVOl

Prince, though you win all you can,
Though Fortune continues to shove ;

You've missed the true scope of i man
H you lack the advantage of Love.

UNDER MARLBORO'

(Ballade)

•fTTE'VE drummed all the French out of Lille;

W We'll soon have them drubbed out of Flanders,

When the trumpets of Marlboro' peal,
Tis "on!" with our tough salamanders.
King Louis' proud pets and his panders

May carve new estates in Cayenne;

Let them call on their prince of commanders;

Pouf! Here's to their Marshal Turennel

Tallard and Villars have turned heel,

They ran like a pack of train-banders;
The Johnny Crapauds, how they squeal

As we charge under Mordaunt and Saunders.

Messieurs, you are gallant Leanders,
Your vocation's in Paris, and then

The Pompadour dotes upon slanders; —
Pouf! Here's to your Marshal Turenne!

You may trim us in farce, vaudeville.
And dub us gourmands and outlanders;

We'll play you to fire and steel

And the stifEest of British right-handers.

You imagined us Hessians and Pandours;

Mes braves, you mistook us, and when
The Seine is your last of Scamanders, —
Pouf! Here's to your Marshal Turenne!

304

UNDER MARLBORO'

305

LBNVOI

Your dieep and champagne to the brandert,
Or, Louu, we'll claim them again I

For prog we are itoutest of standera,
Pouf I Here's to your Marshal Turenne!

BALLADE OF THE SEA-SERPENT

MYTHOLOGY'S knocked all awry;
Gods, demi-gods deader than punk;
To the Fauns and the Fairies good-bye I
Each Dryad has packed up her trunk;
Nymph, Naiad, and Oread funk;
The spook has gone oS in a pet ;

The Satyr is dead or dead drunk; —
The Sea-Serpent flourishes yet!

The Mermaid has gotten so shy

She siestas all day in her bunk;
The Triton is piping his eye;

The Nereids are all of them sunk;

The Gnomes to earth's boweb have slunk;
The Pixies have paid their last debt;

The Nixies are "nixy," bob BUBr; —
The Sea-Serpent flourishes yet I

No witch is now sweeping the sky,

The last one was burned for her spunk;
One cannot on devils rely,

Althou^ we've the word of the monk;

In Time's nostrils the Centaur has stunk;
No hobgoblin or bogle is met;

Vanderdecken has flown with his junk; —
The Sea-Serpent flourishes yet I

206

BALLADE OF THE SEA-SERPENT

ao7

LINVOI

Prince, clever headed or lunk,
Time ioon will your glorie* forget;

You'll down to oblivion plunk;—
The Sea-Serpent flourishet yet I

BALLADE OF THE TAILOR

WHATE'ER philosopher* may My,
Or men of texts and tariffs prose,
In toga, tea-cup times, to-day.
The greatest social fact is chthtt.
Come good or bad, come friend* or foes,
The wi*e or *imple, great or small,

Where'er the wave of culture flown,
The Tailor, he i* King of all.

The day* of plume* and mantle* gay.

Or ruflle*, patche*, furbelow*.
Have like foam-bubbles pa*sed away.

Vanished the age of wits and beaux;

The gallant mincing on hia toe*,
Both Nelly's grace and Ninon'* du-all.

Have passed like pageant* of the Rose,—
The Tailor, he was king of all.

Now dandies dress in black or gray;

They sport no more the silken hose;
The pantaloon has come to stay;

No dress shirt now a ruffle knows;

A "congress" is a flock of crows;
The broidered scarf is now a shawl ;

But still, howe'er the fashion goe*,
The Tailor, he is king of all.

308

BALLADE OF THE TAILOR

ao9

LINVOI

Friend, while upon the Stige you poM
Ai fool or knave, ai Mint or S«ul,-

In dren you maik or you diKloie;
The Tailor, he i( king of all I

■If

1,ii|^

I i
.1 1 --fti

THE SERVANT OF THE MUSE
(Ballade)

OH, callow youths, ^e vaporing lovers all.
Who pay your vows at some fair Circe's shrine,
If ye to one entrancing maid a thrall
Your ease of mind and sportive joys resign, —
If ye for her your liberties confine.
And all your former comfortings refuse.

Your case is not so desperate as is mine, —
Ye know not what it means to serve the Musel

Ye middle-aged, who live false Fortune's thrall,
Who fondly deem her smile will constant shine;

Ye who beneath her ruthless chariot fall,
Or for her gilded toys and bubbles pine,
Your ear to a more hapless wig^t incline,

Who to a more capricious mistress sues;
Be thankful of your wage and drain your wine, —

Ye know not what it means to serve the Muse!

Old men, who throng to Wisdom's spacious hall,

And worship white-robed Science, the divine;
Who dig for light at Death's dark barrier wall,

And con life's mystic precepts line by line;

Straining your anxious vision for a sign
How to unravel cunning Nature's ruse;

If she be coy ye need not wince nor whine, —
Ye know not what it means to serve the Musel

310

THE S' KVANT OF THE MUSE

211

EVVOI

All ye smug Strephons, who prosaic dine
Upon the viands which your Phyllis stews,

Eat and be thankful for your chops and chine,

Ye know not whaf it means to serve the Muse !

;;, ^liji ,

ii ; I'

}f -V-i

THE BOGEY OF ENGLISH FREE TRADE
(Ballade)

THE tariff'si a dear little pet,
The child of Republican lout;
Protection its nurse (that is, wet),
Just now is much flustered, put out;
Monopolist, run with the clout!
Manufacturer, stand tor its maid!

And fright away megrim and pout
With the bogey of English free trade.

Oh, swaddle it, dandle it yet.

Ye grave senatorial rout!
And teach it its tare and its tret.

And to keep clean its snub little snout.

Don't let depraved Democrats flout
Its failings, or make it afraid.

But after its enemies scout
With the bogey of English free trade.

Brother Jonathan's house is upset;

The mischief! What's all this about?
What caucusing furor, and fret!

What a headshaking, shiver and shout!

"The country'!! be ruined, I vow it!"
"Let the surplus in pensions be paid !"

"Put the tariff's revisers to rout
With the bogey of English free trade !"

THE BOGEY OF ENGLISH FREE TRADE ai3

L'BNVOI

Ye sons, macaroni and kraut I
Ye wielders of dibble and spade I

They'd gammon you, make not a doubt,
With the bogey of English free trade 1

BERANGER'S SONGS
(Rondeau)

BI!RANGER'S scwigs— ah, few to-day
Can such inspiring measures sway;
What muse can match the lilting strain
That dances down his sweet refrain?
Come — name his rivals I where are they?

Around his theme wit's flashes play;
He's France I in him France lives for aye;
They glow like sunshine dipped in rain,
Beranger's songs!

The modern muse is seldom gay.
Infrequent grows the heart-felt lay,

The voice of passion breathes in pain;

O come, ye gladsome days again!
Like stars they gleam along my way,

Beranger's songs!

214

MY TRICKSY MUSE
(Rondeau)

MY tricksy Muse ! full oft you play
Me shy, when I'd fain have you stay;
The most coquettish maid I know
Are you, and though I court you, lo,
You're oflf for all I do or say!

Well, come or go howe'er you may;
Assertive, tender, grave or gay.

Yet never false, malicious grow.
My tricksy Musel

The critic, waiting for his prey,
May scofi you, with my scorn I pay ;
And should all wheels on Fortune's row
Spin by us, we'll no favors owe;
Afoot we'll travel life's highway,
My tricksy Muse!

215

l%4

A RUSTIC SCENE

'M ' s

(Rondeau)

A RUSTIC scene, ma chere amif
Well, first a vine-flowered canopy;
A garden here — an orchard yon —
A fountain and a sloping lawn —
Some chairs — the china set for tea.

Yes, something more — ah, there must be
A hedge in bloom — a willow tree —

Thus far you think I've fairly drawn
A rustic scene?

A lake far distant — down the lea

A white-robed, gold-haired, winsome she,

Holding in ribbon leash a fawn;

Her smile, suggestive of the dawn —
A young Aurora ; you, ma mie; —

A rustic scene!

3l6

A PERFECT FRIEND
(Rondeau)

A PERFECT friend, Miss Guenevere,
Come tell me who that is? 'Tis queer
A clever scholar such as you
Never that mental portrait drew,
And you thumb Shakespeare every yearl

Heart, culture, grace, a voice of cheer,
Wit not too gay nor yet severe.

Tact, talent, sweetness, all are due
A perfect friend.

A woman? surely I Men appear
Less sympathetic, earnest, clear.
Resourceful — and I know but few
Of your sex, even, kind and true.
Look in the mirror — youf yes, dear,
A perfect friend !

THE HEART'S VOYAGE ly-
(Pantoum) -

MV all too trustful day is o'er,
Grey clouds draw darkling o'er the sea ;
Youth's all enchanting tropic shore
Fades slowly o'er life's shadowed lea.

Grey clouds grow darkling o'er the sea
From out the deepening skies of time;

Fades slowly o'er life's shadowed lea
The freshness of life's summer clime.

From out the deepening skies of time —
The storm-wings veering down in force, —

The freshness of life's summer clime
I leave, upon my out-bound course.

i-i

The storm-wings veering down in force, —
I know not where they drive me on;

I leave, upon my out-bound course,
Bright hopes, full-blossomed at the dawn.

I know not where they drive me on —
The dark waves stretch an endless waste;

Bright hopes, ye blossomed at the dawn —
Roses, that once Faith's garden graced 1

The dark waves stretch an endless waste;

One star beams through the gloom above;
Roses, that cnce Faith's garden graced.

Ye all were consecrate to Love!
ai8

THE HEART'S VOYAGE

One star beaitin thiough the gloom above,

The pale pure star of Poesy;
Ye all were ronsecrate to Love,

Fair flowers that bloomed so tenderly!

The pale, pure star of Poesy 1

My one blest guide when night is drear;
Fair flowers that bloomed so tenderly.

Would now ye smiled upon me here!

My one blest guide when night is drear;

Her light still cheers my wayward soul;
Would now thou smiledst upon me here.

Dear star of Love — the billows roll !

Her light still cheers my wayward soul,
Lend too, O Love, thy steadfast shine!

Dear star of Love, the billows roll!
Why cheer'it thou not this heart of mine?

Lend too, O Love, thy steadfast shine!

Then might the white-walled haven gleam;
Why cheer'st thou not this heart of mine.

Sweet guide of each night-opening dream?

Then might the white-walled haven gleam,
Calm port of rest, fulfilled desires;

Sweet guide of each night-opening dream,
Thy charm would gild its lofty spires!

J19

Calm port of rest, fulfilled desires —
It were a paradise with thee!

Thy tharm would gild its lofty spires;
Where may I that bright haven see?

?!'•?*'

aao THE HEART'S VOYAGE

It were a paradiK with thee I
Ah, how the doiidjr atreatnen fly I

Where may I that bright haven see?
How iwift uiy light bark glideth by I

Ah, how the cloudy itreamers fly I
My all too tmstful day if o'er;

How swift my li^t bark glideth by
Youth's all-enchanting tropic shore I

O SOVEREIGN LOVE
{RonJeau)

O SOVEREIGN LOVE! there i> no fear or strcM
May shake thy follower's rapt devotedness ;
Heaven hath no bliss surpassing this of thine;
Thy favor makes the face of care to shine
And clothes the cruel with thy tenderness I

Lean from thy heaven! the wearied spirit bless,
Fair youthful god, to whom all hearts confess;

Let not thy servants unrequited pine,
O Sovereign Love!

Thy arms round lives of earth born labor press
And soothe them with thy pure and soft caress;

Warm the dull spirit with thy flame divine ;

To all who pray thee straight thy joy consign ;
Yea, banish pain — bring sweet forgetfulness,
O Sovereign Love!

THE VISION OF THE DIS DEBAR

(VillanelU)

THROUGH the visions of the night*
What is this my fancy sees?
Tis the Dis Debar in tights!

Oh, of all the awesome sights

That do oft the senses freeze
Through the visions of the nights;

This one most my spirit frights —

This one surely takes the cheese!
Tis the Dis Debar in tights!

All ye gamesome Harlem wights,

Saw ye ever limbs like these
Through the visions of the nights?

There behind the platform lights

Nightly doth fair Cupid wheeze;
'Tis the Dis Debar in tights!

Still she haunts me, queen of sprites,

Sighing like a gusty breeze
Through the visions of the nights —
'Tis the Dis Debar in tights!

TRIOLETS

EVERY age has its craze,
Our day has the maddest;
Tis a bric-a-brac phase.
Every age has its craze,
But of all work in "clays"

This "crockery's" the "saddest."
Every age has its craze.
Our day has the maddest.

Since Bellamy's book
The world's gone demented.

All's "social outlook"

Since Bellamy's book;

The co-operative cook

Is the last thing invented.

Since Bellamy's book
The world's gone demented.

Nina pouted when I said

All her sex are like Pandora ;
But I straightway pleased the maid

When I called her my Aurora.
Flatter well the fair, ye men,

If you'd have your faith undoubted.
Tell them not the truth, as when

Nina pouted.

QUATRAINS

THE QUATRAIN

As thru a prism strains the circling sky,
Packed in four lines how much of life may lie;
Yet flashing forth its radiance down the years ; —
. A diamond flinging pent fire to the spheres.

THE UNIVERSAL LIFE

THE mountain's brooks divide, yet from one source
They plenish all the fruitful fields below;
So from the central, sole, eternal force,
The strong, life-giving streams of Nature .low.

STANDING-ROOM

"A PLACE to stand, and I will move the world!"
So cried the wise-browed Syracusan seer;

Whereon to stand ? Ay, had we that, unfurled
Across the age what banners Truth would rear!

THE WORLD-MAELSTROM OF THE WEST

Here seethes the o'erflow of Nations; from all shores
Earth's human rivers mix in one embrace;

Yet through this myriad-tided ocean pours
The Gulf-stream of the Anglo-Saxon race.

KNOWLEDGE AND WISDOM

Knowledge is Wisdom's hand-maid; oft her gown
The servant dons — a masquerade complete^

Then goes she aping Wisdom up and down.
And few there are who recognize the cheat.
227

238

QUATRAINS

PENUEL

Nothing of value comes unearned to man;

The storm that scathes, roots yet more deep the trunk;
All striving tells in earnest Nature's plan;

Still wrest the blessing though your thigh be shrunk.

EVOLUTION

Soul is developed Nature; from the sod
Grows soul-stuif; Nature's but a thrifty wife;

The field-flowers claim us kindred with a nod,
And mothers kiss the babes that sap their life.

LOVE

Love is the rose of life, it'> natural zest,
Its daily bourgeon woes the circling air;

When Cupid plants it in some maid's warm breast,
Its perfume doubles and 'tis doubly fair.

ON CERTAIN ACADEMICIANS

■'•'■'■•'"«■*

Their skill is all mosaic; rule of thumb

Guides every groping hand and squinting eye.

Ask for imagination — they are dumb;

Point them to truth and, lo, they dioose a lie!

QUATRAINS

329

OLD AND NEW ART

Nature was with the souls of olden time,

They loved her, spoused her, were by her misled;

We are like husbands long outpast their prime,
We know her moods — but passion now is dead.

TO CERTAIN CRITICS

Woodpecker-like, intent on drilling holes.
You seek nor leaf nor blossom on the tree;

And cuckoo-like you echo other souls.
And hatch your changelings for a beggar's fee.

THE BASIC FORCE

Rhythm must vibrate through the poet's mind
Ere he can urge his verse to throb and glow.

And feeling mount upon the spirit's wind
Before the master-player draws his bow.

THE CONVENTIONAL PARSON

Even the cholera is scarce his peer;

The droning pulpit prig, how dread is he!
One lays your body breathless on the bier;
The other plagues your soul and takes a fee.

ajo

QUATRAINS

MIDAS AND COMPANY

Midas, 'tis said, turned all he touched to gold;

"Wise act!" we cry, "how few his worthy peeni"
His type how well preserved! It grows not old;

But what a price to pay for Ass's Ears I

CAVE CANEM!

Xantippe worsted Socrates, and few

Petruchios conquer where are hosts undone.

Even cunning Marlborough could not curb his shrew;
The moral? Lovers, read it as you rim!

PEGASUS AT PASTURE

Pope, Milton, Byron, banlcnipt poets these;

The rustics now have taken all the trade;
Long live the Hoosier bards! down on your knees

To Cracker slang and Yankee gasconade!

ORTHODOX LIBERALISM

The Troy of creeds is down — the Greeks are in;

The new Mneas flees the falling wrack;
Seeking new lands he staggers from the din,

Anchises and his gods athwart his back.

QUATRAINS

331

THE POETS AND MAMMON

Poets, like Swabia's free Knigihts of old,
Build proud and high their castles in the air;

Then Mammon comes, invests their straitened hold,
And Rudolf-like demands allegiance there.

SONNETS AND SONITETEERS

Most rhymesters now are jewelers, and would fain
Their deft-carved cherry-stones for cameos sell;

Like amateurs, who play the moody Dane,
The counterfeit may pass — not "passing well."

THE SHAKESPEAREAN SONNET

Leave the strict mould to Petrarch's plastic hand.
And frame your verse to Shakespeare's form divine;

In thai the sweetest, loftiest thoughts expand;
The brave "fourteener" comes of English line.

POETS AND POETASTERS

The hoarsest rhymesters, blundering in the dark,
Most clamorous are for an immortal name;

Still croaks and puffs the frog; the thrush and lark
Are not inflated with desire for fame.

333

QUATRAINS

ON THE SPIRITUAL BARNUM

Were I compellr-l to bide a donkey's bray,

I'd choose a time the beast's turned out to grass;

I'd never of my own volition stay
To hear a roof reverberate an ass.

TRUTH

Truth is the lode-star of free thought — nor can
He earn its guidance who is thrall to pelf;

Nor shall he gain perspective view of man
Until his shrdow shortens to himself.

TO SOME NEW CRITICS

"Scott is no master!" no, my dainty soul,
Weaving your cobweb verse or etching prose?

You new time Della-Cruscan ! — centuries roll, —
He's Britain's Homer; who are you? who knows?

FANCY

The chord of Fancy is the slenderest string
In rich Imagination's varied lyre;

And yet some novice hand might make it ring
Above the chorus of the veteran choir.

