,#\^:^*.^/?. rO- t/> ,■ * nO°,. ° ■,'-■'"■ A-^''.- %.. ■^^ .^v ,0^" i^"^. ' i, V^ %^ "'' ^ %..<' ^V ^f. S. ^ t >.•■ y -^j' ^^. v^ vOo. .■*' ■^, =,^'- " , V - ^ ^ :o^^% ~ ' ^ V' *^ v\ -: • ' ;\' " ' ^ ;/^'' ::, 'A >" A ^> ^"t. o ''^ ^^ -^> s ^• •\^' '•' A "^^'^-:^'^\^ .<^ ..^^ ^^ '^,. c^ ^ ■V .^0^ .'-^" '^oo^ '^-,. ,vx" ^^^V/Z^^^' -^,<^^' A-^' '-Cr •x^' -' ,%^ "*, .v^^'% ■^;'- .^v o^' ^ '?^ •"oo^ A^'^' % ^>^. ,#■ ■^/ ■.^'% > 1 fi ^ oo^ 'c^. ..^' "■^'-- X> . ^A V^ .0 - .c. ^^^-K//.- '^^'^^^C.^s.-;^ THE FLAMING METEOR POETICAL WORKS WILL HUBBARD-KERNAN BIOGRAPHY BY / HON. JOHN R. CLYMER OF OHIO CHICAGO CHARLES H. KERR AND COMPANY 175 Dearborn Street 1892 \ \\ Copyright, 1891, RICHD. D. KATHRENS WILL HUBBARD- KERN AN. CONTENTS Portrait of Author Frontispiece Preface 7 I.ife-Sketch 11 Poems of Pessimism: — The Cry of a Cynic 27 In the Jungle 28 Compensation 31 Vashti 33 What Is the Use? 36 Agatha 38 The Vanishing Isle 40 Inez 42 Patriotism 44 Harold 45 George Eliot 48 •Geraldine of the Graeme 50 Dorothy 53 Kenneth, My Kuig 56 King Custom 57 Idalia 60 The Solitude of Self 63 "Guiteau" 65 De Profundis 68 Britomarte 70 Song of Hate 73 Unsung 70 A Prophecy 77 Presentiment 79 Avery Meriwether 81 Cresentius 85 No Place for Me 87 Melodies of Misogamy : — Lionel LaVere 91 Blessings of Bachelorhood 96 Secret of the Song 101 Claude 105 3 4 Contents Poems of Passing Moods : — Pantheism 115 Hope 119 A Diamond Day 126 Found 128 We Two 132 Myra 133 A Fragment . 136 Thirty Years 136 A Summer Picture 139 The Dream of a Dream 141 The Martyr Band 144 Sunamcam 145 Impromptu 147 Love and Lust 1 48 The Minnesinger 151 Reginald Vane 152 Percy 1 54 Una 155 Song of the Twentieth Century 158 My Vision 1 60 Is it I? 162 Claude St. Clair 163 Anonyma 172 Optimism 1 73 Launcelot 1 76 Eternity on Earth ] 77 In a Mad House 180 The Poet Boy 181 New Year 185 Progress of the Peoples 187 Betrayed 189 Victor 190 Caryl 194 Vivian 195 Percival 197 Philip 199 In August 201 To a Dear, Dead Friend 202 Light of Life 208 Ulalie 210 The Bugle 213 Ulric 216 Chicago 218 Contents 5 Agnostic Arguments : — Agnosticism 221 Why 228 If I were God 330 Ruth 231 If I Thought as You Think 233 The Land of Fancy-Free 235 Questionings 239 Basil 241 The New Sermon 243 Per Castra Ad Astra 245 Unfulfilled 247 What Will it Matter ? 250 Poems Political: — Apologia 252 Southland 253 No Compromise 2C0 Southern Slain 2C1 We Never Will Submit to Kings 263 Our Cause 265 An Anonymous Assailant 267 Pecksniffian Politician 268 TO THE BEST FRIEND I EVER HAD, MY MOTHER. PREFACE In presenting the present volume to the pub- lic, I realize that it is a risky venture, for the literary market has long been surfeited with verse, and the impression has gone forth that the "poets are all dead." A certain nineteenth-century censor once said: "All poetry was written by men who were dead and dust before any of us were born; and it is impossible to concewe an idea of a poetical type younger than the bards who went down to death before America had been awaked to civilization." But I hold that the censor in question was too sweeping in his assertion; that, in the advance of time, new thoughts, feelings and ambitions have come to animate humanity; that lofty and luminous sen- timents have sprung from the laws of liberty, unknown in the time when the Blind Bard of Scio swept his harp; that all best and brightest literature is the consummate flower of the cycle that is now thundering and throbbing into the eternity which it will forever electrify. In introducing to the world in book form the poetical works of Will Hubbard-Kernan, I feel that I am rescuing from the "rounds of the press" some of the choicest flowers that bedeck American literature, which will raise from obscurity and darkness, into the blazing light of a never-ending day, a name that shall endure among the great of our country. Whatever difference of opinion may exist at I o Preface present regarding Will Hubbard-Kernan, as a poet, there can be no doubt that he possesses a positive individuality, a certain vein of originality, unapproached by any other living writer, a style and philosophy distinctively his own, and a certain daring forcefulness that defies all preconceived opinions formulated by the church, society and the state. As a man Kernan stands apart, because few can understand him. He is an intense, I (night sa}^ vindictive, hater of shams, and he never conceals his opinions or hesitates to speak his creed in unmistakable Saxon. He is a free-thinker in religion and a free-lance in society. His mind is constantly at war with existing conditions. At one time a potent force in politics, he has surrendered and re- nounced all allegiance to "the powers that be, " believing all present forms of government to be radically wrong in vital matters. He is op- posed to matrimony and the perpetuation of the species, holding with Schopenhauer that the world is a gigantic swindle, life a dark and dreary tragedy, and that it is a greater crime to bring a soul into this vale of tears than it is to send one out of it. His poems were written without any other object than to give concrete form to the long- ings of his own soul, and they combine all the rhythm, melody and motion of an ideal love- song and the volcanic force of a nature that sees all, feels all and fears nothing. While we may not admit the prevailing trend of his philosophy, which has a decided tendency toward pessimism, and is in conflict with accepted ideas in many instances, still there is in his songs an inexplicable tenderness Preface 1 1 and pathos that appeal to ever}^ heart, a magnetism that enchains every mind, and we are impelled irresistibly to bow in admiration to the force and energy of his intellect. He seems to have swept with a master's hand over the whole scale of human feeling — to have sounded in turn each of life's notes, except that bright, joyous one, in which the lesser poets so delight to revel. Readers of this volume will readily discern that Mr. Kernan's life at times has been dark- ened by heavy shadows. Every line of his sad, sweet verses, perhaps unknown to him- self, betrays the "anguish of the singer." In his famous "Song of Hate," a bitter arraign- ment of the world of sham and sin, he most forcibly presents his estimate of life and the pleasure he finds in his share in it: — For since the first, fierce morning of time with its toils and tears, Down through the dim, long vista of fleet and fugitive years, I see but the one black picture, 'twixt cradle and coffin-bed. Of conquering knaves And cowering slaves. And the doom that struck them dead. The general gloom that casts its melancholy shadow over his soul is but the reflection of his sad and stormful career. Born at a time when the dissentient sections of our common country were preparing to march into the tears, blood and agony of civil war, his youth was embittered by the hates, crimes and passions of that tumultuous epoch. Unfortunately for him, Kernan's earh' sympathies went out to the people of the South, and he championed their cause with all the force and ardor of his soul. 12 Preface As editor of the Okolona (Miss.) States, he spoke his sentiments in "language as hot and hissing as a musket-ball on the wing" — I quote his own words — and for his impolitic utterances of Southern opinion he was subjected to the most bitter partisan denunciation. Prompted by artful machinators, the Northern press, of his own party, joined in the clamor, branding him a "Republican in disguise," and a spy who had been sent into the South for the purpose of kindling anew the flames of civil strife. This infamous libel served well the purpose of his treacherous traducers. The more ignorant masses of the old Confederacy became incensed against him; insidious enemies in both sec- tions sprang forward to vent their latent spite, and the courage of his friends, with a few noble and notable exceptions, gave way before the godless crusade. For years Kernan has been the victim of political persecutions, and a pitiless fate has dogged his path with such unrelenting malev- olence, that the naturally morose and melan- choly tendency of his mind has been .greatly intensified. If Mr. Kernan is of a pessimistic trend of mind, it is owing to the foregoing facts; and the thinking, discerning, unprejudiced reader will remember them in making up his judg- ment on the unorthodox sentiments of his poetry. Consider why the change was wrought, You'll find it his misfortune, not his fault. R. D. Kathrens. WILL HUBBARD-KERNAN A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE, AND HIS CHARACTERISTICS AS A JOURNALIST AND A POET The people of Verona, when they saw Dante on the streets, used to say, '^Eccovt I'nom ch'i stato alV Infcmor' — ("See, there is the man that was in hell!") Ah, yes, he had been in hell— in hell enough, in long sorrows and struggle, as the like of him is pretty sure to have been. . . Perhaps one would say, intensity, with the much that de- pends on it, is the prevailing character of Dante's genius; partly the fruit of his position, but partly of his own nature. His greatness has, in all senses, concentered itself into fiery emphasis and depths. . . There is a brevity, an abrupt precision, in him. Tacitus is not brief- er, more condensed; and then in Dante it seems a natural condensa- tion, spontaneous to the man. One smiting word, and there is dark- ness. Strange with what a sharp, decisive grace he snatches the true likeness of a matter: cuts into it as with a pen of ^xe.—'iTJiomus Carlyle. Will Hubbard-Kernan, the subject of my sketch, first saw the light in the beautiful and historic Mac-o-chee Valle}', Ohio. His father, the late Judge Kernan (lineally descended from the celebrated Kernans of the Emerald Isle), an eloquent and successful lawyer, removed with his wife, a lady of beauty and brilliant talents, to Belief ontaine, Ohio, in 1848, where he resided until his death, in July, 1883, enjoying the honors and fruits of active, professional life. Wm. Hubbard, one of the most brilliant poets and powerful journalists of the great West, and Thomas Hubbard, one of the ablest and most humorous of our political writers — uncles on the mother's side — are among the many of his family whose gifts and achievements impelled him to tread the thorny as well as the flowery paths of intellectual endeavor and fame. He attended the Academy at Bellefontaine several years. In 1866 he attended i^^^e University at 13 14 Life- Sketch Ann Arbor, Mich., graduating in the law-class in 1868. Returning home, he wrote for the press until 1870, winning favorable commenda- tions from the Fourth Estate. Attracted by his sentiments, and nervous, energetic style of wTiting, Mr. Kernan was in- vited by Hon. Wm. M. Corry to Cincinnati, Ohio, who associated him with the editorial department of the "Commoner," where he ex- hibited remarkable power as a political writer. Resigning his position, he became a reporter for the News Association in New York City. After a short service in the metropolis he was appointed editor-in-chief of the Ft. Wayne, Ind., daily "Sentinel" — one of the leading Democratic organs of the West — doing signal service for his party. He resigned to assume an editorship on the Indianapolis "Sentinel." His radical utterances created a host of ene- mies among the vacillating Democracy, and see- ing himself abused, maligned, unappreciated, in the house of his friends in the North, he went South in 1875, and the next year became edit- or of the Okolona "States, " of Mississippi. That prodigy of Southern journalism, under the magical utterances of his pen, displayed a boldness and an intensity of expression per- haps never equaled, certainly never excelled, by any American paper. It was the subject of grave discussion in Congress, as well as in lead- ing magazines, and its scathing, catapult edi- torials were copied and commented on by the press of all parties throughout the land. No such flaming meteor ever blazed across the political heavens. Many, both North and South, disputed the correctness of its princi- ples and conclusions; but all, even its fiercest Life-Sketch 1 5 enemies, admitted its earnestness and ability. In a short period this hitherto obscure village journal ran up to more than ten thousand cir- culation. An unfortunate difference between editor and proprietor (the latter having placed the former in a false position on certain polit- ical matters) caused Mr. Kernan's resignation, and instantly the Okolona meteor was extin- guished. As La Crosse was, is now, and for long will be known as the place where Brick Pomeroy published his "Democrat," so Okolona is known abroad, like a household word, for the only reason that Will H. Kernan there, for a few brief years, shot out from its obscur- ity the blazing light of his fiery genius. In the summer of 1880 he assumed the posi- tion of staff-correspondent of the Chicago "Tribune," still writing in his usual Democratic vein. In connection with a friend he started the career of the "Solid South" at Memphis, Tenn., December, 1880. Retiring from that enterprise, he went up into the Cumberland Mountains, seeking health and pleasure, where he wrote for several political and literary jour- nals of prominence. At the same time he began writing those remarkable poems that appeared in "Meriwether's Weekly, "the leading literary paper of the South, under the 710m de plume of "Kenneth Lamar." But concerning his poetry let me not anticipate. In 1 88 1 he went North and became identified with Iowa journalism. While editing the Odebolt "Observer" in that State he was select- ed as a delegate to a Democratic convention, whereupon certain unprincipled schemers in his party formed a conspiracy to keep him out of that body because of his Okolona record. 1 6 Life-Sketc1$ The plot was successful, and disgusted with his treatment, Mr. Kernan withdrew from politics to become the editor of an independent paper at Orange City, Iowa. Since then he has been identified at different times with the press of Arkansas, North Dakota, Kansas, New York, Michigan and Minnesota, and his strange, stormful career in the field of journalism would make a volume of more intense interest than any novel of our century. ^ 5^ ^ Personally, Mr. Kernan has gray eyes, black hair, stands five feet, eleven and a-half inches in his shoes, weighs i6o pounds, is straight as an Indian, what ladies would call handsome, and possesses a fine intellectual head and ex- pressive countenance. But no one would sus- pect for a moment that he was the whilom "fire-eater" of the "Okolona States" or "Solid South. " As mild a mannered man as ever danced attendance to my "ladye fayre, " he is the most fierce, scathing, sarcastic, political writer — the most terrible master of invective since Junius made the King of England tremble on his throne. His vocabulary of words is wonder- ful, and yet no person can, or ever does, mis- take his meaning. His short, crisp, staccato style was invented by him, and he uses it for the double purpose of giving his thoughts piquanc}^ and exclamatory force. Woe to the upstarts who provoke his wrath, for he not only demolishes, but annihilates. Had he lived in the Middle Ages, when chivalry was in its glory, he would have been one of the truest and bravest knights that ever shivered lance or flashed sword in vindication of woman's virtue, the Cross of Christ or the Holy Sepulcher. Life-Sketch 1 7 Intensit} of feeling and vehement expression characterize eacli of his productions. Never made to be a slave, the poet's aspiration is his own: "Thy spirit, Independence, let me share — Lord of the lion -heart and eagle-eye! Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare, Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky." A brilliant meteor in journalism, he fills a void, hitherto unattempted, no other can fill. Agreeable to taste, conviction or prejudice, crit- ics will differ as to his merits in this respect, but all will admit his fierce candor, clear-cut style and unmistakable originality. A Democrat of the Jefferson and Calhoun type, he is inde- pendent, incisive, too little accustomed to " crook the pregnant hinges of the knee, That thrift may follow fawning," to ever become in the popular sense a great polit- ical leader. Of orthodox religious parentage, yet he is predisposed to Agnosticism — not from natural instinct or inner consciousness, but rather as the result of an Ishmael life in jour- ttialism and a fierce contest with the elemental forces of politics, causing his hand to be against every man and every man's hand against him. Truh^ it can be said of him as it was said of Dante: There is the man that was in hell!" So much of Mr. Kernan, his birth, personnel, life-pursuits and principles, all with special reference to a correct interpretation of him in his more pleasing and exalted character of poet — for be it known unto you, O most wise critics, North and South, that he is one of the truest and worthiest that ever swept his hinds across the strings of our country's lyre. 1 8 Life-Sketch Poetry is the gift of God — his voice speak- ing through man to men. Not college-bred nor self-made, the genuine poet is he who feels, speaks, sings or writes the inspiraitons of the High and Holy One who inhabiteth Eternity. That inspiration is an inexplicable mystery. Like the wind, it bloweth where it listeth; thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth. Vapor, generated in the bosom of our planet, escapes, ascending through its earthquake- riven shell to the surface of the Arkansian Hot Springs, condenses in pure, limpid, heal- ing waters, differing in temperature, quality and magnetism. So these inspirations of the Supreme, that men call poetry, differ in the same ratio, according to the physical, mental and moral organisms through which they come to ble^s or curse mankind. ,At proper times God said: "Let there be light — let Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare and Milton be." And it was so. They came, and brought with them the Iliad, ^Eneid, In- ferno, Hamlet and Paradise Lost. He looked on them and pronounced them "good. " These, and all other poets, came because they were wanted. Predestined to sing their im- mortal verses and utter the prophetic verities, necessary to be uttered at various and proper times, they were "the called, according to his purpose. " There were fewer major than minor prophets in the olden times, but all were divinely sent, and each had a specific mission. And so with poets, for each had his time, place and pur- pose. It is not for the creature to say to its creator, "Why am I thus?" Life-Sketch ig Our nineteenth century ha^ had no major poet sent to it. From Byron, Tennyson, Longfellow, and Edgar A. Poe, to Walt Whitman, they are all minors. Yet God be thanked for them, every one! They fulfill their mission and des- tiny: Without further prelude, let me introduce the poet Kernan, to you, O gentle reader! and, presenting some of his verses — mere dis- jecta membra of his poems — ask the suffrage of your kind and considerate judgment. For the sake of convenience and perspicuity, his poems may be divided into descriptive, patriotic and Agnostic. In 1 868, he gave to the public, in the Bucy- rus (O.) Forum, "The Dream of a Dream," which at the time was approved by competent judges as possessing uncommon merit. The reader will observe the power of description, exhibited in his youth, in the following stanzas culled from it at random : I live with old memorial things — I wander spacec wide. * * * * : Hot Afric jungles, thick and green, before my vision rist,. A cruel tiger crouches there with bright and burning eyes, And in the shadow of a palm a naked native stands, With lifted spear— the savage son of still more savage lands. I see the desert stretching dim before mine aching eyes, Oases with their plumy palms carved green against the skies, And black Assyrian ruins where the tents of Arabs gleam, And the solemn site of Tyre, where the tisher dreams his dream. If Bryant or Longfellow had written that line, Oases with their plumy palms carved green against the skies, how the critics of Boston would have shouted themselves hoarse in its praise! 20 Life- Sketch "Found" is full of splendid word-painting, and is a fair specimen of Kernan's descriptive power. Read this: The foamy waves Were chiming at my feet a tune That sounded like the subtle rune * Of some lost paradisic staves, When, suddenly, before my sight Stood up a city, vast and while. With strange, majestic temple-walls, . Deserted streets and voiceless halls. With dumb, proud idols, ruined shrines. Urns stained with sacrificial wines. ♦ * * * * And thus the lost was found, and thus From uttermost of continents. We were led back to love intense, By ways that were unknown to us — By ways we never would have trod. Save through the guidance of a god. What a grandly poetical description is this, from Kernan's celebrated poem, "Southland," read at the thirteenth Annual Convention of the Mississippi Press Association, at Vicksburg, June, 1878: O, Southland, loveliest land beneath the bright blue-bending skies! O, land most passionate this side the gates of Paradise! A sense of gladness unconfined was mine when first I set My foot upon thy flowery sod; it lingers with me yet. I love thy immemorial hills by humankind untrod. The rose-lights of their raptured heights touched by the kiss of God; The crash and wirble jubilant of cataracts that leap. And flash, and shiirimer through the vines that trail from steep to steep. I love thy valley-lands; they hold a beauty never sung, As sweet, as pure, as undefiled as when the world was young; As then the ripe, wild roses trail their scarlet mists of bloom, And sparkle sun-lit lily-bells with amber hearts illume; As then the rivers roll and surge — proud, passionate and free, Life- Sket ell 21 Through sweeps of glad savannah- lands, to kiss the golden sea. I love thy wild and waving woods where in the glooms ot green The miracle magnolia flowers like fallen moons are seen, Where mock- birds twitter, pipe and trill through long, re- splendent days. Till leaf and flower seem to dance in rhythm with their lays. These lines discover the poet's inward wish. Though born and bred in Ohio he is, and from childhood has been, a devoted lover of the Sunny South — whose sympathies are with her people, politics and institutions. No son of hers was ever more loyal than he. Occasion- ally he was moved by this spirit, and verses of wonderful power were the result. In a poem of difficult meter, entitled "Our Cause," are the following suggestive stanzas: Go thou to their burial places When the crimson and creamy blooms Are thridding the greenest grasses, Are twining the dim old stones, And think of their proud, still faces In the depths of the desolate tombs. And say over them thy masses, And vent over them thy moans; And swear by the blood of thy brothers Who fell on the battle-plain — Swear by their graves all glorious, By the prayers thy sisters prayed, Swear by the tears of thy mothers, By our passion and our pain, Forever, until victorious. For our Cause to stand arrayed. "A Song of the Twentieth Century" reads like some of Tennyson's patriotic verses. It stirs the soul like a trumpet-blast: Hosanna! Lift up the bright palm-branches higher, O, race that was ransomed through flood and through tire! Ring, stormily ring, O, ye bells in the steeples! ■22 Life-Sketch Flash, merrily flash, O, ye flags of the peoples! The monarchs have fallen — the people are free! Vive Liberty! "The Progress of the Peoples" is one of the noblest utterances of the aspirations and event- ual elevation of humanity ever made, and certainly the noblest in behalf of woman. This is seen in every detached stanza: Upward, upward, press the people to that pure exalted plane. Where no throne shall cast a shadow and no slave shall wear a chain. They have trampled on the fagots, broken crucifix and wheel, Banished block and thong and hemlock and the headsman's bloody steel; Forced the Church-hold to surrender stake and scourge and bolt and bar — Torn the keys from off its girdle, thrown the Gates of Truth ajar. They have forced the titled tyrants human rights to recognize, And with bayonet and saber they have slain a legion lies. They are lighting lamps of freedom on a million altar-stones With the torches they have kindled at the blaze of burning thrones. ;)< Ji^ * * * She hath wept and prayed in passion — bitterly hath made her moan — All the terrors and the tortures of the tyrants she hath known; Still, the blood that flows for Freedom, flows for man, and man alone. She hath borne with man his crosses, she hath worn with man his chains, She hath suffered all his losses, she hath suffered all his pains, She shall stand with him, co-equal, on the pure, exalted plains! It is to be regretted that Kernan's mind has latterly become entangled in the fantasies and sophistries of Agnosticism. A universe without a God, a human soul without a future exist- ence, is at once illogical in principle and re- pugnant to man's highest and holiest aspira- tions. Some of his most powerful and notice- able verse has been sung in this key. "What Life-Sketch 23 is the Use?" which has been widely published, answered, and discussed in the public prints, shows the groping of the poet's soul in the dark: They prate of a phantom world afar, Beyond the mold and the marble urn. Beyond the fire of the furthest star, Where life is immortal and love eterne. But I am no dupe of their priestly dreams, They know of nothing that is to be: The light that out of their heaven streams, Is the self-same light that shines on me. 5|i y^ v^ yf^ ^ What is the use of it all, I say? Why are we brought from the blank Unknown, To weep and dance through a little day, That drifts us under a burial-stone? And the following in the same strain: O! Fate is cruel, and Fate is cold, And only giveth a grave at last; And what is glory, or love, or gold. When this brief hour is overpast? What doth it matter us how we live? What doth it matter us how we die? What can all of the future give When under the grassy clods we lie? What will it matter to you and me — Insensate there in immortal calm — Whether our funeral dirge shall be A reptile's hiss or a nation's psalm? Whether our friends were false or true. Whether our foes were strong or weak, What will it matter to me or you. After our candle is out? O, speak! From such cheerless philosophy as this, I gladly turn to the following outburst of poetic fervor, in his "Poet-Boy of Mississippi: " But there is a Revelation, and it redes itself to man — Known it was in every cycle, unto every creed and clan, 24 Life- Sketch Taught the simple heart primeval by the still, oniail voice within, Prompting it to deeds of duty — urging it to shrink from sin, Pictured on the cliffs and lowlands, chiming in the surge of seas. Glowing in the star-dust golden, blossoming in shrubs and trees, Beaming in the looks love-lighted of the tender and the true, Whispered by the lips of spirits sheltered from our mortal view. Speaking in our hopes and yearnings, and our dim dreams of the night, Tempering our tears and passion when a twin-soul takes its flight, Proving stronger and supremer as the world heaves high and higher From the depths of Superstition and the mists of low Desire! And this Revelation redeth that our Dead have never died — That it was the yoke and fetters only that they laid aside; That they live in Kingdom fairer than is lit by mortal sun, Thrilled with triumph at the conquest and the crown forever won — Live where purer joys and purer draw them to diviner plains. And forever reaching toward them some new happiness re- mains. Where with victor-songs of gladness they will welcome us at last. When the fitful frost and fever of our lives are overpast. What a gratifying and refreshing contrast is this strong language of heart and soul to the weak jingles of some of our latter-day poets, who "creep and grovel on the ground" and never soar above the dew-wet grass and the beautiful snow! * * * * After Edgar Allen Poe, the most brilliant poetic genius this country has produced, comes Will Hubbard-Kernan. It is only by reason of his pronounced Southern principles that he has been ignored by the literati of Boston and New York; but, fortunately, time and justice "At last make all things even," POEMS OF PESSIMISM THE CRY OF A CYNIC Had I known the world as I know it now In my boyhood I half believe that I Would have sworn me a stern, fierce, terri- ble vow Down unto my death to live a lie; To promise, yet never perform; to pose As a friend, while betraying all friendships here; To prate religion, while under the rose I struck through its quivering breast a spear. For I often think had I lived this lie, And lived it like many a man I see. That wealth or power or honor high As it came to them would have come to me; Nor would I have felt as I feel to-day. When I find how fickle is friendship here; For, ah! had I been but as false as they, I could answer a-back with a sneer for sneer; But — fool that I was! — I trusted so, And my love was leal as love could be, Ah! there is the bitterness of the blow That has smitten theinnermost soul of me. And as for the world that has hissed me down Unto depths I never had thought to know — 2^ 28 In the J tingle I turn away from its fleer and frown Despairing, for it hath deceived me so. Fool! fool that 1 was! in my trustful youth I thought this world was a world sublime That was struggling ever in search of Truth, And where Truth would triumph in time — in time; And I tried to teach it the Right as I Could see the Right, in my own weak wa}^ And it sprang upon me with curse and cry And is hounding me down like a dog to-da^^ But far between, and though few they be, Are good, grand souls in this world of shame. And the love and lilies they send to me Are more than fortune and more than fame; And when I remember these royal men I rise renewed in my sense and soul, And take up the trials of life again, And again press on to a golden goal. IN THE JUNGLE Tiger, tiger! in thy lair, Thou hast torn his limbs apart: O, the white bones lying there! O, the red half -eaten heart! O, the yellow locks beside thee That I often kissed and curled- Yet no hell -fire will betide thee In the waste beyond the world. In t/ir Jungle 29 Tiger, tiger! from the sod, iVnd the vastitudes of sea, Thou wert molded by the God Who in glory molded me: Ashes, dust and air and fire Entered in our earthl}^ frame — Went to kindle my desire. Went to fan thee into flame. Tiger, tiger! blazing bright Are thine eyeballs as mine own — They the darkness ana the light Of revolving suns have known ; They have seen the jeweled June-light Sleeping in magnolia blooms. Seen the weird, mid-winter moonlight Shivering by solemn tombs. Tiger, tiger! though thy frame Is unlike my mortal parts, Yet the feelings are the same That have flashed within our hearts; For thy blood hath leap'd with passion. Languished with a strange unrest. And thy hatreds are in fashion With the hatreds in my breast. Tiger, tiger! this is why Thou hast slain my brave, sweet son, Yet the good God up on high Let the devil-deed be done. Atoms from far, countless places Met and mingled in thy form, Dust of old, dead realms and races — Memories of sun and storm. Tiger, tiger! from the flood And the cloud and wind and lea, 30 In the Jungle Atoms mingled in my blood, And the lost boy bloomed for me; And these forces — separated By infinities of years — Met, and left me desolated In their death-march through the spheres. Tiger, tiger ! he was mine — He, the beautiful dead boy! Now thin^ eyeballs swim and shine With a strange and savage joy; And I see thy keen claws dripping With the blood that warmed his breast, And I hear thy hot lips sipping From the lips that mine have pressed. Tiger, tiger! I can see, Slipping through the jungle dim. One who is beloved of thee, And thou art beloved of him; Ay, beloved, for thou begat him. Just as I begat my boy. And I see thee pet and pat him With a sweet and savage joy. Tiger, tiger! twangs my bow. Flies my arrow through the air, And the golden lilies glow With his life-blood leaping there; And I hear thy wild, quick, pleading Cry of passion and of pain. And I see thee press the bleeding Body of thy baby slain. Tiger, tiger! this is life: Through the wide sweep of the sph'eres All the universe is rife Compensation 31 With these tragedies and tears; And the gladdest sorg upswelling From the gayest heart to-day Brings it nearer to the knelling And the coffin-worm and clay. COMPENSATION They say I am mad, ha, ha! because I see the visions they cannot see, And — breaking through all of their little laws — I walk with the lover who went from me. Mad? mad? ha, ha! if they only knew How happy I've been since that strange far year, When I found that I had been born anew To a larger life and sublimer sphere! When was it? Oh, yes, — I remember now, In a dim, vague way that I saw his face, With a dash of blood on his darling brow. And a glad, sweet smile of immortal grace. Then all of their vulgar world went out, While the turbulent bells in the steeples beat, And thrilled and thundered the song and shout Of the crazy crowd in the stormy street; And, as I staggered, before that blank Lost feeling insensate befell me, I Heard pealing over the city rank And rotten the virulent victor-cry 1 32 Compensation The)^ found me there when the mob had left, And they bound me there and they brought me here; But though of my reason I am beieft I live and love in a larger sphere. Ah! Leon! Leon! you come again! I was telling this clown that you came to me — A very miracle man of men In our sphere serene which he cannot see. Let us take a walk down yon aisle of trees Where the almonds are blossoming full and fair, And a voyage over the golden seas To the glory of which he is unaware. Stand back, oh, fool! From this cell I go With my dead to divinest heights. Ha! ha! If you only knew what we mad folk know You could bring the world into abject awe. But you cannot know it. We are a clan Who have broken through all of your laws, and we Hear miracle things