Stillwater Pastorals and Other Poems By Paul Shivell THE NEW POETRY SERIES HOUGHTQN MIFFLIN COMPANY Boston and New York ifteto JJoctrp IRRADIATIONS. SAND AND SPRAY. JOHN GOULD FLETCHER. SOME IMAGIST POETS. JAPANESE LYRICS. Translated by LAFCADIO HEARN. AFTERNOONS OF APRIL. GRACE HAZARD CONK- LING. THE CLOISTER; A VERSE DRAMA. EMILB VER- HABRBN. INTERFLOW. GEOFFREY C. FABBR. STILLWATER PASTORALS AND OTHER POEMS. PAUL SHIVELL. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON AND NEW YORK STILLWATER PASTORALS AND OTHER POEMS STILLWATER PASTORALS AND OTHER POEMS BY PAUL SHIVELL WITH A PREFATORY NOTE BY BLISS PERRY BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY Cambrib0e COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY PAUL SHIVELL ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published October IQIJ PREFATORY NOTE I HAVE asked my friend Paul Shivell s permission to make this selection from his work and to bring it to the attention of other lovers of poetry. Two or three of the poems were printed, some years ago, in the Atlantic and the Century, and it is a pleasure to remember that they awakened the keen interest of Mr. Norton and Mr. Gilder. Some of the pastoral verses have been issued from the press of a local printer in the "Stillwater" country, but it has been difficult to obtain them. I have had entire free dom in choosing from the author s published and unpublished poems, and if I have failed to make a really representative selection he must forgive me, for he alone will know the full measure of my sins of omission. Paul Shivell is a veritable farmer, though he has made many another fine adventure, whimsical, gallant, tragic, in many parts of the United States. A wandering ideal ist, he has gone back to the soil. He can plough barefoot, and make verses. Stillwater "is," as Carlyle would say, although I forbear to give the post-office address. It lies somewhere east of" Spoon River " and southwest of " North of Boston." Vital experience, then, is back of these poems. Good or bad, they are convincingly real. Their fidelity to the local landscape is absolute. They betray, of course, in their phrasing and metrical patterns, the tastes of a man who 345101 PREFATORY NOTE knows his Milton, Wordsworth, and Shelley, and who has learned, by living for a while in Whittier s country-side, to love Whittier. But they are untouched by any of the con ventional ornaments of the "literary" pastoral. Moth and killdee and morning-glory, the crooked stick in the flooded stream, barn-loft and pasture in the light of summer and winter dawns, are portrayed with a naive sincerity which owes little or nothing to books. They are Paul Shivell s life, throbbing with tremulous delight in simple things, ardent as a flame, tender, exigent, haunted by that Sebn- sucbt indescribable by any English word. For he wants, no doubt, what every poet wants : not only the ineffable moment of personal experience, but readers, friends, followers. He has had these last in but scanty measure, and yet in his sonnets he reveals his per fect faith that they will come. " Defeated, we acknowledge no defeat." He asserts, with something of an Elizabethan poet s hunger for earthly immortality, his right to be heard and his certainty of being heard at last. Poets, like saints, sometimes believe because the thing is incredible, and Shi- veil s personal pride is mingled with the humility of some "poor brother in Christ," dreaming a Tolstoyan dream without any of the fierce anarchic Tolstoyan egoism. " Poetry bothers most people," Shivell declares, in words that might have been written by Emily Dickinson. It does. Even the professed lovers of poetry will be bothered by some of ShiveH s harsh and prosaic lines, his willfully im perfect rhymes, and the obstinacy of his quiet assertion that his day will come. His sonnets are too personal for the richest variety of note and cadence, and the " proud remote [ vi] PREFATORY NOTE obscurity " to which he clings will seem to some readers a passion inconsistent with his ultimate willingness to be dis covered. But brother poets are not likely to misunderstand his case. The new generation of enthusiasts for American verse may find Paul Shivell lacking in the technical inven tiveness which discovers novel and intricate forms of ex pression, but they will not turn many pages of this volume before finding that here is the revelation of a personality unique in our twentieth-century literature, as Emily Dick inson was unique among the writers of the preceding gen eration. No doubt Paul Shivell is a "minor" poet, but in that phrase the adjective is less significant than the noun. I, at least, writing frankly as one of his friends, find in his work a rare and delicate savor, and an authentic inspiration. BLISS PERRY.. CAMBRIDGE, October, CONTENTS STILLWATER PASTORALS Moth and Killdee 3 On the Miami 5 Stillwater 6 As through the Dawn 8 Seedtime 10 Winter Morning 1 1 Moons Wax, Moons Wane 12 June Second 13 The Rescue 14 Will and Testament 17 To a Crooked Stick 19 December Days 22 On Being Urged to Publish 24 As Day, so Spring Returns 25 To a Bloodroot Flower 25 In Few Words 27 Finale 28 To JANE REECE, PHOTOGRAPHER I. The Studios Photographic 33 II. Voice musical with sacred joy and pain 34 [ix] CONTENTS III. Never hard light full on thy subject streaming 35 IV. True artists are true lovers of the True 36 V. Arthur, my Son 36 VI. Pictures not Life 37 "I MARVEL" I. Imminence 41 II. Exaltation 42 III. Humility 43 GOD BUILT CREATION God Built Creation 47 Midsummer Sadness 48 Liberty 49 The Flight in the Night 53 Dust of Old Days 55 To a Seagull 56 War Breaks Out in Europe, August, 1914 57 Rheims 58 The Arrow-Head 59 SONNETS TO H. L. H. I. Of his Appropriate Entity 63 II. His Noble Birth 64 III. His Wary Restlessness 64 IV. His Austere Submission 65 CONTENTS V. His One Purpose 66 VI. His Thinking 67 VII. His Frank Self-expression 67 VIII. His Joyous Escape 68 IX. On his Genius 69 X. His Character 70 XI. His Art 70 XII. His Philosophical Pioneering 7 1 XIII. And on his Birthday Anniversary 72 APOLOGIA I. "I ve wish d I d been born prose" 75 II. "If boldly I could charm" 76 III. "If I could tell" 76 IV. " Song would not be " 77 V. "Christ by the hasty mob" 78 VI. "I ll feel well paid" 79 VII. "Thou who art sacredly alone " 79 VIII. "We yet can triumph" 80 IX. "What if I fail" 81 X. "None seems to care" 82 XI. "Mount up on Wings" 82 XII. " Thy quivering body " 83 XIII. "What if my strength" 84 XIV. "Peace, peace" 85 XV. "I ll wait on God" 85 STILLWATER PASTORALS STILLWATER PASTORALS MOTH AND KILLDEE WAS ever richest Oriental cloth Beautiful as this damask/ winged moth ! Fair creature ! I could watch thee by the hour. But oh, this young killdee ! this flying flower ! This wild eyed throbbing lily in my hand ! Startles my soul with more ecstatic pain Than even thou hast power to command Of my delightsomely be % wildered brain, Thou awe-inspiring insect ! Go, sweet bird, I would not hold thee till I found the word Expressive of what loveliness I see In all God s works, but most just now in thee ! That thou shouldst fear me grieves my heart but flee Run, frightened thing, Into the reeds there hide by the cool spring I To-morrow thou wilt realize Thy dim dream of the skies ! Thy wings thy voice ! wilt fly and wheel and scream Through God s dominions. And like a wild seagull wilt gleam, Skimming along this creek on joyous pinions, [3] STILLWATER PASTORALS And over the plow d fields, timid, but swift, Easily graceful of the gift Thy Maker gave thee quickly to uplift And bear thyself away from harm, Sounding thy distant seabirdlike alarm ! And I will watch thee as thou goest Up and down the valley, wading, running, flying, And every glimpse of thy white wings thou showest, Even thine alarmed crying, Through my senses shall appeal To the joys and griefs I feel. Thou wilt signal and wilt speak To my spirit ! And echoing along this inland creek Wilt bid me love my home the more, Because thy glad wild presence doth endear it. Thou wilt transport me to the shore Of mighty deeps, Where the wind seldom sleeps, But heaving billows that no rocks affright Out of the darkness loom, Or