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POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 EDITED Br 
 
 ESTHER GRIFFIN WHITE 
 
 [911 
 
 THE NICHOLSON PRESS 
 RICHMOND, IND. 
 

 
LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 THE following appreciation of Louise Vickroy Boyd, written by 
 Mrs. Grace Julian Clarke, appeared in the Indianapolis Star, a few 
 days after Mrs. Boyd's death, and was widely read. 
 
 Mrs. Clark, one of the leaders in the social, club and literary 
 life of the state, being president of the Indiana Federation of 
 Women's Clubs, and having a national reputation as a social worker 
 and writer, was the long-time friend of the author of this volume of 
 verse, being the daughter of George W. Julian, a celebrity of this 
 commonwealth, and one of the best-known public men of his day. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Julian were the intimates of Dr. and Mrs. Boyd 
 and frequently visited in the latter's home, and, in later years, the 
 annual visits of Mrs. Boyd to Mrs. Clarke, in Indianapolis, were 
 the events of the former's last years. Many were the eulogiums 
 passed by Mrs. Boyd upon her " dear friend, Grace Julian Clarke," 
 for whom she entertained the most profound devotion. Mrs. 
 Clarke's summing up, therefore, is of peculiar interest. 
 
LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 A GIFTED WOMAN'S LONG LIFE 
 
 THE death of Louise V. Boyd, widow of Dr. S. S. Boyd, of Dub- 
 lin, Wayne County, removes one of the most widely-known 
 women of eastern Indiana. As Louise Vickroy she made a reputa- 
 tion as a teacher, lecturer and writer of verse, as long- ago as the 
 fifties. An opponent of slavery, a believer in woman's enfranchise- 
 ment and a friend of humanity, she labored with tongue and pen 
 during her earlier years to bring about better conditions. On her 
 marriage to Dr. Boyd the career of domestic life absorbed her at- 
 tention, and their hospitable home was the rallying point for workers 
 in every line of beneficent endeavor. What a delightful home it 
 was, with its old-fashioned rooms, filled with books; its beautiful 
 flowers, its bountiful board, and especially its atmosphere of high 
 thinking and earnest purpose ! It was peculiarly attractive to young 
 people, the doctor and his wife drawing to them thoughtful young 
 men and women in various walks of life. 
 
 Since the death of her husband, Mrs. Boyd has lived with her 
 stepson, Dr. Horace Boyd, of Cambridge City, making frequent 
 visits to friends in Pennsylvania, her girlhood home, and in this 
 state. 
 
 Poems of hers have appeared from time to time in Scribner's 
 and other magazines, but she has not written much lately. Her 
 death occurred at eighty-two years. But who ever thought of age 
 in the presence of this always youthful woman? She had the en- 
 thusiasm, the buoyant spirits, the genuine delight in good literature, 
 and in people, of a person of half her years. In a letter of June 19 
 last, she said: 
 
 "The spring seems to have had a hard time to get here, and 
 cold, cheerless weather is hard to endure when June comes. But 
 as Riley said sometime since, 'The trees are as green as the grass 
 is, and the grass as green as the trees.' What need of adding more? 
 
LOUISE VICKROY BOYD vii 
 
 That statement is simplicity itself, and Victor Hugo makes sim- 
 plicity and sublimity one and the same. * * * But what am I, 
 and what doing? I am very nearly nobody, and have been jogging 
 along at the same old pace. I have, however, kept well, and read 
 a great deal, several of Fiske's Colonial Histories, Story's 'Life of 
 Charles Sumner,' a few novels, and Van Dyke's 'Holy Land.' Then 
 I have renewed my acquaintance with dear, delightful Hawthorne. 
 You know his 'Blithdale Romance' is my favorite of his longer 
 stories, and I was so glad when I found it was his own favorite. 
 Of his 'Mosses from an Old Manse,' 'The Virtuoso's Collection' 
 is the best of all — a piece of ideal reality most delicious. 
 
 "I am putting my soul into my Bible class work. It is hardly 
 so easy as it was two years ago. Now I nearly sink under the re- 
 sponsibility of keeping up a reputation ! Maybe that is why I 
 am growing gray so rapidly; yet I rejoice heartily that I can use 
 my hands, my feet and my eyes." 
 
 Her letters reveal her admirably, and every one of them is 
 worth while. She herself was worth while — an original character, 
 of decided likes and dislikes, fearless in declaring them, a good 
 hater and a devoted lover. She had her prejudices, which she 
 frankly admitted, and what sharp things she could say! She par- 
 ticularly disliked pretense and shams, and was scathing in her de- 
 nunciation of them. 
 
 As a story writer, she rivals Scheherezade, and her advent 
 was the signal for all the children to gather about with requests 
 for the Donkey story, or the Cat and the Cofifee-grinder, or some 
 other of the countless number at her command. 
 
 Her memory was the most remarkable I have ever known, and 
 if every copy of the Waverley novels had been lost I believe she 
 could have written out a fairly accurate reproduction, as she could 
 of hundreds of other books. Her mind was a storehouse of poetry, 
 too, Byron and Poe being her especial favorites. She loved some 
 of the lesser poets, and sent me one Christmas a volume of Father 
 Tabb's verse. This reminds me of her regard for Catholics. She 
 had none of that intolerance of the Mother Church which is not 
 
viii LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 uncommon, and used to write about going to hear a certain priest, 
 whose sermons always "meant something," which was more than 
 she could say of some others. 
 
 In her last letter, already referred to, she said, "O, for the 
 good old days when people said something!" and apropos of a 
 certain "popular" preacher, she remarked: 
 
 "He might have been the original of the man in the old play 
 who orated thus: 'Go call a coach, and let a coach be called, and 
 let the person calling be the caller'." 
 
 Mrs. Boyd talked a great deal ; — but then she "always said 
 something," and always made one think. As she rose to bid good- 
 by to her hostess one day, she assured the latter that she had had 
 a delightful call, whereupon, remarking that she herself had done 
 most of the talking, she said that she was like Madame de Stael 
 in one respect at least. A friend of the celebrated French-woman 
 took a young man to call upon her one day, and a few days later 
 Madame de Stael, meeting the lady, exclaimed: "What an inter- 
 esting person your young friend is !" "Alas," replied the lady, 
 "the poor young man has been deaf and dumb from his birth!" 
 
 It is impossible to realize that this dear, engaging, honest and 
 gifted woman will come no more to gladden our hearts and quicken 
 our sensibilities. She was one of those personalities that one simply 
 cannot think of as extinguished. Such vivid and pulsating life 
 snuffed out ! Not a bit of it ! Somewhere and somehow Louise 
 Vickroy Boyd lives and loves, in a fuller sense than was possible 
 
 Grace Julian Clarke. 
 Indianapolis, 1909. 
 
LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 LOUISE VICKROY BOYD was alien to her environment and 
 -^ to her day. 
 
 For her setting she should have had an eighteenth century or 
 mid- Victorian salon. She was a remarkable, virile, picturesque 
 human manifestation. She possessed the true poetic spirit. Hers 
 was an impassioned nature. She was swayed by subtle emotions. 
 The loftiest sentiment found in her an instant appeal. 
 
 Anachronistic as was the combination of her masculine in- 
 tellectuality with her thorough-going femininity, this was not, al- 
 together, the cause of the misunderstanding that frequently attended 
 her, which was more to be attributed to her native cosmopolitanism 
 and catholicity among the insular. A cross upon which she was, 
 more or less consciously, daily crucified. 
 
 A delightful menage, however, was that of Dr. and Mrs. Boyd, 
 in Dublin. One of brimming hospitality and much good talk, for 
 Dr. Boyd's geniality and fine literary sense, his love of nature and 
 humorously whimsical outlook, admirably complemented Mrs. 
 Boyd's poetic gifts, her erudition constantly in evidence, and her 
 forceful and erratic utterances. 
 
 For with this fascinating lady there were no compromises. No 
 half-lights. It was either the full glare of the electric light or the 
 deepest darkness of the shadow. And it gave a piquancy to her 
 society to the very last. 
 
 And in this home, as Mrs. Clarke says, were entertained many 
 celebrities of their day. 
 
 One of the earliest exponents of "votes for women," as the 
 modern phrase puts it, she was identified with the leaders of the 
 "suffrage movement" conspicuous in her prime, Lucy Stone and 
 Henry Blackwell, editors of The Woman's Journal, the pioneer 
 woman's paper of this country, with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth 
 Cady Stanton. An advocate of many of the broadest tenets of 
 Socialism, she had a long and intimate correspondence with William 
 Morris, who sent her his autographed photograph. 
 
 One of the best known of the literati of the middle west, Mrs. 
 Boyd's product, both before and after her marriage, appeared in 
 
X LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 the leading journals and periodicals and was included in the most 
 discriminating of the poetic anthologies. She was one of the founders 
 of the Western Association of Writers, an organization of writers 
 and artists which met yearly, although, later, she disavowed all con- 
 nection with this body because of some distasteful action on the 
 part of its officialdom which did not meet with her fastidious reserva- 
 tions in matters of literary import. But her friendship with many 
 of the best known authors of this section was one of the facts that 
 marked her career at this period. 
 
 James Whitcomb Riley, who counted Mrs. Boyd among the 
 first to give his genius recognition, and who held Mrs. Boyd in 
 high esteem both as a poet and friend, once wrote, under date of 
 June 29, 1883 — 
 
 "Dear Friend — I have just seen your poem, 'The Dear Old 
 Woods,' on a proof-slip on the editor's desk this hour before going 
 to press, and I have not read, for a long time, a poem that has given 
 me such real pleasure. I think it very exquisite and graceful, beau- 
 tifully sweet and tender, and I want to thank you for the rare de- 
 light it has given me." 
 
 This was written on a card from the office of the old Indiam- 
 apolis Journal in which many of Mrs. Boyd's best poems appeared 
 and which also printed much of Mr. Riley's early verse, the Journal 
 office being one of the poet's haunts. 
 
 Mrs. Boyd's poetic talents were versatile. While primarily 
 lyrical in treatment, she was fond of taking her themes or subjects 
 from history and legend and many of her poems owed their origin 
 to the Bible. 
 
 Not alone in her attitude toward the great social movements 
 just named, to whose adherence at that time it took much high-born 
 courage, but in her prescience toward the more advanced ethical 
 thought of her later years, was Mrs. Boyd attuned, instanced by 
 "Still Small Voices," in which she anticipated an ultra-modern cult. 
 
 In "The Legend of a Picture," also, may be found that very 
 pronouncement made by Mr. George Bernard Shaw to the effect 
 that the artist battens off his loves to their final mental, as well as 
 physical, undoing, that he may, vampire-like, turn their passion for 
 him into the perfection of his artistic product. 
 
LOUISE VICKROY BOYD xi 
 
 In "Crossing the Delaware," this country has one of its finest 
 historical poems, its pictorial effect being vivid and its diction mu- 
 sical, and "Braddock's Defeat" abounds in dramatic feeling. 
 
 Notwithstanding an almost provincial loyalty to her church 
 and to its orthodox faith, the keynote of Mrs. Boyd's philosophy 
 is to be found in "Oblivion," some verses published a few weeks 
 before her death in the Indianapolis Star, whose note is the fateful 
 one of all lofty souls. 
 
 From the more technical standpoint, Mrs. Boyd excelled in 
 poetic forms, being given to effective alliteration, having great 
 power of imagery, impinging her fleeting moods on paper melo- 
 diously, being a lover of nature and a romanticist. 
 ^ Of the facts of her life it is interesting to know that she was 
 born in Urbana, Ohio, on January 2, 1827; that her name was 
 Louise Esther Vickroy; that she was the third of a family of thir- 
 teen children ; that her father was a native of Bedford County, 
 Pennsylvania, and her mother of Warren County, Ohio; that her 
 family became residents of Johnstown, in the latter State; that her 
 home education was supplemented by studies in Lancaster, Penn- 
 sylvania, and Philadelphia, she having been, at one time in the 
 latter city, a member of the household of the author and editor, 
 T. S. Arthur; that she married Dr. S. S. Boyd in September, 1865, 
 and went with him to his home in Dublin, Indiana; that after her 
 husband's death, she remained for a while in Dublin and then went 
 to Philadelphia where she remained several years with a married 
 niece ; that she returned to Indiana and, until the time of her death, 
 lived with her stepson. Dr. Horace Boyd, in Cambridge City. 
 -- She died July 25, 1909, in the home of her favorite sister, Mrs. 
 Mary H. West, in Ada, Ohio, where she was a guest. She is, 
 buried at Dublin. 
 
 "E. A. Vickroy and his wife," writes a kinswoman of Mrs. 
 Boyd, relative to Mrs. Boyd's parents, "were both people of culture, 
 well educated and of good old-world stock in which the mixture of 
 English, Irish, Welch and Dutch blood added their quota toward 
 making a cosmopolitan of a mountain child. Her father was an 
 honest man, too generous to acquire wealth, but he left his children 
 a better inheritance — a poetic temperament and an honest name. 
 
xii LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 "When quite young, Louise began to contribute poems to the 
 magazines, not so numerous then as now, among those in which her 
 writings appeared being Graham's Magazine, the Atlantic Monthly, 
 Arthur's Home Magazine, the Little Pilgrim, Appleton's Journal, 
 and the Knickerbocker. Later years found her verse in the Century, 
 Scribner's, Country Life in America, Wide Awake, Harper's Young 
 People, and The Woman's Journal, besides many newspapers and 
 church publications." 
 
 This volume does not contain all of Mrs. Boyd's literary product, 
 either that published or that which had never been submitted for 
 publication. But is limited to those poems which she herself re- 
 garded as the apogee of her poetic output and which she selected 
 for inclusion in this book. 
 
 In as many instances as possible, the editor has indicated the 
 place of their production and that in which they were later pub- 
 lished, but was unable to make the bibliography a full one on ac- 
 count of the incomplete nature of the available material. 
 
 That the writer had known Mrs. Boyd since childhood and was 
 honored by this gifted woman's friendship, she regards as one of 
 the charms and distinctions of her life. In editing this volume, at 
 the request of the author, she has endeavored to put out a book 
 which, in format, will enhance the poet's literary reputation, but 
 above all, one which will be indicative of the scope of Mrs. Boyd's 
 genius and which will convey to that portion of the public which 
 it reaches, some conception of a gifted personality. 
 
 Esther Griffin White. 
 Richmond, Indiana, 
 
 September, 1911. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 The Shadow of a Rose 1 
 
 Written at Dublin, June 9, 1879 
 
 The Dear Old Woods 2 
 
 Dublin, June, 1883 
 
 A Winter Twilight 3 
 
 Dublin, January, 1884 
 
 An Autumn Picture 4 
 
 To the Bloom of an Indian Turnip 5 
 
 Dublin, May 1882 
 
 My Four-O'clock 6 
 
 Dublin, August, 1880 
 
 Interalia 7 
 
 The Voice of the Wind 8 
 
 (Considered by Mrs. Boyd as one of her best poems) 
 
 To a Geranium 9 
 
 (Written at Cambridge) Published in "Country Life in America" 
 
 The Lingering Summer 10 
 
 Dublin 
 
 Pages .12 
 
 Dublin 
 
 After the Cyclone 13 
 
 Dublin 
 
 The Tulip Tree 16 
 
 Summer Time 18 
 
 Praised highly by Karl Knortz and included in his anthology 
 
 The Rainbow 19 
 
 Johnstown, August, 1856 
 
 Only a Leaf 20 
 
 Included in Knortz's Anthology 
 
 A Frost-Pictured Window 21 
 
 Dublin 
 
 A Sunset Picture 22 
 
 Shadows 24 
 
 Dublin 
 Why 25 
 
 Johnstown 
 
 The Lost Hope 26 
 
 Johnstown, 1855. Published in Knickerbocker Magazine 
 
 Romance 27 
 
 Dublin 
 
xiv TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 A City 29 
 
 Dublin 
 Today 30 
 
 Published in the Woman's Journal. Included in Knortz's Anthology of 
 American Poetry, and translated into German. 
 
 The Afternoon 31 
 
 Dublin 
 
 The Lover 33 
 
 An Arab's Story — A Christmas Poem 34 
 
 Woman's Journal 
 
 Glimpses 41 
 
 Johnstown, 1855. Knickerbocker Magazine. 
 
 Once Loved 42 
 
 This poem was extensively copied 
 Braddock's Defeat 43 
 
 Johnstown, 1857. Knickerbocker Magazine. 
 
 My Palace 46 
 
 A Shadow 47 
 
 Dublin 
 
 Past Love 48 
 
 Johnstown, April, 1853. "The Columbian and Great West" 
 
 Bimini 49 
 
 Baby Fingers 51 
 
 Cloth of Gold 52 
 
 Dublin. Woman's Journal. 
 
