Class ^ ^Si£sf22cr 
 
 Book 
 
 JFJ^iTs 
 
 CpIpgiitM" 
 
 jjdd 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
Tales in Metre 
 
 and Other Poems 
 
 By 
 Frederic Crowninshield 
 
 Author of "A Painter's Moods," 
 " Plctoris Garmina," etc. 
 
 New York 
 
 Robert Grier Cooke 
 
 307 Fifth Avenue 
 MCMin 
 
One hundred and fifty copies only have been printed 
 of this edition. , 
 
 LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
 Two Copies Received 
 
 JAN 2 1904 
 
 V Copyright Entry 
 
 ,-r^x^ ■ T- - / 'I a tl 
 CLASS CL xXc. No. 
 
 
 Copyright, 1903, by 
 Frederic Crowninshield 
 
 HILL AND LEONARD 
 NEW YORK CITY, U. S. A 
 
LIST OF CONTENTS. 
 
 TALES IN METRE. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Amateur's Tale i 
 
 The Mild Man's Tale 20 
 
 The Reporter's Tale 24 
 
 The Sage Man's Tale ,[[[[ 25 
 
 The Townsman's Tale 34 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 A "Madonna" Speaks 41 
 
 One Only 
 
 To Berenice .y 
 
 To a Dryad "' ^g 
 
 To a Siren -^ 
 
 A Color-Lesson _ cj 
 
 To a Persian Rose r2 
 
 To Creata -_ 
 
 Entr'Acte ^4 
 
 Antiphonal -g 
 
 The Deliverer— A Dream 60 
 
 An Equivalent— A Chant ' * . 63 
 
 Sistine Chapel gc 
 
 Fi-' :::.':::::::::::..67 
 
 Easter Morning gg 
 
 Veterans y^ 
 
 Retrospective y^ 
 
PAGE 
 
 Invocation to Sleep y'j 
 
 Sad October 79 
 
 National Hysteria 80 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 Due Reward 89 
 
 First Glimpses 89 
 
 Shadeless 90 
 
 A Dialogue 91 
 
 For Arts and Crafts 92 
 
 A Street-Scene 93 
 
 Her Evil Dream 94 
 
 To the Scourging Angel in Raphael's 
 
 "Heliodorus" 94 
 
 At a Banquet 95 
 
 The Waiting Race 95 
 
 A Woman's Song 96 
 
 To Nessuna 97 
 
 Not Too Often, Muse ! 97 
 
 At the Gates of Death 98 
 
 To Longfellow 98 
 
 Panoplied , 99 
 
 Napoleon's End 100 
 
 To Aspirants 100 
 
 O Desire ! ; loi 
 
 Suggested by a Visit to the University of 
 
 Virginia lOi 
 
 Widowed 103 
 
 On Revisiting a Picture-Gallery 104 
 
 In Darkness 104 
 
 Falterings 105 
 
 Relief 106 
 
 Vicariously 106 
 
PAGE 
 
 The Soul's Discernment 107 
 
 To Some Architects and Decorators 108 
 
 Half- Mast 108 
 
 Annually 109 
 
 Tolerance no 
 
 Concrete Dreams in 
 
 Leonardo Da Vinci in 
 
 Self-Respect 114 
 
 Immigration 115 
 
 Heirless 115 
 
 Character 116 
 
 Earthwards 117 
 
 At a Ceremony 117 
 
 Tennyson 118 
 
 On More's "Utopia" 119 
 
TALES IN METRE. 
 
TALES IN METRE. 
 
 THE AMATEUR'S TALE. 
 
 One day when Spring was warm upon the land ; 
 
 When brimming pools gave forth the flute-like song 
 
 Of glad, young frogs ; when tasseled willows swayed 
 
 Like golden filigree against gray hills — 
 
 Not bluish gray, but somewhat quieter, 
 
 And very sombre here and there with pine — 
 
 This greenish gold against the solemn gray 
 
 Making a most distinguished harmony: 
 
 One day, I say, of ever-cherished Spring 
 
 Some years ago — no import hath the date — • 
 
 I met a dreamy man, with all the tools 
 
 That art exacts slung from his lissom torse. 
 
 Now looking up, now down, with arguing eyes 
 
 To judge the pros and cons of fifty bits 
 
 That clamored for his clever rendering. 
 
 He nodded pleasantly to my salute 
 
 As I passed on somewhat reluctantly. 
 
 Since artist-folk I love, and all they love. 
 
 I should have joined their guild had not debarred 
 
 A certain clumsiness of wrist, and lack 
 
 Of native deftness in the touch. For if 
 
 The feeling be not seconded by craft 
 
 Coequal, and commensurate with taste 
 
 'T were wise, I think, to let more manual men 
 
 With subtle sight interpret Nature's forms. 
 
2 TALES IN METRE. 
 
 That night before the log-fire of the Inn, 
 
 Which warmed the tongue to unschemed eloquence, 
 
 We interchanged ideas on art and schools, 
 
 Methods and media — all those cryptic things. 
 
 Trivial to most, but to the men who thumb 
 
 The palette, float a wash, of high delight. 
 
 And so it came about as days wore on 
 
 The confidences on our art gave place 
 
 To views on politics, religion, life, 
 
 And then to full disclosures of the heart. 
 
 Of what I said about prosaic self 
 
 But little matters, save it only served 
 
 To draw from him a far more worthy tale. 
 
 Or rather an environment more charged 
 
 With those conditions that may bring about 
 
 The calms of Cancer, or a hurricane, 
 
 According to some factor unforeseen. 
 
 He said his early life was much alike 
 
 To that of other men who felt impelled 
 
 To try the asperous way to art's hard goal — 
 
 The stinted purse; the parents' doubt; the joys; 
 
 The half-despairs of youth ; a scholarship 
 
 Which had enabled him to see those works 
 
 In foreign lands that hold the standard high. 
 
 Thus far his life was commonplace enough 
 
 And still was commonplace when thereunto 
 
 Was added fact of Love. But yet was such 
 
 His personality, his work so graced 
 
 With individual dawn-break of the soul 
 
 That nothing with him seemed routined or dull, 
 
 Nor counterpart to what another does. 
 
 And thus I knew, untold, that whom he loved 
 
 Was not as other women, howe'er wise 
 
TALES IN METRE. 
 
 Or fair, or good, or charming they might be. 
 (And this was proved by sight in days to come.) 
 
 Some time had passed since they had met and loved 
 
 On his return from European lands. 
 
 But ere his art was formed — a genuine thing — 
 
 Nor having caught the eye of men who know. 
 
 Her people thought it mad for one so fair, 
 
 So marketable, though not rated rich 
 
 In these bewildering days of centred wealth. 
 
 To give herself to one who would but cut 
 
 A dwarfish figure in the moneyed world — 
 
 Of no account — who could not be discerned 
 
 With lenses in the Nation's paradise. 
 
 All this, too, was an everyday affair, 
 
 Such as we read in life, or in romance — 
 
 The hum-drum parent — the exalted child. 
 
 And while she would not wholly disregard 
 
 Her parents' wish, and overworldly ways, 
 
 Her habit being to obedience. 
 
 There came by intuition certain doubts, 
 
 In part confirmed by trials of a friend, 
 
 That artists' love is an inconstant force. 
 
 Swifter and stronger than the mill-race flow, 
 
 But turned to other channels by the need. 
 
 To this great doubt was superadded fear 
 Lest married life with increment of cares — 
 Unmitigate by comfort of large means, 
 With all the acrid makeshifts of the poor, 
 Especially to those who know the sweet. 
 Once having tasted, and whose natures crave 
 The highest that refinement proffers us 
 Of art in every rare and costly phase — 
 
4 TALES IN METRE. 
 
 Would soon erode the constancy of Love. 
 She feared that all this littleness of life, 
 With curtailed will — itself the par of gold — 
 Would counter-check his artist's natural growth, 
 Turning to execration blessed days. 
 And so it was that partly influenced 
 By parents not o'erharsh, in part impelled 
 By her imaginings she passed with them 
 To transatlantic shores ; nor saying "Yea" 
 To him, "I wait," nor yet again a "Nay," 
 But merely passing into alien scenes 
 Without a warning word ; thinking perchance 
 That time, and absence from habitual sight 
 Would cure his love, or bring to such a pitch 
 His passion fired by ecstasy of dreams 
 That all the bulwarks one by one must fall. 
 Perhaps she wished to test self-strength of heart. 
 
 And is it true, O Art, that thou must live 
 
 A celibate like some unhampered tree 
 
 Upon the lonely area of a height 
 
 Where every verdured branchlet, doth receive 
 
 The unimpeded waves of light and air 
 
 Which bring nutrition full and sanity? 
 
 Propinquity to other frondent mates 
 
 Whose shadows fall upon its leafy coat 
 
 Doth quickly turn to sereness stifled limbs. 
 
 Must thou live single then upon thy mount. 
 
 If thou wouldst reach thy fullest emphasis ? 
 
 Must thou live spouseless on thy pinnacle. 
 
 That thou mayst catch the invigorating airs 
 
 Which draw from all the regions of the world, 
 
 And rays which are the sustenance of soul ? 
 
 That thou mayst freely move thine unsapped limbs 
 
TALES IN METRE. 
 
 To fix the beauty of subjected things 
 
 Which from thine aerie meet uncurtained eyes? 
 
 Tell us, O Art austere, if such be true. 
 
 This voiceless slipping into separate life 
 
 Might well have rankled calmer temperaments 
 
 To launch a barbed message in pursuit — 
 
 A piqued renunciation born of wrath. 
 
 But he, though agitate, held firm his faith, 
 
 Not knowing what compulsion might have wrought, 
 
 Nor what free-will. And now there glimmering rose 
 
 Appreciation of his work above 
 
 The murky stretches of indifference, 
 
 As I have seen the green-white light of Dawn 
 
 Rise from behind a mass of shuddering trees 
 
 When chill September ushers forth the day. 
 
 Appreciation, love reciprocate. 
 
 Long fruitful years, what more can mortal ask 
 
 If he be coronate with self-respect? 
 
 Engagements called me from those gentle scenes, 
 
 Where sinuous mists describe the sallowy streams, 
 
 Before the rounded clouds of noon cast shades 
 
 Upon the modest hills ;" or gilded trees 
 
 Their lengths do manifold upon flat meads ; 
 
 Or sunset swirls ornate a clear blue sky 
 
 Like golden scrolls upon a lustrous vase. 
 
 For months I either followed him in print, 
 
 Or heard of him through praiseful words that passed 
 
 'Twixt men who love the higher things in life. 
 
 I read and heard with pride, and often said 
 
 "He is my friend." Then silence deep ensued. 
 
O TALES IN METRE. 
 
 You must have often noticed how it is 
 In those huge aggregations of mankind — 
 The modern city — over-built, and vexed 
 With interest which scrambles for its ends, 
 That one involved in self doth lose all trace 
 Of a good friend, nor hath a thought of him 
 Till some reminder jogs the memory 
 And one exclaims, "Why, where is So and So?" 
 
 The want that comes to man in blooming-tide 
 To cast the staleness of an urban life. 
 The stifling latitudes of steel and stone. 
 To consort with his prime environments — 
 The smokeless heavens and unencumbered earth — 
 Compelled my movements to those wonted lands 
 Of which the beauty never lacks to lure. 
 
 Beneath the blowing trees that rank themselves 
 Along wide ways, once more I met my friend, 
 Not as of yore, but bearing subtle sign 
 Of recent pain, unobvious saving when 
 He spoke or laughed more sweetly than of old — 
 A sweetness only generate of grief. 
 He gave his heart with willing openness. 
 "When last I saw you I was winning way 
 To almost sure success, which meant for me 
 Potential happiness — so then I thought — 
 The acquisition of what most I love. 
 But as the days innumerous wore on 
 Maintaining utter silence from abroad, 
 Unnumbered, too, became my jealous doubts, 
 Whose slow abrasion wore to shreds my hopes 
 And brought my system to so ripe a state 
 Of receptivity, that any germ 
 
TALES IN METRE. 
 
 Might rest in it. A vicious fellow called 
 A 'typhoid' found congenial soil and throve." 
 
 With pride of convalescence he at length * 
 
 Told of his illness and recall to life; 
 
 How he was prostrate in a neighboring town 
 
 Where he had gone to sketch, and there had lain, 
 
 And thrashed, and raved, and moaned, almost alone, 
 
 Save for the visitings most opportune 
 
 Of the good soul who lodged and boarded him. 
 
 No sick-room trappings were there, nor relays 
 
 Of white-capped nurses, no, nor parliament 
 
 Of doctors, nor enquiring stream of folk 
 
 In well-appointed equipage to make 
 
 Enquiries, and to leave the ordained card : 
 
 Naught but the parish doctor and the eye 
 
 All vigilant of woman's tenderness. 
 
 Then breaking continuity of thought, 
 
 After the manner of impulsive minds, 
 
 And in a half-regretful muse he said 
 
 " 'T is true I might have written overseas, 
 
 O'er e'en poHced her ways, had she refused 
 
 To answer urgent pleas : but chivalry 
 
 Would scorn to use such means ; and who would care 
 
 To gain a heart through importunity. 
 
 Or lower a single bar that idols raise?" 
 
 "The fever left me in a mood so pale, 
 
 So void of all initiatory blood, 
 
 That I have wandered will-less through the weeks 
 
 Deep-draughting Nature passively — a drone. 
 
 But yesterday upon my aimless path, 
 
 Absorbed in unintentioned thought, with eyes 
 
 Which kept a languid company with feet 
 
8 TALES IN METRE. 
 
 On posied ground, I raised my lids and saw 
 An alternating sky of tumorous clouds • 
 With spaces blue as a fair Saxon's eye; 
 And underneath a hill in vigorous shade, 
 Deep-toned with unimaginable greens. 
 Such as a painter in hot mood would spread 
 With fullest brush. Ah, how my soul upleaped 
 To the old clarion-call of Nature's charm; 
 And how I yearned for instantaneous tools 
 To publish to the world that unwrought page ! 
 Thereat I knew that to the sacred cult 
 I was no more apostate — but its priest. 
 "Be patient," so my honest doctor says ; 
 "Await awhile, and if by chance you have 
 An income adequate, or likelier still 
 Some rich disciple, friend, or amateur 
 Who holds belief in you to such extent 
 That he will send you over yonder sea, 
 Then take a trip to Europe and combine 
 Work with your pleasure — ^iDUt be sure to play." 
 
 When he had closed this personal history 
 
 We talked as usual of the ageless themes ; 
 
 Then home and supped. But on the coming morn, 
 
 Making an easy-found excuse, I drove 
 
 Into the town where he lay ill, and called 
 
 Upon his doctor; for his look and way 
 
 Caused some anxiety, which was confirmed 
 
 By this practitioner, who plied his craft 
 
 Where phthisis yearly signs herself in mounds. 
 
 "It seems imperative to me," he said, 
 
 "That there should be a fundamental change. 
 
 Expatiation into other fields ; 
 
 Communion with man's utmost works of art; 
 
TALES IN METRE. 
 
 And inhalation of another air 
 May yet do much and even cure. The mind 
 Must first be eased ; for I have cause to think 
 From feverous ravings that 'tis very ill." 
 
 In pondering o'er this village Galen's words — 
 As undebatable as motions made 
 By sage men "to adjourn" when parliaments 
 Are vexed by motions hazardous — the thought 
 Dawned on me, being somewhat overtense 
 From straining efforts to advance a Cause, 
 That I would take a rest across the seas, 
 And my good friend should bear me company. 
 Both giving of our stores in different wise, 
 Each to the other full equivalent. 
 
 'Twas pleasant after long abstemious years 
 
 To catch the nigh-obliterated sight 
 
 Of ochrous cliffs, and hear the stranger tongue, 
 
 And sweep through Norman wolds, to greet the lights 
 
 That make the boulevards perpetual fete. 
 
 And then through perforated crags to greet 
 
 The fumous olive, and the cypress stern. 
 
 Slowly we worked along the villaed slopes 
 
 Thrice cultivate — with orchard, vine, and grain — 
 
 Of marvelous, sea-sundering Apennine, 
 
 Whose crests engrail the roseate Latin sky. 
 
 Until we came to where the crescent gulf — 
 
 Purple, and blue, and smalt, and emerald green, . 
 
 Weaves texture fit to mate an Eastern web. 
 
 Wishing to prove a thesis long maintained 
 By evidence obtainable alone 
 Among the archives of the galleries, 
 
10 TALES IN METRE. 
 
 I voted for a long museum-day. 
 
 But he willed otherwise, intent to see 
 
 The excavated town that underlies 
 
 The graceful, gradually lifting cone. 
 
 Each took his separate way till day declined 
 
 To dusk; and then the casual words of men 
 
 Who meet again when personal work is done. 
 
 However, something in his voice betrayed 
 
 A curbed emotion, causing me to look 
 
 Into a dilate eye and vivid cheek. 
 
 "What now," my boy, "out with it, tell me all," 
 
 I said, colloquially — in jesting tone. 
 
 Trying to veil my own disquietude. 
 
 "Why certainly," said he with eagerness, 
 
 "I should have told without the questioning." 
 
 Thereon he rushed into the happenings 
 
 Of his white day — which I, of course, curtail. 
 
 "Pompeii, you must know, has always been 
 
 My paradise — bare as it is, and dead. 
 
 Belying such a name. When I was young 
 
 I worked there through a summer's glowing heat. 
 
 Catching the slanting sunbeams of the morn 
 
 O'er painted myths ; and at directer noon 
 
 Traced the transparent shades illuminate 
 
 By high reflected light : again at eve. 
 
 Half fearful, caught the flaming rays that fell 
 
 Upon the ruined walls above the gloom 
 
 Of wreck, while from the o'erpending crater's mouth 
 
 Rolled convolutions dark of ominous smoke. 
 
