t- ^-^ *^- w* .^*^ .0 ^oV^ #*+. .A.£^_V .0^.^1->o >*\^/^ C°* «biF "«W oV^BBf. ~*^ ^cv *W *«** \v «*; < o \V X^ • ' "* A^ <$> * o n o , y\ ifjp?. : /\ l Wg} /% Ifip J\ o " o ^ THE PATH OF GOLD BY , r CARRIE BLAKE MORGAN NEW WHATCOM, WASHINGTON EDSON & IRISH 1900 \^ 51595 Jj. Ibwwy of Goafffeam v vFS RECEIVED SEP 25 1900 Copyright wtry /// tfpo SECOND COPY. 0bliVih|-6d t# mm division, OCT 1 1900 Copyright, 1900, By Carrie Bi,ake Morgan b.O.b 0. ELLA HIGGINSON The Path of Gold An Indian legend, beautiful and old, Tells how a sinner sought the path of gold Cast by a midnight moon on waters deep, And there lay down to his eternal sleep, With faith that, though the sea his bones should hold, His deathless soul should mount the path of gold, And steal unchallenged through the gates of heaven, Its guilt forgotten, or, perchance, forgiven. low-hung moon ! quivering path of light ! The savage legend comes to me tonight. Beside the sea I stand, and at my feet The sands of earth and heaven's gold do meet. Would that I held the simple faith and hope That bore the Indian's soul up yon bright slope! But even as my prayer is cried aloud , Thy face, O moon, is hidden with a cloud; Thy light is gone; the waters, cold and gray, Clutch at my feet and chill all hope away. Oh, can it be that souls in sin grown old Can never find the shining Path of Gold ? No Man Hath Right No man hath right to rear a prison wall About himself, and then to sit therein And sigh for freedom, gone beyond recall, And make his moan for things that might have been. Nor hath he right to build himself a stair, By which to scale his prison's high rampart, When every stroke must mean some soul's despair, And every step a bleeding human heart. As Rosebads Will The dewdrop loved the rosebud, and the rosebud loved the dew, But the frost-king, hoary-headed, came between the lovers true ; Oh, a million jewels brought he, to entice the rosebud sweet, Ten hundred thousand diamonds, and cast them at her feet. The dew drop's tender opals paled before such kingly show, The rosebud chose the diamonds, as rosebuds will, you know. And now ? Oh, well, the sequel can be whispered in a breath — She had her hour of splendor, and she paid for it with death. A Voiceless Soul God makes no thing in vain. And yet — Ah, me ! If man should shape, from precious woods and fine, With skillful touch and art almost divine, A violin attuned to melody Of earth and sky, and restless, whispering sea, And then no bow create, — his work resign, And give the almost sentient thing no sign Nor sound to voice its inborn minstrelsy, — We quick should cry, "That man hath wrought in vain! " Soul of mine, thou must that viol be, Without a bow ! Thou canst not voice the strain That rends thy chords in effort to be free, And turns what should be joy to keenest pain. God makes no thing in vain. And yet — Ah, me ! Life's Song I would not live too long. Too many years Are just too many stanzas in life's song : However sweet the first, men's wearied ears Turn from the last. I would not live too long. A Memory A low-hung moon ; a path of silver flame Across a lonely stream ; a whispering wood ; A vigil drear for one who never came ; And all around God's peopled solitude. Sacred Deep in each artist's soul some picture lies That he will never paint for mortal eyes ; And every singer in his heart doth hold Some sad, sweet tale that he will leave untold. At Dead of Night I woke at dead of night. The wind was high; My white rose-bush was tapping 'gainst the pane With ghostly finger-tips ; a sobbing rain Made doleful rhythm for my thoughts, and I Strove vainly not to think, and wondered why My brain, ghoul-like, must dig where long had lain The pulseless dead that time and change had slain. I fear no living thing. But oh ! to lie, And see the gruesome dark within my room Take eyes and turn on me with yearning gaze ! To hear reproachful voices from the tomb Of duties unfulfilled, — might well-nigh craze A stronger brain ! God save me from the gloom Of sleepless hours that stretch between two days! IO As I Grow Old If need be, take my friends, my dole of wealth, Take faith, and love, and hope, take youth and health; But