*t 
 
 
 
^A J/eiv Years Wish. 
 
 T pray not that the coming year 
 
 Strew roses wheresoever you tread, 
 
 XLot thai blue styes and morning sun 
 £&e ever Bright above your head. 
 
 £ do not pray your life be free 
 
 S^rom every petty care and trial, 
 
 J2$r do £asf( you ne'er shoufd tyioW 
 15he need of stringent self -denial. 
 
 ZBut rather fet me asf{for you 
 
 Courage the battle of life to face, — 
 Courage to face, the strength to fight, 
 
 Jfnd faith to Win the hardest race. 
 
 j£nd J would asf{, besides, a friend, 
 *(Do understand uou all in all, 
 
 '(DO ta^e your hand when all seems lost, 
 '(DO trust tjou though the heavens fall. 
 
 Copyright, 1909 by 
 The English Leaflet Company 
 
THE 
 PAINTER OF MADONNAS 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES MAURICE STEBBINS 
 
 The English Leaflet Company- 
 Brooklyn, N. Y. 
 
Two Oooies Received 
 
 JAN 4 1909 
 
 Copynmu rjttry - 
 OVASS OC- 
 
 • a: f 
 
 75 3^3] 
 
 
 
 '1 
 
The Painter of Madonnas 
 
 You ask, my fair friend, why I choose to live 
 A bachelor, and be content to give 
 Mind, heart, and soul to painting, as I do, 
 These pictures of a sex, it seems to you 
 My life, if it speaks aught, rather condemns 
 Than otherwise — these bits of fancy, too, 
 You and the world are pleased to title gems 
 Of art ; why think with brush so loftily 
 Of woman, yet abjure her whole society! 
 
 I hold that sometime, somewhere, soon or late, 
 
 'Tis given to every man to meet his fate 
 
 In some one woman's face; and I met mine. 
 
 My years of youth I gave to waste and wine, 
 To hawk, to horse, and hunt, the nothingness 
 
THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 
 
 Of courtly foppery — yea, I confess 
 
 Frankly to you, not lightly though, the curse 
 
 Which fell upon my early life, and — worse 
 
 Or better — helped to make me what you find — 
 
 One given to worship what he hath resigned, 
 
 Renounced, made up his life without, a truth 
 
 That is as false as true, as true, insooth, 
 
 As false. You fail to understand the phrase? 
 
 Just as you do my alien — say you — ways 
 
 Of life. You thought, perhaps, I never knew 
 
 To love a woman generously and true, 
 
 Felt never the full burst of soul and bloom, 
 
 When love's red sunlight enters through the gloom 
 
 And strikes the fallow ground ; perchance you think 
 
 The sun rose, roused the fallow ground, to sink 
 
 Only and leave it waster than before, 
 
 And drearier. In that you wrong me sore. 
 
 'Twas on a night like this, a night of June — 
 As like to this as moon mav be to moon — 
 
THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 
 
 Forgive details, for though to you they seem, 
 
 Perhaps, but drift that only clogs the stream, 
 
 To me they are as much part of the whole 
 
 As eye is of the sight, or mind of soul. 
 
 A score of years and five indeed is long 
 
 To treasure up one clay out of a throng 
 
 Of days so very like ; but as one touch 
 
 Completes or spoils my Virgin, just so much 
 
 Serves to call forth from the abyss 
 
 Of hours, and make it live as this, 
 
 I speak of, lives with me, perfect to-day. 
 
 Aye, it was five and twenty years ago 
 
 Day after next, that I first learned to know 
 
 Love's genuine place and power in life, to weigh 
 
 It in the balance of eternal worth 
 
 And find it sovereign of all things on earth. 
 
 Yes — since you ask it — I had loved before, 
 Felt what, at least, in common parlance bore 
 The name; to speak full truth, such fancies were 
 

 THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 
 
 But little rarer than the seasons of the year, 
 
 Neither less varied, but enough of these; 
 
 They passed like leaves in autumn from the trees. 
 
