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 COPVRIGHT DEPOSIT 
 
SAID THE ROSE 
 
 AND OTHER LYRICS 
 
By George Henry Miles 
 
 Christine, and Other Poems 
 
 Mohammed 
 
 Essay on Hamlet 
 
 LoRETTo ; OR, The Choice. A Novel 
 
 The Truce of God. A Novel 
 
 The Governess. A Novel 
 
SAID THE ROSE 
 
 AND OTHER LYRICS 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE HENRY MILES 
 
 k 
 
 LATE PROFISSOR OF LITERATURE IN MOUNT ST, MARY's 
 COLLEGE, MARYLAND 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN CHURTON COLLINS 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 
 
 LONDON, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 
 
 1907 
 
U8RABY of CONGRESS 
 Two CoDtes Received 
 MAY 15 I90r 
 
 VCppyn«ht Entry 
 
 CLASS A XX6., No. 
 
 COPY e. • 
 
 ^C-) 
 
 -v 
 
 •'>'^ 
 
 ^. 
 
 ^ 
 
 c^^ 
 
 Copyright, igoy 
 By Frederick B. Miles 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 
 
Grateful thanks are due to Mrs. George 
 H. Miles, the poet's widow ; to the Reverend 
 Thomas E. Cox, pastor of St. Basil's Church, 
 Chicago ; to Professor Ernest Lagarde, of Mount 
 St. Mary's College, Frederick Co., Maryland j 
 to Mr. Eugene L. Didier, Baltimore, and espe- 
 cially to John Jerome Rooney, Esq., of New 
 York, for their kind encouragement and in- 
 valuable help in preparing this volume. 
 
 F. B. M. 
 
 New York, February, 1907 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Introduction ix 
 
 Said the Rose • . . 3 
 
 Raphael Sanzio 7 
 
 Marcela 18 
 
 She Will Return , 22 
 
 Under the Tree, Love :...., 24 
 
 San SisTO 27 
 
 The Bird's Song 30 
 
 Inkermann 32 
 
 All Souls' Day 45 
 
 The Country Doctor 51 
 
 A Card from the Violets 57 
 
 The Last Snow-Wreath 59 
 
 The Albatross 62 
 
 Beatrice 65 
 
 La Velata 71 
 
 Donna , 72 
 
 Blight and Bloom 75 
 
 Shemselnihar .......... 78 
 
 vii 
 
Contents 
 
 Page 
 
 Lazarus , 80 
 
 The King's Speech 83 
 
 Aladdin's Palace 88 
 
 Byron 105 
 
 The Ivory Crucifix 108 
 
 Youth il^ 
 
 Absence 116 
 
 Parting „ . . 1 1 7 
 
 The Bridesmaids' Greeting 119 
 
 The Bride's Reply 121 
 
 The Knight's Lament for his Steed . . 123 
 
 Forty To-day 127 
 
 SONGS 
 
 Bill and I 133 
 
 Fidelis .136 
 
 Lady Bird 138 
 
 Oh! the Year has Lost its Light . . . I4.0 
 
 Gabriel's Song 141 
 
 A Lullaby 143 
 
 ** Contraband Now" 144 
 
 God Save the South! 147 
 
 Where is the Freeman Found ? .... i 50 
 
 The Devil's Visit to 153 
 
 Vlll 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 MORE than thirty-five years have 
 passed since George Henry 
 Miles, the author of the pieces 
 collected in this volume, died in the 
 prime of life and promise ; and Frederick 
 B. Miles, having resolved to present in 
 a permanent form such of his brother's 
 writings as seemed most worthy of pres- 
 entation, has asked me to write a short 
 introduction to them. 
 
 I do this with pleasure ; firstly, because 
 I sympathize with my old friend's desire 
 to pay this tribute to a beloved memory, 
 and secondly, because I quite agree with 
 him that much which came from his 
 brother's pen is intrinsically well worth 
 preserving, having interest and distinction ; 
 ix 
 
Introduction 
 
 that some of his lyrics, notably such a 
 lyric as Said the Rose^ have the note of 
 really exquisite beauty and pathos, and 
 that in addition to his claims as a poet he 
 is fairly entitled, both as a dramatist and a 
 critic, to a niche, if a modest one, in the 
 history of American Literature. 
 
 It is clear that he owed more to nature 
 than to art, and was very intolerant some- 
 times of the labors of the file. It would 
 indeed be easy to point to many poems 
 where the distance between mediocrity and 
 distinction is plainly measured by the ab- 
 sence of what patience and industry would 
 have supplied. He was evidently one of 
 that class which partly from temperament 
 and partly from circumstances frequently 
 fail to do justice to their natural qualifica- 
 tions and powers. Eminently receptive 
 and sympathetic, and, even as a young 
 boy, with strong literary tastes, he appears 
 to have been too early thrown back on 
 himself, finding neither sufficient stimulus 
 
 X 
 
Introduction 
 
 nor nutriment in the society of his contem- 
 poraries at home and at the University. 
 In his days there was less intellectual life 
 in these seminaries now so alert, less stim- 
 ulative emulation among the students, less 
 love of Art and Letters, or even curiosity 
 about them. The standard of instruction 
 was lower, both in what it imparted and 
 at what it aimed. 
 
 These unpropitious surroundings in 
 early days are, one cannot but feel, far 
 more responsible for Miles' limitations and 
 defects than his natural parts. It was his 
 misfortune to roam desultorily through the 
 realms of literature without either stand- 
 ards or touchstones consciously or uncon- 
 sciously acquired,and unlike kindred spirits 
 in England, — such, for example, as Keats, 
 — without any literary tradition behind 
 him. He had not the puissant originahty 
 which enabled men like Whitman and Bret 
 Harte to waive books and culture aside, 
 and, drawing straight from themselves and 
 
Introduction 
 
 from life, pursue an independent path. 
 He was much more nearly allied both in 
 taste and temper to the school of Lowell, 
 Holmes, and Longfellow, but he had 
 neither their discipline, their scholarship, 
 their leisure, nor their surroundings, for his 
 home was Baltimore, not Boston. Nor 
 were the circumstances under which he 
 began, and under which he was destined to 
 pursue his literary career, more favorable 
 to the realization of that ideal at which 
 every true poet instinctively and indeed 
 necessarily aims. 
 
 The wonder is, that possessing, and in 
 unusual measure, the gifts of the literary 
 and dramatic craftsman, deft readiness of 
 invention and of assimilation, and fluency 
 and facility of expression, — the gifts, in 
 fine, which enable men to excel in the pro- 
 duction of what appeals to the moment, — 
 and having also every temptation to confine 
 himself to such productions, he should yet 
 have kept alive a more exalted ambition 
 xii 
 
Introduction 
 
 and have remained fairly loyal to higher 
 ideals. The world, it is true, judges men 
 not by what might have been, but by what 
 is, and a man is remembered only because 
 he cannot be forgotten. Yet those who 
 loved and admired Miles are justified in 
 emphasizing the fact that death struck him 
 down just when circumstances had enabled 
 him to abandon ephemeral for solid litera- 
 ture and to devote himself seriously to 
 what leads to fame. Whatever may be 
 thought of its main thesis and of some of 
 his minor contentions, no more vigorous, 
 subtle, and original contribution to Ameri- 
 can Shakespearian criticism has ever been 
 made than his Essay on Hamlet^ written 
 about a year before his death. This was 
 to have been followed by similar essays 
 on Macbeth, Othello, Henry IV, and Lear, 
 and it was while working at these, with 
 Macbeth half finished, that death brushed 
 t\\Q pen out of his hands. 
 
 His life, though a very busy, was not 
 
 Xlll 
 
Introduction 
 
 an eventful one. He was born on July 
 31, 1824, the year in which Byron died, 
 in the city of Baltimore, where he spent 
 most of his short life. He received his 
 education at Mount St. Mary's College, 
 near Emmitsburg, Frederick County, 
 Maryland, at the foot of the Blue Ridge 
 Mountains, a beautiful picturesque spot 
 about twelve miles south of the battlefield 
 of Gettysburg. By special arrangement, 
 for he was too young to enter in the regu- 
 lar way, he was admitted to the primary 
 department of that college in his tenth 
 year, and remained there, gradually passing 
 to the higher grades, for more than nine 
 years. He took his Bachelor's degree 
 with honors on June 28, 1843, ^^^ month 
 before attaining his nineteenth birthday, 
 and his A.M. degree one year later. The 
 nature of his education and the character 
 generally of the college differed little from 
 what in those days was usual in such sem- 
 inaries ; but Miles, whatever he owed to 
 xiv 
 
Introduction 
 
 the place intellectually, had always a great 
 affection for it, "His love for his Alma 
 Mater," writes one who knew him well, 
 "its charming neighborhood, its alumni, 
 its professors, and above all its President, 
 the Rev. Dr. John McCaffrey, was with him 
 a life-long passion. He loved that moun- 
 tain district as Wordsworth loved the Lake 
 Country. In after life he was never hap- 
 pier than when he could run up there, 
 alone or with a friend, for a brief holiday 
 at 'the mountain,' as they lovingly called 
 it, and go long walks, sometimes with gun 
 and game bag, among its vales and hills, 
 for he was a strong athletic man and an 
 excellent sportsman." 
 
 On leaving college he studied law in 
 Baltimore, his native place, with J. H. B. 
 Latrobe, a leading attorney and barrister 
 of that city, and afterwards joined his 
 friend E. Henry Webster, subsequently a 
 senator, with whom he practised in part- 
 nership for a few years at the bar. But 
 
Introduction 
 
 his heart was neither in the law nor in his 
 business. He had early contracted a love 
 for literature and poetry ; indeed the taste 
 was innate in him, and he soon found, as 
 so many others have done, that, 
 
 "Where such fairies once have danced 
 The grass will never grow." 
 
 And now began, collaterally with the 
 uncongenial profession, his literary career. 
 There was at that time but little sympathy 
 at Baltimore with art and letters ; the life 
 there was too social and easy. Of conge- 
 nial literary society he found almost none. 
 The best of educations for an artist and 
 man of letters is the reciprocity of enthu- 
 siasm and aspiration with equals and 
 superiors; but Miles stood almost alone. 
 There were too few with whom he could 
 interchange ideas ; there was almost no 
 one to whom he could turn for guidance 
 and counsel. In what to him was all 
 in all there was hardly a soul who had. 
 
Introduction 
 
 and few who even affected to have, the 
 smallest interest. On the contrary, there 
 were many who looked askance on a 
 young lawyer scribbling novels and poetry 
 when he ought to have been building up 
 a business. But Miles went his own way, 
 defiant and unperturbed. 
 
 In September, 1844, just after he had 
 completed his twentieth year, he began his 
 first tragedy, Michael di Lando^ Gonfalonier 
 of Florence. Between that date and the com- 
 pletion of the tragedy in January, 1 847, he 
 wrote three short novels : The Truce of God^ 
 Loretto, and The Governess. One brought 
 him a prize ; each one became very pop- 
 ular and passed through many editions ; 
 indeed they are still in continual demand, 
 particularly as school prizes. In addition 
 to these novels he wrote a number of 
 fugitive pieces, both in poetry and prose, 
 the greater portion of which remains still 
 uncollected. In January, 1847, Di Lando 
 was sent to Edwin Forrest, at that time the 
 ^ xvii 
 
Introduction 
 
 leading American tragedian and an enthu- 
 siastic patron of promising dramatic ability. 
 Forrest was a man of noble character, who 
 did all in his power to raise the character 
 of the drama in America. He offered a 
 prize of one thousand dollars for the best 
 original tragedy by an American writer. 
 He established also near Philadelphia, 
 his native place, a home for aged and 
 indigent actors, amply endowed, which 
 remains still a worthy memorial of his 
 philanthropy. 
 
 Though Miles' play of Di Lando was 
 not accepted by Forrest, he read it care- 
 fully and formed a very favorable opinion 
 of the talents of the young dramatist. On 
 returning the manuscript on January lo, 
 1848, he wrote to him at length, giving him 
 much friendly advice, and suggesting that 
 he should compete for the prize of one 
 thousand dollars which he had publicly 
 offered for the best original tragedy in 
 five acts. Miles was not slow in respond- 
 xviii 
 
Introduction 
 
 ing to this suggestion. He set vigorously 
 to work, and produced a tragedy on the 
 subject of Mohammed. How he fared 
 is recorded in the following letter from 
 Forrest : 
 
 Philadelphia, Dec, 7, 1848. 
 
 To George H. Miles, Esq., 
 
 Dear Sir, — I have just finished reading the 
 large number of Mss. with which my country- 
 men have favored me in consequence of certain 
 proposals made by me in June, 1847. Among 
 all the plays which have been presented to 
 me I do not find one that I could venture to 
 put upon the stage ; but as your tragedy of 
 Mohammed has been considered superior to all 
 the others as a dramatic poem I herein enclose 
 you a cheque for the sum of one thousand 
 dollars. 
 
 It is my intention to visit Baltimore in a ^0.^7 
 days, where I hope to have the pleasure of mak- 
 ing your personal acquaintance. 
 
 With sentiments of the highest esteem, 
 I am, my dear sir. 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Edwin P^orrest. 
 xix 
 
Introduction 
 
 Young Miles may well have been proud 
 of his triumph, for there were nearly a 
 hundred competitors ; but he afterwards 
 said with characteristic modesty, " Mine 
 was the best of a bad bunch." Not long 
 afterwards he met Forrest, and they became 
 and remained intimate friends during the 
 rest of their lives. In 1850 Mohammed 
 was published. It justified Forrest's ver- 
 dict, for though it was frequently per- 
 formed, it was not a success on the stage. 
 It has both too much and too little action, 
 stagnating in the first part in diffuse pro- 
 tracted dialogues, and in the fourth and 
 fifth acts overweighted with multiplicity 
 of incident. It lacks proportion and bal- 
 ance. Mohammed is simply the Moham- 
 med of history cleverly galvanized. The 
 minor characters, though with enough in- 
 dividuality to present them in contrast, 
 remain little more than lay figures. And 
 yet it has good touches, as when Sophian 
 exclaims, 
 
 XX 
 
Introduction 
 
 . . . Who consigned my life 
 unto thy keeping ? 
 Mohammed. Thou — by blasphemy ! 
 
 or again : 
 
 Moh. . . . Love blinds thee, Fatima. 
 Fat. I must be blind. 
 I see no pity in a father's heart. 
 
 The year after Mohammed was pub- 
 lished Miles was sent by the United 
 States government as bearer of diplomatic 
 despatches to the Court of Spain. This 
 mission included also another special duty. 
 A large picture with life-size figures for 
 the rotunda of the capitol at Washington 
 was now in course of designing, and it was 
 necessary to obtain authentic representa- 
 tions of sixteenth-century Spanish armor, 
 military costumes, weapons, flags, and the 
 like, to assist the artist. These Miles was 
 instructed to procure. The subject of 
 the picture was the discovery of the Mis- 
 sissippi River by the famous Spanish 
 xxi 
 
Introduction 
 
 explorer, Hernando de Soto. This drew 
 Miles* attention to the romantic career of 
 that extraordinary man, and suggested his 
 third tragedy, De Soto^ produced some 
 four years later. From Spain he made 
 a short journey to Italy for a visit to an 
 uncle, his father's brother, who lived in 
 Florence. Then, returning to Baltimore, 
 he resumed his dramatic and other lit- 
 erary labors, but found it uphill work, 
 though he made some political speeches 
 which were well received. 
 
 Restless and dissatisfied, he resolved to 
 quit Baltimore for New York, hoping 
 to find a more interesting and profitable 
 career. Here for a time he remained, 
 and found som.e very good friends, one 
 of them E. W. Tiers, whose daughter he 
 afterwards married, but made no headway 
 professionally ; so, abandoning New York, 
 he returned to his mingled law and litera- 
 ture at Baltimore. This was a great mis- 
 take; he should have tried Boston ! 
 xxii 
 
Introduction 
 
 In 1854 Miss Laura Keene, the popular 
 English actress, produced a comedy written 
 by him, Blight and Bloom, which had for a 
 time a great run in New York and other 
 cities. At this time the Crimean War 
 broke out, and in 1855 a spirited ballad 
 from his pQn,Inkermann, commemorated a 
 battle which inspired many other poets on 
 the opposite side of the Atlantic. In the 
 following year his tragedy of De Soto was 
 produced by James E. Murdoch, an actor 
 then very eminent and second in pop- 
 ularity only to Forrest. It was acted with 
 great success at two theatres at Baltimore, 
 Murdoch himself taking the principal part, 
 and for many years it continued to be 
 played in all parts of the country. It seems 
 now a rather extravagant production in 
 the style of the heroic plays of the Restora- 
 tion and is no longer performed. 
 
 Miles sometim-es varied his literary pur- 
 suits with lecturing, visiting, among other 
 places, Boston, where he met Emerson, 
 xxiii 
 
Introduction 
 
 Hawthorne, Longfellow, and Holmes. 
 One of his friends, George Sumner, who 
 had accompanied him to Europe when he 
 made the journey to Spain, introduced him 
 to his brother Charles, the senator, who 
 was then one of the most prominent advo- 
 cates for the abolition of slavery. With all 
 or most of these eminent men he became 
 more or less intimate. George Sumner 
 visited him afterwards in Baltimore. It is 
 greatly to be regretted that shortly before 
 his death Miles destroyed nearly all his 
 correspondence, so that none of the letters 
 he is known to have exchanged with them 
 have been preserved. Meanwhile he had 
 produced many of the poems which were 
 afterwards collected in the "Christine" 
 volume, and an interesting letter from 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes addressed to Mr. 
 Fields the publisher, who had asked his 
 opinion of three of the poems, — namely, 
 InkermanUj Sleep on I afterwards published 
 as Beatrice^ and Raphael Sanzio^ — was 
 xxiv 
 
Introduction 
 
 published by Mrs. Fields in the Century 
 Magazine of February, 1895. The letter 
 was as follows : 
 
 My dear Mr. Fields, — I return the three 
 poems you sent me, having read them with 
 much gratification. Each of them has its pecu- 
 liar merits and defects, as it seems to me, but all 
 show poetical feeling and artistic skill. 
 
 Sleep on! is the freshest and most individual 
 in its character. You will see my pencil com- 
 ment at the end of it. Inkermann is compara- 
 tively slipshod and careless, though not without 
 lyric fire and vivid force of description. Raphael 
 San%io would deserve higher praise if it were 
 not so closely imitative. 
 
 In truth, all these poems have a genuine 
 sound ; they are full of poetical thought and 
 breathed out in softly modulated words. The 
 music of Sleep on ! (now called Beatrice^ is very 
 sweet, and I have never seen heroic verse in 
 which the rhyme was less obtrusive or the 
 rhythm more diffluent. Still it would not be 
 fair to speak in these terms of praise without 
 pointing out the transparent imitativeness which 
 is common to all these poems. 
 
 XXV 
 
Introduction 
 
 Inkermann is a poetical Macaulay stewed. 
 The whole flow of its verse and resonant pas- 
 sion of its narrative are borrowed from the Lays 
 of Ancient Rome. There are many crashing lines 
 in it and the story is rather dashingly told, but 
 it is very inferior in polish, and even correctness, 
 to both the other poems. I have marked some 
 of its errata. 
 
 Raphael^ good as it is, is nothing more than 
 Browning browned over. Every turn of expres- 
 sion, and the whole animus, so to speak, is taken 
 from those poetical monologues of his. Call it 
 an imitation and it is excellent. 
 
 The best of the three poems, then, is Sleep on ! 
 I see Keats in it, and one or both of the Brown- 
 ings ; but though the form is borrowed the pas- 
 sion is genuine, the fire has passed along there, 
 and the verse has followed before the ashes 
 were quite cool. 
 
 Talent, certainly ; taste very fine for the 
 melodies of language ; deep, quiet sentiment. 
 Genius ? If beardless, yea ; if in sable silvered, 
 
 — and I think this cannot be a very young hand, 
 
 — why then ... we will suspend our opinion. 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 
 O. W, Holmes. 
 
 xxvi 
 
Introduction 
 
 Miles wrote Inkermann at the age of 30, 
 Sleep on ! at 31, and Raphael Sanzio when 
 just 32. 
 
 At Ford's Theatre, Baltimore, in 1858, 
 his five-act comedy Senor Valient e was 
 produced with the distinguished actor 
 J. W. Wallack in the leading part. This 
 was one of the most successful of his 
 dramas and had a great run, being acted 
 simultaneously at Baltimore, New York, 
 and Boston. At Philadelphia it was played 
 by a very distinguished caste, — Wallack, 
 Wheatleigh, J. S. Clarke, and Mrs. John 
 Drew, — all of whom were artists of the 
 first class. In calling it a " comedy " Miles 
 was presumably using the word in the 
 Spanish sense, as it recalls, though not in 
 diction or merit, the comedies of De Vega 
 and Calderon. Perhaps the most which 
 can be said is that it shows that Miles 
 had become no contemptible craftsman in 
 melodrama. 
 
