BookiS^i-2-tl 
 
- 7/- 
 
Poems of Oregon 
 
 ^ ^ and Other Verse ^ ^ 
 
 By 
 
 Andrew Franzen 
 
 PORTLAND. OREGON 
 
 Chausse-Prudhommk Co. 
 
 1914 
 
INDEX. \Q\A-' 
 
 Page 
 
 "Where Rolls the Oregon" 3 
 
 The Last Pioneer 4 
 
 On Clackamas Banks 5 
 
 On Mount Hood 5 
 
 The Last Chief to His Daughter 6 
 
 The Farthest West 7 
 
 A Rose in Winter 8 
 
 Autumn 9 
 
 At the Stars 10 
 
 Willamette Falls 11 
 
 To a Humming Bird 11 
 
 Winter 12 
 
 The Brooklet's Course 13 
 
 A Morn in May 14 
 
 To a Singing Thrush 15 
 
 Flowers in the Cemetery 16 
 
 The Primrose 17 
 
 To a Bee 17 
 
 To a Blue Bird 19 
 
 The Man with the Hoe 20 
 
 My Love 21 
 
 To a Rose on Her Grave 22 
 
 The Lord's Visit 23 
 
 Grandmother 26 
 
 Ideality 27 
 
 What is Life? 28 
 
 Song of the Mill Girl 29 
 
 The Midnight Toilers 30 
 
 The New Slaver 31 
 
 Joy and Sorrow 32 
 
 Two Conscripts 34 
 
 The New Earth 37 
 
 The Ages of Man 38 
 
 The Old School House 41 
 
 A Farmer to His Children 42 
 
 The Spark Divine 44 
 
 Dreams of Home 45 
 
 To Illusion 46 
 
 The Prodigal 47 
 
 The Change 63 
 
 Reverie of a New Woman 75 
 
 To the Man in the Moon 76 
 
 The Christmas Tree 78 
 
 6^^^ri 
 
"WHERE ROLLS THE OREGON" 
 
 Stop not, O Wand'rer in thy search for nature's grander 
 
 sights 
 Upon the banks of Rhone or Rhine where gleam the 
 
 Alpine heights 
 And linger not along the Nile upon the desert's sands, 
 Nor pitch thy tent on Mississippi's broad and flowery 
 
 lands, 
 But hither come upon this mighty river's rugged shore! 
 See its banks in evergreen and hear its waters roar ! 
 Then look above and feast thine eyes upon the trackless 
 
 heights 
 Where o'er the realm of man yet fearlessly the eagle 
 
 lights ! 
 The woods that reach from snowy peaks to vales of fertile 
 
 lands 
 Have still the breath of purity as from their Maker's 
 
 hands. 
 The pyramids raised on the rocky brinks since time began 
 In silent greatness shame the proud, but pigmy works of 
 
 man. 
 Come, stand before each waterfall that thunders through 
 
 its shower 
 And feel the thrill of wonder here, the awe of nature's 
 
 power ! 
 Then dream no more of grander scenes beneath yet fairer 
 
 skies — 
 The Maker wrought with master art in these before thine 
 
 eyes. 
 
THE LAST PIONEER 
 
 Draw closer, children, all around my chair, 
 So that my age-dim eyes can see each face. 
 
 A word is on my lips that each may share 
 
 Whom once as babe I held in fond embrace. 
 
 It seems to murmur from yon harvest field, 
 Now fuller goldened in the setting sun, 
 
 And from the orchard in its purpling yield; 
 Go to thy rest, the builder's work is done. 
 
 To reap the fruit where he upturned the soil 
 Is not the task that stays the Pioneer; 
 
 The pathways made and smoothened by his toil 
 Are for the tendVer comers of the rear. 
 
 On far away Atlanta's crowded shore 
 I fled the air by cities' breath defiled. 
 
 Had still my hands their wielding strength of yore 
 My feet would tread some new, unconquered wild. 
 
 'Twas daring spirit once that urged me on 
 
 These vales, with shouldered gun, to rove and roam 
 
 But Love it was that bade me at its dawn, 
 
 With ax in hand to build for you this home. 
 
 Now things are changed; the crude and wild must go, 
 For finer arts and ways are here instead. 
 
 The smaller, smiling faces round me show 
 
 The garden bloom, but not the wild rose red. 
 
 I bless you all, as children should be blest, 
 
 Ere full upon me death's black shadow creeps; 
 
 Then take me, simply, silently to rest 
 
 Upon yon hillock where your mother sleeps. 
 
ON CLACKAMAS' BANKS 
 
 Rush on, wild Clackamas, where sylvan flowers 
 On shady banks list to thy murmured speech! 
 
 Rush ever on past bending forest bowers 
 
 Whose drooping branches toward thy ripples reach ! 
 
 From mountain brooks agleam in sunlit glades, 
 To broader vales I trace thy silver course; 
 
 And onward yet where man thy peace invades, 
 Where greater waters dash on grander shores. 
 
 'Tis bliss to dream in silent solitude 
 
 Where, after turmoil, calm thy surface lies, 
 
 When Nature brighter smiles in milder mood. 
 
 Through summer sunshine 'neath the azure skies. 
 
 Might not yet haunt on still primeval banks 
 The forest gloom some dusky spirit maids. 
 
 Re-live their loves, their childhood plays and pranks, 
 And dance to nightwind tunes in moonlit glades? 
 
 Or sing strange songs discordant to my ear. 
 And yet harmonious with the lisping leaves, 
 
 The falling waters and the echoes here, 
 
 The wild bird's carol when his nest he weaves. 
 
 Night visions flee when dawns the morning light, 
 And what I see is not the old-time wild. 
 
 But flowery banks and meads of pleasing sight, 
 
 Where plays and prattles now the fair-faced child. 
 
 ON MOUNT HOOD 
 
 What yestermorn through parting clouds I spied 
 Now lies beneath my feet in blinding glare ; 
 
 But on my lips the shout of triumph died 
 In this chill realm of awe and hostile air. 
 
White slopes untouched by earth's life-giving breath! 
 
 Great rocks firm-set among the fleeting clouds! 
 Grim likeness of the pallid face of death — 
 
 Now bare in view, then wrapt in changing shrouds. 
 
 Here wrought with cruder touch the Maker's hand 
 That only left the imprints of his powers, 
 
 While laying in profusion o'er the land 
 The finishing of melody and flowers. 
 
 My eyes fain leave their lure of yesterday, 
 
 And gaze, far-visioned, o'er the dark green pines, 
 
 Where through the distant vale in hazy gray 
 Its lingering course the blue Willamette winds. 
 
 Yon sweeps the Oregon through gorges deep 
 
 Carved by its floods when earth and sea were young, 
 
 Now swelled by waters from each eastward steep, 
 And the last drops from thirsty deserts wrung. 
 
 Not on thy hoary head, O Mountain grand. 
 Not on the lonely heights of mount nor mind 
 
 I bide; but where I touch my fellow's hand, 
 
 Where near thy foot the lowly pathways wind. 
 
 THE LAST CHIEF TO HIS DAUGHTER 
 
 Take from my hand this old-time oaken bow. 
 And hang it on thy wigwam's tawny wall ! 
 
 Even it the white man craves for idle show — 
 This out-worn bow of mine, my last, my all ! 
 
 Hang it where rests at eve the ruddy gleam. 
 Ere the last embers on thy hearth expire, 
 
 Where with the dying sunset's last faint beam 
 Manitou set the evening clouds on fire ! 
 
There will it bring before my spirit's eyes 
 
 More clear the pictures of the last young braves, 
 
 While the white conquerer his traffic plies, 
 
 And rears his pomp upon the red men's graves. 
 
 Yet more than grief the sorrow seamed my face 
 To leave thee, daughter of the vanished v/ild 
 
 In thine own land among an alien race, 
 In thine inheritance an outcast child. 
 
 Thy beauty, native as the prairie flower 
 
 That gently sways in the Great Spirit's breath, 
 
 Is scorned and humbled by the new-come power. 
 Sweeping this land's own children unto death. 
 
 Oft, child, I watch thee seek the forest shades 
 As though to join the kindred spirits there, 
 
 Where once in sportive glee the village maids 
 
 Would mock the deer and braid their glossy hair. 
 
 Though may the alien splendor lure and daze 
 It leaves the forest daughter's heart aloof, 
 
 And thou wilt walk thy mother's humble ways 
 And weep beneath the wigwam's lowly roof. 
 
 The tribes are vanishing, the red man dies, 
 
 While others groan beneath that white man's yoke 
 
 Until for him a stronger foe will rise, 
 
 In whom his sway the lust of conquest woke. 
 
 THE FARTHEST WEST 
 
 Now rest, ye rovers, westward bound! 
 
 No farther on your pathway winds. 
 You hear the sunset ocean sound 
 
 Beyond the murmur of the pines. 
 
 Behold the hill's unfading green 
 Beneath a milder sunshine lie. 
 
The water's blue, unruffled sheen 
 Reflecting deep a kinder sky! 
 
 Such blossoming, such ripening 
 Was not upon the thirsty plains. 
 
 On greener boughs the wild birds sing 
 New songs to you in softer strains. 
 
 Not here in storm and lightning flash 
 Her might and grandeur Nature shows. 
 
 But in the thundering falls that dash 
 
 From shining mountain's summer snows. 
 
 On cliffy shores the towering rocks 
 Stand firm against the brimy foam. 
 
 In sun-kissed vales the field and flocks 
 Gladden the farmer's rose-fringed home. 
 
 Here list to him who cleared the wild! 
 
 At old time tales his eye still beams, 
 While there his daughter's lovely child 
 
 Of fairer future summer dreams. 
 
 A ROSE IN WINTER 
 
 One glimpse of thee that sends through tattered leaves 
 
 The scent of summer in the wintry air! 
 Ah, there I see thee 'neath the dusky eaves ; 
 
 None of thy sun-kissed kind more sweet and fair. 
 
 The sleety showers fade the meadow's green, 
 
 But thou art warm in thine own summer glow. 
 
 Like to a star that through the dark is seen, 
 Unlovely things more full thy beauty show. 
 
Yet long'st thou not for cloudless azure skies, 
 
 The swallows cheering song, the daisies' bloom, 
 
 The humming bees and gorgeous butterflies, 
 
 Thou child of June wrapt in December gloom? 
 
 Though winter's shadow darkly o'er thee broods 
 One glance at thee my heart with new hope fills, 
 
 As one sweet note in silent solitudes 
 
 My soul with echoes of all music thrills. 
 
 I caught thy fervor, so that I this hour, 
 
 Can smile with thee upon the cheerless gloom, 
 
 And thoughtless of each dreary darkening shower 
 See happy visions of next summer's bloom. 
 
 Oh, were it mine — the cheer that flushes thee, 
 That needs no outer warmth to feed its glow ! 
 
 Through rosy light mine eyes would only see 
 On this vast earth my fervent heart's outflow. 
 
 AUTUMN 
 
 Less fair than was the blithe and blooming maiden 
 Who moons ago had left the forest mute, 
 
 Thou comest with her hopes' fulfillment laden. 
 Which ripened from her blossoms into fruit. 
 
 What though the lovely songstress has departed. 
 When thou, sweet matron of the calmer brow. 
 
 Hast hung with lavish hand, and kindly-hearted. 
 The luscious clusters on each bending bough! 
 
 I go with thee where maple leaves are glowing 
 In gayer tints than ever summer knew, 
 
 And where on wayside hedges thou art showing 
 The mellow red where once the roses grew. 
 
We wander where the parting birds are flocking 
 To sing in chorus shrill their farewell lay; 
 
 We see the forest acrobat a-rocking 
 
 Above the store he garnered yesterday. 
 
 On yellow stubble fields in vain we listen 
 For lingering echoes of the harvest song, 
 
 But where the broad leaves of the hop-vine glisten 
 We hear its cadence from the pickers throng. 
 
 The days are waning and thou growest weary, 
 
 And yieldst the last ripe fruitage thou hast borne;, 
 
 The mists are falling and the fields grow dreary, 
 And on the brook's low banks the willows mourn. 
 
 How crisp the morn when white the frost is showing, 
 Leaving thy scanter raiment sere and brown! 
 
 How soon will fierce the northern blasts be blowing 
 The remnants of thy faded drapery down! 
 
 AT THE STARS 
 
 From sorrows of this "vale of tears" 
 
 I reached one night the heavenly spheres 
 
 Upon the pinions of a dream. 
 
 And through the boundless, moving scheme 
 
 I scanned the worlds for the domain 
 
 Where joy and peace forever reign 
 
 In glorious, unfading light. 
 
 Alas, they, too, had day and night, 
 
 And all within my vision's range 
 
 Was still the realm of endless change. 
 
 Where joy and pain alike abate, 
 
 Where they that love can also hate. 
 
 "Where live the blest that know no tears?" 
 
 I asked the dwellers of the spheres. 
 
 They pointed toward the heavens far 
 
 Where shone the earth — a twinkling star. 
 
 10 
 
WILLAMETTE FALLS 
 
 The waters that so long 
 With softly murmured song, 
 
 Have loitered through the valley's broad expanse 
 In mighty torrent pour, 
 A-down with deafening roar. 
 
 Above the foamy eddies' maddened dance. 
 
 I stand agaze in wonder; 
 
 No sound I hear but thunder 
 Amid the moving splendor of it all. 
 
 A misty cloud in white 
 
 Half veileth from my sight, 
 The raging of the deep beneath the fall. 
 
 Forever dashing down, 
 
 In sun or weather's frown. 
 To the beholder's wonder and delight; 
 
 Forever in turmoil, 
 
 Turning the wheels of toil 
 Of weaker man, yet master of its might. 
 
 TO A HUMMINGBIRD 
 
 Alight thou rover now 
 
 Upon some flowery bough. 
 That I may see in what gay hues thou glowest, 
 
 For I can only guess 
 
 What grace and loveliness 
 When perched upon a slender bough thou showest. 
 
 Guest of the summer flowers, 
 Wee sprite of bush and bowers. 
 
 In mid-air poised the blossom's nectar sipping, 
 A moment now at rest, 
 I see thy shimmering breast, 
 
 And off to fresh flowers thou art skipping. 
 
 11 
 
A still unravished rose 
 
 Again brings thee more close. 
 Oh, what delight to see thee dart and glitter! 
 
 More blossoms wait for thee; 
 
 Thou dost not find like me 
 Upon life's way among the sweet the bitter. 
 
 Thou swift elusive mite, 
 
 To feel and give delight 
 Is what thou dost, and who is nobler doing? 
 
 Me seems each vale and hill 
 
 On earth is Eden still, 
 For such as thou that art but beauty wooing. 
 
