! Si I 
 
 
 W.-OvCRABB 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 
 
 Chap. Copyright No. 
 
 Shelf__,:_C^?7^ 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
LYRICS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 GOLDEN WEST. 
 
 
 Wi^D^CRABB. 
 
 san francisco : 
 
 The Whitaker & Ray Company, 
 
 ( incorporated.) 
 
 I898. 
 
T 6 
 
 ■v 
 
 4-1 
 
 CC7 
 
 L^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 
 
 BY W. D. CRABB, 
 A. D. 1898. 
 
 J 
 
 
 TWO COPIES RECEIVED. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Dedication — Esther, the Ideal 7 
 
 California Sunrise 13 
 
 Cape Horn oe the Sierras 14 
 
 Rocks of Monterey (From the Overland Monthly) 15 
 
 Driven From Eden — Tale of a Pioneer ... 17 
 
 In Los Angeles — To Esther 27 
 
 Laura of Paradise 31 
 
 The Valley of Peace 33 
 
 Two Departures— Tamalpais 36 
 
 City of the Golden Gate 37 
 
 Shasta 39 
 
 Sacramento Valley in Spring 41 
 
 In the Desert — Overland 42 
 
 Humboldt Lake 44 
 
 The Rancher's Story 45 
 
 The Ishmaelite .... 48 
 
 Edgar A. Poe 58 
 
 A Dirge 60 
 
 Noletha 62 
 
 That Dreamless Sleep 65 
 
4 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 A Double Prophecy 75 
 
 Esther 8l 
 
 To Esther (From Locke's National Monthly) . . 83 
 
 My Far-Away 85 
 
 Confidence 87 
 
 Thine Eyes 9° 
 
 My Flowers 93 
 
 Annette 96 
 
 Since Thou Art Not Here 98 
 
 I May Not Stay 100 
 
 Agnes 101 
 
 My Young Wild Rhyme 103 
 
 By- and- By 104 
 
 A Star of Reminder 104 
 
 Fact vs. Fiction 106 
 
 Live and Let Live 112 
 
 The White Crane 114 
 
 Death of the Old Professor 116 
 
 Telouchkine 118 
 
 Wayside Flowers _ 120 
 
LYRICS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 GOLDEN WEST. 
 
ESTHER, THE IDEAL. 
 
 DEDICATORY. 
 
 To fter 
 
 who first a song, a voice, 
 Accordant with seraphic lyre 
 From Heaven came to win her choice, 
 And sing her being thro' my heart, 
 And make anew my soul acute, 
 Enkindling with angelic fire — 
 
 Voice sweeter than the mellow lute — 
 Song artless, yet the perfect art; 
 To her these songs I set apart. 
 
 To fter 
 
 whose eyes came beaming light 
 And love and dawning' s quick surprise 
 Into my love-dead soul of night — 
 Eyes rich with all hues mingling clear ; 
 Benignant eyes, dear blue-and-brown ; 
 Keats-emerald eyes ; sweet violet eyes ; 
 Eyes speaking from the soul deep down ; 
 Those wonder-eyes, kind lamps of cheer — 
 To her these songs I offer here ! 
 
8 ESTHER, THE IDEAL. 
 
 of rich carnelian lips, 
 Kiss pure as warm carnation's kiss 
 On honey-dews the sunrise sips — 
 And face whose smile of ruby light 
 To many weary sunless hearts 
 Brings hope-inspiring tropic bliss 
 And every laughing joy imparts 
 And dapples leaves and flowers with bright— 
 To her these rhythmic lines I write. 
 
 Tofter 
 
 of fonder queenlier charm 
 Than Esther's charms, humanely royal, 
 A crownless regal Grace in form, 
 Yet diademed with priceless crown, 
 Rare gems upon her queenly crest 
 Of mind and heart, divinely loyal ; 
 A placid harbor is her breast, 
 A great good heart ne'er anger-blown 
 
 My anchored heart may trust the best — 
 Round her these sprays of song are strown, 
 To her this wreath of love is thrown. 
 
 Tofter 
 
 of Grecian form and face, 
 The sculptor's dreamed ideal glory, 
 With Venus' limbs and Helen's grace, 
 Unstained as vestal maids of Rome, 
 Revealing all the charms of now 
 
ESTHER, THE IDEAL. 
 
 And all the dreams of classic story — 
 Who lifts her hands in blessings' vow 
 Above my spirit's temple-dome ; 
 I bring this blushing book of bloom 
 To her, my heart's one only home ! 
 
 Tcfter 
 
 of iridescent bright 
 Serene celestial gifts of mind, 
 To her, the spirit exquisite, 
 To her the measureless in loves 
 
 That move my being with their thrill- 
 Who seeth all, yet seemeth blind 
 When seeming blind is mercy-kind ! 
 Imperial force of heart and will, 
 Yet gentler than the pretty dove's 
 Meek notes of pathos thro' the groves — 
 To her with songs he comes who roves ! 
 
 To fter 
 
 (tho' years I roam afar 
 Unrestful as in primal age 
 The ark-sent dove 'neath sun and star 
 Roves o'er the waste that all engirds), 
 My heart is held, tho' unconfined — 
 To her, the wiser than the sage, 
 I bring these poems love-enshrined, 
 One book her blessing hath entwined, 
 Fond notes as songs of dying birds 
 At sunset — plaintive timid words ! 
 
IO ESTHER, THE IDEAL. 
 
 %Jet fter 
 
 bright name might make them great ; 
 For living in her thoughts and words 
 And name is moving thro' the gate 
 Of rooms resplendent with all bliss, 
 Grand furnishings of regal mind ; 
 And, as her halo there engirds 
 
 The singer, songs must be refined — 
 Transfigured by this Esther's kiss 
 They must be budding great by this. 
 To her, my Love the first the last, 
 These artless rhymes I meekly cast ! 
 
LYRICS 
 
 GOLDEN WEST. 
 
 CALIFORNIA SUNRISE. 
 
 A California sunrise, over-fair ! 
 
 See, scarlet-colored margins fringed with 
 green ! 
 I«o ! fields of red and crimson bordered there ! 
 Here, blue expanses spanned with whitened 
 sheen ! 
 L/O ! yellow banners floating in the air ! 
 
 Now, purple pastures sweet as eye hath 
 seen ! 
 Here, pink as blossoms mellow with delight ! 
 O many-hued, sky-ocean's painted Bight, 
 Bent like Benin against the shore of night ! 
 
14 CAPE HORN OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 CAPE HORN OF THE SIERRAS. 
 
 Swift as a hawk we sweep around 
 Where God's battlements descend, 
 Till cliffs rest on blooming ground 
 In the growing vale below ; 
 Till this Eden to the eyes 
 Seems as distant as the skies ; 
 Towering summits seem to blend 
 With the stars that circle low, — 
 Blend, and motionless attend. 
 
 Circling round so high and swift, 
 On this mid-suspended rim, 
 E'en the vale below lies dim, 
 And the living seem to shift 
 In mid-shadow, while we drift 
 Near where planets smile above ; 
 And the heart with tender love 
 In its fancy would address them, 
 In its rapturous joy caress them, — 
 And the heart, its love confessing, 
 Would on Nature's heart, caressing, 
 L,ay its silent hands in blessing. 
 But the soul feels the Divine, 
 Begs forgiveness by a sign, 
 Bows in awe at Nature's shrine. 
 
ROCKS OF MONTEREY. 15 
 
 ROCKS OF MONTEREY. 
 
 Brown rocks, frayed edges of the lands, 
 Enfigured with a netted work 
 Of woods of pine, where blossoms lurk 
 
 Beneath fern leaves as 'neath green hands, — 
 
 Worn rocks, the finger-raveled edges 
 By finger-tips of Monterey, 
 A queenly hand, the mobile bay, 
 
 More gemmed than princess's hand with pledges,— 
 
 Lorn rocks, so torn and fringed by fingers, — 
 In-carved with shapes and shadings rare, 
 Arranged in color-patterns fair,— 
 
 One turns to go, yet ever lingers ! — 
 
 Gray rocks, upon whose foldings grand 
 Made ivory-smooth by sweeping spray, 
 The fingers of the tidal bay 
 
 Play organ-tunes along the strand, — 
 
 Rough rocks, yet in perspective seen, 
 
 A girth of every gorgeous hue 
 
 And mellow shades wrought thro' and thro' 
 Of purple-blue and water-green, — 
 
 Lone rocks, the chosen, safe retreat 
 For shy unbosomings of love, 
 
l6 ROCKS OF MONTEREY. 
 
 While stars, and white, thin mists above 
 Give beauty to the water's fleet, 
 
 And, woman-wise and man-discreet, 
 The sympathetic, bounding seas 
 On rocks, stern-kind in sympathies, 
 
 More loud than lovers' voices beat. 
 
 How o'er the granite keys they play ! 
 
 These rhythmic fingers pearly white, 
 With rings of emerald and light, 
 
 Topaz and amethystine ray. 
 
 Thou beauteous hand, thou matchless bay, 
 I love thy jeweled glow, thy spray, 
 Thy myriad splendors in the day, 
 Thy bridal omens, when the drifted 
 Star-gems so fairy-like are sifted. 
 
 I sit the fringed rocks among; 
 
 I feel thy finger-touch magnetic ; 
 
 I see thee weaving things prophetic, — 
 
 All thoughts profound, sublime, pathetic, 
 
 Strength for the old, joy for the young! 
 
DRIVEN FROM EDEN. 1 7 
 
 DRIVEN FROM EDEN. 
 
 TAI.E OF A PIONEER. 
 
 Ah ! Time is a heartless intruder 
 That ruthlessly trudges behind one, 
 And tramples and crushes to splinters 
 The painted glass-figures of fancy — 
 The castles in Spain of the dreamer, 
 In youth and the budding of manhood: 
 So how can I gather a story 
 To-day out of glittering fragments, 
 Once perfect and brilliant of color 
 In youth, when the earlier fancies 
 L,ay fairer than roses around me ? 
 Now dim are the dreams of my childhood, 
 And faded the follies of love-days. 
 
 Far back lie the realms of my childhood, 
 Divine with the promise of love-days, 
 In the meadows that one of the poets 
 Pronounced, in his ecstasy, Eden — 
 Where tides of the beautiful grasses 
 Of prairies, with glorified blossoms, 
 Shook hands with the tides of the waters, 
 
l8 DRIVEN FROM EDEN. 
 
 And kissed to the kiss of Vermilion — 
 There prairies are dotted with timber, 
 As islands deep-green in the ocean : 
 'Twas there in the breeze and the shadow 
 Of one of those islands of forest 
 She dwelt, who was queen of all beauty, 
 Eulalie, the pride of Vermilion. 
 
 Birds floated around and above her 
 And swung on their pinions of purple, 
 And all the rich hues under heaven ; 
 They chirped on the branches a message 
 Of "peace to Eulalie ! " and freighted 
 The air with their languorous love-lays. 
 The meadow-larks swayed, at a distance, 
 On stems of the riotous dock-weeds. 
 'Twas peace in the sound of the breezes, 
 And peace in the caroling voices 
 Of birds in the peace of the tree-tops. 
 'Twas peace in the whispering grasses ; 
 And delicate voices of waters 
 Sang peace, to the lulling of lilies 
 Whose peace was the charm of their petals. 
 'Twas peace unexplored in the star-lands; 
 With only a breach of their promise 
 Of peace, as was seen in the falling 
 Of a meteor at eve, as if sorrow 
 Had crept into loves of the planets, 
 And so, now and then in the twilight 
 A star fell from out of the cluster 
 
DRIVEN FROM EDEN. 19 
 
 Down to night of eternal despairing ! — 
 'Twas peace in the voices of Nature. 
 'Twas peace in the night and the morning, 
 And peace all the day and the even. 
 And peace is the essence of beauty. 
 Peace, white-armed, sweet peace is the god- 
 dess 
 That soars o'er the passions that rend us — 
 That deadens the spirit of hatred — 
 Of jealously, envy, ambition ! 
 Yea, peace, that maketh contentment ! 
 Such peace was in soul of Eulalie, 
 Whose prayer was, "May God' s peace be with 
 you ! ' ' 
 
 I dwelt on the river Vermilion, 
 Not far from the home of Eulalie — 
 O why should my spirit awaken, 
 To follow the feet of an angel ? 
 Then toss on its pillow of passion ? 
 My love was as pure as the heavens, 
 And true as its blueness of beauty. 
 But I was devoid of the graces 
 And ways that should win her affection. 
 My gait was uncouth ; and uncomely 
 My form; and the money to cover, 
 My many defects still was lacking. 
 What charm hid in dusky complexion? 
 Or coarse hair, as straight as the rushes ? 
 Then why should my spirit awaken 
 
20 DRIVEN FROM EDEN. 
 
 To toss on its pillow of passion ? 
 Ah ! was it, as coldly was told me 
 By one who had power to do evil, 
 Because (it was false as the wine-cup) ! 
 I saw through the eyes of a dreamer ! 
 
 But she, she was sweet as the blossoms, 
 As pure as the buds of the lilies 
 Caressing the flow of Vermilion. 
 The smiling, that chased back her laughter, 
 Rippled like the brook ; and it tinted 
 Her features, expressive, as twilight 
 Doth chase down the sunset and tinteth 
 The skies from which Helios retreated ! 
 
 Alas ! now to find that my fancy 
 
 Is not as it was ; and that somehow, 
 
 My power of impassioned expression 
 
 Is not as it was in those love-days ! 
 
 Alas ! that the eyes of Eulalie, — 
 
 Yea, all her enrapturing beauties 
 
 Have faded so far into distance ; 
 
 They are dim through the mists of the 
 
 mountains 
 Of pleasure — are dim and uncertain 
 Thro' smoke of the desolate valleys 
 Of humiliation and sorrows ! 
 My words are grown heavy as iron 
 Muse ! give me the words that are lacking 
 To tell what I saw in Eulalie, 
 
DRIVEN FROM EDEN. 21 
 
 So glorified fair with the touches 
 Of love from the heart of — a dreamer? 
 But, to-day the dear view is uncertain, 
 Her form interchanges with others, 
 Who thrust their dim faces between us, 
 And smile as they claim recognition ! 
 Yes, to-day, her dear voice is uncertain, 
 And comes like an echo of echo ! 
 It paineth me sore to distinguish 
 Her voice from the voices of many 
 That come from their shadow of waiting, 
 And call, through an ocean of distance, 
 And claim — do they get it? — remembrance. 
 
 Tell me why war these opposite forces, 
 Opposing all goodness by evil — 
 Opposing the sweet by the bitter ? 
 
 How young, yet how ardent are lovers ! 
 
