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GARLANDS AND WAYFARINGS 
 
r 
 
ARLANDS AND 
 WAYFARI NGS 
 
 BY WILLIAM ASPENWALL 
 BRADLEY ^ 
 
 PORTLAND MAINE 
 
 THOMAS BIRD MOSHER 
 
 MDCCCCXVII 
 
 (^,-5 
 
 ^^^^ 
 
 <?w= 
 
,> 0-, 
 
 
 
 COPYRIGHT 
 THOMAS BIRD MOSHER 
 
 19 1 7 
 
 OCT -6 1317 
 
 ©C;.A47 6404 -' 
 
TO GRACE 
 
The poem entitled " In a Garden Book " was writ- 
 ten as a dedication to an anthology entitled The 
 Garden Muse, but was first printed in Scribner's 
 Magazine, where "To Little Renee" also appeared. 
 " Roses of Paestum" was reprinted by Mr. Mosher 
 from Ptiinam's Maga:[ine, in tlie front of a volume of 
 essays entitled Roits of Paestum, by Edward McCurdy, 
 (iqij). Other poems have appeared in The Century, 
 McClure's, The American, The International, East and 
 West, Hampton's, The Poetry Review, and the Boston 
 Evening Ttanscript. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 ROSES OF PAESTUM 
 
 3 
 
 RAVELLO SOPR' AMALFI 
 
 5 
 
 JEAN MOREAS .... 
 
 9 
 
 THREE MODERN SHEPHERDS . 
 
 16 
 
 TO HIS FRIEND 
 
 23 
 
 TO LITTLE RENEE . '^ . 
 
 27 
 
 IN A GARDEN BOOK 
 
 30 
 
 WINDOW GARDENS 
 
 33 
 
 POETA IN URBE 
 
 35 
 
 JANE ADDAMS 
 
 36 
 
 SUMMER 
 
 38 
 
 AUTUMN 
 
 41 
 
 TO A LADY .... 
 
 43 
 
 TO KERRY .... 
 
 45 
 
 THE ISLAND .... 
 
 46 
 
 vii 
 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 GARLAND FOR A YOUNG GIRL: 
 I: THE TWO DOROTHYS . 
 II: "love and the STARS" 
 III : A PARISIAN PAPER DOLL 
 IV: ISLAND TEA . 
 V: SANCTA URSULA . 
 IN A CHILD-BOOK . 
 
 SONNETS OF PLACES: 
 
 I: THE OLD WORLD . 
 II: VENICE . 
 
 III : ALPINE . 
 
 IV : WATERLOO . 
 V : MARCHE AUX FLEURS 
 
 ON A SEINE STEAMER . 
 ON THE CONNECTICUT : I 
 ON THE CONNECTICUT: II 
 OUR ENGLISH SPEECH 
 ON THE HEIGHTS 
 THE THRUSH . 
 IMPRESSION 
 THE FAIRING . 
 HIS BOOK . 
 
 vui 
 
GARLANDS AND WAYFARINGS 
 
ROSES OF PAESTUM 
 
 V/^OU brought to Paestum roses, 
 
 -■■ And in Poseidon's plain 
 A crumbling wall encloses, 
 You made them bloom again 
 About his mighty fane. 
 
 Each temple with your dower 
 Was decked a lovely bower. 
 
 Red roses, yea, you brought them, 
 
 With roses white as snow, 
 
 And like Greek gardeners taught them 
 
 To stand in many a row 
 
 And their sweet scents to throw. 
 
 Virgil, Ausonius, 
 
 Did see and smell them thus. 
 
 From love's most secret places, 
 You brought them all with you, 
 That in these wide waste spaces, 
 Gardens might spring anew 
 And with pink petals strew 
 
 The sultry azure floor 
 
 Thetis' white feet explore. 
 
Perchance those frowning mountains 
 Seeing, shall cease to frown, 
 And from their rock-sealed fountains 
 Clear crystal streams send down 
 To lave that roseate crown, 
 And keep those roses fair 
 Your love has planted there. 
 
RAVELLO SOPR' AMALFI 
 
 [\/TY dear, it seems so long ago 
 
 That, from rock-perched Episcopo, 
 We watched the Hghts come out below, 
 
 The steep slopes climbing ; 
 Then, on the evening air, a breeze, 
 Stirred with the scent of lemon trees, 
 And magic of old memories, 
 
 Heard clear bells chiming. 
 
 And knew that, as each tolling ended. 
 And silence with sweet silence blended, 
 Christ's steps, led by the lights, ascended 
 
 The rocky stair ; 
 Till, like a crested comber leaping. 
 The surge of sound and light went sweeping 
 Above us, left the valley sleeping, 
 
 Safe in His care. 
 
 And you were sick for many a day. 
 And while in darkened room you lay. 
 You could not see the sunlight play. 
 Bright booty spilling 
 
Through every space of leafy shade 
 Rose arbors on our terrace made, 
 Unless a wandering sunbeam strayed, 
 Your casement filling. 
 
 You could not even turn your head 
 Towards that quiet corner where I read 
 And watched, in the green garden bed, 
 
 Green lizards crawling — 
 Your lizards, Horace, who didst praise 
 Them oft, lacerta: virides, 
 Whilst, like Dragone, charmed your days 
 
 A brave brook brawling. 
 
 Yet though at first your steps were slow, 
 It was not long ere you could go. 
 My dear, to see that Rufolo, 
 
 Whose Moorish court. 
 Whose arching gateway, and whose towers. 
 Whose murmuring fountain, and whose bowers, 
 Smooth greensward, and gay garden flowers, 
 
 Still charm our thought. 
 
 Or where, across the narrow stream, 
 Once-lordly Scala stood in dream 
 And watched gray olive groves agleam. 
 We mounted high ; 
 
Till, far beyond Ravello, spread 
 The great gulf, azure-carpeted, 
 And each rose mountain reared its head, 
 Against the sky. 
 
 Then last, one evening, when the moon 
 Swung low aloft in golden swoon, 
 We wandered, and we heard the croon 
 
 Of nightingales. 
 Or were they souls of lovers there, 
 Whose voices shed upon the air 
 Voluptuous music, sweet despair, 
 
 In those deep vales ? 
 
 For it was sure a region haunted, 
 That cedarn chasm, dream-enchanted, 
 As ever yet to mortals granted 
 
 In love to tread. 
 Ah, was it then so long ago 
 We walked, and felt the magic grow. 
 With many a ghostly Atflito, 
 
 And girl long dead ? 
 
JEAN MORfiAS 
 (1856-1910) 
 
 Tot qui mhtes les Muses grecques, 
 Aux rivages de la Seine et du Loire, 
 A fin qu'elles dan sent avecques 
 Les Sylphes et les Fees, aux sons 
 De tes ro7nanes chansons. 
 
 POEMES ET SILVES. 
 
 ■OREAS, too early dead, 
 Tell me, has your spirit fled 
 To the Grecian groves you left 
 Of your voice and songs bereft, 
 While you led the rustic dance 
 
 In the pleasant Isle of France? 
 
 Or does it return again 
 
 To the meadows of the Seine, 
 
 To the windings of the Loire, 
 
 Where, entranced, you sought before 
 
 River nymphs, and satyrs, too. 
 
 All the ribald woodland crew 
 
 Ronsard and his fellows brought 
 
From your Hellas, when she taught 
 Them to build a loftier rhyme 
 Than in Marot's elder time? 
 
