PS 3511 
 .A68 114 
 1909 
 I Copy 1 
 
Class (PS 367/ 
 
 Book. -J\£>%M4~ 
 
 Copyright! 1 )?. 
 
 -•■/ 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT; 
 
MEMENTOS AND SEA PICTURES 
 
TO THE MEMORY OF MY FATHER AND MOTHER, 
 
 AND THE MANY WHO IN FRIENDSHIP WERE 
 
 UNITED TO ME, 
 
 IS DEDICATED THIS BOOKLET SLIGHT IN MATTER 
 
 AS IN PAGE, 
 
 BUT LARGE IN THE LOVE WHICH PROMPTED IT 
 
bawnrnJV&t- w sCflSL&ruzJL. ft fa/nOMnrv£n-> 
 
MEMENTOS AND 
 SEA PICTURES 
 
 EDWARD CLARENCE FARNSWORTH 
 
 PORTLAND, ME. 
 
 SMITH & SALE 
 
 1909 
 
■^b 
 
 S\» 
 
 ]A* 
 
 .MV 1 
 
 COPYRIGHT 1909 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD CLARENCE FARNSWORTH 
 
 Q<r&ZyOs 
 
 3RESS 
 
 Copies Received 
 MAY 3 W09 
 , OopyritfntEnto 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MEMENTOS 
 
 My Father 3 
 
 To My Mother 4 
 
 John L. Shaw 5 
 
 Harry M. Nickerson ... 6 
 On Receiving Flowers ... 7 
 William H. Stockbridge . . 8 
 Thomas Hill, D.D., LL.D. . . 9 
 William H. Dennett . . .11 
 Hermann Kotzschmar . . .12 
 The Musician's Burial . . .15 
 George A. Thomas . ._ . . 16 
 
 To 18 
 
 My Mother's Ring . . . .19 
 
 Fair Portland 20 
 
 Lines Written in the Eastern 
 
 Cemetery 24 
 
 Portland Head Light . . .27 
 In Deering Park . . . .29 
 Portland Observatory . . -31 
 The Wadsworth-Longfellow 
 
 House 37 
 
 On Casco Bay 39 
 
 Fort Preble 41 
 
 v 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Blackstrap Monument . 
 
 Loveitt's Heights . 
 
 In Longfellow Square . 
 
 In Monument Square 
 
 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 
 
 Walt Whitman 
 
 Count Leo Tolstoi . 
 
 Serenade 
 
 At the Door of the Lodge . 
 The Cotter .... 
 The Soliloquy of Age . 
 
 PAGE 
 42 
 
 43 
 45 
 46 
 
 47 
 49 
 5o 
 52 
 54 
 56 
 58 
 
 SEA PICTURES 
 
 White Head 61 
 
 Outer Green Island . . .62 
 
 Sea Castings 63 
 
 Sea Limit 64 
 
 Sea Calm 65 
 
 Sea Death 66 
 
 Sea Wings 67 
 
 Sea Thoughts 68 
 
 Sea Burial 69 
 
 The Sea Hermit . . . .70 
 The Sea Star . . . . .71 
 
 The Seaman 72 
 
 Sea Mists 73 
 
 vi 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Sea Waif 74 
 
 Sea Music 75 
 
 Sea Tides 76 
 
 Sea Treasure 77 
 
 The Sea Fire 78 
 
 The Sea Moon 79 
 
 The Sea Fight 80 
 
 Sea Deeps 81 
 
 Sea Loneliness 82 
 
 Seaman's Joys 83 
 
 The Siren 84 
 
 The Mermaid 85 
 
 The Bell Buoy . . . .86 
 
 The Fishers 87 
 
 The Typhoon 88 
 
 The Life Boat 89 
 
 The Atoll 90 
 
 The Deluge 91 
 
MEMENTOS 
 
DELAYING pen, at once begin 
 None need the reason ask 
 Since idleness were wholly sin 
 When Love appoints thy task. 
 
 Commemorate the vanished dead 
 Whose lives have brightened mine ! 
 
 Remaineth yet the light they shed ; 
 Their virtues ever shine. 
 
MY FATHER 
 
 THY brow of peace bespeaks a soul at rest ; 
 Henceforth thine eyelids hide the world I see, 
 
 The world where Duty did begrudge to thee 
 An easeful hour. Sleep on ! thy sleep is blessed. 
 Sleep on ! and never shall the world molest 
 
 The quiet of thine ear. Spent is thy speech, 
 
 Yet doth thy tongue, unuttering, truly teach 1 
 It hath a wisdom by no words expressed, 
 
 A wisdom by Death's heavenly angel left, 
 A wisdom deeper than the wise can claim ; 
 A wisdom vaster than the sage can name : 
 A more of counsel than thy lips could frame ; 
 
 A lesson better than thy life could be 
 
 Who now art deathless in eternity. 
 
TO MY MOTHER 
 
 IF I a funeral wreath should bring, 
 It fadeth soon and, flung away, 
 Upon the heap 'tis mouldering, 
 A relic mean of yesterday. 
 
 A relic mean and nothing more ! 
 
 Should ever memory alter so, 
 Then is thy likeness, loved before, 
 
 But outline of a vanished glow. 
 
 And if I plant, as fitting thee, 
 
 A chosen flower, my constant care, 
 
 The blighting season soon must be 
 Wherein no seeker finds it there. 
 
 Not all the breezes of the past 
 
 Can waft to me its rich perfume, 
 The prime of sweetness, and the last 
 
 Faint odor of its dying bloom. 
 
 Could I extol, in happy verse, 
 
 Thy various virtues, some exclaim, 
 
 " Why to the crowd these things rehearse ? 
 What care they should you praise or blame ? " 
 
 Enough to tell how dear thine own, 
 Their every good was thy concern. 
 
 The wife and mother well are shown 
 When service seeketh no return. 
 
JOHN L. SHAW 
 
 BASSO profundo ! whence thy noble song? 
 Did tempests teach thee when the winds awoke ? 
 Learned thou from Ocean while his billows broke ? 
 Was Heaven thy tutor as both deep and long 
 Her thunders echoed ? Did the floods that throng 
 Adown the rough ravines, or sheerly fall 
 In foaming basin, 'neath the cliff's high wall, 
 Impart their music fetterless and strong ? 
 
 Dead Singer ! all thy tuneful years attest 
 The artist in thee, bringing forth thy best. 
 He bade thee up the bold Handelian steep, 
 
 And every mountain where the muse is found : 
 He made thy mind the trivial o'erleap ; 
 Thy feet to shun the touch of lowly ground. 
 
HARRY M. NICKERSON * 
 
 PHYSICIAN of the body and the heart ; 
 The ministrations of thy hand and voice 
 Are more than memories to us. We rejoice 
 In these thy sweet survivors. In our Art 
 Wast thou co-worker filling noble part. 
 Melodious singer, whom the heavenly Muse 
 For her high purpose did divinely use ; 
 Thy soul's outpouring, like the tears that start 
 
 When Joy has bidden, or when Grief compels, 
 Was Nature's vent. We miss thy sprightly wit ; 
 Thy wisdom miss when we in council sit ; 
 The sunlight in thee lending Earth its ray, 
 Thy gracious presence dear to those alway 
 Who fain would enter where thy spirit dwells. 
 
 i Written for Kotzschmar Club Memorial Meeting, February 
 23, 1906. 
 
ON RECEIVING FLOWERS IN MEMORY OF 
 H. M. N. 
 
 IF my devoted thought can soar afar, 
 If love attaineth to thy land unknown 
 Whereon the moon looks not, or any star ; 
 This hour of memory is indeed thine own. 
 These flowers with open hearts of love, alone 
 Are token fit of what was wholly thee. 
 
 Sweet-breathing blossoms ! ere your breath has flown, 
 For this brief night a living symbol be ! 
 Bring back the comrade times ; the old felicity ! 
 
WILLIAM H. STOCKBRIDGE 
 
 AMIDST the climax, the inspiring swell 
 Of thy clear tenor sweet and strong, 
 At once the stilling of life's noble song : 
 Farewell ! Farewell ! A last farewell ! 
 
 Life's noble song ! In mind shall matchless dwell 
 The silvery prelude, and the theme 
 All rich in beauty as a golden dream : 
 
 Farewell ! Farewell ! A last farewell ! 
 
 A golden dream ! It was as if befell 
 
 Our rude awaking as we knew 
 
 Some brightness better than the daily view : 
 Farewell ! Farewell ! A last farewell ! 
 
 His gradual fading doth man's end foretell ; 
 The watcher knows that grief must be, 
 But ah, the shock of instant tragedy ! 
 
 Farewell ! Farewell ! A last farewell ! 
 
 Dead ! Dead ! Not thou, but this poor, broken shell 
 Whereon with blanching cheeks we gaze. 
 O God ! inscrutable to us thy ways 1 
 
 Farewell ! Farewell ! A last farewell ! 
 
 Fallen in thy prime ! The sad, untimely bell, 
 Counting with measured stroke thy years, 
 Knelleth its sorrow to the mourner's ears : 
 
 " Farewell ! Farewell ! A last farewell ! " 
 
THOMAS HILL, D.D. LL.D. 
 
 WHO sets determined foot upon the hills 
 May yet the midmost peak of knowledge win ; 
 But Wisdom the beloved, the desired, 
 In starry regions dwelleth far. In vales 
 Deep-cloven, or on chiefest heights, behold, 
 The simple and receptive heart she fills 
 With her mild glory. Ah, the gentle beam 
 Shunning the pedant, empty as his pride, 
 The knowing who do think they compass all I 
 Dear unto Wisdom is the humble sage, 
 Her vessel large, the spokesman of her choice, 
 Whose discourse doth the overready shame. 
 Restrained his tongue, considered well his speech, 
 Weighty his words, a witness to that truth 
 Which Wisdom grants unto our earthly state. 
 He joyeth not in scoffers; as for him, 
 Reverent he kneeleth in the presence dark 
 Of Mystery beyond our human light. 
 Such was the faith unquestioning of one 
 Whose look was wide as is the world of men. 
 He called the stars by name ; aloft he read 
 The motions varied of those planets bright 
 By old Chaldaea charted in her day ; 
 And all was law, that grand harmonious law 
 Whereof Pythagoras before had dreamed. 
 Below his feet, far, far below, he knew 
 The strata by slow ages long up-piled, 
 Walling the molten substance of the globe. 
 The student larger, deeper than his books, 
 He sought beneath the letter of the print. 
 He searched the source of books, the symbols searched, 
 The glyphs of Nature on her stony page. 
 In varied fields a busy toiler, he 
 The summer scythe, the autumn sickle plied. 
 
Of every season's ripest garnering well, 
 
 For other than himself, a wider use, 
 
 He filled the ample granary of his mind. 
 
