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 ELEGY IN AUTUMN 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 Frank Dempster Sherman 
 
 BY 
 
 Clinton Scollard 
 
 NE^V YORK 
 
 Frederic Fairchild Sherman 
 
 MCMXVII 
 
Copyright, 1917, ty 
 Clinton Scollard 
 
 
 OEC -5 1917 
 
 (\^«'* 
 
 A.^*- 
 
 
ELEGY IN AUTUMN 
 
I 
 
 Brother in song, you who have gone before 
 
 Along far incommunicable ways, 
 Leaving me here upon this mortal shore, 
 
 A bondman to the tyrant nights and days, 
 Across the distance, hail ! 
 Though Time may sever, and we meet no more, 
 Yet what shall Time avail ! 
 
 II 
 
 'Twas Autumn when we first set hand to hand, 
 
 And eye to eye, in loyal comradeship; 
 Drowsed with a draught of Beauty seemed the land, 
 As it had raised a golden cup to lip; 
 But you embodied Spring, 
 Its harvest hopes, its deeds in joyance planned. 
 Its brave adventuring. 
 
Ill 
 
 I can recall your buoyance, — can recall 
 
 The star-sown hours beneath the Cambridge trees, 
 When o er us wheeled the bright processional 
 Of bold Orion and the Pleiades, 
 And how we strolled along 
 Laughterfiil, and oblivious to all 
 
 Save the sweet thrall of Song. 
 
 IV 
 
 Youth has its visions and its fervors; yours 
 
 Were lovingly enlinked with Poesy; 
 You dreamed the dream that many an one allures. 
 The vernal dream where life is harmony. 
 And though the years estranged 
 Your full allegiance, something still assures 
 My heart you never changed. 
 
V 
 
 What merriment was ours those shut-in nights 
 
 When Winter, clamorous at the casement, cried ! 
 What dear association, what delights 
 As we in friendly emulation vied. 
 While Aspiration s cruse 
 Was brimmed for us, beholding on dim heights 
 The presence of the Muse ! 
 
 VI 
 
 And then there opened wider paths to tread 
 
 When Love, with Song, beguiled you on and on, 
 While Art around your feet unfaltering shed 
 Its luminous light, irradiant as the dawn; 
 Though you saw many part 
 From deities long worshipped, you were wed 
 Inalienably to Art. 
 
VII 
 
 What though the rigid chains of circumstance 
 Oft held you in the trammels of the town, 
 Your heart went woodward where the fairies dance 
 What time the moon its silvery sheen sifts down. 
 You loved the reeds and rills, 
 The sea, the shore, their glamour and romance, 
 And all the climbing hills. 
 
 VIII 
 
 And when you made escape, and sensed the wild 
 
 Aromas beat about you, when you fared 
 By tracks unwonted, like an unleashed child 
 You gleeftilly your gay abandon shared 
 Care from your shoulders thrown. 
 You seemed an Ariel spirit, long exiled. 
 Come back unto its own. 
 
IX 
 
 With gracious Memory again I go 
 
 To tread with you where meads are green and gold, 
 Where upland slopes are strewn with daisy-snow, 
 And bee-balm torches light the flocks to fold, 
 And willow branches wave 
 Above Oriskany, singing far below 
 Its liquid summer stave. 
 
 X 
 
 Now south we sail where stormy currents meet 
 Round the wind-harassed cape of Hatteras, 
 Beyond whose beacons, when the tides retreat, 
 The wide sea-mirror is like bumished glass; 
 There, mid the drowsy calms. 
 As Ponce de Leon did of yore, we greet 
 The tall Floridian palms. 
 
XI 
 
 Here down the live-oak aisles 'tis ours to stray 
 
 With wraiths of many a stem conquistador, 
 Those vanished warriors of an elder day 
 
 When gray San Marco bore the brunt of war; 
 Here we in revery lean 
 Upon the ramparts beetling o er the bay, 
 
 And watch the shifting scene; — 
 
 XII 
 
 The boats that dip and dart like living things, 
 
 Seeking the open sea beyond the bar; 
 The graceful gulls with sunlight on their wings 
 Up the Matanzas soaring fleet and far 
 Where inlets deep beguile; 
 And o er the water s undulant shimmerings 
 The low coquina isle. 
 
