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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 
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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
WINONA 
 
 A DAKOTA LEGEND 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 TLTHi 
 
 CAPTAIN ErLTHUGGINS 
 2d Cavalry U. S. Army 
 
 G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
 
 NEW YORK LONDON 
 
 27 West Twenty-third St. 27 King William St., Strand 
 
 1890 
 

 Copyright, 1890 
 
 BY 
 
 ELI L. HUGGINS. 
 
 Ube Iknfcfterbocftet fi^te00, mew IgorR 
 
 Electrotyped, Printed, and Bound by 
 G. P. Putnam's Sons 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Winona, A Dakota Legend. 
 
 Proem 3 
 
 Part I. 5 
 
 Part II 20 
 
 Part in 33 
 
 MiscEivivANEous Poems. 
 
 To A Young Man 43 
 
 Tei^i. Me, Dear Bird 45 
 
 Perdita 47 
 
 Stanzas to 52 
 
 Love's Tribute 55 
 
 The Litti^e Shepherdess.— PASTORE1.1.E . 57 
 
 A Farewei.1. 58 
 
 To A F1CKI.E Fair One 59 
 
 To THE Same 59 
 
 The Pai^ace of Repose 60 
 
 Moods ^3 
 
 To 74 
 
 To 76 
 
 To the Same 76 
 
 To the Same ....... 76 
 
 iii 
 
iv CONTENTS. 
 
 Translations and Imitations. page 
 If My Verses Had Wings- Like a Bird. — 
 
 Hugo 79 
 
 'TwixT Si^EEP and Waking. — Prosper 
 
 Bl<ANCHEMAIN 80 
 
 White Swan Saucing. — From the Russian, 81 
 
 The Roses oeSaadi. — Desbordes-Vai,more, 84 
 
 ROSE-BudS.—B:§:r ANGER 85 
 
 The Bird I Wait eor.— Moreau ... 87 
 
 Visions.— De Musset 89 
 
 The Fisherman's Bridai,. — Dei^avigne . 92 
 You Had My Whoi^E Heart. — Desbordes- 
 
 Vai^more ....:.. 95 
 
 Art. — Th]§;ophii.e Gautier .... 97 
 
 BARCAR01.1.E. — The:ophii,e Gautier . . 100 
 Shadows. — Thejophii^e Gautier . . .103 
 
 Sonnet: OuVontIi^? — Sui^iyY Prudhomme, 113 
 The Gay Cashier. — Adapted from the 
 
 French 114 
 
 The Ravages oe Time. — Scarron . . .115 
 HAiviyUCiNATiON. — From the French. 
 
 I. 116 
 
 II 116 
 
 HI 117 
 
 IV. In The Grove 118 
 
 To My Critics.— De Musset . . . .119 
 
 The Youth and the Oi,d Man. — Fi^orian . 121 
 The CathedraIv BeivIv and Its Rivai,. — 
 
 Iriarte 123 
 
CONTENTS. V 
 
 Bi.UK Byes and BIvACk Byes. — Imitated from page 
 
 ANDAI.USTAN COPI.AS. 
 
 1 125 
 
 II 126 
 
 COMPIvAINT TO THE VIRGIN. — FrOM A CUBAN 
 
 Poetess 128 
 
 The Crucifixion. Oi,d French Sonnet . 132 
 
 From The Spanish 133 
 
 The Book of Life. — Lamartine . . . 134 
 Memoriae Day and Other Poems. Dedicated 
 
 TO THE G. A. R. 
 Twenty Years Ago. Written for Memo- 
 
 RiAi, Day, 1885 137 
 
 Abraham IvINCOi^n 141 
 
 The Prisoner's Dream 142 
 
 How Oft a Sentry Sad and Lone . . 143 
 
 From Copeas of an Andaeusian Soedier . 144 
 
 From the Same 145 
 
 The Geory of a Spanish Dragoon. — From 
 
 THE Same 146 
 
 Written for a Reunion of Veterans in 
 
 THE Year 1915 148 
 
 Twenty-five Sonnets. 
 
 To 153 
 
 Poesy 154 
 
 The Rose 155 
 
 To A Fair Santa Barbaran .... 156 
 
 La Diva 157 
 
 To A Happy Lover ....*. 158 
 
vi CONTENTS, 
 
 METEMPSYCHOSIS. ^AG= 
 
 1 159 
 
 II 159 
 
 Three Sonnets in Memoriam. 
 
 I. Despair— The Abyss . . . .161 
 
 II. Questioning 161 
 
 iii. c0ns01.at10n 162 
 
 In Memory oe D. G. R 163 
 
 In Memory oe John Brown oe Ossawatto- 
 MiE. Inscribed to John J. Ingai^i^. 
 
 1 164 
 
 II 165 
 
 III 165 
 
 Our IvOST Ones 167 
 
 The Ocean oe the Past .... 168 
 
 Bvii. Days 169 
 
 Envy and Si<ander. To N. N. M. . .170 
 
 True Freedom. To J. F. F 171 
 
 " Society " 172 
 
 The Stagnant Pooi, 173 
 
 The Man with the Muck Rake. . . 174 
 
 immortai^ity 175 
 
 To a Young Artist 176 
 
WINONA : A DAKOTA I^KGKND 
 
WINONA : A DAKOTA LEGEND. 
 
 PROEM. 
 
 T TOW changed, fair Minnetonka, is thy face 
 ■'• "■■ Since first I saw thee in thy pristine grace. 
 Electric Hghts fantastically glow, 
 Swarming like fire-flies on the shores where long, 
 Through countless summer nights a vanished 
 
 throng, 
 Only the Indian camp-fire flickered low. 
 The odor of the baleful cigarette 
 Assails us now, where the mild calumet 
 Around the circle like a censer swung. 
 The notes of Strauss intoxicate the air, 
 And dainty feet in cadence twinkle there, 
 Where in rude strains the warriors' deeds were 
 
 sung, 
 And where the Indian lover's plaintive flute 
 Lured to the trysting-place the dusky maid. 
 
 3 
 
4 WINONA. 
 
 Discreetly hidden in the sylvan shade, 
 
 The Anglomaniac comes to press his suit, 
 
 And Patrick, too, out for a holiday. 
 
 Strolls with his Bridget here en dimanchS^ 
 
 And softly whispers in his charmer's ear 
 
 The same old tale, to lovers ever dear. 
 
 The rustling leaves, the waves, the mating bird, 
 
 Sing the same songs the Indian maiden heard. 
 
 Save a few stately names, the vanished race 
 
 "Whose dust we daily trample leave no trace 
 
 Or monument. None who that race have known 
 
 Kre poisoned by the vices of our own. 
 
 Deem it ignoble ; but the white man's breath, 
 
 To him a besom of consuming death. 
 
 Sweeps him like ashes from his natal hearth, 
 
 B'en as one day some race of stronger birth 
 
 Will sweep our children's children from the earth. 
 
 More noxious than the fabled upas tree. 
 
 We blight his virtues first, and then with scorn 
 
 Repel the hands extended once to save 
 
 Our exiled fathers, fleeing o'er the wave. 
 
 Yet in his deepest fall, the warrior, born 
 
 Of warrior lineage fetterless and free. 
 
 Retains unquenched in his unyielding soul 
 
 A secret flame in spite of all control. 
 
 He brooks no slavish, ignominious toil, 
 
 By scourger driven to till the white man's soil. 
 
 Chained in Plutonian caverns far from day, 
 
WINONA, 5 
 
 His spirit swiftly chafes its bars away ; 
 Or by his own impatient hand released, 
 With rapture bounds as to a marriage feast. 
 Wealth, pomp, and power ne'er his soul affect ; 
 Still unabashed he stands, unmoved, erect, 
 His blanket draped, albeit not too clean, 
 About him with a Roman consul's mien, 
 And in the white light of a throne his eye 
 Would meet, nor quail, the eye of majesty. 
 His own war-eagle to the sun that soared. 
 Gave back with eye undimmed its fiery glare, 
 And sported with the speaking lightnings where 
 The Thunder-Birds ^ along the tempest roared ; 
 Or swept the plain, but saw no Indian slave 
 From the Pacific to Atlantic wave. 
 
 Fair Minnetonka, thou art changed, and yet 
 I knovvT not if 'twere matter for regret. 
 Thou wast a maid untried, with yielding heart, 
 With flowing hair, and ample sheltering arms, 
 And unabashed contours, whose rosy charms 
 Were all untrammelled by the hand of art. 
 And ej^es of dreamy mystery, wherein 
 E'en then thy triumphs dimly were foreseen ; 
 A w^orldly-wise and queenly woman now. 
 Adorned with spoil of many victories, 
 
 ^ Thunder-Bird, a supernatural winged creature which 
 causes thunder and Hghtning by the flapping of its 
 wings and the winking of its eyes. 
 
6 tr/.vo.VA. 
 
 And flush of fttrther conquest on thy brow ; 
 Jewels cannot thy native charms enhance. 
 Nor can thy robes, too tightly laced perchance. 
 The matchless beauty of thy form disguise. 
 Through every change, by every tongue confessed, 
 Peerles-s .im: i tliy sisters East or West : 
 Like 1: : : : :" ~hoiii the master-singer wrote, 
 *' Age : :.i: : : ~:; er her nor custom stale 
 Her^iiidiii:^ vine:; 
 
 Thus d?at 
 My vr^nlerlng :h: .irlits. 2s on the balcony 
 I sit ;!- :;t :: :;^ ::: :he m : mlirht pale, 
 Anl m :- :;c :-i.:5 :hr ~ v :t : ' snddenlv: 
 
 TT -~_ 
 
 snore 
 
 Ilir z::.:-^ s' v z ^ :. ^rz^ii .::: : ^^n floor. 
 
 Eight lustra— 5 : 1: : : . ,: .: r : sy summers fled, 
 
 Adown a dvry^ ' :^ >::^ ::.: I r; l 
 
 A careless youiii ; again my hoary hea.! 
 
 Bloomed with the sunny wealth c:* T—irry years. 
 
 A day came back ■?, day without : _ ers 
 
 When wi:h i :-rli: ::mpanion Im^ ; :i:c lead. 
 
 In ~ 7 eanie I hi"ei cer the lake, 
 
 An i : -ir 5- ::: z 1 i lies scattered pearly tears 
 
 rn:n:ne5ziihiigrippl 
 
 .1 
 
 She. my c:~^inion, was a h::le naid 
 O: s:~e— hi: rashc g^b, of English speech. 
 Ye: s:nie:'ninz in her accents : -liin: i::i rich, 
 Ani :ae vrarai tin re no-Dn her laee^:. Detraved 
 
WINOA'A. 7 
 
 Whose ccnr-liiped lodges pii.-r- -tl; s:: : i. 
 
 Dotting the hither base of yonder hill. 
 
 Like late leaves clinging, spite of growing chill, 
 
 Upon the boughs of a Xovember wood. 
 
 Changing our mood, we idly drifted there. 
 
 Two happy children in a cradling shell 
 
 Poised 'twixt two azure vaults : the — - e : r^ til 
 
 Of Indian summer brooded ir : r. 
 
 Filling with human love and 5 m; 
 
 E'en things inanimate ; the ear:!: ir. i ->7 
 
 Leaned to each other, and the r: :1:5 1 : 1 :rtt5, 
 
 Li*^e brothers, seemed sharing our reveries. 
 
 **Tell me some legend of the lake,'' I cried, 
 
 ' * For in a spot that breathes on every side 
 
 Such air of poesy, whose inftuence 
 
 Subdues with such a charm our every sense. 
 
 How many loving hearts have loved and died ! 
 
 How many souls as lofty and intense 
 
 As those whose names throughout the whole tt : rid. 
 
 ring, 
 In the hieh sonrs the clier. ~::ir:r;l5 sins' I 
 Who hears those voices e en but for a day, 
 The sotmd remains a part : :' hln alway : 
 Penelope the constant ; Hero s~eet ; 
 Briscis weeping at Achilles' feet ; 
 Andromeda by winged Perseus found — 
 
8 WINONA. 
 
 Bright blossom to the sea-girt rock fast bound ; 
 The lesbian queen of song, but passion's slave, 
 Who quenched her burning torch beneath the 
 
 wave ; 
 Helen, whose beauty, like a fatal brand, 
 I^it up the towers of Troy o'er sea and land ; 
 And Juliet, swaying at her window's height, 
 What slender lily in the wan moonlight." 
 
 * ' I do not know, ' ' the little maid replied, 
 
 ' * The names of which you speak, but ere she 
 
 died 
 My mother told me many stories old, 
 Some joyous and some sad, of warriors bold, 
 And spirits, haunting forest, plain, and stream. 
 Each had its god, and creatures of strange form, 
 Half beast, half human ; all these figures seem 
 Mingling away in a fantastic swarm, 
 Dim as the faces of a last year's dream. 
 Or motes that mingle in a slant sunbeam. 
 The legends vanish too ; among them all 
 This one alone, distinctly I recall." 
 
 The tale she told me then I now rehearse, 
 Set in a frame of rude, unpolished verse. 
 
WINONA. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 Winona, ^ first-born daughter, was the name 
 
 Of a Dakota girl who, long ago, 
 
 Dwelt with her people here unknown to fame. 
 
 Sweet word, Winona, how my heart and lips 
 
 Cling to that name (my mother's was the same 
 
 Bre her form faded into death's eclipse), 
 
 Cling lovingly, and loth to let it go. 
 
 All arts that unto savage life belong 
 
 She knew, made moccasins, and dressed the game. 
 
 From crippling fashions free, her well-knit frame 
 
 At fifteen summers was mature and strong. 
 
 She pitched the tipi,^ dug the tipsin ^ roots. 
 
 Gathered wild rice and store of savage fruits. 
 
 Fearless and self-reliant, she could go 
 
 Across the prairie on a starless night ; 
 
 She speared the fish while in his wildest flight, 
 
 And almost like a warrior drew the bow. 
 
 Yet she was not all hardness : the keen glance, 
 
 I^ighting the darkness of her eyes, perchance 
 
 Betrayed no softness, but her voice, that rose 
 
 O'er the weird circle of the midnight dance. 
 
 Through all the gamut ran of human woes. 
 
 Passion, and joy. A woman's love she had 
 
 * The name given by the Dakotas to the first-born, if a 
 female. 
 
 ' Tipi, skin tent. 
 
 ' An edible root found on the prairies. 
 
lO WINONA. 
 
 For ornament ; on gala days was clad 
 In garments of the softest doeskin fine, 
 With shells about her neck ; moccasins neat 
 Were drawn, like gloves, upon her little feet, 
 Adorned with scarlet quills of porcupine. 
 Innocent of the niceties refined 
 That to the toilet her pale sisters bind, 
 Yet much the same beneath the outer rind, 
 She was, though all unskilled in bookish lore, 
 A sound, sweet woman to the very core. 
 
 Winona's uncle, and step-father too. 
 Was all the father that she ever knew ; 
 By the Absarakas ' her own was slain 
 Before her memory could his face retain. 
 Two bitter years his widow mourned him dead, 
 And then his elder brother she had v/ed. 
 None loved Winona's uncle ; he was stern 
 And harsh in manner, cold and taciturn. 
 And none might see, without a secret fear, 
 Those thin lips ever curling to a sneer. 
 And yet he was of note and influence 
 Among the chieftains ; true he rarely lent 
 More than his presence in the council tent. 
 And when he rose to speak disdained pretence 
 Of arts rhetoric, but his few words went 
 
 ' The Crow Indians, hereditary foes of the Dakotas, 
 call themselves Absaraka, which means crow in their 
 language. 
 
WINONA, II 
 
 Straight and incisive to the question's core, 
 And rarely was his counsel overborne. 
 The Raven was the fitting name he bore, 
 And though his winters wellnigh reached three- 
 score. 
 Few of his tribe excelled him in the chase. 
 A warrior of renown, but never wore 
 The dancing eagle plumes, and seemed to scorn 
 The vanities and follies of his race. 
 
 I said the Raven was beloved by none ; 
 
 But no, among the elders there was one 
 
 Who often sought him, and the two would walk 
 
 Apart for hours, and converse alone. 
 
 The gossips, marvelling much what this might 
 
 mean. 
 Whispered that they at midnight had been seen 
 Far from the village wrapped in secret talk. 
 They seemed in truth an ill-assorted brace, 
 But Nature oft in Siamese bond unites, 
 By some strange tie, the farthest opposites. 
 Gray Cloud was oily, plausible, and vain, 
 A conjurer with subtle scheming brain ; 
 Too corpulent and clumsy for the chase, 
 His lodge was still provided with the best. 
 And though sometimes but a half welcome guest. 
 He took his dish and spoon to every feast. ^ 
 
 ^ Bach Indian guest at a banquet carries with him his 
 own wooden bowl and horn spoon. 
 
12 WINONA. 
 
 Priestcraft and leeclicraft were combined in him, 
 Two trades occult upon which knaves have 
 
 thriven, 
 Almost since man from Paradise was driven ; 
 Padding with pompous phrases worn and old 
 Their scanty esoteric science dim. 
 And gravely selling, at their weight in gold, 
 Placebos colored to their patients' whim. 
 Man's noblest mission here too oft is made, 
 In heathen as in Christian lands, a trade. 
 Holy the task to comfort and console 
 The tortured body and the sin-sick soul, 
 But pain and sorrow, even prayer and creed, 
 Are turned too oft to instruments of greed. 
 The conjurer claimed to bear a mission high : 
 Mysterious omens of the earth and sky 
 He knew to read ; his medicine could find 
 In time of need the buffalo, and bind 
 In sleep the senses of the enemy. 
 Perhaps not wholly a deliberate cheat. 
 And yet dissimulation and deceit 
 Oozed from his form obese at every pore. 
 Skilled by long practice in the priestly art, 
 To chill with superstitious fear the heart, 
 And versed in all the legendary lore. 
 He knew each herb and root that healing bore ; 
 But lest his flock might grow as wise as he. 
 Disguised their use with solemn mummery. 
 When all the village wrapped in slumber lay, 
 
WINONA, 13 
 
 His midnight incantations often fell, 
 
 His chant now weirdly rose, now sank away, 
 
 As o'er some dying child he cast his spell. 
 
 And sometimes through his frame strange tremors 
 
 ran — 
 Magnetic waves, swept from the unknown pole 
 I^inking the body to the wavering soul ; 
 And swifter came his breath, as if to fan 
 The feeble life spark, and his finger tips 
 Were to the brow of pain like angel lips. 
 No wonder if in moments such as these 
 He half believed in his own deities, 
 And thought his sacred rattle could compel 
 The swarming powers unseen to serve him well. 
 
 The Raven lay one evening in his tent 
 
 With his accustomed crony at his side ; 
 
 Around their heads a graceful aureole 
 
 Of, smoke curled upward from the scarlet bowl 
 
 Of Gray Cloud's pipe with willov/ bark supplied. 
 
 Winona's thrifty mother came and went, 
 
 Her form with household cares and burdens bent, 
 
 Fresh fuel adds, and stirs the boiling pot. 
 
 Meanwhile the young Winona, half reclined, 
 
 Plies her swift needle, that resource refined 
 
 For woman's leisure, whatsoe'er her lot, 
 
 The kingly palace or the savage cot. 
 
 The cronies smoked without a sign or word, 
 Passing the pipe sedately to and fro ; 
 
14 WINONA, 
 
 Only a distant wail of hopeless woe, 
 
 A mother mourning for her child, was heard, 
 
 And Gray Cloud moved, as though the sound had 
 
 stirred 
 Some dusty memory ; still that bitter wail, 
 Rachel's despairing cry without avail. 
 That beats the brazen firmament in vain, 
 Since the first mother wept o'er Abel slain. 
 At length the conjurer's lips the silence broke, 
 Softly at first as to himself he spoke, 
 Till warmed by his own swarming fancies' brood 
 He poured the strain almost in numbers rude. 
 
 THK COMBAT BETWKKN TH:^ THUNDKR-BIRDS 
 AND THK WATKR-DKMONS. 
 
 Gray Cloud shall not be as other men. 
 
 Dull clods that move and breathe a day or two, 
 
 Bre other clods shall bury them from view. 
 
 Tempest and sky have been my home, and when 
 
 I pass from earth I shall find welcome there. 
 