 Philosopher and scientist and sage, 
 
 The doer and the expounder of the Word, 
 
 These times lament his passing. Heaven has called 
 
 The worthy to his lasting, full reward. 
 
 10 
 
WILLIAM H. DENNETT 
 
 WHEN gracious grown, the tuneful Muse 
 Imparts her secret high, 
 She will a single suppliant choose, 
 And pass the many by. 
 
 Her choice, which Wisdom justified, 
 
 On thee right early fell. 
 That choice, by Envy undenied, 
 
 The World applauded well : 
 
 The World that often on pretense 
 
 Will cast approving eyes, 
 And in the worthy find offense ; 
 
 But now the World was wise. 
 
 A thousand voices, taught of thee, 
 
 Art's lofty secret share : 
 His ample triumph let them be 
 
 Whose fame they onward bear. 
 
 A memory haunts their every tone ; 
 
 The past hath sweet recall : 
 That past, endowered by thee alone, 
 
 Preserves thy bounties all. 
 
 ii 
 
HERMANN KOTZSCHMAR. i 
 
 NERVELESS are the master's fingers, and his 
 harp is evermore 
 Silent as the songs of yester, silent as the songs of yore. 
 Dumb are all the heights of rapture, dumb are all the 
 
 deeps of pain 
 For the heart that was their music, lieth reft of every 
 strain. 
 
 Cheerless now the woodland matin when the vocal 
 
 morn aspires ; 
 Cheerless now the noontime concord of the unspent 
 
 forest choirs ; 
 Cheerless now the hour or even, for to Fancy doth 
 
 appear 
 Shadowy hands upon the harp-strings making mockery 
 
 of cheer. 
 
 When the weary wings are folded in the green of nest- 
 ing tree, 
 
 And the honey-cups are bending where in meadow 
 hummed the bee, 
 
 And the winds, all sunk to sighing, grieve the melan- 
 choly Muse, 
 
 She doth sing another sorrow, unto him no tear refuse. 
 
 Once the twilight west was golden ; now it lowers a 
 
 dreary grey ; 
 Lingered there a beauteous planet ; clouds obscure the 
 
 parting ray. 
 Vanish star for he has vanished ! he whose latest beam 
 
 was bright ; 
 Henceforth some new orbit claims him sweeping never 
 
 through our night. 
 
 i Read at Kotzschmar Memorial Meeting, October 22, 1908. 
 12 
 
Like a broad and peaceful river, widening from its 
 
 fountain-head, 
 He has found the shoreless waters whereunto life's 
 
 course is led ; 
 Mingling with the ocean currents, by the billows borne 
 
 along, 
 He has learned the larger rhythm ; he has learned the 
 
 deeper song. 
 
 Stilly harp, the master's treasure ! as of old a moment 
 
 sing 
 Lest our heavy-burdened sorrow lower droop on 
 
 hopeless wing ! 
 Harp forsaken ! at thy waking thankful hearts have 
 
 throbbed with thee ; 
 Grave or gladsome, bold or gentle, faultless was thy 
 
 harmony. 
 
 Never midst the war-drum's clatter came from thee an 
 
 angry note 
 Bidding swell the fierce, harsh thunder leaping from 
 
 War's iron throat ; 
 Men were sordid ; eyes looked downward ; Peace was 
 
 feeble ; strong was Strife ; 
 But, o'er discord and o'er wrangling, calm uprose thy 
 
 lifting life. 
 
 Poor, mute relic of the master! harps more noble 
 
 grandly wake ! 
 From on high angelic echo in my midnight ear they 
 
 make ; 
 Soulless thing ! a soul informed thee till it seemed 
 
 indeed thine own ! 
 Lowly harp ! that soul bereaves thee, — to a harp 
 
 immortal flown. 
 
 All above the airy region throbs the gold of angel 
 
 strings, 
 And in art's supremest measures, how a joy symphonic 
 
 rings ! 
 
 13 
 
Aye, the interblending glories of the theme on-roll afar 
 Even to the roof of morning, and the midnight's every 
 star! 
 
 Master ! sound that theme undying when, as evening 
 
 flowers which fold, 
 Sleeps the body of me weary, and the spirit, waxing 
 
 bold, 
 Scales the heights of dream and seeth not as when 
 
 before I saw, 
 For a halo light is o'er thee, and my joy is mixed with 
 
 awe. 
 
 Oft, midst thine immortal music, may some unf orgotten 
 
 note, 
 Mingling with the newest rapture, downward to my 
 
 waking float ! 
 Let the olden I remember, mind me of companioned 
 
 days ! 
 Let the heavenly turn my seeing yonder to ethereal 
 
 ways ! 
 
 Master of the art celestial ! could my language weave 
 
 a crown, 
 Here would flower a fadeless tribute worthy all thy 
 
 sweet renown. 
 Here, entwining into beauty, words would bud a 
 
 perfect rhyme ; 
 Couplets, blossoming to stanzas, shame the laurel of 
 
 thy prime. 
 
 When the fickle, always choosing, make of smaller 
 
 men their choice ; 
 When the witless ill have chosen, and their empty 
 
 praise they voice ; 
 When the petty soon forget thee as they seek some 
 
 worldly end, 
 Thou shalt be our unforgotten master, counsellor, and 
 
 friend. 
 
 14 
 
THE MUSICIAN'S BURIAL, i 
 
 BENEATH this ancient, sheltering roof 'tis well 
 That while these walls endure thine ashes rest. 
 From temple here did living themes upswell 
 
 As, every pipe according with thy best, 
 Thou madest of each measure till it grew 
 
 Heaven's high revealer to the lifted heart. 
 When Sabbath songs their reverent notes renew, 
 
 And choir and organ join in sacred art, 
 May not thyself, immortal, hark though cold 
 
 The mortal lieth dumb and void of ear ? 
 When some reminder of the storied old 
 
 Is borne from yonder, all the past is here ; 
 The festal triumph, and the stately praise, 
 The moments high which crowned thine earthly days. 
 
 i Hermann Kotzschmar's ashes have been deposited in the walls 
 of the old First Parish Church. 
 
 is 
 
GEORGE A. THOMAS 
 
 LIFE 'S serious hours are overwrought ; 
 With set, determined face 
 We struggle, by unwisdom taught, 
 To win the topmost place. 
 
 Come, let us, with a purpose sane, 
 
 Abate the steady stare 
 Ignoring all the cheerful plain 
 
 Below the summit bare 1 
 
 And let us loose the muscles tense, 
 
 Relax the brows bent down ! 
 Not all of worth and consequence 
 
 Doth savour of a frown. 
 
 Old friend ! through thee I understood 
 
 To blend the grave and gay 
 Which make of life a rounded good, 
 
 The night, and then the day. 
 
 Considerate host whose ready wit 
 
 Was never barbed with pain ! 
 Our laughter hailed the harmless hit, 
 
 Thy song we begged again. 
 
 Life's buoyant wine was thy good choice 
 
 All sparkling at the brim : 
 Who scorneth lightly to rejoice, 
 
 The heavy draught for him. 
 
 Thy liberal hand did never prize 
 That men around should know : 
 
 Thy charity did fame despise, 
 The public praise forego. 
 
 16 
 
How oft, beneath the mask of mirth, 
 
 I saw the man that knew 
 Those deeper things which stay the earth, 
 
 Yet shun the shallow view! 
 
 How oft in thee have I beheld 
 
 A heart fraternal, sweet ! 
 If such in every bosom swelled, 
 
 The world, well nigh complete, 
 
 Would overwhelm the selfish bars 
 
 Which separate the race ; 
 Would grow, 'neath Heaven's fairest stars, 
 
 A fair and heavenly place. 
 
 These are the memories O friend ! 
 
 That gather to my theme 
 As now a happy hour I spend, 
 
 Companioned by a dream 
 
 All shapen to resemble thee, 
 
 And honored by the years 
 That set the silver crown I see 
 
 Which on thy head appears. 
 
 17 
 
TO 
 
 WE laud our dead ; their praises are the story 
 For ours, and for our children's children writ 
 Where comes in after time a grandsire hoary 
 To muse, and by the solemn marble sit. 
 
 And there, his friendships and his loves reviving, 
 He finds not one, but many names of yore ; 
 
 Names half forgotten through the years arriving 
 In busy sequence, years that are no more. 
 
 So I, in melancholy moments musing 
 On some memorial set within the mind, 
 
 Read others which the onward life, refusing, 
 Has left neglected in the gloom behind. 
 
 O'ershadowed ones, the theme of this my singing 
 As now the light within me burns on you I 
 
 O may it warm the measures I am bringing 
 That ere this hour have sounded for the few I 
 
 Ye gathered dead, no separate praises claiming I 
 I group you here in one collective song 
 
 Wherein no friendship hath a special naming 
 Since all, as equals, to my past belong. 
 
 
 18 
 
MY MOTHER'S RING 
 
 A CIRCLET plain of polished gold 
 Is on my mother's finger set : 
 Her days decrease, her years are told, 
 But ah, it throws a brightness yet 1 
 
 A simple child, I made my toy 
 The ring and finger seeming one ; 
 
 And when the child had grown the boy, 
 The mother's hand was o'er her son. 
 
 A man mature, if I but see 
 
 The shewy band which Pride displays, 
 I turn, at once a wish in me 
 
 That on another I might gaze. 
 
 It beams the light of long ago ; 
 
 The light of love and tender trust 
 Which lends the heart its warmest glow, 
 
 And liveth when the heart is dust. 
 
 The hand which placed that symbol dear, 
 Has vanished ; in the grave it lies ; 
 
 Yet mother, he you mourn is near, 
 And soon you look with angel eyes. 
 
 When sinks the earthy to the earth, 
 This token in the tomb shall last ; 
 
 But love ascends to higher birth 
 Untainted by the mortal past. 
 
 19 
 
FAIR PORTLAND 
 
 ISLAND-GIRDING seas have severed, almost 
 from the larger shore, 
 Thee O city, seaward looking on thine isles forever- 
 more. 
 
 Isles of green and fadeless growing, isles of beach and 
 
 rough sea-wall, 
 Reefy isles that wake of waters, wrath and foam and 
 
 thunder-fall. 
 
 To thy feet the floods do gather; on their laden 
 
 breasts they bear 
 Wealth the rounded world has given, wealth of use 
 
 that thine shall share. 
 
 Down the tides, to ocean turning, flit, more white 
 
 than sea-bird's wing, 
 Sail of merchant and of fisher ; to her distant 
 
 harboring 
 
 Plows in billowy course the liner; o'er her wake of 
 
 lengthening foam 
 Traileth far a sooty pennant slow-uplifting to the 
 
 dome. 
 
 Traveller ! did the quest of beauty lead thy feet from 
 
 strand to strand ? 
 Here, upon this eastern vantage, let thy glance forsake 
 
 the land ! 
 