 Love wakens the chords in some spirits, 
 
 That quiver, with flashes resplendent, 
 
 And sound in a lyric of beauty, 
 
 Till ending in music of heaven; 
 
 In some, tune is wakened in sweetness, 
 
 To die in harsh iteration 
 
 Of tunes that are dirges to pleasure ! — 
 
 Come closer; my voice, it grows weaker — 
 Come closer, and listen; for somehow, 
 
DRIVEN FROM EDEN. 
 
 Now faces and voices that mingled 
 
 And made my remembrance uncertain 
 
 Are clear for the moment to mem'ry — 
 
 And, somehow, the mists of these mountains 
 
 Of pleasure, the smoke in the valleys 
 
 Of humiliation and sorrows 
 
 Are breaking away, and my fancies 
 
 Shine clear on the banks of Vermilion! 
 
 I see now the first of life plainly ; 
 
 'Tis strange that the commonest trifle, 
 
 Sometimes, is remembered for ages, 
 
 While deeds we call great are forgotten! — 
 
 I went to the home of Eulalie ; 
 
 I went in my youth burning blushes — 
 
 And, Oh ! with a sort of foreboding ! 
 
 We met ; and I knew, by the clinging 
 
 Of lips and their passionate pulses, 
 
 And more by the wonderful kindness 
 
 That shone in her eyes, who was victor. 
 
 We wooed on the banks of Vermilion. 
 
 We called to the fish in the river 
 
 Alluring them up to the margin. 
 
 The birds to the grounds of enchantment 
 
 Came down — to the margin of waters ; 
 
 And fishes came up to the lilies, 
 
 So charmed by the rapturous singing. 
 
 Love shown in the blush o' the roses ! 
 
 'Twas fair in the cups of the lilies ! 
 
 L,ove caroled from bills o' the singers, 
 
DRIVEN FROM EDEN. 23 
 
 'Twas sweet in the waters of crystal ! 
 O love, in the dew o' the morning, 
 And soft in the flow o' the grasses ! 
 O love, in the cloud and the even, 
 That blushed to the color of crimson ! 
 O love, in the gleaming of Venus, 
 And mild in the paleness of L,una ! 
 O love, in the soul o' the woman 
 Who loved so the love of " a dreamer !" 
 
 II. 
 
 O God ! oppositions of forces ! 
 
 They make the wild, turbulent plunging 
 
 Of torrents and swirling tornadoes ! 
 
 The maiden saw not as her parents. 
 
 They said I was " only a dreamer! " 
 
 Because — Oh ! when I remember, 
 
 My old, timeworn spirit doth tremble 
 
 Again with a storm of rebellion ! — 
 
 Because I had loftier yearnings 
 
 Than cramping all thoughts to the getting 
 
 Of money by tricks of the trader — 
 
 Because I unburdened my spirit 
 
 Of some of its plungings of passion, 
 
 And tenderer play of emotions, 
 
 In figures of speech and in sonnets, 
 
 They said to me, cold as the iceberg : 
 
 " Foolish youth, you are only a dreamer. 
 
 Do you deem the invention of figures 
 
24 DRIVEN FROM EDEN. 
 
 Of speech and of amorous verses 
 
 Is enough for the fairest of women ? 
 
 Why, you are as clumsy as dock-leaves, 
 
 While she is as graceful as lilies — 
 
 Shall lilies lock arms with the dock-leaves?" 
 
 I ventured to answer, not mildly : 
 " Nay, nay ! but the dock, so uncomely 
 Yet strong, may lean over the lily, 
 Protecting from sun and the tempest ! ' ' 
 
 Far better I never had spoken ! 
 For red as the raging of wine-cups, 
 He cried : ' ' L,et the bottom be riven 
 From under the dashing Vermilion ! 
 I,et clouds that are red in the even 
 Turn dark as your tawny complexion ! 
 If ever so clumsy a dreamer, 
 Unpolished, shall wed my Eulalie ! 
 You may level the loftiest mountain, 
 You may dry up the springs of the ocean, 
 But this lies beyond your endeavor — 
 Go ! — go from her future existence ! ' ' 
 
 III. 
 
 Yea, lives may begin soaring upward 
 Delighting a thousand beholders, 
 As rings rise in smoke toward the sunbeams — 
 Ascending, so soon to be broken — 
 
DRIVEN FROM EDEN. 25 
 
 To be broken, as rings of our smoking 
 Are broken on merciless tree-tops : 
 Yea, hearts may turn sad, until ripples 
 Of gayness sink dead 'neath the waters 
 And the surface that rippled in sunshine 
 I,ies turbid o'er bodies of dead men. 
 But a will that is utterly broken 
 Or bent for the arrows of curses, 
 While the heart still unbroken is glowing 
 With rashness and poisonous passions 
 Is the worst of all bitterest sorrows. 
 There are wills that are stronger than iron, 
 But more may be bended as pewter — 
 There are wills with a seeming of beauty, 
 But godless as glasses of Bacchus ; 
 There are wills that can never be broken, 
 But wound, as a twine on the finger. 
 Why chant to the hurrying people ? 
 Why clang to the pitiless pavement 
 Steps driven by wills that are stormy ? 
 A sound in the heart of the marble 
 Rings back, "it is resolute battle — 
 Stern war with the all that ennobles ! ' ' 
 And big lights that gleam in the windows 
 Of men of the world, how they glimmer ! 
 " We hate thee ! we hate the emotions, 
 The yearnings and brazen ambitions 
 Of humble men, daring to battle 
 For thrones of exalted opinions 
 And characters grander than temples ! ' ' 
 
26 DRIVEN FROM EDEN. 
 
 IV. 
 
 We parted — as others have parted ; 
 
 And Earth put on garments of mourning. 
 
 She said, as I turned to go from her : 
 
 " Searle, stand like a man ! It is sorrow 
 
 That bridges the way to the fullness 
 
 Of power and the goal of our being ! 
 
 Searle, go ! you are going forever ! 
 
 I shall follow your footprints, aye, always; — 
 
 Shall glide like a shadow in mourning, 
 
 Along the forsaken Vermilion, 
 
 Forsaken of you — and its sweetness. 
 
 Be strong — love, farewell!" — Thus she 
 
 vanished, — 
 As pale as the snow in the mountains. 
 To me the delights of Vermilion 
 Turned dead as the rocks of the desert — 
 Turned dead as our hopes ; and an angel 
 In black led me out of the valley, 
 And swung a sword over the gate- way. 
 I crushed with the hammer of will-power, 
 The thing we call "lonely ! " and turning 
 I set my face westward from Eden. 
 
IN EOS ANGELES. 27 
 
 IN LOS ANGELES— To Esther. 
 
 Delightful, sunny City of the Angels, 
 So canopied with dewy, mellow blue, 
 
 And sentineled with mountains as evangels, 
 In majesty and royal robed in hue ! 
 
 Yet thou, dear one, more winsome unto me 
 Than distant, beauteous holy angels are, 
 
 Art far — yet nestling near ! Afar from thee ? 
 So far ! So nestling near, thou one so far ! 
 
 So far ? Yea, but so near, my light, my cheer, 
 
 I must be glad, I cannot find a tear. 
 
 I see the stars gleam o'er Sierra's face, 
 
 And think of thy most matchless wonder-eyes ! 
 
 I see the slopes enflowered with blushing grace 
 Which move like flowing colors 'neath the sky 
 
 Of loyal blue ; then, Queen, I muse of thy 
 
 Sweet face, whose modest, chasing colors vie ! 
 
 I read the book — late opened in thine eyes — 
 The struggling years, with sorrow's pencil- 
 tracing ; 
 I read thy shrinking from me — as it dies ! 
 
 Then see thy trust gleam from thy soul's 
 encasing ! 
 
28 IN LOS ANGELES. 
 
 I read thy love's arising from its ashes 
 
 Of hopeless times, to send its sacred flashes 
 
 Down thro' my musing soul ! O how they 
 glow ! 
 
 Expelling every shadow, every tinge of woe. 
 
 I see thee standing by ; I see thy love-charged 
 gaze; 
 
 Thy smile ; thy tear ; thy drooping lashes ; 
 parted lips ; 
 Thy lifted, trustful look ; thy sweet amaze ! 
 
 I feel thy hand-press — tendriled finger-tips ! 
 Thy presence o'er me swings, about me clings — 
 Fills all my heart, and soothes its sorrowings ; 
 Kisses my heart to peace ; and sweetly sings 
 
 Thy beauteous voice thro' all my spirit's way ! 
 
 I hear thee sing to me, I feel thee pray — 
 
 So, tho' afar thou'rt near to-day and aye. 
 
 My new-born life would fly to thee, would fold 
 Its long-time wearied wings in blissful rest 
 
 In thy heart's treasure-room more rich than gold — 
 E'er revel in that paradisal feast 
 
 Thy spirit-fingers spread down in its dell : 
 
 Thy love hath healed my heart ! All's well ! 
 All's well ! 
 
 I muse of thee ! I write, I sing of thee ! 
 
 I pray for thee ! I plead for thee, alway ! 
 I plan for thee, and hope the best may be ! 
 
 I reach thee Esther's sceptre — give thee sway ! 
 
IN LOS ANGELES. 
 
 2 9 
 
 Though far, my queen, thou'rt near — thou'rt 
 here ; 
 And yet I come, I fly to thee, my queen ! 
 Heart-distance would be death, tho' hands were 
 near ! 
 But heart-knit, e'en with Titan mounts 
 
 between 
 Their rugged crests enwrapped in snowy 
 sheen, 
 Could never chill our warmth of tropic loves, 
 Nor part these holy-mated spirit-doves ! 
 
 And yet, my queen, I feel this chafing strain 
 Of separating miles. Glad in thy love ? 
 
 Yes ; yet by distance, joy is tinged by pain. 
 I long to have thee, as the wooing dove 
 
 Back to his window flies, fly to my spirit, 
 
 So long shut, opened now for thee to cheer it. 
 
 ' Twere richer, sweeter joy, my queen of May, 
 To be beside thyself the song to say ! 
 
 To touch thy chaste and trustful love-charged 
 
 fingers ; 
 And look into thine eyes, where alway 
 lingers 
 A hallowed something that so beams and 
 
 blesses 
 And drives away my clouds with its caresses ! 
 
 O how my words so struggle and so long 
 
 To say my heart's deep thought and sacred 
 feeling 
 
30 IN LOS ANGELES. 
 
 Out unto thee ; they break their hearts in song, 
 And yet so little of the best revealing. 
 
 Words beat, as prisoned birds, to thee to show 
 The halo of my inner heart for thee. 
 
 New Esther, ' ' whither thou goest, I would go ; 
 And where thou dwellest, I would ever be ; 
 
 Yea, where thou diest, there too would I die " — 
 
 Mount with thee to the same transcendent sky — 
 
 Walk th' same celestial streets with thee — the 
 same 
 Blest river by with thee ; trust the same God 
 Who led us 'neath the same strange, chast'ning 
 rod, 
 
 Thus led us thro' by His one only Name ! 
 
LAURA OF PARADISE. 3 1 
 
 LAURA OF PARADISE. 
 
 Let the river flow on with the dry winds and 
 heat, 
 Let it shimmer like silver and laugh with its 
 sheen, 
 And her girlhood's sweet secrets soft-tongued 
 repeat, 
 Let it sing to itself — let the San Joaquin; 
 Let it carry rich grains to a gold-giving mart — 
 It is nothing to Laura's disconsolate heart. 
 
 Let Sierras ascend until ready to touch 
 
 The dim wondrous clouds of the world of un- 
 knowns, 
 
 Till the stars will descend, for they love them so 
 much, 
 For a kiss of delights on their frosty white 
 cones; 
 
 Let the snowflakes fall swift; let them circle and 
 dart, — 
 
 Are they pallid as hopes lying dead on her heart ? 
 
 Let the oranges glow and the citron-trees bloom, 
 Let the lemons be golden, the figs over-sweet, 
 Yet under and over is always a gloom; 
 
32 LAURA OF PARADISE. 
 
 And beside her, in front of her steps flying 
 fleet, 
 Is the echo of steps and the sound of the clod, 
 Hiding all but her memories under the sod. 
 
 Let the summer winds pass and the winter winds 
 sigh, 
 Let the blossoms blush pink, and the leaflets 
 revive, 
 And the live-oaks spring green, and the redwoods 
 tower high; 
 Let the cooing soft voice of the turtle-dove give 
 His halcyon tribute of peace beyond price; 
 But paler her joy is than snow-mantled ice. 
 
 For her heart Paradisal with tropical spring, 
 With a love that was more than the common 
 could woo, 
 
 In its mood was attuned to every glad string 
 That reciprocal ecstasy brings to the true, 
 
 Till the envious skies snatched her lover away; 
 
 Now her sorrow attuneth all strings to its lay. 
 
THE VALLEY OF PEACE. 33 
 
 THE VALLEY OF PEACE. 
 
 Shall we strive without fruit in the struggles eternal 
 For name on the earth or for purse in the hands ? 
 
 We shall end in a dearth that consummeth the vernal 
 Delights of the life, and the death of the lands 
 Of the heart that was flowery, — now burning with 
 sands. 
 
 Shall unholy ambitions aspire to be set 
 
 In the gardens of fancy — false Edens we crown 
 
 The cool heights of life with — to drink and forget 
 The bitter below, and to never go down 
 Till the wildest desires in fruition shall drown ? 
 
 Shall they beat a bold march with anticipate feet 
 For the fancy-built Edens? With hope over-grown, 
 
 Shall they strike, to be stricken in turn, and retreat 
 In despair, and fall down as the trees over-blown, — 
 Lie as helpless as they and as dust-over-strown ? 
 
 Shall we rush as a storm that would master the moun- 
 tains, 
 And pour out our blood as the clouds that are red ? 
 
 Ah, the storm shall be broken to murmuring fountains 
 Retreating dismayed to the lowliest bed 
 In the bottom of ocean, and lie down as dead. 
 
 3 
 
34 THE VALLEY OF PEACE. 
 
 Can we not be content with the peace that is sweet 
 In the shadows of vines over ways that are mild ? 
 
 But as birds from the vines, must we fret as we beat 
 Our wings to the trees that are lofty and wild 
 
 To do battle with serpent-desires indiscreet ? 
 
 They shall twine us in coils strong as sinews of sin, 
 And shall drag us down lower, — down lower, alas ! 
 
 Than the vineyards of peace that we left ; and we 
 win? — 
 But the dust of defeat and the dirges of grass 
 Seethed over hope-graves we shall mourn as we pass. 
 
 Oh ! the fair little valley, delectable vale, 
 Set full of humilities blooming in glory, 
 
 Vined over in virtues, untorn by the gale, 
 
 That blows in high places of Earth that are hoary 
 And fretted with frosts and hail-gashed until gory. 
 
