LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 Chap. Copyright No.. 
 
 Shelf....1la n "U S 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
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 J ru •<> rj/^ a a^Jt: 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S 
 
 J)OEMS. 
 
 UNSEEN FOOTSTEPS. 
 
 ORIGINAL DRAWINGS BY THE AUTHOR. 
 
 Author of '• Old South Shore,"' '■ hnmortalis,'" Novel " Jumpinji' 
 Judas," *• Tanganika," "Golden Cities," etc. 
 
 fm 
 
 '' ' '^^ A' •<';-'" '^ I 
 
 DEC 31 l^^fe 
 
 
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 BOSTON : 
 
 B. B. RUSSE LL, 
 
 57 CORNKUL. 
 

 Copyright, 1896. 
 
 BY 
 
 SOLON dogg]:tt. y 
 
 c 
 
 A// rights reserved. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Soul Lifk 
 
 To THE Roses of Irmma 
 
 In Silence 
 
 The Night 
 
 I Loved Thee, Irmma . 
 
 In the Shadows . 
 
 A Whisper 
 
 Footsteps of my Love 
 
 The Laborer's Princess 
 
 From the Tomb of Irmma 
 
 The Silent Shadows 
 
 To A. 1). 1889 
 
 Home and Mother 
 
 Ode ro Wendell Phillips 
 
 Our Flowers in the Avilion 
 
 Unseen Fooisieps at Gettvsbltkc 
 
 My Friend and I 
 
 Unseen Footsteps in the Oi.n } 
 
 Louana .... 
 
 His Ghost Touched Mk 
 
 Steps of Success . 
 
 Andato ..... 
 
 Nature's Rest in Rapture 
 
 Anna and the Roses . 
 
 Page. 
 
 7 
 
 10 
 1 1 
 13 
 '5 
 18 
 
 19 
 
 20 
 
 22 
 24 
 
 33 
 34 
 35 
 37 
 39 
 40 
 
 43 
 45 
 47 
 58 
 60 
 61 
 62 
 
 65 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Thk \'oya(;k t)v iHK Soul . 
 
 Irmm.a, IHK New Year's Rridi-: 
 
 Little May . 
 
 The Weddin*; 
 
 Boston Bells 
 
 Unseen Footsikfs l\ iiii; Old W 
 
 Thoughts from the Stars . 
 
 After the Oolokx Weddinc 
 
 Avilion i'.v IHK Saco River 
 
 Charlie's Lovk 
 
 La Bello .... 
 
 CoMK, Oh Comk ! . 
 
 Though Thou aki Dkad. 1 I-kkl '1 
 
 The Path Supreme 
 
 A Life Idvl .... 
 
 Nkak 
 
 69 
 
 72 
 
 7« 
 80 
 
 82 
 
 84 
 89 
 
 96 
 
 99 
 100 
 1 01 
 102 
 T04 
 107 
 
LLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 No. 1. Tired, theu rest, tired, williut^ to sail that twilight sea. 
 
 " 2. So often, O so often, in the little lane ! 
 
 " -i. From tliiit land where bloomed her orange tiowers. 
 
 " i. I am the Ghost who fades at morn, I come to the sound of 
 the wended horn. 
 
 " 5. Then to my oar — one oar, and the world adieu, 'twas dark, 
 whitlier the .shore ? 
 
 (>. And then the patient lonesome dog went down and moaned, 
 and slept long over Irmma's grave. 
 
 " 7. Ijouana's home and the brook. 
 
 " S. The Elopement. 
 
 " 9. Where Anna's roses bloomed. 
 
 " 10. She brought her loved guitar, sang to one shining .star. 
 
 " 11. One more row; but one. Sailing down the river some 
 bright unclouded morn. 
 
 '• I'J. Dear Saco. 
 

 
 ■^ 
 
 TiiCMl, tli.'u rest, tin-.l. willin- to sail that iwili.nlit sea. 
 
SOUL LIFE. 
 
 -^ 7"ET, my soul, I hear seas iiow on, 
 V/ Outdrawn by ever doubtful tides, 
 
 (^ And in their sweet return is love. 
 Think not, dear heart, thou art forlorn ! 
 
 Dissembling self in holy gloom ; 
 Loved, thou still drinkest hope, yet drawn 
 Far down such golden founts of morn. 
 
 Tired ! — and dim lights along the west ; 
 
 Night storms ; and shadows pale — 
 Longing for one dear Home — then — rest. 
 Half doubts, misgivings — tired ! — 
 
 Willing to sail that twilight sea, 
 When word comes o'er the deep for me. 
 
TELL not of the realms beautifully fair, 
 The ideal crests of the air, 
 But the life which is more suhlime : 
 One who works forever exultant, 
 O'er the anguish and trials triumi^haut. 
 Against the woes of his time. 
 
 O go forth to the woi k of thy days ! 
 Our whirlwinds are moving to Mays. 
 
 Gardens bloom sweetly beyond prison bars ! 
 Thus are our eves with the sorrows, 
 Changing ever to sweet tomorrows — 
 
 Griefs shining in night like the stars. 
 
 The sorrows, and labor, and strife, 
 They measure the meaning of life. 
 
 Not lives have we, like birds in the light: 
 Not the joy of a constant Eden ; 
 But the feeling of one who has ridden, 
 
 Bewildered on mountains by night. 
 
 .¥(%. «•^ .Mb 
 
Ungeen Foo'&g'&epg, 
 
 DEDICATED TO THE ROSES OF IRMMA, 
 A fid O'er the Withered Roses of My Dead This Halo Gleamed. 
 
 OTHOU, who rules my self control ! 
 All certain hand. Thy laws relight 
 Her rose-blown grave : the stars of night 
 Foretell, that sweeter years will roll. 
 
 Thou ! all-enduring strength. Our feet 
 In dust ! O weary soul in woe ! 
 When friend death's hridal-roses blow, 
 God calls across our lonely deep. 
 
 And man shall smite unyielding stones, 
 And hearts shall know a deeper care, 
 Or shouts of war may rend the air, 
 
 Thou wilt not leave us all alone. 
 
 O Thou, who brings my dear one home ! 
 
 And lights the hearth, and makes him stay, 
 
 Or brings a thousand joys today ; 
 
 Why should we always weep in gloom ? 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 IN SILENCE. 
 
 Ij? LEFT her in the little mound of liowers. 
 
 Ill Strong God doth know this darkness He hath made. 
 
 Lift up my heart, for once in happy days 
 The sunhght through her golden tresses played ! 
 Grief tells a secret when her roses fade. 
 To hear the silent footsteps of my Love, 
 Niglit harkens in the temples of the dead. 
 
 As one listeneth in the mountain walk, 
 
 Sees not, but hears the far off billows fall, 
 So our deep whispers of each tender thought. 
 
 The dead know who through the infinite call. 
 
 Dear, absent voice. Her picture on the wall. 
 And they are better known who leave us here, 
 
 Nearer they dwell with nature, all in all. 
 
 Stars, and the dark of a voiceless night ! 
 
 And the perpetual moan of sea. 
 And the lash of billows on lone shores ; 
 
 And longings that are smothered in me. 
 Years ! and silence of death by her door ; 
 And the kiss that is gone evermore. 
 
 O these shadows that come o'er my will ! 
 
 O these tears for the lips that are still. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 Clear dawn, and gleam of the Jiwrnin^ star ! 
 
 And the rage of the billows I hear; 
 For I, too, some dawn will flit afar 
 
 Out on the infinite bay with her. 
 Yet, a whisper is murmured so well 
 
 Though the gateways are piled with the strife 
 For the sweet in the bitter of death 
 
 Is beginning of a lovelier life. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS, 13 
 
 THE ni(;ht. 
 
 THE sensuous, solemn chords of night, 
 Were touched with lonely anguish deep : 
 There came a sound, a sound of love, 
 Like some dear step of angel feet ; 
 
 For o'er the heart there seemed a spell, 
 That would not leave at life's command, 
 
 A touch of calm, divining well. 
 
 Like pressures of a long loved hand. 
 
 Oh calm supreme ! O long delight ! 
 
 Thou teachest me to bear the tears, 
 Great sorrows of the darker night, 
 
 That waste the thousand thousand years. 
 
 So vague, so still, to every star. 
 Heart beats to hear the silent feet. 
 
 More soft the unseen footsteps are. 
 Than music's dulcet dreams in sleep. 
 
 Ye heard the harp-strings of the night, 
 
 Throb to one soul forlorn. 
 And waft through all the weary flight 
 
 A whispered grief as ocean's mourn. 
 
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 Ml (iltiMi, <) so olU-'ii, ill tlu- littli' laii(3! 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 I LOVED THEE, IRMMA ! 
 
 HERE is a strange and vaguely gloomy pallor o'er 
 my cheek they say. 
 
 I may not see the spring again. If it is so, 
 
 Irmma — you must cheer my way. 
 Wake me not — Irmma, if I sleep — before the evening 
 
 stars have set and gone. 
 You will only miss my dancing on the parlor lawn. 
 You will not see me, when next summer gently gleams. 
 If you want me — Irmma — you must catch me in your 
 
 dreams. 
 
 When I am gone — Irmma — through the long, 
 
 long summer nights you'll sleep : 
 Like some motion you may see me Hitting near you 
 
 when you weep. 
 The roses in the window, darling, I shall touch with you 
 
 at morn. 
 I shall find you, Irmma. I'll be a drop of dew, and 
 
 rest upon your rose at dawn. 
 And just the same you'll love me, though sad indeed it 
 
 seems : 
 But if you want mo. — Irmma — you must catch me in 
 
 your dreams. 
 
i6 SOLON DOGGETT'S POKMS. 
 
 3 
 In tlie meadows you will Iiear the blue-birds calling when 
 
 I am far away. 
 Where we walked together by tlie ocean, the beach will 
 
 seem all cold and grey. 
 Yet the early robins, in the bright long days, will be here 
 
 just the same, 
 But for me, () often you will listen ! O so often, in the 
 
 little lane. 
 You will be very lonesome, when the twilight creeps up 
 
 the dark and gloomy hill, 
 And all alone, you'll see the moon come out above the 
 
 tall wind-mill. 
 
 4 
 
 If you close forever my piano, put the music in the 
 
 rack — 
 Touch it not, unless you think forever — sometime — I 
 
 am coming back ; 
 O back again to greet you, and sing to you our favorite 
 
 song 
 When in time we shall be older, wiser, in the happy, 
 
 happy throng. 
 Be i)atient, Irmina, waiting through these long and 
 
 tedious scenes. 
 But if you 7i>(ifi/me, Irmma, you must catch me in your 
 
 dreams. 
 
 5 
 You will see my poems, darling, lying round the little 
 
 basket there. 
 Perhaps my canary birds will die. They hang above 
 
 the marble stair. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 17 
 
 You must be always careful of many, many things, you 
 
 know. 
 But if r die tonight, and with the evening stars I go, 
 Some way, I will promise, some how to come back to 
 
 you, 
 Unless our olden, earthly ways of thought grow so 
 
 strange and new. 
 
 6 
 ^^'ake me not, Irmma, if I sleep, before the evening 
 
 stars are gone. 
 For O ! in the dreary marshes, I hear the night winds moan. 
 When I have gone to sleep, this wicked, wicked world 
 
 will roll, 
 And just the same the rich and poor will for their trifles 
 
 toil. 
 I am going far away from this — across the woodlands 
 
 lone. 
 Wake me not, Irmma, if / die^ before the evening stars 
 
 are gone. 
 
 7 
 O! I know 'tis common — dearest — for all this world 
 
 to weep. 
 I know you will lament, when I lie low in shrouded 
 
 sleep. 
 See, Irmma, the horns of the moon look strange into 
 
 the sky. 
 All through the gloomy purple the stars go down and 
 
 die. 
 O far up the immortal deep, endless, long, summer 
 
 gleams. 
 But if you want me, Irmma, you must catch me in your 
 
 dreams. 
 
i8 SOLOX DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 IN THE SHADOWS. 
 
 THERE is a sont( beating strange and holy. 
 That is wafted from the deep, — 
 Where billows roar and worry 
 
 A sound that wails around the reef ! 
 
 Here is grief that is uttered ever 
 
 From the vague, known evening wind. 
 
 And I wait for the daylight's fading 
 For the voice that it will bring. 
 
 I can see vast and airy bridges, 
 
 And the silk sails softly loom, 
 Borne on ancient gilded barges. 
 
 Under the arches move. 
 
 Spirit-eyes I have been reading, 
 
 As I sat at eve while moaned the breeze. 
 But I knew this shadowed silence 
 
 And this wild music through the trees. 
 
 Dead friend ! thou steppest softly, 
 Near my swinging palace door, 
 
 O my dearest one, so gently, 
 Imploring me to weep no more. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 19 
 
 A WHISPER. 
 
 AWAY ill the shadows, and dreaming 
 O'er the days of a dead delight ; 
 What mean they, down in my doubting, 
 
 Footsteps Unseen, one hears in the night 
 'Twere thinking the thought of madness 
 
 That is ever haunting my sleep, 
 If not, in hours of my sadness, 
 
 Some voice called me o'er the great deep. 
 
 2 
 By the still world, Love, reclining, 
 
 Beautiful wind of the night ! 
 Why murmur, with days declining, 
 
 In slumber througli dim, dreary light. 
 Though my dead may have departed 
 
 Thy touch is welcome, as sweet ; 
 Thy breath — is it her same dear heart? 
 
 Same footstep abroad from the deep ? 
 
 I fee/ hex loved, subtle presence. 
 
 But never can touch her form ; 
 And I hear thy language chanted, 
 
 Through thy lyres till the chill dawn. 
 O why is my Iieart so restless. 
 
 Whenever thou takest thy flight? 
 This doubting on earth so ceaseless. 
 
 Beautiful wind of the night 1 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 FOOTSTEPS OF MV LOVE. 
 
 AMATIVO. 
 
 DREAMING roses 'mid the dews of morn, 
 Were not sweeter, or fairest Phosper, 
 When first she riseth in the white clonds of dawn. 
 O, while she sleeps ! — No lily on the great 
 Nyanza, rests upon the silent shores 
 More sweetly, or foldeth down its bloom. 
 
 Didst thou e'er watch the sun droop at even, 
 And the sad day close her tired lids? 
 Or e'er came the shadows of colder night, 
 Wrap all her hills about with purple robes, 
 More hopeful than in poet-lands of love. 
 
 So well, and deep in dreams, long sleeps my love ; 
 Silken steps so soft, no harsher fall, 
 Than a fresh rosebud bends unto the ground, 
 When blows the evening zephyr from that land 
 Where bloomed her orange flowers. 
 
 In affluent airs of summer eves, 
 When fall her kiss- dews o'er a sleeping flower 
 Winged from the deepening of the dark, 
 Falls yet sweeter her inspiring thought, 
 Or like petals of lone lilies falling 
 On lonely waters dreaming still and soft. 
 
ff^M^M^ 
 
 M'-^%a.'' /" 
 
 ^JP^ 
 
 4>. . ■ 
 
 
 From tliat land w hcri' hloomcil licr oruiiL',!' riowi-i's. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 21 
 
 And didst thou ever hear the bhie ocean 
 In cahi:!, kiss with a low, sweet murmuring 
 The balmy shores of still, Floridian isles? 
 Thus is all she uttereth, so calmly sweet, 
 O'erflowing from her fall soul's unshadowed deep. 
 
 O, I would give my life, and the wild ocean's roll, 
 The long loved exultation and the strife. 
 For that delightful, lonely water and its lilies' long 
 repose ! 
 
