UC-NRVf $B 304 MB"? LIBRARY OF THE University of California. GIFT OF JXAMriX>ycA \Jj^OUL/jJLL. ^.Q^Va/t^.V^^^ Class SAINT HELENA AND OTHER POEMS TO REV. ASA DALTON, D.D. FRIEND of my youth when youth had but begun ! I knew thee ere our city knew thy face. As child would know, I knew the man whose place Was in some larger world his worth had won. A man in world of men, thy world I see Above the common striving. Let me greet, In sage's world — whose height is my defeat — Thyself, companioned by the like of thee. I make me bold this tribute book to bring. This overmuch of mingled dross and gold. To one whose years are all unmixed, one old In nothing that survives .their numbering. O olvuT^A/zl- wXa/UyyvzJL -fiM/nCMnnJ::^ SAINT HELENA AND OTHER POEMS EDWARD CLARENCE FARNSWORTH PORTLAND, ME. SMITH & SALE 1910 COPYRIGHT 1910 BY EDWARD CLARENCE FARNSWORTH CONTENTS PAGE Saint Helena .... . 3 Old Glory at the Pole . 23 Regret . 25 Summer and the Bird . 27 Birdie . 28 The Skylark .... . 29 The Secret .... . 30 A Song of Joy .... . 31 May-Time .... . 33 Soul Mating . . . . . 34 Your Eyes .... . 35 My Morning-Time . . 36 Chopin at the Piano . . 37 Berceuse . 39 The Sea Prowler . 40 Leviathan .... . 41 The Harper .... . 42 Marguerite in the Garden . . 43 On Reading the Second Part of Goethe's Faust .... . 44 To Blanche .... . 46 The Temple and the Christ . 47 The Prodigal Son . 50 The Marriage at Cana . 51 C\ r\ i^^ ^~^ CONTENTS PAGE True Riches .... 52 Light 53 The Ten Virgins 54 The Good Samaritan 55 The Parable of the Vine . 56 Love-Wisdom .... 57 The Parable of the Leaven 58 Divine Healing 59 The Last Review 60 A Song of Labor 64 King Edward .... 70 VI SAINT HELENA ^ OF THE HAL SAINT HELENA \I7RECK! Wreck! O helpless wreck, ^ ^ flood-cast and lone ! hapless wreck the ruthless reefs do grind ! Abandoned hull ! thy tough and towering masts, Gale-broken, splintered, gone by the board, no more, Ah ! never more sustain the mighty spread Which else would wing thee from this hateful isle, Bare, rock-upheaval of Earth's prisoned fire. Mid-ocean's never-liberating keep. Hell's half shut door not hiding yet the world. Poor, ruined relic of thy shapely self ! Mere lessening remnant of thy beauty's whole ! 1 knew thee, weatherer of a hundred storms, Death-cheater in the midst of foundering fleets, Immune in battle, leader of the line. The flagship whose dread cannonade could drown The sky-born thunders gathered o'er the main. I knew thee well; none better knew; in truth Am I thy breaking bulk ; of me, even me The staunch wave-rider, now the tides make toy. How warping suns and rotting rains increase The sad, continual waste from what I was ! From what I was ! Ah yes, from what I was ! But surely more than any ship was I ; A more than men have fashioned to obey The helmsman's puny turning; yet this end Dulls not one ray, one glory, of that hour When, all surpassing, rose my star on me. No lie can smirch the fame of fiery deeds In face of France and Europe and the world; No thief can filch Time's goodly recompense. For when on me falls neither sun nor rain, And no wild storm disturbs, and not a beam Of the round moon illumes my hiding, then. Yes then, unto my rest shall pilgrim far The Nature-prompted might and manhood born To loathe the commonplace of little lives. With voice sunk whisper-ward, and mien subdued. From hearts of homage reverently they speak; "Lies here the limit of our fruitful quest; Our Mecca here, our kneeling shrine ! Hark ye ! How clearly is from lips of dust vouchsafed The sluggard-shaming speech that moves our veins ! This then is mine though Fortune, traitorous luring To proud Ambition's giddy summit, there. Like to the crafty fiend of eld, displayed Earth's waiting kingdoms far and near. How fair The summer-wooing vales vine-walled around. The glacier-burdened peaks, the northern steppes, The bloom of southward field and sky, the ships And navies anchored and at sea, the streams That, through historic sites and cities, mirror The famed bequeathings of the classic age ! The calm of lakes how fair ! How fair the rills That jet and sparkle o'er the rocky brink ! And many a plunging cataract how fair ! And many a trackless gloom of hermit wood, And many a semi-solitude of shade. And many a scythe and sickle-waiting glebe. From Peter's northern capitol to where — Beyond the continent-dividing flood — The pyramidal tombs of Nilus raise Honor perpetual to the sovereign dead. The sovereign dead ! With scorn and pity, both, I 've chanced on where the rustic clod made green His low ambition and his final gain, The earthy mould to which his soul was wed. Rude-lettered rhyme, uncouth, sufficing, taught The plodding, plowing villagers the tale, That vacuous nothing, his poor span of days. Meanwhile the world he stirred not rolleth on ; The great, full world all busy by him rolls. The sovereign dead ! The deathless sovereign dead ! The stern, iron-handed moulders of that clay, That easy-shapen clay, the usual man ! On Earth's huge round, as on a minted coin. Their name and likeness long outlasts their years. Rut-shunners, in new roads their chariot wheels Strike fire, their horses neigh with joy indeed. Custom-ignorers, to themselves a law. Behold in these the pattern of the new ! Prophetic dreamers, time-outstrippers, lo. In temple, fearless at the very shrine, They preach offense, a higher, grander truth. Vessel-breakers they that so the wine of life In larger, stronger hold may sparkle pure. War-bringers that untroubled quiet crown Their rule of subjugated rivalries. In truth world-overturners they, the means Of Heaven-ordered change. Their mortal end Some day leaves vacuum Nature must endure. In death the lion heart at last is low ; The sore-bereaved time up-points the shaft And graves on sculptured stone immortal deeds. Oft looking on the limitless, lone sea Where, solitary one, the fisher bird Is sinking, soaring, and unfrequent sails Wing near this rock, — then wholly pass me by. Mine eyes desire the north invisible Earth's curving round behind. How far ! How far ! Thou loved, lost land ! How far ! My darling France I My foster child, than mine own kin more dear ! Orphaned I found thee of thy Bourbon sire Thou prey of ravishers at home, brute men Of tiger mood. Meanwhile, with cannon clamour And brandished steel, vindictively upstood The alien armies round about thy realm. 'Twas then from nether pit of shame I snatched. As parent watched and tended, counselled,whom I saw most statue-like upgrow a queen. Befitting thine estate, with broken crowns I jewelled thee ; rich kingdoms were thy dower O thou impoverished long ! O child so poor ! Lamentest still thy present orphaning ? Or dost, insensible to loss, forget? Or, as the false, palm-strewing multitude. Art thou ingrate, of fickleness the symbol ? Not so. Alway, for love of me, thy brave. As never Roman cohort strove, have striven ; As never legion for their Caesar fell, Have fallen. 