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THE SOUL'S PROGRESS 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
THE 
 
 SOUL'S PROGRESS 
 
 And Other Poems 
 
 BY 
 
 LOUIS V. LEDOUX 
 
 AUTHOR OF "SONGS FROM THE SILENT LAND" 
 
 JOHN LANE COMPANY 
 NEW YORK • • MCMVI 
 
Copyright 
 
 1906 
 
 By John Lane Company 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 LIBRARY Of CONQRESS 
 Two Copies Received 
 
 DEC 81 1906 
 
 Q Cepyrlefit Er.lry 
 CLASS ct XXc, No. 
 COPY B. 
 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 
 
? To 
 
 r 
 
 GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Prologue 9 
 
 The Soul's Progress: 
 
 Preface ..., ••• 17 
 
 Part I 
 
 Boyhood 25 
 
 Youth 26 
 
 The Coming of Doubt ..,-.,, 28 
 
 The Death of Youth 32 
 
 In Exile 35 
 
 The Higher Optimism . . , . , . , 39 
 
 Part II 
 
 The Course 47 
 
 Epilogue 64 
 
6 CONTENTS 
 
 Other Poems : 
 
 Page 
 
 To (As bards of eld — ) 67 
 
 To Phyllis 6S 
 
 The Hill of Pines 70 
 
 Dirge for Love 72 
 
 Loneliness 74 
 
 Love's Homing 77 
 
 The Topiarist 78 
 
 Love's Impotence 79 
 
 Life 80 
 
 The Better Part 82 
 
 The Stranger 84 
 
 The Last Symphony 87 
 
PROLOGUE 
 
PROLOGUE 
 
 TO GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY 
 
 The quest of Beauty through illusion's world, 
 
 And Love, of Beauty born, that homing died, — 
 
 Familiar themes — with youthful voice I sing; 
 
 Not emulous in aught of singers dead, 
 
 Nor yet of him whose music rises now 
 
 In strains immortal as the soul of song. 
 
 In humbleness before the voiceful dead 
 
 I stand, and here of him who, singing, lives, 
 
 I claim the privilege of discipleship. 
 
 Not mine the genius surging full at flood, 
 In foaming waves that Fre^om's passion bear, 
 To break in music on a Nation's heart. 
 Till patriot beacons blaze from coast to coast ; 
 Nor mine the strength to reach that mountain 
 crest 
 
lo PROLOGUE 
 
 Which looks, prophetic, toward the dawning age, 
 And in the paling of night's weakest star, 
 And in the first faint herald of the east 
 Hails day, that soon the valleys, wrapped in mist 
 And dreaming not of any light to come, 
 Shall wake from life potential, slumber bound, 
 To life that builds the master-work of God. 
 Nor yet of these great gifts the third is mine : 
 To look serenely up the human stream 
 With vision backward turned and thoughtful eyes, 
 That gazing steadfast toward its limpid source, 
 Now lost to sight beyond the haze of years, 
 Can mark a constant progress in its flow, 
 By swirl and eddy, round opposed rocks. 
 Till sweeping past that crumbling ledge of time 
 To which we cling, it moves with hidden course, 
 Toward cloud-hung coasts and seas whose 
 
 freighted breath 
 Far inland wafting, wakes, as fragrance found 
 In love-saved flowers, after love has died, 
 A sense of incompleteness, lack, or loss. 
 Not such my theme ! My song is from a heart 
 That tracking orbed Beauty through the world 
 With ardor undismayed, self-consecrate 
 
PROLOGUE II 
 
 To follow where the quest may lead, though 
 
 strange 
 And perilous the pathway be, but finds 
 Illusive gleams, ineffable desire. 
 
 Surely I stood erect, ere birth had bound 
 My broken being to the wheel of change, 
 And gazed, clear-eyed, on Beauty absolute ; 
 For unappeased yearnings haunt my mind — 
 Like Love's remembrance of a vanished face. 
 And shadowy presences about me move 
 Which brand me, lips and brow, with wands of fire 
 That bearing Beauty's signet through the world 
 I no oblivion find, nor any peace. 
 Surely I stood erect and met her gaze ; 
 Her voice I heard, — the speech was music's self. 
 Ah then I recked not that a time would come. 
 When, creeping prostrate through the dust of Hfe, 
 Back from the strange deformities of sense, 
 My soul, unwinged, would bfeathe petition vain 
 To hear the distant passing of her feet, 
 To kneel far-off and gaze with doubtful eyes 
 On vague suggestions of her loveliness; 
 Yet now I wander like an erring child 
 
12 PROLOGUE 
 
 That follows firefly gleams afar from home, 
 Wayworn and hesitant, with circling steps. 
 
 And this the lot of Beauty's chosen priests : 
 In cloistral twilight redolent of prayer, 
 To feel the poisoned arrow burning deep, 
 Forevermore, within the wound she gives ; 
 To question earth and ocean, air and life, 
 For aught of balm to ease the ancient pain ; 
 To worship whatsoe'er partakes of her, — 
 Now half revealed in a maiden's eyes. 
 Now glimpsed in moonlight paling toward the 
 
 day, 
 Now heard in cataract or thunder crash. 
 But shadows these : her presence still they miss. 
 A light revolving on the shores of dream. 
 An instant seen and then a night-time gone — 
 On hidden shores, whose doubtful port is death, 
 So Beauty seems ; and they the mariners 
 Who tossing evermore on tideless seas, 
 Hand-bound and impotent, with straining eyes, 
 But drink a further madness from the sight. 
 As joy that fades ere yet surprise be dead 
 So Beauty fades, or as, on quiet waves, 
 
PROLOGUE 13 
 
 Across the silver highway of the moon, 
 
 A cloud-built island passes — swift as dream — 
 
 Her shadow passes by. Unsatisfied 
 
 With human joys or touch of human hands, 
 
 They follow her they love throughout the world. 
 
 But clasp, like Pan of eld, at last a reed. 
 
 And doubts arise, but clear the answer rings : 
 
 Devoid of visioned Beauty what were life? 
 
 Again I turn to him whose surer song 
 Far generations yet unborn shall heed ; 
 For now, with toiling steps, I onward climb 
 Toward where, far up amid the glaciers lone. 
 His music blooms — the edelweiss of song, 
 The spirit's chant of passion's purity. 
 To him I turn, my master, poet, friend, 
 And beg of him this boon of long desire — 
 To lay my hillside blossoms at his feet. 
 
THE SOUL'S PROGRESS 
 
PREFACE 
 
 One of the most important phases of the 
 soul's progress toward a realization of itself 
 has seemed to me to be its passage from the 
 thoughtless optimism of youth, through the val- 
 ley of the shadow, to that higher optimism 
 which, having seen and triumphed over the 
 evils of life, differs from its earlier form about 
 as does virtue from innocence. 
 
 The intensity with which one feels any of the 
 later gradations in this sequence is directly pro- 
 portionate to the vividness of the earlier experi- 
 ences ; to some, about whom " the light that 
 never was on sea or land " has shone with un- 
 usual clearness, the descent into the darkness 
 of doubt — sudden as it usually is — is doubly 
 bitter. 
 
