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SONGS 
 
 A Collection of 
 
 Church, Home, Nature, 
 
 Soul and Miscellaneous Songs 
 
 BY 
 
 DAVID C. NIMMO 
 
 'Press of Frank H. West 
 'Detroit, JXCich. 
 

 ARYofCON 
 Two Oopies Recei 
 
 MAR 20 1908 
 
 LASS 0~ XXc. M 
 
 Copyright, 1908, by David C. Nimmo 
 
 a • 
 • • • 
 
Contents 
 
 CHURCH SONGS. 
 
 Crown Him. No. 1 7 
 
 A Holy Heart 8 
 
 Hail, Sabbath Morn ! 9 
 
 Arise, Oh Church ! No. 1 10 
 
 Make Me, Oh Jesus ! 12 
 
 Missionary. No. 1 13 
 
 Fellowship 14 
 
 The Bread of Life. No 1 15 
 
 The Mercy Seat. No. 1 16 
 
 Glorify Thy Name ! 17 
 
 God's Presence . .. 18 
 
 Conviction 20 
 
 Oh for a Faith ! 21 
 
 Oh Spirit Help 22 
 
 The Banquet 23 
 
 Thanksgiving Hymn. No. 1 24 
 
 Oh Love of God Come In 26 
 
 The Mercy Seat. No. 2 27 
 
 Arise, Oh Church 28 
 
 Life, Love and Light 29 
 
 The Bread of Life. No. 2 30 
 
 Soul Refiner 31 
 
 Come, Spirit, Come ! 32 
 
 Crown Him. No. 2 , 33 
 
 NATURE SONGS. 
 
 The Azure Dome 35 
 
 The Rose 43 
 
 The Northern Lights 46 
 
 A Saucer of Pansies 51 
 
Nature Songs — Continued 
 
 Hail Spring-time 53 
 
 Meteors and Stars 54 
 
 The Robin 56 
 
 The Song of the Green Tree 60 
 
 Summer 64 
 
 Night 70 
 
 The Bride of the Sun 93 
 
 HOME SONGS. 
 
 A Mother's Dream-Song 99 
 
 Children's Bed-Song 101 
 
 Influence of Baby 103 
 
 Fat Medicine 104 
 
 The Rejected' s Faith 106 
 
 A Lover's Song 107 
 
 A Woman's Way 108 
 
 The Anniversary 109 
 
 The New Advice 112 
 
 Woman 112 
 
 The Best Baby 113 
 
 The Wish 115 
 
 The Baby Show 121 
 
 Young Motherhood 125 
 
 Because It's You, My Dear 129 
 
 Boyhood's Home 132 
 
 The Whistling Girl 133 
 
 The Wife's Return 135 
 
 SOUL SONGS. 
 
 How Swift ? 139 
 
 Driven 139 
 
 Our Life 140 
 
 An Appeal 140 
 
 Peter Taught 147 
 
 A Boy Again 149 
 
 "Never Suffered" 150 
 
 Knowledge 153 
 
 Monopoly Christians 154 
 
 The Years 161 
 
Soul Songs — Continued 
 
 A Conflict 162 
 
 Weary 170 
 
 The Last Journey 170 
 
 Progress 171 
 
 Deception 172 
 
 Fit to Live , 176 
 
 Sight 180 
 
 Donald's Answer 180 
 
 Hell Fire 181 
 
 Damn the Police 186 
 
 The Departed 191 
 
 Need, Greed and Meed 194 
 
 A World Sigh 195 
 
 Our Day 213 
 
 Youth and Age 213 
 
 Lost and Found 214 
 
 Song and Sigh 215 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS. 
 
 The Poet's Advice 217 
 
 The Dream 224 
 
 Time's Immortal 228 
 
 God of the United States 229 
 
 To the Musician 246 
 
 Song of the Art Critic 248 
 
 A Poet's Lament 250 
 
 A National Song 253 
 
 The Fifth String 255 
 
 The American Eagle 258 
 
Church songs 
 
 CROWN HIM WITH MANY CROWNS. 
 No. 1 
 
 Crown him with many crowns! 
 
 Prophet and priest and king, 
 Immortals, splendors and renowns 
 
 Around his throne now sing! 
 Crown him with many crowns ! 
 
 Their oceanic voice 
 Is swelling, and all music drowns 
 
 To blend and co-rejoice. 
 
 He is the Lord of love! 
 
 Divine effulgent throne, 
 Father and seraphs ranked above 
 
 For us he did disown. 
 Down unseen golden stair, 
 
 By strange incarnate birth, 
 His Godhead veiled yet shining fair 
 
 He lived and loved on earth. 
 
 Yonder on Calvary ! 
 
 Behold yon crimson cross ! 
 Pierced brow, scarred palms, cleft heart Oh see ! 
 
 And heaven's smile his loss. 
 Black storms around him break, 
 
 Listen with bated breath ! 
 "My God ! My God ! Why me forsake I" 
 
 Oh Life! Oh Love! Oh Death! 
 
CHURCH SONGS 
 
 What are the world's renowns? 
 
 His only dare we sing; 
 His exploits which the morning gowns 
 
 Dethrones each highest king. 
 What angel in the height 
 
 Thought in his boldest dream 
 Such love descend to such a night 
 
 Such sinners to redeem ! 
 
 Crown him with many crowns ! 
 
 The brow once crowned with thorn, 
 Let honor that each rival drowns 
 
 Forever more adorn. 
 Crown him with many crowns ! 
 
 Oh all that e'er shall be, 
 Place on his brow your bright renowns 
 
 To all eternity ! 
 
 A HOLY HEART. 
 
 Oh holy, holy heart of love ! 
 
 Thy gifts of grace I see; 
 Promise in hand and face above 
 
 I plead the best from Thee. 
 
 A heart as holy as Thy heart; 
 
 Thy being's central flame; 
 The purest, best of all Thee art 
 
 Oh place within my frame ! 
 
 Another fire, white and intense, 
 An instant death to sin; 
 
 A flaming and thrice glowing sense 
 From Thy heart mine would win. 
 
CHURCH SONGS 
 
 A crystal shining purity 
 
 And bright as Thy own face ; 
 
 A mirror where Thy soul can see 
 Thy being's brightest grace. 
 
 Oh Holiness and Love divine ! 
 
 This gift my spirit bless; 
 To me Thou givest nought, I pine, 
 
 If not Thy holiness. 
 
 HAIL SABBATH MORN! 
 
 Hail Sabbath morn, hail ! 
 
 Hail day of delight ! 
 The week's cloudy veil 
 
 Has passed from our sight. 
 We hail thy soft splendor 
 
 That on us now plays, 
 Come gladly and tender 
 
 Our tribute of praise. 
 
 To thee we return 
 
 Oh soul of the week ! 
 Our hearts for thee yearn, 
 
 Thy presence we seek. 
 Thy presence emboldens 
 
 And promises rest, 
 From love that unfoldens 
 
 A warm welcome breast. 
 
 We come sore oppressed, 
 
 Oh pour in thy balm ! 
 Now breath in each breast 
 
 Thy silence and calm. 
 The spirits that sicken 
 
 With toil, sin and strife, 
 Thy presence can quicken 
 
 With hope, joy and life. 
 
10 CHURCH SONGS 
 
 Our sorrows we lose 
 
 In songs of thy praise; 
 Our joys not abuse 
 
 While walking thy ways. 
 Our six-gathered burden 
 
 We leave at thy feet, 
 And newly engirden 
 
 Life's duty can meet. 
 
 Oh soul the most pure, 
 Come in ! Oh come in ! 
 
 Thou only canst cure. 
 Our hearts of their sin. 
 
 Enrobe in thy fashion ! 
 Breathe spirit divine ! 
 
 Oh bind us with passion 
 To all that is thine ! 
 
 Thou day of all days, 
 
 The weeks for thee yearn; 
 On life's weary ways 
 
 Oh often return ! 
 Thou heaven's best token 
 
 Dawn often ! Oh dawn ! 
 When life's chain is broken. 
 
 Be never withdrawn. 
 
 ARISE OH CHURCH! 
 No. 1. 
 
 Arise Oh Church ! Arise ! 
 
 Rise as in ancient days ! 
 Canst thou look back and not more prize 
 
 Thy place of power and praise? 
 Oh heart and hope of fire ! 
 
 Oh spirit from the skies ! 
 Amid this fierce and final strife 
 
 Arise again ! Oh rise ! 
 
CHURCH SONGS W 
 
 Rise with the ancient faith, 
 
 Scorning all fear and doubt; 
 Mid life and death and lightning scathe 
 
 Can "Victory!" louder shout; 
 Upon the promise stands 
 
 Like mountains in repose; 
 Far sweeping hell's dark legion bands 
 
 And each time stronger grows. 
 
 Rise with the ancient love, 
 
 The love from God's own heart; 
 That knows no self, like him above 
 
 All for the worst will part; 
 Pure, burning, rich and white, 
 
 Contagious, fierce and strong, 
 In holiness finds her delight 
 
 While singing Calvary's song. 
 
 Rise with the ancient truth 
 
 Of sin and holiness; 
 On manhood, age and thoughtless youth 
 
 They fall with vast impress; 
 Judgment, eternity, 
 
 Upon thy lips of fire 
 Shall still the mind, the heart set free, 
 
 And feed with high desire. 
 
 Rise with the ancient prayer, 
 
 The prayer that does prevail; 
 Where faith and love and truth can dare 
 
 The "Victory !" far to hail. 
 Sin's brazen skies shall rain; 
 
 The Esau heart be tame; 
 And spirits stablished without stain, 
 
 Shall prayer and power proclaim. 
 
L2 CHURCH SONGS 
 
 Rise with the ancient Christ 
 
 Who died and ever lives; 
 Who life and love with gifts unpriced 
 
 To all with freedom gives; 
 With him throned in thy heart 
 
 Thy life can never fail; 
 Thy morn shall break, thy night depart, 
 
 All hail. Oh Church ! All hail ! 
 
 MAKE ME OH JESUS! 
 
 Make me, Oh Jesus on my race 
 To meet with Thee above, 
 
 Unlike I am, full of Thy grace, 
 A spirit of Thy love. 
 
 A spirit broken and contrite, 
 Tender, and kind and meek; 
 
 Patient, forgiving and bedight 
 With passions for the weak : 
 
 Peaceful and trusting, sensitive, 
 Grateful and warm with fire ; 
 
 A hope, a joy, a light to live, 
 And toward Thee more aspire: 
 
 Prayerful and singing night and day, 
 Beholding Thy bright face; 
 
 Heeding Thy word, quick to obey, 
 Praising Thy matchless grace: 
 
 A faithful witness unto Thee, 
 A thought, a word, a deed; 
 
 A sorrow on the sin I see, 
 A balm upon its need: 
 
 A life to image only Thine, 
 Deep, wide, intense and high, 
 
 That grows in all things more divine 
 While rising toward Thy sky. 
 
CHURCH SONGS 13 
 
 MISSIONARY. 
 No. 1. 
 
 On palmy isles of ocean, 
 
 'Mong Afric's teeming host, 
 Mid Asia's dark devotion, 
 
 On mountain, plain and coast, 
 Unfurl the gospel banner ! 
 
 Her silken-crimson breast 
 Glad heaven will see and fan her 
 
 North, east and south and west. 
 
 Brighter than summer morning, 
 
 Shot through with sunny beams, 
 The blue of heaven adorning, 
 
 Her crimson light far streams. 
 Green hope and azure gladness, 
 
 Young strength and truth divine, 
 Soft rainbow balms for sadness 
 
 From her rich folds out shine. 
 
 God's grace and life eternal, 
 
 Spring joys and summer calm, 
 Vast promise, gifts supernal, 
 
 Bright hope, triumphant psalm; 
 Oh where stream out this story 
 
 If not on heathen coasts? 
 Where? Where unfurl her glory 
 
 If not mid heathen hosts ? 
 
 Where multitudes are dying 
 
 'Neath black and starless sky, 
 Where death for hope is sighing 
 
 Oh lift his banner high ! 
 Her crimson waves kissed golden 
 
 Fling out! Oh hasten fling! 
 Her sight lost hearts embolden 
 
 To trust and love the king. 
 
CHURCH SONGS 
 
 Go ! Go unfurl the banner ! 
 
 Her folds of crimson light, 
 With heaven's joys to fan her 
 
 Will fill the darkest night. 
 She poureth undreamed graces 
 
 Upon the heart and eyes, 
 They come to Christ's embraces, 
 
 And sing on toward the skies. 
 
 FELLOWSHIP. 
 
 Saviour who for me died 
 That self and all my pride 
 
 Might die with Thee, 
 Draw my resisting heart 
 To share in death its part, 
 And join Thee as Thou art 
 
 On Calvary. 
 
 Lead through Gethsemane, 
 Up darker Calvary 
 
 Lead. Jesus, lead ! 
 Though mortal flesh retreat, 
 Crimson each step my feet, 
 Faint I in noonday heat, 
 
 My cries ne'er heed. 
 
 My soul with Thine unite ; 
 Death is sin's lawful right 
 
 And I am sin. 
 May I be crucified, 
 Strength, lust, low love and pride, 
 The life where these abide, 
 
 Self deep within. 
 
CHURCH SONGS 15 
 
 Thy thorns be on my brow, 
 My lips Thy cup drink now, 
 
 Leave not alone ! 
 Thy nails my palms now tear, 
 My heart Thy spear lay bare, 
 Nought, nought of death Oh spare ! 
 
 But help Thine own. 
 
 A double death be seen 
 My soul and Thine between 
 
 Oh Calvary ! 
 The world to me be dead, 
 My heart to it have bled, 
 From each the life have fled 
 
 Which draws from Thee. 
 
 Amen. 
 
 THE BREAD OF LIFE. 
 No. 1. 
 
 Oh Living Bread! Oh Living Bread! 
 
 From Thee all beings pure are fed ! 
 All live from Thy heart's rich bestow, 
 
 To full desire and overflow. 
 
 The angels round Thy burning throne 
 No other bread have ever known; 
 
 They feed from Thee and so they grow 
 Like to Thyself in fervent glow. 
 
 The saints redeemed from self and sin 
 Live by Thy presence deep within; 
 
 Beneath the flesh, within the heart, 
 The bread of life to them Thou art. 
 
16 CHURCH SONGS 
 
 Thou finer art than most fine wheat; 
 
 Than honey from the rock more sweet; 
 Freer than sabbath manna fell, 
 
 And vital more than life can tell. 
 
 Thou, Thou Thyself art living bread! 
 
 Thou, not Thy gifts our lives have fed ! 
 With-hold Thy gifts, Thyself Oh give! 
 
 And still with boundless life we live. 
 
 Oh Living Bread ! Oh Living Bread ! 
 
 Thou still wilt feed as Thou hast fed. 
 'Tis all Thy glory free to give 
 
 The bread of life by which we live. 
 
 THE MERCY SEAT. 
 No. 1. 
 
 Oh Mercy Seat ! Oh Mercy Seat ! 
 
 We fall with gladness at thy feet; 
 No place beneath the heightless throne 
 
 Can so attract and hold thy own. 
 
 Thy altar is close close beside 
 
 The cross where Jesus bled and died; 
 
 There thou art just beneath His throne 
 For cross nor crown e'er each disown. 
 
 Thou art high heaven's chosen place; 
 
 Thou art the earth's most royal grace; 
 For there we both in union meet, 
 
 In vital union rich and sweet. 
 
 The Spirit's lightning breath is thine; 
 
 The Son and all his powers divine; 
 The Father and his purity; 
 
 All, all unto thy faith shall be. 
 
CHURCH SONGS 17 
 
 Thou, thou canst change wild nature's heart; 
 
 Thou, thou canst bid the drought depart; 
 Thou travail canst till Christ is born 
 
 In sinful hearts that all hope scorn. 
 
 Oh Mercy Seat ! Oh Mercy Seat ! 
 
 Who would not joy with thee to meet? 
 Unite our hearts till life shall be 
 
 One living faith, one prayer to thee. 
 
 OH GLORIFY THY NAME . 
 
 Oh glorify Thy name ! 
 
 Most holy high Triune ! 
 Of this vast world and spirit frame 
 
 To Thee alone we tune. 
 First fount of life and light, 
 
 Thou dost all hearts inflame : 
 Sings grace returning to Thy height 
 
 Oh glorify Thy name ! 
 
 Oh Father most supreme ! 
 
 The Father of the Son ! 
 The splendors no archangels dream 
 
 Upon him burst and run. 
 Thou art to all through him, 
 
 Source, sustenance, and aim; 
 All heaven and earth Thy glories dim, 
 
 Oh glorify Thy name ! 
 
 Oh Son ! Incarnate Son ! 
 
 From heaven Thou earnest down; 
 Thy royal life in streams did run 
 
 From nail and spear and crown. 
 Thy blood-redeemed hosts now 
 
 Rejoice with loud acclaim; 
 Spare limb nor life to crown Thy brow, 
 
 Oh glorify Thy name ! 
 
18 CHURCH SONGS 
 
 Oh Spirit as divine ! 
 
 Our sins Thy grace doth burn; 
 Thou dost the saints with Christ invine, 
 
 Both toward the Father turn. 
 As holy as Thou art 
 
 Thou spurnest not our frame; 
 Thou art our burning, glowing heart, 
 
 Oh glorify Thy name! 
 
 Oh Trinity Thy name 
 
 Be ever most supreme 
 In place and power, in act and fame, 
 
 In love and hope and dream ! 
 At each sabbath's commune, 
 
 All heaven and earth proclaim: 
 Thou matchless, matchless high Triune 
 
 Oh glorify Thy name! 
 
 GOD'S PRESENCE. 
 
 Oh Thou God of gods supremest! 
 
 Throned upon those azure skies ! 
 Bright as suns Thy promise streamest 
 
 Thou wilt never us despise. 
 Thy rich promise power is filling; 
 
 Comes Thy presence from on high; 
 With a sweetness past our willing 
 
 As no earth friend Thou art nigh. 
 
 Underneath Thou art sustaining, 
 
 Breasting us on mighty arms; 
 Singing, Oh such sweet refraining! 
 
 Shielding us from deadly harms. 
 Overhead Thy skies enkindle 
 
 Morning and reviving springs, 
 Joy and hope that knows no dwindle, 
 
 But still mounts and mounting sings. 
 
CHURCH SONGS 19 
 
 In our rear Thy power is keeping 
 
 Us from Egypt's backward path; 
 On our foes hot bolts are leaping, 
 
 Love within and outward wrath. 
 Fronting us Thy cloud is burning 
 
 Blinding noon and flooding night; 
 Moving on and Thine own turning 
 
 To the wise and safe and right. 
 
 Far beyond Thy face is smiling; 
 
 O'er us are Thy blessing hands; 
 By Thy gifts Thou art beguiling 
 
 Toward Thy high and sun-kissed lands. 
 Like an atmosphere and flowing, 
 
 Golden, rich and sweet and deep, 
 Thou art round us, and bestowing 
 
 Love and joy Thou canst not keep. 
 
 In us Thou art bursting fountains; 
 
 Life divine and love and light; 
 Flowing down from heaven's mountains 
 
 Up Thou bearest to the height. 
 Round life's currents now are winging 
 
 Hope and joy and purity; 
 Can Thy saints refrain from singing 
 
 Of Thy presence rich and free ? 
 
 Still be with us, 'neath and round us, 
 
 In, above and on before; 
 Though a seven-fold furnace bound us 
 
 We are safe as those of yore. 
 From and in and to Thee living, 
 
 Up from sin Thy grace did raise; 
 For Thy presence, rich thanksgiving, 
 
 Honors, glories, endless praise. 
 
20 CHURCH SONGS 
 
 CONVICTION. 
 
 Oh divine and holy Spirit ! 
 
 Source of perfect purity; 
 Human nature, sin doth sear it, 
 
 Hope of life is but in Thee. 
 Come- Oh come ! Oh Spirit hover ! 
 Souls of sin and death now cover. 
 
 Come Oh Holiness all glowing! 
 
 White and pure and stainless fire ! 
 Thy full nature now be flowing 
 
 'Gainst all sin with fierce desire. 
 What soul can touch Thee and not feel 
 Electric shocks from Thee unseal ! 
 
 Come ! Let Thy burning life unfold 
 Sinners slain and dead in sin ! 
 
 Thy life and light and truth be rolled 
 On and round them ! Pour it in ! 
 
 Let burning fire and fiercer heat 
 
 Pierce, search and find where sin doth seat ! 
 
 Come ! Be around them glowing Life ! 
 
 Sin to Thee is most unlike, 
 Awake most fierce the mortal strife, 
 
 All Thy being on them strike ! 
 Till new and vital piercing pain 
 Shall rend the spirit's heart and brain. 
 
 In them be heaven and hell at strife; 
 
 Pain for sin each spirit fill; 
 The agony of death and life, 
 
 Circle and return, until 
 Contrite, broken, weeping, calling, 
 At Thy cross we see them falling. 
 
CHURCH SONGS 21 
 
 OH FOR A FAITH. 
 
 Oh for a faith of granite cast! 
 
 A bulwark-breasted thing; 
 A passion elemental clasped 
 
 For life's inspiring spring; 
 
 One iron-clad and mountain like, 
 Fearing not calm nor storm, 
 
 Volcanic fire nor sudden strike 
 Of lightnings swift and warm; 
 
 Which men and devils, death and sin, 
 Earth, hell, allianced hosts, 
 
 When circled round and centered in, 
 Then trembles not but boasts; 
 
 A faith created for the night, 
 For battles and dark powers, 
 
 Seeming defeats and clouded sight, 
 Delay and suffering hours; 
 
 When all beneath the throne shall fail, 
 For conflict join their bands, 
 
 Knows God is sure and shall prevail; 
 And shouting "Victory !" stands. 
 
 Oh king with all victorious dower ! 
 
 Forever on Thy throne ! 
 Lift faith to equal love and power 
 
 And trust in Thee alone. 
 
22 CHURCH SONGS 
 
 OH SPIRIT HELP; 
 
 Oh Spirit do not leave me ! 
 
 Oh cast me not away ! 
 This fear doth often grieve me, 
 
 I weep e'en as I pray. 
 Take not Thy holy presence; 
 
 Draw not convicting light ; 
 When sins grieve Thy long presence 
 
 Forgive, nor take Thy flight. 
 
 My heart is hard, unbroken, 
 
 Cold, icy, dark and dead; 
 Repentance gives no token, 
 
 Reign winter frosts instead. 
 I have small sense of Jesus, 
 
 Of sin or holiness; 
 This worst of all diseases 
 
 Oh Spirit heal and bless ! 
 
 Give sense of sins deep hidden ! 
 
 My heart of unbelief, 
 My filthy rags forbidden, 
 
 All that may cause Thee grief. 
 Breathe on me grace most holy ; 
 
 Break down my pride of soul; 
 Oh bend my heart till lowly 
 
 I yield to Christ's control ! 
 
 Rebellion grieves Thee often, 
 
 Remove my heart of stone; 
 Thou only hearts can soften 
 
 Now give Thy promised own. 
 Give heart for God outreaching; 
 
 Give love for Christ and Thee; 
 This is my one beseeching; 
 
 Strive Spirit still with me ! 
 
CHURCH SONGS 23 
 
 O'er my dark chaos hover; 
 
 Be Thou in sin's mad strife; 
 My heart Thy warm wings cover ; 
 
 Create and nourish life; 
 Disordered and resisting, 
 
 Thou knew ere Thou began; 
 Oh Spirit ne'er desisting 
 
 Still mould me to Thy plan. 
 
 Abide with me Oh Spirit! 
 
 And never, never leave; 
 A sin heart I inherit, 
 
 I know Thee I shall grieve. 
 Oh cast me not nor leave me ! 
 
 Shall I exhaust Thy grace? 
 If sins abounding grieve Thee 
 
 Turn not ! Turn not Thy face ! 
 
 Amen ! Amen ! Amen ! 
 
 THE BANQUET. 
 
 He brought me to the banquet 
 
 Spread in his royal love; 
 He cast his banner o'er me 
 
 His trembling turtle dove. 
 Soft music as from heaven 
 
 My troubled heart did calm; 
 Its peacefulness and sweetness 
 
 Came down like healing balm. 
 
 Sweet breezes from the mountains 
 
 Of od'rous frankincense 
 Refresh my feeble pulses 
 
 With vigor most intense. 
 I drink from golden chalice 
 
 Filled at the crystal spring; 
 The draught is life eternal 
 
 The same as drinks the King. 
 
24 CHURCH SONGS 
 
 I feast on fruit divinest 
 
 From heaven's bowers brought, 
 Its sweetness to my spirit 
 
 Is far surpassing thought. 
 The banquet board is ample 
 
 With fruit and bread and wine; 
 The Prince Himself waits on me 
 
 With tenderness divine. 
 
 The feast is in the Feaster; 
 
 Christ is the soul of all ; 
 The healing balm of music, 
 
 And odors sweet that fall. 
 He is the wine celestial 
 
 And manna from above, 
 The blessing of each blessing 
 
 The all in all of love. 
 
 THANKSGIVING HYMN. 
 No. 1 
 
 Hail Thou God of gods supremest ! 
 
 Thou of gods alone doth live ! 
 As the sun his splendors streamest, 
 
 So Thy nature is to give. 
 Worlds and men and angels brightest 
 
 Forth Thy soul has brought to birth; 
 Through all ages them Thou lightest 
 
 With Thy smile of priceless worth. 
 
 In Thy nature everflowing 
 
 Thou dost bless till bliss is pain; 
 Flooding heart with rapture glowing, 
 
 Lifting all from plane to plane; 
 Thou art giving, giving, giving, 
 
 Unconfined by time or space; 
 Shaming dreams of all things living 
 
 By Thy gifts to every race. 
 
CHURCH SONGS 
 
 Through our nation wealth unmeasured; 
 
 Mine and mart and wood and field 
 Have again their gifts untreasured 
 
 And in these Thy heart revealed. 
 From the mountains to the ocean 
 
 Have not flowed such streams as Thine. 
 Oh sunlike soul return their motion ! 
 
 Till they reach their source divine. 
 
 Friendship, beauty, aspiration, 
 
 Loves and joys are circled round; 
 Gifts of freedom, thought and station, 
 
 More and better still are found. 
 Thou hast arched this season's portal 
 
 With a strong and vast desire; 
 We are marched as though immortal 
 
 With a heart and hope of fire. 
 
 Then upon this day of thanking 
 
 Who dare mention name but Thine? 
 Thought and feeling heaven-ward ranking 
 
 Praise Thee giver most divine. 
 All our nature is out-reaching; 
 
 Grateful hearts to Thee we lift; 
 Fails, Oh fails our noblest speeching, 
 
 Mighty Giver more than gift ! 
 
 Praise, Oh praise the matchless Giver! 
 
 Melt our souls in gratitude ! 
 Flow all hearts and as a river 
 
 Flow toward God with praise bestrewed ! 
 Praise and cease thy praises never ! 
 
 Never cease doth God's bestow; 
 Hearts and lips and lives forever 
 
 Flow with praise, forever flow ! 
 
26 CHURCH SONGS 
 
 OH LOVE OF GOD COME IN! 
 
 Oh love of God! Oh love of God! 
 
 The only love that lives 
 In this cold earth, and flows abroad 
 
 Nought getting, ever gives; 
 Behold the world, its strife and greed, 
 
 Its babble tongues and din; 
 Thou art its first, last, only need; 
 
 Oh love of God come in ! 
 
 All round are hearts of ice and stone, 
 
 Hard, cold and dead and lost; 
 By life and death for ever thrown, 
 
 And farther from Thee tossed; 
 Shall these about Thee never dream 
 
 But still grow worse in sin? 
 That Thou through us on them may stream 
 
 Oh love of God come in ! 
 
 If filled with Thee, for them we live 
 
 As Christ did live for thine; 
 Then we our gifts and self can give, 
 
 Our lives for theirs resign. 
 No service work love e'er withholds 
 
 What e'er men are or been; 
 The worse they are the more unfolds 
 
 Oh love of God come in ! 
 
 Thou hast for them high heaven's sight; 
 
 Her time and strength are thine; 
 And since once crucified, the right 
 
 To make the worst divine. 
 Thou hast the faith that dares to claim; 
 
 The prayers that always win; 
 The vital message in his name ; 
 
 Oh love of God come in ! 
 
CHURCH SONGS 27 
 
 Oh love of God ! Oh love of God ! 
 
 Spring in our hearts and flow ! 
 Through all the earth be spread abroad 
 
 And all toward heaven grow ! 
 May thousands by each life be won, 
 
 Joined more to Thee than kin; 
 To sing the song Thou hast begun, 
 
 Oh love of God come in! 
 
 THE MERCY SEAT. 
 No. 2. 
 
 Oh Mercy Seat! Oh Mercy Seat! 
 
 We fall with gladness at thy feet; 
 No place beneath the heightless throne 
 
 Can so attract and hold thy own. 
 
 Though tempest storms on lightning blast 
 Our heavens above with darkness cast, 
 
 Though all earth have no sheltering breast 
 Round thee we find eternal rest. 
 
 The fearful, trembling, sore and faint, 
 Breathe out to thee their dumb complaint; 
 
 A few short moments doth endower 
 
 The weakest with world conquering power. 
 
 Here shines the promises most bright, 
 
 Like stars upon the face of night; 
 Nor cloud nor mist nor veil are thine 
 
 For God burns all and full doth shine. 
 
 Here deepest loss is turned to gain; 
 
 Here richest joys grow out of pain; 
 Our tears, our shame and even wrong 
 
 Thou changest into music strong. 
 
 Oh Mercy Seat! Oh Mercy Seat! 
 
 Who would not joy with thee to meet? 
 Unite our hearts till life shall be 
 
 One living faith, one prayer to thee. 
 
28 CHURCH SONGS 
 
 ARISE OH CHURCH. 
 
 Arise Oh Church! Arise! 
 
 Arise out of thy sleep ! 
 These slumbers now Oh instant shake ! 
 
 Oh shake them to the deep ! 
 Shall sloth and idle rest, 
 
 Shall dark and worldly dreams 
 This day of days round heart and mind 
 
 Dance with deceitful gleams? 
 
 When shall these slumbers wake? 
 
 Oh hurl them far and deep! 
 Behind black clouds new mornings break 
 
 Upon yon future's steep; 
 Before that splendor lights 
 
 One hour with fiercest foes; 
 Up ! Gird you ! Gird you for the fight ! 
 
 Oh spurn this short repose ! 
 
 Shall sin and death and time? 
 
 The world and wealth and power 
 With charm and incantation chime 
 
 Thy spirit slave this hour? 
 This hour the most supreme 
 
 Of ages lifts her cries; 
 While visions splendid on thee stream 
 
 Arise ! Oh Church arise ! 
 
 Rise with the ancient faith; 
 
 The first and burning love; 
 The life no loss can kill or scathe; 
 
 Prayer winged to plead above; 
 Rise with the Christ in heart; 
 
 The Christ who died and lives; 
 Who saves and keeps and doth impart 
 
 All grace and himself gives. 
 
CHURCH SONGS 29 
 
 The trembling times do wait, 
 
 They wait Oh church for thee ! 
 Though nature, men and gifts are great 
 
 No hope but fear we see. 
 If thy pure blessing fail 
 
 More gifts but curse our cries; 
 Hope of the world thou canst prevail ! 
 
 Arise ! Oh Church arise. 
 
 LIFE, LOVE AND LIGHT. 
 
 Thou art the life and light and love 
 
 Of all that e'er can be; 
 All earth beneath and heaven above 
 
 Thou feedest rich and free; 
 And Thou art more than life and light 
 Or love with warmest beauties bright. 
 
 Thou art the life of those that live; 
 
 From Thee we first begun; 
 But fountains purer Thou dost give 
 
 That higher rise and run. 
 The lowest blessing of Thy grace 
 Surpass the height of Adam's race. 
 
 Thou art the light of those that see; 
 
 All stars and rainbows bright, 
 All summer mornings dawn from Thee, 
 
 Thou art the noon's delight; 
 If so on earth Thy splendors shine 
 What art Thou in Thy heavens divine? 
 
 Thou art the love of those that give, 
 
 The warm impulse to part, 
 The gift of self by which we live, 
 
 And heart within the heart. 
 To give not get is highest joy, 
 A heaven on earth is Thy employ. 
 
30 CHURCH SONGS 
 
 Thou art the love and light and life; 
 
 Yea ! More than heart can dream ! 
 Without Thee all is loss and strife, 
 
 But with Thee oceans stream. 
 More than the life and light and love, 
 Thou art the heaven of heaven above. 
 
 THE BREAD OF LIFE. 
 No. 2. 
 
 Oh Living Bread ! Oh Living Bread ! 
 
 From Thee all beings pure are fed ! 
 All live from Thy heart's rich bestow, 
 
 To full desire and overflow. 
 
 When famine-striken, faint and sore, 
 When life and time had bread no more, 
 
 Thou fedest with the bread divine 
 Till hunger new for Thee did pine. 
 
 The deepest hunger of long years, 
 Of sin and loss, of pain and tears, 
 
 Was more than met and we were fed 
 With Thine own life, with living bread. 
 
 Apart from Thee the strongest die; 
 
 With Thee on eagle's wings we fly; 
 Nor earth nor hell nor all they breed 
 
 Out-wears the strength that Thou dost feed. 
 
 Thou art a boundless, boundless store 
 
 Of life, rich life forever more; 
 Faith, love and hope, joy, peace and truth, 
 
 And ardors of immortal youth. 
 
 Oh Living Bread ! Oh Living Bread ! 
 
 Thou still wilt feed as Thou has fed; 
 Tis all Thy glory free to give 
 
 The bread of life by which we live. 
 
CHURCH SONGS 31 
 
 SOUL REFINER. 
 
 Soul Refiner to the fashion 
 
 Of God's image most divine, 
 Near the furnace of white passion 
 
 Thou dost purge Thy priestly line: 
 Heat! Oh heat the furnace flaming! 
 
 Seven-fold hotter than before! 
 What can be my soul's reclaiming 
 
 But a fire to pierce life's core? 
 
 Take my soul with sin so ingrained, 
 
 Lead me to the furnace fire, 
 In its focused flame, white, unstained, 
 
 Plunge me in is my desire ! 
 Hold me while electric burning 
 
 Shoots through will and heart and brain; 
 Piercing, searching, finding, spurning, 
 
 Remnants of my sin's ingrain. 
 
 Should I struggle in my anguish? 
 
 Should I question, weep or groan? 
 Should the strength of mortal languish? 
 
 Spare not, spare nor heed my moan. 
 Hold me in its central glowing! 
 
 Let the fire be most intense ! 
 Thy thrice holy nature flowing 
 
 Burn around all pride and sense. 
 
 Purge me till Thy image shinest 
 
 In my measure like to Thine; 
 Holiness Thy grace divinest 
 
 Mirror its pure soul in mine. 
 Till before Thy presence burning 
 
 And Thy unveiled Spirit's might, 
 I can stand and for it yearning 
 
 Find it my supreme delight. 
 
32 CHURCH SONGS 
 
 COME SPIRIT COME. 
 
 Come Spirit come ! Oh Life of heaven's Triune ! 
 
 High central heart where Father and where Son 
 Unite in their most blessed mystic commune, 
 And life and love their highest circles run. 
 Spirit of Jesus ! Spirit of love ! 
 Fill ! Fill our bosoms as filled are those above ! 
 
 Come Spirit come ! Love burning, flaming, glowing ! 
 
 Passion intense and whitest purity ! 
 Yet soft and warm, Thy fullness gently flowing 
 Fills each high heart that sinks in trust on Thee. 
 Spirit of Jesus ! Spirit of love ! 
 Fill ! Fill our bosoms as filled are those above ! 
 
 Come Spirit come ! Consume me this desire, 
 
 Which Thy free grace kindles in my cold heart. 
 An angel bright and warm with Thine own fire 
 My longing soul sends pleading Thy impart. 
 Spirit of Jesus ! Spirit of love ! 
 Fill ! Fill our bosoms as filled are those above ! 
 
 Come Spirit come ! Oh life of love immortal ! 
 
 None, none without ! In Thee alone hearts run ; 
 Enclose me now in Thy heart's golden portal 
 To live and love with Father and with Son. 
 Spirit of Jesus ! Spirit of love ! 
 Fill ! Fill our bosoms as filled are those above ! 
 
 Come Spirit come ! In ever growing measure 
 
 This Thine own heart for mine has strangely willed ; 
 Be it my life and green hope's gladdest pleasure 
 This empty heart forever filling, filled. 
 Spirit of Jesus ! Spirit of love ! 
 Fill ! Fill our bosoms as filled are those above ! 
 
CHURCH SONGS 33 
 
 CROWN HIM WITH MANY CROWNS. 
 No. 2. 
 
 Crown him with many crowns ! 
 
 The high, creating king! 
 Space, time, and suns, and bright renowns, 
 
 Beings that love and sing! 
 From worm to seraphim, 
 
 Each in the hierarch, 
 Creation's strong crescendo hymn 
 
 Now lift, while he doth hark. 
 
 Crown him the Lord of might ! 
 
 A million million suns 
 With splendor, weight, power and delight 
 
 Around his footstool runs. 
 Of all the central soul, 
 
 He holds their golden chains 
 In his right hand, and hears them roll 
 
 Their strong eonic strains. 
 
 Crown him the Lord of life ! 
 
 From his own breast was born 
 The being clothing primal strife 
 
 With beauty's bright adorn. 
 To flowers, birds and men 
 
 The fountains of his heart, 
 Where'er they dwell, in sun or fen, 
 
 Its streams of life impart. 
 
 Crown him the Lord of love ! 
 
 On his warm, heaving breast 
 The universe below, above, 
 
 Sleeps like a babe at rest. 
 His love unearned, unsought, 
 
 Is working with its might, 
 And watching still with mother thought 
 
 Each birth of noon and night. 
 
34 CHURCH SONGS 
 
 Crown him the Lord of goals ! 
 
 He plans most kingly states, 
 His ends each year as time unrolls 
 
 Are new and culminates 
 The seraph hope's best dream 
 
 Will stand dumb with surprise, 
 While being in diviner gleam 
 
 Shall rise and ever rise. 
 
 Crown him with many crowns ! 
 
 Round heaven's highest throne 
 The galaxy celestial drowns 
 
 All songs as him they own. 
 Crown him with many crowns ! 
 
 Come all creations bright, 
 The splendors of your high renowns 
 
 Around his brow unite ! 
 
NATURE SONGS 
 
 THE AZURE DOME. 
 
 Oh the azure dome ! Oh the azure dome ! 
 
 My first and my last and my noblest home ! 
 The home of my spirit's immortal birth 
 
 Ere I fell to sin and the sorrow of earth. 
 
 Around me it lays like a world of dream, 
 And its vital powers ever on me stream, 
 
 To waken the thought and the sense divine 
 That will beauty see and with it entwine. 
 
 Through my meteor years it has stretched to view 
 A vision as great as the soul when true. 
 
 Its fullness and all on the eyes have grown 
 As my nature has with the strife and moan. 
 
 The blue of the birds, the flowers and the sea, 
 The mountain jewels, or whatever may be 
 
 By the art of man or his wisdom dyed 
 Are buried in shame in their hour of pride. 
 
 Unfocus the light ! Could a rainbow tint 
 
 Such a shade on the curtains of noonday print? 
 Or prism divide such a soul of blue 
 ' From the hidden heart of the white so true? 
 
 Oh summon the dreams ! all the dreams of delight 
 From the height of day and the depth of night. 
 
 Could the mingled light of a magic dream 
 Throw a rival hue from her weaver's beam? 
 
36 NATURE SONGS 
 
 Could the poet soul with the eye divine 
 
 That can brighter see than the lights that shine, 
 
 From the worlds of his love and joy and hope 
 Bring a beam like that on the morning slope? 
 
 All of earth and art and dream were a patch, 
 As a ragged cloud on that breast would match. 
 
 And though blending near to the matchless blue 
 Oh what is a scrap to the deeps we view! 
 
 What a life and love when the springtime breath 
 Have the blossoms kissed from their graves of death ! 
 
 And the rain-washed sky doth embosom the earth 
 As a mother does her beloved birth. 
 
 Though the waves are bright and the grass is green, 
 More vital than ever the eyes have seen, 
 
 All the dreamlike earth though we feel it nigh 
 Is lost to the heart when we look on high. 
 
 What a rest and peace when the summer heat 
 Has pulsed the air to a quivering beat ! 
 
 And motionless, silent, serene and deep 
 
 Are the infinite calms that are there asleep. 
 
 Not a fleecy cloud in the hemisphere; 
 
 Not a phantom, shadow or nameless fear ; 
 Not a sign of storm or a sound profane 
 
 On that windless, tideless and landless main. 
 
 What a pride and power when the autumn's wealth 
 Into all forms press with perfection's health ! 
 
 And around the ripened and rainbow globe 
 Is the azure deep as a royal robe. 
 
 A majesty, splendor, pomp and repose 
 On the atmosphere and horizon glows; 
 
 As a dream they move all in stately march 
 To the land of dreams through the purple arch. 
 
NATURE SONGS 37 
 
 What a hope and joy on a winter day 
 
 When a month of clouds has been blown away ! 
 
 And the sky though pale from the icy air 
 We hail with delight as a vision rare. 
 
 Though the dark storm clouds and the sworded ice 
 Blast all our dreams of an earth paradise, 
 
 Despite of the frost they float on our eyes 
 Through the opening rifts of the azure skies. 
 
 When the morning sun from the deep of night 
 With his countenance of effulgent light, 
 
 First rose to the earth for his daily race 
 He smiled to behold such a matchless grace. 
 
 When the noonday sun first became a king 
 And created things did beneath him swing, 
 
 He enrobed his breast with the morning blue 
 Though he first baptized to a deeper hue. 
 
 When the evening sun first descended deep 
 
 That the day, the earth and her babes might sleep, 
 
 'Twas the robe of noon but with stars divine 
 He spread on the pain of their aching eyne. 
 
 When the midnight sun doth his circles fill 
 And leaves us to night in the nurse's skill, 
 
 He inspires the dreams of the golden skies 
 And with azure hope fills our wak'ning eyes. 
 
 The sun-born daughters with their rainbow dress, 
 Their splendor, their motions and joyousness, 
 
 How they rise from earth and to heaven cling 
 Or sail on the blue with an eagle wing ! 
 
 What a home so fit for their spirits free 
 As the deepless deeps of the sky and sea? 
 
 Is the blue more soft that the fleecy dress 
 
 Which their golden sire does upon them bless? 
 
38 NATURE SONGS 
 
 What a stainless course and how free from noise ! 
 
 What a changing form and a bird-like poise ! 
 Though they need it not they forever rest 
 
 As they rise and fall on that passioned breast. 
 
 How they rise and fall, how they come and go 
 In the azure fields like the isles of snow! 
 
 All earth's flowing streams with delightful eyes 
 Watch the sun and clouds in the azure skies. 
 
 That divinest dome and her infinite deep, 
 
 That heightless height and her boundless sweep, 
 
 That nature of passion and purity 
 Is a royal nurse of the best we be. 
 
 The immortal soul with the sense divine 
 
 That is drugged to sleep with this earthly wine 
 
 Of the sorrow, sin and the selfish greed 
 That each to himself and to others feed, 
 
 Awakes with joy and supreme delight 
 From the trances deep of this awful night 
 
 And enraptured looks with a vast surprise 
 At the beauty throned on the azure skies. 
 
 Her hue and her height, and her breadth and length, 
 Her victory, splendor and royal strength, 
 
 Feeds into the soul the immortal sense 
 Till the heart and mind light the countenance. 
 
 With the glowing heats of a spirit's flame 
 She aspires to rise to the whence she came; 
 
 So she soars on high with majestic sweep 
 To the native spheres that her virtues keep. 
 
 Those celestial spirits of purity 
 
 Are the vital draughts of futurity; 
 And v/hen drinking there we forever soar 
 
 With eternal life though we pant for more. 
 
NATURE SONGS 39 
 
 When we live on high, when we drink that life, 
 How our fountains flow ! and our fancies rife 
 
 Are full as the heart of poetic thought 
 And leaps from the lips of the least untaught. 
 
 There all that we are and all that we find 
 With enraptured joy for the heart and mind, 
 
 Are symbols to man from the Holy and High 
 Who is throned on the arch of the pillared sky. 
 
 What eons as waves have beneath thee rolled 
 The mountains, the seas or the stars ne'er told, 
 
 For before their birth was spread thy adorn 
 As a mother's love round the babe unborn. 
 
 What a fresh young life and a new born grace 
 Is mirrored to earth in thy cloudless face ! 
 
 Old, old as thou art, thou art ever new 
 When we lift our hearts for another view. 
 
 What a granite strength like the strength of truth 
 When young with the life and the hope of youth ! 
 
 Though the mountain range long the storms defy 
 It is whirlwind dust to the girdled sky. 
 
 What an unrobed nature of purity 
 
 Too pure for the eyes of the most to see, 
 
 Doth circle us round and on conscience streams 
 Both a silence deep and most solemn dreams ! 
 
 What a changeless love round a world of stain, 
 Where the moral hopes in their birth are slain ! 
 
 Over human sin thus so crimson crowned 
 It has never darkened or wrinkling frowned. 
 
 What a Spirit vast and what matchless grace 
 Both around his breast and upon his face, 
 
 Must be throned afar and to mortal eyes 
 Thus symbols himself in the azure skies ! 
 
40 NATURE SONGS 
 
 On what and where is the mortal hour 
 With its boast and pride and its works of power, 
 
 When the solemn sight of the azure sky 
 Doth attract the flesh and the spirit's eye! 
 
 Oh what is the strife and the greed of gain 
 With its Cain-like brow of a brother slain, 
 
 When we look aloft at the solemn sight 
 And silent stand in her floods of light! 
 
 Oh what is time and her fevered dream 
 Of the mighty hosts that forever stream 
 
 When we pause and gaze with prophetic look 
 At the symbols spread on that opened book! 
 