 
 ^a 
 
so LUX DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 THE LABORER'S PRINCESS. 
 
 DIED 1889. 
 
 T 
 
 IS whispered, like one's fate, 
 'riiis side tlie stars they roam ; 
 True love alvvavs wanders home. 
 
 If he heeds her footsteps, 
 
 Then the weary toiler, 
 
 Finds in grief a solace, 
 
 The truth, that want and gloom 
 
 Are more than church or state. 
 
 Then should be the worker happy, 
 
 His home the perfect home, 
 
 Where darling eyes dilate. 
 
 No more maudlin revels to the starlight. 
 
 Great men in mines as well as temples ! 
 
 True hearts in huts as in the palace ! 
 
 No matter what our cruel fate may bring, 
 
 Whosoever is contented, 
 
 He alone is king. 
 
 O, lonely in the halls of death 
 
 Why should we moaning rave ! 
 
 All are more than kings at death 
 
 Equal, giftless, you will lay in your grave 
 
 And in my days of darkness 
 My sorrows deepen Heaven. 
 Dreamless broods the moonlight 
 In the silent resting places, 
 Where the echoes dieth 
 From far-off low bells tolling — 
 Where dim shadows moveth. 
 Where nothing stirreth 
 Where Adel deep sleepetli. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 23 
 
 O Home ! that far off Home. Come home ! 
 Dear soul more pure than bridal roses blown. 
 
 And her spirit cometh — 
 Where the rose thorn twineth ; 
 Where the daisy kisseth, 
 Where the tall grass bendeth, 
 Through the long, long weary, weary twilights. 
 There the thrushes mourn farewell, 
 Where lonely sleeps — my only — 
 Only, sweet Adel. 
 
 Far over seas, that very day. 
 Those very hours ; 
 Among the greatof Earth a Queen was laid away. 
 They both slept pale in the purple morn. 
 Who is the greater Princess? Who shall say ! 
 The one who died with a golden crown, 
 Or the one who wore the simple wreath 
 Where the humble daisies wave? 
 O all are more than kings at death 
 And equal we all will lay in our grave. 
 
24 SOLON DOGGETT'S POKMS. 
 
 "FROM THE TOMMS OF IRMMA." 
 
 A IJIGF.XD. 
 
 AMARAMENTE. 
 
 I am the Ghost who fades at dawn, 
 I come to the sound of tlie wended horn. 
 Out on tlie marsh the moon is late ; 
 And I watch the old kings come and go, 
 As I stand long years by my castle gate. 
 
 Is it the wail of the far-away billows. 
 
 That murmur so vaguely to me ; 
 
 The tramp of the surf on the raving shore, 
 
 The sound of the breath of the sea? 
 
 Is it the sad glimmer of a light I know, 
 
 That gleams to the desolate waste? 
 
 Like a distant dance of a lonely woe, 
 
 Where the damps of the night-fall haste. 
 
 Is it the glow of the same old light, 
 
 That she placed once there for me 
 
 In the old tower window on high, 
 
 Near my sweet palace home I loved by the sea. 
 
 Is it the rustle of her silken skirts I hear? 
 
 I hear agiin through tlie low green pines — 
 
 As once she flitted through that night of fear. 
 

 
 
 
 i 
 
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 I am the (ilio.sl wiio lailes at iiioni. I come to tin' somid uf the 
 weiuled horn. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 25 
 
 To the hiss of the surf's wild breaking lines. 
 
 No ! none of these ; for she has gone ! long gone, 
 
 And alone in the dusk I vainly wait, 
 
 For the coming of Irmma — my sun — my morn, 
 
 As I watch all chilled by the dear old gate — 
 
 Oh for these thousand years I wait, and wait ! 
 
 2 
 The castle stands the same except her room so still. 
 I have heard the beat of a hundred sounds — 
 But none so sweet as the beat of her heart. 
 
 it rests so cold in her father's grounds ! 
 Curses to the father who kept her from me ! 
 'Twas but a little while — yet long, long ago, 
 She put the light in the tower for me, 
 
 To keep me from a grave of wreck and woe. 
 
 She was sweet — indeed she was sweet ! 
 
 And Hell for the brother that drove me away 
 
 From the gentle sweet flowers at her feet 
 
 That grow on her grave to the dawn of the day 1 
 
 Hallowed the vines by the dear old gate. 
 
 Unhappy as night grow the pale, purple flowers, 
 
 Ah ! while I am weary, and vainly wait 
 
 For the gleam of her light in her far-away towers. 
 
 3 
 
 1 am the Ghost that wants my will. 
 
 Long years — long, silent years — her locks lie still ; 
 The golden tress that fluttered to the red eve ; 
 And I dream and dream — of what might have been ; 
 The dead dream-flowers that about her wreathe. 
 The king of the "snowy plume" won her not ; O no ! 
 The king with a silver shield did not ; O no ! 
 But my heart she loved, beats alone at this gate, 
 I watching the chiefs by the tower come and go. 
 Did I ever do or dare a noble deed for her? 
 Did I sacrifice a tired limb ever more ? 
 
26 SOLON doggp:tt'S poems. 
 
 Did I travel a desolate deep in woe for her ? 
 
 Did I plod through torrid suns for her o'er and o'er? 
 
 One lost his name, and all glory for her ; 
 
 A shield split in twain in a fiery rout ; 
 
 A head and a helmet were cloven in vain ; 
 
 But what did ever I do to win so fair a heart? 
 
 But she is dead ! and speaketh now no more ! 
 
 what can I do yet for the honor of her ? 
 What sacrifice make for the absent I love? 
 
 What ransom in bright gold for the days that were ! 
 Can I not give my life and my blood ? O no ! 
 Ah, ever and ever I weep and starve o'er her grave. 
 Can I sail to the isle where the wild winds blow, 
 Can I battle for her the blast and the wave ? 
 Ah me ! but the billows roll ever and rave. 
 Not for her the height, and the battle is won ! 
 Not a deed can I do for her love — too late ! 
 But to sit and mourn by the dear old gate. 
 
 4 
 Twenty kings have passed me now 
 In the silence of my night ; 
 
 1 saw their waving plumes on high, 
 Full winged with silver light. 
 Each sought my Irmma there, 
 
 But met a darkened fate, 
 
 That rose in sighs upon the air, 
 
 I, breathless at the gate. 
 
 'Twas here she heard my early vow. 
 
 First wore my golden ring — 
 
 That ring alone is with me now, 
 
 For kings she would not sing. 
 
 Down in her heart her song was true, 
 
 Though dipt too early on the wings, 
 
 From lovely eyes fell sweetest dew ; 
 
 They now are dust for northern winds. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 Here is my castle I built for her, stone by stone, 
 And the seasons rolled fast, and the builder laid all, 
 Though her name was not carved by him in the rock ; 
 In my heart I engraved it with each blow on the block. 
 This arch is for her, or will she like this, or even this, 
 Will she step on this diamond floor in the dark? 
 Shall I swing here a golden censer at her wish, 
 Here build a dormer for those sweet blue eyes to 
 
 gaze on the park. 
 And as the dear place rose a joy on the dark heath, 
 I looked in smiles to the vale of our happiest years. 
 But the archway of my castle has changed in a 
 
 breath, 
 To a cold threshold of a temple of tears. 
 Over the fireplace glow the gold-tipt horns of the elk, 
 And the tiles of alabaster, of bronze and of brass. 
 The weird faces stare, carved of the dark old chiefs, 
 And gloat o'er the shield and helmet I found in the 
 
 marsh. 
 I have built all for her — yes, for her ! 
 Perfect — how perfect is all this rich, gilded room ; 
 Perfect to the last touch of the architect's will — 
 Golden all — but for her to gladden the gloom. 
 'Tis to the dell that sleeps under the orbs of the dark 
 I gaze in the silence to the far away light 
 Of her father's tower, swung like a devil's dart ! 
 
 never the beam she hung for my deepest delight ! 
 And my teeth are set, and my hands are clenched, 
 Will he ever pass the gate of my castle of gold ? 
 Can I bear him — or the brawl of his tongue? 
 
 1 could cut for the dogs on the wold ! 
 
 I sit in the dark, and feel the touch of the sweet 
 
 little hand 
 Of Irmma, who said, "he was dear father indeed." 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 29 
 
 I am near to the shore in the trough of an awful sea, 
 One more — and again ; and I leaped from the bow 
 
 before. 
 Ah ! and the sand it tickled my feet ; the light 
 
 gleamed to me, 
 I with scarce a robe, drenched by storm and rain. 
 My Irmma was there, and beckoned me on to her 
 
 tower. 
 It was she, who put the light there alone for me, 
 She, my angel, to guide me in so dark an hour. 
 But whom should we meet, near his castle gate, 
 But her father, w'ho shook with a wrathful ire, 
 " Why here ? Abed — be gone ! " he spoke with eyes 
 
 of fire. 
 And grasped his daughter by her golden hair. 
 One shriek. A bolt came down, tore up the white 
 
 sand. 
 Oh, cursed be the lightning and storm that night ! 
 Oh, could it have wrenched to the ribs, 
 The rings, and the bolts of his castle instead ! 
 Then he turned on me. I was cold. Numb with 
 
 the storm — 
 Or his white corpse would have whitened the sand 
 Where he dastardly turned on me like a dog, — 
 I shielding Irmma with my trembling hand. 
 He cried " I am not a slave of the shore. 
 Should I leave my bed of crimson and gold 
 To save from a grave in the surf, such as thee — 
 Let that be the work of the pirate of old ! "' 
 And my limbs grew strong with that word — 
 For the pride of my name and heart was touched, 
 And my Irmma I clasped and said; "frail bird 
 Kill thy father?" but clutched the word in my 
 
 throat. 
 I railed on him ever after, and bit at his heels. 
 
30 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 Did I watch him at night in the garden below ? 
 Did 1 see him proudly flaunt through his gate ? 
 Why in the dark did I not for his curst coming 
 
 wait ? 
 And more ; the father, and brother bewildered, 
 Kept me ever from her lone little grave. 
 Still I see the clouds all crimson in blood ; 
 Hear the wail of the long, breaking wave. 
 When would he let me see her .'' — no never ! 
 Would the sound of the surf sigh with a boom 
 When I asked for her by the marsh or the shore ? 
 Dare I lift the knocker on her door in the gloom ? 
 Thrice our letters came and went unseen, 
 But her fourth to me never ; O, never it came ! 
 Then on the trees down with the white owls, 
 I found carved, wet with her tears, my name. 
 Thrice our letters were found in the old tree trunk. 
 In a hole that was gnawed by the bears ; 
 But alas ! I have missed them here evermore, 
 Those drops of gold on the skirts of my years. 
 O, the cruel father, hath kept her ever from me ! 
 And what shall I ever be to him more .'' 
 Can I see him ? call him man t the dog ! 
 Let the surf drag his bones on the shore ! 
 But the father and brother — they killed her. 
 Not with the edge of a dagger so cold and keen ; 
 Ah, to God ! better it would fully have been ! 
 But they killed her with their railing and spleen." 
 
 One bright, clear cut dawn, full with gold, and sun, 
 And when all day before, had lonely slept her tower, 
 On that bright summer morn, she said : " I die. 
 No more I find my love, and all the trees 
 With many dreamy voices wailing loud. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 31 
 
 Awake me, not to the day, but to that shore." 
 Then her mother, and those cold hearted, came, 
 And o'er her bent and said : " sweet maid ; so soon ?" 
 And no more ; but turned unto the wall and wept. 
 "Lay me," she said, "by him I beckoned from the 
 
 wa\'e ; 
 And saved him by the midnight light, I swung — 
 And, if he be not yet dead — for I hear not — 
 Fold me in all my sleep with gold, my mother — 
 And if thou wilt, carry me to him I love. 
 I give him all I have, my self — my soul ■ — 
 My heart, my dust, and all I am, to him. 
 These are the last, and only things I would ; 
 And, if from our chill suns, he be not gone. 
 If he so would ; Oh, let him bury me. 
 My mother^ yet go to him with me ! although 
 I speak not, and say once more for me how well, 
 And once again on earth, how well I loved him ! 
 Tell him, sigh not for the unclouded dawn 
 That soon is fair to me, but much more sweet 
 When then my love shall come and meet with me. 
 And now — dear mother — take me, for I die. 
 Sweet is the far off music ; but the dawn is clear, 
 Wafted like love whispers from the yonder sea." 
 
 Then in cold — when the wan moon at midnight 
 Looked down upon the high, wild, solemn pines, 
 They carried her with silent footsteps, to the place. 
 And not a bell tolled one sweet voice for her, 
 As they departing left her in the grave. 
 And he of whom she spoke, and loved, 
 Kiiew not for many a weary, heavy month. 
 The little dell where half his soul had gone. 
 They told him not — but her fair white Iwund 
 Came, and on the ninth, long caressed his hand. 
 
32 
 
 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 Her hound he silent followed till the eve — 
 And there, the patient, lonesome dog went down 
 And moaned, and slept, long over Irmma's grave. 
 
 Now, lone travelers see naught here but stones. 
 These words were whispers from the "Tombs of 
 
 Irmma." 
 Ye hear who listen on the desert waste 
 This nightly song borne o'er the vapor)' deep. 
 
 I stand and watch the clouds sail by 
 
 And trace their filmy forms : 
 They seem so like her gauzy robes, 
 
 She wore in summer morns. 
 I hear her moaning in the wind. 
 I hear a shriek, up from the sea ! 
 Oh ! the wailing, wailing sea ! — 
 I see beyond the stormy steeps 
 
 The cloud skirts of the dawn ; 
 They float up from the ocean leas 
 
 To marvelous music borne. 
 One thousand years I've stood alone. 
 At this same gate, my castle gate, 
 Oh, Irmma ! faithful unto thee. 
 Oh, could souls see with me ! 
 And hear the sounds they do not hear, 
 See hands that beckon me. 
 
■■■"/ ^ \ 
 
 i'- 
 
 \ ' 
 
 (6 Q y-i-"^-^ ^>^^ 
 
 
 And then the patient lonesome do.i;- went down and moaned, and 
 slept long over Irnima's grave. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 33 
 
 THE SILENT SHADOWS. 
 
 "BS it a shade of sadness comes o'er me, 
 Jp As I sit alone by the fire ? 
 
 Is it a whisper from the summers departed. 
 Flitting so vague on the stair? 
 
 Is it a glimmer of a form I see, 
 
 Far away in the infinite ? 
 Is it my soul that murmurs to me, 
 
 In some soft rapture of night ? 
 
 No, none of these. 'Tis the sweet light 
 Of a heart that has fled and gone, 
 
 Like a spirit that wandereth back to me, 
 A smile again in the dear old home. 
 
 Ah ! as I sit in the silent shadows near, 
 I can feel like the beating of wings. 
 
 The impalpable motion round me, 
 The throb of a thousand strings ; 
 
 And they bid me in the silence here. 
 
 Be calm, and patient, and still ; 
 To labor and hope, though fear 
 
 Should rise like a storm o'er my will. 
 
34 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 TO A. I). 
 
 PIK.D 1889. 
 
 WOULD you recall them from their rest. 
 The dear ones who speak with us no 
 more ? 
 Would you enslave the mountain breeze. 
 
 In freedom wandering o'er some bright shore ? 
 The flowers that touch the lowly ground. 
 
