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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
 1 
 

A POET'S LAST SONGS. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction vii 
 
 The Poet-Maker i 
 
 The Four Fugitives 3 
 
 The Purple Aster . . . . . . . 14 
 
 Antitheta iS 
 
 Pearls 19 
 
 Sight 20 
 
 The End 21 
 
 In a World Like This 24 
 
 A Lament 27 
 
 A Trio for Twelfth-Night 29 
 
 The Reed 39 
 
 Beyond the Snow 44 
 
 The Sirens 47 
 
 Homesickness 49 
 
 Psyche 51 
 
 Theodosius 54 
 
 A Vacation Prelude 68 
 
 Non Sine Lacrymis 75 
 
 Apollo 78 
 
PAGE 
 
 The Woodland Stream 82 
 
 Trichordon 85 
 
 Beneath Her Feet 87 
 
 Kisses and Tears . . . . . . 91 
 
 The Impossible She 94 
 
 When Love Grows Old 96 
 
 Tomorrow 100 
 
 America's Answer 103 
 
 Vive Valeque 105 
 
 Sonnet 115 
 
 Fryeburg . .116 
 
 A New England Winter Song 123 
 
 Ode to General Porfirio Diaz . . . .126 
 
 Zeus and Europa 133 
 
 The Idyl of the Spring 142 
 
HENRY BERNARD CARPENTER. 
 
 " Of manners gentle, of affections mild ; 
 In wit a man, simplicity a child." 
 
 Such was Henry Bernard Carpenter, a man born 
 with the gifts of song and eloquence, endowed with ripe 
 learning, admired and loved by all who knew him ; yet, 
 to the end of his days, a simple, kindly, unspoiled child of 
 Genius. Goldsmith himself was not less worldly-wise than 
 this, his latter-day countryman, brother poet and almost 
 counterpart in body as in mind. 
 
 He was born in Dublin, Ireland, on April 22, 1840. 
 His father was a clergyman of the Established Church. 
 On the mother's side the poet was descended from the 
 Boyds of Derry, a family distinguished for intellect and 
 courage. The clergyman dedicated his three sons to his 
 own profession. The two who survive are Rt. Rev. Wil- 
 
viii HENRY BERNARD CARPENTER. 
 
 liam, Bishop of Rip on and ex-Chaplain to the Queen, 
 and Rev. Archibald, Rector of Bloomsbury, London. 
 
 Henry, the eldest son, was sent at the age of eighteen 
 to Oxford University, from which he graduated in 1862, 
 as exhibitioner, honor man and prize man. In the follow- 
 ing year he was appointed a master in Portora Royal 
 Collegiate School, the " Eton of Ireland." Among his 
 pupils were Oscar Wilde and his brother Willie. In 
 1864 he was ordained chaplain of the school, subsequently 
 accepting the position of chaplain to the Earl of Belmore 
 and his tenantry. Although eminently successful as a 
 teacher, all his tastes turned towards the field of letters. 
 He wrote many poems which attracted the attention of 
 cultivated readers. He was a natural orator and readily 
 found admiring audiences, but the material rewards were 
 insufficient to meet his modest desires and he resolved to seek 
 a wider field in the United States. Accordingly, in 18 J4, 
 he sailed for America, encouraged by a hope, which was not 
 destined to be gratified, of obtaining a professorship in 
 Bowdoin College, Maine. 
 
HENRY BERNARD CARPENTER. ix 
 
 He made his first appearance on the platform at Quebec, 
 but as he was comparatively unknown and unheralded, he 
 met with but little success. Thence he crossed the border 
 to Maine and lectured for a charitable benefit at Fryeburg, 
 a lovely little town on the Saco, the praises of which he 
 has sung i?i his poem, " Fryeburg." 
 
 The talents of the young minister were quickly recog- 
 nized. He was offered the pastorship of the Congrega- 
 tional Church at Bridgton, and accepted the position, 
 filling the pulpit and also the pews by his marvellous 
 eloquence, during a period of four years. He had declined 
 a flattering offer from an Independent church in Portland, 
 but the fame of his oratory spread abroad and in i8j8 he 
 accepted a call from the trustees of Ho His Street Church, 
 Boston, to fill the pulpit made illustrious by a long lifie of 
 noted divines, from Mather Byles to Thomas Starr King. 
 
 He fulfilled the duties of his new pastorate with marked 
 success during ten years. The church had languished 
 before his coming, as the march of business had encroached 
 upon the residences in the neighborhood. Mr. Carpenter's 
 
x HENR Y BERNARD CARPENTER. 
 
 eloquence did not suffice to stay the progress of trade, but it 
 brought back the parishioners, and the old church took on 
 a new lease of life under his ministry. 
 
 His genius soon won him recognition outside of his con- 
 gregation. He had made his mark as a public speaker 
 before coming to Boston, filling lecture engagements not 
 only in Maine but throughout the country and Canada. 
 His subjects covered a wide range, historical, poetical, phil- 
 osophic and political. The enumeration of their titles 
 alone would fill many of these pages. He was that rare 
 thing, an eloquent extempore speaker. He never attempted 
 to write out and memorize his addresses. With the barest 
 outlines of fact, date and suggestion, to guide him, he would 
 clothe his glowing thoughts in language so well-chosen, 
 polished and vigorous, that a verbatim report of his words 
 would need scarcely a single erasure or alteration. It was 
 a fatal facility, for it relieved the orator of the necessity of 
 writing his speeches ; and so they are lost to the world for- 
 ever. But one or two of all his addresses have been 
 reported with any degree of fulness, and they have lost 
 
HENRY BERNARD CARPENTER. xi 
 
 rather than gained by the newspaper writer 's paraphras- 
 ing. This is the more regrettable, as both are on patriotic 
 American themes, and on such he was always ardently 
 and sincerely eloquent. 
 
 But wide and varied as was his range of oratory, lie 
 was never so fervidly inspired as when treating of his 
 native land. Grattan, O r Connell, Sheridan and all the 
 great men of his race were the especial subjects of his 
 marvellous periods. All that brought honor to his coun- 
 try he honored and loved, with no narrow limitations of 
 class or creed. The Celtic spirit was introduced into nearly 
 all his public discourses. With characteristic simplicity 
 and earnestness he took his place, a few years ago, primer 
 in hand, to learn in a Gaelic school the rudiments of the 
 language which he loved for its traditions. 
 
 The literary world of Boston was not long in discover- 
 ing the worth of this unobtrusive poet, among the first to 
 perceive the hidden talent being his countryman, John 
 Boyle O'Reilly, always keenly alive to any merit which 
 might bear the Celtic stamp. A friend itivited him to at- 
 
xii HENR Y BERNARD CARPENTER. 
 
 tend one of Carpenters lectures, and he was at once 
 enchanted. At the conclusion he went up to the platform 
 and introduced himself to the orator. Thenceforward the 
 two were friends. O'Reilly invited Mr. and Mrs. Car- 
 penter to be the guests of the Papyrus Club at the ap- 
 proaching " Ladies' Night." Shortly afterwards, Mr. 
 Carpenter was elected to membership, and remained to the 
 day of his death one of the best beloved sons of Papyrus. 
 There his kindly heart and gifted mind were appreciated 
 as nowhere else, save at his own fireside. Elsewhere his 
 superiority might provoke the envy of Philistine or Phar- 
 isee, to his injury and pain ; but the refined Bohemia saw 
 what was best and greatest in him and judged him there- 
 by. His finest poems were first read at its board, the 
 lightest-hearted pausing to listen when, with the indescrib- 
 able thrill of tenderness in his sweet, 7nellow voice, he would 
 adjure : 
 
 " Step lightly, Mary, for my heart 's beneath your feet ':" 
 
 He was also a popular member of the St. Botolph, the 
 
 Round Table and other Clubs, a welcome guest at every 
 
HENRY BERNARD CARPENTER, xiii 
 
 drawing-room reception of literary and social Boston, and 
 a courtly, genial host in his own home. He had bee?i 
 married during his sojourn at Bridgton, to Miss Emma 
 Bailey, daughter of Captain R. T. Bailey of that place. 
 With his wife and only child, a handsome boy of seven, 
 he went on a year's tour to the Mediterranean, in 1887, 
 visiting Greece and Italy and coming home with afresh, 
 rich store of classical treasures. On his return he gave 
 two successful courses of lectures, illustrated with views 
 of Greek scenery and architecture, and was preparing for 
 an extended lecture tour throughout the country when 
 death cut short his brilliant career. 
 
 The end came almost without warning. He had suf- 
 fered for some time from varicose veins a?id had bee?i com- 
 pelled to remain in his room for several days. He was 
 spending the summer with his family at Sorre?ito, Maine. 
 On the evening of July 16th he entertained a pa?-ty of 
 friends and retired to bed apparently in good health and 
 spirits. On the following morning he arose, and was in 
 the act of dressing himself, when he suddenly fell back- 
 
xiv HENR Y BERNARD CARPENTER. 
 
 ward and almost instantly expired. A clot of blood from 
 the congested vein had flown to the heart, and though 
 medical assistance was immediately summoned, nothing 
 could be done for his relief The warm heart had ceased 
 to throb, the gifted brain was dead, the eloquent tongue 
 was silenced forever. 
 
 The following pages contain the shorter lyrics which 
 their author was preparing for publication during the 
 last months of his life. His noble long poem, "Liber 
 Amoris," was published by Ticknor cSn Co., of Boston, in 
 i88j, and achieved an immediate success, passing through 
 several editions. The rare melody of these lyrics, their 
 exquisite finish, their rich imagery and many strong, 
 heroic passages, prove that Henry Bernard Carpenter 
 was truly a poet, as he was truly an orator of the first 
 rank. 
 
 His eloquence, alas, remains like the sweet notes of a 
 great singer, only a memory in the ears of those who 
 listened to his voice. He left no manuscripts of his speeches, 
 for, as I have said, he prepared nothing. Even the fine 
 
HENRY BERNARD CARPENTER. xv 
 
 oration delivered before the City Government and citizens 
 of Boston on the Fourth of July, i88j, though subse- 
 quently printed by the City, was not reported verbatim 
 and loses all its beauty in the version which, he naively 
 says, " was prepared from my notes and the newspaper 
 reports, after the Fourth of July." 
 
 Happily the world has not lost his beautiful lyrics. 
 The poet remains, though the orator's voice be silent. 
 Dearer than either, remains the memory of the Man, sim- 
 ple, frank, kindly, generous in thought and word and deed. 
 Peace to his gentle spirit ! 
 
 JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE. 
 
THE POET-MAKER. 
 
 " POET A NASCITUR, NECNON FIT." 
 
 Once a little song I made 
 
 In a garden as I strayed, 
 On the myrtle leaves in morning dew I traced it; 
 
 But by noontide not a line 
 
 Found I of that song of mine, 
 Where the finger of the sunbeam had effaced it. 
 
 Then in scorn of self I laughed, 
 
 And forswore the Poet's craft, 
 And I turned from Love, the Poet's lord and master, 
 
 Yea, I turned and fled away, 
 
 But he followed me all day ; 
 When I fled, he always followed me the faster. 
 
 Bow and arrow had he none, 
 But his looks were like the sun, 
 And his lips two founts of fire that flowed together, 
 
2 THE POET-MAKER. 
 
 He had wings of crimson grain, 
 Bright with pleasure, dark with pain, 
 And the tempest of his flight no god could tether. 
 
 From those wings he plucked a plume 
 And he pressed its point of doom 
 
 To his lips, where sleep the rosy-cradled kisses, 
 Back his weaponed hand he drew, 
 Aimed, and cleft my heart in two. 
 
 Oh, when Love selects the mark, he never misses \ 
 
 Then I wept. But Love said, "Write." 
 
 So I drew that plume to light 
 Streaming redder from the heart he j ust had smitten, 
 
 And I wrote, and learnt with years, 
 
 That on parchment washed with tears 
 And in heart's-blood every poem must be written. 
 
THE FOUR FUGITIVES. 
 
 I. 
 
 On a clear glad April morn 
 
 Youth, a boy-babe, took his seat 
 
 On an ancient dial worn 
 
 With the Sun-God's fiery feet. 
 Crownwise on his brows were set 
 Primrose, maybloom, violet, 
 And the coming summer skies 
 Glowed in locks and cheeks and eyes. 
 On the shadow-haunted dial 
 Forth he drew his airy viol, 
 Stroked its strings, unlocked its heart 
 Lifewards, and thro' each quick part 
 Strange sweet sounds began to creep, 
 Softer than the soul of sleep, 
 Till the dial's journeying shade 
 Smote his thigh, — like one afraid, 
 
4 THE FOUR FUGITIVES. 
 
 Up he leaped, nor more he played, 
 But with frowns of dark denial 
 Down he dropt from off the dial, 
 Quenched his song, and quelled his viol, 
 And, for all that I might say, 
 Shadow-struck, fled fast away ; 
 While I cried, " Ah ! welladay ! 
 Stay, oh, stay." 
 
 II. 
 
 In Love's garden next I stood 
 
 Mid the myrtle's green increase, 
 
 Where great roses red as blood 
 
 Dreamed their passion into peace. 
 From his mansion marvellous 
 Made of amorous apple-boughs, — 
 Whose soft slow blush-tinted showers 
 Knolled the noiseless-footed hours, — 
 Forth came Love, a shepherd lad, 
 Star-eyed, ruddy-limbed, unclad, 
 Bringing flower-wine of his valleys 
 In a sorrow-charming chalice, 
 
• THE FOUR FUGITIVES. 
 
 Spiced with myrrh and magic root. 
 Straight I drank : the while his flute 
 Gurgling loosed my speechless grief, 
 And, as streams that win relief 
 For the o'erbrimming mountain mere, 
 When it sheddeth tear by tear ; 
 So my passioned thought came borne 
 Down those sliding sounds forlorn, 
 And I cried : " Love, stay with me. 
 Here forever would I be 
 In thy garden thus with thee." 
 " Nay," said he, " for in these valleys 
 Others crave my song and chalice." 
 So he passed beyond his palace, 
 And, for all that I could say, 
 Bore his love-notes thence away, 
 While I wept, " Ah ! welladay ! 
 Stay, oh, stay." 
 
 III. 
 
 Faint for love, I found a dell, 
 
 Whose green twilight said in sooth, 
 
6 THE FOUR FUGITIVES. 
 
 " Here lives one will heal thy hell, 
 
 Love's calm sister, maiden Truth." 
 
 In this dell no love-notes yearned, 
 
 No love-flowers looked up and burned, 
 
 But a fountain's musical tone 
 
 Rose in swiftly-various moan. 
 
 Seemed it, Thought's unfancied fleetness, 
 
 Joy's own sadness, Grief's own sweetness, 
 
 Hope and laughter, sighs and tears, 
 
 Love, Birth, Death, Time's fluent years, 
 
 Fate and Memory, — all were found 
 
 In that myriad-mingling sound. 
 
 And the fountain-stone showed red 
 
 With the life of them that bled, 
 
 Who each year unsealed the well, 
 
 And, unsealing, deathward fell. 
 
 With one cup of orient water, 
 
 Up rose Truth, the fount's pure daughter, 
 
 Naked, and her body was 
 
 Soft as dew and clear as glass, — 
 
 Naked, yet half-hid from sight 
 
 In a robe of woven light, 
 
THE FOUR FUGITIVES. 
 
 Which, in sky-assurgent stream, 
 Like some heaven-returning dream, 
 Upward grew, and fold by fold, 
 In its mist of gradual gold, 
 Veiled her eyes of tearful blue, 
 Where Love's dayspring trembled through. 
 "Drink," she said, "and dream and die, 
 All are dreams beneath the sky ; 
 Drink, ' tis all I give thee now, 
 More the Gods may not allow ; 
 Seek me still and keep thy vow." 
 Then, as Youth, whose very fleetness 
 Matches Love's own incompleteness, 
 Sank this water-visioned sweetness, 
 And, for all that I could say, 
 Fountain-hid, flowed fast away; 
 While I moaned, " Ah ! welladay ! 
 Stay, oh, stay." 
 
