Class TS >(^ 3 <^4 Book fr ^^^ :> LYRICS BY JOHN B. TABB First edition (five hundred copies) March, 1897 Second edition (five hundred copies) March, 1897 Third edition (five hundred copies) April, 1897 Fourth edition (five hundred copies) October, 1897 Fifth edition (five hundred copies) December, 1900 Printed by John Wilson & Son, Cambridge, u.s.a. Lyrics by John B Tabb Boston Small Maynard & Company London John LcDie MDCCCC ENTERED ACCORDING TO THE ACT OF CONGRESS, IN THE YEAR 1 897, BY COPELAND AND DAY, IN THE OFFICE OF THE LIBRARIAN OF CON- GRESS AT WASHINGTON. , S ^S^"^ s^^ Trr^fsSfer Army and Navy Club TO THE MEMORT OF MT MOTHER. THE COWSLIP. TT brings my mother hack to me^ •^ Thy frail y familiar form to see^ Which nvas her homely joy j And strange^ that one so iveak as thoUy Should lift the 'veil that sunders noiv The mother and the hoy. CONTENTS. CHERRY BLOOM jAGE I DAWN 2 ECHO - MORNING AND NIGHT BLOOM 4 EXALTATION ^ HAZARD 5 THE YOUNG TENOR 7 FRATERNITY g MY MESSMATE ^ "VOX CLAMANTIS" lO NIAGARA THE BRIDGE THE STATUE THE SEED THE TREE THE SISTERS ,7 THE GOSSIP J 8 THE TOLLMEN THE PINE-TREE TRANSFIGURED ANONYMOUS MIDNIGHT INSOMNIA PAIN 2^ SYMPATHY j6 19 20 21 22 24 MEMORY PAGE 27 LIVERY Z8 SLUMBER-SONG 29 THE SUPPLIANT 30 RELEASED 31 WRECKED 32 GONE 33 AGAINST THE SKY 34 ILLUSION 35 SUNSET AT SEA 36 INTERPRETED 37 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 38 OFF SAN SALVADOR 39 A SIGH OF THE SEA 40 SHELL-TINTS 42 THE LOST ANCHOR 43 THE SEA-BUBBLE 44 DE PROFUNDIS 45 ALTER IDEM 46 FROM PARADISE 47 SELECTION 48 MAIDEN BLOOM 49 THE RAIN AND THE DEW 50 THE SHOWER 5 1 RESIGNATION 52 THE SLEEPING BEAUTY 53 CLEOPATRA TO THE ASP 54 vi ADIEU PAGE 55 ASLEEP 56 IN SOLITUDE 57 UNHEEDED 58 ALL IN ALL 59 THE DEWS 60 THE LIFE-TIDE 6 1 ONSET 62 TO A BLIND BABE, SLEEPING 63 FORESHADOWED 64 SUSPENSE 65 IMMORTALITY 66 SECURITY 67 PILGRIMS 68 IN THE DEATH CHAMBER 69 THE DEPARTED 70 THE FOUNDLING 7I RETROSPECT 72 REFLECTION 73 COMMUNION—^ 74 TRANSFIGURATION 75 BREAD 76 SAND 77 THE MARSH 78 BEACON LIGHTS 79 OUTSPEEDED 80 THE SIREN STREAM TO THE OUTCAST 8 1 vii AT LAST PAGE 82 THE PILGRIM 83 MY GUIDE 84 GIULIO 86 BETRAYED 88 THE FIRST SNOW-FALL 89 AN INTERVIEW 90 ANTICIPATION 9 1 ~ THE TRYST OF SPRING 92 ONE APRIL MORN 93 AN APRIL PRAYER 94 AN AUTUMN LEAF 95 MATER DOLOROSA 96 INDIAN SUMMER 97 OCTOBER 98 FROM THE UNDERGROUND 99 THE SNOWDROP lOO WIND-FLOWERS lOI AN APRIL BLOOM I02 PEACH BLOOM I03 MIGNONETTE I04 CLOVER 105 IMMORTELLES I06 SONG OF THE MORNING-GLORIES I07 << CONSIDER THE LILIES " 108 TO A WOOD-VIOLET IO9 A LOTUS BLOOM HO viii A RUBRIC PAGE III THE SNOW-BIRD IIZ TO THE WOOD-ROBIN II3 THE DEAD THRUSH II5 CHRISTMAS 116 THE LAMB-CHILD II7 THE angel's CHRISTMAS QUEST I18 RESTRAINT II9 GLORIA IN EXCELSIS I20 ON CALVARY 121 TO THE CRUCIFIX 122 STAB AT MATER I 23 EASTER EVE I24 EASTER MORNING I 25 EASTER FLOWERS 1 26 GOD 127 TENEBR^ 128 DEUS ABSCONDITUS I 29 god's LIKENESS I30 MY MEDIATOR 13I THE SONG OF THE MAN 132 CHARITY 133 FULFILMENT 1 34 ON SEA AND LAND 1 35 STILLING THE TEMPEST I 36 THE POSTULANT I 37 PURGATORY 1 38 \ BETTER PAGE 139 LONE-LAND 14° QUATRAINS. WOMAN 143 OPPORTUNITY 144 LIFE 145 DEATH 146 RELEASE 147 LIGHT 148 IN DARKNESS 149 SILENCE 150 FANCY 151 FAME 15^ time's LEGACY 153 A CRISIS 154 THE CYNOSURE 155 RESISTANCE 15^ THE BILLOWS 157 THE VOYAGER 15^ ADRIFT 159 DEEP UNTO DEEP 1 60 VESTIGES 16] THE MID-DAY MOON lo^ TO AN EVENING SHADE 1 63 HEROES 164 Lanier's flute 165 POE-CHOPIN PAGE I 66 TO AN EXILE 1 67 TO A DYING BABE I 68 MY SECRET IN ABSENCE A REMONSTRANCE NEW AND OLD THE FIG-TREE THE BEE AND THE BLOSSOMS 169 170 171 17a 173 174 BONE-CASTANETS 1 75 SONNETS. DAYBREAK FORECAST 180 TO AN IDOL l8l KEDRON I 8a THE DRUID 183 THE HERMIT I 84 POE 185 SHELLEY 186 AT KEATS'S GRAVE 187 179 CHERRY BLOOM. ,RAILEST, and first to stand ^Upon the border-land 'From darkness shriven, In livery of Death Thou utterest the breath And light of Heaven. Tho' profitless thou seem As doth a Poet's dream, Apart from thee Nor limb nor laboring root May load with ripened fruit The parent tree. DAWN. BEHOLD, as from a silver horn. The sacerdotal Night Outpours upon his latest-born The chrism of the light 5 And bids him to the altar come, Whereon for sacrifice, (A lamb before his shearers, dumb,) A victim shadow lies. ECHO. O FAMISHED Prodigal, in vain — Thy portion spent — thou seek'st again Thy father's doorj His all with latest sigh bequeathed To thee the wanderer — he breathed, Alas ! no more. MORNING AND NIGHT BLOOM. A STAR and a rosebud white, In the morning twilight gray, The latest blossom of the night, The earliest of the day j The star to vanish in the light. The rose to stay. A star and a rosebud white. In the evening twilight gray. The earliest blossom of the night. The latest of the day 5 The one in darkness finding light, One, lost for aye. EXALTATION. OLEAF upon the highest bough. The Poet of the woods art thou To whom alone 't is given — The farthest from thy place of birth — To hold communion with the earth. Nor lose the light of Heaven. O leaf upon the topmost height. Amid thy heritage of light Unsheltered by a shade, 'Tis thine the loneliness to know That leans for sympathy below, Nor finds what it hath made. HAZARD. ONE step 'twixt loss and gain ! The summit to attain So near the brink