P s 
 
 By 
 Herbert Bates 
 
FIUST COPY. 
 
 Class r" ^fOl y 
 
 Book. 3 ^ S^ 0. 
 
 Copightlj^. 
 
 7w^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSm / 
 
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 3- 
 
OATEN STOP SERIES 
 V 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 BY HERBERT BATES 
 
 II 
 
 BOSTON COPELAND AND DA^ 
 MDCCCXCVI 
 
 d^'^-f/?. 
 

 Copyright 1896 by copeland and day 
 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 
 Songs of Exile 
 Exiles of Plain 
 
 Page I 
 
 2 
 
 A Song of the Drouth 
 
 12 
 
 Charter Day Poem, University- 
 Nebraska 
 
 of 
 
 15 
 
 Home 
 
 ao 
 
 Prairie 
 
 22 
 
 Cold 
 
 as 
 
 On the Prairie 
 
 24 
 
 The Pioneers 
 
 as 
 
 Spring on the Prairie 
 
 Far Away 
 
 The Giant Wolf 
 
 26 
 28 
 28 
 
 Peisinoe 
 
 29 
 
 The Winter Sea 
 
 30 
 
 At Rest 
 
 31 
 
 Within the Gates 
 
 32 
 
 The Coming of the Storm 
 
 33 
 
 Sea Gulls 
 
 34 
 
 Alas, the Weary While 
 In Spring 
 
 The Brook's Good-Night 
 The Elm 
 
 35 
 35 
 36 
 37 
 
 Among the Oaks 
 
 38 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Lone God Page 39 
 
 Song Homes on Hills 40 
 
 In Some Sweet Place of Sunset 41 
 
 The Heavens are our Riddle 4* 
 
 Transiency 43 
 
 And Love, they Say, shall Fade 44 
 
 Who are ye that Haste Away ? 45 
 
 The Message 46 
 
 Before the Battle 47 
 
 Grand Manan Island 48 
 
 Behind the Barriers 49 
 
 Da Capo 50 
 Thine Eyes are Mirrors of Strange 
 
 Things 5 1 
 
 Baccalaureate Hymn, Harvard, '90 5a 
 
 Class Day Ode, Harvard, '90 53 
 
 A Song of Fallen Leaves 54 
 
 Death's Door 55 
 
 In the Silence of the Sunset 56 
 
 At Evening 57 
 
 A Memory - 58 
 
 Praeterita 5 9 
 There is a Music in the March of Stars 60 
 
 The Day is Done 61 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 FROM sea and plain, from prairie sprent 
 With riotous sunflowers indolent. 
 From billows flashing bloom of spray, 
 From many an alien place they stray — 
 These rhymes. No arduous flight their 
 
 song, — 
 Awed honor to earth's swift and strong 
 And sweet. Night's vast, the dreamy 
 
 boon 
 Of odorous noon, 
 Dread instancy of Death, the might of 
 
 love, — 
 All rapture, all above 
 That lifts, enchants, appeals, — music that 
 
 bears 
 The key of tears, — 
 Worship and awe and wonder, — these 
 
 have stirred 
 This answering word. 
 And these to thee I bring. 
 Who brought me spring, — 
 Dearest and wife. Be all that love has 
 done, 
 
 Love's dower alone. 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 EXILES OF PLAIN 
 
 A DISROOTED FIR-TREE IN A PRAIRIE 
 TOWN 
 
 HOW didst thou ever come 
 So far from thy heaped rocky home, 
 Tree of the hills and sea ? 
 What fate's divorcement, what abrupt exile. 
 Severed thy stem and led thee here, like me. 
 By many an obstinate mile 
 Shut from the dear, barred bliss of all that 
 
 used to be. 
 Thy light wind-poising sprays 
 Perhaps In summer days 
 Hung o'er some tide-gorged cove, 
 By cool, remote, reef-barred Atlantic bays. 
 Fog-gated, mountain-walled. 
 Where red-beaked gulls would rove 
 In clamorous flocks, and sleep 
 Like bubbled foam-heaps on the glassy deep, 
 When all the winds were still. 
 
 And there thou stoodst, and sea-caves under 
 
 thee, — 
 The pebbled, shell-strewn caverns of the sea. 
 Where curious fish came nosing, rolling slow 
 
EXILES OF PLAIN 
 
 In the cold clear swaying swell, — 
 
 And overhead thou feltst the breezes blow : 
 
 The hard north wind, that sharpened like 
 
 miracle 
 The distant shores, and drew 
 From far-ofF isles the blue 
 Dreamed veil of distance, till, o'er miles of 
 
 sea. 
 Thy brethren answered thee 
 From where they stood on some sea-breast- 
 ing promontory ; 
 The keen north wind, glad-eyed. 
 Song-hearted, triumph-strong. 
 With flawless blue of pale sky pitiless 
 And tingling life, who caught from thy 
 
 stirred tress 
 Sweet scei\t, balsamic, like, 
 Alas, the odorous summonings that strike 
 My senses as I bend above thee here. 
 And bid the dead past near ! 
 Like seaweed, tinged with sea. 
 Gathered and sent memorial to me. 
 Which, when I placed it in clean water, 
 
 gave. 
 Even to that pale water of the plain, 
 Waif of some thunderous rain. 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 The harsh, sweet scent of the Atlantic wave, 
 
 Stinging my eyes to saltness with this scent 
 
 So richly redolent 
 
 Of all the empurpled wealth of clouded 
 main, 
 
 Drawing me back again 
 
 To walk the pebbled, ocean-beaten floor. 
 
 And hear the backward roar 
 
 Of the resorbent anger of the deep. 
 
 So thy scent wakes from sleep 
 
 Old days of north wind, when I giddily 
 
 Clambered the bastions high 
 
 Of eastern crags, and pierced the caverned 
 ways 
 
 That filing sheep had tracked, 
 
 Burrowing, woolly-backed. 
 
 To reach some vantage-point of cliff", and 
 see. 
 
 Beneath, the green foam spreading thunder- 
 ously ; 
 
 And, following in their track, 
 
 I stood alone, on some cleft pinnacle. 
 
 And saw the sombre swell 
 
 Heave shoreward under all the rippled ranks, 
 
 ,To beat against the rocky barrier-banks 
 
 That set God's limit to the world-wide sea. 
 
EXILES OF PLAIN 
 
 All this thou bringst to me ; 
 And then the picture changes, and the south 
 (Not there the wind of drouth) 
 Drives from his tented camp 
 His fog-hosts of the damp, 
 To shut into the silence of the hoar 
 And century-hearted sea 
 The youth and green redundance of the 
 
 shore. 
 
 Once more, tumultuously, 
 I hear the trumpets of the east wind blow 
 The onset of the embattled air. 
 The summons of the gale ; 
 And watch the gray-heaved sea, sprent 
 
 fiercely pale. 
 With spouting spume of wrath. 
 And the wind' s serpent path. 
 Foam-written, undulous along the waves. 
 And hear the choking caves. 
 The barking, surly cannon of the deep. 
 Along the seaward steep. 
 Besieging billows shoot their foamy towers 5 
 Eastward, the ranged scud lowers 5 
 And, seaward far, I catch 
 Glimpses of staggering ships that match 
 Their power with the plumed ranks of sea 
 
 5 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 And this, — discountried tree, — 
 All this has once been thine 
 As it has once been mine — 
 Thine, whose sweet scent to me 
 Is mixed memorially 
 With the keen savor of the wind-rent brine. 
 