1 8 PREFACE 
 
 The boy accepts Beauty ^ passively, as a mat- 
 ter of course, and assumes, except in the case 
 of one nurtured in sorrow, that pillars of cloud 
 and of fire will always be present to guide him 
 toward that promised land which, he thinks, can- 
 not after all be so much fairer than the world 
 wherein he dwells. Then the youth, with the 
 fervor of spring in his heart and the freshness 
 of morning in his eyes, feels the passion of 
 Beauty, and, if he be especially susceptible to 
 Nature's charm, he sees her loveliness as the 
 complement of the glory of life, and sings in 
 word or action his hymn of joy. Later, in the 
 midst of his ecstasy, he feels the stealthy ap- 
 proach of doubt, which comes to him disguised 
 alluringly as broader knowledge or manhood's 
 experience, and gains access either through 
 contact with the positive evils of life or in the 
 
 *• Here let it be clearly understood that in the following 
 pages the word Beauty is not generally used in its ordinary 
 sense of "that which is pleasing to the eye," but is usually 
 given that philosophic meaning in which Beauty, Goodness, 
 and Truth are the same in essence. Beauty in this sense, and 
 disregarding the Platonic conception of Absolute Beauty, 
 might perhaps be defined as that which is present of the 
 infinite in the finite. 
 
PREFACE 19 
 
 thoughts of those who have learned in the 
 school of suffering to feel 
 
 " the heavy and the weary weight 
 Of all this unintelligible world." 
 
 The " white radiance" of noon, that grew from 
 the delicate hopefulness of dawn, sinks suddenly 
 into a tropic twilight, and the soul is left '* lone- 
 wandering through the night," filled with the 
 bitterness of disillusion, sorrowing for lost ideals 
 and for that perfect faith in the omnipresence of 
 Beauty which, in their passing, take with them 
 youth with its untried confidence in life. But 
 the night has its stars, and happy is he who, see- 
 ing them, feels their unalterable calm and gains 
 an appreciation of life's fundamental loveliness. 
 
 There is a distinct difference between purely 
 intellectual conceptions and those that are col- 
 oured by feeling; for instance, the idea of Deity, 
 arrived at by the reasoning faculty of the mind 
 alone, is apt to be much less anthropomorphic 
 than the conception of God into which an 
 emotional element enters. While complete dif- 
 ferentiation of the two is, of course, impossible, 
 
20 PREFACE 
 
 the attempt has yet been made to distinguish, 
 in a way, between them. 
 
 The progress of the soul through the realm 
 of emotion is here represented (Part I) in a 
 series of lyrics, which, disregarding all else, 
 present merely the moods characteristic of par- 
 ticular periods. It may possibly be as well to 
 state that there were considerable intervals be- 
 tween the times of writing the various lyrics, 
 and that they were composed without any reali- 
 zation that they would form a sequence. The 
 second part is, on the other hand, a conscious 
 attempt to trace, with continuity and with regard 
 for cause and effect, the intellectual growth of 
 the soul from the mental attitude of boyhood to 
 its higher optimism. 
 
 It is my conviction that any spiritual experi- 
 ence, such as that herein portrayed, while true in 
 all its details to one alone, will yet, through the 
 general kinship of humanity, be partially true 
 to all ; and, in the belief that art loses value in 
 whatever measure it deviates from complete sin- 
 cerity, I have tried to describe the experiences 
 as accurately as possible, introducing only such 
 
PREFACE 21 
 
 slight alterations as are essential to all artistic 
 representation. 
 
 English poetry is full of allusions to the 
 vision and its passing, and there are many ref- 
 erences to the soul's return from the winter of 
 its discontent to a hngering Indian summer 
 of mellower youthfulness. Some, however, have 
 never passed beyond the second stage ; they 
 have become bewildered in cloud-filled valleys 
 and have seen, only in rare and sunnier mo- 
 ments, the tranquil peaks for which they ever 
 look longingly, but whose summits they may 
 never attain. 
 
 Yet the experiences of life come to each one 
 of us afresh, as unaging dawn comes to each 
 new day ; and so I too have attempted to ex- 
 press the moods and the thoughts of the soul 
 in its progress. 
 
 LOUIS V. LEDOUX. 
 
 " Skyrie " > 
 
 October 22, 1906. 
 
THE SOUL'S PROGRESS 
 PART I 
 
BOYHOOD 
 
 " The dream I dreamed, hut waking could not live " 
 
 I STAND on the shore of a stormless sea, 
 With Hope's young eyes in wonder wide, 
 And watch the sun-swept ripples ghde 
 
 From dreaming haze of eternity. 
 
 The ocean is kind, for the wavelets play 
 With smile and shimmer about my feet, 
 And scatter benediction sweet 
 
 In drops of silent-falHng spray. 
 
 The wind is still ; the deep is calm ; 
 
 My soul looks down through the visioned 
 years 
 
 And finds no presage of grief or tears, 
 For the sea will cradle my bark from harm. 
 
26 YOUTH 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 *' God must be glad one loves His world so much 
 
 I SING the joy of the wind-swept woods, 
 
 The joy of the sunlit sky, 
 The joy of the solemn solitudes 
 
 Where the stars burn clear on high ; 
 
 For life is a joyous" song of Love, 
 
 Of Beauty and Delight, 
 And human souls in cadence move 
 
 With the hymn of noon and night. 
 
 I sing with the winds, the stars and sun, 
 
 As the world rolls on its way, 
 A song of cosmic joy, begun 
 
 At the birth of night and day ; 
 
YOUTH 27 
 
 For life is a perfect symphony 
 With God and His world in tune, 
 
 And I feel the vibrant harmony 
 Of the pulsing days of June. 
 
28 THE COMING OF DOUBT 
 
 THE COMING OF DOUBT 
 
 *' Norns, is the heart of a boy CocCs lie ? " 
 
 Alone with Nature on a joyous day, 
 
 We wandered through the forest, loving all 
 
 The wondrous beauty of the youthful May, 
 And gloried in the Spring. We heard the 
 call 
 
 Of birds that sang their rippling notes of love, 
 
 Full-throated, chanting praise to God above 
 
 We saw the orchids — yellow, red, and white — 
 Agleam in purple shade of dusky pines; 
 
 And ferns that sway in woven forest light, 
 
 Cradled in vales where languorous day re- 
 clines ; 
 
 While 'gainst the grey of Hchened cliffs on high. 
 
 The laurel showed, as clouds in dawn's dim sky. 
 
THE COMING OF DOUBT 29 
 
 The sense of Beauty thrilled us, till we saw 
 Naught but effulgent, rapturous Beauty; 
 heard 
 
 And felt but Beauty only. All the law 
 
 Of life was summed in Beauty. Like a bird 
 
 The world sang paeans rich with pure dehght, 
 
 And gave no presage of the coming night. 
 
 We spoke of Beauty — how it wrapped us 
 round, — 
 
 Of how the world was fair, and life was sweet ; 
 How God was love ; and every softest sound 
 
 A note in Nature's harmony complete. 
 And then a joyous bird began to sing, 
 That life was one transcendent, pulsing Spring. 
 
 When sunlight slanted from the western glow, 
 The ecstasy of Nature hushed our hearts 
 
 To voiceless adoration : soon the slow, 
 
 Soft twilight shadows lengthened, and the 
 darts 
 
30 THE COMING OF DOUBT 
 
 Of darkness rustled through the drowsy trees, 
 And spirit voices stole along the breeze. 
 