 Oh ! the sweet little valley, shut in from the storms 
 By roses of candor with petals of splendor ! 
 
 O duties so fruited with beautiful forms 
 
 Abashing to pleasures ! Oh ! chastened and tender 
 And holy affections — and God is Defender ! 
 
 Come down from the strife in the idol high-places, 
 And in from the wars on the turbulent plains. 
 
 Why look thus so long into treacherous faces ? 
 You only shall gain from your terrible pains 
 A life that is maimed and a spirit with stains. 
 
THE VALLEY OF PEACE. 35 
 
 Would you taste of true pleasures humility-sent, 
 Red jewels of Jesus have paid for the peace 
 
 That remaineth for us, and the price of content. 
 
 They have bought you a rest that is richer than 
 
 fleece 
 Of all glory or gold that the years may increase. 
 
 Turn back from a battle of futilest blows ! 
 
 You shall strive — but be foiled in the struggle at 
 last. 
 
 Here Heaven has planted a perfect repose, 
 
 Where branches are fruited with joys, and they cast 
 Their blossoms of love for the beds of your rest. 
 
2,6 TWO DEPARTURES. 
 
 TWO DEPARTURES— Tamalpais. 
 
 While Tamalpais' fair " Sleeping Beauty " lay 
 With face turned skyward and with locks to 
 south 
 Disheveled veiled the sloping mountain way, 
 The sun went west from Alcatraz' stern isle, 
 Then kissed with glowing lip the tidal mouth 
 Of San Francisco's mobile matchless bay 
 
 E'er exquisitely parted with its smile — 
 With rosy hand then waved farewells to night, 
 Then swept beyond into the westward light 
 To revel 'mid Pacific islands bright. 
 
 So doth thy soul, more free, more bright than 
 sun, 
 With earthly loves, asleep in beauty, left 
 On Time's Tamalpais' mount-tops one by one, 
 From militant and fortressed isles of earth, 
 Move Godward, and, with lips aglow and cleft, 
 Doth kiss the tidal mouth, that lures anon, 
 
 Of Aidenn's isled seas of jeweled worth — 
 With spirit-hand then wave farewells to time, 
 Then wing beyond to that Elysian clime 
 To dwell amid its endless scenes sublime. 
 
CITY OF THE GOLDEN GATE. 37 
 
 CITY OF THE GOLDEN GATE. 
 
 Here stand two sunlit battlements, 
 
 The pillars of the Golden Gate. 
 
 They, many a year of olden date, 
 As angel-builded resting tents 
 Have seemed to weary, beaten ships 
 
 Which gleamed with eyes, with griefs untold, 
 That gazed above stern-bitten lips — 
 
 Dreamed o'er their loves, but gazed for gold. 
 
 A gate between of shining wave 
 Swings always, always out and in. 
 
 Here feet find rest — some hearts a grave, 
 And hopes fulfill, or die by sin. 
 
 And, as a mouth drilled thro' the mounts, 
 It seems to breathe a breath of gold 
 Out of the deep-gorged peaks that hold 
 
 Their mints of minerals and the founts 
 
 Of blessed streams, with beds of treasure 
 And banks of wealth and blooming glory — 
 
 Where Nature is eternal pleasure, 
 
 And trees are green, when Time is hoary. 
 
 And — like a large rich-laden flower 
 Of gorgeous hue and deepest sweet 
 
38 CITY OF THE GOLDEN GATE. 
 
 Where bees crowd on with fretting feet- 
 The bay blooms up, with under-power, 
 From ocean's heart of trembling blue ; 
 
 And men crowd on its restless rim, 
 Where steeples tower and banners flow, 
 
 And sunny winds float sound of hymn. 
 
 The city of the Golden Gate- 
 Shall she be built a grand and fit 
 Metropolis ? Or she forget 
 
 The Builder of all good and great, 
 Till He shall strike His fiery hand 
 
 Beneath the proud magnificent 
 
 And sink her streets of hollow sand — 
 
 And sea-swirl lull her discontent ? 
 
 Shall she become the dream fulfilled 
 
 Of Poe's fantastic poetry — 
 
 Become "The City in the Sea ? " 
 And ocean tread the iron-willed ? 
 And rocks rise up in wrath and close 
 
 The eye-entrancing Golden Gate, 
 And leave it to a strange repose, 
 
 Or winds' and sea-waves' long debate ? 
 
SHASTA. 39 
 
 SHASTA. 
 
 Amid clear chanting waterfalls, and 'mid 
 
 The silent listening and enchanted pines, 
 Beneath whose stately, manly size are hid, 
 
 Ivike nestling children, beauteous shrubs and 
 vines — 
 Strong-natured pines upon the slopes arranging 
 
 In amphitheatred, encircling lines, 
 Eternal list'ners to the ever-changing, 
 Yet ever-changeless, chanting waterfalls 
 With flowing, ebbing, sounding, whisp' ring calls. 
 
 'Mid forest shades beneath that wonder sky 
 
 Of mountain California with her sun 
 That never clouds, I lift my eager eye 
 
 Across the laughing, leaping sun-spots as they 
 run 
 Athro' the shadows round me super-fair — 
 Creep thro' the shrubs, climb up the vines in air — 
 In gentle swiftness lest themselves they lose 
 'Mid sun-browned shadows' dusty-footed shoes. 
 
 Thus looking out beyond this singing world 
 About my musing, 'trancing place of rest, 
 
 Behold ! A looming, luring vision set impearled 
 Upon the heaven of blue, eternal, blest, 
 
40 SHASTA. 
 
 Beams Shasta glorified, pure pearl of white; 
 
 More grand than Mars, more bright than Venus' 
 light. 
 
 Olympus dwindles 'neath thy flashing glories, 
 
 As shrink, in manhood, childhood's wonder- 
 stories. 
 
 But chosen words are but as smoke and dust 
 That dim the splendors one would thrust to 
 view — 
 But as the sins of men before the vision thrust 
 To taint the whiteness of the great white throne 
 of God, 
 Or shrink its grandeur — mar the snow-white 
 hue : 
 Shall words rush in where angels meekly trod ? 
 
SACRAMENTO VALEEY IN SPRING. 4 1 
 
 SACRAMENTO VALLEY IN SPRING. 
 
 With oaks of never-fading green 
 
 And banks of changing green and brown 
 And, like the very stars come down, 
 Strown yellow-bloomed, and set between 
 With every hue that sky hath seen ! 
 
 Old live-oaks, tressed with mistletoe 
 Uncombed, unclipt, and old as they, 
 Beneath whose shades the blossoms play, 
 While sweet winds make the new buds blow 
 And sparkle in the morning glow ! 
 
 Thus Sacramento in her bloom 
 And Nature's rhapsody of spring, 
 When love and beauty smile and swing 
 
 Their scenes and censers of perfume 
 
 Below Sierra's snowy plume. 
 
42 IN THE DESERT — 0VEREAND. 
 
 IN THE DESERT— OVERHAND. 
 
 Overland ! The sterile lands, 
 
 How they glitter in the eye ! 
 
 While the hot airs stand and shimmer, 
 
 As a million spirit-wands, 
 
 With their hot and blinding glimmer, 
 
 Till the only thought is — dry ! 
 
 Sand and sun — and sun and sand ! 
 Till the heart is skeptic guessing 
 Why this desolation spread ! 
 Why the sun the sands should wed, 
 With no single child of blessing — 
 With but sultry winds to whirl them, 
 And the whirlwind sent to swirl them? 
 Ah ! we cannot understand ! 
 
 Skeletons on ways of sands ! 
 Lo ! the pale clouds, overdrifting, 
 Go up higher, as forever 
 Shunning their eternal sifting — 
 Clouds up-reaching their thin hands, 
 As imploring : " Blue skies, never 
 L,eave us to this sandy shifting, 
 And its breath of burning fever ! " 
 
IN THE DESERT— OVERLAND. 43 
 
 Sand between two fertile strands— 
 O, how like the broken-hearted ; 
 Sand between two holy lands, 
 I^and of age and youth departed ! 
 Out from youth's green garden hurried 
 Still-born hopes with folded hands 
 Are by sands of dead faith buried. 
 God, we yield ! we may not know 
 All the sweetness born of woe ! 
 Who shall say, though desert-worried, 
 If this desolate repose 
 May not blossom as the rose. 
 
44 HUMBOLDT LAKE. 
 
 HUMBOLDT LAKE. 
 
 Here it lies in silentness, 
 
 Lonely in a lonely waste, 
 Banks of sand and alkali — 
 Silent till the thoughts oppress — 
 
 Smooth as pavements marble-faced, 
 Smooth and colored as the sky. 
 
 One lone dwelling on its beach, 
 One lone bird, with note nor word, 
 
 Drifting, as if naught to choose, 
 
 Despondently and out of reach! — 
 Leave this listless, lonesome bird — 
 
 This strange mirage of dancing hues ! 
 
THE RANCHER'S STORY. 45 
 
 THE RANCHER'S STORY. 
 
 The ranchman rose, and began to pace, 
 As a thought danced over his grizzled face, 
 And said, with much more force than grace : 
 
 Wall, an' I'll say my say, fur the reason why 
 
 That it is my turn, it is, an' I 
 Must say mine afore ol' Haller 'ill tell — 
 
 And thet is the reason fur why, 
 An' not ez that I am any yer swell, 
 A takin' a sorryful tale-tellin' spell. 
 
 Wall, to be short, then, it wuz a ranch ; 
 
 An' ranches they waren't ez thick 
 Them times ez now they be. 'Twas down on a branch 
 
 O' the Brazos — you've been on the very spot, Rick — 
 And the rancher he waren't so wealthy ez I — 
 The one I'm a speakin' uv — this uz the reason fur 
 why : 
 
 He wuz suthin' o' polish, or suthin' 
 Uv sich like a word that book-men say, ez I've 
 heerd. 
 
 There waren't no book, or no language — no nuthin' 
 That he didn't know uv; so ez thet he appeared 
 Ez sharp as the lightnin,' an' double geared. 
 
46 THE rancher's story. 
 
 They sed that he " broke" in a queer kind o' way, 
 Once back in the Kast, an' atween a night an' a day 
 Hed to start up, wi' a patterin' heart, an' fly — 
 So he's poorer 'an me, thet's the reason fur why. 
 
 One thing thet be sure, thar wuz, ez I'd vote, 
 The ungodliest queer-like tossin' an' start 
 
 Uv his rascalish eye ; an' I'd put up my coat, 
 Thar wuz suthin' stept heavy inside on his heart 
 
 In the tenderest places — but thet's neither you nor I ! 
 
 Fur it's out o' the subjic', an' thet's the reason fur 
 why. 
 
 He wuz poorer, an' yet he wuz richer ez me ; 
 
 Leastwise none o' us ranchers cud buy the chap out. 
 For he had one lump o' treasure, you see, — 
 
 A treasure, you see, ez. would put to the rout 
 Yer millions uv gold an' ranches ; and thet 
 Wuz a bright little girl ; an', you bet, 
 Thar waren't no thing — 'cept God — cud get 
 Thet gay leetle blossom, an' thar waren't no use fur to 
 
 try — 
 An' so he wuz richer ez me ; thefs the reason fur why. 
 
 God kept her a-livin' a time, ez mebbe he might 
 Meller the hard man's heart, perhaps. 
 But God wuzn't going to let her to stay 
 Till she grew so old ez to hev the same hard way. 
 So, when the years begin to grow to thet pint, a blight 
 
 Gets up an' out o' the Brazos, an' taps 
 Et the rancher's door ; an' the darlin' she let's it in 
 
THE RANCHER'S STORY. 47 
 
 So it eats et this jew'l o' this man o' sin 
 
 Till she grows ez slim an' thin-limbed ez a pin — 
 
 Till she bended down, ez a withery blossom stem, 
 An' her faced dipped down i' the dust o' the earth, 
 
 Ez the flower on the tip o' thet stem, the same ! 
 So thar another burden o' dirt wuz throwed on his 
 box o' mirth. 
 
 Then he soiled his knees wi' the dust thet wuz cover- 
 in' her ; 
 An' he used to say : " O the clouds hang low ! 
 And my life's as a wall, and the clouds be big wi' 
 myrrh, 
 And they break on my life, as a wall ; and so 
 They run so low they keep a-breaking, and oh ! 
 Baptizing it over wi' myrrh as bitter as woe ! " 
 
 Then he stole her up, an' gathered her up an' burned 
 
 His jew'l to ashes — they say — an' urned 
 
 The same ! Then, ez a ghost, he vanished away. 
 
 Now, I reckon he's somewhar bearin' his urn to-day ! 
 
 Wi' that same tossin' about of his eye 
 
 Which nobody knows the terrible reason fur why. 
 
THE ISHMAELITE. 
 
 THE ISHMAELITE. 
 
 I. 
 
 A cloud to east in upper air 
 
 Was dipping from the boiling sea 
 Her golden waves. It bent its knee 
 
 And dipped, and lifting, unaware, 
 
 Some oversplashed its cup and fell 
 And flashed afar a lightning flash, 
 
 And sounded with the distant swell 
 
 Of thunder, with its hoarse-toned plash. 
 
 II. 
 
 "Wild Bill" and I 'mid seas of grass — 
 And I a roaming rhymer, then, 
 And he a wildest waif from men — 
 
 He, dreaming of a shattered glass 
 
 Of golden beauty, in the days 
 
 When love and confidence, a-bloom, 
 
 L,ined all his heart's perfumed ways, 
 Now sered to wasted ways of gloom. 
 
 III. 
 
 " O, gold-eyed stars ! " Wild Bill began, 
 ' ' That smile one thing and wink another 
 (In this far, man is false-eyed brother), 
 
THE ISHMAELITE. 49 
 
 If men have found a fellowman 
 
 The world may trust, as trusting woman, — 
 
 That all may trust in suns or thunders, 
 I'll waive my strife and turn to human, 
 
 And add one to the seven wonders. 
 
 IV. 
 
 ' ' Men say I spurn the very thought 
 
 Of any throbs of heart that beat 
 
 What woman's tongue pronounces sweet. 
 They may not see the sombre spot, 
 Encased in rocky, froward souls, 
 
 Where love may weep in tears of weakness — 
 Ours woe controlled, theirs joy controls; 
 
 Their love a boon, and ours a bleakness. 
 
 V. 
 
 "Aye, you are young; and poets know 
 The meaning of a plaintive story — 
 Can drop tears on a hand, though gory 
 
 And desperate — well be it so, — 
 
 I laugh with those who jest at love, 
 And build a room more, with the rest ; 
 
 Yet, deep within, the soul will move 
 With curses at the hollow jest. 
 