 IV. 
 
 "There's no balm for broken hearts, 
 
 There's no light for darkened homes, 
 
8 THE FOUR FUGITIVES. 
 
 None to wipe the tear that starts, 
 Until Time the Healer comes. 
 So I sighed, while now my way 
 Westward sloped with fall of day, 
 And I came and sat alone 
 On the mile's last sculptured stone. 
 Soon from spoiled lands, like morn's ray, 
 Rushed a steed foam-flanked and grey, 
 Lighting-reined, a thing of wonder, 
 Maned with storm and hoofed with thunder, 
 And a strong man sat thereon, 
 In whom Age and Youth seemed one, 
 From whose golden mouth this chant 
 Rang to the hoofs reverberant, — 
 " I bring balm for broken hearts, 
 I wipe every tear that starts, 
 I pour light thro' darkened homes, 
 I am Time: thy Healer comes." 
 " Stay," said I, " stay then awhile 
 In this daylight's dying smile." 
 Whereto he : " Hadst thou at morn 
 Asked me this, I had forborne. 
 
THE FOUR FUGITIVES. 
 
 Now thy prayer claims no defence ; 
 See, night comes, and I must hence. 
 For with morn's first hours I creep, 
 Swifter course with noon I keep, 
 But tow'rd night I bound and leap." 
 Wild as childhood's dream of wonder, 
 Flashed he thence on hoof of thunder 
 Down the valleys darkening under, 
 And for all that I could say, 
 Fast and faster fled away ; 
 While I wailed, " Ah ! welladay ! 
 Stay, oh, stay." 
 
 V. 
 
 Then I cried and sighed to be 
 
 Where the unfleeting visions are, 
 
 Till Heaven called for Night, and she 
 
 Led God's thoughts forth, star by star ; 
 And an onward-beckoning hand 
 Led me to a waste low land, 
 Stemmed with growths of silent gloom, 
 Funeral yewtree's hearselike plume, 
 
io THE FOUR FUGITIVES. 
 
 Hermit poplar's heavenward tress 
 Sighing up its loneliness, 
 And weed-nurturing sylvan spaces 
 Thick with whispering fears, the places 
 By old Night's pale people trod, 
 Demon, fay and forest-god. 
 There She met me in mid path, 
 Who the keys of Aiden hath. 
 O'er her gloomed a cypress-wood, 
 And behind her, like a hood, 
 A large moon of mellow rim, 
 Showed her white face warm and dim, 
 Showed her heavy hyacinth hair, 
 Spread in clusters burnished fair, 
 Eyes fixed on the eternal Now, 
 And clear throat and eyes and brow, 
 Like proud marbles of the Greek 
 Great with woes they will not speak, 
 Then two snowy slopes of breast 
 Round their vale of tearless rest, 
 And a sable robe's downfall 
 Wet with tear-dew shed by all. 
 
THE FOUR FUGITIVES. n 
 
 There with hands behind her drawn 
 
 Stayed she me. A doubtful dawn 
 
 Of new life dwelt in her face, 
 
 A constraining regal grace 
 
 Crowned that look, which, as a spur, 
 
 Goads the world to question her. 
 
 So I spake to her and said : 
 
 " Summoner of the quick and dead, 
 
 Thou who holdest in thy hands 
 
 All these darkened valley-lands, 
 
 Shadow-stoled Persephone ; 
 
 Say (for all things flow to thee) 
 
 Harbourest thou in thy pure clime 
 
 Life's defaulters, — healing Time ; 
 
 Slow-paced, softly-speaking Truth ; 
 
 Star-eyed Love ; and sun-haired Youth ; — 
 
 Those who wooed me scarce a day, 
 
 Won my faith and fled away ; 
 
 Though I cried, " Ah ! welladay ! 
 
 Stay, oh, stay." 
 Whereto, gentle as a child, 
 She replied in accents mild : 
 
12 THE FOUR FUGITIVES. 
 
 " They that met thee on thy road 
 Hold on earth no fixed abode, 
 Sent as shadows where ye dwell, 
 Pilgrims from the Invisible ; 
 But their substances unspent 
 Dwell where all is permanent." 
 Then with white arm drawn apart 
 From the side where beats man's heart, 
 Hollowed she a sunlit space 
 Deep within her calm embrace ; 
 As a stooping silver birch 
 Flanks a wood-path, when we search 
 Down its dusk to where the day 
 Floods the arched walk with its ray. 
 There, beneath life-laden trees, 
 Bowing o'er their psalteries, 
 Sang the young-eyed seraphim, 
 Green-couched by a fountain's brim, 
 With blown hair that flamed above 
 Rapture-lifted mouths of love, 
 And wide wonder-lighted eyes 
 Lost in smiles of deep surmise. 
 
THE FOUR FUGITIVES. 13 
 
 And in midst of these there stood 
 That fourfold Beatitude 
 Round about a grassy throne, 
 With white blossoms overblown, 
 Like the Prophet's mystic Four 
 Seen in Patmian cave of yore 
 Chanting " Holy " evermore. 
 And I saw bright sylvan spaces 
 Sown with flowerlike forms and faces 
 Of the dead world's happy races, 
 Whilst, like thunder far away, 
 Rose a spheral roundelay 
 From the Four who thus did say : 
 " Here, we stay." 
 
THE PURPLE ASTER. 
 
 [In parts of New England this flower is known by the 
 name of Farewell-Summer.] 
 
 Oft have I thought that o'er the gleaming 
 
 Golden-eyed flower of the marguerite 
 There passes, amid her nightly dreaming, 
 
 Transfiguration strange and sweet ; 
 That breathing away her soul in payment 
 
 She takes the empurpled autumn air, 
 And weaving thence new heavenly raiment, 
 
 Comes back to life as the Aster fair. 
 
 Or again I have thought in wayside musing, 
 
 That I saw in the flower's upturned eye 
 The hills' deep violet interfusing 
 
 With gold of the summer's fading sky ; 
 As though a drop of the sun, forgetting 
 
 Its birthplace far at the noonday's height, 
 Had fallen and framed for itself a setting 
 
 In starry rays of sapphire light. 
 
THE PURPLE ASTER. 15 
 
 But throughout all such fleeting trances, 
 
 One thought returns at each period. 
 Through every mood this flower advances, 
 
 Sill ushered in by the Golden Rod 
 To Flora's court, the sweet last comer, 
 
 Rich drest, as a herald, going between 
 Winter half-wakened and waning summer, 
 
 'Twixt what is coming and what has been. 
 
 O last of the freeborn wildflower-nation ! 
 
 O last in the hedgerow here to-day ! 
 Three names are thine, and they fit thy station, 
 
 Each making known in its simple way 
 Winter at hand, thine overcomer ; 
 
 Thy bright hours gone ; and thy starry crest ; — 
 There is Frost-Flower, Aster, and Farewell-Sum- 
 mer, 
 
 But Farewell-Summer suits thee best. 
 
 Sad Flower ! on thy lips we lay the burden 
 
 Of that sad word we cannot say. 
 Thou comest with short late life for guerdon, 
 
 To mourn for the summer passed away, 
 
16 THE PURPLE ASTER. 
 
 Through Nature's grief-hushed voice invited 
 
 To stand by the perished flowers of the dell, 
 
 By the forest's funeral pyre new-lighted 
 
 And speak the thrice-wailed word Farewell. 
 
 Frayed and pinched by the frost's first fingers, 
 
 Thou waitest unpitied, poor and lone, 
 As one who the welcome of life outlingers, 
 
 Scarcely counting himself his own. 
 Not one tired bee, one golden hummer, 
 
 To soothe thee to sleep with droning spell, 
 Alone thou sighest, O dear dead Summer, 
 
 And all that is Summer's, fare you well. 
 
 As Apollo wrote, while his woe flowed faster, 
 
 His sad "ai ai " on the hyacinth leaf, 
 So for dead Summer, O mourning Aster, 
 
 Thy purple is pale as with silent grief. 
 Love no more, and yet Love remembered, 
 
 Is the tale which thou, and they can tell, 
 Who sigh over hope's last fire low-embered, 
 
 O Love's lost summer, for aye farewell. 
 
THE PURPLE ASTER. 17 
 
 A path unfinished, with nothing thorough, 
 
 Is the way of life, if I deem aright, 
 'Twixt little hope and a deal of sorrow, 
 
 'Twixt heaven and hell, 'twixt day and night, 
 'Twixt arrows out of the darkness darted, 
 
 Hints of a coming winter frost, 
 And dreams of a summer time departed, 
 
 A glory vanished, an Eden lost. 
 
 O golden-eyed, sky-purpled Flower, 
 
 In the silent sunlight born to shine ! 
 O fellow- heir to an equal dower ! 
 
 Our lots are the same, both thine and mine ; — 
 To come upon earth, a short-lived comer 
 
 Between a morning and evening bell, 
 To wake between winter and waning summer, 
 
 To see the world and to say, — Farewell. 
 
ANTITHETA. 
 
 *Ek t&v evavTiW KaWicrrTf apjxovia. 
 
 — Aristotle. 
 
 Lo, Death and Sorrow and Pain are sweet, 
 And Life and Pleasure and Joy are good, 
 
 And these are one and as one shall meet, 
 When all we feel shall be understood. 
 
 Then lift thy face unto Sorrow's rain, 
 
 Yea, deem it sweet as the spring's young 
 breath, 
 
 Stoop low and drink of the pool of Pain, 
 
 Dip thy Life's urn in the well of Death. 
 
 For Bliss is painlike, and Pain is bliss, 
 
 And Love must weep till the dawn of day. 
 
 Then Death shall waken at Life's warm kiss, 
 And Joy wed Sorrow in smiles for aye. 
 
PEARLS. 
 
 Say not : I never throw to fool or clown 
 
 My goodly pearls ; for swine I ne'er amassed 
 them ? 
 Say rather : Are these pearls which I cast down 
 And are those always swine to whom I cast 
 them ? 
 
SIGHT. 
 
 Man in his sorrow sees more clear 
 Through the crystal of one little tear, 
 Than if the whole air, as a spy-glass, should 
 Draw Heaven into nearest neighborhood 
 
THE END. 
 
 All is as the end is. 
 Those were thy words, part of the street-learn 'd lore 
 Garnered by thee and murmured mid the hum 
 Of Stamboul's throughfares, O Chrysostom, 
 Heaven's blameless beacon by the Bosphor shore, 
 Golden-mouthed angel of Byzantium ! 
 All is as the end is. 
 Forth, ye muezzins on your minarets, 
 Where Prayer still bows and pays her evening 
 
 debts, 
 Cry ye to man when man all hope forgets; — 
 
 Say : All is as the end is ; 
 Call no day dark or bright till the sun sets. 
 
 All is as the end is. 
 What train is this that threads the staring street ? 
 Whom do they circle with such circumstance ? 
 Pass they to court, or nuptial feast, or dance ? 
 
22 THE END. 
 
 Thine eyes, O Chrysostom, are turned to greet 
 The pageant, while thou say'st in thoughtful 
 trance, — 
 
 All is as the end is. 
 Oft one foul deed a whole fair life o'ersets. 
 Caught in the law's inextricable nets, 
 For yon poor wight his blade the headsman whets, 
 
 Then all is as the end is. 
 Call no day bright or fair till the sun sets. 
 
 All is as the end is. 
 Again low-murmured from thy golden tongue 
 
 We hear the self-same words, when through 
 
 the din 
 And darkness of thy city's shame and sin 
 Thou cam'st, as guest, thy feasting friends among, 
 Where at the threshold sang thy heart with 
 in, — 
 
 All is as the end is. 
 No more for his past pains the feaster frets, 
 When at the song-soothed feast he smiles and wets 
 In red wine the rose-wreathen coronets. 
 
THE END. 23 
 
 Then all is as the end is. 
 Call no day dark or drear till the sun sets. 
 
 All is as the end is. 
 What of dark days if evenings be serene ? 
 
 The Past, the Past makes not our destiny, 
 But that which in the Future still we see. 
 Man is not always what he once has been, 
 
 But rather what he hopes and strives to be. 
 All is as the end is. 
 Duty may spring from pangs which Grief begets 
 And Life's best purposes from dead regrets, 
 Like scent distilled from vanished violets. 
 
 For all is as the end is. 
 Call no day dark or bright till the sun sets. 
 
IN A WORLD LIKE THIS. 
 
 In a world like this, 
 When in misanthropic, 
 
 Cheerless mood, I wis, 
 
 Tired I take my flight, 
 Far from Love's warm tropic, — 
 
 Then I fret and sigh : 
 
 Better 'tis to die 
 Than to fawn and follow 
 
 With false look submiss, 
 
 Meeting day and night 
 Heartless hearts and hollow, 
 
 In a world like this. 
 
 In a world like this, 
 Trade's a daily duel, 
 
 If your aim you miss ; 
 
 And I hear them say : 
 " Woods are made for fuel, 
 
 Not for poets' nooks, 
 
IN A WORLD LIKE THIS. 25 
 
 Day-dreams, birds and brooks ; 
 Bees are but for honey ; 
 
 For our gospel is, 
 
 Seek the things that pay, 
 Make not men but money, 
 
 In a world like this." 
 
 In a world like this, 
 How the sleek saints palter ! 
 
 Give the Iscariot's kiss 
 
 With the blessed wine 
 Poured upon Christ's altar ! 
 
 Measure Man by rules, 
 
 Shut up God in schools, 
 Sound with three-foot plummet 
 
 Life's and Death's abyss, 
 
 Call their lore divine — 
 Egoists consummate 
 
 In a world like this ! 
 
 In a world like this . . . ! 
 Yet, when I remember 
 
26 IN A WORLD LIKE THIS. 
 
 All the love and bliss 
 
 Showered on man from May 
 Down to Life's December, 
 
 Beauty beyond odds, 
 
 Banquetings with Gods, 
 Mornings with Apollo, 
 
 Nights with Artemis ; 
 
 Then I answer, Nay, 
 All's not hard and hollow 
 
 In a world like this. 
 
A LAMENT. 
 
 Now is the time of tears and sighs 
 
 (Roam, sad heart, roam.) 
 When dark rains fall and loud winds rise, 
 And grief lives in the lips and eyes. 
 Beauty has faded from the skies. 
 
 The honey-bee 's gone home. 
 
 Wan flowers, your happy life is spent. 
 
 (Roam, sad heart, roam.) 
 Far is the wing that o'er you went 
 With hum of brooding deep content, 
 Feeding your souls with song and scent. 
 
 The honey-bee 's gone home. 
 
 What life shall now your lives renew ? 
 
 (Roam, sad heart, roam.) 
 Gone is the mouth which brought for you 
 Love-tidings from all flowers and drew 
 Your treasured sweetness, as its due. 
 
 The honey-bee 's gone home. 
 
28 A LAMENT. 
 
 Come, Darkness, this is now thine hour. 
 
 (Roam, sad heart, roam.) 
 Rise, ye wild winds, with storm and shower, 
 Rend every leaf from autumn's bower ; 
 Lie there, Hope's last forsaken flower. 
 
 The honey-bee 's gone home. 
 
A TRIO FOR TWELFTH-NIGHT. 
 I. 
 
 Who first brought man the morning dream 
 Of a world's hero ? Whence the gleam 
 Which grew to glory full and sweet, 
 As the wide wealth of waving wheat 
 
 Springs from one grain of corn ? 
 What drew the spirits of earth's grey prime 
 To lean out from their tower of time 
 Tow'rd the small sound of Hope's far chime 
 
 Heard betwixt night and morn ? 
 
