UNIVERSITY FARM 
 
POEMS AND PLAYS 
 
 BY 
 
 PERCY MACKAYE 
 POEMS 
 
WORKS BY PERCY MACKAYE 
 
 DRAMAS 
 
 THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS. A COMEDY. 
 JEANNE D'ARC. A TRAGEDY. 
 SAPPHO AND PHAON. A TRAGEDY. 
 FENRIS THE WOLF. A TRAGEDY. 
 A GARLAND TO SYLVIA. A DRAMATIC 
 
 REVERIE. 
 THE SCARECROW. A TRAGEDY OF THE 
 
 LUDICROUS. 
 
 YANKEE FANTASIES. FIVE ONE-ACT PLAYS. 
 MATER. AN AMERICAN STUDY IN COMEDY. 
 ANTI-MATRIMONY. A SATIRICAL COMEDY. 
 TO-MORROW. A PLAY IN THREE ACTS. 
 A THOUSAND YEARS AGO. A ROMANCE OF 
 
 THE ORIENT. 
 THE IMMIGRANTS. A LYRIC DRAMA. 
 
 MASQ UES 
 
 SAINT LOUIS. A Civic MASQUE. 
 SANCTUARY. A BIRD MASQUE. 
 THE NEW CITIZENSHIP. A Civic RITUAL. 
 CALIBAN. A SHAKESPEARE MASQUE. 
 
 POEMS 
 
 THE SISTINE EVE, AND OTHER POEMS. 
 URIEL, AND OTHER POEMS. 
 LINCOLN. A CENTENARY ODE. 
 THE PRESENT HOUR. 
 
 ESSAYS 
 
 THE PLAYHOUSE AND THE PLAY. 
 THE CIVIC THEATRE. 
 A SUBSTITUTE FOR WAR. 
 
 AT ALL BOOKSELLERS 
 
Photo by Arnold Genthe, N.Y. 
 
 PERCY MACKAYE 
 
POEMS AND PLAYS 
 
 BY 
 
 PERCY MACKAYE 
 
 IN TWO VOLUMES 
 
 VOLUME I 
 POEMS 
 
 Nefo 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1916 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1909, 1914, 
 Bv THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1912, 
 BY PERCY MACKAYE. 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1916, 
 
 BY PERCY MACKAYE. 
 
 Collected edition published April, 1916. 
 
 Copyright in Great Britain and Ireland and in all countries of the copyright union. 
 
 All rights reserved, including rights of translation into foreign languages, including 
 the Scandinavian. 
 
 J. 8. Gushing Co. Berwick & Smith Co. 
 Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 NEW POEMS FOR "THE PRESENT HOUR" 
 
 LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 
 
 URIEL, AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 THE SISTINE EVE, AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 672 / 
 
PREFACE TO COLLECTED POEMS 
 AND PLAYS 
 
 IN accepting the invitation of the publishers to 
 collect a portion of my published work within the 
 compass of two volumes, poems and plays, the oc 
 casion seems fitting for me to comment on some phases 
 of it as related to the reading public. 
 
 While the writer was still in his teens, he said to 
 himself: "There is my life-work; it rises over there 
 beyond : I can see its large outlines. I will give my 
 self till I am forty to do its 'prentice work : then per 
 haps I may be ready to tackle the real job that 
 vision which lies there alluring, waiting to be realized." 
 
 Now, then, here is forty; and here is some of the 
 'prentice work gathered together; yet as far as con 
 cerns myself, apprenticeship has hardly begun : the 
 real life-work still beckons, unrealized, away there 
 
 vii 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 beyond. For this reason, in submitting to the read 
 er's interest the works here collected, I should like 
 to introduce them anew rather as the by-gleanings of 
 a journey but just set forth upon, than in any sense 
 the product of a goal attained. As such, I have 
 gathered together the contents of these two volumes. 
 
 The volume Poems contains all of my published 
 poems to date. It is a complete edition, not a se 
 lected edition. That is, it does not represent any 
 selective choice on my part, but simply a reprinting in 
 one volume of my four volumes, "The Present Hour," 
 "Uriel" (by courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Co.), 
 "Lincoln Centenary Ode" and "The Sistine Eve," 
 to which are added ten new poems ("Dance Mo 
 tives" to "Christmas 1915") in part an after 
 math of "The Present Hour" not till now collected 
 since their appearance in magazines. Thus the volume 
 begins with my most recent work in verse, and pro 
 ceeds, in backward time sequence, to my earliest 
 published poems. 
 
PREFACE ix 
 
 Of my Plays, since not more than five could bulk 
 conveniently in one volume, I have selected to 
 represent both verse and prose " The Canterbury 
 Pilgrims," "Jeanne d'Arc," "Sappho and Phaon," 
 "The Scarecrow," and "Mater," in the order of their 
 first publication. The selection, therefore, does not 
 include seven other of my published play-volumes, 
 nor my four published Masques. 
 
 Here, then, are two volumes, chiefly of verse, sub 
 mitted to the reading public. Very little of their 
 contents, however, was first written for the reading 
 public. Of the poems, though many have appeared 
 in magazines, almost none has been written for them. 
 Indeed three-fourths of all my published work, poems 
 and plays, has been designed primarily for the listening 
 public that is, for the ears of convened audiences. 
 In so far as it involves language, the art involved is 
 one wholly of the Spoken Word (not of the written), 
 designed in each case to meet some special problem 
 implied in conveying its idea or image, on tones of the 
 
PREFACE 
 
 human voice, to the imaginations of gathered listeners, 
 less or more in numbers. The voice may be that of 
 the actor, or of the poet speaking. The principle 
 applies as much to poems of occasions (designed to 
 express their distinctive spirits to their special audi 
 ences) as to plays. 
 
 Recently a most wholesome movement has devel 
 oped among American poets, both of vers libre and of 
 rhymed verse forms, emphasizing the immense im 
 portance of the spoken word in poetry, as distinct 
 from its pale shadow on the printed page. This 
 movement will, I think (increasingly as conditions of 
 our theatre improve), tend more and more toward 
 definite dramatic expression on the part of our poets, 
 whether to audiences through actors on the stage, or 
 to audiences gathered to hear the direct utterances of 
 the poets themselves. 
 
 From its beginning my own work has concerned, 
 almost wholly, one or the other of these two technical 
 expressions of the spoken word. Thereby the spoken 
 
PREFACE xi 
 
 substance of these words, which lie here in these vol 
 umes silent (one might almost say, embalmed) in type, 
 has been intimately a part of the vital, throbbing, 
 varied reactions of many thousands of people, to 
 whom the writer as an individual meant and means 
 almost nothing. 
 
 For a passing instance, the opening poem "Fight," 
 which the reader here peruses as a narrative in print, 
 was written to be spoken aloud within sight of those 
 very waters, at Plattsburg, where the last naval battle 
 between English-speaking nations occurred just a 
 century before. I read it from a platform in a field 
 among speeches from representatives of Canada, 
 England and the United States to the thousands 
 that thronged the grandstands, whom it was neces 
 sary to hold as attentive to the folk-theme of a poem 
 as to the political theme of an orator in both cases, 
 only to be accomplished by spell of the spoken word. 
 After it was over, among the crowding groups that 
 gathered round, many of them to deplore the death 
 
xii PREFACE 
 
 of my poem's hero, an old farmer called out to me: 
 " Say, Mister, my grandfather fought in that fight 
 a real fighting cock too he was ! Do you guess that 
 fellow Jock knowed him ? Tell me : got any more of 
 Jock's letters, like he wrote to his sweetheart ? Maybe 
 they'd tell of my grandfather. How about it?" 
 
 Of course I guessed that Jock and his grandfather 
 were chums. That was not the moment (of this 
 printed preface) to explain that Jock's letter to his 
 sweetheart is an imagined one, composed in a stan- 
 zaic form of my own invention. 
 
 So, if space afforded, I might suggest further some 
 of the living human relationships of verse-forms in 
 plays to actors and managers at rehearsals, and to 
 "gods of the gallery" at performances; relationships 
 of which the printed word gives no hint. In the Notes 
 of this volume are listed some of the occasions of the 
 spoken poems exclusive of the acted plays. Pos 
 sibly these bare notes may suggest to the reader that 
 modern poetry, 'applied to specific uses in its universal 
 
PREFACE xiii 
 
 aims, is a thing in demand as alive and many-sided as 
 ever it was in the world's history. I believe it is even 
 more so. 
 
 Three-fourths also of all my work like that of a 
 sculptor, architect, mural or portrait painter has 
 been imagined and executed for definite commissions. 
 
 Seldom, after his art-school days, does the artist in 
 paint or marble have opportunity or inclination to 
 design " Salon-pieces," wholly unrelated to any defi 
 nite placement or function. Quite as seldom may the 
 dramatist, or the poet of the convened audience, de 
 sign his work without thought of a special functioning. 
 
 Such definite " placement " of statue, painting, play, 
 or poem implies, I think, no lessening but rather a 
 heightening of the creative image to be expressed. 
 The Sistine Chapel paintings were no less grandly 
 conceived because they were executed, on special com 
 missions, for definite wall-spaces. The technique of 
 the Greek dramatists was as definitely conditioned by 
 the particular demands of Athenian festivals ; that cf 
 
xiv PREFACE 
 
 the Irish bards by the special needs and folk-customs 
 of their listeners. 
 
 A commission from without, of course, would be 
 futile if it did not correspond to an inward creative 
 desire, which is itself a commission from what used 
 to be personified as "the Muse." Personally I have 
 never accepted a commission, for play or poem, sub 
 ject to any conditions that might retard its natural 
 creative impulse or its execution. Thus accepted, a 
 commission is simply the practical opportunity for a 
 work, already conceived, to be born and to be born 
 with the hopeful assurance of survival. 
 
 Here, chiefly, then, in these two volumes are col 
 lected in print executed commissions of work involving 
 the spoken word: work conceived and executed not 
 for readers as such. 
 
 That this aspect of work by many authors is se 
 curing ever wider circles of readers is a remarkable 
 sign of the times in our country. Especially the 
 reading of plays has enormously increased in America 
 
PREFACE xv 
 
 since The Macmillan Company published, in 1903, 
 the author's first play, "The Canterbury Pilgrims. " 
 Its publication was the first, or among the very first, 
 to make available for readers, through the regular book 
 trade, American dramatic work of the contempora 
 neous theatre. That work, a commission from E. H. 
 Sothern, has been followed by the publication of fur 
 ther of the author's commissions from Sothern and 
 Marlowe, Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Henry Miller, 
 Margaret Anglin, etc., and since 1903 such publication 
 of plays has become a regular part of the business of 
 all important American publishers. These activities 
 have received increasing support from dramatic 
 Leagues and Societies, and especially from the real 
 revival of interest in contemporary drama at the 
 Universities. There the change of attitude has been 
 phenomenal. 
 
 When I graduated from Harvard in 1897, there were 
 no courses there, technical or otherwise, in the modern 
 drama. The official acceptance of my own com- 
 
xvi PREFACE 
 
 mencement part "On The Need of Imagination in 
 The Drama of To-day" was the first official sanction 
 of the subject, which was commented upon by the Bos 
 ton Transcript as being unprecedented in the annals 
 of University discussion, especially at Harvard. 
 
 Not till some seven or eight years later did Professor 
 George P. Baker begin his excellent work there in his 
 courses on dramatic technique itself a pioneering 
 work which has spread to many other universities. 
 
 Contrary, then, to many public statements regard 
 ing my early dramatic training, it was not at Harvard 
 that I received any technical stimulus or education in 
 writing plays. (There, and at Leipsic, the emphasis 
 of my study was upon languages and history.) 
 
 One of my earliest memories is that of a rehearsal 
 of my father's play "Hazel Kirke" in the old Madison 
 Square theatre, New York, of which he was builder, 
 chief actor and director. So much were such rehear 
 sals, and the life on and behind the scenes, a portion of 
 my childhood (as of my life since) that I well recall 
 
PREFACE xvii 
 
 the astonishment I felt when one of my schoolmates 
 confided to me that his father was not a dramatist, 
 and never read aloud his plays to the family at home, 
 and never "made-up" in a stage dressing-room to act 
 the chief parts in his own plays. That was my first 
 dawning realization that our native drama is not 
 intimately a part of our people's life. 
 
 So it was chiefly through familiar association with 
 Steele MacKaye, my father, through the instigations 
 of his wonderfully versatile dramatic genius, as dram 
 atist, actor, stage designer and director, inventor and 
 teacher of his art, as well as with my brother, William 
 Payson MacKaye, an actor and poet rich in promise, 
 who died at the outset of his career, it was with these 
 and their co-workers in the theatre and not in the 
 university that I first became aware of the mag 
 nificent potency of the theatre's art and dedicated 
 my own thought and work to the hope of sharing in its 
 service. 
 
 There remains, in this preface, only to comment 
 
xviii PREFACE 
 
 briefly on those poems, here published for the first 
 time in book form, as additions to " The Present Hour." 
 Those of the "Present Hour/' occasioned by the 
 course of the Great War, were written during the first 
 two months of the war under the compulsion of an 
 irresistible reaction, which prevented my thinking or 
 expressing anything else than its own impulse to ex 
 pression. Then came the numbing sense of the in- 
 effectualness of all expression in the face of such stu 
 pendous forces. Hence the meagre aftermath of these 
 new poems written during the year that has followed. 
 The chief value of the war poems remains, I think, 
 that they record the sincere reactions of an American 
 poet toward events of the most ominous "hour" in 
 the world's history, and that those reactions are in large 
 measure representatively American. As such they 
 may make their slight contribution to the historical 
 psychology of that hour. At the date of this Preface, 
 there are some judgments and expressions (though 
 few) in the war poems which I would modify or clarify 
 
PREFACE xix 
 
 if I were now to revise them. But as this portentous 
 time brings daily its revisions to judgment and feel 
 ing, how could I revise them permanently? I could 
 not, so I have let them stand, unrevised, as at least a 
 true record of true feeling. The few new poems 
 record that increasing sense of the vast complexity 
 of the war which is borne in upon all who seek its 
 just solution. If there be any left in the world to-day 
 to whom this solution seems simple, their belief will 
 hardly, I think, be supported by the disputing his 
 torians of to-morrow. But it is not the poet's function 
 to weigh the minutice of evidence; it is his privilege 
 momentarily to become the kindled focus-point of 
 fiery forces, and to give forth their light and flame 
 according to the tinder of his spirit. 
 
 PERCY MACKAYE. 
 
 NEW YORK, 
 February 14, 1916. 
 
THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
THE VALIANT DEFENDERS 
 
 OF CIVILIZATION 
 
 THE BELGIANS 
 
PREFACE 
 
 POSTERITY alone can correctly estimate and appor 
 tion the right and wrong of the great war in Europe. 
 
 At the present hour, we who look on from neutral 
 America can but judge the war's issues by the facts 
 and arguments laid before us by the press and spokes 
 men of all parties in the conflict. 
 
 By such evidence, the sympathies of our citizens, 
 by overwhelming majority, are with the cause of the 
 Allies. 
 
 In thus sympathizing with the Allies, we do so, 
 I believe, whole-heartedly in the faith (based on the 
 declared policy of English leaders) that they are 
 waging against militarism a fight to lessen world 
 armament and the political oppression of small na 
 tions. If they win and the stipulations of peace 
 should prove otherwise, our revulsion of feeling 
 would surely be commensurate. 
 
 ix 
 
PREFACE 
 
 It is conceivable, though hardly probable, that 
 future evidence may alter our judgment of the bel 
 ligerents. Our reasons remain open to conviction. 
 But no future contingencies can, or should, stay us 
 now from taking thought and expressing it. 
 
 In view of the world-misery involved by the war, 
 our reaction, while dispassionate, cannot possibly 
 be unimpassioned. Not to feel its awful issues 
 passionately would be uncivilized. 
 
 Confronted by moral and social issues of a conflict 
 the most poignant in history, it becomes for us as 
 neutrals, who alone may help to form untainted world- 
 opinion a pressing duty and privilege to express 
 ourselves. 
 
 PERCY MACKAYE. 
 
 CORNISH, NEW HAMPSHIRE, 
 October, 1914. 
 
CONTENTS 
 I. WAR 
 
 PAGE 
 
 FIGHT : THE TALE OF A GUNNER .... . . & 
 
 THE CONFLICT: Six SONNETS . . ^ . . . 29 
 
 1. To William Watson in England . . . . 29 
 
 2. American Neutrality . , . . .30 
 
 3. Peace . . . . . . . 31 
 
 4. Wilson . . . - . Y . . ... . 32 
 
 5. Krappism . . . . .-. . . . 33 
 
 6. The Real Germany . . .- . . . 34 
 THE LADS OF LIEGE . , . . . . .35 
 CARNAGE : Six SONNETS . . . . . * . 38 
 
 1. Doubt . . . . . * . . . . 38 
 
 2. The Great Negation . . * . 39 
 
 3. Louvain . . ..... . . 40 
 
 4. Rheims . . . . . . . ; .41 
 
 5. Kultur . . . .42 
 
 6. Destiny . . . * . . , . .43 
 THE MUFFLED DRUMS . . , . . . . 44 
 
 ANTWERP ..... "' . . . . 46 
 
 MAGNA CARTA . . . . .* . . . . 47 
 
 MEN OF CANADA ....*.". . 50 
 
 FRANCE . . . . . ., ..- . 52 
 
 HAUPTMANN . . , . . . . . .53 
 
 NIETZSCHE . . _v 4 /', *' '', .... .54 
 
 THE CHILD-DANCERS 55 
 
 xi 
 
xii CONTENTS 
 
 PAGR 
 
 BATTLEFIELDS ......... 57 
 
 IN MEMORIAM ......... 58 
 
 A PRAYER OF THE PEOPLES 60 
 
 II. PEACE 
 
 PANAMA HYMN .65 
 
 GOETHALS . . . . . . . . ' . . 68 
 
 A CHILD AT THE WICKET ....>. 71 
 
 HYMN FOR EQUAL SUFFRAGE . . . . . .74 
 
 LEXINGTON . . . . , . . . . 76 
 
 SCHOOL . . . . . . -.- . . . . . 81 
 
 THE PLAYER . . . . . . X' . . 89 
 
 To JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY . . . . .92 
 
 PROLOGUE AND EPILOGUE TO A BIRD MASQUE . . 94 
 THE SONG SPARROW. . .. \ . .... 99 
 
 To AN UPLAND PLOVER . . .. . . , .101 
 
 RAIN REVERY . . . 103 
 
 THE HEART IN THE JAR . 106 
 
 NEW POEMS 
 
 Three Dance Motives 117 
 
 I. Lethe 117 
 
 II. Dionysus . 119 
 
 III. The Chase 120 
 
 The Bandbox Theatre 122 
 
 To"E. A." Edwin Arlington Robinson . . 124 
 
 Charles Klein : Dramatist 125 
 
 Edison 128 
 
 The Return of August . T . . . .132 
 
 Federation 137 
 
 Christmas, 1915 140 
 
 NOTES 141 
 
THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 I 
 WAR 
 
FIGHT 
 
 THE TALE OF A GUNNER 1 
 
 I 
 
 JOCK bit his mittens off and blew his thumbs; 
 He scraped the fresh sleet from the frozen sign : 
 MEN WANTED VOLUNTEERS. Like gusts of brine 
 
 He whiffed deliriums 
 
 Of sound the droning roar of rolling rolling drums 
 And shrilling fifes, like needles in his spine, 
 And drank, blood-bright from sunrise and wild shore, 
 
 The wine of war. 
 
 : In commemoration of the last naval battle between English- 
 speaking peoples. See note at end of volume. 
 
 3 
 
THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 With ears and eyes he drank and dizzy brain 
 Till all the snow danced red. The little shacks 
 That lined the road of muffled hackmatacks 
 
 Were roofed with the red stain, 
 Which spread in reeling rings on icy-blue Champlain 
 And splotched the sky like daubs of sealing-wax, 
 That darkened when he winked, and when he stared 
 
 Caught fire and flared. 
 
 MEN W T ANTED VOLUNTEERS ! The village street, 
 Topped by the slouching store and slim flagpole, 
 Loomed grand as Rome to his expanding soul ; 
 
 Grandly the rhythmic beat 
 Of feet in file and flags and fifes and filing feet, 
 The roar of brass and unremitting roll 
 Of drums and drums bewitched his boyish mood 
 
 Till he hallooed. 
 
 His strident echo stung the lake's wild dawn 
 
 And startled him from dreams. Jock rammed his cap 
 
FIGHT 
 
 And rubbed a numb ear with the furry flap, 
 
 Then bolted like a faun, 
 Bounding through shin-deep sleigh-ruts in his shaggy 
 
 brawn, 
 
 Blowing white frost-wreaths from red mouth agap 
 Till, in a gabled porch beyond the store, 
 
 He burst the door: 
 
 " Mother ! " he panted. " Hush ! Your Pa ain't up ; 
 He's worser since this storm. What's struck ye so ? " 
 "It's volunteers!" The old dame stammered "Oh!" 
 
 And stopped, and stirred her sup 
 Of morning tea, and stared down in the trembling cup. 
 "They're musterin' on the common now." "I know" 
 She nodded feebly; then with sharp surmise 
 
 She raised her eyes : 
 
 She raised her eyes, and poured their light on him 
 Who towered glowing there bright lips apart, 
 
6 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 Cap off, and brown hair towsled. With quick smart 
 
 She felt the room turn dim 
 
 And seemed she heard, far off, a sound of cherubim 
 Soothing the sudden pain about her heart. 
 How many a lonely hour of after-woe 
 
 She saw him so ! 
 
 "Jock!" And once more the white lips murmured 
 
 "Jock!" 
 
 Her fingers slipped ; the spilling teacup fell 
 And shattered, tinkling but broke not the spell. 
 
 His heart began to knock, 
 
 Jangling the hollow rhythm of the ticking clock. 
 "Mother, it's fight, and men are wanted!" "Well, 
 Ah well, it's men may kill us women's joys, 
 
 It's men not boys ! " 
 
 "I'm seventeen! I guess that seventeen " 
 " My little Jock ! " " Little ! I'm six-foot-one. 
 
FIGHT 
 
 (Scorn twitched his lip) You saw me, how I skun 
 
 The town last Halloween 
 At wrastlin'." (Now the mother shifted tack.) " But 
 
 Jean? 
 
 You won't be leavin' Jean?" "I guess a gun 
 Won't rattle her." He laughed, and turned his 
 
 head. 
 His face grew red. 
 
 " But if it doos a gal don't understand : 
 
 It's fight!" "Jock boy, your Pa can't last much 
 
 more, 
 And who's to mind the stock to milk and chore ? " 
 
 Jock frowned and gnawed his hand. 
 "Mother, it's men must mind the stock our own 
 
 born land, 
 
 And lick the invaders." Slowly in the door 
 Stubbed the old worn-out man. "Woman, let be! 
 
 It's liberty: 
 
8 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 "It's struck him like fork-lightnin' in a pine. 
 
 I felt it, too, like that in Seventy-six; 
 
 And now, if 'twa'n't for creepin' pains and cricks 
 
 And this one leg o' mine, 
 I'd holler young Jerusalem like him, and jine 
 The fight; but fight don't come from burnt-out 
 
 wicks ; 
 It comes from fire." "Mebbe," she said, "it comes 
 
 From fifes and drums." 
 
 "Dad, all the boys are down from the back hills. 
 The common's cacklin' like hell's cocks and hens; 
 There's swords and muskets stacked in the cow pens 
 
 And knapsacks in the mills; 
 They say at Isle aux Noix redcoats are holding 
 
 drills, 
 
 And we're to build a big fleet at Vergennes. 
 Dad, can't I go ? " "I reckon you 're a man : 
 
 Of course you can. 
 
FIGHT 9 
 
 "I'll do the chores to home, you do 'em thar!" 
 "Dad!" "Lad!" The men gripped hands and 
 
 gazed upon 
 The mother, when the door flew wide: There shone 
 
 A young face like a star, 
 
 A gleam of bitter-sweet 'gainst snowy islands far, 
 A freshness, like the scent of cinnamon, 
 Tingeing the air with ardor and bright sheen. 
 
 Jock faltered: "Jean!" 
 
 "Jock, don't you hear the drums ? I dreamed all night 
 I heard 'em, and they woke me in black dark. 
 Quick, ain't you comin'? Can't you hear 'em? 
 Hark! 
 
 The men-folks are to fight. 
 I wish I was a man!" Jock felt his throat clutch 
 
 tight. 
 
 " Men-folks ! " It lit his spirit like a spark 
 Flashing the pent gunpowder of his pride. 
 
 "Come on!" he cried. 
 
10 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 " Here wait ! " The old man stumped to the back 
 
 wall 
 
 And handed down his musket. "You'll want this; 
 And mind what game you're after, and don't miss. 
 
 Goodbye : I guess that's all 
 For now. Come back and get your duds." Jock, 
 
 looming tall 
 
 Beside his glowing sweetheart, stooped to kiss 
 The little shrunken mother. Tiptoe she rose 
 
 And clutched him close. 
 
 In both her twisted hands she held his head 
 Clutched in the wild remembrance of dim years 
 A baby head, suckling, half dewed with tears; 
 
 A tired boy abed 
 
 By candlelight; a laughing face beside the red 
 Log-fire ; a shock of curls beneath her shears 
 The bright hair falling. Ah, she tried to smother 
 
 Her wild thoughts. " Mother 
 
FIGHT 11 
 
 "Mother!" he stuttered. "Baby Jock!" she 
 
 moaned 
 
 And looked far in his eyes. And he was gone. 
 The porch door banged. Out in the blood-bright 
 
 dawn 
 
 All that she once had owned 
 Her heart's proud empire passed, her life's dream 
 
 sank unthroned. 
 
 With hands still reached, she stood there staring, wan. 
 "Hark, woman!" said the bowed old man, "What's 
 
 tolling?" 
 Drums drums were rolling. 
 
 II 
 
 Shy wings flashed in the orchard, glitter, glitter; 
 Blue wings bloomed soft through blossom-colored 
 
 leaves, 
 And Phoebe! Phoebe! whistled from gray eaves 
 
12 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 Through water-shine and twitter 
 And spurt of flamey green. All bane of earth and 
 
 bitter 
 
 Took life and tasted sweet at the glad reprieves 
 Of Spring, save only in an old dame's heart 
 
 That grieved apart. 
 
 Crook-back and small, she poled the big wellsweep : 
 
 Creak went the pole; the bucket came up brim 
 ming. 
 
 On the bright water lay a cricket swimming 
 Whose brown legs tried to leap 
 
 But, draggling, twitched and foundered in the circling 
 deep. 
 
 The old dame gasped; her thin hand snatched him, 
 skimming. 
 
 " Dear Lord, he's drowned ! " she mumbled with dry 
 
 lips: 
 "The ships! the ships!" 
 
FIGHT 13 
 
 Gently she laid him in the sun and dried 
 
 The little dripping body. Suddenly 
 
 Rose-red gleamed through the budding apple-tree 
 
 And "Look! a letter!" cried 
 A laughing voice, "and lots of news for us inside!" 
 
 "How's that, Jean? News from Jock! Where 
 
 t 
 
 where is he ? " 
 " Down in Vergennes the shipyards." " Ships ! 
 
 Ah, no! 
 It can't be so." 
 
 "He's goin' to fight with guns and be a tar. 
 
 See here : he's wrote himself. The post was late. 
 
 He couldn't write before. The ship is great! 
 
 She's built, from keel to spar, 
 And called the Saratoga; and Jock's got a scar 
 Already " "Scar?" the mother quavered. 
 
 "Wait," 
 Jean rippled, "let me read." "Quick, then, my dear, 
 
 He'll want to hear 
 
14 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 "Jock's Pa: I guess we'll find him in the yard. 
 He ain't scarce creepin' round these days, poor Dan !" 
 She gripped Jean's arm and stumbled as they ran, 
 
 And stopped once, breathing hard. 
 Around them chimney-swallows skimmed the sheep- 
 cropped sward 
 
 And yellow hornets hummed. The sick old man 
 Stirred at their steps, and muttered from deep muse : 
 
 "Well, Ma: what news?" 
 
 "From Jockie there's a letter!" In his chair 
 The bowed form sat bolt upright. "What's he say?" 
 "He's wrote to Jean. I guess it's boys their way 
 
 To think old folks don't care 
 For letters." "Girl, read out." Jean smoothed her 
 
 wilding hair 
 
 And sat beside them. Out of the blue day 
 A golden robin called ; across the road 
 
 A heifer lowed; 
 
FIGHT 15 
 
 And old ears listened while youth read: "'Friend 
 
 Jean, 
 
 Vergennes : here's where we've played a Yankee trick. 
 I'm layin' in my bunk by Otter Crick 
 
 And scribblin' you this mean 
 Scrawl for to tell the news what-all I've heerd and 
 
 seen : 
 
 Jennie, we've built a ship, and built her slick 
 A swan ! a seven hundred forty tonner, 
 
 And I'm first gunner. 
 
 " ' You ought to seen us launch her t'other day ! 
 Tell Dad we've christened her for a fight of hisn 
 He fought at Saratoga. Now just listen ! 
 
 She's twice as big, folks say, 
 As Perry's ship that took the prize at Put-in Bay; 
 Yet forty days ago, hull, masts and mizzen, 
 The whole of her was growin', live and limber, 
 
 In God's green timber. 
 
16 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 " ' I helped to fell her main-mast back in March. 
 The woods was snowed knee-deep. She was a won 
 der: 
 A straight white pine. She fell like roarin' thunder 
 
 And left a blue-sky arch 
 
 Above her, bustin' all to kindlin's a tall larch. 
 Mebbe the scart jack-rabbits skun from under ! 
 Us boys hoorayed, and me and every noodle 
 
 Yelled Yankee-Doodle! 
 
 "'My, how we haw'd and gee'd the big ox-sledges 
 Haulin' her long trunk through the hemlock dells, 
 A-bellerin' to the tinkle-tankle bells, 
 
 And blunted our ax edges 
 
 Hackin' new roads of ice 'longside the rocky ledges. 
 We stalled her twice, but gave the oxen spells 
 And yanked her through at last on the home-clearin'. 
 
 Lord, wa'n't we cheerin' ! 
 
FIGHT 17 
 
 "'Since then I've seen her born, as you might say: 
 Born out of fire and water and men's sweatin', 
 Blast-furnace rairin' and red anvils frettin' 
 
 And sawmills, night and day, 
 
 Screech-owlin' like 'twas Satan's rumhouse run away 
 Smellin' of tar and pitch. But I'm forgettin' 
 The man that's primed her guns and paid her score: 
 
 The Commodore. 
 
 r ' ' Macdonough he's her master, and she knows 
 His voice, like he was talkin' to his hound. 
 There ain't a man of her but ruther'd drownd 
 
 Than tread upon his toes; 
 
 And yet with his red cheeks and twinklin' eyes, a rose 
 Ain't friendlier than his looks be. When he's round, 
 He makes you feel like you're a gentleman 
 
 American. 
 
 "'But I must tell you how we're hidin' here. 
 
 This Otter Crick is like a crook-neck jug 
 c 
 
18 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 And we're inside. The redcoats want to plug 
 
 The mouth, and cork our beer; 
 So last week Downie sailed his British lake-fleet near 
 To fill our channel, but us boys had dug 
 Big shore intrenchments, and our batteries 
 
 Stung 'em like bees 
 
 " ' Till they skedaddled whimperin* up the lake ; 
 But while the shots was flyin', in the scrimmage, 
 I caught a ball that scotched my livin' image. 
 
 Now Jean, for Sam Hill's sake, 
 
 Don't let-on this to Mother, for you know she'd make 
 A deary-me-in' that would last a grim age. 
 'Tain't much, but when a feller goes to war 
 
 What's he go for 
 
 " ' If 'tain't to fight, and take his chances ? ' " Jean 
 Stopped and looked down. The mother did not speak. 
 "Go on," said the old man. Flush tinged her cheek. 
 "Truly I didn't mean 
 
FIGHT 19 
 
 There ain't much more. He says : ' Goodbye now, 
 
 little queen; 
 
 We're due to sail for Plattsburgh this day week. 
 Meantime I'm hopin' hard and takin' stock. 
 Your obedient Jock.' ' 
 
 The girl's voice ceased in silence. Glitter, glitter, 
 
 The shy wings flashed through blossom-colored 
 
 leaves, 
 And Phoebe! Phoebe! whistled from gray eaves 
 
 Through water-shine and twitter 
 And spurt of flamey green. But bane of thought is 
 
 bitter. 
 
 The mother's heart spurned May's sweet make- 
 believes, 
 For there, through falling masts and gaunt ships 
 
 looming, 
 Guns guns were booming. 
 
20 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 III 
 
 Plattsburgh and windless beauty on the bay ; 
 Autumnal morning and the sun at seven : 
 Southward a wedge of wild ducks in the heaven 
 
 Dwindles, and far away 
 Dim mountains watch the lake, where lurking for their 
 
 prey 
 
 Lie, with their muzzled thunders and pent levin, 
 The warships Eagle, Preble, Saratoga, 
 
 Ticonderoga. 
 
 And now a little wind from the northwest 
 
 Flutters the trembling blue with snowy flecks. 
 A gunner, on Macdonough's silent decks, 
 
 Peers from his cannon's rest, 
 
 Staring beyond the low north headland. Crest on crest 
 Behind green spruce-tops, soft as wildfowls' necks, 
 Glide the bright spars and masts and whitened wales 
 
 Of bellying sails. 
 
FIGHT 21 
 
 Rounding, the British lake-birds loom in view 
 Ruffling their wings in silvery arrogance : 
 Chubb, Linnet, Finch, and lordly Confiance 
 
 Leading with Downie's crew 
 The line. With long booms swung to starboard they 
 
 heave to, 
 
 Whistling their flock of galleys who advance 
 Behind, then toward the Yankees, four abreast, 
 
 Tack landward, west. 
 
 Landward the watching townsfolk strew the shore; 
 Mist-banks of human beings blur the bluffs 
 And blacken the roofs, like swarms of roosting 
 choughs. 
 
 Waiting the cannon's roar 
 
 A nation holds its breath for knell of Nevermore 
 Or peal of life : this hour shall cast the sloughs 
 Of generations and one old dame's joy : 
 
 Her gunner boy. 
 
22 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 One moment on the quarter deck Jock kneels 
 Beside his Commodore and fighting squad. 
 Their heads are bowed, their prayers go up toward 
 God- 
 
 Toward God, to whom appeals 
 Still rise in pain and mangling wrath from blind 
 
 ordeals 
 
 Of man, still boastful of his brother's blood. - 
 They stand from prayer. Swift comes and silently 
 
 The enemy. 
 
 Macdonough holds his men, alert, devout : 
 "He that wavereth is like a wave of the sea 
 Driven with the wind. Behold the ships, that be 
 
 So great, are turned about 
 Even with a little helm." Jock tightens the blue 
 
 clout 
 
 Around his waist, and watches casually 
 Close-by a game-cock, in a coop, who stirs 
 
 And spreads his spurs. 
 
FIGHT 23 
 
 Now, bristling near, the British war-birds swoop 
 Wings, and the Yankee Eagle screams in fire; 
 The English Linnet answers, aiming higher, 
 
 And crash along Jock's poop 
 
 Her hurtling shot of iron crackles the game-cock's coop, 
 Where lo! the ribald cock, like a town crier, 
 ! Strutting a gunslide, flaps to the cheering crew 
 Yankee-doodle-doo ! 
 
 Boys yell, and yapping laughter fills the roar : 
 " You bet we'll do 'em ! " " You're a prophet, cocky ! " 
 "Hooray, old rooster!" "Hip, hip, hip!" cries 
 Jockie. 
 
 Calmly the Commodore 
 
 Touches his cannon's fuse and fires a twenty-four. 
 Smoke belches black. " Huzza ! That's blowed 'em 
 
 pocky!" 
 And Downie's men, like pins before the bowling, 
 
 Fall scatter-rolling. 
 
24 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 Boom! flash the long guns, echoed by the galleys. 
 The Confiance, wind-baffled in the bay, 
 With both her port bow-anchors torn away, 
 
 Flutters, but proudly rallies 
 
 To broadside, while her gunboats range the water-alleys. 
 Then Downie grips Macdonough in the fray, 
 And double-shotted from his roaring flail 
 
 Hurls the black hail. 
 
 The hail turns red, and drips in the hot gloom. 
 Jock snuffs the reek and spits it from his mouth 
 And grapples with great winds. The winds blow south, 
 
 And scent of lilac bloom 
 
 Steals from his mother's porch in his still sleeping room. 
 Lilacs ! But now it stinks of blood and drouth I 
 He staggers up, and stares at blinding light : 
 
 "God! This is fight!" 
 
 Fight ! The sharp loathing retches in his loins ; 
 He gulps the black air, like a drowner swimming, 
 
FIGHT 25 
 
 Where little round suns in a dance go rimming 
 
 The dark with golden coins : 
 Round him and round the splintering masts and jangled 
 
 quoins 
 
 Reel, rattling, and overhead he hears the hymning 
 Lonely and loud of ululating choirs 
 
 Strangling with wires. 
 
 Fight ! But no more the roll of chanting drums, 
 The fifing flare, the flags, the magic spume 
 Filling his spirit with a wild perfume; 
 
 Now noisome anguish numbs 
 
 His sense, that mocks and leers at monstrous vacuums. 
 Whang ! splits the spanker near him, and the boom 
 Crushes Macdonough, in a jumbled wreck, 
 
 Stunned on the deck. 
 
 No time to glance where wounded leaders lie, 
 Or think on fallen sparrows in the storm 
 Only to fight ! The prone commander's form 
 Stirs, rises stumblingly 
 
26 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 And gropes where, under shrieking grape and musketry, 
 Men's bodies wamble like a mangled swarm 
 Of bees. He bends to sight his gun again, 
 Bleeding, and then 
 
 Oh, out of void and old oblivion 
 
 And reptile slime first rose Apollo's head : 
 
 And God in likeness of Himself, 'tis said, 
 
 Created such an one, 
 
 Now shaping Shakspere's forehead, now Napoleon, 
 Various, by infinite invention bred, 
 In His own image moulding beautiful 
 
 The human skull. 
 
 Jock lifts his head ; Macdonough sights his gun 
 To fire but in his face a ball of flesh, 
 A whizzing clod, has hurled him in a mesh 
 
 Of tangled rope and tun, 
 While still about the deck the lubber clod is spun 
 
FIGHT 27 
 
 And, bouncing from the rail, lies in a plesh 
 Of oozing blood, upstaring eyeless, red 
 
 A gunner's head. 
 
 ******* 
 
 Above the ships, enormous from the lake, 
 Rises a wraith a phantom dim and gory, 
 Lifting her wondrous limbs of smoke and glory ; 
 
 And little children quake 
 
 And lordly nations bow their foreheads for her sake, 
 And bards proclaim her in their fiery story; 
 And in her phantom breast, heartless, unheeding, 
 
 Hearts hearts are bleeding. 
 
 IV 
 
 Macdonough lies with Downie in one land. 
 Victor and vanquished long ago were peers. 
 Held in the grip of peace an hundred years 
 
 England has laid her hand 
 
 In ours, and we have held (and still shall hold) the band 
 That makes us brothers of the hemispheres; 
 
28 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 Yea, still shall keep the lasting brotherhood 
 Of law and blood. 
 
 Yet one whose terror racked us long of yore 
 Still wreaks upon the world her lawless might: 
 Out of the deeps again the phantom Fight 
 
 Looms on her wings of war, 
 
 Sowing in armed camps and fields her venomed spore, 
 Embattling monarch's whim against man's right, 
 Trampling with iron hoofs the blooms of time 
 
 Back in the slime. 
 
 We, who from dreams of justice, dearly wrought, 
 First rose in the eyes of patient Washington, 
 And through the molten heart of Lincoln won 
 
 To liberty forgot, 
 
 Now, standing lone in peace 'mid titans strange dis 
 traught, 
 
 Pray much for patience, more God's will be done I 
 For vision and for power nobly to see 
 
 The world made free. 
 
THE CONFLICT: Six SONNETS 
 [August, 1914] 
 
 I 
 
 TO WILLIAM WATSON IN ENGLAND 
 SINGER of England's ire across the sea, 
 Your austere voice, electric from the deep, 
 Speaks our own yearning, and our spirits sweep 
 To Europe's allied honor. Painfully, 
 Bowed with a planet's lonely burden, we 
 Held our hot hearts in leash, but now they leap 
 Their ban, like young hounds belling from their keep, 
 To bait the Teuton wolf of tyranny. 
 
 What! Would he throw us sops of sugared art 
 And poisoned commerce, snarling: "So! lie still 
 Till I have shown my fangs, and torn the heart 
 Of half the world, and gorged my sanguine fill ! " 
 Now, England, let him see: Rage as he will, 
 
 He cannot tear our plighted souls apart. 
 
 29 
 
30 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 II 
 AMERICAN NEUTRALITY 
 
 How shall we keep an armed neutrality 
 With our own souls ? Our souls belie our lips, 
 That seek to hold our passion in eclipse 
 And hide the wound of our sharp sympathy, 
 Saying : " One's neighbor differs ; he might be 
 Kindled to wrath, were one to wield the whips 
 Of truth." Great God ! A red Apocalypse 
 Flames on the blinded world : and what do we ? 
 
 Peace ! do we cry ? Peace is the godlike plan 
 
 We love and dedicate our children to ; 
 
 Yet England's cause is ours : The rights of man, 
 
 Which little Belgium battles for anew, 
 
 Shall we recant ? No ! Being American, 
 
 Our souls cannot keep neutral and keep true. 
 
THE CONFLICT 31 
 
 III 
 PEACE 
 
 PEACE ! But there is no peace. To hug the thought 
 
 Is but to clasp a lover who thinks lies. 
 
 Go : look your earnest neighbor in the eyes 
 
 And read the answer there. Peace is not bought 
 
 By distance from the fight. Peace must be fought 
 
 And bled for : 'tis a dream whose horrid price 
 
 Is haggled for by dread realities ; 
 
 Peace is not paid till dreamers are distraught. 
 
 Would we not close our ears against these ills, 
 Urging our hearts : " Be calm ! America 
 Is called upon to rebuild a world." But ah ! 
 How shall we nobly build with neutral wills? 
 Can we be calm while Belgian anguish shrills? 
 Or would we crown with peace Caligula ? 
 