 Sons of the Thunder-Bird my playmates were, 
 
 Ages ago ' (the tallest oak to-day 
 
 In all the land was but a grass blade then). 
 
 Reared with such brethren, breathing such an air, 
 
 My spirit grew as tall and bold as they ; 
 
 * Many Indians believe in the transmigration of souls, 
 and some of them profess to remember previous states 
 of existence. 
 
WINONA. 15 
 
 We tossed the ball and flushed the noble prey 
 O'er happy plains from human footsteps far ; 
 And when our high chiefs voice to arm for war 
 Rang out in tones that rent the morning sky, 
 None of the band exulted more than I. 
 
 A god might gaze and tremble at the sight 
 Of our array that turned the day to night ; 
 With bow and shield and flame-tipped arrows all, 
 Rushing together at our leader's call, 
 I^ike storm clouds sweeping round a mountain 
 
 height. 
 The lofty clifis our warlike muster saw. 
 Hard by the village of great Wabashaw,^ 
 Where through a lake the Mississippi flows ; 
 Far o'er the dwelling of our ancient foes. 
 The hated Water-Demon ^ and his sons, 
 Cold, dark and deep the sluggish current runs. 
 
 Up from their caverns swarming, when they heard 
 The rolling signal of the Thunder-Bird, 
 The Water-Demon and his sons arose. 
 And answered back the challenge of their foes. 
 With horns tumultuous clashing like a herd 
 Of warring elks that struggle for the does. 
 They lashed the wave to clouds of spray and 
 foam, 
 
 * A renowned chief formerly living on I^ake Pepin. 
 ^ A supernatural monster inhabiting the larger rivers 
 and lakes, and hereditary foe of the Thunder-Bird. 
 
1 6 WINONA. 
 
 Through which their forms uncouth, like buffa- 
 loes 
 Seen dimly through a morning mist, did loom, 
 Or isles at twilight rising from the shore. 
 
 Though we were thirty, they at least fourscore, 
 We rushed upon them, and a midnight pall 
 Over the seething lake our pinions spread, 
 'Neath which our gleaming arrows thickly sped. 
 As shooting stars that in the rice-moon fall. 
 Rent by our beating wings the cloud- waves swung 
 In eddies round us, and our leader's roar 
 Smote peal on peal, and from their bases flung 
 The rocks that towered along the trembling shore. 
 
 A Thunder-Bird — alas, my chosen friend. 
 
 But even so a warrior's life should end, — 
 
 A Thunder-Bird was stricken ; his bright beak. 
 
 Cleaving the tumult like a lightning streak, 
 
 Smote with a fiery hiss the watery plain ; 
 
 His upturned breast, where gleamed one fleck of 
 
 red. 
 His sable wings, one moment wide outspread, 
 Blackened the whirlpool o'er his sinking head. 
 
 The Water-Demon's sons by scores were slain 
 By our swift arrows falling like the rain ; 
 With yells of rage they sank beneath the wave 
 That ran all redly now, but could not save. 
 
WINONA. 17 
 
 We asked not mercy, mercy never gave ; 
 Our Haming darts lit up the farthest caves, 
 Fathoms below the reach of deepest line ; 
 Our cruel spears, taller than mountain pine. 
 Mingled their life blood with the ruddy wave. 
 
 The combat ceased, the Thunder-Birds had won. 
 The Water-Demon with one favorite son 
 Fled from the carnage and escaped our wrath. 
 The vapors, thinly curling from the shore. 
 Faint musky odors to our nostrils bore. 
 The air was stilled, the silence of the dead ; 
 The sun, just starting on his downward path, 
 A rosy mantle o'er the prairie shed, 
 Save where, like vultures, ominous and still, 
 We clustered close, on sullen wings outspread ; 
 And sometimes, with a momentary chill, 
 A giant shadow swept o'er plain and hill, — 
 A Thunder-Bird careering overhead. 
 Seeking the track by which the foe had fled. 
 
 While thus we hovered motionless, the sun 
 Adown the west his punctual course had run, 
 When lo, two shining points far up the stream 
 That split the prairie with a silver seam, — 
 The fleeing Water-Demon and his son ; 
 Like icicles they glittered in the beam 
 Still struggling up from the horizon's rim. 
 His sleeping anger kindled at the sight. 
 Our leader's eyes glowed like a flaming brand. 
 
1 8 WINONA. 
 
 Thrilled by one impulse, all our sable band 
 Dove through the gathering shadows of the 
 
 night 
 On wings outshaken for a headlong flight. 
 Anger, revenge, but more than all the thirst, 
 The glorious emulation to be first, 
 Stung me like fire, and filled each quivering 
 
 plume. 
 With tenfold speed our sharp beaks cleft the 
 
 gloom, 
 A swarm of arrows singing to the mark, 
 We hissed to pierce the foe ere yet 't was dark. 
 
 Still up the stream the Water- Demons fled. 
 Their bodies glowed like fox-fire far ahead ; 
 But every moment saw the distance close 
 Between our thirsting spear-heads and our foes. 
 I^ouder the blast our buzzing pinions made 
 Than mighty forest in a whirlwind swayed ; 
 The giant cliffs of Redwing speeding back, 
 lyike spectres melting from a cloudy wrack, 
 Melted from view in our dissolving track. 
 Kaposia's village, clustered on the shore. 
 With sound of snapping poles and tipis riven, 
 Vanished like swan's-down by a tempest driven. 
 Stung by our flight, the keen air smote us sore 
 As ragged hailstones ; on, still on, we strained, 
 And fast and faster on the chase we gained, 
 But neck and neck the fierce pursuit remained. 
 
WINONA. 19 
 
 Till close ahead we saw the rocky walls 
 O'er which the mighty river plunging falls,* 
 And at their base the Water-Demons lay : 
 The panting chase at last had turned to bay. 
 
 Then thrilled my nerves with more than mortal 
 
 strength ; 
 A breath of Deity was in the burst 
 That bore me out a goodly lance's length 
 To meet the Water-Demon's son accurst. 
 His evil horn clanged hollow on my shield 
 Just as my spear transfixed him through and 
 
 through ; 
 A moment towering o'er the foam he reeled, 
 Then sank beneath the roaring falls from view. 
 A dying yell that haunts me yet he gave, 
 And as he fell the crippled water coiled 
 About him like a wounded snake, and boiled, 
 leashing itself to madness o'er his grave. 
 
 We knew not where the parent Demon fled ; 
 None of our spears might pierce his ancient mail. 
 Welded with skill demoniac scale on scale. 
 Some watery realm he wanders, and 't is said 
 That he is changed and bears a brighter form, 
 And goodly sons again about him swarm ; 
 And peace, 't is but a hollow truce I know. 
 Now reigns between him and his ancient foe. 
 1 The falls of St. Anthony. 
 
20 WINONA. 
 
 He hates me still, and fain would do me harm, 
 But neither man nor demon dares offend, 
 Who hath the cruel Thunder-Bird for friend. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 Nature hath her Hite in every land, 
 
 Sealed by her signet, felt although unseen. 
 
 Winona 'mid her fellows moved a queen, 
 
 And scarce a youthful beau in all the band 
 
 But sighed in secret longing for her hand. 
 
 One only she distinguished o'er the rest, 
 
 The latest aspirant for martial fame, 
 
 Redstar, a youth whose coup-stick like his name 
 
 (Till recently he had been plain Chaske) ^ 
 
 Was new, fresh plucked the feathers on his crest. 
 
 Just what the feats on which he based his claim 
 
 To warlike glory it were hard to say ; 
 
 He ne'er had seen more than one trivial fray, 
 
 But bold assurance sometimes wins the day. 
 
 Winona gave him generous credit, too, 
 
 F'or all the gallant deeds he meant to do. 
 
 His gay, barbaric dress, his lofty air 
 
 Enmeshed her in a sweet bewildering snare. 
 
 Transfigured by the light of her own passion. 
 
 She saw Chaske in much the usual fashion 
 
 ^ The name given to the first-bom, if a male. Upon 
 becoming a warrior or performing some notable feat, the 
 youth is permitted to select another name. 
 
WINONA. 21 
 
 Of fairer maids, who love, or think they do. 
 'T is not the man they love, but what he seems ; 
 A bright Hyperion, moving stately through 
 The rosy ether of exalted dreams. 
 
 Alas ! that love, the purest and most real, 
 Clusters forever round some form ideal ; 
 And martial things have some strange necro- 
 mancy 
 To captivate romantic maiden fancy. 
 The very word * * Lieutenant ' ' hath a charm, 
 B'en coupled with a vulgar face and form, 
 A shrivelled heart and microscopic wit, 
 Scarce for a coachman or a barber fit ; 
 His untried sword, his title, are to her 
 Better than genius, wealth, or high renown ; 
 His uniform is sweeter than the gown 
 Of an Episcopalian minister ; 
 And ' * dash, ' ' for swagger but a synonym, 
 Is knightly grace and chivalry with him. 
 
 Unnoted young Winona's passion grew, 
 Chaske alone the tender secret knew ; 
 And he, too selfish love like hers to know, 
 "Warmed by her presence to a transient glow, 
 Her silent homage drank as 't were his due. 
 Winona asked no more though madly fond. 
 Nor hardly dreamed as yet of closer bond ; 
 
22 WINONA. 
 
 But Chance, or Providence, or iron Fate 
 (Call it what name you will), or soon or late, 
 Bends to its purpose every human will. 
 And brings to each its destined good or ill. 
 
 th:^ grovk. 
 
 O'erlooking Minnetonka's shore, 
 A grove enchanted lured of yore, 
 Ivured to their deepest woe and joy, 
 A happy maiden and careless boy ; 
 I/Ured their feet to its inmost core, 
 Where like snowy maidens the aspen trees 
 Swayed and beckoned in the breeze. 
 While the prairie grass, like rippling seas, 
 Faintly murmuring lulling hymns. 
 Rippled about their gleaming limbs. 
 
 There is no such charm in a garden-close, 
 
 However fair its bower and rose, 
 
 As a place where the wild and free rejoice. 
 
 Nor doth the storied and ivied arch 
 
 Woo the heart with half so sweet a voice 
 
 As the bowering arms of the wild- wood larch, 
 
 Where the clematis and wild woodbine 
 
 Festoon the flowering eglantine ; 
 
 Where in every flower, shrub, and tree 
 
 Is heard the hum of the honey-bee. 
 
 And the linden blossoms are softly stirred, 
 
 As the fanning wings of the humming-bird 
 
WINONA. 23 
 
 Scatter a perfume of pollen dust, 
 
 That mounts to the kindling soul like must ; 
 
 Where the turtles each spring their loves renew— 
 
 The old, old story, " coo-roo, coo-roo," 
 
 Mingles with the wooing note 
 
 That bubbles from the song-bird's throat ; 
 
 Where on waves of rosy light at play, 
 
 Mingle a thousand airy minions, 
 
 And drifting as on a golden bay. 
 
 The butterfly with his petal pinions, 
 
 I^'rom isle to isle of his fair dominions 
 
 Floats with the languid tides away ; 
 
 Where the squirrel and rabbit shyly mate, 
 
 And none so timid but finds her fate ; 
 
 The meek hen-robin upon the nest 
 
 Thrills to her lover's flaming breast. 
 
 Youth, Love, and Life, 'mid scenes like this, 
 
 Go to the same sweet tune of bliss ; 
 
 K'en the flaming flowers of passion seem 
 
 Pure as the lily buds that dream 
 
 On the bosom of a mountain stream. 
 
 Such was the grove that lured of yore, 
 O'erlooking Minnetonka's shore. 
 Lured to their deepest woe and joy 
 A happy maiden and careless boy, — 
 Lured their feet to its inmost core ; 
 Where still mysterious shadows slept. 
 While the pleniluue from her path above 
 
24 WINONA. 
 
 With liquid amber bathed the grove, 
 
 That through the tree-tops trickUng crept, 
 
 And every tender alley swept. 
 
 The happy maiden and careless boy, 
 
 Caught for a moment their deepest joy, 
 
 And the iris hues of Youth and lyove, 
 
 A tender glamour about them wove ; 
 
 But the trembling shadows the aspens cast 
 
 From the maiden's spirit never passed ; 
 
 And the nectar was poisoned that thrilled and 
 
 filled, 
 From every treacherous leaf distilled. 
 Her veins that night with a strange alloy. 
 
 Swift came the hour that maid and boy must part ; 
 A glow unwonted, tinged with dusky red 
 Winona's conscious face as home she sped ; 
 And to the song exultant in her heart. 
 Beat her light moccasins with rhythmic tread. 
 But at the summit of a little hill, 
 Along whose base the village lay outspread, 
 A sudden sense of some impending ill 
 Smote the sweet fever in her veins with chill. 
 The lake she skirted, on whose mailed breast 
 Rode like a shield the moon from out the west. 
 She neared her lodge, but there her quick eye 
 
 caught 
 The voice of Gray Cloud, and her steps were 
 
 stayed, 
 
WINONA. 25 
 
 For over her of late an icy fear 
 
 Brooded with vulture wings when he was near. 
 
 She knew not why, her eye he never sought, 
 Nor deigned to speak, and yet she felt dismayed 
 At thought of him, as the mimosa's leaf 
 Before the fingers touch it shrinks with dread. 
 She paused a moment, then with furtive tread 
 Close to the tipi glided like a thief ; 
 With lips apart, and eager bended head, 
 She listened there to what the conjurer said. 
 
 His voice, low, musical, recounted o'er 
 Strange tales of days when other forms he wore : 
 How, far above the highest airy plain 
 Where soars and sings the weird, fantastic crane, 
 Wafted like thistle-down he strayed at will. 
 With power almost supreme for good or ill, 
 Over all lands and nations near and far, 
 Beyond the seas, or 'neath the northern star. 
 And long had pondered where were best to dwell 
 When he should deign a human shape to wear. 
 " Whether to be of them that buy and sell. 
 With fish-scale eyes, and yellow corn-silk hair, 
 Or with the stone-men chase the giant game. 
 But wander where you may, no land can claim 
 A sky so fair as ours ; the sun each day 
 Circles the earth with glaring eye, but sees 
 No lakes or plains so beautiful as these ; 
 
26 WINONA, 
 
 Nor e'er hath trod or shall upon the earth 
 
 A race like ours of true Dakota birth. 
 
 Our chiefs and sages, who so wise as they 
 
 To counsel or to lead in peace or war, 
 
 And heal the sick by deep mysterious law. 
 
 Our beauteous warriors lithe of limb and strong, 
 
 Fierce to avenge their own and others' wrong, 
 
 What gasping terror smites their battle song 
 
 When, night-birds gathering near the dawn of 
 
 day. 
 Or wolves in chorus ravening for the prey, 
 They burst upon the sleeping Chippeway ; ^ 
 Their women wail whose hated fingers dare 
 To reap the harvest of our midnight hair ; 
 Swifter than eagles, as a panther fleet, 
 A hungry panther seeking for his meat. 
 So swift and noiseless their avenging feet. 
 
 Dakota matrons truest are and best, 
 Dakota maidens too are loveliest." 
 
 He ceased, and soon, departing through the 
 
 night, 
 She watched his burly form till out of sight. 
 And then the Raven spoke in whispers low : 
 " Gray Cloud demands our daughter's hand, and 
 
 she 
 
 ^ Hereditary foe of the Dakotas. 
 
WINONA. 27 
 
 Unto his tipi very soon must go. ' ' 
 
 Winona's mother sought to make reply, 
 
 But something checked her in his tone or eye. 
 
 Again the Raven spoke, imperiously : 
 
 * * Winona is of proper age to wed ; 
 
 Her suitor siiits me, let no more be said." 
 
 Winona heard no more ; a rising wave 
 
 Of mingled indignation, fear, and shame 
 
 Like a resistless tempest shook her frame, 
 
 The earth swam round her, and her senses reeled ; 
 
 Better for her a thousand times the grave 
 
 Than life in Gray Cloud's tent, but what could 
 
 she 
 Against the stern, implacable decree 
 Of one whose will was never known to yield ? 
 
 Winona fled, scarce knowing where or how ; 
 Fled like a phantom through the moonlight cool 
 Until she stood upon the rocky brow 
 That overlooked a deep sequestered pool, 
 Where slumbering in a grove-encircled bay 
 Lake Minnetonka's purest waters lay. 
 Unto the brink she rushed, but faltered there — 
 lyife to the young is sweet ; in vain her eye 
 Swept for a moment grove and wave and sky 
 With mute appeal. But see, two white swans fair 
 Gleamed from the shadows that o'erhung the 
 shore, 
 
2S WINONA. 
 
 lyike moons emerging from a sable screen ; 
 Swimming abreast, what haughty king and queen, 
 With arching necks their regal course they bore. 
 Winona marvelled at the unwonted sight 
 Of white swans swimming there at dead of night, 
 Her frenzy half beguiling with the scene. 
 Unearthly heralds sure, for in their wake 
 What ruddy furrows seamed the placid lake. 
 Almost beneath her feet they came, so near 
 She might have tossed a pebble on their backs, 
 When lo, their long necks pierced the waters 
 
 clear. 
 As down they dove, two shafts of purest light. 
 And chasing fast on their descending tracks, 
 A swarm of spirals luminous and white, 
 Swirled to the gloom of nether depths from sight. 
 
 Then all was still for some few moments' space, 
 
 So smooth the pool, so vanished every trace, 
 
 It seemed that surely the fantastic pair 
 
 Had been but snowy phantoms passing there. 
 
 Winona hardly hoped to see them rise. 
 
 But while she gazed with half expectant eyes, 
 
 The waters strangely quivered in a place 
 
 About the bigness of a tipi's space. 
 
 Where weirdly lighting up the hollow wave 
 
 Beat a deep-glowing heart, whose pulsing ray 
 
 Now faded to a rosy flush away. 
 
 Now filled with fiery glare the farthest cave. 
 
WINONA. 29 
 
 A shapeless bulk arose, then, taking form, 
 
 Bloomed forth upon the bosom of the lake 
 
 A crystal rose, or hillock mammiform, 
 
 And round its base the curling foam did break 
 
 As round a sunny islet in a storm ; 
 
 And on it poised a swiftly changing form, 
 
 With filmy mantle falling musical, 
 
 And colors of the floating bubble's ball, 
 
 Fair and elusive as the sprites that play. 
 
 Bright children of the sun-illumined spray, 
 
 ' Mid rainbows of a mountain waterfall. 
 
 Then mingling with the falling waters came 
 
 In whispers sibilant Winona's name ; 
 
 So indistinct and low that voice intense, 
 
 That she, half frightened, cowering in the grass 
 
 In much bewilderment at what did pass, 
 
 Till thrice repeated noted not its sense. 
 
 She rose, and on the very brink defined, 
 Against the sky in silhouette outlined, 
 Krect before the Water-Demon stood. 
 Again those accents weird her wonder stirred, 
 And this is what the listening maiden heard : 
 " Thy fate, Winona, hangs on thine own choice 
 To 3Com or heed the Water-Demon's voice. 
 Gone are thy pleasant days of maidenhood. 
 And evil hours draw nigh, but knowest thou not. 
 That what thou fleest is the common lot 
 Of all thy sisters ? Thou must be the bride 
 
30 WINONA, 
 
 Of one thou lovest not, must toil for him, 
 Watch for his coming, and endure his whim ; 
 Must share his tent, and lying at his side 
 Weep for another till thine eyes grow dim. 
 And he, so fondly loved, will pass thee by 
 Indifferent with cold averted eye ; 
 K'en he, whose wanton hands and hated arms 
 Have crushed the fair flower of thy maidenhood, 
 Will weary of thy swiftly fading charms. 
 And seek another when thy beauty wanes. 
 Aha, thou shudderest ; in thy tense veins, 
 Fierce and rebellious, leaps the mingling blood 
 Of countless warriors, high of soul and brave ; 
 And would' St thou quench their spirit 'neath the 
 
 wave? 
 Is Gray Cloud's life more dear to thee than 
 
 thine ? 
 The village sleeps, unguarded is his tent, 
 Thy knife is keen, and unto thee is lent 
 A spell to-night of potency malign. 
 Cradled in blissful dreams alone he lies. 
 And he shall stray so deep in sleep's dominions, 
 He would not waken though the rushing pinions 
 Of his own Thunder-Bird should shake the sky. 
 All freedom-loving spirits are with thee. 
 Strike hard and fear not as thou would' st be free ; 
 lycst thine own hatred prove too weak a charm. 
 The Water- Demon's hate shall nerve thine 
 
 arm." 
 