 Then falt'ringly our thought was framed in 
 speech, 
 
 And all the hopes and all the dreams of youth 
 Were voiced in low yet fervent words ; for each 
 
 Was starting on the long life-search for truth, 
 And each had seen a vision in the way. 
 And each was young as eager-hearted May. 
 
 But softly down the wind a whisper stole. 
 And woke remembrance of the warning cry 
 
 Of those who knew this Springtime of the soul. 
 Yet found it sadly wane and pass and die. 
 
 They saw the light of Beauty slowly fail, 
 
 Enwrapped in shrouding darkness — veil on 
 veil. 
 
 I cried : ** They say this glory soon must fade, 
 For Life will seize us with relentless hand 
 
THE COMING OF DOUBT 31 
 
 And screen the vivid light with folding shade ; 
 
 That all the realm of Beauty is a land 
 Of dreams and visions doomed to pass away, 
 And not God's prophecy of endless day." 
 
 But through the twilight came her answer clear : 
 " It cannot be that this is all a dream ! 
 
 It is too wonderful, and God is here. 
 
 Yet should it prove a transient, fading gleam 
 
 Before the dark, and hope be found a lie, 
 
 I pray that dreaming ever, we may die ! " 
 
 So, musing, passed we through the forest dim. 
 While evening spread the quiet glades with 
 dew. 
 And saw, far up the East, a lustrous rim 
 
 Of gold upon a mountain top, and knew 
 A Beauty purer far than sunlit May, 
 And murmured : " Night may fairer prove than 
 day ! " 
 
32 THE DEATH OF YOUTH 
 
 THE DEATH OF YOUTH 
 
 " / wake from day-dreams to this real night " 
 
 From sweet illusion waked in sudden night, 
 
 I saw Life's evil throng, 
 No longer masked in semblance of delight; — 
 
 Hypocrisy and wrong, 
 With all their loathsome kin, — and Youth, that 
 
 clung 
 To young ideals, to bitter words was stung : 
 
 " Has Life naught else but these repulsive 
 shapes, 
 
 So seeming fair without. 
 So foul and false within ? What soul escapes, 
 
 Surrounded by such rout, 
 
THE DEATH OF YOUTH 33 
 
 From loss of Love and Gladness, Hope and 
 
 Youth? 
 Is Life but disillusion? evil, truth?" 
 
 Then Youth grew faint among the ghastly 
 forms, 
 
 Which mocking, pressed more near, 
 And cried : ** Behold in us the naked norms 
 
 Of Life ; behold and fear. 
 For nevermore shall Beauty's swift surprise 
 Transform the world before thy startled eyes." 
 
 ** The Law of Life," they shrieked, ** is bitter 
 doom; 
 And man must bear its yoke." 
 But Hope that sank through solitudes of gloom, 
 
 In lingering anguish ^poke : 
 " I should not yet deny my early dream. 
 Would one sure Hght amid Life's darkness 
 gleam." 
 
34 THE DEATH OF YOUTH 
 
 A pause; and Hope, from ebb resurging^ 
 strove 
 To see in Life some light; 
 But still no single ray of Beauty clove 
 
 The universal night. 
 In all the world I saw but strife and pride, 
 With shams of faith; and Youth, despairing, 
 died. 
 
IN EXILE 35 
 
 IN EXILE 
 
 " If this were life, thou wouldst not hear me crying " 
 
 An exile in the city pent, 
 
 To me a glimpse of heaven is sent; — 
 
 A dash of blue, a drifting cloud ; — 
 
 And while around me, clamouring loud, 
 
 Is restless strife of careworn men, 
 
 I steal away in dreams, and then 
 
 I hear the robins carolling, 
 
 Where maple, oak, and chestnut swing 
 
 Their branches with the boisterous sweep 
 
 Of boyish winds that down the steep 
 
 Declivities of mountains leap. 
 
 Unheedful of the city's rocfr, 
 
 I Hve the life I hved of yore, 
 
 In which the mind, with Heaven content, 
 
 Found Heaven's every beauty blent 
 
36 IN EXILE 
 
 Within itself, till song of breeze, 
 
 The flowers' sweetness, fields, and trees 
 
 Established one complete control, 
 
 In harmony of part with whole, 
 
 Throughout the young harmonious soul. 
 
 Alone I pace the crowded street 
 
 And watch the thousands that I meet, 
 
 Till on me comes a tide of pity 
 
 For all the anguish of the city, 
 
 That surges up to God, unspoken. 
 
 From hearts whose trust in Him is broken, 
 
 Yet dumbly seek some certain token. 
 
 To show He heeds their silent pain. 
 
 The thousands pass and come again ; 
 
 Each hasteful, restless, on they race, 
 
 And graven deep on every face 
 
 By hard, remorseless, constant strife, 
 
 The condemnation of the life 
 
 Is writ. 
 
IN EXILE 37 
 
 How long, O Lord, how long 
 Wilt thou permit the perfect song 
 Of life that should be, thus to wail 
 Through minor tones, and dying, fail 
 In discord utterly? How long, 
 O Lord, how long must grief and wrong 
 Compel a thoughtful worker here, 
 Who feels the city's burthen near 
 His own heart ache, to sink away 
 Within himself, lest pity's sway 
 Too strong should prove, and drag its prey 
 Afar from possibility 
 Of peace ? Yet this alone to me 
 Brings restful calm ; for when I yearn 
 Too ardently to soothe the stern 
 Realities of pain that burn 
 The helpless hearts of men, I turn 
 The sad thought inward, sinking deep 
 From dream to dream, till pity sleep 
 And calm be found. 
 
38 IN EXILE 
 
 A glint of blue 
 Betw^een the house-tops, all the view 
 Of ample Heaven I need. A cloud 
 That shades the glaring street ; the crowd 
 Is all forgot ; the din is hushed ; 
 The restless eyes that by me rushed 
 Haste on unseen. Ah, could I show 
 To others that sweet path I go 
 To where — through memory's aid — I lie 
 And watch the tranquil, spacious sky, 
 In half unconscious bliss of mere 
 Existence ! Swallows dart and veer 
 In zigzag flight, and fragrant grass 
 Waves round me, while slow shadows pass 
 From flower to flower, till twilight's charm 
 Brings cool beneficence of calm. 
 