 VI. 
 
 "If, in some mood of inspiration, 
 You thrust my secret into rhyme, 
 
 4 
 
50 THE ISHMAELITE. 
 
 I charge you keep it until Time 
 Shall fix my grave for decoration. 
 It may be turned to fruitful warning 
 
 To whom would go the way I've gone — 
 May save my memory some its scorning. 
 
 When all but this is overgrown. 
 
 VII. 
 
 ' ' My distant Mary was a blonde, 
 
 A pale face mellowed by some care 
 
 Unusual, so finely fair. 
 And I, somehow, have never found 
 A face, an eye, or sunny hair, 
 
 A heart, a head, or limbs, or breast, 
 Or love, or goodness could compare 
 
 With hers, divinest, loveliest ! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 "The birds were thicker in the trees, 
 
 And sat and twittered unafraid 
 
 When she was there ; and, when she prayed, 
 All Nature seemed upon its knees ; 
 And rich bees, overladen, came 
 
 And clustered on her clasping hands ; 
 And tall-topt flowers, with hearts aflame, 
 
 Tipped to her cheeks as charmed wands. 
 
 IX. 
 
 "Her song was like the melody 
 Poured liquidly along the keys 
 
THE ISHMAEUTE. 5 1 
 
 Of some piano in the skies — 
 Like some angelic symphony 
 That glideth, on its wings of bliss, 
 
 Along the glittering 'glassy sea ; ' 
 For nothing bears so pure a kiss 
 
 Of Heaven as music's melody. 
 
 X. 
 
 "She sang one time — and, Oh ! her voice ! — 
 While shining with a glance divine 
 Her blue-blue eyes did overshine 
 
 The splendor of the sky apoise ! 
 
 Rude bearded men look up and weep, 
 
 And rough brown hands and brawny arms 
 
 Iyift up and swing, and young folks leap, 
 Run wild at its melodious charms. — 
 
 XI. 
 
 "And (as the tides rush to the moon), 
 
 A thousand waking sympathies 
 
 Rush up to kiss her melting eyes ! 
 And strong men, rising one by one, 
 Unthinking, crowd and weep and lean 
 
 I,ike leaning ships ; and children shout 
 And mingle in the magnet scene, 
 
 And white-haired men bow heads devout. 
 
 XII. 
 
 "Then I was but a lad, and yet 
 Was wise in feelings that to me 
 
52 THE ISHMAELITE. 
 
 Were more than all beside ; and she, 
 Too wise and faithful to forget. — 
 Some said : ' But she is rich in purse, 
 
 And soon will scorn him, poor and humble!' — 
 God ! crush that heart-consuming curse, 
 
 That block of gold o'er which fools stumble ! 
 
 XIII. 
 
 "Be sure I was not rich; but then 
 
 I had a turn of mind that many 
 
 Count better than a soulless penny — 
 A buoyant soul that most of men 
 Would give a fortune to possess. 
 
 They called me ' wild' — I knew not why; 
 But then I made this ' off-hand ' guess: 
 
 To make me odious in her eye ! 
 
 XIV. 
 
 "Thank God, I was not dull or tame; 
 
 For Mary could not love a drone, 
 
 Nor worship hearts of gold or stone — 
 I was not wild nor tame, I claim. 
 Could God then love me aught the less, 
 
 Because I claimed the right of motion ? 
 There was no form 'twixt heart and cross, 
 
 Nor stupidness in my devotion. 
 
 XV. 
 
 "But still they called me 'wild,' the same — 
 Ah ! then it made me weep : such tears 
 
the; ishmaelite. 53 
 
 Have long since perished with the years — 
 I glory in the ruffian name. 
 
 One Rudolph came, a moneyed drone, 
 Who claimed (by right of unearned gold 
 
 And by the right that parents own) 
 Their offered child — a slave is sold ! 
 
 XVI. 
 
 "Her parents loved him for his riches, 
 And tried to sell her to a drone — 
 ' She asked for bread ; they gave a stone ! ' 
 
 They sewed a veil with golden stitches, 
 
 And thought to hide from her the boy 
 Whose cupid had no golden arrow — 
 
 They thought a little golden toy 
 
 Would turn her from her bitter sorrow. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 "Now, what if minted silver shine 
 And rattle in the purse and chink 
 In chests chained down by diamond link ? 
 What if the burden of a mine 
 Of minted gold should pouch and weigh 
 
 One's pockets, till the 'law' would pass 
 And wink, and maidens droop, and say, 
 ' How rich ! how grand ! ' — yet sad, alas ! 
 
54 THE ISHMAELITE. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 "Yea, what of silver-glancing glint? 
 
 And what of gold and glowing gilt ? 
 
 And palaces that tower and tilt 
 O'er wide-spread lands afar a-tint 
 With harvest wealth — that tower a-top 
 
 This little tilting, toppling earth ? 
 All these were but a trifling drop 
 
 To satisfy a world of dearth. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 ' ' For what were these if one must miss 
 The only face, the only form, 
 The only breast or clasping arm, 
 
 The only elevating kiss, 
 
 The only hand whose press or touch 
 Could raise the dead heart or arouse 
 
 One slumbering joy — the only such 
 
 To heal the heart that bleeds and bows ? 
 
 XX. 
 
 "To cease to love too saintly true, 
 
 Too fond to ever disobey 
 
 Parental will, too frail to say : 
 ' I will not wed, and live to rue ! ' 
 And so — Alas ! — hold, till I quiet 
 
 This stormy motion in my breast — 
 This damned lunging spirit-riot 
 
 Of recollection — then the rest ! 
 
THE ISHMAELITE. 55 
 
 XXI. 
 
 "The pallor of my evil star, 
 
 Perhaps, as cold, weird light in dreams, 
 
 Has cast its hue in pallid streams 
 Before you, and its lines afar 
 You follow, till your thoughts unveil 
 
 The bitter truths I strive to tell — 
 At which the wildest soul will quail, 
 
 As demons at the wails of hell. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 '"What God has joined ! ' Those words were 
 maddest. 
 
 Had she been glad by his caress, 
 
 When wed, my heart had murmured : 'Bless 
 The saintly flower ! ' — But, ah! the saddest, 
 I saw her when the year had flown, 
 
 A shadow then, and sorrow- veiled, 
 By walks that youth with joy had strown — 
 
 They feigned they knew not why she failed. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 ' ' Swift passed another year ; and I 
 (As was my way since she was wed), 
 Went wandering (with the stars o'er head), 
 
 Where holy water glimmered by — 
 
 The deep and glinting lake, where we 
 Had both breathed wishes up to God, 
 
 And I to her, and she to me — 
 
 Now one lone flower bloomed on the sod. — 
 
56 THE ISHMAELITE. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 "One marvelous, symbolic flower; 
 
 Too delicate to stand alone, 
 
 It leaned against a heartless stone, 
 Yet exercised its fainting power 
 In breathing perfumed prayers to me. — 
 
 Just then I started, for I felt 
 Some feeling pull me to my knee ! — 
 
 I looked ! thefloiver had turned to wilt ! 
 
 XXV. 
 
 "A thousand longings, resurrected, 
 Rushed to the lake ! — I cast my eyes 
 Upon its wave-reflected skies ! — 
 
 Two hands played with two stars, reflected; 
 
 One pale breast cooled upon the lake; 
 
 One white face kissed the floating moon ! — 
 
 I called ! — the sleeper would not wake ! — 
 I cried out in the night — alone ! 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 "I plunged into the star-strewn lake ! — 
 
 I clutched — 'twas she ! O silent Mary ! 
 
 Dead on the waters solitary ! 
 The ripples on the lake-shore break; 
 But red heart-surges break and toss 
 
 Her soul on billows, till the child 
 Through death is lifted from her cross, 
 
 While I, tossed woeward, — yea, am wild ! 
 
THE ISHMAEUTE. 57 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 "O red-winged life ! with bloody beak 
 Scouring the wild plains of my heart 
 To catch prey for the hungry mart 
 
 Of misery i I was not weak : 
 
 I paid them for their godless sneers — 
 No matter how. — I made them feel 
 
 The reflux of my youthful tears 
 
 Drop back on them like frozen steel. ' 
 
 Since this was said, his tongue is dumb. 
 
 His grave is fixed — for decoration ? 
 
 Or, for neglect, or desecration ? 
 I know not if a friend has come 
 With flowers, or spray of "live-forever," 
 
 To honor this strange Ishmaelite : 
 If so, I say, God bless the giver ! 
 
 This is my flower, this song I write. 
 
 He died (some say, a desperado) 
 
 The steadiest nerved — the coolest man 
 That ever set foot on the plain — 
 
 The Hero of the Estacado. 
 
 Ah ! dare we hope, he found the flower 
 That melted by the heartless stone — 
 
 And that, through God's eternal hour, 
 He is not ' ' wild, ' ' and not alone ? 
 
58 EDGAR A. POE. 
 
 EDGAR A. POE. 
 
 I. 
 
 Weird meteor of a doleful dye 
 
 Thus flaming in a gloomy sky, 
 
 As wayward as a comet wild, 
 
 Thou strange, romantic, unknown child, 
 
 A bust of deep unearthly woe, 
 
 Mysterious, morbid, dreamy Poe ! 
 
 II. 
 
 Lamented be the day that found 
 Thy storm-swept vessel rockward bound ; 
 And doubly cursed the fatal day 
 When thy lone lifeboat shattered lay 
 In floating fragments o'er the sea ! — 
 A mournful loss when Heaven lost thee ! 
 
 III. 
 
 Thou wast an angel strayed to earth, 
 Thy voice commingling with the mirth, 
 And dreaming, not of gloom, but joy 
 And Heav'n and beauty, fair-haired boy : 
 But "fallen ! " what a word of wail ! 
 What ranks of anguish crowd its trail ! 
 
EDGAR A. POE. 
 
 59 
 
 IV. 
 
 Who knows the swelling veins of gall 
 That rent thy soul when thou didst fall ? 
 Who knows the quenchless flame that fired— 
 Consumed thy peace, and then expired 
 And left the evil all unburned — 
 The ashes of thy soul unurned ? 
 
6o A DIRGE. 
 
 A DIRGE. 
 
 Talk low; it is done, 
 
 His love-hope is dead. 
 
 Go, lay it alone; 
 
 Its glory is fled — 
 
 Go, bear it as one 
 
 Bears — sorrowful tread ! — 
 
 Dead longings in lead. 
 
 The bud that was fair 
 Will never be bloom; 
 'Tis covered in brown 
 Leaves, dead as despair, 
 Slain by its own gloom — 
 Leaves dead and dropped down. 
 
 The star is gone over — 
 
 Is set in the sea, 
 
 Which gloometh, where hover 
 
 Ul-bodings to me! 
 
 The star, as the clovers 
 
 Swirled under the dust, 
 
 Rolls under the tosst 
 
 Sea, cold as dead lovers, 
 
 And pale as a bust. 
 
A DIRGE. 6l 
 
 The cheek that was red 
 Is paler than shrouds — 
 Is colder than lead ! 
 The beauty of dawn, 
 Black-veiled in the clouds 
 Of mourning, is gone ! 
 
62 NOLETHA. 
 
 NOLETHA. 
 
 I. 
 
 Soul of Noletha, could I grasp 
 
 The echo of a whisper only ! 
 Soul of Noletha, could I clasp 
 
 Thy hand that reaches lonely, lonely ! 
 Despair stings sharper than an asp ! 
 
 Soul of Noletha, let us swear 
 
 Eternal hope against despair ! 
 
 II. ' 
 
 Soul of Noletha — Soul of I<ove, 
 
 Impearled eternally within 
 A passion purple as above 
 
 God's purple skies — as chaste of sin! 
 I feel some promise, knit of love — 
 
 A love deep-visioned as the seers — 
 
 That joy will bloom yet from our tears. 
 
 III. 
 
 My heart ! illusions lure thy hope 
 To lose the savor of its reason ; 
 
 We must go mourning as we grope 
 Thro' never-changing wintry season. 
 
 Why shuffle thoughts with glowing trope 
 
 
NOLETHA. 63 
 
 So oft, so long — O Love, how long? 
 No answer rights the seeming wrong. 
 
 IV. 
 
 I feel so strangely overcast — 
 
 So burdened by the catching breath 
 
 Of some invisible and vast 
 
 Angel of something twin to death, 
 
 The wish across my spirit passed 
 Alone, alone my soul to weep 
 Itself away to God's sweet sleep. 
 
 V. 
 
 If but a word could leave the ark 
 
 That floats thy spirit — yea, one word — 
 
 And flutter through the floods of dark, 
 Tho' but an instant to be heard, 
 
 'Twould be like music of the lark 
 Arising to my mounts of snow 
 To break their solitudes of woe ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 If but thy finger, charged with love, 
 Could touch me, its magnetic power 
 
 Might yet electrify and move 
 The fainted, fallible soul-flower 
 
 To lift its face the snows above; — 
 Noletha, — no, 'tis but my fancy 
 That cheats my mind with necromancv. 
 
64 NOLETHA. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Go back, O heart! Thy weird retreat 
 Can shield thee from the eyes without !- 
 
 Conceal thy secret, wrapped in sleet, 
 And fold thy mem'ries close about 
 
 To cover love with robes discreet ; 
 And, I,evite-like, the world will pass 
 And falsely say ' ' Thy soul is brass. ' ' 
 
THAT DREAMLESS SLEEP. 65 
 
 THAT DREAMLESS SLEEP. 
 
 A SONG FOR LIFE. 
 
 I. 
 
 We muse, in measured tones of woe : 
 ' ' O for the deep and dreamless sleep ! ' ' 
 
 Then smile an interlude of " No ! " — 
 "Ah, Life, delusion-crowned and steep, 
 
 I choose the silent rest below ! ' ' 
 
 We sing, but break the rhyme to leap, 
 
 To looming peaks, illusive-bright, 
 
 Then chafe to rise to loftier height. 
 
 'Tis easy uttered in the light ; 
 
 'Tis easy spoken in the play, 
 But well repented of, when night 
 
 Suggests the darkness and decay — 
 The hollow silentness and blight, 
 
 When we are still and put away — 
 Yea, then we fear, and cry: " Forgive ! 
 Repeat, O years, repeat, and live ! " 
 
 II. 
 