 Sun and cloud and hues of heaven, tint the sky- 
 reflecting deep 
 
 On whose bosom, lightly troubled, bowery knots of 
 verdure sleep 
 
 20 
 
As through ages old they slumbered ere, from 
 
 Europe's teeming hive, 
 Hither swarmed the honey-seekers on our western 
 
 bloom to thrive. 
 
 Let thy thought, a pleasure boat, be dancing down 
 
 the summer miles ; 
 Let it loiter with the current ; let it idle midst the 
 
 isles. 
 
 Ever here what spell of romance might the mood of 
 
 Fancy weave 
 Round the venturous days of Levett, and of Tucker 
 
 and of Cleeve 1 
 
 Once the forest where the savage winged the arrow 
 
 barbed and true ; 
 At his paddle-stroke was leaping o'er the bay his light 
 
 canoe. 
 
 Then the cabin and the clearing ; then the prosperous 
 
 days did dawn. 
 Welcome, hardy hamlet-builders 1 old New England's 
 
 English born I 
 
 See ! the signal red is hoisted ! Hark 1 that roar 
 with omen fraught ! 
 
 Shotted guns of Mowatt ! know ye what your shore- 
 ward rage has wrought ? 
 
 Many a crest and many a hollow ere Monhegan rears 
 
 her head, 
 She who saw the Sabbath sea-fight, and the rival 
 
 captains dead. 
 
 Traveller 1 from this floor of Bramhall let thine eyes 
 
 contain the scene, 
 Blue of mountains misty, fading ; nearer hills and 
 
 nearest green 
 
 21 
 
Sloping from the wooded highlands to the Basin's 
 level calm, 
 
 And to where the tidal river bends her mead- 
 entwining arm. 
 
 From yon ancient mansion shaded, to the marshes 
 
 falls the field ; 
 There they fought who saved the village ; there the 
 
 gathered tribes did yield. 
 
 Bygone are those times of terror. Ruling from her 
 
 mountain seat 
 Peace doth seaward bend her sceptre, and her during 
 
 years are sweet. 
 
 She hath bid the bristling navies find some coast 
 
 where war is rife, 
 There to rave in mutual thunder, " Blood for blood, 
 
 and life for life ! " 
 
 Every shore defense is silent, knowing not of menace 
 
 save 
 On its rocky base unshaken, breaketh oft the charging 
 
 wave. 
 
 When the sun is highest wheeling, and from out the 
 
 torrid south 
 Blows a fever breath of burning, and the land is sere 
 
 with drouth, 
 
 Leave the counter, desk and study 1 Reason bids 
 
 you come away ; 
 Quit the farm, the forge, the factory ! Toil hath 
 
 need of holiday. 
 
 Here the playground of the Nation, urban and 
 
 suburban shade ; 
 Welcome ! welcome ! wave the branches to the rest 
 
 their leaves have made. 
 
 22 
 
Here the harbor breeze is freshening, from mid-ocean 
 keep released 
 
 Further than the morn's red rising in the water- 
 rimming east. 
 
 Ye who house in these proud dwellings, walk these 
 
 shaded ways and wide ; 
 Look on lofty roofs and steeples, and on all our civic 
 
 pride ; 
 
 Children to this birthright chosen ; sons in all that 
 
 men should be ! 
 Daughters worthy of your portion ; women gracious, 
 
 fair to see ! 
 
 Know ye that of Nature's giving, and the vast of Art's 
 
 outlay, 
 Never grew a goodly city famous, honored, loved 
 
 alway, 
 
 Though her masoned stone has crumbled, and her 
 
 massive towers are dust, 
 And her beams and rafters eaten, and her iron stays 
 
 are rust. 
 
 Wither oak and elm and maple ! To your roots ye 
 
 groves decay ! 
 Vanish beech and pine and fir-tree from the green 
 
 that gems the bay ! 
 
 Let not on these shores a beacon guide the haven- 
 choosing bark ! 
 
 Let no light save God's own kindling, cheer the lone, 
 untravelled dark ! 
 
 Hide in hepen mould forever O thou dear, historic 
 
 town ! 
 But the great who claimed thee mother, these insure 
 
 thy name's renown. 
 
 23 
 
LINES WRITTEN IN THE EASTERN 
 CEMETERY 
 
 UPON this calm from yonder sky 
 What peaceful suns have poured their light I 
 What silent moons new-orbed and high, 
 That made these stones a spectral white I 
 
 The driven hail, the quiet rain, 
 
 The south wind mild, the norther chill, 
 
 Bringers of mortal joy and pain, 
 Are futile here for good or ill. 
 
 The morning darts across the deeps, 
 
 And, burning hither, dries the field 
 Dank with the dew which Evening weeps, 
 
 But brimming eyes are wholly sealed, 
 
 And hands that decked the sod are cold. 
 
 Each wreathed remembrance of the dead 
 Is mingled with the turfy mould 
 
 That by the crumbled heart is fed. 
 
 The lofty pine that once did tower, 
 
 Long lieth low ; it makes no moan ; 
 And utmost grief has met the hour 
 
 Which laid the mourner by his own. 
 
 Reclothed as never earthly tree, 
 
 Perchance they muse upon the past, 
 " Deep-hid by walling flesh were we, 
 
 Nor knew each other to the last 1 " 
 
 Nearby the children join in play, 
 
 And one sweet bird has raised his voice : 
 
 Ah, these an impulse but obey 
 
 Which bids them with the World rejoice ! 
 
 24 
 
The World that doth her loss repair 
 For life has all-abundant store ; 
 
 The babe is born ; the breath is there ; 
 The World is mother as before : 
 
 The World that wears prophetic face ; 
 
 The World that bears without complain ; 
 Whose travail ever yields the race 
 
 A larger and a better gain. 
 
 The jostle of the walk goes on, 
 
 And Haste will elbow through the crowd ; 
 But when the rage of life is gone 
 
 His room doth narrow to a shroud. 
 
 The hum of traffic fills the ways, 
 And neighings keen the echoes stir ; 
 
 Swift courseth through his iron maze 
 The steed untouched by whip or spur. 
 
 The trample of the street comes oft ; 
 
 The jar and rattle of the pave ; 
 Yet rare the foot that falleth soft 
 
 Where every turf is but the grave 
 
 Of fortune and historic fame, 
 
 Of poverty and unrenown : 
 Once to this common humbling came 
 
 The pride and glory of the town : 
 
 The olden town whose little bound 
 Has widened up the westward rise 
 
 Until, the very summit found, 
 It stands revealed to distant eyes. 
 
 The hopeful brain that yet had dreamed 
 
 No city spreading far away ; 
 The visioning orbs that never beamed 
 
 Upon a future like to-day, 
 
 25 
 
Long since are dust. The richest green 
 Must wither in the winter's breath, 
 
 But where the stately stalks have been, 
 The spring is nourished by their death. 
 
 The lives whereof these records tell, 
 On slate and marble carven quaint, 
 
 Are giving ever, giving well 
 
 That in no high concern we faint. 
 
 Let no unfeeling time presume 
 
 To lift the dead from out their place I 
 
 The petty need that craves their room 
 Should stay ere yet the deed's disgrace. 
 
 26 
 
PORTLAND HEAD LIGHT 
 
 ON the surf -beaten cliff, in the path of the gale, 
 Lone and silent, unyielding and brave, 
 Stands the lighthouse all white as the new-woven sail, 
 Or the foam of the rock-shattered wave. 
 
 On the channel it looks, and each dangerous way, 
 In the night and at noon it looks down ; 
 
 And it sees the green islands, the pride of the bay, 
 And the bold, eastern front of the town. 
 
 It doth gaze on a coast that is bulwarked with stone, 
 And on walls whence the loud thunders leap ; 
 
 Well it knows its far fellow wave-girdled, alone 
 In the grasp of the floods as they sweep. 
 
 To the north is upclimbing the old Falmouth shore 
 Till the hill-tops have blent with the sky. 
 
 Westward there, looms the tower that across the sea- 
 floor 
 Can behold the bright blaze of its eye. 
 
 From its foot to the sunrise the waters are bare, 
 
 Not an isle, not an islet between ; 
 And the ships of the world on swift errands will fare 
 
 By the lamp that their safety has been. 
 
 O the dreary Atlantic! the darkness how drear! 
 
 All the clouds hang their curtains to-night. 
 Not a star say you voyager? Look, yonder our cheer ! 
 
 'Tis the beacon outstreaming its light. 
 
 Now the winds waken hoarse ; on the billowy swell 
 We are tossed, but our way has no turn. 
 
 In the burst of the storm we have faith it is well 
 For the star of our passage doth burn. 
 
 27 
 
Sleepless one ! every bark her good pilot has found 
 When she lifts from afar to thy beam ; 
 
 And thy face, it will favor the sailor outbound 
 Till he sinks to the great ocean stream. 
 
 28 
 
IN DEERING PARK 
 
 THESE stable trunks, by man untrained, 
 Are Nature's triumph ; 'neath her hands 
 The sapling from the seed attained, 
 And now her pride majestic stands. 
 
 The Spring, obedient, owns her queen 
 
 As in unnumbered years before ; 
 Again she quickens into green 
 
 The roof above this grassy floor. 
 
 The heated toiler in the sun, 
 
 The weary from the ways around, 
 The striver till the day is done, 
 
 Here find, as such before have found, 
 
 Sweet Nature's ministration mild : 
 
 In calm and soothing solitude 
 She bendeth o'er each world-worn child, 
 
 A mother to her mortal brood. 
 
 From bough to bough, from tree to tree, 
 
 Aloft the squirrel nimbly leaps ; 
 He eyes the stranger curiously 
 
 And, half in fear, at distance keeps ; 
 
 Or, coaxed full often with a crunib 
 
 To take from one that means no harm, 
 
 He will from his high safety come 
 A-tremble at the least alarm. 
 
 How happy now the children play 
 
 The sailor in yon little lake ! 
 How soon they meet the rougher way 
 
 In that long voyaging all must make ! 
 
 29 
 
Ah, we would catch their childish view 
 Had Time not robbed us of the power I 
 
 We would our childhood here renew 
 Could Time be cheated of an hour ! 
 
 When gusty Autumn sweeps, at last 
 The kingly oak his crown must yield ; 
 
 In fragments given to the blast, 
 It scatters to the road and field. 
 
 Come pattering down his meaty shells 
 To feed the creatures of the grove ; 
 
 Soon every secret storehouse swells 
 Where none may spy a treasure-trove. 
 
 The Winter, early in his reign, 
 
 A merry carnival prepares ; 
 He bids us here, and oft again 
 
 Recalls us from a thousand cares. 
 
 The skater on the pond will glide 
 
 Through many a feat of skill and grace, 
 
 Or straight across the level slide, 
 Or struggle in the doubtful race. 
 
 Of what the varied seasons bring, 
 This park indeed hath ample share ; 
 
 But of my one, poor offering 
 I give no portion otherwhere. 
 
