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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
THE BACKGROUND OF 
 MYSTERY 
 
 AND OTHER VERSES 
 
 BY y 
 
 GEORGE MACDONALD MAJOR 
 
 3 
 
 ^^ ^ 
 
 NEW-YORK 
 PRINTED AT THE DE VINNE PRESS 
 
 1 89 1 . ^ 
 

 Copyright, 1 89 1, 
 By George Macdonald Major. 
 
''The Background of Mystery "and ''In 
 the Gods' Shadow " have lain in my desk 
 for the past three years. Some time I 
 had expected leisure and inclination to re- 
 vise them, — but upon re-perusal lately 
 they seemed lacking in unity of construc- 
 tion or possibly are essentially unpoetical ; 
 at least I felt that I could not work out the 
 idea I had in my own mind. It is prob- 
 ably folly to print what is unsatisfactory 
 even to one's self, but I could not consign 
 them to oblivion without some little epitaph 
 to mark their grave. The text for that 
 epitaph will be culled from the critics. 
 
 January 25, 1891. 
 
PROLOGUE, 
 
 Suppose that at the Judgment Day 
 Some man arose in burning hell, 
 
 Who in his agony could say, 
 O Lord, my God f is this thing well 
 
 Behold, from all eternity. 
 
 Before he formed the human race, 
 God knew me and predestined me 
 
 To suffer in this wretched place. 
 
 Not for my sins or any ill 
 
 That I had done to earn his hate, 
 But for the purpose of his will 
 
 He doomed me to this awful fate. 
 
 And when his Son came down to die, 
 
 As chosen in eternity, 
 He brought me no redemption nigh, 
 
 His blood was shed but not for 7ne. 
 
 The years flew on, and in due time 
 The harvest ripened. I was born, 
 
 And lived unstained of any crime 
 Or evil save as all fjien mourn 
 
 5 
 
Prologue* 
 
 Some trhnal sins. Before the eyes 
 
 Of men I lived a model life ; 
 I made 77iy home a paradise 
 
 Of happiness for child and wife. 
 
 I believed in God — I put my trust 
 
 That he no mocking title bore j 
 Who called himself the '' Good ^^ and ^'Just, 
 And '"'■ Merciful,'''' forevermore. 
 
 I held wheti God came to our reach, 
 He meant but what we mea^i alone. 
 
 He juggled not with human speech, 
 Nor gave for bread a lifeless stone. 
 
 I did not, dared not, attribute 
 
 To him such arbitrary ways. 
 As would the blood-stained Moloch suit. 
 
 As even the heathen dared not phrase. 
 
 I believed God^s mighty power was good. 
 From which no creature'' s soul could fall ^ 
 
 I believed in God's true fatherhood. 
 In Christ who gave his life for all. 
 
 I dared not think a favored few 
 Alone received his love and care, 
 
 While ?7iillions were but born to rue 
 His hatred and their own despair. 
 
Prologue. 7 
 
 But rather that alike to all 
 
 His heart and ear were ever ope, 
 
 That through dark clouds the sun-rays fall 
 Of an eternal, living hope. 
 
 Would any one to hi?n rehearse, 
 
 When thus in visible agony 
 He stood before the universe, 
 
 And pleaded for hutnanity — 
 
 That vast htmtanity that died 
 Without an altar, priest, or word 
 
 From God — that smote clasped hands and 
 cried, 
 But no response from heaven heard j 
 
 Or those who hedged by circumstance, 
 By alien birth or impotent will. 
 
 Could not attain Faith's saving glance, 
 But lived and died tincertai^i still — 
 
 Would any Calvinist, I say. 
 
 That ever trod this sin-worn globe. 
 
 Defend his creed, nor find that day 
 God's answer to the friends of Job f 
 
 January 25, 1891. 
 
€l)e 25acftgtounti of ^p^torp* 
 
 CANTO I. 
 
 THE CRY OF MAN. 
 
 O Thou of human gifts the source divine ! 
 Lord of all sculpture, poesy, and art; 
 The Unknown God behind the pagan shrine ; 
 Muse whom the Grecian's inperspicuous heart 
 Fabled in Castaly — what song can start 
 In soul of bird or man save as thou wilt ? 
 Of man what grand conception stand apart 
 Undying through all ages save as built 
 Of thee and thine the laud — alas, with man the 
 guilt ! 
 
 Wherefore what man of unclean heart and lips 
 Dare sing thee or invoke the heavenly aid ? 
 Not I — whose spirit walks in thy eclipse 
 Without the pale in which thy saints have prayed, 
 
 2 9 
 
Wi)t IBsLcHvonnn of jm^jst^rg* 
 
 Yet, God, what burning in my soul is made ! 
 What sleepless nights these haunting songs have 
 
 given 
 
 The cry of man on whom thy hand is laid, 
 Or shrieks that echo up from souls unshriven 
 From lurid gulfs of Hell to the white shores of 
 Heaven ! 
 
 Yet, God, thou only should'st be feared and 
 
 praised — 
 The inconceivable Deity whose word 
 Spake matter into being, and upraised 
 From naught the varied universe, and conferred 
 On rocks and leaves thy law — on beast and bird 
 Sure instinct — thought and moral sense on man ; 
 On man — sole man — who only has incurred 
 Thy wrath — albeit according to thy plan, 
 Which who has e'er resisted, Lord, or ever can ? 
 
 All thy creation doth acknowledge thee 
 Most marvelous, wise, omnipotent, and just ; 
 Self-conscious, self-contained, and it may be 
 Most loving and most piteous, as we trust. 
 Who can exhaust thy praise, but ever must 
 In silence muse on thy perfection broad ! 
 The holy, happy, perfect One who dost 
 Not need as needing anything our laud. 
 Self-complacent, self-loving, self-sufficient God I 
 
%%t 'Bac^grounn of ^mtvh n 
 
 How wonderful is this, O Thou Most High ! 
 How different from the creatures of thy hand 
 Who crave companionship and droop and die 
 In isolation as frail vines that spanned 
 An oak down-fallen, unclasped in every strand, 
 Fade and decay ; and oh ! how far apart. 
 Shrined in thine awful self, serene and bland. 
 Untouched by tear or prayer or anguished heart, 
 Immovable and calm — forever calm — thou art ! 
 
 For anger does not move thee as in man 
 
 The spirit is perturbed ; thou canst not fear, 
 
 And sorrow casts no shadow on the span 
 
 Of thy eternity, nor suffering sear 
 
 The tortured mind, or pain-throbbed nerve, or 
 
 tear 
 Of misery, but unmeasured by degrees 
 Thou ever restest, yet work'st ever here. 
 And work'st e'er yet e'er restest in thine ease 
 Like streams of tideless glass, or waveless frozen 
 seas. 
 
 And Time and Space and Death are not to thee. 
 And Far and Near bear no relation — thou 
 Who fill'st Earth, Heaven, and Hell yet bodi- 
 
 lessly, 
 And hast no age on thy unchangeable brow. 
 Thou hast no Past nor Future, only Now, 
 Unapproachable Almighty who dost fill 
 
12 %^t IBacHtounJi of f^ti^ttv^. 
 
 Eternity — before whom prostrate bow 
 Archangels, seraphs, saints who praise thee still 
 Thy creatures lauding thy unfathomable Will. 
 
 All things were for thine own sole pleasure 
 
 made — ■ 
 And man — not that they add unto thy bliss 
 But so it pleased thee, for, as we have said, 
 The bliss cannot augmented be that is 
 Infinite — self-contained — nor would'st thou 
 
 miss 
 If by thy word this Universe returned 
 To the inchoate darkness and abyss 
 From which it sprang at first, thou hadst not 
 
 mourned 
 For man who prayed or seraph that adoring 
 
 burned. 
 
 Thou doest right because it is thy Will, 
 And not, as some af^rm, because 't is right ; 
 Thou openest wide thy bounteous hand to fill 
 The raven's beak, the wild beast's appetite 
 Howling in Libyan deserts through the night ; 
 Thou showest mercy, and Wrath tarries still 
 The heedless sinner once more to respite; 
 Thou lovest (blessed is that domicile), 
 But why? for Love or Mercy's sake — nay, 't 
 thy Will. 
 
'3Lt)e Q^acfegrounB of JHp;5«r?» 13 
 
 The Will of God — the very God of God, 
 The pillar of the Universe — for lo ! 
 All things that are or will be on thy nod 
 Depend — all laws that bind the earth or glow 
 In distant suns which we call stars, or flow 
 In tides and winds, in tree and rock and dust, 
 Are but th' expression of thy will, and so 
 The acts of man are shadowed by thy Must, 
 Dread, irresistible, inscrutable, and just. 
 
 In Heaven it blossoms in the pure white flower 
 Of happiness and pleasure evermore; 
 Thrice happy they who find their natal hour 
 Or death's tide flowing — on that peaceful shore, 
 Not through desert of theirs or good that bore 
 The fruit of this reward, but thy sole Will, 
 Turned graciously to them even as it wore 
 Hatred to Esau and the fiends that fill 
 The Pit with Satan doomed unto eternal ill. 
 
 But Earth — oh, Earth ! a great Belshazzar feast. 
 Where all sup Fate, though few behold the Hand 
 Pierced by the nail whose bleeding wound has 
 
 ceased. 
 Or perhaps affrighted cannot understand. 
 Drawn by unchangeable Doom to Ruin's strand ! 
 And yet shall man, whose spirit naught discerns — 
 Because thus was the Universe first planned — 
 
14 '€f)e TBsLcHvonviQ of f^mtvi^* 
 
 Shall man — the clay the potter loves or spurns 
 As pleases hhn — condemn the flames in which he 
 burns? 
 
 Is it because changed music in Heaven's ear, 
 
 The raucous cries of souls in endless bale ? 
 
 Yet Sin's swart shadow flung athwart the sphere 
 
 Darkens the soul of men as with a veil — 
 
 From hence, perhaps, springs thy wrath — a 
 
 blasting gale. 
 And thunders and dread lightnings of the Night 
 Since Sin would even the throne of God assail. 
 Unlaw the firmament's remotest height, 
 The angels' service swerve and paths of life and 
 
 light ! 
 
 So Adam, the tree of which the race is fruit, 
 Whose roots stretch forth and fibers grasp on 
 
 Hell, 
 What flower shall blossom from so dread a root ? 
 What fruit from such a flower and source so fell ? 
 What fate awaits the vine that bears not well 
 Sour shriveled grapes or flowers that fruit no 
 
 more? 
 Or rose that Beauty bends to kiss and smell 
 And finds worm-eaten even through the core ? 
 May not God, too, destroy the weeds his garden 
 
 bore ? 
 
Wf)t 'Bacfegrounn of ^mtti^* 15 
 
 But, O Lord God, the shuddering spirit cries, 
 Blot conscious souls from life and quivering flesh ? 
 Wilt thou curse briers whereon no figs arise, 
 Or salt seaweed because unfit to thresh ? 
 Man born in sin and tangled in the mesh 
 Of Circumstance — environed ere his birth 
 By taint hereditary that afresh 
 Reblooms when opportunity springs forth — 
 Wilt thou consign to hell such frailty of the Earth ? 
 
 Infinite agony for finite sin. 
 Eternity in flame for Earth's few days — 
 Is this the awful truth unfolded in 
 Thy Book ? And even we read with more amaze 
 (Just God, thy saints for this too give thee praise) 
 That Sin and Hell are creatures of thy will ; 
 Thy strength supports the sinner in his ways. 
 Determining each unborn act, yet still 
 The deed though thine with him th' obUquity of 
 th' ill ! 
 
 Yea, more — what Muse dare sing it without 
 
 guilt ? 
 Is it not written in Paul that Egypt fell, 
 Predestined by the scheme thy wisdom built 
 By whose election souls find Heaven or Hell ? 
 Hated or loved void ages illimitable 
 Ere in the womb their bones and fashions grew ? 
 If Pharaoh, why not our first parents as well, 
 
1 6 Wt}t Bacfegrounti of pL^tm* 
 
 And blood-stained Cain and treacherous Judas 
 too? 
 Ah, Lord, was not their sin the work given them 
 to do? 
 
 O God, thou knowest! I believe it true. 
 Sophists of ethics, though ye rant I hold 
 That every deed of man is God's act too. 
 However vile — however great in mould 
 The human by Divinity controlled 
 No murderer's victim dead — no girl betrayed, 
 No Nero in his life all crimes enrolled, 
 But thou hast foreordained the career displayed, 
 Dooming to penal fires whom no resistance made. 
 
 The keys of Hell — the shafts of Death are 
 
 thine. 
 The good achieved — the crass mistakes of 
 
 Time — 
 War's blood spilled on th' ensanguined Earth 
 
 like wine, 
 Famine and Pestilence foul-bred from slime. 
 The world's appalling lists of sin and crime. 
 Suffering and sorrow and wild phantasy ; 
 The rout of passion — Love, the most sublime, 
 With Hate its shadow, and all things that be 
 For which men shall be judged — th' efficient cause 
 
 is thee ! 
 