 Grandfather's Talk With Little Philip 53 
 
 At Christmas Tide 54 
 
 Dubhn, 1883 
 
 Before the Dawn 55 
 
 Over a Cradle 56 
 
 Dublin 
 Baby's Letter 57 
 
 "Wide Awake" 
 
 A Celtic Legend 58 
 
 A Recollection .60 
 
 Dublin, September, 1885 
 Crossing the Delaware 62 
 
 Johnstown, 1855. Knickerbocker Magazine 
 
 Our Dead President 64 
 
 Included in the "Poet's Tribute," compiled by Moses King, after Gar- 
 field's death. 
 
 The Three Poets 65 
 
 Still Small Voices 66 
 
 Panic and Crisis 67 
 
 Harper's Young People 
 Legend of a Picture 68 
 
 Graham's Magazine, 1857 or 1858. Copied all over New England and 
 appeared also in Frank Leslie's Ladies Journal. 
 
 A Photograph— to E. G. W 71 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS xv 
 
 Page 
 Oblivion 72 
 
 Indianapolis Star, 1909 
 
 Recompense 73 
 
 Why Should We? 74 
 
 Dublin 
 
 Little Tee Wee . 75 
 
 Dublin. Woman's Journal 
 Sunshiny Mike 77 
 
 Dublin 
 
 Bertha the Spinner ' .... 79 
 
 The Butter Bust 80 
 
 Genesis 81 
 
 Dublin. The Woman's Journal 
 
 A Scandinavian Girl Found Dead 83 
 
 Dublin 
 
 The Ballad of Beffana 85 
 
 Arthur's Home Magazine 
 
 Song of the Morning 88 
 
 The Wisdom of Solomon 90 
 
 Appleton's Journal 
 
 The Sad Disciple 93 
 
 Christian Standard 
 
 A True Story 94 
 
 Yesterday — Tomorrow 95 
 
 Dublin, 1885 
 
 At the Cave AduUum 96 
 
 Written at the time of the Populist movement 
 
 Jubal . 98 
 
 Dublin 
 
 The Crowning of Moses 100 
 
 The Evening Hymn 103 
 
 Written a short time before the author's death 
 
 A Mexican Image 105 
 
 Dublin. The Woman's Journal 
 
 Poetry 108 
 
Poems by Louise Vickroy Boyd 
 
POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 THE SHADOW OF A ROSE 
 
 A ROYAL rose of crimson dye 
 
 Flashed splendor toward a splendid sky. 
 Bathed was its whole circumference 
 With Beauty's blessed influence. 
 I gazed, forgetting shadows were, 
 Or bitter sorrows anywhere. 
 A sense of June's rejoicing pri'ue 
 Thrilled through my spirit, and I cried : 
 "Oh, Rose, wherever thou dost burst 
 To bloom, the dreams that Eden nursed 
 Are dreamed again, and Destiny 
 Is kind to all things near to thee !" 
 
 Ah, narrow thought ! but could I know 
 
 That where its shadow slept below, 
 
 An insect fair, a tiny thing 
 
 With sheeny shard and gauzy wing. 
 
 Had crept out on a leaf to see 
 
 The world where it had come to be 
 
 A dweller for a. few brief hours ? 
 
 A home of sunshine, fragrance, flowers 
 
 It sought, the leaf world seemed not so ; 
 
 'Twas dim, and dull, and cold below 
 
 The royal rose ; the gauze and gold 
 
 Attired, was piteous to behold 
 
 So cheerless seemed her world, so wide. 
 
 She strove, grew weary, struggled, died. 
 
 Would it have cheered her at the last 
 
 To know a Rose that shadow cast? 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 THE DEAR OLD WOODS 
 
 A STRIP of woodland in a mountain glen 
 ■^ Holds in my heart a holy place alway ; 
 I come from it when I awake at night, 
 I wander there in many a dream by day. 
 
 I know the secret that its hawthorn keeps, 
 
 I know the sorrow thrilling through its pine, 
 
 The voiceless visions of its violets, 
 
 The joy in all its buttercups ashine. 
 
 In the olden times those beamy buttercups 
 Were purest gold, the coinage of the sun — 
 
 Their mother country — and I knew of them 
 Legends more sweet than poet ever spun. 
 
 In the old times like mimis meteors 
 
 The sunbeam shuttles, through the leafy looms 
 Of beach and maple, wove most wondrous webs. 
 
 In figures fashioned out of lights and glooms ; 
 
 Wove glory-blazoned banners, flaunting far. 
 And netted hangings for the misty doors 
 
 Leading to Elf land ; fabricated then 
 
 Strange phantom carpets, for strange fairy floors. 
 
 Of the old woods the music echoes still. 
 
 Deep in my heart, and not one tone has died ; 
 
 The red-bird's carol, and the robin's song. 
 
 The cricket's chirp, along the streamlet side, 
 
 I hear them yet — I hear the breezes, too, 
 Murmur and murmur endless melody 
 
 About the far-off stars, and other lands. 
 
 And streams unmeasured running to the sea. 
 
 Over that lovely scene the loving sky 
 
 Bends, as of yore, and blossom odors go. 
 
 On viewless wings, abroad, and fair ferns bend 
 Where dusky, shadow-sheltered mosses grow. 
 
 Forever green, forever beautiful, 
 
 Among the mist-wreathed mountains, far away, 
 The old wood lies, and seems like holy ground 
 
 To one who dreams of it by night and day. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 A WINTER TWILIGHT 
 
 C^a, THE wearisome winter twilight !" 
 ^^^ I said it with a sigh, 
 Leaning alone in the evening. 
 My cottage casement by. 
 
 Then, I turned me from fireside comforts, 
 
 Walking a little way 
 Through the gateway and down the orchard 
 
 (There was no wind at play) . 
 
 And my sorrowful mood subsiding, 
 
 My spirit felt the spell 
 Of the fairest of summer twilights 
 
 Was part of this as well. 
 
 And I saw strange clouds in the southward 
 
 Like phantom hills uprise, 
 While Venus a blaze of beauty, 
 
 Brightened the western skies. 
 
 Here, the snow with its wdiite enchantment 
 Had hushed the pine tree's moan, 
 
 There, the fair moon said by her smiling 
 She loved to be alone. 
 
 Down the streamlet, by ice bridged over 
 
 I heard the waters go, 
 Soft singing a song of the summer 
 
 And summer sunshine's glow. 
 
 Oh ! those half-hushed, musical murmurs, 
 
 Nearer silence than sound, 
 Blended my hopes and my memories 
 
 Into a peace profound. 
 
 And I came again to my fireside 
 
 Happy as I could be, 
 And nothing on earth seemed lovelier 
 
 Than twilight-tide to me. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 AN AUTUMN PICTURE 
 
 A WILD bee softly singing to itself 
 
 A lonesome-sounding dreaming little tune, 
 All about sunshine squandered hours ago 
 And flowers fading half a day too soon. 
 
 A leaden cloud, its ghostly arms outspread. 
 With frantic gesture striving, but in vain, 
 
 To clasp a pine tree on a mountain hight, 
 Yet passing by — no more to come again. 
 
 A streamlet fretting in an undertone 
 Because its waters leave it for the sea, 
 
 A sad wind sending shudders through the fern, 
 A dove that moans of nameless misery. 
 
 A sunset, seeming earlier than its wont. 
 
 With deeper shadows darkening in the dell. 
 
 Pale gentians growing paler momently. 
 
 And Love's fond accents faltering "Farewell. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 TO THE BLOOM OF THE INDIAN TURNIP 
 
 QH, WONDER of my childhood, still as dear 
 
 ^^^ As when I saw thee first in woodlands old. 
 
 Where the dark pines made gloom, and waters cold 
 
 Danced from the mountains down, the while mine ear 
 
 Drank their wild music, that to me did seem 
 
 Brought out of Fairyland, and thou the while 
 
 A very priest of Fantasy did'st smile, 
 
 Jack in the pulpit ! while, as in a dream, 
 
 I waited for thy sermon, half afraid 
 
 To hear thee speak, as through the forest shade 
 
 A drowsy wind came sighing, silence then 
 
 Grew full of eloquence, and mem'ry still 
 
 Reads in thy bloom the lore of rock and hill. 
 
 And hears the voices of my native glen. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 MY FOUR-O'CLOCK 
 
 CEE my four-o'clock in blossom; 
 
 Ah ! to me its bloom has brought 
 A new thought I never dreamed of, 
 
 An old dream scarce worth a thought. 
 
 But the thought and dream together 
 Make the cares of life seem less, 
 
 Thinking, dreaming, dreaming, thinking, 
 Lost in happy idleness. 
 
 I behold the evening shadows, 
 
 Lengthening, fall about my feet, 
 
 While my way winds on through flowers, 
 Childhood's flowers fair and sweet. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 INTERALIA 
 
 HTHERE'S a spot in the dear old woodland, 
 
 I know the place so well, 
 Where the brightest sunbeams g-leam and glide, 
 
 And the dreamiest shadows dwell. 
 
 There a boisterous, mad little brook, 
 And a laughter-voiced water-fall. 
 
 Leap towards a spring — deep, clear, and cool 
 The sweetest treasure of all. 
 
 There's a still pond near, where lilies, 
 
 And a nook where violets grow. 
 And a bank of the wavering witchery 
 
 Of the wind-flower's phantom snow. 
 
 But the child with tresses like silken gold, 
 
 That wandered there with me, 
 That I garlanded with flowers, and said, 
 
 My fairy queen was she — 
 
 She, the child with sea-blue eyes. 
 
 Comes never any more — 
 Faint gleams her smile on memory's waste, 
 
 As some far, fairy shore. 
 
 Oh, the memory-pictured woodland, 
 The dear, dream-enchanted dell, 
 
 Like a saintly picture glorified 
 Smiles on me "All is well !" 
 
 Bloom, flowers, bloom on, in that sweet spot, 
 
 Laugh, waves, in merriest tone, 
 But I must seek ye nevermore, 
 
 I could not go alonp. 
 
 But mortal flowers ye never saw. 
 
 Sweet waves ye know not of, 
 Her holier smile that waits for me 
 
 In the dear Land of Love. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 THE VOICE OF THE WIND 
 
 'THE sweet-voiced wind of Spring awoke 
 The violet from her winter dream. 
 
 And something in its music set 
 The dandelion's gold agleam. 
 
 The Summer wind went, laughing low, 
 Across the land, across the sea, 
 
 Touched here the flowers and there the sails, 
 And turned Life's fairest page for me. 
 
 The Autumn wind in triumph sang 
 Of purple grapes and royal wine, 
 
 But killed the flowers and wrecked the ship, 
 And broke the Summer's heart and mine. 
 
 Hark now the lonesome Winter wind. 
 How over weary wastes of snow 
 
 It moans and wails and shrieks aloud 
 Some unintelligible woe. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 TO A GERANIUM 
 
 'THOU wert a common weed-like plant, they say. 
 
 Half choked with dust beside a rugged way 
 Where good Mahomet passed one sunny day. 
 
 His robes but lightly touched thee and behold ! 
 Thy leaves grew satin-soft and edged with gold, 
 And every green bud hastened to unfold. 
 
 A dainty petaled blossom glowing fair 
 
 With a new-born, strange gladness, and the air 
 
 From thy rich foliage breathed a fragrance rare. 
 
 Ah ! well in Turkish gardens far away. 
 
 Where soft winds pass and crystal fountains play, 
 
 May raptured glances greet thy bloom today. 
 
 Thine is a lovely legend, and I deem 
 Thee worthy of the setting as the theme 
 Of some forgotten Moslem poet's dream. 
 
10 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 THE LINGERING SUMMER 
 
 ry^, SAY not it is autumn ! 
 ^^ I know 'tis summer still. 
 What if the leaves have fallen, 
 And yesterday was chill ? 
 
 See, roses are around me, 
 
 So fresh and bright and sweet, 
 
 And softest sunshine bright,ens 
 The verdure at my feet. 
 
 'Tis summer, lovely summer ; 
 
 She bade good-by, but then. 
 Seeing our tears, repented, 
 And turned to us again. 
 
 Turned to give us another 
 Fond blessing and good-by, 
 
 With comforting caresses. 
 To bid us not to cry. 
 
 And, thinking we could bear it, 
 Ready to go she seemed 
 
 Another time ; we grieved so 
 
 That back her sunlight streamed, 
 
 And she sent a rain like April's 
 To bring these flowers out, 
 
 Her southward winds and westward 
 Both kindly turned about 
 
 To whisper, "It is summer;" 
 So don't you, don't you say 
 
 'Tis autumn now ; I tell you 
 This is a summer day ! 
 
 How true she is I never, 
 
 No, never knew before, 
 When she beholds our sorrow, 
 
 To linger one day more. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 11 
 
 But even while I praise her, 
 There falls a shadow dread 
 
 Across the world ; my summer, 
 Alas ! is summer dead. 
 
 And now her own bright roses 
 I strew upon her bier. 
 
 And when they die to-morrow, 
 Then autumn will be here. 
 
12 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 PAGES 
 
 T'HEY stra3'-ed adown the dewy dell, 
 
 One spring--time day with footsteps free. 
 
 The daisy's disc, the lily's bell. 
 
 The sighing- reed, the humming bee 
 
 Set each young heart with joy aglow, 
 
 While all the birds were singing so. 
 
 They wandered in the garden bowers 
 When summer skies were softly blue, 
 
 And saw the fountain's silver showers, 
 And life was fair, and love was true ; 
 
 While rapture's tale was whispered low 
 
 Among the roses blushing so. 
 
 III. 
 
 They parted on a lonely hill, 
 Under a pallid waning moon, 
 
 And often said "Farewell," but still 
 
 Lingered to speak of meeting soon — 
 
 The autumn winds were wailing low 
 
 And faded leaves were falling so. 
 
 At last, one wintry eventide, 
 
 A lover stood, and stood alone, 
 
 Watching the west, where day had died 
 From the dim sky ; with weary moan 
 
 He wept above, she slept below, 
 
 Where all the snow-flakes drifted so. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 13 
 
 AFTER THE CYCLONE 
 
 TS THIS the spot? they tell me so, 
 
 Where my home stood a week ago. 
 One little week ago, ah me ! 
 My weary gaze can only see 
 An orchard of uprooted trees, 
 A garden swept away, and these 
 Great heaps of logs and clay that press 
 The earth with their unsightliness. 
 They made the cottage low, where we. 
 Myself and John and baby, three 
 At least, of all earth's children were 
 Most glad of life, most free from care. 
 
 The morning, oh, it was so bright ! 
 And clover blossoms red and white 
 Made the air heavy with perfume, 
 And early roses were in bloom ; 
 The climbing peas in bud and beets 
 In red-lined leaves telling their sweets. 
 The beans grew fast, the cabbage, too, 
 Its sea-green leaves empearled with dew 
 Stood sturdily ; and from my door 
 I saw it all and wondered more 
 And moire — my baby on my knee — 
 Why God had been so good to me. 
 
 Then John came whistling from the field : 
 John was my life, my sun, my shield. 
 And as he came, my heart so blest 
 With olden memories tenderest. 
 Seemed overburdened just to see 
 Him come, and see the baby's glee. 
 He talked with me a little while, 
 Drank from the well, then with a smile 
 Lifted the baby up, and said : 
 "Good-bye ;" and laid upon my head 
 His hand with a tender touch, and then 
 Said : "We will not come back again ; 
 My work is done, and now, you see, 
 The baby goes along with me." 
 
14 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 I laughed aloud, with scarcely less 
 Than my own baby's carelessness, 
 Under the trees and through the gate 
 Went man and child with joy elate. 
 The father with such fond, fond pride 
 To give the little one a ride 
 On horseback there; I looked that way 
 And waved my hand as glad as they. 
 And this, and this ; who tells me so, 
 That it was but a week ago ? 
 
 Then I was young ; now I am old, 
 As though my threescore years were told ; 
 My memory tries in vain to go 
 Through what befell, but this I know, 
 An awful sound from everywhere 
 And sudden horror filled the air. 
 Swaying and sweeping overhead 
 A spectral cloud so dark and dread 
 Came through the sky, and Heaven fell, 
 And earth sank down, and up rose Hell, 
 And I was lost, and called on John 
 To bring our child, but died alone. 
 
 I died, for it was death to me, 
 
 And that one hour eternity. 
 
 And now, God pity me, I stand 
 
 Upon this desolated land. 
 
 Home, garden, flowers and trees are gone, 
 
 I have no hope, no child, no John. 
 
 The neighbors tell me God knows best. 
 
 To comfort me, they are at rest, 
 
 They say, and buried tenderly 
 
 When I was all too ill to see. 
 
 It must be so, it must be so, 
 
 But was it but a week ago? 
 
 Would I could know how long it seems 
 To John and baby in their dreams, 
 For well I know they dream of me. 
 Who loved them, oh, so utterly ! 
 Ah ! they have much to tell, how they 
 Cried out for me in death that day. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 15 
 
 John standing on the Happy Shore 
 Without my welcome at the door, 
 He cannot be at home, and he 
 Will g-rieve because he said to me 
 They would not come again ; then make 
 More of the baby for my sake. 
 