 Spring came again, but a perennial spring 
 
 To me. 'Twas at a ball given to the king, 
 
 The former king, my father's friend, I met 
 
 That face, and recognized and paid the debt 
 
 We owe to nature. I had passed the hours, 
 
 The evening through, with one I taxed my powers 
 
 In vain, convincing of my love. I vowed 
 
 To be her knight till death, her slave, and proud 
 
 To be a slave to her; or I would move 
 
 A mountain, dry the sea to woo her love. 
 
 She only laughed a little laugh of scorn. I went 
 
 In shame and anger to take leave, and meant 
 
 To heal the hurt in wine, but — this is how 
 
 It came to pass that from that day till now 
 
 I have forborne wine, and the courtly crew, 
 
 And hawk and hunt, and women — th' world and you 
 
 Say woman — to paint these pictures you admire ; 
 
THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 
 
 Which, you are kind enough to say, inspire 
 In you a nobler hope for womanhood. 
 
 From all the rest of that gay throng 
 She stood apart, near where I passed; and down 
 Before her, softer than the satin gown 
 They rested on, were clasped her snow white hands — 
 Quite as in yonder half-done sketch she stands — 
 I somehow saw them, raised my eyes. 'Twere vain 
 To try describe the ecstacy, the pain 
 I lived that minute ; this alone must do : 
 Whatever faith I had before, I knew 
 Then that there was a God in heaven. — This, here, 
 This Virgin, which requires a touch, is near 
 As I have come — however hard I strive — 
 To giving others that which will survive 
 In me life-long, and through the grave, I feel, 
 To life again. Despite my utmost zeal, 
 There's more within than I have power to place 
 Upon the cloth ; more in the once seen face, 
 
THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 
 
 So lily-pure, rose-perfect, perfect eyes 
 
 And brow and mouth and all. This fails 
 
 In depth and purity of soul ; details 
 
 Of dress and form are accurately done, 
 
 But little better — if at all — than this, begun 
 
 Some twenty years ago, the earliest one, 
 
 But wait, I had not told you all; her eyes, 
 
 Whose depths disclosed a pristine paradise 
 
 Of soul, as I stood statue-like, met mine, 
 
 And somehow rested there. No single sign, 
 
 As I recall — and well do I remember — of surprise, 
 
 Or fear, or question, crossed her countenance 
 
 Until we had stood minutes there in trance, 
 
 It seemed; and then her silken lashes fell 
 
 Upon her lily cheek, and she was gone. 
 
 xAnd 1 went out and wandered till the dawn. 
 
 I knew then that my time had come to throw 
 Aside the nothingness of life, outgrow 
 Vain self, and bury up the worthless past 
 
THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 
 
 Within a noble future. Fair and vast 
 
 The world expanded around me, quickened, grew 
 
 From twilight into daylight, blossomed through. 
 
 Old passes, gray and dim with darkness, turned 
 
 To flowering vistas ; clouded heights that spurned 
 
 The sunlight now glowed purple; from the wold 
 
 Mists shrunk and left it haloed with pure gold. 
 
 Then foil and foible, tint and tinsel dropt 
 
 From life and left it lustrous ; trifling stopt 
 
 And aims grew boundless. Purpose mounted high 
 
 With will to master those great arts that vie 
 
 In forms of noble beauty. He who loves 
 
 One face in all the thousands, ever moves 
 
 In highering circles, never is content 
 
 To rest but one thing, has his purpose bent 
 
 To be musician, scupltor, painter, yea, 
 
 And poet ; yearning, striving thus in lay 
 
 Or statue, portrait, poem, to unseal 
 
 His soul's high secret; find for his ideal 
 
 An adequate expression ; tries to cramp 
 
10 THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 
 
 His spirit into lyric, epic ; stamp 
 A shapeless mass with form and feature ; paint 
 A picture in the likeness of a saint 
 Or the Madonna, symbol to the heart 
 The nearest, of the object he enshrines 
 Within the holiest of holies, twines 
 His soul to, worships, — such, love's art. 
 
