ard Rob 
 
Class ... 
 
 Book.__ -_Al?/f 
 
 CopyrightN . 
 
 /?03 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSfT. 
 
BY THE SAME 
 
 AUTHOR : 
 
 Sonnets of Jose-Mj 
 
 VRIA DE 
 
 Heredia 
 
 Rendered into 
 
 English, Third 
 
 Edition ; 
 
 
 
 Moods and Other 
 
 Verses; 
 
 
 Into the Light, 
 
 Second 
 
 Edition. 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 

VISIONS 
 
 AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 BY EDWARD ROBESON TAYLOR 
 
 A. M. ROBERTSON 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO, MCM1II 
 
THE LIBRARY OF 
 
 CCNGR 
 
 £SS. 
 
 Two Copies 
 
 R«ceived 
 
 
 1903 
 
 Copyright 
 
 En.ry 
 
 CLASS <V 
 
 XXe. No. 
 
 S X D 
 
 « n 
 
 COPY 
 
 B. 
 
 
 Copyright 1903 
 
 by Edward Robeson Taylor 
 
 Published April 1903 
 
 PRINTED BY 
 
 THE STANLEY-TAYLOR COMPANY 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO 
 
TO 
 
 JAMES ADDISON QUARLES 
 
 PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE WASHINGTON 
 
 AND LEE UNIVERSITY 
 
 AND TO 
 
 LLOYD MIFFLIN 
 
 AUTHOR OF "AT THE GATES OF SONG" ETC 
 THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Visions 
 
 In Time of May 
 
 A Summer Day 
 
 The Days of Old 
 
 The Master 
 
 The Dreams of Long Ago 
 
 Fancy's Children 
 
 Imagination 
 
 What it is that Man Sees 
 
 Can This be Day 
 
 The Pity of it 
 
 Fears 
 
 Mystery of Mysteries 
 
 Wail 
 
 Chastening 
 
 Forward 
 
 All is Best 
 
 Her Resting Place 
 
 Roses for Him 
 
 Song 
 
 Work 
 
 The Balance 
 
 Duty 
 
 To Milton 
 
 Music 
 
 The Poet 
 
 To William Cullen Bryant 
 
 I 
 z 
 3 
 4 
 5 
 6 
 
 7 
 1 1 
 
 I Z 
 
 *3 
 '3 
 '4 
 '4 
 15 
 16 
 
 17 
 17 
 18 
 
 J 9 
 
 ZI 
 
 22 
 
 23 
 23 
 24 
 25 
 
 z6 
 z6 
 
 [ vii ] 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 To San Francisco 
 
 My Sonnet Prison 
 
 Adversity 
 
 Under an Oak 
 
 Mother's Love 
 
 Christmas Hymn 
 
 Question 
 
 Faith 
 
 Work and Service 
 
 Unkissed . 
 
 Unaccomplished 
 
 Charles Lamb 
 
 The Record 
 
 In a Church 
 
 Mystery 
 
 Man's Heritage 
 
 Out of the Shadow 
 
 Poe 
 
 To Walt Whitman 
 
 Home 
 
 After an Evening with Longfellow 
 
 To Whittier 
 
 Poetic Art 
 
 Insight 
 
 Reverie 
 
 To a Soiled and Broken Volume of Bayard Taylor 
 
 Defiance 
 
 Endeavor 
 
 To Keats 
 
 Poems 
 
 [ viii ] 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 
 To Shelley .... 
 
 57 
 
 Refuge .... 
 
 • 57 
 
 At the Presidio of San Francisco 
 
 58 
 
 Night .... 
 
 . 59 
 
 Transmutation .... 
 
 60 
 
 Tennyson's Good Fortune 
 
 . 60 
 
 In November .... 
 
 62 
 
 Theseus and Ariadne 
 
 . 63 
 
 Ulysses and Calypso 
 
 64 
 
 Narcissus .... 
 
 . 65 
 
 Orestes ..... 
 
 66 
 
 To Goethe .... 
 
 . 67 
 
 Arria ..... 
 
 69 
 
 Perpetua .... 
 
 . 70 
 
 Dante and Beatrice 
 
 7i 
 
 Edelweiss .... 
 
 . 72 
 
 To Balzac .... 
 
 73 
 
 Near Midnight of December, 1899 
 
 • 74 
 
 On Receiving a Bunch of Holy Grass 
 
 75 
 
 Voices .... 
 
 . 76 
 
 Five Sonnets on some Pictures painted by William 
 
 Keith : 77 
 
 I Morning 
 
 . 79 
 
 II By the Roadside 
 
 80 
 
 III Into the Mystery 
 
 . 81 
 
 IV Memories 
 
 82 
 
 V The Unceasing Round 
 
 . 83 
 
 Browning .... 
 
 84 
 
 To the Sierras 
 
 . 85 
 
 Proof of God .... 
 
 86 
 
 [ ix ] 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 To the Sonnet 
 
 The Last Journey 
 
 Now 
 
 With the Lark 
 
 With the Eagle 
 
 Attainment 
 
 Concentration 
 
 Sufficiency 
 
 Endure thou Faltering Soul 
 
 Consecration 
 
 Compensation 
 
 Beatitude . 
 
 My Muse 
 
 Scorn not the Singer 
 
 Dream 
 
 Whither . 
 
 87 
 88 
 
 93 
 94 
 95 
 96 
 
 97 
 98 
 
 99 
 100 
 101 
 102 
 103 
 104 
 105 
 106 
 
Note. — Some of the pieces contained in this book were published 
 in "Moods and Other Verses" (now out of print), others were 
 printed for private circulation, "Memories" was published in the 
 Impressions Quarterly, "Compensation" and "Into the Mystery" 
 in the San Francisco Evening Post, while all the others now appear 
 in print for the first time. Those heretofore printed have been 
 carefully revised with especial reference to their insertion in this 
 volume. 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 VISIONS 
 
 H 
 
 OPE drew me on to peaks that glittered 
 bright 
 Kjj With lovelier tints than rainbows ever 
 'S^&SlL knew, 
 While round my loitering feet rare blossoms 
 
 grew, 
 Steeped in the glories of immatchless light. 
 In golden opulence the days were dight, 
 
 With every sky cloud-free, save when there flew 
 Great flocks of dreams that veiled the pulsing 
 
 blue 
 Only to thrill me with a new delight. 
 Ah, this was in the time so long ago, 
 I marvel much if it be truly so — 
 Those memory-teeming, passion-hearted years. 
 My life's once blazing fires are burning low, 
 
 And in my cheek regret's unfathomed tears 
 Have worn the channels age alone can know. 
 
 [ i ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 IN TIME OF MAY 
 
 
 1 1 
 
 W 
 
 ITHIN thy silvern bars, oh, hold me fast, 
 My Sonnet; — hold me safely, that my 
 
 dream 
 Of long-departed blooms on men may 
 beam 
 In all thy artistry of splendor cast. 
 To heart-enchanting music of the Past 
 
 Again I loiter by the woodland stream, 
 Till on its memory-haunted banks I deem 
 Myself with joys in fairy legion massed. 
 Once more I seek the walnut's easeful shade 
 
 To lie outstretched in taskless freedom there, 
 As all the ravishments of May are mine; 
 Once more with her that in the grave was laid 
 Long, long ago, I breathe the fragrant air, 
 And pluck at her fond wish the columbine. 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 A SUMMER DAY 
 
 HAT treasure trove the languorous 
 
 summer hours 
 - When all their golden moments were 
 [p^j£ll our own; 
 Beneath some tree's soft shade to drowseful 
 
 drone, 
 And build in Dreamland fairy-peopled towers! 
 The birds are dozing in their leafy bowers 
 
 Save the woodpecker tapping far and lone, 
 While dauntless bumble-bees make murmurous 
 
 moan 
 Among the blossoms of the drooping flowers. 
 The sun sinks down in clouds that seem his pyre; 
 And as the dusk is edging into dark, 
 And Hesperus faintly trembles into fire, 
 The lightning bug floats by — a glowing spark, 
 
 While then we hear — ah, now I hear it still — 
 The plaintive calling of the whippoorwill. 
 
 [ 3 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 THE DAYS OF OLD 
 
 ERE let me put my daily burden by, 
 To live again one consecrated hour, 
 While sceptred Memory with increasing 
 power 
 
 Commands obedient pageant for mine eye : 
 Ah, what procession floats beneath my sky, 
 
 Of long-evanished joys in spring-time flower, 
 When boundless realms were youth's demanded 
 
 dower, 
 And all its troubles but a tear or sigh ! 
 And she the fairest of the ghostly throng, 
 Who so entreats me with celestial gaze, 
 Leaps in my heart and trembles in my song; 
 O purple-gloried, haunting, hallowed days, 
 
 When she and I walked Love's enrapturing 
 
 ways — 
 She that in Death's cold arms has lain so long! 
 
 [ 4 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 THE MASTER 
 
 ROM out his noble face there looked 
 an eye 
 » Bespeaking mastery; — ah, I see him now 
 £nrfj*j^ With gathered thunders on his clouded 
 
 brow 
 Whence lightnings leaped that none would dare 
 defy. 
 Yet kind and patient he, nor ceased to try 
 
 The veriest dunce with learning to endow; 
 But work half-done he never would allow, 
 Nor could he compromise with any lie. 
 And sweet to him the wine of joysome play 
 
 That sent the blood all tingling through the 
 
 veins 
 To drive the harassment of tasks away; 
 And now his years are done, there still remains 
 Such love for what he gave me of my gains, 
 It warms my heart as if new-born to-day. 
 
 [ 5 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 THE DREAMS OF LONG AGO 
 
 HESE dreams of mine refuse to let me 
 
 go, 
 And hold me fast with such entreating 
 face, 
 
 With such insistent fondness of embrace, 
 That once again I range the Long Ago; 
 
 Nor at this moment would I care to know 
 
 The Present's most rememberable grace; 
 My feet are bounding in the woodland race, 
 And everywhere Hope's ringing trumpets blow. 
 
 The unbounded forest and its streams are ours, 
 
 Its luscious fruits and nuts, its beauteous flowers, 
 With trees that lift their splendors to the sky; 
 
 While rare, melodious birds such strains prolong 
 That all the universe is filled with song, 
 And nought that breathes seems ever born to die. 
 