that 3^ou never can — See miracle sights that you cannot see! VASHTI O, I feel the fragrant wind and I hear the waters sing, I see the sweet, wild roses blushing with the blood of spring, And the world leaps up to heaven as I hold thee to my breast "* In a swoon of perfect rapture, with a sense of perfect rest. But I waken with a start, And my torn and bleeding heart Cries unto Christ: "Have pity — let my soul and senses part!" There cometh no reply, and I rise and look abroad : It seemeth that the whole wide world hath turned away from God — Its garlands of glad forests that fringed the stainless sky, Its foamy lilies and the flame of tulips closer by. Its prairie-lands uncurled To the edges of the world, Where trilled the tuneful wild-birds with their jewel wings unfurled. Yes! The night hath swallowed up all the beauty and the bloom; Our planet reels and rolls away through awful gulfs of gloom; Within the lone, black, shuddering void the lost winds call and cry, 33 34 Vashti And from its craggy rim the sea makes piteous reply: Fit symbol and fit sign, O, heart — O, heart of mine! This fierce, complaining passion to the passion that is thine! I turn. The tire burns bright — with rosy rise and fall It lights a pure, seraphic face upon the pictured wall; O, Vashti! Vashti! Thou wert love and hope and life to me — Then come from out the vague Unknown and take me unto thee. Bliss — bliss ineffable. Divine with thee to dwell Upon the white calm heights of heaven or in the heart of hell! In the radiant rose-years of my bright and buoyant youth. When my life was lapped in pleasure and my world was masked in truth, When with color, life and melody the jocund days were rife, Like a dream of heaven made real came thy love into my life. In that witching world of mine Was no separating line Between my heaven and the heaven where saints triumphant shine. But this was not for long — a wild March morn- ing came That woke no song within the wood nor touched our star with flame. And thou in thy fair bridal robes lay still and Vashti 35 Within thy blood no fire, within thy folded lids no light. Why was it ordered so That I thy love must know For one brief diamond day and then forever- more forego? Unjust! unjust! I hold, for .the world is wide — is wide; Why should I with thy love be dowered to have it thus denied? Out of the infinite of Time, the vastitudes of Space, O, why should Fate foreorder it that w'e meet face to face? Why swept no seas between Thy way and mine, my queen? Why lay no long-drawn centuries betwixt our lives terrene? O, had 1 never seen thy fair, sweet Southern face, Nor folded thee in ecstasy w^ithin my fond em- brace, How happy would have been my heart that now is crucified, How full of flower every hope that with thee drooped and died! Why w^as it ordered so? It was not chance, I know. It was a Curse that rules the world, and ruins all below! But, look! the storm is stilled, and there is no more night. The shining signals of the morn move on from height to height; 36 W/iat IS the Use The glory of the gods shine through the blue, rtanslucent sky, And vineyard, field and flood lift up a jubilant, sweet cry. O, heart — O, heart of mine! Is it symbol, is it sign Of a resurrection morning that will ransom thee and thine? WHAT IS THE USE? What is the use of it all? — I said. As we sat in the argent after-glow — All are dying who are not dead. And unto the end it will be so. Love; but the one whom you love will pass In blooming beauty, some dark, mad day, To fatten the grave-worms under the grass: Yet this is a jolly old world, you say! Build ; and the temple you build w^ill fall — Frieze and pillar and altar-stone — Over its ruins will reptiles crawl, And the ivy wave in the winds that moan. Work; and the gold that you work to win- That you fret and worry and strive to save Is spsiit in folly and shaniB and sin When you are dust in a dreamless grave. What is the Use? 37 Capture the laurel-leaves of fame Where they bourgeon out of the blood of men; Conquer a nimbus for your name By the miracle-power of the pen; But the garlands of glory will fade awa}^ And thy name be lost in the dim, dumb years : Where are the heroes ere Adam's day — Their flaming thoughts and their flash- ing spears? They prate of a phantom-world afar, Beyond the mold and the marble urn, Beyond the fire of the furthest star, Where life is immortal and love eterne. But I am no dupe of their priestly dreams; They know of nothing that is to be; The light that out of their heaven streams Is the self-same light that shines on me. I hear the voices they hear, and I See every sign that they behold, But dumb as death is the stainless sky, Invisible are the gates of gold. Thro' the sum and sweep of the countless years, Humbly at many a countless shrine, Men and women have wept their tears. Or quaffed to the lees communion wine; But never a gleam of glory fell In splendor athwart the altar-stone, And never a sound but the passing-bell, Smiting the air with its awful tone. 38 Agatha They have stormed the stars with their passion-cry For hope or mercy or justice here — Plead that their darlings should never die — Plead with many a sob and tear. Folly! for never an answer came, And never an arrow was turned away; It? sped to its beautiful mark the same, Whether they prayed or scorned to pray. From cradle to coffin we struggle and seek, Till the fugitive years of our lives are past; But whether our lot be blessed or bleak, We are tossed like dogs to the worms at last. What is the use of it all, I say? Why are we brought from the blank Un- known To weep and dance through a little day That drifts us under a burial-stone? AGATHA Agatha ! Agatha! Here in the desolate shadows and silence I cry unto thee. As out of the bloomland That was, and the tombland That is, comes the ghost of thy glory to me! Agatha 3g I see a vague vision elysian, of flowery fields and of forests that know me no more. O, trancefulest thyland! Memorial myland! How far I have wandered away from thy shore! The low yellow moon of the June in the purple abysm of heaven-lit tower and tree, As there in thy splendorful, Wistful and tenderful Beauty my soul was surrendered to thee. Agatha! Agatha! There in the moonlight that flickered and flashed through each blossomy bough, With breast to my breast, sweet. In raptureful rest, sweet, Thy virgin lips uttered the infinite vow. Mine, mine in th}' truthful, Brave, questionless, youthful Devotion, till death threw its portals ajar; Mine, mine in the vernal Sun-valleys supernal. Beyond the pale shroud and the palpitant star! But the battle-drums beat, and I bade thee farewell To fight for a rag of a flag, and a cause That had its roots down in the under- most hell. And its flowers and fruits were the lies we call laws! Ah! I was a fool in that far-away time, 40 The Vanishing Isle Mistaught to believe in the sham and the shame That in code and in charter have crystal- lized crime, To blossom in blood and to flower in flame. Like devils we fought a fell, desperate fight. Till our vexil in victory flashed on the height Of the last shattered bulwark, and then, with my sword Uplifted to heaven, I knelt to the Lord — I knelt to the Lord on that wild battle-plain Beside a dead youth that my rifle had slain — Beside a dead youth — with a sharp, sudden cry I turned the bright brow from the dust to the sky. O, God, with a terrible thunderbolt smite Me out of thy love and thy life and thy light! It was Agatha! — clad in the garments of war: In her hand was a sword — on her shoulder a star — In her breast was the bullet my rifle had sped — The bullet that struck my whole universe dead! THE VANISHING ISLE Under the willows, the glad green willows. We walked that hour in June — in June— And the songs of the breezes and birds and billows Were all in tune. "Ah, see!" cried Ion, with subtle smile. The Vanishing Isle 41 "Yon isle — yon blossoming, blissful isle!" And she waved her little white hand to where Magnolias tossed in the amber air, On the strand of an isle that idly lay In the pulsing heart of the purple bay, Where palaces lifted their walls of gold And jeweled minarets; and, behold, The peerless parterres that are all afire With flowers that ravish the last desire! "Boatman!" she said, and she crossed his hand With gold as she gave him the strange command, Boatman! O, let us taste awhile The rare delights of yon charmful isle." 'Nay, damosel, for that isle lies In an alien land under alien skies, And we cannot reach it before the doom Has swept us all to the tomb — the tomb!" "Pah!" and she cheerily laughed, "a mile Will see us there on the trancefui isle. " "Then come!" said the boatman. And we went Through the miracle morn that was inter- blent With sunbeams, over the waters bright And blue, in a spell of rapt delight. Ah, miracle morn! Our hearts beat high With love — with a wonderful love — and I Was ravished with jubilant joy — for, O, Her promise was mine and her presence sweet Made life in its largest mood complete — For I loved her so! For 1 loved her so! 42 Inez f Noon came; but the isle was far away In the pulsing heart of the purple bay. I looked at Ion: her face was wan And wrinkles under her eyes were drawn, And half of her life was gone — was gone! Dusk; but the isle was far away In the pulsing heart of the purple bay; And a storm swept up from the under-sea With trumps of thunder and flags of flame; I turned to Ion. And was it she Who mumbled to me — was she the same Bright, buoyant maid of the golden morn — This woman haggard and gra}^ and worn? I turned to the boatman and, lo! for he Was dead, and his bare skull grinned at me — Grinned in a devilish kind of way; And the isle — the vanishing isle — lay Long, terrible leagues away — away! INEZ Through the mists of the roses as red as wine I see the splendor of sunset shine; It brightens the blossoming valley and leaps To the ultimate snows on the vapory steeps; While over the hills in the Occident skies The walls of a wonderful city rise. Out of this convent dim some day 1 shall pass to that place away- — awav; hiez 43 I shall meet with my warrior bright and brave Who perished the shrine of the Prince to save. Years of splendor and storm have passed Since I prest the lips of my lover last- Since over the waste of the sand and sea He went in the dark, wild dawn from me, With shining helmet and sable plume To meet on the red war-plain his doom. One night of thunder and wind there came A palmer weary and old and lame, And kneeling in homage beside me there He gave me a glittering lock of hair, A jeweled picture, a jasmine flower That once had blossomed within my bower. "He is dead?" I spake with a rush of tears That blotted the sunshine from out my years. "Yes, ladye, yes but he sent with me These emblems of endless love to thee!" I turned with a low, heart-broken moan To kneel by the cold, pale altar-stone, Until, through the oriel window old. The morning blossomed in blue and gold; And then, while clashed the cathedral bell, I wailed to the world a fond farewell: Farewell, O, beautiful marble towers! Farewell, O, gardens of glowing flowers! Farewell, O, waltzers and songs and wine! Farewell, O, musical lyre mine! Farewell, O, friends in thy joy and mirth! Farewell, O, pitiful pomps of earth! I renounce ye all for the convent dim And the heavenly city that holdeth him!" 44 Patriotism What! did he die for a nameless sin And not by the lances of Saladin? Shall I on the heights of the holy dwell While he writhes in the uttermost pits of hell? Shall eternity sever my love and me? By the Holy Rood, it shall never be! Out in the depths of the wicked town, Where they trample the roses of purity down, I will sell myself to the lusts of men! I will riot in many a gilded den! I will curse the Lord with m}' latest breath As I rot away in the arms of Death! Deep in the outer darkness then He will clasp me close to his breast again, And hell shall a perfect Paradise be Unto the soul of my soul and me! PATRIOTISM I would not lift my hand to stay One flag up-floating in the skies; They all are symbols of a swa}^ That hath its root in leprous lies. This patriot talk, this puerile talk Of duty done with blade and brand. These badges for the brave who balk The fell invaders of a land, Are hollow mockeries; the old Hell-fire burns in every cause; The few find glory, place and gold, And make and minister the laws; Harold 45 What time the many who have borne The heat and burden of the fray Are left — though poor and bullet-torn — The debt and sacrifice to pay. And though the lamps of Science shine Illuminant from zone to zone, And though the race in ransomed line, Files up at last unto its throne, And though we boast of conquests highei In Truth than our forefathers knew, We still are slaves unto desire, With blood our hands we still imbrue. My harp shall strike a higher key Than lust or blasting battle-call, And though no after-bards there be To follow where my foot-prints fall, Yet I will know that I have sought To help and royalize my race, And lift it from the wrath and rot Into a glory and a grace! HAROLD What do you think since your day has come, And she takes you tenderly by the hand, And you find that your lips are forever dumb, Though your heart is sobbing to say farewell. Ere you journey off from this lower land To the land of which travelers never tell? What do you think as you hear her cries And the cries of your children blent in one? — 46 Harold As you look in the depths of their darling eyes, And know that you never again will meet, That your labor and love and life are done And the uttermost measure is incomplete? Do you think that you did the diviner part In wooing a wife in your rare rose-years — Knowing your heart from her loving heart Would sooner or later be torn away — Be torn away, while the bloody tears Of a last despair would be hers some day? Do you think it was god-like to give the flame And passion of life to your children fair, Knowing through sorrow, or want, or shame. They would pass to the greedy grave at last And surfeit the red-throat reptiles there When this wild drama is overpast? O, fool! fool! fool! Since the passion-spell And pleasure of love are leaving now. Where is the song of the bridal-bell, The scent of the bridal-lilies sweet, The bliss of the bridal-chamber vow In the shadow white of the winding-sheet? Behold! She is bending beside you now, And storming the Gates of God with prayer; The bridal blossoms upon her brow To stinging serpents have turned to-day, Her rapture has turned to a mad despair As you drift o*er the dim, still seas away. Behold your children! To them you gave The pitiless curse and cross of life — The duty to struggle and dree and slave — They must tread on the plow-shares red with fire, Harold 47 Their hearts must break in the bloody strife, They must pant in the toils of a vain desire. They may reach their hands for the splendid stars, For the laurel-leaf and the princely plume, They may ride at last in their victor-cars, And then, in the proud, sweet flush of fame, Be swept like dogs to the dirty tomb To rot like the ruffian spawn of shame. Or, failing to realize the dreams That gilded with glory this lying life, They will turn to a beautiful sin that seems A recompense for their lost desire. Who will be guilty? The man and wife Who gave to these beings their blood and fire. Reproach me not in your dying-hour, I told you the truth in my friendship leal, But, held in the spell of a subtle power. You mocked at me then with a scoff and sneer; To-day the terrible truth you feel — Its thorny crown and its savage spear. Farewell! No further will I upbraid, Nor seek revenge by returning now The bitter and biting things you said When under the stars of Tennessee You spake of your silly betrothal-vow And turned like a traitor then from me — Turned like a traitor, because I plead With you to recall your betrothal-ring; Turned like a traitor, because I said That life should end with our race to-day: You spurned me then like a leper thing, .And passed to this awful fate away. 48 George Eliot He is dead! Well, better that he should die, And under the myrtle-blossoms be, Than live and, living, should learn what I Have learned of his boy, whose hands are red With the blood of a dead man known to me. Thank God! My Harold is dead— is dead! GEORGE ELIOT We crowned her brow the queen of such wide fame As seldom man's more aidant thoughts hath wooed; But still our hearts were heavy for the shame She wrought to womanhood. — Literary World. O, knave! O, more than knave! Why should she bear the brand? And why proclaim Her sin and shame From land to furthest land, While men of leprous lust With harlots hold their court, And wear the bays Through all their da3^s Undimmed by ill-report? And hath this sin a sex? And shall we bar the gate To maiden who Hath proved untrue And fallen from her state, What time we welcome in The man who wrought her woe? Harold No, never, by The God on high, With me shall this be so! George Eliot, no peer Of thine will hiss thy name: 'Twill brighter burn Through years eterne, Though devil-prudes defame. I hold this truth as true, All love is lust at best; No mumbling priest Nor wedding-feast Things beastly can make blest. And though no bridal-bell Chimed in thy coupled life, Thou art as free Of stain as she Who hath become a wife. Though Church and State befool, Me they cannot bedaff; I strip their lies Of all disguise. While in my sleeve I laugh. I laugh when I behold The bridegroom and the bride At altar-shrine, By sleek divine With ring and pledge allied. For well, full well, I know That passion hath full sway Behind the flush And modest blush That o'er their features play. 49 50 Geraldine of the Graeme And were no sexual fire Within our veins, I see That nevermore On sea or shore Would any weddings be. And louder still I laugh When to a wedded pair A babe is born: The mask is torn Forever from them there; And forth they stand confessed Of all their sly delights, The same that they In mansions gay And guilty take o' nights. Thus, though the world o'erlaid With gloss and glitter be, They cannot hide The under-side Of life and love from me. GERALDINE OF THE GRAEME The silvery lances of twilight fall In the roses tangled around my sill, And over the green, old garden-wall The jasmines shine and the jasmines spill. The beck is babbling a summer song As it bubbles over the sand and stone; Genildine of the Graeme 51 The wind blows sweet and the wind blows strong From weaves unseen and from wilds unknown. And out of the purple south away, With a love as tender as love can be, In the magic light of the dying day My bold, bright Carolyn comes to me. ^ * ^ ^; ^ The red moon rose over trees and towers, And staggered under a cloud with shame, And the wind sobbed low in the ferns and flowers — Sobbed low for Geraldine of the Graeme. Then with a terrible trumpet-peal It summoned the storms from the fur- thest skies, And the sea swirled over the sand and sheal, And answered aback with its curdling cries. Tree and turret and river and rock Glared for a moment and then were gone In the titan-smite of a thunder shock, Like the crack of chaos at judgment- dawn. But over the storm that split the sky, And over its clangor on sod and sea, Was heard a long, wild, pitiful cry: "My daughter — my daughter! O where is she?" Laughing and leaping through rose and dew The miracle morning comes once more; 52 Gc nil dine of the Graeme Never before was the sky so blue, And never the world so fair before. The rain-drops ripple from turf and tree, And quiver and quiver with hearts of fire, And daintily over the leaf and lea The zephyrs hang with a sweet desire. The lark is winging and warbling up Out of the grass through the golden air; Lily to lily waves its cup And drinks of dew to the roses rare. Sing the fountains and shines the flood — Shines the grass and the greenwoods sing- But, hold! for here is a trail of blood! And here, O, Christ! her betrothal-ring! A sunken grave in a churchyard gray, A handful of dust, a dishonored name. And a wan, white phantom that walks, they say, Through the dim, old rooms of the haunted Graeme. But Carolyn sits in his pomp and pride, To-day, in a splendid hall of state; His wife and children are by his side And crowds of courtiers upon him wait. They know that he lured her down to doom With lies as crafty as lies can be; But what do they care, in that gilded room, Where they revel and dance and jest in glee? Dorothy 55 What do they care? He is a man, And woman is always a proper prey; It has been so since the world began, And thus w^ill forever be, they say. DOROTHY I stand on the windy headland where we stood in the yester-years; I gaze on our green, low valle}^ through the blur of m}^ burning tears, And think of a slain September afar in a pulse- less past — A beautiful, brave September that was too bright to last. O, Dorothy! O, my Dorothy! it was here that I met with thee One balmy and brilliant morning that was fai too blest to be — One fairy and fateful morning, with never a voice to warn, As up to the very heavens the soul of myself was borne. I see thee now in the splendor and flush of thy flowery ^^outh — Serene in thy witching beauty, supreme in thy matchless truth; And all through that brief September — the briefest my life hath known — I reveled in maddest rapture, for thou wert mine now — mine own. 54 Dorothy Then jealousy came between us with whispers I cannot name. O, fall on me, rocks and mountains, for I was alone to blame — For I, in my reckless anger, spake sharply a last farewell, And plunged from the highest heaven to the deepest deeps of hell! ^ ?fC ^ Jfc ^ Over the world I wandered, from zone to the furthest zone, Till I knew all the pains and passions that ever to man were known — Had seen all the mystic marvels of nature in noblest guise; Had stood in the grandest temples that tower beneath the skies; Had met with the mightiest leaders of life in this lower sphere. But, ah! through it all, beloved, my heart was forever here. And now that the calm September hath come to our world once more I stand on the windy headland where we stood in the years of yore; I gaze on the green, low valley, unchanged since I saw it last. Save out of its sweet seclusion the self ot my- self hath passed, Save out of its sweet seclusion the soul of my soul hath fled. O Dorothy!— O my darling! — art thou dead, and forever dead? H: * * * * * Ah! who is that woman standing down there by the rocky shore? Dorothy 55 She seems like a dream made real from ra- diant days of yore ; The grace of her every motion, the tint of her gleaming hair — I surely have seen that woman — have seen her — but when and where? And why are my pulses leaping as they leapt that September tide Before the desire of living from out of my life had died? O, Jesu! it is my beloved! — O, Jesu! it is my bride! He ran down the cliff and, turning, she stood transfixed, while he Caught her close in a stormy passion of a joy too vast to be. "Speak! speak!" he panted. "O darling! the desolate years have passed, And I — I have come to claim thee — at last — O, my love! — at last!" He staggered and fell — a bullet had cloven his heart in twain. "Ha! ha!" laughed the woman loudly, "my waiting was not in vain!" And to-day in a grim old mad-house she glee- fully clanks her chain. KENNETH, MY KING Thy marvelous beauty, my blue-eyed boy, Shines starry-like through the lurid years, Till I flush with the old, fierce, fetterless jo}^ Forgetful of time and tears. As I saw thee then I can see thee now: The passionful love on thy perfect face, The golden locks on thy brave, white brow Tossed back with a nameless grace. And, holding thy harp in thy slim, white hands — Ah! the harp and the hands are but dust to-day — I hear thee sweeping its silvery strands In thy own wild, peerless way. Spell-bound I listen until it seems That I live in the light of thy love once more, And revel in all of the strange, sweet dreams That never fruition bore; And my dead hopes rise from their funeral pyres As blessed and beautiful as of old; And high in my heart spring the sacred fires That never were quenched nor cold. O, Kenneth, my king! I joyfully cry, Stretching my arms to thy vision there To clasp it close to my heart — but I Clasp only the empty air! 56 Kins: Custom 57 And I waken again to the awful truth, As black and bitter as truth can be, That heaven was lost in my hapless youth, Beloved, in losing thee. Yet if unsealing thy cofifin-lid I could bring thee back with one old, fond kiss On thy beautiful face, I would forbid Myself the infinite bliss. For sweeter by far is the dumb, blank rest In thy windowless palace beneath the sod, Than life in a world where life at best Is only a fleeting fraud — Is only a fugitive fraud, where friends Clasp hands and sever with sad farewells, Where the jubilant bridal or banquet ends In the moan of the funeral-bells. KING CUSTOM I have heard men bravely brag That our land at least is free — Heard them say our star-lit fiag Symbolizes liberty. But the}^ knew their lips were lying — Knew that they were shackled slaves Of a monarch, whose undying Power tracks them to their graves. Custom is that monarch. He Sways the Church and Camp and Court, 58 King Custom Makes and molds society, Enters into every sport, And he sets the silly fashions Of the men and women folk, And he bringeth all the passions Underneath his iron yoke. Though a hand from heaven sows Seeds that sprout and spring to vines, Bearing fruit that gleams and glows With its joyous wealth of wines, If ye quaff the red, ripe juices — Grown and given for use of man — Custom, without terms or truces, Forthwith brings you under ban. If you hold yourself aloof From the mob, you soon will hear Custom crying: "This is proof That the man is cracked and queer." Then he summons up his rabble. And he winks to them their cue, And, with smirk or curse, they gabble That their master speaketh true. If belief should leave your soul. The belief in creed and church, If you question their control, If you leave them in the lurch. If you lift your eyes to Reason As the pole-star of the world. Custom shrieks out, "Treason! treason!" And his shaft at you is hurled. If your taste is pure and high. All undimmed by things below, If you, with a calm, cold eye, Look on life's vainglorious show, Ki7ig Custotn 59 See no beauty in the faces Nor the forms of womankind, To their vaunted gifts and graces Are by nature wholly blind — Then King Custom with a hiss, Like a serpent in your track. Howls unto his mob at this, And they hiss and howl aback; And how quick they be to utter False surmise in whispers loud; And how swift they be to mutter Things as vulgar as the crowd! Thus King Custom holdeth sway Over all our hills and plains; Many long to break away From his mandates and his chain But they weakly fear and falter At the wrath that would await, So they ponder and the}^ palter, And submit unto their fate. Unto this King Custom I, Never will my homage yield; His decrees 1 will defy Till my sepulcher is sealed; I will own no other master Than the good God over all, Though it doom me to disaster Till the final shadows fall. IDALIA "O, follow, follow me!" cried Love, as in the jasper skies The morning pearled, and made the world a perfect Paradise — The morning pearled: its vexile flashed, and flamed its victor blades, As back it drove the darkness from the glad heights and the glades. "O, follow, follow me!" cried Love. Idalia fol- lowed where He led her, through the low, sweet fields of asphodel, and there The larks rained down their golden song from out the purple air. He led her through the vineyards where the blue grape-clusters hung. And through the dewy pleasaunce where the crimson roses swung, And the 3/ellow-winged canaries in the olean ders sung, And life was like a fairy-tale, and all the world was young. And on and on she followed, till they came unto a land Where a river clanged forever through a wild, weird waste of sand — Through the rushes clanged forever, and the blinding sunlight shone On a serpent, coiled and hissing, by a ruined altar-stone. 60 Idalia 6i And on and on he led her, though her bleeding footprints showed That the cruel rocks had torn her as she jour- ne\-ed on the road ; And on and on she followed, till the Darkness came once more, Camping with its conquering legions on the sea and on the shore. Where was now the brave, bright Morning? Where were now its swords of fire? Where were now its sweet delusions? Where was now its strong desire? Cold and dumb and stark forever doth its bleeding body lie, And its proud, imperial banners shine no longer in the sky; While the Darkness— drunk with triumph — calls the Tempest o'er the rim Of the under world, to riot in fierce revelry with him. "Love, where are you? ' sighs Idalia, but there cometh no reply: Tears the wind across the desert, dash the cloud-racks through the sky. And the lightning hurls its lances, and the thunder-drums beat high. "Love, where are you?" cries Idalia, as she sinks upon her track: "Love, where are you?" sobs Idalia, but he sends no answer back; "Love, where are you?" shrieks Idalia. From the ruined altar-stone Comes a curdling peal of laughter, ending in an awful moan; 62 Idalia And a skeleton reels forward; there is cypress on its brow, And a ring upon its finger; and it cries: "As I am now Will you be, O, poor, lost maiden! for you fol- lowed Love away; For you followed Love who leadeth hither only to betray; For you followed Love, who lureth only to de- sert at last. When the first fresh dew and blossom of our beauty is o'erpast. I was once a bonny lassie in a glad, green land away; Through the dear old household places I went singing all the day; But Love sought me as a victim, and I ven- tured in his train. And I gave to him a jewel that I never might regain; Then there came a few sweet moments of mad rapture, but no more Was the world, or life, or heaven, what they always were before; Still 1 followed him, and followed, under many a stranger sky, Till he left me here — deserted — in an hour like this — to die." ***** She is lying where the river clangs through rushes sere and brown, With the ring of her betrothal that had brought no bridal-crown — Where the river clangs forever with a warning under-tone, Where the serpent coils and hisses by the ruined altar-stone. The Solitude of Self 63 Over her the vultures hover, and with talons keen they tear From her face, and limbs and bosom all the beauty that was there, Till her skeleton lies bleaching in that desert dim and bare. With her little babe beside her that had never breathed of life, There they find the poor, lost mother who had never been a wife — There they find her, where the river clangs forever through the sand — Only one of many maidens lured into that aw- ful land. THE SOLITUDE OF SELF The loneliest thing in this lonely sphere Is self, in its prison of flesh and bone ; Between the closest of comrades here Is a wall as thick as a wall of stone. There are thoughts we think that we cannot tell To any being of woman born. For the fetters of language they repel And spurn with a proud, quick, reckless scorn. Eyes cannot express, nor touch translate, The dreams refulgent that come to me; Nor the burning love, nor the blasting hate, Nor the truths supreme that my soul can see. 64 The Solitude of Self When skies at sundown are splashed with fire A vivified vision mine eyes behold, And I look with a look of a rapt desire On castles of glory and cliffs of gold, Where seas of jasper in jewels break On shoals of beauty and shores of bloom, Where never and never a heart shall ache, On the awful verge of an open tomb. I try to mutter the thoughts that come To me in the hush of the half-light then; But, ah! for my lips are dumb, and dumb To me are the lips of my fellow-men. No matter if I should cry and call Till my tones went tingling unto the stars, Man could not hear me — for, O, the wall Between us forever! It bars — it bars! And thus when I struggle my love to speak, Its infinite secret I cannot name — For words are pulseless and cold and weak, And wanting the force of the vital flame. And so with the eloquent hate eterne That I have and hold for the whelps of wrong — Its fell, fierce fury I cannot burn And brand in the brain of the brutish throng. I cannot tell them the strong, sublime Contempt I feel for their laws, ah, me! For vicious virtue, and Christian crime, And serf-hood singing that it is free. I cannot impart the immortal flame Of the truths I own to these churlish clods Guiieau 65 Who sanctify every sham and shame, And say they were given them by their gods. Thus lonely, ahl lonely, each wends his way To the shadows and silence, and never knows The souls that walk with him day by day To the restful palace and last repose. GUITEAU I will sing a song that never brother-bard hath sung to thee, For the spirit of its rhythm is revealed alone to me. May be on the heights of Heaven seraphs sing it to their lyres, May be in the depths of Hades devils shriek it in the fires; But I know not, and ye know not; hearken to its hopeless strain, And deny it or defy it, still its ripened truths remain: Nothing is that is not ordered by an over-rul- ing Power, From the master march of planets to the soft fringe of a fiower; We are nothing more than puppets, and this Power pulls the string, 5 66 Guiteau Making of that man a menial, making of this clown a king; Models one in manly beauty, perfect he in every part, Great in mind, and grand, majestic, in the im- pulse of his heart, Marvelous, serene and lofty, born the masses to command With a look, a tone, a motion of his white, bejeweled hand. He, the stately one and saintly, seldom feels the spur of sin, And can stay it and suppress it by the master will within; His are gold and love and glory, and the faith that sees afar ^n unending life of rapture o'er the blue rim of our star. Ill But behold a fellow-mortal fashioned on an- other plan: Coarse, deformed, and misbegotten — more a devil than a man — Heir to sin and want and sorrow, born with- out a sense of shame. Stung by sharp, keen, fierce desires burning in his blood like flame; Weak, unbalanced and repulsive — reveling in sensual things. If he hath a soul within him 'tis a soul that never sings — 'Tis a soul that hath no wings! If he speeds the blasting bullet through the heart of fellow-man. Blameless he, for it was bidden when the uni- verse began; Guitcau 67 He was born without the power or the impulse to forbear When the dumb, resistless forces of the cycles centered there; That which gave him life had given passions that impelled him here; Circled him with strong temptations from his birth-cry to his bier; Formed the hour and circumstances; placed the pistol in his hand, But withheld the strength and schooling his impulses to command. IV Nothing is that is not ordered by an over-rul- ing Power, From the master-march of planets to the soft fringe of a flower; From the Charity that standeth with its sunny wings unfurled, While her white hands shower blessings and her sweet lips kiss the world, Unto Crime, with bloody bullet^ flaming torch and dripping blade, Stalking over tombs and ruins his destroying hand has made. If athrough the mists phantasmal with the saints we walk in rhyme. If our hearts are set to music of a melody sub- lime, If we wade with knife and fagot through the blood our hands have spilt, From that Power came our glory, from that Power came our guilt. DE PROFUNDIS Where the singing groves of summer glittered in the crystal calm, Wave the black, funereal branches, O, so bleakly! to and fro; Where the blithe, capricious linnet poured its pure, impassioned psalm In the bright syringa bushes, drifts the deso- lating snow; While the harvest-twinkling hill-tops — traced on the translucent blue In the splendor-hearted summer — fade in spec- tral fogs from view, And the wan, wild dusk descendeth over trees and tarns away, As I think of friends departed in and out the grave to-day. Over seas and over sand-wastes some upon the earth-plane still Think of thee, O, poor, proud spirit! beat- ing at thy prison-bars; Of the old time by the yule-log, when the Christmas blasts blew chill, Or in cool, calm groves, green-raftered, where the roses shone like stars! Dear hearts! nevermore to know thee — never- more — O, dark decree, Thus to meet one merry season, but to sepa- rated be: Better thrid the thorns unfriended by the throngs of thoughtless men Than to meet the true and tender thus to weep farewells again! 