WINONA. 31 
 
 The Water- Demon sank and disappeared, 
 And faint and fainter fell those accents weird, 
 Until the air was silent as the grave, 
 Still as December's crystal seal the wave. 
 Homeward again Winona took her way. 
 How changed in one short hour ! no longer now 
 The song-birds singing at her heart, but there 
 A thousand gnashing furies made their lair, 
 And urged her on ; her nearest pathway lay 
 Over a little hill, and on its brow 
 A group of trees, whereof cash blackened bough 
 Bore up to heaven as if in protest mute 
 Its clustering load of ghostly charnel fruit,' 
 The swaddled forms of all the village dead — 
 Maid, lusty warrior, and toothless hag, 
 The infant and the conjurer with his bag, 
 Peacefully rotting in their airy bed. 
 As on a battle plain she saw them lie, 
 Fouling the fairness of the moonlit sky ; 
 And heavily there flapped above her head, 
 Some floating drapery or tress of hair, 
 lyoading with pestilential breath the air 
 That fanned her temples, or the reeking wing 
 Of unclean bird obscenely hovering ; 
 And something crossed her path that halting 
 nigh, 
 
 ^ The Dakotas formerly disposed of their dead by fasten- 
 ing them to the branches of trees, or to rude platforms. 
 This is still practised to some extent. 
 
32 WINONA. 
 
 At the intruder glared with evil eye, — 
 She hardly heeded passing swiftly by. 
 
 lyeaving behind that hideous umbrage fast, 
 What wraith escaping from its tenement, 
 Winona through the sleeping village passed, 
 And pausing not, to Gray Cloud's tipi went, 
 I^aid back the door, and v/ith a stealthy tread, 
 Entered and softly crouched beside his head. 
 Her gaze that seemed to pierce his inmost thought, 
 Keen as the ready knife her hand had sought, 
 And through the open door the slant moonbeams 
 Smiting the sleeper's face awaked him not. 
 He vaguely muttered in his wandering dreams 
 Of " medicine," and of the Thunder-Bird. 
 As if to go, her knife she half returned ; 
 Whether her woman's heart with pity stirred, 
 Or superstitious awe, she slightly turned, 
 But gazing still, over his features came 
 The semblance of a smile, and his arms moved, 
 Clasping in rosy dreams some form beloved. 
 And his lips moved, and though no sound she 
 
 heard, 
 She thought they shaped her name, and a red 
 
 flame 
 Leaped to her brain, and through her vision 
 
 passed ; 
 A raging demon seized and filled her frame, 
 And like a lightning flash leaped forth her knife : 
 
WINONA. 33 
 
 That cold keen heart-pang is his last of life ; 
 The Water-Demon is avenged at last. 
 
 PART III. 
 
 She struck btit once, no need hath lightning stroke 
 For second blow to rend the heart of oak, 
 Nor waited there to see how Gray Cloud died ; 
 Her fury all in that fierce outburst spent, 
 As from a chamel cave she fled the tent ; 
 The w^olfish dog suspiciously outside 
 Sniffed at her moccasins but let her pass. 
 Her tipi soon she reached, distant no more 
 Than arrow from a warrior's bowstring sent, 
 Paused but to wipe her knife upon the grass, 
 ^nd found her usual couch upon the floor. 
 But not to sleep ; she closed her eyes in vain, 
 Shutting away the moonlight from her view ; 
 Darkness and moonlight wore the same dread 
 
 hue, 
 Flooding the universe with crimson stain. 
 She clasped her bosom with her hands to still 
 The throbbing of her heart that seemed to fill 
 With tell-tale echoes all the air ; an owl 
 The secret with unearthly shrieks confessed. 
 And Gray Cloud's dog sent forth a doleful howl 
 At intervals ; but worse than all the rest, 
 That dreadful drum still beating in her breast, 
 As furious war-drums in the scalp-dance beat 
 To the mad circling of delirious feet. 
 
34 WINONA. 
 
 Barly next morning, as the first faint rays 
 Of sunlight through the rustling lindens played, 
 Two children sent to seek the conjurer's aid, 
 Gazed on the sight, with horror and amaze, 
 Of Gray Cloud's lifeless body rolled in blood. 
 Fast through the village spread the news, and 
 
 stirred 
 With mingled fear and wonder all who heard. 
 The oracles were baffled and dismayed. 
 And spoke with muffled tones and looks of dread : 
 *' Some envious foeman lurking in the wood, 
 With medicine more strong than his, ' ' they said, 
 ** Stole in last night and gave the fatal wound." 
 The warriors scoured the country miles around. 
 Seeking for sign or trail, but naught they found : 
 The murderer left behind no clue or trace 
 More than a vampire's flight through darkling 
 
 space. 
 
 The Raven with a stoic calmness heard 
 
 Of Gray Cloud's death, nor showed by look or 
 
 word 
 The wrath that to its depth his being stirred. 
 Winona heard the news with false surprise, 
 As if just roused from sleep she rubbed her eyes ; 
 When she arose her knees like aspens shook. 
 But this she quelled and forced a tranquil look 
 To feign the calmness that her soul forsook. 
 And when the mourning wail rose on the air, 
 Winona's voice was heard commingling there. 
 
WINONA. 35 
 
 She gathered with the other maidens where, 
 On a rude bier, the conjurer's body lay 
 Adorned and decked in funeral array. 
 She flung a handful of her sable hair, 
 And wept such tears above the painted clay * 
 As weeps a youthful widow, only heir, 
 Over the coffin of a millionaire. 
 
 Moons waxed to fulness and to sickles waned. 
 The gossips still conversed with bated breath. 
 The appalling mystery of Gray Cloud's death, 
 Wrapped in impenetrable gloom, remained 
 A blighting shadow o'er the village spread. 
 But youthful spirits are invincible, 
 Nor fear nor superstition long can quell 
 The bubbling flow of that perennial well ; 
 And so the youths and maidens soon regained 
 The wonted gayety that late had fled. 
 All save Winona, in whose face and mien, 
 Unto the careless eye, no change was seen ; 
 But one that noted might sometimes espy 
 A furtive fear that shot across her eye. 
 As in a forest, 'thwart some bit of blue, 
 Darts a rare bird that shuns the hunter's view. 
 Her laugh, though gay, a subtle change con- 
 fessed. 
 And in her attitude a vague unrest 
 
 ^ The Indians paint and adorn a body before sepulture. 
 
36 WINONA. 
 
 Betrayed a world of feelings unexprest. 
 A shade less light her footsteps in the dance, 
 And sometimes now the Raven's curious glance 
 Her soul with terrors new and strange oppressed. 
 
 Grief shared is lighter, none had she to share 
 Burdens that grew almost too great to bear, 
 For Redstar sometimes seemed to look askance, 
 And sought, they said, to win another breast. 
 Winona feigned to laugh, but in her heart 
 The rumor rankled like a poisoned dart. 
 Sometimes she almost thought the Raven guessed 
 The guilty secrets that her thoughts oppressed, 
 And sought, whene'er she could, to shun his sight. 
 Apart from human kind, still more and more, 
 The Raven dwelt, and human speech forbore. 
 And once upon a wild tempestuous night, 
 When all the demons of the earth and air 
 lyike raging furies were embattled there, 
 She, peering fearfully, amid the swarm 
 Flitting athwart the flashes of the storm. 
 By fitful gleams beheld the Raven's form. 
 To her he spoke not since the fateful night 
 His chosen comrade passed from human sight. 
 Save only once, forgetting he was by 
 And half forgetting too her cares and woes, 
 Unto her lips some idle jest arose. 
 " Winona," said the Raven, in a tone 
 Of stern reproof that on the instant froze 
 
WINONA. 37 
 
 All thought of mirth, and when she met his eye, 
 As by a serpent's charm it fixed her own ; 
 The hate and anger of a soul intense 
 Were all compressed in that remorseless glance. 
 The coldly cruel meaning of whose sense 
 Smote down the shield of her false innocence. 
 She strove to wrest her eye from his in vain. 
 Held by that gaze ophidian like a bird, 
 As in a trance she neither breathed nor stirred. 
 And gazing thus an icy little lance, 
 Smaller than quill from wing of humming-bird, 
 Shot from his eyes, and a keen stinging pain 
 Sped through the open windows of her brain. 
 Her senses failed, she sank upon the ground, 
 And darkness veiled her eyes ; she never knew 
 How long this was, but when she slowly grew 
 Back from death's counterfeit, and looked around, 
 So little change was there, that it might seem 
 The scene had been but a disordered dream. 
 The Raven sat in his accustomed place. 
 Smoking his solitary pipe ; his face, 
 A gloomy mask that none might penetrate. 
 Betrayed no sign of anger, grief, or hate ; 
 Absorbed so deep in thoughts that none might 
 
 share. 
 He noted not Winona's presence there ; 
 From his disdainful lips the thin blue smoke 
 From time to time in little spirals broke, 
 Floating like languid sneers upon the air, 
 
38 WINONA, 
 
 And settling round him in a veil of blue 
 
 So sinister to her disordered view, 
 
 That she arose and quickly stole away. 
 
 She shunned him more than ever from that day, 
 
 And never more unmoved could she behold 
 
 That countenance inscrutable and cold. 
 
 But Hope and lyove, like Indian summer's glow, 
 Gilding the prairies ere December's snow, 
 lyit with a transient beam Winona's eye. 
 The season for the Maidens' Dance drew nigh. 
 And Redstar vowed, whatever might betide. 
 To claim her on the morrow as his bride. 
 What now to her was all the world beside ? 
 The evil omens darkening all her sky, 
 Malicious sneers, her rival's envious eye. 
 While her false lover lingered at her side. 
 All passed like thistle-down unheeded by. 
 
 The evening for the dance arrived at last ; 
 An ancient crier through the village passed. 
 And summoned all the maidens to repair 
 To the appointed place, a greensward where. 
 Since last year unprofaned by human feet. 
 Rustled the prairie grass and flowers sweet. 
 None but the true and pture might enter there — 
 Maidens whose souls unspotted had been kept. 
 At set of sun the circle there was formed, 
 And thitherward the happy maidens swarmed. 
 
WINONA. 39 
 
 The people gathered round to view the scene : 
 Old men in broidered robes that trailing swept, 
 And youths in all their finery arrayed, 
 Dotting like tropic birds the prairie green, 
 Their rival graces to the throng displayed. 
 Winona came the last, but as she stept 
 Into the mystic ring one word, " Beware ! " 
 Rang out in such a tone of high command 
 That all was still, and every look was turned 
 To where the Raven stood ; his stern eye burned, 
 And like a flower beneath that withering glare 
 She faded fast. No need that heavy hand 
 To lead Winona from the joyous band ; 
 No need those shameful words that stained the air : 
 " I^t not the sacred circle be defiled 
 By one who, all too easily beguiled, 
 Beneath her bosom bears a warrior's child.*' 
 
 Winona swiftly fleeing, as she passed. 
 One look upon her shrinking lover cast 
 That scared his coward heart for many a day, 
 Into the deepest woods she took her way. 
 The dance was soon resumed, and as she fled, 
 Like hollow laughter chasing overhead. 
 Pursued the music and the maidens' song. 
 Just as she passed from sight an angry eye 
 Glared for a moment from the western sky, 
 And flung one quivering shaft of dazzling white, 
 With tenfold thunder-peal, adown the night. 
 
40 WINONA. 
 
 Her motlier followed her, and sought her long, 
 Calling and listening through the falling dew, 
 While fast and furious still the cadence grew 
 Of the gay dance, whose distant music fell, 
 Smiting the mother like a funeral knell. 
 High rode the sun in heaven next day before 
 The stricken mother found along the shore 
 The object of her unremitting quest. 
 The cooling wave whereon she lay at rest 
 Had stilled the tumult of Winona's breast. 
 Along that shapely ruin's plastic grace, 
 And in the parting of her braided hair, 
 The hopeless mother's glances searching there 
 The Thunder- Bird's mysterious mark might trace. 
 
 So died Winona, and let all beware. 
 For vengeance follows fast and will not spare, 
 Nor maid, nor warrior that dares offend 
 Who hath the cruel Thunder-Bird for friend. 
 
MISCKLLANKOUS POEMS 
 
TO A YOUNG MAN. 
 
 /^^ ARKSS thy pleasures with a reverent touch, 
 ^-^ Too soon at best their early fragrance flees. 
 Seek not to know, to see, or taste too much : 
 
 The sweetest, deepest cup hath still its lees ; 
 The blushing grape is not too rudely pressed, 
 When gushes forth its richest and its best. 
 
 Bird, bubble, butterfly on light wing straying, 
 With changing tints of crimson, blue, and gold, 
 
 Upon warm waves of summer sunlight swaying, 
 When thy frail, flaming wing the boy shall hold, 
 
 Alas, how soon its fragile charms expire ! 
 
 B'en so when strong men seize their soul's desire. 
 
 Rend not with ruthless hand the lily's bell, 
 To gather all its sweetness at a breath ; 
 
 Spill not the pearl deep in its bosom's cell, 
 The crystal gift Aurora's tears bequeath. 
 
 So shall a delicate perfume be thine, 
 
 Through all the weary hours of day's decline. 
 
 43 
 
44 TO A YOUNG MAN, 
 
 The gentlest spirits of tlie earth and air — 
 Sweet mysteries to ruder men unknown — 
 
 Will yield delights as delicate as rare, 
 
 The secret bowers of I^ove shall be thy own, 
 
 The one great bliss, so long thy hope's despair. 
 
 Will press with eager feet to find thee there. 
 
TKI.I. MB, DKAR BIRD. 
 
 TN the warm twilight where I mused, there 
 
 ^ came 
 
 A bird of unknown race with breast of flame. 
 
 Tell me, dear bird, O bird with breast of flame, 
 I conjure thee, e'en by his sacred name. 
 How may I lure and win lyove to my side ? 
 There is no lure for I^ove, in patience bide, 
 And if he cometh not await him still, 
 lyove cometh only when and where he will. 
 
 But when he cometh, bird with breast of flame, 
 Teach me his roving feet to bind and tame. 
 Many have sought to bind him, but in vain ; 
 He will not brook nor gold nor silken chain. 
 If he is caught, I^ove languishes and dies. 
 And 't is not I^ove, if free to stay, he flies. 
 
 Tell me, dear bird, O bird with breast of flame, 
 When true lyove comes, how may I know his 
 
 name ? 
 What are the golden words upon his tongue : 
 What message sweeter than a seraph's song ? 
 
 45 
 
46 TELL ME, DEAR BIRD. 
 
 Love hath no shibboleth, and where are words 
 For the enraptured songs of summer birds ? 
 
 Tell me, dear lyove, O bird with breast of flame, 
 The deepest sense and meaning of thy name ? 
 Two all-sufficing souls for woe or bliss, 
 But what they do, or what their converse is, 
 Love only knows ; they walk where none may see, 
 Wrapped in the shades of a sweet mystery. 
 
PERDITA. 
 
 "pAR away under Hesper, 
 *■ In seas never crossed, 
 Like a faint-uttered whisper. 
 
 Forgotten and lost ; 
 Where no sail ever flies 
 
 O'er the face of the deep, 
 A lost island lies 
 
 Forgotten, asleep. 
 An island reposes, 
 
 Distant and dim, 
 Where a cloud- veil of roses 
 Never uncloses, 
 Dreams and reposes 
 
 On the horizon's rim. 
 An island arrayed 
 
 In such magical grace, 
 It would seem to be made 
 
 For some happier race. 
 Bach valley and bower 
 
 Has a charm of its own ; 
 A perfume each flower. 
 
 Elsewhere unknown ; 
 
 47 
 
48 PERDITA. 
 
 A charm of such power 
 
 That once known to the heart, 
 If but for an hour, 
 
 It can never depart. 
 K'en the surges of ocean, 
 
 Ceasing their roar, 
 Their rage and commotion, 
 
 Sigh in on the shore 
 With a melody saintl}^, 
 
 As vespers that seem 
 Chanted so quaintly. 
 By sisters so saintly, 
 Mingling so faintly 
 
 With the voice of a dream. 
 
 One summer time olden, 
 
 That standeth alone 
 With its memories golden. 
 
 That isle was my own. 
 O island enchanted ! 
 
 Where now does she rove — 
 The bright nymph that haunted 
 
 Thy fountain and grove, 
 While still at her side, 
 
 Whereever she strayed, 
 By the mountain or tide, 
 
 My footsteps were stayed ? 
 Do her pulses still beat 
 
 To the pulses of yore ? 
 
PERDITA^ 
 
 Say, now, do lier feet 
 Tread some pitiless shore, 
 
 Still hoping to meet 
 One who cometh no more ? 
 
 O that summer ! its ray- 
 In my heart lingers yet, 
 
 Long after the day- 
 Star it came from has set. 
 
 My star of the night 
 And of morning was she. 
 
 My song-bird, my white- 
 Winged bark on the sea ; 
 
 My rainbow, illuming 
 With beauty and light ; 
 
 My rose-garden, blooming, 
 
 Sweetly perfuming 
 
 The hours of the night. 
 
 But at last, in its fleetness, 
 
 It seemed that each day 
 From the charm and the sweetness 
 
 Took something away, 
 Till the flowers all faded 
 
 From summer's bright crown. 
 The skies were o'ershadowed. 
 
 The forests were brown. 
 In the voices of morning 
 
 There crept a new tone, 
 
 49 
 
50 PERDITA. 
 
 A faint whispered warning 
 
 From regions unknown, 
 And over each heart 
 
 Stole a mystical fear 
 That our joy would depart 
 
 With the flight of the year. 
 A pale, cold, new-comer 
 
 Had entered our isle. 
 From a land beyond summer 
 
 And sunshine and smile, 
 Subduing us quite, 
 
 Though we saw not his face, 
 As winter gives blight 
 
 When it cometh apace. 
 Her glances and mine 
 
 Sought each other no more. 
 Each fearing some sign 
 
 Not seen there before. 
 Yet no word was revealing 
 
 Misgiving or chill ; 
 Bach sought for concealing 
 The deathly, congealing 
 
 Foreboding of ill. 
 
 But at last came a night 
 When our last song was sung, 
 
 And like children in fright 
 Together we clung. 
 
 No farewell was spoken, 
 
PERDITA. 
 
 Our voices were dumb, 
 But we knew without token 
 
 I'hat parting was come. 
 In the darkness that bound us 
 
 A night-bird did sing, 
 And the black air around us 
 
 Was moved by his wing, 
 As in vulture waves sweeping 
 
 He sped from the shore, 
 And away from my keeping 
 My Day-star he tore. 
 
 SI 
 
STANZAS TO 
 
 BITTER bewailing 
 Sweet I^ife's sad failing 
 Is unavailing 
 
 Your prayers or mine. 
 Years onward sweeping 
 Bring blight for reaping, 
 For laughter weeping, 
 Wormwood for wine. 
 
 The old sweet vision 
 Comes to derision 
 The dream Klysian 
 
 That once was ours. 
 The rushing river 
 Mocks our endeavor, 
 And soon will sever 
 
 My bark from yours. 
 
 One joy shall bide me 
 Whate'er betide me, 
 This still shall guide me 
 
 Till Hfe shall fleet ; 
 Though friends forsake me, 
 Fate rudely shake me, 
 52 
 
STANZAS TO . 53 
 
 And Time shall break me 
 Beneath his feet, 
 
 No power above me 
 From this can move me — 
 My Queen did love me ! 
 
 One golden day 
 Her proud heart found me, 
 Her arms were around me, 
 Her red lips crowned me 
 
 A King for aye. 
 
 O rapturous meeting j 
 Thy passionate greeting 
 Was the high beating 
 
 Of a young soul, 
 For one full yearning, 
 Hour spurning, 
 The fetters burning 
 
 Of Fate's control. 
 
 The chilling power 
 Of rank and dower 
 That sacred hour 
 
 Soon overcast, 
 And from our faces 
 Swept the faint traces 
 Of those embraces, 
 
 The first and last. 
 