 He now became employed in writing 
 xxvii 
 
Introduction 
 
 and adapting pieces for the stage. He 
 had become very intimate with John T. 
 Ford, the well-known manager, — a kind 
 and good man, who was the director of 
 two theatres, one in Baltimore, another in 
 Washington. For him Miles produced 
 in 1859 a three-act comedy, Mary s Birth- 
 day^ a sprightly trifle, which had a long 
 run in Boston. He wrote another, The 
 Seven Sisters, a play which had a direct 
 bearing on the momentous question then 
 agitating the country, the Seven Sisters 
 symbolizing the seven states who were the 
 first to secede in the great Civil War. 
 This drama ran for two winters in New 
 York, the winters, namely, of 1861 and 
 1862. 
 
 But before the production of this play 
 he had undertaken duties very different 
 from those in which he had hitherto been 
 engaged. In September, 1858, he had 
 been invited to fill the chair of English 
 Literature at his old university, Mount 
 xxviii 
 
Introduction 
 
 Saint Mary's, his appointment being syn- 
 chronous with the fiftieth anniversary of 
 the founding of the college. It was for 
 this occasion that he wrote the most vig- 
 orous of his poems, Aladdin s Palace^ 
 which he recited at the celebration. The 
 poem must have astonished those who 
 knew Miles only by the sort of work with 
 which his name was popularly associated. 
 To the younger members of his audience 
 it must have rung out like a trumpet call. 
 With all the enthusiasm of Emerson and 
 with a trenchant power which at times 
 recalls Churchill at his best, he denounces 
 all that was then degrading and emasculat- 
 ing a large part of American society and 
 politics, — the gross materialism, the sordid 
 greed, the cult of mediocrity, the puny 
 frivolity, the neglect of everything in edu- 
 cation, theory, and example that elevates 
 and refines : 
 
 O land of Lads and Liberty and Dollars ! 
 O Nation first in schools and last in scholars ! 
 xxix 
 
Introductu 
 
 ion 
 
 Where few are ignorant, yet none excel, 
 Whose peasants read, whose statesmen scarcely 
 
 spell; 
 Of what avail that science light the way 
 When dwindling Senates totter to decay, — 
 Like some tall poplar withered at the head. 
 Our middle green, but all the summit dead. 
 
 . . . great Diana! when we're only known 
 In courts where Adams trod and Franklin shone. 
 By mute Ambassadors who grandly scorn to 
 Maim any language save the one they 're born to. 
 
 Of what avail the boast of steam and cable 
 If doomed to grovel 'neath the curse of Babel ? 
 
 The lads who listened to him were 
 not likely to forget such a couplet as the 
 following : 
 
 Toil on, toil on, there 's no such word as fail, 
 Heaven sends the wind if we but set the sail. 
 
 How admirably is a type of man, com- 
 mon in every age, sarcastically hit off in 
 this : 
 
 XXX 
 
hit7^oduction 
 
 Too modest to bestow lest men applaud, 
 Faith just too feeble to invest with God ; 
 Just zeal sufficient to shun godless knowledge, 
 And just too little to endow a college ! 
 
 And there is beauty and true pathos in 
 the following, where he is looking back on 
 one of America's typical heroes, Daniel 
 Webster : 
 
 Know ye the fields that smooth the Pilgrim coast, 
 The lawn's soft slope in azure ocean lost, 
 The garden bounded by the billow's foam. 
 The gables stately as a Baron's home ? 
 Approach : along the cornland and the wold 
 October dies in crimson and in gold ; 
 That giant elm has scarce a score of leaves 
 To shade the voiceless nest beneath the eaves. 
 See the bright Sabbath morning silent break. 
 Save where the wild-fowl fans his tiny lake. 
 Save where, with ceaseless wail, the warning sea 
 Chants its one awful word — "Eternity." 
 
 Ah, Seth, unload the rifle — coil the line 
 
 Let the coot fly — the haddock lash the brine 
 
 O'er the mute hills, untracked, the wild deer 
 
 run — 
 The angler sleeps — thv hunter's deeds are done ! 
 xxxi 
 
Introduction 
 
 Steal in with muffled tread — the struggle past, 
 Released from thought, the grand brow rests at 
 last. 
 
 Folded the hands that never rose in v/rath 
 Unless to sweep a traitor from his path ; 
 Dim the dark eye before whose rapt command 
 Disunion, like a spectre, fled the land. 
 
 In the year following his appointment 
 to the chair at Mount Saint Mary's he 
 was married to Miss Adeline Tiers, whose 
 father, like himself, an alumnus of Saint 
 Mary's, he had known from boyhood. 
 Some years back his parents had bought a 
 country place, " Hayland," near the col- 
 lege, and, on the marriage of his daughter, 
 Mr. Tiers presented the young couple 
 with a charming country house known as 
 " Thornbrook " not far from Hayland, so 
 that he was most happily settled close to 
 his own and to his wife's parents. 
 
 His restless energy did not confine itself 
 to the duties of his chair, and he continued 
 his dramatic and other literary work. For- 
 xxxii 
 
Introduction 
 
 rest had commissioned him to write a 
 tragedy on Oliver Cromwell, but retired 
 from the stage before the drama was com- 
 pleted. But Ford took the play over in 
 conjunction with E. L. Davenport, who on 
 Forrest's decline had become the leading 
 tragedian in America. His Hamlet is his- 
 torical and still remembered. But Crom- 
 well, though finished, was not performed. 
 Poor Ford had been completely prostrated 
 by a terrible catastrophe, — the destruc- 
 tion of his theatre at Washington by fire, 
 attended, unhappily, with the loss of many 
 lives, — and Davenport, after an eight 
 weeks' engagement in Philadelphia, had 
 been disabled by gout. " I live in the 
 hope," he says in a letter to Miles, "to 
 produce Cromwell some day not very dis- 
 tant." But the day not very distant never 
 arrived. Davenport died while the play was 
 in rehearsal, and Oliver Cromwell rtmainQdy 
 and still remains, in manuscript. 
 
 And now the great Civil War convulsed 
 ^ xxxiii 
 
Introduction 
 
 the country between 1861 and 1865, and ^ 
 was distress and turmoil. Both the North- 
 ern and the Southern armies swept over the 
 formerly peaceful homes at Mount Saint 
 Mary's to the battlefield at Gettysburg. 
 As Maryland was a border Southern state, 
 Miles and his family naturally sympathized 
 with the Southland his brother-in-law and 
 one of his brothers served in the South- 
 ern army. He himself took no active 
 part in the war, but he wrote and published 
 several spirited songs, himself setting them 
 to music.^ Of these the best are undoubt- 
 edly God save the Souths and Where is the 
 Freeman Founds which, though perhaps not 
 equal to Whittier's effusions in the cause 
 of the North, were effective at the moment 
 and are still preserved. With these were 
 also a ballad in negro dialect. Contraband 
 Now^ and a graphic little idyl. Bill and /, 
 which, as it anticipated Bret Harte by six 
 
 ^ The songs with music are published by Novello 
 & Co. 
 
 xxxiv 
 
Introduction 
 
 years, is truly remarkable, being distinctly 
 in the Bret Harte vein and rivalling his 
 work. 
 
 The war had little effect on Miles' liter- 
 ary industry, for while it was in full career 
 he produced a fifth tragedy in five acts 
 entitled Afraja the Sorcerer^ founded on 
 the novel Afraja by Henry Miigge, the 
 scene being laid in Norway and Lapland, 
 but it was never performed. This was 
 followed in rapid succession by several 
 dramas, original or adapted : The Parish 
 Clerk^ Emily Chester, dramatized from a 
 novel of that name ; Love and Honor, 
 from the French of Emile Girardin ; The 
 Old Curiosity Shop, from Dickens ; and a 
 five-act tragedy, Thiodolf the Icelander, from 
 La Motte Fouque's novel of the same 
 name. None of these had much suc- 
 cess, and will be, probably deservedly, for- 
 gotten. Some of them were for John T. 
 Ford, he and Miles continuing always 
 close friends. 
 
 XXXV 
 
Introduction 
 
 In 1864 this drudgery, if it was drudg- 
 ery to him, was suspended by another 
 journey to Europe, this time to Florence. 
 He went on business, to settle the estate 
 of his uncle Henry Miles, who had 
 appointed him his executor. Miles must 
 have revelled in the beauties and asso- 
 ciations of a place already so familiar to 
 him through his studies and his previous 
 visit. The little poem. La Velata^ inspired 
 by one of the pictures in the Pitti Palace, 
 is indicative no doubt of the way in which 
 many another masterpiece in those glorious 
 galleries must have affected him. Here, 
 too, many of the most characteristic poems 
 of his favorite poet Browning, whose home 
 had been for many years within a stone's 
 throw of the galleries, would appeal to 
 him as they could never have appealed 
 before. It is in the poems written after 
 this visit to Florence that the influence of 
 Browning on Miles' work becomes most 
 apparent. Pity it is that they never met ; 
 xxxvi 
 
Introduction 
 
 but Browning, prostrated by the recent 
 death of his wife, had just left Florence for 
 England. 
 
 On his return to America, Miles con- 
 tributed to one of the magazines an article 
 recording some of the impressions made 
 upon him by his visits to Italy, under the 
 title of " Glimpses of Tuscany," but he 
 took no particular pains with it. And 
 now his friends persuaded him to make a 
 selection from the numerous poems, most 
 of them short and occasional, which for 
 many years he had been scattering pro- 
 fusely, partly for his own amusement and 
 partly to serve various purposes, through 
 the columns of newspapers and periodi- 
 cals. This at last he consented to do, 
 making Christine^ the only ambitious effort 
 in poetry which he had ever completed, 
 the centrepiece of the volume. And so, in 
 1866 appeared Christine^ A Troubadour s 
 Song, and Other Poems. On the poems 
 published in that volume and those con- 
 xxxvii 
 
Introduction 
 
 tained in this present one, whatever repu- 
 tation Miles can claim as a lyric poet must 
 rest. 
 
 In the summer of 1866 he resigned his 
 professorship at Mount Saint Mary's, but 
 continued to live near the college in his 
 home at Thornbrook until his death. 
 What can never be sufficiently regretted is 
 that he did not devote himself more to what 
 occupied only a subordinate place in his 
 workj — his Shakespearian critical studies, 
 — instead of to what occupied the greater 
 part of his time ; i, e, contributions to 
 ephemeral drama. But those taskmasters, 
 or sirens, the stage and journalism, which 
 have been and will continue to be perilous 
 snares for so many a man whose natural 
 parts have qualified him for a higher sphere 
 of activity, seldom suffer their thralls to 
 escape them. Between 1868 and 1869 
 Miles produced for John T. Ford a comic 
 musical burlesque, Abou Hassan the Wag^ 
 from the Arabian Nights^ together with 
 xxxviii 
 
Introduction 
 
 the music for the songs, The Maid of 
 Mayence^ In four acts, which was very suc- 
 cessful and had a long run at the great 
 Boston Theatre, with Mrs. D. P. Bowers 
 as heroine ; Behind the Scenes^ or The Girl 
 of the Period^ a comedy ; and lastly, The 
 Picture of Innocence^ a farce; and with this 
 his long series of contributions to the 
 stage was destined to close. 
 
 While engaged on these works he had 
 also been busy with a study of Hamlet, 
 It was originally designed for a popular 
 lecture to be delivered by Edwin Forrest, 
 and afterwards published as a manual 
 arranged to be used as a text-book for 
 advanced classes in English Literature. 
 As he himself says in writing to a friend 
 distinguished as an educator to whom he 
 sent a copy of Hamlet: "An experience 
 of seven years* teaching has convinced me 
 of the value of the masterpieces of the 
 great dramatist as a means of education. 
 It is my intention to follow this essay with 
 xxxix 
 
Introduction 
 
 others on Machethy Lear, Ot hello ^ and 
 Henry IV T 
 
 With Edwin Forrest the following cor- 
 respondence appeared on the subject : 
 
 Philadelphia, May lo, 1868. 
 Geo. H. Miles, Esq., 
 
 My dear Sir, — I duly received your favor 
 of 6th inst. and beg you will not hurry yourself to 
 furnish me the copy of Hamlet as I am quite 
 willing to wait your own convenience in the 
 matter. So don't be nervous, but " use all 
 gently." Hamlet is the subject of most impor- 
 tance, and much that is new, entirely new to the 
 public, may be evolved in a philosophical con- 
 sideration of this character, which, it has been 
 truly said, scarcely any two minds can contem- 
 plate from the same point of view. 
 
 I regret to hear you have not been well, &c. 
 
 Sincerely Yours, 1 
 
 Edwin Forrest. 
 
 By the autumn of the same year the £jj^j 
 on Hamlet was finished and sent to Forrest. 
 How it fared and what Forrest thought of 
 it will be seen from the following : 
 xl 
 
Introduction 
 
 Philadelphia, Sept. 9, 1868. 
 Geo. H. Miles, Esq., 
 
 My dear Sir, — I have carefully read and 
 duly considered your article on Hamlet, and have 
 come to the conclusion that it is better fitted for 
 a literary review than to serve my purpose as an 
 oral lecture to the public. In a periodical like 
 the North A)nerican Review^ in the new light 
 with which you have illumined the subject, it 
 would be read by both scholars and students 
 of Shakespeare with an increased interest and 
 intention. But it is my honest belief that it 
 would most signally fail, upon the minds of a 
 miscellaneous audience, to produce the desired 
 effect of a popular lecture. 
 
 Yours truly and sincerely, 
 
 Edwin Forrest. 
 
 The reasons for Forrest's decision can 
 only be conjectured. Perhaps there was 
 too much of it, for otherwise a lecture 
 better adapted for a popular audience 
 could scarcely be imagined. Full of en- 
 thusiasm and fire, lucid and picturesque, 
 trenchant and eloquent in expression, it 
 could scarcely fail to move and carry 
 xli 
 
Introduction 
 
 away such an assembly as it was designed 
 to appeal to. If it failed in its effect, it 
 would fail just where Forrest thought or 
 represented that it would be most likely 
 to succeed, ^ — -in the study with the cool 
 critic. The probabihty is that Forrest 
 totally dissented, as he may well have 
 done, from Miles' view of Hamlet's char- 
 acter, and that, knowing the play as such 
 an artist would be likely to know it, he 
 knew that some at least of Miles' con- 
 tentions were untenable. 
 
 The Essay on Hamlet^ with all its ex- 
 travagance and delusions, is a remarkable 
 contribution to Shakespearian criticism. 
 None but a man of genius could have 
 produced it, a man who, had he forti- 
 fied and disciplined natural gifts with what 
 study and reflection could supply, would 
 have developed into a really great critic. 
 It is not necessary here either to analyze 
 the essay or to dwell on what is palpably 
 untenable in its theories, such as its con-> 
 xlii 
 
Introduction 
 
 tention that Hamlet's arrest at sea was the 
 result of an arrangement which he had 
 himself made with the pirates, or that far 
 from being the incarnation of weakness 
 and irresolution he was the incarnation 
 of deliberation and strength, or that the 
 killing of the king was not the result 
 of sudden impulse, but the calculated cli- 
 max of long laid and carefully elaborated 
 schemes concealed even from Horatio. 
 But nothing could be more admirable than 
 his remarks on the characters of Ophelia 
 and the Queen, on the wisdom of Hamlet's 
 irresolution, both precedent and subse- 
 quent to the play-scene, on the reasonable- 
 ness of his distrust of Ophelia. How 
 excellent is the following ! He is com- 
 menting on the way in which Hamlet 
 persists in deferring the blow. 
 
 Who has not recognized in some degree the 
 
 charm of the suspended claw, or comprehended 
 
 the stern joy of the Hon in his lair? The 
 
 crimes of this sceptred fratricide are stale ; the 
 
 xliii 
 
Introduction 
 
 murdered man is dust ; his widow old in incest ; 
 there is no fresh living horror to clamor for 
 instant retribution. Indeed there is no adequate 
 retribution possible except such as the soul of 
 the avenger can find in saturating itself with the 
 spectacle of its victim. The naked fact of 
 killing the king would be poor revenge save as 
 the climax of antecedent torture, — not phys- 
 ical, but mental and spiritual torture. For when 
 mind and heart are outraged they seek to be 
 avenged in kind. To haunt that guilty court 
 like a spectre; to hang destruction by a hair 
 above the throne ; to wean his mother from her 
 low cleaving; to vex the state with turbulent 
 and dangerous lunacy ; to make that sleek 
 usurper quail and cower in every conflict; to 
 lash him with unsparing scorn ; to foil him at 
 every turn ; to sting him to a new crime ; to 
 drag him from his throne a self-convicted felon, 
 and, ultimately with one crowning sword-thrust 
 to make all even, — this is the nearest approach 
 to atonement of which the case is susceptible. 
 
 In his excellent remarks on the mis- 
 take of the division which now ends the 
 Third Act and dismisses the characters 
 xliv 
 
Introduction 
 
 after (Exeunt severally ; Hamlet dragging in 
 Polonius), instead of with the scene closing 
 after the passing of Fortinbras' army in 
 the present Fourth Act, Scene IV, we have 
 a convincing plea for a re-arrangement of 
 that portion of the drama. And well 
 worthy of consideration are his reasons : 
 
 Ending here, the interval consumed by the 
 voyage to England, the return of Laertes from 
 Paris, and the expedition of Fortinbras to Poland 
 and back, is thrown between the acts, — its 
 natural place. Greek tragedy, restricted by its 
 organic law to the culmination of events, was 
 necessarily an unbroken march from its prologue 
 to its catastrophe. Modern tragedy, aiming rather 
 at the development of character through a series 
 of events, has wisely divided these events into 
 groups separated from each other by the inter- 
 position of a curtain. By this brief but total 
 eclipse of the fictitious world, the mind is pre- 
 pared for intervals of time or space. A year 
 elapsed or an ocean crossed during the fall of 
 that mysterious screen does less violence to the 
 imagination than the supposition of a month 
 between consecutive scenes, 
 xlv 
 
Introduction 
 
 Again, his vindication of the famous 
 " cuts " in the Folio, though pressed into 
 the service of his very questionable theory 
 as to certain sides of Hamlet's character, 
 and his contention that they probably 
 came from Shakespeare himself, show 
 great acumen. But what strikes us most 
 in the essay is not only the intensity of 
 the critic's sympathetic appreciation of the 
 poet's work, but its penetrative insight 
 into its essence. To the uninitiated the 
 following passage may sound like verbiage, 
 but the initiated will feel its force and 
 know its truth, — at least as symbol : 
 
 Seeing Nature with Shakespeare's eye is like 
 reading the Heavens with a glass of infinite 
 range and power; wonder on wonder rolls into 
 view ; systems, dependencies, mysteries, rela- 
 tions, never before divined ; tokens of other 
 atmospheres, gleams of erratic luminaries that 
 seem to spurn all law yet move obedient to 
 one complex impulse; glimpses of courier light 
 cleaving the vast immensity on its way to our 
 yet unvisited world ; and all the while, the soul 
 xlvi 
 
Introduction 
 
 uplifted by the vision is flooded with the very 
 music of the spheres. 
 
 That a man with the powers and quali- 
 fications indicated in this essay should, 
 in consequence partly of his surroundings 
 and partly of circumstances, have never 
 been enabled to develop them as they 
 deserved, is indeed to be regretted. But 
 this is not all that has to be mourned. 
 The Essay on Hamlet, which appeared 
 in book form in 1870, was to have been 
 followed by similar essays on four other 
 tragedies of Shakespeare, but while he 
 was busily engaged with the essay on 
 Macbeth, he was attacked suddenly with a 
 fatal malady, — Bright's disease, — and six 
 months later he succumbed, passing quietly 
 away in the early morning of July 23, 
 1 87 1, just eight days before completing 
 his forty-seventh year. 
 
 Miles was a man greatly beloved and 
 respected by all who knew him, of hand- 
 some presence and singularly engaging 
 xlvii 
 
Introduction 
 
 manners. " He was," says one who knew 
 him well, " a loving, kindly soul, always 
 joyous, genial, and inspiring, never dull or 
 gloomy. His heart went out to all, espe- 
 cially to children ; it was a grief to him 
 that he had none of his own. He was a 
 good son, brother, husband, friend, and a 
 most winning, agreeable companion." In 
 society, both at Baltimore and New York, 
 he was a great favorite, as many still re- 
 member. Socially and professionally he 
 was brought into contact and was more 
 or less intimate with many interesting and 
 notable people, was one of the committee 
 to receive Thackeray and other literary 
 visitors to Baltimore. Unfortunately no 
 records of this phase of his life remain, 
 as shortly before his death he destroyed 
 nearly all his correspondence. Could he 
 have lived a little longer, he would have 
 met Sidney Lanier, who first came to Bal- 
 timore the very year that Miles died. 
 The poems published in 1866, together 
 xlviii 
 
Introduction 
 
 with others recently collected for this 
 edition, represent Miles' best work in 
 verse. They are of very unequal merit; 
 the best are undoubtedly the Lyrics. 
 Christine^ the most ambitious of them, 
 is a romantic story of love and beauty 
 and chivalry resembling in character 
 Byron's Bride of Abydos and Scott's Lay 
 of the last MinstreL Based on an old 
 Provencal legend, with a mediaeval touch 
 of miracle and a faint expression of reli- 
 gious symbolism of the time of the first 
 crusade, it is supposed to be recited by 
 a wandering troubadour before Richard 
 Coeur de Lion and his queen and court in 
 their camp at Acre, in Palestine, just as 
 Philip Augustus has deserted the crusad- 
 ers and is sailing home to France. The 
 poem will be read with pleasure by those 
 who are attracted by a species of poetry 
 which has always been an exotic in our 
 literature, and who find in picturesque 
 descriptions of nature, in successions of 
 d xlix 
 
Introduction 
 
 vividly embodied pageants, and in excel- 
 lent and most skilfully modulated rhythm, 
 compensation for falsetto and unreality. 
 It is always perilous and often fatal for a 
 poet to attempt excursions like these. In 
 poetry impossibilities are only tolerable 
 as the expression of symbolism or when 
 in their presentation the workmanship 
 exceeds the material. But in every part 
 it calls aloud for recension and the file. 
 These two stanzas are excellent : 
 
 They have left the lands where the tall hemp 
 springs, 
 Where the clover bends to the bee 5 
 They have left the hills where the red vine 
 
 flings 
 Her clustered curls of a thousand rings 
 Round the arms of the mulberry tree. 
 