32 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 IV 
 WILSON 
 
 PATIENCE but peace of heart we cannot choose ; 
 Nor would he wish us cravenly to keep 
 Aloof in soul, who large in statesmanship 
 And justice sent our ships to Vera Cruz. 
 Patience must wring our hearts, while we refuse 
 To launch our country on that crimson deep 
 Which breaks the dikes of Europe, but we sleep 
 Watchful, still waiting by the awful fuse. 
 
 Wisdom he counsels, and he counsels well 
 Whose patient fortitude against the fret 
 And sneer of time has stood inviolable. 
 We love his goodness and will not forget. 
 With him we pause beside the mouth of hell : 
 The wolf of Europe has not triumphed yet. 
 
THE CONFLICT 33 
 
 V 
 KRUPPISM 
 
 CROWNED on the twilight battlefield, there bends 
 A crooked iron dwarf, and delves for gold, 
 Chuckling : "One hundred thousand gatlings sold !" 
 And the moon rises, and a moaning rends 
 The mangled living, and the dead distends, 
 And a child cowers on the chartless wold, 
 Where, searching in his safety- vault of mold, 
 The kobold kaiser cuts his dividends. 
 
 We, who still wage his battles, are his thralls 
 And dying do him homage ; yea, and give 
 Daily our living souls to be enticed 
 Into his power. So long as on war's walls 
 We build engines of death that he may live, 
 So long shall we serve Krupp instead of Christ. 
 
34 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 VI 
 THE REAL GERMANY 
 
 BISMARCK or rapt Beethoven with his dreams : 
 
 Ah, which was blind ? Or which bespoke his race ? - 
 
 That breed which nurtured Heine's haunting grace, 
 
 And Goethe, mastering Olympic themes 
 
 Of meditation, Mozart's golden gleams, 
 
 And Leibnitz charting realms of time and space, 
 
 Great-hearted Schiller, and that fairy brace 
 
 Of brothers who first trailed the goblin streams. 
 
 Bismarck for these builded an iron tomb, 
 
 And clanged the door, and turned a kaiser's key; 
 
 And simple folk, that once danced merrily 
 
 Their May-ring rites, march now in roaring gloom 
 
 Toward that renascent dawn when the black womb 
 
 Of buried guns gives birth to Germany. 
 
THE LADS OF LIEGE 
 
 [" Horum omnium fortissimi sunt Beiges." CAESAR'S 
 " Commentaries "] 
 
 THE lads of Liege, beyond our eyes 
 They lie where beauty's laurels be 
 With lads of old Thermopylae, 
 
 Who stayed the storming Persians. 
 
 The lads of Liege, on glory's field 
 They clasp the hands of Roland's men, 
 Who lonely faced the Saracen 
 Meeting the dark invasion. 
 
 The lads the deathless lads of Liege, 
 They blazon through our living world 
 Their land the little land that buried 
 
 Olympian defiance. 
 35 
 
36 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 "Now make us room, now let us pass; 
 Our monarch suffers no delay. 
 To stand in mighty Caesar's way 
 Beseems not Lilliputians." 
 
 " We make no room ; you shall not pass, 
 For freedom says your monarch nay ! 
 And we have stood in Caesar's way 
 Through freedom's generations. 
 
 "And here we stand till freedom fall 
 And Caesar cry, ere we succumb, 
 Once more his horum omnium 
 Fortissimi sunt Belgoe." 
 
 The monarch roars an iron laugh 
 And cries on God to man his guns; 
 But Belgian mothers bore them sons 
 Who man the souls within them : 
 
THE LADS OF LIEGE 37 
 
 They bar his path, they hold their pass, 
 They blaze in glory of the Gaul 
 Till Csesar cries again "Of all 
 The bravest are the Belgians!" 
 
 O lads of Liege, brave lads of Liege, 
 Your souls through glad Elysium 
 Go chanting : horum omnium 
 Fortissimi sunt Belgce! 
 
CARNAGE: Six SONNETS 
 [September, 1914] 
 
 I 
 
 DOUBT 
 
 So thin, so frail the opalescent ice 
 Where yesterday, in lordly pageant, rose 
 The monumental nations the repose 
 Of continents at peace! Realities 
 Solid as earth they seemed; yet in a trice 
 Their bastions crumbled in the surging floes 
 Of unconceivable, inhuman woes, 
 Gulfed in a mad, unmeaning sacrifice. 
 
 We, who survive that world-quake, cower and start, 
 Searching our hidden souls with dark surmise : 
 So thin, so frail is reason ? Patient art 
 Is it all a mockery, and love all lies? 
 Who sees the lurking Hun in childhood's eyes? 
 
 Is hell so near to every human heart? 
 38 
 
CARNAGE 39 
 
 II 
 THE GREAT NEGATION 
 
 WHEN that great-minded man, Sir Edward Grey, 
 
 Said to the hypocritic ' prince of peace ' : 
 
 "Let us confer, who hold the destinies 
 
 Of Europe, ere the tempest breaks, and stay 
 
 Its carnage ! " the proud despot answered nay, 
 
 And by that great negation loosed the seas 
 
 And winds of multitudinous miseries 
 
 To rage around his empire for their prey. 
 
 He might have uttered "Peace": Peace would have 
 
 been. 
 
 He might have abdicated ere he fought 
 For such Satanic empire; but to win 
 Power he refused. Therefore a rankling thought 
 Festers henceforth with that refusal's sin : 
 He might have saved the world, and he would not. 
 
40 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 III 
 LOUVAIN 
 
 SERENE in beauty's olden lineage, 
 
 Calm as the star that hears the Angelus toll, 
 
 Louvain the scholar's crypt, the artist's goal, 
 
 The cloistral shrine of hallowed pilgrimage 
 
 Rapt in the dreams of many an ardent age, 
 
 Louvain, the guileless city of man's soul, 
 
 Is blotted from the world a bloodied scroll, 
 
 Ravaged to sate a drunken Teuton's rage. 
 
 His lust shall have its laurel. That red sword 
 He ravished with, Time's angel shall again 
 Grasp to sere him, and deify him Lord 
 Of Infamy; yea, brand him with its stain 
 Naked in night, abhorrent and abhorr'd, 
 Where the dead hail him William of Louvain ! 
 
CARNAGE 41 
 
 IV 
 RHEIMS 
 
 APOLLO mourns another Parthenon 
 
 In ruins ! Is the God of Love awake ? 
 
 And we must we behold the world's heart break 
 
 For peace and beauty ravished, and look on 
 
 Dispassionate ? Rheims' gloried fane is gone : 
 
 Not by a planet's rupture, nor the quake 
 
 Of subterranean titans, but to slake 
 
 The vengeance of a Goth Napoleon. 
 
 O Time, let not the anguish numb or pall 
 
 Of that remembrance! Let no callous heal 
 
 Our world-wound, till our kindled pities call 
 
 The parliament of nations, and repeal 
 
 The vows of war. Till then, pain kee'p us thrall ! 
 
 More bitter than to battle is to feel. 
 
42 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 V 
 KULTUR 
 
 IF men must murder, pillage, sack, despoil, 
 Let it not be (lest angels laugh) in the name 
 Of sacred Culture. Vulcan still goes lame 
 Though servile Muses poultice him with oil 
 Of sleek Hypocrisy. They waste their toil 
 Whose boast of light and sweetness takes its claim 
 From deeds of night and wormwood, which defame 
 Fair Culture's shrine and make her gods recoil. 
 
 No; let the imperial Visigoth put off 
 
 His borrowed toga, boast aloud his slain 
 
 In naked savagery, and make his scoff 
 
 Of Attic graces. So when once again 
 
 He asks for Culture's crown, 'twill be enough 
 
 To answer him : Once Rheims was and Louvain ! 
 
CARNAGE 43 
 
 VI 
 DESTINY 
 
 WE are what we imagine, and our deeds 
 Are born of dreaming. Europe acts to-day 
 Epics that little children in their play 
 Conjured, and statesmen murmured in their creeds ; 
 In barrack, court and school were sown those seeds, 
 Like Dragon's teeth, which ripen to affray 
 Their sowers. Dreams of slaughter rise to slay, 
 And fate itself is stuff that fancy breeds. 
 
 Mock, then, no more at dreaming, lest our own 
 
 Create for us a like reality ! 
 
 Let not imagination's soil be sown 
 
 With armed men but justice, so that we 
 
 May for a world of tyranny atone 
 
 And dream from that despair democracy. 
 
THE MUFFLED DRUMS 
 
 FOR brothers laid in blood, 
 
 For lovers sundered, 
 Defeated motherhood 
 
 And manhood plundered 
 We moan, moan the faith of man forgotten. 
 
 For human vision bleared 
 
 And childhood bleeding, 
 For ripening harvests sered 
 
 Before the seeding 
 We mourn, mourn the beauty unbegotten. 
 
 We were the wanton ones 
 
 In old wines sunken, 
 Who sent the nations' sons 
 
 Forth, reeling drunken 
 
 With blare and rhythm of war's ruthless glory. 
 44 
 
THE MUFFLED DRUMS 45 
 
 Now in our pulse no more 
 
 The old wines quicken, 
 For the bannered glory of war 
 
 Trails draggled and stricken, 
 
 And the blood-red beast crawls home, blinded and 
 hoary : 
 
 But we are the beating hearts 
 
 Of women, whose yearning 
 Shall harass the beast with darts 
 
 Of their myriad burning 
 Till the Angel of God remould him an image human. 
 
 Yea, we are the chanting wills 
 
 Of women, whose sorrow 
 Rebels at the age-borne ills 
 
 Of a man-built morrow, 
 And we chant, chant the world redeemed by Woman. 
 
ANTWERP i 
 
 TOWERS eternal towers against the sky : 
 Dawn-touched, noon-flamed, night-mantled and moon- 
 flecked ! 
 
 The tenuous dreams of man, the architect, 
 Imagining in stone what may not die 
 Though man, the anarchist, dream enginery 
 For its destruction : towers of intellect, 
 Towers of aspiration torn and wrecked, 
 Profaned by robber sacrilege : ah, why ? 
 
 Reason shall ask, and answer shall be given; 
 
 Justice shall ask, and deal to those insane 
 
 Their dark asylums, but to those the vain 
 
 Of lustful power, how shall their souls be shriven ? 
 
 They shall be raised on infamy's renown 
 
 And from their towers of tyranny hurled down. 
 
 See note at end of volume. 
 46 
 
MAGNA CARTA 
 
 MAGNA CARTA ! Magna Carta ! 
 English brothers, we have borne it 
 On our banners down the ages. 
 Who shall scorn it ? 
 Bitter fought-for, blood-emblazoned 
 With the fadeless gules of freedom, 
 Interbound with precious pages 
 English brothers, we who shrine it 
 In our common heart of hearts, 
 Think you we can see a monarch, 
 Tyrant-sceptred, sanguine-shod, 
 Seek to rend it and malign it : 
 We whose sires made him sign it 
 Him who deemed him next to God ! 
 We who dreamed our world forever 
 Purged and rid 
 
 Of his spectre think you, brothers, 
 
 47 
 
48 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 We can watch this ghost, resurgent, 
 Sweep his servile hordes toward England, 
 And stand silent? God forbid ! 
 
 Magna Carta ! Magna Carta ! . 
 Brother freemen, we who bear it 
 Starward shall we see him tear it ? 
 Fool or frantic, 
 
 Let him dare it ! 
 
 . 
 If he reach across the Channel 
 
 He shall touch across the Atlantic : 
 Scrolled with new and olden annal, 
 Bitter fought-for, blood-emblazoned 
 With the fadeless gules of freedom, 
 We will hand him Magna Carta ! 
 Yea, once more shall make him sign it 
 Where the centuries refine it, 
 Till his serfs, who now malign it, 
 Are made sick of him, and free 
 Even as we. 
 
MAGNA CARTA 49 
 
 So, if ghostly through the sea-mist, 
 You behold his Mediaeval 
 Falcon face peer violating 
 Lo, with quills and Magna Carta 
 (Sharpened quills and Magna Carta) 
 In a little mead near London, 
 English brothers, we are waiting ! 
 
MEN OF CANADA 
 
 MEN of Canada, 
 
 Fellow Americans, 
 Proud our hearts beat for you over the border: 
 
 Proud of the fight you wage, 
 
 Proud of your valiant youth 
 Sailing to battle for freedom and order. 
 
 On our own battlefields 
 Many's the bout we had 
 
 Yankee, Canadian, redcoat and ranger; 
 But our old brotherhood, 
 Staunch through the centuries, 
 
 Shouts in our blood now to share in your danger. 
 
 Ah, it's a weary thing 
 Waiting and watching here, 
 Numbing ourselves to a frozen neutrality: 
 Yet, in a world at war, 
 Tis our good part to keep 
 
 Patient to forge the strong peace of finality. 
 
 50 
 
MEN OF CANADA 51 
 
 Though, then, our part be Peace, 
 
 Yet our free fighting souls 
 League with your own 'gainst the world-lust of Vandals ; 
 
 Yea, in the dreadful night, 
 
 We, with your women, weep 
 And for your shroudless dead burn our shrine candles. 
 
 So, by the gunless law 
 
 Of our sane borderline, 
 By our souls' faith, that no border can sever, 
 
 Freedom ! now may your fight, 
 
 Waging the death of war, 
 Silence the demons of cannon forever ! 
 
 Kin-folk of Canada, 
 
 So may your allied arms 
 Smite with his legions the Lord of Disorder ! 
 
 God speed your noble cause ! 
 
 God save your gallant sons ! 
 Would we might sail with them over the border I 
 
FRANCE 
 
 HALF artist and half anchorite, 
 
 Part siren and part Socrates, 
 Her face alluring fair, yet recondite 
 
 Smiled through her salons and academies. 
 
 Lightly she wore her double mask, 
 Till sudden, at war's kindling spark, 
 
 Her inmost self, in shining mail and casque, 
 Blazed to the world her single soul Jeanne d'Arc ! 
 
 52 
 
HAUPTMANN 
 
 JEAN CHRISTOPHE called to him out of the night 
 Out of the storm and dark of Europe's hate, 
 Crying : " Where art thou, Hauptmann, who so late 
 Loomed as a rugged tower of human right ? 
 Flame to the world thy lonely beacon-light 
 Of love for alien hearths laid desolate ! " 
 In answer rolled a voice infuriate 
 Hoarse with the fog of racial scorn and spite : 
 
 " Here am I ! Let them perish ! " And hell laughed 
 To hear that voice which once was wont to soar 
 With Hannele to heaven, and starward waft 
 The souls of simple weavers rasp with war ; 
 Yea, laughed to watch that tower's heroic shaft 
 Fall crumbling on the beaconless world shore. 
 
 53 
 
NIETZSCHE 
 
 SOME worshipped and some bantered, when 
 The prophets of the drawing room 
 Gossiped of Jesus Christ his doom 
 
 Under the reign of Supermen, 
 
 And how the Christian world would quake 
 
 To hear what Zarathustra spake. 
 
 Lo, Zarathustra's voice has spoken : 
 And they, who use a mad bard's song 
 To vindicate a tyrant's wrong, 
 
 Point to the staring dead for token 
 
 Of their triumphant creed, enshrined 
 
 In temples of the Teuton mind. 
 
 The raving dog-star hath his season : 
 But when the light beyond our death 
 Leads back again from Nazareth 
 
 The holy star of human reason 
 
 Then will philosophy no more 
 
 Be servile to the Muse of War. 
 54 
 
THE CHILD-DANCERS 1 
 
 A bomb has fallen over Notre Dame : 
 Germans have burned another Belgian town: 
 Russians quelled in the east: England in qualm: 
 
 I closed my eyes, and laid the paper down. 
 
 Gray ledge and moor-grass and pale bloom of light 
 
 By pale blue seas ! 
 
 What laughter of a child world-sprite, 
 
 Sweet as the horns of lone October bees, 
 
 Shrills the faint shore with mellow, old delight? 
 
 What elves are these 
 
 In smocks gray-blue as sea and ledge, 
 
 Dancing upon the silvered edge 
 
 Of darkness each ecstatic one 
 
 Making a happy orison, 
 
 With shining limbs, to the low-sunken sun ? 
 
 1 At end of volume see note. 
 55 
 
56 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 See: now they cease 
 
 Like nesting birds from flight: 
 
 Demure and debonair 
 
 They troop beside their hostess' chair 
 
 To make their bedtime courtesies : 
 
 " Spokoinoi notchi ! Gute Nacht ! 
 
 Bon soir ! Bon soir ! Good night!" 
 What far-gleaned lives are these 
 Linked in one holy family of art ? 
 Dreams : dreams once Christ and Plato dreamed 
 How fair their happy shades depart ! 
 
 Dear God ! how simple it all seemed, 
 Till once again 
 
 Before my eyes the red type quivered : Slain : 
 Ten thousand of the enemy. 
 Then laughter! laughter from the ancient sea 
 Sang in the gloaming: Athens! Galilee! 
 And elfin voices called from the extinguished light 
 " Spokoinoi notchi I Gute Nacht ! 
 Bon soir! Bon soir! Good night!" 
 
BATTLEFIELDS 
 
 ON the battlefields of birth, 
 Lulled from pain in twilight sleep, 
 
 Languorous in calm reliance 
 
 On the Christ-like soul of science, 
 They whose patient soldiership 
 Bore the age-old pangs of earth 
 Till the patient seers of reason set them free 
 
 Volunteers, whose valiant warring 
 
 Is the passion of restoring 
 Mothers, gentle mothers, bless you, Germany I 
 
 By the battlefields of death, 
 Racked by prayers that never sleep, 
 
 Anguished with a wild defiance 
 
 Of the Satan powers of science, 
 They whose loving guardianship 
 Knit the subtle bonds of breath 
 Till their sons of iron tore them ruthlessly 
 
 Victims, whose heart-blinding portion 
 
 Is their victory's abortion 
 
 Mothers, maddened mothers, curse you, Germany ! 
 57 
 
IN MEMORIAM 
 MRS. WOODROW WILSON 
 
 HER gentle spirit passed with Peace 
 With Peace out of a world at war 
 
 Racked by the old earth-agonies 
 Of kaiser, king and czar, 
 
 Where Bear and Lion crouch in lair 
 To rend the iron Eagle's flesh 
 
 And viewless engines of the air 
 Spin wide their lightning mesh, 
 
 And darkly kaiser, czar and king 
 
 With awful thunders stalk their prey. 
 
 Yet Peace, that moves with silent wing, 
 Is mightier than they. 
 
 And she our lady who has passed 
 
 And Peace were sisters : They are gone 
 Together through time's holocaust 
 
 To blaze a bloodless dawn. 
 58 
 
INMEMORIAM 59 
 
 How otherwise the royal die 
 
 Whose power is throned on rolling drums ! 
 Her monument of royalty 
 
 Is builded in the slums : 
 
 Her latest prayer, transformed to law, 
 Shall more than monarch's vow endure, 
 
 Assuaging there, with loving awe, 
 The anguish of the poor. 
 
A PRAYER OF THE PEOPLES 
 
 GOD of us who kill our kind ! 
 Master of this blood-tracked Mind 
 Which from wolf and Caliban 
 Staggers toward the star of Man - 
 Now, on Thy cathedral stair, 
 God, we cry to Thee in prayer ! 
 
 Where our stifled anguish bleeds 
 Strangling through Thine organ reeds, 
 Where our voiceless songs suspire 
 From the corpses in Thy choir 
 Through Thy charred and shattered nave, 
 God, we cry on Thee to save! 
 
 Save us from our tribal gods! 
 
 From the racial powers, whose rods 
 60 
 
A PRAYER OF THE PEOPLES 61 
 
 Wreathed with stinging serpents stir 
 Odin and old Jupiter 
 From their ancient hells of hate 
 To invade Thy dawning state. 
 
 Save us from their curse of kings ! 
 Free our souls' imaginings 
 From the feudal dreams of war; 
 Yea, God, let us nevermore 
 Make, with slaves' idolatry, 
 Kaiser, king or czar of Thee ! 
 
 We who, craven in our prayer, 
 Would lay off on Thee our care 
 Lay instead on us Thy load; 
 On our minds Thy spirit's goad, 
 On our laggard wills Thy whips 
 And Thy passion on our lips ! 
 
 Fill us with the reasoned faith 
 That the prophet lies, who saith 
 
62 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 All this web of destiny, 
 Torn and tangled, cannot be 
 Newly wove and redesigned 
 By the Godward human mind. 
 
 Teach us, so, no more to call 
 
 Guidance supernatural 
 
 To our help, but heart and will 
 
 Know ourselves responsible 
 
 For our world of wasted good 
 
 And our blinded brotherhood. 
 
 Lord, our God ! to whom, from clay, 
 
 Blood and mire, Thy peoples pray 
 
 Not from Thy cathedral's stair 
 
 Thou nearest : Thou criest through our prayer 
 
 For our prayer is but the gate: 
 
 We, who pray, ourselves are fate. 
 
THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 II 
 PEACE 
 
PANAMA HYMN 
 
 LORD of the sundering land and deep, 
 For whom of old, to suage thy wrath, 
 
 The floods stood upright as a heap 
 To shape thy host a dry-shod path, 
 
 Lo, now, from tide to sundered tide 
 Thy hand, outstretched in glad release, 
 
 Hath torn the eternal hills aside 
 To blaze a liquid path for Peace. 
 
 Thy hand, englaived in flaming steel, 
 Hath clutched the demons of the soil 
 
 And made their forge-fires roar and reel 
 To serve thy seraphim in toil; 
 
 While round their pits the nations, bowed, 
 
 Have watched thine awful enginery 
 Compel, through thunderbolt and cloud, 
 
 The demigods to slave for thee. 
 F 65 
 
66 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 For thee hath glaring Cyclops sweat, 
 And Atlas groaned, and Hercules 
 
 For thee his iron sinews set, 
 
 And thou wast lord of Rameses; 
 
 Till now they pause, to watch thy hand 
 Lead forth the first leviathan 
 
 Through mazes of the jungled land, 
 Submissive to the will of man : 
 
 Submissive through the will of us 
 
 To thine, the universal will, 
 That leads, divine and devious, 
 
 To world-communions vaster still. 
 
 The titans rest; intense, aware, 
 The host of nations dumbly waits; 
 
 The mountains lift their brows and stare; 
 The tides are knocking at the gates. 
 
PANAMA HYMN 67 
 
 Almighty of the human mind, 
 
 Unlock the portals of our sleep 
 That lead to visions of our kind, 
 
 And marry sundered deep to deep ! 
 
GOETHALS 
 
 A MAN went down to Panama 
 
 Where many a man had died 
 To slit the sliding mountains 
 
 And lift the eternal tide: 
 A man stood up in Panama, 
 
 And the mountains stood aside. 
 
 The Power that wrought the tide and peak 
 
 Wrought mightier the seer; 
 And the One who made the isthmus 
 
 He made the engineer, 
 And the good God he made Goethals 
 
 To cleave the hemisphere. 
 
 The reek of fevered ages rose 
 From poisoned jungle and strand, 
 
 Where the crumbling wrecks of failure 
 Lay sunk in the torrid sand - 
 
 Derelicts of old desperate hopes 
 
 And venal contraband : 
 68 
 
GOETHALS 69 
 
 Till a mind glowed white through the yellow mist 
 
 And purged the poison-mold, 
 And the wrecks rose up in labor, 
 
 And the fevers' knell was tolled, 
 And the keen mind cut the world-divide, 
 
 Untarnished by world gold : 
 
 For a poet wrought in Panama 
 
 With a continent for his theme, 
 And he wrote with flood and fire 
 
 To forge a planet's dream, 
 And the derricks rang his dithyrambs 
 
 And his stanzas roared in steam. 
 
 But the poet's mind it is not his 
 
 Alone, but a million men's : 
 Far visions of lonely dreamers 
 
 Meet there as in a lens, 
 And lightnings, pent by stormy time, 
 
 Leap through, with flame intense: 
 
70 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 So from our age three giants loom 
 To vouch man's venturous soul : 
 
 Amundsen on his ice-peak, 
 And Peary from his pole, 
 
 And midway, where the oceans meet, 
 Goethals beside his goal : 
 
 Where old Balboa bent his gaze 
 
 He leads the liners through, 
 And the Horn that tossed Magellan 
 
 Bellows a far halloo, 
 For where the navies never sailed 
 
 Steamed Goethals and his crew; 
 
 So nevermore the tropic routes 
 
 Need poleward warp and veer, 
 But on through the Gates of Goethals 
 
 The steady keels shall steer, 
 Where the tribes of man are led toward peace 
 
 By the prophet-engineer. 
 
A CHILD AT THE WICKET 
 
 A LITTLE isle: it is for some 
 Hell's gate, for some Elysium ! 
 Round Ellis Isle the salt waves flow 
 With old-world tears, wept long ago; 
 
 Round Ellis Isle the warm waves leap 
 With new-world laughter from the deep, 
 And centuries of sadness smile 
 To clasp their arms round Ellis Isle. 
 
 I watched her pass the crowded piers, 
 A peasant child of maiden years; 
 Her face was toward the evening sky 
 Where fair Manhattan towered high; 
 
 Her yellow kerchief caught the breeze, 
 Her crimson kirtle flapped her knees, 
 As lithe she swayed to tug the band 
 
 Of swaddled bundle in her hand. 
 71 
 
72 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 From her right hand the big load swung, 
 But with her left strangely she clung 
 To something light, which seemed a part 
 Of her, and held it 'gainst her heart: 
 
 A something frail, which tender hands 
 Had touched to song in far-off lands 
 On twilights, when the looms are mute : 
 A thing of love a slender lute. 
 
 Hardly she seemed to know she held 
 That frail thing fast, but went compelled 
 By wonder of the dream that lay 
 In those bright towers across the bay. 
 
 A staggering load, a treasure light 
 She bore them both, and passed from sight. 
 From Ellis Isle I watched her pass : 
 Pinned on her breast was Lawrence, Mass. 
 
A CHILD AT THE WICKET 73 
 
 O little isle, you are for some 
 Hell's gate, for some Elysium ! 
 Your wicket swings, and some to song 
 Pass on, and some to silent wrong; 
 
 But who, where hearts of toilers bleed 
 In songless toil, ah, who will heed 
 On twilights, when the looms are mute 
 A thing of love, a slender lute? 
 
HYMN FOR EQUAL SUFFRAGE 
 
 THEY have strewn the burning hearths of Man with 
 
 darkness and with mire, 
 They have heaped the burning hearts of Man with 
 
 ashes of desire, 
 Yet from out those hearts and hearths still leaps the 
 
 quick eternal fire 
 
 Whose flame is liberty. 
 
 But the flame which once led deathward all the dazzled 
 
 fighting hordes 
 Lights them now to living freedom from the bondage 
 
 of their lords, 
 And our mothers are uprisen 'mid their sons to wrest 
 
 the swords 
 
 From hands of tyranny. 
 
 For the freedom of the laborer is freedom from his toil, 
 And freedom of the citizen is right to share the soil, 
 And the freedom of our country is our loosing of the coil 
 
 That chokes posterity. 
 74 
 
HYMN FOR EQUAL SUFFRAGE 75 
 
 So we who wage our devious wars, in fastness and in fen, 
 Let us claim our common birthright in the living sun 
 
 again, 
 Till the battle of the beasts becomes the reasoning of 
 
 men, 
 
 And joy our destiny. 
 
 Let us march then, all together, not because our leaders 
 
 call, 
 
 But at summons of the mighty soul of man within us all, 
 Men and women, equal comrades, let us storm the 
 
 nation's wall 
 
 And cry "Equality!" 
 
 For the vote that brings to woman and to man life's 
 
 common bread, 
 Is mightier than the mindless gun that leaves a million 
 
 dead; 
 And the rights of Man shall triumph where once men 
 
 and women bled 
 
 When mothers of men are free. 
 
LEXINGTON 
 
 "WHERE is the little town of Lexington? 
 
 Oh, I have lost my way ! " 
 But all the brawling people hurried on : 
 
 Why should they stay 
 To watch a tattered boy, with wistful face, 
 Dazed by the roaring strangeness of the place ? 
 
 In wondering scorn 
 Turning, he tapped the powder from his powder-horn. 
 
 " Where is my blood-bright hearth of Lexington ? " 
 
 Strangely the kindling cry 
 Startled the crowded street; yet everyone 
 
 Still scrambled by 
 
 Into the shops and markets ; till at last 
 Went by a pensive scholar. As he passed, 
 
 Sudden, to whet 
 
 Of steel, he heard a flint-lock flash : their faces met. 
 76 
 
LEXINGTON 77 
 
 "What like, then, is your little Lexington?'* 
 
 "Oh, sir, it is my home, 
 Which I have lost." The scholar's sharp eyes shone. 
 
 "Come with me! Come, 
 And I will show you, old and hallowed, all 
 Its maps and marks and shafts memorial." 
 
 Out of the roar 
 
 They went, into green silence where old elm trees soar. 
 
 I 
 
 " Here is your little town of Lexington : 
 
 Let fall your eyes 
 And read the old inscription on this stone : 
 
 'Beneath this lies 
 
 The first who fell in our dear country's fight 
 For revolution and the freeman's right/" 
 
 The boy's eyes fell, 
 But shining swiftly rose : " Yes, I remember well ! 
 
 " Yet there lies not my lost home Lexington : 
 For none who fall 
 
78 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 At Lexington is buried under stone; 
 
 And eyes of all 
 
 Who fight at Lexington look up at God 
 Not down upon His servants under sod 
 
 Whose souls are sped; 
 They lie who say in Lexington free men are dead." 
 
 "My son, I said not so of Lexington. 
 
 'There lie the bones/ 
 I said, 'of great men, and their souls are gone.' 
 
 God sends but once 
 
 His lightning-flash to strike the sacred spot. 
 Our great sires are departed." "They are not! 
 
 I am alive. 
 / fought at Lexington ; you see, I still survive ! 
 
 "And still I live to fight at Lexington. 
 
 I am come far 
 From Russian steppes and Balkan valleys, wan 
 
 With ghostly war, 
 
LEXINGTON 79 
 
 Where still the holy watchword in the fight 
 Was Revolution and the freeman's right ! 
 
 Now I am come 
 Back with that battle-cry to help my own dear home. 
 
 " Here, here it lies my lost home Lexington ! 
 
 Not there in dust, 
 But here in the great highway of the sun, 
 
 Where still the lust 
 
 Of arrogant power flaunts its regiments, 
 And lurking hosts of tyranny pitch their tents, 
 
 And still the yoke 
 Of heavy-laden labor weighs on simple folk. 
 
 "Our country cries for living Lexington! 
 
 From mine and slum 
 And hearths where man's rebellion still burns on, 
 
 Rolls the deep drum : 
 
80 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 Ah, not to elegize but emulate 
 
 Is homage worthy of the heroic great, 
 
 Whose memoried spot 
 Serves but to quicken fire from ashes long forgot. 
 
 "Here, then, O little town of Lexington, 
 
 Burnish anew 
 Our muskets for the battle long begun 
 
 For freedom ! You, 
 
 O you, my comrades, called from all world-clans, 
 Here, by the deeds of dear Americans 
 
 That cannot die, 
 Let Lexington be still our revolution-cry!" 
 
SCHOOL 
 I 
 
 OLD Hezekiah leaned hard on his hoe 
 
 And squinted long at Eben, his lank son. 
 
 The silence shrilled with crickets. Day was done, 
 
 And, row on dusky row, 
 
 Tall bean poles ribbed with dark the gold-bright after 
 glow. 
 
 Eben stood staring : ever, one by one, 
 The tendril tops turned ashen as they flared. 
 
 Still Eben stared. 
 
 Oh, there is wonder on New Hampshire hills, 
 Hoeing the warm bright furrows of brown earth, 
 And there is grandeur in the stone wall's birth, 
 
 And in the sweat that spills 
 
 From rugged toil is sweetness ; yet for wild young wills 
 There is no dew of wonder, but stark dearth, 
 In one old man who hoes his long bean rows, 
 
 And only hoes. 
 
 G 81 
 
82 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 Old Hezekiah turned slow on his heel. 
 
 He touched his son. Through all the carking day 
 
 There are so many littlish cares to weigh 
 
 Large natures down, and steel 
 The heart of understanding. "Son, how is't ye 
 
 feel? 
 
 What are ye starin' on a gal?" A ray 
 Flushed Eben from the fading afterglow : 
 
 He dropped his hoe. 
 
 He dropped his hoe, but sudden stooped again 
 And raised it where it fell. Nothing he spoke, 
 But bent his knee and crack! the handle broke 
 
 Splintering. With glare of pain, 
 He flung the pieces down, and stamped upon them; 
 
 then 
 
 Like one who leaps out naked from his cloak 
 Ran. " Here, come back ! Where are ye bound 
 
 you fool?" 
 He cried "To school!" 
 
SCHOOL 83 
 
 II 
 
 Now on the mountain Morning laughed with light 
 With light and all the future in her face, 
 For there she looked on many a far-off place 
 
 And wild adventurous sight, 
 For which the mad young autumn wind hallooed with 
 
 might 
 
 And dared the roaring mill-brook to the race, 
 Where blue-jays screamed beyond the pine-dark pool 
 
 "To school! To school!" 
 
 Blackcoated, Eben took the barefoot trail, 
 
 Holding with wary hand his Sunday boots ; 
 
 Harsh catbirds mocked his whistling with their hoots ; 
 
 Under his swallowtail 
 
 Against his hip-strap bumping, clinked his dinner pail ; 
 Frost maples flamed, lone thrushes touched their lutes ; 
 Gray squirrels bobbed, with tails stiff curved to backs, 
 
 To eye his tracks. 
 
84 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 Soon at the lonely crossroads he passed by 
 The little one-room schoolhouse. He peered in. 
 There stood the bench where he had often been 
 
 Admonished flagrantly 
 
 To drone his numbers : Now to this he said good 
 bye 
 
 For mightier lure of more romantic scene : 
 Goodbye to childish rule and homely chore 
 
 Forevermore ! 
 
 All day he hastened like the flying cloud 
 Breathless above him, big with dreams, yet dumb. 
 With tightened jaw he chewed the tart spruce 
 gum, 
 
 And muttered half aloud 
 Huge oracles. At last, where through the pine-tops 
 
 bowed 
 
 The sun, it rose ! His heart beat like a drum. 
 There, there it rose his tower of prophecy : 
 
 The Academy ! 
 
SCHOOL 85 
 
 III 
 
 They learn to live who learn to contemplate, 
 
 For contemplation is the unconfined 
 
 God who creates us. To the growing mind 
 
 Freedom to think is fate, 
 
 And all that age and after-knowledge augurate 
 Lies in a little dream of youth enshrined : 
 That dream to nourish with the skilful rule 
 
 Of love is school. 
 
 Eben, in mystic tumult of his teens, 
 
 Stood bursting like a ripe seed into soul. 
 
 All his life long he had watched the great hills roll 
 
 Their shadows, tints and sheens 
 By sun- and moon-rise; yet the bane of hoeing 
 
 beans 
 
 And round of joyless chores, his father's toll, 
 Blotted their beauty ; nature was as not : 
 
 He had never thought. 
 
86 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 But now he climbed his boyhood's castle tower 
 And knocked : Ah, well then for his after-fate 
 That one of nature's masters opened the gate, 
 
 Where like an April shower 
 Live influence quickened all his earth-blind seed to 
 
 power. 
 
 Strangely his sense of truth grew passionate, 
 And like a young bull, led in yoke to drink, 
 
 He bowed to think. 
 
 There also bowed their heads with him to quaff 
 The snorting herd ! And many a wholesome grip 
 He had of rivalry and fellowship. 
 
 Often the game was rough, 
 
 But Eben tossed his horns and never called it off; 
 For still through play and task his Dream would 
 
 slip 
 A radiant Herdsman, guiding destiny 
 
 To his degree. 
 
SCHOOL 87 
 
 IV 
 
 Once more old Hezekiah stayed his hoe 
 To squint at Eben. Silent, Eben scanned 
 A little roll of sheepskin in his hand, 
 
 While, row on dusky row, 
 
 Tall bean poles ribbed with dark the gold-bright after 
 glow. 
 
 The boy looked up : Here was another land ! 
 Mountain and farm with mystic beauty flared 
 
 Where Eben stared. 
 
 Stooping, he lifted with a furtive smile 
 
 Two splintered sticks, and spliced them. Nevermore 
 
 His spirit would go beastwise to his chore 
 
 Blinded, for even while 
 
 He stooped to the old task, sudden in the sunset's pile 
 His radiant Herdsman swung a fiery door, 
 Through which came forth with far-borne trumpetings 
 
 Poets and kings, 
 
88 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 His fellow conquerors : There Virgil dreamed, 
 There Caesar fought and won the barbarous tribes, 
 There Darwin, pensive, bore the ignorant gibes, 
 
 And One with thorns redeemed 
 From malice the wild hearts of men : there flared and 
 
 gleamed 
 
 With chemic fire the forges of old scribes, 
 Testing anew the crucibles of toil 
 
 To save God's soil. 
 
 So Eben turned again to hoe his beans; 
 
 But now, to ballads which his Herdsman sung, 
 
 Henceforth he hoed the dream in with the dung, 
 
 And for his ancient spleens 
 
 Planting new joys, imagination found him means. 
 At last old Hezekiah loosed his tongue : 
 " Well, boy, this school what has it learned ye to 
 know?" 
 
 He said: "To hoe." 
 
THE PLAYER 
 
 [Shakspere] 
 
 His wardrobe is the world, and day and night 
 
 His many-mirror 'd dressing room : At dawn 
 
 He apes the elvish faun, 
 
 Or, garbed in saffron hose and scarlet shoon, 
 
 Mimics the madcap sprite 
 
 Of ever-altering youth ; at chime of noon 
 
 He wears the azure mail and blazoned casque 
 
 Of warring knighthood; till, at starry stroke 
 
 Of dark, all pale he dons his "inky cloak" 
 
 And meditates the waning moon his tragic mask. 
 
 His theatre is the soul, and man and woman 
 His infinite repertory: Age on age, 
 Treading his fancy's stage, 
 Ephemeral shadows of his master mind, 
 We act our parts the human 
 
 Players of scenes long since by him designed ; 
 
 80 
 
90 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 And stars, that blaze in tinsel on our boards, 
 
 Shine with a moment's immortality 
 
 Because they are his understudies, free 
 
 For one aspiring hour to sound his magic chords. 
 
 For not with scholars and their brain-worn scripts, 
 Nor there behind the footlights' fading glow 
 Shakspere survives : ah, no ! 
 Deep in the passionate reality 
 Of raging life above the darkling crypts 
 Of death, he meditates the awed "To be 
 Or not to be" of millions, yet to whom 
 His name is nothing; there, on countless quests, 
 Unlettered Touchstones quibble with his jests, 
 Unlaureled Hamlets yearn, and anguished Lears up- 
 loom. 
 
 Leave, then, to Avon's spire and silver stream 
 Their memory of ashes sung and sighed : 
 Our Shakspere never died, 
 
THE PLAYER 91 
 
 Nor ever was born, save as the god is born 
 From every soul that dares to doubt and dream. 
 He dreams but is not mortal : eve and morn, 
 Dirge and delight, float from his brow like prayer. 
 Beside him, charmed Apollo lifts his lyre; 
 Below, the heart of man smoulders in fire; 
 Between the two he stands, timeless the poet-player. 
 
TO JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY 
 (On first reading her play "The Wolf of Gubbio") 
 
 CONJURESS, here 
 
 YouVe poured, all clear, 
 
 In a cup, a carven crystal cup 
 
 Pied with lights that flush and falter 
 
 And flower again 
 
 All in a three-rimmed loving-cup 
 
 Fit for the dear Madonna's altar, 
 
 Where thieves and shrews and wolvish men 
 
 And wondering children may come to sup 
 
 All in a cup, a shining cup, 
 
 Held by the trembling paws and fingers 
 
 Of your divine dog Fra Lupone 
 
 And him, his crony, 
 
 Whose loving laughter lingers 
 
 In the echo of song that bubbles so easy 
 
 In syllabling: d'Assissi! d'Assissi! 
 92 
 
JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY 93 
 
 Him, large white soul in the simple wee body 
 
 Pulsing, you've poured in a glowing cup 
 
 For joy of our generations 
 
 Wine : wine distilled from the art 
 
 And the sheen 
 
 Of the mind and the heart 
 
 Of Josephine 
 
 Preston Peabody. 
 
 Fair befall her ! Felicitations ! 
 
PROLOGUE AND EPILOGUE TO A BIRD 
 MASQUE 
 
 PROLOGUE 
 Enter FANTASY, who speaks: 
 
 GENTLES, just now I met an elf 
 
 Who crooked mid-air his finger joint 
 
 To beckon me, poising himself 
 
 Sheer on a shining question-point; 
 
 And there he cried : " Who may you be ? 
 
 Where are you bound, if one may ask? 
 
 What are these birds that hold a masque? 
 
 What is a masque? What witchery 
 
 Can cause my woodland boughs to grace 
 
 This walled and crowded shut-in place? 
 
 How may divine Aurora rise 
 
 Under a roof ? That parchment scroll - 
 
 What's written there?" I said: "Replies 
 
 To elves like you, who claim their toll 
 
 Of answers." So I cast my eyes 
 
 Downward, and read this from my roll : 
 94 
 
PROLOGUE 95 
 
 I 
 
 Follow me, Gentles ! Follow me 
 
 By hidden paths, for I am Fantasy : 
 
 Between the ear and what is heard, 
 
 Betwixt the eye and what is seen, 
 
 Midway the poet and his word 
 
 I hold my shadowy demesne. 
 
 And there to-night I act a thing 
 
 Nor drama nor lyric but mid-way 
 
 Wrought for my fairy folk to sing 
 
 And real folk to play. 
 
 Your nature critic does not ask 
 
 Robin to nest with wren, 
 
 Yet both are birds : Why argue, then, 
 
 What drama is, or masque? 
 
 My theatre's art is nature's, when 
 
 It serves the creator's task. 
 
96 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 II 
 
 Then, follow me, Gentles, if you will ! 
 
 To follow means but tarry still 
 
 Here in your seats, for I will bring 
 
 Horizons for your journeying, 
 
 Till soon this many-murmured hall 
 
 Shall be for you a silent wood, 
 
 Where we may watch, through leafy solitude, 
 
 Quercus the faun, and hear his echo call 
 
 In sighing surds 
 
 The vowel-bubbling birds, 
 
 And spy where Dawn steals past with pale footfall. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Come, then, for this can only be 
 If you will follow Fantasy. 
 No magic is, except through me; 
 Yet I myself can nothing do 
 Alone ; my radiance 'tis from you. 
 