 First it was sung by heaven ; then scrolled 
 By the scribe-stars on leaves of gold 
 In that long-buried book of Seth, 
 Which slept a secret deep as death, 
 
 Unknown to men forlorn, 
 Till a seer touched a jasper lid 
 In a sand-sunken pyramid, 
 And out the oracular secret slid, 
 
 Betwixt the night and morn. 
 
30 A TRIO FOR TWELFTH-NIGHT. 
 
 Zarathustra, Bactria's king, next said : 
 " When in the sky's blue garden-bed 
 A lily-petalled star shall fold 
 A human shape, the gift foretold 
 
 Shall blossom and be born : 
 Then shall the world-tides flow reversed, 
 New gods shall rise, the last be first, 
 And the best come from out the worst, 
 
 As night gives birth to morn." 
 
 II. 
 
 So while the drowsed earth swooned and slept 
 Mute holy men their vigils kept, 
 By twelve and twelve : as light decayed, 
 They marked through evening's rosy shade, 
 
 The curled moon's coming horn, 
 All stars that fed in silent flock, 
 And each tossed meteor's back-blown lock. 
 So watched they from their wind-swept rock, 
 
 Betwixt the night and morn. 
 
 Slow centuries passed ; at last there came 
 By night a dawn of silver flame, 
 
A TRIO FOR TWELFTH-NIGHT 31 
 
 Whose flower-like heart grew white and round 
 To a smooth, perfect pearl, with sound 
 
 Of music planet-born, 
 In whose clear disk a fair child lay, 
 And " Follow me," was heard to say : 
 Round him the pale stars fled away 
 
 As night before the morn 
 
 Forthwith from morning's crimson gate 
 The Three Kings rode in morning state 
 Across Ulai's storied stream, 
 With westward wistful eyes agleam 
 
 As pilgrims westward borne, 
 They left the tide to sing old deeds, 
 The stork to plash half-hid in reeds ; 
 A thousand spears, a thousand steeds, 
 
 They rode 'twixt night and morn. 
 
 III. 
 
 Melchior had coat and shoes of red, 
 
 And a pure alb sewn with gold thread ; 
 Beneath a tire of Syrian mode 
 Streamed the soft storm of hair that snowed 
 
32 A TRIO FOR TWELFTH-NIGHT. 
 
 From cheek and chin unshorn ; 
 Down to the ground his saffron pall 
 Fell as warm sunbeams earthward fall, 
 And he, sun-like, seemed king of all, 
 
 Betwixt the night and morn. 
 
 Red-robed, red-sandalled, golden-clad, 
 Came Gaspar, beardless as a lad : 
 Through his fair hair's divided stream 
 His red cheeks glowed as poppies gleam 
 
 Through sheaves of yellow corn. 
 Love's life in him was scarce fulfilled, 
 Like as, when daybreak shadows yield, 
 Night's iron lids lie half unsealed 
 
 In colors of the morn. 
 
 Bronzed Balthasar, with beard thick-fed, 
 Came last, in tunic royal red 
 And broidered alb and yellow shoon. 
 With him life's rose had touched its noon, 
 
 And died and left the thorn, — 
 Which proved by its sharp, thrilling heat 
 That larger life is less complete 
 
A TRIO FOR TWELFTH-NIGHT. 33 
 
 Till the heart's bitter grows to sweet, 
 As night melts into morn. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Said Melchior, " In blue silk I fold 
 The rock's best fruit, red-hearted gold : 
 So grant us, mighty Mother East, 
 One who shall raise thy power decreased, 
 
 And break Rome's pride and scorn, 
 Till our red, wine-warm world hath sent 
 Its breath through the cold West, and blent 
 The Orient with the Occident 
 
 In one wide sea of morn." 
 
 Said Gaspar, " I bring frankincense 
 From Caraman's hills, whose thickets dense 
 Hide the balm-bleeding bark which feeds 
 The fuming shrine with fragrant seeds : 
 
 So may this child, when born, 
 Be Love's high Lord, and yield his love 
 As incense, and draw down the Dove 
 To crown his brows in sign thereof, 
 
 Betwixt the night and morn." 
 
34 A TRIO FOR TWELFTH-NIGHT. 
 
 Said Balthasar, " And I bring myrrh, 
 In death and life man's minister; 
 Which braves decay as burial-balm, 
 Or, mixed with wine, brings the deep calm 
 
 Which power and love both scorn : 
 Such be this child, — God's answering breath 
 To the one prayer the whole world saith, 
 * Oh, grant us myrrh for pain and death, 
 
 Betwixt our night and morn.' " 
 
 V. 
 
 Twice fifty sennights o'er them bent 
 The fierce blue weight of firmament. 
 Through sea-like sands they still pursued 
 The unsetting star, until it stood 
 
 Above where, travail-worn, 
 A new-made mother smiled, whose head 
 Lay near the stalled ox, as she fed 
 Her babe from her warm heart, on bed 
 
 Of straw, 'twixt night and morn. 
 
 As day new-sprung from dropping day, 
 Near her in shrining light he lay, 
 
A TRIO FOR TWELFTH-NIGHT, 35 
 
 And made the darkness beautiful. 
 Couched on low straw and flakes of wool 
 
 From Bethlehem's lambs late-shorn, 
 He seemed a star which clouds enfold, 
 Swathed with soft fire and aureoled 
 With sun-born beams of tender gold, 
 
 The very star of morn. 
 
 At her son's feet the kingly Three 
 Laid, with bowed head and bended knee, 
 Their gold and frankincense and myrrh, 
 Nor tarried, — so the interpreter 
 
 Of God's dream once did warn, — 
 But hied them home ere the day broke ; 
 While without awe the neighbor folk 
 Flocked to the door, and looked, and spoke, 
 
 Betwixt the night and morn. 
 
 VI. 
 
 A tall centurion first drew near, 
 Brass-booted, on whose crest sat Fear. 
 He bent low to the fragrant bed, 
 With beard coal-black and cheek rust-red, 
 
36 A TRIO FOR TWELFTH-NIGHT. 
 
 And each palm hard as horn ; 
 Quoth he, " Our old gods' empire shakes, 
 Mehercule ! Now this babe o'ertakes 
 All that our Venus-Mother makes 
 
 Betwixt the night and morn." 
 
 A shepherd spake : " Behold the Lamb, 
 Who ere he reign as heaven's I AM 
 Must undergo and overcome, 
 As sheep before the shearers dumb. 
 
 Unfriended, faint, forlorn. 
 Him then as King the skies shall greet, 
 And with strewn stars beneath his feet 
 This Lamb shall couch in God's gold seat, 
 
 And rule from night to morn." 
 
 A woman of the city came, 
 Who said, " In me hope conquers shame. 
 Four names in this child's line shall be 
 As signs to all who love like me, — 
 
 God pities where men scorn : 
 Dame Rahab, Bathshebah, forsooth, 
 Tamar, whose love outloved man's truth, 
 
A TRIO FOR TWELFTH-NIGHT. 37 
 
 And she cast out, sweet alien Ruth, 
 
 Betwixt the night and morn." 
 
 Next Joseph, spouse of Mary, came, — 
 Joseph Bar-Panther was his name, — 
 Who said, " This babe, Lord God, is thine 
 Only begotten Son divine, 
 
 As thou didst me forewarn ; 
 And I will stand beside his throne, 
 And all the lands shall be his own 
 Which the sun girds with burning zone, 
 
 And leads from night to morn." 
 
 Said Zacharias, " Love and will 
 With God make all things possible. 
 Shall God be childless ? God unwed ? 
 Nay ; see God's first-born in this bed 
 
 Which kings with gifts adorn. 
 I would this babe might be at least 
 As I, an incense-burning priest, 
 Till all man's incense-fires have ceased, 
 
 Betwixt the night and morn." 
 
38 A TRIO FOR TWELFTH-NIGHT. 
 
 Whereat his wife Elisabeth : 
 " My thoughts are on the myrrh, since death 
 Shades my sere cheek, which, as a shore, 
 Is wrought with wrinkles o'er and o'er. 
 
 Now be this child new-born 
 A prophet, like my prophet-boy, — 
 A voice to shake down and destroy 
 Throne, shrine, each carved and painted toy, 
 Betwixt the night and morn." 
 
 But Mary, God's pure lily, smiled : 
 " Lord, with thy manhood crown my child, — 
 More man, more God ; for they who shine 
 Most human shall be most divine. 
 
 Of those I think no scorn, 
 King, prophet, priest, when worlds began ; 
 But higher than these my prayer and plan • 
 Oh, make my child the Perfect Man, 
 
 The Star 'twixt night and morn." 
 
THE REED. 
 
 "ET ARUNDINKM IN DEXTERA EJUS." 
 
 Beneath the memnonian shadows of Memphis, 
 it rose from the slime, 
 
 A reed of the river, self-hid, as though shun- 
 ning the curse of its crime, 
 
 And it shook as it measured in whispers the 
 lapses of tide and of time. 
 
 It shuddered, it stooped, and was dumb, when 
 the kings of the earth passed along. 
 
 For what could this reed of the river in the 
 race of the swift and the strong, — 
 
 Where the wolf met the bear and the panther, 
 blood-bathed, at the banquets of wrong ? 
 
 These loved the bright brass, the hard steel, 
 and the Gods that kill and condemn ; 
 
 Yea, theirs was the robe silver-tissued, and 
 theirs was the sun-colored gem ; 
 
 If they touched thee, O reed, 'twas to wing 
 with swift death thy sharp arrowy stem. 
 
40 THE REED. 
 
 Then the strong took the corn and the wine, 
 and the poor, who had scattered the seed, 
 
 Went forth to the wilderness weeping, and 
 sought out a sign in their need, 
 
 And the Gods laughed in rapturous thunder, 
 and showed them the wind-shaken reed. 
 
 O dower of the poor and the helpless ! O key 
 
 to Thought's palace unpriced ! 
 When the strong mocked with cruel crimson 
 
 and spat in the face of their Christ, 
 When the thorns were his crown — in his faint 
 
 palm this reed for a sceptre sufficed ; 
 
 This reed in whose fire-pith Prometheus 
 brought life, and the arts began, 
 
 When Man, the God of time's twilight, grew 
 godlike by dying for Man, 
 
 Ere Redemption fell bound and bleeding, 
 priest-carved to the priests' poor plan. 
 
 Come hither, ye kings of the earth, and ye 
 priests without pity, draw near, 
 
THE REED. 41 
 
 Ye girded your loins for a curse, and ye 
 
 builded dark temples to Fear, 
 Ye gathered from rune-scroll and symbol great 
 
 syllables deathful and drear. 
 
 Then ye summoned mankind to your Idol, the 
 
 many bowed down to the few, 
 As ye told in loud anthems how all things 
 
 were framed for the saints and for you, — 
 " Lord, not on these sun-blistered rocks, but 
 
 on Gideon's fleece falls thy dew." 
 
 Man was taken from prison to judgment ; a 
 
 bulrush he bent at your nod ; 
 Ye stripped him of rights, his last garment, 
 
 and bared his broad back for the rod, 
 And ye lisped, as he writhed down in anguish, 
 
 " This woe is the sweet will of God." 
 
 But lo ! whilst ye braided the thorn-crown 
 for Man and the children of men, 
 
 Whilst ye reft him of worship and wealth, and 
 he stood mute and dazed in your den, 
 
42 THE REED. 
 
 A reed-stalk remained for a sceptre ; ye left 
 in his hand the pen. 
 
 Sweet wooer, strong winner of kingship, above 
 
 crown, crosier and sword, 
 By thee shall the mighty be broken, and the 
 
 spoil which their might hath stored 
 Shall be stamped small as dust and be wafted 
 
 away by the breath of the Lord. 
 
 His decree is gone forth, it is planted, and 
 these are the words which he spake, — 
 
 No smouldering flax of first fancy, no full 
 flame of thought, will he slake, 
 
 No bruised reed of the writer shall the 
 strength of eternities break. 
 
 Behold your sign and your sceptre. Arise, 
 imperial reed, 
 
 Go forth to discrown king and captain and dis- 
 inherit the creed ; 
 
 O strike through the iron war-tower and cast 
 out the murderer's seed ; 
 
THE REED. 43 
 
 Go forth — like the swell of the springtide, 
 
 sweep on in measureless sway, 
 Till raised over each throned falsehood, in 
 
 bright omnipresence like day, 
 Thou shalt bruise them with rod of iron and 
 
 break them like vessels of clay. 
 
BEYOND THE SNOW. 
 
 Bare boughs ; athwart each suppliant arm 
 
 The sun's pale stare at pale November, 
 No autumn's amorous breath to warm 
 His red last leaf's expiring ember ; 
 
 House after house, a glimmering street ; 
 A herald grain of coming sleet ; 
 The struggling dayfires' lessening glow ; 
 Hour when light ghost-winds wailing go, 
 When men least hope and most remember, 
 Before the snow, before the snow. 
 
 A village cot ; eyes fiery-blue, 
 
 Blithe voice beneath the roof's high rafter, 
 Ripe cheek, crisp curls of chestnut hue, 
 
 Quick heart that leaps to love and laughter, 
 That feeds on all from star to sod, 
 And loving all things lives in God ; 
 Light feet borne daily to and fro 
 On some sweet errand none may know, 
 
BEYOND THE SNOW. 45 
 
 Swift sped with hopes like wings to waft her 
 Along the snow, along the snow. 
 
 A midnight room ; the smothered speech 
 
 Of those that watch with tear-stained faces ; 
 The helpless love-look bent by each 
 
 Who stoops, but speaks not, and embraces ; 
 Love braving Death with that last cry, 
 "She is mine, she is mine, she shall not 
 
 die;" 
 Then homeward steps returning slow 
 To the great tear's unworded woe, 
 And many darkened dwelling-places, 
 Across the snow, across the snow. 
 
 A hollow grave ; and gathered there 
 
 Strong breaking hearts that bear. and break 
 not, 
 Round the closed eyes and lifeless hair 
 
 Life's few that follow and forsake not ; 
 Tears, the drink-offering to the dead, 
 The bruised heart's grape-wine softly shed ; 
 
46 BEYOND THE SNOW. 
 
 Long downward looks ; they will not go, 
 They fain would sleep with her below, 
 In dreamless rest, with those that wake not, 
 Beneath the snow, beneath the snow. 
 
 A green plot sweet with shade and sound, 
 A white porch and a name engraven, 
 Where Death unveiled as Love sits crowned 
 In garden-lawns with lilies paven, 
 And she a daughter of that land, 
 A silent rose in her right hand, 
 And in her left a scroll where glow 
 Mysteries of might, which man shall know 
 In Love's warm-shadowed leafy haven, 
 Beyond the snow, beyond the snow. 
 
THE SIRENS. 
 On de Beaumont's picture " Les Sirenes." 
 
 Dainty sea-maids ! bright-eyed Sirens ! laughing 
 over dead men's graves ! 
 
 What has drawn you from the inland to this wilder- 
 ness of waves ? 
 
 Why those lucent arms uptossing o'er your should- 
 ers round and rare ? 
 
 Why those musical throats bent back beneath the 
 sunlight of your hair ? 
 
 Oh, the bosoms' rosy treasures tempting tow'rd 
 their fragrant home ! 
 
 Oh, the ivory thighs unkirtled on the white flowers 
 of the foam ! 
 
 Bitter is the sea about you with the brine of daily 
 tears, 
 
 In the sea-grave lie beneath you withered hearts 
 and wasted years. 
 
 Back ! ye deathward-singing Sirens ! One by Gali- 
 lee's calm sea 
 
48 THE SIRENS. 
 
 Calls you hence, — "O cease your angling, 
 drop your nets, and follow me," — 
 
 Calls you home to Love's high service in seclu- 
 sion's holy glen, 
 
 But he never called you shoreward to be fishers 
 after men. 
 
HOMESICKNESS. 
 
