SPIRIT OF SONG 
 
 A 
 Subjective Poem 
 
 BY 
 
 Dr. L. E. Holmes 
 
SPIRIT OF SONG 
 
 A 
 
 Subjective Poem 
 
 BY 
 
 Dr. I>in. EiV-^HOLMES 
 
 Boston, Mass., .1901 
 

 ''It is He that hath made its and not we ourselves T 
 
 Gift 
 
 - (Person) 
 ^Mg" '05 
 
 ( « 
 < « • 
 
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 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Les Garnitures des Vers . . . . ii, iv 
 
 Preface ........ v 
 
 To Omar Khayyam vii 
 
 Spirit of Song . 1-17 
 
 Notes . . . .' 18, 19 
 
In memory s web there is no strand 
 
 That holds like pure affection. Naught 
 Can set the signet-seal or brand 
 
 On the yonng hearty that Love has wrought 
 When first Jie flew across the land 
 
 Of Careless Houi's^ whose roses caugJit 
 His perfumed breath and sighed upon his hand. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 These few stanzas of verse are not published with the ex- 
 pectation of applause or even as a first step that might lead to 
 literary fame ; but that the author might leave them as a 
 memento among many friends and very delightful acquaintances 
 he has made in New England during a recent visit there, as one 
 leaves a card on the hall table when departing. The ''card " has 
 been too hastily prepared for one of its nature, but it is natural 
 to trust much to the generosity of friends, and I leave this 
 with them who have contributed to my intellectual and social 
 pleasures during this all too short stay in their midst this 
 winter of 1900-01, expecting each to read with gentle favor as 
 one reads the message of a friend. The thoughts contained 
 herein are the common heritage of mankind. There is much 
 one feels that is not defined. To define a feeling or feelings 
 common to all men has been the object of the writer however 
 illy the task has been performed. The gems remain the same 
 however much the polish is lacking. That every one should 
 recognize them as their own would be the highest praise the 
 author could ask. 
 
 One of my newly acquired acquaintances, and one whose 
 opinion in matters of this kind I prize highly, has very kindly 
 written me, in anticipation of this publication, a letter which it 
 affords me pleasure and satisfaction to introduce here : 
 
 Dr. L. E. Holmes. 
 
 My Dear Sir: In this poem you deal with matters that lie 
 far back in the mysterious shadows that environ the visible 
 every-day life. The path you follow is somewhat difficult for 
 one not an expert in your special lore, but I can feel my way 
 
PREFACE 
 
 along the track I can but dimly see. The matter of your poem 
 is one that will never cease to interest and fascinate those who 
 try to explore the wonderland of the soul. Your work is new in 
 kind and in parts really beautiful, and the measure and move- 
 ment of your lines seem set to a music that finely matches the 
 somewhat sombre and mystic theme. Man, as an animal, sums 
 up in himself the history of the whole animal world. If his 
 body cells could remember and speak, they would, probably, re- 
 hearse the experiences of sentient being from the first simple 
 cell up to the present time. 
 
 At what time mind began to share the experiences of the 
 animal life, we cannot guess, but we must believe that the first 
 thinking intelligence came upon the stage with a large heritage 
 from his inarticulate past. How far that heritage enters into 
 and influences the thought and feelings of the present must be 
 left to conjecture, but it is safe to assume that the self-conscious 
 life of the race is now more or less fully recovered in each in- 
 dividual brain. Yet something in our nature that makes us feel 
 akin to Nature in her wilder haunts will ever remain. One who 
 remembers and reflects recalls the fact that in childhood, a 
 beautiful sunset awakened emotions which the spectacle was not 
 sufficient to explain. As manhood recalls the experiences of 
 early years, so childhood tries to recall the things that came to 
 it, shall I say, before childhood. To explain the emotions stirred 
 by music, we must go beyond any remembered personal experi- 
 ences. In poetry, we often hear a voice from beyond the horizon 
 of the visible world, the exaltation of a joyful dawn, or the morn- 
 ing of ages wondering and lost in personal night. 
 
 The subject is of profound interest in verse or prose and I 
 hope that you may find the time and mood, hereafter, to give it 
 in verse a more extended and elaborate treatment. 
 
 Sincerely yours, W. H. Savage. 
 Hyde Park, Mass. 
 
