PS :35o5 I9zi Class _ Book- 3_5:^__S ^Qii±AU GopightN"- /^?_ / CQEffilGHT DEPOSIT. IDOOD "\7 oices ^ itWn (J^ leself "Life is but thought ; so think I will". —Coleridge. EDITION TWO HUNDRED FIFTY COPIES COPYRIGHT 1921 BY THE AUTHOR WALTER J. COATES iSolUarian fireee HARTLAND, VERMONT Hugust 1921 DEDICATION To those who dream dreams, sing songs, and see visions even in this wealth-crazed ''movie"-mad age; who dare to cherish the Spirit of Idealism ; and who insist on ex- pressing life in the terms of Idealism at whatever cost. OCT -8 1921 §)CI.A627147 MOOD SONGS The Unspoken D UMB are words, For hearts in travail blunder; Music baffles sound And lightning outleaps thunder: Thoughts outbulk expression, And in our groping speech Imagination flounders Toward a symbol out of reach. ^^ <:^ 3 '^j> «SSi«55?Cj3|^ MOOD SONGS & A Dream of Peace {August 1917) BATHOMLESS the Sea of Life Whose depths are stirred By passion and by discord As of strife and war of jarring interests. Deep the hate Engendered by this lack of mutual trust And concord among men. Warring waves Of racial aims ; the tides Of social feeling long represt; The quarrels and piques of regal families; The lust for nascent markets of the world All these, combined with greed of power and gold, Make rough the ways of progress and of travel Toward Love's Unbounded Shore. The chart mismarkt The compass led astray by false polarity- God's plans are mockt And Time put out of joint. Be ours the task To seize the rudder of this world astray— This ship without a Pilot— And to the haven of untroubled Peace And Love and Life unfettered — to this bourne !^ WITHIN MYSELF «Sa(J>^S« Whence Christ and Mahmed beckon — Whence the voice Of poet, sage, and prophet vainly calls Direct the course of action and ideal Of wayward man. So shall the singer sing again Of sunny banks and gladsome pebbled brooks- Dear common flowers and blushing violets ; So shall the dreamer revel in his books And journey far to worlds uncharted — far Beyond the ken of present mortal eye. The Isles of Greece are not more luring than Those Isles of Fortune That wait upon a Universe of Peace. Selfhood in Extremes I SEEK within myself the magic springs Of more abounding Life And on sure wings Of mine own selfhood to surmount the strife That wages war betwixt my two extremes : One soaring up the starlit heights of Heaven, One faltering down the vacuous deeps of Hell. •SS^«^C!>g& MOO© SONGS /* To a Wind-Storm (March 1918) "^TBHT^ HIRLING, swirling, circling snow ! ^ W F Your prismy crystals clear ^^\^ The gusty wind of March is fiercely toss- ing; The rising sun your serried banks are bossing With sheen of silver lit by liquid glow. Moaning, groaning, shivering wind ! Death's wail is in your voice: — The sigh of troubled Spirits vainly crying Shrill requiems for Winter now a-dying — Erewhile so vivid— phantomed on the mind. Sad, sad and soul-depressing weather !— Omen from lofty crag, from lowland heather — Out of old Winter's lust the vigor teasing. Fair birthright of young Spring so boldly seizing. Haunting the liquid air! Type of the bonded Soul and fleeting breath! The rigors of your sway. To solemn dirge the heart-chords tensely trying. Proclaim that here the sick and there the djnng Drink deeply soon of Lethe and of Death. ^^ MOOD SONGS i» Conscription The Feelings of a Registrant OTHE WAR is reaching for me, and I hear its rumbling roar, And I sense the battle's turmoil from afar ; But I feel the soft caresses and I see the curly tresses Of my children here at home where my feet are fain to roam: And I dread to loose the anchor and heave out a- cross the tides Of those bloody surging billows where the Ark of Battle rides ! For the wonted ties are pulling back where tender tears will fall, And my wife will feel the home-life growing drear ; But I hear the boys a-tramping where the nations are revamping All the policy and rage of a falsely tutored age. And my heart is set a-throbbing with a mighty tense desire To emulate the heroes who have braved the flam- ing fire! For Democracy was falling ; and Humanity now calls For the sons who built her temples in the west: And the "Rights of Man" still beckon where the Friends of Man will reckon With the Kaiser and his dreams for the misery and screams That have chilled the heart of Europe from that fa- tal August day When the hounds of War he loosened— and we'll beat him if we may! AUGUST 19. 