Class V% 3 5._L2l Book ±A1. GopyiightN \°i\5 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. POEMS JOHN T. LECKLIDER RICHARD G. BADGER THE GORHAM PRESS BOSTON Copyright, 1913, ^7 Joh° T. Lecklider All Rights Reserved THE GORHAM Press, Boston, U. s. a. ©C/,A332735 This Volume is Respectfully Dedicated to the Good Friends of My Native State PROEM From the fields of life I bring What I have gathered. More than individual Must be the book that tells The joys and sorrows Successes and failures The ambitions and defeats The longings and desires The aims and experiences The loves and hopes Of a single human life. As the years come and go Each one yearns, nay strives To paint his own great pictures To carve his own statues Produce his own sweet music Perfect his own judgments To possess an ideal home Choose and entertain his own friends And be accounted honorable by His neighbors, his town — state — nation So rounded and complete are The endowments of a human being That the least and greatest. Establishes his boundaries According to his own Ideals. ' Would it not be interesting to know The harvest value of a human Life? What lovely jewels — God, Master — Poet, Author of vast Creation, offers Each panting soul as the reward Of development. PREFATORY THOUGHTS Garments of thought from the loom of life Woven of joy, sorrow and strife, In patterns of morning and noonday light. Shot with starbeams bordered by night. Daily cullings of duties and cares, Golden wheat and common tares Born in the heart grown up in the brain Offspring of rapture, love and pain Earnest, spirituelle and plain. Visions of rapture on mountain heights Toil wrought tasks in the valley nights Whisperings of angels from far off shores Vision raptures and breaker roars. Words of hope for the weary brain Whispers of love for hearts in pain; Blossoms plucked in duty's haste Fountains found in the desert waste. CONTENTS Page Prefatory Thoughts 5 The Certainties Beyond 17 Lake Clear 17 Flights of Cupid 18 Sunrise at Sea 18 The Lovers 19 Men of Action 20 The Young Maid's Soliloquy 21 Who Can Answer 23 Watchman ! What of the Times 23 Shelf Marked 24 Captives Here, Freemen Over There 24 Under Law 25 She Told Her Love 25 The Call To Duty 26 Beyond The Stars 26 Seeking Wisdom 27 Invocation 28 Messengers of The Brain 29 Known By What We Have Done 30 Creed and Persecution 30 Blessed Are The Merciful 32 The Central Mind 33 When I Get Home 34 Man Was Not Made to Mourn 35 Old and New 36 After The Nuptials 37 The Ubiquity and Waste of Life 39 The Toiler 39 God Walks Every Sea 41 Spirit Hospitality 42 A Lost Friend 43 7 CONTENTS Page To a Prude 43 Thoughts On Creation 44 The Good Is Always In Sight 48 Thou Speakest To Me 49 Arctic Lovers 49 Singing Brook 52 Transfiguration 52 The Journey 53 Be Of Good Cheer 54 Remembered 55 Dual Living 56 What Will The Answer Be? 57 Heart to Heart 58 Life 59 Beautiful Women 61 Wasted Opportunities 62 Are You Doing Your Best 64 My Palace of Art 65 A Surfeit of Evil 66 The Better Country 67 Creation's Masterpiece 68 Heart Stories 68 Origin and Destiny 69 Touch 70 Time 70 Joy Is Immortal 71 Evolution Or Kismet 72 Love Casteth Out Fear 72 Things We Really Know 72 We See Dimly 73 Ever in Debt 74 The Life Trail 74 Gathering Truth 75 The Teacher of Nazareth 76 This Every Day World 76 8 CONTENTS Page The First Frost, Nature's Tragedy 77 The Game of Nature 78 Hidden Wisdom 81 Love 82 Storm Lore 83 Living Books 84 Past and Future 85 Love's Call 86 Life and Knowledge 86 The Road To Victory 87 Galilee 88 Nazareth 89 The Work of a Century 90 Georgian Bay, Canada 92 Wars and Wounds 93 My Friend and 1 94 What is That in Thine Hand? 95 Ideals 96 A Part of Us Dies With Our Friends 96 Pardon For Mistakes 97 Flesh and Spirit 98 Thought Messages 98 Life is Good 99 Blossoms of Light 99 A Vision 100 Possibilities 104 Constantinople 104 The Pharisee 105 Water Lilies 106 Wayside Lessons 107 June Voices 108 The Goodby Smile 109 A Study in Nature 109 A Wayside Flov^^er no Treasures of The Night in 9 CONTENTS Page Unrest II2 Routine 113 Duty and Ease 113 Fenced In 114 The River of Thought 116 Discontent 117 Paradox — Good and Evil 118 Ambition 119 Lost Thoughts 120 A Day in Thebes 121 The Monument Groups 122 By the River 123 Robin's Song — The Coming Spring 124 U. S. Grant 125 Children of the Brain 126 The Kiss of Love 1 29 Assurance 1 29 Only a Procession 130 Pictured Rocks 132 Communion 135 Education 137 Mental Guests 139 Right Thinking 139 Some Day 140 Birds of Passage 141 Dreams of Sight 142 The Land of Hope 143 On Shore 144 Cheerful Advice 145 The Tragedy of Hate 145 I Held Her Hand 146 Guest of Tvv^o Worlds 147 Immortelles 150 Nature's Victory 150 The Sun of the Soul 151 10 CONTENTS Page Days of Heaven on the Earth. 152 The Gardener's Proposal I53 Father's Face i54 Outgrown 155 Egypt and the Nile 157 Mediterranean Sea I59 Hopes That Fail 160 Montreaux, Switzerland 1 61 The Jungfrau 162 The Mother-ness of Nature 162 The Man Is Not a Failure Who Dies Trying. 163 As Man Thinketh So is He 163 If God Be God Follow Him 164 The Degenerate 165 After Many Years 165 The Speech of Years 166 Progress 167 To a Canary 167 Voices of the Night 168 The Dead President 169 The Conqueror 1 70 Pearls and Roses 171 Mother 171 The Home Run 172 Absent Minded 172 Flowers at Midnight '. 173 Weary of Winter 174 Miss Natura I75 Real Feasts 176 Thought Has Color 176 The Columbian Exposition — 1893 176 The Upas of Sorrow 179 Friends of Our Youth 179 The Old Masters l8o The Might of Right 180 II CONTENTS Page A Missionary 182 As You Will 182 Spring Violets 183 Heart Power 185 The Sun's Way 185 A Child of Poverty 186 A Northern Madrigal 187 The Autumn Carnival 188 My Library 189 The St. Law^rence 190 My Will 191 Interviewed at Eighty 192 A Spoiled Life I94 Moods of the Heart I95 What is Character? 196 Songs in the Night 197 Homes and Prisons 198 St. Clair Flats 198 An Help Meet 200 Keeping Watch 201 Enforced Idleness 203 Resurrection 205 Some Shadows 208 The World Suits Me 209 The Lost Art 210 The History of Crime 21 1 Temptations 214 A Ruined Flower 215 The Judgment 216 The Steamer China 219 The Wrecker 220 A Lament 227 Jennie and I 228 The Way it Was Done 229 A Summer Girl 230 19 CONTENTS Page Kisses 230 The Power of a Human Life 231 Among the Hills 233 Lilies of the Valley 234 Immortality 235 The Result 236 The Simple Life 236 To Samuel Sprecker, D. D., LL.D 237 Our Masters 238 The Oratorio of Nature 239 All the Ways O' Life Are Good 240 Obscurity 241 Antagonisms 241 The Wind and the Pines 242 Seen by the Way 243 Niagara 244 The Upward Struggle 244 The Columbia River 245 To Whom Do You Bow? 245 Plenty of Room 246 Christmas Time 247 All Are Tramps 248 The Promise 249 Christmas Thoughts 250 The Voice of Nature 251 Sing On 251 Naples 253 13 POEMS THE CERTAINTIES BEYOND Just as of old the years are drifting on! Death follows birth, as night the day. Each generation dead, looked for the dawn Which breaks at last upon the land of Hope, Believed it near — then passed away. Faith came to earth, abides on earth, Ever anew lights all the paths of life, That lead to promises that wait fulfillment. Great truths, for which our spirits yearn Obscured as yet, by doubts that hinder sight. LAKE CLEAR {Adtrondacksj New York) Often before my eyes I see A vision sweet and dear to me, A fountain spot in memory. Lake Clear with all its coolness lies Hemmed in with mountains, soft, blue skies, Fresh fringed with summer draperies. Far in thy crystal depths I see Stars stagger in light revelry When night winds wanton over thee. Strange hillside tongues I hear repeat Each sound that rolls beyond my feet, 'Till seven echoes are complete. Beneath my steps I hear again, Earth's crust, with hollowness complain Like Elfin sounds beside some main. Angling for trout, like Walton old, 17 Along thy inlets icy cold, Burns-like admire their spots of gold. The day declines and near thy shore Batrachians call to sport galore Again, I bag a good three score. Thus, memory blest — I evermore, With friends enjoy glad days of yore With Otis, by thy charming shore. FLIGHTS OF CUPID Out of the hitherward, into the yon Love is ever trailing; The hearts are happy that love lights on, O, would to my heart he were sailing. Butterfly-like he comes and goes Visiting every mart Here fed on the daintiest bliss earth knows There wrecked in some passionate heart. On highest and lowest mundane lives. He favors and kisses bestows. Regardless of color and beauty he thrives; Life in hovel and palace he knows. The butterfly's home is the perfect rose, Where sweetest nectar is found So the heart you see must sincere be Which love calls holy ground. SUNRISE AT SEA Out of the startled east On the billowy breast of the sea Morning dropped through a sparkling mist i8 That jeweled the world for me. Night's grimness fled away As the water mirrored the sun And ripples of laughter ran riot in play 'Till the whole sea frolicked in fun. And I said; I behold, O, sea! Your temper is not so bad ; At peace with storms you smile like me When the sun shines sweet and glad. O, wonderful lessons of dawn! Will surroundmgs change us so? When each in judgment stands, Will the whiteness of the Great White Throne Make whiter our earthstained hands? THE LOVERS By joyous streams thru orange groves, Two lovers strayed together; 'Twas eventide, out peeped the moon In autumn's glorious weather. He held her gently by the hand, He kissed her red lips lightly They sang and laughed and talked of love, As lovers yet do nightly. Sub-Tropic suns had filled their hearts With pleasure's sparkling wine, Kind nature gave them every grace Greek-Myths accord the nine. The nightingale whose happy song. Unfinished with the day. Poured only one of all glad strains That swelled about their way. In full accord is moon and tide, 19 World energies are with them, So love and nature are in bonds, Potential laws unite them. O, happy hearts in youthful prime, Brimful of dreams of pleasure, Adrift upon the stream of time In rythmic sweetest measure. O, youth thy current is a rill, O, life thy stream's a river What argosies of good and ill Thou dost to age deliver. MEN OF ACTION When I think of the great ones of earth And the wonderful things they could do Fighting, writing and loving. Getting and giving too; How little seems the millions, How big the unit or two. When I think of the golden opinions They won from women and men, I'm glad there's but one in a million, Instead of a possible ten. But ever this painful question Is present with me, with you. Why should such vast power Be given to one or two? For we have hearts for loving, Have hands for giving too; But we lack the art of getting And fighting we cannot do. So we lose the golden opinions That strength receives for dower, Since the trumpets of the ages. Blow only for place and power. And so the impoverished millions That constitute the state 20 Are as only ready material For the buildings of the great; And the history of a nation Is the biography of the few Who simply plan for the millions, Enormous work to do. It was so with the nations perished, It is so with the present day; The masses always labored But their honors, where are they? I am glad in that better judgment They will call us one by one And know us by what we purposed Rather than what we have done. Who declared in the Jewish Temple When massive gifts were told That the humble gift of the widow's mite Was more than the rich man's gold Will in no wise err in His judgment. Of the humble or the great. For He noteth the fall of a sparrow As well as the potentate. THE YOUNG MAID'S SOLILOQUY To whom can I go for counsel? I know I can go to the Lord, But at times we need help that is human, From our fellows a comforting word. So young, (for as yet I'm not twenty) Unschooled in the world and it's ways Of society friends I have plenty Insincere and conventional jays. The ball room is giddy and flirty — Society's heartless and queer I long for a friend that is hearty For a love in the flesh that's sincere. 21 In pairs, male and female created, O, where can my partner have strayed, Shall I find him, why so long belated. Are we distant, was love sightless made? About me how swiftly they marry "Bound to discord and strife" it is said; How long on the way will he tarry The man, whom I am to wed? An actor? no, such would deceive me; Free from guile and deceit is my heart Let him show me his soul, let him know me, Undeceived then, we never shall part. I know not myself, wise counsel I need To preserve the sweet joys of the heart; A mistake to regret and ruin may lead, Experience should wisdom impart. Every trade has its guilds and teachers. Social warnings and lectures refined ; For hereafter a book with its preachers, Marriage oft is a chance taken blind. O, mothers your daughters need training, E're they wifehood and motherhood meet; O, fathers your sons need teaching To make manly roughness more sweet. If the savage consort with the tender. There'll be friction and torture refined; Why not grow brides and grooms for each other Strong bodied and suited in mind? Dogs, pigeons and stock are fostered. Each pedigree guarded with care; While chance fathers children unheeded. Whose lives run to waste everywhere. Yet man, boastful chief of creation, Chases everything under the sun; A savage on earth on probation, A savage calls cruelty fun. 22 Wise Sparta grew soldiers and mothers, Women suited for warriors' wives. Why not grow brides and grooms for each other Cheating chance out of spoiling two lives. I long for a husband true, human, Yet, a man flesh and soul must he be — Two natures have I, I am woman, Daily food for both natures give me. WHO CAN ANSWER? Can any one go back to God and say, I kept the inner chart thou gavest me, Conscience inviolate, all acts approved, Within the limits of thy plan I lived? Since I awoke on earth, I know my story. The strength of evil has shivered many A stout lance of boasted virtue. This web of life was braided of light And shadow in that great night, before I met the fitful dawn of days. I know not if I lived or dreamed Before I came to earth. Since launched upon the stream of time I've steered by hope and faith. And love, whose eyes presage another dawn, When earth shall own no grave. WATCHMAN! WHAT OF THE TIMES? The gates of life swing wider now. Great days are ushered in. Earth's shadows lift — Light clears the brow As truth's great world is seen. No kingdom may we call our own Till reverent reason dawns. 23 wisdom must mystery disown And duties paths make plain E're real days begin. SHELF MARKED In our looms of daily thought Is life's many patterns wrought. Daily schooling, drill and plan Mark some character of man. Politics and party strife Weave the bias goods of life. Every trade, profession, clan, Stamps, impresses, labels man Each with some reproach per se Peter thy speech betrayeth thee. It is sadly true of every one Who's smaller than the job he's on. CAPTIVES HERE, FREEMEN OVER THERE I walk with nature hand in hand My country is the favored land Of mirth and song, Bold, lion hearted, eagle winged The freeman's soul is fain to sing The heart's desire. Wisdom's a sun whose clearing light Scatters life's doubts and shades of night As men mount higher. Desires are wings to wingless men, To speed them to earth journey's end With souls on fire. 24 UNDER LAW Noiseless, mighty as God's will, Sunlight falls on vale and hill, Earth feels resurrection power, Nature wakens tree and flower. Man, central thought of nature's plan, Immortal souled, flesh life a span. Ever ascending fears no bound. Life's outmost peaks are wisdom crowned. SHE TOLD HER LOVE The night wind sweet and cool Is fanning my fevered brow, She has told her love To the roving wind And the wind is telling me now. My heart is full of bliss, My thoughts are wild with joy, She has told her love To the roving wind. Her love, so shy and coy. The heavens are soft with light. Bright stars and great round moon. Though sundered afar Her spirit is near My Soul's in a blissful swoon. Sweet fragrance is on the air. The earth with bloom is bright, For love, sweet love's On the roving wind. Our souls have met tonight. 25 THE CALL TO DUTY A voice is in my ear, That melts my heart; To scenes far off and dear It calls me and I start To tread the past again The paths sweet, simple, plain. BEYOND THE STARS Once I loved and life Was rosy with its light Streams of bliss poured in Upon me day and night. Lofty aspirations filled me Toil and sorrow hid away, Great achievements filled my future Life's best joy ruled each day. Dreams of life lay bright before me, Fields of promise rich and wide. Hand in hand through paths of glory, Love and hope led groom and bride. But my vision paled and wasted. Left a great pain in my heart, Ever since death's surly winter Chills my soul; will not depart. See a pale face floats before me, Laughter dead upon its lips. And life's hopes are broken, shattered, Wrecked and lost like stately ships. Yet my soul on Petrel pinions, 26 Soars 'bove storms and broken spars, Joy life's quest shall gain fruition In love's home beyond the stars. SEEKING WISDOM The ghosts of the wisdom of Egypt of old, Rise dim in her ruins, a story well told. The splendor of Athens where brains had a mart, Lives a dream of the past in legend and art. Thinkers, great swordsmen carved out mighty Rome What is left of her grandeur save ruin and gloom? From greatest to least man immortal would be In thought, word and act, quite plainly we see. Old nations warred, toiled to put error to rout. Erred, reformed, reformed 'till toil wore them out. Crumbs of truth, flakes of wisdom are all we find Any nation or man after life left behind. Though earnest the struggle, the end well defined; Aims fail of their purpose spite of muscle and mind. It is true, clearly true redeemed from all doubt There's a limit on earth to what man brings about. With thoughts half mastered we labor in vain — Discouraged to others at last turn for gain. Thus we resort the thoughts born in the brain Of the dead of past ages, ever seeking their aim. Our wealth's but collections, specimens parts Of man's boasted find in the field of lost arts. Aye, we love simple things because they are best, Laugh at artless child wit with heartiest zest. There's no songs like heart songs, old or new, Truth never grows old, the immortal is true. 27 The streams of affection that visit man's heart Are as pure and fresh as they were at the start. Man never grows old while his brain and his heart, Are fed by the currents of love, wisdom and art. Some factors are constant then, plainly we see; To life on this planet law limits each me. Much is false, short lived, sinks into the mould. Like flowers and buds killed by autumn winds cold. We consider life's waste, then shrink into doubt. Lest the world may not prize what we think about. Original truth is more precious than gold. Than pearls is harder to find No realm in the aggregate shows such wanton waste As the efforts of heart and mind. Truth needs no interpreter, yet history shows It's no sooner revealed than commentators disclose The wise things and learning (which we are told) Throws light on it, making it clear to behold. The result is discussion, faction and strife With creed fostering clans ever injuring life. Only wisdom baptized at the fountain of truth Holds its own in this world, has perennial youth. Get learning, get wisdom, get all that you can, Science wards not fate's storms From the creature called man. INVOCATION I pray not for stateliest power To speak, write or sing like the few Who o'erleap this low world with its sorrow And stage through the infinite blue. While here on earth's restless bosom Where thy creatures forever make moan. Let me serve e'en the humblest blossom Assured thou the service will own. 28 Let me sing as one sang to "A Mousie" Let thy ''Daisies" so speak to me too Let me see, let me hear nature's voice Back of all let me see and hear you. Add strength to each frail, fleeting power ; Each day some new joy, please to give Make feet, hands, swift skilled for service; A true man in the flesh let me live. To my hopes ever add a new luster. Make each promise more clear to my sight ; Mists of doubt and uncertainty scatter Ever lead me from darkness to light. Make solid the shores of that country Like this, we are journeying thru; Men are weak in their ankles and stumble, Speak, courage and strength give me too. In the span which to me is allotted In the paths where I walk, slip or fall, Help me find out and ponder life's meaning, Gain wisdom and wait for Thy call. Though my life may be simple and humble Though my name and my grave be obscure May the lives I have touched remember A friend and a brother passed here. MESSENGERS OF THE BRAIN Beautiful thoughts they come and go, Like childhood friends in the long ago. From flights in space they visit the brain. Perch, take wing and return again. They visit the sun that warms the earth Drink at the fountains of hope and mirth. Our darkest dungeons they fill with light; From heaviest hearts they chase the night. Receive them kindly, they are sent to be 29 Ministering angels of good to thee. They clothe the soul as with ermine white, In garments of grace from the looms of right, And at last, the soul by their power, is Transfigured into immortal bliss. "As man thinks in his heart so is he," Thought is the parent of destiny. KNOWN BY WHAT WE HAVE DONE No candle burns however pale its light But helps to brighten earth's receding night. When passed is superstition, doubt and fear, Truth gained, the mind shall be more clear! Diviner life slowly asserts its reign, Comfort, O Soul, good efforts are not vain. CREED AND PERSECUTION A traveler in a thirsty land A little pool of water found It slumbered sweetly, crystal clear. For sheltering rocks rose all around. He took his staff and stirred the pool. Lol soon 'twas foul and turbid too, Where sun and stars once glassed themselves No eye could now its murk see thru. Seized by an angry dervish mob The traveler to the judge was led Charged with pollution of the pool; He unabashed, "Not guilty!" plead. The witnesses were called and sworn And swiftly fixed on him the guilt. Told how the pool was clear at morn, And how accused corrupted it. With placid mien the traveler heard The proven penalty of guilt 30 Who so corrupts a drinking place Shall forfeit life, his blood be spilt. The judge was patient, just and kind, Assured the traveler firmly spake — I thrust this staf¥ deep in the pool But ivory naught can filthy make. The sides the bottom of the pool Were thick w^ith mud and dregs of time On which the crystal water lay Till action made all foul with grime. Just like the fountain creeds of men In reason's cup deemed sweet, pure, plain, Revered for ages, held undoubtingly None dreaming of the dregs therein. At last a greater teacher comes, Of mightier faith, simple, more wise. Opens new fountains in the fields of truth Lo, turbid are the wells men used to prize; Impurity has not been introduced A wisdom higher, broader but revealed — A clearer light to the same eyes if used Shows old deformities before concealed. Within yon pool the waters you deem sweet Lay clear and clean, were pure to taste to sight, I naught polluted, I questioned what I met; Lo! to your dervishes — I changed the light. Ignorance aroused, leads persecution Raging as if wronged — not that the new Is not better, but because the old betrays Its grime and imperfections too. Ignorance, superstition poured a bitter tide Of persecution into faith's sheltered pool ; Then, being weary, left hate and jealousy 31 To precipitate the cruel dregs, Of passion's narrow school. The holiest faith is kept in earthen vessels And undisturbed by bigotry is clear and sweet, — Like mud-rimmed quiet wayside puddle Reflecting sun and starry heavens complete. But he who looks when Huguenots are fleeing Sees faith's pure pool begrimed with passion's dirt And knows that zealot persecution pursues The innocents to do them hurt. And yet, the fiercest creed mankind doth own If to its altars all will come, bow down; Each creed is broad enough (in its own way) To save the vilest who will own its sway. No broader charity our race can boast Than shows in creed, each calls O, human host Accept our faith — take seat among the blest! Earth's vilest penitent need not be lost. BLESSED ARE THE MERCIFUL Why can't people all be good, Kind and sweet in every mood? Aye they could be if they would. Love and justice helps us all, Least and greatest, short and tall Why laugh at a neighbor's fall ? Over heavy is many a load, Slight and jest wield bitter goad, Why not give each half the road? Earth is roomy, life is sweet. Cruel hearts are incomplete Mercy show to all you meet. One heart's product, who can know? Tares and wheat In one soil grow, L. 32 i Only wheat then let us sow. Getting gain is not all of life; Nothing sweet results from strife; Death is combat knife to knife. Look and word and simplest act, Life's result, a sum exact. Helpful, hurtful, what is the fact? There is good enough in every heart If encouraged from the start. To outweigh life's bitter part. Let us then with candor live, Learn to take as well as give, Live and help our neighbor live. THE CENTRAL MIND I was restless, eager, strong in my youth ; Fully determined fame to win and ultimate truth. Truth, I often thought I had it; Firmly grasped and held secure. But how soon it lost its luster; Changed its form and essence pure; Played Chameleon, lastly vanished, Broke my heart and left no cure; While through nature, truth I hunted to secure. But the reason I discovered, if traced back Truth through nature is distorted, 'tis a fact In the sun each man must stand, If he'd see the solar system rightly planned. So too, each mind must find the central mind ; In God must rest. Before he sees Truth's living fields In order dressed. God central sun of soul and mind Throws light upon The human mind and is its sun. 33 WHEN I GET HOME Once I was there and baby skies Covered the whole circle of my life. I lived on love; care Answered all my cries And shut away earth's bitterness and strife. Manhood soon came, I heard the call to come And join the fray the world forever fights. The trump of fame First heard is welcome, Though it blows for paltry rights. Ambition plants her seedlings In our fresh young blood, To choke and cheapen everything that fails; It humble- and narrows the dwellings Known in childhood, And on age a backward longing it entails. I sigh for faces Full of sweetest light, That cheered me once, as morning cheers the land Warm hearts, bright faces Now beyond my sight. While I alone twixt hope and memory stand. Cheated and wasted By life's feverish haste, I've reaped few harvests in the lengthened past, Faith points my eyes where final rights are vested In fadeless faces and in friends that last. When I get home, O, haste the happy day. Restore my loved ones to my waiting heart. Flesh awkwardness 34 Mars all we do or say Where, wrapped in shadows, life is lived apart. When I get home And know as I am known, Earth's dark glass broken and the dimness gone, Faults all condoned, Full confidence enthroned ; I shall be satisfied when I get home. MAN WAS NOT MADE TO MOURN I garner no care and I borrow no sorrow; Why should I burden myself with pain? Life was meant to be sweet, a dream of pleasure ; Happy day, each tomorrow should bring again. Why should men struggle and toil for treasure That cankers life's cares, eroding the brain? Man's physical needs tho many are simple. Let us joy in the sunshine, rejoice in the rain. Why fret and jostle and crowd each other Through each week and each month of the year To gain a few baubles, some gold hoard away. Then to die sour hearted in fear. There is plenty of sunshine to go around and spare And earth's fresh air is forty miles deep Of seed time and harvest the maker takes care. Life's provisions are bountiful, cheap. To wear out or rust out, man never was meant, By his talents most clear may be seen; Life in leisure, in labor and study, if spent Gains health, wealth, beauty, wit keen. All nature the flowers, the birds and the bees 35 Adapt life to climate with gracefuUest ease; Change of season to man is a boon, you will own, Spicing life with a zest in each different zone. Monotony only occurs where a man Looks exclusively long on, but part of a plan, The mountains and valleys, the plain and the sea. Days of storm, nights of stars, are variety's plea. Man may look out on nature and revel in love ; Or if nature's o'er cast, he may visit above ; May choose like flowers the dew and the light; But it never was meant, he should sink into night. The soul grows in winter as well as in summer, Mid absence of flowers and joyous song, Life was meant to be lived without fret or murmur. Night, day, rest, action make it grow strong. Then why garner care and why borrow sorrow? Why should we burden ourselves with pain ? Life was meant to be sweet, a dream of pleasure, Happy day, each tomorrow should bring again! OLD AND NEW I have often thought I should like to speak And give the people my views. But a present fear Ever held me in check. The fear it might not be news. Or be error, instead of the truth. For the worthiest scientist, Learned as he is, fathers Many a dictum that's false; The philosopher's logic frequently is More worthless than dumpings of dross. 3b Even wise schoolmen's teachings, Great thoughts in their way Are mortal as plainly we see. They perish as fashion, fads of a day. Short lived, lacking merit to stay. Unnumbered the books. Dead, thrown aside, Crowded out by the latest, the true. That suffer decay as leaves of the wood To be followed again by the new. Life, continuing problem, new to old. Develops by action, hearing things told. It must be so, infant born and taught. Experience gained, hard struggles fought, Earth's passing sons will buffet and praise The fads of fashion, man's labor and plays; For growth each has room, each room for his say, A crown waits on worth at the end of each day. AFTER THE NUPTIALS On my face friends say there's a shadow. In my heart I know there's an ache So young, scarcely out of my mayday, Sure to grief life is early awake. A haze dims at times the eyes seeing From the vale of the heart, mists of pain Hang over the soul, as in summer On mountains clouds gather and rain. So late life was brimful of pleasure, My soul bathed in hope at high tide ; Disappointment has changed the sweet measure Love died, when I knew him as bride. The law says we are one, two a unit. So unlike, is it submission or strife? 37 Trees in winter live on — can that be it, Only winter the rest of my life? No! No! I will smile in his absence Will sing till my heart's summer glad ; Self-conquered will then, bear his presence, He surely is not wholly bad. He has faults, many faults, am I perfect? No ! our schooling's been equally bad The dainty, the timid are apt to expect Too much from the average grown lad. After fame, merged in business, strong And self-willed the lord of creation, a man, To further his purpose drives things along Unmindful of aught save his plan. I will find the ideal his brain and his heart, Have enshrined in their innermost fold; I'll become what he thought me; the part Of his life, when he chose me, thought me pure gold. I'll conform to his wants as an animal should, He reigning husband, I will reign wife; Mind matching mind, our world shall be ruled With no servile descent to the low plain of strife. Our faults and virtues shall common appear 'Till faults are evolved from physical life Then neither need reign, or prate about sphere ; For he shall be husband and I shall be wife. 38 THE UBIQUITY AND WASTE OF LIFE God sows the earth with human life, As a farmer broadcasts grain, Each struggles to'ard the end of strife, Thru sunshine, storm and rain. The seed may drop in goodly soil, Or fall by the wayside bare, May feed the birds, or blight may spoil Or fruit for the kings own fare. So man is dropped in every zone On island, land and sea But if he grows, must win a home For self and family. Igloo, Tepee or Manor Hall May house a babe at birth , That lives to age or dies in youth. Worthless or full of worth. Wide is the waste where'er the eye Earth's fields of life discern, Wise fostering care and cruel waste Law rules with unconcern. Sweet over all abounding grace And tender love is shown. His plan includes the human race Aim high and reach a throne. THE TOILER How monotonous, common and little Most lives on this planet have been. Did we live before we came hither, 39 Will a fuller life ever begin ? Around all the people seem common Are alike as the days and the years Hard toilers on levels low, human, Dowered equal with joys and fears. Great statesmen all live at a distance, Great authors are all bound in books. The soul has a scant, hard existence, There is sameness in clothing and looks. Sun to sun is the measure of labor For shelter and three meals a day An evening sometimes with a neighbor Rest and pleasure are scanty, our way. Life and state questions all come to us, Perplex us and harry us too, It's this way and that way schools teach us False theories outnumber the true. We toil, we achieve, we are victors. Life goes on with its clatter and grind Rejoice, no toiler is hopeless. Conscious greatness in effort all find. Few questions in this world are settled, To be answered, they come day by day. From each is an answer expected To the questions we face on our way. We toil we achieve we are victors — Unknown and nameless quite true — Like the soldiers of old, the king's lictors; Mostly nameless — fame fathers so few. The tasks of the world are heavy Cruel masters are numerous too; The life of each toiler's made dreary With a task that will never be through. We delve and we toil for the nation ! 