 Lone, like a single stem of wheat 
 Left leaning o'er a headed field, 
 And, bending with untimely heat, 
 
66 THAT DREAMLESS SLEEP. 
 
 A queenly chastened woman kneeled, 
 And paled to hear herself repeat 
 
 That wish — few hearts have ever sealed; — 
 We chant it sunward on the breeze, 
 Then pray: "Be broken in the trees ! " 
 
 Her child, the seal of peaceful love, 
 Had melted in the breath of God 
 
 And flown, like incense sweet above ; 
 And friends had fallen to the sod — 
 
 Left her to grieve a mateless dove, 
 In ways of night all newly trod ; 
 
 She moans above her dead delight, 
 
 "I die ! I fly beyond this night ! ' ' 
 
 But words are like alluring signs 
 
 That tell not all, or tell amiss, 
 The thoughts within the secret lines ; 
 
 And grief may picture signs of bliss, 
 As bliss may seem to bloom in wines — 
 
 And, when the pale god came to kiss 
 The white seal on her lifted brow, 
 She thrust it back — "Not now ! Not now ! " 
 
 The dead face of a love may stare 
 
 Away the quiet of the breast ; 
 The dead kiss of a child may wear 
 
 Away the lips of early rest. 
 Now days of grief to her are fair, 
 
 For, while her life swings in the West, 
 The hours go up with shining wings 
 Sweet with the " song for life " she sings. 
 
THAT DREAMLESS SLEEP. 6j 
 
 III. 
 
 With purpose stronger than the oaks, 
 
 And aspirations tall as pines 
 Above the mountain-crowning rocks — 
 
 With wits that shone as diamond mines — 
 With fine-cut face, Adonis locks, 
 
 A youth broke through the twining vines 
 Of young affections, into strife, 
 Which, won, is pain — which, lost, is life ! 
 
 He ran the labyrinthine way 
 
 Of learning swift as love in youth, 
 
 He rose ! — He fell — aye, in a day ! — 
 Those hearts he sacrificed in ruth ; 
 
 His rude deeds to the heads of gray ; 
 His subtle dodges with the truth ; 
 
 Deserted friendships, whose frank eyes 
 
 Ran tears of blood from broken ties j — 
 
 These deeds hung on him, ill-voiced seers, 
 
 As dry leaves on the dying oak, 
 And rustled their eternal jeers. — 
 
 He watched the going up of smoke, 
 And dared to utter, through his fears ; 
 
 ' ' Take up the life ambition broke ! 
 The smoke ascends and melts in peace — 
 Thus, life, like incense, finds release ! " 
 
 Then night poured down the way he trod ; 
 
 In midnight dusk and silvery light, 
 The moon gleamed like an eye of God ; 
 
68 THAT DREAMLESS SLEEP. 
 
 And, like angelic eyes by night, 
 A thousand stars shone out abroad — 
 
 And moon and stars, with glistening might, 
 Seemed searching out his covered thoughts 
 And frowning on his coward plots. 
 
 His heart strikes weary fists with fate. 
 
 Which beats it till it bleeds, and he 
 Goes down beneath the ruthless weight. 
 
 Like tents beat down upon the lea — 
 And then he calls, "Unlock death's gate ! *' 
 
 And loudly knocks — '"Swing back forme ! " 
 But, when ajar, how quick to cry : 
 ' ' Swing shut ! quick, quick ! I will not die ! ' ' 
 
 IV. 
 
 We look up at the happy stars, 
 
 That shed like gleams of peace their beams; 
 We look in on the thousand scars 
 
 And pangs of heart, then speak in dreams, 
 Xot all of sleep — ' ' Death end these wars 
 
 Which keep us from pacific streams 
 That wind yon star-delightsome land ! " — 
 Then wake and tremble where we stand. 
 
 Then wake and tremble that we dared 
 To dream of parting hands with dust, 
 
 Till dust should more than be impaired — 
 Should fall in pieces fine as rust ; 
 
 And few have then so far despaired 
 
THAT DREAMLESS SLEEP. 69 
 
 That they could lay the crumbled trust, 
 With no regret, to whence it came — 
 Could welcome what our dreams declaim. 
 
 V. 
 
 Flowered in the splendor of her youth, 
 
 And tossed by every balmy stir, 
 Of atmospheres of spring and truth, 
 
 More fair than all fair things that were, 
 Unscarred by any touch of ruth, 
 
 And unembittered by the myrrh 
 That comes to many maidens, she 
 Was won to love's dear rhapsody. 
 
 The snows flowed down ; the flowers came up ; 
 
 The birds went over ; golden bees 
 Dug in their mines, and bore their cup 
 
 And bars of gold ; and summer seas 
 Went on, as stars came down to sup — 
 
 Still smiling at his winsome pleas 
 And, playing in the meads of pleasure, 
 She moved to love's redundant measure. 
 
 Go over, birds ; and, gold-winged star, 
 Come down to sup ; and, seas of fame, 
 
 Come in ; and, bees, bear cup and bar 
 Of gold ; and flowers, arise and flame — 
 
 Another came her joy to mar 
 
 Who won her lover ; hence she came 
 
 To seek the river's deadly pall, — 
 
 But shrank, and clasped this life of gall ! 
 
JO THAT DREAMLESS SLEEP. 
 
 Sing not of those, whose spirits stray 
 Insanely through a fancied night ! 
 
 They of a frenzy plunge away — 
 
 No logic plans, but pangs and blight 
 
 Have sprung the balance ; so that they 
 Are worse than dead, and have no might 
 
 To will for life or death ; — 'tis these 
 
 That fall by self, the shattered trees ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 When friends have passed the silent door, 
 And loves, as birds through broken panes, 
 
 Have flown, but left their spots of gore, 
 We sit among those darling stains, 
 
 And say : " ' Tis done ! I strive no more ! 
 Shut down the blinds ! The best of gains 
 
 Is rest of rests ! " — We whisper low, 
 
 Then meet the echo with our, ' ' No ! ' ' 
 
 VII. 
 
 In keen, illusive action taught 
 We wind our life into a ball — 
 
 As acrobats, then toss the thought 
 As one would toss a thought of gall — 
 
 So wildly tossed, — yet shrewdly caught. 
 We feign — yet fling it but to fall 
 
 Back to the hands that hurled it fro, 
 
 Then kiss the Life we feigned to throw. 
 
THAT DREAMLESS SLEEP. 7 1 
 
 VIII. 
 
 My lamp looks in my weary eyes, 
 And seethes its sorrowful complaint, 
 
 And seems to call in endless sighs ; 
 
 " Turn down the wick ! I burn in vain ! " 
 
 But, when I would, it strives to rise, 
 And flares its wish to burn again ; 
 :< Turn down the Life ! " 'tis swiftly sighed, 
 
 Then swift repented, and denied. 
 
 IX. 
 
 O Love, thou wild, ungoverned god ! 
 
 Thou rude executor of lives ! 
 Uncertain plowing human sod — 
 
 With keenest of all pruning knives 
 Cutting our piece off bud by bud ! 
 
 Thy blood-plashed plow, it drives and drives 
 Its red share thro' the roots of soul 
 Uprooting every cherished bole. 
 
 Yea, who can break that power, that breaks 
 A million hearts, and yet can smile; 
 
 And peaceful sleeps, and joyful wakes — 
 A million more hearts leads to guile, 
 
 To where the light of hope forsakes. 
 I saw one join that sombre file 
 
 Of those who bear the tarnished urns 
 
 Of dusts of peace — that ne'er returns. 
 
 She died not quick, as day goes down, 
 Nor quick as flowers that droop by frost; 
 
72 THAT DREAMLESS SLEEP. 
 
 As California's April-grown 
 
 Luxuriant grass half blossom-lost, — 
 
 She slowly died; as it turns brown 
 
 By summer drought, and dust embossed, 
 
 Returns to dust. Her pallid face 
 
 Death crowded grave ward space by space. 
 
 But even she looked back to earth, 
 
 And yearned for years. They were not much 
 
 To such as she; and yet their dearth 
 
 Was worth her wish. Ah ! worth the touch 
 
 Of beads of prayer, — "Tho' void of mirth, 
 Let speed the steed of life; for such 
 
 Is better than the breathless bed 
 
 Where I must sleep, when I am dead ! " 
 
 And, when she fell, as shivered bust, 
 Down from the saddle, in the race, 
 
 Her last words were : "Yea, God is just ; 
 But, oh ! to lie with upturned face, 
 
 Yet see no skies — ! Lie in the must 
 
 And chill of that deep breathless place ! — 
 
 Oh ! let me stay with life and sorrow, 
 
 At least, till one more sweet to-morrow ! ' ' 
 
 And, when her voice had died to rest, 
 
 In all the agonies of signs, 
 She cried for life ! — It may be best, 
 
 We dread to drop the slender lines 
 So still ride on, though sable-dressed, 
 
 And cling to life, as clinging vines, 
 
THAT DREAMLESS SLEEP. 73 
 
 And, when we crumble, stir our dust 
 To transient life, to plead for " trust." 
 
 X. 
 
 Ivike pictures on the silent walls, 
 
 We hang our lives, then turn to leave ; 
 
 When, hearing something in the halls, 
 We fear some ghosts, we would deceive, 
 
 Are stealing in with secret palls 
 
 To take the lives we seem to grieve — 
 
 We turn and seize them quick with trembling 
 
 And own the truth we were dissembling ! 
 
 XI. 
 
 We plan to sparkle like the dew — 
 
 To sparkle through an hundred years — 
 
 To sparkle like the splendid few 
 
 Sweet drops that crown the upper spears ; 
 
 But, learning, all too soon and true, 
 That those which lie unseen, as tears 
 
 We never shed, outlive the rest, 
 
 We fall to common lots at best; 
 
 To getting grain, and garments spun 
 Enough for needs ; and take to ease ! 
 
 We rise not in the beating sun ; 
 We take to shadows of the trees. 
 
 We turn from all we might have won 
 To hammocks swung in healthful breeze 
 
 And grateful choose a life discreet, 
 
 Where death comes with belated feet. 
 
74 THAT DREAMLESS SLEEP. 
 
 So loves may die ; and hearts may break ; 
 
 And fortunes sink, as vain as dust ; 
 And forms may sleep, to never wake — 
 
 Come all things that may wear or rust, 
 Or life can give, or life could take, 
 
 We beg of Nature longer trust, 
 Before we pay the debt, whose claim 
 Takes all, except the chiseled name ! 
 
 Come back, then, years that sorrow stole ! 
 
 Come back, O days that folly slew ! 
 Come back, O Life, too near the goal ! 
 
 The deeds against thee, Life, undo ! 
 O Life, unroll the wrinkled scroll ! 
 
 Come back, O Life, we would be true — 
 We love thee well — would give all things, 
 Ere thee, O Life, with speeding wings! 
 
A DOUBLE PROPHECY. 75 
 
 A DOUBLE PROPHECY. 
 
 The amethystine sky of youth, grown cold, 
 
 Is not so brilliant purple as of old. 
 
 I see much farther through the ways of men — 
 
 Can read much deeper through the murky fen 
 
 Of reckless motives of the worried world 
 
 With sweet deceptions brightly crown-impearled— 
 
 Can better make interpretation through 
 
 The touch of human hands, if they be true 
 
 Or false in touch — can see a pallid grief 
 
 Hid 'neath the flowers and grasses of a laugh — 
 
 Can analyze a tear, if it be sweet 
 
 Or bitter fallen — aye, am more discreet 
 
 In unaspiring ways of earth, so fleet. 
 
 No thought of God so pure, so high, so deep, 
 
 But I could feel it with the finger tip 
 
 Of boyish faith, and touch the gems, and smile 
 
 With expectation, in some better while, 
 
 To wear a crown beset with those sweet pearls — 
 
 To promise better to such youth unfurls 
 
 A field of joy indeed ! The leaves, unshut, 
 
 In image of some truth, some bliss, seemed cut 
 
 With diamond of God's finger ; and the streams 
 
 Poured o'er the tongue of Nature like sweet 
 
 dreams 
 To God's great sea of wisdom, from whose bank 
 
76 A double; prophecy. 
 
 I made my daily voyages, and drank 
 
 The boundless waters of the sea. The stars, 
 
 I plucked them sparkling from my ship's still 
 
 spars. 
 There was no spirit storm, within, without, 
 Could sink them in the sea of sky — no doubt 
 Could stir its waves to toss them from my grasp. 
 The hand of her of youthful beauty in my clasp 
 I held, and followed in the way her gaze 
 Would indicate. I dreamed they saw the ways, 
 That lead more near the infinite than mine. 
 How easy, with such dreams of the divine, 
 To journey up to citadels of God, 
 With blessings beaming on the fields we trod. 
 The very angels seemed to wind their fingers 
 Around her ringlets, as her beauty lingers, 
 So shimmering in the sun of love and health, 
 That souls are dazzled with their silent wealth. 
 Her tread seemed ever bearing up, and I 
 Strove up with her. The glory of the sky 
 Had well been proud of the resemblance, then, 
 Of her pure mellow eyes — the glowing red, again, 
 Been proud of kinship to the redness of 
 Her cheeks, where Modesty, in red, wrote 
 
 "Love:" 
 The soul that breathed life in the universe 
 Could press her soul, we deemed, and not be 
 
 worse 
 Polluted by her super-saintly touch — 
 So wild a fancy seemed not over-much. 
 
A DOUBLE PROPHECY. 77 
 
 'Twas in the May time, and who then had 
 
 thought 
 So fair a bloom would seed so cold a lot ! 
 My dreams were more delirious with delight 
 Than bubbling real. The mind, o'erleaping 
 
 sight, 
 Is half a prophet ; and the things we spurn 
 As superstitions by the reeling urn 
 Of reason, flee by day, and re-assault 
 The soul by night, and pillage every vault. 
 We waken in the dawn — at first we weep ; 
 Then scorn the superstitions of our sleep. 
 To stab at love, the murder of a joy 
 Or wistful hope in some flower-strewn decoy 
 Are all pre-acted in our dreams ; and we 
 But laugh, and call it fancy: So with me. 
 When flowers were at their fullest, and the grass 
 Was emerald, and moons that slowly pass, 
 Bloomed brightest of the May, then stars, fair- 
 
 tresst, 
 Began to tremble, falling in the west, 
 And toss beyond my reach — then, one by one, 
 Sink in the rolling, distant storm, undone. 
 The moon began to shake upon her stem, 
 Then laid her face upon the floods, that hem 
 Her round in whirlpools, sounding with the 
 
 roar 
 Of turbulence ! And blossoms, beaten lower, 
 Roll, broken, down to earth, and sink away, 
 As stars had sunken in the surge and spray. 
 
7« A DOUBLE PROPHECY. 
 