 Tree of the rocky nest, of pinnacles 
 "Where only the bird dwells. 
 Nor smoke of men, nor fields bestreaked 
 
 with plows. 
 Nor care-bewrinkled brows 
 Come ever to intrude 
 Upon thy stern, stone-rooted solitude ; 
 Alas ! that thou shouldst stand 
 An exile in a stoneless land. 
 Where never hill may raise 
 Its sudden skyward summit in God' s praise j 
 Where the sleek hill-slopes swerve 
 In russet, serpent curve 
 To the dark draws where tawniest sunflowers 
 
 nod, 
 And sun-seared golden-rod 5 
 Where league-wide fields of pallid grain, 
 
 dusk-fiirrowed 
 And gopher-burrowed. 
 Roll dizzy to the borders of the sight, 
 6 
 
EXILES OF PLAIN 
 
 A dim vast land of level light, 
 
 Pallid and vacuous, 
 
 Windily tenuous, 
 
 Swept with the dusty south, 
 
 Parched with the summer drouth. 
 
 Fair with its fairness, but in that is none 
 
 That thou canst call thine own. 
 
 For love comes not of wish or will. 
 But clings unalterable 
 To the old dear sights that first 
 Filled the child's eyes, and nursed 
 His thoughts to song. What new-seen sights 
 
 of mine 
 Can speak the message of the wind-crowned 
 
 pine 
 That, solitary, crowned my hill of home ! 
 What voice shall ever come 
 From rippled corn speechful as came that 
 
 slow 
 Surged speech, as to and fro 
 It swayed to murmurous cadence of the 
 
 wind ! 
 What mystery shall I find 
 In plains explorable to match with thee. 
 Stern, man-denying sea, 
 W^ith wide, fog-vistaed ways untraceable 
 
 7 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 By furrow of any steel ! 
 
 What speech have sulky sunflowers that star 
 
 The prairie ridge afar 
 
 To match the message childhood's daisy 
 gave. 
 
 Or the flame-glad field-lily, or such sea- 
 bloom 
 
 As wavered in the ocean cave 
 
 Through shattered emerald gloom. ! 
 
 I have no skill of these. 
 My spirit is the sea's. 
 
 The rocky land's, — aspiring hardier ways 
 To greet the blaze 
 Of bluer, tenderer skies 
 AVilful with tears, grief-tremulous, like the 
 
 eyes 
 That are indeed love's own. 
 
 For Nature's level tone. 
 Eternal smile, perpetual placitude, 
 I love not, turning, rather, in my heart 
 To such friend as thou art, 
 O stem Atlantic sea. 
 Misted with petulance of hovering storm. 
 Snow-blurred, — or summer- warm, — 
 Idle and amorous with transient kindliness ; 
 8 
 
EXILES OF PLAIN 
 
 Thy changeful tress 
 
 Now tossed with tenderest breeze, now ser- 
 pent-spread 
 
 The tempest's Gorgon halo of thy head, 
 
 Medusa-terrible, — 
 
 Thy voice, now keening with the hate of hell, 
 
 Now fluting heaven's tropic, gold-bright 
 halls, — 
 
 Now, with fierce trumpet-calls. 
 
 Shaking the heart of the lighthouse sentinel. 
 
 Jarring the granite walls ^ 
 
 That barrier thy wrath, tolling the knell 
 
 Of thy slain sons on many a wave-poised 
 buoy, — 
 
 Now soothing, with the joy 
 
 Of starriest dream, the muffled roll of peace 
 
 Sung by phosphoric seas 
 
 That tramp the sodden sulkiness of sand 
 
 Along the grumbling land. 
 
 How oft with swaying keel 
 Have I dared forth to feel 
 The gliding long relapses of thy wave ; 
 How oft from cave to cave 
 Have wandered the bored bastions of the 
 
 coast. 
 And scared the piping host 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 Of ghostly gulls that dreamed above my 
 
 ways, — 
 Have entered silent bays 
 Where the smooth swell broke bubbling up 
 
 the beach. 
 Learned all thy lore could teach 
 Of veering fish, of ridgy porpoises, 
 And all the tinier beauties of thine home. 
 Dense seaweed, where the foam 
 Lay balled in tremulous wreath. 
 And felt thy invigorate breath 
 From sparkling sundering depths of emerald 
 Flecked with green-hearted gold — 
 The mottled splendor of the prisoned sun. 
 
 And now those days are done. 
 Only this wide plain witnesses the sea. 
 Only the lone infinity 
 That hungers to no end, 
 A land that seems not as a friend, 
 A russet, stirless plain, whose lucent skies 
 Like bold unfaltering eyes 
 Bum steadfast all the hours of summer 
 
 through. 
 
 So I as you. 
 Tree-friend, sea-sundered friend. 
 
EXILES OF PLAIN 
 
 Disrooted, ponder } and, compassionate, 
 
 Muse thine uprooted fate. 
 
 And pray thy pity, even as mine for thee. 
 
 God grant that we may see 
 
 Some day the old ranged cliffs of home 
 
 again} 
 But, if it be not, — vain 
 If hope and prayer be, — still 
 Old memories shall thrill 
 Our dreams in darkness, and these sights 
 
 shall stand 
 Beyond life's bounds to greet. 
 In the dazed dawning of some ultimate land. 
 Our wandered feet. 
 
 In heaven there is no sea ? 
 Then heaven is none for me. 
 Far rather would I rove 
 The old earth-places that I used to love. 
 And with the sea-bird's flight 
 Swoop up the wave's green imminence of 
 
 light. 
 And skim the caverned wall 
 Of ocean cliffs where the majestical 
 And sullen headlands gloom the icy seas, 
 Or drift in spacy ease 
 Of ocean boundlessness, 
 
 II 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 Till Time, with stress 
 
 Of his frore hand, shall chill the shrinking 
 
 sun, 
 And day be done, 
 
 And cold congeal the caverns of the sea. 
 Then let my slumber be 
 Swift, dearest Death, or lead me on, afar. 
 To some out-sphered star, 
 To some new planet where 
 New hills rise fair. 
 Where the long breakers melt along the 
 
 misted bar, 
 And the sea's ancient scent breathes up the 
 
 spacious air. 
 
 A SONG OF THE DROUTH 
 
 HIS slow mules plodded on. 
 And he heard the worn wheels clack. 
 And the voice of the thin, sad wind 
 As it whined behind his back. 
 
 For the wind cried out of the south, 
 The wind of the heat and dust, 
 
 The gray wind of the drouth, 
 
 That says, " Thou must ! " 
 
 12 
 
A SONG OF THE DROUTH 
 
 Thou must arise and go, 
 
 Whether thou wilt or no, 
 
 For the land throbs parched to death, 
 
 And the shrivelled maize sobs dead, 
 
 And the burnt wheat bows the head, 
 
 And the gray dust stifles breath. 
 
 Whether thou wilt or no. 
 
 Thou must arise and go. 
 
 Thy sod-built house that stands 
 
 The heaped work of thine hands. 
 
 The fields thy beasts have ploughed. 
 
 The crops thine hands have sowed, 
 
 The hopes thy heart has builded. 
 
 The future, vision-gilded. 
 
 The room where thy child breathed life. 
 