 Oh, there be secrets dark and deep 
 
 The dead must know, the dead must keep, 
 
 And there be sorrows all too dread 
 
 To tell the living, but the dead 
 
 We long to tell, they heed us not. 
 
 Oh, John and baby, unforgot ! 
 
 I stand an effig}^ of woe 
 
 Where our home stood a week ago. 
 
16 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 THE TULIP TREE 
 
 "pOETS have sung in every tongue, 
 The oak tree's majesty and might, 
 
 And oriental minstrels aye 
 
 Chant of the palm with fond delight, 
 
 But I will speak in praise of thee, 
 
 tulip tree, my tulip tree ! 
 
 How often in the forest green 
 
 I've marked thy stately shaft uprise. 
 And seen thee lift with matchless grace. 
 
 Thy crown of flowers toward the skies, 
 How golden green, and red, and white, 
 Those cups o'erflowed with Heaven's own light, 
 Our country's flag is scairce more bright. 
 
 Ah ! where the young trees stood along 
 The fence rows of my native glen, 
 
 1 used to go at early morn, 
 
 Startling the robin and the wren 
 From bloom cups tasting, for I knew 
 The secret of their honey dew. 
 
 Oh ! fair and gay the olives wave 
 
 Amid the words of Solomon, 
 While cedars crown with deathless green 
 
 The lofty brow of Lebanon. 
 But oh ! the wisest Hebrew's woods. 
 
 They wave so far away from me ; 
 My tulip tree, and in thy shade 
 
 I've thought with sorrowing sympathy, 
 Of every prophet, every king. 
 That never saw thy blossoming. 
 
 Our Lowell grew inspired below 
 
 A birch's wavering witchery ; 
 Longfellow dreamed his youth's best dream 
 
 Under a spreading chestnut tree ; 
 Why did they pass thy beauty by 
 Nor give thee immortality ? 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE PiCKROY BOYD 17 
 
 The birds, the winds, the waterfall, 
 
 All voices of my infancy, 
 Sang to me through the summer sky, 
 
 An anthem to the tulip tree ; 
 The song is in my soul, but still 
 To give it voice, I have no skill. 
 
 While England keeps for emblem flower, 
 Or red, or white, the royal rose, 
 
 And Scotland's purple thistle sheds 
 
 Sweet breath on every wind that blows, 
 
 And Erin still delights to call 
 
 The three-leaved shamrock best of all. 
 
 While France may claim the fleur-de-lis 
 
 And violet her own for aye, 
 I will not envy one of them. 
 
 Because if I could have my way. 
 My country's emblem flower should be 
 The blossom of the tulip tree. 
 
18 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 SUMMER TIME 
 
 T TNDER the palm trees she dwelleth. 
 
 The beautiful summer time. 
 Then sitteth wrapt in sweet reverie, 
 
 Of an olden, g-olden clime. 
 
 Under the sunshine the live-long day 
 
 And under the starlit skies, 
 Silent she sitteth and holdeth fast 
 
 Her mythical memories. 
 
 Above white clouds go sailing, 
 
 And the palm plumes wave below, 
 While the pyramids in silence watch 
 
 The Nile's majestic flow. 
 
 But under the palms where she dwelleth, 
 
 There wandereth once a year, 
 A breeze from the North with a breath of the pine, 
 
 And a voice that calleth her here. 
 
 Then the summer time all radiant. 
 
 And garlanded with flowers, 
 Her lap filled with cherries and strawberries, 
 
 Glides into these homes of ours. 
 
 And we greet her with words warm hearted. 
 She knows we are glad in her smile. 
 
 But soon she is lost in sweet reverie, 
 
 'Neath her palms by the slumberous Nile. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 19 
 
 THE RAINBOW 
 
 " 'Tis the heaven of flowers }'0u see there, 
 All the wild flowers of the forest, 
 All the Hlies of the prairie, 
 When on earth they fade and perish. 
 Blossom in the heaven above us." 
 
 — Hiazvatha. 
 
 "TIS the sweet belief of the Indian child, 
 
 That above this world of ours, 
 The rainbow, gleaming in colors soft. 
 Is the heaven of the flowers. 
 
 That never a lily is broken here, 
 
 A rose's leaflets shed, 
 Or a lowly violet rudely crushed. 
 
 But it blooms again o'erhead. 
 
 The snowy bells that the hunter brought, 
 To wreath in the maiden's hair, 
 
 The buds that died with the coffined child. 
 Alike they are blooming there. 
 
 Oh, holiest faith, that the very flowers 
 
 Have a spirit that cannot die ; 
 But will rise again with a brighter glow, 
 
 To smile on us from the sky. 
 
 Ah, 'twere sweet to know that the faded bloom 
 
 Of our by-gone happy years, 
 With the mist and the sunshine blending soft, 
 
 Of remembered smiles and tears. 
 
 Freshened and pure, from a holy heaven, 
 Sometimes in our sky would gleam. 
 
 And promise a Future of flowers — aye, tinged 
 With the light of some early dream. 
 
20 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 ONLY A LEAF 
 
 ^^NLY a leaf, but it grew for me 
 
 At the homestead old by the gateway tree ; 
 Through lovely springtime and summer fair, 
 Lightly it waved in the mountain air ; 
 And when Autumn came like a misty dream, 
 Soft purpling over each hill and stream. 
 O'er this fragile leaf swept a passion spell 
 Where a wordless story is pictured well. 
 Rich veined and spotted with gold so bright, 
 And its tips illumined with crimson light; 
 Apollo's signal in dot and line, 
 And bearing the Frost King's countersign. 
 
 But its tale is not of the fields of blue, 
 
 Tliat the fair and far-off stars look through 
 
 From a region of blessedness and bliss, 
 
 Fulfilling the happiest hopes of this 
 
 The story for me leads through memory ways 
 
 And the shadows of long-gone yesterdays. 
 
 And sweet is the thought that the grief of then 
 
 May never approach my heart again. 
 
 And I smile serenely to find the truth. 
 
 That in place of the vanishing visions of youth 
 
 The joys of life's autumn have come to be 
 
 Like the picture fair on the leaf I see 
 
 Where the flush of the springtime that passed away, 
 
 The glow of the summer that would not stay 
 
 Shine peerless now they were but delayed 
 
 Till the fitting page should be ready made 
 
 And springtime's blossoms and summer's green 
 
 Be overmatched by the autumn sheen. 
 
 My life ere I reach the Infinite Share 
 Is a fluttering leaf nor less nor more, 
 But something at last, for there impressed 
 It keeps what of all it has found the best : 
 For Joy has left traces as pure gold bright 
 And Faith shows the streakings of morning light 
 Like a leaflet fragile traced line by line 
 Waiting the Death Angel's countersign. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 21 
 
 A FROST-PICTURED WINDOW 
 
 "p'LED and gone is the royal summer, 
 Vanished the vision of flowers fair; 
 
 Sails no butterfly down the meadow, 
 Floats no song on the sunny air. 
 
 Now, in winter, my chamber window 
 Shows a picture in frosted gleams. 
 
 Fern and fountain and fairy forest, — 
 Just the land where I go in dreams. 
 
 Stately ships over seas of silver 
 Lightly glide to a sheeny shore, 
 
 Where uprises a wondrous city. 
 Festal garlands on every door. 
 
 Through this window for weeks together 
 Summer's glory was grand to see. 
 
 But this picture, so fair and fleeting. 
 Let me whisper, is more to me. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 A SUNSET PICTURE 
 
 QH, THE clouds to-night, 
 ^^^ In the sunset's light, 
 
 Make a lovely picture for me ! 
 Of a stretch of sand. 
 And a castle grand, 
 
 By a blue, transparent sea. 
 
 No tale of romance. 
 Of pennon and lance. 
 
 Of Christian and Paynim slain, 
 Seemed ever to be. 
 More vivid to me. 
 
 Than this, nor castle in Spain, 
 
 Nor castle in air. 
 Seemed ever so fair 
 
 A picture to spread for my eye ; 
 But something reflected, 
 Not unexpected — 
 
 'Twas painted there in the sky. 
 
 In that castle grim 
 And gloomy and dim. 
 
 There seems nor revel nor song ; 
 Sure the gateways old. 
 And the chambers cold. 
 
 To a darkeir age belong. 
 
 Ah ! with sudden start. 
 And chill at my heart, 
 
 I see where the toiling tide 
 Creeps cruel and slow. 
 As in half-hushed woe — 
 
 Can it be? — a white-robed bride! 
 
 No; the maiden fair 
 That is lying there, 
 
 I am sure she is a nun, 
 Who, bidding farewell 
 To the convent cell, 
 
 When the vesper hymn was done. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 23 
 
 Had ventuired to float 
 In an oarless boat. 
 
 Whither — ah ! she might not guess ■ 
 But, yearning- for love, 
 All treasures above, 
 
 Flying alone from loneliness. 
 
 But the boat, yon speck. 
 Was a total wreck, 
 
 And the fair form on the shore, 
 Close under the tall 
 Grey old castle wall, 
 
 Her brief, lone voyage o'er. 
 
 With the cross close pressed 
 To her cold, white breast. 
 
 Her beautiful hair unbound. 
 She lieth at rest 
 By the gates of the West, 
 
 Her corpse but for me unfound. 
 
 Now, upward at last 
 The picture has passed. 
 
 By the sunset to me given ; 
 I could almost weep. 
 Yet the thought I keep, 
 
 Mv nun — she is safe in Heaven. 
 
24 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 SHADOWS 
 
 A DREAM of shadows, a shadowy dream, 
 
 Floats to my soul from some far-off shore, 
 And hours whose record the world has lost, 
 Have resurrection in time once more. 
 
 I see the daughter of Cenci's House, 
 
 Rosy, radiant in girlhood's glee. 
 And the breath of the flowers she dallies with. 
 
 Sweet to faintness floats over me. 
 
 Entranced, I listen to Sappho's song. 
 
 Ere Sappho's bosom knew how to sigh. 
 
 Where silvery moonbeams kiss the shore. 
 The sea-waves dance in joyance by. 
 
 And, in a bower with blossoms bright, 
 A child, old Egypt's Queen, at rest 
 
 I see, and she starts if a butterfly 
 
 With its silken wing brushes her breast. 
 
 O Beatrice ! the dream recedes. 
 
 And thy fate with its horrors dread will rise, 
 With thy beautiful face so dear to Art, 
 
 And the poet's dream of thine agonies. 
 
 The vision fades, and the Queen of the Nile 
 Shrinks not away from the seirpent's sting. 
 
 While Sappho, ere closing her last love lay. 
 Takes from the sea-cliff the fatal spring. 
 
 Ah ! dreary and cold is this winter day. 
 
 And the world of the present has many an ill, 
 
 And musing, I marvel and question why 
 
 Must the griefs of the old world grieve us still ? 
 
 Sweet dream of shadows, shadowy dream ! 
 
 Come back, come back to my spirit's ken ! 
 So those bright hours oblivion claims 
 
 For me may arise in time again. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 25 
 
 WHY? 
 
 COFTLY the summer sunlight streams 
 
 In through the cottage door, 
 Till a goldenly beautiful vision grows 
 
 Betwixt the rafters and floor. 
 But the sorrowless maiden standing there, 
 With the gleam of the sunshine's gold on her hair, 
 Singeth, to pass away the time, 
 Of glooms and shadows a sorrowful rhyme. 
 
 Where a gray-haired, weary woman walks 
 
 Alone o'er a moorland plain. 
 While the winds around her with sighs, and sobs, 
 
 Of the murky skies complain ; 
 Wonderful castles uprise in the air 
 So sunshine tinged, so rainbow fair, 
 Nar sighs are breathed, nor tears will start, 
 O'er the heaps of ruins that crush her heart. 
 
26 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 THE LOST HOPE 
 
 IT IS lost, the sweet hope that was mine, till it taught me 
 
 To believe that it formed of my being a part ; 
 Till my cheek could but glow, and m.y eye but take lustre 
 From the flame it had lit on the hearth of the heart. 
 
 'Twas my sun through the day and the star of my night-time ; 
 
 But alas ! when I knew not it suddenly fled, 
 And its light is no longer a crown for the Hving, 
 
 And, oh ! bitterer sorrow ! 'tis not with the dead. 
 
 Oh ! no ; had it died with the voice of a loved one, 
 
 Or chilled with somxC brow in the grave's gloomy prison, 
 
 Some angel of light by the sepulchre door-way 
 
 Might kindly point upward and sav, 'Tt is 'risen." 
 
 But now, in the brightness and glory of noon-day 
 I but feel that some shadow my spirit has crossed. 
 
 And at midnight, from dreams of the hope that once cheered me 
 I awake with the cry on my lips : "It is lost !" 
 
 Though sometimes, even yet, to my desolate bosom 
 Its memory, a phantom-like wandering ray, 
 
 Comes, sweet as a flower-scent borne by the breezes. 
 And soft as an echo just dying away ; 
 
 Yet 'tis lost, and more sad than the star-sisters' grieving 
 When a Pleiad was missed from the heavenly host, 
 
 Is each sister hope's sigh, by despair over-shadowed, 
 Since I say of the bright one, '' 'Tis lost ! it is lost !" 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 27 
 
 ROMANCE 
 
 ^^H, TELL me not Romance is dead ! 
 ^^^ He lives, as live the song's he sung 
 Of gallants gay and ladies fair, 
 
 When this poor Avorld of ours was young. 
 
 Nor grows he old, who findeth rest 
 
 And vigor in enchanted dells, 
 Where mystic fountains leap to life, 
 
 And Poesie eternal dwells. 
 
 Immortal gods their blessings shed 
 Upon his birth, and every shore 
 
 Of every land has welcomied him, 
 
 And prayed him to depart no more. 
 
 And Time and Tide have stayed for him 
 Some holy mission to complete, 
 
 Proud History followed where he led, 
 Death wore a smile his smile to meet. 
 
 Believing eyes behold him yet 
 
 From Youth's fair summits far away, 
 Subduing all the sunny realms 
 
 That never crumble to decay. 
 
 In nightly guise his faithful steed 
 He urges toward ancestral halls, 
 
 Through misty greenwoods lilting low 
 Of Love and Hope sweet madrigals. 
 
 Whe;re on his sleeve his lady's hand 
 Hath wrought a golden rose abloom, 
 
 The starlight shimmers, while the winds 
 Rejoice to kiss his nodding plume. 
 
 Som.etimes he hears from leafy bowers 
 The harps the elfin people tune, 
 
 Or wins the smile of fairy folk 
 
 That flit betwixt him and the moon. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 He still is loyal to the Right 
 
 As he is true to Truth, we know, 
 
 And strong his arm and keen his blade 
 When overtaking Virtue's foe. 
 
 And, sweet Romance ! to lovers true 
 The tender glamor of his rays 
 
 Makes this, the present time, as fair 
 As his divinest yesterdays. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 29 
 
 A CITY 
 
 A CITY enthroned by the waters, 
 "^ Rejoicing- in conscious power 
 To see in the tide reflected 
 
 Her palace and temple and tower. 
 The heavens behold with smiling 
 
 How regal her splendor is, 
 And winds of her wealth are telling 
 
 In measureless harmonies. 
 
 NOW 
 
 The city is lost in a legend. 
 
 But the legend tells us she 
 Was invaded and overpowered 
 
 By a wild, insurgent sea, 
 While winds are aweary wailing 
 
 A requiem evermore, 
 Where her glory's ghost unquiet 
 
 Is haunting a lonely shore. 
 
30 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 TO-DAY 
 
 T'O-DAY from early morn was fair, 
 
 With pearly spray and golden sky, 
 Its gladsome sights, its happy sounds, 
 
 I saw and heard, why did I sigh? 
 Because each passing hour to me 
 
 Persistent in reproach would say. 
 From whispering breeze and nodding flower, 
 
 What did you do with yesterday ? 
 
 Oh, fair to-day, though fading, fair 
 
 As manhood's hope or woman's dream. 
 When ere the sunset's glory wanes 
 
 We hail the moon's, more tender beam. 
 From noon till night I look abroad, 
 
 But joy not in the joys I see. 
 Because of questioning hour by hour. 
 
 What will to-morrow do with me? 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 THE AFTERNOON 
 
 CIT down, good housewife, sit down and rest 
 ^ All through the shadowy afternoon. 
 The work of the morning and noontime is done. 
 Rest, for the eventide cometh soon. 
 
 The housewife answered, "It cannot be. 
 Though all my home seems in order set. 
 
 There's a duty here, and a duty there — 
 Many a thing I must see to yet ; 
 
 For girls are careless, and might not think 
 To brew the yeast for the morrow's bread. 
 
 To skim the cream, and to turn the cheese. 
 Or to air the sheets for the stranger's bed." 
 
 Weary farmer, sit here where the shade 
 Is sweet as a soft sundown in June ; 
 
 Turn away from the burden and heat 
 To the grateful rest of the afternoon. 
 
 The farmer answered, "It would not do ; 
 
 The boys are good, but they lack the thought 
 To look to this and to see to that. 
 
 And prepare for the morning as they ought : 
 
 To take the plow to a distant field. 
 