 Historic shades, enduring on 
 
 As generations rise and fall ; 
 A destined boon to those unborn, 
 
 A present blessing unto all ! 
 
 With deeper root grasp well the mould ! 
 
 With firmer trunk oppose the blast 1 
 Age not through years that make me old, 
 
 And sink in earth my frame at last ! 
 
 30 
 
PORTLAND OBSERVATORY 
 
 A HUNDRED years ! what change appears as 
 one by one they go ! 
 With hopes and fears mankind uprears what Time 
 
 shall overthrow 
 
 Tall dost thou stand, the sea, the land, wide-viewing 
 
 from this hill 
 While Time's command and certain hand toward thee 
 
 delay their will. 
 
 At length thy fate ; meanwhile relate what most upon 
 
 thee grew 
 When thou, sedate, in lofty state didst scan the circling 
 
 view 1 
 
 44 Who set me here have found their bier ; for all who 
 
 saw me rise 
 Has dropped the tear; they draw not near, nor lift 
 
 their morning eyes. 
 
 44 In life's mad chase thy changeful race has half for- 
 gotten me ; 
 
 Below my base how changed each place down to the 
 very sea 1 \ 
 
 44 The hills remain, and every plain is fruitful as of 
 
 yore : 
 The rivers drain the unfailing rain upon the ocean 
 
 floor. 
 
 44 But let me tell of what befell, in memory holden fast ; 
 My words would dwell on deeds that swell the annals 
 of the past. 
 
 31 
 
" Ere Preble fought the nations thought to bribe the 
 Moorish thief ; 
 
 But fearing naught, our sailor wrought the merchant- 
 man's relief. 
 
 " Not his to die where missiles fly, and broadsides rend 
 
 the foe ; 
 But where the sigh and wept good-bye reveal the debt 
 
 we owe. 
 
 " How black the pall ! and, crowning all, I see his 
 
 gleaming brand : 
 When whizzed the ball it waved a call to his courageous 
 
 band. 
 
 "Engraven fair, in park or square no one his glory 
 
 reads : 
 The days are bare that build not there memorial of his 
 
 deeds. 
 
 14 Barring the bay, once yonder lay the watchful British 
 
 fleet : 
 Who fares that way those beasts of prey would make 
 
 their morsel sweet. 
 
 " Yet, midst alarms one prospect calms ; down by the 
 
 eastern wet 
 None fold their arms, but willing palms the cannon 
 
 seaward set. 
 
 " Rejoiced I saw each prize of war drop anchor in our 
 
 port. 
 The Lion's paw ! the Eagle's claw 1 ah, which shall 
 
 end the sport ? 
 
 " Beyond Seguin a thunder din doth many an echo 
 
 raise ; 
 I see begin the fight we win amidst the battle haze. 
 
 32 
 
" With half -hushed drum the captain's come from that 
 
 far, watery field; 
 Their lips are numb, their voices dumb ; not any power 
 
 they wield. 
 
 " A mournful strain ! the funeral train winds through 
 
 the roadways brown 
 With hearts of pain the goal to gain, and lay the heroes 
 
 down. 
 
 " Quenched is their fire ; death draws them nigher ; 
 
 though wars the world divide, 
 With soldier ire no more aspire the sleepers side by 
 
 side. 
 
 " I waved adieu as seaward drew the ' Dash,' our 
 
 fighter she : 
 Complete her crew, strong men and true, their end is 
 
 mystery. 
 
 " They sink ? They drift ? Through doubt's one rift 
 
 would Hope pour all her beams 
 Could I but shift the flag I lift to one that for them 
 
 streams. 
 
 " At the west gate the people wait the modest, brave 
 
 Monroe ; 
 The nation's great, her magistrate ; may blessings on 
 
 him flow ! 
 
 " Let Europe store and ponder o'er and to his words 
 
 agree, 
 1 Who ruled before should vex no more the southern 
 
 nations free ! ' 
 
 " Each crying ill long, long grown still, we welcome as 
 
 our own, 
 With joyful thrill and hearty will, the heir to England's 
 
 throne. 
 
 33 
 
" Farewell ! Godspeed ! thou prince indeed, beloved 
 
 from this hour ! 
 Proud Albert's seed proves not a weed, but shows a 
 
 royal flower. 
 
 " Ah, when shall ring, ' Long live the King ! ' this 
 friendship grows a good, 
 
 A priceless thing, a power to bring the reign of brother- 
 hood. 
 
 " I saw that one, of France the son, world-honored 
 
 Lafayette ; 
 His wars all done, his rest begun, me thinks I see him 
 
 yet. 
 
 " The kindly face where not a trace of pride and self 
 
 are read ; 
 The courtly grace, the martial pace that tells the 
 
 warrior bred. 
 
 11 Ah friend ! this earth laments the dearth of partiots 
 
 like to thee ! 
 How rare the birth of blameless worth, thou loved of 
 
 Liberty ! 
 
 " Black year of woes when hate arose, and strife 'twixt 
 
 brothers born ! 
 The discord grows, the clamor blows on winds of night 
 
 and morn. 
 
 " The chargers stamp, the soldiers tramp through all 
 
 the streets below ; 
 At light of lamp in tented camp a thousand stars do 
 
 glow. 
 
 " War perils cease ; Hail, gentle Peace ! we mark, as 
 patriots may, 
 
 The slave's release and wrong's decrease this Independ- 
 ence Day. 
 
 34 
 
" What means that shroud of smoky cloud, that wall 
 
 of driving flame, 
 The frenzied crowd, the tumult loud as if from Hell it 
 
 came? 
 
 " Glooms not the night ; yon lurid light has driven 
 
 back the dark : 
 Alas, the plight when homes are bright with many a 
 
 soaring spark ! 
 
 " The threading green, and all between, lies bare at 
 
 morn ; O fate ! 
 Fair seaside queen, in garments mean must thou lament 
 
 thy state ? 
 
 " No ! No ! Th' abased whom men had placed, and 
 
 Nature wholly blessed, 
 From yonder waste doth rise with haste in costlier 
 
 raiment dressed. 
 
 " No miser lust was in the just, nor did his giving fail ; 
 England, entrust his honored dust unto thy worthiest 
 sail ! 
 
 " She on the tide doth stately ride, and now our Casco, 
 
 deep, 
 Has opened wide her isly pride far as the western 
 
 steep. 
 
 " The morrow clears ; the sunrise cheers the white and 
 
 wintery shore ; 
 The ' Monarch ' steers ; the harbour hears the cannon's 
 
 measured roar. 
 
 " O favored town ! it is thy crown that this to thee 
 
 was brought ! 
 Did Envy frown on thy renown, that boon which others 
 
 sought ? 
 
 35 
 
" Long I could name the deeds which came since then 
 
 within my range ; 
 Bright deeds of fame, dark deeds of blame, and many 
 
 a doing strange. 
 
 " The old behind and, half defined the new, our city's 
 
 prime, 
 The eye is blind that sees outlined no larger, better 
 
 time. 
 
 " Through every door though Fortune pour a flood of 
 
 golden gain, 
 No good ignore ! but city, soar ! to lasting things 
 
 attain ! 
 
 " Here let me stay my lengthened say ; grown garrulous 
 
 with age 
 Will speech betray the mind's decay, and leave no 
 
 lesson sage. 
 
 " From this hill plot, this vantage spot, silent the sea 
 
 I'd scan 
 That changes not when years have wrought a mortal 
 
 change in man." 
 
 36 
 
THE WADSWORTH-LONGFELLOW HOUSE 
 
 THE fires of morning fill these narrow panes, 
 These ancient rooms are flooded with the day ; 
 But, noon or night, a glory here remains 
 
 Which fell not earthward on the sunny ray : 
 
 And yet from heaven the soul did downward stray, 
 
 The little child that to this mansion came; 
 When duty bade the man to wider way, 
 
 He left these walls the lustre of a name 
 Henceforth to brighten on through many a list 
 of fame. 
 
 The prized memorials of the younger years, 
 
 The forming years ere yet himself he knew, 
 And each belonging which some deed endears, 
 Here mind us ever of an honor due. 
 As here to poet heritage he grew, 
 
 So here returning, in his after prime, 
 He did the record of his youth review, 
 
 And shape it, deathless, into glowing rhyme ; 
 Therefore it liveth on to charm the latest time. 
 
 The hour of musing and sweet, waking dream 
 
 Which prompts the graceful and melodious line ; 
 The hour exalted when the bard must seem 
 But merest mouthpiece of the song divine ; 
 The hour, half sorrow, when the tear doth shine 
 Sun-kissed in falling ; and the buoyant hour 
 Of fancy, sparkling as the beaded wine ; 
 
 These all, forevermore the people's dower, 
 Here came to welcome fruit, or else to cherished 
 flower. 
 
 The traveller from some land of fair renown 
 Will enter reverent, as through temple door, 
 
 37 
 
His one absorbing interest in the town 
 Imagined ere he crossed the ocean floor. 
 A memory, carried to his native shore, 
 
 No home historic ever shall make dim. 
 That which the daily passer will ignore 
 
 As if an honor paid were empty whim, 
 Is worth the circling voyage of this round world 
 to him. 
 
 38 
 
ON CASCO BAY 
 
 J r | MS evening and the bay is dimpled sweet ; 
 
 A moonbeam sparkles on each tiny wave ; 
 The dying wind deserts the listless sheet ; 
 Becalmed we linger void of motion save 
 
 A measured heaving on the breast subdued 
 
 Of slumbrous Casco. Idle is the oar 
 For, wholly yielding to the night's mild mood, 
 
 I keep me absent from the dimmy shore. 
 
 Steam by, ye mighty ships of burden deep ! 
 
 Bear all your merchant wares to busy mart ! 
 The living bear ; and let these waters sleep, 
 
 From churning screw and foamy wheel apart ! 
 
 Away ! Away ! you little, laggard cloud ! 
 
 Dull not the smallest star that gilds the sea ! 
 Nor yet the point of yonder crescent shroud ; 
 
 In sharpest outline let it shine for me ! 
 
 The swaying lanterns in the cordage show ; 
 
 The city pours her constellated light ; 
 The island cotter makes his pane to glow 
 
 A cheery beacon piercing far the night. 
 
 Dumbly the steady tide doth bear us by 
 A quiet beach that woos the ripply swell ; 
 
 Then on we ride till jutting reefs are nigh, 
 
 Or darkling groves where shades at noonday dwell. 
 
 Almost the tropic palm is seen to stand 
 A moment on the summer isles around ; 
 
 I vision, as it were, a southern strand 
 
 In realms uncharted that my voyage has found. 
 
 39 
 
Let now some white nereid's melting voice 
 A faintest echo in the caves awake ; 
 
 Some harp of faery, seeming far, rejoice; 
 Its dainty measures on my musing break ! 
 
