class _y*yff//y. Book Gopyright}l . COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT POEMS •The THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO POEMS BY MRS. SCHUYLER VAN RENSSELAER THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1910 All rights reserved Copyright, 1910, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electeotyped. Published October, 1910. Notiwooti 3J)r«J8 J. S. Cushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. >CU 273497 ^ A For permission to reprint a number of these poems, some of which appeared with the signature '« Lydia Schuy- ler, ' ' the author is indebted to the courtesy of the editors and publishers of the American Magazine, the Atlantic Monthly, the Century Magazine, Everybody 1 s Magazine, Harper* ' s Bazar, Harper's Magazine, the North Ameri- can Review, and Putnam's Monthly. CONTENTS PAGE Ode to a Greek Head called Aphrodite . . 3 SONGS — In One Sole Place 15 -—A Song for Twilight 16 The Dream-Spirit Sings . . • . .18 Love's Prisoner 20 Healing 21 Four Winds 22 Vigil 23 Cradle Song 24 The Sisters 26 Give Back, said Love 28 Trysts 29 Shut Out 30 Tribute ■ . . .32 -The Rolling Earth 33 Kreisler's Violin 37 The Builders of Renown 53 Napoleon II 56 In Lower New York 58 May Roses: Como 59 The Question . . . . . . . .60 Our Dust . 61 Her Calendar 62 vii viii CONTENTS PAGE A Psalm for October 64 The Garden of the Wind 68 Spring on Long Island 72 The Children's Heritage 74 At Sea 75 A Garden in the Fern 76 Cherokee Roses 78 When it is Dark 80 At a Child's Grave 81 The Child's Dream . 82 Apple Blossoms and the Child 84 Tommy's Playmates 87 Sunrise by the Sea 89 The Old Oak 90 Initiation 92 The Sunset Shore 93 Learn of the Earth -97 A Letter from the Low Land 101 June 104 A Night in May 105 Content . 106 Our Kingdom 107 To her Lover 108 Take Heed 109 Hearthstones no Listen, My Sister 112 If Great Love Die 114 A Warning 115 Two Spirits 116 CONTENTS ix PAGE Rewards .118 The Cup and the Wine 119 An Epitaph 120 The Poet 121 The Player and his Violin 124 To her Poet 127 The Seed and the Flower 128 IN MEMORIAM My House (Richard Watson Gilder, Novem- ber, 1909) 133 Say not thou art Content 137 His Grave who loved the Sea (1894) . . 138 ODE TO A GREEK HEAD CALLED APHRODITE ODE TO A GREEK HEAD CALLED APHRODITE (In the Museum of Fine Arts at Boston) Cold is the day, a northern day and darkly cold, The daylight drowned in snow. The singer heeds not, for his eyes and heart behold Beauty's high lamp aglow. Thou lovely waif from mellower time and clime than ours, Give ear to his low plea: Grant him a breath from the one field that bore such flowers — Thy prototype and thee. Not Aphrodite, though they name thee so. Thine eyes are misted crescent moons below The white cloud of thy brow, But hers are stars — clear and elate Like the bright Twins that once were Leda's sons, Or passionate As Betelgeuze and Bellatrix of martial name Who in his shoulders flame 3 4 ODE TO A GREEK HEAD Where the huge Hunter through the midnight runs. Her lips are tools of destiny : Forever newly they accord, refuse, invite, Deep dangers of delight ; Thine but imagine tremulously. And, many though her moods, she knoweth not the one That woos us to this stone Wherein thou livest passionless, Immortal in a vision-haunted wistfulness. Not Aphrodite, nor of race divine Another, bidding worship such as mine Come never nearer than the dust beneath her tread. A girl from golden years long dead, A maid unknown, unnamed, here survives, Rescued in this Fair chrysalis From a far ruined world whose shore Shows dense with formless shadows of lost lives, Lost and forevermore forgot, forevermore. Thou, only, saved ! — and yet not thou, not thou ! Only the line Of cheek and brow, The curves of eyelid, lip, and chin, ODE TO A GREEK HEAD 5 The delicate languor of the head's incline, The rippling of the soft and heavy hair ; And, shrined their purity within, Veiled and elusive yet imperishably there, In reverence to be read as on some sacred scroll, The signet-markings of the soul. How shall we trace the clue to thy sweet mystery ? We fancy thee as one who grieves For the soft stirring of gray olive leaves, And yellow jonquils underneath the olive tree, And for the high clear lines of shaft and archi- trave, For lifted walls serene in beauty won From chiselled form and pattern, brave With brazen shields where break the arrows of the sun. A first quick fancy ! But we know, Shut here in arid walls beneath a cold And alien sky, Thou art not yearning for the land Thy home. For even as we to-day behold And worship, even so His eyes beheld whose hand, From exquisite flesh that needs must die, To marble of immortality Transferred thy spirit while were thine 6 ODE TO A GREEK HEAD Olive and ivy, laurel and the vine In varying companionship accordant met, Far hills' unchanging rhythm of undulate line And changing rhapsodies of purple hue, And shining fanes on bare and sunny headlands set Between the darker and the paler blue. Not these the loadstone of thy wishful gaze. Now, even as when the sculptor sought in thee A guide to beauty's verity, Inward it turns always. And who shall follow ? Where the path Into the sanctuary of a soul that hath The walls of piled centuries for guard ? Long have I loved and pondered ; keeping pa- tient watch, Long have I waited, as though unawares to catch A voice soft-whispering beneath The impenetrable sheath Marmorean. And I hear no word. I only know that in thine own heart lay The clouds that dimmed for thee the brilliance of the day. Not throes of empire shadowed thus the joyous- ness Of thy young years ; not cities' leaguered long distress, ODE TO A GREEK HEAD 7 Lost armies, argosies a-wreck, or heroes' fate, Crushed to a splendid death by their own glory's weight. In thee alone it lives, the gentle grief, The tender burden of desire That finds in dreams a half-relief, But would not weep lest falling tear on tear Lessen the burning of a fire Than any calming touch more intimately dear. The hurt we know not, but we know Never it pierced the shield of innocence below, To the immaculate deep core of maidenhood. Thy rosaries Of fond remembering with but pearls are strung ; The roses of delight whereon thy longings brood Thy virgin vision sees Unsullied lily-fields among. — Ay, but they budded once in crimson wealth to blow And fervent fragrance, all ungarnered though they died. Not thine a claustral chastity That had denied To answering love its happy seignory. Not by thine own free choosing was withheld The passionate whole 8 ODE TO A GREEK HEAD Of woman's dower; not thine own will but fate, Implacable thy feet compelled To turn thee from the gate Of motherhood, to the enkindled soul Refused the body's mate, And bade the stirred heart live — ah, how re- luctantly ! — Betrothed forever to virginity. How are we parted, thou and I ! What miles of space, What irretraceable far miles of time, Dissever from thy face The eyes that crave so to have seen its living prime! Even the pole-star, to our sense Symbol and proof of permanence, Hath journeyed, so were multiplied the years, Unto the pilot place He held not for seafarers of thy race ; And on the scintillant highway of the zodiac The sun hath tired and fallen back; No longer he appears, Punctual, in the appointed star-framed houses where, When ancient wisdom sought him there As solstice or as equinox returned, His dazzling signal burned. ODE TO A GREEK HEAD g Thou art the elder by how much ! Yet young, so young — As though the birds of dawn had by thy cradle sung When I long since had learned to bear The burdens of the laboring day. So long, Long dead ! Yet still a woman-child among The living generations, and alive With such an animate flame as shall survive When we who breathe to-day are in our turn Tenants of perished graves ; ay, sure — Voiceless and yet how eloquent ! — Ageless, unaltering, to endure Till unborn centuries shall of thy witness learn Not time but beauty is the arm plenipotent. And now, to-day, leaning thine ear So gently, it must be that thou canst hear How I, a wandering singer, plead to thee. Quicken my timid minstrelsy : Show me in dreams what memories hold thy long And tender gazing, That, woven in my song, They thrill it to a tenderer phrasing ; Let visions of thy visions of young love To purest cadences my passion move ; io ODE TO A GREEK HEAD Interpret the sweet patience of such pain As stirs to ardencies of love again ; Interpret innocence, and youth, and April's breath, The powerlessness of time, the impotence of death. To the high deities for my sake pray Who choose and use us as they will : prevail that they With joys and tears prepare the seed-beds of my heart, Winnow with chastening winds the harvests of my soul, Touch my chill lips with the white coal Of truth, and clarify my sight Upward to follow where the guiding light Streams from the torch of art. So shall I sing, albeit with muted notes, as sing, Celestial clear, The musical fair meanings of thy face ; So to the eye, the ear, Of spirits straying in a dumb and darkened place My melody shall bring Echoes, if only faint and far, Of brooks and birds and sun-rays of the spring; So shall it lave them in a halcyon air, ODE TO A GREEK HEAD n Lead them with banners as of moon and morn- ing star ; Lull them to rest ; In the numb breast Unseal the fountains of emotion ; Soothe the tempestuous mood And quell The headstrong insurrection of the blood With balm of poesy's ablution, And the sure anodyne Of harp-strings touched to chords that tell What thou hast told this burning heart of mine, Daughter of earth and voice of the divine ! 1909. SONGS IN ONE SOLE PLACE In one sole place a rose should blossom now That thou art dead ; Out of thy grave alone its stem should grow, Should spring its lovely head ; No other spot on earth Merits its birth. And when the moon is waxing slowly bright I say, Nowhere But on thy grave should fall its silvery light ; And gentle birds should there, There only, come to sing The tales of spring. If thus the beauty of the world might be Amassed and kept, Then in that place I think that I should see Thee, thee whom I have wept, And, grief forborne awhile, Dare then to smile. IS A SONG FOR TWILIGHT As sweet as purple dusk, as fair As morning shaking out her clouds of sunny hair, So sweet, so fair, art thou. Ah, no — not now. I had forgotten — no, not now ! This was thy likeness in the days When all the world seemed singing songs that were thy praise. Thy heart was sweet and soft, Thy face how oft I thought the dawning light — how oft ! Now, should another lover ask, Thy heart but as a stone, thy face but as a mask, I needs must paint, and say, Ah, not to-day, Ah, ask no more, no more, to-day ! 