 They have left the lands where the walnut lines 
 
 The roads, and the chestnuts blow ; 
 Beneath them the thread of the cataract shines. 
 Around them the plumes of the warrior pines, 
 Above them the rock and the snow. 
 1 
 
Introduction 
 
 And again, the Bridesmaids' Greeting has a 
 fine touch, beginning thus : 
 
 Sister, standing at Love's golden gate. 
 Life's second door — 
 Fleet the maiden-time is flying, 
 Friendship fast in love is dying. 
 Bridal fate doth separate 
 Friends evermore. 
 
 As O. W. Holmes remarked of them, 
 many of the poems which have yet intrin- 
 sically much merit recall too nearly the 
 echo of the works of other poets. Thus 
 Raphael Sanzio and San Sisto are echoes 
 showing the influence of Browning's 
 Andrea del Sarto and other poems ; Miles 
 himself would not have denied this. But 
 they are echoes above the reach of a mere 
 imitator. One marks with an asterisk : 
 
 . . . when 
 Our dreams at once are deeds — when upward 
 
 goes 
 The curtain from the clouded soul, and art 
 Flames all her unveiled Paradise before us, 
 li 
 
Introduction 
 
 which is at least vigorous. Nor would 
 the master himself have disdained what is 
 embodied in the dying Raphael's 
 
 She '11 find her way to Heaven, if I am there 
 Before her. 
 
 And in the San Sisto the poet points 
 out what the art critics fail to see, or say, 
 namely : that as is clearly indicated by the 
 footstool angels, the figures in the picture 
 are standing before the Eternal Throne. 
 
 Browning's Pretty Woman is faintly 
 recalled in A Card from the Violets^ and 
 again in Lazarus and The Kings Speech, 
 both of which, just in his manner, wreathe 
 figurative perplexity round simple concep- 
 tions. Yet they are distinctly not imita- 
 tions. The best of the longer poems is 
 Beatrice y as O. W. Holmes noticed when 
 he saw it in its original form. It owes 
 much to Keats, something perhaps to the 
 Brownings and to Tennyson's vein in 
 Love and Beauty, but the poem as a whole 
 Hi 
 
Introduction 
 
 is a really beautiful one, with a beauty not 
 imitative. From none but a poet's finely 
 touched spirit could have come such 
 verses as the following: 
 
 Sleep on, 
 My lost one, — each will walk the world 
 
 alone, 
 Since Heaven so wills it ; with thy daily cares 
 Thou wilt deal calmly, and thy guardian 
 
 prayers 
 Shall follow me, .... 
 For O, it seems as if the stream that ran 
 Beside my soul were dry, and all things have 
 A withered look ; the sunbeam on the wave 
 No longer dances, — the cold clouds refuse 
 Their sunset glow, — the unsought roses lose 
 Their perfumed blushes, — dimly wandereth 
 The moon amid the tree-tops, pale as death. 
 Weary and chill, — and I can scarce rejoice 
 In music's benediction, and the voice 
 Of friendship sounds like solemn mockery. 
 
 . Yet fear not 
 The future; I shall bravely front my lot 
 With the one rapture manhood ne'er foregoes, 
 The stately joy of mastering its woes, 
 liii 
 
Introduction 
 
 Inkermann^ though very spirited, has 
 little to distinguish it from other imita- 
 tions of Macaulay and Aytoun. Of the 
 love lyrics The Last Snow-Wreath is very 
 charming, and She will return is a pleasing 
 variant of Browning's A Woman s Last 
 Word, as also is Under the Tree, Love. By 
 far the best of the lyrics is Said the Rose, 
 which, but for a trifling flaw or two in the 
 workmanship, such as the jarring Poe 
 echo, " rare and radiant metal," and a few 
 strained rhymes like " From my leaves 
 no odors started^' would be a gem. The 
 touch. 
 
 And I shone about her slumbers 
 Like a light, 
 
 is exquisite. It may with truth be said of 
 this little poem, that no Anthology of 
 American poetry would be complete with- 
 out it. Of the sentimental songs, many 
 of which are pretty trifles without distinc- 
 tion, the best is Gabriel's Song. But among 
 liv 
 
Introduction 
 
 these songs is a little idyl which, espe- 
 cially as it anticipated Bret Harte by six 
 years, is truly remarkable. It is Bill and L 
 The conclusion is a little cumbrous and 
 obscure, illustrating a defect only too char- 
 acteristic of Miles, — his intolerance of 
 the labor of the file. 
 
 One of his most pleasing poems is 
 certainly that written at Chillon on his 
 attaining his fortieth year. There is here 
 a combination of grace and dignity in ex- 
 pression not usual with him, as well as 
 touches of true pathos. 
 
 Let me end by repeating what I said 
 when I began. It would be absurd to 
 claim for Miles a high place, judging him 
 by his actual achievement, even among the 
 minor poets of his country, so scanty were 
 the productions in which he did justice to 
 his powers. But to an enduring place 
 among them he is entitled, and it is a dis- 
 tinctive one. This is the justification of the 
 present collection, — at once a tribute of 
 Iv 
 
Introduction 
 
 respect and affection to a beloved memory, 
 and it is to be hoped a not unacceptable 
 gift to the lovers of poetry. Such a career 
 as is here sketched is, both from its associ- 
 ation with American dramatic history and 
 popular literature, as well as in its record 
 of manifold literary activity, of no ordi- 
 nary interest, while the very least that can 
 be said for such poems as Said the Rose, 
 Beatrice, GabrieFs Song, Bill and /, and The 
 last Snow-JVreath, is that they must always 
 please; and what always pleases ought not 
 to be forgotten. 
 
 J. Churton Collins. 
 
 \v\ 
 
SAID THE ROSE AND 
 OTHER LYRICS 
 
SAID THE ROSE AND 
 OTHER LYRICS 
 
 SAID THE ROSE 
 
 I AM weary of the Garden, 
 Said the Rose; 
 For the winter winds are sighing, 
 All my playmates round me dying, 
 And my leaves will soon be lying 
 'Neath the snows. 
 
 But I hear my Mistress coming, 
 
 Said the Rose; 
 She will take me to her chamber 
 Where the honeysuckles clamber 
 And I '11 bloom there all December 
 
 'Spite the snows. 
 
 Sweeter fell her lily finger 
 
 Than the Bee ! 
 Ah, how feebly I resisted. 
 Smoothed my thorns, and e'en assisted 
 As all blushing I was twisted 
 
 Off my tree. 
 3 
 
Said the Rose 
 
 And she fixed me in her bosom 
 
 Like a star ; 
 And I flashed there all the morning, 
 Jasmin, honeysuckle scorning. 
 Parasites forever fawning 
 
 That they are. 
 
 And when evening came she set me 
 
 In a vase 
 All of rare and radiant metal, 
 And I felt her red lips settle 
 On my leaves till each proud petal 
 
 Touched her face. 
 
 And I shone about her slumbers 
 
 Like a light ; 
 And, I said, " Instead of weeping. 
 In the garden vigil keeping. 
 Here I'll watch my Mistress sleeping 
 
 Every night." 
 
 But when morning with its sunbeams 
 
 Softly shone. 
 In the mirror where she braided 
 Her brown hair I saw how jaded. 
 Old and colorless and faded 
 
 I had grown. 
 4 
 
Said the Rose 
 
 Not a drop of dew was on me, 
 
 Never one ; 
 From my leaves no odors started, 
 All my perfume had departed, 
 I lay pale and broken-hearted 
 
 In the sun. 
 
 Still, I said, her smile is better 
 
 Than the rain ; 
 Though my fragrance may forsake me. 
 To her bosom she will take me. 
 And with crimson kisses make me 
 
 Young again. 
 
 So she took me . . . gazed a second . . 
 
 Half a sigh . . . 
 Then, alas, can hearts so harden ? 
 Without ever asking pardon, 
 Threw me back into the garden 
 
 There to die. 
 
 How the jealous garden gloried 
 
 In my fall ! 
 How the honeysuckles chid me, 
 How the sneering jasmins bid me 
 Light the long, gray grass that hid me 
 
 Like a pall. 
 5 
 
Said the Rose 
 
 There I lay beneath her window 
 
 In a swoon, 
 Till the earthworm o'er me trailing 
 Woke me just at twilight's failing, 
 As the whip-poor-will was wailing 
 
 To the moon. 
 
 But I hear the storm-winds stirring 
 
 In their lair; 
 And I know they soon will lift me 
 In their giant arms and sift me 
 Into ashes as they drift me 
 
 Through the air. 
 
 So I pray them in their mercy 
 
 Just to take 
 From my heart of hearts or near it 
 The last living leaf, and bear it 
 To her feet, and bid her wear it 
 
 For my sake. 
 
Raphael Sanzio 
 
 RAPHAEL SANZIO 
 
 KEEP to the lines — strain not a hair 
 beyond : 
 Nature must hold her laws e'en 
 against Hell. 
 There you o'ershoot the mark an inch — you 
 
 paint 
 A lie a minute. Giulio, keep the lines — 
 The lines — my lines ! They tell the very 
 
 worst 
 The devil can do with flesh — let Angelo 
 Do more. I want no second Spasimo, 
 No miracles of muscle : on the Mount 
 Is miracle enough — the radiant change 
 Of man to Diety : no need to make 
 The boy a fiend outright — for see you not, 
 Though God's own likeness lives there in His 
 
 Son, 
 Ours is not lost. So keep the lines, nor hope 
 To mend their meaning. Wrong again ? Hence- 
 forth 
 
 7 
 
Raphael Sanzto 
 
 Reserve your brush to gild the booth, or deck 
 Street corners. Friends, forsooth — you Raphael's 
 
 friend — 
 And yet you will not keep my lines — the last 
 This hand shall ever trace ? — By Bacchus, 
 
 sir, 
 It had made the hot blood of old Pietro boil 
 Had I e'er crazed his purpose so. Have done 
 With this : your lampblack darkens all the air. 
 Must you o'erride me with that wild, coarse 
 
 soul 
 Of yours ? My hand is still upon the rein : 
 There 's time enough to run your fiery race 
 When I am gone ? Why, what a burst of 
 
 tears ? 
 I am not dying : wherefore do you stare, 
 With such a frightened love, into my face ? 
 Your hand all palsied ? Ah, I see it now — 
 You feel too much for me to feel for art. 
 Forgive my first unkindness : by and by. 
 When 1 am out of sight, and manly grief 
 Has done with tear and tremor — then, some 
 
 day. 
 When your good hand is steady and you feel 
 The stirring of the true God — to your brush, 
 And keep my lines ! 
 
 8 
 
Raphael Sanzio 
 
 This is my birthday, Giulio ; 
 The last one here — the first, perhaps, in Heaven, 
 With our dear angels. 'T was a grain too 
 
 much. 
 That brief about restoring ancient Rome : 
 His Holiness and I, we both forgot 
 Raphael was human. Princely favor, sometimes, 
 Falls over-heavy like the Sabine bracelet. 
 For those damp vaults — their chill struck to my 
 
 heart 
 Like the sharp finger of a skeleton. 
 While all the caverned ruin whispered out 
 " Behold the end ! " Too soon, I thought, — 
 
 but God 
 Thinks best. I do not wish to die — should like 
 To last a little longer, just to see 
 That picture finished and to have our work 
 Judged in the peopled halls, swung side by side, 
 Michael's and mine ! But do not turn your 
 
 head — 
 Sit closer. Giulio, men have said I slumbered 
 Over those later frescos and the walls 
 Of Agostino — they are right, I did. 
 But slumbering there in whitest arms, I learned, 
 'Mid all those Nymphs and Graces, this one 
 
 truth — 
 
 9 
 
Raphael Sanzio 
 
 The inspiration of the nude is over : 
 
 The Christian Muse is draped. Tell Michael 
 
 so 
 When next you find him busy with his " Torso." 
 How then that bare Demoniac, do you ask ? 
 Was 't not an artist's thought — the double 
 chano-e 
 
 o 
 
 Of man to God above, to fiend below r 
 And then the instant the redeeming foot 
 Forsakes the earth, to loose the naked devil 
 Flaunting the scared Apostles ? Who shall say 
 Art called not for my boy ? Yet thrice as 
 
 loud 
 As art, called Raphael ! For myself alone 
 I drew him, every quivering muscle mapped 
 By the infernal strain, that I might hush 
 Those sneers of Angelo's — for I had plucked 
 His surgeon secrets from the grave and meant 
 To mate him where he's matchless. I have 
 
 waited 
 The coming of that moment when we feel 
 The hand is surest, the brain clearest — when 
 Our dreams at once are deeds — when upward 
 
 goes 
 The curtain from the clouded soul, and art 
 Flames all her unveiled Paradise upon us. 
 lo 
 
Raphael Sanzio 
 
 Patiently, trustingly, that well-known hour 
 
 I 've waited — and at last it comes — too 
 
 late ! 
 For now, you see, 't is hard to reach my hand 
 To your sleek curls, and my poor head seems 
 
 chained 
 To this hot pillow. Had I now a tithe 
 Of half the strength I fooled on Chigi's walls, 
 I'd make the demon in that youth discourse 
 Anatomy enough to cram the schools 
 Till doomsday. Heaven, how plainly there 
 Your work stands ofF from mine ! Quick with 
 
 your arm — 
 I feel the ancient power — give me the colors — 
 I and my picture, let us once more meet ! 
 God, let me finish it ! Can you not stir 
 My bed with those stout shoulders ? Then lift 
 
 me — 
 Child's play you '11 find it — my weak woman's 
 
 frame 
 Never weighed much — a breath can float it 
 
 now. 
 Do as I bid you boy, I am not mad : 
 'T is not delirium, but returning life. 
 O for the blood that barber's lancet stole ! — 
 
 So — nearer — nearer 
 
 II 
 
Kapha el Sanzio 
 
 1 was dreaming, Giulio, 
 
 That I had finished it, and that it hung 
 
 Beside their Lazarus ; I and Angelo 
 
 Together stood — a little farther ofF, 
 
 That pack-horse colorist of his from Venice. 
 
 There stood we in the light of yonder face, 
 
 I and my rival, till, asudden, shone 
 
 A look of love in the small hazel eyes. 
 
 And down the double pointed beard a tear 
 
 Ran sparkling; and he bowed his head to me — 
 
 The grand, gray, haughty head — and cried 
 
 aloud. 
 Thrice cried aloud " Hail Master ! " — Why^ 
 
 't is strange — 
 How came I here — these colors on my 
 
 lingers — 
 This brush? Stop — let me think — I am not 
 
 quite 
 Awake. Ah, I remember. Swooned, you say ? 
 How long have I been lying thus ? An hour 
 Dead on your breast ? Wheel back the bed — 
 
 put by 
 These playthings ! I can do no more for man ! 
 And God, who did so much for me — 't is time 
 Something were done for Him. A coach ? 
 
 Perhaps 
 
 12 
 
Raphael Sa?tzio 
 
 The black mules of the Cardinal ? No ? Well, 
 Good Friday is the prayer-day of the year — 
 That keeps him. Who ? — What ! Leo's 
 
 self has sent 
 To ask of Raphael ? Kindly done ; and yet 
 The iron Pontiff, whom I painted thrice. 
 Had co?ne. No matter, these are gracious 
 
 words, — 
 " Rome were not Rome without meT My best 
 
 thanks 
 Back to his Holiness; and dare I add 
 A message, 't were that Rome can never be 
 Without me. I shall live as long as Rome ! 
 Bramante's temple there, bequeathed to me 
 To hide her cross-crowned bosom in the 
 
 clouds — 
 San Pietro — travertine and marble massed 
 To more than mountain majesty — shall scarce 
 Outlast that bit of canvas. Let the light in. 
 There 's the Ritonda waiting patiently 
 My coming. Angelo has built his chapel 
 In Santa Croce, that his eyes may ope 
 On Ser Filippo's Duomo. I would see — 
 What think you ? — neither dome nor Giotto's 
 
 shaft. 
 Nor yon stern Pantheon's solemn, sullen grace, 
 
 13 
 
Raphael Sanzio 
 
 But Her whose colors I have worn since first 
 I dreamed of beauty in the chestnut shades 
 Of Umbria — Her for whom my best of Ufe 
 Has been one labor — Her, the Nazareth Maid, 
 Who gave to Heaven a Queen, to man a God, 
 To God a Mother. I have hope of it ! — 
 And I would see her — not as when she props 
 The babe slow-tottering to the Cross amid 
 The flowering field, — nor yet when, Sybil-eyed, 
 Backward she sweeps her Son from Tobit's 
 
 Fish, — 
 Nor e'en as when, above the footstool angels. 
 She stands with trembling mouth, dilated eyes. 
 Abashed before the uncurtained Father's 
 
 throne, — 
 But see her wearing the rapt smile of love 
 Half human, half divine, as fast she strains 
 Her infant in the chair. 
 
 There is a step 
 
 Upon the staircase. Has she come again ? 
 She must not enter. Take her these big pearls 
 Meant for the poor dead bride I strove to love. 
 Tell her to wear them, when the full moon 
 
 fires 
 The Flavian arches, and she wanders forth 
 
Raphael Sanzio 
 
 To the green spot — she will remember it — 
 A little farther on. No more of this. 
 Say but the word, too long delayed, — Farewell. 
 We said it oft before, meaning it too — 
 But life and love were with us — so we met. 
 This time — we part in earnest. Not a word ? — 
 She bent her head and vanished, leaving me 
 These flowers ? No tears — not one? So like 
 
 her ! Set 
 The buds in water — leave me one — this 
 
 one — 
 We '11 fade together. Giulio, in my will 
 Her name stands next to yours : I would not 
 
 have 
 Those dark eyes look on want, that looked on 
 
 me 
 So long, so truly. Do not shake your head : 
 She '11 find her way to Heaven, if I am there 
 Before her. Jealous ? — Brother, I will die 
 Upon your bosom — you shall close these eyes. 
 Eyes that have lived above this city's towers. 
 Up where the eagle's wing hath never swept : 
 Eyes that have scanned the far side of the sun 
 And upward still, high over Hesperus, 
 Have climbed the mount where trembling angels 
 
 bow, 
 
 15 
 
Raphael Sanzio 
 
 And stolen the shining forms of beauty niched 
 Fast by the Eternal throne. I pray you hold 
 Those roses something nearer. 
 
 Shall we send 
 Francesco for the Cardinal ? You see 
 The shadow of the pines slopes eastward now — 
 Santa Maria 's empty : — he may come 
 Too late — there's a strange hush about my 
 
 heart 
 Already. Still, a word before the last 
 Long silence comes. I do not think to leave 
 An enemy behind me : Angelo 
 Has sometimes wronged me, but I cannot hate — 
 I have that weakness — so I pitied him. 
 Giulio, the artist is not he who dreams. 
 But he who does ; — and when I saw this man 
 Hewing his way into the marble's heart 
 For the sweet secret that he dreamed was there. 
 Till the fast fettered beauty perished, killed 
 By the false chisel and imperious hand 
 That held no Heaven-commissioned key to ope 
 The prison gates — I pitied him, I say ; 
 And once I wept, as by me once he stalked 
 Beneath the stars, in either eye a tear. 
 Groaning beneath his load of voiceless beauty. 
 i6 
 
Raphael Sanzto 
 
 I knew his mighty sorrow — I had felt it, — 
 And who that soars has not ? No wing that 
 
 fans 
 The sun, but sometimes burns ! O grandest 
 
 Greek, 
 Not thine alone to ravish fire from Heaven, 
 Nor thine alone the rock : in every age. 
 The vulture's beak is in the artist's soul ! 
 In this, we are brothers. Give him my last 
 
 greeting, 
 When next you meet. 
 
 The Cardinal, at last. 
 Before he enters, Giulio, lay this flower 
 Among the others. — You may leave us now. 
 
 17 
 
Marcela 
 
 MARCELA 
 
 (Daughter of Lope de Vega, the Spanish Poet) 
 
 WAS it wrong, dear Lady Abbess, 
 That I spent the night in prayer, 
 That the Rosary you gave me 
 Numbered every bead a tear ? 
 I but wept until the watchman 
 Pausing in the street below 
 Slowly chimed the midnight ave : 
 Then I gave to God my woe. 
 