 Since then the place has had a charm for me, 
 
 And with a certain quiet ecstasy 
 
 That comes to one from hallowed scenes reviewed, 
 
 I sauntered through the forum girt with shrines ; 
 
 Beneath brick arches now undecorate 
 
TALES IN METRE. II 
 
 With marbles, or quadrigas all agleam; 
 
 Along the broad-stoned pavements of the ways 
 
 Rutted by chariots of a race that passed 
 
 From daylight into instantaneous gloom 
 
 Which rushed upon it from the vine-clad heights. 
 
 I halted at the entrance to a house 
 
 That had been excavate more recently, 
 
 While I had been sojourning in the North; 
 
 Then passing through a vestibule undoored, 
 
 And o'er a tesselated pavement's fret, 
 
 And making towards a lively frescoed wall — 
 
 Beyond some fluted, gay, unlinteled shafts — 
 
 Whereon a painter of an average turn 
 
 Had pictured Orpheus wiling ferine clans 
 
 With lyre undenied — Oh there — O God ! 
 
 I saw my very Heart; then turned away 
 
 To look again, as beasts turn from their prey 
 
 Assured to iterate their capture's bliss. 
 
 She, too, beheld, and faced me statue-like 
 
 From stark surprise — a carven queen of Love. 
 
 So stately was she that her glorious eye 
 
 Met mine responsive in a level gaze. 
 
 Then those who were about her understood. 
 
 Passing beyond, nor saw the greeting sweet 
 
 Vouchsafed to those alone who through long days 
 
 Have suffered to the verge of sanity. 
 
 Nor yet expressed their pain. And through glad tears, 
 
 Glad smiles, the ravishment that shows itself, 
 
 Not in exaggerated ways or words. 
 
 But quietly with a caressing hand, 
 
 Or lip that softly sweeps a drooping lid 
 
 Or mobile dimples on a joyous cheek, 
 
 The sum of all our pain was simply told. 
 
 You have imagination, friend — your hand." 
 
12 TALES IN METRE. 
 
 Then day succeeded day with ebb and flow- 
 As gentle as the azure gulf's mild tide. 
 Nor were her worthy parents hostile now, 
 Since clear they saw that her vitality 
 Was incident to preference gratified. 
 Who may describe those scenes which in themselves 
 Are love, when persons beautiful as they 
 Make harmonies in every act and pose — 
 Consorting sweetly with the golden cliffs 
 From which the scent of bridal blossom draws, 
 And at whose base the song of seamen wafts 
 To throb of mandoline — or making rhyme 
 With broad-ceiled, red-armed pines which aptly frame 
 A far horizon, broke by that lone isle 
 Buoyed on languorous waves, where grottoes blue 
 Reverb the surging seas which stray therein. 
 
 Homeward we turned from what now seems to me 
 
 A minnesinger's theme materialized — 
 
 The fair concretion of the fancy's maze — 
 
 The visual likeness of an artist's view 
 
 Into the realms of amaranth. To touch 
 
 The turbulence of a demented town 
 
 Chaotic in its manifold caprice, 
 
 Unbeautiful in unrelated parts. 
 
 Tortured by every clamoring device 
 
 To make man purchase what he does not want. 
 
 Shocks at the first — after a desert voyage 
 
 O'er the great fluent sea where no man builds — 
 
 But soon becomes a stimulus to one 
 
 Who sees therein the unremitting, though 
 
 Uncultured life — aye, young and yearning life — 
 
 Who hails its great potentialities. 
 
 Yea, even those that claim the calmer mood. 
 
TALES IN METRE. 13 
 
 Nor was the faith of my good artist friend 
 
 Misplaced. For very soon there came to him 
 
 What most men of imagination crave, 
 
 An order to adorn a noble wall 
 
 With paintings of a monumental mien. 
 
 O wondrous joy of a high-mettled task 
 
 To one of youth, and practice adequate ! 
 
 "O joy," cried he; and then judicially 
 
 He scaled his utmost strength against the toil. 
 
 He knew as those about him could not know 
 
 Its limitation — no, not even she 
 
 To whom his heart was as the open sky — 
 
 No, none, unless perhaps some unknown soul 
 
 Who had passed years in suffering suppressed, 
 
 Meeting his dues in unsuspected pain, 
 
 Living the lie in order not to vex. 
 
 He knew that it was life against non-life 
 
 With chances even, as a flipped-up coin's. 
 
 "Oh, but the work were worth the risk ! To die 
 
 For paltry pleasure, as so many do. 
 
 Were one thing — aye, but this ? The dark-green bays 
 
 For him who does it ; and for those who gaze 
 
 An exaltation ! Can there be a doubt ?" 
 
 So wrestled he with self before he brought 
 
 The verdict in, and gave it to his world. 
 
 Then she to celebrate his fortune-fair. 
 
 And advertise to a few chosen friends 
 
 Her troth, prepared a loving festival 
 
 Within her modest home which bowered lay 
 
 In that lush country dear to every guest. 
 
 It was the culmination of the year, 
 
 When apples stand knee-deep in aureate grain, 
 
14 TALES IN METRE. 
 
 When slopes are checkered with a mellow tilth, 
 
 And red-topped grasses praise the sun in song. 
 
 The smallest detail of that gathering 
 
 She wrought out with a sure instinctiveness. 
 
 Nor could the searchings of a captious taste 
 
 Find fault therewith, so flawless was it all. 
 
 She spread the table with the sparkling cloth 
 
 Drawn into lace-work by deft convent hands — 
 
 For which there is no time twixt here and there — 
 
 And in the centre placed the argent bowl 
 
 That held the pastor's consecrating palms 
 
 When unto each of all her nearest kin 
 
 He gave the name. And this with truest eye 
 
 She filled with mass of cornflowers purplish-blue 
 
 That trembled on the ground of orange walls 
 
 For mere harmonious joy. And then she wrote 
 
 With petals of the same upon the cloth 
 
 The name of each good guest, a trusty friend. 
 
 When this was well complete she touched with flame 
 
 The candelabra twain wrought in the mould 
 
 Of those that Roman carved upon the arch 
 
 Which bears the Emperor's name who crushed the Jews, 
 
 And for his triumph fouled their altar's garb. 
 
 The feast — if gathering so limited 
 
 May thus be called — was one of those too few 
 
 Remembered for its individual charm, 
 
 Its dissimilitude to banquets dull 
 
 Which wealthy folk repeat in endless chain, 
 
 Recorded only by identity — 
 
 A feast of sympathy twixt mind and mind, 
 
 A feast of harmony in color, form, 
 
 And combination of each decorate dish 
 
 That pleasured both the palate and the eye — 
 
TALES IN METRE. 15 
 
 A feast that filled the spirit satisfied 
 
 As one walked homeward 'neath the tepid stars. 
 
 I watched the progress of his work as though 
 
 It were my very own — the first rough sketch 
 
 Flung on the canvas with a fire of brain 
 
 Full to the brim, where only doubt was choice — 
 
 Then needful drawings quickly made from life, 
 
 (Such as we see by great men in the Louvre) 
 
 The essence of the final masterpiece, 
 
 Which give it Life and Truth and Sanity, 
 
 However purged they be of useless chaff 
 
 By siftings through a clarifying mind. 
 
 These studies made with conscience yet with speed, 
 
 As prefatory work, the canvas huge 
 
 Was stretched, and soon thereon was designate 
 
 A semblance of the thing about to be. 
 
 Almost from day to day I called to note 
 
 The progress made ; he merely taking heed 
 
 With friendly smile or word from his high perch 
 
 Upon the stage, or stretched along the floor 
 
 With craning neck, clad in a workman's garb, 
 
 And smeared as any journeyman might be. 
 
 The warm days wore : but when the Autumn came, 
 And trees cast shadows white confined with gold. 
 As o'er the hills the Sun upheaved his disk, 
 I felt that something else did seem to fall 
 Beside the Maples' splendor and the Oaks' : 
 I seemed to see the waning of a Life 
 Splendent with all the tints of Genius' show. 
 Yet to convince myself I thought to ask; 
 Since oft the flesh doth droop when still the soul 
 Holds high. Nor was I sure but it might be 
 The passing evidence of overwork. 
 
l6 TALES IN METRE. 
 
 His answer came with some reluctancy, 
 
 "Not you the first ; for one who has the right 
 
 To ask has exercised that right. To her 
 
 I could not speak as I now speak to you; 
 
 For Love and Pity raised the vetoing hand. 
 
 Withal, man has not gift of prophecy, 
 
 And symptoms often point to varying cause. 
 
 But yet I feel that this frail life of mine 
 
 May cease before yon canvas shall receive 
 
 My manual sign. 'The Doctor,' you may ask, 
 
 'What is his finding?' In a general way 
 
 I know his diagnosis of the case. 
 
 And what would be his dutiful advice. 
 
 Which while there is a hope I cannot take. 
 
 Who but the loitering rich can take a cure? 
 
 'Tis easy thing to say 'lay by your tools. 
 
 And rest awhile, change scene, amuse yourself — 
 
 As though amusement could like fruit be culled 
 
 From proffering boughs to one whose pleasure sole 
 
 Is practice of his art, and swift desire 
 
 To be incorporate with whom he loves." 
 
 "Oh this misquoted artist life of ours. 
 
 With what fatuity e'en laymen wise 
 
 Discourse of it! A play perennial 
 
 It seems to them. To us who know too well 
 
 Its agonies ; have seen the misery 
 
 To which its votaries who claim success 
 
 Are oft reduced — renunciations hard, 
 
 When comrades of the mart are garnering sweets — 
 
 The fading into night and nothingness, 
 
 Like fair Eurydice, of our fair bride. 
 
 Our high Ideal — to us 'tis other thing. 
 
 And what of those poor craftsmen whose harsh fate 
 
TALES IN METRE. 17 
 
 It is ne'er to attract the eye of man, 
 
 The only guerdon dear to conscience-art? 
 
 What of their lives so often terminate 
 
 Or by self-act, or lingering disease; 
 
 Or lived aloof in long embitterment ? 
 
 God help them, for they only strive to please. 
 
 Oh this sad artist-life ! with all its grief 
 
 We love it well, e'en as a mother loves 
 
 Her cripple, for its very crippled state 
 
 Who in return lights its poor, pallid face — 
 
 Translucent as the Parian stone fresh-carved — 
 
 With smiles sublimed by pain, while she who guards 
 
 Is ecstasied ! O Art, before I go, 
 
 I would give evidence infallible 
 
 Of this my faculty by some great work 
 
 Both long and high sustained So may it be; 
 
 I take my chance, as all men must who win." 
 
 Cloud follows cloud upon an azure field, 
 
 And shades chase shades upon a ground of green ; 
 
 The matin sun tints dew-drops on the lawns ; 
 
 His setting rays incrust the world with gold : 
 
 Leaves fleet from tender to the deepest vert. 
 
 Then hurry on to a vermilioned grave. 
 
 The plow-built ridges lustre in the light, 
 
 And soon are garbed with grain, which, ere we know 
 
 Is garnered by the laborer's gathering arms. 
 
 Great Nature shifts the while we come and go 
 
 In zeal about nonentities, and yet 
 
 Makes impress small on our self-centred gaze. 
 
 Aye, even friends find peace in lasting rest, 
 
 Yet leave no cicatrix upon the heart. 
 
 But sometimes it doth happen that a Life — 
 
l8 TALES IN METRE. 
 
 Which is to us as iridescent rain 
 
 To fevered flowers, or radiance of the sun 
 
 To prostrate corn down-beaten by full floods — 
 
 Which is our being's happy complement, 
 
 Making our needs an insignificance — 
 
 Is haled away by Death insensible, 
 
 Searing the soul with fiery memories. 
 
 Leaving its sign inburnt on every scene. 
 
 Such was thy Life to me, good Friend ; and it 
 
 Has passed. Last evening at the hush of toil 
 
 I heard the knolling of the bell, each stroke 
 
 A year — the requiem to thy gallant course 
 
 O'er perilous ways to goal of wife and crown ; 
 
 To all our cares and barren offices; 
 
 To certitude of what thou wouldst have been. 
 
 That night I slept as only people may 
 
 Who have strove long in some oblivious fight 
 
 Unfed, unrested, nerve-upheld alone. 
 
 When I awoke the frosty ground glared from 
 
 A sun well overhead. In sombreness 
 
 I rose and dressed, then after breaking fast 
 
 My steps instinctive took the usual road. 
 
 The naked trees did seem to say to me 
 
 "Thy hfe is naked, too;" the ice-coped pools 
 
 To call "Thy blood is frozen ;" and the earth 
 
 To cry "Hard also is thy snow-bound heart." 
 
 Yes, hard it was. I oped the studio door 
 
 And entered. All his implements lay there 
 
 As he had posed them when the daylight dimmed 
 
 On that his last, laborious, fruitful day — 
 
 A sad confusion consecrate. I turned. 
 
 Raising my lingering, dreading eyes to where 
 
 Upon the wall, its promise half-performed 
 
TALES IN METRE. 19 
 
 Hung the great canvas that his life-blood spent. 
 I moved away soul-sick. Among the things 
 Which serviced him there lay a laurel-branch, 
 Berryless and brown. With reverence 
 I placed it at the bourgeoning picture's base, 
 A wilted emblem of a withered life. 
 
 Then I perceived I was not there alone : 
 For in the twilight of the spacious room, 
 Beyond the hueless stream of cold, north light. 
 Dark-draped as mantled Night, with face as pale 
 As intervening snows between swart pines 
 And motionless to her full, noble height, 
 Stood one who claimed in Death priority. 
 I knew my place ; and passed into the day. 
 
20 TALES IN METRE. 
 
 THE MILD MAN'S TALE. 
 
 We three were seated breaking modest bread, 
 In a plain hostel near a flume of trade 
 Through which the flood of life pours constantly. 
 And where the night alone is recognized 
 By quality of light, and towards the break 
 Of day by rumbling in a less degree. 
 The smallest of our smallish company, 
 Low-voiced, soft-mannered, was in early life 
 Bred in a land where 'twas the children's use 
 To play with deadly weapons and excel 
 Therein, as our own children would excel 
 In nursery games that call for nicety 
 Of touch, and quickness of a steady eye. 
 And this one merely trifling with his fare 
 Spoke mildly, slowly thus, 
 
 "You needs must know 
 That in my country certain mortal feuds 
 Exist 'twixt kin and neighboring alien kin, 
 Oft heirlooms from some murdered ancestor 
 To an avenging, murderous progeny. 
 And though this folk are what the world would call 
 A race of outlaws, worthy gallows-birds, 
 Still do they worship their dear Master Christ. 
 Yea, though they hear the word that one must be 
 Like to a guileless child if he would face 
 His Lord in heaven, glorioled with light, 
 
TALES IN METRE. 21 
 
 And walk celestial fields that bourgeon aye 
 
 With tender blades and petal-perfect flowers 
 
 That know not winds, and wander hand in hand 
 
 With angels whom he knew on earth and loved; 
 
 (Just as we see them in a Paradise 
 
 Of sweet Beato) though they know all this, 
 
 Yet to the little ones of their own loins 
 
 They give grim arms to take a brother-life. 
 
 Because, they say, no feud inherited 
 
 Doth recognize nor age, nor lesser height. 
 
 Nor strength of limb as in the knightlier days, 
 
 When these things told. For, after all they add 
 
 The eye of tender age is quick to sight. 
 
 And hand of tender age is quick to flash 
 
 A death-bolt as a man's. Why question then?" 
 
 And here he paused awhile, and sipped his ale; 
 Then blandly added : *T myself, you know, 
 Am somewhat expert with the finger- joint 
 And eye, as almost from my infancy 
 I toyed with lead, though my vocation now 
 Turns finger-joint and eye to gentler use." 
 Again he sipped, and then again renewed: 
 "Excuse these lengthy prefatory words 
 Yet most essential to illuminate 
 The tale. 
 
 Not long since in a largish town — 
 Mere pigmy to this huge metropolis, 
 But large for that more sparsely settled land — 
 I made some purchases in a bazar 
 Where every freakish yearning of the flesh 
 Is gratified. A clerk who in all zeal 
 With agile yard-stick scored a fabric's length. 
 And with his pencil summed, I recognized 
 
22 ■ TALES IN METRE. 
 
 For one who in his early fateful life 
 
 Had lived in my own country, where I lodged 
 
 Until was born the restlessness to roam. 
 
 He with a brother older than himself 
 
 Had from his forebears as inheritance 
 
 A feud, which had dispeopled all his race 
 
 Save these two boys, scarce making by the sum 
 
 Of both their scanty years a new-fledged man. 
 
 One morning playing as the wont of boys 
 
 Upon the road that passes by the school — 
 
 More often traversed doubtless than desire 
 
 Would prompt — a horseman they espied who came 
 
 Adown the pike, and saw the sun's rays glint 
 
 Along a metaled bar, as in mid year 
 
 The burnished insects gleam on bosk}-^ shades. 
 
 Themselves in light. This armed horseman was 
 
 The last remaining scion of his clan — 
 
 All slain by kindred of the brothers twain — 
 
 Such is the harvest of an heirloomed broil ! 
 
 At once the keen-eyed three knew each and all. 
 
 And each and all expectant stood alert — 
 
 Alert as only those who do not fear — 
 
 Each knowing he must deal the timelier blow, 
 
 Or take it. Yet there was an unseen fourth. 
 
 Death the decreed — for these chance meetings mean 
 
 No gala tilt, or surface-pricking thrust 
 
 Which modern honor calls for in some spot 
 
 Just off the highways at the dawn of day. 
 
 With witnesses authentic to subscribe 
 
 The affair 'correct' according to the 'code.' 
 
 Death was the witness here to testify 
 
 And his sign manual an oozing corse 
 
 As pallid as the dust in which it lay. 
 