'Neath Egypt's cloud-shunned, pitiless dome Their life, outpouring, drenched the torrid sands Where rainless heavens dropped no cooling. Once Was Nile encrimsoned; once her banks were strewn. There, horse and rider, lay the Mameluke Death-stayed in rout, while down from Cheop's height His forty centuries were looking. Once, Ripe rose of Italy's sun-rising; once, Sweet rose of her sun-setting, blushed a sod With richer red than roses wear. Your blood, O heart-drained liberators of the South ! Nourished, as on your soil of France beloved. The flower of liberty. Flashed forth one morn, From out the wintry East, an omen bright, The rising orb of matchless victory. Betimes it saw the plight of humbled kings. The shifting bounds of continental states, The keen heart-stab at plotting England's hopes, The dire defeat to Pressburg leading ; whilst Myself, that saw my hope's ascension bright, More bright than warring god's good shield, did hail The sun of Austcrlitz. And in reverse — The which even gods have known — reverse indeed. Consummate doing of the mischievous fiend Enkindling, like his hell-abode of flame, The templed city of the olden Czars ; Yes, midst the dull despond of baffled men — Than weary limbs their hearts more heavy-weighted — Hoping no more a Wagram or a Jena, A fame in death like these hoping no more; Amidst the woe of miles endured was I, The Emperor, their "Little Corporal" still. A fadeless vision of the sumptuous East Filleth my musings with a vain regret ; The gorgeous East, barbaric splendor bright ; Voluptuous, wooing, tropic East I knew; Enchantment wrapt in radiant, sunny airs ; The East to burning zeal enkindled all If touched by some Mohammed heart of flame. That East awaits the dominating man, A frenzied urger of a bigot creed, Or him the tolerant, contained, and mild, Turning the ponderous wheel of faith. That East Awaits an Alexander more humane. The soldiers' idol and the people's love. Fain would I near the delta of Ganges pile More costly stone on stone than did Haroun In Bagdad midst her caleph days of prime. Perchance a varied glory I 'd upraise, Hoar Karnak's bulk, the growth of dynasties, Alhambra's grace ere yet her woes befell. And Corinth's marble beauty tipped and towered With gold. In orient capitol should blaze My jewelled throne of Ind, no Tamerlane seat Of fleeting power. Beside the sacred stream, At Buddha's shrine of peace, would I revere. I 'd palace near the emptying flood of Nile, Or, on the Ottoman Sultan's Bosporus hill, Behold a more than that Byzantine dome Justinian lifted o'er Sophia's walls. Of Islam son, I 'd gain her birth-place holy, A turbaned pilgrim, find the prophet's rest; The desert hordes enlisted to my will, Myself, Napoleon, *' lion of the desert," Would sweep Arabia's waste a whirlwind terror; Or, 'neath the bannered lion and the sun. Again I conquer Cyrus' empire old. Rekindle bright my Persia's Gheber fire; Or, neutral lord of lands diverse, I blunt. With smoothing law and act, the bitter spears Fanatic fools thrust each in other's heart. Such course, expedient, is Wisdom's way Since never Faith to certainty attains. And Error drags at her most heavenward wing. 8 Grained in its fibre, mingled with its blood, A nation's legacy of fixed belief, Proved just and decent, meeteth best its need. So I to France her church restored, the which Pretended Reason's goddess, harlot thing, Had long defamed, insulted and defiled. Shaming her bestial birth, I did renew The order of the good Gregorian year. Again the Infinite, that dwelleth deep — So saith the sage — at center of our life, Dilates my being as in other days. Alexander, Caesar, Scipio mix in me Lord of all lands, tri-continental king. Gibraltar and the Dardanelles I hold ; I harbor in the Bosporus my sail; The Mediterranean bears my merchant fleets. The Black and Caspian win my laden hulls ; The Adriatic woos them on to Venice; Marmora bideth to the Russian ports. Scorning the tedious doubling of the Cape, Suez I channel that at once they steer O'er Pharaoh's burial to the Indian sands, Ceylon, Sumatra, and the island wealth Of Australasia and Niphon the far. Himalaya stays not whom no barrier stays. Huge China, waked from olden lethargy, Beholdeth me the western-risen sun. And all men do the axle change behold Of their so puny-turning, little sphere. But ah, what discord sudden pains my ear! It jars upon the rapture of my dream ! It startles from Trafalgar and the Nile ! They rend me England ! rend me evermore, The iron mouths of thy determined war ! O England ! England ! England ! But for thee My plans the measure of my deeds had been ! Even when a Titan dazed, dethroned, I lay, A peasant people then had borne me high ; A million hearts for me their tide had poured. But ah, the flood, the deluge unto France ! And I was weary, weary of it all. There cometh to the king a crownless hour When slips the sceptre from his hand of clay; Nor is he joined to dust ere men do cry, "Long live the king!" Soon humbled, death-deposed, Soon sunken to the hungry worm are they That wrought my fall, that on my ruin gloat. How goodly seemeth, on the crest of toil. Ambition's prize ! At distance but a star. It groweth soon a world whose rounded vast Henceforth a thousand orby fires shall hide Whilst to the climber laudings thus arise ; " Star reacher ! King, sky-crowned with starry sheen ! Thine eyes, like stars, the golden night survey.*' A king ! A crown ! What mortal jealousies ! What gilded goal since men would masters be ! What mock of gain ! What woe of heapen ills The which wise Caesar, wiser, had refused Alway ! In power his peer, in wisdom less, I spurned not once the crown and kingship, sweet, Of what, through me, should be than Rome more mighty, A wider, worthier France than Bourbon ruled, Girt by the army, our safeguard of peace. 10 Long, long, O land, thy doom it was to bleed ! From almost death-wounds fell the drops of gore. But when indeed thy foes were smitten. Peace, The stauncher of thy cruel loss, appeared. When soon in thee thy native vigor wrought, Straightway the warrior in me wholly turned To that wherefor my righteous arm had striven. Pacificator of the realms, I hid In scabbard thy renowned and just defense. And now, O Fate ! wast thou fair promiser To this my project dear — a peaceful land. Model of lands and of the world to be ; A sober France for all the drunken past ; Order from riot, revolution sprung; Safety upbuilded on the fall of Terror; A France of statesmen, orators and soldiers, Of sailored merchantmen and ships of battle ; A France of field and farm and vine and olive ; Resourceful France of thriving towns and cities ; Just framer of the equitable law ; Arena of the worthy humble-born ; Retreat of the mild, meditative sage ; Patron of Science, of all learning patron ; , ^ Skilled trainer of the skilled in every craft; Fountain of Music, fount of mellow song; Mother of poet-choosers of that theme, Wherewith the painter shall achieve his fame. The empire-building of a hundred camps. Smiled thus my orby dream, alluring star; Smiled thus my sweetly-drawing, planet fate. Grandly it grew ; a splendour fellowed not In heaven's high-over-hanging hemisphere. How soon did Envy, spying Envy mark ! The shameful envy of the rival stars! 11 Woe ! woe ! This hope's defeat ! This dire downhurl ! This far, sea-banished rock of wretchedness ! This ending of a King from whose high seat A throne-debaser truckles to the mob ! The scholar, curious, busy with the past, In long succession views the affairs of men, The fortunes and calamities that fell From Adam unto Noah, and from thence. Thereon the calm discerner, he the wise, Deep-pondering, a helpful lesson finds. But if the maker of events, the mighty. Must idle though their crisis bids him on, Sitteth he patient, like who choose no part. When lo, the world he guided flies the mark ? How like the sun, that scorned the level East, Man lessens from the summit of his day ! High-risen, is abased at length a nation. At last to utter lack a royal line. Wise Nature's choice is he whose dynasty, Being new, nears not its Nature-destined end. The choice of France were he, if choice were left, Yes, he whose brow the symbol did upbear Of western empire, even the iron crown Of Charlemagne and ancient Lombardy. To rid a monarchy of weak misrule ; To sweep from Europe Bourbon's base regime ; To found instead, and otherwhere if best, A rising rule of kings unworn, blood-bound To me and my transmitted blood, a rule Heart-bound to my heart-hopes, a rule spirit-bound Unto my master spirit, was my plan. For this, and that I shew whence Kings could spring. Was I the wrath of crowned incapables, 12 A thieving Corsican, my theft a throne ; A world-enkindling, world-despoiling thief Was I. Forthwith our neighbour of the isles, Our treaty-breaker, foe of France and me, Deep-plunged the continent in general broil By English craft and English gold renewed From Amiens onward. Spite, thus thwarting one From humble even unto highest risen. Blunted of other rise the spur, and so Back-turning Europe woos again the night. Let "Holy Alliance," let all darkened wits. Reverting to the ages dark, uphold The right divine of senile kings and lords 'Gainst one, the choice of millions fit to choose, And every worthy that would dare aspire. Arisen yesterday, whipped down to-day, Men, on some goodly morrow, gain the heights And in their rise avenge my overthrow. Princes of Europe ! Autocrats of thrones ! Quake, quake at mutter of the tongues I loosed ! The people speak ! The people ! Soon doth clamor The public voice of harsh and stern command. No serf, in gaging Russia's realm, so mute But, long-enduring, freeth yet his tongue. Your ebbing rule, O Princes ! turneth not ; With all that hateful tide the shores are done. The people ! Ah, the people ! In their hearts A hidden spark that Freedom's breath is fanning. Red as the Jacobin's wrath it flares ; it leaps. Whirling ignition to the winds of Earth. Concede, O kings ! If suddenly wise concede ! If brute self-interest rule, concede ! Concede ! 