 Strange that you should come so far, 
 Like a mage, led by a star, 
 Gods of your own land to find. . . 
 Strange that you should choose to bind 
 Gallic myrtles on a brow 
 Should adorn Parnassus now, 
 Had you hymned in Pindar's home, 
 Had you never thought to roam 
 Save on honeyed Hybla's side, 
 By Alpheus' shrunken tide. 
 Or within the Muses' grove. . . 
 
 I have dreamed if you did love, 
 With such love, an alien shore, 
 '1' was because some blood you bore 
 From that bright chivalric band 
 Reared their power upon your strand. 
 Set their castles, gray and gaunt. 
 By each secret sylvan haunt 
 Sacred to the great God Pan, 
 Over classic meadows ran 
 Tilting, till hoar woods resounded, 
 And the lurking fauns, astounded. 
 Peered, to watch, with timorous gaze. 
 Glint of steel and pennons' blaze. 
 And, in high uplifted bowers, 
 Ladies ranged in ranks like flowers. 
 
Thus, while dukes and princes flourished 
 On the soil Greek heroes nourished 
 With their blood, and Athens grew 
 Proud, and old Achaia drew 
 Youthful Europe to her court, 
 Some bewitched Crusader brought 
 To his high-perched castle keep 
 Her, whom watching in her sleep. 
 He devoured with hungry eyes — 
 Scarce could wait for her to rise 
 To declare his great desire. . . 
 She your mother, he your sire, 
 In that old romantic age. 
 In their hall, with squire and page. 
 You, of Prankish troubadours, 
 Heard the songs, and made them yours. 
 
 Not in exile, thus you went 
 Westward, but as one content 
 His old fatherland to see — 
 Vendomois or Burgundy, 
 Artois, Dauphine, Lorraine — 
 To your heart the call was plain. 
 Though you nothing knew of all 
 I have dreamed, of keep and hall, 
 Frankish lord and Grecian maid. 
 Lovers in some templed glade. . . 
 
 Once your boast, by rites you knew. 
 Bees of Greece, on flowers new, 
 Should the hives of France despoil. 
 
.Thus, with patient bee-like toil, 
 You each half-despised flower 
 In the old French muses' bower 
 Pressed, and of the drop it bore, 
 •Made it yield the precious store. 
 Bearing thence your booty home. 
 You amassed the golden comb 
 Of your verses spiced and sweet 
 With rare word and quaint conceit. 
 
 So would I hive in my rhyme 
 Honey of our early prime. 
 Some from wilding ballads, some 
 From that bright Elisium 
 Sturdy Drayton did devise 
 For his Muses' Paradise, 
 Some from pretty humble " posies," 
 Some from prouder poets' roses. 
 Sucking sweetness everywhere. 
 Till my sack no more could bear. 
 And, since once our bards did love 
 Over fields of France to rove. 
 Poet, guide my winged flight 
 To Provengal meadows dight 
 With the bright brief flowers of spring. 
 Then, where Ronsard's pine is king. 
 Let me see his ivy cling 
 Round some oak, and let me see 
 His fresh fountain, Bellerie, 
 By the forest of Gastine, 
 
And the sward enamelled green 
 
 Where he with Cassandra strayed 
 
 And Marie, the little maid, 
 
 That, from flowers their feet have trod, 
 
 I, drunk like a lyric God, 
 
 Drops of nectar may distil. 
 
 For this boon, dead bard, I will 
 Pray that you shall ever go 
 With Du Bellay and Belleau, 
 All that singing Pleiad band 
 In the dim Elysian land 
 Strown with starry asphodels. 
 Where the soul of Virgil dwells. 
 Than all other shades more dear, 
 Greek, to you, and you shall hear 
 Agelong sweet discourse of these, 
 Pindar, too, and Sophocles, 
 Whose high buskin you did don. 
 And his tragic mask put on — 
 You, Greek poet, with Latin lyre. 
 Last to join that hymning choir. 
 
 13 
 
NOTE 
 
 JEAN MOREAS, or Papadiamantopoulos, (Mor^as being a 
 pseudonym,) belonged to two great Greek families. His 
 grandfather, on his father's side, died lieroically, like Byron, 
 at the seige of Missolonghi, while his mother's father, Tombaris, 
 like Canaris, won immortal renown by burning the Turkish fleet. 
 Several members of the poet's family, including his father, held, or 
 still hold, high rank in the Greek army, parliament, and courts of 
 justice. His own early infancy was passed at Marseilles, and his 
 education at Athens was exclusively French. At Paris he studied 
 law desultorily for a time, being intended by his father for the 
 magistracy ; but he soon drifted into the artistic and literary circles 
 of the Quartier Latin, where he became a leader of Les Jeunes. In 
 i88 J he published his first contributions in La Nouvelle Rive Gauche, 
 which later took the name of Lutece. His initial book of verse, 
 Les Syrtes, appeared in 1884, and was followed by Les Cantilinti, in 
 18S6, Le Pelhin PaaionS, in i8gi, Eriphyle, in 1894, Poiiies, 1884- 
 1896, in 1896, and Lri Stanccf, in igoi-igo2. In 1894 also appeared 
 Iphigenie, a tragedy in five acts, which was first produced August 24, 
 1903, in the Theatre antique, at Orange, and repeated later the same 
 year on the stage of the Odeon. He published two novels in 
 collaboration with Paul Adam, a collection of Conies de la l^iellc 
 France, a modernized text of Jean de Paris, and several volumes 
 of trarel, reminiscence, and literary criticism. The influence of 
 Baudelaire and Verlaine was felt in Moreas' earliest verse, as 
 in that of so many of his generation ; but the individual note 
 was unmistakable from the start, and he became one of the 
 founders of the Ecole Symboliite, in support of which he published 
 a famous manifesto in the Supplement du Figaro ( September 18, 
 1886). In i8gi, simultaneously with the appearance of Le Pel^rin 
 Passione, which established his poetic reputation, and which was 
 prefaced with another manifesto, he founded a second school — 
 the Ecole Remane. The name indicates the direction of Moreas' 
 
 14 
 
tastes and tendencies. " He has been nourished on our old romans 
 lie chevalerie," wrote M. Anatole France in the Temps, "and it 
 seems as if he wished to know the gods of ancient Greece only 
 under the refined aspect they assumed on the banks of the Seine 
 and the Loire at the time of the Pleiade. . . M. Mordas is one of 
 the seven stars of the new Pleiade. I regard him as the Ronsard 
 of Symbolism." 
 
 It may be necessary to remind some readers that the Franks, or 
 French, who, in the Fourth Cmsade, took Constantinople and 
 established there the Latin Empire, also completely over-ran the 
 Greek peninsula, which they colonized on a feudal basis. The story 
 of this Frankish domination is one of the most fascinating, though 
 unfamiliar, in medieval history. Those who may be curious to 
 learn more of that romantic age, when Frankish Athens fought 
 Frankish Sparta, and the French historian, Villehardouin, ruled as 
 baron in Arkadia, are referred to the most recent work on the 
 subject, The Latins in the Levant, by William Miller, M. A. 
 
 IS 
 
THREE MODERN SHEPHERDS IN PRAISE 
 OF THEIR LOVES 
 
 COLIN 
 
 ^^ CHEPHERDS, I have seen a girl — 
 '^ Little rounded teeth of pearl, 
 Eyes, twin sources of the light 
 That dissolves the summer night. 
 Like an urn, from foot to head 
 Was her vital beauty fed 
 By each firmly flowing line — 
 Amphora to hold love's wine. 
 Soft her skin, of smoothest grain. 
 Like the tender porcelain 
 Of some rare imperial vase. 
 Softly dusk and dull the glaze. 
 White, 't was warm, not v, an and cold. 
 Tints of ambergris and gold 
 Glowed beneath the satin skin 
 Rippling over cheek and chin, 
 Neck and forehead. Only where, 
 Curving down, her cope of hair 
 'Twixt two dreams a margin made, 
 
 i6 
 
Did she take a deeper shade, 
 Tender tones of bistre and umber, 
 Signs of secret fires that skimber. 
 