 VI 
 
To OMAR KHAYYAM 
 
 The same old world, still tumbling ^mid the Spheres — 
 The same old life, after the Thousand years — 
 
 The same heart-yearnings and the same delights — 
 The same red wine, and the same bitter tears I 
 
 O Thotc PhilosopJier I what prescience thine ! 
 The Lights thoit kijidled still our watch-fires shine ; 
 Still dost thou lift from Sonvw her grim, shrond 
 And for her gall pour out thy joyous wifte. 
 
 Yes, still we tiLrn to Omars tented plain, 
 And join, as he, the Reveler s moving train, 
 
 Findy as he found, in song and ruddy botvl, 
 Surcease . of Sorrow a7id relief from pain. 
 
 ^Tram indeed is gone with all his Rose.^ 
 
 And Jamshyd^ s Sevn-ringd Cup where no one knows; 
 
 But still a Ruby kindles in the Vine, 
 And w,any a Garden by the Water blows'' 
 
 For him, who sang this modern Rubaiyat, 
 
 Old Omar Khayyam pozired a glass thereat ; — 
 
 They both are Knights of lettered courtesy. 
 But this One higher lifts his silkoi Hat. 
 
 H. A. D. 
 
Yet more as a weird wind cries 
 Humanly through a dark forest, 
 
 My soul are the echo sighs 
 Returning thou hearest. 
 
Spirit of Song 
 
 DEDICATED TO MY FATHER'S SPIRIT 
 
 '■'■Thy other name is grief. 
 Or rather she^s thy 7notherP 
 
 Hmc illae lacrymae. 
 
 '■'I felt coming over 7ne a sad, sad longing like grief 
 and I took a ream and -wrote ; and I only knew the 
 ■words I wrote but not their meanin(r,^OhD Proi'HESY. 
 
 They say in the upper air 
 A whisper soundeth far, 
 And one can think they hear 
 The breathing of a star. 
 
 Oh, by what glowing embers 
 Of this Immortal Day ; 
 And by what finer members, 
 Hear'st thou the Far-away? — 
 
 Thou the Centuries marching 
 Down thro' the vaulted spheres ? 
 Thou, where skies are arching,' 
 The footsteps of the Years ? 
 
 I write. The words are mine. 
 Wild grapes I give to thee ; 
 O press them into wine, 
 Dark as ^hy Mystery ! 
 
SPIRIT OF SONG 
 
 Thou mov'st my ardent soul, 
 (As if I made a vow) 
 To write some rhythmed whole — 
 Of what I know not now. 
 
 Still under the gray embers 
 No theme my vision gains ; 
 Scarcely my soul remembers 
 The throbbing of her pains. 
 
 Stain me with blood and wine, 
 The red wine of the heart ; 
 And thy light that will shine 
 After the days depart ; 
 
 With the red light of Morning 
 Before the day is due — 
 All crimson is the awning ^ 
 When the light shines through. 
 
 From out the Soul-wrought Past, 
 Low munnurs come and go, 
 Like moanings of a vast, 
 Unutterable woe. 
 
SPIRIT OF SONG 
 
 Or like an afterthought, 
 Down in the dells of doom, 
 These silent walls have caught, 
 Whispering in my room, ^ 
 
 These murmurs go and come, — 
 Dead whispers brought to me 
 Out of the wrongs of some 
 Depressed humanity. 
 
 Mayhap, some earthly sorrow 
 Has left a common wound. 
 Whose scars have their to-morrow 
 Like seeds cast in the ground: 
 
 For Life's One Heart transmits 
 Its joys, its grief, its crime — 
 A vibrant chord, that sets 
 The cadences of time. 
 
 First when the loving God 
 Thought Man, and, smiling, said — 
 ''Let there be Light,'' dull sod. 
 Translated, bloomed and bled. 
 
SPIRIT OF SONG 
 
 That blood forever flows 
 Over the changing earth, 
 Here blushes in the rose, 
 There ofives a Caesar birth. 
 
 fc>' 
 
 God's Voice ! — Love heard its call, 
 Impartial as the day ; 
 Where'er its echoes fall 
 Is human sympathy. 
 
 And poetry must be. 
 Expressed in every tongue, 
 Life's conscious unity 
 In Heaven and Nature sung: — 
 
 A voice of pearly laughter, 
 Low toned, as love would sing — 
 A thought of the hereafter 
 In bud and leaf of spring. 
 
 Deep in the soul's recess. 
 Pale Shapes like memories are. 
 Inborn, that almost press 
 The doors of thought ajar. 
 