13 Hark ! On mine exile breaks the noise of arms ; It will not back from these incongruous days. Look ! look ! on yonder far-outspreading look ! My gathered legions meet the allied host. Proudly the front deploys ; how brave its menace ! Each straining ear awaits the signal gun. A dreadful calm ! A death-still moment ! Now The sudden, thrilling boom of dread command. Instant doth reel this tower, this iron cliff. With hideous roar of hundred-fold reply. Instant all eyes, all brain, all quick resolve, I stand, of Jovian war imperious chief ; My messengers on thousand missions fly. On, on, battalions ! On, tall grenadiers ! Lead on, Murat, your headlong cavalry ! On, on, manceuvering horse and foot ! On, Ney ! Pierce yonder right! Maim all its fair outspread ! Make din artillery-men with matches lit ! Dismount along yon crest the harrying guns That stay with heaping slain, the brave advance ! On, Soult! Turn, turn the left ! Mow down its pride ! Let sword be sickle in this harvest hour ! Break forth, Drouet ! On the gained flank break forth ! Tear every column with a cannon pour ! Grind, grind its bleeding in the shameful dust ! Charge now the center ; fearless Lannes, charge ! Smite ! smite ! you fury ! smite the wavering mass ! Cut off, cut off retreat O Berthier ! Let lance and sabre, sword and volleying arms. Hurl back the ruin of the vanquished rear ! Marshals of France, my heart approves you all; And every French death -wooer. Praise to you Men of the South, for whom I crossed the Po, And you my Swiss, free-born amidst your peaks, 14 You patriot Poles, your land remembering, Confederates of the Rhine, and many a friend Of sweetest vengeance, joined unto our cause. Your grievance brought to this just, reckoning hour. 'T is done ! The prisoned foe bereft of succor ! Hell's withering torment walls him every side, And all our batteries feed the dreaded flame. England, whose bulky spread is round the world, In little hollow of my hand I '11 crush. Back, Prussia ! get thee back to Brandenburg ! Henceforth a palsied death in life bemoan ! Austria, remember Italy ! Bernard ! With weightier avalanche than leaves his crest, I whelm thee more than on the Piedmont plain. Russia, forego that dream of Ind ! Thy crown Is forfeit ; aye, thy very name unspoke In the new Europe that from this doth rise. Alas ! alas ! what sense-defrauding show ! What wild extravagance of hopeful dream ! Yon smoky war, an empty sea-mist clearing, Reveals but lapping of the humbled waves, And me a broken, humbled, useless man In the vast, circling solitude alone. Shrinks North mine empire from the inqaistor's shame ; It yields the Spanish Bourbon and the priest, The southward look from crest of Pyrenees. Belgium is lost me and the seaward Rhine ; Holland the maritime, her every sailor. Retreats my sovereignty o'er the Alps I scaled What time, with mighty project's instant act, I brake the Austrian, the Hapsburg yoke. How ingrate Milan thrusts my sceptre back ! She, once a patriot hailer of its rule 15 Beyond the palace of the Papal See, Of Lodi and Rivoli soon forgets. To Naples are my glittering triumphs cold, Duller than smoking of her indolent peak. Divorced from fickle Genoa am I ; Marengo joyeth not her heart of change. What weighs it that in Venice I made cease The doge, the council, and the tyrant years ? All Italy is thankless to my sword. The mark of thunderous war, my smitten crown Lies twisted, broken, on the Elba-ward shore ; The shredded clothing of my proper state, Stripped clean at Waterloo, doth leave alas ! This jailor's scorn, this utter nakedness. When, often, to my practiced eye, the beam Of balanced fight adversely leaned, myself, A savmg weight, into the van I hurled. Around, at hand-touch. Death my brave would crown With glory ample, spotless. As for me, In vain the cannon hurl, the musket volley, The edged and pointed rage of charging war ! Men deemed it rashness, folly. Never I Who, filled with sweet foreknowledge of my rise, Believed an angel's interposing wings Turned either side the bolt, the rending iron, The gashing and the prodding steel. So Fate, Kind-seeming, though on sore unkindness bent. Refused me battle death to lure the more Toward that revealing which transformed my shield From helping Heaven into plotting Hell. Ah, when some foe-encompassed ancient, fallen Saul-like upon his once-redoubted sword. Did cheat the conqueror of a captive king, 16 Held honorable, in honored grave he slept. How little doth philosophy inform The soldier fit for hot and headlong war ! Soldier-philosopher somewhat am I Self-murder shunning as not ease of woe. Soldier-philosopher henceforth the more, From out the wisdom-schools of Greece I *11 choose Firm Zeno for my comfortable stay. To what grave limit I disturbed the law, And who disturbs not? — none being just save God Let me its keen rebound unmurmuring bear. This rock my expiating altar be ! Ah, *t is not in the winning of a fight ! Ah, *t is not in the blazoning of a name ! Ah, 't is not in the mounting of a throne ! Nor in the founding of a stable line ! That lofty kings have most of happiness ; That earth-wide human happiness which seeks The serf king-ridden, miserably poor. Lo, when the worn campaigner's work was done. And quenched the bivouac fire by whose torch Remembrance made my dreams a sad farewell. Thou, who thy lighter days didst well redeem. Heart-winner ! Empress ! Josephine ! With thee, Shut from the noisy mouthing of my fame, I lived my life's one pure felicity. Down-looking from thy sorrow's ease forgive ! Enduring, loyal heart ; forgetting not Forgive ! Forgive J When bears the humble wife Unto her peasant lord the inheritor Of his few acres, meed of bliss is hers Denied thee, once of palace and of court The queenly grace, and of all women envy. 17 What use Ambition's triumph over love ? Of what avail its sacrifice of thee ? Fortune derides me with a throneless heir Whom foes would teach to scorn his father's name. As for that other, level was her way. Never from prison unto throne upclimbing, Her feet are timid at the downward steep i Low-ending here. Nor could she, choosing, come Whose walk is measured by a golden chain. Come then my Zeno ! Stoic wisdom, come ! Such weak complaining shames the soldier's breast. Come, make me iron on this rigid base Where thwarted Ocean raves along the cliff, Or mourns this lifted rock, his lost domain ! Let then the vexing storm forsake the deep To drive on me the drenching rain. Let chill Discomfort of the salty fogs enwrap ; The tropic sun from high meridian pour. Unheeded let my guards patrol me round, And spies infest my rightful privacy. And coward Insult more audacious grow. The hairs of my shorn strength remembering ! And thou, whose trust-betrayal caged a king ; Let all the cordon of thine English sail Make hopeless of deliverance the sea. I would be hardened save to gratitude That melts me at love's test, beloved ! in you Self-exiled sharers of my banishment. Where throng they now who sunned them in my noon, And fawned and flattered till the even hour? Housed 'neath some roof convenient by, the dark They shun, the barren where, O proven few ! Mistaking, ye would stay my soul's release. 