 Thrice I sued the Saints for slumber. 
 
 Still I could not keep away 
 From the narrow window facing 
 
 The lit Chapel where he lay — 
 Where the funeral torches flickered 
 
 Through the ever-opening door, 
 As around their silent Poet, 
 
 Pressed the throng of rich and poor. 
 i8 
 
Marcela 
 
 Yes, I meant to sleep, dear Mother, 
 
 But morning came so soon 
 As I watched that lighted Chapel 
 
 Shining back upon the moon : 
 Once, methought, I lay beside him, 
 
 'Neath the sable and the gold, 
 Bending o'er my minstrel father 
 
 As I used in days of old : 
 
 And a light — the same that trembled 
 
 O'er his lips and o'er his brow 
 When he sang our San Isidro 
 
 With the angels at the plow — 
 And a smile — the same that shone there 
 
 When he bade the Mother mild 
 Hush the wings that shook the palm-trees 
 
 Rustling o'er her sleeping child. . . . ! 
 
 Oh, 't is hard that all may follow 
 
 The mute Minstrel to his rest 
 Save the nearest and the dearest, 
 
 Save the daughter he loved best ! 
 I alone, his own Marcela, 
 
 Cannot touch dead Lope's bier. 
 Cannot kiss the lips whose music 
 
 None but angels now may hear ! 
 19 
 
Marcela 
 
 Still I feel, dear Lady Abbess, 
 
 You will grant me what you may ; 
 Since your smile first hailed me Novice 
 
 It is fourteen years to-day : 
 Have I shrunk from fast or vigil. 
 
 Have I failed at matin bell. 
 Have I clung to earthen image 
 
 Since I bade the world farewell ? 
 
 Nine long days I Ve heard the tolling 
 
 Of the bells he loved to hear ; 
 Nine long days I 've heard the wailing 
 
 Of Madrid around his bier ; 
 And, to-day, he will be buried. 
 
 For I catch the deepening hum 
 Of the people, and the stepping 
 
 Of the soldiers as they come. 
 
 Never once I begged you lead me 
 
 To the consecrated place, 
 Where, between the triple tapers, 
 
 I might gaze into his face — 
 Grant me, then, sweet Lady Abbess, 
 
 Only this — but this, alas ! 
 'Neath Marcela's cloister window 
 
 Let her father's funeral pass. 
 20 
 
Marcela 
 
 Not one look, not one, I promise, 
 
 For the Princes in their might, 
 For the war-horse proudly curving 
 
 To the spur of sworded knight : 
 Though all Spain in tears surround him, 
 
 I shall know her Minstrel dead. 
 And my eyes — they will not wander 
 
 Far from Lope's silver head. 
 
 Look, the Chapel doors are parting, 
 
 See the lifted torches shine. 
 And the horsemen and the footmen 
 
 All the swarming pathways line. 
 Can it be . . . these poor tears blind me . . 
 
 Ah, you knew what I would pray. 
 And have granted ere I asked it — 
 
 Yes, they come — they come this way ! 
 
 21 
 
She Will He turn 
 
 SHE WILL RETURN 
 
 L 
 
 AUGH thy bold laugh again : 
 Men must not mourn, 
 No ! though they love in vain 
 She w^ill return. 
 
 Moping and mute — for shame ! 
 
 Women all spurn 
 Lovers so true and tame — 
 
 She will return. 
 
 Thou with that stalwart form, 
 
 Bent like the fern ? 
 Oak should defy the storm — 
 
 She will return. 
 
 Snap the bright silver thrall : 
 
 Hast thou to learn 
 No woman's worth it all ? — 
 
 She will return. 
 
 22 
 
She Will Return 
 
 Why, were it Helen dead, 
 
 Sealed in an urn. 
 Should half these tears be shed ? 
 
 She will return. 
 
 Pshaw, put this folly by : 
 
 Canst not discern 
 Scorn in thy neighbor's eye ? — 
 
 She will return. 
 
 Maidens are merriest while 
 
 Lovers most yearn. 
 Not even force a smile ! — 
 
 She will return. 
 
 Fie, what a fool art thou : 
 When the leaves burn 
 
 Round the ripe autumn's brow 
 She will return. 
 
 23 
 
Under the Tree. Love 
 
 UNDER THE TREE, LOVE 
 
 UNDER the tree, love, 
 Under the tree, 
 Were we not merry, 
 Sunset and we ? 
 Dark in the valley 
 
 Lay the dim town, 
 We had just stolen 
 Forth from its frown. 
 
 Under the tree, love, 
 
 Under the tree. 
 Swearing sweet friendships, 
 
 April and we : 
 South winds to fan us. 
 
 Song-birds to greet, 
 Blossoms above us, 
 
 Buds at our feet. 
 
 Under the tree, love, 
 
 Under the tree, 
 On our green carpet, 
 
 Nature and we ; 
 24 
 
Under the Tree, Love 
 
 Bright o'er the river 
 Floats a far sail — 
 
 Why turns thy lover 
 Asudden so pale ? . . . 
 
 Under the tree, love, 
 
 Under the tree. 
 Why is he gazing 
 
 Toward the green sea ? 
 Chirps the cicala 
 
 'Mid the mute cells — 
 Is it old Giotto 
 
 Ringing his bells ? 
 
 Under the tree, love. 
 
 Under the tree. 
 Why am I trembling. 
 
 Answer for me ? 
 Doth the sea beckon ? . . 
 
 Love at the oar. 
 Fate at the rudder. 
 
 Fatal the shore ! 
 
 Under the tree, love. 
 
 Under the tree. 
 Grandly above us 
 
 Spreads a blue sea : 
 25 
 
Under the Tree, Love 
 
 Two silver beacons 
 
 Sphered in the skies, 
 Eve in her cradle, 
 
 Opening her eyes. 
 
 Under the tree, love, 
 
 Under the tree. 
 All the stars watching 
 
 You, love, and me : 
 Stars that would follow us 
 
 Over the wave. 
 Eyes that would haunt us 
 
 Down to the grave. 
 
 Under the tree, love. 
 
 Under the tree, 
 " Choose ! we must choose now 
 
 Choose either sea ! " 
 " Turn from the white sail 
 
 Fluttering by. 
 Watch those twin beacons 
 
 Sphered in the sky ! " 
 
 26 
 
San Sisto 
 
 SAN SISTO^ 
 
 THREE hundred years the world has 
 looked at it 
 Unwearied, — it at Heaven j and here 
 
 it hangs 
 In Dresden, making this a Holy City. 
 It is an old acquaintance : you have met 
 Copies by thousands, — Morghens here and 
 
 there, — 
 But all the sunlight withered. Prints, at best. 
 Are but the master's shadow — as you see. 
 I call that face the holiest revelation 
 God ever made to genius. How, or why, 
 When, or for whom 't was painted, wherefore 
 
 ask ? 
 Enough to know 't is Raphael's, and to feel 
 His Fornarina was not with him when. 
 Spurning the slow cartoon, he flashed that face. 
 That Virgin Mother's half transfigured face, 
 
 1 The Madonna of St. Sixtus, — painted originally for 
 the Altar of St. Sixtus' Church in Piacenza. 
 
 27 
 
San Sisto 
 
 On canvas. Yes, they say 't was meant to 
 
 head 
 Some virginal procession ; — to that banner 
 Heaven's inmost gates might open, one w^ould 
 
 think. 
 But let the picture tell its story — take 
 Your stand in this far corner. . Falls the light 
 As you would have it ? That Saint Barbara, — 
 Observe her inclination and the finger 
 Of Sixtus ; — both are pointing — where P — 
 
 Now look 
 Below, — those grand boy-angels ; — watch 
 
 their eyes 
 Fastened — on whom F — What, not yet catch 
 
 my meaning ? . . . 
 Step closer, — half a step — no nearer. Mark 
 The Babe's fixed glance of calm equality. 
 Observe that wondering, rapt, dilated gaze. 
 The Mother's superhuman joy and fear. 
 That hushed — that startled adoration ! Watch 
 Those circled cherubs swarming into light. 
 Wreathing their splendid arch, their golden ring. 
 Around the unveiled vision. Look above 
 At the drawn curtain ! — Ah, we do not see 
 God's self, but they do ; — they are face to face 
 
 With the Eternal Father ! 
 
 28 
 
San Sisto 
 
 Sir, 't is strange ; 
 That wondrous Virgin face, which Raphael 
 
 plucked 
 From his vast soul four centuries ago, 
 Is breathing now, — not in his Italy — 
 But on the shores where then first flashed the 
 
 sail 
 Of Genoa's ocean Pilot. Years ago. 
 We met mid-heav'n like drops of summer rain, 
 Then, falling, parted ! — But — observe the 
 
 picture : 
 Am I not right?— -There —just before them 
 
 burns, 
 Viewless to us, the unveiled Omnipotent. 
 Yet, somehow, critics fail to see, or say this. 
 
 29 
 
The Bird's Song 
 
 THE BIRD'S SONG 
 
 TO sing was my only duty, 
 So I sang for you all the day ; 
 But there fell a silence with the night, 
 And my voice it has passed away : 
 A silence fell with the falling night 
 
 And with it an icy pain, 
 So I folded my head beneath my wing, 
 Never to sing again. 
 
 And when morning broke without my song 
 
 You flew to your minstrel dead. 
 And smoothed the wings that were folded fast 
 
 While a tear or two you shed ; 
 I knew you would miss me, mistress mine. 
 
 When my little house would be still ; 
 Miss the fitful gleam of my yellow breast 
 
 Through the wires, — and the greeting bill ! 
 
 Put your mouth to mine, — did I sit and sing 
 On my perch all the seasons through. 
 
 In that painted cage, — with a useless wing 
 And a ceaseless song for you ? — 
 
 30 
 
The Bird's Song 
 
 But, there were times when I saw my mates 
 Sweep by with the glittering spring, 
 
 Trilling their loves in the blossoming groves. 
 And then — it was sorrow to sino-. 
 
 But now that I never shall sing again. 
 
 Lay me beneath a tree. 
 Where the minstrels that never knew the cage 
 
 May gather and sing for me : 
 I cannot leave you my voice. Lady, 
 
 But my plumage tenderly touch, — 
 These feathers of gold are little. Lady, — 
 
 But who else can leave you as much ? 
 
 31 
 
Inkermann 
 
 INKERMANN 
 
 IN marble Sebastopol 
 The bells to chapel call : 
 Our outposts hear the chanting 
 Of monks within the wall. 
 Why meet they there with psalm and prayer? 
 
 'T is some high festival. 
 By the old Achaian ruin 
 
 Why groan those heavy wheels ? 
 Some forage-freighted convoy 
 
 Toward the leaguered city steals. 
 Sleep ! — will the serfs twice routed 
 
 Dare the freeman's steel again, 
 Will the men we stormed from Alma 
 Beard the lion in his den ? 
 
 II 
 
 'T is a drizzling Sabbath day-break, 
 Cheerless rings the reveille, 
 
 32 
 
Inkermann 
 
 Through the shroudlike mists around us 
 
 Not a stone's-throw can we see : 
 Feebly up the clouded welkin 
 
 Toils the morning bleak and gray, 
 Dim as twilight in October 
 
 Dawns that dark and dismal day. 
 The camp once more is sounding, 
 
 Slowly putting on its strength, 
 As a boa, starved from torpor, 
 
 Half uncoils its lazy length. 
 Some are drying their damp muskets, 
 
 Others gloss the rusted steel, 
 Some are crouching o'er the watch-fires 
 
 At the hurried matin meal ; 
 Some are bending o'er their Bibles, 
 
 Others bid the beads of Rome, 
 Many, still unwaken'd, hearken 
 
 To the Sabbath bells of home. 
 The mountain and the valley 
 
 With the hoary haze are white. 
 Sea and river, friend and foeman. 
 
 Town and trench are hid from sight : 
 And the camp itself so softly 
 
 With the snowy mist is blent 
 Scarce the waving of the canvas 
 
 Shows the outline of the tent. 
 3 33 
 
Inkermann 
 
 III 
 
 Hark, the rifle's hawklike whistle ! 
 
 But we stir not for the din, 
 Till with sullen step the pickets 
 
 From the hills are driven in, — 
 Till the river seemed to thunder 
 
 Through its rocky pass below, 
 And a voice ran through the army, 
 
 "Up to arms ! — it is the foe ! " 
 Up with the Red Cross banner, 
 
 Out with the victor steel, 
 " Up to battle," the drums rattle, 
 
 " Form and front," the bugles peal. 
 From the tents and from the trenches, 
 
 From the ramparts, from the mine, 
 We are groping for the bayonet, 
 
 We are straggling into line ; 
 Half attired and half accoutred 
 
 Spur the officers headlong. 
 And the men, from slumber starting. 
 
 Round their colors fiercely throng. 
 Then the lit artillery's earthquake 
 
 Shook the hills beyond the gorge — 
 Mute then were a thousand hammers 
 
 Smiting hard the sounding forge. 
 34 
 
Inkermann 
 
 Full upon us comes the ruin, — 
 
 They have ranged the very spot, — 
 
 Purple glares the sod already, 
 As the storm falls fast and hot. 
 
 At our feet the earth foams spraylike 
 'Neath the tempest of their shot. 
 
 IV 
 
 Crouched like caged and fretted lion 
 
 For the unseen foe we glare, — 
 Not a bayonet, not a sabre 
 
 Through the rolling mists appear. 
 Yet full sure the foe is on us. 
 
 For along the river's bed 
 Tolls the low and measured thunder 
 
 Of a mighty army's tread. 
 The hearts beneath our bosoms 
 
 Swell high as they would burst : 
 We know not what is coming. 
 
 But we nerve us for the worst : 
 Fast our shoulders grow together. 
 
 Firm beneath that iron hail, 
 The thin red line is forming 
 
 That was never known to quail. 
 Up from the slopes beneath us 
 
 Nearer thrills the muffled hum, 
 35 
 
Inkermann 
 
 They are stepping to the onset 
 Without trumpet, without drum. 
 
 And we clutch our pieces tighter, — 
 Let them come ! 
 
 The fog before us deepens.; 
 
 Like a dark spot in a storm, 
 Along the mist-wreathed ridges 
 
 Their crowded columns form ; 
 The helmets and the gray-coats 
 
 Scarce pistol-shot ahead, — 
 They are on us — let us at them — 
 
 Unavenged we have bled ! 
 Steady ! The eager rifle 
 
 Is warming at our cheeks ; 
 Yon column's head is melting 
 
 As the levelled minie speaks. 
 Forward, forward, form and forward ! 
 
 Fast as floods through river sluice 
 The yeomanry of England 
 
 On the Muscovite are loose. 
 What, bide they there to meet us, 
 
 That phalanx of gray rock ? 
 In vain ! No human bulwark 
 
 Can breast the coming shock. 
 
 36 
 
Inkermann 
 
 At them — on them — o'er them — through 
 them 
 
 The Red Line thunders still ; 
 A cheer, a charge, a struggle, 
 
 And we sweep them from the hill. 
 Not a man had we left living 
 
 Of the masses marshalled there. 
 But their siege-guns in the gorges 
 
 Stay our conquering career. 
 Then, as we breathe from slaughter, 
 
 And ere we close our ranks, 
 The foe, one column routed. 
 
 Hurls a fresh one on our flanks. 
 Unappalled and unexhausted, 
 
 We welcome the new war. 
 Though like locusts in midsummer 
 
 Swarm the legions of the Czar. 
 Fifty thousand men are on us, 
 
 Scarce a tithe of them are we, — 
 Well might they swear to drive us 
 
 Ere nightfall to the sea. 
 Yet, St. George for merry England ! 
 
 A volley, and we close, 
 'Neath the martyr cross of bayonets 
 
 Redder yet the Red Line grows. 
 
 37 
 
Inkermann 
 
 VI 
 
 These are not the men of Alma 
 
 Who are now so well at work ; 
 On the Danube, at Silistrla 
 
 They have schooled them 'gainst the Turk 
 O'er the mountains of Circassia 
 
 Their black eagles they have borne, 
 And the children of their High Priest 
 
 Lead the stern fanatics on. 
 Point to point and breast to bosom. 
 
 Hand to hand we madly clinch. 
 And the ground we win upon them 
 
 Is disputed inch by inch. 
 The warrior blood of Britain 
 
 Never rained so fast a tide, 
 Man and captain fall together. 
 
 Peer and peasant, side by side. 
 We have routed thrice our number. 
 
 Still their front looms thrice as vast. 
 While our line is thinned and jaded 
 
 And our men are falling fast. 
 Upon them with the bayonet ! — 
 
 Our powder waxes scant — 
 What more with foe so near him 
 
 Does British soldier want ? 
 
 38 
 
Inkermann 
 
 VII 
 
 Once more — once more, borne backward 
 
 Their stubborn legions fly, 
 And we saw our brave commander, 
 
 With his staff, come riding by ; 
 Calmly he dared the danger. 
 
 But a gloom was in his eye, 
 For the mounds of his dead soldiers 
 
 Lay around him thick and high. 
 God knows his thought ! — It might be 
 
 Of other mounds, I ween, — 
 Of parapets, which, mounted. 
 
 Such havoc had not been. 
 But in brunt of battle ever 
 
 Was the Saxon bosom bare, 
 So we hailed him, as he passed us, 
 
 With a hearty British cheer ; 
 And as the nobles round him 
 
 Were falling, did we pray. 
 That his hero life amid the strife 
 
 Might be spared to us that day. 
 O dark the cloud that rested 
 
 On our chieftain's anxious brow : 
 He has staked his all on the Spartan wall - 
 
 It must not fail him now ! 
 
 39 
 
Inkermann 
 
 VIII 
 
 Then, as waveless in the tempest 
 
 Broods the white wing of a gull, 
 O'er the hurricane of battle 
 
 Swept a momentary lull. 
 Countless lay the dead and dying. 
 
 Few and faint the living stood. 
 Every blade of grass beneath us 
 
 Had its drop of hero blood. 
 To our knees the stiffening bodies 
 
 Of our fallen comrades rose, 
 But higher, deeper, thicker. 
 
 Lay the holocaust of foes. 
 And so fast the gore of Russia 
 
 From the British bayonet runs. 
 Trickling down our dinted rifles. 
 
 That our hands slip on our guns. 
 Far along the scarlet ridges 
 
 Looming dim through mist and smoke. 
 In scattered groups, divided 
 
 By coppice and dwarfed oak, 
 Rests the remnant of our army. 
 
 Rests each motley regiment, 
 Coldstream, Fusileer, and Ranger, 
 
 Line, and Guard together blent, — 
 40 
 
Inkermann 
 
 To the charge still sternly leaning, 
 
 Undismayed, undaunted still, 
 Grimly frowning o'er the valley, 
 
 Proven masters of the hill. 
 A windgust from the mountain 
 
 Swept the driving rack away. 
 And we saw our battling brothers 
 
 For the first time that dark day. 
 But as up the white shroud drifted, 
 
 St. George, what sight beneath ! — 
 'T was as when the veil is lifted 
 
 From the stony face of death. 
 Right before us, right beneath us. 
 
 Right around us, everywhere. 
 The fresh hordes of the Despot 
 
 On flank and centre bear : 
 Around us and about us 
 
 The armed torrent rolls. 
 As around a foundering galley 
 
 Glance the fins of bristling shoals. 
 O never, England, never. 
 
 Though aye outnumbered sore. 
 Has thy world-encountering banner 
 
 Faced such fearful odds before ! 
 
 41 
 
Inkermann 
 
 IX 
 
 On they come, like crested breakers 
 
 That would 'whelm us in their wrath, 
 Or the winged flame of prairies 
 
 Whirling stubble from its path. 
 But with cheer as stout as ever 
 
 To the charge again we reel, 
 Again we mow before us 
 
 Those harvests of stiff steel. 
 Too hw^ alas ! the living 
 
 These hydra hosts to stem. 
 But our comrades lie around us. 
 
 We can sleep at last with them. 
 Rally, Britons, round your colors, 
 
 And if no succor near. 
 Then for God, our Queen, our country 
 
 Let us proudly perish here ! 
 Each hand and foot grows firmer 
 
 As they yell their demon cry. 
 Each soldier's glance grows brighter 
 
 As his last stern task draws nigh ; 
 By the dead of Balaklava 
 
 We will show them how to die ! . . . 
 
 42 
 
Inkermann 
 
 Heard ye not that tramp behind us ? . . . 
 
 If a foeman come that way, 
 We may make one charge to venge us, 
 
 And then look our last of day. 
 As the tiger from the jungle, 
 
 On the bounding column comes, 
 We can hear their footfall ringing 
 
 To the stern roll of their drums; 
 We can hear their billowy surging 
 
 As up the hill they pant, — 
 O God ! How sweetly sounded 
 
 The well-known " En avant ! " 
 With their golden eagles soaring. 
 