of Pain Hath joy to go — So steep the precipice, So frail the footing is, 'T were death to panting Bliss To look below. THE YOUNG TENOR. I WOKE j the harbored melody Had crossed the slumber bar, And oat upon the open sea Of consciousness, afar Swept onward with a fainter strain. As echoing the dream again. So soft the silver sound, and clear. Outpoured upon the night. That Silence seemed a listener O'erleaning with delight The slender moon, a finger-tip Upon the portal of her lip. FRATERNITY. I KNOW not but in every leaf That sprang to life along with me, Were written all the joy and grief Thenceforth my fate to be. The wind that whispered to the earth. The bird that sang its earliest lay. The flower that blossomed at my birth, - My kinsmen all were they. Ay, but for fellowship with these I had not been — nay, might not be ; Nor they but vagrant melodies Till harmonized to me. MY MESSMATE. WHY fear thee, brother Death, That sharest, breath by breath. This brimming life of mine ? Each draught that I resign Into thy chalice flows. Comrades of old are we j All that the Present knows Is but a shade of me : My Self to thee alone And to the Past is known. "VOX CLAMANTIS." OSEA, forever calling to the shore With menace or caress, — A voice like his unheeded that of yore Cried in the w^ilderness j A deep forever yearning unto deep, For silence out of sound, — Thy restlessness the cradle of a sleep That thou hast never found. NIAGARA. WHERE echo ne'er hath found A footing on the steep, Descends, without a sound. The cataract of sleep. Like swallows in the spray. When evening is near, The thronging thoughts of day About the brink appear j Till greets a heaven below A sister heaven above, Alike with stars aglow Of unextinguished love. THE BRIDGE. WHERE, as a lordly dream. Glides the deep-winding stream For evermore ; Calm, as in conscious strength. Bends thy majestic length. From shore to shore. Life, in its fevered heat. Surges, with pulsing feet. Restless, above j Doomed, in its anxious flow. Like the strong tide below. Onward to move. Strange is the motley throng ! Hearts yet untaught of wrong. Thoughtless of pain. Mingle with souls accursM, Sands in a desert thirst — Clouds without rain. While o'er thee and below Swift the twin currents flow. Thy form serene, Still as the shades that sleep On the reflecting deep Arches between. 12 O that, all strife above, Strong in the strength thereof Man evermore Built, with a broader span. Love for his fellow-man From shore to shore ! THE STATUE. FIRST fashioned in the artist's brain, It stood as in the marble vein. Revealed to him alone j Nor could he from its native night Have led it to the living light. Save through the lifeless stone. E'en so, of Silence and of Sound A twin-born mystery is found. Like as of death and birth ; Without the pause we had not heard The harmony, nor caught the word That Heaven reveals to Earth. 14 THE SEED. BEARING a life unseen, Thou lingerest between A flower withdrawn, And — what thou ne' er shalt see • A blossom yet to be When thou art gone. Unto the feast of Spring Thy broken heart shall bring What most it craved. To find, like Magdalen In tears, a life again Love-lost — and saved ! 15 THE TREE. PLANTED by the Master's hand Steadfast in thy place to stand, While the ever-changing year Clothes, or strips thy branches bare ; Lending not a leaf to hold Warmth against the winter's cold j Lightening not a limb the less For the summer's sultriness j Nay, thy burden heavier made. That within thy bending shade Thankless multitudes, oppressed. There may lay them down and rest. Soul, upon thy Calvary Wait : the Christ will come to thee. i6 THE SISTERS. THE waves forever move j The hills forever rest : Yet each the heavens approve, And Love alike hath blessed A Martha's household care, A Mary's cloistered prayer. 17 THE GOSSIP. SO near me dwells my neighbor Death That e'en what Silence pondereth He catches word for word, And promises, some future day. To visit me upon his way. And tell what he has heard. iS l: THE TOLLMEN. O, Silence, Sleep, and Death rAwait us on the way. To take of each the tribute breath That God himself did pay. Nor Solomon's as great. Nor Caesar's strong control. As his who sits beside his gate To take of each the toll. 19 THE PINE-TREE. WITH whispers of futurity And echoes of the past, Twin birds a shelter find in thee Against the wintry blast, — The fledgling Hope, that preens her wing. Too timorous to fly, And Memory, that comes to sing Her coranach, and die. TRANSFIGURED. THROUGHOUT the livelong summer day The Leaf and twinbom Shadow play Till Leaf to Shadow fade j Then, hidden for a season brief, They dream, till Shadow turn to Leaf As Leaf was turned to Shade. 