 Do you ask how she was dressed ? 
 In the white beseemed her best, 
 Since it gave the warmest note 
 To her hair and hands and throat. 
 Round her neck, her gown cut low. 
 Seemed half melting, like the snow 
 On a summer mountain side, 
 Nor could all its cunning hide 
 Glimpses of the twin doves' nest 
 That still other charms confessed. 
 
 In her little toque were set 
 Feathers of a white aigrette. 
 Skilful hands had aptly traced, 
 In the texture of her waist, 
 Open arabesques that drew. 
 From within, a vital hue 
 Making all those flowers live 
 With a truth no art could give. 
 So, to all she wore she gave 
 Life, and it became her slave, 
 As with me, who did but view her. 
 Wishing I were something to her. 
 Belt or buckle, aught that presses 
 Hand or foot or waist or tresses." 
 
 17 
 
CORYDON 
 
 " Colin, we have listened long 
 To your euphuistic song. 
 Rather connoisseur than lover, 
 Over all those charms you hover, 
 More intent upon the neat 
 Turn of fancy and conceit. 
 Than upon the living creature. 
 Thus you miss the note of nature. 
 Doubtless she you praise is fair. 
 Yet, I think, will not compare 
 With the real and breathing beauty 
 Whom I deem it now my duty 
 In her pride to set before you. 
 Such another never saw you. 
 In a tulip garden she 
 Sheba's dusky queen would be, 
 Whom they say Dutch gardeners prize 
 O'er all others. Black her eyes, 
 Black as midnight is her hair 
 That a pleasant perfumed air 
 From its mystery exhales. 
 Such as swells the tawny sails 
 Swarthy sailors set and trice, 
 Cruising through the Isles of Spice. 
 From those gardens of the earth 
 She perchance derived her birth. 
 Tall and straight, from brow to knees. 
 Supple, lithe young Javanese 
 
Has not hands and feet more slender, 
 Or a gaze more fiercely tender. 
 
 If you ask me of her dress, 
 Shepherds, I must straight confess 
 That my eyes took little note 
 What she wore. There seemed to float 
 Round her head a filmy veil 
 Powdered o'er with silver pale, 
 Like a swarm of bees that cling 
 To one branch. A crimson wing 
 Cut across an oval cheek 
 Where the warm blood strove to speak. 
 Of her garments, every fold 
 Amorously sought to mold 
 Her young body. It was plain 
 With what delicate disdain 
 She that maiden raiment wore 
 All our other maids adore. 
 Finding little to her mind 
 Women's clogging weeds should bind 
 Limbs that could outspeed the wind. 
 
 Yet she moved with such a grace, 
 Atalanta in the race, 
 Barelegged, tunic kilted high, 
 Could not hope with her to vie. 
 As among the maids she moved ; 
 And I, looking on her, loved." 
 
 19 
 
WILLY 
 
 " Corydon, methinks I see 
 Leanings in you towards Loti. 
 While your island princess, too, 
 Might be some Miss Rarahu. 
 So you paint her, but beware 
 Lest your fancy set a snare. 
 It can, in this girl you favor. 
 Make you taste the acrid savor 
 Of exotic loves — illusion 
 That can lead to your confusion. 
 She I love cannot deceive me. 
 Shepherds, ye may well believe me. 
 For no subtleties of art 
 Witch my eyes and wrong my heart. 
 You and Colin both rehearse 
 Praise too precious or perverse. 
 I shall sing my lady's praises 
 In the simplest words and phrases. 
 
 Thus it is I shall begin : 
 She is neither thick nor thin, 
 She is neither short nor tall. 
 But in each thing she is all 
 That a woman most should be. 
 Made for love, and made for me. 
 
 How shall I go on to paint 
 One not wanton nor a saint ? 
 Who, in every pain or pleasure, 
 
 20 
 
Doth observe the truest measure? 
 Who is not all loose untied, 
 Nor still bound by petty pride? 
 Who, not bold nor yet o'er nice. 
 Gives the smallest favor price, 
 Yet doth not too long withhold 
 Even the greatest. Calm, not cold. 
 Gentle, tender, loving, kind. 
 Troubled sense, untroubled mind. 
 Woman in her nature whole, 
 Who not has, but is, a soul ? 
 
 Most the sight of her I prize 
 When for mine, not others', eyes. 
 She is dressed, nor greatly cares 
 If the silk and lace she wears, 
 Straightly fall in folds discreet 
 Or, withdrawn about her feet. 
 Show them slim and white and bare 
 Thrust in little shoes of vair 
 Seen half slipping from the heel — 
 If a snowy shoulder steal 
 From her scarf, half caught awry, 
 With a charming coquetry. 
 All unconscious. She 's above 
 Arch device to foster love. 
 
 If you 'd see what candour lies 
 In her soul, look in her eyes, — 
 Orbs as clear and innocent. 
 As a naiad ever bent 
 
 21 
 
O'er a lucent woodland pool : 
 Hint of waters brown and cool, 
 Hint of fern and hint of tree. 
 Hint of forest mystery ; 
 And, if there be hint of fire, 
 'T is child's wonder and desire 
 Lodged within this woman's breast, 
 Where it makes her love the best; 
 Since, both passionate and pure. 
 Fresh it springs, and will endure." 
 
TO HIS FRIEND 
 
 WHO HAD ADDRESSED HIM IN THE WORDS OF 
 
 DANTE ALIGHIERI TO GUIDO CAVALCANTE 
 
 DEI CAVALCANTI 
 
 '' I ""O Guido, Alighieri sends 
 
 -■■ This greeting : " First among my friends 
 I hold you now," and naught remiss, 
 Guido straightway replies to this : 
 " Nothing to you in friendship's field 
 Doth my steadfast affection yield. 
 No whit less warm, of yours it may 
 Match the duration to a day, 
 Unless 'tis true that love can start 
 Only within the gentle heart. 
 For mine no gentle heart at first, 
 But with fell rudeness was accursed. 
 Whilst yours, still gentle, sheltered love 
 Within 'the green shade of its grove.' 
 Yet mine attests love can no less 
 Give rudest hearts a gentleness, 
 Since, won by love, I now forgive 
 Each Guelph and gladly let him live. 
 Though I admit my ancient hate 
 Would still require a private grate 
 
 23 
 
In your Inferno for some few 
 
 Who shall be roasted through and through, 
 
 If I can only gain the ear 
 
 Of some kind Devil standing near. 
 
 For love to hate is close allied, 
 And like twin moons they hold my tide 
 In check; nor could I love so well, 
 Did not my hatred reach to Hell, 
 Like Cecco's; though I think 'tis said 
 He quite forgave his father — dead. 
 And leaving wealth for him to spend. 
 A venal hatred ! But an end ! 
 Enough — too much — of this tirade ! 
 Of softer stuff my thoughts were made. 
 As Guinicelli's canzon steered, 
 Until by chance my vessel veered 
 Out of its course, ere scarce begun — 
 ' Love and the gentle heart are one,' 
 With the other Guido you agreed — 
 So stands the law, by both decreed. 
 And if there still be aught to say. 
 We '11 have it out another day. 
 Though, if your dearest lady should 
 For playing Brahms be in the mood, — 
 That rhapsodic, wherein I found 
 In dulcet harmonies the sound 
 Of Spenser's voice ; or if, from slow. 
 Into a bright arpeggio 
 She swift her flying fingers sends. 
 