 Are ever sweeter in their /lative place ; 
 And freer all new life our friend hath found 
 
 Though we meet not that darling face. 
 The glow that lit the pallid holy eyes, 
 
 Not night, now like the dawn to me. 
 Just rising o'er the gardens sweet, 
 
 And more than when I talked with thee ! 
 Oh, angel in the sunny clime, 
 
 I know thy face indeed was fair ! 
 
 Thy footsteps like the Zephyr air — 
 What think you — why so soon decline ? 
 Is there a gleam, through twilight gloom ? 
 
 Is there a dream of sweetness near by me ? 
 For somehow I feel celestial morn 
 
 Must be so beautiful to thee. 
 Is it true, that life is dark with doubts ? — 
 Ah yet, in half-belief light shines 
 
 In little glimpses of great thoughts. 
 That overflow the heart at times. 
 Clear dream-eyes, like bright stars of night, 
 
 Loved when flower bells bloom again. 
 In the long rapture of delight, 
 
 Do we behold through fear and pain. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 35 
 
 HOME AND MOTHER. 
 
 THE ftoisy winds sound loud to me, 
 p) Perhaps a storm is on the wave ; 
 The chill stars seem so sad with me, 
 And mother is in her grave. 
 
 When our home is shut and silent, 
 So thin and few the voices there, 
 
 And about the solemn halls in darkness . 
 Vague footsteps beat the air, 
 
 Then in my old room so dear to mother, 
 
 When the dreary day has gone, 
 I often sit and wonder 
 
 If she knows I'm all alone. 
 
 And her portrait is looking at me. 
 Above the silent hearthstone there, 
 
 And her gentle spirit seems to stir me, 
 As I take her empty chair. 
 
 Speaks of the dear friends and the great ones, 
 Who long ago have left and gone, 
 
 But with their angel hands are beckoning 
 Us to keep as we begun. 
 
 Tells of the reward eternal. 
 
 The upward path they trod 
 And the triumph of achieving 
 
 Over the weary road ; 
 
 Whispering of the joy and wonder, 
 
 However sad our certain lot. 
 The whole of life to conquer. 
 
 Whether in tears or not. 
 
36 
 
 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 Flits to me this solemn message, 
 As we tread on with weary feet, 
 
 Calling from the dear old faces 
 
 " Come — at the gates Avilion meet ! " 
 
SOLUN DOGGETT'S POEMS. 37 
 
 ODE. 
 
 TO WENDELL PHILLIPS AND LIBERTY. 
 
 ' Y ! cast down thy faithless tyrants, earth ! 
 
 And with thy pomp of power, oh, boast no 
 more ! 
 
 Lo ! God hath given a son of Hberty 
 To great Columbia's sounding shore. 
 Oh ! shall the shadow wave above 
 Of Crime, that shook the belted world with ire ? 
 
 And forged the chains with tyrannous fire .^ 
 
 Look you, where that ghost departs, 
 Only in memory now, among the still slave marts. 
 Oh, fairest king of liberty ! 
 Voice that spoke so eloquently 
 The noble of nobility. 
 Night and day, day and night forevermore. 
 Thy word, a prayer victorious, o'er and o'er, 
 Till powers in the growing worlds. 
 Mid all the rolling of the suns. 
 Say "Liberty " in the million tongues. 
 
 Tears — martyrs tears. 
 Are shed for him. 
 Another link in all that glorious chain. 
 
 Since faithful Lincoln fell. 
 Has parted with a cry of pain, 
 
 That throbs to every home and dell. 
 Wild, deep despair the parting brings ; 
 But with the solemn pomp of kings, 
 Oh, let the nations bury him ! 
 
 The shout that led our heroes on. 
 
38 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 Faith's voice, though riven hearts complain, 
 
 Wells up refreshed this mundane dawn, 
 Re-echoes to the bounding main. 
 
 As that true knight of olden years 
 Met death with all his armor on, 
 
 So with all these seas of tears 
 Death came to our lamented one. 
 
 " Be true — "' a voice calls from the deep, 
 The grace of manhood he hath left 
 
 Will live ; and long the nations weep. 
 
 Flashing ! down the noisy years, 
 And through wild days of faith and tears. 
 Liberty's leading light shall Hame; 
 From that, men shall find cheer again ! 
 
 Oh true ! that great men when they die. 
 Like pilot-stars that gleam at night, 
 
 Were born for leaders and they lie. 
 In the mysterious depths of light. 
 Rear ye monumental mansions high 
 To that i"Kime ! — deep worth that shall endure ! 
 Long, proud Aeons of the far off years, 
 Will behold it, with fond hopes through tears ; 
 Till red tyranny shall rise no more. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 39 
 
 OUR FLOWERS IN THE AVILION. 
 
 ^NOLD snows came clown among the llowers 
 \(^ And our roses drooped their leaves. 
 
 Yet warmer spring-time walked again ; 
 Calm fell the summer eves. 
 
 Indeed they seem like gentle lowers, 
 Sweet girlhood at the garden gate, 
 
 And they who smile in rapture's hours 
 With soft blue eyes dilate. 
 
 And when I hear the little feet 
 
 Patter o'er the even walk, 
 Oh, often, often do 1 think, 
 
 Death can never touch their thought. 
 
 My darlings in the early sun, 
 
 Dear children of our home — 
 For scarce our angels smile begun. 
 
 We wept for one was gone. 
 
 Yet we shall lo\e them all once more 
 
 In the world of long delight, 
 For these flowers were not our own, 
 
 But changed to spirits bright. 
 
40 SOLOX DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 TO THE G. A. R. 
 
 THE UNSEEN FUOTSTEl'S A r OLD ( ;ETTVS[!UR( 1 REUNION. 
 
 §'ER Gettysburg the moon wanes low, 
 And calm the old I'otomac rolls, 
 But who can all recall the dead? — 
 In silence now those footsteps come and 
 go. 
 
 On the cold fields no voices rise. 
 Nor the yells of the warriors heard, 
 As they loudly wailed, to the alarmed skies. 
 That day on (Gettysburg ! 
 
 Oh, soldiers of the North and South, 
 How well such union seems ! 
 Both softly sleep, low in the ground. 
 When the stormy lightning gleams. 
 
 C:iear-cut that dawn, and never yet 
 Sun rose on sweeter tields; 
 And as the gallant regiments went by 
 How splendidly they marched to die. 
 
 Look! Look ye! where they come again, 
 Jn ghastly squads below the moon ! 
 And marching o'er these fields so still 
 Yon armed ghosts who met their doom. 
 
 One general said with haughty mein : 
 "Alas! — how beautiful they look. 
 Those thousand youths, in early prime, 
 And their mothers! — where are they ?" 
 But he bit his lips, as our banners shook 
 Throusrh all that wild, wild daw 
 
SOLOX DOGGETT'S POEMS. 41 
 
 But they tramped onward thousands o'er, 
 
 In the glow of the golden morn, — 
 
 Above the starry banners streamed — 
 
 Down came the sound of the cannons boom. 
 
 While the battle-lightnings gleamed. 
 
 Oh, mother, where thy gallant son ? 
 
 Oh, sister, where thy brother true ? 
 
 Oh, father, where the boy of thy early dream ? 
 
 When the battle lightnings gleamed. 
 
 Up ! up, once more in the rushing tide, 
 
 Mid shot, and blast, and hissing shell. 
 
 Hark ! — the cannons loud replied ! 
 
 Be brave ! — men. Charge once more. 
 
 And one by one, the boys in blue, 
 
 With bayonets fixed and keen, all bore 
 
 Down upon the wild mysterious tide, 
 
 Below our floating banners true. 
 
 While the cannons roar replied. 
 
 Down — down they went, the thousands 
 
 strong ; 
 Dear eyes that once had smiled. 
 Dear hearts that mused that summer morn, 
 Sweet youth dismantled where it lay 
 As the cannons long replied. 
 And father met his son and brother there ; 
 And, clash, and din were wild all day ; 
 Oh, God ! — no respite yet ; no sunny side ? 
 But the cannons long replied. 
 
 3- 
 To-night I stand on Gettysburg, — 
 And there is no breath or sound. 
 But my beating, throbbing heart. 
 Yet the rustle may be underground. 
 The bones of our noble boys, they rest. 
 
42 LOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS- 
 
 They sleep, all sweet, our boys in blue 
 By the love-light airs of the balmy shore, 
 But the cannons sound no more. 
 
 Oh, shout on high my boys in blue, 
 
 From sunny south, to northern Maine, 
 
 The starry banner waves for you ; 
 
 Hail it ! — take courage once again. 
 
 A union comes, no crosses borne, 
 
 Eternal in the lands Avilion ; 
 
 And there, no places where the fields are red 
 
 No South or North, no battles of the dead. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 43 
 
 MY FRIEND AND I. 
 
 THROUGH the long, dim aisles of night 
 My soul meets his in the infinite. 
 Unnatural in this grave to lie ! — 
 We drank life's wonder to the lees 
 And up the pleasant mount we went. 
 
 Oh ! — oh, for the happy days gone by ! 
 
 We laid him near the gloomy chestnut trees ; 
 
 Think you he climbs ?>Ionadnock's rainy air ? 
 His soul again, as vapor, when dead leaves fall, 
 And with the winds, comes up the hillside there. 
 Hear it, down the dusky winter twilight sigh : 
 " So sad — so dark, to say good by." 
 
 In the darkness of night they glide like a dream 
 With the dallying shades of the long, long ago; 
 
 In darling-deep sadness for the days that have been. 
 The absent fond footsteps we are weeping for now. 
 
 The dearest souls — so lonely — sweep by us unseen, 
 
 And truer than a dream, yet not a dream. 
 But the AviUon watch-lights gleam ! 
 
 Dead shadows are not what they seem. 
 So sad, so sweet, the words good by ; 
 
 So true, those tears smile back good by, 
 
 And say that all the world will die. 
 
 Despair but touches the morning golden, 
 A flash between dark and the Eternal : 
 From despair the soul riseth immortal, 
 And short the moan of the dirge. 
 
44 
 
 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 Far on the shore, the home of the billows, 
 Loudly shrieks the sea at midnight ; 
 And on the ruthless ledge of Minot 
 Echoes the wail of the surge. 
 At times through the vapors abysmal 
 Bewildered by the light's pale glimmer, 
 Flit lone birds that beat weary against it, 
 And there in the flash of a moment 
 Are dashed in the bellowing seas. 
 Like them are the souls in the billows 
 Of despair and sorrow round me. 
 
 Oh, we once hunted on the mountain side ! 
 Have seen the drifting storm cloud wildly ride 
 O'er life's high peaks, and we have heard at night 
 The vague voice of some distant cataract 
 Fxhoing sadly lone from height to height. 
 \'es, we have heard dream-footsteps in tlic wind. 
 And loved to watch the dancing of the sea — 
 These once were loves, but there are deeper whispers 
 more to me. 
 
SOLOxV DOGGETT'S POEMS. 45 
 
 UNSEEN FOOTSTEPS IN THE OLD PARLOR, 
 
 OR, 
 
 mother's picture. 
 1 . 
 
 'AZING in that still room at the portrait of 
 mother, 
 I think of the dear ones long, long dead and 
 gone; 
 And the children, like dreams, they cluster about me. 
 Hark ! without, I hear the wild death-beat of the 
 storm. 
 
 Somehow the children's voices fall low into whispers ; 
 
 Oh ! — and the weary soul in me grows dumb, 
 While thinking of the long life -day of the absent — 
 
 For she is gone — once so beautiful, fair and young. 
 And the sweet love-eyes in the picture of mother, 
 
 Again look at me with the smiles of long, long ago; 
 And from their depths once more comes gently the 
 whisper, 
 
 " My boy, my boy ; let not thy spirit droop so low." 
 But the little children look up to me and wonder 
 
 What makes the warm tears gather in mine eye. 
 For they in innocence dream not that from mother, 
 
 Come sweet tidings from Home, where Love can 
 tiever die. 
 Deep love — deeper than grief ceaseless in weeping, 
 
 That calmeth a weary world in the long travel of 
 years. 
 The love of a departed, gentle, fond mother, 
 
 The love loo full, too true, even too deep for tears. 
 
46 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 And in those my fair and fairy days of childliood, 
 Ah ! I feel them now so holy and so near ! 
 
 I know there is thy blessing left me — mother, 
 
 Though June gild not the hills with all those pleas- 
 ant years. 
 
 But not to me alone is all thy love, my mother. 
 
 There are others, and another up across the blue, 
 To whom long love returneth ever, and forever — 
 
 Returns to me no joy from whence the happy spirit 
 flew. 
 
 Lonely in summer-darks, I dream with thee, my mother. 
 And wake at crimson morn to miss thee more and 
 more. 
 
 Yet, in beholding thy dear picture — mother. 
 
 With thee 1 walk again a child, in and out the door. 
 
 And when the winter sunsets fall o'er lone oceans. 
 And these children follow on, and I am gone with 
 thee ; 
 And once more 1 am thy little child, my mother, 
 
 1 shall thank thee for the long life of love thou 
 gavest me. 
 Immortality shall reign with us, mother. 
 
 Days, long days that were, will be sweet as summer 
 afternoons. 
 And the vague strangeness in the wood, Death, that 
 shadow, 
 Again will never drown the splendor of the blooms. 
 
 And now thy blest, and unseen, gentle footsteps, 
 
 Glide from out the dreary land of darkness into light ; 
 
 I can, through my whole soul, feel those tender kisses, 
 Know those hands, by their touches, reaching across 
 the night. 
 

 V^^ It 
 
 A 
 
 
 '.■^t^ 
 
 
 ./;./ 
 
 ^.•>*** 
 
 
 
 
 '^¥^'1- 
 
 .^ 
 
 
 ^'\5» 
 
 V iw"'t" 
 
 -A' 
 
 Louana's liouie and the brook. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 47 
 
 LOUANA. 
 
 [HE turrets of the palace look 
 
 Like adder's tongues ; and down the walk 
 The purple flower bells droop. 
 Further down, the waters of the brook 
 Once quiet made their babbling tracks, 
 Now, alas, they roar in cataracts ! 
 
 The times are changed, but I was young. 
 
 And musical the brooklet ran ; 
 
 And all the pulses beating warm. 
 
 When Louana's darling feet 
 
 Gently touched her palace lawn. 
 
 The roses bent to kiss her feet, 
 
 The daisies told me she was sweet. 
 
 Too sweet, too sweet ! for they found 
 
 That which touched the days with horror — 
 
 And even now the palace lights burn red. 
 
 This lawn she walked is full of shadows. 
 
 The dead body of her lover ! — 
 
 Two red spots where her lilies blowed, — 
 
 The dead man laid across the path. 
 
 And in the path three fearful spots of blood. 
 
 What wonder that brook runs cataracts, 
 And all the world has turned to bane ! 
 And in the dell are ghastly voices low — 
 Ah, me ! ah me, I loved her so. 
 I loved her so ! Louana, oh, Louana ! 
 
 I walk to-night — I hate the path. 
 On high beyond her palace tower, 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 Look you how the moon glows red. 
 In the brook are purple spots — 
 There's a moaning in the flood, 
 And the moon looks like a disk of blood. 
 
 But 1 have learned more now. 
 Only a few years ago she loved, 
 Yet to me an age — a weary age. 
 Was she too proud for me ? 
 Was she too kind to the one 
 Whose dead body they found, 
 Kinder to him than to me ? 
 
 Oh, little purple bells that blow 
 Beneath these weary, weary feet ! 
 Oh, ground where summer daisies bloom. 
 Tell me of those little feet that trod 
 The dimples of this darkened lawn. 
 
 Oh, will the crimson shadows of the morn 
 
 Make my blood run happy yet ? 
 