 I knew a strong man, 
 And he dwelt mid the hills where the swift streams 
 
 ran, 
 For he loved to live where his life began. 
 But they took him away, and made him abide 
 Where the great streets darken and chafe and chide 
 
 With their ceaseless tide, 
 And he mourned for the hills which mourned for 
 the man, 
 
 So he sickened and died. 
 
 I knew a weak bird, 
 And she sang in the woods where her song was 
 
 first heard, 
 For she loved the bowers by her young wing 
 
 stirred. 
 But they caught her away, and made her abide 
 In a cage where she sang not, but often cried 
 For her lost forest wide, 
 
50 HOMESICKNESS. 
 
 And she mourned for the woods which mourned 
 for the bird, 
 
 So she languished and died. 
 
 O Land of the Soul ! 
 Men have lived on thy hills within Love's control,. 
 And fain had they stayed where thy star-streams 
 
 roll. 
 But a hand plucked them thence and made them 
 
 abide 
 In a world where they wandered, and often cried 
 
 For that first hillside, — 
 " O Love, take us back to thy Land of the Soul." 
 
 So they sorrowed and died. 
 
PSYCHE. 
 Love came to me one morn in May, 
 Bringing all glad things on his way, 
 "Lo, here are Autumn and Summer and Spring, 
 All three seasons in one I bring." 
 He spake me smooth, 
 And he sware for sooth, 
 That his gold was good, and his troth was truth. 
 Alack, the day ! 
 Heigho, Sing Sorrow ! 
 Man sows in vain what he reaps with pain, 
 And the joy once gone shall be never again 
 Heigho, Sing Sorrow ! 
 'Tis ever thus 
 Love deals with us ; 
 Builds his bower for to-day, and then flies away 
 To-morrow. 
 
 I gave him all in my garden's girth, 
 Myrrh and spices and balms of worth — 
 My side was the couch wherein he sank, 
 
52 PSYCHE. 
 
 My heart the warm cup whence he drank. 
 Where the basil grows, 
 I culled the rose, 
 And wrapped him in myrtle-shadows close. 
 Alack, the day ! 
 Heigho, Sing Sorrow ! 
 Man sows in vain what he reaps in pain, 
 And the joy once gone shall be never again, 
 Heigho, Sing Sorrow ! 
 'Tis ever thus 
 Love deals with us ; 
 Builds his bower for a day, and then flies away 
 To-morrow. 
 
 I woke one morn at the end of May, 
 And Love rose up and went his way, 
 And all the guerdon I can win 
 For the love I laid at his feet, has been 
 
 A handful of rue 
 
 Wet with grief's dew 
 And sad-eyed pansies, just a few. 
 Alack, the day ! 
 
 Heigho, Sing Sorrow ! 
 
PSYCHE. 53 
 
 Man sows in vain what he reaps in pain, 
 And the joy once gone shall be never again. 
 Heigho, Sing Sorrow ! 
 
 'Tis ever thus 
 
 Love deals with us ; 
 Builds his bower for a day, and then flies away 
 
 To-morrow. 
 
THEODOSIUS. 
 
 All things are beautiful that God hath made, — 
 Green earth, skies grey or crimson, sheen or shade, 
 The golden river-dust, the mid-sea slime, 
 The mold-warp's home, and hills the throne of 
 
 Time, 
 Rich dawn, with thrush, and saffron-flowering reed, 
 And darkness, friend of death, and worm and 
 
 weed. 
 Shadows of silence, and great lights of sound 
 Alike are dear to th' heaven they float around, 
 And God hath blest them, whether in field or 
 
 flood, 
 In earth or air, and called them very good. 
 But ere these leave the arms of their kind Nurse, 
 Man clothes them with the garment of his curse, 
 And driving out with flame-sword, seraph-wise, 
 He disinherits them of their Paradise. 
 'Tis the old story of the scapegoat still, 
 We lay on other lives our self -wrought ill ; 
 
THEODOSIUS. 55 
 
 Man points at Woman, Woman at her feet, 
 "The Serpent tempted me, and I did eat." 
 
 In the far East, as story telleth us, 
 Dwelt the great Emperor Theodosius, 
 By the rough Thracian strait, where Io roamed 
 Salt fields of sea, wind-fretted and o'erfoamed. 
 All power was his, the king's twain-handed might, 
 And Life, and Law, and all, save sacred sight. 
 But, God be praised, the chance that seals one 
 
 sense, 
 .Stays not the whole flow of man's providence. 
 So at his palace door a bell he hung, 
 Which, when it woke him with its iron tongue, 
 Cried ever in his ear, " O Sire, descend, 
 And give me justice, and be misery's friend." 
 Then would you hear the shuffling, sightless feet 
 Which brought him to the hall and judgment seat, 
 Where he sat down, this Emperor Theodose, 
 And sentence gave 'mid his magnificoes, 
 So the world sought him as some isle o' the sea, 
 Where men breathe rights and all the men are free. 
 
56 THEODOSIUS. 
 
 Now fell it on a day when Spring's new flame 
 Pricked bird and flower and leaf, a serpent came 
 And built her home and stowed her innocent 
 
 freight 
 In a green plat, hard by the palace-gate, 
 And there she dwelt, a helpless, harmless thing, 
 With sweet, strange mother-love encompassing 
 And coiled in sleep about her little ones, 
 As God's vast life rings round his stars and suns. 
 
 One morn, while absent from her dear abode, 
 There came with short, light leaps, a songless toad 
 Through thickening grass-plumes, to the serpent- 
 nest, 
 Where her brood lay just sleep-warm from her 
 
 breast, 
 And swallowing these, his body burdensome 
 He straight lay down in that unchilded home. 
 Swift came the serpent-mother back again ; 
 One glance around, then fierce with deathlike 
 
 pain, 
 She flashed straight at the murderer of her joy, 
 
THEODOSIUS. 57 
 
 God-armed with right to cast out and destroy. 
 
 Not yet : for oft the Gods are kind to guilt, 
 
 And fools grow fat where the pure blood lies spilt. 
 
 Driven out, this creature, childless, exiled, poor, 
 Slow wound her weak folds to the emperor's door, 
 Where, gathering all her battle-broken strength, 
 She flickered up and writhed her sliding length 
 Round the smooth bell-rope tow'rd the speechless 
 
 bell, 
 Which drawing down, she woke the summoning 
 
 knell, 
 " Descend and give me justice." Straight uprose, 
 And took his seat, that Emperor Theodose, 
 Saying, " Go, bring him hither," and one came 
 In black velure and taffeta robe of flame, 
 Peeping with outstretched neck and watery laugh, 
 Who smote the snake thrice with his ivory staff, 
 And switched her from the grunsel, and returned. 
 Scarce had the sightless Theodosius learned 
 From the cold courtier's tongue the serpent's 
 
 crime, 
 
58 THEODOSIUS. 
 
 When hark ! the bell knolled out the second time, 
 " Descend and give me justice," and to end 
 The full appeal, it rang once more, " Descend." 
 
 Then called the blind king to his seneschal, 
 A reverent man, of face angelical, 
 With love-lit eyes, voice musical and low, 
 White hair and soft step like the falling snow : 
 " Hie thee, and fetch this thing whatso it be ; 
 Who doeth kind deed, the only king is he." 
 And with soft step the senior went, and found 
 The stricken serpent half-way to the ground, 
 And caught her well-nigh dead, reft of all hope, 
 Failing through faintness from the throbbing rope, 
 And bore her, inly pitying her woes, 
 And laid her down before King Theodose. 
 
 O then, I ween, a work right marvellous 
 Was wrought of Him, who somewhere teacheth 
 
 us, — 
 Certes, all things are possible with God. 
 Yet men will say in time's last period, 
 This was not so, these tales are light as sand, 
 
THEODOSrUS. 59 
 
 Faith-forged in Jewry or old Grecian Land, — 
 Not knowing how in antique days, by oak 
 And fountain, beasts and birds together spoke, 
 Under the forest's shadow-woven tent, 
 In session sage and peaceful parliament ; 
 Till Man came, and henceforth from bird and beast 
 The primal word's divisible language ceased, 
 And so to place their thoughts above our reach, 
 They chose their free-born, inarticulate speech. 
 Yet sometimes these, when heavenward raised by 
 
 wrong, 
 Change cry for speech, as men change speech for 
 
 ♦ song ; 
 Or, as when Slavery's bow at Man is bent, 
 Man cries to God, and then is eloquent. 
 Nor count it strange that He who once came down 
 In tongue of fire to be the Prophet's crown, 
 And shook his soul as with the rushing South, 
 Should ope in one brief speech a serpent's mouth. 
 
 So with raised head the serpent thus began : 
 " Smite me, but hear. I come to thee, O Man ; 
 
60 THEODOSIUS. 
 
 For unto thee, they say, the seat is given 
 
 Of Mediator-God 'twixt us and heaven. 
 
 In thy sere autumn, when hopes fade and fly, 
 
 Thou yearnest upward to the listening sky, 
 
 And criest and sighest and sayest, * Lord, how 
 
 long ? ' 
 To some one, whom ye call the Sweet and 
 
 Strong — 
 What that one is to thee, art thou to us, 
 Girt with great strength and knowledge glorious. 
 Shall Mercy drop to thee her royal meat, 
 Who keepst her crumbs from them that kiss thy 
 
 feet ? 
 Think not, great king, that we, who roam and 
 
 range 
 Wild ways of life which teach us uses strange, 
 Are aliens to what makes the best in men, 
 In soldier, statesman, sire and citizen, — 
 The lover's anguish dipt in tides of death, 
 Child-trust, and mother-love that fashioneth 
 All thought and thew, life's prodigality 
 That breathes the noble rage to save or die ; — 
 
THEODOSIUS. 61 
 
 These which are ours we share with thee, O Man, 
 In Life's wide palace cosmopolitan. 
 Hear me. There came a toad into my nest, 
 Whiles I was absent on a needful quest, 
 And killed my pretty brood, and now he keeps 
 That home from her, who at thy footstool creeps. 
 Full well I know that something just and good 
 Ere many suns will give me back my brood, 
 But give me now the lair which is mine own, — 
 Guard my ground nest, and I will guard thy 
 throne." 
 
 Long mused the blind king Theodosius, 
 But when at last his heart full piteous 
 Sent its red message to his cheek, he spake : — 
 " Ah me ! sad woes ye bear for human sake, 
 Poor hunted lives, beast, bird and creeping thing, 
 From Man who is your brother, not your king. 
 But chiefly on thy head that lies thus low 
 Have we laid down the weight of all our woe. 
 Give ear and hear me, my most honored lords, 
 And you, ye learned clerks, wise in your words, 
 
62 THEODOSIUS. 
 
 Stand forth and answer me : Who first decreed 
 Discord for all things sown of mortal seed ? 
 Who blew through earth the ban of civil war 
 Which flames above us, reddening AreV star ? 
 God, will ye say ? Heaven wot, that cannot be. 
 Hear Nature* s Miserere Domine 
 Go up, man-scorned, an awful litany 
 Folding the feet of God with folds of moan, 
 And crying, Our eyes look unto Thee alone. 
 Not God. Who then ? Ye durst not answer. 
 
 'Tis Man, who blots her fountain, slays her tree, 
 Blasts her pure river, tears her breast of green, 
 And calls her beasts now clean, and now unclean 
 Lowering her names of serpent, ape and dog, 
 To suit the sins of man's own catalogue ; 
 For through man's heart distil those drops of gall 
 Which must o'erflow and on some creature fall. 
 O dull of spirit and cold of heart to make 
 This cleanser of the dust, the earth-loving snake, 
 The authoress of your ills, the fount of sin ; 
 Forgetting in your doctrines' battle-din, 
 
THEODOSIUS. 63 
 
 How God ordained that, since the world began, 
 Each thing in turn should be the friend of Man. 
 -What ! shall the Lamb that healeth all of us 
 Tread on the Snake of ^Esculapius ? 
 Say, are not innocent Wisdom and wise Love 
 Wedded for aye — the Serpent and the Dove ? 
 O sweet Lord Christ, when thou didst come on 
 
 earth, 
 Thou mad'st the stall of ox thy bed of birth ; 
 When in chill desert thou didst leave our feasts 
 To share Life's hunger, thou wast "with the 
 
 beasts" ; 
 When on to Zion Town they saw thee pass, 
 'Twas not on war-steed, but on lowly ass ; 
 And when to win us worlds by thy self-loss 
 Thou didst lift up for us the bitter cross, 
 Then didst thou take the thorns we oft had cursed 
 To be thy crown, of all great crowns the first. 
 Help me, dear Christ, in pity thus arrayed 
 Like thee, to love all things which God hath made. 
 So Pain shall school me into sympathy, 
 And what I should have been, I yet shall be." 
 
64 THEODOSIUS. 
 
 Then Theodose sent one from all the rest 
 To reinstall the serpent in her nest, 
 Who came and finding there the murderer 
 Crushed him and cast him out ; and some aver 
 That from the bruised head of the loathly thing 
 There oozed a sea-green gem, forth issuing ; 
 Wherefore and how it boots not here to tell, — 
 Certes, with God all things are possible. 
 
 After these things it fell on a bright day 
 Near the calm shut of eve, this blind king lay, 
 Wrapped in his purple, gold-embroidered pall, 
 And slept a space in the same palace hall, 
 When lo ! a thing most rare was brought to pass. 
 As though new-raised in beauty from the grass 
 That serpent through the palace came again, 
 No more updrawing her loose length with pain, 
 But glittering like a stream with rains fresh-dewed, 
 Amber, and silver-mooned, and rainbow-hued, 
 Eyed like a moist large planet of the South 
 That shines a promise of rain in days of drouth. 
 So swept she glorying up the porphyry floor, 
 
THEODOSIUS. 6s 
 
 And in her mouth a bright great emerald bore. 
 Therewith, (but whence it came none ever knew,) 
 Through all the house a wondrous music grew, 
 Such concords as are heard from voice and string 
 At heavenly doors by spirits first entering, — 
 Immortal airs, touches of mellow sound 
 That came in long-drawn sighs, above, around, 
 And march-like music swoln to mighty tone, 
 Like preludes from aerial clarions blown, 
 And whispers as of multitudinous feet, 
 Which died away with waifs of scent most sweet. 
 
 Soul-charmed, the serpent tow'rd King Theo- 
 dose crept, 
 And there she hung above him, as he slept 
 With silent face, and silent, pale dead eyes 
 Turned in, as 'twere, on Life's mute mysteries ; 
 Then, as the downward-swaying branch lets fall 
 Its shining fruitage to the lips that call, 
 So she soft-stooping o'er his sleep, unknown, — 
 Dropt on his eyes the magic emerald stone. 
 
 Meanwhile blind Theodosius dreamed a dream. 
 
66 THEODOSIUS. 
 
 In the high heaven he saw a coming gleam, 
 
 Which brightening as it came to where he lay, 
 
 Opened at last like the full flower of day. 
 
 It was God's angel, strong Ithuriel, 
 
 Armed with that glowing lance, which, sooth to 
 
 tell, 
 Unlocks all doors of light in earth or skies, 
 With whose bright point he touched the sightless 
 
 eyes, 
 And said, " Receive thy sight ; " thus much he 
 
 spoke 
 And vanished, and King Theodose awoke. 
 
 Opening his new-born eyes he looked abroad, 
 Oh wonder ! Oh the beautiful earth of God ! 
 He gazed on the rich picture, fresh and fair, 
 The grateful fields of green, and liquid air, 
 But first tow'rd heaven and its blue gulfs of sky. 
 What sees he there ? Up through long glades of 
 
 light 
 God's city rose upon his tranced sight, 
 Pillar and palace built of mist and gem, 
 
THEODOSIUS. 67 
 
 And sun-clad wall of New Jerusalem, 
 
 Where men walk free from sin and terror and 
 
 tears, 
 With smile sent back on time and passed years, 
 Then, as the pageant faded from his eyes, 
 He watched beneath its vanishing traceries 
 The dawning eventide of one faint star 
 And lilac cloud's flame-bordered bank and bar, 
 And lower down, the green wood's tender gloom, 
 And lawns that fed on dews and balm and bloom, 
 Whilst, like a meteor, through his palace door 
 The serpent shivered and was seen no more. 
 