 So Petrarch for his love of Laura wrote 
 Those sonnets ; Angelo's deft hammer smote 
 The graceless mass of marble into form 
 And feature ; and above the wildering storm, 
 My heart assures me, poor Beethoven caught 
 Love's raidiant sunlight, while his fingers wrought 
 The sweet sonatas. So my love for her 
 Paints these madonnas, which, your words aver, 
 Are worthy of the language they would speak. 
 And now you ask me why I did not seek 
 And claim her as my birthright; why forsake 
 The one great prize in life without a word 
 
THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 11 
 
 Said or deed dared. Just as you erred 
 Before, you err in this. The gem is mine — 
 Has been from that night forth, my light of life — 
 More perfectly, I hold, than wigged divine 
 Could make it by pronouncing man and wife, 
 More perfectly, more purely. How could I 
 Seek her whose very worth did prophesy 
 Against me, a nothing whose sole worth did lie 
 In the power to do, to be, that she had given? 
 From childhood I had never nobly striven 
 For any worthy object. Life meant to desire, 
 To have, and to enjoy ; true, visions higher 
 Flashed meteor-like athwart my random way 
 From out the golden realm where youth in May 
 Rears his fair castles. Splendidly I dreamed, 
 But the pursuit of these high passions seemed 
 Like following wandering fires ; and so I grew 
 Drifting to manhood, to the world and self untrue, 
 Not knowing my own falseness. 
 
12 THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 
 
 Then she came : 
 Light fell in floods, revealing my life's shame 
 And utter nakedness ; but faith came, too, 
 And hope, and power to be, and will to do 
 All that which makes a man. And from that day- 
 Till now one only purpose has held sway 
 Over my life ; not merely to retrieve 
 A wasted past, but so to interweave 
 Truth that had blazed its way to my poor heart, 
 One simple truth in one truth-telling art, 
 That it might speak and all mankind assure 
 That one true woman, noble, gentle, pure, 
 Atones for all the sins of half a world 
 Of shallow natures. She has e'er unfurled 
 The banner of her sex, not they; and stands 
 Supremely beautiful, where she commands 
 The motions of the world from her great height,- 
 A living power, a benediction ; and a light. 
 They only serve, in their poor idle way, 
 To make her glory greater. 
 
THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 13 
 
 The first day, 
 Yea, first day, after my new life began 
 Found me bound Romeward, there to live and scan 
 The work of Raphael and Angelo 
 And many another whose heart's sacred glow 
 Wrought everlastingly, embodying 
 In noble beauty those high truths that cling 
 To noble natures. How I stood amazed 
 In th' wonder of it all, as there I gazed, 
 Feeding my soul upon those glimpses caught 
 Out of eternity by minds that wrought 
 Against the rust of time ! Yea, I was dazed, 
 And ghostly fears for one short moment razed 
 My hope to dust, as suddenly there dawned 
 Light that revealed how vast a region yawned 
 Between me and the glorious realm I sought; 
 But then a sea of joy surged back, befraught 
 With confidence and courage. Then to work 
 Undaunted, work that left no doubt to lurk 
 In shadowy corners. From gray dawn to dark 
 
14 THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 
 
 I labored; many a morn I heard the lark 
 Ease his full throat in his long flight of song; 
 My heart sang with his; joy, however long 
 The day, was longer, for the once-seen face 
 Was with me, and a presence whose sweet grace 
 Filled ever all my world. I grew in power 
 Of grasp and of performance. With a dower 
 Like mine, 'twas little wonder; for, each day 
 I grew in gift to apprehend what lay 
 Within that visioned countenance, behold, 
 Like love that giving grows, it did unfold 
 Rare beauties that I had not seen before; 
 And thus I strove for seven years and more, 
 Seven fruitful years, in Italy, to learn 
 A language all-expressive, which would spurn 
 To speak but of the highest; thus I. came 
 To paint madonnas; thus retrieved my shame; 
 And then turned homeward. 
 
