PS 3509 .152 F7 1907 Copy 1 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 0Q003EaflH5b 4^ <*v °o V ->♦ > •*3»*' ^^ *^fi^r "W* ; »°-nc. ^.jUto. "j>e,^ v • ,«<^ ;2syg^; ip^. u j>c,"> L* 6 " 9 * 8^*. V ^** f% Copyright, 1907, by Louis M. Elshemus FRAGMENTS AND FLASHES OF THOUGHT ALSO LOST LOVE AND POEMS AND BALLADS r//s *Sj louts / By Louis M. Elshemus Author ol " The Poet," "About Girls," " Mammon/^etc., etc. Born 1864 o ^ | ^oiTra - JUIT ~X.uSic. | - . o o^ I vhrvfftmmensmss.l o Eastman Lewis 304 East Twenty-third Street New York LIBRARY of CONGRE! Two Copies Recetvea NOV 13 (90? Copyright Entry CLASSY XXc f/o, copy 8, •-?S* /?* (EontetttB Fragments GE Praisings ; • • • J 2 A Hymn | [-..- 49 To the Moon : 54 Wild Moments • • • 57 The Poet , • • 6i Sketch of a Warm Morn ,.,,..••... 62 Young Antoinette 65 Raphael , • • 68 At Bellingona v 69 Cadiz, Spain 7° How Ideas Come to Us 7° Contentment 73 A Note 73 Impromptu 73 Barren Art 74 Impromptu 74 A Xote of September 74 Women 75 A Tear 75 Lines 76 Flashes 76 A Mood 77 A Dream 77 Impromptu 7$ Heard in a Dream 79 Impromptu * 80 Strange 80 The Dreamer 80 Quatrain 81 Lines 81 At Yuma 82 PAGE A Lilt 82 A Lull in Song 83 To Shelley 84 Jealousy 85 Quatrain 85 Rattle Snakes 86 A Note 85 Morning Feeling 86 Peace 86 Perfection 87 Alvarados Vale 87 At Arrow Head, Hot Springs 87 Agnosticism 88 Flirtation 88 Cans't Thou Tell Me? 89 Dry River Beds 89 At Morn 90 The Humming Bird 90 The Poison Oak 90 The Tide 91 A Desert-Hill 91 Zeilen 91 Questions 92 Lignes 92 Impromptu 93 Notes 94 The Poet 94 Song 95 Lines 96 Preposterous 96 Impromptu 96 In Africa — Northern 97 Song 97 R-r-r-revenge 97 While Walking 98 Night Wail Fantasy 98 Jottings 103 An Meine Liebste 104 Stray Notes 105 PAGE Impromptu 106 L'Art 107 At Irvington 107 Resignation 108 Impromptu 109 Query 109 Novels and Poetry no A Fancy no To Ella in To a Girl in Cars in A Thought 112 A Lilt 112 Beauty 113 Impromptu 113 Raffaelle 113 Lines 1 14 Impromptu 114 The City's Boon 116 Query 117 Rime 119 Lines 119 The Woodlands ". 1 19 Lines 120 The Ocean 121 Recollection 121 Emy 122 Written in Railroad Coupe 123 The Waterfall 124 At Geneva Lake, Suisse 127 The Mind 128 A Fragment 129 Life 130 Query 131 Ode to Evening 132 Lyrics 133 To Shelley 134 Reverie 134 Tuberose Richness 135 Man 135 PAGE Contentment 136 Dieux 136 Song 137 Ballad^ 138 Dej ection 139 Winter Night 140 Innocense 140 Again Innocense 141 To a violinist 141 Sweetness : 142 A Curse 142 Impromptu 143 At Night 144 A Mood 144 Woman 145 Impromptu 145 Dirge 146 Impromptu 147 Flashes of Thought 147 Lines , 148 In the Adirondacks : The Brook 149 Impromptu 150 A Little Child 151 Einsamkeit 152 Impromptu 153 A Child 153 When the Air Grows Colder 154 Lines 155 Notes 156 A Simile 158 Poetry's Value 158 Solitude 159 To Womankind 159 Du Nacht 160 My Moods 160 A Lilt 161 Music 161 A Flash 161 Strange 161 PAGE A Change 162 A Wish 162 Foundation 163 Evolution 164 Consoling Thee 165 Fire Writing 166 A Mother's Eye 167 Sun Picture 168 Impromptu . . • 169 A Quandary 170 March Wind 171 O Night 173 Proem 176 Song 176 Interlude 177 Love 178 To My Love 179 Perambulation 179 Ocean Orizons 180 Interlude 181 A Cockle 182 Wool Gatherings 183 A Song 204 Does Love Exist ? 206 A Song 207 Song 209 Mockery 210 Love's Lute Lies with a Rift 211 Longing 216 The Bell Buoy 217 Song — Melancholy 218 To John Field 220 Loneliness 221 PAGE A Momentary Thought 222 A Thought 223 Rays of Moonlight 224 Evening 225 Disappointment 227 Elegy on a Seemingly Lost Friendship 228 Wrong 239 Across the Street .- . . . 240 Asmanshauser 241 Seyssel-Wine 242 The Lover's Morning Hymn 243 Philip J. Bailey's "Festus" 244 Strange, Strange 245 On Reading Milton's "Comus" 247 To Milton's Italian Sonnets ...-.< 249 Milton 250 Nocturne 251 A Sign of Rain 253 Gold 253 A Walk 254 Mood 256 Life ! 257 Isis 261 The Epic of the Thunder 262 Where Is Libertv ? 