40 For the people dig graves and plant yew. Few, few roll in wealth, have position, Strange, the mass ever shouts for the few. Great leaders of men have their frailties The mass blindly follows the few Often hid by a mask, the real face is, Actors oft make the false seem the true. So blindly we toil, trust and follow, While the spoils are shared by the few We murmur, we toil, yet are victors, Are victors in spite of the few. GOD WALKS EVERY SEA With the prow of my ship Toward the land of Hope I shall sail and sail But ever the far away Recedes, to land I fail Yet my heart keeps stout With the love I meet As I go on. Earth's evenings and mornings Ever are sweet to look upon. Though real our dreams May never become Let us murmur not. God's daily gifts for us Are best, though we choose not. Though in fancy's ships we drift Afar, far out on some Uncrossed sea; From love and care we can never Be lost for, God walks every sea. 41 SPIRIT HOSPITALITY A soul was host to my soul one day, At a Royal Feast of thought, the whole Sweet, delicate, pure as the truths The Incarnate teacher taught. Our lamps of life in heart, in brain burn bright, Like light revealing sun and stars, to common sight, Warming this chill earth where we live Till sometimes it is blossom bright. The feast was royal, yet simply served ; No show or clatter of plate observed ; Mind's native products of fruit and bread. From experience and larder of learning were spread. The courses each, were of facts the best. Gleanings of discontent and rest From highest down to simplest. Our consomme, broth of joys that die When youth dreams visit no more life's sky. Stern truths were our meat, with hunger blest Garnished with wit the daintiest. Our pickles, mustard, and olives green Were the sour yield of what might have been. Wisdom the waitress, shy sweet maid. Served largess of pastries, none mislaid. Ripe berries of hope, by good will brought, Were served as dessert with the cream of thought. Our wine, heart vintage, the purest earth sees, (Such as never grows stale or sinks to the leas), Slaked our thirst, as some cool spring at dawn Refreshes the life of a hunter chased fawn. It was June, sweet season of leaf and bloom. Rare beauty graced all that was said ; Life fragrance sent up its sacred perfume, At this feast of the heart and the head. We talked of the past, of paths we had trod, 42 Of hope and defeat, of the great love of God, Of birth and life's ultimate goal, Of dreams of the future ; the slow growth of good ; The perils of living ; the tides in the blood ; Speech blossomed like prayer in each soul. In bodies Plebeian here, royal souls reign, Yet ancestry of spirit in this life shows plain. Flesh at times feels the power of glory to come — Beauty of holiness smites sometimes each home. A LOST FRIEND I would wreathe my cup of sorrow today, O, bring me an evergreen bough ; Tho love lights my soul with beautiful ray Yet I weep o'er a lost friend now. I know each cup must be drained some day To the bottom, so bitter and black, The sorrows of life are tapers they say, Hope lights when the lost comes back. My life was full of the beautiful, Till I lost thy sweet face from my sky, Now silent and still I wonder at will And the empty world whispers, why? why? TO A PRUDE Are you waiting, are you waiting. Are your sweet lips yet unkissed. Are you still love's promise keeping Are you faithful to your tryst? Swift the long years have been flying Graying hair and dimming sight; Is your heart in silence crying, 43 Will my true love come tonight? Faultless man and perfect lover You demanded in your youth Men are clay the whole world over None are perfect, sad the truth. Day to day a sweet speech utters, Night to night doth knowledge show Life is fleeting, you're in fetters To a folly fast or slow. This is earth — beyond is heaven! Live this life the earthly way, Loyal to it don't abuse it Wisdom clothes each soul in clay. Patient wait till you reach heaven The spirit place prepared for you Pure soul air, flesh cannot breathe it Why spoil this and that life too ? Patient learn earth's common lessons, Duty daily waits on you. Finish earth tasks, go to heaven. When you've nothing else to do. THOUGHTS ON CREATION {After Reading Hugh Millers Works) Some thinkers who were doubters, Others, mighty men of faith, Through geologic wonders Each blazed a several path. Some marveled at creation, 44 ( Christened Nature, Child of Time, Faith shouted to the end of ways, Earth's Maker is Divine! It must be so, whate'er befell, Creation was a miracle. Fully recorded — note the fact — The record's equal to the act. In rocky volumes fold on fold. Thru centuries igneous, vaporous, cold, A faithful record has been kept, Before man came and while he slept, In beetling clifF and rocky fold. We read the record clear and old. From tertiary to Silurian, From radiate Mollusk up to man. Earth's fauna-dawn marked by a star; Of starry type first creatures were. Not chance — this star in Nature's plan, Star blazoned came the Son of Man; For not alone in shales and mould, In glacial beds and bogs that hold Great coal deposits; slaty fold; In bones and caves, and finds of old Is creation's story told. The night of chaos heard the living word, "Let there be light!" It was the Lord. The primal elements. Law gript at birth. Creation staggered not in coming forth. Order established, the whole plan defined, In unions primal elements combined. Each simple factor was an agent sent To do his will, accomplish his intent. To each its duty wisdom preassigned, His voice its law, from atom to mankind. Man, favored one, created with a mind. Law unto self, above earth's common kind. 45 From lowest cell, up, up, pray scan A flawless wisdom marks the plan ; No breaks, no leaps, no chasms wide, No unbridged gulfs have been descried Along the long creative way From formless night to finished day. Simple to complex, rising yet, A gradient scale doth upward set, Broad, perfect plans from base to top, Creation widens grandly, moving up. It starts with chaos and ascends, But no man knoweth where it ends. For earth is but a little world 'Mongst countless planets orbit hurled. Man on probation ever restless here, His spirit thirsting for some other sphere. Verdure with thallogens begins Ending with forest exogens. From radiates on, past quadrupeds. Each kingdom filled with wondrous breeds, From living atoms to vast saurians, Each in its order came, and followed on Enriched from work by predecessors done. Tho some place microbes under ban. Asserting they were made to injure man. Instinct unerring — if you please — Wild natures follow, none deceives. No error marks the Maker's plan. At least before creating man. Man came with hope and inspiration, The crowning creature of creation. Free to ascend to heights divine Or herd below as common kine. Birds build their nests, nor reason why. Build perfect first time — never try To improve the comfort or the health Nor theorize on style or wealth, 46 With native sense of sanitation They need no tips from civilization. They do not toil, just build and sing, Untroubled about nest or song; Their impulse is the joy of spring, Nature's great heart beats kind and strong. No sullen worker mars the throng. Man freely theorizes this or that, Toils and destroys, destroys and builds, To attain the perfect labors, wills. Tries theory this and theory that, Till courage fails or reason wins. Chooses, discards — is child of doubt — Dreams of a life to be fairer than this ; Refuses present joy for next life's bliss. He studies Nature to find Heaven out. Marching life's pathway thru creation, still Leads to the temple of love's sovereign will. O, searcher after truth, move up, move on Until life's goal is gained, Hope's promise seldom comes to naught When every nerve is strained. Endowed with trust and earnest faith That we shall live beyond earth's death ; To make for sin some expiation, What toils we do, what pains we bear, Heedless our loss of pleasure here. Aspiring to some other sphere Where life, that here owns scarce a day Goes on forever — spurns decay. Man toils and troubles from his birth A painful worker on the earth ; Bold critic, questioner of creation, Proud boaster of a civilization Oft retrogression marks his way, Tho forward striving hard to go, 47 With soul unrest he's troubled so — About some future state, it is true, If death ends all, he cannot enter into. Expectant one, sad, sad 'twill be If life hereafter's not for thee. If prayer's unheard; if faith's a lie; Mission's a failure ; hope a cry. What toil, forethought, and preparation Goes waste, if vain is expectation About one's self, and every nation. Such loss makes loss an aggregation Too painful for just contemplation. Shall God keep faith with other creatures And not with man who bears his features ? Shall bee and dormouse lay in store Supplies if winter comes no more? Instinct or reason — ^just the same — Both from one common author came. THE GOOD IS ALWAYS IN SIGHT The stream of trouble runs always full. Its current flows deep and wide. Life's good, life's evil, are the banks That lie on either side. Adrift on the current or stranded in ill, Whenever you long for the right, Lift your eyes and look to the other bank, The good is always in sight. 48 THOU SPEAKEST TO ME When truth breaks in the quickened conscience starts, Dear Lord, thou dwellest in believing hearts; Thou speakest to me. Thru spirit, nature, sun and stars apart. Thru life in death, thy lessons reach the heart, Thou speakest to me. Above the roar of life, thy voice still and small Visits each conscience with potential call; Arise, be free, O, child of God! Thy father speaks to thee. ARCTIC LOVERS As the needle seeks the pole So in love soul seeketh soul. Across the white wide waste of snow The wild wind sobbing went While pallid stars to cheer the night Thru silent space their ghostly light On waste of ice, and wealth of snow In blinding dimness sent. With swift reindeer, all clad in fur His sweetheart bound to see; A fearless lover bold of heart Sped o'er an icelike sea. A distant light, (unseen as yet) Already cheered his heart For by it with a gentle face His sweetheart stood apart. Each felt life's ruddy current swell And of the other' thought; 49 Sweet telepathic messengers To each love's message brought. The auroral light in rosy beams Glowed as the dawn when near And like the Lark his heart awoke Love's song rose sweet and clear. "Wild is the trail over the snow My sweetheart's lodge doth my reindeer know. Winter hath locked in ice the streams; My heart is so warm with love, it seems The winter must go, the north-land streams In beauty shall flow like summer-land dreams. Melt treasures of snow, O, winds of the north Blow warm, break forth in zephyrs sweet and low; I am nearing my heart's desire Nearing my love I know. I am nearing her icy home — The gray wolf follows my heels Wild is the trail I roam No hunger no cold your lover feels: His courage is true and tried And his heart grows warm As he nears his bride. As the needle seeks the pole I seek my bride, my soul, My summer-soul in the north." He ceased; the song committed to air. She stood in her ice thatched home Smoothing her tresses of hair. She stood in her distant home Simple and sweet and meek The unheard song had come Thru leagues of wintry air. Its welcome glowed on her cheek, Its spell was thrilling her there. 50 "A soul touched mine" — she sighed, "Thoughts burn in my brain, burn my ear — Give words, sweet words, to my speech Is my lover afar or near? Yet his presence, no sense reveals." Thus a message of far away friends Spite of space conditions, one feels. Surprised, she paused a little space, Nor thought of her raven hair. Fresh roses bloomed on her face Unharmed by the wintry air. Then suddenly to'ard the South she turned The blinds removed a mite — Opened the rose-buds of her mouth And thus her song took flight. "My waiting is over — is over — My heart hunger soon will be past For my lover is coming, is coming. My lover is coming, at last. The North light is smiting the winter, Ice, snow, feel earth's heart beat at last. Strong currents of love in me center My lover is coming at last. I hear the wild wolf in the distance His reindeer like hope travels fast, All earth stirs with life's new existence My lover is coming at last. Joy, joy, my heart cannot measure No more kisses of love to the blast My senses all reel with sweet pleasure Returned is my lover at last." The two songs met upon the icy waste Fused and were one like spirits in embrace Scarce from her casement had the last note died Ere in his arms the lover held his bride. 51 SINGING BROOK {Idle-Wild — Indiana ) Go abroad — Where should we roam? Why search every foreign nook, When we have right here at home Nature's favored, singing brook. Between low hills it goes alone, Tuneful down its path of stone; While thrush on bush and lark on high Rapture proclaim to field and sky. Graceful willows guard thy banks; Modest wild flowers, rank on rank, Lift their dew-cups to the sun. Fragrance dowering music's run. While the red bird brings his song To the open, where the throng, Robins, wrens, song sparrows, meet To make spring's madrigals complete. Brimming like nature, here and there. Children catch gladness from the air; While age, recalling springtimes gone. Scans time's wide sky for signs of dawn. Run, brook, sing on! Pour all your trills, Stirring each heart till joy spills Thy nature songs in every ear. Winning our lives from doubt and fear. TRANSFIGURATION Daylight was dying beyond the dark clouds That skirted the western horizon. Which the sun made bright with glorious light 52 Beyond aught, I had ever set eyes on. Entranced and amazed, I saw as I gazed, Rough torn clouds transformed into splendor; I said in my heart, "The Good Lord be praised, For this lesson of which He is mentor." When our day ends on earth and we enter the night May the sin-clouds and chill mists that blind us, Like the sunset to night with a glorified light Transform things in beauty behind us. THE JOURNEY O'er stretches sweet of childhood days, Across the years of dream and haze, Through youth's wild ways I traveled on Toward reason and ambition's dawn. Through schools of learning on I went, On wisdom, fame and wealth intent. Toward love and ease and sweet content I journeyed on, Dreaming of heavenly blessings lent, When toil is done. I met the world, experience came; Mingled were voice of praise and blame Success and failure just the same. Rose gardens, battle fields of flame Life journeys on, sound foot or lame. Abraham went forth of old, we're told, Not knowing where he went. We travel too, like him of old. Dim conscious that we are sent. We journey on, though lights go out, Where paths are plain, or lost the route, With friends and foes, from vale to height, S3 We journey toward the Infinite, Across the fleeting years we go, God made the world and willed it so. Voices unknown, unheard, control The subtle powers of heart and soul; Impelling forces lead us on. Forever toward some future dawn. The eye beholds no guiding star, Hope's continent lies ever far; Yet full of faith, I journey on Across earth's night, to meet the dawn. Life's cup of zest is never dry, Though time, desire, and senses fail, The stream that fills it heads on high. And toward that fount this life's the trail. So ever I look to the hills of hope, Whence the sunset glories burn, I shall there or beyond, find wider scope, I shall enter and never return. BE OF GOOD CHEER Why do we sob in flats. And wail in minor keys? Men with immortal hopes. Alone waste time on these, Sad comfort find in these. Repentance is unknown In Nature's wide domain, Man weeps, and man alone Courts sorrow, grief and pain; To sorrow turns for gain. 54 Nature for joy was made, Man fears even hope will fade. God's child, earth's highest made. Alone is doubt's low slave. Each dawn the air is full of song, All earth awakes to happy life, The west is full of glory When night gives rest from strife. There is no end to life. REMEMBERED Oft while dreary night is passing Thru the realms of silent space; I am musing, guarding, keeping, Memory watch for some sweet face. And at times from starlit spaces. Dreamlike floating from above; Greeting, beckoning, smiling faces. Strengthen, cheer me with their love. Friendship's faces, love's dear faces, Shrined within the Soul's embraces. Full of youth's immortal graces. Lost to earth's accustomed places. Joy, I know they still remember Trysts of earth and hearth stone ember; Wait our coming, lost loved faces From below, to soul embraces. What seems broken, lost and buried In life's night on earth; Lives redeemed, somewhere is cherished, All life's lovely things of worth. 55 DUAL LIVING We scatter frowns, we scatter smiles, Play hawk as well as dove; We curse, we praise, in cruel heedless ways We spoil both hate and love. The deeds we do, the words we say, Life's actions one and all, As on we go from day to day, Are mostly dwarfed and small. And yet at times the dullest eye In purest light swims round; And often mid life's commonplace, Sweet blooms of thought are found. The plainest face boasts sweetest charms If lighted from within; The hardest heart oft fruits in love Between great acts of sin. We call this good, we call that bad, Oft knowing both misnamed. Teach hearts a wider charity. Too frequently we are blamed. For right or wrong the standard waves; On which side do you train? Let's oftener take account of stock, And know our loss and gain. Cease to do evil as you can — Life's highest end's not pelf. Mankind will never be reformed 'Till each reforms himself. 56 WHAT WILL THE ANSWER BE? In the shadows of the evening, When life shall near its end, Will your daily acts of living Give you sorrow then, my friend? Will our earth joys rise, accuse us, With a fevered heart's unrest. Or with patient love excusing, Make us think we did our best? Will friends regret they knew us When the past is turned to clay. That we shared our simple joys. Making glad life's passing day? Will some be grieved and sorry Who ranked you as a friend, When the now becomes a memory, Will they blame you or defend? Every word shall rise in judgment, Every act once done shall stand, Will they change from sweet to bitter As we near that other land? There intent will be the question That decides the right or wrong. Was the motive low or lofty. Was the purpose weak or strong? Was the reason choked with error, Was the conscience sent away. Or was life allowed its living In the proper human way? 57 Our influence is immortal! Serious each word and deed; And our souls are big, or little; According to our creed. We are human, yet immortal, While the soul is clothed in clay. We are God's and yet, we are mortal, Living cheaply every day. We can frame no answer squarely To life's questions, as they come, Sense and courage oft are lacking And we dodge our duties some. But I pray you tell me truly, That is, truly as you can. Will you blame me or defend me. When in judgment we shall stand? HEART TO HEART My heart is tender and sweet My eyes are moist with tears I bear the solicitude of love Sweet burden of questions and fears You cannot come to me, I cannot go to you For who can contravene life's law That veils the soul from view? Alone I feed on memories sweet And delicate hopes the soul's own meat That will keep me strong until we meet As lovers may on the crowded street To smile and pass, or stroll and talk, In meadow ways or woodland walk; When the heart may know and enjoy its own In rifts of barriers round life thrown. For one short hour is longer far Lived soul to soul than life of star. 58 LIFE [Life is more than a chunk of intellect Sent into the ivorld to be entertained.'^ Out of the heavens as falls the snow Souls come down to the children of earth. Flakes of life from the bosom of God Sent to quicken an earth cold clod; With warmth of Deity all aglow, The soul is planted in human birth. Delicate plants in unkindly soil Where winters are long and heavy the toil How shall ye grow how shall ye grow In a world of trouble and want and woe Where air and earth and the waters beneath Are hostile to life, are friendly to death? Yet, ever the edict is come and grow, And ever the edict is come and go! The cry of an infant heard in the night A wailing cry in a hapless fight Life's span too narrow to reach the dawn The light of life in the night withdrawn. Yet, under the edict of Come and grow And under the edict of Come and go This life is entered for short or long For toil and sorrow or service of song. To eyes of all living the light is sweet Tho shadows often, lie deep at our feet. Battalions of evil united are joined, While forces of good are a volunteer band. Life's battle means death, cripples and wounds Means heroes, a few for whom glory abounds. Every creature a cripple, all flesh full of scars; 59 Life itself a caged bird ever beating its bars. The conflict is bitter 'twixt evil and good, Man must grow (if he grows) by might of his blood. In body and character, spirit and might Ever breasting some storm ever facing the light; Man must grow (if he grows) by might of his blood. Thru sunshine and storm like an oak of the wood. Out topping his fellows in virtue or crime, His head swathed in clouds or a nimbus divine; Man must follow or lead and leaders are few, Where dim is the light, the false often seems true. In our conflict with error, darkness and doubt, If we follow the true, the false we may rout. A smile conquers more than stoutest of swords. Deeds, silence, count more than weapons or words, Though short, life is roomy and fairly supplied With aches, pains and tears, love and joy beside, With passions of evil, emotions of good, Life's shore line is washed by tides in the blood. The image each worships is found in the heart. Be it silver or gold, be it science or art. Be man cruel or selfish or lover of kind. The God that is worshipped in each heart we find. By choice life grows, growth depends upon food. By choice man grows toward evil or good. Under law life is spirit with matter combined, Hence a limit to freedom in nature we find ; Law limits the burden and length of the road; Love sweetens the service when part of the load. Man may grow love and hope till servitude past 60 Then in pure light of freedom and wisdom may bask. Evil thoughts on heart and face leave a stain, Pure thoughts, sweet the face, and happy the brain. Life's a mission of duty an errand of trust, A foot path o'er mountains thru valleys of dust. Bread and water of life are everywhere found On which man may feed, standing feet on the ground. Be life happy or sad depends on the man, Depends on subserving or spoiling God's plan; A plan that is plain as His law or the sun Or hope in the hearts of His children, each one. It includes the life now the life whence we come And at last the sweet joy of again life at home. BEAUTIFUL WOMEN I have tested the light for fifty years And my eyes are keen and bright There is beauty in the face of a child As well as the man of might, But a rarer beauty Nor less uncommon. Is the peerless beauty Of a sweet old woman. A nimbus of patience frames the face The life well ripened is full of grace And the heart once narrow, grown warm and wide Has room for all, like the old fireside. To children and friends And guests in common There's no face like the face Of a pure old woman. 6i On the train I've seen her look fresh and clean When every one else looked fretful and mean. A humble soldier of troubles and cares Whose heart kept sweet thru bitter years. Thru life's low stretches So dusty and common, None carries a face Like a saintly old woman. Deep eyes and wrinkles there may be too A worn old face but the lights shine thru; Sweet light from the stars of hope and faith And a love for man like the Savior hath. Before her beauty Youth beauty is common I bow at the feet Of a grand old woman. Old sweethearts with faces full of charms In a world of trouble, wounds and harms This world is better because of you The beyond more real, its promises true. There's a light in thy face That is wholly uncommon, I'm a child in the presence Of God's old women. WASTED OPPORTUNITIES When the young earth was finished And rolled at God's feet; And measured by wisdom All things were complete. With their garden enclosed And planted to hand — With duties assigned All lovingly planned. It would seem. Eve and Adam 62 Without taint of blood, Had openings in life That were roomy and good. But they wasted their chances, And evil entailed On the whole human race; In Eden man failed. From perfection once fallen Soon sin grew so rank, That the whole earth polluted In God's nostrils stank. Then the angels went searching And would you believe? But one family they found On the earth fit to live. Six score years brave Noah Derision withstood 'Till the world's laugh Was hushed in the Earth's cleansing flood; And then faith's old hero At whom the world railed, — O, fate to be wept o'er — In the restored earth, he failed. Pray next trace the promise To patriarchs good. That a rich land He would give To the sons of their blood. From the Egypt to Canaan Of each human race From the aim to be good To the end in disgrace By achievements in ruins Life's history we trace. Israel willed to do good. But thru weakness entailed — Tho God tarried with him, 63 In Canaan man failed. In the Church partial failure! He's a failure in state Though fair in aught else As a failure he's great. Unsettled his science Uncertain his praise Obscure too, the meaning In much that he says. Tho a possible god, Man is generally so thin. That he ranks as a symbol For failure and sin. ARE YOU DOING YOUR BEST? White are the ashes of many a thought That has burned in the brain. Foolish ambitions for which men have fought Dismal their trails of pain. Desolate victories genius hath won Lacking a noble aim. Gardens of hopes lie withered and dead Loves neglected and slain, Strewing the pathway of many a life. Wreckage of heart and brain. Low aims — O, doubts, ye have hurt the world More than swords and spears. The Atheist's laugh has bruised more hearts Than the burdens of all the years. Awaken, O Souls! Why live like moles On the bitter roots below. Up, up to the top, where flowers and fruits. In rich abundance grow. 64 Wayside shrines I have seen a corpse on a cross, Hanging stormbeaten, wasted and dread; Arise — look beyond the image of loss And the living Christ worship instead. Empty grave, an angel, burial clothes, God's Son is risen the whole world knows! Fuller life is waiting for thee. The battle is won over death and sin; Accept Him, Salvation is free! Love's triumph, o'er sorrow is tender and sweet; Heirs of joy in heaven are we. MY PALACE OF ART Many and great are the halls of art In cities old and new Where mangled statues stand for art And out of old canvas baked faces start At the wide-eyed visitors' view. There is never a heart In those forms of stone From within no light on the face ; On smoky canvas though ever so old, Only color and form we trace — At best but a painted face. When chisel or brush has done its best On landscape group or head Tho the effort live — a work of art, 'Tis a corpse with the spirit fled Some unit of nature dead Shrouded in curves of beauty Or smothered in painter's red. But in memory's hall my statues all Are the living forms of friends 65 The faces there never stonily stare For soul is never lacking where, We give and take as friends. There memory dowers life. The heart is the home of friends we love Where faces keep warm and bright There they are never averted When troubles come, In the face of a friend there is light. A SURFEIT OF EVIL The brain of the world is troubled, The heart of the world is sick. There is doubt, unrest and worry. Great evils, grave rumors fly thick. Thru press and currents electric, Deeds of darkness stalk into the light; Earth's cruelty bloodshed and passion; All nations and parties in fight. Even love once so sweet and delicious Is despoiled of her worship and charms ; Faith, Hope, man's archangels of mercy Seem to droop in the world's weary arms. Life's hurry and worry and friction Increase as the days that are flown; Peace comfort are dreams of delection With Hail! Farewell! and are gone. Invention and civilization Have so widened our knowledge of crime. That our brains and hearts with the poison Seem injured and tainted for time. 66 Why feast we on lust, crime and passion When the beautiful, good and true Wait above and around in profusion To refresh our parched souls with their dew. Virtue never improves on bad knowledge Vice never reforms painted red. Hearts that ache least and beat longest Must on wisdom and patience be fed. Providence is not a power that apportions, To each age and each life its ill. Men rebel, choose plenty and bondage, Then He leadeth them out as He will. THE BETTER COUNTRY November winds rave through the sky Stripping nature and leaving her cold The wild birds complainingly cry As their southward journey they hold. The kingliest trees on the hills Have shaken their coronals down The voice of the streams and the rills Is sad and the meadows are brown. Thru the kindliest days of my youth The fever of waiting hath swept And life's summer alas for the truth Over error and wrong I have wept. And now with the winter so near Like the wild birds complaining I cry For a home in a sunnier sphere With the River of Life flowing by. 67 CREATION'S MASTERPIECE For this human flesh that binds Us immortals to the earth Lord we thank thee for thy kindness Making souls of priceless worth. For endowing man with reason To all other flesh denied: For setting them in families Planning husband, planning wife. Creation's crowning masterpiece With breath of God for life. Man born to rule — yet called to serve, Thy path ahead is rife With promises of happiness To the faithful here in life. Human flesh is honored truly By its maker and its Lord : 'Bove flesh of beast or flesh of fish 'Bove flesh of soaring bird. For tho he's tethered to the flesh He's heir and— Child of God. Yet sometimes here man lives so low He seems an earthly clod. HEART STORIES The earth is full of glories From sky, in woods and streams, Men's hearts are full of stories, Men's brains are full of dreams. Though brain and heart may perish, Earth's glories be forgot, Mind-dreams and true heart stories, Live on and perish not. 68 ORIGIN AND DESTINY These questions arise universal, Our whence, our whither and why, Life's origin, fable, and mystery Its duration a span of the sky, Then, disorganized losing identity, Whither goes life, when we die ? Science prates about Monads, and Molecules Of cells, protoplasm and mud. Declares evolution a great law of progress, Controlling life currents of blood, Preaches choice and natural selection, Credit strength with Caliban-purpose To achieve all ultimate good. The procession is lengthy eternal, Its head in the glory on high. While the tail follows on woe bedraggled Through palace and stable and stye. Hoary time alone knows the struggle — Heard each death groan evolve a new cry. I pause, I ponder, I question, I am — came some way I know. Earth's myriads, endless succession, In one cosmos of conflict and law. While I pause and ponder and question, The procession moves on toward some goal, Not the hope of an earth born desire But the home, spirit home of the soul. Dower chance, with the grace of creation Or to matter, adjudge the vast plan. But for me, I accept the all Father, Who breathed his own spirit in man. 69 TOUCH There is no weakness in a fond caress The soul doth leap to taste The ripened richness Of clean sweet lips. Fair cheeks turn white, A tremor shakes the frame, How good from willing lips A kiss to claim. The eloquence of touch Enchains the soul; What subtle charms Doth every sense control; Blest aid to sight, To hearing and to speech, The soul thru thee Its highest joy may reach. TIME Time, the destroyer, is ever at work. Spoiling the sunshine, spoiling the dark. Filling the day with wrinkles and cares, Filling the night with shadows and fears, Wrecking the ships on every sea. Hurling to ruin the cities we see. Cooling the sun, shrinking the stars And wasting life with direst wars. But death is only change in form. The thing essential suffers no harm; Life, beauty, in fresher forms appear, Law clothes the earth anew each year. 70 Succession, ever from old to new, Atom and planet and starry crew Circle and roll in grand review, With naught but the master's will to do. Matter only is wrecked by time. The spirit in love to God will climb And enjoy the angel's happy clime, Unharmed by the eating tooth of time. JOY IS IMMORTAL All songs of woe are earthly songs That perish with the flight of years But joy pours her immortal songs Like sunlight through this vale of tears. Decay and death reign everywhere In bud and blossom fruit and tree Love, faith, hope, goodness 'scaping free Assert our immortality. All odes of death are muffled strains That echo from earth's Cemetery Where mother nature calls and keeps Our cold dust when in death it sleeps. But life and hope and love On lark wings soars above Where Joy immortal reigns Completes all broken strains. Sweet faces all restored No death where love is Lord The immortal ship on board Bears joy complete unmarred. 