 24 
 
Till notes seem dripping from their ends, 
 
 And all one unslurred bird-song blends, — 
 
 Legato voice of violin, — 
 
 Then I shall cease and look within 
 
 Where, on the soul's encircling wall, 
 
 I see transfigured pastoral, 
 
 The nymphs of Botticelli's 'Spring,' 
 
 Old Pan, and little Loves on wing, 
 
 Armida's magic Bower of Bliss 
 
 Where glamoured knights stoop swift to kiss, 
 
 Or that brave other island bower, 
 
 Where bold da Gama felt the power, 
 
 With all his men, of siren charms. 
 
 Yet chaste, ere taking in his arms 
 
 His captive, each his wife her made, 
 
 Then led apart in separate shade, — 
 
 An Eden mild and innocent. 
 
 But if each scene by music sent, 
 
 Even briefly thus I did rehearse, 
 
 ' T would swell the measure of my verse 
 
 Beyond all bounds. But one I see, — 
 
 Bellini painted it for me,— 
 
 Two children on the steps of Heaven 
 
 'Neath Mary Mother's throne are given 
 
 Sweet instruments : the one draws slow 
 
 Across the treble strings the bow. 
 
 The other holds against her knee 
 
 A 'cello nigh as tall as she, 
 
 A figure rapt, seraphical. 
 
 25 
 
The painter must have seen this small 
 Young saint, have seen her inward smile, 
 As if, intent, she heard the while, 
 From crystal spheres, strange music ring, 
 And winged quires their chorales sing, 
 Now high, now low, so sweet, so clear, 
 Her head is half upturned to hear 
 The notes of that celestial chime. 
 As one small foot still beats the time." 
 
 26 
 
TO LITTLE RENfiE 
 
 ON FIRST SEEING HER LYING IN HER CRADLE 
 
 Y^^HO is she here that now I see, 
 
 This dainty new divinity, 
 Love's sister, Venus' child ? She shows 
 Her hues, white lily and pink rose, 
 And in her laughing eyes the snares 
 That hearts entangle unawares. 
 Ah, woe to men if Love should yield 
 His arrows to this girl to wield 
 Even in play, for she would give 
 Sore wounds that none might take and live. 
 Yet no such wanton strain is hers. 
 Nor Leda's child and Jupiter's. 
 For she was born beside the rill 
 That gushes from Parnassus' hill, 
 And by the bright Pierian spring 
 She shall receive an offering 
 From every youth who pipes a strain 
 Beside his flocks upon the plain. 
 But I, the first, this very day, 
 Will tune for her my humble lay, 
 Invoking this new Muse to render 
 
 27 
 
iMy oaten reed more sweet and tender, 
 Within its vibrant hollows wake 
 Such dulcet voices, for her sake, 
 As, curved hand at straining ear, 
 I long have stood and sought to hear. 
 Borne on the warm midsummer breeze, 
 With scent of hay and hum of bees. 
 Faintly from far-off Sicily. . . . 
 
 Ah, well I know that not for us 
 Are Virgil and Theocritus, 
 And that the golden age is past 
 Whereof they sang, and thou, the last, 
 Sweet Spenser, of their god-like line. 
 Soar far too swift for verse of mine 
 One strain to compass of your song. 
 Yet there are poets that prolong 
 Of your rare voice the ravishment 
 In silver cadences. Content 
 Were I, if I could but rehearse 
 One stave of Wither's starry verse. 
 Weave such wrought richness as recalls 
 Brittania's lovely Pastorals, 
 Or in some garden-spot suspire 
 One breath of Marvell's magic fire, 
 When, in the green and leafy shade, 
 He sees dissolving all that 's made. 
 
 Ah, little Muse, still far too high. 
 On weak clipped wings, my wishes fly. 
 
 28 
 
Transform them, then, and make them doves, 
 Soft-moaning birds that Venus loves, 
 That they may circle ever low 
 Above the abode where you shall grow 
 Into your gracious womanhood. 
 And you shall feed the gentle brood 
 Out of your hand — content they '11 be, 
 Only to coo their songs to thee. 
 
 29 
 
IN A GARDEN BOOK 
 
 (TO A. M. B.) 
 
 I O you who 've lived your life elate 
 -*■ In Marvell's happy garden state, 
 And doubtless see, with Milton's eyes, 
 Eden a flowery Paradise, 
 While every walk that you have trod 
 Was Enoch's walk, a walk with God, 
 To you this little book I bring 
 Wherein our English poets sing 
 Of all the pleasures they have found 
 In gardens grayly walled around, 
 Of tranquil toil and studious ease 
 'Mid flowers, shrubberies and trees. 
 For you old Cowley's wish have known 
 To have a garden of your own, 
 And having it, have plied that art 
 Which Temple calls the ladies' part. 
 So well, your skill might seem to be 
 A kind of gentle wizardry. 
 As still your flowers statelier grow, 
 And with a richer color glow 
 
 30 
 
Each summer, and perfume the air 
 More sweetly from each gay parterre. 
 
 Ah, I recall the city plot 
 That was your scanty garden spot 
 In other years, and yet your care 
 Made even those narrow beds to bear. 
 The narrower flinty walks between, 
 Such wealth of red and white and green. 
 That prouder gardens might have sighed, 
 Grown pale through envy, and so, died. 
 
 But now you hold your gentle sway 
 O'er a domain as broad as they. 
 Where you may tend, with tranquil mind, 
 The seeds and shoots and bulbs consigned 
 Each season to the garden soil ; 
 Till, reared by you with patient toil, 
 At length in flaunting rows they stand 
 And keep the order you have planned. 
 The low before, the tall behind, 
 Their colors mingled and combined, 
 Gay household troops in order drawn 
 As for review upon the lawn. 
 While you the colonel seem to me, 
 Of summer's splendid soldiery. 
 
 Each morn I see you as you pass 
 Before them o'er the dewy grass. 
 Their files inspecting, while your eye 
 Scans all with sharpest scrutiny. 
 For you, in all else mild, are yet 
 
 31 
 
In this one thing a martinet, 
 And woe to that gay grenadier 
 Whose cap of crimson shall appear 
 One shade less bright, — however tall, 
 His head into your ark must fall. 
 Not Prussian Frederick did school 
 His soldiers with such iron rule. 
 
 And yet they love you ; see how, mute. 
 They greet you with a loud salute. 
 From every slender trump and bell 
 A martial music seems to swell, 
 Which, though 't is lost to our dull ear, 
 I think your finer sense doth hear; 
 For you with music pass such hours 
 As are not given to your flowers, 
 Till blossoms spring among the keys. 
 And garden beds are symphonies. 
 
 32 
 
WINDOW GARDENS 
 
 T_TlGH above the squalid street 
 
 "■■ ■*■ Where the alien races meet, 
 
 Little gardens greet the eye 
 
 Of the careless passerby. 
 
 Hanging gardens, these, they shame 
 
 Those that shared a city's fame 
 
 Where they, flaunting, took the sun 
 
 On the walls of Babylon. 
 
 Here a window holds a box 
 
 Of geranium or phlox. 
 
 There another proudly shows 
 
 Pansy, aster, pink, or rose. 
 
 Through the swarming street, each spring, 
 
 Hucksters seeds and blossoms bring. 
 