 [ 6 ] 
 
VJSIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 FANCY'S CHILDREN 
 
 HERE do Fancy's children nest, 
 Breeding thoughts we love the 
 best ? — 
 PnajMffi In the leaves with freshness gay 
 When the Spring is on her way, 
 Sweetly breathing balm and song 
 As she lightly skips along; 
 In the heart of daffodils 
 Beating as some fairy wills; 
 Honeysuckle giving sweets 
 To the trellis it entreats; 
 Poppies that for sunbeams hold 
 Most appealing cups of gold; 
 Pansies whose irradiant eyes 
 Watch the jasmine's envied vine 
 Near the maiden's casement twine; 
 Dandelion's stars that glow 
 In the meadow's emerald skies; 
 Lilacs of the long ago, 
 Tremulous with memory's sighs; 
 Roses grand in gorgeous show, 
 Marguerites that lovers know, 
 And in every kindred one 
 
 [ 7 ] 
 
FANCY S CHILDREN 
 
 Drinking joys of dew and sun; 
 Sooth, in least that decks the ground 
 Fancy's children may be found. 
 In the merryhearted stream 
 Where some naiads rest in dream, 
 While the crystal waters make 
 Drowseful music lest they wake; 
 In the peaceful pools that lie 
 Where the umbrage veils the sky, 
 And no voice on us may call 
 Save the beat of waterfall; 
 And in nook of secret dell 
 Where an oread from her cell 
 Deeply hid is wont to spy 
 Lovers' raptures throbbing nigh; 
 Here with all that's beauteous crowned 
 Fancy's children may be found. 
 In the dryad-haunted tree 
 With its branches spreading free, 
 Whose sequestered, cooling shade 
 Only dreams and we invade; 
 And in cloud of snowy fleece 
 Floating swanlike overhead 
 On its azure sea of peace, 
 By the zephyrs gently sped ; 
 
 [ « ] 
 
fancy's children 
 
 Ah, in this enchanted ground 
 
 Fancy's children may be found. 
 
 In the horses of the surge 
 
 Rearing high upon its verge, 
 
 So to leap upon the shore 
 
 With impetuous, deafening roar, 
 
 While from out their mouths the spume 
 
 Seethes and hisses as it flies; 
 
 In the ships that faintly loom 
 
 Under rainbow-tinted skies, 
 
 Sailing safe on sapphire seas 
 
 To the golden port of Ease, 
 
 There unlading costly bales 
 
 For the hope that never fails; 
 
 Ah, in these domains renowned 
 
 Fancy's children may be found. 
 
 In the dawn's wide-opening rose 
 
 Which in sudden beauty blows 
 
 On the east's enraptured breast, 
 
 As it beams upon the bed 
 
 Where some lady's lovely head, 
 
 Filled with him she loves the best, 
 
 Gently stirs within its nest; 
 
 In the visions flitting by 
 
 When the day is fain to lie, 
 
 [ 9 ] 
 
FANCY'S CHILDREN 
 
 Wearied out, in final rest, 
 On the bosom of the west; 
 In the stars that bless the night 
 With magnificence of light, 
 As the moon, like any ghost, 
 Glides amid their countless host, 
 Weaving with her silvery beams 
 Love's eternal, magic dreams; 
 Ah, in this capacious bound 
 Fancy's children may be found. 
 In the memories floating up 
 From the long-evanished time, 
 When with joy in every cup 
 All the moments rang in chime, 
 As with her, death would not spare, 
 Hand in hand we silent strayed 
 In the perfume-laden air, 
 Till a glory round us played, 
 And the beauty of her eyes, 
 Newly lit with love's surprise, 
 Told the story that still lies 
 In the heart where, wet with tears, 
 It shall grieve through all the years; 
 In the Garden of Delight 
 Boyhood's feet alone can know, 
 
 [ 10 ] 
 
fancy's children 
 
 Where all wonders fill the sight, 
 And all joysome blossoms grow; 
 Sooth, where fairies love to be 
 Fancy's children you may see; 
 But the maiden's guileless breast 
 Is by them beloved the best, 
 Where to every rapturing sound 
 Are they alway to be found. 
 
 IMAGINATION 
 
 How insignificantly small we seem; 
 
 Yet marvellous times there are, 
 When every sense in sublimated dream 
 
 Wings on from star to star; — 
 Ah, then all principalities are ours, 
 And we, immortals with Herculean powers. 
 
 1 1 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 WHAT IT IS THAT MAN SEES 
 
 HAT dost thou see when without thee 
 thou lookest, O all-searching Man ? 
 Life, ever life, amid changes by multi- 
 plex rhythms controlled — 
 Rhythms that beat without end in immensity's 
 
 vastness of space, 
 Mingling and blending in chorus to sing of the 
 Order Divine. 
 
 What dost thou see when within thee, thou lookest, 
 
 O all-searching Man ? 
 Thee as a spirit and atom of all the mysterious 
 
 whole ; 
 Giving as well as receiving, bound to the infinite 
 
 past, 
 Made by and making thy future that stretches 
 
 eternally on. 
 
 [ 12 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 CAN THIS BE DAY? 
 
 C 
 
 AN this be day ? The stars have fled; 
 Dawn's banners brighten overhead; 
 The wagons roll along the street, 
 fflfl^TJSff -^nd men g° by w ^ tn hastening feet; — 
 Ah, yes, it must be day. 
 
 But come and see where cold she lies, 
 Death's fingers on her once-bright eyes; 
 With pallid lips that cannot stir; 
 The aching mother bent o'er her; — 
 Ah, no, 'tis night, not day. 
 
 THE PITY OF IT 
 
 OW bloomed round her the flowers of 
 
 nuturing care, 
 How breathed on her Home's kindliest 
 summer-air, 
 
 How softly smooth her daily paths were made, 
 From that sweet moment Life first gave her breath 
 Until that bitter time her dear head laid 
 Its lilied beauty in the lap of Death ! 
 
 [ 13 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 FEARS 
 
 Y heart was kept with fear astir 
 Lest lightest harm might come to 
 
 her; 
 My lips could not have dared to 
 speak 
 One word to pale her bloomy cheek. 
 
 But now my fears are gathered up 
 In grief's exhaustless wormwood-cup, 
 And though I spoke in loudest tone 
 Her cheek no paler hue could own. 
 
 MYSTERY OF MYSTERIES 
 
 In mystery's face I could but peer 
 When she my heart of heart did fill, 
 And yet her pulseless beauty here 
 Proclaims a mystery greater still. 
 
 [ 14 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 WAIL 
 
 ROM out a wood where waters ran 
 As only joyful waters can, 
 ^^jj^^X Where flower and tree with 
 
 -j^^i rapture heard 
 The ecstasy of many a bird, 
 And in the air was such a lull 
 That everything of peace seemed full, 
 I sudden came upon a cave 
 With brooding gloom as of the grave, 
 And peering in the darksome nave, 
 Awe-struck I saw upon a stone 
 A mother bowed in grief alone. 
 
 [ 15 i 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 CHASTENING 
 
 | WOMAN, great of form and face, 
 Who seemed to be of Sorrow's race, 
 Led me away from sun-bright air, 
 And from the trees and blossoms 
 fair, 
 To lonely depth of solemn wood 
 Where but the sombre cypress stood. 
 
 She gently breathed a wordless prayer, 
 Then left me strangely dreaming there; 
 And when I waked, a newer grace 
 Was round me as with love's embrace, 
 And forth I went in heartened mood 
 Beneath the spell of chastening's good. 
 
 [ 16 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 FORWARD 
 
 HAT note is this which sweeps 
 Along the mountain steeps, 
 ^ Where neither grass nor tree 
 
 im 
 
 Ipi&jft Nor verdured thing can be ? 
 
 'Tis Life's great trumpet blown 
 By lips that heroes own : 
 " The death-strewn Past is gone — 
 The Present's yours; — march on!" 
 
 ALL IS BEST 
 
 The world o'erflows its cup of woe, 
 Each heart has felt the knife of pain, 
 But I would have my soul to know 
 That all is best, that God doth reign. 
 
 [ 17 i 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 HER RESTING PLACE 
 
 HE rests not where the bending 
 flowers 
 Can spill their perfumes over her, 
 But in the cells of loveliest flowers 
 Her fleshly atoms once more stir, 
 To give those blooms the brightest hue 
 That e'er before their petals knew, 
 While in the urn her ashes lie 
 White as her soul that cannot die. 
 
 [ 18 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 ROSES FOR HIM 
 
 You that loved him, gather here 
 Round his bier. 
 
 Let the roses heaping rest 
 On his breast. 
 
 In his heart their sweets were hived 
 While he lived, 
 
 And he might unquiet be 
 If that we 
 
 Did not give his bed of death 
 Their dear breath. 
 
 Mid their fragrance let us say, 
 As we pray, 
 
 How he nursed a patient mood 
 Filled with good — 
 
 [ 19 ] 
 
ROSES FOR HIM 
 
 Good that flowed without an end 
 To his friend; 
 
 How, whatever stress might be, 
 Equal he ; 
 
 How with every breath he drew 
 He was true; 
 
 How he charmed us with a tone 
 All his own, 
 
 Stingless wit and ready sense 
 Flowing thence; 
 
 How he walked affection's ways 
 All his days; 
 
 And how Beauty's conquering art 
 Held his heart, 
 
 Till he seemed her very child 
 Undefiled. 
 
 [ 20 ] 
 
ROSES FOR HIM 
 
 Gather then with roses here 
 Round his bier, 
 
 And in heaps upon his breast 
 Let them rest. 
 
 SONG 
 
 A 
 
 LWAYS be the same, sweetheart, 
 Or we must forever part; 
 Smiles to-day and frowns to- 
 
 frj^^bSrSt morrow 
 
 Can but bring us anxious sorrow; 
 
 Be the same as now thou art, 
 
 And we shall not, cannot, part. 
 
 Do I doubt thee? — never! never! — 
 Love shall bind us fast forever; 
 In thy softly-folding arms 
 Life for me can have no harms; 
 Pillowed on thy fragrant breast, 
 Come what may I must be blest. 
 
 [ 21 1 
 
mSk 
 
 T 
 
 lyV^w'i 
 
 
 "* - "^* 3 
 
 VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 WORK 
 
 ]|0 age-worn palace veiled with vine and 
 tree 
 I listless came one summer afternoon, 
 A self-invited guest who craved the boon 
 Of peaceful idlesse in that privacy; 
 And there I saw, as swung the doors for me, 
 
 Some of the inmates lounge as half in swoon, 
 While others gaped and yawned, tried trivial 
 
 tune, 
 Turned a few leaves, then wandered aimlessly. 
 And when Ennui, the jewelled queen of these, 
 
 Rose languid from her couch of poppied ease, 
 With greeting such as indolence could spare, 
 I fled aghast, the humblest tool to seize, 
 
 And as its strokes with music filled the air, 
 Peace spread her wings in holy blessing there. 
 