THE HIGHER OPTIMISM 39 
 
 THE HIGHER OPTIMISM 
 
 ** Beauty abides^ nor suffers mortal change" 
 
 High on a mountain where the rugged trees 
 Clung sturdily, I heard the crooning breeze 
 Whisper its silver-sounding slumber song 
 Among the cliffs, and o'er the valleys long, 
 Where drowsy leaves were nodding dreamy- 
 wise. 
 I saw, far up the deep, eternal skies. 
 The summer clouds which slumbrous steal 
 
 athwart 
 The sun, till ruffian, clamorous winds distort 
 Their shape, and make them fade and pass — 
 
 like men. ^ 
 
 The vision thrilled me ; for my soul till then 
 Had been throughout a stretch of darkened dayS; 
 Bound in the thralling bondage of the ways 
 
40 THE HIGHER OPTIMISM 
 
 Of cities, where the clanging notes of strife, 
 Discordant, voice our fever-fitful life. 
 Into my soul the glowing Beauty crept. 
 And stirred my senses which so long had slept, 
 Callous and cold, as winter still and hoary, — 
 Till now the fair transcendent summer's glory 
 Enwrapped my being like a lustral fire, 
 And tuned me to such music as the choir 
 Of clear-eyed angels chant in chorus there, 
 Where perfect harmony is perfect prayer. 
 And now my spirit's lyre, from silence long, 
 By God's own fingers waked to sudden song. 
 Breathed tremulous, through every eager string 
 The very melodies the seraphs sing. 
 I felt the love of God around me flow, — 
 Changeless, effulgent, through me burn and 
 
 glow. 
 And seemed to rise above the things of earth. 
 Pure as the moonbeams at the dawn's pale birth. 
 Before my eyes, in vision were unrolled 
 
THE HIGHER OPTIMISM 41 
 
 The scrolls of all the ages myriad-fold ; 
 
 The gates of Life and Death were opened 
 
 wide, 
 That I might see the surging human tide, 
 Instinct with hopes of Heaven and dread of 
 
 Hell, 
 Which, as its crested billows, breaking, fell, 
 Cast whirling up the crags of stolid Fate 
 The scattered surf of mortal love and hate. 
 Yet sadness there was none, for on my thought 
 Of all the ways that human souls are bought 
 For gold or dross or shadows of a dream. 
 There burst, like moonlight on a darkling 
 
 stream. 
 The glow of Beauty, poised with sheltering 
 
 wings. 
 Caressingly above the world which sings 
 Its hymn of wondrous rapture, while the spheres, 
 Through seons of the numberless long years, 
 Keep time and tune in magical mute song. 
 
42 THE HIGHER OPTIMISM 
 
 The moving spell of Beauty grew more strong ; 
 While still throughout my quivering being 
 
 wound 
 The sense of summer's blended light and 
 
 sound. 
 Like fleeting mist before unchanging hills, 
 I saw the universal gloom that fills 
 Our usual sight; within, beyond, above 
 Its transitory cloud rose steadfast Love. 
 
 In joyous vision, Life I saw complete, — 
 
 A unity, whose differing parts, replete 
 
 With hidden usage, build the perfect whole, 
 
 That waits unseen within the dormant soul. 
 
 For like a mighty symphony is Life, 
 
 Whence many voices rise that seem at strife ; — 
 
 We play with unskilled hands our single part ; 
 
 We hear the happy melodies that start 
 
 In beauty, cease unsung, while eager themes 
 
 In discord die. No plan or form there seems. 
 
THE HIGHER OPTIMISM 43 
 
 For heeding not the rest we play, each one 
 
 Alone ; and ere we have with toil begun 
 
 To know the whole, we die. Yet God who 
 
 wrote 
 The score, can hear how every separate note 
 Fulfils an end ; how themes that break in pain 
 Are caught by other instruments, and gain 
 At last completion, blending, ere they cease, 
 In harmony of woven chords of peace. 
 
 And then the spell of Beauty, working still. 
 Transformed my every sense, my thought, my 
 
 will, 
 To ecstasy. I knew no other life 
 But that of soul, and all the brutal strife. 
 The grief, the pain, seemed dim and far away. 
 Entranced I stood until the^yric day 
 Drew down toward tranquil twilight One clear 
 
 star, 
 Alone 'mid seas of orange fervour, far 
 
44 THE HIGHER OPTIMISM 
 
 Within the West was gleaming ; golden bright 
 It shone above the purple hills ; then light 
 Burst forth from clouds that opening — fold on 
 
 fold — 
 Disclosed unfathomed depths of burning gold ; 
 And from their central heart came darting rays, 
 Which spread diffused in trembling yellow haze 
 Among the cHffs ; in undulating lines 
 They came, and crowned the peaks and cresting 
 
 pines 
 With aureoles. 
 
 At length the western flame 
 Grew pale, and floating up the mountain came 
 The soft, enfolding shadows. Evening's breeze 
 Caressed the valley's gently waving trees; 
 The birds were rocked to sleep, then, one by one, 
 The timid stars peeped out, and day was done. 
 
PART II 
 
THE COURSE 
 
 From exile in the glooms of thought returned, 
 I sing the progress of the soul — through sweet, 
 Unclouded meadows ever warm with sun, 
 Down shadow-haunted marshes dim with mist, 
 To open uplands where the thrushes call ; 
 Where darkness only comes to grow more fair 
 Than day, and, awed with subtler beauty, pass 
 Through gently watching night to eager dawn. 
 For not till then the. soul, with broader view. 
 And calm initiate eyes that much have seen. 
 Beholds life's quiet meads and deserts lone ; 
 Its mountains, valleys, brooks, engulfing seas, 
 With sense of due perspective, seeing how 
 The parts combined create the landscape's full 
 Completion. Youth, that lives secure in dreams, 
 With Beauty void of change, unknowing pain, 
 
48 THE COURSE 
 
 Uplifts to fair, imaginary forms 
 The incomplete, disjointed parts of life. 
 The soul creates the light wherein it moves ; 
 And also gloom is born within the soul ; 
 For Nature holds her Fate-appointed way, 
 In one part steeped in Beauty, and in one 
 A senseless monster, dealing senseless doom ; 
 And we, who see the dark side or the bright. 
 Deduce her fulness from our partial ken. 
 So youth, which sees the brightness only, builds 
 Therefrom its perfect world, expressing thus 
 Itself Youth's mind, unclosing like a bud. 
 Beneath the freshness of the morning dew, 
 Lies open only to the cheerful sun ; 
 The shades of night pass over it unseen, 
 Unfelt, and thought of seldom. All the pain 
 With which the flinching world is charged, it 
 
 deems 
 But mere illusion, born of men purblind. 
 Who cannot see Hfe's Beauty, or have erred 
 
THE COURSE 49 
 
 In following out the pathway clearly nrarked, 
 That leads from bowers of early innocence 
 To twilight rest embosomed safe in peace — 
 The day accomplished and its journey done. 
 And there seems perfect calm a little while, 
 A tranquil watch beneath the kindly stars, 
 And then new life, with other happiness ; 
 For man in faith is nurtured, or he finds 
 A trust in God and Life the dower of youth. 
 
 How often, when in boyhood's days I stood 
 
 Upon a mountain top among the pines. 
 
 And saw the dreaming world below me 
 
 spread, — 
 The various green of cedar, oak, and birch; 
 A lake of silver burnished by the sun; 
 A homestead here and '"there that nestled 
 
 close 
 
 To kindly earth, — and saw the spacious sky. 
 
 The tranquil depth in depth of blue, the clouds 
 
 4 
 
50 THE COURSE 
 
 With cooling showers laden, and perceived 
 
 The solemn Beauty of God's handiwork, 
 
 I knew a speechless reverence passing prayer, 
 
 A bond of kinship with infinity ! 
 
 And sometimes lesser things awoke this sense : 
 
 An elm with branches like a fountain's curve 
 
 Arrested in its fall ; a rainbow's sheen. 
 
 That shimmered through a drifting smoke of 
 
 spray, 
 Brought swift communion with the Substance 
 
 dim 
 That they, its shadows real, made manifest 
 As one within a darkened room may feel 
 The silent presence of a friend unseen, 
 So I intensely felt that God, though hid. 
 Was close indeed. My trustful thought flowed 
 
 on 
 To Him — unformulate, for Him in me 
 I found; and I myself — the sunlit world, 
 The glory and the loveliness of life, 
 
THE COURSE 51 
 
 Seemed parts of Him — the sum and source 
 of all. 
 