PROLOGUE 97 
 
 For if in woods I walk alone 
 
 No light will be around me thrown; 
 
 And if alone you walk the woods, 
 
 Your eyes will blink through darkening hoods. 
 
 IV 
 
 Come, then, together let us go, 
 As birds and men together meet 
 Where boughs are dim and woodlands sweet 
 With meditation. Meeting so, 
 My simplest arts 
 
 Will serve to please you, and unblind 
 Your own rapt vision; for kind hearts 
 Need no compulsion to be kind 
 To their own natures. So the mind 
 Amongst you which shall act most feelingly 
 ^My simple masque, and find the fewest flaws, 
 Shall win my best award, and he (or she) 
 Be showered by my players' glad applause. 
 
98 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 EPILOGUE 
 
 Gentles, if you have followed me, 
 Now is no need to say goodbye; 
 For we shall meet in revery 
 Wherever glad birds sing and fly 
 Wherever sad birds bleed and dumbly die. 
 
 Oh, where they mount on wings and song 
 'Tis we who mount there you and I ; 
 And where they fall and suffer wrong 
 J Tis we who perish you and I : 
 Our own is Ornis' pain or ecstasy. 
 
 So, at fresh rise and set of sun, 
 
 May Ornis bring her joy to you, each one, 
 
 And Tacita her dreams ! Our masque is done. 
 
THE SONG SPARROW 
 
 WHEN June was cool and clover long 
 And birds were glad in soul and body, 
 
 I sat me down to make a song, 
 And sweltered in my study: 
 
 I swinked and sweat with weary art 
 
 To tell how merry was my heart. 
 
 With weary art and wordy choice 
 
 I toiled, when sudden low and breezy 
 
 I heard a little friendly voice 
 Call : Simple, simple, so easy ! 
 
 I heard, yet sat apart in dole 
 
 To sing how social was my soul. 
 
 In vain ! That artless voice went round 
 
 In tiny echoes faint and teasy. 
 I rose : " What toil then, have you found 
 
 Simple, simple, so easy?" 
 99 
 
100 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 Dauntless, the bird, with dewy beak, 
 Carolled again his cool critique. 
 
 Nay, song it is a simple thing 
 For hearts that seek no reason : 
 
 Relentless bird, why should you sing 
 Who are the happy season ? 
 
 Still why! The root of joy I seek, 
 
 While laughter ripples from your beak. 
 
 No wonder, then, the bard's pen creaks, 
 The critic's drone grows wheezy, 
 
 When joy the June bird never seeks 
 Is simple, simple, so easy! 
 
 While we, who find our art so long, 
 
 Still make a subterfuge of song ! 
 
TO AN UPLAND PLOVER 
 
 CRESCENT-WING'D, sky-clean 
 Hermit of pastures wild, 
 
 Upland plover, shy-soul'd lover 
 Of field ways undefiled ! 
 I watch your curve-tipt pinion glean 
 Slim as a scythe the rusty green 
 
 Reaches of sweet-fern cover 
 That slant to your secret glade, 
 But what you cull with your rhythmic blade 
 What mortal can discover? 
 
 Azure-born, gale-blown 
 Gull of the billowy hills, 
 
 My heart goes forth to see you hover 
 So far from human sills, 
 
 To hear your tweeting, shrill and lone, 
 101 
 
102 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 Make from the moorgrass such sharp moan 
 
 As some unshriven lover, 
 For you are sorrow-wise 
 With memory, whose passions rise 
 
 Whence no man may discover. 
 
 Reticent, rare of song, 
 
 Rears the shy soul its pain : 
 
 You sought no cottage eave as cover 
 To dole a dulcet plain; 
 But swift, on pinions lithe and strong, 
 You sought a place for your wild wrong 
 
 God only might discover, 
 And there God, calling, came, 
 And flies with you in His white flame 
 Your wilding mate, O plover I 
 
RAIN REVERY 
 
 IN the lone of night by the pattering tree 
 
 I sat alone with Poetry 
 
 With Poetry, my old shy friend, 
 
 And his tenuous shadow seemed to blend 
 
 Beyond the lampshine on the sill 
 
 With the mammoth shadow of the hill, 
 
 And his breath fell soft on the pool-dark pane 
 
 With the murmurous, murmuring muffled hoof 
 
 Of the rain, the rain 
 
 The rain on the roof. 
 
 In the vast of night and its vacancy 
 
 I prayed aloud to Poetry, 
 
 And his luminous eyes grew large and dim 
 
 As my heart-pulse quickened to question him; 
 
 For out of that rumbling rhymeless rune 
 
 He only might know, by a sense atune, 
 
 103 
 
104 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 To unravel the anguish, and render vain 
 The remorseless will that wove the woof 
 Of the rain, the rain 
 The rain on the roof. 
 
 So I cried : " What mute conspiracy 
 
 Have you made with the night, O Poetry? 
 
 Lover and friend of my warm doorway, 
 
 Do you crouch there too on the storm-soaked clay ? 
 
 Did you creep indoors when that gust of damp 
 
 Raised the dead moon-moths round my lamp 
 
 And the wan flame guttered ? Hark, again ! 
 
 Do you ride there so close, so aloof 
 
 With the rain, the rain 
 
 The rain on the roof? 
 
 "Ah, what of the rapture and melody 
 
 We might have wrought, dear Poetry! 
 
 Imagined tower and dream-built shrine, 
 
 Must they crumble in dark like this pale lampshine? 
 
RAIN REVERY 105 
 
 Our dawn-flecked meadows lyric-shrill, 
 
 Shall they lie as dumb as the gloom-drenched hill? 
 
 Our song- voiced lovers ! Shall none remain ? " 
 
 Under the galloping, gusty hoof 
 
 Answered the rain, rain 
 
 Rain on the roof. 
 
THE HEART IN THE JAR 
 
 A Meditation on the Nobel Prize Award for Medical 
 Research, 1912 
 
 ALIVE it beats in a bosom of glass 
 
 A glowing heart ! 
 
 It has come to pass I 
 
 Ventricle, auricle, 
 
 Artery quivering: 
 
 No metaphorical 
 
 x 
 
 Symbol of art, 
 
 No cold, mechanical trick of a cog, 
 
 But ardent an organ mysterious, 
 
 Alive, delivering 
 
 Serene, continuous 
 
 Pulses, poised in its chamber of glass, 
 
 Beating the heart of a dog ! 
 106 
 
THE HEART IN THE JAR 107 
 
 II 
 
 And it came to pass 
 
 While the hearts of men 
 
 Were selling and buying 
 
 The blood of their brothers, 
 
 Then, even then 
 
 While grocer and draper 
 
 And soldier were eying 
 
 Their market-news in the morning paper, 
 
 And, musing there among the others, 
 
 Their poet of words 
 
 Stood staring his back to the laboratory 
 
 (Where the poet of life 
 
 Plied ether and knife) 
 
 Stood musing his rhymes for a miracle-story 
 
 Of Babylon queens or Attic birds. 
 
108 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 III 
 
 Yet others were there more strange 
 (More strange, as they spoke in the holy name 
 Of the human heart, while still their eyes 
 Were blind to the light love's visions range) 
 For they cried : " Lo, the dog he dies ! 
 Spare him the knife ! What have ye done, 
 Awarders of fame! Will you grant to one 
 Who slaughters the great world-prize ? " 
 Yet these are the same 
 Who cherish the deed and worship the pain 
 
 Of saints that offered their blood in fire 
 
 \ 
 
 For the meed of men, 
 
 And these are the same who bend the knee 
 
 To One who hung on the bleeding tree 
 
 Under the seraphim: 
 
 In the name in the hallowed name of Him 
 
 Who raised us from Caliban, 
 
 Would they grudge to a dog what a god might aspire 
 
 To render his heart for the Heart of Man ? 
 
THE HEART IN THE JAR 109 
 
 IV 
 
 How calm in its crystal tomb 
 
 It beats to the mandate of life! 
 
 How hush it waits in the sexless womb 
 
 For the hour of its strange midwife 
 
 The seer, whose talismanic touch 
 
 Shall give it birth in another what ? 
 
 The heart of a dog once, was it not? 
 
 So then, if it still be such, 
 
 Why, then, the dog (cur, thoroughbred, 
 
 Mastiff, was it, or hound ?) 
 
 What of the dog ? is he quick or dead ? 
 
 His soul (as they used to say) 
 
 In what Elysian field should he stray, 
 
 Or where lie down in his grave? 
 
 For hark ! 
 
 Through the clear concave 
 
 Of the glass, that delicate pulsing sound ! 
 
 Ah, once, how it whirred in the flooded dark 
 
 Of his deep-lunged chest, with rhythmic beat 
 
110 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 To the wild curvet of his wonderful feet 
 
 And the rapturous passion of his bark, 
 
 As he welcomed his homing master's hand, 
 
 To crouch at the quick command ! 
 
 Yet it never has ceased to beat : 
 
 Charmed by the poet of life, 
 
 Freed by his art and the cunning knife 
 
 That counterfoils the shears of fate, 
 
 See it quiver now in that golden bar 
 
 Of noon unlaboring, isolate, 
 
 Alive, in a crystal jar ! 
 
 The heart of a dog why pause ? 
 
 Why pause on your brink, bright jar? Or why 
 
 This reticent allocution? 
 
 A dog ! Shall I stop at to-day, because 
 
 To-morrow it might be I ? 
 
 Yea, and if it be! 
 
 Even this heart of me 
 
THE HEART IN THE JAR 111 
 
 The subtle bard of life with his blade 
 
 To sever from out the mystic whole 
 
 I have deemed my Soul 
 
 And shatter me like no cloven shade 
 
 Divined by a Dante's ecstasy 
 
 In morsels to immortality, 
 
 Piecemeal to dissolution! 
 
 This, then, that knocks at my breast 
 Starting at the image of its own inquest 
 Hung in a gleaming jar this sentient thing 
 Responsive in the night 
 To messages of grandeur and delight, 
 Pensive to Winter, passionate to Spring, 
 Mounting on strokes of music's rhythmic wing, 
 Beating more swift when my beloved's cheek 
 Ruddies with rapture the tongue fails to speak, 
 And pausing quite 
 When her rose turns to white 
 This servant, delicate to suffering, 
 
112 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 Insurgent to restraint, soothed by redress, 
 This shall the life-bard place upon his shelf 
 Beside the dog and both shall acquiesce. 
 
 VI 
 
 For he artist of baffling life himself 
 
 Sculptor and plastic instrument 
 
 He holds within his hand the vast intent, 
 
 And carves from out the^crimson clay of death 
 
 Incredible images 
 
 Of quickening fauns, and headless victories 
 
 More terrible than her of Samothrace, 
 
 Yea, toys with such as these, 
 
 As, silent, he lifts a severed Gorgon's face 
 
 Toward his own; 
 
 (The watchers hold their breath, 
 
 Hiding their dread.) 
 
 Calmly he looks nor turns to stone, 
 
 But with a touch freezes the sphinx instead. 
 
 Till last, all pale, beside him like a dream 
 
THE HEART IN THE JAR 113 
 
 That rises into daylight out of sleep 
 
 Death rises from the mystic, crimson stream 
 
 And murmurs at his ear: "What, then, am I? 
 
 And what art thou whose scalpel strikes so deep 
 
 To slay me? Yea, I felt it glance me by 
 
 And I am wounded ! Give it me ! " They clutch : 
 
 Death snatches, and his frozen fingers touch 
 
 The scalpel's edge when lo, a lightning gleam 
 
 Ruddies their wrestling shadows on the night; 
 
 Immense they lengthen down the vasty gloom 
 
 And darken in their height 
 
 The rafters of a silent room : 
 
 Around its walls, ranged in the crystal jars 
 
 Of infinite stars, 
 
 Beat, as they burn, the myriad hearts of life ; 
 
 In lordship, where their lonely shadows loom, 
 
 Death and the Artist grapple for the knife. 
 
NEW POEMS 
 
THREE DANCE MOTIVES 
 
 Imagined for dances of Isadora Duncan 
 I. LETHE 
 
 ALONE by a starless sea 
 
 I lay with Sorrow ; 
 And mists of slumber breathed 
 
 From the mouth of my lover ; 
 
 And I rose from his numbing arms 
 And moaned : " O, release me ! 
 
 Let me flame, let me leap once more 
 On the hills of vision ! " 
 
 Then one by one stood round us 
 
 Stars of the morning : 
 Their lyric bodies sang, 
 
 Their torch-limbs beckoned ; 
 117 
 
118 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 But the fog of my blind lover's breath 
 
 Congealed their burning 
 Till they drooped on the banks of dawn 
 
 Like lilies frost-slain, 
 
 And I drooped to his lethal lips 
 
 Of anguish, and lay there 
 Till the shy Stars bloomed again 
 
 By shores of the evening, 
 
 Beckoning anew, with their palms 
 
 Of flame, to rejoin them 
 On the Mountains of Joy, and once more 
 
 I rose in my yearning 
 
 And gazed : I am coming ! But ah ! 
 
 The arrows of my gazing 
 Pierced them there, side by side, 
 
 And they waned by the waters, 
 
THREE DANCE MOTIVES 119 
 
 Lying like mermaids, dead 
 
 In the shoals of twilight. 
 Then my soul waned with them, and kissed 
 
 The cold mouth of my lover. 
 
 But still, through the pulsing mists 
 
 Of our pitiful dreaming, 
 I feel their immortal eyes 
 
 Burning with wonder. 
 
 II. DIONYSUS 
 
 Dionysus ! io ! lo ! Dionysus ! 
 Who hath rolled back the rock from the cave Cim 
 merian 
 
 And blinded the world with morning ? 
 Dionysus ! thou ! It is thou, Dionysus ! 
 Out of the niggard, numbing dark of the ages 
 Thou, from the dead, art restored ! 
 
120 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 Stark from the Tree of Pain, 
 
 Crucified, bleeding, disowned, 
 
 They bore the beautiful God of our Joy to his charnel : 
 
 But there in the flaming dark, thou thou, his seraph, 
 
 Rolled back the awful stone 
 
 For the Lord of Life new risen. 
 
 Dionysus ! io ! lo ! Dionysus ! 
 
 Lo ! thy grapes are the clustering hearts of children 
 
 And the wine of these is thy worship. 
 
 Dionysus ! once more ! Once more, Dionysus, 
 
 Thou revealest our God, who is One through all ages : 
 
 The Lord of Life is regained ! 
 
 III. THE CHASE 
 
 Through what vast wood, 
 
 By what wild paths of beautiful surprise, 
 
 Hast thou returned to us, 
 
 Diana, Diana of Desire ? 
 
THREE DANCE MOTIVES 121 
 
 Coming to thy call 
 What huntresses are these ? 
 
 What hallowed chase? What long, long cherished 
 goal? 
 
 Through man's wan mind 
 By radiant paths of rhythmic liberty 
 I am returned to you, 
 Diviner, diviner of dreams ! 
 
 Those huntresses, they are my hallowed desires 
 My unquenched selves with overflowing quivers. 
 Joy is our chase and goal : 
 
 Our bodies the tense crossbows, and our wild souls the 
 shafts 1 
 
THE BANDBOX THEATRE 1 
 
 LADIES and Gentlemen, to-night we christen 
 Our little new-born venture. If you'll listen 
 Let us, therefore, bethink ourselves a minute : 
 "What's in a name?" Methinks to us what's in it 
 Implies what's in a bandbox ? But what's that ? 
 
 A bandbox, you will say, implies a hat ; 
 Nay, more, a hat that's shapely to a head ; 
 But shapeliness implies the power to shed 
 Charm to the eyes in short, to an audience, 
 And meaning you, that means intelligence. 
 So from our bandbox (when the lid is off) 
 We hope to furnish headgear fair enough 
 To fit your high-bred choice in varied modes 
 Adapted to your pleasures and the codes 
 
 1 An Epilogue for the opening night, New York, December 16, 
 1914, spoken by one of the actors. 
 
 122 
 
THE BANDBOX THEATRE 123 
 
 Of modern workmanship in world-old art, 
 Building for these a little place apart 
 With roof and walls, to shelter from bad weather 
 King Richard's crown or Lady Teazel's feather. 
 
 Such is our Bandbox. To deserve the name 
 Implies, you see, your sanction to the same. 
 Your good-will is our garland. Help us win it ! 
 Our Bandbox holds the palm while you are in it I 
 
TO "E. A." 
 
 [Edwin Arlington Robinson] 
 
 WITH CAKE AND CANDLES 1 
 
 E. A. Of all the alphabet 
 
 That combination is the key 
 
 To unlock a door of memory 
 
 Into a quiet hall-room, set 
 
 With pen and pipe, where smoke of fancy 
 
 Swathes with a gentle necromancy 
 
 (Remote from Gotham's glare and racket) 
 
 One who reclines in crimson jacket 
 
 And smiles, in cryptic meditation, 
 
 To hold a friendly hand to me. 
 
 E. A. ! Yes, there's the combination : 
 
 The door turns inward to the light 
 
 Of kind eyes through the dark. To-night 
 
 Candles illumine there, like day, 
 
 The sign above the knocker : See ! 
 
 Entra, ^4mice, #emane ! Thanks ; your key 
 
 I turn, E. A. - 
 
 To friendship the true way. 
 
 1 On his birthday : 23 December, 1914. 
 124 
 
CHARLES KLEIN: DRAMATIST 
 Died 7 May, 1915 on the Lusitania 
 
 THE arc-lights gleamed on glare Broadway 
 Where the people passed to see his play 
 To mingle their own mirth and fears 
 With players' laughter, players' tears ; 
 
 Yet while they watched, they little wist 
 
 The presence of the dramatist : 
 
 The practiced hand, the artful means 
 
 Of the mind that moved behind the scenes. 
 
 Only the glamour which he wrought 
 Instilled its purpose stirred their thought, 
 And made its glow and color blaze 
 
 Unconscious on their after-ways. 
 125 
 
126 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 But once, against an awful hour, 
 They saw him loom they felt a power 
 Whose blinding and immortal ray 
 Put out the arc-lights of Broadway 
 
 To show a planet all on fire ; 
 And there one instant on that pyre 
 He stood with those who held strange tryst 
 With Death the master dramatist. 
 
 There shines his great memorial, 
 And we who shudder at his pall 
 Cannot in fitting phrase relate 
 An elegy more grand than fate ; 
 
 For make-believe of mirth and fears, 
 And players' laughter, players' tears, 
 Take on more vast and solemn range 
 That he has suffered that sea-change. 
 
CHARLES KLEIN: DRAMATIST 127 
 
 Broadway goes by : new players tread 
 Old boards, but still their memoried dead 
 Act on in lordlier demesnes 
 Moved by the Soul behind the scenes. 
 
EDISON 
 
 A THOUSAND leagues on the Arctic sea 
 A ship went down through the frozen floe. 
 Captain and crew they watched her go : 
 
 They ran her colors free ; 
 
 They cheered her lustily ; 
 And far peoples shouted her praise with them 
 Where a phonograph from her plunging stem 
 Pealed to the stars her requiem. 
 
 A thousand leagues through the Afric wood 
 A man went looting the jungle's wealth. 
 Leopard nor lion could stay his stealth, 
 
 Nor sleeping-death, nor flood : 
 
 He drew not the monsters' blood, 
 But he led them alive through the scorching day 
 By a tape of moving film, to play 
 With the wondering children of Broadway. 
 128 
 
EDISON 129 
 
 A thousand leagues or a thousand years 
 Are motes in the gaze of the seeking mind : 
 By its own radiance thought can find 
 
 Its way to ultimate spheres, 
 
 Dark, till its beam appears 
 To blazon them. So on that beam hath run 
 Round Arctic moon and Afric sun 
 The electric mind of Edison. 
 
 Through delicate engine and disk and reel 
 He quickens the elemental Cause, 
 Kindling the lightnings of its laws 
 
 Till atoms of jelly and steel 
 
 Are made to stir and feel, 
 And mortals that long have ceased to be 
 Live on, for the world to hear and see, 
 In a semblance of immortality. 
 
 The throbbing ticker resounds his fame 
 With its ominous pulse, and the mart responds, 
 K 
 
130 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 Selling his magic in stocks and bonds ; 
 But they, who toss his name 
 With gold in their mighty game, 
 Behold not the soul of the mightier One 
 Who sits in the brain of an Edison 
 And weighs the dreams, when all is done. 
 
 For all that the millions sell and buy 
 And wrangle for, is a dreamful thing 
 Wrought of a lone imagining : 
 Tower'd cities, that top our sky, 
 Loomed first on the pensive eye 
 Of brooding architects ; the glories 
 Of art and science, their sounding stories, 
 Have birth from silent laboratories. 
 
 So out of his visioning silences 
 The great inventor reveals to us 
 New pathways of nature, perilous 
 
 With unknown skies and seas, 
 
 For new astronomies 
 
EDISON 131 
 
 To chart, and each dim discovered trail 
 
 Is lit by the gleam of a lurid grail 
 
 With the legend : What shall the search avail? 
 
 What at last shall avail our invention ? Yea, 
 What avails our soul its cunning brain 
 If our paths be hatred, our goal be pain ? 
 
 Brain searches in cloud and clay, 
 
 But our soul must point us the way 
 Through cloud to a star, through clay to God's breath, 
 Or else it were wiser to welcome death 
 On the star-lit road to Nazareth. 
 
 But they shall avail both brain and soul ; 
 They avail us now in him who has won 
 Earth's wondering homage Edison : 
 
 For his mind has held as its goal 
 
 The good of a world made whole, 
 And his spirit girds it with lightning span 
 The planetary American 
 Whose master-thought is the joy of man. 
 
THE RETURN OF AUGUST 
 
 DARKLY a mortal age has come and gone 
 And man grown ancient in a single year. 
 August ! The summer month is blasted sere 
 With memories earth bleeds to dream upon. 
 
 To dream upon ! Ah, were we dreaming then 
 Ere Europe, blindfold, lulled in holiday, 
 Harkened the sudden thunder through her play 
 And, fumbling, held her breath to hark again, 
 
 Or is this blighted year our dream ? How swift 
 The blackening tempest fell ! How vast, through fire 
 And cloud of Belgium's rape, a planet's ire 
 Flared on that pall of shame, while through the rift 
 
 The livid sorrows racked our sympathies ! 
 
 For still thought burned unclouded : Right and wrong 
 
 Strove for the palm as in an epic song ; 
 
 And so we poured our succor overseas, 
 
 132 
 
THE RETURN OF AUGUST 133 
 
 Neutral in act but never in our souls, 
 Yet guarding the brave goal of peace. Till soon 
 Slow-warping to the waning year's blind moon 
 The tide ebbed back, and in the freezing shoals 
 
 We stared upon the dead the dead, whose mothers 
 Suckled them still in dreams. Stark, mid the stench 
 And yellow choke that reeked from shell and trench, 
 They lay together there mere boys, and brothers. 
 
 Were these the epic hosts of Wrong and Right 
 Whose clash had whirled us in their spirits' war ? 
 These silent boys : what had they battled for 
 To lie such still bedfellows in the night ? 
 
 Must breath of dying brothers wake the brass 
 That thrills the call to arms ? Shall ghostly lips 
 Summon the living to the dark eclipse 
 And all their dearest shout to see them pass 
 
134 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 Merely for this : That these who might have shared 
 A simple handclasp share a bloodied sod ? 
 So for a while we gazed and questioned God : 
 A haunted while : for dimly, as we stared, 
 
 Far off, we heard the multitudinous cry 
 
 Of mangled Poland, like a cry in sleep, 
 
 And Servia fever-panting, and the deep 
 
 Half -breathed self-doubt of prisoned Germany ; 
 
 And still far tidings blew, but that first spark 
 Of August splendor burned in them no more ; 
 Pity and sorrow palled, and custom wore 
 A deeper callus and a blur more dark, 
 
 Till sudden the Lusitania ! Lightnings shot 
 The unhallowed message, and a shuddering fire 
 Leapt from our long-charred hearts a glowing spire, 
 And Europe's sword swung nearer to the knot 
 
THE RETURN OF AUGUST 135 
 
 That ties our bonds of peace. And now and now 
 The summer steals again toward winter's sleep ; 
 The reaping time draws near ah, what to reap ? 
 And spring, that lurks beyond, comes hither how ? 
 
 Still, O my Country, while we may, look back ! 
 The blighted year cries from the charnel grass : 
 Must breath of dying brothers wake the brass 
 That thrills the call to arms ? A blood-sered track 
 
 Leads backward to that other August day, 
 Prowled by the still unglutted Minotaur ; 
 But we, who watch to slay that beast of War, 
 Shall we hunt him or those he mangles ? Say : 
 
 For reason has its ire more just than hate ; 
 Imagination has its master hour, 
 And pity its foil, and mother-love its power 
 Mightier than blood-lust and more obdurate. 
 
136 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 My Country ! poised in forward visioning, 
 
 With pity, love and reason let us pray 
 
 Our lives shall serve to cleanse this August day ! 
 
 The summer wanes : the ploughman comes with spring. 
 
FEDERATION 
 
 OVER there they know the singeing and blinding of 
 
 sorrow. 
 Over there they know the young dead : they know 
 
 the dear 
 
 Touch of the living that shall be the dead to-morrow : 
 Here what know we here ? 
 
 Over there, they feel the heart-rage, the sick hating 
 Of bitter blood-lust, the imminent storm of steel, 
 Burden and pang of a terror never-abating : 
 Here what do we feel ? 
 
 There, where they snuff the reek of a burning censer 
 
 Borne by the stark-mad emperors their pain, 
 Tinged with a hallowed pride, takes on the intenser 
 
 Soul of a world insane. 
 137 
 
138 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 We, who still spared to reason, here where the thunder 
 And surge of the madness dwindle to murmurs and 
 
 cease, 
 
 We who, apart, stand dazed by the demons of plun 
 der 
 How shall we conjure Peace ? 
 
 Peace did we call her, the gluttonous mother who 
 
 suckled 
 
 The monster child her lust of dominion bore ? 
 Peace did we crown her, the secret harlot who 
 truckled 
 To breed from the loins of War ? 
 
 One word one only will be ours in awaking : 
 Nevermore! Nevermore let us build for merely our 
 
 own. 
 
 Peace is not ours alone for the making or breaking . 
 Peace is the world's alone. 
 
FEDERATION 139 
 
 For the battle-gauge is feud-lust or federation. 
 
 The ultimate beast is enthroned and man is its thrall ; 
 And beast or man shall survive, as nation with nation 
 Fights not for one, but all. 
 
 A dream ? Yes, the dream that once was a planet's 
 
 derision 
 
 Now blazons a planet's prayer : the cry to be free 
 Of a world unconceived in woe of a Dante's vision, 
 Or Christ's on the blasted tree. 
 
 For our deeds are the henchmen of dreams. Since 
 
 only by another 
 Dream can the dreamer be vanquished, let ours 
 
 create 
 
 The beautiful order of brother united with brother : 
 Victorious dreaming is fate. 
 
 America dreamer of dreams ! Be destiny's leader, 
 
 Militant first for mankind, for so your own soul, 
 Blended of all, for all shall be interceder 
 And guide to the world's goal. 
 
CHRISTMAS 1915 
 
 Now is the midnight of the nations : dark 
 Even as death, beside her blood-dark seas, 
 Earth, like a mother in birth agonies, 
 Screams in her travail, and the planets hark 
 Her million-throated terror. Naked, stark, 
 Her torso writhes enormous, and her knees 
 Shudder against the shadowed Pleiades, 
 Wrenching the night's imponderable arc, 
 
 Christ ! What shall be delivered to the morn 
 
 Out of these pangs, if ever indeed another 
 
 Morn shall succeed this night, or this vast mother 
 
 Survive to know the blood-sprent offspring, torn 
 
 From her racked flesh ? What splendor from the 
 
 smother ? 
 What new-wing'd world, or mangled god still-born ? 
 
 140 
 
NOTES 
 
OF the poems collected in this volume, those in 
 Part I (War) have been written during the last ten 
 weeks; those in Part II (Peace) have been selected 
 from poems written during the last two years 
 chiefly during 1914. Most of them have been pub 
 lished, separately, in the following journals and 
 newspapers, to the editors of which the author 
 makes his acknowledgments: The North American 
 Review, Collier's Weekly, The Outlook, The Forum, 
 The Independent, The Boston Evening Transcript, The 
 New York Times and Times Literary Supplement, The 
 New York Evening Post. 
 
 NEW YORK CITY, 
 
 October 26, 1914. 
 
 142 
 
NOTES 
 
 MOST of the poems in this volume were written for 
 special occasions. These notes record the dates and events 
 which called forth their expression, as follows : 
 
 I: War 
 
 Fight : written for the centenary celebration of the 
 naval battle of Plattsburgh, and read by the author at 
 Pittsburgh, N.Y., September 11, 1914. 
 
 In the naval battle of Plattsburgh, the American com 
 mander " Macdonough himself worked like a common 
 sailor, in pointing and handling a favorite gun. While 
 bending over to sight it, a round shot cut in two the 
 spanker boom, which fell on his head and struck him sense 
 less for two or three minutes; he then leaped to his feet 
 and continued as before, when a shot took off the head of the 
 captain of the gun crew and drove it in his face with such 
 force as to knock him to the other side of the deck." 
 
 The above quotation is from " The Naval War of 1812," 
 by Theodore Roosevelt. 
 
 The Conflict : These six sonnets here printed were 
 originally published, together, in the Boston Evening 
 Transcript, August 29, 1914. The first, "To William 
 Watson," is a response to a sonnet by Mr. Watson entitled 
 " To the United States," first published in The London Post, 
 and cabled to the New York Times. 
 
 The Lads of Liege : First printed in the New York Times, 
 September 2, 1914. 
 
 Carnage : These six sonnets were first published, together, 
 in the Boston Evening Transcript, September 26, 1914. 
 
 The Muffled Drums : These stanzas (published in the 
 New York Evening Post, September 3, 1914) were written 
 143 
 
144 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 with reference to the Peace Procession of Women in New 
 York City, August 29, 1914. 
 
 Antwerp: The early press accounts of the storming of 
 Antwerp by the Germans told of great damage to the city's 
 architecture. Later accounts have described a less amount 
 of physical injury inflicted. This sonnet, however, has refer 
 ence less to the physical violence, than to the spiritual 
 violation wrought by unwarranted invaders. 
 
 Men of Canada : First printed in the Boston Evening Tran 
 script, October 17, 1914, shortly after the sailing of Canadian 
 troops to England. 
 
 The Child-Dancers : The little children of the Isadora 
 Duncan School of Dancing, to whom these verses refer, 
 came to America in September, owing to conditions of war 
 in France. Russian, German, French, and English, they 
 form a happy and harmonious family of the belligerent 
 races. 
 
 A Prayer of the Peoples : This poem was written on the day 
 of President Wilson's Call to Prayer, Sunday, October 4, 
 1914. It was published in the New York Times, on October 
 fifth. 
 
 In Memoriam : Mrs. Woodrow Wilson : These stanzas were 
 first printed in the New York Evening Post, August 13, 
 1914. Shortly before her death, the earnest, expressed 
 wish of Mrs. Wilson for the passing of the law for the 
 betterment of conditions in the slum district of Wash 
 ington was fulfilled by vote of the Senate. 
 
 II: Peace 
 
 Panama Hymn: Sung by a chorus at the Panama 
 Festival for the benefit of the New York Association for 
 the Blind, New York City, March 25, 1913, for which 
 occasion the hymn was written. It was published in the 
 North American Review, April, 1913. 
 
NOTES 145 
 
 Goethals : written for the National Testimonial to 
 Colonel George W. Goethals, and read by the author at 
 Carnegie Hall, New York City, March 4, 1914. 
 
 A Child at the Wicket : This poem, which narrates a 
 true experience of the author at Ellis Island, refers by 
 implication to the now historic labor troubles at Law 
 rence, Mass., in 1912. 
 
 Hymn for Equal Suffrage: Written for the Equal 
 Suffrage Meeting (Authors' Night) held at Cooper Union, 
 New York City, in January 1914, and read by the author 
 on that occasion. The poem is based on one of a like 
 nature in the writer's play " Mater." 
 
 Lexington : Written for the two hundredth anniversary 
 of the incorporation of the town of Lexington, and read 
 at Lexington, Mass., June 8, 1913. 
 
 School : Written for the centenary celebration of the 
 founding of Meriden Academy, and read by the author at 
 Meriden, N.H., June 25, 1913. 
 
 The Player: written for the celebration of the three 
 hundredth anniversary of the birth of Shakspere, and 
 read by Mr. Douglas Wood at the ceremonies beside Shak- 
 spere's statue in Central Park, New York City, April 23, 
 1914. 
 
 Prologue and Epilogue to a Bird Masque: Thesewere 
 written for the indoor performance of the author's Bird 
 Masque " Sanctuary " in New York City, at the Hotel 
 Astor Ballroom Theatre, February 24, 1914. On that 
 occasion they were recited by Mrs. Charles Douville 
 Coburn (in the role of Fantasy), who has since made use 
 of them in the performances of the Masque by the Coburn 
 Players at various American universities. 
 
 The Heart in the Jar : written at the time of the an 
 nouncement of the award, to Dr. Alexis Carrel, of the 
 Nobel Prize for Medical Research, and published in the 
 New York Times Literary Supplement, December 8, 1912. 
 
146 THE PRESENT HOUR 
 
 New Poems 
 
 Three Dance Motives: Composed for dances of Isadora 
 Duncan, and recited by Augustin Duncan at the Metro 
 politan Opera House and the Century Theatre, New York, 
 March, 1915. 
 
 Edison: Written for the National Testimonial to 
 Thomas A. Edison, on his receiving the Civic Forum Medal 
 for Distinguished Public Service, and read by the author 
 at Carnegie Hall, New York, May 6, 1915. 
 
 Federation: Read by the author before the National 
 Institute and Academy of Arts and Letters, Boston, Jor 
 dan Hall, November 19, 1915. 
 
 Charles Klein: Dramatist: Read by the author at the 
 memorial meeting to Charles Klein, Hudson Theatre, 
 December 19, 1915. 
 
LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 
 
Delivered before the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences 
 
 at the Academy of Music, Brooklyn, New York 
 
 February, 1909 
 
ODE ON THE CENTENARY OF 
 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 
 
ODE ON THE CENTENARY OF ABRAHAM 
 LINCOLN 
 
 I 
 
 THEN fell the season bleak 
 Of silence and long night, 
 And solemn starshine and large solitude ; 
 Hardly more husht the world when first the word 
 Of God creation stirred, 
 Far steep t in wilderness. By the frore creek, 
 Mute in the moon, the hunted stag in flight 
 Paused, panting silver ; in her cedarn lair, 
 Crouched with her starveling litter, the numb lynx 
 Winked the keen hoar-frost, quiet as a sphinx ; 
 On the lone forest trail 
 Only the coyote's wail 
 Quivered, and ceased. 
 
2 LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 
 
 It was the chrisom rude 
 
 Of winter and wild beast 
 
 That consecrated, by harsh nature's rite, 
 
 A meagre cabin crude, 
 
 Builded of logs and bark, 
 
 To be a pilgrim nation's hallow'd ark 
 
 And shrine the goal aspiring ages seek. 
 
 No ceremonial 
 
 Of pealed chime was there, or blared horn, 
 
 Such as hath blazoned births of lesser kings, 
 
 When he the elder brother of us all, 
 
 Lincoln was born. 
 
 At his nativity 
 
 Want stood as sponsor, stark Obscurity 
 
 Was midwife, and all lonely things 
 
 Of nature were unconscious ministers 
 
 To endow his spirit meek 
 
 With their own melancholy. So when he 
 
 An infant king of commoners 
 
LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 
 
 Lay in his mother's arms, of all the earth, 
 
 Which now his fame wears for a diadem, 
 
 None heeded of his birth ; 
 
 Only a star burned over Bethlehem 
 
 More bright, and, big with prophecy, 
 
 A gust blew forth from that far February 
 
 To fill the organ-reeds that peal his centenary. 
 
 II 
 
 Who shall distil in song those epic years ? 
 Only the Sibyl of Simplicity, 
 Touched by the light and dew of common tears, 
 Might chant that homely native Odyssea. 
 
 For there are lives too large in simple truth 
 For art to limn or elegy to gauge ; 
 And there are men so near to God's own ruth 
 They are the better angels of their age ; 
 And such was he : beyond the pale of song 
 His grandeur looms in truth, with awful grace ; 
 
4 LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 
 
 He lives where beauty's origins belong 
 Deep in the primal raptures of his race. 
 
 Yet may we strive to trace 
 
 His shadow where it pulses vast 
 
 Upon imagination, cast 
 
 By the oft-handtrimm'd lamp of history 
 
 In carved breath, or bronze, that we may scan 
 
 The imagined child and man 
 
 Whose life and death are looms of our own destiny. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The loveliness which is reality 
 Surrounds us, but its glamorous romance 
 We glean afar from heroes of old France, 
 Or Hellas' arms, or Gothic heraldry, 
 While Roland and his conquerors 
 With Sigmund sleep beside our doors, 
 And Homer's age awaits us at our hearth. 
 
LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 
 
 How like a saga of the northern sea 
 Our own Kentucky hero-tale begins ! 
 
 Once on a time, far in a wintry wood, 
 
 A lone hut stood ; 
 
 There lived a poor man's son, that was to be 
 
 A master man of earth. 
 And so for us, 
 
 Like children in the great hall of his spirit, 
 The homebred fairy-story spins 
 Annals whose grace the after-times inherit. 
 
 The uncouth homestead by the trail of Boone, 
 
 The untitled grant, the needy exodus, 
 
 The ox-cart on the Indiana heath, 
 
 The log shack by the Sangamon, and soon 
 
 The fever'd mother and the forest death 
 
 From these the lonely epic wanders on. 
 
 The longshank boy, with visage creased by toil 
 And laughter of the soil, 
 
6 LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 
 
 Cribbing his book of statutes 'mid his chore, 
 
 Erelong his nooning fellows of the field 
 
 Hail their scrub-orator, or at sundown 
 
 Slouching his gaunt and sallow six-foot-four 
 
 Their native Touchstone of the village store. 
 
 Or from the turf, where he has matched his build 
 
 To throw the county champion in the loam, 
 
 Idly he saunters home 
 
 To rock some mother's cradle in the town ; 
 
 Or, stretched on counter calico, with Clay 
 
 And organ-sounding Webster, dream the night away. 
 
 But time begins 
 
 Slowly to sift the substance from the slag. 
 
 And now along the county pike's last lap, 
 
 With giant shins 
 
 Shut knifewise in his wabbling rattletrap, 
 
 The circuit lawyer trots his tired nag 
 
 Toward the noon tavern, reins up, and unrolls 
 
LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 
 
 His awkward length of wrinkled bombazine, 
 
 Clutching his tattered green 
 
 Umbrella and thin carpetsack, 
 
 And flings a joke that makes the rafters roar : 
 
 As if, uplooming from of yore, 
 
 Some quaint-accoutred king of trolls, 
 
 Out-elbowing a sexton's suit of black 
 
 In Christmas glee, 
 
 Should sudden crack 
 
 His shrilly jest of shrewd hilarity, 
 
 And shake the clambering urchins from his back. 
 
 IV 
 
 How vast the war invisible 
 
 When public weal battles with public will ! 
 
 Proudly the stars of Union hung their wreath 
 
 On the young nation's lordly architrave ; 
 
 Yet underneath 
 
 Its girding vaults and groins, 
 
 Half the fair fabric rested on the loins 
 
8 LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 
 
 And stooping sinews of a slave, 
 
 That raised to the just stature of a man 
 
 Should rend the whole asunder. 
 
 And now the million-headed serf began 
 
 To stir in wonder, 
 
 And from the land, appalled by that low thunder, 
 
 "Kansas-Nebraska!" rang 
 
 The cry, and with exceeding pang 
 
 Out of the earth blood sprang 
 
 And out of men's hearts, fire. And that hot flame, 
 
 Fed by the book that burned in all men's homes, 
 
 Kindled from horizon to horizon 
 
 Anguish and shame 
 
 And aspiration, by its glow 
 
 Ruddying the state-house domes 
 
 With monstrous shadows of Dred Scott 
 
 And gaunt-limbed effigies of Garrison. 
 
 Then in the destined man matured the slow 
 Strong grandeur of that lot 
 
LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 
 
 Which singled him ; till soon, 
 
 Ushered with lordly train, 
 
 The champion Douglas met him on the plain, 
 
 And the broad prairie moon 
 
 Peered through white schooners at the mad bonfires 
 
 And multitudes astir, 
 
 Where roped like wrestlers in a ring 
 
 The Little Giant faced the Rails plitter ; 
 
 And serious crowds harked silently, 
 
 With smothered taunts and ires, 
 
 While Commonsense grappled with ' Sovereignty/ 
 
 Till the lank, long-armed wrestler made his fling. 
 
 And still sublime 
 
 With common sympathy, that cool 
 
 Sane manf ulness survives : You cannot fool 
 
 All of the people all the time. 
 
 No ; by that power we misname fate, 
 'Tis character which moulds the state. 
 Statutes are dead when men's ideals dissent, 
 
10 LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 
 
 And public will is more than precedent, 
 
 And manhood more than constitutions can create. 
 
 Higher than bar and documental ban, 
 
 Men's highest court is still the heart of Man. 
 
 V 
 
 Bold to his country, sick with compromise, 
 
 Spoke the plain advocate ; 
 
 Half slaw, half free, our Union dies, 
 
 But it shall live! And done with sophistries, 
 
 The people answered with tempestuous call 
 
 That shook the revolutionary dead, 
 
 And high on rude rails garlanded 
 
 Bore their backwoodsman to the Capitol. 
 
 "Who is this common huckster?" sneered the great, 
 
 " This upstart Solon of the Sangamon ? " 
 
 And chastened Douglas answered : " He is one 
 
 Who wrestles well for Truth." But some 
 
 Scowled unbelief, and some smiled bitterly ; 
 
 And so, beneath the derrick'd half-built dome, 
 
LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 11 
 
 While dumb artillery 
 
 And guards battalioned the black lonely form, 
 
 He took his oath. 
 
 We are not enemies, but friends! 
 
 Yet scarce the sad rogation ends 
 
 Ere the warped planks of Union split in storm 
 
 Of dark secession. 
 