 [ 22 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 THE BALANCE 
 
 OOK not on erring Man as one who teems 
 With ills that slay him: his etherial 
 
 thought, 
 ■cji^jffl. Thrilled by imagination's glorious 
 
 dreams, 
 Rears deathless fanes in gold and purple wrought; 
 His science tests and probes all things that are, 
 Piles fact on fact, and in its thirst to know 
 Dares lay its finger on the farthest star; 
 Beneath his hand, its purest wealth to show, 
 All forms of beauty exquisitely grow; 
 His wand of music bids all raptures rise, 
 Tears, and the passioned heart's supremest cries, 
 While Love's own fount wells joyous in his breast 
 With crystal stream to give the wearied rest. 
 
 DUTY 
 
 Duty is all in all; find it and then 
 
 Strike for thine own and for the souls of men. 
 
 [ n ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 TO MILTON 
 
 HOU star-crowned, peerless Milton, 
 
 thine to know 
 The moans and thunders of the surging 
 seas ; 
 
 The tinkling laugh of rippling rills; the trees' 
 Soft murmurs multitudinous; and so 
 Thy deeply-wrought imaginations flow 
 
 With long-drawn roll of mighty harmonies, 
 As with dulcifluous, tripping melodies, 
 In Beauty's unextinguishable glow. 
 Thou art the starry wonder of thy time — 
 The favored child of every lofty lore, 
 And in thy soul, as in thy verse, sublime. 
 Thou gavest England, when she needed sore 
 
 Her strongest and her best, one man unique 
 Who grandly blended Puritan with Greek. 
 
 [ 24 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 MUSIC 
 
 HE murmurous monotone of waving 
 
 grain 
 When winds are gently winging down 
 ^Jgfl! the vale; 
 The storm-voiced billows drowning men bewail ; 
 The pattering stroke of softly- falling rain; 
 
 The sighing leaves which bend to every tale 
 
 The breezes tell; the songster's lilting strain, 
 
 From feeblest note of all the joyful train 
 
 To rapturous burst of peerless nightingale; — 
 
 What are all these, and all that human ear 
 
 In sweetest concord from their kin can hear, 
 But hints of deeper rhythms as yet unheard; 
 
 That in the soul ineffable of things 
 
 An ordered music, by the eternal word, 
 Throughout the vast of space divinely sings. 
 
 [ 25 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 THE POET 
 
 He crushed his heart for wine of song 
 The sordid souls of men to glad; 
 But by him passed the scoffing throng, 
 Nor dreamed he was divinely mad. 
 
 TO WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 
 
 HAT gift of song was thine! — for in 
 
 thy great 
 Miltonic cadences the mighty heart 
 Of nature beats, anon with joy serene, 
 Anon with melancholy sad as leaves 
 By Autumn kissed, but alway with a hope 
 That sings its music to the darkest hour. 
 With thee we lose ourselves within the wood, 
 And make the tree our brother; every plant, 
 That spreads its modest beauties to the sun, 
 Or nestles in the shade, is then our kin, 
 And we with them on nature's kindly breast 
 In silence hearken to the voice divine. 
 The flowers of the field were thy dear friends, 
 
 [ 26 ] 
 
TO WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 
 
 Who spake their message to thee as to one 
 
 They trusted; and in swelling, golden note 
 
 Of sounding rhythm thou gavest it to us, 
 
 To keep enshrined within the heart of love. 
 
 All things that walk or fly could set thy soul 
 
 To music's beat, as did that waterfowl 
 
 Which caught thine eye, when in the vast 
 
 Of space's unimaginable waste, 
 
 Alone, yet confident, it took its way, 
 
 And where, through thee, transfigured and sublime, 
 
 It keeps forever an unwearied wing. 
 
 [ 27 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 TO SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 o 
 
 CITY of our life and hope, 
 
 That sittest by this westmost sea, 
 8X Thy lovers pray thy widest scope, 
 nrfjjy And deepest in the yet to be. 
 
 May Learning's temples rear their towers 
 
 Above thy unpolluted ways, 
 And all the strength of all thy powers, 
 
 Build only what good men can praise. 
 
 May stranger ships bring costly bales 
 From every near and distant land, 
 
 And in return thy winged sails 
 
 By prospering winds be ever fanned. 
 
 May arts and crafts with newer life, 
 And greater, sing their highest notes, 
 
 While over all with glory rife 
 The flag of peace divinely floats. 
 
 [ 28 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 MY SONNET PRISON 
 
 ]|ULL oftentimes my friends have said 
 to me: 
 " Give o'er the sonnet, since thou dost 
 but lie 
 
 At leaden length beneath its narrow sky — 
 A slave imprisoned when thou mightst be free. 
 Though true it is the masters loved by thee 
 
 Have in that cage sung strains that cannot die, 
 Yet they were those who could all bonds defy, 
 And soar at will in Art's immensity." 
 Then I to them : " No eagle's wings are mine, 
 That tempt the vastness of immortal song, 
 To rest at last on fame-encrowned years. 
 Leave me my prison bars, to me divine, 
 
 Where with the Muse I have communed so long, 
 And on her breast have shed memorial tears." 
 
 [ 29 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 ADVERSITY 
 
 HEN glad Fortuna, as a friend to thee, 
 w Her more than liberal spoils before thee 
 
 w m* brings ' 
 
 JJj^SbSK Beware the serpent, slyly hid, which 
 stings 
 The soul with poison of Prosperity. 
 
 Thou never mayst revealing visions see, 
 
 Nor mount with seraphs on immortal wings, 
 Unless within thy deepest being springs 
 Some tear-fed fountain of Adversity. 
 
 The steel that Florence drove in Dante's heart 
 He fashioned to a lyre, whereon with ease 
 He deathless rose above the hells of hate; 
 
 And when life-wearied Milton sat apart, 
 
 Lonely and blind, he swept those organ keys 
 Whose tones from age to age reverberate. 
 
 [ 30 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 UNDER AN OAK 
 
 HE cloudless azure stretches overhead; 
 Afar the haze-veiled mountains tranquil 
 
 lie; 
 The breeze-kissed leaves are dancing in 
 the sky- 
 As if by sprites of every joyance led; 
 The golden hay in many a mound is spread, 
 To ripen in the sun's all-glorious eye; 
 And rapture-hearted birds are twittering nigh 
 The oak where dreams and I have made our bed. 
 Yet here in bristling ranks the thistle stands, 
 
 With winged seeds in millions in its hands, 
 While now I mark a great hawk wheeling low; 
 And as I breathe this paradisal air, 
 
 My friend can but the pangs of illness know — 
 Bereft of joys that once he thrilled to share. 
 
 [ 3i ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 MOTHER'S LOVE 
 
 A 
 
 S through the sweets of verse our talk did 
 run, 
 jSX My friend said, " Cage me in thy sonnet, 
 
 W^PSSl P^y, 
 
 A thought whose song shall tempt the Muse to 
 
 say, 
 Ah, this, indeed, is an immortal one ! " 
 " Is it," I asked, " a maid's fond heart undone? 
 Or some far lesser grief? Or does the way 
 To fairest memories open to thee?" — "Nay, 
 'Tis Mother's Love — flame-hearted as the 
 sun."— 
 "Thou seekest what thou knowest is in vain, 
 Although before me were a Dante's pen, 
 Heart's blood for ink, with strength to make 
 them mine, 
 And though my sonnet bars their bounds should strain 
 Beyond imagination's farthest ken 
 Till bathed in all the ecstasies divine." 
 
 [ 3^ ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 CHRISTMAS HYMN 
 
 CHRIST, on this thy natal day, 
 As oft before, we fain would pray; 
 And as the bells in laud of thee 
 Ring joyous over land and sea, 
 
 With every feeling sounding back 
 
 Along our lives' eventful track 
 
 That led from thee, ah, let us dare 
 
 To fill our starving souls with prayer. 
 
 Give us the passion-conquering might 
 
 In every stress to do the right; 
 
 And should we fall, as like we may, 
 
 Help us to front another day. 
 
 Add strengthening light to our weak eyes 
 
 For them to view fresh splendors rise, 
 
 And see that at our very feet 
 
 The richest things may lie complete. 
 
 Oh, lift us in thy blessed arms 
 
 Above the fear of loud alarms 
 
 To where the flower of courage grows 
 
 On hope-crowned heights that duty knows, 
 
 [ 33 ] 
 
CHRISTMAS HYMN 
 
 Till thrilled with that divinest air, 
 No longer dreaming of despair, 
 We shall go on from day to day 
 Despite all lions in our way. 
 
 Oh, give to us such spirit-needs 
 As teach the scorn of hates and greeds, 
 And light within our breast the fires 
 Of wisdom-hearted, high desires; 
 Of love for all without constraint, 
 Of love that dares not halt nor faint, 
 Though it lead us, as it led thee, 
 Along the road to Calvary. 
 
 May we with thee so closely live 
 As that we freely can forgive, 
 Although our heart be torn by one 
 The best beloved beneath the sun, 
 And though the friendship built of old 
 With rarest gems and purest gold 
 Be prostrate laid, and we remain 
 In irremediable pain. 
 
 [ 34 ] 
 
C HRISTMAS HYMN 
 
 O Christ, on this thy holiest day, 
 Accept our homage as we pray; 
 Upon us pour thy healing balm, 
 Till every pulse, serenely calm, 
 And tuned to love, undaunted beats 
 With harmony's ambrosial sweets, 
 While centred in our souls increase 
 The priceless treasures of thy peace. 
 
 QUESTION 
 
 Outside, the rain is dreary, 
 Inside, my heart is weary, 
 Outside, the winds are sighing, 
 Inside, my hopes are dying; — 
 O Earth, where is thy beauty? 
 O Soul, where is thy duty? 
 
 [ 35 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 FAITH 
 
 Though man be lost in maze of mystery's land, 
 'Tis his to feel if not to understand, 
 And hear the heartening voice that ever sings 
 Of all the deep divinity of things. 
 
 WORK AND SERVICE 
 
 Through work and service thou mayst see 
 The inmost heart of liberty, 
 And make thy sum of days to be 
 One fused organic unity. 
 
 UNKISSED 
 
 O lips that moan unkissed 
 
 Beneath Love's luring sky, 
 What raptures you have missed, 
 
 What pangs have passed you by ! 
 
 [ 36 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 UNACCOMPLISHED 
 
 H 
 
 E parcelled off from Beauty's vast 
 demesne 
 
 K3jJ(^3S One little spot that seemed so very fair, 
 
 Tj^S^SS* He thought his soul might rest securely 
 there, 
 Triumphant in a spring of fadeless green; 
 
 And in the distance looming clear were seen 
 
 Great towers that wooed such empyreal air, 
 They mocked alike man's ravage and his care, 
 Beaming like stars eternally serene. 
 