 Every brightly burdened cart 
 
 Straight becomes a busy mart. 
 
 Eager hands that pay their pence. 
 
 Take the precious purchase thence 
 
 And, with many a pious care, 
 
 Little beds of soil prepare 
 
 To receive the tender shoots, 
 
 Press the earth about the roots, 
 
 33 
 
Work and water noon and night. 
 Oh unquenchable delight, 
 That in every heart doth spring, 
 To rear up some living thing ! 
 Wondrous heart of womankind. 
 That can such sweet solace find 
 For the bleak and bitter hours. 
 In this nurture of frail flowers ! 
 
 34 
 
POETA IN URBE 
 
 /'^UR gentle poet never dwelt apart, 
 
 ^^ Self-centered, in some lofty ivory tower ; 
 
 He did not sit at ease and bide the hour 
 
 When peace should reign, and greed forsake the mart. 
 
 No walls enclosed the garden of his art ; 
 
 The gardener, oft neglectful of that bower, 
 
 Left free to wander many a wilding flower 
 
 Sown by his soul, and watered by his heart. 
 
 But lo, a miracle ! The garden grew 
 
 Until it gained the borders of the town, 
 
 Surged up the stone-paved streets and filled the square. 
 
 It was as if, where'er he went, he drew 
 
 The wandering magic, brought the heavens down, 
 
 To cleanse the city's sin-polluted air. 
 
 35 
 
JANE ADDAMS 
 
 ^'^OD gave this woman grace to see 
 ^^ Life's most perplexing mystery : 
 The beauty that forever springs 
 In common, unregarded things, 
 And made her quick to understand 
 The soul's imperious demand 
 Through ways obscure of sin and crime, 
 Where lilies fester in the slime. 
 She knows the stir of youth is sweet 
 In children of the city street, 
 That sets the tender feet to dance 
 And seek the regions of romance. 
 What though the ways their fancies range, 
 Are ofttimes perilous and strange .'' 
 ' T is life itself that sets the snare 
 Whose bait is more than blood can bear, 
 With love and longing to be free. 
 She does not blame their errancy. 
 But they who make the need for play 
 A lure to lead young hearts astray, 
 ' T is they she visits with her scorn. 
 With pity, too, her heart is torn 
 
 36 
 
For men uprooted from their soil, 
 For women sunk in soulless toil. 
 And well she knows to lift each heart 
 With spell of some remembered art 
 That springs from spindle or from loom. 
 So, on the monstrous grime and gloom 
 Of our great cities, she has shed 
 A light of healing, and has fed 
 Lives hungrier for love than bread. 
 
 Another age would call a saint 
 This woman who grows never faint 
 In bearing burdens for her kind. 
 O brooding heart, O boundless mind. 
 That, reading deep, divines God's plan 
 Of perfect love, obscured by man ! 
 
 37 
 
SUMMER 
 
 \X /HEN all the roads are deep with dust, 
 
 ^ * When chestnut blossoms tinge with rust, 
 On every ridge, the forest's crown 
 And pour their plumy pollen down, 
 When droughts have burned the meadows brown 
 And drained most watercourses bare, 
 When honeysuckles scent the air. 
 And bees boom loud in every bower 
 But now, save at the twilight hour, 
 Through all the long, parched day, is heard 
 No more the song of any bird — 
 Song-sparrow, bob-o'-link, or thrush — 
 And on the noontide falls a hush. 
 When every breeze's listless breath 
 Is laden with a fiery death, 
 Then come with me and seek the cool 
 Moist margin of the hidden pool 
 That I, and I alone, have found 
 Fed by a stream whose tinkling sound 
 Makes silver music in the shade 
 Spread by a little forest glade, 
 And whose clear rippling waves distil, 
 
 38 
 
Beneath the leaves, a grateful chill. 
 
 There we shall rest ; and, if you choose, 
 
 The pool's shy god will not refuse 
 
 To welcome you within his tide. 
 
 Lay all your clinging lawns aside, 
 
 And, white upon the grassy rim. 
 
 Let first your foot, one slender limb. 
 
 The cool, caressing waters lave. 
 
 Then swiftly slip into the wave. 
 
 And let the lucent amber fold 
 
 Its flood around you, flecked with gold, 
 
 Down where bright pebbles gleam remote. . 
 
 Slow to the surface you shall float, 
 
 A vision of soft Cyprian foam. 
 
 And, since no Nymph has made her home 
 
 Within this fountain, you shall be 
 
 Its tutelar divinity, 
 
 Shall on its waters cast such spell. 
 
 That he who comes his thirst to quell, 
 
 Through your enchantment shall be kept. 
 
 By strange dreams haunted, nymphalept. 
 
 Straining beside all pools to see 
 
 Some fleeting, white-limbed mystery, 
 
 Bending above all brooks to trace 
 
 The shadowy features of a face 
 
 That tempts and taunts him, till its lure 
 
 Proves more than longing may endure. 
 
 And, drawn within her gleaming lair, 
 
 He dies entangled in her hair. 
 
 39 
 
So, with our fancies, we shall cheat 
 The raging dogstar's sultry heat. 
 Until the sun less straight shall send 
 His rays, then we shall homeward bend 
 Our steps reflective, tranquil, slow, 
 Well pleased to linger as we go. 
 To watch the fiery splendour fade, 
 And all the world return to shade. 
 
 40 
 
AUTUMN 
 
 ^^TOW shorter grow November days, 
 -*- ^ And leaden ponds begin to glaze 
 With their first ice, while every night 
 The hoarfrost leaves the meadows white. 
 Like wimples spread upon the lawn 
 By maidens who are up at dawn, 
 And sparkling diamonds may be seen 
 Strewing the close-clipped golfing green. 
 But the slow sun dispels at noon 
 The season's work begun too soon, 
 Bidding faint filmy mists arise 
 And fold in softest draperies 
 The distant woodlands, bleak and bare, 
 Until they seem to melt in air. 
 
 See how the sun turns all to gold, 
 Green tree trunks and brown garden mould. 
 The waving yellow grass, and all 
 Vine skeletons upon the wall. 
 Sere leaves that strew the forest floor. 
 The littered barnyard, and the store 
 Of sodden cornstalks, stacked in rows, 
 In fields where, through the stubble, shows 
 
 41 
 
Fresh verdure, gage of distant spring 
 And of fresh harvests it will bring. 
 
 Now, harvests o'er, his labors done, 
 The farm-boy shoulders bag and gun. 
 And saunters forth with slouching stride, 
 His nosing setter at his side. 
 To beat, in turn, each well-known cover, 
 For quail, for woodcock, or for plover. 
 And I, although no gun I bear, 
 Am oft abroad in this bright air; 
 For well I love the landscape thus, 
 When, wrapt in hazes luminous, 
 It lies no longer like a maid. 
 In springtime's modest green arrayed, 
 Or, like a matron, in dull dress 
 Of summer's dusty leafiness, 
 But like a tawny goddess lies, 
 In careless ease, beneath the skies. 
 And takes the sun's kiss on each breast — 
 Twin rounded hills — that copse a nest 
 Where love might linger with caresses ; 
 Those russet oak-leaves crown her tresses, 
 That, from their fillets loose unbound. 
 In rippling, yellow waves spread round 
 Her body splendid, shameless, bare, 
 That haunts this hungry autumn air. 
 
 42 
 
TO A LADY 
 
 No spring tior summer beauty hath such grace 
 As I have seeyi in one autumnal face. 
 
 JOHN DONNE. 
 