16 A SONG FOR TWILIGHT 17 Only when now and then I dream A moment (and forget), thy heart, thy glances, seem So fair and sweet once more That as before I love thee, love thee — as before ! THE DREAM-SPIRIT SINGS Sleep — yet wake ! Come with me Though thy feet quit not thy bed. We shall take, Buoyantly, Roads with glamour overspread. Sleep — yet wake ! Ope thine eyes, Though their lids shall not unclose, Where I make Paradise That no daytime vision shows. Drawing now Cloud-wreaths back From the world of might-have-been, I shall go On a track Only by thy longings seen. THE DREAM-SPIRIT SINGS i 9 Follow me : I will lead Where denial speaketh not ; Thou shalt be Wholly freed From the limits of thy lot. Though the light Mock thy woe Until e'en thy longings tire, In the night, Journeying so, Thou shalt clasp thy soul's desire. LOVE'S PRISONER Sweet Love has twined his fingers in my hair, And laid his hand across my wondering eyes. I cannot move save in the narrow space Of his strong arms' embrace, Nor see but only in my own heart where His image lies. How can I tell, Emprisoned so well, If in the outer world be sunset or sunrise ? Sweet Love has laid his hand across my eyes. Sweet Love has loosed his fingers from my hair, His lifted hand has left my eyelids wet. I cannot move save to pursue his fleet And unreturning feet, Nor see but in my ruined heart, and there His face lies yet. How should I know, Distraught and blinded so, If in the outer world be sunrise or sunset ? Sweet Love has freed my eyes, but they are wet. HEALING The very stars shook in the sky, The north wind stormed so fierce and loud ; So fast it ran, the moon swept by, A drowning face, in floods of cloud — So fast, so cold, that the midnight Was full of dreams of wild affright. {Love, did I lose thee in the terror of the night?) Oh, none the less there comes again A moon so purely white and still The stars remit their shining, fain That hers may work its silvery will, And winds so soft the daybreak hour Buds to their kiss, a roseate flower. {Love, I have seen thee, found thee, in the rose-red hour!) FOUR WINDS Jubilant sounded on my marriage-morn The west wind's feet ; The south wind, the soft night my babe was born, Sang low and sweet ; Above two open graves the east wind blew His wailing blast ; The north wind calls now I am passing too, At last, at last. Blow strong, blow swift, and on thy ■pinions bear My soul that it may find them both — somewhere ! VIGIL A cloudless stretch of yellow sky, (The wide world's western rim), And, scintillant, one star on high. Bright star, hast thou seen him ? He wandered very long ago. I cannot make a quest, For where to seek I should not know In all that shining west. The ones who loved him once are dead I, only, cared to wait. Keep vigil, Venus, overhead ; I watch the open gate. 23 CRADLE SONG How do we know How the seasons go ? By white of the blossoms and white of the snow, By yellow of wheat And the hurrying beat On yellowing boughs of the rain-storm's feet. What is so bright In the midmost night ? The moon with her banner of glittering light ; And when she goes by, In the dark-blue sky, A million and one, the stars climb high : Lion and Bear, The Crown and the Chair, The Hunter and Dog, the Cross and the Square ; The Dragon outspread, Arcturus so red, And the eye that burns hot in the Bull's great head. What of the rose When the night wind blows ? She dreams little poems that nobody knows, 24 CRADLE SONG 25 And into the ear Of the lily-bud near She sings little melodies no one can hear. Slumber, my love, To the coo of the dove And the croon of the breeze in the branches above ; Sleep till the sun His sleeping has done, And the stars run away from him one after one. Long not to be With the birds in the tree To swing in the wind — it is safer with me ; Slumber is best In the nursery nest, And my arms are as warm as the mother-bird's breast. THE SISTERS i Says the wind, I cannot find her, And the house, I cannot bind her. Birds can fly less fast than she, Thistledown less tauntingly. And when vapors veil the sun, Then her rapid race is run, And the falling raindrops lave All she leaves us — just her grave. Nay, that is not really she, 'Tis her sister, Gayety. ii She, the true one, does not wander, Seeketh not what lies beyond her ; Vagrant paths her footsteps shun, And the boldness of the sun. 26 THE SISTERS 27 Rovers never share her smile, Yet she smileth all the while, And when dusk and raindrops come, Still she sitteth in my home. Gayety, how art thou less Than thy sister, Happiness. GIVE BACK, SAID LOVE Give back, said Love, give back my stars and flowers, Yield me my roses, cease thy summer song ; Prepare thy heart for dark and rainful hours ; Take these my thorns — for thou hast joyed too long. Give me thy thorns, I cried, thy stormy rain, Take all the roses in thy gardens grown ; Take the sweet stars, give me thy thorns of pain ; Give what thou wilt — if but it be thine own. 28 TRYSTS The clock strikes twelve to mark the tryst To-day and young To-morrow keep ; Their eyes have met, their lips have kissed, While we two watch, all else asleep. Now, though this newly born To-day, That was To-morrow, soon must set The drowsy sun upon its way And wake the world its bread to get — The toil of man, what matters it ? Or when the dawn shall break, or how ? It matters only that we sit, All else asleep, together now. And when this young To-day, grown old, Another Morrow turns to see, Again shall happy vigil hold My clock and I, awaiting thee. 29 SHUT OUT i O Love, why hast thou flown ? Here is a heart, Its doors set wide apart To welcome thee ; it is thy home, thine own. ii O Heart, why dost thou call ? I have my wings, And many a lurer sings. How can I give to one the meed of all ? in Then, Love, I shut my door. Thou shalt not come ; Here is not now thy home ; The fires die down, the lights shall burn no more. IV Nay, Heart, I come again ! I tire of flight ; Open thy door to-night ; I lie without, in loneliness and pain. 30 SHUT OUT 31 V Nay, Love, it cannot be ! My house is cold, And so I needs must hold Close shut the door that bars thee out from me. TRIBUTE O love, when thou sittest at home there must verily be A silence outdoors, a stillness of waiting for thee. For look : when thou comest, all things that can tremble or move Are stirring to show it is thou, it is thou, whom they love. The whisper of pines and the thrill of the slender birch-tree, They tell thou art smiling, they call to the forest to see; The ripples that flow on the brookside, they fol- low thy feet, To touch thy white raiment the wind runneth over the wheat; The grasses are swaying like waves to be near where thou art, The rose lifts its bud in the hope of a place on thy heart. O love ! — and my own heart would faint and lie still and lie dead, If never again it could feel the sweet weight of thy head ! 32 THE ROLLING EARTH Tired of the star-shine, impatient of noon, Rushing through dawn on a search for the moon, Craving the daytime, desiring the night, Ever I flee from the dark, from the light. Questing the seasons I circle the sun : Boreas wearies me — winter, have done ! Zephyr in vain lays his touch on my breast, Autumn allureth — nay, winter is best ! Children of men, whom I brought unto birth, Hope not for peace who are dust of the earth. 33 KREISLER'S VIOLIN KREISLER'S VIOLIN i Lost to all guidance save the longing of the ear, Asleep in all save in the need to hear, Nathless we know, Now has begun The miracle-working of the slender bow, How touches of cool water through the fingers run, How thickets of the Maytime paradisal odors yield ; There blows a breath from childhood's clover- field ; And on the swaying tapestry Of iris-colored tone and tune Visions unroll, that change and change to be But more and more the eye's felicity. ii Hast thou seen the far and passionless faint moon Aloof in the high dome of afternoon ? 37 38 KREISLER'S VIOLIN No orbed world, no sister to the solid spheres, But on the solid blue a film of snow, On azure seas a nautilus sail, Than the small drifting cloud more frail And more imponderable she appears, As floats some tenuous melody the bow Seemeth on gossamer strands invisible to weave, Daring awhile to leave Untouched the palpable and eager strings. But as the thin pale disk shows dense and golden- bright When the dusk comes and the red sunset is alight, As it shines clarion-clear and silver-white Riding the purple arches of midnight, So the dim strain Draws deeper breath, more luminously rings. Caught up and poured upon the air again By vibrant cord and resonant wood, it grows To limpid splendor, glows With argent radiance, floods and fills With love desirous all the hollows of the slum- brous hills Where sleeps . . . where sleeps on Latmos . . . lo ! Selene slips From her pure crescent to Endymion's lips ! KREISLER'S VIOLIN 39 Hast thou seen the shimmer of the galaxy When the metallic notes fall glitteringly, Sparkles of gold by wing-tips of melodic swift- ness shed ? Hast thou known the prouder afflux, arc on arc, Of greater and more fervid stars mounting the fervent dark ? — Altair and crystal Sirius, Vega the sapphire and Aldebaran stormy red, Alcyone, Antares, Regulus, Mira, Denebola — the magic of the name, The lustre of the flame, The soaring of the music, one, the same. Then slower still and mightier the celestial path- way tread Majestic clustered suns in measures unadorned, Balanced, reiterate, as though they yearned For the immutable of motion ; and outspread Above the world's high crest, Where is not east or west, They find the heavens of their desire : Polaris hangs o'erhead, A central fire, And round and round the bowl Of adamantine skies, Choiring unalterably, the constellations roll In level course, nor ever set nor ever rise. 40 KREISLER'S VIOLIN ill Oh, unconvincing eyes that urge The wondering ear to think this protean surge Of beauty hath its fountain-head within A little curved case by mortal skill Built of the pine-tree's wood ! Hearken again ! When that it will Speak airily, this violin, Sweetly and lightly, delicately low, Not even Ariel could Compel a singing whisper so ; But, dreaming where a zephyr stirs The blossomy grass at rosy break of day, Thus Ariel on its tremulous dulcimers Might hear the nodding wind-flowers play. When now the spirit that abides within The fragile body of the violin Spreadeth its pinions and cries dauntlessly, Trumpet nor fife could brace the heart to see More surely compassed victory. Yet tender can it once more make its touch To press, to press not overmuch, The chords of pathos that lie near to pain, By its caresses to bring comforting again. / KREISLER'S VIOLIN 41 Idyl and pastoral Of nest and leafy tree it hath in store, The pibrochs of the windy rain, The lulling strain Of rivulet and waterfall. And oft it speaks in music never writ, Nor heard before, But fancy-feigned upon fair mouth or instrument Devised to seem to utter it — Music implicit in the carven stone, the mellow paint, Where seraph, minstrel, virgin saint, Or infant innocent, Laudeth true love or heavenly things. By the sole witness of this violin we know How one and how another fingers, loud or low, Cithern or flute or harp, or raptly sings : Far alleluias peal as, amber, purple, crimson, pass Angels awakened in the pictured glass ; Slim portal guardians from the gray mid-ages lift the voice Of meek beatitude ; Titian, Bellini, Imaged this treble gladness where rejoice, Adoringly, their half-divine bambini ; Giorgione's plumed singer finds the word That answers to the monk's clear harpsichord ; 42 KREISLER'S VIOLIN Vocal in turn are all the rich-robed figures of the choir Van Eyck beheld as once they tried, Bent-browed and earnest-eyed, To follow higher, higher, The leading of the organ pipes ; and sweetly sacred joys Flow from the parted lips of Delia Robbia's boys. Great is the company of such as these, At the magician's call who find release From the enchanted stillness where they live Endeavoring melodious utterance — Until he spoke, interpretive, Their only tongue their beauty's resonance. Nor is there haunted spot Of old romance Wherein this player gleaneth not New wealth of dulcet jouissance. Up from Miranda's seabeach blown, From out Armida's garden, From Eden, Arcady, or Arden (He with his viol standing there alone), Even unto us there comes a thrill, a witchery, Of such ebullient euphony That, after, in our temples throb and chime, KREISLER'S VIOLIN 43 All day awake, all night adream, Soft