 Bloodless lips and falcon glance. 
 Radiant with the light of battle, 
 
 Came the chivalry of France. 
 Ah ! full well, full well we knew them, 
 
 Our bearded, bold allies. 
 All Austerlitz seemed shining 
 
 Its sunlight from their eyes. 
 One breathing space they halted — 
 
 One volley rent the sky, — 
 Then the pas de charge thrills heavenward, 
 
 " Vive r Empereur / " the cry. 
 
 43 
 
Inkermann 
 
 The answering cheer of Britain 
 
 One moment thundered forth, 
 The next — we trample with them 
 
 The pale hordes of the North. 
 Ye that have seen the lightning 
 
 Through the crashing forest go 
 Would stand aghast to see how fast 
 
 We lay their legions low. 
 They shrink — they sway — they falter — 
 
 On, on ! — no quarter then ! 
 Nor human hand, nor Heaven's command 
 
 Could stay our maddened men. 
 A flood of sudden radiance 
 
 Bathes earth and sea and sky, 
 Above us bursts exulting 
 
 The sun of victory. 
 Holy moment of stern rapture, 
 
 The work of death is done. 
 The Muscovite is flying. 
 
 Grim Inkermann is won ! 
 
 44 
 
All Souiy Day 
 
 ALL SOULS' DAY 
 1866 
 
 HIGH in the bending trees the north 
 wind sings, 
 The shining chestnut to my feet is 
 rolled ; 
 The shivering mountains, bare as bankrupt 
 kings. 
 Sit beggared of their purple and their gold : 
 The naked plain below 
 Sighs to the clouds, impatient for its robe of 
 snow. 
 
 Death is in all things : yet how small it seems, 
 
 God's chosen acre on this mountain side : 
 A speck, a mote : while yonder cornland gleams 
 With hoarded plenty, stretching far and 
 wide. 
 A hundred acres there 
 Content not one : one acre serves a thousand 
 here. 
 
 45 
 
All Souls' Day 
 
 On every cross or slab, a wreath — on some 
 Two, three, or more — of radiant autumn 
 leaves. 
 Mingled with gold and white chrysanthemum ; 
 Even the nameless, unmarked grave receives 
 Some pledge from mortal love 
 Unto peace-parted souls, we trust, with God 
 above. 
 
 The choral chant is hushed, the Service said : 
 
 Noon, but already the last pilgrim gone : 
 Brief visits pay the living to the dead. 
 
 But once a year we meet o'er those we 
 mourn. 
 I wait unwatched, alone. 
 To muse o'er some once loved, o'er many 
 more unknown. 
 
 That cross of marble, with its sculptured base. 
 Guards the blest ashes of a friend whose 
 form 
 Was half my boyhood ; his arch, laughing face — 
 The last you 'd take to front a coming storm. 
 Or dare what none else durst : 
 Read how he fell, of all the best and bravest, 
 first ! 
 
 46 
 
All Souls Bay 
 
 Another pastor near him lies asleep, 
 
 Fresh wreaths, love-woven, mark the newer 
 sod ; 
 Each lettered white cross bids me pause to 
 weep 
 Some lost companion or some man of God. 
 Beneath this sacred ground. 
 More friends I number than in all the world 
 around. 
 
 There, side by side, far from the forfeit home 
 
 For which they vainly bled, three soldiers rest 
 In sight of the round peak, whose bannered 
 dome 
 Crowns the defiles wherein the fiery crest 
 Of a dead nation paled 
 Before the heights, where erst the great Vir- 
 ginian failed. 
 
 Westward, a little higher up the steep. 
 
 Rests a young mother — on her cross, a bar 
 Of golden music : since she fell asleep 
 
 The world she left has somehow seemed 
 ajar; 
 Those patient, peaceful eyes 
 With which she watched the world, diffused 
 sweet harmonies. 
 47 
 
All Souls' Day 
 
 For she was pure — pure as the snows of Yule 
 That hailed her birth : pure as the autumnal 
 snow 
 That flecked her coffin ; she was beautiful. 
 Heroic, gentle : none could ever know 
 That face and then forget : 
 Though vanished years ago, her smile seems 
 living yet. 
 
 And near her, happy in that nearness, lies 
 
 The world-worn consul by his best-loved 
 child — 
 The first rest of a life of sacrifice : 
 
 The native stars, that on his labors smiled 
 So rarely, o'er the wave 
 Beckoned him to the peace of home — and of 
 the grave. 
 
 Here, too, a relic of primeval ways 
 
 And statelier manners, mingled with the grace 
 Of Israel : in the evening of her days 
 
 Baptized at fourscore — strongest of her 
 race. 
 Yet twice a child — that rain 
 Supernal leaving all those years without a 
 stain. 
 
 48 
 
All Souls Bay 
 
 And thou, young soldier, teach me how to turn 
 From earth to heaven, as in the solemn hour 
 Thy soul was turned. Ah ! well for thee to 
 
 learn 
 So soon that festal board and bridal flower 
 
 May foil the out-stretched hand : 
 That life's best conquest is the holy afterland. 
 
 Holding the very summit of the slope, 
 A gothic chapel, girt with evergreen 
 And frailer summer foliage — still as hope — 
 Watches the east for morning's earliest 
 sheen ; 
 Beneath it slumbers one 
 For whom the tears of unextinguished grief 
 still run. 
 
 A twelvemonth mourned, yet deeper now the 
 
 loss 
 Than when first fell the slowly sudden doom. 
 And on her pale breast lay the unmoving cross : 
 J^one tenant of that solitary tomb. 
 Love's daily widowed prayer 
 Still craves reunion in thy chambered sepulchre. 
 
 The sunset shadow of this chapel falls 
 Upon a classmate's grave : a rare delight 
 4 49 
 
All Souls Bay 
 
 Laughed in his youth : but, one by one, the 
 halls 
 Of life were darkened, till, amid the night, 
 A single star remained — 
 Bright herald of the paradise by tears regained. 
 
 Ah ! we forget them in our changing lot — 
 Forget the past in present weal or woe ; 
 But yet, perchance, more angels guard this spot 
 Than wander in the living fields below : 
 
 And, as I pass the gate, 
 The world without seems strangely void and 
 desolate. 
 
 50 
 
The Country Doctor 
 
 THE COUNTRY DOCTOR 
 
 ALL SOULS' DAY— 1867 
 
 DYING ? along the trembling moun- 
 tain flies 
 The fearful whisper fast from cot 
 to cot ; 
 Strong fathers stand aghast and mothers* eyes 
 Melt as their white lips stammer, " Not, oh ! 
 not 
 
 Him of all others ? Nay, 
 Not him who from our hearts so oft drove death 
 away ? " 
 
 Well may those pale groups gather at each door, 
 Well may those tears that dread the worst be 
 shed. 
 The hand that healed their ills will bless no 
 more. 
 The life that served to lengthen theirs has 
 fled; 
 
 And while they pray and weep. 
 Unto his rest he passeth like a child asleep. 
 
 51 
 
The Country Doctor 
 
 Ah ! this is sudden ! why, this very morn 
 
 He rode amongst us ; sick men woke to 
 hear 
 The step of his black pacer ; the new-born 
 Smiled at him from their cradles ; many a 
 tear 
 
 On faces wan and dim, 
 He dried to-day ; to-night those cheeks are wet 
 for him. 
 
 For there he lies, together gently laid 
 
 The hands we were so proud of, his white 
 hair 
 Making the silver halo that it made 
 
 In life around his brow ; as if in prayer 
 The gentle face composed, 
 With nameless peace o'ershadowing the eyelids 
 closed. 
 
 And as beside him through the night we hold 
 
 Our solitary watch, I had not started 
 To hear my name break from him as of old, 
 Or see the tranquil lips a moment parted. 
 To speak the word unsaid. 
 The last supreme adieu that instant death 
 forbade. 
 
 52 
 
The Country Doctor 
 
 I dread the day-dawn, for his silent rest 
 
 Befits the night ; I half believe him mine, 
 While in the tapers' shadowy light his breast 
 Seems heaving, and, amid the pale moonshine 
 That wanders o'er the lawn. 
 Crouch the still hounds unknowing that their 
 master 's gone. 
 
 But when the morning at his window stands 
 In glory beckoning, and he answers not ; 
 Not for the wringing of the widowed hands, 
 Or orphans wrestling with their bitter lot, — 
 I feel, old friend, too well. 
 That naught can wake thee but the final 
 miracle. 
 
 Was it but yesterday, that at my gate. 
 
 Beneath the over-arching oaks we met ? 
 Throned in his saddle, statue-like he sate, 
 A horseman every inch ; I see him yet, 
 His morning mission done, 
 His deep-mouthed pack behind him trailing, one 
 by one. 
 
 Mute are the mountains now ! No more that 
 cry 
 Of the full chase by all the breezes borne 
 
 53 
 
The Country Doctor 
 
 Down the defiles, while echo's swift reply 
 
 Speeds the loud chorus ! Nevermore the 
 horn 
 
 Of our lost chief will shake 
 Those tempest-riven crags, or pierce the star- 
 tled brake ! 
 
 Those summits were his refuge when the touch 
 Of gloom was on him, and the gathered care 
 Of a long life, that braved and suffered much, 
 Drove him from beaten walks to breathe the 
 air 
 
 That haunts gray Carrick's crest. 
 And spur from dawn to dusk till effort pur- 
 chased rest. 
 
 But yet, in all these thirty years, how few 
 The days we saw not the familiar form 
 Amid the valleys passing, till it grew 
 
 Part of the landscape ; through the sun or 
 storm 
 
 With equal front he rode, 
 Punctual as planets moving in the paths of 
 God. 
 
 I 've seen him, when the frozen tempest beat, 
 Breast it as gayly as the birds that played 
 54 
 
The Country Doctor 
 
 Upon the drifts : and through the deadly heat 
 That drove the fainting reapers to the shade, 
 Smiling he passed along, 
 Erect the good gray head, and on his lips a song. 
 
 I Ve known him, too, by anguish chained abed, 
 Forsake his midnight pillow with a moan. 
 
 And meekly ride wherever Pity led 
 
 To heal a sorrow slighter than his own ; 
 Or rich or poor the same — 
 
 It mattered not : let any sorrow call, he came. 
 
 Thy life was sacrifice, my own old friend. 
 
 Yet sacrifice that earned a sacred joy, 
 P'or in thy breast kept beating to the end 
 The trust and honest gladness of a boy ; 
 The seventy years that span 
 Thy course leave thee as pure as when their 
 date began. 
 
 Who could have dreamed the sharp, sad over- 
 throw 
 Of such a life, so tender, strong, and brave ? 
 My pulse seems answering thy finger now — 
 'T was one step from the stirrup to the grave ! 
 Oh ! lift your load with care 
 And gently to its rest the precious burden bear. 
 
 55 
 
The Country Doctor 
 
 All Souls' Day ! As they place him in the aisle 
 The bells his youth obeyed for church are 
 ringing ; 
 And, as beneath the churchyard gate we file, 
 To latest rite his honored relics bringing. 
 You 'd think the dead had all 
 Arrayed their little homes for some high festival. 
 
 As if for him the flowering chaplets, strewn 
 Throughout God's acre, breathe a second 
 spring ; 
 To him the ivy on the sculptured stone 
 
 A welcome from the tomb seems whispering : 
 The buried wear their best. 
 As, in their midst, their old companion takes 
 his rest. 
 
 Yes, he is yours, not ours ; set down the bier : 
 
 To you we leave him with a ready trust : 
 Beneath this sod there 's scarce a spirit here 
 That was not once his friend : Oh ! guard 
 his dust ! 
 
 And if your ashes may 
 Thrill to old love, your graves are gladder than 
 our hearts to-day. 
 
 56 
 
A Card from the Violets 
 
 A CARD FROM THE VIOLETS 
 
 y^ RE you so sick, dear ? 
 / \ Oh ! we assure you, 
 -^ -^ We 've come to cure you — 
 Let us in — quick, dear. 
 
 Did not expect us ? 
 
 Fresh from the meadows, 
 
 Sweeter than red rose. 
 Can you reject us ? 
 
 Will you not hear us — 
 
 Blue as our eyes are. 
 
 True as our sighs are. 
 Nobody 's near us. 
 
 Saint, can you censure 
 
 Such sweet physicians — 
 
 Fairy prescriptions — 
 Will you not venture ? 
 
 57 
 
A Card from the Violets 
 
 Not even try us ? 
 
 Morn's merry tear drops 
 
 On us — the deer stops 
 Ere he bounds by us. 
 
 Bring us before you ; 
 
 If you are sleeping 
 
 We shall be peeping 
 Sentinels o'er you. 
 
 Or when we 've found you, 
 
 If you are waking, 
 
 We shall be shaking 
 Perfumes around you. 
 
 Poor little flowers — 
 
 Angels might cherish 
 
 Beauties that perish 
 Sinless as ours. 
 
 And when we 're faded — 
 
 Out of the door there 
 
 Throw us — there 's more where 
 Our eyes were shaded ! 
 
 58 
 
The Last Snow-lV?rath 
 
 THE LAST SNOW-WREATH 
 
 THAT gray forest — you remember, 
 It was spring's first budding day, 
 The last snow-wreath of December 
 On the shaded hillside lay ; 
 And your brow, though all was brightness, 
 
 And the world and we at play, 
 Had a winter in its whiteness 
 That I could not smile away. 
 
 That green forest — from the shadows 
 
 Where the silver fleece had slept. 
 Vigil o'er the dreaming meadows. 
 
 Bands of blue-eyed violets kept ; 
 And your brow — at once aglow, love, 
 
 Fast the melting winter wept. 
 And the last of all its snow, love. 
 
 Into tearful summer swept. 
 
 59 
 
The Last Snow-Wreath 
 
 Mine at last, you bowed before me ! 
 
 I could hear the won heart beat, 
 Though the dim sun trembled o'er me. 
 
 Though the earth swam at my feet. 
 Are the stars already shining ? 
 
 Ah ! the angel hours are fleet. 
 When fond arms are first entwining 
 
 And true lips first thrilling meet. 
 
 On we sped — the green boughs weaving 
 
 Fairy dance on mountain crest ; 
 On we fled — the arched wave heaving 
 
 In its exquisite unrest ; 
 Yet no grace of stream or tree, love, 
 
 In their sunset glory dressed, 
 Matched your white arms waving free, love. 
 
 Or the tremor of your breast. 
 
 Let us home ! and cease to sigh, love. 
 
 For the snow-wreath that has gone ; 
 It has gone to gild the rye, love. 
 
 And to plume the tasselled corn ; 
 In the bending wheat to harden. 
 
 Or to scent the enamelled thorn ; 
 It has gone to paint the garden 
 
 And to glisten in the morn. 
 60 
 
The Last Snow-Wreath 
 
 Peace to maiden plaint, then, dearest. 
 
 That love's light hath melted pride; 
 Gleameth not the lily fairest 
 
 In the red-rose shadow dyed ? 
 Not more pure the snow, fresh falling, 
 
 Than those violets, azure-eyed ; 
 But the whip-poor-will is calling — 
 
 Let us home, my morning's bride. 
 
 6i 
 
The Albatross 
 
 THE ALBATROSS 
 
 " rr^HINK of me often " — With a 
 I smile 
 
 -^ You said it, fair Lady, for you 
 
 knew 
 That everywhere and everywhile 
 I think of you. 
 
 Have you forgotten, though years ago, 
 
 A summer's evening walk of ours, 
 When earth was vocal and aglow 
 With birds and flowers ? 
 
 The sun was printing his parting kiss 
 On the cross of the Convent spire. 
 The brook bounded by with a laugh of bliss 
 And eyes of fire. 
 
 The lark slid lazily to his nest. 
 
 His matin music still. 
 The mourner minstrel wooed in the west 
 The whip-poor-will. 
 62 
 
The Albatross 
 
 A star stole timidly to its place 
 
 And stood fast in the deepening blue, 
 And you bent your head, while over your face 
 An arch smile flew : 
 
 For my love was born with that tell-tale star 
 
 In the holy hush of even. 
 Timidly stealing to earth from afar — 
 The far, high heaven. 
 
 And you — how you lingered laughingly by 
 
 That peaceful Convent gate. 
 Then, turning from me your beautiful eye, 
 Left me desolate I . 
 
 Since then, since there, through joy or care. 
 
 Through loving, loathing, hate. 
 Have I thought of you, blooming, young, and 
 fair. 
 
 At that Convent gate. 
 
 The storm of manhood has come and gone, 
 
 I have fronted many a fate, 
 But I never forgot the star that shone 
 O'er that Convent gate. 
 
 63 
 
The Albatross 
 
 Ah, you knew it well, for the proud lip curled 
 
 At a love, mute, hopeless, true ; 
 You knew that I wearily walked the world, 
 Thinking of you : 
 
 Thinking of you these long, lost years 
 
 Of penury, peril, pain : 
 Thinking of you through sunshine and tears — 
 Thinking in vain ! 
 
 White, lonely, changeless, beautiful. 
 
 Amid life's tempest-toss. 
 Your image tranquilly sleeps on my soul — 
 Its Albatross. 
 
 64 
 
Beatrice 
 
 BE ATRI CE 
 
 WELL, as thou wilt, — but thou art 
 lovelier now 
 Than ever yet, — eyes softer shin- 
 ing, — brow 
 Fuller of thoughtful light ; and, whether less 
 Thy loving then, a nobler tenderness 
 Now tunes thy voice and fires thy velvet cheek. 
 I shall obey : but I may sometimes seek 
 Leave to return, for in my journeying 
 I shall grow weary, and no other spring 
 Can quench my thirst j besides, I shall have 
 
 fears 
 For thee, for thou hast lost the gift of tears, 
 And thy fixed eyes look steadfastly at woe 
 Too long beheld, and fill, but ne'er o'erflow. 
 When the dull days creep on, — no more, no 
 
 more. 
 The swift step on thy staircase, at thy door 
 The quick, sure tap, — the strong hand lightly 
 laid 
 5 65 
 
Beatrice 
 
 In thine a moment, — may it not be said 
 " There sits she sighing in her solitude 
 For her lost Minstrel, — she has dearly rued 
 Her late resolve, too late deferred to save: 
 Poor child, there will be roses on her grave 
 Ere springtime ! " Thus 't would please them 
 best. 
 
 But, sweet, 
 When in the twilight, by my vacant seat. 
 Thou 'rt lying, and the crimson cushion hides 
 In thy brown ringlets, — when the river glides. 
 Dimmed with thy shadow only, — when the 
 
 stone 
 Carved with thy symbol name, by thee alone 
 Is visited, — it seemeth, lady, then 
 Thou may'st have need of me — that once 
 
 again, — 
 Nay, hist ! — I doubt thee not. I know of old 
 Thy grand defiant brow, — thy bearing bold 
 In sorrow's night, — the step elastic, — gaze 
 Starward unmovingly, — the song of praise 
 Hymned to the angels : they will care for thee, — 
 What need of mortal love ! Yet could it be 
 That some soft vesper-time, when incense 
 
 wreathes 
 
 66 
 
Beatrice 
 
 Thy chapel, and the rustic anthem breathes, 
 Or some fair summer's night, when laid at 
 
 rest. 
 Thou and thy cross of gold ^ an instant guest, 
 I might steal up and whisper. Peace ! 
 
 Not yet — 
 Bear with me, love, a moment longer, — let 
 This white hand slumber on in mine, and place 
 Thy head against my shoulder, with thy face 
 Upturned ! — There, — stir not, — sleep ! 'T is 
 
 like a trance. 
 That night of our first meeting, when the 
 
 dance 
 Flashed by unheeded ; like a dream the morn 
 When, — brighter sunrise ! — silently was born 
 Thy bountiful, broad love ; and the far seas. 
 Where in the shadow of the Pyrenees, 
 My soul first climbed the heights of thine, and 
 
 gave 
 Thee back an equal guerdon ; and the wave 
 Repassed, the fleet five years of Paradise, — 
 The Eden that was ours, — until with eyes 
 Opened to sudden knowledge, at our love's 
 Stern strength we trembled. Through the even- 
 ing groves 
 
 67 
 
Beatrice 
 
 There swept no angry challenge, but the low 
 Grand voice upbraided tenderly ; for though 
 Our lips oft drank the dews, we never ate 
 The fruit of that fair tree ; and at the gate, 
 The Angel, smiling, sank his fiery brand 
 In pity as we passed, — not hand in hand, 
 But parting in the wilderness. 
 
