~j^S6 SONNETS TO THE IDEAL 
 
 BERTRAND 
 
GoiMightN" If / / 
 
 COHnRIGHT DEPOSre 
 
SONNETS TO THE IDEAL 
 
Sonnets to the Ideal 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE E. BERTRAND 
 
 MINNEAPOLIS 
 1911 
 
T 
 
 5 
 
 tin 
 
 Copyright 1911 by 
 George E. Bertrand 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 HAHN a HARMON CO. 
 
 MINNEAPOLIS 
 
 ©CLA30923G 
 
This is Number /. . O.S of an edition of 
 
 Tivo Hundred Copies, p^-inted on hi',nd-made 
 paper. 
 
INDEX 
 
 I Life's Far Horizons .... 9 
 
 II Earth Clods 11 
 
 III Birth from Burial 13 
 
 IV Nearer and Beyond . . . , 15 
 V The Mightier Self 17 
 
 VI The Chariot of the Sun ... 19 
 
 VII Re-Incarnation 21 
 
 VIII Myth of the Winds 23 
 
 IX Vigils 25 
 
 X Somewhere 27 
 
 XI Requiem 29 
 
 XII The Wings of the Morning . . 31 
 
 XIII Love 33 
 
 XIV Fame 35 
 
 XV Peace 37 
 
 XVI Transfiguration 39 
 
LIFE'S FAR HORIZONS 
 
I 
 
 Forever, a splendour poised for endless flight, 
 Thou hoverest, silent, on mind's outmost verge. 
 And fillest life's far horizons with that light 
 Wherein mens' mightiest visions melt and merge. 
 Thou stand'st aflame, with eager balanced wings. 
 As if to launch into that unknown land 
 Whence time to mortal sense no message brings. 
 And beckonest ever with uplifted hand. 
 And rise the babblings from the fleeting reign 
 Of human triumph, and heroic deed 
 Of heart and hand, and victory over pain. 
 And conquests of the world, that claim the meed 
 Of laurel at thy feet; and, lo, thy gaze 
 Is onward, and thy lips are mute of praise. 
 
 9 
 
EARTH CLODS 
 
II 
 
 Thou with the irradiant light upon thy brow, 
 That ever in silence life's deep secret locks, 
 Melt thou the clod of earth, and sunder thou 
 The ancient burden on the soul, that mocks 
 The eternal frenzy of imprisoned flight! 
 Break thou the seal upon impassioned lips! 
 Anoint the eyes that seek with partial sight; 
 And quicken thou the nerveless hand that dips 
 Reluctant at the brim, to plunge deep down 
 Into the unfathomed wells of Truth and Love! 
 And level thou the heights of false renown. 
 Which flaunt the blazonry of might above 
 The ramparts of a world whereon are strown 
 The husks of life, and folly's chain and crown. 
 
 11 
 
BIRTH FROM BURIAL 
 
Ill 
 
 From lives whose light, through time's dissolved tears, 
 
 Illumes the dim horizons of the past; — 
 
 From errant murmurings down the trend of years, 
 
 Vague echoings of a great Archangel blast 
 
 At each re-incarnation of the truth 
 
 From Nature's first rude shapen matrix down 
 
 The silent ages — from recurring ruth 
 
 Of birth from burial, truth from error flown — 
 
 From fires recasting, ever in new moulds. 
 
 The souls of mighty men from out the womb 
 
 Of earth, that fecund mother who enfolds 
 
 The mystery of life within the tomb — 
 
 Evoke new flame, and power to utterance weld. 
 
 With ichor of immortal tongues of eld! 
 
 13 
 
NEARER AND BEYOND 
 
IV 
 
 Not fitful phosfors of the unconscious dust, 
 Ephemera of a night that glint and fall- 
 Not fleshly hands that vainly grope, to thrust 
 Ajar some doorway in our prison wall — 
 Not surgings of the blood that flush the brows 
 Of fame, encircled with imperial bay 
 That, lo, is withered — not impassioned vows 
 Of myriad tongues that, lo, are hushed away, — 
 Not these shall strike the paean of the soul. 
 nearer and beyond! Through dust and sands 
 That drift and cling and crumble down the roll 
 Of time, there comes a glimmering of the hands 
 That sweep the fibres of the universe. 
 Thy harp strings, voicing life in chords diverse. 
 