 Then came the Muse and whispered in his ear 
 Seductive sweetnesses that so beguiled, 
 He dared a tower of his own to rear; 
 
 But scarce one dawn beheld it, when a wild 
 
 Wind smote it, and in night that knew no gleam 
 It crashed to fragments as a shattered dream. 
 
 [ 37 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 TO CHARLES LAMB 
 
 H, many a year has fled, dear Lamb, 
 
 since thou 
 Tasted the bitter and the sweet of death, 
 But Love thy name hath nurtured so, 
 that now, 
 
 As scarce before, it greenly flourisheth. 
 Thou hadst sincerity without a flaw, 
 And lovedst all so deeply and so true, 
 Thou to the beggar and the sweep couldst draw, 
 And see their hearts their rags and tatters through. 
 Thou hadst no theories for wayward man, 
 Nor sought to teach some lesson to thy kind, 
 But livedst patiently thy little span, 
 To hopeless ills courageously resigned. 
 
 Thy writings leave us debtors evermore, 
 
 But what thou wast makes still the richer store. 
 
 [ 38 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 THE RECORD 
 
 w 
 
 HEN thy stilled hands lie folded on thy 
 
 breast, 
 „ As some day they will be at death's 
 
 j^j^j^jjj^ desire, 
 
 What praise could wake the silence of thy rest, 
 
 What censure rouse thy indignation's fire? 
 
 O moment incommunicably dread ! 
 
 For then how mend life's slightest broken thread, 
 
 Or kiss to warmth the love by thee betrayed, 
 
 Or slay the least of those thy passions bred, 
 
 Or haste with joy some fallen one to aid, 
 
 And set the crown of hope upon his head? 
 
 What's done is done, on lines thyself hast laid; 
 Nor canst thou scape the forfeit to be paid : 
 No deed of thine can hope for funeral pyre, 
 Nor can Time's flood with still increasing ire 
 Erase one record thou hast ever made. 
 From man's memorial tablets it may fade; 
 But on the book the Eternal Justice keeps, 
 With omnipresent eye that never sleeps, 
 'Twill be emblazoned through unending years 
 Though grieved contrition shed a sea of tears. 
 
 [ 39 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 IN A CHURCH 
 
 ILE-ROOFED and low it meekly 
 
 stands, 
 The loving work of loving hands, 
 And views, from out its cross- 
 crowned tower, 
 Its garden plot of tree and flower. 
 
 Within, madrona trees, love-slain, 
 With joy renewed live once again, 
 To hold, in still unwearied arms, 
 The naked ceiling's modest charms. 
 
 A holy hush is in the air, 
 As though the spirit's essence there 
 Had been distilled and entered all 
 That lay within the sacred wall. 
 
 The song is sung, the prayer is said, 
 The Book, and sermon thence, are read, 
 While from the wings of Peace outspread 
 The balm of blessedness is shed. 
 
 [ 40 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 MYSTERY 
 
 w 
 
 HAT notes of mystery in our being 
 sound ! — 
 JB The unimaginable depths of space; 
 £b4rS* The multitudinous worlds in pauseless 
 
 race 
 To distant goals beyond all dreaming's bound; 
 This orb of ours whereon man sits encrowned 
 A God and Devil — void of any place 
 Where Life and Death meet not in fierce 
 
 embrace, 
 To what deep purpose thought has never found. 
 There is no great or small: this grain of sand 
 Its secret holds, as does the shaping hand 
 Which fast cements it in the building's wall; 
 And this vain butterfly, that only can 
 In winged rapture hasten to its fall, 
 Mysterious is as thy great soul, O Man. 
 
 [ 41 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 MAN'S HERITAGE 
 
 M MORTAL Man, what treasure falls 
 
 to thee ! — 
 The ages million-yeared whose life- 
 blood still 
 
 Flows through the channels of thy good and ill, 
 As will thine own through those that are to be; 
 The prisoned secrets yearning to be free; 
 
 The infinite-sounding harmonies that fill 
 All space and being; and that supremest Will 
 Which weaves the web of life's great mystery. 
 Dig where thou wilt and thou shalt jewels find, 
 As will thy brother in no less degree 
 Who searches centuries hence with deeper mind; 
 For thou art ruled by such divine decree, 
 
 And in the Eternal's breast art so enshrined, 
 Thy wealth can feel no bound's extremity. 
 
 [ 42 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 OUT OF THE SHADOW 
 
 WOULD not have the world's regard- 
 less eyes 
 
 (l^Jj^SX Rest on this verse made consecrate with 
 
 $SSj£?88$ tears 
 
 For one who in the spring-time of his years 
 Sank down o'erburdened, never more to rise ; 
 
 But those alone whose unavailing cries 
 
 Have risen like mine for all the heart endears 
 I would have here to pause, and in his bier's 
 Deep shadow share my bosom's agonies. 
 
 Yet as Grief hands the bitter cup around, 
 And deeper grows the shade's intensity, 
 Our souls may hear some new, far-falling sound; 
 
 And mid its throbs divine it then may be 
 
 That Life will stream with richer thought, and 
 
 we 
 Deem Death a monarch with effulgence 
 crowned. 
 
 [ 43 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 POE 
 
 E walked beneath the raven's wing 
 A wayward child in lightless gloom, 
 And there his trancing songs did 
 sing 
 And weave his haunting tales of doom. 
 
 Hf^§ 
 
 H 
 
 
 ZLmCJIhmumm^S 
 
 He drank from Beauty's honey-cup, 
 Pressed to his eager lips by Art, 
 
 Until her nectar swallowed up 
 The very substance of his heart. 
 
 Upon her lines his structures grew, 
 In form most cunningly designed, 
 
 While demons that he nurtured slew 
 The peace and sweetness of his mind. 
 
 With hopeless sighs and bitter tears 
 He filled his sad, remorseful hours, 
 
 Yet reared the while, for all the years, 
 His beauty-crowned, enchanted towers. 
 
 [ 44 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 TO WALT WHITMAN 
 
 HOU roughest-hewn of all the poet kind ! 
 Not thine to tinkle rhyme's melodious 
 bell, 
 'f^jjftjjJL Nor set to music of harmonious swell 
 The thoughts that surged within thy shoreless 
 mind; 
 Not these could Art to lightest durance bind, 
 
 Nor sensuous Beauty with her deepest spell 
 Entice them in her fair demesne to dwell ; 
 But formless, ruleless they as unconfined. 
 \et, giant soul, thy loud-resounding lyre, 
 
 Whose tones the wondering world still leans to 
 
 hear, 
 Thrills every spirit that would dare to be 
 Inflamed with that unique, immortal fire, 
 
 Which made thee what thou wast — the grandest 
 
 seer 
 And noblest poet of Democracy. 
 
 [ 45 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 HOME 
 
 F earthly things thou top of blessings — 
 
 Home! 
 Safe refuge where the overburdened soul 
 Lays down its weary weight of toil and 
 care, 
 To softly fall into the arms of rest. 
 In deep dreams there the frets of life are hushed, 
 Its turmoils and its woes, while the stopped ears 
 Hear nought of clamor's unrelenting noise 
 That roars tumultuous in the world without. 
 And there the mistress of the blest abode 
 In sweetest tyranny serenely sways 
 Her silver sceptre over all the house, 
 Until each feverous, hesitating pulse, 
 Ruled by the music of her heartening love, 
 Beats to the measure of melodious peace. 
 
 [ 46 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 AFTER AN EVENING WITH 
 LONGFELLOW 
 
 OULD I but mount with something of 
 thine ease, 
 Sjgr< And lightly wing the empyreal air 
 ^n&jjJL The muses breathe, I would not now 
 
 despair 
 To rise in praise of thee on lines like these; — 
 Now, when thy dulcet, fine felicities 
 
 All freshly lie upon my soul, and wear 
 A bloom so richly, beautifully fair, 
 They mock expression's subtlest alchemies. 
 No deliration ever mars thy strain, 
 
 No puling, weak complaining nor lament, 
 Nor formless numbers hobbling slow along; 
 But borne on waves of music, sweetly sane, 
 Serenely passioned, suavely eloquent, 
 It glows with witching art of noble song. 
 
 [ 47 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 TO WHITTIER 
 
 i 
 OME verse there is death cannot touch 
 
 although 
 It may not nest upon the loftiest height, 
 To spread its pinions in untiring flight 
 
 Where constellations in resplendence glow; 
 Nor yet by Fancy fondly fellowed know 
 
 Her fairy realms of exquisite delight; 
 
 Nor with Imagination's stopless might 
 
 Range the vast regions of our bliss and woe; — 
 For it hath cradled in the human breast 
 
 Feelings and thoughts with which we would not 
 part ; 
 
 And hath in loving, saving strength possessed 
 The power to move the universal heart, 
 
 And so will be by all the muses blest 
 
 As long as joys shall sing, or tears shall start. 
 
 [ 48 ] 
 
TO WHITTIER 
 
 II 
 
 UCH verse, O Whittier, thy muse 
 employs : 
 KiJjF(§SI5 For thou dost sing in unaffected lay 
 
 'S^SSSk Of maidens fair, of childhood's glorious 
 
 day, 
 Of natural things unmixed with base alloys; 
 Dost mint the gold that lies in homely joys, 
 
 And gently mov'st in such consummate way 
 The human heartstrings to melodious play, 
 That restful music drowns the world's mad 
 noise. 
 New England lives in thy delightful line: 
 
 There do her household hearths our love con- 
 strain ; 
 There do her tales with freshened beauty shine, 
 Her fields, her woods, her skies, her stormy main; 
 While over all the Power we feel divine 
 Upholds eternal, universal reign. 
 
 [ 49 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 POETIC ART 
 
 HE cities vanish; one by one 
 The glories go that glories won; 
 At Time's continuous, fateful call 
 The palaces and temples fall; 
 
 While heroes do their deeds and then 
 Sink down to earth as other men. 
 Yet, let the Poet's mind and heart 
 But touch them with the wand of Art, 
 And lo ! they rise and shine once more 
 In greater splendor than before. 
 
 INSIGHT 
 
 One doubts, one fears, one calls on circumstance, 
 And one is blown by every wind of chance; 
 While yet another looks into his soul, 
 And sails serenely to his destined goal. 
 
 [ SO ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 REVERIE 
 
 m 
 
 w 
 
 HAT realm is thine, thou gentlest ruler, 
 sleep ! 
 