 I could not see far up, — so gazed about 
 
 Upon the washing, wasting Earth, and thought 
 
 Of her the distant beautiful : But waves 
 
 Had swirled between us, with their dashing 
 
 heaves 
 The drifts of wrecks innumerable strove 
 The chaos to o'erleap that round them drove. 
 The floods grew foul at times and roily-hued, 
 And clayey-thick ; and then, with waifs and 
 
 wood, 
 Rushed on with fury; and in pieces piled 
 Their freights of ruin at my feet with wild 
 Impetuosity ! I wailed aloud ! 
 But waves so seething with the battering crowd 
 Of wrecks confused, outspoke my utterance ! 
 And then a crested surge tossed in my glance 
 My soul's own beautiful, its worshiped love ! 
 And she is struggling in the sea, and swiftly 
 
 drifting 
 Beyond my reach forever ! And is lifting 
 Her hands for help to One who stands, in pride, 
 And leans to take her from the maddened tide, 
 To shores afar and opposite from mine ! 
 " O heart beyond, you win my all, 'tis thine !" 
 1 called in pain, then woke : it was a dream. 
 I wakened with the superstition deep 
 Upon the soul ; then shook the myths of sleep 
 Away from me ; and from the troubled brain 
 I combed the superstition, with its pain, 
 With those electric teeth of laugh: — Then ran 
 
A DOUBLE PROPHECY. 79 
 
 To meet my — nameless /..... 
 
 But she had wed chill Death with brow a-frow?i ! 
 
 An avalanche of snows had slidden down 
 
 Upon me in one night ; and all the glow 
 
 And glory of the mount and vale, by woe, 
 
 Had shriveled in one night. I cast my eyes 
 
 Up toward the former amethystine skies — 
 
 They hung a broad and ebon coffin lid, 
 
 Too mighty, by my frailty, to be slid, 
 
 Or lifted, and too hard to penetrate, 
 
 To flee the room so sombre desolate. 
 
 And so I could but turn to common ways 
 
 Or sinking deeper in the treacheries 
 
 And lower wisdom of this wary world. — 
 
 Leaves now seem handkerchiefs of Nature, hurled 
 
 Or shaken in my face in mockery ; 
 
 And I have wandered from those streams that flee 
 
 In flowing melody to Wisdom's sea ; 
 
 And dust from fruitless digging still on-worries 
 
 me — 
 The dust from groveling mines of grumbling 
 
 men, 
 From which sometimes I would aspire again. 
 
 Then thoughts of love's luxuriance, I bewail, 
 Come, in my musings, and convert the frail 
 And flickering spirit fire, I set aflame, 
 To burn instead the sun that set, when came 
 The superstition turned to dreary real — 
 
So A DOUBLE PROPHECY. 
 
 Come and convert these memories I feel 
 Into the image of that sun of May, 
 Forgetting, I bask in its fancied spray. 
 My chamber walls of pallor cold and stern, 
 To skies of amethyst, in splendor, turn ! 
 Again stars hang in th' window, and I reach 
 To handle them again, then start — and preach 
 " 'Tis but a superstition ! " o'er and o'er 
 " 'Tis but a superstition ! " Wake no more 
 To call it fancy; heart declares it real ! 
 I dream and say that time will yet reveal 
 Our dreams and reveries as deepest truth — 
 The prophets of our active lives ! — I see 
 This remnant of my hope that this day-revery 
 Doth prophesy that time will yet redeem 
 What vanished with fulfillment of a dream. 
 
ESTHER. 
 
 ESTHER. 
 
 I. 
 
 The days unevenly fly over, Esther, 
 In jagged flocks of un forgetful years — 
 Some low and sorrowful as in disaster ; — 
 Some higher longings carry as the condor ; 
 And still the green upon my spirit seres, 
 As withereth the grasses, in the autumns, under 
 The southward-soaring flocks ; and still the won- 
 der 
 Is that thine arrow, buried in my tears, 
 Fresh woundeth still tho' far that ' 'Early Yester ' ' 
 
 II. 
 
 Sometimes a hundred birds go over, Esther, 
 And never win my never- resting eye ; 
 Then one small note may prove a strong re- 
 quester, 
 And marvel eyes will suddenly be lifted 
 And follow them along the yellow sky, 
 Until the last one silent-sad has drifted 
 A-down the gloaming distance, then I sigh, 
 Thus, far are flown my hopes of "Eanj/Yester." 
 
 III. 
 
 Sometimes a lone bird worries over, Esther, 
 And winds unfriendly beat, and beat it back, 
 
82 ESTHER. 
 
 And so it flutters earthward from the bluster, 
 And, silent-grieving as a thwarted rover 
 Who chafes, if forced to bend his zigzag track, 
 Hangs, tempest-baffled, stationary over. 
 So (O my deepest worshiped, wayward lover) ! 
 Storm beat and weeping through its veil of black, 
 I seem to touch heart to that "Early Yesler." 
 
 IV. 
 
 And so the birds go on and over, Esther, 
 
 As solemn days string over into years ; 
 
 Still new the memory of that disaster, 
 
 And all the word from back of me is "never! " 
 
 The while the green within my spirit seres ; 
 
 And all the utterance from o'er the river, 
 
 Tho' mystical, is clear to me, "dissever!" 
 
 And all my answer is the threaded tears 
 
 That string a-down the path to " Early Yesler." 
 
TO ESTHER. 83 
 
 TO ESTHER. 
 
 God set a clock up in my heart ; it standeth 
 
 And measureth my wayward hours of living. 
 
 It ran, long time, so fitful by the heaving 
 
 Unrest of one sweet, boyish, broken passion. 
 
 I said (God knoweth well what motive so 
 commandeth) : 
 
 "Doze on, my heart! 'tis not worth while be- 
 lieving 
 
 A dream — 'tis but my unforgetting fashion ! " 
 
 And so — I heard it, thro' my years of slumbers, 
 Tick tenderly and measuring my yearnings, 
 Tong mellowly my hourly heart-returnings 
 Unto the hilltop of my early passion ; 
 While morning fire of boyhood died to embers, 
 And I dozed on, nor rose to keep its burnings — 
 O love, forgive me ! 'twas my wayward fashion. 
 
 It was my fashion — until at the setting 
 Of yester's sun — the tender and the mellow 
 Were drowned eternal in the sudden billow 
 Of an alarm tumultuous loud with passion 
 That God had set before begun regretting, 
 To go off when sweet, distant-parted Esther died 
 
 — and yellow 
 Hang leaves to-day, that yester-morn hung green 
 
 'mid bloom of fashion ! 
 
84 TO ESTHER. 
 
 So is the way. We grow up as the bushes 
 That balmy south winds blow two tops together ; 
 Their lip-leaves kiss — their branch arms woo 
 
 each other, 
 So float they in the May with warm and pleasant 
 
 passion, 
 
 Till suddenly the wind wheels northward, and 
 the blushes 
 
 Of leaves and flowers steal off, and they, aged by 
 
 the weather 
 Of griefs, are blown to other mates — so is the 
 
 fashion. 
 
 The one then nearer to the cold wind's blasting 
 Dies earlier, and God sets off that crashing 
 And loud alarm, that starts the other dashing, 
 Wild with the anguish of his hidden passion, 
 Thro' his short lane of life ! Thus seems God's 
 
 casting. 
 Our weak eyes cannot read this mystic flashing, 
 Yet God knows best — His is a perfect fashion ! 
 
MY FAR-AWAY. 85 
 
 MY FAR-AWAY. 
 
 I. 
 
 O link of love ! lifted eye, 
 
 Impassioned girl, my " Far- Away ! " 
 Expectant song of " by-and-by," 
 
 Glad yester-morn but sad to-day ! 
 My soul stands up and looks afar 
 And trembles like a straying star 
 And reaches back, with eyes ajar, 
 To thee, my joy, my " Far-away." 
 
 II. 
 
 O voice, a-reel with wines of song 
 
 More fond and fine than foam or spray 
 That can from vines of earth be wrung, 
 
 Sing marches for my feet to stray 
 Somewhere that sin may not betide, 
 And streams of youthful thought beside — 
 Beside thy soul temptation-tried 
 And found so true, my " Far- Away ! " 
 
 III. 
 
 eyes, beneath another sky, 
 
 I,ook up now, while I look, and pray ! 
 
 1 am not gone so far but I 
 
 Can catch the kind and tender ray ! 
 
86 MY FAR-AWAY. 
 
 There is a wire from me to thee 
 By way of Heav'n — I bow my knee — 
 Glad eyes of love, shine o'er to me 
 By way of Heav'n, my " Far- Away ! " 
 
 IV. 
 
 distant heart, beat on ! beat, 
 And beat thy warm and darling May 
 
 Half way to thee we seem to meet, 
 And heart to heart we seem to lay. 
 
 1 feel the throb of thine, I know, 
 By way of Him who sayeth, " Lo ! 
 I'm with you always ! " — Angel, so 
 I seem with thee, my " Far- Away ! " 
 
CONFIDENCE. 87 
 
 CONFIDENCE). 
 
 Untroubled, diamond confidence, 
 
 This would I have, my priceless pearl, 
 
 That need not question whither, whence, 
 Where, why, amid the changing whirl, 
 
 But, pure as gold, and clear, intense, 
 Just my own loyal little girl. 
 
 That in thy goings and thy thought, 
 
 Thy pleasures, pains, thy sweet desire, 
 By what or whom thy heart is sought, 
 
 Thou, on thy soul's impearled lyre, 
 Shalt only feel my touch of finger — 
 
 Shalt know me there and feel my gaze — 
 My presence always with thee linger, 
 
 By all thy bright or cloudy ways! 
 
 To know thou standest in the light — 
 That all thou art within is day, 
 
 And all thy movements diamond bright 
 And open as a sunny bay — 
 
 That thou hast nothing to conceal 
 
 To know which might becloud my weal ! 
 
 To know, if with thee, or if miles 
 
 Stretch out their desert loneliness, 
 Still, lover's look, or lover's smiles, 
 
88 CONFIDENCE. 
 
 Or touch, or voice, or saintly kiss, 
 Love-speaking gifts or written words 
 Do never flit like secret birds 
 To any heart but mine — intense 
 And clear and single confide?ice ! 
 
 To know thou knowest all I know 
 Concerning our dear fellowship — 
 
 To feel / know that thou dost throw 
 Out in the search-light's glowing dip 
 Thy heart and way — that, lip to lip, 
 
 We only ever feel the flow 
 
 Of man's and woman's holy love, 
 Proved truer as we ever prove ! 
 
 To have thee cure this heart disease, 
 Wrought in my spirit thro' the years 
 
 Of broken longings, sorrow's seas 
 Of dead hopes and of leaden tears ! 
 
 To cure by such o'er-mast'ring love, 
 
 Such single love as from above 
 
 Might fill an angel's heart of fire, 
 Or weight with love a seraph's lyre! 
 
 No woman's hand but thine for me! 
 
 No tender folding arm but thine ! 
 No other's love-look would I see ! 
 
 Thy kisses so my soul refine — 
 No other's lips shall magnetize 
 My nature into ecstasies ! 
 
CONFIDENCE. 89 
 
 Is this too much to give, my queen ? 
 
 Nay, had I powers of heart and mind 
 And charms of all e'er love has seen 
 
 Abundant as the fire-refined 
 Rich Afric diamonds and the gold 
 
 Of Incas stored, I'd give thee all, 
 
 And cry, my queen, '"Tis all too small!" 
 
 Is this too much to ask from thee, 
 My Princess, with the pearled crown, 
 
 Invisible to all but me 
 
 And Christ, who, loving us, looks down? 
 
90 THINE EYES. 
 
 THINE EYES. 
 
 I see thy love-enraptured fair uplifted face ; 
 
 I see thine eyes, kind, mellow as the dove's ; 
 Inexplicable, sweet eyes, with beauteous grace 
 Now toward me, glowing forth from thy hid 
 loves : 
 Thou h'st ravished all my heart with those en- 
 dearing eyes, 
 My sister, and my love, my queen ; and by thy 
 look I rise! 
 
 Rise from my loneliness, my hidden hopelessness! 
 Thine eyes, my stars of hope, gleam in — my 
 stars, 
 Like Bethlehem's sweet, sainted star, to bless ; 
 With healing in their beams so full the very 
 scars 
 Are smoothed from my soul-life, and my sighs 
 Melt into smiles by th' kiss of thy dear eyes. 
 
 I drink in joy their yet unpictured splendor. 
 
 They speak to me, they smile to me, they twine 
 Somehow so exquisitely tender 
 
 L,ike sweet seraphic fingers, Princess mine! 
 They fold my heart, they kiss my heart, they cling 
 L,ike Ruth. I clasp forever what they bring — 
 
THINE EYES. 91 
 
 They bring? Unutterable are what things they 
 bring, 
 As doves with feathers of refined gold 
 And swinging forth upon clean silver wing — 
 
 As doves' eyes — such celestial doves, behold ! 
 My chastened Princess' now uncurtained eyes! 
 " Come near, my dove, my undefiled," my spirit 
 
 cries, 
 Blue-eyes, brown-eyes, Keats-emerald eyes, how 
 
 they translate 
 Me out of grief to glad — give strength and make 
 me great! 
 
 I bless thy springing feet, the mercy-messengers 
 
 And beautiful ; and fondle with delight 
 Thy clinging hand that deeds of good prefers ; 
 
 Admiring clasp thy trustful form to-night ; 
 Thy matchless hair I twine my toying fingers 
 thro' ; 
 I love thy speaking, fair, inspired face ; 
 Thy lips impassioned, pure, pink-delicate of 
 grace ; 
 But lo! thy peerless eyes, thy violet eyes have 
 
 won the throne 
 O'er all thy beauties, oh, my joy and crown, my 
 own! 
 
 Yet these, I feel, I know, are little, May, 
 
 So little these beside thy heart that lives 
 Within thy beauties, holding royal sway — 
 
92 THINE EYES. 
 
 Thy heart that loves me, and so eager gives 
 Its hallowed sympathies and honor, praise and 
 
 love and all 
 Into my longing soul thro' these. Darling, I fall 
 Into thy opened heart, which quickly claspeth 
 
 me — 
 Anointeth now my long-unmated heart (made 
 
 free), 
 Out of the holy horn of your great love, as 
 
 you so sweetly sing ; 
 Thus, Dear, thou settest me upon thine inner 
 
 throne, to be 
 Thy king! thy trusted king! thine honored 
 
 king! thine own loved king! 
 To-day you, in your queenly heart-room, nestle 
 
 to your king, unseen, yet seen, 
 To-day, I, in my regal heart-room, sit beside and 
 
 clasp my queen — 
 Chaste queen! fair queen! sweet queen! love- 
 crowned heart-queen! 
 
MY FLOWERS. 93 
 
 MY FLOWERS. 
 