while I live, dear God, blight not the flower Of Reason in my brain ! Leave me the power To string together, on fine threads of gold, My fairest thoughts, as I grow gray and old. ii Come Not at Night O Death, come not for me at dead of night ! Call not my soul to take its lonely flight Through dark and storm unto the world unknown. But when the golden sun from out the sea Shall lift his face to light a path for me, Death, come then, and claim me for thine own. 12 Introspection Heart of mine, for shame ! to ache, and ache, Because a few things thou didst love are lost ! What if some treasures, yielded up, have cost Thee dear ? — Is that a sign that thou needst break ? Millions of hearts did ache ere thou didst feel One stab of pain ; for any heart can break ; But few can play the game of give and take, And come out whole from under life's hard heel. So heart, brace up, and twang thy quivering strings Into new strength. Ask no more tears of me; Nor beg of me to voice thy grief for thee. Poor heart, thou and thy kind are weakling things ! 13 A Thought God knows success is sweet. And yet He thought Not best to give the longed-for boon to all, Lest the desire to win it had been small, And His most wise design been set at naught. By contrast's law our estimates are made ; There were no beauty but for ugliness ; No grandeur but for littleness; and less Of joy in heaven's sunshine but for shade. So, friend, if you or I must work in vain, Remember that but for our fruitless toil Success had missed some portion of her foil. Let that thought blunt the stab of failure's pain. 14 Dead Flowers Send not vain tears to seek a by-gone hour No dew can kiss to life a last year's flower. Limitation river, beating 'gainst thy crags alway ! My kin thou art in boundless aspiration : Thou wouldst take mountain heights within thy sway, Yet canst not rise above thy banks of clay, — My kin again, in piteous limitation ! Poverty Possessing little maketh no man poor His poverty is in desiring more. 15 The Undertone of Pain Earth, thy carpet is so green to-day, 1 would forget the graves it hides away ; I would not hear the sighs of grief and care That tremble in thy balmy, sunlit air. But Nature's touch upon the soul within Is as the master hand on violin ; And through thy music's softest, sweetest strain There throbs an endless undertone of pain. j6 Discontent I could content myself to be one drop Among the myriad drops that swell the breast Of life's full sea, if I might ride the crest Of some proud wave that none can overtop ; If I might catch the sun's sweet morning light, When swift he mounts into the day's cool space, And paint his tinted clouds upon my face, And wear the stars upon my breast at night. But, oh, to lie a hundred fathoms deep, Down in a cold, dim cavern of the sea, Where no sun-ray can ever come to me, Where shadows dwell and sightless creatures creep ; To gaze forever up, with straining eyes, To where God's day illumes the shining sands, To grope, and strive, and reach with pallid hands, Yet never see the light, and never rise ! I should go mad, but for a still, small voice, A pitying voice, that sometimes says to me, 1 'It takes so many drops to fill life's sea, Ye cannot all have places of your choice." 17 Growing Old To feel the failing power ; to sit and note The slipping cogs within the mental wheel ; To strive to hold a thought, and see it steal Away ; to watch each golden fancy float Beyond our reach. To be no longer bold, And sure, and free ; to falter and to grope ; Yet still to strive, and still to feebly hope — Until the struggle ends, and we are old. 18 "We Ne'er See Well" "I would not die unknown to fame," I said; "I feel, within, the power to do and be Something, if I were but unfettered, free To work in my own way, by fancy led. Why must I toil that others may be fed ? — Others who little reck the cost to me, For 'none so blind as they who will not see.' Dear heaven, if I were only free!" I plead. But when, one day, rcry hour of freedom came, I kissed the broken shackles I had lost, And knew my freedom gained at too great cost ; And now I neither strive nor long for fame ; For who can work, with none to help or care? And who would win what no dear one may share? 