 Or, deep within me, let the silence sound 
 A music that mine ears have never caught; 
 
 Or let my finer senses know around 
 
 The world invisible that night has brought ! 
 
 Ye gathered floods, from distant seas drawn forth, 
 Obeying yonder moon's mysterious power ! 
 
 In your wide-sweeping have ye found a birth 
 Of beauty ev^n such as rules this hour ? 
 
 In future driftings let my choosing eye 
 Delight, O Casco, in thy chosen face 
 
 Fair in its framing fair, the hill tops high, 
 And all the girding shores that far I trace. 
 
 40 
 
FORT PREBLE 
 
 UPON these walls the dove may rest, 
 Nor rude affrighting know 
 Until the loud-saluted west 
 A final beam shall throw. 
 
 In this defense the warrior bides 
 
 The bold and stirring day 
 When, on the foe that hither rides, 
 
 His vengeance works its way. 
 
 Behind these mounds of hepen sand, 
 These grassy slopes of green, 
 
 The gunner, taking then his stand, 
 Prepares the bolt unseen. 
 
 Then, sudden, from the parapet, 
 
 A mighty-sounding roar : 
 On-rolling far, no empty threat, 
 
 It shakes the distant shore, 
 
 And Scammel echoes from her stone, 
 
 And Levitt wakes reply ; 
 McKinley booms an undertone, 
 
 And Williams' missiles fly. 
 
 But O that grateful peace might be 
 While these firm walls endure ! 
 
 That peace which makes a people free, 
 And keeps their honor pure. 
 
 If else, O Preble ! stern as one 
 
 Whose name yet honors you, 
 Yield, freely yield from every gun, 
 
 The only tribute due ! 
 
 4i 
 
BLACKSTRAP MONUMENT 
 
 THE sailor to our port returning 
 Will scan the dear, familiar shore ; 
 His eye, the olden scenes discerning, 
 Will all the wooded hills explore. 
 
 Not there the lofty landmark finding, 
 He knows the tower indeed is low ; 
 
 A ruin nevermore reminding 
 Of voyages since the long ago. 
 
 The looker down on lake and river, 
 
 The sentry over sea and land, 
 The lonely and the silent ever, 
 
 Has fallen faithful at his stand. 
 
 Above his wreck the wild winds, rushing, 
 Sound requiem through the winter night ; 
 
 And when the summer eve is hushing, 
 Will stars illume the empty height. 
 
 How often in the day, forgetting, 
 I turn me toward the former view ! 
 
 Then, sudden, comes a keen regretting 
 For none can build the past anew. 
 
 42 
 
LOVEITT'S HEIGHTS 
 
 CASCO BAY 
 
 SUMMER, woo this breezy height 
 Throned above the silent deep ! 
 City, hidden half from sight, 
 Silent in the distance sleep ! 
 
 From thine airy solitude, 
 
 Bird of snowy pinions brave, 
 Seeking in the flood thy food, 
 
 Settle on the curling wave ! 
 
 Ship with weather-beaten sail, 
 
 Anchor in the harbor road ! 
 Ship whose going hence we hail, 
 
 Whither ! Whither ! with thy load ? 
 
 Tides in never-wearied sweep, 
 
 Delve these caverned rocks that stand ! 
 Loosened from your ocean keep, 
 
 Foam and wrinkle on the sand ! 
 
 Sun that spreads a dazzling sheen 
 To the current's farthest flow; 
 
 Canst thou find a fairer green 
 Than these nearer islands show ? 
 
 Bell by every ripple rung, 
 
 Sound a sorrow-bearing note ! 
 
 Soft unto the sea-winds flung, 
 May thy burden hither float ! 
 
 Soon the lofty lamps, alight, 
 
 Lend the world their guidance blest ; 
 Yonder towers, foretell the night 
 
 Ere the fading of the west 1 
 
 43 
 
Evening, tint the coasts afar, 
 In the dark to finish soon ! 
 
 Touch the waters with thy star, 
 And the new-arisen moon ! 
 
 Sea-born fires of night and day, 
 Peaceful splendors, each in turn, 
 
 Cheer our dwelling by the bay ! 
 Brighten all our brief sojourn ! 
 
 44 
 
IN LONGFELLOW SQUARE 
 
 THE rest that cometh after earnest days, 
 The home, the armchair by the fireside, 
 And that calm retrospect, at eventide, 
 Which leads the poet into all the ways 
 Of his long, blameless living ; and the gaze, 
 Unwavering, on the peaceful end descried : 
 These all hath art so faithfully implied 
 We praise the sculptor when the bard we praise. 
 
 Who walked our streets of old have seen him there ; 
 His face refined, his white, abundant hair. 
 
 His likeness, seated on the granite stone, 
 Makes eloquent this dedicated square : 
 
 His living verse has won in hearts a throne ; 
 The earth is wide, and hearts are everywhere. 
 
 45 
 
IN MONUMENT SQUARE 
 
 THE wreath of victory befits her brow ; 
 An olive branch she graciously is giving ; 
 No fury kindles in her eye as now 
 
 The goddess looks upon our peaceful living. 
 The sword she wielded in her hand is holden ; 
 
 The sword whose deed was never yet outdone ; 
 The sword half draped, that mourns the dead of olden 
 Who shared her glory in the battle won. 
 
 That Liberty invulnerable may be 
 
 She hath her proven shield not quite discarded ; 
 Its round, uplifted, once the foe did see ; 
 
 Its front, defensive, then the world regarded. 
 Soldiers and seamen, grouped in bronze forever, 
 
 Below her feet their warrior weapons rest, 
 And all the tokens of that grand endeavor 
 
 Whereby we profit at our God's behest. 
 
 46 
 
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 
 
 ALOFT, within the blue abyss, I see 
 The gathered splendor of the night's array ; 
 A differing glory. Mighty orbs there be, 
 And many glimmering faint and far away ; 
 And some whose flash is but the meteor's play, 
 
 Devoid of purpose and of durance void ; 
 And one whose gentle planet-beams obey 
 Love's finger earthward pointed. Heaven- 
 employed, 
 That light at even falls, and every eye is joyed, 
 
 And every breast. So doth thy star appear ; 
 No giant king of some wide-circling throng 
 Commanded even to the outmost sphere. 
 Thou holdest by the music of a song 
 No paean thunder-tongued, no anthem strong, 
 
 As was the chorus of the orby choir. 
 Ah, unto thee Love's gentlest spells belong ! 
 The moon will never of her nearness tire, 
 And thine not distant keep as from the sun's 
 fierce fire. 
 
 No shaper of the long, Swinburnian line 
 
 Rhythmic of ocean ere the storms abate, 
 Thine art was not to daintily refine, 
 That single blemish of the Laureate. 
 Though all unburdened by such wisdom's weight 
 
 As laden Browning gave a thankful world, 
 Thy soul to soul found not the times ingrate. 
 
 Whitman's bold chant, a tameless torrent hurled, 
 Would ill befit the vale where soft thy waters 
 purled. 
 
 47 
 
O why lament the fancied loss of youth ? 
 
 Thy childlike spirit fills the children's hour. 
 Thy years, a psalm of life, unto the truth 
 Have striven, sung : the rainy day did lower, 
 And early came the reaper for thy flower. 
 
 Footsteps of angels ! Voices of the night ! 
 These were thy recompense, a heavenly dower, 
 And, poet-fashioned ere the mood took flight, 
 The sorrow-sobered joy became the world's 
 delight. 
 
 Thou biddest and, beside the northern strand, 
 
 A village nestles, and a forest springs. 
 How sweetly full of that Acadian land 
 A mournful idyl to my musing sings ! 
 Again thou biddest and the west wind brings, 
 
 From native source of legendary lore, 
 The hunter's deeds, the bard's imaginings, 
 The tribal life of those who are no more. 
 Their hearts were human all ; yes, human to the 
 core. 
 
 Eastward, before Atlantic meets the main, 
 
 In mother land of poets I behold 
 The peasant dwelling of the Scottish swain 
 Whose song, untutored, leaves no bosom cold. 
 And lo, beside the Avon sleeps the mould 
 
 Of him whose words are with us, England's son, 
 Her chiefest honor; yet within the fold 
 Of her beloved she would count thee one, 
 And shepherd well thy fame until her days are 
 done. 
 
 48 
 
WALT WHITMAN 
 
 FROM heart of thee those giant themes had birth 
 That, towering, dwarf the prettiness of rhyme ; 
 They probe and question all this modern time ; 
 Mighty their tread around the teeming earth 
 Where small its circle and where wide its girth. 
 In world arenas, midst the smoke and grime, 
 They spouse the humble, or the cause sublime ; 
 They chant of common things the inner worth 
 
 Till naught is common from the Maker's hand. 
 High virtue ebbs not, neither is there dearth 
 
 Of deeds and heroes. None can name the land 
 Where love lies withered, and her impulse pure 
 Dies at the root. Therefore O themes, endure 
 That ears may hearken, hearts may understand ! 
 
 49 
 
COUNT LEO TOLSTOI 
 
 EMBODIED, just rebuke of deeds 
 Whereon is reared the tyrant's throne ! 
 Thy words, broadcast, are vital seeds, 
 In every land a harvest sown. 
 
 To thee foreknowledge sweet was given 
 That not a single seed should die 
 
 While drop the dews, and winds of heaven 
 Drive watery clouds across the sky. 
 
 No more the ample crops are green ; 
 
 The fields are waving wide and far ; 
 The sickle and the scythe are keen ; 
 
 'Tis harvest time you Russian Czar ! 
 
 O chooser of life's humble way ! 
 
 In peasant garb I see thee now : 
 God's prophet of an equal day ! 
 
 Ignoring thrones, to thee I bow. 
 
 Some deem this world a pleasure bower ; 
 
 They dance and feast and idle here ; 
 Through every wasted, worthless hour 
 
 How doth their manhood mean appear ! 
 
 But folly, pettiness and pride, 
 
 Thou leavest to the fools behind : 
 
 Thine is the vision deep and wide ; 
 The reach, the grasp of sage's mind 
 
 Holding to common, and to king, 
 The measure of their work and word, 
 
 And reckoning title as a thing 
 That adds no statue to a lord. 
 
 50 
 
Though mine and dungeon claim the brave, 
 The banished who come not again, 
 
 And white Siberia hides the grave 
 Of patriots worn by toil and chain ; 
 
 Though bursts the bomb, and falls the knout, 
 And terror stalks the land within, 
 
 And Revolution makes her shout, 
 And Anarchy is Murder's twin, 
 
 And human hands are red with gore, 
 And men thrust each at other's heart ; 
 
 Love's golden lesson, taught of yore, 
 Thy message is, thy peaceful part. 
 
 Not direst foes of Russia band 
 
 Without her realm ; she hath her shame 
 Of foes within, her rulers grand, 
 
 Her despots deaf to Mercy's claim. 
 
