3537 1133 .T) 1908 v^C m\M'i Class .^sS^-i^j.^^ ^w¥W^/^ABL COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. POEM S POEMS BY CHARLES SPRAGUE SMITH AUTHOR OF "BARBIZON DAYS, "^"WORKING WITH THE people" NEW YORK A. WESSELS COMPANY 1908 Copyrighted igo8 By a. Wessels Company August !1« LJBKARY of OONuRESS Uo eupies rteeei»t:« SEP 3 )y08 T.|C O ^ Ci^ To MY MOTHER On her Eighty-first Birthday CONTENTS Page My Muse i COLLEGE DAYS The Orient Brook 5 The Hills of Amherst 8 Sunset from Mount Holyoke 14 The Storm 17 WANDERJAHRE The Sparrow 23 Spirits of Light 24 Pebbles 25 Eventide 26 Ambition 27 The Silent Harp 28 The Brook 29 The Voice 30 Lost Boyhood 31 I Often Wonder 33 viii CONTENTS Page Waiting 35 The Dream 36 Poesy 37 The Elfin Boat 39 "To Daisy" 41 To Maggie 42 A Centenary Poem 43 Retrospect 48 Unity 49 The Three Voices 53 Beside the Sea 58 WITH THE PEOPLE Liberty 75 Fraternity 76 Marching Song 77 America .0 79 In the Bode Valley 81 MY MUSE My muse, thou art a simple thing, Thy home is in the silent wood, Where brooklet's laugh or sparrow's wing Alone disturbs the solitude. Where others find but rock or tree And as the wind pass heedless by, In Nature's own simplicity, A new world opens to thine eye. Oh wondrous peace to lie and dream, In Nature's arms, the hours away. Oh sympathy, that doth not seem. But is, to-day as yesterday. Then happy thou, my sylvan muse, Though faltering thine earth-born wings. Her heart doth Nature ne'er refuse. The heart that beats in lowly things. COLLEGE DAYS THE ORIENT BROOK THE ORIENT BROOK When the sun was low, And a misty bow, In each quivering hue, Reflected the blue Of the sky, Or the wavering rose of clouds that winged fly, Betwixt the earth and the sky ; I sauntered along, Keeping time with the song Of the Orient brook, While the trees above Down upon me shook Their dewy gifts of love. To the winds their tresses were flung, In the very madness of joy ; When softer breezes sung. They arched their heads so coy, That I laughed as I wiped away The glistering pearls of spray. Joy was abroad, Sparkling in the drunken sod, Whispering in the woodland nook. Laughing in the bounding brook. POEMS Shouting in the gale, Nestling in the vale, On the hill, By the rill, In the misty wold. In the sunset gold, In the air, Everywhere. But the gloom returned; The fires that burned In the West Were quenched by the clouds of the east The proud behest Of the storm had not ceased To hold its sway, And a pall, as of night. Stole away the light From the gladsome face of day. How changed the scene. For lo ! Where waves of light ebb and flow In the misty bow. They have died away. Instead of a laughing sheen, A murky sea rolls between The sky and the day. THE ORIENT BROOK The trees droop their heads and moan, And now they tremble and quiver, Breathing a human groan, As the blazing river Bursts from the gloom and still, While thunder pulses from hill to hill. The joy of the brook is dead. Instead Of a carol, there comes a dirge, For the leaves That strew its verge, Unripened sheaves. Were shorn from the trees By the angry breeze. And my heart's merry roundelay In the dirge of the brook dies away. POEMS THE HILLS OF AMHERST Oh for the harp that erst in Tara's hall In music answered to the master's touch ! Oh for the voice that sang ^gean waves Wine colored, far resounding, wind disturbed ! That I might wake again the slumbering strings, That I, inspired, might sing in Hmpid verse Thy glories, Amherst, by the morning Hght, Or noontide glow, or when, at set of sun. To guard the peaceful vale and circling hills, Veiled night leads forth her new enkindled stars. Ye morning hills that at the eastern gate Unnumbered aeons hold your steadfast watch, Hygeia bristling o'er with bearded pines, Aquilo's loftier peak and rugged flanks; Ye modest hills that gently southward trend, With measured step descending to the vale; A tremor stirs your forests as the dawn Slow whitens and each tree chants orisons. Ye southern hills, green monsters of the plain ; In those far days, when time began its course, From your high seats you gazed upon a lake, THE HILLS OF AMHERST 9 That trustingly lay in your strong embrace. Proudly you spake; •' These walls of adamant Have set their bounds to yonder cresting waves." A murmur stirred the bosom of the lake ; Exultingly she girt her armor on And hewed broad highway to the beckoning sea, And now, a rapid stream, just at your feet Flows tauntingly and bids you bind again With rocky manacles her glorious form. There Tom's bold crest assails the western sky. There Holyoke stands, home of the mountain bird, With beetling cliff and towering precipice, And fair Norwottuck in her robe of pines ; Gentler her slope and yet, ascending still. She stayed her feet nearer the trysting stars. Beside her stands a rude and nameless peak, For kindly nature throws no cloak about The rough hewn sides and bare forbidding crest Oft when the snows have robed in stainless white The peaceful valley and its guardian hills, 10 POEMS I've thought how Horace sang: "Thou seest where With ice and snow Soracte standeth forth." And, eastward still, fronting the gates of morn, That hill upon whose crest a pool cloud-born Unruffled crystal holds to sun and stars. Ye far off hills that in the evening land On bended shoulders bear the western sky ; Ye hills that northward look, bold Sugarloaf, Beneath whose crest, the precipice inhewn, A hoary legend marks King Phillip's throne, Whereon in state he sat, while to its base, Along the river's bank or on its breast, In their birch-bark canoes, the nations came; And forest-hooded Toby, prone outstretched, By dank cave rent, hobgoblin's haunt of yore. Ye hills age-crowned that, in your stalwart youth, Aspiring etherward in rivalry, Yet, gazing backward at the virgin vale Soft nestling at your feet, forgot your aim And paused entranced, ere yet the fleecy clouds Had decked with coronals your princely brows ; Oft when the summer lured to idleness. Or, in the Autumn, when, its gossamer THE HILLS OF AMHERST ii The hoarfrost weaving 'neath the vaulted night, With magic touch unclasped the prickly burrs ; Or e'en when winter with its icy shroud Of purest snow had covered Nature's face ; I 've lingered on the hills of morning-land And watched the valley in its changefulness Until the sun had reached the western gate. As when, from Red Hill's brow, New Hamp- shire's lake Lies stretched before us with its myriad isles Now thickly clustered, now far separate ; So lies the valley with its clustering trees Of ever varying shades of sober green. Here smooth and level as that inland lake. Which, undisturbed by winds, sleeps peacefully Beneath the shelter of the circling hills, Their image mirrored in its upturned face. So on the landscape, lengthening shadows, fall The