19 Jealousy I would thou wert a rose, and I the tree, That when I died, thou too might'st die with me. I would thou wert the earth, and I the sun, That if my light were quenched, thy race were run. I would thou wert a star, and I a cloud, That I, in death, might wind thee in my shroud. But, oh, to think that thou may'st live instead — May'st live and love again — when I am dead ! 20 Alas! The blind god is but snow-blind, after all, And gets his sight when Love's black night doth fall. Buried Gems Though I had drained the fount of knowledge dry, And heard all stories told by tongue or pen, I still should yearn to know the thoughts that lie Unvoiced, unwrit, in graves of nameless men. A Couplet A pair of lines — how often we have seen them ! — Like lovers fond, with but a thought between them. 21 The Skylark Oh, happy bird ! Though well I live and long, My throat must vainly strive to sing thy song ; My acres broad of woods and waving grain Are cramped and poor beside thy grand domain ; And all my coined gold can never buy Thy lease upon the red gold of the sky. 22 ItfC* To a Mountain When God foresaw the littleness of men, And all our need of object-lessons, then He smote the pulsing, pregnant womb of earth, And bade the plain be cleft to give thee birth. He caused thy rugged head to rear on high, Where clouds and sun make war within the sky ; And unto thee the mission grand was given To show how lowly earth may reach toward heaven. 23 Reading Just dropping off the harness from our overwearied thought, And resting in the beauty that another's brain has wrought. To My Dog Thy speechless tongue, my dog, I envy thee; Whatever be thy faults in sight of heaven, The stab of venomed words thou hast not given, And so thy dumbness seemeth good to me. Achievement "The low sun makes the color," but the high Has climbed the mighty archway of the sky. 24 A Warning Palest gold of early sunrise lit the face of all the land, Touching into life the hill-tops and the shore of spark- ling sand, Kissing into flame the waters lapping, rippling at my feet, Tuning all the soul of nature into harmony complete — Lighting up a trembling dewdrop on a tinted daisy's breast, Till to me it seemed a jewel from some wandering angel's crest. Wonderingly the flower I lifted, by poetic fancy drawn, Bent too near, I breathed upon it — and the heavenly gem was gone ! Oh, my loved one, angel-hearted, is it strange that drop of dew Was to me a potent warning not to bend too near to you? One hot breath of passion's impulse, and my love would be in vain ; You would flee forever from me, in the vanished dew- drop's train ! 25 The Old Emigrant Road Aged and desolate, grizzled and still, It creeps in slow curves round the base of the hill ; Of its once busy traffic is left little trace, Not a hoof-print or wheel-track is fresh on its face. Rank brambles encroach on its poor ragged edge, And bowlders crash down from the mountainside ledge ; The elements join to efface the dim trail, The torrents of springtime, the winter's fierce gale ; Yet, with pioneer sturdiness, patient and still, It lingers and clings round the base of the hill ; Outlasting its usefulness, furrowed and gray, Gaunt phantom of Yesterday, haunting To-day. 26 To Him Who Waits All things may come to him who learns to wait, But oh, the pity when they come too late ! Resignation The sad-faced sister of Content is she. When thou hast courted sweet Content in vain, Hast turned thy back to Joy, thy face to Pain — Pale Resignation will join hands with thee. Faith Faith shuts his eyes and says, "I know ! I know! " Because his weakling heart would have it so. 27 If I Might Choose If I might choose my meeting-time with Death, I'd clasp his hand on some sad autumn day, And with the year's ripe fruit I'd pass away, If I might time my last faint fleeting breath. But oh, pale King, thou art no creature's slave ! We may choose much in life, but in the end Thou makest every mortal will to bend And break above an open, waiting grave ! 28 SEP 25 1900 H261 78 529 p - "5 £^a|l||||K5^' ''■r *W *. r-Ov\\\ TNXll U» X5 V • v-0 ^ N JUL 73 MANCHESTER, INDIANA _y