 ^^j^flT< All life obeys thee, while earth's myriad 
 
 Ij^jgjiigjj^ graves 
 
 But point to where thy ageless banner waves, 
 And where thou dost unbroken vigil keep. 
 
 Innumerous messengers are thine, who leap 
 
 To do thy bidding — noiseless, nimble knaves, 
 Who bring from out thy many-chambered caves 
 Sweet dreams wherein the troubled brain to steep. 
 
 And from thy choicest chamber steals thy child 
 Poetic souls do know as Reverie; 
 'Tis she whose fingers set the spirit free, 
 
 So that from every fleshly hindrance isled, 
 
 It may with Fancy roam the woodland wild, 
 Or sail upon Imagination's sea. 
 
 [ Si ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 TO A SOILED AND BROKEN VOLUME 
 OF BAYARD TAYLOR'S POEMS 
 
 OME, worthy waif, to my embrace; 
 Let me with gentlest touch erase 
 All soilure from thy pretty face, 
 Remove the torn and faded dress 
 
 That mars thy pristine loveliness, 
 
 And bid the binder clothe anew 
 
 Thy beauteous form, and there bestrew, 
 
 With hand by loving taste controlled, 
 
 His daintiest flowers of gleaming gold. 
 
 Then shall I gladly house thee where 
 
 The best of all thy kinsmen fare, 
 
 And who will give thee welcome room 
 
 Within the precints of their home, 
 
 And where thine author sure would say 
 
 Thou hadst at last not gone astray. 
 
 There shalt thou have such tender care 
 
 The bitter past will be forgot; 
 
 And oft to thee shall I repair, 
 
 To thrill beneath thy glowing thought; 
 
 To follow thee at leisure times 
 
 For art-grown pearls in distant climes; 
 
 [ 52 ] 
 
TO A SOILED AND BROKEN VOLUME 
 
 To have the sluggish feelings stirred 
 By many a music-singing word, 
 And mount with thee on lyric wings 
 Above the touch of sordid things. 
 Ah, then how happy shall I be 
 At thought of having rescued thee! 
 
 DEFIANCE 
 
 Despair, I do defy thee and despise: 
 Though seamed my heart with scars, 
 Yet will I press undaunted toward the prize 
 That blazes mid the stars. 
 
 [ 53 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 ENDEAVOR 
 I 
 TILL am I tossed upon a troubled sea, 
 Puzzled and doubting how to make my 
 way; 
 
 fflj^^jagj^ Resultless day follows resultless day, 
 And even my dreams no solace bring to me. 
 
 At Duty's call, unheeding other plea, 
 
 Have I pushed forward, scornful of delay, 
 
 Not idly lazing in the lap of play, 
 
 Nor grieving over what might never be. 
 
 And now, the years seem shorter as they run, 
 Nor dares my life to hope for many more, 
 Or should they come, that they will truly bless 
 
 The best that lay within me has been done; 
 And as an end all vainly I deplore 
 Endeavor's dreary waste of fruitlessness. 
 
 [ 54 ] 
 
ENDEAVOR 
 II 
 
 HOU wavering soul, what note is this 
 
 to sound? 
 Dost prate of Duty, yet art satisfied 
 With what thou hast in scarce half- 
 struggle tried? 
 Dost beat thy wings against thy self-made bound, 
 Forgetful that in Life's unresting round 
 
 All marvellously wondrous things abide 
 For him who seeks and will not be denied? 
 And that the humblest may be jewel-crowned? 
 O blinded one, unhood thy spirit's eyes, 
 
 So they may truly see the world without, 
 And that still other world which stirs within; 
 Then canst thou soar through Hope's enchanting skies 
 To peaks undarkened by the clouds of Doubt, 
 And where to Victory thou mayst be kin. 
 
 [ 55 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 TO KEATS 
 
 T 
 
 HOU art, O Keats, of all the poet race 
 The Muses' most immediate, darling 
 child; 
 jgjigjgjsj They kissed thee at thy birth and fondly 
 
 smiled, 
 Foreseeing what thy splendors would embrace: 
 Enchantments man would never cease to chase, 
 And catch and catch again, and be beguiled, 
 Till filled with rapture he should be so isled 
 Upon such sparkling sea of fairy space. 
 Thou clear-eyed spirit! Thou miracle of song! 
 Greek and Elizabethan met in thee, 
 To shake thy soul with Beauty's ecstasy; 
 And though death would not let men hold thee long, 
 Affection twines her greenest round thy name 
 As loftier grows the column of thy fame. 
 
 [ 5« ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 TO SHELLEY 
 
 Bright seraph of the cloud and air, 
 
 Couldst thou have left thine eyry there, 
 
 And felt the earth beneath thy feet 
 
 Till life for thee was all complete, 
 
 Or had the waves not swept thee down, 
 
 Thou mightst have worn still richer crown ; 
 
 But why regret? — thy lyric lay 
 
 Still wings its rapturing, skyey way, 
 
 While that brute world which gave thee blows 
 
 Now on thy tomb Love's roses throws. 
 
 REFUGE 
 
 The winds of Grief were driving him 
 
 Upon the rocks despair had reared, 
 When in the distance, faint and dim, 
 
 The Star of Poesy appeared; 
 And as toward her his face he turned 
 
 With hope and courage in his breast, 
 She then with greater fulgence burned, 
 
 To light him to the Port of Rest. 
 
 [ 57 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 AT THE PRESIDIO OF SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 HE rose and honeysuckle intertwine 
 Their fond arms here in beauty's own 
 
 sweet way; 
 Here loveliest grasses never know decay, 
 And every wall is eloquent with vine; 
 Far-reaching avenues make beckoning sign, 
 
 Where, as we stroll in lingering, glad delay, 
 The trilling songster glorifies the sway 
 That gives to him inviolable shrine. 
 And yet, within this beauty-haunted place 
 
 War keeps his dreadful engines at command, 
 With scarce a smile upon his frowning face, 
 And ever ready, unrelaxing hand . . . 
 
 We start to see, when dreaming in these bowers, 
 A tiger sleeping on a bed of flowers. 
 
 [ 58 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 NIGHT 
 
 S oft of old, I watched the sun leap o'er 
 The golden barriers of the farthest West, 
 And saw the stars on heaven's deep azure 
 breast 
 In splendor blaze as never seen before; 
 And then upon mine ear began to pour, 
 
 In waves innumerous that knew no rest, 
 The sharp, sweet notes of myriad ones that blest 
 My inmost soul with more than music's lore : 
 Unnoted these great stars glow all the day, 
 
 Unheard these tiny insects chirp their lay — 
 Eclipsed by louder sound, by brighter light. 
 Thus many a sweet and patient one of earth 
 
 Shines on, sings on, unmarked her priceless worth 
 Till she has glorified Misfortune's night. 
 
 [ 59 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 TRANSMUTATION 
 
 O heart, with bitter tears o'erbrimmed, 
 Grief does not sit alone with thee, 
 For Faith and Love with eyes undimmed 
 With her keep tender company, 
 Where, if thou wilt, this woe of thine 
 May be transmuted to a shrine. 
 
 TENNYSON'S GOOD FORTUNE 
 
 F all the poets never yet was one 
 More blest by fortune than was Tenny- 
 son: 
 For half a century his pen so swayed 
 The realm of Poesy that all obeyed, 
 And owned he gave such jewelled song-words birth 
 As could not well be matched upon the earth. 
 His country held him closely to her breast 
 As one in whom she was uniquely blest, 
 While wife, and friends, and children, all were his, 
 And spoils of wealth and noble dignities. 
 He dreamed his dreams from clamoring man apart, 
 His every passion centring in his art, 
 
 [ 60 ] 
 
tennyson's good fortune 
 
 And from his garden's quietude of shade 
 
 In calm contentment all the world surveyed, 
 
 Keeping his powers in such consummate bloom 
 
 They never seemed to wither or to fade. 
 
 And when had come the fateful hour of doom, 
 
 Good fortune still was his : the moonbeams made 
 
 Transfiguring beauty of his chamber's gloom; 
 
 The Master's music lingered on his lips 
 
 The latest ere his spirit passed away, 
 
 And sudden sunlight burst through cloud's eclipse 
 
 In golden glory on his coffined clay. 
 
 [ 61 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 IN NOVEMBER 
 
 HE year draws nigh the edge of death; 
 for see, 
 
 gjgX These dreary branches have already shed 
 
 f^J^MW^ Such myriad leaves, they lie in mounds of 
 dead 
 At foot of each sad-hearted parent tree. 
 
 Yet, grim and stern as human soul might be, 
 
 The scarred, gray sycamores with defiant head 
 Like warriors stand, while in its shrunken bed 
 The languid stream flows on resignedly. 
 
 Life is aweary and in quiet here 
 
 Would rest awhile her care-tormented brain, 
 As dreams she of the fast-departing year; 
 
 While Melancholy, led by Memory's train, 
 
 With pensive step now gently steals anear, 
 To dew the ground with sacramental tear. 
 
 [ 62 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 THESEUS AND ARIADNE 
 
 ITHIN the labyrinth's depths the Mino- 
 taur, 
 
 Slain by the sword she gave, lay stark 
 and dead, 
 
 And with his finger following her thread 
 
 He issued forth to see the heavens once more. 
 
 Then Theseus swiftly from the hated shore 
 With Ariadne on his bosom fled, 
 Still hearing, as toward Naxos on they sped, 
 King Minos' cries above the ocean's roar. 
 
 Deep-nested in love's softest down they lay 
 
 When she to him : " Through me alone thy way 
 To century-sounding fame has now been won; 
 
 And yet I fear; — Oh, swear we shall not part!" — 
 "By Aphrodite do I swear, sweetheart!" . . . 
 Then rose portentous cloud and hid the sun. 
 
 [ 63 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 ULYSSES AND CALYPSO 
 
 OR that they slew the cattle of the Sun 
 Ulysses' comrades sank to death while 
 he, 
 ^n jM ffi Borne on the billows of the friendly sea, 
 Calypso's lovely isle in safety won; 
 Where filled with soothing rest his days did run 
 To murmurous music's luring notes as she 
 Bound him in coils of such captivity, 
 That but for Zeus his soul had been undone. 
 The God's decree the enamored nymph obeyed, 
 And helped the hero as his raft he made, 
 While brimmed her heart with desolation's tears. 
 His glimmering sail she watched till in the sea's 
 
 Great void 'twas lost, then moaned because her 
 
 years 
 Were not as mortal as Penelope's. 
 