 Oh men of the city ! whose skiey strips 
 
 The crowd and the noise and the smoke eclipse, 
 
 With eclipse so dark that the heart and eye 
 Is blind to the earth and the powers on high : 
 
 In thy day of strength and the greed of gain, 
 In the hour of grief and of loss and pain, 
 
 Go up to the towers and just take a view 
 Of the hemisphere and the boundless blue. 
 
 Does the breath of spring and the dew of youth, 
 The rapture of hope and the strength of truth 
 
 Seem forever fled ? Oh ! the Spirit there 
 
 But waits with his gifts for the look of prayer. 
 
 Is day as the night and night as the deep 
 When chaotic storms on her bosom leap? 
 
 The night shall be day and day be as bright 
 As the heavens above and her seas of light. 
 
 Has death in his arms bore thy love away 
 And left thee alone to the beasts of prey? 
 
 There is peace and calm and a higher love 
 To fall in thy heart from the skies above. 
 
NATURE SONGS 41 
 
 Whatever the sorrows that make thee lean 
 Go forth and stand where the skies are seen; 
 
 Just stand and behold and the azure towers 
 Shall lift thy heart with divinest powers. 
 
 For the spirit's home is the azure dome 
 Where e'er in the deserts of earth he roam, 
 
 As the gardened bowers and their perfumed flowers 
 Is the home of birds and the summer hours. 
 
 As the bridal isles and their golden smiles 
 Is the lovers' home and their heart beguiles, 
 
 So the sky above and her purity 
 Is the home of love and her spirits free. 
 
 'Tis the home of all, but the poet heart 
 There finds himself and the noblest art; 
 
 For the art and the artist are undivine 
 
 Till they lose themselves and in others shine. 
 
 Oh prophetic soul of celestial birth ! 
 
 There is nought for thee in the greed of earth, 
 But the earth herself which her sons despise 
 
 And the heavens above and her azure skies. 
 
 There the atmosphere can so vitalize, 
 
 That the heart and mind with a vast surprise 
 
 Will behold with awe yet delirious mirth 
 The natures divine of poetic birth. 
 
 For the worlds that swim in that azure dome 
 Mock Egypt, Assyria, Greece and Rome; 
 
 This was only made for an infant's time 
 But those to the scale of a manhood's prime. 
 
 The beauty there that we worship must 
 Of the rainbow cloud and the starry dust, 
 
 Of the golden suns and the moons of light 
 Will enrobe thy song in their beauty bright. 
 
42 NATURE SONGS 
 
 And the music there of the crystal spheres 
 That is only heard by immortal peers 
 
 Will around thee ring, and circle thy verse 
 With harmonies based on the awful curse. 
 
 Those passioned powers will palpitate 
 Rich into thy heart the extatic state 
 
 That forms the divine to forever stay 
 When the phantom man and his works decay. 
 
 Then Oh for the plain and the hemisphere 
 Where the earth is bare and the heavens clear ! 
 
 With naught on the heart to obscure the view 
 Of pavilioning, deep and redeeming blue. 
 
 And Oh for the summit of mountain height 
 Where the soul is bathed in the liquid light! 
 
 And the visions and pleasures and powers intense 
 Are felt in the tissues of mortal sense. 
 
 And Oh for the days of aerial skill 
 
 When his cloud-like car he can mount at will ! 
 And at morning, noon and at twilight dim 
 
 In that ocean deep will delight to swim. 
 
 And Oh for the days when this mortal chain 
 By a mighty hand will be rent in twain ! 
 
 And my spirit free as the eagles are 
 
 Will drink from the noon and the midnight star. 
 
 And Oh for eternity's lightning wings 
 When the spirit soars and forever sings ! 
 
 Oh forever soars with eternal rise 
 
 In the life and the love of the azure skies ! 
 
NATURE SONGS 43 
 
 THE ROSE. 
 
 A maiden fair as morning birth 
 
 And pure as morning snows, 
 In gratitude for truth I taught 
 
 Placed in my hand a rose. 
 When she gave me her simple gift 
 
 A tear her eye did wet; 
 The soul that blossomed in her face 
 
 I never can forget, 
 For she was not like other maids, 
 
 But deep and glad and true. 
 God's purity still shed on her 
 
 Its sweet divinest dew. 
 
 This rose which she had given me 
 
 I bore it to my room; 
 Its love and light that lonely place 
 
 Did clear of every gloom. 
 Its beauty was a soul who sent 
 
 Enchantment through the air, 
 Which by the strength of its pure life 
 
 Afar did banish care. 
 With such a sight before mine eyes 
 
 And such an air to drink, 
 I only could give up myself 
 
 With joy and love to think. 
 
 This rose was robed in purest white, 
 
 Just tinging into cream ; 
 And silvered with the early dew 
 
 Sprinkled from morning stream. 
 The queen of beauty came to her 
 
 From paradise above, 
 And brought a garment for her child, 
 
 Rich folds of light and love. 
 Such flow of dress the chosen maid 
 
 Has wished for in her dream, 
 But never such for happy bride 
 
 Was ever found I ween. 
 
44 NATURE SONGS 
 
 The soul of this sweet rose breathed forth 
 
 A most delicious breath; 
 So calm, so sweet, so rich, so pure, 
 
 It o'er came envious death; 
 It spread itself around the room 
 
 And on my dear loved books, 
 The souls of poets travelling on 
 
 Turned round with wondering looks. 
 That breath was far too strong for me 
 
 As warmth is for the snow, 
 I felt it pierce through all my frame 
 
 And to my dead heart go. 
 
 Because in her pure world of love 
 
 There is no thought of sin 
 She bared her bosom to the air 
 
 To fan the love within. 
 Her bodice folds were gently turned 
 
 And in her heaving breast 
 The soul of beauty was laid bare 
 
 Most modest and most blest. 
 No blush upon her cheek did burn, 
 
 But light and love divine; 
 Through all her frame her crystal soul . 
 
 Upon my soul did shine. 
 
 That glowing breast a love revealed, 
 
 A passion most intense; 
 It kindled in my frozen heart 
 
 A love too strong for sense. 
 The gentle rose did not reject 
 
 This growing love of mine, 
 But whispered as love only can 
 
 "I seek that heart of thine." 
 So I drew near this living soul 
 
 And looked down in her breast; 
 Such love and beauty and delight 
 
 May never be expressed. 
 
NATURE SONGS 45 
 
 Her gentle breath upon my cheek 
 
 Was warm as summer rain; 
 Her presence thus so near to me 
 
 Was cleansing every stain. 
 Her love had kindled mine so strong 
 
 My fears passed in eclipse; 
 My head bent down, hers gently rose 
 
 To meet my offered lips. 
 They meet, and from her soul there flowed 
 
 A life ne'er known before; 
 It swept me from this world of crime 
 
 To some enchanted shore. 
 
 A lover never kissed a maid 
 
 And through his bosom thrilled, 
 As from thy heart, Oh happy rose ! 
 
 My empty heart was filled. 
 It seemed as on thy lips most pure 
 
 Were sprinkled sacred dews, 
 So thee alone of things divine 
 
 The All in all could choose 
 To send into my empty soul 
 
 A throb of his own life, 
 And thus through thy sweet purity 
 
 To calm my mortal strife. 
 
 So this is why I love the rose, 
 
 Of flowers the virgin queen; 
 The love that in her bosom glows 
 
 Is that of the Unseen. 
 His life beats through earth's pulsing frame 
 
 To touch the human heart; 
 The flower his winning smile of love 
 
 To draw with him apart. 
 Go gaze upon the rose's art! 
 
 Go watch her bosom burn! 
 Go place thy soul beside her heart 
 
 And feel him for thee yearn ! 
 
46 NATURE SONGS 
 
 THE NORTHERN LIGHTS. 
 
 Dancing ! Dancing ! Dancing ! 
 
 Spirits pure and bright ! 
 Dancing ! Dancing ! Dancing ! 
 Round a court of light, 
 A host of spirits blest and fairy-like to sight. 
 
 Where are these dancers gay? 
 
 Where is the court you spy ? 
 The spirit, elf and fay 
 
 That on your vision fly, 
 And raise out of your heart this glad extatic cry? 
 
 Where? Yonder where from olden 
 Time built old winter's throne; 
 
 Where summer summer golden 
 Is never never known, 
 But Iceland's ancient king rules all the polar zone. 
 
 Yonder where night's curtain 
 
 The storms in anger blow; 
 Where never is uncertain 
 
 Vast field of ice and snow, 
 And clear and frosty nights and furry Eskimo. 
 
 Yonder where the mountains 
 
 Pure ices diadem; 
 Where the crystal fountains 
 
 Mount geyser-like to them; 
 And where the glacier flows and icebergs ocean gem. 
 
 Yonder on the summit 
 
 Around the polar star; 
 Climbing up the plummit 
 
 And coming from afar. 
 See ! See the dancers come in reindeer driven car. 
 
NATURE SONGS 47 
 
 Dancing ! Dancing ! Dancing ! 
 
 Fairy, elf and sprite ! 
 Dancing ! Dancing ! Dancing ! 
 
 Phantoms of delight ! 
 Nature's dreams from far in poet robes bedight. 
 
 These in white enrobe, 
 
 As if floretted snow 
 From yon pure silver globe 
 
 Around their forms did blow, 
 To rival and to shame all gowns others bestow. 
 
 These in blue are clad, 
 
 As if the azure deep 
 A portion of his plaid 
 
 Had cast round them to keep, 
 To be in royal style at that extatic leap. 
 
 That in green is dressed, 
 
 As if the flowers and grass 
 Nature wove and pressed 
 
 And gave to some sweet lass, 
 And laughed unto herself that she would all surpass. 
 
 That in red is tinged, 
 
 As if the setting sun 
 A straying fleece had singed 
 
 And sent it on the run 
 To fashion's famous ball and dared to be outdone. 
 
 Here comes the poet's sons 
 
 Clad in robes divine; 
 The royal purple ones 
 
 He sent to lead the line, 
 And knew within himself that none would them outshine. 
 
 Here comes the maiden's race, 
 
 Dreams from her heart and mind; 
 
 Oh the pansy pansy grace 
 That round them has been twined, 
 And brighter beauties still upon their faces kind ! 
 
48 NATURE SONGS ' ' 
 
 Others rainbow tinted, 
 
 As stalactites of ice 
 The liquid waters printed 
 
 With their prismic device 
 And gave a magic robe a joy could never price. 
 
 Dancing ! Dancing ! Dancing ! 
 
 What a mazy flight ! 
 Dancing ! Dancing ! Dancing ! 
 
 On our mortal sight 
 Every motion, style and grace joy ever dreamt at night 
 
 Forward with a bound; 
 
 Backward with a glide; 
 Then turning round and round 
 
 Till the head does dizzy ride; 
 Then promenading up, and in from side to side. 
 
 Now hand in hand they go; 
 
 Now swinging left and right; 
 Now up the center so; 
 Now spinning swift as sight; 
 Oh it is a mazy crowd and drunken with delight ! 
 
 Fantastic, straight, fair, 
 
 Sudden, now and then, 
 Yonder, here and there, 
 
 Unseen and in our ken; 
 Mocking us and all our what and why and when? 
 
 Rising, high and oft, 
 
 Frosty, straight and strong, 
 Sinking, silent, soft, 
 
 Narrow, thin and long, 
 And if our sense could hear Oh singing what a song ! 
 
 Moving, quick and mad, 
 
 Crystal, pure and clear, 
 Conical and glad, 
 
 Enthroned and far and near, 
 Celestial and divine as being can appear. 
 
NATURE SONGS 49 
 
 Oh round and round and round, 
 
 Like figures in a dream 
 These poet spirits bound 
 
 To music like a stream 
 That burst within the heart with an overflowing teem. 
 
 Dancing ! Dancing ! Dancing ! 
 
 Souls of electric light! 
 Dancing ! Dancing ! Dancing ! 
 Essential natures bright ! 
 Bodiless and beautiful as ever met the sight ! 
 
 How we sluggish mortals 
 
 Wonder and admire, 
 When these kingdom portals 
 
 Are opened, and its fire 
 Is flashed upon our sight but dreams of something higher ! 
 
 How earth and sea and sky 
 
 Are lifted with delight, 
 When yonder there on high 
 
 They rise upon the sight; 
 And draws all nature up as moons the ocean bright ! 
 
 How the stars that sprinkle 
 
 All the dome of space, 
 Twinkle, brighter twinkle 
 
 In their nocturnal race, 
 When these celestial beauties are circling in their grace ! 
 
 How youth and maid on pinions 
 
 Here hasten with entrance; 
 Flaming sword dominions 
 Nor hinders their advance; 
 Welcome! Welcome! Welcome youth! Come! Mingle in 
 the dance ! 
 
 How the poet's pleasure 
 
 Is passing into pain ! 
 His joys like their own measure 
 
 Is swelling every vein, 
 Inspiring fancy's fairy forms around his heart and brain. 
 
50 NATURE SONGS 
 
 How ! How his very dreams 
 
 Grow passionate and faint ! 
 Grow thirsty for new streams 
 
 To drink away complaint 
 Which these on high inspire and perfect blessing taint ! 
 
 Dancing ! Dancing ! Dancing ! 
 
 Upon our visions caught; 
 Dancing ! Dancing ! Dancing ! 
 
 Till we are lost in thought, 
 In brighter dreams divine and higher wisdom taught. 
 
 What revelry and sports 
 
 Upon that mountain height ! 
 What carnival that courts 
 Such spirits of delight! 
 Oh what extatic bliss of touch and sound and sight ! 
 
 That scene it is the joy 
 
 That filleth nature's heart; 
 And the height of her employ 
 
 Is without a price to bart 
 Her happiness of life to all that of her art. 
 
 What divinest glory 
 
 Before the eye has sailed ? 
 What harmony or story 
 Or prophecy been hailed? 
 What life and love and light and truth have been unveiled ? 
 
 That beauty does entrance, 
 
 That love their hearts inflame, 
 That song impel to dance, 
 
 That hope and starry fame, 
 Which we have seldom felt and never think or claim. 
 
 Where the souls are purest 
 
 They dwell above the spheres ; 
 Then freedom is securest, 
 And life exempt from fears, 
 And joy contagious, quick and sweet as that which here 
 appears. 
 
NATURE SONGS 51 
 
 Where a love is living 
 
 Tis full and sweet and pure; 
 Rejoicing in its giving 
 
 And thus is most secure; 
 The heart that gives its all and self forever shall endure. 
 
 Where the life is deepest 
 
 Is mountings oft and high ; 
 And as it upward leapest 
 
 With joy's extatic cry- 
 It finds and lives within the life that fills the azure sky. 
 
 Where the light is brightest 
 Appears the most divine ; 
 Wherever beauty lightest 
 It is a rainbow sign, 
 That God is seeking thus to draw thy heart with his to 
 twine. 
 
 Dancing ! Dancing ! Dancing ! 
 
 Through the live-long night. 
 Entrancing! Oh entrancing 
 
 With magic magic might ! 
 For mortal and immortal are the dreams of love and light. 
 
 A SAUCER OF PANSIES. 
 
 In the spring my mother plants 
 
 A bed of pansies fine; 
 Then with a gardener's glance 
 
 She nurses them divine, 
 Until the blossom pants 
 
 And bursts into the shine. 
 
 Then every other day 
 
 A saucerful as bright 
 As beauty ever lay 
 
 Before the poet's sight, 
 She plucks and bears away 
 
 My simple room to light. 
 
52 NATURE SONGS 
 
 When I come home and dress, 
 And call my own an hour, 
 
 I note the kindliness 
 
 That placed the rainbow flower, 
 
 And in it breathed I guess 
 Another heart and dower. 
 
 To-day the purple deep 
 The yellow beauties fringe; 
 
 Blue and white to-morrow sleep 
 On a bank of velvet singe; 
 
 And the very rainbows leap 
 
 Where there tender edges hinge. 
 
 Upon the pansies bright 
 
 I dream and dream and dream, 
 
 Of visions of delight 
 
 With which my youth did teem, 
 
 But life with deadly blight 
 Has flung on autumn's stream. 
 
 I see the heights divine 
 
 That are throned above the spheres ; 
 And I pine and pine and pine 
 
 Mid my sin and grief and fears 
 And my heart bursts in my eyne 
 
 With the language of our tears. 
 
 That world upon me flies 
 Which sorrow brings to birth, 
 
 That is builded in the skies 
 
 When the self sinks in the earth, 
 
 And the living God doth rise 
 In the heart that now has worth. 
 
 Oh flowers of purity ! 
 
 Oh dreams of life and light ! 
 In the saucer I can see 
 
 The heaven's heightless height; 
 But shall I ever be 
 
 Like thy flowers and dreams bedight. 
 
NATURE SONGS 53 
 
 SPRING HYMN. 
 
 Hail springtime Oh hail ! 
 
 Hail soul of the year! 
 Thy cold winter veil 
 
 Has passed and its fear: 
 Has passed and thy glory 
 
 Streams bright on the earth, 
 Which cold, weak and hoary, 
 
 Renews her young birth. 
 
 The dome of deep blue, 
 
 With sun on his throne, 
 Rains pure golden dew 
 
 Which all things now own. 
 The earth doth unfolden 
 
 Her bosom's warm glow, 
 And life with a golden 
 
 Reviving doth glow. 
 
 The flowers doth unfold 
 
 Their rainbow hearts deep; 
 Birds plumaged with gold 
 
 Their songs cannot keep ; 
 The forests and oceans, 
 
 The fountains and fields, 
 Are glad with emotions 
 
 Thy presence unseals. 
 
 All nature is green; 
 
 Her skies are more blue 
 Than mortals have seen 
 
 Since Eden was new. 
 The beauty of story 
 
 And heavenly mirths, 
 Now mirror their glory 
 
 In green singing births. 
 
54 NATURE SONGS 
 
 Life now is all love 
 
 And love is all life; 
 Like heaven above 
 
 It healeth all strife. 
 In love's vital passion 
 
 Are powers which unfold 
 The lowest in fashion 
 
 We joy to behold. 
 
 Hail soul of the spring! 
 
 Oh breathe thy warm breath ! 
 To breathe, shine and sing 
 
 Thou wakest all death. 
 Away my heart's sin sense 
 
 And sorrow's wild wail ! 
 Thy beauty and incense 
 
 And music all hail ! 
 
 METEORS AND STARS. 
 
 A blazing rocket mounting to the air, 
 Leaves in its wake a line of crimson light; 
 Aloft it bursts, and colored streams most fair 
 Play as a fountain 'gainst the dome of night. 
 This sudden, brilliant and fantastic sight 
 Draws every eye, and while its bosom burns 
 Pales the eternal stars; then from its height 
 In that same gaze to earth it quick returns, 
 To splutter, hiss and sink mid ocean's scornful urns. 
 
 As men are born, so each dynamic life 
 Is winged to mount this firmament of fire; 
 In that majestic peace which mocks our strife 
 Find the bright place for which high hearts aspire. 
 In our quick, mortal, blind and mad desire 
 For yonder vacant thrones, wings of feeble flame 
 Are stricken dumb by storms of jealous ire; 
 And millions fall to darkness when they came, 
 To watch with envious eyes the few swift souls of fame. 
 
NATURE SONGS 55 
 
 These souls mount up, and as warm dizzy flights 
 Kindles bright dreams within the meteor's trance, 
 So their being burns anew. Golden delights 
 Around them shine, and their celestial dance, 
 Almighty power and solar lightning glance 
 For one short hour dims e'en the light of noon ; 
 Then weakness does each quick, glad, silver lance 
 Of spirit light eclipse, while star and moon 
 Watch their descending flight to some foul dark lagoon. 
 
 For souls burning from self may burn most bright; 
 Spread heaven's light, and herald earth's late morn; 
 But selfishness, time's deadly coldest blight, 
 The vital spark from seraph souls has torn; 
 From glowing heart and flaming mind has borne 
 The light that clove their dark and natal gloom, 
 And hissing in sin's salty sea of scorn 
 Plunged them down, and gave the vacant room 
 To souls of purer fire bursting from death's last tomb. 
 
 Those spirits scorched by life's quick fiery scorn 
 Till selfishness is cindered, cold and dead, 
 With an immortal life anew are born, 
 And from the heart of primal fire are fed. 
 Fire soft, pure, sweet, swift and strong as ever sped 
 The electric currents through archangel's wings 
 Is theirs; and since to life and love is wed 
 The high ideal, their inmost being springs 
 From tombs of death to life and thrones that wait their kings. 
 
 Through mortal night with lightning woven storms, 
 Through thunder crash and elemental wrath, 
 Through swarming hosts of demoniac forms 
 Whose envious hate resists their destined path 
 Skyward, love's pure resistless heart which hath 
 A robe of strength and motion round them flung, 
 Burns with her glowing countenance a swath 
 Through their deep belt of foes ; and all that clung 
 Around their new-born soul before their flight are stung. 
 
56 NATURE SONGS 
 
 Then as a globe and comet train of fire, 
 In most majestic curves toward heaven's height 
 Sweeps her bright way, and brighter as she higher 
 Mounts the path through constellated night: 
 So souls of love, with splendor, joy and might 
 Pinion aloft to life's awaiting skies; 
 While mid our flames of flickering lurid light, 
 A million hearts wih their sad filmy eyes, 
 Behold their age's sight with hate or glad surprise. 
 
 From golden, poised and never wearied wings, 
 Upon that mass of helpless death below 
 The spirit's best and purest gift she flings: 
 The light of love upon their selfish woe; 
 The love of light to feed their heart's faint glow; 
 On their dark hearts and shadowed countenance 
 A living dream which beckons them to go, 
 Toward that pure Soul, whose love and gladness dance 
 In these soft saving beams upon their mortal glance. 
 
 Then far above on heaven's destined thrones, 
 Firm set within the firmament which time 
 Pavilions round this darkness, death and groans, 
 They shine forever bright. From towers sublime 
 They scatter light which neither curse nor crime 
 Can long eclipse, nor if they would, not see. 
 Though age on age like waves each other climb, 
 And selfishness her dark clouds still set free, 
 High throned the lights of love shine to eternity. 
 
 THE ROBIN. 
 
 Oh crimson breast ! Oh crimson breast ! 
 
 Oh crimson crimson heart ! 
 Oh welcome guest ! Oh welcome guest ! 
 
 Thou dost my fancies start. 
 Inspire and rapture and employ 
 Are born in nature's peace and joy. 
 
NATURE SONGS 57 
 
 Thy sisterhood of brighter plume 
 
 And lyric hearted song, 
 Have left the city to its doom 
 
 And in green forests throng. 
 But city park, and garden trees, 
 Thy human heart doth equal please. 
 
 What human heart ! What human heart ! 
 
 After a winter's reign, 
 Has never leaped with joyful start 
 
 At thy first springtime strain? 
 At thy first note we lift our eyes 
 As after rainbows in the skies. 
 
 And when at night they all come home 
 
 From worry, toil and strife, 
 When strength and hope that daily roam 
 
 At eve join babe and wife, 
 Thy crimson breast our eyes have seen 
 With these pure loves is mixed between. 
 
 Across our spring and summer light 
 
 Thy bosom glad we see; 
 We sorrow when the autumn's blight 
 
 Afar doth banish thee. 
 In winter storms we sometimes yearn 
 For thee to hail the spring's return. 
 
 Thou hast no strength or speed or skill, 
 
 No weapon for the fight ; 
 No eagle talon, sworded bill 
 
 Or war enkindling sight; 
 Thou wast not made for hate or strife, 
 For selfishness or mortal life. 
 
 But thou art rest and peace and love 
 
 And close to human heart; 
 Thou dost incarnate from above 
 
 A small divine impart 
 Of that one love which does divide 
 In all pure loves through time and tide. 
 
53 NATURE SONGS 
 
 Thou hast no plumage of delight, 
 As sun-kissed clouds on high; 
 
 As tintings on the flower beds bright, 
 Or iris colored eye; 
 
 Rich beauties that from heaven shine 
 
 Are not a heritage of thine. 
 
 But beauty oft is shining form 
 
 Without a soul within; 
 Thy life domestic, pure and warm 
 
 Is far away from sin. 
 The stainless, pure and passioned heart 
 Needs not the rainbow hues of art. 
 
 Thy soul has no delirious strain 
 That wakes my sleeping dreams, 
 
 That bears me to a golden plane 
 Of odors, sounds and gleams; 
 
 No music matchless and divine 
 
 That fills all hearts till more we pine. 
 
 Thy one and simple pleasing song 
 Is calm and faith and love; 
 
 Divorcing from the earthly throng, 
 Uniting us above. 
 
 All simple loves from ill divide 
 
 And join with all beyond the tide. 
 
 Thy cheery song that greets the morn, 
 Thy plaintive evening psalm, 
 
 Upon a world by sorrow torn 
 It falls as healing balm. 
 
 Oh what is earth's most peerless song 
 
 To a pure love on sinful wrong? 
 
 As is the lay of child or wife, 
 
 As is the song of home, 
 Unto the measures vast of life, 
 
 And classic airs of Rome, 
 So is thy music to the heart 
 With something these could never bart. 
 
NATURE SONGS 59 
 
 Then build beside my crowded home, 
 
 Thy blue eggs softly nest; 
 The gardens round for forage roam 
 
 But turn thee to thy nest. 
 To see thee and thy happy mate 
 Is more than earth's high gilded state. 
 
 Through fever day and dewy night, 
 
 Extreme of calm and storm, 
 Thy nature with a deep delight 
 
 Beats through thy bosom warm, 
 The rich pre-natal mother mirth 
 That nourishes thy eggs to birth. 
 
 A hunger cry and mouths of need, 
 
 A parent's tireless toil; 
 A ruthless hand, a heart's implead, 
 
 Though weak, defense in broil; 
 A hundred lessons for the heart 
 Thy actions to the wise impart. 
 
 The smaller fruits we give to thee ; 
 
 The grapes and currants win; 
 The larger luscious taste them free 
 
 Though some would call it sin. 
 Why should'st thou lack thy frugal meal 
 From thy own father's boundless weal? 
 
 The berry man may call a curse 
 
 And guard his juicy wealth; 
 The cherry man may rave still worse 
 
 And shoot thee down by stealth. 
 Woe ! Woe to us ! Who ? Who could live 
 If greater theft none did forgive? 
 
 With all thy sins, thy depth of breast, 
 
 Thy bosom's sinless beat, 
 Thy purity and faith and rest 
 
 I would my heart could greet. 
 There's naught within the world I see 
 Like peace and love and purity. 
 
60 NATURE SONGS 
 
 For thou and all things like to thee 
 Of nature, man and art 
 
 A longing of intensity 
 
 Wakes up within the heart, 
 
 To be and love and live like thee 
 
 In that great heart where all are free. 
 
 SONG OF THE GREEN TREE. 
 
 My evergreen soul of celestial birth 
 At the dawn of life descended to earth, 
 
 From the heavens above, where the best is born 
 To mantle the earth with a bright adorn. 
 
 There the soul divine that is full of life 
 
 Breathed into me strength for a mortal strife; 
 
 With the greenest hope of an azure birth 
 For a place and power I came to the earth. 
 
 A germ with the laws and the rights of life 
 I was planted deep in the midst of strife. 
 
 The great from the least they have ever grown 
 And round and beneath are the overthrown. 
 
 Then the vital heart of the world soul sent 
 Such pulse to my own that my soul unpent, 
 
 And the infant germ sprang swift to the light 
 As a life that grows with a spirit's might. 
 
 The passionate powers of that first clime 
 Soon nourished the birth to a noble prime; 
 
 Behold ! in the world now I stand with pride 
 
 While all other growths are shamed from my side. 
 
 Both the heavens above and the earth below, 
 
 And all between, with the overflow 
 Of a generous heart and exhaustless wealth 
 
 Have poured in me gifts of abounding health. 
 
NATURE SONGS . 61 
 
 My loom is the darkest and softest kind 
 
 That ever a soul in the earth did bind ; 
 Around me it lays with a tender press, 
 
 Protection and warmth of an under dress. 
 
 The green grass above doth carpet me round 
 With its velvet touch and its murmuring sound; 
 
 There is always a soft and bright adorn 
 
 Where the roots and knots of strength are born. 
 
 My out-reaching roots with a sacred thirst 
 Press into the dark and a way doth burst 
 
 Till the moisture cool and the water's sound 
 
 Both quicken and guide where the life is found. 
 
 Deep rejoicing then at the river's brink 
 Her being so crystal my own doth drink; 
 
 I drink to the full of immortal life 
 
 And renew my strengh for the daily strife. 
 
 The tropical breeze with their laden breath 
 
 So vital they quicken the winter's death, 
 Their spirit and passion through every pore 
 
 Flows into my heart to the very core. 
 
 The temperate winds with their zonal strength 
 Have blown on my breast ; and my breadth and length 
 
 Have expanded rich as the middle clime 
 Doth the spirits form of the noblest prime. 
 
 When the Arctic blasts with their fury burst 
 I was roused to strength as their spirits versed; 
 
 Like a wrestling giant for many an hour 
 
 I girded my loins and breast with their power. 
 
 The unkindled sun with his vital heat, 
 His rainbow spirits and his rythmic beat: 
 
 Is there aught in earth or the heavens above 
 So bright as the smile of his morning love ? 
 
 Or deep as the calm of his good-night kiss 
 As it falls on my heart with its lingering bliss? 
 
62 NATURE SONGS 
 
 What a magic strange is the chemic power 
 That changeth all ill to his bright endower ? 
 
 He taketh the eartb as a sacred birth 
 
 And feeds her with strength and with azure mirth; 
 
 And out of the earth with his golden might 
 He has raised me up in my towering height. 
 
 The radiant beams of his lightning glance 
 Shoot into the heart like a vital lance; 
 
 And my spirits rise as a dream doth leap 
 Like a breath of life from the land of sleep, 
 
 And spreads its face to the morning sun 
 And feels that its course has but just begun. 
 
 When the kingless king has retired to rest 
 
 And the twilight curtains are round his breast, 
 
 The night with the moon and her silver spheres 
 Hourly bathe my brow with their dewy tears. 
 
 Their coolness revives as an icy draught 
 Which the dying day has rejoiced to quaff; 
 
 Has rejoiced to quaff ere he doth retire 
 To his slumber dreams of to-morrow's fire. 
 
 So the dewy night and the icy stars 
 From their lucid urns and their crystal jars, 
 
 Pour upon my head their divinest dew 
 Till the morning dawns on the seas of blue. 
 
 Oh that azure dome ! Oh that azure dome ! 
 
 That circles me 'round and afar doth roam; 
 What a fulness of life doth her silence keep 
 
 For the earth and the stars she enbosoms deep ! 
 
 To but feel that sense round the spirit roll 
 
 Is infinite life in the finite soul. 
 Who could live with her in a fresh inspire 
 
 And wish aught else in his best desire? 
 
NATURE SONGS 63 
 
 There is room, vast room in the azure height, 
 Vision, gladness, strength and a keen delight, 
 
 There is victory, song and a mighty glow- 
 To souls that to her in their natures grow, 
 
 There is life divine in the azure skies 
 
 That diviner grows as we higher rise; 
 Oh ! my only home is that azure dome 
 
 And the earth beneath with its sacred loam. 
 
 I uncrown my head to her liquid light; 
 
 I out-stretch my arms to enfold her might; 
 I open my all to her rich bestow; 
 
 As her spirits fall to the height I grow. 
 
 The covetous clouds from the ocean's breast, 
 
 From her scooped trough and her white capped crest, 
 
 From the mountain height and her snowy gleam, 
 And the fountain there and her icy stream, 
 
 From the sun-crowned morn with her quick distills, 
 And the billowy west with her dewy hills, 
 
 From the Arctic zone and the south more warm, 
 The spirit so vital in every form 
 
 They enfold most deep in their fleecy dress 
 
 And circle around as no mind can guess, 
 Till the niters pure of the upper air 
 
 Doth embalm the rain as a treasure rare: 
 
 Then the fanning winds to a marching strain 
 
 Blow their shadowy sweep o'er the sea and plain, 
 
 Till they seek me out and at noontide hour 
 Long bathe my soul with reviving power. 
 
 Then the circling veins and the tissues dry 
 Drink, drink to their full with a thankful sigh; 
 
 As in me it flows with a pulsing pain 
 I can hear it sing with a joyful strain. 
 
64 NATURE SONGS 
 
 Then the rib-like mail that is round my breast 
 
 Feels the strength of life and its joints are pressed 
 
 By resistless force, and the new expand 
 Forms another rib with a tighter band. 
 
 Then my knotted roots deeper sink from sight 
 And my brow ascends to a higher height. 
 
 My arms reach again farther east and west 
 And my branches all are with freshness dressed. 
 
 Then my joyous leaves in their life of bliss, 
 Like spirits in love with each other kiss, 
 
 Till my central heart feels a vital glow 
 And a greener gladness to each I throw. 
 
 Is another form on the mother's breast 
 
 So sound in heart and with strength so dressed? 
 
 Is another birth of our mother earth 
 With a greener hope and more glowing mirth? 
 
 Oh tell to me now sight travelers true 
 
 Who circle the world and her greatness view: 
 
 Is there aught in the earth that was ever born 
 Adds more to her pride and her bright adorn ? 
 
 SUMMER. 
 
 Oh ! This is the famous Miss Summer I see, 
 Who was mentioned by poets and lovers to me; 
 And mentioned in music and passionate praise 
 As the vision divine in the midst of our days. 
 
 When hearing thy fame by the hearing of ears, 
 Then a vision arose or came down from the spheres; 
 But spirit and dream must forever more pine 
 For the heart's very presence and eye upon eyne. 
 
NATURE SONGS 65 
 
 As now unexpected and sudden we meet 
 
 How my heart gives a bound and a double-quick beat ! 
 
 My passions like fire in their ardors arise 
 
 By the kindling sparks that are fed from thy eyes. 
 
 Thou art flesh, blood and bone, but something more rare 
 
 Than the fairest of women did ever yet wear; 
 
 A something that hovers around the ideal 
 
 Which we never can name but we always can feel. 
 
 A beauty embodied, a vision divine 
 
 Are thy physical graces in equipoise fine ; 
 
 Thy cheeks and thy brow and thy eyes and thy lips 
 
 Doth the poet's bright song and the lover's eclipse. 
 
 Thy face is a splendor of golden delight 
 Baptized in the sun when the morning was bright ; 
 No ! Born in the sun and the spirits of gold 
 Were poured in thy frame the divinest of mould. 
 
 Thy brow like a marble is spotless and white, 
 Unwrinkled, unblemished and circled with light; 
 Adornment for grace or a goddess of art, 
 It is infinite more when enthroned on a heart. 
 
 Thy cheeks are as soft and as rich as the wealth 
 That has ever yet shined from the fountains of health; 
 No pansy, no violet, no lily, no rose, 
 Could image or add to thy deep vital glows. 
 
 Thy crimson-fold lips, how they tremble with bliss 
 From the spirit of life and her last burning kiss! 
 Thy spirit I see at those portals doth yearn 
 With a rapture divine for that spirit's return. 
 
 Thy eyes, Oh thy eyes ! Was there ere such a sight 
 In the gleam and the glance of the stars of the night ! 
 The planet like fires and the lovers' bright eyne 
 Are but the stray beams from the brightness of thine. 
 
66 NATURE SONGS 
 
 But thy spirit ! Thy spirit ! Thy spirit of grace 
 Is richer by far than the signs of thy face. 
 'Tis only life's strongest and longest that seal 
 On the physical frame that resists the ideal. 
 
 Thy love is as golden and full as the sun, 
 
 Through thy heart and thy veins I can see it now run. 
 
 A spirit as rich and as free to impart 
 
 As the sun in the sky is the soul that thou art. 
 
 In love all the virtues in richness abide, 
 
 As beautiful dreams in the flowers of a bride. 
 
 The graces are born and in love ever live, 
 
 And grow as themselves in their giving they give. 
 
 Thou lovest all things be they low or be high, 
 From the flowers in the grass to the Soul in the sky. 
 Thine is the true love for thy heart's overflow 
 Gives the given himself and thyself and thy glow. 
 
 In heart nor in mind has the body of sense 
 Wrought in thee its power or its darkness intense; 
 Thy spirit divine is dominioned in might 
 And its energies rule all the fleshly bedight. 
 
 Was ever a heart with the passions of love 
 Not pure as the skies and the spirits above? 
 The selfish that hides in the earth's honeyed praise 
 Is not in thy motives, thy words or thy ways. 
 
 Ideals sublime that are far out of sight 
 
 Keep pure most the cause of life's blasting and blight. 
 
 Not the salt savored sea nor the blue azure sky 
 
 Is as pure as the heart which now feedeth thine eye. 
 
 Thou art peaceful and calm, soul centered and still, 
 Though the chambers of life are at more than their fill. 
 Thy multiplied gifts are in balance divine, 
 Overflow and at rest in the midst of our pine. 
 
NATURE SONGS 67 
 
 As gentle and soft and as tenderly kind 
 As the sorrows and wounds of the world ever find ; 
 The sickness and sin and our mortal disease 
 Find a cure in thy hand when no other can ease. 
 
 So patient, compassioned and sympathied deep, 
 All high spirit hearts in thy virtues are steeped. 
 Domestic, contented and all that endears. 
 To the home loving heart 'mid the turbulent years. 
 
 How happy thou art ! All our words of delight 
 With their passioned filled souls give no image to sight : 
 A maiden with flowers in her hands and her breast 
 From winter's wild heart would faint symbol thee best. 
 
 A drunken, delirious and extatic joy 
 Soon intelligence, morals and all will destroy; 
 But happiness, gladness, rejoicing and song, 
 Are sandals and crown and a girdle most strong. 
 
 As flowers in the field or the birds in the sky, 
 As the mountain-fed streams or the clouds as they fly, 
 As the earth-kissing winds or the innocent heart, 
 So glad and much gladder Miss Summer thou art. 
 
 Thy virtues in union or each one alone 
 I could sing the whole day with a still rising tone; 
 What thou art and what like, what done and will be 
 Would be songs to my harp till from hence I shall flee. 
 
 I will tell thee the truth, for the truth ever springs 
 Unto such as thou art with the lightest of wings ; 
 I'll whisper it now, though I buried it deep 
 For in spite of my heart to thy heart it doth leap. 
 
 In far behind days, in the vision of dream, 
 Then an image arose with thy summer soul gleam; 
 All, all of thy soul in her spirit did shine 
 And like thee in form as the eye is to eyne. 
 
68 NATURE SONGS 
 
 With passion, delight and the rapture of youth 
 I pledged her myself at the altar of truth ; 
 When waking I said to the phantoms that stream : 
 "I will wait till I meet with the soul of my dream." 
 
 While waiting for thee then the storms of the north 
 With their night and their winter and fury burst forth; 
 As through the long hours as I waited for morn 
 I was caught and was driven and beaten and torn. 
 
 I was wounded and scarred and the time-spirit filled 
 Till the image divine in my spirit was killed; 
 I have been baptized in the earth's bloody gores 
 And am now only fit for the service of wars. 
 
 Now a rock hewn image of winter I stand ; 
 
 Though a smile has my face and a flower holds my hand, 
 
 Down deep in my heart is the farthest extremes 
 
 To the soft summer soul that upon me now beams. 
 
 So what I once dreamed I will leave now unsaid 
 
 Though I utter one blessing upon thy fair head : 
 
 In eastern dominions where suns ever shine 
 
 May thy soul meet and wed with the heart that is thine ! 
 
 "My heart with raptures overflow; 
 
 Thy music does impart 
 A crown that has a crimson glow 
 
 To both my head and heart. 
 Ere each doth on their journey fare 
 
 I'll cast from off my mind 
 An image I have treasured there 
 
 That doth the moment blind." 
 
NATURE SONGS 69 
 
 "When but a little trippling slip, 
 
 As bright as sunny May, 
 With April eyes and laughing lip 
 
 I met thee on my way. 
 Thy arms of strength with tender might 
 
 Did fold me in thy breast; 
 Did fold me deep, deep out of sight 
 
 In love and gladness blest." 
 
 "Then on my ears there fell a song 
 
 That love sings to the heart ; 
 The murmurs of thy passion strong 
 
 And echoes ne'er depart. 
 I know ! I know by those warm tears, 
 
 Those kisses sweet, divine, 
 There's more in thee than winter's years, 
 
 Or summer's heart of wine." 
 
 "Before us yonder shines the sun; 
 
 The morning does invite ; 
 Your journeys to the sunrise run, 
 
 Oh come ! for my delight 
 Is just to hear thee sing life's songs 
 
 And those that are to be 
 When life has triumphed o'er all wrongs 
 
 With love and purity." 
 
 Oh yes I will go. I can walk, run or fly, 
 And sing thee the songs that can never more die. 
 The hearts that love hearts with no self-seeking pine 
 Find others, themselves and the heart most divine. 
 
70 NATURE SONGS 
 
 NIGHT. 
 
 Oh Night ! Oh Night ! Oh most beloved Night ! 
 Presence divine ! Nature of softest power ! 
 
 Being benign above what noonday's height 
 
 In any dream conceives ! Oh spirit with endower 
 
 Of infinite benevolence on our 
 Darkened, doubtful immortality ! 
 
 Oh soul of vast and altitudinal tower- 
 ing majesty in the wide portality 
 
 Of heaven ! 'Neath thy resplendent bower 
 
 Thou seemest like a living personality, 
 
 Present, near and pure and kind to this mortality. 
 
 What heart or mind wherever on the earth 
 
 Has not looked up into the darkness vast, 
 And felt thy spirit of celestial worth 
 
 Around him? An awful sense is cast 
 O'er nature, and the elements so massed 
 
 In silence and solemnity creates 
 Above the world thy soul of unsurpassed, 
 
 Supremest powers; a soul that dominates 
 The starry darkness with divine unclasped 
 
 Compassions; that softly medicates 
 The silence, strength and calm thy own heart satiates. 
 
 How could the weary disappointed earth 
 
 Refuse to rest beneath thy blessed feet 
 When she herself and all she brings to birth 
 
 Has been but fuel or demon rended meat? 
 On her hot heart and pulses burning heat 
 
 Thy hand is placed, and potent spells doth cease 
 The torrid storms that through her members beat. 
 
 Oh what a calm ! Oh what a wonderous peace ! 
 Oh what divine tranquilities replete 
 
 With heaven's gift! Oh what a rich release 
 Upon the weary world with every day's decease ! 
 
NATURE SONGS 71 
 
 Nature is like a wearied child the nurse 
 
 Cast into slumber. She lies down to rest 
 Unmindful of her ancient ancient curse. 
 
 The azure sky is of its power undressed; 
 The mountains high diminish on earth's breast; 
 
 The boundless plains unconscious lie asleep ; 
 And the mighty sea forever in unrest 
 
 Doth rock the earth like a cradle on the deep. 
 Earth, sea and sky, bird, beast and all are blest 
 
 As they decline into the sacred keep. 
 Oh what a wonderous sense around the world doth creep ! 
 
 Even the unarticulate creations 
 
 Are not unresponsive to thy presence. 
 It often seems thy soft adumbrations 
 
 Wakes another spirit in them. An intense 
 Sacredness robes them round, and a sense 
 
 Of longing gazes from their uncomplaining sight. 
 Unlanguaged prayer, sacred sorrow and assurance 
 
 In the world's creating and sustaining might 
 Grows upon them as the darkness grows more dense. 
 
 'Tis a solemn view from some commanding height 
 To watch the sinking world lie down beneath the night. 
 
 Dear ! Dearer far than to the world of sense ! 
 
 Dearer than to the earth's organic things ! 
 Beloved, divine, devoted and intense 
 
 Art thou to man, and to the passion springs 
 That burst and flow within him. His spirit flings 
 
 Itself with keen delight athwart the day, 
 The sense of life within with rapture sings, 
 
 And hope and strength would bear it far away. 
 But Alas ! Alas ! The sun consumes ; their wings 
 
 Are shorn; their strength declines; their hopes decay; 
 Till soon they fall to earth and for thy presence pray. 
 
72 NATURE SONGS 
 
 Worn out and sheer exhausted by the strife 
 
 And splendors of the day, the mortal host 
 Behold and hail thee as the nurse of life. 
 
 Turning from time's contentious lists, the ghost 
 Of what they might have been, they seem almost 
 
 To disrespect the throned and golden sire 
 Of all the world. They to thy presence post 
 
 To find life's balm, as unfulfilled desire 
 Things such to find on some enchanted coast. 
 
 As the sun does down the western steep retire, 
 Thou comest as a nurse with passion's best inspire. 
 
 Even to youth's unvanquishable pride 
 
 Thou art benign, though veiled unto their eyes. 
 Youth, hope and strength, who have the world defied 
 
 Soon wears the fierce contentions for life's prize; 
 Like some distempered fevered children, their cries 
 
 Thou dost hush down at day's declining hour. 
 From nature's unexhaustable supplies 
 
 Both sense and soul thou dost anew empower 
 With energies that nobly vitalize. 
 
 Ungrateful both to thee and thy endower 
 Thou givest rest and dreams when day doth them devour. 
 
 The great host of toilers, the brawny mass 
 
 Of labor, the sinewy engirded 
 Sons of strength, the blinded and unconscious class 
 
 That battle for this unsustaining bread, 
 Oh thou art kind beyond what tongue has said ! 
 
 Thou liftest off the burdens from his back, 
 And strong protects his low unsheltered head. 
 
 Thou drivest hence the wolves upon his track 
 And vulture dreams that hover round his bed. 
 
 Within his home thy evening hours unpack 
 Their rich domestic gifts the palaces so lack. 
 
NATURE SONGS 73 
 
 Still other hosts defeated in the strife, 
 
 Bleeding and faint from greed's foul murdering mart 
 Return to thee the only hope of life; 
 
 Thy wines and balsams of celestial art 
 Into and round their wounds thou dost impart. 
 
 Life's disappointments, like a mighty train 
 Of fugitives stabbed to the very heart 
 
 And staggering in their black and blinded brain 
 Thou meetest, and without a price doth bart 
 
 Healing and health. The corpses quick regain 
 Themselves and heart and hope that life before had slain. 
 