191 «^ WITHIN MYSELF i^^5S» Premonitions ^23rN AUTUMN atmosphere's transparent glare ^JR^ Records each quivering leaf and everywhere In glistening sunshine glorifies the scene Without. Far off, in bold and serried banks Balsam and fir and pine glint darkly green ; And Bedouin Breezes, striking thru the ranks Of straining boughs, ring forth a vibrant, keen. Yet weirdly mournful music- playful pranks Of an Austere Composer. Floating notes In ghostly-wild crescendo there prevail — Tolling sad tidings to a world that dotes On death, that Death is near. Let none bewail One hasting joy or glinting landscape's boon : — Time, whirling on, unrolls no lifeless rune! Free Souls eRTH knows them not. In this reluctant sphere No doubly gracious door swings open wide To greet our harassed wills. Achievements bide Not wholly mortal choice. Ambition here, As elsewhere, ever kneels to fickle Chance. Chaos would rule unchecked were man to choose All unrestrained. Fate's cruel gyves enhance To blessed gains the things we seem to lose. The fettered mind— the shackled soul attunes Itself to order— strikes a nobler strain : True hearts will stumble, fall, and rise again ; Time will translate these lapses into runes, And history recite the epic story Of man, whose pride was dust, whose meekness glory. «S&«^5f*S» October is waning and wasting Day by day, And April is looming— is hasting This way: A wedding for Autumn and Spring is arranged And Winter, the outlaw, shall wander estranged Like a wraith in despair ; For the Sun is the lord of each season and life And will reign in the air. New Power yr LIGHTNING FLASH! Briskly across the ^J^ wire Snaps vibrant Life in coruscating fire Where humdrum currents lingered. Strange new power Electrifies the line invades the hour ! So to the stumbling heart— the lagging lyre Of mind, comes Inspiration ! We aspire Once more to swelling Song— constrained again To master-strokes of ecstasy and pain! 11 •Sa^^CjJ^iS* MOO© SONGS ^ Fading Twilight ADING, fading, fading— Night draws on a- pace : Fading into darkness — fading into space ! All the world is fading, but azure distance holds The mystic benediction a Heart Divine unfolds. Fading on the hill-tops, fading on the green : Fading twilight falters toward the Vast Unseen! Glaring Day is distanced ; blaring noises fled— Nature^s mother-touch descends on the tired head ! When the whirl of blighted earth-hopes is unspun Fading rays of soothing Light lull the weary one! Intimations, glowing, gild the Orient : But the scroll, Accomplishment, decks the Occident ! Fading and reviving — within the central Glow Of destined Life and Action— all our moments go. 12 ^ WITHIN MYSELF afiSW^^SSi Foregleams (An Allegory in Verse) ^^^^ HE SUN, for many weary hours ascendent ■^ ^% Above night's gathering might and swart ^^^^ array Of eerie ghosts that vex her dreams resplendent, Has fled the wan, forsaken fields of day. With wistful and averted orb she leaves This unidealistic realm of man, And, fronting fair Projected Isles, she cleaves Abysms wild and seas Cimmerian. Her bark adventures these uncharted deeps Beyond our idle surmise, and explores Illimitable oceans wild ; then sweeps Bold spirals to the Unimagined Shores. Tho spectral Doubt may haunt and overwhelm Our nether world where countless terrors spawn, Her wings, unwearied, arch an upper realm And spurn the azure to eternal dawn. Her cosmic romance no beginning knows. Nor end, while years exist or planets roll : But ceaselessly, undauntedly she goes To her predestined and relentless goal. 13 iSSit^7^(p82» MOOT) SONGS ^ Clouding the saffron sky, with scheming plot, Minions of Hate and Death forever hark: And grisly phantoms of a world forgot Shout fearsome words of doom from out the dark. Her memory foretells unfrightened morrows That fresh effulgent seas will surely bring: Our dreams of Destined Life, defying sorrows To such enamored promises must cling. Nor dust nor dross of earth can blind to eyelight The visions that from distant auras rise: Momentous beacons, from the pregnant twilight Reflecting backward, lure to high emprise. Man trails afar ; but still, in Nature's tresses. An imaged glory beckons him along: A floating glamor haloes all his guesses And Intimations glitter in his song. Here we but grope: yet far-off Light is verging On disillusioned zones where