darkening outlines of the southern hills. But when the wind breathes softly on the lake It smiles in ripples and wave-forms appear ; So, in forgotten past, land-waves uprose Upon whose highest crest wise builders placed The college towers. As burnished mirrors glow Their white roofs kindled by the westering sun. In the far distance, like a silver thread 12 POEMS Binding the northern to the southern slope, Flows fair Connecticut, just where the mead Slow 'gins to climb the west to overpeer The sunset land beyond the valley's bound, Here flanked by Warner, there, with mighty sweep, Encircling deep-soiled fields where Hadley sits By her broad streets and gray historic elms. Here at my feet lie, bosomed 'mong the trees. The country farmhouse, there the old white church. Or busy mill, for oft the mountain brook, That, up among the hills, leaps unconstrained From rock to rock like some wild mountain goat, Or wantons with the sedges on its banks, Or rests at times a shelving rock beside. While in its cold deep pool the fishes sport. There, bound by chains to turn the heavy wheel, With broken spirit moves, a sluggish stream. But while I linger on the eastern hills The golden gates a moment stand ajar. For, e'er he passed within, the king of day, A moment lingering, on the western sky THE HILLS OF AMHERST 13 Mirrored the glory of the land beyond. The portals close, yet still the western clouds Are loath to lay aside their royal robes. And, as I gaze, it seems a crimson sea, With here and there those fair enchanted isles, Where happy spirits incorporeal dwell. Above the northern hills cloud mountains rise, In awful majesty white peak on peak. Bathed in the mystery of the after-glow. As when, at sunset hour, from Leman's shore, To ether's calm Mont Blanc uplifts its snows. The light has faded in the western skies, And night with silent step ascends her throne, In sable mantle clad, bestrewn with stars, Her wand outstretching, o'er the nestling vale Peace falls, as falls the snow when winds are stilled, And Amherst sleeps, the hills her sentinels. 14 POEMS SUNSET FROM MOUNT HOLYOKE I STOOD upon the mountain's brow at even, When the sun had set And all the clouds that slept in the western heaven With the green hills met. The hills athwart those crimson cloud-banks cast Their somber lining, Before mine eyes grim shadows hurried past Round the hills twining. Far to the northward, linking shore with shore, The river, sleeping. Mirrored the delicate blush of clouds that before The sky were sweeping ; And, at my feet, down with its swift tide flowing, Seemed floating islands. For the clouds were rent apart where a wind came blowing, Fresh from the highlands ; And that long island, so like a school-boy's craft, With both ends pointed, Begirt by sunset clouds, all blithely laughed, With joy anointed. SUNSET FROM MOUNT HOLYOKE 15 The leaves that robe the trees on its either side In the air quiver; But greener leaves are trembling in the tide, Bathed in the river. And where the river, once in living curves All proudly sweeping To clasp the meadow land, no longer swerves, The waters, sleeping, Send five long inlets from their stagnant breast Threading the lowland, And, as the pale light flickered in the west. It seemed a white hand Laid on the meadow's mingled brown and green ; Joy leaped in fountains ! Till from the shining path, where I had seen Day pass the mountains, The last faint pulse of light had died away. Those eyes of the night, The myriad stars that hide till parting day. Heralds of the light. That wakes in the moon's white face at eventide, Shot ether-cleaving. Winged arrows forth. The river's wounded side, Their darts receiving, i6 POEMS Quivered with glittering shafts ; then far above, With eyes upturning, I saw first where those fires, in all wise love, Are ever burning. Round me dark, dreary, pine-gloomed mountains rose, In shadows hooded. Save where the shimmering mists at night repose. Or, all unwooded. The moon poured free. From maze of misting trees, In the gloom and still. The weird, wild notes came pulsing, on the breeze. Of the whippoorwill. And, all night long, until the break of day, In my dreams blending, I heard those notes, from near, from far away, Their wood-call sending. THE STORM 17 THE STORM T WAS night upon the waste of waters wide; Long since, companion of the weary day, Limning the western clouds with opal flame, Blood-red, the sun had sunk beneath the wave; And all was still — the winds had gone to rest ; The crested waves no longer swelled and surged, But laved with gentle touch a ship's proud sides While, from its height serene, the moon, full-orbed. Silvered the shoreless depths that slept beneath, Seeming to whisper everlasting peace. Oh ! wonder of that night, for, swinging free In hollow space, one saw the stellar host Move on its course till, ship and seas forgot, Earth bonds were loosed in comradeship of stars ! And naught disturbed the silence vast, profound, Save when a vagrant gull left mate and nest Lone on some isle to foot of man forbid, Soaring aloft as if to win the stars. And, on its pinions poising in mid air, — Afar discerned slow-wheeling sullen clouds In grim battalion surgent from the wave, — With shrilling cry, swift as an arrow turned. i8 POEMS But, in the brooding silence, that strange note, Falling through measureless spaces smote the ear With direful portent and with wonderment, For night still held the seas in slumber tranced. Uprose the waves, bursting the swathing bands That night had wound about them, and moved forth, Darting a thousand hissing tongues in air. Thrusting out eager arms to grasp the ship. Blackness of darkness fell, the howling wind Peopled the rigging with a world of shapes That moaned and murmured in discordant tones. As when some mighty organ throbs and swells As though a struggling soul were bound within, So throbbed the vast wild organ of the storm ; Deep diapasons of the surging sea Now rose, now died away to rise again. The whistling wind, responding to the strain, Combined to swell the awful symphony. The day is breaking, at the eastern gate The sun stands waiting, all his armor on, The while, about the portals of the morn, Dun-hooded clouds, in sullen, stern array. Their forces marshal to dispute his path. THE STORM 19 But on he moves, the vanquished hosts withdraw, And rosy morn lights up the eastern skies Calming the angry spirit of the deep. The sea-bird soars aloft to greet its lord, Cleaving the air with wild, free notes of joy. A broken spar tossed by the troubled waves — A shroud of foam — a ship at silent port ! WANDERJAHRE THE SPARROW THE SPARROW Come little sparrow and sing me a cheering, Summer hath left us and wandered away, Didst thou not mark that the winter was nearing? Why in the cold of the Northland delay? *' Drear lieth earth in its snow-shroud about thee, Voiceless the elm tree, the maple forlorn. Nature were dumb and her heart dead without me, I must remain when my brothers are gone.