broken harmonies that seem Tales that await the telling in some unfound faery clime. IV Triune the arts that so avail, In the enchanter's small divine Alembic, flame and wine And honey-dew to gather and distill, His lyric chalices to fill And pour for our regale. One there has been That through long ages shaped and tuned the violin, Since the swart savage, fashioning The sinew-cord that his rude weapon bound, Stone head to handle, found, Sudden, a novel joy — plucked a taut string And laughed to hear it sing. Chance at the outset, but the end the meed Of exquisite labor, slowly garnered skill, Tending with happy patience the minute And accidental seed, Devoutly passing on, A hundred centuries, from sire to son, 44 KREISLER'S VIOLIN The blossoming plant of promise till The ultimate fruit Ripened at Stradivari's door. How many shapes it wore, This ever-changing, ever-sweetening thing Of many nations' fathering, How many names it bore ! What brother-tools Of kindred powers Were born from the uncountable striving hours That, pregnant of perfection, passed Ere Italy the one that rules With treble clarity the deeper choir Held up to the world's ear at last, Exultant in achieved desire ! From that day unto this, As through the diligent And earlier long years, there works a potent art, intent The gold-larynxed instrument No resource of the rhymed note, the linked rhythm shall miss, Wherewith to wake, within the chambers of the ear, Concords the soul may willingly KREISLER'S VIOLIN 45 Leave in a lovely vagueness, uninterpreted ; Nor any suasive sound by whose allure it may be led — What matter where, If but it be Far-borne from narrow precincts of its own Mortality ? Nor is there rhetoric of singing vocable Or graphic tone This puissant art Denieth to the perfect tool, Weaving with metaphors mellifluous, Canorous cadences symbolic, luminous, The language of delight That the enravished heart Translates from thrilled air to be The vivid echoings of sight, The utmost eloquence of hope and memory. But dumb the language, dumb The mouthpiece, until he shall come Who, serving both, by both so served, wakes From threefold artifice an animate art, — Whose power so makes His hand their arbiter of destinies That only do they live when he decrees, And only testify as he may please. 46 KREISLER'S VIOLIN Creative thus his part As was the lowlier labor of the multiplied un- named Who step by step the mouthpiece framed ; As is the lofty toil that in the silence of the earth, Its stridulous noise, Its gleams of tunefulness in wind and bird, In little waters and great waves, hath heard A hint of sensuous and of spiritual joys, And, thus conceiving, brings to birth, After long nourishment Upon the opulent Warm blood of human life, the music that must then demand Its re-creation at the player's hand. v Oh player, with thy tressed bow Touch, touch, and ope once more The plangent door Impenetrable save to thee ! Beyond, make audible the flow Of shining tides that break forever on the strand Where Beauty rose from floods of harmony ; Play us the mirth Of half-gods of the waters and the earth ; Play (as thy viol can) KREISLER'S VIOLIN 47 The wild-fire of the pipes of Pan ; Play (we have heard it ) with Apollo's hand His lyre of hyaline serenity ; Make strings to cymbals and lift up (Already we have drunk of it) the Dionysian cup, That we may hear again the panthers' tread, The rustle of the vine-leaves on the sultry head. Oh, not from only the four heart-strings of the violin, Not solely from thine empery of art, Evoke thy fingers the clairvoyance of far phan- tasy. Upon the subtile nerves they play that deep within The breast of nature start All vernal pulses, move The wings of aspiration, fill the arteries of love. The tool is but a tool, the melody But beautiful device Whereby the spirit to the spirit cries. Master of perfect speech, and more, he needs must prove — A sorcerer to generate, Poet to clarify, Hierophant to consecrate The message of emotion, — who would build Its palaces of cloud, 48 KREISLER'S VIOLIN Unveil the vistas of the sacred grove, Waken the healing springs that yield A balsam for the fevered moods Bred of the daily stress And clamor of the crowd, A cordial for the lassitudes Of loneliness, A philter to persuade the heart it newly sees Young life and love and passion's sweet desira- bilities. VI Not alway can we name What the enkindled eye, Dazzled of wordless poesy, Beholdeth in the blowing flame, Nor alway understand, Not though we hearken hand in hand, The message as the same : To each for his own needs The manna of its strong delight the music feeds. Though he but hear Rapture of pleasure passing not the outward ear, A deep immunity of peace he still may know, Or tonic gush of energy ; And if the chords within him be attune To the keen impact of the flowing rune, KREISLER'S VIOLIN 49 When the uplifted violin shall say, Follow! I lead the way, To farthest reach of ecstasy His soul may go — Swept by the swift multisonous beat Of winged feet To hilltops murmurous with promises divine, To skyey pinnacles where dream-lights of fruition shine. And farther, farther, past all language of the mor- tal heart, And tongues of splendors of known things, there may be heard August vibration of the all-creative Word : When the deep chorus of the orchestra sustains, Swift, powerful, of mystic strains The rush supernal, lifted from the earth and set apart From boundaries of time, trembling we stand Amid the echoes of the wind that passed before His face Blowing the nascent stars to place Out of the hollow of His hand, The wind that, drawn into the nostrils of the man, The passionate voyagings of the soul began. So KREISLER'S VIOLIN Aye, power it hath, the wondrous diapason, to unfold The mysteries, elsewise inviolate, Of forces and of glories that await The soul when it shall pass from life to Life, and there, Where vast low musics never-ceasingly have rolled Since the first sphere Was bid to swing In measured paths and sing, Between the pillars of His throne In radiancies ineffable behold The burning countenance of the Unknown. igio. THE BUILDERS OF RENOWN i Come, Fortune, put a rival to the test : Rear thrones, carve sceptres, spread imperial lands, And give them, lavish, into powerful hands, Elizabeth's or Catherine's. Arrest The flying storms to fight for her at sea, Buffeting 'neath her footstool the blown power Of broken-hearted Spain ; to the topmost hour Of England wed her name, and bid it be Badge of the muse's lordliest avatar Since vocal Hellas drowsed and slept. Or where Great Peter set his frosty dais, there Set hers, the blood-besprinkled, in the far, Savage, and passionate North, and plant so much, With woman's daring worst, in her bold breast Of manhood's kingly and sagacious best That, Paphian, yet she stands, valiant, with such S3 54 THE BUILDERS OF RENOWN As strove to serve great nations. Thou canst so Build sovereign figures farthest time shall not Crowd from the living world to worlds forgot, Nor from their crowned eminence overthrow. II But turn thee now his handiwork to see Who is thy rival, though no god to frame Souls or fair forms as he would have them, name Rulers to realms, or mark their destiny : Only a mortal, dowered but with a voice, Who wanders up and down our daily ways Looking on what he loves and speaking praise, Choosing from chance the best, and of his choice Dreaming aloud in rhyme, yet sure and strong As Fortune to raise pedestals of fame. Let him but love, the letters of the name Illumined by the radiance of his song Shine fairer (as the star auroral is More fair than bravest beacon lit by hands) Than titles of the guardians of proud lands, Illustrious queens, resplendent empresses. THE BUILDERS OF RENOWN 55 Elizabeths and Catherines — they may lie Untouched of our desire while, thralled, we turn Pages that tell how Laura smiled, and learn How Beatrice bent her head in passing by. NAPOLEON II Poor babe of France and captive of her foes, Exiled, disarmed, and disinherited, Within the tomb thy star revives ; for though Reichstadt the letters cut upon the stone May spell, and King of Rome the words may run Where palace gossip babbles of thy few- Unshadowed days, a louder voice than theirs Proclaims thee by the title of thy dreams : The second Caesar of the French, and like His great begetter called Napoleon. Poor pinch of royal dust, commingled soon In alien soil with ashes of the things Outworn thy father toppled down and burned, Vague sterile child of old and new, vague lord Of naught and nowhere, on a shadowy throne, Near the huge pedestal the Corsican Upreared with wrecks and fragments of the seats Of ancient tyrannies, thy figure sits, A shape of mist yet lordlier called than kings — 56 NAPOLEON II 57 The simulacrum of an emperor Wrought with thy features and thy father's name, The ghost of his desire, and on thy brow The wraith of his tremendous diadem. IN LOWER NEW YORK Stand here with me. The throngs dissolve away. The sunset fades. A single star grows bright. The moon as purely sheds her balm of light Through these cliff-corridors as on the bay Pure-spread beyond them. Sea-breeze murmurs say, Not all of time is pledged for gain, the night Means sleeping even here, and in despite Of gold and greed will dawn a Sabbath-day. There is no peace like this, the deep repose Of citadels of haggard restlessness. Prairie and mountain-top and twilit snows Breathe of the benison of silence less Than these tired streets, dazed with the noise of men, When the calm darkness bids them rest again. 58 MAY ROSES : COMO The snow still lingers on the rugged crest Where Alpine outposts envy Italy, Yet up and down our terraced slopes we see, Bordering the pathways, buds of pearly breast And crimson-bosomed open blossoms pressed, With jasmine's slender arm and starry eye, And vines of denser leaf, so thick, so nigh To the low parapets, that, unconfessed, The stones lie hid in their luxuriance ; And where the bloom-girt way most steeply slants, The ruined tower that guards the lake's blue trance Shows by its shape alone, so deep the wall Is buried in wistaria's purple fall And countless clustered roses pink and small. S9 THE QUESTION Give, pray the living, give More willingness to live. Why, say the dying, why Is it so hard to die ? And as the newly born Wake with a wail forlorn, Shall so the newly dead Lie in a painful bed ? Or does the cycle close When the last life-breath goes, And a new earth begin, Kinder than this has been ? Ask not, but only wait ; Soon thou shalt know thy fate. Soon thou shalt know — unless Greets thee with soft caress Nothingness. 