 The grave where sleeps thy wife, — 
 
 Whether thou wilt or no, 
 
 Thou must leave them all, must go. 
 
 Over the beaten track. 
 
 With the thin wind at thy back. 
 
 Plodding the powdered dust 
 
 That climbs to the swirling gust, — 
 
 Where the hungry coyote cries, 
 
 Where the outcast farm-beast dies. 
 
 Through the seared, crisp hiss of corn. 
 
 Under brown trees, burnt, forlorn, 
 
 13 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 Past the houses, empty, bare 
 Of hope, to the old home where 
 Life promised, long ago. 
 The fulfilment to-day you know. 
 
 Ah, what are the old home places. 
 
 If they frame not the old home faces ? 
 
 What glint upon boyhood's stream. 
 
 When dead is the boyhood dream ? 
 
 What charm can linger still 
 
 To the firs on the ridging hill 
 
 If you clasp no more her hand 
 
 There where you used to stand ; 
 
 If far away she lies 
 
 With the plains-dust in her eyes. 
 
 Alone, in the dusty dearth 
 
 Of the clodded, iron earth ? 
 
 Is it her voice that sighs 
 
 Behind in the wind that cries. 
 
 Her voice that bids you stay. 
 
 Die where she died, not stray 
 
 Back to the old east home. 
 
 Where she may never come ? 
 
 Back to the hopeless home. 
 
 Back, with the sobbing wind 
 
 Lamenting in thine ears, 
 
 Back, with thy life behind, 
 
 14 
 
CHARTER-DAY POEM 
 
 Through the hissing, sun-seared fields, 
 
 Through the drift of the sullen dust. 
 
 At the gray will of the drouth. 
 
 That says, " Thou must ! " 
 
 CHARTER-DAY POEM, UNIVER- 
 SITY OF NEBRASKA 
 
 THE hunter shook from his brown pipe 
 the spark 
 That flashed into the dark 
 Of the knotted grass-roots, and grew strong 
 
 and sprang 
 Into crackling flame, and it heard the wind 
 
 that sang 
 Its dry keen wail o'er the prairies, and 
 
 strengthened and grew 
 Till it flared to a league-long flame, and 
 
 the scared birds flew. 
 Smoke-blinded before it, and the blundering 
 
 buffalo fled. 
 And the coyote quacked in his covert, and 
 
 the Indian said : 
 ** To-night the God of the fire has raised his 
 
 head ! " 
 
 15 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 From the fire of ancient worlds a little spark, 
 
 chance-shaken, 
 Fell on our alien plains, and spread alone, 
 And strengthened till it shone 
 World-wide ; and nations said : When did it 
 
 waken ? 
 We saw not its birth, but to-day we see, 
 
 afar, 
 A flame that darkens the low sunset star, 
 And drives the huddled night 
 Cowering before the lances of its light. 
 
 For a voice cried in the ear 
 
 Of the West: Awake, for the future cills 
 
 thee ! Hear, 
 Child of the plain, to-day your limbs are 
 
 strong. 
 Your eyes are radiant ! Wake, for you sleep 
 
 too long ! 
 Wake, for the east hills quicken into day. 
 And the gray wind of morning calls to 
 
 song ! 
 Wake, for within your heart there glows 
 
 The prompting of the new-born soul. 
 Strenuous and tireless, quickening as it 
 knows, 
 
 Far off, the destined goal ! 
 i6 
 
CHARTER-DAY POEM 
 
 The golden sunflowers, myriad-blossoming, 
 blaze 
 
 From hill to golden hill; 
 And melt at last into the golden haze 
 
 Of the great distance. All the land is still 
 With solitude, and only the quick bird 
 Chirps in the grass ; no other sound is heard 
 To praise God's golden gift. 
 The white clouds sail and sift 
 The mottled moonlight over the wide land. 
 The slow streams flow ; the narrow forests 
 
 stand 
 Huddled and timorous for loneliness. 
 Has God not given gifts enough to bless 
 Our singers from their silence ? Has our ear 
 Grown all too dull to hear 
 The still, sweet voice of Nature' s tenderness .? 
 Has she no whisper to awake 
 The soul that dreams, the song that sleeps. 
 Until its thrilling chords shall shake 
 
 To the gray hearts of older lands, 
 To where the ocean's iron deeps 
 
 Complain upon their endless sands ? 
 
 To love, to know, to sing, — these three 
 Are God's most precious gifts to men, 
 
 17 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 To know what has been, and to see 
 
 The ripening of what shall be, 
 Far off beyond the present' s ken. 
 
 To read life' s book, and understand ; 
 To tell the treasury of stars. 
 And through Death's unrelenting bars 
 
 To spy the bounds of spirit-land. 
 
 To love, to know life fair, to see 
 Earth beautiful, till each gray tree 
 Shall tell its message, each star shine 
 Some consolation, and the line 
 Of the last hills shall speak of peace 5 
 Till war and hate and envy cease. 
 And over all the smiling land shall chime 
 The petalled joy-bells of God's blossom- 
 time. 
 
 To sing, to tell it all. 
 As the glad birds that call 
 The green spring up the land, till each 
 With happier heart shall learn and teach 
 Such new accord of life as sings attune 
 Through the dense leaves of June. 
 
 , To know, to love, to sing, — and then^ 
 To spread the gathered wealth abroad 
 18 
 
CHARTER-DAY POEM 
 
 To every dwelling-place of men, 
 As, with the ancient dragon-hoard, 
 Siegfried, the slayer, southward rode 
 With the red serpent gold that glowed. 
 All glorious, at his saddle-bow. 
 
 Ride on, O conqueror, with thy spoil 
 Of error and thy gifts of might ! 
 
 Ride on, that every heart may know 
 The sudden sun of wisdom's light. 
 
 That through the loneliest prairie ways. 
 Where the least sod-built shanty stands. 
 Or where the city's million hands 
 
 Toil grimy through the grudging days. 
 
 The blessing of thy gifts may go. 
 
 That our new land may rise and know. 
 
 As the old peoples of the past. 
 
 The joys that do not pale, the hopes that 
 last 
 
 Against the hour of death, and make of life 
 
 More than a barren strife. 
 
 And of life' s end no mere forgetfulness. 
 
 So shall thy mission be to bless. 
 
 To raise, to brighten, and to lead us on 
 
 Till the last fight is won, 
 
 The utmost end accomplished, and we see 
 
 Far up above us, white and marvellous. 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 The peaks long-sought, and hear acclaim- 
 ing us 
 The voices of old victors gloriously- 
 Triumphing up the slopes of victory. 
 
 HOME 
 
 INTO the East and away from the plain, 
 In the west wind's track we roam j 
 Over the waving wastes of grain. 
 Till we come to the heaped, stern hills again. 
 Till we come to the hills of home. 
 
 The pine trees nod on the windy crest. 
 
 The clean streams flash below. 
 And oh, for the calm, firm, rocky rest. 
 The stubborn strength of the earth's ribbed 
 breast. 
 
 And the flowers our old eyes know ! 
 
 We have delved the black of the prairie earth, 
 
 The muck of the rotting sod, 
 We have shared the drouth and the rain-rot 
 
 dearth, 
 We have sorrowed, have laughed with the 
 devil's mirth. 
 In a land that knew no God. 
 20 
 
HOME 
 
 We have coined black mould into gleaming 
 gold, 
 
 We have minted the green of grain, 
 The strength of our lives is spent and sold — 
 And now we are old, and the tale is told. 
 
