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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 %P - Gopi^t fa.. 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA*. 
 
ROWEN 
 
 SECOND CROP" SONGS 
 
 J 
 
 H. C. BUNNER 
 
 A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, 
 ■A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread, and Thou 
 
 Beside me singing in the Wilderness — 
 Oh, Wilderness "were Paradise enow ! 
 
 — Omar Khayyam 
 
 H <zibt>y- 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1892 
 
 I 
 
 h* 
 
-?6I*' 
 
 
 Copyright, i8Q2, by Charles Scribner's Sons 
 
 The DeVinne Press. 
 
TO A. L. B. 
 
 I put your rose within our baby's hand, 
 To bear back with him into Baby -land ; 
 Your rose, you grew it — O my ever dear, 
 What roses you have grown me, year by year! 
 Your lover finds no path too hard to go 
 While your love's roses round about him blow. 
 
 October, i8qz. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 At the Centennial Ball — 1889 5 
 
 The Last of the New-Year's Callers 17 
 
 May-Bloom i 9 
 
 The Linnet . 21 
 
 Heave Ho ! 22 
 
 An Old-Fashioned Love-Song 24 
 
 A Look Back 26 
 
 Prudence, Spinning 28 
 
 The Light 
 
 My Shakspere 
 
 30 
 
 Grant 33 
 
 "Let Us Have Peace" 36 
 
 The Battle of Apia Bay 38 
 
 Wilhelm I., Emperor of Germany 40 
 
 General Sherman 44 
 
 Leopold Damrosch 47 
 
 J- B 48 
 
 51 
 
 On Seeing Maurice Leloir's Illustrations to Sterne's " Senti- 
 mental Journey" 54 
 
 Ml 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 To a Reader of the XXIst Century 55 
 
 For an Old Poet 59 
 
 Wilkie Collins 60 
 
 For C. J. T. concerning A. D 62 
 
 Edmund Clarence Stedman 63 
 
 An Epistle 64 
 
 On Reading Certain Published Letters of W. M. T. . . 67 
 
 Chakey Einstein 71 
 
 A Fable for Rulers 77 
 
 Bismarck Soliloquizes 78 
 
 Imitation 82 
 
 "Magdalena" 83 
 
 " One, Two, Three ! " 89 
 
 The Little Shop 92 
 
 Grandfather Watts's Private Fourth 95 
 
 To My Daughter 98 
 
 Schubert's Kinder-Scenen 100 
 
 
ROWEN 
 
T J 7"HY do I love New York, my dear? 
 r r I know not. Were my father here — 
 
 And his and HIS the three and I 
 
 Might, perhaps, make you so?ne reply. 
 
AT THE CENTENNIAL BALL— 1889 
 
 AN OLD MAN'S OLD FANCIES 
 
 THERE 'S the music — go, my sweet, 
 I will sit and watch you here; 
 There 's a tingling in my feet 
 
 I 've not felt this many a year. 
 But my music 's done, my dear — 
 'T is enough this heart can beat 
 
 Time to strains that stir your heart; 
 'T is enough these eyes can see 
 
 Fresh young fires of pleasure start 
 In the eyes you turn to me. 
 Loving, yet, my dear, 
 Loath to linger here — 
 Music-maddened, all impatient to be free. 
 5 
 
%OlVEN 
 
 Go, the music swells and rises — go ! 
 
 Younger faces wait you where 
 
 All a-tremble is the air, 
 And a rhythmic murmur low 
 
 Wavers to and fro — 
 Life and dance and clasp of lover's hands await you there. 
 Go, my child, with cheeks that burn, 
 
 Eyes that shine, and fluttering breast, 
 Go, and leave me — not alone ! 
 
 In the dance you shall be prest 
 Close, and all your soul shall turn 
 
 Tender at the music's tone; 
 
 But more close, more tenderly 
 Shall the exultant harmony 
 Speak to this old, awakened heart, that hears 
 
 The voices of dead years. 
 
 She goes — and from below, up-springing. 
 The stress and swell of lilting sound 
 Set one vast field of color swinging 
 
 In sinuous measure round and round. 
 The fiddle-bows go up in the air. 
 
 And the fiddle-bows go down; 
 And the girl of mine with the yellow hair 
 Is dancing to an old-time air 
 
 With the maids of New York town. 
 
 6 
 
T{OlVEN 
 
 My eyes grow dim to see; 
 
 But the music sends a song to me, 
 
 And here 's the song that comes from below 
 
 From the dancing tip of the fiddle-bow : 
 
 The Ball— 1789 
 
 THE Town is at the Ball to-night, 
 The Town is at the Ball; 
 From the Battery to Hickory Lane 
 
 The Beaux come one and all. 
 The French folk up along the Sound 
 
 Took carriage for the city, 
 And Madge the Belle, from New Rochelle, 
 Will stop with Lady Kitty. 
 
 And if the Beaux could have their way 
 
 Their choice would be, in Brief, 
 That Madge the Belle should lead the ball 
 
 And open with the chief. 
 Though Lady Kitty's high estate 
 
 May give his choice some reason, 
 By Right Divine Madge holds her place — 
 
 The Toast of all the Season. 
 
%OlVEN 
 
 Behold her as she trips the floor 
 
 By Lady Kitty's side — 
 How low bows Merit at her glance, 
 
 And Valor, true and tried ! 
 Each hand that late the sword-hilt grasped 
 
 Would fain her hand be pressing — 
 But, ah ! fair Madge, who '11 wear your badge 
 
 Is past all wooer's guessing. 
 
 The Colonel bows his powdered head 
 
 Well nigh unto her feet ; 
 Fame's Trump rings dull unto his ears, 
 
 That wait her Accents sweet. 
 The young Leftenant, Trig and Trim, 
 
 Who lately won his spurs, 
 Casts love-sick glances in her way, 
 
 And wins no glance of hers. 
 
 Before her bows the Admiral, 
 
 Whose head was never bowed 
 Before the foamy-crested wave 
 
 That wet the straining shroud. 
 And all his pretty midshipmen, 
 
 They stand there in a line, 
 Saluting this Fair Craft that sails 
 
 With no surrendering sign. 
 
"BJOWEN 
 
 And so she trips across the floor 
 
 On Lady Kitty's arm, 
 And grizzled pates and frizzled pates 
 
 All bow before her charm. 
 And she will dance the minuet, 
 
 A-facing Lady Kitty, 
 Nor miss the chief — she hath, in brief, 
 
 Her choice of all the city. 
 ****** 
 But in the minuet a hand 
 
 Shall touch her finger-tips, 
 And almost to a Kiss shall turn 
 
 The Smile upon her lips ; 
 And he is but a midship boy, 
 
 And she is Madge the Belle; 
 But never to Chief nor to Admiral 
 
 Such a tale her lips shall tell. 
 * * * * * * 
 
 The Town is at the Ball to-night, 
 
 The Town is at the Ball, 
 And the Town shall talk as never before 
 
 Ere another night shall fall; 
 And men shall rave in Rector street, 
 
 And men shall swear in Pine, 
 And hearts shall break for Madge's sake 
 
 From Bay to City Line. 
 
 9 
 
T{OWEN 
 
 And Lady Kit shall wring her hands, 
 
 And write the tale to tell 
 (To that much dreaded Maiden Aunt 
 
 Who lives at New Rochelle) 
 All of a gallant Midshipman 
 
 Who wooed in April weather 
 The Fairest of All at the Chieftain's Ball 
 
 And they ran away together! 
 
 And from below the music flowing 
 
 Has taken a measured, mocking fall, 
 And forward, backward, comi?ig, going, 
 
 They dance the Minuet of the Ball, 
 And even as once her grandmama 
 
 Went flitting to and fro 
 In a dance she danced with grandpapa 
 One hundred years ago — 
 So, while the fiddle-bows go np, 
 Aiid the fiddle-bows go down, 
 A daughter of 7iiine with yellow hair 
 Is dancing to an old-time air 
 
 With the maids of New York town. 
 
 And now again, in cadence changing, 
 The music takes a waltzing swing, 
 
 And sets an old man's fancies ranging 
 Among the tunes his memories sing : — 
 
7{OlVEN 
 
 I hear a sound of strings long slackened, 
 
 The hum of many a stringless bow 
 On fiddles broken, warped and blackened 
 
 With dust of years of long ago; 
 And hear the waltz that thrilled and quivered 
 
 Along the yearning pulse of youth, 
 And unto two dumb hearts delivered 
 
 The message of Love's hidden truth. 
 
 The Ball — 1861 
 
 TO the front at morn ! 
 To the front at the break of day ! 
 And the transport ship lies tossing on the waves of the 
 lower bay. 
 
 Her sails are white 
 In the silver stream of the moon ; 
 
 The moon will soon be red as blood, her sails will be 
 reddened soon. 
 
 To us who go 
 Is given a dance to-night — 
 
 We may clasp our arms around women and gather the 
 strength to fight. 
 