 The glint upon the horseman's polished bar 
 
TALES IN METRE. 2$ 
 
 Flashed like a leonid through autumn skies, 
 And a quick eye surveyed its gleaming length, 
 And a fast finger flicked a thing of steel — 
 Then dropped a boy, the elder of the twain — 
 Clutching in mortal throes a shorter bar. 
 Sparkling like silver in the glancing light, 
 Clutching with force of Death its instrument — 
 Another flick and then another falls. 
 The younger — he unarmed — ^yet sound enough 
 Swiftly to seize the elder's pulseless wrist, 
 And raise the whitening hand that fiercely clutched 
 Its weapon, and to wing the lead a-home 
 To its true-purposed goal — a living heart ! 
 
 " 'T was somewhat strange," remarked the gentle man, 
 
 Half shamefaced at his unwilled eloquence, 
 
 And use of somewhat highly-colored phrase, 
 
 "To meet thig youngster, grown a man, behind 
 
 A counter selling trifling fineries. 
 
 And furbelows and fuss, and all the gauds 
 
 A harmless vanity demands. But pray 
 
 You understand, good friends, my task is not 
 
 To moralize, but merely to record 
 
 With a recorder's love of evidence. 
 
 That may prove useful as a document 
 
 In days to come when none of us are here." 
 
24 TALES IN METRE. 
 
 THE REPORTER'S TALE. 
 
 A door burst open, and a sight to draw 
 
 The shrieks from unexpectant throats! The lips 
 
 Were scorched and bHstered by the searing drug 
 
 That costs but little — friend to all that ail — 
 
 That burns great burdens to a meagre ash. 
 
 And near the comely form upon the bed 
 
 A note addressed "To whom it may concern" 
 
 (As though it could the all-preoccupied!) 
 
 "I'm simply tired of this familiar farce, 
 
 And that is all. There is no laugh in it 
 
 For me, nor yet the luxury of tears — 
 
 Naught but Monotony's unbroken length — 
 
 No music save the striking of the hours. 
 
 Think not I'm anguished by some love affair, 
 
 And burn a life out for a careless heart: 
 
 Think not I'm anguished by some love affair, 
 
 For whom I would out-let a drop of blood, 
 
 Or yield an atom's joy were it to give. 
 
 — I am so weary — weary of it all — 
 
 Year after year the same poor farded farce, 
 
 Till it has come to be unbearable. 
 
 No one will care unless it be some poet 
 
 Who has a tender heart, and hears the wail 
 
 From out the world, and in his sweeter way 
 
 Doth try to heal the afflicted with his song. 
 
 Good-bye" And so a gentle woman passed 
 
 Unfriended to an uncompanioned grave. 
 
TALES IN METRE. 25 
 
 THE SAGE MAN'S TALE. 
 
 "Great Nature it would seem hath stark contempt 
 
 For all man's pettifogging arguments, 
 
 For all his futile checks and trumped-up laws 
 
 To curb the stronger workings of her ways. 
 
 So it would seem, at least, if one may judge 
 
 From those sad tragedies we often see 
 
 Enacted in the circuit of our lives, 
 
 Or read of in the bustling, daily prints 
 
 That chronicle the destinies of hearts 
 
 In the great orbit of the wider world. 
 
 For certain is it she doth fateful bring 
 
 Like unto like regardless of the voice 
 
 That cries 'Ye are not like'— a puny cry, 
 
 Mere birdling's cheep, out-thundered by the crash 
 
 From clouds assertive of the higher law. 
 
 By way of proem, so the sage man spake— 
 Sage in the arbitrament of issues fine 
 That oft involve by injudicious choice 
 Two noble hearts in endless Misery's maze. 
 Then with the gentle speech of suffering 
 (For pain with some doth mitigate the voice) 
 And look aloof into the days no more 
 Perchance, or into asphodelean realms 
 Which know no sequent days, he told this tale. 
 
26 TALES IN METRE. 
 
 "They met — the pair — upon an alien land, 
 
 A land that holds what all the cultured world 
 
 Most estimates. Why should I name it then, 
 
 Or even call it 'alien' since we know 
 
 Its charms, its histories and its precious troves. 
 
 As we well know our hearth-stones arid opr Lars? 
 
 Above, the skies were of a blue as deep 
 
 As I have seen upon a garnished bowl 
 
 From Gubbio, by master Giorgio glazed: 
 
 And up there stood into it stately domes, 
 
 And string-coursed towers, and fluted monoliths 
 
 Mellowed by tim.e with tawny, sun-burnt tints — 
 
 Ochres and reddish earths that raised the blue 
 
 Even to higher pitch. And there were frets 
 
 Of floriate forms upon the ruined walls. 
 
 And brilliant figures on vermilioned grounds. 
 
 Though centuries old ; while dark green ilexes 
 
 With gnarled boles gave sweet luxurious shade — 
 
 For it was spring-tide in that lovely land. 
 
 Love, thy land ! Who can deny thee there ? 
 Oh not the twain whose tale I weave you now ! 
 
 "Their names I publish not, since these betray. 
 Give unto them whatever names you will; 
 
 1 merely speak of them as 'he' and 'she'; 
 'T were safer so ; indefinites suffice. 
 
 "Beneath her youth's irradiating flesh 
 
 There coursed the thinnest strain of Afric blood. 
 
 That showed no more than a mere thread of gray 
 
 On Parian whiteness — which does add thereto. 
 
 And this avowed itself in fuller lips 
 
 Rich in implied responsiveness to love, 
 
 And darker, ampler eyes 'neath firmer browns — 
 
TALES IN METRE. 27 
 
 Clear eyes thick-shaded by the margining lash, 
 As a deep mountain-tarn is fringed about, 
 And shadowed by the dusky, beetling pines — 
 And hair that rippled not in little waves. 
 The crisp companions of a summer breeze, 
 But rather heaved like to the ocean's swell 
 After a mighty storm has passed to peace. 
 Her mind had all the keenness of the North 
 Withal was softened by her Southern heart. 
 
 "And he all blond : for his Norse blood had flowed 
 For aeons o'er the sombre holts of spruce, 
 As glaciers pale for centuries have flowed 
 Between the deep-green, solemn mountain walls. 
 But this before his kinsfolk coursed the seas 
 To settle in a far-off temperate land 
 Where fibrous cotton blanches in the fields — 
 A land where tinct of blood is all in all, 
 The tearless headsman of a legal love, 
 That would its natural climax consummate 
 Between a hapless pair of differing race; 
 Between the hapless pair of whom I speak. 
 
 "Such is the charm of this mild wooing air 
 
 Which landwards draws from off the Tyrrhene seas, 
 
 That it doth shroud with opal bitter facts. 
 
 And masks man's stern decretals with a smile. 
 
 Small wonder was it that their native land 
 
 With its concretest laws seemed merest film — 
 
 Too immaterial then to give concern. 
 
 Into each other's echoing eyes they gazed: 
 
 Nor was there needed ardent utterance, 
 
 Nor syllabled avowal — no T love'; 
 
 For that was blazoned on the wider span 
 
28 TALES IN METRE. 
 
 Of quickened orbs, and by their greater gleam, 
 
 And by white smiles surcharged with odorous thoughts 
 
 Which rapturous flowed through happy posied tracts 
 
 To an infinitude of love complete. 
 
 As a clear-dimpled, June-tide stream devolves 
 
 Through meadows glazed with vari-colored hues 
 
 Down to the vast expanse of final sea. 
 
 Then for a while with the soft whir of hearts 
 
 Half-dazed, they hid among the flowers of love 
 
 As half-drunk bees hide in the petaled sw:irls 
 
 Of some huge peony exceeding sweet. 
 
 Freaked with incarnadine — a fateful sign. 
 
 And wondrous white, but at its very core 
 
 "Perpetual exaltation cannot be 
 
 Until, as hymnists sing, we stand and harp 
 
 For aye before the throne in ecstasy. 
 
 But here below our poor inflated hearts. 
 
 Voided of that afflatus which sustains, 
 
 Drop for a while at least — and ofttimes long — 
 
 Like rain from out an overswollen cloud 
 
 To dull prosaic earth; from thence perchance 
 
 To reascend and build another cloud. 
 
 Which launches out upon the vacant blue. 
 
 Thus in a moment of a saner mood. 
 
 There came to her the view of future years, 
 
 Clear as Soracte when the ijprth winds blow — 
 
 A vision true or false I cannot say. 
 
 But clear to her, and her fixed guiding star 
 
 When all about were labyrinthine ways. 
 
 These coming years were muffled in their tears. 
 
 Pacing as slowly as those August mists 
 
 That sag upon an airless, ocean shore; 
 
 And e'en the swifter-footed days and hours 
 
TALES IN METRE. 29 
 
 Moved irksomely as though they were in pain; 
 And every minute seemed drawn out with dole 
 As martyred men we hear of on the rack. 
 Perhaps he saw the future, too, as she, 
 Yet would not make thereof acknowledgment. 
 Perhaps he may have truer vision seen — 
 The nearing years haloed with happiness, 
 And garlanded with flowers beloved of Love; 
 And all the golden-girdled maids of Time 
 Moving harmonious, like the Muses rapt, 
 To soft, abiding measures of the lyre. 
 Just as the ancient masters pictured them. 
 Roving in rhythm o'er blest Parnassus' heights. 
 
 "She, fearing he would smother his mistrusts^ 
 Did he possess them — for most loath are men 
 To rupture faith once given, unless released 
 With cheerfulness ; or from a covenant 
 Unspoken to be foremost to withdraw — 
 She, fearing this, took counsel with herself 
 In those long moments left by busy Love, 
 Setting the weight of a curtailed career. 
 That might be his were she his lawful mate, 
 Against the equal weight of her reft heart. 
 Then woman-wise into the painful scale 
 She flung the measure of her sacrifice. 
 And saw the other slowly swing aloft. 
 
 "Whenever Nature would her changes work. 
 She makes some sign to those who understand. 
 Incessantly alert to spell her moods. 
 Remotest cloud-swirls on the utmost skies 
 Announce a storm to rustics weather-versed ; 
 The movements of the birds to those who know ; 
 The falling of the glass to those at sea 
 
30 TALES IN METRE. 
 
 Who navigate, although the sun debars 
 The thinnest rack-film from his skyey realms, 
 And multiplies himself on glossy waves. 
 So she her purpose omened in a guise 
 (Although her brow was clear of obvious cloud), 
 Which he as one adroit in lovers' lore 
 Read easily. And when at length she spoke. 
 Forcing the predetermined words, she spoke 
 To one not unprepared — yet not resigned. 
 
 " 'Well know I that thou wholly lovest me. 
 And well thou knowest I am wholly thine; 
 Nor will the palest shadow of desire 
 For aught but thee e'er gloom my mortal path 
 Illumined by the glow of memory. 
 I crave no lesser thing once held the great. 
 All this thou knowest, Love, but yet — but yet 
 I dread the shrinking of this greatest thing, 
 As one doth dread the shrinkage of the pools 
 In times of drought with no word in the skies 
 To raise the prostrate hope for clement rain — 
 Patience, my Love, kiss not my speech away; 
 Since loving thee so well — much more, indeed, 
 Than thou dost love thyself — I know in full 
 The structure of thy heart, as thou dost not. 
 When the sure years wear on there comes to man, 
 Besides the love of wife and child and home. 
 The love of other things ; and first of Fame — 
 The steadiest flame of all the mortal fires ; 
 Of friends coeval with his blossom-time; 
 Of clan, and the dear land that gave him birth — 
 The mountains shepherding the fleecy clouds. 
 Or the long beaches tending flocks of foam. 
 Hold me, dear Love, but with a tenderness 
 
TALES IN METRE. 3 1 
 
 That I may free my mind ; and softly stroke 
 My hair with thy strong hands that I may speak 
 Sane, rational words, withal so comfortless. 
 Thus when in later life there comes to thee 
 This fame-desire, predestinate to one 
 Caparisoned as thou, and the proud wish 
 To move among thy kin and old-time friends 
 A man to be revered — aye, and to stand 
 If needs be in the council-halls of State 
 Their apt protagonist, and thine own halls 
 To open in a hospitable mode 
 That would become thy popularity. 
 And amplify thy goodly, crescent-fame; 
 Ah, then the tiny drop of sable blood, 
 That flows beneath my woman's fairest flesh. 
 Will swell into a black, ill-omened sea 
 Engulfing thy poor bark inadequate, 
 Gay-pennoned in its jaunty, hopeful cruise 
 To shores — the bournes of all ambitious men. 
 Else it must timber-rot in outland ports. 
 Where no one recks its pennant weather-bound. 
 Dear Heart, good-bye, I cannot compass more. 
 Though firm, I boast not of my purpose-strength, 
 And fear to test it 'gainst thy speech and will.' 
 
 "Awhile he stood unmoved as one perplexed 
 
 For choice of action where two ways invite. 
 
 Then as a reaper gathers trembling grain 
 
 With a wide sweep, he caught her pliant form 
 
 Holding it hard — feeling the mutual throb. 
 
 Anon he took her fond, permissive face 
 
 In hands that slacked their zeal for fear to pain; 
 
 Then wreathed his soothing fingers through the mesh 
 
 Of fragrant hair, and kissed consenting lipa 
 
32 TALES IN METRE. 
 
 Relaxed for love, and held her lingeringly 
 After his flush of passion was forespent. 
 As great waves linger on a sloping strand 
 After their plunge, before they draw again 
 Into the deep — and then he bade adieu ; 
 Though not forever as he fondly hoped, 
 Thinking her harsh intention would abate. 
 Or he might chance a meeting in near days. 
 And break her purpose with o'ermastering words. 
 But she upon the twilight of the dawn, 
 Pale as the glimmer of the day-spring's rays. 
 And with a purpose gathering as the light. 
 Slipped softly through the gate of paradise 
 Into the furrows of a laboring world. 
 Far from his own; where he by force of pride. 
 Of honor, and his love would let her roam. 
 
 Then he who told the tale was mute a space : 
 And in the silence his calm brow was lined 
 By under-moving thought as a smooth sea 
 Is not unoften streaked by some huge fish 
 That glides just underneath its glassy floor, 
 Nor ever shows its form. At length he said : 
 "I know not whether she were right or wrong, 
 Or whether conscience outraged rightful love. 
 For Fame, what it is but a morbid thirst? 
 And kin are often like a snarling pack 
 Hounding their quarry — a dead parent's gold ! 
 And Friends are severed by their cleaving tastes ; 
 And Fatherland? disowner of her sons 
 Who take their laurels from a stranger's hand — 
 At least the Holy Scriptures have it so. 
 And when 1 ponder on the narrow range 
 Of happiness, and the vast gauge of pain, 
 
TALES IN METRE. 33 
 
 And of our duty to diffuse the seeds 
 
 Of cheer o'er the gray fallows of the world, 
 
 Why then to me it seems that she did err. 
 
 But right or wrong, may Peace abide with them. 
 
 And Christ be gentle to their exiled lives." 
 
34 TALES IN METRE 
 
 THE TOWNSMAN'S TALE. 
 
 An almost spring-tide air lay on the snow 
 Which garbed the city's tiny breathing space, 
 That gratitude calls "park," and blades of grass, 
 The summer's residue of green, pricked through 
 Their hoary cope, as oftentimes we see 
 The lingering traces of a comely youth 
 Peering beneath an aged frosty face. 
 And as I took my way along the street, 
 Encumbered by a furious, jostling press. 
 Just off the turgid, human tide I saw 
 (As one sees flotsam in a tranquil bight, 
 When hurtling waters pass at maelstrom speed) 
 In hopeful patience stand a sweet, blonde girl 
 Dressed in her daintiest. At the breast she wore 
 A mass of violets, woman's craftiest lure. 
 Whose fragrance makes a man forget his own. 
 Unrecognized I lingered there awhile: 
 For though I nothing knew of her, nor why 
 She waited thus in patience absolute, 
 And only saw the dainty form and frock, 
 And whiffed the violet issuance divine — 
 That brought to mind a classic grove nigh Rome- 
 Yet I forefelt some pending tragedy. 
 That she, poor girl, would wait there till the dusk 
 Closed the dark, stellate doors of wasting day — 
 Closed the swart portals of her waning hope. 
 
TALES IN METRE. 35 
 
 The clouds sagged sullen in the early hours : 
 
 And as I passed a honeycombed abode 
 
 Where hundreds hived, of which the gateway vast 
 
 Gave entrance to an ill-afiforded court, 
 
 I saw a group whose curiosity 
 
 Nor skies, nor time, nor ghastliness of sight 
 
 Could ever quell. A garrulous old crone 
 
 Was quick to answer succinct questionings, 
 
 And broider her importance on the tale, 
 
 And would be weaving now her seasoned yarn 
 
 Had I left with her my two coaxing ears. 
 
 "As I was sitting near that window there — 
 
 Just over there — you see it — on the left — 
 
 The small one on the fifth — 't had just begun 
 
 To rain you know — my eyesight isn't good — 
 
 And I sat there to get some light Good Lord ! 
 
 There just rushed past a dress — and such a scream! 
 It must have been the soul of her, poor girl, 
 Crying for mercy! Holy Virgin! when 
 I heard the thud I couldn't move for fear. 
 They say, you know, she killed herself for love : 
 
 And they say, too, — at least the hall-boy says " 
 
 Here I pushed by, and saw it as it lay 
 
 A heap unmoulded 'neath a masking sheet 
 
 Waiting the coroner; and all the while 
 
 The lowering clouds rained on it all their woe, 
 
 Diluting a thin stream incarnadine 
 
 That trickled down the channeled, murderous stones. 
 
 I thought to recognize a bit of gown 
 
 That showed itself beneath the sodden white. 
 
 And all about the wet, incurious court 
 
 Were strewn the mournful, purple violets, 
 
 The fragrant symbols both of Love and Death. 
 