 Another line smaller but more divine 
 
 Out of the world in silence disappears; 
 Sore battle scarred more than the others sign 
 
 They mark their path with crimson crimson tears. 
 The sorrows, griefs and anguish of the years 
 
 Forsake the day, and unto thee Oh night ! 
 They lift their lamentation, and in thy ears 
 
 Unflood the heart and its unlanguaged blight. 
 Not one ! Not one ! but thy compassion hears, 
 
 And folds them in, into thy bosom tight. 
 Has thou. Oh night like earth wept blindness on thy sight? 
 
 A few great souls of genius, virtue 
 
 And devotion, a mother find in thee. 
 They turn from the noonday's glorious view 
 
 To think and live and fellowship most free 
 Thy sacred greatness. Spirit of purity ! 
 
 Parent of the heir that doth arise 
 To climb the universe ! these natures be 
 
 The earth's immortal mortals and despise 
 All time's achievements to seek society 
 
 With thee. Mother divine unto their eyes, 
 Thou art enthroned amid the constellated skies. 
 
74 NATURE SONGS 
 
 Thou to them all are most compassionate, 
 
 Thou seest them before they turn to thee. 
 Most motherlike, thou dost the hour await 
 
 When life and time shall bid them turn and flee 
 From that false world where they most blindly see. 
 
 As one by one, or host by host, the race 
 Turns from their fierce distempers with a plea 
 
 For any change, they are met in thy embrace 
 With the blessings of thy pure maternity. 
 
 Thy benediction and resource of grace 
 Is freely opened up and poured upon each face. 
 
 Some portion of what heaven holds for earth 
 
 Is in thy heart and from thy hand divine. 
 The atmospheres around thy soul of worth 
 
 Is like a cup of life restoring wine 
 Which he who drinks for deeper draughts will pine. 
 
 Thy shadows vast which on this mortal fall 
 Subdue the wilder elements and recombine 
 
 Life's dissipated energies. Thou dost call 
 Another and a higher soul from the mine 
 
 Of being deep, and a spirit strong and tall 
 Answers and walks with thee the starry chambered hall. 
 
 Thou givest gifts that more than life embalms: — 
 
 A truce to war — an interval of rest — 
 A valley deep — a season of sweet calms 
 
 When each lies down upon his mother's breast — 
 A voice with sweetest nursery songs addressed 
 
 To the worn-out, jaded senses — a hand 
 Soft laid upon the burning brain oppressed, 
 
 To charm the thoughts to an enchanted land. 
 From thy pure heart, emanations blest 
 
 Enter the soul rebellious and unmanned 
 From that exalted state high heaven for them planned. 
 
NATURE SONGS 75 
 
 Sleep ! Sleep ! The most mysterious gift to earth, 
 
 Life's commonest, yet most profoundest change; 
 After our death as it is round our birth, 
 
 And nightly under, when, where or how we range. 
 'Tis a celestial anodyne with strange- 
 
 Est therapeutic virtues — an immersion 
 Of exhausted body in the fresh grange 
 
 Spirit of the world — a calm reversion 
 To being's primal reservoirs, exchange- 
 
 Ing loss for life; and a complete insertion 
 In the infinite for to-morrow's high excursion. 
 
 Sleep ! Sleep ! The most supremest gift to earth, 
 
 Great nature's touch for body and for mind; 
 Sinking in the deep unconsciousness of birth 
 
 As thou Oh night! doth with thy magic bind. 
 Upon that breast so infinitely kind 
 
 Oh mother of this worn humanity ! 
 Thou placest each and drawest soft the blind 
 
 Unconsciousness upon his wild insanity. 
 Oh where in all the world can mortals find 
 
 A gift like sleep on time's profanity? 
 And this most blinded strife and still more blind inanity? 
 
 Upon these restless, restless hours of sleep 
 
 When vanquished and defenseless as a child, 
 Thou keepest watch above his slumbers deep 
 
 And wardest off the dangers round him piled. 
 Dost thou not sorrow upon him time defiled? 
 
 And on his moaning does not thy hand entwined 
 With velvet kindness smooth down his riled 
 
 And blighted spirits? Should a visit blind 
 With golden visions be on his eyes beguiled 
 
 And he awake to grasp the promise kind, 
 What nature rich but thine such blessing did unbind ? 
 
76 NATURE SONGS 
 
 But thy greatest ministrations embrace 
 
 The soul so sunk in time's unconscious sleep. 
 The mere machine that yokes him to this base 
 
 Of nature, thou nursest but to reap 
 A thinking spirit out of the thoughtless heap. 
 
 Thy overshadowing presence, thy speech 
 Of silence like thunder, and the magnetic sweep 
 
 Of thy soul over his : when they reach 
 The slumberer, he riseth with a leap 
 
 And blank astonishment that doth impeach 
 The wisdom of the schools and all the day doth teach. 
 
 Thou art the teacher of the good and wise, 
 
 And makest books and colleges a scorn 
 To life; a presumptuous contempt to eyes 
 
 That in time's travailing agonies are born. 
 Who walks with thee after the day has torn 
 
 Thou teachest what these pedants never dream; 
 And books of lore sublime as is the unworn 
 
 Volumns of eternity open and gleam 
 Upon the sight like thy starry deep unshorn. 
 
 From these books and from thine eyes there stream 
 An infinity of thought that strength alone can theme. 
 
 From thine eyes, from thy maternal heart 
 
 With infinite penetrations, though between 
 The meshes of the worlds something doth start 
 
 With high new-conscious sense. His spirit lean 
 Of life, now hungers with desire for the scene 
 
 That being opes before him. Upon the brink 
 Of matter thou drawest off the screen 
 
 From the mighty worlds that forever shrink 
 From sight by their effulgent brightness. They wean 
 
 Him from himself, and as his soul doth drink 
 The vision of the worlds he rises hence to think. 
 
NATURE SONGS 77 
 
 Thou bringest up this soul to front itself; 
 
 And fronting self it looks straight in the eyes 
 Of some far higher Soul who projects his wealth 
 
 Of life in personalities that rise 
 In vast proportions. The soul that lies 
 
 In slumber bound thou bringest up to feel 
 Its undimensionedness, and strength supplies 
 
 To front the universe. Oh what unseal 
 Of passion pure that with expansion flies 
 
 To being's farthest bounds ! The ideal 
 Calls and answers man the reverberating peal. 
 
 Thou nursest into the immortal mind 
 
 The ruling concepts of the universe: 
 The indestructible, established kind 
 
 For which the worlds are void unless they nurse. 
 Thou bringest God and right and law — the curse 
 
 Of sin and holiness, the mighty poles 
 That swing creation and the ages verse 
 
 Unto their noblest song. Small circled souls 
 Thou liftest from the deep and dark immerse 
 
 Of sense to fellowship the life that rolls 
 Through this vast universe unto its distant goals. 
 
 Thou art the mother of divine inspire ! 
 
 The anointing horns are in thy sacred keep 
 And free thou art in pouring out their fire. 
 
 Forth from the earth their mighty passions leap 
 To walk with thee beneath the blazing deep 
 
 Of heaven. The soul unto its height and reach 
 Is drawn out by the visions thou dost heap 
 
 Upon the eyes, the rich poetic speech 
 Of lofty conversation and the sweep 
 
 Of mighty thoughts beyond the starry beach, 
 Which thou and thine to men in solemn silence teach. 
 
78 NATURE SONGS 
 
 Oh what a sight for lofty contemplation, 
 
 For intellectual strength, archangel thought, 
 Silence, passion, wonder, admiration, 
 
 And all the powers of being overfrought. 
 What boundless elements are here together brought 
 
 To mind destroy, and nobler recreate 
 To something like the infinite. All nought 
 
 And insignificant is man's estate 
 Of genius-ripe conception, when he is caught 
 
 Into the starry heavens to contemplate 
 The vast establishments that round him roll in state. 
 
 Oh what a sight for admiration's eyes 
 
 Is high enthroned on everlasting stations ! 
 What white intensities within the skies 
 
 Here radiate their lightning scintillations ! 
 Oh what majesties of light ! Illuminations 
 
 Of magnificence ! Effulgencies of bright- 
 Est spendor and flashing coruscations 
 
 Athwart the answering canopy of night ! 
 Oh what radiancies and creations 
 
 Of solar brightness and incandescence white ! 
 In firmamental poise on all uplifted sight ! 
 
 Oh thy constellations ! Thy glorious 
 
 Constellations ! Thy constellations bright, 
 So supremely poised in their victorious 
 
 Stations on thrones in promenential sight, 
 Upon creation's lofty heightless height. 
 
 Thy constellations like world divinities 
 Are with such striking majesty bedight, 
 
 They rise among the vast infinities 
 That crown the universe with an effulgent light. 
 
 They radiate the high sublimities 
 That more than equipoise all spirit magnanimities. 
 
NATURE SONGS 79 
 
 In high celestial pagentries, the marches 
 
 Of these splendors, these majesties and powers 
 O'er the else unpictorial walls and arches 
 
 Is like the world plans marching amid the hours. 
 The procession of these glorifying dowers 
 
 Cross the expanse above in their nocturnal 
 Progress, these circles round their annual bowers 
 
 Where all burst forth in bright hibernal 
 Brilliancy, or pale as summer heat devours, 
 
 These marches of processional pomp supernal, 
 'Tis but the universe along its path eternal. 
 
 Oh thy constalations ! Thy glorious 
 
 Constellations ! A noble consanguinity 
 And ancient fellowship in victorious 
 
 Exaltation circling the vast infinity 
 Of being. Ye in your high sublimity 
 
 Flash recognition to all thy kingly race; 
 Or the esemplastic spirit of affinity, 
 
 Flaming through all the hemispheral space, 
 Answers each or some enthroned divinity. 
 
 What incandescent eyes and lightning grace 
 Each has and flaming throws upon each others face ! 
 
 In yon celestials is the most supremest 
 
 Reach of beauty in nature's plastic arts ; 
 A perfect vision of the life that streamest 
 
 Within the deep of her deep heart of hearts. 
 The spirit of sublimest beauty starts 
 
 Into being here, and round that virtue high 
 Nature cast a fashion that imparts 
 
 Rich overflowing glories on the sky. 
 The beautifuls in those celestial charts 
 
 Enchant the strength of life's poetic eye, 
 Sustains her passioned heart as they poise and swing and fly. 
 
80 NATURE SONGS 
 
 Oh thy constellations ! Thy glorious 
 
 Constellations ! established on the height 
 Of time and forever more victorious 
 
 Above the gulf. Oh what a vast delight, 
 Of purposes and prophecies unite 
 
 To sustain ye on the blank and hungry void 
 As the world's best stability ! Thy bright 
 
 Illuminations could seem to be destroyed 
 By breath, but this emblazonry of night, 
 
 So blessed, so beatific and enjoyed 
 Is more than is the world by firm foundations buoyed. 
 
 What a high sublimity shines there, 
 
 Of mystery, of wonder and of awe ! 
 And of these breathless contemplations where 
 
 Time's creations unto their highest draw ! 
 The majesty and sovereignty of law ! 
 
 The incarnation of almighty power! 
 The transformation from the rude raw 
 
 Elements of chaos into this bower 
 Of firmamental splendors ! Life saw 
 
 The garnished heavens and humbled in that hour 
 Loves more thy solemn dome than noonday's golden tower. 
 
 Oh thy constellations ! Thy glorious 
 
 Constellations ! in that ideal state 
 Designed for them ere their victorious 
 
 Emergence from the dark contentious gate 
 Of chaos. Supernity is like a weight 
 
 Of glory on them, and the immortal 
 Is burning in their exaltations great. 
 
 In the else black concave they make a courtal 
 Majesty and magnificent estate. 
 
 What strength conceives a more emblazoned portal 
 Around this travailing earth, around her courses mortal ! 
 
NATURE SONGS 81 
 
 Yonder the Great Bear prowls around the pole. 
 
 There Cassiopeia and her family reign. 
 Here Taurus with his brilliant clusters roll. 
 
 Near Orion's belted strength is a plain 
 Triangle of three glorious stars. The strain 
 
 Of the Harp and Aquila's boundless flight 
 Behold ! See ! Sagittarius has lain 
 
 His arrow to the Serpent's heart, and sight 
 The stars when the Centaur treads disdain. 
 
 The classic symbols dwindle left and right, 
 The poles are scant of stars, the center crowded bright. 
 
 Right through these monarchies so bright, the moon, 
 
 An earth-born child adopted by the night, 
 Swift circles like a princess of the noon 
 
 Though with some veil upon her face of light. 
 That soul of splendor across the bright 
 
 Concave is to the world a warm desire 
 And forevermore a passion and delight. 
 
 Oh virgin soul of pure and palest fire ! 
 Sail on thy course, and on earth's lifted sight 
 
 Thy smile still rain the magic of inspire, 
 And every wax and wane shall make thy presence nigher. 
 
 Oh what a belt is round the whole concave: — 
 
 A girdle bright — a silver flowing stream — 
 A milky river but whose path doth pave 
 
 More mighty suns than telescopes can deem. 
 What bursting showers of glorious meteors gleam 
 
 Upon the sight and sometimes even daze 
 The earth with a long remembered dream. 
 
 See the fierce alien comets lighting the ways 
 Of their ellipses, like fiery trains that steam 
 
 Across the startled heavens ; or yonder gaze 
 Upon that noonday star that sudden forth doth blaze ! 
 
82 NATURE SONGS 
 
 What undreamed revelations here ! What surprise 
 
 Of distances and reaches into space ! 
 What stretching out of heart and mind and eyes 
 
 To the fixed stars as if our strength could trace 
 Infinity! Boundless distances embrace 
 
 Us round in unimagined measures, which scorn 
 Time's mathematic and astronomic race 
 
 Of giants. At ninety million miles is born 
 The sun ; at two hundred thousand times the base 
 
 The nearest star; at twenty thousand unshorn 
 Years of lightning motion the faintest stars forlorn. 
 
 Oh unconquerable and inconceivable 
 
 Reaches of the heavens ! The powers of thought 
 Are stunned, staggered, stimulated, full 
 
 Of drunken inspiration when first are taught 
 These distances so infinitely frought, 
 
 Beyond all human nature. The awful deep 
 And length and breadth and height, Oh! Is there aught 
 
 In the wide universe whose pinions sweep 
 The trackless regions which yonder have been wrought? 
 
 See earth-born genius forth impassioned leap ! 
 See yonder on the moon that soon exhausted heap ! 
 
 What volumns and inconceivable masses 
 
 Are floating in yon sky? This granite frame 
 With mountains, forests, seas, land and all, glasses 
 
 The worlds as a soap bubble in a game 
 Of childhood images the thing we name 
 
 The earth. Uranus, icy Neptune, 
 Ringed Saturn and Jupiter of belted fame, 
 
 These magnitudes with whom ourselves commune, 
 Are mighty globes whose shadows mere might shame 
 
 Our bloated size. Dimensionless the king of noon 
 Could hide the solar system in the spots on his illume. 
 
NATURE SONGS 83 
 
 This thirteen hundred thousand times the earth 
 
 Is but a baby world to some of these 
 First seen thousands of years after the birth 
 
 Of light. The eye of the astronomer sees 
 Traces of such monster worlds. Enormities 
 
 Of size he knows exists but cannot climb 
 By any strength or dreams that fancy please: 
 
 Millions of miled diameters, with prime 
 Circumferences broken by the seas, 
 
 Mountains, land and storms and everything to rhyme 
 The vast gigantic scales where nature works sublime. 
 
 Omnipotence is but a word elsewhere, 
 
 But here, here are the infinities of power; 
 The almighty energies that dare 
 
 From nothingness create this bower 
 Of dynamic wonder crowded suns. Our 
 
 Little earth confounds our strength and shakes 
 Us into fear by earthquakes that devour 
 
 Our element defying weakness. Who makes 
 These stupendous lightning motors that drive the tower 
 
 Of day and night? Omnipotence expiates 
 In infinite infinities of suns and planet mates. 
 
 A horse-power ! A horse-power must be multiplied 
 
 A billion times, and then be cast away 
 For a solar unit which doth but hide 
 
 The almightiness that round us has its sway. 
 These centripitals and centrifugals stay 
 
 The first archangel's visions and confounds 
 Man's speech, his dreams and figures of display. 
 
 Nature's reservoiral energies abound 
 - Still unexhausted, and fresh creations dismay 
 
 The magnitudes that circle here around 
 In constellated march, forever more renowned. 
 
84 NATURE SONGS 
 
 Equal or past the volumn, power and space, 
 
 Is the expansion of the sense of time. 
 How contemptuous the periods of our race 
 
 Unto the age that with the world doth rhyme ! 
 These astronomic ages ! How sublime 
 
 The mighty roll of these celestial spheres 
 Whose million years upon each other climb 
 
 As waves climb up the murmuring shores ! The years 
 Before the moon, the earth, the planets prime, 
 
 As rending thunders strike upon the ears, 
 Pause as with solemn awe and shadow us with fears. 
 
 How old is the golden vestured king of noon? 
 
 How vain the symbols in the answer told ! 
 Figures are as empty as a gauze festoon 
 
 Which on the moon a summer breath has rolled. 
 Twenty million years is estimate not bold, 
 
 And even this some multiply a score ; 
 But this or that what spirit can it hold? 
 
 Our sun is young; others have vastly more 
 Of age upon them. Most solemnizing old 
 
 These flickering stars upon night's purple floor ! 
 Almost to everlasting our spirits onward soar. 
 
 Thus we are lifted above life and time. 
 
 A mighty spirit sweeps us o'er the earth, 
 Over time's changes, over nature's prime, 
 
 And past the hour of her sunlike glorious birth. 
 Intensities of awe and noblest mirth 
 
 Bear us on to the distant fire creations 
 Of nebulosities of extended girth. 
 
 Incarnate in the very condensations 
 We slowly live up to the present worth, 
 
 Through the times, process and differentiations 
 That builds the universe up to its glorious stations. 
 
NATURE SONGS 85 
 
 We are bound along the mighty evolutions 
 
 From heterogeneous elements most raw, 
 And see the growth of nature's institutions, 
 
 Matter, biologies, intelligence and awe. 
 The reach and sweep of everlasting law 
 
 Inspire and light imagination's eyes 
 To see worlds born, and then sink in the maw 
 
 Of what might seem annihilation. They rise 
 Through geologic dynasties, though they draw 
 
 Some of the past entail ; but promise cries 
 A still diviner course along the azure skies. 
 
 Still onward we are bound by flight benign 
 
 Though earthquake shocks of conflict round us ring, 
 As the higher powers with victory divine 
 
 Sloughs off the old that doth around it cling. 
 The earth decays ; a burnt out cinder the king 
 
 Of noon desolves to nought, and another mass 
 With potentialities more rich doth spring 
 
 Into its place. The constellations pass 
 Like panoramic scenes, and others fling 
 
 A brighter splendor and another glory glass 
 Of something more sublime as these the earth surpass. 
 
 Changes to higher transformation is the line 
 
 By which the universe doth upward wing. 
 There must be ideals more splendid and divine 
 
 Than those who lift unto this height did bring. 
 Ends of vast, vaster majesty must king 
 
 The long ascension, for on each higher plane 
 Eonic and celestial song doth fling 
 
 Eclipsing visions on the heart and brain. 
 What can exhaust the Infinite? This thing 
 
 Of earth? or his dreams of selfish gain? 
 A million years of growth or heaven's heightless reign? 
 
86 NATURE SONGS 
 
 We are lost amid the future contemplations 
 
 And find ourselves within the distant age, 
 After vast change, amid the new creations 
 
 The prophet scarce dare tell unto his page. 
 The unaccustomed passions so engage 
 
 This frail humanity that we are worn 
 With the divine intensity of rage. 
 
 We calm descend yet feel we are upborne 
 To other thoughts that fit our present stage ; 
 
 But night lifts up, and spirit strength unshorn 
 Sees starry visions blest the morning sun might scorn. 
 
 The dumb, unconscious beast beholds thee not, 
 
 And multitudes of more unconscious men 
 Storm o'er the earth with blindest fevers hot, 
 
 And through their course of three score years and ten 
 Not once, so much as once lift up the ken 
 
 To view thy flaming glories. But if the sight 
 Falls on the heart the universe again 
 
 Brings forth the heir. A new cosmopolite 
 Emerges from the beasts amid the fen; 
 
 Emerges with his face unto the height, 
 Receives and back reflects the splendors of the light. 
 
 There is no mechanician in the world 
 
 But looks with vast astonishment on high. 
 The huge machine by huger forces whirled 
 
 Intoxicates the true machinist's eye. 
 The revolutions along the azure sky 
 
 Of circles and ellipses, the rotation 
 Directed and reverse of masses as they fly 
 
 Undeviating orbits, the inclination 
 Of the axes to the plane and the perfect ply 
 
 Of every cog throughout the wide creation 
 Is a mechanic's joy and lasting contemplation. 
 
NATURE SONGS 87 
 
 Physical scientists and philosophers 
 
 Of mind, men of the noblest sweep and height 
 Of thought, teachers whose intelligence transfers 
 
 The world from plane to plane, with rich delight, 
 Most solemn awe, and inspirations white, 
 
 Oft contemplate this galaxy of splendors, 
 These processional majesties, these bright 
 
 Prodigalities of power and sunlike spenders 
 Of infinite generosity. The height 
 
 Of passion this vision to earth tenders 
 Gives victory over time and space asunder renders. 
 
 But most of all, Oh most of all ! the saints 
 
 Have loved thee Night and thy exalted bowers, 
 So uncontaminated by the taints 
 
 Of life and time and all that man devours. 
 The Infinite and the Eternal powers 
 
 Of purity with thee hold habitation, 
 And from thy starry elevations their showers 
 
 Drench the spirit, till they become incarnations 
 Of his character. Thy solemn hours 
 
 Are sacred to his Spirit's ministrations, 
 Baptisms in his life and moral exaltations. 
 
 This plan forever shames all architectural 
 
 Genius. It dwindles this planet of the sun 
 To a mere vestibule for intellectual 
 
 Being. The architectonic builders run 
 The temple like construction as to stun 
 
 All heaven's visions. A vast sublimity 
 Arches our entrance to creation 
 
 And ushers us to a high infinity 
 Of solar systems. The universe has won, 
 
 Adopts us, and within a new divinity 
 Awakes and finds and claims kindred and affinity. 
 
88 NATURE SONGS 
 
 Oh what a spacious, all-sustaining base 
 
 Is this vast culminating universe 
 For a rich and multitudinous race 
 
 Of intellect and morals ! Oh who could nurse 
 The thought that moral beings never verse 
 
 The worlds out of impeachment to intelligence 
 Vast, vast beyond our own ! Is this disburse 
 
 Of mighty worlds a spectacular pretense 
 And empty vanity ? On this atom what unpurse 
 
 Of vastest elements? More noble and intense 
 Must be and rule the spheres of such magnificence. 
 
 There must be others ! Hierarchal reigns 
 
 Of love and purity, of triumphant power 
 And beauty must exist in those domains 
 
 Of starry splendor. The immortals tower 
 Yonder in their strength and golden dower; 
 
 The ripe perfections within the prophet's sense 
 Flower from within and round them. No sins devour 
 
 Nor light upon them, nor any of the dense 
 And blind idolatries of earth. There shower 
 
 The infinite eternal hearts intense 
 And all the generations go singing soaring hence. 
 
 Somewhere amid these starry spheres, Oh night ! 
 
 Or in the void of unmaterial space 
 The Infinite and the Eternal Right 
 
 Builds up the world from whence his chosen race 
 Doth rule the universe. Is not the place 
 
 Most inconceivable in magnificence 
 When its dependencies and physical base 
 
 Is on the scale of such omnipotence 
 And fronts us with this transcendental grace ! 
 
 World ! World supreme ! Our spirit passions tense, 
 Are looking up to thee and crowding forward hence. 
 
NATURE SONGS 89 
 
 Oh astronomy ! Astronomy ! 
 
 Thou art the queen of sciences. The universe 
 Is thy boundless empire and eternity 
 
 Thy throne of majesty where thou dost unpurse 
 Power and life's exhaustless fulness, and disburse 
 
 Thy blessings unto the wide creation. 
 The worlds thou liftest from chaotic curse 
 
 And round thy everlasting station 
 Spiritlike they congregate. They glorious verse 
 
 Thy presence, splendor and exaltation 
 Which round the heavens casts sublimest fascination. 
 
 Thou art the mother of intellectual 
 
 Being. Thou bringest forth the passioned hour 
 Of intensities in man, and time's usurping spell 
 
 Destroyest in his heart. Thou art the power 
 Whose expansion recreates with vast endower 
 
 These faculties, and communicates to soul 
 The transcendental elements that tower 
 
 On high. The mighty amplitudes that roll 
 Through thy uncircled spirit becomes our 
 
 Temperamental quality, and to the whole 
 Created universe thou dost our spirits pole. 
 
 Oh mother of this heaven soaring mind ! 
 
 Oh mother of this godlike breasted heart ! 
 Oh parent of divine begotten kind 
 
 Which thee and thine within our beings start! 
 What creations to a shining chart 
 
 Sublimer than the worlds ! What intensities 
 Of passion which thy spirits free impart ! 
 
 What expansion beyond the cumberous densities 
 Of earth ! and what idealisms dart 
 
 Upon us changing time's propensities, 
 As we are face to face with thee and thy immensities ! 
 
90 NATURE SONGS 
 
 Oh imperial passioned mother of the great! 
 
 What mean these strange experiences of time? 
 Why are we led to bound this incommensurate 
 
 Creation? Why are we forced to the prime 
 Battle of being and with the elements sublime 
 
 Contend until the mastery we gain? 
 Why thus impelled these awful heights to climb? 
 
 And inspired to understand the strain 
 The systems round, forever on us chime? 
 
 Why conflict, conquest, triumph and a plane 
 Where these mechanics vast go circling in the brain? 
 
 What means this most memorial sacrament 
 To life's intelligence? and the significance 
 
 Of this baptism into the element- 
 Al powers of being? What means this inductance 
 
 To the vast estates that base the super-sense 
 Abilities? and this domestication 
 
 Of a child of time in the wide immens- 
 ities of uncircumscribed creation? 
 
 What means this capacity of imminence 
 And transcendency o'er matter and mutation 
 By the earth-born, mortal and prisoner to his station? 
 
 Does it not mean there is a living breath 
 
 And being shaped upon the infinite? 
 Something unkindred to space and time and death, 
 
 And in its element upon the summit 
 Of creation, drinking in most passionate 
 
 The splendors of intelligence and power 
 And life and beauty that forever flit 
 
 Across its bosom. Is not the glorious hour 
 Out of the deep and from the heights of spirit? 
 
 Does it not prophet-like announce our 
 Certain immortality as fruit foretells the flower? 
 
NATURE SONGS 91 
 
 Can this being of intensest consciousness? 
 
 Of length and breadth and height and depth and sweep 
 Beyond all limits that upon us press, 
 
 Return again into its native deep 
 Of nothingness ! Can the heart and mind that keep 
 
 The universe within its compass drink 
 Annihilation? Will it not rather leap 
 
 When it doth come to nature's awful brink, 
 To freedom, power and glory on the steep 
 
 Of heaven? How impossible to think 
 Creation's crown of life in death can ever sink ! 
 
 Oh Nature, Night and astronomic Soul ! 
 
 Oh infinite and most eternal Power 
 That through mankind and all creations roll, 
 
 The fullness that thy being doth endower! 
 Is not this where ye bring the narrow hour 
 
 Of our mortality to deep baptize 
 It in eternity? whose spirit doth devour 
 
 The bondage sense that on the mortal lies. 
 Another consciousness comes up to tower 
 
 Commandingly upon the azure skies, 
 And round the starry spans cast her imperial eyes. 
 
 Oh Night! Oh Night! Oh most beloved Night! 
 
 Mother and nurse of being's powers divine ! 
 Oh cast thy spells of starry magic might 
 
 Upon our minds and still more make them thine! 
 Under thy constellations, Oh pour the wine 
 
 Of living thought upon this thirsty mortal 
 And fellowship our low, unworthy line ! 
 
 Oh lead us through each starry flaming portal 
 And lift us to the height of thy design ! 
 
 Oh clothe us with thy character so courtal 
 And like thy splendors bright, Oh march us on immortal 
 
92 NATURE SONGS 
 
 Oh Night ! Oh Night ! Oh most beloved Night ! 
 
 Mother and nurse and prophet of the child 
 Designed to rise to being's awful height 
 
 Upon this base thou hast so glorious piled. 
 Oh Magnanimous ! Majestic ! Undented ! 
 
 The solitude and silence is delight 
 In thy society, and man so time beguiled 
 
 Becomes with thee the true cosmopolite 
 In the universe that has upon him smiled. 
 
 Few ! Few are dearer than thou unto our sight ! 
 Oh most beloved Night ! Oh most beloved Night ! 
 
 THE BRIDE OF THE SUN. 
 
 Oh hail bright maiden ! Hail ! 
 
 From thy mortal swoon 
 What spirit rent the veil? 
 
 What life restored the boon? 
 And sent thy queenly soul to seek thy lover noon? 
 
 Who nursed thee from the trance? 
 
 Who broke the shadowed spell 
 That in the hour of dance 
 Upon thy being fell? 
 Who brought thee to the light where starry splendors 
 dwell? 
 
 Oh hail bright maiden ! Hail ! 
 
 What life reviving dream 
 O'er thy brain did sail, 
 
 Upon thy heart did stream, 
 That from thy liquid rest thy soul it should redeem? 
 
NATURE SONGS 93 
 
 Hast thy mother earth, 
 
 The mother most divine, 
 Brought thee again to birth 
 
 And will the infant shine 
 That glowed upon thy face upon that morn benign? 
 
 In thy soul's eclipse, 
 
 Did thy death beguile 
 Thy lover to thy lips 
 
 There to rest awhile? 
 And did his burning kiss awake this rapture smile? 
 
 Or hast thou been above 
 In thy bower so bright 
 To gaze upon thy love 
 Across the cone of night? 
 And is this smiling life his answering delight? 
 
 In the evening's hush 
 
 What breath of love or wine, 
 Upon thy cheeks do flush? 
 
 And from thy heart divine 
 Like some celestial fire doth through thy being shine? 
 
 Has now some spirit blest 
 
 With flowers of sweet perfume 
 Just placed upon thy breast 
 
 Boquet of rarest bloom? 
 And whispered in thy ear some story of thy groom ? 
 
 Perhaps delightful music 
 
 The echoes of the spheres, 
 Doth strike thee to the quick; 
 Is raining on thy ears 
 Sweet fancies, thoughts and dreams of swiftly-coming 
 years. 
 
94 NATURE SONGS 
 
 Perhaps love's intensity, 
 
 High as starry height, 
 Deep as is the sea, 
 
 Warm as summer night, 
 Pure as whitest fire, circles thee like light. 
 
 But why art thou so cold 
 
 That thou dost fly apace 
 From hearts that do unfold 
 
 The fullness of their grace? 
 And ask but in return a smile of thy bright face? 
 
 The dancing spirits gay 
 
 Who love thee, in the wood 
 Have left their fairy play 
 
 And near the edge have stood 
 Have turned from watching thee to hide in solitude. 
 
 A maiden like to thee 
 
 A pure and fragile cloud, 
 Who came up from the sea 
 In her soft silver shroud 
 Has gone away to weep, heart-broke by thee so proud. 
 
 Thy sisters in the sea 
 
 In face and form and light, 
 Twin spirits like to thee, 
 
 Are trembling through the night 
 With hope that thou wilt turn and feed this longing sight. 
 
 Stars and planets pale 
 
 For thy love do pine ; 
 Their sweet lights do fail 
 
 For their eyes divine 
 Are wearied with the watch they ever keep on thine. 
 
NATURE SONGS 95 
 
 Thy presence bright awakes 
 
 Dreams in the meteor's trance, 
 So glad her sleep she shakes 
 
 In her swift shining dance, 
 Whose joyous love for thee now kills thy scornful glance. - 
 
 Like the very queen 
 
 Of heaven's starry height 
 Crowned in golden sheen, 
 
 Clad in robes of light, 
 Thou ridest past the earth and all that lifts the sight. 
 
 Thy faith has no doubt 
 
 That might make thee miss, 
 His love which streams out 
 
 Like a celestial kiss 
 To rest upon thy heart, prophetic of thy bliss. 
 
 The sense of what thou art, 
 
 Oh beautiful to sight! 
 The passion in thy heart, 
 
 Oh Empress of the night! 
 Is burning for the hour thy spirits will unite. 
 
 That best and bridal day 
 Must be drawing near, 
 That such resplendent ray 
 
 Through the night's dark sphere 
 Should pour such floods of light so gentle, soft and clear. 
 
 Thy overflowing joy 
 
 Shoots down a piercing dart 
 On youth and maiden coy, 
 
 Till thy celestial art 
 Has nourished into life the best within the heart. 
 
96 NATURE SONGS 
 
 Under thy soft rain 
 
 Hearts are growing strong, 
 And strength at last they gain 
 To tell what is not wrong, 
 Those sacred thoughts the sweetest, each has wished for 
 long. 
 
 Beneath thy magic spell 
 
 The magic word is found; 
 Two fountain spirits well; 
 Two hearts in one are bound 
 And thou has seen and heard, and them with gladness 
 crowned. 
 
 Through the window light 
 
 Thou on the sleepers stream; 
 Thy rays of magic might 
 
 Within their beings teem; 
 A bridegroom and a bride, a dream within a dream. 
 
 But Oh that passing cloud 
 
 Upon thy breast and face ! 
 That wraps thee like a shroud 
 As round a mortal race, 
 To disappoint the hope that life and love embrace. 
 
 Like ours Oh radiant maid ! 
 
 Hast thy love a moan? 
 Art thou e'er afraid 
 
 Lest the earth's dark cone, 
 Like death will come between, and leave thee all alone? 
 
 Fear not ! He an urn has filled 
 
 With precious golden dew, 
 That has been distilled 
 
 From his dome of blue 
 To sprinkle on thy heart and thy young life renew. 
 
NATURE SONGS 97 
 
 He will send thee now 
 
 Fleecy sandals rare; 
 Stars to gem thy brow; 
 
 Veils of misty air; 
 And rainbow ribbon bands to bind thy streaming hair, 
 
 His chariot of the wind, 
 
 His steeds of swiftest time, 
 Along the zodiac signed 
 With images sublime, 
 Bear thee all heaven's queen while starry echoes chime. 
 
 Oh snowy breasted maid ! 
 Oh spirit vainly sought ! 
 Though sin and sorrow weighed, 
 On earth may not be bought 
 That purity of thine which in thy face is wrought. 
 
 Farewell chast bride ! Farewell ! 
 
 May joy attend thy flight ! 
 My heart songs ne'er can tell 
 Its wish for thy delight 
 When thou hast joined thy love in the bowers of morn- 
 ing bright. 
 
HOME SONGS 
 
 A MOTHER'S DREAM SONG. 
 
 Oh mother, mother broken hearted! 
 
 Heaving bosom ! Sobbing breast ! 
 Heart from heart the dearest parted, 
 
 Better than thine own and best! 
 Weep mother weep ! Flow fountain flow ! 
 Tears heal our grief and make us grow. 
 
 Weep! Oh weep! Oh broken-hearted! 
 
 Thy fresh grief Oh now unbind ! 
 Grief is deadly if unparted 
 
 To the rain and night and wind. 
 In lonely, raven-darkness weep 
 Till slumber seals thy soul with sleep. 
 
 Sweet thy dreams on thorny pillow ! 
 
 Angel faces griefs beguile; 
 From beyond the glassy billow 
 
 On thy heart they brightly smile. 
 And sing on wounded heart and brain 
 A dream to soothe thy surging pain. 
 
 "Spirit, her whom thou bewailest, 
 Soul of mingled love and light, 
 
 Softest, dearest, purest, frailest, 
 Do not weep her mortal flight! 
 
 A seraph bright as golden morn 
 
 Did visit earth when she was born." 
 
 LOfC. 
 
100 HOME SONGS 
 
 "From the heart of hearts divinest 
 Bore to thee his choicest gift; 
 
 A heart, which as it soft untwinest 
 From the earth thy own did lift, 
 
 And showed to thee Oh wand'ring heart ! 
 
 He is as to thy babe thou art." 
 
 "Through sunny noon and starry night, 
 While thy babe slept in thy breast, 
 
 Round thee and thine this seraph bright 
 Stood and did no mind has guessed. 
 
 The fervent fountains of love's heart 
 
 In thine from hers did often start." 
 
 "Did thy cradle-angel sicken 
 And her light of life grow pale? 
 
 Seraph love and care did quicken 
 More than thine o'er her the frail. 
 
 When broken was the golden bowl 
 
 Her pure and lily-crystal soul" 
 
 "With more than tenderest mother love 
 Clasped she in her panting breast; 
 
 Then through the cone of night above 
 Clove she death though storm oppressed, 
 
 And oft she looked upon that face 
 
 Such looks as none have seen for grace." 
 
 "Arrived at heaven's jasper gates 
 With thy dear now dearer birth, 
 
 Her bright and burning fervent mates 
 Ask to see this soul of earth. 
 
 They gaze and smile and speak divine 
 
 And utter prayer for thee and thine." 
 
 "Up golden streets on toward the throne, 
 Where the Father's face of light 
 
 Forever smiles upon his own 
 With a world of sweet delight; 
 
 On toward this face and burning breast 
 
 This seraph with thy babe has pressed." 
 
HOME SONGS 101 
 
 "Those Father arms of love divine, 
 
 Tender more than tenderest, 
 With eyes no mother love can sign, 
 
 Folds thy babe into his breast. 
 He folds her in as his own birth 
 And dearer for her stay on earth. 
 
 "In his heart of hearts divinest, 
 
 Under grace and love and light, 
 While swift time her course untwinest 
 
 Groweth up thy baby bright; 
 Thy warmest thought and tenderest care 
 As winter frosts with his compare." 
 
 "Oh mother then no longer pine; 
 
 She is his more than thine own; 
 Since in his breast and he divine 
 
 Hush thy broken-hearted moan. 
 Still trust, Oh trust the heart above ! 
 His act, his thought, his name is love." 
 
 "While sorrow bows thee in the dust 
 
 Harken to this golden chime ! 
 Thy babe in his warm bosom trust; 
 
 By it thou shalt upward climb, 
 And find thy child, thyself and him, 
 And worlds of life no death can dim." 
 
 CHILDREN'S BED-SONG. 
 
 The hour is come when I must sleep, 
 So I would sing Thy love; 
 
 Upon the notes of evening's song 
 Would wing my prayer above. 
 
102 HOME SONGS 
 
 I love, I love Thee dearest Lord 
 
 For giving me mama; 
 And just as much my heart would love 
 
 For such a dear papa. 
 
 They feed and clothe me, care and love; 
 
 Their hearts encircle mine; 
 I love thee for they say their hearts 
 
 Are filled with love from Thine. 
 
 My mama often to me speaks 
 
 Of sins and Calvary; 
 And shows Thy cross of shame and death 
 
 As Thine own love to me. 
 
 Now Jesus dear as mama does 
 When I my wrongs confess, 
 
 Kiss Thou my sins from off my mind 
 And with Thy love me bless. 
 
 My papa oft kneels down beside 
 
 My cradle as I sleep, 
 And prays that Thou his little lamb 
 
 Will guide and save and keep. 
 
 If he should come and kneel to-night 
 Oh hear my papa's prayer ! 
 
 Were I awake these words of his, 
 To Thee my heart would bear. 
 
 My prayer is sung to Thee dear Lord. 
 
 Soon sleep mine eyes will close; 
 Send down with sleep my angel guard 
 
 To watch my night's repose. 
 
HOME SONGS 103 
 
 INFLUENCE OF BABY. 
 
 I've studied my dear baby girl 
 
 Since heaven gave her to me; 
 When gazes her blue eyes in mine 
 
 Her little heart I see. 
 I've watched her many an evening hour 
 
 From play till bed time still, 
 Yet never in her crystal soul 
 
 Could see a trace of ill. 
 
 When e'er I hold my little girl 
 
 Close up against my heart 
 Fountains of warm and sweetest life 
 
 Within my soul do start. 
 In rapturous joy and tenderness 
 
 I draw her closer still; 
 There's nought like her upon my breast 
 
 In this wide world of ill. 
 
 My tears oft bathe her lilly brow 
 
 When sleeping on my heart, 
 Since then I feel from her pure soul 
 
 To mine she does impart 
 A sense of woeful change and loss, 
 
 Of evil, guilt and shame, 
 As I have soiled the spotless robes 
 
 In which I hither came. 
 
 Oh could I be as baby dear! 
 
 Pure as the driven snow, 
 All that I have and am to-day 
 
 I gladly would forego. 
 I'd pass through seas of cleansing fire 
 
 If I might reach the shore 
 Which baby's feet are treading now 
 
 And I have trod of yore. 
 
104 HOME SONGS 
 
 Father ! Led by my little girl 
 
 I turn and sin I flee; 
 Oh make me as in years ago 
 
 When first I came from Thee ! 
 Oh shed Thy love within my soul, 
 
 That cleansing fire divine ! 
 Till in my heart again I am 
 
 Pure as this child of Thine. 
 
 FAT MEDICINE. 
 
 Tom has a little girl as frail 
 
 And fragile as a cloud, 
 What time they through the azure sail 
 
 As spotless as a shroud. 
 Her mortal frame could hardly claim 
 
 A spirit mould to be; 
 More like a dream for soul doth seem 
 
 So bodiless and free. 
 
 She weakness is and tenderness, 
 
 Just pallid flesh and bone; 
 A lily-flower of slenderness 
 
 By child play overthrown. 
 Oft ailing, sick and feeling pain, 
 
 And always weak and lean; 
 Her mortal race to woman's grace 
 
 In doubt is often seen. 
 
 The doctor feeds her appetite 
 
 With medicines for fat; 
 But they have failed when best applied 
 
 As worthless this as that. 
 So, as often as she comes to me, 
 
 Or I to see her pine 
 I go and see and give her free 
 
 Some medicine of mine. 
 
HOME SONGS 105 
 
 I fold her in my bosom deep; 
 
 My kisses on her dart; 
 And with the kiss there is a leap 
 
 Of something to her heart. 
 I kiss her o'er and o'er and o'er; 
 
 With every kiss there goes 
 A portion of the crimson store 
 
 With which love overflows. 
 
 The pennies, toys and candies sweet 
 
 Are sandwiched in with kisses; 
 And when our hearts together beat 
 
 There is a glow of blisses. 
 "Oh honey! this will make you fat; 
 
 This medicine is fine; 
 Just feed the doctor's to the cat 
 
 But take a lot of mine." 
 
 So by the medicine we all 
 
 Unto her freely give, 
 Just like a flower beside the wall 
 
 She gathers strength to live. 
 And as to girlhood up she grows 
 
 She slowly leaves behind 
 The sickness, pain and mortal foes 
 
 That round her cradle twined. 
 
 Oh Lovers ! Lovers ! Lovers glad ! 
 
 No need to tell to you, 
 This medicine has ever had 
 
 A heart of crimson hue. 
 Ye both have found what doctors miss 
 
 And wise men often scorn : 
 That love is life and in a kiss 
 
 Life's strength is often born. 
 
106 HOME SONGS 
 
 Oh husband bare, behold her there ! 
 
 Is she not growing lean, 
 Who once was young and fresh and fair 
 
 As eyes have ever seen? 
 Oh use this medicine of mine ! 
 
 I'll wager you a hat 
 That she again will grow divine, 
 
 And you grow green and fat. 
 
 Of wisdom, age and hoary time ! 
 
 'Tis life and love and joy 
 Which kisses sweet but sets to rhyme 
 
 That saves us from destroy. 
 Your sorrow, greed and hate and scorn, 
 
 No strength can ever give 
 They never kiss and always miss 
 
 The strength by which we live. 
 
 Oh children, maidens, men and all 
 
 Let us forever love ! 
 Then heaven itself will either fall 
 
 Or we rise up above. 
 Oh Love ! Oh Love that never dies ! 
 
 Oh Love that overflows ! 
 Within our bosoms gently rise 
 
 And feed these infant glows. 
 
 THE REJECTED'S FAITH. 
 
 There's just as good fish in the sea 
 
 As ever yet were taken; 
 There's just as sweet fruit on the tree 
 
 As ever down was shaken; 
 There's brighter seraphs in the sky 
 
 Than mortals have beholden; 
 There's dearer maidens by and by; 
 
 So wait the season golden. 
 
HOME SONGS 107 
 
 A LOVER'S SONG. 
 
 The maiden of my summer dreams 
 
 I met one happy morn, 
 When suns of love were pouring streams 
 
 And golden joys were born. 
 A nature from the azure skies, 
 
 A rainbow purity; 
 The spirit in her liquid eyes 
 
 Soft beamed and smiled on me. 
 
 That smile it filled me with delight 
 
 And fed my heart for days; 
 I wished but just another sight 
 
 That on my vision plays. 
 We met and Oh her voice divine 
 
 Was music to my ear ! 
 Her words and their sweet soul enshrine 
 
 Echoed as from a sphere. 
 
 Again we met, and her soft hand 
 
 Was friendshipped in my own; 
 I felt some magic spirit band 
 
 Their influence round had thrown. 
 It thrilled my spirit to the deep; 
 
 It crimsoned cheek and brow; 
 It woke a thousand thoughts from sleep 
 
 And vowed the sacred vow. 
 
 Still deeper, deeper in my heart 
 
 This angel came with bliss; 
 I gave my best immortal part, 
 
 Betrothed her with a kiss. 
 I throned her on my spirit's throne, 
 
 And crowned her with my joy; 
 So finding hope before unknown, 
 
 Strength, truth and high employ. 
 
108 HOME SONGS 
 
 When pass again the winter's gloom 
 
 And yonder azures smile, 
 When birds will sing and flowers will bloom 
 
 I'll lead her up the aisle 
 When youth and maidens gladness bring 
 
 And envy me or pine, 
 My heart with raptures new will sing 
 
 "Mine ! Mine ! Forever mine !" 
 