QUATRAINS

333

SELF-KNOWLEDGE

Most men desire yet fear to stand revealed
Unto themselves; when forced, aghast they stare,

As captives, long from life and light concealed,
Start at their shadows in the sunlit airl

TRUE AND FALSE FAME

No mushroom is true farr.c, its hardy shoot
Springs not the seedless changeling of a night;

The soft, sweep rasp is summer's briefest fruit;
The firm-grained apple mellows with time's flight.

BERANGER

Like an aeolian harp his tense-drawn soul
Echoes the varying voice of France's will;

Oft as she breathes her joy or bitter dole.
Those rhythmic, trembling heart-strings answer still.

THE RULE OF RAPACITY

The robber sea-kings' rule left traces here,

Though not in mouldering cairns along our coast;

Our Danes to-day in legal rapine rear
The Raven — plundering with protecting host.

334

QUATRAINS

II'
i i

THE PROFLIGATE OF KINDNESS

You'd dwell rnpccted? hold younelf aloof,

Nor ipread your cloak too freely for your friend;

The kindest hearti win ever most reproof,
And cam the ass's nettles in the end.

TRAITS OF WOMEN

Flout her who loves you and she grows more fond ;

Yield to her whims — she will your grace despise;
She has no magnanimity beyond

Her gift of patience and her partial eyes.

THE INVINCIBLE SEX

Theke is no armor 'gainst a woman's eyes;

Excalibur could not foil her dextrous wit;
And when her tears join forces with her sig^s

The doughtiest heroes are the hardest hit.

THE CURSE OF THE COQUETTE

There is no fool, however wise he be,

Like him, the pensioner of a woman's smile;

No tyrant lives so dead to ruth as she
Who pillories hearts and poisons faith with guile.

DOUBLE QUATRAINS

a35

ARTIFICIAL REFINEMENT

Thb hot-house nurtured woman more and more
Would make men slaves, her bears to dance at will j

Our Ninons know their business to the core,
While o'er-exacting prudes die virgins still.

WOMAN'S HEART

Oh, miracle of mysteries, woman's heart !

Misleading ever, even when meaning true; —
As Gama's sailors conned the ancient chart.

With risk and fear we steer our course by you.

DOUBLE QUATRAINS

LIFE

Pilot, what gleam is that? What means that sounding

Through the dim night afar?
Soul, 'tis the breakers of the ocean pounding

Against the harbor bar!

Oh, helmsman, steer your bark by yon fixed beacon

Against the swerving tide;
Keep well your cou.se, nor let your vigil weaken

Till you in safety ride!

a36

DOUBLE QUATRAINS

THE ILIAD

From vast, unfathomed deep* of ages gone,
Swelling in lurge and gathering voice tublime,

Created with froth of legendary dawn,
A lordly wave sweeps up the shores of time.

Lo, how it roars through all the bays and creeks,
Strewing its wealth of ocean treasures rare;

Hark — now tall Hecfor thunders on the Greeks!
Look — how Achilles shakes his shining hairt

THE PRESS

"Palladium of Liberties" 'tis called;

The skillet-lid of faction might be writ ;
The editorial clothesman stands installed

To sell you mental garments that will fit.

'TIS Argus and Briareus in one,

And yet 'tis frailest of all things of power ;
It quickens, brightens, searches like the sun,

And changes ever with the changeful hour.

DOUBLE QUATRAINS

a37

THE YEARS OF LIFE

In happy Youth Time goes with lingering feet,
And Hope, Life'* herald, twiftly apeeds before,

But, as we age, Time's pace becomes more fleet,
And Hope toib fainting or is seen no more.

Thus Heaven's compassion gives to pilgrim man
The brightest summer with the longest days,

And crowds the waning year in narrowing span
Down to the silent parting of the ways.

HUMAN EXISTENCE

Life is the sap-flow from the natal gloom.
Combining, mingling each essential force;

The Soul is life's refined, consummate bloom.

And Sense, the leaves, which are life's outer source.

Mind is the pistil where Thought's pollen clings.
Love is the perfume of the dewy hours;

Genius, the bee with swift and patient wings
Whom God hath sent to fertilize the flowers.

338

DOUBLE QUATRAINS

TRUTH

Truth— what is Truth? Ah, yet the mystery stands

Veiled in the tissues of Eternal Will ;
And, as of old, upon Arabian sands.

The world asks Pilate's vexing question still.

Yet inch by inch the drapery drops away
And bares vast outlines of a shaped intent;

Yet gleam on gleam springs up the brighter day,
Till earth with heaven in Isis' smile is blent.

SHAKESPEARE

"Sweet Swan of Avon," one who loved him well —

A rival of that gladiatorial day —
Called our loved Shakespeare; and no sweeter spell

Than Shakespeare's ever held the world in sway.

Nor yet a mightier — with a grace sublime
The Greek had worshipped in his proudest year,

He strikes the key-note of all after time,
And shows all nature in a smile or tear!

DOUBLE QUATRAINS

339

THE HUMBLE-BEE

He is the thriftiest of the Buccaneers
Who sails to every port among; the flowers,

And gathers golden tribute and then steers
To wassail it away in winter hours.

And lilj the mightiest Tudor is his queen,
Who in her hive presides o'er his increase,

And sends him forth to scour the seas of green,
The Gloriana of his war and peace.

HOPE AND DESPAIR

A GHASTLY crag, stark against lowering skies.
Beneath whose brow black sullen water lies;

One spectral tree upon it, barked and bare.
Where a blind raven mopes — that is Despair.

A vision in the desert's central grave.

Where crystal waters gleam and palm-trees wave,
A caravan beneath the burning cope.

Expecting blest possession — this is Hope.

340

DOUBLE QUATRAINS

FAITH AND LOVE

Faith like an eagle on aspiring wing
Looks up undazzled to her God on high,

Scorning the earth, ay, every earth-bom thing.
Beyond the pinnacle where her fled^ings lie.

But Love, as bravely pinioned, turns and keeps
Her wings above us while the tempest raves,

Like the white albatross, and, like her, sleeps
Rocked on the inconstant bosom of the waves.

PLEASURE AND JOY

Pleasure, a sylph with gay transparent wings.
Hath flattery's smile, and like a siren sings;
But if you strive to bind the flitting sprite.
She'll oil and send you Sorrow out of spite.

But Joy, her gentler sister, oft is found
Musing in nooks and pacing holy ground;
And oft a tender tear-drop dims her eye,
.^nd oft she breathes hei rapture through a si^.

CANADA TO ENGLAND

WE come to your call, O Mother, great mother of stead-
fast men ;
The days of earth are darkened, the morrow beyond our

ken;
Stress of war is upon us, the star of Empire shines,
A clouded and glimpsing beacon along the battle lines.

But know by the God above us, by the tale of a thousand

years.
By the blood of our countless heroes, by the rain of our

women's tears.
By the faith in our past and future, wherever our standards

fly.

We pledge our souls to this service, are prepared in this
cause to die.

Do not forget, dear Mother, we have proved our faith of

old;
Those memories of pain and struggle have not in our hearts

grown cold;
Here in the homes they cherished, the fire that holds and

strives
Once warmed the breasts of our fathers, they suffered and

gave their lives.

On the dank rice fields of India, on the sun-scorched kopjed

veldt.
On the snow-swept hills of Crimea, our manhood was tried

and fel*^;

244 CANADA TO ENGLAND

From the time* of Wolfe and Amherst to "Twelve," to the

Transvaal days,
We have lustred our country's annals, we have fought and

earned your praise.

Now in our prouder freedom, here in our fuller strength.
Round every field and forest, through our great land's

breadth and length.
To every city and village, to every ranch and mine.
Your call to the children echoes to fill the battle line.

t
Far off the fisher hears it on the Banks of Newfoundland,
The coasting trader hears it off Fundy's fog-bound strand,
The lonely woodsman hears it on the rafts of Temiscaming,
The call of the Mother in harness, "Bring me your thou-
sands — bring!"

We are coming, O Trident Wielder, we are coming ten

thousand score;
The seven-fold shield is lifted high on Valcartier's shore;
The flag that tripped stem Cronje, the flag of a hundred

fights.
Is flying to-day for battle with the spirit of Queenstown

Heights.

To every shore of the British around the Seven Seas,
The sons of the soil come trooping, their banners aslant the

breeze;
They will not fail you. Mother, their best are freely given ;
With hearts for England's honor, with souls by Freedom

shriven.

Hail to the Three-Cross standard, with its streaming blood-
red field!

Hail to the bright-leaved Maple, hail to the Seven-fold
Shield!

CANADA TO ENGLAND 345

Hafl to the stout Four Nations, Britons of blood renowned
Who carry our old time prowess to the ocean's outmost
bound.

And hail to you, Mother England, proud mother of stal-
wart men,

As you sprang to front Napoleon, you are grasping the
spear again.

Hark, do you hear our trumpets 1 as in the past days of pain.

We march to strike for Freedom, to strike for the whole
world's gain.

Never the English spirit sheathes the reluctant sword.
Till the reaping days are ended for the Harvest of the Lord ;
Woe to the proud oppressor who follows ambition's lure
To the lair of the angry lion, the Lion of Agincourt.

And shall the God-flaunting Teuton shake in our face his

gyves.
Trample the weaker nations and mangle our babes and

wives?
Roar "Deutschland iiber AUes" to the torch-fed cities glow;
In the name of the Great Protector, in the name of Nelson,

No!

Lead out, lead out. Brave Mother, for the sake of sacked

Louvain I
Give us our own Smith-Dorrien, yield i^s the van again I
By our pledge to martyred Belgium, in the cause of harried

France,
Sound the unbending onset, let the bugle scream. Advance I

THE BONNET BLUE

THE day is done, the gloammg hour
For lovers' trysts is near,
And she hath left her turret bower

To meet her cavalier.
She is the daughter of the earl
For whom the counties sue,
And he's the grandson of a churl,
And wears a bonnet blue.

Oh, sweeter is the whispered vow

For what might come between.
No likelier youth than he, I trow.

Was e'er in greenwood seen.
No grace than hers is more divine,

No heart more fond and true;
She lets the lordly suitors pine

To pledge a Bonnet Blue.

She thinks upon her lofty state

And J :3p3 a pensive tear;
She looks upon her lowly mate

And she is strai^t in cheer.
He holds her in his strong embrace,

He plights his troth anew;
She dreads not donger nor disgrace

Beside her Bonnet Blue.
346

THE BONNET BLUE

Next morn the bower maideiit wait

In vain their miitreit' call;
The tervert itand with cup and plate,

The vaauds throng the hall.
But where is the, the proudest bom,

The faiiett ScotUnd knew?
She wedded ere the blush o£ morn

Her dear loved Bonnet Blue!

*47

SOLDIERS' HOME

What, Pete Hawet? I'm glad to lee you;

Stand up doier, near the light!
Just the match of when I faced you,

Old Pete Hawet, at Shiloh fight.
You come chargin' up with Longttreet,

I with WaUace kep' the hill;
Say, old Reb, my ichoolboy crony.

P'raps that wa'nt a scrumptious mill.

'Member, Pete, you'd lost your shako?

How you puffed as on you camel
Just as many a time I've seen you

In some rough an' tumble game.
With your face as red's a turkey's,

An' your hair not dressed to kill;
You jumped at me with the bay 'net, —

Didn't you thrust it with a will I

But I've played at "prisoner's base," boy;

There I learned a trick or two.
And I dodged or that demed bay'net

Sure as guns had run me through.
Gosh! it sot my dander risin'.

An' I grabbed my gunstock tight;
If I'd let the daylight through you

It had served you blamed well right.

Fur, you mind, you'd stumbled forward,

An' before you'd got your feet
.You'd a' been the prettiest corpus
That was ever made dog meat;
348

SOLDIERS' HOME

Fur I'd dnw'd my ikewer this way,

Up an' back to sock it well ;
All the chance you'd then for livin'

Could crept in a walnut ihell.

But ai quick at lightnin' on me

Come thr thought of childhood dayi,
When we uied to fight, play hookey,

Ride down hill, tell yarns and laze;
So I hadn't heart to do it, —

Rammed the butt end in your breaat.
An' you tumbled down the earthwork;

Went to bed already dressed.

Three times up the hill like tigers

Charge on charge you rebels came.
An' we druv' you back as many;

Our boys' blood was up and game.
Thunder, how our Snideis rattled I

You chaps tumbled by the score;
That blow saved your life, my hearty,

Guess you'd seen the other shore.

When you rebs got tired of maulin',

Left us masters of the field,
There I found you, Pete, a-lyin'

Like a Roman on his shield;
With three dead men piled on top you,

T'other one beneath your head;
"Twas a cur'ous kind of cover,

Fine old bolster fur your bed.

Then I fished you out, all dazed like,
Blinkin' awkward with your eyes;

Poured you down a horn of brandy,
Druv' away the pesky flies;

349

aso SOLDIERS' HOME

"Then I fell three ribt wn broken,
I^idn't mean to hit (o rough,
; But when men for life it Mrikin'

; They're dead nire to strike enough.

i il An' you can't lay, Pete, old feller,

I !i That I didn't treat you square,

I :! Though they nii^t a' used you rough like

I '.'.i In the prison over there;

! j| Twice, my boy, I sent terbacker

{! By some chape Was goin' back;

, jj Twasn't much, but I wm thinkin'd

,' I Keep your wits from gettin' slack.

I jj An' I see you live and chipper.

Like a rooster up at morn;
I, you see, wu not to lucky,
ii 11 Got laid up, was badly worn;

And I see you notice, Peter,

I've three legs in place of two.

Them's my stumpers in the comer,—

Ain't they hansum pegs, fur true?

How'd I lose it? O at Vicbburg,—

Knocked off by a Parrot ball;
Then they sent me here, I've been here

These three years come late in fall;
But now sit ye down, old hearty,

Smoke your pipe and drink your can;
I was Blue an' you was Grey, lad.

But we're both yet solid man.

Blame them blasted politicians
Holdin' up the bloody shirt;

If they'd not that rag to cling to
They'd be in some other dirt;

SOLDIERS' HOME

But for iM M leen the lenrice
We'll remember Shiloh'« day;

Grib, old pard, your Ji i o* plenty,—
Here's, my boy, the li - .-nd r,rr.y\

•SI

GOOD SAINT VALENTINE

KIND Cupid, god of tender wiles,
Who rules the hearts of men,
Great Sovereign lord of tears and smiles

And of the lyrist's pen,
Is my dear love Mill true to me

As e'er he was lang-syne?
What message from him o'er the sea
Brings good Saint Valentine?

He brought my lover first to me; —

As from my dreams he came;
Full-browed with thought supieniacy.

His voice a thrilling flame;
And wit that like a rapier flew

To clip the sparks from mine, —
While blithe, a day-bright laugh he threw

To good Saint Valentine.

A gallant, handsome, fearless, proud.

As e'er was hawk on wrist,
With every manly grace endowed.

True steel to plighted tryst.
He pressed his parting on my lips,

Then said, his hand in mine,
"I'll write, my dear, when come the ships

Of good Saint Valentine I"

The ships are past the harbor bar.

All anchored nigh the quay;
Each sail gleams like the happy star

Of Love's nativity.

GOOD SAINT VALENTINE

But has my dear one sent his word
Beneath his signet's sign? —

Come tell me tidings, wandering bird,
Of good Saint Valentine!

Uncourteous bird! — no message kind

By page or marinere!
There's but the sobbing of the wind

Along the lonely brere;
O Where's thy token, blue sea wave,

To light this care of mine!
Oh, sig^ not, wind, as from his grave,

For good Saint Valentine!

This tree is ours where last we met.

And carved here on the rind.
Within the green moss-livery set.

Our names stand intertwined;
O tree, tell me what wind of love

Brings thee his whispered sign:
IT carve the dear words here above

For good Saint Valentine.

She heard no step across the leaves —

She saw no snow-white plume;
She gazed where bound in glittering sheaves

The sunbeams lanced the gloom.
Then started with a sudden shrieic:

He clasped her, — "Mistress mine.
He's come himself his word to speak

For good Saint Valentine!"

aS3

!
i

THE EARL'S DAUGHTER

'T^HOU hast my secret, I have told
■i. All, all, my father, even his name;
My love hath made my duty bold;

I can for his sake bear thy blame;
Here am I, all thy anger prove;

Twill root him deeper in my love.

What though his be no princely race,
Must pride then tear two souls apart?

Lo, worth is stamped upon his face,
Nobility is in his heart

No knight of all thy halls so free
To do proud deeds of chivalry.

I loathed the hi^-bom butterflies.
That paid me court with fawning smiles;

I hated all their varnished lies.
Despised their mean, transparent wiles.

He seemed to all that smirking band
A prince who held in his bare hand

More honor than their gilded scrolls,
More worth than all their leagues of land;

How trifling seemed their little soub
By that high look and bearing grand;

Might he not scorn their borrowed fame
And accident of noble name?
»S4

THE EARL'S DAUGHTER

Thou frown'tt- -I know what thou wouldit say —
I'd lower forsooth thy honored race;

Vet our forefathers in their day

Plucked fame from even as low a place;

'Tis worth from which all honor springs;
Without it, crowns disgrace their Kings!

How came it that I loved him then?

I had a heart could match his own;
Had he been more like other men

He might have loved — but he alone.
Where have the schoolmen writ in books

That eagles ever mated rooks?

ass

Threat me with no false, loathed tie —
My spirit ne'er would brook to be

The slave of low desires, to die
Were then my soul's last liberty;

Think'st thou this breast a heart doth bear
Less free- willed than my fathers' were?

Rememb'rest when, a little maid,

I pulled some wild-flowers in a wood,

And of them did a chaplet braid
And crowned me in a merry mood,

You said, "Sweet, here's a wreath more rare,"
And placed these jewels on my hair.

And how I cast the gems aside
And chose my floral crown instead.

And how you laughed in easy pride
And said a shepherd I should wed ?

I were content to wear even ,n ow
That humbler garland oi; iny brow,

as6

THE EARL'S DAUGHTER

And with its emblems, at thy feet
Lay state— lay all whereto I'm born; —

Ay, would the lowliest fortunes meet
Ere I to him would prove forsworn!

That truly is dishonor's part —
To lie against a loving heart.

But ytt I know that thou art kind,
I know thou art my father still;

That 'tis the one ^ish of thy mind
Thy daughter's heart with joy to fill;

Could'st thou take from her e'en in thought
That, without which all else were nou^t?