 My flowers fade with time, 
 But thine from clime to clime 
 
 Thou leavest behind thee when their glory paleth ; 
 Through northern summer days 
 And by the palm-fringed ways 
 
 Thy bloom in virgin sweetness never faileth. 
 
 WINTER 
 
 Roar out thy rage, wild winter now! 
 
 Pour down thy floods from darker clouds! 
 Dash torrents down each mountain brow! 
 
 Or wrap the hills in snowy shrouds ! 
 The fiercer thy cold blasts will blow 
 The brighter shall our hearth fires glow. 
 
 The last dead leaves of Autumn shake 
 Upon the soil of sombre sight, 
 
 Then pile upon them, flake on flake, 
 One shining sheet of spotless white : 
 
 But, warmer clad, our ways we go 
 
 And laugh at all thy fleeting show. 
 
 12 
 
Let biting frost at quiet morn 
 
 Lay bloom upon the pallid cheek! 
 
 Let where we gleaned last summer's corn 
 The northern gale its temper wreak! 
 
 Beneath thy pall of gleaming snow 
 
 Will sheltered next year's harvest grow. 
 
 THE BROOKLET'S COURSE 
 
 Tinkling blooklet winding waters, 
 
 Restless dashing down the dale, 
 Through the open field and meadow 
 Or along the woodland trail. 
 
 Where the voices of the twilight 
 
 Softly in its babble chime 
 And the breezes in the branches 
 
 Keep with its own music time. 
 
 Why so hasty, limpid waters. 
 
 Pass you by these flowers blue? 
 
 To yon ocean you are going 
 
 And its waves will swallow you. 
 
 Linger, brooklet, linger longer 
 Distant from the valley's noice, 
 
 In your flood the sunlight gleaming, 
 Childhood's laughter in your voice. 
 
 High upon the shining mountains, 
 Of the rainclouds you were born. 
 
 This is Youthland, now is May time; 
 Lengthen here your life's fair morn. 
 
 *T am swift," the brooklet answered; 
 
 'They that speed not are not young; 
 In the lowland I shall loiter 
 
 When my song of youth is sung. 
 
 13 
 
"When I reach the briny waters 
 
 Takes me up the shore-bound wave, 
 
 But the sea's unlighted caverns 
 Cannot ever be my grave. 
 
 "From the restless, foamy billows 
 High and higher I shall rise, 
 
 When at noon the brighter sunbeams 
 Draw my waters to the skies. 
 
 "See me then in silvery cloudlets 
 Float along the heaven's blue; 
 
 Or when past the summer shower 
 Radiant in each rainbow hue." 
 
 A MORN IN MAY 
 
 Hark! there comes the stir of waking 
 Through the gloom of parting night, 
 
 For faintly throws the eastern heaven 
 O'er the earth a dawning light. 
 
 In its clear increasing luster 
 
 Moon and stars are waxing less ; 
 
 The phantom shapes of night are changing 
 Into forms of loveliness. 
 
 See the glow of new-waked beauty 
 
 Over hills and mountains lie; 
 While purple-flushed the clouds are floating 
 
 In the darker western sky. 
 
 Now a bird is softly winging 
 To the branches' topmost one, 
 
 And lightward sends in joyous singing 
 Greetings to the rising sun. 
 
 14 
 
Nature wears her festal garment, 
 
 Fragrance makes her charm complete, 
 
 And countless voices calling, singing 
 Loud proclaim that life is sweet. 
 
 Lovely May time fraught with blossoms, 
 Happy daytime, young, unworn! 
 
 When drops of dew yet moist the petals 
 With the freshness of the morn. 
 
 TO A SINGING THRUSH 
 
 Where are you that unseen 
 
 Among the maple green 
 Fling sudden on the silence this delight? 
 
 I watch, and wonder whom 
 
 Within the deeper gloom 
 Your song is meant to thrill with joy tonight. 
 
 Drinks in with rapture now 
 
 Your mate on lower bough 
 The song of constancy while love is young? 
 
 Are nestlings on your tree? 
 
 No sweeter lullaby 
 Has ever father, bird or mother sung. 
 
 Is there no listening ear 
 
 But mine your voice to hear. 
 In mossy pathless glades the summer long? 
 
 Oh, leave the forest gloom; 
 
 Sing out where gardens bloom 
 To toiling men that life has time for song! 
 
 15 
 
FLOWERS IN THE CEMETERY 
 
 Now while yon dark-veiled mourner comes to brood 
 On the sad sermons which these marbles preach 
 
 I seek the graves in stiller solitude 
 
 To learn the lessons which their flowers teach. 
 
 Yon fades the tear-stained wreath that yesterday 
 A tender hand laid on the fresh-hilled ground; 
 
 But here where grief long since had ceased to pray 
 Grows richer green upon the sunken mound. 
 
 Dew-sprinkled leaves breathing the morning's breath 
 Raised from the mold by that transmuting power 
 
 That holds the mystery of life and death 
 
 But needs decay to form each living flower. 
 
 Ye lilies white, and roses pink and red, 
 
 Could man a fitter monument devise 
 Than ye whose roots bring forth to life the dead 
 
 That they arrayed in your own beauty rise? 
 
 Nor could the rosy cheek in youthful bloom 
 
 Have shown yet fresher tints and charm than ye. 
 
 Where is the sting of death while on the tomb 
 Open the petals to the laden bee? 
 
 Oh, death lone harvester for pall and bier 
 At every stroke a self thou hast destroyed, 
 
 But canst not lessen life and beauty here; 
 
 Still lives all good that man has e'er enjoyed! 
 
 All liveth; resurrection is today; 
 
 What once was mold is flower's fragrant breath; 
 All liveth ; life takes back the dust and clay ; 
 
 Each verdant grave proclaims : Here is no death ! 
 
 16 
 
THE PRIMROSE 
 
 One morn I sauntered down the lea 
 And spied a primrose on the way. 
 
 To make it mine I stretched with glee 
 A wanton hand without delay. 
 
 But when I touched the tender stem 
 It trembled soft my hand to stay, 
 
 And, in its eye a dew-drop gem. 
 
 The tearful primrose seemed to say: 
 
 "Oh, let me bloom while life is young; 
 
 Like you I fain would live my day. 
 I cannot speak with human tongue 
 
 But feel like you the sun's warm ray. 
 
 'T freely spend my fragrant breath 
 To give delight that cannot cloy, 
 
 And need not meet untimely death 
 That you may full my charm enjoy." 
 
 Soft fell these words deep in my heart. 
 
 The primrose pleaded not in vain 
 When came to me with sudden dart 
 
 The truth that violence is pain. 
 
 And since that day no flower I broke 
 
 Its dying beauty to enjoy. 
 My soul to that broad kinship woke 
 
 Which will no harmless life destroy. 
 
 TO A BEE 
 
 How often have I thoughtless watched thy kind, 
 
 Thou happy rover of the flowery meads, 
 
 And only saw an insect on the wing! 
 
 But this fair morn while ring the woods with song 
 
 17 
 
I see the world and thee in truer Hght. 
 Searching with keener ray it shows to me, 
 Whose feet are fastened to the sordid soil, 
 That thou in quest of sweets from bloom to bloom 
 Art at the goal of which mankind but dreams. 
 
 When fields are bare and cold thou art not here, 
 But comest with the sunshine and the flowers. 
 
 For thee are not the storms and cloudy skies, 
 The lowly toil of man with soiled hands, 
 Still in his grub stage delving in the mold, 
 Or gory with the lives he preys upon. 
 
 What are his commonwealths compared with thine! 
 His heave with strife when freed from iron rule. 
 Still plans and builds he false and knows full well 
 His proudest Babels first decay within. 
 Still groan the slaves beneath the slaver's lash, 
 Where rules the base oppressing truth and right. 
 
 Where hast thou learnt the harmony in thine. 
 The cheerful efforts of the one for All? 
 What draughts of truer wisdom hast thou drunk 
 From springs too deep for shallow human ken? 
 
 I cannot know by what unfailing law. 
 Or love surpassing man's, thy hive is ruled, 
 And stored with gains which are not other's loss. 
 Thou teachest that this earth is Eden still 
 To those who need not prey on life to live. 
 Who subject selfish will to the All-good, 
 Whose voices melt in one harmonious choir. 
 
 Yet oft before my eyes a vision floats, 
 Prophetic of the progress of my kind, 
 With man exalted through humility, 
 Triumphant in the concfUest of himself, 
 And nourished with the fruits that Eden gave. 
 
 18 
 
TO A BLUE BIRD 
 
 Tell me, bright bird with sky blue wing, 
 What longing fills thy lovely breast? 
 
 No longer wilt thou blithely sing, 
 
 But flutter round with mute unrest. 
 
 What visions of a sunnier clime 
 
 Through autumn's mist before thee rise? 
 
 What bloom of endless summer time 
 Beneath the smiling Southern skies? 
 
 Upon my lawn the summer long 
 
 And in the field with tasseled corn. 
 
 I heard with joy thy tuneful song 
 Among the voices of the morn. 
 
 Thou knowest where a bluer sky 
 
 Will match the beauty of thy wing; 
 
 And thither wilt thou shortly fly 
 Upon the leafy palms to sing. 
 
 There shalt thou wing on sunlit plains 
 
 Where near thy voice I fain would roam. 
 
 Yet ever in thy breast remains 
 
 The picture of thy Northern home. 
 
 Farewell, bright bird with sky blue wing. 
 The winds are chill, the nights grow long. 
 
 Ere comes again the bloom of spring 
 I shall be watching for thy song. 
 
 19 
 
THE MAN WITH THE HOE 
 
 See him a-field while fades the gold of morn 
 
 And brighter rays more deep the shadows mark; 
 
 Hear him among the rows of dewy corn — 
 The blithe companion of the warbling lark! 
 
 In God's own workshop roofed by summer skies 
 Moves light his figure that no toil can bow, 
 
 The hope for autumn's fruitage in his eyes. 
 The lordship of the land writ on his brow. 
 
 What the Creator into being wrought 
 Imperfect still his final touch awaits; 
 
 Then see with sweeter fruit the orchard fraught, 
 And fairer flowers peer through the garden gates. 
 
 Blest he whose fortune not on men depends, 
 But on the rains, the sunshine and the soil, 
 
 Whom kindly nature first her treasures lends. 
 
 Who wins not wealth nor bread from others toil! 
 
 Come ye who slaving count your master's gold, 
 Your minds fast on the ledger's sordid lore, 
 
 To fields all ripe for harvest and behold 
 A toiling man whose soul is free to soar! 
 
 Come all who strive and moil 'neath dingy walls, 
 Come to the broader earth, the larger life; 
 
 Your heritage of brook and field still calls 
 You to the purer joys, the nobler strife! 
 
 20 
 
MY LOVE. 
 
 Oft when at eve the curfew's welcome toll 
 
 Has hushed the market cry, the children's pranks, 
 
 I hear the stiller language of my soul. 
 
 And love to wander on these mossy banks. 
 
 Where whispers yet in quiet dusky hours 
 
 A voice unheard in daytime's toil and care; 
 
 And 'neath these oaken, ivy-darkened bowers 
 'Tis sweeter then to breathe the summer air. 
 
 A presence fair as ever was impelled 
 By bidding memory to mortal's view, 
 
 As Eve when she at first her mate beheld, 
 
 Comes to my side that I may love and woo. 
 
 Yes, woo again in memory while round 
 
 The summer crickets chirp their lonely lay, 
 
 And the high moon sees on this mossy ground 
 The shadows of the lisping leaves at play. 
 
 Here was our Eden then, we sang and laughed, 
 And roved its flowery glens in Love's pursuit; 
 
 Of the pure springs of unmixed bliss we quaffed, 
 And ate our fill of unforbidden fruit. 
 
 In yonder peaceful darkly bowered plot 
 Where oak and ivy clasp in closer tie, 
 
 I loved to see the sweetness of my lot 
 
 In the dark depths of her enraptured eye. 
 
 We heard the brook, the birds, the zephyr breeze, 
 All living nature in our love song chime; 
 
 Ne'er saw while drunken with its harmonies 
 How stept to every song the feet of time. 
 
 Ah, thou that hushest every lover's lay 
 
 Canst never, never still Love's wondrous song; 
 
 That takest every breathing life away 
 
 Canst never, never thin the living throng! 
 
 21 
 
Now fade these winding woodland paths and I 
 Of memories a bridal veil yet weave, 
 
 While through the gloom the evening breezes sigh: 
 'There is no Eden here without its Eve!" 
 
 TO A ROSE ON HER GRAVE 
 
 Sweet rose, I first beheld thee yestermorn 
 Upon this sunken mound in early bloom, 
 
 As pure and lovely as the newly born 
 
 Art thou arisen from this somber tomb. 
 
 And while I breathe with pure delight thy breath, 
 I bow before the great transmuting Power 
 
 That holds the mystery of life and death. 
 
 And from the dust called thee, thou living flower. 
 
 Since I beheld thee in thy beauty here 
 
 Death has no sting for me, nor can it mar 
 
 The clearer faith I knew not at her bier, 
 When still I hoped beyond a judgment bar. 
 
 But now in thee I see her glorious rise. 
 
 In fresher purity than e'er before. 
 More sweetly smiled upon by sun and skies 
 
 Than when she woman's form and beauty wore. 
 
 A truth but not beyond my reason's bounds 
 
 With things obscure that only faith may clear; 
 
 A resurrection not by trumpet sounds 
 
 That even makes the righteous doubt and fear. 
 
 Thou teachest me of God's eternal plan : 
 
 The oneness of the All through death and birth- 
 One life immortal here since life began. 
 One beauty imaged over sky and earth. 
 
 22 
 
The self same love each different bosom fills. 
 
 On different altars burns the self same flame. 
 'Twas writ in stones ere rose the ancient hills: 
 
 One God in all, tho various be His name. 
 
 Not far on high, in incense-filled abode 
 
 By ghostly taper light revealed she kneels. 
 
 But still on earth with sunlight overflowed. 
 In earthly beauty clad she lives and feels. 
 
 Bloom long, sweet rose, ere fall thy petals here 
 On hallowed soil o'erlaid with flowery sod. 
 
 In beauty's changing forms she bideth near. 
 Her love and purity made one with God. 
 
 THE LORD'S VISIT 
 
 'Twas long since earth was made in heaven's plan, 
 
 The heritage and dwelling place of man, 
 When in his greed to love and kinship blind 
 
 He disinherited one-tenth his kind. 
 Thus while the revelers in the castle ate 
 
 Looked, hunger-pinched, the beggar through the gate. 
 The toil to which the naked slave was lashed 
 
 In diamonds on his rich-clad mistress flashed. 
 The hungry wept, the toilers groaned and sighed 
 
 Until their bitter tears to heaven cried, 
 And God came down to earth that he be sure 
 
 How ruled the mighty and how fared the poor. 
 