 And God knows whose the gain ! 
 
 Here's off with the slime of the clinging clay. 
 
 And the stench of the dense sunflowers. 
 And the dry keen wind that cries all day — 
 And away, oh my heart, away and away. 
 To the old loved land of ours ! 
 
 To our own loved land, where the white 
 gull swoops. 
 Where the salted sea-wind cries. 
 Where the taut sheet drips, and the lee rail 
 
 scoops. 
 And the gray, long veil of the rain-squall 
 stoops 
 From the wrack of the scudding skies. 
 
 Into the East, from the dread of the plain. 
 
 In the west wind's track we come. 
 God bring us safe through the wastes of grain. 
 Safe back to the heaped sea-hills again. 
 Safe back to the hills of home. 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 PRAIRIE 
 
 ACROSS the sombre prairie sea 
 The dark swells billow heavily. 
 Are the looming ridges near or far 
 That heave to the smooth horizon-bar ? 
 
 The russet reach of grassy roll 
 Sickens the heart and numbs the soul, 
 The thin wind gives no air for breath. 
 The stillness is the pause of death. 
 
 This width was never shaped to be 
 
 The home of man' s mortality, 
 
 A breathless vacuum of peace, 
 
 Where life's spent ripples spread and cease. 
 
 No end, no source, its spaces know. 
 Wide as the sea's perpetual flow 
 Is its dead stand — dull wall on wall 
 Of sullen waves unspiritual. 
 
 God give me but in dream to come 
 Back to the pine-clad hills of home. 
 Back to the old eternity 
 Of placid, all-consoling sea. 
 
 22 
 
COLD 
 
 COLD 
 
 THE last sunflower stalk is burnt. 
 The last of the bread Is gone, 
 And cold across the snow-swept plain 
 Comes gray the aching dawn. 
 
 The thin grass rustles by the door. 
 
 The windows jar and cry, 
 The white drift sifts through the broken pane. 
 
 And the ceaseless snow throngs by. 
 
 Hush — sleep, my little one 5 soon enough 
 The long sleep soothes thy pain — 
 
 Ah, I could sleep, for the dull cold 
 Burns into my brain ! 
 
 The shuddering coyote whines and cries. 
 
 And howls to God for food ; 
 The great gray wolves troop down arow 
 
 And pause and sniif for blood. 
 
 O God, who feed' St the whining beast. 
 
 Send meat to those that pray ; 
 Thou, God, that giv'st the bird his feast. 
 
 Be thou our help to-day ! 
 
 23 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 In the breathless cruel cold, give help. 
 And bring the spring again, 
 
 And ridge the long hills with the great 
 Green heritage of grain. 
 
 B 
 
 ON THE PRAIRIE 
 
 ARE, low, tawny hills 
 >With bluer heights beyond. 
 And the air is sweet with spring. 
 But when will the earth respond ? 
 
 Prairie that rolls for leagues. 
 
 Dusky and golden-pale. 
 Like a stirless sea of waves, 
 
 Unbroken by ship or sail. 
 
 The hollows are dark with brush. 
 
 And black with the wash of showers. 
 
 And ragged with bleaching wreck 
 Of the ranks of the tall sunflowers. 
 
 No cloud in the blue, no stir 
 
 Save the shrill of the wind in the grass, 
 Apd the meadow-lark's note, and the call 
 
 Of the wind-borne crows that pass. 
 
 24 
 
THE PIONEERS 
 
 Bare, low, tawny hills, 
 
 With bluer heights beyond. 
 And the air is sweet with spring, 
 
 But when will the earth respond ? 
 
 THE PIONEERS 
 
 PALE in the east a filmy moon 
 Creeps up the empty sky. 
 And the pallid prairie rounds bleak below. 
 And we wonder that we are here ; and the 
 
 thin winds sigh 
 Through the broken stalks of the sun- 
 flowers that wait to die, 
 And the sun is gone, and the darkness be- 
 gins to grow. 
 And out on the shadowy plains we liear 
 the coyote's cry. 
 
 Out of the dark of the prairie plains — 
 What lurks in the darkened plains ? 
 
 It is there that the coyote howls. 
 
 It is there that the Indian prowls. 
 Sinewy-footed, alert. 
 Watching to do us hurt ; 
 
 And the sombre buffalo 
 
 Pace, ominous and slow, 
 
 ^5 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 With their black beards trailing low 
 Over the sifting snow. 
 
 And we, we cower and shake, 
 
 Lying all night awake, — 
 We in our little sod-built hut in the heart of 
 the plain. 
 
 God guard us, and make vain 
 The wiles of the Indian foe ; 
 God show us how to go, 
 And lead us in again 
 Out of the dread of the plain. 
 
 Home to the mountains and hills that our 
 
 childhood knew, 
 Where over the sombre pine-trees the sea 
 shines blue. 
 
 SPRING ON THE PRAIRIE 
 
 OVER the stubborn earth. 
 Over the sullen fields, 
 Spring bent her brooding wings 
 Of sombre thunder-cloud. 
 Whispering: " Wake from dearth j 
 Wake, and your answer yield ! " 
 And the low clouds bent and bowed. 
 And the thunder muttered loud, 
 a6 
 
SPRING ON THE PRAIRIE 
 
 And the driving raindrops fell, 
 
 And the hail, and earth answered well. 
 
 The little grass that slept, 
 
 In tiny headlets crept 
 
 Up to the warmth and air. 
 
 And the trees, black-boughed and bare. 
 
 Drank a new life that flushed 
 
 To their tender tips, and blushed 
 
 In the ribbed soft youth of leaves. 
 
 And the warm earth flowered in scent 
 
 Bounteous, indolent. 
 
 All the black wealth of plain 
 
 Answering the pulsing rain. 
 
 And the meadow-lark called his keen 
 
 Flute-note of joy between. 
 
 Across the new-sown rows 
 
 Cawed the slow, lumbering crows, 
 
 Jag-winged and greedy-eyed. 
 
 And all that it seemed had died. 
 
 All that had cowered dumb, 
 
 Awoke and stirred and cried. 
 
 For over the prairies wide 
 
 The spirit of spring had come. 
 
 27 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 FAR AWAY 
 
 FAR away, in seaward places 
 The bristled fir-trees nod, 
 And the bluebells lift their faces. 
 
 And the pine holds hands to God. 
 
 The low sea moans and grumbles 
 Upon the rounded stones. 
 
 And the clean white foam-line tumbles, 
 And the wind of ocean moans. 
 
 And the slant-winged sea-gull, gleaming 
 
 Over the sea-blue bay. 
 Seems mine own soul — who dreaming. 
 
 Sit westward, far away. 
 
 THE GIANT WOLF 
 
 THE giant wolf, the woodland wolf. 
 Strode southward down the wind, 
 And the gale yelled keen, and the moon 
 gleamed green, 
 , And the little stars blinked blind. 
 
 28 
 
PEISINOE 
 
 The seething snow-snakes twined before, 
 And hissed through the knotted grass, 
 
 And he heard overhead the sheeted dead. 
 That dance in the whirlwind, pass. 
 
 His shag gray locks roughed with the wind. 
 His white teeth fanged with wrath ; 
 
 Now God be good to the man whose blood 
 He smells before his path ! 
 