SPIRIT OF SONG 
 
 Likelines invisible 
 That chemic lotions bring ; 
 Or marks upon the wall, 
 Where shades of pictures cling, 
 
 These shadowy forms portray 
 A lingering image here. 
 Of those who passed away 
 In the remotest year. 
 
 — A New Soul, entered in. 
 Knows not the empty tree. 
 Till chemic touch akin 
 Of life brings memory. 
 
 If Genius comes, he burns 
 The old ancestral ties — 
 A torch of flame ! that turns 
 But one bright light, and dies. - 
 
 Grief's children ! ever near 
 On life's continued stream ! 
 Whose acts we feel and hear 
 As mirrored in a dream. 
 
SPIRIT OF SONG 
 
 Whose every deed, once sown, 
 In pain, in woe, or mirth, 
 Tho' ages far have flown, 
 Will come again to earth ! 
 
 Man's passioned heart dies not 
 In Universal Whole; 
 No deed is quite forgot, 
 Descending with the soul. 
 
 For knowledge has cell-form,^ 
 Thought-wrought ; the form descends, 
 A psychic instinct norm 
 Whose light with reason blends. 
 
 Thus spun, life's mystic thread 
 Is evermore unwound, 
 And all the ancient dead 
 Are to the living bound. 
 
 One crystal holds the whole 
 Of all the cosmic past ; 
 So in each jeweled Soul 
 All shades of life are cast 
 
SPIRIT OF SONG 
 
 The builder buildeth he — 
 The lady weaves a spell — 
 Their progeny shall be 
 Good, as she weaveth well. 
 
 All that the deep Sea stirs, 
 Stained only as blood stains; 
 All that was his or hers. 
 Flows in my purple veins. 
 
 Out of the fagots burned 
 A vision lights the soul, 
 And there's not else discerned '^ 
 But the meaning of the whole. 
 
 On the all-present ether 
 Thought-waves from far away,^ 
 To loving friends may breathe a 
 Message in sympathy. 
 
 Between the stars and love. 
 Is still more finer air;^ 
 Responsive hearts may move 
 To psychic waves felt there. 
 
SPIRIT OF SONG 
 
 I make my father's motion, — 
 I speak again his voice; 
 Far in Hfe's ebbing Ocean 
 Anchored are the chains of choice 
 
 The Dead they call us now, 
 Out of a thousand years ; 
 We lave their crimsoned brow 
 In melody of tears ! 
 
 Their breath is on the cell 
 That breathes in song to-day ; — 
 Their silent sorrows dwell 
 In every soul-loved lay. 
 
 Sweet music did begin 
 In pain. See! in the art 
 Of torture, curse, and sin, 
 Grief has the rh3^thmic part. 
 
 Done in the busy marts 
 Of human toil and woe ; 
 Beat in the troubled hearts 
 That broke long years ago, — 
 
SPIRIT OF SONG 
 
 Like souls descending now 
 From far remorseless skies, 
 They beat upon my brow 
 Their pitiful, lingering cries. 
 
 As if a soul would be 
 Incarnate in a song, 
 Their cries come up to me 
 Out of the ghostly throng. — 
 
 A flitting shadow seen 
 Of unseen passer-by — 
 A face on Memory's screen 
 Of one in agony — 
 
 A winding, weaving troop 
 Of peopled images 
 That in the darkness stoop 
 In mincing mimicries; 
 
 The toils of tortured men, 
 Miraged on sky and sea, — 
 Like battles fought again, 
 They muster up to me. 
 
SPIRIT OF SONG 
 
 Why blow the weird winds hither 
 Against my broken lyre ? 
 I raise my soul to gather 
 The heart of their desire. 
 
 They are the moaning cries 
 Of souls, tho' buried long, 
 All stained with crimson dyes, 
 And unrequited wrong; 
 
 For peace they come to me 
 To urge their plaintive quest : 
 I strike this harp to thee. 
 And sing their souls to rest ! 
 
 Gloomy the weary wind 
 That blows funereal strain, 
 Of murdered infant kind 
 On Egypt's lowly plain ; 
 
 The sea casts on the shore 
 
 A thousand lives a day; 
 
 The untempered winds slay more - 
 
 Say, who can these allay ? 
 