68 De Profundis 69 Underneath the waving willows in the calm, old kirk3^ard low, Some are dreamless dust forever, as our- selves at last will be; Yet this life of flowers and feasting is the only life we'll know, And this life of pain and parting is the only hell we'll see. Wo! I saw the waxen cere-cloths, wet with un- availing tears; Wo! I saw the funeral torches flaming by their plume-proud biers; Thus the dismal yester-shadows dim the sun- shine of to-day; Ah, if Memory could perish. Misery would pass awa}^ Fate, O, Fate! Why mock and madden us with beautiful, bright eyes. With loose locks of golden glory, and with wine-red, winning lips. With cool, creamy arms that clasp us in a per- fect Paradise — Then the vivid, saintly vision let the coffin- lid eclipse? Better never live, O, mortal! — thus I hold with bated breath — Than to drop .into the darkness, ah, so desolate, of death; Better never love, I whisper in my wickedness once more, Than to see our idols shattered at the shrines where we adore! BRITOMARTE It was not much that I implored of Fate: I did not ask for bays to crown my brow; I did not ask for gold to gild my home; I did not ask for liberty from toil; Nay, none of these were plead for in my prayer; And yet the one sweet blessing that I craved Has been denied me by my destiny. I only asked that I might have a friend, Whose looks would lighten when he saw my face. Whose voice would soften when he spake to me, Whose hand would tremble, when he took my hand. With thrills of bliss because it pressed my palm; Who would not see my faults — would only see My better self, all unobscured by sin; Who would not hearken to the tongue that told Of rumors dark concerning me or mine: A friend indeed, and not a summer friend Whose smile was mine while sunshine, too, was mine; But one whose thoughts of tenderness would rise And deepen and proclaim themselves, when time Of storm and wreck and midnight came to me. I now am old and weak and near my tomb, But neither in the glorious capitals, Nor yet within the hamlets hidden far 70 Britomarte 71 From the mad, jarring world in greenwoods dim, Have I beheld a woman or a man Who was possessed of an unchanging tieart. I have met those who came to me, and b}^ Their gentle smiles and gracious words have won Their way into the center of my soul, And then deserted me and left despair, All crowned and sceptered, on the very throne Made vacant by their treachery to me. Take one as an example of them all: I see him yet, a tall and handsome boy, With golden locks that glinted in the sun. With eyes like violets, whose depths within Sparkle the dew-drops at the dawn of day. His face was like in color to the bloom Of apple-blossoms: just a hint of pink Seen through the snowy whiteness —that was all. He said his love was mine, and then he made My love his own, until I worshiped him Blindly and madly, and I would have gone With songs of gladness through the flood or flame To serve him, if thereby I could have made Him happy as his fond vows made myself. Then, wo! there came a time when leagues of space And lengths of seasons lay between us both ; But we had spanned the great gulf with our pens. And over this frail bridge did we transmit Devoted messages. 72 Britomarte But the hour struck When there were no responses sent to me. A black and awful silence fell between Us both; and moons of winter shuddered by, And moons of summer blossomed in the blue, And still no word — not one poor syllable Was heard from him. At last I knew it all; Knew that he had renounced me ; that no more, Here or hereafter, would our pathways cross. He flung me back my love, and with it flung His scorn and scoffs. O, God! O, God! I thought- Kneeling prone down within my lampless room— What have I done that I should thus be hurt — Be trod upon like reptile in the dust? That, too, by one of all the others best. Most dearly loved and reverenced by me! There were no tears within mine eyes, ah, no! Great grief can never thus be washed away, There were no moans within that chambered gloom- Only the dumbness of a last despair! The night passed on, and lightning split the > sky; The night passed on, and horrid thunders clashed; The night passed on, and rioted the rain; The night passed on and morning broke at last. Broke for the world, but never broke for me! The cloud, the tempest, and the darkness still, Of that fierce night remain within my breast. He was the last of all my friends, the last Lone love to which I clung, and he had proved As faithless as the rest. The Song of Hate 73 Without one cause, One reason rendered, he had thus betrayed My trust in him. And I had loved him so! Heaven! O, heaven! I had loved him so! I have witlidrawn from all humanity, Foresworn my kind and live for self alone. Yourself can be a friend unto yourself Through loss and pain and utter lack of hope: All other friendships are but mockeries. Follow them up and you will surely find That, like the jack-o'-lantern of the moor. They will but lead you to your ruin down. THE SONG OF HATE Come I at last, my masters! Come I at last, though late, To sing in your ears, unwilling, the terrible Song of Hate — A Song that will startle the timid and make them tremble and pale; But the truth I seek, And the truth I speak, Though the whole world cower and quail. Hate I that World, my masters, with all of its show and sham ; Its masks and lies and illusions, deceiving us but to damn; I heartily hate the living and I hate- the very dead. And everything 74 The Song of Hate By vassal or king That ever was done or said. For since the first fierce morning of Time, with its toils and tears, Down through the dim, long vista of fleet and fugitive years, I see but the one black picture 'twixt cradle and coffin-bed, Of conquering knaves, And cowering slaves. And the doom that struck them dead. Hate I that World, my masters, so given to shame and sin. Where mortals by Fate are hobbled and fet- tered and hampered in; And never I moan nor marvel, when I hear the curdling cry Of wretches who dare. In this hopeless snare, To curse their God and die. Hate I the name of Pleasure; it is ever akin to pain, And leaves a poison to rankle in spirit and heart and brain; Whenever it droppeth a lily adown on my sun- less path, I shiver with fear, For I know that anear There hurtles a bolt of wrath. Hate I the name of Friendship, of all things fickle and frail, For, O, in^the time of trial full oft have I seen it fail; And if it be fond and faithful, then only too well I know The SoJig of Hate 75 It will wither and pass, Like flowers and grass, When the winds of the death-da}- blow. Hate I the garish bauble of Fame, that gilded cheat! It schooleth the glib-tongued rabble in the lessons of deceit; Down would they bow before me, if I were chosen chief, Though I won the race Through my own disgrace To the place of a titled thief. Hate I the name of Riches, they bring in their blasting train A rout of covetous courtiers who fawn at thy feet for gain; Nothing they care, O, nabob, for thee, it is plain to tell; Name them in thy will For a sum — then spill Thy blood. It will please them well. Hate I this Life, my masters, so cruel and calm and cold; Hate I the awful Secret that never to man was told! — The myster}^ speechless and silent, that wraps us around and about, That sealeth the tomb With a ghastly gloom, And shutteth the future out. Hate I it All, my masters, but most I hate Mankind ; They are deaf to the voice of counsel, to their plainest duty blind; 76 Unsung 1 cry, and they scoff my warning, I call, and they only jeer; While they laugh and scheme In a rosy dream, Till Azrael makes them hear. UNSUNG O, that mystic song ! O, that mystic song! It is hunting and haunting me down my days with its melody sweet and strong! The splendor of suns is. in its strain, And the tinkle and tune of the wide blue waves, And the flash of the rainbows through the rain, And the glory of life, and the light of graves, While songs of heaven and shrieks of hell Are one in its surging underswell! O, that magic song! O, that magic song! It blends the vices of mortal right with the virt- ues of mortal wrong; It sets to music the serpent's hiss In time with the singer's lute; it blends In rarest rhythm our bale and bliss, And curse of foemen and kiss of friends, While the feet of the demi-gods keep time With the tramp of devils adown its rhyme! O, that subtle song! O, that subtle song! A Frophecy 77 I strive and struggle to vivify and voice it un- to the thoughtless throng; But though it burns in my blood to-night, And sings and sings in my mind to me, Its miracle words I may not write, Nor utter its secret sense to thee; It slips the leash of my language when I seek to pinion it with my pen! O, that spirit song! O, that spirit song! Only to me of our mortal race its melody doth belong; Yet, O! if I might unlock its bars, And O ! if its music I might set free, My race would walk on the shining stars Forever in company with me, And my fame would thunder from zone to zone, Till Time lay dead on its golden throne! A PROPHECY " And ever will right come uppermost, And ever will justice be done." — Charles Mackay. A lie! a lie! a glittering lie! Though set to a sounding strain, While roystering princes revel high And their vassals clank the chain. A cheat! a cheat! a glorious cheat! While Virtue cries for bread, And Vice is battened on banquet meat, And quaffs of her wine rose-red! 78 A Prophecy Look forth! look forth over all the lands. And what do thine eyes behold? Guilt, holding a scepter in gory hands And wearing a crown of gold; While Innocence toils in the mart and mine And taxes its frugal hoard, To pay for the purple and linen fine And the pleasures of its lord. "And ever will right come uppermost. And ever will justice be done! " A boast! the false and the frivolous boast Of a knave and a fool in one. Rise high on the rounds unto power and place By felony, force and fraud, And history hides thy dark disgrace, While every land will laud. Be true to the trust of the dead who die For the Truth — it forever fails, And its base betrayer will pass thee by While thy motive he assails. "And ever will right come uppermost. And ever will justice be done!" A boast! the damned and deluding boast Of a knave and a fool in one. Who would flatter the meek mob on to think That a distant day will bring To the humblest toiler the meat and drink And the fine robe of a king, And make them forget their galling gyves, And turn to their tasks again, Fresefitiment 79 And work and worry throagh all their lives For the profit of princely men. But never will right come uppermost, And never will justice be done, Unless there rises an awful host Some day beneath the sun, And dooms its kings to the bloody block, Their palaces to the flame, And breaks every fetter and yoke and lock That binds it to its shame; And burns in a bonfire every page Of the laws that rule to-day — That had their root in an ancient age When savages held the sway. But, mark the prophecy! — mark it well! That time we will never know; Forever the Strong will buy and sell The Weak — it is ordered so; And never will right come uppermost, And never will justice be done, Till we sail away from this mortal coast From under this mortal sun! PRESENTIMENT The night was a night of June As I sat at my window-sill And sang to the shattered moon In tune with the whip-poor-will. 8o Presentiment Then out of the future came A mystical feeling. I Shrank back with a sense of shame And a low, swift, frenzied cry; For I knew there was coming soon A terror too vast for me, And I prayed to the broken moon That glittered on sod and sea. The morning pearled at last In melody, dew and bloom. But I shuddered as one aghast On the edge of his early tomb. It was never a fear of death That dirled through my spirit. Nay: It was something that came by stealth To walk with me day by day; And my high and my haughty scorning Went down in the dust, and I, In the light of that lovely morning, Died deaths you can never die. For they brought her unto me; then With a laugh they left her. O, Christ! A thing to be shunned of men — For her soul had been sacrificed! "My girl! O, my beautiful Grace!" I raved in a last despair, And I stung her sovereign face With my passionful kisses there. She lived for a little while. And then she was only clay — Besmirched by the grime and guile Of a devil she met one day; Avery Meriwether 8 1 And out on yon windy wold Is her dreamless dust to-night, And here I sit, in the gold And the gleam of the firelight. There cometh unto us all A knowledge of things to be, And agonies that appall Forever I can foresee. AVERY MERIWETHER Born, July, 1857. Died, July, 1883. My Avery is dead, In the sunflash of his life — Dead in the sunflash of his love; and the world with its roses rife! — Yea, the world with its mocking roses rife and swimming in the wide Blue sky — o'er-brimming with song, as if our dead had never died. My Avery is dead! — The dear boy went from me With a loving, look on his pure, pale face that I never more v/ill see. And rivers and rocks and leagues of land be- tween us lay waste and wide, But I said: "I will, see him again some day," and I said it while he died! 82 Avery Meriwether My Avery is dead! Low in the Southern dust Is the hand that gave with a generous will, and the heart forever just, And the thoughts that scaled to the Very stars — unwritten as yet for man. And every beautiful dream, and hope, and de- sire, and wish, and plan. O, Nature, calm and cold! O, Nature, why is this? — Why summon us out of the dumb, bare void to a little day of bliss — To meet with the great, sweet, generous friends like the friend whom I weep to-day. Then sever us far as star from star in this mad, unmerciful way? Gifted with genius high, Unselfish and pure and brave, O, why should he go in his glad rose-years to rest where the lilies wave, While the guilty whose garments are splashed with shame, live on in their slimy sin Till their hair is grizzled, before the grave will open to let them in? But Avery still lives. Though clad in cerements chill; In the works he wrought, in the truths he taught, I know he is living still — Is. part of the miracle woods and waves and the sky and the stars to-day. For the soul thrills out through the universe when the senses fade away. Is it unconscious there? Shall it never know us, when Avery Meriwether 83 We slip the leash of our bondage here, and drift from the days of men — Drift out through the infinite sweeps of coace on the surge of immortal years, And melt in the mighty universe through all of its suns and spheres? Nay, na}^, it cannot be! — In ways to the wise unknown, We will feel and know, as we felt and knew before our breath had flown, Though we melt in the mighty universe till the endless end shall be. And live in the spray of che singing waves and the blossom on the tree. Why should the tear-drops burn Our eyeballs at his tomb? Why should we hide our faces there where the ferns and the flowers bloom? It is only a little, little while till the last of us all shall go Out over the rim of the radiant sky, and know what our dear dead know! Only a little while — O, why did Avery die? This cold philosophy cannot hush our hearts' poor, pleading cry; O, why must he go in his glory-time with many a wreath unwon That was growing to garland his pure, proud brow with a splendor like the sun? O, Life! O, Death! O, Time! O, World! O, dark, unknown. Mysterious, speechless void on void with peo- pled planets sown! — 84 Avery Meritv ether Ye only serve to feed the worm that crawls within the tomb, And blast forevermore a hope when in its brightest bloom! O, why should it be so? O, what — what have we done That we are summoned from the void to live beneath the sun — To live and cheated be with hopes that turn to serpents here; To see the bridal-blossoms droop and wither on the bier; To feel the loving hand Turn icy in our own; To cry farewells that cannot reach into the dim Unicnown; To feel the stab of perfidy, the sorrow and the pain, The yearnings never realized, the rasping of the chain; To know that life will end — End in the murk and mold Before the song is half-way sung, the tale is half-way told? O, pitiless! O, pitiless the God, the Law, the Fate, The Nature — call it what you list — that ruleth our estate! O, Avery ! my Avery ! The day is half-divine. The sod is all a-blooming and the sky is all a-shine, And the flash and song and fragrance of the summer green and gay. Mock laughingly at Death and all that Death has done this day! Cresentius 85 Insensibly there comes A sweet, triumphant thought Thar somewhere in the Universe a Truth is left untaught — A Truth that will unriddle all the mysteries that be And let thy soul electrify our souls eternally! CRESENTIUS Behold him as he stands — The chains upon his hands The noblest and the knightliest one in all the Roman lands! On his black charger he Had led to victory Ten thousand thousand Romans through the battle's din and dree. Then streamed his war-plume white, Gleamed in the golden light His mail and helmet, bearing deep the dints of many a fight. Now, cruel rack and wheel. His flesh is made to feel, But, lo! his true, unmurmuring lips no secret will reveal. Behold his quivering frame! Behold the proud, calm flame Within his eagle eye, the while they taunt his naked shame. 86 Cresentius And break his battle-sword, That for themselves hath poured The blood of foemen where the flag of Rome imperial soared! "Step forth!" The headsman leads, And, though each fiber bleeds, Cresentius goes with grand, high mien to die for noble deeds. With bright, unbandaged eye Doth he the ax defy, While bending to its bloody stroke ... a mad, quick tiger-cry Leaps from the people there — Rage, pathos and despair Are blended in the awful wail that breaks up- on the air. Thus, in a devil-age, Was the historic page Splashed with the blood of men who threw at tyranny the gage. Thus did they dree and die On block, or cross-tree high, Because the hell-whelps on the throne they boldly did defy. And though the rack and wheel, And though the headsman* s steel. No man within our boastful land hath yet been made to feel. Still, if we dare defy A mailed and mitered lie Of Church or State, its tools will hate and hound us till we die. NO PLACE FOR ME The dancers dance in the palace-halls to the mad, sweet music there, While I stand outside of the ancient walls in a passion of despair; Bubbles the red, red Orient wine, and quiver ^ the creamy blooms, While scintillant jewels sparkle and shine down all of the princely rooms; I hear the persiflage blithe and bright and the rippling laughter free. But, O! wherever a heart is light, there is no place for me. I stand on a mountain ledge, and lo! a city before me lies — I see its western windows glow in the flame of the sunset skies; And I think of the happy homes where wait the tenderful hearts and true — Of the welcoming kisses at the gate, in the roses and the dew; The laughing lips and the eyes impearled by sympathy I see. And I sigh to myself: In all the world, no home has a place for me! I tread the turbulent streets and I full many a face behold — I watch them carelessly pass me by, with calm, proud looks and cold. They never dream, and they never will, how I long their love to know, 87 88 No Place for Me How their beautiful eyes make my pulses thrill as they did in the long ago; I pass, and my lips with pride are curled; none shall my misery see, But I cry to myself: In all the world no heart has a place for me! I see full many triumphant spheres of dignity and renown; Here clash the warriors' clanging spears, there sparkles the victor's crown; Here the poet sings, and the world is hushed to listen unto his lays. There the statesman stands with his honors flushed, in the splendor of his days; But whether in sphere or high or low, on the shore or on the sea. No rich reward will I ever know: There is no place for me! Be brave, O, heart! There's a place of graves afar in a lovely land, Where murmur the long, blue Mexic waves up Mississippi's strand; And there through the silvery summer-tide the oleanders bloom. And drift their red, sweet flowers wide o'er many a nameless tomb; And there, when my life is overpast, in the beautiful years to be, I will find a rapturous rest at last: In the grave is a place for me! LIONEL LA VERE Lionel La Vere was standing by the passionate, pale sea, Where it broke in magic murmurs on the crag- gy coast of Lee, While the orient was shining with sun-lances light and long As the new day flashed upon him with its fra- grance, dew and song. He, the glorious and gifted, with his poet- sense could see A new earth and a new heaven on the lovely coast of Lee; And his soul rhymed with the morning; with a rapturous outcry Lifted he a glad hosanna to the purple sweep of sky — Lifted he a glad hosanna foi the life that seemed so fair; For the sweet, resplendent visions that were circled 'round him there; For the friends whose deep devotion never yet to fail was known; For the Hopes that marched before him with a splendor all their own — Hopes that lifted high their torches, beck'ning down the future dim. Pointing to the victor-laurels that were blos- soming for him; For the grand All-hail Hereafter, far beyond the stars and sod. When his mortal race was over and he rounded back to God. 91 92 Lionel La Vere Thus, with jubilant thanksgiving did he dream of years to be On that miracle young morning by the singing summer sea. * Moons have toiled down into darkness since that morning kissed his brow — In the dust and roar and tumult of a city is he now, Struggling with his fellow-beings in a battle for his bread, In despair ofttimes upcrying, "O, to heaven I were dead!" All the joyful flush and splendor of his youth have passed away; Golden mornings cannot thrill him as they did in that old day, And his blood no longer tingles with a riotous delight When a sylvan scene transplendent blooms in beauty on his sight. For he sees beyond its beauty, and "It is a mask," he cries, "To a rotten world that reeketh with its lepro- sies and lies!" Slowly did he learn the lesson, that the world he deemed so fair Crucified its Christs forever — placed its Pilates in the chair; That it cursed the Right forever, and forever crowned the Wrong, Keeping for the weak its shackles and its scep- ters for the strong. He had held a creed progressive — pure as star- fire of the skies — Lumcl La Fere 93 Held a creed that turned and trampled on all leprosies and lies; But the rabble rose in anger and assailed him, for they saw That behind their savage statutes was a whiter, holier law, And they hated its Apostle, for he tore their masks away, And revealed their rank pollution to the dazzle of the day. One by one his friends forsook him — fearful of the public wrath — Leaving him to fight the foemen crowding clos- er in his path. , Thus he learned his first sad lesson: Friend- ship is an idle tale, And thy friends will all assail thee, if the world shall first assail. One by one his Hopes fell dying; darker still the world became. Where were now their blazing torches that had cheered him with their flame? Where were now the victor-laurels they had promised long ago? Where were now the love and friendship they had told him he should know? Vanished — like the lovely vision of a dear, dead face in sleep Rising from beneath the roses, leaving us to wake and weep. Years march on with shout and laughter, while with red, right hands they slay Brave and beautiful and brilliant men and wo- men by the way; 94 Lionel La Vere Years march on with shout and laughter, beat ing down into the grave All the rosy dreams and pleasures that their predecessors gave. Lionel once more is standing on the lonely coast of Lee, Broken-hearted now and haggard, looking o'er a stormy sea; And a wan, white mist is crawling over tree and tarn afar As the dark day moans and shudders to a night without a star. "I will put my trust in heaven!" thus he cried; then, mockingly, Laughed the very winds on-sweeping, frowned the sky and hissed the sea. Until universal Nature to his fancy took a tongue. Crying, "O, poor fool! you trusted in this world when you were young; It was brave and great and tender, and it filled your grand ideal, So you trusted it, and found it hollow, treach- erous, unreal. "If the Maker made a swindle of this world and life and time, Will he keep the golden promise in a gladder sphere sublime? Fool, that you have ever trusted — greater fool to trust again In a vague, phantasmal country pictured out by priestly men. Never downward from his bastions rang an an swer to a prayer, And no God has ever spoken from his glory over there, Lionel La Vere 95 .\na no lips have ever opened on which Samael set his seal, Any hint or any whisper of its raptures to re- veal. It is all a feeble fiction. Trust in nothing save a rest That will round through ceaseless cycles in the clammy earth's cold breast." Lionel La Vere is rotting underneath the white rose-tree Where he spake his glad hosannas, on the craggy coast of Lee. Ruined dreams, betrayed affections, faith evan- ished, were his lot. Yet the sea sings on beside him, and of man he is forgot — Yet the sea sings on beside him, shines the sun and flash the flowers, And the wild-birds wing and twitter in the free and fragrant bowers. And the mad world booms and thunders in its passion and its pride, And men laugh and dance and marry as if he had never died. Nature counts the dead as nothing, and she frolics o'er his rest. While red-throated worms hold riot on the heart within his breast — Hold the riot and the revel they will hold o'er all at last. When the dream and disappointment of our lives are overpast. * We may laugh and dance and marry — dally with a soft romance — g6 Blessijigs of Bachelorhood Still the Doom runs through the C3xles; we're the sport and fools of Chance. And to-day we lift the beaker where the ban- quet-board is spread, But to-morrow we are wailing by the white face of our dead; And to-day we hear the trumpet pealing forth our names with pride, But to-morrow by the people we are speared and crucified; And to-day our friends caress us, hold us closely to the heart, But to-morrow they desert us, while they speed the poisoned dart. This is life — and though its sunrise beautiful and blest appears, Soon or late it dips and darkens into ashes, blood and tears; Yet the Church, and State, and People, pander- ing to their passions, cry, "It is good — a thing of glory! Wed, increase and multiply! It is good — a thing of glory! Wed, increase and multiply!" BLESSINGS OF BACHERLORHOOD The happiest life that ever was led, Is never to woo and never to wed. — Old Song. HAL Say, Cecil, old fellow, unless you take care You will be an old bachelor — ^here is a hair That I've pulled from your bonny, brown tresses, and, lo! — Blessings of Bachelorhood 97 You may look for yourself, — it is whiter than snow; And, Cecil, a sly little wrinkle I trace On your temple — the first of a ravaging race That will ruin the roses of boyhood — CECIL O, tush! Quit your bother — Pm busy. HAL No, no; I won't hush; You are thirty, unwedded, and, what is a shame, You haven't a single sweetheart to your name , And so, on the whole, Bud, your prospect is blue, And I think it high time I was talking to you. CECIL Tut! Fiddlesticks, boy! Take a glass of this wine — I think you will find it uncommonly fine. You won't let me finish my writing, I see, So light a havana and listen to me: Let others go marry for all that I care, I never will do such a thing, I declare; And thus will I save myself many a woe That the poor, hapless Benedict only may know. I'm foot-loose, unhampered by woman or child, I'm free as yon bird that flits merry and wild: I rise in the morning whenever I list, I stay out at night and I never am missed, I come or I tarry whenever I choose, I smoke or I drink when I'm down with the blues, And there's none to complain or control me, my boy, As I revel and dance through a lifetime of joy. When I come to my snug, little sanctum I know g8 Blessings of Bachelorhood That a fire is blazing with cheeriest glow, My pipe and my papers are ready for me, And the walnuts and wine when I've finished my tea. Grand company's waiting for me, I well know — Shakespeare, and Byron, and Shelley, and Poe, And all the great bards who have brightened the earth With words of sweet wisdom, and pathos, and mii"th; With these for my comrades I well can re- nounce The presence of furbelow, ribbon and flounce. While the cry of a tearful and troublesome child In the lap of its mother would worry me wild. HAL But love? ^ CECIL I have fond, faithful friends, as you see, And their kindness and care is sufficient for me. We are bound by no tie save the tie of the heart; No scandal would sully our names should we part; If I tire of them or they tire of me We can utter adieus and forever are free. Not so with a wife. HAL No; but then the bright joy Of a bosom-companion to live with, my boy; Who would offer wise counsel, and help you, and cheer Your upward advances from year unto year; Who would crown you her king, with a wo- manly pride; £iessi?igs of Bachelorhood gg "Who would double your joys and your sorrows divide." CECIL The picture is pretty, but very unreal, Like a sculptor's white vision, a poet's ideal; The helpmate you paint I might possibly find. But the Fates might decree a far different kind; And what if the woman whose ways I adore Should tear off a mask when the marriage is o'er, And show me a nature, harsh, vulgar and cold, A meddlesome spy or a petulant scold? Why, Hal, it would drive me distracted, and I Would take up my hat, and would bid her good-bye; Then lawsuit and scandal would fall to my share, And the shame would be more than my spirit could bear. HAL Is that it, old Cecil? Now, listen to me; If your wife should be all that you fear she would be, You would find compensation, bright, tender and sweet In your children — without them no life is com- plete. CECIL My children! Now hearken, and heed what I say, I would rather be dead than a father to-day; Aye, rather by far, for temptations are spread At each corner and step of the way that we tread. And my children might bring on my house and my name The dark, crimson blotch of unspeakable shame. lOo Blessi?igs of Bachelorhood HAL But if they were all you would have them to be? CECIL No matter, — I never of fear would be free. Day and night, night and day, I would dread that the doom Of the grave would sweep over their glorious bloom, And leave me bereft in the blaze of my years With a fierce, hopeless future of terror and tears. HAL Time would heal. CECIL Never, never! I think you declare Your belief in the Bible? HAL Yes, yes.. CECIL You have there Learned the lesson that only the souls of the blest Will wing their white way to the raptures of rest; Yea, only "a remnant" be saved, it is said While the multitude, marching on down to the dead, Will pass through the portals of time and the tomb To suffer and shriek in dominions of doom Forever and ever; and how could I tell That no child of my house would sink into this hell. And leave me the thought that in granting him breath I had given him likewise damnation and death? TJie Secrets of t/ie Song lOT O, the red-throated worms must rejoice when they hear The bridal-bells chiming all cheery and clear, And the heart of old Lucifer tingle with pride Whenever he looks on a bridegroom and bride; For isn't it plain until weddings have ceased That the red-throated worms are assured of a feast? That Lucifer still will have souls to destroy, While weddings replenish our planet, my boy? THE SECRET OF THE SONG Cecil: O, sing me a song, Llewell}^, that you sang in that lost, lost June, When the robins swung in the roses, and car- oled