%OlYEN 
 
 Clasp Heaven so close ! 
 Look in Love's eyes and part ! 
 
 Will the bullet that kills the body make an end of the 
 hunger of heart ? 
 
 To our breasts they strain, 
 Beautiful, warm with life — 
 
 Make men of us who would make us heroes for mortal 
 strife. 
 
 Can I hold you thus, 
 And release you, all unsaid? 
 
 Know I shall want you, dead or living, and dream you 
 may want me, dead? 
 
 The last, last dance — 
 For the gray of the morn is near — 
 Cling to me once, till I learn the tune that shall out- 
 sing Death at my ear ! 
 
 Cling to me once, but once — 
 This is my whole life's round ! 
 
 Give me to face Death's silence this moment of motion 
 and sound. 
 
%OWEH 
 
 Then, as the word unsaid 
 Found voice in the music's tone, 
 
 She looked in my face, and I knew that my soul should 
 not go alone. 
 
 And the gray dawn came, 
 But to us had come a light 
 To make the face of Life and the face of Death shine 
 
 bright. 
 
 ****** 
 To the front at morn ! 
 To the front at the break of day ! 
 
 Farewell, I said, my Love, and love went with me upon 
 my way. 
 
 So, through the weary years 
 Of prayers and tears 
 
 She waited for me, till I came at last; 
 Came when the soldier's work was done, 
 And the one holy end of war was won, 
 
 And parting-time was past. 
 
 And once again the old tune, winging 
 Its way to hearts that still were young, 
 
 Set brain and pulse and spirit swinging, 
 And once again to me she clung. 
 
%OWEN 
 
 And then — but, ah ! my music 's done — 
 
 For this short way I have to go 
 An old tune in my mind may run 
 
 That she and I once used to know, 
 And make an old man's memories stir — 
 
 But all earth's music died Avith her. , 
 But for you below, my sweet — 
 
 You she left me — still for you 
 Bowstrings quiver, batons beat, 
 
 And the fiddles thrill you through. 
 Yours it is to dance, and still, 
 
 Dancing, you may look in eyes 
 Quick to love you, if you will — 
 
 Quick to turn to high emprise 
 When the land that gave them birth 
 Makes the test of manhood's worth. 
 
 But, for me, my music 's done, — 
 
 I can only sit and hear 
 Through your whirl of tunes the one 
 
 That Love holds dear. 
 
 While the fiddle-bows go up in the air, 
 
 And the fiddle-bows go down, 
 And the girl of mine with the yellow hair 
 Is dancing to an old-time air 
 
 With the maids of New York town. 
 14 
 
K i ^HERE 'S hit one thing to sing about, 
 J. And poor y s the song that does without; 
 And ma7iy a song would not live long 
 Were it not for the theme that is never worked out. 
 
THE LAST OF THE NEW YEAR'S 
 CALLERS 
 
 THE STORY OF AN OLD MAN, AN OLD MAN'S 
 FRIENDSHIP, AND A NEW CARD-BASKET 
 
 THE door is shut — I think the fine old face 
 Trembles a little, round the under lip; 
 His look is wistful — can it be the place 
 
 Where, at his knock, the bolt was quick to slip 
 ( It had a knocker then), when, bravely decked, 
 He took, of New Year's, with his lowest bow, 
 His glass of egg-nog, white and nutmeg-flecked, 
 From her who is — where is the young bride now? 
 
 O Greenwood, answer ! Through your ample gate 
 
 There went a hearse, these many years ago ; 
 And often by a grave — more oft of late — 
 
 Stands an old gentleman, with hair like snow. 
 Two graves he stands by, truly; for the friend 
 
 Who won her, long has lain beside his wife; 
 And their old comrade, waiting for the end, 
 
 Remembers what they were to him in life. 
 
T^OIVEN 
 
 And now he stands before the old-time door, 
 
 A little gladdened in his lonely heart 
 To give of love for those that are no more 
 
 To those that live to-day a generous part. 
 Ay, She has gone, sweet, loyal, brave and gay — 
 
 But then, her daughter 's grown and wed the while; 
 And the old custom lingers: New Year's Day, 
 
 Will not she greet him with her mother's smile? 
 
 But things are changed, ah, changed, you see ; 
 We keep no New Year's, now, not we — 
 
 It 's an old-time day, 
 
 And an old-time way, 
 And an old-time fashion we 've chosen to cut — 
 
 And the dear old man 
 
 May wait as he can 
 In front of the old-time door that 's shut 
 
 iS 
 
MAY-BLOOM 
 
 OH, for you that I never knew ! — 
 Now that the Spring is swelling, 
 And over the way is a whitening may, 
 
 In the yard of my neighbor's dwelling. 
 
 O may, oho ! Do your sisters blow 
 
 Out there in the country grasses, 
 
 A-mocking the white of the cloudlet light 
 That up in the blue sky passes ? 
 
 Here in town the grass it is brown 
 
 Right under your beautiful clusters ; 
 
 But your sisters thrive where the sward 's alive 
 With emerald lights and lusters. 
 
 Dream of my dreams ! vision that seems 
 
 Ever to scorn my praying, 
 Love that I wait, face of my fate, 
 
 Come with me now a-maying. 
 
 r 9 
 
%OlVEN 
 
 Soul of my soul ! all my life long, 
 Looking for you I wander; 
 
 Long have I sought — shall I find naught 
 Under the may-bushes yonder? 
 
 Oh, for you that I never knew, 
 
 Only in dreams that bind you ! — 
 
 By Spring's own grace I shall know your face 
 When under the may I find you ! 
 
THE LINNET 
 
 ALL day he sat in silence, 
 In his shining cage sat he, 
 And the day grew dim, but never from him 
 Came a note of melody. 
 
 But late at night in silence 
 
 Heart to heart came He and She 
 
 To the darkened room ; and out of the gloom 
 Came the linnet's melody. 
 
HEAVE HO! 
 
 HEAVE ho ! the anchor over the bow, 
 And off to sea go I ; 
 The wild wind blows, and nobody knows 
 
 That I have you always nigh. 
 Right close in my heart I can keep you here 
 
 In memory fond and true, 
 For there '11 never be one like you, my dear — 
 There '11 never be one like you. 
 
 Oho ! the billows of Biscay Bay, 
 
 And the stars of the southern sea ! 
 But the dark-haired girls may shake their curls, 
 
 With never a look from me; 
 For the thought of my love shall be ever near, 
 
 Though wide is the ocean blue, 
 And there '11 never be one like you, my dear — 
 
 There '11 never be one like you. 
 
%OWEN 
 
 The end of the world is a weary way, 
 
 And I know not where it lies, 
 And maidens fair may smile on me there, 
 
 And girls with laughing eyes; 
 But in all the days of all the year, 
 
 Though I wander the whole world through, 
 There '11 never be one like you, my dear — 
 
 There '11 never be one like you. 
 
AN OLD-FASHIONED LOVE-SONG 
 
 TELL me what within her eyes 
 Makes the forgotten Spring arise, 
 And all the day, if kind she looks, 
 Flow to a tune like tinkling brooks; 
 Tell me why, if but her voice 
 Falls on men's ears, their souls rejoice; 
 Tell me why, if only she 
 Doth come into the companie, 
 All spirits straight enkindled are, 
 As if a moon lit up a star. 
 
 Tell me this that 's writ above, 
 And I will tell you why I love. 
 
 Tell me why the foolish wind 
 Is to her tresses ever kind, 
 And only blows them in such wise 
 As lends her beauty some surprise; 
 24 
 
T^OIVEN 
 
 Tell me why no changing year 
 
 Can change from Spring, if she appear; 
 
 Tell me why to see her face 
 
 Begets in all folk else a grace 
 
 That makes them fair, as love of her 
 
 Did to a gentler nature stir. 
 
 Tell me why, if she but go 
 Alone across the fields of snow, 
 All fancies of the Springs of old 
 Within a lover's breast grow bold ; 
 Tell me why, when her he sees, 
 Within him stirs an April breeze ; 
 And all that in his secret heart 
 Most sacredly was set apart, 
 And most was hidden, then awakes, 
 At the sweet joy her coming makes. 
 
 Tell me what is writ above, 
 And I will tell you why I love. 
 
 25 
 
A LOOK BACK 
 
 A CASTLE-YARD— 1585 
 
 {E?iter SIR Bevys, mounted. There comes to meet /am, 
 bearing a cup of wine, Maid Margery. ) 
 
 WHAT, Madge — nay, Madge! why, sweetheart, is 
 it thou? 
 Faith, but I knew thee not — nor know thee yet! 
 Madge — Margery — child — coz, thou 'st grown apace. 
 Why, what a merry coming home is this! 
 To have my cousin meet me in the court, 
 My half-grown cousin, grown an angel half, 
 Lifting a cup to make the wanderer welcome, 
 With such an arm — why, Margery, 't was a reed, 
 A meagre, sun-specked reed, when last I saw it, 
 Three years ago — coz, these were busy years 
 That dealt so kindly with thee. I set forth 
 Three years agone last Michaelmas, and thou — 
 
 26 
 
%OWEN 
 
 Why, thou and Rupert were an elfish pair 
 
 Of freckled striplings — yea, thy elbows, Madge, 
 
 My cousin Margery, were as rasping sharp 
 
 As old Dame Ursula her tongue — ay, cousin, 
 
 I '11 drink once more, so thou wilt lift the cup 
 
 And show that snowy round again. And Rupert, 
 
 My brother Rupert, how fares he ? Nay, nay ! 
 