18 Full soon your parting deed, your parting word ; Full soon your parting sorrow, earliest tear That soft betokeneth a general grief When many know me as yourselves have known. Full soon the circling ocean hems my sleep In shadows lone of yonder hermit vale That stills at last the solemn bell of old Awaking yet my childhood years in me. There must my ashes wait a juster day, Interment honor 'neath some ample dome Of my great capitol, its millions thronging To solemn, sad commemoration. Then The times pulse by me ; noble times I pray. To words and deeds of noble men atuned. Safe-gathered to the heart of France I rest ; Impetuous heart, toward friends with ardor burning, On foes it rains a fierce, volcanic fire. O, human-throbbing heart that treasures yet The sacred dust of Clovis ! bosom thou Alway, death-remnant of thy latest love ! I see the army in a vast review ; The army marshalled from their worthy sleep ; Caparisoned and plumed in soldier wise. The army, gallant horse and sturdy foot. The shouldered muskets flash a myriad points Of bayonet steel ; the hero's blade is bare ; The bloody, shredded flags are proudly borne ; From balcony and roof and every height, Our brave tricolgr opens on the wind That brings the acclaim of countless multitudes. The battle lingers in the warrior's eye ; The bugles flare the fiery notes of yore ; The drums are throbbing with the long ago. 19 Heroic marches of our old campaigns, Arousing rhythms, wake me from my rest. Soldiers, this day an audience ! This day — Your own — of open hearts and open door. An audience ! In mausoleum fit, In palace-tomb, all marble-throned I wait. Draw near, my comrades ! Close around me gather ! Recount the glories of our mutual years ! Come you, the humblest, better than the proud Ambassadors of haughty kings ! Salute Your General ! your Emperor ! Believe His eye yet looketh and his voice inspires When France is ringing with a call to war 1 20 OTHER POEMS OLD GLORY AT THE POLE TN thawless regions of untrodden snow -■- The North, forbidding, stern, has builded well, Behind the ice-walls and the riven floe. His kingdom's long-enduring citadel. Not any creature of the earth or sea Would dare the rigor of his central hold In darkness hid till barren seedtime be, And scorned of summer whose low sun is cold. The sky is empty of the wandering wings That shun instinctively the journey lone ; The air is joyless, for the vocal springs Are bubbling music in a softer zone. What snare ! What fall ! What mystery of fate ! Of frost and famine ah, what lingering pain Bestrew the highways to the outmost gate Of that unreachable man seeks in vain ! What ! seeks in v^in ? Where Earth on pivot turns, The moveless axle of its motion vast. Is fixed a banner, and above it burns Polaris in the Arctic heavens fast. O banner, thwarted oft, determined still ! One sharpest struggle and behold, 'twas done, The deed of fervor and triumphant will Whereby the searching Centuries have won. O starry sovereign in that northmost land ! Upon thy triumph stars have shone ere now ; Thy staff is set on many a tropic strand ; And alien peoples to our symbol bow. 23 Surmount the terrors of Antarctic seas ! O'er berg and glacier gain the crowning goal Well-guarded as the old Hesperides ! Unfurl thy glory at the nether pole ! 24 REGRET WITH apple bloom the trees were white, But summer now fulfills the hope of spring ; The years, how have they taken flight ! For years are numbered since that blossoming. A memory shapes before my eyes, One blossom, sweetest of that roofing sweet, And I a-reach for flowery prize When thou, so near, wast sweetness all complete. Ah, had I known ! Ah, had I known ! Self-doomed to haunt the shades, of thee bereft, I mourn indeed those moments flown ; I grieve that in my culling thou wast left. Then to yon cottage, once thy home, I turn as Moslem will at muezzin turn. What spacious temple, what high dome. Can so compel me, and my heart concern ? Yonder my temple, dome, and shrine ; And on its walls a face whose like I keep Fadeless and faultless in me ; thine. Yes thine ! my dream in waking and in sleep. This much of thee, while life shall last, Wrests from another nothing of his right ; ' I paint me pictures of the past. Dear household pictures round thy presence bright. My loss, I paint it evermore With brush rich-dyed in every joy I miss. I frame thee eager at our door To end my absence with a wifely kiss. 25 I paint, in beauty at thy side, A child that should in all resemble thee. Caressing her with parent pride, I know my fondness stirs not jealousy. Thou hast of gentle gifts the range. A very woman fit for every test, Thou keepest faith though others change. All this in thee had made my living blest Had I but known ! Had I but known ! Self-doomed to haunt the shades of thee bereft I mourn indeed those moments flown ; I grieve that in my culling thou wast left. 26 SUMMER AND THE BIRD CONG and blossom-scented breath of May, ^ Sweets of yonder bough, the breezes bring; Breezes that bestrew the grassy way. White and fragrant with their scattering. Summer, thralled by one I joy to hear, Will her wonted term no more await. Wooing, winning bird ! to hold her near, Every wood-note, thine, reiterate. When shall bloom this valley round her feet, Morning bids thee splash the pebbly rills ; Noon persuades thee to some dim retreat, Twilight calls to where the fountain spills : Night winds cradle soft the birdling's rest Thou hast woven in love's favoring tree ; Moons, unshadowed, gild the roofing crest ; Stars, auspicious, look all tenderly. When to Summer palls thy liquid spell, Then, deserted midst the wan leaves* fall, Thou in heart free song dissemblest well Lest thy loneliness appear to all. 27 BIRDIE T? VERY latest leaf has gone, -■— ' And the South has bid you on. Birdie, by the wooded walk, In the branching maple's fork, Hangs an empty nest. Many times a pauser here Just to catch your morning cheer, Well enough I knew that nigh, Somewhere, somewhere, O you sly ! Lay your hidden home. At my feet a broken shell Doth to-day a secret tell. Birdie, not for me were flung. Not for me, the notes that sprung From your heart of joy. All that singing in the sun, All that pleasing, was for one Who, so careful of her brood, Chose the safer solitude Of the gloomiest tree. Birdie, 'neath a roofing palm Shape the dwelling hid from harm ! Should the passer in his pride Think for him your notes are tried, Let him learn as I ! 28 THE SKYLARK T TP from the prisoning gloom of night, ^^ Yon tiny bird the air doth smite ; Attains he ever in the height Though broad wings fail in weaker flight. Where far the dome of morn grows bright, He dwindles from the straining sight. Hark! midst the utmost film of white, To earth and heaven he pours delight ! 29 THE SECRET T UST behind the curtain, by the new leaves ^ made, Hides the secret, newest secret of the shade. Fairer, fairer is it than the summer hue Fairest June outspreads above ; her daily blue. Ah, the blue shall brighten nevermore the nest Now a swinging, gently swinging, now at rest. Little mouths are open, little throats complain Mother, mother, careful mother, come again ! ' Chooseth she to linger ? Whither would she fly?" Peace, you birdlings, hungry birdlings, she is by ! Quick I drop the curtain ; quicker her alarm. Timid, timid, think you I would do them harm ? 30 A SONG OF JOY T ITTLE bird, little bird that I hear ; -■— ' What a grief you have told ! From the heart of the thicket appear, For the shadows are cold ! Comes a joy with the morning's increase, And the sky brightens o'er. Bid the night-fostered sadness to cease From your throat evermore- Shun the grove lest it burden your lay ! Let no heaviness be ! Spread your wings for the fields, and away To the sun-favored tree ! Looking thence, on the open, repine Through no profitless hour ! There the clover distilleth its wine. And the weed beareth flower. There the daisy and buttercup spring. And the rose is a fire New-enkindled, a love-lighted thing Long the season's desire. There the hawthorn bloomed sweet by the well. Overhanging the brink. Till the May-joying white of it fell Where the wild creatures drink. Lo, the violet, freshening in dew Till the sun fills her eye, Hath a boon from the favoring blue, From the deep of the sky ! 