bursting into bloom Of manycolor d light, In sun and moon and lofty starbright night, Forevermore In awful solemnity [4] ON THE MIAMI With the swelling and falling tide Come and subside And return to the wide, Wide sea. - Entranced I watch and listen and adore ! And each oncoming, rising, streaming wall Aspiring to groin its dome Will fall, Breaking afresh into crystal ruins of glorious foam ! To pour And rush and roar And sigh And spread in beauty ever o er The clean white shell Strewn floor Of the wide, wide world alway, Where a thousand years are as a day. Dimmer and dimmer The glad gulls in the distance glimmer. Summer is gone : I miss thy gleam and cry. ON THE MIAMI A FLUTE came o er the water in the night ! Sober and sweet it wander d down the scale ; And back returning with a deep delight, It reach d the golden stars, and told its tale ! [5 ] STILLWATER PASTORALS Warbling, it came, a swan under full sail, Waking melodious miles ! While hush d afar, As from a happier fellow soul, but frail, Lost in the passionate fluting, a guitar Answer d across the waves like a confiding star ! Then voices of two souls in love with life Went floating down the river in the moon ; And softlier with the singing came the tune Of the faint cithern and the sacred fife. We lean d with clasped hands o er that deep hour, Until the music of contented love Wound into river stillness, when above We heard the first breath of the coming shower Rustling the foliage. Slowly then toward home We strolFd beneath wide elms in the green gloom; And Gertrude, all in white, look d like a flower. STILLWATER STILLWATER, on thy mirror d banks, Maiden and youth, my Love and I, Oft from the old wood s broken ranks Watch d o er the lake the evening sky. Tranquilly flow d thy current by, We scarce could deem it was a river, [6] STILLWATER Where Heaven, that look d so still and high, Seemed deepening in thy depths forever ! Oft on a mild, sweet Sabbath hour We wander d there, two happy lovers, Down woodland paths, through fields in flower, Where bees buzz d round the drooping clovers. Curtain d in green bird haunted nook, Beneath an aged sycamore, We read sweet poems from a book, And sang beside thy sacred shore. The sun declined, the landscape blush d, And droop d in its luxuriant beauty ; High overhead the leaves were hush d ; And bells came from the distant city. Along the gravel clutch d the roots Of elms that lean d out o er the water, And swept the lovers who in boats Oar d gurgling through their shade with laughter. Lightly the ripples wash d the grass ; And lighter, swifter dipt the swallow. The widening wake would curve and pass, And sympathetic silence follow ; Till up and down thy golden stream, In the dark woods and still reflections, [ 7] STILLWATER PASTORALS The deepening picture, like a dream, Grew Eden/old in all directions. Mysterious feelings, with the night, Crept o er us, sitting there together ; The ancient stars grew young and bright. We seem d to understand each other. And when at last we rose to go, She gave me something for a token ; Long as thy whispering waters flow, Our promises will ne er be broken. Slow since, through unjust penury, Far from thy scenes we Ve toil d and blunder d ; And, praying men might soon be free, The Truth we Ve taught, and seen dishonor d. And Oh ! may He Who loves us all Come quickly, and abide forever, That on the human race may fall The beauty of the woods and river. AS THROUGH THE DAWN As through the dawn I took my way, Holding a morning-glory flower, Up buzz d a roving bumble bee, And lit, and crept into my bower, [8] AS THROUGH THE DAWN Sipt and withdrew and buzz d and flew In search of other nectarous dew. The mealy pollen from his thighs, White foam upon blue swelling ocean, Or silver stars in moonlight skies, Symbols of natural devotion, Reveal d on silken fluttering field The shrine where he had been and kneel d. But he, most comical to see, That big important busy fellow, Sipping oblivious of me, Bare legg d and fat, with sash of yellow, Hairy and happy and content, As on his morning rounds he went, I laugh d to see him booming wild, Unconscious of his place in nature, Not getting riled because I smiled, Nor shamed at his inferior stature ; He s not an eagle, just a bumble. Brave mite ! That men were half as humble. [9] STILLWATER PASTORALS SEEDTIME WE harrow d the sandy bottom lands, The horses and I, with the harrow s hands ; With the harrow s fingers we finger d it over, And claw d it up, and dragg d it down, To sow a field of grass and clover, Far from the city, in sight of the town ; In sight of the quiet country village, Near the pasture lowland that smelleth sweet, With open bosom and naked feet I followed the harrow and waded the tillage, Back and forth, back and forth, Gee ing south, and gee ing north, With now a pause and welcome rest For enraptured poet and patient beast. A lark mounts up where the rosebrier bends, And over the meadow rising and falling, A voice out of the distance calling, Into a neighboring farm descends. There on her nest he findeth his mate ; And mine will be in the lane at the gate ; The little ones on the team will ride, And I 11 go home with them by her side. WINTER MORNING WINTER MORNING I RISE and look out at the window, Love, And all the stars are shining. While I dress Lie thou and take thy needful morning sleep ; And I will tiptoe downstairs with the lamp, And build the kitchen fire, the table set For breakfast, and our patient creatures greet With lantern in the stable where they chew Meekly their fodder. Frosty are the nights, Wholesome and stinging cold. When the room s warm, Or when thou wilt, come down and dress thyself By jealous lamplight, yellow in the dawn, Leaving the wee ones to surprise us late, When from their natural rest, bewilder d half, They wake and rub their sleepy eyes, looking For us. Then they 11 grope down, and smile "Good Morn ing." And dress before the kitchen fire, and eat Their porridge from their little porringers. So we 11 begin another busy day, With thankful hearts lifting our prayer to Heaven : That thus may we ever be honest people, And bring our children up to work and play Contentedly and in the sight of God. c " ] STILLWATER PASTORALS MOONS WAX, MOONS WANE MOONS wax, moons wane, Earth will soon be young again ! Then I 11 wander in the wood, By brooks, through fields, in solitude, Everywhere I wish I 11 wander ! Up the hillside over yonder, Thence where weeds grow tall and rank Down along the river bank ; Yearning o er each lovely view, Sky and water, deep and blue, Scenes and vistas fair through trees, Clouds and sunbeams, birds and bees ; Bee and bird, sunshine and shade, Moon and stars when winds are laid, Whispering to me of Him Whom I love, Whose child I am. Blow, winds, wake the flowers ! Warm and sweet, ye April showers, Drench them, sparkling with bright faces In obscure delightful places ! Fresh as pretty children s eyes, Deeply they reflect the skies, JUNE SECOND In dewdrops and fine rainspray That, sun kiss d, in clouds away Wafted by the wind, go blowing Where sweet sister flowers are growing, Prone to fall in silver rain From the purple clouds amain, Of the high sun s golden streams Weaving rainbows and sunbeams, Earth and sea and clouds and river Flowing forth in flowers forever ! JUNE SECOND THIS anniversary of our marriage morn, The eighth in bright succession, is, though clouded, Our brightest. All past griefs are nothing now To this one joyous grief that overshadows As with protecting wings two startled children, Who had begun to think themselves grown big ; But now, bewildered, vaster ignorance Compels more reverent trust ; and we bear up And live through this dumbfounding mystery By mutual acknowledgments of need, And of dependent, babelike helplessness. O God ! that we had always trusted Thee As now we think we trust Thee ; had but loved STILLWATER PASTORALS As now we cling together day and night In spiritual agreement that no words Can utter, so expressive is the hush That puts to shame all but the thought of Thee. THE RESCUE UP in this lofty mow pitching down straw, And looking out upon this broad braced frame Which Atlas like supports the