stars attest — Above, below— a Sanguine Agent urging And earth and heaven respond to one behest. Out of our interlude of dust and longing The soul, bereft of earth, sometime will soar Where disenthralled and kindred Spirits, thronging, Gladden a rapt empyrean evermore. C^A 14 ^=s^ ^ WITHIN MYSELF a^-Cj)^^ When Fancy's sweet Aeolian winds are lifting Caressing carols round us far and near, The dark horizon breaks away and, rifting, Bright foregleams of eternity appear. By some fair stream in some far opal valley Of vernal life our great adventure lies— Where rainbow tints alternately will sally And airy argosies surprise the skies. The Monopolistic Social Order H DISMAL DEN wherein Free Speech is sealed And plundering upstarts revel in oppres- sions— Where Tyranny, unmasked yet half concealed, Flaunts in our face her base ill-got possessions. Here poverty prevents aspiring thought From soaring up to God or out to man: Here cringing souls are trafficked— sold or bought — To grant usurping wealth a longer span. Some puppet singer, subsidized by gold, Strikes idle strains of counterfeit Desire From strings that boldly rang in days of old Ere Freedom tottered to her funeral pyre. (T^ 15 -5J«^ fi^€^Ct3^s MOOD SONGS ^ Winter /^ f ^ " HOU BASTARD VIKING of the polar M ^^k zones — ^^^ Fierce jar! of ice and fell — relentless foe — Chilling the very marrow of our bones As, pitiless, thy minions come and go ! We know thee for the robber that thou art, Turning our blood to ice each woful night: Each morn reveals thy diabolic heart That prostrates life beneath a bitter blight! Of Fenrif's pack thou art— his fitting heir, — Thy biting frost is venomed with his fangs; And, stealing on us from thy frigid lair. Thou harriest us with misery and pangs! What laughing lips can bear thy loveless kiss, What form survive beneath thy cold embrace; What heart mistake thine irony for bliss Or tryst with thee or trust thy cruel face? Relentless monster! Mercy knows thee not: Or if she feigns thy presence she beguiles Our fancies till, benumbed, we deem thee hot And twist our tortured lips in gargoyle smiles. If hell exist 'tis in thy thrice curst realm; Hell heat is balm beside thy blighting breath: If earth escape thy hosts that overwhelm T will be when thou thyself art whelmed in death ! WINTER OF 1918 (TJA 16 ^^J? WITHIN MYSELF «^iej>^5^ At the Threshold ^^OFTLY AND SILENTLY knelling a dirge F^^^ Over city and upland and glen P""^ I hear the wild bells of eternity tolling: Softly and silently rolling a surge Over hamlet and moorland and fen I see the wild waves of futurity rolling; And messengers shod With fire-mist from God Bring Fate to the threshold of men. Gladly or sadly, with laughter or tears, While wild bells are chiming or knelling, I vision the joy and the sorrow of life : Gladly or sadly, with courage or fears. While wild tides are ebbing or swelling, I hear the mixed earth-sounds of concord and strife, Where, heedlessly groping, Or doubting, or hoping. At the threshold of Fate men are dwelling. 17 aSS^«?5W>fi^ MOOD SONGS /> The Call of (^&e ""WrWOF^ E HAVE SEEN halcyon days that joyed m W f to be ^^^^ Who soon will weary of this round of clay ; And life once fair as dawn to you and me Will drag thru irksome labor day by day. Oblivious once to pain and powers malign, We hailed new glory every opening morn; But now we tremble lest the dark design Of age leave our last days bereft and lorn. The breath of youth no longer scents the lips Grown tremulous and cold with earth's decay; But Death, in all her musty odors, slips Quite unawares upon our work and play. A sluggish current mocks the blood that glanced And wantoned thru our veins in crimson rout; And halting feet grope feebly now that danced And mumbled words replace the clarion shout. We soon shall dwell alone amongst our dreams Of things that were to be : we soon shall know The epic of mortality that streams Thru man's unending history here below. Yet we will treasure with unshaken hearts — Still treasure the old days that joyed to be— Still train ourselves to take the obvious parts Assigned us in the drama, Destiny. rg^ 18 -g2j> WITHIN MYSELF i^^JJ'SSl Spent (deals e VER balmy breezes blow, yet ever Elude us in this world of spent ideals: Ever blazing starlight glows, but never Dispels the gloom wherein Lost Purpose reels. Ah, never, nevermore do lost illusions We