 She hath her hope, thine orb doth burn ; 
 
 Its earthward shining shews afar ; 
 Unto that promise-beam I turn 
 
 As once the Magi to their star. 
 
 Live on the simple, chosen way! 
 
 Thy garb doth serve the purple's end : 
 God's prophet of an equal day ! 
 
 Ignoring thrones, to thee I bend. 
 
 5i 
 
SERENADE 
 
 A RAY of heaven from the cloud's one rift ! 
 A single ray of all the countless bright ! 
 Let heaven be nearer as mine eyes I lift ! 
 Beam down dear stars from yonder casement's 
 height ! 
 
 Say Marion ! why are your eyes 
 
 A starlight tender and unhid ? 
 Dost know their giving shames the skies 
 
 Whose look is quenched by cloudy lid ? 
 
 Say Marion ! how came the flush 
 
 Upon your cheek of finished day ? 
 Because that Nature dipped her brush 
 
 In hues which warm the western way ? 
 
 Say Marion ! why should your hair 
 
 Refuse the kissing of the sun ? 
 Because the night doth day forswear, 
 
 And night and your dark crown are one ? 
 
 Say Marion ! what made your lips 
 
 All sweeter than the leafy red 
 Where soon the honey-seeker sips ? 
 
 Were honey-dews upon them shed ? 
 
 Say Marion ! is not your breath 
 The balm of night-besprinkled bowers ? 
 
 Or were they crushed in willing death, 
 For you alone, the loving flowers ? 
 
 Say Marion ! what tuned your voice ? 
 
 The wind that stirs the twilight sea ? 
 A thousand tiny waves rejoice, 
 
 Or is your laughter blown to me ? 
 
 52 
 
Say Marion ! from what rich tide 
 
 Did Cynthia bring ; from what famed south 
 The pearly gift that half will hide 
 
 When smiles make dimple of your mouth ? 
 
 Say Marion I the fairest why 
 
 When beauties of the night abound ? 
 
 Because the moon did ne'er espy 
 A fairer in her nightly round? 
 
 53 
 
AT THE DOOR OF THE LODGE 
 
 AT the door of an Odd Fellow's lodge may you 
 pause, 
 Yes pause and reflect ere you sound an alarm ! 
 Consider, my brother, our purpose, our laws, 
 And question your heart in a moment of calm. 
 
 At the door of an Odd Fellow's lodge do you know 
 That never the world o'er its threshold has passed? 
 
 The world still dividing the high from the low, 
 And placing us all from the first to the last. 
 
 At the door of an Odd Fellow's lodge can you say, 
 "The widow I succor, the orphan befriend ; 
 
 I watch by the bedside, I walk in the way 
 
 The mourners have chosen when cometh the end ? " 
 
 At the door of an Odd Fellow's lodge canst forget 
 Man's frame is but mortal and sinks to the tomb ; 
 
 His spirit, all purged of the earthy, shall yet 
 Be springing to vigor and beauty of bloom ? 
 
 At the door of an Odd Fellow's lodge have you joy 
 Because of a compact whose binding you own ? 
 
 The pledge of the prince to the poor shepherd boy ; 
 The word of the lad which he kept on the throne. 
 
 At the door of an Odd Fellow's lodge do you see 
 The Jericho road and the wrongs that befall ? 
 
 A stranger lies bleeding, sore wounded is he ! 
 You pause, or you pass, or you turn at his call. 
 
 To the door of an Odd Fellow's lodge have you brought 
 The strifes that embitter, the causes of pain ? 
 
 Then back from the portal that Friendship has wrought, 
 And Love has upholden, and Truth shall maintain ! 
 
 54 
 
In the halls of the lodge and the order we meet, 
 A conclave of mercy to bless the wide land : 
 
 Heaven grant to our council her concord complete ! 
 Let rule the high law of the heart and the hand. 
 
 From the shrine of our temple depart we this hour ; 
 
 A brother is waiting the solace we bear : 
 The world, reaching ever for riches and power, 
 
 Regards not our labor, nor lightens our care. 
 
 55 
 
THE COTTER 
 
 HOW sweet our simple cottage ! 'Neath this 
 roof is heart content, 
 This roof so quaintly fashioned : here our peaceful 
 
 lives are blent. 
 These walls hold memories crowding, pictures each in 
 
 golden frame ; 
 Their likeness faileth never in the light that love doth 
 flame. 
 
 Till springtime sears to autumn, in our close the dear 
 old flowers ; 
 
 The pink and honeysuckle fill with balm the dewy 
 hours ; 
 
 Unfolds the morning-glory quick to catch the fore- 
 most ray ; 
 
 The yellow roses ripen, and the hollyhocks are gay. 
 
 The pea doth climb and blossom, and uptwines the 
 
 scarlet bean ; 
 Nasturtiums half are hidden in a maze of tangled 
 
 green ; 
 The marigold is burning, every summer kindled new ; 
 On slender stem the larkspur lifts a dainty sky of blue. 
 
 The fevered World is calling, but we keep the quiet 
 
 way 
 That to our latch was leading fifty years ago to-day. 
 The paths we long have chosen, lead us from the 
 
 dusty road 
 Where men will travel weary, weighted each with 
 
 useless load 
 
 That to the soul is sorer than the bruising of the feet, 
 And all the aches of body to the worldlings one may 
 meet 
 
 56 
 
Where not a blade upspringeth though the grasses 
 
 fill the field, 
 And where no wayside blossom giveth of its fragrant 
 
 yield. 
 
 These be the World's devoted, and they seek that 
 
 temple place 
 Wherein she doeth worship prostrate even on her 
 
 face. 
 The World falls down to Mammon, "Grant us spoil 
 
 without the shame ! 
 The art that bends men to us, and the prestage of a 
 
 name ! 
 
 "The envied station give us, and soft flattery for the 
 
 ear; 
 The creatures on us fawning, each with face of hope 
 
 or fear 
 Should smiling or should frowning half reveal our 
 
 present mind! " 
 The World falls down to Mammon, blindest leader of 
 
 the blind. 
 
 The great, they laud "the modern ; " in their mouths 
 
 how grand it rings ! 
 "Thou fool ! " is in their answer should I praise the 
 
 former things. 
 Are such the great? I question. By what standard 
 
 prove they so 
 Who meet not love's sweet measure fixed by Him of 
 
 long ago ? 
 
 With loveless words they feed them though men 
 
 hunger for the right ; 
 A loveless world would loosen from the hand that 
 
 guides its flight. 
 The cotter's door is open; enter, who love's law 
 
 would learn ! 
 The fool shall be your teacher, and to wisdom ye 
 
 shall turn ! 
 
 57 
 
THE SOLILOQUY OF AGE 
 
 FULL many a mate my childhood knew 
 Whose life within my morning grew ; 
 The garden of my heart was fair, 
 
 And hope and promise budded there. 
 
 My springtime saw no fading leaf, 
 
 Nor taught me knowledge of the grief 
 
 That all things fail, and to the day 
 Of mellow ripeness comes decay. 
 
 Alas, the flower, death-fated soon, 
 Before the promise of the June ! 
 
 Alas, the many, later gone, 
 
 Whose going left my garden lorn 
 
 Save that some few did these outlast ! 
 
 But, when the reaping-time was past, 
 Myself remained whom Winter finds, 
 
 And dreary snows and mournful winds. 
 
 I, who have tested every hour 
 
 Wherewith this life doth me endower ; 
 
 I, who have spanned the changeful years, 
 And joyed their joys, and wept their tears, 
 
 Well know it sorrowful to be 
 
 First parter from Love's company ; 
 
 Well know it sadder yet to stand 
 The lonely relic of her band. 
 
 Ah, could my choosing order so, 
 Amidst my autumn I would go ! 
 
 The mother's word, that bids me rest, 
 Wise Nature's timely, sweet request. 
 
 
 58 
 
SEA PICTURES 
 
WHITE HEAD 
 
 CASCO BAY 
 
 PERHAPS upon the cliff a giant's hand 
 Did carve, with careless workmanship and crude, 
 His own rough visage shapen in the mood 
 Of Nature ere the human well was planned. 
 Perhaps a strengthful Titan huge, did stand 
 The sheer rock firmly in the lifting sea 
 That to the profiled face eternally 
 Striveth in vain. The lofty-risen land 
 Now come to sudden dizzy end, we gaze 
 
 Down, down upon the tallest ships that glide, 
 The helped or hindered by the wind and tide, 
 Or back we shudder from the dreadful brink, 
 Or look to the horizon's purple haze 
 
 Wherein the ocean voyagers rise and sink. 
 
 61 
 
OUTER GREEN ISLAND 
 
 CASCO BAY 
 
 WHEN southward sweeping from the Polar sea, 
 With front resistless, huge, the frozen wave 
 Had delved and fashioned midst these waters, save 
 Where, unconfined, the miles of ocean be, 
 Enduring shape was given unto thee 
 
 Thou lone and outmost of the sister isles ; 
 Thou rocky fastness where the storm-wind piles 
 In vain the hurling billows 1 'Neath thy lee 
 I take, as now we glide, the rower's turn 
 Beside this bluff, in mimic war a targe 
 Long battered by the cannon's ponderous charge. 
 Impregnable ! what bursting shell, what ball 
 Can humble to the flood thy barrier stern, 
 
 Or breach a passage through thy fending wall ? 
 
 62 
 
SEA CASTINGS 
 
 THOU wee upcasting that the deeps refuse ! 
 Bare lodging, frail indeed, of life more frail ! 
 Death's tiny triumph when the sense did fail 
 That made thee more than sad sea-murmurs choose, 
 Or echoed plaints of lonely, mermaid muse ! 
 This giant hull, tossed near thee, lifted sail 
 Above thy caverned rest, and braved the gale, 
 Nor knew that strong would lack what weak did loose. 
 
 To this bare shore ye strangers twain were lead ; 
 
 The thoughtless and the purposing are here. 
 O shell ! O ship ! that find one common bed ; 
 One sandy hiding! lo, not any tear 
 
 Proveth ye differ ! and the sea will spurn 
 Its freight of ruin at the tide's return. 
 
 63 
 
SEA LIMIT 
 
 THOU hast no higher reach ; thy fury gains 
 But this rock limit firm against thy rage 
 As when the watery host did newly wage 
 Primeval, thunderous war. Not now refrains 
 The triumph-seeking wave. No whit attains 
 
 To-morrow's proudest sea. Has not God's hand 
 Digged every fathom, and made firm the land ? 
 Established by His fiat, order reigns. 
 
 Along the beach continual billows die. 
 Along the marge the rimming sands are dry. 
 The fountained flood no more shall overflow, 
 
 Nor riftless clouds augment the drowning swell. 
 The finished storm outspreads the eastern bow 
 As other promise lights the west. All's well ! 
 