 Yes, there comes again 
 Your question, Why let years thus wax and wane 
 
THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 15 
 
 Without once venturing a deed or word 
 
 In my own heart's behalf? Think not there stirred 
 
 No passion in me, wrestled no desire 
 
 For conquest. To speak truth, consuming fire 
 
 Besieged, possessed me ; with wild beasts I fought : 
 
 For on the eve of my return I caught 
 
 A sudden rumor thrilling through the land, 
 
 That princely Bertram, he at whose command 
 
 More vassals bow than people half a score 
 
 Of kingdoms such as ours, stood at her door 
 
 A suitor. Heralded and hailed he came, 
 
 With noble lineage, and wealth, and fame 
 
 That many a king might envy. How I longed 
 
 To take a rival place with him, how thronged 
 
 My brain with doubtful fancies, you, my friend, 
 
 Can only half imagine. In the end 
 
 My better angel triumphed, banished doubt 
 
 And self, enthroned plain duty, pointed out 
 
 The one true way that stretched before me, pledged 
 
 My faith in solemn pact unprivileged. 
 
16 THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 
 
 I held and hold that love's true function, end 
 
 For which the world was made, is just to blend 
 
 The soul with beauty, thrilled with purpose high ; 
 
 To gladden, greaten, and to glorify 
 
 Life, render perfect what has failed, thro' fault, 
 
 Of its true consummation ; to exalt 
 
 Steadfast endeavor, sanction truth, right wrong, 
 
 Turn gloom to sunshine, sorrow unto song. 
 
 What gain of good had I to hold my hope 
 
 Expectant? What expansion in the scope 
 
 Of mind's endeavor or fulfillment, growth 
 
 Of soul, had I to look for in a troth 
 
 Of lives between us? She belonged to all 
 
 High places, I but to the cloistered hall. 
 
 And should I, since she once benignly beamed 
 
 A sudden radiance downward, through mists gleamed 
 
 And void and darkness, to my corner poor 
 
 And dismal of the world, attempt to lure 
 
 Her hither, hem, confine her glorious light 
 
 Of day, to render my cramped cloister bright? 
 
THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 17 
 
 I knew a duke once whose whole life was spent 
 
 In one consuming passion. The extent 
 
 Of his broad lands, the horse, the hounds, the hunt, 
 
 His dukedom's weal, — such interests as are wont 
 
 To make up life, were things remembered not 
 
 By him. He gave unto his garden plot 
 
 His thought, his days. It was a fragrant sea 
 
 Of bud and blossom, where the luckless bee 
 
 Was drowned in sweetness, and for very love 
 
 The nightingale sat songless, while above 
 
 The chaste moon veiled her face ! for every kind 
 
 Of rose, of every shape and size and hue 
 
 And scent the fertile mind of man could find 
 
 A name for, in this matchless garden grew. 
 
 And here the duke walked morning, noon, and night, 
 
 Walked and gazed rapt until his very sight 
 
 Grew sated. Then he crushed the wondrous rose 
 
 And held the shattered fragments to his nose. 
 
 There is a love diviner than the love 
 
18 THE PAINTER OF MADONNAS 
 
 That sates itself in sweetness, joy above 
 The thrill of fond possession: angels white 
 Would lose in lustre if they stood each night 
 Before us. Beauty passes, reverence flows, 
 And glory dwindles from whatever grows, 
 Through frequence, common. So I fought the fight 
 And won it, kept my angel lustered white ; 
 So turned again to paint madonnas, turned 
 From longing unto labor, worked and learned 
 The joy of doing, such as no man knows 
 Until he finds his place appointed, glows 
 To fill it, works his work and lives his life 
 Untrammeled, unperplexed by paltry strife, 
 Conventions, rules, or frills of fashion, true 
 And loyal to the impulse thrilling through 
 Head, hand, and heart. And so I lead the plain 
 Lone life you question, lured by no false strain 
 Of siren voices. All the world gleams gold 
 Around me, glory stretches uncontrolled. 
 