A VACATION PRELUDE. 
 
 [At Athens, on the second day of the Eleusinian festival, 
 the candidates for the Great Mysteries assembled, and waited 
 for the well-known words of the Hierophant or Mystagogue. 
 At the cry, "To the sea, ye initiates!" (halade mustai), 
 they rose and went down to the shore, where they received 
 baptismal purification, and thence proceeded to the temple 
 of Demeter (the Earth-mother) at Eleusis, to be initiated in 
 the greater or final Mysteries of life and death.] 
 
 " Hence to the sea ! souls true and tried, 
 Plunge in the Gods' baptismal tide ! 
 Thence to Demeter's temple-stair 
 And learn Life's deeper secrets there ! " 
 
 The Prophet speaks ; they hear the call, 
 They rise and leave thy sacred wall, 
 Thy homes and haunts of sweet renown ! 
 Queen City of the Violet Crown ! 
 
 Onward with heart-kept vows they creep 
 Round the grey, olive-shaded steep — 
 Through ways that beckon lovingly 
 Down to old ^Egeus' fabled sea ; 
 
 That sea that shines and shakes afar, 
 Inlaid with many an island star, 
 
A VACATION PRELUDE. 69 
 
 Poseiddn's bright, rock-jewelled band 
 Clasping his loved, lost Attic land. 
 
 " Hence to the sea ! " that cry once more 
 Comes, organ-voiced, from surf and shore, 
 Comes through the hum and hurrying feet, 
 The toil and tumult of the street. 
 
 From each dull brick I learn the call 
 Flashed as from old Belshazzar's wall ; 
 Market and church and street and store 
 Echo the mandate, " To the shore ! " 
 
 With Care's sharp thorn-wreath daily crowned, 
 Our wave-girt city hears the sound, 
 And stoops with toil-worn diadem 
 To touch the healing Ocean's hem ; 
 
 And take new strength from him who erst 
 With his waves rocked her, swathed and nursed, 
 Who now with blue, large, wondering eye 
 Hails her, his Venice throned on high. 
 
 " Hence to the sea ! " the summons came 
 O'er fields adust, down skies of flame ; 
 
70 A VACATION PRELUDE. 
 
 I heard, and fondly turned to thee, 
 
 gentle, glad, all-gathering Sea ! 
 
 1 saw thee spread but yestermorn, 
 As though for Venus newly born, 
 A couch of satin soft and blue, 
 
 O'er which the sun-showers dimpling flew. 
 
 To-day how changed ! the loud winds rise, 
 The storm her sounding shuttle plies, 
 Weaves a white water-shroud beneath, 
 And all the sea-marge answers, " Death." 
 
 Through sheeted spray what sights appear ! 
 Faces look out and shapes of fear ; 
 Mad through the trampled surge abroad 
 Revels and reels the Demon-god ; 
 
 Whilst o'er his shouts that wax and wane 
 Swells one long monotone of pain, 
 As o'er some city's rabble yell 
 Tolleth a great cathedral bell. 
 
 Is this the deep-sea peace I sought ? 
 Calm days by holy shores of Thought, 
 
A VACATION PRELUDE. 71 
 
 Airs, that might Hope's own clarion fill 
 With tones divine of " Peace, be still " ? 
 
 And yet to me these tides that flow- 
 Are but as clouds o'er worlds below, 
 Worlds which look up to skies, as we 
 Look to our heaven's o'erhanging sea. 
 
 Not on that sea-floor, but beneath 
 Its snowy shroud and funeral wreath 
 Peace dwells. What kingdoms calm, and fair, 
 And changeless, greet my guesses there ! 
 
 Seeds of the New that is to be 
 
 Sleep in the ooze of yon grey sea ; 
 
 Life, Love, all strange and speechless things, 
 
 To crown the heart's imaginings, — 
 
 Rich hills, green-skirted, forest-zoned, 
 Cliffs on which slumbrous Powers are throned, 
 High-pillared shades, with splendor laned ; 
 By ruthless woodman unprofaned ; 
 
 Close-latticed lights, cool shadowings, 
 And murmurs of all pleasant things, 
 
72 A VACATION PRELUDE. 
 
 Fountains that chime away their cares 
 In liquid lapse down crystal stairs ; 
 
 Glades which a tender twilight fling 
 Like the green mist of groves in spring ; 
 Blameless white sands, and seas of pearl, 
 Where young-eyed Dreams their sails unfurl ; 
 
 Doors opening from afar with tone 
 
 Of mystic flutes in musings lone, 
 
 Low chantings thrilled through dim-lit seas, 
 
 Old harp-notes, half-heard prophecies ; 
 
 Pale temples veiled in sapphire gloom 
 Where the great ghosts of glorious doom 
 In transport list, till heaven-born Fate 
 Shall ope her Sire's tremendous gate ; 
 
 Caves where the gentle, gracious Hours, 
 Who bring all good things, weave strange flowers, 
 And faint Hopes wait in Lethe grots, 
 Brow-bound with fresh forget-me-nots ; 
 
 Genii, low dwellers of the glen, 
 And souls forlorn that shall be men, 
 
A VACATION PRELUDE. 73 
 
 Mute lips that once have kissed the wrong, 
 Which time shall purge and light with song ; 
 
 Strong angels, waiting for the day, 
 When they shall shoulder seas away, 
 And show to God new blessed hills 
 Starred with undying daffodils ; 
 
 When Earth, with bridal morning strewn, 
 Like a pure goddess grandly hewn, 
 Shall, re-baptized and born again, 
 Rise from her centuries' trance of pain. 
 
 Thus in thy heart, O Deep, are stored 
 Kings' treasure-chambers, unexplored; 
 Thy terrors, tumults, fears are found 
 But on thy surface, in thy sound. 
 
 " Hence to the sea ! " I heard that call, 
 And left the world's loud palace- wall 
 To find thee, O thou vast Unknown, 
 By shores of mystery and of moan. 
 
74 A VACATION PRELUDE. 
 
 Yet, nameless Dread, that seem'st but so, 
 Calm are thy depths of peace below ; 
 Roll dark or bright, O Spirit Sea, 
 Why should I fear to sink in thee ? 
 
NON SINE LACRYMIS. 
 
 It was that hour when vernal Earth 
 And stormy March prepare 
 For the first day of April's tearful birth, 
 
 That I, o'ercome with care, 
 Rose with the twilight from a fireless hearth, 
 To take the fresh first air 
 
 And smile of morning's mirth. 
 
 Tired with old grief's self-pitying moan, 
 A mile I had not strayed, 
 Ere my dim path grew dark with double zone 
 
 Of men full fair arrayed, 
 While blent with sound of battle-trumpets blown, 
 Came, as through light comes shade, 
 Cries like an undertone. 
 
 Plumed with torn cloud March led the 
 way 
 With spear-point keen for thrust, 
 And eager eyes, and harnessed form swathed grey 
 
76 NON SINE LACRYMIS. 
 
 With drifts of wind-blown dust. 
 Round his bruised buckler, in bright letters, lay 
 This scroll which toilers trust ; — 
 Non sine pulvere. 
 
 Wet as from weltering showers and 
 seas, 
 April came after him. 
 He held a cup with saddest imageries 
 
 Engraven, and round the rim, 
 Worn with woe's lip, I spelt out words like these, 
 All sorrow-stained and dim ; — 
 Non sine lacrymis. 
 
 These passed like regal spirits crowned, 
 Strong March and April fair, 
 And then a sphere-made music slow unwound 
 
 Its soul upon the air, 
 And soft as exhalations from the ground 
 Or spring-flowers here and there, 
 
 These words rose through the sound : 
 
 " Man needs these two for this world's 
 moil, 
 
NON SINE LACRYMIS. 77 
 
 Earth's drought and dew of spheres, 
 Griefs freshening rain to lay the dust of toil, 
 
 Toil's dust to dry the tears. 
 To all who rise as wrestlers in life's coil 
 
 Time brings with days and years 
 The wrestler's sand and oil." 
 
 O Toil in vain, without surcease ! 
 O Grief no hand may stay ! 
 Think on these words when work or woes increase ; 
 
 Man made of tears and clay, 
 Grows to full stature and God's perfect peace, 
 Non sine pu here f 
 Non sine lacrymis. 
 
APOLLO. 
 
 (chant royal.) 
 
 He comes, he comes ! Look where yon hill's 
 warm crest 
 Burns through the breaking cloud, and as a 
 key, 
 Opens the sun-bright portals of the west, 
 
 Where One in glory shines. 'Tis he, 'tis he ! 
 Fairest of Gods where all so fair are found, 
 Gold-haired and ivory-limbed, and thick around 
 Wait Bards august like windless flames aglow, 
 While near him, as a wreath of eddying snow, 
 His thrice-three Sisters dance in circling throng, 
 Answering his harp with sweet voice to and 
 fro ; — 
 Paian Apollo, Lord of light and song. 
 
 Hark ! theirs are sphere-born harmonies heard 
 best 
 
APOLLO. 79 
 
 By the soul's ear. At their song calm and 
 free 
 The tranced air is lulled in listening rest, 
 
 And Earth is aching with the melody, — 
 Aching to hear her pent pain half unbound 
 In thy clear luting, O thou Laurel-Crowned ! 
 
 And Night, unmindful of her wonted woe, 
 
 Checks her dun tides in their returning flow, 
 Lingering amid her stars and listening long, 
 
 Till thy sun-gate soft-shuts with music slow ; 
 Paian Apollo, Lord of light and song ! 
 
 Whose strain, save thine, assures us, we are blest ? 
 
 Not Hermes', nor that harper's of the sea, 
 Whom the charmed waves once welcomed as their 
 guest, 
 
 Nor Orpheus', nor Amphion's minstrelsy, 
 Nor Pan's reed-murmur, dull bemusing sound, 
 Born in dark places 'neath or near the ground. 
 
 Such strains hold sway o'er thoughtless lives 
 and low. 
 
 But thine unlock all flowerlike souls that blow 
 
80 APOLLO. 
 
 In the sky's gardens ; thoughts that work no 
 wrong ; 
 Truth, Knowledge, Life's undreamed-of em- 
 bryo; 
 
 Paian Apollo, Lord of light and song ! 
 
 Yet oh, how bitter was the Fates' behest, 
 
 Ere thy full prophet-gift was formed in thee ! 
 
 How in poor neatherd's guise thy life confessed 
 
 That the world's king must first a servant be. 
 
 What grief was thine o'er Hyacinth in death- 
 
 swound ! 
 What wandering through the drear North's 
 wintry bound ! 
 What anguish, — with the Love-God for thy 
 
 foe, — 
 To love, still doomed the love-bliss to forego ! 
 Ah me ! how oft thy sons have fared along 
 
 The same sad path and felt the same heart- 
 throe, 
 Paian Apollo, Lord of light and song ! 
 
 But see ! from out his quiver's burning nest 
 
APOLLO. 8 1 
 
 What flame-fledged arrows fly ! Before them 
 flee 
 The Python shapes of dark ill-brooding breast. 
 
 But when thy chosen feel thy dart's decree, 
 They drop this coil without a pang unwound, 
 And pass where songs and nectared feasts abound, 
 
 Now could I taste the sleep thy shafts 
 bestow, 
 
 Die into life and stay no more below, 
 But be as thou art, beautiful and strong, 
 
 Fed on the lore which Gods immortal know, i — 
 Paian Apollo, Lord of light and song ! 
 
 ENVOI. 
 
 God of the Lyre ! to thee thy poets owe 
 All kindling sounds that through their king- 
 dom go. 
 Glory to thee, to whom for aye belong 
 
 The World's wide harp and Thought's fire- 
 shafted bow, — 
 Paian Apollo, Lord of light and song ! 
 
THE WOODLAND STREAM. 
 
 It is not now as it was then, 
 
 Dear Stream, when last I looked on thee ; 
 Thy world of joy, as mine with men, 
 Hath ceased to be. 
 
 'Tis past ; and Winter now is come 
 
 To turn to dross thy summer's gold ; 
 Each hill seems distant ; Earth is dumb ; 
 The sun looks old. 
 
 I scarcely can believe the moon 
 
 Has filled but thrice since I was here. 
 King August kept high court that noon, 
 When I drew near. 
 
 His leafy world with wavelike rush, 
 
 The quick whoop of the whippoorwill 
 And the slow treble of the thrush 
 Were never still. 
 
THE WOODLAND STREAM. 83 
 
 And, as the breezes went and came, 
 
 The cardinal flowers beside thy brink, 
 In one long wavering fringe of flame, 
 Did shake and shrink. 
 
 The joy which Man ne'er understands 
 
 Was thine, thou happy Brook, that day. 
 How thou didst laugh and clap thy hands 
 And bound away ! 
 
 With that, there broke from bird and tree 
 Tumultuous praise, and in their ranks 
 Those cardinal flowers bowed down to thee 
 Along thy banks. 
 
 I praised thee too ; but soon I sighed : — 
 
 Flow on, dear woodland Stream, flow on ; 
 Laugh while thou mayst ; thy summer's pride 
 Will soon be gone. 
 
 Then with the forest's shattered lute 
 Hung silent o'er thy frozen bed, 
 Thou shalt lie motionless and mute, 
 Dead with the dead. 
 
84 THE WOODLAND STREAM. 
 
 Such bodings of my wayward woe 
 
 To-day thy waters put to shame ; 
 Here in their changeless pulse and flow 
 They pass the same. 
 
 Some strength is thine which is not ours ; 
 
 Else, when thy world of joy is gone, 
 Thou couldst not thus through songless bowers 
 Be flowing on. 
 
 Oh, be it mine, when comes the snow 
 
 And hopes no more are on the wing, 
 Like thee in feeling still to flow, 
 Like thee to sing. 
 
TRICHORDON. 
 
 I met at peep of day 
 Sadness, twin daughter of divine Unrest, 
 
 In hood and stole of grey. 
 And Longing, raimented like one distressed. 
 
 With these a Shepherd came 
 
 His eyes and hair like flame, 
 Fingering a double pipe, Desire by name, — 
 Desire who leads his pasturing dreams abroad 
 
 Through fields of hope and fear. To whom, 
 
 " My house," I said, " denies ye room ; " 
 And my heart answered, all unawed, 
 " Sigh, sigh no more." 
 
 I wrought of sheltering leaves 
 A faery house with this sign, "Come not nigh, 
 
 Grief, or thy child that grieves, 
 Young Dream or tongueless Tear or murmuring 
 Sigh, 
 
86 TRICHORDON. 
 
 Or flocks of blithe Desire 
 
 Which fare and feed like fire, 
 Sadness and Longing, to your cells retire. 
 So shall my spirit rest from strain and strife." 
 
 Then, as the dusk which weeps in dew 
 
 O'er the dead sun, a drear voice grew, — 
 O 'twas the voice of Death-in-Life, 
 " Love, love no more." 
 
 My heart said, " Be it so, 
 
 Less love, less care ; no love brings sure relief. 
 Back to his world I throw 
 
 Love's flowers, which fading turn their balms to 
 grief." 
 Forth from my door I spurned 
 Each love-flower Love had earned, 
 
 Turned to my empty house, and, as I turned, 
 
 The stars went wailing slow their dying hymn, 
 And God himself, no more divine, 
 Burned low on Life's last altar-shrine, 
 
 Then sighed to all his worlds death-dim, 
 " Live, live no more." 
 
BENEATH HER FEET. 
 