*' True, little sparrow, a crumb for thy cheering. Deep in my heart thy message I take. E'en in the winter the springtime is nearing, Joy will not alway my hearth-stone forsake. 24 POEMS SPIRITS OF LIGHT Whence come these vagrant measures, wayward things, Where have they birth? Not from within ourselves, their shining wings Have naught of earth. Spirits of Hght, from whencesoe'er ye come, Pass me not by. The heart shall answer though the lips be dumb, When ye draw nigh. PEBBLES 25 PEBBLES Again a child beside a stream I wander In idle play, And watch the circles widening until yonder They melt away. The floating things above the ripple quiver My pebble made ; And yet the goings of the restless river Are never stayed. The deeds, the words at every step I 'm casting In other stream. Widens their circle, or, like ripple lasting, Sinks into dream? 26 POEMS EVENTIDE Oh quiet eventide, Oh solemn hour, When Nature, bending, breathes her soul in prayer ; How sweet to feel that spell in all its power, Her hand to clasp, her God to worship there ! Whene'er overwearied with the dusty way, Yearning for sympathy, yet finding none, Hoping 'gainst hope through all the lagging day To earn forgetfulness when day is done, I lay my tired head on Nature's breast In quiet woods the murmuring brook beside. Ever I find companionship and rest And that deep yearning more than satisfied. AMBITION 27 AMBITION What is it to be great ; is it to climb With eager tireless foot the highest peak, Or, with a child's unquestioning faith, to seek God's will and, patiently, abide his time? Be mine the lower thine the higher part, Honor in life, enduring fame thy lot, And mine, to live unknown, to die forgot, Each loyal to the dictates of his heart. Equal in loyalty, then equal meed For service rendered, whatsoe'er it be. Of humblest field-flower, proudest forest tree, Of all her rich womb bears hath Nature need. To every soul of man there comes a call For service that no other soul can do : Then labor on and to thy part be true. There is nor high nor low unto the All. 28 POEMS THE SILENT HARP My harp is attuned to a song to-day, I watch and I wait for the song to come, Yet ever the eager strings are dumb. And the notes are dying, dying away. What can it be this yearning deep To sing of a something, I know not what. Some dream of the night perchance, forgot When morning came to rouse from sleep? I know what it is, I have learned it well. The ear may catch the minstrelsy The voice alas ! all powerless be The tale in the speech of man to tell. THE BROOK 29 THE BROOK Oh tiny brooklet, ever seaward yearning, What instinct guides unerringly thy way? The strong-armed hills, the flower-starred mead- ows spurning, The tangled woodland lures thee not astray. And why, impatiently, thy wavelets urging? Thou knowest not the goal to which they hie, Full soon with other waves commingling, merg- ing. Thy life shall pass, thy very name shall die. '* What time the bosomed clouds of spring, low- bending, Rewoke to life my pulses chained and chill, The ocean called and I, obedience lending, Forsook the shelter of my natal hill. " My name forgetfulness awaiteth ever, No hand may pluck it from the hungry sea, Yet, from my waves, nor time nor tide can sever Myself that, nameless, shall immortal be." 30 POEMS THE VOICE Wondering, questioning, o'er the deep blue sky, In spirit-bark I float. The spaces, star-strewn, yield me no reply, And yet at times I note, Amidst the silence of the circling spheres, A still majestic voice. The waiting Universe rejoicing hears And bids my soul rejoice. LOST BOYHOOD 31 LOST BOYHOOD A LOITERER by babbling brook, The boy forgot his passing care ; All Nature seemed an open book And comradeship was everywhere. But years passed by till careless youth Changed into manhood's earnestness, Life's half-revealed, half-hidden truth Clothed rosy skies in sober dress. No more within the woods I find That old-time peace my spirit craves, Though Nature, like a mother kind, Still tenderly my temples laves. Since first I heard the surges wild Beating against the shores of time, In vain, to gentle notes, her child Would Nature bid attune his rhyme. I know that sound so deep and dread, Like voice of seas that ever near ; Of future years the mighty tread. The winds are bearing to my ear. 32 POEMS Oh to be faithful to my call To hasten on the coming day, To strive, until the shadows fall, To clear the barriers away ! To share with men the power that fills My inmost heart with pulsings strong; To bid them hear the voice that thrills The strings of history along ! What matter if the eager feet Press not the portal of that day ; Though yearning eyes should never greet The goal of all the toilsome way? In vision I have often seen That sun in its full glory flame ; Then let me toil, though others reap In fields that shall forget my name. I OFTEN WONDER 33 I OFTEN WONDER I OFTEN wonder if the hoarded power Or more or less by every patient year, If not on earth, shall elsewhere find its hour Of full unfolding, or if only here We may employ our powers and so must choose 'Twixt this and that, a choice that haply leaves The richer half unfruiting. What to use And what to overstep ? The golden sheaves, His harvesting who yester evening passed, Allure me, for I dreamed within my breast. In youth, a kindred power, yet bonds lay fast About my life and thus, a seldom guest. Has Song my dwelling neared who with him stayed From dawn to middle night. When feet shall press The portal he has passed, the choice youth made Shall age bewail? No, if with singleness The higher will discerned I seek to do, Misspent I cannot be, and so I turn With joyance to the daily task anew. 3 34 POEMS Perchance some morn shall break when all I yearn To do and be, a now divided field, Shall stretch, unbroken plain, before mine eye Bidding me come and till, and e'en earth yield One golden sheaf of immortality. WAITING 35 WAITING How strange that thou and I Each other seeking, yearning to be found, Should see Spring, Summer, Winter pass us by, As the slow years turn round. I need thee as thou me. Full half our powers are wrapped about with sleep, And each must loose the other's chains ere we Our fields can till and reap. But though I hear thee not Hasting to meet me o'er the gladdening plain, Somewhere thou art, nor shall I be forgot When Summer comes again. 