Dear father, is not true love fair?

Unbend that frown upon thy brow!
My father, kind beyond compare.

Thy daughter's heart is 'gainst thee now!
Dost hear? — 'tis the warm throb in mine

Speaking to that proud beat in thine!

Now thou dost smile! and now I know
That thou art all my father still;

Why do my tell-tale blushes glow?
Father, he waiteth on thy will!

This forward youth, forsooth, would be
A sharer in thy bounty free!

Look forth ! What prince hath nobler air?

Hyperion was not such as he!
He sees— he bounds the castle stair!

And now he kneeleth at thy knee!
Must we dismiss him? Say you so —

This forward youth? My father, JVo/

THE OLD SABRE

TURN my chair, old comrade, toward the window,
Where the sunbeams fall
On my old and rusty battered sabre,

Hanging on the wall ;
For my failing eyes would look upon it

Ere I breathe my last;
How like burnished gold the flaming sunset
On its blade is cast!

For three generations has that sabre

Waved amidst the fight;
Many a blow for Freedom it has stricken

And for England's right;
For my father's father once did wear it

Through the Flanders War,
When the French our soldiers under Marlborough

Followed long and far.

It has oft in battle with my father

To the hilt been dyed ;
Twice with him across the broad Atlantic

Was its temper tried;
Up the heights of Ti' it led the stormers;

Downed the Oriflamme,
When with gallant Wolfe it faced the Frenchmen

Under stout Montcalm.

m :

ajt

THE OLD SABRE

Mc, too, it ha* terved in many a battle

On the Indian sands,
AVhen from out Mysore black Tippoo Sahib

Led his cut-throat bands;
And on many a field of Spain I've worn it,

From the days when Moore
Marched us into Leon, fondly trusting

To the Spaniard's lure.

Yes! I won my sti<ipes as color-terneant

On Vimiera's height,
When I, wounded, reeled all sick aad Moody

From the desperate fi(ht;
How we chased the cowed and beaten Frenchmen

Through the fields of Spain!
Drove them out of Andalusian vineyard

And Castitian plain!

And my sword waved victor from the Tagus

To the Pyrenees;
Loud we cheered as forth our colors floated

To the mountain breeze;
How we smashed Soult's scarred and veteran legions,

Laid his eagles low;
My old comrade, Welleiley, king of heroes.

Led us on the foe!

But my sabre's crowning hour of triumph

Was that day in June,
When we Guardsmen gathered under Picton

To the cannon's tune;
When we formed across the miry corn-fidd,

Mid the trampled rye.
And we spied out Honey's hundred banners

Flaunting to the sky.

THE OLD SABRE

And my old and nirty battered tabre

At I gripped it fait,
Seemed to thrill unto mjr heart'* quick beatine

With its gloria paat;
For the Im Duke itUl looked apoo us

And we thought of lioiae,
And we vowed we'd be no slaves to Frenchmen

And the dogs of Rome.

See that nick upon the edge! 'twas cleft there

By a cuirassier,
As he sideways leaned from out his saddle.

When in full career;
And you see the point is turned and broken,—

Twas the thrust I sped
ThroujEh the ribs of a frog-eater did it

As I stretched him dead I

Give me here the grand old sabre, comrade 1

For my failing hand
Would at touch with new life nerve and quicken

Of my trusty brand;
How as light as reed it bent and quivered

In my sinewy grasp I
Hardly now my palsied, trembling fingers,

Round the hilt I cbsp!

Fades the daylight, and the sunbeams waver,

And their lustres fall;
And the deepening shadows of the twilight

Chase them from the wall;
And my life is slowly ebbing, ebbing,

And the muffled roll
Of a drum is through the dimness beating,

SussKming my soul.

a6o

THE OLD SABRE

Tis the order of the Great Commander

Signalling to rent;
Mother land, I've loved you well, I'm dying

On your dear-loved breast!
Reach v ir hand, old comrade, I am going,

W°'!: my long discharge,
Whf't there'll be forever rest from fighting,

Aii the ranks at large.

Take the sabn — for my chilling fingers

Feel die hilt no more;
Tis a memory of pain and struggle,

May its reign be o'er;
But it helped the righteous cause of nations

As the good God willed;
And I trust that he will grant us pardon

For the blood it spilled.

When you lay me in the grave, my comnttle,

Under yon gray oak tree,
Let my dear and faithful old companion

Buried be with me;
"Tis the only thing that 1 have left me

And we ne'er shall part; —
Lay it, comrade, in the coffin with me.

Hilt against my heart!

LAMOND

A LIKELIER lad than Lamond was
' >d wot wa» nevtr seen ;
No lither foot e'er dashed the dew
From off the bracken green.

No surer hand in all Argyle

Drew bow or wielded brand;
In sport or hunt, in dance or song,

The first in all the land.

'Twas when the leaves began to fall,
With youths some eight or nine,

It chanced that Lamond chased the deer
One day thru far Glenfine.

Both rough and toilsome grew the way;

His friends lagged far behind;
Yet Lamond on the wounded stag

fnaed faster than the wind.

When, lo, a huntsman's shrill halloo

Broke on his startled ear;
Yet dashed he forward oo the bent

Without one cart or fear.

When straight, the stag, a bow-shot length.

Fell dead, before the lad,
And lo, a hunting band drew nigk

Who wore Mscgj-Egsr's plaid.
a6i

3(a LAMOND

Out (teppcd Macgragor'i only ton,

A comely boy wu he,
His foot he planted on the deer,

Then loud and bold (pake be.

"Qjme you a> friend or come as foe,

Tis little reck to me;
But come you here to claim this deer,

Well proved your claim must be."

Right forward sprang the fearless youth
And seized the' branching tyne ;

"Stand back I" he cried, "I roused this deer
This morn beyond Glenfinel

"Against your numbers stands my right,

With this I urge my claim,"
Ar.d from its sheath his good claymore

Leaped forth like flash of flame.

"Art then so bold?" Macgregor cried,

"Stand back my clansmen all,
Whoe'er shall now the worthier prove

To him the deer shall fall!"

Right short and desperate was the strife

The fiery youngsters made;
For soon his foeman's generous blood

Flowed forth on Lamond's blade.

With one exulting cry the youth

Flung up his sword in air.
When round him closed Macgregor's band

Like bloodhounds round a bear.

LAMOND

But itriking down the foreinott man

He cleft the ring in twain;
A» itarta an arrow from the itring

He fled with might and main.

Yet breathing curses dark and deep
The clansmen throng his track;

The foot of no Macgregor yet
For deed of blood was slack.

Thru brake and wood, o'er cliff and hill,

For life did Lamond strain.
And swift as swallow now he skims

Across the heath-clad plain.

When straight before his starting eyes

Macgregor's fastness rose;
Now sure the runner seeks his fate!

Exultant yelled his foes.

With one low cry and headlong bound

He burst the foremost door.
And, lo, what chance can save him now,

He stands the chief before I

"Chieftain, we met, 'twas mortal strife,

Your son was slain by me;
Take now my life, for I have left

No strength to further Hee."

Black grew Macgregor's swarthy brow,

Forth flashed his ready dirk,
As with an ague, all his frame

Did with his passion work.

a63

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B^g Rochester. N«» Yortc 14609 USA

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264 LAMOND

Thrice fell the weapon at his side,
And thrice it rose in air ;

Not fiercer on the hunter glares
A wild-cat from its lair.

Close drew the tramp of hurrying feet,

"Enough," he sternly said,
"Though vengeance lives, beneath my roof

No harm shall touch your head."

Then strode he quickly to the door,
"What seek ye, clansmen, here?"

As hounds that list the huntsman's call.
They checked their fierce career.

'Death t the murderer of your son I

Make way, my chief, make wayl"
But with his long and sinewy arm
He made their boldest stay.

"Thou'rt mad, my children," cried the chief,

"Away and search the woodl
A hundred kine I give to him

Who spills the murderer's blood!"

Like famished wolves around the wold
They sought the vanished prey;

But Lamond 'neath the chieftain's roof
Lay safe 'till close of day.

Then when the moon her lantern hung

Above the lonely height.
Two silent forms moved swiftly forth

Within the fold of night.

LAMOND

The chieftain strode before, the youth
Trod hght the fearsome shade;

E'er as the wind-swept foliage stirred
His fingers clutched his blade.

Till with a joyful heart he viewed
Once more the treeless land;

Tl^n as they gained the midmost heath
The chieftain took his stand.

His face showed ghastly pale, his voice
Was hoarse with hate and grief,

And his proud, stalwart frame was shook
As IS an aspen leaf.

"Stout be your arm and true your sword"—
. (His brow grew dark and wild),
When in the open next I meet
The slayer of my child!"

He turned and pulled his bonnet down;

His plaid he round him drew;
Next instant and the beechwood shade

Concealed his form from view.

Vears passed, Macgregor aged apace;

He chased the deer no more;
But yet in memory of a wrong

He wore his broad claymore.

Till like a Hood in harvest-time
The northern clans came down;

They harried all the country-side.
And burnt both hall and town.

265

a66

LAMOND

' i

i 1

ill

The aged chief was forced to flee,

And, wandering in the wild.
All sudden in his path he met

The sUyer of his child.

But Lamond dropped his ready blade,

He broke in sobbing grief;
"Long have I mourned my hasty deed.

Forgive me, generous chief!

"Oime to my homt, I do repent
What my rash hand hath done.

Be thou the father I have lost,
And I will be thy son I"

He clasped the old man's wasted hands,

He kneeled upon the heath;
But straight Macgregor backward stept

And drew his sword from sheath.

He raised his arm — it faltering fell —

Nor yet the chieftain spoke.
His form was shook as thrills a tree

Beneath the woodsman's stroke.

His cheek grew pale, — a passion tide

Across his features swept, —
Then sternness melted from his face,

He bowed his head and wept.

He flung the claymore from his hand,
"Brave youth," he broken said,

"Heaven gives me back my son, and takes
My ice; revenge is deadl"

ON THE FRONTIER

HELLO yerself! Well, stranger.
What's news with you down East?
Will ye have a bite? A hump steak

Isn't very much of a feast
But ye're welcome. I see you've ridden

A good many mile to-day —
Jest take off yere boss's bridle
And let the critter stray.

We don't get much news on the prairie.

The 'lection is over, ye say?
The Repubs thrown out? Well, dang it,

That crowd have had their day.
We've been scouts here on the frontier

And we've drawed Uncle Samuel's cash
Nigh thirty year and mebby

i ■ 'ome notions go to smash.

All through the war we served, sir;

Fit for the Union then
In Custer's Brigade, — for a fighter

He was the boss o' men!
I never took stock in niggers.

But 'twas fair to give 'em a show;
Then we drifted out here on the prairie

Twenty-five year ago.

167

368

ON THE FRONTIER

There was Injuns all about us

And not a white in the land;
All that country dotted with houses

Was dean as the palm o' yer hand;
And me and Hank, my chum here,

Many a night we've passed
Watch and watch 'til mornin',

Thankful our scMps held fast.

We was down on the Platte just yonder

Huntin' some buffalo,
When we struck a pioneer's wagon,

Wife and baby in tow;
They was young and towny people,

And we wondered to see 'em there
Away on the lonesome prairie,

Out of Uncle Samuel's care.

Well, we chinned with the chap and his woman

And we found 'em smooth as silk;
They hadn't even a tan on.

As white, sir, as new milk;
And Hank and me it stumped us

Hbw such critters got out here;
Why folks like them should rough it

It 'peared outrageous queer.

But that young chap 'dmired his wifey

The best I ever seen;
For ye see she was slim and pooty

And ladylike as a queen;
And delicate and sweet-natured

As a blade o* young spring corn.
With an eye as clear and pleasant

As a mountain pool at mom.

ON THE FRONTIER

And the dear little baby girl, sir,—

Jest about two year old

Was the cunnin'est, cutest creter,

With its hair all curly gold.
'Twas a toss up which or t'other

Of that little family nest,
The chap or wife or baby.

Loved either the others best.

They pitched their claim just yonder

By the river's wooded bank.
And he started to build his shanty

With the grit of a true-born Yank;
And Hank and me took a fancy

To the chap and give him a hand
And helped him raise his log-house

And root up his patch o' land.

But no sooner they got to livin'

In the shebang than he fell sick;
Worked too hard for a green hand

And the fever ketched him quick;
But we hung around the country

And helped the poor little wife;
And by and by with care, sir,

She nursed him back to life.

And, be jing, if they'd had millions

They'd a' given it all to us;
You'd a' thought we was Kings in exile

They made on us such a fuss;
And when we'd cross the country

On our way back from the Fort
We'd stay at the Yankee's log-house

With his mail and the last report.

369

370

ON THE FRONTIER

Twas just a year from their comin',

Hank and me was out for news
On the trail o' some restless Injuns,

Foxes, Cheyennes, and Sioux,
When down on us come a-ridin'

Like mad, barehead, and wild.
That Yank chap hollerin' to us,

"My wife — my wife and child!

"Good God!" he yelled, "the Injuns!

There— there— that way's the track!"
No time for axin' questions,

We turned our mustangs back.
And the style we streaked that prairie

I never went afore.
Since the day when we chased Morgan

In Missouri in the War.

We struck the trail o' their ponies-
Six sets o' hoofs they were, —

And straight to west they pinted
Like a line drawn through the air;

We chased 'em down to dark, sir.
And all the foUowin' day,

Till we saw their camp-smoke curlin'
Far through the evenin' grey.

We hitched our nags to some bushe

And waited for day to pass ;
Then armed with our guns we started

To crawl through the prairie grass;
Till eatin' there by the fire

Was six Injuns big and tall.
And the Yank's wife was sittin' near 'em

With her baby wrapped in a shawl.

ii ill

nil

ON THE FRONTIER

Jiggers! it raised my dander

To see them Injuns feed,
And nary a bite to the woman

Though she looked in the worst o' need;
But the young Yank's face was a pictur,

And his two eyes flashed like flame.
And I knowtd we would count to the letter

He would kill or die there game.

We each one singled an Injun

And let go like one man;
We dropped three dead, and the others

They give one yelp and ran;
And next moment, tremblin*, faintin',

But safe from the Injuns' harms,
The wife with her baby tumbled

Kerflop in the young chap's arms.

And what a huggin' and kissin'

Went on for a little while!
You'd a' hurd them smacb he give her

Well on to half-a-mile.
They laughed and cried like time, sir.

And Hank he blowed his nose,
And I felt all kind o' crawly

Way down to the ends o' me toes.

Well, they'd had 'bout 'nough o' the frontier,

Ye can bet yer dimes on that!
Tliey moved East, but we've hurd from 'em often

Out here on the river Platte;
And that chap was as slick a feller

As I'll ever see or hear.
For many's the pound o' pigtail

He sent us these twenty year.

a; I

'7» ON THE FRONTIER

And if ever ye come acrost him—

Ye may, perhapj, ye Me,—
Jest mention we're live and chipper,

My old chum here and me.
Don't I know ye? Never aized ye

Afore — did you ever. Hank?
Why, bless my stars and gaiters —

U it isn't the little Yank!

il;

DEVON AND DRAKE

I_rO, Pelicans, tip the flagon— •
* A Here's to Devon's old renown!

,L"' '"''* '"•=•' *'« *° brag on

When land luck has run us down.
Now here, and to-morrow the ocean,

To follow the Spaniards' wake
And to breathe a life of motion

In the Spanish Main with Drake!

Ay, lads, all men are civil

To the Kings of the open sea.
For we fear nor saint nor devil

And we spend oui cucats free.
All cheer the bold freebooter.

When they see his topsails shake,
for silver is cheap as pewter

In the Spanish Main with Drake.

Last cruise by tempests pounded

y^« '"^"dded the nor'east breeze.
With joyous hearts we rounded

Cape Horn to the southern seas;
We upset Sancho's scheming.

How he would for harbor'make
Wlien h. saw the Red-Cross streaming

In the Spanish Main with Drake!
* The name of Drake's vesMi was the "PeUcan."
'73

a74 DEVON AND DRAKE

We made thort work of the tlaver,

He gave us an offing wide;
We asked of man no favor,

For Heaven was on our side;
Of all sea-rovers the vanward,

We threw for a splendid stake
When we sailed the track of the Spaniard

In the Spanish Main with Drake.

We scuttltd their barques and tiaders,

And their galleons plundered too;
Like heartiest sea-crusaders

On the monsoon's wings we flew;
From Lima to Portobello

We kept the Dons awake;
A hero was every fellow

In the Spanish Main with Drake!

We ravaged their rich plantations

And ransacked their convents' gold;
To their Popish lamentations

We were deaf, like Britons bold;
But our hearts were warm and human

For our wives' and sweethearts' sake.
And we harmed no child or woman

In the Spanish Main with Drake.

The spawn of the Inquisition,

Who had wrought through two worlds harm.
We gave a high commission —

'Twas the end of our long yard-arm!
We flung their bones to the raven

And the shark, for acquaintance sake.
And burned their blood-stained haven

In the Spanish Main with Drake.

DEVON AND DRAKE

We brought an Infanta', dower
A prewnt to good Queen Ben:

Our captain won fame and power
And wa. knighted for our .uccew;

On .hT"* ? *"^' '■" Devon
On the best they brew and bake-
But here', to a breezy heaven
in the Spanish Main with Drake I

Let the Jeauit .narl in ranror—
Let hjm loo« hi. hounds f Spain;

We w,II .ft with Drake .. anchor-
We wil spread our sails again!

A, ."T'l "^^ *° "L"' ^"^" '"" Cadiz
AS /ell down their sea-coa.ts rake,
S>t. George's God to aid u.
In the Spanish Main with Drake!

^4 ?°£f P"y "■"'' '""h 'Mters

And Philip his war ships too
But our limbs for Castile fetters

Let them flourish and make bravada
And threaten our pride to break

1^ 'r^'""''." *"■' *'"B' Armada
When Devon's afloat with Drake.

375

MARY JANE

OF all the maids in Brooklyn City
There's none to match my Mary Jane;
She is so pretty, sweet, and witty

She fills my heart with loving pain;
Whene'er I see her in the arey

A-polishing a window-pane.
She looks just like a story fairy,
My dainty, white-armed Mary Jane.

She's chamber-maid at number seven.

Her master is an overseer.
And I sell meat at number 'leven

The butcher-shop of Rufus Grier,
I cuts the steaks for man and missus

And many a flattering smile I gain;
I wish them smiles were turned to kisses

And came to me with Mary Jane.