 10 
 
SPIRIT OF SONG 
 
 Caught in creation's coil, 
 Unknown the Where or Whence,— 
 O sadder yet the toil 
 Of man's incompetence ! 
 
 Sweet melody, like flowers 
 That hght the falling tear, 
 Will sooth the restless powers 
 Of spirits wandering here. 
 
 I've seen a soul in grief 
 Go sing that grief away ; 
 I've heard the sweet relief 
 Of music's melody. 
 
 Sing, oh my harp, the peace 
 These wandering spirits crave ! 
 Sing! and the storm shall cease; 
 Sing ! — it shall be thy slave. 
 
 Sing ! and the laughing streams 
 Will bless the plains below ; 
 Sing of the brighter dreams 
 Some other life may know ! 
 
 II 
 
SPIRIT OF SONG 
 
 God hath not heard His cry, 
 Who called from Calvary's hill : 
 We answer, we, who die 
 Ascending Calvary still. 
 
 The cup for mmi shall pass, 
 Of sorrow, grief and tears ; — 
 His answer comes — comes through 
 An hundred thousand years : 
 
 " Fair Art makes light the strain 
 Over the earth's rough way, 
 Ever with lessening pain 
 The toils of yesterday T 
 
 For Art perfects the 7iiission 
 Of something Nature wrought — 
 The hand's complete fruition 
 In symdolizijtg thoughts 
 
 '' All beauty is in functiofi 
 To fullest Tneasure made — 
 Heaven s supre^nest unction 
 On Man and Nature laid!' 
 
 12 
 
SPIRIT OF SONG 
 
 y 
 
 Men answer thus, like gods,^ 
 The prayer that heaven denies, 
 Making of earthly sods 
 A bridge to Paradise. 
 
 Oh, worldly knowledge, on ! ^ 
 Thy heaven shall be more fair. 
 Oh, glorious Art, new-born ! 
 Thy work shall lessen care. 
 
 Love, since the morning stars 
 Forgot their sunburnt lay. 
 Has Ht his silver bars 
 Under the moon's soft ray. 
 
 His borrowed Heavenly fire 
 Gave Song immortal tone: 
 Men strike th' enchanted lyre 
 And think that sound their own. — 
 
 But not the larks' pure joy — 
 
 The song untaught by grief! 
 
 Can man that note employ 
 
 While chained on Time's rough reef.?* 
 
 13 
 
SPIRIT OF SONG 
 
 His voice can it, upsoaring, 
 Full Heavenly song regain ? 
 Can he, earth bound, be pouring 
 Of joys untouched by pain ? 
 
 Sometimes beyond control 
 Of any mortal powers. 
 Such quivers touch the soul 
 In this low sphere of ours. 
 
 Then bursts the heart in song ! 
 Thus Shelley struck the lyre : 
 'Twas joy's short dream ! Not long 
 Could he burn Heaven's fire. 
 
 In shells by India's sea, 
 Rose-wrought by mollusk P'ay, 
 In rhythm wearily. 
 Souls breathe complaint, they say. 
 
 When listening to the shells. 
 You hear the great sea roar, 
 Or tones like far-off bells 
 On memory's dreamy shore. 
 
 H 
 
SPIRIT OF SONG 
 
 On Psychic Seas, strange wrought, 
 Strewn on a blood-red shore,^ 
 Are milk-white shells of thought. 
 Of centuries before. 
 
 And when you listen there. 
 You hear God's whisper — " Nay. 
 A thousand years they are 
 To me as yesterday!' 
 
 A thousand years each day 
 Sees in the human soul ; 
 A thousand years are they 
 That make one human whole. 
 
 The soul, down thro' the vast, 
 Eternal years, has caught 
 A thousand tones, recast 
 In every human thought. 
 
 And men will sigh and sing 
 These echoes o'er and o'er ; 
 Till on some softer string 
 The chords are mellower. 
 
 15 
 
SPIRIT OF SONG 
 
 Thus Homer sang of old 
 Of Priam's war-like seed; 
 So sang a piper bold 
 The Nibelungen Lied. 
 
 But we, of life and love — 
 The rhythm of the heart ; 
 Some chord still far above 
 May yet the truth impart. 
 
 Still Pan is pastoral king, 
 Be leaf or green or sear: 
 Forever He will sing, 
 For love abideth here. 
 
 The generations go — 
 The Past moves still along; 
 Out of the jungle, woe, 
 Upriseth the lark of song. 
 