 First in the tourney ? Sturdiest Knight of all ? 
 
 Gad's grace, the world has wagged while I have wandered. 
 
 I '11 tell thee this, thou Hebe hazel-eyed, 
 
 Had I seen further I had wandered less. 
 
 But who 'd have thought the slender girl I left, 
 
 The straggling weed — thy present grace may pardon 
 
 My memory rude — had grown to this fair flower — 
 
 To this bright comeliness, this young perfection, 
 
 This — this — 
 
 Maid Margery let her lashes down, 
 And bent her head — perhaps the sunset fell 
 A trifle ' thwart her face — perhaps she blushed, 
 As, looking down into the empty cup, 
 She answered very softly : 
 
 " Rupert did." 
 
 27 
 
PRUDENCE, SPINNING 
 
 A STUDIO STUDY 
 
 PRUDENCE, sitting by the fire, 
 Lift your head a little higher — 
 How the firelight ripples in 
 And out the dimple of your chin — 
 How your sidewise-tilted head 
 Snares the flickering gleams of red ; 
 Snares them in a golden net 
 Than your distaff fleecier yet ! 
 O my Prudence, turn — but no — 
 Shall a century backward flow? 
 Prudence — ah, awelladay ! 
 You 're a hundred years away. 
 
II. 
 
 He who looks upon you hears 
 Through a hundred bygone years 
 Whir of wheel and foot's light tap 
 On the treadle, and the snap 
 Of the rose-red hickory logs, 
 Sputtering, sinking on the dogs; 
 And your breath he almost feels 
 In a gentle sigh that steals 
 From your lips, while hand in head 
 Weave a dream and spin a thread — 
 Prudence — who 'd believe it, pray? 
 
 You 're a hundred years away. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 Silent was the studio, 
 Duller grew the hickory's glow, 
 And the skylight, cold and faint, 
 Seemed to frown — "'T is late to paint!" 
 Prudence drooped a weary head, 
 Hearing not the painter's tread, 
 As he crossed the room and bent 
 Just where blush and firelight blent. 
 O my Prudence, model fair! 
 Where 's your prim provincial air? 
 Prudence — ah, awelladay ! 
 How a century slips away! 
 29 
 
THE LIGHT 
 
 THERE is no shadow where my love is laid; 
 For (ever thus I fancy in my dream, 
 That wakes with me and wakes my sleep) some gleam 
 Of sunlight, thrusting through the poplar shade, 
 Falls there; and even when the wind has pkyed 
 His requiem for the Day, one stray sunbeam, 
 Pale as the palest moonlight glimmers seem, 
 Keeps sentinel for Her till starlights fade. 
 
 And I, remaining here and waiting long, 
 And all enfolded in my sorrow's night, 
 Who not on earth again her face may see, — 
 For even memory does her likeness wrong, — 
 Am blind and hopeless, only for this light — 
 
 This light, this light, through all the years to be. 
 
J J 7 ' HICH was the harder to lay down, 
 r V Art and ambition, or a crown? 
 
 The sceptre or the fiddle-bow ? 
 
 I know not. All were loath to go. 
 
 Yet who would call, did Fate permit, 
 
 One of these back to what he quit ? 
 
 3 1 
 
GRANT 
 
 SMILE on, thou new-come Spring — if on thy breeze 
 The breath of a great man go wavering up 
 And out of this world's knowledge, it is well. 
 
 Kindle with thy green flame the stricken trees, 
 
 And fire the rose's many-petaled cup, 
 
 Let bough and branch with quickening life-blood swell — 
 
 But Death shall touch his spirit with a life 
 
 That knows not years or seasons. Oh, how small 
 
 Thy little hour of bloom ! Thy leaves shall fall, 
 
 And be the sport of winter winds at strife ; 
 
 But he has taken on eternity. 
 
 Yea, of how much this Death doth set him free ! — 
 
 Now are we one to love him, once again. 
 
 The tie that bound him to our bitterest pain 
 
 Draws him more close to Love and Memory. 
 
 33 
 
%OWEN 
 
 O Spring, with all thy sweetheart frolics, say, 
 
 Hast thou remembrance of those earlier springs 
 When we wept answer to the laughing day, 
 
 And turned aside from green and gracious things ? 
 There was a sound of weeping over all — 
 
 Mothers uncomforted, for their sons were not ; 
 
 And there was crueler silence : tears grew hot 
 In the true eyes that would not let them fall. 
 Up from the South came a great wave of sorrow 
 
 That drowned our hearthstones, splashed with blood 
 our sills ; 
 To-day, that spared, made terrible To-morrow 
 
 With thick presentiment of coming ills. 
 Only we knew the Right — but oh, how strong, 
 How pitiless, how insatiable the Wrong ! 
 
 And then the quivering sword-hilt found a hand 
 
 That knew not how to falter or grow weak ; 
 
 And we looked on, from end to end the land, 
 
 And felt the heart spring up, and rise afresh 
 
 The blood of courage to the whitened cheek, 
 
 And fire of battle thrill the numbing flesh. 
 
 Ay, there was death, and pain, and dear ones missed, 
 
 And lips forever to grow pale unkissed; 
 
 But lo, the man was here, and this was he; 
 
 And at his hands Faith gave us victory. 
 
 34 
 
T^OIVEN 
 
 Spring, thy poor life, that mocks his body's death, 
 
 Is but a candle's flame, a flower's breath. 
 
 He lives in days that suffering made dear 
 
 Beyond all garnered beauty of the year. 
 
 He lives in all of us that shall outlive 
 
 The sensuous things that paltry time can give. 
 
 This Spring the spirit of his broken age 
 
 Across the threshold of its anguish stole — 
 All of him that was noble, fearless, sage, 
 
 Lives in his loved nation's strengthened soul. 
 
 35 
 
H 
 
 LET US HAVE PEACE " 
 
 U. S. Grant — July 23, 1885 
 
 IS name was as a sword and shield, 
 His words were armed men, 
 He mowed his foemen as a field 
 
 Of wheat is mowed — and then 
 Set his strong hand to make the shorn earth smile again. 
 
 Not in the whirlwind of his fight, 
 
 The unbroken line of war, 
 Did he best battle for the right — 
 
 His victory was more : 
 Peace was his triumph, greater far than all before. 
 
 Who in the spirit and love of peace 
 
 Takes sadly up the blade, 
 Makes war on war, that wars may cease — 
 He striveth undismayed, 
 And in the eternal strength his mortal strength is stayed. 
 
 36 
 
%OlVEN 
 
 Peace, that he conquered for our sake — 
 
 This is his honor, dead. 
 We saw the clouds of battle break 
 
 To glory o'er his head — 
 But brighter shone the light about his dying bed. 
 
 Dead is thy warrior, King of Life, 
 
 Take thou his spirit flown ; 
 The prayer of them that knew his strife 
 
 Goes upward to thy throne — 
 Peace be to him who fought — and fought for Peace alone. 
 
 $7 
 
THE BATTLE OF APIA BAY 
 March 15, 1889 
 
 THE portholes black look over the bay 
 To the ports on the other side ; 
 And the gun in each grim square porthole dim 
 Is guarding a nation's pride. 
 
 Two fleets are they in an alien sea, 
 
 And whether as friends or foes, 
 Till the diplomats' prattle decides their battle, 
 
 Nor sailor nor captain knows. 
 
 But strange to each is the sun that starts 
 
 The pitch in the white deck's seams, 
 While the watch, half dozing with eyes half closing, 
 
 Go home in their waking dreams. 
 
 And strange is the land that lies about, 
 
 And the folk with faces brown, 
 To the Pommerland boy with the yellow beard, 
 
 And the boy from Portland town. 
 
 38 
 
And each looks over the bay to each- 
 
 Is the end of it peace or war ? 
 And the wish that ■. best in each brave young breast 
 Is the wish for a run ashore. 
 ***** 
 Death came out of the sea last night — 
 
 Death is aboard this morn — 
 The water is over the war-ship's prow, 
 And her snow-white sails are torn. 
 
 And the bright blue waves that leap to catch 
 
 The glint of the tropic sun 
 Roll overhead, and beneath are the dead, 
 
 For the battle is fought and won. 
 
 There '. the Pommerland boy with his yellow beard 
 
 And the Maine boy bearded brown; 
 And there 's weeping sore on the Pommerland shore; 
 
 There are tears in Portland town. 
 
 O ships that guard two nations' pride, 
 
 Death had no need for ye! 
 They went to their fate through no man's hate- 
 
 Death's servant was the Sea. 
 