 But thou moon, horribly red with blood' 
 
 Look down the same as ever when 
 
 Louana walked once here alone, 
 
 And with me, she saw thee then 
 
 Not a disk of blood as now, sad moon. 
 
 To-day I, for one moment have forgot 
 
 What I saw last night, while lost 
 
 In vague dreams, walking on the lawn. 
 
 On the dew-kissed grass now I lay 
 
 And let the warm sun change my icy heart. 
 
 Ah me ! But in my diary, with all. 
 
 With all its leaves that I have kissed 
 
 So much — for here Louana's hand 
 
 Traced her own name — thus and thus : 
 
 " I love thee more mv love, and more 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 49 
 
 limn ever I can that Leon Levane." 
 And here she signed her darhng name — 
 Louana — oh Louana, my sweet love. 
 And all the stars have told me more 
 Last night. I do not meet her at the door 
 This morn, or any morn — any morn ! 
 Oh these sad years — and she is gone. 
 
 In my diary I find this story yet remains — 
 Reminds me of the happy days. Those days were 
 
 Death's. 
 Leon Levane. Oh, Leon Levane ! 
 Thus the diary sayeth as I read. 
 Tears warm my pale, cold cheeks. 
 
 Warm, and warm as ever beats my heart 
 
 Where art thou, Louana my love .' 
 
 She loved me. Her white roses knew all. 
 They laid in sleep, or rose and fell 
 That night upon her gentle, panting breast, 
 And then her roses folded in their rest. 
 But this is what my diary sayeth, 
 'Tis true. Oh, I remember well — well. 
 But those spots of blood were in the dell. 
 The path is only worn a little more. 
 Thoughtless souls tread it o'er and o'er. 
 
 They know not what I know. 
 
 And if I told the whole, they would not care to 
 know. 
 
 Leon Levane, I hate thee ! I hate thee ! 
 
 I wish thou wert dead, Leon Levane ! 
 
 Thus my diary wildly reads — 
 
 Can she be anything at all to you? 
 
 You love her — what of that } 
 
 Can that make amends for me .^ 
 
 Do I think any better of }-ou for that ">. 
 
50 SOLON DOGOETT'S POEMS. 
 
 If you should put your ear to the rose 
 That slept over her heart last night, 
 Would it whisper, would it sing. 
 Whisper to your soul a whisper sweet — 
 No it would not, to you it could not. 
 O, Leon ! lost Leon Levane. 
 
 I hate to see your foolish, love-lorn eyes 
 
 Watch the palace lawn she treads. 
 
 I hate to see you spin your golden threads ; 
 
 You think for her you weave your net 
 
 Of strange, most idiotic love. 
 
 I tell you she hates you, Leon Levane ! 
 
 Sweet Louana of the South, 
 
 Thy roses tell me thou art sweet. 
 
 The lily's tender petals bow 
 
 When thy red lips they meet. 
 
 How' often, dearest, in thy dreams 
 
 Do the forget-me-nots I kissed. 
 
 And sent to you, my love. 
 
 How often do they falter near thy cheeks ? 
 
 I dream those tender eyelids press 
 
 Those Howers 1 gave from my sad heart ; — 
 
 To you nuirnuu" all my love, 
 
 And love you in your restlessness. 
 
 When the moonlight's silver gleams 
 
 Fall across thine own couch of silken down, 
 
 I see thee smiling in thy dreams. 
 
 You kiss the flowers, your room is still, 
 
 1 dream you press my hand 
 
 In all your gentle sleep below the gold moon beams. 
 
 And to the casement now you glide ; 
 
 Pull back the dusky curtains blown 
 
 Where the night winds take mv thought to thee. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 51 
 
 I breathe my love across the night to thee ; 
 
 And in my dreams you waft to me 
 
 What your roses hear you lisp. 
 
 Last night I listened to your rose, 
 
 The one you sent — it whispered well 
 
 The word you breathed. Tell me, Oh tell ! 
 
 To the rose I said. It answered, " I love." 
 
 I listened to your lilacs sweet, so sweet. 
 
 They said, " I come ;" and your little jonquils 
 
 Laughed their golden laugh, " I come ;" 
 
 And your bunch of violets said, '• I will, I will ;" 
 
 And you sent these flowers with all your love. 
 
 But has Leon Levane had violets ? 
 
 Oh, nb. I caught him listening to a rose — 
 
 It said naught, and all the petals fell. 
 
 Then my heart beat loud, " 'tis well, 'tis well.'' 
 
 He mopes like a silly king I know, 
 
 Who has lost his pride and crown of gold. 
 
 Ah, me ! What of that, that ? 
 
 Up at the fort they think I'm engaged. 
 
 And the old gossiping nurse declares 
 
 There's a bright, strange look in my eyes. 
 
 What of that ? Is it love or hate ? 
 
 For I know not which is the greater. 
 
 My love of beautiful Louana, 
 
 Or my hate for the fool that stands in my way of late. 
 
 I dreamed there were three spots of blood 
 In the path that led o'er the lawn, 
 A murderer was hunted over the road — 
 The sky looked dreadfully red at dawn. 
 The sky was fearfully red at dawn. 
 
 Further on my diary says, 
 To-day I wander to the brook, 
 
52 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 O, little brook How sweet, 
 Beyond the palace wood, 
 The pines and larches meet, 
 The love-deep music of the flood. 
 My angling line is in the stream, 
 The pickerel lazy sleep. 
 To me the flower bells seem 
 Dying in a wild love dream. 
 
 Sunny the bank of green, all sun my heart. 
 
 Which dreams deeper of love, oh, heart ! 
 
 The full rose blooms at my feet? 
 
 Louana oft here hath pressed 
 
 With her neat little form above ? 
 
 Or my heart for her that will beat and beat ^ 
 
 I have forgotten my line, my lo\e, 
 And the fish has cleared with my bait. 
 Oh, Louana, Louana my dove ! 
 
 Beautiful eyes! transporting light ! 
 
 Sensorial deeps to me. 
 Love dream splendors — not of night — 
 
 Wild dreams, wild dreams ! look back on me ! 
 
 Not the unrelenting woe 
 
 When Venus' frown denies, 
 Vexeth more where'er I go 
 
 Than those imperial eyes. 
 
 Stars of Lethean twilight they, 
 
 Fair of new unclouded dawn, 
 Plashes flitting to the day. 
 
 Sweet blue from perfect gold-dewed morn. 
 
 And this was the little song I sang. 
 While the brooklet waters ran. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 53 
 
 Ah, me ! could my soul forget, 
 Even for a moment, cease to dote 
 O'er Louana's glorious eyes — 
 They, below such golden ringlets set, 
 Oh, to be caught in such a gilded net ! 
 Oh, to die with so fair a mate. 
 
 Louana, oh, come and be 
 My little rose crown round my brow ; 
 Come be my diamond finger ring. 
 That I may clasp thee now. 
 Come be my golden locket fair. 
 Wherein your picture sweetly rests 
 That I against my bosom wear. 
 O, be my diadem forever more — 
 No king a finer gold will bear 
 On crowned brow of state divine ; 
 No scepter that can rule me well. 
 Not half so deeply charmed as thine. 
 
 Oh, all these wood flowers, sing 
 Our marriage lays in happy hours- — 
 Let the darling violets ring 
 Their little perfect bells and sing. 
 
 Burns the low sun in his torrid wastes, 
 But I forgot. See the sun set. 
 The robin trills his latest trills; 
 The brook laments in purple rills ; 
 Hark ! listen ! cracks the bush 
 Down by the winding river path. 
 Oh, oh, the curse ! the damned path. 
 What you, Louana, coming now ? 
 And on your arm, Leon Levane ! 
 I saw them turning by the rock 
 Where the streamlet bends and raves. 
 
54 SOLON DOGGETT-S POEMS. 
 
 You kissed her in that ckisky wood, 
 I hate you! — damned laQon Levane ! 
 
 I clenched my hand, my teeth were set. 
 I tell you blood can stain a lily hand. 
 I could not bear to see him take 
 Her lily hands at all in his. 
 My palms were sore with pinching. 
 My teeth were edged in clinching, 
 1 heard my heart beat, and beat, 
 My blood, 1 felt it rave and leap. 
 
 Her ring that twined my finger broke, 
 
 1 threw it in the raving stream. 
 
 Oh, for the days that once have been ! 
 
 Oh, Louana, mine! — mine.'' not mine. 
 
 What Vixcyour days that once ha\'e been? 
 
 From the woods I turned and wept. 
 
 Tears, even tears — tears of death are naught, 
 
 I hate thee Leon Levane. 
 
 Louana, your love was dearly bought. 
 
 I thought you loved me, me ! 
 
 Never yet shall dawning rise 
 
 Over such full, all lovely eyes, 
 
 But Louana — forever I am dead. 
 
 Each morn and even dies, 
 
 Bury me, Louana, come by my grave, 
 
 I'll hear you walking o'er my head ! 
 
 Oh, that all the shaded orbs 
 
 Of useless, useless earth would sink. 
 
 Where, Louana, thine eyes looked through. 
 
 The pale clay of the grave will touch with dew. 
 
 Keen, lone shadows of purple night 
 
 Will sweep o"er thy loveliness. 
 
 Thou, oh, thou wast born to love f/ie. 
 
 Leon Levane what hast thou taken fro7n me. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 55 
 
 But Leon is the brother of a count, 
 Louana fancies a golden crown, 
 And a purse full of glitter and trash. 
 What if the palace should fall in a crash ? 
 Glass houses are never secure. 
 But she is proud ! and yet am I. 
 Leon Levane limps like a dog 
 That was cowed by a king long ago. 
 Would it be easy /or him to die ? 
 Who knows but leaving his gold 
 And all his palace of wealth. 
 Will make him suffer more in death? 
 Who knows but my revenge will be 
 Better tho' shamefully better for this. 
 Oh, I am proud, I care not for a king, 
 They ^h-xl fool s love, love royal blood, 
 Would it not be better for me to die .'' 
 
 In a month I went by the lawn ; 
 
 And the rose blooms by her palace vase 
 
 Were withering in a wild, wild disgrace. 
 
 "Oh, once there was gold under the urn," 
 
 She said, and I heard her laugh 
 
 A strange and scornful laugh. 
 
 But her words, they would burn — 
 
 Till she touched the edge of the vase 
 
 And an adder ran out from under the urn. 
 
 And what is the adder of love ? 
 
 I thought, while I dreamed a dream 
 
 Of the night. Stars were not stars, 
 
 But all had changed to threats like war, 
 
 Burned in blood like tlie orb of Mars. 
 
 'Twas a year I wandered forlorn, 
 
 And every morn was not morn, 
 
 All days began with a dark shroud of storm. 
 

 ^ 
 
 X^ 
 
 
 >>-^"'^V ax 
 
 ^-'^-'-^ 
 
 
 
 The Eloin'iueiit. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 57 
 
 By ladder from her window high, 
 
 Eloped with Leon Levane. 
 
 Oh, Lou ana mine, you will not he mine, 
 
 Tho' ages roll in all the golden seas of time. 
 
 They will find my robes at that brink, 
 
 They will think I am dead and gone. 
 
 Who died with a heart forlorn. 
 
 I hear in the street below, 
 
 Oh, the sound of marriage bells ! 
 
 The feast is spread, the lights are lit. 
 
 Oh, the sound of marriage bells ! 
 
 Not, not for my weariness of soul — 
 
 They are the joy for my own death, — 
 
 Those bells are all for thee, Leon Levane. 
 
 It was not a wedding night, 
 
 It was a night of death ! 
 
 The lights were in the hall ; 
 
 Like summer dreams the music soft 
 
 Was wafted down the palace lawn, 
 
 They meant a happier morn. 
 
 I passed the gate. In darkness dire 
 
 The path I found, that hellish ground, 
 
 In the dark he thought to smother me, 
 
 And grasped me by the throat, the dog ! 
 
 Across that path he laid — 
 
 Oh, proud, Leon Levane ! 
 
 But the gash within his breast 
 
 I did not stop to see. 
 
 But I knew he was dead, 
 
 When he lays in his grave 
 
 I'll kick the stone from its head. 
 
58 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 HIS GHOST TOUCHED ME. 
 
 IS ringing call, no more shall .sound 
 Along the long, wild, shadowed glen ; 
 Must leave his gold to other men, 
 His gallant horses to the ground. 
 
 Lone years to miss him whom we loved, 
 Who danced with us below the lights, 
 Who joyous sang through revel nights — 
 
 What though he from his grave hath roved ! 
 
 Doth he forget us ? when night glows 
 Again — when our loud voices ring ? 
 Forget to join us while we sing, 
 
 His feet to tread the place he knows ? 
 
 Unseen, who glides in happy hour. 
 
 Whom earth hath loved, and he hath cheered. 
 Win roam about his home endeared, 
 
 Dare turn the door-knob yet once more. 
 
 Before my easel puzzled long 
 
 I sit. He whispers, " Paint this shade." 
 Thus-wise are all the great songs made ; 
 
 Some spirit guides each poet's song. 
 
 They know me not, friends by my side. 
 Jle stands back of my shoulders now/ 
 As when he talked with me below ! 
 
 Shakes hands, as once before he died. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 59 
 
 No touch of gloom can shade his doors, 
 Where God's eternal sunlights play, 
 Nor blind the tracks of night nor day, 
 
 Nor waste the fullness of the hours. 
 
 All still, marvellous motions made, 
 
 Along the far harmonious deep, 
 Are changes constant made to change, 
 
 By one who made fair eyes to weep. 
 
 What are the little sounds we make. 
 
 Across the infinite of thought .-' — 
 Let constant Faith, not knowledge break. 
 
 Our heavy breathing sleep of doubt ! 
 
 I have love of these beautiful choirs 
 
 That glide at the shade of the day ; 
 Sweet is their advent when I falter 
 Over life's— relentless — long way. 
 
 The long way that is circled with shadows 
 Round a watcher that comes in the night, 
 
 For among them beat softly the footsteps 
 Of my dear one now living in light. 
 
 And like the glimmering, shrouded vapors. 
 
 That climb again Monadnock's solemn height. 
 
 Behold — once more the angel presence ! 
 I wander — alone — with him to-night. 
 
 Why not ? — though we laid him down to slumber, 
 So cold, who climbed the mountain dim, with me, 
 
 On Monadnock, saw the stars together. 
 And both gained the same old victory. 
 
6o SOLON DOGGE'lT'S POEMS. 
 
 STEPS OF SUCCESS. 
 
 fET your fond hopes ungained ? 
 Oh your full joy is not in gaining! 
 Neither should God be blamed. 
 Take life, the freshness of its coming, 
 
 This wild ghost by the mane ! 
 
 The voices in the holy conscience 
 
 Will give thee strength again. 
 
 Nobler the man who lives in patience 
 
 Though all his work may fail ! — 
 Keeping happy when not succeeding 
 
 Shows God in faces pale ! 
 Pale with the midnight watches dreary, 
 
 Pale with long, deep despair, 
 Pale with the labor of the weary. 
 
 With the wild stress of care. 
 
 Then on, on ! — go, while yet 'tis morning 
 
 While the full heart is young, 
 To look back in rapturous triumph 
 
 To days of duty done — 
 Remembering that in the striving 
 
 Is glory that will bless : 
 Sometimes life's doom of solemn sadness 
 
 Will bring the best success. 
 
 Tho' king in workshop or in war, 
 Or whether fortuned, great or poor, 
 
 Before God we are just what we are 
 And nothing more. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 6i 
 
 ANDATO. 
 