 Then, as on a raft 
 
 Flood-rended, where by night the Ohio sweeps 
 Into the Mississippi, 'mid the roil 
 Of roaring waters with eroded soil 
 From hills primeval, the strong poleman keeps 
 Silence, midway the shallows and the rocks, 
 To steer his shipment safe, while fore and aft 
 The scrambling logmen scream at him, or scold 
 With prayers and malisons, or burst the locks 
 And loot the precious bales, so deaf and mute 
 To sneers and imprecations both 
 The lone Flatboatman of the Union poled 
 
12 LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 
 
 His country's wreck midstream, and resolute 
 Held still his goal : 
 
 To lash his ballast to the sundered half, 
 And save the whole. 
 
 " They seek a sign, 
 
 But no sign shall be given them," he said ; 
 
 And reaching Godward, with his pilot's gaff 
 
 Probed in the dark, among the drowning and the 
 
 dead, 
 
 And sunk his plummet line 
 Deep in the people's heart, where still his own heart 
 
 bled, 
 
 And fathomed there the inundated shore 
 Swept by the flood and storm of elemental war. 
 
 VI 
 
 The War ! Far on the dim verge of To-day 
 Its rack of livid splendor fades away. 
 
LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 13 
 
 The bane is past ; 
 
 The awful lightnings, spent, 
 
 Have wrought a chastening not a chastisement ; 
 
 The beauty and the benediction last. 
 
 And mustering, in season due, 
 
 From farthest hill 
 
 And hamlet still 
 
 Keeping the morning last but one in May 
 
 Proud with great memories one by one, 
 
 Whose young life sank not with the sun 
 
 Of Gettysburg or Missionary Ridge, 
 
 Buttons his coat of blue, 
 
 And from his whitened hair 
 
 Removes the hat with golden-corded brim 
 
 And plants again old colors in old graves ; 
 
 And groups of simple children fair 
 
 And folk of middle age are there 
 
 To kneel by him, 
 
 And honor, though they cannot share, 
 
 His pensive privilege. 
 
14 LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 
 
 Still in the living past we may recall 
 
 The war's live tribute. Go to Washington 
 
 On New Year's morning of Emancipation, 
 
 When even from Arlington 
 
 Beyond the Capitol 
 
 The streets and alleys all 
 
 Surge black with singing tides. There creep a few 
 
 Sweet-visaged, swart and hoary men 
 
 To bask them in the sun 
 
 That beats on Pennsylvania Avenue, 
 
 Or lounge in smiling knots 
 
 At drowsier spots, 
 
 To listen where one boasts again 
 
 Of ancient bondage, now his pedigree. 
 
 Those are the nation's honored slaves 
 
 Knighted of old by the great Proclamation. 
 
 For them the empower'd saviour dipt his pen 
 
 In blood of equity, 
 
 And signed away the curse as old as Ptolemy. 
 
LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 15 
 
 The War ! It was a forging blast 
 
 From God's own furnace, welding North 
 
 And South henceforth 
 
 To be one weapon for His hand, 
 
 Till even that word which once inflamed the land 
 
 Falls idle at the last : 
 
 What need to boast of union, being one ? 
 
 The War is done. 
 
 Yet who that, in complacent day 
 
 Of peace, invokes the right divine 
 
 Of labor to reward itself, 
 
 Or vested power to hoard its pelf, 
 
 Reaping the enviable embrace 
 
 Of joy denied to others, 
 
 Remembering that dark assay 
 
 Our country and our chief withstood, 
 
 When fathers sought their sons in blood 
 
 And brothers fought with brothers, 
 
 Who then, before the memoried face 
 
16 LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 
 
 Of Lincoln, but must pause, and pray 
 For love like his, whose larger grace 
 Outclimbs the individual 
 Dreadful, and yet more dear than all 
 The love that serves our race. 
 
 VII 1 
 
 "To sleep, perchance to dream !" No player, rapt 
 
 In conscious art's soliloquy, might know 
 
 To subtilize the poignant sense so apt 
 
 As he, almost in shadow of the end, 
 
 Murmured its latent sadness to a friend ; 
 
 And then he said to him : " Ten nights ago 
 
 I watched alone ; the hour was very late ; 
 
 I fell asleep and dreamed ; 
 
 And in my dreaming, all 
 
 The White House lay in deathlike stillness round ; 
 
 But soon a sobbing sound, 
 
 Subdued, I heard, as of innumerable 
 
 1 See Note at end of poem. 
 
LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 17 
 
 Mourners. I rose and went from room to room ; 
 
 No living being there was visible ; 
 
 Yet as I passed, unspeakably it seemed 
 
 They sobbed again, subdued. In every room 
 
 Light was, and all things were familiar : 
 
 But who were those once more 
 
 Whose hearts were breaking there ? What heavy gloom 
 
 Wrapt their dumb grieving ? Last, the Eastroom door 
 
 I opened, and it lay before me : High 
 
 And cold on solemn catafalque it lay, 
 
 Draped in funereal vestments, and near by 
 
 Mute soldiers guarded it. In black array, 
 
 A throng of varied race 
 
 Stood weeping, 
 
 Or gazing on the covered face. 
 
 Then to a soldier : ' Who is dead 
 
 In the White House ? ' I asked. He said : 
 
 'The President.' 
 
 And a great moan that through the people went 
 
 Waked me from sleeping." 
 
18 LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 
 
 God ! that a nation too should have bad dreams ! 
 
 The cities all are still, and voiceless all 
 
 The valleys and the woods : 
 
 But what are these husht sounds insufferable 
 
 Of moaning multitudes ? 
 
 Through the Republic's silent house 
 
 From room to room the awful Spirit walks, 
 
 Yet all things are familiar ; it seems 
 
 No change has been : 
 
 From Maine to Florida 
 
 Still flash the blue seas ; California 
 
 Is quick with April green ; 
 
 The middle ways are pied 
 
 With crocus blooms and river fleur-de-lis ; 
 
 And the great western rooms are open wide 
 
 To greet the northing sun ; 
 
 In every one 
 
 Are strewn the Saviour's lilies of white peace 
 
 In festival of Him who quenched the fiery feuds. 
 
LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 19 
 
 What, then, is that which mocks 
 The victory and grace that were before ? 
 Once more, and now insufferably once more 
 The moan of multitudes ! 
 
 The lofty Spirit knocks 
 
 And, opening last the door 
 
 Into the Capitol, with pensive head, 
 
 Stooping his deathless stature o'er the dead, 
 
 Looks there on his own image tenderness, 
 
 Pity, on which sad truth has set its seal, 
 
 Heroic patience, strong humility, 
 
 Power, whose human courage shines not less 
 
 That humor leavens the shrewd honesty : 
 
 Democracy's own brow the American ideal. 
 
 While triumph pealed his consummated task, 
 And that great theatre 
 Where late he watched the war's solemnity 
 Was narrowed to a moment's comedy, 
 
20 LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 
 
 The sudden angel of the tragic mask 
 Flashed on his gaze the blinding sepulchre. 
 
 VIII 
 
 It was a dream ! for that which fell in death, 
 
 Seared by the assassin's lightning, and there lay 
 
 A spectacle for anguish, was a wraith ; 
 
 The real immortal Lincoln went his way 
 
 Back to his only home and native heath 
 
 The common people's common heart. And they 
 
 Who speak of Lincoln to his countrymen 
 
 Now while one vast communion makes To-day 
 
 His temple speak to Lincoln, born again 
 
 From that perennial earth 
 
 Whereof he had his birth, 
 
 And estimating him, they estimate 
 
 The source of all that made, and yet shall make us great. 
 
 IX 
 
 The loving and the wise 
 
 May seek but seek in vain to analyze 
 
LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 21 
 
 This man, for having caught 
 
 The mystic clue of thought, 
 
 Sudden they meet the controverting whim, 
 
 And fumbling with the enchanted key, 
 
 Lose it then utterly. 
 
 Aesop and old Isaiah held in him 
 
 Strange sessions, winked at by Artemus Ward, 
 
 Till sudden in their midst bright Seraphim 
 
 Stood, summoned by a sad, primeval Bard 
 
 Who, bearing still no name, has ever borne 
 
 Within his heart the music of mankind : 
 
 Sometime a lonely singer blind 
 
 Beside the Ionian sea ; 
 
 Sometime, between two thieves in scorn, 
 
 A face in Calvary. 
 
 That was his master soul 
 
 The mystic demi-god of common man 
 
 Who, templed in the steadfast mind, 
 
22 LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 
 
 Hid his shy gold of genius in the bran 
 
 Of Hoosier speech and garb, softening the wan 
 
 Strong face of shrewdness with strange aureole. 
 
 He was the madstone to his country's ire, 
 Drawing the rancorous blood of envious quarrel 
 Alike from foe and friend ; his pity, stirr'd, 
 Restored to its bough the storm-unnested bird, 
 Or raised the wallow'd pig from out the mire. 
 And he who sowed in sweat his boyhood's crop, 
 And tackled Euclid with a wooden spade, 
 And excavated Blackstone from a barrel 
 To hold moot trials in the gloaming, made 
 By lighted shavings in a cooper's shop, 
 He is the people's still their Railsplitter, 
 Himself a rail, clean-grained, of character 
 Self-hewn in the dark glades of Circumstance 
 From that deep-hearted tree 
 Democracy, 
 Which, by our race's heritage, 
 
LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 23 
 
 Reforests age on age, 
 Perpetual in strong fecundity. 
 
 X 
 
 Those are the rails to build republics with, 
 
 Their homesteads and their towns. God give us more 
 
 And ever more of such to build our own, 
 
 Enlarging still in manhood, not in stone 
 
 And iron merely and in metal ore : 
 
 Not men, like rails of polish'd steel, 
 
 Invoice-begotten breeds, that pour 
 
 Stillborn from laboring wombs of stark machines 
 
 And all alike, 
 
 With flange and spike 
 
 To couple and dovetail, and serve as means 
 
 To cart more gold-dust on the commonweal ; 
 
 Not those : but such as breathe 
 
 Still of the trail, the redwood and the ranch, 
 
 The gale-swept mountain and the prairie's sheen, 
 
 And cities where the stars can still look in 
 
24 LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 
 
 And leave their benediction : common men, 
 Kindled by nature's awe to contemplation, 
 And by her goads to courage ; not too vain 
 Of self, to show the clean knots in their grain, 
 Blazed from the same great bole that grew Abe Lin 
 coln's branch : 
 Such be the men of whom we build our nation ! 
 
 XI 
 
 But he is more than ours, as we are more 
 
 Than yet the world dares dream. His stature grows 
 
 With that illimitable state 
 
 Whose sovereignty ordains no tribute shore 
 
 And borderland of hate, 
 
 But grounds its justice in the joy it sows. 
 
 His spirit is still a power to emancipate 
 
 Bondage more base, being more insidious, 
 
 Than serfdom that cries out in the midst of us 
 
 For virtue, born of opportunity, 
 
 And manhood, weighed in honest human worth, 
 
LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 25 
 
 And freedom, based in labor. He stands forth 
 'Mongst nations old a new-world Abraham, 
 The patriarch of peoples still to be, 
 Blending all visions of the promised land 
 In one Apocalypse. 
 
 His voice is heard 
 
 Thrilling the moulder'd lintels of the past 
 In Asia ; old Thibet is stirred 
 With warm imaginings ; 
 Ancestral China, 'mid her mysteries, 
 Unmasks, and flings 
 
 Her veils wide to the Occident ; the wand 
 Of hope awakes prone Hierapolis ; 
 Even by the straits of old that lo swam, 
 The immemorial Sultan, sceptreless, 
 Stands awed ; and, heartened by that bold success, 
 Pale Russia rises from her holocaust. 
 
 And still the emancipating influence, 
 
 The secret power, the increasing truth, are his, 
 
26 LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 
 
 For they are ours : ours by the potencies 
 Poured in our nation from the founts of time, 
 Blending in us the mystic seeds of men, 
 To sow them forth again 
 For harvests more sublime 
 Throughout the world. 
 
 XII 
 
 Leave, then, that customed grief 
 
 Which honorably mourns its martyred dead, 
 
 And newly hail instead 
 
 The birth of him, our hardy shepherd chief, 
 
 Who by green paths of old democracy 
 
 Leads still his tribes to uplands of glad peace. 
 
 As long as out of blood and passion blind 
 Springs the pure justice of the reasoning mind, 
 And justice, bending, scorns not to obey 
 Pity, that once in a poor manger lay, 
 As long as, thrall'd by time's imperious will, 
 
LINCOLN CENTENARY ODE 27 
 
 Brother hath bitter need of brother, still 
 
 His presence shall not cease 
 
 To lift the ages toward his human excellence, 
 
 And races yet to be 
 
 Shall in a rude hut do him reverence 
 
 And solemnize a simple man's nativity. 
 
NOTE 
 
 The dream of Lincoln, recounted in this poem, takes sig 
 nificance from its authenticity. Shortly before his death, 
 Lincoln actually had this dream, and described it to a 
 friend in words which the writer has closely followed in 
 Part VII of this poem. The passage, To sleep, perchance 
 to dream, Lincoln himself quoted in this connection. Cf. 
 Norman Hapgood's " Abraham Lincoln, the Man of the 
 People," pages 405-406. It is perhaps worthy of mention 
 that the words of Lincoln, italicized in the Ode, are also 
 authentic, being for the most part verbatim his own. The 
 book, referred to in the second stanza of Part IV, is of 
 course " Uncle Tom's Cabin." 
 
 29 
 
URIEL AND OTHER POEMS 
 
TO 
 
 THE GRACIOUS LIFE 
 AND QUICKENING MEMORY 
 
 OF MY BROTHER 
 
 WILLIAM PAYSON MACKAYE 
 
 POET ACTOR ARTIST 
 
 18681889, 
 
 " He <was a rverray par/it gentil knight. ' ' 
 
PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 FOR this volume the author has selected, from poems 
 written chiefly during the last two years, such only as are 
 commemorative in their nature. Since most of these are 
 concerned with persons or events of public interest, the 
 following brief references to some of their special occa 
 sions are placed here in lieu of footnotes. 
 
 Uriel: William Vaughn Moody, poet and dramatist, 
 died October 17, 1910. This poem was written about a 
 year later. Shortly before his death, he told a friend about 
 a new drama, on the theme of Saint Paul, the outlines of 
 which had come to him splendidly as a vision. To this 
 the sixth stanza of Uriel refers symbolically. 
 
 The Sibyl: In 1912 was published The Art of the The 
 atre, by Edward Gordon Craig. The volume is significant 
 of a new era in the art involved. 
 
 The Return of Ellen Terry : Read by the author in the 
 Hudson Theatre, New York, November 3, 1910, upon 
 the return of Miss Terry to America, for her series of In 
 terpretive Readings u The Heroines of Shakespeare." 
 
 Peary at the Pole : Read by the author in the Metro 
 politan Opera House, New York, February 8, 1910, at 
 the National Testimonial to Robert E. Peary, on his 
 return from the North Pole. 
 
viii PREFATORY NOTE 
 
 To the Fire-Bringer : On the death of the author of 
 The Fire-Bringer, the body of the poet was cremated, 
 October, 1910. These verses were written at the time. 
 
 The Trees of Harvard : Stanzas read at the Dedication 
 (on Commencement Day, 1912) of a red-oak sapling, 
 chosen by the Harvard Class of Eighteen Ninety-Seven 
 from among those then planted to supersede the dead 
 elms in the College Yard, at Cambridge. 
 
 Invocation : Written for a Symposium of tributes by 
 American poets to the memory of Robert Browning, gath 
 ered by Mr. William Stanley Braithwaite, and published 
 in the Boston Transcript, May 4, 1912. 
 
 The Bard of Bouillabaisse : Stanzas written for the 
 Centenary of the birth of Thackeray. Read in the Sixty- 
 Ninth Regiment Armory, New York, January 30, 1912, 
 by Mr. Ben Greet, at the Centenary Festival held by the 
 Southern Industrial Educational Society, at which bouilla 
 baisse the dish celebrated by Thackeray in his ballad 
 was served to the public. 
 
 The Candle in the Choir : Read by the author in the 
 Congregational meeting-house at Old Rockingham, Ver 
 mont, August 4, 1912, on the occasion of the Annual 
 Pilgrimage. The incident narrated is historic. 
 
 In the Bohemian Redwoods : Written at San Rio, Cal 
 ifornia, in the Redwood Grove of the Bohemian Club of 
 San Francisco, on the festival of the Thirty-Third Mid- 
 
PREFATORY NOTE ix 
 
 summer High Jinks and the performance of the Grove 
 Play, August 6, 1910. 
 
 Browning to Ben Ezra : Read by the author before the 
 Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, at the Robert 
 Browning Centennial Meeting, May 7, 1912. 
 
 Ninety-Seven : Read by the author at the Decennial 
 Celebration of the Harvard Class of Eighteen Ninety- 
 Seven, at the Hotel Vendome, Boston, June 24, 1907. 
 
 To the Editors of the North American Review, The 
 Mask (Florence, Italy), the Century Magazine, the Boston 
 Transcript, The Outlook, Scribner's Magazine, The Church 
 man, the Poetry Review (London), the Harvard Gradu 
 ates' Magazine, the writer makes his acknowledgments in 
 reprinting poems which have appeared in those journals. 
 
 CORNISH, NEW HAMPSHIRE 
 October, 1912. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 URIEL: To William Vaughn Moody . . I 
 
 THE SIBYL : To Edward Gordon Craig . . . 14 
 
 THE RETURN OF ELLEN TERRY . . . 18 
 
 PEARY AT THE POLE . .; . . . 19 
 
 To THE FIRE-BRINGER: William Vaughn Moody 23 
 
 THE TREES OF HARVARD . . '. 25 
 
 INVOCATION: Robert Browning . .28 
 
 THE BARD OF BOUILLABAISSE : Thackeray . 30 
 
 THE AUTOMOBILE . . .-. . , . . 33 
 
 THE CANDLE IN THE CHOIR . , . . 34 
 
 IN THE BOHEMIAN REDWOODS - y . , 40 
 
 BROWNING TO BEN EZRA , ,. > 41 
 
 NINETY-SEVEN: A Decennial Greeting . t 55 
 
URIEL 
 
 STANZAS TO THE MEMORY OF 
 WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY 
 
 I 
 
 Uriel, you that in the ageless sun 
 Sit in the awful silences of light, 
 Singing of vision hid from human sight, 
 Prometheus, beautiful rebellious one ! 
 And you, Deucalion, 
 
 For whose blind seed was brought the illuming spark, 
 Are you not gathered, now his day is done, 
 Beside the brink of that relentless dark 
 The dark where your dear singer's ghost is gone ? 
 
 ii 
 
 Imagined beings, who majestic blend 
 
 Your forms with beauty ! questing, unconfined, 
 
 The mind conceived you, though the quenched mind 
 
 Goes down in dark where you in dawn ascend. 
 
 Our songs can but suspend 
 
 The ultimate silence : yet could song aspire 
 
 The realms of mortal music to extend 
 
 And wake a Sibyl's voice or Seraph's lyre 
 
 How should it tell the dearness of a friend ? 
 
URIEL 
 
 in 
 
 The simplest is the inexpressible; 
 
 The heart of music still evades the Muse, 
 
 And arts of men the heart of man suffuse, 
 
 And saddest things are made of silence still. 
 
 In vain the senses thrill 
 
 To give our sorrows glorious relief 
 
 In pyre of verse and pageants volatile, 
 
 And I, in vain, to speak for him my grief 
 
 Whose spirit of fire invokes my waiting will. 
 
 IV 
 
 To him the best of friendship needs must be 
 Uttered no more ; yet was he so endowed 
 That Poetry because of him is proud 
 And he more noble for his poetry, 
 Wherefore infallibly 
 
 I obey the strong compulsion which this verse 
 Lays on my lips with strange austerity 
 Now that his voice is silent to rehearse 
 For my own heart how he was dear to me. 
 
 Not by your gradual sands, elusive Time, 
 We measure your gray sea, that never rests : 
 The bleeding hour-glasses In our breasts 
 
URIEL 
 
 Mete with quick pangs the ebbing of our prime, 
 
 And drip like sudden rime 
 
 In March, that melts to runnels from a pane 
 
 The south breathes on oblivion of sublime 
 
 Crystallizations, and the ruthless wane 
 
 Of glittering stars, that scarce had range to climb. 
 
 VI 
 
 Darkling those constellations of his soul 
 
 Glimmered, while racks of stellar lightnings shot 
 
 The white, creative meteors of thought 
 
 Through that last night, where clad in cloudy stole 
 
 Beside his ebbing shoal 
 
 Of lifeblood, stood Saint Paul, blazing a theme 
 
 Of living drama from a fiery scroll 
 
 Across his stretched vision as in dream 
 
 When Death, with blind dark, blotted out the whole. 
 
 VII 
 
 And yet not all : though darkly alien 
 
 Those uncompleted worlds of work to be 
 
 Are waned ; still, touched by them, the memory 
 
 Gives afterglow ; and now that comes again 
 
 The mellow season when 
 
 Our eyes last met, his kindling currents run 
 
 Quickening within me gladness and new ken 
 
URIEL 
 
 Of life, that I have shared his prime with one 
 Who wrought large-minded for the love of men. 
 
 VIII 
 
 But not alone to share that large estate 
 
 Of work and interchange of communings 
 
 The little human paths to heavenly things 
 
 Were also ours: the casual, intimate 
 
 Vistas, which consecrate 
 
 With laughter and quick tears the dusty noon 
 
 Of days, and by moist beams irradiate 
 
 Our plodding minds with courage, and attune 
 
 The fellowship that bites its thumb at fate. 
 
 IX 
 
 Where art thou now, mine host Guffanti ? where 
 
 The iridescence of thy motley troop ! 
 
 Ah, where the merry, animated group 
 
 That snuggled elbows for an extra chair, 
 
 When space was none to spare, 
 
 To pour the votive Chianti, for a toast 
 
 To dramas dark and lyrics debonair, 
 
 The while, to Bella Napoli, mine host 
 
 Exhaled his Parmazan, Parnassan air ! 
 
 x 
 
 Thy Parmazan, immortal laird of ease, 
 Can never mold, thy caviare is blest, 
 
URIEL 
 
 While still our glowing Uriel greets the rest 
 
 Around thy royal board of memories, 
 
 Where sit, the salt of these, 
 
 He of the laughter of a Hundred Lights, 
 
 Blithe Eldorado of high poesies, 
 
 And he of enigmatic, gentle knights 
 
 The kindly keen who sings of Calverfy's. 
 
 XI 
 
 Because he never wore his sentient heart 
 For crows and jays to peck, ofttimes to such 
 He seemed a silent fellow, who o'ermuch 
 Held from the general gossip-ground apart, 
 Or tersely spoke, and tart : 
 
 How should they guess what eagle tore, within, 
 His quick of sympathy for humblest smart 
 Of human wretchedness, or probed his spleen 
 Of scorn against the hypocritic mart ! 
 
 XII 
 
 Sometimes insufferable seemed to come 
 
 That wrath of sympathy : One windy night, 
 
 We watched through squalid panes, forlornly white, 
 
 Amid immense machines' incessant hum 
 
 Frail figures, gaunt and dumb, 
 
 Of overlabored girls and children, bowed 
 
URIEL 
 
 Above their slavish toil : " O God ! A bomb, 
 A bomb ! " he cried, u and with one fiery cloud 
 Expunge the horrible Caesars of this slum ! " 
 
 XIII 
 
 Another night dreams on the Cornish hills : 
 
 Trembling within the low moon's pallid fires, 
 
 The tall corn-tassels lift their fragrant spires ; 
 
 From filmy spheres, a liquid starlight fills 
 
 Like dew of daffodils 
 
 The fragile dark, where multitudinous 
 
 The rhythmic, intermittent silence thrills, 
 
 Like song, the valleys. " Hark ! " he murmurs, " Thus 
 
 May bards from crickets learn their canticles ! " 
 
 XIV 
 
 Now Morning, not less lavish of her sweets, 
 
 Leads us along the woodpaths in whose hush 
 
 The quivering alchemy of the pure thrush 
 
 Cools from above the balsam-dripping heats 
 
 To find, in green retreats, 
 
 'Mid men of clay, the great, quick-hearted man 
 
 Whose subtle art our human age secretes, 
 
 Or him whose brush, tinct with cerulean, 
 
 Blooms with soft castle-towers and cloud-capped fleets. 
 
URIEL 
 
 xv 
 
 Still to the sorcery of August skies 
 In frilled crimson flaunt the hollyhocks, 
 Where, lithely poised along the garden walks, 
 His little maid enamoured blithe outvies 
 The dipping butterflies 
 
 In motion ah, in grace how grown the while, 
 Since he was wont to render to her eyes 
 His knightly court, or touch with flitting smile 
 Her father's heart by his true flatteries ! 
 
 XVI 
 
 But summer's golden pastures boast no trail 
 
 So splendid as our fretted snowshoes blaze 
 
 Where, sharp across the amethystine ways, 
 
 Iron Ascutney looms in azure mail, 
 
 And, like a frozen grail, 
 
 The frore sun sets, intolerably fair ; 
 
 Mute, in our homebound snow-tracks, we exhale 
 
 The silvery cold, and soon where bright logs flare 
 
 Talk the long indoor hours, till embers fail. 
 
 XVII 
 
 Ah, with the smoke what smouldering desires 
 Waft to the starlight up the swirling flue ! 
 Thoughts that may never, as the swallows do, 
 
URIEL 
 
 Nest circling homeward to their native fires! 
 Ardors the soul suspires 
 
 The extinct stars drink with the dreamer's breath 
 The morning-song of Eden's early choirs 
 Grows dim with Adam ; close at the ear of death 
 Relentless angels tune our earthly lyres ! 
 
 XVIII 
 
 Let it be so : More sweet it is to be 
 
 A listener of love's ephemeral song, 
 
 And live with beauty though it be not long, 
 
 And die enamoured of eternity, 
 
 Though in the apogee 
 
 Of time there sit no individual 
 
 Godhead of life, than to reject the plea 
 
 Of passionate beauty : loveliness is all, 
 
 And love is more divine than memory ; 
 
 XIX 
 
 And love of beauty is the abiding part 
 
 Of friendship : by its hallowed beams we char 
 
 Away all dead and gross familiar 
 
 Disguise, and lay revealed truth's living heart 
 
 The spirit's counterpart, 
 
 Which was in him a flaming Uriel 
 
 Obscured by chaining flesh, but freed by art 
 
URIEL 
 
 And by the handclasp that his friends knew well, 
 To make from time the imprisoned splendors start. 
 
 xx 
 
 The splendors start again from common things 
 
 At thought of quiet hours of fellowship, 
 
 When his shy fancy, like an elfin ship, 
 
 On foam of pipe-smoke spread elusive wings, 
 
 While subdued carollings 
 
 Of viewless fervors followed in her wake, 
 
 Till, with swift tack and rhythmic sweep of strings, 
 
 She flew before his darkening thought, and strake 
 
 On reefs that rolled with solemn thunderings. 
 
 XXI 
 
 The simple and the mighty themes, that keep 
 
 Friendship robust and taut the mental tether, 
 
 Of these we talked in casual ways together, 
 
 Delighting in the shallow and the deep : 
 
 Nature, quick or asleep, 
 
 And poetry, the fool's anathema, 
 
 Plays, and the magic house where passions weep 
 
 Or laugh at their own image, America 
 
 Our gallant country, and her captainship. 
 
 XXII 
 
 But special-privileged investitures 
 
 Of beauty liked him not. To him the fact 
 
io URIEL 
 
 Was by its passion only made compact 
 
 Of beauty ; as, amid the Gloucester moors, 
 
 The loveliness, which lures 
 
 The artist's eye, for him was nature's prism 
 
 To illume his love of country : art which endures 
 
 At once is poetry and patriotism, 
 
 In spite of jingoists and epicures. 
 
 XXIII 
 
 So, since his soul contemned thoughts which suborn 
 
 Glory from theft, where he stood, unafraid, 
 
 " Before the solemn bronze Saint-Gaudens made," 
 
 It was his consecration to be torn 
 
 Between swift grief and scorn 
 
 For the island pillage of our Myrmidons, 
 
 And there alone, alone of the high born, 
 
 He spoke, as the great sculptor spoke in bronze, 
 
 From love, whose worth can never be outworn. 
 
 XXIV 
 
 Long may we heed his voice, though he be mute 
 
 As the wan stars to instigate us more! 
 
 Long shall we need his voice, in the gross war 
 
 Of civic pillagers whose hands pollute 
 
 Our country, and confute 
 
 The oaths of freedom ! Long his passionate art 
 
URIEL ii 
 
 Let serve the people's temple, to transmute 
 The impotence of artists, and impart 
 Strength to the fair, joy to the resolute ! 
 
 XXV 
 
 The joy of that large faith American 
 
 In the high will which turns the human tide 
 
 He blazed across the sun-crowned Great Divide 
 
 To make in art a new meridian, 
 
 Stretching the puny span 
 
 Of our pent theatre's roof, to arch a flood 
 
 Of mightier passion cosmopolitan 
 
 And build, in nobler urgings of our blood, 
 
 The excellent democracy of man. 
 
 XXVI 
 
 Nor less he probed the covert cosmical 
 Yearnings which glorify the spirit's sleep, 
 Where dumb Michaelis, 'mid his grazing sheep, 
 Stared on the awful Presence Spiritual, 
 And heard the mystic call 
 Of the clear Christ across the desert waste 
 Lifting from life and death the numbing pall, 
 Subtly for all the anguished and disgraced 
 Cleansing the mind with breath medicinal. 
 
iz URIEL 
 
 XXVII 
 
 These were the virile omens of his prime 
 
 (Unmellowed still, he deemed them, but enough 
 
 To give his ardor tang for lordlier stuff), 
 
 But these, when from the clear noon of his clime 
 
 He sank to solemn chime 
 
 Of stars in twilight down, the petty grigs 
 
 That pipe around the marshes of the mime, 
 
 Parched niggards of negation, rasped with jigs 
 
 Of glee to perish in the frost of time. 
 
 XXVIII 
 
 To her who, 'mid his starry litany, 
 Muffled their niggling jargon from his ears 
 For quiet music of familiar spheres, 
 Soothing the dark inevitability 
 With springs of courage, be 
 Her own strong soul her sentinel : the flame 
 That leaps in praise dies in my monody. 
 Beauty with service hallows her own fame : 
 A living greatness asks no elegy. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 Uriel, you of light and vision guard ! 
 
 Uriel, you who with his fiery being 
 
 Are blended in my vision's far foreseeing, 
 
URIEL 13 
 
 That by one name I hail you friend and bard! 
 
 Our battling age is starred 
 
 With portents of your presence, till the years, 
 
 Urged by your voice, besiege time's evil-scarred 
 
 Ruin with sounds of singing pioneers, 
 
 Whose onward wills, like wings that slip the shard, 
 
 XXX 
 
 Sweep to the future! What the mind adores 
 
 The will of man shall conquer: what his fate 
 
 Denies, his courage still shall consummate ! 
 
 And as Imagination, rising, soars 
 
 Scattering her viewless spores 
 
 Of beauty on the tempest Uriel, 
 
 You gaze with her where the blind gloaming roars, 
 
 Or murmur, where she sits, with fervent shell, 
 
 Rapt in the solitudes of fiery shores. 
 
THE SIBYL 
 
 TO EDWARD GORDON CRAIG 
 
 UPON THE PUBLICATION OF HIS VOLUME 
 
 "ON THE ART OF THE THEATRE" 
 
 Cloudy, vast, the caverned stage 
 
 Glows with twilight Where are they: 
 
 Ribald love, and conscious rage, 
 
 Joyless banter, captious quibble, 
 
 Brass and bauble of Broadway ? 
 
 What are such to her -the Sibyl, 
 
 Where she dreams beside her solemn 
 
 Single column 
 
 In the quiet ? 
 
 Bats in swoon, 
 
 Gnats in riot, 
 
 Midgets swarming 'gainst the moon : 
 
 Such are they 
 
 Beneath the grace 
 
 And the rapture of her face. 
 
 She will waken. Long she's slumbered 
 Through the noisy years unnumbered, 
 Since her radiant limbs withdrew 
 
THE SIBYL 15 
 
 Swift, adept, 
 
 Divinely calm 
 
 From the leering satyrs' view 
 
 To the visioned silences 
 
 Where she slept, 
 
 Pillowed in her bended arm 
 
 On the starred Acropolis. 
 
 She has wakened! She has smiled 
 
 With a tender, large delight 
 
 At the spell-charms of her child, 
 
 Her own spirit's acolyte. 
 
 At his wand-touch she has risen 
 
 In the mind of man her prison 
 
 And her temple. Lo, she moves ! 
 
 Sensuous, with form of fable, 
 
 Most divinely reasonable, 
 
 Not the comets through the ether, 
 
 Not the planets in their grooves 
 
 Tread a more harmonious measure 
 
 Than she paces, in her pleasure, 
 
 On the silences beneath her. 
 
 For the silences are thrumming 
 As with heart beats at her coming, 
 And the Passions pause aghast 
 
16 THE SIBYL 
 
 At the glorious decision 
 
 Of her movements, as they mark 
 
 Wild vivaces of her vision, 
 
 Deep andantes of her dark j 
 
 And her gestures as she lifts 
 
 Pillared vistas of the past, 
 
 Spacious visions of the marches 
 
 Of To-morrow, gracious arches 
 
 Through whose rifts 
 
 Beauty beckons hold no mirror 
 
 To the error 
 
 And the grossness of the age, 
 
 Mimic not 
 
 Whims and gropings of emotion, 
 
 Atrophies and tricks of thought, 
 
 But her rapture is the rage 
 
 Of man's spirit in its fullness 
 
 Purged of accident and dullness; 
 
 And her music, born of motion, 
 
 Recreates the spirit's trance, 
 
 Weaving symphonies of sunlight, 
 
 Waking chorals from the wan light 
 
 Of the Pleiads in their dance. 
 
 Through her cloudy, caverned stage 
 Bursts the morning: And she stands 
 
THE SIBYL 17 
 
 In the quiet, by her solemn 
 
 Shining column, 
 
 Gazing forth, serenely glad, 
 
 On the roaring dazzled lands, 
 
 Where the little children, clad 
 
 In the garments of her spirit, 
 
 On enchanted feet come streaming, 
 
 For she knows they shall inherit 
 
 All the ages of her dreaming. 
 
 Then the sated ones and blinded, 
 And the timid, callous minded, 
 Clutch the children's sleeves, and stare, 
 Crying: "What behold you there? 
 There is nothing ! " But the lover, 
 And the young of soul, his friend, 
 And the artist, follow after 
 The children in their laughter, 
 And the daring half discover, 
 And the happy comprehend. 
 
THE RETURN OF ELLEN TERRY 
 
 How shall we welcome back her image bright 
 Who from our hearts has never been away ? 
 They never lived who never loved to play, 
 Nor ever loved who loved not in delight. 
 Therefore to her who, in Dull Care's despite, 
 Long since has taught the world's sad soul to pray 
 To saints of joy, we bring an homage gay 
 Of hearts made lighter by her own pure light. 
 
 Juliet of love, Miranda of the mind, 
 Katherine of quips, and beauty's Rosalind, 
 Truth's Portia, Beatrice the madcap-merry, 
 All heroines wrought of the master's heart 
 To these we bow, and these bow down to Art, 
 And Art to Time, and Time to Ellen Terry. 
 
PEARY AT THE POLE 
 
 i 
 
 Divinely curious 
 
 Child of the stars is man ; 
 And the wonder that beckons us 
 
 Is a child's, since the world began : 
 For the fire that keeps us purged and free 
 From the sloth of the beast and his sluggardy 
 Is kindled of curiosity. 
 
 ii 
 
 Beckoned the polar star 
 
 And the world child wandered forth : 
 The aurora blazed afar 
 
 Onward in to the north ; 
 And the awful lure, enticing us 
 Long ere the tales of Tacitus, 
 Wrought with a splendor ruinous. 
 
 in 
 
 The Arctic ages dashed 
 
 Spindrift on wreck and spar, 
 Till a Yankee viking lashed 
 
 His prow to the ominous star ; 
 
20 PEARYATTHEPOLE 
 
 And, blent with breed of the States, he manned 
 His ship with the sinew and the sand 
 And the sea-glad soul of Newfoundland. 
 
 IV 
 
 Freighted were cabin and hold 
 
 With pemmican, sea-gear and pelt : 
 
 Skyward the loud cheers rolled, 
 Seaward the Roosevelt, 
 
 And northward beyond Manhattan Bay 
 
 They sank to the silences far away 
 
 In the sunlit night and the star-strewn day. 
 
 v 
 
 O silence is a thing 
 
 More beautiful than song 
 When the paths of the silent ring 
 
 With the valor of the strong : 
 O silent the cliffs of blood-bright snow, 
 The boreal flush, the emerald floe, 
 Where they sailed the earls of the Esquimaux ! 
 
 VI 
 
 Forth from the glacial coasts 
 
 They strode with their dogs and furs, 
 
 And their shadows were the ghosts 
 Of old adventurers; 
 
PEARY AT THE POLE 21 
 
 For the harrowed dead rose numb from the night 
 And followed their path by the igloo's light 
 Through storm and the smothering infinite. 
 
 VII 
 
 Silent, and one by one, 
 
 Southward the forms turned back, 
 But one, who walked alone, 
 
 Held still his starry track, 
 Till the vast sun circled the ocean's sill, 
 And the luring star in the void stood still, 
 And the mind of man had wrought his will. 
 
 VIII 
 
 From the Arctic's blindfold eye, 
 
 From the iris of the world, 
 He tore the mystery 
 
 Where a planet's dream lay furled ; 
 And the planet's vision and his were one, 
 For the doer had dreamed and the dreamer had done 
 What the wondering world-child had begun. 
 
 IX 
 
 How may the singer reveal 
 
 Truth from the toiler wrung ? 
 Or how shall the sinew of steel 
 
 And the heart of gold be sung ? 
 
22 PEARY AT THE POLE 
 
 Who saith unto Caesar : He conquered: He saw ? 
 Weak, weak is word-tribute ; yet mighty is awe 
 That renders its homage, where truth is law. 
 
 x 
 
 To Peary of the Pole 
 
 To the vigilant and wary 
 Undeviating soul, 
 
 Viking and visionary 
 Hail, in honor's meridian : 
 Hail, and honor American 
 To the triumph of manhood and a man ! 
 
TO THE FIRE-BRINGER 
 
 (WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY) 
 
 Bringer of fire 
 Down from the star 
 Quivering far 
 In quiet eternal : 
 Bringer of fire ! 
 Ashes we are 
 If to thy pyre 
 Out of our hearts 
 Ashes we bring. 
 
 Vernal, vernal, 
 
 Divine and burning 
 
 A wreath of worlds 
 
 And wings was thy vision: 
 
 Fadeless now, 
 
 That fiery wreath 
 
 Wrought of thy yearning 
 
 We lay in death 
 
 Bright on thy brow. 
 
24 TO THE FIRE -B RINGER 
 
 Singer and lover, 
 
 Brother and friend, 
 
 Ashes can end 
 
 Only the dross of thee : 
 
 Quick, Promethean, 
 
 Out of the dirge 
 
 And the dark loss of thee, 
 
 Leaps thy star-wrestling 
 
 Spirit in paean ! 
 
 Fire, fire, 
 
 Fire was thy bringing, 
 An urn elemental 
 Of burning song 
 So on thy pyre 
 We leave it flaming 
 Where Death cannot follow 
 Toward thee, who earnest singing 
 " Apollo, Apollo ! " 
 
THE TREES OF HARVARD 
 
 i 
 
 Religion is the shadow of a tree 
 
 Cast by a star upon the soul of man 
 Tingeing its substance with solemnity, 
 
 For under mystic boughs the soul began 
 
 Its progress from the primal Caliban 
 Toward reason, and the beauty yet to be. 
 Therefore perchance it is 
 
 That in trees we treasure 
 Our own tranquillities, 
 
 Making them the measure 
 Of our own growth our griefs and ecstasies. 
 
 ii 
 
 Dear stricken elms of Harvard, while even thus 
 
 Now with your wounds we bleed, still, still it seems 
 
 Your vanished verdure multitudinous 
 
 With twinkling dryads of our boyish dreams, 
 With orioles of song, and golden gleams 
 
 Of youth abides, a quickening part of us: 
 
26 THE TREES OF HARVARD 
 
 Abides, as though it would 
 
 By some spell enchanted 
 Disperse this tragic mood, 
 
 By your fate implanted, 
 To share with you a secret brotherhood. 
 
 in 
 
 Your branches die, but not the dreams they bred : 
 They, like immortal choirs of dawn, displace 
 
 Your silent ruin with the singing dead. 
 
 Still in your shadowed walks, with shadowy pace, 
 The Concord poet lifts his star-pale face, 
 
 The Elmwood statesman holds his lyric tread. 
 
 Still through your silences 
 Float the far Hosannas 
 
 Of that undaunted press, 
 
 Brave with tattered banners, 
 
 Filing from Lexington to the Wilderness. 
 
 IV 
 
 Yes, dreams abide ; yet fungus will infect 
 The living tissue and the limb will fall : 
 
 Alike in soaring elm and intellect 
 
 The cankering worm will bore, and spin the pall 
 Of aspiration ; yet if this were all 
 
 Our world of dreams had long ago been wrecked. 
 
THE TREES OF HARVARD 27 
 
 It is not all : for growth, 
 
 Plying deep substitution, 
 Outwears decay and sloth, 
 
 While, with sure revolution, 
 Youth conquers age, and life o'erlords them both. 
 
 Then life, give way for life ! Old elms forlorn, 
 
 The scion oaks supplant you, and you die ; 
 Shorn are your locks of golden days all shorn 
 
 (Save in our dreams) of glory so, good-bye! 
 
 But hail, strong-limbed in young integrity, 
 Hail, glory of our Harvard boys unborn ! 
 Death is a churlish thing ; 
 
 Life, life alone is royal ! 
 Red oak, red oak, we bring 
 
 Hearts alive, hearts loyal : 
 The king is dead : Long live our crimson king ! 
 
INVOCATION 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING: 7 MAY 1912 
 
 i 
 
 Poet of the vast potential, 
 Curious-minded, quintessential 
 Prober of passion, ample-hearted 
 Lover of lovers, virile-arted 
 Robert Browning, plotter of plays, 
 Leaven us in these latter days ! 
 