and chirped in tune — When your life was a life of rapture, and 3'our love was a love whose fire Had lent to your lays the gladness of a great, ripe, sweet desire. I know she is dead, Llewellyn, I know she is dead to you, Or proved like a swikeful siren to your beauti- ful truth untrue — And you in that mad, vast moment were turned to a cynic cold. And never again, ah, never! will be as you were of old! I02 The Secret of the Song Llewellyn: Ha! ha! my comrade romantic! Now, really I • hate to say Your charmingly fond compassion is utterly thrown away; The woman you speak of, Cecil, she never has pricked my pride By proving unleal to her pledges, and I know that she never died — Nay, never, my dear old fellow, for she never has yet been born To harrow my heart by dying or ruffle my wrath with scorn. Cecil: Then why do you sing, Llewellyn, of love and of love alone, That lieth under the star-light and the dim old burial-stone; Or false to its first free passion; or answerless — unattained; Or living in gilded splendor with all of its glory stained? Why do you sing, Llewellyn, in rhythm and rhyme so real That people think you are singing a song that your soul must feel? Llewellyn: Because I have seen the passion, because I have seen the pain. Of bright young lovers a-weeping, and wring- ing their hands in vain — One for a sweet bride, sleeping low under the cypress bough; One for the traitor-hearted who trampled upon his vow; The Secret of the Song 103 One for a love above him, as stars are above the sod; One for a pure, proud woman transformed to a painted bawd; And I cried to myself: O, cruel! yea, cruel is love as hell, And lost is the poor, weak human subdued by its subtle spell, For, though it be fast and faithful, its funeral- bell will ring, And over its cold, white ashes the grasses of May will spring — Will spring in the golden sun-flash, while the bleeding heart will cry For pity unto a Ruler who never hath made reply. The bards in a grand procession have gone through this world of ours — Gone singing its songs and sky-flash, and the pomp of its purple flowers: The splendor of great, white mornings, the glory of twilight time. And the miracle Soul behind it, supernal, su- preme, sublime; Gone singing the love of lovers — its gladness too deep, divine. To intercommune its essence by subtlest of speech or sign; Gone singing its touch mesmeric, its tremors that flame and flush In kisses and last caresses that blend with the bridal-blush : And the folliful lads and lasses have listened unto the lays. And twined the betrothal blossoms in the rose- tide of their days, Belured by the strain seductive, and led to the dark, last doom — I04 TJu Secret of the Song For the path that leads to the altar leads on to the awful tomb — The tomb of the little children who are born of the bridal vow, And the tomb of the wife and husband, so happy and hopeful now. Though Perfidy sheathe its dagger, and though Pride stoops down to kiss, Thus vanishes out forever the vision of bridal- bliss. This is my answer, comrade, my answer to all, for I Feel pity — a keen, quick pity as a wedding-train sweeps by: Bright are the sparkling jewels and white are the dancing plumes. Gay are the bells up-chiming and sweet are the golden blooms, Merry the rippling laughter and rosy with sweet delight The dream of a flashing future and the bliss of the bridal night; But I, from my calm, cold vantage, forethink of the future hours When the crest of a hooded serpent will lift through the orange-flowers — When the gulf of the grave will open and the funeral-bell will knoll. And the radiant dream will vanish with the flash of a flying soul. Though the passions and tears and moaning of Love are in my strain, I never have known its pleasures, I never have known its pain; 1 sing from a heart that pulses in pity for all my race Who kneel in the dust and worship the charm of its devil-face; Claude 105 And if from my lyre leapeth a song that will save the youth In the flush of their manly beauty and the flame of their manly truth, I will thrill with a glad thanksgiving, and cry with a victor cry: / am greater than God — the greatest — up there in the sunny sky! CLAUDE It was night, and the nimbus that circled the moon Forespoke of the storm that the morrow would bring: A witch -dog was barking down by the lagoon That lay in the forest — a festering thing; The wind whuddered loud and the wind whud- dered low, And puffed the white dust down the high- way in whirls, And whipped the bare boughs of the trees to and fro, And whisked up the froth of the bayou in skirls; When up the old road, trending off to the right Of Sherwood, and skirting the Darrell domain, Came a man with a bundle and stick through the night, And he walked as though weary with hunger and pain. io6 Claude Claude Darrell, the bonny young lord of the Hall, Was down at the ivy-hung lodge-gate alone — He was straight as an arrow and graceful and tall, And handsome as any young god on a throne. He saw the old man and he cried, "Where- away?" And the traveler slowed up his steps as he said : My boy, I have tramped since the dawning of day — Can't you help an old man to a mouthful and bed?" "Ta-ta!" said the boy, with a curl of his lip, "I don't pension beggars. Ta-ta, sir! Don't lag." The man with his stick hit the bundle a clip, And cried, "I'm no beggar. There's coin in that bag." "'The case being altered, it alters the case,'" Said the youth, with a keen, rasping ring in his tones; "Come in! I have food, and old wine, and a place Where to-night you can sleep off the ache in your bones. " So the old man went in and the youth served him well. And after their supper they smoked for a- while, Till the hour of ten rang its rusty, old bell, And the host showed his guest unto bed with a smile. Claude 107 There was none in the house save the boy and the man, And a scowling old servitor, deaf as the dead. * * * It was said that the youth was the last of his clan. And out of his fingers his fortune had fled. A rake and a reveler ere he was twenty, His riches had rapidly taken their flight; His houses and lands were all mortgaged. A cent he Had not when he met with the graybeard that night. The clock clanged the hour of one from the wall: Claude Darrell rose up from his seat by the fire, And, taking a candle, he crept through the hall. And up the old stairs he climbed higher and higher To the room where he knew the old man was reposing. With a knife in his hand and with hell in his heart, He turned back the door-knob. The old man was dozing, But straightway awoke with a shudder and start, "Claude Darrell!" he shrieked, as he sprang from the bed io8 Claude And seized the young man with a furious hold, "A half-minute more, and I would have been dead, For you thought through my gore you would ' capture my gold. "I dreamed you were coming. The dream has come true — For a few paltry dollars your soul you would damn! O! what have I done that this punishment's due? Claude Darrell! O, Claude! you don't know who I am ; "For you were a baby when long, long ago I sailed o'er the seas in my bonny young years : There came a great tempest, and far on a low Rock, our vessel was wrecked off the coast of Algiers. "We were captured, and there in a slave-market sold; Year crawled after year, and I found myself free; But I heard that low under the myrtle and mold My wife and my baby slept here by the sea. "So I never came back until now. In the mart Of the tropics I piled up great treasures of gold; For merrily Fortune will smile when the heart On the world and its trappings no longer has hold. Claude 109 Then I heard that my boy was still living, and, O! It swept me to heaven! Nc raint in the sky Feels a bliss like the blisses that surged to and fro In my heart as I said to mv^elf: 'By and by " 'I will meet with my baby— my beautiful one, With his mother's blue eyei, and her ringlets of gold — O, I wish — fcr my dream is forever undone — That I lay with her under the myrtle and mold! I said to myself as I sailed o'er the sea: 'I will go in the garb of a tramp to the Hall, For I know that a mouthful and bed there will be, As there was in the past, for whoever may call; 'And when I have rested the crick in my back. And tested my son with a fatherl}^ pride, And cheered myself up with a bit of a snack, As he tells to my face how his old father died, "I will quit my disguising, and taking my boy To my heart, I will tell him that he is my son. And, 01 how I pictured his passionate joy When he found that myself and his father were one! What — what have I done that my sweet dream should lie In its blood at my feet? Is it just — is it just no Claude That a Tri-headed Tyrant should sit in the sky To mock and bedevil us worms of the dust? "Claude Darrell, I came to the Hall, but you know The rest of the pitiful story, my son — The rest of the pitiful story, for O! My beautiful babe and Claude Darrell are one!" As if stricken to stone — voiceless, pallid and cold, With a horror that darkened within his deep eyes, The youth had stood still till the story was told. Then he tore himself loose with loud, maniac cries; He sprang through the door, down the stair- way he fled, And out of the manor, and under the moon, On — on, as though driven by devils he sped Till he came to the edge of the awful lagoon. His father had followed him into the night, But never a trace of him there could he see; He called, "O, come back to me, Claude, and in spite Of the past thy old father will idolize thee!" But never an answer came back to his ears As he ran up and down through the Darrell domain, And sought for his son, while the blistering tears Blurred his loving old eyes, but the search was in vain — Claude III But the search was in vain till the desolate morn In its dark thunder-garments walked over the world, And wailed for the radiant things that are born, And then to the red-throated reptiles are hurled. Then the father saw foot-prints. He followed them fast Through the pleasaunce and meadows and forest-lands bare — He followed them far till they vanished at last By the lonely lagoon. With a cry of despair And a clutch at his throat he sank down on the sod, For under the water he saw a white face, And he cried, "O, my Claude! O, my beautiful Claude! And thus dies the last of my long, princely race! "O, had I but known in the folly of youth What I know in the wrinkle and gray of my life- Had I caught but one gleam of the glorious truth With which the whole universe ever is rife, "Ah, 1 would have thwarted the Fates and their fell. Blasting fury, for Claude would have never been born, Nor would I be feeling the fires of hell As I look on his dead face this desolate morn! 112 Claude "The King Curse of Curses that walk through the world, Is Wedlock! O, would that its rings and its flowers, Its vows and its altars forever were hurled Into darkness eterne from this planet of ours ! ' POEMS OF PASSING MOODS PANTHEISM I sing not of this changeful clime — chaos of sunlight and of snows — But of the deathless summer-time in land of lily and of rose, Where, boating in the breathless calms upon the lotus-purpled Nile, We drift between the regal palms and pyramids for many a mile. Here, where the viper rears its brood within the noxious weeds and flowers, A pillared city proudly stood with golden min- arets and towers. Behold this lone, deserted place, where serpents thrid the tropic-grass. Here, in its stateliness and grace, a kiosk stood of stone and brass; But now the night-bat and the owl hide in its poison-reeking vines, And jackals and hyenas prowl by its pale, mandrake hidden shrines. These lightning-cloven marble walls, with sculp- tured images ornate, Mark the imperial palace-walls where grand, gray-bearded kings held state. Here were their soft and shaven lawns where fire-hearted tulips blazed; Within these greenwood shaws the fawns up- on the fat grape-clusters grazed. IIS ii6 Pantheism Here swans superbly floated by the barge moored to this marble stair, Here shot a shining fountain high and foaming in the amber air. Here, through these dim, wraith-haunted rooms swept many a noble courtier-train, With velvets, diadems and plumes, the brave, the lovely and the vain. And now we pass into the gloom of fragrant forests, and we see The bright magnolia in bloom, the verdure of the banyan tree, The lemon, green and golden-fruited, the cac- tus, with its crimson flowers. The pied pinks, in the red-stone rooted, the hot, snake-haunted bamboo bowers, The ring-dove rising while it sings, on whir- ring wings, till lost in light. The rock-goat bleating while it springs from breezy height to breezy height. And as we dreamily ride by between the ruins and the woods, I think of blast and battle-cry that brake these baleful solitudes; Of victories, forgotten now, defeats of which no wrecks remain. Of laurel leaves on warriors' brows, of conquered leaders lying slain; Of loves and hates, of joys and pains, of wel- comes and of fare-ye-wells, Of sacrifices and of gains, of marriage-feasts and funeral bells. Pa7itheisj7i 117 I sadly sigh: Thus runs the doom — puissant kingdoms rise to fall — The awful shadow of the tomb spreads wan and ghastly over all. Then spake thee, O! thou friend of mine: All things of time shall be undone Save Faith that makes our race divine and Eden-life and Earth-life one. Since it hath lit its lamp upon the sacred shrine within my breast, I feel that from my heart hath gone its phan- tom gloom, its vague unrest; It seems that suns flood through the fierce and storm-jarred midnights wild with wrath, That violets and daisies pierce the snows that drift upon my path. When looking through the unclosed doors of charnel-vaults, I see afar The sunny seas and shining shores beyond the coffin-worm and star; When treading a deserted street where long- dead men and women trod, I follow their white, spirit feet unto the very goal of God, Where never thunder-bolt, and night, and pestilence, and battle-roar. And wreck, and poverty, and blight, and age can harm then any more. What matters it if we must lie at rest beneath the sea or sod? Our spirits — though our bodies die — are round- ing grandly back to God. ii8 Flint he tsni Wherein the white cathedral walls, where censer swings and cresset burns, Where wave the purple funeral-palls gold- sprinkled o'er the gorgeous urns, I hear the Mass, I am oppressed by the tear- broken, somber tones. When Fassus et sepultiis est through the great, quivering organ groans; But suddenly— the sorrow past — joyfully up my spirit springs. When, like a silvery clarion-blast, clearly Et resiirrexit rings! Thus, in that land of wreck and wraith, I spake of vanity and loss — When thou put forth thy purer faith I saw the crown above the cross! I saw it — but I see to-day the sophistry behind it all; From out the heavens, when we pray, there comes no answer to our call. The very stones beneath our feet, the very stars within the sky. Deny the Bible, and defeat its prophecies of By and by. O, Soul, that has a hope of grace, and sees a glory-land afar. That, with a rapt and radiant face, unfurls its white wings to a star! O, Heart, so confident, serene and beautiful! I wish that I Could see the palaces unseen that shine for thee beyond the sky; Hope 1 1 9 But though it may not be, and though I feel thou art by Faith misled, This one, vast, vital Truth I know, Man cannot die — there is no dead. Thee — not thy blood and flesh and bone — but Thee — thy mind that makes the Thee — Shall still unto Itself be known until the end- less end shall be; Shall revel in the dew, and ray, and bloom of every sun and sphere, And pulse in every passing lay, melodious, that man shall hear; Existence know in all that was, and is, and evermore will be. And master immemorial laws, that now are in- finite to Thee; For man is God and God is man, whatever changes may befall: To-day concentered in a span, to-morrow com- prehending all. HOPE Comes she through the crimson mists of the morning strangely sweet, There are flowers on her forehead, there are flowers at her feet; Hers a tranced look and tender, hers a rapt and radiant face, And a perfect, pulsing poem is her grandly simple grace. 120 Hope Now the sun-burst spills its splendor from the chalices of air, And it shines upon her features and it sparkles in her hair, And it flickers and it flashes on her white, up- lifted wings, As she presses through the roses, while she rapturously sings, While she strikes her sounding lyre with a siren touch and sings: If thou wilt follow me — Follow me where Shineth my palace-walls White in the air, All of thy dreams shall be Realized there. If thou hast eagerly Coveted fame. Laurels and lilies Shall circle thy name; Trumpets and tongues shall Thine honors proclaim! Youth, with the martial blood Hot in thy breast, Warrior plumes shall wave Bright on thy crest. And thy brave blade shall be Victory-blessed ! Youth, with the thoughtful brow. Born to command, Badges and stars shalt thou Have at my hand, First in the councils and Courts of thy landl Hope 121 Youth, with the piercing eye, Seeking the keys Unto the door of God's Dark mysteries, Come, thou shalt baffle his Deathless decrees! Youth, with the dreamy look, Strong and sublime Shall thy great tho'ts and grand March down in rhyme Unto the uttermost Verges of time! Youth, with the grasping hand, Thou shalt have gold And it shall buy for thee Pleasures untold Until thine eyelids Forever shall fold! Youth, with the loving soul, On thy true breast One heart shall seek there Its raptures and rest. Faithfully blessing and Faithfully blest. If thou wilt follow me — Follow me where Shineth my palace-walls White in the air, All of thy dreams shall be Realized there. Thus, with grand, gray eyes uplifted and with glory on her wings. Presses she through purple roses, while she rapturously sings; 122 Hope And we follow — on we follow, in a bright un- broken train, And with clear, uplifted voices join her brave, triumphant strain. We are standing in the shadows of a twilight wild and wan, In a lonely land that never knew the dazzle of a dawn — In a land of ghostly ruins and of ghastly wrecks that lie Where a sullen river roareth underneath a sul- len sky. Where is now the singing siren who hath led and lured us here From the rest and from the rapture of content- ment' s charmed sphere? Over rocks and over rivers, through the pas- sion and the pain, Long we followed in her foot-prints, but we followed her in vain. By the wayside, spent and pallid, one by one our comrades fell. And we kissed their snowy foreheads while we wept a fond farewell, Leaving them to sleep the slumber of the nameless and unknown, In the immemorial shadow of the awful burial- stone. Still we followed her — and followed, till she vanished from our sight. Leaving us in desolation, on the dim edge of the night. Where are now her songs and garlands and the gladness of her eyes? Where are now the shining castles that we saw within the skies? Hope 123 Where are now the wreaths of glory, or the leal love, or the gold, And the triumph of possession, and the thrills of which she told? Vanished, like the flame and flowers of that magic morning-time When she led and lured us hither with her prophecies sublime. We are old and wan and wrinkled, grizzled is our golden hair. In our eyes there is the hunger and the dumb look of despair. And around us and about us gather in eternal glooms, And before us and behind us is a wilderness of tombs. Hearken! through the storms and shadows one strong soul of souls sublime, Speaketh: "Cheer ye up, my comrade, in the battle-march of time. Self should be as less than nothing, for it perisheth as grass. But the truths for which we labor from the world will never pass! They will burst the chains of bondage — help the races to uprise. And with Freedom's holy chrism will human- ity baptize! Mourn not, comrade, for the selfish losses that thy life hath known. Weep not for the gauds and baubles thou hadst hoped to call thine own; Thine hath been a bright evangel — thou hast held a torch in air 1 24 Hope Lighting on the struggling races from the reahns of dumb despair; Though thy very name shall perish when thy life is overpast, Yet thy words and works forever through the centuries shall last. Ever}^ good thought ever spoken, every grand deed ever done, Is a fresh sword, making surer that our con- quests will be won — Conquest over Superstition, that hath ruled and ruined long. Conquest of the captive peoples over mailed and mitered Wrong In its palaces of splendor and its forts and bulwarks strong!" "Glorious and gifted brother!" thus I sadly spake to him, "Thine a spirit is that soareth o'er the narrow reach and rim Of poor selfhood, and perceiveth what man's better aim should be, But beyond these clouds and charnels my blind spirit cannot see. I have borne so many crosses, worn so many chains, have passed On from failure unto failure from the first unto the last; I have known, my more than brother, O, so many burning wrongs! Hate hath scourged me and hath scarred me with her scorpion whips and thongs. By the men whom I befriended I have basely been belied. By the land that I defended I have basely been denied. Hope 125 Till my spirit, backward driven from the things it thought divine, Cannot see in all the future a foreshadow or a sign Of that white millennial morning when Human- ity shall be God-like in the grand ideal thou hast pictured unto me. Man will tear his fellow-mortal, suck the blood from out his heart — For the old, old tiger-spirit of his very self is part — He will trample on the helpless, spring the lock and forge the thrall Till the final cataclysm our proud planet shall befall," "Nay, my comrade, man is better than he was in cycles past — He will grow in grace and knowledge and in freedom to the last; He will find the mystic Sangreal, tho' so long hath been his quest; He will reach the heights resplendent — cast the beast from out his breast And stand forth, in time, transfigured, beauti- ful, and bright, and bless'd! Then, my comrade! O, my comrade, to our struggles and our strife 'Mid the thorns and burning plough-shares of our semi-savage life, All his great and godlike freedom will he owe — as we to-day Owe our semi-liberation from the Popes' and Princes' sway To the Heretics and Rebels who revolted long ago 126 A Diamond Day From oppression it hath never been our better lot to know!" "Brother! O, my more than brother!" and I search his shining eyes, Seeing all the look prophetic, luminant, that in them lies, "With thine own pure inspiration I can see the golden goal And can hear the songs victorious downward from the future roll. For I know, O, more than brother! while upon our planet shine Firm and dauntless, true and loving, and un- selfish souls like thine. They will light the races upward unto regions yet untrod, Till on every human forehead shines the glory of a God!" A DIAMOND DAY It was a diamond day of my life — A day I will dream of through years to be; It lifted me out of all storms and strife. For, Rowan, I was with thee. I had rounded the world with its revels and spells Of every passion known unto man; I had seen its heavens and felt its hells — For thus my destiny ran. A Diamond Day 127 And love its glory and life its graces Had lost their power to cheer and charm, And I envied the dead in their dwelling-places Afar from all hope or harm. Then into my life and my love there came Thy presence, Rowan, and love and life Were vivified with the vital flame, Immortal o'er storms and strife. It sweetened and strengthened myself to feel The tenderful touch of thy thrillant palm; It broadened and brightened my soul — thy leal Look — conquering and yet calm. The garlands of glory are budding now That soon will blossom in bliss for thee And a nimbus make for thy noble brow That the whole wide world will see. Yes, thy victory yet will come, my own, With a blast of trumpets and roll of drums. And a blaze of banners by winds outblown, And the cry: "He comes! He comes!" And after thy triumphs and trials here. And the bays and blossoms that they will bring, To a happier state and a higher sphere May thy sovereign spirit wing. May the golden lilies of God, my own, Forever blossom around thy way Afar in the fair and the fragrant zone — The zone of the Deathless Day. FOUND Our ship lay stilled within the calms Of seas confineless. Far away In the red southern distance lay An isle with palaces and palms. Our wine and bread were well-near spent, And white and hungry sailors went In knots apart. With bated breath They muttered things I could not hear, But still my heart was clutched with fear Of nameless horrors and rude death. And days went by and we were cursed And crazed by hunger and by thirst, And then it was I knew the worst. A mariner with whetted knife Sprang up, and shrieked: "Draw lots for life! Because one man of us must die That of his blood the rest may quaff. That of his flesh the rest may eat — human flesh and blood are sweet, The daintiest of draughts and meat!" A maniac light was in his eye; A maniac tone was in his laugh; And then I heard the sailors say, "Yes! one of us must die this day!" They took the dice-box and they played, To see whose neck should feel the blade. 1 shook it last, and, lo! the cry Rang from all throats that I must die! "Give me one hour, just one! " I plead, "That I may pra}^" They made consent: Prone to the hot, black deck I bent, 128 Found 129 And asked ihat I might meet my dead, Might meet my bride who sailed away One sweet, briglit morning in the May, Who threw last kisses with her hand To me upon the spumy sand, Until the tall barque round the peaks Of Cornwall disappeared, and I Went with a sob that was a sigh, With tears upon my boyish cheeks. To wait for her return. But, no. She never did return to me, For tidings came from a far sea That struck my heart as with a blow, For the tall barque had sunken low Upon the hidden rocks. No more Would it sail homeward unto shore. And as I prayed a cloud rose high And blotted out the burning sky, And lightnings flashed from sky to sea As if the glory had got free From out of heaven. Thunders rolled With clash and boom, while uncontrolled The winds sprang up and swept us on Unto the isle. W^e struck a rock — My senses left me with the shock, And when I woke my strength was gone. I staggered to my feet and, lo! I saw a land of light and bloom^ A land of sunshine and perfume. And all that nature can bestow — With pleasant valleys, green and deep, That mounted upward to the steep Of chalky cliffs, where curled the mist Of morning by the sunshine kissed To beryl, pearl and amethyst, And all bold brilliance. Here and there The palm tree tossed in amber air, 1 30 Found Up-springing in the gloom of green Tall, shining sheaves of flowers were seen — The reddest red, the bluest blue. The whitest white — all dashed with dew, All swaying on the supple stems Of which they were the diadems; And flaming birds that looked like flowers To which their God had given wing, That they might up and upward spring Unto a whiter world than ours. I walked the beach. The foamy waves Were chiming at my feet a tune That sounded like the subtle rune Of some lost paradisic staves — When suddenly before my sight , Stood up a city, vast and white, With strange, majestic temple walls, Deserted streets and voiceless halls. With dumb, proud idols, ruined shrines, Urns stained with sacrificial wines, With stones for sacrificial rites. And columns twined with parasites — All blotched with bloody-calyxed blooms — That led to still and solemn tombs. Where funeral flags and fallen lamps Were streaked with somber dust and damps, And here and there in niches stood Brown mummies in the solitude,' Staring at me through sightless eyes With looks of hideous surprise. And passing through the palace-door, Where kings had ruled in days of yore, I wandered — spent and sore of heart, And sat me on the faded throne, Found 131 And wrung my hands, and made my moan. When suddenly I heard the tone And tinkle of a lute, the strands Seemed quivering with quivering hands; And then a sad voice sang, and I Pressed down my heart, and thought to die — - For that same voice had sung to me On a far shore beyond the sea — Had sung to me, in mornings new, In the June seasons when we walked Through English meadow-lands, or talked Where bloomed the cowslips dank wit) dew — My bride — so tender and so true! I sighed, "O, I am but asleep! I dream! I shall awake to weep! I dream!" — I said no more. For, lo! I saw a vision in the gloom And grandeur of that ancient room — I saw a vision of my bride! "O, blessed God!" I gladly cried, "Her spirit I at least may see! At least her spirit comes to me! " And standing motionless I gazed And gazed upon her matchless grace. While like a radiant angel, dazed, Her soul-light flickered on my face. Spell-bound, she looked within my eyes. Then, with a sudden storm of cries, She fell upon my breast, and said, "Thou art not dead! thou art not dead! " And thus the lost was foimd and thus From uttermost of continents, We were led back to love intense By ways that were unknown to us — 132 IV^ Tiuo By ways wc never would have trod Save through the guidance of a god. Then, O, what joyous days we passed Within that isle! How we went Through bowers, swooning with their scent, By blue waves where" green woods were glassed ! And talked of love until the stars White-lidded hung within the blue, And like a lyre through and through The night were heard the bulbul bars Of melody. While in the gloom Burned like a torch the cactus bloom, And all the land was lulled and dim From purple rim to purple rim. • WE TWO No eyes like thine eyes can charm me, no voice like thy voice can cheer. No clasp like thy clasp can thrill me, no dear one is half so dear; Aye, dearer thou art, far dearer, than glory and place and gold. And nearer thou art, far nearer, than ever on earth was told. I may lose my faith forever in the heaven of which we hear, I may learn to think it was nearest when thou, O, beloved! wert near; I may lose my faith in the seraphs who sing by the jasper sea. Myra 133 But, tenderest friend man ever had! I'll never lose faith in thee I I know not, mj^ brother, I know not, if we ever will meet again; Dark and wild and uncertain are the devious paths of men. And far, O, far are we severed by mountain and wold and waves, And this is a land of partings and funeral-bells and graves. But whether we meet, or whether we meet in this world no more, I'll love thee still as I loved thee in the pas- sionate years of yore; The red blood will dance and tingle with pleas- ure throughout my frame. And my heart will break into blossom when- ever I hear thy name. MYRA O that August night! O that August night! The moon in the opal mid-air hung like a wonderful blossom white! As I dipped my oars in the diamond spray, And our boat, like a sea-bird, flew away. The beautiful Myra was with me there, And the splendor of summer was in her hair; The lilies of summer were in her face, The soul of the summer was in her grace; The song of the summer was in her tone, 134 Myra The passion of summer was in her zone, The glory that gladdens the summer skies Was shining and soft in her blue, blue eyes. O that magic night! O that magic night! The bridal of every beautiful dream and blessed that can delight! The silver turrets and shining towers. The hanging gardens of golden flowers, The almond trees with their argent bloonis, By hoary temples and fanes and tombs, The spicy scents from the shores outblown, That tingled and thrilled through our blood and bone, And the songs of the bulbuls sung in time With the wooing winds and the waves a-rhyme, , While over and under and through was blent The mystical light of the firmament! O, that passion night I O, that passion night! The palace-windows that fronted the waves with torches were all alight; And we heard the waltzers a-waltzing there, And their laughter peals on the pulsing air. While down through the glittering rooms there went The songs of the minnesingers, blent With harps and bugles in strains divine That fired our blood like the flame of wine! And the stars were tangled within the spray That dripped from my dipping oars away; And my heart was tangled within the hair Of the beautiful Myra before me there! Myra 135 O, betrothal night! O, betrothal night! When God threw open his gates to us and led us into a land of light I A land of love that was all our own, And I was the king on a shining throne, And Myra was queen, with an equal share In all of the beauty that blossomed there- in all of the halcyon hopes and sweet That threw their garlands before my feet— - In all of the jubilant joys that came With festal trumpets and flags a-flame — In all of my very self a part — Spirit of spirit, and heart of heart! O, God's own night! O, God's own night! That wafted Paradise down to us with all of its passionate delight! The beautiful seasons have flowered and fled. And sifted their snows on her shining head, Since I told my love in our little boat, While under the flower-white moon afloat; But Myra is dearer by far to-night. As she circles me close in her warm arms white, Than even in passionate years long flown When first I ungirdled her virgin zone; And a tenderer beauty mine eyes can trace Than they saw in her glorious girlhood grace; And thus will our beautiful love increase Till the infinite years of our souls shall cease. A FRAGMENT You may slobber of lovely girls, That thrill your heart with joy, Of their beautiful eyes and their golden curls, And their manners soft and coy; But of all the lassies on sea or land. The one most charming and bright and grand Is the girl most like a boy. THIRTY YEARS O, the sun-dazzle that summer nooning — That summer nooning beside the sea! The woods, a-tremble, were all a-crooning With trill of thrushes and boom of bee; Danced the boats on the dancing billows Up and down in the crystal day, Swung the birds in the swinging willows All a-sparkle with salt}' spray. Over the vine-prankt mountain verges Tripped and tinkled a streamlet free, Lost at last in the shaggy surges Out in the sand-dunes by the sea. Over and over the free, fresh heather The beautiful butterflies waltzed away. While Lily and I walked on together, Singing a rare, sweet roundelay; Talking at times of the times thereafter, Merril}^, O, so merril}' we! 136 Thi?'ty Years 137 Breaking out into peals of laughter — Laughter a-chime with the chiming sea. On we walked through the warm, sweet weather — Forest and foam were all a-tune; On we went through the glad, green heather And dreamed of the raptures a-coming soon— A-coming soon with the bridal-kisses, Bridal-roses and bridal-ring, And all the blessings and all the blisses That love — that passionate love could bring. ;;; ^ jjC 5|C ^ "Farewell, Lily, I must be leaving, My ship is ready" — we parted there — "I will return when the June is weaving Bridal-blossoms to wreathe th}^ hair." Then I kissed her and I caressed her — Eyes a-shine with our unshed tears — Then once more to my heart I pressed her, And we parted for — thirty years! Yes; for my goodly ship went grinding Into the rocks one wrathful night — Sheer through the surges black and blinding Sank the vessel and crew from sight; I alone through the awful billows, Scarred and senseless was landward borne. Waking, under the wet, lone willows Of a lost isle, with the morn. ***** Come the summers with wreaths of roses. Come the winters with wreaths of snow — Never a sail to my sight discloses Out on the rim of the sky-line low. Thirty Junes with their thrills of passion. Thirty Junes with their throbs of pain, Thirty Junes in the old, old fashion. 