 I AONNE, in praising Herbert's mother, 
 
 ^-^ Looked perchance on such another 
 
 As this lady, who defies 
 
 Time and all harsh destinies. 
 
 Gaze, Utopist, if you 'd see 
 
 How the seasons did agree 
 
 In the garden world of man 
 
 Ere the Iron Age began — 
 
 Gaze upon this charmed face. 
 
 Where mild Winter doth embrace 
 
 Gay, ethereal, girlish Spring, 
 
 And rich Summer, lingering. 
 
 With grave Autumn takes her stand — 
 
 Autumn, that in this sweet land, 
 
 Free from froward frosts and fears, 
 
 But another spring appears. 
 
 While, beneath the filmy snow, 
 
 Freshest flowers chastely glow. 
 
 43 
 
Oft October days remember 
 More of April than December. 
 ' T is as if the dreaming earth 
 Felt the presage of a birth 
 Sweet, mysterious, divine. 
 So this lady's days decline 
 On a vision of fair youth. 
 Age's glory, not its ruth — 
 This is hers, for in her lies 
 Naught of age, save what is wise. 
 Gentle, gracious, and most kind. 
 Teach me. Muses, then to bind 
 With true worth this offering, 
 Since a loyal heart I bring 
 To her service. Hear my prayer, 
 O ye Powers, everywhere : 
 
 "Nature, cherish this delight. 
 Time, retard your restless flight, 
 Let this season long endure. 
 Winter comes with footsteps sure. 
 Wing not, then, with wanton haste. 
 Hours, to lay this garden waste. 
 Where, with wondering eyes, we see 
 F>uit, leaves, flowers, in one tree." 
 
 44 
 
TO KERRY 
 
 T ITTLE Kerry, dog of race, 
 
 ■'-' With your lean and whiskered face, 
 
 And your wistful velvet eyes 
 
 Ever turned in vague surmise 
 
 To divine your master's mood. 
 
 You the pains of puppyhood 
 
 Bore in vain, since your brief span 
 
 Never learned the perfect plan. 
 
 Foreordained, of dog and man. 
 
 You could never rightly guess 
 
 Why the hand that would caress, 
 
 Should in direst vengeance fall. 
 
 Yet you did not care at all. 
 
 Sprite of mischief, incarnate. 
 
 Naught your buoyance might abate, 
 
 And we see you now, on high, 
 
 Scamper through the starry sky, 
 
 Scaring spectral cats for play, 
 
 Where they lap the Milky Way. 
 
 45 
 
THE ISLAND 
 
 // is an isle under Ionian skies 
 Beautiful as a wreck of Paradise. 
 
 EPIPSYCHIDION. 
 
 ^^TOT under soft Ionian skies, 
 
 ■^ ^ But farther north, our island lies. 
 
 With sad mists shrouded half the year. 
 Yet southern skies were ne'er more blue 
 Than those, the summer solstice through. 
 
 That this sweet ocean world ensphere, 
 
 Where even on moonless, starless nights. 
 The heavens are still ablaze with lights 
 
 That swish and swing like curtains drawn 
 Across some dark, mysterious screen 
 Between the seen and the unseen. 
 
 Until they fade before the dawn. 
 
 It is an island cloaked with fir 
 And the low-spreading juniper. 
 
 With velvet moss and shining bay. 
 Gay every stone-strewn upland glows, 
 In summer, with the wilding rose. 
 
 Above the sea-cliffs, gaunt and gray. 
 
 46 
 
Twin darkly wooded arms enfold 
 A tiny cove, a cup to hold 
 
 The wandering clouds, the dreaming sky ; 
 While night by night the glimmering stars 
 And silver rippling moonbeam bars 
 
 Upon the quiet waters lie. 
 
 Above the cove, a little town 
 
 From house to house runs straggling down 
 
 With many a garden, white and red, 
 To where, beyond the whispering tide, 
 And old boats stranded on their side, 
 
 Brown nets upon the beach are spread. 
 
 One night, while all the houses slept, 
 A ship within the harbor crept. 
 
 And furled her sails and trimmed her spars. 
 And raised aloft her masthead light. 
 That dimmed, a beacon burning bright. 
 
 The dawn with all its paling stars. 
 
 Yet ere the morning mists had cleared. 
 Back on her outward course she steered. 
 
 Nor stayed to heed the island hail. 
 O'er the broad bosom of the bay 
 Her helmsman held his mystic way. 
 
 Though no breeze stirred her drooping sail. 
 
 47 
 
Sweet island, like an emerald set 
 In the sea's sapphire carcanet, 
 
 That breaks in diamonds on your shore, 
 Where snowy gulls slow circle round, 
 And night and day their hoarse cries sound 
 
 Above the sullen breakers' roar, 
 Bright on my thought your light shall stream, 
 A fairy isle, in seas of dream. 
 
 Though I shall never see you more. 
 
 48 
 
GARLAND FOR A YOUNG GIRL 
 
 I 
 THE TWO DOROTHYS 
 
 'TT^O Dorothy Grave said Dorothy Gay : 
 -*• " Bright lights beckon along the way. 
 Hark to the sound of the dancing feet. 
 Youth is a flame and life is sweet. 
 Gather the roses that bloom to-day," 
 To Dorothy Grave said Dorothy Gay. 
 
 To Dorothy Gay said Dorothy Grave : 
 "The moon sheds silver on every wave. 
 See where the flight of a falling star 
 Follows the foaming on reef and bar. 
 Roses may fade, but the Rose I will save," 
 To Dorothy Gay said Dorothy Grave. 
 
 49 
 
II 
 "LOVE AND THE STARS" 
 
 On the stars thou gaxest, my star ; 
 would I were heaven, that I might 
 look on thee with many eyes. 
 
 Plato (mackail). 
 
 /^N such a night did Plato stand 
 ^^ Upon a strip of silver sand 
 
 Beside the blue iEgean sea, 
 And watch the golden stars wheel high 
 Into the darkly glowing sky 
 
 That arches over you and me ? 
 
 Or did he note the radiant show 
 From some dim temple portico, 
 
 High on a hill above the tide; 
 Till, tired of tracking starry space, 
 He sought the youthful dreaming face 
 
 Of one there standing at his side? 
 
 5° 
 
So I seek yours, whose soul, intent, 
 Makes the night's silence eloquent, 
 
 And brings new worlds within my ken ; 
 When, lo, my spirit, soaring far. 
 Longs to look down from every star, 
 
 And Plato's poem is born again. 
 
 SI 
 
Ill 
 A PARISIAN PAPER DOLL 
 
 I ^OROTHY made me : with her skilful pen 
 
 "•"^ She shaped my slender elegance, and then, 
 
 From her inventive brain she fashioned frocks. 
 
 Taxing the wealth of her tin color-box. 
 
 Hats, muffs, bags, fans, and all things else beside, 
 
 Till I appeared a princess in my pride. 
 
 Now sends me here, that you once more may see. 
 
 In the enchanted mirror — memory — 
 
 Above the table with her patterns spread, 
 
 The little artist bend her golden head. 
 
 52 
 
IV 
 
 ISLAND TEA 
 
 ^^TOT though I grow old and gray, 
 -^ ^ In my heart no longer gay, 
 Shall I forget the day 
 
 Dorothy, 
 Island goddess young and fair. 
 With a Nereid's green-gold hair. 
 And a happy smiling air, 
 
 Made the tea. 
 