54 STANZAS TO 
 
 She may recover, 
 When days are over, 
 Some happier lover, 
 
 Forsaking me. 
 I, e'en though hated, 
 Am consecrated ; 
 More meanly mated 
 
 Can never be. 
 
 I^et new flames redden 
 Where light loves deaden, 
 I<et pulses leaden 
 
 Leap forth anew ; 
 But on this altar 
 Till breath shall falter, 
 Though all else alter. 
 
 Nought shall renew. 
 
LOVE'S TRIBUTES. 
 
 /^ THAT I might inspire my song witli power 
 ^•^ To crown thy brows with more than queenly 
 
 dower ; 
 To pour on thee a more than golden shower, 
 And fill thy soul with sunshine every hour. 
 
 Time breaks at last the lyre's sweetest strings, 
 And palls the sweetest note the minstrel sings, 
 And riches fly away on falcon wings : 
 Ivove only to his trust unchanging clings. 
 
 Then be my song of whatsoe'er degree, 
 And gifts however bright and fair to see. 
 Rare trophies peril won by land and sea. 
 Yet lyove his own chief offering must be. 
 
 All that the flower of Love may yield is thine, 
 From blushing bud to clusters on the vine. 
 With colors rich as rubies from the mine, 
 And odors mounting to the soul like wine. 
 
 55 
 
56 LOVE'S TRIBUTES. 
 
 But all, I know, is paltry in thine eyes, 
 So far above them all thy worth doth rise. 
 In vain my muse with feeble pinions tries 
 To reach the regions where thy merit lies. 
 
 Still o'er Love's treasures hold thy sovereign 
 
 sway ; 
 Taste them or spill them, keep or cast away ; 
 By night or daytime, hasten or delay, 
 Trample them, cull them, go thine own sweet 
 
 way. 
 
THE LITTLE SHEPHERDESS. 
 
 PASTORKl.I<K. 
 
 T ITTLE lamb, I pray O come to me, 
 
 ^ None to caress and love have I but thee. 
 
 Why art thou not some tender shepherd swain, 
 
 Then loving thee would ease my weary pain. 
 
 My sister Susan, she is fair and tall, 
 
 And she may choose among the shepherds all, 
 
 And she is called sweet names — my dear, my pet ; 
 
 Ah me ! I'm brown, and I 'm too little yet. 
 
 Then stepping forth from a concealing shade, 
 A youth beyond compare approached the maid, 
 And, whisp'ring softly in her startled ear. 
 She heard the tender words, " My pet, my dear." 
 She blushing stood, confused with downcast eyes. 
 But heart and face were filled with glad surprise ; 
 And happier far than Susan tall and fair, 
 The little nut-brown maiden trembling there. 
 
 57 
 
A FARKWKlyl^. 
 
 "T' IS true that once I sighed for 
 
 ^ That tender heart of thine ; 
 I thought I could have died for 
 
 The bliss I now decline. 
 Too many swains enchanted, 
 
 Since then within that heart, 
 Have had sweet shelter granted 
 
 For me to claim a part. 
 
 Farewell, dear one, thy sorrow, 
 
 Thy tears are all in vain ; 
 That tender heart to-morrow 
 
 Will find some newer swain. 
 Thou hast no necromancy 
 
 To restore the passing sway, 
 Of what was but the fancy 
 
 Of an idle summer day. 
 
 58 
 
TO A FICKI.H FAIR ONE. 
 
 0MB birds mate three times in a year, 
 ^ And I have called thee oft my bird. 
 
 1 knew not even shame and fear 
 
 Could bind thee long ; take my last word, 
 Good-bye, sweet bird. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 CONSTANCY and the Phoenix,birds that dwell 
 In the bright realms of song, happy his fate 
 Who elsewhere meets with one, for, mark it well, 
 Sooner or later he will find its mate. 
 
THK PAlvACE OF REPOSE. 
 
 T T ElyPIvESS we start before the break of day, 
 -■■ ■■■ And grope along an unknown path, our way, 
 Or follow leaders blind, and many fall ; 
 But on we press, heedless and joyous all. 
 As happy fledglings fluttering in the brake, 
 That nothing reck of prowling fox or snake. 
 When over us at last the daylight dawns. 
 We bear the marks of many cruel thorns ; 
 But brightly on the far horizon gleams 
 (Of more than earthly grace the vision seems) 
 The Palace of Repose, that rears on high 
 Its golden domes against the western sky. 
 While warm and tender as a poet's dreams, 
 The restful radiance from each tower that streams. 
 
 Now through the early morning air we fly. 
 As the young shepherd sped with beaming eye 
 Fast fixed upon the rose-bom butterfly. 
 Toward flowery vales and hills our pathway leads, 
 But when we reach them all their beauty fades. 
 Hills that were fairer, ere their paths were won. 
 Than the long slopes of fountained Helicon, 
 Are marred by poisonous weeds and flinty stone ; 
 
 60 
 
THE PALACE OF REPOSE. 6 1 
 
 And forms that seemed, against the distant skies, 
 Winging their snowy way to Paradise, 
 Are birds unclean, whose wings are Hke a breath 
 From some great charnel-house in lands of death. 
 And shifting sands beneath our feet are spread, 
 And pitfalls numberless beset our way, 
 Where noisome reptiles fill us with dismay ; 
 On either side lie, fathomless and dim, 
 Wide plains where wander phantoms stark and 
 grim. 
 
 Noon comes ; the goal no nearer, on we haste, 
 Nor note the lengthening shadows of the past. 
 Luring us on we hear the far, faint moan 
 Of music, weird and sweet as Memnon's tone, 
 Heard in the desert by the traveller lone ; 
 Bewildering as the sounds the shepherds erst 
 Heard in the vales of Thessaly , when first 
 Apollo's wondrous music on them burst. 
 Of all that started with us, hand in hand, 
 Only a few are left, a dwindling band. 
 With haggard faces fixed upon the goal, 
 E'en as the needle to the steadfast pole. 
 Swifter and swifter, till the evening air 
 Sings like a serpent through our back-blown hair. 
 But lo, the night has come. 
 
 The sun goes down, 
 His trailing robes with crimson glories crown 
 The palace we had almost deemed was ours. 
 
62 THE PALACE OF REPOSE. 
 
 Dearer than ever seem those fading towers, 
 Whose oriel windows gleam like soul-lit eyes 
 For one bright moment ere thick darkness lies 
 On earth and sky, then trembling, faint, and sore, 
 Closing our pathway, lo, we find a door. 
 The entrance to a narrow house that still 
 Blocks up the way of every human will. 
 Wander where'er we may, this self-same goal 
 Is reached at last by every weary soul. 
 Our burdens fall unheeded, and our gains, — 
 This is the end of all our toil and pains. 
 
 Over the threshold hangs a shrunken lute. 
 
 Upon a tree where grows nor flower nor fruit ; 
 
 Bewildering odors fill the heavy air, 
 
 The nightshade and the wolf s-bane mingle there ; 
 
 The faint perfume of rose and lily, too, 
 
 Is swallowed up by asphodel and rue. 
 
 We enter in, behold, a lowly bed, 
 
 How sweet the poppied perfume o'er it shed, 
 
 Where the red poppy swings its censer head. 
 
 There sleep shall seize and bind us, sleep su- 
 preme. 
 That knows no waking mom, no troubled dream. 
 The years shall swiftly cover us from sight, 
 In silence and insuperable night. 
 
MOODS. 
 
 IV/IY wa3rward youth liad drained the cup of 
 
 1^1 le, 
 Wasting its treasures in the fitful strife, 
 The mad revolt of a rebellious soul, 
 That beats the stubborn bars of Fate's control. 
 My foolish heart whispered, there is no God, 
 And if there is, let cravens fear his rod : 
 Be thy own god, slake thy imperious thirst 
 Where'er thou wilt, no fountain is accurst. 
 Many strange paths my restless feet had sought, 
 Not all ignoble, but to each I brought 
 The turbulence of will that grasps at all, 
 And, failing, breaks itself against the wall. 
 Too late I knew my impotence at last, 
 When the bright glow of youth was overpast. 
 
 Worn out, exhausted by the weary route 
 That leads from knowledge to disgust and doubt, 
 Defeat, deceit, and baffled purpose stole 
 lyike a corroding canker to my soul. 
 I hated I^ife, scorned and despised my kind, 
 So far astray may err the unbridled mind. 
 
 63 
 
64 MOODS, 
 
 I had been nigh to death ; the sullen wave 
 Already my consenting feet did lave, 
 When one who thought to be my friend, and fain 
 Had done me kindness, plucked me back again. 
 They said my reason wandered, and had found 
 A peaceful nook remote from sight or sound 
 Of busy men ; there by the moonlit sea 
 On a soft couch I lay, where over me 
 Through the low lattice the sea odors crept. 
 And from the landward side about me swept 
 Soft languid waves of amorous perfume, 
 Of pollen-dust, of bursting bud and bloom. 
 
 Wrecked by the storm of life, and cast aside 
 lyike drift rejected by the loathing tide, 
 Vacant of heart and thought I lay ; the air 
 That wooed my cheek and gently stirred my hair. 
 Laden with yearning voices of the spring, 
 Awoke in me no answering tone or string. 
 
 From the deep shadows of the sleeping wood 
 A baleful night-bird swept the solitude ; 
 The shuddering moonlight like a living thing 
 Shrank from the touch of his defiling wing ; 
 And fiercely following like an eager pack 
 Of winged hounds upon his lurid track, 
 Lewd mocking spirits filled the thickening air, 
 Swarming as to a chamel banquet there. 
 Close at my ear burst forth a piercing yell, 
 
MOODS. - 65 
 
 As if each ghoul and fiend from nether hell 
 
 Had burst its bonds, and joined that chorus fell ; 
 
 My quivering veins and nerves to frenzy stung, 
 
 In discord jangled like a harp unstrung. 
 
 Suddenly at my heart a quick sharp pluck, 
 
 As ' t were some foot of small fierce bird had struck 
 
 And griped me sore ; then after some short space 
 
 The keen pain seized me in another place ; 
 
 I felt myself clasped in a rude embrace, 
 
 And o'er my body spread swift fleeting pangs, 
 
 Sickening and deadly as a serpent's fangs. 
 
 Quivering in every limb then I w^as 'ware 
 
 Of a strange woman bending o'er me there, 
 
 With ashen hair, that in the moonlight pale 
 
 Rippled about her shoulders like a veil ; 
 
 In her cold eyes that pierced me through and 
 
 through. 
 There dimly lurked a look that once I knew. 
 Her face was bloodless, as of one that 's dead. 
 But oh ! her little mouth, how rosy red, 
 Beset with glittering little fangs that bled. 
 Fresh from the cruel feast whereon they fed. 
 Cold was her bosom, and her clammy arms — 
 No ruddy current warmed those shapely charms. 
 The air grew stifling, and upon my ear 
 Fell strident whispers chilling me with fear. 
 
 " Dost thou not know my face ? in my close kiss 
 
 Lingers no essence of the olden bliss ? 
 
 5 
 
^ MOODS, 
 
 Doth not my breath revive the ancient fire, 
 
 And fill the shrunken veins of dead desire ? 
 
 I am the child of all thy joys ; ere Death 
 
 Swallowed them up each -left with me some breath, 
 
 Some drop of blood, some accent, or some look, 
 
 A token from each fleeting hour I took ; 
 
 In me thy vanished raptures all unite 
 
 The perfect fruit of all thy past delight. 
 
 Long have I sought thee, now that thou art found, 
 
 Now that my limbs about thee have been wound, 
 
 And that my lips have fed upon thy face. 
 
 Nothing shall tear thee more from my embrace ; 
 
 Dearer thou art to me than all that dwell 
 
 In the wide triple realms. Earth, Heaven and Hell. 
 
 Thou art my fruitful vineyard, and my well. 
 
 My gilded mountain top, and flowery dell 
 
 Whereon my lips shall pasture all the night, 
 
 Vanishing only with the morning light. 
 
 For in thy arms the olden joys I taste. 
 
 And round us swarm the spectres of the past ; 
 
 The ruddy light still in their hollow eyes 
 
 Lingers that shone upon our revelries 
 
 In gay Lisboa's palaces of pride. 
 
 When every mask and cheek was flung aside. 
 
 Virtue was mocked, and God and man defied. 
 
 *' And youthful joys far from Lisboa's town 
 Through some green by"way of the years float 
 down : 
 
MOODS. 
 
 67 
 
 Over fair I^usitania's hills and plains 
 Again we wander free from sinful stains ; 
 Though viewed through mist of tears, the earliest 
 
 scenes 
 Are brightest still whatever intervenes. 
 The leafy songs that thrill the listening wood, 
 And answering birds that make sweet interlude, 
 The sylvan lakes illuminated by 
 The rainbows arching all our summer sky, 
 
 And swans that drift along the shore at rest 
 
 A string of pearls upon a swelling breast." 
 
 Ranging amid the garden groves of youth, 
 The luring voice grew softer, till in sooth 
 I^ike pulsing of a moonlight lute it fell, 
 lyulling my senses with a rhythmic spell. 
 I know not if I slumbered, but anon 
 Those odious limbs about my own were thrown ; 
 I started up with thick and laboring breath. 
 And sickening loathing almost unto death ; 
 *' O Christ ! " I cried, lo, at that sacred name 
 The foul shape vanished, and instead one came 
 Clad in soft light as from an inner flame, 
 And held an ebon cross whereon there bled 
 A great white Christ, with loving arms outspread. 
 Singing afar a tender voice I heard, 
 Faintly the accents fell, '* Flee as a bird." 
 Then, as the spring-tides yearning to the moon. 
 Flood the dry hollows where we walked at noon, 
 
68 MOODS. 
 
 E'en so the tidal- wave of feeling rose, 
 And memories wakened from their long repose, 
 And rushing back through many a dusty year 
 lyeft me again a reverent child at prayer. 
 
 Again the simple worshippers I saw 
 Kneeling in fervent prayer ; I heard with awe 
 Once more the shameful tale recounted o'er : 
 The buffets and revilings that He bore, 
 The crown of thorns, the wormwood, and the 
 
 gall, 
 And our foul sins more bitter than them all, 
 Filling the cup that our vile hands have pressed 
 To the pure lips of our expiring Christ. 
 Gazing upon the Saviour's agony, 
 Through my dark soul a cleansing current swept, 
 And tears of humble penitence I wept. 
 Softly I wept at first, then gathering force, 
 Burst forth a storm of passionate remorse, 
 Till my frail couch shook like an autumn leaf 
 In the tempestuous torrent of my grief. 
 Stretching my trembling hands, *' O Christ ! " I 
 
 cried, 
 " Would that with thee I might be crucified, 
 So I might share thy love. O let me find 
 Some sure retreat remote from all my kind. 
 Far from the voice of priest or minister, 
 Where reigns the silence of the sepulchre ; 
 To some far rocky island let me flee, 
 
MOODS, 69 
 
 Piercing the bosom of an unknown sea, 
 There let me live in sweet converse with thee. 
 Or in some Theban desert, too remote 
 K'en for the sound of Memnon's warning note, 
 Or 'mid the rocks on Sinai's shaking brow, 
 Where the fierce fires of God's anger glow ; 
 Or buried in some clammy convent cell. 
 No matter where, dear I^ord, so I may dwell 
 Apart from all the universe but thee ; 
 So that my name may perish utterly 
 From memory of man ; so that no sound 
 Of human voice or footstep may resound 
 Through the deep portals of my solitude. 
 There let me purge my sins with penance rude. 
 The scourge, the midnight vigil, and the fast, 
 Until I know thee, face to face at last." 
 How weak are all this life's most tempting joys, 
 lyove, wealth, ambition, transitory toys, 
 To those that flood the lonely anchorite 
 In the rapt moments of his soul's delight. 
 The sweetest words of Jesus are not found 
 In Holy Writ ; who in his grace abound, 
 Forsaking all the world to bear his cross, 
 Counting all human love and honor dross ; 
 Who wears the thorny crown upon his head, 
 And loveth better than his daily bread 
 The scourge, the iron chain, the stony bed, 
 Worn out with vigils, spent with sighs and tears, 
 Jesus perchance may whisper in his ears, 
 
70 MOODS. 
 
 Sweeter than music of the choral spheres, 
 The unwritten words that soothed the Magdalene. 
 Perchance on Jesus' bosom he may lean, 
 A deeper sense than language can impart 
 lyies in the throbbing of that wondrous heart. 
 
 The moon went down, the night grew dark and 
 
 dense, 
 The aspiration of my soul intense 
 Took real form and garb, or so it seemed, 
 And bore me on to all that I had dreamed. 
 Into the narrow dungeon where I lay 
 The Saviour came, and gently put away 
 My scourging hand ; his smile ineffable 
 "With more than earthly radiance lit my cell — 
 Sweeter than wanton couch had ever known, 
 The rapture Jesus bringeth to his own. 
 Naked and prone upon the dungeon stone, 
 His love suffused me with a rosy glow. 
 His words of grace and pardon, murmured low, 
 Thrilled me and filled my spirit's pulsing vein, 
 Till like a ship impatient for the main 
 Her snowy wings tugged at the anchor chain. 
 
 I slept profoundly ; when I woke, the sun 
 Already more than half his course had run. 
 Light wilHng feet were moving round my coucli, 
 And gentle hands with ministering touch. 
 They brought me dainties, and their cheerful 
 words, 
 
MOODS, *Jl 
 
 Tlie hum of honey-bees, the voice of birds, 
 The grand old forest's potent influence 
 Subdued and mingled with my every sense, 
 And moved my being to accord and tune 
 With all the leafy harmonies of June, 
 As if some conscious hand beneficent 
 A hideous nightmare pall had from me rent. 
 
 I wandered out alone beneath the trees 
 And in a tempting spot reclined at ease. 
 My head in the cool shade, and at my feet 
 Streaming the amber sunlight's genial heat. 
 My spirits rose, and quickening pulses beat, 
 Surprised to find that living still was sweet. 
 The tree-tops o'er me seemed to melt away — 
 Green islets floating on an azure bay ; 
 And I in fancy floated with them, too. 
 Drifting forever down the ether blue. 
 Half dreaming thus, so quietly I lay 
 The forest denizens resumed their play ; 
 But furtively, as though they feared to break 
 The spell that brooded in the air, or wake 
 Some discord slumbering in the solitude. 
 A bird sang nigh me, but with voice subdued ; 
 The mossy oaks like kingly graybeards stood, 
 And stretched inviting arms ; the aspens wooed 
 With myriad beckoning leaves, and each slant 
 
 beam, 
 Flung from the flying sun-god's hand, did seem 
 
72 MOODS. 
 
 A rosy finger-tip that coyly pointed 
 
 To some deep trysting-place by wood-nymphs 
 
 haunted. 
 I/)ng vistas led away mysteriously, 
 So tempting that I almost thought to see 
 Arch faces from the nearer branches peeping, 
 And clumsy satyrs in the distance leaping. 
 
 The nymph, the satyr, and the bounding fawn 
 That filled the groves of Thessaly are gone. 
 The merry train that circled Oberon 
 Trip it no more upon the moonlit lawn. 
 But let them pass nor mourn the solitude : 
 Far sweeter than the whole fantastic brood 
 Is one weak, loving woman's human form. 
 A woman's voice, low, tremulous, and warm, 
 Hath a more potent spell to lull the charm 
 Than Orphean lute, or siren's song, where passed 
 The wave-worn mariner lashed to his mast. 
 
 Two doves thrust out their small heads timidly 
 From the low branches of a neighboring tree, 
 Looking askance, and peering through the green, 
 lyike fooHsh lovers fearing to be seen, 
 Then, reassured, resumed their blissful play. 
 I smiled to see them, thinking of a day, 
 Just such another day as this, last year, 
 When with a damsel I had wandered here, 
 Amid these very vistas, and I thought 
 
MOODS. 73 
 
 Of a deep vine-clad arbor we had sought. 
 Our words, our looks, our tender dalliance, all, 
 Like birds of passage at the swallow's call, 
 Came trooping back, on light wings fluttering. 
 And through me swept the quickening breath of 
 
 spring. 
 Seen through the shimmering aspen leaves afar 
 A fair face twinkled on me like a star. 
 And rustle of bright garments drawing nigh 
 Fluttered my heart with strange expectancy. 
 