138 Thirty Years Live and perish and live again! Came a ship to my lonely island — Came a ship by the storm in-pressed — Back they bore me again to myland Under the under-skies a- West. Up through the fisher-town I wander — Never a passing face I know; Many, ah! many are camping yonder Under the sod of the kirkyard low. Others have left for the alien-places, ■ And, O! the lassies and lads of yore Have lost the traces of youthful graces That lit their faces in years before. Out of the town to the lands outlying Over the blossomy gorse I go — Flitter-birds through the air a-flying Sing as they flutter to and fro. Who is that by the sand-dunes walking, Back and forth by the dunes of sand. Watching the bright, brisk boats a-rocking Over the billows unto the land? Poor, old woman ! I hear her praying, Here — out here by the singing sea — Heaven, O, heaven! What is she saying? — "Harold! my Harold, come back to me! Thirty years I have watched and waited — My heart is sick and my heart is sore — Where and, O! where art thou belated? Darling! my darling, come back once more ! God! O God, it is Lily! Lily, I am thy Harold come back to thee." Cruel her eyes and her accents chilly As slowly she turns her face to me: "Thou my Harold? Ha-ha!" Her laughter A Summer Picture 139 Breaks in a passionate flood of tears: "Mock and madden me not thus after Waiting and watching for thirty years. " "Lil}', O, Lily! I am thy lover — Why wilt thou mock and madden me? See — thy locket. See — I uncover Thy picture." "Nay, it can never be; Straight is Harold as any arrow, Strong is he with the strength of youth" — Cut her tones to my very marrow; Slowly — slowly I saw the truth. "Handsome is he with hair as golden As yon sun-dazzle upon the bars, With roses red on his cheeks unfolden And eyes that shine like the summer stars. Thou my Harold — Ha-ha!" Her laughter Breaks in a passionate flood of tears. Thus, O, thus do I meet her, after Waiting and watching for thirty years! A SUMMER PICTURE The radiant summer-tide ringed our sweet star With a girdle of glorified flowers. And winds from the wonderlands fragrant and far Lent a tune to the tread of the hours. The linnets sang loud and the linnets sang low In the blossoming tops of the trees. And the crimson-cupped tulips were bent to and fro B}' the madcap and merriful bees. 140 A Su7n?Her Picture The heather was green on the low granite hills, And a silver}^ vapor was curled Round the purple peaks, tinkling with turbu- lent rills On the uttermost edge of the world. On the sands the white walls of a fisher-town shone, And the cross on its crazy old spire, With ivy in infinite tangles o'ergrown, Was tipped at the topmost with fire. The red-tiled farmsteads, moss-mantled and old. Rose out of their garden-plots gay, And harvest-fields flashed in their glor}' of gold Through all of the diamond day. A happy young lover rode dreamily by Through the depths of that tranceful retreat, While cascades of sunshine poured out of the sky And blazed into bloom at his feet. And Pauline, the pretty and passionate-eyed, With a heart that was tender and true. In her gladful young gracefulness rode at his side Through the buttercups reeling with dew. That day is long dead and that land lies afar Beyond the dark, billowy deep, But the pale, golden gates in their dreams drop ajar And they see its old splendors in sleep. THE DREAM OF A DREAM The carking cares of life uplift — the passion and the pain; The lamentation for a loss; the grasping after gain; The memory of fickle friends who broke their faith with me; The white rose blooming o'er the dead I never more may see; The wrongs unspeakable that I have been com- pelled to bear; The poison of the liar's tongue; the traitor's subtle snare; All vanish, and my soul leaps up, triumphant, proud and free, When the Poets — O the Poets! — sing their wild, sweet songs to me; And breaking through my prison-bars, and scorning time and tide, I live with old memorial things, I wander spaces wide. Hot Afric jungles thick and green before my vision rise; A cruel tiger crouches there with bright and burning eyes. And in the shadow of a palm a naked native stands, With lifted spear — the savage son of still more savage lands. I see the desert stretching dim before mine aching eyes: Oases with their plumy palms carved green against the skies, 141 142 The Dream of a Dream And black Assyrian ruins where the tents uf Arabs gleam ; And the solemn site of Tyre where the fisher dreams his dream; And the stern and silent Pyramids, within whose ghostly gloom The crowned and sceptered Pharaohs wait the trumpet and the doom ; And dim seraglios steeped in bloom my burn- ing senses see, And minarets all crescent-crowned, when Poets sing to me. I see a summer island in the heart of Indian seas, Where the breath of reddest roses fills and thrills the throbbing breeze, As the shining shafts of sunset deepen in the Occident, And the pallid moon's white splendor with departing day is blent. Far above — the starry spaces of the purple tropic skies — Far below — the landscape swooning in its bloom and beauty lies — And the al sirat seems swinging from the moon unto the shore, And I almost see the angels, glad, victorious, trooping o'er. Sweeter still the Bards are singing: In a grand cathedral's gloom I am standing in the silence by an old Crusa- der's tomb — Standing in the speechless silence, while from gilded pillars tall Over lampless shrines the shadow of funereal banners fall. The Dream of a Dream 143 But the organ's mournful music stirs the calm with muffled moan — Swells into the trump of thunders — sinks into a tinkling tone — Peals into a psalm of oceans — then the surg- ing music swoons, And it is the silvery singing of the birds of spicy Junes. But the vision breaks and changes. Louder now their songs upswell: Of the glorious Grecian City of the Violet Crown they tell ; Of towers old and beautiful on Erin's saintly shore, And of their hieroglyphics lost to legend and to lore; Of Scotia, where of spear and shield within a hoary time Blind Ossian struck his wizard harp and sang in strains sublime; Of ancient Albion's castle-halls, where long ago her lords Drank deep their horns of golden mead all at their wassail-boards. I see the beetling Alps arise white with eternal snow As when they rang with Gothic staves dim centuries ago ; I see Italia' s gardens spread before mine eager eyes — There splendor-shod the planets set and splen- dor-shod they rise; I see Alaska's frozen heights, and Brunswick's forests dim : The shores where sang the Puritans their wild deliverance hymn; 144 '^^^^ Mar tyr- Band I see the thunder-cloven hills, the time-hewn canyons see, As of the savage Occident the Poets sing to me. But now the shadow falls athwart the solemn sunset hills, And dim the wild apocalypse that all this poem fills; The winds are still, and with the hush a mist has settled down Across the silent woods, across the white walls of the town; No music breaks the silence; there is neither scent nor shine; I lift mine eyes to the storm-sad skies — the dream of a dream was mine; But the Poets — O, the Poets! — they will come to me again When my heart is torn and bleeding on the Battle-field of Men. THE MARTYR-BAND When, looking through the mist of years, I hear the people's thunder-tones. And see the glitter of their spears, the blessed glare of burning thrones, I worship Freedom's martyr-band in every atom of my soul, Because through them our native land is free of T3^ranny's control. Siinamcam 145 Upon the guillotine they shed their blood our fettered race to free; They drank the draught of poison red; they died in chains for you and me; And whether a Corday for France, an Emmet for old Erin's shore, They helped Humanity's advance to heights it never scaled before. Fragrant their memories to-day and flowering in the heart of man, And theirs is the supremest sway that hath been since the world began: The Truth they taught survives and shines in codes that are triumphant now — Broad codes to which the august lines of auto- crats themselves must bow. And, as the centuries increase, their influence to our star will bring A time of universal peace that knoweth nei- ther serf nor king, Nor crime, nor chain, nor gallows-tree, nor poverty beneath the sun, When one shall all the nations be and all flags blended into one! SUNAMCAM In the time — in the fair and the flowerful time Of the past — in the pride of our yearning and youth, When life was a song, and the song was sub- lime 146 Sunamcam With the spirit— the sovereign spirit— of truth, We met, and our meeting was more unto me Than the crown of a Tsar, for thy friendship was worth All — all that the titles and treasures could be Of the earth — of the whole wide and won- derful earth. We parted — we parted. Thy life was a leal Devotion to duty — strong, tenderful, brave — And, O! if thy record my pen might reveal Thy way would be glorified unto the grave. We parted; yet through all my triumphs and tears, Thy friendship hath shone o'er my life like a star; Through the splendors and storms of the fugi- tive years It hath followed me fondly and followed me far. And when in the sovereign reach of thy days I heard that a leal love had come unto thee, To hallow still further thy words and thy v/ays, Through glories and glooms that we cannot foresee, My heart rose in rapture to feel that thy heart A rapture divine had been destined to know, To know — ere the mold and the miracle — part Of the happiness heaven can only bestow. May the rarest of lilies unfold for the eyes Of thy radiant bride; may she hear — may she hear Impromptu 147 The sweetest of strains ringing down from the skies Like an lo triomphe, brave, vivid and clear! May sunbeams befriend her, and angels attend her, Through day-tides that ever shall desolate be, And all that is truest, and all that is tender Their benisons bravest and brightest sur- render To thine and to thee ! IMPROMPTU I know a beautiful, blue-eyed boy. Whose very name is a fount of joy To all who have known his look and tone, And the winsome ways that are all his own. O! a brave, bright boy is this boy of mine ! How his red cheeks glow I How his grand eyes shine! How merry his talk, and how graceful he! How his laughter rings with unstudied glee! Villadsen I May the roses bright And radiant, with their dews bedight, Stoop down all lowly and kiss thy feet And make thy life with all joy complete. 148 Love and Lust I love thee! I love thee! and who shall dare Deny me the right to this love declare? Why, no one under the secret skies That bar out the blisses of Paradise. LOVE AND LUST What is love? What is the subtle feeling that can blend a soul With a fellow-soul forever, making of the twain a whole — Making of the twain a mutual thought, con- viction and desire, And a single ardent purpose unto which they both aspire? Thus he questioned, looking skyward from his lattice, while afar In the blue, immortal spaces shone a bright, immortal star. Still a dull, red flame was burning in the west — the funeral light Of the dead Day, passed forever into Nothing- ness and Night ! What is Love? Ah! dead Day lying where no life shall ever be. Many a vow of love was spoken while thy soul was strong in thee — Many a vow of love was broken in the circle of thy sun, Many a fair and foolish woman in thy passing was undone. Lo7ie and Lust 149 Child of all the vast, vague cycles, knowing all they ever knew, Yet thy lips were sealed and silent to the ten- derful and true; Knowing all the tears and treasons that from Love and Lust have sprung. Yet thy lips were sealed and silent to the yearn- ing and the young. Day, O, Day! my black soul beating at its bars accuses thee Unto God within the glory of the scarlet sins of me — Of the scarlet sins that sent her in her wild, pure beauty down, And deserted her — a harlot — in the fierce heart of the town. Hark! A voice comes ringing downward from a citadel afar Through the still, immortal spaces, from that strange, immortal star: Soul with fellow soul communing, free from all the rot and fire Of the senses — proud, triumphant over every low desire; Harmonized in every atom with the being on thy breast, Throbbing with a perfect rapture, thrillant with a perfect rest; Caring for no bliss supremer in the blossom- land above Than the sanctity and splendor of her pres- ence — this is Love. I50 Love and Lust And if Love the dead Day brought thee, it hath brought a sovereign thing, And although' a slave it found thee, it hath made of thee a king! If it brought thee Lust, far better thine the grave-worm and the grave, For although a king it found thee, it hath made of thee a slave. If thy soul is pure as star-fire, and as proud as it was born. It hath turned Lust from its portal with un- speakable, fierce scorn; But if putrid, slimy, crawling, it hath turned sweet Love awa}' With a hiss and sting that slew her as the soul alone can slay. Thou hast made thyself, and molded sense and soul, and thine the blame For the scarlet sins that haunt thee and that daunt thee with their shame. They will twine themselves as serpents 'round and 'round thy struggling soul — They will strike and they will sting thee till the endless end shall toll! Cowers he, and crieth hoarsely ; "God! O, God! and shall it be? Is there never a Nirvana where my spirit shall be free "Of its consciousness forever?" * * * Silence in the solitudes. Silence in the vast abysses where the awful secret broods; The Minnesinger 151 Silence. Then a sharp cry shudders through the dewy dusk. Afar, In the still immortal spaces, shines that strange, immortal star — Shines upon his dead face lifted and his dead hands locked in prayer — And the red moon lifts its crescent, and the roses scent the air. THE MINNESINGER The minnesinger struck the strings, And sang of sea, and sky, and sod As but the types of mystic things Foreshadowed from the throne of God. The flash of floods upon the sand, The sails and shadows on the sea, The voice of forests, green and grand, The scent of lilies on the lea; The snows of dark December hours, The violets of merry May, The fronds of summer, and its flowers, The fall with golden fanyons gay: The night, with purple deep on deep, Besprent with immemorial stars; The fairies dancing on the steep Where fell the moonlight's yellow bars; The shriek of winds, and woods, and waves, When storms were clanging in the sk)', 152 Kegi7iaUi Va7ie The crash of throbbing thunder-staves, The flame of meteors hurtling by — All these were fused within his strain, And lent a tongue to Nature, where Before, mute, passionate, in vain, She yearned her secret sense to bare. ulEGINALD VANE The tulips were twinkling beside the still stream Where we walked in the trance of a raptureful dream, While through all the silence and moonlight and scent Of the almonds, the song of the bulbul was blent. Reginald Vane! O, Reginald Vane! I think of that hour with passionate pain, For little I thought I would see thee no more When the miracle joy of that moment was o'er. The day broke in sky-fire, thunder and rain, But I looked for thy coming and looked me in vain; Then the dusk fell forever on me, and I knew That thy love was a lie, and thine oath was untrue. Reginald Vane! O, Reginald Vane! I would shield from thy soul the fell, terrible pain Feginald Vane 153 That burned from my life all the beauty of youth And belief in all purity, honor, and truth! I cried to my pride, "Let the love that was leal Be stamped in a transport of hate under heel! Forget him forever ! " But, ah ! I would wake To weep in the desolate dark for thy sake! Reginald Vane! O, Reginald Vane! I knew that each tear on m}^ soul was a stain; But I could not — Christ, pity me — conquer the spell Of the past though it haunted and hissed me to hell! jj; ***** * One night I sprang out of my sleep. Through the bars Of my lattice was sifting the light of the stars, And there a dim, beautiful face I could see. With an infinite tenderness turned unto me. Reginald Vane! O, Reginald Vane! There flashed through my soul, and my heart, and my brain, The knowledge that out of thy palace of bone And of blood thy false spirit forever had flown. False spirit? Nay, nay! At the last — at the last, When the idle illusions that led thee were past, Thy spirit came back in its conquerless truth To the one, fixed, unperishing love of its youth. Reginald Vane! O, Reginald Vane! Thou art lying to-night under roses and rain; But I know in the glorified gardens above We will love through the consecrate cycles of love! PERCY A terrible day rolled up in the east, And the sk}^ was shot with a storm-red fire, As the clamor of cannon and guns increased And the battle drums beat higher. Then fell the night with a burst of rain, And lightning splintered the darkness vast, While I pressed my face to the window pane Till the morning broke at last — Broke in a wonderful flood of light That flushed the roses a redder hue. And lent the lilies a whiter white, The pansies a bluer blue. Clang! clang! the bells with rejoicing rang. And flags were from spire and ship un- furled. While the masses their maddest Te Deum sang To the slaves of a waking world! But, O! while many were mad with joy, I stood transfixed with a cruel pain As they told to me how my blue-eyed boy In the front of the fight was slain. What cared I then if my country's flag Should flash in triumph forevermore. Or whether its dim, proud folds should drag The foeman fierce before? I cared for nothing beneath the skies — All one to me was a crown or chain, Since death had darkened my Percy's eyes On a far Virginian plain! >S4 UNA Una lay in her winding-sheet, And candles burned at her head and feet. Clarence came in his grand, young grace. And looked with love on her fair, sweet face. "O, Una! Una! my dream of bliss Has turned to the dust of a burial kiss. "I drank of lotus and dreamed that I Saw beautiful virgins passing by. "And they were fairer than. seraphs are Who wing and carol from star to star. "But fairer than phantoms conjured up By the potent spell of the purple cup "Were thy beautiful face and form — but now I must press a kiss on thy pallid brow, And wander back, back to the world once more, That never will be as it was before, "And try to drown in the dreamy bowl The sweetest memory of my soul!" ^ -^ t- -i^ ^ Caryl came, and he knelt him there. And he looked with love on her features fair. "O, Una! Una! my heart is dead And turned to dust in thy cofhn-bed! 155 156 Una "O, darling! darling! I loved you so That back to the world I can never go. "I could not forget thee, O, my sweet! I would not forget thee, were it meet. "And yet the thought of thee lying low Will mock and madden me — this I know! "My heart went hungering through the world, But my look was cold and my lip was curled, "Till into my life thy sweet love came And set my spirit and sense a-fiame. "Immortal beauty illumed thy face, O, fairest daughter of all our race! "And the mystic strength of thy magic song Had snapt the thrall and had staid the thong; "But, O! thy beauty was naught to me. Nor the magic spell of thy minstrelsy. "I loved thee, sweet, for thy love alone That blossomed in every look and tone. "I stood in the light of thine eager eyes. And saw a passionate paradise, "And though my garments were stained with sin Its gates were open to let me in. "O, Una! Una! come back to me — If I were dead I would come to thee — "I would come to thee though the clods had prest Una 157 For a thousand years on my throbless breast!" Part her beautiful eyelids now, And the red blood mounts to her pallid brow ; Her white hands over her whiter breast Stir with a sudden and strange unrest; She rises out of her winding-sheet, Radiant, flushing and strangely sweet: "Caryl, never hath woman known A truer love than is thine, mine own! "In the thrall of my trance I heard them speak. And I felt their tears on my cold, cold cheek, "And I felt on my lips their kisses fall, But I could not struggle, nor breathe, nor call, "Till I felt the touch of th\^ tender lips Thrilling my frame to my finger-tips; "And heard thy passionate cry that came To my frozen blood like a blast of flame; "Then life leaped up in my heart's red core, And the world rolled under my feet once more!" The earth swept out of its brief eclipse As he held her lips to his eager lips; 158 Song of the Tiventieth Century The morning-kiss on the world was prest As he held her breast to his eager breast. Then out of the marl^le halls they went. Through gardens with golden lilies sprent; And song and blossom and sun and bliss Were blent in their first sweet bridal-kiss! SONG OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY Hosanna! Lift up the bright palm-branches higher, O, race that was ransomed through flood and through fire! Ring, stormily ring! O, ye bells in the steeples! Flash, merrily flash! O, ye flags of the peoples! The monarchs have fallen! the people are free! Vive, Liberty! O! think of the time when the toilers were slaves To the power of pitiless nabobs and knaves, Who said they were specially set by the Lord To rule with the rifle and scaffold and sword. By a spurt of the pen or a wag of the jaw They made vice a virtue, they made lust a law. And often some infandous leman was known To prompt the decrees that came down from the throne. Unrestful and thoughtful the people became, Aroused by oppression and plunder and shame, Song of the Twentieth Century 159 And putting a Phrygian cap on a pole They marched on their masters by saddle and sole. The thugs of the throne heard the thunder and thrill Of huzzahs and of hisses, proclaiming the will And the wants of the mob, and they cowered with fear, For they felt the Twelfth Hour of Settlement near. The turbulent multitude, frenzied and fell, They tried with their sweet, soothing speeches to quelL In vain! The storm, brewing through thousands of years. Brake in blood and in fire, in terrors and tears! Sky-high were the temples of tyrannj^ blown, Knocked into a cocked hat were palace and throne, The king business stopped, and the folk of that trade Were turned out to labor with pen, loom and spade. Now is the Daybreak! Humanity reigns! Gone are the gallows, the bastiles and chains! Instead are the newspapers, suffrage and schools, And right is the might that our destiny rules. Hosanna! Lift up the bright palm-branches higher, O. race that was ransomed through flood and through firel Flash, merrily flash! O, ye flags of the peoples! Ring, stormily ring! O, ye bells in the steeples! i6o My Vision The monarchs have fallen! The people are free! Vive, Liberty! MY VISION The fire and flesh of my mortal being Slip from my spirit and, lo! I seem Facing the whole vast universe — seeing, Feeling and knowing I do not dream. Troop before me the grand, pure, glorious Friends who have filed through time and tomb Into a sphere where the}^ shine victorious Over the specters of Dust and Doom. One beloved in my far, free boyhood Comes in his glad, bright grace once more, Crowned with the crown of a perfect joy- hood, And kisses me as he kissed of yore. "Comrade!" he cries, in his old, blithe fash- ion, Taking my hand in his old, fond way, "Though I have passed through the pain and passion Of death I am deathless here to-day. "Though in the grave is the garment mortal In which I was manifest unto thee, Never in through that pale, chill portal Passed the part of me that is me. My Vision i6i "God is the glory tliat steeps with splendor The infinite universe through and through — The love that is passionate, sweet and ten- der, And all that is noble and brave and true. "The thought, the speech and the rapt desire, The miracle beauty of sea and sod. The longings higher and ever higher, Are God — and we all are a part of God! "Here is the Aiden, but Aiden is only The soul of the earth, of its evils free — Not a sphere that is strange or lonely, Or far from the planet where mortals be. "Here is our valley; the roses drifting In golden garlands from rock to rock — The sun through the oleanders sifting Its beams on our old familiar walk — "The walk that leads to the headlands older Fronting the vague, blue void of sea, Where oft we talked in the twilight golden, And dreamed of the victor-days to be. "Thus, O, comrade! the trysting-places And tender faces we knew in time. Gladden us still with their spirit graces. When we have passed to this sphere sub- lime. "Farewell!" — a flash of his wings uplifting. And, left once more on the mortal side, I hear the desolate, lost winds drifting Over the prairies wild and wide, And see the lights of the village burning Red through the sheeted mists, and see i62 Is it 1? The toilers home to their hearths returning, And hateful and harsh is the world to me. Hateful and harsh — but the rare, rapt vision Has left a hope in my heart that I Will live transfigured in lands elysian With all that I love, in the by and by. IS IT I? Out of my slumber shines a vision Of foamy forest and swirling sea; A sweep of emerald plain elysian— A flutter of white wings flashing free! Sheaf on sheaf of the fairest flowers Shiver and shine in the dripping dew, And down through the deeps of the bud- ding bowers A glimmer of glad seas slipping through. A tangle of songs and of sunbeams sifting Out of the infinite inner skies; A thrill of our unfledged wings uplifting And reaching the raptures of Paradise. There we stand in the warm June weather, While woodlands quiver and wavelets chime — There we stand with our lips together. And pulses rhyming a perfect rhyme. God! Through the casement crawls the morning — Claude St. Claire 163 The cold, gray morning — and where is she? Seek where the amaranth is adorning A grassy grave by a singing sea! Shine the roses as in the olden Rapture-years when the world was young, Sing the robins as in the golden Glory-years with a thrillant tongue; Swings the world through the starry spaces Just as it swung when she and I Saw the summer with all its graces And garlands beautiful file by. But, O! for the passionate spirit missing Out of the waters and sky and wood! And, O! for the clasp of her and the kiss- ing— The joy un whispered, but understood! Lying low in my chamber lonely. Thinking of days that have drifted by. Only one cry can I utter — onl}^ "Heaven! O, heaven! and is it I?" CLAUDE ST. CLAIRE The lion of society was handsome Claude St. Claire, Because his blood was blue, because he was a millionaire. His iusculum in Chapel-street was a recherche place, 164 Claude St. Claire Set off with all that gold could buy, and all that culture grace. The plate-glass windows shaded were by damask — which, withdrawn, Revealed the terraces of fiowers, the fountain on the lawn; The matchless pictures on the walls, by master painters limned, The lapse of crawling centuries of change had left undimmed. There were statuettes from Florence; there were shells from far Kathay, And relics from the ruins of dead cities, dust to-day; There were gilded chairs and tables; there were shelves in cozy nooks, Loaded with strange, monkish writings, and a motley wealth of books; Rugs of tiger-skins, black-spotted, from the sultry Afric shores, Lay upon the marble thresholds leading through the rosewood doors; There were orange-trees whose verdure was be- powdered with the snow Of the fragrant, flaky blossoms, bending down the branches low; There were cacti, spiked and thorny, that with lamp-like luster bloomed. And great, white, transparent lilies, by their golden hearts illumed; There were passionate musk-roses, red as wine, as subtly sweet. Rising up to kiss your forehead, falling down to kiss your feet; From the many tripod vases trailed long ten- drils to the floor. And their mesh of leaves was sprinkled with their flowers o'er and o'er. Claude St. Claire 165 In his dressing-gown and slippers lolling by the fire there, With the London Times before him, was the haughty Claude St. Claire, Smoking listlessly and reading, in a lazy sort of way, Of the doings and misdoings of society that day, When his lively little valet into the apartment came And with many a bow he ushered in a wan and wrinkled dame. "I am Lora Lisle," spake she, "prophetess of things to be. And appointed and anointed to decree thy doom to thee! Far over lands and over seas, through whirl- winds and through flood. Through midnight mists and noon-day heat and battle-fields of blood, Unto this city I have come, a purpose at my heart, And it shall be fulfilled, I swear, before I will depart. O Cora! O, my only one! my only thing to love! You charmed her from me as the snake in jungle charms the dove. She left my arms for yours. Alack! I saw her nevermore. Though I have searched from year to year and searched from shore to shore; And all this time men glance at her as at a thing of shame, While you, far guiltier than she, the world does not defame. l66 Claude St. Claire 'Your ways are ways of pleasantness, and all your paths are peace, ' While at my heart the gnawing worms of an- guish never cease. " "Hold! hold! you vixen," thus spake Claude with lips that looked a sneer, "You know that it takes two to make a bargain — do you hear? She was a party to the deed that has her ruin wrought, A willing party — but this fact you seem to think as naught. " "Cease! devil! cease! Did you not vow to wed her at the time? Think not with sophistries like these to hide or gloss your crime. Speak not!" his tongue clave to his teeth. "Stir not!" he was bereft Of motion — like a statue stood he there until she left. "Now, hearken!" thus the sorceress: "Remorse, seize on your prey. And haunt him in his dreams by night and in his walks b}^ day; A phantom at his hearth become, a specter at his feasts, Till he shall shun the sight of man and min- gle with the beasts! Desert him not, in youth or years, in sunshine or in shade! Desert him not until he weds the woman he betrayed ! " :}: ^ ;)< H= * She fixed a last, fierce look of hate on titled Claude St. Claire, And then she left him — sweeping from the room with royal air. Claude St. Claire 167 He lifted up his face and wailed, then, stag- gering, fell prone Upon the floor, a sight for man and angels to bemoan. He wrung his hands, he clutched his heart, he shrieked in his despair, Until his valet hurried in to find him writhing there, And moaning: "O my- God! my God! have pity upon me; Now in its scarletness that sin for the first time I see. Forgive it! O, forgive it!" but in vain, in vain the cry — It seemed to fall back on him and to crush him from the sky. He felt that his false, faithless soul would still be crucified Until he sacrificed his place^ his family, his pride. "It cannot be! it shall not be!" cried lofty Claude St. Claire, "I will defy remorse!" he hissed, "I will defy despair!" And plunging into pleasures he had shunned with scorn till then, He soon became a favorite with all the fast young men — Became a hanger-on of clubs and green-rooms; lower still. Descending rounds of vice he went his time and thoughts to kill. The heads of idle exquisites were turned with his success, i68 Claude St. Claire They envied him his intrigues, and they copied him in dress, And a "lucky dog" they dubbed him — seeing not behind the veil, Knowing not his tribulations, hearing not his smothered wail; Knowing not the while he jested, with a smile upon his lips. That his heart was racked and bleeding, and his soul was in eclipse; Knowing not the while he reveled in debauch- ery that he Saw a skeleton beside him that none other eyes might see. In his restless dreams and frantic flew he from an unseen wrath. Through a vast, unending forest, down a dark, unending path. Where from black, unsightly marshes did a deadly vapor rise, Sickly, yellow and polluting to the black, tem- pestuous skies; Lurid lightnings shot and flickered through the thick, portentous gloom, And was heard the rolling thunder, boom re- plying unto boom; There long, prickly vines were rankly dangling down from bough to bough, And they tangled in his tresses, and they stung and smote his brow; There the bats wheeled in a circle, there the green snake, glittering, sprang From its hideous coil before him with a viru- lent, sharp fang. Strange, unshapely pagan idols, standing here and there he saw, Staring through the weeds upon him with a still, majestic awe. Claude St. Claire 169 Dim, uncertain ghosts were flitting through the solitude, the while That uncanny voices muttered things all bias phemous and vile. Waking to the lash of conscience, he would gnash his teeth and rave For the rapture of destruction, and the shelter of the grave; Till at last, worn down and nervous, he was all too weak to play, In the salon or the brothel, part of gallant light and gay. He became a very hermit— living far with- drawn from men, With the brutes for his companions, in a green and peaceful glen. But in flying self no mortal has succeeded through all time — For within us, not without us, is the dreadest doom of crime. Thus it was with Claude — his lonely and se- cluded hermit-cell In the hushed and sunny woodland was to him a very hell; And the glimpses through the greenwood of the sky, serene and blue, And the lush of vernal branches, and the wild- buds dripping dew, Seemed to his phrenetic fancy blurred by bale- ful smoke that rose, With a hot and palsied motion, from the flam- ing world of woes; And the twitter of the song-bird and the chim- ing of the wave Seemed to mingle with the ravings of the damned beyond the grave; Till at last his pride was humbled — pride of a fierce, kingly race, lyo Claude St. Claire That through centuries had trampled on the poor and weak and base. "O, thou devil, thou hast triumphed!" with a fearful curse he cried, "I must bow unto thy bidding — Cora shall be- come my bride; But hate rankles in my bosom, and I swear that I will mete Out revenge unto the demon who thus brings me to her feet." So he wandered from the woodland back unto the world again, And straight went he, without staying, to a gilded bawd3^-den. ;(; ^ ;{{ ^ ^ There he found his Cora, dancing with a roud, in a room Bright with gas and gay with music, perfumed by the tropic-bloom; Heard he many a lustful whisper, heard the full wine-glasses clink. Saw the wrecked but lovely women toasts unto their lovers drink. "Cora," spake he softly, "Cora, leave, O, leave this shameless life And I will forgive thy sinning, and thou shalt become my wife." ''Dost thou dareT' she started from him, and she stood before him, there. In her trailing amber velvet, and the jewels in her hair. Fair her face, but cold and cruel, lit by eyes whose eldritch flame Hungry, changing, darting, restless, told of sin and told of shame; Claude St. Claire 171 Golden, silk}' tresses twisted into many a curl and braid On her rouged and powdered features threw a ripe and tawny shade, And her thin, red lips were parted with a proud and scornful look, While her form, imperious, queenly, with her very fury shook, As she spake: "Once — once, thou traitor! I — I would have been to thee More, far more than any woman in this world will ever be; For I worshiped thee to madness, aye, to very madness, man! As the sun himself is worshiped by the priests of Ispahan ; How, O! how did you repay me? Dragged me to my ruin down, Then deserted me, a harlot, in the cold streets of the town! Fiend, however sunk in vices, dark, repulsi^ j, I may be. In the sight of the Impartial I am purer far than thee. Aye, thou art as far beneath me — 7ne, a lost and guilty thing — As Apollyon in the fire, to Ithuriel on the wing! Go! thy presence is pollution! Go!" — she proud- ly turned from him, While he, livid with his terror, shivering in every limb, Choked and reeled, then blindly, deafly, madly, rushed he to the door. Sped into the rain and darkness, and was seen of man no more! ANONYMA The sunlight is slanting through woodlands up- lifting Their merry green garlands beside the blue sea, The songs of the happy young reapers are drifting Far over the harvest-fields hither to me. Once in a miracle-morning together This landscape was limned in our eager young eyes, While over the far cliffs all fringy with heather We saw a white sail blossom out of the skies. 