 The tree to prop, and the gate to mend. 
 
 To see that the horse is saddled and shod 
 To send to the station for a friend." 
 
 The words of the housewife, the farmer's words, 
 They brought to my eyes the sudden tears. 
 
 Each working away in field and house. 
 Where each had labored so many years. 
 
 We mean it kindly to ask of them 
 To take their rest in the afternoon ; 
 
 But, ah ! they would rather work on till night — 
 The night that cometh for them so soon. 
 
32 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 Oh ! sturdy youth, 'tis your father's right 
 To keep his place as in days of old ; 
 
 With mother beside you, maiden dear, 
 Life's sweetest chapter is being told. 
 
 We are growing old, aye, growing old. 
 Fathers and mothers, but after all 
 
 The world has need of the work we do. 
 And our presence on to evenfall. 
 
 And we've still an effort more to make 
 In the light of the golden afternoon, 
 
 For a coming night, a certain guest. 
 And glorious morrow to follow soon. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 33 
 
 THE LOVER 
 
 ALL hail, the beloved lover, 
 For who is so blest as he ! 
 The wonder-world of his future 
 Such a vision of victory. 
 
 He walks like the man first fashioned 
 
 In a happy garden's aisles. 
 And scorneth the thought of sorrow. 
 
 In the light of the loved one's smiles. 
 
 Wherever a father and mother 
 
 Stand amid children fair. 
 We see his triumph recorded, 
 
 For once the lover was there. 
 
 And though ever so old the story, 
 Like some traditional rhyme, 
 
 It groweth more sweet in the reading 
 When read for the hundredth time. 
 
 Full soon o'er the little folk playing 
 
 Under unshadowed skies, 
 As sure as the hours are fleeting 
 
 Will the lover's star arise ; 
 
 And be he a prince or peasant. 
 With jeweled or gilded ring. 
 
 To place on the dear one's finger, 
 'Tis the lover out-kings the king. 
 
34 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 AN ARAB'S STORY 
 
 WE JOURNEYED where a desert stretched 
 
 In leagues of loneliness away, 
 And from the burning sky above 
 
 Fell shadowlessly, day by day, 
 That spell upon our Caravan, 
 So softly, strangely Asian, 
 
 That made the fairest memory seem 
 
 The fading memory of a dream. 
 
 Pilgrims of pleasure wandered we, 
 
 And where we scarcely cared to ken, 
 
 But for the Orient traveler's joys 
 
 We joined us to her merchant men ; 
 
 Believing all the ^bashe said, 
 
 And following where the ^hybeeir led — 
 Our moving and our resting time 
 The measures of a moody rhyme. 
 
 And as the stately camels stepped 
 In silence 'mid the solemn scene. 
 
 Our present moments seemed no more. 
 The past and future placed between ; 
 
 But we had lived eternities 
 
 Whose moments all were like to these. 
 Passively trusting Fate to show 
 The distance and the way to go. 
 
 What time the sunset round us made 
 
 The splendor of a saffron sea, 
 And silence on the rosy air 
 
 Seemed silence born of mystery — 
 A voiceless something to us told 
 Of wonder-winged enchantments old. 
 
 By grey Tradition long forgot. 
 
 Brooding o'er many a desert spot. 
 
 Notes. — iBashe. General Superintendent of a Caravan. 
 ^Hybeer. The Guide. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 35 
 
 Then looking longingly above — 
 
 Feeling from heaven forlornly far — 
 
 We saw upon her azure path 
 
 Still pacing slow, each golden star ; 
 
 And would have looked through tears, but soon 
 
 Uprose for us the fair faced moon, 
 
 And one child's laughter, ringing clear. 
 Proclaimed earth still the Happy Sphere. 
 
 Now would I pause and watch as then — 
 Each moment's interest more intense — 
 
 Our tents pitched with that mixture strange 
 Of majesty and turbulence. 
 
 Where chiefs command, and slaves obey, 
 
 Mild camels kneel, vexed asses bray, 
 And over-wearied folk express 
 Their sense of rest in restlessness. 
 
 Aye let me keep those long past hours, 
 
 And would one careless memory flit 
 Into oblivion, wake my heart 
 
 With eager haste, and capture it. 
 I must have all ; it was so sweet 
 To watch the dancers' agile feet. 
 
 Weave hints of woe and glints of glee 
 
 In one monotonous fantasy. 
 
 And passing rich the moonlight seemed 
 While listening and ne'er too long, 
 
 When Arab lips these fables sweet 
 Murmured in tales or set to song. 
 
 "The rosebud loved the butterfly 
 
 Vainly, and so but bloomed to die." 
 
 "The palm would make the breeze his own, 
 She fled from him with mocking tone." 
 
 One turbaned greybeard had the power. 
 With his weird face of somber hue, 
 
 And voice of music oft to bring 
 A world of passion to our view. 
 
 Where Valor dared, and Beauty wept, 
 
 And Worldly Wisdom never slept, 
 
 From this prime center ever moved, 
 "Noureddin reasoned, Selim loved." 
 
36 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 One evening-'s tale — my heart's deep well, 
 Keeps still each drop of honeyed bliss 
 
 It gathered in that listening trance — 
 Seemed over-sweet, its preface this : 
 
 "O Franks ! this tale more true than old. 
 
 Was written by a scribe, who told 
 Scarcely of things less holy-wise 
 Than spirits known in Paradise. 
 
 "My lips grow pale that they should be 
 
 Moved to rehearse these wondrous things : 
 My spirit bows itself, o'er swept 
 
 By a great angel's shadowing wings. 
 For God is God ! and even night 
 May in his smile be filled with light, 
 
 A living light that man may see, 
 
 And shape by it his destiny. 
 
 "Where ^Tigris and Euphrates flow, 
 Rivers that once washed Eden's hem, 
 
 There dwelt three kings, three gentle kings. 
 And shepherd folk were ruled by them. 
 
 The land in worship bent the knee 
 
 Through darkening idolatry, 
 
 But these wise Rulers each had brought 
 From childhood's days one holy thought. 
 
 "Kindled at Faith's pure altar flame. 
 How that the High and Holy One 
 
 Would yet give earth her kingliest king, 
 For thus the ancient legends run, 
 
 'Mid Error's deepening glooms there stood 
 
 Three sisters blest with motherhood, 
 
 Bathed in more bright prophetic gleams 
 Than struggle through the door of dreams. 
 
 ^Tigris and Euphrates. As to the country from which the Wise Men came, 
 opinions vary greatly; but their following the gtiidance of a star seems to 
 point to the banks of the Tigris and Euphrates, where Astronomy was early 
 cultivated by the Chaldeans. The religion of Zoroaster remaining pure from 
 the grosser forms of idolatry preserved the hope of a great deliverer, who 
 should reform the world, and establish a reign of universal peace. That some 
 tradition, influenced possibly by the Jews of the dispersion, went so far as 
 to make this deliverer a king of the Jews, seems a fair inference from their 
 direct form of inquiry for him. Need it be said that in. the traditions of the 
 East these wise men are always regarded as kings? 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 37 
 
 "The mothers of these boy-kings they, 
 
 And oft beneath Chaldean skies 
 They pictured worlds of Tiruth more bright 
 
 Than the star-gazer's ecstacies 
 Had summoned, when the reedy lyre 
 He clasped, and words with sacred fire 
 
 Alive, and full of excellence. 
 
 Throbbed into songs of joy intense. 
 
 "True mother lips drop words of pearl — 
 
 God's ear leans low toward mother-prayer ; 
 These mothers breathed o'er their sweet sons, 
 
 In mingled rapture and despair, 
 'O God ! may these our sons be Thine, 
 Thy smile of mercy on them shine. 
 
 Make their dust-fettered spirits still. 
 
 Lean upon Thee in every ill.' 
 
 "And to their sons, 'O sons ! be pure,' 
 
 They said each morn and eventide, 
 'Who made the lily and the star 
 
 Will send his angels you to guide ; 
 We know from blessed ^Seth there came 
 A promise down too sweet to name, 
 
 That he should take, this coming king. 
 
 From even dreaded Death the sting.' 
 
 " 'O sons ! be pure, and it may be 
 
 That even for the sake of us 
 Who worship Him the world forgets. 
 
 This sinless king, and glorious. 
 May rear on earth his star-bright throne. 
 Where ye his scepter's power may own ; 
 
 Some ray may guide you to the shore 
 
 Where He shall reign forevermore.' 
 
 " 'And ye will bring him gifts' they said, 
 
 'The best ye can, nor dare refuse, 
 Though of a stranger people's house 
 
 His mother be. King of the Jews 
 His name. Ah ! once Great Solomon 
 The throne of Judah sat upon. 
 
 And then, the tale is strangely dim, 
 
 A mighty queen gave gifts to him.' 
 
 ^Seth. Seth is a favorite personage among the Orientals, and acts a con- 
 spicuous part in many of their most extravagant romances. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 "They gathered then, these infant kings, 
 Firom pleasant plain and lilied rill. 
 
 Blooms of blood red and blooms of white, 
 With which the mother laps to fill. 
 
 And sweet their childish accents flow. 
 
 As with their treasures kneeling low, 
 
 They smiling say, 'Our gifts we bring. 
 Oh, keep them for the wondrous king.' 
 
 "Each mother, with uplifted soul 
 
 Beheld the gift her darling brought, 
 And sudden tears, her eyes that dimmed. 
 
 Sprang, born of some diviner thought 
 Than the mere gladness for the grace 
 Of his fair gift — 'twas that his face 
 
 Was so by holy rapture lit. 
 
 She knew what spirit lighted it. 
 
 "But years wore on, till childhood's isle 
 Lay far behind, while still they bring 
 
 To place in the dear mother hands 
 A yearly added offering ; 
 
 E'en such as lordliest merchants sold, 
 
 Of myrrh and frankincense and gold. 
 
 Through years that came, and years that went, 
 The child's hope now, the man's intent. 
 
 "The mothers passed away, the sons 
 
 Wailingly cried, 'Alas that we 
 Such smile as shone above our gifts 
 
 Of loveliest flowers no more shall see ; 
 But mother prayers are prayers of might. 
 And mother precepts guide aright. 
 
 Our gold, our frankincense, our myrrh. 
 
 We'll keep for him, through love of her.' 
 
 "At last ! at last ! they felt the time 
 
 Draw near, with sweet unquestioning awe, 
 Laid their long cherished treasures then 
 
 Upon their asses, and they saw, 
 And wondered, while it came from far, 
 Yet knew, and joyful cried, 'The star! 
 
 The star ! The star !' as over them 
 
 It stood. Then toward Jerusalem 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 39 
 
 "They followed on. How heaven-touched, 
 
 How conscious seemed the silence deep ; 
 What awful beauty in the night, 
 
 What peace, beyond the peace of sleep ! 
 While fairer than the fairest dreams. 
 Above them still the new star's beams 
 
 Smoothed like a mother's soft caress 
 
 All the unmeasured distances. 
 
 "It touched at last with softened glow 
 
 The glory of Jerusalem, 
 Where tarried they a little while, 
 
 Then journeyed on to Bethlehem; 
 For the star stayed above that small. 
 Mean village, lighting up the stall 
 
 Of a most lowly stable, where 
 
 A virgin and her infant were. 
 
 "Their life-time's hope was crowned that hour. 
 And blessed were their eyes that saw 
 
 A mother fairer than their own ; 
 And oh ! with what delighted awe 
 
 Beheld an infant on her knee, 
 
 Far, far more beautiful to see. 
 
 Than all the dewy memoried flowers, 
 They gathered in glad childhood's hours. 
 
 "They knelt, and worshiped, and they gave 
 
 In joy their hoarded offerings. 
 And wise in their simplicity. 
 
 They hailed the child the King of Kings. 
 E'en where a manger made his bed. 
 And gentle kine beside him fed. 
 
 They knew the Promised One, long sought, 
 
 Death's victor, son of God's Best Thought. 
 
 "It was a piteous time, the land 
 Was ruled by a most cruel king. 
 
 Who infants slew, and sought to slay 
 
 This babe, and those who dared to bring 
 
 Homage and offerings from afar ; 
 
 But God, who led them by a star, 
 Protected still their steps, and they 
 Warned by a dream, fled safe away. 
 
40 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 "O, Franks! my story strange is done; 
 
 But ah ! they say, in many a land 
 Where sculptures are, and paintings rare, 
 
 Forevermore is seen to stand 
 In marble white, this mother mild, 
 Clasped to her breast the Holy Child, 
 
 Or painted sitting motherly, 
 
 The halo'd infant on her knee. 
 
 "And oft before her, kneeling low. 
 
 The Wise Men with their gifts are seen. 
 
 And by their bearded visages 
 
 Her beauty glows more bright I ween. 
 
 The tale you've heard. Oh ! bear it far. 
 
 Linked in your memory to the star. 
 Or, if it please not, day by day. 
 With their dream let it fade away." 
 
 The Arab's voice was hushed, and now, 
 
 In leagues of loneliness away 
 We saw the desert stretch, and felt 
 
 More deep the spell, that night and day, 
 Had fallen on our Caravan, 
 So sadly, strangely Asian 
 
 It made the fairest memory seem 
 
 The fading memory of a dream. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 41 
 
 GLIMPSES 
 
 \V7HEN the angels their hoHest vigils keep 
 
 As our life lies folded in silence deep 
 In the arms of Death — we call it Sleep. 
 
 2 
 
 Familiar music we often hear 
 
 As by memory brought from some other sphere, 
 
 Strains which we know yet have learned not here. 
 
 And glimpses wander the reason o'er 
 
 Of ways where our footsteps have passed before 
 
 In some far-off shadowy Heretofore. 
 
 And fair is the light where the spirit stands 
 And loving the smiles of the kindred bands 
 And fond caresses of gentle hands. 
 
 We may know not now where the region lies 
 Under the arch of whose cloudless skies 
 Such love looked out of such tender eyes. 
 
 But these gHmpses show how this life of pain 
 
 Is only a link in an endless chain, 
 
 Like 'mid sands of the ocean one small grain. 
 
 And but know when we grope 'mid these shadows deep 
 The secrets oblivion fain would keep, 
 Almost Tevealed in the realm of sleep. 
 
42 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 ONCE LOVED 
 
 *'(^NCE loved!" "once loved!" what mystery strange 
 ^"^ Those little common v^ords enfold, 
 For in them lurks as deep despair 
 As longest story ever told. 
 
 "Once loved !" "once loved !" the words recall 
 So much the heart would fain forget; 
 
 Bitter as brief they syllable 
 A tragedy of vain regret. 
 
 "Once loved !" these words have power to ope 
 
 A long-locked chamber in the breast, 
 Darkness, and emptiness, to show 
 
 Where had been throned a royal guest. 
 
 "Once loved !" "once loved !" the words bring back 
 
 The light it seemed like heav'n to see 
 Only to fade and to become 
 
 A most heart-breaking phantasy. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 43 
 
 BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT 
 
 HTHE noon-day sun of fierce July 
 Blazed over vale and wood. 
 
 Where fair Monongahela's stream 
 Pours down her limpid flood. 
 
 And there, in all their bright array, 
 The ranks of Braddock stood. 
 
 They could not choose but pause awhile 
 
 To gaze upon that scene : 
 The earth smiled in the gladsome light, 
 
 The skies were so serene, 
 And blazoned banners gayly danced 
 
 The waving boughs between. 
 
 But midst that summer solitude. 
 And stillness so profound, 
 
 Full many a gallant soldier's glance 
 Stole cautious o'er the ground, 
 
 For well they know the wily foe 
 E'en now may lurk around. 
 
 But proudly beamed their leader's eye, 
 
 To mark his goodly train, 
 And cheerily he spake : "We go 
 
 A victory to gain ; 
 For, by Saint George, I mean this night 
 
 To sup in Fort Du Quesne. 
 
 "And seek ye not, my merry men, 
 
 An ambush or a shield. 
 Among the sheltering underwood; 
 
 But in the open field. 
 Show to the French and savage brood 
 
 A band that will not yield !" 
 
44 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 Ah ! little did he dream of what 
 A moment might disclose ! 
 
 For ere his words had died away 
 The deafening war-whoop rose, 
 
 And each man saw the forest aisles 
 All peopled with his foes. 
 
 Oh ! dreadful was the slaughter then ! 
 
 And brave hearts quaked to see 
 An avalanche of arrows shower 
 
 From every greenwood tree, 
 Blent with the horrid roar and fire 
 
 Of French artillery. 
 
 One moment are the English troops 
 Repulsed, and backward fall : 
 
 A moment more they rally at 
 Their leader's trumpet call ; 
 
 'Tis vain, they do but see their ranks 
 Soldier by soldier fall. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Tumultous and terrible 
 
 The battle storm sweeps on. 
 Till many a noble form is low 
 
 And many a spirit gone : 
 That scene the pitying angels well 
 
 Might weep to look upon. 
 