 In beggar's garb and sore in every limb 
 
 Approached he while the waning day grew dim 
 A mansion fair, imposing to the sight, 
 
 23 
 
And asked for food and shelter for the night. 
 "What impudence is this/' the owner said, 
 
 'To ask the chief himself for food and bed. 
 Prowling around at the approach of night? 
 
 Begone from here and from my servant's sight!'* 
 The Lord would not for fiercer insults wait. 
 
 But turned and marked a sword upon the gate. 
 
 II. 
 
 "Welcome, poor man, thrice welcome to my bread!" 
 
 The master of another mansion said. 
 "My honored guests are dining and when done 
 
 You shall have bread and meat to feast upon. 
 A downy couch my steward shall provide 
 
 That through the frosty night you may abide. 
 Some treat the poor in cruel, shameless way; 
 
 'Tis well for you that I am not as they. 
 No beggar leaves my door without an aim, 
 
 The nude are dressed, each wound receives a balm. 
 For though to many poor my gifts I doled 
 
 The Lord increased my wealth a hundred fold. 
 Each Sabbath service finds me in my place, 
 
 A pillar of God's temple, grown in grace. 
 Now stay and gain in virtue here tonight, 
 
 In this my house where reigns but truth and right.'* 
 The Lord declined although the day grew late, 
 
 And turned and marked a serpent on the gate. 
 
 in. 
 
 "Poor man," the inmate of a cottage said, 
 
 In answering the Lord's request for bread, 
 "God knows that I can only pity give, 
 
 Although, forsooth, on such you cannot live. 
 I toil with body lithe and fingers deft 
 
 For yonder man whose mansion you just left. 
 Each lengthening day I try to toil still more 
 
 To keep impending hunger from my door. 
 My master gains in riches day by day, 
 
 While starve his workers at their scanty pay. 
 
 24 
 
Before the world he poses saintly faced 
 
 As benefactor with all virtue graced. 
 This world grows worse, men walk the downward path 
 
 Till God shall smite this race in righteous wrath. 
 Our tears and supplications are in vain; 
 
 The slave himself must break his tightening chain." 
 The Lord, while brooding on this poor man's fate 
 
 Turned back and marked a cross upon the gate. 
 
 IV. 
 
 "Come in, poor friend, rest at my hearth a while/' 
 
 A peasant answered Him with cheerful smile. 
 "Your feet seem sore and stiff from weary walk. 
 
 At night the tired may rest in pleasant talk. 
 From morn till eve I till my master's soil, 
 
 But with my will, my work is never toil; 
 Have many children, worldly goods but few, 
 
 But still here is some bread and meat for you, 
 'Tis well I had from early youth been taught: 
 
 'Earth is a vale of tears with misery fraught.' 
 But now I'm glad to find 'mid stress and strife 
 
 More smiles than tears, more songs than sighs in Hfe. 
 All earthly pleasures have their base alloy; 
 
 The pampered lose the power to enjoy. 
 If I should feast on rich men's tables waste 
 
 My simple fare would lose its grateful taste." 
 With gratitude the Lord sat down and ate; 
 
 Then went and marked a heart upon the gate. 
 
 V. 
 
 The Lord now wandered through a woodland dark, 
 
 And lost his course without a pathway's mark, 
 When sudden from across the thicket near 
 
 A sweet, melodious song fell on his ear, 
 He soon was guided by a window's light 
 
 To a lone hut, a haven in the night. 
 "Come in, my brother, in your need, come in, 
 
 What's mine is yours," said soft a voice within. 
 
 25 
 
''So many lost ones draws my evening song 
 
 That through the storm I sing it loud and long. 
 All day in spirits blithe my ax I swing 
 
 And now with equal joy I rest and sing, 
 My wants are few, for more I look not round, 
 
 For happiness is not by seeking found. 
 From wine and woman free, no child I rear 
 
 To make men's lives more cheap and bread more dear; 
 Nor lets undue forethought me borrow 
 
 The cares belonging to tomorrow." 
 The Lord remained until the morn grew late; 
 
 And, parting, carved a crown upon the gate. 
 
 GRANDMOTHER 
 
 Weary of limb and bowed she still appears 
 
 Through changeless days on her accustomed place 
 
 In somber gown, cut just to fit her years. 
 
 Late autumn's sunshine in her furrowed face. 
 
 Where once she also on life's threshhold stood 
 She sees the passers on, the grown and small 
 
 Admire the beautiful and love the good 
 
 But her lars'e heart feels mother to them all. 
 
 What memories beguile the twilight hours 
 While deftly still her knitting needles ply 
 
 Of midday light which showed so bright the flowers, 
 Still leaving gleams across the evening sky! 
 
 Fair forms of by-gone years before her throng 
 To tell of days when golden gleamed her hair, 
 
 Until their far off laughter and their song 
 
 Are merged in sweet, young voices round her chair. 
 
 2G 
 
In closer retrospect are sterner years, 
 
 Telling of heavy burdens lightly borne, 
 
 Teaching that faith will win and vain are tears. 
 That truest hearts though wounded are not worn. 
 
 Calm, restful days when youth with reverence sees 
 
 Virtue rewarded with the silver crown, 
 When the beloved with her years increase 
 Drawing her love the generations down. 
 
 Ah, selfless love that looks for no return, 
 
 Whose sowing is its harvest while it gives ; 
 
 Which though its fires for all the shivering burn 
 Unknowingly on its own sweetness lives ! 
 
 As fainter fall the voices on her ear, 
 
 And twilight deepens into sightless night. 
 
 Her eyes takes lustre in the darkness here 
 By brighter glimpses of another light. 
 
 The purple rise of morning cannot show 
 More beauty than the sunset's afterglow 
 
 That rims the clouds and seems tonight to borrow 
 A splendor from the glory of tomorrow. 
 
 IDEALITY 
 
 In garlands clad, her finger dipt in gold. 
 
 She paints her pictures fair with matchless art, 
 
 In various forms that men will fain behold, 
 
 And sings of love and joy with fullest heart. 
 
 For onward, upward, greets a land her view. 
 Where evil never bides, nor sorrow weeps. 
 
 Where all is good and beautiful and true — 
 A fairer Eden where no serpent creeps. 
 
 27 
 
Through shadows near she sights a Hght afar, 
 And blithely points to it that we may see; 
 
 Through darkening clouds that wrap the things-that-are^ 
 She sees the silvery sheen of things-to-be. 
 
 Beneath her look that e'er with magic power 
 
 O'er what she sees her own high beauty throws, 
 
 Unlovely wilds grow fair as Eden's bower, 
 The common clay a golden luster shows. 
 
 WHAT IS LIFE? 
 
 A dream in the darkness of night; 
 
 A look to a fancy-made shore; 
 A wave from eternity's tide ; 
 
 Behold, and the dream is no more! 
 
 A ship on the river of time, 
 
 Bent upward against the swift flow, 
 But downward it floats with the tide 
 To sink in the ocean below. 
 
 A caravan bound for a land 
 
 Whose valleys are dewy and green, 
 But follows the phantoms in sand 
 
 And stops where its borders are seen. 
 
 A plant with the sweetest of flowers, 
 Yet ever for fruitage it sighs, 
 
 How soon with the blustering showers 
 Each fruit with an autumn leaf lies! 
 
 28 
 
SONG OF THE MILL GIRL 
 
 Down the lane the sun is shining. 
 
 But to me it brings no cheer; 
 In the eaves the birds are singing, 
 
 But their songs I cannot hear. 
 Through the roaring and the clattering 
 
 Ever sounding in my ear. 
 Midst the moiling and the toiling 
 
 In this dungeon dark and drear. 
 Restless like this mighty wheel. 
 Black and grim in sooty steel, 
 Mirth can mate with sorrow deep; 
 In one breath I laugh and weep. 
 
 Ladies dressed in costly garments. 
 
 Would my plight to you appeal, 
 If you saw where I must weave them, 
 
 If you knew how I must feel 
 In this never ceasing hurry 
 
 That can make my senses reel. 
 At the whirling and the twirling 
 
 Of this never resting wheel, 
 That can work but cannot tire. 
 Ever keeps my brain on fire, 
 Needs no clothes nor does it eat. 
 How can I with it compete? 
 
 For the shops, the mills and markets 
 
 Heaven made not womankind. 
 Only at the silent hearthstone 
 
 Can she peace and happiness find, 
 Midst the sweet and guileless prattling 
 
 Of the child with simple mind. 
 Where each duty has its beauty 
 
 And are sweet the ties that bind. 
 Oh, give me the simple bliss 
 That no woman here should miss! 
 Merciless the wheel keeps turning 
 While my heart for home is yearning. 
 
 29 
 
THE MIDNIGHT TOILERS 
 
 I stood upon the narrow bridge this morn, 
 Glad with the scene of river, hill and wood, 
 
 And in my heart a joy anew was born 
 That earth is beautiful and God is good. 
 
 When I of sudden from my reverie woke 
 
 A throng of drowsy homeward striding men, 
 
 Upon their lips the weed's unholy smoke 
 To give the flagging spirits life again. 
 
 What wretched place was their abode that night 
 That robbed their faces of the healthy glow? 
 
 What took from out their eyes the living light, 
 
 And made them blank and downcast with mute woe? 
 
 Has He who made so fair each summer flower 
 And gave each bird a song and lovely hue 
 
 Not made these toilers of the midnight hour ; 
 Has he not made these weary strugglers too? 
 
 What griping nightmare life for such must be 
 
 In toilsome waking and in fitful sleep 
 Until the last faint sparks of manhood flee 
 
 And brute's content the wreck alive may keep ! 
 
 'Tis such that wastes the body, blunts the soul, 
 
 Begets the craving for the liquid fire, 
 The bar-room revels round the deadening bowl 
 
 Are near the treadmills where the toilers tire. 
 
 30 
 
THE NEW SLAVER 
 
 Harkl Ye men of this republic; 
 
 Hark! Ye women far and near; 
 There comes a low but ceaseless murmur, 
 
 Most too faint to reach the ear. 
 
 From the mines beneath the mountains, 
 From the coal pits deep and lone, 
 
 Now comes from hungry, blackened toilers 
 Through the night a stifled groan! 
 
 In the sweatshops dark and dingy 
 Hear the low and mournful sighs 
 
 Of many a pale and weary woman 
 Whose sad plight to heaven cries! 
 
 Whose are yonder fading children 
 In the treadmill's reeking den? 
 Has again the cruel slaver 
 
 Welded chains for guileless men? 
 
 Has the demon who was driven 
 From the Southern cotton fields 
 
 Put finer slaves with defter finger 
 
 Where his former foe him shields? 
 
 Yes, he did, but now his fetters 
 Are not made of clanging steel. 
 
 He wields no scourge above his victims, 
 But pretends to guard their weal. 
 
 Now his chain is dread of hunger, 
 And his scourge is hunger's pang. 
 
 His ill design is deftly hidden 
 Like the serpent's deadly fang. 
 
 See him pose as benefactor 
 
 Giving back some stolen dross! 
 
 The devil loves to lie in hiding 
 In the shadow of the cross! 
 
 31 
 
Heavy was the black man's burden, 
 But no care disturbed his sleep. 
 
 Beside the white slave's couch are watching 
 Ghostly shapes that fret and weep. 
 
 Louder grows the muffled murmur 
 'Neath the slaver's unseen lash 
 
 Until it swells as muttering thunder 
 To the midnight lightning flash. 
 
 JOY AND SORROW 
 
 Hear the news I bring thee, mother; 
 
 It will fill thy heart with joy, 
 For tomorrow with the sunlight 
 
 Comes my Joe, my sailor boy. 
 
 Just today I passed the harbor, 
 Thinking of my Joe and thee; 
 
 And I saw a full-rigged vessel 
 Out upon the open sea. 
 
 And they said it was the Blossom, 
 Coming home from foreign isles ; 
 
 And my heart leaped forth in gladness, 
 And the world seemed all in smiles. 
 
 But I could not be contented 
 
 Till I brought the news to thee. 
 
 That thou share my boundless rapture, 
 When my Joe comes home to me. 
 
 Now I'll tell the lads and lasses 
 That the Blossom's out in sight; 
 
 And we'll have a merry gathering 
 And a dance tomorrow night. 
 
 32 
 
Then my Joe will be the hero, 
 And will all the lads outshine; 
 
 And the girls will fondly tell me 
 That his glory is half mine. 
 
 At the harbor I will meet him, 
 When his ship at anchor lies, 
 
 And the rapture that will thrill me 
 Will be pictured in his eyes. 
 
 On the Morrow 
 
 When I reached the harbor, mother, 
 It was lashed in wild uproar, 
 
 And the sky was low and murky, 
 And the surges washed the shore. 
 
 Oh! so bodeful was the wailing 
 Of the gale that swept the bay, 
 
 And the raving of the billows 
 
 Made me shrink with keen dismay. 
 
 When I asked about the Blossom, 
 All would fain the answer shun, 
 
 They saw her sails last evening 
 Gleaming in the setting sun. 
 
 Then I saw a youth beside me ; 
 
 Oh! so strange I cannot say, 
 Was he looking when he uttered, 
 
 "Maiden thou must weep and pray? 
 
 "For the Blossom was at midnight 
 Tossed upon the Unknown Shore; 
 
 And the sailors that were landing 
 On its beach return no more." 
 
 And I shook with sudden terror, 
 But no tears came to my eyes ; 
 
 All the world seemed waste and wretched 
 All the sounds were moans and sighs. 
 
 33 
 
When I turned, the youth had vanished, 
 And in haste I came to thee ; 
 
 But I bring thee mournful tidings, 
 Only grief to share with me. 
 
 Oh ! the ocean draws me fiercely, 
 I must hear its billows roar ; 
 
 For my heart beats with their breaking 
 On the bleak and dismal shore. 
 
 Tell me it's a dream, my mother, 
 That will soon be o'er and gone; 
 
 Tell me that I'll see him coming 
 At the setting of the sun. 
 
 TWO CONSCRIPTS 
 
 The sun had set and ruddy rose the moon 
 And saw upon a field a thousand lie; 
 
 And half that stared in death or lay in swoon 
 
 Had shed each other's blood and knew not why. 
 
 One oped his eyes and saw the stars o'erhead 
 Gleaming in peace, each on its wonted way. 
 
 And heard a cricket sing among the dead, 
 
 And breathed the fragrance of the new-mown hay. 
 