 Now in rebirth, 
 
 Renewing time's festa. 
 Spring the wild quester 
 
 Quickens the earth. 
 
 II 
 
 Not mere being, but becoming 
 Makes us vital. Stript from numbing 
 Vestiture of self-complacence 
 Naked for our soul's renascence, 
 Robert Browning, riddler of hearts, 
 Pierce us with your singing darts ! 
 
INVOCATION 29 
 
 Sharp through the sod, 
 
 Flower-tipped for His aiming^ 
 Shoot now the flaming 
 
 Spear-heads of God. 
 
 in 
 
 Not our prayer-stool, but our passion 
 Makes us holy. Thus to fashion 
 Psalm and Credo to a human 
 Ritual of Man and Woman, 
 Robert Browning, purger of souls, 
 Heap on us your passion-coals ! 
 
 So let aspire 
 
 As now this young season - 
 
 Spirit and reason 
 In flower and fire ! 
 
THE BARD OF BOUILLABAISSE 
 
 WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY l8 JULY 
 
 Old guests are gone; old friends have faltered 
 
 Passed to forgetfulness or fame ; 
 Time's little inn remains unaltered, 
 
 The bill of fare is still the same ; 
 And still within his cherished corner 
 
 He keeps his " old, accustomed place" 
 Our brother, cynic, lover, scorner, 
 
 Beloved bard of Bouillabaisse. 
 
 ii 
 
 The grizzled face has grown no older ; 
 
 A hundred years, they bring no scars, 
 Pensive, he turns his shadowy shoulder 
 
 To snuff the candles of the stars, 
 Where generations, eager hearted, 
 
 Throng newly round his storied chair, 
 And Monsieur Terre, long departed, 
 
 Leaves in his stead Madame la Terre. 
 
THE BARD OF BOUILLABAISSE 31 
 
 in 
 
 Madame la Terre plays now the hostess 
 
 And decks his place for holiday, 
 Where his imperishable ghost is 
 
 The guest to whom she bears her tray. 
 That he may friendly smile upon her, 
 
 She curtsies to the shadowed face : 
 What may she serve to do him honor ? 
 
 Behold a bowl of Bouillabaisse ! 
 
 IV 
 
 " A hotchpotch of all sorts of fishes," 
 
 (Such is his ballad recipe :) 
 " This Bouillabaisse a noble dish is : " 
 
 Hotchpotch of all sorts such as we ! 
 Souls with the garlic and the pepper, 
 
 A sort of savory broth or paste 
 Of lover, liar, hero, leper : 
 
 He taught us for ourselves the taste ! 
 
 For lo, now, to his festa who comes ! 
 Where Beatrix shines down the stair 
 
 Through crowded Crawleys, Esmonds, Newcomes, 
 While Becky, purring in her lair, 
 
32 THE BARD OF BOUILLABAISSE 
 
 Sits tangling the besotted Sedley 
 
 To bumptious Gumbo's black grimace 
 
 A mordant, brilliant, bubbling medley 
 To mix his bowl of Bouillabaisse! 
 
 VI 
 
 His recipe remains the human : 
 
 Hotchpotch of passions, pruderies, 
 Lusts, raptures, loves of man and woman, 
 
 Old vanity of vanities 
 Redeemed in visions of the poet 
 
 Who learns from anguish all his arts : 
 His bowl, Madame la Terre, bestow it ! 
 
 The bowl is brimming with our hearts. 
 
THE AUTOMOBILE 
 
 A FIRST RIDE 1904 
 
 Fluid the world flowed under us : the hills 
 Billow on billow of umbrageous green 
 Heaved us, aghast, to fresh horizons, seen 
 
 One rapturous instant, blind with flash of rills 
 
 And silver-rising storms and dewy stills 
 Of dripping boulders, till the dim ravine 
 Drowned us again in leafage, whose serene 
 
 Coverts grew loud with our tumultuous wills. 
 
 Then all of Nature's old amazement seemed 
 
 Sudden to ask us: " Is this also Man ? 
 
 This plunging, volant land-amphibian 
 What Plato mused and Paracelsus dreamed ? 
 
 Reply ! " And piercing us with ancient scan, 
 The shrill, primeval hawk gazed down and screamed. 
 
THE CANDLE IN THE CHOIR 
 
 In Rockingham upon the hill 
 The meeting-house shines lone and still: 
 A bare, star-cleaving gable-peak, 
 Broad roofbeamed, snow-ribbed, stark and bleak, 
 As long ago their needs sufficed 
 Who came from cottage fires to Christ, 
 Sharing with frosty breath 
 Their foot-stoves and their faith. 
 
 ii 
 
 In Rockingham above the hill 
 The stars are few, the winds are shrill; 
 And pale as little clouds, the prayers 
 Pulse upward round the pulpit stairs, 
 Where silent deacons upright sit 
 Among the gusty shadows, that flit 
 
 From hands upholding higher 
 
 Faint candles in the choir. 
 
 in 
 
 Seven candles make a shining dim 
 To mark the psalm and find the hymn; 
 
THE CANDLE IN THE CHOIR 35 
 
 Seven candles from the choir-rail throw 
 Their blessing on the pews below ; 
 Seven candles make a glimmering heaven 
 Of righteousness, but one of seven 
 
 Shines in the hand of her : 
 
 Elvira Pulsifer. 
 
 IV 
 
 High on its place of holy fire 
 
 The towered pulpit fronts the choir, 
 
 From whence the pastor's hand may strow 
 
 The penfolds of his flock below, 
 
 Or sign, from under level brows, 
 
 Toward them the seven of his house 
 
 Who sing with one accord 
 
 The service of the Lord. 
 
 Gaunt looms the shepherd in his gown : 
 
 " O Lord, Lord God, who lookest down 
 
 Serene from Sinai's dazzling height 
 
 On deeps of everlasting night 
 
 Deeps where Thy scorching ire hath streamed 
 
 Like lava on the unredeemed 
 
 Be merciful to her, 
 
 Elvira Pulsifer ! 
 
36 THE CANDLE IN THE CHOIR 
 
 VI 
 
 " Thou art our Father, Lord, Lord God ! 
 
 And they who kiss Thy shining rod 
 
 And break Thy bread and keep Thy tryst 
 
 They walk this bitter world with Christ; 
 
 All else with dire Apollyon dwell. 
 
 O save her tender soul from Hell, 
 
 And with Thy Pity stir 
 
 Elvira Pulsifer! 
 
 VII 
 
 " Brethren, the thirty-second psalm! 
 And let your solemn voices calm 
 The secret fiend from his intent, 
 And make a virgin heart repent ! " 
 Thin from the dark the pitch-pipe sounds 
 Its note, faint stir the crisping gowns, 
 While the dim shepherd there 
 Creaks down the frosty stair. 
 
 VIII 
 
 A shrilling sweet of childish throats, 
 With sombre bass of elders, floats 
 Around him through the raftered room, 
 And elvish from the outer gloom 
 
THE CANDLE IN THE CHOIR 37 
 
 Seven candles on the little panes 
 Sway to the choir's subdued refrains, 
 
 As down the aisleway floor 
 
 He seeks the entry door. 
 
 IX 
 
 More faintly now, as if more far, 
 
 He hears them through the door ajar, 
 
 While from the entry, climbing soft, 
 
 He flurries to the choir loft : 
 
 Here to a darkling privacy 
 
 He beckons so her glance may see 
 
 God's errant worshipper : 
 
 Elvira Pulsifer. 
 
 Candle and hymnal in her hands, 
 She comes to where the shepherd stands 
 Her shepherd who hath labored sore, 
 With venerable neighbors more, 
 To lead her spirit to the fold 
 Where all her kinsfolk came of old : 
 All them she loved full well, 
 But not their fear of hell. 
 
 XI 
 
 Anxious they whisper in the aisle 
 (The shrilling voices swoon the while 
 
38 THE CANDLE IN THE CHOIR 
 
 And boom like cymbals in her ears) : 
 " Our Lord and Father, child, He hears 
 The cry of sin's repentant heart ; 
 O obdurate, walk not apart 
 
 With one who darkens all, 
 But come to Christ His call." 
 
 XII 
 
 " Our Lord He is our Father, yes, 
 And He hath come in tenderness 
 To me, in hours both bright and dim. 
 There is no one at all but Him ; 
 And so I cannot walk apart 
 Nor cry with a repentant heart, 
 
 Nor heed another's call, 
 
 For God is good to all. 
 
 XIII 
 
 " His wrath it is eternal, child. 
 Who fear it not they are defiled. 
 They may not sit in choir or pew, 
 Defiant, with His chosen few. 
 The hymn is ended, now return : 
 But nevermore His light to spurn!" 
 Dark, dark, she turns about: 
 Her candle he hath blown out. 
 
THE CANDLE IN THE CHOIR 39 
 
 XIV 
 
 O elvish from the outer gloom 
 Six little flames they leer and loom, 
 And elvish on the frosty panes 
 Six candles mock the choir's refrains. 
 But one all dark, by inward grace 
 Shines on unseen, and lights the face 
 
 Of Christ His worshipper : 
 
 Elvira Pulsifer. 
 
IN THE BOHEMIAN REDWOODS 
 
 Silent above, with seraph eyes 
 
 That peer amid the fronded spars, 
 
 More intimate, more friendly wise, 
 More tender glow the eternal stars. 
 
 Lyric beneath, with echoing blast 
 
 Of fellowship Arcadian, 
 More cosmic-strange, more pagan-vast, 
 
 More stellar glow the hearts of Man. 
 
 Oracular, aboriginal 
 
 Beyond our dreams, the psychic trees 
 Conspire their awful ritual 
 
 Of sempiternal silences ; 
 
 Till solemn now, with lunar state, 
 The Druid drama slowly dawns, 
 
 Where cowled satyrs consecrate 
 A monastery of the fauns. 
 
 Lit by dance and starry scroll, 
 
 Aloof, familiar, lone, divine 
 With Delphic laughter of the soul, 
 
 The temples of To-morrow shine ! 
 
BROWNING TO BEN EZRA 
 
 A CENTENARY SOLILOQUY 
 
 I 
 
 A hundred years ! Hardly I understand : 
 
 Unriddle it, Rabbi. Through the Abbey stones 
 
 Hearken the hushed and reverent monotones, 
 
 The shuffled feet, that pause! ' Here lie his bones, 
 
 Who passed away 
 
 From earth, perhaps to heaven, 
 
 Aged seventy-seven; 
 
 Born on this self-same day, 
 
 The seventh May, 
 
 A century gone.' Look, Rabbi : In my hand 
 
 I hold this little watch they call their world, 
 
 Open it with my thumb, where lo ! each cog, 
 
 Each golden wheel, on star-gemmed axis whirled, 
 
 Pulses with delicate action. Pray you, jog 
 
 My laggard mind once more ! They state, you say, 
 
 This was my time-piece : on this crystal face 
 
 I 'd pore, and through dim introspections trace 
 
 The portent of the tickings underneath, 
 
 The mainspring of the action. May be so, 
 
 For you should know, Ben Ezra. All I know 
 
42 BROWNING TO BEN EZRA 
 
 Is, that the ticks grew fainter, as it slipped 
 
 Under my pillow. Then I fell asleep, 
 
 And have been busy dreaming. That was death, 
 
 They say, death. Sudden the quick hair-spring skipped 
 
 A turn, trembled, and stopped short. Much too deep 
 
 For me ! Somehow I don't conceive the soul 
 
 Like to a watch unwound. Yet now, they say, 
 
 I am a poet who has passed away, 
 
 With many common millions, to a goal 
 
 Unkenned. Here 's Limbo, then : and I, a shade, 
 
 Soliloquize now, in this cloistral corner, 
 
 Among pale forms of other ghosts forlorner, 
 
 With you, Ben Ezra, whom alive I made 
 
 The Rabbi of my rhyme. A quaint conceit ! 
 
 Suppose we grant it. So, then ! Let us sit 
 
 On dust of kings and make a rhyme of it 
 
 Together one dead poet and one rabbi 
 
 Conceived and born of him. While you keep tab, I 
 
 Will muse the elegy, and score our text : 
 
 R. Browning to Ben Ezra, adding next : 
 
 Suggested by the former's centenary, 
 
 And after that lest precious ears be vext 
 
 Apologies for defunct vocabulary. 
 
 II 
 
 The question I would stress, then, pray allow 
 Is this : To pass away, is it to cease ? 
 
BROWNING TO BEN EZRA 43 
 
 But if so, how to cease ? I said just now 
 That, since my pillow muffled this time-piece, 
 I have been busy dreaming. Ha, those dreams ! 
 In what frail shallops, what austere triremes, 
 Unchartered cruisers, barks adventuresome, 
 I have put forth on unimagined seas 
 And sailed with what courageous companies! 
 Nay, on no phantom ships ! no guest needs fear 
 A skinny-handed, ancient mariner 
 In me. I entertain with dice of doom 
 No spectral crews. My fellow-voyagers were 
 And are, and shall be still rich-blooded men, 
 Rare-hearted women, lovers of this life 
 And wrestlers with it, reckless of the strain. 
 My visionary barks, those be my books, 
 And I, whose bones consort here with the spooks, 
 Am admiral there of dreamy argosies, 
 That ply "twixt earth and heaven their perilous mer 
 chandise. 
 
 Perilous, yes ; for dreams are perilous craft, 
 When they be manned by fierce doubts, fore and aft, 
 Whose mutinous foreheads scan the heaven for signs, 
 And menace their commander : ' You, who planned 
 Our questing voyage, show us the land your land 
 Of God, His promise ! All the lone sea-lines 
 
44 BROWNING TO BEN EZRA 
 
 Are dim with setting stars, and stark with death ; 
 
 Yet you, who hold the rudder, answer Faith ! 
 
 And, once more, only Faith! ' Thus curse my crews ! 
 
 I share their hearts but overmaster them, 
 
 And hold the rudder straight ; 
 
 Till now a star above each plumed stem 
 
 Lo, where my galleons, guided by their Muse, 
 
 The surging planet circumnavigate, 
 
 Doubt kindling nobler doubt, faith quelling fate, 
 
 Forms flung to revolution, creeds to rack, 
 
 Old cities of dead empires put to sack, 
 
 Love founding lordlier kingdoms in the future's track ! 
 
 So, Rabbi, to our question, if you please : 
 
 Is sailing thus to cease? 
 
 The ghosts demur; 
 
 For, in the nudging vault, I hear one say: 
 
 4 Browning, the poet, who has passed away, 
 
 This is his sepulchre.' 
 
 in 
 
 Once a dawn-shaft from God's quiver 
 Struck my soul, and from its embers 
 Flashed a star of song forever. 
 Then the dawn passed. Who remembers ? 
 
BROWNING TO BEN EZRA 45 
 
 Not remember Pippa ? Pippa who, at sun-up, 
 Rose in her bare attic, while the east boiled gold ! 
 With her rising, see, the morning roses run up 
 Clambering live and warm, concealing the night-mold. 
 
 Pippa, she who sang till little Asolo 
 Widened out its walls like arms, that reach in pity 
 To nestle lonely things, that yearn for love till, lo, 
 Vines of Asolo enwall the heavenly city ! 
 
 Pippa she was Luigi, Ottima was Pippa, 
 
 Mighty Monsignor, chafer, bee and weevil : 
 
 Life redeemed from listlessness, innocence from evil, 
 
 Like the cinder-girl that wore the crystal slipper. 
 
 Well, well, Rabbi, so 
 
 Now, as long ago, 
 
 Even thoughts of Pippa 
 
 Lilt another music, breathe an afterglow. 
 
 What, then ! Will they say 
 
 She, that passed in song, she too has passed away ? 
 
 Trust me : as I used to sit and ponder, 
 
 Songs, songs, songs she sang me, winged of wonder, 
 
 Flitting sunward, till they quite forsook 
 
 Like happy birds from open pages 
 
 My black-barred pages. 
 
46 BROWNING TO BEN EZRA 
 
 But shyly three and four, with slantwise wing, 
 
 Dartled from heaven back, and hovering 
 
 Around my head, 
 
 Sung my dear earth instead, 
 
 Then nested down, beaks spilling, in my book, 
 
 Splashing its margin with God's meadow-dew. 
 
 How cage and heart clapped to ! 
 
 When lo, all lamely, came a scant-winged few 
 
 That fluttered, just outside the closing covers, 
 
 Too late to slip between, and lingered nigh, 
 
 Teasing with matin-tunes the twilit memory. 
 
 Listen ! There pipes one, now ! Hark, while it hovers ! 
 
 On passion's flower 
 I poised for an hour, 
 A little hour long, 
 Ere I passed in song. 
 
 Stay! cried my lover 
 Forsaken : Faded 
 Are love's endeavor 
 And all that made it ! 
 Dead dead 1 
 
 But far overhead 
 Where faint stars hung, 
 And low o'er the grass 
 
BROWNING TO BEN EZRA 47 
 
 By the eddying river, 
 
 Where poising moon-moths flickered and 
 
 swung, 
 
 I called to my lover 
 Over and over : 
 
 I poise, I poise, I poise forever, 
 Because I pass. 
 
 IV 
 
 To poise to pass away ! 
 
 Rabbi, beyond the high groins, rose and gray, 
 
 Dimmed by the Minster's adumbrated day, 
 
 How, browed in silence, broods my Centenary, 
 
 In silence, bred of dust 
 
 And the dank charnel's must, 
 
 That wraps these bones! Yes, he is passed away 
 
 Forever more ; nor London's warping mist, 
 
 Nor Italy's keen amethyst 
 
 Shall cast his shadow among men ; and soon 
 
 No lingering friend to care, nor old contemporary. 
 
 He, I mean, whom once they pointed at 
 
 In Rome and Florence : poet-putterer 
 
 Among old pictures, 
 
 Uncouth utterer 
 
 Of obscure strictures, 
 
48 BROWNING TO BEN EZRA 
 
 Styleless stutterer 
 
 (Quoth his critics, 
 
 Itching with their own enclitics), 
 
 Paracelsus ! how he sat 
 
 In chilblain halls, Del Sarto-dippy, 
 
 Robbia-mad, or Lippo Lippi-, 
 
 Like some mage of alchemy, 
 
 Grinding, in his cracked brain-crucibie, 
 
 Tortuous rhymes from radiant Titians, 
 
 Delving for the thence-deducible 
 
 Dialogue-soliloquy : 
 
 Not to mention those musicians ! 
 
 Through the dilettantes' drawl 
 
 At the countess' musicale, 
 
 What surmise you, English ogler, 
 
 Of visions dreamed by old Abt Vogler, 
 
 When you stare (nor note his frowning, 
 
 Conscious of your own silk gowning) 
 
 And pour at tea for Mr. Browning? 
 
 Dust to dust : the large, the little, 
 
 Ashes both ! Who cares a tittle, 
 
 At the teas of Goethe, Horace, 
 
 Who wore satin, or who wore lace ? 
 
 Ashes all ! even such as Wait ! 
 
 What of him even him, the speaker^ 
 
 Whose spirit, invoked, comes muffled through this weaker 
 
BROWNING TO BEN EZRA 49 
 
 Organ of an alien poet, 
 
 Pale, yet not all impassionate, 
 
 Sounding subconscious chords that flood and overflow 
 
 it, 
 
 Of him, my spirit, Rabbi, what of him, 
 My poising soul ? Ah, since I died 
 How has this soul of mine been multiplied 
 By minds made pregnant with that seraph's fire, 
 Whose touch conceptual made aspire 
 Mine own from all the ages ! 
 Wherefore I deem 
 No individual ghost, 
 Moored on some drifting coast, 
 Yearning from out the dark for daylight lost, 
 For youth's wild torch 
 Wind-blown with joyous rages, 
 Hope's lifted latch and laughter in the porch, 
 Not even now 
 
 For dear exchange of love's undying vow 
 With her that was the Aurora of my life, 
 My freed soul longs. For I, that lived, grew old 
 And died, am born again in beings manifold, 
 By grace of that which, once expressed, 
 Bequeathes to them the beautiful, the best, 
 That bloomed of me ; 
 Whereby immortally 
 
50 BROWNING TO BEN EZRA 
 
 Their passions now partake 
 
 Of mine, of mine their raptures, their far wonder-quest. 
 
 So, in the spirits I pass through, 
 Still I create my own anew, 
 Broadened in scope ; still I awake 
 Refreshed, in world-awakened eyes 
 Of all whom mine with thought imbue; 
 Still in my critics criticize ; 
 Till, stretching the thralled spirit's cramp, 
 My art becomes an Arabian lamp 
 That, touched, behold the genie rise ! 
 Who bows his blazing form, and cries : 
 'Of all my Master's wealth the true. 
 The beautiful, the strong, the wise, 
 Mortal, what may his servant bring ? ' 
 
 Hist, Rabbi ! What bird 's that ? I smell the spring. 
 Soft! Could it be my silk-girl carolling? 
 
 Never alone, 
 
 Lover of joy, 
 
 Delicate scorner 
 
 Of death and his dances, 
 
 Whether you be 
 
 Girl or boy, 
 
BROWNING TO BEN EZRA 
 
 Rapturous mourner 
 Of life and her fancies, 
 Never may you, never alone, 
 Utter your ecstasy, 
 Make your moan. 
 
 Garland your hair : 
 Wind, come unwind it ! 
 Hide away care : 
 Kind heart, come find it ! 
 
 Winter, you gnome, 
 Shrunken and shrilly, 
 Shut Love in her tomb : 
 Tut ! willy, nilly, 
 Love through the loam 
 Unlocks with a lily ! 
 
 Starlight or stone, 
 Nothing J s its own ! 
 
 Fluent through all flows all, as the Greek saith : 
 The drowned stone ripples the starlight, even as death 
 The living waters 
 
 With widening discs of light. No sparrow falls 
 But gray-stoled choirs revive his matinals 
 
52 BROWNING TO BEN EZRA 
 
 With incense fresh of dawn. You, Rabbi, friend, 
 
 Soul-fellow, busy with me to the end, 
 
 Crunching with poet-pestles and rhyme-mortars 
 
 Conundrums for the mind to apprehend, 
 
 Bear witness with me to this paradox: 
 
 What 's permanent must pass. All spirit-shocks, 
 
 Numbness and pain arise 
 
 Conceiving otherwise. 
 
 For Beauty is the flowing of the soul 
 
 Without impediment, the effect being joy; 
 
 So with a ripple may reveal her whole 
 
 Eternal ocean. But the child says : ' See ! 
 
 My earth is stable ; sun and stars spin wild.' 
 
 Not so the man : c Our earth spins dizzily 
 
 Round the fixed sun.' The poet (man and child) 
 
 Peers in the sun, imagining he sees 
 
 Beyond his face the shadowy vortices, 
 
 Vast suctions and compulsions of the soul. 
 
 ' Beyond the sun,' he sings, 'beyond our goal 
 
 Is God ! ' Last pries the seer : c Him whom so far 
 
 Ye seek, yourselves consider what you are 
 
 And find Him : stars aspiring to be, 
 
 Life from itself evolving soul sach He! 
 
 Time's runner, not Time's stake; Spring's sap, not sod ; 
 
 Man's orbit, not his planet such is God. 
 
BROWNING TO BEN EZRA 53 
 
 Vouch then, Ben Ezra, through the texts we glozed 
 
 Of earth's philosophies, I still opposed 
 
 The fixed, immutable. To slake His thirst^ 
 
 You said, there lives our soul's utility 
 
 His thirst unquenchable, for whom also she, 
 
 My silk-girl, sang: There is no last nor first ! 
 
 Therefore through all 
 
 The chambers of His spirit, as I passed 
 
 In changing roles to lift the dim tent-flap 
 
 (As David) and behold where hung huge Saul, 
 
 Supine, 
 
 Gigantic, serpentine, 
 
 From the cross-beam; or, through the black storm-gap, 
 
 Panting beneath a woman's hair 
 
 (As Sebald), to watch now here, now there 
 
 Blind lightnings stab the dark ; thence to unfold 
 
 Before the quiet eyes of Cleon 
 
 His epos on its burning plates of gold; 
 
 Else watch, in Spring of another eon, 
 
 (Curled like the finger of an infant faun) 
 
 The prying crocus crimson through the lawn, 
 
 Idling, without other care, 
 
 In England, when my April's there; 
 
 Still it was mine., and /j, in dreams 
 
 To search beyond the world that seems, 
 
54 BROWNING TO BEN EZRA 
 
 And flash before my fellow men, 
 
 Kindling His image to their ken, 
 
 Glimpses of that God-Man, who wills yet to become, 
 
 Ever for Whom, 
 
 In future as in past, 
 
 There is nor first nor last. 
 
 VI 
 
 But hark ! Above our vault, 
 
 Rabbi, the footsteps halt; 
 
 The organ rolls the chant processionary. 
 
 Relinquish here this dust ; 
 
 Accomplish there Time's trust; 
 
 Ascend with me beyond this centenary. 
 
 Go forth, for we are young! 
 
 Time's song is yet unsung; 
 
 Let our glad voices mingle with God's mass. 
 
 You, Rabbi, on my right, 
 
 Before us both His light : 
 
 Through men's dear world, with Pippa, still I pass ! 
 
NINETY-SEVEN 
 
 A DECENNIAL GREETING 
 
 After the years, this hour : and after this the years 
 
 Fellows of Ninety-Seven, 
 
 Here 's to the hour that 's given 
 
 Out of the gladness of Time's gold arrears 
 
 For us, once more linking our several spheres, 
 
 To revel and remember. So let be 
 
 Our toast Reunion in our lifted glasses ! 
 
 Yet of the wine each fellow passes 
 
 A glory shall escape his lip 
 
 To wake its magic counterpart 
 
 In the ten-years' vintage of his heart ; 
 
 For Thought is the master of revelry 
 
 Whose common ale of fellowship 
 
 Turns to Moselle in memory. 
 
 And now one thought which makes us what we are 
 Masters our hearts anew, where we are met 
 On the outer moats of youth, 
 And with strange ruth 
 
56 NINETY-SEVEN 
 
 Compels our vision, with a half-regret, 
 
 Toward those dear days and far 
 
 Of earliest manhood, ere, with souls elate, 
 
 We passed the ivied gate 
 
 To serve our elder liege, the State, 
 
 And paused, with tremulous faces turned, together, 
 
 Back to the Yard, as to our native heather : 
 
 Then plunged in the blind roar and tide of fatec 
 
 II 
 
 Put by the years put by ! 
 
 Let as it will the lamp 
 
 Of old Time lour : 
 
 After the years, this hour! 
 
 And after this, the years ! 
 
 For hark ! above our gay night-camp, 
 
 Out of our common sky, 
 
 Blown from far bleachers by the winds of memory, 
 
 Hark now the wild, boy cheers 
 
 That set us, lang syne, tingling by the ears : 
 
 Ninety-Seven, Ninety-Seven, from near and far, 
 Ninety-Seven, Ninety-Seven, to hail our star 
 
 Harvard, Harvard ! 
 Ninety-Seven, Ninety-Seven, here we are ! 
 
NINETY-SEVEN 57 
 
 And once more the incense rises by the rush-lined banks 
 
 of Charles 
 
 On the frosty breath of thirty-thousand soul, 
 And the side-line watchers scramble as the skein of torses 
 
 snarls 
 
 And a shoulder glides from under past the goal ! 
 And a cataract of crimson pours its wave upon the turf 
 And heaves the sweating victors on its throng, 
 Where the bleachers rise like headlands from the roar of 
 
 living surf, 
 And the breakers of wild boys burst forth in song : 
 
 For it 's Glory, Glory to the Crimson ! 
 And hoarse echoes from Harvard's halls ; 
 And the ivy overhead is glowing deeper red 
 In the twilight of her walls. 
 
 But four years are not Destiny, 
 
 And the ultimate June days pass 
 To hail the flower-ensanguined Tree 
 
 Where the hosts of Harvard mass, 
 And banked like iris, sheath on sheath, 
 
 A-quiver with all their curls, 
 One mighty, rustling, maiden wreath 
 
 Our coronal of girls ! 
 
58 NINETY-SEVEN 
 
 
 
 Then it 's on with the fight of flowers, 
 And the battle of bouquets ! 
 
 Till the mangled crush of the roses blush 
 In the smile of a maiden's praise. 
 
 Soft, then, that glance of smile and tress 
 
 Through murmurous evening glows: 
 The lace, the laugh, the loveliness, 
 
 The paper-lamps of rose, 
 Are portions of a pageantry 
 
 Made of the music's bars ; 
 And now they are a memory, 
 
 A Class-day in the stars ! 
 
 in 
 
 Watched from some clear and starry eminence, 
 How calm in plastic beauty dreams the world ! 
 Mile after mile through moon-lit silences, 
 In fronded slumber furled, 
 Murmur the herded forests ; and there is 
 No other sound or passion, but a sense 
 As if some stellar truce perpetual 
 Had healed all life with dews of harmony 
 And quietness ; for all 
 
 The nestling foothills and the valleys lie 
 Lapt in the summer moon's unconscious keep 
 Like children, or like lovers, fast asleep. 
 
NINETY-SEVEN 
 
 59 
 
 Fond reverie and illusion ! for beneath 
 That gloom-suspended canopy, the moan 
 Of the struck stag is stifled ; blind, alone, 
 The wood-cat tears his flank; innumerable 
 Throughout the dark, seekers of life and death 
 Pursue their aimless ends of suffering 
 And brief satiety ; claw, tusk and wing 
 Torture, waylay, destroy each other : even 
 The beak, whose morning-song ineffable 
 Shall ravish heaven, 
 
 Strikes at the adder with his own despite, 
 And all the pensive wonder of the night 
 Is stung with venom of a monstrous hive 
 Of hearts insatiable to survive. 
 
 So 'neath the gaze of early manhood's eye 
 
 Repose the civilizations : derrick and spire, 
 
 Lighthouse and looming shaft and armoury 
 
 Islanded grandly in the evening air 
 
 Far-coiling trains spetting the gloom with fire, 
 
 And moving barges in the mist, and fair 
 
 Suspended bridges, lifting unaware 
 
 Beyond the fog-banks build for one who dreams 
 
 Beautiful self-delusion : Fabulous 
 
 Must be the master-race of such a world ! 
 
 Titan and angel in their stature, thus 
 
 To guide the lightnings that the gods have hurled. 
 
60 NINETY-SEVEN 
 
 God ! That this only seems 
 
 And is not ! No, for us 
 
 Who fume and strive beneath the glamour, we, 
 
 The cannibals of competition, see 
 
 What things we are : what beasts that hunt and flee 
 
 And kill, yet love the life we kill, and breed 
 
 The very progeny whose hearts we bleed. 
 
 What for ? What need ? 
 
 Are we, then, so in awe 
 
 Of our own pain, that we may not create 
 
 Out of our need the thing we thirst for Joy ? 
 
 Joy is not nature's law 
 
 But man's ; and in the mind of man resides 
 
 For Joy's subservience 
 
 The angel and the titan, Commonsense ; 
 
 So if there still abides 
 
 In us the primal spark American 
 
 That kindled us in Liberty, a nation, 
 
 Let it leap up and burn a clearer flame, 
 
 As ever and the same 
 
 It still has leaped, since first that fire began, 
 
 At the cry : Emancipation ! 
 
 IV 
 
 Fair is the field where Reason and High Will 
 Captain us, and their quickening battle-cry 
 
NINETY-SEVEN 61 
 
 Is "Justice, and the New Democracy ! 
 
 Justice, whose heart-red shield 
 
 Blazons this ultimatum on her field : 
 
 More Happiness 
 
 For all that live, and shall live, and not less. 
 
 The noble fustian of a former age, 
 
 Surviving still, 
 
 Has served its nobler ends ; turn now the page ! 
 
 All men are not born equal . let them be, 
 
 And let them be born better : 
 
 Equal in hope and opportunity, 
 
 Better in altruism and in will 
 
 To execute their clearer wisdom. Let 
 
 The loins of the begetter 
 
 Be passionate for his posterity 
 
 To breed a race more excellent, until 
 
 Our human species shall be perfected 
 
 Beyond the sway of passion, and forget 
 
 That ever time was when it might be said 
 
 (As men have said by San Francisco Bay) : 
 
 Nature is not more cruel than mankind. 
 
 But this is still To-day, 
 
 Our day not of rebellion or defined 
 
 Outburst, as when our law-schooled fathers broke 
 
62 NINETY-SEVEN 
 
 The transatlantic yoke, 
 
 Or Lincoln the slave's goad 
 
 Lifted, and struck the intolerable load 
 
 From Freedom's galled shoulders. Not to us 
 
 That outward menace : subtler slavery 
 
 The inward canker of corruption, cant 
 
 Of predatorial wealth, insidious 
 
 Muffling of the bugle-voiced press, 
 
 Hazard us none the less. 
 
 No more the trumpet's call and stallion's neigh 
 
 Incite us to the action : but instead 
 
 The ticker's steel tattoo, the teller's drone, 
 
 The trip-hammer's iron intermittent clang, the shrill 
 
 Steam-whistle, the huge-heaved and sullen moan 
 
 Of vast machines in vassalage resound 
 
 Our call to carnage, where no blood is shed, 
 
 But where, from skyward cliffs and underground, 
 
 The living dead 
 
 Whirled on the spokes of the enormous wheel 
 
 Of Commerce chant their strident monotone. 
 
 Classmen of Ninety-Seven Classmates still 
 
 In common conscience for the public weal ! 
 
 Come forth, and let the quenching of world-sorrow 
 
 Kindle our joy ! Come forth, and make To-morrow 
 
NINETY-SEVEN 63 
 
 A new Commencement at the gates of Time 
 
 Whence all our deeds shall climb ! 
 
 America, the matrix of the nations, lies 
 
 Fallow before us, and her destinies, 
 
 In nascent grandeur furled, 
 
 Are ours to shape in beauty for our kind. 
 
 Our manhood shines before, but when that shuts behind, 
 
 Still beckons - the young manhood of the world. 
 
 FINIS 
 
THE SISTINE EVE AND OTHER 
 POEMS 
 
W. V. M. E. A. R. 
 
 & 
 R. T. 
 
 IN FELLOWSHIP 
 
FOB permission to reprint certain poems in 
 this volume, the author makes his acknowledg 
 ments to the editors of the following journals : 
 The Century Magazine, The Outlook, Every 
 body's Magazine, Collier's Weekly, The Harvard 
 Graduates 9 Magazine. 
 
 vii 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART ONE 
 POEMS CHIEFLY OCCASIONAL 
 
 PAGE 
 TlCONDEROGA . * , . , . . 3 
 
 TENNYSON ...... . . 16 
 
 THE AIR VOYAGE UP THE HUDSON ... 21 
 
 CHORAL SONG FOR THE NEW THEATRE . . 23 
 
 ODE TO THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES . .24 
 
 PROLOGUE TO THE SAINT-GAUDENS MASQUE . 38 
 
 A CHRISTMAS CAROL . . " - , * . 42 
 
 THE DEATH OF VERESTCHAGIN . .46 
 
 SHIRLEY COMMON ...;. . -'.-. * t 47 
 
 ISAAK WALTON IN MAIDEN LANE > . 49 
 
 THE SISTINE EVE . # . . V . 51 
 
 PART TWO 
 POEMS LYRICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE 
 
 GROUP I e . 89 
 
 GROUP II . v" . 141 
 
 GROUP HI . . . . . . . .155 
 
 INDEX TO POEMS IN PART Two 185 
 
 ix 
 
PART ONE 
 
 POEMS CHIEFLY OCCASIONAL 
 
TICONDEROGA l 
 
 A BALLAD 
 I 
 
 What spirits conjure thee from time, 
 
 Ticonderoga ? 
 On thy headland rock 
 Of history, 
 
 Who are these that knock 
 And summon thee 
 To move thine ancient lips in rhyme, 
 
 Ticonderoga ? 
 
 Where the wind-blown swallows 
 
 Veer and vary, 
 
 Where the shore and shallows 
 
 Lie visionary, 
 
 Titans three 
 
 Stand at my knee : 
 
 Each one is a century. 
 
 In their shadow, silently, 
 
 Sits the sibyl Memory. 
 
 And her silence questions me : 
 
 1 Read at the celebration of the three hundredth anni 
 versary of the discovery of Lake Champlain, at Fort 
 Ticonderoga, July 6, 1909. 
 3 
 
TICONDEROGA 
 
 II 
 
 Who glide so dim upon the lake 
 
 Ticonderoga ? 
 Over their dreaming prow 
 The morning star 
 Blazes their goal; but now 
 More dusk and far 
 What old world dwindles in their wake, 
 Ticonderoga ? 
 
 The fleur-de-lis, the fleur-de-lis ! 
 
 The White Chevalier lo, 'tis he ! 
 
 His pale canoe along the tide 
 
 The painted Huron paddles guide 
 
 With dumb, subdued elation; 
 
 The wild dawn stains their bodies bare, 
 
 The wild dawn gleams about his hair ; 
 
 Steeped in his soul's adventure, lie 
 
 The valleys of discovery 
 
 The peaks of expectation. 
 
 Midway the lake they pause : on high 
 
 His arm he raises solemnly. 
 
 Above the lilies, that emboss 
 
 His azure banner, and the pied 
 
 Algonquin plumes that float beside, 
 
 He holds the shining cross. 
 
TICONDEROGA 
 
 " Champlain !" The placid word 
 
 The mute air hath not stirred. 
 
 Touched by the morning's wing, 
 
 The ruddied waters, quickening, 
 
 Alone are kindled by that christening 
 
 Quaint splendors mass 
 
 Within the lake's clear glass, 
 
 And liquid lilies golden run 
 
 In rose gules of the rising sun. 
 
 Naught else there of acclaim 
 
 Greets the great Chevalier's name, 
 
 Save where the water-fowl's primeval broods 
 
 Awake Bulwagga's lone and echoing solitudes. 
 
 Ill 
 
 What strident horror breaks thy spell, 
 
 Ticonderoga ? 
 What long and ululating yell? 
 
 The Iroquois : in covert glade 
 
 They build their pine-bough palisade, 
 
 And weave in trance 
 
 Their sachem dance 
 
 With hawk-screams of their heathen wars, 
 
 Till naked on my shrilling shores 
 
 Mohawk and wild Algonquin meet 
 
 And taunt, with fleer and blown conceit, 
 
TICONDEROGA 
 
 Each other's painted ranks: 
 
 But, lo where now their flanks 
 
 Give way and reel ! 
 
 And 'mid the silent sagamores, 
 
 In shining cuish and casque of steel, 
 
 Before them all 
 
 Stands bright and tall, 
 
 With gauntlet clenched and helmet vised, 
 
 The calm knight-errant of the Christ; 
 
 Then, in sign miraculous, 
 
 Levels his arquebus 
 
 And, charged with bullets from his bandoleer, 
 
 Looses the bolt of preternatural thunder. 
 
 A sachem falls : the wild men stare in wonder 
 
 And mazed fear; 
 
 Once more his engine peals, and hurls the fire 
 
 Whose flash shall kindle continents to ire. 
 
 IV 
 
 Like sanguine clouds at sunset spread 
 The ages slumber round thy head, 
 
 Ticonderoga / 
 Tremendous forms 
 Loom in their dreams : 
 Through levin-light of starless storms, 
 By giant fords of chartless streams, 
 Saxon and Gaul 
 
TICONDEROGA 
 
 Wrestle and rise and fall, 
 
 Conquering the region aboriginal. 
 
 Hark ! From the long tides of Lake George, 
 
 What rolling drum-beat rumbles through thy 
 
 gorge, 
 Ticonderoga ? 
 
 O why should woman weep for war ? 
 Or man why should it vex him more ? 
 Or why beside so sweet a shore 
 
 Dreadful should the drum be ? 
 O clear the snorting trumpets neigh, 
 And blithe the squealing bagpipes play ! 
 O red the redcoats on the bay, 
 
 Sailing with Abercromby ! 
 
 A thousand bateaux floating glide 
 And flaunt their banners sheen ; 
 
 Calm isles swim by on the summer tide 
 Clad in their birchen green. 
 
 Lord Howe he lies on a rude bearskin 
 
 Beneath the pleasant sky; 
 Says : Never day hath fairer been 
 
 For one's dear land to die. 
 
 Says: Tell me true now, gallant Stark, 
 What trail may foil the Frenchmen ? 
 
TICONDEROGA 
 
 Where should our redcoats disembark 
 To rout Montcalm his henchmen ? 
 
 A trout-brook once I fished, Lord Howe, 
 To fry my catch in bacon : 
 
 Along that trail, Sir, I'll allow 
 Ticonderoga's taken. 
 
 O what so wildly fair as war ! 
 From dancing skiff and dripping oar 
 Land down on yonder dreamy shore 
 
 And drowsy let the drum be. 
 O proud as life the far crag's flush ! 
 And sweet as youth the hermit-thrush ! 
 O deep as death the dark wood's hush, 
 
 Marching with Abercromby ! 
 
 Our trail grows blind, good Putnam: draw 
 More close your forest rangers. 
 
 By yonder balsam [hark !] I saw 
 
 Who calls there friends or strangers ? 
 
 A mile hence runs a mill, Lord Howe: 
 Might be the Trenchers sawing; 
 
 Or likely, Sir, ye heard yon crow 
 Round Roger's Rock a-cawing. 
 
TICONDEROGA 
 
 Qui vive ? Their muskets flare the wood ; 
 
 Franpais! Their wild cheers start: 
 Lord Howe is dropt down where he stood, 
 
 A hot ball through his heart. 
 
 They drive them back, they drown their boast 
 In blood and the rushing river, 
 
 But the heart of Abercromby's host 
 The Lord of Hosts deliver ! 
 
 Said is prayer and sung is psalm; 
 In the moonlight waits Montcalm. 
 Felled is tree and sunk is trench; 
 On their ramparts rest the French. 
 Moon is waned and night is gone, 
 And the plateau, in the dawn, 
 Strown with strange gigantic wrack, 
 Bristles like a wild boar's back, 
 Horrid shagg'd with monstrous spines 
 Of splintered oaks and tangled pines. 
 Where last night the setting sun 
 Placid forest looked upon, 
 In its place the sunrise sees 
 Rubble heaps of writhen trees, 
 Boughs that hid the shy bird's nest 
 Sharpened for a soldier's breast. 
 