 Sleep on. 
 My lost one, — each will walk the world alone. 
 Since heaven so wills it ; with thy daily cares 
 Thou wilt deal calmly, and thy guardian 
 
 prayers 
 Shall follow me, that I may sometimes find 
 Grandeur in nature, fragrance in the wind. 
 Beauty in woman, gentleness in man; 
 For O, it seems as if the stream that ran 
 Beside my soul were dry, and all things have 
 A withered look ; the sunbeam in the wave 
 No longer dances, — the cold clouds refuse 
 Their sunset glow, — the unsought roses lose 
 Their perfumed blushes, — dimly wandereth 
 The moon amid the tree-tops, pale as death. 
 Weary and chill, — and I can scarce rejoice 
 In music's benediction, and the voice 
 Of friendship sounds like solemn mockery. 
 68 
 
Beatrice 
 
 Why, e'en the tingHng cheek and soaring eye 
 Of genius, visioned with some splendid dream. 
 Seem scenic tricks ; — unwooed, unwelcome 
 
 gleam 
 The plumed thoughts, — nor have I heart to win 
 The broidered butterflies we catch and pin 
 To poet desks, in boyhood. Yet fear not 
 The future ; I shall bravely front my lot. 
 With the one rapture manhood ne'er foregoes. 
 The stately joy of mastering its woes. 
 No eye shall see me falter, — I shall ask 
 No respite on the wheel, — whate'er the task 
 The circling days appoint, I humbly trust 
 For strength to do it ; — there shall be no rust 
 On sword or shield, — howe'er the heart may 
 
 ache 
 Beneath the goad ; yet, sweet, for thy dear sake 
 I '11 wear the yoke, until the furrow opes 
 A little deeper, — then we '11 end it, hopes 
 And fears. 
 
 Yet sometimes, when the old desire 
 Of rhyming comes, and the familiar choir 
 Of cherub voices, with returning song. 
 Make my sad chamber musical ; when throng 
 The cloistered faces, with uplifted veil, 
 
 69 
 
Beatrice 
 
 Each with remembered smile, — serene and pale, 
 As those stone priestesses that walk in Rome 
 And florence, shall thy living image come 
 And stand before me, motioning the rest 
 Away. And I believe — O ! stir not, lest 
 Waking bring utter anguish — that when years. 
 The morning years of life, have passed, and 
 
 tears 
 And time and sorrow shall have so o'erthrown 
 The temple of thy beauty, that unknown 
 We two may walk the ways where now, alas ! 
 The finger follows, and false whispers pass 
 'Twixt smiling friends, — when perished youth's 
 
 last charm. 
 E'en they who blamed us most, exclaim, "What 
 
 harm 
 In their now meeting ? " — let me, love, believe 
 This parting not forever — that some eve 
 Like this, I may approach thee, kneeling, smooth 
 Thy loose brown hair, warm thy cold fingers, 
 
 soothe 
 The aching bosom, lay my hand upon 
 Thy brow, and touch these dear lips — thus — 
 
 Sleep on ! 
 
 70 
 
La Velata 
 
 LA VELATA 
 
 (Pitti Palace — No. 245) 
 
 YOU tread upon graves, my Lady, 
 And, walk where you will, my 
 sweet, 
 You will still leave a ruined life, or two. 
 
 Like mine lying under your feet. 
 Yet your glance is as clear and cloudless, 
 
 You carry as happy a head. 
 As the vestal whose torch lit the altar stone 
 While the hearts of a hecatomb bled. 
 
 Hail, Queen of the Dead, my Lady, 
 
 Of dead hearts that beat sullenly on, 
 Waking once a year in a living tomb 
 
 To ache for the smile that is gone. 
 Sweep on with your laugh of music, — 
 
 But, wander wherever you may. 
 Some new grave will open beneath your feet. 
 
 And the Black Cross still mark your way. 
 
 71 
 
Donna 
 
 DONNA 
 
 OLADY, in the morning of our meeting, 
 When love around us, flowerlike, 
 awoke. 
 Bright o'er the face that gladdened at my 
 greeting 
 The blush unbidden broke. 
 And your eyes trembled to your heart's quick 
 beating 
 
 Whene'er I spoke. 
 
 Dear lady, then your form so softly rounded. 
 
 Still with a lingering girl-light shone ; 
 Your lips, whose laugh like fountain-music 
 sounded. 
 No sorrow e'er had known. 
 For all the pulses of your being bounded 
 To love alone. 
 
 n 
 
Donna 
 
 We parted then : and now, in day's declining, 
 
 In the soul's twilight time we meet : 
 Sweet, let me feel again that arm's soft 
 twining — 
 Quick, for the hours are fleet. 
 And I, an exile, while your youth was shining. 
 Kneel at your feet. 
 
 Ah, the twin roses of your cheeks have faded, 
 
 Your brow has lost its halo-light. 
 The dewy sunshine of your glance is 
 shaded 
 With clouds of coming night ; 
 E'en the brown splendor of your hair is 
 braided 
 
 With mourning white. 
 
 Yet day is fairer 'neath the mountain sleeping 
 
 Than when in orient pomp it rose ; 
 The brook bounds brighter for the winter's 
 keeping 
 When spring unlocks the snows ; 
 And you are lovelier now, when years of 
 weeping 
 
 Thus smiling close. 
 73 
 
Donna 
 
 O teach those eyes again their blessed beam- 
 ing ! 
 
 Nay, shrink not that I hold you fast — ■ 
 Before us such a starry future gleaming, 
 
 Why grieve for mornings past ? 
 Perchance our mingled tears, now mutely stream- 
 
 May be the last. 
 
 74 
 
Blight and Bloom 
 
 BLIGHT AND BLOOM 
 
 I 
 
 DID we not bury them ? 
 All those dead years of ours, 
 All those poor tears of ours, 
 All those pale pleading flowers — 
 Did we not bury them ? 
 
 Yet, in the gloom there, 
 See how they stare at us, 
 Hurling despair at us, 
 Rising to glare at us 
 
 Out of the tomb there ! 
 
 Curse every one of them ! 
 Kiss, clasp, and token, 
 Vows vainly spoken, 
 Hearts bruised and broken — 
 
 Have we not done with them ? 
 75 
 
Blight and Bloom 
 
 Are we such slaves to them ? 
 Down where the river leaps, 
 Down where the willow weeps, 
 Down where the lily sleeps, 
 
 Dig deeper graves for them. 
 
 Must we still stir amid 
 Ghosts of our buried youth. 
 Gleams of life's morning truth. 
 Spices and myrrh, forsooth . . . ? 
 
 Seal up the pyramid ! 
 
 II 
 
 Be still, my heart, beneath the rod, 
 
 And murmur not ; 
 He too was Man — the Son of God 
 
 And shared thy lot : 
 
 Shared all that we can suffer here, 
 
 The gain, the loss, 
 The bloody sweat, the scourge, the sneer. 
 
 The Crown, the Cross, 
 
 76 
 
Blight and Bloom 
 
 The final terror of the tomb, — 
 
 His guiltless head 
 Self-dedicated to the doom 
 
 We merited. 
 
 Then sigh not for earth's Edens lost, 
 
 Time's vanished bliss; 
 The heart that suffers most, the most 
 
 Resembles His. 
 
 11 
 
Shemselnihar 
 
 SHEMSELNIHAR 
 
 (From "The Arabian Nights") 
 
 FIRST Afeef spake: "Thy Favorite is 
 dead ! 
 Touch not those lips, my Master, they 
 were false : 
 Weep not for one who had no smiles for thee." 
 But Haroun said, 
 
 His dim eyes fastened on the face where life 
 And death seemed striving which should paint 
 it fairest, 
 
 " Peace, she hath loved ! " 
 
 Then Wazief spake : " There was a Persian 
 
 dog 
 Who died this morning — she has gone to meet 
 
 him : 
 To share his grave, she leaves a throne with 
 
 thee." 
 
 But Haroun said, 
 
 78 
 
Shemselnihar 
 
 " How many hearts will cease their beat with 
 
 mine, 
 As hers with his, because they loved their 
 
 Caliph ? 
 
 Say, O ye faithful ! " 
 
 But Mesrour muttered, " To the boat with her ! 
 Those dainty dancing girls are whispering now 
 Of her mad doating on the Persian dog ! " 
 But Haroun said, 
 
 " Build her a tomb of porphyry and jet. 
 Where fountains murmur and where cypress 
 
 waves : 
 Love is a light seen once a thousand years. 
 And she hath loved ! " 
 
 79 
 
Lazarus 
 
 LAZARUS 
 
 I HAD lived, I had loved, 
 And had lived and loved in vain 
 I had said unto my soul, 
 " You shall never love again : 
 I can brave the bitter night, 
 
 Bear that all is dross and dust. 
 Dare all sorrows save the blight 
 Of another broken trust." 
 
 But it came, ah, it came 
 
 In a shape so sweet and pure. 
 Never hope that ever shone 
 
 Seemed so gentle, seemed so sure ; 
 For the winds without my will 
 
 Bore the blossom to my breast, 
 And, so being human still, 
 
 Where it fell, I let it rest. 
 80 
 
Lazarus 
 
 Soon It bloomed above my heart, 
 
 And I said, " At last, at last 
 Here 's the rose I vainly sought 
 
 In the gardens of the past." 
 So I laughed and cried aloud, 
 
 " Break, O earth around me, break, 
 Away with worm and shroud, 
 
 Lo, I 'm living for her sake ! " 
 
 Then with eyes at last unclosed. 
 
 And with hands at length unclasped. 
 Slowly stirring in my shroud 
 
 At my flower I feebly grasped ; 
 But as if beneath a frost 
 
 Shrank the swift-recoiling head, 
 I had scared her with my ghost. 
 
 She had taken me for dead. 
 
 " Ah, my Queen ! ah, my Queen ! 
 
 See my lips are running red. 
 They can kiss back to your leaves 
 
 All the crimson that has fled. 
 Wake, oh, wake, to watch and wave 
 
 O'er my slumbers as before, 
 I will back into my grave, 
 
 I will never leave it more." 
 6 8i 
 
Lazarus 
 
 So I creep back to my tomb 
 
 Which seems twice as deep and drear. 
 Though all fairer for that frost 
 
 Blooms my Queen without a peer. 
 Mine alone, till far her fame 
 
 With each wanton zephyr fled — 
 Ah, my grave is still the same, 
 
 But no rose is at its head. 
 
 82 
 
The King s Speech 
 
 THE KING'S SPEECH 
 
 I 
 
 'LL heal the sting, — 
 
 Man's sting, — the human sting at Na- 
 
 ture's spring ! 
 
 Behold the Master's Wonder-book unrolled. 
 Explore with gladdened eye, and heart con- 
 soled, — 
 Whilst I its pages one by one unfold ! " 
 Thus spake the King. 
 
 And lo, a sheet 
 Of trembling azure clothes the mountain's feet. 
 Dark boats go glancing through it with lit oars 
 Of dripping silver, — all the villaed shores 
 Repeat themselves in crystal, — proudly soars 
 
 The radiant sleet 
 
 Of purple peaks 
 Beneath whose crests the mellowed thunder 
 
 speaks. 
 Half-way to heaven the birdlike chapel broods, 
 
 83 
 
The King' s Speech 
 
 Soft winds sweep sighing through the slanting 
 
 woods 
 Between whose shadows flash the cloud-born 
 
 floods 
 
 In jewelled streaks. 
 
 New visions throng — 
 The canvas shifts and now we float along, 
 Rounding a dead volcano in the light 
 Of rising stars, while every eye is bright — 
 Hers brightest — as wc hail the rising night 
 
 With jest and song. 
 
 Sweet vision, say, 
 Must thou too like thy sister pass away ? 
 Alas, remorseless hills between us stride, 
 As eunuchs gather round a Sultan's bride, 
 Shielding her beauty from the evil-eyed ! 
 
 Stay, Phantom, stay ! 
 
 All changed again ! 
 Above the clouds we wander, the dim plain 
 Shrunk to a garden ; 'gainst the bridal sun 
 Fond snow-peaks lean their livid cheeks and 
 
 run 
 To earth in tears ; now heaven itself is won 
 And won in vain ! 
 
 84 
 
The King' s Speech 
 
 Another change. 
 Between the twin crests of a parted range 
 The sky has fallen and sleeps in silvered blue ; 
 And here a Poet's soul comes with the dew 
 To Chillon, murmuring all the midnight through 
 
 With voices strange. 
 
 Away ! — our prow 
 Cuts the crisp wave — new scenes, new lands 
 
 — and now 
 Gleams the Snow Monarch on his Gothic 
 
 throne, 
 Orphaned of heaven and earth, defiant, lone. 
 Save when the sun's last scarlet kiss is thrown 
 Upon his brow. 
 
 Green seas of ice 
 Beneath our guided feet — gray glaciers rise 
 Weeping themselves away, yet ever fed 
 By the fresh tears their sire is doomed to 
 
 shed ; 
 At last his awful front we touch and tread 
 
 Upon the skies. 
 
 " Fool, dost thou cling 
 Fast to thy folly ? Must the Master fling 
 His wonders round thy pathway, but to whet 
 
 85 
 
The King's Speech 
 
 The edge of yearning — see thy heart still set 
 Upon the human — deeper in the net ? " 
 Thus spake the King. 
 
 " What if I bring 
 My unveiled glory to assuage thy sting ? 
 Will it avail when thou dost clearly prize 
 Better than earth or heaven, than seas or skies, 
 The human love that burns in human eyes ? " 
 
 Thus spake the King. 
 
 And then I said, 
 Are not those eyes thy work — was not that 
 
 head 
 Cast in thy mould — is not thy breath divine 
 Upon these lips — have not the Bread and 
 
 Wine 
 Retrieved the Fall and made her image Thine ? 
 
 Hast thou not shed 
 
 A holier grace 
 Upon her form, — Thine image in her face 
 Is it not worthier worship than the snows 
 Kissed by the sunset into domes of rose. 
 Or blue lake heaving in its rapt repose ? 
 
 Let me embrace 
 86 
 
The Kings Speech 
 
 My lot : and cling 
 Unto the human, I accept its sting; 
 I 've measured it with Nature and with Art, 
 And find it next Thee. Frown not ere we 
 
 part ! 
 " 1 never frown upon a living heart ! " 
 Thus spake the King. 
 
 87 
 
Aladdin's Palace 
 
 ALADDIN'S PALACE 
 
 (Read at the Half Century Celebration of Mt. St. Mary's 
 College, Emmitsburg, Md., 1858.) 
 
 A LADDIN'S PALACE, in a single night, 
 / % From base to summit rose ere morning 
 
 r\. light, 
 
 A pillared mass of porphyry and gold. 
 Gem sown on gem, and silk o'er silk unrolled ; 
 So from the dust our young Republic springs 
 Before the dazzled eyes of Eastern Kings. 
 Not like old Rome, slow spreading into state. 
 The century that freed beholds us great, 
 Sees our broad empire belt the western world. 
 From main to main our starry flag unfurled ; 
 Sees in each port where Albion's Sea-Kings 
 
 trail 
 Their purple plumes, Columbia's snowy sail. 
 Three deep the loaded decks our long wharves 
 
 line. 
 Three deep on buoyant hoops fast flounces 
 
 shine, 
 
 88 
 
Aladdin s Palace 
 
 While thrice three-story brown stone proudly 
 
 tells 
 The tale of Mammon's modern miracles, 
 Marking full fifty places in a square 
 Where the born beggar dies the Millionaire. 
 
 But yet remember, glorious as we are, 
 Aladdin's Genie left one window bare : 
 And we, perchance, upon a close review. 
 May find our Palace lights unfinished too, — 
 Some slighted panel in the stately hall. 
 Some broidered hanging stinted on the wall, 
 Nay, e'en some jewels gone, that graced us 
 
 when 
 All men were free here — even gentlemen. 
 Of all the slaves in social bondage nursed, 
 Pater-familias stands supremely first : 
 Proud of his bondage, tickled with his chains. 
 The parent cringes while the stripling reigns. 
 Down with the Dotard ! consecrate the Boy ! 
 Since Age must suffer, let bright Youth enjoy. 
 Drink morning in ! — old eyes were meant to 
 
 wake : 
 Shake hands with ruin ! — old hearts never break. 
 Welcome the worst — 't is but to close the door 
 And pack the outlaw to some College-Cure. 
 
 89 
 
Aladdin's Palace 
 
 Alas ! the tutor apes the parent fool, 
 
 The idle birch hangs rotting in the school. 
 
 Touch the young tyrant — like Olympian Jove 
 
 The avenging sire defends his injured love ; 
 
 Clutches a cowhide, contemplates a suit. 
 
 Talks wildly of a martyr and a brute. 
 
 The worst disgrace his free-born son can know 
 
 Is not to merit, but receive a blow ; 
 
 Honor, that prompts the pistol, damns the 
 
 rod, — 
 Let beasts alone divide the scourge — with 
 
 God. 
 
 Achilles saved, what next ? Go home and rear 
 That up-town palace ? — Why, you 're never 
 
 there. 
 Down by the docks your home is o'er the desk, 
 From morn to night curled like an arabesque, 
 Spinning the rich cocoon for child and wife. 
 Though, like the worm, the tribute costs your 
 
 life. 
 Crawl home at midnight, to the basement go. 
 Hug the lit fender, toast the slippered toe ; 
 One well-earned moment rest the throbbing 
 
 head. 
 Though all the ceiling own the Lancer's tread, 
 90 
 
Aladdin's Palace 
 
 Or dare the ball-room, you '11 not spoil the 
 
 feast, 
 'T is the old story — Beauty and the Beast. 
 
 That Lion leaning o'er my Lady's chair 
 
 May start — but she will never know you *re 
 near. 
 
 Perchance some fopling compliments your 
 taste, 
 
 His easy arm around Miss Mary's waist ; 
 
 Admires your Elliott, wonders how he caught 
 
 Your mouth's full meaning — " Aw, I re-aul-ly 
 thought 
 
 Those sheep were Ommegancks ! " — Back to 
 your den ! 
 
 Your girl's far wiser cheek was tingling then. 
 
 Better be dead than ope those honest eyes 
 
 To half your marble mansion's mysteries. 
 
 Press your lone pillow, scheme to-morrow's 
 pelf, 
 
 Your daughter, trust her, can protect herself: 
 
 Dread neither foreign Count nor native Fool, 
 
 Her heart was buried at a Boarding School. 
 
 Ah, not for nothing that smooth cheek's de- 
 cay — 
 
 She knows too much to risk a runaway. 
 91 
 
Aladdin ' s Pal a ce 
 
 While beauty lasts, perchance the Young 
 
 Moustache 
 May spoil the cooing of the Man of Cash ; 
 But trust to time, your wrinkled belle will take 
 Some solid soul — some bank that cannot 
 
 break, — 
 And reign the darling of a dull adorer, 
 Precisely as her mother did before her. 
 
 From private morals pass to public taste ; 
 One jewel missing, can the next be paste ? 
 A race of readers, we can surely claim 
 A dozen writers with a world-wide name, — 
 One drama that can hold the stage a season, 
 Two actors that confound not rant with rea- 
 son, — 
 A minstrel equal to an average air. 
 An artist that has brains as well as hair ? 
 Alas ! the river where the millions drink 
 Flows from a Helicon of tainted ink ; 
 Lower and lower the darkening stream descends. 
 Till, lost in filth, the sacred fountain ends. 
 Who reads Andrea ? — here 's a penny tale 
 That melts the milkmaid o'er her foaming pail ; 
 Who weeps with Luria that can weekly sob 
 With all the victims of Sylvan us Cobb ? 
 92 
 
Aladdin's Palace 
 
 To " In Memoriam " why trembling turn 
 When fonder pathos flows from Fanny Fern ? 
 Why wake the organ wail of Hiawatha 
 When piping publishers assume the author ? 
 And what, in turn, cares genius for the age ? 
 " Boz " gaily rattles ofF his five-pound page ; 
 Pendennis lazily dictates his story. 
 Sure of his pay, superbly dead to glory ; 
 O'ershadowed Browning, sickening in the van. 
 Sheds Ariel's wings to roll with Caliban. 
 But peace to parchment — bid the canvas 
 
 gleam ; 
 The pen rebellious, let the brush redeem. 
 Imperial Art, thy highest hope record ! — 
 Behold a primrose dots the dewy sward. 
 Raphael dethroned, what triumphs now decree ? 
 The twilight's bronze on blossomed cherry 
 
 tree. 
 Madonnas done with, Magdalens forbidden — 
 Lo, yonder rock in reverend mosses hidden. 
 Ah, sweet to think when time and reason blight 
 The budding of the last Pre-Raphaelite, 
 Those wondrous Dresden eyes shall still, as now. 
 Teach saints to worship, infidels to bow. 
 That Babe transfigured on the Virgin bosom 
 Outlive the daisy and the apple blossom. 
 