 The world of sense His pregnant symbol 
 
 seemed ; 
 A metaphor of Him whose vital breath 
 Did permeate its every pore, who lived 
 In Nature, veiled as life and love and light. 
 That Man, with mortal eyes, might see the truth. 
 Then through the symbol fair I passed toward 
 
 Him 
 In whom it had its being, lived and moved, 
 Till all this firm, obtrusive universe 
 Grew half unreal. I hved within the soul 
 That lives in all things, and I saw naught else 
 On life's horizon. God was far more near 
 Than things of sense. With thought intent on 
 
 Him, 
 I moved through years, ignoring death and 
 
 change. 
 
52 THE COURSE 
 
 Around, within me, throbbing Beauty burned. 
 The days and nights with rapture grew intense, 
 And Hfe was one ecstatic hymn of joy, — 
 A summer rich in comradeship with God. 
 
 At length upon my eyes, with glory blind. 
 Stole gradual shade. I saw the rule of pain ; — 
 That all things kill to live, and slaying die ; — 
 And yet I felt it not. Within my sight 
 Was life's unrest, but I, aloof, looked on, 
 And vaguely thought through lyric words to 
 
 lift 
 Men's stooping minds till they should know the 
 
 white 
 Sublimity that shone about me still. 
 
 As one who sleeps, yet thinks himself awake, 
 Will pass vv^ith sudden start from dream to 
 
 truth. 
 So they who dream that life is wholly good, 
 
THE COURSE 53 
 
 By disillusion sharp are rudely waked, 
 
 To face, off-guard, the stern reality. 
 
 Like lightning striking swift from cloudless skies, 
 
 The disillusion comes, transforming life 
 
 To desolate immensities of waste. 
 
 Where Good lies slain, and Evil rules alone. 
 
 For with the death of youth the soul will swing 
 
 From joy to gloom, and he whose joy was most, 
 
 Will swing most far, with greatest impetus, 
 
 Nor turn at once toward central equipoise. 
 
 And thus it was with me. My voice, that oft 
 
 Had sounded rapturous notes, grew harsih with 
 
 pain; 
 For God was lost, with faith and joyous youth. 
 All nature seemed at heart impassive law. 
 That down the ages moved without intent. 
 Propelled by eyeless Chant:e, or eyeless Fate, 
 Unsparing man, ignoring good and ill. 
 I saw how men in urgent conflict strive, 
 With greed ignoble and insatiate, 
 
54 THE COURSE 
 
 Like soulless beasts, to seize another's prey, 
 I saw deserving poor unjustly doomed ; 
 The rich forgetting all but place and gold, 
 With cant of charity and monstrous pride. 
 I saw how maidens, dreaming girlish dreams, 
 Whom chivalry itself scarce dared approach, 
 Were given up, in all their purity. 
 To men with eager eyes and ruthless hands. 
 Who soiled the cherished body, stained the soul, 
 And turned all trust in life — all faith and 
 
 hope — 
 To slow, consuming agony of hate. 
 Heartsick with horror, then I turned away, 
 Though here and there true love serenely 
 
 burned, 
 With hght reproachful in the general gloom. 
 
 I saw religion oft defiled with sham, 
 And churches thronged with thoughtless crowds, 
 who came 
 
THE COURSE 55 
 
 For custom and convention — shamming faith ; 
 And some, of leading place, arch-hypocrites, 
 Whose paid pretence of real approach to 
 
 God, 
 Through use of vacant forms but half believed, 
 And wholly void of felt significance, 
 Seemed worse than open scoffs — more blas- 
 phemous. 
 I saw that most whose early, cloudless faith 
 Remained intact through grown experience, 
 Were those who lived in simple thoughtless- 
 ness — 
 Accepting custom's teaching, questioning not, 
 Nor feeling life's abysmal mystery. 
 
 And then from all the realms of ruling pain — 
 From Man and Nature -^ came a voice that 
 
 cried : 
 Could God have made this Malebolge of woe^ 
 This gloomy pity this sink of shams and death ? 
 
56 THE COURSE 
 
 Could God have given Man the power to yearn^ 
 And tJien decreed his yearning ever vain ? 
 In anguish rose the cosmic cry once more; 
 From every nook where life could lurk, it 
 
 rose: 
 If God has made it ally what God is He 
 Whose thought devised^ whose laws allow such 
 
 life ? 
 Then sick with grief and scorn, I vainly sought 
 For calm forgetfulness, therein to rest. 
 
 As youth, with mind intent on present joy, 
 Has vague perception of existent woe, 
 But sees it only as a passing cloud, 
 That scarcely dims the brightness of the sun ; 
 So, after darkness closes round the soul. 
 When chill miasmic mists enfold its core. 
 There comes a consciousness, obscurely felt. 
 That past the shrouding gloom is light unseen. 
 And thus it came to me : Life's bitterness 
 
THE COURSE 57 
 
 Oppressed my every thought — was all I felt 
 Or saw or knew ; and yet a sense profound 
 Of other truth existed. 
 
 All the while 
 I pondered those who spoke of Life and God: 
 The dreamer Plato, crowned with morning 
 
 light; 
 The Buddha, seeking mystic, deep repose ; 
 The voice of self-found manhood — Emerson ; 
 The surly Schopenhauer ; Haeckel too, 
 Whose grovelling system robs the world of 
 
 Soul ; 
 And him who, wandering through " tremendous 
 
 night," 
 Saw Life as blank despair, with grie^ supreme.^ 
 Then them I followed who^ panentheists, 
 Taught God transcendent, immanent — the soul 
 Of all — in all, and yet above — the whole ; 
 
 1 James Thomson, the Younger. 
 
58 THE COURSE 
 
 For theirs had been my own instinctive faith, 
 That died, accounting not for present pain. 
 But one alone I found whose doctrine seemed 
 To reach the very kernel, pass the husk, — 
 The singer Shelley, pure in heart, sincere ; 
 Whose self surpassed its shadowing deed and 
 
 song. 
 And this the truth he spoke, with constant voice : 
 Philosophy y religion^ thought must fail; 
 We cannot solve Life s primal mystery ^ — 
 Its cause ^ its sequence^ reason, end, or use ; 
 Yet love exists as man's immortal hope. 
 There lives a soul ijt all things that through 
 
 lOVCy 
 
 Works toward a far, millennial reign^ and 
 
 builds. 
 Eternity of joy, overcoming Fate, 
 
 And once in later time, a rapture came — 
 A trance of exaltation, unforeseen. 
 