 Now God be good to the man whose feet 
 On the snow-blind, swirling way. 
 
 Shall meet the blaze of his hungry gaze 
 And the snarling fangs that slay. 
 
 And happy he that sits at home, 
 
 Where the corn-fire smoulders warm. 
 
 When alone, in the white of the whirling 
 night. 
 The gray wolf walks the storm. 
 
 PEISINOE 
 
 THE old, old song of the old sea. 
 The ancient sea, the serpent sea, 
 A lady fair, with gleaming eyes. 
 Beneath a gnarlM tree. 
 
 29 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 A lady fair with gleaming eyes. 
 With golden hair, coiled serpentwise 
 
 Round slender throat, round white limbs 
 bare 
 To strange and sunset skies. 
 
 My wealth, my weal, O lady fair. 
 My serpent queen, my lady fair. 
 
 Land, life, for one kiss of thy mouth 
 Amid thy golden hair ! 
 
 Her stretched arms call : He follows fleet. 
 Her sudden kiss burns sharp and sweet. 
 
 His eyes are blind ; he may not see 
 The pit beneath her feet. 
 
 The old, old song of the old sea. 
 The ancient sea, the serpent sea, 
 
 A lady fair, with gleaming eyes. 
 Beneath a gnarled tree. 
 
 THE WINTER SEA 
 
 THE sea is stern ; her sternness is 
 The anger of the infinite j 
 In all her power there is no peace, 
 
 30 
 
AT REST 
 
 Her waves' complaint shall never cease 
 To sob into the stars' great night. 
 
 For the sea knows the whole great girth 
 And the circle of the barren sky, 
 
 And the small circuit of the earth. 
 
 She knows that God is not, that birth 
 
 Leads to the grave where all must lie. 
 
 White skeletons of many men 
 
 Gleam in the twilight of her caves j 
 All these had hope ; their trusting ken 
 Saw God's hand strong to help, but when 
 Was God's hand stronger than the 
 waves ? 
 
 Cold cannot bind her with his chains, 
 
 The winter tempest is her breath. 
 Alone of all things she remains 
 Pitiless, changeless, — fed with rains 
 And harvestings of human death. 
 
 A 
 
 AT REST 
 
 T the narrow gate of the wind-swept 
 
 strait. 
 The white light towers high, 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 And black and silent at its foot 
 The crippled schooners lie. 
 
 With cordless masts and broken decks, 
 And sides flush with the sea, 
 
 They sleep in the summer sun and dream 
 Of the days when they were free. 
 
 Like the wild white birds that sought the 
 light 
 Out of the storm' s dark breath. 
 They swept, wind-winged, through the 
 - whirling night, 
 And at its foot found death. 
 
 WITHIN THE GATES 
 
 THE low clouds darken down the hills 
 And bar the narrow straits. 
 Without, the angry ridging sea 
 Beats, growling, at the' gates. 
 
 Without, the gray great sea heaves free. 
 
 The foamy east-wind calls. 
 And the fir-trees wrestle stubborn boughs 
 
 Along the wave-jarred walls. 
 3a 
 
THE COMING OF THE STORM 
 
 Within, the schooners swing and sway- 
 By the black, rain-sodden pier, 
 
 The swift squalls darken up the bay. 
 And the ripples race with fear. 
 
 But far outside, in the fog and rain. 
 
 The great ships lift and reel, 
 And the gray waves roar to pluming flame, 
 
 And the keening sea-birds wheel. 
 
 THE COMING OF THE STORM 
 
 WHAT darkens in the west ? 
 (Hark how the gulls are calling !) 
 The spread black hand of the storm 
 That grows with the twilight's falling. 
 
 What gathers in the east ? 
 
 (Hark how the beaches rattle ! ) 
 The march of the columned clouds 
 
 That gather to the battle. 
 
 Dark and slow, row on row, 
 The ranks of the east assemble, 
 
 And under their line the sea's ranks shine, 
 And the long shores quake and tremble. 
 
 33 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 The swift scud streams, the white foant 
 gleams, 
 
 And fierce shall the onset be, 
 And God be his help that strives to-night 
 
 With the armies of the sea ! 
 
 Black ridges with white, mad manes, 
 
 Beaches that roar and rattle. 
 And a wind that ranges the wild sea-line,. 
 
 Driving the waves to battle. 
 
 SEA-GULLS 
 
 WHENCE come the white gulls that 
 sail, 
 That flutter and sink and sail ? 
 Their red beaks flash and glitter. 
 Their wide wings droop and trail. 
 
 They follow the sea-tide's call. 
 They troop, at the sea-tide's call, 
 Over the wide sea-spaces , 
 And along the dark sea-wall. 
 
 Along the dark sea-steep. 
 
 By the black cliffs, bare and steep. 
 
 They flutter and fall and scream. 
 
 They drift slow-winged in sleep. 
 
 34 
 
IN SPRING 
 
 They wander and brighten and gleam. 
 As the wind-clouds shift and gleam — 
 Souls of sea-winds that wander 
 In a sea-encircled dream. 
 
 ALAS, THE WEARY WHILE f 
 
 ALAS, the weary while to spring ! 
 The weary while, the snows to cling. 
 Ere north the nest-bound swallows wing. 
 And wide the rapturous south wind fling 
 The portals of the sun. 
 
 Ah, sweet, the weary while to wait. 
 
 Till summoning spring shall burst the gate. 
 
 And bring, embowered, irradiate. 
 
 The hour — ah, sweet, the while to wait 
 
 Till springtime be begun ! 
 
 IN SPRING 
 
 LIFE'S but a spark that flares its flame 
 And sinks to sullen gray ; 
 But ah, the flame, and the joy of the flame. 
 Before it dies away ! 
 
 35 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 The breath of the bloom and the blaze of 
 the sun, 
 
 And the emerald boon of May, 
 And the arms of love and the eyes of love 
 
 And the hour that is for aye ! 
 
 The spring winds storm the whispering hill, 
 
 A sea of glinted spray. 
 The night-vales throb with the whip-poor-will. 
 
 The moon brings love' s mild day, — 
 For ah, the flame, and the joy of the flame, 
 
 And the blossoming boon of May, 
 The arms of love and the eyes of love, 
 
 And the hour that lives for aye ! 
 
 THE BROOK'S GOOD-NIGHT 
 
 DID you not hear the whisper. 
 In the hollow by the mill ? 
 For Nature is talking to the brook 
 That prattles beneath the hill : 
 " Child, will you not be still ? 
 Will you not sleep ? Little one, pretty one, 
 look. 
 It is warm to-day, but the grim north 
 wind will come back ; 
 36 
 
THE ELM 
 
 He is only skulking to-day, 
 Treading and trampling the tumbled leaves 
 in the wood, 
 
 And his brows are bad and black. 
 Peace, little one, be good. 
 Be good and be quiet, sleep in your cradle 
 of ice. 
 
 And I will throw 
 
 Safe over you my coverlet of snow, 
 My coverlet, to keep 
 You sheltered in your sleep, 
 
 To keep you sheltered safe from all keen 
 winds that blow. 
 Sleep, darling, have no fear, 
 For I am with you, dear ! ' ' 
 
 THE ELM 
 
 UPON his huge gray-crusted boughs 
 The swarming song-birds sing ; 
 Above, the cawing crow flaps north 
 With fringed and sullen wing. 
 