 J THINK with the silence in the mountains ; 
 I feel the clouds ; I feel the stars, the trees 
 Know the dark Supreme's eternal fountains, 
 For now my darling dead, sleep sweet in these. 
 
 When we wake from all this life of slumber, 
 
 And care, a dream, is never more, 
 Meeting loves, once torn from us asunder. 
 
 It will seem strange we wept so o'er and o'er. 
 
 In these rooms of grief, unrest and shadow. 
 Some whisper fills our dear one's place; 
 
 Yet in our lone home of gloom and labor, 
 
 Looks in that dear, calm, pleasant, loving face. 
 
 If from here alone our friends departed, 
 
 God went with them through the silent door. 
 
 They rest in nature, oh tender hearted. 
 No voyage, but meeting, and the shore. 
 
 Watching, in the dim primeval silence 
 Across the first vapor dawn of stars. 
 
 The ideal, the living souls were wafted, — 
 Still there for us beyond the golden bars. 
 
62 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 NATURE'S REST IN RAPTURE. 
 
 jTHE long, o'ershadowing hours delighted, 
 
 Grew tremulous like light vipon the purple 
 stream, 
 With music deep at dusk, or murmuring, 
 Still as the night falling down in dream. 
 Then beat, dear heart, in the rose-bloom shower. 
 Transported from all dolorous beams. 
 Vague whispers wafted o'er gold-green woods 
 Voiced dulcetly, and light 1 dipt the oar. 
 
 Then fell a calm deeper than twilight ; 
 
 And the moon came down and touched 
 
 Amorously the fairy prow. 
 
 And danced before dull saddest eyes, 
 
 Glittering, ever smiled below. 
 
 Silver censer, fallen fair, to rise ! 
 
 And I all forgot 1 breathed. 
 
 Ecstatically lost, and lulled with dream. 
 
 Wondering, what meant so sweet an hour, 
 
 While subtle-paced old night. 
 
 Knew the eternal stars athwart the stream. 
 
 Fair slept low islets lovelier blown 
 
 Than lilies hidden in meadow grass, 
 
 With kiss-dews o"er sad wavelets, under gloom, 
 
 In the pleasant sea-bathed marsh ; 
 
 Voices that lower in the evening sigh, 
 
 Than dear words on lips of lovers die ; 
 
 Echoes that murmur to the forlorn heart 
 
 A sweetness of the far away. 
 
 Dwells the coolness of the seasons here, 
 
 I 
 
SOLON DOGGETTS POEMS. 63 
 
 And the long, soft, music of the evermore. 
 The pale, tall weeds, pull downward. 
 And the closed flower-bell sleeps in calm, 
 Upon this most enraptured shore. 
 
 And to me, the midnight stream, 
 
 Seemed no mure as water, 
 
 But changed into all-moody thought. 
 
 Weary my soul, yet knew the Avilion Lights; 
 
 My thoughts not in the amis of death, but life, 
 
 For indeed I could not even die. 
 
 And every dream recrowned me, like a wreath. 
 
 As it were, the dim passionless air, 
 
 Long wandered o'er the silent stream 
 
 Far off, and where the fragrant grove 
 
 Down-beat the yearly cone, 
 
 And the white birch swung down. 
 
 Sounds died o'er the night beyond, 
 Voices that vex the daylight world ; 
 All envy, hatred, foolish scorn, 
 Dins of life — they wholly failed. 
 For nothing here w-as sorrow-born ; 
 But all was sleeping infinite. 
 And Love's face ever glimmered near. 
 For dear Nature's once sullen harp, 
 Thrilled in wondrous delight, 
 And there seemed no shrouds of night. 
 
 Blame not thou my heart, if hating 
 Full to wake from holy rapture. 
 To a low, dumb, insatiate world ! — 
 Will the day dawn ? and we whirl 
 Lifeward to the torrid fields. 
 Where the charm will all be broken ? 
 
64 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 Oh, sweeter the little calms we know. 
 Awhile abiding where the soft winds blow, — 
 To rest beside the wandering stream. 
 Than to hear our harpstrings throb so low ! 
 Dearer the dream, the love-born lingering hour, 
 Than ever the cold, repining want ; 
 The eternal fret ; the unattempted shore. 
 
v> 
 
 -f 
 
 .s^ 
 
 ^' 
 
 
 ::^^ 
 
 Whi'i-f Anna's roses lilooun'd. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 65 
 
 ANNA AND THK ROSES. 
 I . 
 
 Nl) now the whirling winds iiave come to-night 
 
 upon the icy fields ; 
 The snow is on her grave^ — darling — and the 
 
 moon across it gleams. 
 
 Last spring I went to call her — gently, but she would 
 
 not heed, 
 Tho' the same last fall the golden rod shed down its 
 tender seed. 
 
 In the high and yellow corn, lirother, in the early 
 
 autumn days, 
 Her doves would come and coo for her ; but now they 
 
 too have gone beyond the distant waves. 
 
 Shut her little chamber window - brother — shut the 
 dove-house door, 
 
 There they'll never come to see her — darling — dar- 
 ling — or love her any more. 
 
 2 , 
 
 Don't you remember — Albert — the week before she 
 
 died ? 
 We rode up to the village, with pale Anna by our side: 
 
 And there in the lonely cottage, we saw the rose-bud 
 
 sweet — 
 And Anna said — "when the iiowers shall bloom where 
 
 shall we meet ! " 
 
 Don't you remember the tears, Albert, came in our 
 
 saddened eye ! 
 For you felt, dear brother, that Anna soon would die. 
 
66 
 
 SOLON DOGCETT'S POEMS. 
 
 Then she bent and let her waxen fingers touch the bud- 
 ding flower. 
 
 And said — "I want it when it blooms! when it 
 blooms yovi will know the hour." 
 
 Anu<i /oi'e^ the tender plant, and God smiled upon the 
 
 rose. 
 And all the leaves expanded green by Him who loves 
 
 and knows. 
 
 And you, you promised it to Anna, until the day. 
 And we turned from the lonely cottage, and then we 
 rode away. 
 
 But on the twelfth — at midnight — when the winds 
 
 blew cold and shrill, 
 And the horned moon was setting, beyond the high 
 
 pine hill ; 
 
 ]3on't vou remember brother? — there was strange 
 
 music murnuired low. 
 And you thought it whispered ".\nna "' It said, "that 
 
 she must go." 
 
 'i'hen you woke me, Albert, and said, ''the angels 
 called her home ; '' 
 
 And we were awake all night, brother, ( )h, in the wild- 
 est night of gloom. 
 
 And the weary winds wailed about the empty house 
 below, 
 
 And the candle flickered on the wall, when the morn- 
 ing stars were low. 
 
 'I'hen came a smile across dear .Anna's sweet and 
 
 pallid face, 
 Lighting up across the darkness, a shadow borne 
 
 apace. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 67 
 
 Oh, the dawn glowed sweet as ever, with the violet by 
 
 the rill, 
 With the mallows in the meadow, and the daisies on 
 
 the hill; 
 
 And the deep and mellow morning, bloomed again 
 
 upon the balmy moor, 
 But Anna laid in beauty — brother — would smile to us 
 
 no more. 
 
 Then don't you remember — always ! — how they brought 
 
 the opening flower? 
 And said ; " She wished it when it blooms ; when it 
 
 blooms — you will know the hour: " 
 
 For the rose had bloomed so perfect, that morn, so 
 
 calmly bland. 
 Yes you took and laid it. brother, in her cold and 
 
 waxen hand. 
 
 Sister Anna lies in rest — still and white, perfect as the 
 
 rose, 
 For her soul hath bloomed again, in rapture, where- 
 .soe'er she roves. 
 
 We shall sometimes hear the angels, Albert, chanting 
 
 low with her, 
 For she thinks it not farewell, waiting for us to talk of 
 
 things that were. 
 
 3- 
 And now, dear brother — when 1 sleep — and the night 
 
 is clear and still, 
 I think I see her little grave, brother, and a light above 
 
 the hill. 
 
 Bright it looms about a blessed garden, far, far away. 
 And Anna is ever there "among the roses" fair as the 
 golden day. 
 
68 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 Pray, Oh brother ! wait and hope — for we must wait 
 
 and weep ! 
 But sometimes, I even hear her footsteps — a music 
 
 low and deep. 
 
 And on the far ofif wings of morning, in early crimson 
 
 light, 
 T hear a voice : but the cold starlight gleams upon her 
 
 grave alone — so long, long, at night. 
 
 I shall be weeping when the springtime snows are 
 
 melting from the uood, 
 And the winds are bringing sweetness, brother, upon 
 
 the summer Hood. 
 
 Oh then I shall not meet her, where the early roses 
 
 blow. 
 Coming up the long green yard, where she, darling, — 
 
 darling — loved to walk with you. 
 
 But at night, down by the willows, bathed in the shin- 
 ing of the stream ; 
 
 When the bright, warm fields, brother, are resting 
 sweet in dream ; 
 
 There, still we will hear the whisper of her calling, far, 
 far away, 
 
 And her low, and ceaseless warning of the immortal 
 day. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 69 
 
 THE VOYAGE OF THE SOUL. 
 
 §LEEP my soul in all thy solemn sleep ! 
 I'ill the happier morning break with light 
 Far o'er thy dark face, O wandering deep ! 
 Void why dream J, lonely in doubts torment, 
 Lost in thoughts, long, long ripe fields of night ? 
 Cease, cease, looking back in self, all torn 
 In the hate-o"ershadowed years forlorn ! 
 Lo ! fresh, full-hearted rosy Hope, 
 Clear star, is laughing for the morn ! 
 Soul was wafted outward on life's chill waves. 
 Boisterous waves, more deep than tears at Death. 
 What second I know not, in what full days ; 
 Time beckoning. The past sleeps low, in dream, 
 And the long cycles of deep, burdened, years. 
 Are touched, as I look back, with Love, God's gleam, 
 O'erflown regret, the sacred gleam of tears ; 
 For through those wild eyes re-orient glowed Love, 
 And lamentation stilled the earth born fears. 
 On, on ! — my yearning Soul. More light ! new worlds. 
 Ask, till broods the purpling night below 
 Of Time, all days of time sighing : "Yes. No.'' 
 As quenched stars contemplations fell. I here, 
 As one charioted in gold, vain gold. 
 Unto that sunlight-land beyond called dawn. 
 Ere long, a voice came up the relentless deep ; 
 "Grief is what men make themselves fear. Alas ! " 
 My despair cried; "Trust ! Light foUoweth sleep." 
 
 Men were weeping when I came to long thought; 
 And blood flown hills gleamed with bright swords of 
 
 war : 
 And this was my first scene mundane — Ah me ! 
 
70 SOLON DOGGETTS POEMS. 
 
 Men bat'ling human beasts, to learn the art 
 Of morals through Aeons, that wrong might flee, 
 Evolving truth. Then on Life's morning sea 
 Great winds arose, and long triumphant blew, 
 Blew from the cardinal points. Goodness, Sin, 
 Faith, Force, smote my life-sails impelling me. 
 
 Sin came chilling in wild gusts, ever North, 
 Mocking Death ; but constant from garden-lands 
 (iood smiled, ambrosial, from the summer South. 
 Inviolate Faith, and Force, rolled to the strand 
 Life's ocean with high winds ; I drifting South. 
 
 long I battled with the sounding waves ! 
 The prow bent toward those tropic Island-lands, 
 To that sweet Home-land of the immortals. 
 
 1 strengthened by contending Faith and Force. 
 
 I yet in life ? — On the great ocean rolled 
 Around me. Only at times the dim mist 
 Lifted, when 1 saw those Holy Palms 
 Tremble golden, below the stormy East. 
 I passed the Sirens. 1 passed Toil's dark capes. 
 On the syenite shores men had long built 
 'I'emples, glorious to their idol Gods, 
 Whose lamps outshone the dawn. Go where thou wilt 
 Life said, "deep lie Jiations beneath earth's sods." 
 O'erworn, in calms of night, 1 studied long. 
 Thought was childish, forth-feeling, like a dream ; 
 Till the low, pilot-stars flashed victor-lights ; 
 Until man's God Himself near me did seem. 
 Then indeed, I well felt God made the world. 
 Ah ! Evolution's Ghost in shadow came ; 
 Said; " She made the world," then that shadow fell, 
 Only on the great deep to rise again, — 
 " Through doubt comes Faith 1 " I heard a wild voice 
 knell- 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 71 
 
 And on I sailed, with all that weight of thought ; 
 Saw the beauty of pearly-peaks on shore ; 
 Heard deep music — deeper than Love's death-sighs; 
 Yet the vast, Life-waves lashed, and wailed, and 
 
 roared, 
 Lifted their backs, till tears were in mine eyes. 
 Men worshiped. W ild the light grew tremulous. 
 Neither full day, nor night, as when one dies. 
 Ah me ! — as time, my soul could not return. 
 But my whole heart with Hope must thrill and burn. 
 
72 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 IRMMA. 
 
 'IHK XKW VKAR's HRIDE. 
 T . 
 
 §HARP dianiond-eves of crystal fell, 
 Soft twinkling by the moon ; 
 And through the night, to dance in gloom, 
 The frost cut keen the star-crowned hill. 
 
 The wild dogs in the glens were hushed ; 
 Affluent notes of blue-birds call ; 
 Silent the frozen waterfall, 
 And eddies round the under brush. 
 
 From wood to wood of birches lone, 
 
 The white sleet smote the dreary shore, 
 
 As though the spring could come no more, — 
 
 Hark ! — loud the reed swamp pipes its moan. 
 
 December blew his trumpet blasts. 
 Across the glare of glossy rill. 
 Reverberant from hill to hill. 
 Wild through the sullen, sea-blown marsh. 
 
 From icy wood, from grot to dell. 
 
 They chanted through the reeds and thyme. 
 
 Whirling by the snow-ghost pine, 
 
 And wild our New Year's evening fell. 
 
 " Spread wide, with gold, the wedding feast," 
 
 Rang loud through bower and hall ; 
 
 In all the lighted walks below, 
 
 To the snow bound vines that clasped the wall. 
 
 From where ambrosial waters flow, 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 73 
 
 Bring pearls of \\hich llie orients tell, 
 
 And let them grace adorning well, 
 
 That dearest brow of all below. 
 
 Twine roses where they queenly grow ; 
 
 Let lilies in the bridal wreath ; 
 
 Bring asphodel, sweet breath ; 
 
 Twine crocus, little cups of snow. 
 
 Let loudly ring from town to hill, 
 
 The music blown from hall to hall ; 
 
 Let fairy footsteps lightly fall, 
 
 And echo to the wintered rill. 
 
 It is for us the Bride's New Year ! 
 
 Oh hear the song of marriage bells ! 
 
 And laughing girls adown the dells, 
 
 And merry sleigh-bells ringing clear. 
 
 One rosy cheek is flushed with light, 
 
 The silver harps are twined with flowers ; 
 
 Look ! Venus skirts the airy hours, 
 
 And thousand lamps are burning bright. 
 