71 EVOLUTION OR KISMET With what is nature satisfied? Summer says production. Presto change — the seasons glide, Winter says destruction. Birth and death mark the extremes Of the path she travels. Whence the birth or why the death. Are knots she ne'er unravels. Back and forth the shuttle goes Thru each changing season; Nature is never satisfied, It's plain she does not reason. Prithee, what are nature's laws? God's fiat, repetition, The evolution of a plan, The freedom of rotation. LOVE CASTETH OUT FEAR The sun each morning comes anew To drive the night away, But love once welcomed to the heart Abideth night and day. Both fear and hate are dispossessed Yet there's no vacant room When love first fills the human breast, Then life bursts into bloom. THINGS WE REALLY KNOW How few are the things That we really know Compared with the many We dimly perceive. How seldom the light 72 Strong and clear, breaks thru Our shadows and doubts And shines where we live. We sigh for the hill tops All flooded with light That lie in the distance So grandly in view Like the dawn of tomorrow To reach them alas! Some valley, some night Must be surely passed thru. In the valleys malaria is rank, And fevers consume in each vale Life perishes rank upon rank. Ere the lift of the foothills we hail The nights are noxious with dews Death rests the mass ere the dawn ; Few indeed struggle on to the heists Which the light rests in glory upon. WE SEE DIMLY Man's vision's dim he cannot see The hand that shapes his destiny; Something elective in the soul. Some power elusive gains control And shapes the life. Logic our slave, prates, prophecys Of downward slant or upward rise, Asserts a bent, declares to know The future way the man will go; It may be so. Man's life is short, pray who can see The hand that shapes eternity? 73 Yet onward ever all things go, The master spirit wills it so; Controls the bent. Aeons of years have come and gone, The seasons unperturbed roll on, Yet each age boasts above the past. His generation beats the last. And bides content. EVER IN DEBT Alone I fall, alone I cannot rise, A God must lift me if I reach the skies. From heaven man came down to earth. To go to heaven lacks both strength and worth. As babe I rested on my mother's knee, As boy I courted wisdom, shouted free ! As man grew boastful, arrogant and proud, School trained became both vain and loud, Loss, sickness, out one cannot fence. Experience only, dowers us with sense. THE LIFE TRAIL From the past to the present Our life-trail extends; thence To some future point, where it ends. What beautiful stretches Of plains and of hills Of valleys and mountains Each span of life fills. Many moons give their light Many nights full of stars Shed their beams on this trail Thru life's struggles and scars, 74 A generous light from the sun day by day Makes surer, lighter each step on the way. Low and sweet voices whisper—^ The hopes of the years To the heart when it is sad To the brain's troubled fears. Rare blossoms of friendship, Warm hand clasps of love, Are the traveler's birthright While faith points above. No pilgrim journeys the life trail alone. A friend goes with each ; of old it was penned, "Lo, I am with you alway unto the end." GATHERING TRUTH The stars of the night are many The light of the day is the sun. The brains of the world are many The mind of the world is one. Each brain has its noons of fever Its nights of fret and doubt In gathering truth in limitless fields Which the infinite mind maps out. Incessant and sharp the struggle To grasp the infinite thought And seemingly ever beyond us Is the truth for which we wrought. Each brain's like an arid desert Where mirages of truth arise And reason and hope are pilgrims To the wells of the All Wise. Here single truths are oases 75 With refreshings for the soul, But we pant for the land of promise For truth, the infinite whole. THE TEACHER OF NAZARETH O, Thou for whom the whole creation yearned, From Adam's fall Till thou in Bethlehem wast born. The streams of mercy, truth, righteousness By primal purpose meant to water All the fields of life Had left their native channel beds. Seemed dried or turned aside Upon an ingrate world of bigotry. Of lust, cruelty and selfishness, Timely thy coming, thou didst find and feed The feeble streams of Faith and Hope, And put the stumbling feet of marching hosts Upon the way of righteousness and truth, And make thy followers victors over death. THIS EVERY DAY WORLD An endless procession of day and night A mighty procession of wrong and right A motley procession of black and white Is this every day world. Out into space who blazed this path? Here, why is goodness mingled with wrath? Pray make it plain whom wisdom hath To a waiting world. The schools of sense and sight, reply; The good or ill is in the eye. Things must be somehow — that is why, In a tangible world. God made it and pronounced it good 76 Though treason on It spawned his brood Yet God maintains his fatherhood Is faith's reply. God's plans immense are clear as light, Though here there is only part in sight ; Other horizons large in size The purpose shows to better eyes. O, mortal man move on, move on! This night of life leads to the dawn Where faith and hope and love regain The heights where all things are made plain. THE FIRST FROST, NATURE'S TRAGEDY White and cold lay the moonlight Over the earth all night As the frost king rode With his princes abroad To enjoy the wealth of the year. Bud and blossom he kissed There was nothing he missed But his breath was death To forest and heath As the nuts he untied with care. f He jeweled the earth with beauty rare. Too frail to last in the sun's full glare. Beauty-bubble of breath. For in it was death To the beautiful everywhere. When out of the east the morning came. There were bashful blushes of every beam That kissed the brow of the early dawn, Leaped to the earth ; passed on ; and on ; A procession of kisses rare. 77 On prisms of splendor the sunshsine fell, O, the wealth of that moment none may tell ; A flash of glory, a swift gleam lost, A year of labor that moment cost, The earth swung black and bare. How cruel it seemed as I walked around — The children of summer lay on the ground; They seemed, to say, "Deceived, robbed, slain. We trusted his kingship all in vain. He promised us beauty rare. His words were kingly under the moon We wantoned at night are lost ere noon; He scattered his jewels as if in fun. They blazed in the star-light every one Like diamonds in beauty's hair. With added charms we longed for day. When morning came they fled away, As the false always have done. They were counterfeit every one And their poison its work has done." Beware of the tempter that comes by night When stars swing low and moon is bright, For the night is for rest And the day is best To test the truth now here. THE GAME OF NATURE I see effect, I seek the cause, Am led by hope. Hemmed in by laws. 78 ihe mornings come out of the east The days go out in the west Long are the seasons of toil Short are the times of rest. Ever the seasons go round, The dates of birth and death, Earth-life comes out of the night And goes out in the night of death. So forever in dumb amaze I look the world in the face And ever of nature I ask What is the game she plays? And while I pause for reply, A cyclone girdles the earth Or in peace the nursing light To a myriad motes gives birth. I watch the forces that build The rocks, the flowers, the trees, Unbalanced swiftly destroy The beauty and strength of these. The flower fades from sight Ere I number its delicate hues; A star explodes its light And a point in space I lose. Mutations of good and of ill Beat on the feeble, the bold; The babe is bom into blight, Nature loves nothing that's old. And ever I question the cause Of the smile or the frown on her face And ever the earth replies — "Accursed, Fm a stranger from grace.' 79 So above or beneath I must look For a key, this riddle to ope; Since nature, in all the round world Feeds nothing immortal like hope. In succession no comfort I find Tho the type never suffers decay; Has the creature no prospect in death? Is wear out the toilers sole pay? The rocks urge their records in vain The sea adds a manifold store Locked in fate, under law written plain, Succession and death, nothing more. The unrest of the here, and the now. Is but changing of matter in form, Beyond the freed spirit shall stand Undimmed by mutation or harm. Earth arrangements are vast, I insist So I urge the whence, whither and why Nature, science, art, cannot know, They are bounded by sense, by the eye. Ever Sphinx like she looks into space. And her face too, by vandals is marred ; But to know why she smiles or frowns Man's wisdom has never unbarred. The savage and tender she feeds Alike nurtures serpent and dove; Her children are war, doubt, death; Her visitors faith, hope and love. From cradle to grave nature turns Her complex pageant of facts. Revealing enigmas extremes. Ever hiding the spring of her acts. Life is still neath its pillar of cloud; Still by reason and sight we are led, 80 Yet beast roar and bird cry are heard By Him from whose hand all are fed. God's voice the distant sun hears Is obeyed by wind, river and sea Tho, thru nature I cannot see God Yet nature thru God I shall see. Neath my feet on her way turns the earth ; I am conscious there is law in her flight; Tho perturbed and chancelike all seems, Wisdom governs I know, beyond sight. Let me visit the fountains and springs That lie hid beyond nature in cause: For study the earth as I will She reveals but a conflict of laws. There is much eye of flesh cannot see That is near, and yet beyond sight. Earth's kingdoms will not be explained 'Till with God we go forth in the light. HIDDEN WISDOM God hid a measure of Wisdom In nature according to plan; That it might honor its maker And nurture his creature man. He planned for rock and planet Took thought for seed and root Suited a voice to every mouth Made paths to fit each foot. Yet thru the springs I question Whether bud and leaf is all Only grasping the answer of purpose When I garner the fruits of fall. Then amazed I cease to question Why zones are hot or cool For above sits infinite wisdom 8i The earth is her foot stool. God provides for all the living In abundance, what is best, His open hand presents life's food- Never pitched in any nest. LOVE What is this that thrills me, fills me? Brimming like immortal nectar, Hebe gives the blest, Stirs me as new life the northlands At the South winds breath? Swift thru heart and brain joy flashes. All my nature yields; 'Till aswoon I seem to anchor In a sweet delicious languor In elysian fields. This is love I know its usage, Red-lipped kisses are its fruitage. While I pluck them soft caresses Spirit touches, rapturous presses. Waking life, new joy expresses, Rolls the eye in liquid seeing, O, the souls delicious dreaming When two hearts with love is teeming; Souls unmasked, Down a heavenly light comes stealing Depths of heart and soul revealing. All unasked. Love is the soul's gigantic effort To regain its lost completeness. To evolve life's bitter sweetness Here and now. 82 When in love God takes the measure For the crown He'll place hereafter On the brow. STORM LORE When great winds meet upon the sea And wild storms join in revelry When dark clouds roll and rain falls free And lightnings flash most terribly And the thunder speaks of eternity, Ah ! then on a steamer's deck you'll see Pale lips show deepest agony. For craven fear owns never a chart The bed of sickness is fear's own port When reason is dumb and faint the heart. But to those whose faith holds all in fee Sublime are the seasons of storm at sea. Then God sets his element wheels awhirl In His groves of coral and beds of pearl To fashion and polish the gems of the world. To polish rare jewels without a mote To glitter and glow on beauty's throat. To sweeten the waters so dark and deep To work His will, preserve and keep The life of the sea by the current's sweep. Land without water has little worth So clouds must be sent to all the earth ; Hence the sea toils hard, is nature's plant By wisdom planned to meet earth's want; Storms do the work that calm days can't. God strains Himself, as it seems to me. When he marshals His elements on the sea. In love? yes, love on the sea was born When red drops fell from a god's pierced form, Love, beauty was born on the sea. 83 When myth gods fought in passionate storm, Then Aphrodite of graceful form Was by crimson drops set free. Look again! look wider! O, man and see The path of the ransomed winds thru the sea. At last purged with fire on it shall stand The victors o'er evil with harp in hand, God's choir to honor the judge who will stand Right foot on the sea, left foot on the land. LIVING BOOKS Every life is a living book With pages large or small On every page God's eye will look Blank, blurred or written full. Like folds of earth our deeds Our thoughts, acts, even praying, To the Divine Judge life's story Will ever be portraying. The book of life the book of death In Egypt's rock hewn halls. Where ancient kings were laid to rest Is graven on their walls. There, we today may read, what they In pomp of life have done; And how men strove to show where they. The mighty dead have gone. Chisel and color on those tombs Show forty centuries past. How judges weighed the heart, the brain, The soul's life to forecast. They weighed, computed good and bad As shown in books of stone; The anxious judges' solemn looks Show by their acts, what's known. 84 So we toil, strive, seek, pray- In The Lamb's Book of Life To have recorded day by day Some victory over strife. The human struggle has been great To sight life's final goal And put at rest our anxious quest, The last state of the soul. PAST AND FUTURE All that is past is but a dream I dreamed, A dream of gardens full of sweetest bloom, A dream of youth and hope enkindling suns A dream of friendships, loves and pleasures past High aims and hopes elusive to the grasp. A dream of fame such as ambition craves Memories of aches, of sobs, and silent graves. The past's an ocean in the realm of time Flesh is its shoreline, blood of life its clime. Some day, sweet death shall cut The knot of life and set us free, The soul immortal is to life the fee. Then hope shall to the future point anew As fields of truth appear in clearer view. All that we knew before of past or dead, Shall in the future be uncovered. Here man dies daily both in head and heart At last makes room for those In this world's drama, who shall take a part. Sweet death shall some day cut the knot That tethers us to flesh and earthly quest. Life's fever over we shall cool and rest. Hope, truth and love import a higher zest; When we shall bathe beside the well of life Done with the chase and all unfruiting strife. 85 LOVE'S CALL The night-bird sings within the bower, Come dearest, come, this is the hour Love blossoms like the rose; The sun has set the stars are bright Soft, radiant glories fill the night With joys too sweet to lose. Surely to bless life's hours of shade, Such nights the stars and moon were made, All lovers love the moon, The world in bloom, a midnight flower, That blossoms an appointed hour. When all things are in tune. Speed, longing hearts, life's call attend. Love's Eden found shall never end, Creation bids us choose, Tho hope of heaven our souls command. No reason in this border land, Why we earth's joys refuse. LIFE AND KNOWLEDGE Two trees within the garden, we are told, Where Eve and Adam dwelt in days of old. Grew temptingly and fruited well. They of the Tree of Knowledge ate and fell. But from the Tree of Life, most strange to tell. Only the scent of hope with dreams immortal. Upon their ravished senses fell. Since then, the race of men with manifold Conjecture of what might have been; Had they too eaten of the other tree, We had escaped death's shadows; now be free To mingle life and knowledge with simplicity. 86 Since then, perplexed has been the race of men About the estate they lost ; the garden Eden ; About truth and life and immortality. But O, what ravishment of dreams, faith, hope, Have blessed our lost estate since then. And filled our souls with sweeter fragrance even, Blown o'er the earth by love's own breath From out the gates of heaven. THE ROAD TO VICTORY (These are they which came out of great tribu- lation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Rev. 7-I4-) History drips with the conflict of ages Trade is cruel with grinding for gain Schools, statesmen, the wisdom of sages Agree not, confuse heart and brain. Fad, passion, no sating appeases; Earth's tears are more bitter than brine; Yet the songs of believers grow sweeter, Love, faith, shall be victors in time. Lust of gain is stronger than life is. Each soul has its conflicts with sin. Men are mad with a madness that rages; Developed since God said — Begin! Men are cruel and yet, full of pity; Sometimes yielding a fragrance divine. There is nothing sweeter than love is. Faith, Love shall be victors in time. O, Savior of man, thou redeemer Of men from the ruin of dreams; Calling, come and with thee be partaker, Where heaven's sweet light sheds its beams. The promise is Thine, is no man's; 87 Of our victory Thy cross Is the sign ; Thy voice is sweeter than woman's, Faith, Love, shall be victors in time. GALILEE Dawn came, the sun had put to flight, The pomp of stars that filled the night, Our startled eyes looked on the sea, The hills, the plains of Galilee. A sacred stillness filled the air. His vanished voice seemed everywhere. There lay Bethesda, where the Lord, The blindman's eyes to sight restored. And in a desert place close by. Five thousand fed from scant supply. And there Capernaum on the rocks, Nestled midst herds and feeding flocks. There Jesus dwelt and mighty works did He, Sweet doctrine taught, rebuked the wind. And stilled the troubled waves of Galilee. There silent, white, upon a rocky pyramid, "A City set upon a hill cannot be hid." There from the fishes mouth a coin to pay Tribute to Caesar, met their need one day. And here, at gray of dawn, night's labor o'er. Came his sweet voice from fair Genesaret's shore, "Children have ye any meat?" They knew the Lord And plunging in some swam and Others rowed to reach the land. And there upon some smoking coals Broiled fish, with honey comb beside. To meet their wants; the Lord in love supplied. There from Gergesa's Tombs, they come The two, in whom, a legion devils dwelt at home. Demoniacs, exceeding fierce were they, 88 So none in safety mightest pass that way. Demons to obey the Lord, could not decline; But hastened forth and entered in the swine; Ran down the steep in hot satanic glee, And drowned themselves in placid Galilee. There near the shore, their Lord the men espied, Calling — ''Your net cast on the right side!" And from yon rising slope and rocky steep The faithful shepherd sought his wandering sheep, And in yon vale, wet with the dews of dawn, He praised the lilies above Solomon. NAZARETH Mary Virgin, blessed of God; How oft thy feet these streets have trod. The pleasing scenes thy hills unroll. Abound in feasts for heart and soul. Nature in kindliest mood compels Earth's simple charms to crowd thy dells. Along whose slopes wild blossoms run With painted cups to greet the sun; Tempting the eyes, the hands, the feet By object lessons, fresh and sweet. Thy circling hills, tho not sublime. Call lagging feet to upward climb To the horizon's wider rim; Whence, mind and soul ascend to Him Who came to earth a babe in flesh, Mothered of thee in Nazareth. Simple of life; thy kith and kin. To nature true — 'most free from sin. Fitting it was God's son should come. As Son of Man to Nazareth's home: Where kindly welcome, even yet. All Pilgrims to this village get. 89 The eyes are pleased by day, by night, 'Neath sun and cloud and starry light, That look on thee, from sheltered height Where modest women, as of old. From Mary's Fountain sweet and cold, Bear jars of water on the head Along thy streets with swinging tread; Noting, all wants are simply met, Sans pomp, or show in Nazareth yet. The curse of wealth, rests not on thee; Sweet, simple faith hath made thee free From cankering care and sordid fee; Thy crown is cordiality. THE WORK OF A CENTURY (Watching a century plant bloom) A hundred years of storm and sun Has built each thorny blade, Yet none except the hundredth one. This glorious bloom presaged. A hundred years with constant toil Thou hast drained the barren earth, Breathing a hot, dry atmosphere. Hast labored for this birth. 'Neath harvest moons and silent stars You have plied a tireless loom, Emptied your veins of light and shade, To weave this lovely bloom. A veteran indeed thou art A hundred years all told, A homely plant e'er since its birth At last is crowned with gold. 90 Ugly and shunned as little worth Thru all these changing years, The generations came and went Worn out by smiles and tears. Unpromising thru added years Your homely bulk enlarged, 'Till perfected the inward life With beauty burst surcharged. Patient, obedient under law, God's purpose grand has been; Not traceable, or known to man, 'Till now this bloom is seen. O, plants, how like to men ye are In all the things you teach; Howe'r so high your blossoms are Your roots the ground must reach. I've seen the aged bald and white Bowed 'neath a century's weight. All scarred and bent to outward sight; With spirits grand and straight. The generations came and went Nor marked the inward growth ; The outside rough and homely, Concealed from sight the truth. What wonders lie in nature hid 'Long paths we daily tread Deserts of earth must deserts be Till they have blossomed. This plant of life holds much concealed Its growth outlasts time's years. Each blossoms in eternity — When done with doubts and fears. 91 GEORGIAN BAY, CANADA In the province of Ontario Lies an island, jeweled bay; Where the sun rolls up in splendor And his evening colors stay, Making twilight long and sacred Like hours of love and prayer Where communing sweet with nature Life triumphs over care. Here the soul tiptoes in wonder, Grasping mighty forces past. That sowed thirty thousand islands In those watery fields broadcast. What splendid pleasures wait for man In all such haunts of ease As Wabicon — the camp of flowers, Sansouci's — as you please. O, Island moods ye charm me, Fragrant forests, sweet your call ; Bird-songs, flower-incense, color, I hear, see, enjoy you all. O, Nature, Mother Nature, Igneous rocks beneath your feet. Glacial plowing made them ready For thy forest growths so sweet. Thy bays, lakes, crystal currents, Home of fish, invite to sport, Man is welcome to the real In life's simple primal port. To the Wild! sweet, sweet, the calling. From the cities' cares and strife. Rich thy welcome is and honest. Simple Nature ways of life. 92 WARS AND WOUNDS You ask me why I never write Of battles and of wars, I have no verses for the dead And living friends of Mars. You cite the many who have sung Of chiefs and men of arms, But you omit from every list Dead, maimed, and wasted forms. I love not those who beautify This scourge, the whole earth grieves. That bids men walk without their legs, And live with empty sleeves. I would not any evil gild Nor virtue find in wrong All fangs of snakes and dragon's teeth To evil things belong. From pains and aches and cruelty Sweet music ne'er was heard, Red battle fields and burning homes Show hate and wrath are stirred. Discordant drum and shrieking fife, Steel shotted gun and shell. Proclaim not "Peace good will to man," But visitants from hell. Just count the cost of wars and arms Of ruined homes and wasted farms; Tell o'er the tears, the idle looms, Behold earth filled with whited tombs! And when the feast of death is done And those who live with banners come; Look for your father, brother, son. Who to your arms no more will run. Then, if you can, bestow your praise On great destroyers, give them bays! Bloody ambition has no charms, Tho dipped in gore be both her arms. 93 When we our benefactors praise For deeds of goodness, in those days, Martial glory will die out; And doing good, men go about, As did the Nazarene Whom bruised hearts praise. For helping life in all its needful ways. MY FRIEND AND I We walked together my friend and I When the stars swung low in the sky above; We talked together of fame, of love; While the tide of life ran high. We talked a little my friend and I With backward glance at years agone. Of joy and sorrow then, hastened on To the present without a sigh. A moment we paused my friend and I Our hearts stood still in dumb amaze^ As we tried to read behind each face The soul thru the open eye. Then we faced the future my friend and I The possible crowded with hopes and fears To be reaped and garnered in smiles and tears, As the years come wearily by. We knew our hearts, my friend and I, Were full of passion and flesh a weight To the spirit panting for life's estate. In the possible by and by. We saw the wrecks — my friend and I, That mark the failures and waste of life; We heard the din and saw the strife That passes no one by. 94 With restless feet my friend and I Followed the reapers into the fields Where life it's mingled harvest yields Wealth, Love, Hate, Poverty. The mark was high my friend and I, Set on the brow of the coming day; Questioning, doubting we lost our way, And life became a sigh. We remembered at last, my friend and I, The days when promises lay about. And life was sweet with never a doubt. When nothing seemed to lie. Memory came back to my friend and I ; Came like a dream from a vanishing past, The taper of faith relighted at last. And hope shone again in our sky. We believed again, my friend and I, In the childhood faith that redeems us all Faith only redemption for those who fall — Doubt nothing except a lie. WHAT IS THAT IN THINE HAND? Ask him who strives and wins the game Ask him — is this life all? What say the strong, the blind, the lame, Is earth life's only call? Our hearts O, friends, were made for love, Male, female, they came here: Visit each Eden, there meet God, Joy, grief, world products are. Comes Hope unfathered to the brain? Is Faith mere drug to quiet pain? Tho some run mad, — this world's no blot! Evil atoned for mars it not. Why piece out life in starved design? 95 Ye are of royal blood! God's truer light burns grand in some! This life was broadly planned. Some waste, some mend earth's little day; All drop into God's hand. IDEALS Ideals are beautiful children Born in the brains of men, And the envied of earth are tailors Who in words apparel them. We name them intuition, Genius, reason, thought. But their value depends like children's On the home to which they are brought. A PART OF US DIES WITH OUR FRIENDS A part of us dies with our friends, Our hopes like spent stars Fade out and grow cold And our expectations like frosted leaves Drop into the earth and mould. A part of us dies with our friends, Death darkens the brightest day Makes home and the world Seem so lonely and wide We would rather go than stay. A part of us dies with our friends Love, friendship, unfostered must die; Tho sweet memory live, Tho we question and grieve, There's nothing comes back in reply. 96 A part of us dies with our friends. The rapture of touch and glance When the light of a face In death goes out We look on the faces left, in doubt, And weep o'er a vanished chance. A part of us dies with our friends The part that responds to demand Exchange of counsel and laugh, One half of a pleasure can never live Divorced from the other half. A part of us dies with our friends The part we give those we love A part of the brain a part of the heart Time's best promises end in part When death our friends remove. PARDON FOR MISTAKES When the heart is crushed with sorrow And the eyes are wet with tears When we cannot face to-morrow On account of crowding fears, It is sweet to then remember How the dear Christ loved his own And bore the whole world's sorrow In Gethsemane alone. How he understood our troubles And hearts so full of aches And gave the blessed assurance There is pardon for mistakes. 57 FLESH AND SPIRIT The brain hath it's thoughts The heart hath it's loves Some live, some wither and fade; But the soul hath a life That forever goes on In a pathway of light and shade. At times we climb to the mountaintop, Then in deepest valleys we mire, Like nature the soul Has its winters of cold And again its summers of fire. THOUGHT MESSAGES I had some thoughts, I put them in words. An operator told them out on clicking keys; Swiftly a message sped over continents And under seas. I later learned they reached my friend Just how it was I did not understand Or question, enough for me to know. Some one had planned. In confidence I paid required cost. No doubt arising that a word be lost. For each was safe protected on its course, By unseen force. Even so, soul-messages in fervent prayer On wings of faith speed to the Savior's ear Though reason may not fully understand What God has planned. So when disquieted by joy or fear My soul communion seeks, I speed 98 A message, word by word, in prayer To His own ear. Deep hunger for the infinite commands What gracious Love and Mercy understands, And so, I pray without a doubt or fear. My Friend will hear! LIFE IS GOOD Life called me and I came, From whence I know not. I waked and found me here. Loved echoes filled my ear like magic words, By dead lips spoken in some long ago; Life's mystery thrilled me so. I seized the cup of life, Filled with the wine of night. Sparkling, laughing with the rosy light Of adolescence, hope, ambition, love. Vintage from veins of deity, poured and shed, Life's hunger must be fed. Tho much of life has failed — Time dims the eye and dulls the ear — Yet life is good, I'm glad that I am here. No matter whence this spark of life was hurled, I am guest I know of more than this one world; Sweet voices whisper and I understand. The soul shall some day reach its native land. BLOSSOMS OF LIGHT We sat in the stern of the boat. And looking away to the right, 99 In the angle of each crinkled wave We saw the rays of the sun Burst into blossoms of light. Flame-flowers dropped from the sun Like spark showers fell on our sight Flashed a moment above each wave, Then sank to abysmal night In a hungry and watery grave. Tho half of the summer was past, The bay seemed a garden that day As we passed on our breeze rippled way. This lesson we learned that will last, From the light and waters at play. In each season, each clime, each zone. Rare blossoms unnoticed decay, Broadcast God's splendors are sown. His earth gardens bloom every day. Men are dumb, too blind to behold That the desert doth bloom as the rose; That the time by prophets foretold, Arrives as capacity grows. All nature's a tremble with love. The clouds pavilion His light, Men are heirs to below and above. Yet possess but a fragment of light. A VISION It was late in the month of December; There was snow on the shrieking blast ; And keen were the throes of the dying year. As the moments hurried past. My brain was hot and restless With the swelling thoughts of youth; And my soul was panting fiercely To drain the wells of truth. 