264 No One Thought God's Work to Praise 265 A Fantasy 270 Sonnet 279 Scents : 280 To a Young Poet 281 Inspiration 281 Baby Louise 283 What the Mirror Tells Me 285 A Flash 286 PAGE Ballad of Leo's Self-Death 287 A Ballad 296 Rough Riders of the World 300 The Woes of Greatness 304 To the First Fire-Fly 315 The City in the Sea 317 War Pamt 319 To a Sweet Maiden's Eyes 322 Lyric 3 22 Love 323 To an Estudiante 325 Song 327 Otto Hegner 328 Music 329 "Carmen" 330 The Bliss of Dreams 331 Ballad 334 Is the Godley Among Mankind ? 337 Sonnet 339 Music 340 Greatness 346 To the Scientists 347 Extasy 348 A Hymn * 349 A Fragment 350 Vigilance 355 Who Understands Greatness ? 356 Polycrates Influenced by Anacreon 357 Slander 359 Ditty 360 Sonnet 361 Music Is Vaporous 362 Wooing a Virgin 363 To a Sweet Maiden's Eyes 364 Fancy's Conception of Genius 364 My Epitaph 365 The Watersnake Speaks 366 Faded Flowers 367 Forgetfulness 373 PAGE Memories 374 Question 375 During a Rain-storm 377 Short Recollection of My Home: Laurel Hill.. 37% In Nature Dwells Contentment 382 Whip-poor-will 3^4 In Reply to : "The Desire of Nations" 386 Lilian's Eyes 39 1 Une Melodie 393 Song 394 Recollection 395 Reverie 390 New York 397 Sadness 398 In California 402 Stillness 403 While Gazing at the Cloudy Moon 404 Science — Fair Heritage to Man ! 405 Spirit Is Indestructible 407 An Elegie 408 Chanson • • • • 4 J 6 The Goddess of Beauty 417 To My Hannah ! 418 How Love Doth Change the Mind 419 The Mountain Swallow 422 A Mystery 422 The Brooklet's Elegy 425 After Visiting F. S. Saltus's Monumental Grave. 432 The Dreary Rain 433 Triumph 434 The Nook 436-467 To a Virgin 468-499 The Cruelty of Money 499 Marriages 501 Some Minds 503 The Snow , 504 Autumn 5°7 Fragments and Flashes of Thought 12 Fragments PRAISINGS . (1884) LUCINDA. O, come, my maid, so true and dutiful — Come, dress my streaming locks that sparkle and seem As flax, new-laved in streams of yellow waves Where scents of lemons fringe the purl-specked shore — And pomegranates toss their blood-red sheen Upon the gold of oranges. — Come, tie Those willful, flawing braids with sheathed bast Yet bearing in it whispers of a playful wind That wearied the long solstice days where Chloe Mused scenes of poet's long forlorned song — Come string the looser curls with tendrils thin And mind the frontlets — they must seem delude. Insensate breathings — for the fillets fair Must so inweave the shadowier golden locks To shed upon them a soft lustre — that Irradiates beams of warm sapphire — oh, Maid, The amber moon is softest sheened when blue. Flashes of Thought 13 Of sunset-gazing sky yet thrills the vales Of vines, and oleasters and piments. Lo ! — Sweet, my maid, 'tis bathing in retreat Sheltered by shadows cool of sycamores — Such oft we saw round pools nigh Damiette — In Egypt — sacred land of Pharaoh — And Moses ! Here in silentest seclusion — Where descants purl as murmurs of the fount, And naught annoys — where rustlings of the leaves Seem as banterings of the fays neat-nestled there — The breezes crack the blooms and volatile The odors ooze — transparadising all. Maid! bathing here, as we have bathed — oh, joy! A goddess never felt the balmy air. More sweetly ! — come — slow-lace my shoon — and while In levitine labor lost, a song may speed Thy willingness to assist a woman — like To thee — but queenly standing all before Thy low-bent beauty-form. In moment seems A thought — a vagary blown as the fume Waylaying winter's icy speed — and shedding Sweet dust into those snowy eyes. Now lace My silken shoon, that clasp my ankle, tender Rosed — as the bell-flower of the Judas-tree. 14 Frag m e n t s MAID. Thy song will quiet the loud winds — the birds Will perch upon the tender twigs and listen, But the low murmur of the fountain sheer Will modulate to thy dear voice — the breeze Will waken, and cradle in its nacre-beds Thy mellifluent-song — and all will wind Their sweetened paths within the shell of my Flushed ear! O, sing, o Lady sing! I listen. IvUCINDA. 