 93 
 
Aladdin s Palace 
 
 Kings rule the East, the Merchant rules the 
 
 West : 
 Save round his hearth, supreme his high behest. 
 For him the captive lightning rides the main. 
 For him rent mountains hide the screaming 
 
 train, 
 For him the placer spreads its golden sands. 
 The steamer pants, the spicy sail expands ; 
 For him the quarry splits the moaning hill. 
 For him Laborde imports her newest trill. 
 Submissive science smooths his lordly path. 
 States court his nod and Senates dread his 
 
 wrath ; 
 Erect, undaunted, eager, active, brisk, 
 A front for ruin, nerve for any risk ; 
 Shy of the snare, impatient of the chance. 
 The world a chess-board 'neath his eagle glance. 
 Armed with a Ledger — presto pass — he carves 
 And spends ten fortunes where a genius starves. 
 No robber knight that ever drove a-field 
 Bore braver heart beneath his dinted shield. 
 Atilt with fortune, if he win the prize. 
 The turnpike trembles, marble cleaves the 
 
 skies. 
 Or, lost both stirrups, let him bite the plain. 
 His dying song still " Lobster and Champagne ! " 
 
 94 
 
Aladdin s Palace 
 
 O land of Lads, and Liberty, and Dollars I 
 O Nation first in schools and last in scholars ! 
 Where few are ignorant, yet none excel, 
 Whose peasants read, whose statesmen scarcely 
 
 spell; 
 Of what avail that science light the way 
 When dwindling Senates totter to decay, — 
 Like some tall poplar withered at the head. 
 Our middle green, but all the summit dead. 
 We do not ask that mind and manners meet — 
 Utopian dream — in every Justice seat : 
 In troubled times 't is not to be expected 
 That Law and Grammar be at once pro- 
 tected : 
 We can endure that barristers dispense 
 Tropes, neither rhetoric nor common sense. 
 While all the rabble bolt the fluent store 
 Of broken image, battered metaphor, — 
 But, great Diana, when we 're only known. 
 In courts where Adams trod and Franklin 
 
 shone. 
 By mute Ambassadors who grandly scorn to 
 Maim any language save the one they 're born 
 
 to; 
 Wlien laughing Europe vainly would escape 
 Yankee sublime, refulgent in red tape, 
 95 
 
Aladdin s Palace 
 
 Might not the torch that fired the Ephesian 
 
 Dome 
 Be well employed — a little nearer home ? 
 Of what avail the boast of steam and cable, 
 If doomed to grovel 'neath the curse of Babel ? 
 Low droops our Eagle's eye to find us still 
 Cowed 'neath his wing — by Albion's gray- 
 goose quill. 
 Ye who have sipped the sweet Horatian page, 
 And burned with Juvenal in Roman rage; 
 Ye in whose bosom glows the true antique. 
 Whose solid armor 's laced with genuine Greek, 
 Whose souls, high reaching to the fountain, 
 
 find 
 The classic secrets that still sway mankind, — 
 What though the public hail with languid 
 
 praise 
 Your prim orations or primeval lays ; 
 What though Reviews, with accents soft as silk, 
 Skim all your cream and then reject your milk; 
 What though your polished pen scarce earn 
 
 a garret. 
 While double entry points to peace and claret ; 
 What though the heart, too long condemned to 
 
 ache 
 For mocking chaplets, ask but leave to break ; 
 
 96 
 
Aladdin s Palace 
 
 Toil on, toil on, there 's no such word as fail, 
 Heaven sends the wind if we but set the sail : 
 Toil on, — the world's best laurels only bloom 
 Above the mound that marks the Martyr's 
 tomb ! 
 
 Know ye the fields that smooth the Pilgrim 
 
 coast, 
 The lawn's soft slope in azure ocean lost. 
 The garden bounded by the billow's foam. 
 The gables stately as a Baron's home ? 
 Approach : along the cornland and the wold, 
 October dies in crimson and in gold ; 
 That giant elm has scarce a score of leaves 
 To shade the voiceless nest beneath the eaves. 
 See the bright Sabbath morning silent break, 
 Save where the wild-fowl fans his tiny lake, 
 Save where, with ceaseless wail, the warning 
 
 sea 
 Chants its one awful word — " Eternity." 
 Ah, Seth, unload the rifle, coil the line. 
 Let the coot fly, the haddock lash the brine, 
 O'er the mute hills, untracked, the wild deer 
 
 run. 
 The angler sleeps — thy hunter's deeds are 
 
 done ! 
 7 97 
 
Aladd'ni s Palace 
 
 Steal in with muffled tread — the struggle past, 
 Released from thought, the grand brow rests 
 
 at last. 
 As rests in Abbey aisle some brave broad shield, 
 A nation's buckler on the battlefield. 
 No shroud surrounds him — he has gone to rest. 
 As heroes love to go, in harness drest : 
 Folded the hands that never rose in wrath 
 Unless to sweep a traitor from his path ; 
 Dim the dark eye before whose rapt command 
 Disunion, like a spectre, fled the land. 
 God grant that Julia's self the father meet 
 Since Julia's image may no longer greet ! 
 God guard that willowed slab by Marsh- 
 field's wave. 
 Where he still lives beneath his laurelled grave ! 
 God send some faithful heart, some fearless 
 
 spur. 
 To fill the void of that one Sepulchre ! 
 The Forum yawns ! Come, Curtius, to thy 
 
 work ! 
 Fate summons the Collegian — not the Clerk. 
 
 Green be the hero's grave ! — But who shall 
 
 paint 
 Our greater loss — that purer gem — the Saint ? 
 
 98 
 
Aladdin's Palace 
 
 We who are wholly plunged in pious labors, 
 Who plume ourselves and meekly peck our 
 
 neighbors ; 
 Whose outward life, so gravely circumspect. 
 Proclaims — our title clear — the sole Elect j 
 We who, knee-deep in spiritual feasts. 
 Bewail the shallower ecstasies of priests ; 
 We who serenely chant the rights of laymen 
 While pastors starve and bishops drudge like 
 
 draymen ; 
 We have no sins — no zealots that behold 
 A Creamcheese in each shepherd of the fold — 
 No pale devotes to chronicle the fancies 
 That gild the seraph lips of Father Francis. 
 We shrink from Sue and Sand, our only care is 
 To sigh with Kempis, or to sift with Suarez ; 
 With fiction false to faith we never grovel, 
 Our lightest reading, the religious novel; 
 We count our soul-refreshing tales by scores. 
 Where heroes sin not — save in being bores ; 
 Where heroines sing like controversial linnets, 
 Converting heretics in twenty minutes, — 
 Here Agnes answers to the convent bell. 
 There jilted William meditates a cell. 
 But let a Man stand up and lash the age. 
 Let reason rule, and truth inspire his page, 
 
 99 
 
 LOfC. 
 
Aladdin s Palace 
 
 Let folly quake to hear his lordly tread, 
 And captive error hang her hydra head, — 
 Then, just so long as our celestial selves 
 Escape a drubbing, Brownson tops our shelves ; 
 But once the scourge on our ow^n shoulders 
 
 laid — 
 Stop the Review ! — gag the gray renegade I 
 
 Yes, praised be type and steam, our blindness 
 
 o'er. 
 The Christian world is wiser than of yore. 
 No simple Barons now corrupt the Church 
 By leaving rich relations in the lurch ; 
 No stricken Knight, with half remembered 
 
 prayer. 
 Beats his broad breast and makes a monk his 
 
 heir. 
 Fie, fie. Sir Hugo, like a cut-throat live. 
 Then, dying, bribe thy Maker to forgive ? 
 Tempt not the skies with gifts, — we never do — 
 Heaven asks no largess — just a tear or two. 
 Our peaceful fingers guiltless of the sword 
 What call for alms to pacify the Lord ? 
 The Priest stands ready harnessed — naught to 
 
 pay, 
 
 Since he who gave disdains to take away. 
 
 100 
 
Aladdin s Palace 
 
 Let pompous heretics by will provide 
 
 For school and mission, — we have no such 
 
 pride. 
 Enough for us, our earthly errand run, 
 To pass an untithed purse from sire to son. 
 Too modest to bestow lest men applaud, 
 Faith just too feeble to invest with God, 
 Just zeal sufficient to shun godless knowledge. 
 And just too little to endow a College. 
 Hugo may pamper Abbots with his acres. 
 Ours shall be anybody's — but our Maker's. 
 
 In darker ages, when the morning dews 
 
 Of Faith were fresh upon the world, when 
 
 pews 
 Were yet unborn, our simple fathers thought — 
 Such ignorance belongs to souls untaught — 
 That the true aim of pious decoration 
 Should be the Minster — not the congregation. 
 Since then, the riper Flock far wiser grown. 
 Neat brick and mortar mimic chiselled 
 
 stone \ 
 Yon altar angel kneels in florid plaster 
 Where cherub wings once shone in alabaster. 
 But let the ceiling gape, the organ jingle. 
 The lazy spire at last ascend in shingle ; 
 
 10 I 
 
Aladdin s Palace 
 
 Glance down the nave — survey the sacred 
 
 scene — 
 One billowy sweep of lace and crinoline; 
 Each tiny hat half hidden in its feather, 
 Bright as a daisy beaming through the 
 
 heather — 
 Out with the Rose or Oriel's lesser lustre, 
 Here all the colors of the rainbow cluster. 
 Yet say not Faith hath wholly quenched her fires 
 When Albany's Twin Minsters lift their spires. 
 When fast responsive to the Mitre's beck. 
 Each man stands ready with his cheerful 
 
 check 3 
 Prompt as the Spartan at his country's call, 
 A hundred come — a hundred thousand fall. 
 
 When the good Caliph all his coffers brought, 
 And, gem in hand, his turbaned craftsmen 
 
 wrought ; 
 When vainly jewelled with a Kingdom's store 
 The unfinished window clamored still for 
 
 more, 
 Aladdin called the Spirit that begun 
 His radiant Palace, and the work was done. 
 So here the sail may gleam, the minstrel sing. 
 The forum close, the victor warrior bring 
 
 102 
 
Aladdiri s Palace 
 
 His wreath, — but still the Temple of our sires 
 An Artist mightier than man requires. 
 We too must call our Spirit. Glance around — 
 The terrace at our feet is hallowed ground : 
 Climb that green hill, — those levelled walks 
 
 that glide 
 Around the Chapel — by the torrent's side ; 
 That shaded mound where still the Grotto 
 
 stands — 
 All these are relics now, touched by the hands 
 That led alike the shriven soul to grace, 
 Or smoothed the frown from Nature's erring 
 
 face. 
 Question the valley — here how oft there trod. 
 Missal in hand, along the weary road, 
 A swift, frail shape, on some new mercy 
 
 bent. 
 That seemed to smile with angels as it went. 
 Go farther — pierce the aching world beyond 
 The circle of those calm blue lines that bound 
 This Sanctuary — count the mitres — scan 
 The vast results of that one Heaven-sent 
 
 man : 
 Ask mountain laymen, deep in stocks or deeds. 
 Why still they wear their medals, tell their 
 
 beads ; 
 
 103 
 
Aladdin s Palace 
 
 Ask that gray band of Priests what trumpet 
 
 call 
 Beneath Christ's standard ranged and armed 
 
 them all ; 
 Ask either Prelate whose command controls 
 The Christian being of a million souls, 
 Who first inspired his half unconscious feet 
 To tread the heights where flamed the Para- 
 clete ? 
 Hark ! prelate, laymen, priests, together say — 
 The Angel Guardian of the Mount — Brut^. 
 
 My friends, Aladdin's Palace needs such men — 
 The Saint at work, 't is finished — not till 
 then. 
 
 104 
 
Byron 
 
 BYRON 
 
 (Written in reply to Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe's attack.) 
 
 LET him rest in his shame and splendor, 
 In splendor and shame let him lie; 
 'whisper low, for the grave should de- 
 fend her. 
 Curse no more, for he cannot reply. 
 'Tis not well to stand over the body 
 
 From which a great soul has just fled 
 And smite the poor lips till they 're bloody 
 For the sake of a sin that is dead. 
 
 O pierce not into their mystery, 
 
 O pry not into the gloom ; 
 Leave truth to the touchstone of history — 
 
 The seals are too fresh on the tomb. 
 No word on the vault need be graven 
 
 Till the hinge has fallen to rust; 
 And we, — we will keep off the raven 
 
 Till the dead has returned to dust. 
 105 
 
Byro7i 
 
 For a poet though he may grieve us 
 
 At times, with a baleful lay. 
 Is ever the last to leave us. 
 
 The last that we let decay. 
 The siren song we inherit 
 
 Keeps sounding so fresh and near, 
 That we seem, both in flesh and spirit. 
 
 Still standing beside his bier. 
 
 Why should a libel borrowed 
 
 From oblivion stain his corse. 
 When each line on the cold white forehead 
 
 Shows the finger of remorse ? 
 He was an archer regal. 
 
 Who laid the mighty low. 
 But his arrows were fledged by the eagle 
 
 And sought not a fallen foe. 
 
 With the front of a lost archangel 
 
 He braved a frowning world. 
 And at maiden, man, and evangel 
 
 His fiery scofling hurled — 
 Railing 'gainst earth and heaven alike. 
 
 Till the haughty eye grew dim. 
 But never lifted a shroud to strike, 
 
 As hath twice been done to him ! 
 io6 
 
By 
 
 ron 
 
 Why conjure a phantom terror 
 
 From the ashes of the great, 
 And, worse than vilest error, 
 
 Sp«eed the horrible debate ? 
 Why, when the world is listening 
 
 To minstrels robed in light. 
 Wile us back to the morbid glistening 
 
 Of a Spirit of the Night ? 
 
 He has met the final audit. 
 
 He has faced the Judge Supreme ^ 
 Man's malison now, or plaudit. 
 
 Will but reach him as a dream. 
 Wait, till the life-long beating 
 
 Of each bosom is laid bare 
 At that vast sepulchral meeting, — 
 
 Then — stone him if you dare ! 
 
 107 
 
The Ivory Crucifix 
 
 THE IVORY CRUCIFIX 
 
 WITHIN an attic old at Genoa, 
 Full many a year, I ween. 
 Had lain a block of ivory, 
 The largest ever seen. 
 
 Though wooing centuries have wiled 
 
 Its purity away 
 Gaunt Time had made a slender meal, 
 
 So well it braved decay. 
 
 If we may trust tradition's tongue. 
 
 Some mastodon before 
 The wave kissed Ararat's tall peak 
 
 The splendid trophy wore. 
 
 Certes, no elephant e'er held 
 
 Aloft so rich a prize, 
 Not India's proudest jungle boasts 
 
 A tusk of half the size. 
 io8 
 
The Ivory Crucifix 
 
 A monk obtained and to his cell 
 
 The relic rare conveyed, 
 And bending o'er the uncouth block 
 
 This monk, communing, said : 
 
 " Be mine the happy task by day 
 
 And through the midnight's gloom, 
 To toil and still toil on until 
 This shapeless mass assume 
 
 " The form of Him who on the Cross 
 For us poured forth His blood : 
 Thus man shall ever venerate 
 This relic of the flood. 
 
 " Though now a witness to the wrath 
 Of the dread God above. 
 Changed by my chisel, it shall be 
 The emblem of His love." 
 
 II 
 
 That night when on his pallet stretched. 
 
 As slumber o'er him stole, 
 A glorious vision brightly broke 
 
 Upon his ravished soul. 
 109 
 
The Ivory Crucifix 
 
 He sees his dear Redeemer stand 
 On Calvary's sacred height, 
 
 The Crucifixion is renewed 
 Before his awe-struck sight. 
 
 He sees his Saviour's pallid cheek 
 With pitying tears impearled. 
 
 He hears His dying accents bless 
 A persecuting world : 
 
 Sees the last look of love supreme 
 Conquer each aching sense, 
 
 Triumphant o'er His agony 
 In deep benevolence. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The matin bell has pealed — the monk 
 Starts from his brief repose ; 
 
 But still before his waking eye 
 The vivid dream arose. 
 
 His morning orisons are paid, 
 His hand the chisel wields. 
 
 Slowly before the eager steel 
 The stubborn ivory yields, 
 no 
 
The Ivory Crucifix 
 
 The ancient block is crusted o'er 
 With a coating hard and gray, 
 
 But soon the busy chisel dofFs 
 This mantle of decay. 
 
 And now, from every blemish freed. 
 
 Upon his kindling eye. 
 In all its pristine beauty, dawns 
 
 The milk-white ivory. 
 
 IV 
 
 The sun arose, the sun went down. 
 
 Arose and set again. 
 But still the monk his chisel plies — 
 
 Oh, must he toil in vain ? 
 
 Not his the highly cultured touch 
 That bade the marble glow 
 
 And with a hundred statues linked 
 The name of Angelo. 
 
 Perchance some tiny image he 
 Had fashioned oft before, 
 
 But art had ne'er to him unveiled 
 Her closely hoarded lore. 
 I II 
 
The Ivory Crucifix 
 
 A faithful hand, an eye possessed 
 Of genius' inborn beam 
 
 Or inspiration's loftier light 
 Must body forth his dream. 
 
 The moon has filled her fickle orb, 
 The moon is on the wane, 
 
 A crescent now she sails the sky 
 And now is full again. 
 
 But bending o'er that ivory block 
 The monk is kneeling there, 
 
 Full half his time to toil is given. 
 And half is spent in prayer. 
 
 Four years elapsed before the monk 
 Threw his worn chisel by ; 
 
 Complete at last before him lies 
 The living ivory. 
 
 His dream at last is bodied forth, 
 And to the world is given 
 
 A sight that well may wean the soul 
 From earth a while to heaven. 
 112 
 
The Ivory Crucifix 
 
 The dying look of love supreme 
 Conquering each aching sense, 
 
 Unquenched by burning pain, reveals 
 Divine benevolence. 
 
 Behold that violated cheek 
 With pitying tears impearled, 
 
 The parting lips that seem to bless 
 A persecuting world. 
 
 Is not the Evangel's sacred page 
 
 Translated here as well 
 As any human alphabet 
 
 Its glorious truths can tell ? 
 
 "3 
 
Touth 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 MY swift bright youth where art thou 
 now, 
 With thy ready smile and open brow, 
 With sleepless day and dreamless night, 
 And hope that even through tears shone 
 bright — 
 
 Ah, whither hast thou flown ? 
 Like foam of the ocean, 
 An instant in motion. 
 
 Then scattered and gone ! 
 
 My brow, there 's not a furrow there, 
 The first frost has not blanched my hair, 
 These eyes — as clear as when they won 
 From love a language of their own. — 
 
 Then what has happened, say. 
 Thou star of the daytime. 
 Sweet youth, the soul's maytime, 
 To drive thee away ? 
 114 
 
Touth 
 
 The bloom has left all beautiful things, 
 
 The air-loving thoughts lose their shining wings, 
 
 And Nature lieth dim and pale. 
 
 Like the face of a corpse beneath a veil. 
 
 And the heart within me is cold ; 
 For the youth that I cherished 
 Has fruitlessly perished 
 Before I am old. 
 
 My swift bright youth, my fair-haired slave, 
 Thou hast left me but an early 'grave, — 
 Wherever it be, — and when spring is green 
 But one will be there, — she will weep, I ween, 
 Speeding a prayer well meant. 
 Oh, let not age meet me, 
 With slow change to cheat me 
 Of that lone monument ! 
 
 115 
 
Absence 
 
 ABSENCE 
 
 A THOUSAND leagues away, 
 Yet not an inch apart, 
 ' The ocean rolls between, 
 But heart still touches heart. 
 My head is on the billow, 
 
 And thine is on the shore, 
 Yet have we but one pillow. 
 Love could not live with more. 
 
 The carrier flutters onward. 
 
 Still further from his nest. 
 But thy shadow comes at sunset 
 
 And links him with the west ; 
 For the cord is only lengthened 
 
 That bound me to thy side, 
 And distance has but strengthened 
 
 The love knot that we tied. 
 
 n6 
 
Parting 
 
 PARTING 
 
 I HAD a friend and she was fair 
 As Earth permits the soul to seem, 
 Dark was her eye and dark her hair, 
 Her glance broke o'er one like the dream 
 That makes the sleeping infant smile, — 
 So pure was she, so free from guile. 
 
 When with her, all the golden day 
 Flew swiftly on in radiant light, 
 
 And her dear image, when away. 
 Would seem to hover still in sight. 
 
 For when the sun goes 'neath the hill 
 Fond memory makes it twilight still. 
 
 Thus hand in hand from year to year, 
 From year to year thus heart in heart. 
 
 Until 't was rapture to be near 
 And agony to be apart. 
 
 We wandered, — every day that passed 
 Was brighter, lovelier than the last. 
 117 
 
Parting 
 
 One night a change crept o'er her brow — 
 
 And lo ! an angel at my side 
 Pale as a vestal at her vow 
 
 She stood before me glorified. 
 We parted at that sacred sign — 
 
 Still mine — yet something more than mine. 
 
 Ii8 
 
The Bridesmaids' Greeting 
 
 THE BRIDESMAIDS' GREETING 
 
 (From "Christine'') 
 
 SISTER, Standing at Love's golden gate. 
 Life's second door — 
 Fleet the maiden-time is flying, 
 Friendship fast in love is dying. 
 Bridal fate doth separate 
 Friends evermore. 
 
 Pilgrim, seeking with thy sandalled feet 
 The land of bliss ; 
 Sire and sister tearless leaving, 
 To thy beckoning palmer cleaving — 
 Truant sweet, lest we ne'er meet ^ 
 One parting kiss. 
 
 Wanderer, filling for enchanted isle 
 Thy dimpUng sail \ 
 Whither drifted all uncaring 
 So with faithful helmsman faring. 
 Stay and smile with us awhile 
 Before the gale. 
 119 
 
The Bridesmaids' Greeting 
 
 Playmate, hark ! a thousand thronging hours 
 Old secrets tell : 
 Vale and thicket, hill and heather, 
 Whisper sacredly together ; 
 Queen of ours, the very flowers 
 Sigh forth farewell. 
 
 120 
 
The Bride s Reply 
 
 THE BRIDE'S REPLY 
 
 (From *< Christine") 
 
 BRING me no rose-wreath now : 
 But come when sunset's first tears 
 fall, 
 
 When night-birds from the mountain call 
 
 Then bind my brow. 
 