THE COURSE 59 
 
 I sat in silence through a starry night, 
 
 And watched the moon its golden radiance 
 
 shed 
 Across a river's darkly rolling tide, 
 When suddenly the bonds of earth seemed 
 
 loosed ; 
 I felt myself divided — soul from sense ; 
 The baser part in swoon seemed laid behind — 
 I almost feared to look and see it there. 
 The soul in sudden purity went out, — 
 An exile seeking home. From earth it passed. 
 Toward some far other clime of fairer skies ; 
 But as an exile feeble, old, and worn 
 With long vicissitude, who staggers on 
 Until he sees the land of long desire. 
 And stretches trembling hands to touch its 
 
 earth, 
 May fall at last before the boundary — 
 My soul approached what seemed a dreamed-of 
 
 home, 
 
6o THE COURSE 
 
 And yearned to rest within its tranquil vales ; 
 
 But found it walled with beetling cliffs around, 
 
 With cliffs impassable and barriers strong, 
 
 That baffle one weighed down with aught of 
 
 earth, 
 
 And yield to him alone an entrance who, 
 
 Life's latest bonds unloosed, is simply soul. 
 
 In vain it strove to reach the silent land ; 
 
 The clinging earthly fetters held it back ; 
 
 Past earth, and entering not to heaven, it sank 
 
 O'ercome. Then slowly usual life returned ; 
 
 The differing parts that make the normal self 
 
 Were interfused once more, and naught was 
 left 
 
 Of this experience but memory, 
 
 And sheer exhaustion — body, soul, and mind. 
 
 And this confirmed the truth that Shelley 
 
 taught; — 
 There is a soul in each that blindly gropes 
 
THE COURSE 6i 
 
 Through darkness here awhile, in bonds con- 
 fined; 
 But yet a soul (a something far beyond 
 The sense ; we call it " soul," or what v/e will), 
 Transcendent, immanent, immortal. Past 
 All pain and change and death it Hves secure ; 
 Yet man can scarcely pierce with mortal sight 
 The thick, enfolding clouds that wrap it round. 
 We only see it gain with sudden gleam 
 A moment's vantage o'er surrounding dark. 
 But trust its light, inconstant now, is charged 
 With prophecy of constant light to come. 
 
 At length, from hiding dust of forms and 
 creeds. 
 
 Secure from them who bear yet soil his name, 
 
 I saw emerge the pale, brave Christ, thorn- 
 crowned. 
 
 With pleading eyes, and heart that deeply 
 yearned 
 
62 THE COURSE 
 
 To lighten life with hope and tender love. 
 Through Him, supplanting scorn, sweet pity 
 
 came, 
 Her gentle eyes suffused with ready tears, 
 Her hands divinely stretched toward human 
 
 pain. 
 With love like dawn, that grows from one faint 
 
 spot 
 Of grey, and reaches out through flushing 
 
 clouds, 
 Until the whole drear world awakes to light. 
 
 I strove to bring some joy to careworn men, 
 And turn their haunted eyes toward restful 
 Truth. 
 
 Throughout emotion's realm, in former words, 
 I traced the progress of the circling soul, 
 In long circumference from faith to faith; 
 
THE COURSE 63 
 
 But here with intellect — not heart — I speak 
 The complement, whose growth accomplished, 
 
 makes 
 The full-orbed sphere of Thought and Feeling 
 
 — both 
 Secure in trust, that past obscuring mists 
 The Soul's unchanging mountains rise serene. 
 
64 EPILOGUE 
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 Though human hearts with grief and anguish 
 Must still be darkened day by day^ 
 Though youth must pass and beauty languish ^ 
 Though joy must yield to sorrow's sway. 
 
 Though hope grows dim and faith uncertain^ 
 Though reaching thought forever fails 
 To see^ beyond death's dusky curtain^ 
 The mystery no search unveils^ 
 
 Shall I not heed what gleams of Beauty 
 Through Man and Nature surely shine f 
 Shall I neglect the certain duty 
 Of bringing joy to them that pine ? 
 
EPILOGUE 65 
 
 Our life is like a shadowed valley ^ — 
 The somber clouds above it fold ; 
 But here and there the su7tbeams rally ; 
 They totcch it here and there with gold. 
 
 In hearts by laughing joy neglectedy 
 In hearts by clinging grief oppressed^ 
 In nook and corner least expected 
 There Beauty waitSy an alkahest 
 
 Dissolving life from combination 
 Of mattery spirit y soul and sense y 
 That soul appears in sublimation, 
 Above its alloy dark and dense. 
 
 So let me livcy all Beauty seeing. 
 To lightest life where'er I can. 
 And mark the souts immortal being 
 Impearled within the mortal man. 
 
TO ' 67 
 
 TO 
 
 As bards of eld to cherished maids did bring 
 Those amaranths of poesy and prayer, 
 Whose music-woven coronals they wear, 
 Forevermore engarlanded with Spring; 
 So I, with later songs, for you shall wring 
 From dying years immortal youth, and dare 
 The slow, defeating ages to impair 
 Your loveliness. Full-voiced of you I sing, 
 And singing, lead you to that storied land 
 Of meadows starred with fadeless passion- 
 flowers. 
 Where Beatrice, Emilia, Stella stand 
 With girlhood in their eyes; while hand in 
 
 hand, 
 Iseult and Deidre roam through blissful bowers. 
 Absorbed in dreams of Love's remembered 
 hours. 
 
68 TO PHYLLIS 
 
 TO PHYLLIS 
 
 When thou dost leave thy wattled cote, 
 E'en silly sheep are sore bested ; 
 Then how could I play reed or oat 
 Amid the fields whence thou art fled? — 
 
 thou, my joy's sole livelihed ! 
 
 1 could not heed the throstle's song. 
 Nor mark the garish woods bedight 
 
 With cardinal flowers. The groves among, 
 O Phyllis ! think what woful wight 
 Were Corydon, in hapless plight. 
 
 Along the river's flowery strand 
 Pale purple orchises, unseen, 
 Amid the meadows lush would stand, 
 While I, distraught, with teen and threne 
 ewailed the Shepherd's vanished Queen. 
 
TO PHYLLIS 69 
 
 The pastoral life would lose its charm, 
 Its fabled force the country air; 
 E'en Cynthia's beams could bring no balm 
 To Corydon, wert thou not there, 
 Phyllis, the country life to share. 
 
70 THE HILL OF PINES 
 
 THE HILL OF PINES 
 
 Stretched out beneath a mountain pine, 
 I watch the mottled woods below ; 
 
 The distant hills their clear-cut line 
 Through soft October sunlight show. 
 
 A busy sparrow hurries by, 
 
 And now a hawk above me veers — 
 Grey wings against an azure sky ; — 
 
 A droning bee about me steers. 
 
 This nodding little bluebell seems 
 A vagrant bit of Heaven furled ; 
 
 The nestling lake like diamond gleams. 
 Its sapphire calm in ripples curled. 
 
THE HILL OF PINES 71 
 
 I see the light on hill and plain, 
 
 I see the sky's resplendent blue, 
 But all my thought turns back again 
 
 To other days fulfilled with you. 
 
 You shared my love of flower and field ; 
 
 Your comradeship to Nature brought 
 A deeper joy than she can yield 
 
 To me bereft of answering thought. 
 
 About the hills a memory clings, 
 
 It haunts the forest's rustling ways; — 
 
 The doubled pleasure sharing brings 
 I miss these clear October days. 
 
72 DIRGE FOR LOVE 
 
 DIRGE FOR LOVE 
 
 No more the moonless nights enchant 
 Our hearts, till life with beauty thrills ; 
 No more our souls, awakened, pant 
 To break earth's bonds recalcitrant; 
 No more for us the dawn fulfils 
 Night's hope above the dreaming hills. 
 