 Upon these earthly golden heights 
 
 Still more and more my own ! 
 When yonder 'mid the starry lights 
 
 Still mine and mine alone ! 
 Through life and loss and pain and tears 
 
 Love grows though all decline; 
 Somewhere amid the golden spheres 
 
 "Mine ! Mine ! Forever mine !" 
 
 A WOMAN'S WAY. 
 
 "Oh dear, this daily round I hate ! 
 
 The same old things, the same ! 
 Oh for a change by any fate ! 
 
 I'd even change my name !" 
 
 "All right !" the youth replied, "I'll change, 
 
 And change it into mine. 
 Oh come ! Together let us range 
 
 And feed this hungry pine." 
 
 "You ! You ! Oh such a thing as you ! 
 
 Such a rag, a scrap, a patch ! 
 The last man on the earth would do 
 
 Before with you I'd match." 
 
 Later we passed a cottage neat; 
 
 A singing soul espied. 
 "Who is that happy heart we greet?" 
 
 "Oh! That's Miss B. the bride." 
 
HOME SONGS 109 
 
 THE ANNIVERSARY. 
 
 What ! To-night the return of the night that was brightest 
 Through years of thy youth and the hopes of thy heart ; 
 
 When love crowned in blossoms and robed in the whitest 
 Her soul and its trust in thy own did impart. 
 
 Are the bright forms of memory enchanting and streaming 
 Now thawing thy heart and inspiring thy mind? 
 
 May the hopes and the joys and the sweetness and dreaming 
 Flow down on thy soul till thy tears do unbind. 
 
 Behold in yon window are bunches of roses 
 For beauty and music and praise and delight; 
 
 But hers the divinest that toward thee ne'er closes 
 Has not worn thy rose since that long bridal night. 
 
 Then pick out the whitest or those that are turning 
 To faintest fine yellow and sprinkled with dew, 
 
 Or some with red tingeing as if a heart burning 
 With love that was crimson would waken thine new. 
 
 On branches the greenest now bear home thy roses; 
 
 Her bosom will lend them a beauty most rare; 
 When flowers of a heart on another reposes 
 
 They blossom and fragrance as no other where. 
 
 Oh what is this warming and melting and flowing 
 That circles thy heart like a draught of sweet wine? 
 
 If dreams of our past have such sweetness and glowing 
 Oh what would love have if it knew no decline? 
 
 See ! She waits at the window. Is she the same maiden 
 That day filled thy mind and high swelled it with pride ? 
 
 The warm heart and loving can see a soul laden 
 
 If but with a thought and though smiles it would hide. 
 
110 HOME SONGS 
 
 She catches the brightness and soft liquid gleaming 
 That love in the heart flings out through the eyes. 
 
 Its lightning contagion has waked the old dreaming 
 When every return brought her sweeter surprise. 
 
 Now bring out the roses ; the roses whose passion 
 Has wide channels been for deep feeling most blest; 
 
 With manner and motion in true lover fashion 
 
 Pin them on her heart and her deep heaving breast. 
 
 Sit down by the fender before the coal burning; 
 
 Draw her to thy side and deep into thy heart, 
 As a lover long distant and now in returning 
 
 His loved one enclasps as no more to depart. 
 
 Free murmur thy heart, for the heart's deep emotion 
 Can find the sweet thoughts and the still sweeter tones; 
 
 'Twill be life to her heart to unseal the devotion 
 That deep in thy spirit her spirit enthrones. 
 
 Tell how the heart fountains afresh have been broken 
 That love from its pledges of truth should decline. 
 
 That time should engross thee to give no new token 
 Of her that is dearer than all undivine. 
 
 Ask first to forgive for the heart's hidden sorrow 
 Of love's unexpected and partial eclipse; 
 
 As each summer sun is surpassed by the morrow 
 
 Thy heart should grow warmer and flow from thy lips. 
 
 Thy silence and coldness in coming and going 
 
 Have cast on her heart, doubt, fear, strife and pain ; 
 
 But just drop a tear and her heart's overflowing 
 Forgives and rejoices and calls loss a gain. 
 
 Tell how in thy heart is a mansion most golden, 
 
 With deep granite base and with high splendored dome; 
 
 And blessings and beauties no mortals beholden 
 Are centered and queened in who makes it a home. 
 
HOME SONGS 111 
 
 Tell how thy deep passions oft round her are flowing 
 With foaming and sparkling and murmuring joy; 
 
 While populous thought's winged, mounting and glowing 
 Look up in her face in thy deepest employ. 
 
 She should know that her image oft round thee is winging 
 In street and in hall and in gain's busy mart, 
 
 With sweetness and shining and gladness and singing 
 To the something divine that dwells deep in thy heart. 
 
 Oh has not that image upon thee cast beauty ! 
 
 And led out thy mind to the splendors of light! 
 Oh has it not throned and enmajestied duty 
 
 Supreme and sublime on the dazzling height ! 
 
 Has it not stemmed the currents that round thee were sweeping 
 Of darkness and power and incitements to crime? 
 
 Hast thou not felt its strong but mysterious keeping 
 And passed the dark flood to a safe sunny clime? 
 
 Has not her white presence with power afar banished 
 The dark forms of sense that arose on thy mind? 
 
 And sanctified manhood when these had all vanished 
 Have virtues beheld of the high heaven's kind. 
 
 Has it not made thee thoughtful and patient and gentle ! 
 
 Has it not taught thee kindness to man and to beast ! 
 Has it no visions brought thee of God the parental 
 
 Who mothers all souls from the first to the least ! 
 
 Thy heart's alabaster again be unbroken; 
 
 Its fragrance and sweetness and healing be poured 
 With tones and sweet touch and with heart prompted token, 
 
 In hers who all sweetness in thine has instored. 
 
 Oh tell it out free ! for the speech will unburden 
 The tensions of fear and the doubtings of love; 
 
 Such weakness is strength and thy spirit will girden 
 With powers that descend to thy soul from above. 
 
112 HOME SONGS 
 
 Her heart into thine will afresh pour its treasure, 
 The divine soul in both will burst forth like a fount, 
 
 From the height it descends will be the vast measure 
 To which on its bosom both spirits will mount. 
 
 Then, 
 
 Oft pick out the roses when home thou art turning 
 
 The roses of beauty and odor divine; 
 Pin them on her heart and both hearts anew burning 
 
 Will know what love has when it knows no decline. 
 
 THE NEW ADVICE. 
 
 "If you would keep your husband's love 
 
 And find the fruitful root 
 Of virtues all, below, above, 
 
 Then feed, just feed the brute." 
 
 "If you would have a wife divine, 
 
 A heavenly kingdom rule, 
 The all for which man's heart can pine, 
 
 Then dress, just dress the fool." 
 
 WOMAN. 
 
 A little flash, 
 A little dash, 
 A little cash, 
 And most of women go in smash. 
 
HOME SONGS 113 
 
 THE BEST BABY. 
 
 Oh what a sweet celestial birth ! 
 
 Oh what a babe divine ! 
 Oh what a lovers' blossomed mirth 
 
 Filling their hearts with wine ! 
 Such holy face and light within 
 
 Outbursting in a smile; 
 And brow with purity from sin 
 
 Or faintest trace of guile; 
 Such eyes of soft divinest power 
 
 For God is in their gaze ; 
 And lips more dear and sweet, than flower 
 
 Or music-song can praise; 
 Such pansy- velvet flushing cheek; 
 
 Soft hands and dimpled chin; 
 Oh ye for joy no more may seek 
 
 For all joy here ye win ! 
 On afternoons in summer hours 
 
 My heart knows where to stray, 
 I see the nurses with love's flowers 
 
 Light up life's shadowed way. 
 Though gazing in each baby face 
 
 I took each part divine, 
 United them with perfect grace 
 
 It ne'er could match with thine. 
 In dreams I've seen a baby bright 
 
 And called it, "Mine ! Oh mine !" 
 As dreams fly far when hope takes flight 
 
 The baby best is thine. 
 
 "Oh Mr. Nimmo ! My young heart 
 
 Leaps up with rainbow light; 
 From each sweet golden drop, doth start 
 
 New joys toward heaven bright. 
 Within my soul angels are singing 
 
 Almost delirious mirth; 
 
114 HOME SONGS 
 
 Such echoes dear around me ringing 
 
 Drowns deep the noise of earth. 
 I knew your words would greet my song; 
 
 The pure unselfish youth 
 By instinct high is far from wrong 
 
 And utters only truth, 
 I sing to friends, husband and brother, 
 
 'This is the world's best birth, 
 And may around be seen no other 
 
 Of such beauty, joy and worth,' 
 'Tis so; no cloud my heart can doubt; 
 
 With other babes set mine, 
 And every eye will single out 
 
 A babe as bright as thine. 
 But hold ! Have I not heard you sing 
 
 With baby in your breast, 
 And as you soared on joyous wing 
 
 Oft echoed back: 'Best! Best!' 
 When your own Tom and sister Mary 
 
 Returned home to be blessed, 
 The elfish boy and curly fairy 
 
 You praised and called each best. 
 Of every babe you say the same; 
 
 Oh ! May not your heart of youth 
 Be shadowed by a mother's blame; 
 
 Now tell the honest truth." 
 
 Calm, calm thy jealous heart my child ! 
 
 Let love be large, divine ! 
 A mother's heart I ne'er beguiled, 
 
 The baby best is thine. 
 For babies are like springtime's birth, 
 
 Or golden summer light; 
 Or those ripe joys of autumn's mirth, 
 
 Or winter's starry night; 
 Like clouds of richest sunset ray, 
 
 Or rainbows round the storm; 
 
HOME SONGS 115 
 
 Or plumed throats' enraptured lay, 
 
 Or flowers with hearts most warm; 
 Like silver moons in limped lakes, 
 
 Or music round the sea; 
 Or light from maiden brow that breaks, 
 
 Or stories of the free; 
 Like beauty in her flushing joy, 
 
 And all things most divine; 
 Like all whose presence calms annoy, 
 
 Whose absence makes us pine; 
 These souls possess a magic dower, 
 
 And each and all are blest; 
 When held within each charming power 
 
 The last one is the best. 
 
 A WISH. 
 
 My Dear! Just read that foolish line. 
 
 Oh womankind are mad ! 
 The only thing that is divine 
 
 Is folly fashion clad. 
 From reason's virtues now divorced 
 
 To folly they are wed; 
 And round her circles ever forced 
 
 And by her daily fed. 
 
 They need no character today. 
 
 Oh anything in pants ! 
 A monkey and a monkey's play 
 
 And money them entrance. 
 As man by gold, so womanness 
 
 By nothing now is bought; 
 A nothing in an evening dress 
 
 And thousands may be caught. 
 
116 HOME SONGS 
 
 The folly of their fashion's dress, 
 
 Of idle vanity, 
 Of pleasure, pride and wealthiness 
 
 Is like insanity. 
 I half believe what Darwin thought; 
 
 For sure such foolishness, 
 Is just a monkey little taught 
 
 And togged up in a dress. 
 
 The old ideal womankind, 
 
 A helpmate unto man, 
 A helpmate which the heavens find 
 
 To build their noblest plan, 
 Is shattered now or laughed away, 
 
 Or lying in the dust; 
 Like and unlike a child at play 
 
 For folly all is thrust. 
 
 To make a home was once an art; 
 
 She mothered true the young, 
 With God and heaven in her heart 
 
 And gladness on her tongue. 
 The home it was a glory then; 
 
 The mother crowned with fame; 
 Oh dark the dark eclipses when 
 
 Her glory is her shame ! 
 
 Another spirit has the throne; 
 
 Another has the heart; 
 Whom both the good and wise disown 
 
 And from her far depart. 
 Oh anything but want of thought 
 
 And moral earnestness ! 
 Oh anything but want of thought 
 
 And foolish effervesce! 
 
HOME SONGS 117 
 
 So when I see as I must see 
 
 By word and ear and look, 
 I scorn them far and wander free 
 
 By forest, field or brook; 
 I leave, I leave them far behind, 
 
 And wander on my way; 
 But here I pause and for my kind 
 
 My wishing heart obey. 
 
 Oh is there not a world divine ! 
 
 A world of men alone ! 
 With woman banished o'er the line, 
 
 Or better, never known ! 
 How many and many a man in this ! 
 
 By woman's folly free, 
 Has wished just such a bower of bliss 
 
 Where starry spaces be. 
 
 In such a world creation's lord 
 
 Grows up unto his plan; 
 Unfolding all within him poured, 
 
 The noble world of man. 
 Oh world of young and happy boys ! 
 
 Oh bright aspiring youth ! 
 Oh manhood's prime which nought destroys ! 
 
 Oh hoary sires of truth ! 
 
 Oh what a world of manhood's height! 
 
 Oh bright celestial race ! 
 Oh men ! Oh men ! ye rich bedight 
 
 Thy very things with grace. 
 To think of thee in but a dream 
 
 Oh how the passions pine ! 
 To feel thy presence on us stream 
 
 Is sense and hope divine. 
 
118 HOME SONGS 
 
 If wish can prophecy what is, 
 
 There must be in the sky- 
 Just such a world, and Oh the bliss 
 
 To hold it in the eye ! 
 Is that it yonder shining there? 
 
 I'll spread my eagle wings ! 
 I'll trust the vision shining fair ! 
 
 I'll follow where it brings ! 
 
 I'm rising to the world of men; 
 
 The vision grows more clear; 
 The earth is falling off my ken; 
 
 And larger grows the sphere. 
 Oh noble world ! Oh noble world 
 
 Of boys and youth and man ! 
 Of all the worlds around me whirled 
 
 No brighter do I scan. 
 
 Ye envy me my noble peers 
 
 Whom I must leave behind; 
 But I'll remember in the spheres 
 
 And soon come back you'll find. 
 Oh ! then ye all shall go with me, 
 
 We'll leave the sisterhood; 
 We hope that they will better be 
 
 But we'll grow as we should. 
 
 Let hope now ante-date the day, 
 
 Our joys they overflow; 
 Oh world of womanhood away ! 
 
 Away ! Away we go ! 
 Your follies now we free forgive ! 
 
 Repent ! Repent we pray ! 
 Oh world of men forever live ! 
 
 Away ! Away ! Away ! 
 
HOME SONGS 119 
 
 There, there my dear, don't look so glum ; 
 
 Nor murmur eye or lip; 
 For when I go I'll say "Come ! Come ! 
 
 Come, join me in my trip." 
 Since we have met not very far 
 
 From each we've been below; 
 So when I wing to that bright star 
 
 Beloved thou shalt go. 
 
 But hold ! Oh hold ! I'll take that back ! 
 
 That pledge I'll hold in fee ! 
 A gathering cloud around my track 
 
 Debates and pauses me. 
 There's danger in that happy joy 
 
 To them and you and me; 
 I'll leave thee here and after cloy 
 
 Come back again to thee. 
 
 One woman when the world began 
 
 Made all our sorrows stream; 
 One woman in the world of man 
 
 Oh who would dare to dream! 
 Thy spirit new before their eyes 
 
 Would kindle all aglow. 
 Such envy for a single prize 
 
 Would more than sorrows sow. 
 
 Alone among those kingly peers 
 
 Admired and praised by all; 
 Oh listen with your spirit ears ! 
 
 Do whispers on them fall? 
 Of woman's sin, her vanity; 
 
 Of woman's wish, a thrall; 
 Of woman's pride, insanity 
 
 In those that round her fall? 
 
120 HOME SONGS 
 
 And I who love thee as my life, 
 
 And life is more than heart, 
 From that high world to this of strife 
 
 In silence would depart. 
 When fallen from a golden throne, 
 
 When broke the eagle's wing, 
 Deserted, wandering and alone, 
 
 Oh who could soar and sing? 
 
 No ! No my dear ! When there I go, 
 
 I'll leave thee here behind. 
 I'll leave thee in the vales I know 
 
 Where I again can find. 
 I'ld lose a throne and diadem, 
 
 All stars that gem the blue, 
 The royal spirits crowning them 
 
 Before I would lose you. 
 
 Away Oh dream ! Oh come to me ! 
 
 Thou art my heart's delight! 
 My heart shall ever stay with thee 
 
 Oh angel of my sight ! 
 Farewell ! Farewell uncertain light ! 
 
 These scraps of men be thine ! 
 The world pure womanhoods bedight, 
 
 These worlds and thou be mine ! 
 
HOME SONGS 121 
 
 THE BABY SHOW. 
 
 A half a dozen mothers met 
 
 Upon a summer day; 
 And tender in the shade were set 
 
 The births that made the day. 
 The babes that made the day for them 
 And made the sun a paltry gem, 
 Were cradled there 
 And each was fair 
 As lovers' eyes could wish or bear. 
 
 Each baby's praise was said and sung 
 
 In words of warmest fire; 
 No poet with delirious tongue 
 
 Could equal their inspire. 
 The lover and the loved one lives 
 Where all is bright superlatives. 
 The mother heart 
 Has love's best art 
 And round her babe does all impart. 
 
 At last the youngest said and smiled; 
 
 "Let's have a baby show." 
 I know the thought that her beguiled 
 
 Though love would hide it low. 
 "Agreed ! Agreed !" the chorus sung, 
 And toward their infants instant sprung. 
 The prize, the prize 
 Was in each eyes 
 Nor dreamed how doubt could here arise. 
 
122 HOME SONGS 
 
 A maid to me the most divine 
 
 By chance she came along; 
 I called the mothers to the line 
 
 And told to her the song. 
 Now she'll be judge and so decide 
 Between your fondness and your pride; 
 For hearts that feel 
 And drunken reel 
 How could they such a claim now seal ? 
 
 Such looks of hot contempt and flame, 
 
 And words of sharpest fire, 
 From lips and eyes and faces came, 
 
 I shook before their ire. 
 But Oh upon my bride divine ! 
 Fell epithets of salted brine; 
 Until we fled 
 But still we said: 
 We'll see the show that love has led. 
 
 Each promised to impartial be; 
 
 Each flung away her pride; 
 Each scorned the honor she could see; 
 
 Each from her hope untied; 
 Truth, truth shall tell what babe is best 
 In looks and health and all the rest 
 Of baby wiles 
 And angel smiles 
 And promises that love beguiles. 
 
 Each looked into each baby face, 
 
 Right down into the heart, 
 And every named and nameless grace 
 
 Fixed on her mental chart. 
 Then here and there, round, to and fro, 
 Compared the points the others show; 
 Life's lightest things 
 On fairy springs 
 Were balanced till the judgment wings. 
 
HOME SONGS 123 
 
 A silence deep, and then was cast 
 
 A most momentous note; 
 The solemn truth was written fast 
 
 For history in a vote: 
 Each mother when the vote was read 
 Wore victory on her flaming head, 
 For just one vote 
 Had every note, 
 No two alike in that same boat. 
 
 No evidence did bend a vote 
 So much as by a hair, 
 Though every mother thought each note 
 Would her own judgment share. 
 Oh how could any babe outshine 
 The angel of each heart divine? 
 It were a shame 
 Such perfect claims 
 Against each other thus to frame. 
 
 Oh every mother's babe is best ! 
 
 None can with it compare; 
 She has a dream and found it blest 
 
 With all her heart can bear. 
 Though money, fashion, pleasure, power, 
 Fill for the most the mortal hour, 
 The mother true 
 Has visions new 
 Far deeper than we others view. 
 
 Oh every mother's own is best ! 
 
 She sees beneath the veil; 
 The eyes of joy and love are blest 
 
 To see where others fail: 
 That something more is bound in this, 
 A something that the others miss; 
 A vital start 
 From her own heart 
 That never can from her depart. 
 
124 HOME SONGS 
 
 Say "Love is foolish, deaf and blind ; 
 
 Young mothers but insane; 
 All these bright fancies rich and kind 
 
 Around the heart and brain, 
 Are reasonless and but the fruit 
 Of nature's strong unconscious root:" 
 The baby best 
 From all the rest 
 Is just that one upon her breast. 
 
 'Tis more than most unbounded wealth ; 
 
 It scorneth poverty; 
 More priceless than all priceless health, 
 
 And more if sick it be. 
 In marble dome or cottage home 
 Where ever through the earth we roam 
 Of every birth 
 That wakes our mirth 
 Each mother folds the one of worth. 
 
 Oh well for mother! Well for child! 
 
 Oh well for earth oppressed ! 
 That ere we are by sin defiled 
 And wander sore distressed, 
 A heart inlaid with softest love, 
 With something like the heart above, 
 Doth us receive 
 When first we leave 
 The heart alas how few retrieve ! 
 
 Oh heart of high supremest love ! 
 
 Oh heart within the heart ! 
 Though high within thy heavens above 
 
 Before us sure Thou art. 
 For us Thou didst prepare the breast 
 And something from Thy own impressed, 
 But shall Thy heart 
 Now as we art 
 Receive us when we hence depart? 
 
HOME SONGS 125 
 
 YOUNG MOTHERHOOD. 
 
 Young Motherhood ! Young Motherhood ! 
 
 How oft ye cross my way ! 
 Like visits of the high and good 
 
 Ye fill our common day. 
 Ye float before my spirit's eyes 
 With something of the azure skies, 
 As flowers of earth 
 At springtime's birth 
 Bring dreams of something past their worth. 
 
 My eyes rejoice when e'er we meet, 
 
 What be the time or place; 
 Within the home or on the street 
 
 Thou always art a grace. 
 Through golden noon and starry night 
 Ye are a vision on my sight; 
 But this the best, 
 When on thy breast 
 Thy loved one smiles in slumbers blest. 
 
 Thou art the very dream we would ! 
 
 A spirit most divine ! 
 Thou crownest every earthly good 
 
 And blessings round thee twine. 
 This is rich heaven's royal seal 
 Upon thy nature's high ideal, 
 And her endower 
 Of every power 
 Is focused in thy passioned hour. 
 
126 HOME SONGS 
 
 Thou art a virtue that doth show 
 
 The virtues that abide. 
 Oh is there sight in earth below 
 
 Like heaven's chosen bride ! 
 When such a bride God's loan and gift 
 Into her passioned breast doth lift, 
 The mortal veil 
 Doth off me sail 
 And God the mother heart I hail. 
 
 And even when not perfect pure 
 
 There's virtue in thy breast. 
 The sparks divine thou dost secure 
 
 And feed them with the best. 
 Thy infant is and with it brings 
 Something of heaven and holy things ; 
 And in the fire 
 Of this desire 
 Thy heart must feel the first inspire. 
 
 A world has passed away from thee; 
 
 A world of time and sense; 
 Deceptions, shadows, pagentry, 
 
 Excitements and pretense. 
 That world has passed thee as a dream 
 Swift dancing down a sunny stream; 
 But let it go, 
 What dream can show 
 A living heart with love in flow? 
 
 Another world has dawned on thee 
 
 Of love and light within; 
 Another world, eternity 
 
 Untouched by death and sin. 
 What hosts of dreams and vital hopes 
 Dress kingly life's ascending slopes ! 
 What forms of light 
 In beauty bright 
 Come from thy heart and all bedight ! 
 
HOME SONGS 127 
 
 Thou art not of this earthly show 
 
 Of fashion, pleasure, pride; 
 Thou art a glory here below ! 
 
 A mother, wife and bride ! 
 The Giver of each perfect gift 
 Unto himself our lives would lift; 
 And in thy heart 
 With vital art 
 Reveals his deep divinest part. 
 
 What sweet content! What sacrifice! 
 
 What calm and faith and joy! 
 What happiness ! What paradise ! 
 
 What wisdom and employ ! 
 New virtues now of nobler worth 
 Comes forth in thee with thy young birth; 
 Nor sweeter grows, 
 Nor warmer glows 
 The morning sun or evening rose. 
 
 Thine eyes are toward the coming years, 
 
 Thy plans are reaching far, 
 Thy thoughts are climbing golden spheres, 
 
 Thy purpose to a star. 
 What poetry of magic art 
 Is born within thy dreaming heart, 
 To so create 
 A royal state 
 As round a prince of monarchs great ! 
 
 Thy ceaseless care and gentle might, 
 
 To see it full unfold, 
 It is a pleasure to the sight 
 
 As mortal eyes behold. 
 The softest and the tenderest 
 Doth o'er the weak and slenderest 
 Of spirits frail 
 And features pale 
 With passions deep most gently sail. 
 
128 HOME SONGS 
 
 How oft upon the summer street 
 
 My eyes have such beheld; 
 Though passing as a shadow fleet 
 
 My heart was touched and welled. 
 That tenderness and soft caress, 
 That look divine and gentle press, 
 Through selfish strife 
 With sorrows rife 
 It struck the rock and out flowed life. 
 
 The nobler men whom thou dost meet 
 
 Rejoice in thee and thine; 
 They breathe a prayer that passes fleet 
 
 Straight to the heart divine. 
 "Oh all supreme and mother love ! 
 
 Protect them from Thy throne above; 
 Surround them with Thy ceaseless care 
 And both upon Thy bosom bear. 
 Most, most from sin, 
 Without, within, 
 Oh shelter them till heaven they win!" 
 
 And many a man within his breast 
 
 That sense the same has felt; 
 A hidden something none has guessed 
 
 His icy bosom melt. 
 When thee and thine their eyes behold 
 The sealed-up heart doth free unfold, 
 Till deeps divine 
 Unbidden pine 
 "Would such were mine ! Mine ! Only mine V 
 
 Oh empty heart ! Oh empty heart ! 
 
 For self were none create. 
 And none their best can ere impart 
 
 Till heart has found its mate; 
 And hearts will never find their mates 
 Till God the heart anew creates; 
 When making new 
 He maketh two 
 Both complements high, pure and true. 
 
HOME SONGS 129 
 
 Though now alone and far apart, 
 
 All loves together run; 
 Ye soon shall meet and heart to heart 
 
 Forever more be one. 
 Soft angels from the crystal spheres 
 Shall bring thee faith and prayer and tears; 
 And round this vine 
 Thy hearts shall twine 
 And grow up in the love divine. 
 
 BECAUSE MY DEAR IT'S YOU. 
 
 Oh listen now beloved wife! 
 
 Anew my harp I string; 
 Oh thou who are my life of life 
 
 Another song I'll sing! 
 Another song for earth's annoy 
 
 My spirit doth impart; 
 Oh crimson love ! Oh turtle dove ! 
 
 Now listen at your heart. 
 
 When on the summer's golden street 
 
 I meet a maid divine 
 Whose spirit pure and glad and sweet 
 
 Doth through her body shine : 
 White crystal soul and liquid voice, 
 
 Soft eyes and youth's endew, 
 I see and meet her with rejoice, 
 
 Because my dear it's you. 
 
 My eagle eye where'er she be 
 
 Knows when her love awakes; 
 When worlds like sunrise on the sea 
 
 Within her bosom breaks. 
 The gladness which the dreams above 
 
 Can never know or near, 
 I hail with joy and share her love, 
 
 Because it's you my dear. 
 
130 HOME SONGS 
 
 And when one leads her up the aisle 
 
 With orange blossoms crowned, 
 When more than summer heavens smile 
 
 And more than raptures bound, 
 When granite strength and tenderness 
 
 Are joined forever true, 
 The bride, the bride thy heart can guess 
 
 Because my dear it's you. 
 
 When then they form a little home, 
 
 A paradise divine; 
 And round the queen from yonder dome 
 
 Soft angel hearts entwine; 
 For these who'd wish a world's domain 
 
 Though blessed without a tear? 
 I'd barter such and count it gain 
 
 For you and them my dear. 
 
 When e'er I hear a kingly man 
 
 Sing praises of his wife, 
 Extol the Planner and the plan 
 
 That joined her to his life; 
 Such thought and feeling fill the pause 
 
 Of life with music new; 
 I echo long the loud applause, 
 
 Because my dear it's you. 
 
 And when the poet from his mind 
 
 A form divine creates, 
 With every virtue rich entwined 
 
 That sorrow contemplates ; 
 I gaze upon the matchless grace 
 
 And bless him saint and seer; 
 Then quick my soul doth her embrace 
 
 Because it's you my dear. 
 
HOME SONGS 131 
 
 When high before him the throne of light 
 
 Vast spirits I behold, 
 Arrayed in royal purple bright 
 
 Or crimson, white or gold; 
 From seraph ranks or from the bride, 
 
 Whose splendors blind the view, 
 I choose the one just at my side 
 
 Because my dear it's you. 
 
 In heaven and earth, through space or time 
 
 Of all eternity, 
 While being's starry goal I climb 
 
 I still will dream of thee. 
 When mounting up the golden streets 
 
 Of each discovered sphere, 
 The best beloved my spirit greets 
 
 It will be you my dear. 
 
 All hail redeeming high Triune ! 
 
 Redeemed from self and sin; 
 With Thee and Thine to rich commune 
 
 Thy grace has gathered in. 
 The heart that will with Thee envine, 
 
 Come ! Come Oh soul and see ! 
 Shall find itself and souls divine 
 
 To all eternity. 
 
132 HOME SONGS 
 
 BOYHOOD'S HOME. 
 
 I wish I were a boy again 
 
 In childhood's happy home ! 
 I see it perfect in my ken, 
 
 Though far from it I roam. 
 The house stands yonder on the hill, 
 
 The garden and the flowers, 
 With cosy rooms and love to kill 
 
 My daily wearied powers. 
 Though poor it had a sweet content, 
 
 A pleasure, hope and peace, 
 For heaven had "round about it lent 
 
 Good health with largest lease. 
 Oh home ! Thou art of earth most blest ! 
 
 Home, thou art nearest heaven ! 
 And more to-day, since this lost heart 
 
 Beats on through night and levin. 
 I've passed to here from place to place; 
 
 From house to house depart; 
 But never found the happy grace 
 
 That makes thee what thou art. 
 For years and years I've wandered round ; 
 
 I live but have no home ; 
 I seek, but never yet have found 
 
 The place for which I roam. 
 How often through night's lighted panes 
 
 Thy image springs on me ! 
 What love ! What peace ! What happy strains ! 
 
 Who has not longed for thee? 
 I envy not the rich and great 
 
 Their gifts of power and place; 
 The poor man's more than royal state 
 
 Of home I would embrace. 
 I wish I were a boy again ! 
 
 I'm weary with life's roam ! 
 I wish my heart could rest as when 
 
 It did in boyhood's home ! 
 
HOME SONGS 13J 
 
 THE WHISTLING GIRL. 
 
 Oh the whistling girl is the girl for me ! 
 So happy, so bright and so charmingly free; 
 With her heart most full and an overflow 
 Like a crystal stream or the winds that blow. 
 
 A heart that is full of delirious life 
 Will unfold itself in harmonious strife; 
 Be a strange combine of a girl and a boy 
 And them both at once in their wildest joy. 
 
 The elements rich of the pure and free 
 Like the fountains burst in their gurgling glee; 
 And what a surprise that the heart of life 
 Through the maid should sing as a whistling fife. 
 
 We will name not now the piccolo notes 
 Which the instrument on the evening floats; 
 And the whistling breath of the artist's lips 
 May the simple play of the maid eclipse. 
 
 Her notes may not rival the bird that mocks 
 The cage or the branch that her passion rocks; 
 Nor the piping sound of her sisters fair 
 Should we measure now with her artless air. 
 
 But the bristling pride of the neighbor's boy 
 She will often shame, and her bubbling joy 
 Will cast on the wind an echoing laugh, 
 That is borne away like the flakes of chaff. 
 
 The mother may fret and the father scold 
 At the tom-boy girl and her nature bold, 
 For the family line with its long uncurl 
 Was never disgraced with a whistling girl. 
 
134 HOME SONGS 
 
 And the uncles come and they smile or stare, 
 And the aunties come and are bowed with care, 
 And the cousins come when they hear the fame 
 Of the whistling girl who is past all shame. 
 
 The gossiping few that are always found, 
 Behold her and hear and they gather round; 
 On the lips, the lips, what a burdened sigh? 
 But the heart and eye they are double dry. 
 
 Oh the whistling girl ! Oh the whistling girl ! 
 How the faded maid and the jilted churl, 
 Turn the heart and ear that her unbefriend, 
 And whisper the story of some "bad end." 
 
 Oh leave her alone ! Let her childish heart 
 Find a free express in all innocent art. 
 For a sight like that in a world like this 
 Were a parent's joy and a poet's bliss. 
 
 Oh leave her alone, for the poet said 
 To such blighting souls whom the night had fed : 
 "The girls that whistle like hens that crow 
 Will make their way wherever they go." 
 
 They will make their way as the birds that sing 
 After winter's blight in the happy spring 
 Make way with a song to our hungry ears 
 And open the fount of our healing tears. 
 
 They will make their way as the morning lark 
 Doth rise from the vale and the shadows dark, 
 And above the hills in the sun's first rays 
 Unburdens her heart in delirious praise. 
 
 They will make their way as a few stray notes 
 From a wife or a child or a loved one floats 
 On the heart of man, and the strength of life 
 Is engirded strong for the day of strife. 
 
HOME SONGS 135 
 
 They will make their way as a sinless child 
 Can enter the heart of the sin denied, 
 And banish the sorrow of long dark years 
 And inspire a hope in the midst of fears. 
 
 "They will make their way to the woman's years 
 With a grace beloved but seldom appears 
 Both a heart and mind that is poised at rest 
 And in blessing all is the one most blessed. 
 
 "They will make their way to a noble heart 
 And receiving it will the more impart. 
 Both a hope unknown and a faith divine 
 And a helping life that will upward twine. 
 
 Oh the whistling girl is the girl for me ! 
 For the kind of fruit in the bud I see. 
 Go ! Go my song and behold the sight ! 
 Then kiss her for me to thy heart's delight. 
 
 THE WIFE'S RETURN. 
 
 The wife came home to-night, 
 And with her came the day 
 That shineth round her bright 
 And with her went away. 
 
 The blossoms, trees and wind 
 
 And all of nature sighed ; 
 The day grew sudden blind, 
 
 And starless night did ride 
 Upon my heart and mind 
 
 When steamed away my bride. 
 
136 HOME SONGS 
 
 But since she has come home 
 
 I'm happy as can be. 
 The murmuring wine doth foam 
 With drunken extacy. 
 
 My brain is all on fire, 
 
 My heart is full of love, 
 And eyes have their desire. 
 
 The happy madness of 
 The heavens and inspire 
 Rains on me from above. 
 
 I'm wrapped in dreams to-night ! 
 
 I'm in a dream of bliss ! 
 Our courtship at its height 
 A desert were to this ! 
 
 A dream within a dream ! 
 
 And the dream divinely blest, 
 For beside me in the gleam 
 A more than bridal guest, 
 That brings a summer stream 
 Into my winter breast. 
 
 Light up the windows wide ! 
 
 Throw blinds and curtains back ! 
 And let the brightness ride 
 Into the darkness black. 
 
 Oh light up every pane 
 
 And brighten every room ! 
 
 Let light and gladness reign 
 
 And banish every gloom ! 
 
 Let the house be like a fane 
 
 The souls of light illume. 
 
HOME SONGS 137 
 
 Oh call the neighbors in ! 
 
 We'll kill the fatted calf! 
 Call all my kith and kin 
 To see my "better half" ! 
 
 We'll spill the oldest wine 
 
 And feast on ripest fruits; 
 Uncork the hearts benign 
 
 With joy and song that suits; 
 Make this return divine 
 With wedding magic flutes. 
 
 Oh let the music play ! 
 
 Call the musicians in ! 
 Give them a place, I pray, 
 Piano, violin ! 
 
 I'm nimble as the snipes, 
 
 As swallows on the wing; 
 I could wave the stars and stripes 
 And dance the highland fling; 
 I could play the tartan pipes 
 And in the Gallic sing. 
 
 I'm richer than a king! 
 
 I'm larger than a lord ! 
 Thrones and empires I could fling 
 Like pennies from a hoard ! 
 Here is the poet's lyre ! 
 
 Life's royal robes of might ! 
 Here is the heart of fire, 
 
 Crown, scepter, jewels bright ! 
 You may take your best desire 
 If you leave my soul's delight. 
 
138 HOME SONGS 
 
 A man that has a wife, 
 
 A home that's full of love, 
 He is the king of life, 
 And heir to more above. 
 
 A man with such a wife 
 
 His heaven has begun. 
 He is more than king of life 
 And can walk or fly or run. 
 Has his victory in the strife 
 And "a mortgage on the sun." 
 
Soul Songs 
 
 HOW SWIFT OUR LIFE ! 
 
 How swift! How swift our life is run 
 And we give up this breath ! 
 
 'Tis just one circle of the sun 
 And we lie down in death. 
 
 As full of hope as morn of life 
 We come to front the years; 
 
 We turn us mangled by the strife 
 And torn by grief and fears. 
 
 Sweet, soft and calm and innocent 
 
 We come forth to the light; 
 Most guilty, wretched and misspent 
 
 We pass on out of sight. 
 
 How swift! How swift our life is run 
 And we give up this breath ! 
 
 'Tis just one circle of the sun 
 And we lie down in death. 
 
 DRIVEN. 
 
 'Tis up and down and o'er the world, 
 
 Around and here and there, 
 Dark, tempest driven, tossed and whirled 
 
 From port to port of care: 
 We voyage thus the sea of life 
 
 Till stormy wind and wave 
 Upon death's shore in mortal strife 
 
 Doth cast us for the grave. 
 
140 SOUL SONGS 
 
 OUR LIFE. 
 
 A little moment's play 
 
 With simple toys; 
 Dreams, dreams for many a day 
 
 Songs, hopes and joys. 
 
 An hour of selfish toil; 
 
 Work, eat and sleep; 
 Gain, loss and grief and soil 
 
 In all we reap. 
 
 Our work and we ere noon 
 Sleep neath the grass; 
 
 Our names from night and noon 
 As shadows pass. 
 
 AN APPEAL. 
 
 "No ! I won't go to hear that man preach again. 
 I've heard enough. Every time I hear the speech 
 Of one of these impassioned, terrifying men, 
 A something strange doth to my spirit reach 
 And shakes my world of hopes to chaos. They preach 
 Against the world and time; or 'gainst the straws 
 Of money, dress or pleasure. With fire they teach 
 Abstract principles, impossible laws, 
 Doubtful ideals, or strange beseech 
 By sacrifice that seems to have no cause, 
 And thrust me in the dark with strange unreasoned awes." 
 
SOUL SONGS 141 
 
 "Every time I hear one of these men preach, 
 They preach me out of my religion. My hopes 
 Of heaven and the confidence I teach 
 My heart to hold beneath the frowning copes 
 Of time they tear right out of soul that opes 
 To them in spite of me. Beneath their blight 
 My spirit seems swift driven down the slopes 
 Of life, and when I leave them their fiery sight 
 Doth follow me. After, when my blindness gropes 
 For some support their thunders on me light, 
 Or else a mighty flash wakes wide the void of night." 
 
 "Besides, they fulminate against the churches 
 And slander her with bitter poison stings. 
 Exalted high on their self-righteous perches 
 They think themselves as angels; and us, things 
 Of dirt. They think that no one has the springs 
 Of goodness but their own elected few. 
 Our minister, to whom my reverence clings, 
 Does not espouse these teachings that are new. 
 He said to me: 'Enthusiasm brings 
 The inharmonious, disproportioned true; 
 But better far to hold the 'rounded truth' in view.' " 
 
 "Oh prophets, priests and poets ! Oh divine 
 And noblest natures that adorn the earth ! 
 Oh spirits high impassioned with a wine 
 Of life far purer than our mortal birth ! 
 Oh oracles on whom the light doth shine 
 The secret truths of high celestial worth ! 
 My spirit doors of sorrow and of mirth 
 I open wide and entrance loud beseech; 
 From base to cope, from centre to the girth 
 Of all my life I urge on ye to preach 
 Your inmost heart to mine in most unvarnished speech." 
 
142 SOUL SONGS 
 
 "Soft, velvet words may fill your mouths of truth 
 When there is need, but now speak forth your fire 
 Unto my heart. No false or deadly ruth 
 Restrain the strength of your celestial choir 
 Though me it blast as life doth blast our youth. 
 If consciousness unfathoms thy require, 
 If character dishonors thy inspire, 
 If aught there be rebellious to the light, 
 If ill be hid in motive or desire, 
 Oh preach me out of my religion ! Oh blight 
 My hopes forever ! The hopes of my delight 
 Oh quench them as the storms oft quench the stars of 
 night !" 
 
 "And Thou, Oh Death! Thou Prince and Power of 
 
 darkness ! 
 Thou Sorrow ! Silence ! Reverence and Repose ! 
 With uncompassioned hand, Oh tear the dress 
 Of time asunder ! this dress of mortal shows. 
 Speak ! Speak to me with the undivided stress 
 Of all Thou art, and all thy kingdom knows 
 Of life and the last change it undergoes. 
 Since untold hosts thy presence undeceives 
 At the last hour, now ere my mortal close 
 Tear the lie from my right hand, although it leaves 
 Defenceless, blind and lost and hell itself receives." 
 
 "Oh disenthrall and disembody me 
 From all that blinds or warps me from the sense 
 To feel and know what I must shortly be ! 
 Oh pass me through thy last experience 
 Though spirit yet from body is not free ! 
 And plant me face to face before the whence? 
 And why? and what? that underlies this dense 
 Insensibility, and stands blank before 
 Earth's blindness and her vain and proud pretense. 
 Oh unrobe thy naked presence I implore, 
 And by the truth Thou art destroy the false I store !" 
 
SOUL SONGS 143 
 
 "Both Life and Death and Ministers between 
 There is no exposition of the laws 
 Can be too straight, and no application lean 
 So heavy as to give the least cause 
 Of complaint. Oh preach the truth: life's unseen 
 Alabaster purity, that awes 
 The senseless, blind contaminated flaws 
 Of nature ! Here is my conscience : her enthrone 
 And vitalize to hear ye with applause ! 
 Truth the strongest, straightest, sternest ever known, 
 Oh speak unto her heart that never can disown !" 
 
 "Oh Angel of the judgement! Thou presidest 
 Over life and death ; over all of man, 
 His word and deed and even what residest 
 In his sub-conscious heart, Oh speak as when 
 In Thy tremendous hour Thou decidest 
 The disentangled issues of this den 
 Of wickedness ! Now unto me as then, 
 Oh speak thy all to my receptive heart 
 By thunder voice, by blinding lightning ken, 
 Or all the awful presence that thou art ! 
 In silence now I wait and merciless impart." 
 
 "My life resolve into its primal elements, 
 And deepen consciousness until it feels 
 The trifles mere the conscience unpresents, 
 Since of a word the solemn record peals. 
 How earth and time and my false heart dements 
 Me from the truth ! But now my spirit kneels 
 Before the awful presence that reveals 
 The heart unto itself. Oh place me in the fire ! 
 The fire whose strength the inmost soul unseals; 
 The secret heart of motive and desire, 
 Which never till thy hour dreamed they could life inspire." 
 
144 SOUL SONGS 
 
 "What multitudes from this dark clouded clime 
 With firmest hope went straight unto Thy hour! 
 One blinding glance from eyes of light sublime 
 Striking the conscience did instant disendower 
 Their spirits from the highest thrones of time. 
 When natures of such wide reputed power 
 Are workers of iniquity, Oh tower 
 Of truth ! White indignation against sin ! 
 Glowing shekinah fire ! Come and devour 
 All sin in me ! Burn, burn it out ! Burn in 
 The naked fact I am is all my heart would win." 
 
 Oh most sublime Eternity ! Thou 
 Altitudinal spirit of the spaces ! 
 Forever great, forever true, so now 
 Thou watchest all in being's mystic races. 
 Within the seed, far, far before the plow 
 Thou seest what the hidden germ embraces, 
 The harvest vast of virtues or disgraces. 
 Ten thousand times thine eyes have seen the law 
 
 - Of finite life unfold in all its places, 
 
 So Thou art wise ; thy wisdom, truth and awe 
 
 Up to thy shadowed form my mortal heart doth draw." 
 
 "Oh is there aught within the depths of space 
 As close or deeper than this law of right ? 
 In all the boundlessness of time I face 
 Ahead, Oh ! Is there yet a moral height 
 Beyond this sense of duty that doth grace 
 My heart, and her imaginations bright 
 Which conscience quick stings forth into the night? 
 Justice, truth, Tightness and purity 
 Form the earth's foundations, and bedight 
 The wide expansive heavens. Oh can there be 
 Another base and height, sweep and intensity?" 
 
SOUL SONGS 145 
 
 "All that thou art, art thou not here below 
 This mortal life, the strength of all we be? 
 Can these high natures change when hence we go, 
 When life is now the very life of thee? 
 If there be found after this sense we throw 
 A stronger grip, fiercer intensity 
 In those vast laws that. ever rule the free, 
 That grip, tension and comprehensiveness, 
 Oh bring them now and fix them fast on me ! 
 The passioned heart of all thy laws no less 
 Then their wide circumference deep deep upon me press/* 
 
 "And Thou, Oh God ! I lift my last appeal 
 To Thee; for Thou art sovereign and supreme 
 O'er life and death, and Thy hand doth unseal 
 The visions from the prophet's land of dream. 
 Deep underneath eternity we fell 
 Thou art; and as the vital airy stream 
 Is round the earth, and all her natures teem 
 With atmospheric life, so Thou art round 
 And penetrateth all creation. The seem 
 Of life deceives by sense and sight and sound; 
 We live and move in Thee; Thou art the spirit's ground." 
 
 "All powers and laws that are, or ever can be 
 Laid upon this mortal immortality 
 Surround me now forever more in Thee. 
 Speak ! Speak with the unformality 
 Of life, and with an earnestness be free 
 Though it seem to my blind heart brutality. 
 Thou knowest not the self's partiality 
 So what Thou art Thou surely shalt reveal 
 And so make known my own finality. 
 My spirit ears their deafness Oh unseal ! 
 And quicken my dead heart that what it hears to feel. 
 