roof above me, Where herculean atlantes struggle to hold In bounds this bulky mass of roughage, high In this plank whale s huge belly, or on rocks Above the sea, like old Poseidon leaning Upon his trident, or more like young Shem Forking down feed for hairy mastodons ! Alone with God, and in His eye at work, I, usefully employ d, am over chaos Triumphant ! Thus a child, sent to hunt eggs, Tumbles about the hay with gleeful heart, Filling with chaff his curls, and laughs aloud, Careless of thought s restraint, yet not alone, For God is with him and restrains with Love His human heart. From this oak purline beam I see that situation perilous [14] THE RESCUE From which last summer with uplifted heart, DownTeaching hand and muscular contortion, I rescued my own boy, the only child Now left me in a world where without children Life would be very lonely. Little adventurer ! We thresh d the day before, and blew the straw Up in this mow ! Swift from the fierce machine Flying, it fell in cavernous confusion, Lightly as when in winter all night long The soft snow falls and covers the thin ice Upon the deep dark rivers, lakes and ponds. Thus treacherous with pitfalls was it left Of its own weight to settle. Hither the boy, Anxious lest something in this wondrous world Escape his sight, climb d yonder ladder, and stept, Not as he thought to, on well-founded footing, But down into a pit of dust and chaff, Whose walls above him hung as on a web, Ready to bury him alive ! The child, Not knowing his great peril, kept his head, And calPd for me ! I heard him, as it chanced (Or was it not God s will that I should hear him ? For we were all out resting on the porch). The second time ! I seem d to hear him call : Faint, far, as if his voice came out of the ground ! Now toward the stable running, shouting loud ! [ si STILLWATER PASTORALS Not certain where he was, nor what his plight Might prove : " Papa ! Papa ! I m up behind these doors Down in the straw ! " By leaps I cleared the stairs, Climb d ladder, cross d hay, looking down, here grasp d Fortunate was my heart to find at hand These big substantial doors whence I, to batten Clinging, might reach down in that dangerous place And give the little thoughtless child my hand ! So God hath many a time given me His ! And gave me now, else had I not yet found The body of my boy, nor guess d, alas, His fate nor whereabouts even to this hour ! Never did all rny muscles, bones and sinews To their respective offices attend With so much eager willingness to do Each one his part ! For afterwards I knew, When I had drawn him up, and those chaff walls Had slipp d and filPd that hole, I knew I could not With all my might and will repeat the twist, So surely did God help me in that moment Of instant extreme helplessness. O heart ! How we did praise Him through uplifted silence, Panting with agitation ! As if angels Witnessed the need and deed, and for the praise Hung listening ! that they, too, might render Him Sweetjuti/afe, such as they in Heaven [ 16 ] WILL AND TESTAMENT Shout, when the Shepherd findeth one lost lamb, And on His shoulder beareth it to the Fold ! WILL AND TESTAMENT WHEN from this house of clay I go, And with solemn step and slow, Respectful to the honor d dead, Tenderly ye lay this head, With its pallid upturn d face, In its last long resting/place, Close beside the little mound In the village burial ground, There to mingle surely, slowly, With the dust of proud and lowly, Then, oh ! then weep not for me : Smile and say : Our child is free 1 When upon my grave shall bloom Flowers that shed their sweet perfume, Holy incense unto God From the almost conscious sod : When the meadow lark shall build Yearly in the neighboring field, Little children play and sing, Whistles blow, and school bells ring, STILL WATER PASTORALS While the busy world moves on Peacefully from sire to son, Then, oh ! then weep not for me : Say, He loved us, he is free ! Yes, may all that know my voice, When they pass my grave, rejoice. May no word or deed of mine, Lingering in the sweet sunshine, Cast a shadow o er that spot Where the soul returneth not. When the evening prayers are said When the world in sleep is laid, And upon my headstone white Stars and moon look down at night, Then, oh ! then weep not for me : Rest, dear heart, for I am free. Yes, when we from flesh are freed, Then we shall be free indeed. Earth s old heartaches and its woes Come not where the spirit goes. There in Beauty and in Truth Palsied age renews its Youth; There, forgiven, the defiled Finds himself once more a child. [ 18] TO A CROOKED STICK All the lovely, brave and kind One another There shall find. Soon, mingling with that Company, Thou and I, O friend ! will be. Then let no monumental stone Mark my grave when I am gone, To attract with show and fuss The idle and the curious. Enough, if they who loved me best Know the body s place of rest, Or the green grass where to grow, Or, where to fall, the silent snow. A life of kindness build and give To the hearts that round thee live. If there J s any on whose head Praise is wasted, tis the dead. TO A CROOKED STICK CROOKED stick against the dam, Caught, as on this world I am, Here, perhaps, from some great distance, Onward float by my assistance, Down the foaming, rushing torrent, Helpless in the eddying current, STILLWATER PASTORALS Deaf and blind, O lifeless thing, What wild river thoughts you bring ! Pangs and longings heave my breast While I watch you, without rest Speeding from your recent capture, Up and down as if in rapture ! Now not visible, and then Rising to my sight again, Till in watery distance lost, Gone, I whisper, to be toss d On some bank where myriads Come and float away in floods ; Or swift past where struggling trees Strain, in water to their knees ; Giants that lean and sway and breast The onward elemental quest ; Maybe to be caught a while ; Then released for many a mile ; Finally, far from the ocean, In age long arrested motion Buried under tons of slime, To be mud thyself in time. Yet, though as a thing forgot In oblivion thou rot, Never can my soul believe But thou must thy quest achieve ! t *] TO A CROOKED STICK Brainless, aimless as thou seemest, Back to life thou ever dreamest, And must yet become all things That have legs and leaves and wings, As, through various forms endear d, In the past thou hast appear d ; Or, repulsive as a sin, Shalt be as thou oft hast been. Onward, seaward, without rest, What excitement heaves my breast When I think whence earnest thou : Whither on thy long course now ! All these bones, this blood, these muscles, Wherewith oft my spirit wrestles, Come and go and leave me here, Still triumphant over fear, An immutable bright spirit, Far/predestin d by the Merit Of that Wondrous Power Benign That about this soul of mine Built this body and sustains it, Then, in Vaster Mercy, brains it ! As in mercy I erstwhile, With a wise and friendly smile, Sent yon stick upon its course Through the Starry Universe ! [21 ] STILLWATER PASTORALS DECEMBER DAYS ERE yet these grounds and buildings loom from night, Or when by the waning moon kept visible Earth seems to anticipate the winter dawn, And cocks are crowing near and far, I wake, Slowly I quit my dreams, I wake, think, will, And leap from my warm bed into the cold, Enter the house, light lamp, build fire, strip, bathe, Dashing my body with water fresh from the spring, Rub with coarse towel and quickly get inside My chilly clothing, by warm robust health Soon comfortable ; and after I have swallow d A few deep drafts of water I light my lantern And go out under the stars, in the dim moon, Or through black darkness, while the frozen world Is very still, or a light breeze, a wind, a storm Goes blowing around buildings, among trees And through the cold sky over lonely fields And pastures. To the barn I come and enter The stable door. Cows, horses, calves are up Watching for me, or get up stretching themselves As I come in, or feel too comfortable To move until they hear the feedbox open d And see that that means business. Now they re eating ; [22] DECEMBER DAYS And I am milking now ; and having milk d And done the chores, I come in, greet my