 I sit among the flowers alone to-day, 
 
 And yet I am not — cannot be alone, 
 
 For, everywhere that blossoms hold their sway 
 
 In winsome dignity or sunshine play, 
 
 There ever comes my living Flower, my own, 
 
 With more than splendor of enrapt'ring flowers, 
 
 And pulsing with immortal love-born powers. 
 
 The asters, stars grown from the vivid earth, 
 Nod toward me, smiling with a modest sense 
 Of rarest worth and high nobility of birth ; 
 But, oh ! my love's bright eyes, profound, intense, 
 Look into mine, outshining in their look 
 All other stars (which swiftly pale, forsook), 
 And fill my look, my heart, my all with thee, 
 My musing, beaming May, best star to me ! 
 
 Syringa swing their pure and spotless white 
 Above my head — o'er my once weary life — 
 Drop petals as the snow, yet warm as flakes of light ; 
 "Pure, peaceable;" they say, and lull the wind- 
 blown strife ; 
 But thy pure, helpful hand swings closer to me, L,ove, 
 And, putting back syringa branches, strokes my 
 cheeks, 
 
94 MY FLOWERS. 
 
 And strews the petals of thy pure white hallowed 
 
 peace 
 Upon my face and inner soul and sweetly speaks 
 By touch as frank, love-full as souls above ; 
 And thus, Dear Heart, my spirit-chafings cease ! 
 
 Forget-me-not, so delicately blue, 
 
 IvOoks up and pleads, with reticence and grace, 
 
 " Come, touch my soul, enwrapt in loyal hue, 
 
 And brush my timid loneliness with thy strong face ! ' ' 
 
 Then opening to my keep-sake — withered ? Yes, but 
 
 true, 
 And vocal with a blessed, blessing memory ! — 
 Thou, Darling, comest, with my look, and that small 
 
 spray 
 Transforms to thee, thou pretty, patient May, 
 Transforms to thee, my true, my loyal Love — to thee 
 Who fillest all my vision, all my ways, my heart ! 
 "Forget me not — forget thee not!" thus, brilliant 
 
 Bird, thou art 
 Forever singing to my happy spirit ! Thee forget ? 
 Seas, continents, might come between — yea, death 
 
 might be, 
 But cleaves my soul to thee thro' time, thro' tides 
 
 eternal yet. 
 
 Carnations flame my eyes before and fill 
 With fragrance all the arbor where I sit. 
 Impassioned loves seem throbbing till they thrill 
 The beauty-lover till it seemeth fit 
 
MY FLOWERS. 95 
 
 Their dumb, red loveliness with mutual arms embrace ! 
 But thou, warm-hearted and impassioned lover, 
 Dost come more close than they — bend over 
 My joy-o'er-flo wing soul and fold thy shapely arms 
 About my being — press those scarlet, lip-love charms 
 Of thy carnation heart, and flood, in tropic kisses 
 As vivid as thy love, my magnet heart with passion ! 
 That is thy strong, impulsive, loveful, chaste, sweet 
 
 fashion ! 
 And thus thy love is strength, protection, pureness, 
 
 blisses, 
 My lily white, my pure and frank queen-lily grace ; 
 My aster beauty, star that never falls — fixed in my 
 
 sky ; 
 My true blue Princess — my forget-me-not ; and my 
 Carnation richness flaming such impassioned love- 
 caresses ; 
 My joy, my light, my everything, my now and 
 
 by-and-by ! 
 ' Mid flowers with thee I evermore would tarry, 
 My bright, my beautiful, my iridescent fairy. 
 
96 ANNETTE. 
 
 ANNETTE. 
 
 The day was when I courted all — 
 I courted suns and moons and stars, 
 And balmy airs brimful of sounds 
 Of winged singers melodies ; 
 I loved the clouds that hung on high 
 That fringed the blue and balmy sky ; 
 I loved the fire- wheeled thunder cars ; 
 I courted all the blooming grounds, 
 And courted with abundant eyes; 
 And all I saw enraptured me, 
 Because, Annette, I courted thee. 
 
 When I went wild with ecstasy 
 
 At joyous songs of mated birds 
 
 It was because, Annette, therein 
 
 Was joy — because the sound was sweet; 
 
 Not sweet because 'twas sweet, — ah, me! 
 
 'Twas sweet because it breathed of thee. 
 
 The glad bird voices were not words, 
 
 Nor tuned to my violin, 
 
 As thine was tuned; yet they, Annette, 
 
 Were musical and chimed with glee, 
 
 As thine, when I was wooing thee. 
 
 I never dreamt, my dear Annette, 
 
 That ever any arm but mine 
 
 Could clasp thee close ; I never thought 
 
ANNETTE. 97 
 
 The universe another bore 
 
 Could woo my loved Annette, and yet, 
 
 Once, ere the morning star was set, 
 
 When I had breathed the final line 
 
 Whose dying notes were scarce forgot — 
 
 Ere I had more than closed the door, 
 
 Another came ; I saw — I see ! 
 
 That Death, Annette, was wooing thee. 
 
 Tell me, Annette, was there one night 
 
 I did not watch by thee and pray 
 
 So death, Annette, could find no time 
 
 To woo my loved one ; without rest 
 
 I guarded thee. He veiled my sight ; 
 
 O, starless gloom ! O, dead delight! 
 
 He won my pale Annette away ; 
 
 He wedded thee ! How weird the chime 
 
 Of wedding bells ; how white thy breast, 
 
 When thou gav'st back my ring to me 
 
 And Death, Annette, was wed to thee! 
 
 When back I gaze to-day, Annette, 
 I wonder how the world could blame 
 Our youthful love — so pure, refined. 
 So little doubt, so much of trust; 
 God knows, I never since have met, 
 Another love as saintly yet. 
 I'm not of those who love to name 
 Dead mem'ries o'er, nor yet the kind 
 To pine for what has gone to dust ; 
 And yet my heart is not so free, 
 Annette, as when I courted thee. 
 
 7 
 
98 SINCE THOU ART NOT HERE. 
 
 SINCE THOU ART NOT HERE. 
 
 I. 
 
 There's a laugh in the treetop, a smile in the sky, 
 And the birds with their merriment filling the glade, 
 
 And many a matron with love in her eye, 
 And jollity sporting around in the shade — 
 
 But the mirth in my eye, it is courting a tear — 
 
 Tho' I smile, my heart weepeth, since thou art not here. 
 
 II. 
 
 The jest ringeth round in a circle of joy ; 
 
 And mine chimeth in with the chorus of laugh, 
 And none ever dreams of a thought to annoy 
 
 The sweetness and gayety born, as we quaff 
 Such respite of care. But, alas! in their cheer, 
 Tho' I laugh, I am lonely, since thou art not here. 
 
 III. 
 
 Tho' strong is the friendship, that welcomes me home 
 To the hearths of the noble and good of our land, 
 
 And tender the ties that would bid me not roam, 
 And warm is their kiss and the grip of their hand, 
 
 Yet I cannot but roam from these ties, that are near, 
 
 While thou art far dearer, and 'way from me here. 
 
 IV. 
 
 My heart leapeth high, as I sit by the side 
 Of the fairest of sisters, companion of youth ; 
 
SINCE THOU ART NOT HERE. 99 
 
 And her eye, like the light on the incoming tide, 
 
 Shines up into mine with its love and its truth — 
 There is peace in her gaze, yet it bringeth a tear; 
 For, oh ! it reminds me that thou art not here. 
 
 V. 
 
 There's many a maiden, too, gathering flowers, 
 
 And throwing about me the bloom and their smiles, 
 
 While the gold-gilded moments string off into hours ; 
 Yet my fancy the brightest maid never beguiles 
 
 Away from thy flowers and thy smile with its cheer — 
 
 And the day groweth longer, since thou art not here. 
 
 VI. 
 
 And, when meditation comes on with the eve, 
 And I loiter alone, in my musing I sigh. 
 
 They chide for me weeping and wonder I grieve 
 With such happiness here and a Christ in the sky. 
 
 Then I go to my chamber and plead, with a tear, 
 
 That Jesus may shield thee, since thou art not here. 
 
 VII. 
 
 And the lamp of his love cometh down with the night, 
 And I go to my rest by the light of its beams. 
 
 And my slumber is sweetened by thoughts of delight ; 
 And I fancy I'm with thee again in my dreams — 
 
 Which go with the morning, which comes with a tear, 
 
 And still I am lonely and thou art not here. 
 
I MAY NOT STAY. 
 
 I MAY NOT STAY. 
 
 Woman, by thy winning face, 
 By thy form's befitting grace, 
 By thine eyes of double blue, 
 And their tears that all-imbue 
 leaving thy supernal thought 
 Beaming through and beauty-fraught ; 
 
 By thy Byron-bended lip, 
 Changing with emotion's trip, 
 By thy forehead, promise-bent, 
 Like a bow of wonderment, 
 By those hands that will not rest, 
 And thy never-resting breast ; 
 By thy heart, abounding sweet, 
 Which would stand and never beat 
 Rather than it beat untruth ; 
 By the beauties of thy youth — 
 By all these, and more, I pray 
 My iinrest to let me stay ! 
 
 II. 
 
 By an earlier memory, 
 
 By a face and faith and eye, 
 
 By a love I cannot give 
 
AGNES. IOI 
 
 All the beautiful that live, 
 By a dear love born to me, 
 By a face and form that lie 
 Dead to others — not to me ! 
 By this memor} r of youth, 
 Sacred as the holy truth — 
 By all this, fair one, I pray 
 L,et me go, / may not stay ! 
 
 AGNES. 
 
 Agnes, the clouds above me 
 Are melted into mellow light 
 Beneath this magic sun, " I love thee ! " 
 IyOve thee as the soul loves right — 
 Love thee as the skies of night 
 Love the sweet stars above thee. 
 
 Agnes, all seems to move me, 
 Where all ways lead me, unto thee. 
 By all my smiles, my tears I love thee ; 
 By every bending of the knee, 
 By every surge of spirit's sea, 
 By all unspeakably I love thee ! 
 
 Agnes, my Agnes, prove me ; 
 But stay not, Agnes, thus so far 
 Barred from me, while I love thee 
 As the lake-tide loves its star, 
 
102 AGNES. 
 
 Fondling on its bosom bare 
 Its image only, while above 
 And distant shines the queenly love. 
 
 Agnes, come nearer, nearer ! 
 And let the image be supplanted 
 By thyself 'so dearer, dearer, 
 That my paths may be enchanted ! 
 Agnes, how my soul hath panted — 
 Panteth always to be nearer ! 
 
 Agnes, my Agnes, prove me ! 
 For all strings of my spirit beat 
 In harmony of tone, ' ' / love thee ! ' ' 
 Evermore I could repeat, 
 Linked with thy life so sweet, 
 Agnes, my crown, " I love thee ! " 
 
 Agnes, art thou above me ? 
 The magnet of thy perfect mind 
 Can lift me, if thou love me ; 
 And doubt thou lovest were unkind ! 
 Just love me, and I am refined ! 
 Agnes, my Agnes, love me ! 
 
MY YOUNG WILD RHYME. IO3 
 
 MY YOUNG WJXD RHYME. 
 
 One little flower of love I bring, 
 
 God touch it with the glow of spring, 
 
 And give it tints of more than pearl ! 
 
 'Tis not a queenly maid I sing, 
 
 Nor fancied love of fair young girl, 
 
 Nor red-lipped maid of social times, 
 
 But her who sings my young wild rhymes. 
 
 All of the joys there are for me ; 
 
 All of the love, the fond, the free; 
 
 All of the magic paths o'er-trod, 
 
 That stirred all songs of pathos' sea, 
 
 And touched with beauty, pureness, God, 
 
 Was waked to life in distant times, 
 
 When sang she me my young wild rhymes. 
 
 How sweet the strong love born at noon ; 
 
 Or young love hid in heart of June; 
 
 Or love of those who wisely wed, 
 
 And sad the thought they pass too soon ; 
 
 But sweeter far her love, who led 
 
 Me from my wayward, boyhood times, 
 
 While singing me my young wild rhymes. 
 
104 BV-AND-BY. 
 
 BY-AND-BY. 
 
 O Nameless, with your holy speaking eye ! 
 O thousand promises of " by-and-by ! " 
 O expectation, born to smile and die! 
 O "by-and-by," thou uninte7ided lie! 
 Oh ! may we not yet realize on high 
 The promises and all the memory 
 Of what we hoped to have beneath the sky, 
 At least, above it in the by-and-by? 
 
 A STAR OF REMINDER. 
 
 Fair evening star, and fair Esther ! 
 Crowned both with a curious lustre— 
 
 O wayward two ! 
 Uncheering and drearisome lustre, 
 
 Wearisome hue — 
 Oh, how did I worship and trust her- 
 
 And evil star, too ! 
 
 Oh, where such a delicate wooer ? 
 And when were the skies any bluer ? 
 
 And when, O star, 
 Thy gleam any, seemingly, truer ? 
 
 How near, though far, 
 You seemed to the delicate wooer 
 
 And me, O star ! 
 
A STAR OK REMINDER. 105 
 
 O soul ! how could she be kinder 
 
 Than, blindly, that night I divined her— 
 
 And star and me — 
 The night we a star of reminder, 
 
 Sweet star, chose thee ? 
 She gazed, as I stood and entwined her, 
 
 On thee and me. 
 
 She said : "Sweet star, in thy glory, 
 O thou, be the book of our story, 
 
 Pure, mild-eyed star ! " 
 And I said, "Amen ! "—But my hurry, 
 
 Too eager, did mar 
 The book of our love, and a worry 
 
 Crossed, as a spar, 
 
 Our love and our star. 
 
 For the vow of my Esther, frail lover ! 
 Sank swift as a meteor rover. — 
 
 Thus swift go down, 
 111 star, and the curse of a lover 
 
 Cling to thy crown ! 
 Go out, as a spark, 'neath thy cover 
 
 Of seas, low down — 
 Since love-looks no more I discover 
 
 In her eyes brown. 
 
I06 FACT VS. FICTION. 
 
 FACT vs. FICTION. 
 
 BY PETER PRACTICAL. 
 
 She was not exquisitely fair ; she was not over sweet ; 
 She was not super-delicate in the structure of her feet ; 
 Her locks were not that splendor-cast intended to 
 
 bewitch ; 
 And, cutely tangled in their mesh, suspicion saw a 
 
 "switch"— 
 Her voice not lute-like, tho' perhaps more sweet than 
 
 a cicada's, 
 Her gait not queen-like, tho' as grand as most of other 
 
 ladies. 
 
 She was not tall as tules are, nor built low like a moss ; 
 She was not slender as the vine, nor broad as oaks 
 
 across. 
 Her brow was beauty, not compressed, yet 'twould not 
 
 waken wonder ; 
 Her face, that underlay the brow, nor over much nor 
 
 under. 
 Her hands were not so large as mine, from which her 
 
 fingers tapered 
 That strode through some slow, sad refrain, or down a 
 
 chorus capered. 
 