36 POEMS THE DREAM To I. J. D. I DREAMED a dream in my childhood That faded, faded away, As the leaflet fades in the wildwood, So green at the dawn of May. The spell of winter is breaking, The trees are budding anew, And lo ! with the world's awaking. The dream 1 had dreamed came true. POESY 37 POESY Once on a time, within the woods astray, I sat me down beside a singing brook, And lo ! the harp within, my harp, partook Its merry roundelay. And told, as ne'er before, how Nature's voice Speaks to the soul in accents tender, clear, As if the friend most loved of all were near To bid the heart rejoice. And yet how oft I 've lingered all day long Beside the brook and heard its measures swell And fall and eager lips were dumb to tell The changeful woodland song. As yestermorn I sat and pondered o'er The mystery of silence and of song, Lo! sudden murmur swept the chords along; Alas ! as oft of yore, 'T was gone before I caught and held it fast, Constrained to yield its secrets to my pen, That I in turn might tell them o'er again. As flitting shadow cast 38 POEMS By summer bird, that lightly beats the air, E'en so I hear and hear it not and yet The chords still quiver; ne'er can I forget A spirit lingered there ! THE ELFIN BOAT 39 THE ELFIN BOAT In an idle boat, o'er an idle sea, Drifting away so dreamily, The winds they blow, the waves they go. And a tale is borne on the breeze to me. High up on his wing a wild bird soared, With a note all mad and free ; While her soft white light the full moon poured On the trembling floor of the sea. A boat stole out of the paling west, As the day's last hour was told ; It shone like a star on the ocean's breast And swept to the path of gold. Black grew the clouds, while a solemn sound Rose from the heart of the sea ; The helmsman's head the moonlight crowned And calm through the storm stood he. Over the waters the winged boat Flew as the wild birds fly ; Songs of the sea its tall mast wrote On the black and lowering sky. 40 POEMS Foamed in their wrath the waters wild, Leaping to clutch their prey; The helmsman looked on the waves and smiled As he loosed the sheets away. Straight toward the east to the golden path, Straight toward the east steered he, Till the sky grew calm and the surges' wrath Was locked in the heart of the sea. And ever, as on the wild boat swept, Widened the path of gold — The helmsman knew that beyond there slept The land of the elfin wold. The waves they laugh and the waves they sigh And I look down into the sea. Nor wave nor sky will ever reply And the song is lost to me. "TO DAISY '» 41 "TO DAISY" ''Du BisT WiE EiNE Blume" To D. W. Daisy, just budding into womanhood, Unconscious, pure and simple as thy flower, Would I might find wherewith to weave a snood And crown thy temples at this morning hour. Most gentle, maidenly I picture thee, When to thy dwelling errant fancy hies, Half fearing, hoping half, of years to be I see the shadow lengthening in thy skies. Sweet Daisy, budding into life and hope. Mild be the sun and soft the summer air Beneath whose guard thy maiden petals ope ! West wind, this New Year's wish to Daisy bear. 42 POEMS TO MAGGIE To M. W. To most of us, Maggie, this life is a riddle, Just like thy own tough ones insolvable quite, To thee 'tis a ballad, a hey diddle-diddle, I 'm half inclined, Maggie, to think thou art right. My glad-hearted Maggie, a merry good morning, The old year is going, the new one is near, Full blithe was the setting, yet blither the dawn- ing, Hail it then with a laugh and a song of good cheer. Ah Maggie, my Maggie, that blithe heart go with thee. Flow shoreward or seaward life's joy-laden tide, And happy thyself, render happier, prithee, The gloomy-phizzed grumblers who walk by thy side. A CENTENARY POEM 43 A CENTENARY POEM Read at the gathering of the A^iericans in Berlin, July 4th, 1876 In quiet woods, by softly lisping rills, In voice of wind and song of forest bird, On night-robed mountains, on the noonday hills, Full many a note from Nature's choir I heard, Yet all in vain had sought a master spell To touch the hearts of men and fire my song, Till, as the evening o'er the Wartburg fell, My harpstrings dead swept spirit hands along. Before me lies a valley, fair as morn, Now undulating gently into hills. Now verdant fields far stretching toward the dawn. With solemn mountains and with laughing rills. A tower of hoary strength, the Wartburg stands, With garlands hung that freshen with the years, By conquerors twined, by gentlest poets' hands, And moistened with religion's purest tears. Upon the evening hills a glory lies, A crimson mist enfolds the western way, The dim reflection of those other skies, That lie beyond the portals of our day. 44 POEMS The silence deepens on the wooded height, The shadows lengthen o'er the misty vale, The birds* song hushed, the breezes' footfall light, The forest-murmur stilled, the night-wind's wail. Then terror seizes me that knows no name, From fading clouds of east lo ! sudden flame Upleaps the sky, and, through the hollow round, Deep, heavy pulses, wave on wave of sound, As though imprisoned sea had burst her chain. And hoarse-voiced waves led in her ancient reign. Against those shining clouds, a shadowy form Dark, grand, grim, terrible, as coming storm ! From glowing east far toward the paling day A somber march unswerving holds its way, On moving stately, solemn, sullen, slow; That ghostly tread the trembling mountains know. Now sweeps the plains beneath, resistless tide, A countless host, as death had opened wide Her brazen doors. In winged answer came To words no mortal lips had power to frame ; " The forms thou seest are the ages gone. Their finished work they bring to those just born ; From east to west unswerving lies their way. From lands of morn to lands of fading day. A CENTENARY POEM 45 The hope of coming ages rests on thee, America, fair home of liberty." " Oh give," I trembling cry, *' unfailing sign. Will she prove true to trust so dread, divine?" " If thou would'st learn the secret of the skies." *' Gaze toward the paling west," that voice replies. The spirit-shadow fades to mountain gray. I Ve been but dreaming with the passing day, Yet still, so real those marching nations seem, Seen and heard only in an hour's dream. My eyes turn longing toward the western sky And lo ! through rifted clouds, fair mountains lie, Transparent, silver, flooded with a light Earth knoweth not — then fall the shades of night. Our daily life 's the dusty way With narrow stretch of cloudland gray. Our dreams are hills from whence we see The far away futurity. And so, within my dream, their lies The secret hid in future skies. Oh thought too grand for human speech ! Oh mystery no mind can reach ! That we, Americans, should be The instruments of Deity, 46 POEMS In perfecting the ages' plan, Building the brotherhood of man : That God on our weak shoulders lays The hope of all the coming days. With trust goes duty hand in hand, What may not such a trust demand? If faithful found, those clouds shall fly