family, Blithe, serious, or as my changeful mood May happen, help my frail wife at her tasks, Urge or admonish the children, till at seven We all sit down to breakfast. I read the Bible : We bow our heads ; and in the love of Christ Repeat together the simple prayer He taught His Own when He with folk like us on Earth Lived out His Father s Message. At my hand The Holy Book I like to feel and see Which from last night still on the kitchen table Lies open to invite my soul. And so With praise and gratitude begins my day As yesterday was ended, and as the morrows I hope to meet and leave, while on I go To face my God and render strict account Of hours and years, a life to Christian purpose Gladly devoted for the love of Him Who died for me. So among neighbors and friends We walk with our Creator and go forth Sowing as we would reap, our tabernacles Aging and weakening from year to year, But we, with elder prophets and apostles And all the upright in heart who were supported And strengthen d and refresh d, we shall endure [ 23 ] STILLWATER PASTORALS As from our birth, from youth to age, from age To Life Eternal, ever rising new And going forth from temporal defeat Unto eventual victory, through sorrow Daily with joy advancing toward That City, That Fair, that Holy City of our Father And of His Christ, That City which hath foundations, Whose Builder and whose Architect is God. ON BEING URGED TO PUBLISH WHAT prophet can illuminate God s World What seer make duty clearer or what priest, Standing between the people and their Maker, Darkeneth not their faith, if in that heart Fine reverence be wanting ? And shall Thy poet, Making a traffic of his secret joy, Profane thy holy sanctuaries, Lord, Built in the open air, where all thy works In their simplicity fulfill unnoticed The purpose of their being ? As these live, So let me live, rooted in Thee ; so die, Scattering pregnant seeds ; nor task thy birds, Nor coax thy willing winds, nor bribe thy seasons To do with mine as they from the beginning, True to their old appointed tasks, have done. TO A BLOODROOT FLOWER AS DAY, SO SPRING RETURNS As day, so Spring returns ; as Spring, so Life ; As Life, so Love ; as Love, so Paradise. And He Who sanctifieth man and wife Sustains this homesick heart, these longing eyes, This restless mind, this throbbing frame of dust, With holy thoughts of Heaven, whither, I trust, By His dear grace, through conscious word and act, My faltering footsteps ever to direct : Happy at how much cause for Hope there is Beyond what we could comprehend if told. What Knowledge to the Light will There unfold, When we and all we see and love are His ! While our bright aspirations, far /foreseeing, Rest still in God s Great Heart, content with Instant Being. TO A BLOODROOT FLOWER BLOODROOT in the leafless wood, Companion of gray Solitude, When the birds begin to sing, Thou, frail welcomer of Spring, Dost thy white ray d star unfold, With its seedheart of green gold, STILLWATER PASTORALS And remindest us how Faith Blooms victorious over Death. Spring now from her slumber waketh, And unto each lover speaketh, Breathing through her flowers and birds Joy too deep for human words, Knowledge that doth most abound Where, unmarr d, God s works are found ; For by every bosom noble God is found without much trouble. Welcome, shy and fragile flower, And though cold and brief thine hour, May thy holy message given Brighten Earth with news from Heaven, And awake in many a heart Longings lovely as thou art, Aspirations pure and good, Hopes by angels understood. As thy petals not in vain Brave the long and cheerless rain, So when we as thou some day From the cold earth fade away, [26] IN FEW WORDS Having here fulfill d our mission, May we leave in Earth s possession Seeds of Love, matured like thine, Humbly, sweetly, rain or shine. IN FEW WORDS A BLESSING is a curse, If it make a bad man worse ; And the reverse : A fall may prove a fortunate matter, If it make a good man better ; To be terse, God does not flatter ; But whether the mind be deep or shallow Plows deep, so deepens, Or lets lie fallow. Who wants to be A neglected lea All overgrown with wormwood and mallow ? Wherefore, if thou be doing His will, Be still ; And on every occasion Accept as a divine persuasion Whatever happens. An hard saying? STILLWATER PASTORALS Yes; But without evasion Hear it ! Truth is no idle guess : He who, obeying, Learns to revere it Finds no truth truer Pack d in words fewer : Do, and thou shalt know the Will: Then, and not until. FINALE THE golden/winged hours, The silvery summer showers, Fairies and flowers, Birds, clouds, rainbows and happy minutes Pass like music, swiftly, As when maidens deftly Play laughter and tears upon their spinets. But the Day will come When the Poet will go Home And a deathless Life assume, Where Beauty lives forever, And the gentle Springtime never, Never will grow hot ; [28] FINALE And the winter cometh not ; Nor cares nor weariness call away From fadeless flowers ; nor night nor day Bring afflictions, which we bear Meekly, because we must : Must learn our Father s Life to share, To love Him and to trust. Joy and Sorrow ! mutual pair, Ye teach us more than we re aware. So let me live, so let me die, Where I am, that by and by Where I go 1 may know More than little flowers teach ; Truths that now I cannot reach ; Beauty see that comes not nigh The window of man s wondering eye ; Join in Music which for sound Cannot in this world be found : Not faint, not far, but clear, Such as in my dreams I hear, Wonderful beyond expression, My Desire, my Hope, my Passion ! STILLWATER PASTORALS Everywhere, In the air, In the earth and stars and sea, All unite, Agony and delight, Sounds, colors, forms, to tell What my Lord would have me do, What my Lord would have me be. So, merry birds, my thanks to you : All you say, I know, is true. And pensive flowers, well indeed You speak, I understand you well. If, when your blooms are gone to seed, I to these happy fields return, Of each dead stalk and trampled weed Oh ! may I deeper lessons learn Than in your freshness I discern, As deeper, deeper grows my need. TO JANE REECE, PHOTOGRAPHER TO JANE REECE, PHOTOGRAPHER THE STUDIOS PHOTOGRAPHIC BY every light, in every pose, In God s Eternal Studios, The human heart, with frown or laugh, Is posing for its photograph. Sweet smile ; sad, serious expression ; Honor triumphant over passion : Oh ! wonderful are the effects He through Truth s living lens detects, As, instant, watchful for the best, Behind the curtain without rest, In loving eagerness He waits To catch our souls on deathless plates ! Fear not the darkness that surrounds Thy character. On dark backgrounds, With light from Heaven in thy face, What tones He gets ! With what fine grace He molds and modulates and blends The history efface and hands : [33] STILLWATER PASTORALS Revealing through what grief and bliss The spirit came to look like this ! To look like Him Who long ago For His good pleasure plann d it so, That He in His Eternal Home Might treasure them in Time to Come ! Through unknown fortunes yet to be, Beneath the stars, beside the sea, Between the birthday and the grave, Teaching the tender heart be brave, He woos our better from our worse, The Artist of the Universe ! The undiscouraged Connoisseur Of priceless human character ! The glory of Whose presence fills With master might the steadfast hills ! While deep within our souls it glows From all His starry studios ! ii VOICE musical with sacred joy and pain, Eyes in whose merriment the more I look Deeper I see as page by page the book Reveals the heroine : deft hand, tired brain, [ 34] THE STUDIOS PHOTOGRAPHIC Serving a traffic world without disdain, For she hath caught the secret of the brook Through somber fields by many a shadowy nook Meandering where clouds roll vast with rain, O gently penetrating tender heart Intuitive, by spiritual gift Outseeing masculine interpreters ! Thou showest us by more than practiced art Our starlit spirits, as when night clouds rift, And we are found among God s worshipers. in NEVER hard light full on thy subject streaming Our carnal cruelly exaggerates ; But as a painter with himself