Love Lies A-Cold 
 
 In the cool garden closes, 
 Where summer and care 
 Have wrought beauty so rare ; 
 
 Where the perfume of roses 
 Is spent on the air; 
 With a reticent glare, 
 
 The soft sunshine reposes 
 On the bright-blown flowers 
 For hours upon hours. 
 
 Not a breath stirs the willows, 
 That border the stream, 
 From their mid-day dream ! 
 
 And the slow swelling billows 
 Are gathering each beam 
 From the sun, with a gleam 
 
 On the sea as it pillows 
 The shallops and skiffs 
 Beyond the clear cliffs. 
 
20 LOVE LIES A-COLD 
 
 But the day shall shiver 
 And die ere a sound 
 Stir a leaf from the ground, 
 
 Or a voice wake a quiver 
 From the park to the mound, 
 Save the baying hound 
 
 Or the tremulous river; 
 For love lies a-cold 
 In the castle old. 
 
 From the night till the morning, 
 From morning till night, 
 When the last lonesome light 
 
 Fills the sky with its warning 
 Of the day's damask flight, 
 Neither lady nor knight, 
 
 The frail flowers scorning, 
 Shall pluck a red rose 
 From the garden's close. 
 
LOVE LIES A-COLD 21 
 
 And the bright breath of summer 
 
 Shall pass into fall; 
 
 And the confident call 
 Of the busy-winged hummer 
 
 Shall cease from the wall 
 
 Where the woodbines crawl ; 
 Nor the steps of the comer 
 
 Of the now dead days 
 
 Shall quicken the ways. 
 
 The gray gate shall crumble 
 
 And turn into sand, 
 
 But never a hand 
 Or a finger shall humble 
 
 Itself to withstand 
 The decay, till it brand 
 All the walls, and they tumble 
 
 And turn into clay, 
 
 For year and for day. 
 
22 LOVE LIES A-COLD 
 
 And the flowers, forsaken, 
 May wither and die : 
 For the wind shall sigh; 
 
 And the branches be shaken; 
 But never a cry, 
 Or a tear to the eye, 
 
 Shall it startle or waken; 
 For love lies a-cold 
 In the castle old. 
 
 So the years shall wither 
 By months and by days, 
 From Mays unto Mays ; 
 
 And the sails flee thither, 
 O'er the watery ways, 
 From yonder bleak bays, 
 
 Where the moon and with her 
 The timid stars shine 
 On the barren sea-brine ; 
 
LOVE LIES A-COLD 23 
 
 And from father this story 
 
 Of love to the son 
 
 Shall descend; and none 
 Shall forget the old glory, 
 
 Till the sand be run 
 
 From his glass ; or the sun 
 And the stars grow hoary, 
 
 And be not the lights 
 
 Of the days and nights. 
 
 But the castle and garden 
 
 Of the days then long dead, 
 
 Awhile love was shed 
 O'er the walls that guard on 
 
 The west, shall be wed 
 
 To waste, and each bed 
 To a stone shall harden ; 
 
 For love lies a-cold 
 
 In the castle old. 
 
Song of Autumn 
 
 I come on the wings of the south-wind ; 
 
 On the wings of the south and east ; 
 I tarry in forest and meadow, 
 
 And spread out my harvest-feast. 
 
 I am life, I am death, and harvest, 
 The soul of the summer and spring, 
 
 The end of their budding and blooming, 
 Of the months and the years I am king. 
 
 My coffers are full ; I give freely 
 
 To the strong and the weak as well ; 
 
 To man, and the birds of the meadow, 
 The squirrel and fox in the dell. 
 
SONG OF AUTUMN 25 
 
 For mine are the barley and wheat fields., 
 
 The apples of red and green, 
 The chestnuts of brown on the hilltops, 
 
 And the fields of corn between. 
 