 He raised his head, his was no fatal wound, 
 And looked upon the field of death and woe. 
 
 And where with bleeding breast beside him swooned 
 One whom he dealt today the mortal blow. 
 
 34 
 
Who also woke from stupor and beheld 
 
 The soldier with the foeman's colors near, 
 
 Whom he in battle's blinding rage had dealt 
 
 The stroke that left him stunned and bleeding here. 
 
 His eyes with quickly kindled lustre shone, 
 So like the glimemring taper ere it dies. 
 
 He faintly spoke with many a painful groan, 
 But looking steadfast in his slayer's eyes : 
 
 'Torgive me — I have full forgiven you. 
 
 For we are brothers and our common foes 
 
 Are those at whose command we came and slew, 
 Or slain lie here, or groan in dying throes. 
 
 "Tomorrow you shall tread again this field 
 That me, beyond, accuse no murdered man. 
 
 When bound each wound, and death has reaped his yield 
 Make here my grave where fell the battle's van. 
 
 "And when a traveler comes from Lindendale 
 
 With weary aged face and seeking eye 
 To find his son within this pillaged vale, 
 
 Be kind to him and show him where I lie. 
 
 "And you will list when he in tremor tells 
 How we some weeks ago one afternoon 
 
 Gathered while gaily chimed the marriage bells 
 To feast and dance beneath the harvest moon. 
 
 "How blithe we were and gladdened to behold 
 
 The harvest queen with wheaten garlands crowned, 
 
 For now the glowing fields with waving gold 
 Were waiting for the reaper's busy round. 
 
 "And of the woe when those who held the power 
 Of sudden broke upon our mirth and song 
 
 And bade us leave our homes at early hour 
 
 To shed the blood of men who willed no wrong. 
 
 35 
 
"How moaned the bride with grief and horror wild 
 Among the weeping mothers' gathering throng ! 
 
 Still can I hear how spoke my only child 
 
 With sobbing voice: 'O, father, stay not long!* 
 
 "And some invoked for help the higher Power 
 And others railed against the powers that be 
 
 Till came with woe renewed the parting hour 
 And my own loved ones tore away from me." 
 
 Now died his voice and fainter grew his breath, 
 While stared his eyes upon the starry throng, 
 
 And still he heard between the steps of death 
 The sobbing voice: *0, father, stay not long!" 
 
 The morning came and in the twilight gray 
 A sated vulture rose his mate to find, 
 
 And wondered why of all the brutes of prey 
 There is not one, but man, that kills his kind. 
 
 36 
 
THE NEW EARTH 
 
 Are you waiting for the morning, 
 Watchers on the mountain peak; 
 
 New-born hope your brows adorning, 
 W^hile your hearts the warm love seek? 
 
 See the birds of night retreating! 
 
 Hear abroad a chaster song! 
 Children of the dawn are meeting, 
 
 Treading down the ancient wrong! 
 
 Where the slave in darkness muttered 
 Light of freedom shineth clear, 
 
 Love that lips had never uttered 
 Finds a voice that all may hear. 
 
 See with gladness closer drawing 
 
 Hearts unspoiled by lust and pelf 
 
 Fear of conquest ceased its gnawing 
 
 For each man has conquered self. 
 
 Men of evil who had hidden 
 
 'Neath the glove the panther's paw 
 
 Turned to righteousness unbidden, 
 All are just where love is law. 
 
 Curse of Adam, it is banished! 
 
 Where all work none need to toil. 
 And the slums and sweatshops vanished, 
 
 They that dwelt there till free soil. 
 
 37 
 
THE AGES OF MAN 
 One 
 
 Behold the lordling in his cradle lie 
 
 Viewing a wondrous world with dreamy eye, 
 
 But seeing not beyond the present hour! 
 
 Behold the helpless armful who has power 
 
 To draw a smile from each down-looking face. 
 
 Ere tottering, he begins the floor to pace ! 
 
 His love confined to self and glittering things 
 
 To mother's breast for warmth and food he clings. 
 
 How small [ and yet the tiny figure holds 
 
 What good and ill the future youth unfolds. 
 
 Dream sweet, fair child, ere drowsy dawn takes flight! 
 
 Dream sweet in arms that find love's burden light! 
 
 Ten 
 
 The world has greater grown, in sweep unbound, 
 And vague it lies beyond his playing-ground. 
 The days with happenings fraught go slowly by; 
 This hoary earth is young to his young eye. 
 He romps the fields and knows each trodden nook 
 Explores the woods and wades the rippling brook. 
 And far beyond his plays' familiar scene 
 There lies the future-land in hazy sheen 
 Whose airy beauties ever shift and change 
 As fancy leads upon her boundless range 
 How sweet is hope whose phantoms beckon sure! 
 Oh, that her airy dreams would ever lure! 
 
 Twenty 
 
 'Tis now if ever swells the breast with pride. 
 Of strength and beauty, on life's rising tide. 
 He hears the selfsame call with blithe unrest 
 That bids the fledgling leave the parent nest. 
 The vanished haze has left the hills in green 
 And each ideal shines forth in clearer sheen 
 
 38 
 
There is one near — none equal her on earth — 
 The lass more dear than she who gave him birth. 
 Can aught on earth make joy yet higher rise 
 Than Love's first glances from the loved one's eyes? 
 Ah, Love, how incomplete and bare is life 
 Without thy sweets and bitters^ peace and strife! 
 
 Thirty 
 
 In fullest prime he stands at life's divide 
 
 And look to less on each down-sloping side. 
 
 He needs his power as daily now he strives 
 
 For weaker on his strength depending lives. 
 
 The rainbow fades ; the brighter midday sun 
 
 Shows the frail webs by early fancy spun. 
 
 Ambition ceased to soar to heights unbound, 
 
 But seeks its goal .upon the surer ground. 
 
 To cope with ills, to test the arm in strife 
 
 Is sheer delight in highest" prime of Hfe. 
 
 What matters if the tempest lash the main 
 
 When strong the ship and quick the hand and brain! 
 
 Forty 
 
 The stream that tumbled from the mountain sides 
 Now calmly through the quiet valley glides. 
 The vernal bloom, the summer's efforts show 
 Their first ripe fruit in early autumn's glow. 
 All this he contemplates with placid joy, 
 But more delights bestow his girl and boy. 
 The pride that sees its early objects wrecked 
 Now feeds on moral good and intellect. 
 And though he saw his youth's air castles vain, 
 The vanity that built them will remain. 
 How shall we gain perfection on this earth 
 With blemishes received before our birth? 
 
 Fifty 
 
 As one by one the flakes fall on his hair. 
 
 His weakening frame can less of hardship bear. 
 
 Though memory can fewer imprints keep, 
 
 39 
 
Life's wisdom sinks its cautious roots more deep. 
 He knows of time-tried hearts yet hardly worn, 
 Of harsh and heavy burden's lightly borne; 
 And that the pathway over pleasure's height 
 Leads to the depth of misery's darkest night. 
 But he now free from passion's errant dreams 
 Can well avoid the dangerous extremes. 
 When strength and beauty wane with life's decline 
 The loss brings gain if we to loss resign. 
 
 Sixty 
 
 A silver crown of honor is old age 
 For he was not debauched by passion's rage, 
 Nor drank of fulsome vice who reaches here, 
 But kept his body pure and conscience clear; 
 And he whose backward look has no regret 
 Fears not to see his life's dim evening set. 
 He chills with age but in some maids and swains 
 He knows, his blood flows warm in youthful veins. 
 And well for him to cling to that sweet hope 
 Shining that man may not in darkness grope; 
 But see himself beyond the grave the heir 
 Of treasures gathered here that all may share. 
 
 Seventy 
 
 Can morning's purple rise more beauty show 
 
 Than golden sunset in its mellow glow? 
 
 'Tis pain when sudden he with scythe in hands 
 
 At the door an unexpected stranger stands. 
 
 But now he slowly comes with tottering pace 
 
 So like his host who welcomes his embrace. 
 
 Why speak of death as cruel? The sun's warm ray 
 
 Will call to life what mortals call decay. 
 
 What gives the roses on the silent mounds 
 
 The richer petals round their lovely crowns? 
 
 See everywhere the same life's pulsing breath 
 
 The verdant graves proclaim : "Here is no death !'' 
 
 40 
 
THE OLD SCHOOL HOUSE 
 
 Here it stands where the brooklet chimes 
 With the hum of the forest wild; 
 
 Lulled in a dream of its lustrous times 
 When the man of today was a child. 
 
 Abandoned, decaying, alone! 
 
 What somberness broods over all ! 
 How mournful the zephyrs now moan 
 
 That sweep through the gloom of its hall! 
 
 Where the echoes of frolic once rang 
 The voice of the wilderness falls ; 
 
 Where the chorus of children once sang 
 In silence are crumbling the walls. 
 
 Old paths by the brooklet, it seems 
 Still faintly are pressed in the sod. 
 
 How must they yet float through the dreams 
 Of those whose bare feet them once trod. 
 
 Oh, where are they now that through years 
 
 Here frolicked or pondered their lore? 
 I ask of the forest that hears 
 
 The peals of their laughter no more. 
 
 But a robin yet sings overhead 
 
 The song of the olden time, 
 And the brook in its meadow-fringed bed 
 
 Still tinkles the old, old chime. 
 
 41 
 
A FARMER TO HIS CHILDREN 
 
 My son, my daughter, flesh and blood of mine! 
 For you I toiled and reared this pleasant home. 
 And vou have honored and obeyed me well, 
 For thus repays the child the parent's love. 
 And you accept" the counsel of the old, 
 For they have learnt and trodden all life's way. 
 
 As seasons came and went we tilled our fields, 
 And sowed in hope and harvested with thanks, . 
 And knew the relish of the, self-earned bread. 
 With plenty could we look upon the morrow 
 And bid the stranger welcome to our hearth. 
 This spirit ruled the hearts and homes of all 
 And even where love was not in love's, full warmth, 
 Still throbbed each bosom true to every one 
 And hated lies and all hypocrisy. 
 Thus was our vale a blessed spot on earth, 
 And still it is, be glad of it, my children! 
 Still all are wholesome who live wholesome lives. 
 
 Yet now I feel an evil influence 
 Come slowly stealing on our peaceful vale, 
 For evil haunts man's denser habitations, 
 Where a distemper is abroad and sinks 
 Its virus deeper in their minds and souls ; 
 It oft was ravishing the tribes of men 
 Who would not listen to their prophet's voic^ 
 Now man in fever raving turns his hand 
 Against his brothers, sparing not the weak. 
 Even to our quiet vale the muffled moan 
 Of the down-stricken finds its pathless way. 
 All the fierce passions and the loathsome lusts 
 That virtuous men curb down are loose abroad. 
 There comes a bitter wail from homes dissolved, 
 The shelterless, the hungry and the naked. 
 My son, my daughter, you are asking why? 
 My answer is : Because of wickedness. 
 
 Ah, why go women shivering half-clad? 
 Time was when every maiden of our land 
 
 42 
 
Was skilled with needle, loom and spinning wheel, 
 And made her garments tasteful, neat and lasting. 
 No power on earth could rob her of her raiment. 
 And then she left her work to the machine, 
 And in the flimsy fabrics of the shops 
 Had ample time to promenade the streets. 
 O spirits of the workers at the loom, 
 Come teach your daughters the forgotten arts 
 The homely skill to spin and weave and sew 
 That they may cover all their nakedness ! 
 Yes, they called to service the machine 
 Which now makes them its toiling hand-maids. 
 And thousands more are begging to be slaves. 
 For the rich master owns each tool and wheel. 
 And still 'tis written man must sweat for bread. 
 Therefore, my daughter, cherish all the arts 
 Your mother taught you for your life-long good. 
 Thus will our skill and soil each want supply. 
 We need not fear the money-monger's tricks, 
 And yield no blood to vampires of the trade. 
 
 Now why go men half-fed, and waste in slums? 
 
 And why more now than in the long ago? 
 
 Ah, children, listen well and mark my words: 
 
 See the fierce rush of life these latter days 
 
 Which fools proclaim to be virility? 
 
 It is the fever of the malady 
 
 Which goads and crazes men and makes them blind 
 
 To the eternal verities of life. 
 
 And leads to phantoms and to vicious gods; 
 
 And so intense is their devotion 
 
 That they rush down their fellow-worshippers, 
 
 And tread their weaker brothers under feet. 
 
 In man carnivorous the tiger lurks 
 
 Which those of moral health and strength curb down. 
 
 The sham and bubbles of the city lured 
 
 Their thousands of the honest country youth 
 
 Who struggle in the meshes laid by greed. 
 
 Or groan beneath its crushing iron heel; 
 
 And others of its victims in despair 
 
 Will drown their ache of body and of mind 
 
 43 
 
In liquid fire, and make their ruin complete. 
 Therefore, my son, remember all your days: 
 The farmer feeds and clothes himself and all. 
 Remain where wave the golden harvest fields. 
 And you shall not go hungry, nor lack work. 
 Then guard your heart against the vile contagion 
 The fever fit which fell upon the race 
 Will run its course and then abate exhausted. 
 
 Another truth, my children, I would speak: 
 I kept my eyes, and ears and brain alert. 
 And when I drew the furrows on the field, 
 I thought of simple truths which books not tell. 
 All life would fain increase beyond its food. 
 'Tis blessing for the weaker on this earth 
 That the stronger keep their number down. 
 But man the strongest ; ah, there is his curse ! 
 On him will prey the stronger of his kind. 
 Therefore falls tribe on tribe for living room; 
 See how we swept the red man from his soil ! 
 And thus comes war else famine, pestilence 
 Come periodical ! See India, China ! 
 Our vale could not grow food for twice its number 
 Which we should never wantonly increase. 
 Yes, stronger man who rules the lower creatures, 
 Shall also rule himself, and his desires. 
 In the high state to which our race aspires 
 Each parent pair a pair of children leaves 
 As the rich heirs of earth's abundance. 
 
 THE SPARK DIVINE 
 
 Down deeper in his heart with wrong debased, 
 
 And seared by still unholier desires, 
 Yet glows a spark that God himself has placed 
 
 Within — a spark from His own altar fires. 
 
 Though callous be the base transgressor's flesh. 
 This burning spark may sometime bend his knees, 
 
 44 
 
For oft it blazes up to scorch afresh, 
 
 While in its light the soul its blackness sees. 
 
 O spark Divine! whatever men thee name. 
 While thou aglow compelst from sin a tear, 
 
 Or blazest heav'nward in yet holier flame, 
 The might of hell can never triumph here. 
 