 3- 
 Streaks like a nebulous light, pale, and deep 
 Ushered the New Years morning drearily^ 
 
 drearily — 
 And the sounds of the shuddering ice on the hills 
 
 of snow, 
 And the saddened light of the early morn, made 
 
 the dawn sigh loud in its woe. 
 Then a phantom, flitting in the wan light said ; 
 " Ah, Bridegroom, and thy heart ! — thy Love ! — 
 Thou art no more than a firefly glimmering 
 Through the short cycle of a summer even. 
 Mortal ! the hour of thy joy is all too short, 
 For the star of thy life, and thy early love, hath 
 strangely come to naught — 
 
74 SOLON DOGGETT'S I>OEMS. 
 
 For know you not, your litlle bride /.v dead y 
 
 J)o\vn the dreary road-ways, of the leaHess, barren 
 
 ehns, 
 'I'he winds came deeply sighing, from the dim and icy 
 
 reahns. 
 Upward from the village mourned the murnmr deep 
 
 and low — 
 "The bride is gone ! — she is among the holy angels 
 
 now." 
 Not a sound rose from the mansion, in the dreary 
 
 morning hour, 
 For there slept a face of beauty, blushing never, 
 
 never more. 
 
 'Ihe people saying, " She hath a deeper heart than 
 mine," 
 
 Only loving her in early youth, to see her swift de- 
 cline. 
 
 Her comrades gathering solemn, like buds ripening to 
 the rose, 
 
 O'er this form of a withered lily, drooping in the New 
 Year's snows. 
 
 And now one golden ringlet Muttering in the bitter 
 cold, 
 
 Holds a tear-drop streaming downward to her gar- 
 ments fold. 
 
 Oh, the cold, deceiving New Year, darker than an 
 
 angry storm ! — 
 Oh, fair young girl, — darling — darling — of a warmer 
 
 clime ! 
 Tears shed in this bitter morning, are foregleams of a 
 
 happier time. 
 Tears, fond tears ! — oh, forever hallowed, forever 
 
 ever more, — 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 75 
 
 But I hear the gloomy crape low rustle on the mansion 
 
 door. 
 C)ne by one, with solemn paces, leaving slow that iron 
 
 gate, 
 The mournful company departed, and still she slept in 
 
 state. 
 
 Oh. Irmma ! oh, my silent Irmma ! — why shoulds't 
 
 thou, all such marble be ? 
 Down in the early flowering meadow, you will never 
 
 walk with me ! — 
 But silence! — the long summers, dearest, dearest, 
 
 will always shine this side the sea. 
 And thy garden's darling roses, I shall lonely, lonely 
 
 trim for thee ! 
 Yet in the dreamy places of thy rest, when the dark is 
 
 deep and still. 
 The flowers may hear thy gentle footsteps and the 
 
 wind will come and go at will. 
 
 4- 
 
 Lone shadows loved to sweetly fold, in love, around 
 
 her. 
 Lying in the sunset softly, like her days that were. 
 Calm was there — and breathless, kindly nature 
 
 deeply knows — 
 Calm as in a closed cathedral holy, where an unseen 
 
 footstep roves. 
 They brought the crown of marriage, dreaming of de- 
 parted hours. 
 Twined them round her marble brow — the bridal 
 
 crown of flowers. 
 The queenly rose, bringing, growing where the warm 
 
 winds blow, 
 Emblems of her coming springtime, crocuses, dearest 
 
 cups of snow. 
 
76 SOLOX DOGGPZTT'S ]H)EMS. 
 
 Tenderly, tenderly, crowded they — silent — round 
 the bier, 
 
 Heaping all her marriage flowers upon her, in the eve- 
 ning drear: 
 
 And writing on her pall with lilies, the name of 
 " Trinma " there, 
 
 They heard the voices calling her across the icy air. 
 
 So there was no cari/i/y w edding — no, none ! 
 And all the doors were closed, and the dawn broke 
 From twilight, early, pale, and with the snows. 
 
 Next even lay in all its glory. 
 Clear, and beyond the southern gates, 
 Across one wide infinitude of sea. 
 Gleamed the home of the immortals. 
 
 " Earth is earth — the place of parting," 
 Saith the New Year. He sternly wept. 
 Then the Old Year with all he bore, 
 That he had gathered while he staid, 
 And with Irmma — the rose-bud dead — 
 Sailed like a phantom through the twilight, 
 Moving for the home beyond the sunset — 
 Vanishing with Death and to the stars. 
 
 Winter's white dawn will die into the deep, 
 And Gemini sail again triumphant. 
 Bathing in the azure depth of May : 
 From June's sweet hill, dew wafted all the bloom. 
 Of fragrant summer, freshening the blue sea, 
 Sweetest resting o'er the grave of Irmma. 
 The flowers, the grasses, ever lonely bowing, 
 Will weep for her the summer's silvery dew ; 
 The whippoorwill will softly come and go ; 
 And there, the evening winds will ever wander. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 77 
 
 The sun set, and left the grave in silence, 
 
 Filling twilight with shadows infinite, 
 
 Her unseen footsteps in a land of lovely dreams. 
 
 And outward, from the dark and solemn deeps, 
 
 Came up celestial voices through all the night : — 
 
 And she will walk a Bride forever 
 
 In garden homes of long, long love and light, 
 
 Far in the sweet valley of Avilion. 
 
78 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 LITTLE MAY 
 
 [HERK'S lonely agony in the blast, 
 The storm-wind beats my door. 
 Sister, so feeling I will die, 
 
 I almost dread the flowers once more; 
 For thinking if next pleasant June 
 
 Come not again for me, — 
 When to me the hilis will fold in gloom. 
 
 This sweetest flower will bloom for thee. 
 And if, dear sister, it be true, 
 
 And so this little flower remain. 
 Remembering still, this child I know 
 I shall in rapture clasp again. 
 
 Oh, dearest of my life and heart ! 
 
 Oh, little friend with golden hair ! 
 Indeed it were so hard to part. 
 
 She tripped into the room, so fair. 
 Oh, little heart so pure and true ! 
 
 And darling eyes of sparkling light, 
 My whole soul goes out to you, 
 
 Dear angel with the upward flight. 
 And can it be that such were given. 
 
 Too sweet of mind for earth alone .'' 
 They 'light our weary steps to heaven. 
 
 They cheer our burdened j-ears of gloom. 
 
 Simplicity is more than fame, 
 
 "Of such shall well great kingdoms be," 
 Said one who ruled sublimity, 
 
 And calmed the primal void of sea. 
 Oh, wild, ambitions, troubled years ! 
 
 With all the joy, and pride, and pain, 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 79 
 
 How many heart-breaks wild with tears ! 
 
 Who would not be a child again ? 
 Ah, fair spirit, and not flesh ! 
 
 That makes her cheeks a sweeter rose, 
 Affection's warmth of soul, the blush 
 
 A sign from God her mother knows. 
 
 ^Tis winter in our soul and hearts, 
 
 Joy through all the household dies, 
 Till her fair lip in smiling parts 
 
 And smile those pretty eyes. 
 The years are wreathed with roses, love, 
 
 To him who knows this little child ; 
 This light that comes from other suns, 
 
 A poet's dream, this rainbow child. 
 Her looks are like the freshening spring 
 
 Warm after long cold showers, 
 A sunbeam in her mother's house, 
 
 First flower among the flowers ; 
 Dear as the lilies perfect bloom. 
 
 And beautiful as they, 
 AH night a sleeping angel here, 
 
 God's promised sign by day. 
 
 God sowed a handful of these flowers, 
 
 That flashed Love's starlight o'er Life's pain. 
 To dally, through these morning hours, 
 
 Only to take them up again. 
 Like some bright spirit o'er my soul, 
 
 Will she in all my grief attend.? 
 And while our weary days may roll 
 
 May Heaven guard my little friend. 
 And if her life be drenched with tears, 
 
 And Care press on his iron mail, 
 God's promise doth not fail in years 
 
 When loud the angry storms prevail. 
 
8o SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 THE WEDDING. 
 
 hT was the Bridegroom won our prize of Summer, 
 v And loved in joy our perfect flower. 
 
 That smile that glanced from deep blue eyes 
 delighted. 
 Till Spring foretold the tiridal hour. 
 
 Damps of disease did pale those lips departed. 
 
 And closed those sweetest eyes in night. 
 As balms that rest o'er fields of evening gold at harvest, 
 
 Repose came o'er her days of light. 
 
 3- 
 
 The Bridegroom came and took the child forever, 
 
 And our mother wept aloud. 
 One grey, drear morning, cold with windy voices, 
 
 They laid her in her snow-white shroud. 
 
 4- 
 
 That night an angel went away from trial. 
 
 And her Bridegroom's name was " Death," 
 
 She left us as the peaceful suns of Summer, 
 (to down with evening's calmest breath. 
 
 On earth no more shall we behold our bride in beauty, 
 But clasp her in the silence of our love. 
 
 Where she, a dear and holy angel smiles triumphant. 
 In more expansive homes above ; 
 
 I 
 
SOLO?^ DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 8 1 
 
 6. 
 And in the long days of deep, untold aftection, 
 
 We, wandering on the far-off happy shore, - 
 Shall raise no more the solemn lamentation, 
 
 Beholding her in some sweet, brighter hour. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 BALLAD. 
 
 BOSTON r.ELLS. 
 
 CROSS the isles that skirt the deep 
 1^ Of my fair azure, Boston bay, 
 
 1 hear their sensuous voices sweep,. 
 Voices sweet, 
 At this still close of summer clay. 
 Sound nightly, o'er the dreamy shore, 
 in echoes far, o'er hill and fells. 
 So calm, when 1 shall weep no more ! 
 \A'eep no more, 
 * O ! quaint and dear old Hoston hells. 
 
 In years gone by, their midnight tone. 
 
 When rose the gentle sound 1 lo\e. 
 Awoke my slumber in the gloom. 
 In the gloom, 
 
 Like some known whisper from above : 
 And once our country wept — and battle's call 
 
 Did waft at morn across our dells ; 
 We heard their deep, wild music fall. 
 Wild music fall, 
 
 Our loved and best old Boston hells. 
 
 Within the parlor lit and bright 
 Of golden feast they once did tell, 
 
 The bride and groom about the lights ; 
 About the lights. 
 They rang as happy marriage bells. 
 
 Those bridal morns, those funeral hours. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POKMS. 8j 
 
 Fade low as clouds along the hills. 
 Our friendships waste like summer flowers, 
 Like summer flowers, 
 But still ring on, yon Boston bells. 
 
 At eve sighs Arlington's sweet chimes 
 
 And once on wings of midnight cloud, 
 The Old South, mournful beating time, 
 Beating time. 
 
 Back to old Brattle answered loud. 
 Oh, now I hear those bells of yore ; 
 
 My boyhood days to me they tell — 
 They say that youth will come no more, 
 Will come no more, 
 
 But long will ring old Boston bells. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 UNSEEN FOOTSTEPS 
 
 IN rilK OLD WOODS. 
 
 O GAIN the day is sweet, 
 ^^ Again the summer calls, 
 
 And to the deep, wild wood 
 I pass the wattled walls. 
 Oh, vacant years have fled and gone 
 
 Since Emma was a bride 
 And trod where all this place did bloom, 
 % Down by this sunny side. 
 These high trees echoed to her laugh. 
 
 And every bird sang sweet; 
 Or when she stepped the garden path, 
 
 The deer was not more fleet. 
 I saw her early ere she was 
 
 A dear and fairy bride, 
 And heard her little feet so soft. 
 
 Along the grasses glide. 
 What do these wild-lands whisper now ? 
 
 " 'Twas twenty years ago. 
 She happy came and went by us, 
 
 And sung us all she knew." 
 And so the full air even spoke, 
 
 And hinted where she went ; 
 For I had but a young heart then, 
 
 And knew what love-dreams meant. 
 And these flowers laughed out : "She was sweet," 
 
 This streamlet laughed with her ; 
 
 I 
 
She bi'0Ui2;lit her h)ve(l "uitar, s;niLr to our shiiiiii>: star 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 85 
 
 Oh, every bird that I should meet, 
 
 Sang : "Fair her tresses were." 
 The trees have grown a little since, 
 
 Or lost their early grace. 
 For oh, indeed, I think they miss 
 
 Her dear and happy face ! 
 She plucked red roses many a time — 
 
 Of her they were a part : 
 Oh, happy flowers ; indeed they were, 
 
 To sleep so near her heart. 
 Because they missed her — they too, died, 
 
 Felt not her fingers press 
 Their downy robes, at eve, and dawn. 
 
 Or knew her soft caress. 
 
 Her "Unseen Footstep" seems so near, 
 
 The brooklet babbles well to me, 
 
 And makes me think of her ; 
 For in the dry and heated noon, 
 
 She came where lilies were ; 
 And letting fall a robe or two, 
 
 All heedless by the stream, 
 Unrobed a fair and dimpled arm, 
 
 Kissed by a lone sunbeam. 
 More careless still a shoulder white, 
 
 And further down and more 
 Peeped out, and dashed by flitting light 
 
 Through branches hanging o'er. 
 And gathering up with flowers her skirts, 
 
 Sly-standing in the stream, 
 The sun laughed through the lily leaves, 
 
 Two perfect ankles gleamed. 
 And then she stood, and let the trout, 
 
 Soft-tickle at her feet. 
 
86 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 While down her sunny hair would roll, 
 
 And all the lilies meet. 
 Ah, then she looked, and saw herself 
 
 Reflected in the tide, 
 Oh, then indeed she was a sylph, 
 
 Of happy Sunny Side ! 
 The green bank dearer grew to me, 
 
 I, thinking how she stood, 
 A lily of the lily flowers ; 
 
 The maidie of the wood. 
 And I asked me even all I dared ; 
 
 How did the sky look through ? 
 How bound she up her golden hair ? 
 
 How smiled her eyes of blue ? — 
 There underneath the leaves of June, 
 
 She seemed a poet's thought, 
 When spirit wanders in a dream. 
 
 In golden rapture wrought; 
 Or like some unknown morning star, 
 
 And undiscovered here, 
 Some sweet ideal far away. 
 
 In poesy's sunny year; 
 As if could grow another flower, 
 
 Embracing all in one, 
 A world within itself, a power 
 
 In silent sweetness born ! 
 
 The white pine's little winged leaves 
 Would stray to kiss her there. 
 
 Would lose themselves like spirits light, 
 Then fly away in air. 
 
 Indeed the seeds were hearts, for near, 
 Has sprung the sighing pine, 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 87 
 
 With top, a robe of darkness drear, 
 
 To weep for her dechne. 
 Or then, one httle fortuned seed, 
 
 That Ht, — 'tis hard to tell, 
 Hath flown away to other woods, 
 
 Where they in glory dwell. 
 But then, their secret well they keep, 
 
 And tell me not of her. 
 They are caressed by nature's winds 
 
 That tease the sturdy fir • — ■ 
 Just as she could haunt the glen 
 
 Or graceful, through it glide ; 
 Or sing the songs that once have been, 
 
 When she sat by my side. 
 
 'Twas once — a lone, low shaded eve, 
 
 She brought her loved guitar. 
 And from the web her heart could weave. 
 
 Sang to one shining star. 
 And the far-off orbs would seem to dip 
 
 Come near her happy eyes ; 
 So sweet she was they touched her lip 
 
 As light on water dies. 
 The birds within the maple wood 
 
 That night fell not asleep. 
 And nature kept the happy mood 
 
 To hear her numbers deep : 
 And now, O heart ! — these murmuring leaves. 
 
 Repeat them in their song, 
 For she did charm the mountain breeze, 
 
 Remembering her so long. 
 And can I ever full forget, 
 
 The eve I heard — that hour > 
 
88 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 The voice that died on that fair lip, 
 
 Re-echoed down the shore. 
 And in the yonder dark pine grove — 
 
 I seem to hear her there ! — 
 Or through the depth her shadow move, 
 
 Light " footsteps " beat the air. 
 But I am waking from my dream. 
 