 39 
 
WILHELM L, EMPEROR OF GERMANY 
 
 March 22, 1797 —January 2, 1861 —January 18, 
 1871 —March 9, 1888 
 
 WHEN the gray Emperor at the Gates of Death 
 Stood silent, up from Earth there came the 
 sound 
 Of mourning and dismay; man's futile breath 
 Vexed the still air around. 
 
 But silent stood the Emperor and alone 
 Before the ever silent gates of stone 
 
 That open and close at either end of life ; 
 As who, having fought his fight, 
 Stands, overtaken of night, 
 
 And hears afar the receding sound of strife. 
 
%OWEN 
 Wide open swing the gates: 
 
 Hail, Hohenzollern, hail to thee! 
 If thou be he 
 
 For whom each hero waits, 
 Hail, hail to thee ! 
 
 So rings 
 
 The chorus of the Kings. 
 
 This is the House of Death, the Hall of Fame, 
 
 Lit, its vast length, by torches' nickering flame; 
 
 And, with their faces by the torch-fires lit, 
 
 Around the board the expectant monarchs sit. 
 
 Filled are their drink-horns with the immortals' wine 
 
 They wait for him, the latest of their line. 
 
 Under the flags they sit, beneath 
 
 The which the keen sword spurned its sheath. 
 
 Under the flags that first were woven 
 
 To bring the fire to stranger eyes; 
 That now, at cost of corselets cloven, 
 
 In lines of tattered trophies rise. 
 To greet the newly come they wait — 
 The heroes of the German State : 
 
TlOtVEN 
 
 His father, unto whom the west wind blew 
 
 The echo of the guns of Waterloo : 
 
 That greater Frederick, with the lust of power 
 
 Still smoldering in his eyes, his troubled heart 
 Impatient with the briefness of his hour 
 
 That altered Europe's chart: 
 And he, the Great Elector, he who first 
 
 Sounded to Poland's King a nation's word : 
 
 And he who, earlier, by Rome accursed, 
 
 The trumpet-tone of Martin Luther heard — 
 
 So the long line of faces grim 
 
 Grows faint and dim, 
 And at the farther end, where lights burn low, 
 
 Where, through a misty glow, 
 Heroes of German song and story rise 
 
 Gods to our eyes, 
 Great Hermann rises, father of a race, 
 To give the Emperor his place. 
 
 " Come to the table's head, 
 
 Among the ennobled dead ! " 
 He cries: " Nor none shall ask me of thy right." 
 
 Then speaks he to the board : 
 
 " Bow down, in one accord, 
 To him whose strength is Majesty, not Might. 
 
\OWEN 
 
 " Emperor and King he comes; his people's cry 
 
 Pierces our distant sky; 
 Emperor and King he comes, whose mighty hand 
 Gathered in one the kingdoms of the land. 
 
 Yet greater far the tale shall be 
 
 That gains him immortality: 
 To his high task no selfish thought, 
 No coward hesitance he brought ; 
 All that it was to be a King 
 
 He was, nor counted of the cost. 
 He rounds our circle — Time may bring 
 The day when Earth shall need no King — 
 
 All that Kings were, in him Earth lost." 
 
 "Hail, Hohenzollem, hail!" cried the heroes dead; 
 And the gray Emperor sat at the table's head. 
 
GENERAL SHERMAN 
 February 14, 1891 
 
 BOWED banners and the drums' thick muffled beat 
 For him, and silent crowds along the street; 
 The stripes of white and crimson on his breast, 
 And all the trapping of a warrior's rest; 
 For him the wail of dirges, and the tread 
 Of the vast army following its dead 
 Unto the great surrender; half-mast high 
 For him the flags shall brave the winter sky — 
 These be his honors: and some old eyes dim 
 For love's sake, more than fame's — for him, for him ! 
 
 These things are his; yet not to him alone 
 Is this proud wealth of ordered honor shown. 
 Thus to their graves may go all men who stand 
 Between their country and the foeman's brand : 
 
1{0IVEN 
 
 This is the meed of hardihood in fight, 
 
 The formal tribute to a hero's might. 
 
 A myriad dead have won the like award — 
 
 The unknown, unnumbered servants of the sword. 
 
 Hath he no greater honor? 
 
 Yes, although 
 It win for his dead clay no funeral show, 
 Nor none shall tell upon the market-place 
 What gave this hero his most special grace, 
 That for his memory, in the years to come, 
 Shall speak more loud than voice of gun or drum. 
 Great was his soul in fight. But you and I, 
 Friend, if need be, can set a face to die. 
 This land of ours has lovers now as then, 
 Nor shall time coming find her poor in men, 
 While the strong blood of our old Saxon strain 
 Fires at the sound of war in pulse and vein. 
 
 But this great warrior was in Peace more great, 
 
 More noble in his fealty to the state, 
 
 More fine in service, in a subtler way 
 
 Meeting the vital duty of the day ; 
 
 Patient and calm, too simply proud to strive 
 
 To keep the glory of his past alive. 
 
%01VEN 
 
 So burns it still, and shall burn. Every year 
 Of that high service made him but more dear, 
 More trusted, more revered. No lust of power 
 Led him to lengthen out the battle hour; 
 He sought no office; he would learn no art 
 To serve him at the polls or in the mart; 
 And yet he loved the people, nor did pride 
 Lead him from common joys and cares aside. 
 His kindly, homely, grizzled face looked down 
 On all the merrymaking of the town — 
 A face that we shall miss : we all were proud 
 When the Old General smiled upon the crowd. 
 So lived, so died he. Has a great man passed 
 And left a life more whole unto the last? 
 
 Upon the soldier's coffin let this wreath 
 
 Tell of his greatest greatness, sword-in-sheath. 
 
LEOPOLD DAMROSCH 
 
 February 15, 1885 
 
 WAKED at the waving of thy hand, so near 
 Came music to the language of the soul — 
 Not viol alone, or flute: an ordered whole, 
 That with one voice spoke to us, subtly clear — 
 So near it came to all that life holds dear, 
 So full it was of messages that stole 
 Silently to the spirit — of the roll 
 Of thunders that the heart leaped up to hear — 
 That we, who look upon the fallen hand 
 That shall not rise for music's sake again 
 
 Upon this earth — we, lingering, well may deem 
 Thee glad with a great joy, to understand, 
 At last, the full and all-revealing strain 
 
 That tells what earthly music may but dream. 
 
 47 
 
J. B. 
 
 June 7, 1880 
 
 THE Actor 's dead, and memory alone 
 Recalls the genial magic of his tone ; 
 Marble nor canvas nor the printed page 
 Shall tell his genius to another age : 
 A memory, doomed to dwindle less and less, 
 His world-wide fame shrinks to this littleness. 
 Yet if, a half a century from to-day, 
 A tender smile about our old lips play, 
 And if our grandchild query whence it came, 
 We '11 say: "A thought of Brougham." — 
 
 And that is Fame ! 
 
 48 
 
/SERVE with love a goodly craft, 
 And proud thereat am I ; 
 And, if I do but work aright, 
 Shall never wholly die. 
 
 49 
 
MY SHAKSPERE 
 
 WITH beveled binding, with uncut edge, 
 With broad white margin and gilded top, 
 
 Fit for my library's choicest ledge, 
 
 Fresh from the bindery, smelling of shop, 
 
 In tinted cloth, with a strange design — 
 
 Buskin and scroll-work and mask and crown, 
 And an arabesque legend tumbling down — 
 
 " The Works of Shakspere " were never so fine. 
 
 Fresh from the shop! I turn the page — 
 Its " ample margin " is wide and fair, 
 Its type is chosen with daintiest care ; 
 There 's a "New French Elzevir" strutting there 
 
 That would shame its prototypic age. 
 
 Fresh from the shop ! O Shakspere mine, 
 
 I 've half a notion you 're much too fine ! 
 
 There 's an ancient volume that I recall, 
 In foxy leather much chafed and worn ; 
 
 Its back is broken by many a fall, 
 
 The stitches are loose and the leaves are torn ; 
 
\OWEhl 
 
 And gone is the bastard title, next 
 
 To the title-page scribbled with owners' names, 
 That in straggling old-style type proclaims 
 
 That the work is from the corrected text 
 Left by the late Geo. Steevens, Esquire. 
 
 The broad sky burns like a great blue fire, 
 And the Lake shines blue as shimmering steel, 
 
 And it cuts the horizon like a blade; 
 
 And behind the poplar 's a strip of shade — 
 
 The great tall Lombardy on the lawn. 
 And, lying there in the grass, I feel 
 
 The wind that blows from the Canada shore, 
 
 And in cool, sweet puffs comes stealing o'er, 
 
 Fresh as any October dawn. 
 
 I lie on my breast in the grass, my feet 
 Lifted boy-fashion, and swinging free, 
 The old brown Shakspere in front of me. 
 
 And big are my eyes, and my heart 's a-beat; 
 
 And my whole soul 's lost — in what ? — who knows ? 
 