 Beneath his feet the grasses start, 
 
 The heart-leaved violets stir. 
 The south wind whispers of the spring. 
 
 The strong sun tells of her. 
 
 37 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 His leaves awake not at their touch. 
 
 He waits the stronger rays, 
 The sultry and supremer hours 
 
 Of May"" s embowering days. 
 
 Then from his giant boughs shall spread 
 The green embracing dome, 
 
 The arched strong shelter of God' s love 
 To roof the forest home. 
 
 AMONG THE OAKS 
 
 NOT in contentment, side by side. 
 With lisp of leafy speech. 
 Spread the broad boughs ; but wander wide. 
 And crave and yearn unsatisfied, 
 And sorrow and beseech. 
 
 Each little twig aches out for aid. 
 Each leaf lifts hands of prayer ; 
 Do they, too, ask for God, afraid 
 At his great silence, and dismayed. 
 Finding no answer there ? 
 
 O yearning of the aching earth 
 
 That cannot find its fill ! 
 38 
 
LONE GOD 
 
 The little flowers nod with mirth, 
 Wind-ruffled, but in doubt and dearth 
 The great trees sorrow still. 
 
 They know, they know. The blank of space 
 
 Bears heavy. Far away 
 They hear the silence, but always 
 Against God's unregarding face 
 
 They watch and plead and pray. 
 
 LONE GOD 
 
 LONE town, crouched in encroaching 
 plain, 
 
 Lone ship, encalmed in shimmering sea. 
 Lone earth, whose ball spins Night"" s domain, 
 
 Lone soul, that dwells eternity. 
 Lone sun, whose courtiered course must wait. 
 
 Kin sun, to match thy course with his. 
 Lone God, enthroned to consummate 
 
 Climaxing time ! In heaven's bliss 
 Creep no sad notes to thwart the strong 
 
 Uplift of seraph praise — no shade 
 Darkening gold heaven, that no sweet song 
 
 Sings love, save thou the singer made ? 
 Creation's pinnacle yearns lone ; 
 No kin God knows thy God-need, none ! 
 
 39 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 SONG HOMES ON HILLS 
 
 SONG homes on hills ; no placid plains. 
 Can hem its powers ; it disdains 
 Their unaspiring calm, to dare 
 More arduous air. 
 
 The blown Acropolis caught fire 
 Of song 5 the dull Boeotian lyre, 
 Stagnated, ceased. Upon the height. 
 Alone, flamed light. 
 
 Up from the plains ! Up where the hills 
 Stoop windward, where ridged sunset fills 
 The vales with misted gold, where trees 
 Speak windy peace ! 
 
 Up where the clouds go, where the birds 
 Stoop reeling, where the heart to words 
 Leaps as the bird to song, — the strong 
 Wild nature-song, — 
 
 Bird-sung, wind-pealed, pine-trumpeted,. 
 Star-flashed, the clarion to our dead 
 Aspirings, bidding them stir, arise. 
 And dare the skies. 
 
 40 
 
IN SOME SWEET PLACE 
 
 Song homes on hills, its power disdains 
 The sordid plains 5 its true domains 
 Where riotous the wild wind thrills — 
 Its home, the hills ! 
 
 IN SOME SWEET PLACE OF 
 SUNSET 
 
 IN some sweet place of sunset, where the 
 sun 
 Sinks and so passes, and the rounded sea 
 And vacant skv, still, though the day be 
 done. 
 Pulse with his pale diminished memory, 
 So the old lustre of those living days. 
 
 When, one with Nature, in her haunts I 
 dwelt. 
 And sought the hill-tops through the salt 
 sea-haze, 
 And pierced the unwilling wood, or 
 gladly knelt 
 Beside some virgin spring, all rock-embow- 
 ered, — 
 All these old lustres in my soul still 
 gleam, 
 
 41 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 And through these barren plains I walk, en- 
 dowered, 
 With sweet diminished radiances of 
 dream, — 
 Pale visions, quick to vanish, could I see 
 O'er eastern hills mine old land smile to me ! 
 
 THE HEAVENS ARE OUR RIDDLE 
 
 THE heavens are our riddle ; and the sea. 
 Forested earth, the grassy rustling plain. 
 Snows, rains, and thunders. Yea, and even 
 we 
 Before ourselves stand ominous. In 
 vain ! 
 TThe stars still march their way, the sea still 
 rolls. 
 The forests wave, the plain drinks in 
 the sun. 
 And we stand silent, naked, — with tremu- 
 lous souls, — 
 Before our unsolved selves. We pray to 
 one 
 Whose hand should help us. But we hear 
 no voice : 
 
 42 
 
TRANSIENCY 
 
 Skies clear and darken ; the days pale 
 and pass, 
 ;Nor any bids us weep or bids rejoice. 
 
 Only the wind sobs in the shrivelling 
 grass, — 
 Only the wind, — and we with upward eyes 
 Expectant of the silence of the skies. 
 
 TRANSIENCY. 
 
 WOULD that I were more than the old 
 wind 
 And the enduring sea — than the blue sky 
 That sees the dooms of men ; more than 
 this blind 
 Bright web of thoughtless life that need not 
 die. 
 To-day I am more. I make its wonder 
 mine : 
 To-morrow my pulse stills ; the wind may 
 blow 
 Unheard above my grave, the sky may shine. 
 The blue sea roll its way — I shall not 
 know, 
 Nor these know of me. Nature pays no 
 tears 
 
 43 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 In tribute to her transient lord. He fades 
 Out from her radiance, and still the years 
 Flush with new grfeen the forest-scented 
 glades, 
 Where not a nodding flower shall pine that 
 
 he. 
 Friend of all tenderest flowers, has ceased 
 to be. 
 
 AND LOVE, THEY SAY, SHALL 
 FADE 
 
 AND love, they say, shall fade, — like 
 summer weed 
 At winter's frost shall wither, — and 
 thou, again. 
 That smilest now, shalt know love's piteous 
 need, 
 And empty arms, and uncompanioned pain. 
 Thy lips shall cease from kisses, and her face 
 That shone for thee shall shine to other eyes,^ 
 Or slowly, shred by shred, be shorn of grace. 
 And pale from the old beauty thou 
 didst prize. 
 Alas, and shall it be ? I think not Life, 
 Slow builder of sweet love, shall topple 
 down 
 44 
 
WHO ARE YE 
 
 His gradual temple, or the loving wife 
 
 Grow less beloved than who in maiden gown 
 First won the wavering heart, or time de- 
 clare 
 The face each morn more dear can grow 
 less fair. 
 
 WHO' ARE YE THAT HASTE 
 AWAY 
 
 WHO are ye that haste away. 
 With figures bowed, with garments 
 gray, 
 Into the deep of the sunset' s sleep ? 
 
 **We are the griefs of yesterday. "" 
 
 Why, gray griefs, do ye take your flight ? 
 What dawn of wonder, what new-born light, 
 Shall seal to-morrow from the hosts of 
 sorrow ? 
 
 ** Another has come, of greater might." 
 
 Who Is he, with power above 
 Your power that all men perish of? 
 
 45 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 " One tender, yet tearless, with strong heart 
 
 fearless. 
 The lord of sorrow, the master. Love ! ' ' 
 
 THE MESSAGE 
 
 I MADE a little song one day, 
 Not over sad nor over gay. 
 And every word thereof was full 
 With praise of one most beautiful. 
 