When she goes out to take her airing

On some fine Thursday afternoon,
Her pretty fixings all a-wearing,

She's fairer than the silver moon;
There is no lady in the street here

That sweeps along in satin train,
Who's rigged more stylish and completer

Than sweet and lovely Mary Jane.
276

MARY JANE

I took her to a ball last winter,
Twas given by the B. P. U's*
She broke the fellers' hearts to splinter

A-tippin on them pinks o' shoes;
Them shoes-they'd done for Cinderella!

Her dress was only blue delaine;

"« "«V' *"' ^'^ •>»" so swell a
Miss there as my Mary Jane.

The dearest wish I've for the future,
, ♦yhen I can stock me up in beef,
S t' turn an independent butcher '
And Mary Jane make Mrs. Keefe-

We 11 nothing of the storms complain ;
We too will make sunshine together
Me and my sweetheart, Mary Jaiie.
•Bntcheia- Protective Union.

277

BLIND MILTON

(Loquitur)

T HAVE lived late and come on evil days;

■■■ Some lewd-tongued revellers even now crost my door

With brawl and uproar and the sottish crew

Jeered as they passed my blindness; were it not

For memory of what this land has been,

What it has borne thru suffering for the truth,

The uncontaminate, burning hearts that mourn,

Indignant, pitying her uncrowned state,

Hope with me had departed and my darkness

Were night indeed; but that pure Spirit Eterne,

Whose Voice is heard in silence, and whose Word

Is full of the promises of Him whose arm

Upholds the heavens, sustains me.

I have seen
Frothing the measure of this yeasty time
Rash, licensed spirits, stuffed with vanity.
Dregs of spume faction and adulterous birth.
Pestilent, rapacious, unabashed.
With venal function and blood-guilty lust
Fouling high place; and masqUered, mumbling Faith
With greedy palms outstretched, impious in prayer.
With fulsome lips agape— or with haught brow
Trampling the elect of God beneath her feet.
Bawd to the subtle harlot, crowned and throned
Upon the Seven Hills; her pander. State,
Holding his swinish revel, satyr-eyed,
a78

BLIND MILTON

Insensate, swol'n with pride; the honored seats

Uf God-enfranchised men trafficked and sold

To buy the smiles of wantons, and the throne

Of the great Edwards, Henries, made the pawn

Of mockers, rakes and masquers, and debased

lo foreign thralldom, while a courtesan

Hays Juno to the giggot rule of him.

The spawn of that late tyrant who betrayed

Our commonwealth, and would have broken down

Our liberties, had not the Highest raised

Men like to Joshua and Gideon who

Fired the indignant hearts of humble men

To rise and overthrow him, and so sealed

The charter of our freedom with his blood.

279

How has our greatness fallen! the foul block
Dripping with blood of martyrs; the honored bones
Of those whose names still thunder round the earth.
Hurled from their graves, grappled in gibbet irons,
Bared to the sneering and unholy gaze
Of sycophants and mummers, while the Dutch
Who shrank to cover when our trumpets blew'
Insult us in our shores, and the French court
Lampoons our infamy, and the Triple Crown
Kecovers, threatening all the Saints of God,
WTiile rufflers, duelists and gamesters crowd
1 he honored of our land into their graves

I i

But this is in God's hand; as David purged

His spirit, so this land will cast aside

The grave-clothes of her sin, and rise again

38o

BLIND MILTON

A mightier nation than this world has seen,
A beacon to the ages;

III

I foresee,
In that fair land beyond the western surge
New Hampdens, Cromwells, leading forth a race
English in speech to empire, bearing the rampt
Lion of English valor at the fore,
And spreading witness of His Holy name
Who bends the heaveps, portents comets and shakes
The stars out of their spheres; filling the void
Of virgin forests, leveling the hills.
Bridging the mightiest rivers, making bloom
The desert, city studded, till a new-
England of mightier presence than the old
Shall rise across the ocean, queen-like, fair
As Venus Amphitrite, with throned bows
Majestic, wreathrd with vine-leaves and full corn.
Her rippling tresses clustered; in her hand
Sheep-hook for sceptre, her star-shimmered robe,
With fragrant cestus girdled ; in her eyes
The morning of the young Democracy,
Whose leaven working thru the world unseen
Shall permeate the castes, and overthrow
Privilege and the pomp and power of kings;
Voicing its claim within Tradition's halls,
Echoing with din of war and prelate strife
And footfalls of receding centuries.

Oh, England, oh, my mother, in that time

Bear thyself well! for 'gainst thy strength shall crowd

Envy, distrust, and malice; with the seed

Of Freedom grow the tares of sensual sloth

And self-sufficiency; the prosperous years

Enervate, and the vigor of thy arm

BLIND MILTON

Which steered the world may slacken; not for long,
It 1 may read aright the pristine worth
Of spint which endures, and greatly tried
Shmes forth the brighter for the stormy wrack
Leavmg thee still serene, the pride of earth,
I he patron heir of time;—

~, . . . Prithee lead in;

1 he night grows chill, and wide invisible wings
Ul contemplation tent above my thought
Calmed from the outer world. My heart is stirred

The theme r' that great argument I told
Thee yester-night of. I give thanks to him
Who while He took the sense of sight hath left
Ihe inner vision, spared the varied lore
I drew in youth from many a storied fount
Of ancient inspiration; calmed my soul
That I unmoved within this evil time
May trust His promise for that ampler day

a8i

DEFENCE OF THE LONG SAUT

;ii h.

[The defence of the Long Saut, ai told in the pagei of Pirk-
man, ii one of the molt spirited epiaodei in the hiatory of New
France. For thirteen daya the Sieur Dollard of Doulac, with aii-
teen devoted companiona of the garriaon of Montreal and five
Algonquin braves, defended the renowned Pass against the whole
armed power of the Iroquois Nation, and though a'l were even-
tually alain, their defence so disheartened the savages that they
gave up all hope of driving the French from Canada.]

THE Iroquois with wasting torch and cruel butchering
hand, ,

East, West and North resistless sweep across New France s

land ;
Along Ontario's northern shore they range with none to

check,
And muster bands around Champlain to threat the young
Quebec.

Each hour some hut or hamlet flames— the foe strike every-
where;

The lumberer in the woods is slain while swings his axe m
air.

From every savage girdle hangs some pledge of ghastly

strife,
Torn reeking from the quivering flesh beneath the scalpmg

knife.

Now, who would live out length of days nor court a tor-
tured death,
Must hasten to the palisades by stealth with bated breath;
3S3

DEFENCE OF THE LONG SAUT 283

Th, Melfcites to Tadousac the awesome tidings tell

?r££'^r:is;nr:?-^srs^:
'it tr' '"""' '"—'-' -'■'" S-^-rs-'

Is Dollard, sieur of old Doulac, the star of Louis' Court.

'Tis DoUard speab to Maisonneuve. the governor of New
Whik^fl^h« round the council hall his proud and burning
"Had I one score of willing hearts to hold the narrow Saut

••'Now.^who will dare to stake his life upon a desperate

"^'lor W? ™ ^ ""'"'^ '^^'T^e-^'Ml win renown
Or will ye slink and cower still within your fortress wall
Wh.le on your desolated fields in flames your roof tr^« MU

"What, would ye send the tidings home that by a savage foe
The royal L.l.es are besmirched and torn and trampled W^

a84 DEFENCE OF THE LONG SAUT

The stock of Bayard and Navarre, of Conde and Dunoit,
Quail like a pack of well-whipped hounds before theie Iro-
quois I

"Speak, fellow-soldiers, comrades, friends— who now will
go with me

To drive the painted devils hence, come death or victory?

In name of King and Christ's dear faith, let whoso will ad-
vance,

And draw his blade to strike for fame, for DoUard, and for
France." '

An instant's pause— then sixteen youths spring forth with

martial glee;
Out flash their swords, at once they cry, "To death we'll

follow thee!"
They snatch the gun and corselet down, they seize the pike

and lance.
Then throng the shore their muster cheer, "For Dollard

and for France!"

Forth leap the light canoes — they breast St. Lawrence swift

and wide.
To where the stately Ottavra rolls down her wine dark tide;
Yet still they stem the rushing stream, their paddles sweep

the flow.
Until they win the rugged rocks that hem the famed Long

Saut.

They land within the pass's jaws— their lonely camp is made
Beside the bastion's rough-newn wall, a loop-holed palisade;
There, lined along the swarthy cliffe that bind the frothing

sea,
This band of New World Spartans hold their new Ther-

mopylx.

DEFENCE OF THE LONG SAUT a8s

""°X"l.^°" '"'" '""'^ '"■"«'•' Ti» they our red
Right joyou,n„, the welcome rf.out. that round the ca^p

"Annahotaha, fighting chief, with forty Huron brave*-
Now^^n^e, ,ou cur«d Iroquoi.-c„J nowld finT^our

"^?;;a™7o;/aLr '" "^ -""'"' --^^^ •-- ~n

"^'''anT^a-ie; ''"'■""""' '"""""^ •"«»• «''im for war
Yet, tru^ Crus'ader,, night and morn to Christ they bend the
Beneath the oriflamme of God, the peerless Fleur-de-Lis.

"''^ierr'r'v^w"'"" "°" ''"'' '" ^"-' "■' '-

"^''thr^i'; ' ""'"""'' '''°"«' »••<»''"« the rapid,

Aleli!,*'lT^? ""^'^ '^"''*' * *ousand yells reply;
A leaj^a splash-three first canoes upturned go drifting by I

"^'ea;To tlr-'' *' "''''- '— ">' -•"=-

Their^«:alp.Iocb tossing in the wind, their tomahawk in
^"''ciir """"'' " '""' *"""• '° '''°" *= 0""'''«

^" "throng;""' """*'"* '"'"°''''' '*" ^''"^' '•" '''"'°''

"^ ^1

DEFENCE OF THE LONG SAUT

B«ide each quiver sheathed with quills a hickory bow it

borne,
And round each waist the wampum belt with leathern fringe

is worn.

They rush — in vain! the dauntless hand repel the fierce at-
tack.

And many an eagle plume goes down in dust and bloody
wrack ;

While storms from out the palisade to greet each fresh
advance

The Frenchmm's stern defiant cheer, "For Dollard and
for France!"

Five days of stealthy, bold assault the stubborn French have
stood,

'Til all the trampled sward is now besmirched with savage
blood;

No sleep by night, no peace by day, the worn-out band
have won,

For hourly rings the piercing whoop and cracks the an-
swering gun.

Five days I the Hurons, man by man, desert the leaguered
walls;

Their haughty chief alone remains, for naught his soul
appals ;

With only four Algonquin braves, who to him constant
stand,

He fights beside the roaring Saut for France and Father-
land 1

But yet, high o'er the closing din — the yell and crackling
round.

Bursts forth the war-cry of the French with hoane, de-
fiant sound;

h >

DEFENCE OF THE LONG SAUT 387

And Mill the Lilia flaunt the .ky-jtill, u the foe advance
The muaketi rattie to the che- , "For Dollard and (or
France I

Eight long days morel and yet around the fire-scathed pali-
sade, "^

The baffled, vengeful redmen throng the encircling foreit-
ihade;

Eight hundred more of Iroquois adown tht Richelieu
sweep;

Now, gallants, look your last on earth-now must yor- loved
ones weep!

''"'brown-^' *"'"'"* '""''' """*' "**'"" *''' "■"•'^"

Make one more rush, you Iroquois, for half your foes are
down I "va "it

While sore with wounds and spent with toil, and dazed for

want of sleep.
How worn the few survivors now who still 'he barriers

KCCpl

Oh, Blessed Mary! but how weak has grown their stalwart
cheer,

As round that slope of blazing logs the boldest foes draw
near;

^" hfi*,"'*'" "" ""'* °^ ''"* "" """""^ """^ °"

And while it waves, you Iroquois, some Frenchman lives
to die I

'■n

Ay, by the Rood! as 'tween the logs the Mohawks rend
their way,

There stand that stubborn handful yet, like hunted staes
at bay; ^ '

I-

a88 DEFENCE OF THE LONG SAUT

"One chter, my Ud.— La Nouvelle France I one cheer for

Ville Marie I
Then die like Frenchmen to the lut, for die you mutt

with me I"

Tit Dollard'i voice— he duhei forth— he hurit a hand-
grenade;

Too weak— too weak the cait— it buntt within the pali-
tadet

Ah, God I it scattert' ruin and death I midtt blinding flaih
and roar,

Fait through the charred and gaping wall the furiout red-
skint pour.

Stand ttoutly atill, you desperate few, God's rest it large

for all;
Now dote with pistol, pike and sword, and round your

Lilies fall I
Spent, wounded, hopeless, overborne, front still the swarthy

ring
Where thirsty knives and tomahawb a thousand foemen

swing I

Ay, sttunchly round your banner close I— all sternly back

to back,
They meet with sword the tomahawk, the knife with pistol

crack ;
Still n'er the black and blinding ^moke the pale blue Lilies

dance,
While fainter, hoarser grows the cheer, "For Dollard and

for France I"

And still the tufted braves go down, as falls the plumed

maize
Beneath the sturdy peasant's scythe across the furrowed

ways;

DEFENCE OF THE LONG SAUT 289

Til tnaddened at their frightful Iom, the whooping, crowd-
ing foe

One clote and deadly volley pour and lay the Frenchmen
low.

No-one stand* yet— the iword-hilt dropped from out hi*

nerveleu hand;
Ti* Dollard, of the snow-white plume, bold brow and

lightnmg brand ;
He lean* against the banner-staff, he lifts a last fond

glance —
Then falk with one death-throttled ihout, "For Dollard

and for France!"

And o'er that smoking holocaust the peace of God comes
down ;

But why is raised no victor shout?— why spre-as that sullen
frown?

Lol heaped within yon blackened pyre, ami strewed the san-
gume plain,

The whole Six Nations view dismayed their best and bravest
slam I

This night, ye nuns of Montreal, resume your ways of peace
And you, ye watchers at Quebec, take now from fear re-
lease;

For ne'er was ampler, prouder deed, since Clovis lifted

lance.
Than that which hath been wro-.ght to-day by these few

sons of France!

And pause in time, you Iroquois, and count your hundreds
slam,

Ere you in closing strife would cross the Frenchmen's path
agnm ;

ago DEFENCE OF THE LONG f. VUT

How many, think ye, of your braves, will hunt the fields of
blue.

If every soldier of New France dies like these twenty-
two?

GORING'S RIDE

;^ For there s hot work to do ere the close of the day
The train-bands of Essex are out in full force ^'

AH round -the King's health! for morn's breaking light
Now up, boot and saddle! away for the fight!

What's here? A despatch! the North's up in arms!
They swarm out like bees at the sound of alarms!
Ruperts over the Humber like hawk on the wing.

V^l . I f"^ ^f^'y '"'"' j°'""' ^"h the King;
Each turnpike from Scotland to stout Oxford town
Is clattrmg to horse-hoofs fast galloping down!

Y?^^A *^°n'^ ""«' ^' '"'^ fi"^" f°' *« Right

At hdge H,ll, and many a tough, bloody fight:

Who d exchange its old tears and its dingy blood-stains

For the gayest new silk the King's army rminsl

And though tarnished its lustre still proudly it waves

As we dash sword in hand at the psalm-sin^'ng knaves!

Open line, you in front! thrust a torch in yon pane!
Oive the churl a house-warming in high Spanish vein!
Let the jade go, you sirs! Close up the rear ranks!
You »oger and William-out on the flanks!
Nolls pets are abroad— it were best to take care
Or we'll stumble full tilt on their pikes unaware.

Eustace, ride on ahead! we are nearing the plain;
Keep a sharp look around! gag that ribald refrain!
291

«.m

39a

GORING'S RIDE

Look to primings, my men! pass the word through the troop!
And see that each carbine hangs right of the croup
The churls if we're careless may play us a trick,
And they'll follow Noll's nose as the fiends follow Nick.

Boy, whom see you there? by St. Denis of France

The sight of a Roundhead's like prick of a lance!

What make you tht;r colors ? you rogue, look again 1

Pray God it be Ludlow's or Ireton's men!

Left wheel! Line advance! Steady! Give your nags

breath, — ,

These foxes don't run that we hunt to the death.

Now fellow, your trumpet! a good rousing blast!
Pikes to front! Ready? Draw! We have them at last I
Three cheers— for the Church! for the King! for the Cause!
Now down with all traitors, and up with the laws!
No quarter, my lads I Cleave the Knaves to the gorge !
Charge, Cavaliers, charge ! Now for God and St. George I

LADY MAUD

WAKE, Lady Maud! the stars grow dim, the morn in
heaven is high,
And I beneath thy lattice wait, sweetheart, to bid good-bye;
My carbme's slung my baldric fro', at side my^ord i

pressed,
Thy scatr^f doth deck my saddle bow, thy glove swings on my

Wake, maiden wake! the day-god's shafts o'er-slant the
upland sod,

^'"Miud'"'^"' thy lattice wait, my dream-bound Lady

Wake, mistress mine! the time grows short, I must with

speed away.
For Rupert's reckless cavaliers will brook no long delay;
The clanon call rings shrilly out, the silken flag floats free
1 hear the tramp and muster shout, the brandished swords

I see;

My champing charger paws the ground, he scents the war

abroad.
Vet I beneath thy lattice wait, my fair-haired Lady Maud.

Wake, lady, wake! this well may be thy gallant's last fare-
well.

For o'er the stifi-necked Commons' arms doth Victory clane
her bell; ^

From point to hilt my burnished blade deep red shall soon
be dyed,

293

i i.

394

LADY MAUD

For Rupert oath this day has made to humble Cromwell's

pride.
He vows the crop-eared, canting rout shall kiss this day the

rod;
Rise, rise! and look thy lattice forth, w.y bright-faced Lady

Maud I

Up, up! my fair one, — 'tis no time to dream of song ant"

dance.
Thy lover now must stride a horse, and handle sword and

lance ;
Nor now in sport thy sandal fan thy doting gallant strikes.
He seeks the sword-play in the van, he braves the rush of

pikes;
Ope, dear one! ope those eyes of blue that all the world doth

laud.
And shine two victories down the morn, my peerless Lady

Maud!

• .A

•i

Our standard floats on Naseby heath wide o'er the king's
array.