31 And the bee in his round goeth gay, As he toils and he feeds ; And the winds through the meadows, at play. Float the feather-like seeds. And the grasses are rank from the rain Whence the fountains are fed. Soon the corn groweth up and is grain, Or the wheat in its stead ; And the apple is shaped from the blow That it redden and fall. And the yield of the vineyard shall glow By the blast-breaking wall. Through such days, every moment a joy, Are the Earth's doings done. Learn her praise that it be your employ As her good helping one ! Bringing cheer to your new-gotten seat. All the faith in you bring Though repiners their doublings repeat Where the night shadows cling ! 32 MAY-TIME T3 RINGING, bringing to the boughs a singing, -■-^ Cometh bright the May. Springing, springing, flowers, her own, are flinging Odors down the way. Lead us to the sunny glade. And the borders of the shade ! Lead us to the piney wood, And the whispering solitude ! Never rose a fitter day ; Onward lead us, Onward, May ! Peeping, peeping from the vines low-creeping. Greet us pink and white ! Leaping, leaping, streamlet never sleeping, Dance a measure light! Merry brook and blossomed sweet, One will prove your joy a cheat When his throat of music mild Wakes the sadness of the wild. Listening to the gentle lay. Thou shalt sorrow, tender May. 33 SOUL MATING T IKE some resplendent star -*— ' That cheers the bosom of the lonely sea, Thy faithful soul from far A joy has brought, a happiness, to me. O lavish star and soul ! Unstinted givers of your light and love ! What though the years onroll ! True love endures, and so the light above. Ere ever stars obeyed, Or ocean waited for the welcome shine, Creation's law was made; That sweet compelling which doth hold thee mine. Love was thy guide O star ! It drew and bound thee to the waiting deep. Thou soul ! not any bar Could from its own thy destined being keep. 34 YOUR EYES WOULD I behold where falls the purest light Of orbs unequalled in the cloudless night, I leave the morning West, the evening skies, And turn, a lover, to your tender eyes That catch a beam of some celestial star. Beyond my seeing, in the deeps afar ; A hint of beauty dwelling in God's mind ; An urge of something that the soul should find. 35 MY MORNING-TIME TVyTY morning-time, again your skies are flushing ; -*-^-'- My sun of life, your earliest light appears. Upon its rays remembered scenes come rushing That fail me never through the after years. The after years, the after years, The heaven-appointed after years. From this, my window, all the vision meets me ; Beneath my childhood's roof is glimpsed again The bygone yester. In each room it greets me As long I linger at the magic pane. The magic pane, the magic pane, The well-revealing magic pane. Yon darksome clouds were only half a sorrow ; As now appearing, ever have they been. A hue of glory each did rightly borrow From some sweet neighboring joy, its helpful kin. Its helpful kin, its helpful kin. Its heaven-begotten helpful kin. My heart is quickened to a springtime measure, A pulse and rhythm loved and learned of old. My song is lifted to the gifts I treasure ; High heavens-outpouring from her wealth of gold. Her wealth of gold, her wealth of gold, Her never-failing wealth of gold. Shine father, mother, framed in this good dawning! Shine sister, brother, in this rising bright ! Shine youth, our guest ! Again it is the morning When we were thine, and thou our young delight. Our young delight, our young delight, Our never-aging young delight. 36 CHOPIN AT THE PIANO T_TE sees the sun-kissed lily, and, beside, -■- ^ Unwooed of day, the night-flower's modest bloom. He sees the orange spray upon the bride, And ah, the wreathed farewell within the tomb. He hears the mating call at flush of spring, The grieving of the grove-hid hermit bird. The tree-top anthem, pines a whispering, And thunder's awsome inarticulate word. Hoarse ocean's wrath doth cadence to a sigh ; Sweet, wildly sweet, the themes of brook and fall ; In rocky bed the torrent hurleth by ; Loud seas are booming on the barrier wall, And Poland, thou dost lend thy heart-com- plain ; But now, torn prey of foes, is voiced that time When soldier-kings did valorously sustain The broad dominion of thy vanquished prime. Revives, in palace hall, the festal day. The stately dancing of the king-led high ; Returns, 'neath peasant roof, the lissom sway, The grace, untaught, wherewith no art can vie. 37 Again, again the bitter mastering grief ! Lost battle, and the unachieving brave, Prompt requiem, and those drops of heart-relief The patriot pours upon his country's grave. What change ! What wizard change ! In turn supreme, Each mood the player conjures from his soul Till all the gamut sings the poet dream Wherein he liveth years of joy and dole. 38 BERCEUSE ^TT^HOU seest, child, the cherub wings -*- So near I almost see. Kind Heaven unto thy slumber sings, Nor quite denies to me. Dream on that dream-compelling song Star-born as song can be ; An earthward message from the throng That choirs eternally. The rapt, resounding notes grow mild, In passage down the deep. Till hovering guardians voice, my child, A whisper to thy sleep. What brook had e'er that silvery purl ? What breeze that sweet complaint? What harp such wildering, fairy whirl ? What bird such love-restraint ? Thou, Chopin, for an hour made young. Didst catch the whisper clear. Heaven's inmost, to the man unsung, The child in thee could hear. 39 THE SEA PROWLER T OOK, lurking in the merchant ways a sail ! -■■^ 'Tis she, the terror of the traveled main ! Not ever from her deck a cheery hail Greeteth the passer. No ! her masts will strain With keen pursuing should the prey appear. And then a flash, the cannon's harsh command, The stern defiance and the scorn of fear. The high heart-purpose of the little band, Unmentioned heroes of the losing fray Whose witness is the writing angel. Lo, The page awaits that one supremest day Wherein the nations shall its brightness know, For then the records of the world are writ. And Justice on her judgment seat doth sit. 40 LEVIATHAN TjROUD monarch throned upon the proudest wave -■- Afar they sweep those liquid realms of thine. The caverned Sea reveals her grandest cave Beaming with treasure of her richest mine; But thou wilt not the wall, the roof, though kings Believe a palace in a prison fair, And have their joy in such alluring things As gild thy passage to the domed air. Leviathan; the world above thy birth, Finding the waters in that natal hour, Thy need fulfilled with vital breath whose dearth Would prove the ending of thy prime of power. To some anointed, crowned, acclaimed as king, That fate befell amidst their honoring. 41 THE HARPER pURE as yon planet of the golden eve, -*- Is every haunting measure, harper fair, Gold-crowned with wealth and glory of thy hair. A soulful, rapt Cecilia, wholly leave The downward gazing thou who dost perceive. In thy star-search, the twilight realms of blue Whereof thine eyes have caught the deepening hue. Find, for this pensive hour, the notes that grieve, The plaintive chords thy fingers deft should weave. Forget the joy of sun-enlightened day. The joy turned sadness at the dying beam, Or sound the music of some far away More restful sweet than any waking theme, And harking, hearing, we indeed shall dream. 