 Her eyes, like many other eyes, were beautifully blue ; 
 They were a spirit feast to see ; and yet they were but 
 two 
 
FACT VS. FICTION. 107 
 
 Of many thousand more as full, as deep, as wild, as 
 tame ; 
 
 Her clear red mellow glow of cheek — all men have 
 seen the same. 
 
 Her dimples on her cheek and chin had many a dupli- 
 cate, 
 
 And dimples only grow at length to crevices we hate. 
 
 In thought, she lived not in the swamp, nor on the 
 
 stormy mountains ; 
 But on the slopes between the two, drank streams from 
 
 higher fountains. 
 She had some reason and some wit, some gleams of 
 
 common song, 
 But all these mingled unobserved with all the common 
 
 throng 
 Of thoughts that lose themselves at last in those of 
 
 stronger tone 
 That rush down from the great of earth, who thus are 
 
 greater grown. 
 
 She was not wanting in a soul ; hers was conservative, 
 Not overpowering in its love, nor miserly to give. 
 Some souls have more divinity, few more of what is 
 
 human ; 
 In fact hers was conservative, the common soul of 
 
 woman. 
 Some souls are too divine for me ; for my receptive 
 
 measure 
 
IOS FACT VS. FICTION. 
 
 Cannot contain them, so the strain gives pain instead 
 of pleasure. 
 
 The age has reasoned round to this — which seems to 
 
 me a notion — 
 That love is but a passion now instead of an emotion. 
 Then I would live below the age (?) — too weak to soar 
 
 above it — 
 And chloroform that passion love, and wake the truth 
 
 and love it. 
 I am not lower than the most, nor purer than the mass, 
 But I would love emotionally my unangelic lass! 
 
 She has her brittle thread of life, and separate from 
 
 mine. 
 We have our common thread of love, fine but not 
 
 superfine. 
 And should her thread of life be broken, mine might 
 
 be shaken, too, 
 But not be broken, as is sung far oftener than true. 
 My thread of life should be the same, my thread of 
 
 love be finer 
 By being drawn so to the sky — to regions far diviner. 
 
 The most of us awake to love in moonlight of our lives, 
 When those seem angels in the dim, which day reveals 
 
 as wives 
 Or husbands in their common moods and in their 
 
 common clothes. 
 And then we talk of "lotteries," and murmur "Ah! 
 
 who knows? " 
 
FACT VS. FICTION. I09 
 
 All should be sleeping in the night and waking in the 
 
 day, 
 Then fancied angels would not be turned into common 
 
 clay. 
 
 The eyes hang heavy in the night ; we see men walk 
 
 as trees, 
 And shadows seem as living things, and living things 
 
 as these. 
 And when love holds her wand across the sweet face 
 
 of the moon, 
 And touches love-strings in the air — intoxicating 
 
 tune ! — 
 Then men seemed turned to demigods, and women 
 
 angels seem, 
 And we go maddened at the scene, and love is made 
 
 a dream. 
 
 Love held her wand across the moon, and chased 
 
 a-down the air 
 Her fingers on the strings of tune, and / went 
 
 maddened there. 
 I saw my love, with queenly gait, go dancing with 
 
 her shadow ; 
 The land seemed e'er too beautiful to call an Eldorado. 
 The trees seemed spanning to the skies, and stars 
 
 seemed blooming on them, 
 And flowers beneath looked up in love, as though the 
 
 stars had won them. 
 
110 FACT VS. FICTION. 
 
 My love looked down and then looked up, as though 
 
 uncertain whether 
 The flowers and green mixed in below, or stars and 
 
 blue together, 
 Were fairer of the spangled two — perplexed, too, with 
 
 her doubt. 
 The birds went shooting thro', and dropped their 
 
 pearls of song about, 
 And all the world and all the sky seemed changed 
 
 into the three 
 Sweet nourishers of living love — song, painting, 
 
 poetry. 
 
 But she danced in the midst of all, the angel of the 
 
 scene. 
 I started through this rhapsody, and ran with bashful 
 
 mien ; 
 And, as I ran and reached in love, she ever ran ahead; 
 Yet when I hesitated, aye, I saw it made her sad ; 
 And when I ran most rapidly, and reached with 
 
 eagerness, 
 The sweet smile flooding all her face, she could not 
 
 all suppress. 
 
 Some go on seeing by the moon, and loving in the 
 
 roses, 
 Some chase down the delusive form, and rest in sweet 
 
 reposes 
 Still in the dim light of the night, then waken in the 
 
 dawning 
 
FACT VS. FICTION. Ill 
 
 To find the angel they had wed is but a human 
 
 yawning. 
 Then come the sulky, lonesome hours, in common 
 
 earthly places, 
 And thinking back to angel-dreams, ahead to human 
 
 faces. 
 
 I did not reach my fancy love before the morn was 
 
 on us ; 
 We both stood facing, then, amazed, and wondered 
 
 what had won us. 
 We kept on wond'ring, till the day eclipsed the 
 
 moonshine folly, 
 Then turned to common human sense, and turned to 
 
 being jolly. 
 I love her for the charms she has, and not for those 
 
 that seem — 
 This may be tame love, yet this love is better than 
 
 a dream. 
 
112 LIVE AND LET LIVE. 
 
 LIVE AND LET LJVE. 
 
 Strive ? to be sure we should strive, till we thrill 
 Our being with struggles of muscle and mind. 
 
 But, ah ! is the world but a canon-like rill, 
 
 With room but for one and no room to be kind ? 
 
 Full wide is the river to work and forgive, 
 
 Nor tangle our oars as we live and let live. 
 
 The diligent hand may wax rich without harm 
 To other hands reaching the bounties of life. 
 
 But, alas ! that so many are cast in a storm 
 
 By those who would gather the wreck of their strife. 
 
 We sift all the grain through and leave in the sieve 
 
 The chaff for a brother : nor live and let live. 
 
 It is nothing humane that we sift the grain thro' 
 Then cast to a brother the leavings of chaff. 
 
 It is nothing humane that we make a storm strew 
 The strength of our foes, as we gather, and quaff 
 
 Our glasses of gains, and we smile as they grieve. 
 
 He only lives well, who can live and let live. 
 
 It is nothing humane if a neighbor should strain 
 A weary, thin hand for the gladness of life, 
 
 That swords of our avarice strike it and stain 
 With blood of defeat the one weaker in strife: 
 
 There's a kernel for each in Life's beautiful sieve, 
 
 And chaff for the wind, if we live and let live. 
 
LIVE AND LET LIVE. 113 
 
 There is room on the tide of L,ife's changeable way 
 For all who go rowing to pass and return 
 
 And never strike oars, as we sprinkle with spray 
 The brothers who pass with the prizes they earn — 
 
 With sprays of delight that they win, as we give 
 
 Clear way to the weaker, and live and let live. 
 
 It is better to wring from inanimate earth, 
 By resolute effort, the wealth we desire 
 
 Than wring from a brother the wealth he brought forth 
 From the tempests of sin, or the furnace of fire. 
 
 How many, alas ! are refusing to give 
 
 Fair way to a foe, and to live and let live. 
 
114 THE > WHITE CRANE. 
 
 THE WHITE CRANE. 
 
 Tall, white and superb, he is pure as the springs, 
 Save wings tipped with black, as if tinged with 
 a sin ; 
 
 And thus, like a saint that has beaten with wings 
 A narrow ascent through the sin-snares within 
 
 To lands of a better and beautiful birth, 
 
 He touched lightly wings on the sins of the earth. 
 
 Hear the voices of doves in the trees overhead ; 
 
 They soar not aloft in the sky and its coves, 
 Nor come down below where the maidens so thread 
 
 Their sonnets of love through the leaves of the 
 groves ; 
 Nor come down below, nor aspire to the sky, 
 But coo to the trees and complain till they die. 
 
 But the crane, bird of thought in his garments of 
 white, 
 
 Speaks strong as a hope in the heart of a youth, 
 And clear as a knell that is sent in the night, 
 
 With tongue sternly telling a dying man's truth. 
 His words, strong as sonnets of wisdom, arise ; 
 For seldom he speaketh and hence he is wise. 
 
 He walks on the earth till he feels and thus learns 
 The wrongs of the lowly ; he looks up above 
 
THE WHITE CRANE 1 15 
 
 To fields of the good, till his poet-heart burns, 
 Then swinging away on his pinions of love, 
 He circles above to the kiss of a cloud, 
 Bathed in smiles of the stars that seem speaking aloud. 
 
 I^et him be as a bard, — as a symbol to show 
 
 How poets may mingle with mortals, whose wrongs 
 
 Flood valleys of earth with their rivers of woe, 
 
 Then rising inspired, in the strength of their songs 
 
 May lead the strained eyes and the sad hearts within 
 
 Up to happier scenes than earth's visions of sin. 
 
 He pointeth a moral : — with power in his wings 
 And will and a patience to charm, to surprise, 
 
 He rises and swings in a pathway of rings 
 Till his pinions fan faces of stars as he flies — 
 
 The moral is this : That no matter how wise, 
 
 He finds he can easier fall than arise. 
 
 Majestic, tall, white, as he walketh abroad, 
 
 He says not a word, though he seeth and thinketh ; 
 
 But he singeth when circling away unto God ! 
 
 So his heaven-heard song gleameth brightly and 
 linketh 
 
 Our thoughts to High Heaven. I give you my hand! 
 
 Brother, poet and singer ; you will understand ! 
 
Il6 DEATH OF THE OLD PROFESSOR. 
 
 DEATH OF THE OLD PROFESSOR. 
 
 The ebbing hours had worn away 
 
 The dusk, and brought the death of day, 
 
 Which slowly, peacefully lay breathing 
 
 Its last red breath on evening's rim; 
 
 O'er the soft grass night dews were wreathing, 
 
 When my Professor, old and gray, 
 
 Lay dying in the starlit twilight dim. 
 
 Students, two-score, with serious ej^es 
 Alight with tears and wreathed with sighs, 
 Stood round his bed; his dreamy gaze 
 Saw many hundred men of yore 
 Look up from chapel seats, ablaze 
 With glorious golden mem'ry ties — 
 Bright student faces; now, alas, no more! 
 
 The night wore on, and two-score faces, 
 Love-full, lore-full, took olden places — 
 Tear-moist and sober; still he smiles, 
 His soul controlled by fruitful fancy 
 That, ere he sails to stormless Isles, 
 He call his roll of many classes ; 
 Thus looks he at the classic files 
 Of youth, o'er aged, gold-rimmed glasses, 
 Marched into place as if by necromancy. — 
 
DEATH OP THE OLD PROFESSOR. 117 
 
 That roll-book reads, in which were all 
 In forty years he loved to call ! 
 He then began, with voice so slender, 
 Death-tremulous, his chapel singing ; 
 And then with tone more childlike, tender, 
 His roll-call sounds thro' fancied Hall 
 Of College, dying thus to fancy clinging ! 
 
 Just as the last name crossed his lips, 
 Soft, silent as a spirit slips 
 To isles of joy, his soul crossed over. 
 Star-crowned, his heart speaks back to me, 
 In time of snow or days of clover, 
 While outward sweep my mem'ry-ships, 
 Whene'er I sit in diamond revery !— 
 
 In dreams awake, or dreams asleep, 
 
 Whene'er my thoughts lie sad and deep, 
 
 From skies above I seem to hear 
 
 Him calling rolls from class to class 
 
 In mingled pathos and good cheer ; 
 
 As mem'ry-ships with shoutings sweep 
 
 Swift up to Aidenn's stormless pier 
 
 I wake from musings sweet to weep, 
 
 "How far the portal to ' The Sea of Glass / '" 
 
Il8 TELOUCHKINE. 
 
 TKLOUCHKINE. 
 
 The spire of great "Saint Peter's and Saint 
 
 Paul's," 
 Lost like a needle in the purple skies, 
 Stood gleaming in the centuries of light 
 And dwindled, o'er Slavonic, Titan walls 
 Of grand Saint Petersburg, to fairy size, 
 A gold-hued world poised on its airy height ; 
 And on this poised unpeopled planet stood 
 A steadfast angel, emblem of the good, 
 Enshielded blue with heaven's blue amplitude. 
 
 II. 
 
 Now, by the driving tempests of the skies 
 And stealing frosts and feathery snowy feet, 
 It leans to fall, while men, who creep below 
 L,ike insects, upward gaze with dust-small eyes 
 ( While aspirations drag the stony street 
 By leaden fears, and over ever go 
 The silvery clouds that kiss the angel's face), 
 And idly speculate, and, skeptic, trace 
 The gulf impassable of towering space ! 
 
 III. 
 
 But Telouchkine, a tzar uncrowned, gazed 
 The airy ocean thro', but not, as they, 
 
TELOUCHKINE. 119 
 
 With fruitless wondering and helpless thought : 
 His thoughts in brilliant upward steppings 
 
 blazed — 
 A vaulting wonder-deed, heroic way 
 To reach the falling angel ! Thus he wrought 
 A restoration for the seraph King, 
 Exalted emblem of man's primal spring, 
 The Eden seraph now with failing wing. 
 
 IV. 
 
 He clomb the spire!— The shouts of surging 
 
 specks 
 Came floating up in faint far murmurings 
 When Telouchkine now by the angel stood ! 
 He scanning downward— upward — little recks 
 If he be nearer those sweet pearled strings 
 That star the blue at noonday solitude 
 To one so skyey deep ! Brave Telouchkine ! 
 A plain-clad king with crown more superfine 
 Than Inca's gold and Afric's diamond mine. 
 
 V. 
 
 For he alone dare win its lofty gleam 
 Redeeming Russia's angel clothed with gold :— 
 ' Twas thus with man; for halting wisdom tried, 
 And haughty folly, ages, to redeem 
 The " angel in us " from its ruin old. 
 ' Twas unavailing folly's shallow-eyed 
 And peering throngs around the Titan wall, 
 Till Christ came down, and, crowned King of All, 
 This ' ' Angel in us ' ' saved from endless fall 
 
 ! 
 
WAYSIDE FLOWERS. 
 
 WAYSIDE FLOWERS. 
 
 Some feeble wayside flowers, in sterile ground, 
 That bloomed in love to cast their sweetness 
 
 round 
 To gladden hearts, who shifted by the sweet 
 And tender blossoms nodding at their feet, 
 Nor thought to thank the slender angel flowers 
 That cheered them thro' their weary journey- 
 hours ! 
 
JUL 26 
 
 W98 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 n unii m minimi , 
 
 O 015 988 350 4 •