And I and every loyal blade must meet him there this day.

And by Saint George! will tliey and I now ride the victor's
course.

Or, piled a rampart round him lie, o'erthrown by Crom-
well's horse.

One kiss — the last! and then farewell, and put thy trust in
God,

If ne'er on earth, we'll meet in Heaven, sweetheart, my
Lady Maud!

SONNETS

FOREWORD

SoKHET, Child of Petrarch and the Lyric Muse, thou wert bom
In the days of Chivalry and Romance, and ail thy earlier youth
was touched by love. Angelo, the Immortal, found for thee a
deeper note, and the magnificent Lorenzo gave thee added grace.
Next, Surrey and Wyatt, twin.s of Enftiish rhyme, rescued thee
from the neglect of Fame, and nourished thee on English ground.
"The gentle Spenser loved thee," and the high-born Sidney was
thy servitor.

But thy crowning gli^ry was to be the guest of Shakespeare, the
Prince of Song. He took from thee thy Italian mantle and decked
thee in his own royal robes. No man shall henceforth do thee
ampler honor. Under the hand of the mighty Milton thou ob-
tained an organ tone -thy note of Reverence and Prayer. But
the degenerate children of EnglLsh Song abjured thee or gave but
grudging habitation, until Wordsworth, Priest of Nature, ushered
thee into his calm and stately cloisters. There thy plas'ic soul
took on fresh harmonies and delights; new aspirations, fair hopes,
sweet consolations and confldings. In thy turn thou becamest a
teacher of menj and henceforth thou must remain the favored heir
oi the English Muse.

It behooves not to tell of all the illustrious masters who have
taken thee to their hearts. The Old World still loves thy ordered
walk, and the New has opened wide its doors and enriched thee.
To each hast thou spoken in a different key, for thy nature ii
variant as the flowers of mountain and field, of garden and forest.
Thee, dwelling in the strict bonds of rhyme, I love best of all the
Children of Song, for, if thou demandest much, thy favors are
Imuntiful to them who worthily seek thee.

But for them not of the true Brothcrhooil, wilt thou dig a pit-
fall and cover the pretender and the careless wooer with shame.
Therefore, O Sonnet, may my feet tread reverently in thy service,
and in the name of these Masters be all this my cherishing of
thee — so shalt thou obtain the larger honor r .id I perchance a
favor more sweet. For my offering I bespeal' the good-will of all
true votaries of the Muse, and of all others who worship and love
her but have been holden from bringing gifts to her ahrine. In
tlicir bunds I leave thee, beloved Sonnet, my companion and the
solace of my heart I

C. L. B.

OUT OF THE DARKNESS

T HAVE seen Freedom nailed upon the cross ;

■■■ I have seen Truth outraged, and in that lie
A nation damned, another nation die;

A world at strife, stricken with bitter loss.

Faith's counters in a game of pitch and toss,
And ruthless Rapine with her hue and cry
Urging the dogs c* war, whose victims lie

Strewing the scarp and heaping high the fosse.

And with a deep despair for this fair world
I gazed upon the blood-reek and the smoke,
Till from my lips a quivering protest broke

At all that waste of fair things, broken and hurled
Into the jaws of Moloch, and the tears
Not to be stanched or wiped away in years.

Yet midst that ruin and carnage I have seen
Honor, a falcon, rise and breast the gale;
And Fortitude expand her daring sail;

And Love, the evangel, gliding in between

The serried ranks ; and Charity, in sheen
Of service white, bidding the wounded hail.
Clutching the hands of women, driven and pale,

And children, fearful-eyed, unmirthed and lean.
297

298

SONNETS

And out of all this hell, — this furnace flame
Of warring nations,— I have marked thee rise,
My Mother England, girt in shining mail,
Thy Spenser's armed queen, and in the nam--:
Of thy great past look in the demon eyes

Of Hate and make the dreadful Gorgon quail.

'Twas his design, — q^een Mother of five free
And stalwart nations; from whose loins have sprung
Sons of proud pith, by mightiest minstrels sung;

Thee to whom Earth brings tribute, and the Sea

Fences with thy Viking liberty, —

It was his hope, the overweening T ron, stung
With envy — plunderer since his horde was young-

To rape the Hesperian apples from thy tree.

Thou island Britomart, thy courage swells.

Thy prowess strengthens as the test draws near.

Upon thy breast tjie cross of service dwells;
What foe can make my Mother England fear?

Not he, the Outlaw, with his leash of hells;
With murder in his heart and on his spear.

SONNETS

a99

BRITAIN AND HER COLONIES

Throned on the sunset marge of the old world,

She sits in state, by all the new surveyed;

The broad Atlantic at her feet is laid.
O'er which she hath so oft her thunders hurled.
O'er continents of virgin land unfurled.

Far floats the Red Cross of her new crusade.

The genius of her language, law and trade.
Supreme where'er an ocean wave is curled!
She reigns not conqueror only I o'er the main

Speed forth her milder servitors of renown,
Law, Justice, Freedom, and Commercial Faith; —

Unlike the misruled, aliened wards of Spain,
Her proud young statelings, all untouched by scathe,

Are bound through love to her redoubted crown I

ENGLAND AND THE ARMADA

A CRESCENT moon in mists of steel-gray hue

Presaging dire disaster, o'er the main

Rode the impending puissance of Spain,
The Invincible Armada! kumor flew
With thousand tongues before it; awestruck drew

Their breaths the bodeful nations; "England, vain,"

They cried, "to face proud Parma's hand of bane;
Behold Sidonia's squadrons on the blue!"

Rash doubters! throned upon her island steep
She raised her dreadful trident; round her swarmed

Her sea-dogs — marked their quarry; o'er the deep
Her warlike trumpet pealed, her shout upstormed —

"A Drake! a Raleigh!" where the blue waves sweep
Round all her shores her dauntless spirit warmed!

300

SONNETS

BELGIUM

The mandate of a haughty empire rang,

"Be thou my roadway!" To the o'erweening foe

Belgium from all her ramparts thundered, "No!"

And soon across her fields the bullets sang.

On your devotion, Liige, the issues hang

Of Europe's fate! before your walls are low

Forth to the front the Gallic legions flow.

And England rou^ to your cannon's clang.

Small among nations, — stout and high of heart;

Nor last upon the honored scroll of fame.
Even Caesar feared your prowess; Charles the Bold
Respected you alone; the Spaniards' art

And arms were shriveled on your battle flame.
And still your ancient war-shield you uphold.

JAPAN

The war clouds lower, are riven — and high in air
Burns the far portent of the Rising Sun;
Late promise of an empire long begun,

Japan, whom Fate hath pledged, Japan the Fair!

The lotus wreath still clinging to her hair,
Yet in her hand the sword and smoking gun,
While from her feet the western wolves have run.

And from his prey crawls off the crippled Bear.

The Orient queen, flower-robed and crowned with arts-
Nippon, the nurse of chivalry and dreams.

Yet dread in battle. From his roadstead starts
Togo the Watcher, while his banner streams

Defiance. When those thunders die away

Where 2re his foes? Answer, ye waves at play!

SONNETS

y>i

MONTENEGRO

The thunders of five stormy centuries broke
Full on thy mountain! Frank and Ottomite
Brested in vain that black, redoubted height;

Vamly they strove to bend thee to their yoke.

Down those ravines, steaming with musket smoke,
Thy cliff-reared heroes drove their hosts in flight,
While that stern Amurath, the Christian's blight.

Fled headlong from their swift avenging stroke.

Still, Tsernagora, stand and front the world

As when, wide-rolled, the Moslem breakers swept
Around thy rock of refuge ;— Freedom there

Still keeps her ancient Slavic flag unfurled

Thy deeds unfold thy passion ; still are kept
Faith unto death and hearts that all things dare.

SWITZERLAND

Amidst the sharp-clawed European kites.

Eager to flesh their ruthless beaks with prey.
And watchful where to strike and when to slay,

This brood of falcons, nested on the heights.

Nursed their staunch wings of freedom; days and nights
For centuries they faced their foes— yes, they
Have held their cloud-wrapped eyrie to this day,

Inviolate, bounded by their ancient rights.

The homes of Switzers! built too firm and free
And near to Heaven to brook the rule of kings.

Though kings were emperors; let the invader be
riowe'er so mighty, forth to oppose him springs

The hardy patriot, and each rock and tree
Becomes an altar whereto Freedom clings !

3oa

SONNETS

HOLLAND

Rescued, half-drowncd, from turly Ncptune'a hold,
WhoM white-inancd itecdt, atill foiled, inceuant leap
Athwart the bulwarks of thy lunken keep, —

With smouldering hearts, although thy skiet be cold;

Mother of crafts, with trading manifold.
Yet dread to war with as in Cscsar's day, —
Holland, no grind of traffic scours away

The gravings of thy struggle stern and bold.

For those are records, wrought within thy soul, —
Freedom's eternal dower! .The Spaniard saw
Thee, waif oi nations, to thy succor draw

The foe that wasted thee yet kept thjt f - ;

Than brook his rule above thy homes might roll

The desolating chariots of the sea!

A WARNING TO THE KAISER

Ay, nurse thy pride and aunt thee of thy state,
O purple-robed Belshazzar! pour the wine
And pledge thy fortune! let the cressets shine!

Behold thy walls and watchmen mock at fate!

Do not thy guards in proof around thee wait?
Where, coward, fails thy majesty divine?
What! thy soothsayers cannot read the sign?

Thou'rl wanting — lo, tht Mede is at thy gate!

Freedom, for every pang thy votaries feel
Thy retribution grows! thy way is long

And thou far patient, but thy hand of steel
When once 'tis closed about the throat of wrong
No power can loosen; — Tyranny is strong,

But thou wilt break him un his own red wheel 1

SONNETS

303

THE LIGHTED LIBERTY
( yinvtd from BrooHjn Bridjt)
Above the glow-worm glimmering of the town,

Beneath Heaven's dujky vault all spangled wide,

The spider-latticed cables curve beside
The spectral pillars to the Bridge's crown.
'Midst the night-folded stillness looking down,

Where huge, mysterious, dim-drawn phantoms glide

Like shadow towers that swim the darkened tide
Of some fantastic dream of old renown —

I stand and gaze where, an embattled star.
Dwarfing the ruddy sparks on shore and sea,

One pure and constant beacon gleams afar,
The Hame that led us, cheered us, kept us free;

Oui lamp in peace, our fiey i,uide in war;
The outflung torch of august Liberty I

THE HALF-CENTURY REUNION AT
GETTYSBURG

Here rolled the iron tempest up the height.
And here fell soldiers thick as new-mown hay;
Three days the smoke of thundering battle lay

Along these ridges ; each succeeding night

Fresh heaps of slaughtered forms appalled the sight
Of torchmen on their rounds; till drew away
The Southron ; then the uncrowded face of day

Stared at the dreadful trophies of the fight.

Here Reynolds fell; there Armitage went down.
With Pickett charging 'neath the thunder pall.
'Twos fifty years ago;— the old renown

Stands regnant. Peace her trophies brings to all
Those sons surviving; — mark the olive crown

For laurel, brothers of the bugle call 1

304

SONNETS

EVENING AT CITY POINT, JAMES RIVER,
1890

I'qw peaceful is the scene! the unshrouded moon
Casts benediction o'er the daylight's grave.
Scarce doth a vesper breathe, a ripple lave;

Earth in her green, voluptuous garb of June,

Faint o'er the verges of the wide lagoon.
Exhales the breath of flowers; the azure wave
Lies bright and steadfast as a crystal pave,

Yea, even men's soils seem with this rest in tune.

Yet here, too, passion raged ; here once the roar
Of mortars stunned the drowsy ear of night;

Thundered the battery — screamed the hurtling shell;

Here smoke and havoc blackened wide the shore;
This deep floor shook beneath the shock of fight,

And men were demons, — this fair calm a hell!

CHARLOTTE CORDAY

That gentle, dark-haired maiden — can it be —
Hounded with curses by the wolfish throng
Of libertine Paris? What hath been her wrong?

The Judith with her blood-bathed dagger see !

Oh, how her eyes burn deep with ecstasy!
"For love of France"! Why bind the cruel thong
About her tender wrists? Your hands are strong;

Have pity — Heaven's pure sacrifice is she!

Ah, friends, how young and beautiful! Ixive's part
In her flames on life's altar; innocent-v/ise

And proudly-sweet she stands ; as on the cart

She rolls to death she lifts her dawn-bright eyes
And views with welcoming the kind Sunrise

That comes to shrine her in its deathless heart!

SONNETS

305

SHAKESPEARE

Only to name thee is to bring thy spell!

And when I drain the intoxicating bowl

Of thy rapt passion, lo, that sweet control
Makes free my heart and burdens it as well.
At times thy voice breathes Orpheus' plaintive shell;

At times Jove's thunder, echoing pole to pole;

Again thou dost Apollo's lyre control,
Or Pan's sweet pipe, or Mars' stern trumpet swell.

In thee all life grows regnant; thy proud range
Of passion runs its gamut forth to God.

Thine is a world of beauty's constant change,
Sunrise and sunset, star and flowering sod.

Yet with dim vistas terrible and strange.
Into whose depths no one but thou hast trod!

LINCOLN

Four square he stood— and on all sides a man.
The dust of party strife has fallen away
And shaped this figure 'gainst the light of day,

Built on the rugged, broad Cromwellian plan.

Throughout the state his pregnant message ran,
"For, with and by the People"— and that ray
Of counsel o'er our destinies holds sway,

An earth to Heaven irradiating span.

He loved, toiled, fought and conquered ; all the while
The brother murder madness bowed him down.
His mirth saturnine eased the iron crown

Of public service ; with no plaint or guile

He faced the age, filled wide with his renown ;

And foiled blind hate with calmness and a smile.

r -

3o6

SONNETS

ALFRED AND CHARLEMAGNE

Twin stars of that long twilight! England, thine,
One, and thine, France, the other; History
Records no ampler names; and we who see

Statecraft with glittering hook and flimsy line

And specious bait of protestations fine

Catching its gudgeons, and the sweaty crowd
Trafficked and trampled by Wealth evil-browed,

Might well for such stout, simple rule repine.

Oh, English Alfred, wert thou living now,
How would they vex at times thy steadfast mind,

These Danes of politicians! How thy brow,
Truthteller, oft would darken! by the blind.

Corrupt, and vaunting ring-rule of to-day.

How grandly stands thy strong, old, earnest sway !

CROMWELL

Ay, call him a usurper — what you will —
But, tyrant, never! for no vengeful frown
Clouded the brow of the imperial clown;

Who, erring oft, in malice wrought no ill.

His hand was hard, yet England loved him still,
So like his bride he held her; while Renown
Gave him her blood-sprent amaranthine crown.

And Prescience did with might his councils fill.

Nations revered or feared him; — pale alarm,
Stretched from the cloister to the Papal throne;
The oceans then were England's and his own ;

France, Holland, Spain, and Algiers felt his arm;
Broadcast by every wind his fame was blown;

And Freedom, Fate, dwelt in that dreadful charm!

SONNETS

307

ABDUL HAMID, THE "SHADOW OF GOD"

I SHE in the seraglio's secret hold
A venomed wretch, alone, in guarded state,
While sexless murderers his caprices wait.

Their service bought with blows and blood-stained gold;

And thru the casement lattice come, deep-rolled,
Mutterings and curses, until urged by hate
The groundswell of sedition floods his gate;

The Giaours' armed hand grows daily bold.

The ghosts of martyred Christians haunt his sleep;

The black assassin thru his nightmare strays;
He hears the women scream, the children weep;

The Crescent dewed with gore appals his gaze;
"Allah is Great! the Shepherd loves his sheep!"

For him Hell yawns and all her pits upblaze!

GARIBALDI

The child-sweet southern spirit! how it shone
In thee, blithe player of war's desperate game!
O'er Piedmont's venturous shield her sword became

In thy swift hand a meteor, flashed a dawn,

A herald streak of noontide! Thou art gone
From earth, but thy unmatched heroic name
Is zenith star in thy fair country's fame,

The topmost jewel round her forehead drawn.

Freedom's bold knight — she her resistless art
Taught thee, her lion will; opposing odds
But swelled thy triumph ; like an antique god's

Thy soul unstintedly played out its part ;
No more, Italia, bow to Europe's rods,

His name upon thy lips, within thy heart!

3o8

SONNETS

SALVINI

I SAW him once — he wao that tortured Moor

Whom Shakespeare limned with his earth-startling pen;
An awe-inspiring figure to one's ken,

Whose suffering scarce could lengthen and endure.

Maddened snd bending to lago's lure,
Yet noble thru his frenzy; of all men
Most thwarted and despairing; greatest when

He made the vain heart-breaking murder sure.

Sublime concept — that can so shake the soul
With mimic thunder that the grave has stilled.

Even now those rhythmic imprecations roll
Thru memory till th? heart of mind is chilled.

Art has no ampler triumph — that takes toll
Of feeling where no sense can shape or build.

OTHELLO

Alas, for love unwise that loves too well!

She was the queen of thy most loyal heart;

Dark Intrigue on thy trusting spirit fell,

And Jealousy thrust deep her poisoned dart.

Honor and Pride were throned midst thy desires.

Honor and Pride both lost their sovereignty;

Upon their altars flamed Revenge's fires;

Fate to the Furies turned thy destiny.

The greatness of thy Faith was made its loss;

The merit of thy Love was fivmd its blame ;

Foul Murder bore a sacriricial cross;

Rash Retribution stood in Justice' name;

These broke thy heart, thou could'st not choose but die,

Too great for life with Crime for life's ally.

SONNETS

309

IRVING

I SAW him last as Shylock— time had then
Mellowed his art and furnished the sublime
To round his action ; 'twas his later prime,

The most impressive presence a'-'ing men.

As in a herd of deer a stag of ten

He towered above his fellows; after time
Never may see again such wondrous climb

Toward the ideal in the craftsman's ken.

Shylock has passed with him— save in thy page,
O Shakespeare! he has vanished from our view!

That father love, that avarice, pride and rage,
That hate and cunning, no one may renew ;

He was not all of genius, but a mage
So potent, doubting were not wise nor true.

BOOTH

The poetry of action claimed its king;—
The realm of rhythm knew its overlord; —
He was the Dane— his foot upon the board

Fell with the tread of fate,— his soul a-swing

'Twixt doubt and c^ 'ainty ; Revenge's wing
Sweeping him on and yet to qualms restored ;
Irresolute to the last; then with his sword

Cutting the snarl of Circumstance's siring.