 • •••«• 
 
 And soon two happy lovers wandered far, 
 And tarried till the rising of the evening star. 
 
TO 
 
 HER lieart is a flower that long hath slept 
 WTiere clamm}' night-dews o'er it wept, 
 But now to love and rapture wakes 
 As the flushing glor}" of morning breaks, 
 And the hea\^^ tears that chilled it so 
 Pure diamonds all in the sunshine glow. 
 
 Her hair is a sea of golden waves 
 I/)ve's beauteous temple wall that laves, 
 RippHng o'er two rosy shells 
 TVTierein the soul of music dwells, 
 To break in hyacinthine curl 
 Caressing the base of purest pearl. 
 
 Her eyes, twin mountain pools that lie 
 
 Reflecting back the summer sk}-, 
 
 A fringe of graceful poplars there 
 
 Sway softly in the amorous air. 
 
 Oh ! he who fathoms those wondrous eyes 
 
 Will see the joj-s of Paradise. 
 
 A crimson little rose her mouth 
 Exhales the memories of the South ; 
 
 74 
 
TO . 75 
 
 And wlien its petals gently move, 
 Breathing some tender word of love, 
 No angel's voice at gates of bliss 
 Hath promise to compare with this. 
 Her brow a page of vellum fair, 
 'T were vain to seek for tracery there ; 
 Pure as Mount Athos, yet I know 
 Beneath that alabaster brow 
 One tender secret, guarded well. 
 Stirs sweetly in its guarded cell. 
 
 How many hundred hearts have beat 
 To the faint music of her feet ; 
 What yearning eyes devour the grass 
 That ripples where her footsteps pass, 
 Beneath her kirtle's airy sweep, 
 lyike moonbeams glancing o'er the deep. 
 
 A snowy miracle of grace 
 Her circling arms, for whose embrace 
 Hyperion's self might vainly sigh. 
 Oh ! if within those arms to lie 
 To happy mortal e'er were given, 
 How tame were all the joys of heaven. 
 Sheltered by those endearing charms 
 From my own spirit's dark alarms, 
 Kndymion were not half so blest 
 Fainting upon his Phoebe's breast. 
 
TO . 
 
 "p EVO IRVING years another Ma^^-day bring ; 
 •*■ ^ Earth at this bridal season's glad return 
 Blooms forth again in bridal robes of spring, 
 Expectant, waiting, trembling, all things yearn. 
 Cries then aloud the voice I thought was slain, 
 Calls as of yore my stormy deep to thine ; 
 Answer is mute, I hear no voice but mine. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 11) ARER and dearer seen through smiles or tears, 
 -'• ^ Each day thy well-remembered face appears, 
 Beaming through all the clouds and mists of j-ears. 
 Enfolding thee in dreams, my yearning kisses 
 Chng to that face till all our perished blisses 
 Come back like phantoms dear that re-awaken. 
 And haste to greet their loved ones long forsaken. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 RIGHT gladly would I twine a wreath of 
 flowers. 
 Each mom for thee from devry garden bowers ; 
 But when I cull them, lo ! they turn at view, 
 E'en in my hands, to nightshade and to rue ; 
 Circling, beloved one, thy temples rare. 
 Catching the halo of thy golden hair, 
 Again they glow, roses and lilies there. 
 
 76 
 
TRANSLATIONS AND IMITATIONS 
 
1^ MY VKRSBS HAD WINGS LIKK A BIRD. 
 
 AFTKR VICTOR HUGO. 
 
 T F my verses had wings like a bird, 
 '■• To thy garden of perfume and light 
 They would flutter with timid delight, 
 If my verses had wings like a bird. 
 
 If my verses, like fairies, had wings. 
 To thy fireside at eve they would fly, 
 To sparkle and gleam in thine ej^e. 
 
 If my verses, like fairies, had wings. 
 
 Pure pinions around and above. 
 All day would rustle and gleam, 
 They would whisper at night to thy dream, 
 
 If my verses were winged like Love. 
 
 79 
 
»TWIXT SLEEP AND WAKING. 
 
 AFTKR THEJ FRBNCH OF PROSPKR BI^ANCHEMAIN. 
 
 T YING alone last niglit, 'twixt sleep and 
 *^ waking, 
 
 My cruel mistress passed, with queenly tread, 
 With smile of cold disdain, and haughty head, 
 And scornful eyes, whereat my heart was break- 
 ing ; 
 The vision was so true in all its seeming, 
 I scarcely could beHeve that I was dreaming. 
 
 But when she came, and o'er me lowly bending, 
 Upon me rained the kisses of her mouth. 
 Laden with all the perfume of the South, 
 Murmuring the while of blisses never ending. 
 And in her eyes I saw the love-light gleaming, — 
 Ah ! then I knew that I was only dreaming. 
 
 80 
 
WHITO SWAN SAII^ING. 
 
 FROM TH^ RUSSIAN. 
 
 ^1 /"HITK swan, sailing all the day, 
 
 ' ' Peering in the wave below 
 As thou sailest proud and slow, 
 Round and round, and to and fro, 
 Seekest thou another, say ? 
 Seest thou, in vaults below, 
 Through the wave inscrutable, 
 Joy of heaven or woe of hell ? 
 
 Cruel swan, why mock me so ? 
 Scornful sailing to and fro. 
 Answering not my questionings, 
 While above thy snowy breast 
 Rises haughty neck and crest. 
 Siure, beneath thy folded wings, 
 Knowledge lies of many things — 
 Secrets that I long to know. 
 Voices of the hollow wave, 
 Whispering as from a grave. 
 Murmur to thy listening ear 
 Secrets that I fain would hear. 
 6 8i 
 
82 WHITE SWAN SAILING, 
 
 lyO, I see another crest 
 Mirrored in the wave below, 
 And a bosom white as snow 
 Sails majestical and slow, 
 Unto thine 't is closely pressed ; 
 Face to face and breast to breast, 
 Two white swans majestic go 
 Round and round and to and fro. 
 
 Peering through the hollow wave 
 
 As into an open grave, 
 
 I/), I see another there ; 
 
 Find the face and form of one, 
 
 Thought of whom I fain would shun 
 
 More than all beneath the sun ; 
 
 Find a face already where 
 
 Time's inexorable touch 
 
 I^aveth traces overmuch, 
 
 And steely fingers soon will tear, 
 
 Rendins: cruel furrows there. 
 
 'C> 
 
 Peering through the hollow wave, 
 Wistfully as in a grave. 
 Could I see another breast 
 As it was in I/ong Ago 
 (Or perhaps I dreamed it so), 
 Where my own might hope to rest ; 
 Not of mine the counterpart, 
 But a bosom white as snow, 
 
WHITE SWAN SAILING, 83 
 
 Proud, but tender, pressed to mine, 
 As thy double unto thine ; 
 Would the rapture slay me, say ? 
 Swelling, welling from my heart, 
 Soul and body rend apart ? 
 Would the rapture slay me ? nay, 
 Such a death were sweeter bliss 
 Than I find in life like this. 
 
the: rosks of SAADI. 
 
 AFTE:r THEJ FRENCH OF D^SBORDE^S-VAI^MORK. 
 
 A S I passed through the Valley of Roses to-day 
 ''*' I gathered the fairest and sweetest for thee, 
 But my robes were so full that the knots burst 
 away, 
 And all my sweet roses fell into the sea. 
 
 A wave slowly bore them away from my sight, 
 
 Flaming forth like a cloud-billow rosy and red ; 
 But on me you may breathe all their fragrance to- 
 night, 
 For my bosom is sweet with the odors they 
 shed. 
 
ROSK-BUDS. 
 AFTEJR the; frknch OF b:^range;r. 
 
 /^ TIMID rose-buds, why delay your bloom, 
 ^^ The frost of Time is chill upon my hair ; 
 Unclose your petals, shed your sweet perfume, 
 I/ike vesper incense on the evening air. 
 
 Gladden my withered heart while yet you may, 
 A rock is hid beneath each glowing wave ; 
 
 The ardent sun, wooing your lips to-day. 
 
 To-morrow's noon may mock your poet's grave. 
 
 And rose-buds, ere their time may pass away ; 
 
 The worm is there, an envious wind may 
 bHght ; 
 How many rose-buds have I seen decay. 
 
 While thistles flaunt their colors in the light. 
 
 I pluck nor buds, nor full-blown roses now. 
 Your tender charms from me have naught to 
 fear ; 
 
 No rosy wreath awaits this wrinkled brow, 
 I^et regal youth the crown and sceptre bear. 
 
 85 
 
86 ROSE-BUDS. 
 
 Weary of strife, of cold, vain theorems, 
 Of counting spots upon the sun's fair face, 
 
 Would that a bed beneath your friendly stems 
 Were hollowed for my final resting-place. 
 
 When the Great Reaper comes, let me be found 
 Among the roses, fresh and pure as truth ; 
 
 Their perfume shed above me and around. 
 
 Whispering my failing heart of Love and 
 Youth. 
 
 O timid rose-buds, why delay your bloom. 
 The frost of Time is chill upon my hair ; 
 
 Unclose your petals, shed your sweet perfume 
 Like vesper incense on the evening air. 
 
THE BIRD I WAIT FOR. 
 
 AFTKR THK FRKNCH OF MOREJAU. 
 
 r^KAD, buried suns of former years arise, 
 
 ■'-^ And flowers bloom I thought had died last 
 
 spring ; 
 The birds that fled last fall our wintry skies 
 
 People again the woods on joyous wing ; 
 At dawn soft rustling pinions waken me, 
 
 And swallows darken window-pane and door ; 
 Breathless I listen, gazing wistfully, 
 
 Alas, the bird I wait for comes no more. 
 
 A high ambition swept my pulses through ; 
 
 Gazing one day upon the eagle's flight, 
 I pierced with him the heaven's o'erarching blue, 
 
 And beat my pinions at the gates of light. 
 To-day the bird of Jove alone defies 
 
 The sun-god's burning glance, the tempest's 
 roar ; 
 I watch his flight unmoved, with listless eyes, 
 
 The bird I fondly wait for comes no more. 
 
 87 
 
88 THE BIRD I WAIT FOR. 
 
 The lark pours forth his liquid flood of song, 
 
 Seeking the secret covert where love lies, 
 Wherein to weave a palace for his young ; 
 
 He sings his song, he loves his love and dies. 
 His sweet small soul with his own music thrilled. 
 
 O mocking warbler, cease the song to pour, 
 Of lyove victorious, fierce desire fulfilled, 
 
 The bird I fondly wait for comes no more. 
 
 The martin hovers o'er the slumbering bay, 
 Deep mirrored in the blue abyss he lies, 
 
 Now swiftly whirls and darts in idle play, 
 Now rocked as in a poet's reveries. 
 
 O happy friend, follow thy fantasy, 
 
 Dream on the wave, wanton along the shore, 
 The bird I fondly wait for comes no more. 
 
 Arrive at last, O messenger from heaven. 
 
 Black envoy, bearing in thy beak of yore 
 The bread to famishing Elijah given. 
 
 Has God for me no portion I implore ? 
 It soon will be too late, the shadows press, 
 
 And night-birds gather round my darkening 
 door. 
 Dead with the prophet in the wilderness, 
 
 Alas, the bird I wait for comes no more. 
 
VISIONS. 
 
 FROM ^HE) FRKNCH OF AI^FRKD DE) MUSSE5T. 
 
 /^NB midniglit when I was a wayward child, 
 ^^ I read by stealth a romance weird and wild ; 
 My veins were tingling and my cheeks aflame, 
 "When suddenly before my vision came 
 Two sad dark eyes appealing wistfully, 
 A child in sable garb who looked like me. 
 
 A child so like to me in form and face, 
 It seemed a mirror standing in the place. 
 He cast on me one long and earnest look, 
 Then bent with me o'er the forbidden book. 
 A smile mysterious he wore, but never spoke, 
 And vanished from me as the daylight broke. 
 
 The years sped by ; one dreamy autumn day 
 The eager chase had led me far astray ; 
 Fantastic shadows thronged the solitude 
 Of the deep mountain forest where I stood, 
 And there appeared beneath a spreading tree, 
 A wanderer dressed in black, who looked like me. 
 
 He held a quaint old lute and a fresh spray 
 Of eglantine ; I gently asked my way. 
 
 89 
 
90 VISIONS. 
 
 He answered me no word, but took with pride 
 A path straight up the towering mountain side. 
 His parting glance fell on me with a thrill 
 Of meaning so intense it haunts me still. 
 
 Another year sped by ; one night outside 
 
 The room wherein my sainted mother died 
 
 I stood alone, and friendless with my grief — 
 
 Youth's crushing grief that hopes not for relief, — 
 
 I oped the door, lo, there on bended knee 
 
 An orphan dressed in black who looked like me. 
 
 KneeHng before the sacred ashes there 
 
 He seemed a radiant angel in despair. 
 
 His face was bathed in tears, his head was crowned 
 
 With thorns, his lute was flung upon the ground, 
 
 And o'er his sable garments flowed a tide 
 
 Of crimson from the sword that pierced his side. 
 
 Since then in every crisis I have known, 
 Whether in busy town or desert lone, 
 Angel or demon, whichsoe'er it be, 
 That sable apparition comes to me. 
 I never hear his voice, he stands apart, 
 Yet like a brother twines about my heart. 
 
 Now, all my idols burned in civil strife, 
 WilHng to love or re-create my life, 
 My feet, self-exiled from their natal strand, 
 Gather the dust of many a foreign land ; 
 
VISIONS. 91 
 
 A labyrinthine maze I vainly grope, 
 Seeking the faint, vague vestige of a hope. 
 
 Still in those moments when life's pulses go 
 
 Surging almost to fatal overflow. 
 
 When the blind, fettered spirit seems at last 
 
 Ready its fetters and its scales to cast, 
 
 Before my vision comes, on land or sea, 
 
 A wanderer, dressed in black, who looks like me. 
 
THE FISHERMAN'S BRIDAL. 
 
 AFO'KR DKI.AVIGNK. 
 
 THE sea is high, the night is dark, 
 Sweet son, O why unmoor thy bark 
 Before the morning ? 
 On such a night as this last year, 
 I fain had kept thy brother here ; 
 O heed the warning. 
 
 But the fisherman smiling 
 
 Bounded from shore, 
 His labor beguiling. 
 
 Bending the oar. 
 Singing, she loveth me, 
 
 No fear I know, 
 No wave appalleth me, 
 Loving her so. 
 
 With white wing cleft the inky sky, 
 A sea-bird with a plaintive cry. 
 
 Saddening the air : 
 The nest I built with so much toil, 
 This night became the tempest's spoil ; 
 
 Beware, beware ! 
 92 
 
THE FISHERMAN'S BRIDAL, 93 
 
 Still the fisherman smiling, 
 
 Bending the oar, 
 The darkness beguiling, 
 
 Sang as before : 
 My Nanna calleth me, 
 
 No fear I know. 
 No wave appalleth me, 
 
 Loving her so. 
 
 Faintly arose a sad appeal, 
 
 Blent with the storm by which his keel 
 
 Was rudely driven. 
 O brother, ere thy knell shall toll. 
 Pray for thy elder brother's soul, 
 Who died unshriven. 
 
 But the message unheeded 
 
 Its warning bore. 
 As onward he speeded. 
 
 Bending the oar, 
 Murmuring, she calleth me, 
 
 No fear I know. 
 No wave appalleth me, 
 lyoving her so. 
 
 Weary at dawn he reached the strand, 
 But lo, there passed a mourning band ; 
 
 For whom ? he cried. 
 For whom, O fishermen, that bell 
 That strikes upon my heart its knell ? 
 
 'T is for thy bride. 
 
94 THE FISHERMAN'S BRIDAL. 
 
 Then as if on the shore, 
 
 Stricken down by a dart, 
 Deep darkness came o'er 
 
 Him, chilling his heart. 
 Whispering, she calleth me, 
 
 No fear I know. 
 No wave appalleth me, 
 
 Irving her so. 
 
YOU HAD MY WHOI.K HKART. 
 
 FROM th:^ frknch of dfsbordks vai,mor:b. 
 
 "you liad my whole heart, 
 ^ I thought I had thine, 
 No beguiHng or art, 
 A heart for a heart. 
 
 Your heart is returned, 
 But alas ! where is mine ? 
 Your heart is returned, 
 But mine you have spumed. 
 
 The leaf and the bloom 
 And the fruit of the same, 
 I,eaf, color, and bloom. 
 Sweet flower and perfume. 
 
 Oh, what hast thou done ? 
 My sovereign supreme. 
 Oh, what hast thou done ? 
 Beneath the fair sun. 
 
 An orphan bereft 
 Of mother and home, 
 An orphan bereft. 
 With my grief I am left. 
 
 95 
 
96 YOl/ HAD MY WHOLE HEART, 
 
 Deserted, alone, 
 
 Through the cold world to roam, 
 
 Deserted, alone. 
 
 But heaven hears my moan. 
 
 One day you will muse. 
 Broken-hearted and old. 
 One day you will muse 
 On the love you refuse. 
 
 You will seek me one day 
 But you shall not behold ; 
 You will call me one day, 
 I shall not obey. 
 
 You will come to my door 
 With penitent head, 
 A friend, as of yore, 
 You will knock at my door. 
 
 It will coldly be said. 
 She is gone, she is dead ; 
 Her spirit has fled, 
 Will coldly be said. 
 
ART. 
 
 FROM THK FRENCH OF THEiOPHII,:^ GAUTIBR. 
 
 Y^Sj 3.rt witli grievous pangs is born 
 •■■ From Nature's most endearing molds ; 
 
 The child is torn, 
 Not wooed, from fierce rebellious folds. 
 
 Slay not thy art by false constraint, 
 Yet know her rules are stem as Fate ; 
 
 Without complaint 
 The muse should wear a buskin strait. 
 
 Would' St have thy verse endure, thy muse 
 The common facile forms must shun, 
 
 The slipshod shoes 
 In which so many feet have run. 
 
 Sculptor, beware the plastic clay. 
 Changing at every whim's command 
 
 From day to day, 
 And marred by every careless hand. 
 
 Strive with the marbles pure of Greece, 
 Wrested from Paros' snowy mines. 
 
 Smite, and release 
 The deep-imprisoned god-like lines. 
 
 7 97 
 
98 ART, 
 
 The chisel of Praxiteles 
 
 Such peerless beauty had not known, 
 
 If art in Greece 
 Had deigned to use a meaner stone. 
 
 lyCt the fierce molten metal fuse 
 Heroic forms and high contours 
 Of Syracuse ; 
 Nought but the matchless bronze endures. 
 
 Upon the agate's flinty face 
 Apollo's features high and pure 
 In profile trace, 
 With touches delicate and sure. 
 
 Beware of water and pastel. 
 Deep on fantastic vase and urn 
 Thy colors frail 
 In seven-fold heated furnace bum. 
 
 Fashion the writhing, maddening limb 
 Of nymph and goddess ; bring once more 
 
 The monsters grim, 
 Dear to the blazonry of yore. 
 
 The virgin mother saintly mild. 
 
 Crowned with her nimbus ; on her breast 
 
 The wondrous child, 
 The globe beneath the cross of Christ. 
 
ART, 99 
 
 Crowns fall and sceptres pass, robust 
 And radiant art outlives them all. 
 
 Torso and bust 
 Survive the city's triple wall. 
 
 The medal by the ploughman found 
 Reveals the countenance austere, 
 
 The temples crowned, 
 That filled the antique world with fear. 
 
 Even the gods wax old and pass 
 From high Olympus ; verse alone, 
 
 Stronger than brass, 
 Preserves to fallen Zeus his throne. 
 
 The graver guide with care supreme, 
 The chisel smite, fix like a rock 
 
 Thy floating dream 
 Deep in the stern resisting block. 
 
 Tongues and religions die, while art, 
 Poised in the lofty realms of thought, 
 
 Serene, apart, 
 Kxults in sempiternal youth. 
 
BARCAROLIyK. 
 
 FROM TH^ same:. 
 
 r\ SUN-BRIGHT maiden, choose and say, 
 ^^ Whither shall we two sail to-day ? 
 The rose's breath is on the gale 
 That softly moves our silken sail ; 
 Our masts of gleaming ivory 
 Are strung like harps with yellow hair, 
 That make ^olian music there ; 
 A seraph shall our pilot be. 
 