 Oh all the woods reply 
 And whisper, when I call her name ! 
 
 "I in the wood-land lie" ! - 
 And on the hill, and to the stars. 
 
 The wild winds say : " She died" — 
 And all her Spirit from afar 
 
 Dreams over Sunny Side. 
 It comes and goes at later eve. 
 
 At morn amid the grass 
 The pressure on the lilies tell 
 
 Where little feet have passed. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 89 
 
 THOUGHTS FROM THE STARS. 
 
 A WALK BY THE RIVER. 
 
 BLOW winds of evening, softly blow ! 
 And gently press my beating brows : 
 Sweet o'er the dusk, deep music flows, 
 And calmly clear the echoes rove. 
 
 Through crimson bars the shadows dream ; 
 And on the air sound evening bells ; 
 The soothing story sweetly knells ; 
 The heron calls adown the stream. 
 
 When darkness sheds her mantle down, 
 God skirts with myriad stars the deep ; 
 Supremest hour when soul may wake. 
 Beholding then immortal morn. 
 
 And darkly looms the distant hill, 
 An altar shadowed by the night, 
 My soul remounts to higher height, 
 The stars are guardians of my will. 
 
 They lead me to that silent shore. 
 Up all the steps of tangled light. 
 Amid the nebulae of night, 
 Where kindest friends have gone before. 
 
 Roll on, into thy deep, bright stars ! 
 Ye linger on the verge of dawn, 
 Where souls, so shortly, wdll return 
 When Death the Golden-gate unbars. 
 
9o: SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 Knowing thy centuries of light; 
 What is the little life we claim ? 
 Oh, let my earthly dreamings wane : 
 I rest, and drink the airs of night ! 
 'Tis hard to sing the best I feel, 
 Yet if their light, not all shall fail, 
 What life, what hope beyond the vail, 
 Beyond the darkest deeps revealed. 
 
 Beautiful river. Down thy shore, 
 
 I hear the lulling of the wave, 
 
 Low lisping by the silent sail, 
 
 And in my spirit quiet more. 
 
 Like Love, the stars smile out through tears. 
 
 Deep calm ! — they unmolested shine; 
 
 So rest in Faith, Oh heart of mine ! 
 
 Abide in all these troubled years. 
 
 Art thou, fair star, some dearest friend, 
 
 Gone from me in the lucid light? 
 
 Immortal in the spirit's flight 
 
 That on my lingering life attends ? 
 
 For through my wandering days with griefs, 
 
 I long to know one soothing tone. 
 
 Some foregleam from immortal Home ; 
 
 Those wild eyes calm on raving deeps. 
 
 Beautiful fields of living light ! 
 
 Oh, for the red of lurid Mars ! 
 
 Oh, for the glow of northern stars ! 
 
 1 love in their golden flight. 
 
 It is the star of ceaseless Love, 
 
 As she rolls in the rosy w-est, 
 
 This light of night I cherish best. 
 
 She lives forever above. 
 
Z'^ 
 
 
 7V^V= 
 
 I ^ 
 
 III k 
 
 
 
 
 X*it^ 
 
 "iVO^Vt 
 
 l^:^^' 
 
 
 -■'-'; 
 
 '-^-fr^:--^' ^ 
 
 Uiic UH.ie row. but ..nr. Sailing .lown the liv.T some l.n,i>lit 
 unclouded iiiiiiii. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 91 
 
 FIFTY YEARS. 
 
 AN HOUR AFTER THE GOLDEN WEDDING. 
 I. 
 
 [HE guests have all departed ; 
 They have all gone home. 
 The sweet, the sad, the tender hearted, 
 Again have left us here alone. 
 The floors are still along the hall-way, 
 
 The sickle moon is gold; 
 Oh, come to the silence of the pathway. 
 
 The places sweet of old. 
 Just like a dream of Twilight, 
 These fifty years went by; 
 But left us still two happy dreamers, 
 Dearest — you and I. 
 
 These solemn shadows in the lindens, 
 
 Seem very sweet to me ; 
 They rest in silence in the evening. 
 
 Where once I sat with thee. 
 Come again down by the gateway. 
 
 And let me speak with thee ; 
 Come love, dream by the lindens, 
 
 Oh come, and walk with me. 
 Ah ! long ago — so long — we wandered, 
 
 Only fifty years. Love — 'tis true. 
 Came we through the dreamy shadows, 
 
 Still my dearest — I and you. 
 
 The trees have grown a little gnarly. 
 Soon doff their summer green — 
 
92 SOLON DOGGKTT'S POEMS. 
 
 Oh! is it so with you and I, Lo\e ? 
 
 Compared with days that once have been. 
 I know our locks have changed to silver, 
 
 And many a year seems sad, 
 But the same love — sings on yon river, 
 
 As when I was a heedless lad. 
 These dreamy shadows in the lindens, 
 
 Are soft as ever now ; 
 'Tis only o'er a weary, weary river, 
 
 In life we wandered through. 
 
 O, take my hand — my darling ! 
 
 'Twas many a year ago, 
 I clasped it in these silent lindens. 
 
 Those years of joy and woe. 
 And there is Willie, and little Mary, 
 
 Where indeed are they ? 
 O, are they under sweeter lindens. 
 
 Where sunny seasons play 1 
 And the old farm, on the hill - — dearest. 
 
 Where the wild winds blew — 
 Where is the little pleasant chamber. 
 
 That once was dear to you ? 
 
 1 know my hair is touched with silver, 
 
 But not my heart is old — 
 Though we are sitting by the river, 
 
 That sings so sweet to you. 
 Yes — oft remember — that sweet summer, 
 
 O long — how long ago ? 
 I came down by these lindens. 
 
 To take you out to row. 
 And now I see a smile ; a dimple, 
 
 Yet graced with deepened years ; 
 And a heart more sweet, my Hattie, 
 
 Reflected through the tears. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 93 
 
 And not a life of silent sadness. 
 
 Has made them bitter tears, 
 Yet they are growing sweeter, 
 
 Through all the burdened years : 
 Ah ! but when 1 came to row you, Hattie, 
 
 You know you would not go, 
 'Tis strange — 'tis very strange — i thinking ; 
 
 You brought me waste and woe. 
 " All this labor for my pains " I saying, 
 
 While the west winds murmured low ; 
 For indeed you looked so beautiful, 
 
 When I came to take you out to row. 
 
 Then 1 homeward went and pondered. 
 
 Oh, what shall come of this ? 
 And I watched you in the dusk of evening 
 
 Shall then I have my wish ? 
 I saw you in the pleasant meadows. 
 
 Pluck the daisy-stars of white ; 
 I watched you by the babbling river, 
 
 And thought you was the light. 
 I saw you by your father's doorway. 
 
 Sit like a little queen ; 
 The glory mid my heart's forebodings, 
 
 The gleam across a gleam. 
 
 And early spring was there in glory. 
 
 And there in youth you grew, 
 A violet of all the violets. 
 
 Thy dress a finer blue. 
 And did I e'er forget you, Hattie ? 
 
 Or liquid bird-like song ! 
 That trilled like all the rushing river, 
 
 So joyously along : 
 
94 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 And the laughter of that water 
 
 Sweet-dreaming to the day — 
 I can hear it in my ears forever, 
 
 Echoing with thy song away. 
 A flush upon the cheek of morning, 
 
 Was not so deep as thine ; 
 The glow that soothed the light of evening 
 
 Was not so clear or fine. 
 I wished I was the happy squirrel, 
 
 That seemed not scared of thee. 
 For tenderness was thine, my love, indeed. 
 
 For he would flee from me. 
 But ah ! - — ^ Another evening wandered, 
 
 From all the summer dropt — 
 The happiest gold of any season. 
 
 That fell to human lot. 
 
 Yes — in one twilight — soft and sweetly, 
 
 You came too near the stream, 
 And trod all gently in the purple. 
 
 You seemed so like a queen. 
 There is the same old boat, dearest — 
 
 Yonder in the stream 
 In the same old joyous river : 
 
 It there for years hath been. 
 'I'is brown now, old, yes — and hallowed, 
 
 Re-mended o'er and o'er. 
 Set about with the sweetest lilies, 
 
 That water ever bore. 
 
 Don't you remember, that dear evening ? 
 
 Oh, beautiful you stood ! 
 The glory of my youthful dreaming. 
 
 Within this linden wood. 
 And here — this same spot by the river 
 
 I teased you by these trees — 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 95 
 
 Only fifty years ago, you smiling, 
 
 Blushing to the breeze. 
 And then just by these same old lindens, 
 
 I asked you, " Would you go .? " 
 And then down the rolling river, 
 
 I took you out to row. 
 
 3 
 These dreamy shadows in the lindens. 
 
 Seem very sweet to me ; 
 I rest in silence in the evening. 
 
 You sitting here with me. 
 Oh, Love so true, and yet forever ! 
 
 Can it e'er decline ? 
 As we have watched yon darling river. 
 
 For fifty years of time. 
 Oh, the jingle of the wealth of millions, 
 
 Is never like to this. 
 To sit together in the dear old places, 
 Looking down along the mist ; 
 
 The span of fifty years of sweetness, 
 
 Unbroken in the trust ; 
 But clouded here and there a little. 
 
 By tears — yet grief is just. 
 Look through our life, my dearest ! 
 
 One more row — but one ! 
 Sailing/r^w these pleasant lindens, 
 
 Some calm, unclouded morn. 
 And when the fields are ripe and golden, 
 
 And the boat has gone adrift, 
 We will look back upon the river, 
 
 A smile through sunny mist. 
 
t)0 SOLOX DOGGKTT'S TOEMS. 
 
 A\'I1.I().\ i;V THK SAC'O RIVER. 
 
 fHE Saco, sounding, ceaseless rolls 
 For many a sunny mile below. 
 Glowing o'er the gleaming stones, 
 
 Whose bubbles, beating, break and go, 
 
 Or further down between the isles 
 
 Smiles onward through sweet siher song, 
 
 Or laughs by Conway's intervals, 
 By rolling knoll, and velvet lawn. 
 
 Sweet Saco. Dancing, happy maid ! 
 
 Fair daughter of the hills; you keep 
 The secret of the everglade, 
 
 .And know where meadow grasses weep : 
 
 And when the summer sunlights glow- 
 Around the darkened ledges there, 
 
 Yon rest — where luscious elms throw 
 Their shadows to the golden air ; 
 
 Or when you dally round the roots, 
 Dark, beneath the midnight moon, 
 
 To you the light winds play their lutes, 
 And still vour 1)anks are bright in bloom. 
 
 Oh New England's forest paradise ! 
 
 Tell not of old Arcadia's hills 
 Where Poesy's wilder rivers rise, 
 
 When I repose by Saco's rills. 
 

 'X".A»{ftv- . 
 
 ^^J^MS^ 
 
 
 
 Desiv Saco. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 97 
 
 Dear dreamer of the mountain air ! 
 
 When below the ledge you sleep, 
 Glide on like life's calm feelings there, 
 
 For there my senses mingling meet. 
 
 And oft in summer suns I go, 
 
 From the glory of the higher hills, 
 
 Still, I find with thee no lonely woe, 
 But melody of willing wills. 
 
 Oh ! touch the meads and light 
 Some weary heart before it break. 
 
 Make music through my inner night, 
 Ere blow the wilder whirlwinds bleak ! 
 
 Here 1 love instilling quietude. 
 
 Some murmured reasoning from the vale, 
 And pausing — hear the interludes 
 
 That rise ere downy summers fail. 
 
 Between old Saco and the Sea 
 
 I smile. With them I talk. 1 go. 
 And find each hath a voice for me. 
 
 Sweet solace for aP dolorous woe. 
 In each when Nature speaks to me, 
 
 I find the hour all unforlorn, 
 Dear the harmonious windy tree. 
 
 And there a solemn sweetness horn. 
 And will you take this gleam away 
 
 That floats on Conway's intervale .'' 
 'J'he unenshadowed hours of day, 
 
 A smile to li\es with faces pale! 
 
 3* 
 Green knoll that sweetly silent stands 
 
 By the little looming spire — 
 And there, loved labors of the hands. 
 
 Still catch the jiolden tones of air : 
 
pS SOLON DOGGETT'S POKMS. 
 
 Heat, sweet hearts below the ehiis ! 
 
 Blow, cahn winds o'er Kearsarge, 
 Bloom, fair flowers in gorgeous realms. 
 
 Kiss, bright Sun, dear Saco's marge I 
 
 Yet is left this happy place. 
 
 And tender hearts will sweetly beat, 
 And Life true Life, in glowing face 
 
 Must bow, where balmy winds shall meet. 
 
 Then mingle by the gliding stream. 
 Home of the happy mountain winds. 
 
 Where lights of revel-summers gleam, 
 And thoughts of life take golden wings. 
 
 And fly, and rise, ajul love, and shine, 
 
 Till the reaper comes among the sheaves. 
 Re-robes the heart a star through time 
 And calms all woe, as summer robes the leaves. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 99 
 
 CHARLIE'S LOVE. 
 
 TOU think the grave is lonely, mother ? 
 As I shall never speak! — 
 I have been so good all day — mother 
 I don't see why you weep. 
 
 May said ; "We all were angels," mother. 
 
 I am afraid to go, 
 For you will weep so long — mother, 
 
 When T am lying low. 
 
 Put Charlie in his grave? — forever. 
 
 Where the soft winds blow ?- 
 Rut I will come and see you, mother. 
 
 Be a little drop of dew : 
 
 And I will Ho;ii about you ever, 
 
 And rest upon your brow : 
 Will sleep within your roses. mother, 
 
 Kiss you as I do now. 
 
SOLON DOCJCJETT'S POEMS. 
 
 LA BKLLO. 
 
 TO IKMMA. 
 
 J^MPASSIONED deeps of long distress! 
 ' Fairies from a lone ocean shell ! 
 
 Calms when the billows lie at rest ! 
 
 With these thine eyes most pensive dwell. 
 
 As angel thoughts they gleam. 
 
 And bearing radiance to my night ; 
 
 Dancing o'er some dusky stream 
 
 Full-winged, with sweet, pui l- sensuous light. 
 
 In the arbor dim, star-lit, 
 
 They look voluptuous when they love. 
 1 know their little lightnings flit, 
 
 When through the massive dark they rove. 
 
 Quick-turned, they wake from languishment, 
 Those loved, dark, sad, orbs — they throw 
 
 Spears ; not passion shivering sent, 
 Not of Melpomenes' woe. 
 
 Stars of Urania — sigh no more ! 
 
 For sister orbs, ecstatic fire; 
 Sweet love-dewed eyes look from the shore ; 
 
 Shine, burn, dream, flash — expire. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 COME, OH COME! 
 
 JRMMA ! thou art as Nature loves, 
 Chastened in thy all perfect face, 
 Beautiful from thy dusky groves. 
 
 Whose mysteries hover round thy grace. 
 
 The silent choirs of evening stars 
 Look down ; or o'er the purple sea 
 
 Grow tremulous : and the long years 
 
 With nature, well are charmed with thee. 
 
 I see thee, Irmma, like a dream 
 
 At midnight, when the world is still, 
 
 And your soft eyes reflect the stars 
 You talk with in your own sweet will. 
 
 So, dear one, all this chilling world 
 Would have thee ever for its own ! — 
 
 Rather than not feel thy love fold 
 Round me, give me oblivion. 
 
SOLON UOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 THOUGH THOU ART DEAD I FEEL THEE 
 NEAR ME, IRMMA. 
 