debates, And chooseth values by instinctive scheming, Thou makest us appear as if caught dreaming : The body thinks ! The Furies and the Fates Look from his eyes who in thy presence waits !. A pose for thee is no self conscious seeming. I marvel how, unto the human thought Summon d, the human character, responding^ Lives awfully recorded thus in matter ! I marvel what the human mind hath wrought ! But more I marvel What and how astounding That Power Which works through man and cannot flatter ! [35] STILLWATER PASTORALS IV TRUE artists are true lovers of the True. Though sadly supersensitive to stings, Grieving for slights, and letting unkind things Thoughtlessly spoken wound them through and through, They still to what the world may say and do Temper their wits, and with defiant flings Compel unspeakable joy ! like warrior kings Foresworn on Book to conquer and subdue. So thou and I, frail woman and strong man, Through agony go smiling to endure. Defeated, we acknowledge no defeat ! Out of our windblown ashes, with hope s plan, And love s fond faith in love no whit less sure, We rise to life, and find even sorrow sweet. , v ARTHUR, MY SON ARTHUR, my son, to manhood now aspiring, What schemes of high emprise fill thy young head And urge thee onward ! Ah, what deeds of dread Thine inexperienced eager heart are firing ! What fond beliefs beyond utmost desiring Impel thy play ! What armies hast thou led [36] PICTURES NOT LIFE Over what battlefields, and hast left dead How many, while thy fame the stars are choiring ! little boy becoming a big youth, Only to be a little man like us, Who once were growing large and fine like you ! 1 wonder which small segment of the Truth, In thy brief life at most, shall not nonplus That dreaming head, but shall, please God, come true ! VI PICTURES NOT LIFE THE life, the throbbing life, aglow with health, In look, speech, toil, tears, laughter manifesting The imminent Creator, praying, jesting, An instrument responsive with a wealth Of sweet harmonious moods, whereon by stealth An unseen Master plays ! Who, by arresting Attention on the instant, and suggesting Of music s indivisible commonwealth One rare elusive chord, can through the eye Unto the soul translate and amplify And clothe with life and bring back warm again That fleeting moment in this fixed smile, Or this expression, characteristic then, But perish d now, our sad hearts to beguile ? "I MARVEL" "I MARVEL IMMINENCE I MARVEL not that I did marvel much ; For still I marvel more the more I live, To find my God so near that I can touch His garments, and with heart grown sensitive Can know His will and do it and forgive And feel forgiven and in Him be held Safe above all that I would fain outlive, Unto His Heavenly Kingdom uncompel d ! Wherefore in praise I will not be excel d ! But ever sing with grateful voice of gladness ! Though in this life much cause have I beheld For overwhelming sorrow. Nay, t were madness Not to rejoice in Thee, Thou wondrous Being, Whom Christ anointed eyes are ever clearer seeing ! STILLWATER PASTORALS ii EXALTATION REJOICE with wonder, O my soul, rejoice ! And you, ye starry heavens, thou vast hush, That art so far thou hast for us no voice, Lend me your silent rapture ! With a rush Come, ye aeolian winds that bring the blush Of holy morning to the eastern sky ! And you, ye springs and fountains that forth gush To seek the sea ! Sweet flowers that smile and die, And O, thou glorious majesty on high, Which art the life of all this beauteous Earth ! Come and possess me as the birds that fly, And lift my being into vocal birth, Deep on wide wings ascending, till I tell The glory of our God, that ye have told so well ! [42] HUMILITY in HUMILITY I CANNOT praise Thee, Father, as I would. I am Thy child ; Thou dost not need my praise. A contrite spirit is best understood Between Thee and my weakness. All my ways To Thee are known. Thy mercies wide amaze My understanding. I am very far From all I would be ; and my wasted days Would ruin all my happiness, and mar With many a doubt the glad sweet days that are ; But Thou dost not remember them : Thou leadest Forward my willing feet, healest the scar Upon my soul, and at Thy table feedest Thine awkward fumbling child, who in Thy face Beholdeth no reproach, but tenderest love and grace. GOD BUILT CREATION GOD BUILT CREATION GOD built Creation Boundless as Heaven, Broader than Science, Deeper than Hell! Made Him a Nation Of sinners forgiven, Fill d with defiance, Fierce to do well! O boundless Creation ! Ah, limited Hell! Angels assembled Out of low creatures, Lower than lowest, Foul beneath shame ! God they resembled In heart haunting features: The swiftest, the slowest, All started, all came! O sinless Assembly ! Ah, fortunate shame ! God made an Eagle, Wild, free and daring, [47] STILLWATER PASTORALS Prism eyed, vocal, Heart of a Dove : Domestic with regal Combining, declaring, Cosmic with local, Fierce passion with love ! O anguishing Eagle ! Ah, rapturous Dove ! God made Music human, Kingly, ambitious, All eyes, touch, hearing, Angelical voice ! Manbeast born of woman, Aggressively gracious, Composite, forthfaring, Oh, weep and rejoice ! Ah, sorrowful Poet ! O confident Voice ! MIDSUMMER SADNESS PIPE on, sweet birds, forget not your glad tune ; Though sad hearts hear it now, glad hearts will soon. Blow freshly still, soft breezes, and waft down To all the black and noisome shops in town [48] LIBERTY Our kind Creator s message to the poor, Of fragrant flowers that wait on every shore, Where gurgling brooks foam fast to Jakes and seas, And grasses deep invite to noble ease. Here no employer cold, nor servile clerk, Turns out the faithful father from his work, Nor maiden hears lust s awful secret threat, Nor fears on every hand the silken net ; But starving souls, since souls do starve, may lie Beneath God s trees, and look up at the sky, And feel with each tired breath that ebbs away The benediction of a better day. LIBERTY IN dark cities, frightful cities, Ugly, slunvcursed, cruel cities, Where my innocents are dying, Whom the subtle tyrant pities, Throng d in loath d rooms, hot, unhealthy, Driven by the proud and wealthy, Toil my children, my pale children, With their thoughts deprav d and filthy. But I love them, ah, I love them, They are noble, time shall prove them, [49] STILLWATER PASTORALS They shall rise up unresentfal, And forgive the fools that drove them I am moving from the meadows Toward the sad/eyed babes and widows In great cities where cathedrals Cast their sacrilegious shadows. I am waking, I am waking In the temples hot and aching, In the throbbing cells of reason Where the engine heart is shaking. I can feel the thrill of nations Toiling at dull occupations, Sad and beautiful and beating With unconscious expectations. I am rising, I am growing, I m the wondrous flower that s blowing In the mock artistic cities, Where the rich crowd dwells unknowing. I the mighty, the victorious, I the beautiful, the glorious, I will lift my poor and teach them, I will make them sweet and serious. [50] LIBERTY In the future, ah, the future, How their souls will grow in stature ! How their smiles will beam with brightness At the knowledge of their nature ! Strong in love sincere and holy, Burying each ancient folly, They shall turn their faces onward With a reverence deep and lowly. I will teach them, I will guide them, Strife shall never more divide them, They shall bring forth all their virtues Like glad children, and not hide them. And their knowledge, aye, their knowledge, Not to day in sect nor college Is the secret of their greatness Which shall triumph o er this dull age. Free, undriven, they shall follow, Not your vain pretenses hollow, But the harrow on the hillside, And the heaving ocean billow. Like this lily s petals folden O er her heart perfum d and golden, STILLWATER PASTORALS As she floats in mirror d landscape, Fearing not, to none beholden, Yonder swallows, dipping, splashing, Off like winged sunlight flashing, Bees that busily in clover Sip Heaven s dew, these winds refreshing, That from out the morning stillness Bring thee such calm sense of realness From the great unknown Forever, Like