That now hang lowering in our sky, And garlands of unfading fame Crown every lowliest hero's name. But, if our faithlessness betrays The dawning hope of future days ; If patriot's cheek, his country's name E'er mantle with a blush of shame ; If freedom's home should ever be A synonym for perfidy ; Then ermined robe of liberty But covers chains of slavery. That trust to others shall be lent, And, in just wrath, the firmament Upon our heads shall curses rain. For us the centuries toiled in vain. Oh shrink not then, if called to part With all that's dearest to thine heart; The noblest work in heaven's eyes Is self's completest sacrifice. A CENTENARY POEM 47 Not he who nerved by battle cry For God and country dares to die Hath earned the highest meed, but he Whose Hfe is merged in Hberty. So live, and when another age Hath turned another century's page, No thought of cloud shall fleck our sky, No shade o'er our broad empire lie. What matter then, if thy name be Forgotten by posterity? Forgetting self, thy land to free. Thou buildest for eternity. 48 POEMS RETROSPECT I CANNOT sing as I used to sing In the far away morning time, When every zephyr bore on its wing Its burden of rippling rhyme. A careless child I lived and I laughed With the birds and the brooks and the breeze, And the song-brimmed cup of the sunlight quaffed, Nor ever tasted the lees. And yet I would not have missed the days That stretch 'twixt the now and then, If a deeper note shall attune my lays That may speak to the hearts of men. UNITY 49 UNITY By many paths man seeks for God, And can it be, in error's maze All wander save the few whose ways Are those our sainted fathers trod? Lo, deep within its bosky glen, Bending in coy humility, The faintly flushed anemone Would fain, I ween, be hid again. The ruddy rose, the garden's pride. Unveils her beauty to the sun. Exulting in the life new won. Casting her chrysalis aside. The cereus in wondrous way, Uplifts her chalice pearly white. For, in the mystery of night, Wakens the force received by day. In varying forms, the life within. Bursting the bonds of winter's night, To leaf and flower transmutes the light. When the moist April days begin. 4 50 POEMS So human souls will ever climb By separate paths the bristling peak, When yearning hearts with patience seek To find eternity in time. The pious worshipper whose sight Follows with awe the holy flame, Ascending upward whence it came, Gropes blindly toward the source of light. Gautama's hand in Eastern skies Hath set a constant beaming star. And he who sees its light afar Discovers where his pathway lies. The highest truth, with varying light, Shineth for all their steps to guide, And 'tis a child's unreasoning pride To think our path alone is right. No ! ours is not the golden stair, God-wrought for erring human kind, But whosoever will shall find His pathway beckoning everywhere. And every upward striving wakes Within the heart responsive chord, For every soul that seeks its Lord The common brotherhood partakes. UNITY All-father never turns aside Refusing sympathy to him Who, groping in the twilight dim, Yearns for a hand his steps to guide. Go watch the birds, in rhythmic flight, The eagle spurns the baser air. Cleaving with swift and winged share A royal pathway toward the light. The robin's wing will never beat Those waves of blue that highest rise, But, weary from the lower skies, She seeks on earth to rest her feet. The skylark's carol, blithe and free, Falls from the blue and strange afar, Like music from a wandering star, Or seraph's morning minstrelsy. The horned owl must sit and doze On mossy bough the livelong day; He hath not learned the forest lay. The night alone his goings knows. Yet all the myriad forms that plough With winged keel the sea of air, Singing or dumb, in plumage fair Or sober coat, are kin, I trow. Si POEMS Ye patient feet, that strive to win, Step after step, the bristHng height, Ye eyes that crave the perfect Hght, One goal is yours and ye are kin. Dear primal light, or dimly seen Through shades of doubt that darksome lower. Or sweeping with majestic power All clouds away before thy sheen, Send unto each and all who seek Thy will, thy face, a guiding ray, And lead us upward all the way Until we gain the highest peak. THE THREE VOICES 53 THE THREE VOICES Dreamer What ecstasy, all fetters cast aside, That bind the soul, the free-born, down to earth. To soar above the clouds and feel the tide Of god-life quickening every power to birth. A moment lived in higher, purer air Effaces memories of prison years. And makes us strong a brother's toil to share. To our re-opening eyes, still holding other skies. Fresh from the hand of God, new born, our gray old world appears ! Earth Voice When fields are burdened with the yellow grain, Low bending to the harvest, and the earth Asks of the reaper that the winds again Blow free above it, that, instead of dearth. It drink through thousand mouths from air and sun Full life renewal, shall he answer naught, Because, forsooth, the half-day's labor done, His fellow toilers and his fields forgot, 54 POEMS The husbandman has sought release from care, Following the feu-follet of phantasy Through some imagined region of the air? The while, with vacant eyes, he scans the empty skies, Wind-harvested along the fields, his withered grainstalks lie. Dreamer Is there no time for singing? Must we forever toil ? May we not, skyward winging, Flee from the earth's turmoil? Only a moment resting Where the ideal reigns. Only an hour divesting Life of its galling chains? Earth Voice No path of dreams I tread ; The age demands of all a wakeful eye, A tireless hand; through work alone is read Of self and all that is, the mystery. THE THREE VOICES 55 Dreamer But, in those depths of infinite blue, My eyes have seen another world, And, when my spirit bark anew Seeks purer air, with sails unfurled, Of all its heavy burthen of care. The ship of my soul is unladen there. Earth Voice Dream-worlds allure no longer ; on the earth. Not in some barren region of the air, Man is to win his free and full new birth, O'ermastering fate through toil, Hfe's sceptre wear. No place henceforth for vain Imaginings That weaken will, place only for the call To duty, poet only he who sings The dawn and with his song enkindles all. Cloud Voice Dreamer, I heard thy measures sweet and low. And, son of earth, thy accents strong and proud. Now, while I speak from out the drifting cloud, List to my words and learn what ye would know. 56 POEMS In days of eld, with note of rustic pipe, The poet lulled the weary soul to sleep, Luring to rest where woodlands silence keep, Or where the brook goes singing thro' the mead. That age is past, the air is rife with change. Who has not heard the voice, that in the ear Proclaims : ** Another