60 OUR DUST The winds of God took up the sand And swept and harried it through the land, Grinding it in their whirling mills, Dashing it on the granite hills. And when it dropped upon the beach, Rasping its grains there each with each, Dragging it whither it would not go, The tides of God rolled to and fro. His breakers with their heavy tread Stamped ever upon its restless bed, And soon his blasts began once more To scourge it up and down the shore. Yet still the sand with hardihood Cried upward to the throne of God : Thou art thyself, Creator, and We are ourselves, these grains of sand. 61 HER CALENDAR The twelve moons of the circled year Have grown from sickle-edge to perfect globe, And waning — pallid, leaf-like, sere — Have died into the dawn. The earth's broad robe Has changed from springtime blossomy green and white To summer's deeper green and gold, To duskier green all broidered with the bright Devices of the autumn trees, to cold And shining argent — then Back to spring's lovely livery again. I know : for on this little mound Three nodding sprays Of saxifrage I found, And after many days A rosy disk upon the wild-rose bush Near by. Then from a distant bough A red leaf drifted through the evening hush, And then awhile there was no mounded grave, Only a small, small wave In the immaculate whiteness. Now The spring has come once more ; for, see, The saxifrages bud ; and even so As days and moons and seasons go 62 HER CALENDAR 63 Here in my little world, so it must be With the encompassing great world that is Made beautiful but as the temple-court for this Most sacred treasury. A PSALM FOR OCTOBER For the days he ordained who is Maker of trees His forests have flourished, fair green, in the sun. From the balm of the rain and the heartening breeze, From the noon and the night and the cool of the morn, New strength to themselves they have won ; For the hour of the quick'ning to be They have ripened the seed of the tree ; They have sheltered the paths where the way- farers pass, And stood as a barrier stout for the corn And the meadows of grass ; In the web of the moss and the cup of the spring They have gathered the myriad drops that will keep The rivers content with clear waters and deep ; And the wild-folk, the timid of foot and of wing, In the cleft of the rock, in the root and the head Of the tree, they have hidden and fed. Long months, saith the Maker, the leaves of his trees Have exulted, fair green, in the sun. Is it meet, now their laughter must cease, 64 A PSALM FOR OCTOBER 6s, Now the gain of their living is won, Is it meet that unhonored they wait for their death ? Shall a blast come forth From the mouth of the north, Shall the cold come down From the pole's ice-crown, And scatter, unheeded, these leaves with its breath ? Nay, saith the Maker, they shall not so fare ; They shall triumph in passing, and dying declare The worth and the grace of their service. On pyres That each shall ignite with its own heart's fires, The trees of the forest shall yield up the dress That was lent them for use and for loveliness ; And the crown of the seasons shall be, Not noon of the summer nor dawn of the spring, But the time when a splendor of flaming shall bring The death of the leaves of the tree. Now the trees of the Maker have heard — Who doubteth ? — the sound of his word, For the forest grows bright with the glow at its heart, And everywhere gleams 66 A PSALM FOR OCTOBER The kindling of trees that are standing apart On the slopes of the meadows, the borders of streams. Flame-red is the frond of the sumach now, Fire-gold the long arch of the elm-tree bough ; As quivering light in the peace of the air Is the flicker of aspens, the birchen-tree's flare ; Yellow and scarlet and crimson-red, From the low-lying swamp to the hilltop spread, Burns the blaze of the maple-trees, higher and higher, And molten and lambent grow chestnut and beech, Till pinnacles, pyramids, pillars of fire Toward the crystalline dome of the azure up- reach, And an incense from braziers of smouldering oak, From the torch of the ash tipped with duskier smoke, Is blent with the mist that at nightfall o'erfills The hollows and folds of the hills. Incandescent the hills 'neath the far pure sky Where the sun and the rivers of stars roll by, Incandescent the valleys and marshlands lie ; Yet verdant, unscathed, stand the hemlock and fir And the column and crown of the pine In the clasp of the flame — from the Maker a sign A PSALM FOR OCTOBER 67 That the life in the veins of his forest shall stir, And shall break into greenness again, In the warmth of the spring, in the springtime rain. Shall only the children of Adam behold Such glory unrolled ? Shall only the gaze of the earthborn desire The miracle wrought with these wreathings of fire ? Not so. In the calm of the white sunrise The Maker looks down with his holy eyes, And the seraphs that stand At his left and right hand Chant the song of the season of sacrifice : The psalm of the earth when, her harvesting done, She lifts up her arms to the path of the sun, And offers, with tithes of her vines and her sheaves, The life of her leaves — Their beauty of burning as praise To the Ancient of Days. For H. M. Lenox, 1905. THE GARDEN OF THE WIND The North- West- Wind hath here his garden, God-appointed as its warden. Other winds may blow upon it, Sift the sun and moisture on it, Twine the wreaths of fog to lie Tangled in its greenery ; But its life is lived for beauty, And the North-West has the duty At its lovely best to show it, As its lovers love to know it. When he comes he sweeps the blue Pure of mist to sapphire hue, Darker sapphire tints the sea Where the garden's limits be ; Brings an air so diamond clear That the garden leaves appear Jewels all of diverse green : Emerald, aquamarine, Beryl, jade, and peridot In North-West-Wind his garden grow. ii Great his garden is and splendid, 'Twixt two waters far extended 68 THE GARDEN OF THE WIND 69 Where the long point bars away- Restless ocean from still bay. From the harbor to the sea All is garden bravery : Scarce the troubling plough or spade Dareth this domain invade, Nature-sown and nature-tended, By her rocks and waves defended ; Scarcely may the scythe demand Tribute from the salt marshland. Nor do forests lift their heads Over these green garden beds : If thou seekest roof of shade, Glimmering road and dusky glade, Paths that lead thou knowest not whither, Turn thy steps and come not hither — Open to the enarching skies North- West- Wind his garden lies. in These the tenants of the garden Where the North- West- Wind is warden : Elder and viburnum snows, Lavish pinkness of wild rose, Sweet-gale's mass of perfumed gray, Shining green of berried bay, Darker green of wilding pear, 70 THE GARDEN OF THE WIND Sumach with its crimson spear. Cherry, birch, and tupelo Shrub-like with black-alder grow ; Twice man-tall the blueberries Bravely rank themselves as trees ; Spicy, white, the clethra spire, Myriad-numbered, pointeth higher. Through the fragrant thicket twines Endless net of streaming vines ; Wheresoever they can press, Fern and brake the ground possess ; And the great rocks spread their strength Through North-West- Wind his garden's length. IV Shelving cliff and rounded boulder Show their stalwart slope and shoulder By the sea-marge bare and yellow, In the sheltered stretches mellow With the lichen's bloomy gray. Here their outposts drop away To the verge of swampy reaches, To the brink of rippling beaches ; Here they lift a lordly head Banked in waves of green that spread Up the crevice, up the edge, To the topmost level ledge ; THE GARDEN OF THE WIND 71 And in the low lands between All is billowy floods of green Whispering in a soft commotion, Verdant acres of an ocean Streaked with spindrift blossom-white, Islanding each rocky height — Tumbling seas of brake and bush Where North- West-Wind his pinions rush. Gloucester, 1909. SPRING ON LONG ISLAND Not on the wind's high wing Comes the Spring When she comes our way ; Not on the chariots white Of the clouds of day Or the pinions gray Of the wavering mists of night ; And she comes not, over the roads of the land, By valley and plain where the great hills stand, By the forest path or the fallow plain. When she knows we are waiting again She is borne by the sea from the south ; There is salt in the breath of her mouth, There is brine in the scent of her hair, And everywhere The lapping of water sings With the bird-notes that she brings. See how the coast-lines slip More and more to the west From the pine-clad breast Of Maine unto Florida's palmy tip. See how our isle looks forth From its anchorage here at the north 72 SPRING ON LONG ISLAND 73 Toward the islands of Caribbee — Nothing between but the sea. It is there that the Spring abides The end of our wintertides. It is thence she comes on the shining flood, In a splendor of sunlight dressed, The north in her heart, the south in her blood, And her feet on the white wave-crest So eagerly swift that we say she is near, And the day beyond she is here, she is here. Then the blue of our sky is the blue of the deep- stretched sea, The green of our banks is the green where its shallows be, And its foam-wreaths bloom once more In the blossoms that spray us from shore to shore, Orchard and thicket and forest floor — Apple, azalea, dogwood, and all The frail things snowy and small That cling To the garment-edge of the Spring. THE CHILDREN'S HERITAGE The old Earth pardons much, but overpass The mark her bounty sets and merciless Her punishments. No patient waters bless Their parching intervales, no deep pools glass Their naked flanks, where her sad mountains stand That once were thick with greenness — ravished, rent, Mothers to-day of torrents fiercely spent To broaden ruin in a ruined land. Stones he shall have for bread who seeks it here, For fruitage, harvests of the crumbling rock ; Dust for his drink, while far mirages mock The backward dreaming of the desperate year. — Who sees ? Who heeds ? Again and yet again The axe is whetted and the brand made hot, And the dull ears of sloth and greed hear not The curses that shall speak for unborn men. 74 AT SEA When the great autumn gales rush up the coast, Rending their canopies of driven cloud, And, answering to their touch, an endless host Of northward storming billows cry aloud — How shall he fear who sails the sea ? Though death come very nigh, He cannot fear to die Enarmed in this immense vitality. When mystic haze of autumn lulls the deep To visions of unending peacefulness, And wide its argent acres swing and sleep, Unruffled by the dim air's slow caress — How shall he fear who sails the sea ? Whate'er the day may give, He cannot fear to live Wrapped in this measureless tranquillity. Pequot, 1904. 75 A GARDEN IN THE FERN Make thyself lowly for this garden laid In the clear stillness of the beech-tree shade. Make thyself lowly ; lie amid the fern ; Forget the size of men and tree-trunks ; learn, With eyes attuned to daintier scale, to see What the green garths of fairyland may be. Hollowed a-top is this gray stone ; its bed Is moss, and the enwalling fronds are spread A space apart that so, untouched, may rise The white wood-sorrel's delicate surprise From the deep emerald floor. Come close and know How triple leaflets on each thin stalk grow, Drooping together at the touch of night, How the snowflakes of flowers, so exquisite They shame the wild rose as too large and bold, Are crimson-threaded and are eyed with gold. Dark trefoil and white blossom — see, they press, A tremulous company of loveliness, Trusting frail feet to nook and crevice, up The lichened stone to find and wreathe its cup, The moss-lined basin that the diligent wings Of winds have sown with seeds of tiny things. 