 15 
 
THE MIGHTIER SELF 
 
Thy hand withdraws the veil from yesterday; 
 
 And forth through all the past, since first were whirled 
 
 The slow milleniums, there gleams a ray, 
 
 Flashed from the facets of the cycling world, 
 
 Of some strange, mightier self, and I behold 
 
 All brows that felt the diadem of power 
 
 That they are mine, and mine the imperious mould 
 
 Of Gods and fam-ed myths unto this hour. 
 
 All crown-ed bards, mad with the crimson wine 
 
 Of life, who spake and sped the soul of song 
 
 From age to age— behold, their tongues are mine. 
 
 And, lo, that onward-flov/ing myriad throng 
 
 Of toil, yoked ever to the will divine 
 
 For man's deliverance— behold, their hands are mine. 
 
 17 
 
THE CHARIOT OF THE SUN 
 
VI 
 
 In glory down the empyrean rolls, 
 
 At eve, the burning chariot of the sun; 
 
 Through azure depths and placid crimson shoals, 
 
 He dips his blood-red disk, until are won 
 
 The drowsy shadow realms of night; and flushed 
 
 In tender ruby fires, are burned away 
 
 The pendant oriels of the sky; and hushed 
 
 The world in dying embers of the day. 
 
 High in the flaming West art thou enthroned 
 
 Amid the mellowing battlements and domes 
 
 Of dreamy phantom cities, opal-toned 
 
 In m.olten seas, and shapes like giant gnomes 
 
 That wait to follow the imperious sun 
 
 Into the under world's oblivion. 
 
 19 
 
RE-INCARNATION 
 
VII 
 
 Thou goest before me through funereal woods. 
 I tread with reverence on the yielding moss; 
 For loudest cry where deepest silence broods 
 The voices from the earth, and seem across 
 The vaulted glooms their shades to palpitate. 
 And all the lingering odorous airs that come 
 From bruis-ed flowers, seem laden with the fate 
 Of many a honeyed Up and virgin bloom. 
 Whose scattered dust, each time of leaf and bud 
 Again incarnate in red-hearted flowers, 
 Breathes strange old-time aromas through the blood. 
 For dust are they of passioned lives in showers 
 Of trodden petals, and their spirits flood 
 The rustling naves and arches of the wood. 
 
 21 
 
MYTH OF THE WINDS 
 
VIII 
 
 The abysm of the night is thine abode; 
 And from the lurid caverns of the sky 
 Thou summonest the myth of winds, to goad 
 His myriad raging furies on, that fly 
 With ghostly clamorings along the earth. 
 On thundrous wings the hurtled legions sweep 
 Away into the night, or come with mirth 
 Unchained or roar of sighs. They rave or sleep 
 In fitful breathings of the dark, and through 
 Each pause anon there steals upon the soul 
 A vision of the vanished myriads who, 
 In mists sun-tempted from the earth, now roll 
 Across the terrored gloom their fretted train, 
 And, passing, beat and weep athwart the pane. 
 
 23 
 
VIGILS 
 
IX 
 
 Thou comest on silent pinions when the lusts 
 Of self die in long watches of the night. 
 Invisible wings, that, passing, whirl their gusts 
 Of memories thronging from the infinite; 
 Invisible wings out of the night, that rush 
 Athwart invisible strings, and wake the chords 
 Of boundless self amid the throbbing hush 
 Of soul-impassioned vigils; as strange words 
 That issue from the shoreless void of time; 
 As whisperings unuttered save in dreams 
 By lips impalpable, that link the rhyme 
 Of life with life, from whence the awakening seems 
 The mocking counterfeit of consciousness, 
 The shock of discord harsh and passionless. 
 
 25 
 
SOMEWHERE 
 
Lo, when the rosy tinge of dawn doth light 
 The eastern limit of the sea and sky, 
 From out that strange oppression of the night 
 Thou lead'st me to the slanting sands; and high 
 Along the curving reaches of the shore 
 The vaulting ridges plunge, and chant to me, 
 In thunder-throated requiems of dolore, 
 The mighty pathos of the moaning sea. 
 And somewhere by the waves that never sleep, 
 In some unhistoried age has come to me 
 This muffled lamentation of the deep. 
 0, surely, somewhere by the restless sea. 
 Beyond the gathered aeons, thus did weep 
 Unto my soul these voices of the deep. 
 