 Misguided Braddock lives to see 
 
 His ruinous defeat, 
 But mortal pangs forbid him e'er 
 
 His vaunting words repeat, 
 As his few followers bear him on 
 
 Their swift confused retreat. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 45 
 
 XI. 
 
 Nor shrank that warrior spirit then, 
 
 To join the mighty dead, 
 Where naught might break the silence deep 
 
 About his lonely bed, 
 Save the wild wolf's or panther's cry. 
 
 Or Indian's stealthy tread. 
 
 Perchance he sighed that England's shores 
 
 He might not see again. 
 As faithful memory recalled 
 
 Sweet shade and sunny lane, 
 Loved long ago : but what were these 
 
 To the o'ermastering pain : 
 
 That not one gleam of triumph shone 
 
 Above life's ebbing tide, 
 And that no victor's wreath might crown 
 
 His forehead as he died, 
 Hero of that disastrous day, 
 
 Martyr to his own pride ? 
 
46 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 MY PALACE 
 
 r ONG since a day-dream palace 
 
 I builded in the air, 
 My heart with joy exulting 
 
 That naught could be more fair. 
 I peopled it with pleasures, 
 
 I lighted it with love. 
 While fears of its destruction 
 
 Were fears I knew not of. 
 
 But, just a cold word spoken 
 
 By one I loved too well, 
 One fond glance given another, 
 
 And lo ! my palace fell. 
 Walls, towers, love-light, pleasures, 
 
 One heap of ruins lay. 
 Call not those ruins airy. 
 
 They crush my heart to-day. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 47 
 
 A SHADOW 
 
 T'HE sun looks down upon me 
 
 From a blue and cloudless dome : 
 But a shadow, as of trouble — 
 
 If past or if to come 
 I know not — round me gathers, 
 
 And heavier it seems, 
 Because unknown to memory, 
 
 Unprophesied in dreams. 
 
 As when from lamp-lit chambers 
 One tries to gaze outside, 
 
 And starts to see an image 
 Of himself before him glide 
 
 In the border land of darkness 
 Beyond the window pane ; 
 
 But naught is there but blackness 
 When he turns to look again. 
 
 This dim disturbing presence 
 That I cannot recognize, 
 
 By touch, or sight, or heairing. 
 Comes from the world that lies 
 
 Outside the mortal senses 
 Stealing my senses o'er. 
 
 I would that seer or sibyl 
 
 Of the awful days of yore, 
 
 Would read for me its riddle — 
 
 But they have passed away — 
 And I must but conjecture, 
 
 In the work world of to-day, 
 The message and the meaning 
 
 Of the shadow, that my heart 
 But knoweth is a shadow, 
 
 And but knoweth this in part. 
 
48 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 PAST LOVE 
 
 "VW'HAT it is, and where is it now ? 
 
 The angel guest — 
 That dove-like came, and nestled once 
 Within my breast. 
 
 Does the sweet spirit wait for me 
 
 On some far shore ? 
 Or is it numbered with the things 
 
 To be no more? 
 
 Where are the joys that vision once 
 
 Called into birth ? 
 Gone — never more to re-illume 
 
 My path on earth ! 
 
 Alas ! that eairly dream of bliss 
 
 Was dearly bought ; 
 To be, at last, but bitter food 
 
 For troubled thought. 
 
 Where is the holy spark I nursed? 
 
 From Heaven that came — 
 That gentlest care, and kindly hopes, 
 
 Fed into flame ; 
 
 Whose steadfast glow I deemed should light 
 
 My coming years : 
 Darkness above its embers broods — 
 
 'Twas quenched in tears. 
 
 Ah ! where are now the rapture-tones 
 
 My heart that thrilled, 
 Like heaven-born strains of melody 
 
 Forever stilled. 
 
 But, mournful as the sea-wave's moan 
 
 On some lone shore, 
 Their echoes through my soul shall ring 
 
 For evermore. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 49 
 
 BIMINI* 
 
 T'HE isle enchanted, beautiful Bimini, 
 
 'Mid the Atlantic's billows seen of old. 
 Rising, floating, fading in the distance 
 
 As oft the daring Spanish sailors told. 
 Was it but a fable ? Did they never 
 
 See its glorious hills and valleys fair? 
 Did they never catch its wild birds' music, 
 
 Never breathe one moment its sweet air ? 
 
 Ah, they must have seen it ! Fancy never 
 
 Painted loveHness like that fair isle's. 
 There the wondrous Fount of Youth was gushing, 
 
 There were found again Love's long lost smiles ; 
 Hills all clad in green-eternal glory. 
 
 Valleys with their laps o'er full of flowers, 
 West winds shaking odors from their pinions, 
 
 South winds dreaming in the bonny bowers. 
 
 O, 'mid those sweet recesses to have wandered, 
 
 To pluck those flowers never elsewhere found ! 
 O, to have clambered to those radiant highlands 
 
 And cast one raptured, longing look around ! 
 O, to have met the beautiful immortals 
 
 That with unwearied feet day after day. 
 Explored undreamed-of beauties through the dingles, 
 
 Or, by the fountains danced the hours away ! 
 
 "Bimini ! Hail Bimini !" cried the sailors. 
 
 Full often as they swept the Spanish Main, 
 And turned to tell their comrades, but Bimini 
 
 Had far receded when they looked again. 
 Life, then, alas ! became a dream of longing. 
 
 The heart aye haunted with the memory, 
 Of that one isle, all other isles excelling. 
 
 And other Future Hope refused to see. 
 
 Pronounced Bemeene. 
 
50 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 Ah ! many of us yet on Life's rough voyage, 
 
 See, just before us, rise that island fair, 
 And watching, praying, striving to o'ertake it, 
 
 Behold it far away fade into air. 
 Bimini ! oh, Bimini ! lovely island ! 
 
 To us our all thou surely couldst restore. 
 Thou hast not only founts and flowers immortal ; 
 
 Thou hast our loved ones on thy fadeless shore. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 51 
 
 BABY FINGERS 
 
 "PVERYBODY always knew that from the olden times 
 Mothers counted baby's fingers saying pretty rhymes ; 
 But I knew a little woman — oh ! so long ago — 
 Used to sing a nonsense- jingle you would like to know. 
 Lifting up the baby fingers, one, and two and three, 
 On the left hand, on the right hand, smiling merrily, 
 On the left hand very slowly, on the right hand fast, 
 Leaving thumbs and little fingers till the very last, 
 She would say — be sure her baby laughed aloud with glee, 
 O how strange ! the little baby laughing then was me : 
 
 " One little horsey, two little horsies, three little horsies 
 All in a row, 
 Four little horsies, five little horsies, six Httle horsies 
 
 Away they go ! 
 And one little pony, and two little ponies 
 
 Snowy white. 
 And three little ponies, and four little ponies 
 
 Black as night ; 
 And three horsies standing, and three that go. 
 And four little ponies make ten, you know !" 
 Oh ! that every little baby of the future time. 
 Would be just as blessed as I was when I heard this 'rhyme. 
 
52 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 CLOTH OF GOLD 
 
 OEADING, I said, "No page again can be 
 
 Like this brave pageant of the days of old 
 Named the proud name, 'Field of the Cloth of Gold',' 
 And sighed that Fate had not permitted me 
 In this dull age so fair a sight to see ; 
 Then, closed my book and smiled, smiled to behold 
 A sight whose splendor never can be told, 
 A scene of beauty and of mystery, — 
 Velvet of gold so yellow, gold so red. 
 In flowers, by leaves like sea-green shields uplifted ; 
 And there were spurs as bright as knight e'er wore, 
 While over all a glory-light was shed. 
 Where the soft summer sunlight downward drifted. 
 On the Nasturtion bed beside my door. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 53 
 
 GRANDFATHER'S TALK WITH LITTLE PHILIP 
 
 (Suggested by a passage from Thoreau) 
 
 I. 
 I DREAMED that my splendid bay horse, all my own, 
 Which for beauty and strength stood unrivaled, alone, 
 Should bear me from country to country in pride, 
 Fame's crown on my forehead, her sword by mv side. 
 
 I dreamed that my beautiful greyhound, so fleet 
 
 That scarcely the wind could keep pace with his feet, 
 
 Would never forsake, but be true and more true. 
 
 When thorns choked my pathway, and blossoms were few. 
 
 I dreamed, too, the one dove that answered my call. 
 Whose voice was most clear and most tender of all. 
 Though shadows might deepen and sunshine depart, 
 Would nestle more fondly and close to my heart. 
 
 And now a wee whisper I'll whisper to you : 
 
 These dreams that I dreamed, Phil, they never came true : 
 
 My horse fled when night-tide was starry and still, 
 
 I heard his far hoof-beats fall faint o'er the hill : 
 
 Lost forever, I sighed not, nor wept, in my pride, 
 Caressing the greyhound crouched close by my side; 
 But in the first snow-fall, I marked the last track 
 Of this fleet-footed beauty ; he never came back. 
 
 The sweet cooing dove, with its plumage of white, 
 
 Ah ! then how I watched it, by day and by night ! 
 
 But once, when bright clouds fringed the sunset's fair shore, 
 
 My dove soared up 'midst them, and came back no more. 
 
 Still, blithe are the thoughts to my steed that go back, 
 And happy in fancy the greyhound I track. 
 Oft my dove-seeking vision I strain through the blue, 
 Yet know that the dreams I dreamed can not come true. 
 
54 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 AT CHRISTMAS-TIDE 
 
 TF WINTER winds be blowing wild 
 
 Across the meadows white with snow, 
 They tell to every little child 
 
 One story — wheresoe'er they go — 
 Of Santa Claus in furry dress ; 
 
 Of reindeer, with their nimble feet 
 And tinkling bells, that forward press 
 
 With toys and candies fair and sweet. 
 
 If all the heaven with stars is bright, 
 
 Over the mountain and the moor, 
 The dear old tale is told to-night 
 
 In palace hall and cottage poor ; 
 About the star that shone of old — 
 
 The star that led to Bethlehem — 
 When shepherds on the hillside cold 
 
 Heard angel voices sing to them. 
 
 If all around is peace and rest, 
 
 Each mother on this happy day 
 Thinks, with her baby on her breast, 
 
 Of one that in a manger lay. 
 We know the gospel gift to men 
 
 Is rarer, richer, many fold. 
 Than all the wise men offered then 
 
 Of myrrh and frankincense and gold. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 55 
 
 BEFORE THE DAWN 
 
 pROM the far-away West, 
 
 -*■ O'er the Isles of the Blest, 
 
 Comes a wind, ere the breaking of dawn. 
 
 And it bears on its wings 
 
 The most wonderful things 
 For the dreamer who wakes — to dream on. 
 
 Treasures lost long ago, 
 
 We had wept over so. 
 
 Its tones bring again within reach. 
 
 And the story half-told 
 
 In the dear days of old 
 Flows on through its musical speech. 
 
 Then, as thistle down fair. 
 Floating here, floating there. 
 On its pinions we wander away, 
 
 Where the roses are bright 
 
 In a shadowless light 
 As in childhood's most Eden-like day. 
 
 Aye, we bask in the shine, 
 
 Of a glamour divine, 
 
 While that mystical anthem peals on. 
 
 Till our spirits have caught 
 
 All untroubled by thought 
 Rays from thought's own ineffable dawn. 
 
56 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 OVER A CRADLE 
 
 TIKE an image marble made 
 Pale and passionless he lies, 
 
 Mute the laughter of his lips, 
 Veiled the gladness of his eyes. 
 
 Quietness upon his feet 
 
 Is a wonder to behold. 
 And the dainty clasped hands seem 
 Some sweet mystery to enfold. 
 
 If through poppy-bordered paths 
 Now he drinks the drowsy air; 
 
 If he follows butterflies 
 
 Floating over dream-fields fair ; 
 
 If he hears the seraph song 
 Far above the farthest star ; 
 
 If he knows the joys that be 
 
 Where the fadeless flowers are, 
 
 I, his mother, may not guess ! 
 
 But I know too sadly well, 
 Waking thought must fail to keep 
 
 Raptures language cannot tell. 
 
 And I muse, as in a dream, 
 With a sorrow all unsaid, 
 
 Of the waking waiting me 
 When his babyhood is fled. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 57 
 
 BABY'S LETTER 
 
 l-TERE in this casket you may behold 
 
 Something more precious to me than gold, 
 For the crumpled scrap of paper there, 
 Enclosing a tress of soft, bright hair. 
 And penciled over so cunningly. 
 Is my wee grandson's letter to me, 
 Where not in vain did his babyhood 
 Struggle to make himself understood. 
 
 A world of odors, and light, and song. 
 
 Such as to infancy belong, 
 
 Seem part of this letter ; far, don't you see, 
 
 He is just as sweet as a baby can be. 
 
 To think the darling — you needn't laugh — 
 
 Marked lines like this at a year and a half, 
 
 With his blessed own little dimpled hand. 
 
 And sent them to me out of Babyland ! 
 
 His words still few, he scarce has met 
 The fitting ones for his purpose yet. 
 But the love in his all-loving breast 
 Beyond expression is here expressed. 
 These comical crooks and awkward angles. 
 And twisted lines, like thread in tangles, 
 Are riddles, riddles that grandma guesses 
 To be storms of chokingly close caresses. 
 
 And what was ever more plain than this 
 
 Circle, his mother labels, "a kiss." 
 
 A prophecy of love's new romance, 
 
 Bringing the old to remembrance. 
 
 This letter shows clear as a heavenly ray. 
 
 The angel side of my mortal way, 
 
 And crowned, I behold my grandboy stand 
 
 On the sunniest summit of Babyland. 
 
58 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 A CELTIC LEGEND 
 
 "VJ^ILD and weird and sweet the story. 
 
 How the unexampled skill 
 Of the Celtic Wise Men's art 
 Forces of great Nature's heart 
 
 Could make subject to their will. 
 
 Holy Gwydeon for his pupil 
 
 Fain would find a wife m.ost fair, 
 
 "Thou and I," said Math the Great, 
 
 "Searching field and forest straight, 
 
 Gathering flowers here and there 
 
 "Of the stately oak-tree's tassels, 
 
 Of the wild broom's yellow spray, 
 With the tufted meadow sweet. 
 Growing where the sunbeams fleet 
 Chase the shadows all the day, 
 
 "Will a beauteous maiden fashion, 
 
 Of our work the crown and pride ; 
 In her form and in her face 
 Shall the sweetness and the grace 
 Of these blooms be glorified !" 
 
 Mighty Math and Holy Gwydeon 
 From the morning's earliest ray 
 
 Prayerful wander up and down. 
 
 Fasting, oh! so weary grown. 
 After daylight fades away. 
 
 Then the loveliness together, 
 
 Flower of stalk, and shrub, and tree, 
 Under midnight's moonlight fair, 
 Wove they, till before them there 
 
 Stood the maid of mystery. 
 
 Awed, the Wise Men from each other's 
 Glances turn to meet her glance, 
 
 And from deeps of azure eyes. 
 
 See above a vague surprise. 
 
 Trembling rays of gladness dance. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 59 
 
 When again the golden sunshine 
 
 Glinted gay the greenwood through, 
 Said the pupil, as he pressed 
 Gwydeon's gift-bride to his breast, 
 "Sweeter blossom never grew." 
 
60 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 A RECOLLECTION 
 
 T WAS but a little child. 
 
 When a woman old and grey, 
 Stern to others, still to me 
 
 Had a pleasant word to say. 
 With a sadly tender tone. 
 Holding in her hand my own. 
 Once she told, still haunting me 
 Like a long-loved melody, 
 
 How, far off, her little child 
 
 Passed from earth forevermore; 
 
 How she kept within her heart. 
 Ever conning o'er and o'er, 
 
 All his ways and all his words ; 
 
 What he said about the birds ; 
 
 What he thought about the skies, 
 
 And his dream of paradise. 
 
 He was such a happy child. 
 Finding joy in everything, 
 
 Drinking in the streamlet's song 
 And the wind's low whispering ; 
 
 Setting marigolds afloat 
 
 On the brook in leafy boat, 
 
 Saying, then, from shore to shore 
 
 Fairy folk were sailing o'er. 
 
 He was such a gentle child, 
 
 Oh, so winsome in his ways ! 
 Changeful, too, from shine to shade, 
 
 Like the passing summer days. 
 Once he found a robin dead ; 
 Down he bowed his little head, 
 And with such a solemn sigh 
 Murmured low, "Good-bye, good-bye. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 61 
 
 "Ah ! he was a wondrous child, 
 And his fancies flew so far, 
 Saw delig-ht in every cloud 
 
 And a friend in every star ; 
 Thought the sunshine sifted gold. 
 Never knew a moon was old ; 
 But he loved me most of all 
 Till he heard the angels call. 
 
 "For the angels called my child 
 From his lovely world below 
 
 To the lovelier one above ; 
 
 It was best that he should go, 
 
 While his spirit was so pure. 
 
 To its glory, I am sure ; 
 
 But my heart died then, and see ! 
 
 'Tis a weary world to me." 
 
 Firom the time I was a child. 
 