146 SOUL SONGS 
 
 "Oh plant the base of this deep universe ! 
 Thy own essential life, Oh plant it right 
 Beneath my soul ! and though it write a curse, 
 Thy perpendicular Oh raise unto the height 
 Of infinite perfection ! and so reverse 
 The moral judgements of this surrounding night 
 Of ignorance and sin. Level, plumb, square and sight 
 My naked spirit by what Thou truly art 
 In Thy high heaven of pure effulgent light ! 
 Since Thy first sense did visit my dark heart 
 I've wished alone for Thee and more of truth's impart/' 
 
 "Not only of Thy love to me reveal, 
 For well I know my heart can sore abuse 
 This revelation that the virtuous doth seal 
 Unto Thyself. Glowing holiness infuse 
 Into Thy love and so preserve the weal 
 Of both ; but all the former I would choose 
 Before this true self-knowledge I would loose. 
 Be round about me as a seven-fold fire ! 
 Consume my sins ! Harmonize me to the thews 
 Of holiness ! The infinite requires 
 Of Thee and of Thy law is what my soul desires." 
 
 "Upon this one conviction of my heart 
 
 Which was and is my spirit's starry pole; 
 
 That Thou wilt show and lead to what Thou art 
 
 The sinful life that knows no other goal, 
 
 My spirit now will rest. The best impart 
 
 Of life has been from Thee; and the years that roll 
 
 Their changes on me Thy grace will still control 
 
 To teach my heart the lessons most divine. 
 
 - Small was the price although it was my whole 
 I paid to learn what sin I did enshrine; 
 
 All other price I gladly pay to learn life's larger line." 
 
SOUL SONGS 147 
 
 PETER TAUGHT. 
 
 "Before the cock crow this day twice 
 Thou, Peter, shall deny me thrice 
 
 Before men all; 
 For thou a stranger to thy heart 
 Must first be taught just what thou art 
 
 By fearful fall." 
 
 "Though all should Thee in fear deny, 
 I swear before the Lord, not I ! 
 
 I will be true ! 
 I'll dare man's power and scorn and hate ! 
 My Lord ! My God ! I'll choose my fate, 
 
 I'll die for you!" 
 
 "Enough ! Enough ! Wait well the time ! 
 These oaths do but increase thy crime ; 
 
 But prayers prevail; 
 And after thou art turned again, 
 Oh strengthen thou thy fellow-men 
 
 Whom sins assail." 
 
 Oh well we know ! All round the world 
 Has Peter's thrice denial been hurled; 
 
 But few have learned 
 The living truth of Peter's fall, 
 Though in the hearts and lives of all 
 
 It must be burned. 
 
 From nature's state of ignorance, 
 From self and all self confidence, 
 
 We must awake. 
 The world and all things are combined 
 To quicken the immortal mind 
 
 And moral make. 
 
148 SOUL SONGS 
 
 The soul unto itself must come, 
 Or can it be but deaf and dumb 
 
 Unto another? 
 Self knowledge unto heaven towers, 
 And walks among these mortal powers 
 
 As life's best brother. 
 
 We must come up: stand face to face: 
 Measure time's strength, and under base 
 
 This world of strife. 
 Can promise, power or progress be 
 If we are blind or partial see 
 
 The truths of life? 
 
 Far deeper, deeper we must go 
 Until we find the life below; 
 
 The heart and brain 
 Must strike their root; kick out the ground 
 Until the living rock is found 
 
 That doth sustain. 
 
 Brought to ourselves, to life and God ! 
 How few ! How few are wise and awed ! 
 
 The dragon's tooth, 
 That tears us through these mortal years 
 Of falls, disgraces, shame and tears, 
 
 Teaches the truth. 
 
 Then we can come to God and give 
 Ourselves to Him. Then we can live; 
 
 Be pure and free. 
 Then we can triumph o'er the curse, 
 Then can crown with glorious verse 
 
 Eternity. 
 
 Oh wise ! Oh wise ! Divinely wise 
 'Bove colleges or books, the eyes 
 
 That lightning scan 
 The nature, powers, motives, and deeps 
 That hide within life's secret keeps, 
 
 The heart of man. 
 
SOUL SONGS 149 
 
 A BOY AGAIN. 
 
 "I wish I were a boy again I" 
 
 Keeps coming in my mind; 
 The more I live and move with men 
 
 The more I look behind. 
 A something strange, yet strong and clear, 
 
 Like echoes from the past, 
 Like love now lost but still more dear 
 
 Those times upon me cast. 
 Oh times ! Oh times forever flown ! 
 
 Oh days forever dear ! 
 The farther from me ye are thrown 
 
 The closer ye come near. 
 Thy memories cast their magic spell 
 
 Upon my heart and mind, 
 And visions bright as poets tell 
 
 The mortal hour doth blind. 
 Ye were the angels of the morn 
 
 With golden raiment clad; 
 Your locks and wings were never shorn, 
 
 Your hearts and faces glad. 
 Ye were the spirits most divine; 
 
 Ye made a heaven of earth, 
 And lifted up the sparkling wine 
 
 To me with beaded mirth. 
 But now as meteors of the sky 
 
 Ye most are hid from sight, 
 Yet sometimes burst and on the eye 
 
 Cast splendors swift and bright. 
 Ye now are dreams on golden wings 
 
 From paradise divine, 
 Which often comes and gently sings: 
 
 "Come back to me and mine." 
 "Come back! Come back Oh weary worn! 
 
 Come back Oh wandering child ! 
 Come back to me though heart is torn 
 
 And hungry and denied !" 
 
!50 SOUL SONGS 
 
 When round me now, unlike of yore, 
 
 Unbid ye sweep my skies; 
 When through my day and night ye soar 
 
 A something dims my eyes. 
 A something in my soul doth melt 
 
 And flows around my heart, 
 Until these walls the moments belt 
 
 Are sundered far apart. 
 I slip by some divine device 
 
 From hate and strife and wrong, 
 Back to my childhood paradise 
 
 Of love and light and song; 
 Back to my childhood paradise 
 
 Of hope and joy and life, 
 Untouched by earth's contagious vice, 
 
 Or fear or grief or strife. 
 Dear is the dream and bright the hour, 
 
 And sweet the song ye sing; 
 But Oh how short ! for time and power 
 
 Me swiftly back doth bring. 
 I wish I were a boy again ! 
 
 Oh my departed years ! 
 I wish so much I cannot pen 
 
 The fountain of my tears. 
 
 YOU HAVE NEVER SUFFERED. 
 
 What! "Never suffered!" "Never wept!" 
 
 I have not known the griefs that kill 
 When gold and health afar are swept, 
 
 And die the hopes our youth instill ! 
 
 I have not known the anguish thrill 
 When cradle angels far have flown ! 
 
 Nor when her soul our own doth fill 
 Is root drawn out with stifled groan 
 And leaves us years and years to moan and moan and moan ! 
 
SOUL SONGS 151 
 
 Yes ! I have suffered ! I have wept ! 
 
 Death once my spirit did baptize; 
 Her waves o'er my warm bosom, swept 
 
 Me deep in losses, fears and cries. 
 
 In life the deepest pain still lies 
 To love the best but sunken deep 
 
 In earth to have no strength to rise; 
 To lose the dream and this to reap 
 Is such a state of grief as few of mortals weep. 
 
 Eclipsed was all my morning light; 
 
 The silver moons and suns of gold 
 Darted no gleam through day or night, 
 
 And hope did not a ray unfold. 
 
 To triple blackness I was sold; 
 The nights of sin and fear and hell 
 
 Their mantles round my soul did fold; 
 From nature, God and man there fell 
 Egyptian night and plagues no mortal tongue can tell. 
 
 I oft have prayed for hours and hours 
 Till bone and breast and heart did ache; 
 
 Through darkest night in lonely bowers 
 The ear of God I tried to wake 
 By calling "Mercy!" "For love's sake!" 
 
 "Oh Father save !" "Give me a staff !" 
 My groans deep echoes then did wake 
 
 As if some demons wine did quaff, 
 And mocked me in their drink with mad delirious laugh. 
 
 I oft have wept, not rainbow tears ; 
 
 Those mortal wounded hope may bleed; 
 Or deep despair in her last fears. 
 
 Such drops the lost in hell do feed 
 
 To slack their conscience burning greed; 
 Tears glowing white and spiked with pain 
 
 As twisting, tearing bullets speed, 
 Shot from my heart with fearful strain, 
 Through aching aching breast and hand enclasped brain. 
 
152 SOUL SONGS 
 
 My heart was often like a hell, 
 
 And feeling like her fiery waves ; 
 Such storms of wrath and darkness fell 
 
 As round her shores forever raves; 
 
 The steep washed gulf and deepest caves 
 Were dashed and swept, and I was borne 
 
 Over the crimson crested graves 
 With hated, vast, majestic scorn, 
 Here and there, around and round and torn and torn and 
 torn. 
 
 My mind was like a serpent's nest 
 
 Where beast with beast doth fiercely wrangle; 
 The noblest thoughts with godlike crest 
 
 The lowest strained and tried to strangle; 
 
 But these with bright death anger spangle 
 Oft conquered them; and strifeful reigns 
 
 With all these woes that sins entangle 
 Did sweep across my spirit plains 
 And caused such agony as cannot now have strains. 
 
 My soul bare nerved has lived for years 
 
 With sorrow as my only mate; 
 An ancient curse with cloudy fears 
 
 Doomed o'er me night of blackest fate. 
 
 Remorseful serpent thoughts with hate- 
 Ful tooth and fangs upon me came; 
 
 Fire hailing clouds with thunders great, 
 And furies with no mortal name 
 Swift chased my naked soul through hell's white torturing 
 
 flame. 
 
 Consigned it seems to demon hate 
 
 I suffered what their rage may dare; 
 Fiends glad their hearts to satiate, 
 
 Leaped on my soul with hungry tear; 
 
 Their red-hot fingers in my bare 
 Breast they thrust, and in delirious glee 
 
 The nervous cords from life's deep lair 
 They pulled and snapped as elastic free, 
 Till I became unconscious and writhed in agony. 
 
SOUL SONGS 153 
 
 Yes ! I have suffered ! I have wept 
 
 Far more than myself can own ! 
 When feeling strong the heart has swept 
 
 What tongue can reproduce the groan? 
 
 And if I could I would not moan 
 To weeping, broken-hearted earth; 
 
 'Tis sorrow's work to undertone 
 High thoughts and feelings of her birth, 
 And other souls to teach her priceless priceless worth. 
 
 For sorrow is of gifts the gift 
 
 When heaven's grace her tears doth bring, 
 To purge, to strengthen, guide and lift, 
 
 And touch the lips with fire to sing; 
 
 Her losses and her sharpness sting 
 From self into the soul divine, 
 
 Whose life and love and light will spring 
 In all the forms which joy can sign, 
 And mingled with the grief the purest joys enshrine. 
 
 KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 Wisdom unto her sons, the wise, 
 
 This virtue free doth give: 
 To know ten thousand truths and lies 
 
 Though them they do not live. 
 Folly unto her thoughtless own 
 
 Is their most deadly foe; 
 Through truth and lies with loss and groan 
 
 They live, but do not know. 
 
154 SOUL SONGS 
 
 MONOPOLY CHRISTIANS. 
 
 In these last days intensifying life 
 
 Doth seek to pass the individual bound. 
 The conscienceness of their resources rife 
 
 Inspires to work from universal ground. 
 
 A spirit cosmopolitan has found 
 Our mighty men and poured a lust of gain 
 
 In all controlling measures; they are bound 
 By the new time-spirit, and the ancient reign 
 With twice millennial strength is scorned and burst in twain. 
 
 The town, the city and the state no more 
 Form ample field for their ambitious gain; 
 
 A nation and her continental store 
 Of boundless wealth now fill their heated brain 
 With sordid calculations. Their wish has twain 
 
 Imperial eyes of selfishness that reach 
 
 Beyond the old ancestoral dreams; they fain 
 
 Would gather all and in the mind of each 
 Inspires the widest plans she bodies faint in speech. 
 
 Their expansive base of operations 
 
 Has passed the bound of moderate designs; 
 In east and western wak'ning populations 
 
 They see the mart for which ambition pines. 
 
 They claim the world; and with protentous signs 
 That solemn word fills dream and speech and plan. 
 
 The vast round globe and her multitudinous lines 
 Of brotherhood, all, all of earth and man 
 Is but a sphere of gain their eyes delight to scan. 
 
SOUL SONGS 155 
 
 To quicker reach that heaven of their dreams 
 Their souls and wealth unite; as unions hold 
 
 A greater power than scattered gold. In streams 
 Their capital in one vast mass is rolled 
 To near the billion mark. Each day is told 
 
 Of larger combinations that are formed 
 With enterprise enchanting young and old. 
 
 When the new spirit has their visions warmed 
 The most chaotic state with cosmos skill is stormed. 
 
 Their accumulated wealth grows with surprise 
 Beyond their own first dreams, and piles of gold 
 
 Are as a heaven unto their blinded eyes. 
 Yon golden sun whose splendors pure are rolled 
 Free to the hungry void, do they behold 
 
 Life's image best of man or God divine? 
 
 A sphere like that with bowels of wealth untold 
 
 Is all the heaven for which their spirits pine; 
 Is all the heaven or God they wish to on them shine. 
 
 Beside the mountains and across the land 
 Their towering plants engage all to behold; 
 
 And by the sea what mighty fabrics stand? 
 The sea itself is conquered or has sold 
 Her ancient strength to their persistence bold. 
 
 As the night builds up her jeweled splendored cone 
 On the broad circle which the earth has scrolled, 
 
 Their plans to most colossal works have grown, 
 To towering majesty all fear nor dare disown. 
 
 But Oh alas ! Earth's largest enterprise 
 
 From dark foundation to her crowning stone 
 Has nought high pleasing to the Judge's eyes, 
 
 Or even ought he dare consistent own. 
 
 From self it came, for self has greater grown, 
 And self is always passioned with a curse. 
 
 That vilest heart with loud and laboring moan 
 Pulses her life and against her brothers nurse 
 A course of monster crimes that groweth worse and worse. 
 
156 SOUL SONGS 
 
 They buy the college, the pulpit and the press, 
 And their unprophet priests who sell the race, 
 
 God and themselves for gain. Their gold doth dress 
 The politician to their needs, and their powers displace 
 The majesties of law that alone can grace 
 
 An earthly government. They rule all mortal spheres 
 And the golden heights of heaven would embrace, 
 
 Though the broken heart and helpless crimson tears 
 Of the wide brotherhood they trample without fears. 
 
 Their concentrated power, wisdom, skill and wealth 
 
 They fix with hate on each weak, struggling foe; 
 Then in the dark as a murderer by stealth 
 
 They strike but once with death's unerring blow. 
 
 Ten thousand men whose spirits once did glow 
 With ambitious hope and ardors of our youth 
 
 They undermined and sold and thrust below. 
 All love and joy, inspire and hope and truth, 
 From the very heart of life they trample without ruth. 
 
 Meditated, and so conscious of their end, 
 
 The wide world's bread they struggle to secure. 
 
 To the winter's blast their selfishness would send 
 The nation. In earth's vile dens they would immure 
 The immortal sons of God, who endure 
 
 Worse, far worse than the very dogs of gain. 
 The most stupendous crimes we can be sure 
 
 Are those in which a mighty heart and brain 
 Though without senses foul the needy's hope has slain. 
 
 The brow of age can deep be trampled down; 
 
 The newborn babe inherit but a curse; 
 Our manhood's prime insulted as a clown 
 
 And hopeful youth vain struggle to reverse 
 
 Their lot; the coming generation worse, 
 Far worse may be so they increase their store; 
 
 All heart and mind is from life's need to nurse 
 The state of strife that will augment still more 
 Their blood-stained, stolen wealth, their power and place and 
 lore. 
 
SOUL SONGS 157 
 
 The images of God upon this earth; 
 
 Law, justice, truth, reverence and righteousness, 
 Faith, purity and love, which have their birth 
 
 In God's own heart, and sent from him to dress 
 
 Themselves in mortal flesh, and in the stress 
 And strain of life to grow unto the height 
 
 Which welcome shall the courts of blessedness: 
 These images: God's most supreme delight, 
 In others and themselves they slay both day and night. 
 
 The sacred fountains of the nation's life 
 
 Is not exempt from their contamination. 
 Ideals and visions with destructions rife 
 
 And blasphemies against God's high creation 
 
 They sow upon the nourishing elation 
 Of our youth. Such example on the soil 
 
 Of selfishness will breed within the nation 
 A savage host whose natures will dispoil 
 Time's noblest crowning work and glory of her toil. 
 
 And these are members of the living Christ; 
 
 Among the saints their names are written down; 
 These are the men whose gifts, repeated and unpriced, 
 
 That bride-elect is wearing as her crown; 
 
 And to fellowship with them, she doth gown 
 Herself in queen's apparel. This is the race 
 
 From whom she now receives her best renown, 
 And promenades before high heaven's face 
 Counting their princely gifts as her divinest grace. 
 
 And the churches sanction this gigantic 
 
 Selfishness, and lifts their hands in benediction 
 
 On these purpureal and most titanic 
 
 Crimes against God's humanity. If conviction 
 With sublimest passion tears the fiction 
 
 From her hypocritical heart and eyes, 
 That apostate with loud malediction 
 
 Quick from her congregation soon doth ostracise, 
 Inspires the rabble mob and their death frenzied cries. 
 
158 SOUL SONGS 
 
 Are these disciples of the love divine? 
 
 Which throned above those rich eternal skies, 
 Surrounded by bright seraphimic line 
 
 And hymned supreme by first archangel cries, 
 
 Through their loud chorus heard our burdened sighs 
 And did divest himself of the endower 
 
 No soaring dream has dared to faint surmise: 
 Surrendered self, gave God, heaven, friends and power, 
 Entered our mortal line and shared our earthly hour. 
 
 Follow they that sacrificial love 
 
 Who standing midst this dark and selfish throng, 
 Emptied a heart as rich as heaven above, 
 
 And burning thoughts that on their guilty wrong 
 
 Fell as lightning bolts from heaven on the strong 
 Violators of humanity? and as He died 
 
 His vast magnanimous soul did song 
 Itself like a flow of heaven's golden tide 
 In rich forgiving strains upon their deicide. 
 
 Who dreams these image forth that sunlike heart 
 
 That with triumphant majesty arose; 
 Then with a grace to feed all poet's art 
 
 His kingdom's gates wide opened to his foes? 
 
 A forgiveness as the sifted mountain snows; 
 A place beneath a father's lightning eyes; 
 
 A heart of love that flows and overflows 
 A nature like the sun within the skies; 
 A life that giveth all and giving thus shall rise. 
 
 Are these disciples of that love divine 
 That rules as king this climbing universe? 
 
 Who underneath all hierarchs that shine, 
 And peopled worlds of purity or curse 
 Doth plant himself as the one maternal nurse 
 
 Of all created being? whose vast endower 
 Is not for self but freely doth disburse 
 
 To all their needs now portions of his power, 
 And lifts them up in love more strong from hour to hour. 
 
SOUL SONGS 159 
 
 Are these like him whose life and word both taught 
 
 The everlasting, absolutest right 
 Of those high moral elements that are wrought 
 
 Into our natures? whose heightless height, 
 
 Impassionedness and majesty and might 
 Are worth far more in men than a universe 
 
 Without them? Does not their denial smite 
 All resistance with a cinerating curse, 
 And prophecies a wrath these violations nurse? 
 
 Have they received his matchless, matchless grace 
 
 Who gathers all who will around him cling? 
 In his monarchial state there is no place 
 
 For selfish souls but each is as the king. 
 
 There the glory of the strong is to fling 
 Themselves at the burdened base or battling gate; 
 
 While far on high or in sheltered safety sing 
 The new born babes, the low and weak estate 
 Who give more than they take and make the great more 
 great. 
 
 Oh tell me Truth ! Can a man be a christian man 
 
 Whose fundamental principle is to give, 
 And a part or sympathetic with the clan 
 
 Whose fundamental principle is exclusive 
 
 Of every other? Does this spirit live 
 With his spirit the most divine, who gave 
 
 Himself to save us most from our destructive 
 Selves of selfishness? And dare presumption crave 
 A portion of that life that died and lives to save? 
 
 Oh tell me Truth? Can any heart that draws 
 Its life from a sacrifice of such renown, 
 
 So violate the everlasting laws 
 That base and build, that penetrate and crown 
 The universe? What man could trample down 
 
 His own divinest essence in the mire? 
 How then the Christ when he again doth gown 
 
 Himself in flesh destroy his high inspire? 
 And far more than himself, his own eternal sire? 
 
160 SOUL SONGS 
 
 Shall pride and contumacious selfishness, 
 Far harder to their brother's helpless need 
 
 Than are the granite rocks to herbs that dress 
 Their desolation, find their spirits freed 
 From self and sin when death's rapacious greed 
 
 Shall gather them into her hungry deep? 
 Oh who can dream such a disembodied deed 
 
 On lightning wings to heaven's gates will sweep 
 Where justice, truth and power their thrones eternal keep? 
 
 Shall this puissant, hardened self of curse 
 
 That murder has in her strong passioned heart, 
 
 Murder of self, God and the universe 
 Of living souls, ever find a place and part 
 In that kingdom blest whence lightning thoughts dart 
 
 Through our darkness? where love is like the sun, 
 And spirits high with all they have and art 
 
 Of life divine to others freely run, 
 And count alone as gain what self-sacrifice has won? 
 
 Can thoughts alone of a noble creed? 
 
 Or professions, church or an honored name? 
 Or words divine and not diviner deed? 
 
 Or servant acts without the heart of flame? 
 
 Can splendid gifts of ostentatious fame? 
 Or those confessions death has ever known ? 
 
 Or sacraments that never find their aim? 
 Or consolations the conscience hard can own? 
 
 Or flowery praise from priests who sell the same? 
 Can one or all save when the life high heaven doth disown 
 And been a God denying oath to hell's infernal throne ? 
 
 Away with such delusive dreams ! Away ! 
 
 Such gigantic and titanic wickedness 
 Before that kingdom stands but for one brief day. 
 
 If deep repenting change finds not express 
 
 In nobler deeds, no mind of truth can guess 
 Absorbing souls can rise from whence they fell. 
 
 None dares to dream that love and holiness 
 Shall never do what both have dared to tell, 
 That whirlwind storms shall of fire shall burst with judg- 
 ments fell. 
 
SOUL SONGS 161 
 
 The tragedy and human life destruction 
 
 That follows their career will gather height 
 Until the course its final act shall run; 
 
 Then the everlasting laws, then the might 
 
 Of nature, then the infinite delight 
 Of love and righteousness before all ken 
 
 Shall fiercely hurl through lightning thunder night 
 The age's curse, the wholesale murdering men, 
 Down, down sin's darkest gulf, down where dragons den. 
 
 Oh spirit of this prophetic universe ! 
 
 Hear ! Oh Hear ! and tell me now : Is there a fate 
 Conceived for our immortal natures, worse 
 
 Than to be left alone to satiate 
 
 Unmolested the powers that rule the state 
 Of life's triumphant selfishness? Oh tell 
 
 Me now ! Do not the righteous heavens dominate 
 The future? They answer with a judgment knell 
 That prophecies most sure the fact and curse of hell? 
 
 THE YEARS. 
 
 I grieve not what the passing years 
 
 Have touched my mortal frame; 
 That disappointment, lose and fears 
 
 Doth my swift spirit tame. 
 But Oh I grieve ! I often grieve 
 
 That as they onward flow, 
 Though they teach wisdom, yet they leave 
 
 Where they left long ago. 
 
162 SOUL SONGS 
 
 A CONFLICT. . 
 
 A seasoned salt on voyages both long 
 And venturesome, on Afric's ivory shore 
 And in Brazilian forests, had seen strong 
 And strangest reptiles, birds and beasts. Unrest bore 
 Him again across the crystal floor 
 Of his loved ocean where ancient cities stand, 
 And ever rise still grander than before; 
 Where life, wider, higher, more intense is planned, 
 And treasures to embellish are brought from every land. 
 
 Discharged, he goes to some near bright saloon 
 Whose gilded flashing splendors hide the crime 
 And death of life's high boasted state. There soon 
 His stifled thirst with merry jokes and rhyme 
 He satiates. The liquors from each clime 
 He travelled oft now travel through each vein, 
 And rushes, jumps and springs, as if sublime 
 Immortal life was now within his brain 
 And swelling every nerve with joy's ecstatic pain. 
 
 With conscience seared and reason half dethroned, 
 And all life powers wild waking from the dead; 
 With a delirious sense of strength, as toned 
 For those high deeds our dreams to youth have fed, r 
 "Fit for mighty exploits both of hand and head, 
 If but King Will was stablished on life's throne 
 And pure ideals his spirit onward led; 
 Oh ! all otherwise he goes ; one whom all disown, 
 A ruined god of strength, to be still more o'erthrown. 
 
 Thus on he swings among the moving crowd, 
 The mass of whom with demoniac smiles 
 "Look round, while some diviner few are bowed 
 With shame and tears. But on his way he wiles, 
 And each ephemeral sight and sound beguiles 
 His steps, until at length he comes where beast 
 And bird are caged from mountain, plain and isles : 
 His heart is fired, his kindling thoughts now feast 
 On memory's distant dreams that swift fly from the east. 
 
SOUL SONGS 163 
 
 He teases each and joys to see the loud mad 
 Strength upon its bars its fury vainly wage. 
 At length a glassy box the keeper had 
 Left open for a time his eyes engage; 
 On coming there his glad delirious rage 
 A boa finds in torpid slumber rolled; 
 Then like a flash his rope-trained hand did cage 
 Its iron fingers round the serpent cold, 
 Dragged it forth and held it up, a horror to behold. 
 
 His arm, stiff and strong as a bar of steel, 
 Lifts her high and so uncoils her length. He shakes 
 Her left and right, and up and down, and wheel 
 On wheel, as on the deck his rope he takes 
 And with his hand all skillful motion makes. 
 Swinging aloft from side to side, he found, 
 Since bold success to madness reason breaks, 
 From each bold act to bolder he was bound; 
 The motions all repeat, above, aside and round. 
 
 Then bending arm and drawing near his face, 
 He turns on her the glad and leaping eyes 
 His fiery heart and brain with brightness grace. 
 His drunken strength doth scornfully despise 
 Her sluggish looks and motions. With glee he tries 
 To make her move. His boastings loud and quick 
 Are farthest from reversal or surprise; 
 His curses fall like poisoned arrows thick, 
 Upon the serpent's head they gather bright and stick. 
 
 Those iron bands hold in their strongest grasp 
 Her wak'ning strength, while quivering lines of pain 
 Around her neck his circles would unclasp. 
 He smiles in his imperious disdain 
 Of that weak creature's strife and struggling strain 
 For life. He laughs aloud, and dancing, cries 
 For fiendish joy. He spits his spirit's gain 
 Within her jaws and on her growing eyes, 
 And kicks afar the folds that feet to tangle tries. 
 
164 SOUL SONGS 
 
 Now full aroused, the serpent from her length 
 Doth weakness shake, and its cold, torpid sense 
 Afar doth fling. Now repeated shocks of strength 
 Shoot up and down and harden most intense 
 Her frame. Now her lithe form doth sudden fence 
 Itself with electric surcharged coils. Behold 
 Those fiercely flashing eyes, scorning from hence 
 All former sluggishness ! What lances bold 
 Of anger, pride and strength are shot with hate untold ! 
 
 Such transformation and electric thrills 
 As gleam and swell the serpent's frame alarms 
 His now suspicious soul and sudden stills 
 Insanity and drink's delirious charms. 
 This lightning sight of death's impending harms 
 Doth instant nourish life. His will and hope, 
 Deep ancient hate, and horrid fear all arms 
 His spirit quick with this new foe to cope, 
 With high resolve and prayer life's door anew to ope. 
 
 Oh battle high ! Oh conflict most supreme ! 
 Oh strife and strain unknown ! Oh struggle vast 
 And strange beyond what all may seem 
 To sight! In this embrace now lock the past 
 And future as they ne'er before were clasped. 
 The highest now engages with the least; 
 A spirit of divine celestial cast 
 For highest prize now struggles with the least. 
 This from beneath in strength each moment is increased 
 
 By low and strong but blind material force. 
 This from above, its pure ancestral clime, 
 Draws immortality, whose spirits course 
 The soul and gird as in unvanquished prime. 
 The combat moves in tragedy sublime; 
 All natures from life's antithetic spheres 
 In sympathy watch this historic time. 
 Full oft the snake by subtle secret gears 
 Her coils in narrow space, and when she least appears 
 
SOUL SONGS 165 
 
 With quick recoil and motions swift expands 
 Her circles, size and length. That sudden might 
 Would burst the grasp of his marmorial hands, 
 But he all wise with superhuman sight 
 Foresaw the move, and grasping still more tight 
 His choking fingers round her neck, did seek 
 To strangle her. But life's tenacious right 
 Time and again forth from her heart would speak, 
 And stronger than before the past would little reak. 
 
 Repeated times she did surcharge each cell 
 With mad dynamic life, and fresh anoint 
 Her liquid energies with fierce impel 
 To find and strike his one unarmored point. 
 But he, that one sure stroke that would disjoint 
 His spirit from its frame did ever guard, 
 And to each swing a motion did appoint 
 That broke its force, and did react so hard 
 The serpent's frame was stung, and he more ribbed and 
 barred. 
 
 On each side of his hand her puffed and vast 
 Expanding flanges would she raise; then wind 
 Her lengthy coil around his fist and arm with fast- 
 Est circling speed, till nerves and muscles twined 
 With the cumbrous coils almost unbind 
 From her paralysis. Her mass did weight 
 His strength, and so her warm electric-wined 
 Desire did seek his fingers to unbate, 
 That, being free in head, a mortal she might mate. 
 
 But his left hand, iron-fingered and sharp-nailed, 
 Swifter and sure than eagle talons wear, 
 So instantly, so furiously assailed 
 The beast, so 'neath her shining scales would tear 
 Into her trembling frame and each time bear 
 Away a handful of her flesh, that such wound 
 And loss of blood no strength would often dare; 
 So swift her length from off his arm unbound, 
 While he relaxed again still tighter grasped her round. 
 
166 SOUL SONGS 
 
 Then from his horizontal arm so strong 
 Her shining folds in spirals bright would twine 
 Into a pyramidic column. Long 
 Straining from her broad and sliding base, a line 
 Of constant and discharging strength would pine 
 To break the joint of his right-angled arm. 
 She strains to plant her fangs. Her spirits shine 
 Upon her forked tongue and spits its deadly harm; 
 Her electric lightning eyes with her strange nature's charm 
 
 She pierces in his soul, to fascinate 
 And conquer by her craft and that disguise 
 Which sometimes seems divine. But eye nor hate 
 Unharness him in sudden false surprise. 
 He drags and breaks her base. Her coils arise 
 By his vast lift, or sink beneath his weight. 
 The energy of her expanding size 
 Of anger he meets as with the strength of fate, 
 And on a ragged rock with hopes that rise elate. 
 
 He smites her head; with curses dark did dash 
 The slippery, intertwisted frame until 
 She was a mangled mass. Her blood did splash 
 His naked arms and breast. But can death still 
 The unvanquished and unextinguishable will? 
 Steaming with foam and fierceness nought could keep 
 She stretches out her length to sure fulfill 
 Her dying hope. Now with resistless leap 
 Her far extending lines in sudden circles sweep 
 
 Upon her foe, and with tremendous shocks 
 His body strikes. With unremitting toils 
 She ever seeks within her mighty locks 
 And knotted chains and complicated coils 
 To intervolve his frame. But wisdom spoils, 
 And lightning glance and motions quick doth tear 
 Asunder all her advantageous moils. 
 Should lines or links at any point constrict, there 
 His strength so like the sea, puissant, purple, bare, 
 
SOUL SONGS 167 
 
 Grasps, twists and quick unbinds and breaks 
 Her vast involving length. From his arm or thigh 
 Or feet his iron fingers tears and shakes 
 The dragon with a spirit's granite might. 
 In that sustained and unsuspended fight 
 The sinews of his strength he doth renew; 
 Once more high heaven's first victorious might 
 Is flowing in his spirit to endue; 
 The victory now is won, the conflict now is through. 
 
 The beast o'ercome or in a moment's faint 
 Was motionless and still. A flowing stream 
 Of crimson and coagulating blood did paint 
 Its path across the spattered grass. The gleam 
 Of life was gone, and the warm pulsating steam 
 Of agony was borne away. The victor strong 
 With spirits new from out the heart of dream 
 Bore it around a trophy to his song; 
 Its mangled form did fascinate; he held and bore it long. 
 
 Thus his weak pride holds her on high and shows 
 The bleeding mass before the shuddering eyes 
 Of men, whose sympathetic wisdom throws 
 Upon his soul their heaven-appealing cries 
 To cast her far. Alas ! Alas ! Despise 
 Doth victory the warning voice of fears; 
 The angels sent before the soul arise 
 And speak God's truth between their blinding tears; 
 How often, oh how oft they speak but heart ne'er hears ! 
 
 "Oh cast it far ! That serpent is not slain ! 
 'Tis but a moment faint with loss. This rest 
 Is gain, and for its last and conquest strain. 
 Yes ! even now is gathering strength that breast 
 From its own pain all felt but deep suppressed ; 
 And from thy heart of low exulting pride 
 Is passing thy best power. Yea ! the angels blest 
 Which guarded thee and hemmed from every side 
 Thy deadly foes unknown now spread their pinions wide. 
 
168 SOUL SONGS 
 
 "Oh hurl it quick and far ! The gulfs deep 
 Satanic presence, influence, power and fate 
 Are gathering round, and this delusive sleep 
 Will wake. Oh intoxicated pride ! Why wait 
 When heaven and hell with eternity's great 
 Voice is calling now to cast it and be free? 
 Oh fling it far with thy best curse or late, 
 Too late the hour and power to cast will be ! 
 Her long-concealed strength will wake and conquer thee. 
 
 "This tremendous hour, this concentrated 
 Impassioned and last focussed hour of destiny, 
 Is but a moment poised. When double-weighted 
 With the fate of doubtful immortality, 
 How canst thou trifle with thy curse? Oh free 
 Thyself forever ! Oh turn thy pride to fear, 
 And instant dash this serpent far from thee ! 
 Oh haste ! Oh haste ! for heaven's golden sphere — " 
 Too late ! Too late ! The beast revives and hope doth 
 disappear. 
 
 Most terrified and wrapped in stormy fear, 
 Which weakens strength to weakness, he renews 
 The courted strife with death's unconquered sphere. 
 Some once or more the many-knotted thews 
 Of her constricting folds he did abuse 
 By his last hope and strength. This strange surprise 
 Into his heart new spirit did infuse, 
 Beneath the dome of final judgment skies 
 To cast his enemy far he oft and vainly tries. 
 
 Thus intervolved, the white intensities 
 Of vast tremendous strain, as when heaven and hell 
 United in terrific conflict frees 
 Upon the soul of man, so now impel 
 Each other. The unvanquished beast did tell 
 All battle lore, and after other range, 
 In circles new, in solid coils, in bell- 
 Like hammer strokes, in sudden, subtle change, 
 And in new knots of death, mystic, swift and strange. 
 
SOUL SONGS 169 
 
 New learnings thus her energies increase, 
 And in each move still stronger, hard and sure 
 She wraps his frame, and prophecies the lease 
 Of mortal hope is short. Can he endure 
 That foaming anguish? From whence can life secure 
 More than purpureal strength ? See ! His eyes 
 Are blinded by the blood with which the creature 
 Hath besmeared his brow. Oh more than mortal wise ! 
 Thy blinded conquered foe is now at last thy prize ! 
 
 Yet once more in desperation's mad 
 And frenzied fury, blind concentrated 
 Power tore off and dashed the beast; but glad 
 And swelling with insanity, the elated 
 Serpent's wiry head and satiated 
 Eyes of lightning strength unfolds her lengthy coil 
 From off his blind and now forever fated 
 Soul. Her high victorious heart aboil 
 With all her enemy's first delirious rage, doth oil 
 
 Her soul with joy's renewing might. One swing, 
 One lightning leap, one terrific hammer stroke, 
 One all-involving, most entangling thing, 
 Striking this mortal mass, did instant yoke 
 His right arm, neck and frame. Ere he awoke, 
 Or could resist, or think to do or what, 
 In linked folds no mortal hands have broke, 
 Round his left thigh and both his feet, her knot 
 The serpent instant locks and fells him on the spot. 
 
 Most easy then she quickly wraps her frame 
 Of narrowing circles with triumphantness 
 Around her foe. Her spirit exultant flame 
 Shot through her length as none unbound can guess 
 A vast indrawing strain, that did suppress 
 Life's last and reflex motions, and the groans 
 Of his unconscious or semi-consciousness ; 
 A pause, a few short turns, a few cracked bones; 
 A dying sigh, and silence on a world of strife and moans. 
 
170 SOUL SONGS 
 
 And I awoke from that intense behold, 
 With deep relief from all that round did press. 
 That hour and power the spirit did enfold 
 As sorrow breaks the bands of selfishness. 
 The high noon sun unseen had grown less; 
 The shadows fell; the cold dank filled the air; 
 My eyes were wet, my heart filled with distress, 
 In seeing borne this victim to her lair 
 In darkness unexplored, but where ? Oh, who knows where ? 
 
 WEARY. 
 
 I am not weary with the world, 
 
 Sea, mountain, moon or sun; 
 With man, nor with the changes hurled 
 
 Or work that must be done; 
 But I am weary of my heart 
 
 Its sin and guilt and grief; 
 The passions wide that tear apart, 
 
 But most, my unbelief. 
 
 THE LAST JOURNEY. 
 
 I've travelled up and down the world, 
 
 Around and here and there, 
 Just like a chip the stream has whirled 
 
 To where? Oh who cares where? 
 But one more journey I will go, 
 
 Soon one more journey make, 
 When to the grave I travel slow 
 
 And of its rest partake. 
 
SOUL SONGS 171 
 
 PROGRESS. 
 
 Oh World ! Oh Life ! Oh Time ! 
 Oh trinity that chime 
 
 The happy bells ! Oh happy bells of birth ! 
 When we descend from heaven's azure clime 
 
 And enter into earth. 
 
 Up! Up the future's slope 
 Ye nurture us with hope ! 
 
 Oh what a host of shining dreams divine 
 Doth blind us blind, as in the light we grope 
 
 With passions drunk with wine! 
 
 Oh World ! Oh Time ! Oh Life ! 
 Why with a lightning knife 
 
 Is that dream world in youth's delighted eyes 
 Like Sodom rained? and ruin, blight and strife 
 
 Around the journey lies. 
 
 On ! On ! No stop, but change ! 
 No turn but onward range ! 
 
 More heavy weights, more pain and blinding tears 
 Affect the heart, till open up most strange 
 
 Some new discovered spheres. 
 
 Oh Life ! Oh Time ! Oh World ! 
 Though scorned and wreck-like hurled 
 
 Ye turn the loss into transcendant gain ; 
 For higher spheres with golden gates impearled 
 
 Shine on the heart and brain. 
 
 Out of our grief and fears 
 We look unto the years; 
 
 Ourselves we know, and know ye mortal three, 
 The friends disguised, for your harsh kindness rears 
 
 In us eternity. 
 
172 SOUL SONGS 
 
 Oh World ! Oh Life ! Oh Time ! 
 Oh Trinity sublime ! 
 
 Ye nurse us first, give and destroy our dreams ; 
 Show the ideal; and build manhood to rhyme 
 
 With heaven and its themes. 
 
 Three faithful, faithful friends 
 Working to vastest ends ! 
 
 Work on ! Work on against this course of crime ! 
 Once ye were cursed ; but curse to blessing bends, 
 
 Oh World ! Oh Life ! Oh Time ! 
 
 DECEPTION. 
 
 "The world converted in this generation !" 
 How dark thrones deception and elation 
 
 Cast on bright minds though by the ages taught ! 
 Sublimest truths in splendor they enshroud, 
 And rainbow lies gleam from the bannered cloud 
 
 As to allure the princes of high thought 
 From truth, to sound a vain and moment's boast 
 And with such hopes deceive the sacramental host. 
 
 Could aught but dream, or night's distempered brain, 
 Or reason tottering on her throne insane, 
 
 Or dotaged memory, murmuring of her youth, 
 Rave of the church's power to save the world? 
 Could aught but hell's infatuation, whirled 
 
 On by the falsest spirit of untruth 
 Through some dark night, or solid-coned eclipse, 
 Deny the light of heaven and truth on life's own lips? 
 
SOUL SONGS 173 
 
 Oh first deceit ! The last and darkest birth 
 
 Of night's unfathomed gulf has sprung on earth, 
 
 And blinds the eyes of her high prophet race ! 
 What spirit speaks? What charms of death infernal 
 Thus veil our eyes from life and truth eternal? 
 
 Oh Thou divine, majestic splendored face ! 
 Oh countenance of pure effulgent light ! 
 Dost Thou still shine on earth before our mortal sight ? 
 
 Oh holy light ! Oh uneclipsed sun ! 
 To-day undimmed as when life first begun 
 
 Thou rollest forth a flood of living splendors. 
 One moment in Thy presence, when Thy light 
 Bursts from Thy soul in its effulgence bright, 
 
 Reveals the dark and all its hid attenders, 
 Then once again descend from heights above, 
 And undeceive the heart with brightest beams of love. 
 
 But not unto this dark and sinking world 
 Of hoary crime, whose populations, whirled 
 
 On and blinded by the driving storms of 
 Greed and strife and death, beholdest not Thy face, 
 Oh not to these the splendors of Thy grace 
 
 Reveal ! for Thy own radiant form of love 
 Was crucified and nailed toward heaven in scorn, 
 And be as once again, again it must be borne. 
 
 But on this church, whose long delusive dreams 
 Of fitful, phosphorescent paleness, gleams 
 
 Like morning lights of golden purity 
 Upon their blinded sight, oh now unburst 
 The brightness of Thy being ! It, from all immersed 
 
 In sleep of sin which pure lights never see, 
 Will drive false dreams, and with a swift surprise 
 Will burn new visions deep upon the spirit's eyes. 
 
174 SOUL SONGS 
 
 Oh what a sight for heaven's new-opened eyes ! 
 Against Thine azure purities arise 
 
 A million forms of ebony selfishness. 
 This worst of all disease upon each face 
 Of unimpassioned power doth daily trace 
 
 Prophetic signs no mortal can suppress. 
 Who can behold these signs which strong men tremble 
 And life and light and truth to his own soul dissemble? 
 
 Where is the image of heaven's eternal king 
 
 Of beauty? Where the dazzling lights that wing 
 
 From faintest sign of his all perfect form ? 
 Where is the faith? Where is the golden speech 
 Of prayer? Where are the flaming songs that reach 
 
 The broken heart of sorrow? Where the warm 
 Pulsating and all vitalizing love 
 That sacrifices all in acts like his above? 
 
 Behold those brows ! Tragic, prophetic faces, 
 Where sin and her unconscious guilt entraces 
 
 Lines to God the most unlike. Behold how pride 
 Lifts up each countenance with scorn ! How hate 
 And lust and greed and pleasure satiate , 
 
 And cruel ambition, how they all are dyed 
 In mingled blood of their own hearts, no less 
 Than of the murdered heart of murdering selfishness ! 
 
 Dark discontent, rebellious unbelief, 
 O'ershadowing fear and low consuming grief 
 
 Dark curtains draw when darker things have play. 
 Hosts of dishonored vows and withering scorns 
 Of truth and love the Christ again enthorns 
 
 With greater guilt than that dark-annaled day. 
 By deeds, not words, another Calvary 
 Of his and their own souls the prophet eyes can see. 
 
SOUL SONGS 175 
 
 Beneath these forms what mockery of life ! 
 How cold and still to that eternal strife 
 
 Grace doth sustain with all the powers of sin ! 
 Oh what celestial poles from love divine, 
 That lives and works with Calvary's glorious sign 
 
 Of vast unselfishness on hands and heart within ! 
 How strange to life ! How like to death ! What dreams 
 Of doubt and scorn and fear a granite charnel streams ! 
 
 Behold these lives ! How fair ! but under, leprous 
 And eaten deep, till like an ulcerous 
 
 Moving mass of worse than putrid death 
 Upon itself and all things that are round 
 Contagion flows; while living germs abound 
 
 Both near and far. A deadly laden breath 
 Upon this mortal struggling mass is blown, 
 And millions die from those who should the life of life have 
 sown. 
 
 Can such a church convert the world to Christ? 
 Physician heal thyself ! Heaven's balms unpriced 
 
 Scorn heathen souls while thou diseased so art : 
 The wise will say : "The world within our day ! 
 Oh convert the church ! The frame must stay 
 
 Upon a vital rich sustaining heart." 
 The very wise : "A converted church must wait 
 A converted ministry, and that, a professoriate." 
 
176 SOUL SONGS 
 
 FIT TO LIVE. 
 
 To-day I stood 'mid the obsequious rites 
 
 Of one advanced to three score ripest years. 
 His manhood powers had blossomed on the heights 
 
 Of life, and underneath him were the spheres 
 Of inexperience, of ignorance and tears. 
 
 The loss and grief around his honored name 
 Not only moved the ties that time endears, 
 
 But with a strength of sympathy did claim 
 A large community. Death's unrelenting shears 
 
 Did sever him from all, just as the aim 
 Of all his life was reached and he was crowned with fame. 
 
 For he was one who filled conspicuous place 
 
 In the affairs, labor and thought of men ; 
 He was a city's pillar and a grace 
 
 Before the eyes of aspiration's ken. 
 He rose by long laborious toil and when 
 
 His place was won the virtue of his days 
 Unfolded like a flower within a pen. 
 
 Poverty and prosperity did raise 
 His character above this earthly fen 
 
 But not to God. Jealousy restrained its praise, 
 But the wise were free to sigh in pious thoughtful ways. 
 