The impress of that scene is with me still;

The dim-lit chamber and the mother's tears;
The ghostly figure, towc-ing and chill;

The prince's courage shming thru his fears;
The grace of movement, the upsoaring will.

Abide and strengthen thru the passing years.

3IO

SONNETS

ON READING THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
BENVENUTO CELLINI

With swagger and with cloak about him caught,
Here view the vain, vindictive Florentine;
Clothed with an artist spirit proud and keen,

Which through a rapt and fiery passion wrought

Works of undying beauty, and so bought

The world's allegiance ; bringing from that scene
Of struggle purity out of ways unclean.

That spirit of aVt for whose uplift he fought.

Cellini, thy no less immortal bock

Lays like a scalpel bare the form of man.

That inner frame, the soul. Through all thy time,
Bloody and turbulent, thou didst not brook

One faltering of thy hand, while thou didst plan
Thy life-work flowering to its princely prime.

JOHN HENRY BONER

I KNEW him well, the gentle pensive soul
Death had untimely marked ; and in his eye
The pathos of the doomed that to the sky

Lifts a long hope disease may not control.

Unto the warm, bright South his heart was whole;
Far from the whispering pines that wooed his sigh,
He trod life's fettered round, nor made reply

To the rude fevered strife that claimed its dole.

He passed beyond my ken, yet left behind
The lingering memory cadence of his voice.

And of his verse, so passion souled and kind.
Alas, the first is soundless, though the choice

Gift of his song survives, and in my mind
And heart it echoes, "mourn not but rejoice."

SONNETS

311

THE HOUSE OF LORDS

Ay, let them go ! too long they've held at bay

Hedged in by precedent the people's right.

Once they were bold to quell a tyrant's might;
They stood a mail-clad rampart in their day
'Gainst foreign thraldom ; those have passed away

Like stars that vanish in the dawning light.

Now outworn rule and old observance trite
With cankering blight and poison shadow sway

Over the realm of England— o'er the height
Of Time's new mason-work those branches gray,

Moss-grown, decrepit, weave a creaking night
Of old obstructions; rise, let in the ray

Young heart of English Freedom ! deep then bite
Thine axe, Democracy! to the trunk's base lay
And clear the sapless dotage from your sight!

DON QUIXOTE

Gaunt, rueful knight, on raw-boned, shambling hack,
Thy battered morion, shield and rusty spear
Jog ever down the road in strange career,

Both tears and laughter following on thy track;

Stout Sancho hard behind, whose leathern back
Is curved in clownish sufferance; mutual cheer
The quest beguiling, as, devoid of fear.

Thou spurrest to rid the world of rogues, alack!

Despite fantastic creed ana addled pate.

Of awkward arms and weight of creaking steel,

Nobility is thine; — the high estate

That arms knights-errant for all human weal.

How rare. La Mancha, grow such souls of late;
Dear foiled enthusiast, teach our hearts to feel !

312

SONNETS

TO THE MOON-FLOWER

Pale climbing disk, who dost lone vigil ktep
When all the flower-heads droop in drowsy swoon ;
When lily bells fold to the zephyr's tune,

And wearied bees are lapped in sugared sleep;

What secret hope is thine? What purpose deep?
Art thou enamoured of the siren moon
That thus thy white face from the god of noon

Thou coverest, while his chariot rounds the steep?

Poor, frail EndymionI know her lustre fine

Is but the cold, reflected majesty
That clothes the great sun's regent — borrowed shine

Of Him who yields restricted ministry.
Thy bright creator; he did ne'er design

The proud, false queen should fealty claim of thee!

THE CONDOR

High above clouds and mountains, through thin air

Prone on his waving vans he rushing flies ;

The great dread corsair admiral of the skies,
For prey and plunder ravening everywhere.
The sun doth not so pitilessly stare

As those red eye-balls glare with fierce surmise;

He stoops, but only to obtain a prize, —
The struggling victim that his talons bear.

Heroic strength and lawless majesty

Dowering a ruthless vulture! born to slay.

And rob the peaceful flocks of their increase;

He shrinks at naught, untamed as he is free.
He holds his stern and unremorseful way.

And screams dciiant protest against Peace!

SONNETS

3«3

HONOR AND FAME

Ho.iOR, tije virgin knight, bright vigil ketpj;

Mil/ Heaven assoil him and prevent him blame!

While Fame, the pander, rides in Honor's name.
In Honor's mail and his fair guerdon reaps.
Honor upon his arms securely sleeps.

While midnight phantoms shake the soul of Fame.

Honor's clear saintly eyes are void of shame ;
Fame his misdeeds now vaunteth and now weeps.

These ever cross each other in the field,
Supposed allies; yet Honor holds in scorn
The boaster, Fame, and when he winds his horn

Fame shrinks beneath his gaudy, glistering shield.
For Honor's titles stand secure and broad.
And on his breast he wears the cross of God.

LOVE AND TRUTH

Love's rosy robe is wrought with Truth's design,

And Truth's white brows by Love are garlanded ;

Blindfolded Love by clear-eyed Truth is led,
And Truth austere smiles oft on Love benign.
While Love stands strong Truth doth not fiet nor pine;

While Truth holds firm Love fears no path to tread.

But wears the amaranth on his royal head.
And his fair hands bear clusters of the vine.
These are the twain that ever walk the earth

With offerings rich and greetings manifold;
These the proud sponsors for the sons of Worth

Who curb the traitor. Self, cruel and cold;
Yea, without them no gracious thing hath birth;

And Heaven by their high counsels is controlled.

i i -

. i

314 SONNETS

WISDOM AND KNOWLEDGE

Knowlbdob the Proud sits oft in Wisdom's teat,

With robe and sceptre, crown and orb of power ;

While Wisdom wanders lone thru sun and shower
With few to grant her shelter or to eat.
Yet to proved souls is Wisdom Paraclete;

Her heart is pure, her mind blooms like a flower;

And quietly she waiteth for that hour
When she shall rei^n with Knowledge at her feet.

Wisdom hath 'light within ; — few recognize
Whence comes that smile, the sweetener of pain ;

Or I ow the yearning of those patient eyes
Works all unseen like fertilizing rain;

Knowledge is moon-bright, hosts her rule obey, —

But Wisdom turns the world and leads the day.

PEACE

Peace— what is peace? Not this— to dwell secure,
A moth upon the downy edge of time,
Wasting in careless ease life's summer prime,

While others fight the battle and endure.

Ah, no! this is the selfish devil's lure,

A pinchbeck peace that hath no ringing chime;
Peace knows no earthly price, no age or clime.

But comes unasked to upright hearts and pure.

Nol war is the world's province — stress and st.ife

And strenuous toil that never quits the field
'Till Death reaps in his harvest; 'tis in pain
That Progress brings her offspring into life;

Peace hath no quality that earth doth yield-
It comes from God and goes to God again.

SONNETS

FORTITUDE

3«3

That is not failurr, rightly understood,

Though lacking furtherance, when we've wrought
our best;

If we have put our manhood to the test
Nor found it wanting; if we, unsubdued,
huffer defeat, we have but taken food

And water to our souls; shall be twice blest;

Stronger in heart, not shrunken in the breast,
stamping Faith's signet on the hardening mood.
Thus did Coligny, still defeated, rise

Proudly unconquered; thus did Alfred crown
Constancy with success; thwarted likewise

Columbus reached the summit of renown;
Tnus Washington opposed the troops of George
Undaunted, midst the snows of Valley Forge. '

THE UNSEEN WORLD

The spirits of the dead are with us still;

Part of our being, instinct to our life
11 Jt"'"*" "Kht and dark; all space is rife
With mfluences that .tiould our plastic will
Unseen yet felt, unknown yet guessed at, till

Death plucks away the loask of flesh, or strife

Of soul wears out the body as a knife
Frets thru its sheath then feels a naked thrill.
For nature wars within us with a sense

Mysterious, conjoined, yet not of her,
Subduing yet subdued; but when the tense

Bond of their union slackens, then the whirr
Of the souls wings is heard, our essence soars
1 ransfigured, lighted from the eternal shores

3i6

SONNETS

HUMANITAS

Though faith in heiven be gone, not ao in man;

«or u God wanting, though we know him not.

If our primeval visions be forgot,
We still weave dreams though on a saner plan.
If once agam we turn to reverence Pan,

Love none the less has angels, and I wot,

That should this life be all our bound and lot
Hearts still will yearn as erst when faith began.

Hearts will o'erflow with larger, sweeter thought;

Hands will unclose and close in brotherhood;
Blood will not flow for naught or worse than naught;

Man will know man and life be understood;
Religion s chain of orient pearls be brought

To wreathe the shrine of Nature's holyrood.

PERSONALITY

I AM not what I seem, nor any two

See me alike or as myself I see ;

Nor does myself with my own self agree.
But e'er in counterfeit myself I view;
Ay, even to myself I stand untrue;

Some see a ghost and think that ghost is me;

And when they turn a searchlight on I flee
Into that self whence all my shadows grew.

For Nature doth in me exhaust her arts
And weave her mysteries beyond human ken;

For my true self is made of many parts;
In some one part I touch my fellowmen;

Yet I, unknown, unknowing other hearts,
Am but the dream life varies o'er again.

SONNETS

317

DUTY

I HAVE pledged life, not for itMlf alone,
Nor for the happiness nr renown it brings,
Nor wealth, nor power, nor beauty, nor the wings

Of enterprise, nor gay-browed Pleasure's tone.

I have pledged life that ere my span be flown
I might be known as one who earnest sings
Of faith and love, of high and noble things.

Unto the youth the coming age shall own.

Yet I am little better than a voice

Heard daily in the market-place whom men
List idly and turn upon their way again •

But on my spirit there is laid this choice
Of service; let me do my duty then

And let me in my duty's path rejoice.

SCIENCE

I SAW the spangled curtain of the night
— '";?, ''S'^kward by the radiant hand of day,
Till like to streams of molten silver lay

The water courses; soon wide grew the light

Across the misty valleys; bathed each heigh:
And hoary mountain in its kindling ray, '
And gave o'er wakened earth a newer swa'

To life, a new enfranchisement to sight.

So Science, not with miscalled wings of lead,
Nor harpy-like, confounding— but with plumes

All lustred with the rays of morning's prime.

Dawns a benignant goddess;— on her head
The amaranth of new faith and knowledge blooms;

And through her soul and vision wake sublime.

318

SONNETS

THE TIDE OF TIME

*?2" iZ""'""'^' ""«• 'he tempest-, night
i saw a m ghty wave; and tossed like straw
Swam on its crest the drift of years^lL^^^

Is dead, ,s deadi We live in the new St!"
^'ReT."/A T^'^ ^ '"''^'' "«" th« sky

? iTtat:^' Sr"'! ""^-'■'^ -^^ -' -t

Stn^j 1, t J '^«ers, the contention vast

Theard U"" '"" *' '"'°"*" "^d did lie-
An!)^ 5 *'"""'" ^™~' fh"' "'ed, "At last'"
And lo, a dove with green pahn branch IwS' by.

DEATH

Drbad foe to life, thou bearer of the seal
Of mystery and fate, I argue nought

M«f' r"ach :S "°' T"' *"* J°y ""d Thought

-[^rtnSrbi^----rii-^

Into the framework of Aeiotwe^.^"" "™"«'"
Yet Genius arms against thee-^easeless toils

md, uv,, ,1,, „.„^ ,,„„ ^ ^ ^ ^

SONNETS

THE CLOSING WALLS

Few live the tn-th.-in fortune few are free,
And fewer still in spirit. We but wear
The cap and badge of worldly, servile care,

And catch faint glimpse of higher destiny.

Ciod help us I what we would we may not be;
Our hearts, like opening flowers were pure and fair-
Now lords are we of spirits starved and bare

We live no wiser for the ilk we see.

Oh deadly blight of soul! the world doth gain
Upon us daily, and sweet Nature's voice

Is heard no more or faintly; we but strain
To play the role of petty Caesars; choice

Is ever leagued with interest, and we sneer

Across the grave of what our youth held dear

319

LIFE'S VOYAGE

Fate drives me forth upon an unknown sea—

fcver I view the shoals that round me lie
Fond youth, adieu I Come, manhood, strong and free

^ourage and purpose are the oars I ply

My sunny morning dreams, I pass them' by;
All gray the noon-tide clouds that hera me round-

1 hear afar the curlew's woeful cry.
What care I if my boat is staunch alid sound
Better to sink, than in sad soul profound

To drive my bark amidst embaying cares;
Better the tempest and the gaping wound

Than stranded log-like on the world's affairs-
bpread sail, and fly the banner from the truck—
The voyage is on, bold heart, now tty your luck I

3ao

SONNETS

THE RETURN

Once more the green turf bends beneath my feet;

The brooding silence of the woods sifts down

Across my spirit; gone the dusty town,
The noise and fretful fever of the street.
Here spreads the balm of Nature, soothful, sweet;

No rimon s curse comes here, no Casar's frown;

Breaks not the clangorous strife of sword or gown ;
Only the soft breeze and the birds' "weet, weet!"

I throw aside lift's sombre cloak of care-
Good-bye Convention! Hope renew thy theme!

Take, Mother, back thy world-worn, wayward child-

The soul grows rhythmic in this charmed air
The floweret's zest is mine, the woodland's dream,-

And with all hfe again I'm reconciled!

GRAND MANAN

A HUGE, black fort of Neptune,— 'gainst the sky
It heaves its bastion through cold Fundy's pall
ijcoured by a million winters; round it brawl

The hoarse-tongued breakers; there long-trailing fly
V^.V***""""'*' "'ny streamers; there untie
Their hair the storm's shrill manads; down its wall
IJie lightnings jagged javelins carve and scrawl

Joves words as on the gust they thunder by.

The guU screams wheeling o'er it— round it dives

1 he deep, dark-green abyss; when days are fair
The dingy fisher skills their lines unreel
Close to the base; but woe to him who drives
Blind on in storm; there hope hath no appeal—
The monster's sides stand steep as man's despair I

SONNETS

321

THE WATER LILY

Gemmwg the bosom of thy mother lake,
Swayed to and fro through morning's zephyr hours,
Ur ripple-rocked to sleep as evening lowers,

folded until the sun's bright javelins shake

Grey not to heart of darkness— thou dost break
Woomg all hearts that haunt thy reedy bowers'
Light as blown foam, the NereJ of the flowers^

And virgm-pure for thine own beauty's sake.

Pale lovely blossoms! as my rowboat slides
Among your level targes floating green,

Spreading a wind-swept carpet o'er the waves,

Upon my sense your fragrant whiteness glides
With ravishment; are ye the souls all clean

Of fair frail girls who sleep in watery graves?

No, we are Daylight's children— we are bom
From out the ooze where lurks the water-snake,
Apd where the perch and minnow harbor make,—

White as the blest of Resurrection Morn.

When from our watery cradles we are torn
We droop with grief— in sweet complaining break.
And fading die; we, vestals of the lake.

Give praise to Him who doth our forms adorn.

We envy no one's wealth; we dwell alone,
Unthought of by our sisters of the plain;
Ever we in our peaceful passion lie.
Stars of the light-time, gazing up the sky

As long as Day's fond glance is on us thrown

Then sleeping, dream that he will come again !

3aa

SONNETS

SPRING MORNING

Rqugh hearted Winter yields his realm to Spring
His diamond crown and ermine stained in flight.
Lo, Spnng hath ta'en the valleys I With delight

She wmds her echoing horn; on home-bound wing

The truant birds flock to her welcoming;

Oer earth her emerald cloak, embroidered bright,
bhe flings; she doth the tongue-tied broob invite

Xo gossip while the early zephyrs sing.

Now red-cheeked 'Morn in saffron vest, a-field
Trips down the hills and wakes the drowsy swains;

Thl H I u Ti"'' ^" """■"'"8 *"" *i* rains;

The Buttercup her golden chalice rears

To dews; the Daisy's gold-bossed, silver shield

Weams gaily, buttressed by a sheaf of spears 1

SUMMER NIGHT IN THE COUNTRY

There is a veiled quiet in this night;
A few faint stars peer through the curtain dun,
Nor hath the stat;ly moon usurped the sun,

Wlio to the under world transfers his right.

The drowsy shadows thicken o'er my sight
Blotting the landscape out; the dark close-spun
Drips dews unseen, and now clear chiming run

I he pebbled brooks from yon fir-crested height.

The winds lie dead asleep upon the wold,
Tired with their wandering. Hist! one tinkling bell
From a nigh pasture breab the rhythmed spell

Xhen leaves the stilhiess deeper;— a vapor rolled
From off the mountain like a ghost doth glide
Athwart the darkness— there is nought beside!

SONNETS
THE BATHER*

333

In musing mood, listless and happy eyed
bhe sits upon the green bank of a stream
Wrapped ma veiled sun's summer woodland dream
While round her feet start windflowers purpl^ied
And many a wilding shrub springs free L!de "^ '
Her sweet nude limbs, which in the sunlight gleam

Th^ nf /" ""'^'*'^' "' '^'y ""'Kht see.;
1 hose of a forest nymph, half -deified.

O friend, in her the creature of thy hand
I view the poet painter's loving task '
That nothing doth of lust or traffic ask
And only speaks to brethren of the Band,
The few who feel and, feeling, understand.
And view the burning soul behind the mask.

SUMMER NOON

A NOONTIDE languor melts into tne air-
The brook beneath my feet is keeping tune
Unto the lazy breezes' dreamy rune;

The dirifty bees are humming everywhere:

The blackbird whistles blithe and debonair-
Around me is the varied, vivid June
Of opulent Summer with her pleasant croon.

Bathing the lea side with its mellow glare.

Away, dull care-join soul in Nature's mirth!

The favor of this pulsing morn is thine,
oee all the fallows drest in gala trim!
Down such a mead Silenus with his girth

Of vme leav« passed, his visage stained with wine.
Whde flower-crowned maidens trolled the Bacchic hymn.

•To Warren Davis on his gift of the picture to the author.

SONNETS

TO A FRIEND

Dear friend, long distant, oft my thou^t to you

Looks forth as marinsr to the Northern Star;
For you have stedfast shining, comrade true.