 Still her talk has haunted me. 
 That stern woman's, old and grey, 
 
 Of her lost child's infancy. 
 Deepest rapture, wildest woe, 
 It had been her lot to know ; 
 And her words have still for me 
 Some pure poem's majesty. 
 
62 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 CROSSING THE DELAWARE 
 
 F\ARKLY hangs the winter midnight on the war-beleaguered land, 
 
 Onward toward the swollen river press a little patriot-band, 
 Spent with famine, worn and weary marching through the crusted snow, 
 Where the crimson blood-tide flowing stains their pathway as they go. 
 
 Long and nobly have they striven to resist the tyrant's power, 
 
 Now their brave hearts sink within them, 'tis their country's gloomiest hour. 
 
 And each hopeless face is shadowed by a fixed and sullen frown, 
 
 As they watch the angry waters with the ice-isles rushing down ; 
 
 While a requiem the tempest seems for Liberty to sing. 
 
 And the waves in wild upheaving the last knell of Hope to ring. 
 
 But calmly stands their leader by the foaming torrent's brink, 
 And their looks are turned upon him, as they pause, but do not shrink ; 
 And he meets those mournful glances with a father's pitying eye, 
 For he knows they will not fail him, that they do not fear to die : 
 They but fear their arms are powerless to protect the land they love. 
 Fear their cause is all unheeded by the God who rules above. 
 But he speaks in cheering accents to the faint, disheartened band, 
 Bids them think of homes and firesides — think upon their native land; 
 Rouses them for one strong effort that may break oppression's chain, 
 Bids them rally for the struggle, fall upon their foes again : 
 "While the broad wings of their army wide and vulture-like expand. 
 With their hateful blackness brooding over all the Jersey-land, 
 We may clip their spreading pinions if we strike a sudden blow ; 
 Come, my brothers, stern and steady, answer quickly, Will you go?" 
 Thus he speaks, and bares his temples, and the soldiers looking on. 
 Grasp their arms and shout in chorus : "We will follow Washington !" 
 
 They have caught his hero-spirit, throbs each heart more wildly now. 
 For there seems a sudden glory to have settled on his brow ; 
 While his clarion voice comes ringing deep and clear above the blast. 
 And for him, where'er he lead them, they will battle to the last. 
 Let the snow and hail come sweeping fiercely down the dismal shores. 
 And the tempest's voice grow louder in the rocking sycamores ; 
 Now they heed not storm or midnight, chilling wind or driving hail. 
 As they dare the foaming river, where the stoutest heart might quail. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 63 
 
 And again they're marching forward, stiff with cold and pierced with pain, 
 Toward the enemy's encampment, far across the frozen plain ; 
 With a more than Spartan courage lighting up each dauntless eye. 
 Swift and silent, firm and fearless, on they go, to do or die. 
 Brooding now with thoughts of vengeance on the hurried retreat 
 Made across the alarmed country from Long-Island's sad defeat ; 
 Now with hopeful pride remembering Concord Bridge and Lexington : 
 Oh ! that on this night of darkness such another day might dawn ! 
 
 Where the sentinels are pacing in the early morning's beams, 
 Where the unsuspecting foemen waken out of peaceful dreams : 
 Dreams perchance of wives and children, many a gentle-hearted band. 
 As they keep the merry Christmas, in the distant fatherland. 
 Knowing not of danger near them — see, the little army comes, 
 And with sudden start they listen to the roll of rebel-drums ! 
 
 Now the tide of battle surges far and near, and loud and deep. 
 
 As with head-long desperation down upon the foe they sweep ; 
 
 With a thought of home and kindred strengthening every deadly blow — 
 
 God of Freedom, God of Justice, aid the holy struggle now ! 
 
 Fiercely patriot and invader mingle in the stormy fray. 
 
 In the annals of Columbia this will be a glorious day ! 
 
 For they see in death the sinking of the foeman leader, Rahl^ 
 
 See the hireling Hessians flying, see the lion standard fall ; 
 
 And where clear away the war-clouds, when the battle-hour is done, 
 
 Lo ! the Eagle soars in triumph, and the victory is won ! 
 
64 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 OUR DEAD PRESIDENT 
 
 HIGH in the heavens Jehovah hath his throne, 
 
 Thick clouds and darkness are his secret place. 
 But tender was the voice that called his own, 
 
 "Come to my presence and behold my face." 
 Yet we are mourning, all uncomforted — 
 
 A mig-hty people, pouring our lament 
 On the wild autumn winds, for he is dead, 
 
 Our chosen chief, our Christian President. 
 
 Oh ! our good soldier, brave, and true, and tried, 
 Thy country's sons all comrades by thy side. 
 
 Felt every pain that thou wert called to feel — 
 Son, husband, father, though we think of thee 
 At rest, and crowned with immortality. 
 
 Thy God and ours alone our woe can heal. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 65 
 
 THE THREE POETS 
 
 VOUTH, the proud poet, chanting joyous measufres, 
 
 Crossed the fair meadows from his mother's door, 
 Behind him childhood, butterflies and blossoms, 
 
 And manhood's beaten highway still before. 
 And wheresoe'er he would his feet might wander, 
 
 And wheresoe'er he sat it seemed a throne. 
 So long for him the happy world had waited 
 
 It smiled anew to claim him as its own. 
 
 Then Love, the dreamer poet, followed after. 
 
 And all the radiance of the starry spheres, 
 All tenderness of twilights, and of moonlights, 
 
 All wondrous mysteries of smiles and tears ; 
 The secrets hidden in the rose's bosom, 
 
 The passion thrilling through the wild bird's lay, 
 He sang of sweetly, as he sang in Eden, 
 
 For Eden's gladness glorified his way. 
 And Love had wings and Youth was overtaken, 
 
 Ah ! then, for both 't^as blessedness to be. 
 Fond Youth in exultation, Love enraptured, 
 
 Sang to each other hymns of ecstacy. 
 
 Death, kingly poet, met the twain together. 
 
 And while his anthem rolled its swelling tide 
 Across the nations, Youth and Love to hear it, 
 
 With broken harp strings and hushed voices, died ; 
 But, as earth's wailings sounded 'up to heaven. 
 
 The master poet spake, not bitterly, 
 "Children of Time, ye blame me in your blindness. 
 
 For these were not immortal but for me." 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 STILL SMALL VOICES 
 
 TT WAS only the sigh of the wind 
 
 Where a reed was shaking. 
 But it said to me my far-off love 
 
 Knew my heart was breaking, 
 Knew it was breaking and fain would he 
 Come on the wind's wings to comfort me. 
 
 When no ripple of wave or of grass 
 
 Was on lake or meadow. 
 When skies were blue and the lissome reed 
 
 Stood still with its shadow, 
 All the deep silences seemed to be 
 Bringing my loved one's blessing to me. 
 
 Of this mystery spell in the air. 
 
 With its currents flowing 
 'Twixt soul and soul, must I only know 
 
 'Tis beyond my knowing? 
 So let it be, since my sorrow fled 
 And I but feel I am comforted. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 67 
 
 PANIC AND CRISIS 
 
 I'VE a "panic" girl and a "crisis" boy. 
 
 Ah, me, but they make me a world of woe ! 
 I try to be quiet, I try to rest. 
 
 But I hear their voices and off I go. 
 Swift to the rescue and swift to the work. 
 
 She's crying, "A spider ! Oh, let me in !" 
 He says, "Hurry, mother ! button my shoe ; 
 
 The bell is ringing for school to begin." 
 
 My girl is a beauty, with golden hair. 
 
 And I love her with mother-love most true. 
 But I'm quite distracted to think of her 
 
 In a constant state of "What shall I do?" 
 I look on the face of my boy with pride 
 
 When from his rosy mouth comes the old song, 
 "Mother, this minute, come help me to start ! 
 
 Quick ! they are calling me — hurry along !" 
 
 Must I carry weapons for her defense — 
 
 A broom or a poker, or this or that — 
 And fly at his bidding as if a serf 
 
 And he an unterrified autocrat, 
 All the bright days of the summer and fall, 
 
 All the weeks of winter and spring-time through, 
 With no escape ? But the "Panic" is here ; 
 
 And, pity me ! here is the "Crisis," too, 
 
 Rushing upon me. I open the door 
 
 To hear her "Goodness ! there comes a cow !" 
 And he calls, "Just give me the hatchet — quick ! 
 
 For my father must have it, and have it right now. 
 My girl in a tremble, my boy in haste, 
 
 I'm all in a fever, they fret me so. 
 Run, "Crisis," to father; come, "Panic," to me: 
 
 You're the dearest plagues in the world, I know. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 LEGEND OF A PICTURE 
 
 TN A DIMLY lighted chamber 
 Day by day an Artist wrought, 
 While his gentle wife beside him — 
 
 Fair as some immofrtal thought — ■ 
 Was the model for the picture 
 
 That he dreamed would place his name 
 High among the shining planets 
 
 In the holy heaven of fame. 
 
 Never weary grew the Artist 
 
 Though the summer-time was bright, 
 And there came into his chamber 
 
 Nothing of its bloom and light ; 
 Only gazed he on the beauty 
 
 Of her perfect face, and then 
 Patiently across the canvas 
 
 Bade its beauty glow again. 
 
 And when she at last grown weary 
 
 Pining for the sunlight's smile. 
 Fondly clasped his neck and whispered — 
 
 Whispered low and sighed the while — 
 "Love, rememberest thou the even 
 
 When we sat the spring beside 
 In the valley of the Tyrol 
 
 Ere I came to be thy bride ? 
 
 "When thou said'st about my singing 
 
 I had caught the wild-bird's tone 
 And the rivulet's low laughter 
 
 Was an echo of my own, 
 Then compared my forehead's whiteness 
 
 To the mountain's crown of snow ; 
 Said my cheek was like the wild rose 
 
 Blooming in the vale below ? 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 Fairer even than thine the pictures 
 
 Summoned by my fancy's power, 
 Of the peasant youths and maidens 
 
 Lingering there this twilight hour; 
 And I fain would see my brothers 
 
 On the hill side tend their sheep, 
 See my mother by the hearth-stone 
 
 Where she lulls the babe to sleep." 
 
 Answered he, "My homesick darling 
 
 To the Tyrol wouldst thou go !" 
 Then he kissed the lips and forehead 
 
 That his genius worshiped so ; 
 And again he plied his pencil 
 
 While the lady sat and dreamed 
 Of childhood and her childhood's home 
 
 Until doubly dear they seemed. 
 
 Passed away the rosy summer, 
 
 Came the autumn's soft eclipse, 
 When before the finished picture 
 
 With Eureka on his lips, 
 Knelt the Artist, all his spirit 
 
 Filled with rapture most divine ; 
 "See," he cried, "the world shall worship 
 
 Loved one at thy beauty's shrine !" 
 
 But despair has followed raptutre 
 
 As he sees the last faint ray 
 Of the life that he had stolen 
 
 For his picture die away. 
 Gone the lustre from her tresses 
 
 And the life-light from her eyes, 
 While her faded lips but tremble 
 
 To her spirit's passing sighs. 
 
 Feels he then, the selfish Artist, 
 
 That he ne'er shall see his name 
 Shining with a star-like lustre 
 
 From the holy heaven of Fame. 
 Pale and cold the lady lieth. 
 
 Twilight deepens ; he is lone ; 
 But his spirit's wing is broken 
 
 And his earthly labor done. 
 
70 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 As the peasants on the morrow, 
 
 Found the painter and his bride 
 Silent in the sleep eternal, 
 
 So they laid them side by side. 
 While the village bells were tolling. 
 
 Gently in the churchyard's clay, 
 But the great world never mourned for 
 
 Genius, beauty passed away. 
 
 This the legend of a picture. 
 
 Oval framed and curtained round. 
 In a dimly lighted chamber 
 
 Of a ruined castle found. 
 Whose the master hand that wrought it 
 
 Never, never shall be known. 
 Moonlight that enhances beauty 
 
 Is the romance o'er it thrown. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 71 
 
 A PHOTOGRAPH 
 
 To E. G. W. 
 
 IN JAUNTY coat and sailor hat 
 '^he came when day was fading. 
 When I was lone, and all was still 
 Save a cricket's serenading. 
 
 She said no word nor smiled on me, 
 Seemed lost in meditation ; 
 
 But all the while my soul was thrilled 
 With a sudden strange elation. 
 
 I smiled, I'm sure, and all these words 
 
 I give the gentle comer. 
 Not sweeter has the presence been 
 
 Of any flower this summer. 
 
72 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 OBLIVION 
 
 |U[AN is Nature's worshiper, 
 Though she loves him not 
 Evermore he thinks of her, 
 While by her forgot. 
 
 He to con her secrets goes 
 
 Over sea and land. 
 Still of him she nothing knows 
 
 Nor could understand. 
 
 After he has lived and loved — 
 If he lost or won — 
 
 She his record gives, unmoved, 
 To Oblivion. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 73 
 
 RECOMPENSE 
 
 I'VE a hope, a dear and beautiful hope, 
 
 That I name to none — shall I tell you why ? 
 It would seem so wild to my dearest friend, 
 That to meet his look of scorn it would die. 
 
 As I lay on my tear-wet pillow one night, 
 An angel brought me a dream divine ; 
 
 But I know, should I tell it, its charm would fade, 
 The charm is this — It is wholly mine. 
 
 And a sorrow I have, too deep for words, 
 
 The strange sweet sorrow that fixed my fate ; 
 
 When joys deserted, more closely it clung; 
 
 Now, without it, my soul were more desolate. 
 
 In another land, where the hope shall bloom. 
 
 From the stem of the stalk whose root was below 
 
 The friend of my heart will be there to see, 
 And all my fullness of joy shall know. 
 
 And the angel that bro't me the wondrous dream, 
 Will teach me how to translate it there. 
 
 Into holier language, and so divide 
 
 The bliss that alone were too great to bear. 
 
 And there the old sorrow, my sorrow, will burst 
 From a chrysalis dark on pinions wide, 
 
 A glorious rapture, and never to die, 
 Still mine, and my soul be satisfied. 
 
74 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICEROY BOYD 
 
 WHY SHOULD WE ? 
 
 YV/HY should we weep, when faithful memory shows 
 
 That not one dream of all our youth came true ? 
 Are not our present griefs enough for us, 
 
 Our joys more precious when we find them few? 
 
 Why should we hate the rival now, whose hand 
 Plucked the lone lily that our love had nursed? 
 
 Have we not also planted thorny stalks. 
 
 Upon whose twigs most royal roses burst? 
 
 Why should we sigh that in Life's warfare wild 
 The victory seemed ever with the foe? 
 
 We struck for Right, the enemy for Wrong, 
 The triumph yet to come is ours, we know. 
 
 Let us be happy, then, though we grow old. 
 Holding the present hour still the best, 
 
 We need not struggle more, will not repine. 
 The holiest time is now, the evening rest. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 75 
 
 LITTLE TEE WEE 
 
 TITTLE Tee Wee 
 He went to sea 
 In an open boat ; 
 And while afloat 
 The boat is bended,— 
 My tale is ended. — Mother Goose. 
 
 This little Tee Wee 
 
 Who went to sea, 
 
 I've somewhere read 
 
 Was a young Chinee. 
 Of pluck and beauty he had no lack, 
 And the shining pig-tail at his back 
 Went a-growing down, and down, and down, 
 The admiration of all the town. 
 
 His robes they were rich 
 
 And fair to see. 
 
 With golden thread 
 
 In the broidery. 
 But by the beach of the sunny sea. 
 Once all alone, strayed little Tee Wee, 
 And said to himself : "The baby-play 
 With sand and shells I will quit straightway. 
 
 " Tis jolly to go," 
 
 Said he, "I know. 
 
 Far out from land 
 
 Where the wild winds blow ; 
 I'll just step into this rocking boat. 
 And in a minute I'll be afloat. 
 I'm a sailor now ; O land, farewell ! 
 When I return, what a tale I'll tell." 
 
 But oh, and alas ! 
 It wasn't first-class. 
 This little boat ; 
 So it came to pass 
 
76 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 That it bended first, then broke in two, 
 And little Tee Wee went "Boo, hoo, hoo !" 
 Above the wreck, and would have sunk 
 But for the friendly crew of a junk. 
 
 They telephoned then. 
 
 These sailor men. 
 
 Tee Wee's honiie folks 
 
 That to land again 
 Their most adventurous boy returned. 
 Was down at the wharf, with fame well-earn'd, 
 Where Tee Wee's sire came with emphatic 
 Words, and gestures somewhat dramatic. 
 
 Poor, dripping Tee Wee ! 
 
 So scared was he. 
 
 His pig-tail shook 
 
 Like himself, to see 
 That mad old mandarin's lifted stick, 
 Compelling a march at double quick 
 Straight home, where his mother into the suds 
 Soused, while she scolded, his lovely duds ; 
 And till they were dry, poor little Tee Wee, 
 Curled in a rug, was a sorry Chinee. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 77 
 
 SUNSHINY MIKE 
 
 OED-HAIRED Mikey McGrew, 
 With his mother so true, 
 
 Lives down a back alley from me ; 
 And whene'er I look out, 
 Just what he is about 
 
 In the bare, narrow yard I can see. 
 