 "How strange it seems that life should be so brief 
 
 And all is o'er when we have reached the place 
 Where we partake the virtue of our grief, 
 
 And wear the armor with which age doth lace 
 Our spirit's passions ! Yes ! Just when we can face 
 
 The battle with self-control and patience: 
 When foresight, wisdom, skill and sacrifice embrace 
 
 With labor, courage, promptitude, endurance: 
 Just as we are fit to run our mortal race 
 
 Then that blind hand bereft of living sense 
 Doth strike us to the earth as cold and hard and dense." 
 
SOUL SONGS 177 
 
 "Man is just fit to live when he must die; 
 
 The blind impetuosity of youth doth pass 
 Before the soul that cometh from on high; 
 
 But scarcely has it come, and the magic glass 
 Doth cast its inspiration pictures, when alas ! 
 
 Alas ! life's hope and at its golden prime 
 Is stricken down to mingle with the grass; 
 
 Is stricken down and the highest worth of time 
 Sinks sheer from sight in death's unfed crevasse, 
 
 As to be fit to live were but a crime 
 And those high virtues nought that maketh life to chime.' 
 
 Hark ! Hark ! Is a man fit to live because 
 
 The labor virtues of life's selfishness 
 Have triumphed and been organized to laws 
 
 That rule these earthly elements that press 
 Upon and in us? Do those habits that dress 
 
 Life's latter years with regularity and 
 Give equipoise to age so passionless? 
 
 Or those restraining powers that have command 
 Upon us in positions of success? 
 
 Do these harmonize with yon celestial land 
 And liken us to God in all from heart to hand ? 
 
 Oh how much that bears the stamp of virtue 
 
 Is nothing more than gilded selfishness ! 
 What revelations when life's lightnings through 
 
 And through us pierce, and God's eternities press 
 Into heart and mind ! Dare the blindest guess 
 
 That virtue lives in hearts motived by self * 
 
 Though with a famed benevolence they dress? 
 
 Or that qualities that rule the spheres of pelf 
 Can stand the hour when judgments all express? 
 
 Such things and more can move the lords of wealth 
 And not so much as touch virtue or spirit health. 
 
178 SOUL SONGS 
 
 He alone has right, alone is fit to live 
 
 Who findeth God without and in his heart, 
 And unto him in most unselfish motive 
 
 As to another his being doth impart. 
 A sense of him that blinds this earthly mart, 
 
 A trust supreme, a love that is the sire 
 Of most immortal deeds, a magic art 
 
 That even here can heaven's air inspire 
 And see the lines of his celestial chart; 
 
 He alone is fit to live, and his desire 
 Shall mount the spheres of life forever rising higher. 
 
 Plant such a soul in any circumstance 
 
 Or up or down life's strange unbalanced scale : 
 Take what thou wilt that does the heart entrance 
 
 And add the ill which strongest mortals pale: 
 Mingle anew the elements that sail 
 
 Around him, or plant him into any state 
 At either pendulum extreme, nor fail 
 
 To swiftly change the externalities that mate 
 With virtue and seem her coat of mail : 
 
 A spirit such is soon adjusted straight 
 And with the life divine is fully satiate. 
 
 Plant him in the very heart of those vast 
 
 Immortal splendors, purities and powers 
 That rule the universe, or o'er him cast 
 
 Some living dream the Infinite endowers : 
 What praise and admiration before those towers 
 
 Upon the height of life ! What services 
 To greatness would sanctify the hour 
 
 And situation ! What supersensual bliss 
 Of love and aspiration would devour 
 
 His passioned heart with white intensities ! 
 And tidal streams of life would pass from all to his ! 
 
SOUL SONGS 179 
 
 Cast him 'mid hell's chaotic and rebellious 
 
 Host of blaspheming and crucifying crime 
 Against the Christ within the virtuous: 
 
 There right before the Devil's throne, what prime 
 And proudest majesty, with sublime 
 
 Prophetic voice of thunder tone would smite 
 Those powers with condemnation ! That clime 
 
 Of blackest guilt and sin's unbroken night 
 Would be as when some electric soul of time 
 
 Doth flash and flash with sheets or bolts of white, 
 The burning purities of love and life and light. 
 
 See yon chaotic world wide swinging there 
 
 Upon creation's farthest bound ! What need 
 Of pure self-sacrifice, of faith and prayer 
 
 And every act that love can ever feed ! 
 Were here he placed his heart would daily bleed 
 
 Its crimson tears, and fresh celestial might 
 Would rise within as the Divine did breed 
 
 A world-sustaining love, that did delight 
 To take that globe as its own living seed ; 
 
 Would take the globe and out of starless night 
 Would nurse it up to God and noonday splendors bright. 
 
 Or plant him here where these extremest powers 
 
 Are present, mingled, and with contentious fray 
 Immortal make the evenescent hours : 
 
 The adoration, self-sacrifice and day- 
 Condemnations of the night display 
 
 His symmetry and passion rounded heart; 
 One life, one law, one principle has sway 
 
 With infinite direction and doth impart 
 All energy and harmony. A lay 
 
 Of blessedness the times could never bart 
 To heaven, earth and hell unvanquished measures start. 
 
180 SOUL SONGS 
 
 Live on oh soul ! Oh son of faith and God ! 
 
 For thou alone of all the earth doth live. 
 All else is death, although they be the laud 
 
 And inheritors of all that time can give. 
 Thou only hast a course with an ascensive 
 
 Sweep unto the summit of celestial height. 
 Thou shall find the universe preservative 
 
 Of thee its hope. All its energies of might 
 Both of the underived and the deriv- 
 
 Ation shall nurse thee with supreme delight, 
 And forever bear thee high beyond the noonday's sight. 
 
 SIGHT. 
 
 When I was young ! When I was young ! 
 
 My soul was always dreaming! 
 Bright airy visions on me sprung, 
 
 Unreal and summer seeming. 
 Now I am old ! Now I am old ! 
 
 I have a finer seeing; 
 No more the dreams do I behold, 
 
 But truth and life and being. 
 
 DONALD'S ANSWER. 
 
 I asked: "Do men better grow and rise 
 
 To higher moral levels?" 
 "Better ! Boys grow men with wicked size 
 
 And men grow damned old devils." 
 
SOUL SONGS 181 
 
 HELL FIRE. 
 
 Oh Thou Spirit of Fire ! Oh Thou Spirit of Fire ! 
 Thou nature of passion and deepest inspire ! 
 Thy essence divine and thy high purity 
 Enchanteth the heart into union with thee. 
 
 Thou enchanteth the heart and it draweth most near; 
 Thou enchanteth the heart, but it standeth in fear; 
 For fire without law is the swiftest destroy 
 Of the agents or forces that man can employ. 
 
 But all the destroy, the destroy thou hast done 
 From the center of earth to the height of the sun, 
 Is lost and eclipsed by what thou hast been 
 As a symbol to man of the nature of sin. 
 
 There, there is a world without orbit or law; 
 Such a one, only one has the system e'er saw; 
 The dark starless void that engirdeth her path 
 Is plowed by her curse and consumed by her wrath. 
 
 There is fire in her heart, there is fire in her breast, 
 There is fire in her bones and the flesh they have dressed; 
 There is fire in her air and her sky, cloud and wind, 
 Fresh lightning and fire-rain forever unbind. 
 
 There spirits immortal right out of her bowels 
 Are torn with an anguish and agony's howls; 
 For in them is born such a fearful desire 
 As teareth the soul with the hungers of fire. 
 
 The spirits there born they are fed on the fire; 
 They draw it from nature and mother and sire; 
 Down, down from their sky and up, up from their earth, 
 Comes the fierce driven blast and the fuel for such birth. 
 
182 SOUL SONGS 
 
 When they grow to their youth there is hunger and greed 
 For the fire that was theirs and but salted their feed. 
 They reveal what they are and all creatures they eat 
 With the hungers of flame and the ardors of heat. 
 
 In the height of their strength they yearn for the glow 
 Which the nature of fire and the furnace bestow; 
 Then all that they are and all that they rule 
 And the strong-driven blast is their glad-given fuel. 
 
 Oft, oft in their age still is hungry desire 
 
 For baptisms new in new rivers of fire. 
 
 "Oh deepen the bath and Oh quicken its strength !" 
 
 Is often the cry of their age's full length. 
 
 Since men in the symbols of senses must think, 
 And out of these cups all his knowledge first drink, 
 The image now turn for it pictures forth sin, 
 There is no fire without, but all fire is within. 
 
 Their world is as bright as our splendors of dawn; 
 Their fields are as green as our grass-growing lawn; 
 Their skies are as blue as the deep of our noon; 
 And their night is as rich as our stars and our moon. 
 
 Sin, sin is the fire, and a nature of fire 
 
 No sinner or saint can with image attire. 
 
 It is spark ! It is flame ! It is glow ! It is fuel ! 
 
 Consuming ourselves and all kingdoms we rule. 
 
 See the lust of the flesh ! How the blood in us burns ! 
 And the high laws of life and their Giver it spurns. 
 Their youth, strength and beauty with frenzied desire 
 They plunge without thought to the greed of the fire. 
 
 It burns in the heart and the brain and the eyes; 
 Consuming itself if the other denies; 
 Consuming them both with the swiftest desire 
 As their beings keep feeding the passions of fire. 
 
SOUL SONGS 183 
 
 It brandeth the brow with the foulest of shame ; 
 It mantles the cheek with a red-hot flame; 
 It filleth the blood and the bones till they burn 
 And a leperous heap is the ash in the urn. 
 
 See the pride of our life ! What a radiant glow 
 Around and before and beneath them they throw ! 
 A spirit electric with passionate scorn 
 Of all that in heaven and earth may be born. 
 
 The ambitious fire of the great doth devour 
 
 Their front, stay and strength; their fame, place and 
 
 power; * 
 Nought, nought on the earth stays the fierceness of sin 
 Consuming our "might be" as well as "have been." 
 
 The gifted and great on the pathway to fame, 
 They are more on our night than a splendor of flame; 
 A heart and a mind, where the forces of life 
 In the conflicts of hell are forever at strife. 
 
 See the pleasures of life, what a furious fire 
 So lawlessly raging for larger require ! 
 Consuming the host, both the old and the young 
 By the instant devour of the fuel to it flung. 
 
 It consumeth the earth, it mounteth on high ; 
 It casteth its flames on the clouds of the sky; 
 The host, Oh the host and all kingdoms that be, 
 They are feeding the fire as the blindest can see ! 
 
 A crackle and flash with a moment of flame 
 And a spirit of life has gone out of the game ; 
 Nor cinder nor ash nor even a trace 
 Of a "Fourth of July" can be found in his place. 
 
 See the anger and hate ! What explosion of wrath, 
 And a lightning swift bolt as they burn out their path ! 
 Strife, anguish and death, and a being insane 
 As the nethermost boils in the heart and the brain. 
 
184 SOUL SONGS 
 
 Man, woman and child, the strong, feeble and sick 
 Are instantly burned to their spirit's deep quick; 
 And the atmosphere round with contagion is hot, 
 And singeth all life like a black, barren blot. 
 
 If the spirits are scorched that encircle them round, 
 How more their own soul where these passions abound? 
 What a blasting and blight for the heart and the mind, 
 And dangers ahead from the magazine blind ! 
 
 See the traffic in drink ! What distilled liquid hell 
 Is made and is licensed and sold where we dwell? 
 A river of fire that all boundary o'erflows, 
 Devouring at once both its friends and its foes. 
 
 A river of fire to an ocean of flame, 
 It flows and its freight are the nations of shame; 
 And it waters the lives that are ruined and cursed, 
 And its fountain's the votes that the traffic has nursed. 
 
 What a death-poisoned heart ! What a fire-maddened 
 
 brain ! 
 What homes and what families and hosts have been slain ! 
 Could man in his curse and his vengeance inspire 
 Such a furnace of wrath? Such a furious fire? 
 
 See the money-mad greed ! What an infinite fire ! 
 With the passion and strength and the fiercest desire 
 That is born in the heart, in the hunger of gold, 
 And quickly expands till the world cannot hold. 
 
 Every day we can see on the wide open street 
 The furnace all white with the glow of the heat; 
 And man taketh man like a shovel of coal 
 And shovels him in for the money in toll. 
 
 And even the women and children like ore 
 Are thrown in the fire if but gold they will pour. 
 Oh God of the heavens and angels behold 
 This fire, fiercest fire from the hunger of gold ! 
 
SOUL SONGS 185 
 
 Such mingled and deadly and spiritual fire, 
 Is deep in the heart of all sinful desire ; 
 And sinful desire in all mortals doth dwell, 
 The very same fire as in devils in hell. 
 
 Behold the wide earth ! What a funeral stool ! 
 Where the living are burned by their own given fuel. 
 What ashes and cinders around of consumed ! 
 And what infinite more in the earth is entombed ! 
 
 Oh hell ! Hungry hell ! All creation doth dwell 
 Before thee with a pause that no silence can tell ! 
 Thy serpents and pain, thy curse, fire and force, 
 Is sin in its triumph and full on its course. 
 
 Yon, yonder is God 'mid the splendors that blind 
 Both the white glowing heart and more glowing mind ; 
 Though his heart overflows with a mother's desire 
 'Gainst sin he reacts with an infinite ire. 
 
 Oh sin is a fire ! Oh sin is a fire ! 
 
 That burns on the earth and all spirits inspire; 
 
 All sinful aversion, all sinful desire 
 
 Makes ourselves and the earth and the universe fire. 
 
 'Gainst self and her sin ; Oh, forever 'gainst sin ! 
 Is the universe built both without and within. 
 Her material frame and her spiritual powers 
 Both the sin and the sinner most instant devours. 
 
 Sin is fire for the mind. Sin is fire for the heart. 
 Sin is fire for the flesh and for all that thou. art. 
 Sin is blasting and curse and consuming desire, 
 Worse, worse than all dreams of the unbridled fire. 
 
 Sin is fire for thee here. Sin is fire for thee there, 
 Through all space and all time and all states that we share. 
 Sin is fire down in hell from whence we all fly, 
 But a thosuand times more round the Holy and High. 
 
186 SOUL SONGS 
 
 I was born in the fire. I have lived in the same; 
 I have felt in and round me the merciless flame. 
 Yet Oh God of all grace ! let Thy grace greater reign ! 
 And Thy father heart hear a new prayer in my pain. 
 
 Oh save me from sin ! Oh save me from sin ! 
 From all that is without but far more from within ! 
 Do just what Thou wilt; nought, nought grace desires, 
 But salvation from sin — sin the soul of all fires. 
 
 DAMN THE POLICE. 
 
 When now and then some mighty tragedy 
 
 Of vast proportioned elements on its heights 
 Of wealth and power and famed society, 
 
 Shakes the nation's sensibility, smites 
 Her mad insanity for money, rights 
 
 Her nature's deep irreverence till shame 
 And fear and grief upon the conscience lights 
 
 Restoring moral reasonings and the blame 
 Of God's eternal judgments swift trembles through her 
 
 frame : 
 
 When some fashionable and adulterous 
 
 Beauty, whose strange enchantments chain mankind 
 Is slain on the unsatiated voluptuous 
 
 Couch of sensuality, and her blind 
 Paramour in desperation has consigned 
 
 Himself to violent death and to disgrace, 
 Oh such disgrace time never can unbind ! 
 
 A dozen families and friends of wide embrace 
 Most sensitive to shame which they must daily face: 
 
SOUL SONGS 187 
 
 When the instant investigating press 
 
 Doth asunder most unmercifully tear 
 Society's silken curtains that dress 
 
 The dark and deed no light could ever dare, 
 And nations with a blank astonishment stare 
 At a thousand shadowy scandals that hide 
 Their trembling frame from the hands that would 
 them bare; 
 From hands that show corruptions sure supplied 
 From hell's congested sewers and the powers that there 
 abide : 
 
 Then the alien unprophetic souls 
 
 That usurp the grandest office of all time 
 Awake. As an indignant public rolls 
 
 Their elemental judgments on its crime 
 They awake and rise to being's most sublime 
 
 And godlike power and passion. The azure skies 
 Of infinite purity and the prime 
 
 Effulgent lightnings of the eternal eyes 
 Blaze forth in majesty when in the church they rise. 
 
 Then speaking like a god of infinite 
 
 Self-righteousness they scatter judgments through 
 The earth. The times and forces in it, 
 
 The laws and powers and institutions that do 
 Their service, the impersonals and new 
 
 Impulsions of the age-spirit, all things 
 But those that nurse these tragedies we view 
 
 Their passion strikes, and their simulation flings 
 High heaven's lightning bolts on bright and splendored 
 wings. 
 
 Their full diapason of execration 
 
 Strikes the police. On their unsheltered heads 
 Sinai uncaps her whitest indignation. 
 
 Earthquake's subterranean thunders plow their beds 
 In the world's fiery heart. The hungry gulf speds 
 
 Its unsatiated fierceness after such. 
 Unfaithful guardians of the law it weds 
 
 With untensity and vengeance over much, 
 And sendeth forth its flames that arm-like it them clutch. 
 
188 SOUL SONGS 
 
 The preachers as if by preconcerted 
 
 Action take a golden trumpet from the wall 
 Of Zion and on the God deserted 
 
 Officers of law they simultaneous call: 
 "Damn the police ! Damn the police ! Oh all 
 
 Ye powers of heaven and earth and hell, damn the 
 police !" 
 Their echoes fill time's reverberating hall 
 
 For just a single moment, and release 
 A host of dying whispers which soon forever cease. 
 
 Then gradually they go to sleep again 
 
 And society goes on in all its crime. 
 They go to sleep and some dare dream that men 
 
 Rise up divine and unto heaven climb. 
 They mumble the dead platitudes of time 
 
 And for the living God within the heart 
 Substitute science, poetic scraps, the chime 
 
 Of music, the ritual ornaments of art, 
 And the white-washed self, and the gold of mine and mart. 
 
 Soon another tragedy wakes the world. 
 
 Another gifted and immortal spirit 
 Is like a meteor from heaven's height hurled 
 
 To the abyss that is forever near it. 
 Instantly from their slumbers when they hear it 
 
 They arise and shout their accumulated curse 
 Again upon the undeserved police, 
 
 For that which their own faithlessness doth nurse, 
 And which while what they are will grow still worse and 
 worse. 
 
 Yes ! The police are unfaithful to the law : 
 
 But tell me : Are these moral diletantists 
 Any more faithful to the solemn awe, 
 
 Truth and ideal that crowd the golden vistas 
 Of eternity and crown the azure palaces 
 
 Of heaven? Where is the zeal commensurate 
 With the heights and infinite purities 
 
 That rule the spheres in everlasting state? 
 And what dream they of these while platitudes they prate. 
 
SOUL SONGS 189 
 
 Unfaithful prophets are the greatest curse 
 
 That ever strikes a nation. They bear the first 
 Responsibility of that sad reverse 
 
 Of morals that destroys the sacred thirst 
 For faith and truth. Such men are surely cursed 
 
 By that great voice that thunders from the towers : 
 "Cursed be he, in death and hell immersed, 
 
 Who breeds deceit within God's image, and showers 
 The mingled true and false upon man's doubtful hours." 
 
 This is the point where eternity 
 
 Breaks into time. When dark and deep immersed 
 In time how can the high supernity 
 
 Of holiness shine through them and create a thirst 
 In man. Should the Hebrew spirit burst 
 
 Into the church with but a partial power 
 The guilty self and the one supremely cursed; 
 
 But from that curse the prophets rise to tower 
 The guardians of all life against monsters that devour. 
 
 Oh for the sake of coming generations 
 
 For God's sake and the church's trampled fame 
 Give us a few men ! Oh let the grandest stations 
 
 On the globe vomit forth in deadly shame 
 These prophets, that bear not now even the name 
 
 Of a living god ! Oh ye men of fire ! 
 Incarnations robed in consuming flame 
 
 And breathing forth his infinite inspire ! 
 Come ! Mount again thy place, is the wide world's deep 
 desire ! 
 
 Preach the inflexibility of right, 
 
 That would damn the universe ere decline 
 An iota from true perfection's height. 
 
 There is nought within creation worth a pine 
 But holiness, and only thou in all the line 
 
 Of history hast ever taught the heart its sin. 
 Thou alone knowest no images can sign 
 
 In fiercest fire the awful hells within 
 These principles that rule the world without and in. 
 
190 SOUL SONGS 
 
 But be unite with that self-sacrifice 
 
 That on the hell-ward side of man has stood 
 Against their suicide; which when it dies 
 
 Before the infuriated multitude 
 Doth rise with love divine and unsubdued 
 
 To breast the broad and crowded ways of sin. 
 Have thou the love that o'er the world can brood, 
 
 For holiness and love can ever win 
 The vilest hearts of hell and God enthrone within. 
 
 Come ! Ye are the world's most immortal race ! 
 
 Ye know nought great but greatness of the good; 
 Your base and height and strength is sovereign grace 
 
 Whose vital voice is not by men withstood. 
 Oh breathe they passion on this dead mortalhood ! 
 
 Till the divine in man be quickened and arise 
 To front life's "should" and their rebellious "would." 
 
 Oh breathe thy passion ! until repentant sighs 
 Rise up the darkened night and pierce the promised skies. 
 
 Oh living God supreme ! Shall this last age, 
 
 The greatest that has ever swept the course 
 Of time and life, shall it not Thee engage 
 
 As anciently? Our desperate need doth force 
 The spirit's travailing prayer. Thou art the source 
 
 Of all salvation exploits and On baptize 
 With pentecost this more than mortal corse 
 
 Without Thee ! Men of fire, the fire that tries 
 Us like the judgment day, men that unhorse 
 
 All hell and march in victory to the skies, 
 Such prophets to us send us the wide world's dying cries ! 
 
SOUL SONGS 191 
 
 THE DEPARTED. 
 
 Oh Maid! Beloved Maiden! 
 
 Oh Spirit most divine! 
 Oh heart within the Aiden 
 
 For you I ever pine! 
 Since thou has far departed 
 
 And left me here alone, 
 I have been broken hearted 
 
 And would be with a throne. 
 
 I pine and weep in sorrow, 
 
 I suffer and would fain 
 From all around me borrow 
 
 Some balsam for my pain. 
 But what chalice from the fountain 
 
 Revives the dying breath? 
 What hope when o'er the mountain 
 
 Our love has gone with death? 
 
 The highest hopes of mortals 
 
 Were gathered up in thee; 
 The future's golden portals 
 
 Were bright as bright could be; 
 The joys the most divinest 
 
 That ever filled the heart, 
 Were in thy own enshrinest 
 
 And all to me did part. 
 
 Thy spirit pure and stainless 
 
 Did cleanse me white as snow; 
 In thee secure and chainless 
 
 I thought to ever grow. 
 Thy love within me burning 
 
 Did circle round like fire, 
 And kindled daily yearning 
 
 To all of high desire. 
 
192 SOUL SONGS 
 
 Thy countenance and fashion 
 
 Ideals did inspire, 
 And fed them with the passion 
 
 Of pure celestial fire. 
 In thee was all the beauty 
 
 For which we mortals thirst 
 When love inspirits duty 
 
 And into actions burst. 
 
 But now these hopes have vanished, 
 
 Those joys forever dead; 
 The love in exile banished 
 
 Ideals far have fled. 
 The morning has no glory, 
 
 The springtime has no light, 
 The poet has no story, 
 
 All is night, the blackest night. 
 
 As the brightest meteor splendor 
 
 Dies in a swift eclipse, 
 So died all these my tender 
 
 On thy cold icy lips. 
 They died when then I kissed thee, 
 
 Thou soul out of my soul ! 
 And since the hour I missed thee 
 
 Darkness doth round me roll. 
 
 They spread for thee the pillow; 
 
 They covered thee with mould; 
 The murmuring weeping willow 
 
 New sorrow will unfold. 
 But thy grave it not yonder 
 
 Where tears the flowers start; 
 Wherever I may wander 
 
 Thy grave is in my heart. 
 
nv~ 
 
 SOUL SONGS 193 
 
 This heart it is the sorest 
 
 Of stream or wind or trees, 
 Of all that in the forest 
 
 In sighing seeks for ease. 
 Though sweetest flowers bound it 
 
 And birds their music fling, 
 The memories that surround it 
 
 Can nought but sorrow sing. 
 
 Oh I would love thee maiden 
 
 While time and tide shall run ! 
 While in thy spirit's Aiden 
 
 Shall shine on thee the sun ! 
 And when its golden splendor 
 
 Will fade and die away, 
 Thy memory would be tender 
 
 And green as is to-day. 
 
 Thee would I love as fountains 
 
 Soft silver tinkling sounds; 
 As splintered granite mountains 
 
 The peace of their surrounds; 
 As soundless, soundless oceans 
 
 The azure purity; 
 And as the best devotions 
 
 Of man eternity. 
 
 But since thou hast departed 
 
 The strength of life has fled; 
 My hope is broken hearted 
 
 And bled and bled and bled. 
 I cannot follow after, 
 
 Nor dream or dare or do, 
 When weakness mocks with laughter 
 
 All effort to be true. 
 
194 SOUL SONGS 
 
 I am falling, falling, falling, 
 
 I am sinking, sinking down; 
 I am calling, calling, calling, 
 
 Nor answer find but frown. 
 Black, black the clouds that screen us, 
 
 Spirit of purity: 
 Vast, vast the gulf between us 
 
 My sinful heart can see. 
 
 Farewell beloved maiden ! 
 
 Farewell spirit divine ! 
 Though sin and sorrow laden 
 
 I would not burden thine. 
 Farewell beloved maiden ! 
 
 Oh soul out of my soul ! 
 Go on within thy Aiden 
 
 Though the storms around me roll. 
 
 NEED, GREED AND MEED. 
 
 How small our need ! A little dress, 
 
 A little bread, 
 A little shelter from the weather's stress 
 
 And life is fed. 
 
 How large our greed ! Can earth fill all 
 
 Our selfish dream? 
 Abuse we gifts that God lets fall 
 
 Yet him blaspheme. 
 
 What is our meed? A rugged grave, 
 
 A simple flower, 
 A memory dear some heart doth save 
 
 For one short hour. 
 
SOUL SONGS 195 
 
 A WORLD SIGH. 
 
 Oh Love ! thou art the spirit most divine 
 Of all existing being. Thy presence fills 
 The universe, and is the heart that wills 
 All-life. The green and golden globes that shine 
 And lamp the void are fed with living wine 
 From thy celestial breast and glance. 
 Such motions, majesty and lance 
 Of brightest splendors as forever kills 
 
 The undevout and prides that stream 
 In man, Oh, who could ever dream 
 Such beauty, power and harmony divine 
 Could be and be sustained by any heart but thine ! 
 
 But in this world — Oh is it here alone? 
 Of all the million multiplied spheres that hail 
 Thy gifts — thy name and nature are in veil, 
 As if a solid starless night was thrown 
 Across the summer sun, and earth was blown 
 A source of wint'ry selfishness. 
 The elemental natures that dress 
 Her living soul with ocean, sky and vale, 
 
 And scarce the scars upon her heart 
 Conceal with all their magic art, 
 Bear witness with their murmuring looks and lips 
 Thy heart and countenance, Oh Love ! are in eclipse. 
 
 Thus veiled from thee the unguardianed earth doth 
 sweep 
 Her path among the constellated spheres 
 As a dishonor among the kingly peers 
 Of heaven's host. To them she is a heap 
 Of most chaotic ruins. Within her deep 
 What titanic elements of life 
 Are locked in their convulsive strife ! 
 What tempest wrath and lightning bolt appears ! 
 What earthquake, volcano and cyclone 
 Her bosom oft has rent and thrown ! 
 What sweeping flood, frost, drought and hungry flame 
 The green-embosomed earth destroy or lasting maim ! 
 
196 SOUL SONGS 
 
 Some withering blast is on the herbless field; 
 Some unseen ill eats at the forest's core; 
 Some spirit wars in beasts and birds for gore; 
 Some poisons too the fountains have unsealed; 
 All beasts and things announce the unrepealed 
 Curse on the earth. From nature's heart 
 Without the touch and time of art 
 No flower or fruit reach use or beauty's door. 
 
 Why should the beasts and powers of life 
 Have no high end but warring strife? 
 Earth from her heart to the splintered mountain peaks 
 In polyphonic voice the woes of judgment speaks. 
 
 Dowered thus she swings along her course 
 And through the void utters her solemn dirge; 
 For all she is, has been and would be, surge 
 
 Her heart and frame with deep, voluminous force 
 And echoes far away. These thunders hoarse 
 Doth strike her sister wedded spheres, 
 Doth fall on their harmonious ears 
 As sin discords in heaven's song emerge. 
 With silent awe, uncertain fears, 
 Each listens whence the sound appears. 
 Oh what a drawn-out diapason curse 
 To echo from our sphere throughout the universe ! 
 
 The long generations of her mortal 
 Sons whose destiny is but to find a birth 
 And faith and fellowship above the earth, 
 
 Then quick to pass beyond the shadowed portal 
 To join the hosts forever more immortal: 
 What glancing eye of heart or mind 
 Beholds that line and is not blind 
 With grief, as when death falls on lover's mirth? 
 To see the loved and best created 
 With sense and sins and shadows mated; 
 To see not faith nor nature's faint belief, 
 Astounds angelic ranks and burdens them with grief. 
 
SOUL SONGS 197 
 
 Oh our human nature is disorganized 
 From all creation ! It is antithetic 
 To humanity, to the rich prophetic 
 
 Skies, to nature's fabric, to its God devised 
 Constitution and the idealized 
 Virtues and Divine inspires 
 To wake and feed our best desires . 
 The conscience is dethroned and heretic 
 Sense's dark impulsive power 
 Is rebel to the spirit's dower. 
 All gifts have some lack, fullness or alloy 
 As failures certain makes, embitter and destroy. 
 
 Yes ! Yes ! In the far ancestral founts of life 
 Some mystery dark was introduced that lives 
 From sire to son, and a field for ruin gives 
 God's workmanship with potencies most rife. 
 This strange mephitic element with strife 
 Has poisoned every heart and brain, 
 And often God's last blessing, pain. 
 Our quintessential essence, the motives, 
 From uncreated virtues bent, 
 And fell in that same steep descent 
 As the primal godlike purities that fell 
 From heaven's right hand thrones to the fire-locked gulfs of 
 hell. 
 
 Some spirit of that dark, infernal region 
 Seems still at work, and pours satanic power 
 On this descent by which they swift devour 
 The heritage of hope. Diverse and legion 
 The inspiration which she doth endower, 
 So each from his high destined end 
 And from his brother's good doth bend. 
 All reasonless by blind infatuation 
 
 The human bands and brotherhoods, 
 Are severed and new multitudes 
 Of deadly strifes spring up each day to birth, 
 With power and hate and death to all of right and worth. 
 
198 SOUL SONGS 
 
 What a field for strife is the human soul ! 
 Though to all eyes and oft to self unknown, 
 Two worlds of life and death have there been thrown 
 For mastery. There in the darkness roll 
 The resistless powers that guard each moral pole 
 Of this dynamic universe. 
 Beings of blessings and of curse 
 Contend there oft, whom man may full disown; 
 
 But most, self with himself and gifts of power 
 Contend or suffer or devour. 
 Sense and soul, might and right, real and ideal, 
 Sweep his heart with changing woe but never lasting weal. 
 
 The heart is the first battle field ; the first 
 Instrument of death the thought within the fist; 
 And the first cause is man's high pride when hissed 
 By stronger power or stronger selfish thirst 
 That scorns all laws and to its end has burst. 
 No need of outer worlds to stir 
 The elements of hate and murder, 
 Since all powers within encrouch and all resist. 
 But when another world so like 
 To this doth on her bosom strike, 
 More deadly strifes spring instant up to birth 
 And sweep in frenzied war across anarchic earth. 
 
 Oh War ! War ! War ! Oh outward and embodied state 
 Of man's own nature ! The unregenerate man 
 Has all the elements of war's infernal ban 
 In his vile heart. His selfishness and hate 
 Sleeps not nor feeds till they annihilate 
 
 Obstructs of pride and power and greed. 
 Defenceless weak, unarmored need 
 Are gloated o'er with eyes of murderous scan. 
 The armies and the navies often seem, 
 And often seem to be no dream 
 As giant men whom trifles disengage 
 And elemental furies within and round them rage. 
 
SOUL SONGS 199 
 
 What histories hast thou written on the earth 
 Of fiery force and vengeance, blood and lust ! 
 Oh what destroy from grandeur unto dust 
 Of most men are and all they hold of worth ! 
 Which of the long generations whose birth 
 Was not eclipsed by thee and thine? 
 Which of the years that long untwine 
 Was not with stain, deep, crimson stain out thrust? 
 What nations never pained and bowed 
 When thee and thine together crowd? 
 What nations never loud, jubilant and free 
 When thou in chains were thrust as hell's hound ought to be ? 
 
 Oh inhuman war ! Oh infernal birth ! 
 Thou transformest earth to hell and revels 
 Man as drunken, mad and thrice damned devils 
 
 In blood and death, in rapine, fire and lust. The earth 
 Could bear the cost and count it more then worth 
 If thou couldst meet an equal mate 
 And each the foe annihilate. 
 All know beneath life's sun-kissed highland levels 
 Wars have their source and leave their stain 
 On the lust of pride and power and gain. 
 Oh war ! as thou the throat of death has crammed 
 Thy spirit, works and lore forever deep be damned ! 
 
 Still thou shalt be, for to-day the nations groan 
 Beneath deep marshaled ranks and armaments 
 That public fear alone from broil prevents. 
 
 These hounds of hell if this frail leash be thrown — 
 Oh restrain ! Restrain ! Too well the truth is known ! 
 Not yet the crimson spear and sword 
 Shall trim the vine and turn the sward. 
 Thy presence we must bear till omnipotence 
 All hostile powers from power disown 
 And change man's heart and love enthrone. 
 Oh deliverance shalt thou ever come, 
 Since faith is often slain and hope is stricken dumb I 
 
200 SOUL SONGS 
 
 And other fields then the mangled scattered dead 
 Their victims claim of thousand thousands slain. 
 Trade and industries : I know they must remain 
 For human need, but what heart has never bled 
 For boys and girls on hours of labor fed ? 
 The city's heart each morn doth bleed 
 To see them forced by forcing need, 
 And early bound by slavery's iron chain. 
 
 The home and school, forest and field 
 Should in and round them be unsealed. 
 What a sacrifice for a worthless heap of gold 
 Do the heavens above and the earth beneath behold? 
 
 From their short youth until their ripest years 
 A hopeless labor is the law of life; 
 For labor without God is but a strife 
 
 Of selfishness and death, while heaven's spheres 
 Of life and love grow blind and disappears. 
 
 The law is: "Toil! Toil! Toil, oh slave !" 
 And with no end but for the grave. 
 If one rebels then hunger's ragged knife 
 
 Doth tear a gash straight to the heart, 
 Which men will see and cold depart. 
 No other passion like the curse of gold 
 Can change the warming heart to polar icy cold. 
 
 In this intense and concentrated age 
 Of selfishness, the workmanship divine 
 Though deep defaced, bearing the workman's sign, 
 Is cheaper in the mart then what would gage 
 The value of a beast. Horses and kine 
 Command a larger care than men. 
 Machines are under constant ken, 
 And often dogs are tended by a page. 
 
 Oh human life is more than cheap ! 
 Oft hunted, murdered to the deep. 
 Trade's vast machine turns swifter round and round 
 With nought or light regard for thousands ground and 
 ground. 
 
SOUL SONGS 201 
 
 Oh what a sorrow sight before the wise ! 
 As they behold at the city's restless heart 
 Ten thousand thousand whose life is but a mart 
 For profitless exchange. Why do men's eyes 
 See not the throned and azure splendored skies ! 
 To buy and sell, to get and gain 
 Is more than all the gifts of pain, 
 Or all the dreams that on her visions dart. 
 Men sell themselves, the god in them, 
 His jewels their birth which diadem. 
 Faith, love and truth, ideals and more are sold 
 By hosts of human kind for worthless heaps of gold. 
 
 Wealth now is god and life's supremest art 
 Is but to worship her. A golden image 
 Is enthroned on an exalted stage; 
 
 Her dazzling continental splendors dart 
 From sea to sea. Oh, each remotest part 
 Of this vast nation's host of men 
 Behold ! Does not thy prophet ken 
 Behold the choicest spirits of the age 
 
 Hearing that sound low prostrate fall 
 To worship her their all in all? 
 The few that scorn the god that hosts desire 
 Are instant thrust again into a sevenfold fire. 
 
 Another class akin to these exchange 
 All gifts for public place; their all for power 
 And honors bright that fade within an hour. 
 And many more to wisdom still more strange 
 Barter all high kingdoms if they can range 
 Where fashion, wealth and pride aglow, 
 Eat, drink, drive and clothe and show. 
 Most near to these who forfeit equal dower 
 Another class hear pleasure's call 
 And haste to drink her honeyed gall. 
 How many in that swift seducing round 
 Deem trifles but the hour and foolishness there found? 
 
203 SOUL SONGS 
 
 A very few like travelers in a desert land 
 Do seek the fountains that have ever burst 
 To slake the mind and its consuming thirst 
 For knowledge, and the right to understand 
 What idealists in their high kingdoms planned. 
 Some fewer still who seem insane 
 With some wild fancies of the brain 
 Do ever seek their finite bands to burst 
 And in the Uncreated find 
 A purity for heart and mind. 
 These last, the wisdom, salt and light of earth, 
 Though scorned and trodden down, but find the ends of birth. 
 
 But, Oh this vast mass ! This helpless seething mass 
 Of unconscious, blind and lost humanity; 
 Without life or hope of being's destiny, 
 
 What are they and who cares for them ? They pass 
 As mighty herds o'er life's scant pastured grass. 
 No beauty on their eyeballs blind; 
 No kingly thoughts within the mind; 
 No impassioned pulse of eternity; 
 
 No love divine within the heart; 
 No God doth on their conscience start; 
 Their souls in rounds of labor, grief and greed, 
 Are dead to all high powers that life alone can feed. 
 
 Far, far from these: How very few of millions 
 Out of the mass as the morning stars do rise 
 With undimmed splendor ! And what a glad surprise 
 To find in the eternal sphere pavilions 
 New firmamental lights ! What postilions 
 Upon fire ! What imperial power 
 In their right arm ! What lightning dower 
 Of spirit blaze from their unconquered eyes ! 
 For each who gain a throne and crown 
 What battling hosts must they tread down ! 
 And Oh how oft ! when on the summit's height 
 Life's gain is found as dross and noon is turned to night. 
 
SOUL SONGS 203 
 
 Around the golden portal of our birth 
 Congregate young strengths and joys and hopes, 
 Whose passions scorn the rough ascending slopes 
 Of life, for knowledge of rebellious earth 
 Can never pierce the consciousness of mirth 
 But Oh how soon ! how very soon ! 
 Beneath the height and heat of noon 
 The strongest faints and blind in darkness gropes. 
 Oh must this life forever slay us? 
 First a cosmos, then a chaos, 
 First ideals, fiery heart and lightning mind, 
 Then failure nor the good, within, before, behind. 
 
 Our desecrated and dethroned ideals, 
 Religious faiths and joys and sacred sorrows 
 Unsheltered roam time's unhospitable morrows. 
 As celestial foreigners in earthly fields, 
 Though with ancestoral grace and royal seals, 
 They seek in vain some mortal heart 
 Wherein to dwell and free impart 
 What e'en the first archangel gladly borrows. 
 Oh what a wilderness for them ! 
 Oh with what judgments they condemn ! 
 High heaven's hosts come forth at birth to crown 
 At sunset they are fled or on us darkly frown. 
 
 Yea worse ! Love travailing in her bondage 
 Dost inspire the poet's soaring mind. 
 These splendors of her new creation are signed 
 In imperishable imagery, and now gage 
 Man's deep descent and his unhallowed rage. 
 These images the most divine, 
 Whose music, power and light shall shine 
 Though ages like the past shall be untwined; 
 These natures pure which recreate 
 Who love and live and contemplate; 
 These kingdoms which the smile of God doth crown - 
 By hosts and hosts and hosts are scorned and trampled down. 
 
204 SOUL SONGS 
 
 The sons of genius, the celestial powers, 
 The gifts divine, the hierarchs of worth, 
 The splendors rare that should enlight the earth 
 And guide her course to those immortal hours 
 They see and feel in their high spirit dowers : 
 Who weeps not sorrow's sacred tear 
 Upon the dark and ruined bier 
 Of this divorce from such prophetic birth ! 
 Their sunlike gifts, their sunlike light 
 Serves but to read life's line aright. 
 Unbalanced, driven, ruined, ashamed and cursed, 
 None, none but them can know how life is strange reversed. 
 
 Why is human life so lean? Why failure, 
 Disappointment, loss, despondency, remorse? 
 The spirit's high endowments and the force 
 Of immortality doubtless should insure 
 Men high careers of progress, and should cure 
 The sad disorders of our state. 
 Vast potiencies divine and great 
 And prophecies that through all storms endure 
 Are felt in will and heart and brain, 
 And kindle neath life's stress and strain. 
 Led on by dreams no dream should e'er deceive 
 Ideal worlds pass by and us behind them leave. 
 
 Why should the individual and the race 
 Be such fiascoes ? What infinite ideal 
 Can justify the earth's dark history, and repeal 
 The waste of human life, the gifts and grace 
 Of billioned souls whom chaos doth embrace? 
 One, only one of all our line 
 Has ever reached the goal divine. 
 His few redeemed were found where ruin reels 
 Helpless to the abysmal deep. 
 All else is failure. Oh the reap 
 Of death ! Oh the harvests vast of sin and hell ! 
 Oh the loss and bitterness ! God, God alone can tell ! 
 
SOUL SONGS 205 
 
 Oh Love ! two long millenniums have rolled around 
 Since thy high priest with sacrifice divine 
 Burst with effulgent brightness on the line 
 Of selfishness. With tremendous bound 
 Some sinful hearts leaped to his sight and sound. 
 The promise long has been delayed; 
 Hate, greed and strife are still unstayed, 
 But stronger grow as each with others twine. 
 Still evil yet doth reign supreme; 
 All clearly see in the lights that stream 
 The world is unredeemed. The Christ who died 
 Though the world's only hope each day is crucified. 
 
 The great institution of the church doth shame 
 Her proud pretentions. She is a disgrace 
 To God and a glory to the devil. Place, 
 
 Power, wealth and numbers, form and fashion's fame 
 Is more than Christ and the Spirit's glowing flame. 
 Without a splendor full unfurled; 
 Within a white washed wrinkled world, 
 A scorn of men whose piercing visions trace 
 One life in strange extremest forms. 
 A church that ne'er disturbs or storms 
 Whatever stands in live's obstructed way, 
 Is the worst restraining power of her divinest day. 
 
 The high enthroned, purple and crowned transgressors 
 Of position, power, wealth and intelligence, 
 O'er the wide hosts of helpless ignorance 
 
 Become still more the strong and proud oppressors. 
 The union and new acts of these possessors 
 Upon the new horizon's bound 
 Cast most portentous sight and sound. 
 What dark chaotic dreams will issue hence 
 From want and hunger outraged sleep 
 If once their tempest passions leap? 
 The strife of life intensifies each day, 
 The weak are beasts of burden, the strong are beasts of prey. 
 
206 SOUL SONGS 
 
 The religious instincts and the deep 
 Intuitional sense of the divine 
 Seems in a strange decay. The darkest sign 
 Of all our time is, that such hosts can sleep 
 With no more God than horses, kine or sheep. 
 No thanksgiving song, or prayer for 
 Help or confessions upward soar. 
 In most no moral nature seems to shine. 
 The fundamental pieties 
 Of nature, state and families, 
 That virtue lent to a less enlightened day 
 Seem dying in the strife and slowly pass away. 
 
 Atheism, profanity and ignorance, 
 Pride, pleasure, falsehood and dishonesty, 
 Drunkenness and foulest sensuality, 
 Material power and lordly competence, 
 All, all dark ghouls of selfishness and sense 
 
 Shout: "The earth, the earth is all our own, 
 Nor God nor heaven can us dethrone. 
 This is our royal day of power and we 
 
 Will blast or bless who bind or free 
 Our reign with more intensity. 
 God, heaven and angels high are overthrown 
 Bulwarked by ages long the earth is all our own." 
 
 Oh Love all things are calling out for thee ! 
 The voice of earth and all her generations 
 With thunder song of mountain intonations, 
 Is gathering round thy throne of victory 
 In intercession for the liberty 
 
 From this bondage of corruption 
 Into the glory of the children 
 Of God. Through time's strife and agitations, 
 Though bound with adamantine chain, 
 Though crucified and often slain, 
 All things oft sing with wider echoing tones 
 For thy millennial earth, millennial sons and thrones. 
 
SOUL SONGS 20? 
 
 To men or office dare we longer grope? 
 Since the course of civilization in 
 The history of her leading men has been 
 
 A curse and loudest blasphemies against the hope 
 The azure skies upon our spirits ope. 
 Our politics are but a crime, 
 A pestilential bed of slime, 
 Sowing on life abortive births of sin. 
 
 Can honest men? Can men of God? 
 Can men of conscience, truth or laud 
 With any wing hold office, place or power 
 When justice is dethroned and bribery rules the hour? 
 
 All things now call and call alone for thee. 
 Time like an aged sire wrinkled and white, 
 But with his rich experiences doth slight 
 And scorn all panaceas that would free 
 The social heart from its long leperosy. 
 He has seen every generation 
 With some sure cure its courses run 
 Then leave the world with still more deadly blight. 
 No age has diagnosis sure 
 And if it had, Oh could it cure? 
 No mortal power regenerates the heart 
 And all things without this but more disease impart. 
 
 The very time's developments of power, 
 Knowledge and conquest over nature debate 
 The enfranchisement of man from this weight 
 Of centenarian ill. Is this endower 
 For selfish ends ? Does it not invite the hour 
 Of disestablishment to throne 
 Thee over all supreme alone, 
 In honor, majesty and sovereign state? 
 