 Perdita's charms or Perdita's woes — 
 
 Perdita fairy-like, fair and sweet. 
 
 Is any one jealous, I wonder, now, 
 
 Of my love for Perdita ? For I vow 
 
 I loved her well. And who can say 
 
 That life would be quite the same life to-day — 
 
TiOlVEN 
 
 That Love would mean so much, if she 
 Had not taught me its A B C ? 
 
 The Grandmother, thin and bent and old, 
 
 But her hair still dark and her eyes still bright, 
 
 Totters around among the flowers — 
 Old-fashioned flowers of pink and white; 
 
 And turns with a trowel the dark rich mold 
 
 That feeds the blooms of her heart's delight. 
 Ah me ! for her and for me the hours 
 
 Go by, and for her the smell of earth — 
 
 And for me the breeze and a far love's birth, 
 And the sun and the sky and all the things 
 That a boy's heart hopes and a poet sings. 
 
 Fresh from the shop ! O Shakspere mine, 
 It was n't the binding made you divine ! 
 I knew you first in a foxy brown, 
 In the old, old home, where I laid me down, 
 
 In the idle summer afternoons, 
 With you alone in the odorous grass, 
 
 And set your thoughts to the wind's low tunes, 
 And saw your children rise up and pass — 
 And dreamed and dreamed of the things to be, 
 Known only, I think, to you and me. 
 
 I 've hardly a heart for you dressed so fine — 
 Fresh from the shop, O Shakspere mine ! 
 
ON SEEING MAURICE LELOIR'S 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS TO STERNE'S 
 
 -SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY" 
 
 ELOIR, what kinship lies between you two — 
 This century-vanished Englishman and you? — 
 You who can lead us, grateful in surprise, 
 All that he saw to see with trusting eyes — 
 Nay, at your beck his head peeps, gaunt and hoar, 
 Out of the window in the po'chaise door. 
 
 Is it not this : birth made him of your race 
 (Though Clonmel and not Calais were the place,) 
 If heart and fancy be the best of birth ? 
 
 Some day, Leloir, your spirit, freed from earth, 
 
 Walking that special heaven set apart 
 
 For those who made religion of their art, 
 
 Will meet this elder friend, and he will turn 
 
 And speak to you in French — this Laurence Sterne. 
 
TO A READER OF THE XXIst CENTURY 
 
 YOU, when you read this book, shall find 
 How You or We have fallen behind. 
 Where'er you be, I know you not ; 
 But, if my memory be forgot, 
 Remember, proud of life and thought 
 Though Yon may strut, / hold you naught. 
 You are not yet — you may be — still, 
 How do I know you ever will? 
 
 But yet I hope, in future days, 
 
 You may exist, to cast your gaze 
 
 Round some old bibliomaniac's room, 
 
 Shrouded in sober russet gloom, 
 
 And let it fall upon this book ; 
 
 Then turn this page — I '11 catch your look. 
 
 Aye ! though the while this line you read 
 
 A coverlet of daisy brede 
 
 Shall lie my old-time bed above 
 
 And all that was my life and love; 
 
 55 
 
I speak to you from out a day 
 
 When I, not You, can see the Play, 
 
 And find the stage's mimicry 
 
 More real than are You to Me. 
 
 When blood went slipping through this heart, 
 
 I saw it all — I was a part. 
 
 This is our day — you turn the page, 
 
 And see the pictures of our age. 
 
 "A treasure!" cries your bibliopole, 
 
 With fervor in his musty soul : 
 
 "A Daly private print — a chaste 
 
 Example of our fathers' taste. 
 
 They made books then — who can, in our 
 
 Degenerate days of — magnet — power? 
 
 See — Ada Rehan, Fisher, Drew, 
 
 Dame Gilbert, Lewis — through and through 
 
 The sharp-cut plates are clear as new ! " 
 
 Then comes the old, the tardy praise — 
 
 "Those were the drama's palmy days." 
 
 But We? You '11 see the shadow — now 
 To us these living creatures bow, 
 For us they smile — for us they feign 
 Or love or hatred, joy or pain ; 
 For us this white breast heaves — this voice 
 Makes hearts too young too much rejoice; 
 56 
 
T{OlVEN. 
 
 For us those splendid eyes are lit; 
 For us awakes embodied wit; 
 For us the music and the light — 
 The listening faces, flushed and bright; 
 The glow, the passion, and the dream — 
 To you — how far it all must seem! 
 
 You know the names — but we behold, 
 
 In sweet old age that is not old, 
 
 Though Time play tricks with face and hair, 
 
 Our Gentlewoman past compare. 
 
 We see her deftly thread the set 
 
 Old figures of the minuet ; 
 
 We see her Partner's snow-crowned face 
 
 Bent o'er her hand in antique grace. 
 
 You know the names — before our eyes 
 Proud Katherine's anger flames and dies; 
 For us Petruchio pays his court; 
 For us the high tempestuous port, 
 Lowered at last in humble, sweet 
 Submission at a husband's feet. 
 You know the names — but ah ! who hears 
 The laughter when one face appears? 
 
 You know the names — but what are they? 
 We know the folk that make the Play ! 
 
Love's merry Up, Love's doleful Down, 
 The fickle fashion of the town 
 Take form and shape for us, and show 
 To heart and eye the world we know. 
 
 You have the pictures, and the names 
 That are but Yours as they are Fame's; 
 See them, O dim Potential Shade, 
 Even as we see them now arrayed: 
 Try to put nature's vital hue 
 Into the faces that you view ; 
 And think, while Fancy labors thus, 
 This all is breathing Life to Us. 
 
 5? 
 
FOR AN OLD POET 
 
 WHEN he is old and past all singing, 
 Grant, kindly Time, that he may hear 
 The rhythm through joyous Nature ringing, 
 Uncaught by any duller ear. 
 
 Grant that, in memory's deeps still cherished, 
 Once more may murmur low to him 
 
 The winds that sung in years long perished, 
 Lit by the suns of days grown dim. 
 
 Grant that the hours when first he listened 
 To bird-songs manhood may not know, 
 
 In fields whose dew for lovers glistened, 
 May come back to him ere he go. 
 
 Grant only this, O Time most kindly, 
 
 That he may hear the song you sung 
 
 When love was new — and, harkening blindly, 
 Feign his o'er-wearied spirit young. 
 
 With sound of rivers singing round him, 
 On waves that long since flowed away, 
 
 Oh, leave him, Time, where first Love found him, 
 Dreaming To-morrow in To-day ! 
 
 59 
 
WILKIE COLLINS 
 September 23, 1889 
 
 WHEN Arabs sat around 
 And heard the Thousand Nights - 
 Beyond the tent's close bound, 
 
 Beyond the watch-fire lights — 
 Their believing spirits flew 
 
 To a land where strange things seem 
 As simple things and true, 
 
 And the best truth is a dream. 
 
 And when the tale was told — 
 
 Genie and Princess fair 
 Brought to an end — their gold 
 
 They sought, with an absent air; 
 And dropped it at His feet 
 
 Who had led to the land of Delight; 
 And, dreaming of Princesses sweet, 
 
 They passed out into the night. 
 60 
 
1^0 IV EN 
 
 So, still under your spell, 
 
 Teller of magic tales, 
 These lines I would fain let tell 
 
 The debt whose payment fails. 
 Take them : if they were gold 
 
 'T would but discharge a due- 
 And, for the tales you told, 
 
 I shall remember you. 
 
 62 
 
FOR C. J. T., CONCERNING A. D 
 
 HERE shall you see the sweetest mind 
 That loves our simpler humankind: 
 The things that touch your heart and mine 
 He knows by sympathy so fine 
 That he, an alien, over sea, 
 Partner in our best thought can be. 
 Not the ATLANTIC'S swell and moan 
 Can part his fancy from our own. 
 * * * * 
 
 See but a child with wistful eyes 
 
 THE DOCTOR'S gloomy windows rise, 
 
 And that sad comedy is played 
 
 That makes us love one little maid: 
 
 See the kind face we children knew, 
 
 And PRUDENCE is our " Aunty," too; 
 
 Think of the madcap loves of youth, 
 
 And think of BELL, LOUISE, and RUTH 
 
 Think of the loves not Love, alas ! 
 
 And of ROSINE in Mont Parnasse: 
 
 Dream of the things most sweet and true 
 
 That your best moments bring to you, 
 
 And find this gentle Poet's art 
 
 Voices the thought that stirred your heart. 
 
EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN 
 
 THOUGH to his song the reeds respondent rustle 
 That cradled Pan what time all song was young, 
 Though in a new world city's restless bustle 
 
 He sounds a lyre in fields Sicilian strung; 
 Though his the power the days of old to waken, 
 
 Though Nature's melody 's as clear to him 
 As ere of dryads were the woods forsaken, 
 
 And the fresh world of myth grew faint and dim — 
 A dearer grace is his when men's eyes glisten 
 
 With closer sympathies his page above, 
 And near his spirit draws to hearts that listen 
 
 The song that sweetly rounds with Home and Love. 
 