%f)t IBack^vonm of 0imm* 17 
 
 The silly insects snapped the poultry's prey, 
 The fowl, and fish, and flesh of savory smell 
 That wait upon thy appetite to-day, 
 Man, petty sovereign, shall they all rebel? 
 What then ! shall man cry from the pangs of Hell 
 And at his bar ask God to be arrayed 
 Who only has rights inalienable ? 
 Go to — -shall not the choice be his who made 
 To love or hate, bless, curse, refuse or grant thee aid ? 
 
 Yet sin is that one awful thing in man 
 Hated of God, and in the universe 
 The only creature laid beneath his ban. 
 But cursed by him with no fictitious curse. 
 Nor ever can Heaven cease Sin to amerce. 
 Save the Almighty abdicates the throne; 
 For as the pagan fabulists rehearse 
 Of old gray Saturn by great Jove undone, 
 Sin would depose Heaven's king and reign supreme 
 alone ! 
 
 And this is man's estate — O ye who tell 
 Of finite sin, is it not infinite ? 
 Think ye sin ceases at the gates of Hell ? 
 Think ye the grave can harmonize and fit 
 Th' unleavened venom of the skeptic's wit ? 
 The festering sensualist — the warrior's pride — 
 The belle's small vanity — nay, but as 'tis writ, 
 
 3 
 
1 8 %^e 'Backsrounn of f^mtv^* 
 
 '* He that is foul, still let him foul abide." 
 Death has no alchemy that such are sanctified. 
 
 O fruitful mother of all heresies, 
 The foe of science, and sworn friend of wrong. 
 The deft appeal to human sympathies, 
 But not to seekers after truth belong 
 These which Delilah-like seduce the strong, 
 CaUing on shackled minds the enemy 
 Of partisanship, whose dangerous forces throng 
 To join their strength and influence even with thee. 
 Thou patron saint of hypocrites, Utility ! 
 
 Yet, Lord, my God, there were two friends of mine. 
 And both are dead, unhallowed of thy church — 
 One drowned upon the southern ocean's brine, 
 Who knew thee not nor found thee in his search. 
 The whitest soul I knew — without a smirch 
 Of evil — from his boyhood consecrate 
 To grand ideals and thoughts, from the high 
 
 perch 
 Of saintly, noble manhood 't was his fate 
 To die not knowing thee — Lord, where is now my 
 
 mate? 
 
 And she — who loved me more than she loved life. 
 Who loved me more than fame — oh ! where is she ? 
 A good heart with sweet, generous pulses rife, 
 Who wept to comfort others' misery, — 
 
%lit TBack^voum of f^mtv^* 19 
 
 A gentle soul who erred in loving me, 
 And yet who dreamed thy mercy, Lord, had been 
 So vast that like some overflowing sea 
 'Twould overlook — I dare not call it sin — 
 The lightning spared her not. Hast thou. Lord, 
 drawn her in ? 
 
 Can I be blest if she exists unblest ? 
 Could I be happy in heaven with her in hell ? 
 Lo ! while she lived on earth she had no rest 
 If I were heavy- souled. She loved me well ; 
 Unselfish, woman-like, unquenchable, 
 Her pride, ambition, hope, were all in me. 
 Can I forget her ? Can I hope to dwell. 
 Hymning thy praise in heavenly ecstasy. 
 And see her streaming eyes glancing reproachfully ? 
 
 The earth — the fairy scenes of heart and eye — 
 
 Is barren now since she has left me here ; 
 
 The flowers she loved — the stars she watched to 
 
 spy, 
 
 First trembling in the twilight's azure sphere, 
 How different seem now since she is not near ! 
 In the dull pain of absence— O dread Death ! 
 This is the heart-sick burden of thy fear. 
 But worse even yet to dread the after-l^reath, 
 Or shall hearts be less true when no flesh compasseth ? 
 
20 Wi)t TBac^s^onm of j^pt^rg. 
 
 Oh, can this really be ? O piteous Christ ! 
 This awful mystery — this dreadful doom, 
 Like helpless babes to Moloch sacrificed ? 
 Is such the after-fate that shrouds the tomb ? 
 The young, the fair, the tender mother's bloom. 
 The prattling child, the brave, the gray-haired 
 
 sire. 
 The honored of the ages — blast the womb 
 Of love that bears the children of thy ire ! 
 Be merciful, O God, and disappoint the fire ! 
 
 This sweet-voiced child I hold upon my knee, — 
 These innocent eyes — this cheek too pure for 
 
 shame. 
 Dearer to me than my heart's blood can be — 
 God, canst thou doom her to the unceasing 
 
 flame, — 
 Her tender limbs and lithe and cunning frame? 
 Can it now be that in thy holy eyes 
 She is accursed — and ere her birth by name 
 Elected to thy hate, howe'er she tries 
 Or seeks thee, doomed to feed the worm that never 
 
 dies? 
 
 What does it matter, then, what life we lead 
 
 If thus in some unjust eternity 
 
 The vicious action and the virtuous deed 
 
 Find the same wage by some predoomed decree. 
 
 Eternal death — whatever that may be — 
 
 Of disproportionate torture — oh, I swear 
 
%})t IBacks^omn of ^^mttt 21 
 
 The doctrine seems more horrible to me 
 Than any fear-born blasphemy that e'er 
 Was dreamed by naked savage housed in some wild 
 beast's lair. 
 
 O Rachel, in heaven, can thy heart forget 
 The children of thy travail on the earth ? 
 O Mary Mother, dost thou harbor yet 
 The memory of the pangs of human birth ? 
 Shall motherhood be e'er such little worth 
 That it will spurn back to th' abyss of hell 
 The babe it suckled, and with mocking mirth 
 Rejoice and praise Omnipotence as well 
 That pushed it down the sUppery steep o'er which 
 it fell ! 
 
 If such can be, Lord God, unlaw the sphere ! 
 Let night-dark chaos reign and call for mate 
 Another deluge, but no Noah appear 
 The sons of Esau to perpetuate. 
 Renew no rainbow to deride our state. 
 Saved from the waters in the flames to lie 
 Eternally, O children of God's hate ! 
 To what frail refuge can ye ever fly ? 
 Take counsel of Job's wife: Arise, curse God, and 
 die! 
 
 Set thou a guard upon my lips, O God, 
 Lest Sorrow's voice speak words of sin and blight, 
 Or love of race drive me to thoughts unlawed. 
 Shall not the Lord of all the Earth do right ? 
 
2 2 Wi)e T^acfegrounu of pimtth 
 
 Shall we not praise him even though he smite ? 
 Lord, our own hearts bear witness to thy claim 
 Against ourselves — we walk in gloom and night 
 Restless until we rest beneath thy name ; 
 Only in thy tabernacle peace of heart e'er came. 
 
 But what is this misshapen thing called Sin ? 
 What are her wages ? answer me, my soul ! 
 Hast thou not found her very bitterest in 
 Her sweetest service, as against thee roll 
 Regret, remorse, shame, and that utmost goal 
 Of bitterness, satiety — ah me ! 
 What pleasure gives the harlot and the bowl 
 To those who sin in heart-sick apathy. 
 Indifferent where or what, so time glides rapidly ! 
 
 The curse of Cain — ^th' insanity of Saul 
 Cry for the harp that soothes with fitful calm, 
 But know at last in vain its echoes fall 
 Upon the ear — oft heard, it brings no balm. 
 Away ! let dance and revel, arm in arm, 
 Allure thee to the gay and thoughtless crowd : 
 The playhouse and the ball have yet their charm. 
 Join where the laughter merriest is and loud. 
 And drown in Lethean wine the memories of the 
 shroud ! 
 
 Coward ! th' inevitable moment comes ! 
 The summons issues forth, thou canst not stay ; 
 The palsying hour that evermore benumbs 
 The love and light and hope of mortal clay. 
 
W^e T^acfegroimn of ^^»tm. 23 
 
 Canst thou bribe Death to lag upon the way ? 
 Ah, or in toil, devotion, play, or crime, 
 Who seeks to flee or find him, God will pay 
 According to his destiny — his time. 
 His taste, his acts, fore-mapped by God to sink or 
 climb. 
 
 To sink or climb — who knows which fate shall 
 
 win 
 In the tragi-comedy of human life ? 
 And thou — whoe'er thou art — rejoicing in 
 Health, wealth, caste, fame, the love of child or 
 
 wife, 
 Youth, and the hope and rapture of the strife, — 
 Say, dost thou ken what shaft may smite thee 
 
 low ? 
 With what of shame thy future may be rife, 
 Thy youth all blessing but age curse the moe. 
 White hairs and palsied limbs disgraced and bowed 
 
 with woe ? 
 
 Lady, whose beauty dazzles heaven's sun. 
 Pure as the shafts of light, or breath of flowers, 
 Stepping, like some regardless queen upon 
 Rich rugs, o'er human hearts in thy soft bowers — 
 Canst thou imagine how these midnight hours 
 The outcast walks, rejoicing in her shame ? 
 Yet she was once as thee — and even such dowers 
 Await full many now of spotless fame. 
 O woman, who can say thine will not be the same ? 
 
24 '^^t IBacksvomxH of jBimtvi^* 
 
 For what avails even birth from royal loins, 
 Or priestly sires or wealth or cultured taste, 
 If Circumstance, which is God's Regent, joins 
 The foes which need or inclination haste 
 By love, hate, wealth, or fell ambition disgraced ? 
 What reft imperial Hapsburg of an heir? 
 What turns the holy fields of Zion waste ? 
 Madness ! which all in their proportion share. 
 Thou reader, and who weaves these verses of de- 
 spair. 
 
 Thou call'st it madness — madness, yea, of sin ! 
 The universal heritage of man, 
 All brought this world and all that follows in 
 The world to come — the all-embracing ban 
 Whose curse in every crime and woe I scan, 
 Feel'st thou it not delirious in thy blood 
 When uncontrollable passions lead the van ? 
 As wrecking waves tumultuouslyenflood 
 The beach where lately summer ripples lapped and 
 flowed. 
 
 Oh what is man, and art thou mindful of him ? 
 The son of man, anddost thou visit him? 
 Or scorned of earth below and heaven above him, 
 Orphan and outcast, who his sails must trim 
 
Z.f)e IBack^voum of jm?5ttrp. 25 
 
 On Life's mysterious ocean ways and dim 
 Sans rudder, pilot, without compass, chart, 
 Or aught that may the proper pathway limn — 
 O man, a dread phenomenon thou art! 
 Who knows thy course of life? its finish or its start ? 
 
 I call thy soul to solitude. Forsake 
 The sprightly converse and convivial scene 
 Awhile, and to some cloistered walk betake 
 Thy lonely way, or to the shadowy green 
 Of some vast wood where naught can intervene 
 Save Nature's own suggestions, and there spend 
 A pensive hour and map thy course between 
 Thy birth and death, and how thine actions tend 
 To be in harmony with the dread journey's end. 
 
 What man dare thus withdraw his soul apart 
 From its activities and there survey 
 The character insphered within his heart, 
 Nor turn with shuddering sigh his glance away ? 
 I marvel not that saints became the prey 
 Of demons in the ancient solitudes 
 Of penance, but the demons were of clay. 
 For always when alone to man intrudes 
 Forlornly multiplied the Self that in him broods ! 
 4 
 
26 %lft "Bacfegrottttti of PLi^^m* 
 
 And this they saw, and so wilt thou, O man, — 
 A glance of Hell — while round thee Nature's 
 
 calm 
 Will add a second curse as if her ban 
 Were too upon the wretch whose voice and harm 
 Were th' only blasphemy where else were psalm, 
 Sole break in continuity of good. 
 The very stars have an aggressive arm 
 And war 'gainst sinful souls, and the tongued wood 
 Loud whispers imprecations against their evil mood ! 
 
 If grosser earth thus disallows her kin, 
 How shall he find in Heaven's diviner sphere 
 Companionship — the sinless mate with sin ? 
 What pleasure to an unregenerate ear 
 To sit among God's holy ones and hear 
 The seraphs praise him and th' adoring Host, 
 Apostles, martyrs, and elect draw near 
 Proffering homage — every thought engrossed 
 In endless laud of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost? 
 
€l)e 55acftgtounti of sj^p^torp. 
 
 CANTO II. 
 
 THE EULOGY OF CHRIST. 
 
 Shine, sacred Star, whose rays outshine the sun ! 
 Not Bethlehem's plams have caught that light 
 
 alone, 
 But far as yonder orb of day hath run 
 The circuit of the earth's extremestzone 
 O'er isles unnamed and continents unknown 
 And mighty empires that will scepter sway 
 Further than hath the Roman eagle flown 
 In flight of conquest, all will crave thy ray 
 To rise and conquer in the light of the New Day. 
 
 Thy dawn brings a new era to the earth, 
 A new creation greater than the old 
 When the Creative Word in law spake forth 
 And the evolving Chaos did unfold 
 27 
 
28 %^t IBack^vomn of ^ii^^ttvis. 
 
 Order, and light, and life, but now behold 
 A greater marvel than the host of them ! 
 For He at whose almighty word they rolled 
 Into existence tears the diadem 
 From his own brow and lies the Babe of Bethlehem. 
 
 How sweetly evening fell on Judah's hills ! 
 The sun behind them slowly sank from sight, 
 The sheep had slaked their thirst from many rills 
 And slept — the shepherds watched their flocks by 
 
 night. 
 When suddenly around them flashed a light — 
 A heavenly light that made the stars seem dim, 
 And in the glory was an angel bright, 
 Who told the Christ Child's birth, and seraphim, 
 Cherub, and angel host sang the first Christmas 
 
 hymn. 
 
 The savage sword of bloody War was sheathed, 
 
 And the first time in many weary years 
 
 O'er the precarious throne of Caesar breathed 
 
 The benison of rest from strife and fears. 
 
 The youthful bride was wed no more with tears, 
 
 The trembling children bade their sorrows cease, 
 
 For Janus' gates were closed — like summer 
 
 meres 
 The states of Rome slept in the glad release, 
 And all the world reposed in universal peace. 
 
%^t ^acltgrounti of f^'^^tm* 29 
 
 Yet outward peace but mocked the inward war 
 Whose battle-field was in the human breast, 
 Alike in him who rode as conqueror 
 As with the slave who feared his lord's behest. 
 They all sought vainly that one blessing — rest 
 Of conscience and of mind, and finding none 
 Some dared to die the worst perhaps to test, 
 And others, haply braver, dared live on. 
 But aimless and d/ase — the charm of life was gone. 
 
 Even the Philosophers but guessed at truth. 
 Few reverently and many scoffingly 
 Babbling of God and virtue, while forsooth 
 They cared, I ween, for neither. Such used to be 
 The masters of the old philosophy. 
 The mighty men of Rome — the wise of Greece. 
 Some preached the gospel of Uncertainty 
 And laughed at all — some thought the world 
 would cease 
 At death, and men turned atheists for want of 
 peace. 
 
 This was the hair-held sword of Damocles 
 That stole the zest from all the feasts of old. 
 This seemed to wail a dirge upon the breeze 
 And peopled solitude with demons bold ; 
 
30 W^t TBacksvonm of ^iffittvh 
 
 It tarnished all the miser's hoarded gold 
 And sered the laurel on the victor's brow, 
 And turned the Forum's glowing praises cold, 
 And 'midst the pomp of the triumphal show 
 The conqueror's mortality it whispered low. 
 
 From the tense thought of our consummate age 
 Let us glance backward to that distant Past. 
 Four hundred years God spake not. On the 
 
 stage 
 Of Earth's activity there were enmassed 
 Statesmen and seers, and warriors who are 
 
 classed 
 Greatest of men, yet all despairing, failed 
 To formulate a scheme of truth, but cast 
 Upon Death's shore died stoics or assailed 
 The gods they made or dreamed, even as old Hor- 
 ace wailed. 
 
 Great God ! with what disgusting attributes 
 Heroes and men of glorious minds conceived 
 And robed the Deity, from Egypt's brutes, 
 Worshipped as God, to those that Rome believed 
 In air and sea and wood — alike received 
 By white-haired priest, cloaked sage, and igno- 
 rant clown — 
 Adulterous deities and gods that thieved. 
 To altars foul with lust sweet girls bowed down. 
 And matrons venerable, whose age was as a crown ! 
 
Wf)t TBackc^onm of ^^i^^ttvh 31 
 
 O Sages ! sapient names among mankind, 
 High priests of Nature, — ye who proudly say 
 That reason is not hopelessly purblind 
 In things divine but liberal nature's ray, 
 Confess enough — at least in this our day — 
 Why spoke the ancients with such different tone ? 
 Why cried the moral wisdom of their day — 
 The wisest perhaps whom nature taught alone — 
 That cry, '*That all we know is, nothing can be 
 known ! " 
 
 And ye — what doctrines do ye now agree ? 
 Plain nature does this ^' Age of Reason " teach ? 
 Gods — God — no God ? Does Immortality 
 Repair at Life's dark end Death's awful breach, 
 Or does the conscious soul no future reach ? 
 Who for this life even can the ways define 
 Of Right and Wrong? Oh babbling words of 
 
 speech ! 
 The Sybarite will his creed construe with thine. 
 Ascetic — or wilt thou to his stained path incHne ? 
 
 Blind leaders whom the credulous world receives 
 Deluding and deluded — easy fools. 
 Capacious in your faith, though it believes 
 More miracles than in mediaeval schools 
 
32 '^^t Badtgroima of J^Jl^jSttrg* 
 
 Engrossed in book of horn by monkish tools; 
 From Hume to Strauss — from Rousseau to 
 
 Voltaire, 
 Darwin to Tyndall — or where roguery rules 
 The brood of Slade or IngersoU's loud blare — 
 Where do you coincide? What unity do you bear? 
 
 Nor yet even then — nor now t' anticipate, 
 Nor yet even then — so e'er is Error rife, 
 Were the Diviner Script inviolate. 
 The race-proud Hebrew with the words of Life 
 Blurred God's white truth with rituaUstic strife, 
 Careful of ceremonies, postures, dress. 
 And scourings of a pot, a pan, a knife, 
 Feeding on husks — the inward truth and grace 
 He missed that these symbolic acts were meant 
 t' express. 
 
 Arise, O Star of Hope, arise, unfold 
 Thy perfect light — the New Day Sun seven- 
 rayed ! 
 He comes whom Hebrew prophecy foretold 
 And ancient type and ritual displayed, 
 The World's Desire for whom the nations prayed, 
 The answer to the prayer of Socrates, 
 The Christ whom Roman Virgil's verse portrayed, 
 Unconscious that his songs were prophecies -«- 
 Thy true Messias comes, Zion fulfilling these ! 
 
%l)e Bachgrouno of f^mtv^* 33 
 
 The Magi saw His portent in the skies 
 
 And hastened with their gifts. The path they 
 
 trod 
 Hath marked the way by which the Dawn should 
 
 rise 
 And lead the nations on to Truth and God, 
 And fling the rays of Liberty abroad, 
 The westward march of Civilization and Art. 
 Even savage tribes have at His name been awed, 
 And a new softness trembled in their heart 
 And changed the wish to slay and bade the soft tear 
 
 start. 
 
 As when the fierce barbarians sacked old Rome 
 In the wild whirlwind of the world's just feud. 
 The foretaste of th' Apocalyptic doom, 
 The awful harvest of the martyr's blood, 
 The curses of the gladiators who stood 
 And vainly sued for respite — without a tear 
 The cruel Goth with fatal indifference viewed ; 
 The slave and noble in one common bier, 
 The torch upon her treasures — all that Rome 
 held dear — 
 
 The mansions her effeminate nobles loved, 
 The costly robes in which their vanity dressed, 
 The sculptures and the pictures which had moved 
 The world to homage 
 5 
 
34 '^^t l^acfegrounn of j^mm* 
 
 Awoke no admiration ; on he pressed, 
 His vandal course with blood and pillage rife, 
 Until his soul the name of Christ confessed. 
 Down dropped his upraised spear and ceased the 
 
 strife. 
 And for that sacred Name he spared the suppliant's 
 
 life! 
 
 A marvel this as wonderful forsooth 
 
 As any told in the Evangelist, 
 
 That selfish, envious men withouten ruth 
 
 Should be so changed— but how no convert 
 
 wist — 
 By godlike love their souls could not resist, 
 That burned into their spirits like a fire. 
 Cleansing vile nature's dross ! whoe'er held tryst 
 With Christ but felt his mounting soul aspire 
 With a diviner craving than Earth could e'er desire. 
 
 Yet to what pilgrimage does Faith invite ? 
 Not to sweet pleasures of the flesh, but gall. 
 O'er goals in which men naturally delight, 
 Wealth, dalliance, power, and fame, it casts a 
 
 pall 
 And throws aside for e'er beyond recall. 
 Against all worldly pride it witnesseth, 
 Yet learned, proud, rich, poor, high and low of all 
 Peoples and times for this unearthlike faith 
 Have lived despising life, and died despising death. 
 
%^t Q^arttgrounD of ^^0ttv^, 35 
 
 Not thus the Jew's conception of his God — 
 That shrewd monopohst whose unctuous eye 
 Grasps all advantage treasures rare afford, 
 And pastures rich, deep wells, fat herds supply. 
 Not such the swart Mohammed did espy 
 In his salacious dreams — ah, ever rife 
 With sounds and hopes of Earth, Mortality, 
 Ne'er fashioned such a soul forth from its strife. 
 To whom, Lord, shall we go — thou hast eternal Hfe ? 
 
 And yet did e'er possessions vast of gold 
 To miser or to sensualist impart 
 Calm peace and hope, and courage nobly bold ? 
 Did power e'er satisfy the sinking heart. 
 Or learning, fame, or the drugged sweets of art, 
 Or conscious beauty smiling at her glass? 
 Ah, ever Envy like a poison dart. 
 Or fear or Ennui — deadliest upas — 
 Or yet unsatisfied Desire does still harass ! 
 
 Alas, what slaves we are of sight and taste ! 
 We tread the self-same paths our fathers trod ; 
 Ardent in youth with envious footsteps haste. 
 Although worn graybeard Age has felt the rod 
 And speaks the terrors of offended God, 
 Or dies despairing else or satiate. 
 But vain th' example; each himself must plod 
 The Wise King's path, and happy is his fate 
 If not for happiness experience comes too late. 
 
36 %1)e IBackc^tomt of ^^^ttvh 
 
 All which we know and see and feel, and yet 
 It is a barren knowledge. Human pride 
 Even on the awful bier of death would set 
 The trappings of vain-glory as to hide 
 The hideous fact, or in despite decide, 
 As some have hved on poisons to make fair 
 With bloom, carved stone and eulogy allied, 
 The outward guise of what must in it bear 
 Foulness unthinkable — Pride's pitiful despair. 
 
 Therefore I say, since this is human nature, 
 Proud, selfish, sensual, vain, in anger fell. 
 It is a marvel when this perverse creature 
 Whose tastes against his reason e'er rebel 
 Is changed but little short of miracle. 
 To cure the halt, the dumb, the deaf, the blind. 
 To raise the dead seems less incredible 
 Than that a man should love and serve mankind. 
 Despoiling self with all for One ne'er seen resigned. 
 
 Not thus indeed all who have named His Name, 
 Ye priestly hierarchs and spiritual lords 
 Who despotize God's heritage and claim 
 Tithes of all wealth and gifts the world affords. 
 Minions of Fashion, surpliced semi-gods. 
 Dwelling in palaces while round ye groan 
 Christ's poor, unhoused, unfed, unclothed — the 
 
 bawds, 
 Shall they not have a greater lenience shown, 
 O Pharisees, than ye, when trembling at his throne ? 
 
%^t l^arftscouno of pimtv^* 31 
 
 What signify huge edifices built 
 By plunder of the widowed orphan poor ! 
 Fine carven altars foul with Usury's guilt, 
 Stained windows and gay music to allure 
 Rich worship to the beneficed sinecure ? 
 O travesty on Religion ! was 't for these 
 The Son became incarnate ? to insure 
 Luxurious pastors caste and scholarly ease ? 
 Think ye such lives and churches doth th' Almighty 
 please ? 
 
 Nor chiefly thou, blaspheming Scourge of Rome 
 
 Who sitteth throned in incense as a God ! 
 
 The murderous world that filled the martyr's 
 
 tomb. 
 Hath knelt to thee and trembled at thy nod. 
 Dark ages that spurned Christ first gave the rod 
 Of sovereignty to thee, and at thy dread ban 
 The saints of God have perished, and their blood 
 Is on thee — vain, old, tottering, doting man. 
 Who dream'st impossible dreams, for nevermore 
 there can 
 
 Be power in thy weak, justly palsied hand. 
 Nor in thy maledictions strength nor fear. 
 Such as when once before thy gate did stand 
 A discrowned king upon whose slavish ear 
 
38 '^^t ^t^arftgcouno of ^mtv^^ 
 
 The laugh of wassail jarred while thou didst cheer 
 The hours with wine and harlots as he stood 
 A mark for all the winter blasts to jeer, 
 Although even yet, alas ! a miiltitude 
 Who dare God tremble at thy name — unmanly 
 brood ! 
 
 What coronation hymn with flags unfurled 
 Did Zion sing to greet her heavenly King ? 
 And Rome, the mighty mistress of the world, 
 Whose streets yet with th' Augustan triumph 
 
 ring,— 
 Does not her emperor to Messiah bring 
 The crown and prostrate lay it at his feet, 
 Beseeching Christ t' accept so mean a thing ; 
 And from Earth's farthest bounds in haste to greet. 
 Do not the far-off kings with lavish gifts compete ? 
 
 O Jesus ! Master of the winds and waves 
 And human hearts ! Thy glories heaven fill ; 
 The powers of Nature are thy suppliant slaves ; 
 The foaming sea obeyed thy mighty will ; 
 Thou spakest to the tempest, it was still ; 
 Thy word the leper's sickness drove away ; 
 The blind, the dumb, the halt, flocked round thee 
 
 till 
 Their sorrows yielded to thy healing sway, 
 And Death at thy command delivered up his prey. 
 
%^t BacfegrounU of ^mtti^* 39 
 
 He ran through all Life's stages up to man, 
 And added grace and dignity to all ; 
 A stainless soul whom Nature could not ban, 
 He conquered her, retrieving Adam's fall. 
 He did no act unworthy of his call, 
 Interpreting the thoughts of God to men. 
 And wresting his dominion from the thrall 
 Of Evil and beyond all human ken 
 Suffering that awful death none e'er can die again. 
 
 With whom will you compare the Christ ? The 
 
 light 
 Of twenty analytic centuries 
 Has shed upon his life in love of spite. 
 Nor shown a flaw. While even Socrates, 
 Confucius, Boodh, Mohammed — more than 
 
 these, 
 All who before or since have given men creeds, 
 Are all found peccable — unbending knees, 
 Christ's enemies, have glorified his deeds 
 And cried, Centurion-like, "This man from God 
 
 proceeds." 
 
 The grandest souls are circumscribed by race 
 And dwarfed to local heroes ; seer and sage 
 And patriots whom the world delights to praise 
 Are cramped by limitations of their age, — 
 
40 %})t IBack^vonm of jHg^terg. 
 
 But Christ is universal, and the page 
 In which he shines the legacy of all time, 
 The world his country on whose boundless stage 
 He moves th' exemplar of each age and clime. 
 Star of the Occident — the Orient Sun subhme ! 
 
 And yet the Root sprung from the barren ground, 
 
 The undesirable because of old 
 
 All kings were graced with purple robes and 
 
 crowned 
 With diadem and scepter, gems and gold. 
 And in triumphal pageant proudly rolled 
 Their chariot wheels with blood of conquest dyed. 
 Such prove the royal rights that men behold, 
 Confess and worship — such is human pride ; 
 The poor, the meek, the unobtrusive, are denied. 
 
 The world — poor, moribund world for need of 
 
 Christ, 
 The world he made discerned him not, and 
 
 worse. 
 The people set apart to keep his tryst 
 By symbol, ritual, and prophetic verse 
 And emblematical histories that rehearse 
 His spiritual truth — his own received him not, 
 But in unreasoning hate invoked his curse 
 Upon them and their children as their lot ; 
 From that day unto this pursues the doom they 
 
 sought ! 
 
W)t 'Barftgrounn of f^^^tet^, 41 
 
 O wanderers of the world ! Outcasts of Heaven ! 
 Orestes of mankind ! a fearful doom 
 Is this to thy once favored people given — 
 Driven to perpetual exile till the tomb 
 Is fairer than the banquet hall — the bloom 
 Of Nature and the cheerful glance of Day ! 
 Abhorred of God and man — has Earth no room 
 Amidst her wastes where thou mayst hide away 
 Till the long day of wrath hath spent its blasting ray ? 
 
 What means the heat of this great anger — say? 
 What other nations hath the Lord used so — 
 Preserving yet afflicting? Even to-day 
 Thy brother Ishmael sees the palm trees grow 
 Where he pitched tents three thousand years ago, 
 In presence of his brethren and his kin, 
 While Israel fled in terror to and fro 
 O'er the broad earth like Cain — in shame and in 
 His sufferings found no expiation for his sin. 
 
 But oh, that sin — that settled evermore 
 The status of man's heart ! Be mute, O Earth, 
 With voiceless terror, and thou, Heaven, pour 
 Cimmerian darkness in black horror forth. 
 Be shrouded. Sun, that gave the morning birth,— 
 How shalt thou shine, while men thy Maker slay ? 
 The Ocean seethe and comets burst the girth 
 Of Nature — even the Grave disgorge its prey, 
 Aghast at the dread burden those wooden arms dis- 
 play ! 
 6 
 
42 Wi^t Bacifegcounli of ;pgBt^c?* 
 
 O shuddering History, canst thou tell again 
 That Socrates the poisoned hemlock drank ? 
 Or measure when the just Athenian 
 ■ Was ostracized how low his country sank? 
 The glittering rolls of Fame became a blank. 
 On all the glory men of old time prized 
 Was *' Ichabod " inscribed at crime so rank 
 (As if the old world's sins had not sufficed), — 
 The scourge, the nails, the spear, the thorns, the 
 cross of Christ ! 
 
 Words fail — the climax this of human guilt: 
 Adam's trangression, Sodom's vice hell bred. 
 The race engulfed, and Babel's high tower built 
 In Heaven's despite are from comparison fled. 
 Seal up the testimony ! Shroud the dead ! 
 But doth th' Almighty spare his blasting breath ? 
 O thou who marvelest at man's natural bread. 
 To see Life draw its nourishment from Death, 
 Behold the substance here the emblem witnesseth ! 
 
 For so had God decreed, and to this end 
 The whole creation cursed by Adam's fall 
 Felt pangs of birth her inmost being rend. 
 Else had the bolt of Heaven smitten all, 
 
%})t iBat^vonm of j^^&tm. 43 
 
 Roman and Jew — but not the less appal 
 Thy magnitude of sin — thy evil heart, 
 O Man that knew not the predestined call, 
 But in blind lust of evil played thy part 
 And to all creatures proved how rightly cursed thou 
 art! 
 
 Earth's wisdom, power, religion all combined 
 To slay the Son of God, and even so 
 To-day the self- same factors do we find 
 Leagued in an impotent attempt t' o'erthrow 
 The Church 'gainst which is no effectual blow ! 
 Fools! — as they curse and aim their shafts and 
 
 mock. 
 Year after year their vital wound they show, 
 And so confess thy power, — Eternal Rock, 
 On which the saints have stood and braved the cen- 
 turies' shock. 
 
 Earth has no power that parallels thy death ; 
 No conqueror by his Ufe e'er built a sway 
 Comparable to that thy dying breath 
 Founded. An army would arise to-day 
 To which earth's greatest battle was a fray 
 Of insignificant numbers, if but so 
 Thy warfare was accomplished, and Malay, 
 Caucasian, Indian, Negro — all would glow 
 With ardor in the cause and bless a fatal blow. 
 
44 '^^t l^arftgrounD of :^i^mvii* 
 
 Where are the victors whom the world has feared ? 
 The founders and destroyers of her powers, 
 Who made the sea their battle-field and sered 
 A populous plain to wastes which Heaven's showers 
 Could not revive nor Art rebuild its towers, 
 From Cyrus to Napoleon? They are clay, 
 Less mighty than this clod of soil that flowers 
 When Springbreatheso'er it and her soft winds say, 
 " Arise ! " to buried seeds that hear her and obey. 
 
 O Death, the loathsome, terrible and cursed, 
 There is no wreck like thine ! I will not rear 
 Lament for those whose lives are of the worst 
 (Although we all walk shadowed by thy fear) ; 
 But, O insatiate Fiend; what have we here? — 
 The cunning brain, the souls of mighty frame. 
 The kings of men — one undistinguished bier. 
 The foe of Beauty, Eloquence and Fame, 
 The dread of Love, with emperor and serf the same! 
 
 The dread of Love, which were almighty else — 
 Celestial One that shapes within the heart 
 A fairy place for glorious moods and melts 
 The most ferocious by his godlike art. 
 And yet even Love with poison tips his darts. 
 O Thou who lovest most, is it not so ? 
 Is not life vacancy when far apart. 
 And does not Doubt prove Satisfaction's foe. 
 Forever wilt thou love or thou please evermoe ? 
 
W)t IBatk^voxim of ^g^urgt 45 
 
 And yet by Love and Death Christ's throne is 
 
 fixed, 
 Immortal Love and Death that leads to Life ! 
 Intensest of all passions since unmixed 
 With aught terrestrial. Earthly Love is rife 
 With charms the eye can seize, and in the strife 
 Of Mutability mere beauties fade, 
 And oft the love of mistress or of wife 
 Nourished on false ideals dies betrayed 
 With bitterer memories too from wounds for years 
 self-made. 
 
 But thou, transforming and eternal Lover, 
 The Substance of all Good — Source of all Light — 
 Thou art the changeless God ! No space can cover 
 Thy presence whose sweet glory shines more 
 
 bright. 
 To Faith where purblind Nature deems it night. 
 Almighty Power and infinite in charms. 
 Lord, Saviour, Friend — no circumstance can 
 
 Wight, 
 No rage of men or demons cause alarms 
 To those whose weakness trusts "the Everlasting 
 
 Arms." 
 
 Time proves it true — deny it as thou wilt — 
 All, all else fails to satisfy the soul 
 There are true pleasures, too, by which are built 
 Substantial joys, but yet they lose control 
 
46 %^t l&ackgrounD of ^t&tm. 
 
 Of fickle fancy as the seasons roll. 
 The dreams of Youth have fled, Ambition's toys 
 Attract not when the life draws near its goal ; 
 Friends die, books fail to please, and Nature cloys — 
 But Christ and Christ alone the parting soul enjoys. 
 
 For this cause Christ assumed a mortal breath, 
 For this endured the suffering and the shame, 
 That so he might be Lord of Love and Death 
 And Prince of Life with energy to reclaim 
 The vile in sin. From prison, rack and flame, 
 From happy homes, from couches of disease. 
 From learned, from rude, from rich, from poor 
 
 the same 
 From our day, from th' initial centuries, 
 His witnesses — a myriad host — take voice from 
 
 these ! 
 
 O happy people whom the Lord doth love ! 
 
 O glorious Bride whom Christ hath made his 
 
 choice ! 
 Thou shaltbe safe when Earth's foundations move 
 And Heaven rolls at the Archangel's voice 
 Together like a scroll. — Rejoice ! rejoice ! 
 For thou shalt then be with him evermore 
 At whose right hand there are eternal joys. 
 And cleansed from sin forever shalt adore 
 The Saviour who for thee sin's utmost penalty bore. 
 
%l}e Bacfegcounu of ^^^tttv* 47 
 
 Herein was Calvary's agony alone, 
 Christ's pure soul cursed an offering for sin, 
 And here ceased ethical questions though un- 
 known 
 How in white innocence was the origin 
 Of Evil — nor why thus it should have been, 
 Nor why such world-wide suffering is abroad. 
 But by the helpless travail Christ was in — 
 The Well-beloved of God — my soul is awed, 
 And the dark shadow rolls from the cleared face of 
 God. 
 
 There are no creeds containing all the truth. 
 Men with their finite logic can deny 
 That God can suffer, but that scene forsooth 
 He did not look on with a pitiless eye ; 
 His heart must too have felt the agony 
 As into Mary's soul the sword was thrust, 
 And since God suffered, though I know not why, 
 Whate'er befalls a creature of the dust 
 Is shallow to the depth of that Almighty must ! 
 
 The cross of Christ has proved God's love for 
 
 man -, 
 His way is perfect — true, man cannot see 
 Through the deep mysteries of the wondrous 
 
 plan, 
 But there is light enough to show to thee 
 
48 %^t l^acfegcouna of ^^^ttv^. 
 
 Men justly held responsible to be 
 With moral limit to Almighty Power 
 And limit to omnipotent charity, 
 And some way to be known in the dread hour 
 Of judgment all the guilt will prove man's righteous 
 dower ! 
 
 Conceive the condescension of the Son 
 Co-equal and eternal with the Sire, 
 Who emptied out his glory and took on 
 A mortal form, even though it did require 
 In him renunciation so entire 
 That evermore he must be God and Man, 
 And as a Man bear flesh's penalties dire 
 And when no longer under death's dread ban 
 Be Man in Heaven still, through Heaven's eternal 
 span. 
 
 Yet only so could God be known of men, 
 Or seen in Heaven of created eyes ; 
 For sinless seraphs veil their faces when 
 Adoring — how much more vile man likewise ! 
 Who sees the naked Godhead straightway dies 
 Annihilated — but in Jesu's face 
 God's glory shines resplendently. There lies 
 The fullness of the Deity — all grace ; 
 In him Heaven's Tabernacle — God's abiding-place ! 
 
W^e Bacfegroimn of pimtt^^ 49 
 
 In Christ th' unfallen angels are preserved, 
 
 And Earth's fixed pillars through his passions 
 
 stand ; 
 Even Hell is spared awhile, although reserved 
 For final judgment at th' Almighty's hand; 
 And doubtlessly yon curved blue skies expand, 
 Made holy by the sacrifice, and meet 
 For God's invisible presence and command. 
 Since even the stars that sparkle at his feet 
 Are not pure in his sight, but marred and incom- 
 plete. 
 
 Then learn — although as the Creator's act 
 Sin bears a different aspect and device — 
 Then learn in man how Sin's accomplished fact 
 Is execrable, since no less a price 
 Than Christ's death and abasement could suffice 
 In expiation, nor the race restore 
 That Adam lost when lust did so entice 
 That he, for the deep love to Eve he bore. 
 From self and from his race God's image madly tore. 
 
 But more by Christ's obedience was regained 
 Than by transgression lost, and this alone 
 Argues, perchance, why sin a place obtained 
 In the eternal counsel. If unknown 
 
 7 
 
50 W)t IBackc^voum of ^mtv^* 
 
 The mercy ne'er of God could have been shown ; 
 His wrath and justice obsolete law had been, 
 Unfelt — unfeared — the moral sense had grown 
 Mechanical in creation, save for sin, 
 Which evil in itself brought God's perfection in. 
 
 So man in Nature lost by Adam's crime, 
 In grace by Christ's redemption occupies 
 A kingdom and relation more sublime 
 To Him who made and saved him, for men rise 
 From moral death which hohness defies 
 Absolved from sin — delivered from its power. 
 So that as freemen now their duty lies, 
 Adopted sons of God, and in the hour 
 Of Christ's own triumph shall his heirship be their 
 dower. 
 
 Yet still the world that crucified the Just 
 Can see no beauty in him — let it scorn ! 
 'Tis the old heathen cry of Cain. We trust 
 The Blood of Christ to save our souls forlorn. 
 We find no goodness in ourselves, but mourn 
 Our dark demerits, and we humbly pray 
 That he our sinful places may have borne 
 Upon the Tree, and so prepared the way 
 For us to happiness. 'Tis all our hope and stay. 
 
W)t ^acfegrounn of :^^^ttv^ 5 1 
 
 Shades of departed seers, whose sugared words 
 Robbed Death the terrors Life so prophesied, 
 We see not how your faith with sight accords, . 
 But not on Nature's facts your creed relied. 
 Ah, monster dread, with Suffering's life-blood 
 
 dyed. 
 Ravening in beak, and claw, and hand. We see 
 Earthquake and tempest — every power applied 
 With nerve and mind's vast capability 
 Of torture to make life exquisite tragedy ! 
 
 Old Sire, thy son of many prayers is dead? 
 
 Thy daughter, mother? Would to God she 
 
 were ! 
 Cypress, O wife, the wreath is thou hast wed. 
 Not orange blossoms ! Brother, what of her 
 For whom thou hastened o'er sea to confer 
 A home? Alas! she knows thee not — the strain 
 Of expectation was too strong to bear ; 
 And so is man driven o'er the world's hard plain 
 With scorpion stings of sin, shame, sorrow, madness, 
 
 However men arraign the ways of God, 
 He hath his justification in their heart, 
 And few but feel the inward monitor nod 
 An acquiescence to each punitive smart. 
 
52 %})t 'Barfegrottttli of ^gjst^rg^ 
 
 All feel to some extent their guilty part 
 
 In falling short of their ideal of right, 
 
 The standard to themselves — which with cursed 
 
 art 
 They break deliberately, and every slight 
 Deserves and must entail a chastisement and blight. 
 
 Why should the sophist from analogy stray, 
 Or dream of an immoral paradise 
 Beyond the shores of Death, where far away 
 The righteous and the vicious harmonize ; 
 Where all shall reap the same reward and joys. 
 But pain and merited punishment ne'er dwell ? 
 Away ! reflection spurns such specious lies, 
 And even against the will doth conscience tell 
 That Justice' self must plead for an existing Hell. 
 
 Lift up, ye gates, and let the Lord come in ! 
 The grave was powerless to retain its prey. 
 The Substitute who bore his people's sin 
 O'ercame the powers of death that holy day. 
 And rose the Victor — Sin was purged away ! 
 Th' incredulous disciples saw their Lord, 
 Yet scarce believed their eyes, for even they 
 Had so misjudged his own prophetic word 
 That when they saw his grave their hopes were there 
 interred. 
 
%^t 'Bacltgrounli of pimtvi^. 53 
 
 Yet since his death the world has seen him not. 
 The last glimpse given of the living Christ 
 To loveless eyes was on that awful spot 
 Where to their hatred he was sacrificed. 
 The Resurrection is a tale devised 
 By craft in their esteem. Alas ! alas ! 
 By nature ahen and by Hell enticed, 
 How slow of heart man is and ever was 
 To believe the message prophets said should come 
 to pass ! 
 
 Nathless as promised in Eternity, 
 Some caught aright the truth of the refrain 
 A seed have known and served, nor could it be 
 The Son of God should come to earth in vain, 
 Though seeming failure stalked among his train, 
 And Earth at large is scoffing infidel ; 
 For God his plan and purpose does maintain, 
 And that is right which dreadest seems and fell 
 And shaped in harmony with his decree as well. 
 
 And yet, O Lord, how lon< 
 
 Will Virtue be obscured and Vice renowned ? 
 
 Two thousand years have vanished since His 
 
 birth. 
 And even now the murderer is crowned 
 
54 "^^t l^acfegroimn of pimtv^^ 
 
 If but his slaughter hath a world-wide bound; 
 The petty thief who kills finds no renown, 
 But with his death the scaffold does resound. 
 A despot casts a nation's treasury down, 
 And madly hastes to war and finds th' imperial 
 crown ! 
 
 Oh not as though thou ne'er hadst been Earth's 
 
 guest ! 
 Thy teachings like the rain that heaven shares 
 With good and bad impartially hath blessed 
 Who hate thee most, and even War now wears 
 A milder form and wounded enemies spares. 
 The shackled slave is free, and woman, of whom 
 Lust made a plaything, now new honor bears, 
 And risen like her Lord from out the tomb 
 Attains new rank in the new sanctity of home ! 
 
 O Woman, flower of heaven, or fruit of hell ! 
 Wine of the mercy or the hate of God, 
 According as thy soul may rule the spell 
 Of Passion or with Lust's or Honor's rod — 
 Mother and wife and child — if she hath trod 
 In the white sunlight of her chastity, 
 A glory and a blessing — by her nod 
 Inspiring men to heroic deeds that be 
 The boast of Time — the victories of the true and 
 free ! 
 
EI)c BacfegroimD of f^mn^* 55 
 
 But ah, more dendly than the cobra's eye 
 Or honey of Trebizond that mads the brain, 
 The melting glance, low whisper, amorous sigh, 
 And the warm breasts' voluptuous refrain — 
 The moist hand's pressure soft as flowers in rain, 
 The scarce concealed leg, the twinkling foot ! 
 What gift from men could not fair Helen obtain? 
 Who with th' Egyptian Syren could dispute 
 Or to ripe Beauty's lips deny her pleading suit ? 
 
 With supercilious scorn the nations heard 
 
 Christ's doctrine of the brotherhood of man. 
 
 What ! shall the Jew believe the humbling word, 
 
 Or Roman clasp the wild barbarian 
 
 Arid fraternize with the uncultured clan 
 
 In German swamps or woad-hued Britain's tents? 
 
 Yea — now where Earth's great empires lead the 
 
 van 
 Of progress, there this truth divine presents. 
 And hospitals, and alms, and healing arts from 
 
 thence. 
 
 That hybrid marriage even of Church and State, 
 The wedded powers of alien hopes and ways. 
 Like iron and clay the prophet could not mate. 
 Still blessed the Earth with peace and better 
 days. 
 
56 %})t IBsiCk^tonm of Jttpttrg. 
 
 Even that communion in the skeptic's phrase, 
 Nor slandrous all ''whose annals are of hell," 
 Hath been a sanctuary worthy praise 
 And a restraint for ages wild and fell 
 Whom undefiled religion could not curb as well ! 
 
 And more — yea, sculpture, poetry, and art, 
 Found a new birth in themes far more divine, 
 Such new creations by the saintly heart 
 That nations marvel and have made a shrine 
 Of reverent worship for Art's new design — 
 No more the Wanton of unchaste desire, 
 But the handmaid of holiness benign, 
 Angelo, Raphael, Dante's seraph fire 
 And the immortal strains of Milton's heavenly lyre 
 
 There are who make it a reproach of Christ 
 That Art is slighted where he reigns supreme, 
 And that the genius of his creed sufficed 
 For the spoliation of the works we deem 
 The gems of Time, by which in their esteem 
 The treasures of the ages found no ruth, 
 The poet's rapture and the artist's dream, 
 And though in hate they speak and strive the 
 
 Truth 
 To smite a mortal blow — 't is with somewhat of 
 
 sooth ; 
 
%})t IBackstonnn of jHpgterp* 57 
 
 For these are trivial things in Jesu's eyes 
 Compared with human souls and sin and hell, 
 To please the lusting heart with new surprise 
 And in soft Luxury's enervating spell 
 To bid the poor worm-destined Body dwell, 
 While the eternal soul that lives within 
 Is left unto its fate immedicable. 
 Dread Fate ! when lost to hope, and love, and 
 kin, 
 From earthly mansions reft to the dread doom of 
 Sin! 
 
 Statues, paintings, words, — the loveliest thought 
 Of the intoxicated heart and sick 
 With longings after beauty that hath sought 
 In various ways to perpetuate its quick 
 Appreciation — but 't is Culture's trick 
 To feed th' artistic instinct and nice sense 
 With form and color, grace and rhetoric, 
 But leave the moral perceptive faculties dense, 
 And cloud the spiritual eye, and blunt the highest 
 sense ! 
 
 Alas, the beauty of the flesh is lust 
 Too often ! — even the melody of sound, 
 The harmony of sculptured limb and bust. 
 The lyrics with the immortal laurel bound, 
 8 
 
58 Wi)t "BacfegrounD of J^p^ttr^ 
 
 May be as poison-flowers whose roots are found 
 Feeding upon corruption, and in sooth 
 Corrupting holiness and interwound 
 With deadly injury to ingenuous youth, 
 To woman's purity, to virtue and to truth. 
 
 Undoubtedly we may and must allow 
 
 That Christ — to those who live aright his creed — 
 
 Hath clipped the wing of Art and made her bow 
 
 To Truth, in whose pure atmosphere indeed 
 
 Lawless Imagination cannot breed, 
 
 And though resplendent more those wings may 
 
 seem 
 With which the sensualist the hours may speed. 
 They fail when Death wakes the delirous dream, 
 As Icarus' pinions fell in the sun's fervid beam. 
 
 Even as no one may with truth gainsay 
 But Christ hath weakened love of human hearts 
 Of man and woman, and of kindship's sway, 
 And Nature's fearless, deepest charm departs, 
 It is with power of these even as with Art's 
 That God assumes the first place in the soul, 
 And these inferiorily, — yea, the darts 
 Of love in woman lose their fierce control. 
 Else whom she loves is God and Heaven and Life's 
 one goal ! 
 
%\)c 'Bacfegrounu of f^^stev^. 59 
 
 And patriotism dies, and all earth's claim 
 To those who in His kingdom truly born 
 Live the reality and not mere name, 
 For have they not put Heaven's livery on ? 
 Ail brethren — waiting for Christ's coming dawn ? 
 Is not the world and even their own flesh in 
 The evil one, and at the judgment morn 
 Will not its powers and glories 'mid the din 
 Of crashing spheres, all share the awful curse of 
 Sin? 
 
 Lord Christ ! to see those who have bent the knee 
 
 And made obeisance in the mystic wave, 
 
 To watch them fight in earthly rivalry 
 
 Who thus have known thy love and power to 
 
 save, — 
 What shall we call such — idiot or knave ? 
 Yet at the bidding of some worldly power 
 Christians have sent their brethren to the grave, 
 Shedding their blood in the ensanguined shower 
 Of massacre, as hate or conquest rules the hour ! 
 
 If all the blood by rival Christians shed. 
 If all the deeds most damnable and foul 
 In their design by Christ's professors led 
 Committed, sanctioned by the church and cowl, 
 
6o %j)t "Bat^vomn of ;^g;surp. 
 
 Were not concealed by Time, the heavens would 
 
 scowl 
 And Nature's hues be all incarnadined. 
 Yea, how the mocking fiends of hell must howl 
 In devilish glee when they behold mankind. 
 And by Christ's name see every vice or masked or 
 shrined ! 
 
 Ah, broad the line of demarcation lies 
 Between the heavenly and terrestrial sphere, 
 Christ and the World — nor can they harmonize, 
 And false to both who seeks to find or rear 
 A neutral kingdom or to bring them near 
 And bridge by compromise or sophistry 
 Th' antagonism — one his bark must steer 
 With no uncertain course, but choose to be 
 Despised of God or Mammon through all eternity. 
 
 'T is this that makes so pitifully sad 
 The lives of the reformers of the world ; 
 Earth's generous souls who have or who have had 
 The hope to their unselfish eyes unfurled 
 By ethics to dethrone the vices curled 
 'Round man's infatuate heart, but all in vain 
 Their misdirected prayers and tears impearled 
 In sympathizing eyes — at least their pain 
 Brought not the Golden Age they suffered to obtain. 
 
%\)t IBatk^vonm of ^i^^ttth 6 1 
 
 For they are seeking to restore to Earth 
 The long-lost Eden, but by hopeless means 
 Building their homes upon a godless hearth, 
 As he who dared rebuild the ominous scenes 
 Of Jericho, despite the curse that leans 
 Upon its gates; but nothing evermore 
 Upon Earth's basis, man's fallen spirit weans 
 From selfishness and lustj or can restore 
 Unto the soul the pristine whiteness which it bore. 
 
 Until this is accomplished Art is vain, 
 And Learning too, and Culture but a snare. 
 As these in earthly Courts less favor gain 
 Than ignorant criminals, for such gifts prepare 
 The soul estranged nor dangerous menace to bear 
 Unto the law abiding — so, ah me ! 
 That human wolves should wish Thy power to tear 
 From this thy world may not a marvel be ; 
 But, O Lord God, that Shelley's soul should rail at 
 thee ! 
 
 O dreamers in Utopia ! Minds astray 
 With the more awful madness of the soul. 
 Who have as 't were sought to release the prey 
 Of Sin from Heaven's omnipotent control, 
 
62 Wf)t 'Backgrounn of ji^mtvh 
 
 By Nature still our feelings toward thee roll, 
 For God's ways to our fleshly hearts seem hard, 
 And his hand heavy, and th' eternal goal 
 . Of Sin — but it is perilous to regard 
 The evil thoughts within that madden and retard. 
 
 And after all we are driven to this choice : 
 Christ, or — whom will ye choose instead of 
 
 him ? 
 From out the boding darkness, face or voice. 
 Whose is there makes the terror seem less grim 
 Or by whose guidance man his sails may trim 
 And find safe haven past the Deeps of Death ? 
 Who born of woman but whose life fades dim 
 Beside his, or is not as though we saith 
 Barabbas," as of old the wild mob's lawless breath ? 
 
 The Saviour gave the individual place ; 
 Till him mankind were great as nations or 
 As governments free, or as a separate race. 
 But not as separate persons, as in war 
 Even now a thousand fall and Fame's hurrah 
 Is not for them but for the one who led 
 And rose to prominence in the brunt they bore ; 
 But Christ razed level slave and kingly head, 
 And one by one before the Throne all Earth must 
 tread. 
 
Wilt ^adtgrounn of ftlgjBt^rp. 6;^ 
 
 There is a bastard science in our day 
 Whose vain apostles vaunt their unbelief, 
 Forgetful that of myriads who obey 
 The Cross upon its annals are the chief 
 Of Science and Philosophy — in brief, 
 Augustine, Bacon, Newton, Locke, — each name 
 Should bring these pseudo-scientists to grief, 
 Pigmies that strive with stumbling steps and lame 
 To follow in the strides by which the giants came. 
 
 Heavens ! what hypotheses drag out their day 
 Like Jonah's gourd — the marvel of a night, 
 Believed by petty dupes who worship pay 
 To every spirit save the God of light. 
 All lies are true, however great or slight. 
 To bolster Infidelity, or show 
 One of her thousand theories in the right, 
 Though mutually destructive — if but so 
 The creed of Christ should (as they hope) receive 
 a blow. 
 
 Like Babel's tower behold their building rise — 
 These Architects of Laputa — up they reach. 
 And deem ere long t' assault the defenseless 
 
 skies — 
 When lo ! Heaven's scorn is visited on each, 
 
64 %^t Barftgrounu of ^tsttt^. 
 
 The drunkard's jargon — incoherent speech. 
 Ah, blatant sophists ! does Christ's power decay ? 
 Nay, rather grows colossal though ye teach 
 What venom the line of scoffing hosts display, 
 From Celsus to Don Quixote Huxley of our day ! 
 
 O marvelous Book — the Oracles of God ! 
 
 Thy foes have crept forth from the ooze and 
 
 sHme 
 Of haughty hearts and straying feet that trod 
 The paths of lechery or of sin or crime. 
 O Light to Nature, and the torch to Time, 
 The test of Science and the Treasury 
 Of poets and the mold of the sublime ! 
 The Statesman's statute and the Orator's plea; 
 Man were a dread enigma were it not for thee. 
 
 We see thee yet, fair Star of Bethlehem ; 
 
 It points the sinner still, O Christ, to thee ! 
 
 O luminous above each twinkling gem 
 
 That shines like gold-dust in Night's galaxy ! 
 
 Old creeds are dead, and now no votary 
 
 To void Olympus sends imploring breath. 
 
 Black Afric, cursed by Nature's stern decree. 
 
 In Christ becomes transformed from creeds of 
 
 Death; 
 The Brahmin and the Boodh take refuge in the 
 
 Faith. 
 
'Z'^t IBsLCk^omi} of pLt^ttth 65 
 
 But more than these are promised Lord, to thee ; 
 The travail of thy soul hath purchased more, 
 And knowledge as the waters flood the sea 
 Shall spread and make thee Lord of every shore. 
 Where one hath come a thousand shall implore 
 Thy favor, till Sin doth no more inspire, 
 And that day of predestined time restore 
 Thine ancient people, who with psalm and lyre 
 From every land will haste to crown the true 
 Messiah. 
 
 Meanwhile the land her lonely Sabbaths keeps, 
 Pillaged by fierce marauders and betrayed 
 By false Christs till the slain and ghastly heaps 
 Without her walls a sickening festival made 
 For jackals and the wild beasts, while arrayed 
 In sackcloth those within fought with despair 
 And famine — and like Thyestis' banquet laid — 
 But faint at heart the shuddering Nine forbear 
 To chronicle th' unnatural deeds the scribes declare 
 
 Mad sires and women cast in delicate mold 
 Committed, but the heaven above was brass 
 To prayer and sacrifice, and as foretold 
 By their Law-giver, never nation was 
 
 9 
 
66 %f)t BatfegrottttB of pi^^tvh 
 
 Before or since brought to such awful pass ; 
 But turn from it, my soul — yet even to-day 
 Th' Almighty's dreadful scourges still harass ; 
 From clime to clime they flee, forever prey 
 To rapine and to greed — lone exiles on life's way ! 
 
 But not beyond reversal is their doom. 
 Redemption comes ; till then, O faithful land, 
 In vain the stranger seeks to make thee bloom. 
 But thorns and briars spring beneath his hand 
 Luxuriantly, while cursed by Famine's wand 
 Sour, shriveled fruitage and aborted flowers 
 That fail of harvest — all he can command. 
 The forts and towns are dens — the wild ass 
 cowers 
 Beneath some ruined arch left of palatial towers. 
 
 O land of Love and Death ! in happier times 
 Not thus the hours of day and evening meet. 
 But when the moon the arch of heaven upclimbs 
 The voice of heart and tabret cheer the street, 
 And boys and girls at play. The air is sweet 
 With odors of the vintage — blossoming trees 
 And falling waters charm eye, ear, and greet 
 The lulled sense with delicious thrills of ease — 
 The pastoral joys of those who love delights like 
 these. 
 
W^t Backgcounli of ^mm* 67 
 
 Olives, almonds, figs, the clusters of the vine, 
 Night-blooming flowers, and, fairer than these all. 
 The blushing maid whose starry eyes ashine 
 Are brighter than the sparkling dews that fall 
 Moonlit on purple grapes. The weary thrall 
 Of desolate years have exiled even love, 
 But once responsive to the turtle's call. 
 What tales were told to hearts that feared to move 
 For very joy, in every haunted mystic grove ! 
 
 These yet, will Zion's be, and she who now 
 Is scorned of all the nations, in that day 
 Will wear a crown on her anointed brow 
 And rule the earth with the supremest sway. 
 The Star of Jacob will revive his ray 
 And Israel and Judah bend the knee 
 Restored, and to the Root of Jesse pray. 
 Even from afar — the islands of the sea — 
 To Shiloh will the gathering of the people be. 
 
 But we, O God, grant us the second birth ! 
 Our hearts are restless till they rest in thee. 
 Like Noah's dove, we wander o'er the Earth, 
 Seeking, but find no sanctuary to flee 
 Until we reach the road to Calvary. 
 Lift, God of Peace, on us thy countenance 
 That we the footsteps of thy saints may see. 
 Lead us to Jesus — lead us by thy glance, 
 And from our eyes unveil the scales of ignorance. 
 
68 W)t l^acfegrounn of pi^fittvh 
 
 By thy Son's birth, from Mary's sacred womb; 
 By the pure Hfe thy righteous Servant led ; 
 By Christ's Temptation in the desert's gloom ; 
 By his Transfiguration — by the dread 
 Gethsemane with awful agony red, 
 By his thorn-crown, and cross, and by his grave, 
 And by his Resurrection from the dead, 
 And his Ascension, we lost sinners crave 
 His Intercession now our souls from Hell to save. 
 
 So shall we taste the everlasting joys 
 
 At thy right hand when heart and flesh shall fail. 
 
 When Earth is sinewless, and Nature cloys. 
 
 O Bride of Christ ! no sins can e'er assail 
 
 The Blood-washed who have found the Holy 
 
 Grail. 
 But God will wipe their tears and they will see 
 The New Jerusalem Ayithin the veil, 
 And the new Heaven and Earth where Christ 
 will be 
 The glorious Light and Temple of Eternity ! 
 
EPILOGUE, 
 
 Forgive the error and the sin 
 
 Commingkd in these feverish lines. 
 
 Forgive the unprmied thoughts herein 
 That fail to reach Thy high designs. 
 
 Forgive the blindness of the mind, 
 
 The hardened hearty the shortened sight, 
 
 That failed to feel Thee ever kind, 
 That qiiestiojied if Thy way was right. 
 
 Forgive that I, ijistead of psahn 
 Of worship, gratitude, and laud — 
 
 That I who dust a7td ashes am 
 Should argue of the ways of God. 
 
 Forgive the rash irreverence, 
 
 If there be such in word or tho2Cght, 
 
 As though I knew the Why or Whence, 
 As though Thou needest to be taught. 
 
 Forgive that in my ignorance 
 
 I reason rather than obey, 
 That at the end I cast a glance 
 
 Before my feet pursue Thy way. 
 69 
 
70 %1)t TBatk^vomr} of ^i^^tm* 
 
 But be this moral to my song : 
 
 I hold by faith, though not by sight, 
 
 That ma7i must ever be the wrong, 
 And God tnust ever be the right — 
 
 Right when he smites the hardest blow , 
 Right when he veils himself in Night, 
 
 Right when our tears of sorrow flow 
 And vainly still we peer for light. 
 
 I htow not the result of things, 
 But still will hope in all distress 
 
 That out of htiman failure springs 
 The harvest of divine success; 
 
 That no malignant lust to curse. 
 That not a pa7ig of needless pain. 
 
 Obtains in God's vast universe, 
 But all works some eternal gain. 
 
 January 26, 1890. 
 
MISCELLANEOUS VERSES. 
 
^^^^^mrn 
 
 1861— 1865. 
 
 In creamy lawn and laces rare 
 
 And ripe red roses on her breast, 
 And jewels flashing in her hair, 
 
 Her charms must not be sung but guessed. 
 The marble fountain mirrors bright 
 
 Her image in its beaded spray, 
 No marvel in her lover's sight 
 
 She seems a Naiad come that way. 
 
 The thievish breezes faintly stir 
 
 The pillaged blossoms at her feet. 
 Her faithful lover sees but her 
 
 Compared with whom no flower is sweet ; 
 For as her heart-throbs go and come 
 
 An atmosphere around her flows 
 Like the soft air that trembles from 
 
 The shredded petals of a rose. 
 10 73 
 
74 ^ifictUmeou^ ^tv0t^. 
 
 Her eyes pursue with languorous ease 
 
 The limpid water's airy flight, 
 Or turn to vines trailed from the trees 
 
 With pendant bloom or berries white. 
 And then in ivory-lidded tombs 
 
 She veils them in a transient dream, 
 And while her thoughts find voice resumes 
 
 The lately interrupted theme : 
 
 '' I love you — yes — but there has grown 
 
 Within my soul a formless fear 
 That startles like a prophet's tone 
 
 My doubting spirit's inner ear ; 
 And I have questioned of my heart, 
 
 ' Is this the man thou dost elect 
 Through life to sway thy better part 
 
 And thy obedience and respect? ' 
 
 " And ever — Oh, forgive the word ! — 
 
 The answer, * No,' tolls in my heart, 
 But better that its voice be heard. 
 
 Even if the truth should bid us part; 
 For though since Childhood's earliest years 
 
 You 've been my hero ne'er estranged, 
 Yet different now the world appears, 
 
 And you or I, or both, are changed. 
 
"Although in truth you have as yet 
 
 The same clear cheeks and eyes of fire, 
 The courted leader of your set, 
 
 The model of correct attire ; 
 Though still the foremost as of yore 
 
 In games and sports, at chase and ball — 
 But, oh, the woman soul craves more 
 
 Before it can surrender all. 
 
 "You have not lived — the silken cords 
 
 Of sloth have bound you unto ease. 
 O master of smooth flattery's words. 
 
 How trivial judged by deeds are these ! 
 Though rank and wealth men hold as worth, 
 
 If he has toiled to bless his race 
 A base-born cripple bent to earth 
 
 In Heaven stands in higher place." 
 
 As one whose hopes are in eclipse, 
 
 As one who bows to doubt and fate, 
 Her hands he lifted to his lips 
 
 And brought her to her father's gate ; 
 Then bowing with a courtly grace. 
 
 He said, " The vapid Past forgive. 
 When next we stand thus face to face, 
 
 I shall have some excuse to live." 
 
76 ^i^uUmtott^ Witvm* 
 
 II. 
 
 He was an orphan dowered with all 
 
 That wealth could buy or caste desire, 
 But now upon his spirit pall 
 
 The joys he dreamed would never tire — 
 The dogs that barked him welcome home, 
 
 The steeds that neighed congratulate. 
 The fancy fowl, the pigeoned dome, — 
 
 From all he turned him satiate. 
 
 And in his mansion with its walls 
 
 With pictures decked in golden frames, 
 And faint perfume blown through the halls, 
 
 The smoking den and clouded games, 
 Through every fair luxurious room. 
 
 Unexercised by morning bright. 
 There seemed a specter and a tomb ; 
 
 It was the ghost of past delight. 
 
 Old founts of joy and wisdom's spring, 
 
 The books he loved had lost their sway. 
 But music soothed the Hebrew king 
 
 And drove his malady away. 
 With trembling hands he touched a chord, 
 
 And tried — but vainly tried — to play, 
 For lo ! his soul rose at a word, 
 
 " Life is no more a holiday." 
 
He glanced at his small, useless hands, 
 
 The white, smooth palms of idleness. 
 " The coarsest laborer's on my lands," 
 
 He muttered, ''I would change with his." 
 His nobler self as from a trance 
 
 Awoke and mused in reverie : 
 *' To every noble thought of man's 
 
 God gives an opportunity." 
 
 The morning paper caught his eye — 
 
 " My country calls to arms," he thought 
 '' If I should in her service die — 
 
 I, who ne'er deed of labor wrought, 
 I, who have only pleased my will 
 
 Nor cared to sooth another's pain. 
 My heart were proved not wholly ill. 
 
 My life were surely not in vain. 
 
 '' And if some hand with honest tears 
 
 Should write — a comrade it might chance 
 'This man for five and twenty years 
 
 Fared softly in sweet dalliance, 
 And then like a new Prodigal he 
 
 Flung his soft robes of slavery down 
 And died that others might be free,' — 
 
 This surely were a victor's crown." 
 
78 ^imllmtom Unat^, 
 
 III. 
 
 He proved he loved his country well, 
 
 Through years of vengeful shell and shot 
 And when the tides of battle fell 
 
 His presence cheered each sufferer's cot. 
 Thus heart and mind in larger spheres 
 
 And sweet activities did move, 
 Till Peace kissed dry his country's tears 
 
 And he returned unto his love. 
 
 Still young and fair with gem-starred hair, 
 
 And clinging lace around her thrown, 
 She met him with a gracious air 
 
 And in her boudoir and alone. 
 Her eyes still rivaled envious stars. 
 
 Her laugh still silvery melody, — 
 But as a single false note jars 
 
 The soul attuned to harmony, 
 
 So something— perhaps the curl of jet 
 
 Toyed with to lure his word of praise. 
 Or perhaps the smile — O fair coquette ! 
 
 An instant that the glass betrays 
 Whate'er it may have been to dim 
 
 The sweet accord of soul and face. 
 He saw she had not grown with him. 
 
 Nor soared above the commonplace. 
 
She read his thought intuitively, 
 
 And watched his ideal droop and die 
 Before the vain reality, 
 
 And laughed and chatted like a pie, — 
 Yet hated him who dared to see 
 
 In her fine gold the least alloy, 
 And stabbed his love — "Pray stay to tea, 
 
 And see my husband and our boy." 
 
 December, 1887. 
 
ortje Eabp m l©ljitc. 
 
 Arrayed in white she is more fair 
 Than queens in state and jewels rare, 
 
 Who frustrate Beauty's high intent 
 With meretricious ornament. 
 
 She needs no aid from Art or Dress 
 To magnify her loveHness, 
 
 But like a violet by a stone 
 Her beauty is herself alone. 
 
 Her form perfection and her face, 
 Her carriage stateliness and grace. 
 
 The Host redeemed in garments white 
 Are beautiful in Heaven's sight. 
 
 Their garb is but the simile 
 Of inward grace and purity. 
 
 So clad in white it represents 
 Her true self's snow-like innocence. 
 80 
 
Her white soul ne'er by passion tossed 
 Or wrong desire or hatred crossed. 
 
 Her truthful mind without a spot 
 Where evil thought adventures not. 
 
 Her patient heart, her spirit pure, 
 Her temper peaceful and demure. 
 
 Arrayed in white she is more fair 
 Than queens in stately pageants are. 
 
 December, 1887. 
 
 II 
 
€o a 3latip* 
 
 If by incredible decree 
 
 This Earth revolved through endless night, 
 The darkness could not rob from thee 
 
 The homage that is beauty's right, 
 For men would hear and hearing be 
 
 As charmed by ear as now by sight. 
 
 For that immaculate soul of thine 
 
 (A diamond in a pearl-set case) ; 
 Thy radiant thoughts in words as fine 
 
 (The index of thy spirit's grace), 
 Confess a beauty as divine 
 
 As faultless form and perfect face. 
 
 Thy voice — the nightingale's complaint 
 Is not more sweet, more rich, more clear, 
 
 When thou dost sing of love or paint 
 In flowers of song his hope or fear, 
 
 And thy chaste hymns, melodious saint. 
 Like seraph's tune enchant the ear. 
 
Should I compare thee to the sun ? 
 
 Night, cloudy night obscures his ray; 
 The stars their wondrous courses run, 
 
 But lose their luster during day, 
 And birds of Paradise are dun 
 
 When Eve's white star shines o'er the spray. 
 
 Love's amorous bards applauding sing 
 The flowers that scarce outhnger May; 
 
 Thou wear'st them yet I will not string 
 My harp to blossoms frail as they. 
 
 When thou dost such an opulence bring 
 Of loveliness beyond decay. 
 
 December, 1887. 
 
Blue are her eyes as the gem turquoise, 
 The flowers in her cheeks are peonies rare, 
 
 And the sun-bright halo that circles the saints 
 Her burnished fillet of close-coiled hair. 
 
 Love sees no sun that outshines those eyes, 
 But beneath ivory lids they eclipse at praise. 
 
 For she walks love-proof like the huntress queen 
 And snowy-souled in her virginal grace. 
 
 Love on her lips spies a rare dehght. 
 Love on her cheeks a perpetual feast. 
 
 Love is enmeshed in her fragrant hair 
 As a moth in amber is ne'er released. 
 
 As a bee finds the nectar stored for him 
 
 But stings the rude touch that would rifle the 
 bower. 
 
 The elect knight-errant will win the prize 
 Borne on the car of th' auspicious hour. 
 
 While fully conscious that ne'er for me 
 
 The charm of her eye or her treasure of heart, 
 
 Still must I love her and worship afar. 
 
 Seeing Love's blessings but bearing his smart. 
 
 December, 1887. 
 
 84 
 
Two angels couched beneath th' ambrosial trees 
 
 Of Heaven debated this deep question o'er — 
 
 Whether a daughter of the Earth e'er bore 
 An offspring who denied God's being. These 
 Argued as long as sprung from eastern seas 
 
 The unleashed sun would touch the western 
 shore, 
 
 A day earth measure — and more dark the more 
 The point was mooted grew its mysteries. 
 Through seraphim, God's tireless melodists, 
 
 Cherub and archangelic host it ran ; 
 
 Until a voice ineffable light amid 
 Replied : " Descend among the sciolists, 
 
 And play queen, bishop, castle, king, knight, 
 man — 
 
 The pieces in full sight, the players hid." 
 
 Launched earthward where the star-clubbed 
 hunter stands, 
 They heard where Science held a tournament. 
 Supposed denied or taught inconsequent 
 Creative Mind — then without causative hands 
 As men saw, chess and board a space demands 
 85 
 
S6 ^imiimtoufi ^tvm* 
 
 Of their own impulse move, take check and end't 
 In mated king. At this one angel bent 
 To test how far Earth's casuistry expands, 
 Clouded his glory, crying (fleshed as man), 
 " Knights may not chess move of their own 
 
 intention, 
 If matter can this orderly world devise ? " 
 But they — " There is no God, blind fool, but can 
 These ivory bits play without man's invention ? " 
 So sadly the late disputants sought their skies. 
 
 December, 1887. 
 
% CttHage a^aibcn^ 
 
 She is a simple village maid 
 
 In printed calico arrayed, 
 
 In cotton stockings, misshaped shoes, 
 
 Which dainty ladies never use. 
 
 Coiled in a simple braid her hair, 
 
 A common flower perhaps prisoned there ; 
 
 But never gems of art or mine 
 
 Within its chestnut tresses shine, 
 
 And never on her fingers blaze 
 
 The diamond's sun or emerald's rays. 
 
 Or rubies sunk in golden bars 
 
 Like some imprisoned fire from Mars ; 
 
 But in their stead, poor piteous thing. 
 
 Her mother's mended wedding-ring. 
 
 Ah, lady of the haughty stare. 
 
 You would not waste a thought on her, 
 
 No more than cast a second look 
 
 Upon the dandelion root 
 That for a pebble you mistook 
 
 And pressed to death beneath your foot, 
 Or did you crush it purposely 
 Because it did not please your eye ? 
 87 
 
88 ^imllmton^ Umt0* 
 
 She has some claim to Beauty's dower, 
 The beauty of a slighted flower 
 That sprung in every woodland lair, 
 The fields and by-paths everywhere. 
 The rustic churls pass blindly by — 
 Oh then, what simile will apply. 
 Since violet flowers and sapphire skies 
 Are sworn to high-born beauty's eyes, 
 And lilies pale and roses red 
 To wealthy ladies' cheeks are wed? 
 Could I some common flower discover. 
 Unsung by bard, unplucked by lover, 
 Then I could sing her eyes' deep blue. 
 The blush white on her soft cheeks too. 
 The crimson on her lips, and 'neath 
 Their petals the bright shining teeth. 
 
 No title-deeds to wealth she owns. 
 
 Nor bonds, nor lands, nor precious stones. 
 
 And yet, ah me ! the care and fret 
 
 Which vast possessions e'er beget, 
 
 The thorn-crowned day's anxieties, 
 
 The nights that frightened slumber flees, 
 
 Though wooed in rooms of gilded ease. 
 
 And down and silken canopies ; 
 
 While she — her days in drudgery spent 
 
 Hears in her heart the bird Content, 
 
 And o'er her in night's dreamless hours 
 
 Sleep sinks like drowsy moths in flowers. 
 
^ijs«natt^oufi( ^tm0. 89 
 
 Ah, which is rich and which is poor? 
 
 I hold this truth is fixed and sure : 
 
 God's compensation never fails ; 
 
 He balances in golden scales 
 
 The gifts of rank and circumstance, 
 
 And never by fortuitous chance. 
 
 It haps that on the breast of care 
 
 Are pearls and diamonds warmed and fair, 
 
 While the light heart of happiness 
 
 Beats gratefully in gingham dress. 
 
 Yea, she has riches in her health. 
 
 Her very toil she feels is wealth — 
 
 To wash a plate for one she loves. 
 
 To feed her chickens and her doves, 
 
 To steal at times a restful hour 
 
 And watch her roses burst in flower. 
 
 At church she sits among the choir 
 
 And sings with a seraphic fire, 
 
 And hears the minister relate 
 
 How through his dear Son sacrificed 
 The love of God makes rich and great 
 
 Men — worms of earth but heirs through 
 Christ. 
 For her the new Jerusalem 
 Has streets of gold and gates of gem, 
 For her Life's stream in crystal flows. 
 For her the tree of amaranth grows. 
 And she, though poor by earth's degree, 
 God's child — thy heir, Eternity. 
 12 
 
90 ^i0ctUamou0 ^tv^t^. 
 
 O child of fashion, as you stand 
 Upon the moonht sea's gray sand, 
 So languid — weary of the day's 
 Vast opulence of idle praise, 
 If some bright angel wandered here 
 A season from his proper sphere. 
 Which would he hold in nobler view 
 The guileless village maid or you ? 
 
 She ne'er has felt the fever heat 
 Of fame thrill in her pulses' beat, 
 And yet she tastes a local fame — 
 The whole round village knows her name. 
 And tell me what the difference is 
 Between the hero's fame and this ? 
 Save that through longer arcs of time. 
 
 More wide circumferences of space. 
 The spreading circles of sublime. 
 
 Immortal thoughts and deeds we trace ; 
 Yet millions plod upon the earth 
 Who never heard of Shakspere's birth. 
 And empires vast even as his own 
 Ne'er knew of Caesar or his throne. 
 O echo of a voice that was, 
 
 O shadow with the substance fled, 
 A footprint in the withered grass 
 
 When he who pressed it there is dead. 
 But her aim for the present here 
 Is God to serve within her sphere 
 
And leave the afterward with God, 
 
 And to her Saviour all the praise — 
 A true philosophy more broad 
 
 Than anxious search for earth-born bays. 
 What boots it to the heedless corse 
 Fame's plauding million throats and hoarse, 
 When from the precincts of the tomb 
 He cannot hear and could not come ? 
 
 She is a simple village maid, 
 
 Whose timid foot hath never strayed 
 
 A dozen leagues beyond her home. 
 No daisies plucked from Keats's grave 
 
 Are souvenirs of days in Rome, 
 
 Nor primroses that seem to hold 
 
 A mirror to the moon's pale gold. 
 Nor heather that did sweetly wave 
 
 Upon the Scottish hills betray 
 
 How far her feet have sped away. 
 
 Poor child ! — her innocence doth rate 
 
 Her brother as a traveler great 
 
 Since he beheld a neighboring State. 
 
 She knows but little of the schools, 
 
 Of Euclid's problems, Murray's rules; 
 
 She never heard of Tasso's verse. 
 Of Petrarch's Laura, or her name 
 Whose loveliness gave Dante fame — 
 The immortal triad unto whom 
 It was their strange melodious doom 
 
 That love should blessing be and curse. 
 
92 :^i^ullmtouis Utv^tfi. 
 
 She knew as little, I dare say, 
 As girls at Newport or Cape May 
 Of Elzevirs and Aldi books 
 And knowledge hid in musty nooks. 
 Yet still across her mind, I say 
 Bright golden fancies had their sway. 
 The clouds across a summer sky 
 Were not clouds always to her eye ; 
 The flowers and grass on which she stood 
 
 ■ Held teachings in them hidden by God, 
 In whom — as ignorant as a bird 
 Of brilliant souls that grandly erred, 
 She held — her hope in hfe and death — 
 A present and undoubting faith. 
 ******** 
 
 December 31, 1887. 
 
31 Coquette* 
 
 The oft-told tale of women fair, men fools; 
 
 Strength leaves the strong and wisdom flees the 
 
 wise, 
 Ambition youth, from age his homilies 
 (Frost in the hair ne'er heart of ardor cools), 
 And sweet Philosophy in vain holds schools 
 Before the smiles of those unchanging eyes. 
 Thou who despisest conquered lovers' sighs, 
 Thou who more harshly than a despot rules. 
 Since Adam dared his God for love of Eve, 
 Men's fame, kings' crowns, the very flowers of 
 hell 
 Thy lovers have dared pluck thee and dare 
 
 still — 
 And thou — what guerdon dost thou give or 
 
 leave? 
 Ah, let Scotch Mary's white-haired jailer tell. 
 Or happier he asleep on Latmos' hill. 
 
 January 15, 1888. 
 
 93 
 
atobe aitb SDeatt)* 
 
 The blown sea breaking o'er a wall of rocks 
 
 Hollows a shell-shaped bed for quiet waters 
 
 And spent waves driven shoreward. Here we found 
 
 her 
 With tangled seaweed laced around her form 
 Like strips of dark green satin, eyelids sealed 
 As if some pitying sea nymph kissed them shut, 
 And life's last legacy to death — a smile — 
 Upon her lips, and death's dread mask itself 
 So fair a counterfeit of blushful life 
 That you might fancy her a naiad sleeping 
 Or syren tired of song. Her hands down-dropped 
 Jeweled and clutched in one a broken flower, 
 And in her white-orbed bosom hid a letter 
 Written in beautiful cursive script that read : 
 
 " In love a woman's heart and life are one, 
 Or rather woman's love lays hold on death 
 As her protector when despised and spurned, 
 The sole resource of honor and despair. 
 Therefore as you have ranked my love a weed, 
 
 94 
 
I die — and seek from God but one revenge, 
 
 That I who was not beautiful in life 
 
 In your eyes may be beautiful in death ; 
 
 And as you gaze upon me in my shroud 
 
 Ask yourself: ' What immedicable wound 
 
 Did she inflict that called for this revenge ? ' 
 
 You say I trod men's hearts — have any suffered 
 
 As you have made me suffer ? I was young 
 
 And beautiful, they said, and youth and beauty 
 
 Love adulation, but I craved not yours. 
 
 I spun no fatal web to catch your soul 
 
 As you sought mine, and when with cunning skill 
 
 You asked for love I gave you my whole heart, — 
 
 And you — you crushed it with contempt and scorn. 
 
 Therefore let all men judge who was more cruel, 
 
 I who gave love to you that was my life. 
 
 Or you who gave me hatred unto death." 
 
 Her prayer was heard — in death too as in life 
 She was the model and the type of beauty 
 That Art might copy and become immortal ; 
 But I would rather picture her in life. 
 Fair Proserpine ere she became the bride 
 Of coal-black Dis. Oh, she was queen of life ! 
 The languorous breath that shreds the lily buds 
 Into full blossom seemed to pulse around her. 
 Even on the night that had such tragic morn 
 My friend had given a ball where she had been 
 Th' admired of all eyes, praised of every tongue ; 
 
g6 pii0ctUsLnto\x«i ^mtm. 
 
 Addressed with compliments that spoken to others 
 
 Were coarse hyperbole, but were to her 
 
 As natural and right 
 
 As self-prostration where a god has stepped. 
 
 Alas ! what change six fleet-winged hours begot : 
 
 One moment as the moon climbed to her noon 
 
 Bepraised, and then as noiselessly stole off 
 
 As if an angel hidden in her flesh 
 
 Had borne her off to heaven. Through the fields 
 
 Twinkling with the dew and sweet with earth's 
 
 loosed odors, 
 The ghostly patch of woods star-lit and cold 
 We searched and called aloud, and Echo mocked, 
 Till as gray dawn crept shivering o'er the sky 
 We found her here. 
 
 The letter was addressed 
 Unto our host, who read it silently, 
 His face an ashen white of sudden pain. 
 But as we bore her tenderly to the house 
 He spoke. '' After the funeral," said he hoarsely — 
 " After the funeral — come — I will explain." 
 And thus within a week we walked these fields 
 Unto this fatal lake, and sitting here 
 Upon the verdurous bank beneath this tree, 
 He told his tale — the murmur of the waves, 
 A sea-bird's cry, a loosened acorn dropping. 
 The only sound that voice or echo found 
 To tell of other life. 
 
jWli;6(«naniouei ^ttm* 97 
 
 And thus my friend : 
 " The name of Edgar CUve is strange to you, 
 But is to me famihar as my heart-throb. 
 I met him first in Florence six years ago, 
 Rich in his love of art and poor in purse. 
 But in his heart and character a treasure 
 Vaster than unmined mountains veined with gold. 
 And I accounted his deep love for me 
 More precious than my fortune. Day by day 
 Our streams of separate life commingled more, 
 Till like the ancient Christians neither held 
 An individual property, but shared 
 In common till this woman crossed our path. 
 Oh, she was fair beyond all rivaling, 
 To whom all spoke words should be poetry ; 
 All flowers of language, all immortal thoughts. 
 That shine through our poor tongue as the white 
 
 stars 
 Gleam through the clouds, too coarse exteriors 
 For such bright souls, became her well as gems 
 Her glossy hair or roses on her bosom. 
 No wonder Edgar loved her — madly loved her ; 
 But she — it was her sport — her heart despised 
 The very opulence of adulation, 
 Her polished selfishness sphered round her soul 
 That it appeared a virtue. So I swore 
 That I would save my friend from this Delilah. 
 But he was Samson shorn before I knew it, 
 And not alone his love for me grew cold, 
 
 13 
 
98 ^iisuiimtottn t^tvm. 
 
 But Art no longer held a shrine for him. 
 
 He fled his atelier for gaming-tables 
 
 To win her presents, and at last became 
 
 Bankrupt ; and then she smote his love with smiles 
 
 Or arched eyes that heard incredulous tales : 
 
 ' Really she had not dreamed — she had not thought 
 
 That his intentions were so serious. 
 
 Sorry — she liked him as a friend so much.' 
 
 So I, the wealthy American, brought her tribute, 
 
 The gold of lavish gifts, the myrrh of pleasure. 
 
 The frankincense of flattery — and ere long 
 
 She loved me deeply as my friend loved her. 
 
 Oh, then it dawned upon me I was base ! 
 
 And then I sought t' undo my work, and could not; 
 
 And then I sought to love her too, but could not, — 
 
 For love comes not by force or prayer, — and thus 
 
 Were all things no whit better, but much worse. 
 
 My friend scorned more than ever, and to me 
 
 Awarding all the blame and loathing me ; 
 
 And she, to me who brought the vulture Hate 
 
 Sending the sweet dove Love. I felt accursed. 
 
 Ashamed of day's white light, for so revenge 
 
 Like to the tortured scorpion stings itself — 
 
 Yet who could dream such love in a coquette ! " 
 
 '' Twice perjured ! " shrieked a voice behind the 
 
 tree; 
 " False to her memory who died for you ! 
 False to the friendship you professed for me ; 
 
There is not air enough 'neath liberal heaven 
 For you and me to breathe and live an hour." 
 And turning, startled by this fierce tirade 
 That brawled like a wild stream down banks precip- 
 itous, 
 I saw a man with features passion stirred. 
 Brandishing in his hand a long, keen knife. 
 'T was Edgar Clive — my friend knew well the voice. 
 And I intuitively guessed its name, 
 And we both knew it gushed from lips of madness. 
 As the deed proved ; for hardly had we risen 
 Than with a shriek ear-splitting, which the woods 
 Re-echoed back, he rushed upon us both — 
 But stumbled, being blinded by his passion. 
 Tripped o'er a broken branch, and headlong fell, 
 Sheathing the glittering weapon in his breast. 
 So perished Clive within a swallow-flight 
 Of where the lady that he loved had ebbed 
 Her hapless Ufe away upon the tide. 
 
 And this is why this house is tenantless. 
 
 And these rich arable acres lie untilled, 
 
 Left fallow to the despotism of weeds, 
 
 Luxuriant thistles, waist-high golden-rod, 
 
 Rank grass, and here and there, chance sown by 
 
 wind 
 Or dropped by vagrant bird, a garden seed 
 Taken root has bloomed 'mid alien environment. 
 And by the lake the sea-bird builds her nest 
 
loo jifli;s«Uaneou^ ^tv^tfi* 
 
 All undisturbed along the sedgy marge, — 
 While he who owns them, exiled from his country, 
 Perchance now hears from far-off minarets 
 The muezzin's sonorous call or on strange hills, 
 While Eve's first star shines paly from on high, 
 Lists to the bulbul sing his passionate plaint. 
 At which the roses rend their virginal buds 
 And breathe rich fragrant sighs. 
 
 January, 1888. 
 
d&onnct* 
 
 She placed the flower he loved in her fair hair, 
 And whispered, '' Heart, he will be here to-night 
 Of whom long years these eyes have mourned for 
 sight"; 
 And stood his picture by her sewing chair 
 To make expectancy less hard to bear, — 
 
 And so sat waiting — dreaming how time's flight 
 Had made his mind and soul more broad and 
 bright, 
 Making perfection what was ever fair. 
 
 And when he came — O God ! that he had died 
 With his first word of welcome, so that she 
 Had never known his spirit commonplace. 
 How oft has love thus falsely prophesied, 
 Th* ideal smote dead by the reality 
 
 As men were slain by the dread Gorgon face ! 
 
 January 22, 1888. 
 

 
 ^11 
 
 
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