'Neath nard, 'neath vervain and 'neath Cassia The birds live boon, and live true and chaste ; 'Neath lofty jewel-skies, the lovely Serve kings — the tenderer must waste. Birds, swooning in that fragrance Have none to rule their pleasures — Eyes, seeking for a servant — Have all to plenish treasures ! Would Io's bird bid Ibis, orning Its many eyes with oriental sheen — As sweet Arbella asks for young Sofia — To drape her waist w T ith damaskeen ! It glories in its splendours More beauteous no other feather — To hide God's fairest creature — Two virgins plague together. Flashes of Thought 15 MAID. Mistress, the words fast welling in your soul Have crowned the melody with deathless thoughts While kneeling all before thee, as thy dearest maid The more I willing am to render service true To thee ! For, all my heart may say, is that Thou art the perfect — while I live to do For thy perfection, which, without me, would Have faded as the incomparable flower-bloom Withers, if the all-tending tears of nature Moist not the herb, that help the strength and growth By shunning wiltering and decay. And so, Mistress, are work and labor set for each to do- Handmaid and mistress, so the willing worker, And high-inspired, whom none may equal. And nature, ever serviceable to the Word Of God ! ... So think I, Mistress, therefore deem Thyself not proud for having me — nor have A pity for me in thy heart — but know Thy loftiness encourages a lowlier maid To be thy servant — she w,hose hands are deft For work, well loves to perform what those with soul 16 Fragments & And pensive thought, may find annoying them— Dear Mistress, and the moon rides leisurely Around our sphere, yet ministering to wants Of earth — and earth without the moon would waste. LUCINDA. And yet the weeds have fragrance and may bloom — With petals showy and of fairest hue — as thou My own! mayst give the sweetest praise to songs Of lofty minds — mayst speak to those above Thee, as thou wert their counsellor. I know Of nasty herbs to burst their flowerets With unpretentuous splendours — so out-bloom Some garden-plants, that droop their scentless weights Before the goldiest pagods ! O, fair Maid The golden spangles, serpenting a vermeil wrist — Are wroth not when they clasp the veins Of those that stoop and aid a mortal clay To breathe this oddest life — the value set Upon the jewels is the prize — not the flesh And soul, that should be asked for — vain, O vain Our mortal charms! forfeits for immortal ones ! Flashes of Thought 17 Hast laced my shoon! O, take this kiss, im- print Upon a girly brow, whose musing chooses The tender flowers, strewn upon the fields Of maidenhood! Ah! maidenhood! O, gaze A-through yon glittering avenue of aloes — And see thy path neat-shaded — flecked with gold— So thy maid-days dream on, unconscious — deep Within the dark recesses, where coy freshness Ycleped by Angels, Virtue, giddy springs ! O, maidenhood ! MAID. Thy voice the inner sighings Of reeds that fringe the azure Nile — thy gaze Streams as the lovely cloud, at gloaming, when The Ibis-trains, string coral-like, with bend And wave, to the red West — where the dead sea Its headlands lone above the sunset looms — What brows of luxuriant mountain — or of flowered hill — With Isabel curls cowled — and fillets flared With lurid fire — resemble thine — as thou That melodious memory hast uttered low. O, if such moves thy heart — and heaves thy breast With past-emotion sad — how tearful then the tales 18 Fragments To weave them, recollections urgent strive To inspire — how with deepest feeling clad Thy plaints and disappointments dun— how brimmed With rapturous woe thy life — O, tell, fond Mistress, O, tell, what vision rash upreared within — To falter thy strong tongue, as drooping lily — To seem thyself depressed — with languishment, Glow-winding round thy beauteous sinuous form ! IvUCINDA. And oft' I heard the doe its wooing fail — When through the leaves a murmur fell, liquid, That purled as though a long-remembered sound Of lost entrancement ! Within the glare of even O, oft' the luridness of phantom-thought Stole far without — and seemed an endless chain Of diaphanous dreams — propinquant musing — In farthest depth soft-evanescent ! So Fair Maid, my voice and gaze may alter tone When uttering sounds in dream of maiden- hood, And with my sandals tied — O follow me To yon cool fountain, at whose shadowed brink The savoury grasses sleep and