21 ANONYMOUS. ANONYMOUS — nor needs a name To tell the secret whence the flame, With light, and warmth, and incense, came A new creation to proclaim. So was it when. His labor done, God saw His work, and smiled thereon s His glory in the picture shone. But name upon the canvas, none. 22 MIDNIGHT. A FLOOD of darkness overwhelms the land j And all that God had planned, Of loveliness beneath the noonday skies, A dream overshadowed lies. Amid the universal darkness deep, Only the Isles of Sleep, As did the dwellings of the Israelite In Egypt, stem the night. INSOMNIA. E'EN this, Lord, didst thou bless — This pain of sleeplessness — The livelong night, Urging God's gentlest angel from thy side, That anguish only might with thee abide Until the light. Yea, e'en the last and best, Thy victory and rest. Came thus to thee ; For 'twas while others calmly slept around. That thou alone in sleeplessness wast found, To comfort me. 24 PAIN. I AM a gardener to weed And dig about the heart: To plant therein the pregnant seed. And watch, with many a smart. The stem and leaf and blossom rise. Alternate to supply The victims for the sacrifice, And, for the fruit, to die. 25 SYMPATHY. LO ! of, gladness or regret Teardrops in the violet Weeping till her leaves are wet, Dewdrops in mine eyes beget ! Mirrored in each lucid sphere, Highest heaven to earth is near j Closer sympathies are here 'Tv^rixt the dewdrop and the tear. 26 MEMORY. LO, the Blossom to the Bee Yields not more than thou to me Food for Love to live upon When the summer days are gone. Poorer than they came, to find What was sweetest, left behind. 27 LIVERY. OLD-FASHIONED raiment suits the Tree Tho' flouting winds are fain To strip the foliage, presently He patterns it again ; Fastidious of chivalry, Rejecting as in scorn All other than the panoply His ancestors have worn. 28 SLUMBER-SONG. SLEEP ! the spirits that attend On thy waking hours are fled. Heaven thou canst not now offend Till thy slumber-plumes are shed ; Consciousness alone doth lend Life its pain, and Death its dread j Innocence and Peace befriend All the sleeping and the dead. 29 THE SUPPLIANTo " /~\ DEWDROP, lay thy finger-tip V_>^Of moisture on my fevered lip," The noonday Blossom cries. " Alas, O Dives, dark and deep The gulf impassable of Sleep Henceforth between us lies ! " 30 RELEASED. GO, bird, and to the sky Pour forth what thou and I Have suffered here: Thou, for thy mate removed. And I, for faith disproved In one as dear. Farewell; and if again Thou find for prison-pain Felicity, Be this thy glad release A prophecy of peace. Dear bird, for me! 31 WRECKED. DEEP in the forest glades. Where leafy welcomes wooed our wandering way, Once blent our shadows in the dallying shades That round us lay. Thenceforth, of fate estranged. Each day beholds our widowed forms apart: The word, the glance, the gesture, coldly changed. As heart to heart. But Cometh night to hide Life-wrecks, far drifted in the noonday sun. And lo, our shadows, in the sombre tide. Again are one! 32 GONE. THE sunshine seeks thee, and the day, Without thee, lonely, wears away: ■*. .. And where the twilight shadows pass, ^-- >^ '^f^ And miss thy footprints on the grass. They weep ; whereat the breezes sigh, And, following to find thee, die. 33 AGAINST THE SKY. SEE, where the foliage fronts the sky. How many a meaning we descry That else had never to the eye A signal shown! So we, on life's horizon-line. To watchers waiting for a sign. Perchance interpret Love's design. To us unknown. 34 ILLUSION. AS yonder circling heavens define The limits of the sea, And Death on Time's horizon-line Shuts out Eternity ; So, while in banishment apart Our widowed lives appear. Still holds each love-encompassed heart The centre of the sphere. 35 SUNSET AT SEA. LO, where he sinks from sight. The day forgets her light j Nor breathes a wave To break the silence sweet. Where sky and ocean meet Above his grave. 36 INTERPRETED. LO, eastward o'er the billows white. Faint-smiling wakes the Child of Night From dreams all rosy with delight : — What means, O Sea, thy moaning ? Full noon: and o'er a cloudless sky Soft winnowing s of fragrance fly : In all the land no shadows lie : — What means, O Sea, thy moaning ? Far westward, o'er a dying glow, Long funeral waves of darkness flow : Ah, well-a-day ! too late I know What means, O Sea, thy moaning ! Zl CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. WITH faith unshadowed by the night, Undazzled by the day, With hope that plumed thee for the flight. And courage to assay, God sent thee from the crowded ark, Christ-bearer, like the dove. To find, o'er sundering waters dark. New lands for conquering Love. 38 OFF SAN SALVADOR. IT lay to westward — as of old, An emerald bar across the gold Of sunset — whence a vision grand First beckoned to the stranger-land. And on our deck, uncoffined, lay A child, whose spirit far away The wafture of an angel hand Late welcomed to a stransrer-land. 39 A SIGH OF THE SEA. <« XT THY Is it ? " once the Ocean asked, VV As on a summer's day, Basking beneath a cloudless sky, In musing rest he lay, " Why is it, that, unruffled still. The welkin's brow I see. While mine, with racking wind and tide. Deep-furrowed oft must be ? " Her richest gems, by night displayed, Man's filching grasp defy ; But safety for my treasures none. Though buried deep they lie. <* The hands that from her diadem In reverence recoil. Are bold my depths to penetrate And of their wealth despoil. <* A thousand ships with cruel keel My writhing waves divide. But mariner hath never steered Athwart her tranquil tide. 40 " Why is it thus, that rest to her And toil to me is given, — That she the blessing ever meets. And I, the curse of Heaven ? "" The Ether heard. Through all her depths A deeper azure spread, And to the murmuring Ocean thus. With radiant smile, she said : ** Who cleaveth to the earth, as thou. Ne'er knows tranquillity 5 Naught pulses in my bosom wide But God, whose own am I." 41 SHELL-TINTS. Q^ EA-SHELL, whence the rainbow dyes, v3 Flashing in thy sunset skies ? Thou wast in the penal brine, When appeared the saving sign. * ' Yea ; but when the bow was bended, Hope, that hung it in the sky, Down Into the deep descended Where the starless shadows lie ; And with tender touch of glory. Traced in living lines of love. On my lowly walls, the story Written in the heavens above.'