 Although I neither could — nor even would — 
 
36 TALES IN METRE. 
 
 Prove an identity, yet well it might 
 
 Be that sweet, waiting girl. And were it not — 
 
 Why then another who could not endure. 
 
 Sweet Heart, thou hadst not strength enough to wait ! 
 
 Nor thou alone bereft of fortitude, 
 
 Since every day upheaves its hecatomb 
 
 Of those too weak the stress of Life to bear ! 
 
 Nor is there harder task on earth for man 
 
 Than in stanch patience to possess his soul, 
 
 When that most yearned for ever holds aloof. 
 
 To wait for Eros of the golden wings. 
 
 Haloed with fragrance — Aphrodite's breath — 
 
 To hear his hovering plumes and see the gleam 
 
 Of him afar — afar — like longed for clouds 
 
 That lie upon the sea-line all aflame, 
 
 And muttering distant omens not for us ; 
 
 To wait for Recognition's sober bays. 
 
 More brilliant than the vaunted emerald's green, 
 
 When we are sure we merit what she grants ; 
 
 To see her tend her glorious, shining arm 
 
 To place the laurel on another's brow 
 
 And turn her snow-cold shoulder unto us ; 
 
 To wait fulfillment of a holy dream, 
 
 The apotheosis of Liberty 
 
 With all the civic Virtues in her train, 
 
 Awhile we watch the triumph of the Trick — 
 
 The exaltation of some low Intrigue ; 
 
 To wait in patience for the wakeless sleep, 
 
 When one doth only sham the role of Life, 
 
 Without the merest sign of fractiousness 
 
 To those who hold relations intimate — 
 
 Oh, these endurances need firmer thews 
 
 Than Atlas showed on knotted torse and arm, 
 
 When he up-pillared heaven's hemisphere. 
 
TALES IN METRE. 37 
 
 Sweet Heart, thou hadst not strength to wait! 
 
 Nor can I shed a genuine tear 
 
 To see thee on so harsh a bier; 
 Thou wert too fair to live disconsolate — 
 
 Dear Heart, thou couldst not wait! 
 
 To thee, sweet Girl, what would have been 
 The joy of things inanimate, 
 The vaulting heaven's varied state, 
 
 The shiftings of the earth from shade to sheen ! 
 Dear Heart, thou wert too young to wait ! 
 
 Leave it to us, sweet Girl, to stand 
 
 And bear our Atlantean fate, 
 
 Nor venture to anticipate 
 The consummation of divine command. 
 
 Speed on ! thou wert too frail to wait, 
 
 Too fair, sweet Soul, to wait ! 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 A "MADONNA" SPEAKS. 
 
 "In a domed and towered town, 
 Full of story charged with glory, 
 Full of gestes that make renown, 
 I was born of Umbrian brush, 
 Tender-tracing, interlacing 
 All the charms which in first flush 
 Of genius gem its early crown ; 
 Like to pearls young skies adorning, 
 Like to diamonds of the morning. 
 
 " 'Neath the towers faction-torn 
 Through grim gateways I was borne 
 To a village rich with tillage 
 Of the olive, vine, and corn. 
 Which o'erlooks a mounded plain, 
 Tussocked mounds whose flanks the rain 
 Frets to gorges harsh and deep. 
 In whose beds the shadows sleep — 
 Purple shades 'neath saffron light — 
 When the sun in western run, 
 Yields the field to orient night. 
 To sister stars that dreams incite. 
 
 "In a bricken, bclfried shrine 
 
 Round which stuccoed houses cluster, 
 
 Where tall cypresses dark muster 
 
42 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Guarding graves in solemn line, 
 I to Thee, Madonna mine, 
 Mother sweet, immaculate, 
 Mother, Mother of our fate, 
 I, whom painter made the fainter 
 Likeness of thy face divine — 
 Thou the Godhead, I the sign — 
 There to Thee was consecrate. 
 
 "Hanging o'er the garnished altar 
 I gave ear to supplications. 
 And received the pure oblations 
 Of fair timid maids who falter 
 In the story of their love, 
 Bringing roses, gifting posies 
 To cajole the saints above; 
 And of crones whose only prayer 
 Is for life-sustaining fare; 
 Or spadassins whom the halter 
 Patient waits with time to spare — 
 Naught but ceaseless venerations 
 From the earliest rays of prime 
 To the last at compline-time. 
 
 "Here I lived in close communion. 
 In a mystic, holy union 
 With the spirits of the blest. 
 Those who sinned at Sin's behest, 
 Those who in the furrows labor. 
 Those who flaunt a lordly crest, 
 Those who help or harm their neighbor, 
 Those who smite and would requite 
 A savage blow with interest, 
 Or turn an undefended cheek 
 
ERRATUM. 
 
 Page 43, Line 8, for: 
 
 "Till in recent years enlightened, 
 From the things which lent me wings," 
 
 Read: 
 
 "Till in recent years enlightened, 
 From the environs I heightened, 
 From the things which lent me wings," 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 43 
 
 Like our Saviour brave, y^t meek, 
 All betimes they came to me 
 In rapture or in agony. 
 
 "Here I lived without alarm 
 
 Through the ages and all stages 
 
 Of fierce broils, cabals, and toils, 
 
 God-secure from every harm; 
 
 Till in recent years enlightened, 
 
 From the things which lent me wmgs. 
 
 From the deep intarsiaed stalls. 
 
 From the airy frescoed walls, 
 
 And the Alexandrine maze 
 
 On the pavement, and the rays 
 
 Silting through the mullioned bays. 
 
 And the craft of every time 
 
 From Giotto to our days 
 
 I was torn — O ghastly Crime! — 
 
 To 'promote the cause of Art,' 
 
 To enrich some dealer's mart, 
 
 To indulge some Crcesus' craze. 
 
 "Naught now but idle chatter do I hear : 
 Folk talk no more to me of their souls' health ; 
 The undercurrent of their speech is 'wealth' 
 Surged into some wide-portaled, eager ear. 
 Which every silver-seething wave reverberates. 
 And he who loves me most is he who states 
 Breath-bated my potential price — too dear! 
 Since were I cheaper thing, I yet should be 
 In chaste, congenial, beauteous company; 
 Not in a hackneyed home where all abates 
 My charms — wherein the hours' imperious whim 
 
44 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Heaps paynim idols with the cherubim 
 
 Rapt from the ahar's dower, and aggregates 
 
 That queer farrago which a fad creates — 
 
 Insipid renderings of a genuine age 
 
 On ceilings, doors, and walls ; and mixed perhaps 
 
 With blazoned panelings — the heritage 
 
 Of some name-burdened noble whom the lapse 
 
 Of years has pauperized, and who in stress 
 
 Has sold his lares to a dealer's gilded press." 
 
 Now the bricken, belfried shrine 
 
 Centred in the stuccoed village, 
 
 In the midst of olive tillage, 
 
 Of the golden corn and vine. 
 
 Is of all its glory plundered; 
 
 All at which the ages wondered 
 
 Gone forever, far away ! 
 
 Tarsiaed stall and frescoed wall 
 
 Have become mere Midas' play; 
 
 All the craft of every time 
 
 From Giotto to our day. 
 
 E'en the efifigy sublime 
 
 Of the Mother of our fate, 
 
 Mother sweet, immaculate 
 
 Gone forever, far away ! 
 
 And the rays that silt through bays 
 
 Only gray disseminate ; 
 
 While the Alexandrine maze 
 
 Tells alone of lovelier days. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 45 
 
 ONE ONLY. 
 
 I sang a lay to the wind : 
 The month was June, and the lay was sweet, 
 The zephyrs winged it with tuneful beat, 
 Wafted it where the red roses meet 
 
 The lilies that never spinned. . 
 
 They Hstened not in their pride : 
 The Lilies laughed "We are spotlessly bred." 
 The royal Roses in sympathy said 
 "As ye are white, so we are red, 
 
 Naught do we need beside." 
 
 I sang my sweetest lines; 
 And the South wind flirted them up the hill, 
 Over the pastures, over the rill, 
 Higher and higher aloft until 
 
 They greeted the august Pines. 
 
 Alas, they heeded them not ! 
 And why should they heed my lowland lay. 
 Who only give ear to the storm-cloud gray, 
 And talk with the sun on an azure day. 
 
 Superb in their mountain lot? 
 
46 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 I sang a lay to the breeze : 
 And the West wind caught it and rolled it along, 
 Over the meadows where flowerets throng, 
 And the insects chirrup their cheery song 
 Till night sweeps over the leas. 
 
 But not a note did they hear! 
 "We are too busy," the Flowerets sigh, 
 "The Insects toil when the sun is high. 
 If we listen to you, frail things, they will die, 
 
 The day to us is too dear." 
 
 I sang a lay to the air: 
 A Dryad wafted it into the wood, 
 Where a Violet heard it and understood. 
 Who comprehended as none other could 
 
 Alone in her ivied lair. 
 
 She heard my lay, and she sighed 
 Till her purple petals more purple grew. 
 And her fragrant breath more fragrant blew, 
 And she graced herself with graces new — 
 
 And I was satisfied. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 47 
 
 TO BERENICE. 
 
 I will not say, 
 
 Berenice mine, 
 
 Whether thine eyes be blue, or brown, or gray, 
 But only that our froward moods they sway. 
 As on the fretful brine 
 Submissive billows powerless speed 
 Where'er the lithe, imperious breezes lead. 
 
 1 will not say 
 Whether thy heavy hair 
 
 Be black or gold — alas, it will betray ! 
 And thou therewith wilt mesh thy helpless prey, 
 As with its silken snare 
 A spider winds the gauzy wing 
 Of some defenseless, iridescent thing. 
 
 Whether thy smile 
 Be gay, or yet be grave 
 Why should I tell, if it doth Life beguile, 
 And to unwonted sloth doth reconcile 
 Its acquiescing slave, 
 Indifferent as browsing kine 
 On luscious lawns to some portentous sign? 
 
4© MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Nor shall I tell 
 
 Whether thy voice 
 Be zephyr-soft, or as the winds that dwell 
 In crystaled zones, since its dear notes compel, 
 
 And rapturous rejoice 
 All hearts, as at the rathe dawn's break 
 The lark's glad songs all vocal creatures wake. 
 
 If thou art tall 
 
 To us it imports not; 
 For were thy stature less than what we call 
 The classic height, thou wouldst the same enthrall, 
 
 As in a gardened spot 
 The violets thrall. I do not say, 
 Howe'er, that thou dost sweep the sod as they. 
 
 Or dark, or fair, 
 
 O Berenice mine, 
 'Twere vanity thy color to declare; 
 Since thou dost even warded eyes ensnare. 
 
 It is a sight divine 
 To watch dark clouds convolve on high. 
 Or dazzling fleece-flocks bowl along blue sky ! 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 49 
 
 TO A DRYAD. 
 
 I often see thee in the wood unseen of other eyes, 
 
 For thou art visible to him, who most thy charms doth 
 
 prize. 
 No human voice doth mar my thoughts, as through the 
 
 moods of day, 
 Which scarcely pierce the leafy cope, I watch thee at 
 
 thy play. 
 
 Thy hair is dark as castled clouds o'er western hills at 
 eve. 
 
 When tired Sun of travailed Earth has ta'en his longed- 
 for leave. 
 
 Thine eyes are all the poets sing — clear dews of morn- 
 ing-tide — 
 
 Deep glassy pools — the lambent stars — but something 
 else beside. 
 
 Thy hands are fashioned in a wise would make a 
 
 sculptor dream, 
 Thy fingers dimpled as the wake of wherries on the 
 
 stream. 
 Their rosy tips are coronate with films of nacreous shell, 
 And when they touch my coarser clay, I thrill beneath 
 
 their spell. 
 
50 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Thy breasts are white as gemel moons upon their couch 
 
 of sky, 
 Thy Hps like poppies mid the corn when summer suns 
 
 are high, 
 Nor are there saplings in the copse more neatly limbed 
 
 than thou, 
 And all is waiting to be plucked, as fruitage from the 
 
 bough. 
 
 TO A SIREN. 
 
 Singing? 
 Yes, 
 With the voice of the Seraphs ; 
 Clinging ? 
 Yes, 
 With implacable arms; 
 Swaying? 
 Yes, 
 With the wand of a Merlin; 
 Betraying? 
 Yes, 
 With invincible charms. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 5 1 
 
 A COLOR-LESSON. 
 
 Ponder this parrot's eye. 
 
 And sedulously try 
 To draw therefrom harmonious Nature's lore. 
 Observe how deep the green is at its core ; 
 
 Then how it sweetly grades 
 
 Through many kindred shades 
 From palish yellow into orange hue: 
 
 Nor ever strikes a note 
 
 That discords with her coat 
 Of green and gold, just touched with red and blue. 
 
 If you, dear maidens, you 
 
 Who have the born desire 
 
 The counter-sex to fire 
 As this gay parrot — whom to charm her mate 
 Wise Nature decks — would but accommodate 
 
 Your fanciful attire 
 To your fair selves — oh, but enough you know 
 To jeopard weakling hearts! Kind maids, forego 
 
 This problem of the eye 
 
 This color symphony, 
 Unless you wish to gloom mankind with woe. 
 
52 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 TO A PERSIAN ROSE. 
 
 Is everything in Persia 
 
 As yellow as the Rose 
 That on my crescent terrace-plot 
 
 In western aspect blows, 
 That on the fleckless heavens 
 
 Like gold on azure glows ? 
 
 Is everything in Persia 
 
 But only half so sweet, 
 And modest like to unbloomed maids 
 ■ One scarcely dares to meet 
 For fear lest they turn homeward 
 
 On unadventurous feet? 
 
 Does everything in Persia 
 On the background of the brain 
 
 Trace pictures of idyllic scenes 
 In which her splendors reign 
 
 Supreme o'er all the others 
 Who glitter in her train? 
 
 Then would I dwell in Persia 
 And feast mine eyes on gold. 
 
 And wile with rhymes the modest maids 
 Till rhyming make them bold, 
 
 And mid a dreamland's pictures 
 With graciousness grow old. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 53 
 
 TO CREATA. 
 
 Oh deck thy brow at dawn to match the skies 
 Inwove with white and palest violet; 
 Weave for thyself a pearly coronet. 
 
 And I will love thee with my far-off eyes. 
 
 Oh wear thy lilac-tissued robe at noon 
 That complements the tender willows' green — 
 Wan willows glistering in meridian sheen — 
 
 And I will bless thee for the gracious boon. 
 
 Oh wear a deep red rose in thy fair hair 
 This mellow afternoon, that now as then 
 Flushed love may lure me — even now as when 
 
 The damask petals swooned in golden air. 
 
 Oh drape thyself at eve in sombre gray, 
 That thou may'st mingle with the falling night, 
 And I may only see thy smile so white 
 
 That it will seem a Pleiad gone astray. 
 
54 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 ENTR'ACTE. 
 
 The curtain had slowly unrolled on that still, yet pas- 
 sionate scene, 
 Still for the calm of the waters, wild for the tempest 
 
 of soul 
 That raged on the palm-marged river, lapsing in peace 
 to its goal. 
 Past temples, colossal creations, up-piled by prone fella- 
 heen, 
 To stand for the ages a wonder, fair-decked with lotus 
 and palm. 
 With wide-winged disks, the symbol of Sun-god 
 
 winging his way 
 To smite the demon of Darkness. Here in the mys- 
 tical play 
 Of shadows meshing the moonbeams ; here in the 
 
 warmth and the balm 
 Was honor dishonored by woman, and treason lurking 
 in love 
 Coaxed from the warden of armies the safe-guarding 
 
 secrets of State, 
 And all for jet eyes of a slave-girl was periled a 
 dynasty's fate. 
 Then I glanced at the splendor beside me, around me, 
 
 above 
 In the boxes — everywhere diamonds — an apparently feel- 
 ingless throng 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 55 
 
 Brought there to flaunt and to chatter, to dazzle a 
 
 gold-servile mass 
 Ever ready to stare at their betters — at those who in 
 dollars out-class 
 Their more tenuous credits; but I, overcome by the 
 
 surge of the song 
 With its weight on my soul and its beauty, was borne 
 by the opulent tide 
 Of well-groomed men with their convoys into the 
 
 curved corridor 
 That girdles the great amphitheatre, and while I was 
 pondering o'er 
 The intense love-drama fictitious — there — close at my 
 
 side 
 Moved a beautiful woman ornate, white-armed, white- 
 necked as the swan. 
 Triumphant in love, with smiles like the dazzling, 
 
 Orient beam 
 From pearl-capped Olympus at midday, and hair as 
 ebon, I deem. 
 As the chasms between constellations (her bountiful 
 
 hair, too, shone 
 With crystalline stars). Ah, how did that cozening, siren 
 coquette 
 Flirt with her netted companion ! E'en as the breezes 
 
 of May 
 Toy with the bourgeoning blossoms ! Faith 'twas her 
 nature to play 
 With the love-buds expanding of youth, as that of the 
 dews to be wet. 
 
 Alone near the arch of a doorway, hatted and coated 
 to leave. 
 Stood a young man strong and impassive, of sober, 
 commanding mien, 
 
56 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Watching unbiased (as I was) the faces, the toilets, 
 the sheen 
 Of the jewels, the chaff and the laughter. When she 
 
 saw him there did she cleave 
 To her marveling mate? did she cleave? When the 
 glow and the radiance beat 
 On the pregnant glebe, hast thou ever noted a gold- 
 belted bee 
 Diligent garnering honey on some blooming, sweet- 
 storing lea^ 
 And how she leaves a dehoneyed flower no longer sweet ? 
 So she left her despoiled companion and glided to him 
 by the door 
 And laid her gloved hand on his arm, and beamed up 
 
 into his eyes 
 Searching for mutual beams, and cajoled him with 
 smiles that would prize 
 A favored lover of Helen — that well-spring of rancor 
 
 and war. 
 Did he readily yield to her charms ? did he answer beam 
 for a beam? 
 Did he smile a rejoinder? did he fold her gloved han^ 
 
 in his bliss? 
 Did he utter soft words that expressed the intent of 
 an unexpressed kiss 
 Till her features with love were alight to match her 
 diadem's gleam? 
 