XIII 
 
 Then, at the drooping of the twilight hour, 
 We wander in the ancient plaza where 
 We breathe the attar of the jasmine flower 
 Like incense on the altar of the air; 
 And list, as music swells 
 Down drifting from the old cathedral tower, 
 The arpeggio of the bells. 
 
 / XIV 
 
 We linger by the sea-wall while the tide 
 Below us murmurs like a sad refrain, 
 Bearing from outer ocean reaches wide 
 
 The lore and legend of the Spanish main, 
 Nor leave that spot serene 
 Till Sleep, as with the mande of the bride, 
 Wraps fair Saint Augustine. 
 
XV 
 
 Days dedicate to rapturous things were these; 
 
 It was as though Youth came again, and brought 
 Past aims, past ardors and past ecstasies. 
 
 And toward the shrine of Beauty tumed our thought. 
 And there were after times 
 Of exultation, prismic harmonies, 
 
 When hours ran by in rhymes. 
 
 XVI 
 
 Once, mid cathedral Carolinian pines, 
 
 We saw the Springtide, at its radiant birth. 
 Kindle to fragrant gold the coiling vines. 
 
 And make a garden of the wakened earth; 
 And every moming heard 
 Within the treetops, melody linked with mirth. 
 The hidden mocking-bird. 
 
XVII 
 
 And while the cardinal through the waving bredes 
 
 Of pendulous moss swift flitted like a flame, 
 Back flooded to our minds the illustrious deeds, 
 Emblazoned on the honor-scroll of Fame, 
 When Liberty was won, 
 Hearkening the Ashley whisper to its reeds 
 The name of Marion. 
 
 XVIII 
 
 From Gloucester cliffs and brown Nantucket dunes 
 
 The mountains lured you, and the mountain star; 
 For us the Woodland sang its lyric runes 
 Where er we followed it, or near or far. 
 In sun or shadow cool. 
 Or loitered through long languorous aftemoons 
 By Dian s darkling pool. 
 
XIX 
 
 Far up the valley Wittenberg s vast form, 
 
 Its summit beckoning, with you I view. 
 And above sweeping slopes where wild bees swarm 
 Glimpse timid deer at dawn and fall of dew; 
 Through Panther Kill we roam. 
 And mark the purple streamers of the storm 
 Ascend behind the Dome. 
 
 XX 
 
 And, too, in bookmen's mines of dusty ore 
 Ever shall I remember how we delved. 
 Plucking from out the musty treasure-store 
 Rich rarities within the darkness shelved. 
 Elated if we found 
 Leaves that some name we long had honored bore 
 In frayed morocco bound. 
 
XXI 
 
 Thus, step by step, we trod adown the years. 
 
 Thus, side by side, with neer a break between; 
 We shared our laughter and we shared our tears, 
 Nor deemed inexorable Fate might intervene 
 To sever the strong cord 
 That bound us. Fate with its "abhorred shears,'' 
 That is man s over-lord. 
 
 XXII 
 
 You that in Autumn came, in Autumn went; 
 
 How vain to say the mourning word! how vain 
 To beat the bars of that arbitrament 
 
 That metes to mortals pleasurement or pain ! 
 How vain! — how vain! — and yet 
 We beat upon them, and we only gain 
 The poignance of regret ! 
 
XXIII 
 
 Autumn again with all its loveliness; 
 
 Autumn again that brought an end to joy, 
 Despite the sight of earth in amber dress, 
 And airs that bear the blitheness of a boy! 
 Autumn, and leaves that toss 
 In bright brief triumphing, while they express 
 The brooding sense of loss. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 Autumn again down every winding way 
 
 That, in the days gone by, our footsteps pressed !— 
 Instead of woven amaranth would I lay 
 
 Above your dust — you gone by paths unguessed— 
 Loves deathless asphodel; 
 Until some happier hour, — when, who shall say? — 
 Brother in song, farewell ! 
 
ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY COPIES 
 PRIVATELY PRINTED ON ITALIAN HAND? 
 MADE PAPER DURING OCTOBER MCMXVII 
 
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