fatten lush — Flashes of Thought 19 There will the trickle of drops — the plashes on pool, Canorously invite my dreams to them — Commingling — as rapt strains from lyre and lute. O, maidenhood ! When morn within her case- ment Prepares with spangle and with argent-comb Her auburn locks, to wave around her face Flushed as the poppy, fire of an Autumn-field — Glowing as rippled bay — where maples eru- besce And beeches pink with vividness as youth — When morn her rosy vestments shakes and shows Her blooming, bending limbs, there seems withround Our eye-encompassed sphere sweet sound — As dulcet as a virginal, whom Agnes Mellifluently sways to choral lays — There singeth Nature sweeter than at morn — Or when the midnight husheth at her song — When through the moonbeams waver anthems low — O, Nature is in her sweet maidenhood — There glow the airs — and birds in freshness pipe Whose carols sweet out-tune those rhapsodies 20 Fragments Of did — when by the meadows flowered and fat- Young fauns and satyrs oaten-flutes swift blowed — And reeds fast coaxed their shrilly fifing flow While round the slender olives their sweet nymphs Such dances wound, to glow their beaming eyes And make their ivied tresses whirl so wild ! O, Nature then is maiden-innocent ! And the airs are a symphony of joy — Whose strains are garlanded with gladness jovial — And melodious songs are heart-beats of that Sylph Soft Aganippe — coolness of Helicon. — 'Tis such, my lovely maid, alacrity Of days and long years . when our mind is musing Without the consciousness of self, that effects Our cogitation lone — 'tis such the pureness Of blood and soul — when passion doth not pol- lute— Nor when the doubt doth creep withround our brow ! MAID. O, Mistress — as the Druidess upon Some Lesbian cliff thou starest — or as where Flashes of Thought 21 Below the wolds of fir-trees — far away. A Siva-guarder widens her lashes black — To spell a Cobra with Phrenetic gaze — Magician-wise; . . . And now thy tears — blue dew Of some soft-skied morn of thought — spring up— And bead thy bright'ning cheek — as bells of dawn Slow-move adown the lit-up zenith ; say ! O, say ! dispell thy musing mood — relate As through the even Aeol flows — and sings To Philomel-evangel, gladdest known And ever heard — relate what so thy woe Aroused to make thine eyes seem dreamy springs Where deepest sentiment lies lone and sad. kUCINDA. Dispelled ! Those thoughts of mine that heave my woman's bosom — And bring up tears, when thinking on the hours Of frolick-maidenhood ! As Morn to Day So Maid to Woman — O, the change ; the fresh Green, vivid scene — the glow of heat and mood ! 22 Fragments Those tender, frisksome hedge-spent hours — those full And thoughtful times of expectancies and woes ! Yet as the moon is languid with the sultri- nes — So woman patient dreams — yet as midday Its central rays with torpor darts, our thoughts Are passionately drawn to child and husband ! Those wistful orbs, so round and black — un- loose Their spell — O, Maid, dream not of woman- hood! Apace Time drives the happy lass into the gold Of mulierdom — unconscious in its sparkle The waiting beam inveigled is — and soon Maid's passion ekes to wilful desire for man ! Coy passion of the maid ! Sweet sign and test That adolescense breaks upon the margin Of childhood's mountain-sea — to bear the blood With tempest and tearing through the tangled wolds Of girly giddiness and maiden's, tempters — Till in a crystal lake with distant vista Of cherished child blesst days her womanhood Dreams, as the sacred Hindoo waters, there Where Mansa flows, to fill them, with such calm — To purify pollution — : thrill thorned brow — Flashes of Thought 25 Outburst of passion's turbulent pool — when heart Beats not — nor the grim sense of love runs riot — But when, unconscious of such mood — the limbs So lissom, firm and sweet, tremble, inoffen- sively As oleasters through the chilly April morn — As morn-glories shivering in Selene's beams. Then, as the flames that shine fair Naples, rise The heavings of our innocent bosom bare And we reflect — as in sprinkling air, the drooped