 DREAMS OF HOME 
 
 To draw some exiled soul from lands afar 
 The unforgotten haunts in dreams to seek 
 No earthly vale can be too drear and bleak 
 
 While the grim Fates the homeward footsteps bar. 
 
 When night holds fast in slumber care and toil, 
 We may unfettered glide through time and space 
 To see as child again some dear-held place 
 
 And walk the pathways on the native soil. 
 
 Long vanished faces smile in last farewells, 
 
 A long-hushed voice yet sounds with youthful ring 
 Where still the quiet, dusky evenings bring 
 
 The mellow chiming of the old church bells. 
 
 The things that once the child with joy beheld 
 Are lovely still before the dreamer's eye. 
 Young passion that, though buried, could not die 
 
 Is yet with equal thrill in dreamland felt. 
 
 Illusive hope that looks through glistening tears 
 To days that would the happier past repeat. 
 In fading light the homeward wandering feet 
 
 May well retrace the miles, but not the years. 
 
 His silver hair gold-tinged in sunset beams, 
 
 The home-come wanderer sees the selfsame scene, 
 No longer in young fancy's Mav-time green. 
 
 Old home's true pictures only shine in dreams. 
 
 45 
 
TO ILLUSION 
 
 No more I scorn thy name, nor do I grieve 
 That of thy vintage I have drunk ,so long, 
 
 Fair presence, charming me since thou did'st weave 
 My mother's dreams when lulled her cradle spng. 
 
 And I rejoice 'twas not an evil power 
 
 That made thee of the morning rainbow hues, 
 
 And bade thee dwell in dreamland's fairest bower, 
 Where many a hopeful heart enrapt thee woos. 
 
 Thy gift is joy, the goal of man's pursuit, 
 
 Whose heaven is nearest while for heaven he prays; 
 
 Thy bower's blossoms flower not for fruit, 
 But for the beauty of the springtime days. 
 
 'Tis thou who paint'st upon the gazing east 
 More beautiful the golden sunset glow; 
 
 Who madest the foretaste sweeter than the feast 
 Ere rang the wedding bells a moon ago. 
 
 The monarch dreams of greater sway and fame; 
 
 The beggar sees afar his castle tower ; 
 Alike they drink thy wine, then curse thy name 
 
 In the first anguish of thy parting hour. 
 
 Anon in altered garment thou appearst 
 
 Upon a luring shore, with beckoning hand, 
 
 And on the wreckage of the old thou rearst 
 Yet fairer mansions on the shifting sand. 
 
 The aged willingly sink unto rest 
 
 When fades thy vision from their sunken eyes. 
 And counting o'er their days with gladness blest, 
 
 In silent wonderment give thee the prize. 
 
 I will not look for fruit upon the bough 
 
 Whose blossoms, sweeter yet, I plucked in spring; 
 Nor weep before the unreached summit now, 
 
 Whose far off gleam lets me of glory sing. 
 
 46 
 
THE PRODIGAL 
 
 This is the blue Willamette, meadow-fringed, 
 Winding to meet the broader Oregon.. 
 The banks are fair with pink and golden flowers, 
 And white in blossom are the trees o'erhead, 
 Where coos a dove in answer to her mate. 
 Beyond the verdant fields in upward slope 
 Are the dim mountains, now in hazy gray. 
 
 Such was the scene that Myra gazed upon, 
 
 One balmy April eve, but saw it not, 
 
 Nor even the sunset glow which heightened now 
 
 The golden tinge upon her wavy hair 
 
 And showed her slender form yet lovelier 
 
 Amid the flowers that thickly round her gleamed. 
 
 Still were her thoughts among the city's whirl, 
 
 Whose pleasures she had tasted first last week 
 
 Upon a visit to a wealthy aunt. 
 
 How dull and quiet seemed the country home 
 
 Since she reluctantly had left the glare 
 
 And thrilling scenes of life among the gay! 
 
 The quiet charm of her own flower garden, 
 
 Where bloomed the pansies she had sown last year 
 
 No longer found response in her changed heart. 
 
 Her younger brother on the river's edge, 
 
 Whose play she oft had watched with mother care, 
 
 Now looked in vain for her admiring eyes. 
 
 And Otto Lay, the nearest neighbor's son — 
 
 But no, she could no longer think of him 
 
 With whom she'd played as child, and then read books 
 
 With lore too deep for others of her age, 
 
 Her champion, comrade, friend from infancy, 
 
 Until one Christmas eve in candle light 
 
 When she observed of sudden in his eyes 
 
 A glow that meant far more than love of friendship. 
 
 At first it awed her and confused her thoughts, 
 
 And then it kindled in her maiden heart 
 
 A flame of the same fire and equal glow. 
 
 And yet this new and deeply felt emotion 
 
 Could never lessen those of other kind, 
 
 But added joy and fuller harmony, 
 
 47 
 
While the new love-light gleaming in her eyes 
 Shed over all a wondrous mystery. 
 Her parent's mutual love and tenderness 
 Took a new meaning in her wakened heart. 
 The brooklet babbled on in sweeter voice; 
 Each tiny bird had love joy in its song 
 And every passer-by a smile for her. 
 
 All this now looked like memories of childhood 
 In the new light which dazzled her young eyes. 
 And while the pictures of last week's delights 
 Were floating by in roseate afterglow 
 She saw naught else in evening's deepening dusk 
 Till Otto's stalwart form before her stood. 
 A youth of twenty-three, high-browed and keen, 
 He looked upon the maiden of nineteen. 
 Awaked from blissful dreams to sober life 
 She shrank while gazing in his earnest face. 
 Her eyes were indistinct so late at evening, 
 But with the trust of long companionship 
 He took her hand and sat beside her close. 
 
 "Ah, warmest love that sometimes takes a chill 
 
 From over-warmth, and feels a shiver through. 
 
 And lays a cloud across the lover's heaven." 
 
 So Otto thought, while unforewarned he missed 
 
 The flow of ardor from her heart to his. 
 
 The love that speaks while closed the maiden's lips. 
 
 And then he blandly said, as was his wont: 
 
 "My Myra, you have heard the turtle-dove 
 
 That softly cooed in answer to her mate. 
 
 I saw their new-built home upon a bough, 
 
 For this is nesting time for mated birds. 
 
 Love-making has its time and sweet it is, 
 
 And ours was long and glowed with nectared flowers, 
 
 But fairest blossoms bloom for future fruit, 
 
 And love looks forward to the bridal veil. 
 
 To my ardent vows you oft have listened. 
 
 And I have heard yours, but softer and subdued, 
 
 And timid as becomes a modest girl. 
 
 But then your rapid breath and heaving bosom, 
 
 Still more the lustre of your eyes betrayed 
 
 48 
 
That love your very being held and swayed; 
 
 Not with impetuous rush as rules it me. 
 
 But as the zephyr breathing on the violet, 
 
 Coaxing its fragrance to the sunlight. 
 
 And so twines twofold love the man and maid. 
 
 The tender with the strong in mutual joy. 
 
 To harmonize two selves who are unlike. 
 
 So shall we love and ever be a twain, 
 
 For oneness is monotony that saddens 
 
 And love turns into self and chills all else. 
 
 Now, Myra, we have walked the rose-fringed path 
 
 Of courtship hand in hand up to the gate 
 
 Where the kind Fates have written 'Wedded Life.' 
 
 So fix the marriage day and choose the spot 
 
 W^hereon your fancy lights for our new home. 
 
 These many years I saw it in my dreams : 
 
 In this fair vale with lovely mountain views; 
 
 Upon this farm with fruits and waving grain ; 
 
 Amidst a garden sweet with summer flowers ; 
 
 A cottage fair with things that give delight; 
 
 And you therein, the happiest of women. 
 
 Now be the dream fulfilled — " 
 
 He stopped; then looked to her in vague alarm, 
 
 For she had sudden drawn her hand from his, 
 
 And moaning pressed it tightly on her eyes. 
 
 "O, cease," she cried. " 'Tis all that I can bear. 
 
 I seek in vain for words to tell the truth, 
 
 Without a cruel stab to bleed your heart. 
 
 Yet you must know, and best you know it now. 
 
 Therefore be quick the blow and past the pang." 
 
 ''Compose yourself, my Myra," Otto said; 
 
 "A fever rages in your veins this evening; 
 
 Your brain is hot, you know not what you say; 
 
 Let me attend you home that you may rest. 
 
 Your mother still can make the cooling draughts 
 
 From native herbs, far better than all drugs. 
 
 Tomorrow you will be yourself again." 
 
 This touched her strange, it seemed such flippant speech. 
 
 'T hope," she said, "for I am much distraught. 
 
 But this know first: I love another man. 
 
 49 
 
Now vent your anger; after storm comes calm, 
 And if this wounds you, time will heal it 
 And bring the day when you in happier love 
 Will bless this evening as your fortune's morn." 
 "I cannot comprehend your words," he said, 
 "Yet know that strangely made is woman's mind, 
 Mysterious as unfathomed seas to man. 
 Perhaps it is my own which is adrift, 
 For what I seem to hear cannot be true. 
 My Myra, strong in love and staunch to me, 
 Could not have listened to the tempter's voice. 
 No, no; too good is Myra to be false." 
 ''Your words are fiery coals upon my head," 
 She cried; "Caressing speech is torture now. 
 Oh, curse me; call me false and base and cruel 
 And cast me off from you, as is your right ! 
 And think of me with scorn, and then forget me, 
 And court a woman worthy of your love." 
 
 She paused; her face was hidden in her hands. 
 
 He, too, was still and seemed in brooding thought. 
 
 All round was evening peace, as made to soothe 
 
 Two stormy hearts. Upon the river's sheen 
 
 A waterfowl sailed softly to the shore. 
 
 And found its lodging in the silent rushes. 
 
 But when o'erhead an owl with ugly screech 
 
 AHghted, Myra drew instinctively. 
 
 As fearsome woman does, to stronger man. 
 
 Laying her hand upon his arm she spoke : 
 
 "You take it calmly, as becomes a man 
 
 Whose happiness hangs not on woman's will. 
 
 I see your love was not the fiery kind 
 
 That holds its object with tenacious clasp 
 
 And pines, or turns to madness at its loss. 
 
 'Tis well for us. I feel relieved and gladdened. 
 
 Then we can still be friends as once we were. 
 
 And happy in each other's happiness. 
 
 The early love as joyful children's play 
 
 Did satisfy, for it was all we knew. 
 
 It will remain a cherished memory. 
 
 Together we shall smile in riper year 
 
 50 
 
At joys of that affection Immature, 
 
 Ere the real passion comes to sway the soul. 
 
 To me it came and led me to the mount 
 
 Of earthly bliss. Below me fades in dusk 
 
 The dell which you and I called Paradise, 
 
 Wherein we dwelt at love's first bidding 
 
 Until a greater love called me to heights 
 
 Whose ecstacy exceeds all other joy." 
 
 "What man has called you from our paradise 
 
 To that exalted joy whereof you speak?" 
 
 Asked Otto calmly, yet with altered voice. 
 
 She rose as if affronted and replied : 
 
 "A man whose eyes are flames of love to mine, 
 
 Whose lips pour forth nobility of soul, 
 
 Whose every turn bespeaks refinement high. 
 
 So he became the ruler of my heart. 
 
 And as the stronger did he oust the weak." 
 
 "Your heart is such a feeble fortress then," 
 
 Said Otto slowly, with uncertain calmness, 
 
 "That he who holds it sure must be on guard 
 
 Lest someone stronger come and cast him out? 
 
 And what of duty and the plighted troth. 
 
 The honor which the world demands, respects ! 
 
 Are they mere phrases, meaningless to you, 
 
 And which the victor, too, cast out with me? 
 
 Can errant passion be indeed so wild, 
 
 And lull the consicence and subdue the will? 
 
 Or is free-will only the scale that tips 
 
 With that which best is serving self's desire?" 
 
 "Maybe," she said, "the strongest urge in me 
 
 Is my free-will, naught else. Thus was I made, 
 
 And if made faulty, 'tis my Maker's fault." 
 
 Then Otto spoke with low, yet firmer voice : 
 
 "So be it then ; I cannot stem such will. 
 
 Take back the promise of an ill-starred day, 
 
 And drink the brimming sweets which now you crave. 
 
 Oh, be they not distilled from poisoned flowers. 
 
 Shall be my parting wish, my glimmering hope !" 
 
 Dark was the night when Otto stumbled homeward, 
 From darkness rose his wounded heart's outcry : 
 
 51 
 
*'Oh then adieu, adieu, lost Paradise, 
 
 Where promise sweetly on fulfilment smiled, 
 
 Where never glowed the fierce midsummer suns 
 
 Upon the flora of the fragrant dells ! 
 
 Now fade thy violets, thy roses pale, 
 
 Abandoned by thy Eve of her own will ! 
 
 Can she find fairer blossoms in the wild 
 
 Whither she goes, skies more serene and blue? 
 
 Ah, something in one mocks : * 'Tis naught to you.' 
 
 If that be true, I cannot feel it so. 
 
 Still shall my thoughts in solitary hours 
 
 Pursue her steps upon her errant way. 
 
 Still shall her grief and sorrows be my own ; 
 
 Her happiness wake music in my soul." 
 
 Next Sunday Myra sat upon the porch 
 
 Beside her garden, where upstarting weeds 
 
 Almost obscured the opening Easter lilies. 
 
 Upon her lap a book with pictures lay. 
 
 Showing late fashions and new opera stars. 
 
 Her father in his Sunday's best sat near. 
 
 And seemed in turn to read a newsy sheet 
 
 And some new riddle in his daughter's eyes. 
 
 After a glance upon her book he said : 
 
 "Is it then true that you with discontent 
 
 Look on the farm and all the things you loved 
 
 And dream of gilded parlors in the city?" 
 
 "Yes, father," answered she, ''all that is true, 
 
 And if you love me as I feel you do, 
 
 You will not grudge me greater happiness. 
 
 So many a father heard I speak with gladness : 
 
 'My children shall be happiner than L' 
 
 I know you are among the kindliest." 
 
 He looked surprised and answered while he smiled 
 
 "Indeed, I wish my daughter happiness. 
 
 But there's the how and where, and, most of all, 
 
 The why she has not kept that what she had. 
 
 So oft I saw her heart all filled with it. 
 
 And what, in truth, can yet be more than full 
 
 Without its flowing o'er in empty air? 
 
 And when I looked upon your face and thought, 
 
 52 
 
She has the fuhiess of the joy of youth, 
 
 It sent a ray of it in my old heart. 
 
 Of all the beauties that my Hfe adorned 
 
 You were the crown, making them loveUer still, 
 
 The flower of her beauty unaware, 
 
 And shedding lustre on the lesser ones. 
 