 Oh, poor dear little Mike ! 
 One would think he would like 
 
 Companions ; he cares not a fig- 
 For the girls that he meets, 
 Nor the boys in the streets, 
 
 But plays with a little pet pig-. 
 
 And this morning I heard 
 Every grunt, every word, 
 
 Of almost a row 'twixt the two ; 
 For when Mikey said "No," 
 Pig insisted he'd go 
 
 A crack in the boarded fence through. 
 
 Sure the cold made him cry, 
 And the fence was so high, 
 
 While goslings and ducks in the sun 
 Were so gay over there 
 He just bristled each hair 
 
 And asked that but justice be done. 
 
 Did the pig ; but then Mike, 
 Tender-hearted, spoke, like 
 
 The friend that he was, hopeful words : 
 "Darlint piggy of mine. 
 Wait, the sun will soon shine 
 
 Round here, on this side of the boards !' 
 
78 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 When poor piggy would still 
 Have his way and his will, 
 
 Soft-sounding came Mike's loving call : 
 "Oh, be patient like me, 
 Crayture dear ! we'll soon see 
 
 The sunshine on this side the wall." 
 
 Bravo, Mikey McGrew ! 
 I have gathered from you 
 
 This lesson of plain common-sense ; 
 When the shadows of Fate 
 Gather dark, just to wait 
 
 Till the sun shines on my side the fence. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 79 
 
 BERTHA THE SPINNER* 
 
 "VV7HERE our forest-sheltered cottage stood 
 
 By a reed-margined, lonely stream, 
 Sunbeams and shadows tangled around, 
 
 A dreamy child, a part of a dream, 
 I listened the while my mother spun. 
 
 To her wheel's weird music, soft and low ; 
 As unseen crickets joined in the song. 
 
 That mystic song in the firelight's glow. 
 
 Full often, an undertone in the strain. 
 
 Came from some region, I did not know, 
 To tell me. spinners and cricket folk 
 
 Were linked together, since long ago. 
 I never had read the pages then. 
 
 Nor heard the tale from across the sea, 
 How Bertha of spinners the patroness 
 
 The Queen of Crickets used to be. 
 
 Were my impressions inherited 
 
 From some far ancestor's homely thought. 
 When was heard the insect minstrelsy. 
 
 With the wheels, where flax to thread was. wrought? 
 I question vainly, but this I know. 
 
 All through a glamour of smiles and tears. 
 The legend old, and memory true. 
 
 Have kept for me, through the vanished years. 
 
 The tones of my mother's wheel, still sweet 
 
 As the Spinner Bertha waked I ween, 
 And cricket voices the very same, 
 
 As when in gladness, they hailed their Queen. 
 She must have dwelt, ere her legend grew. 
 
 In a forest home by a lonely stream ; 
 Sunbeams and shadows tangled around, 
 
 A dreamy spinner, herself a dream. 
 
 * Bertha, the Patroness of Spinners, was, according to the ancient legend, 
 also the Queen of the Crickets. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 THE BUTTER BUST 
 
 [The dreaming lolanthe, King Rene's daughter, the Study in Butter, by 
 Mrs. Caroline S. Brooks, which called out so much admiration at the Cen- 
 tennial Exposition, is here alluded to.] 
 
 'THE dreaming beauty, with the soft closed eyes, 
 
 The seraph mouth, and angel waving hair 
 I stood before ; entranced in wonderment 
 
 That mortal hands could shape a face so fair. 
 
 What God-like living genius had the power 
 
 To give to us this maiden dream of peace 
 Embodied here ? was asked ; I answered them : 
 
 "A female Phidias of our modern Greece, — 
 
 A farmer's wife." A woman at my side. 
 
 She, too, a farmer's wife, all in a flutter 
 Hastened to pluck my sleeve, correcting me : 
 
 "No, 'taint a model maid of grease, she's made of butter." 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 GENESIS 
 
 T'HE scholar said, "Ere I begin 
 
 The study of man's origin, 
 I'll take a half hour's sketchy look, 
 Over the Bible's earliest book. 
 The Genesis, that Moses old, 
 The poet with the fancy bold, 
 Traced in earth's misty morning dim ; 
 Doubtless 'twas pastime play to him 
 Its cunning statements so to weave 
 That simple folk the tale believe." 
 
 The scholar read; his critic's eye 
 Saw language crowned with majesty; 
 Saw sun and moon, and earth and sky, 
 A wonder-work of harmony. 
 Saw man supreme in Eden bowers. 
 And woman fair mid fadeless flowers, 
 Then, saw, those perfect aisles within, 
 Enter the hideous shape of Sin. 
 And, from the garden of the Lord 
 The pair sent, and the flaming sword 
 Wave o'er the gate, to guard the tree 
 Of Life, that man may never see 
 This side the grave. In wonderment 
 And rapture, o'er the page he bent 
 While humbled Reason dared not pause 
 To question of effect or cause. 
 
 No color false, no masquerade 
 Of tragic passions there displayed ; 
 But, pictured in plain dignity, 
 Are men as men are wont to be. 
 He sees, beside the fountains fair. 
 Beauty to love, courage to dare ; 
 Valleys and hills, and beasts and birds. 
 And busy folk with flocks and herds, 
 Plains with high towers builded on. 
 And shores where cities rise anon ; 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 Sees steadfast faith a blessing win, 
 Death-dooms o'ertaking pride and sin ; 
 And, 'twas so near Creation's birth, 
 Heaven dreams and angels come to earth. 
 
 Now smiled the scholar, and now sighed, 
 
 But read from noon to eventide, 
 
 Dwelling on that, lingering o'er this. 
 
 On to the end of Genesis. 
 
 With thoughts half transport and half pain, 
 
 He said, while tear-drops fell like rain, 
 
 "At last I tread the holy ground 
 
 That struggling Science never found, 
 
 Of glory, greatness manifold, 
 
 'In the beginning' Moses told, 
 
 But endeth thus his poem grand — 
 
 'A coffin in dark Egypt's land'." 
 
 Of man on earth who knoweth more 
 
 Than the great Leader penned of yore, 
 
 A voyager 'twixt shore and shore? 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 A SCANDINAVIAN GIRL FOUND DEAD 
 
 A MAIDEN emigrant alone, 
 ■^ No friends no kindred near, 
 Her life interred in its dead past, 
 She had nor hope nor fear. 
 
 The prairie stretching wide away 
 
 To her it seemed not fair, 
 Nor wept she for her Norway home, 
 
 Her heart had broken there. 
 
 She saw far up the alien sky 
 
 The moon go climbing slow 
 Through a dim canyon of great clouds, 
 
 The mist gleam white below. 
 
 The mist gleamed white ! a spectral sea, 
 
 The stars were drowned therein, 
 While winds came waiting as from realms 
 
 Where joy had never been. 
 
 The world looked strange, there seemed no Time 
 
 Nor any Hence nor Thence, 
 And but with haunting memory 
 
 Her soul held conference. 
 
 Ah ! she and Memory, mournful twain, 
 
 They vainly tried to go 
 To some strange Somewhere out of Time 
 
 They surely used to know. 
 
 She questioned of the winds, the sky. 
 
 With all her spirit's might, 
 Prayed for one echo from its shore, 
 
 One ray of its lost light. 
 
84 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 The moon looked lonelier 'mid the clouds, 
 
 And stiller grew the night, 
 And oh ! that sea of mist it seemed 
 
 Too sorrowfully white. 
 
 Upon the morrow strangers laid 
 
 In Minnesota sand 
 Her form ; her soul had gone to seek 
 
 The Unremembered Land. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 85 
 
 THE BALLAD OF BEFFANA 
 
 [According to tradition, Beffana was a woman too busy with household 
 duties, when the three Wise Men of the East went by with their treasures to 
 offer to the Infant Saviour, to go out and see them, excusing herself on the 
 grounds that she would have an opportunity of doing so when they returned. 
 They, however, went home another way, and she, not knowing this, is still 
 watching for them.] 
 
 ^^QOME forth, come forth, Beffana !" 
 She hears her neighbors say, 
 "Come, up the road to Bethlehem, 
 The Wise Men pass to-day !" 
 
 So busy \ as Beffana 
 
 She = jarcely turned her head ; 
 Here was the waiting Hnen, 
 
 The waiting scarlet thread. 
 
 Again they cried, "Beifana, 
 
 It is a glorious sight. 
 Three Kings together journey 
 
 In crowns and garments bright !" 
 
 Beffana saw the spindle, 
 
 Her hand the distaff held ; 
 Her people's skillful daughters 
 
 As yet she had excelled. 
 
 Her husband's words must praise her, 
 
 Her children's voices bless ; 
 She eateth in her household 
 
 No bread of idleness. 
 
 So, she made haste to answer, 
 
 "My house is all my care ; 
 No time have I for strangers 
 
 Toward Bethlehem that fare ! 
 
 "Ere yet the daytime cometh 
 
 I give my household meat : 
 Mine is the best-clad husband 
 
 That hath an elder's seat. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICEROY BOYD 
 
 "And merchants know my girdles 
 And my woven tapestry, 
 
 The glory of my purple 
 
 And silk most fair to see !" 
 
 But now her kinsmen shouted, 
 You know not what you miss ! 
 
 There may be many pageants, 
 Yet none be like to this ! 
 
 "Men say the three Kings' journey 
 A wondrous thing to see, 
 
 A Babe born of a Virgin 
 Foretold by prophecy. 
 
 "Oh ! come ; behold, Beffana ! 
 
 For speech may never say 
 The splendor on their faces, 
 
 The Kings that ride this way !" 
 
 Befifana still kept busy. 
 
 But lightly answered then : 
 
 "I will look out upon them 
 As they come back again !" 
 
 But all her friends and kinsmen, 
 
 In wondering delight. 
 Gazed, till the Kings so gentle 
 
 Had journeyed out of sight. 
 
 That eve Befifana's husband 
 Had sorrow in his gaze. 
 
 When of her work she told him, 
 Anticipating praise. 
 
 He did not quite upbraid her. 
 
 But out of ancient lore, 
 He questioned, "Who hath profit 
 
 In laboring evermore?" 
 
 And spake of times for mourning 
 And times to laugh and sing; 
 
 Of times to keep or scatter, 
 Of times for everything. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 87 
 
 And, sad, Beffana answered : 
 "My lord is right, but then 
 
 I surely will behold them 
 As they come back again." 
 
 Alas ! alas ! Beffana 
 
 Looked out from day to day, 
 They came no more, God warned them 
 
 To go another way. 
 
 And she grew very weary 
 
 Who had so much to do, 
 And never came the vision 
 
 That might her strength renew. 
 
 Beffana dieth never, 
 
 This earth is still her home ; 
 Beffana looketh ever 
 
 For those who never come. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 SONG OF MORNING 
 
 T COME, oh earth, rejoice ! 
 
 Ever on thee my softest smile was shed, 
 Since first before my steps the darkness fled — 
 When called by God's own voice, 
 
 I came in robes of light, 
 
 To clothe thy form with loveliness and bloom. 
 From out the shadowy void, the dreadful gloom 
 
 And chaos of old Night. 
 
 Rejoice, I come once more ! 
 
 Swiftly uprising in my shining car, 
 
 The brightness of my glory streaming far, 
 
 From distant shore to shore. 
 
 I dart in sudden gleams 
 
 Through the dim arches of the forest bowers, 
 And send my sunbeams to awake the flowers 
 
 And gild the laughing streams. 
 
 And when the ivy twines 
 
 Round broken columns, temples ruined now. 
 
 Forgotten cities, palaces laid low, 
 And desolated shrines ; 
 
 Where fierce volcanoes blaze, 
 
 Or snow-capped mountains seem to prop the sky 
 Or where on ocean's breast, bright islands lie — 
 
 I pour my equal rays. 
 
 I walk o'er land and wave, 
 
 Spurning the darkness, and go up the sky 
 In triumph, as freed spirits mount on high. 
 
 Spurning the gloomy grave. 
 
 Mortals, awake ! — 'tis I ! 
 
 Mantled and crowned with loveliness and light — 
 I come to reign awhile with regal might, 
 
 In peerless majesty. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 Mark how each shadow flies 
 
 At my approach, and see what hope sublime 
 And joy I bring; Night is the only time 
 
 For mournful memories. 
 
 Oh, never, since my birth, 
 
 Have I refused my kindly light to thee — 
 Save when in that dread hour on Calvary, 
 
 Sickened I turned from earth. 
 
 Come forth to greet me now ! 
 
 Bask in my beams, be with my winds caressed. 
 Come forth to toil, and then a sweeter rest 
 
 Shall settle on each brow. 
 
 Me shall your sons adore 
 
 In coming ages ; me shall Nature greet 
 
 With welcome smile, and voices glad and sweet, 
 
 Till Time shall be no more. 
 
90 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 THE WISDOM OF SOLOMON 
 
 /^NE glorious picture oft uncalled, but welcome, 
 ^■'^ Rises before me from a vanished time. 
 The strang-eness of its beauty falling o'er me 
 Like the rich twilight of a sunny clime. 
 
 'Tis never out of season — that old story 
 The picture brings me — for I con it o'er 
 
 And find it wondrous in the time of blossoms, 
 And in the ripening time grand as before. 
 
 Where floors of marble wind through gates of beauty, 
 
 I gaze, the carven glories all between, 
 And see, within a hall enthroned, a monarch 
 
 Goodly of form and beautiful of mien. 
 
 There seems a solemn passion in the silence 
 To throb and thrill, as there before the king, 
 
 Two women, deathly pale with strife and anguish, 
 A fair young babe into the presence bring. 
 
 And one is youthful — her dark eyes and tresses. 
 
 And glossed brown cheeks, telling of Egypt's strand — 
 
 The full, soft, melancholy lips resembling 
 The immemorial statues of her land. 
 
 But sadder than the wail of wearied exile. 
 
 Comfortless by the stranger's river-wave — 
 
 Sadder than distant strains of wedding-music 
 To widow by her husband's new-made grave, 
 
 Is the great woe that presses on her spirit, 
 The troubled visions in her eyes that shine. 
 
 And the mad fondness thrilling through the fingers 
 That with the baby-fingers clutch and twine. 
 
 Her sorrow-freighted thoughts go backward — backward 
 Where Joy was found disguised Misery ; 
 
 So much, so much is lost, yet in her bosom 
 The mother-love from every stain is free. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 91 
 
 And simple words flow from her heart's deep sorrow : 
 "At midnight, while I lay upon my bed, 
 
 This living child was stolen from my bosom, 
 This woman gave to me her baby dead : 
 
 "Thy handmaid slept, O king ! as one who trusted 
 Her treasure safe, and waking turned to see 
 
 What Death had kissed, but lo ! the grace was wanting 
 And beauty of the dear one born to me. 
 
 "Thou, that in wisdom rulest thine own people. 
 
 Judge with just judgment from thy righteous throne 
 
 Thou, who art ever merciful to strangers. 
 
 Favored of Heaven, oh, give to me mine own !" 
 
 The other speaks. Her beauty to my spirit 
 The presence of "a joy forever" brings ; 
 
 While even with awe I mark her eye's cold splendor 
 Meet with a level glance the mighty king's. 
 
 Judea's lily-buds in early girlhood 
 
 Had made the fitting garland for her brow ; 
 
 And still that brow is fair, but she, the fallen. 
 Would for its decking pluck no lily now. 
 
 She stands before the king in robe of scarlet. 
 In vain delights of fringe and clasp of gold, 
 
 And skilled embroiderer's work and lace of purple, 
 For these — for these — her better life was sold. 
 
 Fearful she stands, and yet with prideful scorning. 
 Her bosom shakes her showery hair beneath ; 
 
 While her small foot stamps a defiant menace, 
 
 And her height seems to grow with every breath. 
 
 Now her eyes drop, her lips part, and she utters 
 
 Her story with a feigned simplicity : 
 "My lord, the king, she has reversed the story — 
 
 Her child is dead ; this child belongs to me." 
 
 Out-spake the king: "Go, bring a sharp sword hither — 
 Divide the child — give unto each a part ; 
 
 The story is the very same they tell me. 
 So will I satisfy each mother-heart !" 
 
92 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 Would that thy soul, oh, daughter of Judea, 
 
 Soared up like Deborah's, or as Ruth's were pure ! 
 
 Is Pity's fountain frozen in thy bosom. 
 
 That this with bitter smile thou couldst endure? 
 
 But loneliest wind that moans across the desert, 
 
 Or cypress whispering- by a sepulchre, 
 Breathes not such woe as that Egyptian's pleading : 
 "Let the child live — even give it unto her!" 
 
 Then the king smiles ; the sword sleeps in its scabbard : 
 "Dark Egypt's daughter, thou the mother art ! 
 
 Press with thy lip's thy babe's, clasp him, caress him ; 
 How a king's words make summer in the heart !" 
 