 O sun-bright maiden, choose and say, 
 Whither shall we two sail to-day ? 
 Our pinnace lifts her snowy wing 
 And flutters like a living thing ; 
 And from the shore the morning wind 
 
 Toys with our awning's purple fold ; 
 
 Our rudder is of beaten gold 
 And leaves a rosy track behind. 
 
 O sun-bright maiden, choose and say, 
 Whither shall we two sail to-day ? 
 
 lOO 
 
BARCAROLLE. lOI 
 
 Our hold with love-apples is stored, 
 
 And all strange fruits, a goodly hoard ; 
 
 A winged boy sits at the prow. 
 
 Pointing our path with beaming eye 
 And smile of deepest mystery ; 
 
 A wreath of myrtle crowns his brow. 
 
 O sun-bright maiden, choose and say, 
 Whither in lyove's realm shall we stray ? 
 Say, shall we seek some storied isle. 
 Where warm ^gean waters smile ? 
 Or shall I see the Arctic sun 
 A flood of crimson glories shed 
 At midnight on that golden head. 
 Or sail to seas v/here pearls are won ? 
 
 O sun-bright maiden, choose and say 
 Whither shall Vv^e two sail to-day ? 
 Follow the track of Heracles — 
 Seeking the far Hesperides ; 
 Or where the South Sea flower expands, 
 
 Float idly in the moonlight wan ; 
 
 Or sail beneath the rainbow's span — 
 Bright gateway to I^ove's golden lands? 
 
 O sun-bright maiden, choose and say, 
 There is no one to say thee nay. 
 O seek, she saith, that faithful shore 
 Where loving hearts will change no more. 
 
102 BARCAROLLE, 
 
 Alas, my sails for many a year 
 Have sped through all Love's wide domain, 
 Seeking that blessed shore in vain : 
 
 That land is still unknown, my dear. 
 
SHADOWS. 
 
 FROM th:^ same. 
 
 OB still, my heart, keep silence, O my soul, 
 ■'-' Thy fierce rebellious transports are in vain, 
 Oblivion's turbid wave must o'er thee roll. 
 
 Cease the faint pulsing of the weary brain, 
 Fold up the remnant of thy wings at last, 
 And rot, beneath, the inexorable chain. 
 
 Soon shalt thou be with refuse vile outcast, 
 Flung down the bottomless abyss that still 
 Yawns to the future from the darkling past. 
 
 Thy hopes are dead, broken thy lofty will. 
 Thy name and memory will be blotted out 
 Before the rattling clods thy grave refill. 
 
 No marble shaft for thee the heavens will flout. 
 Nor tear-drenched willow shed her graceful spray, 
 No lying epitaph the truth will scout, 
 
 No choir will chant, no man of God will pray. 
 No tears will silver the funereal pall — 
 Dark cloud that hides thy shame from light of day. 
 
 103 
 
104 SHADOWS. 
 
 The felled tree strangely moves his comrades tall, 
 Waking the echoes of the mountain side, 
 But not a leaf will quiver at thy fall. 
 
 I<ike the mute convoy of the suicide. 
 
 Thou shalt wind down through night to find thy 
 
 doom : 
 Thy ashes shall be scattered far and wide. 
 
 No circling rings shall break the sullen gloom 
 Of the dark pool that closes o'er thy head, 
 No widowed soul shall hover o'er thy tomb. 
 
 For the chaste secrets which thy soul hath wed, 
 With thee the pit shall bury them from view. 
 Fathoms below the deepest deep-sea lead. 
 
 Our Mother, Nature, hath her favorites too, 
 lyike any other dame, spoiled children they ; 
 Unwelcome waif, why should they share with 
 you? 
 
 Upon them fall the m3rrtle and the bay. 
 E'en in the desert they would find at need 
 Enchanted palaces along their way. 
 
 Though for the morrow's mom they take no 
 
 heed, 
 Yet through their fingers filter golden sands, 
 And at a generous breast they freely feed. 
 
SHADOWS. 105 
 
 Kneading a withered breast with famished hands 
 Their outcast brethren pine, or seek in vain 
 Some kinder bosom in relentless lands. 
 
 And if for them upon the desert plain 
 Illusive gardens rise, and fountains play, 
 They vanish like the rainbow after rain. 
 
 Or if by chance a sunbeam gone astray 
 Glints through the gloom that shrouds them ever- 
 more, 
 A chilling cloud obscures th' unwonted ray. 
 
 The wisest plans but mock their hopes the more, 
 
 Bringing them to derision and dismay : 
 
 The sea engulfs them though they hug the shore. 
 
 The tree shall crush them, hollow with decay, 
 Whose grateful shade invites them to draw nigh : 
 The heart they lean on wins them to betray. 
 
 A turtle drops upon them from the sky ; 
 The tower that has braved a thousand years 
 Falls without warning just as they pass by. 
 
 The friend who shared their youthful smiles and 
 
 tears 
 Accuses them of treason to the crown, 
 Sending them to the rack with blows and jeers. 
 
I06 SHADOWS. 
 
 Born on the Danube, in the Seine they drown ; 
 Poor fools, why fly so far to find the fate 
 That Hke a slimy monster sucks them down ? 
 
 Why strive with Fate ? no jot v/ill he abate ; 
 
 Bven the brawny knees of Hercules 
 
 Must bend or break before him soon or late. 
 
 They drain a bitter cup with poisonous lees, 
 
 A life ignoble and a death of shame, 
 
 And in some potter's field they find surcease ; 
 
 Or, dying nobly, leave behind no name, 
 
 While, mounting on their bones, some brazen 
 
 cheat 
 Reaches the very pinnacle of Fame. 
 
 Destiny mocks them from her lofty seat, 
 Dipping their sponge in vinegar and gall : 
 Want grinds them in the dust with iron feet. 
 
 Hard by the accursed sea whose waves appal, 
 A scape-goat lone, beneath the wingless skies, 
 They wander where the ashen apples fall. 
 
 Night takes for them a thousand baleful eyes, 
 Piercing at once their deepest hiding-place : 
 Straight to their heart each poisoned arrow flies. 
 
SHADOWS. 107 
 
 Thrust out of camp, the scape-goat of their race, 
 Abhorred they live, and dead, the loathing earth 
 Vomits their phantom from the burial-place. 
 
 Such is thy history, O my soul, from birth ; 
 
 Dark pages with decaying odors rife, 
 
 A maze of treachery, and pain, and dearth. 
 
 Yet 't is the story of a vulgar life ; 
 No title casts a glamour o'er its woes. 
 No footlights gild its unromantic strife. 
 
 Across the web the flying shuttle goes, 
 Weaving with common threads a homely plot, 
 Yet dark and sinister the pattern shows. 
 
 Why woo so long a world that loves thee not ? 
 O soul, whence long have perished hope and 
 
 faith, 
 Why cling to life, when death is all thy lot ? 
 
 Sweeter than bridal bed the couch of death, 
 More restful far than sleep ; the asphodel 
 Is sweeter than the crimson poppy's breath. 
 
 King, queen, and harlot, priest and infidel, 
 Heaped up at random peacefully they rest, 
 Commingling in one mighty urn pell-mell. 
 
I08 SHADOWS. 
 
 Despairing brother, whose fast chilling breast 
 Nor love, nor wine may warm, descend with me, 
 And burst the shadowy gates an eager guest. 
 
 Abase thy head, and bend thy stubborn knee ; 
 And like a Scythian chief in triumph led, 
 Welcome the agony that sets thee free. 
 
 One short, fierce agony, and all is said ; 
 Beneath the coffin lid, sealed once for all, 
 Compose thy limbs as in a royal bed. 
 
 Swift as the fleeting shadow on the wall 
 Thy feeble footprints fall along the sand, 
 Nor voice, nor echo will thy song recall. 
 
 In the Corinthian brass thy feeble hand 
 Can write no name ; thy chisel cannot bite 
 The marbles of Carrara pure and grand. 
 
 He who would climb Fame's towering mountain 
 
 height 
 Must have a double gift, a genius rare : 
 Unto a happy star he must unite. 
 
 Poet, alas ! and lover, brethren are ; 
 
 Twins of the soul, each hath his cherished dream, 
 
 Some saint ideal, worshipped from afar ; 
 
SHADOWS. 109 
 
 Some fount of youth, some pure Pactolian stream, 
 Some orb that beams with strange unearthly ray, 
 Some flaming vision potent to redeem. 
 
 The fount is dry, the vision fades away ; 
 
 The mystic light that led them through the night 
 
 Dies in a marsh, and leaves them far astray. 
 
 O God, to tread but once by morning light 
 The alabaster palace of our dreams, 
 Counting its colonnades with waking sight ; 
 
 To greet the lovely images that gleam 
 
 Athwart the gardens of our revery , 
 
 And drink the waters of its mystic stream ; 
 
 To make the plunge, piercing triumphantly 
 The crystal vault, bring back the golden vase 
 I^ong buried with the treasures of the sea. 
 
 'T were fine to feel the thrill of flight through 
 
 space, 
 Adown the far empyrean to float, 
 Or track the eagle in his headlong chase. 
 
 To find the deed outstrip the noble thought. 
 To find fit words to mate our passion's cry. 
 And pour the tide with its full burden fraught. 
 
no SHADOWS. 
 
 Sailing through unknown seas, to catch the sigh 
 Of mighty rivers, and through night's eclipse 
 See new worlds heaving upward to the sky ; 
 
 To feel upon the flower of our lips 
 
 The regal kiss that sometimes hovers there ; 
 
 To find the glen wherein the rainbow dips ; 
 
 To stop the wheel of fortune in the air ; 
 To see before us on the glowing page 
 The wavering thoughts our midnight musings 
 bear. 
 
 Such lots, alas, in this decrepit age 
 
 Are rare ; Polycrates might wear his ring, 
 
 Nor fear to rouse the avenging goddess' rage. 
 
 Seeking the upper chambers where we cling, 
 The cruel wave mounts upward step by step, 
 Mingling its murmur with our revelling, 
 
 Till slimy phocas, shapes that banish sleep. 
 Gnash foully at our very bedsides there. 
 Belched from the bowels of the nether deep. 
 
 The church is dark, the altar cold and bare. 
 And rending from their brows the aureole, 
 The saints blaspheming die in their despair. 
 
SHADO WS. 1 1 1 
 
 The sun senescent, near his final goal, 
 
 Casts from his bloodshot eye one baleful glare, 
 
 Kre 3^et the heavens vanish like a scroll. 
 
 Kach living thing shall perish foul or fair. 
 The flood will top the tallest mountain chain, 
 For vengeance cometh on and will not spare. 
 
 For twenty days and nights through wind and 
 
 rain, 
 The raven's midnight wing, cleaving the waste, 
 Seeks for a haven where to rest in vain. 
 
 Headlong she falls, famished and spent at last, 
 And as the widening circles mark the flood, 
 All Earth is but a tomb whence life has passed. 
 
 A common sepulchre for bad and good. 
 Upon this wave no ark of safety rides. 
 Bitter with tears and red with human blood. 
 
 No second patriarch his vessel guides, 
 A hive of life ; a swelling fountain head, 
 To burst upon Ararat's rugged sides. 
 
 Atlas has fallen ! hark, O hark ! o'erhead 
 The crack of doom, the supports of the world 
 Are snapped like reeds beneath Behemoth's tread. 
 
112 SHADOWS. 
 
 Our Mother Earth, by storms of chaos whirled, 
 Reels like a drunken harlot down through space. 
 By wanton buffets from her orbit hurled. 
 
 Unto the lips of an expiring race 
 
 The Son holds up the cup of human woes ; 
 
 The Father sees with coldly sneering face. 
 
 When will our crucifixion cease ? still flows 
 The ruddy current from our open side, 
 And red drops cluster on our pallid brows. 
 
 Enough of tears and blood ; O turn aside 
 The poisoned chalice ; doth not this suffice ? 
 That Thy dear Son upon the cross has died ? 
 
 He died for naught ; man still must pay the price 
 Unless a newer Christ rise from the dead : 
 The Pontiff asks a fresher sacrifice. 
 
 Eor nigh two thousand years the I^amb hath bled ; 
 His empty veins leave not the faintest stain 
 Upon the priestly knife that gleams o'erhead. 
 
 Messiah cometh not, we watch in vain ; 
 The vail is rent, broken the altar stone, 
 The worshippers are slain, the church o'erthrown. 
 
SONNET: OU VONT ILSf 
 
 KROM the; FRE^NCH of SUI.I.Y PRUDHOMME^. 
 
 T"0 what strange land gather the slain of I,ove ? 
 Heaven were no world for them, it hath no 
 bliss 
 To match the raptures that they knew in this ; 
 No summer night, no dark secluded grove, 
 Or deep ravine with sheltering boughs above ; 
 Nor can the foul fiends of the dread abyss 
 So rend a soul as the fierce agonies 
 Of I^ove's disdain, the doubts and fears thereof. 
 
 Tame were the joys of the bright sphere above 
 To which the saints so ardently aspire, 
 And vain the anguish of eternal fire 
 
 To him who knows the martyrdom of I,ove. 
 
 For souls consumed and dead there is no room 
 
 In heaven or hell : oblivion is their doom. 
 
 "3 
 
THE GAY CASHIER. 
 
 ADAPTED FROM THE) FRKNCH. 
 
 'T'WO gallant burglars, who for many a day 
 * Had laid their plans, at last had made their 
 way 
 Into a bank upon a stormy night ; 
 Then with what fond, what rapturous delight 
 Unto the vault they flew to seize the swag ! 
 
 O cruel joke, there was no swag at all : 
 That night the gay cashier, a heartless wag, 
 With all the funds had skipped for Montreal. 
 
 114 
 
THE RAVAGES OE TIME. 
 
 SCARRON. 
 
 HTHE monuments of human pride and power, 
 ^ Engulfed by ocean wave or desert sand, 
 And crushed by time's inexorable hand. 
 
 Built for eternity, last but an hour. 
 
 Where are the hanging gardens and the towers 
 Of Babylon ? the marbles tall and grand 
 That stood like gods on the ^gean strand ? 
 
 Fallen and crumbled. So shall crumble ours. 
 
 Time slays or withers all on which we dote ; 
 His swift, remorseless touches ne'er relent, 
 Destroying marble, mortar, and cement. 
 Then why should I repine because my coat 
 Is threadbare on the seams with three years* wear, 
 Out at the elbows, and beyond repair ? 
 
 115 
 
HALLUCINATION. 
 
 FROM The: FRENCH. 
 I. 
 
 T AST night, or did I dream ? my lady led 
 
 -*— ' Me to a wall I oft had passed before, 
 And opened there a curious secret door 
 
 Made by some cunning workmen ages dead. 
 
 We entered furtively, and as our tread 
 Resounded on the long untrodden floor, 
 Back swung the portal with a clanging roar. 
 
 Fleeing like startled children on we sped. 
 
 And found an inner chamber, where was spread 
 A board with gold and crystal, and a store 
 Of fruits and flowers from every unknown 
 shore. 
 
 And curious flasks, whose contents gleaming red 
 
 A ruddy radiance o'er my lady shed. 
 And flung fantastic flames upon the floor. 
 
 Il6 
 
HALL UCINA TLON, ny 
 
 II. 
 
 Bathed in the amber of an unseen flame, 
 A royal couch with silken curtains fair 
 Gleamed like a jewel in the alcove there ; 
 A dreamy languor stole through all my frame, 
 Sweet beyond power of language to declare ; 
 A breath of perfume moved the swooning air, 
 Stirring the golden ringlets of my dame ; 
 And while we faltered, lo, a small voice came : 
 " O happy pair, with rosy forms aglow, 
 Here lie within the temple's deep alcove 
 Sweet mysteries that I pant to have you know ; 
 Wine that hath stained the trampling feet of lyove, 
 And fruit that ripened in the sacred grove : 
 Break every seal, and let the purple flow." 
 
 III. 
 
 I turned to seek my lady's eyes, when lo ! 
 The vision vanished, and I stood alone 
 Without the temple walls, whose cold gray 
 stone 
 
 Mocked my endeavor, rising row on row. 
 
 I called my lady's name, fearful and low. 
 No answer, save the hoot-owl's jeering tone. 
 And the pale mocking moon that coldly shone. 
 
 Now, sadly round the temple walls I go, 
 
 Whose deepest mysteries I thought to know. 
 
1 1 8 HALL UCLNA TION, 
 
 I thought its inmost chamber mine ; fond fool, 
 I only stood within some vestibule, 
 Where all men's feet may wander to and fro. 
 And saw, reflected from some mirror there. 
 My own imaginings too warm and fair. 
 
 IV. 
 IN The; grov:^. 
 
 Once more the huntress clad in silvery mail 
 Seeks her Kndymion, over hill and glade ; 
 Once more the hour so dear to youth and maid — 
 
 The hour that all I^ove's guardian spirits hail. 
 
 Wrapped in the moonlight like a lucent veil. 
 Is it for me, young priestess, that, arrayed 
 Still in thy vestal robes, thy feet have strayed 
 
 So far from where the sacred fires pale ? 
 
 Last night within the temple's dim alcove 
 I durst not lift my conscious eyes to thine. 
 lyO, now thy lips and eyes have sought for mine. 
 And round my neck thy sheltering arms en- 
 twine. 
 While our commingling footsteps freel)^ rove 
 Through all the mysteries of the silent grove. 
 
TO MY CRITICS. 
 
 IMITATKD FROM DK MUSSK^T. 
 
 IWl Y verse contains some images, 'tis true, 
 
 ■^ ' * On Byron's pages found, what then, he too 
 
 On other pages found them long before, 
 (Byron, I think, would hardly grudge them me, 
 Seeing I need them so much worse than he). 
 
 Read carefully the old Italian lore. 
 If you, to draw it very mild, would see 
 How freely Byron borrowed ; he or she 
 As stupid as a school teacher must be 
 
 Who thinks in eighteen hundred eighty-four 
 To find a thought or rhyme not used before. 
 And 3^et I must not speak of ' ' v/aters blue, ' ' 
 Of ' * sunny skies, ' ' and * ' eyes of heavenly 
 hue," 
 Nor use some old stock metaphor at need 
 Because, forsooth, pedantic fools may read 
 The same in every language, — Sanscrit, Greek, 
 Hebrew and Latin, Dutch and Arabic. 
 Great bards of yore, and they of yesterday, 
 Before whose sun my rushlight pales away. 
 To whose deep flood, my song is but a rill, — 
 All, great and small, hear the same chorus still. 
 
 119 
 
I20 TO MY CRITICS, 
 
 Read the old rotting magazines and see 
 The very venom that they void on me ; 
 The arsenal where roving malice meets 
 The rusty darts that stung the heart of Keats. 
 Vile innuendo, and malignant sneer, 
 Blanche, Tray, and Sweetheart, hardly changed 
 are here. 
 
 The lowest place amid the minstrel throng 
 
 Is all I claim ; in the full tide of song 
 
 My voice is lost ; upon my page appears 
 
 No burning message from supernal spheres. 
 
 But Teian glow and lesbian passion still 
 
 A thousand lyres in every land they thrill. 
 
 A chord once found belongs, the whole world 
 
 through, 
 To every minstrel that can strike it true. 
 My verses rhyme (at least some of them do), 
 And sweet as ever in our ear there chimes 
 The melody of old recurrent rhymes. 
 Dove ever mates with love, and bliss with kiss, 
 In every song from Sappho's day to this. 
 
THE YOUTH AND THE OLD MAN. 
 
 FlyORIAN. 
 
 " /^lyD man," said an ambitious youth one 
 
 ^ day, 
 ** Show me the path to wealth and fame, I pray." 
 Answering not, the old man mused awhile, 
 His thin lips wreathing with a cynic smile, 
 Then spoke : "Is fame thy wish ? With earnest 
 
 zeal 
 Devote thyself to serve the commonweal ; 
 To her give all thy talents and thy time, 
 The flush of youth, and vigorous manhood's prime; 
 And should the foeman come with deadly strife, 
 In her defence be swift to lose thy life. 
 Perchance with ' failure ' branded on thy heart. 
 The road to wealth is surer ; seek the mart, 
 Where cunning money-changers lie in wait. 
 Casting their nets with watered stocks for bait. 
 Or join the nobler throng, whose argosies 
 Bear on white wings across the distant seas 
 The honest " '' Hold, old man, I '11 none of 
 
 these ; 
 
 121 
 
122 THE YOUTH AND THE OLD MAN. 
 
 With intrigue and deceit I would not soil 
 My soul, and yet I shrink from sordid toil. ' ' 
 
 Again the old man mused in silence while 
 Around his mouth hovered a cynic smile, 
 Then answered thus : ' ' Why, simply be a fool, 
 And win both fame and wealth, in spite of rule." 
 