 And since I first looked in your baby eyes 
 
 You had each day through all the changing years 
 
 The full allotment of all earthly good." 
 
 ''Should I not trust my senses, father?" 
 
 Answered she. "Do I not know that the delights 
 
 I tasted first last month were far more keen 
 
 Than the tame joys that came my way before? 
 
 That all the music and the songs I knew 
 
 Woke not the thrill that stir the opera strains? 
 
 For me the life, the love, the bliss intense ! 
 
 I prize the sweets distilled from lesser sweets ! 
 
 The city's glimmering lights that called from far, 
 
 Held me in thrall when I stood in their midst, 
 
 Still draw me to the beauty they illume. 
 
 You love me, father; you will let me go." 
 
 He looked aside as one irresolute, 
 
 Who could not yield, nor answer "No," outright. 
 
 At last he spoke : 'T have no higher aim 
 
 Than my own daughter's good for which I labored. 
 
 May glow your heart with warmth, not fever heat, 
 
 Nor with the rapture that intoxicates 
 
 And carries in its wake the wanton's wages, 
 
 Unlike the sorrows which belong to life 
 
 And come as night and clouds of their own right. 
 
 The happiness which Nature gives to those 
 
 Whose lives are wholesome is our heritage. 
 
 To seek for more is seeking misery. 
 
 Whole-throbbing hearts so like the budding roses 
 
 Ope to the sun, not to the midnight's lamp. 
 
 Does not abundance smile beneath this roof. 
 
 And spreads not luxury the Sunday feast? 
 
 Where could a sweeter bloom adorn your cheeks, 
 
 Or gayer folk draw laughter from your lips. 
 
 Or friends speak truer friendship to your heart? 
 
 53 
 
See how the orchard blooms for early fruit! 
 The fields are promising the autumn's sheaves. 
 Oh, say again, why will you leave the farm?" 
 "You judge me hard, my father," she preplied, 
 ''Forgetful of the days when you were young. 
 Now look upon the bloom to which you pointed. 
 Two robins built their nest a month ago, 
 And yesterday I saw among the trees 
 The fledglings flitting forth to try their wings. 
 Like me they had outgrown the narrow nest, 
 And heard the call of the wide world afar. 
 Should then my beauty which but you admire 
 Be wasted on the wandering country breeze? 
 The talents which you say that I possess, 
 Be buried in the dark without increase?" 
 
 Thus ran the argument, until at last 
 
 The father, weakened in his stand, replied : 
 
 "It is a matter for you women folk. 
 
 In which a man may too severely judge. 
 
 So with your mother's consent have your way. 
 
 You are of legal age, and free to choose. 
 
 Your portion, too, in money I shall fix, 
 
 And hand it to you on your parting day." 
 
 This is the city on Willamette's banks ! 
 
 Proud stand the mansions on the upper slope ! 
 
 Low lie the dingy slums on narrow lanes ! 
 
 'Tis evening, but the rays of brilliant lights 
 
 Illume with daylight sheen the pomp and wealth 
 
 Where buy the rich and gaze the meek-eyed poor. 
 
 Such was the scene that Myra looked upon 
 
 On her arrival from the quiet farm. 
 
 The city's din and glare exhilarate 
 
 The unaccustomed, stir the blood of youth. 
 
 All seemed the foretaste of her future joy. 
 
 Her aunt's rich house was oft the gathering place 
 
 Of wealth and fashion in exclusive pride. 
 
 And Myra was appraised : "A fresher flower, 
 
 A star new-risen on the social sky," 
 
 By those who relished mutual flattery. 
 
 54 
 
In all the pleasures and the vanities 
 
 In which the proud and idle rich indulge, 
 
 She reveled with unsated appetite; 
 
 And through it all shone sweetly on her eyes 
 
 Her gallant lover's ever-ready smile, 
 
 And through the lulls between the gayeties 
 
 She listened to his whisperings of love. 
 
 Most winning ways and dashing manners had he; 
 
 He looked so faultless, up-to-date in dress, 
 
 And seemed quite sure no woman could resist 
 
 His storm on hearts, at least no country girl. 
 
 And when he dwelt upon his high pursuit 
 
 Of business enterprise in stocks and bonds. 
 
 He loved to flash his several diamond rings. 
 
 And looked with shrewd and analyzing eye. 
 
 And Myra glowed with love and gratitude 
 
 When thinking of his ready helpfulness 
 
 In her ascent to higher social place, 
 
 And how he kindly urged her to invest 
 
 Her money in an enterprise his own. 
 
 With higher interest than the bankers paid. 
 
 What eves were these with rapture unalloyed 
 
 While danced the world for her in love's own tunes! 
 
 But, somehow, as the months were fleeting 
 
 The sweets took on a cloying, stalish taste, 
 
 So like the weariness of joy prolonged. 
 
 She changed to others with more zest and spice, 
 
 As craves a dulled and jaded appetite. 
 
 And often came a melancholy mood 
 
 And languor o'er her spirit that oppressed, 
 
 When in her mirror she was oft observing 
 
 A pallid white where once two roses glowed. 
 
 With guilty look she secretly supplied 
 
 The natural bloom with paints and scented rouge. 
 
 Which well deceived beneath the parlor lights. 
 
 Her beauty thus approached the urban style, 
 
 Enhanced by gems upon her gown and fingers. 
 
 So fine that once her gallant lover said 
 
 That she had ceased to be a rose of May 
 
 But was a jewel worth a thousand flowers. 
 
 He was a lover of the beautiful. 
 
 55 
 
Which now he reHshed, too, in others' eyes, 
 Far oftener than Myra cared to see. 
 
 Ah, waking dreams are sweet with joys to come! 
 
 But dreams in sleep bring back the vanished past, 
 
 ReveaUng to the soul its deeper self, 
 
 Which Myra oft might realize at morn; 
 
 For still the visions of her nightly dreams 
 
 Were on the hallowed haunts of her past love, 
 
 Or where as child she searched the pebbly brooklet, 
 
 And for a while she was a child again. 
 
 There was her mother; in her eye still beamed 
 
 The love that can endure without response. 
 
 Again she walked the glades at Otto's side. 
 
 And pressed his hand with purest maiden love, 
 
 And when she woke it seemed so wonderful 
 
 That a dead love could still live on in dreams. 
 
 Now oft she felt as though the festive days 
 
 Dragged on the deserts of a barren life. 
 
 And then among the crowds would weigh her down 
 
 A loneliness unknown in solitudes 
 
 Amid the silent woodland depths at home, 
 
 For there she felt in growth and blossoming 
 
 A kinship with the life that throbbed in her, 
 
 And caught the laughter of the mountain brooks. 
 
 Now more and more she felt the seething life 
 
 A nightmare, alien to her inmost self. 
 
 Still had the tempter who with honeyed lips 
 
 Seduced her senses, left untouched her core. 
 
 One afternoon upon the crowded walk 
 
 She spied the man whom she had called her lover. 
 
 A traveler's bag was swinging from his hand, 
 
 And at his side a stylish woman walked. 
 
 Then in the crowd they vanished. Myra turned 
 
 Against the wall and, lost to sight and sound. 
 
 She leaned until the lamplights glared. 
 
 And then with faltering step she wandered on, 
 
 And on the stairway of an office block 
 
 She learned that he had left the town as bankrupt. 
 
 In silence and with quickened step she turned 
 
 56 
 
And hastened on where dimmer shone the Hghts. 
 
 Here were the wharves where ships at anchor lay 
 
 Upon the same Willamette, deep and still. 
 
 That wound along the smiling fields at home, 
 
 And took the tinkling brooklets to its bosom. 
 
 A sailor's song fell softly on the night; 
 
 But all she heard was her own cry : "Betrayed !" 
 
 ''Betrayed/' it echoed from the ships and walls ! 
 
 One leap will take her to the silent sands 
 
 And make her tortured heart forever still! 
 
 Sudden a fierce and dazzling light pierced down 
 
 Upon her eyes. It seemd to come from heaven. 
 
 But no, it was the searchlight of a watchman. 
 
 All dazed she fled again upon the street 
 
 And on and on, she knew and cared not whither. 
 
 When she exhausted sank upon the ground, 
 
 There were no city lights, but in the sky 
 
 Looked down the crescent moon, illumining 
 
 A woodland scene with faint, uncertain light. 
 
 While resting on a swath of fragrant hay. 
 
 She watched a planet when her anguish lulled 
 
 Until it paled before the orb of day. 
 
 And when the sunshine warm upon her face 
 
 Had dried the dew on her disheveled hair. 
 
 She rose. A robin warbled on a tree 
 
 A song which would have cheered in other days. 
 
 But now fell grating on her drowsy pain. 
 
 She walked with aimless step, but soon around her 
 
 Again uprose the city's din and market cry, 
 
 Unsympathetic, jarring on her ear. 
 
 She saw two pathways for her future life. 
 
 But each led to humiliation. 
 
 Naught else would meet her at her aunt's rich house; 
 
 Naught else, with still more shame, would wait at home. 
 
 So she must find her course where was no path. 
 
 With her deceiver was her fortune gone. 
 
 Except some coins which would not keep her long. 
 
 Thus rose a new resolve up from her soul. 
 
 Though dark the future, she would face it bold. 
 
 Bitter the cup, but she would drink it down. 
 
 57 
 
She could seek service, earn her daily bread 
 And bear alone, unknown, her deep remorse. 
 When fell her glance on her engagement ring 
 Her impulse was to fling it in the air; 
 But later, penniless and facing want, 
 She sought to pawn it for a trifling sum. 
 The broker scrutinized the glittering stone 
 And then the girl with haggard face and said: 
 'The diamond is worth its weight in glass." 
 She left with faltering step, but happily 
 Next day she found a place to work and live. 
 Those whom she served were of the upstart rich 
 Who looked from high upon a serving maid 
 As to a being of a lower breed, 
 And lost no chance to let her feel it. 
 Exponent of their culture was a chef, 
 Concocting dainties with refinement high 
 For the gentility whose polish shone 
 So brightly from mahogany easy chairs. 
 The man who sordidly amasses wealth 
 Knows not the higher nurture of the mind, 
 Remains a grub that sees not sun nor skies. 
 Perhaps his children will be butterflies. 
 
 Here could she live obscure, and lost to those 
 
 Who had a right to know her whereabouts. 
 
 It seemed a refuge from the recent storms. 
 
 And in the scheme of life in which she was 
 
 An automaton of the rooms and halls. 
 
 An equal to the handle of a broom, 
 
 She found a hiding, and a numb repose. 
 
 A heart that feels and yearns, a brain that thinks 
 
 Has judgment, aspirations and ideals, 
 
 Were deemed as things apart from her estate; 
 
 Indeed, they would disqualify for service. 
 
 The badge of servitude upon her head, 
 
 That she might be distinguished from her betters, 
 
 She went about her work without complaint. 
 
 But when the natural promptings of her heart, 
 
 The love of beauty, liberty and all 
 
 That makes life worth its while called for their right, 
 
 58 
 
She found them prisoned, and her heart rebelled, 
 And all her being chafed against the wrong 
 Which to a human a full life denied. 
 She wished to change her exile to a place 
 Where she with freedom might again enjoy 
 The flowers at her feet and all the charms 
 Which Nature spreads before the eyes of all; 
 Where was no caste and all stood side by side 
 And none above the other swelled with pride. 
 And where the walls of every cottage rude 
 Closed all its dwellers in one family. 
 
 The hope was vain. When she turned from the mansion 
 
 On a bleak and cold December morn, 
 
 Her worldly goods all in a slender bag, 
 
 She found employment in a woolen mill. 
 
 With dark forebodings fell her searching eyes 
 
 Upon the dingy walls and clattering looms. 
 
 And on the women, pale with dragging toil. 
 
 Whose souls seemed dead within their weary frames. 
 
 Later she found her task endurable 
 
 Compared with the long days of household service. 
 
 Though from her master's view but a machine 
 
 Of flesh competing with machines of steel. 
 
 She felt less bitterness at the hard lot 
 
 Which all her fellow-toilers shared with her. 
 
 The burdens lighten when together borne; 
 
 And thus could laughter ring amid the hum 
 
 And kindle smiles on weary faces. 
 
 And then might vibrate through the stuffy air 
 
 A song whose burden was a hope in sadness, 
 
 As might have echoed on the slaver's fields 
 
 Where Ethiopia's daughters toiling sang. 
 
 To Myra, in this whirl of wheels and toil, 
 
 The world was changing fast. Life seemed no more 
 
 Pursuit of happiness by all mankind. 
 
 It was the struggle of avoiding pain. 
 
 She learned that poverty and burdening wealth 
 
 Alike are cankers on the social body, 
 
 Which man with all his means and mis^ht should heal. 
 
 59 
 
Quick sees the eye a gleam of light in dark! 
 Sweet falls a voice of hope upon despair! 
 Now often Myra caught such light and voice 
 In sunken eyes, from pale and trembling lips. 
 A gospel new and yet so like the old 
 That echoed on the shores of Galilee, 
 Brought hope and gladness to these lowly toilers. 
 And often when the toil of day had ceased, 
 They met to weave upon the spirit's loom 
 The garments for the festival to come^ 
 And usher in the life of hope fulfilled. 
 There was rejoicing in the smiling vision 
 Of a changed world in which all share alike 
 In labor and the fruits thereof in peace. 
 
 Warm shone the sun one afternoon in May 
 
 Into the garden of a new-built house, 
 
 Where Otto and his wife, a new-wed pair, 
 
 Were looking o'er fresh-planted herbs and shrubs. 
 
 They conversed on the flowers and various soils 
 
 Adapted for the growth of different plants ; 
 
 And when they looked up to the sun and sky, 
 
 Their theme was weather and the time to sow, 
 
 For the young wife was practical of mind. 
 
 Her thoughts took no poetic flights to dreamland 
 
 And her full cheeks glowed with the hue and warmth 
 
 Of garden roses on Willamette's banks. 
 
 Now while she turned to her domestic task, 
 
 Otto went down the path to be alone. 
 
 Someone had said that Myra had arrived 
 
 The previous evening at her parents' house. 
 
 He had not seen her since their parting hour 
 
 In evening dusk upon the river's bank. 
 
 Sometimes a sadness stole upon his thoughts, 
 
 And then a gladness sparkled in his eyes, 
 
 Until a smile of humor curled his lips 
 
 When thinking of the feast and fatted calf 
 
 That should have waited for the prodigal. 
 
 Thus brooding walked he down the woodland path 
 
 Until he reached the river's grassy bank. 
 