 In the princely halls of Rome stand the immutable genii 
 
 of Greece, 
 Beautiful, placid and strong, yet frigid and pale as the 
 
 snows. 
 Pitiless, steadfast and grave, in eternal, symmetric 
 
 repose : 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 57 
 
 And so stood the youth by the doorway in mute, im- 
 perious peace. 
 Peace now; but when 'twixt the roaring of breakers that 
 shocked on the shore — 
 On the beaches lengthening in moonlight, gathering 
 
 white harvests of foam — 
 Peace now; but when on the uplands they wonted 
 together to roam 
 He told his ingenuous story, and frankly, carelessly wore 
 His innermost heart on his tongue, there was passion 
 enough and to spare. 
 Mutual passion, too — but hers of a freakish make, 
 A girlish, doll-like thing, a passion for passion's sake. 
 The months rolled on; he was healed; though the scar 
 
 to remind was there. 
 She had hurt him then, now repented (at least so I 
 thought) too late ; 
 She had played very high and lost ! Hers, poor soul, 
 
 the sin. 
 And the burden of years to bear ! She had staked, but 
 did not win. 
 God help thee, poor heart, in thy pain; I do not envy 
 
 thy fate. 
 Go back for thy scant consolation, and see the last act of 
 the play, 
 How bold Radames for Aida died in desire despite 
 Her lure to his ruin — and hers, too. But that was the 
 
 extravagant height 
 Of a folly in time of the Pharaohs ! Man now is of 
 different clay. 
 
58 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 ANTIPHONAL. 
 
 How shall we keep Decadence from Life's fruit 
 When signs of overripeness supervene? 
 
 Hear the quiring of the birds 
 
 When the dawn impearls the night! 
 
 How shall we medicine an outworn taste 
 That we may gain a healthful appetite? 
 
 See ! the waxing morning girds 
 
 Splendent loins with splendid light! 
 
 Where shall we find an apt equivalent 
 For sweet simplicity of primal years? 
 
 Indolently sauntering clouds, 
 
 Glorious roundels of the noon, 
 
 Then art and letters and the mien of men 
 Were beautiful in their ingenuous way. 
 
 Trail their soft empurpled shrouds 
 To the west wind's languid tune. 
 
 The full-blown flower is ampler than the bud, 
 Yet are there crumpled petals that deface. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. SQ 
 
 Now the Sun with generous brush 
 Lays long strakes of deepest blue, 
 
 Can we find solace for Satiety 
 Within the lassitude of beaten paths? 
 
 D'er the level meadows lush 
 Staining gold the residue. 
 
 Can cunning man in all his science-pride 
 Create a substitute for Nature's breath? 
 
 Look ! the lilacs in the sky 
 
 Greet the rising argent beams; 
 
 If we are herded close in urban pens, 
 Can we catch aught but artificial ways ? 
 
 Night has come to mortify 
 
 Asperous thoughts with soothing dreams. 
 
60 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 THE DELIVERER— A Dream. 
 
 I dreamed that I had issued from a strife 
 Hot-waged, with some few crowns, but many wounds 
 Which cried importunate for nerveless rest. 
 
 Long time I lay abased in flesh and soul, 
 
 Nor scarcely stirred, nor gave least vent to words. 
 
 Since pain had wrought a barren apathy, 
 
 And paralyzed the power or wish to move. 
 
 Or speak — and even breathing seemed to irk. 
 
 Then came to me in all her opulence 
 Commerce, complexioned fair, and mantled rich 
 With glossy stuflfs, embossed with flowers of gold 
 And silks of gorgeous dyes, that made broad folds- 
 Stuffs that would witch a Veronese's eye — 
 And in her dazzling state invincible^ 
 She spoke : "Put forth thy cunning hand and coin 
 Unto thyself soft luxuries, and health — 
 Aye health, which is not to the rich and poor 
 Alike, as ready-maximed prophets preach ; 
 For well thou knowest sumptuous ease will cure." 
 
 But I made answer none, nor finger-joint 
 Did hook to clutch her golden promises. 
 Proudly she left; whereon more decent came 
 My goddess Art, immaculately draped. 
 With every clinging fold in eurythmy 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 6l 
 
 With her consenting form — as sweet in line 
 
 As that winged Victory from Samothrace 
 
 Which stands a model for its sculptured rhyme. 
 
 Never did she appear more heavenly pure — 
 
 She whom I loved — adored — in pristine days. 
 
 And flaming words, heroic, did she speak 
 
 To me, with tempting show of upheld bays, 
 
 Bays that I would have leaped from Stygian deeps 
 
 To grasp in bygone times. Then with a voice 
 
 Less elevate she said alluringly, 
 
 "Be yet again to me as thou wert once." 
 
 "Oh, would tp God I might," I voiceless thought: 
 
 But I could only look with filmed gaze 
 
 Into her own great-orbed, inspired eyes. 
 
 She waned away. Thereon her sister Muse 
 Waxed into being — gentle Poesy, 
 Wearing white robes with tendrils decorate, 
 Bringing a scent of fresh Parnassus-gales, 
 So that for a brief moment I revived. 
 Drawing deep breath, and to her cadenced verse 
 Attuned to the lute, supremely sweet, 
 I smiled my thanks, though more I could not. 
 
 She 
 Too ebbed away, and on the flood of pride 
 Soared white-winged, quivered Love, victorious — 
 Dispreading every plume with conscious force — 
 In blooming youth's most splendid flesh enshrined, 
 Before it is attaint with manly thews. 
 And confident the Most-desired poised, 
 And smiled. Then fired by the refulgent sight 
 I raised my wasted frame on one weak arm, 
 And would thereon have ta'en his tendered hand 
 
62 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 With my free hand — but suddenly cried "Nay, 
 For I have flown with thee before to fields 
 Elysian, where thy choicest flowerets grow — 
 The sweetest perfumed in thy sweet parterres — 
 The loveliest tinctured in thine irised beds — 
 And I have culled them with my hand in thine — 
 Aye, but the culling costs too much in pain 
 When petals fall." And then I closed my lids, 
 And quiet lay. 
 
 And last of all came Death- 
 Reposeful Death — soft swathed as velvet night 
 In darksome, airy gauze, and sombre as 
 The pensive, shadowed face that Angelo 
 Enniched in San Lorenzo's sacristy — 
 Not proffering words of cheer nor voicing aught ; 
 Looking from eyes serene, more kind than Love's, 
 Or Art's, or even Poesy's, the mild. 
 Speechless he stood, nor made the scantiest sign, 
 But yet I knew he held what most I craved. 
 Then with one joyous cry of bliss attained, 
 Then with one joyous fling of raptured arms 
 I clasped his strong, swift-pinioned waiting form, 
 And vanished into restful realms of Peace. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 63 
 
 AN EQUIVALENT— A Chant. 
 
 What wouldst thou bring to me, O sweet one, 
 
 O ineffably sweet. 
 If I should grant thy keen desire — 
 I who have the power to quench the fire 
 Of thy heart's thirst — what wouldst thou bring to me? 
 
 Thy concrete charms? 
 Fair as thou art, brow-garnished with red gold. 
 And limbed like adolescent goddesses, 
 
 Such charms are in the mart. 
 
 Buyable; and though the heart 
 Be not for sale, neither thy heart do I crave. 
 
 What wouldst thou bring to me, O Sweet? 
 Name something else that would my life complete. 
 
 Thy terse wit? 
 
 Canst thou, indeed, compete 
 With what I hold in fee upon th,e shelf 
 Book-burdened? Is thine intensest self 
 The peer of the elect from Lesbian Sappho 
 To the modern queens? And yet 
 These are my vassals. Name something else, my sweet 
 
 One, 
 
 My ineffably sweet, 
 Something more meet. 
 
64 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Thou couldst solace with thy medicating art? 
 
 Couldst soothe with mild, demulcent ways? 
 
 Couldst balm the moment's pain with tactful cure? 
 
 So could a white-coifed nurse whose methods sure 
 
 Gained in some proven school, whose heart 
 
 Is bondslave to her science. What couldst thou bring, 
 
 O wondrous fair, 
 
 O marvelous sweet, 
 
 That I should care 
 To grant thy wish, that only I can meet? 
 
 Thine unpurchasable, lasting Love? 
 What if I should weary of it? Daily then to hear 
 Thine obligatory voice were utmost misery. 
 What we buy that also can we sell. 
 
 Would it be well 
 That I should thus accept thy during gift 
 Made in the flush of thy desire? 
 
 Name something else, my Sweet, 
 
 Something more fleet. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 65 
 
 SISTINE CHAPEL. 
 
 Think of the artist's awe when first he walks 
 
 Into that lofty, lengthening, solemn shrine 
 
 Where genius strove in rivalry, upbuilt 
 
 By Sixtus, fourth tiaraed of that name! 
 
 Beneath his feet there spread smooth marble disks 
 
 Circumferenced by plain and inlaid bands 
 
 Which interlace themselves in tracery fair — 
 
 A pavement in the Alexandrine mode. 
 
 Its higher portion near the eastern end 
 
 Is thwarted by a screen with floriate forms. 
 
 And cherubs flanking Rovere arms — the oak 
 
 Frondescing on a concave shield — deft-carved 
 
 In marble chaste — perhaps by Mino's hand. 
 
 And he who of a fancy is not void 
 
 Will see upon the lowest tier of wall, 
 
 Where once they hung in days of fes,tival, 
 
 The tapestries cartooned by Raphael, 
 
 The pride of Flemish looms, whereof the lights 
 
 In gold and silver threads nigh proved their doom. 
 
 And o'er them range a girth of holy themes 
 
 Dight by the master-hands of Sixtus' time, 
 
 Full-peopled scenes elaborately wrought 
 
 On backgrounds bluish-green, and separate 
 
 By delicate pilasters richly scrolled ; 
 
 Those on the left symbolic of the Law, 
 
 While on the right Christ's Grace is typified. 
 
66 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Still higher up beyond a moulded course, 
 
 Between the window-lights stand martyr-popes, 
 
 To which the dreamy Sandro lent his fame. 
 
 Above the altar on the western wall, 
 
 Replacing Perugino's tenderer thought — 
 
 Who pictured Sixtus in the act of prayer 
 
 Before the Twelve and Heaven's ascending Queen — 
 
 Frowns the Last Judgment, vast, tumultuous work. 
 
 The vision of an artist saturnine. 
 
 Who after stern, laborious, sixty years 
 
 (When 'gainst his will he undertook the task), 
 
 Saw nothing but the gloom of mundane things — 
 
 A dark conception darkened by dusk time 
 
 And century-smoke from consecrated flames. 
 
 High overhead doth arch the frescoed roof — 
 
 Once sown with stars upon a sapphire field — 
 
 By this same Angelo in bloom of craft, 
 
 Whereon with artistry secure he feigned 
 
 An architecture, marble-white, to frame 
 
 Great elemental scenes that stupefy; 
 
 And Adam quickened by the touch of God; 
 
 The birth of Eve fair-limbed and mighty-loined. 
 
 Fit mother of the race; and then the Fall 
 
 With sequent tales. And round the frames he threw 
 
 Inspired, heroic youths to match the Greek, 
 
 But with a movement to the Greek unknown. 
 
 Upon the pendent spaces of the vault 
 
 Throne mighty Prophets of majestic mood,. 
 
 And Sibyls with their fateful books and scrolls. 
 
 Foretelling Christ, whose ancestry is viewed 
 
 On intervening ceilings and lunette — 
 
 A wondrous work that has but one compare — 
 
 Blind Milton's noble, monumental song, 
 
 Sonorous, high-sustained — whose inward eyes 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 6^ 
 
 Saw visions glorious as the Florentine's — 
 
 Saw God Almighty in his majesty 
 
 Cleave Light from Dark, and whirl the Sun and Moon, 
 
 And force the verdure through terrestial rind ; 
 
 Saw procreant Adam, muscled like a god. 
 
 When first he quivered to the breath of life; 
 
 Saw Eve of sovran mien, yet fair and sweet; 
 
 And with a pen coequal with the brush 
 
 Of Angelo, did paint in stately verse 
 
 Temptation's Epic with its woe decreed. 
 
 Immortal men, insuperably great! 
 
 FIRE! 
 
 I threw to one side my book, to raise the misty sash — 
 For I heard from fiction-land the warning, oncoming 
 
 crash 
 Of the engine foaming along through the cold, the rain, 
 
 and the gloom — 
 And I saw the team three-abreast pounding the pavement 
 
 wet; 
 (God ! if one should slip, what horrible, death-tangled 
 
 doom ! ) 
 Beheld the driver nerve-tense, blinded to fates that 
 
 beset ; 
 Beheld the fiery smoke that blasted out from the stack, 
 And the steam-forcing flames tenfold in the glassing 
 
 run of the rain ; 
 Heard the din of whistle and bell, till the very clouds 
 
 seemed to crack — 
 A terrible demon of fire, a spark-sown hurricane 
 Thundering into the night ! Then all was silent again. 
 
68 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 EASTER MORNING. 
 
 Sadness glooms the scene, though splendid is the 
 
 picture — 
 Easter lilies blooming 'neath intrusive sunlight, 
 Ruby, rambler-roses vaunting in the window, 
 Freshest maidens decked with fragrant springtide 
 
 firstlings, 
 Going churchward in their dainty, posied beauty. 
 She, the purest lily, loveliest, freshest rose-bud. 
 She who walks enwrapt in amaranthine meadows, 
 Can she see my heart for radiance of her glory? 
 What concern have angels with unwinged worldlings — 
 Angels hand in hand, and circling midst the flowers. 
 As the faithful saw them in authentic visions ? 
 Would they lose an instant's bliss to hear our sobbings? 
 Pause a moment in their seraph-talk to listen? 
 They would doubtless rather wait in fields Elysian 
 To receive us purged of sin, ourselves new angels. 
 Than descend to Earth to soothe our self-brought sor- 
 rows. 
 Yet, an angel shining would she not grant solace. 
 If in tarnished life she gave unbounded comfort. 
 Immolated joy to pleasure saddened others. 
 Pleasured her sweet self in joyful immolation, 
 Spake assuasive words, and laid soft hands upon me, 
 Fostered my pale cheeks that blanched 'neath shadowy 
 sockets 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 69 
 
 When it seemed that Life no worthy guerdon offered ? 
 Nor my life alone she drew from Death portending; 
 Many a beauteous bud to sereness swiftly changing 
 Long before its Time — as change the meadow-maples 
 Whilst the breeze of spring still lingers in their leafage, 
 And with sadness marvels at the unwonted color — 
 Did she clothe again with verdure of its youth-tide. 
 Many a life mature she panoplied with courage 
 When the speechless One appeared in dreadful power. 
 Ah ! she paid the cost of these sweet ministrations, 
 Taken, taken from me through her work angelic — 
 She was of the angels ere she numbered of them. 
 
 Nay, on this fair morn when Christ is in the sunshine 
 Falling on the flowers, tinct like plumes of seraphs, 
 Bright as listed rainbows blent with hues celestial. 
 Arching o'er dark clouds, that rumble off in anger; 
 Nay, on this fair morn I feel she stands beside me 
 Smiling at the maidens decked with springtime's hand- 
 sels. 
 Going churchward in their dainty, posied beauty. 
 She the purest lily, radiating joy-beams, 
 Breaking through all gloom as rays break through the 
 
 storm-drift. 
 Bright, indeed, the morning ; gallant is the sunlight ! 
 
70 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 VETERANS. 
 
 O Brothers, ere the benison be asked 
 
 Upon the brink of our not far-off graves, 
 
 Let us give proof once more of loyal heart, 
 
 As we erst gave it in our fiery years 
 
 When all was shout and plunging of the steeds. 
 
 And passing of interminable ranks. 
 
 And flame and rack of iron and fateful lead, 
 
 And roaring of the guns with swaths of slain. 
 
 And the inimitable hell of war. 
 
 For though the ambient air we daily breathe 
 
 Is untumultuous with the battle-shock. 
 
 And uncontaminate with festering flesh, 
 
 Yet is it venomous with other ills. 
 
 What, Brothers ! is there no more work for us, 
 
 When the attempered soul is flamed with wrath 
 
 To view the tyranny of two or three — 
 
 Nay, one, who by cajolery, and threat. 
 
 And well-adjusted bribe to vanity. 
 
 To lust of office-holding or of wealth, 
 
 Lashes the tens of thousands into line, 
 
 And then pronounces in all confidence 
 
 The will of an enslaved majority? 
 
 And this alone were task enough for us 
 
 Were there naught else. Between us and the tomb 
 
 The pendent veil of glamorous atmosphere 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 71 
 
 Is gossamer, and we see through its mesh 
 Distinctly the reality of things. 
 But youth's horizon is forsooth obscured 
 By fumes opaque, that densely glomerate 
 Betwixt the grassy meads whereon it tilts, 
 And the far mountains ultimate, unseen, 
 Masking the distant consequence of acts 
 Which is revealed to us of unbarred sight. 
 
 And still I hear ye say, "Old men are we. 
 
 Progress exacts young blood." Progress to what? 
 
 If Progress be to clutch, to have, to hold 
 
 At any price, to blind the inward eye 
 
 To the transcendent law of Probity ; 
 
 If Progress he to exhaust the wells of Strength 
 
 In garnering gold until it may not bear 
 
 The added tax of the mind's discipline 
 
 By commerce with the highest intellects 
 
 Living or dead, but must repair itself 
 
 With coarse burlesque, with fribblings that appeal 
 
 To a fool's taste — perhaps ye do not err. 
 