 [ 64 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 NARCISSUS 
 
 w 
 
 A 
 
 WAY from Echo's plaint Narcissus led 
 His steps where lay a moss-engirdled 
 
 t}%^!sS^££a And wearied stooped to taste its waters 
 cool ; — 
 
 When down he sudden fell as if struck dead. 
 At last he gazed; then tried to clasp the head 
 
 And kiss the face so strangely beautiful; 
 
 Yet he but marred the mirror's waveless lull, 
 
 And wept to find his radiant vision fled. 
 No food he sought nor sleep ; to gaze and sue, 
 
 Burned by the noonday sun and drenched with 
 dew, 
 
 Were his alone until his parting breath. 
 The nymph he scorned with kindly hand did strew 
 
 Sweet grass and bloom upon his bed of death, 
 
 And on the spot a flower immortal grew. 
 
 [ 6 5 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 ORESTES 
 
 HEN Agamemnon on the wings of fame 
 From conquered Troy to Clytemnestra 
 
 flew, 
 She kissed him as ^Egisthus pierced him 
 through — 
 A pair of devils in immortal shame ! 
 Orestes heard, and all his quivering frame 
 
 Surged with a wrath the Pythoness so blew, 
 That with his mother's blood he dared imbrue 
 The hand till then snow-white of any blame. 
 Whereat the snakes of torture round his head 
 Still closelier clung as on and on he fled 
 Before the vengeful, fierce Eumenides; 
 But when the Tauric Artemis he bore 
 
 To Argos' land, Athene's self did seize 
 
 The raging Furies, and they scourged no more. 
 
 [ 66 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 TO GOETHE 
 
 ]OD built thee on the noblest plan, 
 Thou universal, fruitful man! 
 No life there was thou couldst not feel, 
 No learning thou didst not acquire, 
 
 And these thine art did so anneal 
 
 They glow as with perpetual fire : 
 
 The heights of hope, the vales of fears; 
 
 The agony of soul-drawn tears; 
 
 The human heart in every guise; 
 
 The weak, the strong, the fool, the wise; 
 
 Beauty in all its good and ill ; 
 
 Temptation's snare, heroic will; 
 
 Poor, erring man as on he goes 
 
 Through hates and loves, delights and woes; 
 
 All these did in thy passion throng, 
 
 To breathe immortally in song. 
 
 Thy serious soul surveyed the all, 
 Contemning not what seemed the small, 
 Nor lost in mazes of the vast; 
 While all thy years thou wisely wast 
 The conqueror of thyself, who could 
 Dispart the evil from the good, 
 
 [ 6? 3 
 
TO GOETHE 
 
 And calmly sit above the show 
 Of froth and fume that raged below, 
 And with unique, compelling force 
 Ordain for man his proper course. 
 Thy piercing vision saw the springs 
 That lie within the heart of things, 
 And thy imperial voice shall sound 
 Its notes to earth's remotest bound, 
 To point the way, with good bestrown, 
 To Wisdom seated on her throne. 
 
 I 68 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 ARRIA 
 
 HEAR, and shake not, that thou art 
 
 decreed 
 By thine own hand to miserably die — 
 Now, when thy fortunes blossom and 
 the eye 
 Of fate beams bright as with prophetic meed; 
 And why shak'st thou in this thy spirit's need 
 
 When Death and Caesar stand relentless by? 
 Arouse thy soul till thy defiant cry 
 Proclaims? once more our matchless Roman 
 breed."— 
 " O wife, to close this day my book of years 
 Is unimagined pain; this proffered steel 
 The horror's sum of horrors unto me." — 
 " Give me the blade, that so thy griefs and fears 
 
 May drown in mine own blood. I strike . . . 
 
 and feel 
 No hurt, my Paetus . . . now the point's for 
 thee." 
 
 [ 69 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 PERPETUA 
 
 r — wit I 
 
 
 fe^H 
 
 M 
 
 I ^ A ^*av l 
 
 KS^^ 
 
 r ; ioa«iii^" 
 
 Y father, plead no more; — wouldst have 
 me wed 
 Remorse in life, and then in flames to lie, 
 When from the blood of Caesar's circus I 
 Can leap to Heaven to be chapleted? 
 Has not our holy Saint Ignatius said 
 
 God's wheat we are, that, for his purpose high, 
 And in his boundless love, should be ground by 
 The teeth of monsters into Christ's pure bread? 
 Then welcome the arena's glorious ruth ; 
 
 I long to feel the lion's rending tooth 
 Till all my body reeks with horrors fell. 
 And yet, dear father, ere from thee I go, 
 
 It touches me to think of that great woe 
 Which will be thine eternally in Hell. 
 
 [ 70 3 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 DANTE AND BEATRICE 
 
 WORLD-COMPELLING Dante, who 
 ^ the sea 
 
 J8X Of Poesy so stirred from shore to shore, 
 -nljgl That even as yet its surging thunders 
 
 roar 
 In tones undying as eternity; 
 
 With master spirit so supremely free 
 
 It scorned all bonds and swept through every 
 
 lore, 
 On wisdom's pinions at the last to soar 
 To empyreal world of ecstasy! 
 
 The crown of sorrows with its thorns was thine; 
 But in thy bosom blazed the fires divine 
 That lit thy track to Paradise from Hell; 
 
 And she who gendered their supernal light 
 
 Has starred forevermore the magic might — 
 Disputeless miracle — of woman's spell. 
 
 [ 71 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 EDELWEISS 
 
 fO-MORROW from Zermatt we'll see 
 the grand, 
 Far Theodule and soaring Matterhorn ; 
 And then, O joy ! as if for us just born, 
 In luring nook the Edelweiss will stand." . . . 
 The morrow's breeze the peak and glacier fanned, 
 And fanned the form of her that crushed and 
 
 torn 
 Lay like uprooted lily pale and lorn, 
 The fatal Edelweiss within her hand. 
 Her body fouled with stains they bore far up 
 From precipice's foot to church's arms, 
 And would have earthed it 'neath memorial 
 stone ; 
 But vain the offer of this final cup: 
 
 For she who fled the city's roars and harms 
 Now found that even in death it claimed its own. 
 
 [ 72 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 TO BALZAC 
 
 ON READING HIS MEMOIR BY 
 
 MISS WORMELEY 
 
 NTIL I knew the story of thy years, 
 
 It did not seem titanic power like thine 
 , Could have been found in merely human 
 
 '§££%. mine, 
 
 Or could have mingled with life's hopes and 
 fears ; 
 For thy great spirit so sublime appears 
 
 Among the kindred fellows of thy line, 
 That every Muse would hail thee as divine, 
 And Atropos for once distrust her shears. 
 'Tis so set down, yet strange I feel it still, 
 
 That thou wast not the demi-god I deemed, 
 But anxious toiler for thy daily bread; 
 Thy bosom racked with many a torturing ill; 
 
 And who, like others, when thy dreams were 
 
 dreamed, 
 Felt Death's dark angel settle on thy head. 
 
 [ 73 1 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 NEAR MIDNIGHT OF DECEMBER 
 THIRTY-FIRST 1899 
 
 N retrospective dream I watch my fire, 
 Erst bright with flame, to embers now 
 
 decline, 
 As thee, the youngest one of Time's long 
 line, 
 I see in his unfeeling arms expire. 
 And as thou sinkest down, war's clamorings dire 
 
 More horrent scream than when life first was 
 
 thine, 
 While man now drinks his brother's blood for 
 
 wine 
 With bestial, unappeasable desire. 
 Thou seem'st of evil wrought, but so did they 
 
 Thy vanished kin ; yet man still holds his way 
 Through all the maze and tangle of despair; 
 Still Love uprears her palaces divine; 
 
 No deed's to do but finds some arm to dare, 
 And God still lets his stars in glory shine. 
 
 [ 74 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 ON RECEIVING A BUNCH OF HOLY 
 GRASS 
 
 B 
 
 SSjjfrjSK Before the portals of the 
 
 KSsmI Twas hol y called with 
 
 ECAUSE on festivals its leaves were 
 strown 
 
 sacred fane, 
 with one accordant 
 strain, 
 Till by that reverent name 'tis ever known. 
 So now, most worthy lady thou dost deign, 
 
 As Easter's music through the heart is blown, 
 To strew this grass before me as mine own — 
 Me, a poor singer, piping all in vain. 
 How joyed the mountain torrent where it grew ! 
 What opulence of golden hours it knew 
 Where Solitude, unconquered, reigned alone ! 
 Though lifeless quite, it still yields balmiest breath, 
 As some dear soul, in all the graces grown, 
 Exhales divinest perfumes even in death. 
 
 [ 75 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 VOICES 
 
 )ROM out the azure's depths serenely 
 falling 
 At times I hear celestial voices calling, 
 And then in spirit-flight 
 
 I soar from murky Night, 
 To seek their presence in the fields of Light. 
 
 And by their marvellous tones the air is shaken, 
 Until I feel my fearsome soul awaken 
 
 To faiths that set it free; 
 
 And calm as one might be 
 I dare to ask, what death can come to me? 
 
 [ 7« ] 
 
FIVE SONNETS 
 SUGGESTED BY SOME PICTURES 
 PAINTED 
 BY WILLIAM KEITH 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 MORNING 
 
 D 
 
 EEP-BROODING Night has done its 
 worst and best, 
 
 fl^S^^X And once again we front the new-born 
 
 Where now the sickled moon with lessening ray 
 Hangs low upon the sky's auroral breast. 
 
 The earth, soft-garmented in robes of gray, 
 
 Drinks heaven's sweet dew with such delightful 
 
 zest, 
 She fain would see time held a prisoner lest 
 The sun should sweep her present joys away. 
 
 Home kindles now her necessary fires, 
 
 Whose shafts of smoke, that gently pierce the air, 
 Like incense seem in worship of the Morn. 
 
 And as we list to these far-sounding lyres, 
 
 So great all grows, so most divinely fair, 
 The soul, fresh-winged, upsoars as if reborn. 
 