 Roses and lilies white — 
 But tarry till the glow-worms trail 
 Their gold-work o'er the spangled veil 
 
 Of falling night. 
 
 Twine not your garland fair 
 Till I have fallen fast asleep ; 
 Then to my silent pillow creep 
 
 And leave it there — 
 
 There in the chapel yard, 
 Come with the twilight's earliest hush, 
 Just as the day's last purple flush 
 
 Forsakes the sward. 
 
 121 
 
The Bride s Reply 
 
 Stop where the white cross stands 
 You '11 find me in my wedding suit, 
 Lying motionless and mute 
 
 With folded hands. 
 
 Tenderly to my side, 
 The bridegroom's form you may not see 
 In the dim eve, but he will be 
 
 Fast by his bride. 
 
 Soft with your chaplet move. 
 And lightly lay it on my head : 
 Be sure you wake not with rude tread 
 
 My jealous love. 
 
 Kiss me, then quick away ; 
 And leave us in unwatched repose. 
 There with the lily and the rose 
 
 Waiting for day. 
 
 122 
 
The Knighf s Lament for His Steed 
 
 THE KNIGHT'S LAMENT FOR 
 HIS STEED 
 
 (From *' Christine") 
 
 j4 ND art thou, art thou dead ? 
 
 / ^ Thou with front that might defy 
 -^ -J^ The gathered thunders of the sky, 
 Thou before whose fearless eye 
 
 All death and danger fled! 
 
 My Khalif, hast thou sped 
 Homeward where the palm trees' feet 
 Bathe in hidden fountains sweet. 
 Where first we met as lovers meet, 
 
 My own, my desert bred ! 
 
 Thy back has been my home; 
 And, bending o'er-thy flying neck, 
 Its white mane waving without speck, 
 I seemed to tread the galley's deck 
 
 And cleave the Ocean's foam. 
 123 
 
The Knighfs La??ient for His Steed 
 
 Since first I felt thy heart 
 Proudly surging 'neath my knee, 
 As earthquakes heave beneath the sea, 
 Brothers in the field were we ; 
 
 And must we, can we part ? 
 
 And shall I never more 
 Answer thy laugh amid the clash 
 Of battle, see thee meet the flash 
 Of spears with the proud, pauseless dash 
 
 Of billows on the shore ? 
 
 For all our victor war. 
 And all the honors men call mine 
 Were thine, thou voiceless warrior, thine ; 
 My task was but to touch the rein — 
 
 There needed nothing more. 
 
 Worst danger had no sting 
 For thee, and coward p^ace no charm. 
 Amid red havoc's worst alarm 
 Thy swoop as firm as through the storm 
 
 The eagle's iron wing. 
 124 
 
The Knight's Lament for His Steed 
 
 more than man to me ! 
 
 Thy neigh outsoared the trumpet's tone, 
 Thy back was better than a throne, 
 There was no human thing save one 
 
 1 loved as well as thee ! 
 
 O Knighthood's truest friend ! 
 Brave heart by every danger tried. 
 Proud crest by conquest glorified. 
 Swift Saviour of my menaced bride. 
 
 Is this, is this the end ? 
 
 Thrice honored be thy grave ! 
 Wherever knightly deed is sung. 
 Wherever minstrel harp is strung, 
 There too thy praise shall sound among 
 
 The beauteous and the brave. 
 
 And thou shalt slumber deep 
 Beneath our chapel's cypress sheen. 
 And there thy lord and his Christine 
 Full oft shall watch at morn and e'en 
 
 Around their Khalif's sleep. 
 125 
 
The Knighf s Lament for His Steed 
 
 There shalt thou wait for me 
 Until the funeral bell shall ring, 
 Until the funeral censer swing, 
 For I would ride to meet my King, 
 
 My stainless steed, with thee ! 
 
 126 
 
Forty To-day 
 
 FORTY TO-DAY 
 
 FORTY to-day ! 
 Sweet Leman shimmering in the sun, as 
 blue 
 As calm, as pure as if the Heaven o'erhead 
 That meets it 'mid the mist, just out of view, 
 Had fallen and floated shoreward ! Am I 
 dead ? 
 Can I not pray ? 
 
 This terraced slope 
 Shaded and flowered — round the circling shore 
 
 The Sabbath anthem swelling — all the air 
 
 Trembling to distant bells — boat, sail, and 
 
 oar 
 
 All fast asleep . . . and I? ... Is this despair, 
 
 Or higher hope ? 
 
 127 
 
Forty To-day 
 
 From poplar groves 
 Set where the mountain and the meadow meet, 
 Soar the sad Alps, dark verdure to the 
 waist. 
 Then clouds and riven rock. O ancient feet, 
 At which doomed beauty crouches fast em- 
 braced, 
 
 Have ye your loves ! 
 
 Forty to-day ! 
 Through manhood's second Gate I pass and 
 leave 
 Behind me — ashes . . . neither flower nor 
 fruit 
 Of all the past . . . not e'en the grace to 
 grieve 
 For being empty-handed ! . . . I were mute 
 But that this lay 
 
 Will force its way 
 Out of the frozen soul and visit Earth 
 
 To tell the listening glens and startled plain 
 How a chance sunbeam in its fiery mirth 
 
 Turned an old Glacier's heart to sudden 
 rain 
 
 For very play : 
 128 
 
Forty To-day 
 
 Or, like the string 
 Athwart the window of a vacant home 
 
 Struck by the May wind, making music 
 where 
 No footstep falls ! My doom is still to roam 
 While Alps stand fast with Leman nestling 
 near ! . . . 
 
 O weary wing 
 
 Forever fold ! 
 Upon the treetop build, or lower down 
 
 Among the wild flowers seek a surer nest ; 
 Forbear the Ocean's foam, the Tempest's 
 frown, 
 Be done with dreaming, — fold, and feebly 
 rest 
 
 Among the old. 
 
 Thy days are done ! 
 Think not to snare the joy that foiled thy 
 grasp 
 When youth and God were with thee — 
 when thy acts 
 Deserved the crown that came not. . . . Meekly 
 clasp 
 The present with its plain, perpetual facts. . . 
 Thy race is run ! 
 9 129 
 
SONGS 
 
SONGS 
 
 BILL AND I 
 
 THE moon had just gone down, 
 sir. 
 But the stars lit up the sky ; 
 All was still in tent and town, sir. 
 
 Not a rebel could we spy : 
 It was our turn at picket, 
 So we marched into the thicket 
 To the music of the cricket 
 Chirping nigh. 
 
 Oh ! we kept a sharp lookout, sir. 
 But no danger could we spy. 
 
 And no rebel being about, sir. 
 We sat down there by and by ; 
 
 And we watched the brook a brawlin', 
 
 And counted stars a fallin'. 
 
 Old memories overhaulin'. 
 Bill and I. 
 
Bill and I 
 
 And says he, " Won't it be glorious 
 
 When we fling our muskets by. 
 And home again victorious 
 
 We hear our sweethearts cry 
 ' Welcome back ! ' "— 
 
 A step ! Who goes there ? 
 A shot — by heaven, the foe 's there ! 
 Bill sat there, all composure. 
 But not L 
 
 By the red light of his gun, sir, 
 
 I marked the rebel spy : 
 In an instant it was done, sir, 
 
 I had fired and heard a cry. 
 I sprang across the stream, sir. 
 Oh ! it seems just like a dream, sir. 
 The dizzy, dying gleam, sir, 
 Of that eye ! 
 
 A youth, a very boy, sir, 
 
 I saw before me lie ; 
 Some pretty school-girl's toy, sir. 
 
 Had ventured there to die. 
 We had hated one another, 
 But I heard him murmur ^^ Mother ! " — 
 So I stooped and called him '-^Brother ! " 
 No reply. 
 
Bill and I 
 
 I crossed the stream on-ce more, sir, 
 
 To see why Bill war n't by j 
 He was sittin' as before, sir. 
 
 But a film was o'er his eye ; 
 I scarce knew what it meant, sir, 
 Till a wail broke from our tent, sir. 
 As into camp we went, sir. 
 Bill and I. 
 
 135 
 
Fidelis 
 
 FIDELIS 
 
 A MAIDEN stood by a shining stream, 
 Sing tarry, tarry j 
 Her eye was rapt in a sweet, sweet 
 dream, 
 Ay, marry, marry. 
 A suitor bold rode merrily by, 
 
 " Dream on," quoth he, " you will wake one 
 day ! 
 So my hounds shall hunt and my falcon fly. 
 Away ! Away ! " 
 
 A Ladye sat by a clouded stream, 
 
 Sing tarry, tarry ; 
 Her heart still true to its first sweet dream. 
 
 Ay, marry, marry. 
 A Baron rode up with hawk and hound, 
 
 " Well, mistress mine, do you still say nay ? 
 Come ! my lance is sure and my steed is sound. 
 Away ! Away ! " 
 136 
 
Fidelis 
 
 A Mourner knelt by a frozen stream, 
 
 Sing tarry, tarry ; 
 Her hair all white with a snowy gleam, 
 
 Ay, marry, marry. 
 Once more to her side the Baron came 
 
 With hawk in hand, though his beard was 
 gray; 
 But her maiden dream was still the same. 
 Away ! Away ! 
 
 137 
 
Lady Bird 
 
 LADY BI RD 
 
 LADY BIRD, Lady Bird, 
 Are you looking for a nest? 
 You may choose around my 
 mansion 
 Any spot that suits you best. 
 'Neath the trellis in the garden 
 
 There 's a shadow steeped in dew, 
 Neath the linden by the grotto 
 There 's another out of view. 
 
 Lady Bird, Lady Bird, 
 
 Will you ever keep away ? 
 Just so near, but never nearer. 
 
 Just to-day where yesterday ; 
 While to me, with every moment 
 
 You have dearer, dearer grown, 
 Till at last, in all the valleys. 
 
 There 's no music but your own. 
 
 138 
 
Lady Bird 
 
 Lady Bird, Lady Bird, 
 
 I have paid you song for song ; 
 Not for all the sun shines over 
 
 Would I stoop to do you wrong. 
 Wing of gold and voice of silver, 
 
 Fly away forever free. 
 Or teach others half the music 
 
 That you might have made for me. 
 
 139 
 
Oh! The Tear has Lost its Light 
 
 OH! THE YEAR HAS LOST 
 ITS LIGHT 
 
 OH ! the year has lost its light, 
 Summer sun 's no longer 
 bright, 
 Autumn drear and winter night, 
 
 Spring returns in vain : 
 Morn and eve must come and fly. 
 Month and year must still go by, 
 But the love-light of her eye 
 I ne'er shall see again. 
 
 Oh ! the pale moon overhead 
 Feebly seeks her fleecy bed. 
 And the stars are dim and dead. 
 
 Voiceless is the sky : 
 All the future must be sold. 
 All the past remain untold, 
 Till the weary heart is cold — 
 
 Then for eternity ! 
 
 140 
 
Gabriel's Song 
 
 GABRIEL'S SONG 
 
 (From " Loretto") 
 
 I HEAR a sweet voice like the voice of a 
 bird, 
 The softest and sweetest that ever was 
 heard ; 
 And it comes from the sky, from the blue, 
 
 blessed sky, 
 And it warbles, " Prepare, for the hour is nigh ; '* 
 And that voice is meant for me. 
 Far, far away. 
 Ere another day. 
 Shall I be ! 
 
 I see two sweet wings that are not of the earth. 
 That shall bear me aloft to the land of my birth. 
 Two glittering wings of the purest white. 
 With each feather enshrined in a circle of light ; 
 And those wings are meant for me. 
 Far, far away, 
 Ere another day. 
 Shall I be ! 
 141 
 
GabrteV s Song 
 
 the blossoming stars were my playmates of 
 
 yore, 
 
 1 shall skim the loved fields where I 've sported 
 
 before, 
 And I know a bright spot where the angels are, 
 That is high above the highest star ; 
 And that spot is meant for me. 
 Far, far away. 
 Ere another day. 
 Shall I be ! 
 
 142 
 
A Lullaby 
 
 A LULLABY 
 
 SLEEP, my child, and when I slumber. 
 Do not wake and weep, 
 Another mother comes from heaven 
 To watch thee when I sleep. 
 Though perchance thou mayst not see her 
 
 She will still be nigh. 
 For she loves thee dearly, truly. 
 Better e'en than I. 
 
 Sleep, my child, thy heavenly mother 
 
 Hath no need of rest. 
 And ever with the night she cometh 
 
 To take thee to her breast. 
 Thus in joy and trust I slumber 
 
 When the day is done. 
 For this mother's name is Mary, 
 
 Jesus is her Son. 
 
 143 
 
^' Contraband Now 
 
 "CONTRABAND NOW" 
 
 (Southern Negro Melody of the Civil War — 1864. 
 Words and Music by George H. Miles) 
 
 UNCLE SAMBO'S a gwine to be 
 righted, 
 Uncle Sambo 's a gwine to be free, 
 And dey say dat dis darkey 's delighted 
 
 Becos you white folks can't agree ; 
 O dey say dat dis darkey 's in clober, 
 But 'deed I don't see it nohow ; 
 Uncle Sambo's best days are all ober, 
 He 's only a Contraband now ! 
 
 CHORUS 
 
 O dey say dat dis darkey 's in clober, 
 But 'deed I don't see it nohow ; 
 
 Uncle Sambo's best days are all ober. 
 He 's only a Contraband now ! 
 
 Uncle Sambo's best days are all ober. 
 He 's only a Contraband now ! 
 144 
 
" Contraband Now " 
 
 dey say dis Fremount proclamation 
 
 Hab kick up de best sort ob fun, 
 But much as I lub 'mancipation, 
 
 I rader you two should stay one. 
 Mighty pleasant to vote wid our betters. 
 
 And pray wid white breddren, but yet, 
 
 1 'd rader go back to my fetters 
 
 Dan see dis old Union upset. 
 
 CHORUS 
 
 I 'd rader go back to plantation 
 
 And stick to de cotton and cane, 
 Dan dat Gin'ral Washington's nation 
 
 Should all hab been built up in vain. 
 O dey say wen de fightin 's all ober, 
 
 Nary slave will be left in de land. 
 But if dey fight on, by Jehober, 
 
 Dey '11 leave nary freeman on hand. 
 
 CHORUS 
 
 De last time I seen my old Massa 
 
 He 'd just bid old Missus good-bye ; 
 
 His hand was right wet, for, I dar say, 
 
 He 'd just brushed a tear from his eye 
 lo 145 
 
" Contraband Now " 
 
 One foot in his shiny steel stirrup, 
 
 One hand on de mane ob his Black, 
 
 He stammered out, — " Boys, you must cheer up 
 Old Missus, if I don't git back." 
 
 CHORUS 
 
 Old Missus de last time I met her 
 
 Dat sight made me feel berry sore. 
 She leanin' agin de Palmetter, 
 
 He gallopin' on to de war : 
 She went in and watched by de windo' 
 
 As long as his boss she could see, 
 Den turned, wid a strange larf, and kindo' 
 
 Staggered and came to her knee. 
 
 CHORUS 
 
 May n't Massa and Missus drop in here 
 
 Wen somebody settles dis war, 
 May n't de banjo ob dear old Virginier 
 
 Be as sweet to New York as before ? 
 O dey say dat dis darkey 's in clober, 
 
 But 'deed I don't see it nohow ; 
 Uncle Sambo's best days are all ober, 
 
 He 's only a Contraband now. 
 Uncle Sambo's best days are all ober, 
 
 He 's only a Contraband now. 
 
 146 
 
God Save the South ! 
 
 GOD SAVE THE SOUTH! 
 
 (Southern Anthem of the Civil War — 1863) 
 
 GOD save the South, 
 God save the South, 
 Her altars and firesides, 
 God save the South ! 
 For the great war is nigh, 
 And we will win or die. 
 Chanting our battle-cry. 
 Freedom or death ! 
 
 God be our shield, 
 
 At home or afield, 
 Stretch thine arm over us. 
 
 Strengthen and save. 
 What tho' they 're three to one, 
 Forward each sire and son. 
 Strike till the war is won. 
 
 Strike to the grave ! 
 147 
 
God Save the South I 
 
 God make the right 
 
 Stronger than might ; 
 Millions would trample us 
 
 Down in their pride. 
 Lay thou their legions low. 
 Roll back the ruthless foe. 
 Let the proud spoiler know, 
 
 God 's on our side. 
 
 Hark honor's call. 
 
 Summoning all. 
 Summoning all of us 
 
 Unto the strife. 
 Sons of the South, awake ! 
 Strike till the brand shall break, 
 Strike for dear Honor's sake. 
 
 Freedom and Life ! 
 
 Rebels before 
 
 Our fathers of yore. 
 Rebel the righteous name 
 
 Washington bore. 
 So, then, be ours the same. 
 Name that he snatch'd from shame. 
 Making it first in fame. 
 
 Foremost in war. 
 148 
 
God Save the South ! 
 
 War to the hilt, 
 
 Theirs be the guilt, 
 Who fetter the freeman 
 
 To ransom the slave. 
 Up, then, and undismayM, 
 Sheathe not the battle blade 
 Till the last foe is laid 
 
 Low in the grave ! 
 
 God save the South, 
 
 God save the South, 
 Dry the dim eyes that now 
 
 Follow our path. 
 Still let the light feet rove 
 Safe through the orange grove ; 
 Still keep the land we love 
 
 Safe from Thy wrath. 
 
 149 
 
Where is the Freeman Found? 
 
 WHERE IS THE FREEMAN 
 FOUND? 
 
 (Southern Battle Song and March of the Civil War — 1863) 
 
 WHERE is the Freeman found, 
 When tyrants his home invade ? 
 Where is the holiest ground 
 When despots our hearths degrade ? 
 
 Here at the cannon's mouth, 
 On the red field. 
 
 Where the bayonet gleams, 
 And our young banner streams 
 Over men who have sworn not to yield ! 
 
 CHORUS 
 
 Come, Brothers, Brothers, come. 
 Come to the cannon's mouth ! 
 
 There is your only home. 
 
 Men of the sunny South. 
 
 150 
 
Where is the Freeman Found'? 
 
 Quick be the last kiss giv'n, 
 
 Stay not for bridal vow — 
 Sweet Peace has fled to Heav'n, 
 
 War is our watchword now ; 
 Then to the battlefield 
 
 All who are men, 
 And, with steel flashing forth. 
 Give our friends of the North 
 
 The greeting of Bethel again. 
 
 CHORUS 
 
 Lo, how their legions throng 
 
 Back to the fields they fled ! 
 Say, shall they linger long 
 
 Lords of our laurelled dead ? 
 No, hurl the hireling back, 
 
 Back to his den ! 
 And, sabre in hand, 
 March the foe from the land 
 
 To the quickstep of Bull Run again. 
 
 CHORUS 
 
 Ever since time began. 
 
 Freedom her banner rears 
 Red with the blood of man. 
 
 Radiant with woman's tears. 
 Then to the battlefield 
 
 All who are men ; 
 151 
 
Where is the Freeman Found'? 
 
 To the roll of our drums 
 Meet the foe as he comes 
 
 With the music of Ball's BlufF again. 
 
 CHORUS 
 
 Round them the vulture keeps 
 
 Haunting their gory path, 
 Over them frowning sweeps 
 
 God with his gathered wrath ! 
 Then to the battlefield 
 
 All who are men ; 
 By the dead we have lost, 
 Let them feel to their cost, 
 
 The vengeance of Shiloh again! 
 
 CHORUS 
 
 Maidens with torches lit 
 
 Stand by our goods and gear. 
 Wives with their wan brows knit. 
 
 Wait with the dagger bare; 
 Then to the battlefield. 
 
 All who are men ; 
 We have graves still to spare, 
 As they '11 find, if they dare 
 
 Try the " Onward to Richmond " again ! 
 
 CHORUS 
 
 152 
 
The Devil's Visit To — 
 
 THE DEVIL'S VISIT TO 
 
 T 
 
 HE Devil told the damned, one day. 
 To take some recreation. 
 
 For he had a visit of State to pay 
 To a certain Corporation. 
 
 So he tucked up his tail and combed his hail. 
 
 And went to a certain town. 
 And says he, " Mister Mayor, it 's pretty clear 
 That my friend, the Plague, is coming here." 
 
 "Pretty clear," says the Mayor; "sit 
 down." 
 
 The Devil sat down. « My good sir," says he, 
 " Your streets are as dirty as dirty can be." 
 
 Here the Mayor gave a wink and said 
 " Well ? " 
 And the Devil resumed, "Don't disturb the 
 
 repose 
 Of the mud whose aroma is sweet as the rose. 
 And — I '11 soften your pillow in Hell ! " 
 153 
 
The DeviPs Visit To — 
 
 The bargain was struck, and the Devil made 
 
 Haste back to his old domain ; 
 While the Mayor, grinning, said, " Tho' I'm 
 
 half afraid 
 To stir a scraper or lift a spade, — 
 
 I think I may pra^ for a rain." 
 
 The University Press, Cambridge, U. S. A. 
 
MAY 15 1907