 No more ! No more ! for love is dead, — 
 Young love, the child, to Heaven returned. 
 Young love that made the dawns so red, 
 And through imperfect Nature shed 
 Such light, untainted beauty burned 
 Before our souls that upward yearned. 
 
 No more I sing the Spirit's song, — 
 By love uplifted, sphere on sphere ; 
 
DIRGE FOR LOVE 73 
 
 With blatant voice of human wrong 
 I sing; yet still I dumbly long 
 To breathe dawn-music, trilling clear 
 Through love's intensive atmosphere. 
 
 In night I see but night alone ; 
 
 In dawn unrest that leads to day ; 
 
 At noon I hear the bitter moan 
 
 Of life, whose myriad tongues intone 
 
 A litany to laws that they, 
 
 With love's lamented dreams, obey. 
 
 Young love is dead. The lonely hours 
 Bring each its dread increase of doom ; 
 About love's grave thick darkness lours ; 
 And there life's penitential flowers 
 Death-sweet, revive in endless bloom, 
 For life's horizon is love's tomb. 
 
74 LONELINESS 
 
 LONELINESS 
 
 Let me come back a little while, 
 
 In friendship's name, 
 To touch your hand, to see you smile, 
 
 As when I came 
 Each day, and found your welcome still the same, 
 Through younger, happier years, in friendship's 
 name. 
 
 I do not ask for lavish June, 
 
 With Spring full-grown, 
 Nor yet for hopeful May ; my boon 
 
 Is this alone : 
 To find one breath of Spring through Winter 
 
 blown ! 
 Shall not love's death for all love's faults atone? 
 
LONELINESS 75 
 
 You cannot all forget how love, 
 
 With wondering eyes 
 But newly opened, looked above, 
 
 Saw sudden skies, 
 And gazed a moment, awed with vague surprise. 
 Then reached a tiny hand for paradise. 
 
 Can you forget how love, the child, 
 
 With stammering speech, 
 So many laughing hours beguiled 
 
 In strife to teach 
 His unused tongue those perfect words that reach 
 The sense, but faltered timidly on each? 
 
 Alas, I cannot all forget 
 
 How love that grew 
 More wonderful each day,'*ere yet 
 
 His childhood knew 
 Its own omnipotence, swift lightning slew, 
 And left this void immensity; can you? 
 
76 LONELINESS 
 
 I ask not much ; — but leave to sit 
 
 With you again, 
 Beside a fire your hands have lit, 
 
 And hear the rain 
 Outside, or watch with you how hill and plain 
 In morning brighten. Must I ask in vain? 
 
 Let me come back a little while, 
 
 In friendship's name, " 
 To touch your hand, to see you smile, 
 
 As when I came 
 With love that smouldered toward a birth of 
 
 flame, 
 Through younger, happier years, in friendship's 
 name. 
 
LOVE'S HOMING 77 
 
 LOVE'S HOMING 
 
 As a bird returns to its nest 
 
 I come to thee ; 
 From the mocking world's unrest 
 
 Thou savest me : 
 
 All else is dark, a night 
 
 Of storm and strife ; 
 I come to thee for light, 
 
 For love, for life. 
 
78 THE TOPIARIST 
 
 THE TOPIARIST 
 
 As tender trees are bent until they grow 
 In strange unnatural shapes, so we who prate 
 
 Of freedom, all our thwarted lives must show 
 The stringent bending of our gardener — Fate. 
 
LOVE'S IMPOTENCE 79 
 
 LOVE'S IMPOTENCE 
 
 To watch a woman's face grow old 
 
 From helpless day to day; 
 To see increasing anguish mould 
 
 Its hardening lines ; to pray 
 In blind attempt to bend unbending steel, 
 Is bitterness that death alone can heal. 
 
 Yet love that sees each deepening line 
 
 Resistless griefs engrave ; 
 Yet love that finds no anodyne, 
 
 No hope, no means to save, — 
 A wave that breaks ^on Fate's unheeding 
 
 shore, — 
 For very impotence but loves the more. 
 
So LIFE 
 
 LIFE 
 
 In youth I saw her beauty shine 
 
 Undimmed by clouds of gathering gloom ; 
 I saw her rise serene, divine 
 
 Above man's woe, defying doom. 
 
 Then whirling tempests gathered fast ; 
 
 I felt the storm-wind's rending breath ; 
 A lightning flash — I saw aghast 
 
 That Life was but a form of Death : 
 
 Life but a form of Death, where change 
 Is lord ; where Youth and Beauty wail 
 
 And fade away, transformed to strange 
 Disfigured shapes ; and burning pale 
 
LIFE 8i 
 
 Upon the front of Life, I saw 
 
 The brand of pain. Then old and sear 
 She passed, obeying Nature's law, 
 
 And in her stead stood Death, austere. 
 
82 THE BETTER PART 
 
 THE BETTER PART 
 
 If faith be possible, to rest in faith, 
 Child-hearted, safe, — with shelt'ring gentle arms 
 Beneath, above; no wraith 
 Of doubt, no wild alarms 
 To fright the soul that dreams toward endless 
 
 bliss, — is best; 
 And some in shelt'ring arms of faith securely 
 rest. 
 
 If doubt be strong, then live in honest doubt; 
 
 Not seeking others' lucid faith to change, 
 But bravely working out 
 Within their ample range, 
 
 The chances manifold of this most certain hfe, 
 
 With opportunities for action, courage rife. 
 
THE BETTER PART 83 
 
 To stand in manly tenderness is good, — 
 With ready pity touching many lives, — 
 
 And save for solitude 
 
 The idle grief that rives 
 The heart. Can life express itself in better way 
 Than offVing unexpected kindness day by day? 
 
 What need of searching how or whence or why? 
 We have this life to make of what we will ; 
 And yet we weakly cry, 
 ** Behold, Fate thwarts us still ! " 
 We can but ponder thwarting Fate, yet are we 
 
 free 
 Within our mortal limits noble, base to be. 
 
84 THE STRANGER 
 
 THE STRANGER 
 
 A LONELY stranger wandering back, 
 He seeks a scene of long ago ; 
 
 His feet the well-remembered track 
 Retrace with heavy steps and slow. 
 
 He finds the nestling garden spot 
 That love made sacred long ago ; 
 
 The garden paths have altered not, 
 Unchanged the stately cedars grow. 
 
 The same encircling hills look down 
 Through moonlit haze as long ago ; 
 
 And still their shadowy masses crown 
 The garden view, in graceful bow. 
 
THE STRANGER 85 
 
 A few late sprays of heliotrope, — 
 So fair it flowered ! O, long ago ! — 
 
 And down the gentle southern slope 
 The last October roses blow. 
 
 Some dusky asters dark with night ; 
 
 (How dark is grief for long ago !) 
 The yellow-centred cosmos, white, 
 
 Before him glimmers, row on row. 
 
 The autumn moon is watching, calm. 
 As oft it watched so long ago ; 
 
 But her who gave the night its charm 
 No more the moonlit alleys know. 
 
 In other days he lighfly came, 
 
 (How different now from long ago ! ) 
 
 To touch her hand ; to breathe her name, 
 (The name he gave her) breathing low. 
 
S6 THE STRANGER 
 
 He lingers near an ancient dial 
 
 That marked love's hours of long ago ; 
 
 So swift their stream ! — a little while — 
 The sluggish hours but scarcely flow. 
 