* 42 THE LOST ANCHOR. AH, sweet it was to feel the strain. What time, unseen, the ship above Stood steadfast to the storm that strove To rend our kindred cords atwain ! To feel, as feel the roots that grow In darkness, when the stately tree Resists the tempests, that in me High Hope was planted far below ! But now, as when a mother's breast Misses the babe, my prisoned power Deep-yearning, heart-like, hour by hour. Unquiet aches in cankering rest. 43 THE SEA-BUBBLE. YEA J a bubble though I be. Love, O man, that fashioned thee Of the dust, created me Not of earth, but of the sea : Kindred blossoms then are we — Time-blooms on eternity. 44 DE PROFUNDIS. I HE ED it all : no more Than to my listening heart, Were millions on the shore, Couldst thou, O Sea, impart. So, long in silence sealed, The Word Ineffable To Mary's heart revealed E'en all that God could tell. 45 ALTER IDEM *np IS what thou wast — not what thou art, X Which I no longer know — That made thee sovereign of my heart, And serves to keep thee so: And couldst thou, coming to the throne, Thy Self, unaltered, see. Thou mightst the occupant disown. And scout his sovereignty. 46 FROM PARADISE. ALL else that in the limit lies Of fleeting time, I see: The glance, Beloved, of thine eyes Alone is lost to me. And in the self-same interval, The ever-changing place Of light's horizon-line is all That meets thy lonely gaze. Behold the glimmer of a tear, The twinkle of a star — The shadow and the light how near! And yet, alas, how far! 47 SELECTION. AMONG the trees, O God, Is there not one That with unrivalled love Thou look' St upon ? And of all blessed birds. Hath not thy Love Found for its fittest mate The homing dove ? Or, mid the flame of flowers That light the land, Doth not the lily first Before thee stand ? So says my soul, O God, The type of thee. " In each life-circle, one Was made for me." 48 MAIDEN BLOOM. WHERE the youthful rivals meet — Reddest Rose, and whitest Snow — From a trysting-place so sweet, Which will soonest go ? <* Hence with life alone I stray,'' Blushed the flower of balmy breath. "Mine," the cnow-wreath sighed, *' to stay Steadfast e'en in death." 49 THE RAIN AND THE DEW. " npHOU hast fallen," said the Dewdrop X To a sister drop of rain, <* But wilt thou, wedded with the dust, In banishment remain ? *' ** Nay, Dewdrop, but anon with thee — The lowlier born than I — Uplifted shall I seek again My native home, the sky." 50 THE SHOWER. AGAINST the royal Blue, A Mist rebellious flew — A night-born, wind-uplifted shade That for an angry moment stayed. Then wept itself away. The Earth with moistened eyes Beholds the sunlit skies Again : but never to forget The Cloud whose life-drops mingle yet With her maternal clay. 51 RESIGNATION. BEHOLD, in summer's parching thirst, The while the waters pass them by, The hills, like Tantalus accurst, In silent anguish lie ; Nor look they to the lowly vale Wherein their famished shadows glide. But, with uplifted glances pale. The will of Heaven abide. 52 THE SLEEPING BEAUTY. THE sculptor In the marble found Her hidden from the world around, As in a donjon keep: With gentle hand he took away The coverlet that o'er her lay, But left her fast asleep. And still she slumbers; e'en as he Who saw in far futurity What now before us lies — The fairest vision that the stream Of night, subsiding, leaves agleam Beneath the noonday skies. 53 CLEOPATRA TO THE ASP. ** Dost thou not see my baby at my breast ^ That sucks the nurse asleep ? " LIE thou where Life hath lain. And let thy swifter pain His rival prove j Till, like the fertile Nile, Death buries, mile for mile. This waste of Love. Soft ! Soft ! A sweeter kiss Than Antony's is this ! O regal Shade, Luxurious as sleep Upon thy bosom deep My heart is laid. 54 ADIEU. GOD speed thee, setting Sun ! Thy beams for me have spun Of light to-day A memory that one Alone could bring, and none Can take away. 55 N ASLEEP. AY, wake him not! Unfelt our presence near, Nor falls a whisper on his dreaming ear: He sees but Sleep's celestial visions clear. All else forgot. And who shall say That, in life's waking dream. There be not ever near us those we deem (As now our faces to the Sleeper seem) Far, far away ? 56 IN SOLITUDE. LIKE as a brook that all night long Sings, as at noon, a bubble-song To Sleep's unheeding ear. The Poet to himself must sing, When none but God is listening The lullaby to hear. 57 y: UNHEEDED. 