a dream of Heaven in illness, So my children, changed and healthy, All united and all wealthy, So my children, my poor children, Rising from their rags so filthy, Frank, intelligent and human, Will become free men and women Of a nation born of nations, With one Code, one Life in common. Bountiful to greet their coming, Hills and deserts will be blooming : All the labor of all ages Come to fruit, for their assuming. [52] THE FLIGHT IN THE NIGHT In yon deeps, at night resplendent, With calm trustfulness transcendent, They will follow Truth and Beauty, Lovers all, each independent. Till some time, like allegory Vast, undream d, the human story Told shall be : but out beyond it Scenes of Love untransitory, Not unlike this present seeming, Yet divine beyond all dreaming, Will restore each soul immortal Where the Sun of Life is streaming. They are thinking. I am looking From their dull eyes, rising, choking In their hungry throats ; and hearken : At your door I m knocking, knocking. THE FLIGHT IN THE NIGHT AGE of rubbish, passing, passing, Age of servile acquiescing, Age of evil, age of liars, Hurry, hurry, feed the fires ! [53] STILLWATER PASTORALS Sweating, sighing, bleeding, burning, Forward, on the future yearning, Slowly, slowly rise the masses As the system passes, passes ! Upward, onward, outward, Godward, Eyes aflame, with many a loud word, Written, spoken, singing, singing, Whistles blowing, steeples ringing ! Join the masses ! Join the masses ! Sinking are the cliques and classes ! Sinking, sinking, doom d and dying, See the toilers flying, flying! Quit the follies, follow, follow, All your tricks are hack d and hollow ! Leave false hopes ere all be gone, Hurry, hurry, hurry on ! Lo ! we re halfway up the mountains : Prairies, homesteads, fields and fountains, What are all these scenes we re seeing, On to which we re fleeing, fleeing ! Misty splendors of the morning, Waters, vales, and hills adorning ! [54] DUST OF OLD DAYS Far behind the low fires glimmer Where the past grows dimmer, dimmer. Socialism! Socialism! Bore the hills and bridge the chasm ! On, ye living ! Cheer ye dying ! See the toilers flying, flying! Wake and love, ye proud, oh, waken ! Forward, lest ye be forsaken ! Give your wealth, and leave your worry ! Buy ye wings, and hurry, hurry ! DUST OF OLD DAYS OLD days remember s d Bring back their sadness. Mountains dark timber d, As the sun sinks, Throw their deep shadows Over Earth s gladness. Dark are the meadows When the heart thinks. Dear are old pictures : Dearer the saddest. [55 ] STILLWATER PASTORALS Life s sweetest mixtures Taste of the tears. Harsh things and strange things Come to the gladdest ; Yet who would change things, Weighing the years? Ah, I would change things ! Not for my own life. I would arrange things For all men s good. I would recover Men from their lone strife ! I am the lover Of noblehood ! TO A SEAGULL BIRD of the stormy wing, Out o er the flying sea ! What is the news you bring? I, too, am wild like thee ! I, too, can scream and sing Free! Free! Free! Bird of the rocky home, Swept by the flying mist, [56] WAR BREAKS OUT IN EUROPE Why do you scream and roam? Why seek ye not your nest ? Lo, the night cranes are come : Rest. Rest. Rest. Over the rolling tide Home to my mate I go : Little ones merryeyed Wait for me now I know, There by my fireside ! Row ! Row ! Row ! WAR BREAKS OUT IN EUROPE, AUGUST, WHEN from the curious excited throngs, A man of thoughtful care, I hide my face, And in the ear of God make simple songs To please my unspoiPd heart and with wild grace Immortalize our virtues, time and place Bind me no more : for then my soul belongs To other scenes than these, where nothing base Disturbs the tranquil mind, nor hint of wrongs Upon the spiritual sense intrudes ; But sin and strife cire as bad dreams forgot ; And darkest sorrows and most bitter moods [57] STILLWATER PASTORALS Rise glorified, or vanish into naught. Then do I see, as though my cares were wings, The inevitable outcome of all things. ii WAR will not always plague the sure advance Of calm intelligent Hope and gentle Peace. Can man delay Creation ? Is there chance With the Almighty ? Think ! For war must cease, Must pass from Heaven s development in man, As God foreknew from the beginning, He Who waxt not old with time, nor ever ran Before His purpose, nor forgot to be, Upon each instant of eternal ages, The Presence of All Good that was and is And shall be : for the Universe is His : He is the Universe ! And He presages His Own advent and triumph, long foretold In every star that wondering seers behold. RHEIMS IN rapt imagination many times I Ve stood and watch d and worship d in thy streets, Where bursting steel shrieks death, and loud hoof beats Of cavalry instead of evening chimes [58] THE ARROW-HEAD Are heard, O burnt and desecrated Rheims ! Christ s fairest monument no longer greets The beautyloving eye, nor proudly meets Man s highest expectation ! The soul climbs To heights like this in carved stone no more. Imperious and irreverent is man : Busy with armies and material schemes, Kings have their dark way with him as of yore. He spares to God what little time he can From building mortal power on Love s demolish d dreams. THE ARROW-HEAD LATE I was toiling through the fields Behind the weary harrow, When down in the torn and dizzy soil J spied this Indian arrow ! I stopp d the team, went back and found it, And wove my usual dreams around it. It is an ugly thing to prize, With its thirsty, ragged edges ; And many a brow of glittering eyes Has aim d it from the sedges. I see in the dense twilight wood A warrior lying where he stood. [59] STILLWATER PASTORALS But that was tribe and tribe ago. The very centuries have forgotten. Ancient rivers have ceas d to flow ; And granite rocks lie old and rotten, Bird douds, vast herds of mastodon, Moundbuilders, bison, all are gone. Still hard as God s eternal truth, This rude work of a savage mason Down from the wild dawn of our youth Comes with its silent lesson Comes with its promise and its warning Out of the darkness of the morning. And as I stood in that wide field, That in the Spring would grow and ripen, I saw the day when men shall yield To patient God. For it shall happen That man to man shall stand reveaPd : And in his hand will be no weapon. SONNETS TO H. L. H. SONNETS TO H. L. H. OF HIS APPROPRIATE ENTITY THERE are as many ways as there are men ; And each man s way is right to him alone. Let Walt be Walt, Tennyson Tennyson ; Be thou thyself; and let me ply my pen In my own simple manner where and when And in what cause I will. Strike the key tone ! What pitch were truest shall in time be shown But ah, too late ! Try not that note again. Nature ascends in circles non reentrant, By perturbations never suffer d twice To be the same, and we perforce obey The slightly varying change, eccentric, centrant, Each balanced personality held nice Within the sacred limits of free play. [63] STILLWATER PASTORALS II HIS NOBLE BIRTH IMMENSE the pride I through my sire inherit From humble high ancestry without taint ; While from my mother, she herself a saint Of unecclesiastical free spirit, I gather to my songs the simple merit Of quiet Quakers innocently quaint, And mind and soul in passionate restraint, I read their Sacred Book and still revere it. Oh ! tell me not such worthy pioneers Were native but to wild monotonous woods. Well might we learn to day their lesson deep, Wrung from snaiTd soil and stain d with penitent tears, Alone with God in those vast solitudes, Where the bent bones of our forefathers sleep. HI HIS WARY RESTLESSNESS I AM as hard to hold as some wild being ! Shy creature of these rivers and these woods, Now I invite and now 1 flee my moods, Beside myself with relishing and fleeing ! HIS AUSTERE SUBMISSION All touch, all ears, all scent, all taste, all seeing, United all in a quick multitude Of governed lust, ungovernable good, Agreements calm amidst fierce disagreeing ! I would not that one other soul alive Should be like me, nor I like any other. One is enough of each, more were too many. For every restful thought I still must strive As for existence, must escape or smother ! Must