 
 64 
 
SEA CALM 
 
 THY Maker's hand is on thee ! therefore now 
 This calm, this quelling of thy yesterday. 
 Well doth that spirit of unrest obey 
 Which tore thy bosom ere the waves did bow. 
 The wild portentous rack far-flying, how 
 The sun delighteth in the shadow play 
 Wheref rom he hideth should the skies be grey ! 
 Thy Maker's hand is on thee ! Calm the brow 
 Of night new-risen at the day's decline. 
 
 Soft peace of waters ! Moon-enamoured sea ! 
 Mild ripples mixing with the yellow shine ! 
 
 Thy breast so fickle, fair, may loath at dawn 
 What sweet thou wooest, and the olden scorn 
 Of loving rave through all the rise of thee. 
 
 65 
 
SEA DEATH 
 
 IN death lies cradled on a bosom cold 
 The life which by its fountains once was fed. 
 The foamy waves make pillow for her head 
 Whose mother arms, powerless to shield, enfold 
 Her own sweet beauty shaped in tiny mould. 
 Thou hast no kiss but of the bitter brine ; 
 No lullaby soft babe ; no " hush thee mine ! " 
 No rocking save as thou art shoreward rolled 
 Unto this grief of eyes that here behold. 
 Fond mother ; where is he who at the last, 
 Despairing, bound thee to this broken mast, 
 
 And with feigned cheer would dry the farewell tear ? 
 Then answered hoarse the almost pitying sea, 
 " Wreck-sundered, but death-joined, these fated three ! 1 
 
 66 
 
SEA WINGS 
 
 IN far adventure from the hidden shore, 
 There perches nigh our full and straining sails 
 A creature spent with winging. Here she fails 
 Though half her airy passage lies before. 
 But for these planks her flight had met the floor 
 Staying no bird save such as bravely bears 
 Our wealth of life and hope, our weight of cares, 
 And buoys one that never burden bore. 
 
 If now the sea -disaster's deadly shock, 
 
 The dreaded prow that would our ruin seek ; 
 If now the dooming reef, the surfs that rock 
 
 And wreck and sink us ; yonder bird will know 
 And, soaring, safely overlook the woe 
 That finds the mighty and forgets the weak. 
 
 67 
 
SEA THOUGHTS 
 
 A WAVE washed mountain nigh whose caverned base 
 Tough oars are bending, or the sails are set. 
 A valley green to where the sands are wet 
 Till ebb-tide floats the fisher from his place 
 Hard by the white beach idling. Back a space, 
 Within the vale, the hamlet nestles, yet 
 Unasking of the world. Can I forget 
 That spot, my home ? Looking with wistful face 
 Far north, I daily count each travelled mile 
 That lead me from a cot, and from the smile 
 Of wifely love. In grassy lane and walk 
 An infant toddles. Ah his baby talk ! 
 
 There trips a laughing child whose artless tongue 
 Hath sweetness more than sea-maid ever sung. 
 
 68 
 
SEA BURIAL 
 
 IN Ocean's treasury our tears we cast, 
 This body to his unsurrendering keep ; 
 Let him deliver to the deepest deep, 
 Death's all unbuoyed burden ; of the past 
 This poor reminder. While the sea shall last, 
 Wave-sundered from life's turmoil lies the heart 
 That bore with praise or blame its daily part, 
 And did behind its inmost door shut fast 
 
 The man that palm to palm hath never known, 
 
 Nor confidence unbarred, nor lip to lip 
 Lured forth ; the man to all save God alone 
 
 Enigma; riddle of this world's strange sphere. 
 Behold, how little lighter moves our ship 
 Yet laden with such hearts assembled here ! 
 
 69 
 
THE SEA HERMIT 
 
 ASHORE of sudden fall, and shelving sand; 
 A lonely shore no keel has visited ! 
 A grove that spreads till bare the cliffs upstand ; 
 
 A lonely grove to which my choice is wed ! 
 An isle apart for calm philosophy ; 
 
 An isle, my choosing, where the world doth cease ! 
 The tides bear message from the level sea ; 
 
 The tides that whisper, and whose word is peace. 
 Above my roof a forest roof is high ; 
 
 Its green the Autumn never ripened yet. 
 My rest the busy voyager hurries by ; 
 
 The world forgets me ! — so would I forget, 
 And, to the limit of the coursing stars, 
 Uplift my spirit from its olden bars ! 
 
 70 
 
THE SEA STAR 
 
 BENEATH the day's inverted dome I saw, 
 In calm transparency of waters deep, 
 A star ungoverned by the orbit law 
 
 Of stars that through the airy ocean sweep. 
 And much I wondered at the starry spires 
 
 Of that submerged and dull and downward thing 
 Touched not with flaming of the lofty fires ; 
 
 Mere sense devoid of aspirations wing. 
 Yet, poor belier of thy pattern bright ; 
 
 If e'er thy scorner, self-condemned am I 
 God-fashioned image even of the light 
 
 That darkens in a heart which looks not high 
 Because to Earth and earthly soiling led, 
 As thou, unto the slimy ocean bed. 
 
 71 
 
THE SEAMAN 
 
 I LOVE it not, the smooth and rigid earth ! 
 I choose the floods now hollow and now high, 
 The salty gales ; of storms the boistrous mirth, 
 
 And every terror to the landsman's eye. 
 When tempests break I tread the foamy deck, 
 
 Or climb to reef the wild, rebellious sails. 
 In duty waiting but my captain's beck, 
 
 I shame the laggard and the heart that quails. 
 Where rival oceans clash, the Horn we round, 
 
 Or else the Dutchman's failure safely pass. 
 We find those haunts where perils huge abound ; 
 
 Impatient wait where torrid seas are glass. 
 The deeps have weaned me from my mother shore ; 
 The waves, the waves estrange me more and more. 
 
 72 
 
SEA MISTS 
 
 AFAR the haven ; here the misty wall 
 Prow-cloven as we cleave the unknown sea. 
 Before us guessing ; good or ill must fall ; 
 
 Engirt with mystery, what end shall be ? 
 What end shall be ? At once my trust replies ; 
 
 " Impatient heart, the heavenly purpose wait ! 
 Though each to-morrow veileth from thine eyes, 
 
 That morrow seals not yet thy human fate. 
 As for this voyaging, let the secret hide ; 
 
 God reigns ! His rule is wisdom to the last. 
 If better so, thou shalt to safety ride ; 
 
 Or else thy bark upon the reef is cast. 
 Come port or wreck, strike not the daring sail 
 Though day be darkened and the starlight fail ! " 
 
 73 
 
THE SEA WAIF 
 
 THOU whom the deeps deny a timely grave ! 
 Mere pleasure of the tides and risen blast ! 
 Dread menace of the main ! thine ample past 
 Belied by ruin ; all thy purpose brave, 
 Thy life-long purpose, by this drifting save 
 
 When tropic calms do bind thee midst the vast 
 Immeasurable plain ! From thy proud mast 
 The banner of a nation proud did wave 
 Ere yet the sad befalling that I see. 
 
 The treaders of thy deck, where sleep they now ? 
 Thy helm's good master, sleeping where is he ? 
 How long, thou dreadful teller of their fate, 
 Will Death, thy pilot, here remorseless wait 
 To doom in night the unsuspecting prow ? 
 
 74 
 
SEA MUSIC 
 
 I HAVE no pleasure in thy notes to-day ; 
 Their love-repining cloys, O melting lute ! 
 Nor grief, nor any sweet complain, doth suit 
 A sterner mood that masters now. Away 
 Weak, languid sorrow ! I must needs obey 
 The music of the surges, never mute, 
 Bidding me listen where the cliffs dispute 
 The thunder-mouthed that ill can brook delay. 
 
 Ocean, cathedraled 'neath the roofing sky ! 
 
 Thine anthem, ancient as the choiring stars, 
 Their teacher taught thee. With thy themes can vie 
 What song of earth ? In vain thou schoolest man ; 
 
 Thy measures overwhelm the narrow bars 
 Wherein he prisons promptings from on high. 
 
 75 
 
SEA TIDES 
 
 THE moon has chained you to her conquering car 
 Through every wheeling of her endless round ; 
 The herald winds announce you from afar ; 
 
 The waxing billows utter graver sound. 
 As if the pageant of a king, onrides 
 
 The stately triumph never yet your own ; 
 The empty beach is all athirst O tides ! 
 
 The sands await the kiss of you alone. 
 Ye brought this morn, what cheer across the main ? 
 
 " O joy ! we brought a goodly ship to shore." 
 Ye bring this eve, what pleasure or what pain ? 
 
 " O grief ! a better ship we bring no more. 
 'Tis thus our renderings diverse must be 
 While yonder tyrant drags us through the sea." 
 
 76 
 
SEA-TREASURE 
 
 WHAT chastened beauty thy rough bosom 
 hides ! 
 A beauty pure as if from Heaven's sea 
 Dropped, Ocean, to the tranquil heart of thee. 
 A wealth defended by the Indian tides, 
 A richness meanly cased, that beauty bides 
 Where oozy waters gloom eternally. 
 But Greed hath eyes ; despoiling hands hath he 
 Who drags the deep and digs the mountain sides. 
 
 Soft, circling iris ; halo of the moon ! 
 
 Sweet melting of the rainbow's latest light ! 
 Pearl-tinted beam that, from the portaled height 
 Of Paradise, finds shunning of the noon ! 
 
 Because the lofty would be decked with theft 
 Thou, treasuring ocean, art of these bereft. 
 
 77 
 
THE SEA FIRE 
 
 J r I ^IS flaring wild, the flame, the sailor's dread, 
 j[ The scourge that drives him unto desperate 
 shift 1 
 In fragile shell must he at mercy drift 
 Even of the many-mooded sea. Blood-red 
 The sky, while on the wave what seems bloodshed ; 
 And, just without the ruddy circle's rim, 
 The homeless wait with wistful eyes and dim ; 
 Their mouths are mute with thousand thoughts unsaid. 
 
 Insatiate demon throats and tongues of fire ! 
 
 The sails, the cordage, and the masts of pine — 
 Than which no far-seen forest tops were higher — 
 
 These are your prey as to the ocean-line 
 Ye triumph o'er the driven watchers yon 
 Whose hearts are molten in the midnight pyre. 
 
 78 
 
THE SEA MOON 
 
 LINGER O moon ! thy parting yet delay ! 
 Wouldst shun these tides ? Wouldst flee 
 this vaulted night 
 Whereof thy circle is the chiefest light ? 
 Linger O moon! let one unsunken ray 
 Behold the sea-born morrow on its way. 
 Should then thy silver fail before the sun, 
 A beauty passeth — its sweet use being done — 
 As flower that falls unto her leaves' decay. 
 