'E heavens so cold and clear Above me weeping here, Where every blossom sheds a tear My grief to see ; No wonder, free from stain, Untroubled ye remain ; The vapors gendering the rain Are all with me ! qS ALL IN ALL. ONE heaven above j But many a heaven below The dewdrops show — God's tenderness Subdued in every teardrop to express The whole of Love. 59 THE DEWS. WE come and go, as the breezes blow. But whence or where Hath ne'er been told in the legends old By the dreaming seer. The welcome rain to the parching plain And the languid leaves, The rattling hail on the burnished mail Of the serried sheaves, The silent snow on the wintry brow Of the aged year, Wends each his way in the track of day From a clouded sphere : But still as the fog in the dismal bog Where the shifting sheen Of the spectral lamp lights the marshes damp. With a flash unseen We drip through the night from the starlids bright, On the sleeping flowers. And deep in their breast is our perfumed rest Through the darkened hours : But again with the day we are up and away With our stolen dyes. To paint all the shrouds of the drifting clouds In the eastern skies. 60 THE LIFE-TIDE. EACH wave that breaks upon the strand, How swift soe'er to spurn the sand And seek again the sea, Christ-like, within its lifted hand Must bear the stigma of the land For all eternity. 6x ONSET. LO, where the routed shadows pass, Upon each lifted blade of grass The tokens of a fray — Pale life-drops from the heart of Night, Mute witnesses of sudden flight Before the host of Day. 62 TO A BLIND BABE, SLEEPING. ARE thy dreams dark ? or is the light Alone denied thy waking sight, While softer stars their vigils keep Within thy hemisphere of sleep ? Yea : haply, as noon-blinded beams Awake in darkness, o' er thy dreams The pity that begets our tears, A kindling radiance appears. 63 FORESHADOWED. SWALLOW, with the spring returning, In thine absence change hath been : Dost thou mark the lonely places Where no more my Love is seen ? Never maiden v^^elcomed thee Home with lighter heart than she. Flitting in the golden sunshine Oft thy shadow o'er us strayed. Still we smiled, nor recked the warning Of a life-dividing shade. Now, alas, the world to me Mourns that doomful prophecy. 64 SUSPENSE. BREATHLESS as the blue above thee Where a pausing vapor lies j Here, the hearts on earth that love thee. There, the souls in Paradise — Host for host expectant of thee ! Who shall win the prize ? 6S IMMORTALITY. E'EN now the spirit moves In visions yet to be, Whereof the present proves A dream and prophecy. For still, the shadows gone. With light forever new. Behold, another dawn Proclaims the promise true. 66 SECURITY. THE Noonday smiles to hear The oft-repeated tale Of shadows lurking near Her sunbeams to assail : Nor heeds the placid Night A prophecy of doom To drown her stars in light As fathomless as gloom. 67 PILGRIMS. UNTO the fane of Silence come, Love-led from alien lands. Pale pilgrim Prayers with upward glance, And falling tears, and lifted hands. And lips with stanched emotion dumb. To ask for utterance. There, shadow-like, with folded wings. In reverence apart. They wait till lingering Time hath brought. In words or music to the heart. What Spring to wintry Nature brings, — Release for prisoned Thought. 68 IN THE DEATH CHAMBER. STILL upon the vacant wall Doth the silver phantom fall, Like a glory in the gloom Of the long-deserted room. Soul departed, can it be Thou, death-laurelled majesty. Mingling, in the moon's disguise, With our midnight reveries ? 69 THE DEPARTED. THEY cannot wholly pass away. How far soe'er above ; Nor we, the lingerers, wholly stay Apart from those we love: For spirits in eternity. As shadows in the sun, Reach backward into Time, as we. Like lifted clouds, reach on. 70 THE FOUNDLING. WHAT time the wandering mother Night Made ready to depart, A new-born, trembling Dream of Light She laid upon my heart. " Keep it," she sighed, and bending low Wept o'er it where it lay ; Then, suddenly as April snow, Went vanishing away. 71 RETROSPECT. I'^HE heavens that seemed so far away When old-time grief was hear, Beyond the vista seen to-day. Close o'er my life appear j For there, in reconcilement sweet, The human and divine, The loftiest and the lowliest, meet On love's horizon-line. 72 REFLECTION. STARS that with a softer glow Waken in the wave below, All the stars above you grow Wiser for the beams ye throw i-^ Light whereby alone they know Why we mortals love them so. 73 COMMUNION. ONCE when my heart was passion-free To learn of things divine. The soul of nature suddenly- Outpoured itself in mine. I held the secrets of the deep. And of the heavens above j I knew the harmonies of sleep. The mysteries of love. And for a moment's interval The earth, the sky, the sea — My soul encompassed, each and all. As now they compass me. To one in all, to all in one — Since Love the work began — Life's ever widening circles run. Revealing God and man. 74 TRANSFIGURATION. THE cloud unto its parent stream That rushes to the sea Reveals a far-reflected dream Of heaven's tranquillity ; And unto faith's adoring sight A mystery appears, — A cloud transfigured of the light In every tide of tears. 