 Fresh from her bath she came, 
 And her glowing face aflame, 
 Made the summer sunset tame, 
 
 At the close 
 Of the tranquil afternoon, 
 When the still air seemed to swoon. 
 And the silver sickle moon 
 
 Swam in rose. 
 
 As each fragrant cup she drew 
 Of the lucent amber brew, 
 
 53 
 
At the table set for two, 
 
 O'er the cove, 
 She carefully slipped in 
 A slice of lemon thin, 
 Like a golden fish's fin, 
 
 And a clove. 
 
 Radiant, divinely bright. 
 Shining lily sheathed in white. 
 She made each simple rite 
 
 A magic spell. 
 That upon my senses crept. 
 Till it seemed as if I slept, 
 And Calypso's island kept 
 
 Me chained well. 
 
 Young sorceress, whose arts 
 Will soon ensnare all hearts. 
 And whose eyes will scatter darts 
 
 Barbed with blisses, 
 In your isle with trophies set. 
 Taken in your beauty's net, 
 Prithee do not quite forget 
 
 Your first Ulysses ! 
 
 54 
 
V 
 
 SANCTA URSULA 
 
 (AFTER CARPACCIO) 
 
 I HIS is her room, this is her narrow bed, 
 -■■ Whereon each night her golden hair is spread. 
 This is her glass, wherein each morn she looks, 
 These are her pictures, these are all her books. 
 These are her trinkets, trophies girlish, gay, 
 These are her toys she touches every day. 
 This is her desk, whereat she sits to write 
 Letters that make the day that brings them bright. 
 These are her fish, that swim in water clear. 
 This is her winged Love, she most holds dear. 
 This is her rug her eager feet have pressed. 
 This is her chair, wherein she sinks to rest 
 When wearied with some simple task or pleasure. 
 This is her clock, whose hands her young hours measure. 
 These are her walls, that hold her heart at home. 
 These are her windows, tempting her to roam. 
 This is, in fine, her world — no world more wide, 
 Since all her dreams start here, or here abide. 
 
 SS 
 
IN A CHILD-BOOK 
 
 Tn\EAR Sister, you with whom I crossed 
 ■*-^ The wondrous Realm of Make-Believe, 
 Though we have that child-magic lost 
 
 To make our little world receive 
 Convincing forms that fitted best 
 
 The flitting fancies of an hour, 
 And though we are well on the quest 
 
 That led us from the playroom bower ; 
 Yet have we chosen each an art. 
 
 Another Land of Make-Believe, 
 To which are given hand and heart 
 
 In brave endeavor to achieve 
 Success, perhaps some little fame. 
 
 And these, my dear, are in our reach, 
 If we can fare back whence we came 
 
 In spirit; for the child can teach. 
 In its quaint outlook on the world. 
 
 And wonderment at mysteries 
 That older children have unfurled 
 
 To reason's wind ; in sight that frees 
 The high hills set to screen our sight. 
 
 Finds freshest splendors in the day, 
 
 S6 
 
And paints fire-figures on the night ; 
 
 Not reading our rich world the way 
 We use, but as, when Man was young, 
 
 In color, fable, myth, and rhyme. 
 So may we keep, as song once sung, 
 
 Some fragrance of that sweetest time, 
 And may you, find, through this child-book, 
 
 A pathway back to our old Land 
 Of Make-Bel ieve, when'er you look 
 
 Herein, where we walked hand in hand. 
 
 57 
 
SONNETS OF PLACES 
 
 I 
 THE OLD WORLD 
 
 T_TlGH in the towering bows alone I stand, 
 
 "*- -*■ And let my sight sweep over bright calm seas 
 
 Roughed into ripples by a light land-breeze 
 
 Sweet set from Spain, a strip of yellow sand 
 
 Backed by blue hills. There, that dark-looming land, 
 
 Is Afric, mother of old mysteries. 
 
 Horizon-hid, the straits of Hercules, 
 
 Sucking the sea's ships in from every strand, 
 
 Draw subtly strong with quivering tensity 
 
 That thrills the throbbing ship and my own breast 
 
 Held in the hush of rapt expectancy ; 
 
 Till I some bold Columbus of the West 
 
 Half-seem, the Old World's continents my quest, 
 
 That rise to greet me from a spell-bound sea. 
 
 S8 
 
II 
 VENICE 
 
 Y^ENETIAN days ! From that sweet eveningtide 
 
 Of our arrival, till at length, too soon. 
 We fled in gondolas beneath a moon 
 That spread along the Grand Canal a wide 
 Bright argent carpeting for us to glide 
 In ducal state, o'er the dark waters' face, 
 What joy we had of every moment's space ! 
 But most that golden eve when, far outside 
 St. George's isle, we set a tawny sail 
 Spread with a ruddy Lion of St. Mark ; 
 Then, with the wind, were wafted to the West 
 And that strange opalescent town whose crest 
 Of sunset flamed ; while, through the gathering dark, 
 A far song crossed the waters like a wail. 
 
 59 
 
Ill 
 ALPINE 
 
 (TO A. A. F.) 
 
 TX ZE knew the wonder-world of peak and pass, 
 
 ' * Linked all for safety — or for common pain, 
 If footing firm, and stock, balked not the strain 
 In skirting with taut rope some wide crevasse, 
 Where one mischance might lose a huge snow-mass 
 And gulf us all. We tracked the glittering plain. 
 Sprawled o'er black fragments of a strewn moraine. 
 And crested curling waves on seas of glass. 
 And how we gloried in each summit gained. 
 Flung yodelled triumphs, bursts of breathless song 
 Back at the buffets of the bruising gale, 
 Then helter-skelter tumbled down the long 
 Descent or, in the wild glissade unchained, 
 Shot to the hollows of the intervale ! 
 
 60 
 
IV 
 
 WATERLOO 
 
 p^ROM Brussels we sped down one summer day 
 
 To Waterloo, where a sad, ceaseless rain 
 Drenched the green hills, beat down the ripening grain, 
 Soaked white La Haie Sainte to a sodden gray, 
 And churned the red roads into miry clay. 
 "Has Heaven" we asked, "unloosed her floods again 
 On these fair fields, to wash away the stain 
 Of man's blood-guiltiness in one fierce fray ? " 
 But lo ! ere night the clouds were broken through, 
 The radiant sun dispelled the curse of gloom, 
 And a great double rainbow spanned the field. 
 It seemed as if God had once more revealed 
 Himself in His great emblem, and anew 
 From a blood-flooded world did raise the doom. 
 
 6i 
 
V 
 
 MARCHE AUX FLEURS 
 
 H 
 
 OMEWARD I crossed the old Pont Neuf each night, 
 Home to that island-realm of clerks and kings 
 Where Seine enfolding arms forever flings 
 In her age-old embrace, tense with the might 
 Of silent passion; her dark bosom bright 
 With myriad flakes of witch-fire, red and gold, 
 Or lost in the gloom of arches that uphold 
 Many another dim bridge swept with light. 
 And oft the air hung heavy with the breath 
 Of flowers that filled the narrow roadway there — 
 Strange flowers, half-spectral, like a garden dream. 
 In that pale moonlight. In the guttering glare 
 Of wicks, bent creatures sat. Oh, it did seem 
 Some borderland of passion, sleep, and death. 
 
 62 
 
ON A SEINE STEAMER 
 
 Tj^ROM the quais and bridges gleam 
 
 -■" Lights that waver in the stream. 
 
 Faces pale and fade away 
 
 In the waning light of day. 
 
 To a whisper talk has died, 
 
 And I hear a mother chide, 
 
 In a voice caressing, sweet : 
 
 " Mechante, mechante, ma petite." 
 