 And I could name a thousand other ills 
 
 That shelter 'neath the blazoned banners high 
 
 Called Progress. But, my Brothers, ye who stand 
 
 Upon the perch of years, with the far eye 
 
 Of the indomitable bird, see all. 
 
 If Progress seem to you — as well I deem — 
 
 A steady, upward flight to what is best, 
 
 Then are ye stronger now than when ye wore 
 
 Your harness gallantly to fit your youth. 
 
 For now not only have ye widest ken 
 
 From your aerial crag: but ye have, too, 
 
 Discriminating sight, with power to sort 
 
 The specious from the unattaint at core; 
 
72 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Since ye have often eaten unsound fruit 
 And know too well its fair-glozed bitterness. 
 
 Brothers, ere we go, 
 
 Your hand! 
 We cannot idly stand 
 Dispassionate, and watch the slow, 
 But sure attrition of our land 
 
 By misused force. Although 
 No longer young, we are a band 
 Of seasoned men — Brothers, your hand ! 
 
 Brothers, ere we go. 
 
 Your aid ! 
 The blood may languid flow 
 Through our gray veins : yet hearts oft glow 
 
 To Heaven, before they fade 
 To blackness, and their glory gild 
 
 The effort spent to build. 
 Constructive power there is benign. 
 As well as wrecking force malign : 
 
 Brothers, your aid ! 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 73 
 
 RETROSPECTIVE. 
 
 I was lingering late in the town, and the air was close, 
 While the sun took turns with the rain that sparingly 
 fell, 
 
 And it all seemed squalid and hot, and ugly and gross 
 To a lover of rivers and aits, of hill-top and dell. 
 
 And I stood by the wide-open window to catch a fresh 
 breath. 
 While beyond in a darkened chamber there peacefully 
 lay 
 A soul beloved from my childhood now nearing her 
 death — 
 A soul that would pass from the world ere passing of 
 day. 
 
 Then there came from a neighboring casement note upon 
 note 
 Struck by a hand unbeknown — sweet notes I had 
 heard 
 So often caroled by her — and my memory smote 
 Every fibre of sense, and the wells of my being were 
 stirred. 
 
 Then my mind harked backward afar to the spring of 
 my youth, 
 When life stretched a viaduct vast, an arch upon arch, 
 
74 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Upholding the symbols transcendent of Beauty and 
 Truth, 
 Over which with Bliss for my mate I should heaven- 
 ward march. 
 
 How often I sat on the headlands with her at my side, 
 Counting the green combing breakers fresh from the 
 pole, 
 How oft on the wave-chiseled beaches at ebb of the tide 
 We startled the fry of the ocean where waters were 
 shoal ! 
 
 Then later when consciousness came, upon the same 
 shore 
 We watched by the love-prompting moonbeams the 
 foam flocks white, 
 And if by a hazard divine the sea-breezes bore 
 
 A wave of her hair 'cross my cheek, I thrilled with 
 delight ! 
 
 But list, the air changes ! and now we lovingly climb 
 Soft mountains umbraged by chestnuts up to a shrine, 
 
 Where smiles a relief by a Robbia — sweet, yet sublime, 
 While afar the wild peaks of Carrara through sea- 
 vapors shine. 
 
 Below lies a gay-painted village, and through it there 
 flows 
 A rough-bedded torrent oft spanned by arches of stone, 
 And along by its side winds a way, that sunshine scarce 
 knows : 
 What a place in the summer to love in, to dream^ and 
 to drone ! 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 75 
 
 Oh, that air, how famihar ! it swells through a wide-open 
 door 
 Across the tiny green lawn to a vine-garnished bower : 
 From the vale come the whispers of waters which grate- 
 fully pour; 
 And above the rich ridges brocaded with foliage tower. 
 
 The notes come clearer and cold! now I see in my 
 dream 
 
 A sky of pale turquoise blue set with rose-clouds that 
 glow, 
 
 And great Leonessa far northward with snow-fields 
 agleam, 
 
 And Soracte the mountain held sacred to Him of the 
 bow. 
 
 And nearer the blue of the heaven is pierced by a line 
 Of broad-coped, carpeted trees— bright islands of 
 green 
 Upheld by rubicund branches— the wide-spreading pine ; 
 While against the dark ilex of foreground the white 
 fountains sheen ! 
 
 What is this that I see in the dusk, as the music is 
 changed ? 
 We stand in a square at night, and over us loom 
 The cross with the Passion of Christ, and about it are 
 ranged 
 
 Grim towers just touched with a silver that lightens 
 their gloom. 
 
 And when the full light of morning discloses the view, 
 We behold a deep-furrowed plain— mysterious- 
 wide — 
 
76 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Flecked with granges, with villas, and fanes, and tree- 
 tufts of blue; 
 And the townlet far off, where blessed Boccaccio died. 
 
 Ah, these are the songs of my land! and there peereth 
 to me 
 The place of our birth as we saw it, when nearing our 
 home — 
 A conical town of soft red which lifts from the sea, 
 Whose apex is crowned by a glistening, aureate dome. 
 
 And oft have I heard the same songs at shut of the day. 
 In the freer reaches of country where mountains dark 
 
 Engrail a sky of vermilion feathered with gray, 
 
 Which slowly loses its splendor, fainting — but hark ! 
 
 What's that rustle I hear? I turn, and there at the door 
 Stands a pale-faced woman, white capped — Oh, why 
 does she wait? 
 I know, oh I know — do not speak ! — that she is no 
 more; 
 God help me, I cannot — cannot — bear with my fate! 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 'J'J 
 
 INVOCATION TO SLEEP. 
 
 Come thou, O Sleep ! 
 Come unattended by fermenting dreams, 
 Thine almoners of winged ecstasies 
 And displumed woes ! O Sleep, come thou alone — 
 Come thou alone — odorous, soft and dim. 
 
 And grant oblivion deep 
 Until the dawning of a second birth, 
 
 O marvel-working Sleep ! 
 Thou lullest the tumultuous throb beneath 
 The pallors low-reliefed of virgin breasts, 
 Blue-veined like shining snows with azured strands 
 Inweaved by barren trees and wintry sun ; 
 Thou smoothest with a gest the maddened surge 
 That beats the walls of the avenger's heart; 
 Thou dost relax the tawny, sweltering brawn 
 Of thick-necked laborers who upturn the glebe. 
 And bring them nothingness until anew 
 They hear the cock's announcement of the dawn ; 
 Thou levelest the spiring pride of lords; 
 Thou buildest up the fallen serf's estate ; 
 Thou calmest with thy calm the anguished nerves 
 Of those who quiver through a goalless day ; 
 Thou soothest those whose fate is ne'er to reach, 
 And balmest with thy breath the heart bereft — 
 Peon's or czar's — when it has heard the voice 
 That quavers o'er the grave — the "dust to dust," 
 
78 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 Nor comprehendeth till it be alone ! 
 
 O sacred Sleep ! 
 The simular of what is term of all, 
 O grateful One, the gift of kindly gods, 
 
 Come thou and steep 
 Me in thy soothing effluence divine — 
 Thou, who art to wide-winged grief the anodyne. 
 
 Come thou, O Sleep ! 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 79 
 
 SAD OCTOBER. 
 
 Though it is the culmination 
 Of the color-year's full splendor, 
 Maples blazing red and yellow- 
 Like a sunset-sail at Venice ; 
 Though a flawless sky presages 
 Day on day of glorious weather — 
 Blue above, beneath vermilion 
 Russet hues and tones aurated 
 Flaming upward from the tree-tops 
 Of the forest, flaring challenge 
 To the splendent sun of Autumn ; 
 Though the air is crisp and life-full, 
 Yet the heart within me faileth ; 
 For all things are falling, falling. 
 Leaf on leaf with mournful rustle, 
 And the silent pools are crystaled 
 When the lids of dawn are sundered — 
 Pools that rang erstwhile with chantings. 
 Ah, 'tis lonely in the Autumn, 
 Every sight and thought is death-full. 
 
 So I crave the baser city, 
 With its trenchings, mire and foulness. 
 With its crowds and brutal jostlings. 
 With its myriad-storied buildings, 
 With its vulgar life and clutchings 
 For a tenfold more than plenty. 
 There I see no signs of cadence, 
 Nothing but the springs of action. 
 
80 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 NATIONAL PIYSTERIA. 
 
 I. 
 
 Upon a radiant morn 
 When Sabbath sunbeams cheer with springtide heat, 
 And traffic throbs with half-suspended beat, 
 
 When church-bells warn 
 The reverent that the hour calls to meet ; 
 Then sudden voices hurtling down the street — 
 
 It being- time of war — 
 Proclaim that off an alien shore, 
 Acclaim that now as oft before 
 Winged Victory has crowned the Nation's glorious fleet. 
 
 Aye, Victory — nor yet of less renown 
 
 In that no native blood did flush adown 
 
 Foul decks the smirch of war, nor death-groans drown 
 
 The conquerors' cheers ! Now twine the well-won 
 
 wreath 
 Of laurel round the intrepid admiral's brow. 
 And let him and his captains pass beneath 
 The snow-white, sculptured, storied arch, which thou 
 Fair Art hast deftly built — a dazzling blaze 
 Upon the approving blue — nor disallow 
 Him honor adequate, nor stint the praise. 
 But let it be perdurable as Earth 
 That God has given to the sons of men ; 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 8l 
 
 And let it be /wj^measured till the birth 
 Of phases new, without our mortal ken. 
 Yet if the praise be overgreat? What then? 
 In surfeit it will swift be tossed aside 
 Like the spoilt plaything of a froward child. 
 If "Miracle!" "a Miracle!" be cried 
 Too lustily, before the shout has died 
 In echo, what was praised will be reviled. 
 "The toy was always tainted," 't will be said, 
 And on a hero blame unmerited 
 Be cast. But in this humor critical 
 Naught will be said of ways hysterical. 
 
 II. 
 
 A Nation's chieftain falls : 
 And in a moment of a genuine grief. 
 In tears unpartisan it seeks relief — 
 
 As well it should 
 
 Whene'er a good 
 And steadfast leader falls beneath some crazed assas- 
 sin's blow — 
 
 And then it calls 
 For Law to check the weeds that grow 
 
 Where the unselfish sow 
 Their few fruit-bearing seeds that make so thin a show. 
 
 Oh, what fatuity this general cry 
 
 For Law to throttle anarchistic speech ! 
 
 As if the Law within its petty reach 
 
 Could scythe the rankness that outstrips the eye. 
 
 As if the uninspiring Law could teach 
 
 Us virtue, or a chill "Thou shalt not" keep 
 
 The heart inflammable in apathy ; 
 
82 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS, 
 
 Or like the poppy's tincture lull to sleep 
 
 Satanic dreams which a conspiracy 
 
 Of vice would conjure to reality. 
 
 Oh, what a lazy, daft expedience 
 
 This quackery of legislative cure 
 
 For every evil ! Oh, what impotence 
 
 Of true resourcefulness ! What warrant sure 
 
 To feed the canker with the nouriture 
 
 Its foul growth craves ! What conscience-indolence ! 
 
 III. 
 
 Sweet notes of music pulse upon the ear 
 
 And melt the heart 
 
 With magisterial art — 
 Sweet notes that ring upon the atmosphere, 
 As singing dew-drops on a morning clear 
 To us their matin-music would impart 
 
 Could we their song but hear. 
 A Poet thrills us with his mighty line 
 
 That lifts us high 
 
 Above the works that justify 
 Even a lofty life — above our utmost sky, 
 And to the sapphire throne our souls incline. 
 A Painter with his apt, heart-handled brush 
 
 Will make us dream 
 
 Of all the thoughts that seem 
 His soul to hold, and all the thoughts that gush 
 From our own well-head — thoughts that hush 
 
 Articulate phrase 
 
 And indecorous praise, 
 Although in surging streams from copious source they 
 rush. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 83 
 
 And we are thankful for these gifts that stir 
 
 The sluggish streams of stagnant, soulless life 
 
 Into swift maelstroms of a noble strife — 
 
 For these cool, foaming mountain-bournes that sate 
 
 Inevitable thirst. We would not slur 
 
 The worth of those who make us tolerate — 
 
 Aye, even bless — an unpropitious fate, 
 
 That otherwise would break us with its weight 
 
 Of commonplace : but yet we cannot bow 
 
 In acquiescence mild whene'er sane men — 
 
 If to them sanity we may allow — 
 
 Some really sterling worth invalidate 
 
 By fulsome flattery's excess ; and when 
 
 Absurd superlatives predominate. 
 
 ("This greatest work," they say, "that tops the world," 
 
 When but a tithe of glories that are furled 
 
 Within its folds are known.) And when they would 
 
 Exactly register each splendid name. 
 
 And set it in some blatant Hall of Fame, 
 
 So that the apish, gaping brotherhood 
 
 Of oafs may say "Behold our century 
 
 Of lights that merit immortality;" 
 
 As though, forsooth, there yearned a wide abyss 
 
 'Twixt hundredth and his sequent who did miss 
 
 The prize — perhaps they cannot be compared 
 
 By reason of their drift unparallel — 
 
 Both laudable, who might have almost shared 
 
 The bays. And yet because one must "excel" 
 
 Because our darling "greatest" must be aired 
 
 We place the first in heaven, the other — well 
 
 Where never yet has bloomed the asphodel. 
 
84'^ MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Beneath thine olive tree, 
 
 O Pallas, wise and free, 
 Thou glowest white against the leaflets pale ; 
 Around thee on thy rock the fluted columns gleam, 
 Uplifting groups of sculptured forms supreme. 
 Below, the hamlets shine in trimly-gardened vale; 
 While on the marge of sky a strake of sea — 
 As blue as thy wide eyes is flecked with sail 
 Commercing freely with the gentle gale. 
 
 O Goddess, 'tis to thee. 
 
 Who hold'st our destiny, 
 We must for our ensured salvation look : 
 For thou dost hold the salutary book 
 Of Wisdom ; and from thy heart doth spring 
 
 The limpid brook 
 Of Character. O Pallas, give us wing 
 
 To reach thy templed height. 
 
 To touch thy garments bright ! 
 Vouchsafe to us thy pages to peruse, 
 
 Nor stern refuse 
 
 Us copious draught 
 From thy heart's purest stream. Thus may we graft 
 Thy godhead on our heritage of night — 
 Thy godhead, our enduring pharos-light — 
 
 Then may we keep 
 Upon its purposed cruise 
 Our stanchest country's craft ; 
 And it shall hull triumphant o'er the angry deep. 
 
 Alas, we seem to educate in vain ! 
 
 The princely largesses which rich men rain 
 
 Incessant on the vast, absorbent throng 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 85 
 
 Of "institutions" should delete all wrong; 
 
 But yet the wrong is there, and will exist 
 
 Unless with iterance we aye insist 
 
 On conduct-culture : for we have too long 
 
 Made gay parade of this poor harlequin, 
 
 This conscienceless and spangled sciolist, 
 
 This semi-cultured clown — half white, half black — 
 
 This lettered gentleman — and moral quack — 
 
 Who brings to knowledge lack of discipline, 
 
 Who to his learning, adds a subtler sin. 
 
 That Ignorance should gulp the seasoned mess — 
 Prepared by skillful chefs a lustful press 
 Employs — of which the main ingredients 
 Are shrill hysteria and its complements — 
 Foulness and Lie — that ignorance should lend 
 Its eyes and ears to this rank dividend 
 Of well-invested gold, we must expect — 
 This being an ill we may in time correct — 
 But that our educated man should read, 
 Or hear — while disapproving — and what's worse 
 Should sell his pen thereto — that he should nurse 
 The nauseating monster which doth breed 
 The plague — this is discouraging, indeed ! 
 
 Not only in the tawdry, daily sheet 
 
 That caters to the people's prurient sense. 
 
 And glories in its flaunted opulence 
 
 Of sordidness — not only do we meet 
 
 Therein unholy things, but on discreet 
 
 And hall-marked pages which like lambkins bleat 
 
 Their artlessness to dupes, their reverence, 
 
 Their philanthropic aims ; as though the pence 
 
 Were vulgar adjuncts to a purpose sweet 
 
86 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 And pure! To us poor artists who have won 
 
 The reputation for incompetence 
 
 And have been ridiculed for negligence 
 
 To work to worldly gain what we have spun 
 
 Of fame — to us this masking seems unclean. 
 
 To judge achievement by its power to sell, 
 
 Not by the art that therein doth indwell; 
 
 To give an erring people what they crave, 
 
 Not what they ought to have ; nor try to wean 
 
 Them from neurosis to a healthy state ; 
 
 Nor for improvement's sake have will to waive 
 
 A coin or so — to us who would create 
 
 The perfect thing, this seems degenerate. 
 
 Suppose — despite the supercilious sneer 
 Of politicians "practical" and fleer 
 Of millionaires — salvation should be reached 
 Through rounded culture of the human whole — 
 Refinement of the brain, the act, the soul, 
 Each with the others profitably pleached 
 Like luscious fruit-trees in a garden's sun? 
 This well might be — and then the goal is won. 
 
 O Pallas, on thy hill, 
 
 O white upon the green 
 
 Of olives' silvery sheen, 
 Do thou, blue-eyed, our ardent prayer fulfill ! 
 
 Forever cast aside 
 
 Thy spear and buckler wide. 
 And silent be for aye thy blasting war-cry shrill. 
 
 And from thy templed height 
 
 Shed everlasting light 
 And make a glorious day of what now seems the night ! 
 
SONNETS. 
 
SONNETS. 
 
 DUE REWARD. 
 
 It is not possible that you or I, 
 
 Leal comrades of fastidious brush or pen 
 Should gain the universal praise of men, 
 Because the very themes we tensely try 
 
 To mould — the means we take to vivify 
 
 Our ends are obvious to the narrow ken 
 Of merely half-a-score. This know we when 
 Our most inspired works unshapen lie. 
 