 The gifts and powers of heaven above 
 Are only safe in hands of love ; 
 In other hands a curse they must untwine, 
 But with thee they are safe and grow still more divine. 
 
208 SOUL SONGS 
 
 The discords of our unredeemed humanity 
 That strike despair upon our mortal ears 
 Ascend on high; reaching celestial spheres 
 There is a change and a minor harmony 
 Of life's unlanguaged pain is heard by thee. 
 Man's passion-blind and erring play 
 Are not to thee just what they say. 
 When thou translatest earthly hopes and fears 
 A prayer is oft in guilty deed. 
 We know thine eyes with sorrows bleed, 
 And thou can'st hear by sorrow's mystic art 
 The world's travailing pain as prayers unto thy heart. 
 
 Around the iron guarded gate of death 
 Soon gather those that crowd the portal birth. 
 Broken, torn and sick and robbed of strength and mirth, 
 They come to yield up sorrow's burdened breath. 
 Each generation there this prayer hath solemn saith: 
 "Oh not for me ! Oh not for me ! 
 High kingdom of eternity ! 
 By all I wished but found not here on earth, 
 By life and ruin, loss and pain, 
 By my immortal nature slain, 
 By all thou art and will be in thy day 
 For coming generations Oh haste ! Oh haste, I pray !" 
 
 The church which thine own Christ has full redeemed; 
 The church which incarnates his personality, 
 Thoughts, passions, principles, immortality, 
 
 And the ripe fullness which the Father streamed 
 Into his empty form; that church has dreamed 
 With joy sublime of that far age 
 Which promise, power and grace engage 
 To build on earth for lost humanity, 
 
 That church doth groan ; Oh deeply groan ! 
 Oh is it not thy spirit's moan ! 
 Can these deep sighs which issue from thy breast 
 Be lost in vanity nor ever find their rest? 
 
SOUL SONGS 209 
 
 Thy first descended sons of pure inspire 
 Whom thou hast sent from thy celestial clime 
 To hold the faith, and with glad songs to chime 
 The golden age feel thy prophetic fire 
 Within their hearts. Each gathers the desire 
 So scattered wide in man and thing 
 And unto thee their sorrows sing. 
 Sing on, Oh poet priests ! Oh be not dumb 
 Unto this age of strife and gold ! 
 Though they hear not nor ye behold, 
 With triumphant joy and deathless faith sum 
 Up the world's travailing cry : "Come ! Come Oh kingdom ! 
 Come !" 
 
 "Come ! Come, Oh long delayed and golden age ! 
 Age of the world's unlanguaged deep desire ! 
 Age of her travailing pain and the inspire 
 Of high victorious hours ! Age that will gage 
 Itself by the awful curse and darkest page 
 Of earth's yet undeciphered heart. 
 Age of the poet's song ! Age that art 
 The embodiment of all the higher 
 
 Visioned dreams which the celestial spheres 
 Have rained on pain and love and tears ! 
 Age of divine purpose, fullness and employ, 
 From heaven, Oh descend and build on time's destroy !" 
 
 "Oh age bend down and lay thy passioned heart 
 Upon the nurseless spirit of the earth ! 
 Her long and wintry courses since her birth 
 Have frozen her forbidding the impart 
 That glorifies with thy celestial art. 
 Come ! Kiss thy infant and caress, 
 And with thy warmth her spirit bless ! 
 Thou crimson life ! Thou pure maternal mirth ! 
 Thou warm divine self-sacrifice ! 
 Oh bid the earth's dead soul arise ! 
 Then through her dense diseased material frame 
 Thy all renewing life will burst forth like a flame." 
 
210 SOUL SONGS 
 
 "Come thou! Rebuild earth's habitations 
 Where thy unselfish and celestial hosts 
 May dwell ! The cities of our proudest boasts 
 Will form for them the underground foundations. 
 Thy peoples with imperial creations 
 Will build until they cities seem 
 A vision, an architectural dream, 
 Heaven itself upon our earthly coasts 
 With that magnificence no king 
 Has dared to dream. Thou art the spring. 
 Of wealth, of power, of beauty and delight, 
 And givest all thou art to purity and right." 
 
 Touch thou the earth's unemancipated king, 
 And with the contact of thy immortal heart 
 Oh disenthrall his spirit from the mart 
 Of selfishness ! Oh let his manhood spring 
 From time's long travailing agonies, and wing 
 Unto the infinite ideal 
 Thou dost upon his eyes unseal ! 
 Dethroned, plundered, profaned, enslaved, a part 
 Of groaning nature, unconscious, 
 And trampled down by beasts and sense 
 His hour of disenfranchisement be now, 
 iAnd they investiture upon the morning's brow !" 
 
 "Thou hast the full resources for this life. 
 Thou canst destroy the hory iniquities 
 Bequeathed to us by the antiquities 
 
 Of crime. Some few leaders of this strife, 
 Some chiefs, some towers of self, thy lightning knife 
 Must blast and hurl into the dust 
 To stay time's swift contageous lust. 
 O'er the wide host thy soft benignities 
 
 And arching grace from heaven above, 
 As o'er the sick a mother's love, 
 Can smother down time's heritage of ill 
 And nurse out of the earth a race that thou dost fill." 
 
SOUL SONGS 211 
 
 "Thou canst destroy the infernal dogs of war, 
 And the politics of hell by which their 
 Course is constant driven. Panic with her bare 
 And hunger bitten hords would fly before, 
 And poverty be exiled from thy shore. 
 The theatre, brothel and saloon 
 Will break their long commune, 
 And sink with curse to each infernal lair. 
 
 Greed, strife, crime, sorrow and decay; 
 Ignorance, diseases and dismay; 
 All, all of sin, of selfishness and blight 
 Shall fly before thy face as darkness from the light." 
 
 "Come thou on earth with thy exhaustless heart! 
 Thou hast celestial and supremest powers. 
 Thou hast the azure and immortal dowers 
 Of sun-giving heaven. Thou hast and art 
 The spirit pure that in each angel flowers 
 To splendor, joy and purity. 
 The nature of divinity 
 Is thine alone and thou canst it impart. 
 Sow ! Sow thy potencies of life 
 And from the very heart of strife 
 Another world with beauty and delight 
 With forth from chaos rise toward heaven's golden height." 
 
 "Come ! Bring the royal institutes of state ! 
 The high, supreme, majestic, honored laws; 
 And kin to these those reverential awes 
 Thy youth and age delight to contemplate 
 As we behold the statues of the great. 
 
 Virtue, justice, truth and righteousness, 
 Thy nations shall with splendor dress ! 
 Faith, love, hope, joy, magnanimousness, applause, 
 Shall be the ornaments of gold 
 Each brow and heart shall then unfold. 
 Come! Come Oh state! What business, school and 
 home 
 Thy bases shall support, enkindle shall thy dome!" 
 
212 SOUL SONGS 
 
 "As thy institutions are above the past 
 Bring thou the man that is enthroned on them; 
 The man who is his throne and diadem, 
 And in whom the Infinite has glassed 
 His nature's passions. Oh bring him on the blast 
 And wreckage of this mortal kind ! 
 Oh immortal heart and mind ! 
 Spirit divine ! the world's pinnacle ! the gem 
 Of all creation ! Oh mate 
 Of seraphim ! Oh incarnate 
 Son of God ! the hosts of eternity 
 Are bending from their thrones to look with joy on thee." . 
 
 "Oh man divine who would not long for thee ! 
 Thou crowning all art with devotion crowned, 
 And from devotion's heart riches supreme abound 
 As blessing from the azure purity. 
 Thy passions with the white intensity 
 Of love fills every welcome birth 
 Of thy uncrowded crowded earth. 
 Oh how the new created heavens resound 
 With universal harmony ! 
 One redeemed humanity ! 
 One human brotherhood ! One family race ! 
 One many passioned heart that one heart does embrace !" 
 
 "Come ! Come Oh long delayed and golden age ! 
 Age of all passions, purities and powers ! 
 Age of all ideals and sublimest hours 
 Of execution ! Oh age that will gage 
 The heightless height and boundless reach that cage 
 Themselves in frail humanity! 
 Oh age of immortality 
 Which the fountains of the infinite assuage ! 
 
 Come ! Oh rise on time's foundation stones 
 The splendors of thy everlasting thrones ! 
 Come thou upon the morning's golden pinions 
 And round the feet of God build thou thy last dominions !" 
 
SOUL SONGS 213 
 
 OUR DAY. 
 
 A golden springtime morn, 
 
 With heart as light 
 As flowers that life adorn, 
 
 And just as bright. 
 
 The noonday's toil and strength 
 
 Is full of strife; 
 Toil, sin and grief at length 
 
 Wears out our life. 
 
 The sun sinks in the west; 
 
 The day doth cease; 
 Our hands from labor rest 
 
 With evening's peace. 
 
 All earth doth slumber now; 
 
 Stars throng the deep; 
 A prayer we breathe and bow; 
 
 And then we sleep. 
 
 YOUTH AND AGE. 
 
 When I was young ! When I was young 
 
 I did not dream of grief. 
 Fear, strife and pain and discord's tongue 
 
 Were not in my belief. 
 Now I am old ! Now I am old ! 
 
 Where is the golden dream? 
 Where are the high romances rolled 
 
 Outshining summer's gleam? 
 
214 SOUL SONGS 
 
 LOST AND FOUND. 
 
 I fell beside the way of life, 
 
 Earth, sky and sea were glad; 
 And in my heart there was no joy 
 
 But sadness made most sad. 
 The sun of early days had set 
 
 And drawn his twilight curtain; 
 A dark, dark cloud was overhead, 
 
 A storm was made most certain. 
 My mind then turned to early days; 
 
 I wished some strange device 
 Could bear me to my childhood home, 
 
 My golden paradise. 
 
 I turned to trace my wayward steps 
 
 Along this golden cord, 
 When flashing in my very face 
 
 I saw a flaming sword, 
 My grief at this was so intense 
 
 My mind turned round and round, 
 Till I no more could bear the strain 
 
 And fell upon the ground. 
 I dreamt of paradise, and toward 
 
 It in my dream I crept; 
 When I awoke and found it dream, 
 
 I wept and wept and wept. 
 
 But as I wept the burning tears 
 
 Did purge my blinded sight; 
 And faintly far before there gleamed 
 
 Another golden light. 
 With streaming eyes and wounded feet, 
 
 And many a broken heart 
 I struggled on life's thorny way 
 
 To reach that gate apart. 
 I grew less proud and strong and swift, 
 
 And broken day by day, 
 The word I heard, the hand I took, 
 
 And learned again to pray. 
 
SOUL SONGS 215 
 
 So thus for years I travelled on 
 
 With paradise in view; 
 As I the truths of life did learn, 
 
 The more a child I grew. 
 When I the shining step did reach 
 
 Self's heart again was broke; 
 The flight of her last soul from mine 
 
 Was my last mortal stroke . 
 A little child I passed the gate, 
 
 Was fanned by balmy air, 
 The spirit of its life and love 
 
 Swept back my manhood care. 
 
 I bared my sore heart to the sun, 
 
 I drank away my fears, 
 I wandered round among the flowers, 
 
 And bathed them with my tears. 
 I went into a secret bower 
 
 With rose leaves newly strewed 
 That I might but relieve my heart 
 
 Of its full gratitude; 
 When I looked up I saw a face 
 
 That filled me with surprise; 
 It was the face of long ago 
 
 With new light in His eyes. 
 
 And memory then flashed on my mind 
 
 A truth with glory bossed; 
 I was again in paradise 
 
 The same as I had lost. 
 
 SONG AND SIGH. 
 
 When we are young! When we are young! 
 
 Our joy can grief defy; 
 So wild is gladness on our tongue 
 
 We sorrow for a sigh. 
 When we are old! When we are old! 
 
 And years upon us throng, 
 Amid the griefs around us rolled 
 
 We sorrow for a song. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 THE POET'S ADVICE. 
 
 Within my dreams the other night 
 
 I met a poet old; 
 A poet soul of lofty height 
 
 From realms of rhyme and gold; 
 Old Homer's brow was on his head, 
 
 Tense Dante in his heart, 
 And Milton on the lips that led 
 
 The high poetic art. 
 
 "I've looked for one for many a year; 
 
 For one whose soul could take 
 Out of the silence, deep and sphere 
 
 The truths that music wake. 
 A wealth of most immortal song 
 
 Rings round all, ever rings; 
 To kindred hearts amid the throng 
 
 With life's delight it springs." 
 
 "Thou art descended from a race 
 
 Of ancient kings of old; 
 The law of life and crowning grace 
 
 They to the world have told; 
 And I the father of that line 
 
 From yonder starry height, 
 Unfold the secrets most divine 
 
 And gird thee with our might." 
 
218 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 "The old mythologies are dead; 
 
 New science takes its place; 
 A modern world has come instead; 
 
 Another runs the race; 
 Forget the ancient dreams and deeds; 
 
 The newer time renown; 
 "Another race and nobler breeds 
 
 Oh spirit, clothe and crown." 
 
 "Delivered from the hoary past 
 
 Look straight unto the years; 
 The present is a spirit vast 
 
 To climb the newer spheres. 
 The here and now is broader base 
 
 As truth is more than dream; 
 Gives larger scope, asks better grace, 
 
 More passion, thought and gleam." 
 
 "The newer field is larger far, 
 
 A vaster sweeping plan; 
 Another glory rounds the star; 
 
 Far richer is the man; 
 The age is deep, intense and high; 
 
 Life marches right along; 
 Waits empty ear and straining eye 
 
 The singer and the song." 
 
 "But ere the soul a song can sing 
 
 The heart must burning love, 
 Just as before the harp can ring 
 
 The fire falls from above. 
 Love is the very soul of life, 
 
 The very soul of song; 
 E'en out of discord's harshest strife 
 
 She bringeth music strong." 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 219 
 
 Love is a fountain that to feed 
 
 The infinite delights; 
 Such overflow the rivers breed 
 
 As reaches heaven's heights. 
 And heaven itself, a world of song 
 
 With singing souls aglow, 
 Is love redeemed from earthly wrong 
 
 And fed to overflow." 
 
 "Love has the farthest reach of thought; 
 
 Rich passions glowing white; 
 The truths that life has ever sought, 
 
 And victory over night. 
 Her eyes can read the central heart; 
 
 Her hand can build the sky; 
 The best equipment for thine art 
 
 Is love divine and high." 
 
 "Then ever seek to live in love 
 
 With man and bird and beast; 
 With all divine enthroned above, 
 
 All down unto the least. 
 The very worm thy kindred is; 
 
 Love through creation streams; 
 Who lives in it, all things are his, 
 
 All persons, deeds and dreams." 
 
 "Live close to nature's mother heart; 
 
 Thy primal noblest nurse 
 Will give her life, of which a part 
 
 Is rythmic passioned verse. 
 Her very life flows into song; 
 
 In music she delights; 
 The singer mid this battling throng, 
 
 She crowns him on the heights." 
 
220 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 "The great in man is nature's great; 
 
 From her he comes and goes; 
 The one the many incarnate; 
 
 Some few she overflows. 
 Songs, songs are in her elements; 
 
 Song rounds the very curse; 
 Song reigns forever, ever hence 
 
 And nature is its nurse." 
 
 "Art lives an hour then life resigns. 
 
 Can nature e'er expire? 
 Who lives and writes from her, his lines 
 
 Shall feed the world's desire. 
 Oh mother this thy child baptize 
 
 In sun and earth and sea ! 
 Within him live, so through him rise 
 
 Thy world soul's melody." 
 
 "Just as to nature to the home 
 
 Be strong and fierce and white; 
 Where e'er thy lightning wings shall roam 
 
 Return here with the night. 
 This sphere divine the heavens high 
 
 First planned and formed on earth; 
 Thou hast no poet's heart and eye 
 
 If blind unto its worth." 
 
 "Man's better self, the noble wife; 
 
 The children undefiled; 
 An atmosphere of saving life; 
 
 A garden mid the wild; 
 A woman's dream; a man's inspire; 
 
 A childhoods' refuge pure; 
 I tell thee soul, this primal fire 
 
 Has lived and shall endure." 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 221 
 
 "All human elements the best; 
 
 All hopes and joys and dreams 
 Are bursting here, and he is blest 
 
 Who deeply drinks its streams. 
 Here songs are rising from life's fount 
 
 And unto heaven spring; 
 Oh catch and fix them as they mount ! 
 
 And sing of home, Oh sing !" 
 
 "Out of the home the course of life 
 
 Doth drive man to the field, 
 The campus and the battle strife 
 
 Of helmet, sword and shield; 
 Disdain thou not the soldier's strain; 
 
 The combatants and fight; 
 Within that host and in a chain 
 
 Life battles for her right." 
 
 "Though blindness, greed and death are there, 
 
 Though man in madness slays, 
 The singer and the saint must dare 
 
 Time's forces, finds and plays. 
 Surprise and grief and brutal scorn 
 
 Shall trample, rend and fling; 
 But other songs and saints are born 
 
 That higher rise and sing." 
 
 "Then down among the fighting breeds ! 
 
 Grasp firm the ancient blade ! 
 The poet's arm has nations freed 
 
 And empire bases laid. 
 Life, soul and song themselves there find; 
 
 Up scales diviner grow; 
 Right to the front and for thy kind, 
 
 Go singer ! Forward go !" 
 
222 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 "Yonder is Sinai's splintered peak; 
 
 White summit's there uncap 
 Deep thunder judgments; terrors speak 
 
 In many an awful clap. 
 Sin ! Sin in lightning vengeance cursed, 
 
 Sin, death and hell are free, 
 Like monsters hungry and athirst 
 
 Swift chase and crunch on thee." 
 
 "Yonder is Calvary's famous mount; 
 
 Oh love ! Oh love sublime ! 
 Thy crimson crest and crimson fount 
 
 Still towers above all time! 
 The Father of the universe 
 
 Opens his heart of hearts; 
 And life and love upon the curse 
 
 In fulness free imparts." 
 
 "Yonder is Beulah's shining plain 
 
 Which golden splendors steep; 
 The pearly gates and heaven's strain 
 
 Across her bosom sweep; 
 The highest course upon the earth 
 
 With circles most divine, 
 There heaven itself in man has birth 
 
 And life is drunk with wine." 
 
 "Around and up these mountains three, 
 
 Clumb ! Climb Oh singer ! Climb ! 
 Nought so can lend intensity 
 
 To magic, truth and rhyme. 
 The forces of the universe 
 
 Are all in focus there; 
 And most eternal music nurse 
 
 No time or space can wear." 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 223 
 
 "Into the mind, immortal mind, 
 
 Plant, plant the seeds of thought ! 
 From sayings of the wise and kind 
 
 The harvest age is wrought. 
 Oh give the thinker living seed ! 
 
 Give wheat's divinest kind ! 
 No other can his spirit feed; 
 
 Plant, plant within the mind!" 
 
 "Srike human nature's feelings deep! 
 
 Straight home unto the heart! 
 Strike to the passions, they will keep 
 
 The fire that thou dost start! 
 Right through the vestments of all life, 
 
 Right through all tissues thick, 
 Through business, pleasure, pomp and strife, 
 
 Strike, strike them to the quick !" 
 
 "Lift up before the eyes of dream 
 
 The beautifuls of earth; 
 Upon their opening vision stream 
 
 The splendors round thy birth. 
 Feed fairy fancy's magic power; 
 
 The necromancy gift 
 Immortal makes the mortal hour, 
 
 And thou and them shall lift." 
 
 "Strike! Strike the moral nature strong! 
 
 Strike! Strike with lightning bolts! 
 The conscience mid this earthly wrong 
 
 Needs earthquake rending jolts. 
 A solar plexus punch on sin, 
 
 Oh strike and send him down! 
 Another man will rise within 
 
 And right his spirit crown." 
 
224 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 "The poet is the uncrowned king; 
 
 The giver of the law; 
 The nurse that doth the ages bring 
 
 Of life and love and awe; 
 Revealer of the true ideal, 
 
 Son of eternity, 
 Unto the truth I solemn seal 
 
 Oh faithful, faithful be !" 
 
 So sang the poet from the height 
 
 Unto my immost breast; 
 His presence and his song of might 
 
 My being more than blessed. 
 He paused, and when I would have spoke 
 
 I saw him gently rise, 
 And watched the dying line that broke 
 
 Along the starry skies. 
 
 THE DREAM. 
 
 Dream ! Oh dream ! Oh living dream ! 
 That upon our visions stream 
 Art thou real or only seem? 
 Just an image, word or line, 
 With a breath of life divine, 
 And a robe of rainbow shine. 
 Just a fancy flimsy dressed, 
 Glimpse or gleam of something guessed 
 Vision, flash or brightness blest. 
 Neither flesh nor blood nor bone 
 Just the frailest phantom known, 
 Spirit by the zepher blown 
 Round the world to every zone. 
 But divine celestial thing 
 Thou dost live upon the wing, 
 And forever shine and sing. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 225 
 
 Born within a poet's soul 
 When life's distant shining goal 
 On his lifted eye-balls roll. 
 From this chaos mind and sight 
 Brought thee from the void of night 
 Birth of beauty and delight. 
 In his heart as in a fire 
 He immersed thee, and thy sire 
 Gave thy heart his best desire; 
 Then thee kissed thy father nurse, 
 On thy lips he left a verse 
 Sweeter than the larks unpurse. 
 Smiled he beauty on thy face, 
 Like the shadow of that grace 
 Which his passions ever chase. 
 
 Spirit beautiful to sight! 
 Only feeling form and light 
 Yet a power in day and night. 
 Dwelling in the azure clime, 
 Sun or stary birth of time 
 Thou hast magic most sublime. 
 Shining in the morning hour, 
 Standing on the noonday tower, 
 Walking mid the twilight bower. 
 On the world's immortal heart 
 Like a bride in flowers thou art, 
 Dreams within the dreams that start. 
 Hope and joy and purity 
 Wisdom and her children free 
 See and love and follow thee. 
 
226 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 Man though pompous, swift and proud 
 Passes like a flying cloud 
 Wrapped unconscious in his shroud. 
 All his works of fame and power 
 Follow him in just an hour 
 Down time's phantom shadowed bower, 
 Mountains crumble and decay, 
 Seas to vapor pass away, 
 Earth herself grows cold and gray. 
 Even suns of splendor bright 
 Empty in the void their light 
 And like cinders circle night. 
 All is passing or will pass 
 Like the figures in a glass 
 Worlds and men alas ! alas ! 
 
 But Oh dream thou canst not die ! 
 Thy immortal heart and high 
 Deftest all beneath the sky. 
 Nature with her lightning knife 
 And her elemental strife 
 Cannot even touch thy life. 
 Can the blindness, grief and greed 
 Which to death this human feed 
 Prove contagious to thy breed? 
 Can the times that conquest flings 
 Over ages, empires, kings, 
 Vanquish thee on azure wings? 
 Far above all strife and time 
 Royal, princely, pure and prime, 
 Livest thou with life sublime. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 227 
 
 Like an angel in the earth 
 Beautiful as at her birth 
 Radiant and benign in mirth, 
 Thou art flying up and down 
 And all beauties that thee crown 
 Unveilest free to king and clown. 
 Thy rich alabaster heart 
 Breaks with passion to impart 
 All that makes thee what thou art. 
 Kisses sweet, celestial kisses; 
 Blisses pure, unblighting blisses; 
 And the love man ever misses. 
 Heaven's height and matchless grace 
 Shines upon thy glorious face 
 Like an angel to our race. 
 
 Mother of these dreams divine, 
 Thou dost on our spirits shine 
 Till for higher love we pine. 
 Thou dost light the heart and mind, 
 And our nobler spirits find 
 By the visions that us blind. 
 Thou dost enter, lift and nurse 
 The hope of this vast universe 
 By thy face and heart's unpurse. 
 Worlds within our world is built, 
 Free from sorrow, fear and guilt, 
 Where thou rulest as thou wilt. 
 Thou dost fashion, form and crown 
 With high heaven's royal gown, 
 Virtue, beauty and renown. 
 
228 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 Dream ! Oh dream ! Oh living dream 
 That upon our visions stream, 
 Shine ! Oh shine in brighter gleam ! 
 Surely thou art from the heart 
 Whence divinest things all start, 
 Just a smile from Him thou art, 
 Falling on these sightless eyes, 
 Who but mounteth to the skies; 
 By the passions pure that rise? 
 Onward ! Onward we are led 
 Where the dream and deed are wed, 
 And with love forever fed. 
 Still upon our visions gleam 
 Like the face from whence ye stream ! 
 Dream ! Oh dream ! Oh living dream ! 
 
 TIME'S IMMORTAL: 
 
 I asked in thunder tones: 
 
 "Skies, mountains, forests, streams, 
 Man, beast and bird and stones, 
 
 Schools, cities, temples, dreams : 
 From this eternal change, 
 
 This endless flowing tide, 
 Of all the world we range 
 
 What longest shall abide?" 
 
 'The most immortal thing 
 
 That rises in the earth, 
 Is song upon the wing 
 
 With sorrow mothered mirth. 
 Rich passions in its heart, 
 
 Ripe beauty on its face, 
 How can it e'er depart 
 
 With things of time and place ?" 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 229 
 
 "Deep planted in our tears, 
 
 Forever on the sight, 
 Sweet ringing in our ears, 
 
 And shining on our night; 
 More present after strife, 
 
 Still young when we are old, 
 A fountain heart of life 
 
 When all our tales are told." 
 
 "Time's splendors, pomp and power 
 
 Of pinnacle and dome, 
 Time's hunger will devour 
 
 Like Egypt, Greece and Rome, 
 But song with passion's glow 
 
 Sweet, simple, bright and free 
 Will live and with us go 
 
 To all eternity." 
 
 THE GOD OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 A spirit new ascended to the earth 
 
 With nature vast and superhuman dower, 
 To breathe her life into each coming birth 
 
 That should arise to rule the passing hour. 
 Her passions and her world creating power 
 
 Was more than mortal, and so the mortal frame 
 Beneath the gifts and graces she did shower 
 
 Was vitalized as with the strength of flame, 
 And even round the flesh was something of the same. 
 
 Her generation came straight from her heart, 
 
 And her torrential life swept through each vein 
 Until the vestiture in every part 
 
 Was tensioned with a spirit's growing pain. 
 From such a life unto the lightning brain 
 
 Her visions bright with promised splendors leap 
 And build themselves upon the springtime plain; 
 
 Or bosom rich the future's rugged steep, 
 Most scornful of the past that round lies buried deep. 
 
230 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 Since vital dreams when wedded to a hand 
 Is mother of the high heroic deed, 
 
 They quick transform and populate the land 
 To harmonize and supplement their need. 
 
 Mighty cities, palaces, towers, parks, speed- 
 Trains and autos, wireless phones, electric lights, 
 
 Air navigations and all arts that feed 
 
 The mind and ear and beauty's raptured sights, 
 All, all around them spring or shine upon the heights. 
 
 But man must have a God. No change or power 
 
 That sense can smother long. Earth's central fire 
 Is hidden deep, and often for an hour 
 
 Seems to have lost her ancient fierce desire. 
 But soon the dead volcano throats expire 
 
 Their elemental essences; so conscience 
 Slumbers for a time, but her celestial ire 
 
 Will rise again, but focused more intense 
 Will sudden burst and burn their darkened calloused sense. 
 
 Thus and not thus when that apostate race 
 
 Forgot the pilgrim and ancestral God 
 Of holiness and high redeeming grace. 
 
 When strength and wealth and pride were strange tin- 
 awed 
 Before the living God, the Life that lawed 
 
 The universe, that void most undivine 
 And vast was felt so ill, hosts did applaud 
 
 An image new that from the heights did shine 
 With all their hearts could wish to meet the restless pine. 
 
 A most gigantic human god of gold 
 
 Was dreamed for them, and its material brought 
 From sea, mountain, desert isle, poison hold 
 
 And frozen river. All the earth was sought 
 For full ten thousand men whose gifts had wrought 
 
 The world famed statuary. They soon were found 
 And for their task were still more highly taught 
 
 By the wide multitude whose daily sound, 
 "Oh give us such a god as this !" did on their spirits bound. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS S31 
 
 Both night and day for near a score of years 
 
 They toiled and it was done. Nine solid squares 
 In Chicago's surging heart quick disappears 
 
 For temple space, and the earth's deep rock unbares 
 For its foundations. The surrounding wall wears 
 
 The panels and reliefs of genius, and are enscrolled 
 With noblest imagery. Vast labor bears 
 
 The image hence: inventions most untold 
 Erect upon its base this latest god of gold. 
 
 Behold ! Behold the monumental god ! 
 
 Where are the gods the pagans hewed from stone 
 And raised before the conscience darkly awed? 
 
 In all the world is there a classic throne 
 Of adoration that has ever known 
 
 The faintest sign of this transcendent reach? 
 All, all are mocked by the majesty here shown r 
 
 And disenthroned forever from our speech; 
 From life's celestial heights that wake, inspire and teach* 
 
 The hoary forms of ancient superstition, 
 
 Chiseled from the solid mountains, in a mass 
 Would make for this but merest base position. 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar's image though it pass 
 In pomp before time's magnifying glass 
 
 Were but a toy or as a faint forecast 
 Of this idolatry. The images that would class 
 
 Men as divine are here together clasped, 
 United all in one, forever unsurpassed. 
 
 Above the all surrounding mass it towered, 
 
 And dwindled into insignificance 
 The office structures wealth has reared and dowered. 
 
 Against the azure sky it strikes the sense, 
 As a wearied traveler through a dense 
 
 And tangled wilderness from a hill beholds 
 That massive dome from yonder city whence 
 
 His heart is pressing; the image so embolds 
 The skyscape and the works that man around it folds. 
 
232 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 The pedestal did fill that ample court. 
 
 Round its feet were giant images of art. 
 Its head reached unto heaven and looked athwart 
 
 The hemisphere. The rampart breasted parts 
 Were most symmetrical and filled the heart's 
 
 Desire for form. The draperied loins seemed trees 
 On California mountains, with arm out-starts 
 
 From massive trunk to catch the thunder breeze. 
 It seemed like nature's work, like land and rocks and seas. 
 
 Her right hand held the scepter of the earth 
 
 As if long shafts of swift effulgent light, 
 Like those that from the thunder clouds have birth, 
 
 Were sudden grasped as in a fist of might 
 Omnipotent. Its oblique line was white 
 
 Across the day; and a diamond had been set 
 Upon its point as if the dome of night 
 
 Had into one her starry natures let, 
 And that one glorious star its place appointed met. 
 
 Her left hand held aloft a globe that met 
 
 The day with incense that the senses steal 
 On high to where its purple curtains fret 
 
 The azure arch, and richest perfumes deal 
 Their sweetness on the earth. A vast appeal 
 
 That outstretched arm and lifted face assume 
 Before the day, and a more magnificence unseal 
 
 Unto the night, for electric lights illume 
 That perfect godlike form and pierce the farthest gloom. 
 
 Every member of that gigantic frame 
 
 Was lined and tensioned to the fine repose 
 Of strength and majesty. It seemed the flame 
 
 Of life was there, and the intensest glows 
 Of elemental nature, and the flows 
 
 Of its unimpeded fulness had thrown 
 All to a fine expression. Each muscle shows 
 
 The master power the passions ever loan, 
 All bursting with the might that must have overflown. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 233 
 
 But, Oh that face ! That countenance of power ! 
 
 That expression of a mighty nation's 
 Full united life in its supremest hour ! 
 
 Oh the embodiment of elations, 
 Energies, purposes, inspirations, 
 
 Ambitions and devotions ! Oh the lines 
 Of proudest consciousness, exaltions, 
 
 Supremest powers and selfish vast designs ! 
 All, all are written there with something still that pines. 
 
 The brow was circled with the lightning lances 
 
 Of rarest diamond; the elemental light 
 Of sun-kissed jewels did crown the upward glances 
 
 Of mankind. The bosom was bedight 
 With famous plates, on which each state was bright 
 
 In high symbolic sign. The robe of kings, 
 Like flowing liquid gold upon the sight 
 
 Swept to the earth like mighty folded wings, 
 And even round the feet were jeweled flashing rings. 
 
 From base to crown it was a mass of bright 
 
 And burnished splendors. The golden sun divine 
 Poured in full streams his radiancy of light 
 
 Upon that head and every mirrored sign 
 Dazzled the eyes. Its brightness did outshine 
 
 All human strength. To look at it was like 
 Looking at the sun with unprotected eyne 
 
 Its effulgence did a blindness instant strike, 
 And bowed man to the earth as stricken by a pike. 
 
 Upon that proud imperial countenance 
 
 And all around was far more than the might 
 Of human nature. Such images of sense, 
 
 Like the poetic natures of delight, 
 Power, majesty and beauty, as their right 
 
 Soul atmospheres create; so this creates 
 An atmosphere around her presence bright, 
 
 That reaches to the farthest boundary states, 
 And feeds each coming birth in all their loves and hates. 
 
234 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 Often, often the culminating hour 
 
 Of high heroic action doth vitalize 
 The mortal frame with superhuman dower 
 
 Until the transcendental energize 
 Is uncontainable. The imperial eyes, 
 
 Commanding front and every muscled sign 
 Doth overflow, and in the hosts arise 
 
 New senses from a presence so divine ; 
 Some portions of his life all other lives enshrine. 
 
 So was it then: the image filled the coasts 
 
 And her delighted worshippers arose 
 To pay allegiance in most unbounded boasts. 
 
 There was thunder sounding acclamations, and those 
 Spectaculars the sense forever throws 
 
 Round its divinity. Its celebration 
 Gathered all the earth, and in that small enclose 
 
 Was focused fixed the interest of the nation, 
 And their full life expressed as well became their station. 
 
 The president and senators in white, 
 
 The judges and the governors of state 
 Were there, and most conspicuous in sight 
 
 From dais-thrones and draperies ornate. 
 The merchant prince and commerce kings of weight 
 
 Were honored high, for they the chief expense 
 Had gladly borne. It did rejoice them great 
 
 To see all ranks with pleasure most intense 
 So gather to the god that rules the nation hence. 
 
 The army and the navy flashing bright, 
 
 With shining swords and uniforms that gleam; 
 Representatives and chancellors bedight 
 
 As one would dress the figures in a dream; 
 The beautiful and fashionhoods supreme; 
 
 All honor, pride, power, dignity, renown, 
 With the rabble close behind them in a stream 
 
 Approach the shrine and prostrate cast them down 
 Before the god that now they most supremely crown. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS S35 
 
 Upon their face in solemn silence deep, 
 
 As soul must be when it with God doth meet, 
 An allegiance oath whose obligations sweep 
 
 All space and time each spirit doth repeat. 
 The universe has but one kingly seat 
 
 To which appeal and vacancy invite 
 By golden steps the now ascending feet. 
 
 Silent, alone, intense, inflamed and bright, 
 The spirits bowed but see the God in golden light. 
 
 Then they arose and in processional 
 
 Array did rearrange the votive line; 
 In oft advancement or recessional 
 
 They pledge anew and all to her resign. 
 From silken jeweled banners bright did shine 
 
 Most high ascriptions, and float unto the wind 
 The rich emblazonery. Soon they combine 
 
 In solid squares through which a path is lined, 
 And every bannered fold to chosen hands consigned. 
 
 A hundred daughters of ancestral name, 
 
 The chosen virgins of the god and shrine, 
 Far whiter than the snows of mountain fame, 
 
 Took firm the staffs and with a step divine 
 Approached the front, and waved in crescent line 
 
 The richest flags that ever saw the light. 
 Anon they cease and the flowing banners twine 
 
 Around the base. Then blushing crimson bright, 
 The consecrating priest anoints them in all sight. 
 
 Bandmasters and their instrumentalists 
 
 Of national repute seemed everywhere, 
 And poured the march of proud returning conquests 
 
 Or breathed the soft pianissimos of prayer. 
 The chorus bands in spotless raiment fair, 
 
 With fervent heart and gesture of appeal 
 That music strong unto the heights did bear, 
 
 Until the host look up or sudden kneel 
 Before the passioned praise that maketh so to feel. 
 
236 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 Circling once more the oath again is paid 
 
 By that great host that all together fall ; 
 Heart, mind and will, faith, life and all are laid 
 
 Down at her feet as thus they on her call: 
 "Oh God of gods ! Oh God enthroned o'er all 
 
 The earth and crowned the most supreme forever,! 
 Thy splendors and thy majesty enthrall 
 
 Our hearts, which naught from thine will dare to 
 sever, 
 For thou hast blessed and still will bless our best endeavour." 
 
 "Thy benediction has been on our toil, 
 
 And thy benignest gift above our thought 
 Has blessed our work in mountain, sea and soil. 
 
 Where'er the mind and faithful hand has wrought 
 Success and wealth crown all; and thou hast frought 
 
 With more than these, for thy own heart's inspire 
 Has fed the soul and subtler wisdom taught, 
 
 Until the heart cannot contain desire 
 But after thee has gone as life unto the fire." 
 
 "Thy fame be spread on earth and sea and sky; 
 
 Thy blessing on the men that honor thee; 
 Thy frown upon thy rival throned on high; 
 
 Thy curse on those that unreceptive be; 
 Thy welcome to the islands of the sea 
 
 Who come from far to worship or behold 
 Thy splendors. Thy richest dispensations free 
 
 On them, until to all the earth is told, 
 Thy majesty and power, dominion and uphold." 
 
 "The States that breast the fierce Atlantic shocks, 
 
 And those that bound the soft Pacific sea, 
 With that maternal plain that ever rocks 
 
 The hope of life are loyal unto thee : 
 The White House and the lowest hut of this free 
 
 Nation and the hearts within will entertain 
 Thy image on the thrones that vacant be. 
 
 Reign ! Reign Oh God ! Oh God forever reign ! 
 And bless all worshippers who sing and love the strain." 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 237 
 
 Such service o'er they took two mighty casts 
 
 And set them up at each extremest gate; 
 At New York and San Francisco, the fasts 
 
 Of east and western life, they sit in state 
 Most reverent and supreme. The multitudes elate 
 
 With bread and clothes prosperity still crowd 
 Around the shrine with acclamations great; 
 
 Or prostrate fall with adoration bowed, 
 And there upon the face the vows of life are vowed. 
 
 Now smaller images for every town 
 
 And city square are scattered far and wide, 
 So that the idol and her splendors crown 
 
 Each market place wherever men abide. 
 No haunt of men the hills or valleys hide 
 
 But she is there and circled daily round. 
 The image and the services allied 
 
 The inmost heart within the heart has found, 
 Till she as high without within the soul is crowned. 
 
 Still smaller yet are millions multiplied 
 
 And its religious craft both day and night 
 Are overwrought before the unsupplied 
 
 Desire for casts. The idol shining bright 
 Has found a place of honor and delight 
 
 With every social rank. Her huge demand 
 Has opened marts and doth the shelves bedight 
 
 With every touch of wisest artist hand, 
 Or plainer common moulds for toilers of the land. 
 
 Great men of wealth whose deeds did most dethrone 
 
 The living God most massive temples build 
 For her; and men far worse but famous known 
 
 For knowledge, from all the earth are tilled 
 For her high priests, and they are found and willed 
 
 To teach the heart of coming generations, 
 Though all they teach but the best to be instilled, 
 
 The primal universal heart pulsations, 
 Love, justice, truth and faith, the very life of nations. 
 
238 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 The ministry ordained to teach the truth 
 
 Of life, conscious or unconsciously have nooks 
 For precious casts, till judgment, right and ruth 
 
 Are clean suppressed before the golden looks 
 Descending from the niche amid his books. 
 
 That image from her high exalted tower 
 Has an impassioned fierceness that never brooks 
 
 The thought, pen or utterance of the power 
 That speaks from Life and Love unto the mortal hour. 
 
 The parenthood that should enthrone the good 
 
 Within the first home temple of the earth, 
 Oh how they choose the gods which they would 
 
 Place before the eyes of their own being's birth ! 
 Behold their type of life's supremest worth, 
 
 Sought and found for the first and last allegiance 
 Of their immortal offspring ! Behold the sight ! 
 
 Hosts of idols ! doubt, purchase, bearing hence, 
 Then lifting in the home before first opening sense. 
 
 The hope, the One hope of the nation's last 
 
 Deliverance seems gone. The vestal virgins mate 
 With it and earth's noblest temple has unclasped 
 
 And throned the thing o'er her divine estate 
 Of maiden, wife and mother. Low and prostrate 
 
 On her face her prayers and vows are told 
 Each night, till being's deep desires create 
 
 A host of dreams all clad in shining gold 
 Upon her heart and mind and grow because untold. 
 
 And so the god is high enthroned in empire 
 
 O'er the nation. From her towering height supreme 
 She spreads the scepter that ever rains inspire 
 
 On city, state and union. A glorious gleam 
 Straight from her heart kindles the brightest dream 
 
 Of platform, press and politics. She feeds 
 The hosts and mingles her own life with stream 
 
 And air and field, and all our loves and greeds, 
 And like the god men serve in them her image breeds. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 239 
 
 She is the inspiration and the nurse 
 
 Of unbelief, that sin so universal 
 That wise professors know not it is the curse — 
 
 The unadulterated extracts — the fell 
 And uncompounded spirits and the quintessential 
 
 And infinitely prolific nature 
 Of all sin ; this sin, the first born curse of hell, 
 
 With all the train that follow her most sure, 
 She plants within the heart and thus would kill the pure. 
 
 The greatest things a nation brings to birth 
 
 Are incarnations from the celestial spheres; 
 With such a gift the poorest state on earth 
 
 Can empires rule through widest stretch of years. 
 The supremacies of thought and love and tears 
 
 In ever rising dynasties sublime, 
 Must ever rule this world of hopes and fears ; 
 
 Theirs is the sovereign mastery o'er time 
 Although like all that rule they suffer to their prime. 
 
 But this new god doth seek to swift devour 
 
 These most immortal births: the divine births 
 Of conscience with the high endower 
 
 Of ancient priests and prophets, the new born mirths 
 Of the great nurse of life's poetic arts and worths 
 
 Of heaven, the infants that entangle 
 With new hope the travailing heart of the earth's 
 
 Long sorrow she ever seeks to strangle, 
 Or binds them in her chains as slaves that round her dangle. 
 
 All domestic virtue, all supernal 
 
 Intuition, all moral aspiration, 
 The infinite ideal, and the eternal 
 
 Personality that we station 
 Before, above, behind and through creation, 
 
 Are loud blasphemed when ever they may greet 
 This spirit new enthroned within the nation; 
 
 The living God and God in man is meet 
 But to be trampled down neath her foundation feet. 
 
240 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 But yet her strong expansive spirit teems 
 
 In man, and though they created her she 
 More createth them. Her unarterial streams, 
 
 Dark laden with death's unvitality 
 Flows to each heart to wake and feed the me 
 
 Of life's diseased consuming selfishness. 
 Her spirit breeds within the nation the 
 
 Most unmoral types, although she dress 
 The foul deformities in splendors of excess. 
 
 She touches man and all their mighty forces 
 
 With hunger feed upon her golden themes. 
 Her magic hand opes nature's hid resources 
 
 And shows them vast beyond all fondest dreams, 
 With world surprise, invention clad in beams 
 
 Of splendor like the sun, brings forth to birth 
 A progeny enrobed in her own gleams; 
 
 The births she brings out of this common earth, 
 Are golden to the heart as golden to the girth. 
 
 Man's works beneath the dreams of her inspire 
 
 Are of a most gigantic character. 
 Chaotic earth is grasped with fierce desire 
 
 And her blind impediments administer 
 All cosmic power and skill, and rich confer 
 
 The fabled gift of touching all to gold. 
 Gold is their god, their very life, their spur 
 
 Of action, their sunlike visions bold, 
 Their heaven supreme above and all that it doth hold. 
 
 The heightless height and boundless reach of powers 
 
 Designed to climb the courses of the night 
 And throne themselves beyond the sun's endowers 
 
 Now find the end and the supremest height 
 Of their impassioned fulness in the right 
 
 Of transitory ownership o'er wealth; 
 Such ownership secured in heaven's sight 
 
 By vast injustice, falsehood, acts of stealth, 
 Assassin midnight blows and murders upon health. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 241 
 
 And the inhumanity of selfishness 
 
 Is sore intensified, and in the strife 
 This new enthroned inspires, Oh what distress 
 
 And awful sacrifice of human life ! 
 Souls, living souls, husband and child and wife 
 
 Are slaughtered here; right here before the fane 
 Our strength is armed as with a butcher's knife. 
 
 And Oh for what? for this mad thirst of gain, 
 The brotherhood for this and their own souls are slain. 
 
 The weak and poor are daily trampled here; 
 
 The sons of God must form her sacrifice; 
 They daily die upon her bloody bier 
 
 Just at her feet with ghastly unclosed eyes, 
 And who will weep and follow them with sighs? 
 
 Even the victims seem to have no tears 
 Or sense divine that far above it rise 
 
 Unto the God or powers that rule the spheres, 
 But like the brutes, plain common brutes they die along the 
 years. 
 
 And their extreme oppressors, Oh behold! 
 
 Position, wealth, intelligence and power 
 And almost all the human heart can hold; 
 
 All, all they have, supremacy, endower, 
 Opportunity and enterprising hour 
 
 Is all for self, and for some selfish end 
 The human race they heartless do devour. 
 
 Behold the ideal the heavens unbefriend ! 
 Which is the best and worst what it doth make or rend ? 
 
 She also feeds the deadliest desire 
 
 That ever enters, fills and rules the soul 
 Of man, the wish for pleasures ; for pleasures mire 
 
 In every earthly foolishness the goal 
 Which the Eternal One has set to pole 
 
 The finite and unto heaven lead. 
 This one desire has in its heart the whole 
 
 Of hell, and all that hell can ever breed 
 Is in this single sin and soon will be unfreed. 
 
242 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 This deep desire all wealth doth certain find 
 
 And nourishes to strength. The multitude 
 Enchanted seems, and stricken deaf and blind 
 
 See but the gold and phantom pleasures strewed 
 Along the way. This passion unsubdued 
 
 Appalls the wisest minds as they behold 
 This business craft with being dark imbrued 
 
 Seek to create and in youth to unfold 
 Life's first and strong rebound to pleasures new and bold. 
 