76 A GARDEN IN THE FERN 77 There are no words minute and sweet enough To tell how flourishes upon its rough Rock-base this garden plot. Here too are ferns But miniature : e'en the wood-sorrel turns Downward to them its golden glance ; inch-tall And scarcely more the grasses grow and all Their bonny neighbors of the broader leaf — Minim parterres where one small scarlet sheaf Of strawberries is statured like a tree, And gauzy flies as birds for bigness be. Why seek far grandeurs ? Wash thy lids with dew Of the accustomed morning, line thy shoe With fern-seed from the well-known woodland path, And go (invisibly to him who hath Proud eyes for the remote and large) where stand, Frequent, unfenced, the garths of fairyland. Onteora. CHEROKEE ROSES (Two Voices.) If we could see how from the mould These miracles of white unfold, Chill were the world that ignorance Now warms with flamings of romance ; The world were bleak that now we see Through opaline clouds of mystery. God's grace it is we cannot guess The alchemies of loveliness, Or know how from the voiceless dark Springs to its birth the vital spark. Dullard, oh, dullard, to deny The permanence of poesy ! What has the mortal learned that took One letter of charm from Nature's book ? Each mastery of far space hath lent New splendors to the firmament, And could we win from mother-earth Insight into her ways of birth, Our dazzled eyes might scarcely bear The streams of beauty pulsing there. If we could know why perish must These perfect petals, dust to dust, 78 CHEROKEE ROSES 79 Our ears unstopped, our eyes unsealed, Would find the Secret then revealed ; Sparrow and moth and moon would tell What now the grave-grass hideth well. God's grace it is we cannot pry- Where the long generations lie : So dreams of heaven shine unalloyed If heaven there be, if but the void. Coward, oh, coward, to be glad No tortured soul has ever had From past mortality a sign. Are there no graves thou callest thine Where thou hast couched thy head to weep Lest silence mean an endless sleep ? Or comes no hour when thy tired soul Longs that a sleep may be the whole ? Coward, to fear a signal shown, Should heaven it pledge or peace alone. WHEN IT IS DARK Is the night black On the rough slope, Sunless and moonless the steep track ? Light flaming stars of hope Upon the cloud that shadows thee. Do they burn low ? Feed other fire : Let toil's great anvil flare and glow, Let charity aspire, And sacrifice blaze fervently. Do these grow pale In the night-damp ? When even love and labor fail, Hold high, hold high the lamp Of fortitude, and thou shalt see. 80 AT A CHILD'S GRAVE Early the dying, ay, But flawless the life thereby. And who would a pearl exchange, Perfect, for one of a strange Distorted shape, and a hue Less white than innocence, though It had grown to a larger size ? Only the blind can prize A pearl for its weight always, A life for its length of days. Lie down in thy little grave. Still shall thy mother have A jewel of joy to keep On her heart, awake, asleep, While another mother may Cover her head by day, And mourn at night on her bed The lost who are not the dead. 81 THE CHILD'S DREAM Last night I was a child that just had learned to die, A child like me, but newly born Into a beautiful morn Of starry sky. I saw the morning light, Yet there were stars, silver and golden, softly bright. The stars were there, and music — for the shapes, white-clad, Of angels, thousands, stood to sing, All white of robe and wing. A harp they had, A viol, or a lute ; All sang but one ; she smiled and held her harp- strings mute. My heart was full of tears ; I laughed when I knew why: The angel of the whitest wing, She who cared not to sing, Leaned from the sky And smiled, and I could see My mother's lovely eyes ; my mother smiled at me. 82 THE CHILD'S DREAM 83 In this our world I never saw my mother's face ; She died ; she died as I was born. But in that starry morn I found the place Where she abides, and knew They were her eyes, and wept, yet laughed and kissed her too. APPLE BLOSSOMS AND THE CHILD Beneath each rosy-white Ethereal bloom, lovely as pearl and seemingly As useless save to charm the sight, There lieth, not mere prophecy Of fruit to come, but the round fruit In miniature complete — a globe minute, With envelope and flesh and seed So planned that it shall need, To make fair food for longing lips, Only the balmy wind, the freshening rain, And the sunshine that slips Its warming touch the sheltering leaves between. — And, baby, in thy soul again Whoso hath looked the miracle hath seen. Here is not promise that a man shall grow ; Here is the man as he may be, Full-formed within The fragrant petal-cup of infancy. Watch the bright eye Seeking, insatiable, to learn, to know; Watch the unresting steps begin Their voyages of far discovery. See how to hands outstretched the soft hands cling, 84 APPLE BLOSSOMS AND THE CHILD 85 And how the soft glance tells Responsive love to love that dwells In other eyes. See how the tender wounded heart can bring Swift dignity to heal its grieved surprise, And courage comes at call, The brave mouth quivers but the foot stands fast When perilous risks befall — When the great hound, first seen, affrights, Or in the dusk of garden nights The moth, the beetle, whirr too closely past ! How valiant the desire to aid In tasks enormous for so slender powers ; How keen the sense in the beloved to see The changes made By the uncomp ehended flight of changeful hours — To give the kiss betokening sympathy, Or trustfulness, or merriment. How quick the lamentations and the crystal tears For the young robin slain, The lily that the storm has rent ; Yet with what gentle fortitude the small soul bears Its own long fevered test of unaccustomed pain, Stoic yet sweet the while, Weakened of all except the will to smile. 86 APPLE BLOSSOMS AND THE CHILD So unto us the babe is born ; So in the blossom of his happy morn Lie wrapped the pattern and the plan Of grace and virtue in the man. Oh, sheltering leaves, oh, warming sun, Guard, foster, fashion, that there shall in one Be fully ripened, undistorted, undefiled, The springtime excellences of the child. Blow, bracing wind ! Fall, fructifying rain ! Round out the promise of the tiny sphere, Nor let it grow to gnarled shape and bitter grain, Nor, blighted, drop and disappear; For all the world is hungry, thirsty, destitute, Lacking due harvest of such fruit As waits, so small and yet so perfect, here. TOMMY'S PLAYMATES I do not need to dream at night, I can so easily, "Pretending" in the broad daylight, Be things that are not Me. Sometimes I am a polar bear Out hunting on the ice, With two young cubs the food to share, And they are my white mice. Sometimes I am a pirate wild, With more than eighteen men Till all but two are shot and killed — Those are the mice again. When mother laughs but won't allow The mice in bed, I'd laugh Except that I must be a cow And bellow for my calf. I was an angel yesterday, The kind that flies and sings, And so the mice were sure that they Had pairs of little wings. 87 88 TOMMY'S PLAYMATES They are not yet as wise as I To make-believe and play, But till I showed them how to try They were just mice all day. For Betty Foster, IQIO. SUNRISE BY THE SEA The wakening forest singeth to the sea, "The day is coming, sing aloud with me !" The darkness scatters and the dawn is here, The silver light is spreading, day is near. "Dawn !" say the birches, delicately stirred To speak the happy word. The darkness vanishes, the night is done ; The sky is golden, gold the mounting sun ; And all the forest glistens in his rays, And all the ocean burns beneath his blaze. "Light !" say the needles, sibilant and soft, Of pine-trees far aloft. The young, the sturdy, and the ancient trees, And in their boughs the little salt sea-breeze, They cry, "Rejoice ! Forget the chilly night, Exult and sing, make merry in the light." "Day !" sings the wild-rose as she offers up The dew-drops in her cup. 89 THE OLD OAK Ancient oak in the winter cold, What thy comfort now thou art old? Ay, I am an ancient oak, Hollowed deep by levin stroke, Boughs by wind and winter broke, Leaves that burgeon few and small And with early frost-bites fall. Troubled, too, by mortal hands, Lie defaced my happy lands, Till to-day there scarcely stands, Where my lonely eyes can see, Blossom, bush, or brother tree. But no tree robust and whole Has, like me, within its bole House that holds a singing soul — Dryad soul that in the night, When the friendly stars invite, Tells me of the brooks at play Where no water flows to-day, Sings of buds and birds of May Where the dusty highways run And the chimmeys cloud the sun. 90 THE OLD OAK 91 Then I dream of ploughs and sheaves, Bees and nests and scarlet leaves, Morning stars and moonlit eves — And I feel not winter cold, And I know not I am old. Heart of mine, as thine, tree^ Houseth dryad Memory ! INITIATION I was tired of gardens of man's making, Thousand blooms that know each other not, Alien trophies of his covetous taking From far hills and valleys, in one spot Striving to make beauty for an eye Beauty-born disdains to satisfy. So I prayed the dear earth to uncover, In the wild ways where she dwells alone, Secret places kept for her true lover, Sacred gardens of her happy own, Sunlit, shadowy, musical at morn, Where she hides her darling, beauty-born. But she laughed as laughs a bounteous mother, Saying, Come in faith, with open eyes, Come in love, to all wild things a brother, Think not overmuch of mysteries ; Ask no secrets, trust the common chance — By thy doorsill beauty waits thy glance. Though, she said, I keep in sanctuary Here and there an altar of delight, Even the roadside grass is tributary To his joy who journeyeth aright, And a whispering bush shall bid him hear All the wildwood singing in his ear. 92 THE SUNSET SHORE Here, in the sunset hour of summer time, With mystical rhythm and rhyme Of color and of light they sing — the inviolable sky, The unalterable main, The untrodden sand-stretch featureless and pure, Framed by the dunes that shift and shift again Yet ever steadfastly As guardians of the solitude endure. To east and west are spread the reaches Of the long level immaculate beaches ; The low and level glory of the sinking sun Floweth aslant where the long breakers run, Turning to iridescent dust their feathered white, To chrysophrase their hollowed bulk of green. The slow last films of the retreating wave, Foam-threaded, clothe the sands in dappled sheen As with a patterned lace. All amethyst The wide sea-spaces of the east and south, the veils of mist That merge them in the purple heaven ; all opal light The western seas and their inseparable sky. The horizon line is blotted out that gave To earth, to firmament, identity ; 93 g 4 THE SUNSET SHORE The dunes forgot behind us, air alone And waters build our world, And they are fused to one By bold and subtile magics of the sun. There is no form, no substance, save In the forever-changing march Of the swift billows ' ever-changing arch Here close beside us curled, And shattered, and upcurled again, — All else a singing softness, luminous, Of color disembodied, vaporous, Ranging the scale of coolnesses from white em- pearled To every hyacinthine hue Of liquid violet, of melted blue — Cool, cool, till past the crest Of the low dune the sun sinks down, and then Flushed rosy with reverberations of the red north- west. There, wnere the drowsing lands Are beautiful beneath the sunset, and the strands Of crimson bordering the nether sky Break to small cloudy isles that on a golden ocean lie, Is splendor of the earth at eventide — no more ; But visible here, THE SUNSET SHORE 95 Beyond the southward-gazing shore, Is beauty disincarnate, half a hemisphere Dissolved to an irradiate mystery ; Not void though without form; not void, but filled With such a palpitant loveliness as thrilled The harps of the archangels when they heard The quivering aether answer to the first creative word. The moments pass. We see — Nay, only as with dreaming senses know, With half-belief of ecstasy behold — The wonder of the flood and flow Of radiant infinity. The many moments pass, until the sun has wholly gone, Unweaving all his iris-spells. The sky grows wan, The sea grows dark ; the mists are dim and cold. Slowly a deeper blackness gathers, for a wind blows now, Loud, louder, rolling up Cloud-drifts that fill the vast celestial cup, Awhile so over-brimmed by delicate wine Of rapture, with a rough tempestuous draught, Chilling the soul as though it quaffed The breath itself of melancholy and dismay. 