75 BREAD. STILL surmounting as I came Wind and water, frost and flame. Night and day, the livelong year. From the burial-plaee of seed. From the earth's maternal bosom j Through the root, and stem, and blossom, To supply thy present need. Have I journeyed here. 75 SAND. STERILE sister though I be, Twinborn to the barren Sea, Yet of all things fruitful we Wait the end 5 and presently, Lo, they are not! then to me (Children to the nurse's knee) Come the billows fresh and free. Breathing Immortality. n THE MARSH. THE woods have voices, and the sea, Her choral-song and threnody : But thou alike to sun and rain Dost mute and motionless remain. As pilgrims to the shrine of Sleep, Through all thy solemn spaces creep The Tides — a moment on thy breast To pause in sacramental rest j Then, flooded with the mystery, To sink reluctant to the sea. In landward loneliness to yearn Till to thy bosom they return. 78 BEACON LIGHTS. SISTER Blossoms, ye have kept So near the Master while ye slept That, as upon the Martyr's face. His light celestial we trace In yours, revealing dreams that He, Asleep upon the stormy sea. Beheld, as though your light alone His beacon in the darkness shone. 79 OUTSPEEDED. TO-NIGHT the onward-rushing train Would bear thee far from me j But, winged with swifter dreams, again My spirit flies to thee. Nay, speeding far beyond thee, waits To welcome thee anew, Where Dawn is opening the gates To let the darkness through. 80 THE SIREN STREAM TO THE OUTCAST. COME, foF my waves what I can never know Of caliiib bestow y And thou> alas, like them, hast wandered far i Come, erring star — Aweary now — come take thy fill of rest Upon my breast. Come, for they call thee. Lean thy listening ear And thou shalt hear How soft the sigh that woos thee to the deep Of endless sleep, Wherein the past and all its passion seem A vanished dream. Behold, I cleanse whatever of soilure clings To drooping wings : Whate'er abides of dust or cleaving clay, I purge away ; Like fire, refining, but apart from pain. All dross and stain. The fever-flame that through thy being burns. My bosom yearns To quench. Behold, the ripples run to meet A sister's feet. With murmurs, not of scorn, but tenderness, To soothe and bless. 8i AT LAST. HOW full of phantoms are the days That shorten as they go ! Along the once frequented ways, Alas, are none I know ! Lone relic of reality, I too a phantom fain would be. 82 THE PILGRIM. WHEN, but a child, I wandered hence. Another child — sweet Innocence, My sister — went with me: But I have lost her, and am fain To seek her in the home again Where we were wont to be. 83 MY GUIDE. LIFT up. thine eyes, my chil4. That I may see The innocence that smikd In one like thee — Thy mother gone. Scarce older than thou art. With maiden power She won a wayward heart, That till that hour Had worshipped none. Swift as a bird of Spring In joyous flight. That cleaves with shadeless wing The sea of light. Our morning fled. When, sudden gloom — and lo! A troubled sky — A wail of stifled woe — An agony — . And hope was dead. 84 Then, as a crystal tear Of sorrow bom^ Didst thou, pale star, appear. Like me forlorn In cheerless night. I wept, and weeping turned To gaze on thee. And through the mist discerned A beam for me. Lit of her light. ^S GIULIO. «* T7ATHER ! *' — the trembling voice betrayed X^ The troubled heart; *l " Behold, my neighbor, thee. Unto His lofty throne He makes my stepping-stone." THE SONG OF THE MAN. " nPHE woman gave, and I did eat." _L Whereof gave she ? " 'T was of the garden fruitage sweet — A portion fair to see j She plucked and ate, and I did eat, And lost alike are we j God saith. Ye die the death ! " The woman gave, and I did eat." Whereof gave she ? " 'T was of her womb a Burden sweet — But sad, alas, to see ; She took and ate, and I did eat. And saved alike are we ; God saith. So dieth Death !" CHARITY IF but the world would give to Love The crumbs that from its table fall, 'Twere bounty large enough for all The famishing to feed thereof. And Love, that still the laurel wins Of Sacrifice, would lovelier grow. And round the world a mantle throw To hide its multitude of sins. FULFILMENT. NO bloom forgotten ! but upon each face The dews baptismal, and the selfsame sign Of Night's communion, that the fervid gaze Of Paschal Morning changes into wine. 134 ON SEA AND LAND. ONE sobbing wave, above her fellows blest, His feet caressed : One homeless heart — the lone, unbidden guest Her God confessed. 135 STILLING THE TEMPEST. "'TnWAS all she could: — The gift that Nature 1 gave, The torrent of her tresses — did she spill Before His feet : and lo, the troubled wave Of passion heard His whisper, " Peace, be still I" 136 THE POSTULANT. IN ashes from the wasted fires of noon, Aweary of the light, Comes Evening, a tearful novice, soon To take the veil of night. ^37 PURGATORY. HOW long, O Lord, how long These penal fires among ? — Till love with fiercer flame The strength of torture tame. BETTER. BETTER for Sin to dwell from Heaven apart In foulest night, Than on its lidless eyeballs feel the dart Of torturing Light. Better to pine in floods of sulphurous fire, Than far above Behold the bliss of satisfied desire. Nor taste thereof. Yea, Love is Lord, e' en where the Powers of Pain Undying dwell : Defiled, in spotless glory to remain Were deeper hell. 139 LONE-LAND. AROUND us lies a world invisible, With isles of Dreams, and many a continent Of Thought, and isthmus Fancyj where we dwell Each as a lonely wanderer intent Upon his visionj finding each his fears And hopes encompassed by the tide of Tears. 