 New York, December 10, 1884. 
 
 63 
 
AN EPISTLE 
 
 To Master Brander Matthews, Writer, on the 
 
 Occasion of his Putting Forth a Book 
 
 entitled "Pen and Ink" 
 
 New London, Conn., Sept. io, 1888. 
 Dear Brander: 
 
 I have known thee long, and found 
 Thee wise in council, and of judgment sound; 
 Steadfast in friendship, sound and clear in wit, 
 And more in virtues than ?nay here be writ. 
 But most I joy, in these machine-made days, 
 To see thee constant in a craftsman 's ways j 
 That the plai?i tool that knew thy 'proitice hand 
 Gathers no rust upon thy writing-stand ; 
 That no Invention saves the labor due 
 To any Task that 's worth the going through j 
 That now when butter snubs the stranger churn, 
 Plain pen and ink still serve a writer's turn. 
 Though I, more firmly orthodox, still hold, 
 In dire default of quills, to steel or gold, 
 And though thy pen be rubber — let it pass — 
 A breath of blemish on thy souVs clear glass. 
 64 
 
7{0WEN 
 
 There is no " writing fluid" in thy pot, 
 But honest ink of nutgall brew, God wot! 
 Thou dost not an electric needle ply, 
 And, like a housewife with an apple-pie, 
 Prick thy fair page into a stencil-plate — 
 Then daub with lampblack for a duplicate. 
 Nor thine the sloven page whereon the shirk 
 With the rough tool attempts the finished work, 
 And introduces to the sight of men 
 The Valet Pencil for the Master Pen. 
 
 Not all like thee, in this uneasy age, 
 When more by trick than toil we earn our wage 
 Here by the sea a gentle poet dwells, 
 And in fair leisure weaves his inagic spells ; 
 And yet doth dare with countena?ice serene 
 To weave them on a tinkling steel machine, 
 Where an impertinent and soulless bell 
 Rings, at each finished line, a jangling knell. 
 The muse and I, we love him, and I think 
 She may forgive his slight to pen and ink, 
 And let no dull mechanic cant or cog 
 The lightsome movement of his metres clog ; 
 But oh ! I grieve to see his fingers toy 
 With this base slave in dalliance close and coy, 
 65 
 
%OlVEN 
 
 While in his standish dries the atrid spring 
 
 Where hides the shyer muse that loves to sing. 
 
 Give me the old-time ink, black, flowing, free, 
 
 A?id give, oh, give ! the old goose-quill to me- 
 
 The goose-quill, whispering of humility. 
 
 It whispers to the bard : "Fly 710 1 too high! 
 
 You flap your wings — remember, so could I. 
 
 I cackled in my life-time, it is true j 
 
 But yet again remember, so do You. 
 
 And there were some things possible to me 
 
 That possible to you will ?iever be. 
 
 I stood for hours 071 one colu77i7iar leg, 
 
 And, if i7iy sex were such, could lay a7i egg. 
 
 Oh, well for you, if you could thus beget 
 
 Material for your mor7ii7ig 077ielettc ; 
 
 Or, if things ca77ie to such a desperate pass, 
 
 You could in cah7i C07ite7tt7nent nibble g7-ass ! 
 
 Co7iceited bard! a7id can you sink to rest 
 
 Up07i the feather-pillow of your breast?" 
 
 Hold, my dear Brander, to your pot of ink: 
 The 77iuse sits poised upo7i that foiuitairfs b7'ink. 
 A7id that y oil long 7nay live to hold a pen 
 I 71 breathe a p7'ayer j 
 
 The world will say " A me 71 ! " 
 
 66 
 
ON READING CERTAIN PUBLISHED 
 LETTERS OF W. M. T. 
 
 IT is as though the gates of heaven swung, 
 Once only, backward, and a spirit shone 
 Upon us, with a face to which there clung 
 
 Naught of that mortal veil which sore belies, 
 But looked such love from such high-changed eyes, 
 That, even from earth, we knew them for his own. 
 
 Knew them for his, and marveled ; for he came 
 Among us, and went from us, and we knew 
 
 Only the smoke and ash that hid the flame, 
 Only the cloak and vestment of his soul; 
 And knew his priesthood only by his stole — ■ 
 
 And, thus unknown, he went his journey through. 
 
 Yet there were some who knew him, though his face 
 Was never seen by them; although his hand 
 
 Lay never warm in theirs, they yet had grace 
 To see, past all misjudgment ; his true heart 
 Throbbed for them in the creatures of his art, 
 
 And they could read his words, and understand. 
 
 67 
 
I^OIVEN 
 
 All men may know him now, and know how kind 
 The hand in chastisement so sure and strong — 
 
 All men may know him now, and dullards blind 
 Into the secrets of his soul may see ; 
 And all shall love — but, Steadfast Greatheart, we, 
 
 We knew thee when the wide world did thee wrong. 
 
 68 
 
^ A YS the Man in the Moon, "It's a fine world there ", 
 vj But he wonders how it can please us 
 
 To walk with our heads ha7iging down in the air 
 
 For that is the way he sees us. 
 
 <v 
 
CHAKEY EINSTEIN 
 
 PHARAOH, King of Egypt's land, 
 Held you in his cruel hand, 
 Till the Appointed of the Lord 
 Led you forth and drowned his horde. 
 Cushan, Eglon's Moabites, 
 Jabin, then the Midianites, 
 Ammonite and Philistine 
 Held you, by decree divine. 
 Shishak spoiled you — but the list 
 Fades in dim tradition's mist — 
 And on history's page we see 
 One long tale of misery, 
 Century after century through — 
 Chains and lashes for the Jew. 
 Haman and Antiochus, 
 Herod, Roman Socius, 
 Spoiled you, crushed you, various ways, 
 Till the dawn of Christian days ; 
 
 7i 
 
%OU/EN 
 
 Since which time your wrongs and shame 
 
 Have remained about the same. 
 
 Whipped and chained, your teeth pulled out 
 
 English cat and Russian knout 
 
 Made familiar with your back — 
 
 When you were n't upon the rack — 
 
 Marked for scorn of Christian men; 
 
 Pilfered, taxed, and taxed again ; 
 
 Pilloried, prisoned, burnt and stoned, 
 
 Stripped of even the clothes you owned ; 
 
 Child of Torture, Son of Shame, 
 
 Robbed of even a father's name — 
 
 In this year of Christian grace, 
 
 What 's your state and what 's your place ? 
 
 Why you 're rich and strong and gay — 
 
 Chakey Einstein, owff Browdway ! 
 
 Myriad signs along the street 
 Israelitish names repeat. 
 Lichtenstein and Morgenroth 
 Sell the pants and sell the coat 
 Minzesheimer, Isaacs, Meyer, 
 Levy, Lehman, Simon, Speyer- 
 These may just suggest a few 
 Specimens of Broadway Jew — 
 
%OWEN 
 
 And these gentlemen have made 
 Quite their own the Dry-gootz Trade. 
 Surely you 're on top to-day, 
 Chakey Einstein, owff Browdway. 
 
 Fat and rich you are, and loud; 
 Fond of being in a crowd; 
 Fond of diamonds and rings ; 
 Fond of haberdashers' things ; 
 Fond of color, fond of noise ; 
 Fond of treating "owl der boys" 
 (Yet, it 's only fair to state, 
 For yourself, most temperate) ; 
 Fond of women, fond of song; 
 Fond of bad cigars, and strong ; 
 Fond, too much, of Brighton's Race 
 (Where you 're wholly out of place, 
 For no Jew in Time's long course 
 Knew one thing about a horse) ; 
 Fond of life, and fond of fun 
 (Once your "beezness" wholly done) 
 Open-handed, generous, free, 
 Full of Christian charity 
 (Far more full than he who pokes 
 At your avarice his jokes) ; 
 
 73 
 
%01VEN 
 
 Fond of friends, and ever kind 
 To the sick and lame and blind 
 (And, though loud you else may be, 
 Silent in your charity); 
 Fond of Mrs. Einstein and 
 Her too-numerous infant band, 
 Ever willing they should share 
 Your enjoyment everywhere — 
 What of you is left to say, 
 Chakey Einstein, owff Browdway? 
 
 Though you 're spurned in some hotels, 
 
 You have kin among the swells — 
 
 Great musicians, poets true, 
 
 Painters, singers not a few, 
 
 Own their cousinship to you : 
 
 And all England, so they say, 
 
 Yearly blooms on Primrose Day 
 
 All in memory of a Jew 
 
 Of the self-same race as you ; 
 
 Greatest leader ever known 
 
 Since the Queen came to her throne; 
 
 Bismarck's only equal foe, 
 
 With a thrust for every blow, 
 
 One who rose from place to place 
 
 To lead the Anglo-Saxon race, 
 
 74 
 
%OWEN 
 
 One whose statecraft wise and keen 
 Made an Empress of a Queen — 
 You 've your share in Primrose Day, 
 Chakey Einstein, owff Browdway ! 
 