100 The vastness stretched around me; The uncertain the unknown, As into the night I fared me, All silent and alone. Thru torn clouds, cold white moonlight Made of shadows a goblin play ; While stars at the earth winked ghostlike; And the forest with fear did sway. The earth to me was pathless, There appeared for me no road. My whence and whither distressed me, 'Till I swooned beneath the load. Then I prayed for one to help me, Or at least something to guide, 'Till it seemed the earth grew peaceful, 'Neath the swelling summer tide. Then I awoke (I thought) and above me In the air I saw a bird; I rubbed my eyes and looked, and looked, For I feared my sight was blurred. But no, in the sky above me. With it's right wing cleft in twain, I saw it plainly with pinions spread, It beckoned me on again. Then I rose, or seemed to, and followed That bird in its onward flight. And in its shadow I swiftly went. Upborn by a wondrous might. At first my path seemed dreary. Uneven and grievous my load ; But by and by it easier grew. For that shadow became my road. It seemed toward the east we journeyed ; How swiftly thru space we roved; Yet the way was long and a curious throng lOI Looked up with wonder moved; Till at last o'er an ancient city, My bird with noble mien, Rested from flight, in mid air height; Then nevermore was seen. My clothes seemed old, my hair long grown, No more swept boyish shoulders; For half my life seemed backward flown. As those midnight streets I walked alone — Thrilled with their ancient splendor. I questioned the meaning, I said what next? Walked onward, stood still by turns, 'Till one approached me whose face was kind, Addressed me and said "I am Burns — I am Warder of all the gifts of song; The language true joy and sorrow learns; The gift earth's people have prized so long." "I have heard your passionate cry," (he said) '^Your prayer for expression and light; Come, I will show you the road of life, Whose beginning is lost in night. Free will and fate mark ever the way. That leads from darkness to wondrous day, Man with his beginning has nothing to do. Life is mind, is spirit ; flesh has life too ; And man to each nature he has should be true. In flesh it's the way of the earth and the mould; Where life is but the flashes of heat and of cold That sobs thru earth's valleys, Or laughs among her hills; And emotion or passion alone reveals. As thermometers tell the state of the air. In winter or summer, foul weather or fair. When heart with its brood of emotions is full, 1 02 And reason would rule them as children at school ; She fails as the teacher for reasons in kind; In the flesh, mind and spirit are partially blind. There are scales on the eyes and scales on the mind ; Till these fall away be true to your sight, And the dawn of each morning Shall narrow each night." "Life is action, endeavor, a struggle for gain; Faith, hope are twin stars that burn in the brain; Disappointments will come and ambitions depart; You're immortal while love is the sun in your heart." He ceased, motioned onward and swiftly we went; While an arm to sustain me he graciously lent. We passed o'er the earth like a harmony, timed By the beat, beat, en masse, of the hearts of mankind. Till at last at the foot of Parnassus, we found That fountain where mortals with Godhood were crowned. He stooped with his cup reached over the brink Then arose like a spirit and gave me to drink. I eagerly seized it but scarce drank the whole. Ere a thirst, unquenchable, raged in my soul; In my hand was the cup but empty alone. The fountain had vanished, companion had flown. I trembled in wonder at what I had seen. But failed to persuade me 'twas only a dream; For afar as I float on the current of time Earth tongues tell of things in flesh felt or seen. When like John on Patmos in the spirit we've been 103 When death gives the soul Its mouth piece of thought Triune man shall then know and be known as he ought. POSSIBILITIES By striving man may Open glorified portals, May enter and there Rest safe with immortals. Wisdom knows the true path, Honor blazed It of old, Hope, love speeds each Pilgrim Along it, we are told. Greatheart keeps the inns At which one may rest; Goodwill spreads the feast Where true-worth Is guest. O Soul, murmur not Tho earth paths be hard, At the end waits the welcome. Thine the Joys of the Lord. CONSTANTINOPLE I stood upon Galata Tower. *Twas spring; the sun had warmed To restlessness life's pulsing blood, And wove a haze of languor Over drowsing city, plain and wood, Half rousing sleep to action. In that silent land of prayer What scenes of love and romance Lay before me, Bosphorus, Golden Horn, And old Stambul, where 104 Merchants seemed demanding Business should desist And give more time to rest, More time to the delights of Love, Ablutions, social rites and prayer. Slow caravans w^ith noiseless feet Were bringing musk, ointment, Richest jew^els, finest cloth To glad the heart of her who hides Her face from eager eyes of men, Yet is the houri of home and heart. Before me lay the city's minareted mosques ; Her clustered homes of mystery and love; The necromancy of her orient lore. All stirred, as by the vanishing of dreams. I felt the waves of change preceding action. The voices of wisdom, freedom, deep unrest. Calling an empire into modern life; I saw the hosts of Progress seek the van, I heard the plaudits of the rushing world Cheering each sturdy effort of reform So great the power of righteousness, when Nations praise the noble art of doing good. THE PHARISEE A Pen Picture. Honored of old in Israel Stern Student of the law Reducing with learned nicety By weight, measure and rule The duty, legal duty of a man To simple axiomatic certainty Under the code of Sinai. 105 Loving the pomp of worship, The judicial display of loyalty, Zealous of forms and tithes: Omitting kindliness and mercy (The imponderable qualities left out). Too good for any grace of soul Or tender bloom of heart. Spurning tolerance and mercy. By Imposed, rigid righteousness. Thou didst earn the curse Of frigid bigotry and creed; Thy prayers, made to be heard of men. Perished at the crossing of the streets; Thine alms were all rejected, The bugle's only note is notoriety. Life Is more than a tinsel show Of deep borders and phylacteries wide; All that you sought as good and great Failed, left but contempt, reproach, — The heritage of littleness that never dies. In all the splendid heavens of thy day Thou didst see no star of grace. Thine but belief In immortality. Sorely offended by Christ's words and works — You won the persecution of the world. WATER LILIES (Tippecanoe Lake, Indiana) By the Lake's lovely shores wherever I go In gardens God planted, the wild lilies grow. They grow golden hearted arrayed in pure white, Owing nothing to man or his complaisant might. Of Natures own planting, they need not man's care, Father's love for his children In bloom everjrwhere. 1 06 Their green leafy pads on the water they spread, And fill with cool shadows each deep, oozy bed, Lives hid in the shallows, from dark soil and grime Lifting blossoms of praise, to their maker and mine. Pure vestals are ye, at the shrine of the lakes Untrammeled in service unfearing mistakes. The author of Nature with loving intent. Made to suit every creature its environment. His gardens of blossoms fleck water and land, Green fields, cool forests invite on each hand. So I fly from the city, its strife and its heat. And rest me when weary at nature's green feet. I stroll thru green fields, over woodlands I trail. Communing with insects, I answer the quail. When weary, to rest, lie down on the grass. And study God's pictures of clouds as they pass. There is room for me here, each creature my broth- er, There is room for each mood where Nature is moth- er. WAYSIDE LESSONS Along a country road I drove With friends one summer day Thin woods, green canopied above Shut out the sun's hot ray. The old rail fence on either side Was moss grown in decline; Decay seemed wed to life and pride And crowned with eglantine. In half cleared places log and stump Were covered with wild bloom, 107 Flowers of earth, and sun and damp Whose breath was sweet perfume. Wayside surprises everywhere Of wealth of summer told, Nature was happy, not a care Her wide realm seemed to hold. The birds sang only songs of love, In fields, stock fed at rest. God's benediction from above Dropped on the earth and blest. Insect, bird and beast and plant. Were happy all about; Man seemed the only creature met, Burdened with care and doubt. JUNE VOICES The June winds sing to me of love. And voices whisper from the spheres Life currents meet below, above. And cancel all earth's past arrears. The waves of life that gladden earth Have clothed in verdure plains and hills. Blossom and song and joy and mirth Hope's vintage for the soul distils. Life hath supremacy to-day. O'er death, decay and broken wings. The universal soul hath sway, I feel its stir, hear whisperings. Rare mental feast of happy thoughts! I entertain delightful guests, A fuller life drops down to greet io8 All life below with large bequests. How luminous the moments are When all our best is free from cloud, From our dead selves we then arise And leave behind the tomb and shroud. THE GOODBY SMILE A glow comes back when day is done, A smile, goodnight, from the setting sun, To-morrow's promise to all the earth Daily repeated thro life, from birth; Just a goodby wave of a parting friend In pure heart color, thine to the end. A STUDY IN NATURE I love to muse on nature, field and flood To climb her mountains and behold her stars. From all her generous seasons I receive my food. In all her moods and mine, I'm welcome at her al- tars. Each day the current of her heart she pours in mine. In nature we are one, she is mine, I am hers, Tho not in all, I'm conscious on the whole Of something more, tho she may have a soul. She's but the symbol of a Maker's thought. Perchance discarded from the eternal mind And under banishment — the slave of law; Yet in the keeping of the omnific will. Her every action vibrates to all law. Hath no diversity within itself Beyond the limit of potential cause. I am more than matter in I hope for good. Of her, yet hold the living breath of God. 109 I live above her in immortal thought, Yet dimly see and know the task she's w^rought. Nature weds death — my life is sick of blood. No debt forgives she, and no grave she fears. Man does ; he hopes for quietness and peace ; Such life begins where life of matter ends; Immortal life and nature can't be friends, She serves alike her victors and her slaves ; Pardons naught living, — though all, pardon craves. Conscious and greater at the close of day, When life is done, no man dared ever say, I kept unbroken nature's laws of life. The only written chart of God to man, The highest laws of being all men break. Then sigh for honest nature and her strife. A WAYSIDE FLOWER I stood by a wayside flower Whose fragrance filled the air Surprised at the fostering power Amazed at the infinite care That the feeblest things in nature Receive in their brief lives here. I said as I watched it growing, "You are thirsty, that is plain!" Clouds swiftly covered the heavens And watered it with rain. For man it had fragrance and color For butterflies honey and dew, A defenseless, needy flower. Most artless, simple and true. 'Twas so delicate that I marveled Whence its suitable food was brought, Then discovered that, Laws of Chemistry Nourished each fiber and root. So frail I feared for its safety To guard it I felt I ought, IIO But infinite wisdom forstalled me; It was safe not needing my thought. Man is slow, oft fails where creation In matchless perfection has wrought, God loves it, clothes it with beauty; He has jeweled creation with thought. The world seemed laid under tribute To furnish it comfort and food, Nature nursed it, fostered it's beauty. Showers of grace supplement nature's duty. Sent like mother love for others good. The winds were marshalled to fan it. The stars lit their lamps in the sky To comfort and cheer it in darkness, Gifts poured in from beneath and on high. Earth and planets forever pay tribute To each simple sweet form, of God's thought. Man is helpless and fails where creation In matchless perfection has wrought. God loves it, and clothes it with beauty, All nature is gemmed with His thought. TREASURES OF THE NIGHT The toil and thirst of life Had parched my heart In restless troubled mood I prayed O, day depart! Night came, and heaven's pomp was spread In starry splendor overhead. I walked abroad, looked up and saw God's wealth of planets, love and law. Countless in the skies above me. Suns and stars and planets whirled, III All the cares of day seemed banished From this richer midnight world. Labor needs the clearer sunlight, Nature loves the tropic day, Follow Him when falls the twilight, 'Neath the stars go forth and pray! UNREST Our minds how they worry and fret, How they tug at life's burdens of doubt ; They delve in the earth for relief Then mount to the stars to look out. So strange and unreal at times This current called life to us seems, That the seen and wished for alike Are shadows afloat in the streams. We love, with hearts that wear out, Earth's creatures that suffer decay; We house, what mortals call truth, In brains that wear out day by day. We determine this good and that ill ; Both condemned and approved is our taste. What we covet and prize for its worth Other men other times treat as waste. With our eyes all defective of sight Can the truth but as faulty appear? Can our ears, not in concord with sound. Tell the heart-beat of health, when they hear? We may stand on the headlands of faith Seeing waves from beyond kiss the shore Tho our souls are transported in bliss, 112 Our flesh shrinks in dread at the roar. For, redeemed may indeed be the soul Ere the body, thru death reaches life; Till both are redeemed and made whole Must spirit and flesh be at strife. Like the ocean that wearies its shores Chafes the soul in the body, its prison ; Unrest must prevail till He comes Till the time of the full restoration. ROUTINE Spring time comes and brings us promise, Tender leaf and bud. Summer scatters lovely blossoms, In each field and wood; Autumn comes with bending harvests, Ripened fruit and pod, Look, note nature's purpose, progress As you walk abroad. Then come frosts and storms of winter Stripping nature bare. Housed with death are bud and blossom. All looks dead and sear. But the coming sun will loosen Winter's icy chain; Death to man is only winter, Springtime comes again. DUTY AND EASE Thick and cool lay the shadows Under the great green trees; Where swaying bough and waving grass Invited to summer ease; 113 Yet, I walked on worn and dusty Along the hot high-way, For such I conceived my duty, One scorching summer day. And yet I reasoned and questioned. For my duty tho plain was hard. Why choose we toil in the sunshine. Why rest 'neath the trees discard? Do we choose or only seem to. If we do, why choose we the hard? On, on, yet I reasoned and questioned Till my brain seemed hot as the sun. My surroundings in whispers answered; "There is pleasure in duty done." Duty and pleasure went arm in arm When the earth was young and sweet; Instead of the hot hard roads of now. There were grassy ways for the feet. Yes, back in the dim, dim ages, The world by sin was jarred; And the universe a harmony then, Is now but a sad discord. No longer they travel arm in arm. Over grassy hills and leas. It is plain to duty while on the road. That pleasure camps under the trees. Yet life is for drill, for practice, Use of head, of hands and feet! If duty drums and wisdom fifes, We may rout most foes we meet. FENCED IN Earth's roads are crooked and narrow Mere ribbons 'twixt fence row and hedge Lying cool in the woodlands and valleys, Winding hot over hill top and ledge. 114 Men's lives like the roads they travel Are narrow and crooked, fenced in By prejudice, custom and fashion, By the mandates of virtue and sin. We work on our lives as on highways Spanning chasm, morass and stream; By reason and faith bridging over Life deeps, where naught solid is seen. We grade and fill thru farm lands Thru village and city we pave; We get on quite well in fair weadier Thru storm and foul weather we slave. We are taught from our youth that virtue Must ever 'gainst nature's laws fight; Eternal, unceasing and bitter; With no furlough, no peace or respite. So we fight this world as an evil, Make our bodies and spirits dread foes, Esteeming those worthiest, greatest. Who number most woundings and woes. The beliefs and opinions of sages. The dogmas the schoolmen display, With inherited weakness and bias. Like fences determine our way. So little and narrow and crooked Man's life on this planet has been, That the toil and the culture of ages Still hopelessly leaves him fenced in. "5 THE RIVER OF THOUGHT I lay by the open casement When the tasks of the day were wrought, And my brain was heavy with fragrance, Borne in from the fields of thought. Then I knew the world's great thinkers As roses and lilies are known; And I knew the neglected and humble, That grow in the wastes alone. The mass of the thoughts of thinkers And their struggle since time began, Seemed an endless, unfruiting endeavor To grasp the infinite plan. The labors of earth seemed fruitless, Mere struggle for crust and bone; Only thoughts of the soul and its maker Go upward toward the throne. Life's fever and fret and worry, Earth's revel in cruelty, crime, I saw thru the nimbus of wisdom Were bounded by judgment and time. The flowing of wisdom's great river Was watering infinite space; The wise were in touch with the current, I knew by the light on each face. Thought streams were swelling that river I felt its swift rush in my brain, God's thoughts, and those of his children Sweeping on to eternity's main. ii6 Great thoughts of the thinkers about me Impinged on the brain and the soul; For God and his humblest children Are parts of one infinite whole. My brain like the brain of Old Prophets, Drank the soul flowing vigor in space; And light above law, above matter. Streamed in from the kingdom of grace. The planets all sweeping in circles, And truth, not in segments, but whole; I saw with the swarm of the nations Moving on toward the reign of the soul. O, slaves of the earth haste your waking; Superstition and doubt drive away. With timbrel and harp swell the anthem, We are nearing the coming of day. O, freemen with spirits immortal, Already the dawning appears. Shout victory over the mortal; Shout triumph over all fears DISCONTENT No man has reached his utmost growth Who still is discontent, The soul's immortal while its wings On loftier flights are bent. While higher ways and wider worlds The sun of hope reveals. New energies will be supplied From fountains unrevealed. 117 PARADOX— GOOD AND EVIL The world is full of evil and of death Is full of poison and unwholesome food, And yet is full of blessings and of good; Yields nursing sunshine, airs of sweetest breath. This world is full of evil and of death. I question how this paradox can be. For how can things diverse as bad and good, Abound and fill immensity? And which excels, does bad or good? Why is there so much bad and so much good? I called on reason with this, ugly why? And soon from all the fields of life The mind was busy gathering, sorting facts. And tracing paths from cradle to the grave. Assorting, weighing the incongruous store Of bitter and sweet, of blight and bloom. Of love and hate, of triumph and defeat; Of good and evil, of blessing and of curse, Of tears and smiles, of life and death; Until I cried, accumulate no more! And reason answered "I am out of breath." And then, I called upon my soul my faith, The just, the good, of all the ages past. Why this propinquity of good and bad? This law of mind that wars against the flesh? For flesh is also under law. So that the good I would I do not. Then all the world made answer. Whoso is free, must have the right to choose : And whoso chooses also he rejects. Two acts, to do both wisely, Man must know shadow from substance Must walk in paths where journey evil and good Must know the bitterness of tear soaked food. Experience, mentor in the school of life ii8 Must teach him, not as fool To fall a prey to evil things, But how to prove the good, And how to hold it fast And so accumulating wheat From all the harvests of the past We may die wise and wealthy, Victors over death at last. AMBITION It silently beckons us on To heights we have never attained Yet belittles the present while on Great tasks our eyes are strained. Great tides of blood Were swelling in my veins Poured by the dawn of manhood When high ambition reigns. The sweet, delicious pain Of hopes that burn in every brain Was flooding all my heights; I felt the stir of greatness Thrilling my startled soul; The conscious flow of strength — Calling, choose, act, control! Waking to energy my laggard mind. My heart beat wildly for the unattained. So each youth pants and dreams — Some great achievement in the years to be I fain would have accredited to me. So each one vigils toils and struggles on From thought to thought from act to act From height to height toward truth and fact; 119 Thru fields of hope still onward grope, Unheeding what around us lies Escaping sight, neath cloud and light, Things common, plain to better eyes, Above, below, on left and right. O, souls push stoutly on 'Till the last height's attained Life's Holy Grail once gained Defeats will all be gone. LOST THOUGHTS What beautiful thoughts we often have Such as genius in bloom affords. Forgetting them we sigh, too bad! I failed to put them in words. They come a moment, delightful guests; Then, silently take their leave. Slighted, they seldom come again; How often their loss we grieve. Regret alone, this refrain affords; "I lost them — failed to put them in words." So often our minds are vacant, dull. Cause, we are prodigal of the best; Our own thoughts lost, after others we rush, In an eager thoughtless quest. We ask, we listen, we think, and read. Until ears grow weary, eyes grow hot. Till of other men's stuff we know a lot Of hear-say, and they-say, and rot. We ask, we listen, we garner and read What others have thought and wrote; But raise small crop of heart or head Tho for larger yields they are fit. So mostly our talk is borrowed stuff. Bizarre and common, little our own; Tho we had good enough ideals. Wasted in fields home grown. 120 Yet we crop and crop and toil and toil In rented fields of mind and heart, Ever letting our own domain run waste — And at death leave little worthy of praise. A DAY IN THEBES Grand in her ruins by the fruitful Nile Lies Thebes — deserted, silent, eloquent. Her hundred gates are gone Her massive arches broken, Palaces and temples tenantless; And yet, her stately grandeur Still lives on. Her mighty walls bear record Of her glorious past, chiseled In words rich with the story Of ambitious life. Her eighteen thousand streets Deep worn by restless feet Of more than thirty centuries ago Are trodden now by curious throngs Who come eagerly demanding from her Broken walls and mummied dead Their tales of joy and woe. And wisdom out of withered brains Seemed borne to me from those Who fill her tombs and left Their record chiseled on her fanes, Saying: "We served our day! Great are the tasks of time. Greater the chances in eternity! Osiris called, we went away — A greater leader came to earth — 121 Live, man, great is thy day!" O, Egypt rich in treasures of the past Beautiful in art, in legend, love. River and lotus bloom, I turn to thee, What John from Patmos saw, Alone surpasses thee. THE MONUMENT GROUPS (Indianapolis, Indiana) Massive, ill shapen blocks of stone Were all the people saw. Who watched the workmen, day by day Place them ill balanced, carelessly, Stained, seamed, with many a flaw. As each unhewn block swung into place East and west, on the monument's base. The mass saw nothing but great rough stones, Nor sensed the semblance of flesh and bones, Rough rocks are so commonplace. But one, tho his gaze seemed far away. Saw forms of beauty that sought the day; Saw statues and symbols unwrought; Saw a nation's progress, victories, thought. And the price at which great things are bought. With chisel and mallet he chipped away, Dreamed by night and labored by day. Uncovered a limb, a trunk, a head. Until the groups in triumph said; Only the outer crust was dead. Finished, the multitude came and praised. Looked in wonder, delighted, amazed, That the stars and stripes, liberty's chart — And all that is dear to a nation's heart — 122 Was hid in those once rough stones. Very great our debt to world masters, To the genius of war and of peace, Sculptors, inventors, thinkers, those please Who rescue life from waste desolation, Clothe in art achievement's decrees. BY THE RIVER (Ludlow Falls, Ohio) You remember, I am thinking my darling Of a rock girted stream far away On whose margin we sat by the rapids 'Neath the gloom giving cedars one day And watched the unrest of its waters Heard its ripple of laughter and moan As it sped o'er its low stony pathway Flecked steed-like with droppings of foam.. It was yoked to a mill, you remember And toiled at the slow turning wheel. How it hurried and gave signs of worry Like the children of Adam all feel. It was May you remember my darling The soft wind and sunshine were kind And nature's great face, paled and brightened Like man's when thought stirs the mind. In the shallows birds bathed their feathers And the robin found mud for her nest The wren and the blue-bird were busy In labor and love all were blest. The blossoms we plucked in the shadows Were as plain as the coat of the dove And the violets kissed by the sunlight Were as blue as the deep sky above. You remember to-day too, I am thinking, 123 How our hearts and our lives grew as one, As we looked down the vistas before us And talked of the life unbegun. How proudly the sky arched above us, How fair stretched the world to our feet, Then Eden of old was our Eden; No flaming sword guarding the gate. Tho that stream pour its waters forever, Tho its fountains should never be dry It never could tell forth the treasure Of a love that never will die. Since then, years swiftly have vanished, Earth's sunsets and dawns paler grow; For even, to souls that love truly Time changes, age crowns us with snow. O, then while we fondly remember Let us think of the Home of the Blest Of a place by the Life giving River That flows by the Mansions of Rest. When there on the marge of that river 'Neath the boughs of the health giving tree Above change and the gloom of earth's cedars Transplanted in love we shall be. ROBIN'S SONG— THE COMING SPRING Full of complaining and faulting the weather Abusing the winter and dull skies together I went forth at random oppressed by my mood And strayed down a path where naked trees stood; And there on the cold dead limb of a tree A robin sat carolling merrily; His heart was so glad he was forced to sing And his song was hope in the coming spring. He recited his joys so delightfully clear The day grew brighter, spring seemed more near. 124 Then I mused on the wonderful song I had heard, I mused on the life of the timid bird, And saw tho he lived in the present like me, His song was a song of futurity. Then my own roused soul was fain to sing Like robin its song of eternal spring. A fairer world than this there lies Beyond earth's winter and gloomy skies. And man like robin if he would sing. Must borrow his song from the coming spring. U. S. GRANT (Died July 23rd, 1885) The bells of every city toll Its death note let each cannon roll O'er land and sea ; Let drooping flag and choking sob Revolving press electric throb Our massive grief express. Our nation's boast, the silent man With heart to do and brain to plan In death lies motionless. Hero on every field of life; Abroad at home in peace and strife Nature's own nobleman. Mighty Colossus that thou wert — Most sweet and generous of heart To friend and foe. None ever walked such heights of fame. None from the world reaped such acclaim As thou didst know. Death checks abuse, calls praises forth. O'er worthless men and men of worth, Wise fools resolves — 125 Worthy of guerdon let the crowd In sturdy phrases shout aloud How Grant excelled. Patient in peace, unspoiled in praise, Unboasting bravest of the brave When foes rebelled. No home had malice in his heart, Ne'er forced an oath his lips apart, Or slanderous word. Unlike earth's many sons of fame Whose lives but blazon deeds of shame Or gore's high tide. Faithful to duty everywhere In court, in camp, in peace and strife The great, the simple acts of life He glorified. Go lay him writh the noble dead Spare pomp and show and martial tread, Life's errand done; Earth rests the weary aching head When heavenward the spirit is fled Above change and time. Death's royal feast seems over now And common lives are dwarfed indeed, Time is so dowered by the dead With deeds sublime. CHILDREN OF THE BRAIN (An evening piece) The busy day has drifted by Upon the stream of time And noisy insects far and near Are ringing evening's chime. 126 The sweet cool shadows kiss the earth Beneath the stars' soft light; While slow the queenly moon ^ Ascends her stately car of night; Across the silent fields of space, The breath of night is born ; And breezy fingers stir the leaves Of trees and nodding corn. My thoughts — the children of the brain- Are wayward In their play Grown restless, weary of their home, Willful they run away. They rummage in the attic vast Of all the years they find The past great storehouse of our toys Broken and left behind. There find again some soft warm hand. Once held in tender grasp. Red ruby lips and loving forms With shy eyes downward cast. Trinkets of joys, or starry hours Still held, in fond embrace By memory's holy subtle power In spite of time and space. I hear my mother's spirit voice Again I am at her knee — My tangled troubles all unwind And leave me fresh and free. And so I gain a moment's joy And cheat my present cares Living again In garden spots That bloom amid life's tares. Fair locks of friendship still I find Past hopes my bosom thrill. With tears of joy my eyes are blind My heart is tender still. 127 I hear again the far off songs Once sung so sweet and clear — Tho light oi face, and voice of friend Are dim to eye and ear. I thank my Maker for the past With priceless wealth in store, Sweet streams revisited, that flow With freshness as of yore. By grace released at eventide • From labor, toil and heat; I find good thoughts and deeds Rebloom with fragrance fresh and sweet. I borrow for age's sandy waste Green palm and fountain pool Remembered joys my camping place, Oases sweet and cool. Happy with friend or dog or pet Good words, or thrilling story. That still hold place in heart and brain, Balmed in immortal glory. Ah, feverish unfruiting haste That rings the curtain down Upon the present joys we have For those we hope to own. | How sadly short is human sight. Life's paths how curved, when seen, How aches the heart, when looking back To miss what might have been. In youth assured, we're full of light, We rush on age to find. Our senses so unfocused are We are really half blind. When will our spirits own in fee Again, the fields of truth. The right to which when forfeited, Costs us perennial youth. 