140 QUATRAINS. WOMAN. *HALL she come down, and on our level stand ? I Nay i God forbid it ! May a mother's »eyes — Love's earliest home, the heaven of Babyland — Forever bend above us as we rise. 143 OPPORTUNITY. ONCE only did the Angel stir The pool, whereat She paused in pain Another step outspeeded her ; The waters ne'er have moved again. 144 LIFE. THE Power that lifts the leaf above And sends the root below. Sustains the heart in brother-love And makes it heavenward grow. 145 DEATH. SO sweet to tired mortaKty the night Of Life's laborious day. That God himself, overwearied of the light. Within its shadow lay. 146 RELEASE. SO long am I a prisoner As Time and Thought surroxmd me here When Time is dead, and Memory Deserts the ramparts, I am free. 147 LIGHT. WE know thee not, save that when thou art gone, Thy sister. Beauty, follows in thy train. Leaving the soul in exile till the dawn Come with the gift of franchisement again. 148 IN DARKNESS. DUMB Silence and her sightless sister Sleep Glide, mistlike, through the deepening Vale of Night; Waking, where'er their shadowy garments sweep. Dream-voices and an echoing dream of light. 149 SILENCE. A SEA wherein the rivers of all sound Their streams incessant pour, But whence no tide returning e'er hath found An echo on the shore. ISQ FANCY. A BOAT unmoored, wherein a dreamer lies, The slumberous waves low-lisping of a land Where Love, forever with unclouded eyes. Goes, wed with wandering Music, hand in hand. 151 FAME. THEIR noonday never knows What names immortal are : 'T is night alone that shows How star surpasseth star. 152 TIME'S LEGACY. THE night so long to Grief, The day to Joy so brief. What shall Eternity To each, unaltered, be! [53 A CRISIS. OLEAF, against the twilight seen. Move not ; for at thy side Gleams, trembling lest thou intervene, My hope, my star, my guide. 154 THE CYNOSURE. SO let me in thy heaven of thought appear, As doth a twilight star — The harbinger of tenderest hopes anear, And memories afar. I5S RESISTANCE. RESISTANCE to its pinions light Uplifts the bird in airy flight} Resistance to the winged soul Uplifts it to the lofty goal. 156 THE BILLOWS. OF tribes that in the desert fell The wandering souls are we — Wind-scattered seed of Ishmael Upon the sterile sea. ^S7 THE VOYAGER. COLUMBUS-LIKE, I sailed into the night. The sunset gold to find: Alas! 'twas but the phantom of the light! Life's Indies lay behind! ADRIFT. THE calm horizon circles only me, The centre of its measureless embrace, A bubble on the bosom of the sea. Itself a bubble in the bound of space. *59 DEEP UNTO DEEP. WHERE limpid waters lie between, There only heaven to heaven is seen: Where flows the tide of mutual tears There only heart to heart appears. l6o VESTIGES. UPON the Isle of Time we trace The signs of many a vanished race: But on the sea that laps it round, No memory of man is found. i6t THE MID-DAY MOON. BEHOLD, whatever wind prevail. Slow westering, a phantom sail — The lonely soul of Yesterday — Unpiloted, pursues her way. 162 TO AN EVENING SHADE. O PILGRIM, ever yearning for the East, What fate before thee lies ? " The spouse of Night, and, from the wedding feast, The Morning's sacrifice." ^^3 HEROES. AGAINST the night, a champion bright, The glow-worm, lifts a spear of light ; And, undismayed, the slenderest shade Against the noonday bares a blade. 164 LANIER'S FLUTE. WHEN palsied at the pool of Thought The Poet's words were found. Thy voice the healing Angel brought To touch them into sound. 165 POE-CHOPIN. O' ER each the soul of Beauty flung A shadow mingled with the breath Of music that the Sirens sung. Whose utterance is death. 166 TO AN EXILE. AS still upon the prophet shone A light, when God himself was gone, So lives, unbanished from thine eyes, The splendor of thy native skies. [67 TO A DYING BABE. O BUBBLE, break ! All heaven thou hast Unsullied in thy heart ! Ere Time its shadow on thee cast Love calls thee to depart. i68 MY SECRET. 'np IS not what I am fain to hide, X That doth in deepest darkness dwell. But what my tongue hath often tried, Alas, in vain, to tell. 169 IN ABSENCE. ALL that thou art not, makes not up the sum Of what thou art, beloved, unto me : All other voices, wanting thine, are dumb ; All vision, in thine absence, vacancy. 170 A REMONSTRANCE. SING me no more, sweet warbler, for the dart Of joy is keener than the flash of pain : Sing me no more, for the re-echoed strain Together with the silence breaks my heart. 171 NEW AND OLD. NEW blossoms from the selfsame earth, Beneath the selfsame skies j New hope with dawn's perennial birth, The selfsame heaven supplies. 172 THE FIG-TREE. FIRST go-between in fallen man's defence. To shield, or share his blame. Christ-like, to lend the robe of innocence Wherewith to hide his shame. ^73 THE BEE AND THE BLOSSOMS. WHY stand ye idle, blossoms bright. The livelong summer day ? ** Alas ! we labor all the night For what thou takest away ! " i74 BONE-CASTANETS. APART, of death and silence we, The fittest emblems found, Together, mad with minstrelsy. Leap into life and sound. 