 Well, good friend, we look at you 
 And behold the Conquering Jew : 
 In despite of all the years 
 Filled with agonies and fears; 
 In despite of stake and chain ; 
 In despite of Rome and Spain ; 
 'Spite of prison, rack, and lash, 
 You are here, and you 've the cash : 
 You are Trade's uncrowned king — 
 You are mostly everything — 
 Only one small joke, O Jew ! 
 Has the Christian world on you — 
 When your son, your first-born boy, 
 Solomon, your fond heart's joy, 
 Grows to manhood's years, he '11 wed 
 One a Christian born and bred; 
 Blue of blood, of lineage old, 
 Who will take him for his gold — 
 That 's not all — so far the joke 
 Is upon the Christian folk. 
 
 75 
 
T^O IV EN 
 
 But, dear Chakey, when he goes 
 
 In his proper Sabbath clo'es, 
 
 To the House of Worship, he 
 
 And his little family, 
 
 He will pass the synagogue, 
 
 And upon his way will jog 
 
 To a Church, wherein his pew 
 
 Will bear a name unknown to you — 
 
 One quite unknown in old B'nai B'rith 
 
 Eynston maybe — maybe Smith. 
 
 That 's just as sure as day is day — 
 
 Chakey Einstein, owff Browdway ! 
 
 76 
 
A FABLE FOR RULERS 
 
 (From the French) 
 
 A KING of Persia, once upon a day, 
 Rode with his courtiers to the chase away. 
 Thirst o'ertook him in a desert plain, 
 Where he sought a cooling fount in vain. 
 Last he chanced upon a garden fine, 
 Rich in luscious orange, grape, and pine : 
 " God forbid my thirst I slake ! " 
 Quoth he, " for the owner's sake. 
 For if to pluck one single fruit I dare, 
 These my viziers will lay the garden bare." 
 
 77 
 
BISMARCK SOLILOQUIZES 
 
 THE German Emperor — that 's his title — not 
 The one that (thanks to me) his Grandsire got 
 Emperor of Germany served his father's turn; 
 'T will not serve his. Well, well, we live and learn. 
 I, in my age, have learned one certain thing: 
 Who makes a king shall perish by a king. 
 
 What else should come of making kings ? The best 
 
 Is but a Policy in purple drest. 
 
 I hatched this Policy within my brain : 
 
 But shall it hatch a Policy again? 
 
 I made an Emperor; made his heir, and he 
 
 Has made an Emperor to make mock of me. 
 
 Is this the way God laughs at men? to spoil 
 Their work, and bring to nothingness their toil? 
 To give the seed, the wit to make it grow, 
 Patience to nurse this tree till blossoms blow, 
 
%OWEN 
 
 To lend the fatness of the labored land, 
 
 And turn the fruit to dust within the hand? 
 
 If so — His ways shall not be understood — 
 
 Let me laugh, too. Surely the jest is good 
 
 I have time for laughing now. In days gone by 
 
 We had no laughing-times, my kings and I : 
 
 Nor did I dream such gratitude was theirs 
 
 To save my latter years from statecraft's cares, 
 
 And let me sit in calm retirement down 
 
 To watch a youthful Emperor play the clown ! 
 
 Right well you play it, William mine — how well, 
 
 It takes a critic old as I to tell. 
 
 No madder jest a merry mind could plan 
 
 Than Kings coquetting with the Laboring Man. 
 
 A gay conceit, indeed, it seems to me — 
 
 That Congress, summoned by your high decree 
 
 To view the woes of man, and find a cure 
 
 For you to guarantee as swift and sure. 
 
 Nor did your humor miss a happy chance 
 
 When you dispatched your Mother into France. 
 
 Of course, to give the joke its subtle sting, 
 
 A Grandmother would be the proper thing. 
 
 Still, 't was amusing — and instructive, since 
 
 It shows just what can make a Frenchman wince, 
 
 79 
 
l^OLVEN 
 
 Make his lip quiver and his thin cheek blanch — 
 
 A conqueror's widow with an olive branch. 
 
 Oh, had she gone — the jest to carry through — 
 
 To see if sparks still lingered at St. Cloud ! 
 
 Play your game out, boy : I will look and laugh. 
 
 Thresh over the poor wheat I threshed to chaff. 
 
 Learn the hard lesson I so long have known, 
 
 That steel 's the only metal for a throne. 
 
 You are — your guns, and nothing else on earth, 
 
 Except the brutal accident of birth. 
 
 Think you the golden years will come again 
 
 When the poor peasants, fleeing from the plain, 
 
 Huddled beneath the castle walls, stretched hands 
 
 To pray the War Lord to protect their lands 
 
 Against the alien plunderer, kissed the sod, 
 
 And thought him regent of Almighty God ? 
 
 Why, child, that dogma of your heaven-sent right 
 
 Is, in this day, a mere excuse polite 
 
 For owning cannon; and the more you own 
 
 The more divine your right is to the throne. 
 
 Think you these people whose intelligence 
 
 Fills you with proud paternal confidence 
 
 Have learned — you let them learn — to write and read. 
 
 To find out ways of bettering their breed — 
 
 Yet hold themselves still made for you to bleed? 
 
 80 
 
T{OlVEN 
 
 And does the spider educate the fly, 
 
 Teaching him: "By this belly know that I 
 
 Can chain you; this my glittering web is set 
 
 To hold your feet fast in a sticky net. 
 
 So, now, walk in, I pray. Divinest Right 
 
 Has given me a pretty appetite ! " 
 
 Madman and babe — you send your fly to school 
 
 And then expect your fly to be your fool ! 
 
 Play on, play on! / kept your "right" alive; 
 / made a medieval dogma thrive 
 On barren modern soil; but my War Lord 
 In one hand bore a whip ; in one a sword. 
 His Right men held Divine; his title clear- 
 Through gratitude? through love? — hope? — 
 Fool ! through Fear.' 
 
IMITATION 
 
 MY love she leans from the window 
 Afar in a rosy land; 
 And red as a rose are her blushes, 
 And white as a rose her hand. 
 
 And the roses cluster around her, 
 And mimic her tender grace; 
 
 And nothing but roses can blossom 
 Wherever she shows her face. 
 
 1 dwell in a land of winter, 
 
 From my love a world apart — 
 
 But the snow blooms over with roses 
 At the thought of her in my heart. 
 
 ***** 
 
 This German style of poem 
 
 Is uncommonly popular now; 
 
 For the worst of us poets can do it — 
 Since Heine showed us how. 
 
 82 
 
MAGDALENA" 
 
 s 
 
 Years and years ago ; 
 And I softly pressed a hand a 
 
 Deal more white than snow. 
 And I cast aside my reina, 
 
 As I gazed upon her face, 
 And I read her lt Magdalena," 
 
 While she smoothed her Spanish lace 
 Read her Waller's "Magdalena" — 
 
 She had Magdalena's grace. 
 Read her of the Spanish duel, 
 Of the brother, courtly, cruel, 
 Who between the British wooer 
 
 And the Seville lady came ; 
 How her lover promptly slew her 
 
 Brother, and then fled in shame — 
 How he dreamed, in long years after, 
 Of the river's rippling laughter — 
 83 
 
%OlVEhl 
 
 Of the love he used to know 
 In the myrtle-curtained villa 
 Near the city of Sevilla 
 
 Years and years ago. 
 
 Ah, how warmly was I reading, 
 
 As I gazed upon her face ! 
 And my voice took tones of pleading, 
 
 For I sought to win her grace. 
 Surely, thought I, in her veins 
 Runs some drop of foreign strains — 
 There is something half Castilian 
 In that lip that shames vermilion; 
 In that mass of raven tresses, 
 Tossing like a falcon's jesses ; 
 In that eye with trailing lashes, 
 And its witching upward flashes — 
 
 Such, indeed, I know, 
 Shone where Guadalquivir plashes 
 Years and years ago. 
 
 Looking in her face I read it — 
 
 How the metre trips ! — 
 And the god of lovers sped it 
 
 On my happy lips — 
 8 4 
 
T{OlVEN 
 
 All those words of mystic sweetness 
 
 Spoke I with an airy neatness, 
 
 As I never had before — 
 
 As I cannot speak them more — 
 
 Reja, plaza, and mantilla, 
 
 "No palabras" and Sevilla, 
 
 Caballero and sombrero, 
 
 And duenna and Duero, 
 
 Spada, senor, sabe Dios — 
 
 Smooth as pipe of Meliboeus — 
 
 Ah, how very well I read it, 
 
 Looking in her lovely eyes ! 
 When 't was o'er, I looked for credit, 
 
 As she softly moved to rise. 
 ***** 
 Doting dream, ah, dream fallacious — 
 
 Years and years ago ! — 
 For she only said: " My gracious — 
 
 What a lot of French you know ! ' 
 
 ^5 
 
1 /fA Y the light of some morning skies 
 1 VJ. In days when the sun knew how to rise, 
 Stay with my spirit until I go 
 To 'be the boy that I used to know. 
 