9 6 THE SUNSET SHORE Chaos returns — the sphere is swept away. Naught lives but the inchoate storm. There is no moon, no star. Color has perished. Form Has vanished utterly : there is no more the line Of billowing waters, but mere ghostly gleams of white, Fangs of a fierce and uncreated Night Shouting, with elemental sounds, paeans of aimless war. Easthampton. LEARN OF THE EARTH Of our great Mother learn forgivingness. Her groves of kingly pine, her hemlock-trees' Dark massy clouds, man layeth low ; the knees Of oaks o'erthrown his mastery confess ; His biting axe, his fire, his foot, have made A wreck of the glad fringes of the wood Where blueberry, sumach, rose, and bracken stood, And floods of small and starry flowers were laid, Spring coming, wave-like on the sunny grass, And through the dusky openings in the green ; — Yet Earth, as though no ravage she had seen, Sends the sweet currents of her blood to pass Into the sprouts of his new-planted corn, Spreads gold for him where once were verdant things, Labors in love to aid his harvestings, And laughs to see the riches she has borne. And when in after years he passes by, Leaving forlorn the stripped and waiting field, 97 98 LEARN OF THE EARTH Forcing again the virgin lands to yield, Again the Earth forgives ungrudgingly, Takes back the desolate acres for her own Fair wilding aims and methods of increase, Hides them with herbage, ranks her seedling trees, And smiles to see the beauty she has sown. ii And of our Mother learn remembrance. See, As infant Spring now kisses her from sleep, How do her stirring looms the patterns keep Of all her children's wants — how faithfully ! The shadbush breaks to snow before, almost, The snows are gone ; the fleecy baccharis Shall wait, for so its own desiring is, To greet the asters on the autumn coast. The maple of the rock in green will blow ; His brother of the swampland shall not lack The tasseled red. The rose-tints will come back To dogwoods that were pink last year, although Their many brethren spread their white anew. On wings of painted moths there alters not LEARN OF THE EARTH 99 The fairy marvel of the smallest spot, Nor in the robin's nest the delicate blue. The selfsame odor haunts the flowering grape That Pliny called the sweetest on the wind. As once it found in Hellas, so shall find The purple iris here its perfect shape. Again the pines wear tips like pallid flame, The mosses have their scarlet cups or gray, This bird bright eyes for night and that for day : — 'Twas so of eld and ever is the same. in Yet shall Earth teach a wise forgetfulness. The past is past, the dead lie still, says she, And spends her soul to tend the budding tree, The brooding bird, the fern's uncurHng tress. She loves to hide the witnesses of graves : The carven monument she pulls awry, Drags down amid the brambled grass to lie, Though year by year, intact, unstirred, she saves The boulder hollowed by her unseen hand To squirrel's drinking-cup ; the pious mound Heaped o'er the dead she levels with the ground The while her own green hillocks safely stand. ioo LEARN OF THE EARTH See how she fills from death the founts of life : Heeds not the sparrow when it falls, but grows, For that its wings are dust, a rosier rose ; Ignores the victims of the fish-hawks' strife With wind and wave because the tall nests hold Young beaks a-clamor for their food ; mourns not That scarlet lilies fail, but clothes the spot With all September's purple and its gold. And when the last leaves die, her garmenting Crystalline, white, she draweth close ; so sleeps, Forgetting seasons gone and lost, and keeps Warm at her heart of hearts the unborn Spring. 1908. A LETTER FROM THE LOW LAND Come, dear, come from the fortresses of granite Walling half the world out, half the skies away; Come where the low land, open by the shore- side, Offers to its children what a free land may. Broad land, level land, leagues of grass and clover, Ranks of shining corn-blade and tall tossed plume, Dark cedar sentinels for long files of forest, Goldenrod afire in a smoke of aster bloom. Wide lands, winds' lands, level for their coursers Whencesoe'er they come with smell of soil or sea ; North winds, west winds, whatsoe'er their quarter, Straight rush their cavalcades — straight, strong, free. Far mystic meeting-place of world's marge and heaven, Curves the horizon line, perfect to the view ; Hill-crest nor mountain-breast breaks the mighty circle — Round lies the planet 'neath a hemisphere of blue. IOI io2 A LETTER FROM THE LOW LAND This is the glory of the level-lying wide lands, This is the splendor that no steep lands know : Glory of the paths where in clear hemicycles, World-rim to world-rim, the constellations go. Glowing red, golden bright, in the sumptuous west land When the sunsets blossom, they bloom around the sky — Green and amber northward, rosy in the east realm, Amethyst where amethyst the southern waters lie. Look how the little rains slip across the hay-fields, Dimple on the sea-fields, hurry far away; Look how the long storms, breaking for the twi- light, Strew upon the sky-fields windy swathes of gray. Thunder drums, levin swords, musketry of rain- bursts — How the midnight battle-crash the whole vault fills! Day brings the pageant of the white cloud-masses, Lordlier and lovelier than snow-embastioned hills. A LETTER FROM THE LOW LAND 103 Scent of the salt breeze and scent of the clover, Wild rose and clethra and bayberry's breath, Glamor of the sea-shine, witchery of mist wreaths — Hark ! they are calling and the summer hasteneth. Come, dear, come from the shut and hampered valleys, Come where the waves on the long beaches run, Come where the bosom of the warm earth is breathing Cool breaths of ocean in a broad sweep of sun ! Easthampton, 1906. JUNE Spring is my mother, summer is my sire, (So sayeth June). A vernal breath, a heart of hot desire ; A dawn of cooling mist, a lucent noon Of azure fire ; The latest violet, the earliest rose, The lilies blooming and no lily dead, A clearest light that deepest shadow throws, Each leaf now open and no leaf yet shed — By these ye know me, and the morning choir That singeth May is past, July comes soon. Spring is my mother, summer is my sire, (So sayeth June). 104 A NIGHT IN MAY Sweet is long sleep, but there is sweeter still : To wake in the deep after-midnight hush, To hear the drowsing flute and brief low trill Of nesting bird rocked in the lilac-bush That pours its perfume on the wooing wind. — I breathe the night-enchanted flower, I hear The dream-entangled song; and thus I find Through my own dreams the truth that thou art near, In my dim thoughts the memory of thy kiss : Sweeter than sleep it is to wake like this. 105 CONTENT He laid his head upon her breast. " I am content, " said he ; " I longed to buy of Love, for love, his best — And I have thee. " She laid her hand upon his brow. " I am content," thought she ; " Love sold me once, for love, his best — and now Gives alms to me." 106 OUR KINGDOM Sweet are the songs that yesterday hath sung; Sweet are the songs of a far-off to-morrow, The unknown words, the chiming chords unrung, That beauty from our faith in beauty borrow. But sweeter, sweetest, in my heart-strings play The fragmentary cadences that flow To syllables and harmonies to-day, Half caught, half fugitive, and loveliest so. Who needeth songs of yesterday and far To-morrows ? Not or thou or I ! Dimmed love May sing them, and love yet unborn. The star That slowly faded at daybreak above Our eastern sea, the star that gathers light, Even as we watch, beyond the hilly west, The one that in the zenith at midnight Shall the long lingering of our joy attest — These are the beacons and the boundaries Of life for us, the architects of To-day. This is our realm, dear heart, its radiancies The songs we weave, its winds the harps we play. And ever it is ours : each time the night Rolls from our path to let the morning in, Not shall it come with unfamiliar light, Not shall To-morrow but To-day begin. 107 TO HER LOVER I know not, I know not ! You see, The leaves are by no means the tree. They will wither and die — In the winter-buds lie As many to burgeon next year. But blot out the tint of the blue and where, Where is your sky ? Quench the flame of Aldebaran's eye And you have no star. — I am wondering whether the love that I bear (To-day, as things are,) To your love and to what I imagine your heart, I am wondering whether such part In the sum of myself it will play As the green of the year in the life of the tree ? Or will it be As is to the heaven by day Its radiant blue, and by night To the star its immeasurable light ? 108 TAKE HEED Who shall the smitten bird revive for him That ravished its clear trillings from the bough ? Who shall the shadowy elm repair when now A wanton stroke has lopped its friendliest limb, Or gather rose-cheeked apples where was cut The rosy flowering from the vernal sprays ? Canst thou roll back the earth to burgeoning days, Open the blossoming hour that time holds shut ? H Oh, love with arms outstretched to love-fraught Spring, Hold all her gifts with a most tender hand! September comes, when thou shalt need to stand 'Neath sheltering branches, bid the late bird sing, And garner fruits that in December will Make the warm sunshine seem thy climate still. 109 HEARTHSTONES i I am a woman who sits here with Life By the dead ashes of the fire of love. I am but young, yet he, bending above The hearth that grows the colder for our tears, Is wan and gray, outwearied with the strife To keep some spark alight through the slow years. Who now shall warm and comfort him ? and how shall I J Bear with his days and nights who know not how to try ? HEARTHSTONES II Here I, a woman, sit with Love beside The fire of life, and watch its embers glow Still with a ruddy light though burning low. He ever young, I counting not my years, As we have sat for long shall so abide, Handfast, until the Messenger appears. Heart, heart, how sweet is still the laughter in Love's eyes, How warm the lingering fire upon the hearthstone lies ! LISTEN, MY SISTER Hast thou heard the demands of the core of thy heart, My sister ? — singled them out, set them apart From the wide vague fancies, the keen brief pangs of desire, The longings that pass as a breath Or blaze as a fire That scorches and scars ? Hast thou tried to make sure What good thou shalt crave of thy life, to endure For thy life, unto death ? Find it, my sister. Single it out ; look deep In thy soul and search well. Test the strength Of what seemeth thine uttermost wish by the length Of the days that may dawn ere the last bringeth sleep ; And balance its weight As of jewels and gold That may buy thee content with the wealth of thy fate, Though but brief be the hours thou shalt hold To thy bosom thy treasure. LISTEN, MY SISTER 113 By all else thou couldst have thou shalt measure The worth of what seemeth the most and the best ; And when thou hast finished the quest, Knowing surely thine ultimate need, Make ready to forfeit all else. The great good must be bought ; Somewhat thou must pay as the meed Of thy birthright, for God giveth nothing for naught ; And his price may be great. Thy life is thine all : do thy utmost that so It may yield thee its utmost. Be patient to wait For fruition, be instant to know In what field, from what seed-pod, the harvest may grow. Ask aid of the vision that sees thee most clearly — thy own ; And ask of the wisdom of souls that have tested and known. — Ah little sister and young, I have known, I have lived; I am right; Believe when I tell thee what far and forever outweigheth the rest : The heart of a man on thy heart day and night, A child on thy breast. IF GREAT LOVE DIE If great love die, ask of thy days of earth No other. Keep from lesser bondage free. Let the high gift bequeath the next in worth — Unto thyself thine own sufficiency. 