 To her I sang it, while o'erhead 
 The sunset deepened into red 
 Behind the hills ; word, song, and verse 
 With utter love made wholly hers. 
 
 And so I put it from my heart ; 
 I said : "My song, since hers thou art. 
 Save at her bidding it shall be. 
 Return thou nevermore to me." 
 
 And as I lie to-day, quite still. 
 Beside her grave upon the hill. 
 The little song comes back, so clear. 
 So sweet, I think she sent it here. 
 
 46 
 
BEFORE THE BATTLE 
 
 BEFORE THE BATTLE 
 
 " rpO-NIGHT," they said, 
 X "When the day is dead, 
 When we are slain, or the foe is fled, — 
 
 At set of sun. 
 
 When all is done. 
 When all is lost, or the fight is won, — 
 
 Then we shall sleep 
 
 In Death's dark keep. 
 Or drink the red wine till the night is deep.. 
 
 Ride ! Ride ! 
 
 With our wrath to guide. 
 
 Into the battle, sword by side ! 
 
 ** To-night," they laughed. 
 
 As they stooped and quaffed 
 The red, fierce wine from the stirrup cup,, 
 
 ** To-night, when we come. 
 
 The funeral drum 
 Shall throb to startle their souls that sup ; 
 
 Or the flags shall stream, 
 
 And the banners gleam. 
 And our trumpets blow triumph as we ride^ 
 up ! 
 
 Ride ! Ride! 
 
 47 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 With our wrath to guide, 
 Into the battle, sword by side ! 
 
 " Away and away ! 
 
 For the morn is gray. 
 And the sword-blades hunger and stir in the 
 sheath. 
 
 And above the hills 
 
 The red sky fills 
 With the dawning terror of blood beneath. 
 
 The white blades burn 
 
 And the keen spears yearn 
 To harvest the red, ripe field of death. 
 
 Ride ! Ride ! 
 
 With our wrath to guide, 
 
 Into the battle, sword by side ! " 
 
 GRAND MANAN ISLAND 
 
 THERE is no sense of human fellowship 
 Where rise these cliffs in sea-girt 
 majesty ; 
 Barren and dark, gray with the mystery 
 Of ocean-wandering clouds that veer and slip 
 With the wind's changing will, they stand, 
 
 and dip 
 48 
 
BEHIND THE BARRIERS 
 
 Their dark foundations in unfathomed sea. 
 Here all is stern. Here may no kind 
 gods be. 
 The strong tide holds all in his iron grip. 
 
 Here are no kindly gods, but rather they 
 That sat sword-girded on the northland 
 hills, 
 Giant of purpose, resolute of might, 
 Watching calm-browed to that fore-destined 
 day 
 When all the iron anger of their wills 
 Should perish in the twilight of the 
 night. 
 
 BEHIND THE BARRIERS 
 
 BEHIND the barriers of the sea. 
 Beside the quiet pools lie we. 
 On grassy banks, where grow at will 
 The meadow-sweet and daffodil. 
 
 No tree to break the pale blue sky 
 Where clouds and wind go speeding by, 
 Hurled inland, not at peace, as we. 
 Behind the barriers of the sea. 
 
 49 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 Like a sea-wave, the great sea-wall 
 Lifts darkling, and the distant fall 
 Of waters on its outer verge 
 Shrills sombre with the spreading surge. 
 
 But here at rest on banks of flowers. 
 Small care of wind or waves is ours. 
 Beside the quiet pools lie we. 
 Behind the barriers of the sea. 
 
 DA CAPO 
 
 THE drift of the blushed apple-blossoms,, 
 falling, falling ; 
 Petal and sunflake stealing together to the 
 
 bowers of the grass. 
 And the thrill of the branch-burrowed 
 
 thrushes, calling, calling ; 
 And the thought — like pale, sun-killing 
 
 cloud — of the blossoms that pass j 
 The bloom to the fruit, and the fruit to dull 
 
 earth, to the ultimate seed ; 
 To ripen, to shoulder to light, to expand 
 
 into deed. 
 And — die ! Does the dark conquer light, or 
 
 light dominate dark ? 
 50 
 
THINE EYES ARE MIRRORS 
 
 Ah, God, if God be, shall our spark 
 
 Seed us eternal ? — The blossoms are falling. 
 
 The thrushes are calling, calling. 
 
 THINE EYES ARE MIRRORS OF 
 STRANGE THINGS 
 
 THINE eyes are mirrors of strange things 
 That thou canst never understand, 
 The secret and the hidden springs 
 Of spirit-land. 
 
 Thy heart is lighter than the breast 
 
 Of dawn's glad bird that cleaves the skies 
 
 To sunlight — but the world' s unrest 
 Lies in thine eyes. 
 
 The yearning of the years that weep 
 For all the bliss that shall not be 
 
 Dwells in them — thoughts too sadly deep 
 To dwell with thee. 
 
 These are the shrine where sits thy soul 
 Wise in the silence, being dumb 
 
 With knowledge of the dread control 
 Of days to come. 
 
 51 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 Thine eyes are mirrors of strange things 
 That thou mayst never understand, 
 
 The secret ways, the hidden springs. 
 Of spirit-land. 
 
 BACCALAUREATE HYMN, HAR- 
 VARD, '90 
 
 TO Thee, O Father, we whose way 
 Lies yet untrodden and untried. 
 Through joy, through sorrow, humbly pray. 
 Be Thou our help, be Thou our guide. 
 
 No skill is ours to walk aright 
 
 The path of life with peril strewn 5 
 
 No strength is ours save in Thy might. 
 No wisdom but in Thee alone. 
 
 Through joyous days, through days that weep. 
 We fare, with eyes that look to Thee, 
 
 On to the last great change of sleep, 
 Beyond which waits the life to be. 
 
 So guide us, that, in that last hour. 
 The battle o'er, the victory won. 
 
 We lay the trophies of Thy power 
 Before the brightness of Thy throne. 
 
 52 
 
CLASS-DAY ODE 
 
 CLASS-DAY ODE, HARVARD, '90 
 
 FAIR Harvard, ere we in our turn pass 
 away 
 From thy portals, our song we upraise. 
 One note in the song of the world-sundered 
 throng 
 Of thy sons, who are one in thy praise ; 
 From thy throne by the storm-beaten shores 
 of the east 
 To the western, far shores of the sea, 
 That thy splendor and fame may endure, 
 and thy name 
 In the mouths of thy sons yet to be. 
 
 Through the change of the years wherein 
 laughter and tears 
 Shall be mingled as sunshine and shade. 
 We shall march with thy grace for our guid- 
 ance, thy face 
 Still before us, by dread undismayed. 
 As the thunder and song of the sea on the 
 long 
 Sea-ramparts, thy praise shall ascend 5 
 And to thee, who giv'st might to thy sons, 
 in the light 
 Of thy learning, be fame without end. 
 
 53 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 A SONG OF FALLEN LEAVES 
 
 I SAT in the old garden, 
 In the ancient, stone-wrought chair. 
 And the leaves were whirling and falling, 
 And I knew that she was there, — 
 
 There in the seat beside me. 
 
 And all was as it should — 
 The leaves from the shuddering branches 
 
 Dropped slow and red as blood. 
 
 And I turned to touch, to call her, 
 
 But, lo, she was not there ! 
 Only the leaves fell slowly 
 
 On the ancient, stone-wrought chair. 
 