 And Judah's daughter saw, and all the people, 
 And fearing, praised the judgment of the king; 
 
 Better than rubies was the wealth God gave him, 
 Wisdom that was and is unperishing. 
 
 Great Solomon ! the glories of thy Temple 
 
 Earth could not keep ; but from the mighty Past 
 
 Thy words of wisdom echo, and the Ages 
 Repeat and glorify and hold them fast. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 93 
 
 THE SAD DISCIPLE 
 (Matt, xix, 16-22) 
 
 "PAIR as a day of the summer-time, fled with my far-away child- 
 ^ hood, 
 
 Out of the storied Past there arises before me a picture. 
 So clear in its tone, and so deep in its shadow, I see there 
 The truth of a human life fade in the light of the truth out of 
 Heaven. 
 
 I see 'mid the God-beloved scenes of the land of Judea, 
 
 A youth that gave heed to his father, and walked by the words of 
 
 his mother, 
 Whose heart was as pure in his breast as the lily that bloomed by the 
 
 streamlet, 
 While bright as the hues of the rose were his dreams of the Future. 
 
 Great was his joy when he heard of the words and the works of the 
 
 Master, 
 And he turned from his flocks, and his stores, and went straight to 
 
 his presence ; 
 And meekly he asked of the things of the heavenly kingdom, 
 And listened, the while his heart swelled with a rapturous wonder. 
 
 With low-spoken words then he told how he kept the command- 
 ments. 
 
 And bright grew the glance of his eye when the Saviour com- 
 mended ; 
 
 But, ah ! when he learned that the one thing yet that was needful 
 
 Was to part, for the sake of the poor, with his worldly possessions. 
 
 Mournfully over his face weary shadows came creeping — 
 Away from the Saviour, the Truth that he loved, he departed. 
 If his steps were retraced, or if he his riches relinquished, 
 No history tells; and we muse on his life — as he on that lesson ,r— 
 in sorrow. 
 
94 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 A TRUE STORY 
 
 HTHE little boy in the north was crying, 
 
 'T would I could live where oranges grow !" 
 
 The little girl in the south was sighing, 
 
 "Oh, dear, how I wish I could see it snow !" 
 
 The boy, when grown to be two and twenty. 
 Got into a ship and sailed till he found 
 
 An island lovely with orange orchards, 
 
 And where it was summer the whole year round. 
 
 He found her there, the beautiful maiden 
 
 That ever from childhood had pined for snow ; 
 
 And he wove her a crown of orange flowers 
 
 While her cheek blushed red as the sunset's glow. 
 
 And they were married — so runs the story — 
 And he brought her home to his native coast ; 
 
 But all through the winter's blowing and snowing 
 She wept for the visions of childhood lost. 
 
 So, back again to the orange island 
 
 They sailed in the spring-time, this youthful pair; 
 For her 'twas heaven, for him, poor fellow, 
 
 'Twas ever too sultry for comfort there. 
 
 So they went sailing backward and forward, 
 Till their married life was a sorry dish ; 
 
 And friends quit hoping to see them happy. 
 
 These people, who wished what they didn't wish. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 95 
 
 YESTERDAY 
 
 TT WAS a fact, but it passed away. 
 
 'Tis memory now, its name is yesterday. 
 What if it stayed not? All it brought is mine, 
 The shade of sorrow, and of joy the shine, 
 And both are precious, priceless aids to me 
 Solving the problem of Life's mystery. 
 
 TO-MORROW 
 
 Yes, it will come, though Fate to guard it now 
 Draws a dark veil before its wondrous brow, 
 But surely, if I live, it will be mine 
 Adding to Life's strange page another line. 
 But if it brings to me or joy or shame. 
 Ere I behold it, it will change its name. 
 
96 POEM'S BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 AT THE CAVE ADULLUM 
 
 David therefore departed thence, and escaped to the cave Adullum. 
 
 And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and 
 every one that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him; and he be- 
 came a captain over them : and there were with him about four hundred men. 
 
 — 1st Samuel, 22d Chapter, i, 2 verses. 
 
 I^ETHINKS I see him standing, sad and grave, 
 
 The youthful hero at Adullum's Cave, 
 When skies were clouded and when days were chill, 
 When nights were mournful and the winds blew shrill; 
 Fugitive David lone and wondering 
 Where to find refuge from an angry King, 
 
 Not long alone was he, from everywhere 
 Judea's burdened children gathered there, 
 The struggling debtor in his hopelessness, 
 Those for long years aweary with distress. 
 The discontented with their discontent, 
 The poor, the unemployed ones, hither went. 
 And he their captain was ; till presently 
 Four hundred men made up his company. 
 
 The rich and lordly ones on every hand 
 
 With mocking jests spoke of the "moneyed band," 
 
 While the King's officers made haste to chase 
 
 The "outlaw forces" on from place to place. 
 
 But day by day the little Army grew 
 
 As Maon, Ziph and Hareth's forests knew. 
 
 And many a friend was found throughout the land. 
 
 And food was brought by woman's kindly hand. 
 
 And when the fame of David went abroad 
 Forever rose the praise of Jacob's God, 
 And still the Psalmist pleaded not in vain, 
 For the Most High Oppression to restrain ; 
 Then sang how still while sun and moon endure 
 God would in righteousness avenge the poor. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 97 
 
 O, ye who falter and almost despair 
 Unmindful of the Heavenly Father's care, 
 Look back ! see starting from Adullum's Cave 
 The few forlorn and outcast, but the brave. 
 Crossing deep wildernesses, rocky hills 
 But ever with the sweet-voiced mountain rills 
 The minstrel chieftain's wondrous voice they hear 
 Chanting aloud of victory, victory near. 
 
 O sing ye weary ones earth's ways along 
 Before the Lord the mighty David's song; 
 How to the wicked He hath set a bound. 
 How Justice yet will reach the world around. 
 
98 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 JUBAL 
 
 Genesis, 4th chapter, and 21st verse 
 
 TN A DREAM-ENCHANTED bark I sailed 
 
 Time's backward surging sea, 
 Wearily sailed, where Oblivion's mists 
 
 Hung coldly, heavily. 
 Between me and the shore I sought — 
 
 The land of mystery. 
 
 But vision-strengthened on I sped 
 
 Till Ararat was passed, 
 Then, the days of giants came and went 
 
 A shadow vague and vast ; 
 The world that bordered Paradise 
 
 I trod upon at last. 
 
 A world of verdure softlier fresh 
 
 Than verdure now could be, 
 Mosses, thick-starred with gem-like buds, 
 
 And blossom-crowned each tree ; 
 And fairer yet, a glorious boy 
 
 Stood face to face with me, 
 
 A child-like face with wondering eyes 
 
 Clear as the summer air, 
 A brow as bright as a sun-kissed cloud, 
 
 A splendor of gold hair, 
 And a tender mouth, I knew how Love 
 
 Must love to linger there. 
 
 A dreamy tone twixt woe and mirth 
 
 Pendulum like there swung, 
 Where tripped a fount with silver feet 
 
 Rushes and reeds among, 
 While softest breezes wandering by 
 
 A deeper meaning sung. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 99 
 
 The boy with radiant face upturned 
 
 Listened with all his heart, 
 Till some glory-gilded vision caused 
 
 Tears in his eyes to start, 
 And a secret, sacred rapture moved 
 
 His lovely lips to part. 
 
 Thus spake he, as he stooped to pluck 
 A reed grown straight and fair, 
 
 "Surely, within this narrow cell 
 The lightly prisoned air 
 
 With touch and breath of mine shall wake 
 And speak a language rare !" 
 
 He gathered then rush fibers fine 
 
 And fashioned him a lyre. 
 Swept his fair fingers swiftly o'er, 
 
 While wild poetic fire 
 Flashed in his eyes, and loud he cried, 
 
 'T have my soul's desire." 
 
 And now the lyre's and now the pipe's 
 
 Sweet harmonies I heard. 
 Here low and sweet as when by winds 
 
 The daintiest leaves are stirred, 
 There free and wild and ringing far 
 
 Like some glad forest bird. 
 
 I wondered, smiled and waked, all thoughts 
 
 To a sweet joy subdued. 
 My dream had borne me even where 
 
 The beauteous Jubal stood, 
 Fashioning the shepherd's pipe and lyre 
 
 In the world's babyhood. 
 
100 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 THE CROWNING OF MOSES 
 
 A TRADITION 
 
 TN THE palace hall, where her presence seemed 
 
 As beautiful as a dream of song, 
 Stood Pharaoh's daughter one summer day, 
 
 The costly, carven glories among — 
 Stood, while her face wore a radiant smile, 
 And looked from the window toward the Nile. 
 
 She could see how the river lilies there, 
 
 The wonderful, glorious things, 
 Like birds with snowy bosoms. 
 
 Like birds with silver wings — 
 Or upward or downward softly go 
 With the wavelet's rest or the wavelet's flow. 
 
 The soft winds whisper the same old tale 
 To the rustling reeds on the river shore. 
 
 They told when she walked with her maidens there ; 
 That summer-time, long before. 
 
 When she found in the reed-made basket there 
 
 The Jewish baby, so tender and fair. 
 
 E'en now she can see on the little head, 
 The soft hair curling in rings of gold, 
 
 The dimpled arms and the pretty hands. 
 And the rosy feet, so wee and cold ; 
 
 And peeping the silken lashes through. 
 
 The gentle eyes of a soft sea-blue. 
 
 But the princess turns as the door swings back. 
 And the fair youth, Moses, steps within. 
 
 With the fire of manhood lighting the eyes 
 
 Where the sunshine of childhood has lately been. 
 
 And sweetness and majesty, throned there. 
 
 Shed their glory-light on his forehead fair. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICEROY BOYD 101 
 
 O ! the ceiling was fashioned gorgeously, 
 
 By cunning artists, in figures rare ; 
 And, like kingly trees of the forest, all 
 
 Ranged about the palace the pillars were; 
 And splendor rested, till then unknown 
 Throughout all the earth, upon Pharoah's throne. 
 
 And the great king slept in his chamber now ; 
 
 But there on his throne was the gold-gemmed crown. 
 While Moses upon the princess smiled, 
 
 As he paced 'twixt the pillars, up and down. 
 And she looked from the youth to the crown on the throne, 
 And thought she would crown there a king of her own. 
 
 And just when the light of the sunset bathed 
 Aisle, pillar, and dome with radiance red. 
 
 The soft white hands of the princess placed 
 Her father's crown of gold on the head 
 
 Of Moses, the lovely, the ever to be 
 
 Unrivaled for meekness and majesty. 
 
 First he looked in her beautiful eyes with the smile 
 That played through his dimples in childhood, when 
 
 At her bidding he told — from his mother learned — 
 Old Hebrew legends again and again. 
 
 Then sternly he looked in her face so sweet. 
 
 And her father's crown he set under his feet. 
 
 And vanished the sunset radiance then. 
 
 While shadows crept round the pillared hall, 
 
 Shuddered the ceiling and trembled the floor. 
 And pale grew the crown, gems, gold and all. 
 
 But Moses, the son of Amram's eye. 
 
 Flashed bright with the fire of liberty. 
 
 The daughter of Pharoah turned and wept, 
 Shading her face with her jeweled hands. 
 
 While the boy she had petted from babyhood 
 On her father's crown there proudly stands 
 
 In the deepening twilight, but he leaves her alone. 
 
 To place it again on the great, grand throne. 
 
102 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 Oh ! in after years, when the Red Sea wave, 
 Over Pharoah swept and his host of pride, 
 
 While the graceful, sweet-voiced Miriam sang 
 Of triumph high on the Asia side, 
 
 And Moses and his free people press 
 
 Onward toward the wilderness. 
 
 The daughter of Pharoah stands again 
 
 By the window within the pillared hall, 
 While the evil tidings the runners bring 
 Fling over her spirit a shadowy pall ; 
 And fatherless, widowed, she bows her there, 
 As the memory comes, like an old despair. 
 Of the face of Moses gloomed o'er with a frown, 
 As he stood with his feet on her father's crown. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 103 
 
 THE EVENING HYMN 
 'And when they had sung an hymn." — St. Matthew 26 : 30 
 
 T'O-NIGHT my heart goes backward 
 
 To an evening Long Ago, 
 And the music of sweet voices — 
 
 Sweetest ever heard below — 
 Through doorway and through lattice, 
 
 Flooding all the twilight dim, 
 And fond conjecture questions 
 
 Of the hearers of the hymn — 
 
 Christ and the Twelve were singing. 
 
 Did lambs upstart to listen, 
 
 And young doves in their nest 
 Awake to hear, and hearing 
 
 See a vision of the Blest ? 
 Did fervent-hearted roses 
 
 Know the old-time Eden strain, 
 And breathless lilies struggle. 
 
 Just to keep the sweet refrain ? 
 The Sinless One was singing. 
 
 Did grasses by the wayside 
 
 Thrill with rapt expectancy, 
 And Olive boughs wave lightly 
 
 To the mystic melody ? 
 Did silver-toned glad waters 
 
 Pause a moment in their play 
 To learn those melting measures 
 
 And to bear them far away. 
 
 That the Son of Man was singing? 
 
 Did the stars, that in Time's morning 
 
 Voiced an anthem of their own. 
 Lean earthward now to hearken 
 
 To a deeper, holier tone? 
 And from the highest heaven. 
 
 Did a glory-shining throng, 
 Led by the great Saint Gabriel, 
 
 Draw near to hear the song 
 
 That Mary's Son was singing? 
 
104 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 Surely the blest disciples. 
 
 In that precious holy hour. 
 Joined with a solemn passion 
 
 In the Savior's hymn of power. 
 The love compelling^ Master 
 
 They would follow where He led ; 
 His voice with theirs was blending 
 
 And they must be comforted, 
 
 For the Son of God was singing. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 105 
 
 A MEXICAN IMAGE 
 
 p'ROM the melancholy gloom 
 
 Of a most majestic tomb, 
 
 In the land of Mexico, 
 
 Once a wanderer brought to me 
 
 This quaint image that you see, 
 
 Carven centuries ago. 
 
 Mark you the barbaric grace 
 Of the drooping hands, the face 
 
 Half pathetic, half severe. 
 With its lips so strange and strong, 
 Seeming to suppress a song 
 
 None are worthy now to hear? 
 
 From a world of mysteries old. 
 Faith forgotten, altars cold. 
 
 It has come, a god unknown. 
 Oh, to look the years across ! 
 Oh, to know whose hand it was 
 
 Wrought it from the living stone ! 
 
 Where, like visions of delight, 
 Lakes of waters cool and bright 
 
 Slept the sultry sun below. 
 And the mountains far away 
 Lifted to the Realms of Day 
 
 Crowns of never-melted snow ; 
 
 Where were thorny cactus stems 
 Decked with rosy diadems. 
 
 And the sunflower's gorgeousness 
 Was a wonder to behold, 
 Spreading shields of bronze and gold 
 
 Over waste and wilderness; 
 
106 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 Where volcanoes, rearing high, 
 Threatening peaks against the sky, 
 
 Seemed Hke spectres of despair ; 
 Where the mighty condors came, 
 Wheeling swift, with eyes a-flame ; 
 
 Where great gusts of terror were 
 
 Driven through the human frame. 
 When some awesome serpent came 
 
 Suddenly upon the scene, — 
 Came foreboding evil doom 
 To the bower of brightest bloom, 
 
 Bringing woe where joy had been; 
 
 There, the unenlightened mind 
 Of the pagan strove to find 
 
 Some lost light, some god to know 
 For this image that you see 
 Brings this message back to me 
 
 Out of ancient Mexico. 
 
 But it tells me nothing more. 
 And Conjecture, on the shore 
 
 Of Oblivion's wide sea. 
 Loses heart and turns away ; 
 For the stubborn Past will say 
 
 Nothing of this deity. 
 
 Was it some poetic youth, 
 Earnest in his quest of Truth, 
 
 Pale and patient and alone. 
 That with fasting and with prayer 
 Wrought, and in divine despair 
 
 Died to see his god of stone? 
 
 Ah, some sire of three-score years, 
 Mournfully, with troubled tears. 
 
 May, his passion's pulse to still. 
 Have decreed his dream to dwell 
 Here, the ages hence to tell 
 
 Of his yet unvanquished will. 
 
POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 107 
 
 Or, perchance, some woman sweet 
 Stole at eve, with timid feet. 
 
 In devotion's holy mood, 
 To this rock beside the rill. 
 Where, with gentle-handed skill. 
 
 In the moonlit solitude, 
 
 She, to mystic melody. 
 
 Shaped this image that you see ; 
 
 Placed it, centuries ago, 
 In the melancholy gloom 
 Of a most majestic tomb. 
 
 In the land of Mexico. 
 
108 POEMS BY MRS. LOUISE VICKROY BOYD 
 
 POETRY 
 
 (^NCE Echo showed to me her gentle face, 
 ^"'^ And once a Shadow spoke sweet words to me. 
 Then Shadow-music married Echo-grace, 
 And lo ! their fairer child was Poetry. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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