 Music murmurous is made 
 By each churning paddle-blade, 
 Deepening to a hollow roar 
 Underneath an archway, or 
 Dying echoing away, 
 As we stop beside some quai. 
 Still the crooning words repeat : 
 "Mechante, mechante, ma petite." 
 
 Mother, o'er your baby bent. 
 Dimly with the shadows blent, 
 Dark ahead the future lies. 
 And will she who clings and cries, 
 
 63 
 
Woman -grown, with sin oppressed, 
 Seek the shelter of your breast ? 
 Still, for all the years are fleet : 
 " Mechante, m'echante, ma petite." 
 
 64 
 
ON THE CONNECTICUT 
 I 
 
 T AST night we saw the sun, a fiery eye, 
 
 Quenched in the waters of the Sound, then slept. 
 In some lost hour the little steamer crept 
 Within the river on whose stream we ply 
 In the gray dawn, beneath a glooming sky. 
 And one would say the sullen waters wept, 
 Or foamed in anger, where the tide is swept 
 Around some jutting headland, lifted high. 
 No sound is heard save the ship's throbbing heart, 
 And the churned waters, as we take our way, 
 With slumbrous stealth, past hills the dark firs crown, 
 Past slanting meadows, sleeping farms. We start 
 To see a stag slip, like a phantom gray, 
 Through the still street of a steep terraced town. 
 
 6S 
 
ON THE CONNECTICUT 
 II 
 
 A LITTLE summer-house upon a hill ; 
 •*■ •*• Below, a reach of silver river lies, 
 A lake embraced by gentle slopes that rise 
 In fold on fold. The mind here hath its fill 
 Of quiet beauty. All is peaceful, still. 
 The morning broods with pensive, misted skies. 
 And even the ship that moves before our eyes. 
 Seems idly drifting at the tide's sweet will. 
 How late the city held us ! We were pent 
 In narrow streets. Now, everything we see 
 Seems half illusion. Through a sudden rent 
 In the mist's veil, the distant hill-tops gleam, 
 Aerial isles, in seas of faerie. 
 Are ship and river, hills — the world — a dream.'* 
 
 66 
 
OUR ENGLISH SPEECH 
 
 The Dutch so (full) of the other side 
 with cofisonants that they cannot yield 
 the sweet sliding fit for verse. 
 
 SIDNEY'S DEFENCE OF POESIE. 
 
 O WEET syllables of English speech that slide 
 '^ In Spenser's verse, and under Sidney's hand, 
 Like little waves that lip the silver sand ; 
 Like silken lawns, spun laces as they glide 
 From snowy shoulders down her lilied side, 
 Who waits the bridegroom mid her maiden band; 
 Like airs that breathe through bowers in some land 
 Where woods screen gentle lovers unespied. 
 More sweet, sweet syllables, seems your caress 
 To swifter senses, though scarce palpable — 
 Linked loveliness, enchained and interlaced. 
 Of softest airs, — -than Nature's soothing spell. 
 Sun, mists and summer showers. Nay, not less 
 Than lips on lips of lovers close embraced. 
 
 67 
 
ON THE HEIGHTS 
 
 ^'L/^OU love the mountains and I love the sea, 
 -'■ Yet love the mountains too — the more since I 
 Have seen you so uplifted in the high 
 Heart of the hills, where something seemed to be 
 Restored to you of childlike health and glee. 
 Light-footed as a fawn, you wandered by 
 Aspiring paths that climbed into the sky, 
 Fellow to clouds and breezes, and as free. 
 And oft, when you had breasted some ascent 
 And stood with parted lips, swift beating heart. 
 Flushed cheek, and hair in bright confusion blown, 
 You were transfigured ; in your eyes would start 
 A look of awe, with exaltation blent, 
 As if some spell were o'er your spirit thrown. 
 
 68 
 
THE THRUSH 
 
 OPIRIT of summer silence and the sweet, 
 *^ Still, silver voice of sylvan solitudes, 
 Singing so well the wistful woodland moods 
 Of forest glades, where sun and shadow meet, 
 And dance and waver, mingle and retreat — 
 The sound of sun-plashed waters at the rim 
 Of dripping fountains, and the half-heard hymn 
 Of earth at evening, after noontide heat. 
 Sweet seeker of the secret heart of things, 
 Perplexed and pensive, poignant unto tears. 
 Poet whose passions, tuned to the flute, 
 Are turned to sighing with the passing years, 
 Maker of music on life's subtlest strings — 
 Without thy song, man's heart must still be mute ! 
 
 69 
 
IMPRESSION 
 
 TT^ANTASTIC, solemn, warm, and shrill 
 -*- With tree-toad, owl, and whip-poor-will. 
 
 This night is fraught with something strange. 
 High on the hill behind the grange. 
 
 Out of a rustling fringe of trees 
 There slips a chill and restless breeze 
 
 That lifts each ghostly daisy-head. 
 With a dainty shivering sense of dread. 
 Up from its moon-steeped meadow-bed. 
 
 To its breath the elm in the pasture sways 
 And swings like the mast of a ship in stays. 
 
 Out of the north it slips and stirs 
 The peaks of six gigantic firs, 
 
 Set down the slope, that, mournfully. 
 Sing some old sorrow of the sea. 
 
 70 
 
THE FAIRING 
 
 TONIGHT and baron and lady rare, 
 ■'■^ Priest and varlet and royal heir, 
 Jog on their jennets to Death's dark Fair. 
 
 Gayly, with never a thought, they ride, 
 Of the Inn at the end, where all must bide, 
 Through the pleasant dappled countryside, 
 
 Past meadow and pasture and orchard sweet. 
 
 Through many a thronging city street. 
 
 Where all ride with them, and none they meet. 
 
 For of those that saddle to ride this way. 
 In cassock or doublet or kirtle gay, 
 None may ever, on any day. 
 
 Over the road they have come, return. 
 By byre and barrow and brake and burn. 
 Yet free hearts all to the fairing yearn. 
 
 And when they draw near to their journey's end. 
 They are wearied with riding, and blithe to descend 
 At the Inn, and call the dark Keeper friend. 
 
 71 
 
HIS BOOK 
 
 \X T^HEN you are old, as Yeats and Ronsard write, 
 * ~ Idly some evening you may chance to look 
 Upon your shelves, and find this little book 
 Of him who in your beauty found delight. 
 
 Your beauty and the splendor of your youth 
 That opened like the heart of some rare flower. 
 Warmed by the sun, watered by summer shower, 
 Till age upon the petals works its ruth. 
 
 Yea, more than these, the pride of your young days. 
 The restless movements of your awakening mind. 
 Your dreams, your moods more changeful than the wind. 
 And your imperious need of love and praise. 
 
 And you shall muse: "Long have I lived, and vain 
 Seem to me now the things that once I sought. 
 Fame is a bauble, honor cheaply bought, 
 Few are the moments I would live again. 
 
 "But Time dulls not the gold that once he gave. 
 Who saw all beauty budded in my soul, 
 
 72 
 
And who about me wove an aureole 
 Whose glory I shall carry to the grave." 
 
 And I, who long shall have been underground. 
 But whose pale ghost shall still be hovering near, 
 Shall see, perchance, start in your eye a tear. 
 Hear on your lips a dear, familiar sound. 
 
FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY COPIES OF THIS 
 
 BOOK PRINTED ON ITALIAN HAND-MADE 
 
 PAPER AND THE TYPE DISTRIBUTED IN THE 
 
 MONTH OF SEPTEMBER MDCCCCXVII 
 
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