10 TICONDEROGA 
 
 Hot soars the sun : in dove-white swarms 
 Cluster the dazzling uniforms 
 Along the earthworks ; distant shines 
 The vanguard of the English lines. 
 Scarlet from the sombre firs 
 They start like sudden tanagers, 
 And smoothly sweep the open glade 
 Toward the abatis. There, waylaid, 
 They flounder midst the galling heap 
 Of tumbled branches, where they leap 
 And crawl, as 'mid some huge morass. 
 Like locusts in storm-beaten grass. 
 The looming breastworks now they see 
 But still no foemen. Suddenly, 
 Blinding the noon, a dusk of smoke 
 Blooms, and the roaring air hath broke 
 In hurricanes of scorching hail, 
 Through which, to dying eyes that quail, 
 Falls the round sun a fiery grail. 
 
 Vive le Roif rings from the wall 
 Of flame : Vive noire General ! 
 
 Choked by the fury and the fire, 
 The rended English ranks suspire 
 A moment's pause, then maddened rush 
 Stifling through the giant brush 
 Where, trapped in pits of jagged spars, 
 
TICONDEROGA 11 
 
 Rangers and yelling regulars 
 Struggle to shoot and strain to see 
 The blithe and viewless enemy. 
 
 Vive le Roi! shrilly the call 
 Rings clear: Vive notre General! 
 
 Whirled from the zigzag bastion's scarp, 
 The hellish crossfire weaves its warp. 
 Thrice they return, and thrice again: 
 Image of God ! and are these men 
 With eyes upturned in sightless stare, 
 Glazed with the dead hate that they glare : 
 And one, with dumb mouth, shouts in death 
 To one the red blood strangleth, 
 And one, outstretched with woful brow, 
 Hangs spiked upon a greenwood bough, 
 Wrought in a sculptured agony 
 Like Him that died upon a tree. 
 
 The soul of Abercromby's host 
 
 Follows Lord Howe his shining ghost : 
 
 On stormy ridge and parapet 
 
 It rides in flame, it leads them yet; 
 
 Smiling, with wistful image wan, 
 
 A dead man leads the dying on. 
 
 And Campbell, Laird of Inverawe, 
 
 Hath met the doom his dream foresaw; 
 
TICONDEROGA 
 
 Pierced by his murdered kinsman's eyes, 
 His clansmen bear him where he dies. 
 
 Lord Howe, Lord Howe, why shouldst thou 
 
 fall! 
 
 Thy life it was the life of all; 
 Thy death ten thousand hath undone 
 England hath sunken with the sun. 
 Ticonderoga's lost and won ! 
 
 O women, weep ye yet for war ? 
 Bugles and banners, flaunt no more ! 
 For some be sleeping by the shore 
 
 In slumber dark, and some be 
 Awake in fever's roaring gorge, 
 And some, in crowded keels that forge 
 Southward, curse heaven and Lake George, 
 
 Flying with Abercromby ! 
 
 V 
 
 Still round thy brow the riven war-clouds range, 
 
 Ticonderoga : 
 
 The conquest marches though the colors change. 
 And now, where revolution's lightnings run, 
 Beyond the battle-smoke, sublime and wan, 
 Quivers the patient star of Washington. 
 Ranger 'gainst regular, 
 
TICONDEROGA 13 
 
 Sundered in enmity, 
 Opens thine ancient scar 
 Newly for liberty. 
 Now with a rushing noise 
 Burst freedom's fountains 
 Where the green-forest boys 
 March from their mountains. 
 Listen! What wheedling fife 
 Quickens thy smouldering memories to life, 
 Ticonderoga ? 
 
 We're marching for to take the fort 
 
 With Ethan Ethan Allen, 
 That when with fight he fills a quart 
 
 He ups and gulps a gallon. 
 Double-quick it ! faster ! hep ! 
 
 Lord ! his blood is brandy. 
 Mind the music and the step, 
 
 And hold your muskets handy. 
 
 Friends and fellow soldiers halt ! 
 
 Mind your P's, you noodle ! 
 What mother's son will earn his salt 
 
 And dance to Yankee Doodle? 
 There stands Ticonderoga: state 
 
 What now ye mean to do there. 
 Yon's the fortress' wicket-gate: 
 
 How many will march through there ? 
 
14 TICONDEROGA 
 
 As many now as volunteer 
 
 Poise your firelocks ! Right, Sir ! 
 Each man has swung his musket clear, 
 
 Each man files off to fight, Sir. 
 The British sentry points his gun, 
 
 And Ethan hears him click it; 
 He fires : the Yankees yell ' Come on ! ' 
 
 And thunder through the wicket. 
 
 They thunder through the barracks court 
 
 And ram the British mortars. 
 What rag-tail rebels make such sport 
 
 In great King George's quarters ? 
 King George's style is over, Sir ! 
 
 You redcoats wear the wrong dress: 
 Ground arms to the great Jehovah, Sir, 
 
 And the Continental Congress ! 
 
 VI 
 
 Thine eyes grow dreamy in the evening haze, 
 
 Ticonderoga. 
 Where, in mimic art 
 Ephemeral, 
 
 Thy pilgrims hold their part 
 In festival, 
 On what eternal pageants dost thou gaze, 
 
 Ticonderoga ? 
 
TICONDEROGA 15 
 
 Soldier and saint and sagamore 
 Are vanished from my tranquil shore. 
 The ripples that the summer breeze 
 Awakes they are my reveries ; 
 The day-fly dartles where below 
 The Royal Savage hides her woe, 
 And where the silver lake-trout ply 
 Arnold still grapples with Sir Guy. 
 On Mount Defiance, looming proud, 
 Glowers Burgoyne a twilight cloud, 
 In whose spent shower's radiance 
 Macdonough fights the Confiance. 
 
 Battles whose blood is liberty, 
 Heroes whose dreams are history, 
 Imagination hath them wrought, 
 Tempering all things to a thought, 
 Painting the land, the lake, the sky, 
 With pageants of the dreamer's eye. . 
 
 So by my visionary shore, 
 
 Soldier and saint and sagamore 
 
 Live in my shadow evermore: 
 
 Where, rapt in beauty, sleeps Champlain, 
 
 Lulled are the passion and the pain; 
 
 The legend and the race remain. 
 
TENNYSON l 
 
 I 
 
 SONG keeps no dim centennial 
 
 Where one who sang lies hushed in earth, 
 And Beauty wears not death nor birth 
 
 Though lovers bring her flower and pall; 
 
 While Life itself, in endless youth, 
 Is sown along sidereal deeps, 
 From darkness, where the dreamer sleeps, 
 
 Trembles the morning-star of Truth. 
 
 Not to the singer, but to Song 
 
 That lights with viewless finger-tips 
 Her flaming. music at his lips, 
 
 Those immortalities belong. 
 
 Yet to the singer, for the sake 
 Of austere service lowly lent 
 To make his mind her instrument, 
 
 The flower and pall of song we take. 
 
 1 Written to be read before the Brooklyn Institute, 
 1909, in commemoration of the hundredth anniversary 
 of the birth of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. 
 16 
 
TENNYSON 17 
 
 II 
 
 Among the mighty island-choir 
 
 His 'earliest pipe' was faintly heard 
 When still the hearts of time were stirred 
 
 With revolutionary fire, 
 
 While lights and echoes still were blown 
 Across the darkening lyric sky 
 Of Shelley's shrilling ecstasy 
 
 And Byron's orphic organ-tone. 
 
 He watched the shuddering Age, aghast, 
 Behold the sphinx of Science grow 
 A lion vigilant, and throw 
 
 Its shadow o'er the golden past, 
 
 Assuming slow an awful Shape 
 
 That stood impassive at the feast, 
 Revealing man a mystic beast - 
 
 The evolution of an ape. 
 
 Still shy he sought his shunning Muse 
 Remote from sceptic clash and curse, 
 And mixed the palette of his verse 
 
 With nature's mellow gleams and hues, 
 
18 TENNYSON 
 
 And crowned his rhyme with bloom of fern 
 In fiery orchid palaces, 
 And caught in crystal chalices 
 
 Bright spillings from a Grecian urn; 
 
 Till, touched by human lover's hand, 
 The singer rose to larger thought 
 And took the spurs of Lancelot 
 
 And galloped into Fairyland. 
 
 But most of olden fair romance 
 
 Is rust on Reason's shining shield, 
 And Merlin's hand is weak to wield 
 
 The wand of Science' necromance. 
 
 And soon the mage of modern rhyme 
 Poured all his alchemy of art 
 In newer purpose to impart 
 
 The noble doublings of his time; 
 
 And sped the Mediaeval ghost 
 
 Of faith, and hailed the love of all, 
 The lessening individual, 
 
 The kingly ' common sense of most ' ; 
 
TENNYSON 19 
 
 And watched, with keen prophetic scan, 
 
 Wild lightnings from the embattled crew 
 Of ' navies grappling in the blue ' 
 
 Quenched by 'the Parliament of Man.' 
 
 Thus on his centenary page 
 
 The Muse has scrolled his name with hers : 
 
 A Prince of old Artificers, 
 Knight-errant of the Newest Age. 
 
 The poet pales in memory 
 
 Aloof and proud and book-bemused, 
 His Saxon plainness subtly fused 
 
 With pomp of Norman chivalry; 
 
 His ashes in the Abbey lie 
 
 Aristocratic in their place, 
 
 But all that lives of him has grace 
 
 Of beautiful democracy; 
 
 Near mouldering glaive and oriflamme 
 His cerements rest, but he, unwound 
 From death, by human love is crowned 
 
 With friendship in memoriam; 
 
 By many a far and alien beach 
 
 He seeks the holy grail of song, 
 Hailed by the Saxon-thinking throng 
 
 The laureate of English speech. 
 
20 TENNYSON 
 
 III 
 
 O Song O Grail of man's desire ! 
 
 O living Splendor, never sped ! 
 
 Out of the ashes of the dead 
 Rise, rise once more in mystic fire I 
 
 Reveal for us, for us, reveal 
 
 The Singer in his harness clad, 
 And gird him forth like Galahad 
 
 To smite, to chasten and to heal ; 
 
 To hallow spear and spade and hod, 
 To wrestle manhood from defeats, 
 To face the mighty in their seats 
 
 And humble greatness before God; 
 
 To be the bugle of his race 
 
 And blazon through 'the age again 
 Thy music in the hearts of men, 
 
 Thy beauty in the market-place. 
 
THE AIR VOYAGE UP THE HUDSON 1 
 
 LIKE nothing earthly, on awful wings, 
 
 It burst on the staring million, 
 Like a dream of ancient dreadful things 
 
 In the dusk of the time reptilian. 
 
 Our hearts beat quick; we spoke not aloud; 
 
 Our minds our senses dissuaded; 
 As we saw the bastions of bird and cloud 
 
 By the vision of man invaded. 
 
 We caught our breath, as we watched him bound 
 Where the air-billow swirls and serries, 
 
 And the shout of our straining hearts is drowned 
 In the din of the roaring ferries. 
 
 With sliding pinion and whizzing prow 
 His sky-ship the sea birds scaring 
 
 Like a thought from Liberty's looming brow, 
 He flashes and soars in his daring. 
 
 1 Stanzas written on witnessing, from Battery Park, 
 the first flight made by Wilbur Wright in his aeroplane 
 from Governor's Island to Grant's Tomb and back, on 
 the morning of October 4, 1909, during the Hudson- 
 Fulton celebrations. 
 
 21 
 
22 THE AIR VOYAGE UP THE HUDSON 
 
 He has flashed ; he is gone : only fancy aids 
 Our eyes where the haze grows hoarer: 
 
 The Ages look up from the Palisades, 
 
 That looked down on the Dutch explorer. 
 
 But what of their dreams those gray steel hulks 
 Deep-moored in the river below him, 
 
 With the loins of a nation girt in their bulks ? 
 In their iron hearts, do they know him? 
 
 Do their deadly engines twinge with a doubt, 
 
 A dread of this thing ethereal, 
 That hides in its plumes the earliest scout 
 
 Of the armies and navies aerial ? 
 
 And what of their hearts that human throng ? 
 
 Do they hail in this creature regal 
 The harbinger of dirge, or of song? 
 
 A vulture, or an eagle ? 
 
 He tacks; he returns: the news is blown 
 On the winds of a city's wonder: 
 
 He comes, in the braying megaphone, 
 He comes, on Manhattan's thunder; 
 
 He looms once more by the cwarming bluffs 
 
 A bird of marshes gigantic 
 And slants on the slumbering mist, and luffs 
 
 To his nest by the booming Atlantic. 
 
CHORAL SONG FOR THE NEW 
 THEATRE l 
 
 (Written to be sung to music from Gounod's Redemption.) 
 
 AWAKE ! awake ! awake ! 
 
 Spirits of Aspiration ! 
 
 And hasten to renew 
 
 Your ministering vows : 
 
 For lo ! the Prince of Faery 
 
 Returns within your walls, 
 
 Back from his ancient bright dominions : 
 
 Awake ! awake ! awake ! 
 
 For he is crowned again. 
 
 But who is he, the Prince of Faery ? 
 
 Of Hellas he was god, a swan he was in Avon. 
 
 But who is he, the Prince of Faery ? 
 
 Of little children lord, of men and angels 
 
 master : 
 Within the human mind he rules the world. 
 
 1 Sung by members of the Metropolitan Opera Com 
 pany, at the ceremony of the laying of the corner-stone 
 of the New Theatre, New York, December 15, 1908, and 
 also at the opening ceremonies, November 6, 1909. 
 23 
 
ODE TO THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES ' 
 
 HARVARD PHI BETA KAPPA POEM, 1908 
 I 
 
 ONCE more amid her mountains and her seas 
 American, dream-startled Liberty 
 Stares round her, listening. From her mystic 
 limbs 
 
 Sleep like a garment slips; 
 
 Between her lips 
 Bright wonder trembles momentarily; 
 
 About her knees 
 
 Her ancient streams and shores, innumerable 
 With navies and strange peoples, raise new 
 
 hymns 
 
 In her immortal name. Once more she lifts 
 Her head in proud resistance, beautiful 
 Rebellion: yet not now with martial frown 
 
 To glare through scorching rifts 
 Of cannon smoke, smiting her foemen down, 
 
 1 Read in Sanders Theatre, Cambridge, June 25, 1908. 
 24 
 
ODE TO THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 25 
 
 But now, with gaze upturned in the deep sky 
 Whose timeless arc reveals each mortal blur 
 Of her bright image overhanging her, 
 To purify herself, for her least worshipper. 
 
 II 
 
 Ours is an age of mutability, 
 
 A threshold radiant yet sinister 
 
 Toward strange horizons, where the eternal hills 
 
 Of ancient law heave, and sink shuddering under, 
 
 Bursting in giant surf against the base 
 
 Of vastier summits, newly starred with wonder; 
 
 And though that portent thrills 
 Our thoughts with dread, or joy, here is our place ; 
 Here we must look our common future in the face. 
 
 Necessity sounds no alarms, and time 
 No tocsin for his patient siege. To-day 
 No detonation of deep Sumter's gun, 
 Nor lightning musket-flash of Lexington, 
 
 Nor jangled steeple-chime, 
 Ushers our holy war; but silent-shod, 
 
 And in the secret way 
 
 Of human hearts, where in the 'sordid street 
 The modern slave and master dumbly meet 
 
 And in the other's eyes 
 
26 ODE TO THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 
 
 Each, unaware, beholds the eyes of God, 
 
 That ever after burn and scrutinize 
 
 The vitals of his soul ; or where, defiled, 
 
 The starless miner barters his own child 
 
 For mordant drink to quench his questioning 
 
 mind; 
 
 Or where, behind 
 The squandered toil of millions, the impeach'd 
 
 man 
 
 Puts out his life, to shut away the shame; 
 Still silent as the flame 
 Of serpent fire through autumn grass, 
 The radiant revolution creeps, 
 Impregnating the nation's prone morass 
 With seed Promethean 
 That, kindling, leaps 
 
 Forth on the peaks of life, aspiring whence it 
 came. 
 
 What is that seed ? that living fire ? 
 
 What mystic name, 
 
 What secret shrine, 
 
 Revealed, sets free 
 That sweet and awful Potency, 
 Which wears, 'neath blasphemy and ire, 
 'Neath pain and sin and hate and blood, 
 The hallowed smile of brotherhood ? 
 
ODE TO THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 27 
 
 A myriad names, a myriad 
 Shrines its worshippers have had, 
 
 Yet whatsoever god men call it by, 
 Still the divine 
 
 Democracy of man, while man is, cannot die. 
 
 Hearken how far 
 
 The high persuasion 
 
 Of our renascence thunders ! Groping, dumb, 
 Bowed with old burdens of a continent, 
 Branded with immemorial scar 
 Of sheik and king and khan and czar, 
 
 They come they come, 
 Filing, in vast and orderly invasion, 
 The planks of Ellis Island. Who shall tell 
 What numbers thronged the fields where great 
 
 Martel 
 
 Marshalled his hordes, or old Arminius 
 O'erwhelmed the Roman legions ? Gaul and 
 
 Hun, 
 
 Vandal and Visigoth, behold, for us 
 To-day the humdrum agent, one by one, 
 
 By sex and ages, 
 
 Chalk-marks and checks, and down the bright 
 steel cages 
 
 Passes the hybrid clans, 
 Whose migratory hosts pour forth Americans. 
 
28 ODE TO THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 
 
 III 
 
 Presides et socii collegiorum! 
 
 Masters and scholars of the chosen places ! 
 
 I ask of you to whom 
 Shall those inchoate freemen, dazzled races, 
 Turn in their promised land for leadership ? 
 
 Who shall equip 
 
 Their hope with discipline, their nescience 
 With light, their sudden zeal with reverence? 
 
 I ask of you to whom 
 The amazed Republic, gazing on this skein 
 
 And stuff of destiny, 
 
 Pied-shot with human passion, joy and pain, 
 Shall look to engineer the awful loom, 
 So that within the fabric of the state 
 The large ideal of the intricate 
 Design shall blazon, bold and beautiful, 
 The gracious lineaments of Liberty ? 
 
 Flower-sprung from mesas of the prairied land, 
 Star-strewn along the hills and by the seas 
 The quiet-bastioned citadels of peace 
 And gunless fortresses of freedom stand 
 The universities. No breastwork heaves 
 Its brow in menace near; the ivied gates 
 Rise moatless ; from the campus and the eaves 
 Perennial youthhood chimes; and all awaits 
 
ODE TO THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 29 
 
 The coming conqueror. Yet inward shrined, 
 
 And panoplied 
 
 With arms more glorious than glaive of Cid 
 Or Charlemagne, the quenchless human mind 
 
 Sits inexpugnable; 
 While far around, from swarming cities and wide 
 
 swards, 
 
 Murmur the vague, aspiring, passion-driven 
 hordes. 
 
 Let us not vest with visionary seal 
 Of sanctity the individual. 
 
 Wherever among men 
 The brave and reasonable citizen 
 
 Thinks for the common weal 
 And speaks his thought, there the Republic speaks, 
 Yet, if unanswered, speaks in vain. 
 
 For ours is a day of coalition: this 
 
 Our people, viewed with the perspective eye 
 
 Of revery, appears a titan group 
 
 Of powers compositive, vast Dramatis 
 
 Personse, plying their immortal tasks, 
 
 'Neath which their Atlantean sinews stoop, 
 
 In that high Comedy Serene 
 Wherein the Evolutionary will immasks; 
 And there, amid those titan forms of Man 
 
30 ODE TO THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 
 
 Their torses poised proud 
 
 In athlete ease, their foreheads pensive-bow'd - 
 The Spirits of the Universities 
 Enact their corporate roles American. 
 
 Therefore to you, lords of the large demesne 
 Of learning, scholars of well-earned degrees, 
 To you, in your confederated power, 
 Preeminently, the Republic turns 
 And charges you, by your just love of her, 
 
 To lead, to pilot and uplift 
 Her generations, and administer, 
 
 With the most holy shrift 
 Of reason and Time's slow amassed dower, 
 Her bright communion to the multitude. 
 
 Toward you, in whose calm hands her chalice 
 
 burns 
 
 With beauty strange, how many thirst-imbued 
 Gaze, yearning ! Not alone on your own walls, 
 Wherein your chosen meet your shadow falls 
 Also on alien thresholds, thrown across 
 The nation's childhood, by the increasing glow 
 Of truth that flares beyond you. As you sow, 
 So shall the lesser seekers harvest dross 
 Or substance. In responsibility, 
 You are the true inheritors of kings 
 
ODE TO THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 31 
 
 Whose sceptres now lie impotent, your halls 
 The sovran courts of the democracy; 
 
 And by the royalty 
 Conferred of patient high imaginings, 
 
 Your first prerogative 
 And prime efficiency is leadership. 
 
 IV 
 
 Who is the scholar-leader? What is he 
 
 Whose learning shows the unlearned best to live ? 
 
 There be, who finger hard on lip 
 Pore lifelong, with laborious glass, 
 On nature's enigmatic heart, 
 Dissecting shrewdly, part by part, 
 To store her secrets in their scrip, 
 Heedless of human love and art, 
 Or how the passionate generations pass. 
 
 Others there are who, moved no less 
 
 To explore that mute obscure abysm, 
 Make of their probing minds a prism 
 
 Whose many-sided radiance 
 Illumes with their own hearts the heart of Nature, 
 
 Touching her darkest feature 
 With revelation for man's happiness, 
 
 And with love's couched lance 
 Wresting from Science a new Humanism. 
 
32 ODE TO THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 
 
 Such is the scholar liberal : for him, 
 
 Not knowledge which ignores the Whole, 
 But knowledge grafted in the soul 
 
 Is scholarship; to esteem 
 His calling justly is to see 
 
 That culture is proficient sympathy. 
 
 For all that issues beautiful 
 From dim retort and crucible, 
 And makes our modern day to seem 
 Arabian night or opiate dream : 
 Genii, that on the wireless air 
 Transport within imagined waves 
 The cosmic Echo from her caves 
 To work their will, or from the stars 
 Expound the mysteries of Mars, 
 Or in earth's rotting shale prepare 
 The alchemy of radium, 
 All powers, articulate or dumb, 
 Which scholars probe and sages scan, 
 Are meaningless except to Man 
 To urge his peace, to ease his pain, 
 
 And from his mind's domain 
 To exorcise the lurking Caliban. 
 
 To exorcise ! Not in the Middle Age, 
 With Faust's redemption, did the devils cease 
 To lure great doctors to their tutelage, 
 
ODE TO THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 33 
 
 Whereby to lengthen their protracted lease 
 Of the lewd rabble's gaping ignorance : 
 Still, with incessant metamorphosis, 
 
 The monsters hatch and hiss 
 
 And, breeding, grow 
 
 To honor'd stature in the imperil'd state, 
 Where the true scholar still is Prospero, 
 
 Making their misshaped natures dance 
 Attendance on his master vision: So 
 To humble monsters to the use of men, 
 The foremost scholar is first citizen. 
 
 He, when the rank broods teem and generate 
 
 Their giant seed, 
 
 That prowl the rich land with impunity, 
 W here corporate greatness stoops to cormorant 
 
 greed, 
 And that one bulk, much-mouth'd and subtle- 
 
 gin'd, 
 
 The unsated Minotaur, Monopoly, 
 Extorts his toll in the meek nation's blood 
 
 Of boys and maidenhood, 
 He then, the scholar-leader, pores not stale 
 Upon his book, nor peers where sits the wind 
 In the golden weathercock on Minos' gate, 
 But prescient, girds his clear mind all in mail, 
 And gathering round the time's unperished youth, 
 
34 ODE TO THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 
 
 Apportions his bright armory of truth 
 And points what right-aimed blow shall make the 
 beast disgorge. 
 
 So did that steadfast captain of our race 
 
 A storm-trained scholar stand at Valley Forge 
 
 With all the gales of England in his face, 
 
 And sharing forth his visionary arms 
 
 Of faith with his shorn comrades, smiled, and 
 
 hurled 
 
 Victory through disaster's blind alarms, 
 And wrought with fearless mind the future of a 
 
 world. 
 
 O beautiful and spacious one, 
 
 My Country ! Spirit free, 
 Who floatest wild on that lone eagle's wings 
 Fledged in the fiery heart of Washington, 
 And fed on heart's blood of each dauntless son 
 Of that strong father, how exceedingly 
 Fair is thine image, when 
 First the least-born of men 
 Burns with thy story ! Then 
 Thou art a presence never darkling: night 
 Shrouding thy solemn flight, 
 Sprinkles, with hoary rite, 
 
ODE TO THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 35 
 
 Stars on thy plumage; morn, 
 
 Ere on the cottage thorn 
 
 Scarce the shy warbler sings, 
 
 Fills all familiar things 
 
 With thy far glory ; dreams 
 Of thee at evening haunt the hermit thrush, 
 And in his ecstasy's pure after-hush, 
 High and austerely sweet, thine immanent eagle 
 screams. 
 
 So by the large compulsion of that Presence 
 
 I make this invocation; 
 
 And by the might of that dear name, whose es 
 sence 
 
 The staling tongue of usage cannot taint 
 America I speak, that I may stir 
 You, her far-ranging universities, 
 
 Through glad constraint 
 
 Of love you owe to her, 
 Henceforward to conjoin your destinies 
 
 In grander federation. 
 
 VI 
 
 Not adversaries in the scrambling street 
 Of commerce, need your nobler wills compete 
 For numbers and for names. A saner law 
 Moves your cooperation, and the awe 
 
36 ODE TO THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 
 
 Of that shall fix a sound stability 
 At the base of civic freedom. Strong must be 
 The scholar in himself. Far better were it 
 Your halls stood empty and their corridors 
 Silent, than that the youth who from your doors 
 Go forth to breed the nation, should inherit 
 
 The sowings of that spirit 
 
 Which bows the mind to serve the vulgar mood, 
 Or truckles to the man that owns the multitude. 
 
 It cannot be. Never, till now, before 
 
 In age of Plato or of Abelard, 
 
 In empire or republic, linking shore 
 
 With shore by aspiration's viewless chain 
 
 Has your high calling held the fair regard 
 
 And faith of one vast people. Not in vain 
 
 Their faith abides in you. The taint which blinds 
 
 The weak shall not be yours. Your yards and 
 
 halls 
 
 Still with expanding splendor shall be filled 
 By the strong magnet of the sane ideal, 
 
 And to the common weal 
 Shall speed their generations of glad youth 
 Forth in the land alumni of the guild 
 Of leadership, the minute-men of truth, 
 Whose muskets are their uncorrupted minds, 
 Clean for their country where her service calls. 
 
ODE TO THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES 37 
 
 VII 
 
 Nobly our world renews, even as in ages gone. 
 Man's eras have their vernal equinox 
 No less than nature's : Still, on that wild dawn 
 When the high winds, unleashed, no longer fawn 
 At Winter's knees, but lift his sparse-blown locks 
 In haggard wrack there, on the looming hills, 
 Sharp with unearthly light, the sudden flocks 
 Show radiant, and on the vista'd sills 
 Of Spring, earth's visionary beauty starts 
 Revealed : Not otherwise in human hearts 
 Recurrent, after seasons numb and blind, 
 Freshly the ancient Loveliness reveals 
 
 The love of our own kind, 
 Rekindling in our race the raptures of the mind. 
 
PROLOGUE TO THE SAINT-GAUDENS 
 MASQUE l 
 
 PERFORMED AT ASPET IN CORNISH 
 
 Enter IRIS 
 
 IRIS 
 
 FRESH from the courts of dewy-colored eve 
 Jove summons me before you. Who I am 
 And why he bids me here I. must declare. 
 
 1 In June, 1905, to celebrate the twentieth anniversary 
 of the founding of the Cornish Colony by Augustus Saint- 
 Gaudens, an outdoor masque was devised and performed 
 by his neighbors in a pine grove at Aspet, his New Hamp 
 shire home. In the Masque, written by Mr. Louis Evan 
 Shipman, more than seventy persons took part, among 
 whom were some forty artists and writers of craftsmanly 
 repute, who enacted r61es of Greek deities and demigods. 
 
 About twilight, the sculptor with his family and some 
 hundreds of guests were seated in front of a green-gray 
 curtain, suspended between two pines, on which hung 
 great gilded masks, executed by Mr. Maxfield Fairish. 
 Close by, secreted artfully behind evergreens, members 
 of the Boston Symphony Orchestra awaited the baton 
 signal of Mr. Arthur Whiting, conductor and composer 
 of the music. 
 
 Then, in the softened light, emerged from between the 
 folds of the curtain the tall maidenly figure of Iris, in 
 many-hued diaphanous veils, holding in one hand a staff 
 of living fleur-de-lis. Iris, enacted by Miss Frances 
 Grimes, the sculptress, spoke the accompanying Pro 
 logue. 
 
 The three allusions to works by Saint-Gaudens refer, 
 of course, to the Shaw Memorial Bas-relief, in Boston, the 
 Sherman Equestrian Statue, in New York, and the Adams 
 Memorial, in Washington. 
 
 38 
 
PROLOGUE TO A MASQUE 39 
 
 My home is half-light; you have watched me 
 
 oft 
 
 Through closing lids at noontide, or at dusk, 
 Moving between the daylight and your dreams, 
 A shape illusory. Whether I pause 
 Midway my quivering arc, that spans the roar 
 And tumbling prisms of sheer Niagara, 
 Or by the ferny banks of Blowmedown 
 Trellis my hair with braided fleur-de-lis, 
 Still I am Iris, and my mission is 
 To shatter the white beam of garish day 
 Into a thousand mellower tints of twilight, 
 Spinning across the sceptic eyes of reason 
 Fine rainbow-films of fancy. Such, then, I. 
 But whence, emerging from the curtained wood 
 Of Aspet, on this longest summer eve, 
 While yet the veerie rings his vesper chimes, 
 I have made journey hither, hearken ! 
 
 Late, 
 
 Below the gilded state-house by the bay, 
 Sitting his horse in proud simplicity, 
 I left a young commander; thronged beneath 
 His lifted brow, clouded with battle dreams, 
 The eager Ethiop faces onward surged ; 
 No sound arose from all their trampling feet, 
 But the imagined drum-beats rolled in bronze. 
 
40 PROLOGUE TO A MASQUE 
 
 From these I passed to where the human hives 
 Shadow the stars from the Metropolis, 
 Whence, turning homeward from the hell of war, 
 Another hero, scarr'd and old, there rode; 
 And at his bridle-rein, in maiden awe, 
 Went Victory with pity in her eyes. 
 
 A third and Sibyl form, remote and mute, 
 
 Brooding alone beside a secret grave, 
 
 Asked with unopening eyes, " What means it all ? " 
 
 From these imagined and immortal forms 
 To him, O mortals, who imagined them, 
 And fixed his revery in stone and bronze, 
 I come to render tribute, not of praise 
 Superfluous, but playful badinage 
 And mock-Olympic mummery, whereby 
 If these shall cause the elvish Gallic smile 
 To twitch his lip, or stir his blarney laugh, 
 The mock-Olympians will die content. 
 
 Behold, then, by the enchantment of this staff 
 A magic transformation: not such change 
 As once my goddess sister Circe wrought 
 Circe, whose spell debased the forms divine 
 Of men to bristled shapes of snout and horn: 
 Mine is a charm reverse, that lifts, not lowers, 
 By power whereof all neighbor Jacks and Jills 
 
PROLOGUE TO A MASQUE 41 
 
 That tug their art-pails up these pasture slopes 
 Of Cornish are converted here to strut 
 In guise of antic gods and demigods. 
 
 [!RIS waves her staff, music sounds from the grove.] 
 
 Hark now ! 'Tis they, who clamor to begin 
 Their frolic masque of satyr, muse, and faun, 
 And on the shrine of mirth make sacrifice 
 In honor of their only pagan saint. 
 
 [!RIS withdraws between the curtains: the music 
 grows louder, then dies away. The curtains, 
 dividing, open upon the Masque.] 
 
A CHRISTMAS CAROL 
 
 KEEP closer to the wall ; stop crawling ; wait. 
 We have our orders. Hold the dynamite. 
 I hear their sentry cough. The moon burns white 
 Behind the battlements, and cuts each one 
 Turret and tower an inky silhouette, 
 Like paper castle-tops I used to trace 
 With scissors as a boy. Step softly ! Place 
 The bomb here, underneath the garrison. 
 Now if their souls are dreaming of hell-fire, 
 This will not wake them. Midnight! That's 
 
 the choir 
 Of children hailing the Nativity. 
 
 What are ye that walk the night 
 
 Heaven's will divining? 
 Shining are your mantles white 
 
 And your staffs are shining. 
 
 Shepherds, we have come from far 
 Dark and danger scorning: 
 
 We have seen our King His star 
 By the gates of morning. 
 42 
 
A CHRISTMAS CAROL 43 
 
 Come now, this is no time for hands to quake; 
 
 On this one breach depends the victory, 
 
 A nation's honor, and her destiny. 
 
 And these, who lie so unsuspectingly 
 
 In sleep, not one of them must ever wake 
 
 This side of - 
 
 What is He whose star ye seek. 
 
 Toilsomely and slowly? 
 He is monarch of the meek, 
 
 Regent of the lowly. 
 
 Wise men, seek another land, 
 Shun our lord his greeting: 
 
 For we perish at his hand, 
 And our lambs are bleating. 
 
 What a devilish close call ! 
 There creeps the sentry on the shadow-wall 
 Like a black ant. Quick, now the fuse ! 
 
 What are ye who knock by night 
 
 On my palace portals? 
 Triple wreaths of silver light 
 
 Crown you like immortals. 
 
 Herod, from the east we bring 
 
 Fine and lordly treasure. 
 Where is He that born is King ? 
 
 We would do him pleasure. 
 
44 A CHRISTMAS CAROL 
 
 These your gifts uncover them, 
 Myrrh and spice, before me. 
 
 Lo, I am Jerusalem! 
 Bow ye down, adore me! 
 
 King, your shepherds wretchedly 
 
 Starve without your city. 
 You Jerusalem may be, 
 
 But our Lord is Pity. 
 
 Quick, fool ! 
 
 This is our country's job, and you her tool. 
 What are you waiting for ? You want to think 
 Before you kill ? You dream that love may link 
 All born of woman ? Fool, are we the first 
 To live in mothers' memories accurst, 
 Or in the little children's helplessness ? 
 These men, like us, know gentle eyes that bless 
 Their goings and homecomings, baby hands 
 That reach, fine feet that dart, at their commands. 
 What, then ? This is not murder ; this is war. 
 We are not men, but patriots. Think no more: 
 The fuse is lighted ; run ! Run for the shore ! 
 
 What are ye that screen your eyes 
 
 From the awful burning? 
 Look where 'neath Flis star He lies, 
 
 Nestled by her yearning. 
 
A CHRISTMAS CAROL 45 
 
 Ye that saw His glory shine,, 
 What were dark and danger? 
 
 Blessed ye that make your shrine 
 Mother, Child, and manger. 
 
 Now the Lord of Love 
 
 Look back ! Look back ! How the torn earth- 
 clouds blot 
 
 The stars, and the far hilltop heaves the roar ! 
 Ah, Merry Christmas! Almost I'd forgot. 
 
THE DEATH OF VERESTCHAGIN * 
 
 WITH gaze serene and brow of silver rime, 
 
 He watched the up-staring sea and reeling 
 
 land 
 Converge, as limned beneath the veteran hand 
 
 That last, fell sketch of war was traced sublime ; 
 
 But even in the act his pencil ruthlessly 
 
 Was snatched away, where blasting all his 
 
 view 
 The inexorable Artist stood, and drew 
 
 The awful masterpiece reality. 
 
 And now the silver rime is on the wave, 
 And Verestchagin sleeps with Makarof, 
 And calm, above the red brine's eddying 
 trough, 
 
 The eyes of Christ and Buddha guard his grave. 
 
 1 Vassili Verestchagin, the Russian painter of war 
 themes, while sketching a naval battle off Port Arthur, 
 sank in the warship Petropavlovsk, with Admiral Makarof, 
 April 4, 1904. 
 
 46 
 
SHIRLEY COMMON 1 
 
 NOT ours, upon the house-tops, here to claim 
 Battles and heroes of historic scene, 
 A century and fifty years of fame : 
 Our boast is silence and this day's serene. 
 
 The loud circumference of jangling lands, 
 Conflict and craft and wrong surround us ; still 
 Shy in her orchard-wildness Shirley stands: 
 A hushed spectator on her mapled hill. 
 
 Here to her simple festival she calls 
 Her folk home yet not all : Where are they now, 
 The Pilgrim race that piled her corn-field walls, 
 And served the Lord with patience and a plough ? 
 
 The hardy citizens that now are sod 
 They may not hear her summons home ; and yet 
 The elm-hid belfry nestles toward their God, 
 And we, who gather here, do not forget. 
 
 1 Read at the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary 
 of the Town of Shirley, Massachusetts, July 30, 1903, in 
 the First Parish Meeting-House. 
 47 
 
48 SHIRLEY COMMON 
 
 For still the sights familiar to their eyes 
 Are dear to ours: the spires of Groton blaze 
 Their weathercocks from Gallows-Hill's sunrise, 
 And the long slopes of Harvard slant in haze; 
 
 And still, at night, the bittern booms to rest, 
 The secret whip-poor-will complains afar ; 
 And still Wachusett marshals in the west 
 The sunset and his solitary star. 
 
 Here, then, let thoughts be memories; let our 
 
 pride 
 
 Be the untainted loveliness, which is 
 Our Shirley's dower on woods and pastures pied ; 
 Let our ambition, even as hers, be this : 
 
 Unenvious, to win the envied bays 
 Of nature's health and honest common sense; 
 And, by the peace of sane, inglorious days, 
 To earn the unrepute of innocence. 
 
ISAAK WALTON IN MAIDEN LANE 
 
 IN that Manhattan alley long yclept, 
 
 With gentle olden music, Maiden Lane, 
 
 Where sick and sad -eyed Traffic scarce has slept 
 
 Even at midnight, in her lust for gain 
 
 Rolling in restive pain 
 
 Through the stern vigil of a century, 
 
 There, mid the din of harsh reality 
 
 The newsboy's shriek, car's clang and huckster's 
 
 chaff, 
 
 The cobble's roar, and the loud drayman's laugh, 
 And the dull stare, 
 The inhuman, hunted glare 
 Of the faces the gray faces 
 Of Mammon's stark-mad races, 
 Sordid and slattern, 
 Modish and tattern, 
 Loveless in their misery 
 There, in the midst of all, 
 Seated upon a stall, 
 
 Musing on meadows, Isaak, I met thee ! 
 E 49 
 
50 ISAAK WALTON IN MAIDEN LANE 
 
 How my heart stopped for too much happiness, 
 To meet thee there in that maelstrom of men, 
 Benignant, wise and calm ! Ah, gently then 
 Came back, in fancy's dress, 
 All that of old was sweet, 
 Serene and fair, to grace the garish street. 
 Musing on meadows now in Maiden Lane, 
 The turbid current surging at my side 
 Became the flow of Thames' sequestered tide, 
 The newsboy's cry waned to a curlew's call, 
 The jangling pedlar tended tinkling sheep 
 Along green hedgerows; even the drayman's 
 
 brawl 
 
 Sweetened to an old soliloquy, till all 
 That strident world has chastened to a sleep 
 Where, in a twilit eddy of my dream, 
 Thine image, Isaak, pored upon a bream. 
 
THE SISTINE EVE 
 
 FRAGMENTS OF AN ORATORIO 
 WRITTEN FOR THE BEGINNING 
 OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
PLAN 
 
 OVERTURE 
 
 PRELUDE 
 FIRST CANTO : The Birth of Eve 
 
 FIRST INTERLUDE 
 SECOND CANTO: The Temptation of Eve 
 
 SECOND INTERLUDE 
 THIRD CANTO : The Birth of Man 
 
PRESENCES l 
 
 SPEAKING PRESENCES: The Sistine Spirit 
 
 The Spirit of the Vatican 
 
 SOLO PRESENCES: Adam 
 
 The Persian Sibyl 
 
 The Cumcean Sibyl 
 
 The Delphic Sibyl 
 
 Judith 
 
 Goliath 
 
 Jonas 
 
 Jeremiah 
 
 Isaiah 
 
 The Expelling Angel 
 
 Eve 
 
 CHORAL PRESENCES : The Cornice Cherubim 
 Symbolic Figures 
 Botticelli's Women 
 Shapes in " The Last 
 Judgment " 
 
 SCENE 
 The Sistine Chapel, Rome 
 
 TIME 
 
 Midnight, before the Dawn of 1901 
 High pontifical mass is being celebrated. Car 
 dinals and prelates in splendid vestments, assembled. 
 
 1 These Dramatis Personce are figures in the paintings 
 by Michelangelo and Botticelli on the ceiling and walls of 
 the Sistine Chapel. 
 
 53 
 
"Laforza d' un bel volto al del mi sprona 
 [Ch* altro in terra non e che mi diletti] 
 E vivo ascendo tra gli spirti eletti, 
 Grazia ch' ad uom mortal raro si dona. 
 
 SI ben col suofattor /' opra consuona, 
 Ch 9 a lui mi levo per divin concetti, 
 E quivi informo i pensier tutti e i detti, 
 Ardendo, amando per gentil persona. 
 
 Onde, se mai da due begli occhi il guardo 
 Torcer non so, conosco in lor la luce 
 Che mi mostra la via ch? a Dio mi guide. 
 E se nel lume loro acceso io ardo, 
 Nel nobilfoco mio dolce riluce 
 La gioia che nel cielo eterna ride." 
 
 MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI; Sonetto III 
 
 54 
 
OVERTURE 
 
 A VOICE FROM THE CHAPEL CEILING 
 
 SIBYLS and prophets of undying art, 
 Awake ! for Buonarrotti's golden dome 
 Is as an angel's passing-bell, to toll 
 On midnight's starry, tingling silentness 
 The interring of an Age. Wake and behold ! 
 They bear her toward the never-shutting doors 
 Which fearful mortals screen with draperies 
 To bar the eternal night. Lo, she has passed 
 With bead and psalm and solemn catafalque, 
 With mitred state, and pomp episcopal, 
 The latest of the sovereigns of time 
 Nineteenth among the entombed centuries 
 Has sealed forever her pregnant lips, and lies 
 Sculptured in the cold clay of history. 
 
 But thou, O live new-crowned Herculean Age, 
 Who clingest to the rugged breast of Labor, 
 Gazing with wonder in calm Science' eyes, 
 While Poesie, with warm tears on her cheek, 
 Searches thy look, in passion lost of pathos, 
 Thou titan child of promise, hail to thee ! 
 55 
 
56 THE SISTINE EVE 
 
 And while these spirits, with their serene eyes 
 Of strifeless beauty and strong consummation 
 [Spirits that pass not with the passing age] 
 Chant o'er thine earliest breathing, may the hymn 
 Which they shall lift in prayer to the first Mother, 
 Be as an exhortation, to incite 
 Thy dreams to deeds in thy maturer days. 
 