 Oh, the rich high harvest night, 
 
 When I kissed and called her mine, 
 When the barn was lined with light 
 
 And all flowers of bloomy twine. 
 Twanged the viol, and she came 
 
 In the middle of the floor, 
 And her light steps flew like flame 
 
 Which the west wind bloweth o'er. 
 Vain the bow that flashed so fleet, 
 
 Vain the twittering notes it tried, 
 To the music of her feet 
 
 Sure the fiddle swooned and died. 
 I drew near : 
 And eacfi naked foot that fell 
 Like a smooth pink-tinted shell 
 'Neath her ankle's upward swell, 
 Chimed as clear 
 
S8 BENEATH HER FEET. 
 
 As a faery's wedding bell 
 
 In mine ear. 
 Then I stooped low as I might, Mary, 
 
 To the ground you made so sweet, 
 And I whispered soft ; " Step light, Mary, 
 
 For my heart's beneath your feet." 
 
 Oh, the dreary New Year's eve, 
 
 When Love came in Love's despair, 
 Saying, " Where sweet Love would live, 
 
 Sorrow's self must enter there." 
 For she passed me in the lane, 
 
 Near yon pine, our trysting-place, 
 With proud step and slow disdain 
 
 In her mute and moon-soft face; 
 And she held the rich man's arm, 
 
 She, his last doll tricked out new 
 In the gawds that kept her warm, 
 
 Snow-white plume, silk skirt and shoe. 
 I came near : 
 Each slow scornful step that fell 
 'Neath her ankle's hidden swell 
 
BENEATH HER FEET. 89 
 
 Rang a slow-paced funeral knell, 
 
 Near, more near ; 
 As a lost soul's passing bell 
 
 Tolling drear. 
 Then I stooped low as I might, Mary, 
 
 To your ear, Love's mercy-seat, 
 Sighing ; " Be not proud ; Step light, Mary, 
 This poor heart's beneath your feet." 
 
 See, the blush of spring is here, 
 
 Whilst through all my bloodless frame 
 Autumn spreads its dying year, 
 
 And men know me but by name. 
 By the sea-sprent abbey-wall 
 
 Grows the sward with April bloom, 
 Day by day, till death's low call 
 
 Folds it back to give me room. 
 Soon her eyes shall cease with joy 
 
 In their starry spells to wind him, 
 Soon he'll toss his broken toy 
 
 In the dust of days behind him. 
 Then if near 
 
go BENEATH HER FEET. 
 
 Where I sleep, she seeks the sod, 
 With her foot once more unshod, 
 Hair unbound and blown abroad, 
 
 And her tear 
 Falls like fire which comes from God, — 
 
 Hear me, hear ; 
 Bending low before you part, Mary, 
 
 Let my dust these words repeat ; 
 " O step light ; for this poor heart, Mary, 
 
 Still is yours beneath your feet." 
 
KISSES AND TEARS. 
 
 " Take this, a kiss " — Such words fell on mine ear, 
 
 As through the green gloom of a lawny glade, 
 
 For Love's high feast arrayed 
 In blood-red raiment, Love himself drew near. 
 With motion, voice and look divinely blent, 
 Like one sweet sound of many an instrument, 
 
 He came and breathed on me, then smiled and 
 drew 
 From a small casket stored with balmy bliss 
 
 Such drops of honey-dew, 
 
 As his mouth, beelike, sips 
 
 From the warm, flower-soft lips 
 Of all who ever kissed beneath the moon ; — 
 
 Saying as he gave the boon, 
 "Take this, a kiss." 
 
 " Drink here, a tear : Love needs the seasoning 
 brine." 
 Clad in grey stole with pansies dark inwrought, 
 
92 KISSES AND TEARS. 
 
 Feeding his speechless thought, 
 Love stood and called me to his wayside shrine, 
 Where, grey with grief, many a late-answered 
 
 Prayer 
 Knelt on her knee-worn sanctuary stair, 
 
 While in a cup, with rosemary wreathed and 
 rue, 
 He, priestlike, to their lips and mine brought near 
 The sacramental dew, 
 Drawn from the darkling deep 
 Into which angels weep. 
 Then sighing, " Take this, my second sacrament," 
 He murmured, as he went, 
 "Drink here, a tear." 
 
 " Kisses and tears ! What Love gives, Love must 
 keep." 
 Love spake and came to Life's death-darkened 
 
 house, 
 Black-robed, and round his brows 
 Drooped lotus-flowers and poppies drenched in 
 sleep. 
 
KISSES AND TEARS. 93 
 
 "Give me an alms," he cried, "our house is poor, 
 And she thou lov'st now dwells within our door. 
 
 'Twas I who brought her, I who took her 
 hence, 
 Sealing her thine twice for Time's deathless years 
 
 In my twin sacraments." 
 
 Life's bankrupt, yet Love's heir, 
 
 I knelt in darkness there, 
 And saying, " Take all I have for drink or meat," 
 
 Rained on Love's naked feet 
 Kisses and tears. 
 
THE IMPOSSIBLE SHE. 
 
 Whoe'er she be, 
 
 That not impossible She, 
 
 That shall command my heart and me. 
 
 — Craskaw. 
 
 Far away hangs an apple that ripens on high, 
 The latest-born child of old sun-blind July, 
 Till the summer's warm kiss as he wooes overhead 
 Turns its sour heart to sweetness, its wan cheek to 
 red. 
 But it is not for you, and it is not for me, 
 Nay, it is not for any who here may be ; 
 For its dawning red sweetness, 
 That rounds to completeness, 
 Grows moist for the lips that we never may 
 see. 
 
 There's a white rose leaf-cloistered in heavy noon- 
 hush, 
 
 And no eyes but the stars tempt its pale face to 
 blush, 
 
THE IMPOSSIBLE SHE. 95 
 
 In that wilderness garden where, shut from day's 
 
 beam, 
 Fall its fragrant white leaves light as steps of a 
 dream. 
 But it is not for you, and it is not for me, 
 Nay, it is not for any who here may be ; 
 For it sleeps and then wakes 
 In dew-scented snow-flakes, 
 As a star for the dusk hair we never may see. 
 
 In a green golden valley there grows an elf-girl, 
 And her lip is red-ripe, and her soul, one rich pearl, 
 Yields once to one diver a treasure unpriced 
 As the wine of the Gods or the wine-blood of 
 Christ. 
 But she is not for you, and she is not for me, 
 Nay, she is not for any who here may be ; 
 For her breast like a moon 
 Through the rosed air of June 
 Grows round for his hand whom we never 
 may see. 
 
WHEN LOVE GROWS OLD. 
 
 Now say what thing remains 
 When the smiles fly ; 
 When the lips keep 
 A stillness deep 
 As death or sleep, 
 And the smiles fly ; 
 Now say what thing remains 
 When the smiles fly. 
 
 One thing remains for thee ; 
 
 From grief's moist sphere, 
 Without thy call 
 Ripe fruit will fall, 
 On thee, the thrall 
 Of Love's last fear ; 
 One thing remains for thee, — 
 There comes the tear. 
 
WHEN LOVE GROWS OLD. 97 
 
 Now say what thing remains 
 When the tears pass ; 
 When from grief sown 
 New Love upgrown 
 Leads forth his own, 
 And the tears pass ; 
 Now say what thing remains 
 When the tears pass. 
 
 One thing remains for thee 
 Of perfect bliss ; 
 Without thy call 
 Sweet dew will fall, 
 To lift Love's thrall 
 From Death's abyss ; 
 One thing remains for thee, 
 There comes the kiss. 
 
 Now say what thing remains 
 When kisses die ; 
 
 When Love's bee slips 
 Off the pressed lips 
 And no more sips, 
 
98 WHEN LOVE GROWS OLD. 
 
 And kisses die ; 
 Now say what thing remains 
 When kisses die. 
 
 One thing remains for thee ; 
 There comes a Dove 
 Without thy call, 
 And She lets fall 
 On thee, Heaven's thrall, 
 The fruits thereof ; 
 One thing remains for thee, 
 And that is Love. 
 
 Now say what thing remains 
 When Love grows old ; 
 When the smiles fly, 
 When the tears dry 
 When kisses die, 
 And Love grows old ; 
 Now say what thing remains 
 When Love grows old. 
 
 One thing remains for thee 
 Or soon or late ; 
 
WHEN LOVE GROWS OLD. 99 
 
 Without thy call 
 Strange fruit will fall 
 On thee, the thrall 
 Of loveless fate ; 
 One thing remains for thee, 
 And that — is Hate. 
 
TOMORROW. 
 
 Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow — 
 
 We die. 
 Let us eat and drink. Wherefore borrow 
 
 From griefs that will never come nigh ? 
 
 Spread the feast, pour the wine, 
 
 Wreathe the brows with rose-twine, 
 Woo the harp into pulses of passion divine. 
 
 Remember how soon 
 
 The belfry's dull rune 
 Shall summon us hence from our comrades boon. 
 
 Then deaf to their cry, 
 Unheeding the tears of this sorrow, 
 
 How low we shall lie ! 
 Then, eat and drink, for tomorrow — 
 We die. 
 
 Let us love and laugh, for tomorrow — 
 
 We die. 
 Let us love and laugh. Why should Sorrow 
 
TOMORROW. 101 
 
 Kill Feeling so soon with a sigh ? 
 
 Laugh and love, love and laugh. 
 
 Who mourns lives but half. 
 Life's joy is the grain, its grief is the chaff. 
 
 Rejoice while we may, 
 
 For December's dark day 
 Swift spurs with his scythe our first fancies away, 
 
 And the tear-clouds on high 
 From seas of new anguish will borrow 
 
 To darken thine eye. 
 Then love and laugh, for tomorrow — 
 We die. 
 
 Let us clasp and kiss, for tomorrow — 
 
 We die. 
 Let us clasp and kiss. How can Sorrow 
 
 Endure, while sweet Love stands by ? 
 
 Why live we so far, 
 
 When passion's white star 
 Draws close these two hearts that confederate are ? 
 
 Let our souls mix and flow 
 
 And our quick kisses go, 
 
102 TOMORROW. 
 
 While these breasts are like fire-buds, these brows 
 are of snow. 
 Pluck the sweets that are nigh. 
 Life's our own, not a treasure we borrow 
 
 From Gods in the sky. 
 Then, clasp and kiss, for tomorrow — 
 We die. 
 
AMERICA'S ANSWER. 
 
 1861 — 1885. 
 
 Now twice twelve years ago, 
 When we, through fields of woe, 
 Weeping went forth to sow 
 
 Our blood's red seed, 
 We cried to the old-world land ; 
 " These fresh wounds crave your hand, 
 Help us to balm and band 
 
 In our sore need." 
 
 Then back their message ran ; 
 " Renounce your cloud-born plan, 
 Deeming that man with man 
 
 Can live thus free : 
 Unbind the lictor's rod, 
 Teach old Disdain to nod, 
 Throne Custom for your god 
 
 And — live as We." 
 
104 AMERICA'S ANSWER. 
 
 Those twice twelve years are gone 
 War's harvest work is done, 
 All our stars sing as one 
 
 From sea to sea : 
 While far across the main, 
 Their skies grow black with rain, 
 Where the old world cries in pain, 
 
 " Your help need We." 
 
 Back flies our answering word ; 
 
 " Free your soil, sheathe your sword, 
 
 Live ye in love's accord, 
 
 As men ; be free ; 
 Be one ; — till Peace creates, 
 High above gods and fates, 
 A World's United States, 
 
 And— Live as We." 
 
VIVE VALEQUE. 
 To Robert Dwyer Joyce. 
 
 [In the year 1883, Boston lost, within six weeks, two distin- 
 guished artistic workmen. On the 21st of July died Martin 
 Milmore, the sculptor of the Soldiers' Monument and the 
 Sphinx in Mount Auburn. On the 2d of September, sailed 
 for Ireland, in shattered health, Robert Dwyer Joyce, Poet 
 and Physician, the author of " Deirdre" and " Blanid."] 
 
 O saddest of all the sea's daughters, Ierne, dear 
 
 mother isle, 
 Take home to thy sweet, still waters thy son whom 
 
 we lend thee awhile. 
 Twenty years has he poured out his song, epic 
 
 echoes heard in our street, 
 Twenty years have the sick been made strong as 
 
 they heard the sound of his feet. 
 For few there be in his lands whom Apollo deigns 
 
 to choose, 
 On whose heads to lay both hands in medicine-gift 
 
 and the muse. 
 Double-grieved because double-gifted now take him 
 
 and make strong again 
 
106 VIVE VALEQUE. 
 
 The heart long-winnowed and sifted on the thresh- 
 ing-floor of pain. 
 
 Saving others, he saved not himself, like a ship- 
 master staunch and brave, 
 
 Whose men leave the surge-beaten shelf, while he 
 sinks alone in the wave. 
 
 The child in the night cries "mother," and the 
 mother straight brings peace ; 
 
 Ierne, be kind to our brother; speak thou, and 
 his plague shall cease. 
 
 Thou gavest him once, as revealer, song-breath and 
 the starry scroll, 
 
 Give him now, as the heart's best healer, life-breath 
 and balms for the soul. 
 
 O saddest of all the sad islands, green-girt by thy 
 
 mother the sea, 
 Fold warm, and feed with thy silence the child 
 
 whom we send to thee. 
 Two children thou gavest our city, to stand in the 
 
 stress and strife, 
 
VIVE VALEQUE. 107 
 
 And touch us to holier pity through shapes of the 
 
 deathless life ; 
 One caught in the mountain granite, the other in 
 
 marble of song, 
 Those shadows that fall on our planet from the 
 
 worlds of the Fair and the Strong ; 
 Of those thy two sons thou gavest, one is, but the 
 
 younger is not ; 
 For with all men, even the bravest, strength wanes, 
 
 when the noons wax hot. 
 The wine of his life half tasted, the work of his 
 
 life half done, 
 He sank through earth- wounds that wasted, heart- 
 sore and sick of the sun, 
 The scabbard fell from the sabre, the soul dropped 
 
 its time-worn vest, 
 Then we said, Let this land of his labor be always 
 
 the land of his rest, 
 And always the bronze and the stone that grew 
 
 soft to his touch as flame, 
 Shaped for others, shall now be his own, new-raised 
 
 and emblazed with his name, 
 
108 VIVE VALEQUE. 
 
 And the glimmering shaft that catches the sun's 
 last kiss on his head,* 
 
 And the Sphinx that overwatches the unmurmur- 
 ing streets of the dead, 
 
 Shall call to life's tide where it dashes, and speak 
 of him we deplore, 
 
 Till the sun burns down to ashes, and the moon 
 cries, I rise no more. 
 
 Who shall cancel that which is sealed ? Who shall 
 
 close what the Fates have cleft ? 
 Two men were at work in one field ; one is taken, 
 
 the other left ; 
 He is left in life's mid meadows, nor yet have the 
 
 days begun, 
 When the hand from the valley of shadows draws 
 
 down from the light of the sun ; 
 He lives, and looks round with dread, as a strength- 
 less reaper who grieves, 
 When the last low moon rises red on his rich half 
 
 harvested sheaves. 
 
 * The Soldiers* Monument on Boston Common and the 
 Sphinx at Mount Auburn. 
 