 Beneath these firs were Myra's favorite haunts, 
 
 60 
 
And here it was where he had seen her last. 
 
 There stood her shaded seat^ with ivy twined. 
 
 Again a turtle-dove was softly cooing; 
 
 Again the flowers thickly decked the sod. 
 
 Now caught his eye beneath the farther trees 
 
 A woman's form, and as she nearer came, 
 
 He recognized her walk. Yes, it was Myra. 
 
 He saw her startle as she looked at him, 
 
 But when they faced each other neither spoke 
 
 For a few moments until Otto said, 
 
 Eyeing her sadly: "Myra, have you suffered?" 
 
 She smiled; instead of answering, she asked: 
 
 "And are you happy?" Nor did he reply. 
 
 Her face had altered much; first youth was gone 
 
 And in her voice was not the same soft ring. 
 
 Then Otto spoke: "I was most wretched first 
 
 When you had gone, and I could see no hope. 
 
 To be a hermit all my future days 
 
 Did I decide, but time heals wounds, you said. 
 
 So in my loneliness I sought for love 
 
 And found it in a maiden pure and sweet. 
 
 Her heart is near the soil she loves to till. 
 
 Content, therefore, it throbs with life's own joy." 
 
 "Then, Otto, you are happy," she replied, 
 
 "And I have reason to be glad with you. 
 
 For I have made you wretched for a while." 
 
 He saw upon her lips the old-time smile 
 
 Of gladness ere she knew the city's lure. 
 
 "Mine is the common lot of man," he said, 
 
 "With smiles and tears, with joys and sorrows. 
 
 So is our earth with sunshine and with clouds, 
 
 And so must be our pilgrimage thereon. 
 
 And long before its close we all have learnt 
 
 That happiness is not by seeking found. 
 
 But how fared you? Tell me what you have learnt.' 
 
 "The same old truth," she said with wistful look; 
 
 "But I have suffered much to learn all that. 
 
 And on my way of suffering I have seen 
 
 The hand of Justice reaching over all. 
 
 Yes, I have wronged all those who loved me well, 
 
 And I was punished and, repenting all. 
 
 61 
 
I came to ask forgiveness of my sin." 
 
 "Ah, such repentance is forgiveness" ; 
 
 Otto spoke with the old trustfulness. 
 
 *'Who would not welcome you back to the farm? 
 
 Be the blotched pages of your life torn out ; 
 
 They shall not leave a mark, still all is well. 
 
 And every day, true to yourself again, 
 
 Your life will be a blessing to us all." 
 
 "Nay," answered she, "that is beyond my power. 
 
 I could retrace my steps, but not my days. 
 
 Oft have I looked upon these flowers in spring, 
 
 And fair they seemed, for spring was in my heart. 
 
 All this can never be as once it was, 
 
 And I have met the justice which forbids 
 
 That I, who threw her fortune to the winds, 
 
 Should take the seat again which I forfeited; 
 
 For my just place is with the fortuneless. 
 
 The lowly toilers at the squalid looms. 
 
 'Tis mine to share their sorrows and their hopes, 
 
 For I am one of them in toil and need. 
 
 I followed phantoms and they led me on 
 
 To wretchedness all new and strange to me. 
 
 I saw the wickedness of other hearts 
 
 And shuddered at the blackness of my own. 
 
 But there was uplift in the soothing thought. 
 
 That at the bottom I could sink no more. 
 
 There I had fellows in my toil and woe, 
 
 Who taught me truest human sympathy 
 
 And pointed to a steadfast^ blazing star 
 
 That lit their weary way with a new light." 
 
 She paused and Otto saw with wonderment 
 
 That new light shining from her eyes in his, 
 
 Transfiguring her pallid face a while 
 
 Into a vision from the future earth. 
 
 Born of her faith. Then she continued: 
 
 "It is no phantom, for it sheds no lure 
 
 Of gain, or pleasure or aggrandizement 
 
 Of self. It is the beacon light for all 
 
 To help to make this earth a better place 
 
 For man and usher in the happier age 
 
 For which the world is hoping, waiting; 
 
 62 
 
This mission I embraced and in the strength 
 Of its great cause I can endure in toil. 
 Otto, is not this goal worth striving for?" 
 "Yes, yes," he answered looking up on high. 
 When evening laid the dusk upon the path, 
 They both were walking on their separate ways. 
 
 THE CHANGE 
 
 Still float ye nightly through my wand'ring dreams, 
 Haunts of my youth, oh, native hills and streams! 
 Still roam my vagrant thoughts each glen and wood 
 Of quiet Lindale, where my cradle stood 
 Amid fair fields, whereon the farmer grew 
 The golden sheaves, the only wealth he knew, 
 When still the songs in which the young would join 
 Had sweeter tunes than clang of yellow coin. 
 How quiet lay the flowery summer scene, 
 The houses white amidst the orchard green 
 Which autumn softly tinged with apple's red 
 And changed to somber as the season sped! 
 Where swifter ran the stream its winding way 
 It turned the splashing mill wheel night and day, 
 And murmured on where in the maples' shade 
 In summer time the village children played. 
 Ah, children fair, the soil's own growth indeed, 
 As the bright daisies gleaming round their feet! 
 
 Whatever healthful appetite might crave 
 The field and stream and virgin forest gave. 
 Whatever charm to virtuous youth appealed 
 Each blitheful rustic festival revealed. 
 How merry-making could with work agree. 
 Well showed the threshing day and husking bee. 
 The pastor stirred beneath the far-seen spire 
 On Sundays in each soul the spiritual fire. 
 To make them saints he found it meet to tell 
 That they were sinners and with Adam fell. 
 
 63 
 
He preached that wealth consists in fewer needs, 
 That greater men delight in humbler deeds. 
 "Blest vale, where blooming maiden never thought 
 A gown more fair than that which her hand wrought; 
 Where through her care the garden yields its greens, 
 And she with Ruth behind the reaper gleans; 
 Where men are strong and good, and women pure, 
 For none are proud and rich, and none are poor!" 
 Such were his words of wisdom and of truth 
 To listening and believing age and youth. 
 
 Upon yon hills the tinkling bells betrayed 
 
 Where stragglers from the grazing herd had strayed. 
 
 And farther on there filled the noble pine 
 
 Each rocky nook to the horizon line. 
 
 The dwellers of the vale but dimly knew 
 
 The world beyond the range in hazy blue. 
 
 At diverse times the rumor floated round 
 
 Of veins of gold in far-ofif regions found. 
 
 And many a youth saw golden dreams at night, 
 
 But when the morning broke with clearer light 
 
 And showed so real and true the clods at home 
 
 The distant gold dissolved in yellow foam. 
 
 Some went and chased the castles of the air, 
 
 But one, John Bleat, returned a millionaire. 
 
 He grew in pride, but looked in vain around 
 
 For adulation where no clowns were found. 
 
 The simple village people knew not how 
 
 To make obeisance to the rich and bow. 
 
 Therefore one morn he left before the dawn 
 
 For parts where common folk had leafned to fawn. 
 
 With merry chuckling was it often told 
 
 How queer a dunce John Bleat was made by gold. 
 
 'Mid most in town that knew no social grade. 
 The cobbler lived and plied his honest trade. 
 A man of wisdom and of grit was he. 
 On wintry eves the passers-by could see 
 The village fathers all around his stove, 
 Aware that for the country's good they strove. 
 When waxed dissension hot through stubborn will, 
 
 64 
 
He changed the subject with uncommon skill. 
 Their different ways to perfect common weal 
 He would converge in dutiful appeal. 
 The daily happiness of each human mite 
 Lay near the hearts of these who stood for right; 
 One on his wayward course should be reproved; 
 Some common evil must needs be removed; 
 The future welfare of each new-wed pair 
 These guardians fostered with paternal care. 
 But when the theme to merest gossip turned 
 The cobbler, smiling^ moved that all adjourned. 
 Thus could his voice exhort or discord drown 
 And none surmised 'twas he that ruled the town. 
 
 For goodly reasons, so the saying ran, 
 
 The blacksmith was the most respected man. 
 
 He looked so rugged, yet so blandly kind, 
 
 And none but his concerns engaged his mind. 
 
 No scheme nor hope more warmed his head and heart 
 
 Than the perfecting of his simple art. 
 
 At work he seldom spoke, but oft he sang, 
 
 While loud and clear his massive anvil rang. 
 
 There all could see his sparks and hairy chest, 
 
 His vigor all in work and song expressed. 
 
 'Twas joy an idle hour with him to while. 
 
 Where each felt honored by his kindly smile. 
 
 Such man as he with need his last would share 
 
 And then with quicker strokes his loss repair. 
 
 On holidays he touched with defter art 
 
 In stirring strains each gay and youthful heart. 
 
 More skilled than he no village fiddler played 
 
 To blither pairs in festive dance arrayed, 
 
 And none could say whose was the greater bliss, 
 
 The graceful, dancing youths and maids or his. 
 
 Though young no more, but in the prime of life, 
 
 The rough-clad smith was slow to seek a wife. 
 
 But when he asked with none of wooer's skill 
 
 The best fair maid, she answered, "Yes, I will." 
 
 True women price the man above his dress; 
 
 True men draws beauty less than womanliness. 
 
 Courting was not a wanton pleasure where 
 
 65 
 
"Till death us parts" was married every pair. 
 Such faith endured while this old earth they trod, 
 While grew their children in the fear of God. 
 The country shall not suffer or decay 
 Whose children learn to honor and obey. 
 The disobedience in the home begets 
 The lawlessness that many a state besets. 
 
 Blest village, once again I will exclaim. 
 
 No taint disgraced, no blemish marred thy name! 
 
 And juster laws than wiser councils made, 
 
 Untold, unwritten, were in thee obeyed. 
 
 None feared the evil deeds that shun the light, 
 
 Nor found it well to lock his doors at night. 
 
 What care the wise for luxuries and wealth 
 
 When pulse and heart beat full with rugged health! 
 
 'Tis true. Aunt Maud was nurse and doctoress 
 
 For those who, groaning, paid for carelessness, 
 
 For whosoe'er the laws of health defies 
 
 Must pay the penalty to make him wise. 
 
 She healed with many a long-tried forest weed 
 
 And kept folk well by urging them to heed. 
 
 Yet even the careful on his last day dies, 
 
 And when Aunt Maud had closed the sightless eyes, 
 
 All Lindale bowed and mourned in common grief. 
 
 And took to heart the truth that life is brief. 
 
 In long procession to his final rest 
 
 The dead was borne. "His soul is with the blest," 
 
 The pastor said in prayer, and looked on high, 
 
 And through the sermon saw no tearless eye. 
 
 One day a doctor came to find a field 
 For his profession, promiseful of yield. 
 He hung his sign with glaring colors out. 
 And claimed to cure each ill from cold to gout. 
 Then rose a drugstore, rank with perfumed air; 
 Cosmetics, pills and softer drinks were there; 
 And then an undertaker followed suit 
 To pick the best of the down-shaken fruit. 
 His hearse was all in latest fashion draped. 
 Its darkey driver still more darkly craped. 
 
 66 
 
But lo! Cosmetics will attract no eye 
 
 Where sun and country air the rouge supply. 
 
 And physics undesired adorn the shelves 
 
 Where folk of healthful work avail themselves. 
 
 There is no vanity to sponge upon 
 
 Till the simplicity of eld is gone. 
 
 The ill designers sought another field 
 
 Where pride and sensual joy to man appealed, 
 
 And Aunt Maud's art held undisputed sway 
 
 And all the dead were borne the old-time way. 
 
 On wintry days the plastic mind of youth 
 
 Drank sparingly at the springs of bookish truth. 
 
 To learning's rudiments were all compelled, 
 
 But not to more, for the wise teacher held 
 
 That higher knowledge only few can gain, 
 
 But the three R's each urchin may attain. 
 
 Look o'er the crowd that slow in learning gains, 
 
 And count what few are born with scholar's brains! 
 
 Whose light and lustre have no warmth to shed 
 
 For knowledge seldom is to goodness wed. 
 
 To greatness ne'er aspire the truly wise 
 
 Who know that only fullness satisfies. 
 
 The one is bottomless and undefined. 
 
 But this completes the simplest heart and mind. 
 
 The same which to the high so highly mounts, 
 
 The simpler man upon his fingers counts. 
 
 How boasting science heaven's beauty mars. 
 
 Makes wheeling planets of the quiet stars! 
 
 Creates diseaseful germs which no one harm, 
 
 But strike the superstitious with alarm. 
 
 The knowledge needed in the sphere of men 
 
 The Maker has not placed beyond their ken. 
 
 The far-fetched facts which proud savants review 
 
 Cannot the simple truths of life undo. 
 
 What matters how the sun revolves in space 
 
 While we can feel his slanting morning rays; 
 
 That earth a whirling ball through ages fHes 
 
 While it in level stretch before us lies! 
 
 Not what we know, but what we deeply feel 
 
 Is the true measure of our woe and weal. 
 
Blind ignorance prefer to error's sight, 
 As darkness to the ignis fatuis Hght. 
 
 The stranger might in vain walk up and down 
 To find a chartered hostelry in town, 
 And yet, unasked, each door would open wide 
 To have him grace the welcome, warm fireside. 
 To feast the friend God deems of virtue bare, 
 But blesses him who will with strangers share. 
 They chatted — what they knew they would impart, 
 While warmer, wider opened heart to heart. 
 Though well the traveler's tales the host repaid. 
 His best reward was merely that he stayed. 
 Then he recalled while bright the logwood burned 
 Sweet pictures from the lands where he sojourned. 
 He led the listeners to enchanting shores. 
 To luring isles and where Niagara roars. 
 They searched with him the walls of Egypt old ; 
 The treasured arts of Greece he could unfold. 
 The western wilds upon their visions rose, 
 As true as painter's masterpiece them shows. 
 When all was told he touched the chords of mirth 
 By meek confession that on God's wide earth 
 He found no vale that could with theirs compare, 
 No better folk than round this hearthstone's glare. 
 "The kinship ties which man to man should bind," 
 He said, "in your blest home I truly find." 
 Who less for self and more for others lives 
 With gladness gets, with heartfelt joy he gives. 
 Sweet is compassion and its charity, 
 When garbed in cordial hospitality ! 
 
 Below the mill, where smooth the river flowed 
 And deep and clear its pebbled bottom showed, 
 A wood to which no ax a blow had dealt. 
 Sheltered a hut wherein a hermit dwelt. 
 'Twas long ago, the oldest men would tell, 
 He slowly came through yonder narrow dell 
 And filled his knapsack on the waters' brink. 
 But when he saw in clouds the evening sink, 
 He sought the shelter of the twilight wood, 
 
 68 
 
Where still in deep retreat his dwelling stood. 
 