42 MARGUERITE IN THE GARDEN T3 EHOLD, his face is imaged on the deep, •^^ The limpid calm, the yet unsounded sea. That till this hour thy bosom hid from thee. Ah, which is better, to rejoice, or weep? Ah, which is loss, to wholly lose, or keep ? Kind seems the hand from whence these flowers, and he These jewels left that maid so fair might be Even more fair. Pray what shall Hope yet reap From this, and one sweet, courteous look and word ? He comes ! Be still O heart so newly stirred ! He speaks ! Be virgin-mannered modest maid ! He woos ! Now is thy spinning all forgot, And Love's first garden, and the twilight shade Of Eden, grow around what Love has wrought. How ill-companioned thou, O Faust, to-night ! Stands yon thy master with a friendship feigned. Alas the woman ! Her pure heart is pained Lest love prove faithless lust that shuns the light. And brings unto her paradise its blight. Stoop, stoop and crawl, O presence unexplained ! She thus should know thee serpent. Leave ungained Thy demon quest, and hellward take thy flight ! Behold, her ^ul of faith, thy scorn, false one ! Thy servant's plaything now, shall yet defy Thine utmost, and, though seemingly undone. In death's strong moment find the farthest sky. Therefrom her angel influence shall go To lift her lover from the final woe. 43 ON READING THE SECOND PART OF GOETHE'S FAUST 13 Y Love uplifted, knowledge shall in thee •^^ Attain to Wisdom, leaven of thy days. Abide ! God's purpose bids thee here abide Till, free amidst the flowery snares of earth. Thou loathest all that bound thy lustful heart. Again, O Faust, the tempter and the toil ! Again enticement by the fiend devised ! Behold her! Helen conjured from the years, The Grecian years, the memorable past ! O joy ! O marvel ! Final, full escape ! The artist and the poet, inly born, Fulfill with purer sight thine eyes, thy thought With Love's first prompting pure, thy lofty dreams With goal most lofty, all-inclusive Love. Because in thee is Wisdom Love-inspired, Thou slippest daily from the grasp of one Deeming that more he knows whom less he knows With every bounty by his guile bestowed. Stranger to Wisdom since from Heaven he turned, Both love and lust confounds he evermore ; To him both rule and station prompt man's pride, Occasion moves indeed the grasping hand. And covetous heart, and all that makes for Hell. Hail ! man of noble aim approved of eyes Immortal ! Hail ! thou philanthropic wise ! Thy years, a hundred, quench the glance abroad On every benefaction of thine age. But Time wide-opens now the clearer eye 44 Deed-searching to the very real of life. Hail ! Hail ! for whom the welcoming portals turn ! Hail ! Hail ! thou welcomed of the choiring host ! Hail ! Hail ! Great Love attained, even Gretchen, draws Attained Wisdom to herself, while he The Fiend, twice-cheated of his demon end, To Heaven has lost the plotted gain of Hell. 45 TO BLANCHE /| LET me strive, for dear Love's sake, ^^ To touch thy heart's most hidden string ! And music, hushed before, shall wake Obedient to my summoning. O let me, sweet, thine eyes explore, Or lose me in their bluest deep ! Renouncing freedom evermore, My soul doth crave such prison keep. O let me, bending o'er thy head. With ardent fingers touch thy hair ! Or let my eager palms, instead, Caress its wealth, a wavy snare ! O let me press thy cheek's ripe rose A-bloom beside the lily's white ! Because the lily chastely blows, The other gives a warm delight. O let me dream, beholding thee, ' Of bashful kisses on thy brow ! Or let the waking rapture be Of lips so near they meet somehow ! And Love, in sudden transport dumb. Needs not one word, one tender phrase, To crown the perfect moment come, Foretelling all the blissful days. 46 THE TEMPLE AND THE CHRIST TT^ROM His bright throne descending, as -^ from yon central sphere, The long-foretold fulfilling, the Master shall appear. His message, His revealing, the Truth where- with He came. Whose inner word, withholden, His lips shall later frame. The mortal birth transcending, the garden and the cross. Doom-shadowed Rome behind Him, and all a people's loss, The Temple veil asunder, the very shrine profaned, The walls and roof a ruin, the place thereof blood-stained, Jerusalem down-trodden, the tribes dispersed afar. Proud Judah's ancient glory a dead and sunken star. He bids a world-wide nation attain the higher way. Arise, His later seeking, and greet the larger day! And hath He not a temple upbuilding through all time? Before historic ages, back in the world's young prime. 47 or THE IlktlWCTDeiTV Its walls were based on service, on duty man to man, And love to all beneath him in Love*s embrac- ing plan. In mass and strength and beauty, the lifted pile doth grow With never noise of shaping, nor jar of hammer blow. Bring not the gold of Ophar, not what the world doth count ! Bring not the fir, the olive, the cedar from the mount ! But bring yourselves, O brothers ! as men before have brought, And bring that sacrificing wherewith the builders wrought Who fashioned and who fitted how oft with martyr's hand ! And with their blood cemented that so the building stand. Upon its daily growing Shekinah pours His light, The Silent Watcher looketh whose Unit Ray is white. In turn the "Sacred Seven,*' their nightly journey through. And every distant Center, looks from the deep- ening blue. Hid in the outer pillars, the Temple records bide. By master-workmen written, and fellow-crafts beside. 48 The secret Name is blazing within an upper room, Jerusalem prepares her to greet the heavenly Groom. Behind the Temple curtain is syllabled the Word; The three-fold veil is parting, and mysteries are heard By ears one day made ready, at length by all ; and then The Truth is to the nations, the brotherhood of men. 49 THE PRODIGAL SON A^/ ITHIN the many-mansioned house on high — ^ ^ The Father visible, His table spread, And all in common — one did choose, instead, The life self-love, the self-deceived, would try, The sapping pleasures of this world awry In Truth's appointed orbit. Downward sped, Self-guided seeker, now his feet are led Far as the farthest of the lands which lie Beneath the glory of the sleepless eye. Dread famine and the pinch of want are there. Bankrupt of substance as the fruitless ground, Must he, the great King's son. Creation's heir. Self-bound to beasts unclean, forego the grain. And, with the husks of Wisdom, ease his pain. Self-parted from thy source art thou, O son. In whose own hand is held the chastening rod ! Look up, companion of the vilest clod ! Looking, thine empty wandering is done For looking is the heart-return begun. Knowest the ladder by the angels trod In bright ascension to the throne of God ? E'en such the lifting rungs thy feet have won. Seest the Father? Seeing, ere thy sight. He hurries, bringing, from his open door, Embrace and kiss the double pledge of yore. "These shoes thy strength, this robe thy princely power. This ring, my child, reunion from this hour, ' Come ! feast on Wisdom ! 'Tis thy heavenly right." 50 THE MARRIAGE AT CANA T Tow deep the wine of earthly passion stains -*- -■' Man's life, pure-flowing from the heavenly spring, Till he, God's vessel, seems a common thing More carnal grown with every cup he drains. 'Tis marriage feast, but ah, its mid-hour wanes ! "They have no wine" the Mother Mary spake, Whereat the Master, for the people's sake. Foreshowing that to which mankind attains, " Fill now the vessels even to the brim ! " "Draw out and serve the governor of the feast ! " 'Tis passion purged, transformed to love by Him, They drink at Cana even to the least. Ah, rosy wine, the people thirst in vain ! Delayest yet until the worse they drain? 51 TRUE RICHES ** Sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me." ^TT^HE dross of earthly nature men will choose -■- Though heavenly treasure wait at reach of hand. The little held, the larger grasp they lose, And in the eye of Wisdom empty stand. "Transmute thy wealth to what, outvaluing dross, By heaven's divinest alchemy is gold Which given, thou in nothing knowest loss Since all the heights repay thee. Be enrolled With those high, humble ones, those followers mine Dispensing substance and receiving power. Then are the poor enriched and, law divine, Thyself acquirest in that mutual hour. Shunning my path, or in it turning back, With all thy having thou dost one thing lack." 52 i LIGHT "And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." OLOVE ! O Light ! O Word-begotten Sun ! Thou vibrant Word to orbs that in their course Sound back thy giving to its parent source As Memnon singing at the morn begun, Or Rishi lifting, when the dark is done, His heart-orison to the greater Heart. Is there that loveth ? He in Love hath part ; In Light he lives for Love and Light are one. Beats there a heart where naught of Love abides ? The fiend, self-blinded, o'er that night presides Though Love stand knocking, knocking, and should say, "I am in thee; thou art in me." Alas ! Man's mortal self Love-Light can never pass ! That wall of gloom withstands the shining day. 53 THE TEN VIRGINS THE oil of love enkindled in the heart, They go, the wise and foolish, every one. Since love of self is but love's poorer part, It dulls and fades till fools are all undone. Ah, when the Bridegroom comes, how can they borrow Seeing the wise have only what they ought? 