 Oh, love, love of all hours. 
 
 Of waking or of dream, 
 Come, for the night sinks dreary. 
 
 And I fear the silent stream. 
 
 It winds through the windless hollows. 
 And with leaves its pools are strown. 
 
 And strange dreads watch beside it. 
 And I dare not go alone. 
 
 54 
 
DEATH'S DOOR 
 
 For I know by the bridge-head yonder 
 The spirit of dead glad days 
 
 Stands, with drooped eyes, waiting, 
 And my soul knows what he says. 
 
 And I know that the black still river 
 
 Is deep as a spirit's pain, 
 And they that sink within it 
 
 Shall never rise again. 
 
 DEATH'S DOOR 
 
 A WISCONSIN LEGEND 
 
 OVER the ice, over the white plains 
 hoar, — 
 Who are these that creep by night. 
 In the hour of the white midnight 
 That dare the league- wide passage of Death's 
 Door ? 
 
 Black-haired, with heron-plumes. 
 He is the king that looms 
 The midmost in the dance, — 
 Is that a mortal glance 
 That his sudden eye reveals ? 
 See where his comrade steals, 
 
 55 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 See where the whole host come, 
 Trooping, still, dark and dumb, — 
 Stealthy Indian spies, 
 Over the snow-ridged ice ! 
 
 Long and long ago, — 
 
 So runs the tale of woe, — 
 
 Indian and bride 
 
 Sank in the ice-black tide. 
 
 Sunken, seen no more. 
 
 In the darkness of Death's Door. 
 
 IN THE SILENCE OF THE SUNSET 
 
 IN the silence of the sunset. 
 By the quiet river's side, 
 I walked through the sea-sweet meadows 
 At the flooding of the tide. 
 
 And up the glassy river 
 
 Came a ripple from the sea, 
 And a gull veered high above me, 
 
 And my soul grew sad in me. 
 
 For I thought. In the northern highlands^ 
 
 By the northern ocean's foam, 
 , She sits, somewhere at the sunset. 
 
 Far off in her northland home. 
 56 
 
AT EVENING 
 
 Of her the sea-waves whisper, 
 As they ripple through the grass. 
 
 Of her the sea-gulls tell me 
 
 As they flutter and wheel and pass. 
 
 And to her my heart turns craving. 
 
 Though far away she be. 
 Across wide wastes of ocean. 
 
 By the cliffs of the northland sea. 
 
 AT EVENING 
 
 GOD flushed the sunset through the cup 
 Of misted hills and said, 
 *' Now the day is dead, 
 Earth dark, let thine eyes look up P ' 
 
 Toil sleeps, care lulls, now cease 
 The tumultuous wheels of day. 
 And the sun's last ray 
 
 Spreads the purple of night' s peace. 
 
 The curtained mists above 
 
 The darkened valley spread. 
 
 Hush ! God has said 
 His sunset word of love. 
 
 57 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 A MEMORY 
 
 TWO little hills, — my mountains then, — 
 A small ravine between. 
 Beneath whose mystery of boughs 
 
 The hollow heart of green 
 Was quick with tremulous fear, with hope 
 Of fairer flowers unseen. 
 
 With childhood's wonder, innocent 
 
 Of wiser scorn. 
 Plunging through rustling boughs back-bent. 
 
 Moist with the morn, 
 Into the sprayed fantastic brake 
 
 And crisp thin grass 
 Stirred with the swing of some swift snake, — 
 
 To part and pass 
 The caverns of the gold and green 
 
 Strange solitude 
 With fearful hopes of things unseen. 
 
 Not surely good, — 
 To pluck the white stars, softly tinged 
 
 With sunset skies 
 As cheeks in slumber — faintly fringed 
 
 By half-shut eyes — 
 ' All this that was, the sense of bliss 
 
 Unknowing, free, 
 58 
 
PR^TERITA 
 
 Quick with the wind, the sunshine's kiss^ 
 
 The smiling sea, — 
 All this has passed. New days have come. 
 
 The book lies sealed. 
 The shrines are darkened, all is dumb. 
 
 No word revealed. 
 Only, to-day, in hours that are 
 
 Outworn with care. 
 Old memories brighten, break the bar, 
 
 Once more are fair. 
 Once more — a moment — as life was, 
 
 And then, but this. 
 As on the lips of them that pass 
 
 Lies love's last kiss. 
 
 PR^TERITA 
 
 THE world has quite outgrown her song. 
 Because the world has sung too long. 
 And so the world shall sing no more. 
 And song is o' er. 
 
 For men are wiser than of old. 
 And men have learned the worth of gold. 
 And men have set their hearts above 
 The spell of love. 
 
 59 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 Men's eyes shall cease to weep, they say, 
 For pity, in the coming day, 
 And none shall laugh through all the earth 
 Made bare of mirth. 
 
 Then heaven that we hoped shall be 
 As the old tale of Arcady, 
 And men, in spirit as in breath. 
 Shall die in death. 
 
 The world has quite outgrown her song. 
 Because the world has sung too long. 
 And so the world shall sing no more, 
 And song is o'er. 
 
 THERE IS A MUSIC IN THE 
 MARCH OF STARS. 
 
 THERE is a music in the march of stars. 
 And song that fills the pulses of the sea. 
 That whispers in the wind, and piteously 
 Sobs in the rain, a chant that grates and jars 
 In the dull thunder' s heart, that makes or mars, 
 The song of nature, the world-song that we 
 Hear loud above us, the great symphony 
 'That throbs from life against death's barrier 
 
 bars. 
 60 
 
THE DAY IS DONE 
 
 What is the music of the song of life ? 
 
 What is its theme, — of heaven or of hell ? 
 We know not : joy and grief and love and 
 
 strife 
 Are mingled there, nor shall the answer be 
 Till the great trumpet of God's doom 
 shall tell 
 The thundered keynote to the land and sea. 
 
 THE DAY IS DONE 
 
 A BAR of cloud in the flaming west, — 
 The wind from the west, the wind 
 from the sun. 
 And the black sea foaming from crest to 
 crest, 
 The day is done. The day is done. 
 
 Make sail upon the swaying mast. 
 Into the night to 7neet the sun. 
 
 Sail ! for the darkness gathers fast. 
 
 And the day is done. The day is done. 
 
 Leave hope behind, with her that is dead. 
 
 Into the dark, Farewell, O sun! 
 Forget her eyes and her golden head. 
 
 The day is done. The day is done. 
 
 6i 
 
SONGS OF EXILE 
 
 God of the sad, guide thou my feet, 
 
 The wind blows red from the sinking 
 sun. 
 When shall my heart forget my sweet ? 
 JVow the day is done, now the day is done. 
 
 **Thou shalt sail the swaying world of sea. 
 And breast the rising of the sun, 
 
 But the grief of her eyes shall follow thee, 
 Though the day is done, though the day 
 is done. 
 
 ** Thou shalt wander wide from place to 
 place. 
 Ah, God, the risings of the sun! 
 And everywhere thou shalt see her face." 
 Ah, God, ah, God, were the day but 
 done! 
 
 Away, away, up the ridging sea, 
 
 What help itt the sea, what help in 
 the sun ? 
 Perhaps in death she will come to thee — 
 When the day is done, when the day is 
 done. 
 6z 
 
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 Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
 (724)779-2111