higher morn is near ! " And bids each do all in his spirit's range ? But, son of earth, how wilt thou shape and form The things that are to be from things that are? If eye but see the real, the hand will mar The block it seeks to fill with pulsings warm. Upward the mind must soar till it surprise Beauty and truth where they eternal dwell. Art is toil's sister, she can loose the spell That veils the changeless world from mortal eyes Lo ! this the poet's part and he has won The laurel, if to way-worn human Hves His song has brought the message that revives Faith, courage, strength to toil till day is done, Interpreting eternal harmonies No discords of a changeful world can mar. Disclosing that forever sun and star Shine in the deep blue of unclouded skies. THE THREE VOICES 57 But, dreamer, when thy h'ghtened bark again From that fair haven by the azure sea, Freighted with song for worn humanity, Spreads her white wings and seeks the lower main, Remember thou hast seen what few may see, And double share of mortal work is thine. To sing and toil, nor may the chaplet twine An idler's brow. In years that are to be, Companion with me in the blue afar, Thy lips shall learn a nobler minstrelsy, Bearing the message of the Deity In higher ministry from star to star. S8 POEMS BESIDE THE SEA First Voice Again I Ve fled the city's stifling air, The loathsome sight and touch of chattering men And, to this cliff lone beethng o'er the main, Have upward toiled, to seek relief, to share With the vast sea the burthen of my thought. Here only can I soothe my tortured heart, Forgetting even that I am but part Of the vile herd, I too a thing of naught. In jagged cliff and shoreless ocean's crash, Immerged, I seem, incorporate to be, While muffled roar comes through the night to me And, at my feet, the surges seething dash. Delusion of delusions, vanity ! Yon puny things that, from this eyrie, seem But creeping vermin, verily they deem Themselves of nobler mould than earth or sea ! Second Voice Yea, they but seem black specks against the sand, Atoms beside the proud infinitude BESIDE THE SEA 59 Of seas that know not bounds, of forces rude, Unkenned by mortal brain, uncurbed by hand, That ceaseless course the arteries of earth, Bearing to every part its portion meet Of primal energy, with every beat Of Nature's heart. Yet, first at human birth. As, when the spring quickens the dormant year, The rose from kernel breaks, from brute a soul 'Gan to emerge, aspiring toward its goal. Sceptered through mind, man thrones without a peer, Earth-life a tent that morn shall fold away, Leaving the spirit free to run its course ; Or turning Godward to its primal source, Or starward to the light of nobler day. First Voice How hard it is with reason's knife to cut From out the mind the canker rooted there In childhood's hour; a mother's tender care Fostered its growth, perceived its venom not. I know my soul, whatever name it bear. Or mind or brain, that force doth animate You call material ; Hellenic fate, Semitic God, are only common air. 6o POEMS They are but croonings of a toothless jade Those voices canting force ethereal, There is no force but the material, No after-bloom when petals droop and fade. Behold the silly fly, that struts about The orbit of my thumb, with equal pride, I ween, to man's, as equal, justified. Infinity the standard ; yet men flout The vastness with their utter nothingness ! What is the earth, your empire, but a grain, A shard, a pebble, tossed by restless main. Whose waves through all eternity compress In rhombs and spheres the jagged fragments torn From some primordial crag? Thou canst not rest, Poor whirling pebble, for the high behest Thou must obey of waves whose beat hath worn Thy roughness into symmetry. The earth. However vast, immutable it seem, Compared with man, it too shall as a dream Dissolve and vanish, haply other birth Finding in chaos, of all life the womb. Haply to farthest space in fragments hurled. Ages have come and gone, races have furled Their flaunting pennons, whelmed within the tomb BESIDE THE SEA 6l Of sinking mountain and of rising sea, Leaving behind no faintest trace to tell The tale of all they wrought ; the silence fell Engulfing them for all eternity. Orb of a day, whose feeble borrowed light Within the wave shall soon extinguished be, If thou art shadowy, what alas ! are we? Atoms forgotten in the Infinite ! Second Voice Atoms indeed, but softly blows the wind, The atom bearing through uncharted space, And, as it breathes, I hear a voice and trace Its steadfast march guided by higher mind. Not yet can morn the pallid night dispel. The east holds back its pageant, to the hills Cold mists still chng, the fog that slow distils From the dank plain where wrong and error dwell. And yet, as when the night her myriad eyes Closes, while splendent climbs the eastern way The morning star, we know the lord of day Full soon shall move effulgent through the skies ; So, age on age, in darkening firmament Of human history, one star shone forth, A Socrates, the Christ. The inner worth Of manhood these reveal, forerunners sent, 62 POEMS Star-heralds of the dawn. The arc begun At human birth shall sweep its circle full ; Master of Nature, man shall learn self-rule And follow on until the goal be won. Though, aeon upon aeon desolate, The earth awaited, yea, and should it be A sage's eyes have read the mystery That shrouded life and, through a vanished gate, Humanity toiled upward, stage on stage ; Whatever may have been the plan divine. Thou canst not fathom it with sounding line. Sinking through past to past, from age to age, Until thou recognize that man doth wear Upon his brow a mystic circlet placed By higher hand. There were no emptier waste Than earth, were man but clay and vital air. First Voice How human fancy errs ! Whene'er I keep My vigil neath the starry canopy. Over my senses steals mysteriously The influence of the hour. The changeful deep Seemeth at times to speak, yet well I ween 'T is all a dream ; 't is but the fevered brain Tricking the senses with its phantoms vain, Making unseen, unheard both heard and seen. BESIDE THE SEA 63 Yet Nature is a book that man may read ; But reason's lamp must light the deep-graved page, Not fancy's will o' wisp, if thou wouldst wage The holy war for truth. The age doth need Men who are true to their own selves, nor feign To see the skeleton of perished faith Still clothed in flesh and blood, and whom the wraith Of hope or fear can ne'er unman again. Such men have turned the pages and they read To blind humanity the mysteries, Showing religions all but empty lies And vulgar superstition every creed. And, ere the moon begins her nightly march, Pouring along the quivering ocean floor Her mystic light, come, and with me explore The pages written where yon tenuous arch Silvers the heavens. We call it milky way. Our sires beheld the stars, full-uddered kine, Bedewing as they moved the path divine, Late homing to the milking. Yesterday We held as truth, such child-imaginings; As true they are as every myth that man Hath woven since the patient earth began About the sun to wheel on tireless wings. 