114 A WARNING No chance can ravish from thy resolute grasp One greatest good, no power can break thy clasp Only thyself, stooped to ignobler quest, May cheat thee of the will to seek the best. "S TWO SPIRITS I am the master-spirit, Love the King. Hardly is in the whole world anything Beneath the sun and stars but when I say, "Do this or that," it maketh answer "Yea." Empires and conquests, friendships, pieties, I wreck and ravage if I so but please ; And wreck and ravage, hatred and despair Of men and gods, my mandate may repair. All other powers unto my footstool bring Their tribute, so to worship Love the King. 116 TWO SPIRITS 117 n Nay, royal brother, look on me, a slave, And boast not potency to blast or save. Here in the dust I stand, the only one Greater than thou beneath the stars and sun. I work no ruin, but the spent revive ; And whom thou slayest, lo, I make alive. Stronger in suppliance lifted is my hand, O King, than thy bright sceptre of command. The Lords of Life their utmost empire gave Not unto thee, but unto Love the Slave. REWARDS Dig for a gem : — if with the grains of sand There come but broken quartz, still it is bright. Grasp at the stars : — now look within thy hand ; Only a firefly, yet a spark of light. 118 THE CUP AND THE WINE Brief, cried the Psalmist, is the total span Of the brief days that build the life of man. — Ay, royal singer on Judsean hills, The cup is narrow ; but the wine that fills The cup may mean an ocean in its rim. A thousand years are as a day to Him Who pours our draughts of joy and tears : To us a day may be a thousand years. 119 AN EPITAPH For love and joy to Life I prayed ; An empty hand he stretched to me ; And when I turned to Death for aid, He passed me by and would not see. But Life repented him and gave All I had ever asked and more. Then Death in haste bestowed this grave Some broken heart was pleading for. 120 THE POET Is the voice as an echo of voices of old, The song but a singing of tales oft told ? Then the eyes of the singer are dim and his pulses cold: For, as hour follows hour, in a splendor of birth The world is refilled with things living and true ; And, fresh thing or ancient, though old as the earth, The singer who sees it aright he maketh it new. When it comes to him (be it or love, Or passion, or vision of death, The tempest-wind's breath, The clash of the sea, the complaint of the dove, A glint of the green where the elms bud again, The stars in the flag, the shrill of the fife, A rapture of strength, a whirlwind of pain — Be it aught that means life or the ceasing of life,) What imports is the way his heart takes it, The web into which he makes it, The pattern it leaves In the garment he weaves For his spirit. Remember, thou singer, thou poet, Who lovest the world, that thou never In all of thy singing canst show it, The world as it is : 122 THE POET Not even canst picture the rose — It is never her color that shows ; Not even canst tell of a bird — It is never his note that is heard. What thou showest is this : Thyself, thine own soul ; and not ever That soul as it nakedly came from thy mother. Thy hands and no other Must dress it in garments of spirits long dead, Begged, stolen, or borrowed, or bought, In rags that thy betters have shed, Or else in a woof thou hast wrought Upon looms of thine own with thy love and thy pain, Thy fears and thy powers, thy fortunes of loss and of gain, The beauty, the terror, that fall to thy part, The ache and the infinite joy of thy heart ; And with sun and with stars newly plucked from the heaven, With lilies and rainbows, with gems from the mine, And jewels of spray of the sea. These are thine If thou knowest to look and to grasp and to weave. And, thy garment once woven Full strong in its tissue and shiningly bright, Whatever thou showest in song it shall leave In the life of the listener an echo of light. THE POET 123 He shall cry, "A new man, a new heart, A soul that can play a soul's part, A leader for us who but want to be led, From tombs where the dead lie dead, Toward heights where the living shall live (It is promised) a life better worth Thanksgiving to Life than to-day unto many can give This hoary and vexed yet youthful and eager old earth." Through the silence of night and the roll Of the drums of the difficult day Thy voice shall ring clear, and the people will hearken and say, "Let us follow this guide who has clothed his own soul With the brightness of morning, the strength of the noon, The compassion of dusk, the peace of the light of the crescent moon." THE PLAYER AND HIS VIOLIN My little brother, small brown violin, How was the soul of singing caged within A body of this strange yet gracile mould ? How was the shape so wondrously surmised, As with a wizardry of art devised, To capture and to hold A spirit of such wild and free Divinity ? Not laws to parse and tabulate are they That dictate thus the unalterable way To safeguard, in a hidden silentness, The perfect voice of purest melody — To keep it pent yet waiting eagerly For the first summoning stress Of the right touch, that it may sing Its answering. Unsolved, we know them only as we know, When through the organ-pipes of thunder blow Deep blasts of the great cosmic symphony, Or hollow conchs of wave and whistles of sleet And harps of seashore pines cry out to meet The north-wind's reveille — As then we know some law enorme Shapes the loud storm. 124 THE PLAYER AND HIS VIOLIN 125 Even as its crashing musics are unfurled From caverns of the cloudy upper world, So from the bosom of this tremulous wood Streams the bright vehemence of melodic speech, By the same rules awaked, controlled, that teach The shining brotherhood Of star and sun and satellite To choir aright. How should we, earth's ephemera, understand ? Yet, matching only mortal ear and hand Against the archeternal secrecies, From nothingness, unholpen and untaught By pattern-books of God, we, we, have wrought, Meeting his laws' decrees, The body of the violin, The soul within. What matters the impenetrable Why ? — Thou waitest, singing shape, and thou and I Such strains may breathe as scarcely sound in heaven, Unless upon its floor of stars there stand, Thy incorporeal semblance in his hand, Some player that had given A voice like thine its rapturous birth First here on earth. 126 THE PLAYER AND HIS VIOLIN Come, little brother ! Laid to cheek and chin, Give me thy heart-beats, palpitant violin ! Never a lover held his true-love's brow More lovingly ; never he knew so well What a sweet throat may find it meet to tell In song as I know now, Or had such certainty to hear Joy for his ear. Thy lover yet thy master, when my hand Of throbbing form and spirit takes command, Then only flames aloud the slumbering fire. Thy master yet thy lover, I must know Thine every need and wish ere I can show Thou art the heart' s-desire Of music's self when it would be Pure poesy. So doth my touch thy dreaming ardors move To utterance of the very soul of love ; So the sharp sweetness of the thrilled string Stirs in my heart the vision of a face That lives within its passionate embrace Alone ; and we take wing For paradise together, three — Thou, I, and she. TO HER POET Thy singing cannot ever need that I Should praise its lessons or its melody, And secrets of its birth that I might tell Hide in my heart, hide and are covered well. Should I to all the world uncover What thou, my lover, Learned of thy loving and of me, And what is dream and imagery — The voice of art, God-spoken to the poet's heart ? Nay, did I try I could not well appraise The harvest of our length of summer days, Set here thy golden sheaves and yonder mine The gold I gathered that it might be thine. In all thy pages I discover Only, my lover, A lore of life and love thy hand Learned from two hearts to understand, A melody God-given as a gift to thee. 127 THE SEED AND THE FLOWER I have forgotten why it was I laughed ; But well I know It was because, that idle day, I quaffed Such brimming cups of merriment, That many days an overflow Ran in my finger-tips unspent. And so it was I shaped aright So gay a Scherzo as my Birch-trees in Sunlight. I have forgotten why it was I wept ; But I remember It was because awhile my pulses kept The beat of sorrow, that I found For my Sonata, the December, Those melodies of yearning sound That were so beautiful, you said, I must have dreamed them in a dream where Kreis- ler played. And surely, when that I am dead some day, The procreant earth, Though all my music be forgot, will say, "Here lies what was a tuneful heart, And with its aid I brought to birth 128 THE SEED AND THE FLOWER 129 This triumph of my spring-time art, Where, to his nest that softly swings, The orchard-oriole in the blossoming cherry sings." For K.M. igio. IN MEMORIAM MY HOUSE (R. W. G., November, 1909.) Here in this house I raised anew The pillars of my home, and round their base That cincture of the spirit drew Which sayeth, "This shall be my own, my place Of safety, quietness, and ease, Wherein, at peace, My soul shall make its quest For the soul's good and the heart's best." Old was the house, yet new to me and mine — our ways Led not unto its gate in other days ; Only an empty spaciousness awaited me, Unwarmed, untapestried, of wont or memory. But friendly stores I brought Of things inanimate that take With lengthened habitude a semblant life, and make Chambers of use and charm from alien vacancy ; 133 i 3 4 MY HOUSE And feet there lacked not that in friendship sought My threshold, nor loved eyes and voices to desire The happy voice and radiance of my fire. And here I lived content. Yet when I sat alone, Or trod the twilit stair, or from my bed Watched how the winter dawning shone, Something I missed that I had known Of blessedness beneath another roof : It seemed they held sometimes aloof, The dear, accustomed, necessary dead, Who walk, half-felt, beside our daily steps and keep, Almost perceived and almost audible, Such vigil by our pillow that we stay from sleep Lest dreaming dreams be not so full Of dreamed tenderness. My heart-beats knew them still, my inward ear still heard The low nocturnal word, And, through the daytime sound and stress, The faint companionable tread ; But not so oft, ah, not so oft or clearly well As in those walls where we had used to dwell ; For the beloved and loving dead (Or so say our immeasurable desires) Seeking the souls they need MY HOUSE 135 On dim and wavering paths, find oftenest those that lead To the known roof-tree, the old lights and fires. In this my house surely there did befall, A-many times ere it was mine, the ecstasies Of sacred joys and agonies, Bridal and birth and burial ; And gentle spirits of that time must come and go — Yet not for me, yet not for me to know ! Strangers, they seek their own; nor could they guide to me My own from paradise's far immensity. But, friend who chose, unwittingly, This house to be thy last, thy visible last, Abode, and from its harboring passed To the invisible haven of the after-death, Dear friend, thy coming and thy faring-forth Have warmed, have vivified, these mute indifferent walls, Filling them with the passionate breath Of heart to yearning heart that calls, With deep vitalities of love and pain. — Is it for this alone they come again, My best-beloved, to pillow and to hearth As they were wont to come, Frequent and close as to their long-familiar home ? 