 And every wail of woe 
 Re-set in song shall be, 
 After the rivers flow 
 Into the peaceful sea. 
 
 i6 
 
SPIRIT OF SONG 
 
 The tides will wash the bay 
 Of every vile, dead thing ; 
 Earth rhythms grief away 
 In the lullaby of spring. 
 
 The east grows light ! Now fades 
 The muffle-footed train !; #-^ 
 Now all the murmuring glades 
 Forget their winter chain ! 
 
 And I forget, O Grief ! 
 The Sorrow, Toil and Pain, 
 That sought for its relief 
 This feeble, erring strain. 
 
 Bozeman, Montana, March, 190: 
 
 17 
 
NOTES 
 
 ^ [^Hear'st] thou the centuries marching, etc. — Sense impressions, 
 of sound especially, may be, under kindred circumstances, repeated 
 subjectively in the brain years after they were made, and are often so 
 clear as to be taken objectively. The molecular changes made in the 
 brain cells by sense impressions remain more or less permanently and 
 constitute memory ; these physical changes are transmitted to progeny 
 and are a physical memory called instinct. Some years ago the author 
 of these notes was walking after midnight down a quiet street in a city 
 and heard someone call his name twice quickly and run after him a few 
 steps behind on the sidewalk. Turning quickly to see who called there 
 was no one in sight ; then, after a moment, he remembered the voice — 
 it was that of a friend who had died five years before. That puzzled 
 him for a Httle, until he remembered also that that friend, just before 
 his death, did run after him at that same place and, likely, at or near 
 that same hour of night and did call him twice in that same hurried 
 manner. It was the echo of the original call and footsteps, aroused by 
 the hour and circumstances, to repeat itself subjectively in his brain, so 
 that for a moment it seemed objective. May it not be, with the insane, 
 who hear voices and fear men following them, that these subjective 
 voices and thoughts in their brains are of cell impressions transmitted, 
 perhaps, through several generations? — these voices and fears being 
 but repetitions of what did occur to some remote ancestor. 
 
 2 All ciimson is the [mental'] awning. — The color of thoughts is red. 
 They either take this color from the red currents surrounding the gray 
 brain cells or the psychic rhythm or wave corresponds to the vibrations 
 of the red ray in the spectrum, i. e., about thirty-eight thousand to the 
 linear inch. When one presses on the ball of the eye over the closed 
 lids a red light appears — why red? Some papers were published, a 
 few years since, upon the color of letters of the alphabet or on words, 
 by writers of curious things, as if the for7n of the ink marks on paper 
 
NOTES 
 
 would give different colors. If one could see in words such colors it 
 would more likely be the thought expression contained therein and not 
 the shape of the ink lines. Color wave in the psychic realm may have 
 a finer vibration than in the physical, as that would seem a wave too 
 long and slow for thought. A Harvard student, who was earning his 
 way through college by exhibiting his powers to find objects hidden for 
 the amusement of the curious public, and who, among other things, 
 was able to place a common pin in a pin-hole in the wall paper of a 
 room made in his absence and to do it with a quick stab from a dis- 
 tance of two feet, which no man with his eyesight unobstructed could 
 do without jabbing another hole in the paper, said to me, a few years 
 since, in explanation of his abiUty to do this, that the hole in the paper 
 made by the point of the pin looked red to him and about two inches 
 in diameter, and that he could hardly miss it if he wanted to. 
 
 3 The Form of the brain cell, created and developed by knowledge, 
 is transmitted to the young and carries with it an instinct and readiness 
 to receive Hke impressions that created it — an instinct that becomes a 
 Light in aid of Reason and now and then creates a genius. 
 
 4 The Past leaves somewhat of its meaning with the soul but nought 
 or Httle, if any, of the incidents and experiences out of which that 
 meaning was wrought. 
 
 s Telepathy is beginning to be quite generally accepted as a fact. 
 
 ^ More finer air. — The air of affinity ; if that sympathy or attrac- 
 tion between sensate or animate matter (as also between inanimate 
 matter — between atoms and molecules) maybe called (or compared 
 to) an air or ether between bodies. 
 
 7 Milk white shells. — The white or gray brain cells are bathed in a 
 sea of blood in the living brain and are descended in peculiar forms 
 and with distinct traits through generations. 
 
 ^ The Present is ever the meaning of the Past. 
 
 19 
 
THE HEINTZEMANN PRESS, BOSTON