 [ 79 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 II 
 
 BY THE ROADSIDE 
 
 ROM root to leaf each merry-hearted tree 
 Breathes the sweet air as with divine 
 
 delight, 
 And even the clouds, o'ercome by 
 beauty's might, 
 But swell the woodland's deep-drawn ecstasy; 
 And yonder horsemen jewelled in the light, 
 Shout to the sky in wantonness of glee, 
 As though for them no future could there be 
 Of mad despair's insufferable night. 
 With weary feet, and heart sore charged with woe, 
 A woman sits the grass-fringed road beside, 
 Deep in her soul the iron of the years. 
 "Ah, joyous ones," she sighs, " could ye but know 
 What bitter ruth will clip your soaring pride, 
 Ye would return and blend with mine your 
 tears ! " 
 
 [ 80 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 III 
 
 INTO THE MYSTERY 
 
 HE palpitating splendors of the West 
 In mystery tremble through the wood, 
 
 as Day 
 With noiseless footfall slowly steals 
 away 
 To Night's star-lighted palace and to rest. 
 Save where the cavaliers spur on with zest, 
 As if some fateful message to convey 
 For leagues beyond, all sounds of sad or gay 
 Lie stirless on the landscape's lovely breast. 
 And should we ask these horsemen in their pride 
 What word it is they carry on their ride, 
 And what dear heart to hear it breathed would 
 break, 
 They sure would say: " Such word is ours alone; 
 To Dreamland only is that loved one known; 
 Yet we shall ride forever for her sake." 
 
 [ Si ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 IV 
 
 MEMORIES 
 
 T 
 
 HE darksome waves of all thy fourscore 
 years 
 igT< Break on thy bosom's solitary shore, 
 gjjag| Where mid the wreckage of memorial 
 
 lore 
 Sorrow sheds fast her unavailing tears. 
 As through the long-drawn time thy vision peers, 
 
 What hopes pass by that mock thee as of yore, 
 What fragrant blossoms, gone forevermore, 
 Lie heaped upon thy heart's uncounted biers! 
 Oh, tell me gentle lady, from thy chair, 
 
 That holds thee now in Memory's thraldom 
 
 chained, 
 Have nought but toils and pains been thy 
 increase ? — 
 Ah, friend, not so: some of my days were fair; 
 Much have I lost, yet much have also gained, 
 And even in Grief's own cup have tasted peace. 
 
 [ 82 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 THE UNCEASING ROUND 
 
 N centre of the canvas see this pine 
 All stark in death, with arms in vain 
 
 appeal 
 For what it nevermore can taste or feel 
 
 Of joys of earth or of the heavens divine. 
 
 Straight as in life it stands, still bearing sign 
 Of noble majesty and dauntless will; 
 While at its base its elder brothers spill 
 Their ashes where the grasses kiss and twine. 
 
 A great-armed redwood centuries have blessed 
 Uptowers, while with bliss of life possessed 
 The forest sings in grand, harmonious tone. 
 
 And careless men pass by — the children they 
 Of other children death has made his own, 
 And who like them will strive and pass away. 
 
 [ 8 3 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 BROWNING 
 
 H 
 
 ERE was a Titan — one whose teeming 
 
 thought, 
 , In unfamiliar channels, broad and deep, 
 
 ^P^jjffi Flowed grandly on in undimished sweep ; 
 One who, by nature as by learning taught, 
 In many a mine of human passion wrought, 
 With such keen vision, such soul-searching ways, 
 As ne'er were blazoned in the sight of men 
 Save by his own and Shakespeare's sovran pen; 
 One who met truth with never-flinching gaze 
 As on he walked with Muse for loving guide; 
 Who held his road, despite of blame or praise, 
 In noble scorn of intellectual pride, 
 And yet who could with any man be free, 
 And in his breast some thing of beauty see; 
 Who bore Faith's ensign, starred with heartsome 
 
 hopes, 
 Undaunted up Doubt's demon-haunted slopes ; 
 Who kept to earth the while his questing eyes 
 Ranged all the reaches of the farthest skies; 
 And who, with fame that purples every tide, 
 Sleeps, where 'tis meet he should, by Chaucer's side. 
 
 [ 84 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 TO THE SIERRAS 
 
 HOU beckonest to me and I come once 
 more; 
 Once more to lay my head upon thy 
 breast, 
 
 And feel thy easeful, all-sufficing rest 
 Body and mind deliciously steal o'er. 
 My soul so hungers for thy liberal store, 
 That every feeling with insatiate zest, 
 On thought's own wings by fancy's magic blest, 
 Leaves far behind the town's tumultuous roar. 
 'Twere joy enough to have thee once again, 
 If such possession were my very last 
 This side of death : to fly the haunts of men, 
 And mid thy solitudes outstretching vast, 
 
 To be as one with all thy countless brood, 
 Nor dare to question God's eternal good. 
 
 [ 8 5 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 PROOF OF GOD 
 
 D 
 
 OST ask for proof of God? — Thou 
 
 mayst as well 
 , Ask of the daisy on its humble throne 
 §l%%£^j£l Whence, how or why its loveliness has 
 grown ; 
 Or pray the world-compelling genius tell 
 The secret cunning of his magic spell; — 
 
 But when their hearts lie close against thine own 
 Until their pulse-beats thrill thee to the bone, 
 Doubt's demons perish in their self-made hell. 
 The wings of Reason beat themselves in vain 
 Against the ether of a soundless air, 
 To fold at last in logic's dull despair. 
 Divinely ordered is this fruitless lore: 
 
 For were God proved, all mystery would be 
 
 plain, 
 And man himself, as man, could be no more. 
 
 [ 86 ] 
 
r-^vi 
 
 
 fe*vW) 
 
 B 
 
 I^^P^I 
 
 frS^^S 
 
 ^gg^ 
 
 L — *^ ■»■ 
 
 VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 TO THE SONNET 
 
 OUND in the fetters of thy narrow frame 
 What souls have conquered song! — 
 
 Here Dante's woe, 
 As Petrarch's, swells to joy; here Angelo 
 Greatens the glory of his mighty name; 
 'Tis here that Shakespeare bears his breast to blame, 
 And here that Milton stoops, great strains to 
 
 blow; 
 Here Wordsworth's notes with rapturing music 
 
 flow, 
 While Keats divinely glows with quenchless 
 flame. 
 Yea, all the rhymsters of our modern day 
 
 Crowd round thy shrine, and beg thee to enring 
 Their brows with leaves of thy unwithering bay; 
 Such crown is not for me, but prithee fling 
 Thy spell upon me, so at least I may 
 Yet dream of beauties I can never sing. 
 
 [ 8 7 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 THE LAST JOURNEY 
 
 In Memory of Professor Joseph LeConte 
 July 6, 1901 
 
 1 
 OISELESS as fall of lightest thistle- 
 *^ down 
 
 58X Upon the grass, Death's vast-winged 
 *oJjj£[ messenger, 
 
 Unseen of mortal eye, alighted where 
 Yosemite uprears her matchless walls, 
 And pours her cataracts from many an urn 
 In thunderous chorus of triumphant song. 
 
 11 
 Long have I waited, Death had said to him, 
 For one resplendent head that long has lain 
 In peace of love within the hearts of men, 
 But until now I dared not strike the blow; 
 For I am not all evil, as thou know'st, 
 And when I saw this man of noble soul, 
 In lovability beyond all words, 
 Give of his bounty each recurring year, 
 Enriching every place whereon he trod, 
 And making brighter all the air he breathed — 
 
 [ 88 ] 
 
THE LAST JOURNEY 
 
 A very sun that conquered darkest cloud — 
 I shrank from sending my resistless dart, 
 That waits for all, against a head so crowned. 
 But now, as lies he in the arms of her 
 He long has loved — the great Yosemite; 
 As on his ear the thunder of her falls 
 Beats, and he lists with new-awakened joy; 
 As his observant eye once more beholds 
 Her streams, her trees, her towers and domes, 
 With all the myriad beauties of her floor; 
 And as he hears and gazes, his great heart 
 Bursts into raptures he cannot conceal; 
 As now his powers are ripened to their best, 
 And may begin to wane in sight of men; 
 'Tis good I do, not ill, to strike him down. 
 But do thine office gently on this man, 
 And let thy blow be quick and merciful. 
 
 in 
 The messenger obeyed; and he that was 
 So nobly crowned with life's supremest gems; 
 Who but a few short hours before had been 
 A very fountain whence outgushed a stream 
 Of most abounding and exalted good, 
 Lay like a clod — no light within that eye 
 
 [ 89 ] 
 
THE LAST JOURNEY 
 
 Which once had challenged all the paths of space, 
 No speech upon that tongue which once had drawn 
 The hearts of thousands with its lightsome charm. 
 
 IV 
 
 The mourning Valley could not keep his clay, 
 But round it twined her garlands wet with tears 
 Of eyes that looked their lingering last on that 
 Which coffin-housed upon the wain was lashed. 
 As sank the sun behind the soaring domes, 
 And all the Valley's length in shadow lay 
 Sombrous and deep, she gave his body up — 
 Her walls in saddened gaze as ne'er before, 
 Her falls in muffled tones as ne'er before, 
 Her river sounding dirge as ne'er before. 
 
 v 
 
 The day's last breath was drawn, and brooding night, 
 
 With her procession of innumerous stars, 
 
 In new-born mystery spread her sable wings, 
 
 As now the dead and living, silent all 
 
 Save for the grinding of the wheels that toiled 
 
 Full slowly up the long, steep mountain-side, 
 
 Passed through the endless ranks of firs and pines. 
 
 The gloom of solitude was in their depths, 
 
 [ 90 ] 
 
THE LAST JOURNEY 
 
 The gloom of solitude was in our hearts; 
 
 And what strange spectacle for them to see! — 
 
 The coffined form of one who had in life 
 
 Held genial fellowship with all their kind, 
 
 To pauseless pass in quiet of the night, 
 
 And he to them forever blind and mute ; — 
 
 He that but scarce three days before had joyed 
 
 To see their needles dancing in the sun, 
 
 And had, in ecstasy of pure delight, 
 
 His very heart's blood mingled with their own. 
 
 Still on and on the living and the dead, 
 
 As brighter and still brighter shone the stars, 
 
 Passed through the darkness of the trees which seemed 
 
 As still as he that lay forever dumb. 
 
 The winds were sleeping in their distant caves 
 
 With folded wing; nor bird nor insect chirped, 
 
 Nor whispered any leaf. It was as though 
 
 The mountain and her brood in reverent hush 
 
 Were bowed before the loved, illustrious dead. 
 
 Then swam the moon with more than splendor bright 
 Up from the far horizon's edge, and shot 
 The forest's gloom with radiant, silvery threads; 
 And in that gloom all fairy forms were built, 
 
 [ 91 ] 
 
THE LAST JOURNEY 
 
 And quick as built dissolved, and then rebuilt, 
 Of palaces and domes and dim arcades, 
 While thickening shadows threw fantastic shapes 
 Across the road where toiled the mournful wain. 
 
 Still on and on the living and the dead, 
 
 As higher and still higher soared the moon, 
 
 Passed through the forest silent still as he 
 
 That in his coffin all unheeding lay. 
 