136 MY HOUSE Or has thy far-flown spirit given New sign of the old amity from the paths of heaven ? Does the affection that so long a while Endured between my dead And thee and me illume, as with thy voice and smile, The far mysterious track Their homing feet must tread ? They know, thou knowest, the incommunicable way. I know, I only know, that in this day Of grief I yet am glad, for thou hast led them back. And where we sat together, by my fire, For thy last hours Of heard and answered converse, heart's desire Shall find thee too when evening grows To deep tranquillity, and vesper flowers — Remembrance, love, and gratitude — unclose. SAY NOT THOU ART CONTENT Stand upright in the silence, soul, to bear Thy burden undismayed ; cry not It is too heavy ; take up thy great share Of the world's great anguish as thy lot Predestined from the dawn of days ; so fill Thy veins with fortitude ; accept ; be still. But say not, soul, say not thou art content ; Strive not for any will to say As so it is, so best. Make no lament, Walk proudly, but call not the way, Cruel beneath thy feet, dim to thy sight, Better than paths of grass and shining light. Sin not as they who, though it cut young grain, Aver the scythe beneficent, As they who in the darkness of wild rain Preach heaven's high blue less excellent. Blaspheme not thus the life he would have led, Or thy deep need of him, too early dead. 137. HIS GRAVE WHO LOVED THE SEA (1894) Lie here, lie here ! The dogwood-tree That spreads above these graves, Not far, not far away can see, On paths of shining waves, The coastwise sails pass to and fro, And outward the great steamers go With smoky pennants of farewell. In this green shadowy spot, Where pain and restlessness are not, And sorrow ne'er befell, Thy fathers sleep. Here is a cabin, strait like theirs and deep. Here thou shalt dwell, And thy dear form shall be Companioned by the sea's fidelity. Lie still and dream in this safe bourn of ours. The sun that strikes upon the turf Through whitening screen of dogwood flowers, A mile away strikes whitening surf; It draws in autumn from the ocean's breast The rain that falls upon thy place of rest Through reddening dogwood leaves, 138 HIS GRAVE WHO LOVED THE SEA 139 In winter-time the hail and snow- That bend the naked branches low. The blast that sobs and grieves Amid the raindrops and the hail, Speaks the wild words of an Atlantic gale ; When it has passed, The gladder winds, that whistle and that sing, A greeting to thy peaceful harbor bring From rushing keel and bending mast Wet with Atlantic spray. Here day by day The breezes and the blasts will bring to thee Sounds of the farther and the farthest sea : Lie quiet, listen, and thy dreaming ear The loud salute shall hear Of tangled surf on boreal rock and sand, Of rhythmic, cadenced surf on tropic strand ; From distant waves will come the cry Of curlew and of petrel ; nearer by, Beach-birds will call to thee ; and overhead, On slanted wing above thy bed', The gull will be thy messenger. From her Of sunset and of sunrise thou shalt know ; The wild-fowl, migrant, their report will bring Of north, of south, in autumn and in spring, 140 HIS GRAVE WHO LOVED THE SEA Of coming and of going of the snow ; And every wandering air will yield The faint fresh scent from shore-side field And bordering thicket near the tall beach-grass ■ The breath of clover-blows, Of swamp-azalea and the meadow-rose, Sweet-fern and bayberry and sassafras, Of sun-warmed savin-tree and pine, And, delicate, divine, The sweet, sweet, airy wine From blossoms of the vagrant grape. So sleeping, dearest, thou shalt shape Within thy narrow home Dream-tales of happiness to last Until the round world's voyaging is past ; For thy dear dust, who loved the sea, Companioned by its messengers shall be Until the warm earth groweth numb, And the recurrent tides of time become Immobile oceans of eternity. By ALFRED NOYES The Flower of Old Japan, and The Forest of Wild Thyme Cloth, decorated covers, i2tno, $1.25 net " Mr. Noyes is first of all a singer, then something of a seer with great love and high hopes, and aims to balance this rare combina- tion. . . . Readers of gentle fibre will find this book not only full of rich imagery and refreshing interest, but also a wonderful pass- port to the dear child land Stevenson made so real and telling, and which most of us, having left it far behind, would so gladly re- gain." — Chicago Record-Herald. The Golden Hynde and Other Poems " It has seemed to us from the first that Noyes has been one of the most hope-inspiring figures in our latter-day poetry. He, almost alone of the younger men, seems to have the true singing voice, the gift of uttering in authentic lyric cry some fresh, unspoiled emotion." — New York Post. X OemS Cloth, decorated covers, $1.25 net " Mr. Noyes is surprisingly various. I have seldom read one book, particularly by so young a writer, in which so many things are done, and all done so well." — Richard Le Gallienne in the North American Review. By W. B. YEATS Poems and Plays In two volumes. Cloth, decorated covers, i2tno, $3.50 net The first volume contains his lyrics up to the present time; the sec- ond includes all of his five dramas in verse: The Countess Cathleen, The Land of Heart's Desire, The King's Threshold, On Baile's Strand, and The Shadowy Waters. "Mr. Yeats is probably the most important as well as the most widely known of the men concerned directly in the so-called Celtic renaissance. More than this, he stands among the few men to be reckoned with in modern poetry," — New York Herald. By Mrs. ELLA HIGGINSON When the Birds Go North Again Cloth, i2mo, $1.25 net " The poetry of the volume is good, and its rare setting, amid the scenes and under the light of a sunset land, will constitute an at- tractive charm to many readers." — The Boston Transcript. The Voice of April-land and Other Poems cioth, i2mo, $/.2s net The Chicago Tribune says that Mrs. Higginson in her verse, as in her prose, " has voiced the elusive bewitchment of the West." PUBLISHED BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York By CONINGSBY WILLIAM DAWSON The Worker and Other Poems Cloth, i6mo, $1.25 net " Characterized by unusual tenderness and spiritual uplift," says one critic, " a quiet, unstriving beauty that will repay reading." By SOPHIE JEWETT The Pilgrim and Other Poems Cloth, i2tno, $1.25 net There are many who will treasure these verses almost as a personal message from one whose interpretations of life were singularly poetic, clear-sighted, and beautiful in simplicity. By ALFRED AUSTIN Sacred and Profane Love and Other Poems cioth, i2mo, $140 net " Sacred and Profane Love," the name ascribed by tradition to the well-known picture by Titian in the Villa Borghese, Rome, suggested the title. The Picture has long been re- garded as symbolical, likewise is the Poem. But the symbolism of the latter is distinct from any hitherto ascribed to the Picture; contrasting as it does Worldly Ambition with Spiritual Aspiration, the Political career in its lowest aspect with the Literary career in its highest. By WILLIAM J. NEIDIG The First Wardens cioth, z6mo, $r.oo net " Grace of expression and clearness of thought, blent with careful, clean, poetical workmanship, are the characteristics of this little volume of poetry." — Chicago Tribune. " In rhythm, in diction, in imagination andbeauty of thought Mr. Neidig has seemed to us to have been decidedly suc- cessful." — Richmond Times Despatch. By WENDELL P. STAFFORD Dorian Days cioth, z2mo, p. 25 net A volume of poems by Justice Wendell P. Stafford, of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. The title, Dorian Days, comes from the fact that the beauty of ancient Greece is in great measure the inspiration of the volume. This return to classic art and classic myths on the part of one who has played so prominent a part in the life of his own day as Justice Stafford is particularly noteworthy. PUBLISHED BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York A HISTORY OF ENGLISH POETRY By W. J. COURTHOPE, C.B., D.Litt, LL.D. Late Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford. Clotk, 8vo, $3.25 net per volume VOLUME I. The Middle Ages — Influence of the Roman Empire — The Encyclopaedic Education of the Church — The Federal System. VOLUME II. The Renaissance and the Reformation — Influence of the Court and the Universities. VOLUME III. English Poetry in the Seventeenth Century — Decadent Influence of the Feudal Monarchy — Growth of the National Genius. VOLUME IV. Development and Decline of the Poetic Drama — Influence of the Court and the People. VOLUME V. The Constitutional Compromise of the Eighteenth Century — Effects of the Classical Renais- sance — Its Zenith and Decline — The Early Romantic Renaissance. " It is his privilege to have made a contribution of great value and signal importance to the history of English litera- ture." — Pall Mall Gazette. PUBLISHED BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64-66 Fifth Avenue, New York English Poetry Its Principles and Progress, with Representative Master- pieces and Notes. By CHARLES MILLS GAYLEY, Litt.D., LL.D., Professor of the English Language and Literature in the University of California, and CLEMENT C. YOUNG, of the Lowell High School, San Francisco, California. Cloth, i2tno, $1.50 net A manual for the general reader who takes an interest in the materials and history of the higher English poetry, and seeks a simple statement of its principles in relation to life, conduct, and art. The introduction on " The Principles of Poetry " aims to answer the questions that inevitably arise when poetry is the subject of discussion, and to give the questioner a grasp upon the essentials necessary to appreciation and to the formation of an independent judgment. " The Introduction on ' The Principles of Poetry ' should be an inspiration to both teacher and pupil, and a very definite help in appreciation and study, especially in the portion that deals with the 'Rhythm of Verse.' The remarks on the different centuries, in their literary significance and develop- ment, are helpful, and the notes to each poem, lucid and sufficient." — Harry S. Ross, Worcester Academy, Worcester, Mass. For more advanced students A History of English Prosody From the Twelfth Century to the Present Day. In three volumes. By GEORGE SAINTSBURY, M.A. (Oxon.), Hon. LL.D. (Aberdeen), Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature in the University of Edinburgh. Volume I — From the Origins to Spenser. xvii + 428 pages, 8vo, cloth, $1.50 net " What strikes one is the sensibleness of the book as a whole. Not merely for enthusiasts on metrics, but for students of literature in general, it is a good augury toward the probable clearing up of this entire blurred and cloudy subject to find Omond's mild fairness and Thomson's telling sim- plicity followed so soon by this all-prevading common sense. . . . The most extraordinary thing about this volume is that, unintentionally as it would appear, the author has produced the one English book now existing which is likely to be of real use to those who wish to perfect themselves in the formal side of verse composition." — The Evening Post, New York. PUBLISHED BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 64-66 Fifth. Avenue, New York OCT 14 1910 One copy del. to Cat. Div. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 018 604 199 9