128 THE KISS OF LOVE Psyche kissed me on the heart When I was a boy, Dowered me with love, a start — Bashful, shy and coy. And I grew a lover fond Of earth and sea and sky. With affection far beyond Terra's pageantry. Souls immortal smiled on me Won from me my love. Fadeless faces beckoned me To the realms above. And I grew a lover fond Of science, truth, and art, Of fellowship that lies beyond Earth's narrowness of heart. In fields of truth my spirit finds Delights perpetual flow Companionship with kindred minds, With souls death cannot know. Often we are guests at royal feasts. Of changeless things above. Soul on heart of soul may rest, Where Deity is love. ASSURANCE (The heavens declare the glory of God, the firma- nent showeth His handiwork) I look on the wonderful sky So permanent, peaceful and bright Traversed by solid planets 129 Flooding the earth with light My troubled heart is rested My anxious thoughts are stilled By the quiet and peaceful heavens, My soul with assurance is filled. For I know 'mong the stars, bold science Has never discovered a flaw; And am sure that man, like the planets, Is safe in the arms of law. So I ponder and muse in the moonlight That silvers the earth and the sea And trace through light and shadow The plans of eternity. And my life is enriched and widened By everything I see. For He who thought for the planets, Thinketh on even me. ONLY A PROCESSION Since Creation the procession Of days has come and gone; At night obscured by darkness, At day revealed by dawn. How many nights were starless And wild with sobbing storms; How many clouds across the days. Have trailed their somber forms. Ah, the record is so crowded Nothing more may find a place Earth-Life a losing battle Is the record of each face. The record plain of nature Writ on all beneath the sun. Ere a blossom gains perfection Its destruction is begun; Ere the sun warms all the winters Which the coming year enfold, 130 The sun himself will stagger 'Neath the effort, old and cold. Prithee where is there in nature Any lamp of promise found? That revealeth aught in nature Save a lengthened turning round. All the planets move in circles And the seasons come and go Even birds are birds of passage, All the oceans ebb and flow. And the law of repetition Is the edict things obey But which shall be the victor Growth or decay? Out of nature comes no answer Save the echoes which repeat Life's bridal songs of summer Death's winter odes of sleet. Earth's law of reproduction Means again produced in kind Means that nature has no freedom No inventiveness, no mind. Means that servitude is written On the march across the zones, Of the seasons in their passage, Of the planets falling stones. Like the legend of the Phoenix From the death pyre of the old Rises every plant and creature Which the realms of nature hold. Like that often quoted army That marched up the hill, then down Nature climbs her hill of summer In the winter marches down. There is no light in nature 131 That pierces the unknown The light that gives her splendor Down from above is thrown. All the books she prints in blossoms; All the wealth she stores away; Is but food for worms that perish, In the limits of a day. There is no light in nature Save a purpose, save a plan. Breaking through the face of matter, Like the spirit shines thru man; Showing that the Great Creator Omnipresent with His plan, Guards the earth so wisely fashioned For the wholesome needs of man. Creation, a long procession — A ceaseless tramping of feet — A grand march of the seasons. From summer to winter's sleet. PICTURED ROCKS (Lake Superior) Tossing on Superior's billows up and down From our steamer's deck Pictured rocks, actor like, At us laugh and frown. Dashed with sunlight for a moment Through the mist and spray Fancy sees an ancient village Dressed for holiday. Ruined bridge, dismantled fortress, Minaret and tower; Ruins older far than any Marking human power. 132 sphinxlike, on earth's rim, grim facing Space, immensity. Featured by colossal forces Wild intensity, Stands this effort of the ages Rich in lore Of each law's progressive force And working power. Galleries of mimic wonders, Titans stock — Idols from the stone age stranded Here, on pictured rock. Carved by frost king's icy fingers Heated in the sun. Restless wind and wave promoters, Of the work begun. Savage Norse kings held their revels In your sculptured halls. Dirges now of lapping waters Sob beneath thy walls. Fain to know Who wrought these wonders By this inland sea Back I turn my eyes and ponder Till I think I see Frost and ice and snow and sunshine Starting on a spree; Calling wind and wave and tempest, To arts revelry. Giant builders met in session, Planned and wrought and planned, Simulating forests, mountains. Castles weird and grand. Broken arches mutely witness Of a mighty past; Rock hewn temples thick and solid, 133 Held in ruin^s grasp. Musing mutely, on these wonders And their fate to be, Turns my thoughts to human emprise, Wrecks along time's sea. Back her stately footsteps tracing Noting human skill Thebes, Babylon, Karnak, others Births of human will Rise and witness to achievements In the realms of man; Marking shorelines on the ocean Of his widest plan. Mighty kings, and mighty nations. Robbed, enslaved and built. Giant Anaks bearing record Of ambition's tilt. From the years flows deadly forces, Poisonous as asp. Ruin zones each mundane effort With dominions grasp. Yet not wholly doth aught perish In this world, we say: Matter, form and beauty, only Changes day by day. O ye rocks, by nature fashioned, Temples, altars, free. Welcoming each season's worship, Creedless, grand are ye ! Blest by sun and stars forever, Wisdom's Holy See. Vibrant winds and waves of water Glorious minstrelsy. Nature's needy hosts forever Worship God in thee. 134 i COMMUNION They are friends whose paths of life meet in the temple of the same beautiful thoughts I meet my friend; At once the light grows sweet, The air breathes purer, All things seem complete. Cares scud away As clouds kissed by the sun Peace fills the heart And discontent is gone. Hand clasped in hand — AH pathways to the heart Fling wide the doors That keep our souls apart. Thoughts ripple into words In rythmic tune. Like songs of birds In happy days of June. With masks thrown off We push each veil aside, Unbreast our hearts And nothing seek to hide. In sweet communion; Filled with peace and rest; On sorted truths Our hungry souk we feast. Whole loaves few find Unmixed with tears, regret, But crumbs of good abound, Love, hope sustains us yet. 135 Dead triumphs yield anew Their mummied sweets; Past stain and glory Each its notice gets. Experience, feeble torch, The statesman's guide, Suns a past world Where everything has died. From out the charnal-house Of husk and chaff, Incongruous memories Make us weep and laugh. Thence bring our relics, Lay them side by side, A sad review that humbles Human pride. The light fades swiftly When the day is done. Thick doubtful shadows Rest the past upon. And yet dear faces Like the light of stars Rise in our hearts, To cheer us unawares. Recount past joys. Old disappointments tell, Kind words shrink cares. Words too, our pleasures swell. Perched on the circle Of our highest hopes, The future's stubborn 136 Door before us ope*s. Thoughtful and silent, Leaning o'er life's brink, By torch of faith We strive to know, to think. Lights go before us, Torches of hope and love; By simple faith we follow Where reason fails to prove. But joy we find in the future. Pure fountains refreshing sweet; Springs of immortal nectar That rise our lips to meet. We glow with health and beauty And our souls in faith are strong; We are immortal, we are happy And eternity is long. EDUCATION There is no perfect brain. No mind all good. No spirit free from sin, No faultless man. And yet, the greatest and the least Thinks, speaks, writes and teaches His faulty wisdom to the world. Schools sow their theories. Evil and good in every field ; Hence, diverse as all the whims of mind Is the mixed crop our poor brains yield. Black is not white, tho science Shakes the fact and breeds a doubt 137 Gainsays the bottom facts on which we rest- Blows common truths like straws about. Tho every sage should rise And to each youth explain Every experience (that comes to flesh) Minute and wisely, as Solomon Wrote on vegetation, from the Frailest lichen to the stateliest tree; Would it avail to satisfy Our longing after the untried? Nay! ear, eye, smell, taste, touch. Every cell of brain and capability of heart Imperfect, yet imperious. Demands experience for itself. Experience is the university of God The school in which His children Learn the lessons of this dual life. One thrill of love that spreads its color On the cheek and conquers the fierce eye With tenderness — mother's development — Is worth more than all the mere recitals Ever made by tongue or pen. Thought must tent within the brain In mighty companies, before the Glowing embers of their entertainment Warms into life our cardinal desires. There is no nourishment in hearsay, Small satisfaction in the untried. Endeavor, action, experience. Are the meat on which every Caesar feeds. 138 MENTAL GUESTS Rare grains of thought In some far off brain Have grown and fruited. Like fog from the main Thought is blowing toward me — A possible rain of new ideas May visit my brain. Mental vitalities live, no doubt Wander at will the world about And stop to brood In the brains of men When condition favors. He is a prophet from God to men Who welcomes these guests To the upper chamber When Deity entertains. He bares his soul and turns his ear To catch the stir of coming events. The spirit realm above nature lies Far sweeping with potent energies; The birdlike soul here lives between An upper and a nether scene. Two worlds our home, yet we dwell Chiefly below the spiritual. Resting on earth with head thrown back, Ideas on their meteor track we plainly see, We catch their light, we feel the glow And brain, heart, soul, their youth renew. RIGHT THINKING Thoughts grow in the brain like flowers Or else they grow like weeds ; We can seldom account for either, Seldom know whence come the seeds. 139 When the beautiful good and true Pre-empt the heart and the brain Clean minded men and women grow, As flowers in sunshine and rain. But if seeds of evil and passion Spring up and choke the good; Sin will nest in the heart and then Uncanny becomes life's brood. The will must ever be regnant, Wisdom must choose our way, And conscience obeyed and honored Never snubbed or sent away. Like the price of eternal freedom Must vigilance be set down As the price each human being pays For a character sweet and sound. SOME DAY (The truth shall make us free) These gates of flesh so bar the way While in our present thrall By eye of faith alone we see God's writing on the wall. Some day the viewless latch will lift And nature's doors divide And the closed chambers of the world To us will open wide. Then shall the shores of truth appear The fogs all blown away And we escaped from toil and fear Shall land and know the way. 140 BIRDS OF PASSAGE Come mate and plume your feathers, The time has come to sing, For the sun is throwing kisses At the earth, it is nearly spring. Soon, all life will feel the rapture, 'Tis time we are on the wing. Let our northward flight be merry. Make the air with music ring. For the sun is throwing kisses At the earth, it is nearly spring. Let us join the birds of summer Life northward goes a-wooing. There's no time to lose in going, Soon mating time it will bring, For the sun is throwing kisses At the earth, it is nearly spring. Let us now prepare for summer And the duties it will bring. We shall need a nest and shelter; We must toil as well as sing. When the ardent kiss of summer Shall bid adieu to spring. There is pay for toil and brooding In the nestlings it will bring. The world will be the brighter — For the songs our children sing — When the sun, the king of summer, Shall throw kisses at next spring. 141 DREAMS OF LIGHT Shall they too fade, those dreams of light, That lift our souls at times beyond the night Where purpose rises 'bove the grind of care Spirit communings on the wings of prayer; Brief visits to the heart's lost home Where hope casts not its fruit Where love hath speech to suit Where w^ant's keen voice is mute. Moments supreme and vi^onderfully fair. When high resolves out of the heart takes flight And swiftly lift us into God's clear sight, Where for the moment, there's no blot or stain, No ache in heart or trouble in the brain. Peaks crowned with light above this level plain; Shall they remain, eternally possessed, remain? Or are they Jack-O-Lantern's light Doomed to swift death and endless night? Dear Heart, dream on, dream dreams of light; Sweet, noble thoughts soar up on pinions white, And high resolves oft make life's darkest way Kindle with radiance, like the dawn of day. Crown one swift minute with the glow of hope, Point one dull eye along the upward slope. Smite with love's sweet and matchless power Cold-hearts to live in warmth, if but an hour. Lives short or long are mostly commonplace Immortal glory smites but once each face. When on a face of flesh that sweet light falls Doubts meet defeat, as truth upon us calls. What we here briefly taste of bliss Foreshadows triumph's final dewy kiss. Tho death here claims, the most we do or dare; Still dream of light, of life, not death and care. Rare is the joy of living one brief day 142 Where love and life at home immortal play. They who look up with grief are never choked, No door of faith and hope is ever locked. Companioned, even now with flesh and blood Souls may unslave sometimes, and take the road, Wherever choice invites, or beauty dwells. Pluck flowers of truth or spirit immortelles. Rare Lotus Flowers that feast the soul — a view Here now called dreams, bright-shadows of the true. And sometime, when the last tear shall be shed — Glory shall smite our cheeks, all troubles fled. THE LAND OF HOPE The land of hope With friendly shores. Lies far beyond Life's known Azores, Whence we too sail Thru storm and shine. With locks oft wet With dew and brine. All, all must sail the stream of time. Hope never fails, Tho far we sail On unknown seas. To reach some gate — Tho long endure Some heavy fate, The torch of Hope Still lights some shore. Where we arrived on time. Shall find life asks no more. Hope betters life By all that's good, 143 Illumines death With cloudless light, Reveals bright dawns Where reason fails; Where eyes see nothing Hope sheds light. From ports of youth We sail and sail! O'er unknown seas Toward longed for shores Where doubts shall end The best be gained. Where faith finds God And all is good At last is good. Fair is the land The soul descries Beyond the sight Of human eyes, There some day Disappointment's night Shall vanish into sweetest light, And we shall find the land of Hope. ON SHORE Youth's restless tide was swelling in my veins, And endless stretched the world before my sight ; Ambition stirred my soul with longed for gains. And ardent hope clothed every path with light. I struggled for the prizes of the world ; For wealth, position and a deathless name, Time thinned my blood and sapped my strength And faded every color worn by fame. I noted everything within my sight, Success and failure on life's level main; 144 Wrecks mark the conquest of time's stormy night, The end of muscle, plans, material gain. I saw the mounds, the bodies washed ashore And knew matter alone was wrecked. The Soul, unharmed had reached the other shore. CHEERFUL ADVICE Never let your heart be troubled Note the sunshine sweet — Laugh and all your joys are doubled Smile on all you meet. Friends will give you hearty welcome While you bring good cheer; If with songs and smiles you come. All will praise you dear. Never murmur or complain At what has been, or is; Accept things as they are, in fine, Make them a source of bliss. Frown not though your lot is hard Smile away your pain Remember joy wins reward — Sorrow is pleasure slain. THE TRAGEDY OF HATE The tides come in The tides go out ; The sea is never at rest, By vexing winds It is blown about Yet follows law's behest. The heart, red sea of life; The heart is never at rest; Hath tides of love 145 And tides of hate Passion currents that never abate, Obeying life's behest. O, heart of love so sweet Love maketh life complete So sweet is love. But O, if filled with hate Love meets a dreadful fate Hate killeth love. The heart, red sea of life, Where love should rest; Hath storms of aches and strife Obeying life's behest. Yet, when by grace made sweet, Love killeth hate complete. I HELD HER HAND I held her hand, and felt the thrill Of pure warm blood. 1 looked into her eyes and saw Love's brimming flood. Her face was fair, her graceful form Outrivaled art, Sweet, every grace of womanhood Bloomed in her heart. I held her hand, and while the thrill Of new life trembled in my soul I realized a touch, a glance May sweep us under Love's control. True word, sweet speech tho potent all, Can ne'er make known The power of speechless glance and touch That guards Love's Throne. 146 I held her hand, I saw her face In spirit rapture glow When Love's lamp burns within the heart There is light enough for two. I held her hand, I felt The currents of a life In bounding billows flow. They broke upon my own, and so I know On all our common senses love builds And rules below. GUEST OF TWO WORLDS The dim unknown around us lies Where shadowy truths before our eyes Flit to and fro; But what they mean, whence come or go, How few with certainty may know — Spirit and matter mingle so In strange disguise. I wish I knew what matter is, Its wondrous forms and tendencies Of which I am part, Ever the soul asks questions here. Answers are faint, from far and near Some voice commands the listening ear, Some love the heart. Our souls leap with a glad surprise When visions far and faint arise To lure us on. When we have crossed the border land Will this side vanish, sight and heart, Will disappointments all depart. Will doubts be gone? 147 The spirit world around us lies, We strain our eager, restless eyes For higher good. Like Tantalus, we seek the prize. But ever disappointments rise Before is reached the full supply Of living food. Do lilies know why lilies grow, Or brooks or roses why they are so, So beautiful? Nature in high or low estate Is hidden, locked and bound in fate; Tethered, each life sings to its mate The dreams of love. Each creature hath appointed place. Its span of time, its point in space, And load of care. Lichen and worm and mortal man Are parts of one gigantic plan. Each has a sphere to fill, yet can O'er flow with grace. Love, song and beauty, bloom and scent Are gifts; rewards of merit meant To tempt us up the steep ascent Of nature's plan. And when we gain earth's topmost peak, We stand alone; with naught to seek But God and man. And having reached that high estate. Where nature can't participate In higher quest. Horizon widened light still haze. Backward and forward, both I gaze, 148 Asking two worlds in dumb amaze, Of which I am guest. I wish I knew what spirit is, Its potent possibilities. Of which I am a part. Why do we waste earth, life and love? Why thirst futurity to prove? Why pants the soul to rise above Earth's true warm heart? Earth light is sweet, and love is sweet, Tho clothed in flesh our spirits meet While here below. Here pleasure's streams are sweet and wide, Here wisdom's plans in law abide. Why thirst we for the other side. The unknown to know? One luminous hour by love's decree Comes once on earth to you, to me, By God's command. Yet loud or low we make complaint Of wind and tide, sinner and saint. And oft 'twixt fact and faith we faint While here we stand. It must be in some lovelier place Redeemed, immortal, face to face. At home we'll stand. Where there's no death or lack of room Where not one blossom casts its bloom — With truth, love, God and friends, On either hand. About the well of life I read. Shall gather all the spirits freed Whose hope, love, faith, 149 On well fought fields 'gainst selfishness, Bigotry, greed, hate, littleness. Won victories in earth's shadow-land O'er doubt and death. IMMORTELLES Let us gather each day the flowers of thought That bloom in the fields of the mind, Let the best in a fragrant verse be wrought, Thought in color and bloom let us bind. There's beauty enough in the commonplace To make life an unending song. If we garner the beautiful day by day No year should seem barren or long. Such daily gleanings would make a song Sweet mete for the harp of life. For no other music our ears should long, Music is the blossom of strife. Of rarest flowers there will be no lack When each act and effort shall bloom. The simplest things well done in fact, Bear blossoms of rich perfume. The royal flowers that bloom above Their common neighbors, are Hope and Love; While vines of Friendship with tendrils curled Trail wonderful blossoms throughout the world. Humanity's soil Is so blest by the Lord That fragrance follows kind act and word. Earth's simplest service suffers no loss, Tho rendered 'twixt thieves upon the cross. NATURE'S VICTORY A hectic flush is on the leaves, A change pervades the air Death welcomes winter, verdure grieves, Life struggles with despair. 150 Nature in pain, tho looking well, Winter is surely near ; When Heims departs the buds will swell Spring comes with every year. A surface sorrow sweeps the earth, Yet all is well we know; Spring will return, give nature birth, After the north winds blow. This annual lesson nature gives To prove death's but asleep; Nature for losses never grieves Her tryst with life she keeps. Sad hearts, beyond death's grassy mounds Dismiss your tears and see Unfading spring is on its rounds — Behold life's victory. THE SUN OF THE SOUL The dead leaves of autumn around us were falling. Tired nature was hastening to close up the year; To the South! the South! the song birds were call- ing As I strolled, a young lover with Phyllis my dear. We two had known friendship in youth's happy hours When spring scatter'd blossoms on valley and plain ; Our fond love had shared the warm glow of sum- mer. Like nature when blest with dew, sunshine and rain. A silence prophetic pervaded the hours, We paled, for the North-voice whispered of death, 151 To lovers most shocking, no grief for the flowers Wed to ruin all nature seemed holding its breath. From the hill tops we noted the day was declining Watched the slant rays — from the West stream- ing on. When Phyllis — her head on my shoulder reclining — Said: "Is love the soul's sun when the day-god's withdrawn ? Here hearts have their winters, with God are the reasons ; Shall we still be in love when the years are all gone ?" "Dear Phyllis," I answered, — "The soul has its sea- sons; Love, the sun of the Soul brings eternity's dawn." DAYS OF HEAVEN ON THE EARTH Wandering one day. By a clear winding stream ; I met spring on the way. Earth was clothed in a dream. The birds sang of love; Hope sprang from each sod, And above and below Was the glory of God. I exclaimed in my soul What a beautiful mind God must have, to control Just one day of this kind. Peace, wisdom had kissed. Smiles banished each frown. *Twas a day to earth promised From Heaven sent down. Encompassed with glory Seemed each step I trod: Earth was full of His Story, As the heaven of God. THE GARDENER'S PROPOSAL My heart is a garden, my lady fair, It has wonderful soil, all plants grow there. But the good alone will bloom and bear If sunned with love and tended with care. Will you be my gardener my lady fair, Are you willing to toil, to wait, forbear? My heart is my garden my lady fair; Will you sun it with love and tend it with care? My heart is my garden my lady fair. Will you sun it with love and keep it with care? Tho my garden's well sheltered my lady fair; Unwatched, untended the weeds grow there. It may cost you sleep, pain, tears and prayer, To be my gardener my lady fair. It may cost you sleep, pain, tears and prayer, To be my gardener my lady fair. Yes I'll be your gardener my gentle sir. What cannot be helped I will meekly endure. My heart like yours was fashioned for bliss, And my mouth like yours for love's best kiss, My heart like yours, was fashioned for bliss. And my mouth like yours for love's best kiss. Yes, I'll be your gardener my gentle sirt 153 But my heart needs tending lest hate grow there. If you'll guard it with kindness, keep it with care We both shall be happy with love to spare. If you'll guard it with kindness, keep it with care, We both shall be happy with love to spare. We both must be gardeners, then he said, For it seems each heart is in constant need, To sun it with love and sweeten this life, We both must be gardeners, man and wife, To sun it with love and sweeten this life, We both must be gardeners, man and wife. FATHER'S FACE (A Study) How often I looked in his manly face With the wondering eyes of a child, And tried to answer the question, why He silently frowned or smiled. I knew his burden of daily toil, I knew of his measure of care, A living to wring from hostile soil For a family schooling and care. For a wife and children have many wants And with children their needs increase While demands of charity, church and state Are enough to wreck one's peace. Yet he was never a moody man Tho of contemplative air; His spirit and form were straight, unbent With the burdens of toil and care. 154 The lights on his face were shades of thought That fell from the sky of his mind ; I saw the shadows but strove in vain To read the thoughts behind. I have seen his face aglow with light As bright as the morning sun, Increase to noon, then wane to night, When the labor of thought was done. And again a light as peaceful and sweet As the moon's o'er spread his face When thoughts of future peace and rest Shone in from the land of grace. Aye! good and evil their battles fight In every heart and brain. While the lights and shadows on each face Are banners of joy and pain. OUTGROWN The past has been rich With beautiful thoughts, With manifold pleasures Which soon show their spots, Good friends with bright faces, Great hearts full of cheer, From the past's faded blossoms Sweet fragrance drifts here. But the faces once bright Have grown thin and pale Good stories oft told. Like old wit has grown stale. There was beauty and strength, Much goodness and worth But it all mixed with clay, 155 Change rules in the earth. The past had its feasts For the stomach and brain But the relish has vanished, They tempt not again. By experience we learn In the midst of life's years The eye that looks back Soon is brimming in tears. Ever empty of hand And hungry of heart, The present is full of longing; Man aimlessly turns 'twixt Memory and hope From past and future thronging. For rummage the past the best one can, It is ever outgrown by the growing man. Life's a heart throb, plus the future. Little past we find. That suits our mood That comforts the mind Or soothes the blood. For the victories we prize Have never been won; The great things we would do, We have never begun; The story we would write Has never been told, The poem is future We long to unfold. Our lives must ever Be lived anew. No matter how clever 156 Age brings faults to view Love and friendship May not conceal them. But the future invites us And freshens our blood; There, is room for ambition, There, hope pours her flood; Immortal is life in the future. Forth then with the dawn — each morning Brave of purpose cheerful and strong, Here toil and endeavor are nothing, For the future is endlessly long. The steps of the stairs we're ascending Pass from lesser to greater on high. Up, up, eager, earnest keep climbing! Lest found undersized when you die. EGYPT AND THE NILE Just as of old, the Nile is flowing on Thru leagues of sandy plains. Cleaving great deserts hot and lone. Five thousand years of life lie dead Beside this fruitful stream. Marked by crushed cities, temples. Homes, that show no taper's gleam. Lifegiving, fresh and sweet thy current flows, Mile wide thru leagues of drifting sand. Causing on right and left a barren-land To live and blossom as the rose. O river, thou art life, heart, blood To everything that needs a draught of bliss. Thy far off source sends treasure like a flood, Making a land of plenty laziness and love. 157 O, Egypt, great and mighty was thy past, Yet all thy grandeur was to ruin wed, Thy sons and daughters all are mummied. Thy wondrous tombs and palaces time ravished, Great learning wasted, art and library gone, Ruin only, lives mentor, as time rushes on. Thy gods once worshiped of color and stone; Now merchandise only ; their godship has flown. The tongues of thy ruins stoutly proclaim How once, your children, sought pleasure and fame. Your rulers, builders and toilers are gone, Sol smiles on the land the river flows on. O ghosts of the past, we behold you Sipping bliss from the vanishing years; Glory, honor, achievements humbled E'en your sphinx sadly mar'd seems in tears. Your obelisks captured, antiques shipped abroad, All nations enriched by what you have sowed. Of boundless abundance the glad news was borne. Foreign want coined the proverb, "In Egypt is corn." Once country of refuge, broad minded and fair. The world sought thy learning, enjoyed thy care. Jacob, Abraham, Joseph and Mary came here, Sought wisdom, bread, safety — thy visitors were. Cleopatra's wild love, of thy deserts was born Her ripe form and beauty a Nile-river charm. All gone: yet they jewel thy splendor of old; Men, women of worth are more than pure gold. Kings depart, toilers die, works remain. Time wastes all monuments builded in vain. Rare Memnon, whose music once greeted the dawn — Rent, mangled stands silent as change rushes on. The march of the modern, the new, but proclaim 158 That waste of centuries burgeons thy fame. O river, O Egypt, with dead like the sand! Ruin girdles thy past, decrepit's the land. Look on Memphis, on Karnak what time has with- stood. Hear a miracle voice, The Nile's turned to blood, Note thick darkness falling, deliverance night; Sun, moon, stars obscured — three days void of light. Royal heart, ten times relentless in the long ago. Grieved the voice of mercy calling, Let my people go! Ego, vaulting pride, ambition, stubborn was, and dumb. When the first born of your people died in every home. The god of nations rules, hath called thee down! Empires like men to final judgment come. Thou cradle place of life from first to last, What restless centuries have o'er thee past. The God of Nations rules! past is thy day Empires like men. His sovereign will obey. The earth abides — The works of men decay! Still as of old the sun bestows its heat, The moon and stars their stately rounds repeat. Just as of old the sourceful Nile flows on. Change rules on earth, thy mighty hosts are gone ! MEDITERRANEAN SEA (Steamship Celtic) I love, I love the flowing sea, Its boundless might, its mystery, Its many moods, its smiles and frowns, The matchless sky and clouds it owns. 159 What restless winds play o'er thy breast! The moon disturbs thy daily rest For on the Empire of the sea Force rules with wanton majesty. Titanic, mighty, full of awe Cared for and safe in lap of law. The centuries have come and gone Still as in youth thy tides roll on. O, cheerful, mighty, jovial sea — I look, I love, I envy thee. On land all things are full of scars But thy deep breast no wounding mars Thy cemet'ries are out of sight; Thy troubles buried in the night No shaft, no tomb shows pride of grief In silence sorrow finds relief. Thy legends are thy broken spars Thy sentinels the silent stars ; Yet in thy realms of peaceful sleep 'Mid flower gardens safe and deep Life blossoms, lives and moves about Free from the cankering cares of doubt. If but my pilot sails with me I'm safe on land, safe on the sea. And when thy waves shall roll no more I shall have reached some farther shore Unharmed, to live forevermore. HOPES THAT FAIL Under the Lindens They walked one night Clasping each a hand ; The stars shone bright Their talk was sweet All vistas of life seemed grand. 