 Nor if a fellow man win wider fame, 
 
 And earn the sweet, obsequious courtesy 
 Of those who print or sell, or read or view, 
 Should we complain. They have a fair-won name 
 
 For what they do. But you, good friends, and I 
 Crave choicer laurels from the chosen few. 
 
 FIRST GLIMPSES. 
 
 I love to think what wonder must have been 
 
 Young Durer's when there broke upon his view 
 The opaled isle beneath the Italian blue — 
 An Orient gem — a color-cantilene ! 
 
 Or Raphael's heart-beat when his vision keen 
 
90 SONNETS. 
 
 Descried Rome's majesty, wherefrom he drew 
 A larger style — a majesty that threw 
 Its ampler garb upon an art serene ! 
 
 No more, perhaps, they quivered than did I 
 
 When voyaging from a wintry, northern home 
 
 I saw the deathless City shimmering lie 
 
 In midst of its vast plain — a streak of foam 
 
 On a great mounded sea — and surging high 
 O'er all far gleamed the domineering Dome. 
 
 SHADELESS. 
 
 Oft have I seen a wide-zoned westering sun 
 
 Gaze square-faced on a mighty eastern hill, 
 Deep-cloven by some sudden storm-born rill, 
 Wood-clustered, broken, rough with crags that run 
 
 Their ledgeless needles upwards so that none 
 May tread thereon — aye, squarely gaze until 
 He every shadowed nook and cranny fill. 
 And all the glowing masses melt in one. 
 
 So when, O friend, thou standest face to face 
 
 And sheddest beams direct from thy clear eyes 
 Into my rifted soul — where rocks are strown 
 
 About with bowers — their ministering grace 
 Its sundered, furrowed stretches unifies, 
 Till it seems one and shadeless as thine own. 
 
SONNETS. 91 
 
 A DIALOGUE. 
 
 I. 
 
 A friend who bravely wore his crown of woe, 
 In barrenness of will once said to m^ 
 "Oh, what a healthful solace it must be 
 To ply thy brush, or touch thy lyre so 
 
 That all their inspirations undergo 
 
 A change, and all that thou dost feel or see 
 Is glorified. Pure joy must come to thee 
 E'en when with gall thy heart doth overflow. 
 
 If, when my grief doth paralyze desire, 
 
 I could but sing that grief in heavenly strain, 
 
 And flame the ash into celestial fire ; 
 
 If I could paint the dreary skies that rain 
 
 Depressing tears, till all the world admire 
 
 Those tearful skies — I would not part with pain." 
 
 II. 
 
 "Ah, so you think as many do, sad friend. 
 
 And so zve think — before accomplishment — 
 To whom the sovran Artifex has lent 
 A granule of his wit to apprehend 
 
 Selected truths, and by our skill commend 
 
 Them to mankind. The pleasure to invent 
 A beauty, and to claim the world's assent, 
 All joy, all grief doth for the time transcend. 
 
 To filch the light that liveries with gold 
 
 The rolling uplands and the tranquil mead — 
 
 To fill the eyes with crystals manifold — 
 Ah, this for us is happiness, indeed. 
 
 But if the world its balsamed praise withhold? 
 
 What if our flower prove but a loveless weed? " 
 
92 SONNETS. 
 
 FOR ARTS AND CRAFTS. 
 
 I. 
 
 Although Lord Dives buys a work of Art 
 
 Which costs the dowry of an Asian Queen, 
 E'en such a timely purchase does not mean 
 That our energic Nation has its heart 
 
 In Beauty's cult. If cunning man impart 
 
 Some semblance here of that which might have been 
 A flower's life expanding in the sheen 
 Of flaming, equatorial suns which dart 
 
 Congenial rays ; if he doth imitate 
 
 Their natural cheer in climes intemperate ; 
 And if beneath some shining, crystal roof 
 
 We scent exotic odors which o'erweight 
 
 The heart with longing; this is only proof 
 
 ' That from the realm of flowers we live aloof. 
 
 II. 
 
 That may be called a floral paradise 
 
 Wherein no blustrous, gelid winds offend 
 
 The tenderest growths; where great and lesser 
 
 blend 
 Their harmonies, nor need deft man's device 
 
 To bloom in beauty — no — nor where the price 
 
 Is counted in the scale. The Lord doth spend 
 His craft upon the tiniest plant, and lend 
 
SONNETS. 93 
 
 It largest charm. When we can sacrifice 
 Our time and thought upon the humblest things — 
 Those useful things that make life's everyday 
 Almost a pastime (not some thing unique 
 Of value which conspicuously brings 
 A solitary joy), then we may say 
 We love our Art as did the Phidian Greek. 
 
 A STREET-SCENE. 
 
 To-day I saw a youngish woman reel 
 
 Along the street amid a populace 
 
 Scarce heedful of the frequent sight — her face 
 
 The lurid hue of ashes that congeal 
 Upon a homeless hearth — too drunk to feel 
 
 The loss of womanhood or her disgrace 
 
 Wide-published in the very market-place, 
 
 Or her besotted squalor to conceal. 
 Her pallid hands were groping for support. 
 
 Clutching at nothings like a drowning man ; 
 
 Oh, how the horror clings to memory! 
 And yet we ceaseless preach and aye exhort — 
 
 Yes have, and shall exhort through years that span 
 
 Man's life on Earth. Can Temperance never be? 
 
94 SONNETS. 
 
 HER EVIL DREAM. 
 
 Because thy virile soul doth correspond 
 
 In Beauty to thy Grecian form and face — 
 Because thy mind doth share their classic grace — 
 Thou chainest me with Fascination's bond. 
 
 Yet how last night with her Circean wand 
 
 Did Sleep transfigure thee, and spiteful trace 
 Thy form in outline of a less fair race ! 
 But 'not thy soul — for that did lie beyond 
 
 Her freakish influence. And while I knew 
 
 That thou wert thou, and didst unwitting dwell 
 In an ill-favored shape, a genuine tear 
 
 Welled from my heart at this thine altered view. 
 
 They prate who say Man's mind doth Love compel ; 
 Since thus deflowered thou wert no longer dear! 
 
 TO THE SCOURGING ANGEL IN RAPHAEL'S 
 "HELIODORUS." 
 
 O terrible Avenger — yet so fair ! 
 
 God-like thy massive-muscled torse and limb ! 
 And chaste thy features as the cherubim 
 Psalming the rain-bowed throne ! Fierce through 
 the air 
 
 Descends thy ponderous arm, scourge-girt, and bare 
 To thy strong neck. As swiftly dost thou skim 
 The marbled pavement on thine errand grim, 
 As ravening eagles from their mountain lair. 
 
SONNETS. 95 
 
 O, heavenly Youth! forever wreak thy wrath, 
 As thou didst then, upon the craven crew 
 That would the helpless rob. Athwart their path 
 
 Sweep like a flame, and with thy righteous rod 
 
 Lash to thy full strength's verge ! For aye renew 
 The chastening task imposed on thee by God ! 
 
 AT A BANQUET. 
 
 My neighbor at a banquet said to me: 
 
 "There sits a wealthy man across the board, 
 Who lives in constant dread of Death : his hoard 
 He shares with holy guilds of Charity, 
 
 In hopes that God approvingly may see 
 
 These largesses (faith! all he can afford 
 Without some inconvenience) and accord 
 Him length of days — e'en days of Misery. 
 
 But I, who scarcely know from day to day 
 
 From whence will drop the necessary crumb — 
 
 The unequivalent and obvious pay 
 
 For zeal which only craves the encomium 
 
 Of men I love, and self-respect — / say 
 
 'Whenever Thou dost call, O Lord, I come.' " 
 
 THE WAITING RACE. 
 
 Judgment it needs to run a waiting race, 
 And self-restraint, and temper to endure 
 The cheers for fleeter rivals who secure 
 The early lead, setting too fast a pace ; 
 
 Who for the moment witch the populace 
 
96 SONNETS. 
 
 That hails all primacies — or premature, 
 Or timely — all the flashy bursts that lure 
 To lessening speed and loss of final place. 
 
 How fine it is, that culminating rush, 
 
 Dashing from garnered strength — that gallant flies 
 An easy winner to a Life-work's goal! 
 
 Oh, for such continence when Victory's flush 
 Doth light what mode and moment idolize. 
 To hold one's conscious power in just control! 
 
 A WOMAN'S SONG. 
 
 Aweary of men's talk and boisterous ways, 
 I stood before a fane : and in such mood 
 I entered. Light supreme ! The gleaming rood, 
 The censer-mist, the clustered candles' blaze. 
 
 The gold-wrought copes re-echoing their rays, 
 My winter-chilled and languid soul imbued 
 With warmth, and lifted it from lassitude, 
 And lost it in a rapt, oblivious maze. 
 
 Yet when a sweetly cadenced, soaring voice 
 
 Poured its heart's torrent on the incensed air. 
 Nor rood, nor censer, nor the coped throng 
 
 Could longer my distracted soul rejoice — 
 
 Only the strain which laid its heart-deeps bare, 
 And that because it was a woman's song. 
 
SONNETS. 97 
 
 TO NESSUNA. 
 
 Not for my life, dear love, would I forego 
 
 The sweet suggestions that kind Nature brings. 
 In all her varied harmonies there rings 
 A note of thee. The forest rills that flow 
 
 'Neath sunless ferns thy modesty foreshow ; 
 The osier that from oozy margin springs 
 Is not more lithe than thou ; no birdling sings 
 More natively; nor is the burnished snow 
 
 Upon the wolds more candid than thy soul. 
 
 And thou art fair as leas in blooming-time ; 
 And soft as clinging, downy clouds that woo 
 
 The lofty wood-crowned hills, or mists that roll 
 O'er channeled lowlands at the day's cool prime; 
 And thou art sunnier than the fleckless blue ! 
 
 NOT TOO OFTEN, MUSE! 
 
 Grant not too often that exalted mood 
 
 Which bards call inspiration, raptured Muse ! 
 Nay, not too often spread thy lifting dews 
 O'er a responsive will — alas, indued 
 
 With human reach — nor from thine altitude 
 Upon the burning clouds my soul suffuse 
 With irised tints, since I at time would lose 
 My self in an uncolored interlude. 
 
 For when my heart's heart thou dost penetrate, 
 And quicken but a spark with thy full fire 
 That shoots into the heavens flash on flash, 
 
98 SONNETS. 
 
 Oh then I grieve my paltry, mortal state; 
 And even while I sweep my earthly lyre 
 I dread the after, paUid, lifeless ash! 
 
 AT THE GATES OF DEATH. 
 
 O God, dear God, once more before I go. 
 Let me behold her with my heavy eyes ! 
 If aught I've ever done to signalize 
 Thy works; if ever with some paltry show 
 
 Of meekness I have borne my portioned woe. 
 Or ever made a worthy sacrifice 
 In thy complacent sight; then exercise 
 Thy graciousness, and while yet here below 
 
 Let me once more behold her e'en though far — 
 
 Far from my hungry arms, my passion's proof, 
 My starving hope. Oh let — oh let me see 
 
 Her once again, e'en as a far-off star 
 
 That beams its light through myriad miles aloof- 
 Once more, dear God, before I go to Thee ! 
 
 TO LONGFELLOW. 
 
 I saw thee often in my boyish days. 
 
 Roaming the rocks that overbrow the seas 
 
 Borne landwards by the soughing, southern breeze, 
 
 As though they yearned for thee, and craved to gaze 
 
SONNETS. 99 
 
 Upon thy face benign, and thy mild ways. 
 And oft in churlish winter at thine ease 
 I watched thee reading by thine orange-trees, 
 Posed in a sunny nook to hoard the rays. 
 
 O sweetest Singer, ever gentle Heart, 
 It is not always that an idol's face 
 Doth with our fondest expectations meet — 
 
 That manner is the happy counterpart 
 
 Of gentle thought, and verses' cadenced grace ; 
 But thou, thy ways, thy verse alike were sweet ! 
 
 PANOPLIED. 
 
 No man can hurt thee with his evil tongue ; 
 
 Since if his tale be true, then mend thy ways, 
 And strive by discipline to earn self praise. 
 Until fair phrases from his lips be wrung, 
 
 And those sharp-toothed, envenomed words that stung 
 Be whistled home like to a cur that bays 
 At some one poorly garbed, who yet betrays 
 The mien of gentle race from which he sprung. 
 
 But if the tale be top to bottom false, 
 
 Why then such falsehood ought to stimulate 
 The wish to controvert — not by the lie 
 
 Flung back with face aflame ; nor by assaults 
 Upon him who the lie did generate; 
 But by a Life that falsehood must deny. 
 
 LofC* 
 
100 SONNETS. 
 
 NAPOLEON'S END. 
 
 I would have had him fall at Waterloo ; 
 
 Not at the close of that world-darkening fight, 
 When Prussian talons tore his stubborn right, 
 Nor when upon the left his guards he threw 
 
 Against the Lion's lair — too late, too few — 
 
 But when his horsemen up the central height 
 Crashed like the clangorous seas agleam with light. 
 And every Gallic trumpet victory blew. 
 
 I would have seen him in the glaring lead 
 
 Of that earth-quaking charge, which did expend 
 
 Itself on steel, athwart his snow-white steed, 
 
 Huzzaed by myriad, rapturous throats that rend 
 
 The air with "Vive I'Empereur." Oh, that indeed, 
 A climax would have been ! a Caesar's end ! 
 
 TO ASPIRANTS. 
 
 Ye cannot sing if ye would Truth evade, 
 Or fear to blare it, lest it might offend 
 The great, or prove disrelish to a friend, 
 To kinsfolk or to self ; or might degrade 
 
 Man's Laws most sacrosanct; or Custom staid 
 Might vivify to some productive end. 
 Better a peace that doth not apprehend, 
 Than a weak piping that is half dismayed 
 
 At its too boisterous notes. For moving song 
 Is but the rhythmic voicing of the soul ; 
 A hymn of Hope at crescent dawn's chaste light; 
 
 A trumpet-blast when its noon rays are strong 
 And pierce the gyring clouds ; a cry of dole 
 In its unstarred, black agony of night ! 
 
SONNETS. lOI 
 
 O DESIRE! 
 
 Always the same, Desire, O swift Desire — 
 
 Whether beneath the Theban vultured blue, 
 
 Or midst enameled halls of Orient hue, 
 
 Where Xerxes throned in glistening, gemmed attire ; 
 
 Whether beneath the frieze that yet doth fire 
 Creative souls but half as well-to-do. 
 Or 'twixt the wide-girthed piers that upward woo 
 The eye to poised vaults, or yet e'en higher 
 
 To domes that dim in heavenly atmosphere — 
 
 Always the same. Desire, did men's hearts yearn — 
 Yearn for two things alone, of two things dream — 
 
 And still do yearn, and aye shall hold most dear 
 
 Till planets smoke and Earth's foundations burn — 
 Love and Achievement — O Desire supreme ! 
 
 SUGGESTED BY A VISIT TO THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF VIRGINIA. 
 
 I. 
 
 Red were the hills with tilth in that fair State 
 
 That has its name from England's virgin queen; 
 Soft were the skies with April's dreamy sheen. 
 And every thing to Peace was consecrate. 
 
 O Peace, how swift thy wings to bear me straight 
 To my sure goal through tracts that lie between 
 The argent river and the Ridge serene ! 
 It took four years, O fratricidal Hate, 
 
102 SONNETS. 
 
 To force thy slow and sanguinary way 
 
 Through that short spread of battle-furrowed land, 
 Where every hamlet bears a lurid name. 
 
 And yet the kin of those who in the fray 
 
 Smote my dear kin, and reaped from them the same, 
 Did offer me the kindliest, friendliest hand. 
 
 II. 
 
 In thy sweet service, Art, I journeyed there, 
 Who by the potence of thy fruitful wand 
 Dost bind discordants in a friendly bond. 
 Dost that effect which is the sword's despair, 
 
 Dost build the sheep-cotes in the lion's lair! 
 
 Ah, we who know thee well should ne'er despond, 
 Because through thee all things that lie beyond 
 Thy pale to-day, may yet be passing fair ! 
 
 And thus I mused on that mild April morn. 
 As in a restful mood I passed arcades, 
 And gleaming shafts against the quiet red. 
 
 And gazed beyond the classic clusters born 
 
 Of a wide-cultured mind, and saw the shades 
 That far-off clouds upon the mountains spread. 
 
 III. 
 
 Thou art the genius of this quiet place, 
 
 Who wast the third — our Nation's President. 
 Whene'er I hear thy name, there doth present 
 Itself an image of thy form and face 
 
 All panoplied to guard our weakling race 
 
 From privileged encroachments, and prevent 
 
 The usurpation of the insolent, 
 
 Who would free-thought to vassalage debase. 
 
SONNETS. 103 
 
 Withal another image doth appear 
 
 To me in gentler guise — the man of taste — 
 The lover of the book — the architect. 
 
 (Oh, that all rulers held these things as dear!) 
 E'en when our infant land was but a waste, 
 Thou didst promote what lesser men neglect. 
 
 WIDOWED. 
 
 Oft did I call through echoing rooms thy name. 
 And thou didst from thy chamber answer me 
 In tones so cheerful that they seemed to be 
 A smile in words — and then there quickly came 
 
 Thy footsteps — then a noble face aflame 
 With thy rapt inspiration, Poesy! 
 And thou didst breathe an immortality 
 Which seemed to covet thy high mortal fame. 
 
 Yet now I call to thee throughout a night 
 
 That never greets the dawn, that knows no star. 
 Nor moon, nor earth-illuminated cloud. 
 
 I call to thee and call, craving a sight 
 
 Of thee — but thou, O Heart, dost lie afar, 
 Enfolded in thy laurel-woven shroud. 
 
104 SONNETS. 
 
 ON REVISITING A PICTURE-GALLERY. 
 