 Wave-risen moon, where westward waves upswell 
 Almost thou hidest ; Changer, thou hast found 
 
 O'er other floods a fairer-seeming rise. 
 Depart O fickle ! know not in thy round 
 Such tender wooing and such sad farewell. 
 Depart thou won of other seas and skies ! 
 
 79 
 
THE SEA FIGHT 
 
 THERE is no thunder in yon quiet cloud, 
 Nor leaps the lightning from its peaceful white 
 Which now the morning rims with golden light. 
 Humbled is ocean ; every crest is bowed ; 
 Low sigh the winds as if not ever loud. 
 
 Why then the tumult thrilling with affright 
 The venturous sea-bird in his wandering flight ? 
 Offending man ! as ever thou art proud, 
 The triumph craving and the prize of arms. 
 Ruthless war-bringer, heedless of its harms ! 
 
 The wronged world weepeth. On this Sabbath hush 
 
 Thou breakest with the battle's volleyed din, 
 The powder smoke, the cannon flame, the crush 
 Of deadly prows, that man 'gainst man may win. 
 
 80 
 
SEA DEEPS 
 
 UNNUMBERED fathoms ; far-downreaching miles 
 Wherein the sailor falleth to his rest, 
 Perchance a peak beneath yon foamy crest, 
 A valley where the furrowed ocean piles ! 
 What high-achieving continents and isles 
 Abysmal humbling find let time attest 
 When stern reversal drowns the present best, 
 And lifts Lemuria and Atlantis whiles 
 
 The waters fret their newly-ordered bound, 
 And Earth keen-shudders through her bulky round, 
 And Hope is prone amidst her countless dead. 
 Then Hope shall quicken in an older grave, 
 And long shall flourish, where these billows spread, 
 What God has ordered and mankind doth crave. 
 
 81 
 
SEA LONELINESS 
 
 OFOR a sail upon the circling verge ! 
 A single sail, thou bare and lonely sea ! 
 From out the curving leagues, deep-hid from me, 
 Lift on the wave, that winds may hither urge, 
 My chief and dearest wish. Yonder, where merge 
 The sky and waters, let a friend appear ; 
 Even that messmate who, far, far from here, 
 Saw ocean rampant, and the baffled surge 
 Fall from the bulwarks of his land and mine. 
 A guide, a warning, there did always burn 
 The cliff -set beacon on our home return. 
 My rugged islands, and you tides between ; 
 Used to the life of your most varied scene, 
 I weary of this dull and changeless brine. 
 
 82 
 
SEAMAN'S JOYS 
 
 TO feel the vital sea beneath my feet, 
 Its bosom stirring with a strange unrest ; 
 To know its spirit in my eager breast 
 Is joy ; and so to watch the bulging sheet 
 That bears us by the friendly bark we greet. 
 To let from stem to stern the rollers test 
 Our vessel, scathless on the mighty crest, 
 Or in the tempest's trough, is wildly sweet. 
 
 O joy of freedom when the land is far ! 
 
 The parcelled land where petty limits be. 
 Depart dim shores ; your almost faded line ! 
 Let bounderies melt into the boundless, ah 
 
 The boundless ! that which widening in me, 
 Strains fetter and bends out its prison bar. 
 
 83 
 
THE SIREN 
 
 MY soul distrusts the sweetness that I hear, 
 The notes that on my half-awaking swell : 
 What if a purpose in their pleasing dwell 
 At discord with the lulling of mine ear ? 
 No honest peril will the sailor fear, 
 
 But danger siren, and dissembling well ; 
 The voice of heaven and the art of hell ; 
 The night wind's burden as our course we steer. 
 
 Choose helmsman ! life and death are in thy wheel. 
 
 An instant chooser, wisely, wholly turn I 
 Look not, nor listen ! Let thy heart of steel 
 
 Disdain that ever it did weakly yearn 
 
 Toward beauty, and her soft, enchantress charm. 
 Choose helmsman ! life and death are in thy wheel. 
 
 84 
 
THE MERMAID 
 
 THE hollowed ocean is the mermaid's bower ; 
 Caressing, cool, it softly cradles there 
 Her wave-born beauty ; and the foam's white flower 
 
 Weaveth its blossom in her plenteous hair. 
 Upon her lips a love note lingers wierd 
 
 But sweet as woman's tenderest accents are. 
 No sea-harp tempts a siren's fingers ; feared 
 
 Was never yet that gentle voice afar. 
 Ensnaring not, thou maiden of the deep, 
 
 In this wide safety long renew thine art 
 Keyed to a secret which lone caverns keep, 
 
 And touched with something in the human heart 
 That, solace-wearied, wakes an olden pain 
 To pour in music all its tears again. 
 
 85 
 
THE BELL BUOY 
 
 HOW solemn from the sea, how drear and lone> 
 As for some burial, thy notes O bell ! 
 Hadst thou a human tongue wherewith to tell 
 What oft the risen waves around thee moan, 
 I'd know who 'neath thy ceaseless monotone 
 Await the final trumpet's mighty swell. 
 Toll on the thing thy telling hideth well ! 
 Toll on the riddle by the salt winds blown ! 
 One day a keener ear may wholly learn 
 
 The moving tragedy that fills thy theme 
 From morn till even, and from thence till burn 
 The eastward waters in the rising beam. 
 
 Toll on that never nursed a silent grief ! 
 Toll on I Let sorrow have its sad relief. 
 
 86 
 
THE FISHERS 
 
 ALL night the waters mocked their humble task 
 Whose nets are empty though the day is high. 
 Unknown as yet is one whereof they ask, 
 
 " Who standeth yonder on the shores hard by ? " 
 Who standeth yonder ! 'tis the Master ; he 
 
 That claims a fisher even from his ship. 
 Thy net in more than Galilean sea 
 
 Shall strain with plenty : meanwhile deeper dip, 
 Having launched O Simon ; to the deeper wave. 
 
 The draught is heavy so the meshes break ; 
 Summon the others that the catch ye save ! 
 
 Henceforth, as now, but for the whole world's sake, 
 Fisher of men ; in fellowship with thee 
 Are joined the chosen sons of Zebedee. 
 
 87 
 
THE TYPHOON 
 
 OUR bark that bore us to the Indian wave, 
 Our oak-ribbed beauty, as a puny boat 
 Is tossed by tempests, and the hour is grave. 
 
 God willeth ! On this mountainous foam we float, 
 Or in these dreadful hollows wholly fail. 
 
 Calm was the even; round us lay the sea 
 Unwrinkled silver in the moonbeam pale. 
 
 Bright, golden bright, to-morrow's dawn shall be ; 
 But if on bosoms cold the dark floods weigh, 
 
 What counts it that the peril all is past ? 
 How can the sailor hail the cheering day 
 
 If mute despair did seal his lips at last, 
 And, midst the vortex whirl, in hopeless plight, 
 The ship was broken in the dooming night ? 
 
THE LIFE BOAT 
 
 AS bird set free, that takes her instant flight, 
 She parteth from the tempest-beaten shores. 
 Mounting the foam, how frail a thing she soars 
 With whom the furies of the hour make light ! 
 Though lost in darkness of the wildering night, 
 God grant her passage through the thick of harm ; 
 God guide her voyaging as through seas of calm. 
 A cry ! the prisoned yonder in their plight 
 
 Glimpse her brave nearing to the doomed hull. 
 How each, who held himself but lost, awakes 
 From that mute daze with which despair makes dull 1 
 An answering cheer from out the life-boat breaks ; 
 And now the battling oars their deed have done ; 
 Yet must they battle till the sands be won. 
 
 89 
 
THE ATOLL 
 
 ROUGH billows break upon the barrier reef, 
 But here, within the circling wall is calm, 
 And, midst the clear lagoon, a tropic charm, 
 A dainty isle that Ocean, watery thief, 
 Has narrowed till its term of years is brief. 
 
 The verdant shore o'erhanging, spreads a palm 
 Whose graceful tree must meet the growing harm 
 As did its fellows of the past. O grief 
 That this lone rest of migratory bird, 
 
 This hint of Eden ere was barred her gate, 
 This spot whose branching green was never stirred 
 By the chill season's breath, must shortly be 
 O'ertaken by a doom insatiate, 
 
 And sunk from sight and human memory ! 
 
 90 
 
THE DELUGE 
 
 WRATH of thunder and the flame descending ! 
 Wrath of rain and tempest-darkened days ! 
 Wrath of torrents every barrier rending ! 
 Wrath of ocean lifted from its ways ! 
 
 Woe of waters the deep valleys hiding ! 
 
 Woe of floods upon the peopled plain ! 
 Woe of billows not a ship is riding ! 
 
 Woe accruing since the crime of Cain ! 
 
 Doom upon the loosened streams downrushing ! 
 
 Doom that in wide rivers rolls its weight ! 
 Doom a-roar, all save its own voice hushing ! 
 
 Doom that passeth bolt and bar and gate 1 
 
 Death that metes to every deed its measure ! 
 
 Death that sweepeth riot from his halls ! 
 Death that chokes the drunken voice of pleasure ! 
 
 Death that breaketh over palace walls ! 
 
 Benders unto silver gods and golden ; 
 
 Worshippers of brass and wood and stone ; 
 Kneelers never to the God of olden ; 
 
 Rulers blind upon a godless throne ; 
 
 Covetous ones in lonely ways of plunder ; 
 
 Strikers down where innocence is slain ; 
 Strainers of Love's binding chord asunder, 
 
 Wrath enwraps you in the bands of pain ! 
 
 Men of might, how pitiful your striving ! 
 
 Wave on wave subdues the stubborn breast. 
 Men of stature, on the mountain's driving, 
 
 Deluge triumphs to the cloudy crest. 
 
 9i 
 
One vain hope, a single rock of weeping ; 
 
 Hell around, the shoreless gulf below ; 
 Eyes of horror and the sure upcreeping ; 
 
 Doom hoarse-muttered from the tides that grow. 
 
 Doth it prove that so the creature dieth 
 Life and seed from off the stricken land ? 
 
 Doth it prove that Earth the mother lieth 
 Broken by the iron law's demand ? 
 
 Lo, a marvel to the deep is bidden ; 
 
 Angel-guarded, for no guide avails, 
 O'er the kingdoms of the world, wave-hidden, 
 
 She the bearer of a promise sails. 
 
 God decreeth and the waters hearken ; 
 
 Down they dwindle to their former bound ; 
 Groves are leafing and the forests darken ; 
 
 Every freshness of the spring is round. 
 
 Green and tender to the cattle roaming, 
 
 Spread the fields whereto the shepherds lead. 
 
 Seasons ripen and the wine-vat, foaming, 
 Yields not sadness but a joy indeed. 
 
 Shem is lord, but Ham must bend to serving ; 
 
 Japheth never shall a bondsman be ; 
 Men must harvest to their full deserving 
 
 Though no mandate lifts the drowning sea. 
 

 6061 S 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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