That night but brightens, distance cannot mar.
And I have faith, what griefs to leeward lie,

Or head-winds take aback my steady sail.
Or calumny o'er-doud the smiling sky.

Your cheer, accord, and favor will not fail.
True fellowshii) hath a touch most wondrous fine,

A voice that strikes no dull material eai,
A gaze that draws the soul; no pinchbeck shine,

No counterfeit custom, passes current here;
For he hath fortune, beyond need to spend,
Who makes his heart the treasury of his friend.

LOVE

Love frees us from ourselves yet makes us slaves;

He moves our souls yet gives us fixed intent;
He whelms us like a barque o'ercome with waves.

Then towards the stars he lifts us, eminent.

Before his shrine the haughtiest crests are bent,
And oft he clothes the clown with princely rage;

He hath a will brooks no arbitrament,
Yet hath he patience of a meagre wage.

His sweetest pleasures ever are kin to pain;
His choicest blessings oft bring direst curse;

Man would lose all for Love and count it gain.
Though howsoe'er a niggard of his purse; —

Thus in Love's quiver all contention lies

Twixt good and ill — his shafts arR women's eyes!

SONNETS

THE CONJUNCTION OF LOVE

Like as two waves, by spheric pulses driven,

Rolling from Orient and from Occident,
Meet in mid-sea beneath the arch of Heaven

And forthwith mingling are forever blent—
So may two souls, though Nature at beginning

Long from sweet converse sundered them afar,
Yet fatefuUy their destined courses winning.

Meet and unite beneath Love's fixed star;—
For come all winds and sweq the earth-round ocean.

Bearing the thunderbolt within its breast.
Till the lashed deep is fevered to commotion.

Making his moan and never finding rest,

Yet these two souls once met can never part,
For mind hath wed with mind and heart with heart!

3aj

THE SECURITY OF LOVE

There bides no bulwark against adverse fate

Save in the shield and helm of faithful love;

With them a man, though shaken, towers above
The throng, investured with that proud estate.
The hell-born host will shun such brow sedate.

Nor e'er attempt that heart's rich treasure trove;

For, like to Noah's olive-bearing dove,
The promise fails not nor the hopes abate.

For mutual strength o'er-tops the mutual need;

And mutual faith o'er-crowns the mutual fear;
And mutual toil shall earn the double meed,

And mutual hope bring forth unchanging cheer;
For in thy love I must prove all indeed,

While in my love thy favor grows not sere.

336

SONNETS

THE FORTITUDE OF LOVE

SwBBTHEART, what storms may come (and not a few
May dark our lives' horizon), yet I know,

^xPt^^^ ''""' '" *""'*' """' '*' ** w'"'** 'hat blow,

We shall not blench but front them, for we two

Sail not for pleasure of the public view
Through shallow bays, but to the ocean go
Where the skies ring the sea, the deep tides flow.

And lay our course by one clear star and true.

And round our course the ocean bird shall scream,
The harbinger of faith, against the gale;
Yea, every sea-mew shall take up the tale

And bear it to the ocean's fartherest gleam.

How our two hearts have trimmed the tautest sail

That ever held the love-winds o'er the beam.

!:.''

Iti

THE FAVOR OF LOVE

To me hath Heaven given a work for doing,

I may not shirk it or I wreck my life;
All slothful instincts to my nature suing

Wage with my high intent a civil strife.
My day is overcast nor can I see

The path to lead me up the steep incline;
. Jid all the summit's wrapped in mystery ;

Alone must bear the brunt, this heart of mine.
Yet not alone — for love is at my side

To cheer me through the dark and devious way;
I can bear all if love with me abide,

Its patient hope adorns life's toilsome day;
For of my life is love the treasure trove;
For love is life, and life to me is love.

SONNETS

THE QUALITY OF LOVE

My love is like a river still and deep,
Not as a swollen torrent rushing strong;

Round tender memories its lingering, creep.
They bear a burden of bright hopes along;

iJa l "a ^""'^"'^ <>'" with flowers of song-
Its depths reflect the rainbow tinted skies;

Its beauteous landscape doth to me belong;
Intrudes no poacher with unhallowed eyes

And as I float upon its limpid breast,
1 near the confluent wave of my desires

On which the dirling of my heart doth rest,
10 whom the manhood of my hope aspires;

And lest rogue Fancy should a recreant prove,

1 U drown him in the deepest depths of love

387

DEVOTION OF LOVE

^^"^ ™ I "-"d the mighty bards of old

Where mortal love weds immortality
I would as high thy own dear image hold

That after time thine heir through me might be.

I first would laud thy passion pure and free
Thy sweetness next that grudgeth not its dole

Thy grace which charms all life, thy constancy,
Ihy beauty last which mirrors all thy soul.

For half my heaven is born in thy bright eyes

Those twins of deep, dark splendor, kind and true

My wintry care in genial summer dies
When thy full sun of beauty breaks anew.

Even Death itself would one last sweetness be

If I, m dying, could but die for thee!

338

SONNETS

grow rife,

IMMORTALITY OF LOVE

When you and I commingled are with dust,

Nor one survive who knew our forms in life

When we have crossed beyond the bounds of strife.

Nor may one say, "I found them kind or just";

Then will the leafage of our love, I trust,
Bloom in this verse and in true hearts

maiden, sweetener of the name of wife,
A star whose shine no smirch of time may rust.

Your life thru me may best expression find;

And I in you best prove what life is worth;
For while I sing you queen of womankind.

Each lover there will read his own love's birth.
Ay, we in lovers' hearts shall live enshrined;

1 for my song— you as the Flower of earth.

CONSTANCY

Constant to thee! ay, while these lips take breath,

Or while the heart throbs to its spoken vow!
Constant to thee! even beyond Time and Death,

And when the laurel withers from my brow!
Yes, I am thine! for I of truth am nought

Unless I find my complement in thee;
Then wi ■ should I indulge a wayward thought?

I lose myself when I inconstant be.
For Constancy is the first-loved of Heaven,

Twin sister of the anchor-maiden, Hope;
Then let me in thy gracious heart be shriven.

Though Fancy wander with the world for scope;
If blue-eyed Faith gave birth to Constancy,
Then am I constant, who keep faith in thee I

SONNETS

399

"^ ThT' .i''"". ^""f" '" ""»•' "' Prihood'. bloom;

The world a fa.ryland around thee lying,

And every sylph of sun-dyed fancy flyinE
Between thee and the nearby cypress gloom.
W.th Innocence thy handmaid, Joy thy groom.

Ere Hope had strayed and Faith had no denying.

When only thy Ideal taught thee sighing.
And only P,ty led thee to the tomb-

T-r "'tr'f'j'" "'"■'■"" "* "''hly pain
Ihat robbed thee of thy gayness, yet did thrill
Ihy rarer sensibilities, made plain

The higher grace of life with lowlier will;
The hly ,s sweeter for the cloud and rain.

And care and grief have left thee lovelier still I

When I reflect that this warm heart of mine
Must ciiU, fail, wither and to dust decay.
And I no more shall view the face of day.

Nor drmk again the air of Spring like wine

°^u '*'* '"'''^' ^^"'^ ■"*''" '°^«' "fi"«-
When all my memory is a mouldered bay

And I have mingled with the shadows gray
Ihat throng beyond the senses' border line-—
Then when I think of all thou bringst to me

Fresh pleasures of the Spring or music's voice;
I hou of sweet shade and fruitage, my palm tree

In this parched desert— thou my only choice
In the whol, world of women— heart and breath
Orow sorrowful at wasteful, envious Death

310

SONNETS

THE IDEAL

I HAD 1 vition of a fgir maid'i face;
A dream of brook-brown eyei and midnight hair,
Of .wan-hke neck and breait, the queenly air

Of Dian, full accoutred for the chaie;

Thus Fancy led her radiant forth from (pace,
"Ai T'/"'' ""'■>'• •*«"«»"•. kind, and rare;

A J . ! } ""f "'*'''*" ""'y .' ""d her, where?"

And locked my heart upon this for a space.

Then, like the rose-bud swelling with its dream.

My fancy heaved those breasts and brimmed those eyes;

Oft from those outlets of the soul a beam
Fell on me from the spirit's inner skies;

I said, "Lie there within my heart,— I deem
O Love, no flesh may ever make thee prize."

THE IDEAL FOUND
II

So, like a miser fondling his dear gold,
Oft would I count those pure perfections o'er,
Hugging to heart my wondrous, earthleas store.

Whose charms shamed all life's glories manifold;

Then with a bitter mockery I grew bold,
For there was not in prose or poet's lore
Such jewel found as my proud fancy wore

"This, too, will vanish when my veins grow cold."

But as I went all dully on my round,
Nought hoping, seeking, for my dream-land

I entered suddenly on enchanted ground,

Invading Heaven by some rosed postern gate—

For in thy form my loved ideal I found,
And in thine eyes I stood betrayed of Fate I

mate,

SONNETS

TO ASTREA

(Eifhl sonatli in ih, Elitahtlhai, manner.)

F^ZZ' '''""k" l*""" ^"""^ ""^ Summer join;
X Sprmg oer thy form and Summer in thy hear ;
l-ilte the opposmg image on a coin

I i^T'i"'^ ^"l? ""'' '^"''' *'"'<' '"P"'-

And h-kfrh'S "°^™ """d 'hy cheeb in bloom.

And like the Summer cherry is thy hp;
Yet Sprmg and Summer both shall front their doom

And wmtry Death thy buoyant beauty trip.
Then think on all the raptures thou shalt lose,

If thou to love too long thy charms deny;
For Fate may then thy foolish claims refusi

And thy proud favors withered all shall dii;
While the palt ghost, of lover, thou hast slain
Will rise and thy cold cruelty arraign.

II
LiiOE the queen bee art thou and they the drones

Who on thy course triumphal still attend-
Lover, who mark thy passage with their moans

And for thy favor life and substance spend;
Or like the pelican who doth repast

Its young with its own blood, so do their hearts
Squander their pulses, even to the last

On thee who dost repay them with false arts.
For tho thou art Time's darling, Summer's joy.
Thy soul IS barren of Love's flowering ruth
Created wert thou lealty to annoy

And make thy mock of fealty and truth
ho frozen thy heart,that let Love shoot his best
H.S .-irrows still fall blunted from thy breast

33t

333

SONNETS

Light as the wandering thistledown thou art,

Sowing in fallow soils its freight of tares;
For Nature formed a bubble of thine heart

Wherein is limned its fancy's flaunting wares.
For thou dost smile on all with equal grace

And seem'st to grant yet ever dost deny;
Like as a snare outspread thy beauteous face

Ever shows love yet giveth love the lie.

Surely God did thy jcomely features plan
To shine around thee here an earthly Heaven ;

Surely instead of torment unto man
Nature intended thee all joy to leaven;

Yet God and Nature both are disobeyed ;

Joy hast thou slain and Love thou hast betrayed.

Give me thy love I say or take my breath!

One of the twain englobeth my desire;

I am consumed; Heaven in his ire
Reads me in torture what thy sweet lips saith.
Upon me oft thy false smile lingereth,

Like winter's sun upon a woodland byre,

Coaxing some early hyacinth to suspire
In bloom, and then forsake him to his death.

Sure thou hast none with God, tho thy blest face
Might draw impassioned angels from the skies;

Nor sanctified art thou with Heaven's grace,
Altho my Heaven is regnant in thine eyes;

Tho love for thee should drag me down to Hell,

Even there thy feigned love would make me well !

SONNETS

333

Wilt thou condemn thy servant to despair

Whose only fault is too much loving thee'
Lo thou Shalt stale and he become Time's heir,

While even thy scorn shall his advancement be
I'or with his pen while he thy beauty paints,

A just revenge upon thee shall be taken-
For Love himself, thy cold caprice attaints,

When Age shall prove thee faded and forsaken.

So in this verse when future time shall read

Thv nvalship to Venus' empery;
It will as well for flattery paint thy greed

And thy disdain and cruel mastery;

That stripped by Age of charms and without friend
Love did against thee poisoned arrows send.

When in my dreams I am by Hope beguiled,

And thou art kind as thou art fair in face;
Queen of this earth and Heaven's own favored child,

Who dost abound in wit and sprightly grace;
Then when I wake and sense the cruel cheat.

With all my happy dreams abused by day,'
Could I the witness of hard fact defeat.

And with illusion still my spirit pay,

If I could hood the falcon of my heart.
And make its jesses of thy witching'hair;

As thou art false redeem thee in mine art.

Until men's lips should laud thee everywhere;—

Then, tho thy falsehood still gives Truth the lie.

Truth grows in me and durst not thee deny.

334

SONNETS

Thou hast no truth nor I no recompense;

False as thou art I must for needs be true;
Thy craftiness I miscalled innocence,

For which I now in heart must wear the rue.
That voluntary bondage I renounce,

Yet daily to my conscience am forsworn;
So light thy heart it weighs not sure an ounce.

Mine hangs like lead yet proves the prick of scorn.

Sweet as thou art .and fairer than the rose.
Thou bear'st a deadlier weapon than a sword;

Thy hapless victims are transfixed by those

Darts from thine eyes which no address can ward;

Content if they may warm their hearts awhile

In the false, fickle solace of thy smile.

Thy beauty like an ignis fatuus plays

Across the yearning gaze of trusting souls;
Lovers who wander forth in devious ways

Yet never swerve the nearer to their goals.
Moths are they, by the traction of thine eyes

Drawn to their death, and on their passion's wing
Crippled and scorched and made a hapless prize

To thy caprice's thoughtless cruel sting.

For thou dost on the ruin of those hearts
Build high the triumphs of thy peerless face;

Queen of vain prayers and mistress of false arts.
Thou grant'st no quittance and thou yieldst no grace.

Content to pleasure thy remorselos way

Over the graves of those whom thou dost slay.

A GARLAND OF SONNETS

TO SHAKESPEARE

// / have earned some favour of good men.

Or if my song ihold aught of just or true.

This happy fortune to thy grace is due,
Who things unseen hast brought within my ken;
fFho hast redeemed my shallow courses when

I would run glittering on the public view.

And led'st me into quiet fields anew.
And turned'st me safe from many a noisome fen.
I fly to thee when wounded, worn, and faint.

And thou upholdest me against thy knee;
Thy volume is my rubric; no attaint

Dwells in its page, nor no absurd decree.
Companion, guide, then friend — while Life's acquaint

With love, ''V words sustain me, make me free/

HOMER

npiME hath no shore, nor History port for thee,
X_ Thou first great admiral of the fleets of Song!
To thee the winds, the waves, the clouds belong—

The heart and brain of broad humanity.

Thy theme swift-winged, an eagle's flight, and free,
All tireless sweeps this varied world along,
Wide-shadowing all the crawling, fluttering throng,

Unbounded as the shining, thundering sea.

From thy stored coflFers craftsmen age on age
Have filled their treasuries to remint the gold;
No alien verse can thy full soundings hold ;

While wise Ulysses' guile, Achilles' rage,

Doomed Hector's love, from thy dead tongue are rolled,

And still dead gods war in thy deathless page.

CHAUCER

The heart of Merrie England sang in thee,
Dan Chaucer, blithest of the sons of Morn!
How from that dim and mellow distance borne

Floats down thy chiming measures pure and free,

Minstrel of Pilgrim pleasaunce! Pageantry,
And Revel, blowing from his drinking-horn
The froth of malt, and Love triumphant, lorn—

Thy England lives in these that live through thee!

Thine is the jocund Springtime; — winsome May,

Crowned with her daisies, wooed thee, clerkly wight!

The cheer of pastoral breath is in thy lay.
And in thy graver verse thy country's might.

O, Pipe of Pan at England's break of day.
Her noon re-echoes with thy clear delight!
337

338

A GARLAND OF SONNETS

TASSO

Love gilds thy laurel, — love was found thy blame;

Yet, brightest in the dungeon shone thy muse.

Not Este, no, nor Italy, might refuse
Thy clue — the poet's wreath, the deathless name.
Thine honor lustres in thy tyrant's shame;

The cold cell's damps were Inspiration's dews;

The world hath won through what thy hope did lose,
O Tasso, king of hearts, and heir of fame I

Ferrara's court is dust. Thy passioned dream

A grand, immortal pageant did create
O knightliest bard! Rinaldo's hero-gleam

Is thine, thrice glorified ; thy proiid estate.
The Lyre, the Sword, and Love — in each supreme;

Life's splendid protest at the doors of Fate!

SPENSER

I've watched him stroll with Raleigh by the wood.
Or Sidney, near the MuUa's rippling brim,
While Nature crooned her Summer-evening hymn,

Till o'er the fields the new moon's sickle stood.

I've heard calm words of courtly brotherhood
Chime like an Angelus through the ages dim.
And they, whom all else honored, honored him.

My Spenser, votary of the Holy Rood.

The^ rose and passed through Honor's troubled sky;

Each quenched in blood his fitful, fervent star ;
He dwelt apart, unknown, and fixed his eye

Where aureoled Beauty beckoned him afar.
Thy Lion, Maid, and Knight shall never die,

O Childe, for of them England's glories are!

A GARLAND OF SONNETS
MARLOWE

339

For him the ancient heavens relumed their fires
And starred his crown of songs with lambent gleams;
Down one sweet song a nightly cresset gleams—

T^is Hero's beaconing her love's desires.

Yet dark and thundrous, as when Faust expires,
And veined with lightning stands that mount of dreams
Down which the lava of his passion streams,

Or soars from off its cloud-enshrouded pyres.

He was the Baptist heralding the morn

Of Poesy's adored Prince of Light.
He hath no sponsor save his muse forlorn ;

A voice all sweetness and impetuous might;
A heart unbridled and a hope death-shorn

Remains— and squandered blood that hides from sight!

SHAKESPEARE

When the brave tackle of Life's craft is torn.
And Hope's high pennon frays before the blast,
My star of guidance vanished in the Vast,
And the dun night grown deathful and forlorn-
Then, turning fain to thee, the gates of Morn
Swing heaven-wide, and the clouds, all overcast.
Are rolled from sight; the rocks and shoals are passed;
Safe on thy affluent ocean I am borne;

There I hear Ariel singing; there they file,
The birds of Faery to their hid sea lair;

There with unnumbered kiss Aurora's smile
Beams roseate, there she shakes her golden hair;

While down the en.inieled deeps, in sportive guile.
The sea-nymphs flash their ivory arms in air!