1 60 He was a soldier, manly, straight, She was a maiden fair; He coveted medals won in fight, She the jewels of love and care; Each trusted the future far or near, Both, strong of heart and hand. Engaged they parted, as lovers may. He to war and the fields of strife, She prayed for peace, the coming day When she should become his wife. Alas for hopes and loves that fail In this human span of life. He in a hopeless charge was slain. She died of a broken heart. And over the Lindens now they say When moon and stars shine grand A phantom pair glides thru the air. Each holding the other's hand. MONTREAUX, SWITZERLAND Between the mountains' swelling breasts Montreaux in charming beauty rests; Proud of her castle, lake and towers. Her ivied walls and fragrant flowers. O'er town and lake the white gulls fly, On terraced slopes the vineyards lie. Arched over all a sapphire sky Stretches like fields in Arcady. And all who come too soon must go Beyond its spell ; and only know The name it bears. To all it seems A city set in matchless dreams, Of waking dawns and fairy nights Of nature's changing charms, delights; i6l Where soul and body both are fed Of those who pass with reverent tread, THE JUNGFRAU (Switzerland) The Red October o'er the Alps Strays painted in autumnal hues; 1 turn my eyes from slope to slope, Behold a thousand changing views. Thru valleys rich the Leutschine flows, Fed by unnumbered Alpine streams, A nature-song of murmuring sounds That soothes the ear and calls to dreams. Snow veiled, in glaciers clad The vestal Jungfrau stands; Her frozen beauty blushing in the sun, A winter Masterpiece in ice, a nun. The drowsy bells betray the grazing lands. And scattered chalets tell of home and love; Hath earth a setting, anywhere, more grand Or nature stairs to nobler views above. THE MOTHER-NESS OF NATURE The night is a great black mammy, Who with motherly love, they say; Receives the setting sun in her arms And closes the eyes of day. Then the noisy earth swings silent Thru the dusky fields of space; While stars keep watch in the distance O'er the sleeping human race. 162 As man — I think and ponder — As a weary child I find The motherliness of nature Founts in the eternal mind. THE MAN IS NOT A FAILURE WHO DIES TRYING Is the world any richer because I was born? I have labored in broad fields of wheat, of corn. Some things I have written, some things have said, Great things I intended, but little I did. For self, for others, I garnered some pelf, But is the world richer because of myself? Some things I mended some things I made, Much, much, I have ruined, learning life's trade. Is the world any better because of my birth? Have I added aught to humanity's worth? Has my struggle for others, my effort for gain. Put a smile on a face, eased one heart of pain? Life what is thy errand, fame what is thy worth? In the end does it matter, condition or birth? Human hosts, good and evil forever go forth. Love, service mark man, of more than mere earth. AS MAN THINKETH SO IS HE The child that oftenest ponders the right And seldomest thinks of the wrong Will develop a character cheerful and bright, Symmetrical, straight and strong. While the one who oftenest ponders the wrong And shrinks from the truth's clear light Will be crooked, uncanny, and cruel if strong, 163 A tiger that preys by night. The pursuit of the mind Is a law of life That springs from a natural bent; It Is choice makes us evil or good, And choice betrays the Intent. IF GOD BE GOD FOLLOW HIM Diana lost her worshipers, Long, long ago. Lost her everything but art She had fallen so; A thing of trade, Apollo stands A shapely figure, true. No Devotee he now commands He lost his godship too. Fair Greece, proud Rome, old Pagar world Your idols have decayed, The years have wasted all your gods, The greatest ever made. The wisdom of the centuries Has pulled their shrines apart; A god debased is worthless now, Save as a thing of Art. When truth and light came to the world The false religions fled. Since Christ the crucified arose All other gods are dead. Now Christ's are all the worshipers He lives, He reigns, He saves; He vanquished sin and death and hell And calls men from their graves. 164 THE DEGENERATE There are those who will rebel ; There are feet turned down to hell; Wintry hearts froze hard by hate, Brains like barren fields turned waste. Drifting farther from the right, Drifting farther from the light, Hearing naught but evil's voice. Drifting from the power of choice. Growing sour day by day. Caring less what people say. Sowing tares in bitter mood Reaping crime's unsavory food. Tarnishing the family name, Lost at last all sense of shame. Harking but to evil's voice, Drifting from the power of choice. AFTER MANY YEARS Once more then we meet As in days gone before May our hearts be as sweet As in youth's sunny hour. Shall we kiss? Yes, kiss For the days of Langsyne. What, a tear? Pray excuse me, Don't bathe me in brine. A smile is the banner of bliss, True joy is immortal my dear. Tho our lips summer dried Tap no fountain of youth Tho there's snow in our hair 165 Yet, while love warms the heart Sweet springtime immortal is there. I see by drops that moisten your face 'Tis a shower the summer clouds bring, The rose on your cheek, the love in your eye, Burst forth as the blossoms of spring. THE SPEECH OF YEARS (To an Octogenarian) Four score and one Swift years have run Their changeful circuits round the sun Since first your baby life begun. Today review Your joys and fears, Con o'er life's wealth Sweet gain of years. How stands the score Of wrong and right? How many days were black as night? How many full of love and light? I know we say Half night, half day; Hast found it so? There is no night To those who look above for light. Thru one and eighty Years complete Your heart kept tender Warm and sweet. And so I know Love conquers woe; Light from above down streaming, sweet, Keeps rising shadows 'neath the feet. i66 PROGRESS By the slow logic of the brain We forge our laws Toiling to trace the hidden chain Effect and cause. Pruned by the judgment of mankind Things better grow. But wisdom from experience learned Comes hard and slow. Because the logic of events Like wrong and right Are relative to time and place And point of sight. Events at times amass And force results; Life's best watched efforts Are not free from faults. Experience too, whatever it may be Is relative to every you and me ; Results lack uniformity, alas! Who knows, O changeful earth, What time will bring to pass. TO A CANARY Tell me philosophic mite, The secret of your singing. All day long you pour your song Like joy bells gladly ringing. Science says, your brain's too small For reasoning and thinking. What endowment if at all, Can you boast but singing? 167 Just a speck of life and song, Yet, you are happy all day long, Trilling music sweet and clear Shaking tons of atmosphere. With one talent, only one, Your song lasts from sun to sun. Man, joy's secret would you know? Use your talents as you go. Then no trouble will befall Palace, cottage, hovel, stall; Use your gifts however small, Condition matters not at all. Were it right Vd envy you. For the path of song you leave. Man more brilliantly endowed Mars his days with grief and wrong. Discord mars his every song. VOICES OF THE NIGHT The night drags slowly by, A meteor crosses the sky A fox howls on the hill; The winds are laid and still I watched the spectral moon Roll west thru the stars away, I look to the east and cry, come soon O, sun, with the light of day! The horned owl calls to his mate, "Sad, sad is the story of fate." The watch dog's dolefull bark Quickens ghost wraiths in the dark. I note the procession move on. The sounds and sights of the night, i68 I hear as I vigil alone, The song of a singer that's gone. Hoof beats with no rider in sight; So, slowly the night drags by Its voices and sounds toward the light; I feel its chill in my heart — Pale stars keep watch in the sky, I look, and listen, and start, O, fain would I rest and sleep, But my eyelids refuse to close; Troubled is the vigil I keep, Akin to night's restless respose. THE DEAD PRESIDENT (James A. Garfield) O, Nation of triumphs weep sadly to-day, At last it is finished; the assassin hath sway. Our chieftain hath perished more ignobly far Than by hands of injured ones fell the late Czar. Pride over the nation breathed boastful and loud From earth's every quarter we called to the crowd They came sowing evil abroad in the land Bold envy has triumphed, low schemers have planned. Now the heart of the Nation is heavy as lead, For a righteous man ceaseth, a martyr is dead ; Each state drape in mourning, give gladness no place For the giant of sorrow has smitten each face. And shadows of trouble hang heavy and chill On mountain and river, on valley and hill. The White House is silent, profaned by a crime Charged up to our freedom, reproach of all time. 169 O, nation of progress and conquerless might, Give heed to the lesson, look well to the blight, The license of evil, the tares 'mongst the v^heat. Lest the shame of the present prove ruin complete. Ye waves of Atlantic chant sadly to-day The Nation's great heart doth at Elberon lay; And our breast heaving sobs, irrespective of clan All join you, lamenting the martyr, the man. THE CONQUEROR [Fame is more than an occasional ride In the ink chariot of the public press'] Behold the hero of the day A simple modest man of clay Who won the heights of great renown Ignoble actions frowning down. A kindly soul and mind agree With modest manners, all will see, When Honor comes. He won the giddy heights of fame With spotless hands unsullied name. The greatest nation's foremost man With heart to dare and brain to plan Has wrought, achieved victorious days. Do not forget noise is not praise. When Merit comes. Familiar he with noise of war Death sounding guns of common roar. Give the true hero nobler praise. Than yell and steam and powder raise. Wreathe immortelles, things fadeless give! 170 That, like his own great acts will live, When Valor comes. PEARLS AND ROSES O, where are my pearls and roses, My jewels of long ago? So many and each one priceless! In youth they charmed me so. I know they have not perished, Tho they vanished long ago; They still abound on happy shores, Where eyes with youth are aglow. MOTHER She wore no ring on her finger No gem ever flashed in her ear A rose sometimes for a breast pin A flower sometimes in her hair; But resorted never to fashion To make herself more fair. Her heart, the home of affection Where children and friends abide A Holy of Holies for all she loved, Where welcome was never denied. O, beautiful face of mother! Was ever a brow more fair? In her cultured mind at eighty Sweet flowers of thought bloomed there. 'Neath the silent stars, I remember The tender light of her eyes. And her lessons of warning and counsel, Like halos of wisdom arise. 171 In spite of the trouble, care and sin, And flying years, I am with her again, Under boyhood's wonderful skies. She was sister to daughter, To son she was brother, Bearing burdens of others, as if no bother, So deitylike the love of a mother. Its fragrance never dies. THE HOME RUN [Who runs unsent, breaks down sooner or later And returns to what he professes to have left] The light is sweet at dawning time. And life is sweet in youthful prime ; Love, flowers, bird songs cheer the day, Listless we dream and lose our way; Alas, we wake to find, too soon. Life's dial marks the hour of noon With nothing done. Then, with o'er hurried effort still. To make amend, each thinks he will Paint this, write that, another day Turn some great feat, another way. Night comes, time ends, all too soon Death calls — ^with errand still undone We homeward run. ABSENT MINDED The thoughts of the brain Like doves from their cote, Forever fly in and out; In neighborhood flocks 172 At times they come, Again there is none about. Into infinite space all fled, The souls great errand their quest; Seeking truth in limitless fields; Seeking God and His behest. Seeking peace for soul unrest. And so there are times in life, When we're not at home to self; Yet friends, who unnoticed go by. Say, ''Sleepy and churlish elf." They lack the insight to know One is absent from home to self. FLOWERS AT MIDNIGHT Of what are the flowers dreaming When the heavy night's half thru. Do they dream of the coming morning When the sun will kiss the dew? Their lips shall drip with dew drops When the dawning has begun And glory shall tremble in all the drops For each drop shall hold a sun. Do they dream of coming splendor When song birds wake the grove? Of a pure maid's charming candor Who artlessly tells them her love? Who woos them to win their legends Of fairy and fay and sprite Saying, "Are ye the thoughts of angels? Love's breath from the kingdom of light? Or only the hopes of true lovers Blown out of their hearts in the night.'* 173 Do you dream and weave in the starlight Fresh garments to charm the view? Stirred still by the words of the master "No king is apparelled like you!" Enough what he said to the lilies, Their glory untarnished with pride Makes them purest and sweetest of flowers We can give to corpse or bride. WEARY OF WINTER When will the song birds come again And the north winds cease to blow? I long for the green and sunny fields, I am tired of ice and snow. The streams are locked in the frozen hills, And my life is chilled to hear The raving winds in the naked woods, And the hunter's heartless cheer. True, on the ice I hear the ring Of the skater's flashing steel, But I envy not the daring leaps, Or wintry joys they feel. For chill is the heart of nature, And cheerless the light of day. The moon and stars tho' bright, shine cold From their distant fields of gray. I long for the time to come again When nature shall wake from her night; And yield to the rich, the magic spell Of summer's enchanting light. With summer's pulse come tides of life That gladden our world with song; 174 That help each soul to a higher love, As we wander earth's flowers among. Many are the joys of a summer's day, And I long for the time to come, When the air will thrill with songs of birds. And the orchards be white with bloom. MISS NATURA O, I met her in the Springtime 'Neath the sunlight's magic spell When the brooks begin to murmur And the buds begin to swell ; And I felt my heart grow tender All my nature ice bound long Ran melting in a current Of happy smile and song. Her breath was like a zephyr That wakes the flowers to life; Her self and ways so clever Were as banishment to strife. Never far off skies were bluer Than the soft blue of her eyes ; O, I miss her in the city And my heart with hunger cries. Her hair is wavy golden And crowns a common face, Unschooled, and yet she charms me, With her simple country grace. Few, if any sweeter, fairer. Than this sprite I sing, I know. In her heart is nature's sunshine On her cheeks the roses blow. 175 REAL FEASTS How far between are life's real feasts And how few are the guests seated there; The mass, like Lazarus feed on crumbs That fall from tables rare. When but for a stomach a feast is spread The human menagerie only is fed, If garnished with gossip and vulgar jests His majesty Satan, presides main guest. But if love is spread, a feast for the heart And brains be served as a proper part Then the soul of man will assert its reign And guests will a healthier growth attain. THOUGHT HAS COLOR The eye is a tell-tale creature. That ever betrays the heart With sudden, knowing expression, Or surprised defiant start. It is dull with dull ideas. With beautiful thoughts it is bright. So I take it thought has color And gives to the eye it's light. In lover, prophet and hero The eye sheds a beautiful light — Glorifies aim and purpose. As stars the sky at night. THE COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION, 1893 Great thinkers have thought Great toilers have wrought And the wealth of the world To Chicago is brought. 176 Bid the people all shout Bells and cannon peal out Let the press of the world Tell the wonders about. Let the nations all come Give them welcome and room Peace tents on the earth Good will is in bloom. One sky covers all This planet so small; Each nation claims part Yet the earth is one ball. Man's origin is one, The same blood doth run In the veins of all people That dwell 'neath the sun. Welcome North, South, West, East To this conquest of peace All the centuries robbed To prepare man a feast. Earth hath done her best Robbed heart and reaped breast; All the wonders of nature Obey man's behest. Man has triumphed o'er war — Faith's glorious car In the orbit of love Rolls on like a star. Envy's dying — hate is dead, Hope lives — mind is ahead. And the genius of progress At last is exalted. Let art glorify canvas 177 Science clarify darkness And genius her inventions Create in completeness. Learn creations vast plan All things made for man; To honor God's purpose Let us do what we can. Show the best things of earth That have served man from birth To grow a great heart And a soul full of worth. Here each nation's best thought Stamped on what she has wrought Shows the ideal life After which she has sought. From the centuries past Set best manhood apart Worth is greatness of soul And sweetness of heart. Let achievements combined Viewed by all human kind Price the best growth of man Above all that we find. True or not, we are told By a story of old Of an Island of Peace In some sea of the east Where love made her home Where strife had no place Earth should be such an isle In the ocean of space. 178 THE UPAS OF SORROW Don't make your heart a dumping ground, For the sorrows of the race, It will turn your head to water. And tears will stain your face. Don't wreck your life, I beg you, With the troubles of your friends. It is never wise to borrow What the whole world gladly lends. FRIENDS OF OUR YOUTH When the heart is hungry and lonely How we long for some one to love ; For some one to love us, tho only An hour we the joy might prove. When shadows of evening are 'round us And daylight has faded away; Sweet Vesper, bright stars above us Remind us of trysts in life's May. The friends of youth quickly perish; How we miss them, fall into decay — It is wiser new friends to cherish; Years, cares, should not drive them away. Hearts sharing friendship keep sweeter. Face, eye, hold the light better too; Friends sweeten old age and bad weather, Love to life is both sunshine and dew. 179 THE OLD MASTERS Had Homer a teacher? Who graded the rule That measured the lines For the earliest school? Of the choruses grand Which Sophocles planned, Who taught him both Sweetness and power to command? Did Job write that book And give it his name? The epic's immortal Despite whence it came. Full fledged at the birth They as poets steps forth Communed with all spirits God's Prophets on Earth. THE MIGHT OF RIGHT Christian, Heathen, Pagan, Jew, What are Adam's sons to you? Note their number as they pass Man and woman, boy and lass, White and yellow, black and tan, Grouped in nations, sub'ed in clan; Envious, spoiling for a fight Each maintaining he is right. Braggarts all in praise of peace, Waging wars that never cease. Honey tongued, condemning strife, Cruel, heartless, wasting life. i8o Christian Standard, "Priceless Souls." Idol, heathen worth controls. Pagan, mongrel, mighty crew, Breeding sect imperious Jew. Sift this medley if you can, Tell me, what is man to man? Some ideal of the brain Is the goal each would attain. Oft we honor man with praise For achievement, length of days. Goodness, wisdom, heart or brain, Undersized, or noble strain. Food for armies are the millions, Slaves of toil, the common mass, Office preys upon civilians Trusts and creed; feed class on class; Twofold learning helps and harms us, Books and press are in the van Food and drugs and thought alarm us, Tell the true from false — who can? Giant is the effort, progress For material wealth and gain; Fraud in trade and speech oi Congress Mark the speculator's vein. Hopes are crushed and spirits broken By the Juggernaut of wrong. Helpless hosts in ranks unbroken, Piteous wail and feeble song. History is barren, few exceptions Are the names on honor's rolls, The great loss and waste of nations, Dwarfs beside the waste of souls. Yet, the call to duty nerves us i8i Earnest doing what we can. Love of right shall solve life's problem, And control the worth of man. A MISSIONARY May the blue sky now bending above you With auroras forever be bright; May the angels sent earthward to guard you Make your trials and sorrows all light. Be your life path a highway of flowers Winding through the grand temple of spring Be your memory a rich regent ever, Bannered hosts of bright thoughts to bring. May none of your joys prove fleeting Like flowers by roving winds torn; May no night-cloud of sorrow foregather But your life be one twilight of morn. To struggle for life each is fated Here our lives to oblivion tend Live then to do good as you journey And life will crown death in the end. In the flowery land of the Indies By Ganges, by Indus or Bay May souls leave their idols and follow The Christ, you pointing the way. And at last in a far away future In a land that is fairer than day To harps sing the songs you taught them Praise God, swell the grand roundelay. AS YOU WILL A harp there is in every bosom Wrought with finest skill. Tuned to love or fiercest passion 182 At the player's will. Wide as life and high as heaven Its first strains were heard God and Angels bow to listen When its chords are stirred. It was keyed to purest measures By the Master's skill But the serpent spoiled the tuning, And the player's will. Since if heaven bends to listen, To the player's skill. Or evil only stirs with gladness The player now must will. Tune again this harp heroic, To the songs above; Let each player ill foregoing, Will its power to love. SPRING VIOLETS Over the hill and its shelving side Are scattered the violets far and wide; They are purple, blue And of every hue, Maiden a wreath I will twine for you. A wreath I will twine to deck thy hair — No king has jewels half so rare As violets blue Fresh bathed in dew; Maiden a wreath I will twine for you. Like hope they come at the sun's first beam Braving wind and tempest's gleam; 183 And many a sigh When the storms go by Is sent to the bank where violets lie. Full many a daisy over the lea Turns its bright face O, Sun to thee, But the daisy tints Of a milky hue Will not compare with the violet's blue. For the chemist sun in his own way With a Master's skill in beauty so gay Has painted them blue And of every hue A lesson of meekness for me and you. Ere verdure has started or spring begun Thou bloomest in beauty, child of the sui Thou art up from the sod When spring starts abroad And meekly blushing trusting in God. I will trace by the breezes roving by The scented banks where violets lie And will cull the blue And white ones too As a crown of love sweet maid for you. I will twine a wreath of violets fair They are mete alone to deck thy hair And if beauty to beauty Can add a glow 'Tis the fittest crown love can bestow. 184 HEART POWER The purple glow fades from the eternal vault The crimson morning in the west goes out The flight of time, the bowl of friendship breaks The silver cord is ever being loosed — Even so. Will memory's harp e'er cease to play To echoes from the past? Tho in grand ruin by a myriad strains, Or would we from the canvas of the eternal void Blot out the shadows limned forever there. Ah, no, no! Does not warm sunshine paint Its bow on clouds In desert waste is not the flower still sweet? May not the dying Christian smile at death And bathed In tears the cheek with beauty glow? O, yes, yes! But only feeling gushing from the heart Can melt the icebergs of this frozen world And play In grandeur on Its snow crowned Alps, Enchain Its millions with a magic spell, Who gaze In rapture and in wonder die. Aye, Aye. THE SUN'S WAY As watching one sweet summer's eve The sun going down in the west Revealing his curtains fold upon fold More kingly than wrapped any monarch of old When at night of his realm taking leave 'Midst his splendors retiring to rest. How fitting the close seemed to be i8s In view of the good done on earth His each flower that blooms in its place His each pulse beat and color in space He the author of motion and grace God gives him the couch that we see Gives each throne according to worth. I turned with regret from the scene While its lessons fell deep in my heart I questioned, are man's days in vain? What smile has he got for his gain, What price for the better self slain? Is his end but a tent 'neath the green, Can'st answer me science and art? All nature in silence stood round While the schools offered logic in vain, Till en rapport I seemed with all good And my heart whispered "Take the sun's road! Cheer man, help him carry his load; Lift his eyes above toiling and pain To the heights where wisdom is found." A CHILD OF POVERTY Shrieking mournfully Thru the wold The midnight wind Is blowing cold. Crouched by the embers In pitying plight A child of want Is dying to-night. Grim grow the shadows The faint light expires Death's tick in the wall i86 Her spirit retires. A young life is ended, Closed like the day, The angel that brought it Bears it away. Strange were the fires That gleamed in the eye Of poverty's child Not fearing to die. Life went out in silence The heart grew cold Poor, friendless, deserted. The story is told. Dreary and somber Life's last shadows fall Lone death, dark lethe Reigns over all. Misery unnoted Her grief none to tell But the smile on her lips Said "I'm well, I am well." A NORTHERN MADRIGAL The storms linger yet in the north From ice lake and river is free Then come to this beautiful beach And enjoy the autumn with me. By the banks of this river we'll stray The Detroit that flows toward the sun For mellow October is dreamy, is grand And the short fervid summer is done. Fresh winds from the forests are blowing 187 Filling sails that whiten the bay And anthems of love float around me Distant wave songs of Erie at play. Here hamlets and farms stretch around me Breathing songs of the life every day And the fragrance of doing one's duty Is born in on the heart at decay. We have wasted spring time and summer Midst the vapor of fancies and dreams; Here the real now proffers its glory, Life is in the main what it seems. Wrap the past in the shroud of its fancies, Seize the moment, the present today. Fling all else to the river's free current Let us live for this life while we may. Let us live for a purpose, and serve it A purpose that frowns at decay; Midst the rugged and strong life is earnest. And duty reigns king of each day. THE AUTUMN CARNIVAL God laid His hand upon the sun Southward its light and warmth were drawn. The maples flamed on every side Oaks, royal colors wore with pride. While beech, birch, ash — each common tree And crowned bush stood reverently Waiting the change that autumn brings When birds fly south on hurrying wings. Chill grew the air, the flowers died, In pain the woods stood glorified. i88 Frost smote the earth with biting breath Anon, the landscape swooned in death. O, nature rich in toil and song, Art's carnivals to thee belong This annual lesson color blest; When toil is done — how sweet is rest — To rest in hope without a fear Makes toil delightful every year. Warriors with all their marches done, Last battle fought — last victory won, Die smiling, happy — heroes, braves! Enough for them — their flag still waves. So warrior nature, each year's run To cheer her toilers — harvest done — Paints every leaf a gonfalon ; Nor asks for thirty, sixty fold or more — Knowing field and forest did their best, The earth is glad, and holds her color feast. MY LIBRARY Here is the wealth of all the ages, Owned by me; Mines of heart and realms of spirit Stretches vast of worth and merit Wit and wisdom's golden ledges Mine in fee. Here with master minds I wander Company we, Paths of thought are blazed before me Mind's domain is free; Honored dead ye live, I ponder Thoughtfully. Here the ages backward rolling 189 Show to mc All earth's children how they perished Art and science how they flourished All times doing and undoing Wondrously. Though the thinker die and perish Thought will live Traced on bark, cut in marble matters naught Truth immortal through the ages crumbles not; Remote exhumed from deepest rubbish Life 'twill give. O, ye bound and lettered sages Facing me Mummied silent in your places Witnesses from all the races Of the minds immortal graces Blest are ye. THE ST. LAWRENCE O, I see It yet in the fadeless past The river that flows to the sea As it bathes the feet of the rolling hills Gathering strength from lakes, rivers and rills What thoughts of vastness my being fills, As I think of the aeons of ages fled, Of the labor of carving a river's bed, Of thy tribute born to the sea. A sky of summer hangs over the scene. And my youth comes back to me. As I pass on thy banks old cities, and towns, Forts, where the god of battle still frowns; And note the civilization that crowns The near and far, the now and then, I bless again, the frontier men 190 Whose blood, has made all free. Almighty the hand that broadcast sowed Those emerald isles in thee; And wrapped with air that thrills like wine The hills, and valleys, each sylvan shrine That mirrors the beauty, those waves of thine Give back, as again our crowded boat. With reeling excitement thy rapids shoot And hurry us on toward the sea. The night of the east, and moon of the west, Like the shores of the ages meet here ; Betwixt them thou flowest, O river of might Skirting Europe and France with liquid delight, Yet giving thy strength to the west In thy flight; Mighty home where the ships of the world may rest, Earth's commerce ride on thy tide-troubled breast The tramp of the nations sounds near. A spell of enchantment hangs over the scene As the present illumines the past; Strange braves and legends pass before me Bold heroes with Wolf at their head now I see And tides of the past like tides of the sea Are backing my thoughts, like that current of thine And again I stand, in the focus of time O beautiful river, 'till into my soul Those glories of thine have passed. MY WILL A smile for my friends, A kiss for my love, A prayer to the Lord Then a swift flight above Is the will of my soul, When earth life shall end. 191 Faith, Hope, know the path; I shall live over there In the city of life Jesus went to prepare; There happy to live, With friends gone before. My words and my deeds! How perplexing the thought! Have I done what I should? Have I said what I ought? I must leave them behind To the judgment of earth; May that judgment be kind, Nay according to worth! I must leave all behind. INTERVIEWED AT EIGHTY The old man's steps were short and slow In the crowded thoroughfare — I eagerly watched his face bent low A record of thought and care. I drew him aside from the hurrying street To a seat in the park where lovers meet There, I tapped his current of life and grief, And this is the story, he told in brief. "In youth when Eros had kissed my heart And life with promise was filled I said I will set my best apart To my race my powers I willed I sought on the cheek of my fellow man To lighten the touch of care; With the troubles of life I early began As a private, to wage warfare ; I gave my money to help the poor, I coined my heart into song; ' 192 When empty neglect prevailed. I wove the best of my brain in prose To help earth's weary along. "I was favored and petted as long as I gave, Ere means and powers all failed; The world soon reaped my fenceless fields For fifty years I tugged at the chains That hold mankind in thrall; An occasional smile I got for my pains — Have I failed? No, not in all; There is comfort my friend at eventide For those who have done their best; And the blessings of God are on the man Who waits on His behest. "True, I am grieving for hands I clasped, For the red lips, mine have kissed; Each step of life, each moment elapsed, Is stamped with something missed. In Yamoyden's Hall are all my friends — This world is a storm swept place. I am nearing the end, hope bright cheer lends And points to the islands of peace. "The years have reaped the fields of my heart; The stubbles are white with snow; Yet the sun to my soul, doth heat impart This winter of life must go ! Now, I have no poems to cheer the throng, And my hands are empty of wealth. The senses fail, when the journey's long; I am tottering on toward health; Here little's accomplished of aught we plan But the end is well, if we work for man." 193 A SPOILED LIFE I see in your face no beauty The light of your eye is dull Your step has lost its vigor Your heart with sorrow is full. Yes, yes the old, old story Of love, temptation, sin; The path of ruin you entered. And since have walked therein. Pride promised to make you happy You reasoned, **I must be free! It is narrow to only do the right, I am broad, no limits for me!" From the narrow path you were jostled Or willingly stepped aside You simply followed your own sweet will Chose desire and nature for guide. And now with your beauty faded And your heart with ashes filled A waste world lies before you To never more be tilled. Wrong ever grows its harvests Of thistles, weeds and thorn, The pleasure sought with downward look Of an earth accursed is born. Life's choicest things grow slowly By resisting storm and blight; Only rods of faith grow quickly Bud, bloom, and fruit in a night. 194 The pleasures of earth fade swiftly And in sorrow yield no delight But the lamp of love in the human heart Shines through the face in the night. In the dawn of life your beauty Was passing fair no doubt But the face of age is gruesome When the light in the heart goes out. MOODS OF THE HEART (The heart is greatly disquieted until it finds God Marcus Aurelius) The moods of the heart are many As the stars that swing in space They come and go like shadows Of thought, on an infant's face. Like the earth aglow with sunlight Is the heart aglow with love But shadows of hate obscure it As clouds, the moon above. When the spirit of grace is in it In Heaven we seem to dwell But when evil passions rule it We are scarce outside of hell. It is kin to all of nature; Has countless hates and loves Has passions like hawks and vultures Emotions like larks and doves. In its blood red fount are mirrored Volitions of soul and brain, 195 It is Eden before temptation And then it's the house of Cain. 