 27 
 
REQUIEM 
 
XI 
 
 Forth from mid-ocean *s level glow of dawn 
 The green-hued glassy breakers shoreward glide. 
 They lift their hoary manes, they roar, they fawn 
 Upon the yellow sands, and, ceasing, slide 
 Into the sea beneath their whirling foam. 
 They come like crested conquerors, that ride 
 'Mid paeans measured by the metronome 
 Of sounding floods, to sink beneath the stride 
 Of other foam-crowned victors; and alone 
 Within the deep forever doth abide 
 Its ancient mystery; and the undertone 
 Of some great sorrow comes, as if the wide 
 Unfathomed main sobbed in low monotone 
 The hoarded grief of ages in its moan. 
 
 29 
 
THE WINGS OF THE MORNING 
 
XII 
 
 Thou mountest with the sun out of the dawn ; 
 And mounts my spirit through the Infinite, 
 Away, away, through clearer ethers drawn, 
 Bathed in ineffable effiors of light. 
 Nor time nor place, false shadow-dreams of life, 
 I^Tor mirrored phantoms in the glass of time, 
 Flashed from the fleet kaleidoscope of strife, 
 Avail to stay my far-flown spirit's climb. 
 Dissolved in light are shadows of the night 
 That weighed upon the pinions of my soul! 
 Away into the wide white-flooded height 
 From out the clinging mist that, like a stole, 
 A mystic symbol of old error, lay 
 Upon me ere the breaking of the day! 
 
 31 
 
 ^ 
 
LOVE 
 
XIII 
 
 Behold, this maiden's eyes are dark and deep 
 As springs that gurgle through the sombre wood, 
 And limpid as the dews at morn that sleep 
 Upon lush flow'rs where yet the shadows brood. 
 And through these amber portals of the soul 
 Thou comest a wing-ed God, to fling upon 
 The winds the empty shells of time, and roll 
 Away old idols to oblivion. 
 And, lo, the stream of life is mellow red. 
 And all the rays from outward things that stole 
 Across the idle outward sense, are sped 
 Like shafts of sacred fire into the soul; 
 And hidden censers charge the illumined skies, 
 And all the world is filtered through her eyes. 
 
 33 
 
FAME 
 
XIV 
 
 Thou hoverest low, and sheddest a tender fire 
 Of far-off glamors where young mothers dream. 
 O'er them that suckle hero sons, the lyre 
 Of fame thou touchest; and the stream 
 Of life bears blazoning down its golden tide 
 Wide wing-ed ships by fortune wafted on. 
 And at high helms, bay-crowned, those heroes ride, 
 Broad-browed and warrior-limbed, by whom are won 
 World triumphs that proclaim the trend of time. 
 Through new horizons sing new centuries; 
 And come, from many a fancied shore and clime 
 Beyond the sky-bound limit of the seas. 
 Acclaims that, swelling with the tide of years, 
 At dawn are memories and silent tears. 
 
 35 
 
PEACE 
 
XV 
 
 Thou com'st as sorrowing in the loitering hours 
 Of waning summer, when the langorous airs 
 Weigh on the petals of the drooping flowers, 
 And steal upon the senses unawares. 
 Peace in the vast dim heavens and beyond! 
 Peace on the azure peaks; and in the vale 
 A slumberous peace, where many a listless frond 
 Dips in the tide, whose opal mirrors trail 
 Their glimmering chaplet downward to the sea! 
 Peace on the gull's white wings against the light, 
 Like wraiths of olden dreams! And unto me 
 The peace that comes to children in the night, 
 And weighs on swimming lids when in half sleep 
 They, 'gainst deep-bosomed mothers, cease to weep. 
 
 37 
 
TRANSFIGURATION 
 
XVI 
 
 Thou goest among the fields with them that toil 
 Far from the roar of cities, where the tears 
 And smiles of heaven woo from the amorous soil 
 Full garners ever through the tranquil years. 
 They sow with brows bared to the flush of dawn— 
 They tread warm furrows with their naked feet — 
 They breathe the dews of meadows skyward drawn— 
 They, silent, feel the world's deep pulses beat— 
 They, singing, cleave and turn the seething sod— 
 They free the buried love-sap from the earth— 
 Their yellowing fields wave to the winds of God. 
 To them thou dost transfigure Death with Birth 
 Through harmonies of alternate Bloom and Sear, 
 Earth's Song and Silence, wedding year with year. 
 
 39 
 
lEB 19 1912 
 
One copy del. to Cat. Div. 
 
 FEl- 
 
 1Q^.2 
 
015 799 563 7 ^