175 SONNETS. DAYBREAK. rc^-^C^g^TR HAT was thy dream, sweet Morning ? for, behold. Thine eyes are heavy with the balm of night, And, as reluctant lilies to the light, The languid lids of lethargy unfold. Was it the tale of Yesterday retold — An echo wakened from the western height. Where the warm glow of sunset dalliance bright Grew, with the pulse of waning passion, cold ? Or was it some heraldic vision grand Of legends that forgotten ages keep In twilight, where the sundering shoals of day Vex the dim sails, unpiloted, of Sleep, Till, one by one, the freighting fancies gay, Like bubbles, vanish on the treacherous strand ? m FORECAST. ALL night a rose, with budding warmth agIow> Above a sleeper's dreamful visage hung, Pale with intenser passion than the tongue Of man is tuned to utter. Breathing low, The night winds, fledged with odor, to and fro Went wandering the languid leaves among j While darkling woke a mocking-bird, and sung All echoes that the noonday warblers know. The dream, the song, the odor, each in one Upbreathing as a starry vapor, spread. And from the golden minarets of morn. Far heralding the unawakened sun, A rapture as of poesy outshed Upon the spirit of a babe unborn. i8o TO AN IDOL. MUTE oracle of meek humanity, Save to its sense of blindness wholly blind, That drifting wide in misery, to find Some beacon o'er the night-encumbered sea, Steered in pathetic ignorance to thee j What sighs, what tears — of agony confined Within the sunless prison of the mind. Walled up of doubt, and locked in mystery, Couldst thou, if thought were voluble, reveal. Of panting love, and hopes all winged to rise But netted of bewilderment, and worn To thin despair, deep-shuddering to feel No warmth below, above, no sympathies, No rest but in oblivion forlorn! KEDRON. WHERE silence broods on ruin, thou alone, Sweet oracle, in rippling numbers low, Dost onward through the waste of ages flow. As an eternal echo. With thy tone Blent David's holy anthems, and the moan That shook his heart in exile didst thou know. What time his tears of tributary woe Commingled with thy wave. And David's Son In after years, on Love's vicarious way, Breathed life above thee, and thy torrent told Its music to the wide-proclaiming sea: And still, through all earth's changes manifold, Where death and silence strive for mastery, Throbs the prophetic burden of thy lay. 1S2 THE DRUID. GODLIKE beneath his grave divinities. The last of all their worshippers, he stood. The shadows of a vanished multitude Enwound him, and their voices in the breeze Made murmur, while the meditative trees Reared of their strong fraternal branches rude A temple meet for prayer. What blossoms strewed The path between Life"" s morning hours and these ? What lay beyond the darkness ? He alone The sunshine and the shadow and the dew Had shared alike with leaf, and flower, and stem: Their life had been his lesson; and from them A dream of immortality he drew, As in their fate foreshadowing his own. 183 THE HERMIT. HIGH on the hoary mountain-top he dwelt Alone with God, whose handiwork above The wonders of the firmament approve In an eternal silence. There he spelt The name of the Omnipotent, and knelt In lowly reverence of adoring love. Beneath him, all the elements that move In Nature's prayerful harmonies he felt. And knew their mystic meaning. Thus the tone Of lifted billows, and the storm that sways The forest-seas in chorus, spake alone Divinity, scarce hidden from his gaze j And with their mighty voices blent his own In one majestic utterance of praise. i$4 POE. SAD spirit, swathed in brief mortality, Of Fate and fervid fantasies the prey, Till the remorseless demon of dismay O'erwhelmed thee — lo! thy doleful destiny Is chanted in the requiem of the sea And shadowed in the crumbling ruins gray That beetle o'er the tarn. Here all the day The Raven broods on solitude and thee: Here gloats the moon at midnight, while the Bells Tremble, but speak not lest thy Ulalume Should startle from her slumbers, or Lenore Hearken the love-forbidden tone that tells The shrouded legend of thine early doom And blast the bliss of heaven forevermore. SHELLEY. SHELLEY, the ceaseless music of thy soul Breathes in the Cloud and in the Skylark's song, That float as an embodied dream along The dewy lids of morning. In the dole That haunts the West Wind, in the joyous roll Of Arethusan fountains, or among The wastes where Ozymandias the strong Lies in colossal ruin, thy control Speaks in the wedded rhyme. Thy spirit gave A fragrance to all nature, and a tone To inexpressive silence. Each apart — Earth, Air, and Ocean — claims thee as Its own j The twain that bred thee, and the panting wave That clasped thee, like an overflowing heart. i86 AT KEATS' S GRAVE. " T FEEL the flowers growing over me." X Prophetic thought! Behold, no cypress gloom Portrays in dim memorial the doom That quenched the ray of starlike destiny ! E'en death itself deals tenderly with thee: For here, the livelong year, the violets bloom And swing their fragrant censers till the tomb Forgets the legend of mortality. Nay: while the pilgrim periods of time Alternate song and holy requiem sing. As through the circling centuries sublime They scatter frost, or genial sunshine bring, With gathered sweets of every varying clime They weave around thee one perpetual Spring. 187 Deacidified using the Bookkeeper proc Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: Oct. 2009 PreservationTechnologi A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESEBV/ 111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724)779-2111 LIBRARY OF CONGRS 016 256