'Tis the native lair of the coward Where cruelties lurk and hide; Anon, it's the altar of worship Where hope and faith abide. As a ball in the hands of players Is man to time and place; The moods of the heart are pictures Of change, in the fields of space. And yet true to its lode star, As the needle to the pole; Thru variance, dip, disturbance. Love ever regains control. O garden God-leased, who keeps thee For true love set apart. Will never grow weeds of passion Nor die with an ache in the heart. WHAT IS CHARACTER? Not a something cut in marble Not a thing of brass or clay But a live result of action That groweth day by day. Like raiment fine in fashion Or untidy clothes one wears Is the essence of one's action The character one bears. Man's reputation only Is the thing men praise or hiss But his character is truly And really what he is. 196 SONGS IN THE NIGHT In the sensuous air of the south The nightingale sings in the night And its song is impassioned or low According as stars give their light. Ere rain beat or tempest is heard, Thy notes seem troubled and sad Then cease till the storm is past When moon and stars make them glad. Is it true then, that story of old, That a slain lover lives in your breast, That you sing to a grief laden throng Whose sorrov^^ will not let them rest? Do the great undertones of the world Break like waves on your heart in the night, Art silent because of the wrong Too plainly revealed by daylight? Does the Lord's Angel come as of old To his saints in the night from on high ? Does your heart overflow with his song? Does the light of his love glad your eye? Even so in the hush of the night His peace floweth into the soul Even so sang His saints in the night Spurning stripes and prison control. O songs of life, ye are sweet, Doubly sweet in the silence of night; When the toils of the day are complete Then songs of the soul take flight. 197 HOMES AND PRISONS The prisons of earth are many, The homes of the world are few, What to me is a peaceful eden Is a desert waste to you. I have a bent for labor You have a genius for rest, Things that are deepest stamped on me, On you were lightly pressed. One loves a vine thatched cottage. Another a palace would have The one exalts the master. The other comforts the slave. Some move ever so quickly While others are never in haste And so through the roll of virtues Persons differ in will and taste. If the artist, the sculptor or poet With heart refined and chaste, Consorts with the maid of all work, There sentiment runs to waste. Tho the lifting power of marriage Is great beyond control It only acts when man and wife Live level, soul with soul. ST. CLAIR FLATS I ask myself, is it real? As I scan the Flats so wide And my thoughts drift hither, thither 198 Like the vessels on the tide; For the summer's hazy stillness Mellows everything I see And dreamy distant pictures Form and vanish endlessly And the oozy wash of waters As they waste the sandy shore Are a protest 'gainst the island And its builders evermore. Around float gauzy insects Above fly duck and crane — Where flag, wild rice and willows Mark the shallow lines with green. While below the crystal surface On sand or mossy floor; Dwells a brotherhood of fishes Our Waltons all adore. I seldom care to wet a line My hunting skill is poor, But here's the place to bathe and dine And dip the dripping oar. Real pleasure here may widely range With little work for feet — For steam and sail and oar and tide With every mood compete. Beneath the landing roof I sit And smoke and look and dream; Question the wherefore and the why Of every changing scene. Here too in every stage of growth I read the books of life Of young, of old, of middle aged Child, lover, husband, wife. At work are some on title page, While others near the close; Some write of hope, ambition, love, 199 Some sighing, write but woes. So, day by day, the pages fill. Light up or shade the face — Upon the soul, the evil thought As well as good, leaves trace; And as about the world we go However act our part — The face, the eye, the outward self, Reveals the inward heart. We are unconscious artists all, In business, on parade. We feed on law^ by love and hate, By thought and act are made. All labeled, stamped, and marked Are we by birth, profession, trade. So, as the loungers come and go, And as each plays his part; I note the level of men's lives Are not so far apart. For bounded by the realm of want Is flesh and spirit too We take the present doubtingly The dim unknown pursue. Daily we question those we meet, Ask what they know, what's new? Thus ever gain thru other eyes, Of life a wider view, Thankful am I for idle days, And places of resort; For real life displays itself. Most candidly in sport. AN HELP MEET There's a smile in every word That her rosy lips caress — The perfect style of June In her manner and her dress. 200 And when to me she writes, Because we are apart Every sentence Is a path To her busy brain and heart. There is purpose in her life Fruiting rich as autumn days She a woman, she a wife, She a queen in all her ways! Not a butterfly of fashion — Just a woman, flesh and blood, Content to be while living, True, beautiful, and good. KEEPING WATCH Watchers thru the night so lonely, Is it chill and dark? Does the starlight shimmer coldly Does the earth look stark? Watcher why not sleep in comfort, Why your vigils here? Does the sob for dead, for dying Pierce and rend your ear? Lying on the young earth lonely In the silent night Jacob saw the heavens open Bathed his soul in light. And his eyes were lifted upward, Looked toward the day — Thence he journeyed, sweetly trusting, When the dawn grew gray. When the lights of earth burn dimmest To the eyes of flesh Then the lights beyond glow brightest 20I To the eyes of faith. Maiden, why so flushed and restless, Is the waiting long? It is hard to read life's signals Surges so the throng. Young man, why so impatient, Why not bide your time? In the chase your strength is wasted; Tarry in your prime. Tired pilgrim stepping feebly, On, the way is short Bravely seaman face the tempest, Make the homing port. Why in yonder hovel watcher Burns the lamp so late? Death is calling one too tired For the dawn to wait. Aged watcher life's behind thee Soon must close the fight; Look! behold the golden pathway For the soul's near flight. Stay thy haste, tho' time is speeding ; Waste no present boon; Give your heart to love, and joy, Aches may fill it soon. Rest, the night will soon be over Dawn is drawing near, To live in the eternal yonder Go the dead from here. 202 ENFORCED IDLENESS (The curse of the poor Is his poverty) I have read It over and over again — "The Cotter's Saturday Night." And think the charm of that noble life Was the something always In sight. It was little I know save hardest toll But that and the something more That dally graced his simple board And kept the wolf from the door. Save grace and toll supplies were scant Yet each day brought enough for daily want. I too have bairns and a loving wife But our lot Is worse than the Cotter's life For we no acres or cottage own And the landlord's rule is — "rent cash down." Rent may be low, but poor and small Is the house for which we can pay at all. Tho bairns and wife and I are willing, There are times when we can't earn a shilling. When times are bad or profits small Short time, low wages or nothing at all. When work is scarce days go by With naught in sight for life's supply. We pray and trust but doubt comes too I guess, because we have nothing to do. Yet day by day with patient tread We seek a chance to earn our bread. At every door where we apply No work today, is the curt reply. The shop is closed, The mill's shut down Work yields no profit, dead is the town. 203 Employers will not pay for skill That yields no shekels for the till. So brains and hands oft idly wait Till ''Corners" swell the market rate. Till then bairns, wife and I must eat. Yet wherewith all must we be fed, And wherewith all shall be clad Till profits crest the market wave? For muscle's all the stock we have. We all work hard when times are good For daily toil brings daily food. Beside we are glad arrears to meet Tho nothing lessens cost of meat. When times are very flush at best We are oft laid off, but not for rest. Laid off, because the boss that day Concludes to labor will not pay. Or for repairs there's urgent need, To run at cost is not his creed. Even steady jobs are not inclined To help the poor man raise the wind. All strikes and lockouts are a curse To men of muscle with no purse. St. Crispin Clan and Labor guild On poor men's backs their burdens build. They strike at Capital not at us. But work and pay stop thru the muss. So want and woe anew set in When work to right our wrongs begin; With other ills to fight beside The poor is doomed to the under side. It is all a boast from first to last Earth hath no place uncursed by caste. The toiler ranks not with the best When dailies blow for the best drest. 204 For what can penury pay or spend For dress or schooling or such like end? But in this age of science and art All are not dummies who don't take part. Life's bitterest law he names, who says; *'The poor have always such poor ways." True of civilization, the darlings Are the beautiful great and strong. True the rich the many friended To "Our Set" do not belong. But the valleys are full of souls of will Who toil like the giant chained in the mill. Drudge on they must till might in short Shall hurl the burdens off labor in sport. The burdens that grow with the price of land And society's price for a place to stand. Until profits be shared by labor and wealth There'll be waste of muscle, waste of health; There'll be aches in stomach as well as heart And limbs with exposure will ache and hurt. Until gold and silver and acres of clod In the balance weigh less than a child of God. Man must suffer and wait, must toil and endure Until Nazareth's Carpenter comes again. Comes to the earth to rule and reign When justice, good will, shall be restored, And Mammon no more enthroned earth's Lord. RESURRECTION I saw the curtains of the night divide And on a chill bleak world the morning smiled. Stern winter had so long 'gainst life decried, That nature no more flag of truce unfurled — Slain was her hardiest child. Entranced I looked, the distant woods 205 Began to breathe and wrap themselves In mists of greenish haze. Grim winter hid away his bitter moods And soft green lances as if borne by elves Marched down earth's sunny ways. Life heard the call of far off star and sun And vegetation burst her sleeping tomb And sent her yeanlings out to meet the spring. The burial days of sleep their round had run And resurrection's joyous time had come And rank on rank new life began to spring. Gazing, I saw the fields of billowy mounds 'Neath which dead generations sleeping lay At rest from battling with storms of time. The night of death like nature ends its round — Comes spring to them some resurrection day? For them life's reveille shall sound its call. I felt this veil of flesh unwind its folds My vision lengthened 'bove the waste of years My spirit moving saw the eternal plan ; One purpose vast each world controlled. Nature, spirit, the extremes, no room for fears, Conviction came as when fixed facts we scan. Each glance the omnific eye sent forth a dawn To roll and break upon this netherworld, And mark the flight of time. The awakening comes, far, far I saw Ending the procession of the years The promise of an earth restored; Circled by harps and songs that wait a jubilee. Expectant spirits waiting for the trumpet sound Are crowding toward the crowning act When earth shall own her King. The sleep of death shall end The dead shall live And earth obey her lord. 206 It is promised by the Word that never fails; Desired by the day spring from on high. Even now the morning star lights up the dawn; Earth's troubled night is scarcely half asleep Already eyes of faith are waking up The bride, expectant of her coming spouse, In pure desire is praying "haste the day." And hungry hearts long for departed loves Eyes longing look to see an absent face. Hard empty palms are hot to clasp a friend. God's stream of purpose Swelled by faith and love Is quickened in its flow And waters all the fields of faith and hope Prayer and good will to man. This age 'bove others is most rich in faith Feeds on fruition of diviner hope Pants with desire that nears enjoyment And grows its wisdom from the word of God. The right grows more aggressive; Idolatry, ignorance and doubt are on the run. Science once pagan is converted now! Says, "Mind and spirit never taste of death." Says, "Nature is but waste of thought Swept into space to aggregate in change" Says, "Matter has no life is but a sea of death Stirred by great waves of thought That hurl it into ever varying forms of change; With ever changing laws that come and go." Twixt good and evil still the fight is on The good grows stronger, sin but more desperate. The field is freer now, of din and smoke, And brighter are the faces of the brave. The brave who worship God by helping man. The hosts that love the right, have cheerful grown, And march to quicker time. 207 Slow, solemn strains, have given place To stirring, sweet, triumphant songs Among the sons of faith. The hearts that hold no pity for the poor Are caged alone in savage breasts Where sacrifice is taming them by power of love. Few are earth's slaves save those of drink And lust, and they in covert worship self, Fearing the strength of those who seek their good. The good renew their strength by deeds of love. O, heralds of the day, come quick, ride fast! And drive all loitering shadows from the earth. Enthrone the conquest of eternal right And usher in the dawn of time's supernal light — The golden age of justice and of peace The crowning age of sympathy and love The universal brotherhood of man The reign of spirits reconciled to God. SOME SHADOWS Some shadows must fall on every home; Into each heart some sorrow must come. Until good hurls evil ofi the earth Sobs and weeping will mingle with mirth. For the young may fail The old must die And change wring tears From every eye. While earth thru light and dark swings round Will the heart with aches and joys abound. The weak must cringe while the strong hold rule ; The strife is ceaseless 'twixt sharper and fool. For mirth won't last Even smiles fade out; No telling the fate Of king or lout. 208 THE WORLD SUITS ME When life was young And my pulse beat strong And paths of pleasure Seemed endlessly long I said this world suits me. I said its dawns are founts to my soul Its purple sunsets glory's own goal This grand old world suits me. So I gave loose rein To fancies and dreams, Noted earth's Edens And cool winding streams — Took in the length of The star's soft gleams And said this world suits me. I looked on the fields of human life; I looked on the centers of human strife, And saw great victors with honors rife; Fame noisily gushing from drum and fife And said this world suits me. But age I protest improves the sight And shows the truth in a truer light For much I thought, I saw clearly in youth Is full of flaws and wanting in truth ; To eyes that never were washed in tears Much that is faulty as perfect appears. My day of endeavor is nearing its night I welcome its coming, the end of the fight; For much that I purposed to do with my might Has failed, wrong mixed with the right; Many best efforts have suffered from blight. 209 THE LOST ART Many men know Hebrew, Greek, Who knows what tongue the songbirds speak? Who knows the lore of herd or flock? Who can the Insect mind unlock? Adam called to each its name As by him all earth's creatures came. Sore wearied by that living host Confused, he nature's language lost. Since then tho man has done his best To learn brute tongue; we must confess Our meager knowledge is a guess 'Bout chirp of bird and bray of ass. Since then, this world so full of life Has but two voices, song and strife. Which science swears beyond a doubt Means stomach full, or food all out. Still there are souls the songbird charms Whose natures shrink from daintiest worms. Even the mosquito pipes his strain For more than feel its lancet's pain. The smallest life on earthy ball Notes nature's changes one and all. The wild fowl with its little brain Knows more of sky and sea and plain Than man, with all his boasted pride; Tho claimed by some to beasts allied. The bee, the beaver, wiser are 'Bout storm and shine and nature far Than weather prophets, by the score, With all their daily printed lore. To Adam was dominion given To lord it over all the living But when he lost his self control Man lost his grip on nature's soul; 210 And once proud rulers of this sphere Sank to the depths of doubt and fear. To save man's hope from its white shroud God set his bow upon the cloud And promise gave when men were pale "Seed-time and harvest shall not fail." What nature writes is not now clear Although she prints a book each year. With her man's deep in love indeed, Yet few the pages he can read. It may be nature, heartless, smart Has kind o' jilted her sweetheart. THE HISTORY OF CRIME Sin against each other, And then drift apart, Is a plain law of crime Written deep on the heart. In anger Cain shed Abel's blood. Then accursed, fled thence To the East, Land of Nod; Where as fugitive he nursed His low sullen thoughts And for harvests of evil Devised cruel plots. Strong cities he built him And ruled over men God's free earth divided He sold out for gain. With countenance fallen He looked but for spoil, And no worth saw in man. Save the worth of his toil. This father of robbers Had murdered his man Which made him the chieftain Of earth's evil clan. 211 Who rebels against God, He rebels against man. As in the beginning So down thru all time, The faithless, the doubting Have fattened on crime. Even as Cain devised cities And measures and weights, Have his sons devised pleasures, And used them for baits. To catch the unwary, To injure the good; Spread nets and dug pits On the land, on the flood. But curst of his mother. And curst of his God — 'Bove the cattle and earth, Was this robber of Nod, Who traveled the wrong. When he knew the right road; Offered first, fruits and flowers Then, Abel's warm blood. He had battened on evil Had fed upon doubt Had tortured his reason Till faith had gone out. And at last as it must be When a stranger to right His Brother's acceptance Enraged him to fight. From its Source ever widening Thru the ages of time. Rolls down to the present, That current of crime; Diverse are its feeders As whims of the mind. 212 With main current deep As all evil combined. Each doubt in the Father Bred doubt in the Son; So broadened crimes current The farther it run. Cain's lusts in his children Are as plain when they're bom As the white tents of Jabal ; As Jubal's wildlhorn. Even current today Do bold bad men pass As in lands east of Eden Did Anak's own brass. A spawn breeding lot Were these minions of evil True chips of the old block Of Cain the uncivil. It was one against one When the trouble began It has raged till the battle Is man against man. Pi'coV'-rlience came first, Then murder, then lust, Crime's procession still lengthens, Still trails thru the dust. Doubt harbored by one Has tainted all flesh Till this life's a disease. I repeat it I know it! (You may laugh If you please) Tho I state not the cause; This life's a disease. Centrifugal evil Expulsively tends 213 To quicken migration To earth's farthest ends. Like the down on the thistle Fear wings us for flight! Conscience only gives strength, When we follow the right. TEMPTATIONS Our passions are oft athirst And reckless as hungry bears Temptations before us halt To entice with glittering wares. Like rivers our veins are filled With the pour of a sudden lust When appetites of the body reign They drag the soul in the dust. When reason the monarch of life By her subjects is once deposed And the fleshly appetites rebel The soul some charm must lose, For forever lying in wait Are desires of wondrous length — Some ripe Delilah with silent shears To cut away our strength. It was so with the fathers of old It is so with the present day When from purpose, strength is shorn, The flesh will have its way. Then, in blindness the fallen must grind In the tyrant's heavy mill; Each Sampson fallen becomes a slave. The sport of his victor's will. 214 A RUINED FLOWER I picked it up on the crowded street Soiled and trampled and torn A simple blossom a child of the sun Its fragrance and beauty gone. Tenderly praised when plucked, no doubt Loved and fondly caressed In the heat of affection its fragrance failed Failed in the hand that pressed; Then pitied mayhap, then tossed on the pave To be trodden by careless feet. From the crest of affection pure, sweet, thing It sank to the dirt of the street. Now grant me O, Muse the poet's eye With keen perceptive thought In this ruined rose to read aright The larger lesson taught. There are rare sweet blossoms of human kind Reared and cultured with care Young girls grown up in the homes of men Pure as the flowers are. Sure the ruined thing I found today Is a type of woman when lusts betray. Innocent things in our homes are they Vestals for shrines of love With graces of person charms of mind Clinging, trusting, sweet, With brows and faces pure and fair Where honor and virtue meet. The moment they are soiled by the hand of lust, Blushes and smiles remove Thence down to slums and midnight streets They drift from home and love. O, daughter of man thou art made of clay The curse in thy body lives 215 It may slumber awhile 'neath blush and smile But wantoned with, it deceives. When sunned by lust its poison revives And the demon of evil lives Plucked in a moment of burning love, Blackened and charred by its heat Soon passion full gorged deserted, and then Cast ofif by the good and great. Betrayed by one, mayhap a true friend, Who meant not the ruin wrought. In both, blind passions their leashes slipped To wanton and revel in shame While honor and conscience the ruin beheld And writhed in the scorching flame. THE JUDGMENT Consider nature, — she seems made up of the savage and the tender; kind or cruel, as it chances; men devise wars, punishments, asylums, homes. The heart says to suffering, "Hope on". Love is the sun of the soul shining on the here- after. Every page of human history Handed down since time began Tells how good and evil battled In the heart of every man. How right and wrong have triumphed In the ages of the past. How tribes and nations disappeared, Before oppression's blast. How the infant in the cradle And the king upon the throne, Were slain by those whom nature prized For girth of chest and bone. Across this backward waste of time 2i6 No human eye can see That nature rights the injured ones, Who bow to might's decree. Some thinkers say, there is no hell! It is plain as plain as can be That every page of nature says From chastening hands we are free! Well, let us read this open book Let thoughts of judgment stay^ And if we find her good and kind Why then to nature pray. Go ask the seer, ask Milton And Satan you will find Is the Satan of the ages Not a phantom of the mind. Evil is so abundant In the good that here we find, Says John Stewart Mill, of nature; Her acts don't prove her kind. Nature nurses motes in sunbeams. Yet sows the world with death; Her heart is rent with earthquakes, And cyclones are her breath. In the billows of the ocean By their beams, she swings the stars. Yet, this dancing ground of tempests Is bestrewn with broken spars. Is nature kind? she's cruel too; No flesh but has its thorn ; The birth, the death are cruel foes To everything that is born. Is nature kind? she's cruel too. Half smile half cloud and storm; 217 Earth's garments made by hands of love By hands of hate are torn. Is nature kind, vain boaster? Pray show me if you can Where mercy, justice, germinate, Save in the heart of man. And even there a feeble growth The better virtues find If the only guide be conscience If the only guide be mind. For the inmost heart bears witness Of a judgment of a king Who rewardeth good and evil Whose right it is to reign. O, how patiently they suffer How patiently they wait Whose wrongs seem never righted here To pass the golden gate. Shall the cruel, think you, boaster, Whose number none can tell, In that longed for land of justice Escape the throes of hell? It is the teaching of the scripture. The longing of the heart For time to come, when God shall put, The wolves and lambs apart. Here, the reign of law is cruel, Its assizes fierce we dread; It regardeth not the infant Nor man with snowy head. We behold, yet pant for justice Tempered with love complete Such grace and love as only grow Around God's mercy seat. 2l8 THE STEAMER CHINA (Lake Erie, 1883) Dear Friends: Take note on China boat, Upon Lake Erie we are afloat; No toil today; from care we are free A large and joyous company. From Cleveland forth, we follow the Down streaming waters toward the sea. Thru purple mists along we glide By steam, out-stripping wind and tide. To right the friendly shore lies near. To north and west, some sails appear. We gaze upon that line of blue Where old is lost; and into view Forever rises something new. There watch each vessel rise and sink And as we watch, these thoughts we think Each vessel on some errand bent. Built, manned, and guided with intent; Looks something human, doomed to strife Upon the restless waves of life. To distant ports white sailed they go, Some with the wind content to sail While others fret against the gale. Each with its freight of joy or woe Doth onward sail, some fast, some slow. Why are some doomed before they start While others grandly enter port. How close allied these craft we meet To people on the road or street. Men are like sailboats, such as we Today see sail this inland sea. The young clean built and white of sail, The old bear marks of many a gale. 219 The strong securely ride the storm; They perish first of feeblest form. Some helpless sink in infancy While others drift on hopelessly. O, man o'erwhelmed in busy strife — Take ship and learn the drift of life. Yon little craft — a painted fop, Her hold is small, she's light of top. Propellers are our men of craft They carry burdens fore and aft, While lumber boats are men of trade For use and service trusty made ; The masted schooners, are allied To men we meet, on every side; In port, at home, they're wintry things; Away they are birds on happy wings. Our worldly men are vessels large Have every enterprise in charge; But when they land to make report, A tug must drag them into port. Their worldly load is everything That promised gold or joy to bring. When — Give account! calls from afar Think you they'll cross the harbor bar? If no tug tempts that dreadful gale. Henceforth, a shoreless sea they sail. Mildew and storm mar whitest sails — Cheeks lose their smiles when grief prevails; Suffice to say, in boats we trace A semblance of the human race. THE WRECKER (A Cornish Legend) The wrecker sat in his cavern door Silently watching the moaning sea Noting the dip of the screaming gulls 220 Said "Stormy the night will be". The white spray leaped from the sunken reefs Like spirits into the air The tide rolled landward, a mighty grief, As of giants in despair. ^ He saw the petrel pluming for flight The spectral vapor already in sight And restlessly said, "it will storm tonight". The sky drooped low o'er the moaning sea As if daring the deep to fight While the silent air (between the two) Seemed trying to keep them quiet. His restless eye read every sign The storm king spreads abroad In warning of the wrath to come When tempests take the road. It was old to the wrecker, oft before, He had seen this preparation for war; Had laughed in glee at his cavern door, As he thought of the drift to come ashore. For many a goodly ship had he Lured on those sunken rocks But never he thought of the drifting dead As he landed barrel and box. But today a strange unrest he feels And shadows tug at his heart. Strange spectres of evil the sea reveals And his muscles twitch and start. His past life seems to come again, With its good and evil, its shine and rain And his soul responds with an aching pain That is new to him, that he cannot name. Is it born within from the outward throes Of a troubled world, or the inward ache The soul must feel, when ruin hurled From the ethical heights of the moral world? However it be, nature at last had struck a key 221 To which must answer heart and brain, As mercy answers cries of pain. Strange influences on his senses fell But why, or whence he could not tell; Yet forced, he felt against his will, Himself the victim of some spell, He could not by his reason quell. Why is a dog impelled to yield His mournful howl at some bell's peal Whose trembling sound floats in the air While other curs quit not their lair; Or why when luna's round and full One bays at her so pitiful? In some such way far vague and dim The wrecker (something troubled him). Inward he felt presentments roll — Unknown emotions stir his soul As if the future then flashed back Results of some unacted act He saw his past life quickly pass Procession like as thru a glass; Then felt his trembling heart stand still And scalding mist his hot eyes fill. "Must I then own the truth" — he cried, "The teaching of the Crucified." Each life that to this earth is hurled Is tethered to another world. And every man that lives in this His brother's keeper therefore is. The future challenged him indeed To halt, consider every deed; As if the simplest act we wis. Beyond the now, sends influences. He turned away from the deepening gloom, But in his cavern found no room For his unrest, with troubled brow 222 And faltering step he sought the sea, Asking why, whence troubles be? Nature with fear was deeply stirred And all her throes seemed evil starred. His every sense was pained with fear; He felt some strangeness filled the air, As if voices spoke, which he could not hear. Intangible warnings assailed his ear. Before him passed vision-like faces in pain The will of another seemed ruling his brain; A warning, if balefires be lit on the height Trouble would come to the wrecker, that night. He moved with ease, his senses worked well, Around him weird forces were weaving a spell. What influences these moving still as the wind Enslaving with power the will and the mind. Was it soul-flowing-vigor brooding o'er space Announcing results ere the act taketh place? Some thought-bearing ether the mass will not heed, Rejecting the lesson earth's true prophets read. Half broken in purpose he tried to explain Why intangible warnings impinged on his brain. His conscience now tender the warning said heed! But reason cried, coward what is it you dread? As a carrier pigeon tossed up circles round 'Till in sensuous ether a pathway is found. So circled his reason, so wavered his will Mid doubt and conviction 'till vanished the spell. As after the battle, the stragglers come in, He regains his excuses and justifies sin. Food, clothing, life comforts he says, I must have. They, my jetsam, my flotsam the gifts of the wave. He reasoned, as men do in calling and trade Is it evil if by it my living is made? Almost persuaded he turned from the right Almost persuaded he faced toward the night Then doubt shot arrows of fear in his brain 223 His struggling conscience filled with pain. By the lightning's glare, his face revealed The fact, an evil choice, his sad fate sealed. Black night dropped down, the darkness of death His white locks stirred by storm-demon breath. All nature trembled from far and from near Sea, earth felt the wound of the storm's red spear. To life on the earth the thunders above Say a storm knows no mercy, quarter or love. With body atremble, with feverish mind He goes like a wolf to prey on his kind. Stealthily steals to the headland height And swiftly a balefire glows on the night. There muses the wrecker feeding his fire — The laborer is worthy of his hire. How good (tho false) must seem the light To sailors on the sea at night. He knew results would different be From what the pilots think or see. But what of that, pretended friends Oft kindle fires for selfish ends; Win confidence for sake of prey They hope to take some other day. Deception, yes, claimed, justified. Since man, wolf, monkey are allied. The angry flashes went plowing the sea Thru a night wild and dark as could be; The live bolts seemed wrecking overhead The sky — sea and earth bellowed with dread. Mid hurricane blasts the storm held its breath Like a beast of evil, low crouching for death. Each blast blew fiercer than that gone before As rolling in fury the sea lashed the shore. Freely the wrecker heaped fuel that night Uncaring to whom it proved a false light. He felt the storm waning that fevered his brain, 224 So renewed his efforts to increase his gain. A common practice when dangers abound For men by false signals to lure one aground. By the fireside glow 'mid circle of friends Oft are lighted false tapers for base selfish ends. Hark! thru the sea's seething tempest and storm, A sound that transfixes the wrecker is born. It is the call of distress mariners give — Proclamation of cannon when ships cannot live; Each minute the peal cuts tempest and night, Like the wail of the lost in a losing fight. Eyes strained in terror at last see the light Revealing itself in that season of fright. Tho kindled for evil, purpose unseen, A promise of aid tho motive unclean. Men are taught in this nether world dark To look for the light, nay to follow a spark. So heading the vessel trusting their sight Are wrecked by the rocks on way to the light. Men are wrecked on the sea, are lost on the land When for selfish ends their journey is planned They sink on the rocks the wild breakers sport In the blaze of a promise, a welcome to port. The lips of a hope that seemed circled with light Was the door of a grave where billows unite. The storm's grandest effort, wild laughed the sea As the tempest went landward leaving it free. The ship ground to pieces, waves sullenly bore Her fruitage of trade and life to the shore. Not life, but homes whence the living had fled In that moment of hope that moment of dread. Brief was the battle in that dreadful war Which cast up dead sailors with wreckage and spar. The wrecker toiled hard, the wrecker toiled fast. Assured crime's harvest is short at the best. His jetsam and flotsam he piled above tide And the cruel sea thanked for liberal divide. 