 87 
 
-ONE, TWO, THREE!" 
 
 IT was an old, old, old, old lady, 
 And a boy that was half-past three; 
 And the way that they played together 
 Was beautiful to see. 
 
 She could n't go running and jumping, 
 And the boy, no more could he; 
 
 For he was a thin little fellow, 
 
 With a thin little twisted knee. 
 
 They sat in the yellow sunlight, 
 
 Out under the maple-tree ; 
 And the game that they played I '11 tell you, 
 
 Just as it was told to me. 
 
 It was Hide-and-Go-Seek they were playing, 
 Though you 'd never have known it to be 
 
 With an old, old, old, old lady, 
 And a boy with a twisted knee. 
 8 9 
 
%OWEN 
 
 The boy would bend his face down 
 On his one little sound right knee, 
 
 And he 'd guess where she was hiding, 
 In guesses One, Two, Three! 
 
 "You are in the china-closet!" 
 
 He would cry, and laugh with glee- 
 
 It was n't the china-closet; 
 
 But he still had Two and Three. 
 
 "You are up in Papa's big bedroom, 
 
 In the chest with the queer old key ! " 
 
 And she said: "You are warm and warmer; 
 But you 're not quite right," said she. 
 
 "It can't be the little cupboard 
 
 Where Mama's things used to be — 
 
 So it must be the clothes-press, Gran'ma ! " 
 And he found her with his Three. 
 
 Then she covered her face with her fingers, 
 That were wrinkled and white and wee, 
 
 And she guessed where the boy was hiding, 
 With a One and a Two and a Three. 
 
 90 
 
T{01VEN 
 
 And they never had stirred from their places, 
 
 Right under the maple-tree — 
 This old, old, old, old lady, 
 
 And the boy with the lame little knee — 
 This dear, dear, dear old lady, 
 
 And the boy who was half-past three. 
 
 91 
 
THE LITTLE SHOP 
 
 Air: The Bailiff's Daughter of Islington 
 
 1KN0W a shop, and a funny little shop, 
 In a street that lies anigh ; 
 And I saw the sign set on the door, 
 
 One day as I went by. 
 And oh ! it was so poor and small 
 
 I could not help but stop, 
 As you would stop, if you should come 
 On such a little shop. 
 
 I went inside, and found a little boy, 
 
 Far older, I am sure, than I ; 
 He said to me: "Kind sir, what toy 
 
 Will you kindly be pleased to buy ? " 
 And I bought a horse that was painted so red 
 
 As never was charger yet; 
 One penny, one penny was all I paid 
 
 That splendid horse to get. 
 .92 
 
%OWEN 
 
 For pity of them that were so poor 
 
 I bought me a host of things: 
 A Noah's Ark without a roof; 
 
 A dove without its wings; 
 A little trumpet made of tin, 
 
 That cost a single cent — 
 And all the time that little boy 
 
 Knew just how my money went. 
 
 He was, oh ! so old, this funny little boy, 
 
 And so sober and so kind : 
 He sold a five-cent doll for three, 
 
 Because one eye was blind. 
 And, oh ! how proud he was to sell 
 
 Each poor and petty toy, 
 For he was left to keep the shop, 
 
 This poor little old-time boy. 
 
 There is a babe, and a well-beloved babe, 
 
 A babe that belongs to me; 
 I brought her home these penny toys 
 
 To deck her Christmas tree. 
 And on that Christmas tree there hung 
 
 A world of trifles fair, 
 For all the folk that love her well 
 
 Had set their kindness there. 
 
\OWEX 
 
 But of all the toys, of all the many toys, 
 
 Was naught that pleased her mind 
 Except the trumpet made of tin, 
 
 And the doll with one eye blind. 
 And best of all that Christmas brought, 
 
 She held one little toy 
 That I bought for a cent in the little shop, 
 
 To please that aged boy. 
 
 04 
 
GRANDFATHER WATTS'S PRIVATE 
 FOURTH 
 
 GRANDFATHER WATTS used to tell us boys 
 That a Fourth wa'n't a Fourth without any noise. 
 He would say, with a thump of his hickory stick, 
 That it made an American right down sick 
 To see his sons on the Nation's Day 
 Sit round, in a sort of a listless way, 
 With no oration and no train-band, 
 No fire-work show and no root-beer stand; 
 While his grandsons, before they were out of bibs, 
 Were ashamed — Great Scott! — to fire off squibs. 
 
 And so, each Independence morn, 
 Grandfather Watts took his powder-horn, 
 And the flint-lock shot-gun his father had 
 When he fought under Schuyler, a country lad; 
 
 95 
 
T{OlVEN 
 
 And Grandfather Watts would start and tramp 
 
 Ten miles to the woods at Beaver Camp ; 
 
 For Grandfather Watts used to say — and scowl — 
 
 That a decent chipmunk, or woodchuck, or owl 
 
 Was better company, friendly or shy, 
 
 Than folks who did n't keep Fourth of July. 
 
 And so he would pull his hat down on his brow, 
 
 And march for the woods, sou'-east by sou'. 
 
 But once — ah, long, long years ago, — 
 
 For Grandfather 's gone where good men go, — 
 
 One hot, hot Fourth, by ways of our own 
 
 (Such short-cuts as boys have always known), 
 
 We hurried, and followed the dear old man 
 
 Beyond where the wilderness began — 
 
 To the deep black woods at the foot of the Hump 
 
 And there was a clearing — and a stump. 
 
 A stump in the heart of a great wide wood, 
 And there on that stump our Grandfather stood, • 
 Talking and shouting out there in the sun, 
 And firing that funny old flint-lock gun 
 Once in a minute — his head all bare — 
 Having his Fourth of July out there: 
 The Fourth of July that he used to know, 
 Back in eighteen-and-twenty or so ! 
 9 6 
 
%OWEN 
 
 First, with his face to the heavens blue, 
 He read the "Declaration" through; 
 And then, with gestures to left and right, 
 He made an oration erudite, 
 Full of words six syllables long — 
 And then our Grandfather burst into song ! 
 And, scaring the squirrels in the trees, 
 Gave "Hail, Columbia!" to the breeze. 
 
 And I iell you the old man never heard 
 When we joined in the chorus, word for word! 
 But he sang out strong to the bright blue sky; 
 And if voices joined in his Fourth of July, 
 He heard them as echoes from days gone by. 
 
 And when he had done, we all slipped back, 
 As still as we came, on our twisting track, 
 While words more clear than the flint-lock shots 
 Rang in our ears. 
 
 And Grandfather Watts? 
 
 He shouldered the gun his father bore, 
 And marched off home, nor'-west by nor'. 
 
 ^7 
 
TO MY DAUGHTER 
 
 CONCERNING A BUNCH OF BLOSSOMS 
 
 THE blossoms she gave him — indeed, they were fair ; 
 And grateful the odor they cast on the air; 
 And he put them in water, and set them anigh 
 His little round window that looked on the sky. 
 And the blush of those blossoms, their pleasant perfume. 
 Made a sweet little spot in that dull little room — 
 Made a sweet little spot for a day and an hour; 
 Then — 
 
 Well, little Lil, what 's the fate of a flower? 
 
 The blossoms she gave him — indeed, they were fair; 
 But I think that the least of the giving was there, 
 In that vase by the window — the look in her face — 
 Her tender and youthful and delicate grace — 
 
 9 8 
 
%OWEN 
 
 The voice that just trembled in gentle replies, 
 The look and the light in her uplifted eyes — 
 Ah ! these to my thinking were dearer by far 
 Than ever the fairest of May-blossoms are. 
 
 The blossoms she gave him — you ask, little Lil, 
 With a lip that is quivering and blue eyes that fill — 
 If they faded ? 
 
 They did — but there 's no need to cry! 
 For they blossomed again where I can't have them die — 
 These roseate tints on your soft little cheek, 
 In a manner mysterious certainly speak 
 Of a bunch of pink blossoms, fresh torn from the tree, 
 That in eighteen-and-eighty your mother gave me. 
 
 99 
 
SCHUBERT'S KINDER-SCENEN 
 
 THE spirit of the Ingle Nook 
 Has come to lead me forth, 
 To wonder at the leaping brook — 
 The wind from out the north. 
 
 To wander with Haroun the Great 
 Through groves of Eastern scent; 
 
 To watch beyond the garden gate 
 The birds fly, heavenward bent; 
 
 To lie amid the grass, and dream 
 Each slim and spreading spire 
 
 A tufted palm, lit by the gleam 
 Of distant heavens' fire. 
 
 To dream and dream of things beyond 
 The gate — beyond to-day — 
 
 Until upon the miller's pond 
 
 The low red light shall play. 
 
7{01VEN 
 
 And then, when all my dreams shall swim 
 To murmuring of the brook, 
 
 I shall be led from twilight dim 
 Back to the Ingle Nook. 
 
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