THE CATHKDRAI. BELL AND ITS RIVAL. 
 
 iriarte:. 
 
 T N a renowned cathedral hung a bell, 
 
 ^ The pride of all the country far and near ; 
 
 A bell whose deep vibrations never fell 
 
 Save on the greatest church-days of the year. 
 Then for some moments brief the air was thrilled 
 
 By some deep strokes with solemn pause be- 
 tween ; 
 The heart devout with pious awe was filled, 
 
 And sinners felt repentance swift and keen. 
 
 Within a neighboring hamlet poor and small, 
 With crumbling belfry tottering to its fall, 
 There stood a paltry chapel low and mean ; 
 A cracked and rusty cow-bell hung therein, 
 
 Harsh and discordant, but the sexton sly, 
 Only upon the solemn days and high, 
 Six times a year at most, its voice awoke, 
 Like the cathedral bell with solemn stroke. 
 This strange reserve, in parish bells unknown, 
 Gave to the wretched bell a high renown. 
 
 123 
 
124 THE CATHEDRAL BELL AND ITS RIVAL. 
 
 Its jangling equalled to the rustic's ear 
 The tones majestic of its grand compeer. 
 
 Pretentious, owl-like silence oft supplies 
 The lack of wit in those accounted wise. 
 " Be swift to listen and be slow to speak," 
 If a high name for wisdom 3^ou would seek. 
 
bi.uk kyks and black byes. 
 
 IMITATED FROM ANDAI<USIAN COPIyAS. 
 I. 
 
 'X'WO miracles are thy blue eyes, 
 * Haughty or tender ; 
 Robbing our Andalusian skies 
 Of half their splendor. 
 
 Celestial eyes of heaven's own hue, 
 
 Twin thrones of glory, 
 Whose glances every day subdue 
 
 New territory. 
 
 Blue were the waters and the skies 
 
 Of happy Eden ; 
 And blue should be a Christian's eyes, 
 
 Matron or maiden. 
 
 By heaven those peerless orbs of blue 
 
 To thee were given, 
 And all the mischief that they do 
 
 Is known in heaven. 
 125 
 
126 BLUE EYES AND BLACK EYES, 
 
 I thought thy blue eyes beacons fair, — 
 
 O treacherous seeming ; 
 O treacherous waves of golden hair, 
 
 That wrecked my dreaming ! 
 
 Two saints the blue eyes seemed to me 
 
 That wrought my ruin : 
 Who would have thought that saints could be 
 
 A soul's undoing ? 
 
 II. 
 
 Black eyes are truer still, I ween, 
 
 Than any other : 
 Dark were the eyes of Kden's Queen, 
 
 And Mary Mother. 
 
 The holy ones of sacred lore 
 
 All dark are painted, 
 Inspired prophetess of yore 
 
 And maiden sainted. 
 
 Blue eyes are cold as polished steel, 
 For all their splendor ; 
 
 While thine a lambent flame reveal, 
 So warm and tender. 
 
BLUE EYES AND BLACK EYES. 12/ 
 
 Dearer thine olive hue, and eyes 
 
 Of raven blackness, 
 Than all the azure of the skies, 
 
 And lily's whiteness. 
 
 Thine eyebrows are a Moorish grove, 
 
 Whence issuing fleetly 
 Two winged archers lightly rove, 
 
 Wounding so sweetly. 
 
 But when their victims bleeding lie 
 
 Faintl}^ appealing, 
 Two tender blackamoors draw nigh 
 
 With balm of healing. 
 
COMPI^AINT TO THE VIRGIN. 
 
 FROM A CUBAN POETESS. 
 
 IV A OTHER ineffable, whose radiant brow 
 * ' *■ The stars have crowned, 
 O'er all earth's daughters chosen, thou 
 The sinless found ; 
 
 Of Adam's fallen race, the first and last 
 
 Untouched by strife, 
 Whose beauteous feet unstained and pure have 
 passed 
 
 The snares of life. 
 
 The angelic heralds at those spotless feet 
 
 Once bent the knee, 
 And now adore at the effulgent seat 
 
 Eternally. 
 
 A gift too pure and bright for earthly bloom. 
 
 Flower of the sky ; 
 The odors of whose matchless grace perfume 
 
 The courts on high. 
 128 
 
COMPLAINT TO THE VIRGIN. I2g 
 
 Look down in pity from thy lofty throne, 
 
 Through realms of light, 
 To where thy sorrowing sister walks alone 
 
 In deepest night. 
 
 Oh, see the endless waves of anguish fierce 
 
 That o'er me roll ! 
 Hast thou not bled ? did not the sword once pierce 
 
 Thy tender soul ? 
 
 Beating the breakers on the outer bar 
 
 My vessel lies ; 
 For me there beams no friendly guiding-star, 
 
 No beacons rise. 
 
 Blest beacon seen in my despairing dreams, 
 
 Burst forth on me, 
 And light my stormy pathway with thy beams, 
 
 Star of the sea. 
 
 O baleful night, when some malignant blast. 
 
 Mocking and wild, 
 Into an orphan's cradle rudely cast 
 
 A sleeping child ! 
 
 Of careless childhood's flowers and smiles and 
 tears, 
 
 The tears were mine. 
 Alas ! I gather in maturer years 
 
 No fruit or wine. 
 
130 COMPLAINT TO THE VIRGIN, 
 
 All night I bruise my failing wings in vain, 
 
 Seeking for rest — 
 A bird unmated on an arid plain 
 
 Without a nest. 
 
 I roam a timid stranger on the earth — 
 
 A foreign land — 
 Bewildered by the light, the joy and mirth 
 
 On every hand. 
 
 A vine-clad mountain to the beaming skies 
 
 That lifts its crest. 
 While an abyss of untold horror lies 
 
 Beneath its breast. 
 
 Some loving souls at birth are consecrated 
 
 To pain and grief ; 
 Through gloomy vales they stray, unknown, un- 
 mated. 
 
 Without relief. 
 
 I seek no longer these sad mysteries 
 
 To penetrate ; 
 I must not murmur at the high decrees 
 
 That fix my fate. 
 
 They say that God regards with pitying eye 
 
 The poor and weak, 
 Smiting the haughty head, and passing by 
 
 The low and meek. 
 
COMPLAINT TO THE VIRGIN. 131 
 
 No daring oak, whose branches, heaven defying, 
 
 Pierce the blue sky ; 
 A blighted leaf before the tempest flying, 
 
 A reed am I. 
 
 A poor blind pilgrim through the wilderness 
 
 Groping my way, 
 Striving with agonizing tears to press 
 
 From night to day. 
 
 A heart whence all illusions long have perished 
 
 Seeks not for bliss. 
 I ask not human love, O Mother cherished, 
 
 I ask but this : 
 
 A lowly shelter far from tongues maligning 
 
 And bitter sneers ; 
 There let me pray and quench all fierce repining 
 
 With grateful tears. 
 
 And some glad morning through my cloister 
 swelling, 
 
 A golden portal 
 May burst, and flood with rosy light my dwelling. 
 And joys immortal. 
 
THE CRUCIFIXION. 
 
 OI.D FRENCH SONNKT. 
 
 \1 7HIIyK Jesus suffered for the human race 
 ^ ^ Upon the tree, death came and found him 
 there. 
 Transfixed with shame, at first he did not dare 
 To look upon his sovereign's awful face. 
 
 But Jesus, full of majesty and grace, 
 
 Meekly bowed down his head, august and fair, 
 Veiling the glory that it used to wear. 
 
 And waves of darkness fell upon the place. 
 
 Then shuddering Death his shameful task ful- 
 filled ; 
 Earth to her centre rocked as though the day 
 Of doom were come ; the veil was rent av/ay — 
 
 All Nature moaned and quivered, horror-filled. 
 
 The very stones were softened, thou alone, 
 Vile scoffing sinner, took a heart of stone. 
 
 132 
 
FROM THE SPANISH. 
 
 T TNHAPPY he who buys 
 
 ^ The toys that Cupid offers ; 
 
 For each delight he proffers 
 Some dear illusion dies. 
 Sell not thy dearest treasures 
 For his too fleeting pleasures. 
 
 133 
 
THB BOOK OF LIFE. 
 
 lamartin:^. 
 
 "CACH soul the Book of I^ife must read and 
 -'— ' prove — 
 
 Fate turns tlie leaves whether we will or no. 
 We cannot linger o'er the lines we love, 
 
 Or hasten o'er the dreary lines of woe. 
 We have not read the page of I^ove aright 
 When, lo ! the page of Death appalls our sight. 
 
 134 
 
MEMORIAI, DAY, AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
 DEDICATED TO THE G. A. R. 
 
\ 
 
TWENTY YEARS AGO. 
 
 WRITTKN FOR MIJMORIAI, DAY IN 1 885. 
 
 pOR twenty years the snowy wings of Peace 
 -'• Over the land have brooded ; flocks increase 
 Upon the fields, now blessed by smiling stars, 
 Where drave the reeking chariot-wheels of Mars. 
 How like a falcon's flight the 3^ears have flown, 
 Since Appomattox rang the curtain down ; 
 And listening to my voice are tall young men, 
 And women fair who were but children then. 
 Our young Republic, freed from all his chains, 
 For peaceful conquest girds his lusty reins. 
 The smiling Mississippi to the sea 
 Rolls as in days of old, un vexed and free. 
 And East and West in one grand commonweal 
 Are bound by triple bands of shining steel. 
 The apple tree historic rots away ; 
 Our gunboats all have crumbled to deca}^ ; 
 The rifle-pits that scarred the Southern plains 
 Are washed away by twenty winters' rains ; 
 The impetuous onset of the bayonet line 
 Tramples no more the growing corn and vine. 
 And nesting birds pour forth their raptures where 
 The thunder-bolts of battle rent the air. 
 
 137 
 
138 TWENTY YEARS AGO, 
 
 But Still remain in many hearts we know 
 The ghastly scars of twenty years ago. 
 How many a comrade's widow treads alone 
 A narrow path by cruel thorns o'ergrown ! 
 'T is long since song of mating bird has thrilled 
 That lonely heart, with tender memories filled, — 
 Memories still speeding backward to the time 
 When, brave and beautiful in manhood's prime, 
 Her bridegroom more than twenty years ago 
 Sprang at the bugle call to meet the foe. 
 Strong men for other women dig the gold. 
 Tread out the wine, and weave the silken fold ; 
 Her wine of I^ife in forests dark and dank 
 The thirsty soil of Mississippi drank ; 
 Her daily lot for more than twenty years 
 Has been the widow's toil, and widow's tears. 
 
 Comrades, we 're growing old ; upon our hairs 
 
 Gather the frosts of more than twenty years. 
 
 Since in the trench at Petersburg we lay. 
 
 Or, gayly holding our triumphal way. 
 
 Unto the sea we swept with Sherman's pennon, 
 
 Or heard the roar of Stonewall Jackson's cannon, 
 
 Waking the echoes of the Rapidan, 
 
 Or through the valley whirled with Sheridan. 
 
 Still surges up as though of yesterday 
 
 The memory of those that passed away ; 
 
 Still floating down the vista of the years, 
 
 We hear their voices, see their smiles and tears. 
 
TWENTY YEARS AGO. 1 39 
 
 In each successive strife how fast they fell — 
 The tried companions that we knew so well. 
 Some, fleeing from the ghastly prison pen, 
 By bloodhounds tracked were slain in swamp and 
 
 fen ; 
 Some ashes mingle with the sounding tide, 
 And some enrich the rugged mountain side, 
 Where the tall pines of frowning Kenesaw 
 Quivered like reeds before the blast of war ; 
 Now looming up in shadowy ranks they stand 
 I^ike guardian phantoms brooding o'er the land. 
 No higher impulse thrilled the knights of old 
 Who to the crusades like a torrent rolled, 
 To pour for the dear cross their blood like wine 
 Upon the plains of Holy Palestine, 
 And feed on desert sands in the far Bast 
 The jackals ravening for their glorious feast. 
 
 They reck not where their scattered ashes rest 
 
 Who speed to the reunion of the blest ; 
 
 As eaglets soaring to the gates of light 
 
 Spurn the dull shells that long confined their 
 
 flight. 
 For you the amaranthine wreath we twine, 
 Raise the high song, and pour the ruddy wine ; 
 For you the rhythmic beat of martial feet, 
 As the long lines go swaying down the street ; 
 For you the plantive reed's subduing moan 
 Commingles with the hautboy's rapturous tone, 
 
140 TWENTY YEARS AGO. 
 
 The rolling drum, the thrilling trumpet blare, 
 And silken banners float upon the air 
 I^ike bright ethereal drapery trailing there. 
 The noblest sons of Earth, of every clime. 
 Welcome you to their galaxy sublime ; 
 And flowers, by maidens fairer still than they, 
 Are ofiered to your sacred shades to-day ; 
 Roses and dittany — and lilies fair. 
 Mingle their breath upon the vernal air ; 
 But sweeter than the fleeting gifts we bring 
 Your memory perennial shall spring, 
 And loving tears each spring-time shall bedew 
 The flowers that loving hands shall here renew ; 
 And younger bards, with truer touch than mine, 
 Will pour for you the flood of song divine. 
 While millions yet unborn, with quickening 
 
 breath. 
 Will hear the tale heroic of your death. 
 
 O host of gallant comrades sweeping by, 
 Up the red track of glory to the sky — 
 Reynolds, McPherson, Dahlgren, Garesch^, 
 And all the unknown names as brave as they, — 
 Great hearts and souls as those of song and story, 
 Whose only guerdon was a deathbed gory ; 
 As youthful as of 3^ore we see you now, 
 The flush of victory on each radiant brow. 
 And youthful in our withering hearts shall glow 
 Your generous valor in the I^ong Ago. 
 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 
 
 SONG, legend, history, I scan in vain ; 
 Outside of Holy Writ, no shape appears 
 So godlike as thy homely form ; the spheres 
 Darken and die, thy glory shall not wane. 
 Monarchs have sat self-crowned upon the Seine 
 And on the Tiber ; nations sick with fears 
 Have builded altars to them, drenched with tears 
 And smoking with a hecatomb of slain. 
 
 O Christ of Freedom, no high altars fume 
 For thee, but freely flow the tears and blood, 
 
 The pure sweet blood of thy own martyrdom, 
 And tears of mingled grief and gratitude 
 
 From the dark millions by thy pen set free, 
 
 Led from their long Gethsemane by thee. 
 
 141 
 
THE PRISONER'S DREAM. 
 
 ON the last sad day of the dying year, 
 As I lay in my prison racked with pain, 
 I heard the voices of children clear 
 
 Swelling out on the night in a peaceful strain. 
 They sang a farewell to the dying year, 
 
 And the far faint tones of an organ fell 
 With a soothing cadence upon my ear, 
 
 And I slept at last in my loathsome cell. 
 My body slept with its clanking chain. 
 
 But the prison walls fled far away, 
 And my spirit, glad and free again. 
 
 Went forth as upon its bridal day. 
 I never had thought again to sing. 
 
 But a song welled forth from my joyous heart, 
 As waters gush from a long-sealed spring 
 
 When the chains of winter are rent apart. 
 ** I 'm coming, I 'm coming, my dove, my dear ; 
 
 In the heaven of thy arms, my own sweet wife, 
 I '11 usher the birth of the glad new year ; 
 
 I *m coming, I 'm coming, my love, my life ! " 
 
 Hark ! the clang of the changing sentry's steel ; 
 
 Awaken, O fool, from thy blissful bed ; 
 On the stony floor of thy dungeon kneel, 
 
 And hug thy chain, for the dream is fled. 
 
 142 
 
HOW OFT A SENTRY SAD AND LONE. 
 
 IT OW oft, a sentry sad and lone, 
 
 ^ *^ The starry midnight host I 've counted, 
 
 As up the eastern horizon 
 
 Into the sky they slowly mounted. 
 
 Two still seemed missing from their place, 
 The brightest of the heavenly number ; 
 
 But now I find them in thy face, 
 
 Nightly they beam upon my slumber. 
 
 143 
 
FROM COPLAS OF AN ANDALUSIAN 
 SOLDIER. 
 
 I F daring deeds might win thy vows, 
 ^ At nothing would I falter ; 
 I 'd dare thy father's beetling brows, 
 Or those of grim Gibraltar. 
 
 I '11 seek the thickest of the strife. 
 
 And lofty deeds of glory ; 
 My girl shall be a General's wife. 
 
 Or mourn a lover gory. 
 
 Light batteries on the fatal field, 
 Their countless victims strewing. 
 
 Are the bright eyes to which I yield 
 For quarter meekly suing. 
 
 Thy lips are silken banners, and 
 
 Beneath their crimson lustre. 
 In gleaming lines the soldiers stand, 
 
 Two ranks prepared for muster. 
 
 The girl that jilts a veteran bold 
 
 To marry a clodhopper, 
 Would throw away the finest gold 
 
 To pick up worthless copper. 
 
 144 
 
FROM THE SAME. 
 
 THE conscripts march, O cruel theft, 
 While those that are rejected, 
 The crooked and the lame, are left 
 To comfort maids dejected. 
 
 If swift promotion you would gain. 
 Yet shrink from war and slaughter. 
 
 The path is old and very plain — 
 Marry the General's daughter. 
 
 145 
 
THK GI.ORY OF A SPANISH DRAGOON. 
 
 FROM THE) SAMB. 
 
 |V/\ Y little Pepita 
 
 i » 1^ 'w/'iii ]3e jealous I know, 
 
 For I promised to meet her, 
 
 But how can I go ? 
 I come off of guard, 
 
 And go on police ; 
 My sergeant 's a hard 
 
 One, and gives me no peace. 
 There 's the devil to pay 
 
 At fatigue duty too ; 
 Bvery hour of the day 
 
 There is something to do, 
 A soldier at work, 
 
 What a pitiful sight ! 
 I 'd desert to the Turk 
 
 In the very next fight, 
 But his way of baptizing 
 
 You all will agree. 
 Is quite too surprising, 
 
 It would never suit me. 
 146 
 
THE GLORY OF A SPANISH DRAGOON. 1 47 
 
 But my sergeant is worse 
 
 Than a Turk or a Jew, 
 He finds something to curse 
 
 At, whatever I do. 
 At every roll-call. 
 
 If I 'm not upon time, 
 Drill, stables, and all, 
 
 He counts it a crime ; 
 He laughs at my story. 
 
 In the guard-house I 'm thrown, — 
 
 And this is the glory 
 
 Of a Spanish dragoon. 
 10 
 
WRITTEN FOR A REUNION OF VETER- 
 ANS IN THE YEAR 1915. 
 
 COMRADES, once more to-night we gather 
 here, 
 A dwindling band of graybeards ; autumn sere 
 Pales into winter, Indian summer's glow 
 Fades from the hills, reluctant still to go ; 
 And Earth itself fades from our sight away, 
 Eike rosy clouds that flit at close of day ; 
 In our hearts too the flame burns low at last, — 
 An arctic winter closes round us fast. 
 
 While the remaining grains, how few, alas ! 
 Of golden sand, pour through the hour-glass, 
 Fill up, dear friends, your goblets once again. 
 And warm the pulses in each shrunken vein 
 With sunshine garnered on some Gallic plain, 
 Or stolen from the vine-clad hills of Spain. 
 Here 's to the living absent, comrades they 
 So gay in camp, so dauntless in the fray, 
 The lingering remnant of the mighty host 
 That swept from far Atlanta to the coast. 
 Since then their prows through every sea have 
 
 foamed, 
 And o'er five continents their feet have roamed, 
 
 148 
 
A REUNION OF VETERANS. 1 49 
 
 And plucked the brightest bays in fields afar, 
 Who glittered brightest in the van of war. 
 But fast and faster from our sight they fail, 
 A few belated stragglers feebly hail 
 Along the banks of Styx the boatman pale. 
 Where'er they are, once more we pledge them all, 
 Kre from the thinning ranks we too shall fall. 
 