 For me grapes in purple cluster, 
 
 Hang low on the laden vine ; 
 And orchards of pears and peaches 
 
 Their garlanded heads incline. 
 
 I bring unto all a blessing 
 
 From inland lake to sea; 
 I strew the highlands with plenty, 
 
 The valleys I fill with glee. 
 
 No dingle may lie so hidden 
 
 That I do not spy it out, 
 And fill with the wealth of my treasures 
 
 Each distant and secret redoubt. 
 
26 SONG OF AUTUMN 
 
 For all countries are my dominions, 
 From pole to equator and pole ; 
 
 And my coursers are swlift as the lightnings 
 To bear me from goal to goal. 
 
 Then I flee on the wings of the north-wind, 
 On the wings of the north and west ; 
 
 And leave to the keeping of winter 
 The lands that I have blest. 
 
At Even-Tide 
 
 The western sky in crimson dyed 
 
 Sinks softly o'er the earth's dark breast, 
 Shedding abroad a lingering rest, 
 At even-tide. 
 
 The shadows climb the mountain-side 
 One after one with solemn pace, 
 As if aspiring into space, 
 
 At even-tide. 
 
 How listlessly the light boats glide 
 Reflected in the gleaming mere, 
 While the lone heron hovers near, 
 At even-tide. 
 
28 AT EVEN-TIDE 
 
 And ere the vesper chimes have died 
 
 The monk's low hymn, the chant, the prayer 
 Rise trembling on the darkening air, 
 
 At even-tide. 
 
 The patient flocks lie down beside 
 The fold, and their meek spirits blend 
 With nature, in the day's sweet end, 
 At even-tide. 
 
 The brown bright thrushes sing and hide; 
 A sigh is echoed from the hill ; 
 A star shines out and all is still, 
 
 At even-tide. 
 
As the King Passed By 
 
 As the king passed by, thro' the narrow street, 
 
 With a thousand menials in his train, 
 
 Ready to catch the downcast rein, 
 
 Or lie in the dust at his princely feet, 
 
 A peasant sat in his lowly door, 
 
 And the sunshine lay on his cottage floor, 
 
 As the king passed by. 
 
 And unto himself the peasant said, 
 
 As he caught the shimmer of purple and gold, 
 
 And saw the menials young and old 
 
 Attend each turn of the royal head: 
 
 "How enviable a man is he — 
 
 A life of ease and of minstrelsy!" 
 
 As the king passed by. 
 
30 AS THE KING PASSED BY 
 
 As the king passed by, his eye beheld 
 
 The peasant sitting by his door, 
 
 And the warm sunlight on his floor. 
 
 And 'neath the purple his weary heart swelled, 
 
 And he sighed : "What were it worth to be 
 
 Like yonder peasant, trammel-free !" 
 
 As the king passed by. 
 
The Day is Done 
 
 Ave Maria! all the day is done. 
 The red sun settles in the burning west ; 
 Along the eastern mountains' jagged crest 
 The growing shadows gather one by one, 
 Ave Maria ! all the day is done. 
 
 Ave Maria! 'tis the eventide, 
 
 And all creation rests from strife; 
 
 A little while of peace creeps into life ; 
 
 Our work day masks and mimes are laid aside, 
 
 And we return unto ourselves, at eventide. 
 
 Ave Maria! as the dusk descends 
 
 A cooling breeze strikes our flushed face, 
 
 And we begin to feel how fair a place 
 
 Life fills — how large in love; for heaven lends 
 
 To earth a glory as the dusk descends. 
 
JAN 
 
 Dawn and Dusk 
 
 A tremulous silence, a void of mist, 
 A shroud over wood and wold, 
 A depth of grey, then amethyst 
 And furroughing fields of gold. 
 
 White drifts of cloud that hurry by, 
 And silvery waves that lap the sand, 
 A growing softness across the sky, 
 A mellow music thro' all the land.