VIVE VALEQUE, 109 
 
 Hast not thou, Ierne, a blossom that scared the 
 
 snake from thy soil, 
 That shall slay the snake in the bosom and wither 
 
 its deadly coil ? 
 Yea, thou hast what we fain would inherit, though 
 
 kings in these isles of the blest, 
 Thou hast for the world-worn spirit some simples 
 
 unfound in the West. 
 Here the field flows with milk and honey, the river 
 
 with spoil divine, 
 Here the clear air is warm with sunny gold cups 
 
 of invisible wine, 
 Self-trust and Toil are defiant, and Freedom is 
 
 mightier than these, 
 And Wealth spreads his couch, like a giant, silk- 
 smooth for the sides of Ease, 
 And gilds man and man with his million, and fast 
 
 as he flies through the heat, 
 White cabin and purple pavilion are stirred with the 
 
 storm of feet. 
 But what soil, thou Eden of islands, can match thy 
 
 red and white store, 
 
no VIVE VALEQUE. ' 
 
 The roses of health on thy highlands, the lilies of 
 
 love on thy shore ? 
 What land lies emerald-valleyed, inlaid with lakelet 
 
 and lawn, 
 Where the spirit is swifter rallied, reclothed as 
 
 with lights of the dawn ? 
 Or where comes with starrier splendor the touch 
 
 of a light-breathing fan, 
 To scatter the chaff, and make tender and affluent 
 
 the spirit of man ? 
 There a courtier is found in the cot, and a prince 
 
 in the poor man's shed, 
 With a soul sorrow-born, love-begot, rocked and 
 
 cradled in thoughts of the dead, 
 A soul like a wind-harp that plays all tones of 
 
 laughter and tears, 
 Now burns, now in dying delays woos us back 
 
 through its dream of the years. 
 There the neediest spreads you the last of his earth 
 
 apples dug from the ground, 
 And the salt of his wit turns the fast to a feast 
 
 where dainties abound, — 
 
VIVE VALEQUE. in 
 
 Smile and tear and manna-dropt speech freely 
 
 shed on the least word he saith, 
 And high-soaring thought beyond reach and the 
 
 love of his land to the death. 
 
 Sweetest isle of old white-haired Ocean, breathe 
 
 new in this child of thy love 
 A spirit whose musical motion is light as the wings 
 
 of a dove, 
 While hence, from palace and purlieu, our messen- 
 ger-thoughts on the breeze 
 Shall reach him through cry of curlew and call of 
 
 sundering seas, 
 Where perchance, in the shore-wind's breathing, 
 
 he looks from some headland height, 
 His westward-bound thoughts bequeathing to the 
 
 sun ere he sinks in night, 
 Or haply mid stones of the olden and perilous places 
 
 of fear, 
 He rears a new song-palace, golden with dreams of 
 
 meadow and mere, 
 
ii2 VIVE VALEQUE. 
 
 Mab's realm, the swart Connaught Queen, faery- 
 bugles blown thro' the sky, 
 Magic shores, which once to have seen is to live 
 
 and never die ; 
 Where Benbulben, lonely and solemn, looks forth 
 
 tow'rd dark Donegal, 
 O'er the endless Atlantic column that foams round 
 
 Sliev League's rock-wall, 
 Down whose cliff the Gods drave their share and 
 
 its face with long furrows ploughed, 
 When they planted as king of the air, crag-throned 
 
 and ermined with cloud, 
 The far-sighted, sun-gazing eagle to scream to the 
 
 deep his decree, 
 Low-boomed in organ-tones regal and vassal voices 
 
 of sea. 
 
 O saddest of all the sea's daughters, Ierne, sweet 
 
 mother isle, 
 Say, how canst thou heal at thy waters the son 
 
 whom we lend thee awhile ? 
 
VIVE VALEQUE. 113 
 
 When the gathering cries implore thee to help and 
 to heal thy kind, 
 
 When thy dying are strewn before thee, thy living 
 ones crouch behind, 
 
 When about thee thy perishing children cling, cry- 
 ing, " Thou only art fair, 
 
 We have seen through Life's maze bewildering how 
 the earth-gods never spare : " 
 
 And the wolves blood-ripe with slaughter gnar at 
 thee with fangs of steel ; 
 
 Thou, Emerald Star of the water, hast many chil- 
 dren to heal. 
 
 Yet heal him, Ierne, dear mother, thy days with 
 his days shall increase, 
 
 At the song of this Delphic brother, nigh half of 
 thy pangs shall cease. 
 
 Nor art thou, sweet friend, in a far land, — all 
 
 places are near on the globe, 
 Our greeting wear for thy garland, our love for thy 
 
 festival robe, 
 
ii4 VIVE VALEQUE. 
 
 While we keep through glory and gloom two altar- 
 candles for thee, 
 Thy " Blanid " of deathless doom, and thy dead 
 
 but undying " Deirdre." 
 And may He who builds in his patience the houses 
 
 which death reveals, 
 Round whom the far constellations are dust from 
 
 his chariot-wheels, 
 Who showers his coin without scorning, each day 
 
 as he issues it bright, 
 The sun as his gold in the morning, the stars as his 
 
 silver at night, 
 The love which feedeth the sparrow and watcheth 
 
 the little leaf, 
 Which guideth the death-laden arrow and counteth 
 
 each grain of grief, 
 Change thy life-chant from its minor and spread 
 
 thy spirit serene, 
 As gold before the refiner whose face is reflected 
 
 therein. 
 
SONNET. 
 
 James Abram Garfield, September 19th, 1881. 
 
 Lo ! as a pure white statue wrought with care 
 By some strong hand that moulds with tear and 
 
 sigh 
 Beauty more beautiful than things that die, 
 And straight 'tis veiled ; and whilst all men repair 
 To see this wonder in the workshop, there ! 
 Behold, it gleams unveiled to curious eye, 
 Far-seen, high-placed in Art's pale gallery, 
 Where all stand mute before a work so fair : 
 So he, our man of men, in vision stands, 
 With Pain and Patience crowned imperial ; 
 Death's veil has dropped ; far from this house of 
 woe 
 He hears one love-chant out of many lands, 
 Whilst from his mystic morn-height he lets fall 
 His shadow o'er these hearts that bleed below. 
 
FRYEBURG — 1882. 
 
 No vale with purer peace the spirit fills 
 
 Than thine, Fryeburg the fair, Fryeburg the free. 
 
 Dear are thy men and maidens unto me ; 
 Holy the smokeless altars of thy hills ; 
 
 Sacred thy wide, moist meadows, where the morn 
 
 Delays for very love ; divinely born 
 Those drooping tresses of thy feathery elms, 
 
 That lisp of cool delight through dreams of noon ; 
 
 Gentle thy Saco's tides, that creep and croon, 
 Lapsing and lingering through hushed forest- 
 realms, 
 
 Which love the song-bird's boon. 
 
 But neither vale nor hill nor field nor tree 
 Nor stream nor forest had this day been ours, 
 Nor would sweet English speech in Fryeburg' s 
 bowers 
 
 This night be heard across her lake and lea, — 
 Our seamless flag had been in pieces riven, 
 
FRYEBURG. 117 
 
 Nor had we been, beneath its blue, starred 
 heaven, 
 A nation one and indivisible, — 
 
 Had not two spirits come to range and reign 
 
 Here over sand-girt Saco's green domain, 
 The one with sword, th* other with prophet-spell, — 
 
 Webster and Chamberlain. 
 
 Two crowns of glory clasp thy calm, chaste brow. 
 O ye strong hills, bear witness to my verse, 
 Thou " Maledotto," mountain of the curse,* 
 
 Chocorua, blasted by thy chief, and thou, 
 
 Kearsarge, slope-shouldered monarch of this 
 
 vale, 
 Who gav'st thy conquering name to that swift 
 sail 
 
 Which caught in Gallic seas the rebel bark, 
 And downward drove the Alabama s pride 
 To deep sea-sleep in Cherbourg's ravening tide, 
 
 * Mt. Maledotto, the Chocorua of the Pyrenees, is entirely 
 destitute of vegetation, the supposed result of a malediction 
 like that pronounced by the Indian chieftain. 
 
n8 FRYEBURG. 
 
 What time faint Commerce watched a nation's ark 
 Sinking with shattered side. 
 
 Speak, ye historian pine-woods, where ye stand, 
 And thou bald scalp, like the bald crown of 
 
 time,* 
 Lifted above thy sylvan sea sublime, 
 
 And ye still shores, reaches of golden sand, 
 
 Linked like a necklace round your Lovell's lake, 
 Speak, for ye saw how, when the morning brake, 
 
 Brave Chamberlain, and men like Chamberlain, 
 Like lions turned, where round them in fell scorn 
 Leaped from their lairs a thousand flushed with 
 morn, 
 
 And fought, death-loving, grand in life's disdain, 
 Till eve's first star was born. 
 
 Then fell the peerless, fearless, cheerless chief, 
 Paugus, between this water and that wood, 
 Staining the yellow strand with Indian blood, 
 
 Death-struck by Chamberlain ; and straight in grief 
 
 * Equestrian fancy calls the scalp-like rock overhanging 
 "Jockey Cap." 
 
FRYEBURG. 119 
 
 The Indian vanished, and the English came, 
 And laid on this lone mere their LovelFs name, 
 
 Lovell who led them : thus the northern land 
 From Kearsarge to Katahdin, and the State 
 Named from the Pine, lay open as a gate 
 
 For Saxon steps to reach St. Lawrence strand, 
 Clear of wild war's debate. 
 
 A century, half a hundred years, and seven, 
 Each like a pilgrim from eternity 
 With sandals of soft silence creeping by, 
 Have paced thy streets, and hied them home to 
 heaven, 
 Sweet Fryeburg, since thy Lovell's battle-day 
 Wove the pine-wreath which welcomes no decay ; 
 But grandsire Time, who crowns men with both 
 hands, 
 Giving to him that hath, decreed that thou, 
 Ere fourscore years, shouldst bind about thy 
 brow 
 A second wreath, culled from thy meadow-lands 
 And the elm's peaceful bough. 
 
120 FRYEBURG. 
 
 Then Judgment rose on swift, storm-shadowed 
 wings,* 
 
 And pitying Man, heart-sick with vain desire, 
 
 Sent him new Gods, mist-robed and crowned 
 
 with fire, 
 
 To trace with flame-like hands the doom of kings. 
 
 Through the worn world, like throb of morning 
 
 drum, 
 
 Pealed the fierce shout, — the new Gods' reign is 
 
 come ; 
 
 And new-risen stars, ablaze round Man's new bride. 
 
 Came down to sing at Freedom's marriage feast 
 
 When through the listening lands of West and 
 
 East, 
 
 A Daniel rose for judgment on each side 
 
 Where the Atlantic ceased. 
 
 * " A Daniel come to judgment, yea, a Daniel." Two young 
 champions of popular freedom, each bearing this name, arose 
 almost in the same hour on either side of the Atlantic. In 1800, 
 while the bells of St. Patrick's Cathedral were ringing triumph- 
 antly oyer the downfall of the old Irish Parliament, young 
 Daniel O'Connell rose in the Corn Exchange, Dublin, and 
 delivered his maiden speech. In 1802 young Daniel Webster 
 spoke for the first time, and in the spirit of the same political 
 principles. 
 
FRYEBURG. 121 
 
 Twenty rich summers glowed along his veins 
 When from New Hampshire's high-born hills a 
 
 youth 
 Came down, a seeker and a sayer of sooth, 
 To stand beneath these elms, and shake the reins 
 That steer the heart of boyhood's fiery prime. 
 They called him Daniel Webster, and the chime 
 Measured the sliding hours with smooth, slow 
 stroke, 
 While he sat registering the deed, and wrought 
 As though the wide world watched him : swift 
 in thought, 
 But slow in speech ; yet once, when once he spoke, 
 Then an archangel taught. 
 
 'Twas Magna Charta's morning in July, 
 
 When, in that temple reared of old to Truth, 
 He rose, in the bronze bloom of blood-bright 
 youth, 
 
 To speak, what he re-spake when death was nigh.* 
 Strongly he stood, Olympian-framed, with front 
 
 * Webster, in his last speech in the Senate, repeated the 
 peroration of his Fryeburg oration ; an example of the law 
 under which many other supreme artists have been led to 
 work over and enlarge the lines of their life's first efforts. 
 
122 FRYEBURG. 
 
 Like some carved crag where sleeps the light- 
 ning's brunt ; 
 Black, thunderous brows, and thunderous deep- 
 toned speech 
 Like Pericles, of whom the people said, 
 That, when he spake, it thundered ; round him 
 spread 
 The calm of summer nights when the stars teach 
 In silence overhead. 
 
 Lift up thy head, behold thy citizen, 
 
 O Fryeburg ! From thy cloistered shades 
 came he, — 
 
 Who came like many more who come from 
 thee, — 
 To teach the cities how the hills make men. 
 
 Guard thy unabdicated pastoral throne, 
 
 God-kept within thy God-made mountain zone, — 
 Of Truth, of Love, of Peace, the worshipper ; 
 
 Keep fresh thy double garland, and hand down 
 
 This my last leaf woven in thy Webster's crown, 
 And leave lean Envy's loathed, unkennelled cur 
 
 To bark at his renown. 
 
A NEW ENGLAND WINTER SONG. 
 
 FOREFATHERS' DAY, DECEMBER 22. 
 
 Who cradled thee on the rock, my boy, 
 
 Far, far from the sun-warm South ? 
 Who woke thee with shout and shock, my boy, 
 
 And spray for a kiss on thy mouth, 
 As the low, sad shores grew dim with rain 
 And the grey sea moaned its infinite pain 
 To grey grass and pale sands, thy sole domain ? 
 Who cradled thee on the rock ? 
 
 I brought thee into the wilderness, 
 
 When thou didst cry to me, 
 And I gave thee there in thy sore distress 
 
 The rock and the cloud and the sea ; 
 With baptismal waves thy limbs were wet, 
 And the ragged cloud was thy coverlet, — 
 Thus saith the Lord God : Dost thou forget ? 
 
 I cradled thee on the rock. 
 
124 NEW ENGLAND WINTER SONG. 
 
 Who shadowed thee with the cloud, my boy ; 
 
 And the stars forgat to shine, 
 And the sun lay as dead in his shroud, my boy, 
 
 And thy tears were to thee for wine ? 
 Who took from thee every pleasant thing, 
 Sweet sounds that are drawn from stop and string, 
 Day's dream and the night's glad banqueting ? 
 
 Who shadowed thee with the cloud ? 
 
 I broke thy slumber with clarion storms, 
 
 I called like a midnight bell, 
 Till thou saw'st thro' the dark the spirit-forms, 
 
 Heaven's glow and the glare of hell ; 
 And then, that thou mightest know God's grace 
 And drink his love-wine and see his face, 
 I drew thee into my secret place, — 
 
 I shadowed thee with the cloud. 
 
 Who fenced thee round with the sea, my boy, 
 
 And locked its gates amain ? 
 Who, to set thy fathers free, my boy, 
 
 Burst the bars of the deep in twain, 
 
NEW ENGLAND WINTER SONG. 125 
 
 And led them by ways they knew not of, 
 When the black storm spread its wings above 
 And thundered, My God is Law, not Love ! 
 Who fenced thee round with the sea ? 
 
 I set thee beyond where the great sea ran, 
 
 I made thee to dwell apart, 
 For in the divisions of man from man 
 
 Come the mighty searchings of heart ; 
 I, the Lord, who moved on the waters old, 
 Who sought for a heart like the seas heart, — 
 
 bold, 
 Unchartered, chainless, and myriad-souled — 
 
 I fenced thee round with the sea. 
 
ODE TO GENERAL PORFIRIO DIAZ.* 
 
 EX-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF MEXICO. 
 
 I. 
 
 Open thy storm-dark doors, dear Northern Land, 
 Star-diademed, pale Priestess of the free, 
 Walled round by wind and water and that grey 
 sea 
 Whose morning psalm salutes his Pilgrims' strand, 
 O thou to whom all great things thought and 
 
 done 
 Are dear, all fights for Freedom lost or won, 
 Queen of the earth's free states, 
 Open to him thy gates, 
 This champion of the children of the Sun ; 
 To him who with his king-destroying rod 
 Wiped the last king-curse from the southern 
 sod 
 
 * Read at the banquet in Boston, April nth, 1883. 
 
ODE TO GENERAL DIAZ. 127 
 
 Bring the loud welcome which the freeman 
 
 brings, 
 When his full harp is struck thro' all its strings 
 
 With music born of God. 
 
 II. 
 