225 With rain, salt spray, his coarse locks were wet, Night's fearful trouble had bleached out their jet, While safely to land cask and parcel were drawn Night wore away toward the grey of the dawn. Torn clouds, darkness and tempest moved on. Floated off on the breeze that preceded the sun. His eyes strained for sight in that trying night Rolled fevered and restless as increased the light. Sadly worn with his toil, full glutted with gain. He thought of his cavern and rest but in vain; He willed to depart, was doomed to remain; The knell of that warning he hears again. The soft sky above, the sweet morning breeze, Calms not a soul once shorn of its peace. The very sea mocked him with strangeness and dread While intangible voices said, "Care for your dead". The blood left his heart, strength oozed away. Night torments changed with dawning of day. He knew he must face some horrible fact Of which he was guilty forewarned of the act. A statue of trouble, created a man, Made such by resisting the infinite plan. Who ignores his conscience, perverts his reason. Writhes in the guilt of spiritual treason. Suspense was soon over, denouement complete The waves a dead sailor threw at his feet. The terrible warnings were clear as the sun When the wrecker looked on the face of his son. In the light of results he was sure of his facts. Wiser far, had conviction determined his acts. Thought unspoken hath sound for sharp spirit ears Distinct as words man of flesh ever hears But on earth's life's so sunk in flesh and its wants The sweet strain is a jargon the good angel chants. 226 A LAMENT One woeful night Between two April days The Tempter's blight Fell on life's happy ways. My heart of Love He charred with passion's flame Took peace and purity Left tears and shame. The dirge of sorrow Fills me now with pain The sweet life dies When innocence is slain. I toiled for bread And humble was my lot; Was lonesome sometimes Tho I murmured not Indeed I scarce dared dream Such life could have an end Unless perchance one came My lover and my friend. Such thought is part of life So dream we all Base cruel dream Since by our friends we fall. He came youth's star Of promise in the night Knocked at the door of love Robbed me outright. 227 My world, a desert now ; All freshness gone, Soaked be his bread with tears Who wrought my wrong. He planned my fall Taught in experience's school; I listened, trusted, Now, he calls me fool! My heart's sweet soil That grew but kindest love Grows hate and bitterness Can I such growth reprove? Has justice fled to brutes? Has mercy died? Who says I'm worse than he, Who to me lied? Not pity, justice Is the boon I crave For him, as well as me; This side the grave. JENNIE AND I O, bright were the hours of life's sunny morn Compared to the present so sad and forlorn For hope was abroad then with visions of light And filled our young lives with healthy delight. We lived, laughed, loved as though never a sigh Should escape from the hearts of Jennie and I. It was beauty, pleasure, contentment and joy How little we thought of future alloy. The hours trooped gaily, bright days glided by Our lives were spanned by a summer-lit sky 228 Our hearts knew no care, our bosoms no sigh; Cupid's bright chain circled Jennie and I. We gathered wild flowers the fairest In May In summer we sported upon the new hay In autumn, wandered through forest and grove And sang with the wild birds the songs of our love, When winter came on and cold winds swept by Then the hearth was a haven for Jennie and I. But fate grew quite jealous to see us so gay And besought brother envy to darken our day Soon rumor was busy and with gossip to aid Prevailed upon scandal to join in the trade All these powers united our love did defy And storms soon were beating on Jennie and I. THE WAY IT WAS DONE A wag once joked and blundered, And people thoughtlessly laughed; Encouraged, jesting became a fad, And tendencies turned to the bad. Streams of obliquity fed It Conversation showed yawns and gaps. Learning assumed to be freakish Orthography swooned In collapse. The freak took on a new value Filched from the normal class, The shop-talker became a leader And dialect captured the mass. Authors exploited beings Who mutilated their talk. And dowered them with ideas Above common learned folk. 229 False standards injured religion A crisis came to the church. A slack twisted christian resulted — A reproach to the Nazarene's worth. A SUMMER GIRL (A Normal Mind An Empire Is) I knew her when life's early summers Had tangled their gold in her hair When life was too happy for murmurs And her face showed no visits of care. When lark-like she sang to the daisies When friends like herself were sweet misses When her heart was an eden of praises And her mouth a confection of kisses. I knew her when age had its innings When mother love triumphed o'er care, When life knows the end of beginnings, Ups and downs, to a crown of white hair. Husband, children — the real blessing That makes home and life care free Both to service and love always saying Wife-hood, motherhood — ^jewels for me. KISSES As the south wind stirs the meadows By its quickening breath So our natures wake and tremble Quickened by a kiss. Sunny waves of life possess us Kissing clean red lips While a springtime's kindly rapture Thrills our finger tips. 230 Hebe gave the cup at feasting To the Gods to sip To the earth they spilled some nectar By a lover's slip. Since the soul grows fat in feasting On the palm and lip Psyche offers you love's nectar Prays you take a sip. O, thou soul's sweet introduction To a soul in bliss Felt by trembling palms in greeting Tasted in a kiss. Love were mute beyond expression In a world like this If our speech were not augmented By the embrace and kiss. THE POWER OF A HUMAN LIFE We met in the hall of fashion Where the lights were many and bright Touched hands became acquainted With relish and keen delight. A mood had bound my reason Had enthralled my heart my will To free myself I had tried in vain But lacked the power, the skill. As flowers bent by dew drops Are freed by the kiss of day The instant your face, your eyes Met mine, my tyrants fled away; And my soul was filled with sunshine And the shadows left my brain And the bird in my heart began to sing 231 The songs that follow the rain. Then I knew the joys of the victor That follow the ended strife Then I knew as plants know sunshine The power of a human life. friend of man, true poet ! Thou hast dwelt in every mood The highest thoughts and hopes of the world Have stopped in your brain to brood And love in your heart has nested There her kindly offspring dwell And from tenderest throes to highest joys Its sympathies ebb and swell. Thou hast strength of the north to battle In the struggle for every right Yet sweet as to blossoms, a breeze of the south, Are your songs to the children of night. Like the land of eternal summer Where birds from the winters flee; To man is the heart of the poet, With its boundless sympathy, 1 know the fever of waiting Has often burned in your brain And your soul in its upward struggle Has known the depths of pain; For to joy you have given expression For sorrow have found a moan Have measured the hearts of the children of men By laying them on your own. Earth's dumb to thee owe tribute For what they could never write. To your eyes are the blind indebted For light beyond their sight To the prose dull ears of the many 232 Thou hast sent a new refrain — Your faith and love is thawing hearts That long in the winter have lain. As the earth bears seed to the sower Who knows what the harvest will be Your sowing must bear in the hearts of men Faith, love and sympathy. AMONG THE HILLS When autumn sunsets burn along the west And purple mists float in the quiet air I shun the city called by hills to rest While dogs and hunters to the woods repair. From busy city, village, train and mill Confused a drowsy noise the valleys fill. This disembodied throbbing would you analyse Telling of struggles in the life we prize? It is life, the living force of shops set free Adding a tired monotone to air and sea. Headlong the April brook flows silent now, On distant lake the spectral sail moves slow Parting the golden vapors of the day In paths, like dreams cut from this world away. Each distance has an invitation of its own When dying nature puts her glories on. The days are pictoral, night vies with day; The argent moon rolls on her queenly way. In fields phosphoric stars and planets move Comets and meteors burn their paths above. Height, width and depth profound display The boundless goodness of immensity. 233 LILIES OF THE VALLEY (With a Birthday Letter) Go sweet buds and greet my darling Please her much, Open wide and shed your fragrance At her touch. Tell her how the heart in sweetness, Grows its love. To her, fragments of earth, beauty This, pray prove. Show how little acts of kindness Wide apart Mark in every life the pathway To the heart. Out of wintry mould and darkness You have come Making glad with scent and beauty Your low home; So in hearts of fleshliest fashion Love once born Dates the soul's eternal living From that morn. Thence the heart grows buds of kindness Spite of storm. Over hills and vales you scattered, Day by day. Till my grace hath found you, bound you, One boquet — E'en so, human hearts — law governed From above Grace, two choosing from the many, Binds in love 234 Go then dowered rich in blessing Swift depart Earth and sun and God's love letters To the heart. IMMORTALITY tandlng by a grave I said Vhere are they the loved and dead? rhe spirit clothing made of clay Vas all that here was laid away. low often since this mound was made /Ly thoughts have pierced the gloomy shade: Ind where the spirit currents swell met my friends alive and well; Lnd in communion rich and sweet )ur hearts in unison have beat, /Ly doubts and fears all swiftly fled Lnd peace abode with me instead. ^he body changes form in death lut spirit has immortal breath orever growing, never grown; 'ach God-like act a star in crown. To planet cycle marks the years Jeyond the wreck of worlds and spheres, t lives, the soul with freed souls dwell, orever done with cap and bell. n God's great bosom pure and sweet Vhat future happiness to meet "he faces lost, redeemed from pain ^he hearts of love by rude acts slain, n friendship truth and love to bask 'orever done with cloak and mask. 235 THE RESULT I have toiled in the fields of mind Until brain is weary with thought Discouraged, have failed to find Much truth for which I wrought. My ears are dull with age, My eyes are growing dim; Patient, O heart, beyond this stage Love calls, faith leads to Him. THE SIMPLE LIFE Under the trees on the grassy lawn Shadows dance in the breeze and sun; There song birds sing a roundelay Of nesting hopes as spring goes by; And toil's made easy day by day Tho burdens grow with nestling's cry. As I looked and pondered, my spirit saw The wondrous sweep of mighty law That poises the planets in empty space. And holds all things in loving embrace. The law of pleasure was part of the plan Excess and trouble and pain left out. One law for the life of bird and man A simple life with never a doubt. A wondrous law of sex and life That roofs with love the home, the nest, That mingles song with toil and strife Paying well done with after rest. The summer growth, the after rest, To grass and shrub and forest tall 236 Yields benediction sweet and blest In royal beauty crowning all. Great mandate of creative mind That gave one law to high and low. Let ofEspring after its own kind Unharmed by chance forever grow. Let age and youth together live One family in home and nest Goodness all evil shall survive To live together then is best. For in communion kind with kind The common weal is best attained. Love lightens labor, sweetens mind And earth's felicity is gained. I learn from birds, that toil and song Make happy duties common way. That flesh to nature plans belong, And love makes life a holiday. Sweetness of youth o'erlaps old age As strength supplies the yearling's need; Each sharing its own heritage Receiveth greater things instead. TO SAMUEL SPRECKER, D. D., LL. D. To you I came a callow youth, Self willed, purblind; You led me into fields of truth, Enthroned the mind, Memory enshrines you in my heart, The wise, the kind. 237 My sky with youth dreams was ablaze; You cleared the light, Expelled the doubt, the fear, the haze, Enlarged my sight. May all your sky thro' coming years With love be bright. OUR MASTERS Who is my master, I ask the flesh, It replies, thy wants rise ever afresh. Who is my master, I ask the ear. It answers, all harmonies sweet and clear. Who is my master, I ask the eye. Beauty, frail beauty is its reply. Who is my master, I ask the brain. It answers, the phantoms you chase in vain. Who are my masters, I ask the heart. And its drowsy desires rouse and start And in mingled jargon love, and fame. And wealth, and pride, the answers came. Who are my masters, the answer's clear Thy neighbors ready to praise or sneer. Aye, public opinion burdens each back Fear and ignorance cripples each act. The cut of a coat, the shade of a tie, The force of a laugh, the slip of a sigh, Are frictions of fashion that fever the brain; That rob it of pleasure and fill it with pain. Acadian life is a dream of the past. The life of today is a feverish gasp. Years run to waste, often brief is the span Productive of acts that are worthy of man. 238 THE ORATORIO OF NATURE The beauty of woman shall fade; The strength of man shall fail; Birth and death is the medley played; And the harp of nature is frail. True forever of matter at strife That forever in change is wrought; But eternal is the anthem of life Thrummed by immortal thought. The anthem is loud and clear To those who dwell on the hight Is pure and sweet to the ravished ear Of a soul with its Lord in sight. The song of the spheres above Growth and decay below; Earth's endless dance of death and Life, And ocean's ceaseless flow. Storm, torrent and thunder roar; Each dawn with showers of gold; Choral of birds and din of war And sounds that are manifold. Great sunsets burning the clouds; The meteors track of fire Are symphonies grand to ears attuned To the sweep of nature's lyre. Aye, nature in all her moods Hints of wisdom beyond earth's beach ; While spirits unseen, endeavor unheard To utter some higher speech. Her lessons on matter are clear But of more than matter they teach; He must listen with soul, not ear. Who would grasp what is out of reach. 239 ALL THE WAYS O' LIFE ARE GOOD The dazzling prizes that I looked upon, Forever failed me and seemed farther on. So wrapped and earnest was my quest, Men saw my shining face And called me blest. Life's common fields that stretched Along the way Eclipsed and darkened seemed As oft the sun When veiled Its light From all It shone upon. At last o'ertaken by the coming night When weariness and waste of strength And dimness of the sight Compels to rest; As all must learn at length. It dawns upon us all too late That all the way was good; Save In the past It was not understood. That all the way we trod From our low start — Led through the fields of God. That wayside blossoms bursting into bloom. Come day by day Fresh from the master's mind; Design, color, sweetness, all combined As fabrics from some loom. And yet we fare abroad And Idly, Ignorantly roam To feed on truths That cluster fresh at home. 240 OBSCURITY How hard it is in this every day life, To live in contentment alone, To win the smallest conquest from strife, If victory's trump be unblown. How hard to live on a short back street. Where callers in carriages never come; Though cottage and yard be ever so neat, Pride poisons life with a bitter scum. Ambition, yes, every one labors and hopes For wealth, position and fame. The sweetest bud of joy that ope's. Is the love of a deathless name. ANTAGONISMS The mountains are big with dread ; The valleys with dead abound; Grim dangers lurk in each path we tread, And safety seems nowhere found. A thunderbolt leaps from the sky; Rives forests, in death strews the plain; Malaria steals from the swamps. And by "fade away" millions are slain. We shrink from the hiss of a snake; Lose temper at bite of a fly. While mote, mosquito or gnat, can make Life's currents run arid and dry. Life feeds upon life in the mass; Earth is but the dust of the dead; The waters war with excess; Life's history is dying and dead. 241 Yet out of the dust of the dead, Wisdom weaves every garment of life; What is nature's story when read, Save living, loving and strife. THE WIND AND THE PINES The wind and the pines all day long Have swept the limits of endless song And my soul is full of the highest joy That earth can give to man or boy. For treading the forest depths I heard The pipes of Pan with melody stirred ; I breathed the tonic the north wind brings And quaffed the nectar of sylvan springs; At autumn's banquet on nature's heart Reclined, where body and soul take part. I saw the roots of earth's secret springs And felt the beat of the heart of things. For all day long the wind and the trees Have played the grandest of melodies On nature's organ so vast and grand Fitted to songs creation planned. Thru pipes storm swept — tempered by suns; From trunk to leaf the gamut runs. The forest choir with resinous breath Sings ever of life, sings ever of death. A gummy fatness embalms the air And lifts the soul on wings of prayer. One hears in moss and lichen and tree, The still small voice of Deity. I have tested sympathy, such as is found In the hearts of men in country and town But a purer companionship far than these Is found in a forest of living trees. Where nature has coverts for wolf and fawn And the woodman's life is a lengthened dawn 242 An Acadian life near nature's heart Unspoiled by the rules of camp or court. For body and soul sweet health is found, Where air and water and light abound. And life's best wine sinks not to the leas Where simple pleasures forever please. SEEN BY THE WAY (After a Night of Sleet) As we came home from Martinsville, December nineteen six, Beauty encamped on plain and hill. In tents of Borean tricks. Ice crystals jeweled shrub and tree. Spread cunning frost-maid filagree On stubble, weed, as if to see How charming homely things might be, When decked in winter tapestry. All night before, ice witches Wove rich robes of crystal fine. And hung them over switches. Fence, stump and clinging vine. The swaying elm, the switchy beach. The dead oak, sturdy, cold. Each had a fashion, style and speech, Vain mortals fain would hold. The north wind wantoned all around, Caressing shrub and bough; Showering and shaking splendor down, To brighten things below. The somber crow on midnight wing, Flew o'er the ice-like sea; Herd, dog and hunter, wondering. Charmed, silent seemed to be. 243 And as our urban car sped thru The scenes erst wintry bare; Light as from diamonds, blossomed And vanished everywhere. Nature most prodigal of wealth, Exhausted winter's store, To make the earth more beautiful Than summer had before. Ever the seasons come and go, Each vieing with the other. To make the earth more beautiful And honor the All Father. NIAGARA (The Fall of Table-rock) A whisper comes out of the past, From the ages when terra was young; That the Devil to make his fame last. Set to drown the Small Voice in song. So he carved great Niagara's bed And started the hydraulic choir; But the Voice grew mighty and sped, Filling space with multiplied power. Chagrined at the fate of his plan; In wrath, ever since, he has tried To silence these mouths, if he can. By tumbling the rocks inside. THE UPWARD STRUGGLE The longer I live and the more I see Of souls that struggle to'ard heights above, The stronger this truth comes home to me; The Universe rests on the shoulders of love; A love so infinite, deep and broad. That men rename it, and call it God. 244 THE COLUMBIA RIVER If there were no gods — O river so free! I should yield to temptation And worship thee. Thou dost water the fields, Putting life into wheels That turn ever sturdily- Grinding the meals For the children of life; Suiting songs to the mouth Giving strength to each arm; Friend to everything living, Guardian from harm. Refreshing myself on Thy bosom and banks I feel it my duty To give thee my thanks. All life is refreshed as It drinks and bathes, Yielding songs of joy- Abounding in praise. TO WHOM DO YOU BOW? Some worship the god of yellow corn Some worship a cotton king; Sun, water, soil, man's servitors, Soul, body, needs many a thing To refresh, supply waste energy And give strength for battling. The fight is on in the business world ; Each must pay for a place to stand. Equality, liberty, statesmen's dreams! How the social chasms expand; 245 The earth was made for the human race Made beautiful, roomy, well planned. Select your idol and sail your seas Sail on, till your journey's done — But stand for the right in every fight, Be patient, be just and brave; Give to the world the best you have — Thus continents are won. PLENTY OF ROOM There is room in the world for you today There is room for each to have his say; Bluff says, all is crowded — overdone — That the press is swamped by an over run That genius is dwarfed; the pen undone; That greatness is dead on the heights it won. All commercially dead. Unwelcome news, if really true, I waive you back to the realms of woe, Business, not soul, is measured by gold, A higher value great thoughts hold. O world of man, worth makes it so! Each day holds room for the soul to grow; The true, the beautiful, everywhere found — Declares that wisdom knows no bound. Obey God's edict and go to work! (It matters little — use knife or fork) But of honest labor do your share And you will have plenty, with friends to spare. They mostly are tramps who will not work Parasites they who grumble and shirk. Get rid of the boss and the autocrat Read your Bible, learn what God's at. 246 CHRISTMAS TIME Again the happy Christmas tide Has set the world in motion Along the streets the people glide In throngs, a human ocean. The wintry air vibrates with life Faces and eyes look eager, Does bargain hunting cause the strife, Or are life's good things meager? No, pleasure pulses in each breast With memories true and tender; Friends that are sundered east or west All kindly now remember. No longer overhead is heard That angel choir singing Yet earth holds sacred every word When Christmas bells are ringing. The time of peace has not yet come Tho earth is old and hoary; The fields of Mars have widened some And all his crops are gory. King Christmas brings a happy reign Tho many days are evil; We fill our hearts with joy again Our thoughts grow kind and civil. It is worth eleven months at least To feel one's heart-blood tingle Tho brief, superlative the feast When at our best we mingle. Love bursts to bloom In happy words And friendships shared grow stronger When talk and jest and song accords We give and take and laugh and wish. The happy hours were longer; 247 Fond memory treasures what is best, Hope keeps our life blood flowing. Along life's journey much we've missed And much we still remember Roses of June were sunshine kist — Old yule-fires cheer December. So let us count our loss and gain Before the year is ended And fearless sail life's stormy main Tho smiles and tears are blended. The storms of life will soon be past The clouds away be drifted; The fadeless skies will show at last, When present fogs are lifted. I send you kindest greeting, friends, Perchance, tho not your debtor — God bless you every one, so ends, My lengthy Christmas Letter. ALL ARE TRAMPS Uneven the road and heavy the track, This life journey entered, no one may turn back; Civilians and soldiers in houses and camps After gain, after fame, from birth — all are tramps. Men are born with limits of station, health, Of family, nation, of poverty, wealth. Inherited burdens man's liberty cramps Both in joy and sorrow as onward he tramps. Choose we science, hard labor, poetry, art, Man ever is weary and hungry at heart. The mountains are chilly, the vales full of damps After rest, after comfort all men are tramps. The rich toil for honor, the poor for bread For great, for little, by want all are led. 248 The blind ask a leader, the seeing need lamps, After much, after little— all, all are tramps. How narrow our vision, our wisdom how small; Does an awkward life journey, a grave end it all? Look aloft, be wise, keep oil in your lamps For good or evil, to'ard judgment we are tramps. THE PROMISE Let the Woman's heel, he said, Henceforth bruise the serpent's head. When every foe is dead at last Man shall recover Eden lost. Till then, the fight 'twixt good and ill Let every creature wage with will. Goodness abounds inviting, sweet. While evil's kept beneath the feet. The Hero's triumph each may feel Who treads on wrong — rights with his heel. Cheat not your heart, nor boast a flaw, God reigns and will fulfill all Law. Quit ye like men of old and feel His promise to the woman's heel. Brave Achilles felt death's steel Where Styx no armor gave his heel. The giant's blood armed Siegfried over. Save where one leaf clave to his shoulder, Which in his harness left a door Thru which his life fled like a star. Balder the beautiful in days of old Had love's best pledge (we're told) From everything, save mistletoe. That blind boys harmless plant Under which lovers kiss and happy meet. 249 Even mother love saw In that plant no harm, But all accord to it a Lover's charm. Yet shaped an arrow, fitted to a bow, Blind Hoerder shoots. The beautiful lays low. Balder's sweet Soul was doomed to shades below. A broader promise than a giant's blood A broader promise than the stygian flood Man has in Christ, assuring wealth of good. CHRISTMAS THOUGHTS Ring on, O Bells of Joy ! Till Israel shall confess The Christ; once Bethlehem's Boy Is Christ — the world to bless. Gift ever new — tho story old — The Israel Miracles manifold. It cost God much to lead them out, Cost more to bring them in. Egypt to Canaan — Type no doubt Of sinners saved from sin. The many works to save them wrought Were scarcely done before forgot. Fame, country lost, abroad they grope their way, With Christ left out, observe our Christmas Day. Surpassing strange, even Judah should forget — Christ's star hath risen nevermore to set. O, blind indifference to Love Divine — In current books we often find His works belittled, only brought to mind To grace some romance of the common kind. 250 THE VOICE OF NATURE [Camp Petrel, Adirondacks, N. Y.] From the camp fire, sparks shot upward, Ambitious to visit the stars; They perished in fields of vapor None passing our cloudland bars. Stars widened the upper spaces And bathed them in gentle light As I looked and apprehended The lessons of the night. Like camp fires are nations consuming — And every man has a soul Sending its hope sparks upward To some heaven, its final goal. The winds on their way to the cities Bear blessings from plants and trees, O, Rulers, learn wisdom from nature, Send them friendship, love, rest, peace. SING ON [Many are the birds that sing among the graves. Many their losses and bereavements, yet they still sing ow] I sang to my soul in sorrow When I saw the roses fall And nature staged her mystery, The fate that waits upon all. I sang for my heart grew lonely As hands and faces were missed. For some loved voice fled forever From lips no more to be kissed. I noted the wealth of the Nations, 251 Of life I computed the sum, Home, shop and grave — great stations, Man's journey under the sun. Ambitions, love, tears, laughter, Life's amazing yield, v^hen done. I sang to my soul in sorrow In the swellings of manhood's prime. For the cares of life are many And sharp is the tooth of time. Great aims we prize in the distance, Grow pale as we journey on; Is it the struggle for existence? As neared their charms seem gone. I sang, for song gives courage When the battle is fierce and dread; When the heart is hot and restless And fields are stubbled and dead. I paused as the conflict slackened. Considered the gain all told. And found the lessons golden — Life's blessings are manifold. I sang to my soul in autumn As the sun nears the afterglow. When the past is a memory showing The efforts of long ago. I am learning the song of triumph. For promises grow more bright As we near the silent river And enter the shades of night. For the soul in the nearing distance Sees the grey of the coming day, Eternity's dawn in splendor Breaking just over the way. And joins in the song of triumph — Jubilatta! all victories won. Earth's voice sinks sweet into silence At the Master's words — ^Well done. 252 NAPLES An April Sabbath camps upon thy hills ; Business is hushed — the ocean air is chill. From out blue skies the sun's soft light Affords grand views from Posillipo's hill. Where Solfatara stood and belched From lava-lips her many molten floods Only a valley now is seen ; low, grandeurless ; Skirted by brambles blown from stunted woods, Long ranked satanic terror of the world. The Centuries stole thy light, thy might and now Beyond the city and the bay, volcanic throes declare Thy mantle dread, rests on Vesuvius brow. O Naples, City of delights! thy thoroughfares Shouldered by Alps, borne to the heights Whence men may note thy daily toils and cares And see thee wanton with the enchantress night. Dig thy lap's dust — old cities reappear — Pompeii, Herculaneum, Cumae, Baia Rise from their graves, the past is here. Its wealth, pleasure, wisdom, folly ours today. Here from death's house (buttressed by centuries) Come Caesar, Piso, Pompey, Cicero, Marius, Virgil, Tasso, Horace, Paul, Seneca and others Across the mighty summits sloping down to us. Epochs of ruin thou hast known ; yet kept The step of progress, while thine eyes have wept. Triumphs in art and music thou dost own; Many thy treasures, hence world tourists come. 253 Greece nurtured thee a thousand years. Then thou, Parthenope changed name, wast wed To Rome and since, by bloody handed Mars Hast time and time again been widowed. ^fcj*- Naples, Neapolis, O city old yet new; Youth, beauty, strength are with thee evermore. Thy children, blest with loveliness — Sorento, Capri, Ischia, thy jewels Kohinoor. 254 A8 6 1S13