arum, Or when the Sarabande, so saturnine And slow, plays measuringly — fair eyes Of black look pensive and deeper beauty- streams Of hair stray all upon undraped shoulders And fall on breasts — and loll on folded limbs. O Maid ! Thy youth is passed — to know of age More fruitful years alone — to learn thy future Alone thyself must learn to see, think, feel ! MAID. Tell of thy passion — and if inception's glow Such dreamings roused — thy passion's actual strain 24 Frag m ents Must sing exuberantly — as with horn Of Almathea, with amaranthine-flowers gorged Sprite Iambi chanteth to the surging stream. O, Mistress, as those days of infancy When round the almond gardens, where in plaint The rebeck rustled blooms of golden petals — And rested on a lemon-littered lawn — : we sat In company sincere — so seem thy words so apt— So flowing as the breeze when Odalesques Their dances scent, to be to me those olden days — When listening eys surprisingly wide oped — Rose-nostrils quivering, eager all to the vivid- ness Intense excitement to imbibe — and hold ! Tell, tell ! And thy smooth strains shall cling to me As I thy maid clings to her mistress fond. Tell, tell ! Thy perfumed praise will soothe my sadness And make my blood flow, calm as Indus- dream ! LUCINDA. Ay, sycophants are all ill-justified To dupe thy lovely thought, and move thy tongue — Yet as a colt that neigheth in response Flashes of Thought 25 To its own mother's call — let flattery Not knit a woof immuring lightly those Pure gushes of emotion, leaping forth Into the breath of praise, licit, sincere ! If praise thou meanest, well, my Maid ! And not The golden breathed sky of day-fall may serve To swell the just-intended eulogy — But in the skies, seek beauteous similitude To tender truest compliment to deed Or thought, upright or virtuous ! The bird That warbleth ' through the lemons when the piffero Adown the calm lake soother shrills, to God Intenser thanks outpours, than when the knight Of glozing lip, his paramour with kiss And angel-troped answers tribute vows ! With praise the heart exults — it animates itself — Upheaves — the labial tirade centered proud Within a sparkling thought — is as the meteor — Sublime of vision — devoured in the All ! MAID. I praised — not meanly wished to call to ear That thou hadst spoken as the mime, who walked The rostrum for an adulation's smile — 26 F r a e tn cuts 6 Nay, thy deep syllabels have penetrated swift Into that vestal sanctitude, the heart — [Mysterious — felt, and lost — and there caught flame To fire my tongue with panegyrics pure — Glow thee with praises pertinent. LUCINDA. And we Reflect ! Hath poet ever strung a chain Of living words, to wreathe the slender neck Of love's pure passion ! Propertius sang of Lesbia — Mylytha gave her beauty to Solomon — Sly Borgia famed her fetid heart — Boleyn Recks not for other wives — our Dante soared To Heaven — and saw not what true passion wore ! Cervantes, in facetious fray, longed to prove The vulgar bend — he who by fairest shepherds His fancy flowered — Florian the tender- hearted — Usurped loose fiction's plenteous store — and haloed Each passion-haunted clay — reality Beneath the oak of modesty grew mirksome — And fell a prey to glowing rays of falsest Figments art's mind doth dwell — as sun doth dart Flashes of T h o u g ht 27 Its rays, what may they hide! And Chaucer wise — And Spencer, soft of feeling, delicate to women — Of passion paint what staid propriety Permits — Boccacio impertinent And base of mind, incites to lustiness — So Shakespeare, though his sweeter strains effect Prompt reconcilement, while his morals good Flash in us thoughts and wisest counter- action — Eschew the evils shown ! High Milton had wished To better his lewd age by virtuous life — But his sweet verse doth tell not passion's tale— Nor beameth forth the true beatitude of hours Spent holily. My Maid, nowhere wilt thou Thine eyes engross in vision trusty and deep In verse. But list — and my couth voice, grown wise, Shall murmur, as the whispers through syca- mores, What I, as woman, now may know of maiden ! >■< >|c s|c ;