 Old friends, what joy to note how fair ye are! 
 That after many a searing, falling year 
 Ye now as erst most beautiful appear, 
 Nor wrong an early love, nor rudely jar 
 
 A later, wider taste. While whims bizarre 
 
 Have come and gone, and in their swift career 
 Have lapsed through blatant praise to silent sneer, 
 Ye still gleam constant as a steadfast star. 
 
 The comrades of our youth are worn with age. 
 And if in their decline they still seem fair, 
 
 'Tis that we have the power to disengage 
 
 The husk of years, and see them as they were. 
 
 But ye are haloed by the film of time, 
 
 And even lovelier than in your prime! 
 
 IN DARKNESS. 
 
 Alone in palling darkness I must be, 
 
 That through the viewless, sleepless hours of night 
 
 I may commune with my soul's bitter plight ; 
 
 Think how the blow which overwhelmeth me 
 Might have been glanced, and I from gall be free; 
 
 Rehearse the fell details in after-light ; 
 
 And curse the hateful cause from scorn's sheer 
 height ; 
 
 And then crave help in deep humility. 
 
SONNETS. 105 
 
 Oh, hear my litany most gracious God, 
 
 And raise me, as thou canst, impersonate 
 In thy created Nature's soothing guise, 
 
 When earliest breezes stir the dewy sod, 
 And far-off, slumbrous ranges crenelate 
 The pearly light— the light of dawning skies ! 
 
 FALTERINGS. 
 
 Thou art a mother harsh, O northern Pine, 
 Though not unkindly in thy rugged way. 
 When tenderer forest-mates stand blank and gray 
 On frozen hills, thy foliage benign 
 
 Doth shelter us, frail brood — an intertwine 
 Of green unflinching that doth hold at bay 
 The snarling winds in all their white array — 
 An intertwine of needles, thy soul-sign! 
 
 Therewith thou knittest fibre fit to bear 
 
 The thrusting strain of years, and bar the foes 
 Forever pressing on our zeal to live 
 
 The loftier life. We know we are thy care; 
 Yet if from time to time our spirit goes 
 Afield on Southern airs, wilt thou forgive? 
 
I06 SONNETS. 
 
 RELIEF. 
 
 Thou knowest how it is when all forespent 
 
 With ferment and the rack of pain one throws 
 The body on the bed, and yearned Repose 
 Comes not ; yet if the sturdier will be bent 
 
 To wait — even for hours — at last is sent 
 
 Sweet relaxation, when the pain-surge grows 
 Quiescent, when the spirit blissward goes. 
 When every nerve and sinew swoons content. 
 
 So friend in thine o'erwhelming agony 
 
 Have patience though thou sightest not relief, 
 Which glows aloof like some uncharted star; 
 
 But yet will surely shed its rays on thee, 
 
 And mitigate with cheer thy swartest grief. 
 If thou wilt wait for that which seems so far. 
 
 VICARIOUSLY. 
 
 Let me sit here with thee in this soft air. 
 
 And watch the larches flick the moon's white face 
 Half-veiled beneath their darkling needle-lace 
 That makes her seem a myriad times more fair. 
 
 Let me sit near to thee, and let thy hair 
 
 Brush my pale cheek, and let the radiant grace 
 Of thy sweet person for a gentle space 
 Enhalo me till I its radiance share. 
 
SONNETS. 107 
 
 Not for thy sake, O dear one, not for thee 
 
 Would I thus languish 'neath the luring light, 
 Nor watch through lace of larch the moonbeams 
 white. 
 
 Nor feel dark meshes sweep in movement free 
 Against my pallor — but that once we three 
 Sat here — the third far-gathered to her night ! 
 
 THE SOUL'S DISCERNMENT. 
 
 White is the glory of the Autumn sky 
 
 Above the dark, unmantling, arbored height ! 
 
 Below the freshets catch the pearly light 
 
 To flash it through the reedy meres that sigh, 
 
 Waiting for winter's pearlier canopy. 
 
 The cold breeze frets their flickering surface bright, 
 And should we trust our often erring sight 
 'Twere very Dawn — did not the soul belie. 
 
 Poor Soul, thou flaggest after garish day ! 
 
 Thou knowest 't is not Dawn but fainting Eve. 
 No likeness of the light can thee deceive. 
 
 Nor rustle of cool airs. For when Dawn's ray 
 Shoots zenithward, thou dost in truth believe 
 Thy bolt will pace it on its heavenward way. 
 
I08 SONNETS. 
 
 TO SOME ARCHITECTS AND DECORATORS. 
 
 "For God's love, cease your robberies and create." 
 These bitter, burning words impulsive came 
 From out a rankling heart, with wrath aflame, 
 As on a thoroughfare I saw a crate 
 
 Haled from a "dealer's" warehouse, destinate 
 To some new plutocrat, and through its frame 
 A marble fair, whose carvings did proclaim 
 Its provenance, and fixed its purest date. 
 
 Poor fane, or poorer palace, now deflowered 
 Of this rare arabesqued and tawny stone, 
 What pilgrim now will worship at thy shrine ? 
 
 And who will care for thee here ill-embowered 
 In Pluto's vamped abode, whose modern tone 
 Swears with the old ! New bottles for new wine. 
 
 HALF-MAST. 
 I. 
 
 Making my early way through fog and smoke. 
 And heavy sea-born snowflakes falling fast, 
 That nigh out-blotted those cloud-consorts vast 
 Which hive an ordinary township's folk, 
 
 I saw above the tangled throngs, that choke 
 
 The ducts of trade, a club's flag hung half-mast, 
 Wafting its silent news, "A Life has passed." 
 And one beneath its folds will say : "I spoke 
 
SONNETS. 109 
 
 To him but yester-week in perfect health"; 
 
 Another on some eager quest will pause 
 
 To state in kindliness, "Poor Blank is dead," 
 And this is much, forsooth, when luring Wealth 
 
 Unto itself all time, all reverence draws; 
 
 To say "he's gone" is all that can be said. 
 
 II. 
 
 In many hearts, I deem, there is enshrined 
 Some hamlet with affiliations dear — 
 The aromatic bursting of the year; 
 The languid summer streams that bowered wind 
 Through meadows pranked; the autumn leaves that 
 bhnd 
 With passioned hues ; the evenings cold and clear 
 That augur frost, and pungent flames that cheer 
 The group of friends whose lives are intertwined. 
 And when the tongue of its familiar bell 
 
 Doth make announcement that an hour supreme 
 Has come, we know that 'tis the lethal knell 
 
 Of some companion whom we did estem 
 Because we had the time to know him well; 
 And who will linger like a fragrant dream. 
 
 ANNUALLY. 
 
 Each year upon this sanctioned holiday — 
 
 Which thou, dear Love, long since didst pass 
 
 with me 
 In sympathetic converse ; thou so free 
 From fretting cares of State, and all that lay 
 
no SONNETS. 
 
 Upon thy mind — on this same spot I play 
 My annual part alone, and strive to see 
 Thy fine, strong face, and in my reverie 
 To thrill to thy great words' inspiring sway. 
 But, thou, O Love, art busy with world-works; 
 
 And art, perchance cheered on by others' voice; 
 And in thy heart, perhaps, no fragrance lurks 
 
 Of this dear day; and might'st no more rejoice 
 To bide with me. Yet though thou com'st not here. 
 Still shall / come through each deflowering year. 
 
 TOLERANCE. 
 
 We must regard with patience infinite 
 
 Deflections from the Right. No matter how 
 A man be girt, for flaws we must allow. 
 Although his panoply may seem well-fit 
 
 To swerve temptation's shafts, and to outwit 
 
 An expert's knack, some cursed bolt will plow 
 Its ways through it, and his fast virtue-vow 
 Be ruptured by some 'lurement apposite. 
 
 A restless, ravening beast will ceaseless pry 
 About his quarry's warded cote until 
 He finds the least resisting spot — some small. 
 
 And latent chink, which he will amplify. 
 
 So devils work with devils' fiendish skill 
 Upon our weaknesses — and then we fall ! 
 
SONNETS. Ill 
 
 CONCRETE DREAMS. 
 
 As I am sitting here before the blaze, 
 
 When hostile winds are shrilling through the trees, 
 
 And turning o'er the leaves that ever please 
 
 Of those selectest bards who poured their rays 
 
 Benign on both our lives in past, sweet days. 
 Ere Death did issue his acerb decrees, 
 My thronging dreams seem clear realities. 
 And should'st thou now approach, as erst, to praise 
 
 Some passage with thy charming over-zeal — 
 
 With emphasis wide-orbed — and place thy hand 
 Upon my head, upright behind my chair, 
 
 I should not start, nor even make appeal 
 
 To sight for proof that thou so close didst stand, 
 Since it would seem most meet that thou wert there. 
 
 LEONARDO DA VINCI. 
 
 There was a legend once that thou didst die 
 Supported in the arms of France's King. 
 'Twas thus the poets loved thine end to sing, 
 And painters thy proud fate to glorify — 
 
 Conjecturing not thy kingship did outvie 
 
 The lesser one's and by transmission bring 
 To him renown ; that on thy safest wing 
 He wedged his flight to immortality. 
 
 Yet in the pride of fact they tell us now 
 All this is but an airy elf-spun talc! 
 
112 SONNETS. 
 
 What matters it? for on thy reverend brow 
 The eternal light of genius cannot fail, 
 
 Nor could a dizened emperor endow 
 
 It with a ray, nor turn a tithe Worth's scale! 
 
 II. 
 
 I see thee not in majesty of age 
 
 As thou thy furrowed features didst portray, 
 
 But in youth's prime, when thou wert wont to stray 
 
 Through Tuscan vales, most beautiful, and sage 
 
 Beyond thy years, whilst from the equipage 
 
 Of Nature's realm — the flowers that meads inlay. 
 The rosy heights, the terraced olives gray — 
 Thou didst the highest beauties disengage. 
 
 The highest ! for alone thou didst uphoard 
 
 "Choice truths selected from the facts less rare." 
 
 And he who reads of spheres by thee explored. 
 And all their lovely mysteries laid bare. 
 
 Will say that thou hast struck the modern chord, 
 And art to latest feeling latest heir. 
 
 III. 
 
 In thine ingenious Treatise thou dost say 
 That artists fashion their creations so 
 That even alien features clearly show 
 Their authors' likenesses. Oh, then we may 
 
 With certitude thy winsome face portray, 
 
 And all its beauty and expressions know, 
 Which won a generation — high and low. 
 Gioconda ! is the smile that soft doth play 
 
 Around the purlieus of thy lips — that smile 
 
 Which spread felicitous through Lombard art, 
 
SONNETS. 113 
 
 And doth the joyless modern still beguile — 
 Is it, indeed, the witching counterpart 
 
 Of his sweet smile who painted thee, awhile 
 
 The lute-strings cheered thy fresh, responsive heart? 
 
 Should we expect an all-accomplished one 
 To mew his blooming in a narrow bed? 
 Thy multi-colored genius was outspread 
 O'er many plots that glowed beneath the sun 
 
 Of a bright age — a rich parterre which none 
 Could equal for its hues illimited — 
 Purple, and blue, and gold, and rapturous red. 
 And all the gorgeous shades that interrun. 
 
 What if thy bent had been a monochrome. 
 
 Or had not sought the vault of heaven to span, 
 
 Or lynx-eyed o'er the face of earth to roam? 
 If thou hadst delved mere local artisan, 
 
 And in the workshop made thy steadfast home? 
 
 The more perchance the Art — the less the man ! 
 
 V. 
 
 Nor do I in my love for Art lament 
 
 That thou with pencil didst not labor more, 
 That thou hast left us scarcely half a score 
 Of great authentic works, on which was spent 
 
 The effort of a soul omnipotent. 
 
 'Tis sweeter far, I think, to stand before 
 Some solitary beauty and adore, 
 Than flutter o'er a thousand different. 
 
 One lovely thing doth give a greater zest 
 
 Than frequencies which human hearts conternn, 
 
114 SONNETS. 
 
 E'en though they be among the loveliest. 
 
 In faith I'd rather have one splendid gem 
 Because it's one, than all the mated rest 
 
 Set in a thrice encompassed diadem! 
 
 SELF-RESPECT. 
 
 Mark what I say ! If thou canst be content 
 With modest means, and bend a frugal way 
 To thy self-honoring goal, nor fall a prey 
 To wealth's o'erweening, splendid blandishment, 
 
 And without gall remain indifferent 
 
 To an ephemeral fame; thou canst obey 
 Thy purest inclinations, and portray 
 Thy very heart in colors eloquent. 
 
 But if thou wouldst obtain some fleet applause, 
 Or gather gold to make a specious show, 
 Thou must affront thy conscience, and revere 
 
 The men thou lovest not; obey their laws — 
 
 Their very whims; thou must a thrall look low, 
 Nor ever boldly up, of all men peer ! 
 
SONNETS. 115 
 
 IMMIGRATION. 
 
 Whene'er I see the frouzy, foreign brood 
 
 That swarms our streets, debased, iUiterate, 
 
 That — imfamihar with our goodly state 
 
 Which gires it wholesome shelter, raiment, food — 
 
 Makes compact with some politician shrewd 
 To undermine those rights inviolate 
 Which every freeman holds most consecrate, 
 Oh, then I curse its foul ingratitude. 
 
 Nay, stay thy curse ! it may be ours yet — 
 
 If we keep ope the friendly door, nor ask 
 For recompense, nor whether it be worth 
 
 Our present while to teach the herd, nor let 
 The ample cost curtail the ampler task — 
 It may be ours to purify the Earth. 
 
 HEIRLESS. 
 
 Oh, could there follow me some reverent heir ! 
 Then would these sacred legacies that call 
 From out the honored past securely fall 
 Into caressing hands — hands that would bear 
 
 Them to fond heritors — hands that would care 
 
 For them as I have cared. Now Goth and Gaul 
 
 Will bid for them, and in an alien hall 
 
 The fate of outlawed gods they needs must share. 
 
 This had I from an ancestor who wrenched 
 
 It from an unflagged ship whose flames were 
 quenched 
 
Il6 SONNETS. 
 
 When plunging through the seas to twilight sands; 
 
 That soldier mustered with the patriot bands 
 On Bunker Hill ; and this — oh let it be 
 
 Unwrit — mine only is its sanctity. 
 
 CHARACTER. 
 
 It sometimes happens in a man's career 
 
 That all forsakes him — kindred, health, and friends. 
 Success, and every pleasure that attends 
 The normal life — and naught on earth is dear 
 
 Save starveling memories. No way seems clear 
 Excepting that — forever free — which trends 
 To Death. Oh, then it is that he depends 
 On character through shoaling straits to steer. 
 
 'Tis easy thing to reach the cypressed isle, 
 
 When candid clouds repeat on halcyon seas, 
 In rotten craft, or skimming wherries frail, 
 
 Drifting unpiloted the merry while. 
 
 With jocund song and jest. But what of these 
 When black, bewildering, thunderous storms pre- 
 vail? 
 
SONNETS. 117 
 
 EARTHWARDS. 
 
 Within the vortex of the city's trade 
 
 There sleeps a convent-garth which well I know, 
 Where black-robed nuns with cowls as white as 
 
 snow 
 Demurely take their daily promenade 
 
 Half-hidden in their little garden's shade. 
 
 One tree there is whose branches downward grow 
 To fostering Earth from whence they spring, as 
 
 though 
 They would all further upward strain evade. 
 
 And be at rest like some poor tired soul — 
 
 Like one of these sweet nuns, maybe, who wears 
 Beneath her black and white a livid scar 
 
 Which neither fast, nor promised aureole 
 
 Can wash away. To one who seemly bears 
 
 An unknown cross, the nearing grave seems far ! 
 
 AT A CEREMONY. 
 
 Upon the selvage of a soul-strung throng 
 
 I love to stand — as one who does not know 
 
 The where nor whence — and watch the symboled 
 
 show, 
 And breathe the censer-fumes, and hear the song 
 
 In passioned alternations sweet and strong, 
 And see the eyes uplift and spirits low. 
 As through the crowd they move with paces slow 
 Up to their whole hearts' shrine. Nor do I wrong 
 
Il8 SONNETS. 
 
 Their faith, nor cast a momentary shame 
 
 Upon my conscience thus in giving vent 
 
 To what may seem mere curiosity: 
 For others' zeal oft fans the undreamed flame 
 
 That waits the draught, and feeHngs long time pent 
 
 Oft blaze to unconjectured ecstacy. 
 
 TENNYSON. 
 
 I prize thee not, perchance, as many do. 
 
 That thou pure classic notes didst intertwine 
 With gothic strains in melodies divine ; 
 Nor yet because thy verse thou didst imbue 
 
 With stirring, patriotic glow, which drew 
 
 To thee all British hearts, who will enshrine 
 Thee long as Country holds. This love is mine. 
 That thou an a^'tist didst thine ambient view. 
 
 Thou sawest with a painter's quicken'd eye 
 
 The earth and welkin in their grandest mood; 
 
 To every sweet detail thou didst apply 
 Thy love for life in its infinitude 
 
 Without a tithe of tedious pedantry — 
 
 For every fact is with thy grace indued. 
 
SONNETS. 119 
 
 ON MORE'S "UTOPIA." 
 
 It seems scarce credible to ns to-day 
 
 That thou, good More, shouldst in thy time create — 
 When Violence was Right — a perfect state, 
 Wherein a man might work his chosen way, 
 
 And yet unto the Weal his best convey. 
 
 And thou didst hold that if we could abate 
 Our fatuous lust for gold, all fraud, all hate 
 From very inanition would decay. 
 
 Alack, to those who have not read thy book. 
 Its title meaneth but a madman's dream. 
 And thy fair commonwealth a wild conceit! 
 
 Oh, madmen they who will not squarely look 
 At life with thy saiie eyes. For well I deem 
 Thine is no dream, but a great truth concrete. 
 
 THE END. 
 
JAN2-190|i^ 
 
It- '