lightly cherish in our halcyon hours Return : this void is black with waste confusions Wherein we toil at every task but ours. We labor on thru devious ways and eerie; We plod thru pathways crooked, dark, and drear ; We travel, travel, travel till we Ve weary And worn with ceaseless toil and worry here. And still we conjure new ideas that cheat us, And still we woo our old familiar, Fate— With fettered feet pursue ideals that beat us Beyond the shadows of the Shadowy Gate. And evermore with souls enraptured, yearning, By lights that burn to ashes as we pass. We hunt forbidden realms of fancy, learning How vain our dearest visions are, alas. Perchance beyond the Veil Unreal there lies Somewhere Fulfillment we now court in vain: Perchance beyond this haggard life that dies Dwells that for which our spent ideals strain. 19 i,^^<^giCS>g3» ^OO© SONGS ^ Where h Night OOK OUT ACROSS this vale of dazzling white To snow clad hills vening shadows gather. Between lie spectral fields and glooming woods In lifting strata banks of blue and pink That now gleam softly azure And now again streak out to glaring red— A brick-like radiance That soon shall fade to nothingness in night. So gleam the fields Across the white expanse Of Destiny. Late looking thru interminable space, I saw sunlit and gilded rainbow hues afar: And, farther yet- Beyond waste woods and dreary winding snow paths ^ I saw the boding mists of time foregathering In shadow ranks, Like furtive raven messengers that tell How briefly soon oncoming night may fold me And mine amid her host of spectral stars. Beautiful, bountiful Night! Bearer of balms, soother of sorrows, Absorber of mysteries,— Mute sorceress of uncertainty and terror, Yet breathing the benisons of peace! «m 20 WITHIN MYSELF i!S^Cj3^5» Lines to N t3 HINK NOT thine image ever dim or blurred Within my range of lovelight— my Ideals ; Nor deem thy voice forgotten or unheard Amid the Silences my tongue conceals! Some unsung lyrics ring with vibrant song; Some thoughts are vocal, tho unspoken here— Wherever Soul thru soulhood speaks, a strong, Mute symphony pervades the atmosphere. Such be the chain that links our lives in one- Such be the blossoms that our brows entwine Such be the magic harmonies that run Among the mysteries our souls enshrine! Our yesterdays adorn the trophied urn And Time still chants their stolen roundelays; But, while Tomorrow glistens. Love shall burn And light our feet o'er unforgotten ways. Where trust in woman makes for faith in man- Where constant fealty tends to sweet repose — Our hearts shall rest in each, nor dread the span Of Silences thru which our Oneness flows. (TS^ 21 ^^SJ> «Sa^^ MOO© SONGS D^ One Light: One Love aE Light, one Love alone, illumes my dreams ; One Star— just one— glows brightly in my sky; One Lingering Presence thrills my heart and beams Benignant on the voids from whence I cry. One Girlhood greets alike my waking sleep And dreaming wakefulness: one Vision stands Amongst my vigils; and I nightly keep Sweet tryst with her thru memory-haunted lands. I feel the luring contact and the touch That soothes with subtly soft and warm caress; I search unfathomed eyes and marvel much Amidst confidings that no lips confess. Within this aura all my senses swim By night and day, in crowds and deserts drear: Within this aura glooming cares and grim Desist and life augments from year to year. So, ever shall one Light, one Star, redeem My solitude amidst the wearying throng Of unmarkt nebulae— one Lovelight gleam Ascendent in my universe of song ! WITHIN MYSELF a^Cj5^3 Absence I THINK OF THEE and thought transfers My soul again to one dear shrine: Across the bleak forbidding hills I press the lips still mine. Time cannot sever hearts so leal Nor space divide our love in two: What beats within your breast for me Throbs back from mine to you. Dull intermittent silence falls Between each gladsome surge of sea; And these successive absences Reveal my love for thee. Think sweetly of me when the swell Of separation bears me by: Dream tenderly of me when tides Of sundering duty ply. My heart is like the homing bird That, exiled, seeks a sunnier lea And hears the far-off hlmger-cry Of mated harmony. He Ccdls across the wintry waste To a bride within the swale, — And I, across a drearier space, To mine own intervale. (Tja 23 igt? «Sa<5^Ct]^^ MOOD SONGS I call to you, as in