 He dreams a moment love unchanged 
 Awaits him there as long ago ; 
 
 But from the paths where lovers ranged 
 He turns alone. Ah, bitter woe ! 
 
THE LAST SYMPHONY 87 
 
 THE LAST SYMPHONY 
 
 A Monologue 
 
 The fire is sinking, Alice, like my life ; 
 A little moving of the wood will make 
 The one flame up again ; but I, — no more. 
 There was a time when you could make me 
 
 glow 
 With life and love and inspiration ; now 
 I wait for death ; yes, glad to find him near. 
 I only want to rest a little while 
 With you, and talk. How strange ! — we two 
 
 again 
 Sit hand in hand, and all the vacant years 
 Of utter loneliness seem scarcely real. 
 Just then a wandering lock of hair that touched 
 My cheek, brought back to me a simple song 
 I sang you long ago, of how that touch 
 
88 THE LAST SYMPHONY 
 
 Thrilled through me like a sudden glimpse of 
 
 God. 
 Do you remember, Alice ? You were pleased, 
 And said your poet would win fame and friends. 
 They came through music; do you think they 
 
 count? 
 
 My life is almost ended now ; I seem 
 
 Above it all, and, looking down, I see 
 
 The distant dawn of youth, whose light was 
 
 you; 
 And then I see the clouds that filled my sky, 
 The one mistake that made my day so dark ; 
 But now at sunset, just before the night, 
 The clouds have broken, Alice, here with you. 
 
 Your hand is cool upon my brow ; yes, 
 
 leave 
 It there. The fever sinks, or changes back 
 Again to that old fever of the Spring ; — 
 
 tOFC 
 
THE LAST SYMPHONY 89 
 
 And yet I have not thanked you that you 
 
 came, 
 Nor him who did not grudge this happiness 
 To me who missed you all the lonely years. 
 
 Alice, my eyes are growing very dim ; 
 Perhaps my mind is wand'ring idly; yet 
 I would retrace with you my path of life, 
 Whose farthest stretch is now so close at hand. 
 Do you remember when our hves were young 
 What perfect comradeship of thought was ours? 
 How first the impulse stirred me to express. 
 By means of art, the joy we had in life. 
 And voice myself in music? Sometimes then 
 We wondered whence this impulse came, so 
 
 strong 
 And so mysterious : I never knew. 
 Then many forms I tried, and failed in each, 
 From song to symphony ; but still we loved 
 Those crude attempts of thought, but inchoate, 
 
^o THE LAST SYMPHONY 
 
 To reach a formed expression. You would 
 
 give 
 Me courage to attempt again, and I 
 Would come to you for rest and cheer in oft 
 Repeated failure. Once, do you forget? 
 You said I 'd robbed you when I burned them 
 
 all. 
 And then came love, and gave me of his strength 
 To sing more worthily of life, and you. 
 (Forgive me, Alice, that I bring your tears. 
 You know I too have wept, alone — so long.) 
 
 Then soon a subtile something came be- 
 tween ; — 
 Nay, do not speak, I understand it now ; — 
 You could not quite accept the artist soul, — 
 Its twilight strange of sun and shadow blent; 
 And then he found you. Oh, I know he gave 
 You many things you would have lacked with 
 me; 
 
THE LAST SYMPHONY 91 
 
 But did he understand your soul, your sweet 
 
 Imperial tenderness, your girlish dreams 
 
 I loved so well ? Alas, I saw it all ; 
 
 I watched you ever, though you knew it not. 
 
 I saw your eyes grow dim, the wrinkles 
 
 come, — 
 As, God be thanked, I shall not see again, — 
 And once, across a crowded concert room, 
 I met your look ; I saw the tears ; I knew 
 My music reached you, — led you gently back 
 To live again the days I dream of still. 
 I knew you would remember. Sometimes, then, 
 I thought you missed me — felt I wanted you — 
 And that was why we did not dare to meet. 
 And once — through windows open when I 
 
 passed — 
 I heard your voice that sang my own old 
 
 song — 
 Your voice that sang, then broke with sudden 
 
 tears ; 
 
92 THE LAST SYMPHONY 
 
 And coming back, I tried my early art, — 
 
 To leave my soul expressed in words, not tones, 
 
 For you alone to see when I was gone. 
 
 The words are here, kept safe, with music too : 
 
 How long I lack your love, 
 With unfulfilled desire, — 
 
 How long, how long ! 
 My thoughts about you move 
 Like baffled waves of fire, 
 With unfulfilled desire, — 
 
 How long, how long ! 
 
 How long I yearn to fold 
 Your loneliness in mine, — 
 
 How long, how long ! 
 While life unlived grows old. 
 For love's fulfilment pine. 
 Your loneliness and mine, — 
 
 How long, how long ! 
 
THE LAST SYMPHONY 93 
 
 Will you not sing it sometimes all alone, 
 In memory of him who wrote, and loved? 
 
 But now my twilight comes and you are here, 
 As I have dreamed so many times you were ; — 
 So close that there again I feel your hair. 
 The one last flower of all my cherished art 
 I long to give you, Alice, hand to hand. 
 It grew with tender care, through thoughtful 
 
 years. 
 To hold my human longing, lack, and love — 
 A yearning deeper than Tschaikowsky cried 
 Or Chopin sang. In this I give you all ; — 
 Our gently breathing dawn, our eager youth 
 Of love and light, and then the stooping clouds, 
 The loneliness and yearning unfulfilled. 
 With just this glimpse of sunset ere the night. 
 
 So take my off'ring ; here, by music saved. 
 Our broken lives are bound at last in one ; 
 
94 THE LAST SYMPHONY 
 
 And some in after time will understand — 
 Some few, who feel what music strives to say ; 
 So down the distant years we two shall go 
 As oft of old, together, hand in hand. 
 
 The fire is almost out, and you are tired. 
 I am quite happy, Alice ; can you not 
 Be happy too? You need not pity me ; 
 I had you always as a young ideal, 
 Unaging, undistraught with life ; the dawn 
 About you still. You must not grieve too 
 
 much. 
 Live bravely, Alice. 
 
 God I I loved her so ! 
 
SONGS FROM THE SILENT 
 LAND 
 
 By LOUIS V. LEDOUX 
 8vo. Boards. With Frontispiece. 
 
 The Outlook 
 
 There is not so much real poetry written in this country 
 nor so many true lovers of the art that a modest volume 
 of verse like this can be passed by too lightly. The 
 very refined and charming physical appearance of the 
 book is indicative ot the imagination and love of beauty 
 wrhich a reading of the verses discloses. Mr. Ledoux's 
 poems strike a pure and high note. 
 
 New York Evening Sun 
 
 Louis Vernon Ledoux, author of " Songs from the 
 Silent Land," has produced a first book which contains 
 more than promise. ... It is only necessary to look 
 over the poems to realize that they were written because 
 there was a distinct impulse. They sound, therefore, the 
 note of sincerity, whether the writer is dealing with the 
 mystery of nature, the mystery^ of love, or the mystery 
 of the world. 
 
 The Globe 
 
 There is strength and a poetic appeal in all this writer's 
 work. 
 
OeC 21 I90tt 
 
011 558 492 3