4 It bore to our beautiful manse a bright stranger, As handsome as any young god on a throne, And, fool that I was! I was dreamless of dan- ger, Believing your blameless, white heart was my own. Did I reproach you, O, wonderful woman! When you surrendered your soul to his lust? Never! For knowing your passions were human I threw you a rose where you lay in the dust. Forever from trust and from tenderness parted, A proud and a passionless cynic to be, I threw you a rose I had kissed, and departed Again to a world that was worthless to me. Did I reproach you, O, wonderful woman! Sweeter by far than the sweetheart of God! 172 optimism 173 Nay, for I knew that your passions, though human. Had nothing in common with me, a poor clod. Then bless you, my bride! Though your sins are as scarlet, They whiten as wool in the light of my love; And though you are living the life of a harlot, I place you the purified angels above-^ OPTIMISM The juice which this jasper cup contains Was pressed from a poppy of Persian plains — - A poppy changed by a subtle power From an ugly seed to a lovely flower — A flower that caught in its crimson snare An occult influence from, the air, To charm the sense, and the soul to cheer, And render the riddles of life more clear. I will drink the draught, for my heart beats low With the weight of its weary, unwhispered woe; For once in the passionate years of old I loved a friend with a love untold; But I thought him false, for I thought that he Had lured the heart of my bride from me; So I threw my glove in his grave, sweet face. And ,we met in a moon-lit forest-place. Our bright, keen swords from their scabbards sprang And flew together with clash and clang, 174 Optimism But his brittle blade in the battle broke, And I drave him down with a swift, sharp stroke. A cloud passed over the pallid moon — A witch-whelp barked in the black lagoon — A shuddering wind the branches blew, And a raven croaked as it downward flew. Suddenly Carolyn spake to me: "My friend, I never was false to thee, But God forgive me my sins below As I forgive thee this fatal blow. The heart of thy bride is of blemish free, She is my sister, and true to thee. " "Thy sister?" I shrieked, "thy sister? No! Say to me — say that it is not so!" Thus, with a pitiful cry, I plead, Kissing and kissing the dumb, white dead, Pushing the gory and golden hair Back from his forehead so broad and fair, When a resonant cry rang in my ear, And I staggered back with a nameless fear, And there in that lonely forest-place I stood with my young bride face to face. With the corpse between us! She lifted high Her slim, white hand to the stormy sky. And there by her dead, by her murdered dead, She called for a curse upon my head. And then she fell on the scarlet sod And yielded her white ghost unto God. I drink of the draught this cup contains, Its fire flows through my frozen veins. Wing-footed I walk in a lovely land By skies of violet splendor spanned; I pause in a pleasaunce, and I behold A pearly palace with gates of gold, Lapped in a glorified garden, where optimism 1 75 The fountains flash in the amber air. From fluted vases as white as snow The fire-cupped flowers flame and flow; The scintillant sunlight drips and drops Through plumy palms and through citron copse; The song-birds sing in the swinging spray Then flit, like a flight of stars, away To the lambent lake where the lotus laves Its purple petals within the waves. But, look! for my sweet bride I behold. And the friend I loved with a love untold! They come to me and they clasp my palms — Their touch my turbulent spirit calms — And thus my Carolyn comforts me: "It is best that whatever is should be. The hidden plan of the Universe Is perfect. Never a crime nor curse But had its mission, and it will be Unveiled to our eyes in Eternity." Softly and sweetly breathes my bride: "Forget the desolate night I died. Forget the blood that was blindly shed, Forget the withering words I said. Fate foreordained that thy hand should smite My darling brother that dreadful night. Then be courageous and be content. Thou art innocent — thou art innocent!" The vision vanishes — but a blest, New hope is nestling within my breast, And over and over it says to me: "Whatever is^ it is best should be." LAUNCELOT Here in my lone, lampless chamber I stand Close by the casement, and look through the pane At the wild, roaring sea rolling up on the sand, Where the lights of the village shine red through the rain. Shiver the roses that drape the gray eaves, 'Reft of their glorified garlands of bloom. While in the kirkyard the wan, ghostly leaves Flutter and fall over temple and tomb. Many and many Octobers ago, Afar in the dust of a desolate year, We parted in ^passion where shrubs cowered low And the hiss of the serpent was heard in the wier. The sickly moon turned into blood as I wept. And the pale stars went staggering under the clouds. When, lo! from the graves where thy ancestors slept, Came shuddering skeletons out of their shrouds! They pointed their terrible fingers at me: "Curse thee, and curse thee!" they all spake as one — "He had delivered our house but for thee, Now we are ever and ever undone! " The brave suns have risen, the brave suns have set, 176 Eternity on Earth 177 And dim are my blue eyes and bonny to- day, And fairer than fleece are my tresses of jet, And the wrinkles have driven the roses away; But still this bright thought brings an infinite calm: I will meet with my lover all tender and true, When unto the Isles of the Lyre and Palm I set my white sails and go journeying, too. But out of the dust of that desolate year Rings the curse that is written in blood on my brow, And my heart is crushed down with a desperate fear — Launcelot, Launcelot, where are you now? O, where are you now? ETERNITY ON EARTH "That face I I turned and fied from the moonlit place — Turned with a quivering cry and fled, For the grave had surrendered its dear, sweet dead! Back in my unlit room, I drew The curtain; the vines were dripping dew, And flashed in the moonlight, keen and cold, As they flashed in that nameless night of old." 178 Eternity on Earth "My darling, you dream!" "O, mother mine! I was standing there, where the trumpet-vine Drips fragrance over the rocks below, When I heard a voice that I used to know — When I saw a face I had seen before — A face that will haunt me forevermore; For, O! on a nameless night like this, While Time was reeling through bloom and bliss, And Christ was reaching our world to kiss, I met him there where the trumpet-vine Spills fragrance over the rocks below. And he said that his rapturous love divine I never and never again should know; My blood was turned into madding wine, And I killed him there, for I loved him so, And the sea swirled up, and the crimson sign Was washed from the shivering sands — but, O, Its stain is forever upon my soul, Till the funeral-bells for Christ shall toll! Till the funeral-bells — O, heaven, forbear! He is standing there! He is standing there!" "What! on the lawn?" spake the Lady Lisle, "Why, that is Sir Sidney. Come with me. You never have met him; a little while Ago he came from the Afric sea." They passed through the palace-halls. They met Sir Sidney, the soldier who knew no fear — In tones that ring down the cycles yet, He cried: "Thou traitress, and art thou here? My blood is upon thy hands! " Eternity on Earth 179 And then, He said, with a start and a silly smile, I was dreaming a strange, mad dream again — Forgive and forget it, my Lady Lisle." And she who killed him, in the life before this life, became his own, And happier were they, I hold, than God upon his golden throne! * >K jK * * The men who walk our streets to-day will walk them when a thousand years Have drained their flesh and blood to dust and blown it to the furthest spheres. And I will meet thee yet, my love, within a forest still unsown, Or city still unbuilt, and I will kiss thy scar- let lips with mine; And though thy alien grave to-day by August grass is overgrown, I know that thou art .living yet in zone of palm or zone of pine — Art living in a skeleton and skull and skin, to me unknown, But in the cycle unconceived thy soul and body will be mine; For thou wilt die and live and die a million times, -mayhap, until The atoms of the universe shall readjust themselves once more — Just as they were when first we throbbed with the unwhisperable, hot thrill. While palpitating breast to breast within the morning-years of yore! IN A MAD-HOUSE Come back, come back to me for an hour, And speak to me, sweet, as you spake of old! Wear in your ringlets the red, rank flower 1 tore from the grass in the graveyard mold — I tore from the grass where the dead boy sleeps With the worms, in his windowless palace low; Where the trail of his brave, bright blood still creeps As it crept in the starlight long ago. The devilish roses kissed my face And my hair was dripping with starry dew, When I met him there in our trysting-place And killed him, sweet, for my love of you! The universe gasped like a thing in pain, The moonbeams struck at the shrieking sea. The sod lay shuddering with the stain And the golden lilies shrank back from me; But my heart sang high as I went my way With a hiss of hate for the blameless boy. Then limb to limb by your side I lay And throbbed with a thrill of God's own joy. For you slept in my bare, blest arms — but, O! They bore me off to this prison-place, And suns of splendor and swirls of snow Have drifted by since I kissed your face! Then come. O! beautiful demon! Come! In a few swift, fugitive years at best You and I will be lying dumb And blind to all that our love possessed; 1 80 The Poet- Boy i8i But I will hunt you and haunt you there From zone to zone through the fields of fire, And I will rivet the chains you wear, And I will baffle your last desire. If Christ shall summon you to his spheres I will smite 3'ou back as you seek to soar, And flames of Hades shall dr}' our tears And melt us together forevermore! Then come, O, come to me for an hour, And speak to me, love, as you spake of old! Wear in your ringlets the red, rank flower I tore from the grass in the graveyard mold — I tore from the grass where the bright boy sleeps With the worms, in his windowless palace low; Where the trail of his beautiful blood still creeps As it crept in the moonlight long ago! THE POET-BOY In memory of John W. Robb, Jr., Rosedale, Miss. The bright June-lights were shining, like the gladdest smile of God, The white June-lilies sparkled in the fresh and fragrant sod, The sweet June-winds were winging through the flowerful woods and fair. The wild June-birds were singing in the vivid arc of air; 1 82 The Poet- Boy Never did a morn diviner on our roseful Sun- land rise, Since the glad stars sang together in the blue, triumphant skies! Then it was, O, Poet-brother! then it was I saw thee last! — There the lights concenter on thee in m}' King- dom of the Past! How the jocund hours went dancing! and what friends we met that day! There was Holland, the great-hearted, who has gone the heavenly way; There was Falconer, the fearless, — wept with O, such wistful tears, And Frank Walter in the brightest flush and splendor of his years! In a glorious procession, with the gifted and the brave. With the beautiful and loving, they have filed through the grave To the star-spheres sempiternal, far beyond the secret skies. There to walk beside still waters, under palms of Paradise! — There to dwell with highest heroes who have lived and died for man Since that far, fresh-hearted morning when humanity began. And while still our tears were falling where their shining foot-prints be. Suddenly there came a summons, and this time it came for thee. In the sweet and stainless splendor of a life and love supreme Thou must pass the star-lit portal to the Realm of which we dream; The Poet- Boy 183 Thou must leave thy ringing lyre, wreathed with half-blown flowers, unstrung, Leave thy labors uncompleted, and thy sweetest songs unsung. Why was it? O, why was it? In vain-^in vain we cry — From out the far, white citadel returneth no reply. ***** The day when last we spake farewell is dead forevermore, — No summer in the years to be its radiance can restore. As bright the skies may shine, as white the flaky lilies flower, The winds may wing, the song-birds sing, as in that halcyon hour, But, O, its occult loveliness, its subtle thrills of bliss, Its mystic lights and melody forever I will miss, For thy presence, O, thy presence, there I nevermore will see, And with thee from the vision went its very soul from me. But there is a Revelation, and it redes itself to man — Known it was in every cycle, unto every creed and clan. Taught the simple heart primeval by the still, small voice within, Prompting it to deeds of duty — urging it to shrink from sin. Pictured on the cliffs and lowlands, chiming in the surge of seas, , Glowing in the star-dust golden, blossom.ing in shrubs and trees, 1 84 , The Poet- Boy Beaming in the looks love-lighted of the ten- der and the true, Whispered by the lips of spirits sheltered from our mortal view, Speaking in our hopes and yearnings, and our dim dreams of the night, Tempering our tears and passion when a twin- soul takes its flight, Proving stronger and supremer as the world heaves high and higher From the depths of superstition and the mists , of low desire! And this Revelation redeth that our dead have never died — That it was the yoke and fetters only that they laid aside, That they live in Kingdom fairer than is lit by mortal sun — Thrilled with triumph at the conquest and the crown forever won — Live where purer joys and purer draw them to diviner plains, And forever, reaching toward them, some new happiness remains. Where with victor-songs of gladness they will welcome us at last. When the fitful frost and fever of our lives are overpast. And I know in that leal Kingdom is thy lyre heard to-day, Sweeter, sweeter and completer than when manacled with clay — For I know thy spirit liveth, and I know it leadeth still; That a high and holy mission it will help us to fulfill. New Year 185 Though we strew the rose and lily on thy youthful shrine with tears, There is this to recompense us, that through all the rounding years Thou wilt lead us high and higher to the bright, victorious spheres! Poet-brother! Poet-brother! when the white magnolias bloom, Or the wintry yews are weeping at the dark door of my tomb, In the Country of Contentment may my friends and comrades be, Poet-brother!, Poet-brother! thee, and great, grand souls like thee! NEW YEAR Out of the future, dumb and dim, The New Year comes to-day. And a rollicking world is receiving him In its old memorial way. With feast and frolic in hut and hall, And many a cheer and chime, And the "Happy New Year unto 3'e all! That comes from the olden time. What will he bring to you, my friends, What will he bring to me, Before his last dark hour descends In a midnight yet to be? 1 86 New Year Life will he bring imto babes unborn, With its miracle moods, we know; Some to splendor and some to scorn, Through all of their lot below; Death will he bring unto many, and dear, Brave hearts will beat their last Before the chimes of the next New Year Shall tingle upon the blast; Tears to many who smile to-day, Smiles to the tearful ones. In the same old merry or mocking way. For thus our destiny runs. Bridal blisses to many a soul. Burial shrouds to more; For thus are blended delight and dole Till all of the years are o'er; Yet, hail ye the New Year, bonny and bright, And hope that his sovereign hands Will scatter liberty, love and light. All over these lower lands; And whether he favor or fell thee, boys, In the battle and blare of Time, Strike gallantly out for the golden joys And the higher heights sublime. PROGRESS OF THE PEOPLES Upward, upward press the peoples to that pure, exalted plane, Where no throne shall cast a shadow and no slave shall wear a chain. They have trampled on the fagots — broken crucifix and wheel, Banished block, and thong, and hemlock, and the headsman's bloody steel; Forced the Church-hold to surrender stake, and scourge, and bolt, and bar — Torn the keys from off its girdle— thrown the gates of Truth ajar; They have forced the titled tyrants human rights to recognize. And with bayonet and' saber they have slain a legion lies; They are lighting lamps of freedom on a mill- ion altar-stones. With the torches they have kindled at the blaze of burning thrones; And this light will sweep and circle to the very ends of earth. Touching with immortal beauty every heart and every hearth — Thrilling every human being underneath the silent skies, And transfiguring our planet to a perfect par- adise! 187 1 88 Progress of the Peoples As we higher march and higher on into this light serene, Every man will be a kaiser, ever}^ woman be a queen — Ay! queen-regnant, then, and ransomed from the thralls she wears to-day, While her husband, son and brother, walk un- fettered on their way. She hath wept and prayed in passion — bitterly hath made her moan — All the terrors and the tortures of the tyrants she hath known — Still, the blood that flows for freedom flows for man, and man alone. Nay, behold! the light is burning with a strong and stronger flame, And the foremost in the phalanx see the stark and stinging shame — See the biting, blasting, burning shame of sex- oppression now. And, with hearts and hands uplifted, swear a grand and godlike vow, That, despite the fangs of Custom and despite the Church's frown. Womanhood shall wield its scepter, womanhood shall wear its crown. She hath borne with man his crosses, she hath worn with man his chains; She hath suffered all his losses, she hath suffered all his pains — She shall stand with him, co-equal, on the pure, exalted planes! BETRAYED "Room for the hero! Room!" And the mob fell back at the cry, As under the flags and over the flowers A pageant proud swept by — To the roar of cannon and ripple of trumps A pageant proud swept by. A girl — a girl of the pave— Was all I could claim to be; The soul of my sweet, pure, virgin self Had been betrayed from me By a devil who looked like a god divine — Had been betrayed from me. "Now, who is this hero — who?" I thought in a languid way, And pressed through the clamoring crowd to see Its demi-god of the day — The warrior, king or statesman who Was its demi-god of the day. O, Christ! It was Carolyn, Who had ruined and wrecked my life By his vow — by his false and his fatal vow That I should be his wife — His vow that had dragged me down to hell That I should be his wife. A puff of smoke, a flash, A whistling ball, and he Lay dead all under his horse's hoofs^ 189 I go Victor And damned through the life to be— Lay dead in his veriest victor hour, And damned through the life to be Then, O, how the rabble raved! How it tore me with tooth and fang! And I was borne to this dungeon dark While the air with their curses rang — While the air of that soft, bright Paris morn With their pitiless curses rang. They will drag me out to-day To the guillotine, and my head Will drop in the basket as my blood Stains it a fiercer red — Stains France^ — stains all of humanity A still more savage red. But I hold this sovereign truth That my act was right — was right! He had taken my better self from me And hurled it down to night — Had taken the life of my soul from me And hurled it down to night. VICTOR "Victor, my Victor!" Out of my sleep I sprang as I spake thy name. For, O! I had seen thee in a dream — had looked in thy bright, brown eyes, And thy laughter and look, and thy tone and touch were the same — were the very same Victor igi As of old when this passionate planet of ours to us was a paradise. "I was only dreaming," I said to myself, and I gazed from the lattice where The golden moonlight was sifting through the boughs of a blasted tree, And I saw — I saw with a shudder and sob a gray old gravestone there That bore the name of a noble one who was body and soul of me. "Victor, O, Victor!" I cried once more, when thy sovereign hour was near, And I clasped and kissed thee, O, comrade mine, with a mad, fierce, hopeless moan. I heard thee whisper, "Be brave, O, heart! though unto an unknown sphere My soul is passing, I will come back unto thee — my own! my own!" Then through the oriel windows stole a ra- diance half divine. And a zephyr wafted the rose-leaves in from the garden green outside, As Samael set upon thy brow his awful and august sign, And they said that between us lay at last a universe waste and wide. But I spake, with a smile of scorn for death, "My darling will come to me! Though his atoms shall blossom again with life in the pure, sweet pansy flowers, Though they drift with the clouds in the crys- tal sky over many a dim blue sea. Or trill in the throats of the singing-birds as they swing in the budding bowers; 1 92 Victor "Ay! though they glitter in grain-fields bright, and, passing from form to form. They enter the bodies of other men, and on through an endless chain, I know — I know he will come to me with his passion sweet and warm, And wonderful as it was of yore, without one spot or stain!" But, Victor, Victor! thy vow is still unvital- ized by thee, Though our planet has passed through the suns and snows, the songs and the sobs of years; And my soul in agony has appealed to gods that it cannot see Till, ground into unbelief at last, it breaks into bloody tears. God! what is that by thy gravestone there — that strange, ineffable light Instinct with the life that throbs in me — it seems of myself a part. What subtle essence has entered earth and uni- verse and the night? And what is it calling unto my brain and spirit and sense and heart? Victor, O, Victor! it is thee! I feel it is thee, my own! No longer a solitary self, but blent with the universe. Thrilled through with every blessing it knows or has ever known, Yet bearing with pure, brave, marvelous power its every crime and curse; Victor 193 A part of all that has ever been, is, or will ever be, From the yellow light of the planet to the yellow primrose there; A part of the very Godhead, and the glorious part of me; A part of the crawling serpent, and a part of the bird in air! And I know when out of the finite to the in- finite I shall go, I will shine in the light immortal of the sun upon my grave, I will bloom in the red, proud roses that out of my breast shall grow. And live in the larger freedom of the wind and wood and wave. I will laugh in the little children; I will love in the lover's breast; I will cry with a vast, keen rapture as I melt in thy mystic soul; Will know the supremest action, will feel the divinest rest. And I who was here an atom shall aggregate the whole. Then here is to Death, my darling! I drink of the ripe, red wine; And here is another beaker to coffin and shroud and pall! And here is unto the hour when my soul shall fuse with thine Through the circles of God's creation, and be of the All-in- All! '? CARYL Come to my arms, O, Caryl! Come to my arms once more! Let me thrill with the keen, quick rapture that ran through my veins of yore! Let me know that I am forgiven for the duty I left undone When thy bridal roses were blooming and thy bridal robe was spun. The lilies of that lost summer are fragrant and fair once more; The songs of that dim, dead summer are soft as they were of yore; The sky of that sweet, slain summer bends over our star below With all of the violet splendor and sparkle of long ago. But, ah! for their mystic meaning and their se- cretest sense no more Rhyme in with my reckless spirit as they did in the days of yore, When the grace of thy glad, free presence, the light of thy loving eyes, Touched all of the world with glory — the glory of Paradise! rd barter the keys of heaven — I'd trample them under feet, For the thrillant touch of thy kisses, the throb of thy clasp, my sweet! And, O, for thy true forgiveness and tender to hear thee tell, 194 Vivian 195 I'd welcome the fire and fetters of the utter- most under-hell! Then come to my arms, my Caryl, if it only a moment be! Come to m}^ arms, beloved, and, O, let me melt in thee! VIVIAN Vivian! Vivian! Where are you now? O, where are you now? The soft golden hair has turned gray on my brow. And my heart is no longer in trancefulest tune With the roses and raptures of jubilant June. This wonderful world holds a heaven and hell 'Twixt the christening-font and the funeral bell, And my heaven was lost when you left me that morn In the pride of your passion, the strength of your scorn. Vivian! Vivian! Where are you now? O, where are you now? In the dust of desire you trampled your vow; The ear of an adder you turned to ni}^ cries For the kiss of her lips and the light of her e3^es ; In the tingle of triumph you hurled me to hell 196 Vivian For the pleasure that lay in her passionate spell ; A harlot and homeless j^ou left me that morn ~n the pride of your passion, the strength of vour scorn. Vivian! Vivian! Where are you now? O, where are you now? I know that the cere-cloth is chill on your brow, Afar where the floods of the Arkansas flow. In the wild, mournful forests you slumber, I know — In the wild, mournful forests and fens where you fled When you knew that the heart of your darling was dead — When she turned, in her weakness, a traitor to thee. As you, in your weakness, turned traitor to me. Vivian! Vivian! Where are you now? O, where are you now? Are you walking in glory upon the green brow Of the heavenly highlands, beyond the blue bars Of the sky that is blooming with beautiful stars? Or, lashed with the scorpion-lashes of God, Are you treading the plow-shares that Lucifer trod? Or there, where the Arkansas rolls to the deep, Is your spirit as well as your senses asleep? Percival 197 Vivian! Vivian! Where are you now? O, where are you now? In my dreams I still feel your hot kiss on my brow — In my dreams I still feel the old clasp of your palm, And my spirit sweeps out into infinite calm; And I know that m\' love is immortal, and I Will rest on your heart when the world has swept by — Will rest on your heart through the passionate years, Beyond the pale phantom of Time and its tears ! PERCIVAL Percival sprang to his saddle-tree When pansies w^ere purple and grass was green, And over the heathery hills went he To see his lily — his own Lurline. He halted his horse b}' the sounding sea — He halted his horse by the bounding sea, And thought what a startling thing and strange Was its constant, but ever inconstant, change: Roaring, raving, laughing, leaping. Shining, shouting, crying, creeping. Tinkling, throbbing, sighing, sleeping. Evermore — evermore! I g8 Per civ al He spurred his steed till he made it bleed, When pansies were purple and grass was green, And rode over river and rock and mead To meet his lily — his own Lurline. He watched the sky as he went his way, Through grass and flowers and forests gay, And thought what a startling thing and strange Was its constant, but ever inconstant, change: Howling, scowling, glory-gleaming. Purpling, paling, splendor-streaming, Darkling, sparkling, beaming, dreaming, Evejrmore — evermore ! A year went 'round as he rode apace, And pansies were purple and grass was green, Yet on he went in his glad young grace. To clasp his lily — his own Lurline. He watched the sod as he watched the sky While the seasons went with their banners by. And thought what a startling thing and strange Was its constant, but ever inconstant, change: Thrilling, chilling, snowflakes sifting On the dead leaves o'er it drifting. Glad and green and garland-lifting. Evermore — evermore ! He came to the castle one dreamy dawn, When pansies were purple and grass was green, And after all he had undergone He kissed his lil}^— his own Lurline. And he watched his bride with the eager eyes Of one who wanders in Paradise, And he thought what a sweet, sweet thing and strange Was her constant, but never inconstant, change: Laughing, dancing, singing, blessing, Philip 1 99 Helping, kissing and caressing, True and tender love confessing, Evermore — evermore ! But came a wrathful and rainy morn. When pansies were purple and grass was green, And he found his beautiful bride foresworn And a hell of fire their hearts between; For change is written on sea and sod And sky by the great, white hand of God, But nothing is more inconstant than The heart of woman or heart of man: Loving, thrilling, praying, yearning. Crying, pleading, calling, burning, Cursing, hissing, hating, spurning, Evermore — evermore ! PHILIP Forgive thee, Philip? When the love slain by thy barbed speech Shall rise from its red blood and live within my life once more, Mayhap my heart will then relent — my hand to thine will reach — But not before. Forgive? When my poor, perished hopes shall blossom in the dust Where thou didst trample them that day, mayhap my weak soul will Receive thy traitor-kisses with the old, mad, reckless trust — But not until. 