64 POEMS Yon tiniest starry point that comes and goes, Like mote of vagrant dust in noonday beam, It is a sun and fuller far the stream Of living light that from its fountain flows. Than from the orb man worshipped. Couldst thou stand As Odin erst on Lidskalf's trembling tower, O'erlooking all the worlds, the clouds that lower, Each other urging o'er the April land, A nothing were beside the nebulae. Those clouds of countless suns, star-dust of space. If such the milky way, what mind can trace The emptiness of human vanity? As tender children, shrinking from the dark, Tell each the other thousand idle tales ; Facing oblivion, human courage fails And feigns within the clay immortal spark. Second Voice Turn not away, thou hast but read a verse Of all the hymn, whose shining alphabet 'Wilders thy vision. Scan the pages, let The myriad stars their wanderings rehearse, BESIDE THE SEA 6$ Till thou discern, in all the mystery Of suns without a number or a name, A guiding hand, a plan divine, the same For clouds of suns, for weak humanity. The sea is whitened with a thousand sail ; Unnumbered keels, with seething steps of foam, O'erstride the plain of azure, blithely roam From clime to clime, but, tell me, what avail Were ocean's highway broad and unconfined, Were keel or sail, without the hand of man To guide the rudder, or that higher plan, That o'er the deep hath placed the moving wind? They too are barks, those mighty orbs that plough Limitless aether; at each helm presides That law which, steadfast to their courses, guides Earth and her sister planets. Thinkest thou Law self-created, or, as spark from source, An emanation from intelligence? If shard of flint discloses where rude tents Rude man set up, the mind, a new world-force; What hymns the cosmos from the worm to sun? Like getteth like, from mind the cosmos came, And, cosmic mind, it has no other name Than God, omniscient, omnipresent, one. 5 66 POEMS First Voice As if there were a God ! In very deed, " Go place a bandage o'er thine eyes and then Forthwith thou shalt become a guide of men." Thus speaketh, and hath spoken every creed, In days of eld when child-man vainly strove To lift the veil that covered Nature's face, Imagination might her features trace And hold mind prisoned in the web it wove ; But loosed for aye is superstition's chain, They, who have dared to question, these beheld The myths of Jew and Gentile all dispelled, Where science lights her torch, faith's tapers wane. You say there is a God, the changeless law. That rules alike the worm, the wheeling sun. Came from a higher source. That mighty one. That law personified, in trembling awe, On bended knee, you worship, and I wait To hear him speak as, through the aisles of air. Skyward ascends your softly murmured prayer. BESIDE THE SEA 67 But all is still, the temple, desolate, Proclaims your God as dumb as image formed With rudest handicraft. Your dreams are vain. The idols forged and fashioned in the brain Are idols still with fleshly passions warmed. The name of God, what is it but a veil Of flimsiest tissue, hung by human pride O'er th' unexplored, and nescience deified? The morning breaks and lo ! with skulking sail, The phantom gods, unmasked, forever flee, While, o'er the yet unfathomed mystery. Fair science spreads her wings. In years to be, Law shall alone be hailed as deity. Second Voice There is a God, beneath the finite lies, Beyond the seen, the unseen, infinite. Go climb the Himalaya, whence the sight May take its boldest sweep, the piercing eyes Declare, as plainly, other regions lie Beyond horizon's verge, as valleys rest Beneath the mountains' guard. Thou hast confessed Unwittingly the God thou wouldst deny. 68 POEMS With soul whose hunger earth can never still, Fain wouldst thou pass the outmost bounds of space That, haply somewhere, wistful eye may trace The cause of causes and the moving will. But every child of man that seeks to live, With loyal heart, in self-forgetfulness. On higher law intent, though consciousness Of God be absent, even though man give To Him material form, or any name Humanity hath named beneath the sun, He doth confess the omnipresent one; Yea, even though he will it not, the same. And all God's children are ; alike He hears The ignorant worshipper of stock or stone. The sage who, deep within his heart, hath known The truth and bears a light to after years. But lo ! the tardy moon uplifts her face Above the eastern hills and kindly pours Her calm about us. Fain, of distant shores, Her lips would speak, the cradle of our race. The weary path the Indian peoples trod Is bristling all with endless questionings. As, step by step, from low material things. They followed on to find the unknown God. Reside the sea 69 No eye of man profanes the mystery Behind the clouds, that veil the mountain's head. Is there a world beyond? re-Hve the dead? The mountain knoweth it, 't is Deity. Who saw the source from whence the waters came? And who can chain the river's restless flow? Perchance those still mysterious depths below Conceal the power we seek but cannot name. But lo ! the sun doth lift the shimmering veil, The mountain stands revealed a thing of earth. The wanderer finds the spring where hath its birth The restless river — and their glories pale. What foot may measure in the shifting sand The limits of the desert, limitless? What keel may o'er the azure pathway press Until it find the sea-confining land? Dwells here the God? — The morn, on eastern shores. In voiceless breakers beating, floods the sky, And, in the evening, ere the shadows fly, A wondrous tide its crested billows pours Of rainbow hues athwart the western wall. A sea of fire enfolds us, thence the sun At morn emerges, and, when day is done. There re-descends. Is he the Lord of all? 70 POEMS Is fire God? In deepest solitude, At midday hour, when scarce the air is stirred By sound of living thing, a crimson bird Is born and waxes strong within the wood. We hear the crackling knell of hoary trees, Beneath whose boughs it had its mystic birth. But when their ashes strew the parched earth, It vanishes as trackless as the breeze. Who sends the rain, that, o'er the thirsty lea, Outpours new life in gentle summer shower, But whose resistless, all-devouring power More dreaded is than fire or shoreless sea? Who rides upon the rumbling car of death? Whose sword of flame divides the firmament? Beneath whose feet, in awful chorus