 Yet we were near him, and his soul and ours 
 
 Communed through all the watches of the night: 
 
 We thought of what his work had been to man; 
 
 What seeds of inspiration he had sown; 
 
 What love for each created thing was his; 
 
 What meeds of glory he had justly won ; 
 
 How bathed his soul in all the seas divine; 
 
 How quick his eye to find the fair and good, 
 
 How slow to see the ugly and the bad; 
 
 And then we thought of that poor fool who asked, 
 
 " Is life worth living? " 
 
 Paler grew the moon 
 As on and on the living and the dead 
 Still passed, the grieving forest left behind 
 Forevermore by him that voiceless lay. 
 
 [ 92 ] 
 
THE LAST JOURNEY 
 
 And now the Dawn, the sweet, mysterious Dawn, 
 Showed her face dimly o'er the distant peaks, 
 Then with a clearer glow and brighter smile, 
 Till drowned and lost in the absorbent beams 
 Of that almighty Sun which rules us all. 
 
 NOW 
 
 H, do not wait till in the earth I lie 
 Before thou givest me my rightful meed ; 
 Oh, do not now in coldness pass me by, 
 And then cry praises which I cannot 
 heed. 
 If I have helped thee on thy weary way, 
 Or lightened in the least thy burden's weight, 
 Haste with love's tokens ere another day 
 Shall pierce thee with the fatal words, " Too late." 
 The present moment is thy time to live : 
 The Past is gone, the Future may not be; 
 If thou hast treasure of thy heart to give 
 To hungry souls, bestow it speedily; — 
 
 For sweet Love's sake, let not to-morrow's sun 
 Tempt thee to wait before thou see it done. 
 
 [ 93 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 WITH THE LARK 
 
 Ah, mark 
 That Meadow Lark, 
 With note so silvery sweet, 
 Skimming the golden sea of wheat 
 As blithesome Dawn, in rosy-hued array, 
 Shakes out the banner of the new-born day. 
 Still on he goes with rapturous glee, 
 A floating fount of melody. 
 Oh, that my heart like his could beat 
 
 In thoughtless joy complete; 
 That under this balm-breathing sky, 
 
 Without one question why, 
 My soul in ravishment might rest 
 On Beauty's radiant breast. 
 
 [ 94 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 WITH THE EAGLE 
 
 His eye 
 Sweeps all the sky, 
 As hard he grips the rock. 
 Storm's ice-clad brood that round him flock 
 But blow the fires of his undaunted breast, 
 And forth he fares in ecstasy of quest. 
 Still up he goes, to proudly fling 
 His own against the thunder's wing. 
 O Eagle of the mighty heart, 
 
 Give me of what thou art: 
 Breed in my soul thy lofty air, 
 
 That it may nobly dare, 
 And with unconquerable will 
 Face every darkest ill. 
 
 [ 95 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 ATTAINMENT 
 
 w 
 
 E sigh for things we scarce may hope to 
 gain, 
 
 f^4^(^!^S ^ n ^ wn ' cn ' if a ^ our own > would give 
 '^^gjj^ no peace; 
 
 We vainly toil and struggle to release 
 To knowledge nature's secrets; we complain 
 
 That 'tis not given us to break some chain, 
 
 To scale some peak, to win some golden fleece, 
 To do some mighty deed whose light shall cease 
 Only when moons no longer wax and wane. 
 
 'Tis thus we empty all the springs of life, 
 To lose the blessing at our very hand : 
 For Faith and Love, with glory as of sun, 
 
 Illume the path to Peace through every strife; 
 No work is futile that is nobly planned ; 
 No deed is little if but greatly done. 
 
 [ 96 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 CONCENTRATION 
 
 ARK how the florist's cunning hand 
 compels 
 That weed unique, the strange chrysan- 
 themum, 
 
 To crown one lonely stalk whose blossomed sum 
 To giant size and gorgeous beauty swells — 
 The forces pulsing in its myriad cells 
 
 Combining, as with certainty of doom, 
 To build the structure of a single bloom, 
 Wherein the plant its dazzling triumph tells. 
 So shouldst thou have the will, O struggling soul, 
 To hold thy thoughts and actions to the pole 
 Of one predominant, exclusive aim; 
 Then may thy stalk a wondrous blossom bear, 
 
 Which shall for thee achievement's glory wear, 
 And be to others as a sign of flame. 
 
 [ 97 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 SUFFICIENCY 
 
 ET vulgar Malice work its venomed will 
 Against the heart that would as steel 
 have stood 
 'n^gjfi To shield the thing which strikes it; let 
 
 the brood 
 Of Envy swarm like bees a-hiving, and distil 
 Poisons more sure than those of Borgian skill; 
 Let Friendship wither, and a common good 
 No more be nourished by her nectared food; 
 And even dear Love insanely stab and kill. 
 Let all this be, with ills as yet unguessed; 
 
 And still, thou shalt as ocean wind be free, 
 If bravely thou dost seek thy strength and rest 
 Within thyself, bending compliant knee 
 
 To Conscience only, and in peace possessed 
 Of that all-crowning grace — Humility. 
 
 [ 93 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 ENDURE THOU FALTERING SOUL 
 
 'NDURE, thou faltering soul, thou 
 shouldst endure: 
 Though thou hast toiled and served un- 
 blest of gain; 
 
 Though clamors mock thy peace; though 
 fortune rain 
 
 Deep-wounding blows on thee, past hope of cure; 
 Though hearts grow cold, while griefs have made 
 thee poor 
 
 In all save tears, till cumulative pain 
 
 Dare proffer ease with death's too-tempting bane, 
 
 E'en then, despairing soul, thou must endure. 
 For lo, behold ! all fellows are thy kin 
 
 From vastest sun to tiniest atomy; 
 
 Yea, all that was, and is, and shall be, in 
 The mystery-breathing, great immensity, 
 
 Where thou art challenged for thy needed 
 part — 
 
 Then forward, with fresh courage in thy heart! 
 
 [ 99 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 CONSECRATION 
 
 w 
 
 OULDST thou make happiness thy 
 life's fond aim? 
 J8K Wouldst walk self-satisfied those paths 
 ^ga£?/ alone 
 
 Where fortune's perfume-freighted gales are 
 
 blown ? 
 Or toil for men to adulate thy name? 
 Wouldst madly seek the things by pleasure strown, 
 Unheeding all their emptiness and shame? 
 Or dare the fabric of thy soul to maim, 
 Could lucre's millions only be thine own? 
 If yea, oh, let that angel one austere, 
 
 Called Consecration, lead thy wandering feet 
 Where blessedness may evermore be thine: 
 Christ's gift she is — to man so wondrous dear 
 In service by her spirit made complete, 
 That Peace is hers eternally divine. 
 
 [ ioo ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 COMPENSATION 
 
 LLIMITABLY vast the ocean rolls 
 Before me as its wreck-strewn shore I 
 
 tread, 
 And in its depths I view the unnumbered 
 dead 
 Who stare for aye at unaccomplished goals. 
 So, round the earth my sorrowing sight controls 
 
 The sea of life with waves from slaughter red, 
 Which heave forevermore above the bed 
 Where lie the hopes and aims of myriad souls. 
 Yet in that ocean's breast the pulses beat 
 
 Which send rich blood through every country's 
 
 veins, 
 To serve the good whatever may befall ; 
 And in this sea Joy still the heart constrains; 
 
 Here Duty's jewels lie; and here Love's seat, 
 Divine as that which broodeth over all. 
 
 [ ioi ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 BEATITUDE 
 
 HRICE blest is he, who, when Death 
 comes 
 To bear him off from all the dreams of 
 cjgajj? earth, 
 Can look serenely in his awful face, 
 And hear the summons with complacent smile; 
 Who, looking back on his memorial years, 
 Can see the trees of undeclining green 
 Rich with the golden fruitage of his deeds, 
 That hate and envy would no longer touch; 
 And who, with blessings on the ones he loved, 
 And those who loved him in his worldly walks 
 Where he dispensed the goodness of his heart, 
 Can speak his last farewell without a sigh, 
 And fall asleep as some outwearied child 
 In soothing peace upon its mother's breast. 
 
 [ 102 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 MY MUSE 
 
 F that my Muse can never hope to soar 
 Above the summits where unwasting 
 
 snows 
 Are fellows of the stars; — if that she 
 knows 
 No swelling note of forest, sea, or shore; — 
 If e'en no streamlet of melodious lore 
 
 The tiniest craft of hers divinely shows; — 
 Or not for her the lightest breeze that blows 
 In voiceful harmony Parnassus o'er; — 
 Yet her dear self I could not think to chide, 
 
 Nor deem her less than some anointed saint 
 Who guards my soul : sufficient unto me 
 If in my deepest being she abide, 
 
 To hold my wandering thoughts in sweet con- 
 straint, 
 And all that's noblest give me sight to see. 
 
 [ 103 1 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 SCORN NOT THE SINGER 
 
 CORN not the singer though his tremu- 
 lous lay 
 JSSTjSi^t Ring not along the arches of the sky, 
 2^38$ Content the daisy's lowly sweets to try 
 As o'er the mead it wings its modest way; 
 For nectar-laden it may chance to stray 
 
 Near some lone heart that beats to hopeless cry, 
 And yielding sweetness as it passes by 
 Give strength to struggle for another day. 
 O Poesy, thou mightiest of the Nine, 
 
 Now more than ever do we need the aid 
 Of e'en the humblest votary of thine; 
 Now when, as old ideals begin to fade, 
 
 In stress of doubt we question the Divine, 
 And mid its splendors dare to be afraid. 
 
 [ 104 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 DREAM 
 
 T may be that in some auspicious hour, 
 When all life's currents run serenely free, 
 A voice will come from Dreamland unto 
 
 me 
 
 Upborne on music of celestial power. 
 
 Then in the garden of my heart some flower 
 May burst to bloom in sudden ecstasy, 
 And with delightful, deathless fragrancy 
 Add mite of glory to the Poet's dower. 
 
 O soul, thou feedest on the husks of hope, 
 
 And starvest while the things within thy scope 
 Lie all before thee in their bounty strown. 
 
 And still, ah, let me for at least to-day 
 Enjoy the vision ere it melt away, 
 To be with other dreams forever flown. 
 
 [ io 5 ] 
 
VISIONS AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 WHITHER 
 
 H, my songs beloved, 
 Whither do ye go? — 
 O beloved Poet, 
 That we cannot know. 
 
 Who can tell what roses 
 Will to-morrow bloom? 
 Or what wings be folded 
 In relentless gloom? 
 
 We abide the future, 
 As the greatest must — 
 Sure to find the laurel 
 Or be less than dust. 
 
 [ 106 ] 
 
MAY