 One day he took his staff and heavy pack 
 
 And wandered on, but evening brought him back 
 
 Then oft he walked at morn in twilight gray 
 
 Adown along the river's winding way. 
 
 Then entered deeps with scarce a ray of light, 
 
 But always found his lonely hut at night. 
 
 Yet he who scorned the ties of humankind 
 
 Still felt the bonds which man to nature bind. 
 
 The springtime buds and bloom, the azure skies 
 
 Mirrored their fleeting beauty in his eyes. 
 
 The early carol in the briar bush 
 
 Could spread upon his cheek the morning flush. 
 
 One eve a child was weeping at his door — 
 
 A child of six she seemed, or somewhat more. 
 
 Through wood and cane and cornfield she had strayed 
 
 Who now for guidance and for shelter prayed. 
 
 While there she stood and softly pleading wept, 
 
 She woke something in him that long had slept. 
 
 While sweetly touched the woeful child's appeal 
 
 The man who long had ceased for man to feel 
 
 Came floating through his mem'ry happier days, 
 
 With echoes of their half-remembered lays, 
 
 As the young buds recall the vanished springs. 
 
 While the eld thrush again his May-song sings. 
 
 Anon they sat, while dim the candle flared, 
 
 At board where she his simple supper shared. 
 
 She prattled on confidingly and free. 
 
 Then, drowsy, laid her head upon his knee. 
 
 How lone he felt when next day's task was done, 
 
 When, guided right, the fairy child was gone! 
 
 He gazed in turn where she had wept and smiled, 
 
 And all his wandering thoughts turned to the child. 
 
 Again he stared until his eyes grew dim 
 
 And wondered if she also thought of him. 
 
 When Sunday came the last week's toil to bless 
 
 She also came, arrayed in Sunday dress. 
 
 And thence on every cheerful Sabbath day 
 
 She sought the hermit's hut to talk and play. 
 
 With eager ear he heard what all she knew 
 
 Of things he had forgot, but still were true. 
 
 69 
 
And when the child assumed the woman's lot, 
 
 She still would find the hermit's wooded plot. 
 
 One day when autumn's blast the leaves downswept, 
 
 He said: "My child, one secret I have kept 
 
 From you, which now the aged man would tell. 
 
 If you support my steps through yonder dell." 
 
 They wandered down the stream through gorge and cleft^ 
 
 But scarce a trace of his old path was left. 
 
 Where gaped a cavern midst the thicket rank, 
 
 With feebler beating heart the hermit sank 
 
 Upon the ground. Exhausted was his breath 
 
 In struggling with the tightening grasp of death. 
 
 'This cave's dark walls that reach the mountain's core 
 
 A league in length are made of richest ore," 
 
 He faintly spoke when calmer looked his eye, 
 
 Then laid his head upon her knee to die. 
 
 Years After. 
 
 Again I see the vale, the mountain's brow, 
 But village of my youth, oh where art thou? 
 I see flame-belching chimneys cloudward rise. 
 Sending their fumes against the murky skies. 
 What babbling, surging throng my vision greets ! 
 What splendor lines the traffic burdened streets ! 
 Is this fierce life that brimming seems to fill 
 These men, and urge to speed, of good or ill? 
 Can these fair dames the splendid avenues roam 
 And still be mothers true to child and home? 
 Alas ! Meseems the flush some faces show 
 Is not the wholesome woman's natural glow. 
 The quicker step no high-born purpose serves; 
 It is the restlessness of upstrung nerves. 
 Here stately equipages proudly bear 
 Patricians shielded from the vulgar stare, 
 While yonder, where the traffic clatters loud, 
 Trudges to daily toil the common crowd. 
 
 Upon this flat, where fiery smelters stand, 
 
 Of yore the blacksmith wrought with horny hand. 
 
 70 
 
Within, all motion goes in measured rounds, 
 While I stand mute at all the sights and sounds. 
 Before each roaring furnace fierce agape 
 There stands with sweating brow a human shape. 
 Red iron bars are moving to and fro 
 And slowly stretch in length with lesser glow. 
 These shapes, each one the temple of a soul, 
 Are goaded on while metals glide and roll. 
 And yet 'tis true that they have hearts to feel, 
 Whom here is driving on the heartless wheel. 
 I watch them as they pour at eventide 
 From treadmill toil to find the bleak fireside, 
 Until the thirst which blinding toil begets 
 And ever weaker groundling man besets, 
 Draws one by one where jingling music sounds 
 And frothing beer the crushing misery drowns. 
 The craving grows so like the quenchless thirst 
 That racks the wailing damned forever cursed. 
 Each drunken brawl the revelers' number swells; 
 Each wanton face its wearer's history tells. 
 Full heads but empty purses leaves the bout. 
 And steeped in woe there lies the wretch cast out! 
 Far down on darksome ways the scarlet lights 
 Draw some like lamps the moths in sultry nights. 
 
 W^here heavenward pointed once the slender spire 
 Sight-seeing crowds a brown-stone church admire, 
 And, wondering, guess what cost the towering pile 
 That proudly vaunts its wealth, its art and style. 
 Now the resounding chimes" from Gothic tower 
 Call the exponents of the purse's power. 
 And mammon's votaries with frozen smiles 
 In silk and satin rustle down the aisles. 
 If heaven's mansions are alike to this 
 The rich enjoy a foretaste of its bliss. 
 Something akin to opera music sounds, 
 Which in my breast a pious prayer drowns. 
 Now from the lofty choir an anthem peals, 
 And, strange ! My heart a sensuous rapture feels. 
 While slow his pulpit mounts the learned divine. 
 His list'ners in their velvet pews recline. 
 
 71 
 
A man of polish and of culture rare, 
 He stands pronouncing clear his polished prayer. 
 The sermon urges drastic laws to pass 
 To raise the morals of the lower class. 
 His wits would fain the pampered senses thrill 
 And spicy speech the dragging moments fill. 
 Now sparkless, tasteless, draws the discourse on 
 Till fat men close their eyes and women yawn. 
 The soulless argument's un-genuine ring 
 Cannot compel the spirit's soaring wing. 
 When these men pray, *'Give us our daily bread," 
 In mockery the Lord's own prayer is said. 
 All things I find to charm the eye and ear. 
 But not the spirit of the Christ is here. 
 
 Some of these lowly hovels hide the ground 
 Whereon the hermit peace and shelter found. 
 Again a house of worship greets mine eyes 
 Wherein I hear resounding song uprise. 
 I come, my soul is drawn by souls akin 
 And with the moving throng I enter in. 
 How high the spirits of the lowly rise! 
 What faith and love reveal these radiant eyes ! 
 What fervent words appeal to sinners lost! 
 Such must have been the fire of Pentecost. 
 The mortal eye perceives what passes by; 
 The spirit sees immortal truths on high. 
 To crucify the flesh and selfish will 
 The spirit of the Christ is Hving still. 
 
 This is the city hall, in splendor made. 
 
 Where once the cobbler ruled and plied his trade. 
 
 Time was when elder men, from toil retired, 
 
 To office for the common weal aspired. 
 
 'Twas known that honor was their only wage, 
 
 That wisdom is the attribute of age. 
 
 I hear them say that now the grafter rules, 
 
 That public men are used as private tools. 
 
 The bosses lead the herd on crooked ways. 
 
 Safe as the pasha with the faithful plays. 
 
 This is where thievishly the parasite 
 
 72 
 
Can spin his hidden thread behind the light. 
 These glaring signs on boards and buildings high, 
 Which tell the people what, and where to buy, 
 Well show that humankind of modern school. 
 Is made of herd and herder, sharp and fool. 
 
 Where once the friendly farmer tilled the land, 
 
 The mansions in forbidding splendor stand. 
 
 A foreign porter, fat and finely dressed. 
 
 Looks proud on master's livery on his brest, 
 
 Beside a native maid in pensive mood, 
 
 Upon her head the cap of servitude. 
 
 In many a girlish visage I can trace 
 
 A likeness to some still remembered face. 
 
 Around each massive mansion I can see 
 
 In servitude the children of the free. 
 
 Upon their lost paternal acres now 
 
 All to the high in meek submission bow. 
 
 The sprightly laughter and the songs of yore, 
 
 The music of the frolic sound no more. 
 
 Here mourns the lonely acre of the dead. 
 But not a mourner's feet its pathways tread! 
 Tall ferns and brambles shade the sacred ground. 
 The dwindling flowers on every sunken mound; 
 While yonder cemetery's marbles gleam; 
 A splendid city of the dead they seem; 
 And yet not all, for in its rear, obscure. 
 There is the humble quarter of the poor, 
 Where, in their narrow lots, the common clay 
 Awaits the morn of resurrection day. 
 
 Among these tots who thousand spindles feed. 
 And thus themselves are fed to mammon's greed, 
 This one with auburn hair and visage sad 
 Resembles her who made the hermit glad. 
 The mirth and all of childhood's heritage 
 Take here the somber tone of fading age. 
 Oh, think ye not that youth is worth its while 
 In toil that smothers each new-kindled smile! 
 Now shriek the whistles that the day is done, 
 
 73 
 
And I walk on beside this littlest one. 
 
 She leads me down the vacant alley's gloom 
 
 And up the stairway to an attic room. 
 
 I see where all is worn and rude and bare, 
 
 An elder woman on a broken chair. 
 
 What abject poverty must be the lot 
 
 Of her who played upon the hermit's plot! 
 
 Now while she scarce her feeble frame upholds, 
 
 I listen as her mournful tale unfolds. 
 
 She pictures happy years, then darksome days, 
 
 And at the ending of her story says: 
 
 *'Our precious heritage of better wealth 
 
 Was sweet content with simple things and health. 
 
 We squandered it for silk and costly fare, 
 
 Aping the gilded upstart millionaire. 
 
 We grew too proud to tread our homely clods 
 
 And fell to worshipping the stranger's gods; 
 
 Therefore has turned to us the Lord in wrath 
 
 To urge His children to the long-lost path." 
 
 U 
 
REVERIE OF A NEW WOMAN. 
 
 My mother works and keeps astir, 
 
 As in the dark age long ago. 
 Deep in my heart I pity her 
 
 While dressing up for dance or show. 
 
 The good old soul — Beyond her ken 
 
 Is all of woman's proud advance, 
 That we are wiser now than then, 
 
 And hold the reins that once were man's. 
 
 All those who are not over-wise 
 
 And cannot see it clear and plain, 
 Why men go down and women rise 
 
 Should know that brawn counts less than brain. 
 
 Give me of man the foppish breed, 
 
 For easier prey and wieldier tool, 
 ril have my way and need not feed 
 
 With home-made bread a school-baked fool. 
 
 One of the dandy, dudish kind 
 
 That fawning takes to ladies' heels, 
 
 And whom a kick does well remind 
 That woman now the sceptre wields. 
 
 But more than all, he must have cash 
 To buy whate'er delights my heart; 
 
 Give diamonds, and rings that flash. 
 And alimony when we part. 
 
 Time was when woman managed man 
 
 By coaxing and by subtle wiles. 
 But in these modern days she can 
 
 Dispense with all her artful smiles. 
 
 How bright appears her future now, 
 
 When man performs and she commands. 
 
 With larger drops upon his brow, 
 Toiling for her with horny hands ! 
 
 75 
 
Their subjugation all complete, 
 
 She may be proud as well as gay, 
 
 While laughing at their vain conceit 
 
 That thinks we love as daft as they. 
 
 Of office jobs we'll leave them still 
 
 The sweeping of the floors and streets; 
 
 A night-watch place they yet may fill. 
 Or dust in church our velvet seats. 
 
 Soon shall they stop their maudlin talk 
 That woman is the weaker sex. 
 
 While feeling in their humble walk 
 Our heavy yoke upon their necks. 
 
 They're made to drudge, I dare repeat, 
 
 And rest while mending shirts and socks ; 
 
 Then while in hall or court we meet, 
 The clumsy hand the cradle rocks. 
 
 TO THE MAN IN THE MOON. 
 
 How pleasant must your wand'ring be 
 
 Forever westward bound, 
 For not a shadow you can see 
 
 On all your nightly round. 
 
 Where'er you look the darkness flees 
 A-hiding from your view, 
 
 And when you move as if to tease 
 The dark is moving too. 
 
 You go along with placid face. 
 And down you look so deep ; 
 
 I know if I were in your place 
 I oft would laugh or weep. 
 
 Are there not times that you feel gay 
 At all this mundane mirth, 
 
 76 
 
When not a cloud is in your way 
 And silver bright the earth? 
 
 To see in evening quietness 
 
 The awkward lover miss 
 All through his lovelorn bashfulness 
 
 The contemplated kiss? 
 
 Your gaze on lovers' tenderness 
 Will flush no maiden's cheeks, 
 
 And though you witness each caress, 
 Still many more she seeks. 
 
 They love your still companionship 
 
 On every twilight way, 
 And while the sweets of love they sip, 
 
 No secret you betray. 
 
 And yet, meseems, you look as oft 
 
 On lowly weeping woe, 
 On virtue down, and vice aloft, 
 
 On men each others' foe. 
 
 Can you with placid visage view 
 
 Upon his sinking craft, 
 The sailor looking up to you 
 
 Till breaks his final raft? 
 
 The thief and nightly evil-doer, 
 Who fain would shun your light 
 
 That he may ply his trade secure, 
 Away from watcher's sight? 
 
 Perhaps you are not much engrossed 
 
 In doings here below; 
 When leader of the heavens' host 
 
 Among the stars you go. 
 
 And yet I love to see your face, 
 
 So placid in the sky; 
 Each night you change your time and place 
 
 And oft I wonder why. 
 
 77 
 
THE CHRISTMAS TREE. 
 
 Lone beneath the gloomy pines 
 
 A little fir tree grew, 
 But their shady branches caught 
 
 All the light and dew. 
 
 In the gloom, while blue the sky, 
 
 In the dark when stars were bright, 
 
 Was its ever constant sigh: 
 ''Who will give me light?" 
 
 So it chanced one wintry day, 
 That Santa Claus came by. 
 
 And while resting on his way 
 He heard the woeful sigh. 
 
 Pity-moved, a tear he shed 
 
 At the fir tree's plight; 
 Then with happy smile he said: 
 
 "I will give you light." 
 
 And he took it tenderly 
 
 From the frozen earth. 
 While each mighty, spreading tree 
 
 Lisped of Christmas mirth. 
 
 Now behold in festal room 
 
 Children fair and bright, 
 And the fir tree, once in gloom, 
 
 Blazing forth its light. 
 
 78