think with angels, though I seem not any. IV HIS AUSTERE SUBMISSION To proud remote obscurity I cling. I dare not condescend from high hauteur Which guards my meditations, lest I err From primitive simplicity and bring Change o er the spirit of the songs I sing. Susceptible is my strong heart to stir With passion ! Whence I peaceably prefer Aloof to hold my course unwavering. Held in an awful sense of isolation Is he who must interpret for all time The Spirit of God s Law epitomized [65 ] STILLWATER PASTORALS In private sympathy with all Creation. A loneliness beneficent, sublime, Uplifts him, charms his words, and makes them prized. HIS ONE PURPOSE FORGIVE if my too child wise contemplation Exclusive seem of lore that calls me down From primal knowledge. Each must guard his own. Each builder must reject without evasion, Must choose and lift on every occasion By every means, from strength to strength, one stone Upon another, till he stand foil grown Upon his monument and tell his vision ! Let each by his intuitive design Build his own sacred temple like a master ! Time shall decide which were most fit to stand. It may be yours ; perhaps it shall be mine ; It may be both should have been simpler, vaster. Build boldly, as the Architect hath plann d. [66] HIS FRANK SELF-EXPRESSION VI HIS THINKING I DARE not give o ermuch consideration To what promotes not peace. My mind selects Out of a host of scientific facts, And from all human life, its education, To nurture wisdom and avoid vexation, Knowing each chosen thought acts and reacts Through and upon the bliss which it protects From wasteful and irreverent invasion. Within throng d and besieged ; defiled without : Few are admitted to the inner court, And to the holiest of holies none. Hence, from the world there entereth no doubt To violate the altar of my heart, However I may seem to be undone. VII HIS FRANK SELF EXPRESSION OBSCURE and down and out as the world goes, I know I am a seer in plain disguise, Living above ambition, for a prize Which angels see, but no man living knows, STILLWATER PASTORALS And few have ever cared for. I compose Out of my unapplauded sacrifice An immortality which proves me wise, And makes my life acceptable with those Who shall hereafter understand its aim. For I who seem to muse of self am singing The sacred song given me to impart, The song that was born in me. I disclaim Fictitious verse, and am through sorrow bringing Unto my people all I have, my heart. VIII HIS JOYOUS ESCAPE As blood from out my aching heart God wrings These passionate proud numbers. A fine pleasure Throbs in each willing and submissive measure, Felt but by me, unless glad reader brings A chasten d, contrite and wise love that sings Response to noble utterance. Yon deep azure Views its benevolent profound composure In any little brook whose murmurings Make a melodious chime of crystal sighing In tones kaleidoscopic as it flows, Dashing its life in prisms over the gravel, [68] ON HIS GENIUS Through tangled roots, down rocks, past the wild rose, And on, a river, out to sea, where travel The stately ships before the free winds flying. IX ON HIS GENIUS LET all men absolutely and eternally Be their best selves as they, not others, see it. If thou desirest to be something, be it. Thou shalt not wait ; but with the Earth diurnally Shalt thou about God s business go, supernally Crown d with success, for God shall guarantee it. Doth nearer duty hold thee ? Do not flee it : Love honor first, else must thou fail infernally. Genius original is plain and old And common as the rocks beneath thy feet ; Skydeep, child wise, fresh as this autumn air. See how these frostbit leaves blush red and gold. Approaching Winter turns this tree s blood sweet. Next Summer s shade dreams in these boughs now bare. [69 ] STILLWATER PASTORALS HIS CHARACTER THY bedrock honest will, both speech and hand, Inspires just men s considerate respect. Wealth, fame, position, studiously neglect : Honor embraces all. Ocean, sky, land, Sunshine and clouds, immensity, sea/sand, Systems of stars that have been rear d and wreck d, With worlds that intimately now affect Thought with sublime suggestion still and grand, All are upheld on honor ; on honor all Must through destruction ever be brought round Continuous as He Whose Life they are, In process after process, rise and fall, Bound in one Mind, in changeless honor bound, Body with Spirit, angel and man and star. XI HIS ART UNTO three facts in honor art thou bound : The natural, the human, the divine. Art must be born of Nature : from dark mine Jewels and precious ore, flesh from the ground. [ 70] HIS PHILOSOPHICAL PIONEERING But men are beings who themselves dumbfound. The thinking head, however coarse or fine, Transcends this brute enlargement of the spine : Humanity is Nature s full compound. If this were all, All would be wanting yet. From this intelligent essence of the Earth Came one stupendous guess, and hence another, How nurs d, who knows ? creature and Maker met - Born of the ground by a perpetual birth, Here is God s beast communing with man s Father ! XII HIS PHILOSOPHICAL PIONEERING THERE is deep joy ineffable, serene, Uplifting, in the conscious thoughts that rise Through noble intellectual exercise Into those realms of steadfast trust between The known and unknown worlds where we convene As heroes from the Earth, taking the Skies By long unwearied siege. Scouts and sharp spies, Alert, imagining what none have seen, We counsel, cipher, despatch, testifying Faint intuitions, with firm confidence Respecting one another s words as faiths STILLWATER PASTORALS Past scientific : hopes more doubt /defying Than accurate knowledges deduced from sense ; Heart s loves that must survive beneficent deaths. XIII AND ON HIS BIRTHDAY ANNIVERSARY TIME and eternity in us contending, Will all too soon effectually shatter These tenements of mind assembled matter Beyond the power of our mortal mending. The strength of youth too soon we must be spending To eke out age ; while from our hearts we scatter Sorrow and happiness for worse or better, That in their influence are never /ending. But thou and I with Universal Law Have made our timeless and eternal peace. Here birthdays of the flesh we celebrate ; But that dread Birth which no flesh ever saw, When all this life apparently shall cease, We keep in sacred wonder without date. APOLOGIA APOLOGIA "I VE WISHED I D BEEN BORN PROSE" I VE wish d I d been born prose, like most my brothers, Whose unimaginative sense discreet Is to plain purpose perfect and doth meet Life s ordinary need, as all good mothers Are perfect to their children. Poetry bothers Most people ; which most people cannot eat Nor wear, how much less read ! Hence the hard feat They leave to teachers and a few rare others. Shamelessly awkward would rude mankind be Without fine sense of fitness which expresses Taste in some things as some day J t will in all. Could I enchant what beauty I now see To words as lovely as in summer dresses Ladies and children look, would that be small ? [ 75 ] STILLWATER PASTORALS ii " IF BOLDLY I COULD CHARM IF boldly I could charm to vigorous verse Half what I see and think and feel. But no, I cast it, yet it will not come out so. Th excruciating agony pains worse With each fine failure. Nature, patient nurse, Instructs me, but so fresh my fancies flow, Now tears, now laughter, solemn now and slow, So pregnant full of meaning, so perverse, Art cannot in soul /satisfying measure Compete with life in the swift ravishment Of warm full-blooded senses. Nor were truth Further d in leaving nothing to the pleasure Of ready imagination. Art s intent Surpasses all achievement. Art is Youth. in "IF I COULD TELL IF I could tell what beauty I behold In this wild world so wonderful to me, The pale moon brightening o er the twilight sea, Where ages heave and sigh, could I unfold [76] "SONG WOULD NOT BE" How ships give up their sunset white and gold, Blending themselves in blue immensity, The sweet stars how come forth, how fair they be, What secrets to my heart the deep hath told, Could I instruct one backward human being In the Love lore that in my soul I feel, My inmost spirit yearnings