 Though earth's last need are pleasure's light buffoons 
 
 They are the first and growing want, and thence 
 The people flock to see and feel the last baboon's 
 
 Convulsive laughter. The patronage is dense 
 Round lustful shows and dangers so intense 
 
 They thrill the nerves and hold the senses mute. 
 Though this desire slays every godlike sense 
 
 And sinks man down, down, down below the brute, 
 This god feeds this desire and nurses forth the fruit. 
 
 Life's best pleasure and swift destroying blight 
 
 Is sexual sensuality; and this 
 The chosen god in fierce unbridled might 
 
 Feeds into man, till cinerating blasphemies 
 Arise against the azure purities 
 
 Of life and love and slave to fleshly mirth 
 These high and solemn immortalities. 
 
 Ten thousand souls: Is there a single birth 
 Not born from sensuous lust by motives above earth? 
 
 This cancer is upon the nation's heart 
 
 The one disease from which most others swell. 
 Its vile contageous sight and sounds impart 
 
 Unto the air the potency of hell. 
 The blasting curse with swift destructions fell 
 
 Before us strike the very hopes of life 
 With loss and grief that will for ages well. 
 
 It strikes the home, husband and child and wife, 
 And marriage often seems with its fruitions rife. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 243 
 
 This god of gold has ever pampered lust 
 
 And shameless is the chiefest pimp of shame 
 What steaming beds of sensuality must 
 
 Wealth and fashion dark curtain with her name? 
 Right in her court, before her brows of fame 
 
 What infinite degradation ! What dragons 
 Of naked and enf renzied passion ! What flame 
 
 Of hell inspires night's prostitution pens 
 And makes a city's heart at night but dragon fested dens! 
 
 Every vice grows up beneath her worship, 
 
 And twine themselves around this ruling three. 
 Is not earth hell when e'er the veil we strip 
 
 From pleasure, greed and sensuality? 
 This masquerading and infernal trinity 
 
 Are the chief high priests of life, and minister 
 To the nation, as all may plainly see, 
 
 What is their meat and drink; yet more from her 
 They draw the deadly life that does their being stir. 
 
 Thou usurping and embodied inspiration 
 
 From the monarchy of long rebellious ills, 
 Thou art but another incarnation 
 
 Of the lost archangel's kingdom ! How fills 
 The earth with such presentations as stills 
 
 The wisest minds with fear ! What dark portents 
 And evolutions of the self in wills 
 
 Of demoniac domination ! What intense 
 And internecine strifes thou nursest now and hence ! 
 
 Even now thou dost divide the nation 
 
 A mighty cleaverage drives far apart 
 Thy worshippers. Dreams of drunken agitation 
 
 Spring from the starved and satiated heart, 
 And fly with bloody wings into thy mart 
 
 Of selfishness. Thou mother of the curse ! 
 Thou nurse of tyrants and rebellion ! thou art 
 
 The spirit self that poles the universe; 
 Extreme to life and love and all that they impurse. 
 
244 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 Oh God ! Thou God of this vast universe ! 
 
 Thou living God, the azure summit's crown ! 
 Thou God of power and that tremendous curse 
 
 Which holiness so often raineth down, 
 In lightning indignation with the frown 
 
 That turneth noonday into night, on the dense 
 And blind idolatries of earth! Oh gown 
 
 Thyself with zeal ! Thy sword omnipotence 
 Oh gird upon thy thigh, and this nation's god of sense 
 
 Oh strike ! Strike the blaspheming emanation 
 
 From the unlocked pit ! This self-centering curse 
 Upon Thy highest image of creation, 
 
 Strike with the power of all the universe 
 Of life ! With one beheading stroke that doth impurse 
 
 All promised judgments, Oh decapitate 
 This heaven defying idolatry and nurse 
 
 It to the dust ! Oh ! right here before the state, 
 Right in the midst of all their acclamations great 
 
 With one electric, lightning, melting shock 
 
 Divide, dismember and dissolve this mass 
 As if it were some giant mountain oak 
 
 Consumed from earth ; or pulverized as glass 
 Oh drive it down into the night's crevasse 
 
 Before the lightnings of Thy burning eyes ! 
 Before the eternal generations pass, 
 
 Right now as it defies the azure skies, 
 Right here and now, Oh God in judgment power arise 
 
 And strike! Oh strike with thine omnipotence 
 
 This earth-born god that dares thee to thy face! 
 This thing made out of blind material dense 
 
 And making brutes of the immortal race, 
 Strike ! Oh strike the fascinating grace ! 
 
 And it destroy before our mortal eyes, 
 Its image from the mirrors we embrace, 
 
 Its reverence from the heart that underlies, 
 And memory from the young as it is from the skies. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 245 
 
 Oh God ! Thou living God of life and light, 
 
 Of infinite unspotted holiness, 
 Of the inflexibility of right 
 
 And all the tenderness that can possess 
 The mother of humanity ! Oh press 
 
 Clean through time sensuousness and rise 
 In sublimest majesty upon the height 
 
 Of azure purity; that earthly eyes 
 May blind be struck and quake before thy energize. 
 
 Oh God arise ! that humanity may see 
 
 That in this vast universe Thou art 
 As if alone Thou wert; as if only Thee. 
 
 And that holiness that lightning-like doth dart 
 Against all sin out of Thy glowing heart. 
 
 Oh dwindle to the very dust from whence 
 They sprung the vast establishment of mart ! 
 
 By Thy exaltation and reverence 
 To the moral powers of man's divine existence* 
 
 Be Thou enthroned on conscience cleansed divine 
 
 And at an infinite exalted height 
 Beyond the splendors the archangels shine, 
 
 But near and real though lost amid the light. 
 Man's spirit is a spacious boundless might, 
 
 Fashioned upon Thine own infinity, 
 And only Thou canst it redeem, bedight, 
 
 And fill it with life's passions pure and free, 
 And lift it on its course to fellowship with Thee. 
 
 Oh be enthroned ! Forever throned supreme 
 
 O'er conscience and the moral being strong ! 
 Heart, mind and will, hope, joy and faith and dream, 
 
 The man himself and being's mighty throng 
 Before Thee bow in silence or in song. 
 
 Descending from heaven's wide portality 
 Oh Thou, the earth's salvation from all wrong, 
 
 Now lend to him Thy infinite reality 
 And lift and crown his course with starry immortality. 
 
246 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 TO THE MUSICIAN. 
 
 Oh play ! Oh play ! Oh play ! 
 That sound, Oh that sound and its soul repeat ! 
 
 For my spirits gray 
 Leapeth up from sleep to the music sweet. 
 'Tis an angel sent from the azure skies 
 With a magic gift that doth vitalize 
 The dead and divine that within me lies. 
 
 Oh play! Oh play! Oh play! 
 That measure and passion and power divine 
 
 Has a mighty sway 
 From the unseen worlds where immortals shine. 
 It falls on my heart that is frozen dead 
 By the sin and sorrow our life has fed 
 Until I arise and the trance is fled. 
 
 Repeat ! Repeat ! Repeat ! 
 For out of the cold, the darkness and death, 
 
 At thy murmurs sweet 
 I arise to life with immortal breath. 
 Is it life or death or a world of dream 
 Flows into my heart like a mountain stream 
 Of beauty and blessing and boundless teem ? 
 
 Repeat ! Repeat ! Repeat ! 
 For the springtide sun, it is soft and bright 
 
 And around my feet 
 Are the bursting flowers in their rainbow light. 
 Now the grass is green and the skies are blue, 
 Now the winds are sweet and the streams like dew, 
 Now the heavens and earth are created new. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 247 
 
 Again ! Again ! Again ! 
 For upon the scales as on golden wings, 
 
 Far beyond our ken 
 I mount to the plane where the prophet sings, 
 How divine are the powers that can disenrobe 
 And make for the eyes an immortal globe 
 With a spirit and form no sense can probe. 
 
 Again ! Again ! Again ! 
 For thy nature breeds in the bounding heart 
 
 What the poet's pen 
 Can only in symbol or word impart. 
 There are women as fair as the morning light, 
 And men as pure as the mountain's height, 
 And children at sport in my joyful sight. 
 
 Oh play ! Oh play ! Oh play ! 
 That power and passion and vision divine 
 
 Give a lasting sway 
 And build them up to the prophet's line. 
 Still higher and high let the spirit rise 
 Till the heart and mind and beholding eyes 
 Are wed to the loves in the azure skies. 
 
 Oh play ! Oh play ! Oh play ! 
 For music and love they are both akin 
 
 And upon their way 
 O'er the world, the deeds and disease of sin. 
 Play on to the victory of righteousness ! 
 Play on to the worlds unto which we press ! 
 Play on to the dreams that our visions bless ! 
 
248 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 SONG OF THE ART CRITIC. 
 
 Another course has just begun, 
 
 Another soul doth rise 
 To orbit round a golden sun 
 
 Before our mortal eyes. 
 Oh is it genius' sacred sign 
 
 For yon celestial chart? 
 A culture, taste and sense divine, 
 
 A hope and heir of art? 
 
 All things that come most yield to test, 
 
 For mingle false and true ; 
 And oft the worst is honored best 
 
 Because it's only new. 
 Dare judgment now desert her throne 
 
 Or from her right depart ? 
 For human good she must make known 
 
 The true and false in art. 
 
 Here is a piece of workmanship; 
 
 I like it, I confess ; 
 Both spirit when the robes I strip 
 
 And priestly kingly dress. 
 Its small defects are very few; 
 
 I praise the better part. 
 But "like" or "praise" unto the new 
 
 Is oft where is no art. 
 
 It is with heavy burden frought, 
 
 As truth itself might sing; 
 Or sent by her and to us taught 
 
 By some old poet king. 
 It is a life; a spirit mould; 
 
 A space for mind and heart; 
 An orbit where we hence are rolled ; 
 
 But is "Truth" always art? 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 249 
 
 The thought is noble, pure and strong; 
 
 It lifts our moral state; 
 Engirdeth right, unarmors wrong; 
 
 And thrones us with the great. 
 Our best ideals : behold them there ! 
 
 This impulse will impart. 
 Oh may all reach their station fair ! 
 
 But is "Good" always art. 
 
 There's passion here and living fire, 
 
 It wakes the senses dead; 
 Its ardor and intense desire 
 
 Brings back our spirits fled. 
 Contageous, elemental, white, 
 
 Its lightnings through us dart, 
 To tear the slumbers from our night; 
 
 But yet it is not art. 
 
 There's beauty here for happy youth; 
 
 Ripe beauty for old age; 
 Sublimities for granite truth; 
 
 Solemnities for sage. 
 Since beauty never can decline 
 
 Though all asunder start, 
 This work must shine, still brighter shine; 
 
 But Oh ! * It is not art ! 
 
 This music new and sweet and strong 
 
 Doth captivate our ear, 
 As if a seraph passed along 
 
 And echoed full her sphere. 
 Each note is full, round and intense 
 
 As stars upon the chart. 
 'Tis life on life's discordant sense; 
 
 But Oh ! It is not art ! 
 
 "Tncreasingly hysterical. 
 
250 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 'Tis most original and new, 
 
 And fresh as ever spring; 
 Like rain to flowers or night to dew, 
 
 Or balm to sorrow's sting; 
 It strikes my being through and through, 
 
 It gives another heart. 
 Each time I read it grows more new; 
 
 But Oh ! Oh ! It is not art ! 
 
 There's nought above the golden noon, 
 
 There's nought beneath the night, 
 There's nought between the sun and moon 
 
 So kindles my delight. 
 All that I have, can do or dream, 
 
 For this I'd gladly bart; 
 I hold it at a price supreme; 
 
 But Oh! Oh! Oh! It is not art! 
 
 Art is the thing, the most divine 
 
 In heaven above or earth; 
 Of all that breathe or sing or shine, 
 
 Has had, or will have birth. 
 She lives in self without an aim ; 
 
 Has all within her heart; 
 The perfect which we cannot name; 
 
 This, this alone is art. 
 
 A POET'S LAMENT. 
 
 Oh my celestial births of joy ! 
 
 My sorrow, loss and pain ! 
 The music, passion and employ 
 
 Out of my heart and brain ! 
 Oh azure daughters, sons of fire ! 
 Weep round your broken hearted sire ! 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 251 
 
 Oh my divine begotten race ! 
 
 My royal blooded births ! 
 My progeny of lightning grace 
 
 And spirit winged mirths! 
 Ideals, hopes and truths sublime 
 From you celestial realms of rhyme! 
 
 Old Homer's blood and Virgil's grace, 
 
 Dante's intensity, 
 The breath of Milton's singing race 
 
 Is breathing now in ye ! 
 Is glowing in each pulsing vein 
 Though in another style and strain. 
 
 But though ye are high heaven's sons 
 
 And virgins most divine, 
 On such descent forever runs 
 
 The serpent's dark design. 
 'Tis whispered now that though ye fly 
 Ye to the earth must come and die. 
 
 Oh never think to mount the sky! 
 
 Oh never dream of thrones ! 
 Oh weep ! Oh weep ! and let each eye 
 
 Be drowned in its moans ! 
 The hopes of your immortal fires 
 Must be as light-flies in the mires. 
 
 The ladies of the avenue, 
 Gents of the street and hall, 
 
 The papers and the critic's crew 
 Against you loudly call; 
 
 Because to them I fall not down 
 
 On you my own they deadly frown. 
 
252 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 The old and milkless withered cows, 
 
 Young romping heifers wild, 
 And brainless calves and all that browse 
 
 Where clover has beguiled, 
 Have jumped the breach and fearing me, 
 They vent their angry spleen on ye. 
 
 Oh what a loud hysteric bawl 
 
 They sound to ye on high ! 
 Do ye not tremble lest ye fall 
 
 Upon their lance-like eye ! 
 Do ye not tremble on the height 
 And fear before such loud affright! 
 
 But more than these the fat-blind steers, 
 
 The fat-blind steers unfew, 
 That bull-like in the herd appears 
 
 That follows them so true; 
 The fat-blind steers bowing their horns 
 Would pitch ye high with bellowing scorns. 
 
 Behold those mad and switching tails ! 
 
 Oh! if you they should strike, 
 Their anger hot that never fails 
 
 As slaughtered flies you like. 
 How glad to battle I would go 
 But bulls like these want ye for foe. 
 
 Though now upon the azure height, 
 
 I weep, I weep for ye ! 
 My first and last and best delight. 
 
 Born of eternity ! 
 Oh must ye lie down in the dust 
 As falsehood, hunger, greed and lust ! 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 253 
 
 Why were ye born for such a fate ! 
 
 My tears forever flow ! 
 Oh progeny from life's estate 
 
 In exile must ye go! 
 From palaces of ancient kings 
 Now wander forth as beggared things! 
 
 But go ye forth. The mortal years 
 Oh breast with strength divine ! 
 
 Let cows and heifers, calves and steers 
 Loud bellow, paw and pine! 
 
 Upon the azure height shall ye 
 
 Live ever loving, wise and free. 
 
 A NATIONAL SONG. 
 Tune: Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean. 
 
 Oh Union, the first of the nations ! 
 
 Oh States joined with freedom as king! 
 As mountains are strong in their stations 
 
 Around Thee we stand and will sing. 
 Thy states be forever united ! 
 
 No star from its splendor e'er pale ! 
 Each sister unblighting, unblighted! 
 Hail ! Hail Mighty Union Oh Hail ! 
 Hail ! Hail ! Mighty Union Oh Hail ! 
 
 The states of our birth, strength and pride! 
 Each state and the Union forever! 
 
 Hail! Hail through all time and all tide! 
 
254 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 The pilgrims, their sons and their daughters, 
 
 With liberty, faith, God and hope, 
 Bold steered through the untraveled waters 
 
 To build on this rock frowning slope. 
 They conquered with nature's wild passion; 
 
 An empire with virtue did sow; 
 To their spirit and high kingly fashion 
 Grow ! Grow Mighty Union Oh Grow ! 
 Grow ! Grow ! Mighty Union Oh Grow ! 
 
 The states of our birth, strength and pride! 
 Each state and the Union forever ! 
 
 Grow ! Grow through all time and all tide ! 
 
 When the mother became the oppressor 
 And gave us the sword not the shield, 
 A Washington rose the redresser, 
 
 His name on thy forehead is sealed. 
 When slavery again shook the nation, 
 And trembled each pillar and arch, 
 A Lincoln restored thee to station, 
 
 March ! March Mighty Union Oh March ! 
 March ! March ! Mighty Union Oh March ! 
 
 The states of our birth, strength and pride! 
 Each state and the Union forever! 
 
 March ! March through all time and all tide ! 
 
 Thy brow be encircled with glory ! 
 
 Thy heart filled with faith, love and truth ! 
 Thy fame be embalmed in our story 
 
 By manhood, by age and by youth ! 
 A Wisdom ! A Power ! A Defender ! 
 
 A Wealth giving nations thy gain ! 
 A Virtue ! An Honor ! A Splendor ! 
 Reign ! Reign Mighty Union Oh Reign ! 
 Reign ! Reign ! Mighty Union Oh Reign ! 
 
 The states of our birth, strength and pride! 
 Each state and the Union forever! 
 
 Reign ! Reign through all time and all tide ! 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 255 
 
 THE FIFTH STRING. 
 
 When first the violin was strung 
 
 To echo forth the heart, 
 The cords were on her bosom flung 
 
 With most imperfect art; 
 For sometimes there were three or five 
 
 And sometimes they were seven; 
 And thus the infant art did strive 
 
 To reach unto her heaven. 
 
 At length she hit the happy four: 
 
 G, D and A and E. 
 From that glad hour her spirit more 
 
 Unfoldeth strong and free. 
 Since then the violin has sway 
 
 In concert or alone; 
 She leads, the instruments obey; 
 
 She grows as she has grown. 
 
 But some have dreamed another string, 
 
 A fifth string that is blessed; 
 Placed just between the four that sing 
 
 Or deep within her breast. 
 It has been called by magic names 
 
 Of more than magic dowers. 
 Who it possess will reach the aims 
 
 Of his immortal hours. 
 
 Some call it passion's purest glow 
 
 Filling the mortal heart; 
 When tensioned feelings overflow 
 
 There must be noble art. 
 And others name it constant toil 
 
 With labor day and night, 
 For work can conquer what doth foil 
 
 Musician's best delight. 
 
256 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 Still others christen it inspire 
 
 From yonder silver sphere, 
 Whose echoes from that lyric choir 
 
 Make our best music here. 
 But deeper souls will sorrow name, 
 
 For sorrow sanctified 
 Is mother of the sweetest strain 
 
 In earthly time and tide. 
 
 Yet others call it happiness; 
 
 And some would name it truth, 
 And others call it age no less 
 
 Than those who call it youth. 
 But we will call it by the name 
 
 First borrowed from above, 
 And lifting all to whence it came: 
 
 'Tis love ! Divinest love ! 
 
 A love celestial and divine, 
 
 Of heaven and of earth, 
 To all that breathe or sing or shine, 
 
 To all of grief and mirth; 
 A love to all that is create, 
 
 To person, beast and thing, 
 Doth with her passions palpitate 
 
 This magic mentioned string. 
 
 The place of this prophetic string 
 
 Is not within her breast; 
 And not between the four that sing, 
 
 But where the few have guessed. 
 'Tis deep within the player's heart 
 
 Where God and creature meet; 
 So all the riches he doth start 
 
 Must through her being beat. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 257 
 
 All that the violin can shake, 
 
 All that can move the soul, 
 First from the infinite must break 
 
 And merely through us roll. 
 And if this fifth doth cross the heart 
 
 And life's first entrance string, 
 Oh will there not be more than art ! 
 
 And more than passion's ring ! 
 
 Oh noble G ! Oh noble G ! 
 
 Oh sorrow's sonorous sound ! 
 When this string gives her life to thee, 
 
 The griefs that here abound 
 Can never poison nor destroy, 
 
 Or ever fully drowned 
 The peace and strength and fountain joy 
 
 That sorrow's soul has found. 
 
 Oh manly D ! Oh manly D ! 
 
 Thou art the string of life: 
 And needest love to dwell in thee 
 
 To sanctify the strife. 
 The granite strength and iron strain, 
 
 Life's hunger, need and dross 
 Needs most the fifth string to refrain 
 
 A hope upon its loss. 
 
 Oh sweet and soft and velvet A ! 
 
 A woman's heart is thine; 
 A woman's love doth in thee sway 
 
 And joy and blessings sign. 
 Oh mother, maiden, wife and child ! 
 
 Oh home and loves divine ! 
 Ye lift from earth the deep defiled 
 
 Because the fifth is thine. 
 
258 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 Intense, intense impassioned E! 
 
 Oh soul of living fire ! 
 There is a more intensity, 
 
 There is a more inspire; 
 The hope and strength, the joy and reach 
 
 Of spheres beyond all art, 
 The fifth string into thine will teach 
 
 And all will free impart. 
 
 Come ! Screw up ! Screw up the fifth string ! 
 
 Oh keep it well in tune ! 
 Oh live forever! Grow and sing 
 
 Within the vast commune ! 
 To die is self to isolate ! 
 
 To live is to commune ! 
 The infinite with all will mate, 
 
 Oh keep with him in tune ! 
 
 THE AMERICAN EAGLE. 
 
 Oh pinioned prince of heaven's wide expanse! 
 Oh citizen of kingdoms in the sky ! 
 Oh dweller mid the solar lightning glance ! 
 Oh spirit winged to soar and never die ! 
 Oh mighty and symbolic soul ! Oh high 
 And emblematic nature ! Oh type divine 
 Of life's impassioned heart when it doth sigh 
 For liberty! Oh prophetic sign 
 Of those regenerated states that lie 
 Within the future, and yet upon us shine 
 The form and spirit life for which the nations pine ! 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 259 
 
 Out of all things is heaven and earth and sea 
 That come to men appealing in their might, 
 This Union when she rose among the free 
 Enfranchised nations of the world caught sight 
 Of thy majestic power and chose thy bright 
 Emancipation to image her desires. 
 The promised hope of man's ancestral right, 
 The strength and heat of liberty's own fires, 
 The generations rising for the fight, 
 And continents of freedom in the sires 
 All fixed themselves on thee to bear their high aspires. 
 
 And thou hast borne the heart and hope and life, 
 And more than these the rich maternal dream 
 That brings to birth and nourishes through strife 
 With noblest works as patriot prophets deem. 
 And thou dost bear beyond what all may seem 
 To the selfish blind and staggering nations. 
 Yea, virtues more within thy bosom teem 
 To lift beyond time's proud imperial stations 
 Than most of thine own worshippers can theme. 
 In thee is life and ideal state creations 
 Whose scattered fragments lie mid time's mad desecra- 
 tions. 
 
 Then, who would not pause and feed his restless eye 
 Upon thy form of majesty and power? 
 Thou hast dominion o'er the azure sky 
 And all beneath her rich concaving bower. 
 Thy flight is like a path across the hour 
 Of noonday, and thy descending spirits claim 
 Ascensive souls. Not the sun upon his tower, 
 Nor the inter-swinging worlds, nor any fame 
 Of earthly seas or mountains can cast a lower 
 On thee, for elemental beings flame 
 Within thy mighty heart and overflow thy frame. 
 
'260 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 Which frame is in the vast proportions 
 Of those mighty things that base the universe; 
 Thee and thy members seem distortions 
 To the standards that measure time's disburse. 
 Thou art like expansive clouds the mountains verse 
 Upon their summits, or some exaltation 
 From the deeps of plumbless ocean. The nurse 
 That brought thee forth to wing the wide creation 
 Spaces made thee a form in which to purse 
 The genius of a most resourceful nation, 
 A most imperial form for most empyreal station. 
 
 And beauty too as great things always are 
 She cast within thy full and flowing heart, 
 Which whence doth burst the dull material bar 
 And splendors like the morning doth impart. 
 Every line swings out to strength, and scorning art 
 Doth rise into the solemn and sublime 
 Of beauty. All rainbow colors dart 
 From thee their happy transformations, but the prime 
 Armorial robe thou never long canst bart 
 Is the golden, golden radiance of thy clime 
 Which robes thy matchless form as it doth the king of 
 time. 
 
 Thy head is like the summit of a tower; 
 It rests upon thy cone-like neck as pride 
 Doth poise herself in an immortal hour. 
 Thy unconquerable beak doth deride 
 The service of the shield and hast denied 
 The all protecting helmet. Thy tail 
 So like a fan projecting roof doth guide 
 Or aid thy course wherever thou doth sail. 
 Just underneath thy mighty talons hide 
 Their steel-like prongs which tyrants do bewail, 
 But thou dost never use until thy patience fail. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 261 < 
 
 What lightning bolts are fixed within thy eyes 
 And seem behind an incandescent fire 
 That all before that deep and distant lies 
 Can see and search without the least desire? 
 What voluminous electric coils doth wire 
 Thy sinuous neck and what potentials rest 
 Within the batteries that never tire 
 Projecting from thy broad and bulwarked breast? 
 Thy massive and torpedic frame doth sire 
 The flying dreams the aeronaut has blessed, 
 And all around with more than iron-clad armor dressed. 
 
 But Oh thy wings, thy mighty matchless wings 
 That with resistless power strike mortal sight ! 
 When they are folded down on thee each flings 
 A sense of steel resistance and doth bedight 
 Thy electric muscled heart like two bright, 
 Immense and most invulnerable shields. 
 When extended to the width of their delight 
 They seem two fans the morning spirit wields 
 To chase afar the phantoms of the night; 
 Two mighty wings across the azure fields 
 To wake the purer wind to which the spirit yields. 
 
 But Oh thy wings ! Thy mighty matchless wings ! 
 The wings like which imagination's hour 
 Can give no image but the spirit things 
 Enthroned upon the height of their immortal dower. 
 The cloudy wings that doth bedight high heaven's bower 
 And shade the sun upon his noonday throne, 
 The massive planet wings on which our 
 Own ecliptic souls have ever flown, 
 The all triumphant wings that doth devour 
 The passioned heart that for them ever moan 
 Are bound upon thy soul and bound on thee alone. 
 
262 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 But Oh thy wings ! Thy mighty matchless wings 
 Of resistless omnipotential might ! 
 On which Liberty with perpendicular springs 
 Doth poise herself upon the heightless height. 
 The wings of the world soul that with delight 
 Smite earth's atmospheres with such terrific strife 
 That by the stroke the tyrants of the night 
 Are stricken down as by a lightning knife ! 
 The wings on which the everlasting right 
 With the passions that her fountain heart holds rife 
 Ascends unto her throne to rule the spheres of life ! 
 
 But Oh thy wings ! Thy mighty matchless wings 
 The wings which bear ten thousand burdened years, 
 And all the host of men and travailing things 
 Who groaned in heart and wept their crimson tears ! 
 The wings on which the patriot's visioned spheres 
 Soar up the steep, resistless heights of heaven 
 And finds a course where never more he fears 
 This selfishness and these dark storms or levin ! 
 The wings on which thy spirit when she hears 
 The cry of new born souls on earth with seven 
 Fold speed descends to them with sure and swift replevin ! 
 
 But Oh thy wings ! Thy mighty matchless wings ! 
 Of deep and inconceivable delight, 
 On which the patriot lives, the poet sings 
 
 • And all life's virtues ride upon the height ! 
 The wings that with an all sustaining right 
 Doth bear aloft the state into the skies 
 Intact from time's contagion, and with a flight 
 That draweth forth the world's unfathomed cries ! 
 Oh everlasting wings that sail the bright 
 Noontide dominions and yet doth higher rise 
 
 Into the altitudes that still more vitalize ! 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 263 
 
 What dominions of immeasureable space are thine ! 
 The celestial and untraveled wide expanse: 
 The unobstructed openness and the divine 
 Immortal reaches beyond all mortal glance : 
 A boundless length and breadth that doth entrance 
 The high desires that worship thee on earth: 
 A heightless and unthinkable advance 
 In the recess of heaven's solemn mirth: 
 A dominion far above this daily dance 
 Of mortal things and all we hold of worth, 
 Infinite, eternal and thine unto its girth. 
 
 An infinite eternal vast domain 
 Which the golden sun with an effulgence bright 
 Doth fill and flood and ever more sustain 
 With transcendental energies of light 
 What blinding radiant streams pour from the height 
 And steep with an immortal life each space 
 And power of thy possession? Oh what a sight 
 Of new and most majestic splendors grace 
 The broad horizons of morning and of night? 
 What rainbow dreams and golden hopes embrace 
 Their spirits from the sun and through thy kingdoms 
 race? 
 
 What etherial spirit atmospheres 
 Of elemental essences must feed 
 The youthful heart of thy victorious years? 
 Thy glorious all sustaining azures breed 
 In thee and all that hold thy sacred creed 
 The source and sense of immortality. 
 The eternal powers and infinite that lead 
 The earth upward with lavish impartiality 
 Have through thy kingdom's length and breadth been 
 
 freed. 
 All things that are in most intense reality 
 Thy kingdom feeds and thee near heaven's wide portality. 
 
264 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 And from the earth hast thou not gathered strength? 
 Though like the type of European power 
 Thy birth and breed was in the breadth and length 
 Of this new continent. Long before our 
 History, circling thy firmamental bower 
 Thou didst drink the elemental energies 
 Of this new world. Thou didst feed thy immortal hour 
 With forests, mountains, plains and all that is 
 From sea to sea. Thy visions strong that tower 
 Above the strife and death of time's abyss 
 Fed thy impassioned heart with far prophetic bliss. 
 
 In thy young days the world soul's mighty jest 
 Passed into thee with those titanic powers 
 That sweep the earth where nature has expressed 
 Herself in vastest amplitudes. The towers 
 Where thunder storms and lightning bolts fill the bowers 
 Of trembling heaven were thy supreme delight 
 And thou didst breast the fierce tempestuous hours 
 Till they returned disastered from the fight. 
 The cyclones and the blizzard mouthed devours 
 Of Arctic strength did congregate their might, 
 Yet right into their teeth was thy unwearied flight. 
 
 The rich potentialities of strength 
 From these yet unconfederated states, 
 This protectorate of ample breadth and length 
 That then and now marches to what thy soul creates 
 For it: How oft! How often it elates 
 To passion's most immortal measure ! 
 Thou sawest it before its infant dates 
 And sported with its elements at leisure. 
 Thou sawest growth and struggles with the weights 
 Of tyranny; and Oh thy thrills of pleasure 
 That this new promise held the earth's sublimest treasure ! 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 265 
 
 So on the nation's bright auspicious morn 
 Thou wert in glorious emancipation; 
 And in thy unadopted state hadst borne 
 To earth the patriot's visions of the sun 
 To front the far oppressors, and thus begun 
 The endless strife for man's ancestral right. 
 Thou didst guide the raw colonials the one 
 Enfranchised path the bravest must bedight 
 With life and death. Their crimson blood did run 
 Into the earth before the noonday light 
 But soul rose to the sky and was with thine unite. 
 
 Upon this young republic, as on a birth 
 Divine and sheltered from aristocratic 
 Pride, as on the one prophetic mirth 
 Of the great earth mother, thy extatic 
 Visions fed themselves even with sabbatic 
 And millennial dreams. As the years nursed 
 The infant and the new world's emphatic 
 Spirit grew up and self consciousness burst 
 Within them, thou didst scorn all ancient Attic 
 Greatness; and hovering above, eyed and versed 
 The democratic child and fed its spirit's thirst. 
 
 But thy enraptured and delirious hour 
 Was when the North arose and the earth's frame 
 Trembled and convulsed beneath thy looks of power. 
 Then thy presence like an embodied flame 
 Swept the land and kindled in the sires tame 
 Inheritors the fierce resistless fires 
 Of liberty. The low obscurest name 
 Rose up to manhood's high heroic ires, 
 Consumed to death before the darkest shame 
 That hell did ever cast on earth. The sires 
 Rose up again from death with thy new fed desires. 
 
266 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 When forth they went then at their hopeful head 
 Thy lightning form did into action guide, 
 Or down the front thy mighty wings outspread 
 For dearer than thy unforsaken bride 
 Are loyal hearts to thee. Though death did ride 
 Thee down at first thou art unconquerable most 
 When storms and strength thy mighty struggles hide. 
 Again ! Again ! Again ! Against the hell supported 
 
 boast 
 Thy lightning face burst on them, till terrified 
 They fled from thee by river, plain and coast 
 And left thee torn but proud of thy enfranchised host. 
 
 And even yet o'er those triumphant fields 
 Thy spirits pause and drink the deep delight 
 Such place and men unto thy nature yields. 
 The consecrated times and spots that light 
 A nation's path through foul engendering night 
 Are ever found where the unselfish fell 
 To bring the freer state. Such place is bright 
 Forever more and there the passions swell 
 Unto the wide distentions of thy might. 
 When there we look into the azure bell 
 Thy form doth on us flash with most immortal spell. 
 
 Thou with a magnanimity divine 
 Canst look from where thy sons are in their graves, 
 And dost embrace within thy best design 
 The peoples that would build upon the slaves; 
 Though their empire thou didst drive beneath the waves 
 Of darkness, death and curse. Thy kind desire 
 Encompassest the selfish blind, and saves 
 A remnant from their self-destroying ire; 
 And unto these thy spirit ever craves 
 To breathe the best regenerating fire 
 Of thy immortal heart, and may it all inspire ! 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 267 
 
 Thou dost sweep the boundaries of the nation, 
 Along the great lakes and forty-ninth line 
 Thou sailest slow with calmest meditation. 
 Down the Pacific coast thy watchful eyne 
 Notes every point with purposes divine. 
 Across the state and gulf of Mexico 
 A heavy weight upon thy spirits pine. 
 But up the strong Atlantic coast the glow 
 Of life in each metropolis like wine 
 Renews thy heart, and there thou dost bestow 
 New portions of thyself in thy soul's overflow. 
 
 Then straight across with motion calm and slow 
 Thy matchless form doth stately take her way, 
 And close to earth as if it fain would know 
 The trifles mere that on her line doth lay. 
 Thy searching eyes with their incessant play 
 Sees every city, hamlet, field and stream, 
 And every nook that hardly sees the day. 
 From east to west as goes the golden gleam 
 Of heaven and back again unto the Pilgrim's bay, 
 Thy light oft goes, and more than we can dream 
 Is gathered up to feed the hopes that in thee stream. 
 
 Then from the north, the vital giving north, 
 Where thou dost pause and turn unto the pole 
 As to invite their fury to burst forth ; 
 Then amply to the south but all thy soul 
 Reading the earth unto its heart, and the whole 
 Resourceful fund of that maternal plain 
 And treasures vast of silver, iron and coal 
 The mountain ranges hide in many a vein. 
 From north to south and back again as roll 
 The mighty waters, so thou art often fain 
 To sail and full survey the nation's heart and brain. 
 
268 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 Thy circuitous flight oft goes from state to state, 
 And especially where the representatives 
 Are council gathered to deliberate 
 The course and deed which has the high ascensives. 
 Upon some near and mighty throne that gives 
 Thee sun-inspection, thy penetrating eyes 
 Doth more than read the selfishness that lives 
 Behind the veil and in the slim disguise 
 Of freedom. The grains which thy celestial sives 
 Let fall are the nation's hope, nor ever dies 
 Out of their place in earth or place within the skies. 
 
 But thy common course is in the altitudes 
 Sublime of azure and the golden sun. 
 Upon those heights thy spirit lives and broods 
 Upon the nation; and more since it begun 
 Those circling sweeps of triumph that run 
 Like an ascending cone straight toward the throne 
 Of noonday. What victorious trophies won 
 From time and tyrants thine ! What dreams are shown 
 To thy immortal visions ! What nation 
 Like the nation thy high ideals own ! 
 And histories divine when these have been outgrown! 
 
 Thou hast nursed the nation to its height; 
 Thou hast purged away the dark dismembering curse ; 
 Thou dost supply the golden vision bright, 
 The far ideals upon us free unpurse. 
 If from such an infancy thou dost nurse 
 The greatness and the majesty that lends 
 This glory unto time and hope and verse, 
 It is not strange thy spirit often rends 
 The remnant of the ancient, ancient curse, 
 And with the great "to be," the present blends, 
 And lifts up all our hearts as thine own wide distends. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 269 
 
 This late expansion, prosperity and peace 
 Creates unrest for an earth encircling flight, 
 Beyond thy states that rise in grand increase. 
 Thy victorious citizen which the light 
 Of thine own glorious nature doth bedight 
 In giant stature, strength and character 
 Now travels all the earth. The time is right 
 To circumnavigate the globe and stir 
 To life the slumbering nations of the night; 
 To wake the dead and on the quick confer 
 The blessing more divine than frankincense and myrrh. 
 
 Then once around and far aloft on high; 
 With one vast sweep of all beholding sight; 
 With one vast tide of feeling that fills thy 
 Faith sustaining being; with one vast might 
 That girds thy frame with omnipotential right, 
 Then in the splendors of the setting sun 
 Thou vanishest from view. But as that soul of light 
 Descends the steps of heaven the watching nation 
 Beholds the west so insupportably bright 
 Some age anew seems gloriously begun 
 Or prophecies sublime of what may yet be won. 
 
 As thou dost near the Asiatic shore 
 And hoverest o'er the teeming populations 
 Of life's benumbing customs from the hoar 
 Antiquities, divinest agitations 
 Scarcely stir for thy enthroned creations 
 Are strange and far to their uplifted eyes. 
 All that thou art on thy celestial stations 
 Of spirit liberty can only raise 
 A dumb and sightless stare. Even on such nations 
 Some spirit sparks thou rainest from the skies 
 Some unborn hero soul to wake and energize. 
 
270 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 Still sailing west from thy sublime survey 
 Thou beholdest the bulwarked breasted tyrannies 
 Of Europe's far horizon. Thou obscurest day 
 For them, for their deformed indignities 
 On human kind awakes the all that is within 
 Within thy sunlike soul, and thy lightning dashes 
 Strike judgment on the crimson principalities. 
 In the darkness gigantic fear lashes 
 The throne and powers down, down to the abyss. 
 Within the trodden, sparkless, cindered ashes 
 A dream that fell from thee with life electric flashes. 
 
 But farther west ; Oh what a boundless shout 
 Doth shake the earth ! as the nations that conceived 
 And cradled liberty in many a route 
 By sea and land and mount have now relieved 
 The transendental energies they received 
 By thy supreme and infinite delight ! 
 Their spirits mount to thee as stones are heaved 
 By the titanic, omnipotential might 
 Of the earth's volcanic heart; or as a grieved 
 Liberator beholds the vision bright, 
 Attracted is or flies to thee upon the height. 
 
 England, the mother of the modern world, 
 The first defense of man's inherent right, 
 The Gibraltar strength that oft has hurled 
 The tyrants and the tyrannies of might 
 Into the gulf, is so shaken by the sight 
 Of thy congenial spirit that her foundations 
 Seem to break from Europe's chain of might. 
 By thy inspire and glorious exaltations 
 Even her dead arise. In armor bright 
 With mighty shouts that shake the elder nations 
 They watched the western flight of thy world ambulations. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 271 
 
 Never yet did the morning's opening eyes 
 Behold the sun ascend the restless ocean 
 With gladder heart than when thy sons arise 
 To welcome thee from thy long ceaseless motion 
 That resteth not but with thy heart's devotion. 
 Traffic, pleasure, prosperity and pride 
 Are disenchanted, and every common notion 
 Doth yield its place unto the mighty tide 
 That swelleth up with infinite emotion. 
 What gratitude and admiration ride 
 To meet thee on thy course and follow at thy side ! 
 
 Then straight to Washington: upon the cloud- 
 Like summit of that renowned Corinthian 
 Pillar raised for thee thy mighty wings are bowed 
 To rest again among thy closest kin. 
 That congregated host which thou dost win 
 Look not to thee with more divine desires 
 Than thou on them and theirs; for not within 
 The whole round earth are better sons and sires, 
 Or freer states though all are touched with sin. 
 Not yet are we to the height of thy aspires 
 Yet here thy bosom feels most kindred to thy fires. 
 
 If perchance upon a summer night 
 Thou lightest on a metropolitan dome, 
 What hosts of men would pause before the sight, 
 And wives and children leave the unsuppered home 
 To crowd the square as in the days of Rome : 
 What reverence and new allegiance would be shown 
 To thee, while on their spirits thou wouldst tome 
 The world's best lore. If one should thee disown, 
 Or by a word or look would dare uncomb 
 A feather from thy breast, tiger rage full grown 
 Would asunder instant tear the desecration shown. 
 
272 MISCELLANEO US SONGS 
 
 Nor dost thou disdain the church. Upon her spire 
 That in the nearest thing to heaven on earth, 
 Thou often dost alight. The worshippers choir 
 Thy praise with next to their sublimest mirth, 
 Which thou acceptest well, for the church's birth 
 Disowns thee not but their God-victorious might 
 Has fought thy battles and given both the girth 
 And center of hell's kingdom to thy right. 
 Yea ! When thou seekest strength and weight and worth 
 Thou seekest not in the nation's men of height 
 But in his high born sons whom God makes free and 
 bright. 
 
 O'er the college thou pausest in thy flight 
 And searchest here for those immortal hopes 
 Which thou canst stir with passion's golden might 
 To lead the state that often blindly gropes 
 Or staggers and is lost upon the slopes 
 Of life. The spirit of intelligence 
 Is close and kin to thee; and ever opes 
 The eyes and feeds the heart with such intense 
 Passionate devotions, that life's envelopes 
 Which ever blind the creatures of the sense 
 Can never blind her sons though storms are dark and 
 dense. 
 
 Here and there beneath the morning's smile 
 Stand bands of hopes around a virgin face. 
 They search the sky till through a cloud's defile 
 She points a speck, which found they faintly trace 
 Its motions. What shouts of gladness embrace 
 The vision new on life's young infant eyes? 
 But thou descendest, and thy celestial grace 
 Burns to the soul the soul that in thee lies. 
 How oft ! How oft along their mortal race ! 
 They watch the azure splendors of the skies 
 Where though for moments lost thy presence on them 
 flies. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 273 
 
 When two score seasons into music chime 
 And give the soul distentions of the years; 
 With knowledge of the tyrannies of time 
 And gratitude's divine unbidden tears; 
 With service to thy spirit in the spheres 
 And love to all that makes thee what thou art; 
 With faith above whatever now appears 
 They stand again and on the skies they chart 
 Thy presence. Under thee a state rears 
 Itself and feeds from thy divinest heart 
 True spirit liberty and all thou dost impart. 
 
 Once more they stand with four-score winter snows 
 Upon their heads and lift their eyes to thee, 
 For in their hearts thy vital spirit glows 
 And maketh age the dawn of immortality: 
 Once more before they pass away to be- 
 Come citizens of the cosmopolitan state 
 Of strength and truth and love and purity 
 That somewhere must unbosom wide its gate 
 Among the stars of vast eternity, 
 They solemn pause and their spirits satiate 
 With thy immortal powers no night of death can weight. 
 
 As once on Gettysburg stood the one great 
 Heroic figure of a hundred years, 
 And round him close his ministers of state 
 And soldier chiefs rejoicing though in tears : 
 Aloft they looked and through a cloud of fears 
 Thy form they then beheld in glorious flight 
 Straight toward the sun, or toward the blinded spheres 
 That brighter shine beyond the noonday's sight. 
 Though blood and death upon their eyes and ears 
 The prophet's eye in vastest lines of light 
 Sought then to map thy course upon the boundless height. 
 
274 MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 
 
 So would the soul of the regenerated state 
 Which has been born and fed and fired by thee 
 Penetrate into the future and antedate 
 The triumphs and the courses yet to be. 
 But Oh alas ! The sad infirmity 
 Of time's destructive selfishness doth blind 
 And stay the visions of eternity. 
 What is to be is curtained from the mind 
 Of wisdom and all but those who live to see; 
 Still deep desire within a course has signed 
 Of presence, power and rule among our human kind. 
 
 Drink deep ! Drink deep the radiance of the morn ! 
 Baptize thy soul in the east and western sea ! 
 The north and south pass into thee unshorn ! 
 Within the sun thy flight still nearer be, 
 And circle in the calm eternity ! 
 The elemental essences that free 
 Themselves upon the azure altitudes 
 Oh absorb them all in thrice-fold purity ! 
 Be thou forever throned where liberty broods 
 Upon the times of high futurity ! 
 Scatter golden hopes and dreams in multitudes 
 To singf unto the earth millennial interludes ! 
 
 Where e'er the sight of the enthroned oppressor 
 In all the earth shall strike thy Mindless eyes : 
 Wherever freedom rises the redressor 
 To sell themselves in glorious sacrifice : 
 Behold ! Behold ! and from thy azure skies 
 Dart like a lightning bolt upon thy foes, 
 And free the accumulated judgment that flies 
 Like an avalanche of wrath and overthrows 
 The purple dynasties. Oh energize 
 The births divine with richest overflows 
 Than they have ever dreamed or strongest mo AlfknoW 
 
MISCELLANEOUS SONGS 275 
 
 Break thou the barriers that circumscribe 
 Thy territorial lines, and emancipate 
 Thy spirit's domination to every tribe 
 Of the vast and guardianed globe, though their estate 
 Be high or low. The whole terrestrial weight 
 Of empire do thou sustain and be the breast 
 And mighty heart that passion palpitates 
 The citizen of the world. Be thou possessed 
 Of the universal heart and thou it mate 
 With the cosmopolitan kingdom of the blessed, 
 Still leading up the world unto its final rest. 
 
 Then far aloft within the golden sun, 
 Thy spirit's circles in a course diurnal 
 Around the globe forever more Oh run ! 
 Rain thou upon the host the high maternal 
 Inspirations to write earth's daily journal 
 And nurture up the godlike mind and breast 
 Of immortality. Rain ! Rain the vernal 
 Recreations in and round the race of unoppressed 
 And liberated man. The great supernal 
 Soul of splendor with pure effulgence blest 
 Upon thy world and works forever more will rest. 
 
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