 §H, living Grace of Heaven and Earth ! 
 Resplendent in thy holy face, 
 Smiling with irradiant birth, 
 I love thee ! dearest of thy race. 
 
 Fair golden head of constant love 
 
 With tresses dancing on the wind ; 
 Oh, heart alone— but born to love. 
 
 Sweet one on whom a life declined. 
 
 Fading, clear gleam of holy thought 
 
 In all passion spiritualized; 
 Thou, o'er my heart, such power hath wrought, 
 
 Gently as angel footsteps glide. 
 
 In that fair Heaven where no woe is. 
 
 There cometh not death-deep passion — 
 
 Love ! thy dear heart only to miss 
 
 On earth, were ceaseless lamentation ! 
 
 They say that hope is written bright 
 
 In the far, boundless blue of sky, 
 Yet in thy dreamful eyes of light, 
 
 Are deeper things that will not die ; 
 
 And though those liquid deeps of blue 
 Fade ; chilled in long oblivious night, 
 
 I deem in them the rapture true. 
 
 Dims never in the wild death fii<rht. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S TOEMS. 103 
 
 I dream of thee, down by the stream, 
 
 Who bows in beauty to the morn, 
 Thou, Uly floating in a dream, 
 
 A dawn within a happy dawn. 
 
 You touch me not. You know me not. 
 
 Oh, gracious head serenely bowed ! 
 Soft flitting in the kish-green lot. 
 
 With tresses golden, zephyr wooed. 
 
 I cannot speak to break the spell, 
 
 Nor dare not even if I could, 
 Such charm thou canst with whispers tell 
 
 To the glory of the twilight flood. 
 
 Could life be wTapt with thee at last, 
 
 If I might be the tender tree 
 By which thy little feet hath passed 
 
 I should not feel half worthy thee. 
 
 Reflections, such as Nature loves, 
 
 Grow peaceful in thy perfect face 
 Beautiful from the dusky groves 
 
 Whose mysteries hover round thy grace. 
 
I04 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 THE PATH SUPREME. 
 
 LL night no answer from my dead. 
 
 Love's silver tongues new tones will ring, 
 Though ages burn to embers cold 
 Triumphant winging thought's long flight, 
 Unproved that death is death and night. 
 Yon orbs that roll along the deep, 
 Exalted, hint eternal morn ! 
 Ye too are dust that drifts afar 
 From God's fast footsteps borne ! 
 
 All night I'm watching with my dead. 
 Can I follow God's footprints ? — 
 She does not answer when I speak. 
 Oh, what the inner selfishness, 
 I nurture by pride's lurid fires, 
 Wherein my vainest dream expires. 
 Ha\ e 1 some secret, darkest place, 
 Far in the yearning soul-life down, 
 Some inward sin one dare not own ? 
 A spectre, whene'er in gloomy dusk, 
 I draw the curtains to retire. 
 Flaunting with rolling eyes of tire .'' 
 My dead tells nothing that she knows. 
 Down baseness, down ! all sorrow down ! 
 These night-born vapors o'er yon stars. 
 Will scatter by the dawning bars. 
 
 There comes a halo round my dead. 
 What is mv conscience, in dark night ? — 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 105 
 
 Nature answers unfolding full ! 
 
 God's dawn rolls o'er her blessed soul, 
 
 For her the hallowed palm-trees spread 
 
 Their shades of fragrant nectared balm 
 
 By tracks of summer's golden calm. 
 
 The great clouds roll in air 
 
 Their chariots of mellow light. 
 
 Sweet rest. Rest, sweet in long delight ! 
 
 The daisy looks with tender eyes ; 
 
 No cloud upon the silver main, 
 
 And darling nature smiles again. 
 
 But what to us the babbling brooks 
 
 Or use the seasons towering gold 
 
 If Doubt and Death dwell with our soul .'' 
 
 Her little heart will never beat. 
 Can I follow God's footsteps? 
 Oh, this dark loneliness my love, 
 That dwells with sobs the waters make, 
 With slumberous sunbeams on the lake ; 
 With silver clouds of summer dawn, 
 With all the floating shadows play 
 That dream to lull the lucid day ; 
 With winds that murmur to our hills, 
 Where blue seas lift their isles of light, 
 And whisper sweetness to the night. 
 
 But she will not answer if 1 .speak. 
 
 Oh, oh ! my loneliness of soul ; 
 
 Like echoes to the shuddering thoughts 
 
 In vague dim vistas under-ground. 
 
 An icy, ghastly, dismal sound ; 
 
 A silence, though seething streets are near, 
 
 Though hastening hundreds come and go, 
 
 With grating noises to and fro. 
 
io6 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 Not in the crowd we tind our cheer! 
 Most then the sad soul feels alone — 
 And sits in silence — in what gloom ? — 
 Vast visions rise in lonely hours. 
 Oh, then we are just what we are ! 
 While sitting lonely with our dead, 
 On life's great deep, one silent star, 
 God stood alone in tracks of calm, 
 Ere His wandering orbs were born ; 
 Truth lives, and we must die alone. 
 Oh, can I follow those footsteps 
 That through the dark must lead me home. 
 
 All night I'm watching with my dead. 
 Oh silent kiss ! — our hearts are wed 
 To kiss forever in the dawn : 
 Oh never shall we part again. 
 1 see her in the Paths Supreme ! 
 Soft, and soft, her step unseen — 
 Sleep, sleep. Oh fair and darling head, 
 Thou art but dreaming. Only Love ! 
 Thou art not dead — thou art not dead. 
 
 \\'hat is the secret she doth keep ? — 
 
 Still she lies from head to feet. 
 
 Her little heart will ne\ er beat. 
 
 The room is very dark in grief, 
 
 She hath not gentle smile, nor breath. 
 
 But marble calm o'er her dear face at rest. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 A LIFE IDYL. 
 
 WHAT life's stream SAYS TO ITS IDLE LILIES. 
 
 T% ANGUISHING Lily ! — by thee I flow, 
 Iwi Lives there sweet thought in weary eyes. 
 
 Through heavy pulses beating low 
 
 In whispers when the twilight flies ? — 
 There yet ts glory left in woe. 
 For scarce my life with Fancy played, 
 Before I found one pleasant dream, 
 Still hither, thither vainly swayed. 
 Like this fair lily in tiie stream. 
 And waking I heard the noisy street, 
 
 Compelling care that called so loud, 
 And little footsteps weary beat 
 
 Hard pavements lit from Sorrow's cloud. 
 Here dashed with joy, the golden times, 
 
 Dream-loves too beautiful to stay — 
 Ah ! through the silver liquid lines, 
 What means a melancholy day! 
 
 I am Life's stream, and bounding on. 
 
 Awake sweet morn ! — Smile happy morn ! 
 Waft hither o'er Floridian seas ; 
 
 Move dear voices, sweetly born. 
 And blow fair climates to the breeze. 
 
 My music making melodies, 
 Dream o'er me till I die. 
 
 Till tears, night long, in troubled eyes 
 
io8 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 Touch me so soft, and fly. 
 
 But ere I heard — Life's long mournful deep 
 
 Awoke me sad to weariness — 
 
 I found it took a greater soul 
 
 To be content in ill success 
 
 Than ever to succeed in all ! — 
 
 So 1 tumble down and on, 
 
 Troubled, worrying in distress ; 
 
 But maiden Lily, you have known 
 
 No cloud to dim your loveliness; 
 
 Yet before me lies Life's boundless .sea. 
 
 While I go bubbling on by thee. 
 
 Retired in the sunlight of the stream. 
 
 Dreaming thou movest to and fro, 
 
 As though it might be always dream. 
 
 3- 
 
 In the dust of ivons nations sleep : 
 
 Oh world, what silence hast thou seen I — 
 There are no sad seclusions deep, 
 
 Where God's footstep hath not been ! — 
 Ere the noblest cerements grow cold. 
 
 Comes sweet replenishing of light, 
 By H im who walked the seas of old, 
 
 The guardian of the stars of night. 
 1 know Life's stream '\s part of all, 
 
 l~ar billows wail so loud to me, 
 A part of the full finished whole, 
 
 The beautiful which is to be. 
 Blush then melancholy ! sigh and l)lush I 
 
 For sad numbers thou hast given. 
 Haunt not my days and flush 
 
 Pale cheeks fair as the tender even. 
 Oh idle maiden in Life's stream 
 
 Awake with me from all thy dream! 
 
SOLON DOCiGETT'S POEMS. 109 
 
 How frail, this bubble, bound with thee 
 
 That heaves upon this whirlpool waste ; 
 How valued striving hearts and hands 
 
 That beat at nature's temple gates. 
 Look ! Nature sits with lovely eyes 
 
 To enrich her portals with delight ! 
 This life, dear heart, in beauty flies, 
 
 Between the arches of her light. 
 Come to the woodlands fair with time, 
 
 Where the gentle waters sigh, 
 And where the sweet-briers kiss the pine. 
 
 Caress the winds, and die : 
 Or when the wild bird sings his notes 
 
 To the deepness of the dawn. 
 And where the silver music floats 
 
 So sweetly, to the breaking morn. 
 
 Oh 1 have heard in some wild wood 
 
 The voice of the freshening Spring ! 
 And heard the dance of my gleaming flood 
 
 Roll to the song of the rushing wind. 
 1 have slept in the dingle and the grass, 
 
 Down in the darling dell, 
 And the night-winds where they gently pass, 
 
 Have told me all our life is well. 
 But yon clouds fade like things we love, 
 
 Alas ! — gold-tipt pinnacles of air ; 
 And the solid mountains rise to fall. 
 
 Will leave no shadow there. 
 And what is man, when rocks can waste 
 
 Into the unrelenting deep .? 
 Ay ! the very types of species take 
 
 New forms, or fade in wakeless sleep ! — 
 
o SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 But could I breathe my soul away, 
 
 As sweetest summer leaves the wood, 
 And never know the day I die, 
 
 While a glory calms my blood 
 With tender light that leaves the west, 
 'Twere all the same, for after life is rest. 
 Girl-lily looking up to me 
 
 Life's river scarcely hath begun ! 
 Unwatched, ungathered were the forms 
 
 That stirred below the earlier sea, 
 In evolution moving on, 
 
 Great hints of what was yet to be : 
 The half formed wing, wrenched from the stone, 
 
 Perfect now in light these later years — 
 What were the rudiments of man alone, 
 
 Have grown to full life — and its tears. 
 Oh, shall this wondrous working cease. 
 
 Or shall the soul be fairer born .? 
 The thousand hearts that beat so sweet 
 
 Evolve more light, some nobler form. 
 
 Pale mother, where thou sittest with sad eyes, 
 
 And lookest, toward life's lonely deep — 
 Dear young mother, while the daylight dies. 
 
 Thou dreamest of thy child asleep. 
 Dear little arms ! Oh cunning feet ! 
 
 That dimple to the evening light, 
 Whose innocence is rest — 'tis meet, 
 
 The mother's eyes should weep to-night. 
 For down across her heart there fall 
 
 Gleams of his future where he lay, 
 And flit grim pictures on the wall 
 
 By little eyes that smile by day. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 What wonder dearest — I should fear 
 Still doting o'er his golden hair ; — 
 
 Oh, the long weary flowing of his years ! 
 Eternal progress written there. 
 
 And so the darling boy at first : 
 
 Then the temptations and the doubt ; 
 
 Then perfection and the fruit; 
 
 Then the undying worlds of youth. 
 
 So I hope Lily while you droop. 
 
 To-day I passed the rose-blown fields, 
 
 Low winding near the purple hills, 
 Or where the grasses drop their seeds 
 
 To the music of the leaping rills. 
 Tall ladies of the summer fair, 
 
 They bend to the expanding meads, 
 To bugle melodies of June, 
 
 Indeed they are but humble weeds. 
 The bending grasses of the lane, 
 
 Fair Lily, dallying repose, 
 Care not even whence they came, 
 
 Or when the brightest flower-bell goes. 
 Lily-maiden, — whereso'er thou art, 
 
 Who wanders in some early gloom ; 
 Art proud, and with a lonely heart, 
 
 Hath envy in the ever darkened room ! 
 Ah poets, workers with the vaster power ! 
 And they too turn cold and proud, 
 Love greed and gain that call so loud. 
 But I laid me in the grass and heard 
 The true wind whispering by ; 
 And the voices of the babblins: bird 
 
2 SOLON DOGGETT'S POEMS. 
 
 Sing to the humble Howeis and J. 
 Now false Girl-Lily hope with me, 
 1 laugh, and would not change with thee. 
 
 My thoughts waft downward in the .stream, 
 
 That leaps to the dawn of day. 
 My eddies touched with deeper dream, 
 
 While I dance my hours away: 
 And ministering full to me. 
 
 The melodies of the air. 
 Seem like fair forms soft chiding me, 
 
 Wood spirits breathing there. 
 But ere 1 watched the season glide, 
 
 Blight touched the green leaf's tender wilh 
 I thought how false a star was pride — 
 
 Dear summer faded from the hills. 
 Ah ! Time, and Pride — and change. 
 
 Move on like life's triumphant flight, 
 Flaunt their robes, and range, 
 
 And mock the \ try lords of lii-ht. 
 
 I gurgle by the beach and say ; 
 
 Oh, love-lorn Lily like the night. 
 This little orb whereon man dwells. 
 
 This whirling dreamer in its flight. 
 And God alone the sequel tells ; 
 
 Lives of all Nature where they range! 
 Great orbits darkened with a breath I — 
 
 Oh, rather give me whirlpool change 
 Than nights of blind eternal death. 
 
 All things are made alone to change. 
 The lipening of the loveliest wish; 
 
 And life bevond the grave is chauire. 
 
SOLON DOGGETT'8 POEMS. 
 
 But come Life-river streaming down, 
 The golden gardens of my days, 
 
 Dream not in ever useless gloom, 
 
 But end in the blue, boundless Mays. 
 
 1 have not dallied all in vain, 
 
 Maiden Lily in my bold stream! 
 You float all day in Palace Place ; 
 Though emulous in paler grace. 
 Upon my way I've laughing met, 
 
 Many a fair and languid face, 
 Looking down Life's pearling pool. 
 
 Hating to run my rolling race. 
 I worry o'er the stones in folly, 
 
 Up again with stronger sense, 
 Stumble with my melancholy. 
 
 Then I leap more happy hence. 
 Beautiful Lily, — on Life's stream ! 
 
 Come laugh and dance with me. 
 And while I skip along the lea, 
 
 Come loiter in thought with me. 
 I fretting, have more /a//// than thee ; 
 
 Yet weep no more in idleness : 
 1 seek the vast, the outer sea. 
 
 But we must wait for our success. 
 
" Mr. Doggett besides being a poet shows a good 
 
 deal of taste not often found in works of this kind 
 
 (Jifted with a nature more than naturally susceptible, and fond 
 of natural beauty " — Boston A<i7'ertiser. 
 
 " Mr. Doggett has previously published ' Golden Cities,' also 
 another small volume ' Tanyanika,' and the appearance of this 
 fresh volume leads to the conclusion that the author's verses 
 have many admirers." — Boston Herald. 
 
 " It is quite a monument to the genius of the poet." — " Among 
 them may be found many little gems " — " They are sincere and 
 show individuality." — Other Papers. 
 
 " lie sings the praises of the ocean in a way that shows the 
 love he has for the ' vasty deep,' and he has also found inspira- 
 
 ation all along the South Shore The book has found 
 
 already no small sale." — Boston Globe. 
 
 He has also produced other longer poems called " Immortalis," 
 " The Old South Shore," " Violets and Dreams," and a few 
 novels.