could impart, Could but half utter what so many seeing See not, because to them Heaven is not real, My God, could I but bless one human heart ! IV " SONG WOULD NOT BE " SONG would not be the futile joy it seems Pent in my passionate bosom all unheard, Uncherish d, save in secret. Each living word, Wrought in the fragile fabric of my dreams, Though precious to none other, glows and gleams With Heaven s own light to me. Yon glad wild bird, The flute of whose clear voice just sweetly stirr d These woods to lyric echoes, God esteems. Give me one soul to love and I will sing ! Yea, love may wound my heart, it cannot hush The music of its beating ! The deep dells [77] STILLWATER PASTORALS Of my own secret solitude shall ring With lyric pain, as when some woodland thrush, Pensively sweet, its love at twilight tells ! "CHRIST BY THE HASTY MOB" CHRIST by the hasty mob hail d, crucified ; By slow disciples tardily proclaim d: And if the greatest Name that ere was named Went down in infamy, while from His side His few friends fled, shall I who have not died, Much less made void the grave, be half ashamed That I am not all suddenly far-famed, One voice in this now busier world more wide ? The race must guard her progress at all hazards, Publishers theirs, I mine, with wise delay. God save from fools ! And from ourselves as oft. Many false teachers rise, and many wizards Astonish, are forgotten in a day. Make my path straight, and let the truth be scoff d ! [78] "THOU WHO ART SACREDLY ALONE" VI "I LL FEEL WELL PAID" I LL feel well paid if after I am gone A few choice followers of Christ perceive My simple import and in God believe With more implicit confidence. Thereon My life is founded. I have nothing done To merit man s esteem. My songs I leave, Trusting to help some heart that needs must grieve, Because I also have been such an one. Let me reiterate until I die The gratitude I feel for having been Born in an age of promise ere fruition Tints all Love s warmer and serener sky With song and fragrance. The mild Spring comes in Snowbound, awaiting not man s recognition. VII "THOU WHO ART SACREDLY ALONE" THOU Who art sacredly alone in this, That Thou, Christ, honorest the homeless art To which I cling, from which I cannot part, O pure and brave ! how oft with faithful kiss [79] STILLWATER PASTORALS Thou, when rude winds have dealt by me amiss, Hast tided gently out my stranded heart From shoal to deep, till I again could start Full canvass d on the broad blue sea of bliss ! I ve had more than my share of pleasure here, Hence more of pain ; but this I take with that, Thankful for both, since both in Christ agree To guide my human heart more and more near, Step after step through many a hard combat, Safely, O Father, Home at last to Thee ! VIII "WE YET CAN TRIUMPH" WE yet can triumph. We have tried and fail d And tried again and fail d again and tried. Many a time I Ve wish d that I had died Before I saw the light. But though I quail d, Yet have I stubbornly my fate assail d With dazed determination, dignified With prayer and gratitude, and always cried Thy will be done, O God! And God prevail d. We cannot always choose : it were not best : God knows ; and if we trust all will be well. I pray it with shut eyes and open mind : "WHAT IF I FAIL" I want, be it with all my soul attest, Nothing that will not ultimately tell To the eternal good of all mankind ! IX "WHAT IF i FAIL" WHAT if I fail, so long as man succeeds ! Doth each not triumph in the general rise ! Prosperity men manage to devise Waits not on one, but meets the nations needs With cunning artifice and swifter speeds, That still react through cunning hands and eyes To stir and spur all peoples till man flies, Borne soul and body upon winged steeds ! What though I fail, man cannot fail. God fail ? Sad body /failure is glad soul/success ! They die victorious who unconquer d die ! Age of triumphant Toil, I bid you Hail ! Applauding, I forget my small distress ! Lost in God s glory I am more than I ! [81 ] STILLWATER PASTORALS "NONE SEEMS TO CARE" NONE seems to care. I seem to care too mucn. Man s frivolous unconcern for solemn sense More saddens me than the incompetence Of interfering critics who ne er touch Just words without first feeling in their clutch Those greasy thanks most current with the dense. If I could never progress without pence I d stick stock/fast forever, scorning such! My time will come, slow, sure and bountiful. Not in the sudden fiction meteor s hour Shall my immortal flame flare forth and die, Clear star refulgent, with a steady pull On warring factions. Glow, my golden flower ! Waft blushes of scented music through the sky! XI "MOUNT UP ON WINGS" MOUNT up on wings exultant, O my spirit ! Man having brought thee forth cannot destroy Thy human voice, the voice of God Whose joy Thou without passport or acknowledged merit "THY QUIVERING BODY Didst of old prophets and wise bards inherit ! Therefore climb up and sing, perennial boy ! Let nothing evil in man s nature cloy Thy message, but be forward to declare it ! Wage on the world thy love ! Thou art a prince, A Heavenly envoy in disguise of youth: Bear thyself nobly, and feel free to speak ! Speak in full tones of blood that shall convince Gainsaying men that thou thyself art truth ! For thou art strong who thinkest thyself weak. XII "THY QUIVERING BODY" THY quivering body is thy just safeguard. Hadst been born flesh, been robust, big and stout, That strength, which nimbly thou wast made without, Had boosted thy proud soul and made thee hard ; Whereas, although a passionate fierce bard, Thou art most tender-hearted and devout, Able to learn, think, speak, put lies to rout, Nor hast one handicap thou wouldst discard. Thou to God s apt use art precisely built, As all men are, who prove they are divine. I would not have thee other than thou art. [83] STILLWATER PASTORALS Thou art not putty overlaid with gilt ; Nor thin mahogany veneer on pine ; But best like other honest men, at heart. XIII "WHAT IF MY STRENGTH" WHAT if my strength prevail not : is our flesh All there is of us ? Have I fallen quite ? Is nothing yet reserv d to my delight Of all I once enjoy J d? Still cool and fresh I feel the dew that never vanisheth From Love s green hills where youthful poets write ; And still at evening as at morning light I ll flute and listen and await my death. Fair in high noon out on the purple seas Majestic argosies and clouds I watch And marvel at their glory, like a boy Dreaming, who never tires of mysteries, But feels upon his hair his father s touch, And in his heart shareth his father s joy. [84] "I LL WAIT ON GOD XIV " PEACE, PEACE" PEACE, peace ; rest, O my heart! high in the hope That all men some day shall feel interest In each man s task, and each man shall be blest In all men s good. Then free in the wide scope Of ampler thinking shall the Heavens ope Before a race destined to meet Heaven s test, Till God in myriads be manifest Without one coward or one misanthrope. Then shall the spirit of sweet Poesy Prelude the Christ led hosts of lyric saints On their triumphal progress through the skies To the deep musics of Eternity, Unmarr d with sadness. Hush d the old complaints That from unlovely hindrances arise. xv "I LL WAIT ON GOD" I LL wait on God forever ! Stage by stage, Truth will come true, and needs not my forecast, Nor any man s. Scientists clinch facts fast : Prophets announce to each succeeding age STILLWATER PASTORALS The Advent of Creation : saint and sage Treasure the garner d wisdom of the past Wrought out in scholarship and bound at last To prove or disprove every printed page. I 11 wait on God forever by His help And in His strength rejoice ! His child am I, Through His broad Universe expatiating ! As the fierce lion roareth for his whelp And shakes the jungle, so the Lord Most High Shall come for me, here in His wide world waiting ! THE END CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS U . S . A UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY BERKELEY THIS BOOK IS DUlToN THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW MAR 27 1918 6 1920 50m-7, 16 345101 O K UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY