r PS 5513 .1^ ' — :.,|i.iil :'""iill:"...iiiiit,ii'.iTi;;;;;;;;;„„.i"'""i :"-"-:'''""'';::'''":i'""iiii::;ii;;:;:''::;!"'''"iiiiiiinii Class ^:SAi__ COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 1303 SUN GLEAMS & GOSSAMERS Hilton R,. Greer... .. .... ........... •..•: Boston : Richard G. Badger o The Gorham Press 1903 Copyright 1903 by Hilton R. Greer. All Rights Reserved \ .THE'u'lt^AKY OF t '^^OCMGRtSS. Vw'o Copies Keceived ..OCT 9 1903 class' «- XXc. No COPY B. T53 ri^ ."Kr 6^ H^-^ Printed at The Gorhatn Press Boston 01 Contents PAGE Out of the East 5 Sir Bluebird 5 The Lesson of the Lilies - - - - 6 Soul Questioning 7 A Country Lane 8 One Day 9 Imperishable ------ 10 Rondel H Dandelions - - - - - - H Sovereign - - - - - - 12 What Matters It 13 A Boating Song 14 Midsummer - - - - - - 15 The Newer South 16 'Twixt Leaf and Sheaf Time - - - 17 When Autumn Comes - - - - 18 November ------ 19 A Song of Thanksgiving - - - - 20 Solace 21 A Winter's Day 21 The Lofty 22 The Winter Forest 23 The Drowsyland Express - - - 24 As of Old .._--- 25 In the Days of Lafayette - - - - 26 A Winter Morning . _ - . 28 OUT OF THE EAST One touch of color, and the slumberous sky Wakens as might some sleeper at a kiss ; A flush — a flame — and Dawn, a butterfly, Bursts, golden-winged, from Night's black chrysalis ! SIR BLUEBIRD Breasting a tide of billowy blossoming, A bit of noon from April skies remote. Sir Bluebird swings and from his throbbing throat Outflings such lures of lyric rioting As stir the orchard boughs to murmuring With rhythmic rapture at each tinkling note And sward and coppice-aisle to overfloat With all the silver symphonies of Spring. Spirit of Song ! Incarnate Melody, Sped winging earthward, singing from the spheres ! Thine were such sheer excess of ecstasy, Too keen for rapture, and so tense with tears That eyes grow blurred with misty memory Of bloomy Aprils in the yester years ! THE LESSON OF THE LILIES Look where the lilies are gleaming in glory ! See how they lighten and brighten the sward ! List how they breathe from their sweet lips the story, Old and yet new, of a crucified Lord ! As they upspring from the earth's gloomy bosom Daily to gladden the garden with bloom. So into life, like a light-seeking blossom. He, that was crucified, rose from the tomb. Rose from the tomb with a heart free from malice, Free from iniquity's cankerous blight. Spotless and stainless as each snowy chalice Lilies uplift in the glad morning light. Look ye the lilies, O, sin-burdened mortals. See how they lighten and brighten the sod ! So may ye spring from mortality's portals Out in the infinite meadows of God ! SOUL QUESTIONING What is Success? Is it to stand alone, Star-comraded on some sheer mountain height — To spread the soul's proud wings within the light That streams undimmed from some celestial throne ? Is it to bask in Fortune's fickle sun 'Mid hollow plaudits of the fawning throng, And still, with soul unsatisfied, to long For far, alluring triumphs yet unwon? Or is it in some song-sweet vale to rest, At Love's own shrine a simple worshipper — Never to feel ambition's goading spur, Never to have pale Avarice for guest — And yet to hold that inner consciousness That life, though lowly, were not lived in vain That fame and fortune were not all to gain — Tell me, O, learned of men, is this Success? A COUNTRY LANE Along a country lane Where blithe from fields of grain Some wild bird freights the breeze With rhythmic rhapsodies — Where Nature offers up A sunlit, sparkling cup Of rare and rosy wine New-pressed from Virtue's vine — Come let us while away An afternoon in May ! Cicadas, as we pass. Chirp greetings from the grass ; Brown bees drone welcoming Where honey-suckles cling, And hedge-blooms, half asleep, All wonderingly peep From dew-dimmed lids to see What trespassers may be Roving their fair demesne Along a country lane ! Here rest and peace abide In meadows green and wide Where streams song-shod and free Trip onward tinklingly ; Here sorrowing and care Take to the boundless air. Fleet-winged as butterflies Under the mild May skies. Ah, there were balm for pain Along a country lane ! ONE DAY The clouds lay heavy o'er the land that day, And ever and anon with stormy gust The rain-drops dashed the dust And spangled bush and bloom with silver spray. But when the skies cleared and the sunset poured A warm cascade of color down the west, One londy lily in the garden place With fair uplifted face Gazed starward, and her white lips whispered *'Rest!" II Old cares lay heavy on my heart that day, And ever and anon a wild unrest Surged, storming, in my breast. Keen torn and throbbing from tumultuous fray. But with the fading light you came to me. White as some lily's snowy spotlessness. And, banished by your pure soul's redolence. Fled doubts and discontents As night-born mists before the dawn's caress ! IMPERISHABLE No good thing perishes. The smallest seed, Borne on the wind's wings to an alien soil, May burst to blossom on some distant mead And cheer a plodding plowman at his toil. No good thing perishes. Garnet and gold. The spent leaves scatter at the frost's keen stroke, But each gives promise, mingling with the mold, Of springtime verdure on the parent oak. No good thing perishes. One pilgrim thought. Pregnant with power, penetrant with truth, In 5^ears to come with burning import fraught. May shape the purpose of our nation's youth. No good thing perishes. The gyves of Might May bind our little Present limb and limb. But Truth shall triumph and the ranks of Right In God's own time shall take the world for Him ! 10 RONDEL The roses round your window form a frame Through which your pictured face looks out on me With such all-sweet, all-fleeting witchery As Art might clasp in dreams but dare not claim. For loveliness like thine but puts to shame Warm tints that hover where, untamed and free, The roses round your window form a frame Through which your pictured face looks out on me. Ah, if one wish, one only, I might name, A beggar butterfly I fain would be. That I might mount me up on wings of flame To where, entwined in radiant riotry, The roses round your window form a frame Through which your pictured face looks out on me ! DANDELIONS Waifs by the wayside ! Bits of blossomed gold, Fringing with flame the hot road's weedy hems ! You are but symbols, set on slender stems, Of Hope's own angels cast in earthy mold ! For oftentimes when clouds hang thick and gray You seem but stamened sun-gleams gone astray To cheer lone pilgrims, faint and sorrow-souled. And speed them, strengthened, on the toilsome way ! 11 SOVEREIGN Just where the wheel-worn highway leaves behind The town's keen clamors and its shrill alarms, A cone-strewn wood-path winds past quiet farms And tinkling streams until its windings find One sovereign pine which, kinglier than its kind, Dauntless alike in beating suns and storms, Stretches above the wood its stalwart arms As if to shield it from the hail and wind. Like to this pine true friendship is, I ween, Staunch and unyielding when Life's tempests blow, Deep-rooted, steadfast, sheltering-armed and high; Fragrant with kindly deeds and evergreen Through days of slanting sun or swirling snow. And towering loftier as the years go by ! 12 WHAT MATTERS IT What matters it that all the skies were dark And black the night and tense ? With morning came the singing of the lark And joy for recompense ! What matters it that ever day by day Up rugged slopes we fare — Do not Love's roses blossom by the way And sweeten all the air ? Life's pathway is a toilsome one, I know, Thick strewn with many a thorn ; But O, the joyance of the noontide glow And rosy smile of morn ! Full oft the footsteps falter on the road And slacken near the goal ; But one clear bird song seems to lift the load And cheer the fainting soul. And so, what boots it though the skies be dark And black the night and tense, Since morning brings the singing of the lark And joy for recompense ? One day of golden summer amply pays For winter's storm and sting ; One brief sweet hour of pleasure well outweighs Long weeks of sorrowing ! 13 A BOATING SONG Noonday of a June day and a blue sky bending over, Breath of breezes balsamy, fresh from fen and field — Flash of oars and splash of oars and rune and croon of waters, Lily-buds emblazoned on the river's silver shield. Yet with winds to bring to me Ravished sweets and fling to me Cooling sprays and sing to me of vows of lovers true — What were all of this to me, What of balm or bliss to me. When soul and sight are aching for the step an smile of you? Moonlight of a June night and you, my sweet, beside me, Drifting, idly drifting, where the ripples seek the shore — Throb and sob of 'cello strings, low- wailing down the waters. And with your hands to clasp in mine, what need to grasp an oar? Floating down the tide with you — Ah, could I abide with you. Ever side by side with you Life's shifting stream along, Shore and sky, it seems to me Would be fraught with dreams to me What time we drifted Edenward, attuned to Love's sweet song ! 14 MIDSUMMER When wan midsummer holds the land Close-clasped within her magic hand, A mellow haze enwraps the ways Where, placid-browed, the far hills stand. Blithe brooks that laughed and leaped with Spring By pebbly banks no longer sing, No more rejoice, but sink their voice To dull and drowsy murmuring. From hedge to hedge the eye can trace Sheer, silken filaments of lace By spiders spun ere yet the sun Had glimmered o'er the morning ways. Oppressive silences enfold The songless wood and sleeping wold When noontide spills along the hills Her lavish largesses of gold. And yet, though stilled the song of streams, Most gracious is my lot, meseems ; All joyous still by copse or hill To wander, comraded with dreams ! 15 THE NEWER SOUTH Not the same South as of old, with a wealth of brave deeds and romances ; Not the same South as of old, with a tinkle of strings in the cabins ; Not the same South as of old, of opulent ease and indulgence ! Nay, from a furnace of flame, steel-thewed a new land has arisen. Sinewy, stalwart and strong, and brave with the spirit of striving. Dominant, active, alert, and keen-eyed and clearer of vision. This is the South which shall lay close clasp to the throttle of Commerce ; This is the South which shall burden the ultimate seas and the oceans With the fruit of her forges and forests and the glimmering gold of her grain-fields. This is the South which has set a goal on the heights of endeavor ; This is the South which shall press, undaunted and steadfast of purpose. Up, up, to the star-seeking peaks of proud and triumphant achievement ! 16 'TWIXT LEAF AND SHEAF TIME Stilled are the brook songs that were wont to stir The rugged hill-hearts with their dulcitude When mad-cap May, with blossoms million-hued, Set all things singing at the step of her. O'er wood-haunts dusk, where some blithe choris- ter Ravished the noons with rippling interlude, A silence broods, as sacred and subdued As that which wraps some moss-grown sepulcher. This is the hush the toil-worn year deems best — This songless space between the green and gold Of leaf and sheaf time when tired Nature seems, Outstretched and still, to seek repose and rest ; And soothed with thoughts of harvests manifold To drowse, content, and yield herself to dreams ! 17 WHEN AUTUMN COMES When Autumn comes through summer-haunted ways, The meadows burn to gold beneath her tread, The maples flush, the scarlet sumacs blaze, And clustered grapes hang, purpling, overhead ; From fields made sweet with breath of garnered grain In sudden flight a whirring partridge drums ; The summer-seeking birds honk south again When Autumn comes. When Autumn comes, dear heart, to this our life And on our brows the first faint frosts appear, God orrant it brines surcease of summer strife And gracious plenitude of harvest cheer ! That all our thoughts as lustrously may glow As ruddied oaks or crimson-bannered gums. That all undimmed Life's westering sun sink low When Autumn comes I 18 NOVEMBER Low-lying belts of fog that blur the sun And shroud the hill-slopes with empurpled pall ; Outwearied leaves, as soundless as the fall Of death-shod dusk, down-drifting one by one. On wood and field and weed-retarded run Oppressive silence, deep, Sabbatical, Save when at eventide the querulous call Of questing quail loud-shrills from meadows dun. Thrice drear November! Since thou summonest Old memories, sadly sweet, and long-pent tears That flood dim eyes with misty overflows ! And yet — and yet — a-glimmer on thy breast, Like some fair hope against the grief of years. Midsummer's legacy — one crimson rose ! 19 A SONG OF THANKSGIVING Now that the year has lengthened to its close And sere November robes the russet hills, That fields no longer flaunt the flaming rose And glens no longer glow with daffodils ; That summer's garish glare has given place To pensive Autumn's sweetly solemn mood, Most lenient Lord, for all thy gifts and grace We lift our souls in deepest gratitude ! Full rough and sore has been the pilgrimage Where cruel thorns have pierced our plodding feet ; Black storms have lashed the heavens to frenzied rage And earth and air have pulsed with noonday heat; But Hope's bright bow has spanned the sullen sky And Love's own rose has blossomed by the ways. And so for these, most gracious God on high. We lift our hearts in grateful songs of praise ! Full well we know that all the guerdons gained Were but downpourings from Thy hand sublime. Full well we know that thine own grace sustained And led us safely to the harvest time ; And now that autumn's sweet solemnity Has brought surcease of summer strife and stress, O Lord Omnipotent, we lift to Thee, From swelling hearts a song of thankfulness ! 20 SOLACE Soft as the tender strain some mother sings, Soothing a fretful babe when eventide Over the huddled hills and meadows wide Empurpled shadows like a mantle flings, Comes the low-lisping rain that twilight brings, Crooning sweet lullabies, which like a tide Soundless and yet resistless, sweep aside All grief and woe and vexing care that clings. And sudden mist up-well s to hard, hot eyes. Long heavy with the ache of tears unshed, And old new peace brings solace to the breast As if one other mother from the skies, Down-bending as in twilights dear and dead, All tenderly had lulled her child to rest. A WINTER'S DAY Dawn — and a scowling east. Black-browed with portent of impending wrath ; Crouched clouds, low-huddled like some famished beast That stalks its victim in the jungle path. Noon — and a leaden sky Down leering on a bleak and barren plain ; Gaunt timber-lands where ghoulish winds wail by And gloom and tempest, tyrant rulers, reign. Twilight — and stinging mist Of gusty raindrops and a slash of sleet ; But home and light and, waiting to be kissed, Warm-welcoming, the lips of you, my sweet ! 21 THE LOFTY All that is lofty springs from sore travail. Yon rugged peak that in its granite breast Locks the unfathomed secrets of all time, That, scorning sea-mists, rears its Titan head To ampler airs and comradeship of stars. Sprung in the dusk of some primeval dawn From wild upheaval while the anguished earth Groaned awful thunders at each rending pain Of keen deliverance. Yon sovereign pine That stands, a sentry, where the topmost crest Blends with the morning blueness of the skies. Owes its proud being to the mother-seed Whose loins were rent with clammy agonies And nameless deaths to win her offspring life. And, higher yet than any peak or pine. All kingly thoughts that lift aloft and sheer Above their pigmy fellows and withstand The scathing tempests of relentless Time, Upsprung from inmost travail, fierce and wild. From throes tumultuous and throbbings keen Of pregnant souls whose best and truest blood Gave form and shape and color to the theme ! LoiQ. ^ THE WINTER FOREST Armored, the gaunt trees stand, like knights of old In helmet bright arrayed and flashing mail. Braving with sturdy strength each hostile gale That sweeps in fury down the barren wold. The ways where lavish Summer spilled her gold Show wan and pale as Death's last kiss is pale, And where the first shy violets fringed the vale The snow-drifts glimmer waxen-white and cold. Yet, haply, though in Winter's icy clutch The land lies clasped, come summer dreams a-throng And one low voice steals ever, whispering : '' The May shall smile again and at her touch The silent streams shall wake to tinklins: song: And wood and wold to joyous blossoming ! " 28 THE DROWSYLAND EXPRESS From Twilighttown to Sleepyville Is a long long way, I guess, But the fastest train in the world, I ween. Is the Drowsyland Express ! There's a kiss for fire and a song for steam And Love to manage the train ; Just a moment's stop at the City of Dream, And it's on through the night again ! Then, it's O, my little one, Ho, my little one, Sweet of the tawny tress ! It's off and away At the close of day On the Drowsyland Express ! 'Tis mother love that like a star Lights all the way outspread, And mother's lap is the Pullman car That rests the weary head. Across the golden bridge of prayer The crooning engine flies While from the swift-revolving wheels Rise tender lullabies. So it's O, my sweet. Of the tired feet And the tangled, tawny tress ! It's off and away At the close of day On the Drowsyland Express ! 24 AS OF OLD One silver star, Piercing the darkness dim — And way-worn pilgrims, toiling from afar, Deemed it a beacon-light to beckon them, Not to the hollow court of earthly czar, But to a King, new-born at Bethlehem ! A seraph's strain From realms beyond the ken Of shepherds watching o'er Judea's plain ; And rock-ribbed steep and vine-embowered glen With tuneful tongues took up the glad refrain Of "Peace, sweet Peace, on earth, good will to men ! " And e'en today Athwart the plains of life The Christ-star sends a glad and guiding ray; And oft, despite the surging din and strife. Steals a sweet strain as soft as winds that stray Through blossom-burdened boughs with odors rife ! 25 IN THE DAYS OF LAFAYETTE In the days of Lafayette Grandam trod the minuet With a stately step and slow While the candelabra's glow- Softened to a mellow shade Shimmerings of stiff brocade ; Brightened with an added grace % Silver shoon and foamy lace ; Gave a gleam to witching eyes Lustrous as the starry skies. Maids — as now — would fain coquette In the days of Lafayette. Brave gallants with powdered hair Courtesied with knightly air While along the polished hall Grandam swept, admired by all. Not a strong heart but did stir Quickened at the sight of her ; Not a good sword but did leap From its sheath with sudden sweep Did she give but slight command With a motion of her hand. Men were fools — as men are yet — In the days of Lafayette. But when maids and masters all Long had left the polished hall, When the strains the spinet crooned In the arms of night had swooned, Look where grandam loitered late In the shadows by the gate, 26 While her bosom rose and fell With emotion's stormy swell ; Loitered, till the lights grew dim, For the step and voice of him, All her lashes sorrow-wet In the days of Lafayette ! And the star-eyes looking down On the 9ld colonial town Saw her wrapt in his embrace, While he showered on her face Kisses warm and whispered low : " Bless thee, sweetheart, for I go ! Ere the rise of morning's sun I must be with Washington ! " Then the swift up-welling tear With her " Heaven guard thee, dear ! '■' Love was king — as Love is yet — In the days of Lafayette ! Dead the years of old romance ! Beaming belles and gay gallants Long have crumbled into dust; Burnished blades have gone to rust ; But when Yuletide twilight brings Perfumed dreams and murmurings, Mistress Fancy carries me Back to times of chivalry When with stately step and slow In the candelabra's glow Grandam trod the minuet In the days of Lafayette ! 27 A WINTER MORNING The sunlight sifts through rosy rifts That lattice the gates of day, And glints and glows where silent snows Imbosom the trackless way. Like portraits old the wind-swept wold In framings of frost is set, Each lordly pine on the far incline Wears an icy coronet. Yet who would bide by the ingle-side Though winds cut cold and keen ! Let us gladly haste o'er an ermine waste And feast on a flawless scene Where snows and skies but symbolize The errorless heart of Him Who places now on nature's brow A glittering diadem ! .r^O Illihl! .U.iiiiiliHiijliii LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 015 905 594 2 '" .:"'"ri.. -: I i ni!llinl;ni,t!lli!llll.!l!!l:;,jtlimill ,. .^|lfM.t)t!Hi'Ml'"f!"H'!!MI|| ''• ui|i|iiiit|niif|i|ii