the dear Remembered days— glad days ago — To you, in the old trysting-place Our love-linkt memories know: Recall me, Dearest, to the scene These memories enshrine: Recall me to the hearth-side where My lips still cling to thine. SWANTON, VERMONT. FEBRUARY 1920 Response I KNOW NOT what you dream about tonight: I know not how The voiceless words that pass beyond my sight Impress you now. I know not what your lips will say tomorrow: I know not why My own may not from their loved breathings borrow A quick reply. Yet, knowing what nor dreams nor speeches are, I can but know Your heart will beat response to one afar That loves you so. ST. ALBANS, JUNE 12, 1920 (TJ®. 24 'W^ ^ WITHIN MYSELF a^fJJ^!^ The Silent Sweetheart ^^^ ' HE SLEEPS above me on the silent hill wMlk Where desolations whisper and where still t^ jJ Sad thoughts disturb the sombre lifeless air. ' I see her slender form amidst the throng Of those celestial, and, despite the long Years that have passed away since her so rare Young spirit gently waned and waned away Into the twilight of eternity, I vision all her sweet simplicity And loveliness and grace untaught; And looking backward to that August day Which brought her to me— all unguessed, unsought — I marvel not how mightily she shook My soul to its foundation. Memory's book Recalls each vivid detail of the scene. Records each accent of her silvery voice Reviving former days and what had been My future had she lived. —But I rejoice No less in that awakening, that it broke My spirit when she left me. I awoke Thru her to manhood — found myself at last In her— in her found life— forgot the past And checkered years of boyhood— sought anew Thru her to build my universe and woo Thru her new gods of love and happiness. I mind her lissome figure and her face And liquid eyes— brown hazel eyes that gazed So winsomely in mine. I still can trace In mind the piquant girlhood that amazed, The willowy graceful form — the copper hair That hung in burnisht braids — still see her there. 25 «^<^tJJ^B MOO© SONGS The sudden rapture and the glad surprise— The poignant freshness, the exhilaration Of heights abruptly reacht — the new emprise That quickened in me— all the animation Of life re-born: I gave the answering call Of youth to youth— gave love that challenged all. Ah me, I still can feel as on that day Long past I felt fresh life within my heart ! No loss that men call death can wash away — No countless storms that rage and then depart Can blot that early picture from my mind, Erase the love or leave its thrill behind. Still does she hold me with her melting eye And still she melts me with her maiden smile And, still entranced with memories, I sigh For those first gleams of rapture that erewhile Aroused my manhood. Winsome is she and fair As on that August day I saw her there. [t] But now she slumbers on the silent hill Where other voiceless Dreams are laid to rest Where lost desires cry out and memory still Pursues the phantom of a broken quest. Hushed is the voice I longed so much to hear — The rippling laughter that so sweetly rang; Gone is the glory of the golden year That once I knew— silent the song I sang. O eyes so eloquent and softly brown! O piquant loveliness, so stark and cold ! From your drear pantheon of graves look down And greet me as ye did in days of old. (T^ 26 "^fi-P 1^ WITHIN MYSELF «SScW55i Still let me feel thy presence! Nearer glide About my feet that falter here below — Smile down upon the vale where I abide Amidst the shattered dreams of long ago. Wait yet awhile for me where angels dwell In that ethereal clime beyond the blue : Wait yet awhile— Eternity shall tell The tale of love I would have told to you. Not merely on the silent hill I see Thy face effulgent or thy form descry: Deep in my soul where love and destiny Mingle as one my lost Elysiums lie. Eyes of Blue CCAN NOT PAINT in words the wondrous eyes That oft have geized in mine — those eyes of blue So deep and limpid that they thrill surprise And gleam on me thru mists of honey dew. I could not search them out till years revealed The purpose that lookt answering into mine: I marvelled at the mystery they concealed, But found them looking love in every line. Dear eyes, look that forever! From your orbs Of blue that gleam upon my absent days Mine own eyes drink; and all my life absorbs A gentle richness from their wondrous rays.