 And now, while all the kneeling prelates pray, 
 Spirits, which are my voices, even as the stops 
 Are to the lute, awake your harmonies ! 
 And celebrate the pain and the desire, 
 The daring and the victory, of her 
 Who set love's seal upon the centuries. 
 
 A VOICE FROM THE ALTAR 
 
 Other? Of whom? 
 
 THE VOICE FROM THE CEILING 
 Awake, Divinities ! 
 
 CHORUS OF PRESENCES 
 
 Thou whose form crepuscular 
 
 Dawns through the Sistine heaven, as a star 
 
 Through autumn twilight, beautiful 
 
 Our mother Eve 
 
THE SISTINE EVE 57 
 
 THE VOICE FROM THE ALTAR 
 
 Peace, painted Forms ! Or if ye, who have sat 
 
 The mute spectators of my solemn Mass 
 
 For vague centennials of memory, 
 
 Now ope your lips inspired, let it not be 
 
 To chant amid these rites pontifical 
 
 A song of sacrilege. Peace, painted Forms ! 
 
 THE VOICE FROM THE CEILING 
 
 What art thou there below, with taper eyes 
 Upraised from many a prostrate cardinal, 
 Who puffest, from thy vast, seclusive cowl, 
 Columnar storms of incense ? Whose are thine 
 Imponderous and gilded limbs, which show 
 Between the silky folds of surplices 
 Like pillars, sculptured in a pagan shrine 
 Or pillaged Coliseum ? 
 
 THE VOICE FROM THE ALTAR 
 
 Answer thou ! 
 
 What voice is thine, visible Aspiration, 
 Whose torse, half chiselled from cerulean cloud, 
 Outlifts the youthful arm indomitable 
 Of David, who at Florence guards the Palace, 
 While thy rapt brow hurls the time-piercing gaze 
 
58 THE SISTINE EVE 
 
 Of Moses, in St. Peter's-of-the-Chains ? 
 What is thy name, majestic Grace of Power? 
 
 THE VOICE FROM THE CEILING 
 I am the Sistine Spirit. What art thou ? 
 
 THE VOICE FROM THE ALTAR 
 
 The Spirit of the Vatican. My voice 
 
 Is the peal'd organ of perennial Rome, 
 
 And even as those sibyls are thy stops 
 
 So all these red and golden reeds are mine: 
 
 But now, until this sacred mass be said, 
 
 Be silent, thou ! or let our requiem 
 
 Be sung in harmony. 
 
 THE SISTINE SPIRIT 
 
 What discord can 
 
 Arise, when Power prays to Innocence 
 And Beauty? 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE VATICAN 
 
 None ; but these, thy sensuous choir, 
 Dare to uplift their ritual tether 
 To her, whose fluent and unstable mind, 
 Impregned with lust of new and gloss of beauty, 
 Became a fair conception-place for Satan; 
 
THE SISTINE EVE 59 
 
 To Eve, whose folly wrought the fall of Man, 
 Yea, all the dire resultance of his fall. 
 
 THE SISTINE SPIRIT 
 
 Man never fell. The inexorable blow 
 Of the Expelling Angel was the stroke 
 Which first conferred God's knighthood on his 
 
 nature, 
 
 Kindling that anguish, whereby first he rose 
 To the protective stature of his soul. 
 This Eve first knew was so, when she loved Adam. 
 For it was she who first, feeling herself 
 A child of God, yearned in her little Eden, 
 Yearned for herself and Adam, as true lovers, 
 For aims beyond their summer-day self-seeking; 
 And even while she grasped the fateful fruit, 
 Smiled in the dream of nobler mortal sons 
 Instead of an idle immortality, 
 Smiled, and then reached the fruit to Adam, so 
 To share with him the awful insurrection. 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE VATICAN 
 
 Preposterous Spirit ! does the fallen race 
 Of man fulfil her dream ? Reveal to me 
 A nobler mortal son whose angel stature 
 Exceeds his father Adam's ere his fall. 
 
60 THE SISTINE EVE 
 
 THE SISTINE SPIRIT 
 
 Spirit of earthward vision, even I ! 
 Yea, these and I and more than us are Man. 
 Our exaltation doth confute his fall, 
 And build again, in beauty, art and love, 
 Another and inviolable Eden. 
 
 Speak ! ye serene and lofty Presences, 
 Delineations of inspired Power ! 
 Awake ! ye children of a child of God, 
 And hymn, with your chromatic harmonies, 
 The prelude and the Trilogy austere, 
 Wherein the intuitive grace of Woman's love 
 Enacts the eternal Genesis of Man. 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE VATICAN 
 Strange spirit, they are silent. 
 
 THE SISTINE SPIRIT 
 
 Dost thou hear 
 
 No sound ? 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE VATICAN 
 
 No sound ; save only the faint breath 
 Of cardinals, that tell their rosaries. 
 
THE SISTINE EVE 61 
 
 THE SISTINE SPIRIT 
 
 Hark ! Hearest thou no mural melody ? 
 
 The playing organ of an ocular sense, 
 
 The hidden choristers of lovely hues, 
 
 The chant of heavenly forms ? Once more, with 
 
 all 
 
 Thy breathess spirit listening in thine eyes 
 No music ? 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE VATICAN 
 None. 
 
PRELUDE 
 
 CHORUS OF PRESENCES 
 
 O ye wise, love Beauty ! All 
 
 Ye strong, revere her ! 
 Through passion's starry arches thrill 
 The echoes of her light footfall ; 
 The worlds, to do her deathless will, 
 
 Draw near her. 
 
 By ways divinely sensuous, 
 Her viewless form entices us 
 'Mid visions pale and passionate 
 To kneel beside her awful gate; 
 Where, girt with song and silences, 
 The lonely mind her mansion is. 
 
 The innocent obey her call, 
 
 The happy know her dreamy face 
 
 And hear her; 
 
 Despair is softened by her grace, 
 And sorrow is her worshipper. 
 All things that love grow like to her. 
 O ye wise, love Beauty ! All 
 
 Ye strong, revere her. 
 62 
 
THE SISTINE EVE 63 
 
 FIRST SYMBOLIC FIGURE 
 
 Who draws his face beneath a cowl of cloud 
 And kneels beside the altar, dumb and bow'd ? 
 
 SECOND FIGURE 
 
 That is the Spirit of the Vatican : 
 He meditates upon the Fall of Man. 
 
 THIRD FIGURE 
 
 But what is he, with countenance beguiPd, 
 That smiles upon the sleeping titan-child ? 
 
 FOURTH FIGURE 
 
 The Sistine Spirit. See ! he draws away 
 The incense-curtain from our holy play. 
 
 THE FIGURES 
 
 That all the enactments of our mural stage 
 May pass as dreams before the new-born Age u 
 
FIRST CANTO: THE BIRTH OF EVE 
 
 SEMICHORUS OF SYMBOLIC FIGURES 
 
 How like a garden lies the world 
 
 The day when love is born; 
 Strange beauty glows upon old boughs, 
 
 Strange flowers conceal the thorn; 
 And noon and night are tinged with light 
 
 Of unfamiliar morn. 
 
 CHORUS 
 
 While with a sense as though a god were near 
 
 it 
 Of noble languor, droops the lover's spirit. 
 
 SEMICHORUS 
 
 So float the trembling hues around 
 
 This maid in Paradise. 
 A joy, a reticence, a prayer, 
 
 Clothe with bright poesies 
 Her meek limbs, where she worships there 
 
 In God the Father's eyes. 
 64 
 
THE SISTINE EVE 65 
 
 CHORUS 
 
 While, drawing deep from beauty's opiate springs 
 A sigh of power, recumbent Adam sings : 
 
 ADAM 
 
 As I lay :n Eden, 
 Alone with Love and Lethargy, 
 An immortal maiden 
 Was conceived in heaven 
 And born to me. 
 
 All that I had dreamed 
 And sculptured from the cloud-lit skies, 
 
 All that loved and gleamed 
 And sang, in my encircling Paradise, 
 
 The summit's calm, 
 The flower's voluptuousness, 
 
 The forest's majesty, 
 Night's balm, 
 
 The morning's victory 
 And twilight's veiled melodiousness 
 
 Became a glowing fire 
 
 In me and my desire. 
 
 As I lay in Eden, 
 
 My bosom was unfolded; 
 
66 THE SISTINE EVE 
 
 And an elemental Hand, 
 Swift, mysterious and grand, 
 
 Culled that perfect maiden 
 With all that my wild soul contained 
 Of passion peerless and unstained 
 
 As erst by heaven she was moulded. 
 
 And the maiden, in that place, 
 Grew before her Maker's face 
 To a form [methought I dreamed] 
 Which was what beauty only seemed. 
 And my lax arm limply pressed 
 To my warm and unnerved breast, 
 And my brow sank in a swoon, 
 And I smelt the scents of noon, 
 And I felt the faint winds straying, 
 And my heart could scarce conceive 
 What the Father's Voice was saying: 
 "Adam, behold thine Eve!" 
 
 A FIGURE 
 
 Hush ! He is silent. Spirits, he has swooned : 
 And from his breast bright Eve has flowered forth ; 
 As when the passion of the nightingale 
 Thrills and expands through his eternal arches, 
 Recumbent Rome feels the faun-blood of Nature 
 Leap in his limbs, while an imponderous rib 
 
THE SISTINE EVE 67 
 
 Of marble sloth from his immortal heart 
 Vast and invisibly is plucked away, 
 And from that rent profuse of ecstasy, 
 Exhilarant of life and innocence, 
 Trailing bright incense for her naked glory 
 Outpours the Spring. 
 
FIRST INTERLUDE 
 
 THE SISTINE SPIRIT 
 
 How fair he sleeps this lordly child of Time ! 
 In sleep, the soul is in its infancy 
 And Power a babe again. But soon the dawn 
 Will break, and he will rise to titan-stature. 
 
 Meanwhile, within the crystal of his slumber, 
 O'erhanging visions pass, as o'er a lake 
 The hues of sunset, sweeping across heaven, 
 Lay down their splendors in its placid heart, 
 And passing, leave no tremor on its face. 
 
 68 
 
SECOND CANTO: THE TEMPTATION 
 OF EVE 
 
 CHORUS OF THE CORNICE CHERUBIM 
 
 The Tree ! Behold the curtain-cloud is cleft ! 
 The Tree, in all its pride and mystery ! 
 
 And smiling on its left 
 
 Content and Innocence, Self-love and Leth 
 argy; 
 
 And on its right, 
 Departing into night 
 Anguish, Sin, Death, Love and Eternity ! 
 
 A SYMBOLIC FIGURE 
 
 Sister of an Orient eld, 
 
 What read'st thou from that parchment, held 
 
 Close to thine eyes, as if thou spelled 
 
 Secrets from all else withheld, 
 Or as, at twilight, thou should squint to see 
 A form, that moves or stands beyond thy scrutiny ? 
 
 THE PERSIAN SIBYL 
 
 I trace and read, in Time's obscure abysm, 
 Where cold Imagination, like a prism, 
 69 
 
70 THE SISTINE EVE 
 
 Darts many-colored beams on the carved 
 
 walls, 
 The subtle sorceries of scepticism. 
 
 I seek and vainly through the centuries 
 I sought a fire, which kindled never dies, 
 
 Like that which yonder, 'neath the darkling 
 
 Tree 
 Of Knowledge, burns in Eve's uplifted eyes. 
 
 THE FIGURE 
 
 Thou, loosened from whose sea-green veil 
 The auburn tresses lightly trail, 
 While soft thy mantle's azure pale 
 Floats round thee, like a filling sail, 
 Where rests thy dreamy gaze, as though, unfurl'd 
 On some Olympic height, it brooded o'er the world ? 
 
 THE DELPHIC SIBYL 
 
 I dream (and in my dream, I smile) 
 Of a maid in Melos' isle 
 
 How beautiful she was ! 
 She kept no slave, she wore no crown, 
 But all the gods from heaven looked down 
 
 To see her pass. 
 
 Her brow was calm, her limbs were free; 
 The might of her simplicity 
 
THE SISTINE EVE 71 
 
 To men seemed more than human : 
 A Deity ! they cried ; a new 
 Venus ! But one, who loved her, knew 
 
 That she was Woman. 
 
 He wrought her all of marble pure. 
 He cried : Thy beauty shall endure 
 
 When Hellas sleeps in clay. 
 Behold, O World, thy Womanhood ! 
 They smote the statue where she stood, 
 
 And hewed the arms away. 
 
 They buried her both dark and deep ; 
 They bade their wives and sisters heap 
 
 Mould on her, with their hands : 
 She rose like light ! The centuries 
 Slipped like a garment to her knees, 
 
 And still she stands ! 
 
 THE FIGURE 
 
 Sibyl hoar, Enchantress holy, 
 Giantess of Melancholy, 
 Tell us 
 
 CHORUS OF CHERUBIM 
 Hush! 
 
72 THE SISTINE EVE 
 
 THE FIGURE 
 
 What awful book 
 (As when some rugged hill 
 Cleaves with a titan's look) 
 Opens beneath thy gaze, 
 Where thy vast, pagan face 
 
 Is darkened under 
 Night-hues of unreverberating thunder? 
 
 CHORUS OF CHERUBIM 
 
 Still ! O still ! 
 She is not such 
 As tone of mortal song can touch. 
 
 THE FIGURE 
 
 Speak, Prophetess ! 
 We fear we guess 
 What our hearts wait in breathlessness. 
 
 THE CUM^EAN SIBYL 
 
 "Tarquin ! Tarquin !" Thousand score 
 They hailed him god and emperor. 
 I entered at his palace door: 
 I looked at him 
 
 CHORUS OF CHERUBIM 
 
 No more ! No more ! 
 
THE SISTINE EVE 73 
 
 THE CUM^AN SIBYL 
 
 I said : I bring thee volumes nine. 
 Men name thee lordly and divine: 
 Thou shall be but the price is mine ! 
 He said : I take no price of thine. 
 
 I hurled six volumes in the flame. 
 He cried : What price now dost thou name. 
 O Prophetess ? I said : The same ! 
 He frowned ; I went the way I came. 
 
 He sent for me at set of sun: 
 And hast thou burned them all but one? 
 And hast no other price ? Nay, none. 
 He answered : Then thy will be done ! 
 
 THE FIGURE 
 
 Speak, Sibyl, speak ! What was the price 
 Which asked so proud a sacrifice? 
 
 JUDITH 
 
 [Aside to her maid, who bears the head of Holo- 
 femes on a golden salver] 
 
 Hark what she saith ! 
 
 THE CUIVLEAN SIBYL 
 
 The same which yonder, of Eve's eyes, 
 The Serpent asks, in Paradise. 
 
74 THE SISTINE EVE 
 
 JUDITH 
 I guessed it : death. 
 
 GOLIATH [to David] 
 
 Death ! 
 ******* 
 
 FIRST CHERUB 
 
 Hark yonder, where from wall to wall, two 
 
 Prophets 
 
 Converse like oaks in storm across a grove, 
 One husht in the roar, one vocal in the lull. 
 
 SECOND CHERUB 
 Which one is silent? 
 
 FIRST CHERUB 
 
 He who, browed benign, 
 Sits like the Prince of Death, soliloquizing 
 With the commanding genius of his soul. 
 
 SECOND CHERUB 
 
 But the other one: What beetling thoughts are 
 
 his 
 
 Where, like a crag o'erclu'ng by cataracts, 
 He murmurs deep in the tortuous folds of his 
 
 beard ? 
 
THE SISTINE EVE 75 
 
 FIRST CHERUB 
 Listen ! 
 
 JEREMIAH 
 
 I have likened the Daughter of Zion to a comely 
 
 and delicate woman: 
 The shepherds with their flocks shall come unto 
 
 her round about. 
 They shall pitch their tents against her ; they shall 
 
 feed every one in his place. 
 Yea, Eve, men are thy shepherds, and thou like 
 
 the Daughter of Zion. 
 
 Prepare ye war against her ! Arise ! let us go up 
 
 at noon. 
 Woe unto us ! for the day goeth away, and the 
 
 shadows of evening 
 Are stretched out and afar. Arise ! let us go up 
 
 by night, 
 And let us destroy her palaces. Let us smite the 
 
 city that fed us ! 
 Yea, Eve, men are thy shepherds, and thou like 
 
 the Daughter of Zion. 
 
 ISAIAH 
 
 Yet shall they not destroy her ! But their land 
 
 shall be named Ignorance. 
 It shall be no more inhabited, but wild beasts of 
 
 the desert shall lie there. 
 
76 THE SISTINE EVE 
 
 Yea, satyrs shall dance on their hearths, and 
 dragons crouch in their palaces. 
 
 For the city is stablished, O Eve, where thy 
 dreaming shall have its fruition. 
 
 Where shall the Ignorant dwell? Yea, where is 
 
 the land of their Eden ? 
 The grass thereof shall wither; their heavens be 
 
 closed as a scroll ; 
 And all their host shall fall down, as the leaf fall- 
 
 eth off from the vine. 
 But the city is stablished in Man, where thy 
 
 dreaming, O Eve, hath fruition. 
 
 CHORUS OF CHERUBIM 
 
 The Tree ! The smiling, bitter Tree ! 
 The Tree, in all its pride and mystery ! 
 
 ADAM [beneath the Tree] 
 
 Where dost thou look, beloved, O my Bride? 
 
 Where dost thou gaze beyond and far away ? 
 Dost thou not feel thy lover at thy side, 
 
 And the soft winds of this cerulean day ? 
 Why look'st thou so, beloved, O my Bride? 
 
 THE SNAKE 
 
 Lift up thine eyes to mine, daughter of God ! 
 Like birds into heaven let them enter in : 
 
THE SISTINE EVE 77 
 
 Behold an angel battling with a cloud ; 
 
 The angel is Man ; the splendid cloud is Sin ; 
 The battle is Man's Soul, daughter of God. 
 
 ADAM 
 
 Let us go forth into our garden, love: 
 
 The birds are singing and the beasts awaken. 
 
 Dew-laden dreams fall round us from above, 
 
 Like almond-bloom, when breezy boughs are 
 shaken. 
 
 Let us go forth into our garden, love ! 
 
 THE SNAKE 
 
 Eat of the fruit of Knowledge, Child of Eden ! 
 Of bitter Knowledge, which hath roots in 
 
 death. 
 
 Dare with thy dreams yea, that which is for 
 bidden ! 
 
 For life is but a dream which conquereth 
 Its coil of slumber. Live, then, Child of Eden ! 
 
 ADAM 
 
 Love, there shall be no thought but Thee and Me 
 Forevermore. When our two spirits mate, 
 
 Time and the world shall do us ministry 
 And all the stars contribute to our state. 
 
 Love, there shall be no joy but Thee and Me. 
 
78 THE SISTINE EVE 
 
 THE SNAKE 
 
 Behold the stars and Thee and Me forgotten ! 
 Time and the world and other lovers, trem 
 
 bling 
 At all the beauty still to be begotten; 
 
 Yea, hark to thine and Adam's sons assem 
 
 bling 
 To hymn thy deed, when Eden lies forgotten. 
 
 CHORUS OF MALE PRESENCES 
 
 We thirst for life, and the more we thirst 
 The swifter the rivers of love outpour 
 
 To quench us; 
 
 Like the living, leaping waters that burst 
 From the Prophet's stroke on the desert's shore, 
 They uprise and drench us, 
 Yet we thirst the more 
 And we joy to thirst, 
 For we count the pain a joy to repay us, 
 When the power of love, which pants to allay us, 
 Quickens again 
 And again, as at first, 
 The infinite rapture the. weak call pain. 
 
 And we know for we have sharpened the dull edge 
 Of sense on the sword of the Tree of Knowledge, 
 
THE SISTINE EVE 79 
 
 And we feel as Spring feels the sky in the 
 
 sod 
 
 That we are the sons of a son of God. 
 And we kindle from that a divine volition 
 The fire of more than a mortal ambition, 
 The love of a conflict deep and grand 
 Which only Manhood can understand, 
 And we bless the Apple, that erst was accurst, 
 And our Mother Eve, who bestowed the thirst, 
 Which vaults, like flame, through spirit and brain, 
 And courses like vigor through every vein, 
 In seeking the joys that the weak call pain. 
 
 CHORUS OF BOTTICELLI'S WOMEN 
 
 We thirst for love, and the more we thirst 
 The deeper our spirits and limbs are immerst 
 
 In the beauty, that is love's radiance: 
 Out at our eyes, o'er the tremulous brim 
 Of our hearts, it beams, as at heaven's rim 
 
 The moon brightens over a lake in a trance ; 
 Till a peace, more lovely than morning light, 
 Makes us grow like lilies, tall and bright, 
 
 From the banks of Sin, which is Ignorance. 
 
 And we take an innocent, shy delight 
 
 In the flow of our maiden forms, and the sight 
 
 Of our faces, half glimpsed, half recondite, 
 
80 THE SISTINE EVE 
 
 And the luminous coils of our looping dresses, 
 
 Which emulate the beauty of tresses, 
 
 And the flower-like grace of our hands; but 
 
 these 
 Are the symbols of inner serenities. 
 
 For we know [from that piercing intuition 
 Which takes from Eve its superb ignition] 
 And we feel by the light in each other's eyes 
 That we are the daughters of Paradise. 
 And this sense brings with it a certitude 
 .Of the immortal aim of this mortal feud, 
 And makes us simply reconciled 
 With weakness of woman and birth of child, 
 And makes our souls, in largess, be 
 Self-renderers to futurity, 
 With a faith, miscalled fatuity 
 By those who love beauty less than we, 
 And a passive joy in the present's good, 
 And a self-forgetting, understood 
 By the heart alone of womanhood. 
 And therefore we bless the divinely human 
 Heart of Eve, that created us Woman, 
 And gave us that insight, which can prove 
 Its faith, that ours while the planets move 
 Are the worship and strength of the men we 
 love. 
 
THE SISTINE EVE 81 
 
 CHORUS OF SHAPES IN "THE LAST JUDGMENT" 
 
 We are the Phantoms, which the exceeding mad 
 ness 
 Of mortal Ignorance creates in sadness 
 
 Out of the clouds of conflict and of pain. 
 Horror and Hopelessness, amid the gnarring 
 And knotted tumult of our rabid warring, 
 
 Spawn us, and their own Dark devours us 
 again. 
 
 Hateful to others, to ourselves abhorrent, 
 We fume and wrestle, like a falling torrent 
 
 That, fearing, hastens its own overthrow; 
 Or bleakly blown upon by winds eternal, 
 Like shadowy spirits strewn on shores infernal, 
 
 Downcast, we file in diuturnity of woe. 
 
 Far from the lamps of Dawn and pure Orion, 
 We endure the anarch tortures of Ixion 
 
 Immortal anguish : misery ! O pain ! 
 Love, send thy light amid our dim abortions, 
 To show that we are evanescent portions 
 
 Of the Mind's mortal battling for the eternal 
 gain. 
 
82 THE SISTINE EVE 
 
 JONAS 
 
 Awful and dazzling Loveliness ! 
 Immortal Render of our mystery ! 
 O World ! O orbed Time ! 
 
 Heaven ! And does my spirit climb 
 Beyond them all, beyond them all to thee, 
 Lady ineffable of Love ? This, this 
 
 It is to love, to dare and to achieve ! 
 
 Behold, O Eve, 
 
 The consummation of thy bitter Tree. 
 Look, mighty Mother ! Even thou didst con 
 ceive 
 
 This son ! Thine insurrection leaps in me, 
 An effervescing fire, a piercing foison 
 Of keen effulgence ! Vision in mine eyes 
 Like clouded wine it pours, and in my limbs 
 
 Impenetrating joy, subtler than poison, 
 And in mine ears incomparable hymns ! 
 
 Yea, like a Charioteer, on whirling Time, 
 
 1 sit sublime, 
 
 % 
 
 And guide, with my majestical left hand, 
 The invisible reins of nameless black Despairs 
 And haughty Miseries a chafing band 
 That plunge and tremble, like enraged Night 
 mares, 
 
 In the dusk of the Last Judgment; these, like 
 steeds, 
 
THE SISTINE EVE 83 
 
 Propel the triumph of my viewless car, 
 And while the purple incense streams from under 
 The trampling fleetness of their muffled thunder, 
 And while their flanks froth terrors, in bright 
 beads, 
 
 To dare the goal 
 
 Of my imperious soul, 
 Still guiding them, as with a god's control, 
 Over my splendid, shoulder turning 
 
 Mine eyes, in giant yearning, 
 Upward, my Mother, upward still to thee 
 I gaze for power and love and immortality. 
 
 THE SNAKE [to Eve] 
 
 Now canst thou doubt the beauty of thy dream 
 
 ing? 
 
 Now canst thou doubt the duty of thy deed ? 
 Eat of the fruit, O Eve ! Thou art redeeming 
 
 The race of Adam to their latest seed, 
 For Time shall prove the beauty of thy dream 
 ing. 
 
 EVE [taking the Apple from the Snake] 
 
 O ye Wise, love Beauty ! All 
 Ye Strong, revere Her ! 
 
SECOND INTERLUDE 
 
 THE SISTINE SPIRIT 
 
 Ha ! dost thou shake thy slumber off, young 
 
 titan ? 
 
 (Unconscious child no more, for now the dawn 
 Proclaims the awaking world.) Ah ! dost thou 
 
 seize 
 
 The shadow of my mantle, and in mine eyes 
 Gaze with an ecstasy of pain and power? 
 Say, dost thou feel the immitigable blade, 
 Which sings in the light above the Tree of Knowl 
 edge, 
 
 Upscorch the loveless impotence within thee, 
 Ignite thy mind, and scorify thy heart ? 
 What ! dost thou reach thy hand thyself to swing 
 
 it? 
 
 Arise ! Go forth ! Youth of the centuries, 
 And wield thy sword in prayer to thy great 
 Mother ! 
 
 84 
 
THIRD CANTO: THE BIRTH OF MAN 
 
 CHORUS OF PRESENCES 
 
 Eden is fallen ! 
 Man is arisen ! 
 
 Like a knighted warrior, behold him arise. 
 Like a waker from slumber, 
 Like a captive from prison, 
 He bursts from the bondage of Paradise ! 
 For the Almighty's stroke 
 Has severed the yoke 
 Of the beast's contentment and earthward eyes. 
 
 SONG OF THE EXPELLING ANGEL 
 
 Mine is the stroke Promethean ! 
 
 The infinite love that burns like ire, 
 
 The impregnating might, the conceiving fire, 
 
 And the pang that delivers the Birth of Man. 
 
 I am the life, whose garment is Death, 
 
 And Truth like a lining within is laid, 
 
 And him who seeks me I singe with my 
 
 blade, 
 
 But he weareth the garment and triumpheth. 
 85 
 
86 THE SISTINE EVE 
 
 Adam, depart ! My sword's flame, like a torch's, 
 Reveals thy kingdom consumed and 
 
 wrecked, 
 
 But the pain that revolts in thine intellect 
 Is the love that heals in the lightning that 
 scorches. 
 
 CHORUS OF PRESENCES 
 
 Eden is fallen ! 
 
 Man is arisen ! 
 
 He is burst from the prison 
 Of Paradise ! 
 
 ADAM 
 
 Eve, crouch more close to me. I will protect thee. 
 The hailing fire my sense like anguish sears. 
 The goal is far but O ! how glorious, 
 For through the night thine eyes are still the stars. 
 
PART TWO 
 
 POEMS LYRICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE 
 
GROUP I 
 
Two song-birds build their nests within my 
 brain, 
 
 Arid hatch strange broods, each to his own re 
 frain ; 
 Ever one sings : " To-morrow, 
 
 Sweet Joy !" The other: "Yesterday, sweet sor 
 row!" 
 
 91 
 
FRAIL Sleep, that blowest by fresh banks 
 
 Of quiet, crystal pools, beside whose brink 
 The varicolored dreams, like cattle, come to 
 drink, 
 
 Cool Sleep, thy reeds, in solemn ranks, 
 
 That murmur peace to me by midnight's 
 
 streams, 
 
 At dawn I pluck, and dayward pipe my flock 
 of dreams. 
 
THE ARC LIGHT 
 
 I WATCHED an arc light under wind-stirr'd trees 
 
 Sleep on the pale green grass, in tender 
 swoon, 
 
 And held my breath thinking the pensive 
 
 moon 
 
 Was telling there her lucent rosaries. 
 Light of the Arts ! no more by lonely seas 
 
 Wandering in naked glory art thou met; 
 
 From out our heaven Homer's moon has set, 
 That lit the love-bowers of the Dryades. 
 
 Yet 'neath the conscious vestments Time has 
 wrought, 
 
 The simple Graces love and act the same; 
 And through the subtle wires of labored thought 
 
 The world is lit by heaven's divinest flame, 
 Till, in the sordid midnight of the poor, 
 The lamp of Zeus illumes a workman's door. 
 
SHE stood before a florist's window-pane. 
 
 Roses peered forth and they were envious 
 pale, 
 
 And lilies, white as cloistered virgin's veil, 
 Vied with the deep carnations but in vain. 
 If at her beauty's heart a lethal stain 
 
 Were hid, to beauty's face it told no tale. 
 
 "Cut flowers [so she read the sign] for 
 
 sale;" 
 Half to herself she murmured it again. 
 
 One stopped within the sharp, electric light, 
 And threw his shadow on her and his eyes, 
 Nor read those sad concealed analogies 
 
 Of which her gorgeous, answering look 
 was full. 
 
 " Cut flowers," and to-morrow they shall blight, 
 But till to-morrow, God ! how beautiful. 
 
 94 
 
I DREAMED a thousand ages, armed with flint 
 And bone and bronze, were toiling in a mint, 
 
 And sculptured rude to see 
 On each rough coin they struck was "Poesie." 
 
 And now, in that same hall, a mighty wheel, 
 Revolved incessant by a mob in steel, 
 
 Showers the round gold thence 
 Stamped with the goddess's head "Conven 
 ience." 
 
 95 
 
LEISURE, kind Leisure, I require ! 
 
 Leisure, whose snood 
 
 Of quiethood 
 Conceals shy dreams of sage desire: 
 
 For Leisure, only Leisure, 
 Ripens young thought and brings work pleasure. 
 
 Dull toil is but a drudge at best; 
 
 Sloth has no profit, 
 
 Sleep still less of it ; 
 But idle brains are busiest 
 
 While Leisure, shyest Leisure, 
 Ripens young thought and brings work pleasure. 
 
 96 
 
HER eyes are casements clear as dew 
 For her kindness to look through ; 
 There, behind their crystal, stray 
 Fairy fancies dressed in gray; 
 Through the trellis'd lashes, till 
 Slumber draws the silken blind, 
 Her quick spirit peeps behind 
 The pane, or signals from the sill. 
 
 97 
 
IN VENICE 
 
 THE Lady of the Sunset, 
 
 The Bride of the New Moon, 
 She lifts her liquid garments 
 
 About her silvery shoon, 
 And as she sways their draperies 
 
 The dim stars interwoven 
 In their dark fabric swing and ripple 
 
 Like winds by music cloven. 
 
 The Princess of the Olden Isles, 
 
 The Enamored of the Sea, 
 She has glided from her throne of stars 
 
 And courtesied, Love, to thee: 
 Along her smooth and turquoise halls 
 
 She glides, and kneels with me 
 Before thy shrine, with clasped hands, 
 
 And bows and prays to thee ! 
 
 98 
 
A MATINADE 
 
 RISE, sweet signora of the sigh ! 
 
 The gondola is gliding by. 
 
 The queenly Adriatic Sea 
 
 Shall hold her mirror, dear, for thee, 
 
 Apollo be thy slave, to twine 
 
 A fillet for those locks of thine, 
 
 And hire the moonlight from thine eyes 
 
 To cool the day-star of his skies. 
 
 So lady dear, be fleet ! 
 
 And from your dreamy sighs, 
 Signora mine, signora sweet, 
 Arise ! 
 
 99 
 
TO A GONDOLA 
 
 SWAN of the silver beak and sable breast, 
 Stemming the night, 
 
 Art thou a bird of song, or bark of quest, 
 Or heaven-wandered sprite, 
 That in the still moonlight 
 
 Makest in palace courts thy liquid nest? 
 
 If bird thou be, what swaying skies are these, 
 Between two heavens, 
 
 That lap thee in their starry lucencies, 
 
 Whilst thou toward unseen havens, 
 With plumage like the raven's 
 
 Glidest with pinions closed against the breeze ? 
 
 If bark thou be, what fairy argosies 
 
 Leadest thou on ? 
 What amber port of all the sunset's seas 
 
 Lures thee with music yon ? 
 
 What fetes of Oberon, 
 
 Tinkling husht joys, twinkling tranquillities ? 
 100 
 
TO A GONDOLA 101 
 
 A sprite thou art a spirit without peer ! 
 A lover's thought 
 
 Thou art, and Fancy is thy gondolier, 
 Whose gliding vision, fraught 
 With song and love, gleams but 
 
 An instant in life's dark, only to disappear. 
 
IN THE STILL CAMPAGNA." 
 
 IN the still campagna, 
 When no birds were singing, 
 'Mid the undulating 
 Little hills and hollows 
 Pied with starred mosaic, 
 There I stopped and pondered. 
 
 Right against the azure 
 Of the Alban mountains, 
 Rose an overwhelming 
 Gaunt and eyeless ruin: 
 Eyeless, but the sockets 
 Stared on me in sadness. 
 
 Loneliness then clutched me 
 Like a chill at noonday; 
 Terrors of old Caesars 
 Taught me a new heartache 
 Where those walls still on me 
 Stared with a stark blindness. 
 
 " How ! old earthy phantom, 
 Hast thou, then, no solace 
 102 
 
IN THE STILL CAMPAGNA." 103 
 
 When the burning sunbeam 
 Chars thy skull like Cyclops' ? 
 None ? No inner vision, 
 Thoughts that hymn like Homer's ? " 
 
 Hardly had I ceased when 
 Sudden from the knollside, 
 Or perhaps from heaven, 
 Through that hollow, lidless 
 Ruin flying, rose a 
 Flock of songbirds, singing. 
 
 Love, you are my nature ! 
 When by lonely breedings 
 Long on mortal anguish 
 I stand blinded, swift and 
 Sweet from lyric fountains, 
 Dart then through my sadness 
 Songbirds of your soul ! 
 
EARLY MAY IN NEW ENGLAND 
 
 STRAWBERRY-FLOWER and violet 
 Are come, but the wind blows coldly yet ; 
 And robin's-egg skies brood sunny chill 
 Where hyacinth summer sleeps under the hill 
 And the frog is still. 
 
 Applebloom floats on the warm blue river, 
 But white shad-blossoms ripple and shiver, 
 And purple-grackle pipes till his blithe heart 
 
 grieves, 
 
 For his gladdest songs, through the little elm- 
 leaves, 
 Are but make-believes. 
 
 104 
 
EARLY APRIL IN ENGLAND 
 
 ACROSS the moist beam of the cloud-rimmed sun, 
 
 The larks run up in ecstasies of Spring, 
 
 And little feathered flutes of melody, 
 
 The yellow-ammers, pipe along the hedges. 
 
 The sheep, half basking in the golden blaze, 
 Half shivering in the gray, engulfing shadows, 
 Browse on the faint-green hills ; the chilly wind 
 Ruffles the white geese on the rippled pond. 
 
 105 
 
SONG 
 
 SPRING is Shakspere's garden ! - 
 In May, to the lover's mind, 
 Every rose is a Rosalind 
 
 And every wood an Arden. 
 
 Hark! "Phoebe! Phoebe! Phoebe!" 
 Sylvius ! Can it he be ? 
 
 106 
 
HOLIDAY 
 
 WHAT is so free 
 
 As a child in its glee, 
 
 Or a bird on the tree ! 
 
 A jumping boy 
 
 Is a wave of joy ; 
 
 Little girls, 
 
 That gayly pass 
 
 With flying curls 
 
 Across the grass, 
 
 The soul unclog: 
 
 And oh a sight 
 
 Of rare delight 
 
 Is a running shepherd dog ! 
 
 107 
 
THE KATYDID 
 
 THOU husky raven of the insect race, 
 
 Who hintest hid by darkness from espial 
 
 Of some poor maid's disgrace, 
 
 Cease this asseveration and denial ! 
 
 Whatever the black blame, will it abate it 
 
 Thus to incessant rasp and iterate it ? 
 
 If Katy did the dark deed, let her state it. 
 
 108 
 
THE CRICKET 
 
 HARK to the fairy linnet 
 How reticent he sings ! 
 Sings, stops; then, in a minute, 
 He'll re-begin it, 
 
 Then stop again. 
 
 The sunset is his dawn: 
 
 When day is over, 
 
 He pipes a delicate strain 
 Beneath the tiger-lilies, by the lawn, 
 
 Or, from the top boughs of the tallest clover, 
 Outpours his Lilliputian carollings. 
 
 109 
 
AT night, I prayed for sleep; instead 
 The Muse came, rummaging my head 
 For rhymes. Again I craved the dews 
 Of sleep ; they fell upon the Muse. 
 
 110 
 
WITH A ROSE 
 
 TO S. A. D. 
 A ROSE 
 
 From lovely Rhodope's remotest time 
 
 The poets chose 
 To instil a lovelier meaning in their rhyme. 
 
 A friend 
 Is subtler than a poet. Friendship knows 
 
 A way to lend 
 A finer fragrance even to the rose. 
 
 Ill 
 
STANZAS 
 
 TO THE BURNISHED GRAIN OF AN OLD-FASHIONED 
 MAHOGANY TABLE 
 
 AURORAL tempest on an auburn sea, 
 
 Scourged by the spectres of unmoving wind, 
 Still storm, dumb gale, immured immensity, 
 Dark thunderer upon the shores of mind, 
 Spirit of oceans ! here thou art confined 
 In beauty and in silence. Rive thy locks 
 
 Tumultuous, till thy bronze waves foam in 
 glory, 
 
 Writhe on till thou art hoary, 
 The hush-air'd chamber shall not feel thy shocks, 
 Nor thy smooth polished shore thereby be under 
 mined. 
 
 Wild harrier of the mad atmospheres, 
 
 Whose looks are lightnings, who hath cap 
 tured thee 
 
 And poured in wood this sunny wrath of tears ? 
 Who else but mirror-cinctured Nature, she 
 That lurks by rivers and the placid sea 
 112 
 
STANZAS 113 
 
 To prison-in the silent-roaring thunders 
 
 With pomp pictorial. In such still state 
 
 Art thou incarcerate, 
 
 And Time, whose sitting worketh mellow won 
 ders, 
 Thy jailer sits, in cell of dark mahogany. 
 
 The terrors of the guessed invisible 
 
 Are worse than seen calamities; the eye 
 Beholds not here the famine- screeching gull, 
 
 The ear knows not the night-wreck'd sea 
 man's cry, 
 
 Yet may the fancy hear his monody 
 Sung by the mermaids of those amber deeps, 
 
 Beneath whose burnished and congealed 
 waves 
 
 A lurid dragon raves, 
 
 Whose dropping eye with ruddy tinctures steeps 
 That marvel-teeming world in strange mortality. 
 
 Tempestuous sea, dash on ! Roar on, dim tides, 
 That come, or go, or stay, we are not 
 
 stirred ; 
 The dark-descending simoon o'er thee glides, 
 
 But to the wooden'd sense it moans are surd. 
 Even while we gaze, our inward eyes grown 
 blurr'd, 
 
114 STANZAS 
 
 Behold thee for illusion, that reproves 
 
 Our reason's folly, till we ask: why should 
 
 We sympathize with wood ? 
 Yea, thou art like a passionate heart that loves : 
 Wildly it beats upon the world, but is not heard. 
 
SUNSET 
 
 BEHOLD where Night clutches the cup of heaven 
 And quaffs the beauty of the world away ! 
 Lo, his first draught is all of dazzling day; 
 
 The next he fills with the red wine of even 
 
 And drinks ; then of the twilight's amber, seven 
 Deep liquid hues, seven times, superb in ray, 
 He fills and drinks; the last, a mead pale- 
 gray 
 
 Leaves the black beaker gemmed with starry 
 levin. 
 
 Even so does Time quaff our mortality ! 
 
 First, of the effervescing blood and blush 
 Of virgin years, then of maturity 
 
 The deeper glow, then of the pallid hush 
 Where only the eyes still glitter, till even they 
 After a pause melt in immenser day. 
 
 115 
 
FOR F. J. L. 
 
 THE flower shall fade, not the spirit 
 Which gave to it being; 
 
 That has finer forms to inherit 
 Beyond our mere seeing. 
 
 Oh, why does the lily seem fair? 
 
 For seeing? for smelling? 
 Or is it that Ariel there 
 
 Has found him a dwelling? 
 
 Stale flowers for me shall not sere, 
 If you do but give them ; 
 
 Slight thoughts for me shall be dear, 
 If you but conceive them. 
 
 116 
 
TO M. AND M. L. 
 
 I CANNOT think good-by; 
 
 How can I say it? 
 My heart's debt lies too nigh 
 
 For words to pay it. 
 
 Bright cloud, that flingest wide 
 The heaven's wonder, 
 
 Dark cloud, and dim hillside, 
 And far-voiced thunder, 
 
 Soft breeze, that ringest clear 
 The sweet day's knell, 
 
 Sad bird, that singest near, 
 Speak my farewell ! 
 
 117 
 
BALLAD 
 
 YOUNG rider and steed they dash on through the 
 
 dusk, 
 And the fog gathers gray as the mould on the 
 
 husk, 
 
 And the froth on the flank is like foam on the flood 
 Where the brown stream pours panting through 
 dark underwood. 
 
 "But what of the night, love, and what of the 
 
 miles, 
 When the morning shall break in my true love's 
 
 own smiles ? 
 Oh, I'd ride the white charger that neighs from the 
 
 sea 
 To the edge of the world, if she waited for me ! " 
 
 Dim head in the doorway it -hears him dash by, 
 And the cold smile curls keen, and the laugh 
 
 lights the eye: 
 
 118 
 
BALLAD 119 
 
 "Ye'll hae off wi' your league-boots and love by 
 
 the sea 
 When your bonny hair's white and ye're wiser 
 
 like me." 
 