340

A GARLAND OF SONNETS

MILTON

Next to our mightiest mightiest dost thou stand,
Great heart of patience, charged with patriot flame.
Shining thy stateliest midst thy country's shame,

A nobler Samson to that time's demand.

Thou Orb of Song! whose prismic beams expand
Still o'er thy country — brightening forth her claim
To empire ; prouder, sweeter for thy name

Than all the prescience that her courts command.

As when within that^ green Italian vale

The Kiss of beauty touched thy sleeping brow.
So did the Muse thy purpling years endow

With consecration to that sounding tale

Of Earth and Heaven that moves before us now.

And doth o'er Time and shifting modes prevail.

DRYDEN

Stout, crowned with praise, the wits around his chair.
Sipping his cordial or his cup of tea,
Full primed with aphorisms choice or free.

Sat "glorious John," who trimmed to every air!

The biggest brawn on the air-na there.

He shook the town with vauntings, then on knee
Bartered his birthright for a huckster's fee,

And thrust his muse aneath a lordling's care.

Still he ; iought valiant service; none that day
Might bide the baited gladiator's blovre;

His ponderous truncheon crushed the foe at bay;
How grand to watch him on MacFlecknoe close!

The drums resound, the trumpets loudly bray
As down the age that lordly galleon goes!

A GARLAND OF SONNETS

34«

POPE

Behold the foe of Grub Street's rival ichools,
The Richard Crookback of the kingi of rhyme,
Forging firm couplets of heroic chime,

And routing all his masters at their rules!

How brave an arsenal of shining toe'
He brought to shape his fanciful su. lime.
Spurning each proud Maxenas of the time,

And shoving all the dunces from their stools!

And you deny him greatness? Would to-day
Your acrobatic bards could fill his place!

His art and range were bounded? Who can sway
More forceful measures in such narrow space?

Yield him, O Fame, thy brightest three-leaved bay,
Mind, manners, modes — the Horace of his race !

BURNS

Hb was my earliest, nearest, sweetest friend!

His songs starred all my firmament of dreams;

Through them I caught the first auroral gleams
Of Her whose smile will haunt me to the end.
Here was my gold, the gold I might not spend;

Here was my heaven, a heaven of earthly beams;

I heard that rapture rippling like the streams;
I heard the Loves their rhythmic voices blend.

Ye banks of Ayr, how happy should ye be
Whereon the feet of your dear minstrel trod!

For even the siui, methinks, more tenderly
Than other turf must kiss your lowly sod.

O happy Scotland, earth doth envy thee
Thy kingly ploughman, thy disguised God!

34a

A GARLAND OF SONNETS

SCOTT

Those broad bright Marches, Ballad and Romance,
Never were ruled by baron bold like thee!
No knight to Heaven or Beauty bent the knee

With more proud-wuled devotion in hit glance.

All stately as the Lilies of Old France
The banner of thy Fancy floated free.
O'er damsels, gallants, clansmen, monkish glee,

Pageants and courts, and tourney's crash of lance.

It gathered brilliante from ancestral skies;

It pictured Love, his dole and holiday;
Widdy it blazoned deeds of high emprise,

Or flung forth wassail, feud, and gramarye;
Or caught the gleam and glint of targe and glaive,
And blew to Border gales and watched the tartans wave!

BYRON

Beloved Greece, thy wreath adorned his pall I

The hero of thy resurrection time.

The vine<rowned Titan girt with power sublime,
Almost accomplished Heaven; unfearing all.
He faced the levin and the thunder brawl

Scaling the heights of Song; bis rebel prime

Pelion on Ossa planted; then with rhyme
Transcendent on his lips reeled down the wall

He fell, hard-iighting; dire the clash and clang
Earth heard through all her limits — then sleek jays

Piped chattering funeral, and foul chamel kites
Fed on the warm, proud heart; but wide outrang,

Sweet Poesy, thy plaint along the ways,

. And Love and Freedom brought their tribute rite*.

A GARLAND OF SONNETS

343

KEATS

Just as the earliest flowers began to blow,
(He felt the daisies growing o'er his grave)
His fevered heart found rest; those grasses wave

Unconscious o'er the form that sleeps below;

Yet there the "rathe primroses" surely know,
And tenf'T violets (howsoever rave
The rude winds o'er his slumber) that he gave

Them human love in human hearts to grow.

His "name was writ in water?" still 'tis called
By every dryad's ghost that mournful fleets!

That name the Summer's pageant hath extolled;
That name the Autumn's requiem repeats;

But he, with charms of Faery deep enthralled,

Hears no dull earth-tones echoing "where is Keats 1"

SHELLEY

To shore the sea-nymphs buoyed their captive dead.
Touched by a human grief; yes, there lay hand.
Heart, tongue, and brain of that august command.

All — save the soul that Heaven to music wed.

Clung curling yet the pale locks round the head;
Silent and prone upon the drifted sand.
He clasped her still, his loved Italian land.

The foster-mother to whose breast he fled.

We raised him on the pyre — in one great shine
The body chased the fleeting shade — 'twas meet,

That which had given the flaming soul a shrine
Should incorrupt as that bright soul retreat;

Yet, heart of proof, thy substance still divine.
Lingering in earthly love, lay at our feet!

344

A GARLAND OF SONNETS

COLERIDGE

Thy mind and heart — the dome of KubU Khan I
Thew twain were wed, like mountain jciined to sea,
In lofty, broad, cloud-merged sublimity,

With words that awe yet soothe the soul of man.

From Earth to Heaven thy circling vision ran,
Yet, free in thought, thy life thou coulds't not free;
The Knight of Poesy, enchained in thee.

Slept on his arms and ne'er fought out his plan.

Yet, Truth, divined in dreams, blooms best in Art ;

One dream, O mystic, blown within thy mind,
Thy Mariner's tale, of Love's own life a part,

This wizard bay-wreath doth thy temples bind;

This orphic banner floats to every wind —
One cross of service blazoned on thy heart I

WORDSWORTH

The quiet of the woods was in his soul

And in his song were winds and murmuring streams;

Across his vision broke Love's rarest gleams.
And English faith held o'er him proud control.
He was Truth's eremite with beechen bowl ;

The wayside life and legend shaped his themes.

Led softly through his meadowy realm of dreams,
But round the heights rang Freedom's trumpet-roll I

Prophet and priest and bard — the humble throng

He loved and voiced, from the great Mother drew
His litanies and choruses; the blue

Of Heaven and green of Earth illumed his song.
He was the Joshua of an art made new,

And of his peers the Godfrey chaste and strong.

A GARLAND OF SONNETS

345

HOOD

There, tnidit hii children't noisy, prattling play,

Hard by the duity city'< ion rlang,

A wing-spurred Herin • f.om diiM earth he sprang
And soared untramme'ivt •<. n^h im a:^ure day.
That plumed Fancy '.ui! i j idvuu. \ a'

O'er magic ocear- .hrrr tl.u 'Tiermiii Jing;

Then veered once )„,rr wluie 'im.hh >»'ices rang
Of Love, Want, Cvmv, .'nil Hu.'h.uiil', Happy day.

Alas, again the pack-lorsr >{ t! : l'r~i^,

He folded close his pinions' ,!i ''t ri i^ pride.
And to the mill of jestiii^' l''h' lue wm tied.

To strain his heart-strings in that vile duress ;
Yet even the ignoble task he glorified —

Through that sad mirth still flashed his loveliness!

SCHILLER

Both lyric wreath and Thespian crown were thine.
And thine the Germans' pledge from mount to sea;
For thy first thought, /o maie the people free.

Was to those hungering souls Love's corn and wine.

The hapless Mary's hope illumes thy line.

While Wallenstein's dark form abides with me
Since, when a lad, I laid upon my knee

Thy heart, all throbbing through its leathern shrine.

The nations' tocsin thine! Thy Bell is heard
On ocean coasts scarce known to thee by name;

The deathless cadence of Tell's dauntless word.
Hath wed the Switzer's Fatherland to fame;

While Swabian youths, by thy bold measures stirred,
Their proud old Eberhard's liberties proclaim!

'ii

346

A GARLAND OF SONNETS

■if

GOETHE

Forth from the jungle of dark creeds he may

Who wills walk by thy star's unfaltering shine,

O Liberator Soul I Thou dost define
And hold life's secrets in wise-guarded sway;
And yet thy art looms amplest, and thy lay

Pours forth enlightening flame; and as the Rhine

Ripples to sea, thy human-pulsing line
Speeds world round, broadening its imperial way.

Goetz, Wilhehn Meister, Faust — no haughtier themes
By wizard geniu^ e'er conceived or penned!

These will not cease "to feed our lake of dreams,"

Nor will churl Time outbrave them at the end.
, Thought — Love — inwoven thus thy laurel gleams;
Poet and Seer — yea, wisest, truest Friend I

B^RANGliR
{Jt the Coronation 0/ Charles X.)

Yes, there he stands — you mark him down the street,
Yon, dream-eyed, little, bald, round-shouldered man I
While Paris thrums her day-long rataplan

Of loud huzzas and million-surging feet.

Tyrtaeus bold is he, Catullus sweet!

Or well had passed in Tempe's Vale for Pan
In modern garb; draw nearer now and scan

The form of one whom kings have feared to meet!

Ay, sirs, here is the king! That shape who goes
All drums and trappings merely stuffs the crown;

Here rusty black and there the ermine shows;
The throne's a candle for our clerk's renown ;

That galley toward the hungry Maelstrom rows;
This shallop storms nor hidden locks may drown!

A GARLAND OF SONNETS

347

HUGO

Though banished, Prospero, to thy mid-sea isle,

State thou maintaindst most ample; thou could'st call
Thy choiring Ariel, or sea-monsters haul

From sounding caves by magic's strenuous wile;

Thou could'st the storm unchain, make ocean smile,
Or hold the hearts and minds of men in thrall;
Yet Jeanne (Miranda, dearer far than all

Thy art) could aye thy darkest hour beguile.

Beyond the surge thy natal dukedom lay,
Dominion of brave hearts; thy dreaming eye

Watched with paternal longing day by day -
Its coast-line, where pale Freedom rose to die,

'Til fell the usurper; then to ampler day
Restored thy passionate slave of sea and sky.

TENNYSON

Thy fame stands wide as England's! If I lay
One song-wreath at thy feet, 'tis not to grace
So much thy triumphs, or thy high-throned place

Amongst the minstrels of the modern day.

As to confess thy erstwhile sovereign sway
O'er my affections; thine was once a space
Near Shakespeare; if that splendor Time efface.

Its beam grows mellower, may not pass away.

Thou art our own King Arthur — I, a knight
Unscutcheoned, unannounced in lists of fame;

Content to win, when proved, some slight acclaim
From lips like thine; unwilling most to fail

In service or in vigil; keeping bright
Armor like thine in quest for Holy Grail.

A GARLAND OF SONNETS

BROWNING

The tangled currents of the rhythmic seas

Stream through thy song with many a swiri and sweep;

With storm and cloud and sunshine o'er the deep,
And bright waves lapping to the variant breeze.
Thou hast conned secrets 'tween Jove's mighty knees,

And kenned the vision of life's toiling steep ;

Hast heard the strong men groan, the women weep.
And drank earth's gloom and glory to the lees.

What though thy careless hand hath jarred the strings?

Thy harp still rings to Thought and Beauty true ;
Though from Italiarl earth thy phoenix springs,

Her gaze strikes ever toward the English blue.
O, teacher, brave and wise, the proudest things

Of Faith and Love through fire have come from you!

ARNOLD

The World denied thee gold— Heaven gave thee verse;

A burst of morn on . Learning's peaks of snow !

Under sweeps ever Emotion's tidal flow
And therein Love her fair form doth immerse.
Nature and Art, these twain, thy mother and nurse.

Mixed fine thy mould through thy grand age to grow;

Sonorous, pure, their mingled clarions blow.
Unchecked by Time or Change, above thy hearse.

Sohrab and Rustem, Tristram, Marguerite —
The twain of Homer's large, authentic breed;
The third, Love's Knight, faithful in word and deed;

The last. Love's perfect flower — a kindred sweet!
These for thy fame, O royal palmer, plead,

And lay their chaplets blooming at thy feet I

A GARLAND OF SONNETS

BAYARD TAYLOR

Here fir^ the poet's scrip,— his ready pen,
The staff of service on his pilgrim round.
Now laid aside; for he in sleep is bound,

No more to wander through the ways of men;

But these his furnishings, ingathered when
He wandered all Arcadia's laurelled ground,
The cheer and nurture of his journey found,

He hath bequeathed them to the world again.

Herein note Love, his crust of daily bread
Romance, his flask of wine, and Reverie sweet,

I he rich-ckased missal brought from Orient clime-
Here also Hope, his belt, and from his head

His scallop^hell of Fancy; from his feet
The rhythmic sandals of his passion. Rhyme!

EMERSON

Voice of the deeps thou art! But not the wild

Ungoverned mouthing of the wind-lashed wkves;

Nor yet the dirge of billows over graves.
But crooning, like a mother o'er her chiW
Through thee gross earth with heaven is reconciled,

Thy songs, like anthems through cathedral naves

Dispel confusing passion; never raves
The storm along thy cloisters undefiled.

Light of the deeps thou art! as forth I glide.
From rock and whirlpool far, and tempest's' roar.
Sudden there looms an ever verdurous shore.
Whose towers in the still wave stand glorified,
Where thou, the Virgil who hast been my guide,
Lead'st me and leav'st me rapt at Heaven's dI)orI

349

330

A GARLAND OF SONNETS

LONGFELLOW

The New- World's sweetest singer! Time may lay
RikIc touch on some, his betters, yet for me.
His seat is where the throned immortals be.

The chaste affections answering to his sway.

As fair, as fresh as children of the May,

His songs, spring up from wood and sun-bathed lea.
Yet oft the rhythmic cadence of the sea

Rolls 'neath his verse and speeds its shining way.

In borrowed robes our English buckram yields
Small charm of style, but his he wears with grace.
Thru him the grave-eyed Florentine finds place

Among us; but across Acadian fields

Who is it moves with rapt and pensive face ?

Evangeline — to all thy love appeals!

LOWELL

Poet, who bore thy crown of seventy years

As greenly as the chaplet of thy bays, —

Who from thy throne of thought o'er-looked the maze
Of human life, high lifting midst thy peers
Heaven-lighted minstrel brows, — no envious shears

Of fate may clip thy laurels, but thy lays,

Brightened by Fame, bloom thru thy winter's days.
Sunned in our smiles a«d watered with our tears.

Not to the craf tsrf 7^ flsf rely nor the calm.
Keen-sighted critic, ///// rl»* patriot stirred

With passion, do our gra«M >'earts belong —
Bur to the new t fumifi >■ f h his palm

And cross of valianf s-etvui, lifted and heard
Through the long, vow luiit vigil of his song.

Sift?

A GARLAND OF SONNETS

35 >

WHITTIER

The call was Freedom's loudest — 'mat that blast
Down crashed the walls of Slavery's Jericho I
(Beware, ye proud, the fighting Quaker's blow,

When once he strikes ye well may stand aghast!)

Now all those storms are far forspent and past,
Thy martial trumpet long attuned to peace,
While still to bring the courts of Heaven increase,

Those olive blooms of song abroad are cast.

O, strong and faithful watchman — may this state
In memory long that lifted v\arning keep!

Thy strenuous voice hath given us bonds to fate;
We dread no harm while we that blessing reap;

Old age, 'twas never thine — a warm, sedate,
A mellow sunset brooded o'er thy sleep!

WHITMAN

In him, time-balanced mind and cosmic heart

With common human speech were reconciled.

Heed not the jargon tongue, the phrase defiled,
The roughened hand, ignoring forms of art.
Nay, from his breast what yearning sighs depart !

Hark how thuse vibrant tones grow pure and mild!

While with the freeborn heart-beat of the Child
His Earth-song rises and the echoes start.

What sentient wind makes answer? 'Tis thy breath
Borne round these shores, O Queen Democracy!
He stands thy spokesman, thy new prophet, he;

He leads those souls whose faith o'ermasters death ;

She triumphs still! whale'er the Preacher saith,
The horn of Odin hlows and men are free!

35a

A GARLAND OF SONNETS

MORRIS

Chaucek and Spemer, gather him to your heart,
That burly Radical of dreamy rhyme I
And crow him with the Trouvere'a bay sublime,

That ne'er till now had graced the British mart;

Tho late, for him the story-teller's art

Came glamorous out of Fancy's buoyant clime,
The mintage of the golden ore that Time

Draws from world childhood ; (or he voiced in part
Your mid-sea swaying melodies, the breath

Of pastoral lands, of flowery meatb. and meres,
And your pale, poignant picturing of death

And your dear, tender ruth for love in tears.
No idle singer, he, whate'er he saith;

His pilgrim torch relumes the shadowed years I

KIPLING

The East hath reared her Viking! lo, he comes
Laurelled with victory to the purpled West,
Voicing the proud, vexed century's unrest,

With fifes, harps, sackbuts, psalteries, and drums.

His galley, pitched with rare and odorous gums.
Floats far the Dragon o'er the billow's creit ;
Neath bellying sail his round world ked i> pressed ;

The Empire trade-wind through its cordage hums.

No vassal laureate he! he wears the crown
Of English hearts, the roses sever sere ;

The rooted loves that bloom in bold renown;
Those sheaves of promise ripeaing in the ear.

The pledge of birthright nations! 'gainst the frown
Of Fate herself, stands England's faith writ clear I

A GARLAND OF SONNETS 353

MISTRAL

O FAIR Provence, thou land of corn and wine !

Provence, thou brave, sweet boow of Love and Song!

In arts, in arms, in princely feeling strong,
Once more the dream of Poesy is thine!
Thine is the latest Troubadour whose line

From Ronsard runs in honor; of that throng

King gleeman, who still wind their pipes along
From towered Avignon to Camargue's blue brine.

Mireio, of Death the dearest bride.
Thy love and grief for aye, for aye are sung!

The Homer of his cherished vineyard side,
His heart e'er tender, bountiful, and young.

Swells bold with song, with more than Roman pri(k^
The brave Horatius of his native tongue 1

L'ENVOl

Go forth, my Utile boot, my rhild of Song!

My chiefest solacv all these years along.

I've writ thee with small thought of praise or pelf,

I've writ thee studiously to please myself:

I've writ thee lovingly; but, comrade, now

Godspeed! my true interpreter be thou.