 I^ift high the cup, a generous current pour, 
 lyibations to the chosen friends of yore, 
 Who wander on the dim Plutonian shore. 
 A mist arises from the wine-stained ground, 
 And lo, what phantom faces gather round ! 
 lyike storm-blown wreaths they flit — e'en so must 
 
 we 
 Soon pass like vapors blown across the sea. 
 
 Now draw together, fling apart the doors 
 Of wit and fancy, open up the stores 
 Of feeling that have been repressed so long ; 
 Waken the voice of melody and song, 
 These fleeting moments sweetly to prolong. 
 And kindling up once more the altar fire, 
 I,et the last embers all in flame expire. 
 
TWENTY-FIVK SONNETS 
 
TO 
 
 r\EAR lady, doth the singer's voice in thee 
 ■*-^ Awake an answering chord ? if not so, be 
 Barren the song and all devoid of worth. 
 Save to awaken idle scorn and mirth ; 
 Thy soul, self-poised in cold tranquillity, 
 Will smile to think how foolish some may be. 
 But if thy bosom swell with tender sighs. 
 If the deep fountains of thy soul are stirred, 
 Meeting some dear but unexpected word ; 
 If, answering mine, responsive pulses rise. 
 And thy lips tremble to the happy eyes 
 Suffused with pleasure at the glad sturprise 
 Of verses all too cold for thy completeness, 
 Tlnow thy own heart hath lent them all their 
 sweetness. 
 
 153 
 
POESY. 
 
 OBFORB the human hand a stylus held, 
 
 -'— ' Ere papyrus' or parchment's mute appeal, 
 Sweet songs were sung whose echoes charm us 
 still ; 
 
 From dying lips undying music welled. 
 
 Wedded to strains from chosen souls that swelled, 
 Were rescued from oblivion's clammy seal, 
 Fantastic legend, laws of commonweal. 
 
 Heroic deeds in days of hoary eld. 
 
 Muse of the lyre and harp, till latest day 
 Thy voice shall bear along the shores of Time, 
 
 While kingdoms crumble, and while tongues de- 
 cay, 
 The numbers of the ancient bards sublime. 
 
 Still thy anointed favorites hold their sway, 
 
 *Mid falling stars, and gods that pass away. 
 
 154 
 
THE ROSE. 
 
 'T'HE flushing wave Moomed into wondrous 
 ^ flower, 
 And rosy light burst forth unknown till then, 
 When Aphrodite dawned on gods and men. 
 
 Thy birth, O Rose, was in that mystic hour. 
 
 Transcendent Rose, pride of the Paphian bower, 
 And sweet consoler of the thorny glen. 
 What virgin charms thy blush illumines when 
 
 Upon the virgin heart I^ove seals his power. 
 
 Fair as the lily was the Rose's breast ; 
 But when the generous vine upon it bled. 
 Swift blushes o'er its swelling beauties spread 
 
 Till every leaf the tender flame confessed, 
 
 While from thy wakened heart, O queenly Rose, 
 
 Ambrosial incense on the air arose. 
 
 155 
 
TO A FAIR SANTA BARBARAN. 
 
 \1 ZHY blooms the fairest flower 'neath rosy 
 ' ' skies, 
 
 Where all is bloom and fragrance ? why unfold 
 
 There, where the nectar that its petals hold 
 Among the orange groves neglected lies, 
 And all its perfume all unheeded dies ! 
 
 And thou, dear maid, with wealth of love un- 
 told, 
 
 More precious far than mines of gems and gold, 
 Why linger 'mid these cloyed and listless eyes ? 
 
 O with thy voice, and smile ineffable, 
 And eyes so meet for sympathetic tears. 
 Seek some sad land oppressed by grief and 
 fears, 
 A bright consoling angel there to dwell ; 
 Fly, ere thy robes are wet with honey dew, 
 And thy own sweetness cloys thee through and 
 through. 
 
 156 
 
LA DIVA. 
 
 A SEA of faces ripple round her where, 
 '*"*' As on a sunny isle, the Diva glows 
 
 Behind the footlights like a full-blown rose ; 
 A hush expectant fills the brooding air. 
 
 But hist, O hist ! what dying cygnet there ? 
 How bubbling from her alabaster throat 
 Pours forth the wave of every passion's note — 
 
 Hope, fear, love's ecstasy, and blank despair ? 
 
 A moment's silence ere the plaudits rise. 
 
 Till like a storm they beat the trembling walls. 
 
 And white hands plash like wave-crests to the 
 skies. 
 Alas ! 't is o'er, the jealous curtain falls ; 
 
 And as the tumult of our rapture dies, 
 
 A misty curtain veils our happy eyes. 
 
 157 
 
TO A HAPPY IvOVKR. 
 
 piyAUNT not before the world thy happy love, 
 ■'• lyike the poor fatuous one whose pleasure 
 lies 
 Not in lyove's glance, but in the envious eyes 
 Of other fools ; deep in the myrtle grove 
 Seek some untrodden way, shadowed above ; 
 There, if Love will, his unknown harmonies. 
 His inmost heart and core, his tears and sighs. 
 And unimagined mysteries thou mayest prove. 
 
 But if thou find his choicest fruits and flowers. 
 Guard them from eyes profane with jealous 
 
 care ; 
 lyove, proud but tender, brooks no sign-board 
 there, 
 Pointing the pathway to his sacred bowers ; 
 Himself the entrance, hidden and o'ergrown, 
 Unto his chosen favorites will make known. 
 
 158 
 
METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 I. 
 
 T WAS a huntsman in my youth, and knew 
 -^ Each bird and beast that haunts the forest 
 tall, 
 Or wings the air, hard by the water-fall. 
 Over the plain and up the mountain blue 
 My twanging bow was heard, my arrows flew. 
 My bowstring now is rent, my arrows all 
 lyike spears that from the withered pine-cones 
 fall, 
 Have from my shrunken quiver vanished too. 
 Yet sometimes o'er me steals the olden mood, 
 And wandering in the forest deep and dark, 
 I greet each old familiar tree and mark. 
 Each spot whereon the lovely quarry stood, 
 While faintly through my withered veins once 
 
 more 
 Leaps the triumphant thrill I knew of yore. 
 
 II. 
 
 I shot an arrow through the wood one day 
 In idle sport, and following where it led, 
 I found a doe that I had raised and fed, 
 
 159 
 
l6o METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 Stricken, and bleeding fast her life away, 
 Her tender fawn transfixed beside her lay ; 
 
 One random shaft two happy lives had sped. 
 
 The dry leaves rustled to my startled tread, 
 And filled my fluttering heart with strange 
 
 dismay ; 
 For gazing in those failing eyes my soul 
 
 Found there another soul, its very twin ; 
 
 Unseen for years, but bowered deep within 
 The heart's alcove, — oh, lost beyond control ! 
 Those murdered eyes still gaze as from a glass 
 Framed in with bloody leaves and trampled grass. 
 
THREE SONNETS IN MEMORIAM. 
 I. 
 
 D:e:SPAIR — THE ABYSS. 
 
 /^ DREAD abyss, narrow, but dark and deep, 
 ^-^ Still baffling all that men may do or dare 
 
 To read the secrets of thy jealous care, 
 The mystery that thy shuddering caverns keep, 
 Over thy cruel mouth the earth I heap, 
 
 Hiding my treasure like a miser there. 
 
 My hollow doubting voice I lift in prayer ; 
 With ghastly lips I say : " 'T is but a sleep. 
 And I shall find my loved one freed from sorrow, 
 
 Glowing with love, and youth ineffable." 
 O fool, the only sure thing thou canst borrow 
 
 From coming years is death, thou knowest well. 
 Yet even this is gain ; then hail each morrow 
 
 That brings thee nearer to the self-same cell. 
 
 II. 
 
 QUESTIONING. 
 
 Beneath the leafless trees alone I stand. 
 Where we two stood in June. O loved one, where 
 Are now the radiant hopes that filled the air, 
 
 Circling around us swiftly like a band 
 
 II i6i 
 
1 62 THREE SONNETS IN MEMORIAM. 
 
 Of smiling sisters, clasping hand in liand ? 
 Dearer to me than all their visions fair 
 This chill December night, so thou wert there. 
 
 And hast thou sought with them some better land ? 
 
 Would heaven be darkened for one form the less 
 From the bright throng who in His love rejoice ? 
 From the celestial choir could not one voice, 
 Sweeter than all the rest, be spared to bless 
 My solitude ? Say, dost thou sleep alone, 
 Voiceless, beneath the unrelenting stone ? 
 
 III. 
 
 CONSOLATION. 
 
 Alone? Ah, no : beneath the earth's fair crust 
 Assemble all the beautiful and good 
 Whose memory transfigures womanhood ; 
 
 And kingly men are there, the brave, the just ; 
 
 How sweet to mingle with that sacred dust ! 
 Standing to-night where we so oft have stood, 
 Their fragrance fills the silent solitude — 
 
 Sweet flowers of human love and hope and trust. 
 
 Where'er thou art, O sister of my soul. 
 
 Treading with gleaming feet the streets of gold, 
 Or softly mingling with the forest mold, 
 Swift years shall bear me to the self-same goal. 
 Our radiant heads in the same aureole, 
 
 Or the same flower-roots thrill our ashes cold. 
 
IN MEMORY OF D. G. R. 
 
 O ATHBD in the morning sunlight thou didst 
 
 ^ stand, 
 The sisters nine in homage gathered round, 
 Son of Apollo, with his laurels crowned, 
 
 His lyre of lyres trembling in thy hand. 
 
 The brush and chisel at thy high command 
 Enchantment wrought, but sweeter far resounds 
 The music of thy verse, the soulful sounds 
 
 Flung from thy pen as from a magic wand. 
 
 Had all thy wondrous powers to song been given, 
 What floods of melody had filled the air — 
 Eros' and Psyche's voices mingling there. 
 
 Alas ! the wine is spilled, the lyre is riven, 
 
 Stem Albion's son, thy soft Italian name 
 
 Lives only in the Pantheon of Fame. 
 
 163 
 
IN MEMORY OF JOHN BROWN OF OSSA- 
 WATTOMIB. 
 
 INSCRIBED TO JOHN J. INGAI,I,S. 
 I. 
 
 A ciyOUD for years o'erhung the border-land, 
 '**■ Black, ominous, wherein were dimly seen 
 
 Soul-terrifying shapes of beasts unclean, 
 And men uncleaner still, a hideous band, 
 I^oathsome as reptiles from the slimy strand 
 
 Of vanished seas, in ages pliocene. 
 
 Prophets the portent read with vision keen. 
 But lying seers cried "Peace," throughout the 
 
 land, 
 *T is but a cloud-bank changing with the wind, 
 
 And craven hearts draw their own pictures there, 
 And traitors sneered, and from the pulpit whined 
 Sleek hypocrites, blind leaders of the blind, 
 
 Buyers of souls, who gathered gold with care. 
 
 With gnashing and blaspheming filled the air. 
 
 164 
 
JOHN BROWN OF OSSAWATTOMIE, 1 65 
 II. 
 
 A soul flamed forth like a titanic brand, 
 Or fiery meteor through the murky sky, 
 Thrilled by electric arrows from on high ; 
 And by swift wings of unseen seraphs fanned 
 The baleful clouds dispersed, as though a hand 
 Omnipotent had swept the firmament 
 And from its face the darkening veil had rent. 
 Vague shapes of fear, as by enchanter's wand, 
 Were changed to forms substantial, and arose 
 The Nation's foes, implacable and fierce. 
 The canting knave, who chapter gave and verse 
 To justify the trade in human woes. 
 Slunk with his broad phylacteries away, 
 And strong men armed them for the deadly fray. 
 
 III. 
 
 True greatness is the greatest in defeat. 
 A laurel wreath entwined about that head 
 Had but obscured the glory that it shed. 
 
 Unshaken in his high prophetic seat. 
 
 Beyond all crowns of vict 'ry grand and great 
 In happier days, as when, illusions fled, 
 His fierce foes found him lying 'mid his dead, 
 
 Alike his spirit soared secure from Fate. 
 
1 66 JOHN BROWN OF OSSAWATTOMIE, 
 
 So, when the charging battle standards meet, 
 Gold fringe and silken fold are plucked away 
 As by the myriad beaks of birds of prey, 
 Still on the staff, high in his ancient seat. 
 The brazen eagle sits, serene, the same, 
 Pride of the legions o'er the battle's flame. 
 
OUR I.OST ONES. 
 
 " H^las ! dans le cercueil ils tombent en poussi^re 
 Moins vite qu'en nos coeurs." 
 
 —Hugo. 
 
 DRKTHREN and sisters all, what do we here, 
 
 ■■— ' With song and laughter, while around us 
 stand, 
 With dumb reproachful gaze, a shadowy band. 
 The mournful shades of all our lost ones dear ? 
 
 O conquering power of the eternal years ! 
 How swiftly fade away on every hand 
 Their memories throughout the joyous land, 
 
 For whom we thought to shed eternal tears. 
 
 Smiling above them wave the flowers and grass. 
 Where cold and still those cherished forms are 
 
 strown, 
 Thickly as grain in the deep furrows sown. 
 
 Or sheaves in fields where merry reapers pass. 
 
 To dust they wither in our hearts, alas ! 
 More swiftly than beneath the cruel stone. 
 
 167 
 
THE OCEAN OF THE PAST. 
 
 I\ A Y wistful eyes still sweep thy sullen breast, 
 
 ^ ' *• Dead sea, whose waves, once, following 
 stroke on stroke, 
 Have swallowed mast and sail and hull of oak. 
 
 Now all thy cruel billows are at rest ; 
 
 Hushed is thy roar, and stilled each raging crest ; 
 No phantom from thy mists may I evoke, 
 No more my prow or sail the waves provoke, 
 
 Where sleeps my happy island of the blest. 
 
 lyO, while I gaze, like the responsive swell 
 
 Of some great yearning heart, the billows nse, 
 Till, in wild tumult leaping to the skies. 
 
 They toss the beauteous wrecks I loved so well, 
 Resistless through the rending barriers roll 
 And sob through all the caverns of my soul. 
 
 i68 
 
KVIIy DAYS. 
 
 O YOUTH, O Hope, O I,ove, all phantoms 
 vain ! 
 Ye lured me long with promise false as sweet, 
 But now your flight outstrips my faltering feet. 
 Dear traitors, will ye ne'er return again ? 
 I^ove lingered last, but all have been too fleet. 
 Now sinks the light of day in tears and pain, 
 The glories of the night unheeded wane : 
 Summer is winter, truth is but deceit. 
 
 Shall I not find upon some vernal day, 
 Fruition for the buds that blighted here ? 
 
 The golden hours of youth I cast away, 
 
 How I would hold those wasted treasures dear ! 
 
 Still through the lonely chambers of my brain 
 
 No more, no more, echoes the sad refrain. 
 
 169 
 
KNVY AND SI.ANDER. 
 
 TO N. A. M. 
 
 "P NVY is deathless, though the envious die, 
 -'— ' And shafts of slander, hissing through the 
 dark, 
 Have ever loved, like death, a shining mark. 
 Then do not think those shafts could pass thee by. 
 
 Thy conscious worth, and purpose pure and high 
 Cannot defend from little curs that bark ; 
 No wall, high as the flight of morning lark, 
 
 Can top the poisoned arrows as they fly. 
 
 Rise o'er the herd in feeling, thought, or deed, 
 And feel the bitter sting of Envy's tongue ; 
 Rise higher yet, and thus confound the throng, — 
 
 Only a respite brief thy soul may read. 
 
 Success, e'en more than merit, is a crime 
 
 To tongues as tireless as the feet of Time. 
 
 170 
 
TRUE FREEDOM. 
 
 TO J. F. F. 
 
 IT E is not truly free who fears to speak 
 •'■ -*■ The burning words that flame from heart 
 to tongue, 
 
 When in the presence of a hoary wrong, 
 E'en though upheld by gown and surplice sleek, 
 And hears unheeded the oppressed and weak. 
 
 Nor friendship from the great, the rich, the 
 strong. 
 
 Nor grateful plaudits from the servile throng, 
 The free-born spirit must expect or seek. 
 
 Think not that power and place will come to 
 thee — 
 
 Sooner some sordid soul the race will win ; 
 
 E'en in the days of Cid and Paladin, 
 And glorious days of Arthur's chivalry, 
 The golden spurs by cravens oft were won. 
 While hearts as brave as Arthur's died unknown. 
 
 171 
 
"SOCIETY." 
 
 DEAR, simple friend, and did you think to find 
 Aught but hypocrisy and fair smooth lies 
 In this charmed circle, that would ostracize 
 All for a pair of gloves the most refined, 
 The noblest type of man or womankind ? 
 A set whose aspirations never rise 
 Above the triumphs wealth and fashion buys ; 
 Who ape the opinions with devotion blind. 
 The coats and gowns, of royal debauchees 
 And their bold paramours from over seas. 
 How hope a noble womanhood to gain 
 Nourished upon such stifling airs as these. 
 Fashion forbids to rise above a plane 
 That dudes and lah-de-dahs can just attain. 
 
 172 
 
THE STAGNANT POOIv. 
 
 O TOOPING beside a stagnant pool to drink 
 ^ I saw a woman, weary and foriorn, 
 
 With hair unkempt, and garments stained and 
 torn ; 
 All grace of womanhood was fled, no link 
 Remained of happier days ; along the brink 
 
 Swept by a stately dame with words of scorn ; 
 
 ' ' Though I had thirsted since the early morn, 
 Before my feet in that foul wave should sink 
 My willing lips should press the cup of death. ' ' 
 
 O scornful dame ! before the night was black, 
 
 lyO ! I beheld thy swift feet speeding back. 
 With robes dishevelled and with gasping breath, 
 In this same wave thy parching lips to cool. 
 As eagerly as 't were a mountain pool. 
 
 173 
 
THE MAN WITH THE MUCK-RAKE. 
 
 AN old and well-known allegory reading, 
 I found a quaint and curious picture there, 
 Of one who gathered straws and dirt with care, 
 The golden crown above his head unheeding. 
 Science to-day, than avarice more misleading, 
 Hath slain our father's faith and hope and 
 
 prayer ; 
 We rake the seas, and sweep the earth and air 
 To find new theories for our own impeding. 
 
 And some for tinsel toys of social glory. 
 
 And Church and State, toil through the grovel- 
 ling years. 
 How can we hear the music of the spheres, 
 
 Clutching the muck-rakes of the allegory ? 
 
 Our blunted senses only can discern 
 
 The paltry baubles over which we yearn. 
 
 174 
 
IMMORTALITY. 
 
 All Y vision floats far down the milky- way, 
 ^ '^ *■ A shining track across a shoreless sea 
 
 As deep and boundless as eternity. 
 Suns sail in myriads there, and comets stray, 
 Youthful, while hoary ages roll away. 
 O fleeting life, the stars that shine on me 
 Smiled just the same when star-lit Galilee 
 Beneath the Saviour's feet in slumber lay. 
 
 What countless swarms of man's ephemeral race 
 Live, love, and die, while ye sail coldly on ! 
 Yet they shall rise, the teeming millions gone, 
 
 And gaze unmoved, while from their ancient 
 place 
 
 The morning stars like baleful meteors fleet, 
 
 And while the heavens melt with fervent heat. 
 
 175 
 
TO A YOUNG ARTIST. 
 
 T^HK matchless artists of the olden time 
 *^ Knew naught of critic's jargon ; to their toil 
 Bending as one that digs a stony soil, 
 Sparing nor bloom of youth nor manhood's 
 
 prime, 
 They caught and fixed their floating dreams sub- 
 lime. 
 So must we shun all vain polemic broil, 
 Nor vex our souls with theories' turmoil 
 If to ideal heights we fain would climb. 
 
 Our vintage time is speeding fast away, 
 
 The morning faileth ; then with double will. 
 In spite of noonday glare or evening chill, 
 
 Gather the glowing clusters while we may. 
 
 So may our failing eyes see some faint beams 
 
 Shed o'er our work from our supernal dreams. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 176 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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