 II 
 
 The flare's in the chimney, the song's on the 
 
 crane, 
 And the maiden sits watching the fog on the 
 
 pane, 
 
 And the hot glowing hearthlight is cosey and dry, 
 But the warm light that's tender's the light in her 
 
 eye. 
 
 "Nay, granny, I'll just take a step from the sill, 
 For the twilight is cold, and the mist hides the 
 
 hill, 
 And fain would I warm the whole world with my 
 
 heart 
 To comfort thee O my dear love where thou 
 
 art!" 
 
 " Ye've let the winds in, lass ; the candle is out ! 
 Now God send ye wisdom, whate'er ye're about ! 
 The parritch is cold, lass, that erst was sae hot: 
 When ye're older ye'll be a deal wiser, I wot ! " 
 
120 BALLAD 
 
 III 
 
 There's a leap in the mist; there's a voice in the 
 
 night ; 
 
 There's a step that is heavy with one that is light : 
 " Ah, love, dear, is wisdom, and wisdom is this : 
 The seals of your sages they melt with a kiss !" 
 
EVEN as an infant fingers the crisp sheet 
 And crumples it, the more his milk is sweet, 
 So we, with restive hands, in happy sleep 
 Enact vague deeds on Nature's cover-slip. 
 
 121 
 
A CHILD 
 
 BRIEF Revelation of enduring Truth, 
 
 Frail snowflake in the silent storm of God, 
 
 Scarce lighting on the swallow-wing of youth 
 Ere wafting down to dew the pregnant sod, 
 
 Infant ! or Angel else thine innocence 
 
 Is as a crystal, wherethrough men may see 
 
 The seedling's might, the star's magnificence, 
 And of our common day the mystery. 
 
 More, it enkindles might; and like the pure 
 Polished convex of a bright burning-glass. 
 
 Binds the wild hues and lightnings, which perdure 
 In love as heaven, and in concentric mass 
 
 Ignites by them the unfeeling dross of nature 
 To conflagrations heavenly in stature. 
 
 122 
 
BABY PANTOMIME 
 
 SERENE, he sits on other shores 
 
 Than ours: with wide, unconscious lands 
 He holds strange speech, or, silent, pores 
 
 On denizens of viewless strands; 
 On tablets of the air weird scores 
 
 He writes, and makes, with eager hands, 
 As strange erasements ; then, two-fisted, stores 
 
 An elfin hour-glass with heavenly sands. 
 
 123 
 
THE FIRST TOOTH 
 
 DEAR babe, that this should be ! Whence should 
 
 this come ? 
 
 This horny 'scutcheon of an eld orang, 
 Where through the tender coral of thy gum 
 
 The wee, sly beast has peeped his prying 
 fang: 
 
 Colossal meditation ! Can this be 
 
 The cropping of that seed which Cadmus 
 
 sowed ? 
 Or that gaunt emblem of mortality 
 
 Under the sickle, on our earth-abode ? 
 
 Forbid it, heaven ! 'Tis but the nursling thorn 
 That nestles near the bloom of every rose, 
 
 The curling holly-leafs keen-sharded horn, 
 
 The stubborn shield of beauty's frail repose, 
 
 The official mace of angels : even as the Lord 
 Guarded the grace of Eden with a sword ! 
 
 124 
 
THE DESERTED STEEDS 
 
 MIDWAY the silent parlor plain 
 
 The iron horses stand, nor turn, 
 
 But like the yoke that Putnam left, 
 
 Await, mid-field, their lord's return. 
 
 There they have stood since yestereve 
 
 Nor champed, nor broke their traces till 
 
 The moon looked in the western blind, 
 Till morn peeped o'er the eastern sill. 
 
 Then strides their lord to field again 
 
 To crack his whip and drive his teams, 
 
 Back from the far campaigns of sleep, 
 The baby Bunker Hill of dreams. 
 
 125 
 
THE CHILD AND SLEEP 
 
 f 
 THIS baby brow, like a smooth handkerchief, 
 
 Has in the night been ironed white and even, 
 And all these little limbs, beyond belief, 
 
 Are like sweet garments, fresh prepared in 
 heaven 
 
 To clothe the littlest angel loved by Mary. 
 
 Who was it smoothed these rose-habiliments 
 Of childhood ? Sleep, a gentle nurse, and fairy, 
 
 Who folds the crumplings of our discontents, 
 
 And lines Day's chest with viewless lavender 
 To sweeten all the vestments of our care. 
 
 All Nature's tired children turn to her 
 For renovation ; for she can repair 
 
 The outworn body, from her secret scrip, 
 
 And minds outworn seek her physicianship. 
 
 126 
 
SUMMER SONG 
 
 THE cricket is chirring, 
 
 The tree-toad is purring, 
 The busy frog pipes, 
 
 The beetle is whirring, 
 
 And curled in his nest, 
 'Mid the night dew of rest, 
 
 My wee one is stirring. 
 
 Then quick, Fairy Hummer, 
 
 Lull my newcomer 
 Rosy and deep 
 In sleep, soft sleep, 
 
 9 Mid the sweets of the summer. 
 
 The stars at bo-peeping 
 Like white lambs are leaping 
 
 On the hills of the dark 
 In the Good Shepherd's keeping: 
 
 Their wool is like silk, 
 
 And they pour their bright milk 
 For my little one's sleeping. 
 127 
 
128 SUMMER SONG 
 
 Then hush, Fairy Hummer! 
 
 Kiss my newcomer, 
 
 And cradle him deep 
 In sleep, soft sleep, 
 
 9 Mid the sweets of the summer. 
 
FIRE WORSHIP 
 
 A POPPY, all on fire with beauty's beams, 
 
 Outburned the glamour of the liquid bar 
 Of sunlight where it swam, diffusing far 
 
 The brilliance of its spiritual streams: 
 
 A chalice, spilled on some blood-stained trireme's 
 Prow, in libation to the sanguine star, 
 The ritual cup of dread Dyauspitar, 
 
 Brimmed with the wine of its own opiate dreams. 
 
 Before that shrine, in mute idolatry, 
 
 A little Gangean god, an orient 
 
 Cupid, rose-flushed with infant wonder 
 ment 
 
 The baby gazed, and reached in rhapsody 
 His small, translucent hands, while silently 
 
 From flower to face a rubiate nimbus went. 
 
 129 
 
PLASTIC Fancies, form a mould: 
 
 Fill it, Heart, with burning gold : 
 Break it, Love, when life is cold. 
 
 When the shard is struck away, 
 
 There shall stand where once was clay 
 Beauty, till the Judgment-day ! 
 
 130 
 
THE UNSAID 
 
 THE forms sublime, the moods elate, 
 That rise within the poet's reach, 
 
 May never transubstantiate 
 
 Their glowing ardors into speech. 
 
 Yet sweet although we fail in words 
 To feel the changed, creative light 
 
 That gleams on nature's fields and herds, 
 Cast by a sun of inner sight, 
 
 While burst upon the exultant brain 
 Visions of grandeur and of grace. 
 
 He gazes more serene on men 
 
 Who looks the Muses in the face 
 
 131 
 
I WATCHED a drama, sitting in the wings, 
 And heard the plaudits of eternal things : 
 
 But when the Prompter bawled 
 My name, I failed my cue nor was recalled. 
 
 132 
 
ALL joys, familiar and divine, 
 All satisfactions fail, save thine, 
 
 Contemplation ! 
 Ambitions climb and fall; 
 Love, and Hope, his thrall, 
 Pity, and our noblest passions pall; 
 Yea, one and all, 
 Each one. 
 
 Not Venus, wreathed with bloom and vine, 
 Glows with rapture like to thine 
 
 Meditation ! 
 The rose can never be 
 Sweet as our revery 
 About her. Lord, each deity 
 Bows down to thee, 
 Each one. 
 
 133 
 
WHEN subtle passion makes me slave 
 
 And leads me, in her golden chain, 
 Where dazzling legions of the grave 
 
 Troop in her spurious beauty's train, 
 Poetry, make then thy sign 
 Lord and Sovereign divine ! 
 
 The beast wears still his tusk and snout; 
 
 Man merely has dispensed with these. 
 The satyr leeringly looks out 
 
 Behind the mask of Socrates; 
 
 Thou only art of heavenly line, 
 Lord and Sovereign divine ! 
 
 When, therefore, orient-vestured Sin 
 Holds her usurping court in me, 
 Set thy white torch aflame within 
 Her palace walls, O Poetry, 
 
 And on their ashes build thy shrine, 
 Lord and Sovereign divine ! 
 
 134 
 
THE SLINGER 
 
 A BOY, who stoops upon a green hillside, 
 Where he has climbed, exhilarant and flushed, 
 And picks up a flat stone, shell-shaped and 
 
 smooth 
 
 A piece of splitty slate, or curved feldspar 
 Scanned with the relish of an expert eye, 
 And fits it in the hollow of his hand, 
 And sways his body for the joyous fling 
 How wondrously he shoots it through the air ! 
 How pent with song it soars into the blue 
 Stored with the frenzy of his boyish whim, 
 Skims the sunk summit of the tallest pine, 
 Rounds, dips, tacks, turns, then, twirling, soars 
 
 again, 
 
 Catching the sunlight like a swallow's wing; 
 Then, like the last dip of a 'cellist's bow, 
 Or a ground-sparrow, slacking to its nest, 
 Slants the long slope, and dives in to the vale. 
 135 
 
 \ 
 \ 
 
136 THE SLINGER 
 
 Not more inspired the pebble David slung ! 
 A stone, a lump, a clot of hardened loam, 
 Yet, in an instant's metamorphosis, 
 It leaps to beauty like a work of God 
 A lyric thing, a fellow of the lark, 
 Breathing a moment's immortality 
 Then sinks to silence and the loam it left. 
 
 II 
 
 Whose was the hand which flung me into breath ? 
 Whose was the whim or purpose of that deed ? 
 Flung in the dizzy zenith of clear mind, 
 Whirled in the cloudy vortex of dark will, 
 On, on projectile of a deathless youth, 
 Poised with his sling upon the brow of heaven 
 Skimming, and skimmed by other whizzing clay, 
 Skipped in the sun to caper caracoles, 
 What is of man the ultimate Goliath, 
 Giant of 111, whom he must batter down 
 That Saul the Right may reign ? What is man's 
 
 goal? 
 
 Or mindful of the grim analogy 
 What stricken pine, forgotten in the forest 
 That skirts the valley underneath Time's hill, 
 Shall mark his accidental tumbling-tomb ? 
 
LIFE SAID TO DEATH 
 
 LIFE said to Death: 'Brother, 
 Who was our mother ? 
 Did not One who bore us 
 Make the world for us: 
 Were we not twin-born ? 
 What hast thou, then, inborn 
 Lordlier, vaster, 
 That thou playest master? 
 By what right or merit 
 Dost thou inherit 
 Earth's beautiful riches? 
 
 Answer me : Which is 
 
 The world's more deserving 
 
 The served, or the serving? 
 
 Thou art a depender 
 
 On me, yet a spender 
 
 Of all my dear earnings, 
 
 Rhapsodies, yearnings. 
 
 I build, thou breakest; 
 I bring, and thou takest; 
 I save, thou lavishest; 
 I love, and thou ravishest. 
 137 
 
138 LIFE SAID TO DEATH 
 
 Deaf and disdainful, 
 Thou leavest me baneful 
 Curst all I care for. 
 Answer me: Wherefore? 
 
 O, say that thy spendings 
 Are used in befriendings ; 
 That 'neath barbarity 
 Thou workest in charity, 
 To joy givest feeling, 
 And a quick healing 
 To pain's slow cancer. 
 O, loosen the tied knot 
 Of silence, and answer ! ' 
 
 But Death replied not. 
 
OLD Age, the irrigator, 
 
 Digs our bosoms straighter, 
 
 More workable and deeper still 
 
 To turn the ever-running mill 
 
 Of nights and days. He makes a trough 
 
 To drain our passions off, 
 
 That used so beautiful to lie 
 
 Variegated to the sky, 
 
 On waste moorlands of the heart 
 
 Haunts of idleness, and art 
 
 Still half-dreaming. All their piedness, 
 
 Rank and wild and shallow wideness, 
 
 Desultory splendors, he 
 
 Straightens conscientiously 
 
 To a practicable sluice 
 
 Meant for workaday, plain use. 
 
 All the mists of early dawn, 
 
 Twilit marshes, being gone 
 
 With their glamour, and their stench, 
 
 There is left a narrow trench. 
 
 139 
 
As children fling bright silver in the sea 
 To watch it shine and sink there, so do we 
 
 Our treasures of wrought rhyme 
 And marble toss amid the surge of time. 
 
 140 
 
GROUP II 
 
CHARLES ELIOT NORTON 
 
 OUT of the ' obscure wood ' and ominous way 
 Which are our life, to that obscurer sea 
 Whose margin glooms and gleams alter 
 nately 
 
 With storm and splendor of the shrouded spray 
 
 He has departed. Our familiar day, 
 
 His elm-hushed, ivied walks, no more shall 
 
 see 
 That radiant smile of austere courtesy: 
 
 On Shady Hill the mist hangs cold and gray. 
 
 He has departed hence, but not alone: 
 
 Still in his steps, where golden discourse 
 
 burns, 
 To Virgil now he speaks, and now he turns 
 
 Toward Allighieri in calm undertone, 
 
 Holding with modest tact his path between 
 The Mantuan and the mighty Florentine. 
 
 143 
 
FRANCIS JAMES CHILD 
 
 How fain we conjure back his face ! How fain 
 As, bowed with musings long on elvish lore, 
 He clutched his satchel at the class-room 
 door 
 
 And shot the quick " Good-morning, gentlemen," 
 
 From under the bronze curls, and entered. Then 
 For us that hour of quaint illusion wore 
 Such spell as when, beside the Breton shore, 
 
 The wizard clerk astounded Dorigen. 
 
 For we beheld the nine-and -twenty ride 
 
 Through those dim aisles their deathless pil 
 grimage, 
 
 Lady and monk and rascal laugh and chide, 
 Living and loving on the enchanted page, 
 
 Whilst, half apart, there murmured side by side 
 The master-poet and the scholar-mage. 
 
 144 
 
TO GEORGE PIERCE BAKER 
 
 THE ghosts of Praise-God Barebones and his 
 clan 
 
 Still walk, and with their old acerbity 
 
 Infect us; even the University 
 Is haunted still, and the sparse Puritan, 
 Turned Prospero, has made a Caliban 
 
 Of human passion, and wild Poesie 
 
 Pinched in an oak to starve, and Mimicry 
 And all her kindred Muses put to ban. 
 
 Yet not so now at Harvard ; there betakes 
 
 Him now the scholar-player, with his Muse 
 (That deathless wench, the Mermaid) and 
 renews 
 
 His vows, and breaks his fast, and is 
 restored 
 By our own Baker. May the loaves he bakes 
 
 Soon pile a feast at Master Shakspere's 
 board ! 
 
 145 
 
TO WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY 
 
 MOODY, our time is glad of you ; 'tis given 
 (After exotic, ineffectual blows) 
 For you, a poet, with sure blade of prose 
 
 Keen from the artist's scabbard, to have riven 
 
 Our specious theatre from its roof-beam even 
 Unto the pit of smugness, to disclose 
 The emancipated desert's wild repose 
 
 The new-world gladness of our native heaven. 
 
 Henceforth we cannot be the same; for us 
 Americans, because of you, the tide 
 
 Dramatic turns to seek its heritage 
 Splendidly homeward to ourselves; our 
 stage 
 Is cleft: between its pusillanimous 
 
 And daring goals stands now the Great Divide. 
 
 146 
 
TO THE SAME, AFTER SEVERE ILL 
 NESS 
 
 Now that you are come up from the hush vale 
 Whose crumbling verge hugs close the dread- 
 named stream, 
 
 And we, for whom your sojourn there did 
 seem 
 
 A time intolerable, may inhale 
 
 Glad breath to greet you on the old firm trail 
 Of health again, still that suspense extreme 
 Pervades our deep thanksgiving, like a dream 
 
 Of Him whose thin hand felt the sanguine nail. 
 
 For not alone the sentient personal 
 
 Pang that was spared compels our gratitude, 
 But that contagious loss which would 
 have spread, 
 Unknown, to those who knew you not, through 
 
 all 
 
 The after-time; but now, that dread sub 
 dued, 
 
 With victory life girds you, garlanded. 
 147 
 
TO GEORGE GREY BARNARD 
 
 HEWER of visions from our human clay, 
 
 Hewer of man's strong soul in sentient stone, 
 Of maiden limbs, like breath of flowers new- 
 blown, 
 
 Of mighty loins, girded in giant fray, 
 
 Of hearts that wrestle, vanquish, fall and pray 
 Hail to you, dauntless Hewer ! Not alone 
 Your arm is raised to shape the vast un 
 known : 
 
 A nation's sinews hold that arm in sway. 
 
 Though from Carraran hills, by alien hands, 
 Those forms of plastic vision are unfurled, 
 
 Yet in their glowing, marble chastities 
 America in naked splendor stands 
 
 Inviolate, and looms across the world 
 Labor's impassioned apotheosis. 
 
 148 
 
TO AUGUSTUS FRANZEN ' 
 
 HAD poet Geoffrey been a painter then 
 
 In Richard's days, he would have painted 
 
 true, 
 Healthful and bold and beautiful, like you 
 
 Franzen, large-souled, sure-handed. Had Fran 
 zen, 
 
 Painter in oils, wielded an English pen 
 To-day as artist, he would limn anew 
 Even such a clear-eyed Canterbury view 
 
 As Chaucer limned of nature and of men. 
 
 So, when I watch, anew, my little son 
 
 Take breath beneath your brush, and pout 
 again 
 
 His arch and fresh-eyed innocence, I 
 stand 
 Silent, and take your hand in mine, as one 
 
 Who, in Old London, or Velasquez' Spain, 
 Held in his own a living master's hand. 
 
 1 With a copy of "The Canterbury Pilgrims." 
 
 149 
 
TO J. E. F. 
 
 Is this our common world of weariness 
 
 The narrow stream we fume and struggle in ? 
 
 Soft as a sleeping ocean and serene 
 The quivering city slumbers, measureless 
 Under the moon : the roaring paths men press 
 
 By day, are sweet with silences, akin 
 
 To dying murmurs of a violin : 
 Such magic has the moon to calm and bless. 
 
 The mind, too, has its moonlight, which can 
 
 steep 
 Time's sordid commonplace in harmony 
 
 That heals pain with oblivion, and the 
 scar 
 
 Of garish strife with beauty, and the deep 
 Rebellions of the soul with sympathy : 
 
 Such might has quiet friendship's mystic 
 star. 
 
 150 
 
THE HILL-SPIRIT 
 
 TO R. B. 
 
 RIBBED like a conch and ruddy through the dark 
 The frail wedge of his horn-clear tepee glows 
 Above the pasture-cliff, warm with the rose 
 
 Light of its own live heart : outside the stark 
 
 Grove clinks the wampum of its frozen bark 
 Against the starry cold ; a shadow shows 
 Tall in the tepee's slit ; then in the snows 
 
 Valeward husht moccasins imprint their mark. 
 
 Blithe with the wonder of their home wood-fire 
 The hillside children, rapt in fairy lore, 
 
 Hark suddenly his footstep : giant- 
 geared, 
 
 He stands before them ; then upon the floor 
 Seated beside them, like an immortal sire, 
 
 Laughs with one great hand tangled 
 in his beard. 
 
 151 
 
TO R. E. F. 
 
 ARCH twinklings of the quaint wood-smile of Pan, 
 Far-trembling, golden lights from Jason's 
 
 fleece, 
 And lyric breathings from the lutes of Greece, 
 
 And gentle ardencies from old Japan, 
 
 With whatsoever blithe, Arcadian, 
 
 And simply wise accord with such as these, 
 Are blent in you to one true Yankee piece, 
 
 Keen, classic, laughter-brewing, Keatsian. 
 
 By forum, Alp and oriental fane 
 
 (As varied climes color the song-bird's 
 
 wings) 
 On you far paths and fair imaginings 
 
 Have traced their retrospects; yet, if 
 there be 
 
 One word by which to conjure you up plain, 
 That fine home-word is Hospitality. 
 
 152 
 
TO E. H. S. 
 
 BRIGHT in the dark of sleep all night till morn 
 The henchmen dreams about my bed did sit 
 And looked on me, with their strange torches 
 lit; 
 
 And one was passionate, and one was lorn, 
 
 And one, that fingered his bronze beard in scorn, 
 Scowled at another's smile of tranquil wit ; 
 And all were dreams of heroes yet unwrit 
 
 In dramas high, and pageants yet unborn. 
 
 O happy knight ! immortal retinue ! 
 
 What may we not, when morning breaks, 
 
 achieve ! 
 The morning breaks ah, pale and strengthless 
 
 crew ! 
 
 Who now shall in your mighty forms believe ? 
 Dear friend and host, even you ! My dreams 
 
 I leave, 
 (Those happy dreams) to serve and honor you. 
 
 153 
 
GROUP III 
 
FAIR is the foreground of her soul 
 With mirth and domesticity, 
 
 And vistas far, through cottage vines, 
 Of a storm-lit, pagan sea. 
 
 A bluebird nests beneath the porch, 
 A hidden song-sparrow, hard-by, 
 
 Sings near the ground ; but overhead 
 A gull's wing glitters high. 
 
 Rose-fragrance dreams along the hedge, 
 Wild sea-tangs drift from off the wave, 
 
 And girlish trebles sweetly pierce 
 The eternal ocean-stave. 
 
 157 
 
MY love was freshly come from sea 
 The morning she first greeted me : 
 The salt mist's tang, the sunny blow 
 Had tinged her cheeks a ripening glow. 
 
 She bowed to me with all the ease 
 Of meadow-grasses in the breeze, 
 And yet her look seemed far away 
 Amid the splendors of the spray. 
 
 Her step was vigorous and free 
 
 As maiden's in the Odyssey; 
 
 And when she laughed, I heard the tunes 
 
 Of rushes in the windy dunes. 
 
 An air so limitless, an eye 
 
 So virgin in its royalty 
 
 Hers was a spirit and a form 
 
 That took my inland heart by storm. 
 
 I felt an impulse, an unrest, 
 And secret tides within my breast 
 Flowed up, with silent, glad control, 
 And drew the rivers of my soul. 
 158 
 
THE soft rains are falling 
 On wild rose and vine; 
 
 The far winds are calling 
 To foreland and pine; 
 
 The big wave is rocking 
 The gull on its breast; 
 
 The surges are knocking 
 With joyous unrest; 
 
 There's a spirit in the sky, love, 
 That pants for the sea, 
 
 But the heart that beats nigh, love, 
 Beats higher for thee ! 
 
 159 
 
SHE was a child of February, 
 
 Of tree-top gray and smother'd stream, 
 Of cedar and the marsh rosemary, 
 
 Of snowbird and the sunset's dream. 
 
 A frozen brook that, April-eyed, 
 
 Sings soft beneath its silver fretting, 
 
 Her lyric spirit soon belied 
 
 The ice of her New England setting; 
 
 Till on a day when sudden thaw 
 
 Rent all her snowy chains asunder, 
 
 The impassioned sun beheld with awe 
 Her heart of deep Italian wonder. 
 
 Still Nature has described her best, 
 Veiled in those February skies, 
 With summer singing in her breast, 
 And April laughing in her eyes. 
 
 160 
 
I HEARD the waves exulting in their power, 
 
 Their unpaced leagues of dim immensity, 
 Their splendors and their thunders and their 
 dower 
 
 Of heaven's far glory, and I thought : the 
 sea, 
 
 The sea is mighty ! Yet, O Love, to me 
 Who sought a symbol, meagre was that might 
 
 Which was encliffed and shored, for vaster be 
 The tides of love; not beach nor beacon-light 
 Marks where their surges clasp the misty infinite. 
 
 161 
 
MAID-MARINER 
 
 THE ragged clouds are all a-rout, 
 
 And the white gulls reel like swallows, 
 And the billowy herds, at Triton's shout, 
 
 Plunge snorting down the hollows, 
 And my heart is with the storms a-stir 
 For Marian, my maid-mariner. 
 
 The spray is whiffed by the sneezing wind 
 
 Where the dory's prow is ducking, 
 And soughing where the cliff is brined 
 
 The seaweed-cows are sucking, 
 And the wild-duck flocks begin to whir, 
 Marian, maid-mariner! 
 
 Then come with me to the green salt tides 
 
 When the storms have slipt their traces, 
 And the live blood vaults in our glowing sides, 
 
 And the winds flap in our faces, 
 And hearken to my heart's harbinger, 
 Marian, maid-mariner! 
 
 O, if the world were all a bark, 
 
 And wishes all were true, love, 
 With one blithe maiden I'd embark 
 
 Her captain and her crew, love 
 And sail the world away with her: 
 My Marian, maid-mariner ! 
 162 
 
OUT of the drenched and leafless night, my dear, 
 Entering to you like hot-haste March I feel, 
 
 Who bows before the beauty of the year, 
 
 And spurns presumptuous Winter with his 
 heel. 
 
 163 
 
MY thoughts are like pied cattle on the hills, 
 
 Browsing the pale green slants, through silt 
 ing mist , 
 That laps the verdant uplands, and far fills 
 
 The valleys where the parted woods have 
 kisst. 
 
 Scarce can I see them for the purpling rain 
 
 That drives across the pastures, where they 
 loom 
 
 Beyond the hedges of my shrouded brain, 
 Herding the solemn sunset of my gloom. 
 
 O Fancy, be my eager-lung' d Boy-Blue, 
 And blow upon your dewy echo-horn 
 
 A blast to call them home to me and you 
 Out of the eerie meads and magic corn ; 
 
 For they shall yield us white abundance of 
 Their milk, for me to bring unto my love. 
 
 164 
 
WHEN beauty ripens newly in old sheaves, 
 Wears purple 'mid the vine's cold penury., 
 
 And hides young blushes in age-altered leaves, 
 I take one more excuse to think of thee, 
 
 Conceiving this : the harvest's mellow gold 
 
 Shall gleam, though faded harvests feed the 
 swine ; 
 
 The sheaf's bright glance shall shine in brandies 
 
 old, 
 The dark grape's splendor glisten in the wine. 
 
 So, too, when thou art withered from the earth, 
 And loveliness no habitation finds 
 
 In thy beloved form, yet shall thy worth 
 
 Still glow with living lustre in men's minds. 
 
 O then to be thy vintager I ask, 
 
 And every verse of mine thy beauty's flask ! 
 
 165 
 
WHEN first the pussy-willow shows 
 
 Her fairy muffs of gray, 
 While still amid the poplar tree 
 The blithe, familiar chickadee 
 His morning suet gratis gets, 
 When first the consternating crows 
 Break on the winter-keen repose 
 
 Of February day 
 
 Their strident cawings, 
 Startling with Stygian silhouettes 
 
 The virgin snows 
 
 To wake, and with faint thawings, 
 
 Like speech half-audible, 
 Murmur of spring, until we houslings feel 
 Or dream we feel the breath 
 Of blowing violets, 
 That start where the old oak-leaf floats to death, 
 
 At such a time 
 On this your birthday morning, winter-weary, 
 
 Once more the stealing rhyme 
 Runs up within my heart, to greet you, dearie. 
 
 For now through all of nature that we love 
 A vernal change, like love's, has late begun; 
 166 
 
The northing sun 
 That nightly from Ascutney shall remove 
 
 Farther its setting, fills 
 The valley-chalice of the Cornish hills 
 With wine of warmer splendors ; by woodways 
 
 Those spurting flames of blue, the jays, 
 
 Less oft the eye arid ear amaze, 
 
 Mock musical, with gong-like throat, 
 
 Ringing the red-wing'd blackbird's note; 
 
 More seldom sounds the frosty axe, 
 
 And by the rabbit-run 
 Our quaint embroideries of snowshoe tracks 
 
 Grow softly blurred and charr'd 
 On their south edgings, while the logging-bells 
 Tinkle less coldly through the hemlock dells. 
 Or cease, amid snow-muffled lumber-stacks, 
 Where sledges come to " Whoa ! " in the mill-yard. 
 
 Therefore, because this lovely season leaves, 
 
 Like all else, only memory to take 
 
 Joy of its vestiges, now for the sake 
 
 Of fleet delights that never may return, 
 
 Watch, dear, with me, where, 'neath the dropping 
 
 eaves 
 
 The iris-dewed icicles burn and burn, 
 Till beauty on our minds indelibly 
 Shall brand her image, bright with mutability. 
 167 
 
STEEP ran the hill-road out of the wood: 
 Lambent, below us 
 Flushed in the valley 
 Snow-colored twilight 
 Black isles of pine. 
 
 Hushed the cold tinklings, shuddered the sleigh 
 Round the horizon, 
 Keen and auroral, 
 Burned on the hill-lines 
 Inexpressible rose. 
 
 Snorted the silvery breath of the horse: 
 Into the silken 
 Quivering silence, 
 Slid like a snowflake 
 Saint Agnes' moon. 
 
 168 
 
A BIRTHDAY 
 
 (FOR s. s. P.) 
 
 SEVENTY years ! 
 
 What memories are the peers 
 
 Of such a service ! Who shall send 
 
 Awed messengers into the vast of mind 
 
 To summon them ? Or who shall find 
 
 And herald their grand reticence ? If hours 
 
 Are sometimes epochs, if there are 
 
 Minutes, which rise like Babylonian towers 
 
 Above time's sordid plain, who shall declare 
 
 The grandeur of this life ? What angel compass 
 
 it? 
 
 Not words, but smiles and tears 
 Can hail, with homage fit, 
 Those seventy years. 
 
 169 
 
ONCE more Chopin and Mendelssohn 
 Have conjured you, sweet Mother ! 
 
 How playfully you charmed the one, 
 How pensively the other, 
 
 As, standing tiptoe on the stair, 
 
 I watched your waving golden hair ! 
 
 Again I watch the flashing keys 
 A dreamy boy, dear Mother, 
 
 Climbing to bed by slow degrees ; 
 Again my sobs I smother 
 
 Where, hid beneath the muffling spread, 
 
 The heavenly music fills my head. 
 
 The heavenly music fills again 
 
 My heart with childhood, Mother, 
 
 And stirs with blended bliss and pain 
 Yearning I cannot smother: 
 
 A husht, tear-blinded ecstasy 
 
 Of mingled love and memory. 
 170 
 
Only Chopin, or Mendelssohn, 
 None holier, and none other, 
 
 Can paint for me, with magic tone, 
 Your portrait, lovely Mother: 
 
 That face, amid the golden hair, 
 
 Forever young and debonair ! 
 
 171 
 
FOR A CHILD CONVALESCENT 
 
 BITTER death, 
 Blind heart-ache, 
 
 Now that you are gone, 
 How distracting-dear you make 
 This soft breath, this ease-drawn breath 
 
 Of my beloved one. 
 Sing, Spring! 
 
 Be gracious, weather! 
 
 My love and I and you are together. 
 
 Budding boughs, 
 Pale blue skies, 
 
 What if you had come 
 Senseless to her sealed eyes, 
 Impotent her sleep to rouse, 
 
 All your songbirds dumb ! 
 Sing, Spiing! 
 
 Be grateful, weather! 
 
 My love and I and you are together. 
 172 
 
FOR A CHILD CONVALESCENT 173 
 
 Mighty God, 
 Thou in grace 
 
 That didst Death deter: 
 Lovely is Thy tranquil face 
 In the sunlight or the sod, 
 
 Loveliest in her. 
 
 Sing, Spring! 
 Bring., wind, 
 
 Soft weather 
 Long and kind. 
 Sing, Spring! 
 Wing, Song, 
 
 On lark's feather 
 Silver-lined. 
 
 Bring along, 
 Wind, 
 
 Kind song and weather, 
 Singing high 
 High on lark's wing 
 My love and I 
 
 In love and Spring 
 
 My love and I are together! 
 
HALFWAY the climbing rose of Infancy - 
 
 With tears for dew-drops shining on its thorns, 
 Lit by the Mother-smile of peaceful morns, 
 
 All pink in bloom, with now a golden bee, 
 
 Burrowed in kisses, to hum lullaby, 
 
 And now a shower, that intermits and warns 
 The birds to carol 'twixt the thunder's horns, 
 
 Robin of babyhood, thy nest I see. 
 
 Babe of the birds, when from thy rosy source 
 Thou shalt upclimb to boyhood's ruddier 
 
 charm, 
 
 The brooks shall mock thy boisterous discourse, 
 The skies uplift thy shout, where, held from 
 
 harm, 
 Thou shalt disport on the big world's battered 
 
 torse 
 Like Bacchus on the Elgin Hermes' arm. 
 
 174 
 
CATHLEEN 
 
 MY Cathleen of the wilding curl 
 And roguish yellow ringlet, 
 
 Oh, are you but a budding girl, 
 Or cherub clipt of winglet ? 
 
 I kissed you, clambering at my knee, 
 All dimpled, shy and darling, 
 
 When every glance you shot at me 
 Flew like a starling. 
 
 You sang to me from printless books 
 Of tree- top-boughs a secret 
 
 So hushed, that in my heart those looks 
 Of baby wonder speak yet. 
 
 Of pussy-cat the chucklehead ! 
 
 An epic you told after, 
 Till porch and lawn and garden-bed 
 
 Caught that clear laughter. 
 
 You kissed me then Ah, twinging joy ! 
 
 Cathleen, that I might hover 
 About your steps, a golden boy, 
 
 To grow your golden lover. 
 175 
 
170 CATHLEEN 
 
 Your lover ! Nay, I scorn his name, 
 Far rather, oh, far rather 
 
 I'll live, to thwart him, what I am: 
 
 His someday sweetheart's father. 
 
A BABY it was, or a bird : 
 
 'Twas hard to tell at a guessing ; 
 For the only tidings I heard - 
 
 Save a lullaby low and caressing 
 Was a bunting out on a bough 
 
 Calling: Quick, quick, quick, have you seen 
 
 her? 
 And a chickadee, perched on the mow, 
 
 Singing: Christy, Christy, Christina! 
 
 Not a bird, but a baby she is I 
 
 So cuddly and quaint and surprising: 
 As fresh as sweet clover to kiss, 
 
 More rosy and blithe than sunrising. 
 And her brother he was the bird 
 
 Calling: Quick, quick, quick, have you seen 
 
 her? 
 And her sister the songster I heard 
 
 Singing: Christy, Christy, Christina! 
 
 177 
 
BE merry, dear, for merry is the while, 
 
 And let Mirth make a ladder of thy woes 
 
 Whereon thy thoughts may mount unto thy 
 
 smile 
 As fairies climb by briers to the rose. 
 
 178 
 
THOU art the still-renewing spring 
 For poesie's replenishing. 
 By thy brink, like Rachel, stands 
 Beauty pensive : in her hands 
 Poised, she holds her artless pitcher; 
 Her own reveries bewitch her 
 Where she bends, with maiden start, 
 To fill it faultless at thy heart. 
 
 But I poor stumbler with verse- vessels, 
 
 Worn rhyme-thin by fancy's pestles, 
 
 Stub my toe with too much longing 
 
 And break what I should catch the song in. 
 
 179 
 
I SAW white fields and shadows gray 
 
 And clouds the low sun lurked behind ; 
 A quiet seemed to tint the day 
 
 With fainter colors of the mind, 
 For all of nature to my sight 
 Was tempered by an inner light. 
 
 The winter sun set clear as wine, 
 
 A silent star stole to its place, 
 And still, beneath a glooming pine, 
 She stood, with visionary grace 
 
 Watching the sky: I could not speak; 
 The words that faltered were too weak. 
 
 My voice was smothered in my eyes; 
 
 I gazed and what so changeless sweet 
 (Since Love has twined our destinies) 
 As when, in retrospection fleet, 
 All after-visions I forget, 
 And dream that I am gazing yet. 
 
 180 
 
THE perfect rose has but a paltry fruit; 
 
 The gracious summer but a garish end ; 
 And May's sweet choirs in August all are mute, 
 
 And youth's strong loins his largess soon 
 dispend. 
 
 The water-lily, at her ripening, 
 
 Hides in the muddied lake her beauty's 
 
 spores ; 
 Even in the tender calyx of the Spring 
 
 The icy-sharded worm of Winter bores. 
 
 But you, dear, are a flower of God's own isle, 
 Whose glamours ripen in the spirit's seed ; 
 
 The Galilean lilies are your smile, 
 
 And in your aching heart the roses bleed ; 
 
 And wreathed of fire cold Time can never smother 
 The maiden yields her garland to the mother. 
 
 181 
 
ONLY the strong have right to reign in song 
 The strong of soul, that are the warriors 
 Of God. The weak-at-heart, he that out 
 pours 
 
 His coward pain, perpetuates a wrong. 
 
 Therefore I promised you I would be strong, 
 
 Or silent : But now hark ! Again the doors 
 Of heaven are wide, and on the palace floors 
 
 I greet the Nine, who wept for me full long. 
 
 Look up once more, my love ! The lark is risen; 
 Not as of old, above the immaculate fields, 
 Remote, of May he chants, but now he builds 
 His nest of dew beneath the common prison 
 Of Workaday : O hark to him, dear one, 
 Rounding, of song and toil, a Pantheon ! 
 
 182 
 
REALIZING that the lives of men are rills 
 
 Coursing in lines consecutive and bright 
 
 Down the pied slopes of Time's 'eternal hills/ 
 Or flocks of mingling sea-birds, that alight 
 
 An hour upon the icebergs, there to strew 
 Wide Babel o'er the pristine silences, 
 
 Then, soaring, blend in the universal blue: 
 Brooding an hundred analogues like these 
 
 That show how we, bright atom-points of thought 
 In this congested brain of being, reign 
 
 An instant and no longer in the plot 
 Of God; realizing this, and then 
 
 Remembering I run my race with thee, 
 I grow in love with my mortality. 
 
 183 
 
As ripples widen where the stone is cast, 
 
 So we do wane toward the banks of death ; 
 As dips the summer grass before the breath 
 
 Of the west wind, so lightly we are passed : 
 
 Our lives are liquid ; even when Grief has massed 
 Their evanescent flowers to a mort-wreath, 
 They are such icy blooms as a frosty heath 
 
 Paints on the glass-pane, and as long they last. 
 
 Therefore, since joy is the acquiescent will 
 
 That blends our spirits' limbs with all which 
 flows, 
 
 Since pain is the stagnant eddy and the chill 
 
 That lies congealed within the withered rose, 
 
 Let us, sweet friend, of beauty drink our fill, 
 And fix in natural change our soul's repose. 
 
 184 
 
INDEX TO POEMS IN PART 
 TWO 
 
INDEX TO FIRST LINES 
 
 OF THE POEMS IN PART TWO 
 
 Across the moist beam of the cloud-rimmed sun 105 
 
 A baby it was, or a bird 177 
 
 A boy, who stoops upon a green hillside 135 
 
 All joys, familiar and divine 133 
 
 A poppy, all on fire with beauty's beams 129 
 
 Arch twinklings of the quaint wood-smile of Pan 152 
 
 A rose 111 
 
 As children fling bright silver in the sea 140 
 
 As ripples widen where the stone is cast 184 
 
 At night, I prayed for sleep; instead 110 
 
 Auroral tempest on an auburn sea 112 
 
 Behold where Night clutches the cup of heaven 115 
 
 Be merry, dear, for merry is the while 178 
 
 Bitter death 172 
 
 Brief Revelation of enduring Truth 122 
 
 Bright in the dark of sleep all night till morn 153 
 
 Dear babe, that this should be ! Whence should 
 
 this come 124 
 
 Even as an infant fingers the crisp sheet 121 
 
 Fair is the foreground of her soul 157 
 
 Frail Sleep, that blowest by fresh banks 92 
 
 Had poet Geoffrey been a painter then 149 
 
 Hark to the fairy linnet 109 
 
 Halfway the climbing rose of infancy 174 
 
 187 
 
188 INDEX 
 
 Her eyes are casements clear as dew 97 
 
 Hewer of visions from our human clay 146 
 
 How fain we conjure back his face ! How fain 144 
 
 I cannot think good-by 117 
 
 I dreamed a thousand ages, armed with flint 95 
 
 1 heard the waves exulting in their power 161 
 
 In the still campagna 102 
 
 1 saw white fields and shadows gray 180 
 
 Is this our common world of weariness 150 
 
 I watched an arc light under wind-stirr'd trees 93 
 
 I watched a drama, sitting in the wings 132 
 
 Leisure, kind Leisure, I require 96 
 
 Life said to Death : Brother 137. 
 
 Midway the silent parlor plain 125 
 
 Moody, our time is glad of you; 'tis given 147 
 
 My Cathleen of the wilding curl 175 
 
 My love was freshly come from sea 158 
 
 My thoughts are like pied cattle on the hills 164 
 
 Now that you are come up from the hush vale 148 
 
 Old Age, the irrigator 139 
 
 Once more Chopin and Mendelssohn 170 
 
 Only the strong have right to reign in song 182 
 
 Out of the drenched and leafless night, my dear 163 
 
 Out of the ' obscure wood ' and ominous way 143 
 
 Plastic Fancies, form a mould 130 
 
 Realizing that the lives of men are rills 183 
 
 Ribbed like a conch and ruddy through the dark 151 
 
 Rise, sweet signora of the sigh 99 
 
 Serene, he sits on other shores 123 
 
 Seventy years 169 
 
INDEX 189 
 
 She stood before a florist's window-pane 94 
 
 She was a child of February 160 
 
 Spring is Shakspere's garden 106 
 
 Steep ran the hill -road out of the wood 168 
 
 Strawberry-flower and violet 104 
 
 Swan of the silver beak and sable breast 100 
 
 The cricket is chirring 127 
 
 The flower shall fade, not the spirit 116 
 
 The forms sublime, the moods elate 131 
 The ghosts of Praise-God Barebones and his clan 145 
 
 The Lady of the Sunset 98 
 
 The perfect rose has but a paltry fruit 181 
 
 The ragged clouds are all a- rout 162 
 
 The soft rains are falling 159 
 
 This baby brow, like a smooth handkerchief 126 
 
 Thou art the still-renewing spring 179 
 
 Thou husky raven of the insect race 108 
 Two song-birds build their nests within my brain 91 
 
 What is so free 107 
 
 When beauty ripens newly in old sheaves 165 
 
 When first the pussy-willow shows 166 
 
 When subtle passion makes me slave 134 
 
 Young rider and steed they dash on through the dusk 118 
 
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