200 Philip A dead love is forever dead: no seraph can unseal Its sepulcher — nor God himself give back its vanished fire; Its lost hopes are forever lost — no future can make real Their sweet desire. I loved thee with a love that gave the second place to God, I held thy breast unto ni}- breast, thy cheek unto my cheek, I knelt and kissed the very dust whereon thy feet had trod, For I was weak; Yet, knowing that through flood and flame for thee I'd gladly go, And knowing that with soul and sense I blind- ly worshiped thee — Thou, with a traitor-hand, didst strike at me a deadly blow — Philip — at me! Forgive thee, Philip! I will not forgive thee! It is sworn! Nor will I lure thee with a lie to please thy perjured heart; I hate thee with a burning hate, and scorn with blasting scorn! Depart — depart! IN AUGUST O, that August dawn! O, that August dawn! How the sunfire sparkled on lake and lawn! How the roses seemed drooping to kiss thy feet As we went through the greenwood glad, my sweet! How the lark went winging and warbling there» Till lost at last in the argent air! And, looking down in thine eyes divine, I felt that forever thy thoughts were mine. O, that August day! O, that August day! The sea in its splendor spread away And away, till it vanished in vivid space On shores of glory and shoals of grace; While blended in one was thy spirit then With mine in communion beyond our ken; But looking down in thine e3'es divine I knew that forever thy heart was mine. O, that August dusk! O, that August dusk! All subtle with scent of myrrh and musk, And shaken with bulbul songs that beat In silvery strains through their dim retreat, And brave with the beauty of stars that shone With a lusterful loveliness all their own; And looking down in thine eyes divine I felt that forever thy self was mine. 20 1 202 To a Dear^ Dead Friend O, that August tide! O, that August tide! When I was blest, for thou wert my bride; But it brought me bale as it brought me bliss, For a poor, vain, fugitive life is this, And ere that enchanted moon had fled Thou wert lying dead — thou wert lying dead. O, the August sun! O, the August sun! Its splendor into our sphere is spun, And the August flowers are all aflame With ravishing dyes that I cannot name, And the August melody, balm and joy, Once more the soul and the senses cloy. But I am dead to their touch divine As I kneel in tears at thy tranceful shrine. O, the August hour! O, the August hour! Beyond the pale and beyond the power Of mold and mortality, when I Shall kiss and shall clasp thee by and byl Is it a dream? Will it dawn for me— That hour the living may never see, When I can look in thine eyes divine And know that forever thy soul is mine? TO A DEAR, DEAD FRIEND "No years to be, No change from me, Thy memory can sever." Valley-dimpled in the distance stretch the stalwart mountain-lines, To a Dear, Dead Friend 203 Glorified by sunset-splendors, garlanded by plumy pines; Sheer below, within the purple and the pause of twilight tide, Spread the silent fields, far-reaching to the forests wild and wide — Spread the silent fields, where cattle browse beside the saffron stream, Where, in gold and green transplendent, the triumphant harvests teem; Where the flowers flash with beauties, borrowed from the sky and sun And by many a subtle process in their shining petals spun; Where the dim and dusty highway through the hedges dippeth down Past the pleasant old plantations, to the quaint and quiet town. Through and through my lattice tangled, burn and shine the scarlet blooms, Trembling with their bold, strange beauty, tingling with their sweet perfumes; Now and then the soft winds smite them, and their spicy petals spill On the open book that thrills me as no other book can thrill — Book wherein a grand old master, moldering now within his grave. Sets the whole, broad world and heaven to a high, victorious stave. But the miracle and marvel of the sunland swimming there, With its glor}^ and its garlands, vanishes in viewless air — With its glory and its gladness, though the twilight splendors still 204 To a Dear, Dead Friend Paint and plash the magic mountains where the creamy cascades spill; Still the soft winds smite the flowers, and their fragrant petals fall On the poems of the poet who has held me in his thrall; But the magic spell is broken, and the book falls from my knee, As across the cliffs and lowlands of our lovely Tennessee, Through the hush and through the half-light, fly my faithful thoughts to thee. Before I saw thee, Avery, I knew I'd like thee well — I like whoever speeds a spear for Reason and for Right, Who leads humanity to break the brutalizing spell Ot prince and priest, and grandly march into the white, glad light. I knew thou wert in line and one with all who dare defy A crowned, and mailed, and sceptered wrong — whatever that wrong may be, Who own no master here below, no master in the sky, And who would break all bars and gyves, and bid the bond go free. I knew I'd like, thee, Avery, before I saw thy face, ^ But when at last I came within the magic of thy spell. And saw thy life in all its light — its grand and simple grace — I came to love thee with a love my tongue can never tell. To a Dear, Dead Friend 205 I often could not hear thy words for looking in thine e3es — They flashed a deeper depth of thought than any form of speech, And often in our rougher moods I tempered my replies, Because thy tones had meaning that thy lan- guage did not reach; Because I knew in all the world, in all the suns to be, Search where I might, or far or near, I nev- ermore would know As true a friend, O, Avery! as tender a friend as thee, This side the dim, green place of rest, where white grave-roses blow! For thou didst take me to thy heart—didst take me by the hand — When friends of fairer days turned false, and hissed me down with hate, And when I found my castles had been built upon the sand. And stormy waves had dashed and left their splendors desolate. Mayhap, O, Avery! mayhap, the moons will wax and wane, And wax and wane a hundred times, within the secret skies, And sear our hearts with passion-fires, and scar our hearts with pain Unspeakable, before we look within each other's eyes; The frosts and flowers of long, long years our lives may lie between, 2o6 To a Dear, Dead Friend The lights on many a marriage-shrine may flash and fade away, And the lily-bells may blossom, and the grasses quiver green Upon the tomb of many a friend before that distant day; And seas all starry-isled may break between thy way and mine, Gray cliffs and green champaigns may lie be- tween our severed lands, Above us alien skies may bend, and stranger stars may shine Upon our parted paths before we clasp each other's hands. And mayhap, Avery, mayhap, we nevermore will meet In all the circling cycles that the awful ages hold, For death may step between us, and it is a dream too sweet — That grand, all-hail Hereafter, far beyond the graveyard mold. But yet whatever may befall — though moons and miles may part, Though buds may blow and grasses grow be- tween thy face and mine — The love for thee shall leal be forever in my heart, And all its best impulses shall be thine — and only thine. Thou hadst a subtle influence thou never yet hast known Upon my life, for when we met, so darft was my despair. To a Dear, Dead Friend 207 That all the aspirations from my stormy soul had flown, And only stony Sorrow, with her ruined dreams, was there; But to feel I had the friendship of a great, good heart like thine. Was a promise and a prophecy of better things to be — A radiant revelation that mayhap this life of mine Would broaden into brighter ways, and worthier of thee; And if I strike upon my harp a chord that yet shall ring Responsive in the breasts of men; or if an occult flame Shall touch my pen until its thoughts through all the world shall wing. To thee, O, Avery I to thee, will I trace back my fame! Thou wert my inspiration, and thou wilt for- ever be, O, tenderest friend man ever had, and truest friend of mine, And every canticle I sing, I consecrate to thee, With all the love of all a life that is forever thine. THE LIGHT OF LIFE (inscribed to GORDON L. SNEED.) Through the magical lights loom the Cumber- land mountains, Clear-cut on the opaline sky-line away, While down from their heights dash and thun- der the fountains That blossom and break into silvery spray! Below, the glad gardens in sunlight are swim- ming Through all the glad sweep of the summery hours, And wide-waving forests are blissfully brim- ming With lyrics of linnets and fire of flowers! But, O! my heart turns to the beautiful places Away, far away in the passionate past, And, O! my heart yearns for the beautiful faces That haunt my lost hours, and will to the last. ***** And when o'er purple sunset seas The old day sadly drifts afar I watch the first, faint, yellow star Shine through the semi-tropic trees, I think of those who loved me here. And marvel will I clasp their hands Once more within these lower lands, Or in some vague, mysterious sphere. I see the light of laughing eyes, And hear the tender tones once more 208 The Light of Life 209 That thrilled me in the years of yore, Like a lost song from Paradise! When I look back upon those hours, They hold me with a subtle spell — Wherever their soft foot-prints fell Bright blossom fair, supernal flowers. We never know a happiness, Until it layeth stark and sweet Within its white, white winding-sheet, Beyond the power our paths to bless. O, friends, wherever ye may be Within this weary world to-day — In gilded cities far away Or greenwoods mirrored by the sea — -- Think not ye are forgotten yet. For, till my pulses cease to beat, Thy lives so gracious, pure and sweet, My heart will nevermore forget; And thou, for whom my harp is strung Upon these mountain-heights to-day, Know that the love will live for aye That from our brief acquaintance sprung. I love thy liberal mind — it takes No swift misjudgments from the crowd; But of itself, all pure and proud. Its own and honest verdict makes. Won was I by thy wit, but more, Won by thy words of friendship warm That took my very heart by storm Within the summer that is o'er; And if within the years to be One act or utterance of mine 14 2 1 o Ulalie Can lighten any load of thine I pray that thou wilt call to me; For if I held it in my power O'er thee the bluest skies should bend Undarkened to the last, O, friend! By any storms that ever lower. The roses with their hearts of fire Should stoop and kiss thy very feet, And life with rapture be replete In every fond dream and desire. Out of the passions and the strife And hatreds crowding round my way, Confronting me from day to day, I find the one sweet light of life In knowing that I have a crown In fond and faithful hearts that dare Defend me from the spear and snare Of devil-foes who hunt me down ; And knowing that I have a place In true and tender hearts like thine Has glorified this life of mine With one sweet attribute of grace! ULALIE Severed, O, Lord! the silver cord that bound her unto life! In white samite she sleeps to-night who should have been my wife. Ulalie 2 1 1 O, Vasey Vane, beyond the main in tears and sackcloth bow — The saintly maid thy wiles betrayed is pale and pulseless now. From sneer and fleer to the starry sphere of Christ who was crucified She passed away but yesterday, and now she is my bride. Aye! ashes spread upon thy head for murdered Ulalie, Yet, O, forgiven by man and heaven thou canst not hope to be — For though forgiven by man, yet heaven will be avenged on thee! I was a thrall of Sedgewood Hall, thou wert a prince of pride, With stores of gold and slaves untold and fair possessions wide; Yet I was blest, for she confessed her love at last for me; Yet I was banned, for, O! her hand her father pledged to thee. Wo worth that hour! Wo worth thy power, that ever it should be! I seemed to trace upon her face a tender look of love, Reflected now from her rapt brow, white lily- crowned above! A look for me, and not for thee, false father of the dead! A look for me, and not for thee, to whom she vainly plead: Away! Away! Nor longer stay to weep her bier beside — She is not thine, but only mine— forevermore my bride ! 212 Ulalie Kiss, sweetest, kiss me unto bliss — I twine within thy hair These lily flowers from bridal bowers — they make thee look more fair! Kiss, sweetest, kiss me unto bliss — I place up- on thy hand This bridal ring — now let us wing our way to distant land! Kiss, sweetest, kiss me unto bliss! — O, God, I do but rave! Within an hour my star and flower will lie within the grave! O'er pines and peaks the shrill wind shrieks, while up the wrinkled sands The haggard sea cries piteously and wrings and wrings its hands; The moon looks out from her redoubt within the scowling sk}^ What time the knell of passing-bell tolls from the chapel nigh. The mass is said, they bear the dead with sol- emn tread away, To sleep and sleep within its deep, dark home in churchyard cla}^, Until the last long trumpet blast upon the Judgment-day, And I am left of all bereft to walk my lonely way. THE BUGLE O, where, and O, where is the melody that rang From out thy throat, O, bugle! in the battle clash and clang — The fanfaron — the fanfaron that grandly swept and soared While mangled men were shrieking and the thunder-guns uproared? O, where, and O, where are thy strains that swept afar, O'er dimpled cliffs and dewy coombs unto the morning-star, As hounds and huntsmen followed where the Lord of Lisle led, And gave thy golden throat a tongue before his arrow sped? O, where, and O, where are thy many change- ful lays That woke the magic echoes in those old me- morial days — Thy victor-blasts in battle on the wariields of old France, Thy joy-peals at the merry chase and revelry and dance? Thy soft notes, thy sweet notes, when bridal- feast was spread. Thy weird and wailing threnody that throbbed beside the dead, Thy glad peal of thanksgiving that went ting- ling through the morn When to the proud young Lord of Lisle a bon- ny heir was born? ^13 214 "^^^^ Bugle O, where, and O, where hath thy music fled to-day? O, hath it passed forever from the universe away? Or through the circling cycles doth it wide and wider sweep, And sing and surge forever on from purple deep to deep? "It sings and it surges," the scientist replies, "Beyond the blue horizon's rim, beyond the furthest skies, Through all the countless centuries until the end shall be. And not one note shall perish from its perfect harmony. " Then, O, and then, O, as its free strains float afar. In mystic melody they break on many a bloom- ing star, And the people, yes, the people in those strange, unspoken spheres, May hear the music heard on earth within the ancient years. O, bugle! O, bugle! upon the castle wall, The men who lent thy lips their fire are stretched beneath the pall; And never will thy golden throat possess a tongue again. And never will thy torn lips thrill the blood of mortal men. Yet, bugle, O, bugle! though we may not dis- cern The strange truth and subtle truth, thy influ- ence eterne The Bugle 215 Hath changed the very universe by starting on their way Chime after chime of melody to surge and surge for aye. Thus, bugle, O, bugle! my voice will never die, And all the words I ever spake are sounding in the sky, And they will sound forever on when I am ly- ing low Within the tongueless silence of the sleep we all will know. The lip-words, the lip-words and passion- words that tell The loving or the loathing thoughts that deep within me dwell; All these will sweep and circle on throughout infinity, And thus am I immortal, though no after-life there be. Immortal! Immortal! But what if I shall rise From underneath the roses after Samael seals mine eyes. And stand before a judgment-bar what time my words proclaim To all the hosts of all the worlds my glory or my shame? ULRIC This night, out-looking through my lattice-bars, I see the pale procession of the stars, And hear the waters of the restless sea Roll up the sands with slow, pulsating jars. The landscape lies in a mysterious trance — The gray peaks glimmer and the green leaves glance In the white moon-rays, while the vale below A shadow vast and melancholy haunts. Upon a ledge, beyond that gulf of gloom, The village lights burst into silver bloom. As iornly down the wan rim of the west Day vanishes with scarlet-streaming plume. I feel my spirit struggling with its chain, I feel the links unrivet that restrain Its folded pinions — paradise this night, This very night, the captive will regain. And I am hapuy — for no wailing wife. No clinging children hold me back to life, And make this time of death a time of dread. Instead of joyful calm that follows strife. I would not have a single faithful heart To break; I would not have a tear to start; I would not have a moan be made for me— Nay, none of these, as deathward I depart. I would not leave a heritage of woe, To those I love — to those who love me so — 2X6 Ulric 217 The thought would mock, the thought would madden me Upon the heights of heaven — this I know. Far better as it is; I pass away Into the golden light beyond the gray, Without one tie that knits me to my kind, Without one hope or fear to bid me stay; With no wan figures flying to and fro, Wringing their hands and mourning as they Crying to Christ, with wet, uplifted eyes. And agonizings to avert the blow. Instead, I hear the south wind softly stray In through my casement from the fields awa}^ — The fragrant fields of asphodel — I hear The bulbul singing low its sweetest lay; While tender memories come back to me Of a far time that nevermore will be, Of sounding forests by a shining flood. And fond young friends who walked the world with me. * * * The moments of my life are nearly told. I sink — I swoon — I waken to behold The faces of my lost, beloved ones, Long hidden by the violets and mold. Beyond the planets and the purple space They beckon to me from a palm-green place. Where seas of splendor roll, where upward rise The citadels of Christ in golden grace. 2i8 Chicago And while I watch, the harp of Israel Sounds through the universe! — The charmed spell Of time is broken! — Friends, I come! I come! And with the brave knight Ulric it was well. CHICAGO Once in the dreams, the vast, vague dreams, of a singer strong, there came A vivid vision of unknown lands, over un- known leagues away; And Prophec}' fired his inner-soul with her own immortal flame. And made forecast of the miracles we realize to-day. He saw him the lands, new, marvelous, in the Wonder West; and, lo! They spread from the passionate zone of sun to the pulseless zone of snow And midway there were the plains where we Walk in our pride to-day; ; And the valleys of verdure fair and free, That swept to the sky away. To the jasper rim, Far, vast and dim. Of the splendorful sky away. He saw it just as it came from God In the glad, fresh-riiorning years, Chicago 219 With never a grave in its soft, green sod, And never a trace of tears; And never a crime, with its trail of red Heart's blood on the blossoms there, And never a hiss of hate that sped To poison the sweet, pure air. But a soul was missing from cliff and scar, From the woodland and the wave; And the solitude — it was sadder far, Than is any grief or grave; For the voice of man was unknown — unknown As it trembled in tones of love And linked the land with the Glory-Throne Of God, in the Blue above. Unknown were the sacrifices high, Unselfish and true and sweet, That leadeth a man for his love to die In the dust at his loved one's feet. Unknown were all the impulses proud. Immaculate and sublime; The Honor that would prefer a shroud To a scepter that's bought with crime. Unknown the surrender that self hath made. The loyalty to a trust, That walks through the fierce flames unafraid For a cause that it knows is just. And hark! As the singer looks, his hand On his harp is laid, and he Smiting its strings, upsings a grand. Great song of a time to be: Hosanna! Lift up the bright palm branches higher, 220 Agnosticism For man marches forward through flood and through fire, Till there, on those beautiful prairies untrod, He shall feel on his forehead the glory of God. His hand shall transfigure that wilderness till A City of Splendor, with progress athrill, Like magic shall rise, and its radiant birth Be a tale that is uttered all over the earth. Its light shall sweep onward and out through the world, Till the last chain is broken and battle-flag furled. And Liberty rules in all realms, and the race Leaves the gutters and gloom for the glory and grace, And the serfs, as their equals, their sovereigns face. He hath passed to fields Elysian, He, the singer and the seer, But the City of his Vision — It is Here! AGNOSTIC ARGUMENTS All things are unreal, or probably all things are unreal; and that is agnosticism. — Huxley. AGNOSTICISM Agnostic: Let others bow at marble shrine Within the white cathedral's calm, And sing the penitential psalm, And quaff the red communion-wine; But never to your unseen King Will my proud spirit bend the knee 221 222 Agnosticism Until with mortal eyes I see An angel hovering on the wing, Or hear a melody divine Down-ringing through the purple skies, Or see the fronded palms that rise Where heaven's hills are said to shine. Priest : Vain child! Vain, boastful child! The day That comes to all will come to thee, And thou wilt quickly summon me For thy blind, struggling soul to pray. Agnostic: Your God has said his law shall be Fixed and inflexible — shall last Until the endless end is past, And yet you boldly hint to me That when my light of life shall burn • Low in the socket, by a strange And priestly power you may change Fulfillment of his laws eterne. Priest: Nay, nay! Not I. But if a soul Repents of folly, sin and crime, Though hovering on the verge of time, God may relent and make it whole. Agnostic: He may? So his decrees divine Are what he says they are not? He May alter them for you or me At a weak word of yours or mine? Priest: Thy quibble, sir, is crude and trite — Agnosticism 223 Agnostic: — But never has been answered yet; Pray clear it up, and you shall get A guinea for your church to-night. Priest: It was not meant that he should make His seeming inconsistency Consistent unto thee or me — Agnostic: — A most convenient cut to take! Priest : Rash one! O, rash, misguided one! Thy scoffing stings me for thy sake, Thou must thy peace with heaven make, Or be forevermore undone! Agnostic: O, Justice! Mercy! Love and Truth! You 'say I must believe or be Tormented through eternity! A very pretty plan, forsooth. A very pretty plan, for I Without the gift of faith was born; And hold in great, consummate scorn A thing that I believe a lie! My reason rises to proclaim Against your Bible. Shall I be Held guilty? Speak! Who gave to me The reason that rejects the same? Priest: Blind youth! Thy God gave unto thee Thy reason; but he likewise gave ^ His revelations, strong to save — 224 Agnosticism Agnostic : — And still your two and two make three. I read the revelations. Then I read the rocks, the stars, the laws Pertaining to result and cause, And found myself at sea again. The stars cried out to me that they Had been belied by Bible-lore; The rocks told that the world was hoar With age in your Adamic days; Result said had there been a cause To drown our world, the water still Would kiss the very highest hill By all the plain, eternal laws. I read the revelations. There Troop men, who, if they lived to-day Would in our convict quarters lay Or from a scaffold swing in air. Their hands with human blood were wet, They held their slaves in galling gyves. Each had a harem full of wives, Each had a host of harlots, yet Your great God blessed their words and ways And sounded their exceeding worth In thunder-tones through all the earth, And lengthy drew he out their days. I read the revelations. There I found that God foreknows the fate Of every soul — its last estate, Its rapture or its mad despair; Yet, knowing this, he breathes the fire Of life into our nostrils; he Agnosticism 225 Makes millions far too weak to flee The first demands of fierce desire; They 3neld, and as I sweep these flies From off my table does he sweep Into eternal hell, where leap Eternal flames, the great and wise And beautiful and strong and brave — And with this shining throng are hurled The lees and rinsings of the world — "A remnant only" will he save! Priest: O, son! O, mad. rebellious son! One fact thy sophistries will rend, We are free agents — Agnostic: — Christian friend, Thy logic is too loosel}^ spun. Your church shall have my house and land If you will harmonize for me Free-knowledge with free-agency, And I will join your Christian band. How can a man be free to take The right hand or the left, if God Foresaw the path that would be trod? Will he reverse it for our sake, And thereby demonstrate that he Did not foresee it, and thereby Prove his omniscience a lie? My Christian friend, it cannot be. Priest: Proud worm! thy blasphemy hath chilled My very blood; but I will pray 226 Agnosticism For thy lost soul from day to day That with the truth it may be thrilled. Agnostic: Yet, O! what would that heaven be If when I stood within its calms, Beneath its bright, immortal palms The awful knowledge came to me That I would never any more Meet with a lost, beloved one, Who was my life, my joy, my sun. My all upon this lower shore; That even to the endless end He writhed within your hell, while I Upon the hills of heaven high To him no comfort sweet could send? Priest: Blind youth, the shrieks of those who fall Will sound as music in your ears And happier make the holy spheres, When we shall understand it all. Agnostic: It will? O, black, accursed thought! Let blank annihilation be My fate before my soul shall see This miracle upon it wrought! Rejoice to hear the cries of one I held in rapture to my heart. Who was of me a very part Before my mortal race was run? Far rather would I rush into The very fangs of hell, and there His agonies unending share Than prove to friendship so untrue. Agfiosfiiisfu 227 Priest: Rejecting God and all that lies Beyond the grave-stone — Agnostic: — Hold, good sir! Although I am no worshiper Of things unseen within the skies, I nathless hold that there may be A Lord and Master of the spheres, Who guides the glory of the years And supervises you and me, I hold that we may live when earth From under us shall swing; but, lo. There is no jot of proof to show That we shall have a second birth. There never has a whisper sped From out the moonless mists that weep Forever o'er the clanging deep That crawleth outward with our dead; And as we grander knowledge gain The more distinctly we descry That nature gives your God the lie (Or vice versa) pat and plain. And thus I cast no horoscope Of what the future holds in store When all this hurly-burly's o'er; And, if my bosom holds a hope, It buds and blossoms from a strange And mystic feeling in my heart That mortal life is but a part Of a transcendent whole, whose range 228 Why? Shall reach through endless aeons where Each soul, though cankered o'er with crime, May scale the highest heights sublime From out the depths of blank despair. A dream, mayhap, for every man Is more or less a fool, you know, Is swayed by folly to and fro. And has been since the world began. WHY? O, where is my little Lily? — My lost love, where is she? Will never a god or never a man in the uni- verse answer me? In the blossom years of my sweet, slain youth, on a morning hour like this, I pressed on her red, upreaching lips a pas- sionate farewell kiss; Then I watched her ship go sailing afar out over the golden rim. While a lark soared up from its low, green nest with a glad thanksgiving hymn; And the scent of the oleander-flowers was sweet on the summer air. And a serpent slid through the tangled grass and hissed at the glory there! O, where is my little Lily? — My lost love, where is she? Is she dead in the Sunland far away that she answereth not to me? Why? 229 Does she sing on the high hill-crests of Christ, and lost in the rapture there, Has she forgotten the vows she spake on the beautiful cliffs of Clare, When a secret influence seemed to blend her soul and my soul in one, While we melted away in the ardent bliss of blossom and song and sun? Does she clang the fetters of hell to-day, and, lost in a last despair, H s she forgotten our bridal-kiss on the beau- tiful cliffs of Clare? Or does she sleep an unending sleep where the jasmine-flowers wave, And draw their color and flash and scent from her dead heart in the grave? Speak not, speak not of the bleeding God up- on that crudest tree! Speak not of His infinite love for man, of His infinite love for me I He has torn the heart from my bosom, He has trampled it under-feet, He has taken out of m\' life the life and the love that made it sweet; Then why should I thrill with a rapt delight when the tale of His love is told? Or why should I weep that the Roman spears were red with His blood of old? Why did He fashion me as He did — a being of flesh and fire. And dower me with the flower of love, and the flame of a sweet desire — And dower me with the flower of love to lay on a dead girl's breast, And the flame of a sweet desire to burn o'er the shrine where she lies at rest? IF I WERE GOD! Immortal should all of mortality be If I were God; Infinite all that is finite in thee, If I were God; The luminous lilies forever should shine, The golden grapes drip with a delicate wine, The red roses flame on the lush, trailing vine. If I were God. The song-birds should lilt in an evergreen bower, If I were God; And twitter and trill thro' an eveningless hour, If I were God; And never a leaf in the green forest gay Be borne from its bough, for no dark, wintry day, Nor black, thunder-tempests rise wild in our way, If I were God. Never a heart should be broken on earth, If I were God; Never a misery follow our mirth. If I were God; Never should longings be vile or vain, Never be pestilence, famine or chain. Never be poverty, farewells or pain. If I were God. The fires of friendship should faithfully burn, If I were God; Heart unto heart should unchangingly turn, Tf I were God; 230 Ruth 231 The senses should reel with the sweetest de- light, The rapturous passions of sin should be right, And law with the sunburst of liberty bright, If I were God. The dreams be fulfilled of the poets and sages, If I were God. And all the grand yearnings of infinite ages, If I were God; The march of Humanity, strong and sublime, Should ring with the footfalls of angels in rhyme, And Reason be regnant in every clime, If I were God. RUTH "Kenneth, hand my harp to me, I will set its spirit. free." Then she swept its strings, and I Saw a sweet song flash and fly — Flash from out the bannered room, Fly into the golden gloom, Far into the soundless sky, Till it came unto a star Where the lost who love us are; And I saw the glad, white gleam Of the asphodels, and there Was an angel bright and bare. Beautiful! The Christ may dream, But he cannot realize The fine splendor of the face. 232 Ruth Nor the glory of the eyes, Nor the strange, magnetic grace Of the* angel standing there Beautiful and bright and bare! Suddenly I saw him start With a swift and sad surprise Glowing in his guilty eyes. As the song fell on his heart, As it kissed his lips and sang — As it clasped his limbs and sang: The miracle-mornings come back to me As they came in the marvelous moons of old, With the same glad flash of the laughing sea. And the same green ferns in the laughing mold, With the same strange birds from the sunlands far, And the same blithe songs that we knew so well, With the same pure rays of our mystic star In the dewy heart of the lily-bell! Yes! All that I loved come back to me But I see them not through thy loving eyes: If their God were gone could the angels see The old same beauty in Paradise? O, Percy, my prince! if I only knew No seraph had stolen thy heart from me! But, ah I if the living are oft untrue. Who knows that the dead will truer be? Who knows? For, O! in that m3^stic star The women are fairer by far than I, And love with a passion intenser far Than the heart that died when it felt thee die. And, mayhap, I never will know the bliss That we knew in the blossomy Junes of old — If I Thought as You Think 233 Thy darling clasp and thy dirling kiss, And the whisperless joy of a joy untold! A cloud crawled over the charmed-star Where the beautiful lost who love us are; A cry rang down through the golden gloom, A silence fell in the bannered room, The fountain plashed as it plashed before. The nightingale sang in the myrtle tree, A soul flashed out of the open door. And the world was a dead, waste world to me! I reeled to the side of the singer there — Dead — dead in the splendor and flush of youth ! "O, Ruth!'" I cried to her," O, my Ruth! " And I fell at her feet and I kissed her hair. And I laid my lips on her bosom bare; For, ah! I had loved her in vain while she Had loved a lover in Paradise: He was false to her — she was false to me — And a god sits up in the golden skies! IF I THOUGHT AS YOU THINK Why do you cling unto life, my brothers? — why do you cling unto life? I say — Why do you weep when the yoke and fetters of flesh from a dear friend drop away? You know this world is a House of Sorrow, you know this world is a House of Sin, That pain is the Dead Sea fruit of pleasure, and will be ever as it hath been. Why, then, cling unto life, when over the blue, transpicuous rim afar ^34 * U ^ TJwught as Yon 'Iliink Shineth the walls of the Wondrous City where only blessings and blisses are? Why do you beat your hands with passion, and storm the sky with your plea and prayer, Whenever passes a stainless spirit forever out of your clasp and care? You say he goes to a glad, brave kingdom over a vague and voiceless sea, Where never a last good-bye is spoken and never and never a grave shall be, And where from rapture to perfect rapture with crown and lyre he soars and sings, The chrism of Christ upon his forehead, the glory of God upon his wings. If I thought as you think, my brothers, if' I believed in a better sphere Beyond the grass and the golden lilies that blossom over a dead man here, I would tingle with great, strange gladness whenever a friend of mine should die, I would robe him in festal raiment and I would kiss him a gay good-bye; And, O! when unto me comes the hour — the miracle-hour that comes to all — Never a cypress branch or blossom should throw its gloom on my gorgeous pall ; At my funeral should be dancing, and dainty feasting at festal board; Should be singing and jest and laughter and gurgle of wine in the glasses poured, And jubilant bells should rock the steeples when I was borne to the gay, bright grave. And rattle of drums and trill of trumpets blend in a glad thanksgiving stave! THE LAND OF FANCY-FREE Beyond the Hills Delectable — wherever they may be — And far beyond the moon-down, the sun- down and the mist, In sempiternal beauty lies the Land of Fancy- Free, And thither go my gladdest Thoughts to hold their happy tryst. But how they go and when they go I'm sure I cannot say, For quicker than the flicker of a star-fiash they are there, Where fields of golden lilies spread to creamy cliffs away, And foam of yellow sunbeams bubble in the roses rare; And there they dance and revel over flower- bells and ferns, And bump against the butterflies that flitter to and fro. And drink from honeysuckle cup the dew that in it burns, And help the blithe, capricious wind her bugle-horn to blow. They whistle with the mocking-bird a merry, madsome lay, And ride upon the thistle-down a waltzing up the air, And slide upon the gossamers that dangle from the spray, And tumble with the bumble-bees o'er brid^' blossoms fair. 235 236 The Land of Fancy- Free O, Land of Fancy-Free, O, Land of Fancy- Free! O, sunny, funny, joll}', folly