 He comes a hero to a heroes' home, 
 
 New England's hills, peal forth your thrice All 
 
 Hail, 
 Far as the Gulf, till every seaward sail 
 Bends low to hear, and Orizaba's dome 
 
 Heaves his flame-hearted breast of barren brown 
 And breaks the frosts that bind his helmet- 
 crown, 
 To see his realm re-born, 
 Which late the old worlds could scorn, 
 Now nearer to life's flowering marge of morn ; 
 To see his country's chief and chosen thereof 
 In war and peace its eagle and its dove, 
 Called here to reap the far fruits of past pain 
 And bear New England's blessing to New Spain 
 With the strong Northman's love. 
 
128 ODE TO GENERAL DIAZ. 
 
 III. 
 
 The Pine-tree waves her peace-pledge to the Palm, 
 Sending sweet grace and greeting, not as they 
 Who greet and give not. For in time's past day, 
 Ere thy quick South roused from their summer- 
 calm 
 Her baby Hopes adream on wings warm-furled, 
 Our seedplot for all gardens of the world 
 Nursed through its bud and birth 
 One tree, till the whole earth 
 Owned its circumferent leaves and giant girth ; 
 Whence winnowed by the northwind's wings 
 
 of power 
 A fire-seed smote thy soil, and lo ! a bower, 
 A blossom-blaze, a Maytime glorious. 
 O gardener, what is this thou bringest us ? 
 Our freedom's far-sown flower. 
 
 IV. 
 
 O Tree of Liberty, thou Tree of Life, 
 
 Without thee what were all the golden South ? 
 The Cid's rich song from ripe Castilian mouth ; 
 
ODE TO GENERAL DIAZ. 129 
 
 The eyes' black velvet of each gay girl-wife ; 
 The scarlet nopal, jasmine's earth-born star ; 
 The low bird-language of the light guitar 
 
 Wooed by love's wandering hand ; 
 
 And teocalli grand, 
 With scroll and sculptured face of mild command; 
 
 Queretaro's wave-worn arches, one long mile 
 
 Of marching giants ; Viga's floating isle ; 
 Cholula's hill-shrine of the all-worshipped Sun ; 
 Huge cypress shade ; all Aztec spoils in one, 
 
 Without thee were most vile. 
 
 V. 
 
 Look whither Nature leads thee, soldier-priest ; 
 Not South to soil war-scourged and thunder- 
 scarred, 
 Not West where friendship fails thee ocean- 
 barred, 
 Not to the palsied, mad, monarchic East, 
 Dazzling with sunlike gems of gay romance 
 And backward gaze fixed in tradition's trance, 
 Who sent across the main 
 
T30 ODE TO GENERAL DIAZ. 
 
 The monkish spawn of Spain, 
 And Austria's yellow plague and black Bazaine, 
 To lash thy land with battle's gory shower 
 And cage thee in Puebla's dungeon-tower, 
 Whence rushed thy eagle spirit new-fledged,. 
 
 and burst 
 The death-folds of the serpent crowned and 
 cursed, 
 When hell lost half her power. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The strongest Gods dwell ever in the North, 
 In labor's land and sorrow's ; but at length 
 Labor and sorrow bring the perfect strength. 
 See, from Ezekiel's northern hills leaps forth 
 The car of crystal floor and sapphire throne, 
 In amber-colored light and rainbow zone, 
 On self-moved beryl wheels, 
 Through fire-mist that reveals 
 Man, its great charioteer, aloft, alone, 
 
 Where round him float three mystic shapes 
 divine, 
 
ODE TO GENERAL DIAZ. 131 
 
 Cloven foot of steer, and starred wing aquiline, 
 And lion's regal mane ready to rise, 
 Like slumbering Law, on all its enemies, 
 In strength, O guest, like thine. 
 
 VII. 
 
 So to thy home sweeps down unconquerable 
 Our iron chariot of the prophet's dream, 
 Fire-fledged and clothed in cloud and wreathed 
 with steam, 
 Flashed like a poet's thought through all — cleft 
 hill, 
 Rent rock and rolling flood and fiery sand, 
 Laden with Life's humanities, not the brand 
 Of widow-making war, 
 To blast thy fields afar, 
 Like burnings of the intolerable star. 
 
 So flies the thunder-bearing steed of flame 
 Waking each southern silence with his name,* 
 King of his kinsman round the stormy cape, 
 
 * Thomas Nickerson, Esq., president of the Mexican Cen- 
 tral Railroad. 
 
132 ODE TO GENERAL DIAZ. 
 
 Whose heart, head, hand to purpose, plan and 
 shape, 
 Win him a conquerer's fame. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Thee, latest-born, self-liberated State, 
 
 Earth, heaven and thy two Oceans wait to bless. 
 Our blessing also take, with love not less, 
 As of thy sister ever inseparate, 
 
 And take thy place in the immemorial line 
 Of those that soared and sang with hopes 
 like thine, 
 And with voice clear, and strong, 
 And piercing sweet, prolong 
 The choral thunders of their mighty song, 
 Till earth's new Man, touched by the spirit 
 
 breeze, 
 Shall wake to morn's memnonian melodies, 
 Bright as when Daybreak from his rosy home 
 Stains with his blood-red life the furrowed foam 
 Of sunward-surging seas. 
 
ZEUS AND EUROPA. 
 
 AN IDYL. 
 [from the greek of moschus — b. c. 300 — 200.] 
 Once to Europa came a vision sweet 
 From Venus, at that hour 'twixt dark and dawn 
 When honeyed Sleep brooding o'er calm-shut eyes 
 Unchains the limbs and seals the lids of man, 
 What time true Dreams fare forth in pasturing 
 flocks. 
 
 High in her palace-chamber, as she slept, 
 Europa, child of Phoenix, virgin pure, 
 Her seemed that Asia and its adverse shore 
 Rose, like two rival women, and claimed her hand. 
 One wore a stranger's garb, the other seemed 
 Of her own land, who clung to her and cried : 
 "This child I bore and nursed her for mine own." 
 But she, that other, haled her thence perforce, 
 A willing prize as thus she heard her speak : 
 " High Zeus, Europa, hath foredoomed thee mine." 
 
134 ZEUS AND EURO PA. 
 
 Up from her couch the maid in terror sprang 
 With beating heart, so real was the dream, 
 And long she sat in wondering trance, and still 
 Before her waking eyes those women came. 
 At last she raised her trembling voice, and said : 
 " What God in heaven hath sent these phantoms 
 
 forth ? 
 What bode these dreams that hovering o'er my bed 
 Chase the sweet sleep from this my cloistered 
 
 bower ? 
 And who that stranger whom in dreams I saw ? 
 How my heart yearned for her, and kindly, too, 
 She greeted me, and looked a mother's love. 
 Blest Gods, with happy issues crown my dream." 
 
 Then rising sought she those companions dear, 
 Her peers in age, loved of her heart, high-born, 
 Her mates, whene'er she decked her for the dance, 
 Or bathed her bright form in the seaward stream, 
 Or culled the fragrant lilies on the lea. 
 And straight she found them, each with basket, 
 bound 
 
ZEUS AND EUROPA. 135 
 
 In quest of flowers, and to the leas they fared 
 
 Hard by the sea, the haunts they loved so well, 
 
 Sweet with the bloom of rose and dash of waves. 
 
 Now fair Europa's basket was of gold, 
 
 A miracle of art, Hephcestus' work, 
 
 Which he to Libya gave on that high day 
 
 When first she graced the Earth-Shaker's bridal 
 
 bed: 
 She to fair Telephassa passed it down, 
 As near of kin, and she on her child unwed, 
 Europa, next bestowed the priceless gift. 
 Wherein was many a rich and rare device ; 
 There shone Inachian Io wrought in gold. 
 In heifer-shape, waiting her woman's form ; 
 With restless feet she pawed the bitter brine, 
 Tike one who swims ; the sea was blue inwrought ; 
 High on a cloven headland groups of men 
 With wonder saw a heifer roam the sea. 
 And there stood Zeus, and stroked with hand divine 
 His horned care, till by Nile's sevenfold flood 
 The heifer took the woman's shape once more. 
 In silver ran the Nile, the cow was bronze, 
 
136 ZEUS AND EUROPA. 
 
 The god was gold, and round the basket's rim 
 Was Hermes quaintly carved, and there, out- 
 stretched 
 Beside him, Argus with his sleepless eyes, 
 While from his crimson blood uprose a bird 
 Proud in its plumage gay with many flowers, 
 Whose train outspread, like to some full-winged 
 
 ship, 
 O'erlaid the basket's lips with feathers bright ; 
 Such was the heirloom in Europa's hand. 
 
 Into the blooming leas the maidens came 
 
 And each with glad heart culled some favorite 
 
 flower, 
 Here the narcissus, there the hyacinth, 
 The violet, and the creeping thyme, till the earth 
 Lay thick-strewn with the falling blooms of spring : 
 Some ran to pluck the crocus' yellow locks, 
 But in their midst the princess proudly shone, 
 Gathering the glories of the crimson rose, 
 As mid her Graces shines the Foam-born Queen. 
 But she not long might feast her heart on flowers,. 
 
ZEUS AND EURO PA. 137 
 
 Nor long might keep her maiden zone unbound. 
 
 For soon as Zeus beheld her, was he snared, 
 
 Soul-smitten by a love-dart unforeseen 
 
 From her, sole conqueress e'en of Zeus himself. 
 
 But to escape his Hera's jealous wrath 
 
 And win with stealth the maiden's untried heart, 
 
 He veiled his Godhead and became a bull ; 
 
 Not such as those that feed in earthly stalls 
 
 Or draw the share, ploughing the furrowed field, 
 
 Or crop the grass or hale the loaded wain. 
 
 His bulk was clothed in hide of golden hue, 
 
 Between his brows a snow-white circle gleamed, 
 
 And soft desire flashed from those pale blue eyes, 
 
 O'er which, like circlets of the crescent moon, 
 
 In even balance rose the branching horns. 
 
 He came into the lea ; no fear possessed 
 Those maidens, but a love to come and touch 
 The beauteous bull, who sweeter than the breath 
 Of meadow shed immortal odors round. 
 Now before chaste Europa's feet he stood, 
 
138 ZEUS AND EUROPA. 
 
 And licked her neck, and soothed her with his 
 
 spells. 
 She too caressed him, and with gentle hand 
 Wiped the thick foam away, and kissed the bull, 
 Then softly lowed he that ye fain had said 
 Ye heard the clear sweet sound of Phrygian flutes. 
 Low-stooping, he presented his broad back, 
 Whereat her rich-haired maidens she bespake : 
 " Come on, my playmates, let us mount this bull, 
 And seat ourselves for sport ; he will upbear 
 Like a stout ship, the burthen of us all. 
 How mild he looks, and gentle, how unlike 
 All creatures of his sort ; yea, mind he has 
 Right good, and lacks but speech to be a man." 
 
 She said, and smiling, sat her on his back, 
 
 The rest were following, but he started up, 
 
 His prize now won, and bore her to the deep. 
 
 Europa turned, and called and called again 
 
 To her dear mates, and stretched out helples* 
 
 hands. 
 But from the sea-marge, dolphin-like he flew 
 
ZEUS AND EUROPA. 139 
 
 Athwart the waves with cloven foot unwet. 
 Before his coming all the sea grew calm, 
 And huge things gambolled round the feet of Zeus. 
 Up through the swell the dolphin flounced in glee ; 
 The Nereids peeped above the brine, and came 
 All charioted on the backs of sea-born shapes ; 
 The Earth-Shaker rose, and sent his deep sea- 
 voice 
 Abroad, and laid each wave, and led the way 
 For his own brother ; all about him trooped 
 The Tritons, trumpeters of the flowing deep, 
 Who blew from wreathed shells a bridal strain. 
 
 But seated on the bull-formed back of Zeus 
 
 Europa went, one hand held fast a horn, 
 
 The other updrew her garment's purple fold, 
 
 Lest the salt foam should wet its loosening train. 
 
 Her swelling vest orbed out in arching folds 
 
 A bellying sail to waft her on her way. 
 
 Far from her native land when now no more 
 
 She saw its wave-washed coast, its climbing hills, 
 
 Round her with fearful glance she looked, and said : 
 
140 ZEUS AND EUROPA. 
 
 " Whither dost thou bear me, Bull-God ? Who 
 
 art thou 
 That with unwonted foot canst traverse thus 
 The sea, undaunted ? Seas are ploughed by ships, 
 Not steers, which always shun the salt-sea deep ? 
 What food, what sweet drink drawest thou from 
 
 the brine ? 
 Nor dolphins tread the land, nor steers the sea, 
 But thou o'er sea and land unterrified 
 With each high-lifted hoof oarest thy way. 
 Nay, soon perhaps above yon light blue sky 
 Thou next wilt soar as winged bird in flight. 
 Ah ! woe is me, most wretched ! Woe is me, 
 That left my father's home, following this bull, 
 A lonely wanderer bound for lands unknown ! 
 But, O thou Shaker of the seas and shores, 
 In mercy come, thee dimly I descry 
 Smoothing the perilous path whereon I go, — 
 Not without God I roam this watery waste." 
 
 And answer made the Bull of spreading horns, 
 " Courage, dear maid, fear not the swelling tide. 
 
ZEUS AND EUROPA. 141 
 
 Know, I am Zeus. What if this visible mould 
 Be bull, I can assume what shape I will — 
 My love of thee hath drawn me in this form 
 To measure out great spaces of salt sea. 
 Yonder is Crete, that shall receive thee soon, 
 My cradle once, and now thy bridal bower. 
 Yea, sired by me, thy sons shall glorious rise 
 To stretch the sceptre-staff across the world." 
 
 No sooner said than done. Crete rose in view, 
 And Zeus resumed his godlike shape once more. 
 The Hours adorned their bed. He loosed her 
 
 zone, 
 And she, a maiden once, became a bride ; 
 A matron next, and mother of his babes. 
 
THE IDYL OF THE SPRING. 
 
 FROM THE GREEK OF BION (b. C. 280). 
 
 [Wherein Kle*odemus,a countryman, enquireth of Myrson, 
 which season pleaseth him most; whereunto Myrson, who is 
 y« older and eke ye godlier swain, maketh answer and addeth 
 his reasons therefor.] 
 
 KLEODEMUS. 
 
 Myrson, which to thee is sweetest of the seasons 
 
 of the year ? 
 Spring ; full autumn ; winter ; summer ; — whose 
 
 loved presence comes most dear ? 
 Summer? when each task is ended, and our toil 
 
 and moil is o'er ; 
 Or lush autumn ? when men lack not through the 
 
 fullness of her store ; 
 Or cold winter ? when they work not, for 'tis then 
 
 that drowsed and warm 
 One and all yield up their senses to the fireside's 
 
 listless charm ; 
 Or hath springtide, with her beauty, greater power 
 
 to soothe and please ? 
 Say whilst leisure courts our converse, which dost 
 
 thou prefer of these ? 
 
THE IDYL OF THE SPRING. 143 
 
 MYRSON. 
 
 That we mortals should give sentence on God's 
 works is most unmeet, 
 
 For these seasons all are sacred, and whate'er he 
 makes is sweet, 
 
 Yet to please thee, Kleodemus, I will say which 
 suits me best. 
 
 Summer, I would ne'er desire thee, with thy swel- 
 tering suns oppressed, 
 
 Mellow autumn, thee I choose not, for thy ripe 
 fruits bring disease. 
 
 Cruel winter, how I dread thee and thy snows and 
 skies that freeze, 
 
 But O spring, thrice loved and longed for, be thou 
 with me all the year, 
 
 Then shall neither frost nor burthen of the burn- 
 ing heat be near. 
 
 In the spring the earth, o'erteeming, bears all 
 sweet things blooming bright, 
 
 And, like gifts in equal measure, falls the dark and 
 dawns the light. 
 
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