blent. Do mountains groan, and whose the sulphurous breath? Thus ages passed and, still unsatisfied. They groped until they found the seeming Lord Of all the manifold, the heaven-God, The sky enfolding all with mantle wide. The Vedic seer has reached the outmost bound Of things material and now, his eye, The holy depths, the still unfathomed sky Begins with reason's plummet line to sound. BESIDE THE SEA 71 What though he learned his gods an empty name. And questioned even, if a God there be; He wearied not, probing the mystery Until he found the soul from whence all came. That tireless searching for the infinite, With childlike faith, that wistful eye shall trace, Behind the work, the Worker, see God's face, Is it but dream dispelled by dawning light? Not all a dream. As tender children go. Trustingly leaning on a father's hand. Child ages followed prophet's, priest's command, Beheving these God's messengers below. The age of childhood ends, — the human mind Suffices to itself to find the way. The scholar is the seer of to-day. Free men we walk and, eyes uplifting, find The universe a cosmos, and the strife. Of jarring castes and creeds, to harmony Turning, as mind unveils the mystery. Uncovering the unity of hfe. Religions many, but Religion one ! An ordered universe, where each hath place. And, filling it, the Orderer's hand can trace — Lo ! this the goal attained. To-morrow's sun 72 POEMS Shall light a swifter course, as hand in hand, The nations climb together, ordering law, That, veiled in clouds alone, the fathers saw. Shines steadfast beacon, lights remotest strand. And, though the hand iconoclast efface The names the ages gave the Infinite, God is, for law is. They who seek aright, Doing His will, shall sometime see His face. WITH THE PEOPLE LIBERTY 75 LIBERTY Liberty, dream of the ages of ages, Pole-star directing humanity's way, Riddle, half-read by the poets and sages, When shall thy morrow become our to-day? When, the world over, each with the other Equal shall share and as equal endure, None for his bread be a slave to his brother, None covet wealth while his neighbor is poor. Lo ! in the East a new splendor appearing, Nature with myriad tongues bursts into song Courage, my brothers, that morrow is nearing, Liberty's morning awaited so long ! ^^ POEMS FRATERNITY Behind to-morrow's veil concealed, A higher social order waits, Where ancient wrong its throne shall yield And justice rule obedient states; Where, bound in steadfast brotherhood, The nations of the world shall stand, Their common aim the common good, And love the universal band. Sure as to-morrow's sun shall rise, That higher social day will dawn, And they, who seek as highest prize The common welfare, speed that morn. Then, brothers, help each brother man To freer, happier, nobler life And so fulfil the ages' plan And end forever sordid strife. Unbind the hand, unloose the feet And make thy brother free indeed. Free the awakening morn to greet Unfettered by to-morrow's need. Free to unfold, as flower and tree, The life within and fully live For all, in all, till earth shall be True heaven and fullest fruitage give. MARCHING SONG 77 MARCHING SONG Hark, hark the peal of clarions calling, A host unnumbered marching by, O'er serried ranks the pennons falling, The hills give back the battle-cry. Whence come ye hero-warriors hither? What lands, what ages gave ye birth? What crave ye still of bleeding earth ? What laurel-wreaths that shall not wither? To arms the clarions call. To deeds the doing worth, March on, march on, till freedom dawn And justice rule the earth. " We are the myriads, named and nameless. From every land and every clime, Who, in the fight for freedom, blameless. Found immortality in time. One struggle more, supreme endeavor, Then peace not war shall rule the earth For brotherhood shall come to birth, And every chain be loosed forever." 78 POEMS Again the clarions call, " Ho, all that live, awake ! " March on, march on, till justice dawn, Till freedom's morning break. Glory to God, the day is breaking, The long awaited golden morn, The heroes dead who, self-forsaking, Gave all to hasten freedom's dawn, As brothers, comrades, march beside us. On then to conquest of the world, On, till our battle flags are furled In freedom's peace, and God shall guide us. Ye mountains clap your hands ! Exult oh sky and sea ! March on, march on, breaks o'er all lands The dawn of liberty ! AMERICA 79 AMERICA America, heir of the ages, In the heart of the sea hid away, While history traced on her pages Of nations the birth and decay, Oh, virgin of kings and their minions, Of shackles that Europe must wear, Thy symbol the eagle whose pinions, Hold subject the realms of the air; How free and how peerless thy station ! Thy ramparts the limitless sea ! Oh land, from the morn of creation. Selected earth's leader to be, What fashion of man art thou rearing. On thy soil by no tyrant e'er trod ? As kings should thy sons be unfearing, Their homage paid only to God. " Oh fuller my bosom of sorrow, Than of waters the fathomless sea. And ever I wait for that morrow, When all of my sons shall be free. 8o POEMS For brother contends with his brother In ruthless and ravening greed, And lust has slain love of each other, For gold is the god of their creed. " But hark in the distance a moaning, As of seas at the full rolling in ; For winters unending atoning, Earth's springtime at last shall begin. My sons, from their blindness awaking, Have brotherhood's banner unfurled. Lo ! the chains of the nations are breaking, ' God rules,' is the song of the world." IN THE BODE VALLEY gi IN THE BODE VALLEY To I. D. S. S. (August, 1907) Brawling brook beneath my window, Back in thought I wander with you To the snows where you were nurtured. All about you stood the mountains, Granite walls as iron steadfast ; Yet, through aeon upon aeon, You have measured strength and mastered. Precipice to clouds uplifted, Riven crag that beetles o'er you, Crumbling slope that trees are mantling — These are way-marks of your conquest. Yonder hes a deep-soiled valley, Green with wheat to harvest ripening. You have wrought it from the ruin Of the hoary valley monarchs. Stream of folk-life, slow emerging From the brute, within the forest, Mountains rose across your pathway, Barriers by caste erected. Through the ages, with the many, Stable only as the water, 82 POEMS You have wrought and lo ! the mountains Levelled and your pathway open To the fields by you created. Ceaseless moves the hurrying brooklet, Ceaseless moves the folk-stream onward. Naught shall stay them, naught delay them. Till their task is all accomplished ; Till, within the mountain fastness, Flows the brook at valley's level ; Till the last strong hold of power Yields and man as man is master. Sit 3 IS*08 /