Land of Fancy-Free! O, whether Fm a-waking or asleep, away from me My thoughts oft go a-trooping with their golden harps to thee! Hark! Suddenly they hear a lyre upringing to the sk}^, Another and another chime in the chorus strong, And, lo! the laureled singers of the centuries sweep by, And all the Land of Fancy-Free is quivering with song! And now my Thoughts with rapture unspeaka- ble uprise', And gaze upon the godlike brow of Homer as he sings, And search the searchless deeps divine of Shakespeare's shining eyes. And hear the tranceful tones of Foe — the Poet- king of kings! O, Land of Fancy-Free! O, Land of Fancy- Free! O, glorious, victorious, glad Land of Fancy-Free! O, all the grand and gifted who have been and who will be. Will sing and soar forever in the Land of Fancy-Free! ***** The poets pass; through soul and sense there leap electric thrills TJie r.and cf Fiincv Ft\ 237 Of rapt delight: my Thoughts forget the tears that I have wept, As softly o'er the sapphire rim and down the shining hills Troop all my glorious, sweet friends who in the grave have slept; And O, the highest height of heaven is less transplendent far Unto my Thoughts than is the fair, fresh Land of Fanc\'-Free, As through the sylvan valleys, over purple cliff and scar They walk in company with those who were the world to me. The wreaths of locust-blossoms bend above them as they pass, And down the rays of sunlight trickle bird- songs from the air, And daisies white and dew-drops bright are laughing in the grass, And all the ecstasies of earth are blent with heaven there! O, Land of Fancy-Freel O, Land of Fancy- Free! O, kissful, blissful, olden, golden Land of Fancy-Free! If in the timeless Time afar an After-life there be, O, may my soul its pinions plume and soar away to thee! If I must live forever, let me live where sense hath part With the spirit in the blessings that shall blossom for my heart; If I must live forever, let me live where I will know 238 The Land of Fancy- Free My friends — and know them as they were with- in these lands below — With all the fire and sweet desire that thrilled them here below, . Without one change that will estrange the earthly ties of old, Before the funeral-hymn was sung, the funeral- bell was tolled. If I must live forever, let me live where I will find The gifted men and women whom no priestly gyves could bind, For though their garments trailed in sin, their genius broke the spell That held the masses captive in the mediaeval hell, And gave to voiceless thoughts a tongue, to nerveless swords a flame. And led the legions on and up from servitude and shame. If I must live forever, O! let that forever be A jocund, joyful, jolly life in Land of Fancy-Free! No walled and gated, golden-plated Para- dise for me, Where all the pious feather-pates and Puritans will be; No, none of that for me! — no, none of that for me! But the blessings and caressings of the Land of Fancy-Free; Where we will hold communion high upon a common plane With old Voltaire and Ingersoll, with Shelley and Tom Paine; Questionings 239 Hear Byron's matchless timbrel ring against all sham and shames, And see the Heretics who died in the devour- ing flames; Keep step in time with Washington and grand» old Robert Lee, And all the Rebels of the world in land of Fancy-Free! O, Land of Fancy-Free! O, Land of Fancy- Free! Where never is a prison-house, nor chain, nor scaffold-tree! Where thought and deed and sweet desire forever shall be free. And every dream of soul and sense reality shall be! QUESTIONINGS I wonder when the spirit Leaves the flesh and bone that bound To the passions of our planet And the raptures of our race, If it sees its poor, lost bod}^ With the loving arms around it; If it quivers with the kisses On the pure and pallid face' I wonder if it listens To the praises of the pastor; Hears him say the dead has risen To the Sunland of the Soul, While it knows the secret sinnings 240 Questioning^s Of the thing that was its master Rise with flaming swords to drive it From the glory and the goal! I wonder if it watches Till it sees the dead forgotten — Sees new friends usurp the favor Of the hearts that were its own ; If it looks below the daisies Where the grave-worm is begotten — Where the eyeless skull is grinning At a jest to us unknown! I wonder if the truth is That the spirit can remember All its pains and all its passions, All its terrors and its tears, Stealing swiftly on its vivid Summer visions, as November Crashes down in storm and darkness On the splendor of the years I No! ah, no! Far better for us That we die, and die forever — That we slip into the shadows And the silences eterne, Than be hunted down and haunted, When the soul and sense dissever. With the memories that mock us In this lower life inferne! BASIL I bring you, Basil, a dewy rose From under the Mississippi skies, As sweet as the strange, sweet breath that blows O'er the glory-gardens of Paradise; "As red as the red, bright blood that crept To the face of Margery, flower-fair, When close to your hot, young heart she slept — Her bright hair tangled within your hair. "It bloomed from her bosom, and its hue Was sucked from her dead heart in the dust — A heart whose every throb was true, Till you, O, Basil! betrayed its trust!" * * * _ ijj * Heigh-ho! old fellow, the dead is dead — The past is past. There is no return, And what is a rose from a wormy bed, Though its leaves with the blood of a lover burn? A trifle — for human clay is clay, And men and women are nothing more Than creatures that crawl through a little day. And die when that little day is o'er. The beautiful bird, upsoaring there, Knows every passion a king can know — He has mourned his mate with a dumb de- spair, And yet we pity him not — 0,no! i6 241 242 Basil He tingles with love and lust, has known The hissing hate of a human heart, Would bravely die to defend his own — In all things proving our counterpart; And yet the ball from your rifle sings, And the poor thing drops to the daisied sod- A quiver sharp of its soft, white wings, And its innocent life goes back to God. Well! it was made for your bullet, just As my dead girl under the old rose-tree Was made for me from the fire and dust To die from the fire and dust of me! I hold that whatever is, is wrong; If there was no God in his glory-sphere, The sin that is sinewy and strong Would never revel and riot here. If there was no life there would be no lust, No daggers red with the blood of men; No treason unto a tender trust, Nor chain, nor scaffold, nor prison pen; Nor arrow speeding through amber skies, To cleave a caroling heart in twain. No tiger-beasts with their burning eyes, To suck the blood from a pulsing vein. But I was brought to this ball of mud, That swings in the interstellar skies. The flame of passion within my blood, And sweet temptations before mine eyes. My very strength was a spur to sin, And the God up there in the golden sky Had set the toils -if I tumbled in Who was to blame for it — he or I? The Neiv Sermon 243 But life will leave us, and we become A handful of dust in this flying star, Buried forever in darkness dumb, Just as the serpents that sting us are What will I know of my treason then? What does she know of my treason now? What does she know of that old day when I lightly laughed at my ring and vow? Nothing, old fellow, and when I die, And the grass of an hundred years is green, Nobody living will know that I Have been to-day or have ever been; And nobody dead will ever know That Margery fell through her trust in me — And the suns will go and the suns will glow, Though the dead girl blooms in the old rose- tree. Heigh-ho! old fellow, your scruples bring A smile to this sunny heart of mine; Fling down the rose! — 'Tis a trifling thing — And fill you a beaker brave with wine. We will drink to the things divine that be, To the diamond mornings we still enjoy. To the flowery sod and the foaming sea, And the lovely women who live, my boy! THE NEW SERMON O! long hath the white bridal-altar To thee been a glittering goal, 244 The New Sermon Though hobble its pledges and halter And harry and hamper the soul; O, higher thy aim, and O! higher Thy object in living should be, For dust is the wage of desire, And death its decree! Then spurn it, and turn from its pathway Of quicksands, though brilliant with blooms, At the last ye will find it a wrath-way Of curses, or hearses and tombs. Though the crimes that be crimson and carnal The babes on thy bosom forego, They will lie at the last in a charnel, All lampless and low. This life is a tragedy ever, But over its awfulest years There shineth a glory that never Goes out in a tempest of tears; There be that will nevermore perish The beautiful, good and the true, And these be the things ye should cherish. While sense ye subdue. O! rare will our lasting reward be, And reach o'er the rim of the tomb. And never by shame, nor by sword, be Despoiled, nor cut down in its bloom; While ye who are led by the lying, Sweet lures of the sense, will be left Over many a coffin-lid crying, "Bereaved and bereft!" PER CASTRA AD ASTRA "Per castra ad astra" — through camps to the stars — Ran the demagogue legend of old: It glowed on the banners borne forth to the wars By the soldiers believing and bold. When torn by the spears of the truculent foe, And trampled by hoof and by heel, They were taught that their glorified spirits would go Straightway to the Land of the Leal. Poor dupes of proud devils! They thought if they gave Of their blood to the glory of kings They would sweep forth, transfigured, from out of the grave With a flash of white, fluttering wings! "Per castra ad astra" — the lie has come down Through cycles and conquests unknown ; And still it stirs men to march forth for the crown, And with bayonets prop up the throne; And still it stirs many to barter the bloom And the song and the sunlight of time, For the hope of a blessing beyond the bleak tomb In a vague and invisible clime; To stifle the lyric that leaps from the heart, And to turn from the waltzers away, 243 246 Per Castra ad Astra Though thrilling and tingling to share in a part Of the merriment gladsome and gay; To shrink from a present and palpable bliss And many a blessing benign; To flee from the sweet, cunning lips that would • kiss, And the ripe, rosy sparkle of wine. Yes, they hiss down the flesh and its every delight. And they dream the denial will buy A lily-hung harp and a diadem bright In a possible sphere in the sky. 01 pity the Puritan friar and nun, Who crucify sense for the soul; Who tread upon thistles while under the sun. And quaff of the bitterest bowl. O! pity the martyrs, wherever they are, Who sacrifice happiness here; Who boast of the pleasures they mangle and mar In their wrath on the altars they rear; For the grave-worms are cruel, the grave-clods are chill, And a dream is uncertain at best; Then laugh and make merry, my lads, with a will. While the passions pulse high in the breast; Nor trade off the glorious things that you hold In the grip of your palms for a prize That may vanish forever away when the mold Sets its seal on your beautiful eyes. U7i fulfilled 247 Be good to yourselves, and be good unto all Who travel your way to the tomb, And reach out wherever your foot-prints may fall For all of the roses that bloom. Seek the glad, whitest glory of starlight and sun, And when it is lost in the night Let your hearts bubble over with frolic and fun Where the festival tires burn bright. Kiss the lips that may offer, and kiss them once more, And join in the shout and the song, And drink of the dew that the wine-presses pour, And jest as you journey along. "Per castra ad astra" may do for the clown, But never for you or for me, Till a dead man or woman from heaven wings down And points up a path we can see! UNFULFILLED Once in my far, fresh morning years I dreamed of a day to be. When out of the infinite inner soul a passion would come to me, As the dayspring comes to tlie dreary world, as the blossom to the tree. 248 Unfulfilled When the one sweet soul of all other souls would certainly find my own. When the one true heart of all other hearts would certainly find my own, And never again in all the world would I wan- der its ways alone. O! I was a boy in that bright, old time, that seems like a dream to-day; That seems like the dream of an alien life, in an alien land away; A land in a star, in an orbit far, where gods in their glory stay. Yes, I was a boy, and I thought our life was a beautiful life — ah, me! The gilding drops from our gods divine, and the terrible truth we see, That our world is a world of rot and dust — no matter how fair it be! A touch of time in my raven hair, yet never the one rare thrill Went out from my heart to another heart, and I know that it never will. For age is coming apace, alack! and, oh! it is calmly chill. Under a green magnolia tent, in the golden moon-rays, I Saw the ghost of myself, one nameless night, in a summer that has swept by; Saw the ghost of my old, old self, and I sank to the sod with a low, quick cry; For I stood before me just as I was in the sparkle and bloom of life, Before I had broken my battle sword in its cruel, uncanny strife, Unfulfilled 249 Flushed with a rosy, immortal hope — instinct with a radiant life! The vision vanished, but oh! the dull, mad pain that it left with me. As I thought of the thoughtless and thrillant boy — the boy who had once been me! He was dead with all of his hopes divine — the boy who had once been me! 'Twixt my life that is, and m}^ life that was, are the roses and frost of time. The gods dethroned that I worshiped once, and festered with serpent slime, The shrines despoiled where I brought my flowers in that old, old folly time. 'Twixt my life that is, and my life that was, is many a green, low grave That marks the place where I bade good bye to che beautiful and the brave: Ah! the whole wide universe centers at last in the grave — in the cruel grave! On through the empty and awful years I go where we all must go; Back of me blossom the fairest fields that my feet will ever know — Still here and yonder a star shines out, or a cluster of lilies blow. Still here and there is a hand outreached, and a kind voice calls to me. And a gleam of the olden glory falls like a flash on the sod and sea, And my heart goes out with a glad, sweet throb to thee and to friends like thee! WHAT WILL IT MATTER? O! Fate is cruel, and Fate is cold, And only giveth a grave at last; And what is glory, or love, or gold, When this brief hour is overpast? What doth it matter us how we live? What doth it matter us how we die! What can all of the future give When under the grassy clods we lie? What will it matter to you and me — Insensate there in immortal calm — Whether our funeral dirge shall be A reptile's hiss or a nation's psalm? A^hat will it matter us then, I say. Whether a kingly crown we wore, Whether we toiled from day to day, Or begged a pittance from door to door? What will it matter us then if we Kept our garments from things impure, Scattered our gold with a glad hand free, And walked in the strength of our worth secure; Or whether we wallowed in lies and lust, And washed our palms in the blood of men, And proved a traitor to every trust — What will it matter unto us then? Whether our friends were false or true, Whether our foes were strong or weak, What will it matter to me or you, After our candle is out? O, speak! 250 POEMS POLITICAL APOLOGIA In presenting the following poems to the public, in perma- nent form, the publisher is acting in direct disregard of the wishes of Mr. Kernan, who is anxious to let roses bloom where death-bolts fell in years of yore; but it would be utterly im- possible to comply with his wishes, and at the same time give a fully rounded conception of his character. The bitter par- tisan hatred that was unleashed against him while in the North, because of his pronounced Southern sentiment, became intensified when he removed to the South, and in the frenzy of an abnormally sensitive nature, he wrote what follows. The Mr. Kernan of today insists that the hates conceived of slavery are deader than the dead hatreds of Hannibal and his hosts. He holds that we have only a common country now, in which partisan strife is only necessary to keep the atmos- phere pure, clear and healthful. SOUTHLAND I O, Southland! loveliest land beneath the bright, blue-bending skies! O, land most passionate this side the gates of Paradise! A sense of gladness unconfined was mine when first I set My foot upon thy flowery sod: it lingers with me yet. I love thy immemorial hills by human kind untrod ; The rose-lights of their raptured heights touched by the kiss of God; The crash and wirble jubilant of cataracts that leap And fiash and shimmer through the vines that trail from steep to steep. I love thy valley-lands: they hold a beauty never sung, As sweet, as pure, as undefiled as when the world was young. As then the ripe, wild roses trail their scarlet mists of bloom. And sparkle sun-lit lily-bells with amber hearts illume; As then the rivers roil and surge, — proud, pas- sionate and free, Through sweeps of glad savanna-lands to kiss the golden sea. I love thy wild and waving woods where in the glooms of green The miracle magnolia-flowers like fallen moons are seen, 253 254 Southland Where mock-birds twitter, pipe and trill through long, resplendent days, Till leaf and flower seem to dance in rhythm with their lays! Cradle of Jefferson, Calhoun, and Davis — knight- liest one! Whose name, whose high, white name, will shine and circle with the sun Until humanity no more its wimortelles will twine, Nor offer up bright votive blood at Freedom's altar-shrine! O, land of roses and romance! of sunshine and of song! The Grand All-Hail Hereafter will avenge thy ruth and wrong; We can hear its portents thundering and see its flaming sign As pearls into a purer light a day that is divine. Down, faint hearts! down, false souls! at least this hour is not for thee. Nor this the place for recreants to crook the ready knee. Avaunt! nor thus insult our Faith, our Memo- ries, our Dead: Remember heroes trod the spot whereon this night we tread! Comrades! on these hills historic where up- flamed the battle-fire, Where upclashed keen swords to heaven in the dead and ruined years, A fierce, remorseless canticle rings leaping from my lyre, A strain that echoes hate with hate, and an- swers sneers with sneers. Southland 255 III Out yonder sleep our sainted dead, — they died for you and me, Out yonder, underneath the bright crown- jewels of the sky: They fought because they loved our land; they fell to make us free; They hold in heaven this night the truths divine that never die. IV The same grand Truths that glorified our war- fiag when unfurled They bore it on from height to height against our ancient foe. What time their valor vivified, throughout the blue-ringed world, Afresh the awful host of men by tyrants tram- pled low — The Truths our Sires with b.„>ie-fires baptized in years of yore, When they rebelled against the Wrong high- throned beyond the sea, When they with bare, uplifted blades upon their altars swore. By Father, Son and Holy Ghost this goodly land to free. VI That oath was kept, and Liberty walked smil- ing through our land Sun-crowned, and blossoms fair upflowered where'er her footsteps fell; 256 Southland Our peoplehood marched forward by a common feeling clanned To the sweet, world-shaking music of the Independence Bell. VII But a doom runs through the ages; it was never known to fail, In all the long-drawn cycles since our uni- verse began, That plotters shall conspire, and with brand and ball assail The liberties that beautify and bless their fellow-man. VIII In peril were our liberties — clanged high the tocsin peal — The star and flower of Chivalry uprose to face the foe — To face a countless foe that came to slaughter and to steal. And with the battle-torch to lay our dear, old roof-trees low. IX Our warriors were fired by all the Lord holds leal, By all that makes life beautiful, by all that makes men blessed, By that duty the divinest, to uphold the com- mon weal, And sacrifice the heart's red blood for broth- erhood oppressed. In the white, shining track of Lee — the Rupert of his race — Sonthland 257 They followed with unflagging feet, prepared to dree and die, Through crash of shells, and storms of flame that smote them in the face, While high their glorious Rebel yell rang grandly up the sky: XI While high through blinding cannon smoke the Southern Cross upflung Its blazing folds, more terrible than battle- flag of Thor — While roared red-throated rifles, and the sabers slashed and swung To the wild, magnetic music of the thunder- drums of War. XII But there befell a tristful day: the Southern Cross went down Before the Hessian hirelings from every shore and sea, — The Hessian hirelings who iight for any flag or crown. And trample in the very dust the White Rose of the Free. XIII Then came our cruel Iliad of wraths and wrongs; we saw Our peoplehood deflowered of their birth- rights one by one. What time the vile victor made his Christless creed our law, And ruled our ruined Motherland with help of gyve and gun. 258 Southland XIV O, Stonewall, by the clear calm streams of Paradise this night! O, Barksdale, falling where the liood of con- flict reddest rolled! O, Morgan, leading meteor-like thy cavalry in fight! O, Southern slain, or high or low, within the Gates of Gold! — No\> that our rights are repossessed, now that the foe has fled Beyond our borders, with the curse of crime upon his name — Answer! Shall we still bend the knee, and shall we bow the head Unto his crimeful code, and thus forever seal our shame? And from the Citadels of Christ — serene,- and fair, and bright, Their souls, communing with our souls, thus speak to us this night: By our Cause all grand and glorious, — Cause that yet will be victorious, — By our banner, consecrated with the chrism of blood and tears, - Never! — Let the traitor perish Who would counsel ye to cherish The black heresies we battled through the long and lurid years. It is not for ye to falter. It is not for ye to palter, In this Crisis — for thy mission is the mightiest of time: Southland 259 It is thine to lead a legion Out of every realm and region In the glorious march sunward'to' the Golden Heights sublime. Rings the trump! — the drum is beating — No retracting! — no retreating! — Ye must tread the straight, white pathway that thy pure, proud mart3Ts trod, — Teaching thus unto the foeman. That ye truckle unto no man, That th}^ birthland knows no master, save the one Great Master — God! Up! and from thy statutes sever, With a firm, swift hand forever, All the laws antagonistic to thine august lav/s of old! Strike for State-Rights! this thy mission, Till it finds a full fruition — Let the blessing of the ballot by Caucasians be controlled. Up! rebuild thy ruined altars That were shattered by assaulters, And beside them swear thy children the same oath their fathers swore. Thus the olden, golden glory, Flashing through and through our story. Like the splendor of a sunburst will illume Southland once more. NO COMPROMISE Shall we turn traitors, and forgive the Yankee hoodlum-horde Who tramped through sunny Southland with the fagot and the sword? No, never, by the God on high! until avenged shall be Five hundred thousand Guards in Gray, who fell to make us free/ Deep down within the heart of each white master of the South, Though seldom written with the pen, or told by word of mouth. There burns a purpose fierce and high, that yet will do and dare, And when that coming hour chimes, let Yan- kee-land beware. When foreigners invade her soil, our freedom we'll proclaim, And smite her down into the depths of suffer- ing and shame; Her fields shall be made desolate, her vengeful sons shall die: Her cities, fired by our hands, paint hell upon the sk}^ We bide our time, and He who waits in the translucent spheres Will lead us to a sweet revenge in the on-thun- dering years; The Stars and Bars will flash again within the Southern sky. And then it shall be tooth for tooth — it shall be eye for eye! 260 THE SOUTHERN SLAIN In their shrouds — the Stars and Bars — Sleep to-night the Southern Slain, Free from Midgard's mocking wars, Fleeting joy and bitter pain. Burning suns and languid moons In their glory come and go — Blooms the beauty of the Junes, Sifts the sad December snow; But beneath the Southern Cross Still the wan, waste years wear by. Bringing neither love nor loss^, Bridal-kiss nor burial cry — Strewing only on each shrine Ghost of lily, wraith of palm, Where our martyrs — thine and mine — Sleep in everlasting calm. Mailed hand and crowned head Rule their wrecked and ruined land: Masters are the slaves — instead Slaves the masters of her strand, And the Hun-like victors hold Orgies in her antique halls — Brims the wine in cups of gold: Full the festal-music falls — Rounds the dance and rings the dice In the silver lamp-light sheen, While the victims of their vice, Houseless, in her streets are seen. In her capitols she hears Vassal-voices where, sublime, Thrilled the tones of Cavaliers In the old, historic time. 261 362 The Southern Shin But, save here and there, her sons Royal characters retain, As when guardians of her guns On the blood-red battle-plain. Still, in the sepulchral track Which their fainting footsteps trod, Some have faithlessly turned back On their Goal and on their God; Trailed the dear flag in the dust, Closer bound each brother's chain, Call it "Treason," now, the Trust Left them by the Southern Slain. But the glory and the gold Flung them by their foes shall be Ashes, like the fable told Of the Apples of the Sea; And their traitor-hearts shall turn Each into an adder's nest, Till our planet pale shall spurn Them the rapture of its rest. But beyond the Bifrost-pass Are the Southern Slain to-night. In Valhalla's Courts of Glass, By palm-bordered waves of light, Free from clash of clanging spears, Frost and fire of changing time, Where the Valkyr's love endears Odin's perfect, perfect clime; And their mausoleums tell Through their marble lips with pride, How our heroes fought and fell; How our heroes dreed and died; How they marched to martyr-graves Through funereal forests old, By the sweep of isle-starred waves. Over mountain, fen and wold; How they spread their silent camps We Never IVi// Submit to Kings 263 In the murky twilight mist, Where distilled the dews and damps, Where the hidden vipers hissed, Where the Spanish-mosses swayed In the spectral, moon-lit air, Till a shroud their shadows made For each fated sleeper there; How like pillared cloud by day, And like columned fire by night, Still her banner showed the way, Leading on from height to height, Till the crisis came, and then Was that flag of freedom furled. And the throned and sceptered men, Told a conquest to the world! But, like Hannibal of old, Every Southern youth will swear At her altars hate untold For the foes who fester there ; And that oath will sound our shame Over field and over flood, Till it flower into flame- Till it blossom into blood! WE NEVER WILL SUBMIT TO KINGS Shall tan-yard tippler from the West Assume the crown that Caesar wore, And place a new, imperial crest Upon the flag our fathers bore? Speak! shall he wrest from you and me The liberty that is our boast? Nay! nay!— By all the Powers that be— 264 IV^ Never Will Subrnit to Kifigs By Father, Son and Holy Ghost, By the pure, patriot blood that streamed In '76 on plains and heights, By the proud, patriot swords that gleamed In all our grand, triumphant fights. We swear to keep our powder dry, Our rifles close at hand, until He, in his wickedness, defy The mandate of the public will, When this shall be our battle-cry: "KILL!" Aye, kill the tyrant, and thus save Full many a life, full many a home, — Just as the Brutus, high and brave. In the old, matchless days of Rome, Killed Caesar in his triumph-hour, To wrest the sod from slavery, And bade the bright, consummate flower Of Freedom bloom from sea to sea! Then let the Bloody Boor take heed. Nor trifle with forbidden things, For we, the People, have decreed We never will submit to kings. We swear to keep our powder dry. Our rifles close at hand, until He in his wickedness defy The mandate of the public will, When this shall be our battle-cry: "KILL!" OUR CAUSE "Hosanna! Hosanna!" we said, "For the wealth of fruit and flowers, For the beautiful presence of Peace That walks this inheritance wide! The dream of the Plato dead Has come unto us and to ours. And here is the sweet surcease And the white millennial tide! " But a terrible doom leaps forth From the firm, invisible mouth, And, lo! for the earth is shaken, And horror is everywhere; The Vandals rush from the North, The Chivalry rise in the South, And the sounds of their strife awaken The blue abysses of air. One army showeth in splendor. Over many a moving gun, A blazing banner where beameth This prophec}' unto man: The South luill never si/j-render The Freedo7n the Fathers won — And ever this signal streameth All vividly in their van. And what was the oath the others Sware slowly with bated breath. Under the skies blue-bending — What was the oath they swore? Death to their bold, bright brothers. Ruin and shame and death, 265 266 Our Cause And a whisperless hate unending Till all of the years be o'er. We know how the oath was kept — With saber and chain and brand; How it fires the felon-blood In the Puritan land away; They have not slumbered or slept, But steadily, hand-in-hand, Through fire and yet through flood They have hounded us day by day. if. if. :)f. :^^ -^ Could the lips of our pale dead part, And things all righteous reveal, This is the gospel of gold Their tongues would utter to-day: Let the proud, pure Cavalier heart Its vow and its vengeance seal — Let a victory yet be told For the fallen Guards in Gray;— For the old Confederate bands Who follow the waving plume, And the worn, gray uniform Of their Captain everywhere, And who fell at length on the sands Of the Wilderness when the doom Of the last wild battle-storm Had smitten them with despair; — For the young Confederate braves Who went in their manl}' might From the moss-draped manors old On the green hillsides away And who fell by the far-off waves Where the blue seas blossoni in white, Over glittering sands of gold, In the heart of a doomful day. An Anonyvioiis Assai/a?if 267 ***** Go, then, to their burial-places, When the crimson and cream)' blooms Are thridding the greenest grasses, Are twining the dim, old stones, And think of their proud, still faces, In the depths of the desolate tombs, And say over them thy masses. And vent over them th}' moans. And swear by the blood of thy brothers Who fell on the battle-plain — Swear by their graves all glorious. By the prayers thy sisters prayed, Swear by the tears of thy mothers, By our passion and our pain. Forever, until victorious, " For our Cause to stand arrayed. AN ANONYMOUS ASSAILANT I'd rather be the sneak that scrawls His blackguard jingle on the walls. Than skulk behind a stolen name. And then, with dastard pen, defame, In venomous and vulgar song, A man who never did me wrong. His the assassin's craven heart Who thus directs the secret dart; No earthly sin that you could name Would flush his brow with honest shame; No earthly vice he would not share If he could find a pleasure there; 268 Fecks)iiffia7i Politician No crime that hell itself could bring Would prove repugnant to this THING. Of all created brutes, I know None half so beasth' and so low; And apt that such a one should write Weak rhodomontade to incite The populace against my name, Because my thoughts I dare proclaim. May all my foes forever be Such loathsome leper- hounds as he; For me one service can they do — But ONE — if to their natures true — That service is to hate me well, With all the burning hate of hell. PECKSNIFFIAN POLITICIAN 1880 Stands he there upon the forum, and with thunder-tongue he cries. "Will you vote for this hell leper? will you thus forget his lies — Lies his festered lips have sworn to by our Father in the skies? "Will you thus forgive, O, people! one you trusted, and whose trust He was bribed into betraying? Will you thus forgive his lust For the lucre that hath led him to uphold a thing unjust?" Pecksnifflan Politician 269 And the rabble roars in answer, "No! No! No!" in accents high, "Down to dust with this hell-spider! He hath sworn unto a lie; And we want no man to serve us whose sup- port a bribe can buy." 1881 Shines the sun upon the White House on In- auguration morn; Up the stairs with step majestic stalks the man they called foresworn, And whose honesty, they howled, had by money been o'erborne. And he takes the oath of office. But a mad- man sends a ball Hissing through his very vitals. Then unto his princely pall, With a wreath of rose and lily comes his foe- man first of all. "O, my people!" speaks this foeman through his crocodilean tears, "Our beloved Chief hath fallen; he who leaves no living peers; He whose name will ring forever down the thunder-march of years! "He was spotless: search his record — and its white, resplendent leaf Is unsullied by an error, O^ my brave and blameless Chief! " Then upspeaks a clear truth-teller, and in language bold and brief. Says: "Hold! Hold! I heard vcr, howl just one little year ago, 270 Pccksniffian Politician That this dead man was a liar, and that you could prove it so; Was a thief, and you could prove it; now, sir, I would like to know "Whether in your secret bosom you believe in what you say; Were you lying then, or are you lying in your heart to -day?'' But the hypocrite goes slinking from his ques- tioner away. O, this world! this world! It holdeth hordes of men who mete to you Never once the even measure that is honestly your due. And they trample on and over all who dare indeed be true. They will hound you down and hiss you with a tiger-hate, but lo! Scale unto a height of splendor that they may not hope to know, And thenceforth they are your spaniels — abject, groveling and low. 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