'Tis midnight, and no sign foretells the morrow; Hence, fools, and buy such oil as can be bought ! Vain purchase in whose plenty is decrease ! Vain journey, and vain knocking at the door ! Folly doth enter never into peace ; Her lamps, renewed, burn lurid as before. When to her heavenly Groom the soul aspires, Love's purest oil must feed the nuptial fires. 54 THE GOOD SAMARITAN Tj^ROM Salem, city of his soul's defense, -*- The holy city round about his days, One journeyed till the fiends of recompense Did rob and rend him in the dangerous ways. Self-righteousness in priestly garb passed by, Likewise the Levite, on the other side. Holding it just that broken there he lie. They shewed no mercy, and its law denied. From David's city coming not, there came One deemed a sinner, yet a man withal. Brother, whose human need outweigheth blame ! Thine ills, sin wrought, I soothe and, lest thou fall, With thy dead heaviness my beast shall bend Unto the refuge where thy soul shall mend." 55 THE PARABLE OF THE VINE /^ LIFE, thou fruitful and eternal Vine ^^ Deep-rooted in the heart of Mystery ! Unnumbered worlds are branches but of thee Whose rightful vintage is the heavenly wine, The nectar nourishing a godly line. And yet, surpassing strange ! thy yield can be Mere emptiness, or all perversity. This known, the Master saith, "Ye all are Mine, Such branches being as your wine shall prove, Or barren things the which shall God remove. Whoso is fruitful purging maketh pure : Unfruitfulness in nowise can endure. Hateful in presence and in very name. Cast it to rubbish and consuming flame !" 56 LOVE-WISDOM ** Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." ^'T~^IS thy conceit that knowledge guideth thee -*" To that one place where Wisdom doth abide, Life's hidden Heart, its central Mystery. Thereto Love leadeth, Love alone ; but pride Of knowledge doometh to the dark and small Thy soul self-hindered from the shining sphere. So she, deluded, blind, ignores the All ; Love-Wisdom round about her, far but near. In that pure Love the babe well typifies, That Wisdom just beneath the straining eye Of him deemed prudent, and the worldly wise, Is found the seeking of the humble High. Why search the sea ? Why deeply dig the mine ? Thy wealth is gathered to that heart of thine. 57 THE PARABLE OF THE LEAVEN r\ MIND ! O Love ! O Life ! Thou Father One ! ^^ High-ruling and down-reaching only Power ! Great God Triune who doth all worlds endower ; Even this thy humblest Mind-born, Love-born son ! Lo, when the Word vibrated, and 'twas done. Thou leaven wast, and, always, since that hour, In worlds Thou hidest, therefore shall they tower Unto the kingdom ere all time has run. O mind ! O love ! O life ! Thou man on earth ! Debased, debased, and yet a deathless thing ! The threefold enters, for thy leavening, Thyself threefold as all that gave thee birth. Far as God's reach, Himself shall leaven be, Lifting the creature from mortality. 58 DIVINE HEALING '* Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils." \ X ZHEN Jesus, Master of Compassion, spake, ^ ^ Straightway the twelve on mercy's mission went Self-seeking never, but with love-intent. Abjuring self, for their high calling's sake, That profit scorning which the worldly take. Each so became God's faithful instrument, A purest purpose with the God-power blent When He the bonds of mortal pain did break. If Jesus once again command think ye A mortal creature should exact the fee God being healer ? Ah, what common greed ! What sophistry ! What shallow self-deceit That so one gain that plenty, mortal sweet, Unto the covetous heart a loss indeed ! 59 THE LAST REVIEW May 24, 1865 T TNFURLED to-day the flag of triumph waves ; ^^ For final victory it floateth free. Teller of finished war; bright badge of peace; Sweet pledge of union, every star restored, On roofs, the loftiest, it proud proclaims The loyal hour of celebration due. Ye hosts that bivouaced by the capitol ! Armies of Georgia and the Tennessee ! Defenders ! Vindicators ! Glory winners On southern and on western fields renowned ! Awakened why ere yet the bugle bade .? No powder scent was in the early air. The smoke has lifted, and the thunder sleeps ; For mercy suing lies the broken foe, And ye, as ready as in war, forgive. Encampers round the city of our pride ! Proved rank and file of Sherman*s doughty band ! Those banners waving mean ye mass and march ; These roomy avenues await your tread. Their eager multitudes your last review. Hark ! ' tis the war-drum's reminiscent roll ; The swell of brass, the cornet's piercing call. The trombone's tune heroic, and the shout Of fervor waxing as in view the wide And solid phalanx moves majestic yon. With tread athletic, firm, of tough campaigners. Draw near ye sun-tanned ! Show the scars ye won. Proud battle-marks by beauty never scorned. Show all that tells the hero hailed of men, 60 Beloved of women ; aye, the bravest brave Our pulses stirring and our breasts to-day. The mettled chargers ! How they champ and fret, Impatient for the guns, the cannonade. The tumult of the battle-turning hour ! The bayonets, dread reminders of the charge. Shun now the hearts of fratricidal foes. Those proven swords, deep-dyed but yesterday, Flash naught of menace 'neath the staring sun. Those prompting bugles, winding not the war. In proud, commemorative halls shall hang. Inflaming drums that urged the conquering van ! Retreat has whirred reluctant in your strokes, And oft your muffled throbbing mourned the dead. Ye polished brazen tubes whose pitiless mouths Have belched destruction through the checked assault ; Wheel on in silence ! Let your throats be dumb ! In silence moving, seek no scenes of blood Ye gunners trained in all your direful task ! Ye flags of battle never trailed in dust. But onward, onward, onward borne till set O'er conquered ramparts high ! With grief we mark, With grief, each crimson stain, reminder sole — Save deathless fame — of bearers fallen ! Now, Like theirs, your dedicated work is done ; A nation's knee of homage bends indeed As through your tatters mourneth soft the wind. Soldiers immune, escaped the death of fields ! You moving wa!l ! Resistless avalanche That rolled with Sherman to the Georgian strand ! Ye thousands, tens of thousands, tramping 'neath 61 The festal hangings of this holiday ! Better your faded blue, a beauty more Than flowers the hand of Love is flinging; yea, More royal seeming its dear, patriot hue Than purple splendor of the Tyrian years. With mein most martial, steady now ye ranks ! Behold, the moment tense, the moment proud. The moment of all moments cometh ! There He sits ! your chief with brow scarce eased of care. And eyes of vigil, thankful eyes though sad With dreaming down the weary past. Alas ! From his just place another looks ! another ! Not his the pen that signed the slave's release Making yon ample and historic dome The symbol of a larger liberty. With Vicksburg sieged and fallen, in the rear, And Chattanooga's rough campaigning done, Atlanta prize of war. Savannah yours. The Carolina days indeed behind. And all that prompts the hostile hand to hand, Henceforth behold in retrospect this seat Of rule and centered power, the peopled ways, The cheering multitudes, the gay festoons, The banners flying, and the garlands flung. Leave now the side by side of comrades proved In camp and bivouac, victory, repulse ! Leave now the tall-domed capitol, the chief Of armies, navies, him the martyred king — Uncrowned of Earth — down-looking from the heavens ! All this a memory grown of martial times, Move on into the civic walks of peace ! 62 Its duties, trials, real and stern as any. Shall discipline each day the warrior's heart. Move on to all that makes the citizen ; To all that makes a happy, prosperous nation ! Move on ; move on to suffer self-defeat Should e'er the soldier waver in your breast ! 63 A SONQ OF LABOR 'T^HE Earth from her fullness of blessing, -*• predestined for man, Made ready the prizes of labor ere Eden began. No Eden to thrive without keeping would Wisdom ordain ; No garden to idlers free-giving what labor should gain. By labor the body hath living, by labor the soul Whose Author, by labor unceasing, preserveth the whole. An earning, more sweet to his mouth than unmerited bread. With sweat of his brow yet upon him, man eateth instead. When forth to the ground and its tilling, God drave from the gate The fallen midst pleasure and plenty, they sorrowed at fate ; Then strengthened their hearts unto toil, unto labor indeed. As yet must the sons of far Adam, his laboring seed. Men turned the thick sod of the meadow, nor knew of the plow ; With wood and with stone was the digging; rude seemeth it now. 64 At length, for the saving of sinews, they tore from the hill, And smelted and hammered the iron, a plow for us still. The bullock could draw, and the horse proved a need-serving thing ; The ass and the camel were bearers, but man, he was king. The paddle was plied on the river, the sail and the oar Returned, with the weight of much getting, the ship to the shore. And therefore with joy of possession, man's toil did increase; High-dreaming of labors unnumbered, he dreamed without cease. To dream and to do was he shapen from more than the dust; Not dreaming, not doing, he dieth all eaten of rust. Men builded them cities and dwellings ; cour- ageous they wrought ; With stone and with brick they engirt them for this was their thought, " The others with wealth we have gotten their coflFers would fill ; A lusting for riches upon them, they plan but our ill." Soon, soon came the seige and the sacking, and labor was lost. 65 Defenses down-battered to ruin, the toil and the cost Quick-leading to smoke and to slaughter, O why trouble more ! Arise ! 'tis your birthright to labor. Be men as before ! And thus, down the ages, the ring of the spirits clear cry ! The spirit of Love, stern compeller, drives low unto high. We think of the place of our fathers, with pity we think, Though dwarfish they groped in a hollow, we gaze from the brink.*' Alas for our pride ! From some peak the bold climbers will say, *The span of your vision seems short unto blindness to-day. You talked with the sea-sundered nations ; we ask of the stars To teach us save what, from their searching, the Infinite bars. "Weak wings for precarious flight took your hazarding few ; We float where the cloud floats, well-shaming the winds that pursue. We lift to the soft, lulling voyage when the east is unfurled ; We traverse the pole, the equator, the roof of the world. 66 "We skim the wide regions of fruitage from desert reclaimed By Labor the God-serving, man-serving; Labor the famed. He ploughs the arenas of battle ; he sows where they fought When neighbor would turn upon neighbor by passion distraught. "We frown upon such as incline to luxurious ease, The pampered, the proud, and the slothful. Our hive is for bees. We gather in one common storing, and share what we earn That never to rancor and envy the hearts of us turn. "We break not the coal from the strata, the Earth's buried store, A mine and a use unto peoples who labored of yore. Why kindle bituminous flame, or the wood flame instead. While daily the huge cosmic dynamo flames overhead ? "The axman must plant when he felleth the good forest tree; From creatures that raven and trouble its shadows are free. There roam our brute brothers unrisen to man's elder line, Our kin through a bond, all-inclusive, that sages define. 67 "How faithful the alchemist, lighting his crucible flame ! How faithful replenishing ever though joy never came ! We prove him a prophet dispraised, one who died without sight Save that to the prophet God-granted, a glimpse of the light. "Why groweth the seed to its kind the good reason we show ; The seed that continues the kingdom of high or of low. How kingdoms would mix to confusion! but Nature foresaw. The cause we expound of their thwarting, the deep-hidden law. " Prepared for our mightiest doing, is harnessed the sun; Behold ! from the ultimate atom a marvel is won. How crawled on the highways the horseless, your chariot pride, Till we, the great planet-subduers, were ready to ride. "Our ships, the unsinkable sailors by storm never veered. Are fearing the fury of ocean as zephyrs are feared. We steer 'neath the sweep of his waters through every zone ; We seek in the midmost sea cave lest a thing be unknown." 68 "We live as our fathers have lived, but we double their years ; The plagues of the body we banish, the causes of tears ; Our faith wholly merged in foreknowledge, life's riddle we know; Let dust be our doom, we despair not; undying we go.'* The Earth with her fullness of blessing, pre- destined for man. Made ready the prizes of labor ere Eden began ; And on to the latest high glory her tribes shall attain. The children of men will be telling what labor doth gain. 69 KING EDWARD 'Tr^HE Earth has passed her morning time, -*- The fever of her youth abates, A calm is coming to her prime ; God speed the promise man awaits ! The Earth grows wiser till the flame Of kindled and rekindled strife To her is hateful, and war's name Is coupled with the savage life. She calls her chiefest, as of old, But bids them, choosing, shun the sword. She half disdains the warrior mould Where men were shapen at her word. The crowned is but her steward high On whom may royal wisdom wait That, looming in the public eye. He merit blessing more than hate ! Loved King ; once filling empire's throne ! The olive to thy heart was dear ; For thee a people make their moan, And drops the universal tear. The realms abroad, and every isle. Have known a reign so mild and just That sovereign Edward seemed, the while, A servant faithful to his trust. His brief and busy rule is done ; How swift his orb ! we sadly say ; But deeds, well ended as begun. Were more the measure of his day. 70 To smooth all differings ere the stroke That leads to many, was his gift ; To quench disaster ere the smoke That spreads alarm, could skyward lift. From Dover cliff to Calais shore Fly auguries of war's decrease And Agincourt, and Crecy's roar, Have sunk to wooing words of peace. No more those jealousies, accursed, Which shook Sebastopol, return ; Of hate no more such hot outburst To Europe's very heart shall burn, For he, who did no gauntlet fling. Would have the nations nearer one. He showed the purpose of a king As should Victoria's royal son. A man, and then a monarch, he, Requiring all of deference due. Craved naught for Edward ; place must be That worthy mountain, well in view, Where England's glory gilds the crest, And Australasia pours her light. And Canada's high star doth rest, And India's beam is orient bright. Though war lords prate of right divine, The people did through Edward rule. Who vaunts the privilege of line Doth babble even as the fool. 71 The praise of kings our land has heard Though kingless save as God doth crown, But *' brother '* was a binding word Ere kings had gotten their renown. We greeted once the generous youth ; The prince unto our hearts came nigh ; We mourn the king, but ah, in truth. The all-death-sundered brother tie. O'er Britain may no cloud be drawn Save that of sorrow for her head ! That cloud shall brighten as the morn For lo, he joins the risen dead ! ^ OF THE UNIVERSITY Of Td ^^04^7 '(ixr\%\iyr. 20321:;